{"id":4364,"date":"2012-11-30T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drslewis.org\/camille\/?p=4364"},"modified":"2014-11-04T21:06:33","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T02:06:33","slug":"just-the-facts-maam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drslewis.org\/camille\/2012\/11\/30\/just-the-facts-maam\/","title":{"rendered":"Just the facts, Ma’am."},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2009, I presented my rhetorical analysis<\/a> of the Bob Jones University’s response to Please Reconcile<\/a>, an alumni effort urging BJU to apologize for its past racist policies. I theorized that BJU’s “Statement on Race” parallels a Lost Cause apologia —\u00a0a romance caught at a potentially tragic crisis point. For BJU, like all patricians in the Old South, the rules of chivalry drive their action or rather their\u00a0re<\/em>action. They imagine themselves a Lost Cause hero, a southern\u00a0Cavalier<\/a>, who moves<\/em> more than he acts<\/em>. Acting, you see, is reserved for their peers. And this Patrician, as a man of leisure and good birth, simply\u00a0is<\/em>, until a moment of deadly crisis. When he is challenged — imagine a duel — his duty is to \u201cserve the eternal verities\u201d of the established order. He must, at all costs, maintain \u201cgood form.\u201d
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThus, guiding him is an unspoken\u00a0code duello<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>If he ever acts, he will only act in response to his peers, his fellows, his equals. He will never, ever respond to those beneath<\/em> him because responding at all (acting, in the Burkean nomenclature) elevates the lowly to his stature.<\/p>\n

Thus, within the enduring rhetorical romance of sectarian religion, the\u00a0code duello\u00a0<\/em>informs and contains conflict. In 2008, for instance<\/a>, Bob Jones University could not sully themselves by appearing to respond to its alumni. Instead they issue a “Statement on Race<\/a>” while insisting<\/em> to their employees that Please Reconcile had nothing whatsoever<\/em> to do with their statement. They had been thinking of this for a long time. They were going to do it anyway. It’s nothing new. It’s what they always thought. There’s nothing to see here.<\/p>\n

Nobody bought it, of course.<\/p>\n

Third said the same thing on Larry King during Campaign 2000 — that the Board was going to lift the interracial dating prohibition anyway the previous May. Senior said the same thing about admitting blacks back in the day — that they were planning on building a school for African-Americans but we mouthy Northerners all went and ruined it for them. They pulled the same “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain<\/a>” tricks\u00a0with Billy Graham, too<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All that to say this: they haven’t changed one whit. And they won’t. But again, they haven’t<\/em>. There’s no new arrow in their quiver, no new management by a new administration<\/a>, no matter how many earnest hopes we project onto him. We out here point out problems, and they note them (secretly) and change them (but not really) but never, ever let on that we were the catalyst for their mere “motion.” Remember that.<\/p>\n

One thing first, Kenneth Burke talks about the difference between motion and action<\/a>. Motion is a habit. It is unthinking. It is not meaningful. It is unintentional. It just is. Acting, on the other hand, is fully sentient. When we act, we human beings are most<\/em> human, according to Burke. A dog can move, but he can’t act. Only humans can act. It’s the difference between breathing and sighing. You breathe all the time without meaning to per se<\/em>; but when you sigh, you are communicating something and you intend to. You are acting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the contraints of the\u00a0code duello<\/em>, the Patrician Hero can only move. He cannot be seen to act because that would imply the eternal verities for which he stands have been compromised. If he acts, his world crumbles, and his Cause is Lost.<\/p>\n

And we’re seeing it all happen again. Right now. They are trying to ignore those who care enough to speak up because addressing us would be acting and would elevate us, in their minds, to equal status.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at the facts.<\/p>\n