Light

If I can be difficult one final time this year, let me say that I am highly skeptical of the Light the World machines.

I know a lot of people love them and are really excited about them, but it seems to be creating that excitement via a gimmick for something we should already be doing.

Currently there is a machine at Washington Square. Through it, you can definitely make donations to Blanchet House: https://blanchethouse.org/

Blanchet House are always here.

Based on what I have seen, one of the other recipients is Heifer International: https://www.heifer.org/ 

They are always there. 

Some also appear to be for Salvation Army.

Their bell ringers are everywhere this time of year, though I don't give to them because of their well-known homophobia, meaning they often deny assistance to the most vulnerable. 

(There could be some other thoughts to have there about that being a good match for us, but I'm not getting into that now.) 

I am sure there are people who are inspired to give by the machines, but that inspiration should already be there.

I see a lot of people smiling by the machines, holding up their cards and posting on Facebook. 

That might seem a little bit like bragging, but no, they are just really excited about how cool it is and that they are participating.

It seems so sterile. 

Blanchet House is right downtown. They accept cash donations, but they also have volunteer opportunities.

With those opportunities, you are going to see the unhoused and smell them and be painfully aware of the economic stratification. 

You may find it easy to judge; assume that they were lazy or messed up in some way, but you may also get to know them, and find out that they are living in their car but holding down a job, or that they drink now but they didn't before.

It is harder to overlook their humanity when they are right in front of you.

It's not that the machines are too easy; making it easier has some definite benefits. 

I worry about how much less personal it is.

There are so many scriptures about how to give and why, but the one that keeps coming to mind is about something else entirely:

But verily I say unto you, that it is not needful for this whole company of mine elders to be moving swiftly upon the waters, whilst the inhabitants on either side are perishing in unbelief. -- D&C 61: 3

I am also thinking of 1 John 4:20

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

I am thinking about it not because of the hypocrisy of proclaiming love for God and feeling hate for people, but the potential loss of even seeing our brothers, knowing they are there and what they need. 

The thing I keep pounding on over and over again is how much we need to love each other, and how that love seems to be so sadly lacking, and how easy it could be to not even notice.

I doubt the ability of a vending machine to fix that.

The potential patriarchy of Christmas

In terms of scheduling, based on the most recent posts I was thinking I should do a kind of primer on dominator culture and related terms. Then I thought, it's Christmas Eve; just wish people a merry Christmas and give them a break.

Then material presented itself, as it does.

First of all, there was this TikTok clip that many people were responding to:

https://www.tiktok.com/@therobbieharvey/video/7306933113307942174 

The husband is filming on Christmas morning and notices an empty stocking, asking his wife if it is extra.

It's hers. 

He asks why it is empty and she says she guesses Santa didn't bring her anything.

It was posted as a reminder to husbands that you are responsible for your wife's stocking.

The worse response to it I saw was one woman saying she needs to ask for more money so her kids don't think she is bad, and it is her responsibility to ask for more money if she is not getting enough.

In the husband's defense, he does apparently get her gifts every year, but for ten years of marriage he never thought about the stocking.

This can go back to discussions on emotional labor. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-exhaustion-of-heavy-lifting.html

A lot of the remembering and extra effort is assumed to naturally devolve upon women, including shopping for herself so it looks like Santa thought she was good. 

I don't blame her for not bothering to fill her stocking with everything else she must have to do.

Her husband filling her stocking each year could be a kind and loving solution. Helping with other tasks would probably be even better. We don't know their family dynamic.

There can be lots of ways of making that work. In our family, stockings were generally just candy, so divvying up candy could easily have been done by our mother, whose stocking contents I never thought about. 

Giving a wife some extra just for her to put in what she wants could work. The real issue is not the stocking, but is it truly an equal partnership where even if only one has a paycheck it is understood that is not the only work.

Then this tweet showed up:

https://twitter.com/itskayreion/status/1737450275424891092

Is ok to not buy your kids gifts if they were "bad" all year?

Yes, we are getting here into reasons that I don't like the whole Santa thing, but I have documented that already.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/faith-in-white-santa.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/12/as-grinchy-as-i-get.html 

I will say there are some really good responses, and the original poster kept saying she agreed with those, so maybe she was not looking to justify her upcoming child abuse.

Points that were made include that children may not even remember how they were bad, so if there is going to be correction it needs to happen in the moment, and why haven't you adjusted your parenting style, and so they are having a hard year and you are going to make it worse?

I get all of that, and at the same time am thinking about how giving too much is not good, and that this whole concept works against children in poor families. Again, I have written about all that.

I really only mention it because of the number of responders who were so eagerly committed to "Yes! Punish them!"

I feel like they would tell you to remember the reason for the season right as they miss it completely.

The stumbling block

Just in case anyone missed the point of last week's post, when we try to control what other's do, we are following Satan's plan. 

As Latter-Day Saints we believe that at the Council in Heaven, we chose that people would be able to choose -- which is necessary for our growth -- and that there would be sin but that we would have a Savior to pay for our sins, on condition of repentance.

Forcing everyone to be righteous makes it not even righteous, and we are here because we voted against that, which makes efforts here to impose our will upon others sadly misguided and ironic.

This plan, where the Atonement not only makes it possible for sinners to be forgiven but for those sinned against to be healed is beautiful, and worth celebrating all year. It is easy for our thoughts to turn to it at Christmas.

It is so easy to miss the point.

I believe this is because when there is this competition over control and glory, apparently that makes it natural to choose sides. 

Perhaps there is also a sense that if someone else is bad, that makes us good.

Therefore, sometimes the response to oppression is the desire to oppress.

Sometimes imperfect attempts to do the right thing are treated with more scorn than outright attempts to harm.

The failure of someone else to be Christ-like does not exempt us from our responsibility to be Christ-like.

Even if there is a seductive easiness to that answer, it would not be beautiful. Cruelty would only escalate.

No one would be sanctified.

This does not mean calling evil good, but it does mean offering grace and understanding how hard change can be.

It means supporting the least powerful, but understanding that you can have some privilege and still be vulnerable.

It means wanting good for everyone.

It is not easy, but we have a good example. 

I can give a lot of examples the other way, but then piling on becomes too easy. Yeah, look at them. I'm not like that.

What is most important is self-honesty.

What do I need to repent of?

Am I fair to people I disagree with?

Do I want to control others, or do I wish for them to make their own good choices for the good of themselves and others?

Am I motivated by love? 

Two plans

I could spend more time leading up to this; there are so many more examples.

People respond emotionally to the examples, but those are not necessarily convincing. Some people will continue to feel superior and judge, and some people will feel great judging the judgy. Then there are going to be people who feel very agonized, whichever way they end up voting.

There are ultimately two distinct approaches, and there is a clear division between them.

In one plan, everyone gets to choose. There will definitely be sin, but there is also a Savior. That not only allows for repentance to meet forgiveness, but it also allows for healing.

Then, in the other plan, you squash sin by squashing choice. This plan also takes away growth and sanctification. 

One plan chooses control, seeking power and demanding glory.

The other plan humbly chooses agency and enables that agency through sacrifice.

Christ did what no one else could do, but there was still the invitation to be like Him.

We let people choose. We support more information so they can make better choices. We know things won't always work out, but we do what we can to assist with healing. 

And we know judgement is not ours.

Okay, I will throw out one more example.

A Texas woman, Kate Cox, has sued for the right to abort her pregnancy. 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/us/texas-abortion-ruling/index.html

The child has Trisomy 18 and the mother is in danger of losing her uterus and her life. She wants to continue to parent her two living children, and she wants to be able to have other children in the future.

A judge granted her the abortion, and now Texas AG Ken Paxton is threatening to sue her and the doctors; she must continue to risk her life and health even though her child is going to die.

He is a remarkably corrupt person anyway, and not a doctor, but he wants to dominate and the life of that woman and her husband and current children and future potential children have no value against his prerogative to wield power.

I have friends who had a child with Trisomy 18. They did continue with the pregnancy, and the mother lived and was able to have other children. 

I am sure there were other differences. Kate's pregnancy has already sent her to the emergency room three times in the last month, which may be a good reason to not wait. 

The point is, my friends made a choice. It was a choice that I am sure involved prayer and talking and listening, but they did what they could accept, and they had spiritual experiences and growth from that.

What if they had not had the right to choose?

I've done wrong things and foolish things, but I can feel ownership over it. I am a better person for the choices I have made and the growth I have had.

That is God's plan.

ETA: Just in case there are any questions about whether the proclaimed Texan value of life is sincere, when it was about letting a prison guard in labor get to the hospital in a timely fashion to save her child, they dispute the right to life.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/11/texas-prison-lawsuit-fetal-rights/

Truly being pro-life

One thing that should have been clear from last week's post is that stronger restrictions on abortions not only result in deaths, but in other non-lethal forms of oppression.

That was brought home this week as another woman who miscarried at home (after two visits to the hospital; she was not avoiding medical care) is being prosecuted for abuse of a corpse. 

https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/warren-news/woman-charged-with-abuse-of-corpse-in-baby-death-police/

This has started at least one thread of other women who have miscarried into toilets, and how traumatic it was, and the horror and cruelty of having criminal charges added to that.

Some people learn compassion from their experiences, some miraculously avoid it, but it is hard not to notice that the primary pushers of these laws are white men and that it is not just women but primarily women of color who get prosecuted.

We have examples of the horror and cruelty of ever more vicious prosecution and control of women, but can we have a vision of what would be better, even superior to before Roe v. Wade was overturned?

One of the most inspiring things I have ever heard was a talk on reproductive justice by Imani Gandy. 

The three primary principles of reproductive justice are...

1. The right not to have a child.
2. The right to have a child.
3. The right to parent children in safe and healthy environments.

In reading about the environment, I have read terrible stories of birth defects that most often were not viable. The toxic pollution was most often dumped near reservations, but we can find stories of testing and storage on islands with brown populations as well. 

We know there is more likely to be air pollution -- and asthma -- near primarily Black neighborhoods, and that the boundaries of those neighborhoods have been enforced by restrictive covenants and unfair banking practices.

We know that women of color have been subject to forced sterilization until at least the 1970s.

If we were to truly care about the well-being of all people, of all colors and all genders, therefore caring about those lives for longer than the human gestational period, then it would include freedom to have children as well as not to have children. 

More people would feel safe having children.

For those who style themselves both pro-choice and pro-life, when they look at preventing abortions they will talk about things like better sex education and availability of birth control, as well as improving the adoption process. 

Those aren't necessarily bad things, but they are thinking small.

Helping reduce teen pregnancy is a great idea, but if you want a world where women can feel safe having and raising children, then their access to health care and shelter and the necessities of life matter.

If you want a world where men are not trying to coerce women sexually, with or without reproduction, and a world where men are more likely to grasp that rape is wrong and that they shouldn't do it, then you need to work on misogyny, and the full equality of women.

I believe that world would have less abortion, and that it would be a good thing.

Abortions would probably still happen, and people would still likely fornicate too. There are people who find this unacceptable, and will do everything they can to prevent that, at least by other people.

I maintain that the world with this greater level of freedom and support is more Christ-like, and that will be the basis of the next post.

Patriarchy and moral issues

Even though a lot of my thoughts on our issues with patriarchy come from attempts to police the sexuality and gender of others, I think I can best make my points for this week by talking about abortion.

It is easy for someone who believes in chastity and values family to believe abortion is wrong, and never a good choice. It is similarly easy to feel justified in condemning those who believe differently, and even trying to make your way the law.

It is easy to feel virtuous about protecting the unborn.

All of that ease makes for some appalling, abhorrent behavior, made more disgusting by the smug self-righteousness.

Otherwise, explain to me how an attempt to protect life results in more death without saving a life. 

Savita Halappanavar's child had no chance of living, but Savita could have lived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

Agnieska T.'s children died in the womb, but that they were already dead was not enough to allow her life to be saved.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/26/poland-death-of-woman-refused-abortion

Women in Nicaragua have died or been left waiting for death because of anti-abortion laws.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647381/

Since Roe v Wade was overturned in the United States, we mainly have stories of near death, especially in Texas:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/health/abortion-texas-sepsis/index.html

Those are anecdotes. There is a general consensus that maternal mortality has increased, along with racism, which has a strong connection with maternal mortality in our country:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/majority-obgyns-overturning-roe-led-maternal-deaths-survey/story?id=100241112 

But the fight against abortion doesn't just kill and almost kill women. It harasses them. It makes it harder for them to get the health care they need because it intimidates doctors. 

It adds danger and criminalization to miscarriages that may already be heartbreaking: 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/15/1135882310/miscarriage-hemorrhage-abortion-law-ohio

It tracks women who might be pregnant to make sure they can't travel to get an abortion, and it requests tracking the periods of high school students just in case they might get pregnant:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-schools-ask-student-athletes-menstrual-history-parents-worry-p-rcna50794

And even though those pregnancies should all involve a man, the tracking and the harassment and the prosecution all focuses on women.

It even allows abusive men to sue the women trying to escape them and their friends:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/04/texas-abortion-wrongful-death-countersuit/

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/11/abortion-texas-lawsuit-wrongful-death 

If you were judging whether the people involved truly valued life versus valuing the ability to control others, the evidence has a strong slant toward control.

These stories are selected for that purpose, of course, but what if we were looking at it from the other side? What if we were looking for a way to truly demonstrate that we value life? 

I hope to spend more time on that next week.

The patriarchy behind one of my favorite scriptures

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ~ James 1:27

Let me say right out that I love James, and the first chapter is great. 

Verse 5 is not only a key part of the restoration of the gospel but also an important promise. 

For verse 27, it struck me as profound in that it highlights two aspects to gospel living -- chastity and charity -- that people often fail to balance. If we can combine those two things, like Jesus (the writer's brother) did, then we are approaching what we are supposed to be.

It can be easy to stay pure in many ways but empty of the pure love of Christ, ending up prudish and frigid. 

There are also people who have kind and loving hearts, but who miss out on the importance of moderation and self-control, which has its own problems.

Now, there is room for a lot of discussion on the chastity part, because as a society we have failed miserably at being even able to talk realistically about sex or what is good about it, apparently only leaving room for judging others. I do not think I am the best person to lead that discussion, but I am quite passionate and have a lot of thoughts on the other side.

Notice how the charity section focuses on widows and... not just orphans, but specifically those without fathers. Why? Because of the male supremacy of that time meant that a woman being strong and capable wasn't enough, for herself or for her children. If there were not someone who owned them as family, then they were at the mercy of the world.

(While "own" can be used to mean acknowledgement, the more common meaning is more applicable than you would hope.)

I do not blame James for that; this verse is a response to the world as it was.

I want to point out that in the entire epistle, there is a lot more condemnation of the rich than focusing on different lusts. I suspect that the people of his time were a lot like the people of our time... at least the ones who would be reading the epistles.

Yes, I see a lot of people around me whom I have no reason to doubt are morally pure, but I do doubt how much love they have for those around them.

Yes, we focus a lot more on shoplifting than on wage theft (which James 5:4 specifically mentions), even though wage theft involves much larger amounts, and robs people who can afford it less.

I think that comes from a tendency to side with power that is part of dominator culture. As long as there are people below you, that you can look down on, some people find that adequate consolation for the abuse and scorn of those above.

It is worth remembering that a framework that supports abuse downward will flow back upward as well. 

On an individual level, some people who don't have enough status will use violence to lash out.  

On a structural level, the people above will always want more, pushing those below them further down.

Consider, for example, that it used to be quite common that a white man with a steady job could support a wife and multiple children on that single income. 

Families of other races generally needed more household members working. Indeed, it was often legally prohibited for a Black woman to be a housewife. (That sounds ridiculous, but it is true.)

Today a family with two regular incomes may still struggle. While the racial wealth gap still exists, the economic status of white families has fallen. 

That all is possible because of a historic devaluation of the labor of women, and of people of color, and of women of color, until all that devaluation became a pattern that devalued those white men too.

Despite that, many white people will tell you that Native Americans don't pay taxes (false), or that Black people get their college paid for without having good grades or paying tuition (false), and aggrieved white men will say that they are the only ones who can't catch a break, and that there are programs to help women (I wish I could find them).

Those things are relevant, but perhaps it is most important to remember that this is not what we are supposed to be doing at all.

We are supposed to be loving each other and valuing each other and wishing each other well. We should be serving each other. The loss of family members has ramifications that are not financial, and sometimes we could all use a break.

Perhaps a good thing to remember is that when Jesus was using his divine powers, he was using them for blessing, healing, feeding, reaching out and providing safety.

When he demonstrated his power to destroy, he did it on a barren tree.

The one who had the power to dominate did not.

Go and do thou likewise.

Being people fit for these times

And I am not sure what else to do, so I blog.

That was my concluding line two weeks ago. It is discouraging how little the blogging does to help.

To the extent that my writing helps me have my own head on straight, I believe in the value of that because I believe that individuals matter and that includes me.

If it occasionally helps someone else too, that person is worth helping.

Setting that against the backdrop of genocide and hate... that does not change the value of any individual, but there is a lot of room for discouragement.

I believe what is coming up for future posts is additional repudiation of dominator culture and affirmation of my faith.

For now, there are two things that discourage me the most. Any subsiding on those fronts would be good.

One is a lack of honesty. 

That includes both people calling a pro-Palestine rally a pro-Hamas rally and people saying that their chant is not calling for the destruction of Israel.

It may be worth noting that those people would not say that they are lying; they mean it, they are sincere, and they have lots of proof to justify what they are saying.

They are not being honest with themselves, and therefore they cannot be completely honest regardless of the audience.

One thing that we need to commit to is absolute honesty.

That means facing things that are complicated and uncomfortable head-on. It means looking for additional information when we don't have enough. 

The press is largely failing, which makes that part harder, but that should not affect our commitment to truth.

The other thing we need is growing charity.

That's harder than the honesty, I know, but it is part of it too.

If you can just decide that Israel is bad, then you can just condemn them, and maybe you could be pro-Hamas.

You definitely get to hate the president and various senators and celebrities. Maybe none of them deserved that much praise, but is the hate fair? Is it helpful?

If you can just decide that Palestine is evil and has no right to exist and neither do Palestinians, well that makes things really easy too, but is wrong, and that one will actually require hardening your heart much more quickly.

We need to wish each other well, have sympathy for the fears and angers that get in the way of that, and yet still always choose protection and harm reduction and healing first.

It is a position that will hurt a lot -- the opposite of a hard heart is often a broken one -- but it is what is needed, now and eternally.

So easy to slip

One point I kind of hit on last week is that criticism of Israel is not automatically anti-Semitic, though defenders of Israel may be quick to claim that any criticism is.

It is important to note that there is still a lot of anti-Semitism out there. Even during times when it is less prominent, it is always just under the surface, quick to rise back up.

Because of that, it is not surprising that some people are being openly anti-Semitic. Some others are getting really close. I am not going to judge anyone's motives, but some of it is pretty disturbing.

One is the rapid adoption of the chant, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Freedom for Palestinians is definitely important, and having freedom over a large unfettered area could be nice, but that phrase does sound an awful lot like the early PLO segment about driving the Jews into the sea.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean

Granted, it does not have to automatically mean that. There are also many Israelis calling for a total destruction of Palestine and backing it up with deadly attacks.

I get it, but it's wrong. It may be easier to reclaim that phrase than to reclaim the swastika or Confederate flag, but maybe reclaiming is not the answer. Maybe moving forward to something new and kinder is a better option.

For the people saying they don't mean it like that... maybe you don't, but it is quite possible you are marching next to people who do; are you comfortable with that? Should you be?

I also see people who criticize any attempt at diplomacy that is not a call on Israel for a complete ceasefire.

I get that too, but Hamas is openly saying that they will replicate the attacks, and do it again and again until Israel is gone as it "has no place on our land."

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/we-must-teach-israel-a-lesson-hamas-official-warns-october-7-attack-will-be-repeated-again-and-again-101698898245182.html

I know Israel has bigger weapons and they attack more effectively, what they are doing is sickening, but it doesn't justify that.

It is not helpful to take sides. 

Hamas and Netanyahu both have a lot to answer for, including Netanyahu's funding of Hamas over the years. Neither of those things warrants the destruction of an entire people.

None of that provides a solution, but I mention it because it is a reminder of how easy it is to slip into hate. We are called to love.

A lot of people talking right now don't seem to be able to offer anything but spite. 

There are reasons for the spite, but it won't help.

Complicating factors

Let me first specify that these factors may complicate what we feel, or make it harder to do the right thing, but that does not mean they change what is right or what our responsibilities are.

Not that it makes figuring out individual responsibilities easy either.

While there has been an increase in support for Palestinians, and that is important, most of the Western world (for lack of a better term) has strongly supported Israel and still mostly does. The reasons for that may not be great, but we have to face them.

First of all, there is the horror of the Holocaust. It is not unreasonable that we are horrified by that.

I am not even sure that finding land that could be their own was wrong. Given the time frame colonizing solutions were more likely than not.

Beyond that horror -- and a righteous "Never again!" -- I think there are also issues of guilt that play into it.

There is that guilt for the role the rest of the world played, not just in turning away refugees but in letting it happen. That includes appeasement and letting other countries get run over, and probably even the vindictiveness at the end of World War I, which contributed to what was happening in Germany before World War II. 

All of those steps got many people of many nationalities killed. Some of those steps involved trying to avoid war which makes sense, but if you are trying to avoid war because it causes death, and then that causes different death... 

Remember, none of this is going to be easy.

Beyond that, the United States played their own role in our treatment of Native Americans, which was part of Hitler's inspiration for how he did things. Yes, he had some ghastly innovations, but we need to own that role because it leads very much to today's situation.

So many Native Americans have visited Palestine and come away saying it reminds them of reservations.

That may lead us to a different guilt, but still one that we have a hard time facing.

We need to deal with that, for Palestine and for ourselves.

I believe an additional factor is that tendency to just want one side or the other to be right; forget nuance. I will get back to that next time, but there is one other thing I want to get into this week.

We may feel more conflicted because the Jews are Christ's chosen people. 

Besides, there are fundamentalists "Christians" cheering it on because they think it will bring on Christ's return.

There are two points with this. I would like to think that they are both fairly obvious, but so much that should be obvious isn't that I'm just going to go for it.

First of all, the purpose of the Revelation of St. John is to let believers know that even though they will see a great deal of evil and trouble they can be comforted that salvation will come and all wrongs will be righted. Feeling that comfort would be very different from celebrating evil. 

We should not root for evil. We should not accelerate it.

(Besides which, since the revelations describe a siege against Israel, that indicates that their offenses will fail at some point, though how many they will have slaughtered by then, and how many have already died... again, this is all horror.)

But also, remember that the Jews were the chosen people when they crucified Him too.

Now I realize that's bordering anti-Semitic, because that's a tack that they use, but my point is that being a covenant people does not exempt you as a group from criticism and it does not make each individual culpable of the group actions.

I believe God loves the Jewish people and I believe He loves the Palestinian people. I believe He has a plan for all of them.

The overall plan involves people having agency and the ability to make decisions, including destructive, terrible ones, but there is a limit to how much any one person can do without some cooperation. 

I believe Hitler was uniquely evil, but he would not have been able to succeed without others going along with it.

Governments often feel bound by treaties and financial concerns and what the opposition party has going on, and there is a limit to any one individual's control. 

I believe the protestors are having an influence now. There are people being arrested calling for a ceasefire, and they may not get the ceasefire, but it still makes a difference.

President Biden spoke words that Israelis found very comforting. Given the generational trauma they have had, I don't begrudge them that.

They also should not persecute others because of the persecution their ancestors faced, and that is a fair criticism.

It is also fair to note that they are doing some things not so different from our ancestors. There's a statue of one of my ninth-great-grandfathers because he was such a good Indian-fighter. I am sure that his children and grandchildren were proud, and for some generations after that. I wish things had been different, but all we have is now.

And I am not sure what else to do, so I blog.

Palestine

I sometimes refer to a tendency to choose sides and then put all one's loyalty on that side, refusing to even listen to criticism of your team.

The genocide in Palestine might be helpful for discussing that.

First off, notice that I called it a genocide. That would seem to indicate that I am on team Palestine, though that is not really accurate.

Since there is frequently a tendency to side with power, and since Israel has the definite advantage in power, I worry about Palestinians more. 

I would say that I do not worry about Hamas, wanting to make an important distinction between the terrorist organization and innocent people around them, but there are two problems with that.

"Innocent" is such a loaded word anyway. Certainly there are people who do not support Hamas and should not be judged by them. 

There may also be people who got into Hamas because they did not have many options. There may be people who would not support the slaughter of innocents, but after so much suffering at the hands of Israel, they feel some vindication when there is a strike. Prolonged suffering can be very demoralizing.

The other problem is that no one deserves that level of suffering. It wouldn't matter if they were all evil, and if over time they all became evil, there would be culpability on the part of their jailers.

If the targeting of civilians is evil when Hamas does it, then it is evil when Israel does it. 

And they have both done it; we need to be able to face that.

The first part may be remembering that not every Palestinian is a terrorist. It would be understandable if you were confused; Instagram was automatically adding "terrorist" to bios that mentioned Palestine, but that's wrong, and we should know better:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67169228

I think there might also be something to say for remembering that Netanyahu made accusations of election fraud when people were voting against him and that he was facing indictment for corruption charges.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-netanyahu-alleges-election-fraud-accuses-rival-duplicity-2021-06-06/ 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/netanyahu-may-form-government-while-under-indictment-israeli-supreme-court-rules 

It is reasonable to question his actions, and also to know that not every Israeli stands with him.

I mean, he sounds a lot like their Trump, when you put it that way, and Hamas kind of like our militant Christian nationalists.

Yes, there are Jewish people -- in Israel and in the United States -- calling for the utter destruction of the Palestinian people, for their genocide. But there are others pleading for Palestine -- in Israel and in Chicago and Washington D.C., and even being arrested for that.

Let's not be led so much by the worst people. 

That could be a good starting place.

All coming back

The direction we have been going with these last few posts is getting at a balance between loving and thinking.

It should be obvious to anyone reading a religious blog that we should love each other and want to help each other. 

It may not be as obvious that we can have good intentions and miss pressing needs, and even unintentionally cause harm.

I'm going to tell two more stories centered around celebrities in the hopes that they will be illustrative, even if there are more pressing matters.

Actor Danny Masterson was recently convicted of drugging and raping two women. 

I believe I had heard of a third woman, but it is a pretty safe bet in cases of rape and sexual assault and similar things that whether we are talking about convictions or accusations, that number is low.

Several fellow actors wrote letters of support to the judge in Masterson's case, trying to argue for a more lenient sentence. Among them were Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis:

https://theconversation.com/hollywood-letters-of-support-for-danny-masterson-demonstrate-the-pervasiveness-of-myths-about-rape-culture-213508

The photo that accompanies the article is from their apology letter as they gave into the backlash. 

There were several gross things about their support. For example, they called Masterson an anti-drug role model, ignoring the irony of Masterson drugging his victims. 

In this case, the bigger issues were probably their vocal support of #MeToo and Kutcher's chairman role in Thorn, a purportedly anti-child sex abuse company. He has since stepped down.

Their mistake is really one that's as old as the hills: this person is nice to me, and my friend, and so I will defend them.Obviously their treatment of me makes them a good person!

Except that's not how it works.

I had thought this would be about the tendency to side with those more powerful, but this particular story does seem to be more about personal relationships. Famous people get to know other famous people, but their world may not be especially relevant for our world.

There was a different aspect that struck me, partly because of the other story.

Despite their past association, there had not been much buzz about the Kutchers through the original allegations against Masterson all the way through the conviction. Then, once it came out that they had supported lenience, that started a lot of conversation.

Things that were pointed out:

• Masterson exerted a powerful influence on the set of That 70s Show, largely focused on excluding Topher Grace (who left the cast early, despite being the star, and whose wife posted a statement apparently in favor of the victims).
• Thorn has apparently done more to endanger sex workers than make children safer.
• Kutcher first kissed Kunis when she was 14 and he was 19, on that set. He has also made inappropriate statements about other younger actresses, like a 15 year old at the time Hilary Duff.

It may not have been a set where you would even expect to find safety and respect.

Sometimes we talk about all watching everyone's lives on a big screen at Judgement Day, which sounds remarkably boring. However, I do believe that in addition to our own inescapable awareness of our own lives, good and bad choices both, I also believe we will certainly understand what affected us, in good and bad ways.

The things that were brought up about Ashton Kutcher reminded me of that. I don't know that he intended harm, but he did not try hard enough or care enough to do good. That is a pretty important failure.

That reminds me of the other story:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a45080988/martin-short-comedians-reactions-social-media/ 

A writer wrote a scathing piece about Martin Short, calling is desperately unfunny and annoying. Fans, comedians and Canadians rushed to Short's defense, lauding not only how funny he was (and posting clips to prove it) but also how kind and wonderful he was. Apparently, only one person had anything bad to say about Martin Short, which made it foolish of them to publish it.

Of course, if they were writing about something correct -- even if the rest of the world were wrong -- it would be important to tell that truth, but just being petty can cost you.

Justice is not instant. It's not even particularly fast most of the time. 

However, the deeds that we do and the words that we say have effects. If that seems like I am leaving out thoughts, well, those thoughts are going to create the words and deeds.

So let us work to be informed. Let us work to be kind. 

Let us be valiant.

Then when all deception is gone -- including self-deception -- we will be able to feel good.

Calling 9-1-1

Reading about Kitty Genovese and the creation of 9-1-1 has also had me thinking about the times I have used the service, or not used it, and whether I should have or not.

First of all, I have one good story. It was around 6 AM on a Saturday morning. We were all in bed and then we heard screaming, "Help I've been hit by a car."

I pulled on clothes and headed out while Mom called 9-1-1. 

Just across the street from our cul-de-sac there was a young woman on the ground. She had been out running and struck by a hit and run driver. 

The good part of the story is that many of us responded. 

I don't remember the year, but it was long ago enough that no one had cell phones. I was not the only one who had another household member calling. Someone went to tell the people at her house, and someone was helping her support her head, and I think someone else went to get a coat or a blanket. Really, there was a surplus of responders, but that's better than the other option. 

In No One Helped, an article was cited regarding the various bystander effect studies that showed when the danger level went up, people were more likely to intervene. That was taken as a sign that there was hope for humanity, that we had altruism in addition to apathy. 

I suspect that the real issue is that when the threat is clear, people know that they need to act. 

When you take emergency response training, they always tell you that you don't say "Somebody call 9-1-1!' You point and say "You! Call 9-1-1!" Doubt can really hamper action.

Doubt was also a factor in the other two situations I want to mention.

The first one was also long ago, when I did call because there was smoke next door. Only it wasn't really smoke; it was steam rising from a compost pile. I didn't know, but I should have checked with the neighbors before calling. I didn't know them well so felt awkward, but then I felt really stupid when I found out it was compost steam. Just a little awkward would have been better.

The other time I didn't call. I was downtown and there was a man sleeping on the sidewalk. Yes, we have a large homeless population that has to sleep rough, but normally they hide themselves a bit better. I was worried that it was something medical, and that he needed help. I tried asking him if he needed help, but there was no response. I asked louder; still nothing.

I ultimately left without calling anyone. I did that because he seemed to be exhausted, but not in danger. While emergency response might have helped him, there is also a good chance that they would have hassled him. 

There's no guarantee somebody else wasn't going to hassle him, but it wasn't going to be me.

I am not sure that was the right decision.

There is another situation I have never been in, but if there were someone having a mental health crisis, or not even that but just a person of color, calling 9-1-1 might very well be signing their death warrant.

We sometimes see people use that to their advantage as a scary way of harassing, but there could be times when maybe there could be reason to call, but it is still better not to.

These cases all come down to knowledge. Sometimes it is a matter of asking. "Are you okay?" "Is there something burning in your backyard?"

Sometimes it is a matter of being alert to how things work; racist abuse of power and extrajudicial killing is a thing.

We have all been there, where we heard something that we couldn't tell if it was a kid shrieking in play, or something more serious. Was that a gun or a firecracker? If there is just the one sound and then nothing, it probably doesn't need any action, but what if?

There might be times when it is our duty to find out. 

That girl who was hit, she yelled loud and she kept yelling until several people had come. We knew someone was hit. We may not have known the details, but we went to find out.

Aid or apathy

Back in May I wrote about being affected by one documentary about Kitty Genovese and one article about Prince Harry:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/05/getting-to-two-things-about-grief.html

While those were seemingly disparate topics, they both seemed to be very much about grief. I mentioned at the end that I would read two more books. I wondered if they would also go together, and how much it was in me to just see grief in everything right now.

After reading Spare in August (I also watched their documentary) and No One Helped in September, there is a lot more than grief and they do not particularly go together. 

In the case of No One Helped: Kitty Genovese, New York, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, author Marcia M. Gallo takes more of a sociological approach, and it is for everyone else. There is a mention of the family, but grief requires a more personal relationship. For those outside of her circle of friends, Kitty only became known as a symbol.

Gallo does address the myth, but spends more time on the effects of the myth. 

For the record, the original New York Times story made it sound like 37 people watched the murder happening over a period of time and no one called the police or attempted to intervene. That was never true.

There were some people who heard one thing, but then could not see anything. One person saw something, yelled, and that seemed to interrupt it. There were at least two calls to the police, possibly more. One woman called but was not able to speak when they answered. Records are not always great years later, and it was not a particularly organized system even then.

Perhaps the way the police mentioned it to the editor related to the murderer having two previous victims, one very recent. If they had worked those cases harder, the murderer might never have had a chance to hurt Kitty. There were certainly things they mishandled, including not responding to the calls they did get.

Is it relevant that the other recent victim was a Black woman? Even editor A.M. Rosenthal acknowledged that crimes among Black New York residents did not get much attention. Would the police have tried harder to solve the case if Annie Mae Johnson had been white, or at least wealthy?

Rosenthal turned Kitty's murder into symbol of apathy and decried the lack of personal responsibility. Gallo points out that he was ignoring a high degree of community participation, but probably ignoring that because people were participating in ways he didn't approve of, like protesting war and fighting for school integration.

The other point made is that the best result of the murder was the development of what became the 9-1-1 system, which required government action and not just individual efforts.

There is a lot in the story about conservatism, racism, and classism. There is even homophobia; the police were terrible to Kitty's partner, even though there was no reason to suspect her. One person who did not call the police did not do so because he was scared of them. However, he called someone else, which did bring aid. 

Not being able to trust the police in various circumstances remains a problem.

We will spend more time on patriarchy and power dynamics, but before that I want to spend a little space on my experiences with 9-1-1.

Defending the undefended

I was reluctant to use this story, because of the people insisting that it isn't real. That's why I appreciate that this article focuses on that part:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/brickgate-revives-age-old-argument-black-men-women-rcna104423

A woman posted a video from the hospital saying that a man had asked her for her phone number, and when she refused he hit her with a brick. She focused on the men who were standing around and did not help her.

Perhaps it was that sense of being accused that caused so many men to respond. There were men saying she should have just given him her number, and women talking about their Google phone numbers, which they use to get out of giving their real numbers. 

I definitely remember some white men in politics saying that maybe if girls had just been nicer to Elliot Rodger, maybe he wouldn't have shot so many people.

There were men saying she deserved it. 

There were also men saying that they need to get home to their family, and why should they put their own selves at risk for some other woman? There were women answering that by pointing out that often a verbal warning from another man would suffice.  

I think that is largely true.

Safety concerns can be real. It's been a few years, but if you say "Tri-Met stabbing" Portland still remembers that when three men stood up to a man harassing two young Black women, all three were stabbed, two fatally.

https://jezebel.com/trimet-max-stabbing-victim-says-portland-has-a-white-sa-1795729516 

(Note: There have been at least two other stabbings that you might think of, but you will probably think of this one first.)

That danger can be real, but there is also a reason that these angry, violent men are choosing Black women. 

The "Brickgate" article's biggest weakness is that it never mentions misogynoir. 

There is prejudice, and that includes racism and sexism, and the feeling that you should be able to have people "lower" than you at your disposal; that you should be able to exert authority over them.

Beyond that, there is the way they combine. There is that there is also anti-Blackness on top of racism, and that sometimes it can be internalized. 

That it can feel safer to attack a Black woman than a white woman, or a Black man.

That there can be complicity among even those who would not attack, because they can still justify the attack, and work really hard to justify their own non-involvement.

I wrote not long ago that for a lot of things we rely upon convention and unwritten rules, like standing in line. There are people who prosper from trampling over those conventions because other people are more uncomfortable with addressing the violations than allowing them.

If someone cuts in front of me in line, maybe I don't care that much; if someone is about to be physically assaulted, I better not be okay with that.

I am grateful many people came to the defense of Damien Pickett; there should have been similar help for Roda Osman. Even just asking, "Do you need some help?" "What's going on?' could have been enough. A lot of the worst behavior fades away under attention.

 There is a lot in this about power dynamics, but yes, if there was a woman attacking a man for not giving her his phone number, yes, we should come to his defense too. It's harder to picture, isn't it?

There's a reason for that.

When feeling defensive

This was not what I thought I was going to write about today, but the sudden news story does relate:

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2023/09/15/rare-public-rebuke-lds-church/

In rare public rebuke, LDS Church condemns Tim Ballard’s ‘morally unacceptable’ behavior

I am glad something was said, and hopeful that it can undo some of the damage that has been done.

I worry that it won't.

So many members were so enamored of Tim Ballard and so thrilled with the movie, that I am concerned they might have a hard time giving that up.

I think this might be a time to re-examine those feelings, and try to come up with something better.

First of all, a desire to protect children is good. 

Children are vulnerable. They don't generally have money or political power or physical strength. There is an expectation that their parents will protect them, but sometimes parents do not have the ability, sometimes they do not have the desire, and sometimes parents are the threat. 

Children are also still developing, where their experiences can have a more profound influence on them than similar experiences would have on an adult. 

Children should be nurtured and protected, and it is good to know that and want to help.

Next, examine that mania for Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.

The first question may be whether you had ignored previous signs. There were many articles indicating not only that the organization was misguided on how best to help trafficking victims but also that Ballard himself was not a reliable source of information.

This includes Ballard recently being asked to step down from OUR, and that much of the information that led to the public rebuke came from a criminal investigation.

It would be possible to decide Ballard was a good man but misguided, or that the organization was still good even if Ballard was flawed, but it is probably not a coincidence that the flawed person, the flawed mission, and the flawed organization all go together.

There may be room here to look at what sources of information you are using, and what frame of reference you have for taking in that information. That is a much bigger topic.

It would certainly also be possible to decide that this is persecution due to political correctness; denial seems to be the route Ballard himself is taking:

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/tim-ballard-responds-to-condemnation-from-his-own-church

I hope that church members will respect the words of acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, M. Russell Ballard over a man who has been let go by the organization he started, but I worry.

Threatened patriarchy's primary tool are pride and anger. They don't leave one full of charity and sensitive to the Spirit.

I have often thought that maybe the reason the church never openly condemned Trump was because so many people would choose Trump and leave the church, whereas maybe if they stayed those messages about welcoming immigrants and the worth of souls and not hating would touch their hearts.

Except they were spending more time listening to messages that hardened their hearts. Instead, many of the people who knew the hate was wrong became alienated.

I don't have answers for everything; that is not my role.

On an individual level, I can recommend searching the heart, and seeing what love you find in it. If you keep finding anger and condemnation of others, you are probably on the wrong track.

If you keep feeling more love, and you are getting answers for ways to serve better and to make things better, then that seems like a good position, and you will be able to find ways to help.

Those ways will probably not involve the armed storming of compounds or a lot of fistfights. More likely it will involve a listening ear, encouraging words, and making sure that people have food and clothing and shelter. Making sure children have enough to eat is a huge way of helping them and the world.

If at some point it is right for you to get into a fistfight, that's just a bonus.

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-sound-of-distraction-sound-of-hype.html

Fighting the good fight

There may be times when it is appropriate to fight, though it will probably not be a really cool fight with lots of cinematic moves and gunfire. Sometimes, it may just require words.

There are several recent examples that let us explore this. We are going to start with the one that ended up being kind of joyful, at least afterward: the Montgomery Riverfront Brawl

https://www.today.com/news/alabama-montgomery-riverfront-brawl-rcna98690

Perhaps you have seen the video.

Well, I say that like there was only one video, but as the original footage spread, people started sharing other angles, versions with special effects added, commentary, and re-enactments.

People found humor in it, but there are some really not funny things about it, too.

A dinner cruise was returning, and there was a private pontoon boat blocking the dock.

Two employees went to move the boat. There was a Black man and there was also a younger white one who doesn't figure as much in what you see. I don't think he was sure what to do. Pickett, the Black man, was the assistant boat captain so in more of a leadership role. Also, he would have had to respond somehow once he was hit in the face.

Now, I know there are some pretty strong traditions around letting someone else touch your boat, but making 200 people wait for half an hour and you are still ignoring requests to move your boat three steps, well, maybe you should consider yourselves lucky that all that happens is your boat being moved without any damage. 

Except they were drunk and entitled. And racist.

We will spend more time on that, but I want to touch on the response first.

Historically, a group of white people attacking a Black person has ended far too often in death. Pickett's defenders came quickly, but he already had bruised ribs and bumps on the head. 

That a Black man was successfully defended and that the police did not come in and start clubbing the Black people is huge, especially in the South. 

There is a disorderly conduct charge against one of the defenders. The folding chair was the most iconic part of the brawl, but perhaps it was over the top.

You will see that the mayor has refrained from calling the incident racially charged, but there are clear racial elements. 

In general, people rely on conventions, like not cutting in line. Politeness does not provide clear instructions for what to do when someone is violating those unspoken rules. There are people who benefit from ignoring those conventions.

That in itself might be race-neutral, but which people are more likely to do that is often tied in with privilege, as well as whom it is safe to do that to.

That these drunken white people felt safe ignoring a Black man who was not only right but acting in a professional capacity, and then felt safe assaulting him... that has a racial component.

Add to the mix that Donald Trump had just given a "fiery" speech in Montgomery four days earlier, and connections have been drawn between Trump rallies and hate crimes. 

https://www.local10.com/gallery/news/2023/08/05/trump-in-fiery-speech-in-alabama-boasts-he-needs-one-more-indictment-to-close-out-this-election

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/24/18279807/trump-hate-crimes-study-white-nationalism

So here is when you can get to defend people: when it is against oppression and against marginalization. 

There are going to be a lot of instincts that will feel inhibiting for that, and those are things we need to root out.

This will become more obvious as we talk about other incidents.

Related reading:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/opinion/montgomery-brawl.html

Laban

Note: I assume that that most of my readers for this blog are also members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and so will be familiar with this story. If not, you can find it in the third and fourth chapters of 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/3?lang=eng

Continuing with violence, let's spend a little time on Laban in the Book of Mormon.

I recently saw a former member complaining about how good could Nephi or God really be, if they allow this cold-blooded murder. I can totally see the reasoning going the other way, with current members who believe they are good liking the idea of getting a chance to decapitate someone.

Usually, when we talk about the story, we focus on how important it was that they had the plates so that they could preserve their language and knowledge. I think we can take a moment to be grateful for the printing press and digital media storage and a variety of ways to maintain and share knowledge now. That was not the case for Lehi's family.

While we know that the brass plates contained writings of Isaiah and other records -- which obviously were recorded elsewhere because we got them in the Bible -- probably for proximity and scarcity, Laban's copy was the only option for Lehi's family. That importance is understood, and that understanding is important context.

We might not pay enough attention to the steps leading up to it. 

First, Laban was asked for the plates outright by Laman. Laban refused, called Laman a thief and threatened his life, but at this point Laban's head was still firmly attached to his shoulders.

Okay, he has no real motivation to give up the records, so the brothers move on to the next plan: offering Laban all of the family's gold, silver, and precious things in exchange.

We know the treasure appealed to Laban, because he stole it, and tried to have the brothers killed; then it's finders-keepers, right?

Laban could have kept his head and gotten treasure by just being a slightly better person. 

Generally when we are going over it, the emphasis is on how they didn't get the plates until Nephi was led by the Spirit; casting lots and coming up with their own plans did not work.

That is a fair point, but let's imagine that Nephi's first step was trying to be led by the Spirit... do you think he would have been led right to decapitation?

Laban appears to have been pretty despicable, but he still got multiple chances.

It's just not likely that you are going to get a chance to wail on someone. More to the point, you shouldn't want to.

We know that even when Jesus was driving the money changers from the temple, and had made a scourge, he still didn't hit the people selling doves or turn over that table; which could have terribly injured the birds. He just told their sellers to get the birds out. (John 2:16, and others)

More than once I have read stories in church magazines of members being robbed, and giving the money willingly or being kind to the mugger, and not only staying safe but sometimes helping the thief.

As familiar as I am with the urge to punch some jerk in the face, I know too much about the possibility of serious brain injury to do it under any but the most dire circumstances.

I'm not saying that in the event of someone raping or murdering your family that you have to let them. I do feel pretty comfortable saying that your wallet or the contents of your glove box or even your car are not worth someone else's life.

Too much desire to be violent -- to prove your toughness and strength and superiority -- well, these are the people who are more likely to annihilate their families than save them. It's not a short path to becoming a family annihilator, but along the way there are many thoughts and incidents that are not kind and loving.

I know sometimes a good fight looks fun, and there are times when self-defense is appropriate, but given our mandate to be like Christ, what kinds of thoughts and feelings should we be having?

Those will affect our actions.

A lust for violence

For almost twenty years now I have been noticing conservative men coming up with highly-detailed, extremely violent scenarios involving women and children. It is often about their families, but sometimes just hypothetical women. 

The main ones that come to mind were Bill Napoli, a former South Dakota state senator speculating about when abortion might be allowable, and Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty, going off on I don't remember what. 

It was off-putting, like "Why is this image coming to you so quickly? How much time are you spending on this?" However, I think I did learn to understand it more recently. That involved a "reporter" (I have to use the term loosely) who posted an excerpt from the novel he was working on. 

Now, this time the brutalization was directed against the male protagonist, but what really made the difference in perception for me was that it was clear that this was the prelude to bloody, vicious revenge. Think Taken or John Wick.

Because those conservative types are generally religious and Christian and moral (I feel like there should be some more quote marks there), they know they should not be vengeful, violent people. However, given dominator culture and patriarchy and that will to exert your superiority, it is easy to feel drawn to those macho man fantasies. How can one reconcile those conflicting impulses?

Make the target of the violence so bad that they deserve it. 

I acknowledge this is based on speculation on my part. 

I am not sure that your target being an absolutely vile person would truly justify your own brutality. Like, you can fight to protect people, but maybe you should only be violent enough to end the threat; not enough to recreate a gory video game. 

Also, it is because of my respect for the power of the mind and imagination and visualization that I suspect sending your thoughts in that direction wouldn't be healthy.

Those thoughts can be really important, but the real point of this post is that the idea of this virtuous, productive violence does not pan out.

This post is kind of inspired by "Try That In A Small Town", and I would argue that burning a flag or spitting on a cop should not be capital offenses. However, it is more inspired because I heard about the song not long after I heard about Michelle Tandler's desire to bring back lynching.

For my next admission, I had not heard of Michelle Tandler before. In trying to learn more about her, I can't really tell what she does. The funniest thing I have read regarded the results of a Twitter poll from April where the results were that she should get a job, but what she was going to do was start a podcast. 

https://protos.com/david-sacks-backed-michelle-tandler-shutters-another-business/

I have to assume she comes from money.

Anyway, the article has the quote:

100 years ago in SF people were publicly hung for their crimes. Often by vigilante groups that wanted to send a message. The hangings worked. Crime would plummet after a few of them. Often for many months at a time.

https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/1645067621191286784 

There is more in the thread and she doubles down on her premise as people push back: vigilante justice would save lives and make her feel safer.

I think it is important to note that at that point in the long and repugnant thread, she is taking inspiration from the murder of Bob Lee, founder of Cash App. She was tweeting on April 9th, apparently assuming that Lee's murderer was a homeless drug dealer. Four days later, we learned that it was a tech consultant that Lee knew:

https://apnews.com/article/cash-app-bob-lee-founder-stabbed-13dab701a332328c531b3c6c444983fd

The threat is not usually the vulnerable person on the street. Sometimes, yes, but most of the time, it's someone you know.

Now, as someone whose businesses apparently fail a lot, Tandler could easily end up being a tech consultant; does she really want vigilantes hunting those down?

But of course the 100 years ago hangings that she was referring to was a rise in Klan-based violence in San Francisco. Now, the Klan generally does claim that they are all about protecting the virtue of white women, but they are really about upholding white supremacy, which tends to come with plenty of misogyny. 

It doesn't make me feel safer.

As it is, the homeless population already is on the receiving end of more police violence than other residents of San Francisco; do they really need vigilantes too?

https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/24/san-francisco-police-use-of-force-homeless-people/

If you really want to protect your family, do laundry and wash hands: 

https://twitter.com/designmom/status/1225052146963550209 

I'm not the only person to notice the fantasies about families being raped. It's weird.

It is also a great time to re-examine wearing a mask.

Aldean as prelude

I guess it's time to talk about Jason Aldean, but I am not going to spend too much time on him, specifically. Mainly, he was reminding me of something else.

I will address him, just in case anyone isn't caught up. 

Country singer Jason Aldean released a song, "Try That in a Small Town". It subtly promotes racist violence. That became more apparent after the release of the video, which was filmed at the site of a notorious lynching in 1927 and race riots in 1946.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/20/1188966935/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-song-video 

This NPR article covers most of what I was seeing, but I will make two additions. 

The less important one was many people pointing out that Aldean himself is not from a small town. He was not born in one, did not go to school in one, and does not live in one. His affiliation with small towns is more imagined than real. Actually, the could end up being important. The article does note that he is not the song's writer.

More disturbing is that in a promotional TikTok, Aldean featured an old article about the abuse a small town editor faced for speaking up on equality and satirizing racism.

https://www.billboard.com/music/country/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-tiktok-jim-crow-era-newspaper-clip-1235377144/

It's not necessarily easy to find a 1956 article from a small town newspaper; you have to assume that it being featured was deliberate. That means any defenses about people taking care of each other in a small town and it not being about racism at all rings hollow. 

The song is about supporting each other in racism.

Looking for an article summarizing that, it was not too surprising to see that there has been harassment against a TikTok creator who pointed out that some of the video footage supposedly portraying big city violence in the United States is stock footage from Europe.

https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-jason-aldean-video-destinee-death-threats-1850673721  

One of the funny things for me was a meme going around of John Mellencamp being able to write a song about a small town without it being a racist dog whistle. While that is true, there was also his misleading footage and prejudicial song about Portland. I wrote about that just two months ago:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/06/seeing-portland.html 

To be fair, Mellencamp's "Small Town" was from 1985; it's been a while. It was long ago enough that he had added the "Mellencamp" but not yet dropped the "Cougar".

Now, it would certainly be possible to spend some time on people talking about family values with an undercurrent of racism, like Ronald Reagan starting his presidential campaign in Neshoba County, speaking about "states' rights" where three Civil Rights workers were murdered just sixteen years earlier. 

That is not a coincidence or an accident; that is delivering the key to the code that when you say "states' rights", "law & order", and "family values" what you mean is white supremacy. If you are pro-racism, pro-slavery, pro-misogyny, pro-marginalization of everyone beneath you -- because it means that there are people beneath you, and you like that -- we want you to know that we are for you!

Then, because it's a dog whistle, if you would never say that you are pro-racism, but "family values" and "law & order" sounds good to you, and you don't mind the racism so much as long as it's not shoved in your face so that you have to admit the ways in which you are falling short, well, we can be a pretty good party for you too.

The problem with that is that there is so much cruelty on the white supremacy side that you have to constantly find ways to blame the people experiencing the cruelty for what is happening to them, which will harden your heart. 

And I would not have even written this post, except for this nagging memory of something else a few months earlier.

That's where I'll pick up next time.

Fallout

Okay, one more movie.

With Oppenheimer's release, there have been a lot of articles about the development of the atomic bomb, its testing, and those results.

There is a lot that can be looked over, about what other options existed and what the results would have been. We could spend a lot of time on that.

I want to focus on one aspect and its ramifications:

https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2023-07-26/oppenheimer-atomic-bomb-new-mexico-cancer-aftermath

The articles talks about the survivors of those who died after the Trinity testing.

In the film, both the test site and the Los Alamos Laboratory in Northern New Mexico are remote, unpopulated areas — a depiction that’s largely in line with most historical accounts of the Manhattan Project. The reality is starkly different. The land acquired by the U.S. government to build and test the bomb was occupied, as was the 150-mile radius surrounding the Trinity Test — areas settled predominantly by Hispanic and Native American ranchers and homesteaders.

“There are some glaring omissions,” Cordova said of the film. “There was a level of racism, obviously [to the Manhattan Project]. They so easily invaded our lands, our lives, and destroyed them both.”

It is too easy to look at areas where the population is not white and then just kind of look through them: nothing to see there.

That is terrible enough. However, the point I want to make from it is that it doesn't stop there. 

The article mentions how the fallout spread to other states, specifically mentioning Arizona and Oregon, but not Utah.

And yet, I already knew that it hit Utah. That was not so much the Trinity testing, but additional testing in the 50s, ending in 1962. Keeping that testing stopped was an important issue in the 1964 presidential elections.

https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/downwinders-exposed-to-radioactive-fallout-encouraged-to-apply-for-compensation/

I knew about it because I knew families who were affected, including children born after the testing was done. 

Members tend to know a lot of other members; you probably know someone who was affected. Maybe you have read Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams.

This is the point I want to make: no matter how much more palatable different types of oppression can be made by targeting them at the marginalized, they never end there. They spread. The pool expands. New enemies need to be found to maintain momentum.

Frankly, it disgusts me that this point even needs to be made. We should want everyone to do well and we should have gotten over racism and every other bigotry long ago.

Since we haven't, maybe the occasional reminder of self-interest can be helpful.

Plain speech

I keep thinking I am going to write about Jason Aldean, but I've got one or two movie things to cover first. I guess music will just be something to look forward to.

As a preview, that post will be about racist dog whistles (and foghorns); today's post is about language that is casually, accidentally racist.

Before I get to that, let me say that there was a different recent issue, where an Instagram post where a common religiously-based Black expression was accused of being anti-Semitic. For years, Black parents and grandparents have pointed out that no matter how good Jesus was, people betrayed and killed him, kind of as a way of reminding you that you are not untouchable, and as a consolation (or "get over yourself") when you do get betrayed. The issue arose because someone pointed out that "they" would be Jews, so it's anti-Semitic.

Okay, that sounds to me like attempting to police Black people's speech, but that there could also be a reason to think about how some expressions are used. I'm sure we can use Jesus as an example without being anti-Semitic, but there is plenty of anti-Semitism. There can be complicated thoughts and there can be tone-policing, and a mix of both.

So I am aware of that, and that is all the comment I feel a need to make on that. My issue is going to be simpler, and probably more applicable to the good-hearted but not always radicalized white people most likely to read my posts.

Moving on, for our next movie I turn to Barbie, which I really enjoyed and thought was an excellent movie. However, there was one "joke" that it was easy to ignore unless you are Indigenous.

“Oh My God, this is like in the 1500s with the Indigenous People and smallpox. They had no defenses against it.”

https://nativeviewpoint.com/what-was-that-indigenous-smallpox-line-in-the-barbie-movie/

Depending on how you calculate, there were an estimated 3 million Indigenous deaths from smallpox.

I knew about the line because I follow a fair amount of Indigenous people, and it bothered them. I won't even say that it ruined the movie for all of them, but it pulled them out of it, hurt, and not for any good reason.

I think I know how it happens. You have a line that is okay, and you want to punch it up a little; what can you add?

We have many phrases that refer to Indigenous issues that have become common usage: "powwow" "low man on the totem pole" "off the reservation"

Think about that one. They had been confined to reservations after their land was taken yet again. Generally there was no hunting, the farmland was poor (if it were good land, they would be moved again), and while the government promised supplies they were consistently bad about keeping those promises. Therefore, sometimes the residents would form hunting parties or do something to try and get more food.

Hilarious, right?

I suspect the reason those phrases are so popular is that there are still so many people who have this idea that it's all in the past, where there isn't anyone around to whom that matters now.

Guess what? There are, they saw your movie, and it made your good time hurtful.

I don't believe there is any intent to harm, but you can cause harm without intent. 

To put it a different way, imagine the line like this:

“Oh My God, this is like in the Holocaust with the Jewish People and Xyklon B gas. They had no defenses against it.”

Uncomfortable, right? But we are more used to remembering the Holocaust. It also wasn't as long ago, except for the ways in which we still are not fair to Indigenous people, which by the way is the North American shame, so maybe we should be more aware of that!

I am not saying we should forget about the Holocaust; fascists and Nazis seem to keep popping up more and more so we better remember it. There are more things we should bear in mind.

I saw some calls to erase the line from the movie, and I think that would be okay. You can mention immunity without it.

"They were never exposed to patriarchy; they never had a chance to build up any immunity."

Is that line less funny? Only if you need racist reminders of conquering other people for a laugh. Surely we don't.

I do spend a lot of time on racism, so let me go over the non-racist factor in this, which I think is this feeling that we need to make things better or fancier.

I bug my sisters about this a bit, because when they are posting something is always "the cutest thing ever!" or "hilarious!" Some people pump up with profanity.

Logically, there cannot be that many cutest things ever, or the bar was set pretty low and is easily exceeded. A lot of the things posted as hilarious are really just kind of funny.

There's nothing wrong with being kind of funny.

I think it becomes this form of justification, like you need an extra reason to be good enough to share something that you found cute or funny or interesting. You liking it is reason enough. If someone else doesn't like it, you hyping it is unlikely to change their opinion.

This may not sound that important, but when there is this sense that what you are saying is not fancy or colorful enough, a lot of the things that get pulled in are related to bigotry in some way. Historically, the way many people make up for their inferiority is to cling to their perceived superiority over someone else. 

The ones that are more obvious fall out of favor more quickly, so the ones with staying power tend to relate to the most marginalized groups. A lot relate to disability.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. -- Matthew 5:37

The comes from a segment on false swearing, where people would look for ways to strengthen oaths because if the oath was not strong enough, maybe you would break it, or the person you were swearing it too wouldn't believe you. Really, you should just be the kind of person who does what they say they will. Not fancy, but honest and reliable and acting with integrity.

If you are not a witty person, peppering your speech with racism and ableism is not helping anyone.

If you are a person I am connected to on social media, I probably like you enough that I will give what you say and like a chance. 

If you are connected to people for whom you are not enough, reflect upon that.

There are other options.

Related reading:

https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/culturally-offensive-phrases

http://deareverybody.hollandbloorview.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DearEverybodyTipsonAbleistLanguage2018-19.pdf

Still at the movies

I realize part of the mania for The Sound of Freedom is that the central figure is a member; that effect will not necessarily carry through with other "faith-based" films. 

There is another one I have seen some ads for, and I would like to explore that for a minute.

After all, my problem with The Sound of Freedom is not that Tim Ballard is a member of the church, but that it is an emotionally manipulative transparent cash grab based on lies. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-sound-of-distraction-sound-of-hype.html

I do wonder if the increased scrutiny of the movie is part of what led to Ballard leaving Operation Underground Railroad. If the organization starts doing better work, that's great, but it won't stop Ballard from fundraising or from being him.

Regardless, for any movie that is supposed to encourage faith, (while I might have some reasonable concerns about quality) I am only going to be against that if it is doing so falsely or harmfully. 

If your values are professedly Christian but not in harmony with the words and action of Jesus Christ, then that is a problem, and one that really gets to me.

You can imagine my concern when I saw advertising for The Blind, a movie sharing the love story of Phil and Kay Robertson of Duck Dynasty.

I admit that I don't know a lot about the Robertson family. I remember once a photo going around of what they looked like before the show, when at least the sons were all clean-shaven and wearing polo shirts. Okay, they used to be more preppie, fine; that's not a big deal to me.

Unfortunately, with increasing fame comes increasing opportunities to share your opinion. I still didn't hear that much from father Phil Robertson, but what I did hear was pretty appalling.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/phil-robertson-black-people_n_4473474

Referring to the time before the Civil Rights era:

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person," Robertson is quoted in GQ. "Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

Wrong, but honestly wrong in a way that I have heard from multiple white people, including some who are LDS.

On the age women should be married:

https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/31/showbiz/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson-comments/index.html

“Look, you wait ‘til they get to be 20 years old, the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket. You got to marry these girls when they are about 15 or 16. They’ll pick your ducks.” 

He advises the boys to check with the girls' parents first, but not any agency for the girl; not if you want her to be working for you instead of you working for her.

Robertson himself has followed this advice, marrying 16 year old Kay when he was 20 (though apparently a year after the birth of their first child).

Godly.

Anyway, the first ad I saw seemed to imply that it was Kay's love that saved him; others make that less clear. They do show her as a pillar of strength as he yells at her, threatens her, and kicks her out of the trailer toting four little children. 

Maybe the 20 year old was not quite ready for marriage either.

I am not saying that most members want that for their daughters. Also, a big part of their problem appears to have been alcohol, and members might feel safe from that.

However, I am less sanguine that we would not hear a watered down version of that quote, where you do need to be married young, and that is good and right, and not think about the problems that can come with that. 

There is a big part of conservative culture focusing on the importance of women being subservient, not having their own careers and thoughts and feelings, and proudly caring for their homes and children. Getting a teenager married off to an older, domineering man before she has had a chance to come into her own works well for the domineering man, but it's not great for the girls.

And we have two many girls who were at least able to get a term in at BYU and they still know that.

Families are important, and focusing too much on temporal careers is not good for anyone.

It is easy to ignore the privilege in who even gets that option, but my primary concern is how many women have ended up with men who do not respect them, who do not care about what is difficult for them, and who are content to serve without being served. 

I am concerned about the women who will tolerate emotional and even physical abuse and feel that is the way it should be, taking inspiration from another woman whose husband eventually got better.

It's easy to hear a bit of something and think it sounds right without thinking deeper. Both articles about Robertson mention his homophobia, which did get him briefly suspended. There are church members that will agree with that, even though he is talking in a way that the leaders don't.

And it goes along with racism and sexism.

It always done.

There are some really hateful thoughts that are really popular when they are separated by just a degree from that hatefulness, but the hate is still infectious and it grows.

We need to be really careful about that.

The Sound of Distraction; The Sound of Hype

With the past few weeks being about our collective legacies and the country and world that we have today -- and with Pioneer Day approaching -- I wanted to reference a speech of Brigham Young's calling the congregation to supply and rescue the Willie and Martin handcart companies:

“That is my religion; that is the dictation of the Holy Ghost that I possess. It is to save the people. This is the salvation I am now seeking for. To save our brethren that would be apt to perish, or suffer extremely, if we do not send them assistance...“I will tell you all that your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the Celestial Kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains.

https://www.ldsscriptureteachings.org/2016/12/brigham-youngs-october-1856-address/ 

It always stirs me. Having come across it recently, it stirred me again, and I had that feeling for no matter what changes in circumstances there have been, there are nonetheless so many people needing help, and there are things that we can do.

I can't exhort to that without being very specific, though, because too many members are all stirred up about that stupid movie.

I do not blame anyone for having an emotional reaction to thoughts of children in peril and being abused and being helped; I'm not a monster.

My problem is that Operation Underground Railroad's founder, Tim Ballard, has lied and exaggerated. I don't think all of his lies are conscious, but that doesn't keep them from being damaging.

One of the most notorious lies is the story of "Liliana", notable for being blatantly dishonest and a hugely successful fundraiser:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7a3qw/a-famed-anti-sex-trafficking-group-has-a-problem-with-the-truth

That lack of deep commitment to the truth is the kind of thing that can cause good intentions to lead to bad results. That can included additional trauma for children and creating demand for additional victims, and younger ones at that:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/05/sex-trafficking-raid-operation-underground-railroad.html

A lack of commitment to the truth also means supporting those who are promoting really false things that are politically motivated. People involved with this movie have ties to QAnon, and believe in Pizzagate and that Wayfair participates in child trafficking. 

Even organizations that are supportive admit that the movie is not particularly accurate:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2023/july/anti-trafficking-ministries-nonprofits-sound-of-freedom.html

Part of that comes from much more trafficking happening with adolescents and adults than children, but a bigger part of that is how most trafficked people are brought into it by people they know: family and intimate partners. They have been victimized, but not abducted, and getting them to see the value in rescue could be hard. There are trafficking victims who are separated from their families, but in many cases those are LGBT youth who ended up vulnerable because their families kicked them out.  

I deeply want children to be safe, as well as teens and adults. It will not happen by watching this movie and then paying the admission forward.

It's so comfortable to know that the bad guys are all outside and other, but it's not real.

We need to think more about the doting grandfather, or that one family that is so great, except that oldest daughter never could get it together, but the best families have things like that happen, right? 

Yes, I suppose they do, but I know a grandfather who is in jail for molestation, and a good family where there was a sudden divorce and disappearance of that great father because his molestation came out, and other stories, too numerous to go into.

Yes, those feel terrible. It is awkward and uncomfortable, but do we want to protect? Do we want to help in saving and healing?

It may not feel heroic, but it will be what's needed.