Jim Goad

Many will be offended by this polemic on the hatred directed against the white underclass in America. I once loaned it too a friend who filled the margins with disdainful notes. Yet I wonder who has attempted to refute his facts or his argument, that the powers that be have divided the working classes and pitted white against black and brown to prevent them from uniting around shared economic interests. Maybe things look a lot different to a PhD who is only one generation from the cotton show more fields on my father's side and two on my mother's side. Her mother picked berries, peas, and apples up and down the West coast and lost the twin girls born in a migrant labor camp. When I study American literature I am struck by the casual assumption of critics that the reader is intended to despise Faulkner's Anse Bundren, despite the clues in the novel that Anse is a victim of circumstance. But I digress. Read this book if you want a different view of white privilege and the economic history of America. show less

The "Answer Me!" Legacy: Here are the most offensive screeds ever written, by two maligned, misanthropic loose cannons, Jim and Debbie Goad. I remember the shock waves they sent through the punk community and the independent publishing community back in the 90's. I bought issue #4, which glorified rape, when it came out circa 1994 or 1995 (at Quimby's, a zine store in Chicago). That summer, someone would ask, "What do you think of "Answer Me!" ?" on a regular basis. Their colorful writing show more was underscored by the intense, real tragedies that befell them, in their post-"Answer Me!" moments. (Debbie Goad died from cancer. Jim Goad went to prison. There were also wingnuts who attempted violent crime after reading "Answer Me!"). In the underground press community, Jim and Debbie Goad are iconic. Their personas were fascinating and compelling. Regardless of how you felt about them at the time, you could not look away.

Ten to fifteen years ago, I was against "Answer Me!" I was a riot grrrl, so what do you expect? I was also 15 years old, at the time. I did buy "Answer Me!," but I kept it hidden for about a decade! It was my guilty pleasure!

Now that I am thirty, I completely understand the heavy handed satirical nature of the Goads. Underneath the comical variety of hatred they employed in their reading, I am sure the Goads probably were "hardened realists." However, the remainder of their "written assault on everybody" was comprised of laughable extremism. They were doing a type of performance art at the time, and maturity has crystallized that understand for me. So, I ended up doing a completely 180 degree turn. I really like "Answer Me!" now.

Another thing that has changed my understanding of "Answer Me!" is the shift in our culture's zeitgeist. The 90's did give birth to many "ironic seeds," like "The Simpsons." However, the zeitgeist of 2009 is far more saturated with irony than the early-to-mid 90's was. I really think that if "Answer Me!" was produced today, it would not shock as many people. Afer all, we live in a decade that produced Sarah Silverman, "South Park," and "Borat." Irony is on the brink of being passe. I think that is what made "Answer Me!" so controversial (in the 90's) - the fact that they were writing a highly ironic book, way before their time.

I give "Answer Me!" five stars because it is a work of hysterical genius. show less

There’s a lot to Goad’s book and I hope the historical and social punch in the face it offers does not get lost in my reaction. The sources he cites run from Edward Abbey to Howard Zinn. The first third reads as an alternative history lesson, one that made perfect sense when I read it, but the implications of which probably didn’t stay with me when I initially learned it because extreme leftism embraces a notion of continuous, uninterrupted white privilege that is heresy to deny. The show more middle third was a look at the contemporary mores of the working class/white trash culture and the last third was a sociological look at how, in America where we all wanna be rich or die trying, no one seems to get the fact that we at the bottom benefit the powers that keep us here each time we snap at each other’s neck.

Read the rest of the review here: http://ireadoddbooks.com/?p=276 show less

News Bulletin for the New York Times - indeed, and shockingly, there appear to be points of view in conflict with its pronouncements from on high - there might (I feel faint) be other versions of the truth and, disturbingly, White Christian based people may not all be blessed, rich, villainous cretins as described by the co-religionists at the Times. Herr Goad must be reported to a higher authority (if there is one over the New York Times, perhaps, the Jerusalem Post) and he should be made show more to suffer for his sins against the truth from New York. Mr. Goad goes so far as to suggest that White People may have endured more than the Negroes and that they as a group actually exist as a larger underclass than the darks. show less