Because of our emphasis on peacemaking and justice, we have often remarked on "knowingness" and the arrogance of assuming that somehow our knowledge is supereior to all other forms of knowledge. Henry and Milovanovic speak of our assumption that because we are experts in some way that entitles us to make decisions for others without taking them into account. (Nag me for citations to Henry and Milovanovic, to Jonathatn Lear, and to Freire, amongst others.)

The professional jargon of the academy is one of the languages of "knowingness" and of arrogance stemming from that knowledge. Vocabulary is most effectively learned through extensive reading. Notice the vocabulary that Beatty uses in White Boy Shuffle. For those willing to listen in good faith, the swearing highlights the hypocrisy of a system that excludes blacks and yet still demands that they follow its rules of etiquette. The irony runs even a little deeper in that those blacks who do follow "the rules" discover that following "the rules" does not necessarily, or even probably, lead to inclusion.

With academic jargon, especially when there has been little solid disciplined study, malapropisms are often encountered.That is one reason I ask you to keep looking up the word until you are sure you have made it your own, within the context it should be used.

On p. 2, Beatty speaks of "the well-dressed guy who worked in the corporate mailroom and malapropped his way through your patronizing efforts to engage him in small talk." You won't find the verb, to malaprop, in your college dictionary. But you will find "malapropism." I turned to my Quintessential Dictionary, a favorite.

"MALAPROPISM: noun. an instance or the habit of of ludicrous misuse of words, esecially by the confusion of words that are similar in sound; an instance of this." Of five sample usages of "malapropism," only the fourth gives us examples that clarify the definition:

"The narrator and most of the other guys [in the book, The Secret of Fire 5, by Jack Olsen] talk in a heavy locker-room jargon studded with malapropisms:
• "nothing seems to phrase him";
• "a regular Jackal and Hyde";
• the men are "orgling James Mansfield in the TV";
• "I feel like Alice in Wanderland."

[D. Wakefield, Review, New York Times, 5/1/77, Section 7, p. 10]

But note that Beatty changes the noun into a verb. The young man "malapropped his way through your patronizing efforts to engage him in small talk." Beatty's recognition that this is an adversarial approach, that there is arrogance and exclusion involved, is reflected in his choice of the phrase: patronizing efforts.

Beatty, in these first couple of pages of the prologue, sets the tone of telling those in positions of status and power that it is clear to him, and is becoming clear to others, that the "Emperor wears no clothes." In the process of telling those in authority that he can see through their hypocrisy, he also demonstrates his own ability to use their jargon, and sound as erudite as they do.

The nihilism, the sense that there is no alternative left but suicide, was scary. I remember Jim Jones and David Koresh, Charles Manson, and Viet Nam. I have interpreted Beatty last sentence in the prologue to mean that he is frightened, but no longer believes the bluster of those who do have status and power. Thus, it seems to me, he sees the "eternal war for civility" as pointless, and we might as well tell it like it is.

What do you think Fellman would say to this? Do you think that maybe Gunnar has given up on finding a way to discover mutuality as well as adversarialism? What arguments could Fellman, Freire, Henry and Milovanovic offer Gunnar that might let him see an alternative strategy?

On the very last page, (p. 226), Gunnar says: "The trippy part is that when you really think about it, me and America aren't even enemies. I'm the horse pulling the stagecoach, the donkey in the levee who's stumbled in the mud and come up lame. You may love me, but I'm tired of thrashing around in the muck and not getting anywhere, so put a nigger out his misery." I hear less anger and hate in these words than desperation at the seeming inability of the peoples of the world to find a way to achieve justice. I hear some of that same desperation in Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well. But I also hear Henry and Milovanovic's call to transform our discourse, and Freire's trust in our ability to teach the oppressed everywhere.

Gunnar makes me sad. But he also leaves me with an edge of hope.

How do you feel as you broach this text? jeanne

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