Chicagoist: No Bellow Street in Hyde Park

guest

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:45:50 -0600

"the crushing weight of his hurtful words." Oh criminy. Waah, waah. Nobel prize winning authors have a responsibility not to say anything that could hurt someone's feelings! Literature is not supposed to make anyone uncomfortable, after all. Anyway, I love the idea of a subliterate alderthing passing judgement on Bellow. I hear the Privy Counsellor of Avon rejected Shakespeare Street on much the same grounds.

Ward Up

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:01:44 -0600

In response to your question, I suggest that your question should not state that Saul Bellow's "worldview was possibly racist." In fact, there is nothing in anything that Bellow said or wrote that suggested that he was racist. He was asked a question about multiculturalism, with its politically correct way of giving value to human knowledge on the basis of affirmative action. Bellow did not think that the "every society's knowledge is just as good as everyone elses's knowledge" concept was a good idea. He responded badly to a reporter's question, hurting people with that stupid "Papuans" and "Zulus" comment. Bellows underlying point, though valid, was lost under the crushing weight of his hurtful words. But look far and wide for anything else he did that was racist. What will you find? Diddly. One African-American commentator with The New York Times said Bellow was racist because African-Americans in a few of his novels were committing crimes. Racism? Hardly. The only racism was the reverse racism of that commentator against Bellow. The bottom line is this. Who needs a stinking brown honorary street sign anyway? Bellow would say, that's OK, I don't need it.

oz115

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:34:06 -0600

Don't forget the hub-bub when they tried to get an honorary street named for Black Panther leader Fred Hampton... Not sure what happened with that.

guest

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:29:51 -0600

No We should not name any streets after anybody in Chicago. It's gotten way out of hand. Now if someone wants to pony up the money to the name the blue/red line etc after them I am all for that.

Navin

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:28:34 -0600

This makes me chuckle when thinking of Washington and Jefferson streets.

Louis Frascogna

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:04:00 -0600

Ha, Saul Bellow had a token black friend. Also, who cares, name the street after him.

pantagrapher

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:57:41 -0600

Well, he had a black friend. That's good enough for me.