Reflections on Fighting a Losing Battle

"There are other worlds. Other kinds of dreams. Dreams in which failure is feasible. Honorable. Sometimes even worth striving for. Worlds in which recognition is not the only barometer of brilliance or human worth. There are plenty of warriors that I know and love, people far more valuable than myself, who go to war each day, knowing in advance that they will fail. True, they're less successful in the most vulgar sense of the word, but by no means less fulfilled."
-Arundhati Roy

Recently, in the state of Michigan, something called the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was passed. The MCRI, as it was known, basically made the consideration of race or gender illegal for any state insititution. This was aimed at ending Affirmative Action. When I say Affirmative Action, I mean the Affirmative Action for minorities and women, not the Affirmative Action that has been around for hundreds of years for whites, which, luckily, is still going strong. During the build up to the fight over the MCRI a friend told me that the MCRI would surely pass, because, as he said, "no one has ever won an election asking white people to vote against white privilege." Well, history has proven him right, but the question that I kept coming back to over the last year and a half is, "would white people ever give up white privilege?" Or, perhaps a better question, "why would white people give up white privilege?"

Recently a series of events really made this question hit home for me...

1) Michael Richards's racist diatribe hit YouTube. And, the word "Nigger" was used on MTV's The Real World. I was reminded of my question.

2) Then, the other day I read a comment on a blog I sometimes read BlackAtMichigan that said, "racism will always exist. It's like breathing." I was again reminded of my question.

3) That same day, the day that I read the comment, a co-worker was assaulted my a car full of students. They tried to hit her with their car as she crossed the street; they then rolled down the window and yelled, "get out of our neighborhood nigger." A white co-worker who I was discussing the hate crime with was flabbergasted, absolutely shocked. She couldn't believe that such things still happened. Again, my year-and-a-half old question still burned away at me.

It saddens me that my co-worker, an incredibly kind woman was the victim of this ugly hate crime. It also saddens me that my white co-worker was shocked by this. I wish I could say that because racism is so rare that it's shocking when it happens. Maybe this has a small part to do with her surprise, but it has more to do with the fact that racism is invisible to white people, as is the privileges that come from being white. A great resource about white privilege is Peggy McInstosh's Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

So, the question is still there, "why would white people give up white privilege?" The truth is we won't, not in large numbers anyway. Like Douglass said, "power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will." People of color have been demanding power for generations and a few white allies have been helping. This is important for whites. It's not something to bemoan, it's something to acknowledge and accept. Acknowledging the struggle and the challenge is liberating. Most liberal whites talk about how much progress we have made, and we have made some significant gains, but they act like they're Hegelian Dr. Pangloss wannabes. "If we just wait, racism will be gone. You have to understand these things take time. Just be patient. We're doing better." Nothing new here right? Dr. King addressed this same attitude in his Letter from Birmingham City Jail. Time is not on our side, it's not neutral. Things AREN'T getting better all the time (fuck the Beatles, they're tools of the counter-revolution). These whites sound like George W. Bush talking about the future of Iraq, just gotta have faith and things will turn out fine. Acknowledging the challenge is like waking up from a delusion that had us trapped. It's not something to be afraid of or mourn, it's something to welcome, cause now the real work can begin.

For us whites, that real work is to acknowledge our privilege and our racism. It's not nice, and it's not pretty, but we have to do it. We have to come to terms with it. Many whites reject the label of racist, but we have got to acknowledge it, we must reclaim the label "racist." Racist has become such a taboo that people do cartwheels trying to avoid it. We must stop, growing up racist and privileged is not the fault of white people, however, failing to accept and name it is. As Tim Wise wrote in the text, White Like Me, "the perverse thing about growing up amidst racism is that no matter your own views, no matter your own commitment to resisting it, you inhale it anyway; you ingest it, inhale it just as surely as you inhale any other environmental pollutant. Having done so, you are then always at risk of coughing it back up, of vomiting it back into the world whence it came." We have to say it and we have to own it.

Being racist doesn't mean you're an awful person, plenty of racist people are decent, but that doesn't make them any less racist. For too long we have assumed that racists are all members of the klan. Today, calling someone a racist implies the klan. Racists don't need to burn crosses. They don't need even need to say nigger or kike or spick. Sometimes they do (Michael Richards, Davis from the Real World), but they don't have to. We need to reclaim "racist" from the klan. If you're reading this, get up and look in the mirror and say, "you're a racist." Go on and do it. I know what you're thinking, "I'm not a racist." Ok. Maybe you're not burning crosses or going to lynchings. Maybe you stand up against ugly jokes when you hear them. Maybe you really are a race conscious person of color or a strong and devoted white ally. The truth is so many of us our poisoned by racism that no matter our passionate insistance that race shouldn't determine your future, we live in America. So get up and walk to that mirror and do it anyway. We have to say it, we have to own it, that is our real work.

Repeating that fighting racism starts by acknowledging it in our lives may not give much reason to fight racism. Perhaps we should also acknowledge the damage that racism causes. The first victim of racism is not the target of that racism, it's the racist themselves. Racism causes white people to have deep psychological damage. It reshapes our view and understanding of reality, and divides us from 2/3 of the planet. It keeps us from having real relationships with so many people. It damages us; it poisons us. It makes us blame the innocent and embrace our delusions of un-reality. We have to fight it, and by fighting it we must begin by admitting it exists. Then, we must work to construct another world, that world may only be as big as our backyard, but it's our backyard and we have to take responsibility for it, it's all we can do and it's what we must do. That's our real work. It ain't easy, but it's oh so necessary.

Best of 2006

I figure this is a waste of time, I mean, what else am I going to do in Florida?

Top Albums...
1. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
2. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
3. The Coup - Pick a Bigger Weapon
4. Tom Waits - Orphans
5. Califone - Roots and Crowns
6. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
7. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
8. Cat Power - The Greatest
9. Lupe Fiasco - Food and Liquor
10. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Notable: Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury, Joanna Newsome - YS, Bob Dylan - Modern Times, The Decemberists - The Crane Wife, The Roots - Game Theory, Solomon Burke - Nashville, Grizzly Bear - Yellow House, The Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye, Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Scott Walker - The Drift, Corrine Bailey Rae - Corine Bailey Rae, M. Ward - Post War, Beyonce - B'Day, Justin Timberlake - FutureSex / Love Sounds, Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, TI - King, Nas - Hip Hop is Dead,

Top Films...
1. An Inconvenient Truth
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. The Departed
4. Inside Man
5. Blood Diamond
6. Hard Candy
7. Stranger than Fiction
8. Brick
9. United 93
10. Lucky Number Slevin

Movies I wanted to see but didn't...Half Nelson, The Prestige, The Proposition, Akeelah and the Bee, Catch a Fire, Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Borat, Bobby, Casino Royale, The Fountain, Apocolpyto, Children of Men, Dreamgirls, Jesus Camp, The Last King of Scotland, Volver, Babel, The Science of Sleep, A Scanner Darkly, Water, Idlewild, US vs. John Lennon, The History Boys

Top Articles...
1. "Rumsfeld is Stepping Down" By Associated Press
2. "Rumsfeld Linked to Guantanamo Torture" By Haider Rizvi in OneWorld.net
3. "Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll has Reached 655,000" By David Brown in the Washington Post
4. "The Fate of the Ocean" By Julia Whitty in Mother Jones
5. "Tracing the Trail of Torture: Embedding Torture as Policy from Guantanamo to Iraq" By Dahr Jamail in TomDispatch.com
6. "FOIA Exemption Granted to Federal Agency" By Newspaper Association of America
7. "South Dakota Rejects Abortion Ban" By Megan Myers in Argus Leader
8. "Cementing Israeli Apartheid: The Role of the World Bank" By Jamal Juma in Left Turn
9. "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Centers" By Peter Dale Scott in New America Media
10. "Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools: The Mission Was Indeed Accomplished" By Greg Palast in The Guardian

Notables...
"Ex-Guantanamo Detainees from Britain Sue Rumsfeld" By Reuters
"BYU Professor's Group Accuses US Officials of Lying about 9/11" By Elaine Jarvik in Desert Morning News
"Bolivia Nationalizes the Oil and Gas Sector" By Paulo Prada in New York Times
"When Two Poor Countries Reclaimed Oil Fields, Why did Just One Spark Uproar?" By George Monbiot in The Guardian
"North Korea Claims Nuclear Test" By BBC News
"The Presidential Pipeline" Series By Jim Tankersley, Joshua Boak, Christopher Kirkpatrick, Steve Eder, Jim Drew, Mike Wilkinson in The Toledo Blade
"World Sees Democrats' Win as Rejection of Bush" By Associated Press
"A Democrat Conrolled House Wouldn't Impeach, Says Pelosi" By Edward Epstein in The San Francisco Chronicle

Scapegoating 101

The other day I was explaining the idea of scapegoating to my debate team. Avoiding responsibility by shifting blame onto something innocent and generally unable to defend itself. The term comes from a ceremony where people would literally place their hands on goats to transfer their sins onto the goat so it could be sacrificed to God and absolve them of their sins. I was reminded of this as I read an e-mail petition about MI House Bill 5300, a law recently passed by the Michigan legislature that makes it illegal to give scholarships and home loans to undocumented residents--whom they call "illegal."

It was ironic because I just had an argument with my father about immigration. He's a fairly typical middle aged white reactionary male. It's not surprising that "illegal" immigration gets under his skin, he's one of those baby boomers who believe that their entitlement to the American Dream hasn't been easy enough. They are the many whom look upon the social contract and say, "I played by the rules; I worked at a job for 30+ years. I didn't want to; I didn't even like my job, but I never cut corners, and I obeyed the law, why wasn't it easier for me?" Then they look at the "Welfare Moms" or the "Illegals" who seem to be the free-riders of the social contract and they blame. Who's to blame for my dad's lot in life? Those who abuse the system, not the system itself, never the system. Just like they ask who is to blame for poverty? Well, that's obvious, the poor. They're lazy and unmotivated; they could have made it if they had worked harder and played by the rules like "I" did. Who is to blame for the violence in our society? Violent super-predators like those from "Menace II Society," angry, young, male and black (sometimes brown--but mostly black). That's it, lock up the bad seeds. Don't question the core elements of American society and culture that lead to the high levels of violence, it's not our love affair with guns, our debasing lowest-common-denominator/whatever-sells/if-it-bleeds-it-leads media mentality, it's just some bad seeds, period.

It's not entirely the media, it's us too--all of us. Psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error. It's the tendency to over-emphasize personal traits to account for behaviors and to under-emphasize systemic causes.

The media has a lot to do with the issues surrounding immigration. They want to create drama, and there is drama in criminality, so they choose "illegal" as the accepted moniker. The thing that always angered me about that title is, well, a lot. First, it's so imprecise. It does nothing to truly describe. It simply labels. Second, it declares persons to be illegal, not their acts, but their persons. Third, of the 12 million or-so undocumented residents, only Latinos are ever declared "illegal" even though they make up only half of that 12 million. A good discussion of these ideas can be found in "No Human Being Is Illegal" by Mirta Ojito. Afterall, my father watches that anti-immigration populist blow-hard Lou Dobbs' "hour of hate" every single day, so who can blame him, all he hears is the "illegals are bad" argument and it reinforces his already existing stereotypes.

For example, my dad gave me the, "they don't pay taxes" argument. This is false, common, but still false. A third of Americans say their largest problem with immigration is that immigrants don't pay taxes but use services. This has been shown to be false. A report by the Mexican Migration Project has shown undocumented Mexican migrants pay taxes at high rates and use services at low rates. Of 2100 migrant laborers surveyed only 4 percent said they used food stamps while 60 percent said they had federal taxes withheld from their pay. Money that they never got back because they never filed income tax returns. Had they filed they almost certainly would be entitled to recieve most or all of that money back since they made such a small amount to begin with. In addition, the Mexican Migration Project survey also showed that only 11 percent of undocumented migrants sent their children to US public schools, and only 26 percent said they went to a hospital on their last trip. In fact, the rhetoric and reactionary attitude of white America has actually had a chilling effect among legal residents.

Another study by the Urban Institute shows that immigrants in Washington D.C. pay their fair share of the tax burden and have equal rates of payment compared to native-born citizens. The truth is, however, the effect of immigrants is not consistent, overall, credible studies seem to show that immigration has a net benefit, but this doesn't mean that in some communities or in some states immigration isn't a drain on their economy. However, this doesn't truly account for the virulent anti-immigration movement in the US.

People like my father have scapegoated immigrants and the only reason that even seems believable is that they can. Freire talks a lot about the internalization of oppression by the oppressed and the yearning of the oppressed to be the oppressor. This is what a heirarchical society produces, there is always someone else below you to oppress, that's why racism is such a useful tool for continued oppression, just as war is. As Orwell wrote in 1984, "It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continious. Heirarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance... In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is raged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory of either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact."

My father, like so many middle income white men feel do not recognize their own privilege, but see men who look like themselves with so much more and feel brutalized by the limitations of their own entitlement. They turn on who they can, the powerless, and who is more powerless than those with no political rights whatsoever?

A War on Christmas???

According to what I read there is a war being fought over Christmas, don't really know why. Reactionary white men with cable news shows and a penchant for the overly dramatic say that the secularists, the sodomites, and the terrorists are trying to bring down civilization one christian holiday at a time. Unbelievable you say? Hardly, this is nothing new, Hollywood and other heathens promoting the "Gay Agenda" have also tried to destroy marriage, that holy sacrament that is held in such high regard that you're more likely to be struck my lightening than get divorced... isn't that the statistic? Or, was that the lottery? NEwho back to Christmas, that most esteemed of Christian holidays. But wait, Christmas isn't a Christian holiday at all. That's right, I said it, it's not a Christian holiday, or at least that's not how it started. Forward this posting to Bill O'Reilly if you dare, but part of our work must be searching out truth, no matter its popularity.

Well, let's begin at the beginning, well not quite the beginning, but something near the beginning of Christmas as Christmas. The Bible, you see, doesn't give the birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth, later to be known as the King of the Jews (mostly by non-Jews) or Messiah or any number of titles which we don't need to go into right now. The Bible does say that he was born during the reign of King Harrod, who died in 4 BCE so the truth is that Jesus of Nazareth had to have been born before 4 BCE not in 1 CE or whatever year the world might recognize.

To narrow down the date one might look to the whole Star of Bethlehem thing, that astronomical super event that drew the three wise men (and gifts) to The Manger. Before we go on, let's first acknowledge the three "wise guys" issue. First, the book of Matthew is the only to mention their presence. It doesn't mention the number and it calls the Magi. Magi, plural for magus, referred, most likely, to the most advanced scholars of the day, the Zoroaster Persians. I have read that it was the third century theologian, Origen, that declared there to be three. Early Christians claimed as many as 12. Likely it was a fulfillment (real or not) of the prophecy of Isaiah (60:6) that Gentiles would bring "incense and gold" to the Messiah. Three Kings Day is celebrated to honor the coming of the Magi, however, it is celebrated 12 days after Christmas, making one wonder if Mary and Joseph would actually stay in a manger for 12 days. NEway, back to the date.

Maybe the Star was, as many believe, a one time occurrence that has no scientific or astronomical origin, maybe it was added post-birth to spice up the tale a bit, or maybe it was a real naturally occurring event. Let's take a quick look. The first one we'll ignore cause that's a matter of faith, and that's not the sort of thing that is truly debatable. The second is more likely considering that it appears only in Matthew and many stories of kings had astronomical anomalies associated with them. The Gospel of Matthew was likely written years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The authorship was declared in 130 CE by Papias and Conservative Church authorities date the book only a few years after the death of Jesus, while other, more let's say "impartial" experts date it to at least 85 CE. So, it can be assumed that the theory that the adding of the Star was done post-death is not totally incomprehensible.

The third proposition (the Star of Bethlehem being an actual astronomical event) has been studied and written about. Evidently this period of time was rich with astronomical events, between 7 BCE and 2 BCE there were a half-dozen or so events that could have been the Star of Bethlehem. So, there you go, maybe it was real but added later, or maybe it was really real. I think that trying to find historical or astronomical truth to the Biblical story might, in fact, be a waste of time, but alas, here I am. Either way, this isn't really the interesting part of Christmas. The really interesting part is when you try to answer the questions, "so where did December 25 come from?"

What the Bible does say is that "there were in the same country, watching over their flocks by night" (Luke 2:8) a couple shepards who packed up to follow word of a 'King of Kings.' Now, it's really unlikely that shepards had their flocks out in December 25 because as the Bible itself records, the Palestinian winters are far too cold. Not convincing you might say, maybe it was a really warm year, ok, I'll give you that. Who knows, but hear me out. We do know that Christmas wasn't celebrated until Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was, perhaps, a strange thing to do, considering that only 10% of the population was Christian. Forcing 90% of the population to adhere to a new, very different religion could cause some problems, so they had to ween the Roman Empire off of Paganism slowly or come up with some way to work Paganism into Christianity. Which is, of course, exactly what they did. The center of Pagan holiday livelihood was the celebration of Saturnalia (December 25) which marked the end of a week long celebration that would make Mardi-Gras look down-right Puritanical. We're talking massive sodomy and systematic, organized violence. This holiday was a celebration of the birth of Saturn, the all-important god of agriculture, and included both the Winter Solstice and Dies Solis Invictus (a day that celebrated the sun gods of Mithras, El Gabal, and Sol). In addition to sodomy and violence pine trees were cut down and hung in homes (sound familiar???). The decision to make Christmas (Mass of Christ) on the same day of Saturnalia isn't really surprising. It was a practical decision made out of necessity. The next question that might jump to mind might be, where did the Romans get their holiday from?

Research seems to suggest that the Romans inherited their holidays from Egypt, Greece, Persia, and Babylon. And Saturnalia and Dies Solis Invictus were such inherited holidays. In Persia there was the festival of Mithras (the son god). Mithras was said to be born of a virgin (sound familiar???) on the Winter Solstice (Dec. 25). Mithras was likely based on Nimrod. Nimrod was an early emperor of Babylon (supposedly the grandson of Noah). He was an evil and perverse emperor who married his own mother (some version of virgin birth might be read into this). This mother, Semiramis, was not much better and declared herself to be the mother of the heavens and was to be worshiped as such. Her son, Nimrod, was to be worshiped as the Son of Heaven (the SON of HEAVEN i.e. the SUN of HEAVEN). So it was that his "birthday," December 25, was to be the day of the Sun God. The truth is ancient civilizations have made the winter solstice a major part of their traditions for a very long time. The exact date or first celebration isn't really important. What's important is to see Christianity for what it is, one in a long line of mythologies that play mix-n-match with earlier traditions, and not the literal word of the divine. Such a view breads intolerance and an us vs. them mentality that is isolating at best and violent at worst.

It shouldn't surprise us that Christianity is a historical phenomenon, all religions are, however, we, Americans seem to be in a resurgence of mindless Biblical literalism and fanatical extremism (a corollary resurgence has occurred in most other religious traditions) so this might actually surprise some people. It seems likely that the sacrament of communion (wine and bread) was actually inherited from the Persians (who worshiped a sun deity called Mithra) as well as baptism (Persia as well). Truthfully, many early Christians didn't celebrate the birth of Jesus at all. Birthday celebrations were pagan affairs, and not in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. The preferred to focus on his teachings and his more metaphysical essence. In fact, the early Christians, and Jesus himself would likely not take kindly to the embrace of the Pagan holiday, not to mention the embrace of materialism. Origen (yes the same one that declared there to be only 3 wise guys) said that only sinners celebrated the birth of Jesus, and this was in 245 CE, not too long before Constantine officially "officialized" Christmas in 337 CE.

Puritans in England and North America took turns banning Christmas throughout the 17th Century, as it was celebrated in quite a raucous way. This ended in England when pro-Christmas rioters seized Canterbury for about a week.

Finally, maybe the most important question of the origins of Christmas is actually, so what's with Santa Claus? Santa Claus, as we all know, is Saint Nicholas, the modern incarnation is based on a Dutch folk tale about a gift giving nocturnal visitor named Sinterklaas who visited homes on December 6. This could be based on the 6th century Bishop of Myra who was extra generous around wedding time. There are hosts of origins for St. Nick/Santa, but in the US it's Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore who gave us the reindeer, the toys, and the other Christmas Eve stuff, and this was only in the early to mid-19th Century. The modern image of Santa has some origins in representations dating back to the 17th century, but it was the drawings of Thomas Nast at the turn of the 19th century (and were later crystallized in an ad campaign for Coca Cola) that gave us our jolly old man in a red suit.

I don't know how this will be taken by Bill and the other defenders of Christmas, but the point of this post is to remind us that Christmas is a human creation, and can thus be re-written. The movie The Mission ends with the exchange "thus is the world...no, thus have we made it, thus have I made it." So long as we act like this story and other "histories" are given to us by divine providence we remove agency and responsibility. The lessons of Christmas, of World War II, of anything else must be understood as historical creations, this will give us power to be critical participants in our culture, and our world and this will give us power.

Not So Much the Opening Salvo, as the First Nail

A friend called me last night and told me about an argument she had had with a group of young male coworkers who put forth the argument that people who write are pretentious.

"I couldn't believe what they were saying," she said, "these are educated people--people who read books. What is wrong with them?"

Jealousy seems too easy of an answer, although it's not far off. These critics, these highly educated skeptics, think so highly of themselves that when they finish reading something they often think to themselves, "I am that smart. I could do that." It is so easily seen as the hubris of the educated, self-centered young men who speak without knowing and were not prepared for my friend, a beautiful, strong, intelligent, witty, and altogether wonderful young woman, to question them. How distatesful of her. Doesn't she know that they could write "the-great-American-novel," they just don't want to bother themselves, afterall writing is for the pretentious. Those who think they have something important to add.

So, their pens remain lifeless, and their pages empty.

"For it is not only inertia alone that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any new, inconceivable experience, which we don't think we can deal with." It is fear, in its most banal sense that keeps them critical, that keeps them from creating something themselves. A world that has been handed to them, that asks little in return except to keep the machine running. The border between critic and creator is born of the inertia of privilege, the illusion of mediocrity, and the timidity of impermanence and unknowing.

We write because we breath. Wordsworth once wrote, "fill our pages with the breathings of your soul." Whitman once answered the question, "why are we here?" With the koan-esque answer of "because we are." And that is the only fitting answer for why one writes, "because we do."

Writing is a priveleged form of communication in our dominator culture, one that shudders oral tradition. Although, spending time in the classroom one quickly learns that oral competency is on the rise while written literacy is not. A culture that communicates through a glowing box of visual and aural sensation removes much of the demand for written literacy. However, as the sun never set on the Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, and now the American Empire writing was and is a medium of privilege. So, saying that "we write because we breath" leaves out that we breath the air of the dominator culture.

So, I pick up my pen, so-to-speak, and make this my opening salvo in a war that hasn't been officially declared, but began at the beginning, against the top and the bottom, knowing that I use the tools of the dominator to wage the battle.

Timeout, the metaphor of war seems disengenous. I am not here to do battle, I am here to create. At least that is my hope. As King said, "I believe that what self-centered people have torn down, other-centered people can build up." To use the metaphor of war is to accept the frame of the dominator. We are here to engage in our real work, to build up what others have torn down. To paraphrase Mary Oliver, I am a man of 25 and glory is my work.