{"id":1862,"date":"2019-09-09T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/?p=1862"},"modified":"2019-08-23T12:39:17","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T16:39:17","slug":"what-makes-a-messenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/2019\/09\/09\/what-makes-a-messenger\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the Archive: What Makes a Messenger?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Gabby Kiser<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gabby Kiser is a junior from Williamsburg, Virginia majoring in English and minoring in History. This is her first summer with the Race & Racism Project. She is also the general manager of\u00a0<\/em>WDCE 90.1 FM<\/em><\/a>, a design editor for\u00a0<\/em>The Messenger<\/em><\/a>, and a\u00a0<\/em>Bunk<\/em><\/a>\u00a0content wrangler.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the years, the Messenger<\/em> literary magazine has had its ups and downs on campus. Not only has it encountered numerous periods of disinterest from students; it\u2019s regularly been the target of a great amount of criticism. A lot of this criticism has condemned the magazine\u2019s lack of humor and, as one 1957 Collegian<\/em> article put it, \u201cnebulous stories and poetry<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> In 1960, for example, Collegian<\/em> columnist Edie Graves called the average Messenger<\/em> \u201ca total loss<\/a>\u201d and begged for a change. Still, when the magazine became the satirical Messenger Lampoon<\/em> in 1977, a number of students were incensed that the campus would be without a literary magazine, even for just a year<\/a>.<\/strong> One Collegian<\/em> article from 1955, though, takes the cake as the strangest statement I\u2019ve discovered of what the Messenger <\/em>is and should be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cNow You Know: Messenger<\/em> Voices Thoughts\u201d<\/a> b<\/strong>y Harold Gibson is framed as an explanation of a vague description of the Messenger <\/em>found in Student Handbooks. Said description mentions the magazine\u2019s \u201ceditorial policy of literary quality\u201d as its defining characteristic. Gibson takes it upon himself, then, to explain what \u201cliterary quality\u201d means by delving into an argument of what counts as literary realism and attacking work that \u201capproaches the vulgar just for the sake of the vulgar.\u201d The Messenger<\/em>, he alleges, accepts none of this \u201cpornographic trash.\u201d And though he assures readers that the Messenger <\/em>isn\u2019t \u201chigh brow\u201d and urges student participation, his article comes off as aggressive rather than welcoming.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s definition of the Messenger<\/em>\u2019s literary quality as \u201cappeal[ing] to a reader\u2019s sense of beauty, which shakes his mind loose from the fetters of stereotyped ideas and superficial concepts\u201d seems misguided to me, as I\u2019ve spent so much time this summer reading Messenger<\/em> stories and poems weaponizing stereotypes and superficiality in their representation of people of color. Gibson can\u2019t be held wholly accountable for years of racist pieces, and I can\u2019t assume what kind of person he was, but I can\u2019t help questioning his judgement as he defines the Messenger<\/em>\u2019s pledge to literary quality. Really, though, it\u2019s not about Gibson. His musings on realism placed him as a scapegoat of sorts for my frustration about the Messenger<\/em>\u2019s racism. After I read this article so many times, Harold Gibson became a representative for decades of editorial staff that accepted pieces that contained racial slurs<\/a>, featured one-dimensional racial caricatures<\/a>, or were written by white students using black dialect for comedic effect<\/a>, all while claiming the literature was of superior quality.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to say that times are different now, that these kinds of writing weren\u2019t viewed the way they are today, but that really doesn\u2019t cut it for me. The pieces are manifestations of a racist campus culture, and we can\u2019t look past the fact that they weren\u2019t questioned because the ideas they contained were enforced and encouraged by the rest of the school. The disdain for \u201cpornographic trash,\u201d while a bit laughable, is understandable when considering the University\u2019s Baptist affiliation. Similarly, I realize now that I shouldn\u2019t have been so surprised when I first read a racial slur in the early Messenger <\/em>because of the history of this country and this school. That doesn\u2019t mean I shouldn\u2019t be upset, though.<\/p>\n

I can tell you how this tale of literary quality ends. The University itself ultimately took issue with the Messenger<\/em>\u2019s contents. However, it wasn\u2019t because of racism, but actually over \u201cpornographic trash.\u201d Well, if you\u2019d consider swear words as such. The Messenger<\/em> hasn\u2019t been sent to alumni or featured in the admissions office since the early 1990s<\/a> because of the editorial staff\u2019s refusal to censor \u201cfour letter words.\u201d You can find two of the works that led to this here<\/a> and here<\/a>, both by Sunni McMillan of the Class of 1991.<\/p>\n

The magazine\u2019s profile on campus has shrunk considerably since students argued over its merit in the Collegian<\/em>, and I\u2019ve never heard anybody say anything about what should or shouldn\u2019t be in it. Despite its diminished popularity, though, today\u2019s Messenger<\/em> is the Messenger<\/em> that I know and fell in love with as a freshman: student-created, uncensored, and inclusive. Would Harold Gibson approve?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gabby Kiser Gabby Kiser is a junior from Williamsburg, Virginia majoring in English and minoring in History. This is her first summer with the Race & Racism Project. She is also the general manager of\u00a0WDCE 90.1 FM, a design<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2990,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64820,64829,64766],"class_list":["post-1862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-as-summer-fellows-2019","tag-gabby-kiser","tag-this-week-in-the-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2990"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}