[Austin-ghetto-list] jaxon's rant, part 3+

[jaxon41]

Old Friends, Former Lovers, and Meaningful People,

M. Ventura's hateful review of my book Lost Cause appeared in the 18 Sept.
1998 issue of the Austin Chronicle (Vol. 18, No. 3).  That night I wrote a
response to it, along with the cover letter I've already given.  When
there's a burr under my saddle blanket it doesn't take me long to express my
thoughts in words!  This installment gives the response that Louis Black, in
his editorial wisdom, refused to print in the Chron.  When doing so, he said
it was 13-pages handwritten, implying that my response would take up
valuable advertising space of a like amount.  Yeah, my rebuttal is long, but
I write in a bold scrawl that, when reduced to type and even with
accompanying graphics, wouldn't have occupied the 3 pages of Chron space
given to Ventura & fellow mugger Sublett.  No money was talked about in the
submission/rejection stage.  I wasn't expecting pay-per-column-inch or
whatever their miserly basis; I wanted to clear my name, to vindicate myself
of V's bullshit charges.  That right was denied me.  In case some of you
remember Ventura's review, or have since read it on the post I mentioned
yesterday, here's what Louis suppressed--a decision that "alienated" me from
Austin's alternative birdcage liner.  If he had printed it, I would have
considered it ample satisfaction, and the matter would have ended there with
no hard feelings on my part.  Shit Happens, right?

ON HAVING YOUR WORK BRANDED AS RACIST BY AN IGNORANT AND HOLIER-THAN-THOU
CRITIC: A Response by Jack Jackson

So Michael Ventura thinks I'm a racist, having "fallen under the spell" of
my ancestors and my heritage as a white Texan whose roots here go back to
the days of slavery.  These are serious charges indeed, stemming from my
comic book "Lost Cause" about John Wesley Hardin and the violence that
plagued Texas during Reconstruction times.  Naturally, I feel obliged to
answer them, though I'm sure it's a waste of everybody's time and especially
mine.  I've been doing this sort of thing--comic books about Texas
history--for 30 years now, and I ain't getting any younger.  My remaining
time is precious to me, more so with each passing day.  I don't need this
kind of [pissant] distraction.

First, Ventura objects to the book being called a "graphic novel," a term to
which I object as well.  My comic books about Texas history actually predate
Will ("The Spirit") Eisner's coining of this catchy phrase to describe a
lengthy narrative told in sequential panels of artwork, where characters
speak via talk balloons.  It's nothing but an attempt to intellectualize,
legitimize, and dignify what we've always known as "comics," a bastard but
truly American artform (along with jazz).  Should an artist be blamed for
his publisher's hype?  Ventura seems to think so, even though the term
"graphic novel" does not aptly describe what I do and it was attached to the
book without my say-so.

Next, Ventura attacks my rendering of Jane Bowen Hardin (which I based on
several well-known photos} and how I have her respond to Hardin's proposal
of marriage in "sitcom shtick."  How does Ventura imagine that such things
ever made their way into sitcoms?  Because that's how real people talk; it's
coin of the realm.  Then he harps on my "goof" in drawing a rifle in 1857
that he claims wasn't used until the 1870s.  Obviously Ventura has never
heard of the Volcanic and Henry rifles from which the Winchester was
derived, and doesn't know that a few of them circulated before the Civil
War.  (He would, if he's seen as many of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns
as I have; it was the rifle that Blondie used to save Tuco's neck from the
noose in their reward-money scam.)  Yet, my drawing of this gun Ventura the
reviewer holds up as evidence of my "shoddy," untrustworthy approach to
history.  In reality, he is only giving us proof of his own ignorance about
the early West.  If you don't believe me, Michael, run down to the library
and check out a book on guns.  That's what I do when I'm in doubt about
questions of historical accuracy.  You can learn a lot that way, instead of
parading your misconceptions for all the world to see and trying to drag
down other people's credibility in the process.

This is all "picky" shit that doesn't matter one way or another.  Ventura's
real problem seems to be that white Texans of the past were such racist
scumbags and didn't behave according to modern standards of decency,
certainly not to his lofty expectations.  While he admits my right to try
and portray these people sympathetically, he obviously resents the fact that
I would labor over it.  So, instead of a book dealing with a very troubled
period of our history, "Lost Cause" becomes merely my racist spin on events
for which I must persanally (and professionally) be held responsible.
Strong stuff, Ventura, for a gonzo journalist whose grasp of Texas history
is so weak.

I, of course, knew the risks in telling this story from a white
("politically incorrect") point of view--especially if I wanted to portray
blacks as my [white] protagonists regarded them in the mid-nineteenth
century, which I felt I must do if the story was to have any historical
integrity.  This prospect was so intimidating that the project sat on my
backburner for a decade while I stewed over it and solicited input on the
script from authorities who have specialized on this era.  I realized early
on that some readers would have difficulty discerning whether I, as writer
and artist, secretly approved of their racial violence and was "jerking off"
by drawing it the way it happened (or how whites THOUGHT it was coming down,
a factor in their behavior).

Especially so because Hardin, the main character, was a mean SOB who
directed his violence against people of color in such a casual, off-handed
fashion--as did other young whites of the postwar years.  What would black
youngsters think if this book fell into their hands?  How do you make the
actions of such brutal tyrants sympathetic?  It ain't easy, yet they were
our flesh and blood. our forbearers, and some of us still place flowers on
their graves.  We can't disown them--as even Ventura admits--nor should we
sweep them into the closet and pretend that America began with the social
reforms of the 1960s.  The fact is, we were not always one big happy family
in this country, and history cannot be faithfully told pretending we were.

Ventura doesn't like the way I draw blacks, saying that I do not draw them
as "humanly" as I draw whites, and he claims that this is a conscious effort
on my part to justify the whites' violence against them--sort of like how
Nazi artists portrayed the Jews, I suppose, to convince the German people
that they were subhumans and deserved to be exterminated.  Sorry, but this
is utter bullshit.  I used photographs (past and present) as models for my
black characters, just as I did for the white folks in the book.  He objects
because my blacks all "look the same," having flatter noses and bigger lips
than my whites, somehow construing these anatomical differences as a sly
scheme in my mind to dehumanize the Africans.  Well, it's okay for Ventura
as a "literary critic" (he claims to be an "artist" as well) to tell me
these things, but I wonder how far he'd get telling Nate Newton that he's
got blubber lips and they need to be streamlined [to match some white
ideal].  Nate would probably knock the shit out of him, with good reason.
Wake up, Ventura.

I also tried to reflect the anger and frustration that the average white
citizens, the Old Texans, felt against being disenfranchised and governed
by military rule during the Reconstruction period.  These were hard times
for everybody concerned, and the whites felt justified in keeping the blacks
down.  They were acting out of self interest, as they saw it, but people
usually acted that way in some form or another and still do.  I'm sure that
stuck in Ventura's craw, though he pardoned me for the net effect--because
white Texans were all racists and it would be "ridiculous" for me to portray
them in any other light.  So he chose to attack me for other things.

My goal in doing this book was not to revise, dissect, or "interpret" those
racially volatile times--or even to justify them--but only to duplicate
them, to take the reader back to those days in a time machine.  Ventura
thinks my success in so doing actually constitutes failure and pronounces
that such an accomplishment is "the last thing any of us, white or black,
needs."  That's his opinion.  Shall we build a future by erasing from memory
distasteful events of the past?  Evidently Ventura thinks that's the way to
go, and many educators seem to agree.  "Don't tell those fifth grade black
kids that their ancestors were slaves; it'll affect their self-image and
make them angry at us."  Sure, that's the easy way out, but it's a lie and
sooner or later the kids will learn the truth.  Then they'll REALLY be
pissed off, not only at what happened to their ancestors but at being
deceived about it by teachers they trusted and admired in their youth.

Certainly it was not my intention to tell this story from the black point of
view.  Alex Haley's "Roots" has already done a marvelous job of that, to the
extent that modern white people can fully identify with the struggle of
black Americans to gain human dignity in what was, and still is, a racist
society.  In my comic book I'm not even saying that what my ancestors did
was right; I'm just showing what they did, without apologies.  This rankles
Ventura and obliges him to split hairs to demonstrate that I'm a racist.  It
is not "history" talking, it's "Jackson" talking, he intones.  He would have
me use "African-American" (a term that didn't exist in those days) in my
narrative banners, instead of Negro, Colored, or whatever.  Has he never
heard of an outfit that ran ads on TV a few years ago with the slogan "A
mind's a terrible thing to waste," or of a national organization that
advances the rights of Colored People?  When Buck Taylor shoots a black
soldier who came with a Yankee squadron to disrupt a peaceful gathering and
arrest him, Ventura states that I have minimized the killing by making it
appear as a case of an "uppity loud-mouthed nigger who got what was coming
to him."  Somebody please tell Ventura that having a "loud mouth" in Texas
means speaking before thinking, or speaking unwisely--which in this instance
was what the black soldier did, in the midst of a hardcore white Southern
tribal stomp packed with Taylors.

And I might point to my friend Jesse Sublett that those two black State
policemen were not down in that store near Smiley, Gonzales County,
innocently eating cheese and crackers when Hardin shot them.  They were
there to get him (and collect the reward money), because they knew that
Hardin lived nearby with his wife Jane.  What would you do, Jesse, if DPS,
DEA, or FBI men--regardless of their color--came poking around your
neighborhood with a [dead-or-alive] warrant for your arrest from Newt
Gingrich?  Because you're accustomed to being a free man, you'd probably
either stand and fight or run.  While Hardin spent most of his time running,
on this occasion he stood and fought.  Pronouncing John Wesley Hardin an
"asshole" and labeling the "Lost Cause" the "Wrong Cause" might meet today's
standards of journalism, but it doesn't shed much light on the dynamics of
the situation in the 1870s.

Most of us today know that Southerners were wrong to perpetuate slavery:
even Sam my 11-year-old son has figured that out.  But I use "Lost Cause" as
the title of my book in a different sense:  young men like Hardin were
fighting to preserve a way of life that was fast slipping away in the wake
of the Confederacy.  Slavery was only part of what was being lost, because
the majority of these South Texas whites didn't own any slaves to begin
with.  They were proud, headstrong fellows who saw their social order being
swept away by military rule and outsiders taking over, telling them how to
think and act.  They resisted, and their elders provided a support network
that prolonged the ordeal.  We're not talking poor white trash here, but the
pillars of the community, their cousins,  sons, and nephews.  Anyway, I
think Ventura is overplaying the race card in his review because most of
"Lost Cause" is about white-on-white violence, the bitter feuds that sprang
up in the aftermath of the Civil War.  These feuds often divided families,
especially the Taylor-Sutton Feud that is really the focus of my narrative.

Though it may not be obvious from my comic book,  I believe that black
people have the same right to prosperity and happiness as the rest of us.
White people did not always think that way, as both of you should know.
Indeed, it's a fairly recent development in the South and in other parts of
the Union as well.  I was a young man back in the Sixties and applauded the
Civil Rights movement, much to the dismay of the folks back home.  Out on
the West Coast for a few years, I even supported the Black Panthers and the
Brown Berets, at least their right to organize their communities and instill
a sense of pride in their heritage.  I recognized that "Whitey" would be
demonized in the process but believed that eventually the Movement would
pass beyond this necessary first stage.  Instead, racist cops snuffed many
of them out, and the Establishment bought off ("co-opted") most of the rest.
It was a sad time for many of us post-Beatnik Hippies, to see the Summer of
Love reduced to such dire straits.  Guns, hard drugs, violence, and racial
posturing became the rule of the day.  Haight-Ashbury looked like a
bombed-out war zone; Altamont finished off the music scene's ability to hold
us all together, whatever our cultural/racial origins.  Disillusioned, I
packed my bag and escaped back to Texas, where people didn't have to cower
behind locked doors or get mugged exiting buses late at night.  I'm sure
that as a white Texan living in Reconstruction times I would have felt the
same sadness at a bold social experiment gone wrong.

So, to have some turkey like Michael Ventura brand my work as racist is a
bitter pill to swallow.  In earlier books I told the story of the Comanche
Indians from Quanah Parker's point of view and the story of the Texas
Mexicans from Juan Seguin's side, so I figure I'm entitled (duty bound,
actually) to tell Hardin's story from the white point of view.  If Ventura
doesn't like to survey the scene from inside those boots, if all he can do
is squirm and bemoan the fact that my ancestors--people who helped make
Texas what it is, for better or worse--were racists, then I say "TUFF SHIT"
to him.  

In the final analysis I suppose that "good" art comes down to what people
like, dislike, or feel indifferent about.  Even if Ventura doesn't like my
story/art, I think it's unfair of him to try and damage me personally and
professionally by lobbing stink bombs like the word "racist."  He should
know how hard it is for any artist to deal with this type of ideological
abuse.  Some people who might have liked the book and said nice things about
it will now run for cover, lest they fall under Ventura's sanctimonious
condemnation and be considered racists themselves.

Although remote, there's always the possibility that Ventura will like my
next book better.  It's called "Indian Lover:  Sam Houston and the
Cherokees"  and is a lot easier for people like him to identify with,
assuming he knows anything about how unpopular it was for a politician to
champion Indian rights in Houston's era.  Houston did, because he was a man
of rare courage.  He's one of my heroes, despite his drinking problem.
Hardin is not, but he is an American icon, and I  think it's worth the
effort to try and understand why he did what he did.

I don't know where Ventura is coming from or where he is going in this life,
but I'm in it for the long haul.  If he thinks "Lost Cause" is "disgusting"
and that my work maliciously embodies lies about how our society evolved, I
suggest he read "White Man's Burden," a strip I did for "Slow Death" back in
the San Francisco underground comix days just before the burn-out.  That one
prompted vicious hate mail from White Supremacists (who assumed that I was a
"person of color," to put it mildly).  So I can take Ventura's
pseudo-intellectual critique in stride, once I cease being pissed off about
it.  He pontificates:  "It is a terrible thing to be enthralled by your past
so deeply that you echo its horror."  Tell that to the Holocaust Museum
folks, Ventura, and see if it impresses them enough to close their doors and
go quietly.

As for me, I know who I am even if it was an accident of birth.  Which
reminds me of that great Steve Martin line in "The Jerk" (paraphrased): "You
mean I'm gonna be like THIS for the rest of my life?"  Yes, I probably will,
even though I've peered deep into the universal gene pool (with the help of
psychedelic drugs) and seen vistas far beyond my present pathetic physical
and psychic embodiment as a white Texan at age 57.  I'm not troubled by my
ancestors' flaws, and am trying to do the best I can with my own limited
talent.  I don't need you to "feel pain" on my behalf for what you deem my
artistic and personal failures.  Shed your grief somewhere else, Ventura,
maybe back in the Bronx or wherever you came from.  Write about things you
understand, like John Travolta's career.  I promise not to label you a
racist for your creative endeavors [about your own people], which will be
more courtesy than your so-called "review" has extended to me.  jaxon

Next installment: Louis bangs his Hammer & the shit hits the fan.