You know those white people who are so eager to demonstrate how not racist they are that they affect this manner of extreme cheerfulness and exaggerated if totally fake camaraderie around non-white people? Fucking embarrassing to watch.
That’s what the entire field of Latin American studies looks like. They are trying way too hard to demonstrate that they are not in the least racist. Which in itself is. . . you know. Some of their bestest friends and shit.
Well…there’s George Ciccarriello-Maher (sp?), the “white genocide” prof…but not everyone’s like him.
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Who are you reading?
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Jean Franco.
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Hmmm…
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So have you read Decline and fall of the lettered city (which I have not, but should have), or is this Cruel modernity (which I also haven’t, but am less interested in at least per reviews)?
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I’m reading Cruel Modernity. She’s a very good writer. But aside from the beautiful prose, I’m stunned by her tone-deaf treatment of some situations.
Right now I’m reading a chapter on the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. She’s writing about a woman who experienced horrific torture, gang rape, horrifying things. And she judges the woman in this super prissy condescending tone for her “neoliberal individualism” because the torture broke her in the end.
I don’t get it. How can you judge? How can you want to? These are people who experienced the worst. Why does one need to pass judgment?
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Right
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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