All the Indians I’ve ever interacted with in person always treated me like just a person, and our skin color never became a barrier to the many more things we had in common. I feel so sorry for the people who live in their Progressive bubble because they’re not out there experiencing real life with real people. Racism begins in ignorance, and only kindness bridges that gap.
I have a multicultural coterie of friends and race is just one of many topics that are part of our conversations. People are always far more complicated than their left or right public politics reveal.
This grabbed me..."After reading my memoir, one of those Native critics wrote, “Well, we know what kind of Indian Sherman is,” implying that only a traitorous Indian would ever befriend white farm town kids." Reminded me of an expression a Lakota friend of mine shared - "hang around the fort Indian" - he implying that the US government setup Indian politicals who had control of distribution of commodities from the government, and hang-around the forts were first in line to benefit - suggesting not living a traditionalist life style, starTing with selfishness. AND I've also heard often resentment for those who remain on the reservation for those who leave for education. Of not welcomed back. Seemed like why not learn something from one of your own?
Yeah. I am, I've said, both product of and participant in racially mixed marriages. Never lived on the reservation where Dad grew up, though we visited Grandma every year; never really consciously faced the racism that could have been there in my own life; but I found out later in life that Dad was not supposed to be allowed to buy the house I grew up in, that it took intervention by a friend (who was also the seller) to get us in. But I have seen it second-hand, and heard stories of Dad's earlier life; and in essentially finding and strengthening my roots working with the tribe not all that long ago, I became very much aware of the "not native enough" attitude among some in my nation and in others. I made the change from Midwest Republican to by-God-liberal in my teens and have only grown more left in my old age, so I thank you for voicing what I guess I feel as frustration, not so much for myself, but for those who are younger and for whom this can be a block to truly finding themselves.
I appreciate how you are willing to take the middle road when it comes to topics like race and book banning. I was resistant to your take on book banning (both "sides" are part of the banning/cancel culture) at first. Ambiguity, in general, challenges me. Fortunately, as I argued with you in my head, I realized what you were saying is 100% accurate and while this truth didn't exactly set me free, it made me wiser. For that, I am in your debt.
I'm not sure that I've taken the middle road on topics like this. I've maintained my progressive values while many of my fellow liberals and leftists have turned into fundamentalists. I end up being somewhat of a dissident just by retaining my long held opinions.
He shoulda just written fiction if he already had a prepackaged point to make/sell.
Of course a non-white person is gonna encounter racism in their life but how it looks like could be different depending on the neighborhood/social class.
Human beings are complex. Not an inconvenient thing if you're concerned with objective reality.
Yeah, I've written what I think are complex fiction based on my interracial relationships. And some parts of those fictions are funny and respectful of the real people.
Loved this essay Sherman. Wish it were longer. Maybe HM exaggerated/conflated/embellished his stories of racism because he thought the actual truth of his experience was too subtle or nuanced to make a good show, or to even be believed. Most performers and storytellers do this to some extent don’t they. I don’t care about prosecuting him for this--never thought he was that funny--but maybe it will add a dimension to his show. A good bit would be: so my white audience, is this racist enough for you to believe I have suffered from something real and painful? Or will you dismiss it. Personally I think nuanced truth is less dismiss-able because it is life authentic. I also like to give more credit to readers or audiences whatever their census categories. But then I guess HM was going to the largest possible audience, maybe, and felt he had to exaggerate to resonate. *shrug* Life be complicated--I think most readers and writers of literary fiction or poetry can appreciate that. Lucky us right.
Yes, Sunil, great points. We do have it a little easier, right? Our audiences expect the complex and nuanced though I think this era's literary fiction has swerved more toward an overt, rigid, and predictable politics.
Sherman, you've challenged me to think about this in a new way — and I think you're right about Minhaj shaping this to appeal to white progressive audiences. My sense is that a lot of journalism-adjacent comedy skew that way, something we'll soon see in action again now that the writer's strike is (almost) over. You're also right that the neutral voice of mainstream journalists is far from neutral and is often deceptive. Choosing to leave out inconvenient facts is another kind of lying. @jamesfallows has a good recent post about "how the sausage gets made," with current examples of skewed framing in headlines and blurbs: https://fallows.substack.com/p/return-to-media-world-more-on-making
That's a great article by Fallows, especially about headline writing. One of the most common headline is "X Finally Tells the Truth About Y." Then you read and find out that Y is a vegetarian or some other ordinary "surprise."
Exactly. Whenever I see "truth" flung into a headline like that, I expect the opposite. I like headlines and titles with good hooks, but when they're deliberately deceptive — especially in the digital feeds of major news organizations — they are every bit as disturbing as the massaged facts of a comic like Minhaj.
I’ve been struggling to put my finger on the discomfort I find with what I write myself lately. I think hero as artist gets to that.
Perhaps “bottle” instead of “hero,” as suggested by Virginia Woolf in Ursula K Le Guin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” is the way to go — a bottle to hold multitudes, if I can completely mangle literary references.
Hanlon's razor = "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." <----- a gem I picked up today for the 1st time.
He took a short cut and cut a corner. It's cheap and will always come with real risk. In this case doubly so. In doing so he committed AUTHENTIC reverse racism. I've heard it said before that calling a wyt-person a racist is akin to calling a black person the N word. The key words to keep in mind here are the innocent & the guilty.
So now back to your question. I think he may have done it thinking he was good intentioned plus the allure of a packed room of LOLs, fame, money, whatever, may have blinded him. Ugly ambition drove him to hurt a small batch of real wytppl. A mere few fingers on a handful. (Representative of his target audience tho)
Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with this guy I'm just going off everything I'm reading here. So is he really a racist ? Perp or victim ? I have no idea. But I suspect it's worth a real ponder.
Thank you Sherman for these sights from underneath... I thought the man was funny too, and hope, like you said, he might consider perhaps being his own kind of funny --if for some reason he was chasing a loyal cohort instead of going in his own unique way to causing people to return to first breath: Laughter and smiling... look at the little ones. There is the first rituale.
It may be as simple as him not wanting to be a villain. But I would take it a step further and say that if he really was making up all the "f white people" stuff, he must have wanted to conform. He saw other comedians of all races telling the same jokes and knew they would give him a step up in the comedy world.
Hasan, who named his comic series" Patriot Act" needed to make sure those progressives get enough " red meat" so they would tune in. I am not sure Hasan totally believes what he says all the time. He sometimes laughs at a joke, just to see if his folks get it. I enjoy his half- truths in this misinformation, alternative facts world.
I would very much like lying be wrong again.
All the Indians I’ve ever interacted with in person always treated me like just a person, and our skin color never became a barrier to the many more things we had in common. I feel so sorry for the people who live in their Progressive bubble because they’re not out there experiencing real life with real people. Racism begins in ignorance, and only kindness bridges that gap.
I have a multicultural coterie of friends and race is just one of many topics that are part of our conversations. People are always far more complicated than their left or right public politics reveal.
This grabbed me..."After reading my memoir, one of those Native critics wrote, “Well, we know what kind of Indian Sherman is,” implying that only a traitorous Indian would ever befriend white farm town kids." Reminded me of an expression a Lakota friend of mine shared - "hang around the fort Indian" - he implying that the US government setup Indian politicals who had control of distribution of commodities from the government, and hang-around the forts were first in line to benefit - suggesting not living a traditionalist life style, starTing with selfishness. AND I've also heard often resentment for those who remain on the reservation for those who leave for education. Of not welcomed back. Seemed like why not learn something from one of your own?
Yeah. I am, I've said, both product of and participant in racially mixed marriages. Never lived on the reservation where Dad grew up, though we visited Grandma every year; never really consciously faced the racism that could have been there in my own life; but I found out later in life that Dad was not supposed to be allowed to buy the house I grew up in, that it took intervention by a friend (who was also the seller) to get us in. But I have seen it second-hand, and heard stories of Dad's earlier life; and in essentially finding and strengthening my roots working with the tribe not all that long ago, I became very much aware of the "not native enough" attitude among some in my nation and in others. I made the change from Midwest Republican to by-God-liberal in my teens and have only grown more left in my old age, so I thank you for voicing what I guess I feel as frustration, not so much for myself, but for those who are younger and for whom this can be a block to truly finding themselves.
I appreciate how you are willing to take the middle road when it comes to topics like race and book banning. I was resistant to your take on book banning (both "sides" are part of the banning/cancel culture) at first. Ambiguity, in general, challenges me. Fortunately, as I argued with you in my head, I realized what you were saying is 100% accurate and while this truth didn't exactly set me free, it made me wiser. For that, I am in your debt.
I'm not sure that I've taken the middle road on topics like this. I've maintained my progressive values while many of my fellow liberals and leftists have turned into fundamentalists. I end up being somewhat of a dissident just by retaining my long held opinions.
Excellent. Excellent. And more excellent.
Ah, thank you, Leigh.
He shoulda just written fiction if he already had a prepackaged point to make/sell.
Of course a non-white person is gonna encounter racism in their life but how it looks like could be different depending on the neighborhood/social class.
Human beings are complex. Not an inconvenient thing if you're concerned with objective reality.
Yeah, I've written what I think are complex fiction based on my interracial relationships. And some parts of those fictions are funny and respectful of the real people.
Loved this essay Sherman. Wish it were longer. Maybe HM exaggerated/conflated/embellished his stories of racism because he thought the actual truth of his experience was too subtle or nuanced to make a good show, or to even be believed. Most performers and storytellers do this to some extent don’t they. I don’t care about prosecuting him for this--never thought he was that funny--but maybe it will add a dimension to his show. A good bit would be: so my white audience, is this racist enough for you to believe I have suffered from something real and painful? Or will you dismiss it. Personally I think nuanced truth is less dismiss-able because it is life authentic. I also like to give more credit to readers or audiences whatever their census categories. But then I guess HM was going to the largest possible audience, maybe, and felt he had to exaggerate to resonate. *shrug* Life be complicated--I think most readers and writers of literary fiction or poetry can appreciate that. Lucky us right.
Yes, Sunil, great points. We do have it a little easier, right? Our audiences expect the complex and nuanced though I think this era's literary fiction has swerved more toward an overt, rigid, and predictable politics.
Is it the fiction that has swerved rigid, predictable, punitive or the online chatter around it? :)
Some combo of both perhaps.
Sherman, you've challenged me to think about this in a new way — and I think you're right about Minhaj shaping this to appeal to white progressive audiences. My sense is that a lot of journalism-adjacent comedy skew that way, something we'll soon see in action again now that the writer's strike is (almost) over. You're also right that the neutral voice of mainstream journalists is far from neutral and is often deceptive. Choosing to leave out inconvenient facts is another kind of lying. @jamesfallows has a good recent post about "how the sausage gets made," with current examples of skewed framing in headlines and blurbs: https://fallows.substack.com/p/return-to-media-world-more-on-making
That's a great article by Fallows, especially about headline writing. One of the most common headline is "X Finally Tells the Truth About Y." Then you read and find out that Y is a vegetarian or some other ordinary "surprise."
Exactly. Whenever I see "truth" flung into a headline like that, I expect the opposite. I like headlines and titles with good hooks, but when they're deliberately deceptive — especially in the digital feeds of major news organizations — they are every bit as disturbing as the massaged facts of a comic like Minhaj.
Yes, I agree.
Appreciate you sharing this.
I’ve been struggling to put my finger on the discomfort I find with what I write myself lately. I think hero as artist gets to that.
Perhaps “bottle” instead of “hero,” as suggested by Virginia Woolf in Ursula K Le Guin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” is the way to go — a bottle to hold multitudes, if I can completely mangle literary references.
Hanlon's razor = "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." <----- a gem I picked up today for the 1st time.
He took a short cut and cut a corner. It's cheap and will always come with real risk. In this case doubly so. In doing so he committed AUTHENTIC reverse racism. I've heard it said before that calling a wyt-person a racist is akin to calling a black person the N word. The key words to keep in mind here are the innocent & the guilty.
So now back to your question. I think he may have done it thinking he was good intentioned plus the allure of a packed room of LOLs, fame, money, whatever, may have blinded him. Ugly ambition drove him to hurt a small batch of real wytppl. A mere few fingers on a handful. (Representative of his target audience tho)
Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with this guy I'm just going off everything I'm reading here. So is he really a racist ? Perp or victim ? I have no idea. But I suspect it's worth a real ponder.
Thank you Sherman for these sights from underneath... I thought the man was funny too, and hope, like you said, he might consider perhaps being his own kind of funny --if for some reason he was chasing a loyal cohort instead of going in his own unique way to causing people to return to first breath: Laughter and smiling... look at the little ones. There is the first rituale.
It may be as simple as him not wanting to be a villain. But I would take it a step further and say that if he really was making up all the "f white people" stuff, he must have wanted to conform. He saw other comedians of all races telling the same jokes and knew they would give him a step up in the comedy world.
I appreciate the nuanced take.
"I have no doubt that Minhaj has encountered more than a few racist white folks"
True. But the other part of progressive denial is that the bigotry minorities experience is coming almost entirely from white folks.
Hasan, who named his comic series" Patriot Act" needed to make sure those progressives get enough " red meat" so they would tune in. I am not sure Hasan totally believes what he says all the time. He sometimes laughs at a joke, just to see if his folks get it. I enjoy his half- truths in this misinformation, alternative facts world.
Yeah, I think he's funny. But I'm really hoping he's doing some soul searching and comes out firing.