Or, maybe, I've lived too long
Was at some trendy bar Friday night -- damned if I can remember the name, it's in the same mall as St. Anthony Main theater -- in a (blech) mixed-race, mixed-gender group of people.
Looked over at another table at one point, and one of the trendy white male patrons was openly staring at us in what looked like disgust.
I went back to paying attention to our conversation.
There was a time I would have had some sort of reaction to that, but after living in Minnesota for a while, I've grown quite accustomed to it.
Another very good reason to get the fuck out.
Speaking of annoying trendy white males in Minnesota, Rob Nelson writes in this week's City Pages:
Beyond the PaleIn other words: Let me describe here what some people you might never have heard of had to say about something related to what only a small portion of you might care to identify as White Male Hegemony. But first I have to tell you: Rosie Perez's backside is fine.
And now the main attraction: her brain. "When we talk about the history of Latin people in the media," says Perez to a half-full house of film enthusiasts at Lincoln Center, "we see that [racist representation] isn't new. There was this Latin screen star, Lupe Vélez, who was Mexican; she crossed over because she starred with Gary Cooper [in 1929's Wolf Song]. She was called the 'Mexican Spitfire.' And they asked her to dance in everything: love stories, Westerns, whatever--she'd break into dance. Back then, they didn't call it 'The Latin Explosion,' but it was basically the same thing. What followed for her was a series of films where she played oversexualized women--caricatures. Unless [a woman of color] was screwing a white guy in Hollywood, she didn't have a chance. A lot hasn't changed."
It's not a bad article, really. Just very clearly not meant for me.
It covers a panel discussion on race at the New York Film Festival, with Rosie Perez, Warrington Hudlin and Michael Eric Dyson, among others, speaking on the subject. Which sounds fascinating, and I'm sure it was, but all you're going to get in the article is Mr. Nelson's take, which isn't.
At least, not for me.
Want to know more? Well, I tried looking for a write-up on the panel at Village Voice's site, but got immediately distracted by the front page link to Rage Before Race: How Feminists Faltered on the Central Park Jogger Case:
Feminists who rallied on the courthouse stairs outside the 1990 trial of five African American and Latino youth accused in the infamous rape and beating of the 28-year-old Central Park jogger made it painfully clear—there was a choice to make: gender or race. With flimsy evidence and an almost immediate indictment by the public, advocates for the teens believed they were easy lynch victims and demanded further investigation and fair trials. But to some feminists, bringing up "the race issue" "muddled" the case and detracted from the bottom-line issue—violence against women and justice for the victim.[. . .] Some activists say this case highlights the continuing struggle within the feminist movement, and often, its failure to truly engage the needs and issues facing women of color, or grapple well with situations in which issues of race and gender are intermingled.
And then I decided it was time to just step away from the computer for a while.
Might break this into two entries at some point.
Not fucking likely, though.
Comments
I find the choice of titles for that one article really interesting; the phrase "beyond the pale" comes from the fact that the Anglicized part of Renaissance England -- if I remember correctly -- was referred to as "The Pale," and that English people didn't go "beyond the pale" if they wanted to either do well or, in some cases, survive.
Someone was also said to have "gone beyond the pale" if they did as many nobles did, and intermarried with the Irish, adopting their customs and becoming "more Irish than the Irish themselves."
I just find it interesting.
Posted by: VASpider | October 21, 2002 6:14 PM
You know, I didn't notice the dude. Wish I had though, or that you'd whispered in my ear and told me.
Fucking around with idiots at silly bars is one of my all-time favorite pastimes. I feel robbed.
(Bet you knew that AND knew I didn't notice AND that's why you didn't tell me, but still...)
Hey, maybe he just didn't like redheads? Or he thinks Guiness is icky? Or he LIKED Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and was insulted by my criitque? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Posted by: Heather | October 21, 2002 7:01 PM
Actually, darling arachnid, while the principle is absolutely correct, the location's off by a coupla thousand kilometers.
The Pale of Settlement was established in 1791 as a section of the Russian Empire where it was deemed suitable for Jews to live. Catherine the Great issued the decree, and then confined all Jews in Russia to those areas -- most of what is now the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, and Latvia -- with an edict issued in 1795 (the edict was stiffened later on in 1835). Inside the Pale, Jews were forced to pay double taxes to the crown, they were forbidden to lease land, run taverns or hostelries (one of the few dependable sources of income from outside the Pale was from travelers), and were not permitted access to any kind of secular higher education. The Pale was home to almost all of Russia's Jewry, and, essentially, they were living on the frontiers... the shtetlach (hamlets) of the Pale were often the only "urban" areas for miles and miles. I won't go into more of the history of the Pale of Settlement, because it depresses me too much (and because I have direct ancestors who were killed in some of the early pogroms in the Pale, in the 1880s, and others who were killed in the Stalinist pogroms in the former Pale (the Pale was officially abolished during the Bolshevik overthrow, but not really so's you'd notice) later on).
But generally, if you went "beyond the Pale," you were completely outside of what any Russian was prepared to consider the civilized world, beyond even the frontier.
Posted by: hanne | October 21, 2002 7:33 PM
See, Heather, I just knew you and Becca would start some shit, and it'd be my black ass going to jail after you got done kickboxing the yuppie into next week.
I'll point out the idiots next time, though. As long as you let me get a head start getting to the car.
VASpider (and on preview, Hanne), never knew where that phrase came from. Thanks.
Posted by: Aaron | October 21, 2002 7:41 PM
Blert! Actually, VASpider, you said Renaissance, didn't you? It just occurred to me to reread your post -- naturally, after I posted myself, duh -- and if your dates are right (and I'm assuming they are), your usage might predate the one I cited by a fair swack.
Hang on. OED time.
Yup, you got there first. In both senses. And my History of the Diaspora prof was talking out his ass. Mea culpa. That'll teach me to believe what my teachers tell me.
Pale is from the Latin palus, stake, esp. a boundary marker. Apparently the English Pale was areas of Ireland, Scotland, and France that were Crown-controlled in the 15th/16th centuries. I found a map (kind of unclear graphics) of some of the Irish Pale boundaries here, if anyone's curious.
Sorry about that. I should've looked (it up to be sure) before I leapt (into the fray).
Posted by: hanne | October 21, 2002 7:43 PM
Quite all right, Hanne. I'm sort of an idiot savant where history is concerned. I know an inane amount of details about the Renaissance Isles, probably from being a Ren Geek for ages.
Knowing that the usage carried elsewhere, though, that's new.
Hooray for learning.
Posted by: VASpider | October 21, 2002 8:05 PM
see, when dudes stare at me in public places like that, especially if they get that severely constipated look that says "i'm straight, damn it!", i just always assumed it was because they secretly want summa this. in which case you just flutter your eyelashes and blow a kiss. but don't do this if you're not ready to back it up with your fists, because there's a good chance you'll have to. i guess that's why i stopped going to bars. it sure was nice having a huge multiracial nancy boy posse to back me up if i started something like that in my favorite bar in the french quarter. i miss those days. getting sober sure fucks up your social life.
Posted by: fertile_jim | October 22, 2002 11:48 AM
Which bar, fj?
Posted by: hanne | October 22, 2002 8:10 PM
oh lordy, this was in ancient times so it probably doesn't even exist any more. i lived upstairs from the parade bar, which burned, and it was north of that (on bourbon). the name escapes me, but they had this fishing nets on the walls and black lights on dayglo sea creatures theme. very new wave. i'm told they had a bubble bath night once a week.
Posted by: fertile_jim | October 23, 2002 12:01 PM
Just makin' sure it wasn't Cafe Lafitte in Exile, or I'd be wondering about you and wondering how many people we're likely to know in common...
Posted by: hanne | October 23, 2002 1:57 PM
Sheesh Aaron - I'm really great at staring back, and as long as we'd allowed Heather her loud comments, she wouldn't have resorted to kickboxing! Besides, this being MN and all, once I'd stared and Heather had made loud comments, the guy wouldn't have been able to bring himself to so much as glance in our direction again. Staring is only allowed here if it goes unacknowledged, dontcha know.
Posted by: Becca | October 23, 2002 4:42 PM
Ha ha! My friends are taking over.
(Can't stop giggling for no good reason. I may be hitting the coffee ceiling.)
Posted by: Heather | October 23, 2002 4:49 PM
Becca, refresh my memory. Weren't you the one talking about jumping "them tall-ass Amazon-looking b*tch*s" in line in front of us at the theater, because they couldn't decide what they wanted to see when they got to the ticket counter?
Nice meeting you, by the way. Sorry to hear about the car trouble a few days back.
Heather, between you and kd I'm seriously considering a "straight-edge only" policy around here. . .
Posted by: Aaron | October 23, 2002 7:23 PM
Dear heart, you wouldn't dream of it.
Besides, THEN who'd you have to ask what to order at the bar?
(Of course, you'd then probably not be at the bar in the first place, but that's another matter entirely, now isn't it?)
Posted by: Heather | October 23, 2002 8:02 PM