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Just a few words about the Amanda Gorman poem and why it irks me so:
I taught, for many, many years at Purdue University. It's not Ivy League, but it's a solid, reputable place, with a well-off community of students, most of whom (at least at the time) were white and well-off.
I taught, for many, many years at Purdue University. It's not Ivy League, but it's a solid, reputable place, with a well-off community of students, most of whom (at least at the time) were white and well-off.
Many of them are there to earn prestigious degrees in science and engineering where they will make tons of money. We in the liberal arts, especially those of us who taught freshman english etc. were there to ensure they got where they needed to go.
(no diss on my department, and I loved my years there, mostly).
Every single student had an advisor whose job it was to make sure they were progressing, and who would get in touch with me if there was a drop in grades and so on.
Every single student had an advisor whose job it was to make sure they were progressing, and who would get in touch with me if there was a drop in grades and so on.
I moved to Chicago and got a job as an adjunct teaching at UIC -- mostly students of colour, who would often come to me and ask where to register for classes, they were THAT underserved.
Most of them had no idea what an advisor was, and I had no idea how to help them navigate all the administrative red tape. I could have done the bare minimum and no one would have cared.
Several faculty members and fellow adjuncts who had been there made comments about how "our students" wouldn't get certain kinds of material, etc. Adjuncts would boast that they would not ask their students actually write essays involving more than their "personal experience."
One of my students went to the writing lab where someone just took his essay and rewrote it for him because, I guess, that was just easier and took less effort. And so on.
Things have changed a LOT at UIC since then and for the better (long and complicated history there).
Things have changed a LOT at UIC since then and for the better (long and complicated history there).
There were changes in administration and personnel, starting with Stanley Fish, that a lot of people hated but the net result was that at least the tyranny of low expectations began to unravel somewhat.
I haven't been there in years, and can't speak to more than that. I will say that things began to change even while I was there, and for the better.
But my point is simply this: there's nothing liberating about Amanda Gorman's bad poetry, and it IS bad poetry.
But my point is simply this: there's nothing liberating about Amanda Gorman's bad poetry, and it IS bad poetry.
Making excuses for it because she's young & Black isn't helping create the next incredible young, Black poet -- it's ensuring we'll only ever see mediocrity, and it is deeply, deeply insulting to keep saying, "Yes, it's bad, but it was important to see her up there."
As if somehow a young, Black woman can't be expected to exist AND be an incredible poet as well. As if her only job is to make liberal hearts swoon and feel good about how much we're doing by just allowing her up there.
Don't show up here to tell me we're racist for critiquing the poem. Come back and tell us why you think it's worth our time.
If your only counter-argument is that she needed to be up there (and that those of us who criticise her are racist), you're just another racist who thinks Black people can't and should not be expected to actually create incredible art.
George Bush famously used the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and it has a complicated history (I mean, George Bush!), but there's something to be said for how that is in fact something that prevails.
I prefer the "tyranny of low expecations" because I think we've now reached a point where those of us criticise the state of things are constantly shut down in these ridiculous, overblown ways.
Anyway, more later. But, really, enough. Think long and hard about WHY you think that poem was great. If all you can think of is, "Well, we needed to see her up there," you are officially full of it.
