The last four days have been truly exciting for me. I came across a blog, How To Be Black, through another blog -both linked below- titled: Racism 101. The first blog is a bit tongue in cheek and the second is serious business. The second blog is an advice column of sorts, readers pose questions about all things race related, and the blogger replies. Having read about 100 questions and the replies I would describe the blogger as precise, snarky, and well informed. I was impressed. How To Be Black, in part, asks for its readers to answer a few questions (irregardless of race), and it stresses that the format of video would be best received. After having watched a few videos, I became struck by how the format of video, unlike written text, can have a far different effect upon the reader/watcher. As a viewer we can take in things like body-language, and facial expression, that the written text, by default, leaves out. Over time, when I have tried to express myself about my personal experiences of/with race and how it occurs to me, how I think about it, and how I identify with it, I have run across, most times, a positive response. Too, I have encountered, complete exasperation from those who think this topic is better left unspoken believing that silence will make its multitude of issues 'go away'. Then I thought about my eventual death.
Three days ago I saw an article in the Huffington Post concerning the wonderful writer, Alice Walker, author of, The Color Purple, having had an invitation to speak at the University of Michigan revoked because of her outspoken comments regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Then I read the comment section linked to this article, and I felt I had to say something myself. So I started my own thread. I asked the question: How does one criticize the actions of a person identifying themselves as Jewish without being called an anti-Semite? I posed this question not because of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but because of the various virulent responses which I read that seemed like they were written by people in the throes of apoplectic mania.
As a writer I was perhaps even more deeply concerned, that a writer of the calibre of Ms. Walker, who had written so many engaging books that have redefined feminism, brought awareness to female circumcision, engaged us in the politics of black-white feminism and who almost single-handedly caused the African-American community to begin talking about its homophobia,and who had brought tenderness to an often un-tender African American literary canon, could suddenly be dashed into the flames for having an opinion that differed from others. It seemed we loved her work/her as long as we could relate to it and we liked what we heard. But once she strayed from the path we wished for her to walk, what she had done prior was rendered invalid. Mostly I was concerned because the first people to hit the dust, before planned or unplanned mayhem, are writers, artists, and scientists. They are the first to go because this group are on the frontline of independent thinking. The act of writing, irregardless of subject, is an exploration of self and ideas. It is how a writer learns and rethinks things. How they toy with ideas and come to conclusions or come to conclusions that they eventually rethink. The act of writing is a re-write and so goes with it a re-thinking. So I am concerned when there is a rush to silence the very people that write scenarios that imagine ourselves better than we are, that write to warn us and to show us where we stand, who create visual art in order to see the other side; to express what has no words, that use logic to show error in previous notions and beliefs.
There were comments that bashed Ms. Walker because she was estranged from her daughter, because she was black, because she had once been married to a Jewish man and therefore, somehow, had no right. Because of a host of things that had nothing to do with anything at hand. I posed my question because this phrase, anti-Semite, which she was being accused of, seems to be thrown left, right and center, all over the damned place, even when people are asking legitimate questions. Seventy-two hours later, most of which I received blow by blow, I received well over one hundred replies, that began with really wonderful thoughtful responses that I learned an enormous amount from. I am still receiving replies as I write this, but this morning, since the debate got ugly, I posted that I was finished, had gotten what I wanted, and would no longer be responding to further posts. That has not stopped people from commenting, and I have now been identified as an anti-Semite for having even posed the question in the first place.
I learned that the word Semite is applicable to both Arabs and Jews. What does that mean? It means if you support either side of the Israeli-Palestinian debate, semantically, you are an anti-Semite and on the wrong side. (What it really means is, if you attempt to use the phrase anti-Semite, you are going to be trapped in a black hole of craziness for a long time to come). One poster sent me a link to a lecture by Dr. Henrik Clarke (a man whom I'd never heard of), titled: Who and What is a Jew. I listened to about 45 minutes and plan to listen to the remainder, but what it really got me to thinking about is: Who writes history? Who gets to decide what is important to be known? What is good scholarship if Wikepedia is the first thing one encounters when one uses a search engine for information? I then wondered why the term 'Afro-Centric' sounds so suspiciously negative to me. Why do I imagine, when I hear this term, a person of African descent that can't talk about anything other than pan-African subjects. There is no opposite term for this because the opposite term for this is an unspoken understanding of the world. The opposite of Afro-Centric would have to be Caucasian-Centric and Caucasian Centric is the world we live in. The world that we encounter every-waking day of our lives. And that is what is considered 'normal'. And what is normal, usually goes unnoticed. What is new or abnormal gets scrutinized. But if what is mainstream (normal) get's repeated as truth does that make it true? I don't have the answer but I know one thing for certain: The information is out there, or better, the pieces of the puzzle are out there and if you really claim to give a shit about anything you had better begin by getting a library card, a pencil and a pad of paper. Prepare yourself for some serious note taking.
Afro-Centric studies are really just an exploration of the other side of the story. Everybody has a story. Everybody participated in history. Everybody. Did I say: EVERYBODY? Did I say it loud enough? Did everybody hear? Did everyone understand?
If we don't learn, or are not taught, that everyone contributed to where we are today, I think it becomes all too easy to point the finger at anyone we personally believe as being non-entitled to having a piece of the pie. It becomes simple to imagine that all peoples of African descent contributed nothing. Why would you believe otherwise if you never were taught that they did? It becomes easy to quarantine the LGBT populace because you believe they just got here and suddenly, it seems to you, out of nowhere, they want equal rights. It becomes easy to bash Muslims and Arabs because before 9/11 you never even knew what a Muslim was and you feel incredibly angry because you don't know why they are so angry. You never question why European art might be considered important art and everyone else's art is referred to as 'Folk Art' (as though the instructions for creating such art came from the side of a cereal box titled: How To Make Art).
Please. Do not misunderstand me. When I wrote earlier, two paragraphs above, that everyone contributed to history, this must include Caucasian/European contributions as well. What I am questioning is why you know Picasso but not Lois Mailou Jones or James A. Porter. Why you know Albert Einstein but not Lloyd Albert Quarterman. Why you may have read Hemingway but not James Baldwin or Richard Wright. There is a reason behind what we are taught/learn-one thing over another. There is a reason...
To say that history is written by the winners is too pat. History is written by those in power, who thrive and are invested in the mechanism that keeps the mechanism going. One of the best essays written on this very subject is by Louis Althusser in his essay: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). It is a difficult read but it breaks down, quite well, the various participants in the mechanism, what part they play, how these parts depend upon one another, and how it is virtually impossible to stop the mechanism. In short, the mechanism is dependent upon you and me not knowing a damned thing about anything.
I am a writer and I love literature. Literature has a history. Writing instruments have a history. You are a doctor and love medicine? Medicine has a history. You are a couch potato and love watching TV? Visual entertainment has a history. You love matches and setting things on fire? Flame has a history. Reading cross culturally and cross historically, grasping what you've read- to the extent that you see the connections between the cultures- can explain almost everything that you need to know about everything else. Because I love literature, and almost hate to admit it, I still have to say that history, all history, by everyone who participated, is the most important thing we can know about to learn about ourselves as we sit here and read the ramblings of Moira.
A few weeks before this, by accident, (I swear I don't go searching for this stuff) I came across an article written by an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youth (I think he identified as Hassidim). He had begun a website listing the names and addresses of people in his community who were suspected pedophiles. On first glance, I was a appalled that he could do this without any legal backup. I took each name that he had written, Googled it, and each time I found a genuine conviction. So I looked a little deeper and uncovered Pandora's Box. It seems pedophilia in ultra-orthodox communities are neck and neck with the pedophilia in the Catholic church. Why had I never heard of this before? I was shocked. So I dug deeper still and learned about the Shomrim. (Please for God's sake don't rely on Wikepedia for anything other than a good laugh at purported scholarship). The Shomrim, on the surface, seems like the best idea since sliced bread, until you begin to understand that deeply entwined in this community watch program is 'mesirah'. (Critics are also referring to them as vigilantes but you can read up about that on your own). That seven letter word is where I part ways. No other community in the United States of America gets to tell the police, "we will deal with our own communities" except those of The First Nations and we all understand, if not historically, then instinctually, that this is another can of worms. I part ways with this concept because it is ingrained in religious rhetoric. I part ways with it for the following obvious reasons:
It skews crime statistics. (Not that I am a crime statistic wannabe, but because statistics say my group of people are THE WORST and I would like to see the numbers come down to reality)
(And I have not yet learned what other communities have the same impunity. The Amish? Mormons? The Mennonites? Who else? (It must be groups of people that use religion as a defense of sainthood). Catholics aren't included because we all know now, that gig is up. True, we don't know what they are still hiding, but our eyes are still watching God...
It allows for crimes against children to go unpunished.
It silences people, families and women.
It alienates outsiders looking in. (It keeps hidden what I would normally report or act upon), and it alienates the insider looking out, they are pressured to remain silent and it becomes ingrained that no one can help but the very people asking you to be silent.
If it skews statistics and allows for crimes to go unpunished then it also warps history. Something gets presented as the truth, when in reality it is not true. That 'mesirah' is entwined in religious rhetoric spins my head even faster. God believes I should do this or that. God says my God is better than yours, God says the Second Coming has or has not come yet. Who can prove any of this stuff? Who? All religions are a bunch of bullshit if taken any further than a guide, I said a guide, not a detailed manual of the truth. And as a person who has studied literature I will go as far as to write that these texts are simply books in the same way that Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a book. The genre is religion and you can find it in the 200 section of any library wedged between social sciences and philosophy. If I had never heard of the Bible, the Qua'ran or the Torah would I have never figured out that killing someone was a bad idea? Reading a religious text from end to end and committing it to memory has not prevented anyone from becoming a pedophile, an abuser, or a general all around cretin. If I go out even further, I will write and say publicly, that religious fanaticism is abuse of the worst kind towards self and others.
I mention this little story for a reason. Most, if not all, of those that defended Israel or Palestine's existence on Huffington Post did so quoting religious text. I can see where the problem is. How can you argue with anyone, about any subject, who believes vehemently in an unseen force, an unseen entity, an unproven rhetoric, uses it as their defense, throws it in your face, and can't see beyond it to listen to you? You can't. So I leave this alone. This is not a Jewish problem, this is a fanatic problem and fanatics come from everywhere. I leave it alone because as long as people believe in God that furiously, pardon the pun, I don't have a chance in hell.
Now why do you suppose, that an article about Alice Walker, caused comment posters to bring in The Middles East, African Americans, black and white American race relations, Reza Aslan, terrorism, Arabs and mother-daughter estrangement, to name just a few?
I am trying very hard to approach this whole thing in a holistic manner. I don't care who is right or wrong. Those aren't my questions. I am purely going on instinct here but I swear I smell revolution in the air. The only scary part is that nuclear weapons have proliferated and some of the people who have the night shift watching over them, seem a bit loose in the joints to me. Forget The Middle East, people all over the world are losing it. People all over feel tired and used, hurt and unseen and are wondering what the point is in all this hard work when they get nothing in return. And then I thought about my eventual death again.
I thought about my recent ending of a friendship that I let go of, not because I wanted to let it go, but rather because I can't keep what I want to all the time. I think I finally understand what it means to let go; to let go when others don't know how to hang on. This is a kind of death in itself. The Huffington Post experience gave me another type of understanding: People want to be heard, they are upset about things that are out of their control; sometimes they just want to strike out and be hurtful...
Here is what I thought about next. I thought about my eventual death.What do I want to say that I haven't heard spoken of before? What seems as though it is still confusing to so many? What do I want known about myself before I go? What do I want carried on? What can I offer? What might I say that may make the world a better place? I will mull this over until I can mull no more.
Three days ago I saw an article in the Huffington Post concerning the wonderful writer, Alice Walker, author of, The Color Purple, having had an invitation to speak at the University of Michigan revoked because of her outspoken comments regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Then I read the comment section linked to this article, and I felt I had to say something myself. So I started my own thread. I asked the question: How does one criticize the actions of a person identifying themselves as Jewish without being called an anti-Semite? I posed this question not because of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but because of the various virulent responses which I read that seemed like they were written by people in the throes of apoplectic mania.
As a writer I was perhaps even more deeply concerned, that a writer of the calibre of Ms. Walker, who had written so many engaging books that have redefined feminism, brought awareness to female circumcision, engaged us in the politics of black-white feminism and who almost single-handedly caused the African-American community to begin talking about its homophobia,and who had brought tenderness to an often un-tender African American literary canon, could suddenly be dashed into the flames for having an opinion that differed from others. It seemed we loved her work/her as long as we could relate to it and we liked what we heard. But once she strayed from the path we wished for her to walk, what she had done prior was rendered invalid. Mostly I was concerned because the first people to hit the dust, before planned or unplanned mayhem, are writers, artists, and scientists. They are the first to go because this group are on the frontline of independent thinking. The act of writing, irregardless of subject, is an exploration of self and ideas. It is how a writer learns and rethinks things. How they toy with ideas and come to conclusions or come to conclusions that they eventually rethink. The act of writing is a re-write and so goes with it a re-thinking. So I am concerned when there is a rush to silence the very people that write scenarios that imagine ourselves better than we are, that write to warn us and to show us where we stand, who create visual art in order to see the other side; to express what has no words, that use logic to show error in previous notions and beliefs.
There were comments that bashed Ms. Walker because she was estranged from her daughter, because she was black, because she had once been married to a Jewish man and therefore, somehow, had no right. Because of a host of things that had nothing to do with anything at hand. I posed my question because this phrase, anti-Semite, which she was being accused of, seems to be thrown left, right and center, all over the damned place, even when people are asking legitimate questions. Seventy-two hours later, most of which I received blow by blow, I received well over one hundred replies, that began with really wonderful thoughtful responses that I learned an enormous amount from. I am still receiving replies as I write this, but this morning, since the debate got ugly, I posted that I was finished, had gotten what I wanted, and would no longer be responding to further posts. That has not stopped people from commenting, and I have now been identified as an anti-Semite for having even posed the question in the first place.
I learned that the word Semite is applicable to both Arabs and Jews. What does that mean? It means if you support either side of the Israeli-Palestinian debate, semantically, you are an anti-Semite and on the wrong side. (What it really means is, if you attempt to use the phrase anti-Semite, you are going to be trapped in a black hole of craziness for a long time to come). One poster sent me a link to a lecture by Dr. Henrik Clarke (a man whom I'd never heard of), titled: Who and What is a Jew. I listened to about 45 minutes and plan to listen to the remainder, but what it really got me to thinking about is: Who writes history? Who gets to decide what is important to be known? What is good scholarship if Wikepedia is the first thing one encounters when one uses a search engine for information? I then wondered why the term 'Afro-Centric' sounds so suspiciously negative to me. Why do I imagine, when I hear this term, a person of African descent that can't talk about anything other than pan-African subjects. There is no opposite term for this because the opposite term for this is an unspoken understanding of the world. The opposite of Afro-Centric would have to be Caucasian-Centric and Caucasian Centric is the world we live in. The world that we encounter every-waking day of our lives. And that is what is considered 'normal'. And what is normal, usually goes unnoticed. What is new or abnormal gets scrutinized. But if what is mainstream (normal) get's repeated as truth does that make it true? I don't have the answer but I know one thing for certain: The information is out there, or better, the pieces of the puzzle are out there and if you really claim to give a shit about anything you had better begin by getting a library card, a pencil and a pad of paper. Prepare yourself for some serious note taking.
Afro-Centric studies are really just an exploration of the other side of the story. Everybody has a story. Everybody participated in history. Everybody. Did I say: EVERYBODY? Did I say it loud enough? Did everybody hear? Did everyone understand?
If we don't learn, or are not taught, that everyone contributed to where we are today, I think it becomes all too easy to point the finger at anyone we personally believe as being non-entitled to having a piece of the pie. It becomes simple to imagine that all peoples of African descent contributed nothing. Why would you believe otherwise if you never were taught that they did? It becomes easy to quarantine the LGBT populace because you believe they just got here and suddenly, it seems to you, out of nowhere, they want equal rights. It becomes easy to bash Muslims and Arabs because before 9/11 you never even knew what a Muslim was and you feel incredibly angry because you don't know why they are so angry. You never question why European art might be considered important art and everyone else's art is referred to as 'Folk Art' (as though the instructions for creating such art came from the side of a cereal box titled: How To Make Art).
Please. Do not misunderstand me. When I wrote earlier, two paragraphs above, that everyone contributed to history, this must include Caucasian/European contributions as well. What I am questioning is why you know Picasso but not Lois Mailou Jones or James A. Porter. Why you know Albert Einstein but not Lloyd Albert Quarterman. Why you may have read Hemingway but not James Baldwin or Richard Wright. There is a reason behind what we are taught/learn-one thing over another. There is a reason...
To say that history is written by the winners is too pat. History is written by those in power, who thrive and are invested in the mechanism that keeps the mechanism going. One of the best essays written on this very subject is by Louis Althusser in his essay: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). It is a difficult read but it breaks down, quite well, the various participants in the mechanism, what part they play, how these parts depend upon one another, and how it is virtually impossible to stop the mechanism. In short, the mechanism is dependent upon you and me not knowing a damned thing about anything.
I am a writer and I love literature. Literature has a history. Writing instruments have a history. You are a doctor and love medicine? Medicine has a history. You are a couch potato and love watching TV? Visual entertainment has a history. You love matches and setting things on fire? Flame has a history. Reading cross culturally and cross historically, grasping what you've read- to the extent that you see the connections between the cultures- can explain almost everything that you need to know about everything else. Because I love literature, and almost hate to admit it, I still have to say that history, all history, by everyone who participated, is the most important thing we can know about to learn about ourselves as we sit here and read the ramblings of Moira.
A few weeks before this, by accident, (I swear I don't go searching for this stuff) I came across an article written by an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youth (I think he identified as Hassidim). He had begun a website listing the names and addresses of people in his community who were suspected pedophiles. On first glance, I was a appalled that he could do this without any legal backup. I took each name that he had written, Googled it, and each time I found a genuine conviction. So I looked a little deeper and uncovered Pandora's Box. It seems pedophilia in ultra-orthodox communities are neck and neck with the pedophilia in the Catholic church. Why had I never heard of this before? I was shocked. So I dug deeper still and learned about the Shomrim. (Please for God's sake don't rely on Wikepedia for anything other than a good laugh at purported scholarship). The Shomrim, on the surface, seems like the best idea since sliced bread, until you begin to understand that deeply entwined in this community watch program is 'mesirah'. (Critics are also referring to them as vigilantes but you can read up about that on your own). That seven letter word is where I part ways. No other community in the United States of America gets to tell the police, "we will deal with our own communities" except those of The First Nations and we all understand, if not historically, then instinctually, that this is another can of worms. I part ways with this concept because it is ingrained in religious rhetoric. I part ways with it for the following obvious reasons:
It skews crime statistics. (Not that I am a crime statistic wannabe, but because statistics say my group of people are THE WORST and I would like to see the numbers come down to reality)
(And I have not yet learned what other communities have the same impunity. The Amish? Mormons? The Mennonites? Who else? (It must be groups of people that use religion as a defense of sainthood). Catholics aren't included because we all know now, that gig is up. True, we don't know what they are still hiding, but our eyes are still watching God...
It allows for crimes against children to go unpunished.
It silences people, families and women.
It alienates outsiders looking in. (It keeps hidden what I would normally report or act upon), and it alienates the insider looking out, they are pressured to remain silent and it becomes ingrained that no one can help but the very people asking you to be silent.
If it skews statistics and allows for crimes to go unpunished then it also warps history. Something gets presented as the truth, when in reality it is not true. That 'mesirah' is entwined in religious rhetoric spins my head even faster. God believes I should do this or that. God says my God is better than yours, God says the Second Coming has or has not come yet. Who can prove any of this stuff? Who? All religions are a bunch of bullshit if taken any further than a guide, I said a guide, not a detailed manual of the truth. And as a person who has studied literature I will go as far as to write that these texts are simply books in the same way that Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a book. The genre is religion and you can find it in the 200 section of any library wedged between social sciences and philosophy. If I had never heard of the Bible, the Qua'ran or the Torah would I have never figured out that killing someone was a bad idea? Reading a religious text from end to end and committing it to memory has not prevented anyone from becoming a pedophile, an abuser, or a general all around cretin. If I go out even further, I will write and say publicly, that religious fanaticism is abuse of the worst kind towards self and others.
I mention this little story for a reason. Most, if not all, of those that defended Israel or Palestine's existence on Huffington Post did so quoting religious text. I can see where the problem is. How can you argue with anyone, about any subject, who believes vehemently in an unseen force, an unseen entity, an unproven rhetoric, uses it as their defense, throws it in your face, and can't see beyond it to listen to you? You can't. So I leave this alone. This is not a Jewish problem, this is a fanatic problem and fanatics come from everywhere. I leave it alone because as long as people believe in God that furiously, pardon the pun, I don't have a chance in hell.
Now why do you suppose, that an article about Alice Walker, caused comment posters to bring in The Middles East, African Americans, black and white American race relations, Reza Aslan, terrorism, Arabs and mother-daughter estrangement, to name just a few?
I am trying very hard to approach this whole thing in a holistic manner. I don't care who is right or wrong. Those aren't my questions. I am purely going on instinct here but I swear I smell revolution in the air. The only scary part is that nuclear weapons have proliferated and some of the people who have the night shift watching over them, seem a bit loose in the joints to me. Forget The Middle East, people all over the world are losing it. People all over feel tired and used, hurt and unseen and are wondering what the point is in all this hard work when they get nothing in return. And then I thought about my eventual death again.
I thought about my recent ending of a friendship that I let go of, not because I wanted to let it go, but rather because I can't keep what I want to all the time. I think I finally understand what it means to let go; to let go when others don't know how to hang on. This is a kind of death in itself. The Huffington Post experience gave me another type of understanding: People want to be heard, they are upset about things that are out of their control; sometimes they just want to strike out and be hurtful...
Here is what I thought about next. I thought about my eventual death.What do I want to say that I haven't heard spoken of before? What seems as though it is still confusing to so many? What do I want known about myself before I go? What do I want carried on? What can I offer? What might I say that may make the world a better place? I will mull this over until I can mull no more.
Thinking about my eventual death is a great motivation. Get busy living or get busy dying.
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