When Are We Going to Get Organized?

Any columnist who tries to write a daily column about the manners and morals of his times with honesty is bound to offend almost everyone, as I have.

John A. McAllister of Hacienda Heights has encapsulated the problem in one all-encompassing paragraph:

“Race, ethnicity, country of origin are out, lest you be labeled a racist; the female (human) gender is a no-no, or by George, you’re a male chauvinist pig or at least guilty of sexism; comments on politics and religion, I’m sure, would evoke an avalanche of hostility from all sides; sexual preference subjects will get you charges of homophobia or gay-bashing.”

McAllister adds: “It appears that the only (relatively) safe subjects are English grammar, horticulture and travel experiences.”

No subject is safe. I am constantly reviled by purists for my liberal positions on English--especially for my insistence that there is no rule against splitting an infinitive or against ending a sentence with a preposition, and that “everybody . . . their” has become standard usage. I am also lambasted for defending the phrase “I don’t think . . . “

Travel writing is also dangerous. I was once excoriated for suggesting that it must be impossible to make love in the German language. When I wrote that because I didn’t speak Spanish I got lost in every city while driving in Spain, I was reviled for not having learned it.

I have even been chastised for my ignorance of horticulture. I once wrote admiringly of a garden of peonies, only to be told scornfully that peonies don’t grow in Los Angeles. How was I to know that? I thought anything would grow in Los Angeles.

McAllister may have a point when he describes one type of person who is fair game: “It’s the male Caucasian husband who holds a mid-level paying job, enjoys sports on TV, who’s not too tall or too short; who drinks a few weekly beers; and who procrastinates.” McAllister admits that he is one of these. “There’s an unlimited supply of us,” he adds, “and we’re not organized!”

Good point. I don’t fit the type exactly, but I’m close enough. It’s true, we are not organized. If anyone maligns us in print, we do not arise as one to castigate him. (Or her.) Perhaps it is thought that we have so many advantages we are immune to defamation.

One can with impunity demean a WASP, that being an acronym for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It is felt, evidently, that the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant has been in the driver’s seat too long, and a little degradation will do him good. Actually, WASP is a ridiculous term. It is redundant, in the first place, since Anglo-Saxons are white by definition. But that would leave ASP, an even more pernicious metaphor than WASP. And where does it leave people like me, who are Anglo-Saxon, but not Protestant? Are we WASPs or simply AS’s?

I am not suggesting that we AS’s organize. We are not an undifferentiated species. True, we are neither too tall nor too short, we are rich, we are poor, and we like to watch sports on TV. But some of us like the Dodgers, some the Cincinnati Reds; some drink beer, some wine, some whiskey and some gin; some are Democrats, some Republicans; some are Protestant, some Catholic, some are atheists, some are homeless, some are in prison. Some of us are smart, some stupid. Some are good husbands, some are not. Some are not even husbands. Some are wives. Women are AS’s, too.

Also, it is ridiculous to call us Anglo-Saxons--a term that is shortened to Anglos. An Anglo, by contemporary usage, is any American of European origin. Thus, Greeks, Spaniards, Danes and Latvians are all Anglos in the Los Angeles school system.

One thing is certain. We AS’s (or A’s) are either now or soon will be a minority group. But I don’t think the solution to that fate is to organize. I think it’s just to mingle.

If others see us for what we are--a group of diversified, partly literate slobs of relatively innocuous goals and merits, with a bent for comfort and mild dissipation, a love of indolence and spectator sports, motivated (but not too strongly) by a residue of the Puritan ethic and Christian morality, how can they not love us?