I'm also often unclear about where sarcasm or humorous commentary ends and
deep-seated prejudice begins.  This is a major issue in much Am Lit before
WWI (and after, of course); and it certainly is foregrounded in Twain and
many, many other authors near and dear to the hearts of this LIST, I'm
sure.

I won't trot out those names -- for now.  But I do think it is
intellectually disengenuous, and possibly deeply offensive, to label it all
simply "political correctness" as if that somehow, magically, solves the
problem.

Example: as I'm reading up on TR, American empire, the Philippines, WEB Du
Bois, Teutonic myths, Saxon legends, etc. etc....  It occurs to me now, late
in my career, just how prevalent and "in the air" these racial constructs
ruled the day. I've lately read mush of Painter's accessible and
wide-ranging book HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE, for example, and it's pretty
good, and I've learned a lot from it.   I'd love to hear anyone else's
response to Painter's book; beyond it I can name a score of others worth
digesting.

It's sort of funny, and I suppose vulnerably confessive, if not pathetic, to
say in public that even at this late date, perhaps I still do not recognize
fully the harmful, hegemonic views of race that ruled America in the 19th
and early-20th centuries -- how could I have underestimated them? how could
I overlook  that?--  but there it is.  I keep learning more and more about
just how sinister these attitudes were.

And with MT, I believe the changes in his attitudes with African Americans
have been well documented and well narrated.  But with the Natives?
hmmmm....






-- 
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Professor of English
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>