Fear of a Black (Male) Planet, Part IV

Remember, I said that I was almost finished.  From one of my favorite blogs, The Phil Dyess-Nugent Experience, There's No Riot Going On.  He's uniformly brilliant in his analyses of American culture, literature and politics.  I don't get there often enough.

And, from a humane perspective, and it dovetails with the work our own West River community is doing, a commentary by Michel Martin, on NPR's Tell Me More an audio essay entitled Is It Time To See Each Other's Tears?

Word.
 

Fear of a Black (Male) Planet, Part III

I'm almost finished.  One thing that saddens me is that as we've turned into an almost entirely secular culture, the voices speaking about the morality of actions exits, or at least merely whispers in, the public square.  In it's place is legalistic hair-splitting, high school debate tactics deracinated of any purpose other than to dominate an opponent.  Amy Davidson posted a thoughtful piece, What Should Trayvon Martin Have Done?, and for me the most valuable byproduct of it is a post by someone tagged theoutsider that comes as close to anything I've read so far of looking at what happened from a moral dimension:

OK, there are a lot of things that bother me about this case, but the thing that's getting to me the most right now is that a lot of people, when talking about how Martin behaved or should have behaved, are talking about him as though he was a fully-fledged adult. I don't personally believe he was a helpless innocent child, but he was also not a fully-grown man. And the reason I find this so irritating is because there are so many laws - not just in America but in many countries - which are predicated on the idea that until a person reaches a certain age (16, 18, 21, whatever) they are not allowed to do certain things largely because they lack the capacity to make good judgements in certain situations. It is assumed (sometimes correctly) that most people cannot make responsible judgements about things like alcohol, driving, sex, smoking, and enlisting until they reach a particular age.

Fear of a Black (Male) Planet, Part II

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Trayvon Martin and the Irony of American Justice.  For me it's this:
 

That conclusion should not offer you security or comfort. It should not leave you secure in the wisdom of our laws. On the contrary, it should greatly trouble you. But if you are simply focusing on what happened in the court-room, then you have been head-faked by history and bought into a idea of fairness which can not possibly exist.

The injustice inherent in the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman was not authored by a jury given a weak case. The jury's performance may be the least disturbing aspect of this entire affair. The injustice was authored by a country which has taken as its policy, for the lionshare of its history, to erect a pariah class. (n.b.: emphasis mine)  The killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman is not an error in programming. It is the correct result of forces we set in motion years ago and have done very little to arrest.

 And, for the record, yes, OJ was guilty as hell.
 

 

Fear of a Black (Male) Planet

When I turned on the radio this morning one of the first things I learned is that George Zimmerman had been acquitted.  I was not surprised.  Long ago I learned that criminal law -- either prosecutorial or defensive -- has little to do with ethics.  I was about to say justice but even that term is loaded.

After have read a few of the past days' postings and the subsequent comments I stopped.  There is very, very little more to be learned from the immediate commentary and too many people commenting think they know 1) exactly what happened and 2) that they passed the Florida bar and are qualified to practice law.  But here are a few, I'll call them psychosocial, thoughts: 

1. Males fight.  And fights escalate.  The presence of a knife or a gun changes the dynamic and it allows one of the fighters to become more aggressive, or at the very least turn defense into disproportionate offense.  When that occurs, 2 things happen:  a) one of the aggressors de-escalates so much so that both parties internal "threat" switch is turned off, or b) extraordinary physical harm and/or death happens to the unarmed fighter.
2. Black males are the King-Kong of the American landscape.  And we all know it.  Charles Stuart knew it.  Susan Smith knew it.  Both used that knowledge to great effect.  Extreme examples, I know, but there was little or no initial skepticism of their claims in each instance that black men had been the perpetrators of the crime because it seemed so plausible.
3. A 17 year old kid is dead.  With an acquittal of the man who killed him, how do you possibly square that circle in a moral universe?

Saturday Poetry: Mantra (excerpt)

to be read aloud in staccato con brio:

Words words words

I make my loving from the

words words words

For instance

these words

the beginning of

another story.

Let's call it

2 trench coats

(or a cure is discovered

for polio).

She comes to he

who is a stranger

she is wet

through and through

her hair is

curling all around her

he is dry

as a bone

he has been

being taken pictures

of

for the Fashions of the Times

layout.

A trenchcoat in July.

But no matter

he doesn't sweat

his pores are too fine

for that.

Scuse me she says to him

tapping him on the shoulder

which he whose profile cuts

the air like an

origami bird

doesn't like

scuse me she ways

again and again and again.

Your attention

I want your attention

please.

he turns to her

he looks at her

trench coat

a good coat

in good shape

she may be worth

listening to

at

for

have you seen him?

she asks

him he says

him who?

God, she says

have you seen him?

He pauses poses

thinks

(Beauty can think, too)

and replies,

no.

No, he says

again

no.

But if I do

(for he expects to see him

but without leaving this earth),

if I do, he says,

you got anything

you want me to tell him?

Oh yes

she says

tell him tell him

tell him this for

me will you?

You're hurting me

You're hurting me

You're hurting me

You're hurting me

(how many times I got to say)

You're hurting me

You're hurting me

You're hurting me

You're hurting me.

 

Q: What's A Black Plastic Bag to a Foster Kid?

A:  Luggage.

For much of the semester and summer I have been watching The Wire.  I first started watching a couple of years ago when my sister ordered it via Netflix.  I was probably never so nice to her as when those DVD's would come in the mail.  But, all good tailcoating must come to an end.

Then, godblessamerica, I found out that the local public library had some seasons on their shelves.  That didn't last long -- they would get checked out and never returned.  (I'm sure there's some library parlance for people who build their personal collection from public holdings.  My term of art would be Lazy Assholes, but that's just me.) 

 By then I'd watched much, but not all of the first 3 seasons.  Between bouts of math anxiety I realized that I was going to school at a state university and surely they would have it in their collection, perhaps because some sociology professor was using it.  So, I put on my most impressive bowtie and waltzed over to the circulation desk and alternately growled and grinned at the helpful work-study circulation clerk and before you know it I left the building with Season 4.  And a promise to hold Season 5 for me.  Then I went back and got Seasons 1, 2, and 3 and watched them all over again.

For those who don't know this, The Wire has been described as the greatest show in the history of television.  A Dickensian masterpiece of the 21st century.  It is studied and taught, it has blogs and forums devoted to it, and I am just one of its many obsessive "readers".  Like other great literature and visual art, I will return to the entire series again knowing that my understanding and appreciation will deepen.

But.  A funny thing happens on the way to becoming the darling of critics and intellectual arbiters.  Perhaps it's an occupational hazard as a critic to feel ownership of what you write about.  Perhaps, when you're a white, male critic in a hierarchy that always places you on top, you don't have to be cognizant of, much less mitigate, your blind spots.  I'll leave that to be sorted out to Cultural Studies Ph.D.s.  But in the copious analysis I've read (in a vain effort to stay immersed even after having watched all 5 seasons) I often feel only half-sated because there's so much richness that goes unrecognized.

I felt it for instance when I read about the accuracy of Dominic West's accent.  An English actor speaking the dialect of a working-class cop in a mid-southern city.  And not often enough about Idris Elba's (Stringer Bell) or Clarke Peter's (Lester Freamon) (the former is English, the latter an American expat who's lived in England for years).  Or Chicagoan Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale).  And then it dawned on me it's because it's the assumption that the white actor is further away from his "essence" than any of the black actors, who are, regardless of role, speaking the way they speak anyway, y'know what I'm sayin'?  Therefore his work is more deserving of plaudits and the astounding craft that the other actors bring to their roles is underappreciated.

Or, as in this post from The Wire Blog, entitled "Dumpsters and Garbage Bags".  I'm glad I found it and will come back to it as this obsessive constructs her own map of the show.  But I think the blogger, who's dissecting the entire series while he teaches the show, missed what to me was the obvious symbology of the garbage bags and why they are so brilliantly apt.  I wrote him:  To kids who've ever been in foster care, often the only "luggage" you own are garbage bags.  Kids arrive at their short- and long-term placements with all their worldly possessions in those bags.  They speak of impermanence, disposability, cheapness and lack of individuality.  Which can be the life of a foster kid.  So, a garbage bag is as familiar a totem to poor folks as a laptop or an iPhone is to a hipster.   My initial feeling was he should know that.  Maybe he should, but the more important issue is that I need to hear from women writers, from other black writers, from city dwellers.  How they watch this show and the insights they'd bring.  A roundtable of Rashomon-like POVs.

Notes on The Summer So Far

It's been a while, n'est-ce pas?  What can I say?

I am in recovery mode -- recovery from last semester's Foundations of Mathematics class, from the greater than usual marital strife, from a winter spent in the arms of a physical therapist.  And now it's summer.  That season I hate where my feet, encased in rubber bands -- or at least that's what it feels like to my nerve endings -- proceed to swell.  I can smell again:  With this much moisture in the air all the globules of matter from sweat, toilets, the kitchen's compost bucket, perfumes, and cooked food attached to the water molecules and travel up my nose.  I've started counting the days until September.

Here's the thing:  if I don't get the tough work done in the morning, it simply doesn't get done.  And by that I mean the writing.  I'm working on a story, "For Those Who Think Young", and am at what I'll call the molding and paring stage.    I start with the knife and carve off pages.  I take off words and paragraphs here, add words and paragraphs there.  I pinched a scene off and attach it to another part.  I walk around the creation, still dissatisfied, but not dissatisfied enough to punch the damn thing into a mound, pour water (totally new ideas) over it and start the wheel again.  It's an exercise in finding the essence of the story.  Two things I know about writing fiction:  1) there's the story you think you want to tell and 2) there's the story that emerges as you struggle to do 1).  On a few rare days the work goes well.  I am here in the office ignoring my surroundings.  It's just me, the paper and my favorite purple-inked pen.  Other days, the more common ones, I'd rather be doing almost anything else than writing.  A root canal without anesthesia?  Where do I go for that!?  How about a colonoscopy???  Sign me up, please!  Or a stint as a short-order cook at TGIF's?  Can't wait to begin!!!!  Just don't make me write.

Two things I am doing this summer that are different than last.  I am going to the gym.  I've grown to look forward to it.  I'm not fooled; there's always a honeymoon phase.  For now, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have a date with strength training.  I can see the difference in my body.  I even attribute the work to keeping my blood pressure shockingly low (at least for me), so much so that next time I see my internist I'll ask him to start tapering me off the meds.  And although my feet are permanently swollen these days they are are not nearly as huge as the watermelons of the Summer of 2012.  Don't get me wrong, my f(@#(#ked up back is still fckd up, my right hip still feels like someone stabbed me with a long needle, and I'm not too proud to ask for help to turn over, but still, things are much better.  I am stronger, nimbler and my arms don't look like cottage cheese dipped in chocolate fondue.

And I'm gardening again.  The peace treaty hammered out with Cuthbert left me with the front yard as my domain.  After hiring help to move raised beds, and turn the soil, I called on local gardener friends and pals and have planted a crazy quilt of hostas, echinacea, fewerfew, daisies, strawberry's, ferns, and who the hell remembers what that green thing is called.  Some of the transplants went into shock, but gardeners are patient animals, and I just whacked them back and sit in the dining room window with the day's first cup of coffee and imagine what next spring will look like. I think all this working out is so that I can get down on bended knee in the fall and plant some bulbs.