I Don't Need Truthers

I don't need Truthers to tell me our rememberences of 9/11/01 are irresponsible. Are deadly. Are poisonous. Are selfish. Are ego-centric. Are violent. Are unnecessary.

I don't need conspiracy theorists to tell me that we have raced into bludgeoning violence. Rushed into a schoolyard fight with spiked bats and automatic weapons and tanks.

That we have killed seventy-times-seventy of "theirs" than they have killed of "ours."

Nor that there is no "they" or "us." Unless we are speaking of those on top of the  capital, economic, cultural, industrial, and political orders against those of us here. On the ground. Running around and playing their games just in order that we may eek out an existence. Risking our lives in the efforts to take the lives of others. Because the American God is a God of Vengeance and Retribution.

And oil. And contracts.

And racist nationalism.

And this God demands sacrifices. It demands money. Trillions. It demands lives. Millions.

The American God of Vengeance and Retribution demands toddlers and mothers and fathers and sisters and cousins and wives and husbands and infants and teenagers and the recently deployed and college students and taxi drivers and bakers and nurses and teachers and "the help" and... the list goes on.

These are not the people we remember. We remember An Attack By Them.

The Attack By Them is justification - an eternal loop of crashing, inflated justification - to blow holes through children and send kids to do things that kids should never have to witness. The adults, the American adults continue to say that we Will Never Forget The Attack By Them. On Our Soil.

But we seem to have little problem forgetting our capital, economic, cultural, industrial, political violence upon on Them predating the Attack By Them.

And a thousand times over since then.

I don't need a Truther to tell me that this is a horrible, violent, monstrous sham. A con game, where we all, Christians and Muslims, Euro-Americans, Mid-Asians, and Middle-Easterners, poor and working class, veterans and their victims, lose. The house of cards is stacked against us. And when it falls, we lose it all.

If you remember, remember us all.

LulZ postUrs!

Been having some fun with images and words recently, which you may have noticed if you subscribe to the Left Cheek: The Blog page on the Facebooks. My favorite meme right now is Hipster Jesus. I think he's a fan of Rob Bell and Sufjan Stevens. Plus, he's SOOOO not mainstream Jesus. I really don't care for that Jesus.

Enjoy. I have a few more down the pike, so look out for updates.

Also, check out the page: Pinko Commies Wrote My Bible. Hoping to get a blog going sometime as well.

The Loop of Wingnut Racism

Ask someone how she can justify a war that displaced millions upon millions of citizens for no fault of their own - under the guise that we are there to liberate them. How can we be okay with a war that cost at least a trillion dollars and killed perhaps a million civilians by some estimates.

Yes, some bad apple soldiers may have killed children and women and such and all that.

Um, didn't I just say "One million"?

She answers that they probably would have killed us first. They had the capabilities, etc. They must have moved the weapons of mass destruction and etcetera. Yeah, that's what happened. 

Why would you assume that? Even if the leaders were that foolhardy to attack the US, why hurt so many civilians in the process? They did not ask for Saddam to represent them.

But they're Muslims, she protests. And Muslims hate us and will kill us at every first chance.

How do you know this?

It says so in their Bible, the Koran. And Christians tell me. I trust Christians, don't you?

Yes, Jesus. At this point, I should probably just leave this conversation...

Not if they're spreading false witness about others I definitely don't.

Well, you can't trust the Muslims to tell you the truth. They'll lie all the time. That's also in their Koran.*

What? Do you have any idea how racist this all is? You accuse Muslims (who are almost always dark-skinned people) of being prone to violence and stupidity. You say they follow this tract because their holy writings tell them too, despite the fact that most Muslim clerics would say that those verses don't apply. Just like the book of Joshua doesn't apply, nor does most of Leviticus. Just as we can't deny that there are passages that call for genocide or capital punishment in those books that we have to ignore, they would say the same for those scriptures that call for the death of "infidels."

How do you know that Muslims don't believe that way?

Because I talk to Muslims and I read Muslim literature.

You can't trust Muslims. They'll lie to you.

God. Just. Stop. Please. You realize that if I said, "Never trust a woman," I'd be rightly labeled a sexist misogynist, right? That it wouldn't matter what a woman said, she would always be inferior to my sense of "right", right or wrong. And that is the thrust of what misogyny is. And, if extended to races of people, the fundamental quality of racism. So please, just stop this racism. That's all.

.....

.....

You can't trust the Muslims. My Christian friends and their Christian email forwards told me so. It's in their Koran, which they're too stupid and ugly to read anyway...

*Head. Desk. Head&Desk. Headdesk. Hddsk!*

--------------------------
*Of course it's not.

Hey, Ho, Sheriff Joe!

One of the ways Sheriff Joe Arpaio humiliates his prisoners (many of whom are guilty of the very crime of trying to find an honest life in the US) is by forcing them to trot out in pink underwear.

Just because he has a fetish and he has authority does not give him the right to make grown men fulfill his fantasies against their wills.

H8r Crimes & White Christian Privilege

"Suspicious... These assholes are always getting away."

Fox News and other White, male, heterosexual, Christian supremacist spokespersons like to pretend that Hate Crime legislation give potential victims - particularly Black, Arab, and Latino people, females, those with mental and/or physical disabilities, homosexuals and bisexuals, trans*, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists - more rights than they have. As one of my friends put it, those people groups would belong to a special "protected class."

This type of thinking, and the acceptance of it by much of White American Christianity, belies the fact that those groups already belong to a special attacked class. But it also reveals privileged thinking.

Privileged thinking doesn't comprehend the fact - largely because privileged people are safe from these types of realities - that entire people groups are constantly, systemically, and substantially attacked. And because it can't comprehend this fact (and because we're human and if we don't need to be aware of an ugly fact that makes us look bad, we most likely won't), it has to make up silly disclaimers that minority groups are seeking extra rights.

• School desegregation and busing? Extra rights. Black children already have their own schools; they shouldn't be allowed to overrun ours.
• Civil rights laws? Extra rights. See, black citizens already have the right to vote; they just need to quietly apply like the rest of us. They'll get their turn when it's their time.
• Anti-bigotry laws? Extra rights. Gays are trying to force their views on God-lovin' straights. If I want to voice my disapproval at their lifestyle in a demeaning and threatening manner, that's my Constitutionally-protected right.
• Ramps, elevators, special bathrooms, and handicap accessible doors? Extra rights! Why do we have to accomodate them? We'll take care of them when they come, not before.
• Same-sex unions and/or marriage? That's extra rights, right there! Straights can only get married to a person of the opposite gender. It's not fair that they get to marry somebody of the same sex! (Yes. I have talked to somebody with this view. In 2010. He must've thought he was so clever.)

And so on and so on, ad infinitum...

/HaterJustificationText...

And if you disagree with them, then it's reverse racism. And if you tell them that they're supporting a racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, classist system, they take it personally and deny the fact that they've ever had a hating bone in their body.*

Of course they missed the point. They're privileged. Not only can they afford to ignore the very institutions that don't challenge them, but they also profit from ignoring those systems.

A number of young Christian slacktivists, like myself, have done a good job of cataloguing oppressions of the US empire overseas. We recognize the horrible costs of war, cheap oil, and cheaply-produced consumptives. We call it by its name: murder.


Yet, are we recognizing the implications of this murderous system when it's at home and so obvious it smacks us in the face with its obviousness?

Trayvon Martin's murder - instigated by racial fears and racist subjugation - is one such obvious case.

For more:
GraceIsHuman (where I first was made aware of this travesty): "Look, I don’t give a shit how George Zimmerman or Bill Lee personally feel about black people or what their personal relationships with black people are like. I am not in the least interested in whether they’re “really racist” or not. I care what they did. I care about the cultural and institutional realities that made what they did (and are still doing, on the part of the Sanford PD) possible, and made them think – with very good precedent for thinking so – they could get away with it."
Sarah Over the Moon argues that White Christians love to patristically defend African children - as if we were their only hope - but we ignore racism in our own backyard.
And Fred at Slacktivist does a journalist's job of consorting and compiling - in an effort to amplify - the voices of those who understand oppression and privilege.

------------------------------------------------------
*Much like the KKK and White Citizens Council did in the 50s and 60s.

Wrath and Patience

We struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.

This is where it gets personal for activists/slacktivists and others like me filled with, say, righteous indignation. It's right and good to be angry about certain things. But to be overcome by it is to lose grasp of the fact that we are in a long-range run.

The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.

That means, for me, I must not grow weary in doing good. But I must not also stoop to the level of demonizing those I disagree with. And trust me, that's freaking easy. Someone accuses Black and Latinos pointing out institutional racism as being, itself, racist, and I'm ready to send them a verbal hell-storm.

But maybe being incredibly radical isn't about forcefulness of the mean as much as direction of the end. Maybe radicalness isn't so much about treating one group of persons as a protective class as it is about treating the (oftentimes ignorant, sometimes ignoble) oppressors as fully human persons and demonstrating that shared humanity in front of them.

I, for one, can learn much from the patience - and radicalness - of the Quaker John Woolman.

John Woolman believed slavery was unjust— that it was cruel for those in bondage and corrosive for the bondsman. So he wrote an essay explaining why (“Some considerations on the keeping of Negroes: Recommended to the professors of Christianity of every denomination”). And then, since he was sure that his condemnation of slavery was true, and that the truth of it was compelling, he set out to talk to those who disagreed.
One by one, meetinghouse by meetinghouse, home by home. He would speak to gatherings of Friends, or would arrive for dinner at the home of Quaker slaveowners, and he would talk to them about his “considerations” and concerns with this practice. After the meal, he would pay wages to those slaves who had attended him. And he would invite the slaveowners to liberate their slaves, paying them back wages for their years of service.
Crazy. But even crazier: This worked. Conversation, liberation, transformation. That was Woolman’s method and he continued it, unchanged, throughout his life.

Well, almost unchanged. He eventually switched to traveling on foot out of consideration that the stagecoaches he had been riding in were cruel to the horses.

If you live somewhere on the East Coast of the United States, anywhere in between New York City and Richmond, Va., then you’re probably not far from some old historic Friends Meeting House. John Woolman spoke there. He arrived there on foot and spoke about slavery until he had convinced the Friends who gathered there to condemn the practice and cease participating in it by emancipating their slaves and paying them for their service. And then he left on foot, heading for the next such meeting house or home to have that same conversation again, and again and again.

And that is how John Woolman changed the Friends, and how it came to be that the Friends would help to change America. 

That really happened. That is really how it happened.

A re-education. Others talk about violence being the only way out of slave conditions. Still others maintain (out of a belief that property rights trump all else) that the slave owners need to be paid for the loss of their "property." But I see that as a false equivalence. The best process is to demonstrate that there are better ways, while protecting the oppressed.

Homosexuals, bisexuals, transgendered, African-descendents, mixed-raced, Anglo, Latino, poor, rich, management, cops, protesters, the 99%, the 1%, indigenous, English Language Learners, gringos, straights, queers, agents, hip-hop heads, scholars, Africans, South-East Asians, long-distance drivers, manufacturers, union members, prostitutes, slave-wage earners,sweat shop workers, bureaucrats, Parisians, Kenyans, Afrikaans, day laborers, servers, activists, civil servants, farmers, pharmacists

Among this list are scattered oppressors and oppressees, with many carrying both titles. But all are human, even when they/we don't seem to be. The greatest danger, IMO, is forgetting that we, in our fight against the violence of oppression, do not pick up the tools of the oppressor and so become the oppressor - only changing the face of the game, but not the game itself. Compare Woolman's approach to Soviet Russia's.

Although sometimes the new masters are better and more benevolent than the old ones, it seems to me that history has taught us that we need a different approach, a different way of seeing reality than through our relation to our money and our leaders. These are abstract ways of viewing life and they serve the function of denying us the pleasure and reward of our own work, world, and relationships.

It is not righteous wrath that will deliver us out of the systems of oppression, but revolutionary patience.

The Language of Abuse

"Take a bath and get a job, you dirty, lazy hippies!"

This is the language of dehumanization. It's always language like this that is used to dehumanize and devalue other men, women and children for practical - often monetary - purposes.

It is this type of language that tries to remove popular sympathy away from those being exploited and away from those rebelling against the exploitation. Palestinians are a "made-up" people group (i.e., they're not real). Indigenous tribes are "savages." African descendants are "beasts." Poor Whites are "white trash." Murdered children during war are "collateral damage." Immigrants are "free loaders." The working poor are "lazy."

And those are some of the names I can say in print. To even repeat the more derogatory names is to revisit the abuse and violence beset upon the subjects of those names.

It is this type of language that allows powerful and rich men to completely prey on less powerful with the wanton consent and even approval of the majority of Westerners. Get the common people to believe that a sub-group of common people is less human than you or they are, and you can control them both. It's the act, the effect of the dehumanizing language that does this.

Language that imagines people groups as "monsters" turns the hearers themselves into monsters.

Well, SOME monsters are pretty darned cute...

Abusive language is used to justify mass removals and genocides. To eradicate and largely exterminate American Indian tribes and wipe them from their lands. To bloodily subjugate entire races of people. To sell and divide families. To bomb children. To blame women for their own rape. To bully homosexual teens to suicide.

The abortion foes know this well, which is why they refer to the pre-born as "babies" and "people" and call themselves "pro-life". The rank-and-file believe this is true. And up until the late 1970's, it's arguable that they were correct that they were actually pro-life. But then they largely stopped caring for the after-born and advocated wars and the death penalty.

Because the leaders of the anti-abortion movement saw a way to mobilize the masses and make a quick buck: Demonize the opponents and tune into an American blood-lust for optimal performance.

The demonizing, dehumanizing and over-all blood lust has made it easier to ignore and ridicule the opponents of exploitation as well. Since they are removed from us, they become caricatures who only live to defile the public order. We see them as what they aren't, nor do we hear their stories nor care for their stories. For the same reasons we do not listen to the hurt of African Americans or Latinos in the United States, we do not hear the cries of the bullied gay youth in our schools, or the protests of the protesters. They are wasteful, lazy, stinky, bums who want what everybody else has and don't want to do anything but hang around and complain until someone gives it to them.

Of course this isn't the truth or anything resembling the truth. But the vocabulary and the power of words create a barrier, and we agree with that barrier when we refuse to break down that barrier. In doing so, we help to build up that barrier and the dehumanizing is complete. So when the agents of the elite forces come in to do their work, we commend them for keeping us safe from the vermin. Unaware or uncaring they physical and social harm going on all around us but hidden from sight by the opaque walls of dehumanization.

So maybe we need to make it personal. How much blood needs to be shed on the other side of the wall before we begin to tear it down? How much abusive language can we take and give before we all collectively say, "Enough with your power games!"?

Consider this story from a non-violent protester at Occupy LA:

For example, I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA’s First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it. As it happens, my family had personally contributed that exact canopy tent to Occupy LA, at a cost of several hundred of my family’s dollars. As I watched, the LAPD sliced that canopy tent to shreds, broke the telescoping poles into pieces and scattered the detritus across the park. Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as “30 tons of garbage” that was “abandoned” by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.
When the LAPD finally began arresting those of us interlocked around the symbolic tent, we were all ordered by the LAPD to unlink from each other (in order to facilitate the arrests). Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor. It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.

You could (and may want to) read more here.

History, of course, is filled with millions and millions of stories like that. Where the authorities come in and violently hold down the oppressed or the protester after that man or woman or child has been thoroughly monster-ized and ridiculed. Because then, no one can hear them scream, right?

No one cares if the master is raping the slave because she isn't really human and therefore, it doesn't count, right? Or that Irish children are starving in the streets while dining aristocrats ignore them? After all, they're only Irish cubs... Or that two-thirds of the world live and toil in abject poverty, in shanties, with barely enough food to make it through the day, while a minute percentage of humanity hoards more money and resources than they know what to do with? Alas, the wealthy earned it...

The trick is then rising above it all, right? To call out evil for what it is without demonizing and dehumanizing those who are different from us. To re-humanize the villains and un-villainize the humans. To break down the barriers, brick-by-brick.

That would be recognizing the brother-and-sisterhood of humanity. That's a good way of using the pen.

Fools, Idiot, Neighbors, and Teachers

I had a couple friends publicly denounce me and take me to task for publicly saying some mean things about religious and political leaders like Chuck Colson, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump because they said some nasty lies about Black, Latino, and poor people. The argument was that I should not attack fellow believers, and that Jesus left clear instructions about calling "your brother 'Raca' ('you fool')." Which he did, in the famous Sermon on the Mount, shortly after the Beatitudes.

And I seriously had to question this and think about this and wonder if I was betraying myself. If I may have gone overboard to my own principles.

See, I do have principles. I don't always remember what they are. And I'm not always faithful to them. But generally speaking, I try to live by them - even if I don't remember why I'm living by them or what they are.

So, I needed to ask, "Is that it? Is that the final word on name-calling in the bible?" Because it didn't seem to be.

I learned early on in my Christian life that the bible effectively uses sarcasm and sometimes even insults to get its points across. You thought Jonah was just a story about a fish eating a dude? Consider the final chapter of the book. Remember that section where Elijah and his protege Elisha dared the Baalians to a fire-off? "Where are your gods? Do they have the runs?"



And then there's these passages in the New Testament, where Jesus, Paul, and James use some pretty tough language themselves.

Jesus: You two-faced double-timers. You cleaned up sarcophagi. You den of poisonous snakes. Woe to you!

Paul: I wish those Judaisers would finish up their own jobs on themselves and fully emasculate themselves.

Speaking of sarcasm, notice the dripping irony here, in 2 Corinthians chapter 11:

Don’t think that I am a fool to talk like this. But even if you do, listen to me, as you would to a foolish person, while I also boast a little. Such boasting is not from the Lord, but I am acting like a fool. And since others boast about their human achievements, I will, too. After all, you think you are so wise, but you enjoy putting up with fools! You put up with it when someone enslaves you, takes everything you have, takes advantage of you, takes control of everything, and slaps you in the face. I’m ashamed to say that we’ve been too “weak” to do that!

In these passages, Jesus and Paul are addressing religious and civil leaders that abuse those under their watch. In contrast, Jesus gives specific directions about leadership to his followers:

• "Watch out for the impurity of the Pharisees,"  
• "The leaders of the non-Jews lord their leadership over them. You are not to be like that. You are to serve, as the Son of Man has."

In fact, that seems to be the whole point of leadership with Jesus. Those who want to lead must do so by humble example. Not by boastful braggadocio. Not by harming others, or exposing others, or spreading malicious lies about others. But by sacrifice.

If they weren't willing to do that, but were willing to take on the title of "leader" (and in the process, hurt Jesus' sheep), they are open for scorn. And not a little bit either.

But what about the word, "fool." Does the threat of hellfire in Matthew chapter five only apply to that word? Is it magical? Can we get away with any sort of insult, as long as we don't call someone a "fool"?

No. Not at all.

James 2:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clohes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompani by action, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

As one can ascertain in the Corinthian passage, Paul was calling the other leaders fools for their
It seems obvious to me that there are several meanings for the word "fool" or for any such insult in the Bible. The most common understanding of the word "fool" (forgive my non-use of Greek or Hebrew here) in the bible is one who acts as if there were no God to be held accountable to. Which is one way of looking at the leaders in the Corinthian church that Paul was addressing, sarcastically, above.
ie,

The fool says in his heart, there is no god.

It seems clear that when Jesus said that we shouldn't call our fellow brothers or sisters fools, he meant we shouldn't take it our words, our interactions, our insults lightly, nor that we should take ourselves so highly that every little insult is a threat to our being.

Perhaps if we look at the model of Jesus, we see and recognize a pattern. Those who hurt the poor, those who profited from the abuse of others, those who bullied or kept themselves in a level above others were open for open criticism. The more common people who were not in leadership positions may be open for gentle rebuke, but from an actual state of humility, after the rebuker earned the trust, respect, and friendship of the rebuked. Far too often we critique or judge and say we're doing it out of love.

But we aren't.

We judge people we don't really know because they don't measure up to our standards. Rather than working through life and our struggles together, earning each others' trust.

However, when we are talking about leaders, or supposed leaders, we must consider a few other directives.

• Let not many of you consider to be leaders.
• The leaders of the pagans lord over them, but you are not to act as such.
• Weep and wail, you rich people
• Woe to you, pharisees.
• To whom much is given, much is required.

Let's not forget the clearing of the temple that allowed the outcasts into the holy place.

In short, it's not okay to lash out and take personal offense at others for debatable subjects. That not the way of the humble. Christians are to freely give. That's going to be a lifetime lesson and challenge for me.

However, if we see a rich man stealing from the poor, or a religious leader abusing his flock or excluding others from worship, or a political leader trying to garner power by trampling on others, then not only is it okay for Christians to speak up strongly, it's a biblical mandate.

So, no, I won't apologize for calling Trump or Gingrich "Neanderthals." Christians should apologize to the world for following them...

posted from Bloggeroid

The Muslim Brotherhood

Ok, the title is a bite of a mislead. I'm not talking about a religious CIA, Glenn Beck's secret caliphate, or men who give each other a high five after mutilating female genitalia. In fact, neither am I making an inter-religious pantheistic call to uniformity.

Rather, I just want to evoke the image of Dr. King's Brotherhood of Man language. For me, being raised in a fundamentalist Christian church, the BoM thought is nothing short of revolutionary - and somewhat heretical. I had normally reserved the title of brother/sister only to fellow Christians. Or, how I would define "Christians", which was an extremely narrow scope and excluded most of the Church. Martin Luther King, Jr. was referencing the fact that we are all connected and that when one is affected, we all are. Jesus called this being neighbors, and he himself extended this intricate connection to everybody - including both the Enemy and the Other. But seeing all the hubballoo that Christias make over the Other/Enemy, I'm not sure the revolutionary message has sunk in.

A recent example of this contradiction between what American Christians profess to believe and what they actually support can be termed the Terror Turkey episode.

This turkey is ready to attack!

When outraged and hysterical blogger Pam Geller mentioned that Butterball brand makes some turkeys halal-friendly, a small but vocal group of concerned anti-Muslim citizens became very, very alarmed. Watching it unfold was like a hysterical, sad, and daunting replay over the Cordoba House once again. Maybe it'd be progress for the American people to recognize just how awful the Islamaphobes are. Maybe it's progress that only a few people and outlets - the ironically-named American Thinker, worst person in the world Bryan Fischer - gave ANY credence to this story. Maybe it's progress that the Boycott Butterball Facebook page only had a few hundred fans, even though it was set-up by the main accuser, Gilly-Geller, herself.

But more likely, the story itself was just too outrageous and stupid to spread beyond the most virulent Muslimaphobes - the people who hate Muslims and Arabs so much that they've lost all sense of grounding in reality. You would think that was true of the story of the Cordoba House a bit over a year ago, though.

In case you' ve forgotten about the story of the Cordoba House initiative or, more likely, you recognize it according to the name that it got popularized by thanks to sensationalistic and garbage media outlets, here is a refresher:

The Cordoba Islamic community in Manhattan has been around for a hundred years. American Muslims, they were seeing that, unlike many other religious and ethnic groups in the city, there were no options for their kids to hang around and learn about their culture and religious background. They wanted to give them a community center, not unlike Christian-based ones in my neighborhood. A place to play sports and receive tutoring and just feel safe from the streets and unreceptive bullies and bigots. Additionally the comunity center would be open for all in order to spur religious/cultural dialog between members of the area. Additionally, the initiative was spurred by a Muslim who worked as a translator and aid for the CIA following the 9/11 attacks. This man was comended by none other than President Bush and even Glenn Beck.

But then the rabid Muslimophobes struck, starting with Gilly. They called the community center a Mosque (a house of worship that is somehow scary largely because it's a house of worship for Muslims. And all Muslims, we are told, hate Americans and most are terrorists. Amirite?? no, of course not) and the Muslimophobes called the center a 9/11 memorial, supposedly built on the land that Muslims conquered - even though it was several blocks from the actual site of the World Trade Center. Which, in Manhattan, constitutes as miles and miles away.*

And the rabid Muslimophobia went viral. Hate became the flavor du jour and buildings were burned and painted with the efficacy of bigotry. Meanwhile, the "good" Christians of the community washed their hands when they didn't blame the Muslims for provoking their own attacks.

The problem was hardly that a sensationalistic 24 hours news channel and its related blow-hards decided to focus on this. It's that any Americans, let alone Christian Americans, listened to them and gave them credence.

I'd like to think that we've evolved past that bigotry. That maybe the lack of approval for Pam's latest round of repressed kinkiness was due to the fact that most Americans don't know what a halal is. And that quite a few who bother to research it would find that it's largely indistinguishable from the kosher process.

But then there's the glowing, inescapable fact that churches in Michigan have tried to excuse themselves from anti-bullying laws in the state. On the grounds, of course, that it's okay to intimidate a non-straight if god says it's okay.

In other words, it is okay to not follow Jesus' primary commands when we can justify it on grounds that completely contradict the commandment of Jesus. It's okay to lie about, intimidate, harass, scare, and publicly humiliate Muslims and transvestites and pre-teen lesbians and Wiccan teens as long as we can pretend that we love them.

In Jesus' name!

----------------------------------------------------------

It's all effing silly and doesn't make a lick of sense. But that's what hatred is. -

Playing the Race Card Card

20061129_3282, a photo by graphia on Flickr.

Let's role play a scenario that I see, on average, at least twice a week on the webz.

Jan (Person of color): Did you hear/see that? I find that comment directed at my race to be incredibly insensitive and hurtful.
Jim (Person not of color): Stop being so sensitive. Must you throw out the race card?

It's a weird counter-argument. But it's also horribly inhumane. Without a trace of irony - and most likely without noticing it - by trying to prove how Jim isn't really racist, he actually demonstrates just how racist his frame of reference is.

Let's break it down, shall we?

Jan is hurt by remarks that she is quite aware are directed at her race/family/ethnicity/culture/identity group.
Jan lets others know, that may not know, how hurt she is by the offending statement.
Jim is offended (OFFENDED!) that Jan is offended by such a statement.
Jim does not understand why Jan should be upset as he does not share her cultural or historical background.
Rather than taking Jan seriously as a real, adult human being with actual feelings and emotions and intelligence, he continues to downgrade not just Jan's feelings as being less than legitimate (which leads Jan to feel like less of a person, at least in Jim's eyes), but also Jan's history, culture, family, and humanity.
Jan is not a legitimate person in the eyes of this white person.
Jan is led to believe - and with good reason - that Jim does not trust her accounts of her own experience and reaction simply because Jan is a different race or ethnicity.

This, in effect, is what racism is, what white supremacy is. It is also a sign of sexism. In this regard, Jan is doubly cursed.

A similar scenario can also be played out according to class or sexual identity, for instance). But it's been ridiculous efforts like Rush Limbaugh's "uppity" comments - directed at the First Couple and only at them - and the refusal of specific white Christians to acknowledge that that phrase is used disparagingly toward Black people who are perceived to rise above their station. In fact, judging by the responses I've seen from several paleo-conservative white male Christians, they don't give a rip about the hurt that that phrase causes African Americans.

Add to that, Thanksgiving is once again upon us and we still, in 2011 AD, mock and ridicule the very tribes and nations that were in the Americas first. Those very people that we systematically wiped out through assimilation and murder. And - adding insult to those injuries - we continue to mockingly dress our sports mascots as racist caricatures of "savage" Indian chiefs. A continuation of a history of profiting from the humiliation and exploitation of those we've been oppressing.




When the First Nation tribes and people inform the alumni and students, universities, and professional sports teams that the mascots and mock-ceremonial actions are offensive to the very people that are being caricatured, the white men invariably answer, "No, they aren't. You aren't really offended."

Excuse me. But I have to ask my fellow white males, "WHAT THE FRAPPIN' HELL ARE YOU THINKING?"

Who do we think we are to tell others what they should be offended by when we're offending them, both historically - and because we choose to ignore their histories - currently? Especially after hundreds of years of oppression, genocide, slavery, removal, segregation, and utter marginalization. And now we White people want to act like everything's cool between us and the people we've marginalized and profited from - when it's obvious that we are only continuing the same acts of aggression?

Yeah, we're sick like that...

Cain: The "Real Black" Candidate

Caution: Reading Facebook during any of the elongated election seasons can be dangerous for your health sanity. Consider it a tip courtesy of the jasdye.

For example, one man, completely unprompted, posted the following comment:

So you hypocrites call Republicans/Conservatives racists even when many of them support a genuine Black American?

The obvious and short answer is yes. Yes, we do. As to why, the answer to that is in the question. This concerns me as a person and a blogger and a Christian in a way that is central to my blog here: We continue to talk down to people who are different than us without trying to understand where they are coming from in the first place. As a white, male,heterosexual, American Christian who allies and aligns himself with those from all over the socio/economic/racial/ethnic/spiritual world - whether by accident or not - I'm highly aware of the ways that other wmhac's fall short in this area and I cannot be silent on these issues. So, for a group of whites to identify who is and who isn'ta "true" member of the African American community is beyond the *ahem* pale...

It was bad enough when my African American students (and some friends and classmates before that) would say that another African American isn't "black enough". As limited as that thinking was, at least it was an internal critique. It would be like a Panamanian saying that another Panamanian isn't really Panamanian based on preconceptions of what makes a Panamanian.

But neo-cons and Republicans accusing Barack Obama of not being black enough is more like an American saying a Panamanian isn't REALLY a Panamanian - but the American doesn't even know in what hemisphere Panama is.

On Free Speech: In-Tolerance 2

Funny how last week I talked about the fraudulent idea of "free speech" as it's used to protect all sorts of nasty villains and bullies.

And then another rampage happens. And dozens upon dozens of youth are murdered viciously by another raving lunatic who has been inspired by some crazy manifestos. Including The Unabomber.

And anti-Muslim blogs not unlike Pam Geller's and Robert Spencer's.

If you've not had a chance to check out Atlas Shrugged, please don't. It's full of vile hatred and conspiracies against Muslims and any people group associated with them. The type that spew outrage about the so-called Ground Zero Mosque and that allege that every evil committed on God's green earth is done by Muslims or their sympathizers.

And the mass murderer linked to her site fifteen times in his "manifesto".

Of course, she is very defensive about this. And now every time another suicide bomber goes off, she wonders what liberal blogger inspired him/her.

Sadly, she doesn't really seem to understand that the policies of First World nations in Yemen, Gaza, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq are more responsible for pulling the triggers than possibly any other direct or indirect influence. Poverty is and breeds violence.

But Geller, like most relatively wealthy Americans, doesn't understand this. Glenn Beck obviously doesn't get this. And so he blames the victims - again - calling their political camp an indoctrination space just like the Hitler youth. (Yes, we all know he says Hitler like Rudy says 9/11, like fish need water, etc.)

The scary part? I saw some people criticize it, and then, out of the woodwork, others were coming out and saying what an inspiration he is. Not apologizing. Not stepping away from. But just short of deifying.

And those that were criticizing him? Apparently, they were actively seeking to censor the voice of reason and dissent on behalf of their Dear Leader, Barack Obama.

Yeah...

I really have no interest in a "debate" with Beck, Limbaugh, Geller or any of their uber-paranoid ditto-heads. There's no point trying to dialogue with blinders. And the mainstream has never really fallen for their claptrap either way. Besides, my heart can only take so much pressure. Rather, I want to look at some take-away lessons:

1) It's not worth engaging with people who fail basic logic. Unless you are good friends with them. And then you have no choice but to do so.

2) The vast majority of the American people are not crazy. They may, for a short period of time, buy into a crazy notion. They may believe that it's high time for the US to default on its loans, if convinced by what's seen as "common sense." Most people are too busy working and living their lives to think deeply and passionately about policies and the parlor games of politics. Those of us who tend to spend our free time doing exactly that (and have wasted innumerable hours both in face and online doing exactly that)

3) Bullying should never be tolerated. Yet, it is generally championed in American society, where Competition is King and the loudest and most explosive voice usually triumphs. To defeat the crazies, we do not need a louder voice, we just need a clearer voice. The marathon of public opinion goes to the one who is calm, reasonable, and clear (cf. McCain V Obama)

4) Take notes from those who call out bullying clearly (like Rachel Held Evans did when addressing Mark Driscoll, and then Grace from Are Women Human did in RHE's defense after she was attacked for taking on the boys club), and from those who speak gracefully when under fire (I also think that Rachel does this well, too).

In-Tolerance

A few days ago, our friend Alise (aka, Allison) Wright said:

• Alise McCoy Wright

  If you equate gay and lesbian relationships with sex with animals or children, I'm not very interested in talking to you. #intolerant

The ensuing dialog got me to write my very own status:

Jason M Dye

Who passed around the memo that says that tolerance (willing to abide with those who are different than you) is supposed to mean blind support for intolerance? If someone hates others for their differences, and then makes up willfully ignorant excuses as to why he hates them, I *don't* have to put up with that bull****.

Among the many interesting discussions we had around this and around the ensuing discussions that followed was a little foray into what the word tolerance actually means.And this is where I disagree with many. When some talk of tolerance, they are speaking in a First Amendment sense: The right of people to speak whatever they believe or want to say without government interference.

In the First Amendment sense, of course, everybody has that right. What I don't like is the idea that because somebody has a right to say whatever they feel like (a radio talk show host repeats the term, "Ni**er, Ni**er, Ni**er", for instance, or a blogger says that homosexuals want more rights than straight people, because they want to "gay-marry" on top "straight-marry"), that I'm supposed to - as an enlightened, tolerant fellow - accept their statements without criticizing them.

photo © 2009 Howe Kee Wong | more info (via: Wylio)They argue that it's the only tolerant thing to do. Apparently, they don't understand the essence of tolerance, just some sort of self-serving form of it.

What they are asking for is not only NOT tolerance, it's also not Freedom of Speech.

In grade school, we were taught that each one has the right to express himself, to make herself heard, unencumbered by the federal government (though I'm not quite sure how that works in broadcast - since it's obviously not unencumbered by federal regulations...). While there are other censors out there (monied interests, for instance; gatekeepers; self-preservation), the main idea that most of us growing up with an American education have been taught is that we live in a marketplace of ideas. This marketplace is a sort of competition in the open fields where the best ideas try to outshine each other to grab the American conscience.

photo © 2006 Glen | more info (via: Wylio)As flawed as this comparison truly is (for one, its need for retail / consumer analogies), it is still the best picture we collectively share for how FoS works. For every Neo-Nazi that floats an idea out, an anti-racist can respond to it in a million other ways. It's not intolerant if the anti-racist objects to the racist's claims. That's actually free speech in practice. That's the idea of the marketplace of ideas.

The intolerance would come if the anti-racist would criminalize the racist before the racist did anything violent - recognizing however that some forms of speech/expression are violent calls of aggression (the 'n****r' word in certain circumstances. Calling out for armed rebellion, for others). This is especially true among racists.

Intolerance isn't even that, however. Intolerance says that the majority population cannot live with a minority population for fear of contamination. Intolerance tells the minority population that the other populations are dangerous/stupid/insane and therefore should not be lived with. This is where war begins - racial/religious/ethnic/cultural differences are not accepted as being different, but being worse and less-than-human.

What we need is more tolerance. Not more hateful/hurtful ideas being bandied about. Nor the excuse that not accepting those hateful ideas is, in itself, intolerant. But actual, living, breathing tolerance.

Then maybe we could move on to hearing each other out and living in community.

Peter King and the Roost

White Americanized Christianity has led to the death of close to a million people in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Which leads us to this interesting and depressing paradox. In order to continue doing what we're doing, in order to continue to get oil fuel and the objects of our consumptive love so cheaply, the United States continues to be involved in international issues in a way that's detrimental to those outside of the US (and quite a few within the US). Then, we try to do everything within our power to keep those chickens from coming home to roost, so to say.

So we bring violence to the homes of millions around the world, and then get upset because some of it manifests itself in the US. Not only that, but we tend to blame the wrong crowds - not just for the global violence, but for the homegrown violence as well. Reprehensible Reptile Peter King's HUAC hearings are, for all their wanton ugliness, not getting quite the press they deserve.

photo © 2011 longislandwins | more info(via: Wylio)

If we *really* wanted to tackle the radicalization of Islam, we'd stop giving radical leaders ammo with which to point at us (western, Christian, white culture):

• We'd stop trying to occupy and/or bomb Muslim countries.
• We'd stop supporting the Israeli state's oppression of Palestinians.
• We'd stop this charade of dragging American Muslims in front of national televisions to question their patriotism and whether or not they've done enough to stop terrorism (while justifying terrorists that support causes that we are comfortable with).
• We'd stop targeting entire Muslim communities in the US, while largely ignoring the increasing threat of white supremacist groups.
• We'd stop equating the entire Muslim community with terrorists.
• We'd stop sending in CIA agents to infiltrate mosques and Arab centers to bait young American Muslims to develop, support, and enable self-made terrorist plots.
• We'd stop this policy of guilty-before-proven innocent when it comes to Muslims and turning them into second-class citizens who are not able to pray or worship where they can (under the pretense that their worship is an offense to America's freedom, of course).
• We'd stop passing laws that attack a community's resolve to handle interpersonal conflicts via traditional/religious means (even when they don't contradict with state or federal laws).
• We'd stop bringing in so-called moderates who are nothing but shills for the xenophobes, the Clarence Thomases of Muslims in America.
• We'd stop pretending that we're not being a racist and/or xenophobic nation while actively promoting racism and xenophobia under the guise of "security."

But that would probably mean we'd need to change some habits...

Come on, vamonos! Let's explore!

De-da-da-Dora!
- Theme song

A couple years ago, eeeeveeeerything was about Elmo. Elmo toys, Elmo movies, Elmo videos, roughly four Elmo plushies, Elmo dishes... Our daughter has since diversified, but the big game winners here, in terms of merchandise, are the Disney princesses* and Dora the Explorer.

Dora... has her weaknesses. She's bossy. She's always telling the kids what to do ("Say, 'Delicioso'!") and she treats her animal friends a bit patronizing. And then there's the coying, pat-on-the-backs for every little effort. I mean, seriously? Some kids repeat "Vamonos" and Dora and Boots treat them like some kind of liberators! And my kid hardly even repeats the phrase. So not only is it hyped and unmerited praise, it's totally false and unearned.

One recent episode had Dora and her monkeyfriend Boots warn their woodland friends about an impending storm cloud - which was personified as a bratty eight-year old bully. Each time the cloud would surface, he'd rain a little bit and then Dora would lead all the others into singing the "Rain, rain, go away song." And then little Rain Cloud would go, "Ohh! I hate that song!" (He's not alone) and go scampering off, as rainclouds are wont to do when they hear children taunting them. Now, it made sense to do this until all their friends could find appropriate (and even build) appropriate shelter - but then, at the end, when everybody is safe and dry inside, she has the whole county teasing the misunderstood cumulus until it vows to never return.

Ain't that just messed up? She totally destroyed the ecosystem that she lives in just to show him who's the bigger bully!

But then...

Complaints about kids shows are superfluous, of course. The best shows are no replacement for decent parents. But sometimes, they can be a little extra. I've heard, for instance, that it takes nine positive encouragements to make up for one negative harsh statement. If that's the case, a lot of children are running a large deficit in appreciation, and characters like Dora help to fill in the gaps for some of them. It'd be nice if we could expect a television show to give realistic expectations to the children, but... um... it can't. That job belongs to the parents and the community (which implies, yes, we're *all* involved).

photo © 2007 Pedro Szekely | more info (via: Wylio)

Furthermore, in a time when White American children throughout the country witness their parents' apprehension of a new terror (Fear of a Brown Planet), they are becoming encultured to Spanish language, Latino foods, and dark-colored heroines. Latino culture is being normalized in the children at the same time it's being villainized on the radio. And that gives me a ray of esperanza.

I believe the children are the future...

*As per the Disney princesses, well... I'm conflicted. Of course I don't want her waiting around for her prince to come, but I see a level of empowerment and activism (and sensitivity to nature and the little ones) in the 'princesses' that I think is rather inspiring. But enough about those, they've been dissected so much by feminists and pop-cult analysts that I hardly think it's worth breathing the formaldehyde.

Full of win!

I've been on vacay for a good part since I've last posted here. And when I gets back, all xeno- breaks loose. You know, hatred of The Others because they are The Others. First it was brown people (Mexican immigrants), then it was Black people (African Americans who happen to speak up and notice that America is still racist), now back to another type of Brown people (Muslims, who will be allowed to worship their demon-possessed god as soon as they change their religion).

So, the little blogging that I have done has been the highly satirical/sarcastic type, on the other site. But now that I've gotten that out of my system and saw that The Onion has returned (at least for a bit this week) to its primal form, I can cool my jets. More of teh blogging to come. But for now, a steal from this great, on-the-street report from L'Oignon:

Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims

SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world...

"I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11," Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam's approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. "What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?"

"And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero," continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. "No, I won't examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people's universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell."

"All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts," said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country's armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. "Period."

"If you don't believe me, wait until they put your wife in a burka," Gentries continued in reference to the face-and-body-covering worn by a small minority of Muslim women and banned in the universities of Turkey, Tunisia, and Syria. "Or worse, a rape camp. That's right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps."

As the article is full of win, may you read it. Peace.