Which posts would you save?
Things are quiet on the site right now. The most notable thing here lately was jpHart’s unbelievable Haiku comment on RobertBJames’ blog. It’s recent in the comment stream.
So I’m looking at my old posts wondering which ones I’d save. Most I wouldn’t. It was my kid’s yorzeit? I didn’t say anything worth saving this time. Jan. 6 was a big deal? Yeah, we know that, and I wrote it so soon afterward that the event’s real importance wasn’t obvious yet – that an awfully significant portion of the electorate is OK with it and that Republican legislators generally aren’t horrified nearly enough by it. I probably wouldn’t save a bunch of current political posts. A post about my reaction on driving past the Capitol? I’d probably save that, because it’s a marker of a big change and a good indicator of what it’s like to be alive in America right now. Either God willing it will be “that’s how bad it got” or, far worse, it will indicate the wrong kind of lasting change.
One sentence posts? I save almost all of those. They’re easy to save and kind of fun to collect.
The Tooth Fairy post? I’m of two minds. It’s fluff but it makes a legitimate point about how ridiculous QAnon is.
A post comparing Anne Frank to George Floyd? Yeah, I’d keep that. It would have been cool to publish that one somewhere really visible. Though the comparison is time limited, the point made isn’t and it will come up again. To save you the trouble of reviewing it, the big point is that discrediting the victim of a crime doesn’t legitimize the crime. In fact, that would make a decent one-sentence post. Maybe at some point I’ll publish that.
A cool photo? Probably not, I’ll still have the photo.
The Affirmative Action hire fallacy? Sure, that one will stay relevant. Same with A Quintessentially American Photograph. I might keep the ancestry post where I”m introduced to photos of my great grandfather as a young man but then again I’ll still have the photos either way. Maybe Perspective about Jupiter and Saturn getting closer in the sky (with photo). The If you have a hidden belief in Black inferiority post is probably the post I’m most inclined to save because I don’t know of anyone else saying this. There’s a post called A scenario and a question about it that concerns racism and police enforcement that I think I’d keep because why not.
There’s also a post called The day White people are no longer the majority in America. I’m thinking that one will become more relevant rather than less. In fact, due to a recent conversation with Bitey on another thread I might go and leave a comment there.
That’s it for me. If I had to limit it to a few, it would be:
The day White people are no longer the majority in America
The Affirmative Action hire fallacy
the Anne Frank post
If you have a hidden belief in Black inferiority
Oddly, they’re all posts about racism. And the reason I’d want to save them is not that they’re about racism, it’s that I’m saying things that I don’t see said better elsewhere.
I’ve considered the posts saying that if Biden’s policies continue the US will have an unexpectedly major resurgence but things are so politically iffy for the next few years that I’m afraid I’ll look like an idiot instead of a genius. I didn’t count on how many Americans support the stolen election myth. At this point I’m not sure I have faith that we’ll get there.
When you look at your posts, which ones would you want to save and why? I guess this is sort of an open call.
03/11/2021 @ 12:08 pm
Some of our best writing is in the commencement streams of posts that may not rise to the level of archival preservation….
Your idea is an excellent exercise in self editing possibly for the explanations of why a post should or would be kept for posterity…
There’s a book in there somewhere….
We proved that with “Talking to the Wall”.
03/11/2021 @ 3:51 pm
Yeah, we did. There are a few things I’ve written since that I would add if we were doing that now. Most of the stuff in “If you have a hidden belief in Black inferiority” is in Talking to the Wall. The Affirmative Action hire thing isn’t, and that point was as true then. At that point we weren’t hearing as much talk about what would happen when Whites are no longer the absolute majority in America so there was no real reason to address that, but I would now. The string of very public police killings of unarmed Black males has brought the demonizing of victims into focus when all of that is actually irrelevant, so I’d address that now, among other things because it’s such a symptom of racism. “Trayvon (or fill in other name here) was no saint.” And that means it was OK to kill him? It’s an attempted distraction.
I hope you list yours on your blog.
03/12/2021 @ 4:00 pm
You remind me how poor my memory has become. I’m going to find and read all of them.
Generally I compose elsewhere and paste here which I think makes the point moot. Everything backs up.
I agree with Ron’s comment on comments. Or commencements. Whatever.
03/12/2021 @ 5:22 pm
Jonna,
I assure you I don’t remember most of my posts. I went back and glanced at some and read others.
I know sometimes comments are better than posts. Back in the late days of Open Salon a couple of us – this will sound really strange if you don’t know about it, but SBA and I – got sick enough of the Editors’ Picks (arbitrary and seldom at that point) that we started a peer-reviewed version called Readers Picks. One thing we noticed was that there were things that never got recognized that we wanted to recognize, like art posts and especially like comments, so comments could be nominated and win. It was a good idea though it was a pain to administer at times. Lezlie ended up doing most of it.
03/12/2021 @ 7:08 pm
koshersalaami
‘…thing here lately was jpHart’s unbelievable Haiku comment on RobertBJames’ blog. It’s recent in the comment stream.’
500 thank y O u S! You guys are music to the word! Like one, two, seekers of the third! guess who
…::sighs::…