The night was clear and the moon was yellow
Ta-Nehisi Coates may have written the definitive Marty Peretz put-down. There’s always been a lot to dislike about the Peretz-era TNR—the “edgy” contrarianism, the racism, the plagiarism and fabricated stories. But I didn’t know until this day that Stephen Glass and Ruth Shalit fabricated stories to support edgy contrarian racist theories:
Proceeding from there, the article goes on to contrast the flagging work ethic of African-Americans, with hard-working immigrant taxi-drivers—many of them Muslim. The article ends with a flurry of spectacular reportage, in which the journalist witnesses the robbery of one of his cab-driving subjects by a black man, and then tracks down a folk-hero of the local cab-driving community—Kae Bang “a Korean cabdriver-turned-vigilante who is to the D.C. cab community what Stagger Lee was to the Mississippi Delta.” Bang, an expert martial artist, attracted his flock after he beat down “three brick wielding black teenagers” who’d assaulted him.*
The story was a whirlwind of spectacular “gets” which could only have been executed by a crack reporter on his best day, or an outright liar willing to invoke every odious stereotype from Steppin Fetchit to Bruce Lee to Willie Horton. Martin Peretz put “Taxis and the Meaning Of Work” on the cover of The New Republic, a first for the article’s author, Stephen Glass.
So many great versions of Stagger Lee, by the way.
Shattered ass indeed! Ta Nehisi alway brings the awesome sauce.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
(a.k.a. stack o lee)
September 20th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
The other thing is that this form of “contrarianism” isn’t, of course, “contrary” in any real sense. Incredible! these guys fabricated stuff that makes black people look bad! Man, that shit hasn’t happened since, I don’t know, Birth of a Nation? The take over of Indiana by the Klan? The Boston Busing riots? How contrarian is it to say the exact same racist stuff that white majorities and their lickspittles in the press have been saying and writing for years without break?
aimai
September 20th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
@cleek:
I never heard that R.L. Burnside version before. Bad ass.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Well, you know, every 10 years or so we need a new heavily promoted work suggesting that black people are dumber/lazier/both.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
I tweeted this earlier and forgot to post it. Glad you did.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
That is really, really great the way Coates just lets the key fact slide into the paragraph; in the original, you get a couple of seconds past it and then realize what you’ve just been told. (Or, I read too fast. Whatever.)
September 20th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
@DonBoy:
Typos aside, I think TNC is one of the most gifted writers still out there today.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I just read the actual article on Lexis/Nexis. It must be seen to be believed. I mean, it’s just one appalling stereotype after another. (Interestingly, though, the Muslims are very hard-working—they have bought into the American Dream, unlike American blacks.)
I was also struck by how hopelessly flat all the characters are. I wonder whether this is because I know that it was all a fake, but: I was struck by the fact that none of them had odd quirks, said things that couldn’t have been designed to illustrate some line or other, etc. The unpredictable twists and turns of personality that make human beings so interesting.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
@freelancer:
I don’t notice so many typos in his writing as some say. I can usually figure out what is trying to be said, at least, which is not true of Matt Yglesias. Sometimes I have no idea what his sentences are supposed to say.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Give me Dave Van Ronk every time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktThpR_s6jI
September 20th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Back when I was a lad, I read the New Republic. But I noticed when the facile contrarian tics entered the publication, reliability and accuracy seemed to go out the window. Especially when it came to economics.
I quit reading the magazine when they started publishing ridiculous racist nonsense. And flacking for intellectual and statistical messes like the Bell Curve. It was just too much.
On other had, the New Republic was not the only one doing it. My chief cultural memory of the 80s and early 90s was facile contrarianism of the glibertarian type, and the racial bigotry on display in much of the media, especially the teevee. I remember middle aged rich white suits saying just rancid racist stuff on CNN, and major networks on the discussion shows. I remember carefree endorsements of collective racial punishment, as in: why not deny police protection to African-American communities until they ‘get their act together’?
Can you imagine the outrage of some one recommended that approach to white communities, with references to innocent little old ladies and grandpas who would suffer and have their rights to equal protection under the law taken away?
I remember the odd double standard about what was ‘decent’ and OK in African-American and white cultuer. As in, Public Enemy versus ‘outlaw’ country music.
It was a mess. Now I have entered the realm of middle aged white suits (I R one, in fact). But I am not rich. Maybe it is my parasitic envy of the rich who have the moollah to go Galt, that makes me be so obstinate. I will check that out next time I am really drunk.
As for the ‘feigned outrage’ of Arabs. I suspect many Arabs have as much outrage about the heinous and brutal things their rulers do as about anything else. The difference is what they are allowed to say publicly, so that we can hear it. Or maybe I am mistaken and governments like Syria’s have no secret police and no human rights violations to filter what the world hears from their citizens.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
The Nick Cave version is far and away my favorite, which I’m pretty sure makes me a bad person, but there you go.
September 20th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
I’m somewhat obsessed with Stagger Lee songs. Some favorites below:
Stagger Lee – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Staggolee – Pacific Gas and Electric
Stack O’Lee Blues (1928) – Mississippi John Hurt
September 20th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
sorry for OT, but there’s no open thread, and I just have to ask this somewhere.
WHEN did the “enthusiasm gap” become an “intensity gap”?
The transformation has been virtually magical.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
@eemom:
Good question.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
@Nylund:
Thanks. Very cool.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Coates’s typos tend to be of the “brain firing too fast, fingers not quick enough” type: small words or letters dropped. As opposed to Yglesias, whose typos can transform a sentence from one meaning to another.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
@eemom:
Enthusiasm Gap is where pollsters dumped the body of Soccer Mom. Intensity Gap is where the male following
of Palin and O’Donnell polish knobs in the shadows until the moon comes out.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
As some others have pointed out, the Mississippi John Hurt “Stack O’Lee Blues” is perhaps one of the greatest blues songs ever recorded. It is available on the Smithsonian Blues Box Set.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
The TNC post was great, but no amount of logic and reasoning can affect how the elite intelligentsia perceives Peretz. He’s simply too rich and well-connected. Behold:
September 20th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
There are many great versions, but, if you ask me, it’s Tina Turner for the win.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
And if we get into songs that reference Stagger Lee and Billy Lions, the list gets quite wrong. Here are a couple more:
Wrong ‘Em Boyo – The Clash (cover)
Stack Shot Billy – The Black Keys
September 20th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Not a clue who any of those people are. But the writing resembles Bobby Cox’s temper mixed with some Whitey Herzog on a Bonds-esque Cream and Clear bender, infused with all the Martin moxie and Larsorda arrogance. Dripping with Dempster style sarcasm and Reynolds-facing-a-slurve cluelessness, the author attempts to dismiss the other side like Sosa did Mariotti, pre-wife beating in a wife-beater. It’s almost as if droppin so many monikers makes it look better than it isnt.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
So Teh Taxi Driver is the new “utility player” of pop sociology. Good to know.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Between Sullivan’s exit and the Iraq War, TNR had some good stuff. Their takedown of the Bush vs. Gore decision remains the standard by which all else are judged.
But, yeah, the crazy Harvard guy who bought it is a flat-out racist loon.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Sully gets a pass?
September 20th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
@cyd:
Oh, wow, that anecdote boils down to this: the rich are different. They give better dinner parties.
Fuck Skip Gates. It just goes to show that you have to give a lot to get along and that being an honorary member of the club takes the sting out of eating all that shit, or watching other people eat it.
aimai
September 20th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
@cyd:
Shorter Henry Louis Gates:
September 20th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
@cyd:
Yup, Gates is a prima donna and a star fucker. (Just because he was wrongly arrested doesn’t change that.)
EDIT: Maybe “star fucker” is the wrong word, but I’m not surprised he’s kissing Peretz’s ass.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Kae Bang fought ne’er do wells with his cousin Kae Boom.
See also: If Iraqi civilians don’t like being blowed up, they shouldn’t harbor terrists.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
@BTD: TNC’s take on Sully:
“On close reading, neither Andrew [Sullivan] nor Jack are offering a defense so much as they are changing the subject. The question at hand is something along the lines of, “Does Martin Peretz exhibit a pattern of bigotry?” Andrew and Jack, instead, are addressing a question along the lines of “Is Martin Peretz a great journalist?” With respect for both Andrew and Jack, this is obfuscation. Ty Cobb was both a great baseball player and a bigot. The notion that we must choose between the two, that one mitigates the other, that good people don’t do deplorable things, that deplorable people don’t do great things, emanates from our own inability to understand that bigotry is not strictly the preserve of orcs.”
September 20th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
@BTD:
Was he editor-in-chief for that story? I thought it was Chuck Lane. Obviously, he gets no pass, it’s that the Bell Curve stuff I knew about whereas the Korean Stagger Lee thing is new to me.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
@LesGS:
I agree. More directed at DougJ than THC, who writes a great piece here and even makes a comment in thread that says Sully has to be held account for The Bell Curve.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Not new to me, but we don’t hear enough about it.
But do you doubt for a second Sullivan would have run it? He is still proud of Betsy McCaughey and The Bell Curve!
Was it Lane though? I think Kelly was Editor then.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
No, I think “star fucker” pretty much characterizes him. Did you ever see any of his documentaries on America’s racial heritage. They were damned good but the larger issue seemed to be giving Henry a chance to pal around with famous people and to say nice things about their ancestors.
aimai
September 20th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
@BTD:
Yes, I think it was Kelly. I guess I blame Peretz for the lot of them—Lane, Kinsley, Kelly, Sullivan, Beinart.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Beinart does not deserve inclusion in that group, imo. Nor does Frank Foer.
Everyone has to make a living so I’m not big on blaming Chait, Foer, Cohn and them for Peretz.
Sully is a volunteer bigot. To this day.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I was appalled at that Stephen Glass story. Stagger Lee was from St. Louis, not the Delta!
Wound up Googling around and finding this excellent site about the story and the many, many songs it inspired. I hadn’t even realized that Wrong ‘Em Boyo was a cover, which is kinda embarrassing given that London Calling’s been one of my favorite albums for about half my life.
September 20th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
@WereBear:
Only if they eat at the salad bar at Applebee’s.
September 20th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Kae Bang? Obvious ripoff of Kay Bang, the Asian porn star.
September 20th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Found a link to a pdf version of the story, by the way.
September 20th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
@John Bird: Hey, thanks!
September 20th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
@lacp: Or maybe just “Ka Bang!” with a wink and a nod.
Sounds like they could use some actual journalists and some real editors at them there high falutin’ magazines out east instead of a bunch of efete Ivy League buffoons who only got where they are because they were part of the millionaires’ affirmative action program.
September 20th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
@jl:
It’s tough to remember how out of control the 80s were (kind of like now!). I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that the Reagan administration’s reaction to HIV and crack was: If it weeds out some people, no problem.
September 20th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Wikipedia notes that Pat Boone recorded a version of Stagger Lee.
That’s right up there with Dick Clark making Lloyd Price change the lyrics when he sang it Stagger Lee on American Bandstand.
September 20th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Why, someone might even be led to wonder why fabricated edgy contrarian racist theories are so easily accepted at TNR.
September 21st, 2010 at 12:03 am
Because Peretz specifically requested the piece.
Vanity Fair:
“That was the weirdest thing about him,” said a former colleague. “That held back my ability to respect him and like him a lot. It was really preposterous and cartoonish. It also made him impossible to deal with on the same level that you deal with other people. There was some sort of a core that was missing, that core sense of confidence and security.”
“Are you mad at me?” That was something Glass said incessantly. The slightest look or gesture could send him into a panic of self-doubt. Certain friends advised him to stop asking the question; others found that it called forth their protective instincts. Glass’s would-be parent surrogates wanted only to help make this terribly insecure boy, who would describe a story he wrote as a “piece of shit,” feel better about himself.
Those familiar with his early work said he struggled with his writing. His original drafts were rough, the prose clunky and imprecise. The idea for Glass’s breakthrough piece, “Taxis and the Meaning of Work” (published in August of 1996), came from New Republic owner Martin Peretz himself. Peretz had spoken frequently about how black taxi drivers in Washington were being replaced by cabbies from other immigrant groups; he thought it revealed something important about the attitudes of blacks toward certain kinds of work.
The piece was a kind of audition for Peretz—a chance for Glass to shine—and he spent months on it. Early drafts were ragged, but from the outset it revealed a talent that Glass had not previously shown: a remarkable ability to weave in anecdotes and colorful detail. “The color saved his ass,” said the former colleague. “People were in wonderment about his ability to find these crazy characters.”
September 21st, 2010 at 4:20 am
@Recall:
Very interesting.
October 3rd, 2010 at 9:04 pm