Stupid White Man

Stupid White Man

"No wonder people down South spoke with such an unintelligible drawl. It was just too damn hot to form a series of vowels and consonants," complains Michael Moore in 'Stupid White Men'.

"Before air conditioning, Florida and the rest of the South were lightly populated. The heat and humidity were unbearable. I mean, you can barely move on a 100-degree day in Texas. The air is so thick in New Orleans you can hardly breathe. I believe this brutal, paralyzing heat is also the reason no great inventions, no new ideas, and no contributions toward advancing our civilization ever came out of the South. When it's that hot, who can think, let alone read?

"Then the air-conditioner was invented. Skyscrapers went up all over the region - and Northerners, sick of winter, came down in droves. Before we knew it the South had risen and was now controlling the country. Today, the conservative ideology that was born in the Confederate South has the nation in its grip. Mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in public places; teaching creationism; insisting on prayer in school; banning books; fomenting hatred of the federal (Northern) government; calling for reduction of government and social services; thirsting to go to war at a moment's notice; and looking to resolve any problems through violence - these are all trademarks of the elected officials of the 'New South'.

"Now the South reigns supreme - and if you don't believe it, just look at out last four presidential elections. If you wanted to win, you had to have been born in the South or adopted it as your home. In fact, in the last ten presidential elections the winner (or Supreme Court appointee) was the one with his feet planted most firmly in the South or West. No longer can anyone from the North get elected to lead the nation."

'Stupid White Men and Other Excuses for the State of the Nation' - by Michael Moore, published by ReganBooks, HarperCollins, 2001

Editor: Mike, Mike, Mike . . .

I've been to school, I read books, I try to take the 'long view' about issues - that is, look beyond the obvious, look beyond the package delivered to me by the institution behind the message - whether it's from government, the entertainment business (TV news and talking heads, etc.), newspaper opinions, or book publishers.*

Intellectually I like to think I'm more sophisticated than the writer assumes, that I can separate blatant exaggeration from lies, half truths and deliberate misrepresentations. On the other hand, what he writes so closely mirrors my own fears and my own most pessimistic appraisal of our society and culture lying beneath my harder-to-maintain-once-optimistic view of hope for the future.

The really infuriating thing about the book is the truth** that it contains. Sometimes the satire and rant get in the way of the message, and once in a while, even when the little voice in my head yells out 'What a jerk!', the very next paragraph evokes a 'Mike, you got it so right!'

Overall he is so right about so much. It almost makes me ashamed that I enjoyed it.

* Or what they withhold from you, as in the case of HarperCollins, which almost didn't publish Mr. Moore's book.

** Truth - if I agree with it. 'Lies', of course, when I don't.

Book almost didn't get published

When Michael Moore's publisher insisted he rewrite his new book to be less critical of President Bush, it took an outraged librarian to get it back in the stores. . . .

It was the kind of battle that provocateur journalist Michael Moore would ordinarily consider red meat: a major media corporation threatening a writer's freedom of speech. Moore's new book, "Stupid White Men and Other Excuses for the State of the Nation," which pointedly criticizes President George W. Bush and his administration, was due in stores on Oct. 2.

As with many books scheduled for release in the weeks that immediately followed Sept. 11, plans to ship the title to stores were put on hold. According to HarperCollins, "both Moore and ReganBooks thought its publication would be insensitive, given the events of September 11."

It was holding off in hopes that Moore would include new material to address the recent events, and would change the title and cover art. Moore says he readily agreed to these requests.

But once HarperCollins had his consent, it asked Moore to rewrite sections - up to 50 percent of the book - that it deemed politically offensive given the current climate. Moore was aghast. "They wanted me to censor myself and then pay for the right to censor myself," he declared. "I'm not going to do that!"

In particular, HarperCollins flagged an open letter to George W. Bush, in which Moore asks the president whether he's a functional illiterate, whether he's a felon and whether he is getting the necessary help for his drug and alcohol problem.

HarperCollins also wanted him to take out the chapter "A Very American Coup," about Dubya's dubious victory in Florida, and it objected to the title of an essay about race in America, "Kill Whitey." According to Moore, his editor at ReganBooks, Cal Morgan, explained, "It's not the dissent we disagree with, it's the tone of your dissent. You can't question the president about his past felonies or alcohol problems right now."

The publisher's request came at a chilling moment, on the heels of presidential spokeman Ari Fleischer's Sept. 26 warning that "all Americans ... need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

In the weeks that immediately followed Sept. 11, television host Bill Maher and essayist Susan Sontag were excoriated for presenting unconventional views on the hijackers, and newspaper journalists at the Texas City Sun and the Daily Courier in Oregon were fired for voicing unpopular opinions.

Given the tenor of the times, Moore had reason to assume that his publisher would follow suit. After two months of uncharacteristic silence, the author discussed his struggle with a crowd of 100 during a keynote speech at a New Jersey Citizen's Action private event on Dec. 1. He even read passages from the book: "It may be the only time it's ever heard by anybody," he explained at the time. "As far as I knew, there wasn't any press there, so I told people what had happened.

They asked, 'What do you want us to do?' I said, 'Don't call the publisher, don't call the press. Let me deal with it.'"

But one person in the crowd refused to heed Moore's request.

Ann Sparanese, a librarian at Englewood Library in New Jersey and a board member of the American Library Association (ALA), returned to work that Monday and posted a message on several ALA listserves -- among them, Library Juice -- detailing Moore's predicament. According to the ALA, libraries represent big money to publishers, spending over $2 billion a year for books and electronic information, and because of it, librarians have publishers' ears.

"I thought these particular librarians would be especially concerned," explains Sparanese. "The ALA has this big conference coming up in midwinter, and all of the publishers have booths there. At the very least, I thought some of us would've gone over to the Harper booth and said, 'What gives?'"

In her posting, Sparanese explained, "This is NOT a question of the CIA or the government demanding that a publisher stop publication for national security or some other well-known reason. The publisher just decided to walk away from the money -- the book's ALREADY printed and sitting in a warehouse -- because of the current war-inspired, anti-dissent atmosphere. Even satire is biting the dust, by the publisher's own hand."

Publishing insiders caught wind of the Moore's battle with HarperCollins on December 4th, when Steven Zeitchik of the publishing trade magazine Publisher's Weekly broke the story.

Within days of the Library Juice posting and the Publishers Weekly article, a HarperCollins editor told Moore that they were receiving a lot of email from angry librarians about "Stupid White Men."

Moore hadn't realized Sparanese had attended the Citizen's Action event (the two never met), but he partly attributes the publisher's shift in stance to her mobilization of other librarians.

"Librarians see themselves as the guardians of the First Amendment," says Moore. "You got a thousand Mother Joneses at the barricades! I love the librarians, and I am grateful for them!"

- - - - - - - - - By Kera Bolonik

From Salon.com books section.