The title of this article is a recent quote from Steven Crowder, an immensely popular conservative YouTuber with almost six million subscribers. “He’s not wrong about everything,” Crowder quipped about Kanye West’s recent and obviously anti-Semitic remarks. “Is there a conversation to be had about secular humanists with Jewish last names exploiting people in Hollywood?”

Crowder went on to articulate that these “secular humanists with Jewish last names” aren’t evil “because they’re Jewish”. His distinction serves two purposes here. First, it allows a modicum of plausible deniability for anti-Semites and people foolish enough to believe “I hate Jews, but not because they are Jewish” is a legitimate opinion. Second, it allows the divorcing of Jews with non-reactionary views from the Jewish populace as a whole. It separates Jews that Crowder finds worthy–religious conservatives like Ben Shapiro, the late Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli far-right–with those he finds unworthy. The fact that Crowder was referring to wealthy Hollywood executives is irrelevant here, as he does not make a distinction between powerful Jews who aren’t religious and Jews who hold left-wing views. For Crowder, there is no water between Noam Chomsky and Harvey Weinstein. They’re both part of the same cabal.

The comment section of Crowder’s video rips the mask off this farce. It’s full of open anti-Semites. So too with “journalist” Tim Pool’s Kanye West interview, in which Pool tried to make a distinction between “the corporate press” treating Kanye unfairly vs. Jews as a monolithic bloc doing so. A large chunk of these comments consisted of Pool’s fans criticizing him for not identifying the “real problem”, i.e., Jews.

Crowder is noteworthy here because he straddles the gap between American conservatism–people like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson–and overt fascists like Milo Yiannopolis and Nick Fuentes. That gap shrinks by the day. We may soon see mainstream Republicans running on a rhetorical platform similar to Crowder’s. Donald Trump’s admonishment of American Jews for “not caring about Israel” is probably a portent of an ever-more noxious Republican Party, one an inch from Nazi talking points on Jewish issues. The predominance of conservative discourse on “cultural Marxism” (The Nazis said “cultural Bolshevism”) means we’re already pretty close.

Where does this thinly-veiled prejudice come from? Consider Slavoj Zizek’s commentary on anti-Semitism in The Sublime Object of Ideology. In response to the overt anti-Semitism of Nazis and their ilk, Zizek writes, many will say that

‘The Nazis are condemning the Jews too hastily, without proper argument, so let us take a cool, sober look and see if they are really guilty or not; let us see if there is some truth in the accusations against them.’ Is it really necessary to add that such an approach would merely confirm our so-called ‘unconscious prejudices’ with additional rationalizations? The proper answer to anti-Semitism is therefore not ‘Jews are really not like that’ but ‘the anti-Semitic idea of Jew has nothing to do with Jews; the ideological figure of a Jew is a way to stitch up the inconsistency of our own ideological system.’

Zizek is a difficult and provocative thinker, but my interpretation of this passage is that people like Crowder will find “the Jew” a convenient ideological fantasy to justify already-held beliefs. For Crowder, whose politics revolve around disgust at those he finds displeasing–black people and LGBT people in particular–”The Jew” serves as the source of the revulsion. This is to say, Crowder and company cannot admit that queer people have a legitimate right to their gender and sexual expression, or that black people have legitimate grievances with contemporary America. There must therefore be a nefarious source spreading these ideas among the populace. The source of the “repulsive ideology” is, conveniently, “secular humanists with Jewish last names”. By situating Jews as the master manipulators, Crowder legitimizes the prejudices he previously held and espoused.

We must remember that conservatives have set the bar impossibly high for what constitutes prejudice. Donald Trump, for instance, in justifying his dinner with Kanye West, denied Kanye’s anti-Semitism by saying that Kanye did not, in that particular dinner, say anything anti-Semitic. Similarly, Steven Crowder denied Kanye’s anti-Semitism by saying that Kanye was “using a Howitzer”, but “doesn’t hate Jews.” For the modern conservative, to be prejudiced is to hold hatred for a group in one’s heart of hearts. As humanity has not yet developed telepathy, this is a standard that cannot be met. The potentially virtuous inner life of a Nazi does not prevent him from doing the things that Nazis do.

History does not look kindly on these conservative fence-sitters, those who refuse to oppose fascism. Paul Von Hindenburg is not viewed as an anti-fascist but rather as the man who invited the Nazis into government. Erwin Romell, who was perhaps not a Nazi in his political inner life, still served as the general of a fascist army. Aside from Claus Von Stauffenberg, the conservatives and monarchists who fought alongside the Nazis are remembered correctly as Nazis. Ditto with Steven Crowder.

To quote the novelist A.R. Moxon: “Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is ‘Nazi.’ Nobody cares about their motives anymore.”

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A central theme in the 2016 Ken Burns documentary on Jackie Robinson is that Robinson would have to suppress his anger in his early years in the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He did it so well that he actually became the second most admired person in America behind Bing Crosby. He finished ahead of Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Roosevelt and General Dwight Eisenhower.

After two years of Robinson diligently turning the other cheek, Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey gave Robinson permission to be more of himself; to object to umpires and other players when he felt that he was being dealt with unjustly.

Robinson had been a strong advocate for himself and for African-Americans before he entered professional baseball and afterwards. Rickey felt that after two years Robinson had established himself as an outstanding player and the issue of integrating the major leagues was no longer an experiment.

As might be expected, when Robinson began standing up for himself and expressing anger, a lot of people felt that he was being an “uppity (n-word).” He was no longer an engaging novelty who endeared himself to all fans. Sports fans almost universally do not like argumentative players on opposing teams. For Robinson, this was obviously compounded by the fact that he was black.

In the documentary, several sports writers familiar with the time (most particularly ESPN’s Howard Bryant) as well as university professors of African-American Studies pointed out that when people see that someone is angry, their first response is to be critical of the person because they “blew their cool.” They consider the person to be a hot-head, and if a member of a minority, an ingrate. With Jackie Robinson, many felt that he was not grateful for all that major league baseball had done for him. They were not asking the obvious question in reverse, what had Jackie Robinson done for baseball.

Rarely does someone really ask the question of whether the angry person has good cause to be so. Even less frequent is an examination of the root causes of what angered someone.

Most fair-minded people would be very understanding of Robinson’s anger. He was despised by many players on opposing teams, and even some on his own. There were umpires who were prejudiced and would intentionally make incorrect calls to punish Robinson. Fans berated him with racial slurs.

When the Dodgers were playing away games, Robinson could not stay in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants as him teammates. The accommodations were hardly separate and equal. Even when the Dodgers were home, there was ongoing discrimination against Robinson and his family, particularly with regard to housing.

Who would not be angry if they had to endure such indignities on a consistent basis?

While Jackie Robinson lost favor with many Americans because he vigorously stood up for himself, there were others who saw him through a new lens which included more awareness of the lives of African-Americans. Because Robinson did not stay quiet and rather let the world know about the discrimination that he faced, he raised awareness of the plight of blacks. He did not express his anger or disappointment in the form of a victim, crying “poor me.” Rather he spoke as a participant-observer of the plight of African-Americans. He spoke about the need for fairness in public accommodations, housing, schools, voting and in the military.

Robinson was sometimes accused of being an “angry black man.” That is a disparaging term that many whites use to describe black men, particularly those who are physically strong. Most of these white people did not think about why some black men and women would be angry, and whether they and others in the dominant white culture had in any way contributed to that anger.

We are currently wrapped in the controversy of teaching Critical Race Theory. Let’s first abandon that confusing term and simply say teaching history in a racially inclusive manner. If so, it is important for whites to know that many blacks are angry because historically and presently, many blacks have been discriminated against.

At the same time, there are many angry white men, and women, now. Why are they angry?

As with anyone, there can be a myriad of reasons. Some have to do with external forces, others have to do with internal struggles. But many whites are angry at blacks because they feel that the civil rights movement, including affirmative action, has given blacks an unfair advantage over them. All of us tend to be suspicious of people who are different from us, so it is understandable why many whites are angry at minorities.

Recalling that during Jackie Robinson’s era there were some who advised that people focus less on Robinson’s anger and more on the root causes of his anger, it would be wise for all of us now in the body politic to try to bring the same understanding to our political opponents.

The post Another Lesson We Can Learn From Jackie Robinson appeared first on Occasional Planet.

By the time you’re reading this, barring some unforeseen disaster, the Electoral College will have officially elected Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States of America. I’ve started to wonder about this era and what history will remember and how we will be defined and by what. After 4 years it is clear that the defining political figure of this generation was not George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, or perhaps even Barack Obama. It has been Donald Trump, this is his era and like Reagan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt before him, he has redefined American social and political life and new political coalitions have formed that seemed previously unimaginable.

The big question of the last 4 years has been “What does the Trump presidency say about America?”. I think it says quite a lot, but first I want to address the election of Joe Biden which I believe is actually a confirmation of the cornerstone of American identity. Denialism.

In America we have a penchant for historical revisionism and erasing or “re-imaging” the parts of our culture that make us uncomfortable. The civil war is now about “states’ rights” as opposed to the obvious, slavery. We declared “Manifest Destiny” because “Genocide” didn’t have the same ring to it. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a left-wing anti-war and anti-racist radical who was deeply unpopular in white America yet even he, who existed in living memory, has been retaught as a popular conciliatory moderate. With Joe Biden we are attempting to pretend that we aren’t exactly the country that we know we are. We are being presented with a message that Biden and Kamala Harris represent the beginning of a racial democracy in America. 81 million Americans voted for Biden and Harris, therefore we are renewed and transformed and ready to move away from our old divisions. That’s a message that ignores that Biden was the least “woke” of all candidates in the Democratic primaries. Biden never said “Latinx”, Biden was a frequent target of social justice movements (most notably #MeToo and Black Lives Matter), and Biden had too many gaffes to count whether it was about the decency of Strom Thurmond or “You Ain’t Black”. Yet, he was overwhelmingly the choice of the liberal party. We could, but it’s not even necessary to touch on Harris’ complicated record on race in California as Attorney General and San Francisco District Attorney. This is all to say that Biden and Harris do not represent a move towards racial democracy in any literal or symbolic way, yet America continues to tell itself that story. Biden is not Donald Trump, but his record is also a racist one despite serving as the Vice President of the first Black President and now having selected a Black woman to occupy his former office. It’s that incongruity that is American as well, to be able to have these contrasting identities without acknowledging the cognitive dissonance. Which brings us to our outgoing President, Donald J. Trump.

What made Donald Trump different from any American politician that we’ve encountered in this century or the last was his complete irreverence for norms and institutions. Donald Trump never pretended to care about the legitimacy of courts or federalism or the separation of powers or precedent or internationalism or democracy. It’s not clear whether this was because he was opposed to these concepts, or indifferent to them, or simply did not understand them. It’s also not clear that it matters. Because what has become increasingly clear is that these values of the republic were from the top down, lauded by members of government, media, and academia but unfamiliar to ordinary people. Americans thrive in conspiracy, we are distrustful of our government, we are skeptical of new information and we are dreadfully terrified of one another. This is something that goes unsaid in politics because it diminishes the image of an indomitable and virtuous people. It perhaps also goes unsaid because politicians are often so detached from reality that they can’t see what’s in front of them. Regardless, the American people are almost unified in their desire for material prosperity which manifests itself in many different ways. For some it means a clean environment, for others it means economic opportunity in terms of jobs or avoiding debt, and for many of us it simply means having confidence that tomorrow will be easier.

They are unmoored by ideology, which isn’t to say Americans have no strong beliefs. Most Americans are religious, and that faith informs their politics in different ways, as does class and race more often than not. But they are not rigid and are willing to constantly transform themselves to survive. The small government, deficit hawk, free-traders of 10 years ago are now protectionists and have no taste for austerity. Conversely the immigration skeptic, entitlement reformer, doves now see themselves defending an indefensible war abroad and demanding a more generous welfare state at home. This is true of Donald Trump whose politics are self-serving, conceived to maximally benefit himself while minimally disturbing his own prejudices. Is Donald Trump, a man who almost certainly has paid for an abortion, genuinely pro-life? Is Donald Trump, an alleged multi-billionaire from Manhattan, genuinely concerned with Midwestern farmers? Is Donald Trump, a man who donated to Hillary Clinton, genuinely a Republican? There are likely few things Donald Trump is genuinely passionate about, except of course racism and wealth. His willingness to abandon old allies and identities and hold so many idiosyncratic views was part of his appeal.

The slogan Make America Great Again elicited reactions that were appropriate, questions of when was America great and how would Trump restore this alleged greatness. There were some who countered that America is already great because of its diversity or standard of living or high minded ideals. But fundamentally, what Donald Trump did was partly acknowledge that America is a nation in decline. We are not a great country, millions are imprisoned, millions more have been languishing in poverty for generations, the ghettos and the countryside are consumed with addiction, our children have no guarantees of future prosperity, and our infrastructure fails to meet the needs of our population. Of course, Trump was implying a return to a great white America where many were left behind, including a great deal of his voters, but that relevance became increasingly fleeting as the years went on.

Maybe it was our own nihilism that led to Trump because most voters didn’t think he was honest, moral, or trustworthy. But then again it was that he was so very deeply flawed that imbued upon him a level of humanity that he was undeserving of but was nevertheless familiar to so many of us. His many insecurities were laid bare in front of all of us and he was unintentionally vulnerable displaying his neurosis on an international stage. Many of us were embarrassed but many more were amused because to have Donald Trump as President of the United States was the ultimate statement on the ludicrousness of politics in general. Donald Trump is simply the worst manifestation of the ubiquitous frustrations that grip the American people. It is no more ridiculous that any human being, especially Jeff Bezos, should have $200 billion than it is that Donald Trump should be President. It is no more insane that America should be fighting the same war in Afghanistan for 19 years than it is that Donald Trump should be President. It is no more absurd that 60 million people in the richest country in the history of the world are exposed to unsafe tap water than it is that Donald Trump should be President. Americans understand that our shared reality is senseless and so it only stands to reason that we’d abandon all pretense and have a government to match.

Donald Trump will leave the White House next month but what he’s unleashed in America will be with us for the foreseeable future, for better or for worse. Because of Donald Trump all illusions of American Exceptionalism are gone, I don’t pretend to know what that will mean going forward. The best we can hope for is a politics based in the reality of the need to address enormous human suffering. The worst we should hope to avoid is an even more cynical and hopeless continuation of Trumpism which effectively has become a death cult. What I think is most important to acknowledge is that we (as in all of us) made Donald Trump happen. When we didn’t question our political order, it made it that much easier for a demagogue to exploit it’s obvious decencies and bring us closer to authoritarianism than we’ve been in living memory. That’s on all of us and the effects were globalized because when we made Donald Trump a legitimate political figure, it made it that much easier for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Johnson in the UK, Kurz in Austria, Modi in India, and Erdogan in Turkey to maintain power. It will take a long time to even begin to atone for this national sin, but it begins with continuing to question our myths and to scrutinize President Biden.

In the meantime, we’re going to have to wrestle with Donald Trump and recognizing that part of why he so arouses our disgust is because we see him in ourselves. If we don’t like what we see, it’s up to each of us to change it.

The post Donald Trump wasn’t an aberration; he was our most American President appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As police move in to destroy the Capitol Hill Occupation Protest, it’s worth reflecting on what conservatism is.

British conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott likened his creed to a voyage at sea, in which the ship of state has “neither starting-place nor appointed destination…the enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel,” he wrote in Rationalism in Politics. It’s an idea not without merit or appeal: The point of politics, it holds, is to keep things functional and well-governed, not to leap desperately towards a utopian society.

Unfortunately, Oakeshott’s metaphor is not what conservatism is.

In 2017’s inaugural address, President Trump said that “Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.” Trump promised to reverse these trends, and bring the jobs back. The Republican Party, he promised, was now the party of the American worker.

That’s not what conservatism is, either. So, it’s no surprise that Trump’s administration acts like the Bush II clique on methamphetamine.

On May 25th, 2020, Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis policeman, killed African-American local George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for close to nine minutes. Floyd’s crime had been to potentially use a counterfeit $20 bill. There are accusations that Floyd might have been drunk or high. None of this matters, of course; he’s dead.

That’s what conservatism is. The defense of the social order at all costs.

Interestingly, unlike past police killings, the president ostensibly disapproved of Floyd’s murder. He’s a “New Republican”, remember. But in practice, this meant nothing. When protests started, he immediately blamed the protestors for things getting out of hand, despite the violence being largely perpetrated by police. He even threatened to send in the US Army, a move that would blatantly violate posse comitatus.

In the early 2000s, conservatism–excuse me, neoconservatism–was mainly focused on implementing austerity and fostering the War on Terror abroad. After the election of Barack Obama, we saw right-wing discourse shift in a libertarian direction. Sales of Ayn Rand’s novels skyrocketed. One would think this would change policy; it did not. When Trump came to power, all pretense of small government was dropped by the man who said he would “bomb the s— out of ISIS.”

One can be forgiven for thinking that things haven’t changed much.

In the 1920s and 30s, when the ruling classes of Europe–the bourgeoisie, the militaries, the clergy–realized they couldn’t beat the Left at the ballot box, they installed fascists, the “New Right”, rather than lose a fraction of their power. In Italy, the king chose to give Mussolini the job after his March on Rome; in Germany, conservative president Paul Von Hindenburg decided to make Hitler chancellor after the Nazis won a plurality of the votes. In Spain, the military, disgusted at the reforms of the left-leaning Second Republic, decided to overthrow the government rather than participate in democratic politics. “LAW & ORDER”, as the president puts it, was more important to conservatives, and some right-wing liberals, than democracy.

This social order in America is of course tied to race. Black people must periodically be reminded of their lack of worth via state violence. These killings make a lot more sense if one views it that way.

This suppression must of course be accompanied by whitewashing in the press if the suppression is to be effective. American freedom of the press’s dark side is the egregious lies the capitalists have told via that same press: William Randolph Hearst’s lie about the USS Maine led directly to the Spanish-American War. During the Russian Revolution, American papers claimed that Bolsheviks were “nationalizing women” to be collectively raped by Red soldiers; it was a fabrication. When socialist novelist Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California in the 1930s, Hollywood studios, afraid of losing an iota of profit, hired actors to play Russian caricatures and filmed them saying they’d vote for Sinclair. They filmed hobos and claimed thousands of miscreants were swarming across the California border to get Sinclair’s nonexistent handouts.

The Right’s media infrastructure hasn’t changed, and in 2020 it can still be found lying about the threats to the system. Take the CHOP in Seattle, formerly known as CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone). Fox News reported a Monty Python reference joke as fact, claiming that a local leader of the protest had become a “Warlord”. In another instance, they posted edited images to portray CHOP as a chaotic hellscape. Actual first-hand reports describe CHOP as a refuge with water, masks, produce, and other necessities freely available for all. The streets and walls are decorated with gigantic, collective works of art, not the entrails of shopkeepers.

In the case of black America, our press is just as likely to fail in what it doesn’t report. Activists have pointed out during this latest round of anti-brutality protests that we only know of the police brutality we see, that we capture on phones. Consider Rahm Emmanuel’s cover-up of a police shooting. Consider the existence of secret police torture chambers in that same mayor’s city. Consider that a black man was found hanging from a tree in Los Angeles and the police declared it a suicide. There have been half a dozen of these hangings over the last few weeks.

Some viewers who saw HBO’s excellent Watchmen show thought that its depiction of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riots was part of the comic book franchise’s alternate history. That’s because the horrific event–in which hundreds of black Tulsans were killed by white irregulars, some even flying planes–was suppressed in textbooks for decades. The event was a suppression of a threat to the status quo — the so-called “Black Wall Street” — and the knowledge of such a brutal suppression had to be hidden.

These brutalities — war, racism, beatings, killings, secret police, and the subsequent cover-ups, lying, and suppression of history — are what it takes to keep Michael Oakeshott’s ship of state at an “even keel”. Therefore, draw no distinction between Trump, racist cops, and “honorable” conservatives like George W. Bush, recently rehabilitated by the liberal media. For their mission is to keep the empire and its institutions from changing, and that mission is the true nature of conservatism.

The post George Floyd’s Death Proves There is No “New Right” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Many are familiar with Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Physics: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and three of his colleagues killed an innocent man, George Floyd, on Monday, May 25. It’s hard to find any persons besides Donald Trump and William Barr who won’t say that the officers’ acts were criminal.

Most Americans were truly pissed off and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have taken to the streets over the past two weeks. Ninety-nine percent of them have been peaceful, and it’s understandable why the protestors have so demonstrably shown their frustration and their suggestions for change.

But these protests have gone on far longer than most other occasions of citizens taking to the streets, and I’m fearing that there will be an equal and opposite reaction to the fortnight of demonstrable marches. When we’re talking about human behavior, as opposed to physics, the reaction does not have to be exactly equal and opposite. But it will be characterized by significant force and will run counter to the movement that spawned it.

Over the past several days, a new demand / request / talking point, whatever you want to call it, from some of the protestors has been to defund the police. Such a contention makes emotional sense in light of what Chauvin and numerous other white police officers have done, not only recently, but through the entirety of American history, in arbitrarily dispensing violence against African-Americans, in many cases resulting in the deaths of innocent victims. Almost without exception, police officers have gotten away with their misconduct without any penalties or repercussions.

But this does not mean that we should defund police departments. Here are a few reasons why I think that would be a very counter-productive move.

1. There are many police officers who do their jobs well, serve the public well, and should not be penalized.
2. There are many police departments that have transitioned into community policing and by and large have developed practices that honor human rights.
3. Police departments are a lot like teachers in schools. You get what you pay for. We have a lot of police officers who go into the profession for the wrong reasons and are essentially clueless about what is needed if you are a frontline official connecting government with the citizenry. We need to raise the pay of police officers, perhaps double or triple it, in order to bring a whole new breed of individuals into the profession. We need to make policing attractive to individuals who are not by nature belligerent. We need men and women who know the skills of conflict resolution and do not consider the public to be their enemy.
4. It is much easier to hire “the right people” and give them necessary training than to hire those who are less than ideal and then have to spend the time, money and energy to try to train them, with questionable probability of success.
5. Some have suggested diminishing the amount of money that goes into the funding of police departments and transfer that money into providing social services. Again, this might sound right, but I doubt that it’s good policy. First, it would leave us with poorly paid police officers who would not be skilled in conflict resolution, perhaps the most important quality needed in a law enforcement officer. Second, it would set up new social service bureaucracies. That means bringing in universities, administrative agencies, professional this and thats with enormous duplication and inefficiencies. Let’s focus on bringing the best people possible into policing.

We have written before about making police officers into law-enforcement social workers. This can only happen If we get the best and the brightest into the profession. That won’t happen without paying them well. So, let’s not defund police; let’s fund law-enforcement social workers. One other thought. Every time you piss off the police, you give Donald Trump more votes. Is that what you really want?

The post Think Twice Before Underfunding Police appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson sent the United States Army into Detroit to try to calm the streets after rioting and police conduct had resulted in the deaths of forty-three. Fifty three years later, the governmental approach to civil unrest continues to be to send in armed police officers and national guardsmen.

It did not work well in Ferguson, MO in 2014; it certainly is not working well now in Minneapolis and a host of other cities. Are there other ways to deal with citizen concerns besides massive displays of armed power?

Here are a few suggestions as to how authorities in Minneapolis could have, and hopefully still can, try to communicate an understanding of the frustration of the citizens. Beyond that, the police forces still have time to try to make amends.

1. Immediately acknowledge that the cops messed up. Police officers on the street could acknowledge this. If they really wanted to get the point across clearly, some police officers could carry signs saying, “We messed up,” or perhaps even better, “We screwed up,” or “We fucked up.” It’s not what the community would expect to see, but these are not ordinary times. As Mark Twain said, “When everything else fails, try telling the truth.”
2. Instead of having police on the front lines opposing citizens, the municipal leaders could call out other public employees who are more skilled in conflict resolution. Imagine if the city sent hundreds or thousands of public school teachers, social workers, public defenders and others to talk openly with the protesters. They could hear out what the protesters had to say, document it, and commit themselves to passing along the concerns of the citizens to “higher-ups.” In the category of “truth in advertising,” we have to acknowledge that not all teachers, social workers and public defenders are terribly skilled in conflict resolution, but they would be a good group with whom to start.
3. Find ways to organize community truth and reconciliation gatherings. These would be on-going. Minneapolis seems to have an outstanding mayor in Jacob Frey and an excellent Chief of Police in Medaria Arradondo. Begin scheduling meetings now, and be sure to include on the beat police officers. Everyone would have to follow rules of civility.
4. Being somewhat facetious, but what the hell, the Minnesota Vikings could sign Colin Kaepernick to compete with Kirk Cousins to be quarterback. At the very least, Kaepernick could teach police officers the proper way to take a knee. As silly as this may sound, it could be an act of good faith within the community and would probably give the Vikings what they need to become a Super Bowl contender.

We have previously written about police officers also being trained to be social workers. Police are often the first level of government with whom citizens come in contact when there is discord. They should be the best possible representatives of the state. Their jobs put them in positions to be the first line of justice when troubles occur within our society.

Yes, this includes investigating crimes and apprehending those who have broken laws, but it also involves delicate situations such as domestic disputes or daily occurrences such as truancy.  When police interact with citizens who have broken laws, or people who are in distress, they need to be able to address the immediate emotional needs of the people. Additionally, they must be equipped with a wide range of resources that can direct citizens to agencies that can help them with their areas of frustration. In the case of domestic disputes, police should be able to direct parties to effective counseling, the type that can be immediately available. If a person has an alcohol or other drug addiction, police should be able to direct them to rehab programs. If a person just lost his or her job, police know how to help citizens effectively look for new job opportunities.

But, as we all know, most of today’s police are not trained that way. This is why they are perhaps among the least equipped people in our society to deal with the current justified anger on the streets of Minneapolis and other American cities. So, while putting alternate personnel besides police officers on the streets during this current outrage over what four police officers willingly did to George Floyd, the police in Minneapolis and every other community in our country must have their jobs radically redefined. Those who are currently police officer who have to quickly learn to adapt, or they will justifiably be replaced by many others who have the requisite skills to know far more about justice than Officer Derek Chauvin and his three colleagues.

The post Creative strategies that could have worked in aftermath of George Floyd Murder appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The resolution passed today in the U.S. House of Representatives, condemning Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress is an amazing piece of writing. Its primary author is U.S. Congressman Thomasz Malinowski [D-NJ], who is, himself, an immigrant and, judging from the inspiring language of his resolution, a damn fine writer, thinker and believer in the ideals that Americans love to tout [but not always live by]. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with the sentiments expressed in this eloquent document. He quotes Ronald Reagan, for goodness sake, implicitly asking Republicans to choose the optimistic views of their erstwhile patron saint over the carnage of Trump. And yet, only four Republicans had the courage to buck Trump and vote for the measure. Really, though, it shouldn’t take very much courage at all to agree with the basic principles set out in this resolution, or to at least voice concern about the continuous river of hate speech spewing from the highest office in the land. When only four Republicans and one Independent tiptoe over the line to side with decency, we are living in a dangerous world. I applaud Democrats for taking this stand, even if it won’t change a single mind.

Here’s the full text of the resolution. Kudos to Malinowski. We need to hear more from him.

RESOLUTION

Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.

Whereas the Founders conceived America as a haven of refuge for people fleeing from religious and political persecution, and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison all emphasized that the Nation gained as it attracted new people in search of freedom and livelihood for their families;

Whereas the Declaration of Independence defined America as a covenant based on equality, the unalienable Rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and government by the consent of the people;

Whereas Benjamin Franklin said at the Constitutional convention, “When foreigners after looking about for some other Country in which they can obtain more happiness, give a preference to ours, it is a proof of attachment which ought to excite our confidence and affection”;

Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists”;

Whereas immigration of people from all over the Earth has defined every stage of American history and propelled our social, economic, political, scientific, cultural, artistic, and technological progress as a people, and all Americans, except for the descendants of Native people and enslaved African-Americans, are immigrants or descendants of immigrants;

Whereas the commitment to immigration and asylum has been not a partisan cause but a powerful national value that has infused the work of many Presidents;

Whereas American patriotism is defined not by race or ethnicity but by devotion to the Constitutional ideals of equality, liberty, inclusion, and democracy and by service to our communities and struggle for the common good;

Whereas President John F. Kennedy, whose family came to the United States from Ireland, stated in his 1958 book “A Nation of Immigrants” that “The contribution of immigrants can be seen in every aspect of our national life. We see it in religion, in politics, in business, in the arts, in education, even in athletics and entertainment. There is no part of our nation that has not been touched by our immigrant background. Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.”;

Whereas President Ronald Reagan in his last speech as President conveyed “An observation about a country which I love”;

Whereas as President Reagan observed, the torch of Lady Liberty symbolizes our freedom and represents our heritage, the compact with our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors, and it is the Statue of Liberty and its values that give us our great and special place in the world;

Whereas other countries may seek to compete with us, but in one vital area, as “a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on Earth comes close”;

Whereas it is the great life force of “each generation of new Americans that guarantees that America’s triumph shall continue unsurpassed” through the 21st century and beyond and is part of the “magical, intoxicating power of America”;

Whereas this is “one of the most important sources of America’s greatness: we lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people — our strength — from every country and every corner of the world, and by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation”;

Whereas “thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge”, always leading the world to the next frontier;

Whereas this openness is vital to our future as a Nation, and “if we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost”; and

Whereas President Trump’s racist comments have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color: Now, therefore, be it resolved, That the House of Representatives —

(1) believes that immigrants and their descendants have made America stronger, and that those who take the oath of citizenship are every bit as American as those whose families have lived in the United States for many generations;

(2) is committed to keeping America open to those lawfully seeking refuge and asylum from violence and oppression, and those who are willing to work hard to live the American Dream, no matter their race, ethnicity, faith, or country of origin; and

(3) condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should “go back” to other countries, by referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as “invaders,” and by saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.

The post Resolution condemning Trump’s hate speech: Full text appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Robert Byrd served in the United States Senate for 51 years representing the people of West Virginia as a Democrat. 51 years is worth several lifetimes in politics and the country changed in a myriad of ways from 1959 to 2010, and so did Robert Byrd. Growth is important not just in politics but in life and often if one is a politician those can look like the same thing, but there is a difference between genuine introspection and political gamesmanship. Byrd falls into the former, and so far, former Vice President (and Senate contemporary) Joe Biden has fallen into the latter.

Before Byrd was elected to office he was still active in local politics, he recruited over 150 people to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and he was elected the top officer of his chapter by a unanimous vote. Byrd in his capacity as a Klan leader was a prolific writer and one of his letters addressed the possibility of an integrated army, “I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” Eventually Byrd left the KKK but he did not leave behind the ideas of that organization, for decades Byrd clung to his beliefs that were without question rooted in white supremacy and he pursued policies that protected racist institutions.

Byrd joined Senate Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a filibuster that lasted over 80 days and the legislation was only able to pass after the Senate invoked cloture for only the second time since 1927. Byrd’s personal filibuster of 14 hours and 13 minutes remains today the 11th longest filibuster in the 213-year history of the practice. Byrd also voted against the Voting Rights Act and the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, going as far as to solicit the help of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to dig up dirt to kill his nomination. Byrd didn’t just have a bad record on race, he also supported the red-baiting Joseph McCarthy and the failure of conscience that was Vietnam. Byrd could’ve continued to align himself with bitter regressive men like Strom Thurmond and Herman Talmadge, there would’ve been no political consequences as Byrd was electorally secure in West Virginia and was quickly gaining seniority in the Senate. But he didn’t continue as he did, Byrd apologized and then he spent the rest of his life attempting to come to terms with his past.

In his autobiography Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields he said “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again.” Starting in the 1970s Byrd renounced his segregationist past and began to attempt to make amends with the communities he had harmed. Byrd was fiercely outspoken against President Bush’s determination to launch an illegal war in Iraq. After originally calling the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. “self-seeking rabble rouser”, he advocated the creation of a federal holiday to celebrate his memory and acknowledging “I am the only one in the Senate who must vote for this bill.” Byrd eventually went on to earn the support of the NAACP and respect within West Virginia’s black community. The biggest symbol of Byrd’s evolution happened in May of 2008, after a string of losses and a controversy involving an explosive pastor there was doubt about whether DNC superdelegates would continue to support Sen. Barack Obama. Then Robert Byrd endorsed Obama, perhaps securing delegate support and ultimately the nomination of America’s first black President. Byrd later went on to cast the deciding vote in support of Obamacare while dying from a terminal illness.

Byrd did not have a perfect record nor was he progressive, not really by any metric. He supported anti-gay legislation which was common for the time though still abhorrent. Byrd was a proponent of tough on crime policies and his politics while more liberal in his old age were still reflective of conservative West Virginia. Byrd’s politics overall were not especially commendable, but they were evidence of a man who was affected positively by his experiences and became a more ethical leader.

Joe Biden served with Robert Byrd for 30 years and witnessed his evolution first hand, that is why it is so disappointing that he has not learned from his example. Biden’s record may not include segregation, but it does include some of the worst policy decisions in recent years. Biden wrote the mass-incarceration ‘94 crime bill that has imprisoned a generation of black and Latino men. Biden voted for the illegal war in Iraq that left hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s dead, gave rise to ISIS, cost trillions of dollars, and has ushered us into an era of forever war. Biden wrote the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act which lead to millions of Americans falling deeper into economic despair as they were unable to file “clean slate” bankruptcies during the Great Recession forcing people into what Bob Cesca called “neo-indentured-servitude to creditors”.

Joe Biden’s record is mixed but there are countless times, whether relating to Anita Hill or his affinity for the same segregationists that Byrd distanced himself from, when Biden was decidedly not on the side of progress. Biden has had bright spots like his support of marriage equality as Vice President while the official position of the administration was opposed, but those bright spots are far and few between. Now Biden is running for President of the United States (again) and his record is coming under fair scrutiny. Biden is leading the field and stands a good chance to be the nominee of the Democratic Party and perhaps beat Donald Trump in the upcoming Presidential election. He has had a little over a decade to evolve and learn and change his politics for the better, but he’s failed to rise to the occasion thus far.

It is not too late for Biden to become a better politician and a better person by looking inward and taking account of the consequences of the actions of his career and redefining his politics to serve as reparations for those he’s harmed. Humility is often missing from politics and hubris is often excessive, and Biden has shown too much of the latter and has only been forced into the former after embarrassing himself through unforced errors. Not only do the American people deserve a better Joe Biden, but Biden deserves a better version of himself. It’s difficult to change in politics and in life and more difficult still to sustain that change (see the many faces of Mitt Romney). Biden should ask himself why does he want to be in government. If the answer is to exploit proximity to power to achieve some personal fantasy of grandeur, then it’s not necessary to change. However, if the answer is something more noble, to be in the service of the public and use government as a tool to meaningfully improve the lives of others, then he must recognize that he has not always achieved that goal and spend this campaign and a potential presidency fighting for that end.

The post The Redemption of Robert Byrd and What Biden Could Learn appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Visiting Montgomery, Alabama to see the civil rights sites, we walked over to the old train station along the riverfront. Inside what appears to have once been the baggage room, we learned that it is now the site of a guitar shop. As we entered, we encountered a group of about 10 men, sitting in a circle, pleasantly jamming together on an assortment of guitars, mandolins and banjos. Although we began to retreat, feeling that we were intruders, the string players motioned for us to come in and listen. So, we did.

They tuned up, and the leader suggested a song — the name of which we couldn’t hear — and a key. As they began playing, I recognized the tune: “The Darktown Strutters Ball.”

I know. It’s just a song. An old song. A remnant from a very different time. But I couldn’t stop thinking about where we were, and how the song fit in. Right where we were standing was the center of the domestic slave trade of the 19th century — the very railroad station where black people had once been transported and put up for sale. Despite what I thought was historic irony, I reflexively tapped my feet, swayed to the rhythm, and began remembering the words.

Just to jog your memory — or to introduce you to a classic, written in 1915 and performed by just about every ragtime, Dixieland and jazz band on earth since then, plus Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald and Fats Domino — below is an antique [early 20th century] recording of it, along with some very interesting video.

Is the title considered a racial slur? Am I over-reacting? The word “darktown” sure sounds pejorative to me. But according to some historians, at the time the song was published, the title referred to a section of Chicago where black people lived. That designation presumably was okay in that era — but perhaps a reflection of the baked-in racism that was prevalent then. [Today, of course, using skin color as a way of defining a neighborhood would be completely unacceptable, and that is probably what I am responding to.]

In “A Short History of ‘Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” author Matt Macucci further explains that “…the song was inspired by an annual ball in Chicago, Illinois, that was ‘a kind of modern equivalent of the medieval carnivals of misrule, financed by wealthy society folk but with a guest list of pimps and prostitutes.’

“The “Darktown Ball” was, in fact, a real event:

…but it did not start out as being for the higher classes. It was originated by the ladies of the evening in the Darktown area of Chicago. They decided to create the ball as their way of showing that, for at least 1 night per year, they were just as good as everyone else. It was by invitation only and, over time, became THE most sought after ticket. Even the Major of Chicago could not attend without an invitation.

The composer was Shelton Brooks, a black man who was celebrating the event and the fact that it had become such an important part of the city’s history.

So, singing that song in the Montgomery railroad station — is that insensitive, ironic and further evidence of racism so inbred into our culture that we don’t even see — or hear — it?  Or is it just an innocent celebration of a very popular song from the early jazz era? It’s a complicated question, for which I have no answer.

Enjoy the song. Read the lyrics. Cringe at the imagery.

The post On hearing “The Darktown Strutters’ Ball” in Montgomery, Alabama appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice made me cry. And that, I’m sure, is not a unique experience. I can’t speak for the busloads of other people who were there, and I can’t pretend to know how black people feel when they see this stunning, symbolic representation of the thousands of lynchings in America’s sordid racial history. I can only say that, for me, it evoked deep sorrow and outrage at the cruelty that human beings are capable of inflicting upon others.

As a fitting prelude to visiting what has come to be known as the “lynching memorial,” we went to the Legacy Museum, about a mile away in Montgomery, Alabama. Housed in a building that was once part of the domestic slave trading hub in Montgomery, the  Legacy Museum sets the stage for the Memorial by poignantly telling the story of slavery and racial injustice in America through news photographs, headlines, archival film, animated and live video documentaries, and even an early 20^th century recording in which a 100-year-old former slave describes his experience.

Walking through the exhibits is a gut-wrenching, sensory-overloading experience—almost too much to take in at a single visit.

To convey the scope of slavery in America, a video info-graphic at the Legacy Museum demonstrates how the domestic slave trade evolved after the U.S. government banned the African slave trade in 1808. Limited to slaves already in the country, traders shifted masses of enslaved people from the upper Confederacy to the Deep South, until there were more than a million slaves concentrated just in Alabama, with hundreds of thousands more trapped in other states. In another area of the museum, archival 19^th century photos show the scarred backs of beaten slaves and blurry images of families on the slave auction block. On one wall of the museum, enlarged reproductions of advertisements published in newspapers tout the high quality of shipments of slaves scheduled for upcoming auctions.

Of course, the end of slavery did not end racial injustice in America. It merely shifted to other incarnations, such as share-cropping, and to laws institutionalizing white supremacy. One exhibit displays replicas of signs carried by segregationists, and notifications warning “undesirable” groups to stay out of restaurants and bathrooms. In one section, you can sit down at a simulated prison visitor’s booth, pick up a telephone, and listen to a prisoner describe his/her experiences. Many of the people visiting alongside us appeared old enough to remember the fire hoses turned on civil rights marchers, the police dogs attacking, the burning of Freedom Rider buses, and the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. I overhead snippets of conversations among visitors testifying to what they had seen and experienced themselves.  But I wonder how younger adults—and especially young children—experience these exhibits.

Walking through the museum, I felt worse and worse about the human race, and sadder and sadder for black people who have been regarded as lesser beings, treated violently, arbitrarily and unfairly—with nowhere to turn for help in so many cases. Their insecurity, fear and physical pain are unimaginable to a privileged person like me.

And then we went to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. As we entered, busload after busload of other visitors arrived, too. Once inside the perimeter, there was almost total silence. Photos are not permitted, so there were no silly selfies, but I don’t think many people would have tried such a thing, anyway: A feeling of reverence permeated the atmosphere. This was holy ground.

As you’ve probably read, the Memorial consists of a series of steel slabs, suspended from the roof, each representing a county in America where law-enforcement officials, huge mobs and small vigilante groups carried out lynchings. There’s a slab for every state in the U.S.—broken down by counties—with the named of lynching victims etched into the hollow steel rectangles. The memorial begins on level ground, and then you descend into what ends up feeling like a forest of hanging bodies. On the outer walls, signs give the sad details of many lynchings: People who were murdered for “knocking on the door of a white woman;” “making a white woman feel frightened;” “not showing respect for a white man.”

Since the memorial opened in 2018, people have come forward with more stories of lynchings in their families’ histories, and more names are being added. When I asked a docent about the most recent lynching in the US, I was shocked at his answer. “It was in Ferguson, Missouri,” he said. “In 2018.”

He told me that a young man had been lynched in Ferguson, but that police were calling it a suicide, “like they always do.” “But, you know,” he added, “People don’t commit suicide with their hands tied behind their back.”  [News coverage of the incident does not seem to include the hands-tied-behind-his-back detail, so I am researching the news further, to try to figure out how to interpret what he stated as fact. But, then again, who am I to say? How do I know that this is not another case—in the long history of lynchings so dramatically depicted at the memorial—of an official cover-up?]

The final section of the memorial is a stone wall, inscribed with a remembrance for all victims, over which cascades a gentle but infinite waterfall. I experienced that waterfall as a flood of unending tears shed by the families of people who innocently went out of the house one day and never came back. They were victims of hate that I once thought unimaginable in the apparently fictional America I grew up in — but that I now see, in the current political climate, as frighteningly imaginable. That’s when I sat down and cried. Many of my tears came simply from being in a place commemorating such horrific events. I was thinking about the broken-hearted mothers who lost their sons, and that made me think about the recent death of my own son, from cancer. I would not presume to equate my personal loss to that of generations of black families terrorized by lynching — but I do, in my own way, feel connected to their grief.

I’m not religious, and I’m not sure about the concept of sin. But if there is such a thing, lynching certainly qualifies, as do the perpetuation of racial hatred and the institutionalization of fear. I was heartened to note that several of the inscriptions placed around the memorial use the word “terrorism” to describe lynchings—as they were, in fact, designed to terrorize the black community into submission. I can only hope that the memorial helps people whose history has been stained by the hatred of bigotry to find affirmation of their story, and acknowledgment of their pain. In a normal ending to a post like this, I would probably add “hope for a better future.” But as to that, I am agnostic.

Watch this video to get a glimpse of the Legacy Museum and the reasons behind it:

The post Reflections on the Lynching Memorial and Legacy Museum appeared first on Occasional Planet.