more on violence, race, and public opinion

The Huffington Post has a blog by Baratunde Thurston about research into racist associations between Black people and apes in particular, and the links to police violence and public opinion. Worth checking out.

monkeys, assassination , and race

hm. i guess we aren't in a post-racial society after all.
this morning my boss clued me in to a New York Post cartoon that had police shooting a monkey and saying 'they'll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.'

Gawker has some good coverage if you want to see it. But first, ask yourself what was so funny about this? Is it the centuries of racist epithets and "scientific" research comparing Black people to apes? Is it the implicit reference to assassinating the President (a very real fear that I share with others)? Is it the reference to police shooting an unarmed person on the street? Is it the idea that police shootings are funny?

Even giving the cartoonist a huge benefit of the doubt (which I think is generous), possibly he's not familiar with the history of racist depictions of Black people. At the very least, he should acknowledge his mistake. Sounds like the Post is getting its share of complaints. Once again, it's our chance to speak out against ignorance and to call ourselves to account for not learning our history and not learning how our words, no matter how unintentional, can hurt others.

salvation and aging white men: Gran Torino and The Wrestler

Last night we saw Gran Torino, and last weekend, we saw The Wrestler. Seeing both movies put me in mind of something I read back when I did my Women's Studies final project on feminism and film. According to one feminist critic, the late 1970s began to see a shift in masculinity in a post-Vietnam US context (see the aging WWII generation and the stars of the 1950s), and the 1980s and Reagan saw a re-enforcement and re-writing of masculinity - in international politics as well as film (see the Rambo films as exhibit A). I look at our context now: Our sense of ourselves as a nation has shifted with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our economic system may be reminding us of the 1970s downturn as well. I don't know much about the Carter administration, so I can't say much about the comparisons with Carter & Obama. And then I see the two white men, aging, in these films. For these two men, the world is changing rapidly, and something keeps them stuck. I saw both title characters struggling with the burdens of their past and the losses associated with aging and the specter of irrelevance.

[Here I may give away a few points about the films, just so you know]
In Gran Torino, I was noticed by the metaphor of Thao locked in a basement, and Sue unlocking the door. The person with the key represented literally the same role that she played metaphorically for Mr. Kowalski. In The Wrestler, I see a similar interplay, with Cassidy, who represented the possibility of unlocking the cage that kept Randy locked in his performance persona. In both cases, these women represented parallel processes for the main characters: Sue, as the translator between old and new worlds - and Cassidy in the tension between her performance on the job and her private life. I think there are lessons for us as the audience to learn about where to turn as we seek answers about how to live in a changing world.
I think there's a lot to be mined in these two movies (and also in Brokeback Mountain, which I insist is not a movie about homosexuality, but a movie about men and intimate friendship - I honestly don't think Heath Ledger's character was gay, so much as just lonely and vulnerable, but anyway...). I think there's a lot to be mined about the structures of masculinity that keep men isolated and at a loss when confronted with their own vulnerability. I think it works both ways - by demonstrating how some aspects of masculinity increase isolation, but at the same time how these characters can maintain their manhood while also admitting vulnerability and relaxing some of their rigidity in relationships with others.

I'm hoping that even if there's not a lot of explicit talk about this stuff, films can still seep into our collective imaginations and behaviors. I think it's an interesting time (economically, politically, culturally) to see the shifting shape of white manhood (and to some extent, all manhood) in the US. This may be a little disjointed, because I'm still mulling it over.

And P.S. - My viewing of Gran Torino was influenced by the presence of two obnoxious white college-age [likely drunk] men who sat in the back of the theater and made homophobic & sexist comments and who cheered at Mr. Kowalski's racist comments. They missed what I think is the larger point of the film - and to me, represent the flipside, what the 80s became in some senses. Also, I thought that toward the end of the film, the reference to crucifixion was annoying and tired as a metaphor. Also, the depiction of the young priest just out of seminary was pretty accurate. Those of us in seminary ought to take some valuable lessons about our levels of (im)maturity in religious leadership.

from Kentucky

Here's a poem/meditation that I was working on during my trip to Kentucky. I think it's the best distillation I can do, but it leaves out so much.

Untitled (Kentucky and California)

What if a miner coughed every time I switched on a light?
Or three drops of coal ash sludge oozed out of the electrical
socket every time I turned on my computer?
What if I lost one increment of hearing every time I judged
“those people” as uneducated because of the accent in their voice?
Then I might begin to know the cost of living in my world.

Or would I learn that a cough is the sound of a light switching on,
And learn to live with poison and cancer?
Would I simply adjust to hearing no voice but my own?

The cloth was started before we are born.
The future is woven before we can see the pattern.
God is somehow embroidered here and there,
And the answer to our prayers is the touch of thread across thread.

GTUBS / PSR begins to address the Oscar Grant murder

GTU Black Seminarians is circulating a statement, and PSR has finally started a forum to begin to address the role of religious leaders in relation to the Oscar Grant murder. Here it is:

http://www.psr.edu/questions/what-role-seminary-or-local-church-when-incident-such-oscar-grant-slaying-occurs#comment-221

[PS - read EJoye's comments in reply to my previous post as well.]

Starting to muse about the Oscar Grant murder

Today I was involved in multiple conversations about how my school, PSR will respond to the Oscar Grand shooting. I hope they will -- as religious leaders, we must engage in events that happen in our communities (especially after the wonderful precedent they set by publishing a statement officially against Prop 8!).

Here's the state of my thoughts today.
Stuff like this continues to happen. No matter what happened in the actual event - whether it was racially motivated or not - it falls into a long-standing trend of white officers shooting unarmed Black men. It matters that the officer was white and the murdered man was black, unarmed, and vulnerable. While I don't condone violence, and find it sad that protests that turn violent unfairly impact poor communities, I get why people are angry and upset in Oakland.
Stuff like this will continue to happen as long as we live in a society where racism is ignored by those of us in power & privilege. I was at a reception the other day, and I did something that was thoughtless and a little bit rude to a Black man. Reflecting on it later, I realize that if he doesn't know me (or even if he does), he probably wonders what kind of racist stereotypes I have of him. Just like Officer Mehserle, I was the racist of that moment, no matter what my intentions were. This is the same as the way I am a potential rapist in the eyes of women who don't know me, especially when I walk to school on deserted streets or at dusk. Because some men rape, and because some white people are violently racist, I am potentially a violent, racist rapist. If the justice & fairness issue alone doesn't motivate me, this should. It feels a little like luck of the draw. The impact of Officer Mehserle's actions make him the bearer not only of the responsibility of what he did, but the bearer of responsibility for all those officers who shot unarmed Black men and were acquitted or slapped on the wrist. Who knows but that something I do unintentionally has a racist or sexist impact? Until we change the system, this kind of stuff will happen. As white people, we are at risk until we educate ourselves, talk with each other, and change the way our world runs.
I see a lot of parallels in what I used to teach about sexism: if I don't stand up as a man among men who make sexist jokes, I contribute to a culture that implies permission to sexually assault a woman. if I don't stand up as a white guy among white folks who enact, benefit from, and ignore racism, I contribute to a culture that implies permission to assault, murder, exploit, etc people of color.
Let's see, what's the theological angle on this? I certainly believe God's desire is for justice. According to the tradition, God became human -- and what did Jesus do? Did he go out hang out with all the governors and religious leaders? Did he ask servants to feed him grapes while he wrote the sermon on the mount? Did he go find sinners, handcuff them, and shoot them? Actually, I think he served others. He spoke about kindness and brought people back from alienation. Anyone else want to weigh in on this?

Don't Go Hating the Vagina Monologues

The Clare Boothe Luce Project is spreading lies about the Vagina Monologues. I saw my first production in 1999, and it transformed the way I understood the impacts of violence against women and girls. I was moved to tears and to laughter, and sometimes made uncomfortable by women speaking in their own voices about their own bodies and their place in the world. It opened my eyes and transformed how I understood my mom's and my sister's and my friends' lives - and even my own. My friend Anna, a Methodist pastor in Iowa, wrote a response because some of her parishioners brought it to her attention. Read about it here:
http://akbsviapositiva.blogspot.com/