The following letter constitutes part of the experiment in free speech and expression performed by the editor in Concord, Massachusetts.  It was posted inside the town's padlocked bulletin board located outside by the Mill Dam and was also distributed to concerned parties, who chose not to respond; after all, vigorous debate is the cornerstone of democracy. The letter constitutes a document of "rude truth" spoken to local power. 

Open Letters to Henry David Thoreau #2

Stupid White Women, the Concord Cultural Council, and the Town Crank

Dear Henry: You might be surprised to learn logical argumentation today is being increasingly replaced by politically-correct discourse. As an illustration, I wrote Bedford Library Director Meredith McCulloch that STUPID WHITE MEN was an offensive title and asked if she would purchase a book called STUPID BLACK WOMEN.  “As you are probably aware Stupid White Men has been on the best seller list for some time,” was her response. “The title may be rude, but it addresses the issue that white men are in charge of everything. The same cannot be said about women of any color.”  In other words, if it’s on the bestseller list, buy it without thinking because others have thought for you.  Yes, I know, Henry, she is not a white man, yet is in charge and evidently behaving as a stupid white woman.  Notice how she labels the title “rude,” not racist.  By the way, I taught two years at Bennett College (Greensboro, NC), entirely run by black women, who proved as intellectually corrupt as white men in similar positions. Since I am a local author, I also asked the Director if she’d consider purchasing a copy of my book, Total Chaos: Behind the Scenes of a National Blue-Ribbon High School. “Its subject is not in our scope,” was her curt response.  STUPID WHITE WOMEN seem also to be in charge of the Concord Cultural Council, which continually snubs its nose at The American Dissident, created in the light of your very wisdom, Henry. Instead, the women prefer funding happy-face, “strong community benefit,” “enrichment activities” such as Tubby the Tuba, marionette shows, and chorus lessons.  Why won’t they “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways,” as your friend Emerson urged, and simply state they will not fund criticism?  Why do they fancy blowing the hot air of functionary hem and haw instead? Clearly, they will not fund any Concord artist/writer/poet who “speaks the rude truth” and, in your wonderful words, lets his or her life “be a counterfriction to stop the machine.”  That is their travesty.  That is the travesty of the community pillars of Concord, always flaunting you and Emerson, yet ever adulterating your radical essence.  That is the travesty of Thoreau Institute and Thoreau Society, both named after you, and the state police who guard Walden Pond, now a State Reservation. One must wonder if the headmasters of Thoreau School, also named after you, have ever uttered your “counterfriction” phrase in front of pupils.  One must also wonder if the directors of the Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts have banned Emerson’s famous words.  Carol Haines, Jennifer Jacoby, and Charlotte Wright need to stop thinking as STUPID WHITE WOMEN, and step out of the paradigm of cultural “functionarism,” crawl out from the cocoon of politically-correct indoctrination, and rethink the role of the council, which should not be the exclusive funding of proposals considered safe, sufficiently infantilized, inoffensive, diversionary, and entertaining.  Let culture offend, let it shake people up, and let it make them think, rather than fall asleep!  Let it question and challenge our unjust society, ever drifting away from democracy, irrevocably entrenching itself into a sad state of three-car garage plutocracy and war-mongering. “Culture is the cry of the people, the cry of the ground and earth,” wrote a SMART WHITE WOMAN, Meridel LeSueur.  “It must come out of that and not on to it.”  Well, Henry, I must wonder whether those Concord women have even discussed these concerns or simply ignore them as crank. Yet, “The crank is the part of the machine which creates revolution and it is very small, noted economist E. F. Schumacher. “I am a small revolutionary.” But I like what you said best, Henry, “The dull and blundering behavior of clowns will as surely polish the writer at last as the criticism of men of thought.” Like you, I am compelled by Socratic daemon to bring the clowns to reason and stop their dull and blundering machine.  Best, G. Tod Slone, 12/15/04