Facebook Sedition 2: I Gotta D'Agata

Yesterday I responded on Facebook to a blog posting about John D’Agata, author of About a Mountain. The posting was very astute – it was, after all, written by one of the preeminent teachers and writers of creative nonfiction essay. I, however, stated my ambivalence and said I understood D’Agata’s point that facts in creative non-fiction don’t always have to be absolutely accurate. It’s not journalism and it’s not biography. And in terms of writing a disclaimer of such in the form of a preface in order to alert the reader, well, I thought that was akin to a TV program alert that states, “Don’t do this at home,” as if the audience is too dumb to figure that out.  If you are reading memoir, then you might suppose that some things are not 100% accurate, or as my mother-in-law says, “Why you gotta tell every little fart (pronounced “faht”)?”

With D’Agata’s book, I remember feeling like I was in on the secret as I read it – his writing sounded reportorial yet I sensed his play and exaggeration of certain things as the book went on. Besides, as I flippantly pointed out, his omission of the preface allowed him to publish two books rather than just one.

My post was removed minutes later. It’s removal put me in a stew.

One of the other posters asked me (after my post was removed) if I wouldn’t be upset if the date of a loved one’s passing was changed to make the story better. I said no, but, maybe upon thinking about it, I would be upset if the date was wrong in the loved one’s obituary, which, by the way, would be written at the time of the passing and not as a memory.

Thinking about it more, I realize that I always remember the date of Ronald’s and my first meeting as January 20, 1976. Thirty-two years later (I had that as thirty years originally, but I didn’t want you to think I was lying – it was December 2007) as we were packing to move south, I pulled out all my old journals (and shredded them! My God, I was histrionic!), and happened to come across the date that we actually met. To tell you the truth, I still don’t remember it, and for always in my mind, it will be January 20, 1976. Am I lying? And does it matter what the exact date was? I don’t actually say the date in my memoir, and many other dates are just referred to as spring of 1978 or winter of whatever. I’m terrible at dates. Ask any of my friends and they will tell you I’ve called them and said, “I know you have a birthday sometime around now. Did I miss it?” I changed majors in undergraduate school from journalism to drama (and then finally to English education) just because the facts didn’t particularly interest me. I was more into the human aspect of the story, and I still am.

When the human aspect is considered, facts get blurry. Just sit at the table of any family reunion and listen to variations of the same family story. “No, it wasn’t Uncle Tony, it was Uncle Joe,” or “No, they didn’t go fishing, they went hunting.” Or what about the stories that never really happened, but they’ve been told so many times they have become family lore? Are they lying? No, because memories become truth and our memories are faulty and changeable.  They are dependent on so many things, as elucidated in my last post, and I didn’t even list all the variables that impact how an event is remembered.

Isn’t that what readers are seeking when they read memoir? Don’t they want to learn of that particular author’s perspective on events in his/her life? And do the particularities – the truths or facts – really matter, if the story is placed in context and in time and the author elicits feeling? Did you really believe everything you read in Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club? Didn’t the title hint at least a little that she was a member of the club she wrote about? It didn’t make me like the book less.

Facts will always matter to some people, of course, but not to all. I’ve learned I can’t please everyone, but I can work at pleasing myself through my most honest and heartfelt literary representation of my story.

Maybe all that thinking isn’t what got my post deleted. Perhaps it was my audacity at posting my blog’s URL. I didn’t realize that it would post a giant photo of me and look like an ad. I’m not technically proficient in social media, and I swear I’ve posted the URL before and it was just an address. I posted it because I had touched on D’Agata in my own post that week. It was relevant to the discussion, even if not as astute as the preeminent writer/teacher’s post.

An agent, the one I stopped contact with because she wanted me to rewrite my memoir as some sort of exposé, told me that I had to build a social media presence. Was I wrong to post my URL? Did I overstep some invisible barrier? Did it have to do with the social media hierarchy of who’s who? Classism? Elitism? Yes, the preeminent writer/teacher has credentials, many credentials. He is well respected and sought after. Do I not know my place?

I have a few credentials, too, but I don’t refer to them much because why do they really matter? They were degrees and milestones I wanted to accomplish. Do they make me smarter? Am I a better person for having completed them? Two of the smartest people I ever knew were my parents, and neither one graduated high school.

My first and greatest credential is that I am a fellow human being. One thing I learned over the years is that I don’t assume anything about anyone, which is why I’m trying really hard not to assume I know why preeminent writer/teacher deleted my post.

When I sold jewelry on commission in retail, I was one of the few associates who did not size up potential customers. I treated people with exactly the same attention whether they planned to spend $1.99 or $1,999.00.  Oftentimes the very people that other associates snubbed ended up spending the most money. It was the human interaction and the chance to be of service to another that motivated and excited me. It didn’t make me the best sales associate by a long shot, if commissions were the only measure, but it made my customers feel valued and me feel good. All humans deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, even when they sometimes make it difficult to do so. Social media was supposed to be the great equalizer, but it is not.

There’s the rub. When we talk about truth and facts in the social media world, how many people present their lives truthfully? They are already editing and altering their life stories by what they post and what they don’t. Some create whole personas and life stories, often for bad intent. We live in an untruthful world because we are human and flawed. We can’t help ourselves. We can’t help that we view the world through a particular lens or that our memories are fluid or that we are inherently selfish and egocentric. Every major historical event comes down to someone’s ego being offended, and don’t even start me on how biased history is. Or how blatantly politicians lie to gain supporters. Talk about untruths!

How I feel about people is my greatest ambivalence. I have a strong motivation to serve. Yet people disappoint, and I know I disappoint them. All we can do is listen to another’s stories with respect, an open heart, and an open mind, just as they are told to us, whether orally, written, or through action, art, music and dance.  The way they are told and what is told are as important as the stories themselves, lies and omissions not excepted.  They define who we are and give us common ground. They are the great equalizer.

Facebook Sedition

I have mixed feelings about social media like Facebook. I’ve used it to get back in touch with some high school friends, to stay in touch with distant family and friends, and to keep up with the accomplishments of other writers that I know. But there are definite negatives. People think communicating in short sentences and clicking a “like” button is enough to stay in touch with people. Face-to-face contact and phone calls are starting to feel like rare occurrences and I often end up feeling isolated after a foray out on my news feed. All that writing hasn’t improved upon posters’ grammar and spelling skills and, probably, they’ve degraded even more by the use of symbols, abbreviations, and gibberish. Worse than all of the above is that social media seems to promote and give people permission to behave badly and to type things they would not say in person.

The following comments showed up in my Facebook news feed this week. They aren’t from people I know. Maybe they are friends of someone I’m friends with. But this I know: the comments made me sad. They astounded and disappointed. They are filled with lies, hatred and racism.

I commented as follows after I read them and readily admit that I stayed away from direct accusations:

It's amazing how racist we still are as a country. It stymies me.

I’m reprinting the comments below since they were already made public on Facebook, and, obviously, these Facebook members have no qualms about launching into an anonymous tirade. Here they are (both in response to and prior to my comment) with no editing:

Dianne, what do you define as racist in this thread? I dont see any. Also know that My congressman is Allen West and I am very pleased w his performance so far in congress. I am very displeased w my presidents attitude, performance, actions, etc.... and it has nothing to do w race. I do feel the folks pulling the race card/issue are desperate to make it an issue and further devide us the American people.

I do not begrudge BO a vacation, in fact I wish him a permanent one in Kenya. Hawaii, Illinois, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan and other places are also "Home States" of Obama. You are right on the wealth of the Bush's and the Clinton's, however, they were spending their money or using their own property bought with their own money, that they earned elsewhere and not simply by siphoning off the American Taxpayer. The Obamas's are living large...their best ever....and at excess...all off the sweat of Taxpayers. This is not spreading crazy stuff, its the truth,....the reality of it! Taking back the Whitehouse is the first order of business. Actually it was the flowers in the $4 m lei that caught my eye.

OK, $15,000,000,000,000 !!!! get it ! OB is destroying the US.. period!!! he is a communist, socialist, Muslim. He is destroying America financially and militarily weakening us. I consider him no less than a traitor and should be tried and executed for treason !!!

Jeff not to mention the war,he has thrown trillions into it. Gave the go ahead to attack Osama Bin Laden who was allegedly killed but his body was buried at sea rather than capturing him alive and tried as a war criminal and a criminal against humanity,nobody but special ops and the authorised people on the ship saw his body,a little too suspicious for me. I personally would have preferred that. Another thing is because he threw away so much money on other things and is bleeding Social Security dry the new retirement age for my generation is 67 and early retirement is 65 rather than my parents generation could retire at 65 or retire early at 62. And by the way his birth certificate is still in question,because a) there is no official seal and b) the name of the hospital he allegedly was born in had a different name when he was born then it is named now but they used the current name on his birth certificate.

Where do I begin in battling the lies and vitriol spewed in these messages? How did I know years ago that my full Social Security benefits would begin at age 66.5? How can anyone blame the cost of the wars on President Obama, turn the story of bin Laden’s assassination into a negative (after we pursued him for so many years at the cost of trillions!), claim the President is spending our tax payers’ money on leis and vacations and living large, and question his birthright as an American? How can one deny being racist by claiming to support the first black representative from Florida since the end of Reconstruction – a tea partier? How many times have I heard over the years, “I’m not racist, I had a black friend once” or “I’m not racist, but they don’t want to associate with us” or other variations on the same theme. How many times have I heard whites blame blacks for racism, not realizing that the meaning of racism is not just prejudice but is based on oppression that prohibits economic and social equality? It still exists, and blaming the victim is one way to perpetuate it.

I remember a white woman I worked with in the late 1980s. She had been in a terrible car accident, suffered severe injuries, and was hospitalized for some time afterwards. The man that hit her was a black man, and in an unimaginable circumstance, he had hit her when he lost control of the car as his passenger stabbed him to death. It happened just blocks from where Ronald and I lived, and the man who was driving and was murdered had gone to high school with Ronald. I felt great sympathy for what the woman experienced by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and unwillingly dragged into a horribly wrong murder/car accident.

But what she said next confounded me. She said she knew I would understand what she was about to say since I was married to a black man. Then she explained that she was terrified of blacks, terrified of working and living in the city, and her new husband had promised to move her out to Skaneateles where there were very few blacks and she could live without fear. “He hit me,” she said of the murdered man. “You’ve got to understand why I feel the way I do.”

But I didn’t. I wondered and asked her if she would be afraid of white people if a white man had hit her.

“Of course not,” she said, perhaps thinking I was the crazy one.

I know now she suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but her fear of black men had already been planted in her mind long before the car accident that validated her fear.

Having a black man serve as president validates many white peoples’ fear of black people, particularly black men. They’ve shown how they feel through their words and actions. They want to take back America because they feel it was taken away with desegregation and Civil Rights law.

The comment that offended me most was the charge that President Obama has other “homes” like Kenya that he should go to. President Obama is an American. He was born here. He had a black father who was from Kenya and a white mother who was American. He happens to be Christian, but even if he weren’t, that would not preclude him from serving in the highest office in a land that is based on religious freedom.

It is racist to assume that if you are not white, you do not belong in this country. Nor should you share in its rich resources, make a successful life for you and your family, or lead the country from the highest elected post.

So if one of your parents was not American, you should return to the country of your ancestry. I should return to Australia since my mother was a war bride from World War II. Or maybe, even though my father was born here, perhaps it doesn’t count because his parents were born in Italy, so I should go back to Italy. But how can I go back to a country that I wasn’t from in the first place? Why would anyone make the charge that having a foreign born parent negates your American status? Have they read and understood the Constitution? Do they understand our history and how Euro-ethnic people came to power in America in the first place?

Having ancestors who were brought here against their will and enslaved negates your status as an American, too, apparently. In our history there was a Back-to-Africa movement that began well before the Civil War and gained popularity well into the 20^th century. Some blacks thought they wanted to go back to Africa after they were freed because it was their ancestral land. Many slave owners feared having free blacks roaming the country, so they supported it, too. White northerners supported the movement during the great black migration north. They feared blacks would take their factory jobs from them. As lynching became more pervasive, the movement became popular with blacks again as they realized that freedom from slavery was not total freedom or equality. Then blacks became disillusioned with the movement because there were scams and they also realized Africa was a continent as foreign to them as it was to white Americans.

What do people mean when they say “take back the White House” or “take back America” if not that they mean to take it away from those they consider undeserving? It means that lots of Americans believe usurpers have taken away a life in which they felt comfortable, safe, and shielded, a life in which homogeneity was the norm and people of color were inferior and held subservient positions. It’s what my colleague believed she would get back when she moved to Skaneateles, away from the black people she feared. What else could it mean?

I didn’t respond to the question from the Facebook poster who asked me what I defined as racist in the thread. I wanted to at first. I could feel my fingers itching on the keyboard, and my anger bubbling under my skin. I wanted to type, “Your ignorance is only surpassed by your arrogance.” But what would that have changed? It would only validate what they already believe: that I just pulled the race card because I am desperate and want to further divide people. Besides, why use Facebook to type things I wouldn’t say otherwise?

People are so disappointing sometimes.