DanielSonenberg.com

Like, I suppose, many in America, I didn't find out about Michael Richards' racist tirade until he apologized for it last night on Letterman - in a special satellite link-up arranged by Richards' old friend Jerry Seinfeld. Full disclosure here: I'm a huge Seinfeld fan, and I think Kramer ranks right up there with Reverand Jim Ignatowski as among the greatest zany sit-com characters ever (others on the list? Definitely Burt Campbell, from Soap, and I guess Mork, tho that's different). So while I was watching Richards beamed in on Letterman, I had not yet heard the really awful, epithet-laden tirade he unfurled when two hecklers pushed him over the brink. I, and Alex too, were just struck by how truly despondent the guy seemed. The papers today referred to him as at times defensive and frustrated, but what came across to me was someone who was genuinely angry and confused with himself. Some have compared the mea culpa to Mel Gibson's apology for his somewhat recent anti-Semitic outburst to a police officer. But let's be serious, Gibson already has some pretty serious cred as an anti-Semite, what with his Passion and standing by his lunatic Holocaust-denying dad and all. Richards' hate speech seems thus far to have had no precedent in his past. After the Letterman segment I found the clip of Richards' act on the internet, and yes, it's really that bad. And all the talking heads are out saying it's a career-ruiner for him, and maybe so. Alex and I talked about it for a while after Letterman. I pointed out those very rare but awful fights we've had, where we'd say just about anything to get the other person - really go for the jugular, say hurtful and even hateful things that in the calm and rational time that followed we understood to have no or little relation to our actual feelings. "Going for the jugular" generally involves sussing out the other person's vulnerability. Generally there are certain lines that are held sacred even in the worst of times, and I'm glad to report that in my own relationship these borders have been preserved. But I can imagine how in the heat of battle, on stage, a comedian might grow to truly hate his hecklers and the audience of which they were a part. I can see how someone could get pushed to the breaking point and beyond, fueled by adrenaline, and reach down and find these poisonous verbal arrows that have no possibility of missing their mark. I can see, in other words, how the awful, awful things Michael Richards said several nights ago could in fact be uttered by a non-racist. Is he a non-racist? How can I know. To borrow a line from our fearless and clueless leader, I haven't looked into his heart. I believe his emotional distress and his apology the other night were sincere, though, and I found particularly apt his reference to the need to do "personal work." This seemed an acknowledgment of the fact that many of us, no matter how liberal or politically correct we feel ourselves to be, have absorbed into our unconsciousness some of the standard historic attitudes about race that have permeated our society for so long. It's easy for all of us to point the finger and condemn Richards, and speech like his should indeed be condemned. But the notion that the rest of us are so squeaky clean down to our core, and that no amount of provocation could call forth from us the bile of vestigial prejudice seems questionable to me. Richards' concern - "where does this come from?" - strikes me as a reasonable and thoughtful response to his actions...that is, along with the apology that he so clearly owed. We'll see what happens, but I hope we're spared much more of the self-righteousness that's already begun to pile on.

Just briefly checking back in as I promised I would last night. It seems the American people finally have found some sense. But we're still hanging on to see what happened in Virginia and Montana. So the "night" isn't really over quite yet.

I have that hopeful feeling again, even more so this time around. Lying on my back and pondering the future, it seems the darkness of the times may be poised to abate, if only somewhat. Of late these early morning election day hopes have been roundly crushed come evening, but still I keep hope alive. Alex's approach is different - she assumes the worst and lets any positive development come as a pleasant surprise. I'll check back in tonight and update you on my mood. So get out there and vote (unless you're a wingnut).

There's been a bit of an uproar of late in these parts over the a certain prisoner-turned artist named Tom Manning. Mr. Manning is currently serving life+ in a West Virginia prison, after having been convicted of the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper (which he claimed was in self defense) as well as numerous bombings and bank robberies. Mr Manning's crimes were committed in the 70s and 80s in protest to such evils as apartheid, and both he and his supporters consider him to be a "political prisoner." He also happens to hail from Maine, and recently the University of Southern Maine (in whose employ I so gratefully am) mounted a controversial art show featuring Manning's paintings entitled "Can't Jail the Spirit: Are by 'political prisoner' Tom Manning and Others." It should be noted that those quotation marks around 'political prisoner' were added after controversy began to mount, fueled by angry police organizations reacting to what they perceived to be the glorification of a cop killer. The controversy reached a fever pitch, with the slain police officer's wife planning to make a special trip to Portland to protest the exhibit, and scant days into its run the exhibit was taken down by USM president Rich Pattenaude. This sparked an intense outcry among some segment of the population - it's unclear how large - that free speech was being violated in the university's hallowed halls. The protesters staged a rally, and condemned the censorship of the university, while the administration lamented not having done their homework (by which they meant not having fully grasped the strength of the emotions that still lie smoldering beneath this sensitive history) and stood by their decision. The local cool and free paper, The Phoenix, is outraged.

There's a brief background, anyway. You can read about it until you're blue in the face by googling any of the buzz words in that there first paragraph. A lot of ink's been spilled, but I've been meaning to comment about it here for a few days and so here I go. It should be clear that my views are mine alone, and do not represent those of the University that so graciously hosts this website and pays my salary. As it turns out, however, I agree with the University's decision and here's why. Mr. Manning's art, while charming and competent in an undergraduate sort of way, is by no means startlingly original or accomplished, either in content or in technique. His paintings depict political prisoners, children killed by police, iconic revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Gueverra, and also, of course, Tom Manning. And because the art is not transcendent, it never rises to the level of being about itself, and is instead more about its creator and the context of its creation. Now there are those that might claim that no art ever truly transcends its context, but I think we could all agree that there are at least degrees of context transcendence (compare, say, Beethoven's Seventh to a Bumble Bee tuna jingle). It's that partial or total transcendence that makes Beethoven or Dahl's boorishness, or Wagner's anti-semitism irrelevant. The works take on a life of their own, like children, and the authorial umbilical cord is severed, leaving the entities at either end to fend for themselves in the world. Tom Manning's art will never be about art, and it will always be about Tom Manning. It will not have a life of its own in art history texts or in the collections of connoisseurs, although it may be a footnote to someone's historical text. And by choosing to portray in paint revolutionaries and victims, some of whom could be considered political prisoners, alongside himself, Manning's ultimate goal cannot be understood otherwise than as an attempt to rehabilitate his own legacy. The exhibit was, in short, self-serving for Manning and his supporters - a chance for Manning to place himself, in every viewer's consciousness, alongside the great men and women in whose shadows Manning would walk. He certainly has a right to express himself in this way, and good for him that he's honing his painting skills, but he has no more right to a university art show, as a convicted felon and amateur artist, than he has to host his own public radio show proclaiming his innocence and wholesomeness. His show was a post-facto bid for exculpation, and nothing more. If the art were spectacular - if there were some chance for the discussion to ever be at least in part about the art and not wholly about the man - I would have a different opinion. If Manning were a creator in the unique realm of, say, a Darger, the controversy would ultimately one day fade, but the art would remain. Here, the opposite is true. Great art, born of any circumstance and wrought by any hand, demands to be reckoned with. But in the absence of greatness, political art becomes just politics, and not every candidate is entitled to a forum.

I have thus far studiously avoided passing judgment on Manning's criminal actions. Of course that's not really for me to do - he was convicted in a court, not for crimes of thought or political activity, but for murder. And no matter how noble his cause, and how evil the corporations or governments he protested, I don't support the "by any means necessary" mentality that justifies violence against innocents in the name of justice. I applaud the art gallery's willingness to address controversial issues, and hope that this experience won't put an end to that tendency. But I also applaud the administration's decision to revoke what turned out to be more a soapbox than an exhibition.

Forgive me if this image offends. It shouldn't. I can think of no more direct, succinct, and powerful dramatization of the principles upon which this country was founded. You burn the cloth, but cannot turn the soul to ash, and your attempts to conquer the spirit of this great experiment in democracy by annihilating its coat of arms just makes us stronger. Right? Because in so doing, you are demonstrating - perhaps unbeknownst to you - the core freedom that we Americans have always imagined to delineate our society from others of the world. It's the hallowed freedom to express uncongenial ideas forcefully. And to express, in bold terms, displeasure with our government, and even with our constitution. This act may not always be done in the spirit of mockery. It may indeed be undertaken under great spiritual stress - a desperate cry of rage to a country that has seemed to lose her way. And by means of such violent protest, yet again a reaffirmation of all that is, or was, sacred in this land. Now our senate has come within one vote of outlawing this free speech, in a misguided attempt to spare the feelings of our veterans (more of whom we are creating, and killing, by the truckload, but never you mind). Isn't this the very thing they've fought, and are fighting for?