YES I CAN. I CAN DO FOCUS.

OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO BE SICK MAKE IT STOP. I’M GOING TO FUCK UP SO HARD. DRHFGJHKL,GFJTYGFBV

“…You may know that Said’s three most influential books are Orientalism, Covering Islam, and Culture and Imperialism, all of which deal with Western stereotypes and caricatures of the Orient and of Islam, of Arabs and Persians. As a Protestant-baptized and -educated Palestinian Arab-American who attended British colonial and then American schools, Said was himself decontextualized as an Arab—permanently Out of Place, as he titled his autobiography.

Said’s sense of deracination—of never quite knowing where he came from—is something Barack Obama should know all about. Of course, the president doesn’t have to admit an emotional affinity, which I understand could be politically dangerous. He’s already been forced by too many idiots to waste too much time proving he was born in the United States.

But is it too much to ask of anyone concerned with our Middle Eastern policy to read Said’s trilogy—that is, before they encourage a military attack on Iran by proxies—be they French, Israeli, British, or Saudi Arabian? Wouldn’t it be truly audacious if Barack Obama, class of 1983, had done a close enough reading of the three Orientalism texts—with their subtext of humiliation endured by colonized peoples—to cite them as a reason for his praiseworthy reluctance to move from sanctions to violence? That before he wasted one more life, one more dollar in Islamic Afghanistan, Obama showed some interest in his old professor instead of reading the dubious Robert Kagan? And furthermore, that the president of the United States consider following the fine example of the president of Columbia University and be willing to meet with Iran’s, shall we say, flaky, President Ahmahdinejad? After all, Obama has already visited another religiously intolerant abettor or terrorists and officially anti-Israel head of state, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

But here’s the good and useful thing about reading text in a serious way, considering it both at face value and in context: I suspect that President Obama has read the Orientalism trilogy, but just doesn’t want to advertise it. And my own reporting, my own reading, my own analysis, suggests that he did not, in fact, consider Edward Said a flake—because the grown-up Obama is a serious, intelligent person who attended Columbia College, where he learned how to read past the obvious and the superficial.

My hope is that none of you seniors would shrink from such a reading assignment, or from such a political risk, because of your exceptional Columbia College education—your training in directly engaging the author and never hiding behind someone else’s interpretation of the text or of the writer’s reputation. My advice to all of you today, poet or scientist, is to absorb, to question, to challenge, to refute any author on any subject. Or, for that matter, any politician or commencement speaker.

You may disagree with me that your sovereignty as citizens has been largely stolen by the political and financial oligarchy that I believe rules this country. You may disagree that your Constitution, literally and in spirit, has been gravely violated by the previous and current administrations. That the so-called suspension clause of our founding text, concerning habeas corpus, has been abused, twisted, and stretched.

But I trust that as Columbia intellectuals—mercifully free of received wisdom, resistant to cant, confident in your own skill as readers—you’ll all agree with Edward Said’s summary of your responsibilities and your rights: “The role of the intellectual is to ask questions, to disturb people, to stir up reflection, to provoke controversy and thought.… The role of the intellectual is never to justify power, to always be critical of power, whether it is the power of the weak or the power of the strong … the role of the intellectual is to challenge power by providing alternative models and, also as important, resources of hope.” I would only add that the role of an intellectual is to be prepared to tackle any text.

Thank you and congratulations. I’m deeply honored to be your speaker, so much so that I will join you all here tomorrow morning for President Bollinger’s commencement address.”

by John R. MacArthur.

lookingforanangryfix:

i want to make love to my focus project.

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i want to make love to my focus project.

i want to make love to my focus project.

i want to make love to my focus project.