Category Archives: Justice

Is Cultural Appropriation Ever Okay?

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This morning I was watching the trailer for that 1998 classic Six String Samurai – a film I rather enjoyed in high school for it’s overly-bizarre story.

At one point, my sister made me a mixed tape which included one of the movie’s great lines: “They say he can kill over two hundred men, and play a mean six-string at the same time.”

That’s pretty great, right?

But now that I am older and wiser, now that I have lived in Japan and seriously studied Japanese culture, I watched the trailer this morning and thought, “man, that’s kind of offensive. Right?”

I mean, you’ve got this super white guy pretending to be a samurai. How is that going to go well?

It certainly qualifies as cultural appropriation, “the adoption of elements of one culture by members of a different cultural group.” And cultural appropriation is, most generally, deeply problematic.

But somehow this felt a bit different.

Almost like the Eel’s cover of Missy Elliot’s Get Ur Freak On or the Dynamite Hack version of Boyz in the Hood.

These are all easily examples of cultural appropriation, but I’m not sure they rise to the same level of offensiveness as, say, the cultural appropriation of the Harlem Shake.

When white people everywhere suddenly discover this “new” “meme” that actually has been happening in Harlem for decades, that seems offensive on many levels.

But I’m not sure all cultural appropriation is the same.

The Eels cover of Get Ur Freak On, for example, sounds exactly like its being sung by a bunch of white guys from California. They’re not trying to be something they’re not. I’m not sure they’re even trying to appropriate the genre of rap.

They are singing a song they love and kind of owning the fact they can’t do it justice.

There’s an element of self-awareness in this, I think. An element of knowing that they are not only borrowing from another artist’s creative works, but that that art belongs within a whole cultural context they don’t understand.

I find a similar sense in Six String Samurai. They’re not trying to be samurai, and I don’t think they’re parodying samurai either. If anything, it’s a parody of white Hollywood’s cultural appropriation of Japanese culture – a subtle reminder that that’s how ridiculous white boys as samurai look.

Obviously I am not in the best position to judge this, being incredible white myself. It’s entirely possible that I’m just making excuses for artists I enjoy and hoping that my liberal sensibilities won’t be offended by the possibility that I like something which is actually problematic.

But I think there might be something to this notion. That cultural appropriation can be used as a subtle social commentary. That with an awareness of one’s own whiteness or one’s own separateness from another culture, appropriation can more properly be an homage, and can even intentionally highlight the problems of appropriation.

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Okinawa

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I recently heard a story that I’ve heard a few times before:

The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest skirmishes of World War II. The 82-day battle claimed the lives of 14,000 Allied forces and 77,000 Japanese soldiers. Most tragically, somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000 Japanese civilians died.

There’s just one thing: that story is a bit of WWII era political propaganda. Or at best, a misunderstanding of Japanese geopolitics.

The horror of Okinawa was used in part to justify the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The two bombings claimed at least 129,000 lives – including many civilians in Hiroshima. But ultimately, we are to believe, the act was just. The Battle of Okinawa showed that the Japanese were exactly the monsters our propaganda made them out to be – cold and bloodthirsty. Willing to sacrifice themselves and their civilian population for a cause they foolishly found to be noble.

Using that logic, the bombings were a mercy, really.

Some estimates put the cost of a land war at 400,000 to 800,000 American fatalities and a shocking five to ten million Japanese fatalities.

The atomic bomb may have been a drastic assault, but ultimately it ended the war faster leading to fewer fatalities for Americans and the Japanese alike.

Now let’s back up a minute.

Let’s put aside the fact that its hard to be precise about the number of deaths in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, in part due to the terrible health impacts from radiation exposure.

What exactly did happen in Okinawa?

The number of deaths cited above are about as accurate as war fatality counts are likely to be. Many American’s died, many more in the Japanese army died, and even more civilians died.

But they weren’t Japanese civilians. They were Okinawans . Even amongst the military dead many of those “Japanese” soldiers were Okinawan conscripts.

Why does that distinction matter?

For centuries Okinawa had been an autonomous regime with it’s own distinct culture. The Okinawans faced increasing encroachment from Japanese forces and was officially annexed in 1879 – a mere 66 years before the Battle of Okinawa.

All of that is to say – the Okinawans were not Japanese. They were Okinawan. Culturally distinct and treated as second class citizens or worse by their Japanese oppressors. The Okinawans had no military tradition and “frustrated the Japanese with their indifference to military service.”

Those were the people who died in Okinawa.

Not rabid Japanese nationalists determined to do anything for victory. Simply civilians and civilians dressed up as soldiers. Forced into service for a repressive regime.

Casualties were so high at Okinawa because the Japanese didn’t really care whether the Okinawans lived or died.

We’d be right to judge the Japanese harshly for their disdain for Okinawan life – but we must find ourselves equally wanting. The American government has always cared more for American lives.

Perhaps that is right. And perhaps the nuclear bomb really was the moral thing to do.

But let’s always dig a little deeper, try a little hard to understand a people apart from ourselves. And let us not base our understanding off a caricature or off an outdated piece of propaganda.

And let us remember: Okinawans died here.

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Death for Tsarnaev

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Today, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013.

I honestly didn’t see this coming.

The death penalty is unconstitutional and highly unpopular in Massachusetts. Victims and their family members have spoken out, asking that Tsarnaev be given life instead. And one juror’s vote against the death penalty is all it would have taken for the sentence to have come back as life in prison.

But Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death.

In the end it is perhaps a greater mercy.

Despite the dreary specter raised by “death” – I imagine a ghastly figure quietly welcomed to suck away Tsarnaev’s cold soul as the the solemn sentence is proclaimed – our system provides numerous protections to safeguard those facing this most monstrous fate.

Safeguards which those only suffering life in a dank, dreary hole don’t enjoy.

Tsarnaev’s case will automatically be appealed.

Lifers get no such privilege.

So perhaps death is a greater mercy.

Had I been a juror in the case, I can’t say what I would have done. Life or death? Death or life?

When you can’t tell which is the greater punishment it is hard to choose.

And this is not all about Tsarnaev. Imagine any trial, any defendant, any case where the crime is great enough to come down to the question: life or death?

Death or life?

When you can’t tell which is the greater punishment, there is something substantially wrong.

How can we choose, for Tsarnaev, for anyone – how can we possibly choose? Life or death. Death or life.

We cannot. Not in good conscious. We cannot know what sentence is right or just when we cannot even tell which sentence is harsh and which sentence is mercy.

We must step back, we must reevaluate the whole system. We must fix this institution which takes the lives and deaths of so many of our fellow citizens.

We can discuss what we hope to accomplish – what outcomes we hope for from punishment or from rehabilitation. We can discuss what is good and what is right, and we can seek to find the best justice we can.

But regardless of your philosophy on the way our criminal justice system ought to work, it seems clear to me that it doesn’t work –

Not when you can’t tell the difference between life and death.

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So Much Potential

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It’s graduation season, and that means that young people around the country will gather to reflect on all they have accomplished and to look forward towards all that is to come.

First at colleges, and then at high schools and even middle schools, solemn celebrations will pass on words of wisdom, providing guidance to young people entering the next phase of their lives.

Pursue your passions, they may be told. Or perhaps, find something you love that can also support you financially.

They will be told of their potential, that they can accomplish more than they might think.

They will be told that perseverance and passion can bring about remarkable outcomes, or perhaps, that pursuing happiness is a worthwhile goal.

It’s a miraculous time. Young minds on the verge of greatness.

You have your whole lives in front of you, they will be told.

But there are too many empty chairs for that to be true.

Graduation is a remarkable accomplishment, one that is worthy of celebration and reflection.

But for too long we’ve said these words and for too long we’ve listened to them, and for too long we have believed them.

In 2014, there were over 1,000 deaths from Heroin and other opioid in Massachusetts alone. The majority of these deaths are among 24-35 year olds. These are my peers.

In 2013, CDC data shows that over 11,000 people age 15-34 committed suicide, making it the second most common cause of death among that age group. Not far behind, over 8,500 people in that age group died in homicides. And that’s to say nothing of the many deaths cited only as “unintentional injury.”

And if that wasn’t enough, homicide is the third most common cause of death for those 1-4, claiming 337 lives in 2013, and suicide is the third most common cause of death for 10-14, claiming 386 lives.

10-14. With razor blades pressed against their skin.

And yet, come May, we look out at those fine graduates – who have accomplished so much, who have achieved so much just by making it as far in life as they have, and we, as society, have the audacity to tell them:

Be happy – you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.

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A Friend with Something in their Teeth

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A good friend tells you when you have something in your teeth.

Or something on your face. Or when you are otherwise suffering from some minor oversight of what would generally be considered a proper way to conduct oneself.

I mean, I’m not judging, but I don’t think you intended to walk around with something in your teeth.

If that’s what you’re into, that’s fine. You get down with your bad self.

But generally people don’t want to walk around with something in their teeth.

So I thought you’d want to know.

I wish more feedback could be like something in your teeth.

It’s a little embarrassing in the moment, but in the end, everyone’s glad someone mentioned it. I mean, you can’t let someone go around all day like that.

And it’s not anything about them – anyone who eats has gotten something stuck in their teeth at one point or another.

And it’s not irreparable. You got something in your teeth – you grab some floss and get it out. No problem.

I wish more feedback could be like that.

In the words of Avenue Q, Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, but being called out on racism feels a whole lot different from being called out on having something in your teeth.

One is certainly more offensive to others, but in a lot of ways it’s not that different.

Nobody frames everything perfectly all the time.

Nobody is free of bias.

We all say things we don’t mean to say. We all say things that are interpreted differently than we intended them to be.

And perhaps more insidiously, we all think things we wish we didn’t think.

But you have to admit that you thought it and admit that you said it. You have to learn from the experience and move through it.

After all, when someone says you’ve got something in your teeth, you shouldn’t tell them they are wrong – you should grab some floss and take care of it.

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Anger

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I was recently struck by a comment from a 60s activist. Reflecting on the 60s experience in Doug McAdam’s Freedom Summer, he said something about how society saw activists at the time as angry – but they never stopped to ask why they were angry.

Anger is, I suppose, something of an uncouth emotion.

It can lead to violent verbal, emotional, or physical outbursts. It can lead to damage and harm – perhaps importantly, misdirected damage and harm.

It can leave a wake a devastation akin to a natural disaster.

“Anger is a corrosive emotion that can run off with your mental and physical health,” says Psychology Today.

The American Psychological Association is somewhat more generous, admitting that “anger can be a good thing,” but warning that “excessive anger can cause problems.”

Yet there is something undeniably valuable – something importantly good – about anger.

David Adams, psychologist and coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network, argues that anger can play an important role in social action, that “anger is the stimulus that initiates action.”

One study out of Rutgers takes this argument a step further, looking at The link between moral anger and social activism.

“Some individuals who have experienced anger as a result of growing up under a system(s) of injustice to transform their anger into moral anger and subsequently into activism,” the study says. “Individuals who experience moral anger often perceive their anger as righteous and justified, linked to something greater than individual self-interest.”

If the opposite of anger is complacency – I’d rather have anger.

But it’s not enough to have the anger – to recognize that others are angry. We need to ask where that anger comes from, understand what drives that anger.

Chuck Palahniuk, in an oft-quote scene from Fight Club, writes, “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

There’s something about that line which resonated deeply with many in my age range, but there’s something critical I always felt Palahniuk left out.

We were lied to, yes.

But it wasn’t just the lie that one day we’d all be millionaires. It was the lie that all our problems had been solved.

That the social movements of the 60s had wrapped everything up nice for us. That we lived in a post-racial society where any kid could grow up to be president and where everyone would be accepted for who they are.

Things were supposed to be perfect now.

But we’ve watched our friends die. We’ve watched unarmed black men die. We’ve watched social injustices stay deeply entrenched while the powers that be utter soft explanations.

We’ve been raise to believe that we we’re nearing utopia, that we would all enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact.

And we’re very, very pissed off.

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Rebellion Against the Authority of the Government

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It seems that every time people are galvanized against injustice it comes as a surprise. As if nothing like this has ever happened before.

Daily Show host Jon Stewart recently called out Wolf Blitzer for claiming surprise at the protests and riots in Baltimore.

I can’t believe this is happening in an American city, Blitzer kept saying – despite having uttered the same response as events unfolded in Ferguson just a few months ago.

And, of course, if media’s memory is so bad it can’t even recall events within the past year, one can hardly expect the media – or the public at large – to connect current events to anything that could be considered historical.

But what’s more remarkable to me is not that people keep rising up – its that our own government keeps intervening to quell these uprisings.

In 1894, for instance, thousands of United States Marshals and some 12,000 United States Army troops were called to suppress American citizens boycotting in the Pullman Strike. Twenty-six civilians were killed.

In 1912, Lawrence, Massachusetts Mayor Michael Scanlon requested the aid of the state militia in confronting a textile strike. “A tumult is threatened,” Mayor Scanlon wrote. “A body of men are acting together and threaten by force to violate and resist the laws of the Commonwealth.”

Once called in, the militia took such brave and lawful steps as preventing striking parents from sending their children to safety in Philadelphia. Ordered to detain the children and arrest their parents, the police began clubbing both the children and their mothers while dragging them off.

Of course, with a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the National Guard can trace its roots to 1628, when the Bay Colony – Massachusetts – received its charter, including total control over internal military and political organization.

However, the 1903 Dick Act – aptly named after Congressman Charles Dick – was really the beginning of the modern National Guard. This act resolved the issue of state vs. federal control when it came to deploying state militias. (In the war of 1812, for example, the New York militia refused to march to the aid of U.S. troops in Canada.)

The Dick Act empowered the President to deploy this state militias:

…whenever the United States is invaded, or in danger invasion, from any foreign nation or of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States, or the President is unable, with the other forces at his command, to execute the laws of the Union in any part thereof, it shall be lawful for the President to call forth, for a period not exceeding nine months, such number of the militia of the State or of the States or Territories or of the District of Columbia as he may deem necessary to repel such invasion, suppress such rebellion, or to enable him to execute such laws, and to issue his orders for that purpose to such officers of the militia as he may think proper.

The act was partially a response to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which limited the power of the federal government to deploy military troops on U.S. soil. The National Guard is, importantly, an exception.

And since then National Guard has been regularly deployed to quell “rebellion against the authority of the Government.”

Governors, as primary commanders of their state’s National Guard, may also deploy these troops in “response to natural or man-made disasters or Homeland Defense missions.”

And not only as recently as Baltimore and Ferguson, the National Guard has been deployed in Los  Angeles following the 1992 Rodney King beating; in Selma, Alabama; in Little Rock, Arkansas; and in several other cities.

So, it should be no surprise that people are protesting, and, unfortunately, it should be no surprise that National Guard troops are called in to stop them.

That is, after all, the history of this great country.

And the protests go on.

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What the Hell is Happening in Baltimore?

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Last night, as news spread of protests, riots, and looting in Baltimore, I was struck by just how difficult it was to follow what was going on.

There’s something about today’s capacity for instant, constant, and hyper-local news that makes me feel like I ought to know everything accurately right away.

Of course there are regular disruptions to that rule – confusion and conflicting stories are regular features of breaking news, often fueled by interruptions in communication.

But the stories coming out of Baltimore were different – like a real-time view of “history being written by the victors.” It wasn’t that diverging stories were coming out of Baltimore – there were divergent narratives unfolding.

Now, I want to be clear about something: I know nothing about Baltimore. I’ve got friends in the area and I’ve watched The Wire, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I make no claims at expertise and everything that follows should be taken for what it is – an outsider’s attempt to follow a major news story.

Freddie Gray’s funeral took place yesterday, Monday, April 27. Twenty-five year old Gray was arrested in West Baltimore on the morning of April 12. He died in police custody on April 19 from a spinal injuries.

According to the Atlantic, its unclear why Gray was arrested and it’s unclear how his injuries were sustained. Video of Gray’s arrest show Gray, seemingly with a broken leg, being dragged off by police.  The Atlantic describes that “Gray didn’t resist arrest and that officers didn’t use force.”

The Baltimore Sun says that “Gray’s family has said he underwent surgery at Maryland Shock Trauma Center for three fractured neck vertebrae and a crushed voice box — injuries doctors said are more common among the elderly or victims of high-speed crashes.”

The Baltimore Police are investigating, but no information has been released.

The Baltimore Sun further reports that yesterday’s riots “started Monday morning with word on social media of a “purge” — a reference to a movie in which crime is made legal.”

What’s great is that since Twitter has an advanced search feature you can search for tweets including a specific keyword, like purge, within a specific time frame.

As early as April 26, you can start seeing references to the purge on Twitter, with people saying things like:

  • The purge anarchy or just regular Baltimore?
  • #FreddieGray we purge for you shun!! #Justice4FreddieGray
  • All this bullshit happening in Bmore makes me wish The Purge was a real thing………#justsaying

That continues for awhile, and on Monday, you start seeing things like:

  • Breaking: Baltimore shut down because of plot of the warriors, possibly the plot of the purge
  • Student ‘purge‘ threat shuts down Baltimore businesses, schools http://fw.to/sETY3pS

So, while there are many social networks out there, young people don’t seem to have planned a riot on Twitter. There are plenty of analogies to the Purge, but few threats and even less planning.

Maybe they were on Yik Yak, I don’t know.

Now, this is where I find it really confusing.

The Baltimore Sun reports that at 3pm, a group of 75 to 100 students were heading to Mondawmin Mall. Presumably, this was a group of ne’er-do-wells who were setting out to start a riot they supposed planned on social media.

As the Sun points out, “The mall is a transportation hub for students from several nearby schools.”

So…at 3pm, were kids just…heading home from school?

One teacher shared her eyewitness description publicly on Facebook. (And since teachers are public employees, it’s easy verify that the poster is in fact a teacher.)
“We drove into Mondawmin, knowing it was going to be a mess. I was trying to get them home before anything insane happened,” she wrote. Presumably, the fact that the mall is a transportation hub necessitated going there? I don’t know.
She continues: “The police were forcing busses to stop and unload all their passengers. Then, Douglas students, in huge herds, were trying to leave on various busses but couldn’t catch any because they were all shut down. No kids were yet around except about 20, who looked like they were waiting for police to do something. The cops, on the other hand, were in full riot gear marching toward any small social clique of students who looked as if they were just milling about. It looked as if there were hundreds of cops.”That’s a far cry from the idea that local thugs decided to cause a riot and the police did the best they could to stop it.I mean, I’m no expert, but the presence of such a large police force at the site of what I understand to be the place of the 1968 riots following the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seems like it might be trouble waiting to happen.Add to that the long history of tensions between Baltimore residents and law enforcement officials, and, well, none of this seems like a good plan. I don’t want to be anyone at this party.And then there was word from the Baltimore Police Department that gangs were “‘teaming up’ to take out officers.”

I’m confused about that, too, since the Sun also reports that “a group of men who said they were members of the Crips — they wore blue bandannas and blue shirts — stood on the periphery and denounced the looting.”

So, if they had a pact…they are really bad at it.

It’s taken a lot to sift through all this information. To come in as an outsider and try to find credible, verifiable information.

I still have no idea what the hell is going on in Baltimore, but from what I can gather, I’m skeptical of the police narrative. It looks to me like the police went in way over powered into a tense situation and made everything far worse than it should have been.

Should you blame the people who looted and destroyed property? Sure, but also blame the situation that put them there –

Baltimore police and leadership failed them.

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Discomfort with Ancestors

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Years ago, my mother – who is really into genealogy – told me that one of my (white) ancestors had been lynched in the south because he’d been helping African Americans through the underground railroad.

I was so proud.

That’s the kind of person I wanted to be related to.

I, of course, don’t remember the details of what happened or how this person was related to me, but I remember – I’m descended from people who worked on the underground railroad. Folks who were on the right side of history. Who died for what they knew was just.

Several years after that, my mother was sharing another genealogical finding. It’s possible that I was not as attentive as a good daughter ought to be, until she said something that caught my ear. Something about an ancestor owning slaves.

No, no, I piped in. You told me that our family worked on the underground railroad!

My mother looked at me blankly as if I’d made the most nonsensical declaration she’d ever heard. Then she patiently explained to me that I was white – a fact she seemed to think had somehow eluded me.

Yes, yes, we have relatives who worked the underground railroad, she told me, but any white person whose family’s been in this country awhile is related to slave owners.

She hadn’t mentioned it before just as she hadn’t mentioned the sky was blue – it was obvious.

And yet there I was – a woman in my early 20s, just putting those pieces together.

There was a bit of a to-do last week about a certain actor who expunged his family’s slave-owning history from a genealogical documentary.

I can appreciate what he might have been thinking at the time – no, no, I’m not related to the bad guys.

Who would want to admit that?

The truth is, though, there is privilege even in that denial.

How many African Americans, do you suppose, who know their family has lived in this country for generations, tell themselves – no, no, my ancestors weren’t brought to this country as slaves.

Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World with an estimated 450,000 Africans arriving in the United States over the course of the slave trade.

I’m not sure that’s a piece of their past they have the luxury of denying.

Not as easily as I can casually claim ignorance of my own family’s slave-owning past, at least.

It’s important to recognize this history. To accept it.

The truth is – I didn’t work on the underground railroad and I didn’t own slaves. Those people are in my history, but they are not me.

I can’t claim divinity from one relative’s actions while claiming absolution from another’s. I have to make my own path, make my own choices. Informed by my history but not bound by it.

Indeed, we are all shaped by our past – but we are not doomed to repeat it.

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Are Young People Good Protesters?

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It seems as though there’s been a quite, but steady stream of complaints about the way young people protest.

Even among progressives who are supportive of the cause, I commonly hear remarks about how today’s protests – orchestrated by today’s young people – are ineffective, poorly executed, or even damaging to the cause.

Millennials Can’t Even Protest Right, declares a Daily Beast article reflecting on a successful 1976 Title IX protest. Forbes asks, Are Millennials Lazy Or Avant-Garde Social Activists? And, of course, there is ongoing debate about whether young people are real activists or just, in the words of the New York Times, Tumblr activists.

NPR is far more generous, detailing how young people near Ferguson, Mo. used social media as a tool to “plan and participated in the most recent large protest.”

So, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of today’s activism, but for the moment, let’s play a little game – let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that no, Millennials can’t even protest correctly.

If that is indeed, the case, it begs the question – why not?

Those who argue most fervently against the effectiveness of young people seem predisposed against the generation – and I imagine they might summon reasons like:

Young people can’t protest correctly because they think social media is all you need.

Young people can’t protest correctly because they are too self-absorbed to see how their actions will impact others.

Or perhaps: Younh people can’t protest correctly because they are so entitled, they protest stupid things without even knowing how good they’ve got it.

But let’s try out another option – if it is indeed the case that young people can’t protest correctly –

Is it possible this is because our parents have failed us?

In Doug McAdam’s Freedom Summer his core argument is that the activism of the 60s and 70s was really launched by the white students who participated in 1964’s Freedom Summer.

In part, these young people were deeply radicalized by the experience – returning to their home states with a critical and politicized view of their lives.

But more practically, these young people were trained by their experience.

The movements of the 60s and 70s – those efforts which today’s elders declare so successful while sneering at the efforts of today’s youth – benefited tremendously and directly from SNCC organizing tactics developed in the 50s.

SNCC trained 1000 young people in their organizing techniques. Those young people used what they learned and became the leaders of the Free Speech Movement, the anti-war movement, the women’s liberation movement, and more.

Perhaps these movements were successful because someone had trained their leaders.

As a somewhat young person now looking back on this history, it seems that yesterday’s young people made a critical mistake –

After their battles were fought and their skirmish won, the thought the war was over.

We’re in a post-racial society. A post-sexist society. All our problems are solved.

There’s no need to train young people as organizers. No need to develop their skills in putting their passion for social justice to practical use.

We solved everything 40 years ago. And we figured it out ourselves.

No.

If indeed today’s young people are terrible protestors, it’s their parents, their mentors, their elders who are at fault.

It is yesterday’s leaders who have failed us. Not today’s.

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