Humanity and Truth: Lost In The Fog Of War

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9009472/Hamid-Karzai-condemns-US-Marines-urinating-video.html

Just a few thoughts on the recent video footage of Marines in Afghanistan urinating on the dead bodies of some Taliban fighters. If you haven’t seen it you can click on the link above.

I can honestly say that I am not surprised by this news and I am wondering why anyone else is. While seeing this footage saddens me, I find it curious that people are even outraged by this event or even surprised by the behavior.

I ask the question, what is more barbaric, urinating on the corpses of these departed souls, or the methods by which they met their demise in the first place?

On the one hand we have a culture that defends the soldiers who killed these men fighting for the Taliban with statements like “Our soldiers are fighting for our freedom” but then on the other we have the same culture that condemns them for their equally barbaric actions after the initial murders took place.

As a former soldier myself, I can tell you that you are indoctrinated to see that whoever the government dictates as the “enemy” as just that. The enemy. The alien other who has no family, no feelings, no emotions. Your job is to kill the enemy. Aim center mass. You are not taught to kill as a last resort. The weapons that are created by the military industrial complex are made to kill and bring the maximum destruction possible to the enemy- all paid for by OUR tax dollars.

We “ohhh and ahhhh” when the lastest and greatest weapons of warfare are up for display showcasing the awesome and fearsome might of the empire’s ability to bring ultimate destruction and devastation to the enemy and yet .. we are surprised and outraged by some urination?

After this type of cultural indoctrination and 10 years of fighting and violence what does one think begins to happen to the human heart, to the participants involved in the midst of all this chaos?

This video is a depiction of the loss of humanity in the midst of war.The loss of the humanity of the Taliban, and of the Marines who are urinating on their dead bodies. Is this barbaric? Yes- but no more so than the events that took place that lead to these men’s deaths. No more so than the rally cry for war, revenge and blood by the American public after the events of 9/11 that was in the same ilk as the blood thirsty crowds of the Roman Empire who cried for the death of gladiator slaves who had to fight for their very lives. We are in that crowd. We are those soldiers in theory and in practice.

This is the cost of war.. this is the ugly price of indoctrination, propaganda, nationalism and acculturation. It is said that the first thing lost in the fog of war is truth. I assert that after that, comes our humanity. As the author Chris Hedges states in his book “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning” “In the beginning war looks and feels like love. But unlike love it gives nothing in return but an ever-deepening dependence, like all narcotics, on the road to self-destruction. It does not affirm but places upon us greater and greater demands. It destroys the outside world until it is hard to live outside war’s grip. It takes a higher and higher dose to achieve any thrill. Finally, one ingests war only to remain numb.”

The Death Of A Star:Amy Winehouse and the Myth of the Forever 27 Club

In astronomy, scientists state that the more massive the star, the shorter its lifespan, primarily because massive starts have greater pressure on their cores.

I pondered this thought as I heard the tragic news of Amy Winehouse’s death. “Is this why we call them “stars”? Is the brightness of their talent a burden that is so heavy to carry that it causes them to implode on a path of self destruction?

The lofty expectations of a hypocritical public, demands from family members and friends who want money or hope to ride the coattails of their success, and the “stars” own personal struggles with fame, insecurity, and possible addiction all combine to form tsunami like pressure on our already fragile and broken human and spiritual conditions.

Until her recent death I had no idea what the “Forever 27 Club” was. In a world where everything is a commodity that needs a label to be packaged and sold it is no surprise to me that even in death we feel the need to come up with a euphemistic label to explain something that we find unexplainable.

Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain….and now Amy Winehouse. Welcome to the “Forever 27 Club” where there is only two means of entry: immense artistic talent and tragedy in death. There is no quiet dignity here, a passing away surrounded by family and your closest loved ones. No, in the Forever 27 Club each members death is reflective of the tragedy of their lives that was shrouded by the immense light that was cast out by their artistic talents.

In  the Christian bible and in the book of Matthew in particular, Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” For the uninitiated, a yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals, typically oxen, and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.

Jesus is using a clever agricultural comparative metaphor to speak about the burdens and the weight of expectations of this world and offering us an alternative to the demands on our time,money, and on our person- especially for those of us who display a modicum of exceptional talent that can generate revenue. It is unrelenting, indomitably taxing and a yoke that is all too often too heavy to carry.

This demand even extends beyond death. As I watched the news reporter talk to friends of Amy Winehouse about her life and her music, there was already talk if there was any unreleased catalogues of music there that the public had yet to hear (or the record label could still profit from). More music. Less than 72 hours after her death the world still wants to know if there is more for us to have and consume when it was apparent by Amy’s last performance in Belgrade when she was booed of stage that she had little left to give.

Like the short lives of the heavenly stars that these earthly “stars” replicate, stars as a whole have their own myths. To the Ancient Greeks, some “stars”, known as planets meaning “wanderer”,represented various important deities from which the names of the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were taken. Uranus and Neptune were also Greek and Roman gods.

We too create our own myths. With the death of Amy Winehouse the macabre myth of “The Forever 27 Club” grows larger in pop culture -its individuals a commodity that others profit from by virtue of their passing.

As with all myths, it is one that needs to be debunked for its mere presence gives a false representation of our reality and theirs, robbing us of the narrative of these broken lives tragically cut short and the lessons that can be garnered from them. The allure of success, fame, and money make up an illusory oasis in a Saharan and valueless pop culture that masks the pitfalls of this deadly trifecta in that once it has has had its fill, relegates precious, albeit talented lives, to a t-shirt that has no story.

Jim Morrison was found dead and alone of heart failure in a Parisian bathtub.  By the time Morrison’s music ascended to the top of the charts in 1967 he had not been in communication with his family for more than a year and falsely claimed that his parents and siblings were dead (or claiming, as it has been widely misreported, that he was an only child).

Kurt Cobain’s young life started out with the tragic divorce of his family 8 years old. In an interview at the height of Nirvana’s popularity, he admitted that this event had a profound effect on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically; Cobain became defiant and withdrawn and in a 1993 interview, he elaborated:

“I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn’t face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that

This ever present insecurity, his self medicated heroin addiction to deal with pain from an undiagnosed stomach condition, a family history of suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse ended up with him committing suicide by putting a shotgun to his head.

Janis Joplin was found alone, dead on the floor of her hotel room via overdose of a cocktail of alcohol and heroin.The Joplin family had stated that they felt “ Janis always needed more attention than their other children, with her mother stating, “She was unhappy and unsatisfied without [receiving a lot of attention]. The normal rapport wasn’t adequate.”

Jimmy Hendrix was found dead in a London apartment after choking on his own vomit from drinking alcohol and taking barbiturates. When Hendrix was 9 his parent divorced. Soon after, his mother developed cirrhosis of the liver and died resulting in Hendrix having a turbulent childhood with little guidance to include some time spent in foster care.

And finally, Amy Winehouse, who by her own words in various interviews spent the majority of her adult life dealing with self-harm, depression and eating disorders was found dead and alone in her North London apartment. As the coroner tries to piece together the final moments of Amy’s life it would not be a reach to place drugs and alcohol as the chief suspects.

And the world “mourns” and people say cliched statements like “the good die young”.

In reality, they don’t “just die”. It is a plodding, brooding, painful march towards, and plunge into the abyss. They die tragic and horrible deaths-lives cut short by substance and alcohol abuse used to mask the deeper inner turmoil of their inner private self that they never dealt with or came to terms with. They die typically by themselves, or surrounded by people who care little for them, other than whatever their fame and fortune can do to benefit them. They die in circumstances that if given the choice would not be ones that we would choose for ourselves. Yes, they die young but they don’t die “good”. They don’t die with any dignity or surrounded with those whom they love. Death comes to us all but no one should die in such circumstances: alone in a hotel room, in a bathtub, with a shotgun, or via asphyxiation of your own bile, all these mired with the realisation and irony that despite the public adoration, money, and fame, they were still ultimately lonely and broken people.

There is nothing to be celebrated in that. There is no glory to be found there. Just as a dying star’s flame is extinguishing, there is no one to witness its end. There is nothing but the loneliness of silence that comes with the vacuum of empty spaces and the accompanying darkness as the once burning light is being snuffed out.

Our lives imitate some of the most dramatic events in the universe. A supernova is a massive explosion of star dust and gases from when the star explodes. The photos scientists have of supernovae are actually of when the super nova happened millions or billions of years ago because it takes light so long to travel here from that far away. When the scientists see these super novae it is like seeing into the past. Super nova are very bright and colorful and among the most powerful events in the universe. After a star dies and goes super nova the dust will help make new stars in the future. Coincidently, in today’s news, Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ is now back in the charts. It is top of the charts in 16 countries, knocking off Adele, the heir apparent to Amy Winehouse as the face of British “blue- eyed” soul music off the top of the ITUNES charts.

What does all this rapture nonsense mean anyway?

All week I have been inundated with jokes about the rapture, news stories, comedic skits etc etc. I myself have playfully participated in what I perceived to be the “fun” and silliness of it all.

Now that the hype has settled and we have resolved ourselves to the fact that yes, we have to return to work tomorrow and it is not the end of the world, I have come to realize that all this rapture/end of the world talk has tremendous sociological as well as theological applications that simply should not be missed. 

 As a believer in Jesus Christ, it has bothered me for quite some time about the seemingly over emphasis of evangelism in the body of faith. I know a little bit about evangelism. I have personally evangelised myself within the context of a “church setting” and previous to that I worked in a marketing/sales field for over 3 years in which  I “evangelized” people in the “ life changing propensities” of higher education- a job that to my chagrin required me to treat people as numbers to be counted rather than well- people. 

 I am lucky enough to no longer be in that position, but as I continue on my journey of faith I have noticed that there seems to be an almost equal approach to “getting numbers” in the evangelism of Christian ministry.

 Let me be clear, this is not to state that I have a problem with evangelism. However, what I do struggle with is what I see is a seemingly overemphasis on evangelical outreach that is not in my belief being tempered by an equally passionate message of a quality of life that the good news can bring to people in the PRESENT. 

 When we limit the gospel to it only being good news when it comes to an eternal afterlife, we rob it of its power and scope. An overemphasis of this narrative is not fully encompassing the gospel and it offers little hope to people who are trying to figure out how to live life TODAY. A deemphasis of this narrative robs the gospel of the redeeming power that speaks of a quality of life that exists in the present.

 My grandmother once said in her Jamaican patois “Everyone a bring flower when people a dead. Mi? Me want mi flowers now not when mi dead”.  In that simple statement my grandmother voices the concern of billions of people around the world. The desire for a quantifiably better life NOW.

 It is in this statement that the majority of people are concerned with finding the answers and keys to, not how will my life be in the afterlife.  How can I raise my kids better? How can I communicate with my spouse better? How can I be successful? How can I fix fragmented familial relations? How can I get off drugs? How can I move past the abuse that was done to me as a child? How can I get over the fact that I never knew my father? These are real and genuine concerns that people have and it speaks volumes as to why there is a multi million dollar self help industry.

 As people around the world, including some christians, mock Harold Camping and the members of his church for believing in his predictions of the end times and calling them “fruitcakes” or “wackos” I believe this is an oversimplification that does not give us an opportunity to reflect on the message and spirit behind it. 

 Whether you were a member of Campings church, a “God fearing Christian” of another denomination or someone completely removed from the Christian faith, the amount of talk about the coming “end of the world” and the numerous jokes that accompanied it by tv hosts, pundits, and on internet chat sites alike, one cannot deny the underlying tension behind it, an internal dialogue so to speak of one’s current position in life in this reality. 

 The American Dream is dead. If it indeed ever existed. The “dream” that has been packaged and sold, to billions of people around the world is coming to an end. It was a man made fabrication and false reality of heaven on earth, and the end of it, as it begins to crumble from the inside out has literally been the proverbial end of the world for billions of people who bought into it or had the opportunity to buy in to it. 

 Mass unemployment, layoffs, bank bailouts, a trillion dollar national debt, corporate greed, the mortgage crisis, high gas prices, entire governments experiencing financial collapse, and the war on terror all combine to make a powerful societal malaise, disenchantment and overall hopelessness that feeds a desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else but here- even if it takes the end of the world..and that is what makes this end of the world/doomsday predictions so insightful. 

 While the world delighted in poking fingers in laughter at Harold Camping and the members of his church as if they were some circus sideshow, I argue that there was also millions of people who actually silently “camped” with them, hoping that his predictions were true and that all this end of the world talk would prove to be a segue way to the main event. Bring on the death, destruction, fire and brimstone because for billions of people they consider themselves already dead thus the current cultural fascination/obsession with zombies.

Burdened by massive debt in a market that offers little employment opportunity, student loan debt that needs to be repaid despite the fact that the college degree that was earned has not paid itself off like the recruiter told them it would.  Strained family relations, marriages on the brink, self medication, disconnection from their kids who listen to “weird” music that tells them to “wolf gang kill them all” by angry young black men with balaclavas that have upside down crucifixes on them(OddFuture) and of whom would rather connect with their iphone or macbook than they would with their overly stressed and burnt out parents saddled with a mortgage that was secured by a variable interest rate. Yes, millions hoped that this indeed was the end and that they finally would be put of their misery…. only to awake and find out that their worst nightmare came true- not that the end of the world was on May 21st 2011, but that they were still here and alive in all this mess.

 Jesus was a storyteller and in Luke 12:40 Jesus tells the disciples to be prepared,  for the Son of Man (Jesus) is coming at an hour you do not expect. While we can clearly interpret this as Jesus saying that his return is something that cannot be predicted there are also lessons that can be taken that apply to this life in the present. 

 Whether it is the fear of the rapture or end of the world or death, for each of us it should call into question our very presence and present place in this life. I hear Jesus saying to us that we should live with life with a sense of passion, and purpose and fulfilment. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, whether it be in his return (which is actually not the end but a new beginning) or our deaths, we should live with earnest expectation, not putting off those things for tomorrow that we can do today. There are too many people who come to that midpoint of their life or later, only to be filled with bitter regret, missed opportunities and anger. And in this story as in others he is offering us an invitation to join with him in a new experience and not miss out on anything. 

 While the “afterlife” is a reality that we all have to face, it is quite esoteric and full of  spiritual mysticism that can only be partially explained by interpretations of scripture that offer us small snippets of what lies behind the veil. I think the word that God shared in the Bible through Jesus Christ does that purposely offering up a glimpse but speaking more to the reality of our life in the present because that is what resonates with people and allows people to fully experience a reality that is worth living. Healed relationships, selfless service, recovery from addictions, the value of and purpose of money, giving, loving others despite themselves, others loving you despite yourself, equality, justice, reconciliation, and restoration. 

 Jesus was all about speaking to people’s present realities and brokenness, because in dealing with those things our hearts are being healed enabling us to perceive what is important in the present, be an active participant in the now, and it prepares our hearts for whatever is to come in the new kingdom that is to take place after the “rapture”- in whatever form that may take and whenever it takes place.  More importantly it gives people something tangible and a vitality of life that allows them to live with a peace of mind and means of how to co-exist and live harmoniusly with others in the present while offering up hopes for a better future.

If the only message that we have to share from the christian gospel is that life gets better after you’re dead and that on the other side you are resurrected on  gold paved streets of heaven, then what do we really have to offer that is much different from anyone else because everyone has an afterlife narrative and for some 12 virgins sounds a lot better than streets of gold.

 Where is the life changing power that comes from an encounter with the resurrected Christ if this is the only message that is being preached?  I’ll tell you where- it’s dead, in a tomb with a stone rolled in front of it guarded by Roman soldiers. It is in fact, as symbolic as if Christ himself was never resurrected. And I ask where is the good news in that?

 Harold Camping and his followers know the story of the glory of the afterlife. Let us not forget they are believers in the christian narrative of Jesus Christ.  That is why they were so eager to “escape” as are the millions of others who believed that the 21st of May was their “rescue” date and as are the millions of others who believe that the end of the world is going to be on 2012.

It is too easy to just disregard them as “wackos” because when do that we fail to miss why these people believed so desperately that the end of the world was coming on May 21st.  We miss the valuable lesson behind all of this and it is that they are simply broken people who were so jaded with  their present reality that they were willing to believe anyone who could offer them a way of escaping out of here with a chance for a new beginning and who has not ever felt like that?

 My question is do they know the other story? The one where Jesus offers them a plan of a redemptive life that exists in this reality?

 I dare say no, and I also confidently dare to say that neither do thousands if not millions of others who, caught up in the attempt to “save” their souls from eternal damnation, were sold the idea of Jesus Christ as a triumphant cowboy or a divine rescuer who is returning to take them away from  lives that  have experienced little change starting from the day they said “I do” to Jesus. 

 Heaven is being made right now, here in the present. We can choose to participate in the process or live like hell. We can choose to embrace life in all its fullness and look at every turn for a new opportunity. We can decide to chase our dreams and not put off tomorrow what we can do today. 

Life or death, heaven or hell, we all have the choice to choose. We need to choose to share a message of life that begins now as much as it is discussed about the here-after because it is in living a life that is worth living that makes the gospel GOOD NEWS.

What Kobe Bryant’s comment says about America

Kobe Bryant’s recent comment in the midst of a nationally broadcast NBA game involving him making an embarrassingly homophobic outburst towards a referee has now spilled over into a mini controversy resulting in Kobe being fined by the NBA , and the Lakers organization committing itself to working with GLAAD says less about Kobe than it does about society and a culture of bigotry and intolerance in America.

If you are able to look behind the controversy you will find that Kobe’s comment was but a small reflection of the greater issue of societal homophobia and sexism as a whole,  and the social construction(distortion) of masculinity that uses words like “faggot” to establish and enforce itself in the national mindset.

Derogatory language in regard to homosexuality/femininity is common place in gyms, locker rooms, practice fields, high schools, places of employment, the military and in main stream media. If we are all being honest, the word “faggot” and “gay” are words that have been ingrained into our consciousness, ones that we have all heard and of which the majority of us have used at least one time or other with no intention of harming or hurting the feelings of someone who may indeed be homosexual.

We grow up and say or hear things like “that is gay” which we use to describe something that we feel is stupid or silly. We tell our little boys to stop crying and be a big boy (not a girl)when they fall and hurt themselves. Young men use the word “faggot” as a tool to apply pressure to their peers when they do not want to go along with the status quo or when an individual makes a choice that stands juxtaposed to what “real men” are supposed to be doing.

It is not uncommon for some coaches to even label (libel) young men as sissies in the venue of competitive sports if a player complains of being too sick to practice or too hurt to continue in the game. They are in fact told to “Man up” and to “Stop acting like a girl”. So commonplace is this type of talk, so ingrained is it in this culture of patriarchy, that most of us don’t even flinch when it is said. We are in fact desensitized to it in as much as we are desensitized to the depth of the problems of homophobia, misogyny and sexism in America. We  all should dislike the negative connotations of calling someone, or something gay, a faggot, a girl, or a sissy, just as much as we dislike it when we hear a word like nigger- and yet we don’t.

What does it say about our society and how we feel about our fellow women and men, whether they be homosexual or not, that when they exhibit attributes that conflict with the strength, virility, and stoic conformity that are supposed to define our unattainable socially constructed definition of masculinity that we meet it with derisive and derogatory language?

Yes, Kobe was at fault for making that comment on national tv for what he believed was a bad call, but it says more about the spirits of intolerance and sexism in our society than it does about him specifically. As a society we are culpable for quietly accepting and participating in a culture of intolerance and sexism that allows homophobia and sexism to exist and continue to oppress, hurt, and rob our brothers and sisters of their dignity and personal freedom of expression to be who they want to be. Anytime an individual or groups dignity is taken away from them it is a blot on society and a failure of us all.

The seeds of intolerance are sown deep into the national fabric of our consciousness and it needs bold farmers to dig deep into that troubled soil and rip it out by its roots.

There is much work to be done, the harvest is plenty and the workers are few- but first we must start with ripping those roots out of ourselves.

The Revolution Will Be Televised

The Revolution Will Be Televised

- ByJoseph Boston| Sun Jan 30, 2011 4:30 AM EAST

In 1970 Gil Scott-Heron coined the phrase “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” with a song by the same name on his album “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox”.

How wrong he was.  Sorry, Gil.  The revolution has been televised, commodified, and packaged right into our homes and yet it seems all too familiar.

As the deluge of information comes out of Egypt in regard to what is actually going on (I have noticed they have internet  ”cliff notes” called “explainers” out there).  I have a question.

Remember the Iranian Revolution last year? Exactly. Zero media coverage since then and that is not because the factors that led to the uprising (government censorship on the media, internet, corrupt leadership, unemployment etc. etc.) were resolved either.  Coincidentally from what I can understand from the “explainer” the same factors are at the root of this Egyptian revolution.

Want another example?  Remember Haiti?  Yeah, those people on that island that is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Yes, them. We were bombarded with images that showed what happens when the earth shakes violently, wreaking havoc, like the Kraken called out from the deep on impoverished people who live in shacks that aren’t built with building codes.  Yeah, that Haiti, who were less than a year ago, on the TV everyday for about a month due to a devastatingly powerful earthquake and who are in no better shape today than they were last year despite all the aid, media coverage and celebrity attention.  Remember now?

It’s ok.  I know it’s difficult.  And these are just the events I can recall.

This is a word of warning to the people of Egypt.  A kind of “It’s not you, it’s me” confession.

We, the people of the “western” world, suffer from chronic A.D.D.

Three months from now you won’t even be a blip on all the western media markets that are sweeping over your beloved nation like carrion waiting for the final death gasp.  You’re lucky if you’re a blip on mine now.

You are a commodity; something to talk about.  An Internet sensation, a byline for that cover story some journalist has been waiting for so he can get the chance to be first on the really big stories.  You’re a promotion; A distraction from the mundanity of our suburban existence. You rank right there with Brittany Spears’ very public breakdown, or when Charlie Sheen got popped for another incident with high-end hookers and some blow. Which was just last week.  Really Charlie?  Again?!

We live off high speed Internet, microwaves, sound bites, and drive-thrus.  We get pissed if you make us wait longer than we need to for our fries.  And don’t even get us started about the lines in Wal-Mart. You want to talk ‘revolution’? We need one in Wal-Mart; there are never enough cashiers!

Our attention span is so short that we have even found a way to encapsulate the blood of your struggle into #EGYPTIAN to neatly fit into our 140-character Twitter requirement.  By the way, where is Egypt?  That’s in Europe, right?

In any case, I’m sorry, but please don’t blame us for our A.D.D.  Really.  It’s not our fault.  We are raised watching TV shows that just disappear off the air when the ratings go south.  We are victims of ‘reality television’ that blur the distinction between fact and fiction.  Trust me, it’s like the plot of Inception but much simpler.

And so it goes with your “little” revolution. Which, by the way, you need to hurry up with.  So this is just a kind “heads-up” to be prepared for when we’re not talking about you anymore – when we stop calling, and tweeting, and posting about you on our social updates.  It was fun while it lasted and like I said, it’s nothing personal; it’s not you… it’s us.

So enjoy your moment in the spotlight while it lasts because fame is fleeting and it takes our attention span with it like a runaway bride.  We admittedly have a hard time with commitment.

You’ll see once you get cable TV. You’ll be just like us then too.

Martin Luther King: The Bastardization of a Man and a Dream

There is a time when silence become betrayal…© Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.

I have often surmised that nothing is as good as we remember it to be, and nothing is as bad we remember it to be. Our memories deceive us as we recollect the “good old days” or some “golden era”. This recollection of times passed is a singularly selfish endeavor in as much that surely the good old days for some were not the good old days for others, nor are they remembered quite as exactly.

This seems to happen more often than not when we recall the lives of men and women who have gone before us. We eschew the character of the individual, leaving behind the more pleasant residues of their personalities which is sometimes beneficial to the individual. However this selective recollection can also be detrimental to the legacy and lessons that can be extrapolated from that individuals life and to ourselves.

This is never more prevalent than in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every year on January 17th and in February during “Black History Month”, Dr.King goes through a “santaclausification” of his life work.

We are treated to numerous soundbites of what some consider the peak of his public ministry, his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Washington Monument. We recollect his bravery, his intellect, and his deft abilities of elocution.

Of course, one would not be wrong to remember him for all of these things. However, in remembering selectively we rob ourselves of the fullness of Dr. King’s legacy, and also the lessons we can derive from it.

What unsettling times America finds itself in. America is currently engaged in fighting two wars on two different fronts costing the American taxpayers over a trillion dollars and counting, mass unemployment rates hovering at around 9.1%, Wall Street brokers and banks ripping off the economy and then getting bailed out (twice) by the very taxpayers they were ripping off, the mortgage crisis, gross inequality of wealth with 1-2% of Americans owning 90% of the nations wealth, a prison industrial complex that is overly represented by minority groups, an unjust “justice system” that has laws in place like the “3 strikes you’re out law” and the “Rockefeller” laws that significantly impact minority groups and the poor, the rise of the right wing in the form of “The Tea Party”, continued cuts in social and education programs in our schools and the awarding of the President of the United States the Nobel Peace Prize all while he contemplated troop increases in Afghanistan and troops remained in Iraq. These are troubled and perplexing times indeed and yet if can remember rightly, and completely, we see Dr. King’s legacy speaking to us in the present.

“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice”

The last year of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life was the most depressing time of his life because of a speech. So depressing in fact that he battled with continuing his public presence in the Civil Rights movement. He continually suffered bouts of depression, isolation, and loneliness, over the course of the next year continuing on to Memphis which ultimately led to his assassination. A speech. Not the time he spent isolated in incarceration in Albany, not his time spent facing the firehoses, dogs, and billy clubs of Governor George Wallace’s henchmen: Bull Connor and James Clark in the state of Alabama -but because of a speech. A speech that is one of the least known and not recollected in the midst of the Santa Clausization of his life and legacy, but one that provides us with the most insight into who America is TODAY and where America will be TOMORROW.

“Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war.”

That speech was entitled “A Time To Break Silence:The War in Vietnam” and Dr. King speaks out against the war in Vietnam and the effects that it is having on the poor both in America and Vietnam, and the minority groups who still had yet to achieve freedom and equality in their hometowns stateside. It is a speech in which Dr. King became the embodiment of a conscience gone awry bringing to its fullness the lessons bequeathed to him by the God he worshipped and served, and by the lessons he had learned on the journey that was the Civil Rights Movement, speaking those words that others may have silently said to themselves. He bravely, in the face of strong public opinion listened to his conscience and called the American government the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and then challenged it, believing in the hope of a dream that once was and compelling it to reset its course to a path of social justice and equality.

The fact that this speech is mostly unknown is not because of its sheer lack of brilliance, intellect, or the eloquence of his delivery but because of the unpopularity of the content within it. A speech so unpopular that after giving it, Dr. King spent the last year of his life out of public favor. He had a disapproval rating of 72% in what was termed “white America” and his approval rating was below 55% in the black community. His own organization, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) turned their back on him – producing a letter for public consumption vehemently disagreeing with his stance against the war in Vietnam.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam (Afghanistan). I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the — for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam (Afghanistan). I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

So why is this important you ask? The danger in a selective memory is that we then begin to add on, or create these false representations of people or their thoughts or ideals, and we then begin to use them to support our own aggrandizing agendas. Someone once said “Men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities and in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond”. It is something akin to telling yourself a lie until you believe it. No matter how untrue. It seems that America has now moved beyond just a caricature and it is now using Dr. King’s legacy to support its own ideals- no matter how incompatible they are in principle.

A Pentagon official recently stated ““I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.”

You can read that story here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/01/pentagon-official-suggests-mlk-would-have-supported-current-wars.html

And the television pundit Glenn Beck stated in August that his conservative movement was rallying the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.

Yet neither one of these commentaries align with Dr. King’s speech against Vietnam, and his very publicly stated philosophies on the poor, minorities and the disenfranchised. Per his acceptance speech for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize “three larger problems which grow out of man’s ethical infantilism: …racial injustice, poverty, and war.”

We have to remember rightly and that in a manner that is an accurate depiction of the past and the personalities portrayed in it. It is important not just for posterities, and more than just to remember Dr. King as he would want us to, in the fullness of his person, but for OURSELVES for it is in the past that we remember who we are, who we were, and who we can be without deceiving ourselves. It is in a correct recollection of the past, even those things that may be unpleasant to remember, that we can see where we turned wrong and then right ourselves. Anything less than that and our egos will betray us and absolve ourselves of any responsibility.

Dr Martin Luther King was not a war hawk, or a supporter of any conservative movement unless it involved the conservation and cultivation of truth, justice and equality for all. He certainly was not perfect and he himself said in the Pultizer prize winning book “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King and the SCLC” by David Garrow that “the movement shaped me more than I shaped the movement”. He was the sometimes reluctant prophet bearing witness, who like Moses and his other biblical contemporaries spoke truth to establishments of power. He was the truth bearing conscience to that power and the people, and petitioned that power to let his people go from the yolks of social and economic inequality and injustice. He was, to paraphrase his own words, a broken man insufficient for the task but lead by a great GOD who was more than able.

This speech and his unselfish dedication to a greater society, expands our theological assessment of what America WAS and IS today and to placate it by twisting and contorting his memory to conveniently fit into a mold that allows us to justify our arguments and leisurely live a deluded life of comfort and self absorbed detachment is not only a bastardization of his lifework but an indictment on the many lives, black and white, that died believing in the dream that is America.

As those of us that ponder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s life and legacy today, let us remember that life in its entirety and correctly, in that we are called to speak the truth no matter how unpopular with our peers and government, to take care of the poor, the sick, the widows and the orphans, and to strive for equality and justice where injustice and inequality lie. Even if that calling is outside the borders of our own nation. As Dr. King said ”This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.”

As we contemplate these thoughts Dr. King’s words call out to us from the annals of time like a nostaligic soliloquy ushering us towards our higher selves until “justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

A Time to Break Silence: Declaration Against the Vietnam (Afghanistan War)

excerpt:

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism(terrorism). War is not the answer. Communism(terrorism) will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism(antiterrorism), but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism(terrorism) is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism (terrorism) grows and develops.

 

 

 

 

The N-Word

I find myself blogging about John Mayer yet again, I swear I am not obsessed, he just keeps giving me great material (thanks John) but this is less about John Mayer and instead a particular issue surrounding a recent interview he did with Playboy magazine.

The controversial statement reads as such. “MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass.

Now, it does not take a genius to know what aspect of that interview is in the midst of this controversy.

Nigger. (gasp)

And with one word John Mayer, he of “Your Body is a Wonderland” is thrust into the mouths of America as being a racist to the point where you would think John created the word himself.

Bloggers and twitters alike are setting the internet alight with comments like:

“John Mayer’s supposed “nigger” pass has been revoked “

“F- John Mayer that was some racist sh**”

Talk about gross over reaction. Before I get started let me make it clear that I am a black male. Not that it should matter but for the sake of this controversy, it is totally relevant to the use of this word because in a weird way, my blackness allows me to use the word nigga/nigger as often as I swipe my Visa debit card-which is pretty often.

You see, in the “African American” subculture being able to use the word nigga, and say the word nigga IS a hood pass. In fact the word belongs to the hood and it is perfectly acceptable for me, or anyone else black to use it. However is it really? I say no, simply because of the legacy and history of the word and the countless number of black people who have had to endure the use of the word under the whip of institutionalized slavery and the lynching of Jim Crow. 

John’s comments were not racist, or prejudice in any way. He was not in the interview calling people niggers.  Within the context  of the interview his comment was perfectly applicable in that, if he really did have a”hood pass” it really would be a nigga pass because that is what “niggas” call each other with “affection” in the black “community”. His response was a social commentary on what most, if not all, black people know to be true and that is a black fact. No pun intended. 

While we do this superficial dance about whether or not John Mayer is a racist and whether or not we believe that his use of the word was meant negatively we miss (again) a real opportunity to have open dialogue about race relations in America and instead what we get is more scapegoating, accompanied with public “outrage” that reflects a false sense of unity in regard to race and race relations in this country.

You see, the really issue that needs to be addressed is why is that when black people say it , it is ok, that the connotation of the word, and usage of it is somehow less egregious when someone of color says it to another person of color? Is it because black people really think they are nigga’s(ers)? Or is it because some how in the regularity of its use in the black community as a term of “endearment” in general conversation and its continual proliferation of it in hip hop culture, that the word has been plactated to the point where it is acceptable and the history of it is lost in the annals of time?

Julian Curry exposes on this exact topic in this wonderfully creative peace of poetry.

Now, that is a conversation worth having, and one worth getting emotional about but some how, people only want to get emotional about the word when someone white uses it, and to me that is hypocrisy when the word is brought up.

African Americans, more than anyone else should understand the gravity and history of the word and its use but it seems that “we” only want to have a discussion about the use of the word when it is used in an interview by a white pop artist who was speaking on the realities of the word and use within the black “community”. We condemn others for using the word but yet use it so freely ourselves. That is piousness personified.

There are also certain individuals in this country, your Al Sharpton’s for example, who are something akin to an ambulance chaser, who ONLY show up when there is controversy. Whether that be a police shooting  for instance, or in this case, when a pop star like John Mayer who makes a comment in an interview that is totally blown out of proportion (expect to see some civil rights pudits opinion on a news channel near you). These people speak only when there is an opportunity to to be in the limelight. People like this are like carrion, hovering above waiting for their opportunity to swoop down and grasp the situation in their clutches, making it bigger than it needs to be because it profits them and puts THEM in the midst of the controversy. The realities of the word nigger, and its use by a pop star like John Mayer, myself within my own social settings, or a racist are but a symptom of a greater issue.

The word nigger/nigga is the throbbing pulse on the heart beat of a legacy of institutionalized racism that is as American as mom and apple pie and this nation’s failure to address it. The true tragedy is not the word itself, but instead the continuation of the endemic societal ills that continue to allow racism and prejudice to propigate thus giving the word power when it is used in what some are calling a “post-racial” society. It reflects the failure of this country to confront and embrace the legacy of its past so that it truly can be united not just in name but in spirit as well and it looks as if again, we are going to miss another opportunity to do so.

The Homo-Eroticism of John Mayer

As with all artists, John Mayer’s new release “BattleStudies” has been accompanied with the standard media blitz to promote album sales.  As a long time fan of John’s music (I own all his albums) and talent, this most recent media push has me unusually preoccupied with all things John Mayer to the point that I feel like I have developed a semi-homoerotic obession. I am in awe of his guitar playing abilities, the quick wit of his tweets, the vulnerability in his songwriting, and his playboy image-seriously if I was a white guy I think I would want to be John Mayer!  I am even watching his VH1 Storytellers performance as I speak, and this coincides with an article of his I read in Rolling Stone yesterday!

More on this later.

This obsession, which for the sake of this blog I will call “JohnMayerism”, has inadvertedly made me aware of a subtle cultural homo-phobia to Mr Mayer. I have to come to realize that I don’t know any other men who make the claim that they are fans of John’s music. At least not any who would admit to it openly, and any man you happen to see at a John Mayer concert is invariably going to use his girlfriend or spouse as his alibi.

Whenever you see his performances they are usually dominated by female fans in the audience. Now, I understand that most of this is fashioned to portray a certain image, but I don’t even know any men on the street who claim John Mayer fandom!

I find it hard to believe (partly for my own selfish reasons so that I don’t have to believe that I am the only guy who actually likes his music) that there are no red blooded heterosexual males out there that are John Mayer fans. No, I am more inclined to believe that they are all in the proverbial “closet” just dying to be outed, secretly hiding their copy of “BattleStudies” in the glove compartment of their cars like a secret porn collection that is hidden behind the entertainment center.

I can also understand why.

I was in Barnes and Nobles yesterday reading that Rolling Stone issue with John on the cover that I mentioned earlier.

As comfortable as I am in my own sexuality, I could just not bear to purchase the magazine because they had John on the cover looking like this particular issue was a copy of “Out” instead of “Rolling Stone”. Don’t act like you don’t know what “Out” is. “Out” is that magazine in bookstores like Barnes and Nobles that cater to men and women who live an “alternate lifestyle”. I am just not afraid to admit knowledge of its existence.

Unless you adhere to said lifestyle that “Out” promotes, then heterosexual men steer clear from that magazine section as if just by touching it one would procure some transmittable form of gayness that would instantaneously turn you into Richard Simmons, complete with a nut hugging leotard.

As I held the magazine in my hand, my “JohnMayerism” spiralling me out of control, I could not shake the uneasy feeling that I had, quite like the one I experienced the time I saw a George Michael look alike, soul patch, nipple rings and all, staring at me as I exited the gym shower room after a hard workout. The type of feeling I am sure that women get when they are trying to work out and there is some creep leering at you from the machine next to you. The type of look which makes “ladies only” gyms highly profitable and necessary.
You can see for yourself here:

Is this the reason why there are no other men out there openly admitting their appreciation for John Mayer?  I would dare to say so.

All I can say is come out of the closet. Like all things,  the truth will set you free,  and I won’t have to feel “Perfectly Lonely” as John laments about on his latest cd. Now, back to that episode of Vh1 Storytellers.