Defending "R.I.P. J.D. Salinger"

I've just been part of a Facebook thread which began with my posting "R.I.P. J.D. Salinger." I've been surprised at the tone of the discussion. Some people have questioned the sincerity of posting an "R.I.P." when someone dies. Others have said that Salinger was good only to give white people permission to imagine that they had problems. Others have compared him negatively to John Lennon, pointing out that he wrote his book and disappeared, whereas Lennon went more and more public with his dissent. I don't want to turn this into a major issue, but here's my answer:

Since I did post R.I.P. J.D. Salinger--I can say I was actually sincere in feeling that. Even though Salinger sought utter solitude, somewhere the mind that came to "Catcher" was still working--and maybe in privacy he was still writing. We won't know that for a while. So his passing is sad because something that moved the world forward is no more. Now I've defended my R.I.P.

As to his contribution, I don't think it was just to let white people pretend that they have problems. White people were stuck in a horrible plantation mentality. "Catcher" was part of breaking that loose--and, at least for myself--it was one of many things (Rolling Stones, Hells Angels, Tim Leary and more) that gave me permission to leave Orange County California and join the anti-war movement and civil rights movement. The book didn't do it all by itself, but everyone who's in any way progressive or even a little bit liberated owes a smidgen of gratitude to Mr. Caulfield.

Lennon was true to his message with his life. That is admirable and beautiful and wonderful. He used his celebrity to increase the power of his opinions about justice. But Salinger's dropping out was, in the opinion of many people, his way of saying that the world had to change. I'm not comparing one to the other in terms of effectiveness, but I am saying that there is the obvious and then there is the power of suggestion.

I hope that when I kick the bucket that my list is complete, that somebody writes "R.I.P. Brent" on Facebook (or iFacebook as is may be by then), and that a bunch of people of many different age groups have reason to argue on pages like these about the effectiveness of my life, the worth of my books, and toss my name around in the company of some of my heroes--even if it means that I'm being compared negatively to them. We all measure success differently, but I'd settle for that. So J.D. hasn't done so bad.

Saying "Hmmm" to the Madness

I spend a lot of time shaking my head these days. It isn't something physically wrong. The cause of the shaking is the unbelievably bizarre world that surrounds me.

Case in point. This week we've been bombarded by the news that a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutalla, tried to blow up an airliner that was landing in Detroit. We hear that this young man has been tracked for a long time, that his father met with US authorities (the CIA) to warn them that his son was talking about being a suicide bomber. But as reported on ABC News, all that information was so "vague" that the man wasn't put on the no-fly list. Hmm.

That sounds a little like the "oops" explanation about the fellows who flew the planes into the World Trade Centers. "Gee, we were following them for years, but our information was still a little vague." Of course many security agents had been instructed to end their investigations of those men and their flying lessons. Hmm.

See, I'm skeptical because a friend of mine who wrote a respectful letter to George W. Bush during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq stating that he was opposed to the invasion on both practical and moral grounds--that friend immediately was put on the no-fly list. He didn't threaten, he didn't use inflammatory language, he simply voiced his opposition to killing a few hundred thousand people. That apparently wasn't a "vague" threat to the powers that be. Hmm.

Could it be that national security is a selective process? Could it be that there is a political (for want of a better word) strategy behind all these things? Could it be that when it is convenient for there to be a tragedy which has Americans BEG their government to remove more of their freedoms and liberties and support any number of wars--could it be that then no amount of evidence would be deemed anything but "vague?"

We lived through the horror of 9/11 here in New York City. What I saw from my government was a power grab of horrifying proportions--accompanied by a staggering inhuman attitude to firemen, rescue workers, and average New Yorkers.

That isn't vague to me--it is something so glaringly and blatantly wrong that I'm inclined to believe the worst about the people in power.

As we sacrifice more young Americans to insure that the USA owns the oil pipelines that will run through Afghanistan and that Russia and China won't, I continue to shake my head and wonder why the people who are speaking the truth in this country are called "conspiracy theorists." And with each shake I also wonder why the liars, drunk with their genocidal power, are called the authorities.

If I see you walking down the street shaking your head, I'll be encouraged to know that there is someone else who is inwardly saying "Hmmm" to the madness.

You Must See Iyaba Ibo Mandingo's "Self Portrait"

Last night we went to Casa Frela in Harlem to see Iyaba Ibo Mandingo's one-man show, "Self Portrait." To say that the evening was amazing is to damn with faint praise. The evening is electrifying, educating, provoking, emotionally tender, and at times, shocking. Life, race, art, politics, love, and the meaning of manhood are interwoven in the story of Mandingo's childhood, youth and adulthood.

An award winning poet, Mandingo tells his story through what seems casual encounter, mingled seamlessly with his intense, perceptive verse. All the while he is literally painting a self portrait as he speaks.

As the show opens, Mandingo stands alone in front of the audience looking down, then occasionally making eye contact. It's evident that he is in a situation of shame and humiliation. He acknowledges instructions from an unseen authority, obediently removing his clothes until he is standing before the audience naked, defenseless. And then we realize that he is in prison and is being subjected to a cavity search. That moment of realization -- that moment which is at once intimate and unbearably brutal -- forms a connection between the performer and audience that makes observer and observed inseparable for the next 90 minutes.

From a childhood on the isle of Antigua to his sojourn as a Black man in this country, Mandingo has us see and feel and understand the progress of a mind searching for truth, dignity and freedom. It was once said of the first heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson that he was a "brunette in a blonde nation." Iyaba Ibo Mandingo's journey illuminates that in a way that will be both new and recognizable no matter what your background.

I originally became aware of Iyaba's work while engaged in the fight to get justice for Amadou Diallo, the young African man who was murdered by the New York City police. Mr. Diallo, unarmed, was shot by those police 41 times. As Professor Arthur "Arturo" Pfister said in his introduction to "Self Portrait," if police shoot a man once or twice, that's a shooting, but 41 times is murder. Iyaba's poem "41 Times," included in this show, was what had me realize that he was a major talent.

I could say so much more about the evening--the story about a mystical experience in the South with spirits of the ancestors, the wondrous memories of learning to cook in Grandmother's kitchen, and the journey of spiritual awakening of one man as he learns what it means to respect women and treasure his family--but I am simply going to urge you to find out more for yourself.

You can call (203) 504-4600 for information about future shows. Go to http://iyabart.blogspot.com/ to see Iyaba's paintings and learn more about his poetry.

I'm grateful to Lawrence Rodriguez of Casa Frela Gallery (47 West 199th Street, NYC 10026) for hosting this extraordinary event. You can find out more about exhibitions at the gallery at: http://www.casafrela.com/main.php

Real Civility

With the current discussion of civility, I find myself thinking about what civility really is. There are some who have criticized me and called me uncivil for use of the word "stupid." I have to say that there are times when I feel that "stupid" is the right word. I’ve called people “stupid” for expounding positions that are anti-human. For instance, I thought it was stupid for Bruce Sessions to say that he feared Sotomayer was unqualified to judge because she had “empathy.” A judge without empathy? God help us.

When Plaxico Burress went into a nightclub and shot himself in the leg, I don't feel it's name calling to say that it was "stupid."

I think that the people who wanted to ban Obama's speech encouraging children to stay in school and who called it a "socialist plot"--well, those people could easily fall into the stupid category. A President not allowed to speak? Let's not undermine democracy to that point when we claim that the men in the armed forces are being sent off to die for democracy.

The other night during Obama’s speech when I saw members of the US congress sitting with little hand-made signs taunting the President of the United States I thought of words much stronger than stupid. I won’t even comment on the fella who shouted, apologized, and then un-apologized.

We've become a society of strident comment on one side and tepid discourse on the other. I long for someone in power who will talk straight and not always have built-in deniability. For instance, I was sickened that in Obama's health speech he hinted at his willingness to forget a public option rather than sticking with his earlier assertions that a public health option had to be part of any bill he would sign.

At the same time, I long for an end to the noise from people who just want to stir up hate for the sake of self-promotion, media ratings, and money.

I have friends—some of whom have corresponded with me recently--whose civility I appreciate. They are able to see what is going on and somehow never raise their voices or get outwardly furious at people who are a constant impediment to human progress. But I don't have the same thermometer. So bear with me when I rant against people who will do anything but admit that when a person is born, he/she deserves guaranteed health care, food, housing, clothing, and at least an even playing field for progressing beyond the crib. I will enjoy my life more when there aren't people who are sick from preventable diseases, when there aren't people enduring painfully infected teeth, when there aren't people living with correctable physical deformities, and when there's aren't people dying just because they lack health insurance.

While I'm at it, I'll also enjoy life more when there aren't people who are homeless, hungry, or ill-clothed. And I won't mind if it raises my taxes. After all, I've been forced to pay taxes all my life to finance the carnage of wars to which I've been absolutely apposed. So some taxes for the good of others, my pleasure.

To work to prevent people from having basic rights is the height of incivility. So back to my beginning point, I believe that true civility is doing whatever one can to improve absolute human rights, and providing every person (even illegal immigrants) what they need to live with dignity.

I think most humans actually share those values. I also think there are many people in Washington (and on Wall Street and in the pharmaceutical and insurance businesses) who do not--and who would be happy to attend funerals rather than see their portfolios decline. Maybe I should quit calling that stupid and just say it’s evil.

Wouldn't that be civil?

What I Think Health Care Reform Must Look Like

I've been following the news about the Obama health care reform matter and have read endless discussions on the Internet. I'm beginning to feel it's all becoming a tempest in a teapot because the main points have been lost--and can NEVER be found so long as the underlying purpose of health care providers is profit. It's very simple really, but just try and bring up the subject on a Facebook link and watch the hysteria.

The problem with Obama's plan is not the fact that he wants to include a public option (I'm hoping he doesn't cave on that too), but that it DOES include private health insurance. It's crazy. Who in their right mind buys groceries, but hires and insurance company to make the payments at the grocery store and to dictate what can be bought (no donuts, no raisin bread . . .)?

It's the pharmaceutical companies (remember they LOVE this new health plan and have made a little $80 billion concession so they can roll merrily on collecting their profits), and the insurance companies (who were some of Obama's biggest contributors) also love the plan ONLY is there is no public option. Bob Herbert wrote extensively in the New York Times this week about Obama's deal with the drug manufacturers which promises that the government will only buy non-generic drugs at full price. No negotiations on the full retail price of drugs which already have generics available. Does this sound like change?

If health care reform is going to succeed in the long run, this is what it will need to be--and I hope will be soon:

1) It is a single payer system--all health care is pain for by the government just as it is in Norway, Finland, even Canada.

2) Doctors are employees--well paid to be sure, but are on fixed salaries with their insurance costs covered by the government.

3) The pharmaceutical companies are nationalized--and profit is removed from the equasion of why a drug is on or off the market (they removed the lyme disease vaccination because it wasn't profitable enough).

4) Everyone in the country (including illegal immigrants) is covered by the national insurance because they are ALIVE.

5) If wealthy people which to pay for cosmetic surgery or other premium, totally elective procedures, they are perfectly welcome to supplement the income of a doctor or medical facility. Here there could be private insurance companies--and they would be free to gouge the rich for elective cosmetic procedures as much as the traffic will allow.

6) All medical facilities are not-for-profit and the people who run the facilities are public service employees. No "non-profit" corporations who have CEOs who are paid in the high six figures. Again, they are well paid, but their job is service, not to make profit.

7) All unfair trade agreements like NAFTA are repealed, and the US begins to treat its neighbors like Mexico as countries that actually have human beings. That will eliminate the need for people to risk their lives to sneak into this country.

I'm afraid that Obama's current plan will have a terrible time because he isn't courageous. He is a dedicated capitalist and thinks that if you smile enough, capitalism can work. It can't. It's doomed. Or put another way, it can't work unless huge segments of the populace are impoverished and denied basic human rights (like health care).

Israel's Unjust War

My good friend and admired colleague Ronald B. McGuire has written about the current Israeli incursion into Gaza. With clarity and an eye never wavering from truth, he bares the lie that is the accepted explanation justifying the assault.

His writing on the subject has been censored on the CUNY Senate Forum List serve, it was removed from the New York Times' blog. Why? Because to perpetuate a lie, the truth must be buried.

With his permission, I post his article here.

Brent
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Youngbloods, Elders and Friends:

All of us living in the United States need to speak out against the genocide unfolding in Gaza.

The casualty toll of at least 280 Gazans killed and over 700 injured includes many civilians, including children who were hit when Israel struck as their school day was ending.

Israel has once again proven that the Zionist regime is based on a form of racism that rests on a belief that Jews are the "chosen people" and that Jewish lives are more valuable than Palestinians. Israel's barbaric persecution of the indigenous Palestinian population since 1948 has proven that Zionism is a pernicious form of racism that should be eradicated, not accommodated.

Israel's lame justification for the latest genocidal attack is that it is a response to the resistance by Hamas. However, Hamas scrupulously adhered to the cease fire declared six months ago until it became clear that Israel was continuing the blockade of Gaza that has resulted in malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, power outages and the destruction of the Gazan economy. Hamas struck back in desperation, firing rockets into the Negrev. By any measure, Israel's inhuman response is out of any proportion to the level of resistance by Hamas. Israel's blockade of Gaza as well has its current exercise of mass murder are against international law which has condemned Israel's occupation and aggression against Gaza and the West Bank and which recognizes the right of an occupied people to resist.

Israel's current attack against one of the most densely populated territories in the world was not perpetrated by right wing Likudniks or even the so-called "moderate" Kadima adherents. The architect of the attack was Ehud Barak, the likely candidate of Israel's so-called leftist Labor Party, proving that there is no major political force within the Israeli government that can be trusted to make peace.

For six months Barak and his fellow conspirators prepared for this weekend's attack while Israel told the Egyptians to assure Hamas that Israel wanted to resume negotiations over renewing the ceasefire and would not launch a major strike on Gaza at the present time. Under the last ceasefire brokered by Egypt several months ago Israel agreed to end its blockade of Gaza in return for a cease fire that Hamas adhered to Israel continued the blockade, provoking Hamas to resume resistance by firing rockets into the Negrev. The Palestinian rockets did little damage and Israel's murderous rampage in Gaza is a disproportionate and unjustified response.

Since the Second Intifada several years ago it has become apparent that there is no effective opposition by Jews in Israel or the United States to the plunge of the Zionist movement into genocide. A genocidal mentality is sweeping the Jews of Israel and there is a real potential for a Palestinian holocaust in the coming few years as Israelis and their supporters rationalize inhuman acts from torture to extrajudicial murders of Palestinian political, religious and cultural leaders on the ground that they are "terrorists."
Settlers are conducting pogroms and lynching Palestinians while the IDF has turned into an army of occupation. The West Bank is a racist, violent, apartheid state and Israel has turned Gaza into the largest concentration camp in human history.

Israel's murderous and treacherous attack on densely populated civilian areas in Gaza guarantees that future generations will remember the Zionist regime alongside other purveyors of racism and genocide such as the Nazis, the apartheid regime of South Africa and the post-bellum Jim Crow regimes of the southern states in the United States.

The current attack on Gaza underscores the point that the attempt to build a Jewish state in Palestine has failed. The only solution that will guarantee human rights to the indigenous Palestinian Arabs will be a single state with an Arab majority.

Today, the Gazan people are heroically resisting a ruthless and seemingly omnipotent oppressor, similar to the resistance of the heroic Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943.

The Gazan massacres are being carried out with U.S. supplied weapons and with the tacit approval of the United States government. As citizens and residents of the United States we have a special responsibility to speak up NOW! to oppose Israel's atrocities.

Please don't remain silent at this critical time. We cannot be good Germans when the Gazan people are facing genocide. Go to demonstrations, post to blogs, even write to elected leaders or newspaper, but please do something!

Ronald B. McGuire

This Is Your Nation on White Privilege

Because it is so powerful, because it is so necessary, I am posting this article by Tim Wise. When you've read it, go to www.YouTube.com, type in my name "Brent Buell" and watch the three episodes Andrea Reese and I did about Sarah Palin.

http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/this-your-nation-white-privilege

THIS IS YOUR NATION ON WHITE PRIVILEGE
By Tim Wise

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or whoare constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it,perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of yourfamily is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you oryour parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," likeBristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes withyou, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to"shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in sixyears like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of,then returned to after making up some coursework at a communitycollege), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment toachievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan,makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all pisson themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-termstate Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for thefounding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediatelydisqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added untilthe 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terroriststheir rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used toteach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make peopleimmediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of womento vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your runningmate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket hasinspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give yourparty a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being atypical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black andmerely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a goodchurch-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a blackpastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department ofDefense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you sucha "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to giveone-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being blackand experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light"burden."

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined,unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…

White privilege is, in short, the problem.