Stereotypes

My grandmother was half Indian.  She was in the Fakawee tribe.  When they got lost in the woods, they said, ‘Where the Fakawee?’” Tony Soprano

President Obama has weighed in on the controversy over the Redskins’ nickname, saying, “If I were the owner of the team and I knew that the name of my team, even if they've had a storied history, was offending a sizable group of people, I'd think about changing it.”  I tend to agree, whereas in the past I thought the issue a tempest in a teapot.  Washington owner Daniel Snyder has resisted past calls for a name change. Columnist Jerry Davich sides with Snyder.  So do most of his followers, including two who said Obama should change his name.

In a “Sopranos” season four episode a protest by Native Americans in Newark on Columbus Day raises the ire of the Jersey goodfellas.  Tony’s son A.J., holding a copy of Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States,” supposedly his high school textbook, labels Columbus a villainous conquistador who enslaved and massacred Indians.  Enforcer Furio Giunta berates Columbus for being from Genoa, which historically exploited southern Italians.  Tony ends up trying to get a slick casino operator who is one-sixteenth Indian to intercede, but the guy is only interested in Tony’s help in getting Frankie Valli to perform at his place.

Toni and I drove to Grand Rapids to see Phil’s family.  Art Prize results had just been announced.  The big winner: Ann Loveless’ quilt depicting Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore.  Runnerups were Anni Crouter’s polar bear depiction (“Polar Expressed”) and Andy Sacksteder’s scupture of naked Native Americans titled “Uplifting.”  They were on display in front of the Gerald Ford Museum, closed due to the idiotic refusal of Tea Party Republicans to fund the government. Large crowds were on hand, but there was adequate space on the grounds for Homecoming photos.  Both Anthony and Miranda got dressed up for the event, Anthony in dress pants, shirt, tie, and suspenders, Miranda in a sexy black dress and high-high heels.  Tori had a chance to go, too, but declined.  Instead that afternoon she partook in a sports regimen that included practicing volleyball shots and softball pitching against the side of the chimney and shooting baskets.  I passed to her and hit some two-handed shots; when Tori said that Phil shoots the same way, I joked that I taught him everything he knew.

Phil and I watched a Tigers playoff game and Miley Cyrus on SNL.  When she announced she wouldn’t be simulating her naked “Wrecking Ball” video, the camera cut to Bobby Moynihan swinging naked and complaining that they were cutting his only skit.  As a sexed-up Michele Bachmann, she dirty danced with Taran Killam as John Boehner in a parody of her “We can’t Stop” video with the words changed to “We Did Stop (the Government).”  Obviously MIley’s exhibitionist near-naked twerking on the MTV awards show didn’t hurt her popularity; she performed on the “Today” show and made the cover of Rolling Stone (the caption: “Good Golly, Miss Miley”).

Sunday nine of us had breakfast at our favorite diner.  Alissa was confused over various job benefit options, including Fidelity and TIAA-CREF and joked, “I hate being an adult.”  My meal was so filling I hardly ate the rest of the day.  During the first half of the Lions game I bantered with Phil, Josh, Derrick, and Anthony, then drove home through intermittent rain, listening to the end of the Bears’ loss to New Orleans. On the bright side the Eagles won over the hated New York Giants, however, and Peyton Manning’s stellar performance against Dallas assured a win for me in my Fantasy league.  In the NL playoffs Pittsburgh managed to beat St. Louis despite a blown call at third base that led to two Cardinal runs.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence callously rejected Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s request for state troopers to help fight crime in Gary.  Instead he released a report castigating the city’s police force and in particular SWAT team commander Sean Jones, convicted 20 years ago of receiving $150 in a marijuana deal while working as a corrections officer at a state prison. Governor Frank O’Bannon pardoned Jones, but ten years later Republican Attorney General refused to expunge the conviction from his record.  Republicans can be Holier than Thou when it comes to African Americans but compassionate and forgiving when it’s one of their own.

Amazon posted the awesome cover of Anne Baley’s “Steel Closets” and listed the release date as April 7, 2014.  Reviewer Steve Estes, author of”Ask and Tell: Gay and lesbian Veterans Speak Out,” wrote: “This book is a great pleasure to read.  It stands at the forefront of labor studies and queer studies.  More important, it chronicles the amazing stories and reveals the hidden worlds of gay steelworkers.”  E. Patrick Johnson, author of “Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South,” added: “Covering a multi-generational and cross-gender segment of this workforce, this book contributes to the ever-growing body of scholarship on working-class queers who exist outside the metropole but whose life histories are nonetheless a critical (but often missing) part of the queer historical archive.”

In a Traces article by Richard Pierce about African-American protest in Indianapolis I learned that a hundred years ago the United Daughters of the Confederacy attempted to donate funds for, of all things, a “mammy monument” (“in memory of the faithful colored mammies of the South”) to be located on the Mall in Washington, D.C.  Due to protests by African Americans, the monument was never built.  Had the plan been implemented, Pierce writes, “undoubtedly she would have been depicted as overweight and wearing an apron.”

In “Scoundrel Time” New Orleans native Lillian Hellman eulogized her wet-nurse Sophronia: “It was she who taught me to have feelings for the black poor, and when she was sure I did, she grew sharp and said it wasn’t enough to cry about black people, what about the miseries of poor whites.  She was an angry woman and she gave me anger, an uncomfortable, dangerous, and often useful gift.”

In her Sixties class Nicole Anslover played three more music selections, Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and a Jackson 5 appearance on “The Dick Clark Show.”  Asked why I recommended the latter, I mentioned the group being from Gary, the popularity of Motown during the 1960s, and Papa Joe Jackson being inspired to groom the boys for stardom by the success of the Spaniels on Vee-Jay Records.

Director of Development Diana Virijevich was collecting info on former Fine Arts chair and Dean of Students Bob Foor, an IU donor, in advance of meeting him later in the week.  I had thought of Bob at “Our Town” last Friday.  I’m pretty sure he played the Stage Manager in an IUN production, but his most memorable recitation was Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes.”  Diana had a class with me 40 years ago and recalled that I was quite thin, had long hair, and was interested in Gary history.