Mike Pence from One Hoosier's Point of View

On Friday morning, I woke up to a friend posting on Facebook about Mike Pence.  On her feed, one person after another had been sharing feelings for Mike Pence - feelings like admiration, respect, and warmth, because Mike Pence!  What a nice guy!  I suspect my friend felt vaguely ill, and after I read her status update, so did I.  We all have the power to be nice, but we don't all wield power like Mike Pence.

Since accepting the dubious honor of becoming Donald Trump's Vice Presidential nominee, Pence has been touting his amazing accomplishments as Governor of the State of Indiana all over the television.  While Pence does credit long term Republican control of the Governor's mansion for Indiana's economic health, he doesn't credit his predecessor by name, which he should.  Since Mitch Daniels left office, Mike Pence hasn't scored a lot of big wins for Indiana.  He has, however, landed some enormous and embarrassing losses that have not only cast the state in a negative light, but have also threatened the freedoms of whole swathes of his constituents, which is to me the far bigger problem.  Watching him navigate these disasters has convinced me that he is unsuitable to be any part of an executive branch of government, whether state or national.

Let's start with Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which you can pronounce "riff-ruh" if you don't already.  RFRA purports to be about protecting religious liberty - but protecting it from what, you ask?  Well, as we all know from being alive here on planet Earth, some people are men, and some people are not.  Some people are redheads, and some people are not.  Likewise, some people are heterosexual, and some people are not.  Pence insists that he doesn't believe in discrimination, yet he has said time and again that some rights belong only to some people - in this case, those people who are heterosexual - and what is that if not discriminatory?

Pence always has reasons why his dance with discrimination doesn't mean anything and doesn't hurt anyone, not really.  In 2006, when he was a member of the US House of Representatives, he co-sponsored House Joint Resolution 88 to add a "Marriage Protection Amendment" to the Constitution, which stated, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."  In a Press Release on June 5, Pence explained that despite his support for this amendment, "it is not my desire to impose views or attack any individual or anyone in a relationship in America."  Indeed, he said, activist judges were the ones doing the attacking.  That's why he needed to rush in to defend marriage, but "in a spirit of civility," of course, protecting that "institution that is cherished and is so essential to the American people in the life of our nation."  Wait, essential to the American people?  Huh?  If marriage is essential to Americans, how can it be denied - even extremely politely - to consenting adults who are "in a relationship in America"?  Do LGBT people live in a space that is somehow in the country but not of the country?  What exactly was Pence saying?   

I'm not nitpicking, here; I'm tugging at the end of a loose thread in a discursive tapestry of Pence's own weaving.  In 2011, Pence paid homage to National Marriage Week by enumerating the many benefits of the institution on the floor of the House, adding:

I have been a long-time advocate of traditional marriage, and have been proud to support numerous pieces of legislation to protect this sacred institution.  The family structure is the cornerstone of our society, and I can think of no better time to emphasize its importance than National Marriage Week.  I encourage all Americans to use this opportunity to renew their commitment and devotion to their spouse. (emphasis mine)

Again, if you insist on defining marriage as a solemnized union between one man and one woman - if you don't make marriage a legal option for all consenting adults - then "all Americans" can't possibly enjoy this amazing institution.  It is tempting to conclude that Mike Pence doesn't consider LGBT people to be Americans, but I think that phrasing might almost be too glib.  LGBT people are here, "in America"; Mike Pence simply doesn't think about them, or include them, in the America of his mind.

We can see this again with Senate Bill (SB) 101, the Indiana RFRA.  (If you need to get up to speed on the Indiana RFRA, I wrote a piece in 2015 that might help.)  Pence and his party had every conceivable warning that passing RFRA would produce a Category 5 shitstorm, but they knew better.  They were told businesses would pack up and leave, but they knew better.  Hoosiers rallied and protested, but they knew better.  Pence signed the bill behind closed doors surrounded by lobbyists, religious leaders, and nuns.  Press were not permitted behind the door or even just outside it. 

Once the storm hit, Mike Pence played the part of the woefully misunderstood, if not the actual victim of the entire debacle.  He insisted that RFRA was about protecting religious liberties, in general, the way you protect your home and its occupants by locking your front door.  One of the lobbyists in that picture, however, had already given up the game.  From the web site of Advance America:

SB 101 will help protect individuals, Christian businesses and churches from those supporting homosexual marriages and those supporting government recognition and approval of gender identity (male cross-dressers).

Here are just 3 examples:

• Christian bakers, florists and photographers should not be punished for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage!

• A Christian business should not be punished for refusing to allow a man to use the women’s restroom!

• A church should not be punished because they refuse to let the church be used for a homosexual wedding! (emphasis in original)

In all of these examples, the humiliation and discrimination suffered by LGBT people are completely erased.  In the Advance America narrative, there is no bride who brings her mother to her cake-tasting appointment with a baker she has used before, excited to design her dream wedding cake, only to be told very abruptly in front of her mother, in the middle of her joyful day, that someone who has accepted money from her in the past no longer will because there is no groom.  In the Advance America narrative, there is no crying in the car in the bakery parking lot, nor depression in the days following.  There is no wondering if the wedding should just be called off.  That story is not my fanciful imagining, by the way; it's summarized from a real case in Oregon with real women who suffered real pain.  In Pence's mind, there is no pain, or if there is, he doesn't intend it, and therefore, it doesn't matter.

During his interview with George Stephanopoulos, Pence continued the erasure, insisting that RFRA was simply about "empowering individuals when they believe actions of government infringe upon" their religious rights.  When Stephanopoulos asked, repeatedly, whether discrimination was now legal in Indiana, Pence refused to give an answer, meanwhile griping about the "avalanche of intolerance poured on" Indiana.  Oh, yes.  Poor Indiana.  The State famously had to spend $1 million dollars to hire a Public Relations firm to try to fix the damage Pence did by signing RFRA.  How's that for fiscal responsibility? And who empowers LGBT individuals when they believe the actions of government infringe upon their rights?

Pence's steadfast refusal to see the people he harms, the people whose rights he does not respect, makes him truly dangerous as a leader.  It's not something he does exclusively with the LGBT community, either.  Let's take reproductive rights as another example. When it comes to abortion, Mike Pence has a long and passionate history of being anti-choice.  In April of 2007, in a floor speech, Pence celebrated the Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v Carhart, upholding the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of of 2003, signed by George W. Bush.  In an amicus brief prior to the decision, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) had pointed out: "'Partial-birth abortion' is not a medical term.  Neither Medical textbooks nor physicians use the term to define any particular procedure." As a result, the ban was regarded as overbroad and underinformed by physicians who would have to abide by it.  In the brief, ACOG quotes a physician saying, "None of my colleagues know or could state whether the abortions they perform now are covered under this law.  Indeed, as I read the definition of the banned procedures, any of the safest, most common abortion methods used throughout the second-trimester of pregnancy could proceed in such a manner as to be outlawed."  Again, however, neither the woman's safety nor the physician's charge over it was of any interest to Mike Pence, who said on the floor, "I commend President Bush for signing the bill, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who supported it, and Congressman Steve Chabot of Ohio, its principal author.  Life is winning in America. In big cities and small towns, American women are listening and learning."  Yes, high fives to all the dudes.  The women may be less safe, and their physicians less certain, but we'll eventually teach women to think right.

Meanwhile, compare Pence's position on the abortion ban with his position on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.  In a floor speech given just one month after he celebrated the verdict in Gonzales v Carhart, he said, "Now, some of these thoughts and beliefs are abhorrent, like racism and sexism, and I disdain them.  But hate crime bills are broad enough to encompass legitimate beliefs as well, and protecting the rights of freedom of speech and religion must be paramount on our minds."  Indeed, he deplored the idea that someone could preach against homosexuality from the pulpit and be held responsible for those words, because then pastors and radio evangelists alike might hesitate to speak their minds on the evils of sodomy.  That, to Pence, is dangerous government overreach, but sacrificing women's safety?  That's fine.  As long as Pence's religious convictions are upheld, everything is fine.  No wonder Pence has repeatedly said that he is a Christian first, then a conservative, and only then a Republican. No breaks for women and trans men until Pence is stripped of the ability to impose his version of Christianity upon others.

Speaking of Pence's ability to impact others, in 2011, when Mitch Daniels was still Governor and Pence was in the House, Pence introduced a bill to cut off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services in the country.  The bill passed.  He called it the Pence Amendment.  In a press release, he said: 

I believe that ending an innocent human life is morally wrong. I also believe it is morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund organizations that provide and promote abortions, like Planned Parenthood of America.

What's the moral over/under on cutting off care to people who visit Planned Parenthood clinics?  Once again, it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter that Planned Parenthood uses no federal funding for abortion procedures.  That abortion services are provided in a Planned Parenthood clinic anywhere is justification for closing Planned Parenthood clinics everywhere.  Back in 2011, he insisted  that there are numerous other places people could seek care, yet look at the example of Scott County, Indiana, where the closure of a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2013 was followed in 2015 by an HIV outbreak.  By this point, Mitch Daniels had moved on, and Pence had shifted from the House of Representatives to the Indiana Statehouse, giving him a bird's eye view of the health crisis that had been spreading unchecked without Planned Parenthood on the ground.  People had nowhere to get tested, not even (at first) the local health department, which was also prevented by the State from giving out condoms.  According to Buzzfeed, Pence, who has strongly advocated for abstinence, coincidentally doesn't believe condoms are effective in preventing the spread of disease.  Forget the science; that's how he feels.  He also feels that "effective anti-drug policy" does not mean "handing out drug paraphernalia," which is to say, he doesn't like clean needle exchanges, even though, according to the Chicago Tribune, "numerous studies — from the Centers for Disease Control to the World Health Organization — have indicated that needle exchange programs do not result in higher rates of drug abuse in communities."  Pence did ultimately allow for a temporary needle exchange program in Scott County, which is comforting, I suppose, but barely.  And temporarily.

Given the attention the Scott County health crisis received around the country, and given the serious health threat posed by HIV, did Pence at least learn from the Scott County outbreak?  Did he make a public statement in which he acknowledged that Planned Parenthood, in addition to giving abortions, provides other care that is essential to public health?  Did he rethink his positions on condoms and needle exchanges? Would you like three guesses?

In March of 2016, Pence reached the pinnacle of his long career of anti-choice actions when he brought Indiana into the national spotlight - yet again - by signing House Enrolled Act 1337, an veritable smorgasbord of Constitutionally questionable abortion restrictions.  Admittedly, it is not Pence's fault that the Indiana legislature drafted this bill, but the women and trans men of Indiana promise you: That bill didn't sign itself.  Despite protests and rallies, Mike Pence picked up the pen with his very own hand, and the media responded with headlines like

• "After Penced signed HEA 1337, women's rights in Indiana are dead" (Nuvo, March 25, 2016)
• "Mike Pence's sadistic abortion law: Indiana passes draconian anti-choice bill geared towards humiliating and bankrupting women who have abortions" (Salon, March 25, 2016)  
• "The Crazy New Ways Indiana Will Restrict Abortion (thinkprogress.org , March 25, 2016)

The ACLU quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood, and a judge intervened to stop those "crazy" ways from taking effect, so in a repeat of RFRA, that was certainly a good use of time, money, and people's real emotional distress.

Mike Pence has done a lot of things over the course of his career.  He has wasted time and resources making purely symbolic efforts to repeal Obamacare.  He has pushed back against the EPA.  He has supported amending the Constitution to prohibit the desecration of the flag, because that act of free speech doesn't matter like the free speech of the religious.  He has co-sponsored a bill that, as summarized by VoteSmart, "would forbid federal courts and the Supreme Court from hearing cases questioning or interpreting the Pledge of Allegiance and its constitutionality."

Does Mike Pence seem nice on TV?  Honestly, now that you've read this, I hope not.

Don't Get Stalked

Don't get stalked on the internet
by a guy from high school
who never dated you
and never talked to you.

Don't get stalked by anyone
unless you're drop dead gorgeous,
because why you?
What's so special about you?

What did you do, exactly,
to call his attention to you?
What were you wearing?
Did your hair look nice?

If you do get stalked, don't overreact!
Because danger is in the eye of the beholder.
I'll let you know when you're in danger.
You should just block him.

Wait, don't underreact.
He's dangerous.
Call the police.
Don't be stupid.

It's sad, isn't it?
He's mentally ill.
He needs help.
He's in crisis.

It was the war.
PTSD.
He's out of his mind.
I feel sorry.

Don't give him another thought.
Ignore him.
Delete his messages.
Why are you even reading them?

What's the matter with you?
Why aren't you doing this right?
Why haven't you fixed this yet?
What are you working on?

Tell me about your art.
Tell me everything you've been creating.
Oh, really?
You're busy, I guess.
Your family, maybe.
How is your garden doing?

The Way You Make Me Feel - Discrimination and White Guilt

Almost 15 years ago, when I first started delivering training classes to corporate types, I was asked to put together some training around the subject of feedback, which is, almost inevitably, a messy business for everyone.  Predictably enough, people don't really love it when you tell them they've screwed up, and while training can help managers be less revolting and clumsy in the way that they approach the conversation, training cannot remove all of the emotional landmines from the field of battle.  Even if people are genuinely glad to know about their mistakes, most of them will still not appreciate the feelings that arise during the conversation - namely, stupidity and embarrassment, the latter of which easily transforms into resentment, because human beings tend to make this automatic leap:  We assume that we're having horrible feelings because that's what the other person wanted to happen.  I feel embarrassed; therefore, it was your goal to embarrass me.  Mission accomplished, you trite, mean-spirited jerk.   I am crying; therefore, you wanted to make me cry.  Good job, asshat.  I hope you're proud of yourself.

However understandable, this reaction is not born of logic, and this exact kind of leap gets people into trouble every single day, even when they aren't at the office.  Take the example of Tennessee State Representative Martin Daniel (R), who was "shocked" (his word) to find that his daughter had to read this passage about racial discrimination in her fourth-grade reading class.  

One day some time ago, a boy named Jack was doing homework. His mother began to examine Jack’s textbook. A puzzled look clouded her face. She noticed that the book was worn and missing a dozen pages.

The next day, she told the school’s principal that Jack deserved better materials. He agreed, but said that only schools in white districts got new texts. Schools in African American areas got old, damaged books.

So Jack’s mother met with a lawyer. They filed a legal case, claiming unequal and unfair treatment toward Jack. A judge decided that Jack’s mother was right. The board of education agreed to revise the system for providing materials to schools in the district.

According to Cari Wade Gervin of the Nashville Scene, "The passage is part of a cause and effect exercise, and students are asked to guess when the incident takes place, based on their class discussions."

So what's the problem?  During his interview with Cari Wade Gervin, Daniel explained:  "I don't have any objections to students learning about civil rights or whatever . . . But if we're going to learn about real facts, then move it to a history class."  He elaborated that in reading class, "There is no statement of fact, that, say, this happened in Chicago in 1966. It needs to be in a history class."

Why the obsession with history class?  Well, apparently any Black experience is like fight club: White people don't talk about it unless we're at fight club.  Put another way, white people will acknowledge "civil rights or whatever," but only when we absolutely, positively cannot avoid it - i.e. in history class.  If white people have to hear about Black things outside of history class, well, that's just unnecessary, and frankly, it smacks of a liberal attempt to indoctrinate the youth.  In his letter to the Superintendent, Daniel wrote:

I am concerned that this subject matter subtly, but unnecessarily, injects a dose of "social justice" into our impressionable youth. It teaches them, incidental to a Reading assignment, that America is a place of oppression, where certain classes of persons are commonly discriminated against, and that they have been a victim. (emphasis mine)      

Okay.  Um.  SIR.  If we're being at all real, America was born - and very much remains - a place of oppression, where "certain classes of persons are commonly discriminated against."  To illustrate the point without writing a book, let's isolate one issue and talk homes, which are the easiest way for families to build wealth over time.  Why?  As the US Commission on Civil Rights puts it in their 1973 publication entitled "Understanding Fair Housing": "Tax advantages, the accumulation of equity, and the increased value of real estate property enable homeowners to build economic assets. These assets can be used to educate one's children, to take advantage of business opportunities, to meet financial emergencies, and to provide for retirement." So let's talk race and housing before we come back to Mr. Daniel.

After the Civil War, Black men and women left the southernmost states to relocate to cities farther north, only to find their access to homes limited.  The publication continues: "many American communities enacted zoning ordinances requiring block-by-block racial segregation.  Between 1910 and 1917, these racial zoning ordinances were upheld in more than 15 State courts."  The City of Louisville happened to enact their crappy ordinance in the middle of a real estate transaction between a white seller named Charles Buchanan and a Black buyer named William Warley.  Once the ordinance went into effect, Warley could no longer inhabit the property, so he insisted on paying a lower price.  Buchanan sued, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that such ordinances violated the Constitution. Not sorry, Louisville.  Never sorry, Louisville.

Don't get excited, though.  In the wake of our highest court's decision, there was a shift toward the private use of "restrictive covenants," which restricted any use or occupation of property by people who weren't white, kind of like this:

 hereafter no part of said property or any portion thereof shall be…occupied by ay person not of the Caucasian race, it being intended hereby to restrict the use of said property…against occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said property for resident or other purposes by people of the Negro or Mongolian race  

The US Commission on Civil Rights found that "by 1940, 80% of property in Chicago and Los Angeles carried restrictive covenants barring black families."  Sit with that for a second.  80.  Per.  Cent.  In case you're wondering why the practice of covenants went on so long - i.e. from 1917 to 1940 and beyond - that's because in 1926, in the case of Corrigan v. Buckley, the Supreme Court shrugged harder than Atlas ever could and said, "We don't have jurisdiction because y'all are private people doing private things. Carry on."  Although the Supreme Court later ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that such covenants could not be enforced, restrictive racial covenants didn't disappear.  As mentioned in the 1961 US Commission on Civil Rights report on housing, 

while buying a home in the Nation's capital in February of 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk encountered and refused to sign a restrictive covenant barring occupancy of Spring Valley homes 'by Negroes or "any person of the Semitic race, blood or origin,"  including "Jews, Hebrews, Persians, and Syrians." 

Covenants may have become popular as a means of dodging the government, but that doesn't mean the government didn't like them and wouldn't use them.  One piece of the New Deal involved the creation, in 1934, of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which provided insurance for mortgages.  The FHA blatantly engaged in state-sponsored discrimination.  To quote a memo authored by Richard Sterns entitled "Racial Content of FHA Underwriting Practices, 1934-1962," 

The 1934 [FHA underwriting] manual even exhorted the use of a model covenant, providing that 'no persons of any race other than (race to be inserted) shall use or occupy any building or any lot, except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant.' 

The FHA also engaged in a practice known as "redlining," where it literally drew red lines on maps to indicate those neighborhoods where loans would be extended rarely or not at all.   In the words of The Atlantic, "Otherwise celebrated for making homeownership accessible to white people by guaranteeing their loans, the FHA explicitly refused to back loans to black people or even other people who lived near black people."  As an official practice, redlining ended in 1968; however, data analysis illustrates that the areas redlined between 1934 and 1968 are still mired in poverty now.  The way our cities and suburbs look today, in 2016, is a direct result of all of this history.

I could go on (and on, and on), but I suspect Mr. Daniel would have interrupted me three paragraphs back, not because I'm wrong, but because, really, what exactly is my point?  What am I trying to accomplish?  Where am I going with all of this?  From his letter to the Superintendent:

Are our children being taught to assume that everyone who has difficulties in life is a victim of oppression? Should those children who simply attend good schools feel guilty? Should those children who otherwise enjoy the benefits of their parents' hard work and resulting success be made to feel guilty?

Ah, now we're getting to the heart of Mr. Daniel's problem - and the problem that a lot of white people have.  Should white people feel guilty?  Daniel evidently does, since he mentioned the word twice.  And making that same (il)logical leap that I described at the start of this piece, he assumes that because he feels guilty, it was clearly the goal of that fourth-grade reading lesson to stir up those feelings in him.  And is that right?  Is that just?  "Should those children," he asks, "be made to feel guilty?" No!  We cannot be saddling innocent white fourth graders with big emotions; therefore, we don't talk about fight club!  We cannot make good, kind, decent white people feel guilty; therefore, fight club does not exist!

Evidently, Daniel cannot imagine a conversation in which white people are not at the center.  Neither can he seem to think his way past his individual guilt.  Well, get over it, Daniel.  You're not to blame, but you have benefited from white supremacy, and you are sure as hell complicit in it.  As a country, we're not going to make the right kind of progress until white men like you, in positions of power, stop pretending that success is either all or simply about hard work and boot straps. We need to have honest conversations about institutional racism, and we need to address it head on.  Your success was facilitated by generations of institutional support that not extended to everyone, and indeed, that was explicitly denied to many.  You didn't build that.  And your daughter should know.

The Purge - A Film that Gets It

Some time ago, in that murky way that isn't yesterday but could be six months ago or 14 months ago or 48 months before that, my husband and I saw a preview for The Purge: Anarchy. It looked like a bloodbath, and as much as I love horror movies, I feel little affection for bloodbaths, which overwhelm me to the point that I ignore the screen and start thinking about things like . . . . grocery shopping.  And I don't need to pay anybody $9.75 to shop for butter in my imagination.  So. I dismissed The Purge franchise from my mind, and I moved right along - at least until we went to see Deadpool, and with it, the preview for The Purge: Election Year.  Well, that did it.  I blame you, Juliet from Lost.  By the time the preview ended, I knew I was going to go back and watch The Purge.

Now, I had heard - the way one hears things out there in the world - that there was a satiric angle to The Purge, but that it was seriously facile and weak.  I fear I do not share that opinion.  Indeed, I think the satire is pretty sharply on point.  I'll explain how, but please, if you don't want me spoiling the movie for you, go. Run.  Lock yourself in behind an expensive security system.  I'll wait.

As we see in the opening of the The Purge, "Unemployment is at 1%.  Crime is at an all-time low.  Violence barely exists.  With one exception . . ." That exception, as you can surely guess, is The Annual Purge, a 12-hour period, transpiring once each year, during which all crime, including murder, becomes legal.  At first, The Annual Purge is presented in generic terms as a "release," a way to vent humanity's innate violence and aggression, but it shortly becomes clear how the purge actually works. 

Let's pause a moment to clarify a few plot points.  The Purge transpires within one neighborhood, and indeed, primarily within one house, occupied by a dad (Ethan Hawke); a mom (Lena Headey, aka Cersei Lannister from "Game of Thrones"); a daughter, Zoey (Adelaide Kane); and a son, Charlie (Max Burkholder, aka Max Braverman in "Parenthood").  The inciting incident in this film transpires when Charlie, looking at the security monitors, sees a Black man running down the street.  Charlie turns on the audio.  The Black man is screaming, pleading for help to escape those pursuing him on this annual night of bloodshed.  Charlie lets the man into the house.  (The Black man's character has no name.  He is "Bloody Stranger" in the credits, played by Edwin Hodge.)

The Bloody Stranger (Edwin Hodge)

Soon enough - inevitably, one might say - the people hunting the Bloody Stranger show up at the door.  They are young.  They are white.  They look like they just came from a prep school assembly, except with masks.

No, Virginia, they don't want to have a game of baseball out back.

Their spokesman, the Polite Stranger (Rhys Wakefield), demands access to the Bloody Stranger, whom he identifies as a homeless man.  Now it starts to become clear how The Annual Purge really works.  Those with privilege prey upon those without: The poor, the homeless, the elderly.  The privileged profoundly enjoy the dirty, violent work of weeding out society's "non-contributors"; indeed, they claim they are ENTITLED to purge.

Now.   I have seen some critics roll their eyes at all of this.  Charlie Jane Anders is having none of it.  She writes: "In The Purge, a suburban family is put through hell because right wingers came up with a plan to eliminate the poor and the sick. And we all come face to face with how broken the American dream really is. Yadda yadda."  As Bryan Bishop writes in his review, the Bloody Stranger role is "played by a black actor, because the film’s class warfare is subtle like that."

Uh.  Class warfare?  The American Dream?  Can we talk about race for a quarter of a second?  Why are the (predominantly, if not exclusively) white kids wearing white masks?  They don't need to protect their identities.  All criminal activity is legal; that's the point.  I'd argue the masks are there not only to amplify the fear factor, but also to suggest that it doesn't really matter who these white kids are as actual individuals.  They're white.  They're well off.  They're predatory.  Candidly, they seem like extensions of the affluent American white kids who, each and every day, consume Black culture, Black music, and Black slang, acting all the while entitled to do so.  The extension of that behavior is to consume a Black man, whole.

As for this being a ridiculously obvious stab at American culture, I'm not sure why a film needs to be subtle when white supremacy is anything but.  What the film basically suggests is that individuals with wealth - who are predominantly but not exclusively white, as we see from the demographics of our protagonist family's neighborhood - would rather invest thousands upon thousands of dollars in elaborate security measures and "just in case" weaponry than be in any way involved with the creation of a more just and equitable world.  Put another way, privileged white people would rather kill poor black people than make the social changes necessary to ensure more equal access to resources.  Why do I say that?  Within the story of the film, there was a staggering Depression, with unprecedented poverty.  The government that came to power, under those conditions, was not a government that attempted to employ people or to redress previous wrongs, but a government that exacerbated and extended the problems we already had under the white supremacist patriarchy.   They are the "New Founding Fathers," a phrase that rings wrong, even by the standards of 2013, when the film was released.  Founding . . . Fathers?  This is an explicitly patriarchal order that has been reasserted, even more viciously than before, since the prosperity that abounds does not extend to everyone.  And candidly, the New Founding Fathers haven't gone too much farther than our most radical politicians already do.

That, by the way, seems to me the crux of the complaint about this film: That somehow, good, decent white people would never lock themselves away while their white friends and their white children go out and slaughter Black people.  Except. 

This past week, to take one example, Senator Arthur Orr from Alabama proposed serious cuts to TANF and SNAP.  Under his terms, people who own a vehicle would not be eligible for support.  Now, let's set aside that the vast majority of those benefitting from TANF and SNAP are children.  Does Alabama have some state-wide public transportation system of which I'm not aware?  How in holy hell is someone without a car supposed to go out and find a job, let alone keep one?  And how is a person without a job supposed to feed his or her children?  Oh, what's that?  It doesn't matter?  The important thing is that someone might be defrauding the system, and the brave Arthur Orr will stop that?

No.  Sorry.  This is a measure that denies people basic sustenance, that would rather punish a thousand people who are struggling than permit one single abuse of the system to occur.  That might not be murder, but it's pretty damned close.  And while the truth of the matter is that in America today, there are more white people on welfare than there are Black people, white people still associate poverty with blackness and blackness with poverty, which is the reason why critics of this film almost universally talk about class, but not race, and why Bernie Sanders, when speaking about Black people, immediately started talking about the ghetto.  It's also the reason that Arthur Orr feels comfortable proposing something like this.  He's tilting at windmills, taking shots at stereotypes of lazy Black people in his mind, an action that also (he presumably feels) will earn him votes.

For everything about it that is not sophisticated, The Purge is still pretty much on the money, because white people in America absolutely DO hole up in gated communities, spending money on electronic security and high-end locks, willfully ignoring how the system that permits them wealth and privilege is crushing and killing Black people.  It's happening right now, without sophistication, without pretense, and wholly without subtlety.

The Sanctity of Bodies

When I sat down at my computer this morning, I learned that legislators in my home state of Indiana had once again made the news in a completely horrifying way, this time by sending a bill to the Governor called HB 1337, which legislators see as their big pro-life bill for this session.  The bill does all kinds of things, including mandating ultrasounds 18 hours in advance of an abortion (the woman can sign a form indicating her intention not to look, but since the ultrasound may well be transvaginal, she certainly won't fail to notice) and making it unlawful for abortion providers to perform an abortion based on sex, national origin, ancestry, race, or disability.  Governor Pence is expected to sign the bill, even though it was opposed by numerous Republicans who consider themselves pro-life.  As reported by Cosmopolitan, Republican Rep. Sharon Negele "told CBS, '. . . It's just penalties.'  Rep. Sean Eberhart, also a Republican, said . . . 'Today is a perfect example [of] a bunch of middle-aged guys sitting in this room making decisions about what we think is best for women.'"

Of course, many more middle-aged legislators were only too happy to move the bill to the Governor's desk.  Brian Bosma, the Speaker of the House, said, "Those unborn children are Hoosiers, and they have constitutional rights. . . . We're not making a determination about women's health. We are trying to protect the right of the unborn."

Oh, Indiana.

Children in Indiana do of course have rights, which Bosma did not work quite so hard to protect back in 2007 when he voted "nay" on a bill (HB 1337) meant to outlaw smoking in a car with children under the age of 13.  He also voted "nay" on a mandatory seat belt law in that same year for people in the front and the back seats.  Presumably, Bosma felt that the arm of government should not reach into an adult's vehicle, and that any rights retained by children in those instances are trumped by the rights of adults to do as they please in their own vehicles, their private property.

So to be clear, if you're the driver of a car, your rights outweigh the rights of others, including children.  If you're the driver of a pregnant body, the passenger's legal rights should limit, constrain, and even eclipse yours.

BUT LIFE.  BUT UNBORN BABY.

Yes, I know.  The state, it is noted in all relevant court opinions, has an interest in life. However, the state's interest in one life does not override another individual's right to self-determination and bodily autonomy - and I am indebted to @absurdist words on Twitter for reminding me about this line of thinking, which is not his originally, but which I had forgotten about until his recent series of tweets.

Courts routinely both respect and protect individuals' rights to put themselves first, even when someone else's life is at stake.  The most famous precedent in this regard is Shimp v. McFall, a 1978 case in which Shimp sued McFall, his cousin, in an attempt to force McFall to donate bone marrow.  From the court documents: "The question posed by plaintiff is that, in order to save the life of one of its members by the only means available, may society infringe upon one's absolute right to his 'bodily security'?" Although the judge famously characterized McFall's refusal to undergo the procedure as "morally indefensible," he still found that the state could not require McFall to make the donation against his will: "For our law to compel the defendant to submit to an intrusion of his body would change every concept and principle upon which our society is founded.  To do so would defeat the sanctity of the individual, and would impose a rule which would know no limits, and one could not imagine where the line would be drawn."

In the 1990 case of Curran v. Bosze, a father tried to save his 12-year-old son by demanding that his three-year-old twins by another mother be tested as possible bone marrow donors.  The mother, meanwhile, refused, based on the risks to the twins.  The New York Times reported: "Judge Monica Reynolds of Cook County Circuit Court . . . refused to order blood tests for the twins. In her decision, Judge Reynolds said that 'to subject a healthy child to bodily intrusions' would 'seriously infringe and forsake the constitutional rights of the child and render him a victim.'"

What all this means is that there are a fair amount of conservative politicians who want to put  women in the position of having fewer rights than 3-year-old children, compelling those women to proceed with pregnancies for the sake of the fetus while pretending that maternal health is not involved, not relevant, not even broached.

Ah, you may say, but these cases aren't ultimately relevant, because unlike those twins, who were simply minding their own little toddler business, women consent to sex, and in so doing, they accept that pregnancy may result!  When I get on a roller coaster, I accept that death or injury may result.  I am cheerfully, even eagerly accepting that risk, solely for the sake of my own physical pleasure; otherwise, I would never ride the roller coaster.  Does that mean that if I am injured on the roller coaster and break my arm, I should be made to heal without medical assistance? I got on the roller coaster.  I'd had two beers at the time.  All I was thinking about was my own selfish fun.  Shouldn't I be made to march about with my arm broken until it heals naturally?  Because didn't I know the risks?  And isn't that broken arm a fairly minor inconvenience to me that is not putting my life in danger?

Isn't that the basic argument lots of folks advance for compelling women to remain pregnant?

In the real world, obviously, no one equates roller coasters and sex because in America, the former does not register on a moral scale, while the latter more or less IS the moral scale, at least where women are concerned.  According to a couple of major religions, I shouldn't be having sex outside of marriage or for any other purpose than to make children, and if I am having sex outside of marriage and/or just for fun, I'm a slut who gets what I deserve: My very own punishment baby.  The problem there is that we don't use holy books for our legal code.  We keep those things separated.  We also don't refuse to treat STIs in men who engaging in sex outside of marriage; deny medical care to convicted murderers in prisons, even if they're on death row; or in any other way insist that people undertake health risks because we find their behavior immoral or even evil. (And if you think pregnancy doesn't screw around with bodily health, you need to do some reading.)

You might regard abortion as "morally indefensible," but you cannot fairly say that women must put their bodies on the line for the sake of life while everyone else in society is excused.

An Open Letter to White People who Want to Support Black Lives Matter

Maybe you have always known.  Maybe the events of the last two years have awakened you.  Whatever your story - however your eyes have been opened - you have come to the realization that America is a racist society in which black people are dehumanized, degraded, and discriminated against; in which they face significant obstacles in their pursuit of opportunities and experiences that are widely and warmly offered to white people; in which black people are suspended and expelled at disproportionate rates, have profoundly different interactions with the justice system, and are far more likely to be murdered by police officers than white people.  You find that unacceptable, and as a matter of conscience, you want to help.

About that.

The Donate and Feel Great Model of Helping

For many of us, the act of helping means not only doing good, but also feeling good about what you're doing.  You make a $20 donation to support cancer research; you get a nice, warm, fuzzy thank you note from the American Cancer Society.  You go on with your day with a little bit a of a smile on your face, because you know, you're a pretty good person. 

As a group, white people are used to warm, fuzzy moments like this.  We're used being centered; having value and merit ascribed to our opinions and our actions; having priority granted to our feelings.  When the American Cancer Society sends that note, they don't challenge you; they validate you.  They tell you that YOU make a difference (really? with $20? if you say so!). 

If you really want to help the movement, let go of that model.  Donate money, of course, but leave the model behind. You need to embrace a whole different mindset, with different behaviors, as I will illustrate by way of analogy.

The Headache Model of Helping

Suppose a person you love has an agonizing headache. You can see the hurt and suffering on their face, and you want to drop everything to help. You ask questions like, "Do you want to lie down?  Do you want an aspirin?  Should I turn that music off?  Should I shut the window?  Do you want me to rub your shoulders?  What can I do?"  

Suppose that as you're trying to help, however, you go too far.  You're fussing, and they just want to sleep or have silence. They snap at you. "Just leave me alone!  Fuck off!"

Do you get mad? Nope. You get it. This is not about you. This is about them. You are peripheral.  When asked to leave the room, you leave the room.

This analogy isn't perfect - racism and state violence are very obviously not equivalent to a headache - but this model of helping is one to remember and emulate.  First, within this model, you instinctively avoid all kinds of obnoxious behaviors:

• You do not challenge the reality of the headache, nor do you demand details about the quality of pain
• You do not plop down on the other end of the couch and start telling stories about that one time when you had a headache
• You do not lecture the person for snapping at you or being discourteous
• You do not log onto Facebook and post, "I just got Kris an aspirin and turned out the light.  Feeling good!"  In other words, you don't consider your helping actions anything to be proud of.  You know they're both ordinary and expected.  If you did any less, you'd be, at best, a pretty insensitive asshole.

In addition to avoiding bad behaviors, under this model you demonstrate all kinds of positive behaviors, again very instinctively:

• You center the person who needs help, not yourself. 
• You check to see exactly what help is needed and desired, and you both listen to and respect the answers you are given. 
• You are willing to be actively involved to make sure the other person gets what they need.
• Despite the urge to do something, you respect that sometimes, you can't do anything, and indeed, it would be best if you left the room.

Applying the Model

As you start taking your first steps, you are going to want to keep this model in your head, because those wonderful behaviors you practice instinctively under the right set of conditions will not be instinctive to you in the weeks and months ahead.  Yes, you'll know you should be listening instead of talking, and yes, sure, you'll try not to center yourself.  But. In your enthusiasm, you will have the urge - the overwhelming need, even - to share your opinions, insert yourself into conversations taking place among black people, talk about your own experiences, maybe get a little round of applause for being an enlightened white person. Let me be the first to tell you those impulses are wrong.  That's plopping down on the end of the couch and rambling when that person you love has a headache.  Stop.  Don't make extra problems.

Now that I've said that, here's the other thing you need to know: You WILL make extra problems.  You WILL fuck up.  Heaven knows I have, and I will again.  When you do, someone may snap at you, tell you to shut up, lecture you about how white people always think everyone needs to know their opinions.  You will feel embarrassed and stupid, and you might even want to gather up your toys and go home.  Because how dare somebody snap at you!  You are taking time out of your life to help, and this is the thanks you get?!

Here's the honest truth: The only reason you're mad is that you're still centering yourself.  You are making this about you when it's not remotely about you.  You would never have that angry reaction to a person you love who is suffering from an agonizing headache.  You would never say, "Well, if that's how you talk to me when I'm trying to help you, I AM LEAVING FOREVER."

White privilege manifests in a lot of ways and means a lot of things, but at the end of the day, that right there is white privilege: You can, in fact, walk away. You have the choice not to think about race, racism, white supremacy, or state violence for the rest of the day, or if you're seriously determined (and seriously morally bankrupt), forever.  That doesn't mean making the decision to think about it makes you special or great.  It means you're a more or less decent human being, which is exactly what you should be.

Other Ways to Help

I've suggested both directly and by analogy that sometimes the most helpful things you can do are negative actions: closing your mouth, keeping your stories to yourself, leaving the room when asked.  There are, of course, positive things you can do, too.

1. Broaden your mind.  Listen to podcasts like This Week in Blackness Prime (Elon James White, Imani Gandy,  Aaron Rand Freeman), Intersection with Jamil Smith (The New Republic), and Our National Conversation about Conversations about Race (Baratunde Thurston, Raquel Cepeda, Tanner Colby). Seek out anti-racist voices on social media.  Read articles and books, of which there are obviously loads. Right now I'm reading Two Nations: Black & White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal by Andrew Hacker.  Next I'm reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
2. When you encounter new terms and concepts, educate yourself.  That doesn't mean asking a black person to stop doing movement work in order to educate you (or to stop having a fun, relaxing conversation, either).  That means using Google.  That means researching for yourself. 
3. Embrace crisis.  Growth is often precipitated by crisis. When you fuck up, take deep breaths.  Remind yourself as many times as you need to that this is not about your embarrassment or your hurt feelings. Ask yourself what you can learn from your mistake and how you can do better as a result of it.  Do that.
4. Challenge white people who aren't woke. This is important work, but I list it fourth for a reason. Listen and learn first. That's not to say that you should let racism go unchecked, but that you want to be smart in your approach.  Also, I hope this is an unnecessary reminder, but don't speak "for" black people or talk over black voices.  You're nobody's savior, and nobody's spokesperson. 

Finally, you don't need me to tell you that you have political power.  Use it.

Yes, Black Lives Matter

This morning, I woke up to news that the mural of Sandra Bland in Ottawa had been defaced with the words ALL LIVES MATTER.   As I attempted - fruitlessly - to get my head around that, I poked about online and learned that members of BlakCollectiv painted the same wall with the words Black Lives Matter last week, which is something like a context, I suppose.  Even so, it's difficult to imagine the calculus of human worth posited by those words, painted over that mural.

Mural Artists:  Sandra Bland matters.

Vandals: No, she doesn't, because EVERYONE does.

Um. 


I am inclined to start by pointing out that there is not a finite quantity of "mattering" in our country.  Congress has not formally determined that 2,000,000 Americans may matter at any given time, leaving us to battle for the glory and honor of having basic human worth.  In truth, we can all matter at the same time, no lines, no waiting, and no one erased in the process.  We should all matter that way.

And we don't.

Let's take the example of Michael Brown.  Michael Brown was shot and left in the street for four hours.  When news broke that he had stolen cigars prior to his death, many people on the right said (I'll paraphrase), "This is who you want to glorify?  A thief?  A thug?"  Somehow, the insistence that people who are black should not be shot and left in the street, that police should not withhold information, that's veritable hagiography.  

Michael Brown was a human being of worth and value and beauty, but to say that became a radical, incendiary act.  He was not given the standard pass for (white) teenagers, whose parents were advised in a Family Circle article about teen shoplifting that shoplifting is a big deal, although of course, it "isn't life or death." In fact, Mike Brown was not even given the standard treatment of being called a teenager (let alone a child) because he was a big guy.  As Linda Chavez said in an interview on Fox: "We're talking about an 18-year-old man who is six foot four and weighs almost three hundred pounds." 

Rumors began to fly, mostly via email forwards, that Michael Brown had a lengthy rap sheet, that he had been charged with "Burglary, Armed criminal action, Assault with the intent to do great bodily harm, and again Armed criminal action."  As one email put it, "let us be clear, Michael Brown was a n*****; a sorry assed, criminal, hoodlum, n*****."

Ah.  Now we get to the heart of racism:  Don't worry about Michael Brown, because he wasn't a person.  Michael Brown was a n****** whose life had no value.

Except wait.

If All Lives Matter, then ALL lives have value, right?  There can be no such thing as a life without meaning, unless of course All Lives don't matter equally, and that is part of the point.

If All Lives matter equally, someone needs to alert the All the Police, because some officers seem to think that All Lives means Some Lives, or maybe even All Lives means White Lives.  When the Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson PD, they found that "[n]early 90% of documented police violence was used against African Americans," while 100% of canine attacks were directed against blacks.  The report also explains: "FPD appears to bring certain offenses almost exclusively against African Americans. For example, from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges" (which sometimes just means being in the road) "and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges," casually known as contempt of cop charges.  Keep in mind, too, that officers were found to be detaining people without reasonable suspicion, and then arresting them without probable cause, using these charges (sometimes incorrectly and unlawfully) as justification after the fact.

Of course, no one can make a fuss about any of that because of #blackviolence.  No really, that's a hashtag on Twitter, and it refers to violence committed by black folks.  (I'm not going to link to it, but you can look it up if you are feeling strong.)  The idea behind this hashtag seems to be that since black people commit more acts of violence against other black people than police do, it is hypocritical to be upset about police violence.  I saw someone on Facebook arguing that outrage about police treatment of black people is for this very reason "phony."  

Forget that being killed by a cop, who is paid to serve and protect, is entirely different than being killed by a civilian, who is not.  Forget that civilians are not intended to risk incarceration, bodily injury, or death from cops who don't like the way they are sitting in their car or walking down the street.  Forget logic and basic sense, because human beings are apparently ONLY allowed to protest the single greatest threat to their lives, and no other.   By that reasoning, the Black Lives Matter movement should vent all their anger at cardiovascular disease.  

In reality, the problem here isn't black anger; it's white anger.  Here's the low down on Sandra Bland from a blog called ClashDaily:

Let me just say, had Sandra Bland been white and committed suicide inside of a Waller County jail cell, this would have been a non-issue or just a possible blip on our news. But since only black lives matter all Hell has been unleashed on the Hispanic arresting officer, the Waller county Sheriff and his whole department … and God knows every white person in the great state of Texas is also responsible (ellipsis in original) 

Amen. Hear hear.  I hope every white person in the great state of Texas will shortly be charged with the crime of . . . with the crime of . . . oh what does it matter.  I'm sure they were in the street, not complying.

The statement that Black Lives Matter doesn't mean Black Lives Matter More.  It means that Black Lives Matter Just as Much as Anyone Else's, and Everyone Else's.  It means that All Black Lives Matter, Not Just the Lives of Black Heterosexual Men.  That assertion is not anything like a cry for superiority, or special rights, or any of that nonsense.  It's a statement about the value of black life in a society that lessens, diminishes, and denies that value, with deadly costs.  In 2014, researchers trying to understand racial disparities in death penalty sentencing showed participants pictures of black faces and white faces, along with sets of value words, meaning words that cast someone in a positive or negative light.  What they found was that "participants consistently were faster to associate Black with lack of worth and White with worth."  And it sure is easier to sentence someone to die when that person doesn't really matter anyway.  Sorry assed, criminal, hoodlum, n*****.

When white folks have interactions with police that aren't above board, they get upset about it.  When white people's rights are trampled on, white people holler.  If white people found out that juries were more likely to sentence white criminals to death, white people would scream to the heavens.  And why shouldn't they? 

Why shouldn't anyone?

On its face, and divorced from its context, All Lives Matter seems like a harmless enough thing to say, but in context - and we are pretty much bursting with context, here - All Lives Matter is not only a demand for silence, but a scolding for speaking out in the first place.

Black Lives Matter.  No one should ever suggest otherwise.