I am a white man, stumbling...

Below are Eric Garner's final words, before his life was snuffed out by a New York City cop.  It reads like a dark unwritten sequel to Langston Hughes' "I, Too, Sing America" --the sequel that ends not with ashamed whites welcoming him to the table, but rather with him kicking the table over, and understanding that white supremacy is beyond shame.

"Get away [garbled] for what? Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today. Why would you...? Everyone standing here will tell you I didn't do nothing. I did not sell nothing. Because everytime you see me, you want to harass me. You want to stop me [garbled] Selling cigarettes. I'm minding my business, officer, I'm minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone. please please, don't touch me. Do not touch me. [garbled] I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe."

I am a white man. All my adult life I have tried, in my own stumbling way -- and with all of my limitations -- to be a race traitor. 

What do I mean by that? 

I don't mean trying to be 'color blind,' which really amounts to nothing more than complicity with oppression. White man, don't tell me you 'don't see race.' What the hell are you looking at? 

And by 'race traitor' I don't mean trying to get right with God by cleansing my mind and soul of bias. What good is it to have one's conscience clean, and one's hands dirty? What good is it to walk away from Omelas? What does that change? 

No. 

To be a traitor is not to walk away from something you reject. 

To be a traitor is to walk right up to what you reject, and kick it over. Treason to whiteness, as Noel Ignatiev once wrote, is loyalty to humanity. And treason, by definition, is a political act.

NONE of us will breathe, until white Americans collectively recognize the devastating power that racial subordination has over daily life in this country, and how implicated we are in it. We'd best dis-enthrall ourselves, and quickly. 

As sickened as I've been by the reactions of so many whites to recent events, I have been truly inspired by the willingness of so many people to get out in the streets. I'm trying to hold on to the belief that the moral arc of the universe does in fact bend toward justice. But holy shit is that arc long, and I fear I lack the vision to see over the far horizon.

East Siders, Write In Marcus Mitchell for City Council in Ward 3

Voters in Providence’s 3^rd ward here on the East Side have the chance to make history on Tuesday, by writing in Marcus Mitchell for City Council in his race against Kevin Jackson.  I believe we should take it.  In conjunction with the election of Jorge Elorza as mayor, it's a vital step toward making our city government more responsive, honest, open, and representative of our increasingly diverse, young and creative population.

I have lived here for a decade.  My wife and I are raising our children here, and we long ago fell in love with the youthful, creative, and quirky exuberance of Providence.  We’ve made our home here.  We want our kids to see its politics and government as something that is noble and important, worthy of their time, consideration and respect.  I am an American History professor, and I write and teach about cities, politics, and social movements.  One of the things I’ve learned over the years, and that I constantly try to impress upon my students, is that history teaches us how truly ephemeral – and recent – societies governed by democratic institutions and the rule of law truly are.  This country has really only been a functioning democracy for just over 3 decades, and that accomplishment is under constant threat even now.  Most people throughout human history have lived in societies where the power to make the rules – the laws -- was determined by birth, by wealth, by ‘connections,’ and by violence.  Most people today still do.  It is often said that we get the government we deserve.  Providence – and my children – deserve a municipal government filled with citizens who understand that the power we give them is a sacred trust, which they exercise with us, not over us, or for their own direct benefit.

We have some important choices to make in Providence this year, I’ve recently realized.  It wasn’t just Buddy Cianci’s campaign for mayor, and his long (and ongoing) proclivity for treating democratic laws and processes with disrespect, that woke me up to this.  It was Kevin Jackson’s participation in his campaign that got me.  I honor and appreciate Jackson’s service to the neighborhood.  I agree with him on many policy issues.  And like Tom Waits, I like my town with a "little drop of poison."  But this is too much.  His behavior tells me that he's become a bit too comfortable in his seat.  As historian Robert Caro once said of NYC highway maven Robert Moses, he originally sought power because of the things it would enable him to do; later, he did things because of the power it would bring him. 

Surely the people of Summit/Mt. Hope don’t need to settle for this.  We can’t.  We will be failing our children if we do.  Even if we think that Jackson is often ‘right’ on policy issues, or that Cianci is ‘effective,’ the cost is simply too high.  Mussolini, they say, used to make the trains run on time.  There are lots of people right in our own neighborhood who could serve on the City Council and make those trains run on time -- but who could also do good while doing well.  We don’t have to settle for a mess of pottage, when something more nourishing is within our grasp.

We need to elect someone who fights the good fight while using power in a responsible way.  We're about to send Aaron Regunberg to the State House, for example.  I believe Marcus Mitchell is also one of these people.  

While I can't claim to 'know' Marcus, I have talked with him quite a bit over the past few weeks.  We share some personal experiences, having to do with family and health, and I know he has answered the call to run at considerable personal sacrifice.  

I have found Marcus to be a decent, thoughtful person, a good listener, with an empathetic sensibility that aims toward inclusion, civility, and moderation.  I believe his commitment to the public good is genuine and deeply-felt, and that he would seek to build on the movement that puts him into office, rather than abandoning it once safely on the Council.  While he is an idealist, he isn’t a naive one.  I know where he came from in Philly, and I doubt anything he has seen or will see here will throw him. His Quaker sensibilities seem to infuse his approach to politics, and we certainly could use a councilman who listens, and believes all voices deserve a measure of respect.  I think he has the desire and the ability to bridge differences of race and class in our neighborhood.  People I respect feel strongly about his candidacy.  That goes a long way with me.  Your friends and allies say a lot about you.

 

Marcus has a vision of the role our councilperson should play in the community:  to knit together the racial and class divisions of Ward 3, find common ground, and make of our diverse neighborhood a model for the city.  We can do that.  But only we can do that.

We have not just a chance to make history on Tuesday – we have an opportunity, even a responsibility, to do so.  I will proudly write in Marcus Mitchell, and connect the two arrows.  You should too.

Are teaching American history and teaching patriotism the same thing?

The recent controversy about how American history should be taught in public schools (in Colorado and elsewhere) has me thinking a lot about patriotism, and what it would mean to teach it -- and why so many Americans seem to think that teaching a fuller version of our national history somehow diminishes it (and us). 

I assigned a thought provoking essay by George Kateb in my Just War Theory class this semester, "Is Patriotism a Mistake," and that's pushed me a bit too.  Kateb argues that patriotism, in its essence, is an attack on the Enlightenment.  One's country is an abstraction, not a principle; morally speaking, there is 'no there there.'  A moral principle is by definition universal, while patriotism decidedly is not.  Patriotism makes self-love and self-concern into an ideal - and the inevitable result, Kateb concludes, is self-preference.  And violence.

As an American history professor, I'm having difficulty figuring out how one 'teaches patriotism,' and indeed whether one should consciously seek to do so at all.  

If we assume that patriotism is defined as love of country -- as opposed to nationalism or jingoism, which includes an assertion that our country is somehow 'better' or 'superior' to others -- then I fail to see how teaching an American history drained of conflict, ambiguity, and wrongful deeds encourages students to love their country, any more than loving our spouse requires us to willfully ignore their flaws and mistakes. 

I have been teaching and writing about the history of race, inequality, war and politics for two decades now, and my patriotism remains undiminished, though it is tempered and imperfect, like all love is; how is one to value and respect the lightest parts of us -- the 'better angels of our nature' -- without understanding the dark ones too? 

More to the point, how are we supposed to understand some of the trials and tribulations of other members of our American community in the present (patriotism requires us to love them too, yes?) without opening our eyes to ALL of our history?  If America is a country worth loving, we have nothing to fear from the truth. And if America is NOT a country worth loving, surely patriotism is indeed a mistake.  It is something to be valued as long as valuing it remains consistent with justice; when these two paths diverge, the principled person must plant their seeds in deeper soil.  The task for all of us, of course, is to make our collective enterprise worthy of love. To me, that's patriotism. A relationship is a process, not a golden idol requiring genuflection.

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock...

Something uplifting, to share with you on this lovely Mother's Day morning.

Early in 1973, the 74 year-old writer E.B. White received a letter from a man who had lost faith in humanity.

White -- the author of Charlotte's Web as well as the widely-used Elements of Style -- generously took the time to dash off a short but heartfelt note:

Dear Mr. Nadeau:

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Sincerely, 
E. B. White
March 30th, 1973

The mass incarceration state, and American barbarity

Yesterday, the National Research Council published a massive 464-page report that looks at the extraordinary four-decade rise of incarceration in the United States and concludes that all of its costs — for families, communities, state budgets and society — have simply not been worth the benefit in deterrence and crime reduction.  The report, which was commissioned by the MacArthur Foundation and the National Institute of Justice, is a devastating confirmation of the ground-breaking work of Heather Ann Thompson, Michelle Alexander, Bruce Western and others on the American mass incarceration state -- what Alexander has called 'the New Jim Crow.'  Emily Badger has a good summary of it in today's Washington Post.

1 out of every 100 American adults is now in prison or jail -- the highest in the world, and 5 to 10 times higher than other Western democracies.  Nearly 1/4 of the world's prison population is in the United States.  But this actually undercounts how many of our citizens are caught up in this system, because it doesn't include people on probation or parole:

One must keep in mind that most of those nearly 8 million people are young, black or Latino, and swept up into the criminal justice system because of small-scale drug possession crimes and racially-targeted policing.  The consequences, for these individuals and their families and communities, are devastating:  they lose access to public housing, student loans, Food Stamps, and -- in far too many states -- the right to vote and serve on a jury.  They also generally lose access to employment.  

If a nation's government budgets tell us something about what that country values, what Americans now care about is abundantly clear:  militarism abroad, and incarceration at home.  State spending on corrections has increased 400% since 1980, with state prison populations growing by 475%.  This has taken place during a time of declining crime rates -- and there is no evidence that mass incarceration has contributed in any way to that decline.  There is plenty of evidence of its devastating impact on families, communities, and public priorities.  The vast majority of these arrests have been for small-time drug violations, particularly for people of color, even though their use of illegal drugs is no greater than that of whites.  

Stunningly, in many states the criminal justice system has become the primary provider of health care, substance abuse treatment, mental health services, job training and education for low-income adults.  If you've ever wondered where all the funding for public higher education has gone, the answer is clear:  the mass incarceration state.  This is just as true in blue states like Massachusetts, as it is in red states in the South and West.  

Much of the barbarity of American life in recent decades has been revealed in the past 10 days, in all of its ugliness -- the mass incarceration state, the death penalty, and the willful racial ignorance of those who interpret our laws. My country tortures (its own people, as well as others), condemns millions of children to lives of poverty and ill-health, and maintains a racial caste system with the taser, the gavel, the syringe, and the morally abhorrent myth of its own color-blindness. It also auctions off its political system to the highest bidder.  As I get older, I'm finding it harder and harder to even understand, let alone feel, patriotism.

Obama's 'My Brother's Keeper' initiative, and the limits of racial uplift

This past Thursday, President Obama announced the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, a partnership between the public and private sectors aimed at bettering outcomes for some of the nation’s most at-risk young men.  I of course appreciate what New York Times columnist Charles Blow (and Obama) are emphasizing here, but the materialist part of me gets frustrated with this approach to things. 

The struggles of young black men ultimately don't come down to the lack of hugs from their fathers, though obviously we all need that. Material conditions can facilitate nurturing relationships, and they can undermine them. When one looks to the material conditions under which so many young African-American men live, one finds things that are attributable largely to poverty, and are thus shared by many poor Latino and white kids too. But one also finds conditions that have been uniquely imposed upon blacks in this country, and one must address those too.

If Obama wants to truly address the underlying issues, he would create universal preschool, change the welfare system to directly attack child poverty, desegregate suburban housing and schools along lines of race and class, pump massive resources into inner-city schools, and radically transform our predatory criminal justice system, which does more to destroy the lives of young black boys and their families than any uplift efforts can possibly counter. 

Of course, I know that if Obama had a pliant Congress he actually would do many of these things, so I don't blame him entirely. But there is a danger to having our first black president approach these issues in this way, by essentially containing the problem to the behaviors of black adults, and the institutions in black communities, thereby absolving from responsibility and reparation those public and private institutions that sustain racial inequality and white privilege. On the subject of racial inequality, when something is proposed with which everyone nods in agreement (as appears to be the case here), that probably means it isn't worth much. Bit cynical of me, I suppose.

I'm sure I'll get back to my usual politics-music-sports snarky blah blah shortly. I'm generally not accustomed to reflecting on my emotions in this setting, but writing seems to help a bit. So please forgive the self-obsessed intrusion.

Our beautiful dog Bogey is gone -- so fast, just a week after his 14th birthday. 

The kids are heartbroken, and Shana and I are just devastated. Those of you who have been through this before know how awful it feels. We know it will get better, but right now we just feel empty and desperately sad.  As I watch the snow cover up the last of Bogey's footprints in the backyard, I'm trying to make sense of all of this.

Grief is a strange, strange thing. When you are middle-aged, it has its own particular strangeness. Yesterday, for the first time in 22 years (my entire adult life, really -- I'm 46), I woke up in my house without a dog to greet me. This of course made me desperately sad. But it also frightened me a bit, and that one I'm still trying to figure out. Obviously some of it is the reminder of my own mortality, and how easily life is extinguished -- like blowing out a candle. But I also think it's this: it reminded me, as an emotional gut-punch, how many little things we -- I -- tend to take for granted each day.

Obviously losing souls that you love is hard, no matter how old you are, and no matter your current circumstance. 

But one of the things that seems to characterize middle age, or at least my experience of it, is the combination of two things: evanescence, and white noise.

Evanescence: many of the people you love in your 40s change quickly, and sometimes even disappear completely.

White noise: daily life sweeps you up in a surround of force that tends to make you overlook or take for granted how so much of what you have is ephemeral, contingent -- the result of fortune, timing, circumstance, and past choices you've unwittingly gotten right.

Right now, at 46, there are so many things in my life that are true, and that may not be in just a few years time. Shana is healthy, brings a hard-won wisdom to all of this that I clearly lack, and seems to think I'm a bit of alright;). My son Micah would rather play with me than with anyone else in the world. My daughter Maya cares about what I think, usually wants my help, and thinks I'm funny. I can call, text or visit both of my parents, and my mother-in-law too. Most of the time, I can trust both my body and my mind to help me rather than hinder me. How many of these things will greet me when I wake in my home 5 years from now? I don't know.

I'm not really seeing all of this through the lens of regret or remorse, at least not primarily. I don't live in the world that way, and I never have. You know those silly erection pill ads, where they say 'this is the age of knowing what you're doing, knowing how to get things done,' etc? That's true, but its also the age where we start to lose people -- and lose track of people. Its a lousy combination. And alas, we have no control over the former. We do have some control over the latter.

So, do I have any wisdom to impart on this? No not really. But when you wake up tomorrow morning, and your dog looks at you -- look back.