November 13, 2007
DiManno Watch: Webster's Defines...
Rosie DiManno sucks. Every day, poor Toronto Star readers are subjected to another over-the-top, awkwardly-written, occasionally-insulting column about the day's top depressing story from the purple-streaked purveyor of pulp. Torontoist, for one, can't take it anymore: it's time to take out the trash.
The Evidence
DiManno Watch needed a bit of a breather for the past week, and, really, we have no one other than DiManno to thank for that. Sure, she's subtly insulted immigrants about Remembrance Day, and The Star did really unprofessionally misquote us making fun of her, but subtle racism is only like a 3 on the DiManno scale, and we've got skin as thick as that purple streak in Rosie's hair. (So, pretty thick.)Thankfully, something bad has happened–-DiManno's specialty. Pathologist Dr. Charles Smith has admitted to making mistakes in twenty criminal cases that have led to jail time––as many as twelve years in one case––for some of those he's testified against. Understandably, some people are a bit grumpy about it. DiManno's article, published today, is titled "'Disgraced' pathologist only the start." And why is disgraced in quotation marks? Witness the very first paragraph:
Disgraced: "To bring shame or discredit upon; to remove from favour or position." (Webster's definition)
The Verdict
4/6 DIMANNOS (The more DiMannos, the worse the column is.)
Hack: a writer whose writings aim mainly at commercial success rather than literary quality. (Webster's definition)
Yes, a Webster's definition of a word is actually the lead-in to a newspaper article and not a grade 9 essay about love, beauty, or truth. The rest of the article isn't so bad (for DiManno), but holy crap, does that first paragraph ever reek of someone entirely out of ideas. (Maybe she is retiring?) It's like DiManno struggled for hours to figure out a way to start her article, got really frustrated, said "fuck it," picked up the dictionary on her shelf––the one that she consults whenever she needs to find bigger-than-necessary-or-practical words, like "phalanx," "amorphous," and "obeisance," to fill her article with to sound smart––and flipped to the D's.
Besides, everyone knows that if you have to outright cite a dictionary, you use the Oxford English Dictionary, not Webster's. With the OED, for instance, you can learn that the word hackney––which "hack" is almost always a short form of––was first used to describe an unremarkable horse (the word itself originates from the French "haquenée," "an ambling horse or mare, especially for ladies to ride on"). That unremarkability is why the word "hackneyed" also came to apply to stale and worn-out writing (and, hilariously, stale and worn-out prostitutes). By the way, the OED defines "disgraced" as "the disfavour of one in a powerful or exalted position, with the withdrawal of honour, degradation, dishonour, or contumely, which accompanies it." That sounds about right.
|
i just read her remembrance day piece. keee-rist! is she serious? her white-privileged arrogance is astounding.
Sorry folks, but I've read and re-read RdM's Remembrance Day piece, and I'm struggling to reach the same conclusion that it "insulted immigrants" or contains "white-privileged arrogrance".
Was it the statement, "it is unthinkable to me that anyone, even an émigré to this country from another hemisphere, would not know of Remembrance Day and what we honour"?
If so, how exactly does that "insult" immigrants? It suggests that immigrants can be granted more leeway than native-born Canadians for not knowing about certain traditions -- which is fair enough, if like me you've ever immigrated somewhere and have had to deal with a wide array of new traditions -- but asserts that Remembrance Day is something that everyone should be expected to know about, regardless of how little time you've been in Canada or where you're from.
Save the "insulted" and "white-privileged" name-calling for the truly horrendous instances of racism that are out there.
I don't get insulting immigrants either. As near as I can tell she only mentions the drivers "emigre" status to excuse him for his lack of Remembrance Day knowledge. She goes on to point out that many Canadians (by implication, white Canadians) are equally ignorant of, or indifferent to, horrific wars going on overseas.
This is not really the point, but the ethnocentrism is there, subtly:
"It is unthinkable to me that anyone, even an émigré to this country from another hemisphere, would not know of Remembrance Day and what we honour.
I attach no blame to such ignorance, though."
"Ignorant" is a loaded word, even if you introduce it only to explain it away. Note the current tense, too: it wasn't unthinkable then, it still is now. And it's unthinkable that anyone, even an immigrant, wouldn't know about Remembrance Day. In the next paragraph, she talks about how there's maybe even a tiny possibility that we don't know about wars going on anywhere else, before listing off a whole bunch that the media doesn't pay enough attention to here.
It's muddy, but it's there––a kind of "this immigrant doesn't know stuff; I know a lot of stuff, but I guess I won't blame him if he doesn't know as much about us as I do about him." Maybe it's more Rosie-centric than white-centric. But it is subtle, and the sense of superiority is definitely readable in her opening; readable, but not blatant...which is why I would have only given it a 3.
Oh, for God's sake.
...readers are subjected to another over-the-top, awkwardly-written, occasionally-insulting column... Sounds contagious.
exactly, David.
it was the tone that makes it so.
I agree with post 4. For her to say "anyone, even an émigré", she is subtly implying we should assume an immigrant's knowledge base is less than that of a Canadian born person.
I'd expect an immigrant's knowledge base about Canadian tradition to be less than that of someone Canadian-born, much as my knowledge of Chinese or Ecuadorian holidays is less than someone who grew up with them. It's not particularly insulting; that's just the filter through which you're viewing it.
I can see how it sounds objectionable - "Omg, even an immigrant, or a child, or a rhesus monkey should know about Remembrance Day!" - but that's just the way she writes. I don't think we need to confuse crappy writing with racism.
But I think, [7], that this is exactly the point. Greater allowance should be given to immigrants than to non-immigrants for not knowing about the granular aspects of a country's culture and traditions. (As an immigrant myself, one of the first things that struck me about moving to a new country was the sheer mass of culture and traditions that I knew nothing about.) RdM's point was that Remembrance Day wasn't granular, but of such significance that any Canadian, immigrant or not, should know about it.
Which is stupid because Remembrance Day seems to be a event observed mostly in the Western world. So she's being pretty goddamn ethnocentric, to say the least.
A+++++
We'll have to agree to disagree, [10]. I think that anyone of sound mind who chooses to live in Canada, whether born here or elsewhere, should know what Remembrance Day is. Not sure why this is a controversial statement.
I agree with [8] that RdM didn't phrase this sentiment as well as she could have. But at some point you have to go beyond phraseology and look at the underlying message. Heck, [10], if I wanted to deconstruct your language, I could criticize your use of the phrase "Western world" (do you mean that the world belongs to -- or is -- the West?) and your suggestion that the West is a single ethnicity. This approach doesn't get us very far.
What if this cabbie has been here for less than a year and has had way more on his plate than he can handle? Did she ever ask him (or tell us if she did? Nope.)? Is it reasonable to expect him to go out seeking information on public holidays? Or, well, I guess he's just not of sound mind.
Your "deconstruction" of my language in an attempt to point out its uselessness doesn't wash at all, nor was there any suggestion on my part of the West being a single ethnicity. "The Western world" is common phraseology and I said nothing of ethnicities, only that a war involving the West would obviously be commemorated by, yes, the participants who happened to be mostly from the West. Would it make sense for people from the Congo to commemorate the World Wars? No.
What DiManno did was presume that what is most important to her (and to the Western world) is the most important to everyone else in the world, no matter where they're from and where they are now. Sure, it'd be nice if everyone who came to Canada immediately became versed in Canadian culture and practices upon arrival, but that's simply not feasible. Her presumption of and outrage at such "ignorance" is what I think is ethnocentric and I think your defense of her is a little bit too, especially your "sound mind" comment.
I remember an American being disgusted by me once when I didn't know exactly when their Thanksgiving was, as if that's required information for existing.
I remember an American being disgusted by me once when I didn't know exactly when their Thanksgiving was
It's unfortunate that s/he reacted in that way. No one should react with disgust under those circumstances.
I read her as saying that to her personally, not knowing about Remembrance Day is unthinkable, but she also doesn't attach blame to others who may have good reasons for not having such knowledge. In fact, she specifically says that, which is why I read it that way.
It may be unthinkable to me that someone doesn't like cheesecake, but that doesn't mean I look down on you if you're not a fan.
Defending Rosie DiManno; what the fuck have you people done to me?