Give me back my broken night--
My mirrored room, my secret life--
It's lonely here,
There's no one left to torture.
Give me absolute control
Over every living soul--
And lie beside me, baby:
That's an order.
--Leonard Cohen, "The Future," 1991
by Jerome du Bois
My wife, Western Woman, watching the news yesterday, said, "Show me a Ward Churchill supporter, and I'll show you an Ethnic Type with a hair up their ass, or a self-loathing white person." And lo and behold, I log on to Google News and I find:
Grant Crowell from Hawai'i, my home state (and who is neither one of those types above, but a clear-eyed reporter), documents a soul-chilling story about Ward Churchill and one of his academic friends.
No, this isn't about the time Churchill looked on as his common-law wife Marie Annett Jaimes physically attacked Carole Standing Elk, a grandmother and board member of the National American Indian Movement and Director of California AIM. Jaimes broke her wrist and lacerated her arms and face. Then Ward Churchill stepped up like the man he is and spat in her face. No, not that incident. Let Mr. Crowell tell it:
My own experience with Dr. Churchill a decade ago proved that he had no real interest in free speech for others, and would actively campaign against it for students if he thought it would suit his own self interest.
Fall 1994. I was an editorial cartoon columnist for the Ka Leo O Hawaii student newspaper at the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus in Honolulu. Like many academic environments, we had our share of "sacred cows" --issues and individuals considered to be so volatile that oftentimes they were ignored or actively avoided, lest a demonstration appear outside our newspaper building (or on some tempestuous occasions -- people storming into the building.)
At this same time, Ward Churchill was being flown in by the student senate for a paid speaking engagement on his latest book, Fantasies of the Master Race: Racism in the University.
Coincidentally, the student newspaper had just published a cartoon of mine that caused outrage among left-wing activists: I had depicted one of Ward Churchill’s close colleagues on our campus, Professor Haunani K. Trask, U.H.’s Hawaii Studies Director, reading an excerpt from her recently published poetry book, entitled "Racist White Woman," who described in lurid detail her fantasy of punching, knifing, mutilating and ultimately murdering a white colleague she despised.
Churchill arrived, as planned, and began his speech. Shortly thereafter, Churchill's speaking engagement changed from a book discussion into a public protest rally featuring Trask and Churchill both of them blaring into microphones over my "racist cartoon" and demanding my dismissal.
During Churchill’s speaking time at the event, this man -- a man who had never met me and refused to do so before and during the event -- included in his speech a reference to me as "vermin," and shared aloud a story of how an unnamed Nazi cartoonist was tried at the WWII Nuremburg trials, executed, dismembered and then cremated. Churchill’s ended this story with his own personal comment of, "Now, I’m not saying that should happen to Grant, but it would be a good thing."
To me, it's highly ironic that a man with such "extreme" opinions -- even which can easily be perceived as advocating violence toward individuals -- cannot himself be tolerant of other's opinions, whether they be extreme or even "mainstream." Instead, Churchill prefers to pull the "Hate Speech" card -- say somebody else’s speech is offensive to your (assumed) ethnicity, gender, political status, etc., and effectively shut them up. After all, if they hate it, you can’t debate it.
As a Jew with a very small part Powtawatomi Indian, I realize that the First Amendment protects all of us, even of us who fail to understand that the First Amendment is supposed to apply to everyone.
But what CU students (and others who are up in arms about Churchill's perceived persecution) should realize is that Churchill is not a man who stands for their own academic freedom, the First Amendment, free speech, or anything of the kind.
My experience has shown that he ultimately aspires to be a demagogue, where criticism on him or his cronies would ultimately be considered "genocidal hate speech" with serious repercussions.
But Churchill’s mistreatment of me, his scholarly abuse and hypocrisy, make me no less fervent a supporter of his free speech rights.
I can support the ACLU for protecting Churchill's rights the same way they protected the Nazis' rights to march in Skokie, because real free speech means being able to separate the principle from the person.
And yes, I do consider myself a real free speech advocate. Meaning, I don’t demand other’s freedom be protected if I am not willing first to stand up for the rights of people who’s opinions I strongly disagree with. I am even willing to be disparaged by my members of my own community for it.
Churchill needs to get it through his skull that it's called the "First Amendment," not the "Me-First Amendment."
Free speech is not a one-way street where Churchill can clog up the whole lane with his SUV-sized ego. If your ego is so big and intolerant that it cannot bear the expression of others you personally find offensive, then perhaps its time for people like myself to come out again, sharp minds and pens blazing. Maybe it's time for me (and others like me) to draw a few satirical cartoons, and pop the bloated academic egos.
And I won’t charge you a hundred grand salary, either.
We do need more people like Grant Crowell. Keep holding up a mirror to these pricks, man.
Meanwhile, the Academy continues to move beyond parody in its devotion to cruelty. Jeebus Anonymous, don't you love these literary types:
I had depicted one of Ward Churchill’s close colleagues on our campus, Professor Haunani K. Trask, U.H.’s Hawaii Studies Director, reading an excerpt from her recently published poetry book, entitled "Racist White Woman," who described in lurid detail her fantasy of punching, knifing, mutilating and ultimately murdering a white colleague she despised.
Those must be some pomes, woman. Followed by Ward "All-American" Churchill, licking his lips:
During Churchill’s speaking time at the event, this man -- a man who had never met me and refused to do so before and during the event -- included in his speech a reference to me as "vermin," and shared aloud a story of how an unnamed Nazi cartoonist was tried at the WWII Nuremburg trials, executed, dismembered and then cremated. Churchill’s ended this story with his own personal comment of, "Now, I’m not saying that should happen to Grant, but it would be a good thing."
When I read these two examples, I was reminded of several things:
--The other day Western Woman said, "I'll bet Ward Churchill knows every Native American torture method ever invented."
--One of Hannibal Lecter's victims was a recreation of the medieval Wound Man. Lecter lives in Churchill's heart.
--Three words: Amiri Baraka, scuzzball.
--Toward the end of Western Woman's piece on the black racist art exhibit SMoCA put on called HairStories, she points out the anti-American hatred of poet Pamela Sneed --who ignores both the Holocaust and 9/11-- and hair expert Pamela Ferrell, who said this:
"It's so interesting to hear the conversation and people talk about the Taliban controlling people in terms of their hair and not being able to cut it. And it's interesting how Americans act so concerned about people being oppressed when we know America is the world leader in oppression and discrimination . . ."[my emphasis]
--My posting about John Edgar Wideman, another racist of color like Haunani Trask, is relevant here. You can read the whole thing sometime, but for present purposes I'll just quote a snippet, about a Wideman short story:
Published on the UPENN online magazine crosscurrents, the story is called "hunters." The first, very short section, describes how two white hunters out in the woods shoot, perhaps accidentally, but certainly mortally, two black women; and then they decide to rape them before they die. (I skimmed the rest.)
--This quote from Dave Kopel in his review of media coverage of the continuing brouhaha:
In the editorial section, the [Rocky Mountain] News has informed readers about Churchill telling an audience to help Hawaiian natives by breaking the kneecaps of tourists in Hawaii.
Maybe he's already there, at the airport in Honolulu, baseball bat in hand, surrounded by his sycophants.
I've pointed out in an earlier post that Ward Churchill wants to dissolve the USA and create over 500 contiguous indigenous regions, and push people around into ethnic niches defined by him and, in Crowell's nice phrase, "his SUV-sized ego." This is regression, this is devolution, this is what I call The Rebarb, the rebarbarization of the world. His vision is The Road Warrior. His dream is The Postman, with he and crew counting coup and conducting raids and turning women and children into fodder again. He wants to be the bull goose loony in his crazy future world, and he has an alarming number of glassy-eyed young adults listening intently. Scary.
You'll see your woman hanging upside down,
Her features covered by her fallen gown;
And all the lousy little poets comin' 'round
Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson.
And the white man dancing . . .
Ward Churchill wants to dance to the death of civilization. He's a living drum of death beating a tattoo of torture for me and you. We need to keep exposing these dangerous clowns because it seems, according to their own writings, they'll kill you quick as look at you.
Academics. Who would have thought that murder could sometimes smell like sheepskin?
[I have written about Ward Churchill here, here, here and here.]
Technorati tag: Ward Churchill
Posted by Jerome at February 20, 2005 11:20 AM | TrackBack