My journalism professor Dr. Schuchardt provided the following quote on our syllabus. It has followed me around for about 8 weeks now, and I'm finally beginning to understand its meaning.

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinion, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it., and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
- John Swinton, 1880

I've only recently begun to understand that this quote illuminates what we would call bias. I suppose I've seen this played out in my hometown newspaper, but I never thought about how it could affect me, should I choose print journalism someday. Dr. Schuchardt also got us in at the Chicago Tribune recently, and I noted that most of the quotes etched into the building centered around the connection between human liberties and a free press.

If the ideology behind a newspaper like the Tribune is that the existence of a free press equivocates the existence of true human liberties, but John Swinton asserts that there is no such thing as a free (independent) press, what does that say of human liberty?

The Woman Warrior: a literary reflection

Obviously, I'm a multidimensional person. Not only do I write creative nonfiction about my life, but I'm also an academic. The following is a reflection I wrote today regarding Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. As a collection of essays, it's a really fantastic example of the non-Western circular literary philosophy and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Hong Kingston's narrative has been escribed as "a dream--of the 'female avenger.'" In what ways does this narrative blur distinctions of reality? And what result does it effect with regard to the reader, form beginning to end?

My feelings on the distinctions of reality are as follows: I think Maxine (yes, we're on a first-name basis) takes many liberties in regards to the flexibility of her genre. The essay "White Tigers" is clearly fantastical and more than a little imaginative. In this way, Maxine bends the limitations of the nonfiction memoir genre. She incorporates almost certainly fictional responses with her honest and realistic experiences. But really, who's to say she can't, or shouldn't, or oughtn't? I feel like Max can do whatever she wants with her narrative; the issues only arise when we as the literary community try to pin her down in one genre.

The result of her genre-bending on the reader is, in a word, perplexing (or perplexification). We, who are trained analytically, cannot grapple with the concept of a fluid genre, of subject-to-change classification. Instead we sit back and critique Max for not playing by the rules. We may grow increasingly agitated, as we continue through the collection, by her wishy-washy-ness. "Just choose fiction or non-fiction, already, Max. You can't do both in the same essay!" This attitudinal response is appropriate and understandable, but I do not share it.

I read with anticipation; eager to discover what "hard and fast" rule Max would break next. What? I wondered She critiques both Chinese and American cultures? She didn't choose one to defend? This is awesome!

The subtitle would suggest that these reflections are her girlhood-- her child-self processing through her heritage. Of course, there are imaginative elements, then, she's just a girl here.

My classmate posed the question "Who is Maxine Hong Kingston: the warrior woman or the girl among ghosts?" and another classmate offered that this unanswered question is a strength, not a weakness of the book. My thoughts are that The book requires no answer, no resolution. It is an exploration of a girlhood, and what child answers those deep questions for themselves?

The Writing Major, Or Why I Will Work at Starbucks

It's the eternal question: "What are you doing after you graduate?" Actually, not eternal, but at the very least recurring, since I remember it vividly from 4 years ago. Why everyone is so obsessed with the next phase is beyond me. Don't they care about right now?

Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to this question (and, if I remember correctly, I didn't have a punctual answer last time, either). I usually attempt a witty reply like "I'm not sure - when you find out, will you let me know?" because the truth is so embarrassingly banal: "I have no plans as of right now. Due to my procrastination and the impractical nature of my liberal arts education, I'll be wandering aimlessly back to my parents' basement and waking up at 4am to serve espresso to the highly ambitious."

A classmate of mine recently called me out on my affected pessimism. Rest assured, I don't actually believe my education is an impractical waste. I would have quit long ago, before the loans started stacking up, if I thought my education would prove useless. But honestly, I've only started questioning its practicality as of late. Objectively, my degree has not given me a trade or a specific skill set. I knew how to put words into sentences before I came to Wheaton.

In my Writing Capstone class, I've been confronted (assaulted, really) by the theory behind my degree and what I actually believe writing is, what it changes, what it could be. Having arrived at the end of my formal writing education, I do not believe that there is a universal standard for "good writing" because I've come to see it as such a subjective art. Sure, there are standards for publish-able writing or best-selling writing, but isn't writing "good writing" if it satisfies an audience (even if that audience is only your mom)?

I love my mom and I value her opinion of my writing, but God love her, she loves everything I write - even the crap I write on a deadline. That stuff isn't going to get published, but my mom reads it and is full of praise for me. And I love that about my mom. And she's probably the reason I've kept writing all these years. Every writer needs someone who believes they could be the Poet Laureate, and my mom is that person for me. But just because I can write stuff my mom likes doesn't mean I'm going to make it as a writer. I've certainly come to doubt my ability to make a living doing it.

I know that I don't possess the life experience necessary to begin a writing career next May. I know that. It's been a steady realization. It's not a surprise, even. But I am also confident that I will continue writing. It enriches my life, gives me an opportunity to process my world, and helps me connect my heart and my head. Writing has never been about audience for me, and I realize that separates me from every marketable author ever, but it doesn't diminish the personal value of the practice of writing.

So even if I never make it as a journalist, even if my memoir never hits the NY Times Bestseller list, I'll keep writing, even if it's just for me and Mom.