I’m writing these words in the last hours of what has been a quiet May Day.
For me, at least.
Elsewhere in the world, red and black flags are being proudly waved as people march through the streets, chanting and singing. In Greece, a nation-wide strike is being carried out in defiance of massive lay-offs enacted by the government. In Bangladesh, thousands are protesting after the collapse of a sweatshop resulted in the death and injury of hundreds of workers. Similar protests have broken out in the Philippines as nearly 10,000 workers march in Manila. Youth in Spain are raging against the nearly 30% unemployment rate. Korea, Cambodia, Turkey, Indonesia- just to name a handful- are witnessing similar turnouts.
Allow me to set one thing straight before we begin.
This isn’t some “let’s not talk about black history, let’s talk about human history” spiel, similar to sentiment put forward by Morgan Freeman a while ago.
I completely disagree with Mr. Freeman, but my reasons for that can be answered better in a different post.
This is a Shame Day post directed against “black history,” or rather, the reprehensible white-washed version we, the people, are spoon fed each February.
Now you all know who this is:
And you could probably tell me who this is:
We’re getting a little more obscure, but the literary-minded among you might even recognize who this is:
This post was supposed to be about TBS’s new gameshow King of the Nerds, which premiered last night, but I didn’t catch it on TV and couldn’t find a way to catch it online, so that was that. Instead, since Gordon and I so eloquently discussed the purpose of post-secondary education this Wednesday, I’m going to be writing once again about college.
It’s said, and a study by Professor of Communication Glenn Sparks backs me up on this, that the friends you make in college become your best friends, the ones that last a lifetime. Which is great. I mean, it all makes sense. You’re living in the same space with other people who are, at least for a short period of time, studying the same sorts of things.
EVAN: This week on E> we take a break from scrutinizing film to look back about seven or so months to a different time of our lives: college. Now that we’ve both graduated we find ourselves in a different stage of life, and it begs the question of what those four years did for us, and whether or not that’s what we wanted or expected.
GORDON: Throughout my college career, especially towards the end, I heard a recurring argument:
“College is a scam,” they said, “It’s a trap or, at very best, a waste of money. You don’t learn anything you can actually translate into a job, so either drop out while you can or don’t sweat the grades and party your buns off.”
EVAN: Wait, who is the “they” that was saying this?
GORDON: I’ve read it in various Cracked articles, I’ve seen it covered in webcomics and in comments, I’ve heard it on the radio. Not always the same tone, but it always boiled down to that essential idea. “College doesn’t teach you what you really need to know, it just puts you in debt and wastes your time.”
EVAN: Well, I guess that really begs the question of “What is it that we’re really supposed to know?” If college is the great institution to prepare us for our lives, what should it have taught us?
GORDON: Some would argue that technical and vocational skills are what we really need. Stuff that’s meant to train us for jobs. Wrenches, not Whitman.
EVAN: Which is the sort of thing you see advertised on television late at night or in the middle of the day; schools for electricians and dental assistants and plumbers and what have you.
GORDON: Which always come across as propaganda films from a dystopic alternate timeline. They can claim to be breaking the mold all they want- I’ll still always just see Orwellian Factory-Schools designed train the subservient masses for laboring in name of supreme leader and glorious fatherland.
EVAN: Heh heh.
The contrast to this idea you brought up when first introducing this topic, that the two sides could be seen as college prepping us for our careers or making us more well-rounded individuals.
There’s obviously more to it than that, but how would you boil the latter option down to its essence?
GORDON: I’d probably cite our own alma mater’s (for me more just “mater”) slogan of “global mindedness.” The idea is to create people who are, first and foremost, thinkers. Logical and critically minded thinkers with strong creative abilities and appreciation for art and wonder. A noble enough sentiment to be sure.
EVAN: To really engage with this topic I feel like we should have equal footing, and I’ll have to give our readers a little bit of context-
I’m currently unemployed, and chose to live the latter part of 2012 living with and taking care of my grandfather, whose wife [my grandmother] passed away in September. My job hunt has only very recently started up again.
I say that because as it stands one of us is currently working and knows how his education has aided him and the other is not.
GORDON: I, unlike my Canadian counter-part, am currently employed, having worked two jobs simultaneously for a while there. Having vainly searched for a job the entire summer and most of the fall, I am now working a job helping unemployed people find work, the irony of which is not lost on me.
EVAN: And did you, my Employed-American friend, find that a degree helped you in your search for work?
GORDON: In all honesty, I’m not sure.
On one hand, I can say that certain classes I brought definitely assisted me in securing a job, but those classes really more on the whole “applied” spectrum of education. I definitely didn’t need to go to a top 3% college. People, it turns out, don’t give a crap about where you went.
EVAN: Again, I can’t comment from experience, but I’d like to say that it depends on the job.
GORDON: This is probably true. However, if you were looking for a job, which is gonna look better on a resume? Four years of college, or four years of experience in that field? From everything that I’ve seen, I’d take experience every time.
EVAN: And I agree with that entirely. I can’t count the number of want ads I’ve seen [and this is for stuff like janitorial work, and dishwasher] that require “minimum 2 years work experience.”
It’s like, heck, what was I doing in school when I could’ve been out working this whole time?
GORDON: But of course, that brings up the first question: what’s the point of college? Are we expected to choose a career path and be trained like the mindless, dehumanized proles that we are?
EVAN: Well, for me personally my career goals were more tailored to an academic setting. My personal interest in writing and editing is definitely something that can and is fostered in that environment.
That being said, if I had skipped my four years of college to simply freelance as hard as I could out there in the real world, would I be a better writer today? I honestly couldn’t tell you.
GORDON: The problem is that both sides have really, really big flaws.
On the one hand, turning college into a simple vocational training course does truly rip the soul right out of academia. It makes it just the place you go to get a desk job instead of a manual one.
On the other hand, college as it is now, while fostering intellect and creativity, is as unhelpful as it is expensive. Why put yourself over a hundred thousand dollars in debt to not get employment?
EVAN: I guess in the bigger picture, what is it that we want to do with our lives?
There are plenty of jobs out there that don’t require a college education, and that certainly benefit from hard work at an early stage.
On the flip-side, there are jobs that you simply can’t get without a degree.
GORDON: We also can’t imagine that we can simply get any job we want to begin with. It’s all a gamble. I can get a degree in biology, but that doesn’t at all mean I’m gonna get a job in biology- heck, I’d probably be lucky if I got something even close!
EVAN: Like a janitor in a pharmaceutical company. Or the guy who delivers mail to a biology professor’s house.
GORDON: Exactly. So is that it, then? It’s the whole dang system?
EVAN: I mean, yeah. I feel like more often than not that’s all it really boils down to.
GORDON: So let’s talk about an ideal universe. Or at least one that ain’t quite so screwed up. What’s college look like? Give me your take.
This does not count as an ideal college…
EVAN: It’s tricky, man- Because I would like everyone to be well-read individuals who think about the media that they access and have a fuller understanding of what makes us who and what we are as a culture, I mean, that’s the dream-
But at the same time I acknowledge that there are people who don’t care a whit about any or all of that.
And with so many people who enjoy poetry and the arts, while those are debatably important parts of society, what happens when they need to find work? How many playwrights can any single country sustain?
GORDON: My response would be “how many playwrights are there actually out there?”
EVAN: I think there’s a difference between the actual number, and how many individuals would actually like to be a part of that number.
GORDON: Touché, but we can blame certain jobs being glorified and others suffering from unwarranted contempt.
But let’s move on. College. Your college- what’s it look like?
EVAN: A thorough exploration of the ideas that created Western civilization, the one most of us live in today, because it’s extremely important to observe our origins before we can look at our present and then ahead, after that.
A strong emphasis on writing with the reason that without the ability to properly communicate our thoughts how can we even really fully think them to begin with.
GORDON: Sounds to me that you’re still leaning more towards the side of academia.
EVAN: Well, like we’ve discussed, I have a slight bias. And I suppose we haven’t really defined the question as far as the purpose of college.
GORDON: My take would a combination of both sides, with the end goal being application. We’re talking about the study of English for the purposes of applying the principles in same, either in writing or screenplays or entertainment or communication of some kind.
I feel this would allow for all the creative and academic elements while keeping the whole process grounded. No ivory towers.
EVAN: I don’t think my take discounts the possibility of lining up with what you said, but that’s a really good description of how college could and maybe should be.
That being said, we are actually overtime.
GORDON: You wanna talk about drugs and culture next time?
EVAN: I think at some point we could hand this back to the viewers, actually. We’ve really gotten a handle on this whole E>. I’m just not sure when or how to do so.
GORDON: The readers are slack-jawed cattle who would eat their own shoes if we told them to.
EVAN: I should probably edit that out of the final post.
GORDON: Nah, we can let ’em vote. My subject would be Drugs and Culture.
EVAN: Mine would be . . . um . . . huh. About SNL. How to fix SNL.
GORDON: Nice. Let it be so.
EVAN: Tell the nice people to have a good Wednesday, Gordon.
GORDON: Have a good Wednesday, Gordon.
EVAN: And don’t forget to vote, readers! Thanks for putting up with my co-writer!
EVAN: So last week I asked people on Facebook what they wanted us to talk about, and the answer that got the most votes was affirmative action. This is a pretty broad topic, but thinking about it in the past couple of days I have at least a few possible directions to go with it. But before we do that, a definition-
“policies that take factors including ‘race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin’ into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group ‘in areas of employment, education, and business’, usually justified as countering the effects of a history of discrimination.”
Though of course, we’re probably more familiar with it in regards to racial or gender quotas for certain businesses.
EVAN: Right, like hiring a minority to make some sort of company quota-
GORDON: Ironically, despite the outcry against this particular aspect of affirmative action, it isn’t actually legal in the US to set quotas for any race.
EVAN: Which I did not know. But it happens, of course.
GORDON: That it does. That quota being typically “100% white.”
EVAN: And Gabe’s childish delight at pulling in someone who wasn’t black [Kelly], like all of the other entries were.
GORDON: It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
EVAN: It’s all good.
GORDON: Let’s get right down to it here- affirmative action is still a contentious practice, but let’s face it, now more than ever it’s demonstrative of inherent bias in the system.
EVAN: As someone who doesn’t keep up with the news as often as he should, the most recent event I can recall that featured this was the rioting that was happening in Paris.
GORDON: Go on…
EVAN: Oh man, I was really hoping you’d remember. But it was a minority group rioting, and the way they solved it all was that employers had to hire people from this group, and pay them regardless of how well/hard they worked.
GORDON: Ergh- it’s France. These are the same people who nearly elected a neo-Nazi to be prime minister, and and have massive racial bigotry issues- just look at their expulsion of the Roma.
I’d hesitate before using them as an example- let’s bring the issue a little closer to home. Take America, for example.
EVAN: Well, your home.
GORDON: We have a workforce completely and utter disproportionate to the population. Even as the white population diminishes, the vast majority of administrative jobs are held by white males.
EVAN: Misrepresentation of an entire population, yeah?
GORDON: Absolutely.
EVAN: So that’s America, but where does affirmative action come into it, are you saying it’s needed?
GORDON: I’m saying that it isn’t working. If affirmative action was meant to end hiring and promotional discrimination on the basis of race and gender, it’s utterly failed, and the proof of that is everywhere around us.
EVAN: Well, you know more about the States than I do, especially with you saying that it’s illegal. Are there any affirmative action movements than you can bring up at all?
GORDON: The only major issue I can recall in the past couple years was a lawsuit brought against Walmart.
EVAN: Go on.
GORDON: Back in 2007, a gender discrimination lawsuit (Walmart v. Dukes) was filed, with a massive number of women citing that despite nearly two-thirds of Walmart employees being women, only a third of management was female- and that’s to say nothing of other charges against Walmart’s routine exploitation of its female employees.
A court (tragically) ruled that the various individuals suing didn’t have quite enough in common to constitute being a “class”, so the case was more or less thrown out.
EVAN: Their sharing a gender not withstanding?
GORDON: Welcome to America.
EVAN: Moving on to something I may know a little more about, affirmative action is a term that comes up quite a lot in regards to Native Americans, or what we in Canada refer to as “First Nations.”
GORDON: Shoot-
EVAN: There’re reservations, of course, land that belongs [is given] to said people. I’ve heard many times friends saying that they were 1/16 such and such, and would be able to “claim land.” Also the fact that gambling is legal on such properties, which I still don’t fully understand.
GORDON: The issue of native rights is an entirely different topic- something we oughta cover, but not quite in this post.
EVAN: I’m just saying that I think it ties directly into what we’re discussing. This is all stuff that’s “usually justified as countering the effects of a history of discrimination.”
GORDON: Granted. One could make an argument for lumping together reparations and affirmative action, but affirmative action is really strictly defined as pertaining to admissions- into either a university or the workplace.
How IS that in Canada, anyways? You got management proportionate to your population makeup?
EVAN: I am not sure. Let me check.
Well, I can confidently say that our minority population is 16%, though this excludes First Nations. Taking them into account, they add 4%, making a solid 20% of our population being nonwhite.
GORDON: Okay. So in your experience, is one in five Canadian manages/execs/bosses/administrators/etc. from a minority group?
EVAN: I’d say that in Toronto, at least, you’re as likely to see a white person as a non-white person. Depending on the neighborhood, you may find it difficult to see more than a handful of Caucasians.
GORDON: But in management…
EVAN: Right. I’m not exactly in a lot of offices… So I don’t know if I can comment on that.
GORDON: Gun to your head…
EVAN: I want to say 1/5 are probably minorities. Which matches up with the statistics I mentioned.
GORDON: Ah, good.
EVAN: I’m a little perturbed that you put a gun to my head in this post.
GORDON: Heh…
Before any of the readers jump down my throat, I know am I’m looking at the problem from a white-liberal viewpoint. Simple fact of the matter is, college is expensive (don’t I know it… **** you Evan, and your ridiculously great government benefits), and the small, wealthy majority in US is (overwhelmingly) white. Someone might make an argument for qualifications being required over race, but that’s exactly where affirmative action is SUPPOSED to come in.
It’s meant to help even the playing field, but it just doesn’t- again, look around.
EVAN: Qualifications required over race and affirmative action. Could you explain that further?
GORDON: Imagine you’re an employer. And imagine this we’re not living some depression-era-hellscape where you’re asking that an entry level employee have five to ten years of experience.
EVAN: . . . I’m listening. This is a dreamworld you’re painting.
GORDON: You have to fill a position, and there are two candidates- a white guy with a college degree, and a black guy without one (again, college is ****ing expensive). Who do you give the job to?
EVAN: The qualified one. The white guy.
GORDON: And imagine you need this position filled again the next year. And the next and the next, and you keep getting the same basic candidates. Who do you pick?
EVAN: Obviously whoever can do the job better. But where is affirmative action, like you said, supposed to come in?
GORDON: The people with jobs get money, the people with money send their kids to college, and so on. Affirmative action is meant to make sure that people aren’t discriminated against on the basis of their race, so that two equally qualified people stand an equal chance of getting in.
It’s like trying to back-paddle in the middle of a maelstrom.
EVAN: Ah, I see what you’re getting at. But what about minority scholarships?
GORDON: Even there, there’s an issue. Poor schools don’t get good funding, they tend to produce students who aren’t as prepared as their wealthier peers, and even bright ones who would otherwise school their peers wind up doing worse on tests. Unless you’re exceptionally gifted…
Again, it’s trying to apply a band-aid to an open wound.
EVAN: One more simile, for the road. Our time’s just about wrapped up.
GORDON: It all boils down to this- there is a need for equity and equality in the workplace- a desperate need. But affirmative action is like using a toothpick to fight dragons [emphasis added]- its the wrong tool of the job, and even if it was appropriate for the situation, it’s still not very effective…
EVAN: Join us next week, where hopefully I know more about what we’re talking about, when we discuss-
A couple weeks ago, I unleashed my wrath against NBC for their exploitative and fetishistic show, Stars Earn Stripes. Despite their cold, calculated attempt to make a quick profit off of the sacrifices and hardships of the armed forces, NBC, as a channel, still manages to pump out a handful of decent shows.
The same can’t be said for TLC.
If you’re not familiar with TLC, they’re the channel responsible for such shows as Toddlers & Tiaras and those fifteen different series about midgets (yes, I’ll be using the term ‘midget’, get used to it). Now there’s been some criticism already that TLC (The Learning Channel) doesn’t have a thing to do with learning (not anymore, anyways), but my issue with TLC goes further than that. TLC isn’t just unhelpful or unintelligent- it’s straight-up bad for you.
Here’s Why:
I. Whites Only?
When Evan and I were having a discussion about TLC a few days ago, I brought up how strange it was that they had so many shows about midgets. His response was that he suspected it had something to do with the “celebration of diversity.” That’s probably how TLC would spin it, too. Their plethora of shows centering on midgets (Big Tiny, The Little Couple, Little People- Big World) unusually large families (19 Kids and Counting, Table for 12, formerly John & Kate Plus 8, United Bates of America), and other shows such as High School Moms, Sister Wives, or My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding are all part of their mission to portray the diversity our world and help us all learn from each other.
Only that’s some ol’ ********.
See, if TLC were actually showing you giant (by Western standards) families or midgets in the interest of promoting understanding, they might actually show some diversity. But just go to the TLC television show page and tell me what you don’t see.
Where are all the black people? Where are all the Asians? Where are the shows about Hispanic families? For Pete’s sake, the combined non-white population of the US is nearing 50%, and TLC doesn’t have a single show starring a non-white family! What’s up with that? Not only are there no shows centered on non-whites this year, but if you look at their “Past Shows” section, you will find one show with a black star and one show with an Asian co-star. Not only is TLC pretty lacking in racial diversity when it comes to its shows, but other major demographic groups are left out as well. Non-Christian religious groups make up nearly 20% of the population- where’s the show about the day-to-day lives of American Muslims, Buddhists, or atheists? Wouldn’t we benefit from a show about life on a Navajo reservation more than Long Island Medium? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say “Yeah- yeah, it would be.”
II. The “Freak-Show”
So we’ve established TLC’s programming is more or less exclusively about white people, let’s take a look at what white people. Counting up the subject material of this year’s shows, we have 19 out of 36 programs centered on what could certainly be titled “abnormal”. That is, one out of two TLC shows deals is about midgets, huge families, addiction, hoarding, teen pregnancy, fringe religious groups (see Breaking Amish or Sister Wives), and the like, with the other 17 shows centered (largely) on wedding dresses and people who bake stuff. Is there anything inherently wrong with all of this? Not at all. In fact, a lot of the subject matter these shows cover looks pretty interesting- most notably Abby and Brittany, a series following conjoined twins. You can’t tell me that you aren’t really intrigued by that.
But that’s not the problem. The problem is the vicious redundancy, and what it says about TLC’s motives here. Currently, TLC is airing two shows about large families (to say nothing about all their past shows about large families), as well as three shows centered on midgets (again, they’ve had other shows about midgets in the past). Why the redundancy? Because it’s about money. The concepts behind both sets of shows are being squeezed for every last penny, meaning when TLC has a camera crew following a family of twenty or a four-foot couple, it’s not because they want to make a quick buck.
“But Gordon, you veritable living library of knowledge, do intentions really make a difference?”
Absolutely.
If I went around with Peter Dinklage and said, “Meet one of the most talented actors of our generation who is also a midget”, that would be constructive. If I went around with Peter Dinklage shouting “Yo! Check out the midget!”, that would be awful. Same goes for anything- just look at Michelangelo’s David. The inention of the piece as a representation of Florence as a brave and mighty city is what makes the statue art instead of marble porn.
Like so…
With this in mind, doubt must be cast upon the rest of TLC’s programming- we’re forced to strongly consider that shows like Long Island Medium, Addicted, Strange Sex, and the like aren’t here for our edification, but for our entertainment. This is all just voyeurism- a chance to stare at people who are different than us. TLC doesn’t keep pumping out these shows about midgets and massive families because they think each show is unique, but because each show is the same. Because they don’t look at the individual qualities (or lack-thereof) of these people- they’re just reduce them to being nothing more than “abnormal”, which is why they feel they can keep making these series. It’s objectification, pure and simple.
III. Only Encouraging Them
In addition to their lack of diversity, and objectification of people who are (by our standards) “abnormal”, TLC is also responsible for for delightful little pile of festering garbage we all know as Toddlers & Tiaras.
Even if you thought my previous point was a little shaky, you really can’t argue with this. TLC openly advertises T&T as a show you’re meant to laugh at. The ridiculously dolled-up girls, the psychotic mothers, the manipulation, the abuse. It’s a show meant to make you feel better about yourself as a human being; that you’re not some morbidly-obese Midwesterner or spray-tanned monstrosity on your fifteenth cosmetic surgery desperately trying to live out your crushed dreams of glory by slathering your daughter with her weight in makeup. Now I’ve got a seriously dark sense of humor, but not even I think that’s funny.
“But Gordon! It’s not like TLC is promoting this idiocy- you say yourself that you’re meant to laugh at these people!”
Ah, but TLC is rewarding these people. Keep in mind that attention is what this is all about, and that the message here is “You don’t have to be talented or smart or funny to be on tv! If you’re a big enough *******, you can still get on!”. Torment your little girl, and you can still get on nationally-viewed television. If we’re going to make any progress towards getting rid of this child-abuse, we need to stop airing this- it’s just rewarding bad behavior and making us worse on the whole. What’s it say about TLC that they show mothers berating their five year-olds and expect us to be entertained?
No, I am not.
And again, with Toddlers & Tiaras as a major TLC show (along with their spin-off Here Comes Honey Boo Boo), this casts serious doubt on TLC’s intentions with their other shows. If you’re expected to find a collection of mentally disturbed women abusing toddlers funny, are you also really expected to be edified by watching The Little Couple or My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, or are these just “freaks” with their lives filmed for your voyeuristic pleasure.
So let’s review what we have here. A channel whose programming is centered almost exclusively on whites, with a majority of its programs centered on “abnormal” families and individuals, presented not for any educational or instructive value, but for your entertainment, demonstrating TLC’s complete and utter contempt for both the “stars” of its shows and for you as an audience. And the rotten, mildewed cherry on top of this bilge-pie is that the entirety of TLC’s programs are presented with this veneer of tolerance and understanding, so they can pass off their twisted side-show as somehow healthy and admirable. At least when the circuses advertised a chance to see the wolf-boy or bearded woman, they were up-front about it.
As with NBC, I have this to say to the folks over at TLC:
EVAN: This week on E> we take a break from scrutinizing film to look back about seven or so months to a different time of our lives: college. Now that we’ve both graduated we find ourselves in a different stage of life, and it begs the question of what those four years did for us, and whether or not that’s what we wanted or expected.
Culture War Reporters 