The Great And Terrible
December 14, 2019 9:26 AM   Subscribe

“ These days, I cannot bring myself to sell my students any kind of American rhetorical goods which claim to be equally available to all of them. I cannot bring myself to tell them about the technicolor future, to say, I see you there, and I see you there, because there is a chance that even if I see it, and I believe in it, someday we’re all going to wake up and I will have betrayed them by dreaming too vividly at the front of the room. ” The Man Behind the Curtain (Electric Lit)
posted by The Whelk (13 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
The full Sitting Bull Editorial, by Baum in 1890:
Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead.

He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.

He was an Indian with a white man's spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.

We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.
posted by benzenedream at 10:12 AM on December 14, 2019 [5 favorites]


This is one of those essays that I don't really get the point of, exactly. Perhaps that's because it is itself confused. It seems to me a mixture of guilt, depression, and nostalgia, mixed with the currently-popular conflation of art and artist. It's good that we don't have any knowledge of personal details about the artists at Lascaux or there would immediately be a "pound fill it in" campaign on Tweeter.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 10:28 AM on December 14, 2019 [7 favorites]


I get how the author's grandfather was bad, for making them believe in Oz; but it seems to me all American parents share this same guilt, for teaching kids about Santa.
posted by Rash at 10:33 AM on December 14, 2019


I think that maybe the real point of the essay is one that the author can't quite bear to make very clear: her grandfather, as good as he was with his kids (hiding gemstones in the garden and pretending that they're the Nome King's treasure? Holy shit), was kind of an asshole at the height of his career at CBS News. From his Wikipedia article:
Feder also wrote that Joyce was "widely regarded throughout his career as aloof, arrogant and insensitive to others," and that [his memoirs] did "little to dispel that reputation despite the familiar alibi that he was only following orders." Feder concluded by writing that Joyce "wastes our time settling old scores and vainly trying to rehabilitate his image."
Also, from Joyce's obit, about his cutting jobs at CBS News:
Some of the 74 employees who were fired were given only 48 hours to clear out — a gaffe Joyce later explained by saying that he wanted to disrupt news gathering as little as possible.
It's not in the league of Baum's racism, but it's not great, either. Even Hauser admits that Joyce "gained a reputation for being so simultaneously brutal and charming that he was known as 'the velvet shiv.'"
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:04 AM on December 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


I think the essay is more than a little under baked, and could do with pulling out it’s essential themes better. There’s enough for two or three essays - Oz and the American dream, Baum and the idea of what America is, a personal history essay about belief and lies as factored through the experience of tapes from their Grandfather... this essay meanders a lot and doesn’t quit hit the points. I hope the author doesn’t give up on these themes and continues to explore them
posted by The River Ivel at 1:01 PM on December 14, 2019 [6 favorites]


The reportage on Yellow Brick Road Casino is not good. Although they have recently redecorated the place to remove a lot of the kitschier elements (e.g., a trio of life-size flying monkeys that used to hover over one of the bars, and a plexiglas tornado filled with swirling cash that lucky patrons were randomly selected to enter and grab away), there is still if I am not mistaken a small display case of Oz and Baum memorabilia. In that case is (or at least used to be) a plaque acknowledging Baum's anti-Native racism, indicating further that Baum's grandchildren had offered an apology for him to the Oneida Nation, and that the Nation had accepted that apology.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:46 PM on December 14, 2019 [4 favorites]


I have favorited benzenedream's comment / Baum's Op-Ed not because I agree with it, but because it warrants notice. There are very few times where we get the opportunity to peel the paint of history. Society has the responsibility to shatter Oz in the same manner that it has shattered The Cosby Show.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:14 PM on December 14, 2019


Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history

My history is a bit blinkered but I try to shore it up when the occasion arises. When travelling in Oaxaca, inevitably you learn about Benito Juárez. My reaction was, basically, "Holy shit, it's as if Sitting Bull had become president of the United States!" Which I know fails on very very many levels since the forms of colonialism were very different in Latin America and the US. But still, the idea sticks with me.
posted by sjswitzer at 3:23 PM on December 14, 2019


Some days it feels like every curtain everywhere is being pulled back to reveal a mean dumbass of an idea/person/motive/etc., until I would just about do anything to keep believing in the kind wizard a little while longer. Even if I know it's a lie, not a fantasy.

Baum, Grandpa, Judy, the American dream, the casino - none of them are just what the author thought they were at first, and the truth of all of them is so, so much worse.

Beautiful essay, thanks for posting.
posted by hiker U. at 7:51 PM on December 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


CJ Hauser previously: The Crane Wife
posted by babelfish at 8:31 AM on December 15, 2019


Realized as i finished reading the story that my Pandora was playing "Over the Rainbow."
posted by dragonian at 1:56 PM on December 15, 2019


Dave Brubeck.
posted by dragonian at 1:58 PM on December 15, 2019


I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love this film (beginning with once-a-year viewings on a black-and-white TV). I’ve never thought the message was the American Dream, but rather “there’s no place like home.” Meaning things like my mom sewing me a Dorothy dress, and my dad recording the audio on his reel-to-reel tape machine, because I’d been inconsolable when the movie ended the previous year.

I feel sorry for the author; she got a bizarre view of Oz from a grandfather who was apparently a humbug and “a very bad man,” both personally and professionally. But the title and dust jacket blurb should have told her mom that a Judy Garland bio was inappropriate for a sixth grader, thus preventing that trauma. And since the Oneida Nation has already invested in the casino, ridiculing their business venture seems rather mean-spirited.

Despite the flaws in its legacy, Oz, Judy, and “Over the Rainbow“ mean a lot of positive things to a lot of people. To me, Oz will always mean home.
posted by elphaba at 5:56 PM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


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