In a given year, roughly 100,000 Americans are killed or wounded by guns.
Only one American in five owns a gun, but each owns an average or four or five guns.
If only one in five Americans owns a gun, why is the gun lobby so powerful?
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
Horrifying
This morning the First Lady commented that the racist murders committed by nutter in South Carolina were particularly horrifying because they happened in a church. Why "particularly horrifying"? Mrs. Obama didn't say, but what makes the church massacre particularly vile is a combination of white supremacy (nurtured by some Republican leaders) and God's inexplicable failure to protect hopeful houses of worship. Churches are frequently soft targets of home-grown terrorists and, for that matter, of hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. It's as if God could not care less.
Fox News, a grinning tick that sucks blood from the edges of white supremacy, would have us believe the South Carolina massacre was an attack on religion, but the killer has made it clear that he was after African-Americans, not Christians.
Fox News, a grinning tick that sucks blood from the edges of white supremacy, would have us believe the South Carolina massacre was an attack on religion, but the killer has made it clear that he was after African-Americans, not Christians.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Donald's Essence
Of Donald Trump, Hadley Freeman wrote in THE GUARDIAN: "The truth is, he is the essence of the Republicans boiled down into the figure of a bullfrog topped with a Weetabix."
(Weetabix is British for shredded wheat.)
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
A Context for Rachel Dolezal
The media discussion of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who passed and became African-American, seems largely to have overlooked the context of what she did.
The missing context is the history of passing in the United States, which goes back several hundred years. Our definitions of race are, as you know, shifting and arbitrary. The definitions are largely fictions. In our history many thousands of women have passed from the black race to white race and--this is the part that seems almost unknown--from the white race to the black race. Rachel Dolezal is one among many. We don't know exactly how many have passed because we don't look at this phenomenon or count the people involved.
Every woman who changed races constructed a false identity and became, in a sense, a liar. This made them uncomfortable and led them to look for justifications or rationales for their claims. For example, white women who married black men used to cut the arms of their husbands and drink their blood. Then they could claim "black blood." (By claiming they were black, these women could avoid the problems that assaulted biracial couples.) Rachel Dolezal, raised in a different time, has claimed a kind of existential blackness, an interior quality. She believes she was, in modern terms, born black in a white body. I suspect that she also believes she was born into a family that would betray her.
The missing context is the history of passing in the United States, which goes back several hundred years. Our definitions of race are, as you know, shifting and arbitrary. The definitions are largely fictions. In our history many thousands of women have passed from the black race to white race and--this is the part that seems almost unknown--from the white race to the black race. Rachel Dolezal is one among many. We don't know exactly how many have passed because we don't look at this phenomenon or count the people involved.
Every woman who changed races constructed a false identity and became, in a sense, a liar. This made them uncomfortable and led them to look for justifications or rationales for their claims. For example, white women who married black men used to cut the arms of their husbands and drink their blood. Then they could claim "black blood." (By claiming they were black, these women could avoid the problems that assaulted biracial couples.) Rachel Dolezal, raised in a different time, has claimed a kind of existential blackness, an interior quality. She believes she was, in modern terms, born black in a white body. I suspect that she also believes she was born into a family that would betray her.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Black Like Me
About 56 years ago, a southern white man named John Howard Griffin took pills to turn his skin dark. For some time he lived as a black man and then wrote a book about his experiences called BLACK LIKE ME. I read it at the time. In my memory, at least, no one criticized him or called him deceptive.
This week the mother and father of a white woman in Spokane outed their daughter, Rachel Dolezal, a white woman passing as an African-American, who had become a leader and spokesperson for the NAACP. Why the parents exposed their own daughter is unclear. The behavior of the daughter has become a huge topic in the media. Generally speaking, the reactions to Dolezal have been negative. Many issues have been raised.
1. Dolezal has been accused of misrepresenting herself and lying. A woman who passes for black or white is lying by definition. The question raised here is one of existential authenticity.
2. The NAACP is backing Dolezal on the grounds that the organization has always been open to people of all races.
3. Most authorities on race will tell you that race is a social creation. We define the races any way we like, arbitrarily, but in nature the human race is one species. Dolezal's claim challenges a changing and arbitrary definition of race; it does not challenge biology.
4. Some on the left believe that people should be free to be whatever is genuinely themselves. Bruce Jenner took medicine and had surgery to give himself breasts (keeping his penis). Many who consider Dolezal a fake and mentally disturbed praise Jenner as a brave transgender woman who has become her true inner self. The argument is that Jenner was born to be transgender. Mother Nature required Jenner to undergo surgery. Dolezal was born white and darkened her skin and is a nut and a fake.
5. The question of who is legitimately black has been raised by those who believe that blackness is matter of experience. That is, all African-Americans have the same experience of racism from birth, and Dolezal has only experienced this as an adult. But is it true that all black people have the same experiences or are some blacker than others?
6. Dolezal could pass back into the white community, not a possibility for most (but not all) African-Americans. This makes her different from most but not all black people.
7. Terry Southern, back in the 1960s, wrote a story about a white man who loved jazz and hung out all the time with black musicians in Paris, until they kicked him out on the grounds that he was "too hip." Has Dolezal become too hip?
This week the mother and father of a white woman in Spokane outed their daughter, Rachel Dolezal, a white woman passing as an African-American, who had become a leader and spokesperson for the NAACP. Why the parents exposed their own daughter is unclear. The behavior of the daughter has become a huge topic in the media. Generally speaking, the reactions to Dolezal have been negative. Many issues have been raised.
1. Dolezal has been accused of misrepresenting herself and lying. A woman who passes for black or white is lying by definition. The question raised here is one of existential authenticity.
2. The NAACP is backing Dolezal on the grounds that the organization has always been open to people of all races.
3. Most authorities on race will tell you that race is a social creation. We define the races any way we like, arbitrarily, but in nature the human race is one species. Dolezal's claim challenges a changing and arbitrary definition of race; it does not challenge biology.
4. Some on the left believe that people should be free to be whatever is genuinely themselves. Bruce Jenner took medicine and had surgery to give himself breasts (keeping his penis). Many who consider Dolezal a fake and mentally disturbed praise Jenner as a brave transgender woman who has become her true inner self. The argument is that Jenner was born to be transgender. Mother Nature required Jenner to undergo surgery. Dolezal was born white and darkened her skin and is a nut and a fake.
5. The question of who is legitimately black has been raised by those who believe that blackness is matter of experience. That is, all African-Americans have the same experience of racism from birth, and Dolezal has only experienced this as an adult. But is it true that all black people have the same experiences or are some blacker than others?
6. Dolezal could pass back into the white community, not a possibility for most (but not all) African-Americans. This makes her different from most but not all black people.
7. Terry Southern, back in the 1960s, wrote a story about a white man who loved jazz and hung out all the time with black musicians in Paris, until they kicked him out on the grounds that he was "too hip." Has Dolezal become too hip?
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Intolerance
As you may have noticed, the North Carolina state senate and house of delegates, largely composed of reptilian dodos, recently overrode their own Republican governor's veto and passed a bill allowing public officials to stop performing weddings to which they had "any sincerely held religious objection." This was a dim-witted attempt to block or stigmatize same-sex marriages. The legislative argument was that it is bigoted to limit a public official's religious bigotry.
Never mind that a bigoted public official is paid to serve every citizen and sworn to uphold the Constitution. In return he or she feeds copiously from the public trough. Now, in North Carolina, if it is his religious conviction that people with dark skin should not marry people with lighter skin or that Jews should not marry Gentiles, he can send couples away, while waving the American flag.
Never mind that a bigoted public official is paid to serve every citizen and sworn to uphold the Constitution. In return he or she feeds copiously from the public trough. Now, in North Carolina, if it is his religious conviction that people with dark skin should not marry people with lighter skin or that Jews should not marry Gentiles, he can send couples away, while waving the American flag.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Today's Police Video
Today's police video shows a frantic police sergeant charging this way and that into some kind of fracas at a fancy pool party, then drawing his gun on some teenagers. Other officers attempt to calm him down. He ends up throwing a 15-year-old African-American girl in a bikini face-first to the grass and kind of sitting on her as if she is a trophy he's won by doing good works. Something obvious finally occurred to me. Many of us have been talking about how the police have been militarized and so on, about how things have changed. But has policing changed? Maybe it's always been like this, only now people have cameras. Are black and Latino Americans surprised by these videos?
Here's a weird thought. The sergeant pulled his gun but did not kill any unarmed young black people. He had just enough self control not to shoot. In the society in which we live, that's a happy ending.
Here's a weird thought. The sergeant pulled his gun but did not kill any unarmed young black people. He had just enough self control not to shoot. In the society in which we live, that's a happy ending.
Friday, June 5, 2015
I Am Rachel Maddow's Filler Writer
Hi, I am Rachel Maddow, and today Rick Perry did someone few expected. We have news from Rick Perry. We did not anticipate this, not on a Monday. Rick Perry, of all the people in Texas, has made news. He's said something of importance. The former governor, Rick Perry, made news today. Coming up next. More repetitive filler to follow. Watch this space.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
How to Spot a Terrorist
In the May edition of HARPER'S, we learn that the city of Jackson, Florida, produced an instructional video on how to spot a terrorist. Viewers are told to beware of people who display "average or above average intelligence." Watch out for folks who seem to have made a "conspicuous adaptation to Western culture and values." You should suspect any turkey who "demonstrate religious behavior" such as "mumbling prayers."
I can buy a lot of that, especially the part about mumbling prayers. Okay, I might have been for mumbling when I was a young hot-head and more radical, but that was decades ago.
More important, from the above criteria we can deduce the sort of people we ought to trust. Americans can depend on the man or woman of below average intelligence, like the guys who made this video. Put your faith in those who can't seem to adapt to our culture and values and don't pray. Or maybe the trusted dude can pray if he enunciates clearly. That part isn't clear.
I can buy a lot of that, especially the part about mumbling prayers. Okay, I might have been for mumbling when I was a young hot-head and more radical, but that was decades ago.
More important, from the above criteria we can deduce the sort of people we ought to trust. Americans can depend on the man or woman of below average intelligence, like the guys who made this video. Put your faith in those who can't seem to adapt to our culture and values and don't pray. Or maybe the trusted dude can pray if he enunciates clearly. That part isn't clear.
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