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Great video, bad comments section automatically confirming the necessity of said video.
Another grand video –
Racism is not going away. Discrimination is not going away. Ignoring this problem does not make it better. If you see racism in your friends or family, call them on it if it is safe to do so, the change must start with you.
Two very interesting articles about police conduct came out this week, particularly interesting if you juxtapose them.
Ferguson and the cult of compliance
In cases that seem very different, separated by factors such as age, race, gender, sexuality, geography, class and ability, police explain away their actions by citing noncompliance. They do it because it works. They do it because according to their beliefs, any sign of noncompliance is an invitation to strike.
First, we have to recognize the common denominators in many of these incidents: that people who die at the hands of the police don’t obey commands and that the police initiate violence, despite there being no imminent threat to their safety.
Brown’s story is now well known. According to an eyewitness, a police officer told Brown, an 18-year-old black man, to “get the f— onto the sidewalk.” He didn’t comply, the incident escalated, and he got shot repeatedly.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar examples in which noncompliance led to violence. Ersula Ore, a black woman in Arizona refused to hand over her ID and was flung to the ground. A drunk woman in Skokie, Illinois, didn’t look into the camera when being booked, so the police threw her onto a bench, breaking her face. They claimed she was resisting arrest.
Some victims — Eric Garner, James Boyd and Nicholas Davis, to name just a few — die. Others, such as Antonio Martinez, just get beaten. Every time, the police explain their conduct by citing noncompliance. Cameras can provide a counternarrative to police tales of noncompliance, showing that Garner was peaceful and that Ore was a professor on her own campus.
But here’s the worst thing: Most of the victims of this cult of compliance are invisible. They receive no media coverage. Their stories get buried in plea deals. They are told that fighting bogus charges will just make matters worse. When police violence targets people who have suffered it for so long, it takes something unusual to bring it to light.
And then, written by a senior police officer involved in training other officers:
I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.
…officers are rarely at fault. When they use force, they are defending their, or the public’s, safety.
Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.
And the flipside of the cult of compliance: On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodgers killed six people and wounded thirteen others before taking his own life. It all could have been stopped on April 30, when police responded to concerns from Rodgers’ family about his social media posts. Rodgers was polite and compliant, telling the officers “it was a misunderstanding and that he was not going to hurt anyone or himself. Rodger said he was having troubles with his social life.” The officers determined he did not present a threat, called his mother to reassure her, and left.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this… On the one hand, it’s super-hard being a cop, I won’t deny that. Any mistake you make, whether it’s reacting too much or too little, can get people killed. On the other, clearly whether or not a person instantly and cheerfully submits, is an utterly piss-poor indication of a person’s threat level. And enforcing the law is not the same thing as demanding instant submission.
I remember as a child, being taught that the police were there to protect me. I lost that belief a long time ago. I wonder how much worse it must be for people who aren’t white and affluent-looking.
Sometimes “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” just isn’t strong enough. In one of my recent youtube sessions I ran quite the emotional gamut. Let’s start on a high note, shall we?
The Fantastic
First we have a long overdue “Hero of the Day”. For quite some time, the youtuber Vihart has been producing superb content that celebrates the wonders and joys of math. Irresistibly fun, endlessly charming, and mind-blowingly wondrous, Vihart’s videos present math in a delightful and accessible manner. I recommend that everyone take the time to watch as much Vihart as they can, especially educators. This is how math class ought to be. How marvellous it would be if more children played with mobius strips and wanted Mexa-hexa-flexa-gons for supper.
In her latest video, Vihart expands on one of her previous videos and makes a 3D audio braid. You’ll need earphones for this one, or surround sound. Watch, be amazed, delight in the sonic wonders of math.
The Wretched and The “Oh F*ck, No”
Whilst riding this emotional high of mathematical elation and renewed hope for future generations that will still care about math because of extraordinary projects like those by Vihart, I came across this next video. I crashed. I burned. I debated on whether ‘future generations’ was an option we really ought to pursue.
The two stories presented in this video are beyond ludicrous. The staggering amount of harmful stupid and horrific wrongness exposed here boggle the mind. It’s like I’ve been slapped in the face, but the stunned shock will not wear off. Just watch.
If humanity has any hope at all, it is with educators like Vihart. People who make curiosity, learning, science, and math fun. People who find their passion and wonder in reality and share it with the rest of us. The more children (and in turn, the public) are inspired to think, to be inquisitive, to actually care what is real, the less idiocy like that in the last video will be a part of our society.
If you haven’t checked out all the Vihart links in the first part of this post, now is probably a good time. It will make you feel better.
Interesting article over at alter.net on the contexts and subtext of the TV show The Walking Dead. I suggest you read it. As I was linking running I came across the comments section of a different article by the same author. The exchange that will be reproduced here is instructive to how the white narrative dominates our culture and how it shapes our lives.
For clarity – Don’t be this guy, ponder what this guy is saying.
“You are trying to find racism around every corner. Complaints that white people confide in black people. Complaints that black people are being written as entirely badass. Complains that blacks are being written as brutes, despite the fact that the show’s first and only real recurring super-brute is a white redneck.
I see what your game is and I reject it every bit as much as I do when Republicans do it. You’re the person seeing Tinkie Winkie as a gay icon and Sesame Street as socialist. Only you’re applying that kind of insinuation into minority politics. […]
I read diaries like yours and I’m always surprised to find out how evil, undermining, controlling, privileged, and world dominating I am just on the basis of my race. News to me. My family lived in an isolated mountain village for most of modern history, to the point of where people of my family’s native country can see I look different from most and guess the approximate area.
The simpler answer is that you just resent poorly written black characters. Fair, but not diary worthy. Guess what? White characters largely suck too. Watch an HBO show and see how long until a white person rapes someone, savagely beats an innocent, or goes all incestuous. TV characters thrive on extremity. Welcome to the club. Unless they’re going all Mammy, chill and stop looking for a reason to be outraged.”
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“Not seeing racism hiding under every surface is not racist. It’s just a rejection of race based politics no matter where it lies.”
That is a classic colorblind racism appeal. It minimizes the obvious that white supremacy and racism still structure outcomes and life chances in this society on a day to day basis and also structurally. How does it do this? By putting the responsibility on poc to “prove” to the satisfaction of Whites that racism is “real.” Hell of a trap, no? Proving to someone that a system they are invested in is real to their satisfaction?
“Race based politics” is also another nice rhetorical move in terms of post civil rights era racism. It falsely makes equivalent the justice claims of people of color regarding racism, with white people’s denials of racism and/or silly claims or “reverse racism” and “white victimhood.”
I can engage in any number and/or types of conversations on this matter. But, I call out racist foolishness, such as what you offered, when necessary.”
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–That is a classic colorblind racism appeal.–
Being colorblind is the goal, not racist. You’re reading racism into a shlocky television show. Nevermind kids being shot in the street. It’s the same thing as accusing Tinkie Winkie of being gay and Sesame of being socialist. You haven’t proven your point again. You’re just using the same circular reasoning fallacy.
[…]
All racism is equivalent. All bigotry is equivalent. Your misery doesn’t trump anyone’s on the basis of skin.
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–Being colorblind is the goal, not racist.–
Colorblindness is not the goal. An appreciation for human difference in all of its forms, and as part of our full personhood is the goal. Noticing racial differences is not the problem; it is the value that is placed on such judgments that is the problem. Conservative colorblindness is integral to post civil rights era racism. The racial identity of people of color is not a problem to be overlooked or ignored, a la the white privilege classic phrase, “you are my fried, I don’t see your color.”
–All racism is equivalent.–
More fictions. Racism is a relatively new invention. Racism is about color and or other social markers, i.e. what happens to Jews and others during WW2 as marginalized, exploited, and made subject to exclusion by Power and the Racial State.
In this society at this time racism is the social ill of white people. Only white people can be racist in this society because they have the most institutional, social, political, economic, and cultural power. Race is a fiction; it is also real. Other people can be bigoted and prejudiced. White people have the unique ability to be racist. Remember prejudice plus power equals racism.
The exchange goes on for bit, as Dude You Do Not Want To Be digs deeper and doubles down on his ignorance. This, unfortunately, is typical conversation featuring someone who lives comfortably within the dominant paradigm and someone who experiences the oppression firsthand each and everyday. Full marks for chaunceydevega for his explicative prowess.
I keep telling myself, “Arbourist, you need to post more stuff you write as opposed to other things gleaned from the net”. The problem is that the net has a lot of awesome on it that does it better than I. Consider Sociological Images. They present a concept, concisely explain said concept and then reinforce the learning with a spot-on video. SI, you do are doing it right. From SI:
“Microaggressions are “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative… slights and insults” (source). These are often subtle. So the recipient feels badly, but it can be difficult to explain exactly why, especially to someone who isn’t sympathetic to issues of bias. The Microaggressions Project has hundreds, maybe thousands, of examples.
In this video, Franchesca Leigh poses as a “White girl” and says many of the things that she and other “Black girls” hear routinely. To Leigh, these are microaggressions. They variously trivialize and show insensitivity towards race and racism, remind the listener that she is considered different and strange, homogenize and stereotype Black people, and more…
Watch what happens when you mix broken foreign policy with religion…
“One of Pakistan’s most influential clerics has renounced his support for polio immunisation, claiming that the programme is a cover for American spies.”
Pakistan needs less of this particular brand of religious stupidity. The stupid is compounded by the bullshite American cloak and dagger games being played in Pakistan.
“But now he says he cannot back the policy after it emerged that the CIA had used a fake hepatitis drive to hunt for Osama bin Laden last year.
Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who organised the vaccination campaign, has been sentenced to 33 years in prison and his actions caused a wave of paranoia about foreign aid workers.”
Thank you America your botched war is screwing up yet another county in your drive to be the imperial power of this century as well. Newsflash – China isn’t going to let you; get over yourself and stop killing brown people for not agreeing to be vassals.
“Pakistan is one of three countries where the disease remains endemic. Only 22 cases have been reported this year – compared with 59 in the same period in 2011 – and hopes were high that it could soon be declared polio free.
However, hard-line clerics have long opposed what they suspect is a Western conspiracy against Muslims. As a result health workers carefully cultivated moderate leaders, who issued fatwas – or religious rulings – declaring vaccination to be in line with Islamic teaching.”
There is just so much wrong going on here. Vaccinations to eradicate polio are a fundamentally good idea. This fundamentally good idea is trumped though when Western spy agencies use them to further their foreign policy goals. Then you get backlash like this:
But Haq said that it made no sense for foreign agencies to keep children free from disease while bombing Pakistan.
“If you people are that much curious about the health of people living over there, it means that you are keeping these people alive just to kill them by drones,” he said.
The sad fatalism of marginalized people. Wrong, but understandable given the circumstances. Never forget that we are categorically *not* the good guys for much of the world. If we’d taken the time and effort simply not to perpetuate misery and destruction on poor coloured folk we might actually have some respect in the world.
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