Watts article (Re: NP Genoa)

[Paul Mackin]

Rob:
Although young Pynchon  was trying to be helpful, to speak of the violence of
Watts as perhaps being an expression of  WHO THE PEOPLE ARE is patronizing in
the extreme. This is notwithstanding the fact that other violence had been
committed earlier against the perpetrators or their friends and neighbors. What
Pynchon SHOULD HAVE SAID is that the violence displayed in Watts by its
citizenry  is the very essence of how many whites, including perhaps  P himself
on a bad day, views  (in some cases holds in awe) the negro.  Of course there is
little besides the fact of violence  putting the Wattsers in the same category
as the rock and fire bomb throwing tiny minority of the protesters in Genoa  And
for one reason or another no one is going to patronize them so.

However I do not discount your remarks on the subject.

                    P.

jbor wrote:

> Hi Paul
>
> I actually think he was talking about violence as a response to direct
> oppression rather than unprovoked acts of vandalism and sabotage such as the
> riots in Genoa. In the article Pynchon also writes that from the perspective
> of the (white, dominant) society outside Watts it was impossible to
> understand how the people there really felt about the violence. And he
> contrasts this to the reaction of the police and social workers, who
> invariably viewed the violence as a sickness or "evil", one which was
> inherent to the black community itself, rather than retaliation for the
> state-sponsored violence which had been and was being inflicted upon members
> of that community. As always, he was trying to get at the underlying causes,
> pierce through the bullshit propaganda, and he did this by appropriating, in
> various ways as he does in his fiction, various different perspectives on
> the riots.
>
> I think what he was getting at in the sentence you quoted is that when a
> person doesn't have or isn't permitted the language, venue, or resources to
> express himself or herself in a conflict situation then invariably he or she
> will try to resort to physical retaliation of some description. It's not
> really the same thing which is going on in Genoa. The agenda of the talks,
> the footage of the rioting "protesters", the legitimate protesters turning
> away: those images spoke for themselves imo.
>
> best
>
> on 7/22/01 2:04 AM, Paul Mackin at paul.mackin at verizon.net wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >> The protesters threw rocks; a policeman fired a gun at a protester armed
> >> with a fire extinguisher.
> >
> >
> > "Far from a sickness, violence may be an attempt to communicate, or to be
> > who you really are." --Thomas Pynchon, 1966,  still under 30 (slightly) and
> > trustable.
> >
> > But, hey, not everyone is getting the message. The Washington Post sez this
> > morning that despite the rock throwing and Molotov Cocktails only of tiny
> > proportion of the protestors are doing anying  but protesting--not engaged
> > in violence.