-
1 “The Girl, Obviously, Was Asked to Be a Hero”
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 “The girl, obviously, Was asked to Be a Hero” the opening lines of Hannah arendt’s “reflections on Little rock” essay read: “it is unfortunate and even unjust (though hardly unjustified) that the events at Little rock should have such an enormous echo in public opinion throughout the world” (rLr 46). arendt goes on to situate these events inside the context of american slave history and outside the world politics of imperialism and colonialism . in her view, the one great crime that created a color problem in america was slavery, while the color problem in europe was created by colonialism and imperialism.1 she asserts, “The country’s attitude toward the negro population is rooted in american tradition and nothing else. The color question was created by the one great crime of american history and is soluble only within the political and historical framework of the republic” (ibid.). it is fascinating to see arendt casually describe discrimination toward african americans here as an attitude rooted in tradition. But even more interesting is her acknowledgment that the color question was created by slavery and requires a solution within the political and historical framework of the united states. This suggests that a political solution is needed. despite opening the essay with the weight of the historical realities of slavery, race, racism, and the political consequences of these realities in the u.s. context, arendt does not situate and analyze the color question in a “political and historical framework.” she chooses instead to characterize segregation, especially in education , as a social issue. arendt presents the desegregation crisis in public education as a negro problem (namely, a problem of Black parents seeking upward social mobility, like parvenus) rather than a white problem (specifically, the problem of white supremacy and anti-Black racism in the form of legally sanctioned racial segregation). The Publication of “reflections on Little rock” Written for Commentary in 1957, Hannah arendt’s “reflections on Little rock” was steeped in controversy from the very beginning. arendt explains that this essay did not get published at that time because her contentious viewpoint “was at variance with the magazine’s stand on matters of discrimination and segregation ” (rLr 45).2 The gossip and consternation swirling around arendt’s “reflections on Little rock” cannot be overstated. according to norman Podhoretz, 14 “The girl, obviously, Was asked to Be a Hero” | 15 arendt’s essay was deemed so controversial that Commentary did not want to publish it. The editors eventually offered a compromise that Commentary would publish her piece alongside a reply by sidney Hook in the same issue. This was not typical, since replies were usually published in the issue that followed the essay of interest. afer several delays, which in arendt’s estimation allowed the proliferation of rumors about her position before it was even published, arendt withdrew her article from Commentary. Both Hook and arendt published their essays elsewhere. Hook published his in the New Leader (april 21, 1958) under the title “democracy and desegregation.” arendt’s somewhat tendentious reflections did not appear in print until 1959, when she agreed to allow Dissent to publish the original essay without revisions. arendt explains that she did so in an effort to challenge “the routine repetition of liberal clichés [which] may be even more dangerous” than she initially thought (rLr 45). But arendt’s ofen contested stance in “reflections on Little rock” proves to be as pernicious, if not more so, than the liberal clichés against which she wants to position herself. in addition to the “Preliminary remarks” and the original essay , Dissent also included two critical replies to “reflections” in the same issue. arendt’s reply to her critics was published separately in a later issue of the magazine along with an angry letter from Hook, critiquing arendt again, and a fiery response to Hook from arendt. “if You Look at the Picture the right Way, You see What i see” in “a reply to Critics,”3 arendt explains that a newspaper photograph of a “negro girl” persecuted by white children while attempting to integrate a school prompted the writing of “reflections on Little rock.” she adds that her reflections unfolded around three questions: “What would i do if i were a negro mother?,” “What would i do if i were a white mother in the south?,” and “What exactly distinguished the so-called southern way of life from the american way of life with respect to the color question?” (reply...