In March 2018, I wrote a column titled “Cancel Culture.” In it, I questioned the idea that turning a more informed eye on the literary offerings of our past was an effort to cancel those grants. I thought of that column recently when I remembered my admiration for a New York Times column written by the ardent segregationist, James J. Kilpatrick.
I’m not sure when I found Kilpatrick’s column, “The Writer’s Art,” but it was likely in the early 1980s, when I was an Indiana University student. I had quit a ten-year job and was looking for something more fulfilling. I dithered around in the “University” division — those students were mostly older, and not required to submit high school transcripts — until advised that I must, sometime, declare a major. Since my course load was bulked up with art and English classes, it was suggested that I major in English. I was already enamored of the art of writing and, reading what others had written was a delight for me. When I found Kilpatrick’s column, I did not vet the writer, but admired his understanding of the art. I later learned of Kilpatrick’s segregationist views when I read The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle and The Awakening of a Nation, the 2006 book by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff.
I attended a gathering recently and sat a table with some people I knew. A political discussion was entered into and one of the persons at the table said, “I liked George Wallace,” the former governor of Alabama who ran for president in 1964, 1968 and 1972. In June 1963, Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to deny the entry of African-American students, a symbolic gesture in support of segregation. In his gubernatorial inaugural speech in January 1963, Wallace was unambiguous about his support for segregation. My six-word rejoinder to the person who declared that he liked Wallace was a quote from the governor’s speech: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” And as I wrote this column, I thought that I might have had a conversation with that person, opening with, “What did you like about him?” It would have been conversational non-starter to have begun with, “He didn’t think that Black people were humans,” for the speaker was not Black, and might have felt challenged, rather than engaged.
Once, when I was standing on a public sidewalk taking pictures of what appeared to be a wounded bat, a policeman addressed me aggressively, demanding to know what I was doing. I ignored him, then finally said, “I’m taking pictures of a bat.” When I told a friend about the incident, she told me that she would have interacted with the policeman in a different way. I believe that this difference in point of view was a product of our contacts with the society that encapsulated us. (Looking for subtle subtext? The policeman was African-American, as am I; the friend is not.)
Kilpatrick wrote about the use of language. I never read his screeds on the separation of the races. I still admire the columns that I read long before I learned that his personal point of view was one of contempt for me, and those like me. None of his words about the art of writing are less worthy, even when considering his racist views.
From my point of view, admiration for what Kilpatrick delivered in his column about writing is not the same as erecting a statute to glorify his opposition to my acceptance into society. The two things are not the same.
cjon3acd@att.net