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February 07, 2005
tj 205: kennedy in retrospect
i'm a little behind, as you can tell, although since i wasn't actually here friday to finish out the week, i suppose being off-rhythm isn't entirely inappropriate. it's the first day of week 4, and we're at the end of our requisite "researched text," which i'd be remiss if i didn't mention i've had plenty of hesitation regarding teaching and talking about. i tried not to show that. i tried to act confident, act relaxed about the potentials for disagreement, & to channel that into the discussion-forum--which was amazing, and i need to figure out how to get it into a format i can post ethically.
we had a fantastic discussion today about people's reactions to kennedy's book as a whole. most of them said they'd recommend it to others, that they were glad they'd read it, that there was a lot in there that either they hadn't known, or they thought others needed to know, or both. stepping up to be particularly articulate about it, george said "i would definitely recommend it. because i think a lot of people--especially a lot of black people--don't know nearly enough about the word, about its history, about what it means." jesse added: "we think about a lot of this as being history, things that happened a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago. but a lot of the examples he's talking about happened just a few years ago. this is still relevant--it's still going on today."
they were also observant about its rhetorical properties; john said he'd reccommend the content but only moderately recommend the book itself, because the abrupt ending frustrated him. he was looking for more of a conclusion, more guidance as to what to do. even as he said this, though, he started making room for qualification; as others immediately stepped in to point out, there are no answers. kennedy knows, just like they know, that exposing the complexity of the issue doesn't solve the tension underlying it. "you can't just tell people 'don't say nigger,'" george said. "they won't do it."
but it's still a book, as several people noted, and we have expectations about books. "we expect conclusions," casey said. "this looks like he just... quit. his whole conclusion is four pages long & doesn't say anything." i brought up authorial choices & the tension between form & content--they agreed that the content required leaving the discussion open-ended, but most of them thought the form demanded something else, & that put us in a great place to start talking about the choices they'd soon be having to make regarding their own projects. they'll have to choose voices as well, and consider the audience they want those voices to reach. landel spoke approvingly of kennedy's stylistic decision to be straightforward, using plain language and putting aggressive ideas right out there, rather than circumlocuting using the legalese that as a harvard law professor we can only assume he has at his ready disposal. "he was writing to everybody. regular people," eugene summarized.
the best part was their comfort level. george and eugene let the word fall un-self-consciously, nobody else flinched, they contributed ideas that didn't entirely agree without frowning at one another, people who hadn't been saying much spoke up (maybe feeling particularly qualified by the subject matter?)... it was a good class. i don't want to say "i did that," because i didn't. they did. if i'm lucky, if i'm good, decisions i made helped enable more than restrict the possibility from forming, but that's all.
Posted by ttobryan at February 7, 2005 11:30 AM