[lbo-talk] Lincoln Gordon, he dead

Shane Mage shmage at pipeline.com
Thu Jan 14 10:59:13 PST 2010


On Jan 14, 2010, at 1:42 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:


> At 10:29 AM 1/14/2010, Shane Mage wrote:
>
>
>>> Chinua Achebe, father of modern African literature, has long argued
>>> that
>>>> Joseph Conrad was a racist. Caryl Phillips, an admirer of both
>>>> writers,
>>>> disagrees.
>>> That seems like kind of a silly debate. How many European
>>> aristocrats of the Victorian era would we not consider somehow
>>> racist today?
>>
>> This is way beyond silly. The word "racist" as used here and
>> everywhere else seems to have degenerated into nothing but an empty
>> insult. Any usage of the term "racism" or "racist" not accompanied
>> by
>> a clear concise definition makes the effusion of which it is part
>> unworthy of notice.
>
> Achebe has been writing and talking about Conrad and Heart of
> Darkness since the '70s and effusion does not describe what he's
> been writing or saying about it.

So then, you can quote for us Achebe's definitions of "racism" and "racist," I suppose. Will you do so?

Shane Mage


> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos



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