Yesterday [I wrote this Friday March 26 but forgot to post it] the Today Show were hyping these new facts on Child Obesity. When they final had the segment it was that a shocking 15% of children are now considered obese. And they made a big deal how this was preventable and so terrible and I thought, 15%? Is this really a problem? The obvious next question is how many people go hungry?
“Nearly 40 percent of America’s live in poverty or near poverty, with families who cannot afford the basics. Currently, a family of four is considered to live in poverty if its annual income is under $17,050 per year. But economists say that in most locales across the nation, it takes about twice that amount to pay for necessities-with none of the frills most Americans take for granted like movie tickets or restaurant meals. Efforts to gauge the real cost of living, based on real families’ basic budgets, can build support for policies and laws that reduce the child poverty rate.”
Reports the Annie E. Casey Foundation by Dr. Rima Shore “Kids Count Indicator Brief: Reducing the Child Poverty Rate.” - July 2003.
So as we can see the Census Bureau’s estimates that 32.9 million Americans were living in poverty in 2001 and “Children under 18 continued to have a higher poverty rate 16.3% than people 18 to 64 or 65 and over,” is actually a low estimate. The midwest has been hit the worse, NOT CITIES, Ohio has a 22% Child Poverty Rate
THE US HAS THE HIGHEST CHILD POVERTY RATE OF ANY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES. Why is that not on the Today Show?
By comparison Poland is 12.7 percent. In Sweden, Finland and Norway fewer than 4 percent of children live in poverty according to a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Poverty is not the lack of jobs, “more than half 56% of American children with incomes below the poverty threshold live in households where someone works full-time.” Annie E. Casey Foundation
What about the fact that:
• “1 out of every 8 children under the age of 12 in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.”
• “63% of India’s children go hungry everyday” – 63% of the second most populous country.
• “200,000 US youth are homeless”
• “800 million people all over the world know what it means to go to bed hungry every night? Sadly, about 24,000 people die from the effects of hunger each day. That's about one person every 3.5 seconds.”
• “One child dies every seven seconds from hunger and related causes”
• “Delta Airlines spends $3.74 per person on in-flight meals. For 53 cents, City Harvest in New York City can deliver a pound of food to a hungry person”
All staggering statistics well worth mentioning AT SOME POINT ON THE NEWS
But then again I am overwhelming with facts. Maybe that is the problem with liberals. We focus on the negatives, negate other problems. We want the media to constantly harp on our issues, ending poverty, destructive nature of corporations, lack of education, etc.
I think there probably is an epidemic of Child Obesity. But the Today Show did nothing to cover this issue, just reporting the numbers and giving the cliché simple answers: “Children play video games, watch TV, and eat fast food.” IS THAT REPORTING?
What the hell type of story is that? Why not focus on why kids are getting fatter? Or at least some aspect of why. Talk about the fact that fast food is cheaper than eating well. The increasingly healthy, “organic,” natural food is only to be consumed by the rich. Is that the growth in obesity among children is largely among poorer children whose food in take is cheap fast food? Is it among the rich working mothers struggling to find time to cook whole meals?
How has the destruction of the extended family? Families are becoming smaller and smaller, no longer living together, parents are raising their children by themselves. Postpartum didn’t really exist until the destruction of extended families in western society.
To make it worse for children there was the creation of a female working class. While it is definitely a good thing, it has consequences for the family that has yet to be resolved.
So there is less family to watch kids, plus historical primary care-giver now have to work (double whammy for kids), who is going to feed them? Have time to make balanced meal? Make sure they exercise, instead of allowing them to plop down in front of the TV while you take time to get self in order after long day? Women are trying to cope with the culturally taught expectations for family and desire for employment, but even with couples it is hard. How about exploring the connection between the loss of extended families and rise in problems among children including child obesity.
Loss of extended families, loss of neighborhoods, no one to encourage physical activity. Organized sports are primarily for rich kids (although changing). Kids more isolated then every before. Spending and more time alone learned from parents who have isolated themselves.
How about the advertising of junk foods directly to kids? Children have been proven to very susceptible to predatory advertising especially from TV. Parents complain about violence on TV, but clearly this is more of a problem than violence? How many kids are killing themselves slowly with junk food? Now how many are actively reenacting GI Joe and going out and killing someone? Not 15%? With so many problems with children, when are we going to actively address them, instead of simple stories, with simple answers and simple questions.
“These instruments can teach, they can illuminate, and yes, they can even inspire; but they can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use them towards those ends. … Otherwise,they’re merely wires and lights in a box.” — Edward R. Murrow, October 15, 1958
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Friday, March 26, 2004
My Letter to Editor to Washington Post
Dear Editor,
Your Papers Editorial Wed. March 24, 2004 on The 9/11 Debate misses two key points of former "Counterterrorism Czar" Richard Clarke.
First that it is unconscionable that Bush is running his reelection on his reaction to 9/11 catastrophe while failing to take responsibility for his inaction up until that day. Bush cannot take credit for his actions that day and after, but continue to pretend he did all he could before hand. The President should take responsibility for the inaction of his administration before hand.
Clinton's administration may have been complicit in their inaction, but they never claimed their counterterrorism efforts a success like the Bush Administration.
Second, while your paper continues to want to reaffirm its eroding credibility on the rationale for the war on Iraq, Clarke's comments verifies former Treasure Secretary Paul O'Neil's assertion that the Bush administration was focused on Saddam Hussein's removal before 9/11. A claim your paper seems to want to continue to discredit.
The administration and your paper should just own up to wanting to uproot Saddam before 9/11 so we can debate that decision on its merits, instead of continuing the erroneous discrediting of officials who rightly tell the truth that the administration wanted Saddam gone before 9/11 and there is no credible link between his regime and Al Qaeda and their attacks that day.
Your Papers Editorial Wed. March 24, 2004 on The 9/11 Debate misses two key points of former "Counterterrorism Czar" Richard Clarke.
First that it is unconscionable that Bush is running his reelection on his reaction to 9/11 catastrophe while failing to take responsibility for his inaction up until that day. Bush cannot take credit for his actions that day and after, but continue to pretend he did all he could before hand. The President should take responsibility for the inaction of his administration before hand.
Clinton's administration may have been complicit in their inaction, but they never claimed their counterterrorism efforts a success like the Bush Administration.
Second, while your paper continues to want to reaffirm its eroding credibility on the rationale for the war on Iraq, Clarke's comments verifies former Treasure Secretary Paul O'Neil's assertion that the Bush administration was focused on Saddam Hussein's removal before 9/11. A claim your paper seems to want to continue to discredit.
The administration and your paper should just own up to wanting to uproot Saddam before 9/11 so we can debate that decision on its merits, instead of continuing the erroneous discrediting of officials who rightly tell the truth that the administration wanted Saddam gone before 9/11 and there is no credible link between his regime and Al Qaeda and their attacks that day.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Paranoids Advice For Public Transportation
Madrid can happen here,
So here are some survival tips:
1) Try to always go the back if not the back avoid the middle of the train. Have you ever seen the blown out hull of a back of a train? Terrorists want to maximize carnage so it is always in the middle.
2) Avoid riding to metro center or any high-profile targets on the hour or half-hour… terrorists always seem to strike on rounded times.
3) If someone is running, run too. Has anyone ever run for no reason?
4) Contrary to popular beliefs, terrorist do not wear Arabian sheets and turbans. Terrorist will be well dressed. The want to fit in not stand out. Al Qaeda even says they have a briefcase bomb. Its hard to be inconspicuous in shabby garb, head covering and a shining briefcase uranium sticking out.
5) Don’t trust white people. I know what you are going to say, and it is not just because I am scared white people. Lets say you were a terrorist group? Would you send an expensive bomb with an Arab or dark-skinned man who is always being profiled, or someone who would never be suspected?
6) When going by important stops such as metro center or clear targets ie. Pentagon hold your breath. Hey you never know it could help.
7) When all else fails, buy a car. Yes you are polluting and adding to congestion, but better children die slowly from pollution then die before having them.
So here are some survival tips:
1) Try to always go the back if not the back avoid the middle of the train. Have you ever seen the blown out hull of a back of a train? Terrorists want to maximize carnage so it is always in the middle.
2) Avoid riding to metro center or any high-profile targets on the hour or half-hour… terrorists always seem to strike on rounded times.
3) If someone is running, run too. Has anyone ever run for no reason?
4) Contrary to popular beliefs, terrorist do not wear Arabian sheets and turbans. Terrorist will be well dressed. The want to fit in not stand out. Al Qaeda even says they have a briefcase bomb. Its hard to be inconspicuous in shabby garb, head covering and a shining briefcase uranium sticking out.
5) Don’t trust white people. I know what you are going to say, and it is not just because I am scared white people. Lets say you were a terrorist group? Would you send an expensive bomb with an Arab or dark-skinned man who is always being profiled, or someone who would never be suspected?
6) When going by important stops such as metro center or clear targets ie. Pentagon hold your breath. Hey you never know it could help.
7) When all else fails, buy a car. Yes you are polluting and adding to congestion, but better children die slowly from pollution then die before having them.
Monday, March 22, 2004
Israel Losing Moral Compass
I think yesterday’s bombing and killing of Hamas Leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin by Israeli Defense Force was a huge mistake. Especially as it was in his wheelchair while going to daily prayer at a Mosque. Could you make him more of a martyr please?
Yassin may have been involved in the continued attacks on Israel, but really he was a figure head. If Yassin were a threat, why release him in 1997? Why wait so long to get to him when there was plenty of opportunity in not so politically tense moment? (I know this as I studied Hamas last year during my Arab-Israeli conflict class and played Yassin during a mock peace meeting) Whether alive or dead as a martyr he will always be that spiritual leader of Hamas; now dead he may be more powerful than as a leader. Did Sharon really believe it would denigrate Hamas and not strengthen it? What was Sharon thinking?
To often in the narrow thought process of us vs. them, Sharon misses the wider implications of his actions. While Israel may be made safer (which it clearly is not) such oppression of the Palestinian people and continued ruthless regard for its figure heads is making life for Jews outside of Israel more dangerous.
Israel cannot lose its position of moral authority in the peace process, a position that is slowly evaporating with every “retaliatory-strike.” While it maybe unfair that people have a double standard for the actions of their governments’ and Israel’s toward violent militancy against them, it is a position as Jews, as the chosen people we have always embraced.
Example of people’s hypocrisy: Malaysians suppressing Islamic fundamentalists in its own country while its leader Mahathir stating about Israel"The only problem with the Jews is when the State of Israel was created, " and my favorite about Western response to terrorism and how it is created and run by Jews, "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy;"
France abridging the rights of people to wear their religious symbols, blatant racism toward Africans as well as continuing economic colonization of their former colonies for which its citizens never so much as blink in opposition, yet denounce Israel’s policies as some how morally unjustifiable.
The Iranian government condemnation of Israeli government’s policy toward Palestinians yet giving even less freedom and the same violence toward its own citizens. Apparently you can only suppress “terrorism” and defend your own right to existence when you are not Jewish.
Never-the-less, Jewish people are in danger of loosing Israel, loosing our modern day great Temple that we will lose because of the loss values, the same loss of our Jewish foundation that brought the temple’s destruction the first other two times. A state governed by fear and hatred is not a Jewish State. Jews have a higher standard than other states. That’s why we are the chosen people; it comes with an extra burden. A burden of justification that our actions are right, not an affront to Judaism.
We have a moral high ground that we must always maintain because the Christians and Muslims that dominates the rest of the world are quick to capture on any seeming unfairness perpetuated by our people as a reason to again oppress us.
As George Will documents in his editorial “The Left's Anti-Semitic Chic” it is even accepted in the left to be anti-semitic, to make unfounded unbalanced claims against Israel. If Israel does not put a moral foundation to its treatment of the Palestinian people we will see more free Palestine signs at unrelated protests such as Anti-Iraq war protests, we will see more anti-semitism in Europe and even in the US. (I have seen reasonable even democrats express ideas on different websites stating that Israel “deserves” the violence inflicted by the suicide bombers)
We are in trouble when the suicide bombers who mercilessly target children and innocent people are thought of as unfortunate responses to their positions instead of the murders who perpetuate the status quo of violence.
How much longer can we keep a moral high ground to oppressing a people? Why are we hanging onto the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Would it not make sense especially at this point to just abandon the fanatics that cost Israel loads of money and IDF lives to defend their “settlements” on someone else’s land? Who are the settlers helping?
Israel must regain the moral high-ground; it must be grounded in the Jewish ideals that it was founded on. While its security is important, certainly oppression, violence, and continued useless antagonizing of the Palestinian people are not the best ways to secure Israel’s future.
Israel must look forward, past the fear of suicide bombs and the reactionary measures to some violence to be a spokesmen for peace. To be above the fray of day to day violence to say we want peace with an honest broker and we want it now. No longer oppress and take away rights of the Palestinian people and give them the right of self-determination, over a land that we do not need to subjugate and occupy.
Instead it seems Israel’s leaders are bent on continuing a path of Jewish immorality, violence, that will only doom the state of Israel and its citizen’s abroad.
For the first time I am scared. Scared that as a Jew, I could be attacked for being Jewish. When the left and the far-right are uniting and condoning blatant anti-Jewish epitaphs that is a dangerous. And I am worried for the first time for my children’s future, will they be free from oppression and anti-semtism, or will we once again be the grunt of an evil violence based on our shared religious foundation.
Some point George Will points out… Scary:
• A cartoon in a mainstream Italian newspaper depicts the infant Jesus in a manger, menaced by an Israeli tank and saying, "Don't tell me they want to kill me again." This expresses animus against Israel rather than twisted Christian zeal.
• The European Union has suppressed a study it commissioned, because the study blamed the upsurge in anti-Jewish acts on European Muslims -- and the European left.
• Nineteen percent of Germans believe what a best-selling German book asserts: The CIA and Israel's Mossad organized the Sept. 11 attacks.
• On French television, a comedian wearing a Jewish skullcap gives a Nazi salute while yelling, "Isra-Heil!"
• If Israel is not the Great Satan, it is allied with him -- America. European anti-American demonstrations often include Israel's blue and white flag with a swastika replacing the star of David, and signs perpetuating the myth, concocted by Palestinians and cooperative Western journalists, of an Israeli massacre in Jenin: "1943: Warsaw / 2002: Jenin."
• Omer Bartov, a historian at Brown University, writes in the New Republic that much of what Hitler said "can be found today in innumerable places: on Internet sites, propaganda brochures, political speeches, protest placards, academic publications, religious sermons, you name it."
Yassin may have been involved in the continued attacks on Israel, but really he was a figure head. If Yassin were a threat, why release him in 1997? Why wait so long to get to him when there was plenty of opportunity in not so politically tense moment? (I know this as I studied Hamas last year during my Arab-Israeli conflict class and played Yassin during a mock peace meeting) Whether alive or dead as a martyr he will always be that spiritual leader of Hamas; now dead he may be more powerful than as a leader. Did Sharon really believe it would denigrate Hamas and not strengthen it? What was Sharon thinking?
To often in the narrow thought process of us vs. them, Sharon misses the wider implications of his actions. While Israel may be made safer (which it clearly is not) such oppression of the Palestinian people and continued ruthless regard for its figure heads is making life for Jews outside of Israel more dangerous.
Israel cannot lose its position of moral authority in the peace process, a position that is slowly evaporating with every “retaliatory-strike.” While it maybe unfair that people have a double standard for the actions of their governments’ and Israel’s toward violent militancy against them, it is a position as Jews, as the chosen people we have always embraced.
Example of people’s hypocrisy: Malaysians suppressing Islamic fundamentalists in its own country while its leader Mahathir stating about Israel"The only problem with the Jews is when the State of Israel was created, " and my favorite about Western response to terrorism and how it is created and run by Jews, "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy;"
France abridging the rights of people to wear their religious symbols, blatant racism toward Africans as well as continuing economic colonization of their former colonies for which its citizens never so much as blink in opposition, yet denounce Israel’s policies as some how morally unjustifiable.
The Iranian government condemnation of Israeli government’s policy toward Palestinians yet giving even less freedom and the same violence toward its own citizens. Apparently you can only suppress “terrorism” and defend your own right to existence when you are not Jewish.
Never-the-less, Jewish people are in danger of loosing Israel, loosing our modern day great Temple that we will lose because of the loss values, the same loss of our Jewish foundation that brought the temple’s destruction the first other two times. A state governed by fear and hatred is not a Jewish State. Jews have a higher standard than other states. That’s why we are the chosen people; it comes with an extra burden. A burden of justification that our actions are right, not an affront to Judaism.
We have a moral high ground that we must always maintain because the Christians and Muslims that dominates the rest of the world are quick to capture on any seeming unfairness perpetuated by our people as a reason to again oppress us.
As George Will documents in his editorial “The Left's Anti-Semitic Chic” it is even accepted in the left to be anti-semitic, to make unfounded unbalanced claims against Israel. If Israel does not put a moral foundation to its treatment of the Palestinian people we will see more free Palestine signs at unrelated protests such as Anti-Iraq war protests, we will see more anti-semitism in Europe and even in the US. (I have seen reasonable even democrats express ideas on different websites stating that Israel “deserves” the violence inflicted by the suicide bombers)
We are in trouble when the suicide bombers who mercilessly target children and innocent people are thought of as unfortunate responses to their positions instead of the murders who perpetuate the status quo of violence.
How much longer can we keep a moral high ground to oppressing a people? Why are we hanging onto the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Would it not make sense especially at this point to just abandon the fanatics that cost Israel loads of money and IDF lives to defend their “settlements” on someone else’s land? Who are the settlers helping?
Israel must regain the moral high-ground; it must be grounded in the Jewish ideals that it was founded on. While its security is important, certainly oppression, violence, and continued useless antagonizing of the Palestinian people are not the best ways to secure Israel’s future.
Israel must look forward, past the fear of suicide bombs and the reactionary measures to some violence to be a spokesmen for peace. To be above the fray of day to day violence to say we want peace with an honest broker and we want it now. No longer oppress and take away rights of the Palestinian people and give them the right of self-determination, over a land that we do not need to subjugate and occupy.
Instead it seems Israel’s leaders are bent on continuing a path of Jewish immorality, violence, that will only doom the state of Israel and its citizen’s abroad.
For the first time I am scared. Scared that as a Jew, I could be attacked for being Jewish. When the left and the far-right are uniting and condoning blatant anti-Jewish epitaphs that is a dangerous. And I am worried for the first time for my children’s future, will they be free from oppression and anti-semtism, or will we once again be the grunt of an evil violence based on our shared religious foundation.
Some point George Will points out… Scary:
• A cartoon in a mainstream Italian newspaper depicts the infant Jesus in a manger, menaced by an Israeli tank and saying, "Don't tell me they want to kill me again." This expresses animus against Israel rather than twisted Christian zeal.
• The European Union has suppressed a study it commissioned, because the study blamed the upsurge in anti-Jewish acts on European Muslims -- and the European left.
• Nineteen percent of Germans believe what a best-selling German book asserts: The CIA and Israel's Mossad organized the Sept. 11 attacks.
• On French television, a comedian wearing a Jewish skullcap gives a Nazi salute while yelling, "Isra-Heil!"
• If Israel is not the Great Satan, it is allied with him -- America. European anti-American demonstrations often include Israel's blue and white flag with a swastika replacing the star of David, and signs perpetuating the myth, concocted by Palestinians and cooperative Western journalists, of an Israeli massacre in Jenin: "1943: Warsaw / 2002: Jenin."
• Omer Bartov, a historian at Brown University, writes in the New Republic that much of what Hitler said "can be found today in innumerable places: on Internet sites, propaganda brochures, political speeches, protest placards, academic publications, religious sermons, you name it."
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Sacrificing for my Art
I struggled about whether or not to post this, but here it is
It wasn’t just the dreadlocks. A lot of times in DC I can chock up the staring to the badly twisted dreadlocks that now frame (or often cover) my face. Nor was it the protruding belly. No these were not the stares of being that fat guy at a pool party. No this was the same stare I got as I entered the classroom for the first time in first grade. The look I got when I was four years old and a fellow toddler asked his mother why I was so dark.
Those expressions that adorned all the white faces when my parents and I entered the room was the familiar one of “what the hell are the black people doing here.” Even though we were attending my father’s uncle and aunt’s 50th Anniversary (I don’t know how he is related to me… great uncle I guess). They had always been kind to us, so we felt obliged to come. We never really belonged, thus our prolonged absence from such events and lack of familiarity with the majority of the faces. See my father’s family has never accepted the Black Jewish family. Since before I can remember they made it clear we are the proverbial black-sheep; pun intended.
I had been processing this incident for a couple of days now, having feelings of laughter and sadness about it. But then I saw the movie “Antwone Fisher” Denzel Washington’s directorial debut. It is about a Black Navy Seaman born to a woman in prison who abandons him, and a father who was shot two months before he is born. Basically he finds his family and subsequently his place in the world. The search quiets all the demons that he had to conquer after years of abuse, abandonment and neglect.
Late for a get-together I jump into the shower. I don’t know what it is about water pouring over my face. There is a mysterious and magical connection between H2O and my brain that immediate awakens my mind. I am convinced I have solved the world problems in the shower, but forgotten it all during the toweling off process.
It hit me instantaneously as the pounded the back of my neck and dripped down my body.
I have never belonged. I never had a family. I was never black enough to be black and certainly never white enough to be white. From a young age I was constantly reminded I did not belong anywhere. During elementary school it came in the form of bruises kindly donated at the hands of fellow students with sticks and rocks. Contrary to the rhyme they did hurt as much as the word that made up my nickname, “alien” (to young for them to know nigger I guess).
Even within my immediate family I never belonged. What does a kid do when they feel smarter than their parents. When they are more mature. When they have no one to admire except for grandparents that regardless of current vital signs, alive or dead, they have never truly met?
There are so many moments, a mother telling a 3 year old to learn to play by himself because she cannot entertain me. Long-rides to a summer home alone in the back. Alone in the shower, I feel more familial connection with the cats now trying to lick the dripping water from the sink bathroom then I did to the persons who conceived me. (maybe an overstatement, but probably not much).
I have only seen the world as if I am not apart of it. My life is not unlike watching “Antwone Fisher,” I have the same connection to the characters in my waking life as I do to the characters on screen. And all to often the same detached vantage point. Like my life was a sad TV docudrama and I was just a viewer unable to affect its characters.
Is it because I really don’t belong or because I have put up so many borders so that I never can? Where does the line between life trying to fit stereotypes that do not fit and a not so self-conscious attempt to defy all of stereotypes.
I pull the towel around my back, move my arms back in forth to dry my skin. The mirror unassumingly reflecting all my imperfections I am allured by my lite-brown skin. All the history, all the conflict, merely based on this pigmentation, this incarnation of G-d’s coloring. I am bound to my ancestry by the struggle to no longer deny my humanity based on those skin intonations.
Yet the family whose pigmentation most closely resembles mine, my mom’s family only gave me a little perspective on my place in the world, and some foundation. But how can you belong to a group of people you see only once or twice a year? And I will never belong to my father’s side of the family who has always and will always see my skin and my chosen spirituality as so differentiating me from them that shared ancestry need not apply. I have been so scared to face what I have always known, that I have no home, no family.
Can I even write this down fast enough? One hand brushing my hopefully soon to be pearly whites another trying to take down all that my subconscious is processing, I am moved to tears. Am I being ridiculous? It seems so as they are cut off almost as soon as they started (before I could move my hand to take note).
Not belonging has made me so perceptive, I have spent a lifetime looking at people as the other. Observing, studying, sizing them up. Can I trust them? Can I allow them to get close? Or do I have to keep them away, manage them, control their impressions of me? I usually tend toward the latter. This world is geared toward making you feeling alone. It pushes us apart, dehumanizes us, separates us. I have always embraced keeping people at a distance as people have never given me nothing but confidence that they are untrustworthy.
I have spent my teenage life running form groups never fitting into sports teams I played on. Never committing to groups I joined. Fraternities I pledged my brotherhood. A large part was a total hatred for one dimensionalism. I have always liked to have a lot of definable characteristics instead of one define my life. There is so much in the life to enjoy. Yet this has always kept me from truly belonging to any of them.
How do I balance refusing to be pushed into these unnatural definitions and belonging to some group; to something; to someone? I look black therefore I should be; but oh wait your father is white, then are you not “really black… you are half-white” that means you are. You are male therefore you are, smart therefore, athletic therefore, but wait you are fat so that means….
I am adrift without a true foundation. Even the most distinguishable characteristic that to often is used to define me gives me a weak footing. Lets face it, I will never be black enough. I never wanted to fit in those boundaries. Why be just another black face? Why conform to those stupid expectations of “blackness.” And I am to dark to ever pull of being my father’s white son.
Society is always telling us where we belong and where we don’t. How does one fight against being a stereotype and while never belong to a stereotype?
All those white faces focused on my mother and I as we entered. They weren’t my family, their stares eliminated any doubt that we did not belong. Just because we share similar DNA sequencing, a familial genetic coed, does that make us family? I can say “hey nau voonst” in the same PA Dutch accent as them, but I might as well be Chinese when I am saying it.
I must be the only, only child who is scared to be alone. I hate to be alone physically, yet emotionally I am always alone.
As I walk into my room the first thing I go for is my TV changer. I turn on the TV so I am not alone. Somehow the TV brings that comfort. Like a parent that seems to have been absent from my childhood. I might be taller, larger stomach, certainly more hair, have my own place, and found love in so many areas of my life, but as the movie so rightly illustrated when Fisher asked, “Who will I am the same little boy, sitting in the corner of my bed crying over the new bruise, over the feeling of being alone, being isolated, being the first grade “alien.”
It wasn’t just the dreadlocks. A lot of times in DC I can chock up the staring to the badly twisted dreadlocks that now frame (or often cover) my face. Nor was it the protruding belly. No these were not the stares of being that fat guy at a pool party. No this was the same stare I got as I entered the classroom for the first time in first grade. The look I got when I was four years old and a fellow toddler asked his mother why I was so dark.
Those expressions that adorned all the white faces when my parents and I entered the room was the familiar one of “what the hell are the black people doing here.” Even though we were attending my father’s uncle and aunt’s 50th Anniversary (I don’t know how he is related to me… great uncle I guess). They had always been kind to us, so we felt obliged to come. We never really belonged, thus our prolonged absence from such events and lack of familiarity with the majority of the faces. See my father’s family has never accepted the Black Jewish family. Since before I can remember they made it clear we are the proverbial black-sheep; pun intended.
I had been processing this incident for a couple of days now, having feelings of laughter and sadness about it. But then I saw the movie “Antwone Fisher” Denzel Washington’s directorial debut. It is about a Black Navy Seaman born to a woman in prison who abandons him, and a father who was shot two months before he is born. Basically he finds his family and subsequently his place in the world. The search quiets all the demons that he had to conquer after years of abuse, abandonment and neglect.
Late for a get-together I jump into the shower. I don’t know what it is about water pouring over my face. There is a mysterious and magical connection between H2O and my brain that immediate awakens my mind. I am convinced I have solved the world problems in the shower, but forgotten it all during the toweling off process.
It hit me instantaneously as the pounded the back of my neck and dripped down my body.
I have never belonged. I never had a family. I was never black enough to be black and certainly never white enough to be white. From a young age I was constantly reminded I did not belong anywhere. During elementary school it came in the form of bruises kindly donated at the hands of fellow students with sticks and rocks. Contrary to the rhyme they did hurt as much as the word that made up my nickname, “alien” (to young for them to know nigger I guess).
Even within my immediate family I never belonged. What does a kid do when they feel smarter than their parents. When they are more mature. When they have no one to admire except for grandparents that regardless of current vital signs, alive or dead, they have never truly met?
There are so many moments, a mother telling a 3 year old to learn to play by himself because she cannot entertain me. Long-rides to a summer home alone in the back. Alone in the shower, I feel more familial connection with the cats now trying to lick the dripping water from the sink bathroom then I did to the persons who conceived me. (maybe an overstatement, but probably not much).
I have only seen the world as if I am not apart of it. My life is not unlike watching “Antwone Fisher,” I have the same connection to the characters in my waking life as I do to the characters on screen. And all to often the same detached vantage point. Like my life was a sad TV docudrama and I was just a viewer unable to affect its characters.
Is it because I really don’t belong or because I have put up so many borders so that I never can? Where does the line between life trying to fit stereotypes that do not fit and a not so self-conscious attempt to defy all of stereotypes.
I pull the towel around my back, move my arms back in forth to dry my skin. The mirror unassumingly reflecting all my imperfections I am allured by my lite-brown skin. All the history, all the conflict, merely based on this pigmentation, this incarnation of G-d’s coloring. I am bound to my ancestry by the struggle to no longer deny my humanity based on those skin intonations.
Yet the family whose pigmentation most closely resembles mine, my mom’s family only gave me a little perspective on my place in the world, and some foundation. But how can you belong to a group of people you see only once or twice a year? And I will never belong to my father’s side of the family who has always and will always see my skin and my chosen spirituality as so differentiating me from them that shared ancestry need not apply. I have been so scared to face what I have always known, that I have no home, no family.
Can I even write this down fast enough? One hand brushing my hopefully soon to be pearly whites another trying to take down all that my subconscious is processing, I am moved to tears. Am I being ridiculous? It seems so as they are cut off almost as soon as they started (before I could move my hand to take note).
Not belonging has made me so perceptive, I have spent a lifetime looking at people as the other. Observing, studying, sizing them up. Can I trust them? Can I allow them to get close? Or do I have to keep them away, manage them, control their impressions of me? I usually tend toward the latter. This world is geared toward making you feeling alone. It pushes us apart, dehumanizes us, separates us. I have always embraced keeping people at a distance as people have never given me nothing but confidence that they are untrustworthy.
I have spent my teenage life running form groups never fitting into sports teams I played on. Never committing to groups I joined. Fraternities I pledged my brotherhood. A large part was a total hatred for one dimensionalism. I have always liked to have a lot of definable characteristics instead of one define my life. There is so much in the life to enjoy. Yet this has always kept me from truly belonging to any of them.
How do I balance refusing to be pushed into these unnatural definitions and belonging to some group; to something; to someone? I look black therefore I should be; but oh wait your father is white, then are you not “really black… you are half-white” that means you are. You are male therefore you are, smart therefore, athletic therefore, but wait you are fat so that means….
I am adrift without a true foundation. Even the most distinguishable characteristic that to often is used to define me gives me a weak footing. Lets face it, I will never be black enough. I never wanted to fit in those boundaries. Why be just another black face? Why conform to those stupid expectations of “blackness.” And I am to dark to ever pull of being my father’s white son.
Society is always telling us where we belong and where we don’t. How does one fight against being a stereotype and while never belong to a stereotype?
All those white faces focused on my mother and I as we entered. They weren’t my family, their stares eliminated any doubt that we did not belong. Just because we share similar DNA sequencing, a familial genetic coed, does that make us family? I can say “hey nau voonst” in the same PA Dutch accent as them, but I might as well be Chinese when I am saying it.
I must be the only, only child who is scared to be alone. I hate to be alone physically, yet emotionally I am always alone.
As I walk into my room the first thing I go for is my TV changer. I turn on the TV so I am not alone. Somehow the TV brings that comfort. Like a parent that seems to have been absent from my childhood. I might be taller, larger stomach, certainly more hair, have my own place, and found love in so many areas of my life, but as the movie so rightly illustrated when Fisher asked, “Who will I am the same little boy, sitting in the corner of my bed crying over the new bruise, over the feeling of being alone, being isolated, being the first grade “alien.”
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
An open apology
I am sorry to the people I have hurt in the past. I was always an ok person masquerading as a great person. Now I strive to be a great person masquerading as the person I was in the past.
So honestly my aplogies
PS. To the people I spoke of something very personal, it is still coming, check back later in the week
So honestly my aplogies
PS. To the people I spoke of something very personal, it is still coming, check back later in the week
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
E...A...G...L...E...S.... EAGLES
I first have to say that I am very sadened that my favorite player Duce Staley is now the RB for the Pittsburgh Steelers
I actually shed a tear, (not really) I will miss you so much, good luck, g-dspeed and if you ever play in Philly I will boo you only out of love.
As for the other moves First we get the "Freak" Jevon Kearse. Now today Dahni Jones, and more moves to come... KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK... (cause I can't take anymore heartbreak)
I have to way in on certain people claiming to be Eagles fans when they are A) from NM, B) not talking to the largest Eagles fan ever C) never been to an Eagles game D) know nothing about the Eagles team E) MOST IMPORTANT, DOES NOT ACT LIKE A PHILADELPHIA FAN
Anyway as much as I would like to not care, I am already excited for the next season
I actually shed a tear, (not really) I will miss you so much, good luck, g-dspeed and if you ever play in Philly I will boo you only out of love.
As for the other moves First we get the "Freak" Jevon Kearse. Now today Dahni Jones, and more moves to come... KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK... (cause I can't take anymore heartbreak)
I have to way in on certain people claiming to be Eagles fans when they are A) from NM, B) not talking to the largest Eagles fan ever C) never been to an Eagles game D) know nothing about the Eagles team E) MOST IMPORTANT, DOES NOT ACT LIKE A PHILADELPHIA FAN
Anyway as much as I would like to not care, I am already excited for the next season
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
This may be the Most Important Post I have Posted
After writing this I realized how much this writing has opened and changed my ever developing world view. So while I am not so conceited to believe this thought is either groundbreaking or the most important ever written, I have been immediately aware of how it has affected me. I hope it will at least spark some thought and hopefully conversation.
So last night I watched the ABC Docudrama about Jesus, “Judas” (I swear it was more about Jesus then Judas, I think the Catholic Church or someone must have “Jesus” copyrighted)
It was a good TV movie. As I had suspected Jesus was pretty good guy.
I was taken to what my evolving theories about religion (ie. check out my website)
What Jesus was trying to say is that we are all the son of G-d. Jesus may be the one sacrificed to show us the way, but we are all the same and thus have that ability to follow in G-d’s image. To be G-d’s sons and daughters.
This was crystallized for me by a conversation in the movie between Judas and Jesus as they are running from the Romans and Judas feels slighted by Jesus.
"But you said I was special"
"You are"
"But you said that everyone was special"
"That’s because they are"
"So everyone is the same?"
"YES JUDAS…. EXACTLY"
I think Jesus is saying more than setting the philosophical foundation for the communist manifesto.
Every Religion has a version of Jesus, and they all have the same thing in common: A devotion to what is morally right; consistent love and acceptance of their fellow man or woman; and a firm belief that what they are doing is right that comes from constantly living G-d's path.
Jesus was human, he was scared of being crucified. But in the end, while following G-d's path, he found confidence for what he had to do to show the world the way of “Our father” (as the prayer rightly explains as G-d is all of our fathers).
Interpretations of the events always end with someone being blamed for Jesus crucifixion. Even the ABC docudrama tried to blame someone for Jesus death. That is just silly, why should we care who orders Jesus' death. According to the New Testiment and this movie (and the history Channel which seems to want to capture this evangelical audience) both the Jews and the Romans are responsible. But it also points out it that they did it out of fear of Jesus.
Do Christians, Muslims, Jews and all major religions and societal institutions not “crucify” people every day for having morally founded revolutionary thought? For trying to change our society and remake it in G-d’s path?
Jesus needed to die to be crucified. It was his path, why not focus on that? On why he had to be martyred to put us all on the right path? Why it was so important to follow his guidance?
I truly believe he was not saying believe in me, support ME, he was no narcissist. What I think he was saying is live life as I did, accept G-d into your heart, live a life of truth and light. Live as Martin Luther King tried, as Buddha did, Muhammad, as Gandhi, as Mother Teresa, and countless people who never make it into History books.
To truly accept G-d’s will, G-d’s path, how hard that is, but how liberating. There is salvation, there is the path. Not in dogmatic downgrading of others based on false pretenses of what it means to be holy and how to get into an ever after, but in living a good life and finding truth in giving yourself to the world.
I recently heard someone say, Church should be a political place. To be a guide on how to live, and how everything you do is spiritual. Spirituality should not be confined to your time in church. But rather in all aspects of your life. People know this, but they do not want to be reminded in church that their actions speak to their spirituality. So they are now forcing the expulsion of politics, ethics, social morality out of the prayer sanctuaries. But Pastors, Rabbis, Imams, Buddhist Priests have an obligation to remind us the connection of our actions to our morality.
For Further writings by me on this please go to my website
So last night I watched the ABC Docudrama about Jesus, “Judas” (I swear it was more about Jesus then Judas, I think the Catholic Church or someone must have “Jesus” copyrighted)
It was a good TV movie. As I had suspected Jesus was pretty good guy.
I was taken to what my evolving theories about religion (ie. check out my website)
What Jesus was trying to say is that we are all the son of G-d. Jesus may be the one sacrificed to show us the way, but we are all the same and thus have that ability to follow in G-d’s image. To be G-d’s sons and daughters.
This was crystallized for me by a conversation in the movie between Judas and Jesus as they are running from the Romans and Judas feels slighted by Jesus.
"But you said I was special"
"You are"
"But you said that everyone was special"
"That’s because they are"
"So everyone is the same?"
"YES JUDAS…. EXACTLY"
I think Jesus is saying more than setting the philosophical foundation for the communist manifesto.
Every Religion has a version of Jesus, and they all have the same thing in common: A devotion to what is morally right; consistent love and acceptance of their fellow man or woman; and a firm belief that what they are doing is right that comes from constantly living G-d's path.
Jesus was human, he was scared of being crucified. But in the end, while following G-d's path, he found confidence for what he had to do to show the world the way of “Our father” (as the prayer rightly explains as G-d is all of our fathers).
Interpretations of the events always end with someone being blamed for Jesus crucifixion. Even the ABC docudrama tried to blame someone for Jesus death. That is just silly, why should we care who orders Jesus' death. According to the New Testiment and this movie (and the history Channel which seems to want to capture this evangelical audience) both the Jews and the Romans are responsible. But it also points out it that they did it out of fear of Jesus.
Do Christians, Muslims, Jews and all major religions and societal institutions not “crucify” people every day for having morally founded revolutionary thought? For trying to change our society and remake it in G-d’s path?
Jesus needed to die to be crucified. It was his path, why not focus on that? On why he had to be martyred to put us all on the right path? Why it was so important to follow his guidance?
I truly believe he was not saying believe in me, support ME, he was no narcissist. What I think he was saying is live life as I did, accept G-d into your heart, live a life of truth and light. Live as Martin Luther King tried, as Buddha did, Muhammad, as Gandhi, as Mother Teresa, and countless people who never make it into History books.
To truly accept G-d’s will, G-d’s path, how hard that is, but how liberating. There is salvation, there is the path. Not in dogmatic downgrading of others based on false pretenses of what it means to be holy and how to get into an ever after, but in living a good life and finding truth in giving yourself to the world.
I recently heard someone say, Church should be a political place. To be a guide on how to live, and how everything you do is spiritual. Spirituality should not be confined to your time in church. But rather in all aspects of your life. People know this, but they do not want to be reminded in church that their actions speak to their spirituality. So they are now forcing the expulsion of politics, ethics, social morality out of the prayer sanctuaries. But Pastors, Rabbis, Imams, Buddhist Priests have an obligation to remind us the connection of our actions to our morality.
For Further writings by me on this please go to my website
Monday, March 08, 2004
Blacks Being Abandoned Again by Democratic Party?
Will the Democratic Party continue to nominate politicians that are only interested in placating the needs of the Black community for election gains or will we nominate someone who has our interests and where with all for the needed structural changes. Will She or He be willing to fight for us?
Clearly Kerry is not that candidate. The only thing Kerry will fight for is the status quo. While I consider what is a head for our community I must think that even if Kerry were to win, for the Black community it would still be a loss. Bush Kerry is just a lose – lose.
Still hand-cuffs instead of books, war on drugs instead of a war on poverty, rapping and sports instead of real economic futures.
Clinton was not some liberal, he took away Welfare rights, was an economic conservative. But he also created an atmosphere where Black Americans had the lowest unemployment and Black Men lowest unemployment at anytime in our history. He nominated us to judgeships and cabinet positions. Just as he did everyone. Simply he treated us with respect. Treated us as equals and meriting of that respect. It was that simple understanding that forever endeared him to our community.
I think Gore really would have done something for us. And certainly Dean, Kucinich or even Edwards. But Kerry will just got to a few events with black leaders, go to a few AME churches and hope that we don’t do anything to make our issues an issue in the campaign. (damn GLBTA community already screwed that one up for him)
When will the Black community have a real political choice? When will we have a future in America? Or a candidate at least proposing a chance to have one?
Clearly Kerry is not that candidate. The only thing Kerry will fight for is the status quo. While I consider what is a head for our community I must think that even if Kerry were to win, for the Black community it would still be a loss. Bush Kerry is just a lose – lose.
Still hand-cuffs instead of books, war on drugs instead of a war on poverty, rapping and sports instead of real economic futures.
Clinton was not some liberal, he took away Welfare rights, was an economic conservative. But he also created an atmosphere where Black Americans had the lowest unemployment and Black Men lowest unemployment at anytime in our history. He nominated us to judgeships and cabinet positions. Just as he did everyone. Simply he treated us with respect. Treated us as equals and meriting of that respect. It was that simple understanding that forever endeared him to our community.
I think Gore really would have done something for us. And certainly Dean, Kucinich or even Edwards. But Kerry will just got to a few events with black leaders, go to a few AME churches and hope that we don’t do anything to make our issues an issue in the campaign. (damn GLBTA community already screwed that one up for him)
When will the Black community have a real political choice? When will we have a future in America? Or a candidate at least proposing a chance to have one?
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
More on The Passion
Leaflet On The Passion
If Jesus was about love, why focus on the violence and cruelty?
The Right-Wing Politics of the Gibson Passion Movie
Jesus was a great Jewish teacher whose message of love, kindness, gentleness and compassion are a side-light in the Mel Gibson movie, a prop to the main focus which is on pain, cruelty and suffering. Why not focus on the Resurrection with its message of hope overcoming despair? Why not focus on Jesus' message that the rich will have a hard time getting into heaven, or that the real way you are treating God can be measured by how much caring you show for taking care of the poor? Or that the truly blessed are the peacemakers?
The answer is that the choice of focus of this film was a highly political choice—and that is why it has become so popular with right-wing Christians who have twisted the message of Christianity to allow it to become a defense of their willingness to support budget cuts for the needy, to spend hundreds of billions on a bloated military, to support the U.S. economic and military expansion to the rest of the world.
There are two contending worldviews: one claims that the world is fundamentally scary, filled with hurtful people, and that our primary task is to defend ourselves from others by being "realistic" and learning how to dominate and control them before they do the same to us. The other sees the world composed of humans who have been created in the image of God and who desire loving connection, gentleness and kindness—and hence the way to get security is to build cooperative relationships. The first worldview leads to a conservative politics and to a justification for militarism and narrow self-interest. It is the politics of George Bush and of Mel Gibson. That is why this film focuses our attention on violence and cruelty. The second worldview leads to a politics of sharing our resources with the poor of the planet, tithing what we have, and beating our swords into plowshares. It is the politics of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the great teachers of every religious and spiritual tradition.
Every religious tradition has elements of both worldviews inside them, because every religious tradition reflects the consciousness of the people who shaped it. We all have moments of fear and moments of hope. Our problem with this film is that it reinforces the belief that the world is truly about violence and cruelty, and it marginalizes hope. In this deep way it is fundamentally untrue to the New Testament which is primarily a message of hope—and hope that we on this earth can build a world of love and generosity and kindness.We are interfaith people from every religious and spiritual tradition.We seek to support the renewal of this message within every faith tradition—and to work together for a world of justice, peace, and love. We invite you to read the Core Vision of The Tikkun Community at www.Tikkun.org and to join us.
The Tikkun Community www.tikkun.org An interfaith project for a world of love.
Side two:
How Can a Gospel Based Story be Anti-Semitic?
Many Christians have trouble understanding why most Jews who have seen the movie feel that it is likely to stir up anti-Semitism. That's not surprising, because most Christians have never been taught how the Gospel stories were used throughout the past two thousand years to stir up anti-Jewish hatred. But the fact is that after the Church came to power in Constantine's Rome, it passed anti-Jewish legislation and promulgated the idea of the Jews as "killers of Christ" and as evil people. For 1700 years Jews lived in fear of Easter season—because after Good Friday readings of the Book of John and Matthew, drunken crowds of Christians frequently attacked Jews, murdering, pillaging, raping and at times expelling all Jews altogether from their cities. Luther, building Protestantism, wrote even more intense attacks on the Jews in his theological works. The impact of all this was to created a culture of hatred for the Jews that was drawn upon by Hitler, Stalin and others to "blame the Jews" for whatever was wrong in their society.
After the Holocaust, the Catholic Church in Vatican II forbade any more teachings of hatred against the Jews. Mel Gibson rejects Vatican II and seeks to go back to the earlier vision. And that is what he does in The Passion movie.
If Jesus was about love, why focus on the violence and cruelty?
The Right-Wing Politics of the Gibson Passion Movie
Jesus was a great Jewish teacher whose message of love, kindness, gentleness and compassion are a side-light in the Mel Gibson movie, a prop to the main focus which is on pain, cruelty and suffering. Why not focus on the Resurrection with its message of hope overcoming despair? Why not focus on Jesus' message that the rich will have a hard time getting into heaven, or that the real way you are treating God can be measured by how much caring you show for taking care of the poor? Or that the truly blessed are the peacemakers?
The answer is that the choice of focus of this film was a highly political choice—and that is why it has become so popular with right-wing Christians who have twisted the message of Christianity to allow it to become a defense of their willingness to support budget cuts for the needy, to spend hundreds of billions on a bloated military, to support the U.S. economic and military expansion to the rest of the world.
There are two contending worldviews: one claims that the world is fundamentally scary, filled with hurtful people, and that our primary task is to defend ourselves from others by being "realistic" and learning how to dominate and control them before they do the same to us. The other sees the world composed of humans who have been created in the image of God and who desire loving connection, gentleness and kindness—and hence the way to get security is to build cooperative relationships. The first worldview leads to a conservative politics and to a justification for militarism and narrow self-interest. It is the politics of George Bush and of Mel Gibson. That is why this film focuses our attention on violence and cruelty. The second worldview leads to a politics of sharing our resources with the poor of the planet, tithing what we have, and beating our swords into plowshares. It is the politics of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the great teachers of every religious and spiritual tradition.
Every religious tradition has elements of both worldviews inside them, because every religious tradition reflects the consciousness of the people who shaped it. We all have moments of fear and moments of hope. Our problem with this film is that it reinforces the belief that the world is truly about violence and cruelty, and it marginalizes hope. In this deep way it is fundamentally untrue to the New Testament which is primarily a message of hope—and hope that we on this earth can build a world of love and generosity and kindness.We are interfaith people from every religious and spiritual tradition.We seek to support the renewal of this message within every faith tradition—and to work together for a world of justice, peace, and love. We invite you to read the Core Vision of The Tikkun Community at www.Tikkun.org and to join us.
The Tikkun Community www.tikkun.org An interfaith project for a world of love.
Side two:
How Can a Gospel Based Story be Anti-Semitic?
Many Christians have trouble understanding why most Jews who have seen the movie feel that it is likely to stir up anti-Semitism. That's not surprising, because most Christians have never been taught how the Gospel stories were used throughout the past two thousand years to stir up anti-Jewish hatred. But the fact is that after the Church came to power in Constantine's Rome, it passed anti-Jewish legislation and promulgated the idea of the Jews as "killers of Christ" and as evil people. For 1700 years Jews lived in fear of Easter season—because after Good Friday readings of the Book of John and Matthew, drunken crowds of Christians frequently attacked Jews, murdering, pillaging, raping and at times expelling all Jews altogether from their cities. Luther, building Protestantism, wrote even more intense attacks on the Jews in his theological works. The impact of all this was to created a culture of hatred for the Jews that was drawn upon by Hitler, Stalin and others to "blame the Jews" for whatever was wrong in their society.
After the Holocaust, the Catholic Church in Vatican II forbade any more teachings of hatred against the Jews. Mel Gibson rejects Vatican II and seeks to go back to the earlier vision. And that is what he does in The Passion movie.
Monday, March 01, 2004
An Obscene Portrayal of Christ's Passion
Please read these excerpts from James Carroll, a former Catholic priest who wrote a very important book on the topic of Christian hatred of Jews: Constantine's Sword.
An Obscene Portrayal of Christ's Passion
By James Carroll
"The Passion of The Christ" by Mel Gibson is an obscene movie. It will incite contempt for Jews. It is a blasphemous insult to the memory of Jesus Christ. It is an icon of religious violence. Like many others, I anticipated the Gibson film warily, especially because an uncritical rendition of problematic Gospel texts which unfairly blame "the Jews" for the death of Jesus threatened to resuscitate the old "Christ-killer" myth.
But seeing Gibson's film convinces me that it does far worse than that. His highly literal representation of the Passion narratives, his visual presentation of material that, in the tradition, is meant to be read and heard, together with his prejudiced selection of details and his invention of dialogue and incidents, cause one serious problem, very much at the expense of Jews.
But the impact of his perverse imagination on a sacred story, coming at a time when the world is newly riven with primal violence in the name of God, threatens an even more grievous problem. The subject of this film, despite its title, is not the Passion of the Christ, but the sick love of physical abuse, engaged in for power.
Jews as presented in this movie are overwhelmingly negative. Roman soldiers brutally execute Jesus, but Pontius Pilate is a good man, who stands in dramatic contrast to Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest. Going well beyond anything in the Gospels, Gibson's film emphasizes Roman virtue and Jewish venality by inventions like these:
Pilate's wife Claudia is an actual heroine, who aligns herself with Mary. Mary, terrified for her son, appeals to benign Romans against the hostile Jewish crowd.
Claudia is the woman behind the Romans. Her dramatic counterpart, the woman behind the Jews, is none other than a female Satan.
Pilate kindly offers Jesus a cup of water. Pilate orders Jesus flogged, but only to satisfy the Jewish bloodthirst.
The Jews are expressly indicted by the Good Thief, who, after the crucified Jesus says, "Father, forgive them...," tells Caiaphas that "He prays for you." Jews are indicted by Jesus, who consoles Pilate by telling him, "It is he who has delivered me to you who has the greater sin."
The centerpiece of the film is a long sequence constructed around the flogging of Jesus. It is the most brutal film episode I have ever seen, approaching the pornographic. Just when the viewer thinks the flaying of the skin of Jesus can get no crueler, it does. Blood, flesh, bone, teeth, eyes, eye sockets, ribs, limbs—the man is skinned alive, taken apart. In these endless moments, with the torturers escalating instruments and vehemence both, the film puts Gibson's decadent "Braveheart" imagination on full display.
On screen and in the theater, there is nothing to do but look away. Long after the filmgoer has had enough, even the Romans stop. And here is the anti-Semitic use to which this grotesque scene is put: Then Jesus is returned to the crowd of "the Jews," and then, as if they are indifferent to what the filmgoer has just been physically revolted by, "the Jews" demand the crucifixion of Jesus.
Not even the most savage carnage a filmgoer has ever seen is enough for these monsters. The scene, with the Jewish crowd overriding tender-hearted Pilate, is the most lethal in the Scriptures, but in Gibson's twist, "The Jews" are made to seem more evil than ever.
There is no resurrection in this film. A stone is rolled back, a zombie-Jesus is seen in profile for a second or two, and that's it. But there is a reason for this. In Gibson's theology, the resurrection has been rendered unnecessary by the infinite capacity of Jesus to withstand pain. Not the Risen Jesus, but the Survivor Jesus. Gibson's violence fantasies, as ingenious as perverse, are, at bottom, a fantasy of infinite male toughness.
The inflicting of suffering is the action of the film, and the dramatic question is: How much pain can Jesus take? The religious miracle of this Passion is that he can take it all. Jesus Christ Superstoic. His wondrous capacity to suffer is what converts bystander soldiers, and it is what saves the world.
In an act of perverse editing, Gibson has Jesus say, "I make all things new" as his torment approaches climax, as if cruel mayhem brings renewal. When Jesus cries out near the end, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" the film conveys not his despair, but his numb gratification. There's the film's inadvertent reversal, the crucifixion as a triumph of sadomasochistic exploitation. That triumph seems to be what Gibson's Jesus salutes when he says finally, "It is accomplished."
It is a lie. It is sick. Jews have every reason to be offended by "The Passion of The Christ." Even more so, if possible, do Christians.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
An Obscene Portrayal of Christ's Passion
By James Carroll
"The Passion of The Christ" by Mel Gibson is an obscene movie. It will incite contempt for Jews. It is a blasphemous insult to the memory of Jesus Christ. It is an icon of religious violence. Like many others, I anticipated the Gibson film warily, especially because an uncritical rendition of problematic Gospel texts which unfairly blame "the Jews" for the death of Jesus threatened to resuscitate the old "Christ-killer" myth.
But seeing Gibson's film convinces me that it does far worse than that. His highly literal representation of the Passion narratives, his visual presentation of material that, in the tradition, is meant to be read and heard, together with his prejudiced selection of details and his invention of dialogue and incidents, cause one serious problem, very much at the expense of Jews.
But the impact of his perverse imagination on a sacred story, coming at a time when the world is newly riven with primal violence in the name of God, threatens an even more grievous problem. The subject of this film, despite its title, is not the Passion of the Christ, but the sick love of physical abuse, engaged in for power.
Jews as presented in this movie are overwhelmingly negative. Roman soldiers brutally execute Jesus, but Pontius Pilate is a good man, who stands in dramatic contrast to Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest. Going well beyond anything in the Gospels, Gibson's film emphasizes Roman virtue and Jewish venality by inventions like these:
Pilate's wife Claudia is an actual heroine, who aligns herself with Mary. Mary, terrified for her son, appeals to benign Romans against the hostile Jewish crowd.
Claudia is the woman behind the Romans. Her dramatic counterpart, the woman behind the Jews, is none other than a female Satan.
Pilate kindly offers Jesus a cup of water. Pilate orders Jesus flogged, but only to satisfy the Jewish bloodthirst.
The Jews are expressly indicted by the Good Thief, who, after the crucified Jesus says, "Father, forgive them...," tells Caiaphas that "He prays for you." Jews are indicted by Jesus, who consoles Pilate by telling him, "It is he who has delivered me to you who has the greater sin."
The centerpiece of the film is a long sequence constructed around the flogging of Jesus. It is the most brutal film episode I have ever seen, approaching the pornographic. Just when the viewer thinks the flaying of the skin of Jesus can get no crueler, it does. Blood, flesh, bone, teeth, eyes, eye sockets, ribs, limbs—the man is skinned alive, taken apart. In these endless moments, with the torturers escalating instruments and vehemence both, the film puts Gibson's decadent "Braveheart" imagination on full display.
On screen and in the theater, there is nothing to do but look away. Long after the filmgoer has had enough, even the Romans stop. And here is the anti-Semitic use to which this grotesque scene is put: Then Jesus is returned to the crowd of "the Jews," and then, as if they are indifferent to what the filmgoer has just been physically revolted by, "the Jews" demand the crucifixion of Jesus.
Not even the most savage carnage a filmgoer has ever seen is enough for these monsters. The scene, with the Jewish crowd overriding tender-hearted Pilate, is the most lethal in the Scriptures, but in Gibson's twist, "The Jews" are made to seem more evil than ever.
There is no resurrection in this film. A stone is rolled back, a zombie-Jesus is seen in profile for a second or two, and that's it. But there is a reason for this. In Gibson's theology, the resurrection has been rendered unnecessary by the infinite capacity of Jesus to withstand pain. Not the Risen Jesus, but the Survivor Jesus. Gibson's violence fantasies, as ingenious as perverse, are, at bottom, a fantasy of infinite male toughness.
The inflicting of suffering is the action of the film, and the dramatic question is: How much pain can Jesus take? The religious miracle of this Passion is that he can take it all. Jesus Christ Superstoic. His wondrous capacity to suffer is what converts bystander soldiers, and it is what saves the world.
In an act of perverse editing, Gibson has Jesus say, "I make all things new" as his torment approaches climax, as if cruel mayhem brings renewal. When Jesus cries out near the end, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" the film conveys not his despair, but his numb gratification. There's the film's inadvertent reversal, the crucifixion as a triumph of sadomasochistic exploitation. That triumph seems to be what Gibson's Jesus salutes when he says finally, "It is accomplished."
It is a lie. It is sick. Jews have every reason to be offended by "The Passion of The Christ." Even more so, if possible, do Christians.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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