Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Parallel Time
Was actually a pretty awesome play. I just saw it with Hebrew translation. So glad I did. The play really made me think about the brutality of certain regimes, and prisoners in general.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
The Wisdom the Klu Klux Klansmen
Sometimes, even people you hate say something remarkably true. I was recently watching a video of some white nationalists in the USA. Some sort of amalgamation of klansmen and neo-nazis that listen to metal rock music with fascist lyrics. They argued that while they seem fringe, lots of people agree with them. Well on that, I couldn't agree more. The young facists nailed it: lots of people are racists.
America is at a moment where it will have to face reality. We are a country that elected Obama; but we are also a country where whites in Louisiana voted for an avowed Klansmen by a sizeable majority less than two decades before.
As I sat in a government office in Israel, a news banner ran on the bottom of the screen. It mentioned burnings of black churches. It took over a day for major US newspapers to run headlines on the issue. What was really sad was to see news outlets like FOX news try to twist the recent church burnings into some biblical religious nonsense i.e. the people are persecuting Christians...when everyone knows exactly what is going on, because the same thing has been going on for about 500 years. When Juan Ponce de Leon hit what is now Florida it took only a few years for a slave society to follow and take root. In 1522 the first massive slave revolt in the new hemisphere took place, and the man has been trying to keep us down while living in constant fear of revolting blacks ever since. Liberal Massachusets was the first colony (later to be a state) to officialize and legalize slavery...which only illustrates a point entirely lost on so many people: that the only "North" and "South" that truly deeply matters in terms of racism is being south of Canada and north of Mexico.
Racism is many troubling things. The worst side of racism is how it shortens lives. How average lifespans for persecuted groups inevitably average lower due to everything from state sponsored killing to medical neglect. But racism is also a media that fails to bring insight into domestic terrorism. That fails to state the obvious about burning black churches. That can't connect the dots for younger generations unaware of the connection between black churches and civil rights. Racism is also a media that has decided our stories do not matter.
America is at a moment where it will have to face reality. We are a country that elected Obama; but we are also a country where whites in Louisiana voted for an avowed Klansmen by a sizeable majority less than two decades before.
As I sat in a government office in Israel, a news banner ran on the bottom of the screen. It mentioned burnings of black churches. It took over a day for major US newspapers to run headlines on the issue. What was really sad was to see news outlets like FOX news try to twist the recent church burnings into some biblical religious nonsense i.e. the people are persecuting Christians...when everyone knows exactly what is going on, because the same thing has been going on for about 500 years. When Juan Ponce de Leon hit what is now Florida it took only a few years for a slave society to follow and take root. In 1522 the first massive slave revolt in the new hemisphere took place, and the man has been trying to keep us down while living in constant fear of revolting blacks ever since. Liberal Massachusets was the first colony (later to be a state) to officialize and legalize slavery...which only illustrates a point entirely lost on so many people: that the only "North" and "South" that truly deeply matters in terms of racism is being south of Canada and north of Mexico.
Racism is many troubling things. The worst side of racism is how it shortens lives. How average lifespans for persecuted groups inevitably average lower due to everything from state sponsored killing to medical neglect. But racism is also a media that fails to bring insight into domestic terrorism. That fails to state the obvious about burning black churches. That can't connect the dots for younger generations unaware of the connection between black churches and civil rights. Racism is also a media that has decided our stories do not matter.
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