Seems my iTunes genius playlist has a sense of humor. This little gem from Radiohead’s In Rainbows pops up while I’m catching up on the latest dispatches on the uprisings in the Middle East and considering the ongoing snowpocalypsemaggeddon pounding my home region. Did you see these?
photo by E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune
photo by Ed Bachrach/Associated Press via The New York Times
Thinking about Saturday’s shooting in Tuscon, I remembered an Adam Gopnik piece from the 2007 New Yorker in the wake of the Virgina Tech Shooting. It’s worth a re-read as we uncover ‘facts’ and salacious details about the psyche and life of the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner. While we’re all trying to find space to engage in discussions about gun laws, mental illness, and political criticism (discourse versus rhetoric versus vitriol versus sedition), the excerpt noted below was particularly resonant for me:
If the facts weren’t so horrible, there might be something touching in the Governor’s deeply American belief that “healing” can take place magically, without the intervening practice called “treating.” The logic is unusual but striking: the aftermath of a terrorist attack is the wrong time to talk about security, the aftermath of a death from lung cancer is the wrong time to talk about smoking and the tobacco industry, and the aftermath of a car crash is the wrong time to talk about seat belts. People talked about the shooting, of course, but much of the conversation was devoted to musings on the treatment of mental illness in universities, the problem of “narcissism,” violence in the media and in popular culture, copycat killings, the alienation of immigrant students, and the question of Evil.
Some people, however—especially people outside America—were eager to talk about it in another way, and even to embark on a little crusade. The whole world saw that the United States has more gun violence than other countries because we have more guns and are willing to sell them to madmen who want to kill people. Every nation has violent loners, and they tend to have remarkably similar profiles from one country and culture to the next. And every country has known the horror of having a lunatic get his hands on a gun and kill innocent people. But on a recent list of the fourteen worst mass shootings in Western democracies since the nineteen-sixties the United States claimed seven, and, just as important, no other country on the list has had a repeat performance as severe as the first.
via Shootings : The New Yorker.
There’s our knee jerk responses to these mass shootings: the naming of the perpetrator (he inevitably has three -John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald– now this kid Jared Lee Loughner), the narrative of the ‘loner’, the mental defect or illness that motivates one to murder, the very definition of nihilism. This feels routine. We hope (swear) it will never happen again. It always does. And it always will. In reading the piecemeal narratives on Loughner today in Mother Jones, a friend’s view of the shooter’s motivation was curious:
Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. “More chaos, maybe,” he says. “I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what’s happening. He wants all of that.” Tierney thinks that Loughner’s mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: “He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there’s no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: ‘Another Saturday, going to go get groceries’—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in.”
A lot of us (me included) looked to assign blame to the far right and Tea Party for inciting this kind of violence on a Member of Congress. But now, I have to take a step back. Our conversations about these matters have reached a complexity that requires mature reasoning, and a news cycle that moves slower than 140 characters or less.
1.
Clip from taped interview with George W. Bush for Matt Lauer Reports:
MATT LAUER:
Well, what he said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
That’s – “he’s a racist.” And I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, “I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.” It’s another thing to say, “This man’s a racist.” I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency.MATT LAUER:
This from the book. “Five years later I can barely write those words without feeling disgust.” You go on. “I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low.”PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt ‘em when I heard ‘em, felt ‘em when I wrote ‘em and I felt ‘em when I’m listening to ‘em.MATT LAUER:
You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your Presidency?PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Yes. My record was strong I felt when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And– it was a disgusting moment.MATT LAUER:
I wonder if some people are going to read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this–PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Don’t care.MATT LAUER:
Well, here’s the reason. You’re not saying that the worst moment in your Presidency was watching the misery in Louisiana. You’re saying it was when someone insulted you because of that.PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
No – that– and I also make it clear that the misery in Louisiana affected me deeply as well. There’s a lot of tough moments in the book. And it was a disgusting moment, pure and simple.
(emphasis is mine.)
2.
Later, Kanye West on 97.9FM Houston:
I definitely can understand the way he feels, to be accused of being a racist in any way, because the same thing happened to me, you know, I got accused of being a racist. For both situations, it was basically a lack of compassion that America saw in that situation.
With him, it was a lack of compassion of him not rushing, him not taking the time to rush down to New Orleans.For me, it was a lack of compassion of cutting someone off in their moment. But nonetheless, I think we’re all quick to pull a race card in America. And now I’m more open, and the poetic justice that I feel, to have went through the same thing that he went [through]-and now I really more connect with him on just a humanitarian level.”
(emphasis, again, is also mine.)
h/t Gawker.
On the other side of paradise, a conservative blogger (Debbie Schlussel) goes after our nearest and dearest, Urban Word:
Um, how can they use the word “scholar” and “hip-hop” in the same sentence with a straight face? Ditto for pedagogy. With hip-hop, it’s more like pedophilogy.
Institute participants will learn proven, hands-on techniques that will help them to develop lesson plans and strengthen their course study, as well as create a platform from which they will understand the scope of hip-hop history, culture and politics, Cirelli said. The learning component is supported with night programming by lecturers and performers who will synthesize the day sessions with effective strategies and cutting-edge multicultural educational approaches.
“Hip-hop history”? Is that like memorizing the day that Russell Simmons and Rev. Run bought their first pair of laceless Adidas? Or is it the date the first naked butt was shaken in front of the camera in a rap video? Or maybe it’s the first day Ice T smoked his first crack pipe with a stripper. Forget reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Perhaps it’s the day Professor Griff of Public Enemy uttered his first “Dirty Jew” reference. It’s very important to America’s future that kids in school learn the important facts of hip-hop.
Math problem: If 50 Cent has 9 bullets in his body, but gets two removed while all but two of his 30 tattoos are lasered off so he can star in movies, how many women did he infect with herpes divided by how many used condoms need to be recycled to keep things green?
Ugh. I’m not posting the link because I can’t subscribe to steering more traffic to her site. Besides her unbelievably flawed, ignorant and racist assumptions about Urban Word’s poetry and hip hop education model, it’s unfortunately not a surprise. It’s blog baiting, again from the mouth of a Coulter wannabee. I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot about the symmetry of uncertain times, however, I feel compelled to note that uncertain social, political, economic times often breeds lazy commentary looking for scapegoats (see Thomas Chatteron Williams.) Hip Hop and a black president are excellent fodders for noting the decline of ‘real american values’, no? And for the past 20 years, hip hop has definitely been a prime target. Music generally. If it’s not Jay-Z, it’s Marilyn. Forget individual choices. Marilyn and Jay-Z have nothing to do with the person who chooses to pull the trigger to harm classmates or neighbors. Continue reading
A school district in Indiana has decided to ban Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.
Students at Franklin Central High School had to return an award-winning but controversial novel halfway through reading it Wednesday after complaints surfaced about its appropriateness.
District administrators say Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” is being reviewed after it was pulled from two classrooms, and a decision on it is expected by Monday. A Franklin Township School Board member has vowed to keep it out of students’ hands.
“I was about as appalled as I’ve ever been in my life,” said board member Scott Veerkamp. “I wouldn’t want to expose my children to that garbage.”
Veerkamp said he and fellow board member Randall Bland received complaints about the book. Veerkamp then asked district administrators to pull it, which triggered a formal review.
“I couldn’t even sleep last night when I read some of the excerpts,” he said, adding that descriptive sex scenes, profanity, demeaning language and suicide were some of the material he found offensive.
Ok, that last part might be a bit of hyperbole. And this isn’t the first time that the Pulitzer Prize winning author had been subject to the scrutiny of school board members. In 2009, Song of Solomon was removed from the curriculum of a Maryland school district but later restored by a narrow school board vote.
The subject of banning books from schools and libraries often stirs alarm in me. And certainly, it’s valid for parents to question the content of some works of art in terms of ‘appropriateness’ for children. However, I have to wonder a little about this district and how ‘insular’ they are. Continue reading
Warning: This is an extremely meta post.
In response to a recent NYT article in which I was quoted, a very clever reader I assume, googled me, found my Facebook profile and proceeded to send me the following message:
Speak for yourself. Asian and Indian men are raised pretty much by doctors and engineers, and doctors and engineers only. They get married relatively young, don’t cheat, don’t even look at other women, do more household chores than anyone and everyone, and expect their women to be equal (if not greater) partners who achieve at a similarly high level.
There are a lot of things problematic about this statement. One, I AM speaking for myself. Two, that generalization is sort of racist.
I feel like I grabbed the third rail of some conflict I’m not sure how to define. The Pew Report is interesting, however, as a culture, our response to its findings is fascinating. And not in a good way. At all. Some people are downright Catty McBitchy.
Others are misogynistic:
This is a disastrous trend. Can anyone name one society in history that has been dominated by women and which has prospered and survived. I can’t.
Others are comedians:
Big buff dude, who is for some reason shirtless in a library (who may also be carrying an axe in order to appear lumberjack manly): Hey babe, are you done with the microfiche?
Syreeta (turning slowly, flicking her hair, pushing her glasses down to the tip of her nose): Why yes, yes I am? Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a passport handy now would you?
Others just think I’m bitter:
‘I read the article in the Times that you were quoted in and looked you up online. Were You quoted correctly? “With men of any ethnic group, it’s a little intimidating for them to encounter smart women.”
Really? All men? All ethnic groups? The stereotypes that you generate are worse than the stereotypes than men generate about women, but you went to Sarah Lawrence, so I know that you are a bitter, angry, unbalanced and unpleasant young lady who will spend most of her life contriving ugly things to do and say about men (how’s that for a stereotype?)’
Um, WOW. And regardless of whether or not I was quoted correctly, or because I went to one school over another and that says how I feel about everything is also a bit ridiculous. I also love the internet for encouraging some seriously bold assaults from people who wouldn’t dare say any of this to my face. Many of whom are women. Seriously. I’ve had more women assault me with vapid commentary about what they *think* I meant rather than engage me seriously about the conversation. People were angry, cynical, bitchy, frustrated, bitter or assumed that I and my lot are. *kanye shrug* 
