Quick something I noticed.

When the Democrats took power, I remember the conservatives wondering whether the Democrats would respect the minorities voice and not try and impose their "iron will" on everyone else. 

Now, the Republicans are pointing to select polls as evidence that the majority doesn't want a public option. 

I thought that the majority never took complete precedence over the minority? Why then should the GOP's argument over polling numbers be taken seriously? Or should their past comments about the Dem's majority power be forgotten, in which case they'll also have their way?

The GOP is full of morons. 

"I wish I was ethnic..."

(Influenced by a post on 'Stuff White People Do')

Seldom, but every so often, I hear a white person say to me or to a person of color, "I wish I was [ethnicity here]...", or some variation of it. It usually is something more to the tune of, "Man, it must be so cool to be Hispanic", or, "I wish I was Japanese so we would eat with chopsticks". 

It seems fairly innocuous: they're just admiring the other person's identity, right? I don't think so, to be honest. I really do think there is a symptom of social ignorance here. It's not a malicious thing so much as a lack of perspective. 

Anyone who is non-white knows, to some degree at least, that being non-white means a lot more than your skin color or your second language. It signifies a place or role in society as a member of a group, whereas being white tends to mean being seen as an individual, and having that ability to self-identify as such without the strictures of having to think of how you're seen as a member of a race.

This is where I get frustrated. When white people say things like that, it makes me think that they see ethnicity only as a surface value thing: food we eat, skin complexion, music, etc. They discount the one thing that forms ethnic identity in the long haul, the facet that shapes why and how all of the surface attributes form to begin with: experiences.

In ignoring the experiences of others and wishing to be ethnic to have some voyeuristic, cool attribute, they also do harm to their own identities. They not only ignore that they do have culture and ethnicity them selves, but they do have experiences that shaped those things too. In talking about ethnicity this way, it allows them to ignore both experiences that the person and themselves have experienced and focus only on the "cool, different, exotic" ethnic traits of the "other", and ignore the "boring, average, normal" (so to speak) traits of themselves. It is in this way that whiteness becomes less and less visible to everyday society.

Would the same white person making those wishes still be inclined to do so if they know what other ethnicities had to think about, act around, and keep in mind when performing activities that "average" white folks take for granted? I would say most likely not. This aspect of ethnicity and identity goes ignored in this regard. 

The next time you feel inclined to say, "Gee, I wish I could be ethnic", think hard about what that really means, and decide instead to say "Man, I think that the music from Mexico is really cool", or "I really enjoy eating Japanese food". It's fine to identify and embrace other ethnicities, but we shouldn't ignore other aspects of what makes people who they are just by simply exoticizing the "cool" and ignoring the deeply relevant. 

Kids DO pick up on things...everywhere.

Check out this video. It's a study done on racial attitudes picked up from the media amongst children.

Here's the embedded video:

It's kind of hard to swallow, but it's reality. 

Something else...

I heard someone at work say something to a hispanic worker that I felt was notable for an entry.

"I don't see you as Hispanic, really. You're pretty white".

This was said due to the person in question being educated, well-spoken (English, that is), and bright. The white person saying this did not see anything wrong with their statement, and to the contrary felt it was some kind of compliment. The compliment being, "You're smart, therefore you're white". Does this mean that the norm is of white people smart and eloquent? What if a white person isn't? Are they less white somehow and a part of some other racial group? Oh yeah, that's right, we already have done that! When whites act like black people, we call them 'wiggers' to insult them.

So just to get the connotations right: white=good, non-white=bad.

Jeez. Everytime I hear something like that, these are some of that sentiments that I gather from it:

"You're better than those OTHER [read: bad] people that are [racial group here], in fact, you're kinda like ME [read: good]."

"Seeing as race isn't important to my life [HA!] and you're in it, I'm going to have to ignore that you're [racial group] so that I don't have to think about such unimportant things as race and racism, and correcting my preconceived notions about other racial groups. mkay?"

"Wow, you are an actual human being...therefore, it's simply not possible for you to be [racial group]!"

Please, utilize some tact the next time you run into a person of color whose personality has "gone above and beyond" some preconceived notion you have of their 'racial group'.

BTW, two entries down I've put "Stranger in the Village" by James Baldwin, as well as the link for the text, as a suggested reading. I think it would do any visitors of my site good to give it a read. :)

The way politicians use racist code words to fan racial anxieties...

I'm going to compile a list of code words I've heard politicians utilize to speak about race issues without coming off as bigoted.

White

Average Joe

Joe six-pack

Moral voters

Independent voter

Evangelical voter

Hockey Mom

Soccer Mom

The southern vote

blue collar workers

Black

welfare recipient

Poor people

inner-city

affirmative action supporters

These are just a handful of examples of how our media and politicians (not to mention everyday people) use racialized language to refer to groups of Americans without sounding like they are mentioning anything overtly bigoted. They can use these words and say "the southern vote looks high for McCain" without saying that most southern whites will vote McCain. They can say "I don't support just handing out welfare to recipients while hard working Americans bust their asses" without saying "I think blacks are lazy and whites are industrious".

"We're past all that!"

I hear so much talk about how much better we are in terms of racism in our country. Yes, we've gotten rid of terms such as 'nigger', 'spic', 'gook' from our daily vocabulary, but have we done much in the way of conditioned messages? I don't think so, and many seem intent on keeping things this way by claiming "racism's over", "that stuff ended long ago", "get past it", et cetera.

It seems to run in common with a white tendency to not have to feel bad. I see it with mentions of Obama very frequently. "Hey, Obama's President! We have a black man in office, so now we're all equal!" It's almost like saying, "Look, we white people feel bad when race discussions come up, and we shouldn't have to feel bad (unlike everyone else who has had to endure the shit end of the stick for centuries on this continent), so here - we gave you a black president, now STFU and accept that racism is over."

It's funny how ready most liberal whites were to vote for Obama in the name of change and hope, and not to mention the fact that he's black and how this would "end racism" or some shit like that. However, a year later, when the country is back to debating issues and race becomes an inevitable facet of the discussion, we get ads like this:

which totally misrepresent quotations (the Jackson quote was referring to a specific senator, not every person who voted against healthcare), deny racism in the healthcare industry (well documented), and play on white racist anxieties by invoking the word 'racism' ad nauseum, using it as an ad hominem attack word rather than referring to the well-documented system of racial inequality that exists in our country.

And look, they even put some non-Whites in there! So it *must* be legit, since we know one black person solidifies their entire groups identity, regardless of whether there is a pattern in the group or not! (rolls eyes)

Days like today are days that make it hard to be positive about race discussions in our country.

Reading suggestion...

In my previous entry, I alluded to Stranger in the Village by James Baldwin, an African-American novelist and essayist. It's an essay written in the early 1950's, before the Civil Rights legislation tearing down segregation. It's message, however, is just as strong today as it was then. It presents a truth about not only Black people, but White people as well. 

The text can be found here.

I highly recommend setting aside some time to read this work and take in it's meaning. It is one of my all time favorite essays, as it is very personally written with viewpoints that most honest readers can identify with. 

Here are three small excerpts, though it can do no service to the essay in it's entirety:

"For this village, even were it incomparably more remote and incredibly more primitive, is the West, the West onto which I have been so strangely grafted. These people cannot be, from the point of view of power, strangers anywhere in the world; they have made the modem world, in effect, even if they do not know it. The most illiterate among them is related, in away that I am not, to Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Aeschylus, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Racine; the cathedral at Chartres says something to them which it cannot say to me, as indeed would New York's Empire State Building, should anyone here ever see it. Out of their hymns and dances come Beethoven and Bach. Go back a few centuries and they are in their full glory-but I am in Africa, watching the conquerors arrive."

"For the history of the American Negro is unique also in this: that the question of his humanity, and of his rights therefore as a human being, became a burning one for several generations of Americans, so burning a question that it ultimately became one of those used to divide the nation. It is out of this argument that the venom of the epithet:Nigger! is derived. It is an argument which Europe has never had, and hence Europe: quite sincerely fails to understand how or why the argument arose in the first place, why its effects are frequently disastrous and always so unpredictable, why it refuses until today to be entirely settled. Europe's black possessions remained-and do remain-in Europe's colonies, at which remove they represented no threat whatever to European identity. If they posed any problem at all for the European conscience, it was a problem which remained comfortingly abstract: in effect, the black man, as a man, did not exist for Europe. But in America, even as a slave, he was an inescapable part of the general social fabric and no American could escape having an attitude toward him. Americans attempt until today to make an abstraction of the Negro, but the very nature of these abstractions reveals the tremendous effects the presence of the Negro has had on the American character." 

"Americans have made themselves notorious by the shrillness and the brutality with which they have insisted on this idea, but they did not invent it; and it has escaped the, world's notice that those very excesses of which Americans have been guilty imply a' certain, unprecedented uneasiness over the idea' s life and power, if not, indeed, the idea' s validity .The idea of white supremacy rests simply on the fact that white men are the creators of civilization (the present civilization, which is the only one that matters; all previous civilizations are simply contributions" to our own) and are therefore civilization's guardians and defenders. Thus it was impossible for Americans to accept the black man as one of themselves, for to do so was to jeopardize their status as white men. But not so to accept him was to deny his human reality, his human weight and complexity, and the strain of denying the overwhelmingly undeniable forced Americans into rationalizations so fantastic that they approached the pathological."

Strangers and Outsiders.

My last trip in 2008, to Europe, opened my eyes to a reality I had never considered about my identity in the United States. I don’t suppose it’s impossible to arrive at this reality without leaving the states, but I do think doing so, especially for a trip to Europe, accentuates the understanding of it. It is a reality that very few Americans arrive at in their lives, and if they do realize it, keep themselves at a periphery of it, for this reality has very stark and real connotations for the identity they’ve been ascribed in their country.

Arriving in Europe, I thought of myself as an American in Europe. This, after all, is what my passport said and how many in Europe would likely see me upon first encounter. I spoke with an American-English accent, knew little to nothing about the area, and would have to dig back multiple generations to find a direct descendent from this part of the world. I was, indeed, and am a stranger to the continent.

I went through my first several days wrapped up in the excitement of being in England, taking with locals and sharing with them any information they wanted to know about me. It wasn’t until I arrived in France, walking amongst the sea of people in Paris, that I arrived at one of the biggest realities of my young adult life.

I stepped off of a bus to take my picture, like everyone else, in front of the Eiffel Tower. When I was heading back towards the bus, a couple of men approached me selling mini-Eiffel towers, 5 for a dollar (equivalent). It is useful for this essay to note that the men were of Sub-Saharan African origin, or black. That, however, is not the reality I arrived at. It was their general approach and attitude in dealing with me that caused the change. Of the three of us, it seemed as if I was the only one acting as if there were even a hint of tension. Let me note that I’ve never been into a fight with a black person, never been the victim of a crime by the hands of a black person, and have generally gotten along with black people in my life. By tension, also, let me clarify that I did not get tense physically, but sensed a tension from myself, as well as a distance, neither of which did I get from these two men. In their interactions with others, I noticed that the European onlookers that were approached seemed to wave them off as they would any white tourist or European stranger.

It was here that I realized what James Baldwin had written about in his essay ‘Stranger in the Village’: the white Americans identity is, in some ways or others, undeniably linked with the identity of the black Americans identity. Continental Europeans did not create the black man as a facet of European society for their purposes, no more than they created the concept of a European. White Americans created the Black American for specific purposes. But it was here that I noticed a bigger reality, Americans created the White people for an entirely different set of, but equally as important, reasons.

White Americans depended on the subjugation of the Black Americans for so long and in such a diverse number of ways that their very identity became intertwined as such. It is in understanding this that one understands the actions of white people in the overturning of those paradigms in the past and present. If Black Americans as the subjugated class were the creation of White Americans for the purposes to protect themselves from the darkness (no pun intended) and impossibility of salvation of the Black man, then White identity would therefore be shaken, disfigured, and redefined when Black people were freed, integrated, and granted equal opportunity. White people needed Black people to remain below them to feel like they had an identity. It is in understanding this that one sees the desperation in the faces, voices, and rhetoric of so many right-wing attacks on Barack Obama. Behind the vitriolic attacks of 2008 were not just anti-leftist words. These words paled in comparison to John Kerry, an equally as liberal candidate of 2004. Beyond the surface of these words lied the slipping away of white identity in the U.S.

Europeans did not rely on the African to identify themselves. And if they did, it was in a colonial sense that could be easily made abstract and replaced by their regional identification. As Baldwin remarks, gone were the days of the European in America setting eyes on the African as a stranger or familiar outsider. Europeans in America were replaced in identity as Whites, and the outsider African became the Black person they were dependent upon in identity.

It is this distinction, not some gap in genealogical history, which sets White Americans from Europeans in the context of identity. The White man needs the Black man as a subjugated person socially to find comfort with himself. Does this mean that Black people must perennially be at the lower end of the totem pole of White people, or that White identity must be removed in order to arrive at a more just social reality?

Anti-intellectualism in the United States

Every election or so, I tend to hear some person, be it a pundit or a person in everyday life, remark that they think "X candidate" is too book smart, not enough like him/her, too smart for their own good, too boring, etc. The implied message is that we, as in most Americans, should want someone close to our intellectual level, not one of them 'book readin' types'. 

Where do we go when we want a question answered about our health, our teeth, our investments, our appliances? People who have studied it a lot, people who are educated on the subject, no? Why is it, then, that when the science world releases something that is contrary to the idyllic world we've created in our own minds, we excuse away our critical thinking by saying "Well, they're just'a bunch of elist, book readin', fancy, college educated types who don't know anything about real life", or something to that effect? Don't we want our scientists to be book reading, researching, and somewhat removed from the biases of everyday life that might otherwise put them in a complacent funk? Isn't the point of everyday life to be the opposite from book reading, researching, gruelling scientific inquiry? Why then would we not listen to them when they are doing this?

I thought of this because as I decided to put my radio on conservative talk today, I heard about 10 minutes of a spiel on the "myth" of global warming. I'll first state that I do believe that human action does not cause increased global temperatures, but it seems blatantly obvious that they do facilitate and exacerbate the problem. Therefore, I'm open to hearing what scientists diagnose and prognose in that respect. 

As I listened to the conservative pundit, however, I couldn't believe the asinine content spewing out of the radio...

"These 'scientists' want us to believe that an increase in Co2 is going to mean the end of times! I mean, come on now folks! CO2, that which we breathe out every second of the day, that which is necessary for plant life on this planet, is going to be what kills us? It's now a TOXIN? What's next? Too much oxygen is toxic too?"

I'm not a scientist. I'm not even a biology major (I major in both Anthropology and Spanish Literature). But, I have taken 3 classes in biology, am a former licensed nurse, and I do know that both CO2 and O2 above certain level can and will cause toxicity and eventual organ death. I'm sure the pundit might have changed his tune had he (wait for it...) consulted a BOOK on the matter before opening his mouth. He might have found that oxygen is eventually what does most damage to humans in the long run, that excess levels of oxygen cause collapse of alveoli in the lungs (which is why doctors prescribe and nurses keep oxygen tanks at set levels, not leaving it up the clients personal discretion, ya'know), and excess levels of carbon dioxide also do similar damage. There have been scientific studies that show that excess CO2 in controlled environments could actually hinder plant growth.

It's this same type of anti-intellectual populist rhetoric that fuels the anti-evolution movement, claiming it's "just a theory", setting aside the fact that had they cracked the first chapter of an introductory biology/chemistry/physics/geology/astronomy (i.e., science) book, they would note that a scientific theory (as opposed to a layman's theory) is not simply "a hunch" as they would have you believe it. It is quite another matter, one involving repeated observation and recording of repeatable and valid results. But, they won't be letting that get in the way of keeping life "normal" and "comfy" for themselves. 

You see, I'm sure this 'Johnny hayseed' pundit doesn't mind book readin' intellectuals when they're doing his taxes, altering chemicals to produce the medicines saving lives, or any other non-controversial use of education. But when it comes to the environment and the possibility of having to alter his lifestyle and way of viewing the world, he becomes indignant due to the 'elitist' intellectualism in science. 

Why are Americans this way, so much so that we even have to have large scale discussions on these 'debates' over whether something as widely agreed upon as evolution is taking place, or whether human actions have some effect on the environment? That is quite the question and one I'm keen on looking into. 

To be 19...

I'm going to take a break from politics, race, and controversy to discuss what I believe to be an interesting phenomenon that I used to take part in. 

Some time ago, when I was around the ages of 18 and 19, I was went through a period of interest in metal music. I can't say it's completely gone, but it definitely is not my main musical interest in any way these days. There was something about it that made me feel very alive. It brought out a lot of the frustration and angst I felt in ways that everyday society couldn't allow me to do. When I would hear it, it seemed like a good way for me to express my feelings of rebellion against what I thought was a cruel, fucked up system at a time when I didn't quite have the knowledge and capabilities to take on issues like I do now. 

To access this music, you went one of two ways: the conventional, everyday way, which was a CD, or shows. At shows one would witness a spectacular display, brimming as a mixture of brutality, harmony, brute expression, and solidarity. From an onlooker, it looks like a large mess, a convoluted jumbling of angry bodies thrown into each other by the hand of the music of some equally as angry people: a mosh pit. There was, and is, however, much more to it.

An onlooker only gains so much, whether they enjoy it or not. To be inside the pit while the band delivers a break-down that everybody in the pit anticipates and clings on for is to truly understand what it means to be chaotic and in harmony at once. Nothing one person really does directly creates a chain motion with another to form something to that of a chorus line, River-dance routine, or anything similar. It is rather in fragmented consciousnesses of the mosh-pitters that binds them together. How so? Mutual understanding and solidarity, despite the anger, brutality, and confusion. 

When you get in for the first time, you will be leaving an owned man/woman. Seriously, someone is going to fuck up some part of your body, leaving you sore and ready to collapse. It is only with repeated exposure to the pit that you see where you fit. You come to establish a pit identity; "that guy" who "does that". This is not an assigned role, but an expectation that can often change but usually into something that is called for at the moment. In acting out the expectation, two pitters may see someone fallen and actively break ranks from their place and pick him/her up. One may see an intruder getting out of hand in the pit and join ranks with others to take him/her out of the scene. 

The pushing, corralling, punching, grabbing, throwing, kicking, and slinging of the pit is where one determines their place. Where am I comfortable? What should I do? What can I do? Though it may appear to be a mess, a pit is actually a place where one can discover their level of fear, courage, and abilities - all the while breaking free from those limitations and expanding on them. This is not done without rhyme, rhythm, or reason. It was the flow of the music that determined your actions and force of them. I, personally, did a lot of pushing, throwing, and slinging my elbows. This was where I fit after much experimentation of what to do and when to do it.

During post-break down periods, one tends to stop short and catch ones breath, often times grabbing a quick drink of water and pouring the rest down ones face and hair, falling onto the back and chest in the case of a male, whose shirt has probably been ripped off, torn off, or taken off by the pitter himself. 

Upon awakening the next day, one may find a series of bruises, scrapes, welts, or even cuts/busted lips. Broken teeth are not uncommon to find. These are battle scars, reminding the person that they, in their quest to get rid of their pain, agony, angst, and confusion, had to take a little brutality as a trade off. It was amongst these people that I found some semblance of balance in my daily, stressful, and confusing life from the years 2003 to 2004. I don't regret a second of any of it. Soreness and aesthetic imperfections be damned, at least it stopped me from becoming where I would have likely landed without it: blank inside. 

Is it a guy thing? Primarily. I don't recall many women partaking in the ritual stress-relief seminar. Does this mean it is a macho display of brutality. I don't think so in all cases. I think it's a way for 21st century men to take out their frustrations of being raised by one paradigm of manliness, being taught another by society and the media, and bridging the two gaps while trying to figure themselves out. Are there some that use it as a tool to just be violent? Yes. But I wouldn't use that group to condemn the entire practice any more than I would a few bad eggs that ruin the good vibes and energy at a hip-hop club, which is an entirely different but good experience. 

Well, that's that. Example? Watch at 0:37 to the inciting of the pit, one of the most exciting times in the event.

"You Lie!"

Something I've not touched on for some time is some of the racist undertones used by some against President Obama, save for a recent blog I did on a Washington Times article over his trip to Japan. I have criticised Obama on many occasions regarding foreign policy, health-care, and green energy. However, there is a way to do it that doesn't cut down to racist pandering. 

Here are a few examples of racism towards Obama:

This is what I call "stopping short". Read some on Joe Wilson, the guy who shouts "You Lie" at the 1:22 mark.

He is an unapologetic, racist 2.0. I'm surprised he didn't yell "You LIE, boy!"

The following is a compilation of McCain/Palin supporters in 2008. You tell ME if there isn't an atmosphere of

"White Pride" teaming up against that "damn Muslim, foreigner" who's going to "help the blacks"...

How about the two folks from 0:12 to 0:29? "A second stringer?"

And the woman at 0:55? "The whole, uh, Muslim thang"...

Yep. Big group of winners we have here.

Seriously, this is what a lot of middle America is like. I know, I live and deal with many of these people on a daily basis. 

That's why when I hear "Obama is hurting with independent voters", I know a lot of those voters are people

like the ones represented in some of those videos. 

Sigh...

Obama's Afghanistan Speech

I'm not going to put up a transcript of Obama's speech, as it can be found by a simple google search for anyone interested. 

First, the general Obama plan is as follows: go in with 30,000 troops for 18 months and try to clean house and watch the Pakistan border as much as possible. Around this same time we'll have pulled most of our Iraq troops out as well.

One thing I noticed during the speech was how much Obama mentioned Pakistan about as much as he did Afghanistan. This tells me that it is an integral part in how Obama made this decision. I feel that if it weren't for Pakistan, Obama may not have added more troops into the region. He has carried out drone attack around the border in hopes of disturbing Al Qaeda cells, so the connection makes sense. 

However, I'm still not sold. Obama spoke inspirationally about the conflict and made me want to get behind him, but I'm not. Obama, like Bush and many others, has failed to convince me how our military presence in the region is going to somehow reduce the effectiveness of terrorist propaganda about us being an occupying enemy in the area. I also don't know how Obama is going to do the job in 18 months, unless he expects to return Afghanistan to what it was before we entered (corrupt guys running the joint with no terrorist influence), in which case I don't see it as much better. 

In the end, my doubts don't lie specifically with Obama per se, but rather with the whole notion of the War on Terror and our reasons for being there to begin with. Of course we were attacked on 9/11 and those organizations are still out there. However, they were formed and carried out based on beliefs with our interventions in their lands and our support of occupying people in the region (Israel). Why are we not looking at the attacks in context? Why do we simply react without being pensive about the entire ordeal? I guess that's the essence of America's tradition: view ourselves and act as if we live in a world where our actions have no consequences but others actions towards us hold deep consequences. 

I hope Obama proves me wrong. Really, I do. I'd like to think he's got a team running better logistics than that of the Bush Administration. That said, I don't think Obama's efforts are going to stand up for the long haul, nor do I believe that our conflicts in the region have anything to do with some sort of 'stabilisation effort' for peace and democracy. I can only watch, stay actively informed, and wait to see how I vote in the elections.