A few words on my history with Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegone and A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION which may surprise you...
I grew up LOVING A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION.
I grew up LOVING A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION.
I grew up listening to it bc my parents were from the Midwest, it spoke to our protestant background (especially on the white side of my family), and I LOVED radio.
And for years, my favorite way to spend Saturday nights was cooking dinner to A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION.
But...
And for years, my favorite way to spend Saturday nights was cooking dinner to A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION.
But...
There were things about the show which were mildly racist & mildly homophobic. I let them pass because, well, I was young & the show comforted me in other ways.
This is one of the dangerous (& internalizing) ways the ideology of white supremacy works: it hides itself within you.
This is one of the dangerous (& internalizing) ways the ideology of white supremacy works: it hides itself within you.
Then one day, Keillor sang a deeply offensive song called "Tom and Sally," an outright LOVED BALLAD between Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved child he raped, Sally Hemings.
prairiehome.org/story/2011/04/…
prairiehome.org/story/2011/04/…
In this song, Sally Hemings sang to Jefferson:
"I begged him to teach me to read and to write
But we only met in the dead of the night
I left his bed when the sky turned blue
What happened between us only we knew."
IT WAS TRASH
"I begged him to teach me to read and to write
But we only met in the dead of the night
I left his bed when the sky turned blue
What happened between us only we knew."
IT WAS TRASH
My sister and I (living far apart but both listening) called each other right after. We were apoplectic. We vowed never to listen again. Neither of us ever did.
And when I stopped, I could look back at all the white supremacy listening to the show had internalized within me.
And when I stopped, I could look back at all the white supremacy listening to the show had internalized within me.
The thing is, this is how all this works, right? Powder milk biscuits, church potlucks, Lake Wobegone...Midwest white nostalgia is a soft weapon of white supremacy, and it makes us (me, anyway) long for the comfort of things that were quite deadly. It masks this is hokeyness.
Later, Keilor would show his ass as white supremacist in a much uglier fashion when he called Keith Ellison a "lackluster Black Muslim" and went after immigrants in Minneapolis. By then, I was long done with that trash. And I am not surprised to hear the accusations now...
I mean, GARRISON KEILLOR sang a "LOVE" BALLED about a white man who raped and enslaved a little Black girl!
And as always, just look to Black women in these situations.
It was Sally Hemings, from the grave, who taught me this man was trash!
Just listen to Black women!
And as always, just look to Black women in these situations.
It was Sally Hemings, from the grave, who taught me this man was trash!
Just listen to Black women!
Another lesson: it is OK to let go of things from your youth. I think we feel the need to be loyal to something we liked as kids or liked for years.
It's OK to let it go.
It's OK to make space for new art, new voice, new stories.
It's OK to let it go.
It's OK to make space for new art, new voice, new stories.
That's *my* news from New York City, not from Lake Wobegone...
Where concepts of gender are crumbling, and where the children are NOT going to get a love ballad sung about any man who tries to enslave or rape them!
Where concepts of gender are crumbling, and where the children are NOT going to get a love ballad sung about any man who tries to enslave or rape them!
