privilegeasatoolofresistance

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

On the Violent Fragility of White Men

It has been a while since I have written a piece about the most recent events in the news, but I want to try to get back into it.  Both for myself as a way to process and understand all of the news I am hearing and seeing every day, and to share my ideas with the world to hear insights from others about how these things are sitting with you.

I consider myself a pretty active news follower.  I try to read the local paper (or as much of it as I can stomach) every day, I listen to Democracy Now! and other podcasts that get more in depth with news stories from the people. I get a lot of news from the people and organizations I follow on Facebook, and I listen to public radio whenever I have the chance in the car.  Though my news sources are mostly from my own biased world, I still have a general sense of what is going on in the world most of the time.  I write this to be upfront about where I get my news from and also about what I stand for.  

The catalyzing event pushing me to write this piece is the most recent school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas.  Let me first say that I am saddened, disheartened, and frustrated to see yet another young white man go into a school and kill his classmates.  It has also recently come out that the shooter, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, was motivated to kill his classmates and others, at least in part, by the rejection of a young woman at his school.  Democracy Now! reporting quoted the mother of the woman who he attacked and killed:

“The mother of Shana Fisher, one of the victims in the art classroom where police say Dimitrios Pagourtzis entered and opened fire, told the Los Angeles Times that her 16-year-old daughter had four months of problems with this boy. “He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no,” unquote. Sadie Rodriguez said her daughter recently stood up to him in class, and, quote, “a week later he opens fire on everyone he didn’t like,” she said. Rodriguez also spoke to Houston station ABC13.”

This is not the first time that a young, white man (we will get to the race part in a bit) has killed a woman who either dumped, rejected, or otherwise slighted him.  This is something that is built into the fragility of toxic masculinity.  I feel it inside of myself.  No, I don’t have a desire to go out and kill people, but I have felt a desire to blame a woman if I am somehow not desirable or not wanted.  In fact, at a much younger age, after my longtime female partner broke up with me, I tried on multiple attempts to get her to reconsider.  Thinking to myself, that she couldn’t really mean “no,” and she only needed me to convince her of that.  Sure, I could tell myself that I was in love and heartbroken and just doing anything I could.  Or I could see the reality that my fragile, masculine ego had been broken, and I could not let them happen.  Especially not as a young person (I was around 20 at the time).  

While the deeply entrenched nature of domestic violence in our country (and all across the world) is well-documented, the presence of toxic masculinity does not often get covered when talking about school shootings.  However, we see it time and time again that the young man (usually white) is out to seek either revenge or in some way, protect his pride against the horror of rejection or dismissal.  We saw it explicitly with the Isla Vista Killings in 2014, and have seen it constantly after some investigating has been done in so many other mass shootings.  The killings in Sutherland Springs, Texas were connected to domestic violence and militarism.  Earlier this year Jaelynn Wiley was killed in Maryland after rejecting a male at her school.  And in our local news, there has been coverage of the killing of a young woman in Springfield, Massachusetts with a knife after he broke up with her.  She was stabbed more than 30 times.

The reality is that these things happen all too often, and are the deadly result of boys being taught that they can literally have whatever they want, including women.  There has been a tweet going around facebook about a young boy never being told to leave girls around after they say no:

While this seems so simple, it captures so much of the violence of patriarchy and the ways in which we teach out boys the fragility that they so often internalize and eventually let out in aggressive and violent ways.  

To connect all of this to race, these cases almost always end with either the shooter being taken out in handcuffs (as was the case in Santa Fe most recently, as well as Parkland in February) or them shooting themselves to avoid arrest.  So rarely do we see them being shot down by the police or other law enforcement, we have to ask, how can that happen?  How can that happen when Stephon Clark was literally in his grandmother’s backyard and shot 20 times, including 8 times in the back?  

How can Tamir Rice, a 12-year old boy,  be shot after cops pull up and start shooting after a few seconds?  How do these white men (including Dylan Roof, who killed nine people in a CHURCH in Charleston, South Carolina) be escorted nicely from their killing sprees, while innocent black people are gunned down on the streets?  In order for this to happen our systems, including white supremacy, have done such an effective job at dehumanizing people of color, that we have more compassion for violent, white killers, than we do for black fathers and mothers going about their business.  This is also connected to the litany of instances where white people have called the cops on black people, for such benign things as waiting for a business partner at starbucks, having a BBQ in Oakland, checking out of an Airbnb, taking a nap in a dorm common room, and others.  All of this while the police getting called to negotiate with a violent killer in Santa Fe, Texas.  To negotiate with a violent killer, who has already killed people in his school. I didn’t see the BART officer who killed Oscar Grant negotiating with that unarmed black man.  I didn’t see the NYPD officer who killed Saheed Vassell in Brooklyn.  

Meanwhile in Gaza, Palestinians are literally being killed at long-range for walking to the edge of the concentration camp that Israel has created for them.  Getting shot, for walking to the border with Palestinian flags, and demanding to return to the land that was once theirs.  If Israel had half as much compassion as we have for violent white male killers in the US, these killings could be avoided.  

And the narrative is always the same for the white police officer in the US as it is for the Israeli state: we were doing it in self-defense.  Just how 12-year old children with toy guns are a threat to white people in the US, unarmed protestors with flags and stones are a threat to the existence of Israel.  Anything we can tell ourselves in order to keep ourselves safe, except that these young white men are trained to be violent and aggressive by patriarchy and white supremacy.  

Fragility is built into systems such as patriarchy and white supremacy and these school shootings are the ultimate expression of that fragility.  As men and as white people, we need to do better to teach our boys, our fathers, our uncles, our friends, and anyone else in our lives who will listen, that we are not entitled to anything, and especially not to any other person if they do not want us.  We need to teach this from a young age and talk about it often to reverse these devastating effects of socialization that kill people every single day.  And as white people, we need to realize just how badly we have been hoodwinked into thinking that those people of color around us, are threatening simply because they exist.  Next time we feel this as a white person we really need to meditate on what is truly happening inside of us.  

Let’s teach our people how to reject all of the myths that we have been fed for centuries and to raising boys to have a healthy relationship to rejection.  We can do better, and we need to if we stand any chance at stopping the violence so embedded into our society.

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

Reflecting on Pulse

This note has taken me too long to write.  Maybe it was just all of my various privileges weighing down my mind and distracting me from the violence against my queer and trans* brothers and sisters of color.  Maybe it is because I am becoming more and more numb to the incredible number and horror of these attacks.  Maybe it was because I am confused, sad and filled with undeniable rage at the institutions, systems and policies that continue to fuel these acts of violence.  It is probably a combination of these things, but I think it is time for me to put my voice to some feelings around the violent heterosexist act that killed 49 people, overwhelmingly Latinx people of color, especially Puerto Ricans.

1. To my queer chosen family, and anyone else who identifies or is thinking about identifying as queer – I love you.  I see you.  I do not know your experience, and I do not know your pain at seeing such a culmination of the violence you experience on a daily basis, brought out in one space.  A sacred space that is intended, in every way, to be a place of love, sanctuary, joy and solidarity.  Queer and trans* people, especially queer and trans* people of color, experience so much violence on a regular basis, that it almost seemed to me like it couldn’t get any worse.  And then this happened, in a place where people were dancing.  In a place where people were free, maybe even liberated for a brief moment, for a song, for a kiss.  

2. In trying to process my own emotions, I tried to stay away from the pain.  I tried to push it down or into the intellectual places of my mind.  Tried to understand the oppressive ways in which mainstream media was covering up the fact that this was an attack on queer and Trans* people of color, with some constructed terrorist threat.  I didn’t cry.  I was numb, in shock, horrified and yet not completely surprised.  One thought that passed through my head was, what will happen when I wake up tomorrow?  Where will the violence be perpetrated next?  My first tears came at the solidarity vigil in Northampton.  As I stared down into the candle I was holding, I listened to those close to her talk about KJ, one of the people killed at Pulse.  She was brave to talk about their beautiful relationship, their quirky traditions, and the fierce love and admiration that KJ walked through the world with.  And I ask myself, why did it take someone’s personal story and connection to bring me to a raw emotional state?  I know the 48 other people killed in the club have stories and families, but yet the numbness took over until I could understand one person’s story.  I feel shame around this and cannot help but think that it is tied to my identity as a white man, who has been taught to tough it out and not show “weakness.”  I can also feel shame around the fact that my socialization in an individualistic capitalist culture, leads me to only feel moved when an individual is at the heart of something and not a group of people, an identity, a community.  I never met anyone who died at Pulse, but they could be my family.  And silence and non-emotions block me from supporting and loving my family the way I should.  

3. I also cannot help but try to understand the ways in which violent, toxic masculinity is at the heart of this particular event.  This man was known to be abusive and violent toward his partner – why should we be surprised when that violence spills out into the street?  Why are we not talking about the fact that ANOTHER MAN has picked up an assault rifle and taken the ideas of power, control, aggression and violence to their painful extreme?  People (from what I have seen and heard) are not talking about this.  Yes, gun control is certainly a fight we need to wage, but even more important is to teach our men and boys how to perform masculinity in a way that does not exploit, subjugate and harm others.  We need masculinities that embrace sensitivity and vulnerability, rather than aggressiveness and violence.  We need masculinities that help us take care of each other, and not ones that are strictly based on competition and who gets to the top faster.  We need masculinities that embrace love and genders of all kinds and teaches others that a diversity of love and gender expression can only make this world a more whole and loving place.  We need masculinities that view violence as what it is, an expression of powerlessness, anxiety and depression that goes unaddressed.  We need masculinities that understand and reocognize that the world is a hard place to live in and sometimes you need to ask for help.  We need masculinities that don’t kill.

4. Dear straight people, do not say you are praying and thinking of Orlando if you support bills that oppress queer bodies.  Do not support Orlando if you do not acknowledge the violence and exploitation of our trans* brothers and sisters.  Do not support Orlando if you stand against marriage equality.  Do not support Orlando if you do not recognize the fact that queer people are detained, exploited and killed at percentages much higher than straight people.  Do not support Orlando if you say to queer people “keep it in the bedroom.”  Do not support Orlando and think that all of the thousands of times when we invisibilized and minimized the experiences of queer people are not related to this shooting.  This man did not shoot 49 people by himself, he shot 49 people with millions standing behind him.  Do not be surprised that we have episodes of violence, when our culture acts violently toward queer people.  And, oh yea, congress FUCK YOU.  Your prayers do not mean shit, unless you stop passing legislation intended to dehumanize, exploit and oppress queer and trans* people.  

5. On guns – NOBODY NEEDS A GODDAMN ASSAULT RIFLE.  There is no argument here.  Stop selling automatic weapons to people.  Period.

6. Stop bringing up terrorism and calling this a terrorist attack ONLY because it is a brown person doing the shooting.  When over 20 children were killed at Newtown, it wasn’t a terrorist attack.  When a white man went into a Sikh temple to kill people in worship, it wasn’t a terrorist attack.  When a man opened fire in a movie theater, it wasn’t a terrorist attack.  Stop basing your definition of terrorism on the color of the person’s skin who holds the gun.  Either these acts of violence are terrorism or they aren’t.  Period.

7. Don’t let that fact that this man called himself an “ISIS supporter” blur your vision of what this really was.  It was an attack on queer and trans* people of color in their sacred space.  This is terrorism because it brought terror to our families and communities, not because the shooter came from an Afghan family.  

Let us love each other more fiercely.  Let us hold each other in the light.  Let us recognize resiliency of queer and trans* communities of color, and not let our family fight alone.  Let us remember, as the Mexican proverb says: they tried to bury us.  They didn’t know we were seeds.

I see you.  I love you.

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

[x]

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

Q Tip

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

An Open Letter to those Posting in Support of Law Enforcement

This is a response to those writing and acting in support of Darren Wilson, Daniel Pantaleo, Peter Liang, Timothy Loehmann and others who have shot and killed unarmed Black and Brown people.  It is a response, in part because I feel obligated as a white person to speak to my fellow (mostly) white people who are expressing their support of law enforcement.

I think we need to support our police, fire fighters, EMT and all others who put their lives on the line to help others.  I think we need to appreciate them and thank them at every chance we get.  My father was a police officer for over 10 years in Trenton, NJ and he told me many stories about dangerous situations.  I am glad that the majority of my life I have not had to worry about him coming back injured or worse and that my family has not had to hold this anxiety with us.

Having said that, the way that policing happens and the history of police (where they police, who they police, how they police) is violent and based completely on the fact that police act as they must: as representatives of state that has killed Native people, enslaved and systematically killed Black people, all the while devaluing and exploiting poor working class people and assaulting, harassing and sometimes raping women and trans* people.  Law enforcement act out the legacies that have grown inside of them for centuries.  This does not justify their behavior, but it certainly gives it some context.  These actions ARE NOT NEW.  Who was there to protect Klansmen while they killed civil rights organizers with impunity?  Who sat by and watched as thousands of Black people were lynched throughout the 19th and 20th centuries?  Who guards the prisons and detention centers disproportionately full of Black and Brown bodies?

In my opinion, anyone who is defending police officers and other law enforcement  given the most recent state killings (Michael Brown, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Eric Garner and now Rumain Brisbon), you are only defending your own whiteness (and if you are not white, then you are protecting white supremacy).  It is uncomfortable to see people label, stereotype and judge others before they know what their experience is like, right?  It is unfair for people to put a label onto police officers, when the vast majority of them are not killing unarmed Black and Brown people.  It certainly must come from a place of not knowing many people who actually break the racist cop stereotype, right?

Now take that same logic and apply it to people of color in this country.  Judged for being in a park along with a toy gun. Judged for walking down the street with a friend.  Judged for standing outside and selling cigarettes.  Judged for being in a dark stairway of a public housing project.  We cannot separate police killings from white supremacy, because that is exactly what is happening.  This is how white supremacy operates.  In 1850 you could lynch a Black man and you would not be tried for it.  In 2014, if you are a police officer, you can murder an unarmed Black man and claim self-defense, therefore avoiding any jail time (or really any penalty at all). 

These cops should be tried as other people.  They have taken they life away from these young people and they will never be brought back.  While cops work tirelessly to put away murderers and rapists on the streets, what are they doing when those in blue are acting the same way?  How can we justify killing an unarmed 12-year old?  Or a man leaving his apartment with his girlfriend?

Also, unfortunately these killings are not uncommon and while there are plenty of good police out there, even the good ones don’t seem to be coming out and calling these killings what they are: murders.  There are plenty of good police out there, but there are plenty of police who would rather kill a Black or Brown person, rather than attempt to apprehend them.  The problem with racism is that it is SYTEMIC and we cannot continue to say that these acts were the acts of a few crazy racist police officers.  Cops are rewarded, supported and exonerated after these killings.  Prosecutors don’t push for indictments and the process is completely biased in their favor from the moment the bullet leaves their guns. 

Let’s look at one police department and see how systemic it really is: Cleveland.  The US Department of Justice just concluded an investigation into the Cleveland police department, here is some of what they found:

-Police officers fired over 130 rounds into the vehicle of two unarmed men in a car chase, killing both men.

-Police punched a 13-year old boy in the face, while he was handcuffed

-An officer shot at a man running out of his house, wearing only his boxers

-Police supervisors approved using Tasers against handcuffed suspects

-An officer tazed a suicidal deaf man, who had committed no crime

-The report also found that the methods and behaviors of Cleveland Police officers has led to increase distrust and lack of respect for officers.  Here is a clip from the report: 

During our investigation, we found that CDP’s method of policing contributes to the community’s distrust of and lack of respect for officers—officers escalate situations instead of diffusing them and using them as an opportunity to build trust and rapport; officers draw their service weapons on people who are suspected of minor crimes or who do not otherwise pose a threat; and officers use force against people in mental health crisis after family members have called the police in a desperate plea for assistance. Any attempt CDP makes to establish and maintain a positive and beneficial relationship with the community is potentially also undermined by the frequency with which officers appear to stop and search people without meeting the requisite threshold of reasonable suspicion or probable cause. As noted previously in the Summary section of this letter, it appears preliminarily that officers often subject people to stops and searches without the requisite level of suspicion.  In addition, despite the fact that we are making no finding regarding racial profiling, we must report that when we interviewed members of the community about their experiences with the police, many African-Americans reported that they believe CDP officers are verbally and physically aggressive toward them because of their race. We also found that, when community members attempt to file complaints about mistreatment at the hands of CDP officers, they are met with barriers and resistance. 

We cannot continue to claim support of law enforcement and separate that from supporting white supremacy.  As long as we have police and policing that targets, harasses, stops-and-frisks, and kills Black and Brown people, we will not be able to separate these two things.  For now, we must continue to appreciate the work of our law enforcement, but also be critical of the racism that underlies all of their actions.  Eric Garner’s limp body laid on the ground for SEVEN minutes before any law enforcement officials tried to help him.  Michael Brown’s body laid in the street for FOUR and a half HOURS before being removed by the coroners.  Akai Gurley’s killer texted his Union rep before calling an ambulance.  We can see that even if these killings were mistakes and even if officers felt justified in their actions, there is NO EXCUSE for lives not being valued.  This is clear both in the shootings and what happens immediately after.

 Lastly (and certainly not least), let’s think about this entire conversation in the way of privilege: yes, the work of law enforcement is stressful, sometimes life-threatening and causes extreme anxiety for family and friends.  And people living in communities of color (especially poor and working class communities) also live with nearly constant anxiety and stress of worrying about what will happen with the police in their neighborhood.  Will one of their sons, brothers, sisters, cousins or friends be hurt or killed by police today?  As police officers, they work for certain hours each day.  They have certain careers, which eventually end.  Some find different types of work.  All police officers have the privilege to take their uniform off.  Black and brown people in over-policed communities do not have this same option.  They never get to remove their skin-color and the meanings associated with it by their local law enforcement.

  To read and judge the DoJ reports for yourselves, here are two good links on Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/04/cleveland-police-doj_n_6270220.html#document/p50/a191753

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1375135-cleveland-division-of-police-findings-letter.html 

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

Help the fight against police brutality!

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

My sister keeps trying to justify the shooting by saying "ok, but cops go through so much bullshit. It makes sense why he shot him" and its infuriating what can I say to make her shut up

Police lied. Mike Brown was killed 148 ft. away from Darren Wilson’s SUV

This post

Darren Wilson has a history of aggressive behavior (video)

Darren Wilson confirmed as Ferguson cop who threatened/arrested man for filming him.  Alleged video of Darren Wilson on Oct. 23, 2013 surfaces. Tells man to stop filming or “I’ll lock your ass up”

Shaun King’s 15 questions for Darren Wilson

Darren Wilson came back for conflict (storify)

Was it legal for Darren Wilson to shoot Mike Brown?

Darren Wilson roughed up man suspected of selling drugs in Feb. 2013 (Incident report)

Only way Darren Wilson’s gun could have been wrestled over is if he had it already pulled out (x)

Darren Wilson has a history of racial profiling

Edit: Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities

“Would you support Darren Wilson if he killed your son?”

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

This.

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

The United States is in favour of stability. But you have to remember what stability means. Stability means conformity to US orders. So, for example, one of the charges against Iran, the big foreign policy threat, is that it is destabilising Iraq and Afghanistan. How? By trying to expand its influence into neighbouring countries. On the other hand, we “stabilise” countries when we invade them and destroy them.

Noam Chomsky, ‘Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to US Empire’ (via indizombie)

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

Drew House Speaks piece by Elizabeth Alexander ‘14

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

The Other Side of Privilege - Jordan, Trayvon, Renisha and the Justice System's Attempts to Destroy Black Livelihood

I really don't have much to add to the ongoing conversation about Jordan Davis, I feel as if there is a lot of information out there written by a lot of well-informed and talented writers (this is a particularly good one - Unpacking the History of Black Loudness).  I did want to throw my 2 cents in as I have found my mind preoccupied with this incident and am not sure how to process it except to try to write it out.

Most of the conversation about this incident is around the idea that Black lives are not valued in this country, and this is exactly where the conversation should be.  We need to be sure that we are connecting this event (along with the events of the murders of Trayvon Martin, Jonathan Ferrell, Renisha McBride, and many others) to the killings, arrests and torture of Black bodies throughout the past 400 years.  

While it is easy to see the effects of white supremacy on our society, it is also easy to detach the historical creation of race from this picture. 

While juries in both the Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis cases were told that they could not consider race in both of these trials, it is difficult to imagine that these cases would have even happened, if it had not been for the historical creation of race. 

Of course during the enslavement of Africans on this continent, white people could treat Black people however they wanted to because they were property.  After legal emancipation, Black bodies were enslaved again, but this time by the convict leasing system and a system of sharecropping that lead to white ownership of land and production relations almost mirroring slavery (except in name).  Black men could be arrested for walking close to the railroad tracks, for selling vegetables at the wrong time of the day, for allegedly looking at a white woman (source: Slavery By Another Name ). 

Today the civil rights act and 14th amendment tell us that legally we are all protected under the law, yet time and time again we see white murderers go free after taking the life of a young Black person.  This time, the killer, Howard Dunn, shot into a car full of unarmed Black teenagers and then continued firing on them as they drove away.  Instead of calling the police (he later told investigators that he saw Jordan with a shotgun inside the car) to tell them about a car full of teenagers armed with a shotgun, him and his wife went to a nearby hotel ordered a pizza and drank some rum and cokes (source democracynow.org).  Obviously, Mr. Dunn was feeling very remorseful and clearly felt threatened (he never called the police during or after this entire altercation...and the teenagers in the car were suspicious?!?).

To flip the script a bit, this story also made me think about my life and how deeply engrained privilege is.  Literally my skin color has saved my life.  Sure, not all Black men are in danger at all times in this country, but they are at a substantially greater risk to be killed by police, security forces, vigilantes, or just armed citizens who clearly should not be able to possess a gun license.  In fact the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement found that from January to July 2012 a young Black or Brown person was killed every 36 hours by one of these groups. (source: report).  

It is really unbelievable to me, that I can walk around the street and not have to worry about being killed for being who I am.  I won’t be arrested for waiting for the bus, I won’t be assumed suspicious because of my skin color or what I am wearing, I won’t be shot at point blank range looking for help after my car has crashed.  In all of this, I can rest assured that people who look like me will also mostly not be punished for their deeds of taking the lives of my brothers and sisters of different races. 

This story is disgusting.  I am happy that the justice system will at least put Michael Dunn in jail for 60 years, but I am in awe of the fact that race still cannot play a role in these conversations. I am left baffled by the fact that although racism and white supremacy created the ideas in Michael Dunn’s head that these teenagers might be dangerous or suspicious, these things cannot be discussed in his trial. 

A system like this is not broken, but rather working perfectly well in what its main goal is: to protect white bodies and lives and to destroy (and help protect those who destroy) the lives of Black, Brown and poor people.   

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

We would like to wish our revolutionary ancestor Huey P. Newton a Happy Birthday, who was born on February 17., 1942. He was a powerful warrior in the struggle against racism, capitalism, and imperialism during the 1960s and 1970s.

Without his leadership in creating and developing the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, many of us would not have the opportunities we have today, such as the Women Infant and Children (WIC) program, free school breakfast, Black Studies, and many more contributions for oppressed people to rise up and finally control our society for the advancement of our people and the world.

Watch this video of a huge rally of more than 5,000 people on his birthday, February 17, 1968, organized by Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense to support the movement to Free Huey from prison. #FreePeltier #FreeMumia #FreeCuban5 #FreeOscarLopezRivera Free all political prisoners!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUEY P. NEWTON!

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

"Life is going to present to you a series of transformations. And the point of education should be to transform you. To teach you how to be transformed so you can ride the waves as they come. But today, the point of education is not education. It’s accreditation. The more accreditation you have, the more money you make. That’s the instrumental logic of neoliberalism. And this instrumental logic comes wrapped in an envelope of fear. And my Ivy League, my MIT students are the same. All I feel coming off of my students is fear. That if you slip up in school, if you get one bad grade, if you make one fucking mistake, the great train of wealth will leave you behind. And that’s the logic of accreditation. If you’re at Yale, you’re in the smartest 1% in the world. […] And the brightest students in the world are learning in fear. I feel it rolling off of you in waves. But you can’t learn when you’re afraid. You cannot be transformed when you are afraid."

Junot Díaz, speaking at Yale  (via malinche)

Those final four sentences are something else.

(via genericlatino)

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when you meet another human being who has some inkling…of that something which you were born desiring, and which beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for?

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (via thedapperproject)

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

“Black women wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see Black women. White women wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see women. White men wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see human beings.”

— Michelle Haimoff, on privilege (via jatigi)

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]

On Respect and Applause for the US Military

As we left our flight one of the attendants asked for all active and retired military to raise their hands.  The whole plane clapped, including myself.  Doing this I even felt like I was going against my own values.  

In some senses I really appreciate the applause and good energy, directed towards these people who put their lives on the line for our country.  However, the respect given to all military personnel a priori and without regard for who the person is and what work they have done, is what I have a problem with.

The applause and respect given to US military personnel rests on four false assumptions.

1) The sacrifice/risks that these people are taking are to protect my (our) freedom.

2) That these sacrifices are the ultimate and therefore should uniquely be respected and applauded.

3) That any military personnel are taking similar action/doing similar work/fighting for similar causes.

4) Violence/militarism is and should be glorified and upheld.  

Obviously these assumptions are related to one another, but I will try to address each one individually.

1) Yes, it is true that some military personnel in US history were protecting our freedom.  World War II is maybe the best example (outside of the revolution and the War of 1812, of course) because had Nazi Germany emerged victorious from Europe, they surely would have come to the US next.

However, the notion of Cold War military action like Vietnam, Korea, Nicaragua and others being for "our freedom" was a completely constructed idea in order to limit the spread of a political ideology (communism).  It is safe to say that a united, communist Vietnam would not have posed any more of a threat than the temporarily divided Vietnam that the US did go to war with.  (At the end of the conflict in Vietnam, both Vietnam and Laos emerged as communist countries and neither has threatened US interests at all since becoming communist).  

So, this notion of military personnel protecting my freedom was a tool used by the ruling class to trick the public into thinking that unless the US has a strong (and offensive) military presence all over the world, our freedom will be taken away.

Fast forward to the present day: two current wars (or at least military involvement) in Iraq and Afghanistan. And how exactly does the futhering of an ancient conflict in Afghanistan help protect my individual freedom as a US citizen?  I am open to hear any answers to this question.

As a matter of fact, it is commonly known that these wars and other military action around the world, help create the next generation of anti-US militants.  It was well documented that the presence of US military in Saudi Arabia is one of the reasons that 9/11 was perpetrated.  Far away from protecting our freedom, it seems that US military presence in so many places around the world actually is making us less safe and placing us more directly in harm's way.

2) While it is true that military personnel take particularly risky and brave actions based on the type of work they do, I take issue with the idea that these risks and actions are rewarded and others are not.  If we accept the claim that military personnel protect our freedom (which we already disproved) then we are leaving out a substantial number of people who we do not acknowledge.  Although it might not be in the same capacity, many other workers and volunteers risk their lives and make the ultimate sacrifice who are not military personnel.  

Journalists risk their lives so that we can even know about the way "our freedom is being protected."  Groups like Doctors without Borders and the Red Cross provide medical assistance in conflict areas.  "Development" and other aid workers like Peace Corps volunteers put their lives on the line to bring basic services to different people.  (This notion of development must be analyzed as well, but for now we can rely on the fact that these workers take similar risks to military personnel and are never applauded on airplanes).  

My general point here is that the military and its workers are not the only people to make the ultimate sacrifice or take the ultimate risk, but often times (especially in spaces like this plane) they are the only ones acknowledged as doing so.  (This also leads into assumption #4 in the sense that military personnel are applauded for often times behaving violently and Peace Corps volunteers are never given similar treatment).

3) Military service people come from just as many different backgrounds as any other profession.  Along with this comes different personalities, ideologies, worldviews and behaviors.  To treat all military personnel with an equal and unearned respect when we know nothing about them as individuals seems just as problematic as generalizing and applauding any other group.  

What if one of the men I applauded for on this plane, raped or sexually assaulted a female service member, which happens very often?  As a matter of fact just this past year alone 3,400 cases of sexual assault were reported in the US military.  That is over 9 assaults per day.  Up to 26,000 sexual assaults are believed to have been unreported according to PBS (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june13/military_05-07.html).  What if I supported someone in doing this?  Who was I really clapping for?

What if one of the people I clapped for knowingly killed or harmed a civilian in their line of work?  What if they were part of a group that bullied queer service members?  These are not people that I would want to put my hands together for.

Wouldn't these actions (which are very common in the military) make some people (for example female or queer service members) actually feel less safe and less free?

And to clap uniformly for any who have served?  It seems as though we are opening the door to respect and applaud real heros and courageous people, while simultaneously applauding those who cause much pain, possibly even to their own military brothers and sisters.

I really don't want to devalue the work and experience of service members.  I am not claiming that we should not applaud their work.  What I am suggesting here is to applaud them as a group means we include in our praise people who have sexually assaulted others, killed innocent people and done harm on many different levels.  I do not wish to applaud the latter, but am forced to if we generalize all military personnel together.

4) We don't applaud the Peace Corps volunteers or Reporters without Borders, but we always applaud the people who carry the guns.  For young people on this flight the idea of being rewarded for violent behavior is being entrenched into their minds as this happens.  (Let us clarify, not all military work is violent, but much of it involves carrying weapons and that is their main charge).  

A 9-year old boy sees strangers applauding people they do not know for being in the military.  What messages are we creating and reinforcing by clapping for all of these people?  Couple this with the glorification of the US military, war and imperialism in Hollywood and on US TV and we have a very dangerous combination.  

[privilegeasatoolofresistance]