A Different Dream

As I have watched the festivities surrounding President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, concurrently being celebrated alongside the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King, I find myself courting a different dream…and that is that the president’s presence, power and persistence in spite of tremendous odds, that more and more African-American boys will have someone in their lives whom they call “my dad,” aspiring to be like him.

When President Obama was first elected, he came to Columbus, Ohio. There was great excitement in seeing the president’s jet sitting in our airport; many people went to the airport and stood outside fences just to see him jaunt down the stairs of that big jet to go do … “president work.”

I was there, and I loved the jet and seeing the president, but what sticks in my mind are the images of young African-American men with little boys ( I assumed they were their sons) perched on their shoulders. I remember hearing so many of these young men saying to those little boys, “You can be president one day.” The little boys, some of them, clapped their hands and were clearly excited. I can still feel the energy those little boys and the men I assumed were their dads emitted that day. I suppose the presence of the president also ignited something inside their dads as well. Who knew that any of us would see an African-American be president of this country?

It was a powerful moment, on so many levels, but one of those levels struck me deeply. I know that little boys idolize their fathers, and I know that one of those little boys I saw that day internalized what their dads were saying to them. Those words for the little boys had power not just because the president of the greatest country in the world looked like them …but because their dads planted the seeds of hope into them that they could be anything they wanted to be.

Little African-American boys don’t often get that kind of encouragement. I have seen them labeled as behavior problems when they have just been being little boys. I have seen them ignored and tossed aside in schools, so that by third grade, many of them (African-American girls as well) have lost hope and excitement about life and learning. They are told they are bad and they can feel that not their teachers nor even their parents (mostly moms) believe in them.

I listened to Vice President Joe Biden‘s son today talking, saying, “my dad,” and I realized that not enough African-American children, and especially African-American boys, can say those two words. There have been plenty of sociological studies that try to explain to us why so many African-American men are not present in the lives of their children, and for sure, there are cultural, sociological and historical reasons for the plight and condition of African-American men in this country …but our little boys need their dads. They need dads who show them what strength and perseverance is. They need dads whom they can follow around and get advice from that only a dad can give a son. They need dads to show them how to stand up when the world knocks them down.

A lot has been said that America’s “War on Drugs” has resulted in more African-American men being incarcerated than whites; indeed, America has more people in prison than any other modern industrialized nation. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow does an amazing job of showing how this “war,” initiated by Ronald Reagan, ended up being an instrument which made it legal to throw blacks in jail, not as much for violent crime as for minor drug offenses.

The “war” itself has resulted in “keeping blacks in their place,” some have argued. Once out of jail, these formerly jailed men cannot, oftentimes, get jobs, find housing, get food stamps, secure a driver’s license …they in effect have been shut out of life as it must be lived in America. They cannot survive, and many end up back in jail.

And who suffers? The society as a whole for sure, but especially the little boys who are left behind, with no fathers, and too often, overworked mothers who cannot give them what their dads need to give them. A recent movie called The House I Live In, directed by Eugene Jarecki, shows what the “war” has done in this country…It is sad and disturbing, but a fact of our American life.

And so on this Martin Luther King holiday, thinking about his “dream,” I am stuck on a different dream – a country where the unfair and unjust “justice” system that has put too many African-American fathers in jail will be addressed, modified, changed …so that more little boys can sit on the shoulders of their fathers, and be inspired as to what they can do.

A candid observation…

What Does Remorse Look Like?

I have been watching the Lance Armstrong saga with interest; clearly his life has changed forever, due to his own machinations. We all make mistakes; some of us get caught, others don’t, but clearly, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We sink into valleys of our own making, and then begin the arduous task of climbing out, swatting away human flies that thrive on our beads of agonized sweat and ducking from vultures who seek to eat at our very souls when we are down.

So, I have been watching. I know what it feels like to “fall from grace,” and so I think I can physically feel what Armstrong may be feeling…

But what has gotten to me is the pundits, the observers, who have offered opinions on the fact or non-fact of Armstrong’s “remorse.”

I have always been interested in what real remorse looks like to those who are looking for it. If a person cries, in court or any other venue, those who are ready to pick at a bleeding sore will often say that the tears are phony, orchestrated in order to garner sympathy.

On the other hand, if a person retains his or her composure, the reporters will often say that he or she “showed no remorse.”

So, someone tell me, “What does (real) remorse look like? Who in history has ever shown such remorse?

To be clear, some will say that anyone who gets caught in wrongdoing is sorry not because of what he or she did, but because he or she got caught. I wonder if it is possible for someone to be sorry for getting caught, but simultaneously be sorry for doing something stupid?

I remember, as a child, being sorry for being caught for doing things, but also being genuinely sorry for having done something that wrought me such trouble in my house and in my very small life, at that point. I remember thinking that if I hadn’t been so stupid I wouldn’t be suffering as I was. I was truly remorseful, for BOTH reasons!

Isn’t that valid? I mean, can’t remorse be because you DID get caught AND because you are sorry you made a wrong decision?

Be that as it may, what does remorse LOOK LIKE? What would Lance Armstrong have to do to convince those who are interested that he is sorry? Yes, he’s sorry because he lost $75 million in one day, the result of an endorser abandoning him …but can’t he also be genuinely sorry because the risks he took, the deceit he engaged in, the people he hurt …have all resulted in his life being upended?

Is remorse only real if one is only sorry for the pain he or she caused? Can’t remorse for how one has messed up his or her life also be a real factor to consider?

But I digress. What does it look like? I looked at Armstrong’s face as he talked with Oprah. He wasn’t happy. I was glad he didn’t shed a tear because I knew people would jump on the tears as being phony and manipulative. He wasn’t happy. He was, yes, a tad arrogant, but I think arrogance must be part of his personality. Personality doesn’t leave when or because someone has done wrong. His arrogance and tenacity is probably the same as it was when he faced and challenged testicular cancer.

Where I ached for him was where he betrayed and hurt people who loved him. Only he knows the remorse he feels about that. It sometimes takes years for humans to rectify their feelings over having hurt someone who was important to them. Many times, we don’t get over it; it follows us and stays with us until our dying day and is often too painful to talk about. If he is human, and I believe he is, he aches for that pain he caused others.

But for his stupidity, his bad choices, his deceit, his bullying, I would bet he is remorseful, both because he ruined his life and because it was wrong. He was so intent on winning that he couldn’t see that it was wrong when he was doing it – that, or he knew it was wrong and didn’t care because winning was all that mattered.

That’s a value that our society pushes. One must win…no matter what.

So, I am hoping someone will help me understand what remorse looks like. I really would like to know. I am confused…and I would bet others are, too.

A candid observation …

Gun Control an Issue Only if You’re the Right Color?

I have been fascinated by the arguments and wrangling over gun control – specifically, not understanding why some think that banning assault weapons and magazines which have more than seven rounds of ammunition does NOT mean anyone is proposing that nobody own a gun.

But I am even more fascinated that the idol of modern-day Conservatives, Ronald Reagan, actually signed into a law a bill that repealed a law that had permitted citizens to carry loaded weapons in public places. The so-called Mulford Act was signed into law in 1967, when Reagan was governor of California. The measure was introduced by Dan Mulford, an East Bay legislator.

Apparently, some Americans were a bit nervous about the work of the Black Panthers, who back then, had formed “police patrols.” Members of these groups would listen on scanners for police calls and when something was happening in the black community, would rush to the scene, “law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights.” (http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/action_capitolmarch.html) These individuals would also carry loaded weapons, which they apparently displayed….but “they were careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as to not interfere with the arrest.”

When the Mulford Bill was passed, members of the Black Panther Party protested, and went to Sacramento, carrying their loaded weapons (including rifles and shotguns).

According to a piece that appeared on the site “Keep and Bear Arms” (http://keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives?XcNewsPlus.asp) Reagan “imposed gun control on America.” According to the article, “Reagan declared his support for a bill requiring a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases.” The site confirms the fact that “Governor Ronald Reagan …signed the Mulford Act of 1967, “prohibiting the carrying of firearms on one’s person or in a vehicle, in any public place, or on any public street.” The law, says the article, “was aimed at stopping Black Panthers, but affected all gun owners.”

The saddest thing about this entire gun control debate is that it really shows that the country really is not able or willing to deal with the proliferation of guns that exist in urban areas, where young men are shooting young men, most often poor and black. There are babies, black and brown babies, being slaughtered every day on city streets, but nobody really seems to care. There has been no cry for gun control on a level that would impinge upon ownership of handguns. If that were the case, there would be some legitimacy to the hue and cry that the call for the control of the sale and ownership of guns would be threatening the general right of people to own guns.

The fact that the Conservative’s darling, Ronald Reagan, signed the Mulford Act because he wanted to get assault weapons out of the hands of the Black Panthers says volumes about his feelings on race. If whites had shown up at arrest sites with loaded weapons, presumably to protect other whites from possible mistreatment by and from law enforcement, would the Mulford Act have been introduced?

What people are protesting today is valid; there is no need for anyone in an American city to have a military-style assault weapon. Most of the massacres we have seen, with young men using these types of weapons, have involved young white men. If the majority of these attacks had been carried out by African-American men, would the protest against banning their sale and use be as vehement? Would a law, similar to the 1967 Mulford Act, have already been passed?

Someone is going to groan, and say I am playing the race card, but the card has been played already by some, including Anne Coulter. The biggest problem with guns, she says, is in the inner cities of America. Perhaps, she again said, it is a problem of demographics…Her statements are telling, though, because even with the high number of homicides in urban areas, there is no cry for gun control. The cry from those protesting gun control is that “we need to protect ourselves” from government tyranny and thugs.

The thugs they’re talking about are not the troubled young men who have committed mass murders. The young men who carried the assault weapons and carried out such heinous crimes seemed to have come from nice …suburban, white homes.

A candid observation …

Who Is Mentally Ill?

In the ongoing debate on gun control – or more accurately, control on the sale and use of military assault weapons and magazines that have large numbers of bullets – we are hearing that there needs to be more attention paid to mental illness. Mandatory background checks are being touted as a way to weed out people who should not be allowed to purchase guns, and those background checks supposedly would be able to identify the mentally ill.

But WHO is mentally ill, and who is not? How does a background check really identify people who are really mentally ill, even if evidence does not say so?

What prompts this is the interview that Piers Morgan of CNN had with radio host and filmmaker Alex Jones last week. I was stunned by what I was watching. Alex Jones was completely out of control; his face was contorted and he would rise off his seat as he “warned” Piers that “1776 would will commence again” if anyone tried to “take away our guns.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyKofFih8Y)

It was horrible to watch. I kept thinking that Jones himself …was mentally ill. I kept thinking that he was such a hot head that he probably didn’t need to be walking around with a loaded gun.

Some people have been diagnosed with classic mental illnesses – including schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, but many people are probably walking around with those ailments who have never been diagnosed, and who lead relatively harmless lives. Would their illness be caught?

Maybe and maybe not, but what is more troubling is that many people who are not technically mentally ill have some mental “issues” that might make them dangerous with a gun. There are people who carry deep rage against spouses or former spouses, against the government, against a former employer. All we have to do is review the sad cases of an estranged spouse showing up at a workplace and taking out the one whom he apparently “loved.” There are people who do not know how to handle conflict, sadness, rejection, betrayal…and they become desperate. How would those people be screened and identify? And isn’t it a fact that any of us are capable of doing something horrendous, given the right set of circumstances?

There are police officers who probably should not carry guns. They are legalized thugs, some of them, and others are apt to shoot first an ask questions later, depending on a given situation. What does one do with them? They can carry guns legally. All they have to do is show a badge, I suppose, in any gun shop or at any gun show, and they are free to purchase what they want. What about men who rape? Are they mentally ill?

Yes, the nation, the world, needs to pay more attention to mental illness. We need to stop making it a shameful thing to have a mental illness and accept the fact that it is just that – an illness. Perhaps the gun massacres, especially this last one in Newtown, Connecticut, will get serious discussions going and plans in place to handle mental illness differently than we have. Maybe there will be ad campaigns that let the people know that having a mental illness is not something to be ashamed of, but is, rather, something that should be treated, like diabetes or hypertension. It is long past the time that we, the supposed greatest and strongest country in the world, change course in the way we deal with mental illness and in so doing, encourage the rest of the world to do the same.

Actually, the conversation swirling around controlling the sale and use of assault weapons are interesting. Nobody is talking about taking away the right of Americans to “bear arms;” the conversation is about controlling and perhaps banning a certain kind of gun. Is it a sign of mental illness when one cannot “hear” what the conversation is about? There is no conversation at all about taking away the right of people to purchase and own guns as a general right. Are those who are ranting, like Alex Jones, mentally ill?

It will be interesting to see how the conversation about mental illness goes, and what decisions are made in determining who is and who is not mentally ill. I would suppose that more people than we know are really mentally ill, and it is high time that we look at that fact and deal with it.

A candid observation …

Poverty By Design

Even while survivors of our own country’s horrible 2012 “storm of the century,” Hurricane Sandy, are still reeling from Sandy’s wrath, Haitians are still suffering from the 7.0 earthquake that happened three years ago today. Over 200,000 people were killed; 1.5 million were left homeless.

Homeless Haitians set up tents nearby the Pres... — Homeless Haitians set up tents nearby the Presidential Palace, in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In spite of billions of dollars pouring into the tiny country, said to be the poorest country in the world, the look of destruction is almost as stark as it was three years ago. Too many people are still living in overcrowded camps, where people are living in tents, with no fresh water, no sanitation, no electricity, and no privacy. Some camps have closed down, with some Haitians having been paid to leave them, but with so little new housing, one wonders where they have gone. A report on National Public Radio (NPR) said that some people have moved into new houses, but have ended up back in camps because they haven’t been able to get work to pay their rent. (http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=2&t=1&islist=false&id=169078876&m=169117672)

A friend of mine recently visited Haiti, and came back shaken. “I can’t stand to see that kind of poverty,” he said. “It’s too much.”

If it’s too much for a visitor who sees what is there but can leave it, one wonders how those trapped in the abject poverty and destruction are faring. One wonders what the overall psychological effects are on the spirits of the people who live in such squalor.

There was money pledged, billions, in fact. That money was received and according to Haitian officials, used well and wisely, but apparently the “wise and well” spending of the money did not extend to the millions of people living in misery. What happens to people who get “used” to being miserable? And what happens to the world when there are so many people, internationally, who live in such disgusting poverty?

In every poor nation, there are people who live quite well, and I would bet that those who live well try their best to stay away from the poverty and misery literally at their feet. Poverty is ugly. Nobody wants to see it.

And yet, perhaps if they would see it, and smell it, and taste it and hear it…they would be moved to help in ways they could. Maybe if they could see the squalor they know is there, their hearts would be pricked.

Once, when I was a reporter, I did a story on poverty in the city. I visited the “home” of a family, where the walls were cracked and broken, where there were holes in the floor of one of the upstairs bedrooms, where the roaches were everywhere, even in the refrigerator. The resident, a mother with small children, explained that she could not afford anything else, and that the landlord ignored her requests for help. “I clean,” she said, “but the roaches are everywhere. I can’t get them out.” At night, she said, she would put cotton in her ears and in the ears of her children so that no roach would climb inside of them.

“I don’t sleep well,” she said. “I worry for my children.

Yes, she worked, but at a job which paid her barely enough to live. She had no benefits. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing.

“In the winter, we all stay in the kitchen,” she said, “and stay warm by the heat from the oven.”

I don’t even know why I wanted to do that story, but the images, the voices, the smells have never left my consciousness. That there are people living like that in these United States is troubling…and the fact that the poverty here isn’t even close to the poverty I have seen in other countries is sobering. Jonathan Kozol, in some of his books, describes the poverty and squalor that many urban kids and youth in this country face every day, in their schools, of all places. The facilities many of our kids go to every day do not encourage learning or the desire for wisdom. Rather, as students shudder in the winter and roast in the summer, as they go to bathrooms which many times do not work well, as they look through broken windows, or, worse, look at the place where windows are supposed to be, but see giant pieces of plywood instead, one wonders how they manage to learn anything. Even the poor like nice surroundings.

The poor are not objects, though we tend to look at them that way. I read recently that in the system of capitalism, some are supposed to be poor; that’s the way the system works. Wrote H.W. Brands in his book, American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900, democracy and capitalism are two opposing ideologies, antagonistic to each other. Juxtaposing the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, Brands called them “dueling manifestos.” “Democracy depends on equality, capitalism on inequality,” wrote Brands. “Citizens in a democracy come to the public square with one vote each; participants in a capitalist economy arrive at the marketplace with unequal talents and resources and leave the marketplace with unequal rewards.” (page 10)

In order to make this capitalist democracy work, then, we have to be able to look at some people as objects, not human beings with souls and needs. Their suffering cannot be allowed to reach our nostrils or our hearts. They become objects which can and will be used to further the wealth of those who, frankly, do not need more money, but who are driven to get more and more.

It is the way the system works.

That reality is sobering. When I think of the people squashed in those tents in Haiti, while some in Haiti are living in luxury, when I think of the poor in this nation, the richest in the world, we’ve been told, when I think of the poverty in India and in Latin America…and even in the places where we who are more fortunate actually go for vacations. I shudder.

Something is wrong and not enough of us want to face it.

A candid observation …