Cultural/racial insensitivity

I have blogged about Lewiston/Auburn on several occasions. Lewiston has special significance to me. I am Franco-American on my mother’s side. Her mother and father, my Memere and Pepere (which is Acadian for grandmother and grandfather), immigrated to Lewiston from Quebec, in the 1930s.

Beginning in the 1870s, when railroad connections to Canada were completed, French-Canadian immigrants came in droves, to work in the textile mills that lined the banks of the Androscoggin River. The textile industry provided the economic backbone of the city and the foundation that gave this area its rich Franco-American heritage. By the 1950s, textile production began moving south, following cheaper labor costs. Still, shoes and manufacturing provided an adequate economic base for the area.

By the 1970s, the economic bottom had fallen out and this once proud city began a 30 year downward spiral. Recently, the area begun to recover from the loss of wages attributed to textiles, shoes and manufacturing.

In 2003, Lewiston was thrust onto the international stage when Matthew Hale brought his gospel of racial hatred to the city, seizing upon a letter that the mayor at the time, Larry Raymond wrote, urging Somalis (who had been immigrating first, to Portland and then, to Lewiston, since 2000) to stop their migration to his city.

Since then, racial incidents have flared and then died down. Back in July 2006, Brent Matthews, a local thug, rolled a pig’s head down the aisle at a local mosque, on Lisbon Street. While the nearly 3,000 refugees and immigrants from Somalia, the Sudan and other countries on the African continent have begun assimilating and are clearly an important element in this city of 36,000, tensions remain.

Once again, an incident involving Somalis and cultural insensitivity has caused concern from some and cries of “PC” from others. Last Wednesday (April 11), a student at Lewiston Middle School placed a ham steak in a bag on a lunch table where Somali students were eating. Muslims consider pork unclean and offensive. For many of the students, this was reminiscent of the pig's head incident back in July. While it has drawn a great deal of criticism, especially from the racially intolerant and certain kinds of right-wing bloggers, it is being investigated as a possible hate crime by local police and it has involved the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence is working with the school to create a response plan.

According to Stephen Wessler, executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, the incident is “extraordinarily hurtful and degrading" to Muslims, whose religion prohibits them from being around ham pork. It's important to respond swiftly, Wessler said.Wessler is concerned about this excalating into something bigger and possibly violent.

“Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. I know that conduct is never static," he said. "It's part of a process of escalation.”

Like Wessler, I'm concerned.

If you have the opportunity, read some of the comments accompanying this article online, at the Lewiston Sun Journal site. I found them fairly instructive into how some in the community view members of the refugee and immigrant communities. In my opinion, there is an implied ugliness residing just below the surface with many of these.

Spending much of my time in Lewiston, in my current position, as well as getting involved in some community-based organizations has given me an opportunity to experience the city in a way that I haven’t for many years.

I’m encouraged by some of the things that I see, but I’m also concerned when youngsters (aged 13 and 14), who in my opinion, are merely modeling the behavior of adults in their lives, think its ok to insult someone in a very symbolic way, by placing pork on their table.

Unlike many posting comments, I don’t view these new residents in a negative light. I find them warm, accommodating and willing to adapt to our customs as often as they can. I’ve come to appreciate many of their customs and am trying to learn to be as culturally sensitive to them, as I’ve found them to be towards me. I also respect their right to practice their religion and its customs and dietary laws. To me, this is the model of give and take that makes for a healthy community.

Processing tragedy

For the next few weeks, we’ll hear about the Virginia Tech shootings. The professional news readers, sitting in their seats of importance, less for their journalistic credentials than for their ability to sell units of consumer items, will determine the arc of this story. They’ll question the school officials, the police, the parents and anyone else that they can possibly impugn for a crime that has no real explanation. Is it possible to rationally come to terms with an irrational act?

We’ll read about the details, about the killer and how his life, actions, words, screamed “warning,” “warning,” “warning!!” Interestingly, for all those supposed signs of trouble, no one saw fit to intervene—that’s just not something we do.

On the day when lives came to a standstill for the families with college students enrolled at the school, media sycophants began swarming the Blacksburg, Virginia campus, like hound dogs after a scent, interviewing students still reeling from the shock of staring down the barrel of a 9mm handgun. Trying to make sense of it all, these young adults became painfully aware that this something more than a video game, or an exercise in virtual reality.

Like Columbine, some eight years earlier, almost to the day, mayhem was visited like some Old Testament act of vengeance upon a school campus. No longer a refuge where youth retreated to experience the life of the mind, the cracks in American higher learning were fractured by the “pop, pop, pop” of semi-automatic gunfire.

Since I dropped a biblical reference above, what gives at NPR, yesterday morning? Why did this supposed bastion of “hard news” and journalistic integrity have to resort to the faith-based angle of this story, involving an evangelical youth pastor, Matt Rogers. I realize that the majority of Americans self-identify as religious, but how often will people go to the well of faith, only to have their faith shat upon by a supposed loving God? Since the topic of mental illness and insanity are being discussed in terms of motive, why not talk about the insanity of trying to paper over this tragedy with an empty veneer of faith, at least the superficial kind of faith featured by NPR?

It’s difficult to process any event in our current media-saturated culture. As hard as we try to step outside the vortex of the 24/7 news cycle, it keeps pulling us back towards its core, shredding any attempts at objectivity and reaching our own conclusions. Americans feel most comfortable running in packs and we’ll seek our own comfort group on this event, like any other.

Cataclysmic events require some element of context. In trying to frame the killings of young people who had futures brimming with hope to look forward to, we’ll be bombarded with multiple rationales and none will bring any sense of satisfaction or modicum of comfort.

Like most issues involving loss of life, sides will get chosen and the polarization will begin. One side will demand that we take guns out of the hands of killers and the other will posture that we need more guns to protect us from cold-blooded killers that maim and murder. The Rambo choir will puff out their macho chests and insist that if they were there, they’d have shot the killer before he had a chance to squeeze off his first shot.

The sad premise of this position, in my way of thinking at least, is holding to this line of thought that we need guns to protect ourselves, invalidates the notion that we have still an implied social contract and that we can live our lives, not bother anyone and live to see another day, not being concerned with being shot up by some crazy, with easy access to a lethal weapon.

Familiarity with Neil Postman’s critiques of media and communication, at least helps me understand my own morning news experience today, at 5:30 am. While having my first cup of coffee of the morning, the CNN/American Morning team of John Roberts and Kiran Chetry were seen on location, with a set that somehow reminded me of the sets that ESPN and Fox use for Sunday afternoon football.

These two meticulously groomed, good-looking and well put together news hosts were blathering on about motives, the killer’s background, the way that the Virginia Tech campus had come together during a spectacular candlelight vigil, replete with chants of “Hokie, Hokie.” Then, we were treated to a cutaway, which Postman, in his inimitable way, would have been wowed by. As he wrote about in Amusing Ourselves to Death (I’m paraphrasing), …news items are stripped from local context, commodified, and given to the viewer in bit-sized chunks, separated by the "now.... this!" phenomenon, which serves to make the viewer dismiss it all as meaningless candy he or she can do nothing about. The "now... this!" phenomenon can be tried on any news broadcast. Tonight, for example, and update on the Iraq will be followed by ("now.... this!") Britney Spears' (or insert any vapid cultural reference here) latest escapades. Postman indicated that this serves to reduce it all to meaningless trivia.

This morning’s cutaway was of a 50-ish boomer, washing his classic automobile, while his wife sashays provocatively by, with her bedroom eyes and the poor sap is faced with the choice of finishing rinsing the soap of his expensive piece of machinery (with all its own psychological ramifications and what it says about his virility) and going upstairs for a roll in the hay with his well-preserved wife. Well, of course, he positions the sprinkler to rinse away the soap, while he is seen going through the door and then the camera shows the shot of the upstairs window, with the shades being pulled and the final camera shot of the water hitting the side of his Stingray, with the white soap dripping off the gleaming metal—what was the product? Of course: Viagra! Guns, carnage and hours of ample erections—good Lord!

There are certainly discussions that events like this one at Virginia Tech ought to promote. Unfortunately, meaningful dialogue will instead be superseded by psychobabble, politicos seeking to score points and garner support for their latest run for office.

I hope the administration and the community at large in Blacksburg have some real leaders. They’ll need some to get through the tragedy and maybe even more difficult in the short run, the damage that will be done by the media feeding frenzy that is now the norm when tragedies like this occur.

The enemy is not Don Imus

Don Imus apparently crossed the Rubicon, regarding matters of what’s tolerable, or not, on syndicated radio. Last Wednesday, Imus referred to members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy headed hos,” sparking a fire of outrage that led to his firing, on Thursday.

Imus has made a career of making remarks about blacks, women, fat people and others that various groups have deemed offensive. The fact of his firing wasn’t particularly surprising, given the nature of today’s media environment, where today’s star can easily become persona non grata on the basis of an ill-informed and “insensitive” remark.

It’s not surprising that two of the people yelling the loudest for Imus’ removal were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the apparent spokesmen for all black Americans. Both of these men have made careers of cherry-picking causes to champion, flashing the race card whenever the possibility of face time in front of the camera became available.

Since I’m not black, I won’t try to speak about issues pertinent to black people. I will, however, highlight black spokespeople that I think have something relevant to say on the matter. One such person is Jason Whitlock, a sportswriter from Kansas City, who I think has the ability to cut through the smoke regularly, writing about sports, but on occasion, he also has something to say about society in a much larger context than the narrow parameters of his sports beat.

Whitlock points out the hypocrisy of equal-opportunity race pandering. While I’ve never been a fan of the I-man and his posse of tired, middle-aged cranks that made up his morning drive team, I also recognize that he’s not the only person who has ever uttered an untoward remark about women, blacks, or any other member of America’s protected classes. Interestingly, white men, poor whites from the south, or divorced fathers desiring custody of their children don’t seem to fall under that umbrella.

As Whitlock deftly delineates, black comedians, like Dave Chappelle, routinely use racially insensitive material, all in the service of humor, yet he’s rewarded with $50 million (from Comedy Central) for his schtick. Apparently, it all depends on who’s doing the routine, whether it gets deemed racist, or not.

Whitlock writes,

“I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer (the Rutgers coach) rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hour long press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.”

I agree with Whitlock’s points about where the real enemies of black people are; they certainly don’t reside on the air with Don Imus.

In keeping with the spirit of Whitock’s commentary, I’d go even further and say, as I have at other times that the real issue in America is less about race and much more about class. The Imus episode is just another case of media white noise, getting us to take our eyes of the real enemies of everyday Americans.

For those who hold the power in America, they’d much rather we focused on Don Imus and his poorly chosen remarks about a women’s college basketball team, than the issues of economic injustice and the widening gap in our country between the obscenely rich and the rest of us. As long as our attention is diverted from those things that are truly dangerous, those making the important decisions can keep on keeping on, while the rest of us find it exceedingly difficult to garner attention for issues that matter.

Kurt Vonnegut passes on

Vonnegut, dead at 84

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.

"But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.

Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.

His mother had succeeded in killing herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people in the city."The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

The novel, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.

"He was sort of like nobody else," said Gore Vidal, who noted that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers around who served in World War II."He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn't go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style. Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made sort of the official American prose, and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull.

"Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a "fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker," and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.

When he returned, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.

Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in 1963, in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.

Many of his novels were best-sellers. Some also were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.

His characters tended to be miserable anti-heroes with little control over their fate. Pilgrim was an ungainly, lonely goof. The hero of "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" was a sniveling, obese volunteer fireman.Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet."

We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard ... and too damn cheap," he once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.

He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.

He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.

"Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Ann Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, the noted photographer Jill Krementz.

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005."My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children.

[Associated Press writers Michael Warren, Hillel Italie and Chelsea Carter contributed to this report.]

(Maine) Roads and bridges redux

[Here are a couple of accompanying pieces of information, which ties into yesterday’s post regarding the need in Maine (as well as other rural areas of the U.S.) to address aging infrastructure, which includes roads and bridges. Not as “sexy” as say talking about the Red Sox (if crotch-grabbing and spitting is your idea of sexy), or the latest 15-minute celebrity poseur, but important, nonetheless, IMHO.]

From today’s Daily Mainebiz. (If you’re not getting this email, you’re missing a convenient way to get daily updates about Maine business, tourism and other related information.)

DOT unveils $10B plan
The Maine Department of Transportation yesterday unveiled a $10.6 billion, 20-year draft plan to address the state’s transportation infrastructure needs.

The plan addresses improvements for roads, bridges, rails, ports and air service in Maine, but allocates most of its funds to maintenance, improvements and modernization of the state’s highway and secondary highway system, according to the Bangor Daily News. The plan also includes $2 billion to replace bridges in the state, which DOT officials said need to be replaced at a rate of 32 per year.

The plan, however, still outlines a $4 billion shortfall in necessary funds over the next 20 years if revenue sources remain the same, the paper said.

Then, in this month’s Working Waterfront, essential reading for anyone wanting to know about coastal issues in Maine, comes Sandra Dinsmore’s article about the new Waldo-Hancock Bridge, including funding issues and the eminent domain controversy involving the Dyers and the Sail Inn Restaurant.

Oh, and don't forget to check out Colin Woodard's Parallel 44 column; Colin is a helluva' writer, author of The Lobster Coast, a must read for anyone who wants to understand life here in the northern reaches of New England.