Wanda Brown

Editorial Issue #39

The Corona Apocalyptic

Dear Mr Slone, Please feel free to criticise Quillette and myself in any forum you see fit. However please refrain from submitting to us in the future. Regards,Claire Lehmann  [“Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange.”]”

—Claire Lehman, Ed-in-Chief, Quillette

Will the pandemic help destroy the little democracy we have left and increase the power of Big Government bureaucracy?  Gary Goude notes, “Well, for now the LA county sheriff and LA city sheriff,  on the mayor's orders, have closed gun shops in the county as ‘not essential’ and then the Gov ordered all background checks stopped, which means you are not able to purchase any firearm. I am no lawyer but I am certain this is a 2nd amendment unconstitutional violation. Hopefully it will be challenged in court.”

    Well, I was going to title this editorial, “The Business of Poetry & Writing,” but then came the apocalypse.  So, I changed it, though not much at all in the editorial.   Lehman’s comment (see above) is so amazing that I’ve quoted it a number of times in the past.  Perhaps it is a sign of the present apocalyptic times.  Such gems are rare.  The norm is deafening silence, a virtual echo of a quarantined literati. What is astonishing is that Lehman cannot even comprehend the gross intrinsic hypocrisy in her statement… in her very being.  And so had I committed an act of blasphemy?  Yes!  That’s what I’d done!  I’d criticized Quillette! 

    Sadly, the literary journals are never looking for rude-truth writers, apt to criticize the literary establishment that hands out the carrots—prizes, grants, invitations, awards, tenure, publications, etc. And yet the often self-aggrandizing statements of fluff exuded by poet and writer hacks of the establishment beggar to be criticized.  As an example, cite  Jamil Publishing:  

We know that poetry is greater than all its parts. We feel that it is truth from deep within and in its greatness, in its vastness, in its enormity we find that poetry is all encompassing and visionary—seeing deep into our history, the breadth of our present, and far into our future.  Creative writing is a tool that give voice to the voiceless.

     Moreover, the poetry journals openly profess their racist and sexist biases.  Again cite Jamil Publishing:  

We are looking for women and artists of color [i.e., white men need not apply!] who are actively working in the community.

      Few—very, very few—dare to call the editors out on their egregious racism and sexism.  NewPages.com has no problem with it at all!  BUT it does have a serious problem with a journal like The American Dissident, which will and does criticize the establishment, including NewPages.com itself, which of course refuses to list The American Dissident.  Well, I for one, as a poet and editor, call out the hypocrites, racists, and other poet fraudsters! My reward? Full ostracizing!  Oh, but of course!  And I’d have it no other way. 

Poets & Writers magazine hates criticism to the extent that criticism simply does not exist for the magazine, which incarnates the sad reality of the business of poetry. Its staff is composed of many well-paid haters of uncomfortable truths, including an Executive Director, Managing Director, Deputy Director—Development & Marketing, Development & Marketing Coordinator, Development & Marketing Assistant, Director of Finance & Accounting, Staff Accountant, Administrative Coordinator, Editor in Chief, Senior Editor, Managing Editor, Associate Editor, Assistant Editor, Senior Web Editor, Associate Web Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Advertising Manager, Advertising Assistant, Director of Readings & Workshops, Program Associate, Director of Information Technology & Web Development, as well as a bunch of Fellows, including a Raab Editorial Fellow.  Wow.

  Money determines the direction of poetry (e.g., towards pc-diversity and diversity/identity politics, while away from rude truth), just like everything else.  And evidently Poets & Writers magazine has tons of money, although not as much as Poetry magazine with its $200 million foundation.  Cultural councils like the NEA grant tax-payer money to magazines that do not question and challenge cultural councils. Hardcore critique of the business of poetry is essentially banned by the grant-according machine, including its proponents and cogs.  Try getting a critical essay on the business of poetry published in a poetry journal or even a cartoon like the first one in this issue.   Bonne chance! Coopted prize-winning/tenured poets hate criticism.  For them, it simply does not/cannot exist.  Eileen Myles’ response to it reflects the general decrepitude of establishment poets like her:  “go away troll.”  

Over the years I have contacted many editors, poets, journalists, writers, curators, artists, and, of course, academics—professors, deans, and college presidents.  For some reason, I am still sort of surprised how they categorically refuse to address the hypocrisy and inanity underscored.  I still don’t quite understand their absolute reluctance to publish criticism in their diverse newspapers, journals, and magazines.  Alas, it is definitely the sign of our pitiful totalitarian times.  

    BTW, rarely do I ever NOT depict real people nowadays in my cartoons and aquarelles.  There are so many nut-jobs out there to pick from.  No need to invent them! And by nut-job, I mean blatant hypocrites and liars, inanity spewers, spineless virtue-signalers, reason-devoid professor poets, and on and on. Anyhow, an American Library Association bookmark, kindly sent to me by Jennifer Fulco, inspired the issue’s front cover, which depicts three American Library Association leaders: American Libraries Magazine Editor/Publisher Sanhita Sinha Roy, ALA President Wanda Brown, and Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom Deborah Caldwell-Stone.  Librarians are like journalists and poets today: PC-infested, self-congratulating ad nauseam, and extremely averse to outside criticism. My concerns regarding the ALA are that it refused to address questions raised regarding its total apathy and inaction regarding my being permanently banned from Sturgis Library. Its Office for Intellectual Freedom is as hypocritical as it gets.  And its American Libraries Magazine refuses to publish any hardcore criticism, regarding libraries and librarians.   

The back cover of this issue presents a satire on the vapid official Academy of American Poets April 2020 National Poetry Month poster (see image below), created by contest winner Samantha Aikman. The anointing judges were “renowned” dyke cartoonist Alison Bechdel and former U.S. chicano Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera.  Identity politics rules!  The vapid, almost meaningless, words on the winning poster (not mine!) are those of U.S. Native-American Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo: “Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.”  Might Harjo be so implanted on Cloud 9 as to not realize that not  everything is growing, that somethings are in fact croaking?  No doubt.  And so, in the satirical version of that poster, the line was altered to better fit the reality of the business of poetry. Finally, despite my beggaring, I received no critical essays from contributors.  In any case, many thanks to those who have subscribed over the years and in doing so helped keep The AD afloat.  Many thanks especially to Dolores Granger for her generous contributions!  And many thanks to Russell Streur for his directing a contribution for nonprofits to The AD.

Don Share

..................................

Editorial - Issue #35

The Silence…

Of the Poets, Professors, and Free-Speech Advocates

 What you find is that there’s never just one cockroach in the kitchen.

—Warren Buffet

The SILENCE is deafening. The SILENCE is foretelling. The SILENCE is Orwellian. Poetry Foundation and its Poetry magazine are highlighted on this issue’s front cover.  Send a critique, as I’ve done, to its editor, Don Share… and SILENCE. Ask the Foundation, as I’ve done, why it refuses to list The American Dissident with the other poetry magazines listed… and SILENCE. The SILENCE is incarnate in “post-truth,” word of the year for Oxford Dictionary. Dolores Granger brought that to my attention, while a Wall Street Journal editorial had brought it to hers, noting the term indicates “a time in which truth becomes unimportant or irrelevant.” And that of course explains… the SILENCE.  Post-truthers hate truth.  Ideology hates truth. 

    Interesting things, perhaps even unimaginable ones, can occur when one openly criticizes the feeding apparatus of a post-truther and tests the waters of democracy. Imagine, for example, that Quillette, a conservative magazine, banned me from its “free-speech platform”! (See cartoon on page 5.) Perhaps it should be the poet’s prime job to speak the rude truth that will shake and break the fragile backbones and egos of editors, poets, professors, cultural-council apparatchiks, and journalists. If one pushes an ideology, which inevitably conflicts with truth, the best response to such truth is always… SILENCE.  

     Still it is perhaps surprising that so few intellectuals, even purported free-speech proponents, will respond to uncomfortable criticism.  National Coalition Against Censorship is a pitiful example, refusing to address criticism. Why?  Does its SILENCE indicate the criticism to be on target… or the critic to be a mere plebe and thus unworthy of response… or perhaps both? Recall the Charlie Hebdo massacre over three years ago.  Today, that liberal magazine is located in a secret “bunker.” One to two million dollars per year is spent on security, which the magazine, not the government, has to pay. Seven Hebdo journalists died, while others were wounded… by Muslim assassins. And what about the Pulse Nightclub massacre by a Muslim extremist in Florida and the Muslim would-be butchers at the Garland, TX Draw Muhammad contest? But for the ideologues at NCAC, Islam somehow is not a threat to free speech. One journalist, Fabrice Nicolino, wounded at the Hebdo massacre, recently said, “Chez moi, où je suis connu, des voisins d’extrême gauche ne veulent plus me dire bonjour, car ils ne sont surtout pas Charlie.” (Where I live, where I’m known, my extreme leftist neighbors will no longer say hello to me.)  Why not?  Well, because Hebdo criticized Muslims… just like it did everyone else.   

      Inside Higher Ed is yet another sad example (see last issue’s front cover). I’ve questioned its editors on a number of occasions. Their response? SILENCE! Poets & Writers magazine is equally pitiful. I dared criticize its front-page story, “Ten Poets Who Will Change the World.” Was it a farce? Well, if you know poets, you know damn well it wasn’t. So, I wrote an essay (see p27) and sketched cartoons for six of those world-changing bards and sent them to the editors, the 10 poets, and even some of the latter’s academic colleagues.  SILENCE!  

    Most recently, I wrote a counter-essay regarding a piece published by a Bridgewater State University professor in Bridgewater Review and sent it to the editors, the author, and even the student journalists of the university newspaper, The Comment. SILENCE! Then I drew a cartoon on some of the characters, including the university president and shot it out to the targets.  SILENCE! The literary letters section at the end of this issue includes other instances of SILENCE, as modus operandi of those who hate free debate…   

n another note, George Carlin once said, “Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in.” With that regard, poets, writers, editors and journalists, who quote someone who said SHIT-HOLE, should write SHIT-HOLE, not s-hole. The same goes for NIGGER and any of the other vocabulary on the forbidden list from BITCH to SPIC to CRACKER. And why isn’t NAZI on that list?  Isn’t it highly insulting to call any white person, who disagrees with PC-Antifa, a Nazi? Writing the n-word or b-word does not automatically give someone the moral high-ground. Instead, it gives a person the low-ground of a common self-censoring conformist. Saul Alinsky perhaps was on target: “He who controls the language controls the masses.” Do you want to be part of the masses or a staunch individual? Clearly, an army of Alinsky acolytes have been toiling away at controlling the language in the universities. When one writes s-hole or n-word, then clearly one is being controlled and needs to contemplate those who seek to control and pressure.  Faceless bureaucrats! Faceless academics! Faceless SJWs! Well, I for one will fight against control by them. And if that means they’ll call me a racist, islamophobe, homophobe, or sexist, so what!!! My ma taught me, sticks and stones…  What the hell are the mothers teaching their kids today?

Quillette Claire Lehmann

...............................................................................................

The Following essay was sent to Quillette.  Not only was it rejected, but I ended up permanently banned from participating in Quillette's "free thought" platforms.  Claire Lehman's words are quoted in the cartoon.  Her email (banning decree) is at the very end of this post.  Another essay was sent.  Then an essay on Lehman's grotesque hypocrisy was sent.  They also figure below and with other correspondence.  The platform's statement, as noted in the cartoon, is indeed quite odd:

"Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange."

.............................................

Black-Privilege Racists

Would it be possible to brainwash citizens into believing that no differences exist between females and males?  Probably.  Would it thus be possible to brainwash citizens into believing that black skin and white skin are the same color and that no differences exist between black-skinned and white-skinned people?  Probably.  Severe indoctrination can likely produce such miraculous transformations.  But just how deeply rooted might those transformations be?  Post-indoctrination former communist countries seem to reveal the transformations to be not permanent in many, if not most, people.  Evidently, the reason for such impermanence is quite simple:  indoctrination is not based on fact and truth.  

The nation’s colleges and universities are plagued with monkey-see, monkey-do copycat group behavior, a safe modus operandi.  Millions or maybe billions of dollars are being spent today on Diversity and Inclusion indoctrination programs, workshops, officers, and deans.  What do these programs really succeed in doing, if anything at all, if not furthering the great racist divide and promoting blacks, while demeaning whites?  

The nation’s colleges and universities are flooded today, especially in the humanities, with indoctrinated professors serving to indoctrinate students.  They push ideology and group adherence to it, while simultaneously scorning individualism and rigorous questioning and challenging of their ideology.  That has been the communist-socialist modus operandi for over a century.

Florida Gulf Coast University is not at all special in this respect, but rather just another monkey-see, monkey-do institution of purported higher education offering not a Democracy and First Amendment Certificate Program, but rather a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate Program for Students and Employees.  To get the piece of paper, one must attend six designated presentations, trainings, or events, according to a Washington Times report.  However, all such designations are really nothing but “trainings,” an interesting term in itself that ought to evoke dogs or soldiers, as opposed to students and professors.  The Times’ Richard Raps cites three examples:  “Race and Racism in the Trump Era,” “Combating Islamophobia at FGCU,” and “Race, Immigration, and White Supremacy in the Post-Obama Era.”  Now, what about “Increasing the Racial Divide in the Obama Era” or “Combating Islamic Supremacy Doctrine at FGCU”?  Nope!  Insufficiently PC (i.e., incorrect ideology)!  And that is the problem.  Any “acceptable” training speech could easily be inverted and reflect uncomfortable truths.   In fact, any racism statement could likely also be easily inverted.  

One of FGCU’s well-indoctrinated sociology professors, Ted Thornhill, author of the first example presented by Raps, is scheduled to teach his “White Racism” course, which provoked a controversy at FGCU.  But controversy is a good thing in academe because controversy normally provokes vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy.   Now, how about a course titled “Black Racism”?  Again, inversion is ineluctably easy because uncomfortable truths usually support it.  And indeed some blacks, perhaps many blacks, do not like whites and tend to racially stereotype them.  Sadly, the monkey-see, monkey-do climate in academe has reached the point of obligation to the extent that “Black Racism,” as a course, is simply unthinkable for the simple reason that a professor apt to create and teach such a course would risk his or her career by doing so.  And sadly, professors are not known for individual courage and not at all apt to risk career for the sake of truth.  And that in itself explains the monkey-see, monkey-do sad state of today’s academe.  

In any case, the “White Racism” course is likely not very original at all in academe.  And Thornhill is first to admit that:  “Courses such as mine have been taught throughout the country and across disciplines for decades. A course with this very title has been regularly taught at the University of Connecticut for the past 22 years.  These courses provide students with an opportunity to gain a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of race, white racism, racial inequality, and white supremacy.”  

Why the absence of black racism and mention of Affirmative Action?  Uncomfortable facts!  

What provoked the controversy, according to Raps, were the flyers pushing the course with “WHITE RACISM” in bold print.  Thornhill either felt obligated to address the controversy or saw the opportunity to further push the course in a letter to the student newspaper, Eagle News.  

Fact, accuracy, and logic are never the forte of ideologues like Thornhill, who notes in his letter that “Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many individuals in the U.S., particularly whites, believe the U.S. is now a post-racial society, one where color-blindness is the order of the day.”

Where are the statistics to back such a declaration?  Certainly after the event of Obama, Ferguson, etc. most people probably believe the contrary.  Oddly, Thornhill evokes twice-elected Obama as proof of his assertion.  And yet logic would push one to cite the election of a black person as proof that whites are less racist than academics like Thornhill wish to believe.  After all, without white support, Obama never would have been elected.  

Most if not all of Thornhill’s statements are simply flawed, which is why the letter must be critically analyzed.  Oddly, Thornhill argues regarding the twice-elected black person as indicative of whites being far less racist than perhaps in the past:  “However, not only are such claims factually inaccurate, they are also dangerous.”  He does not at all state why this is “factually inaccurate” or “dangerous.”  After all, ideologues often do not have to back their assertions.  Instead, Thornhill diverts the issue from whites being far more accepting of blacks to “Much evidence, both historical and sociological, shows the U.S. has been and remains a white supremacist society. That is, a racially stratified society where whiteness is more highly valued and therefore associated with greater life chances.”

Of course, one can easily invert his statement to reflect the reality of nations like South Africa.  In essence, whites are in the majority in America and founded America.  Those are facts.  However, law has eliminated any legal basis today for the “white supremacist society” argument.  In fact, the Affirmative Action law and Diversity and Inclusion Programs in both academe and business assure, contrary to Thornhill’s argument, that “blackness is more highly valued.”  That reality clearly challenges the “white supremacist society” narrative, favored by ideologues.  Will Thornhill’s course be devoid of such clear challenges to his ideology?  Probably.  

“Research shows the persistence, durability, and mutability of white racism and the injurious effects it continues to have on those racialized as non-white,” notes Thornhill.  And yet reality shows the opposite.  And why not replace white racism with black racism and mention black on white crime and how about Asian Americans?  Uncomfortable facts always perturb ideologues in the business of pushing stereotypes and double standards!  

Thornhill concludes:  “At its core, my course is about the search for truth. Too many Americans, especially whites, are cocooned in a ‘bubble of unreality’ as it concerns racial matters.”  Yet obviously a real search for truth would include black racism, black racist supremacy organizations, black crime, low black education standards, black family disunity, etc.  But, evidently, the professor lives in his own academic “bubble of unreality,” so clearly does not possess the capacity to evoke those issues… 

...................................................................

The following is the correspondence that took place after the essay was received.  Also, a second essay was sent.

From: Pitch Quillette

Sent: Sunday, January 7, 2018 12:57 PM

To: George Slone

Subject: Re: The Civility Problem...

Hi George,

Thanks for this submission, but this isn't for us. Best of luck placing it elsewhere.

Jamie Palmer

assistant editor

From: George Slone

Sent: Sunday, January 7, 2018 3:03 PM

To: Pitch Quillette

Cc: claire@quillette.com

Subject: Re: The Civility Problem...

Hi Jamie,

No curiosity at all regarding The American Dissident.  Hmm.  Well, thanks for the quick response, though I am left bewildered as to why the essay I sent wasn't at all for Quillette, which purports to exist for the sake of vigorous debate and freedom of expression.  Hmm.  Well, here's one that might touch a nerve, that is, if I'm sensing things correctly regarding Quillette and vigorous debate and freedom of expression...  

G. Tod

.................................................................

The Civility Problem

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

As a writer I have had my comments censored and banned in the name of civility, though the term wasn’t usually mentioned.  Often nothing was mentioned.  The Academy of American Poets, for example, permanently banned me from commenting on its online forums, although I hadn’t used prohibited vocabulary or made threats of violence.  But I had criticized via “rude truth” one of its cherished poet icons.  I’ve also been permanently banned from my neighborhood library, Sturgis Library, without warning or due process.  InsideHigherEd.com removed (i.e., censored) a number of my comments and reflects the fact that higher education, above all else, is a business, replete with lack of transparency, lack of freedom of speech, lack of accountability, and ideologically-driven.  One of my censored comments was highly critical of an op-ed posted by the president of Trinity Washington University.  When I’d sent the censored comments to the latter, she agreed that the comments should have indeed been removed because they were “not publishable,” “incoherent,” and “vituperation.” 

One of my poetry chapbooks, Oil of Vitriol, lists on the back cover negative blurbs with my regard—perhaps indeed a good idea to counter the rampant back-slapping and self-congratulating über-civility that characterizes the academic/literary establishment today (and probably yesterday too).  One of the blurbs chosen was written by Professor Jay Rubin (College of Alameda), publisher of Alehouse Press (examine our correspondence):

While you are certainly rude in your discussions—i.e., socially incorrect in behavior, lacking civility or good manners, characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness, and lacking in refinement or grace—and proudly so, it’s no wonder you’ve never made tenure.  

Could it get any better than that?  If I were looking at book-back blurbs, I’d certainly be tempted to buy that book.  Chief Justice William O. Douglas argued that “Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.”  And how does the civility censor define such highly subjective terms like “socially incorrect,” “civility,” “good manners,” “crudeness,” and “refinement or grace”?  Add to that list, the Washington Examiner’s call for “intellectual civility.”  What other kinds of civility might there be?  For the censors, subjective good taste (i.e., civility) is somehow an objective quality.  Such terms obviously serve as convenient impervious walls of protection, usually of the ideological variety.  

Clearly, “civility” does not jive with “rude truth,” and vice versa.  That is the very crux of the “civility” problem.  What is “intellectual civility”?  Well, I can tell you what it ain’t:  this very essay.

Civility favors thin skin; rude truth favors backbone.  Today, society encourages citizens to be thin skinned, and not to have back bone.  It encourages people to say, right and left, “I am offended.”  Well, I say, so what!  Civility favors society and its faceless apparatchik controllers, while rude truth does not.  And so now we have Civil (getcivil.com), hired by the Washington Examiner in an effort to control and otherwise limit comments and opinions.  It’s a cheaper way—and I hate to advertise for it here—than hiring a full-time moderator (i.e., euphemism for censor).  “Civil is the best software platform for managing community behavior,” boasts Civil.  Is there other such software out there?  Well, we do know that software geeks at YouTube, Google, and Twitter have been working on algorithms in an attempt to diminish or eliminate (i.e., censor) comments, web sites, videos, etc. that might be deemed insufficiently PC (i.e. civil).  And hasn’t Washington Examiner been critical about that?

Social engineering and the Brave New World dystopia certainly come to mind.  As an active dissident (staunch individual, as opposed to staunch commune’ity member), I know what “community behavior” in my particular community is expected to be—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  Counter that unwritten community dictum and you no longer exist for the community, even if you live in the community.  The local newspapers won’t publish an account of your banning, the local reps won’t help you rectify the injustice, neighbors will ignore it, and even the local human rights commission will manifest pathetic apathy and snub its nose at you.  Yes, the wonders of civility!  

Civility (i.e., getcivil.com) proposes that those who leave comments be the civility judges (i.e., the civility censors) and offers polite, civil guidelines for how to censor, as in “Think about what would be considered ‘rude’ in real life; it’s a good guideline for what we mean by ‘uncivil.’” Can it get any more clear than that?  Civility unsurprisingly states, “We’re strong believers in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but…”  Recall what Salman Rushdie, post-Charlie Hebdo massacre, had said:  “I got so sick of the goddamn but brigade.  And now the moment somebody says, ‘Yes I believe in free speech, but,’ I stop listening.” 

“With Civil Comments, each comment is judged by several people,” notes Civility. “Our patent-pending Behavior Engine then analyzes those judgments and attempts to account and correct for bias and people trying to cheat the system.”  Yes, a Behavior Engine!  The concept civility, above all else, serves to control and push conformity (i.e., groupthink) and otherwise tame dissident individuals in society.  Its intrinsically-subjective nature aids and abets in that endeavor.   In our dystopian society, on college campuses, for example, civility can mean the violent shutting down of unwanted opinions even when the latter are expressed civilly…

.................................................................................................

Then the great silence.  So, I wrote an essay on the experience with Quillette and sent it to its editor, Claire Lehmann.  Then finally a response from the high and mighty.

........................................................................

Testing the Waters of Democracy:

Hypocrites at the Helm... of Quillette

The great Achilles heel of all our so-called community pillars from librarians to journalists, politicians, professors, publishers, etc. is the fervent rejection of criticism with their particular regard.  Try finding a journalist who would actually permit a satirical cartoon or critical essay vis-a-vis the journalist in the pages of his or her newspaper!   Good luck, eh?  Every editor/publisher should not only be able to brook criticism, but encourage it with his or her regard.  Yet I cannot think of one literary journal, besides the one I publish, that will do that.  And that is the crux of the problem.  

Quillette, an Australian online journal edited by Claire Lehmann, publishes some interesting essays and, according to it, “is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange.”  

Sounds nice, right?  But how many times have I read statements of openness like that—clear reflections of academe’s inclusivity aberrancy, as in whites need not apply—only to find the doors closed!  And indeed such statements need to be questioned and challenged vigorously.  So I sent an essay, “The Civility Problem,” highly critical of those who ban and censor ideas in the name of civility.  In it, I transgressed the usual taboo of naming names, as examples, including Inside Higher Ed and the Poetry Foundation.  Of course, evoking civility, good taste, and wrong tone to dismiss facts, reason, and ideas has become a rather common ploy.  And of course the problem becomes one in which some ideas and criticism can simply never be put forth in good-taste civility.  That’s the crux.  So, how to criticize Quillette in good-taste civility, for example?  

Thanks for this submission, but this isn't for us. Best of luck placing it elsewhere.

Jamie Palmer

Assistant Editor, Quillette

Well, Palmer didn’t capitalize assistant editor.  I did that.  Okay.  But I was curious as to why the ideas presented in the essay were not right for Quillette, which respected “ideas, even dangerous ones.” Were they too dangerous or insufficiently dangerous?  Were they apt not to help “human societies flourish and progress”?  Maybe that was it.  In fact, that sort of echoed the absurd Poets & Writers “change-the-world” poets inanity.  Indeed, one must wonder if Quillette ever published just one essay apt to help “human societies flourish and progress” even just a tiny bit.  For some reason (wrong tone? lack of civility?), Palmer clearly did not appear at all interested in ever hearing from me again.  Go elsewhere was the message implied in his brief email… and not just for that one essay.  So, disobediently, I responded with a cc to editor Claire Lehmann and sent a second essay, “Black-Privileged Racists,” focusing on Ted Thornhill’s “White Racism” Florida Gulf Coast University course.

Hi Jamie,

No curiosity at all regarding The American Dissident.  Hmm.  Well, thanks for the quick response, though I am left bewildered as to why the essay I sent wasn't at all for Quillette, which purports to exist for the sake of vigorous debate and freedom of expression.  Hmm.  Well, here's one that might touch a nerve, that is, if I'm sensing things correctly regarding Quillette and vigorous debate and freedom of expression...  

G. Tod

The articles in Quillette seem to lean right-wing.  As of late, the left certainly does seem to be more anti-free speech than the right.  But, once again, touch a nerve on the right and the same knee-jerk censorship reaction will likely result as it will on the left.  As an example, David Horowitz’ right-wing Frontpage magazine is always publishing book reviews written by friends of the authors to the extent that the reviews are really nothing more than lengthy book blurbs.  So, I posted two critical comments, including “Let No Act of Censorship Go Uncriticized,” with that regard.  Both were immediately censored, uh, moderated into oblivion.  And so I sent an email.

To Mark Tapson, Michael Finch, Daniel Greenfield, and David Horowitz, Frontpage Mag: 

How can Frontpage possibly justify its censorship (i.e., moderation into oblivion) of the comments I posted regarding Tapson’s hagiographical review of Finch’s book of poetry, especially considering the plethora of recent Frontpage articles condemning the increasing incidents of left-wing assaults on freedom of speech, especially with regards the shutting down of debate on college campuses across the country from Yale to Missou to Smith to Vasser?  

After all, by rejecting my comments are you not shutting down debate?  The hypocrisy is truly mind-boggling… considering the very name of your organization:  FREEDOM CENTER!  Tapson notes that “reclaiming America means reclaiming the culture, and that means engaging in the arts.”  BUT does “reclaiming the culture” simply mean replacing left-wing censorship of the culture with right-wing censorship of the culture? Likely so!  

Finally, please re-consider your act of censorship.  What are you so afraid of?  Why do so many poets have such thin skin, Mr. Finch?  As editor of The American Dissident, I always encourage and always publish the harshest criticism lodged against me and/or the journal.  Period.  Can I really be that unique in the world of publishing?  Ideological apparatchiks never admit wrong.  Only staunch individuals do that. 

No response was ever received.  Now, will Quillette follow in those dubious footprints?  Well, it has yet to respond to my second essay.  Will they even read this essay and be at all capable of focusing on its criticism?  Or will they more likely just whip through it in lightning speed, then chuck it into the garbage bucket of the oubliettes and self-congratulate and backslap business-as-usual?  Finally, it would be in the interest of truth if both Lehmann and Palmer listed the free expression and debate that is not right for their Quillette.  Anyhow, time for lone literary sniper P. Maudit to get sketching…

...............................................

From: Claire Lehmann

Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 9:07 PM

To: George Slone

Cc: pitch@quillette.com

Subject: Re: An essay for Claire Lehmann and Jamie Palmer...

Dear Mr Slone,

Please feel free to criticise Quillette and myself in any forum you see fit. 

However please refrain from submitting to us in the future.

Regards,

Claire Lehmann