Coalitions

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Saturday, October 13, 2007

Lessons Learned

by Nanette

I originally wrote this in Febuary of 2005 at one site, reposted it in 2006 at a different site and now have decided to post it here, this year. Maybe I’ll make it a yearly tradition ;).

It’s very dated and I no longer have even a measure of belief in Democrats, but it’s not really about them. It’s more about how important it is that we stand up for one another. Of course the recent ENDA discussions are what made me think of this story, but it applies to so very many things.

Additionally, it fits in with the “abundance vs scarcity” thoughts that I’ve been meaning to follow up on, so that’s a plus.

I am leaving, below, the explanation to the second site for why I was posting it there, as well, cuz of the links and stuff. Soon the intros will be longer than the essay itself ;).

In the midst of some of the brouhaha here lately, I told a story of an childhood incident that left a decided impression on me. I don’t tell that story to make anyone feel guilty, or to garner pity or anything… but for the lesson it taught me, that I’ve since tried to live up to. Ductape mentioned that I should make a diary of out it, but I didn’t really want to do that, and wasn’t sure how to anyway… but then I remembered... I already had, last year. I’m going to repost this here, even tho it’s a bit dated, just because it tells a bit of where I’m coming from. I hope others will also tell some of their experiences and lives and maybe we can reach some of this “convergence” that scribe described so beautifully. Anyway, here goes:

Yes… I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, in California.

Born in 1958, I am at the tail end of the Boomer Generation, so I was surrounded, from birth, by discussions of equality, challenging authority, challenging tradition, changing the world.  Although I didn’t at the time realize the magnitude of the tragedies that were the deaths of John and Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, I shared in the sorrow because those around me were sorrowful. But not defeated. No cause depends on just one person, but is built up from the many individuals who decide that now is the time, enough is enough.

My older brother was the hippie of the family and would bring all sorts of interesting people home. I spent hours listening to their discussions about war and peace, about justice and equality, overthrowing the establishment, building a new society and peace and love, man. I was too young to join them in their endeavors (and quite often, it seemed to me, some of them were too… chemically enhanced, let’s say, to do much of anything anyway), but I loved sitting in the corner and absorbing their thoughts and dreams. Did I ever thank those young men and women, not that much older than I was, for their idealism, their belief in the ability to create a better world, their willingness to protest and to fight for what they believed in? I know some of you are still around, still fighting the fight, leading the way, still dreaming and believing that change is possible.  Thank you.

The older I get the more I realize how unique my upbringing was in one respect, for that period of time. In our home we were raised to believe that “our kind” was humankind. Not just through meeting people of different cultures at school, or at events, or in books, but by having them a part of our lives. The known and loved faces of my childhood were Black, White, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, Irish, African, Indonesian, Gay, Straight and in between. Gatherings and parties at our house were like the UN, before the UN was cool.

My mom - divorced single mother, business owner, with three children -didn’t join peace marches or organizations of any sort, that I can remember. What she did is live every day as an example, whether she knew it or not. I learned much just observing her kindness and courtesy to all individuals, regardless of their “station in life”; the respect she commanded just by respecting others, and recognizing the dignity and humanity in everyone, regardless of who they were. It was up to them to live up to that respect. Or not. She still treated them the same.

It’s my belief that you can talk about tolerance to your children all you want, but it’s who you invite into your home and life that seals the lesson.

For me, life was good. But as we know childhoods eventually end.  Bigotry, hatred, racism are no respecter of age or reason.

It’s pretty devastating when you are 10, and at a school friend’s apartment for a birthday/pool party, to have the apartment manager come racing out, screeching that you… and only you… must get out of the pool RIGHT NOW, we can’t have a Negro child in there or we will have to drain the entire thing!

This was my first remembered encounter with the dreaded (but to be pitied) Ignorant Person my mother warned me about. And, I noticed, they were just as ugly as she said they would be. (Many things were tolerated in her household, but being an Ignorant Person wasn’t one of them).

I still remember everyone gathering around me, back in the apartment, as I sat shivering on the couch, not from cold. They apologized for the manager, but explained that of course I would understand if everyone carried on swimming without me, here there are books and a TV and we’ll be back soon. I nodded an agreement that I didn’t exactly feel, and watched them all walk away, out the door and back to the party.

I think it was at that moment that I decided that if ever it came down to a choice of standing with someone against an injustice, or walking away, I would choose to stand, to the best of my ability.  Sometimes I’ve failed over the years, made the wrong decisions, taken the easy way out.  More times, though, I have been fortunate enough to have the courage make that stand, even when it would have been easier or more comfortable to walk away.

This, to me, is part of the essence of liberalism.

I love being a liberal. Sometimes I even love being a Democrat. We’re not in the least bit perfect, thank the gods.

We debate things to death, go to bed thinking we’ve done a good job, wake up with a new outlook on the matter and debate it all over again. We have that blessedly cursed ability to see many sides of an issue; forget just shades of gray… someone usually throws some fuchsia and lime green in just to make sure we have everything covered.

We tried so very hard in 2004 to walk lock-step, which is basically antithetical to our nature. But boy, did we try. The wildly beautiful discordance of our multitude of voices attempting to sing the same song (often to distinctly different music), will not soon be forgotten. Nor should it. We accomplished much, if not what we most wanted.

We are still more than they ever will be.

There is great beauty in our variety. To me, conservatives are dull monochromatic creatures (vultures, maybe?), while liberals, progressives, Democrats… we range from fierce hawks, to brilliantly hued and flamboyant tropical creatures, to the softest, most helpless tiny warblers.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. We stand up for all, are made up of all.

Right after the election, in the midst of anger and grief and recriminations, when we are still being beaten about the head daily with words flung by pundits, prognosticators and charlatans masquerading as the godly—“It was gay marriage. It was Hollywood, it was atheists, it was a documentary, it was him, it was her, it was you, it was whatever I want you to believe it was no matter what...blame them, they lost the election for you.” - we’ve done what we do best. We’ve talked, we’ve debated, argued, planned, searched our policies, our souls and Google; should we retool, refit, reform, get religion, make a new presentation, wrap a package up differently, embrace the middle, move left, move right, yell, whisper, march, organize, or simply pull the covers over our heads and wait it out.

What we didn’t do… except for a very few… is say, “Let’s walk away, we can still have our party without them.”

I love our principles. I love standing with people who realize that “equal rights for me, but not for you” is an unacceptable contradiction. Who believe that justice should be more than just a word carved on a courthouse wall. Who believe helping those with the least among is us not only a good thing, but also the right thing to do. That, regardless of your political persuasion, you should have a vote, and that your vote should count. That our actions should a true reflection of our ideals, not just phony posturing. That torture is not a moral value.

I love most of all that while we necessarily squabble and debate, pull in opposite directions in an effort to reach the same destination, argue passionately and forgive wholeheartedly, and probably always will, that the debate is over how best to achieve our goals and stand up for ourselves and others.

Not whether to stand up at all.

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Wow. This Jena 6 Judge Really Has It In For Mychal Bell

by Nanette

AND his family.

Seems like, anyway:

‘Jena 6’ teen Mychal Bell back in jail

JENA, La. - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge sentenced him on charges that were pending before the attack that put him in the national spotlight, his attorney said Thursday.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, went to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s attorneys.

Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

[...]

“He’s locked up again,” Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. “No bail has been set or nothing. He’s a young man who’s been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it.”

[...]

Bell’s parents were also ordered to pay all court costs and witness costs, Sharpton said.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Jones said. “I don’t know how we’re going to pay for any of this. I don’t know how we’re going to get through this.” (emphasis mine)

I’d like to find out how routine this is… first, that he doesn’t get any of the ‘time served’ thing, and then also, how often families are stuck with the juvenile (or adult) court costs. 

Posted by Nanette on 10/11 at 08:48 PM
Civil Rights • Coalitions •
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

None Of Us, Without…

by Nanette

Well, wait… do we really need for ALL Of Us to be included?

Y’all are going to have to help me out here. I have a shocking memory and so am no doubt missing some vital area where appeasing bigots… worked. I mean worked to the benefit of those doing the appeasing, not the bigots.

Let’s see… there was that whole Constitution thing. There, too, one needed to take what could be passed, and not rock the boat too much by talking about all those humans being held in captivity as if they were actually, you know – human. Southerners (among others) would have been upset and not ratified the Constitution and where would people have been then? It was much better to take half a loaf - or maybe 3/5ths of one - and work later towards rights for all.

That worked out well, no? Okay, so maybe some Black folks were a tad upset, but someone always has to complain about something, no? Jeez, why can’t people learn to be pragmatic about little things like civil and human rights? It only took another hundred years or so for them to be, in theory, released from the chains that had bound them for hundreds of years already. And only another hundred years after that ‘til civil rights laws were passed and (somewhat) enforced throughout the land.

Who says appeasing the bigots and being pragmatic didn’t work? Whiners, the lot of them.

Like women! Just look at them, not realizing how expedient it was that others got the right to vote before them, otherwise, bills just would not have passed. Duh! Didn’t they get rights eventually? Didn’t that work? I mean, so what that they too were considered pretty much property, with no voice, no say in the household let along say in the running of the country. They only had to wait a couple hundred years after the signing of the Constitution before becoming full citizens with rights. I mean… my god, how much faster do you want things to work?  Incrementalism is the key!

Without that half a loaf, things would never have moved so swiftly. No way did anyone just decide that they’d gotten theirs, and that was just fine, and leave it at that. Nope, those with full (or at least fuller) rights were out there everyday agitating for their lesser privileged brethren and sistren to be fully included. They stood firm and resolute, declaring that no one be forgotten or left behind (for more than a few hundred years). I’m sure of that… aren’t you?

So, I would say absolutely yes, they are right! … appeasing the bigots, taking half the loaf instead of the full one, separating out those who – if we massage history, consciences and morality – are just not quite “our sort” and putting them aside for later… has worked like a charm in this fair land.

It’s just like some guy with the initials MLK once said, “Justice is divisible”. Oh wait… okay I just might have that quote a little wrong, but what did he know anyway?

[added] I should say that I am not GLB or T, but I do feel for those who have been waiting for this bill for decades, and who see it slipping out of their grasp just as it appears it might actually pass. That is heartbreaking. (I do not feel, however, or support, “understand” or accept, in any way, those who are using the language of hatred and bigotry to express their disappointment, no matter how long they have been waiting for what.) But… well, just when has appeasing bigots worked?

Posted by Nanette on 10/09 at 09:02 AM
Civil Rights • Coalitions • I'm old and crabby and I have a pen • Feminism • HumanRights • ShameOnUs •
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Stuff: Whew, Glad That’s Over!, Censored Art, Contemplating Media Justice

by Nanette

Stray thoughts and interesting articles. 

I was sitting here this evening and thought to myself… ‘Hmmm… what’s that odd feeling? Not bad or anything, just… different. Took me a minute, but then I realized it was an absence of worry! My daughter has been going through a difficult pregnancy, especially these last few weeks, and was scheduled for a C-Section. Wouldn’t you know it, though… it seems almost everywhere I’ve turned lately there have been articles and blogs about the increase in maternal deaths and the dangers of C-Sections, and how all of this is magnified for Black women and on and on - gah! Not very reassuring :(

She had the procedure this morning, though, and all is well. Including the 9lb 11oz boy (wowee!) who was the cause of all the fuss. So, anyway, now… I can think again! Whew.

media justice: a contemplation

I am not sure how I missed this but brownfemipower wrote a just wonderful article which I just happened to come across when I checked Donna’s site this evening. There is much to it and to get the full flavor you have to read it all, but here are a couple of graphs - I am hesitant to put even these… although they say a lot on their own, they say so much more as part of the whole:

We have a history in ALL of our communities of finding ways to communicate with each other in ways that are private and open, immediate and timeless, local and general.

And here we sit today--still sure “media” means corporate news, that “legitimate” means news that only talks about us when we can be used--we are sure of this even as one the biggest corporate destructions of our “media” stands not so much as the take over of BET or Univision--but the very careful rewriting of MLK’s words by racist liberals, conservatives and radicals alike. Local injustice and general community building being completely overwritten by firm assurances of color-blindness and “forgiveness.” A community born message of resistance against historic structural oppression defanged to nothing more than a sound bite of feel good kumbaya hipness.

Believing is Seeing: Optical Illusions and Social Stereotypes

From Poynter Online - a good article which I, of course, think should be read, but as I was reading my main thought was… I would have assumed that this, or something very like it, would be part of Journalism 101… but I guess not. And it shows.

[… ] At the sight of each one, the group of journalists wondered and laughed. Then he showed us a video of men throwing around a basketball and asked us to count the number of passes. Some viewers shouted out six; some were sure they saw nine. But everybody missed the woman who walked right through the middle of the game carrying an open white umbrella.

For a reporter who relies on what she sees, that little illustration of a big mistake was scary. What might I be missing when I go out on a story? Was there a woman with an umbrella whom I might completely overlook? And when Nosek started showing us the tricks our minds play when confronted with race, gender and other social categories, everybody in the room stopped laughing. Instead we started to sweat.

What does all this mean for a journalist? How about, “Question everything you think you see”?

Censored Art From The Underground

Kai starts this off like this:

Last weekend I got a call from my friend Marcus. “Hey I just got something that I think you’ll be interested in seeing,” he said with a certain urgency. “Bring some beer and you can check it out.” So I did.

It was a DVD he had just picked up: a 2004 release of the 1973 underground classic The Spook Who Sat By The Door, based on the 1969 novel by Sam Greenlee. Marcus said that when he was growing up in Harlem, the novel circulated on the contraband market, having been banned by the government. When the film by Ivan Dixon (soundtrack by Herbie Hancock) hit theaters, it was an overnight success, yet after only a few short weeks it suddenly closed down. Every print of the film mysteriously disappeared.

And ends with this:

“Whad’ya think?” Marcus asked me as the final credits rolled.

“That was different,” I reflected. “I think responses to this will be, well...varied. We’re gonna need another round of beers to go over this.”

I agree! I also want to get this book (and the DVD too, maybe, although I’m not much into watching things), not only because it sounds interesting but… hmmm. It’s good to know the past, I guess I’ll just say.

Posted by Nanette on 09/25 at 09:04 PM
Coalitions • Whosoutthere • Media •
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Come Back! We Hate YOU, But We Love Your Money!

by Nanette

Intended consequences of anti-immigrant legislation enacted by various towns… but some are not liking it so much. A case of hater’s remorse, maybe?

Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants (NYTimes)

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

Can’t forget to add in the genius factor....

Rival advocacy groups in the immigration debate turned this otherwise sleepy town into a litmus test for their causes. As the television cameras rolled, Riverside was branded, in turns, a racist enclave and a town fighting for American values.

Some residents who backed the ban last year were reluctant to discuss their stance now, though they uniformly blamed outsiders for misrepresenting their motives. By and large, they said the ordinance was a success because it drove out illegal immigrants, even if it hurt the town’s economy.

“It changed the face of Riverside a little bit,” said Charles Hilton, the former mayor who pushed for the ordinance. (He was voted out of office last fall but said it was not because he had supported the law.)

“The business district is fairly vacant now, but it’s not the legitimate businesses that are gone,” he said. “It’s all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens.” (emphasis mine)

I can’t imagine why they voted him out of office. Then again, I can’t imagine why they voted him in.

Posted by Nanette on 09/25 at 07:02 PM
Civil Rights • Coalitions • I'm old and crabby and I have a pen • HumanRights • Immigration •
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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Purloined Nudibranch, Index Card Of Not-Quite-Yet Connections, Thinking Tank?

by Nanette

Maybe I should just call it Weekend (or sometime) Stuff Blogging. Anyway…

This is also sort of an index card, as I am collecting a few things that (almost) connect, in my mind at least, and hopefully I’ll soon be able to put them all together. Also, an unexpected proposing of an idea. 

But first, a picture. Since I’ve been thinking of scarcity, abundance and environmentalism lately, I thought the best thing to do would be to recycle! Sort of. It’s just that nudibranchs are the most lovely, improbable creatures, and I simply can’t resist this one - which Phila posted last Friday. You’ll actually have to go to the site, though, to read the accompanying poem.

I was going to try and write a little about each link but I find I don’t really want to yet. I’m still going to put them here though, as each is interesting in its own way anyway. So…

Via Arcturus, in comments, Counterpunch: Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse

From Phila’s Friday Hope Blogging, Subtopia: On the trail of a humane architecture...

Leonard Pitt’s A ‘bad idea’ becomes wildly successful

bell hooks Pt 1 cultural criticism and transformation, via Feministing

Black Amazon’s SUDY I THINK I GOT IT! I think I Don’t know might be wrong.

And, of course, Theriomorph’s what if? the abundance series as well as the links in my Not Really Related…post.

[adding] dove’s Music for the People.

Okay, now just to let everything whirl around for a bit and then settle into something coherent.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking for a while of reworking and re-opening The Progressive Focus Center, only maybe just calling it Progressive Focus. The first idea for it was sound… in fact, it’s (in some ways but not exactly) been being replicated across “the political progressive blogosphere” the past couple of years, and that’s a good thing, I think. Me, I lack the intense interest in politics, and also am not good at doing things with a focus on the US only (some of my international friends, when presented with the site, recoiled in shock at my sudden right wing nationalism ;). Also, it’s a major fault of mine that, in planning things, I see forests, not trees. And especially not saplings, sigh.  Or do I mean seedlings?

Anyway, that’s all done, but now I am thinking of something different. For one thing, who even knows what the word “progressive” means anymore? It reminds me of those stage set facades that look so real in the films, and even in person, but when you open a door there is just an empty lot behind them. One good advantage to the word “liberal” is that it is so vilified, dismissed and abhorred by many that (for the most part) only those who actually did consider themselves liberal or on the left would apply it to themselves. “Progressive”, though… everyone and their uncle, not to mention their pet fish.

So why, you may, quite reasonably, ask, do I want to start an entire site about a progressive focus? Well… as the label appears to be sticking and is sort of applied across the board, maybe one of the ways to deal with it is to take it on, figure out what it means and work to define it, on our terms. “Our” meaning… well, I don’t know, but anyway.  Also, for once I am thinking in sapling terms… or seeding, whatever. Itty bitty trees in the middle of nowhere. Initially, part group blog ... sort of. Part think tank. All dedicated to answering the important questions, on many issues: What if? Why not? And, most importantly, How?

HB itself it kind of dedicated to answering those questions, especially in its new configuration, but the publication is for finished, already thought out (presumably!) product. I am thinking, with Progressive Focus, of more of internally (leftish) focused - or, rather, informal, unfocused, just brainstorming - discussions --with each other, but publicly and open to all to participate, posts, debates, including taking things other bloggers/ thinkers and so on have written and said - whether is is one line or ten - and riffing off of those. To begin with.

What do anyone think? And who wants to join! (no pressure - also no scoop/diary type site).

Yeah, yeah, just what I need… yet another wild plan and thing to do! But, well… you know… Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Posted by Nanette on 09/16 at 12:46 PM
Coalitions • Feminism • Friday Stuff Blogging • Whosoutthere • Index Card •
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