From philosopher John Rawls: "A just society is a society that, if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place."
I am still in California, and have been reading a good bit about the Jordan Davis/Michael Dunn case, including pdfs (available on-line) of many of Dunn's letters written from jail. I also watched portions of testimony on youtube, including by Dunn to the police the day after the shootings. I'm deeply troubled by the jury's finding that Dunn had engaged in three counts of attempted 2nd-degree murder of (Davis' friends in the car), while not finding that Dunn had intended to kill Davis himself. Maybe I'm missing something about the legal definition of 1st-degree murder.
What I know is that I'm upset about what feels like a long history of open-hunting season of blacks by whites in this country. Challenge my authority? Dead. Look at my woman wrong? Dead. Walk or drive in the wrong part of town? Dead.
I'm disturbed by what appears to be an increasing trend toward justification of violent -- even deadly -- action against those whom we perceive as threats. "Stand-Your-Ground" law does not require efforts to evade or retreat from threat, even when these courses of action might readily be taken by a frightened potential victim. Stand-Your-Ground law allows the perception of threat to function as a defense for the use of "deadly force." (As an aside, California's "insanity defense" is not satisfied if the
defendant believes his/her actions are justifiable based on personal
standards for moral behavior, but recognizes that the actions would
violate general standards for moral behavior. In the case of
Stand-Your-Ground laws, it appears that the defendant's stated personal perception is what matters.)
Florida's Stand-Your-Ground law was not invoked during Dunn's trial. According to Dunn's testimony to the police, Davis had a weapon in hand and was opening the door of the car in which he'd sat in the back seat, having explicitly said he would kill Dunn. Dunn told police that he should have just backed his car out of the gas station parking spot (to leave), but instead reacted in fear for his life by grabbing his gun from the glove department, loading it and defending himself. He stated that he continued shooting at the car in which Davis sat even as that car's driver backed it out and drove off. He said that he didn't know until the next morning that Davis had died from his gunshot wounds. (That last part is believable to me since, by his report, he and his fiancée ordered pizza after returning to their hotel room, and did not report the shooting to the police.)
A basic tenet in the field of psychology -- one I believe is true -- is that we do not respond to what is happening but rather to our perception of what is happening. I imagine that's why police and military undergo special training in order to decrease reactivity in hot situations. Even so, I figure we're all still human and we are biologically inclined, if you will, to defend ourselves and those we care about when we perceive threat.
What is particularly disturbing to me now is the deepening notion -- reality? -- that, in the eyes of the law, perception can be enough. Enough to kill another person.
If the NRA had its way, teachers would be in a position to perceive threat from the angry parent (the angry teenager, the angry custodian, the angry fellow teacher) down the hall and shoot that person, all in the name of self-defense and of protecting children and other school staff. There doesn't have to be a weapon, just the belief that there is a weapon, the perception that the other person's movements are related to the existence of a weapon, the perception of a shadow or a shape as a weapon, the perception of someone as being in a suspicious location. Well, we've bombed a wedding party in Iraq for as much as that. (USMC Major General James Mattis was quoted as saying that a wedding was implausible in that particular case: "How many people go to the middle of the desert… to hold a wedding 80 miles (130 km) from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive." I don't know; maybe they thought it would be safer away from town?)
In my work with children, I've watched (perceived) them accidentally bump into each other on the field and make accusations of intentional shoving. I've seen (perceived) a child take a drink of water from the fountain and then straighten and turn so fast that the water sprayed the next child in line -- who insisted that he'd been intentionally spat upon. These interactions can get aggressive very quickly, particularly when the children have behavioral difficulties to begin with. In these situations, my work was to help the offended child consider the possibility that perception might not be reality -- so it's important to, e.g., ask a question: "Hey, did you just spit at me?" My work was also to help the perceived-as-offending child understand how an unintended behavior might provoke an angry response -- so it's important to be aware, and to apologize for accidents.
Would I do better to counsel children to act on their perceptions of aggression so they can protect themselves before the other child hurts them? Imagine the career path of the principal -- or the therapist -- who called a child into her or his office after a scuffle and said, "Now Billy, from what I understand, you thought that Tommy was looking very upset and it looked to you like he'd balled up his fist, so you hit him first to protect yourself. You did the right thing."
I cannot help but think of Oscar Grant, Amadou Diallo, Mohamed Bah, and Trayvon Martin, among many others.
Going through quite a few of Dunn's letters from jail, I was struck by how decent he could be (e.g., in his letters to his daughter): just a typical, loving father trying to guide and support his young adult child. I was also struck by how crass he could be, as when he wrote, "I was thinking to suggest [to an apparently suicidal jail cell neighbor] an easy way to die would be to ask a car load of thugs to turn their stereo down! [smiley face drawing] Somehow I don't think that would get the laugh I was going for." In one instance, what he wrote reflected for me the worst of Stand-Your-Ground and NRA potential: "This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they're threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior."
Much has been made of Dunn's negative comments re: the music of "thug culture," which he describes in one letter as espousing violence toward women. If that's the definition, I'm with him in not liking it. I don't see myself shooting any singers or musicians over it, nor those who choose to produce it, sell it, play it and/or listen to it. I feel the same way about anti-woman and anti-police video games, and "first-person shooter" games, some of which have included links (ultimately removed) to information about the purchase of weapons shown within them.
In one of his letters, Dunn wrote, "The jail here is almost all black prisoners. You'd think Jacksonville was 90-95% black, judging by the makeup of the folks in jail here! I've never seen a group of people so racially divided. The blacks hate the whites and the whites hate the blacks up here. My fear is that if I get black [sic] on my jury, it will be a mistrial, as I am convinced they will be racially biased."
In a different letter, about his wish for a change of venue, Dunn wrote, "The fear is that we may get a predominantly black jury and therefore unlikely to get a favorable verdict. Sad, but that's where this country is still at. The good news is that the surrounding counties are predominantly white and republican [sic] and supporters of gun rights! Remember that saying: Rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6! However, I don't wish to be pre-judged and the blacks around here are doing just that. I'm falling into the same trap -- pre-judging the blacks -- but they're making it very easy to do by their actions." (Self-awareness followed by dismissal and finger-pointing.)
I don't know how Dunn interpreted the "90-95% black" composition of the jail in which he awaited trial, but I suspect it was not a social justice interpretation (i.e., that blacks were being unjustly charged and incarcerated at rates much higher than their white peers). I was attentive to Dunn's concerns regarding the potential for a biased jury, based on their being "predominantly black." That shoe has so often been on the other foot, with black defendants (as well as the families and supporters of black victims) concerned about predominantly or all-white juries -- and that's where my assumption lies regarding the high percentage of blacks in this country's jails and prisons.
"A just society is a society that, if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place."
As a white woman, I wouldn't be willing to enter US society randomly. Whoever you are, would you? It's worth thinking about who would stand to have an easier and/or safer life by doing so.
with love, meg February 19, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Videos: Yasmim & meg about Casa Grande Foundation
Now I want to return to writing about my travels outside the US.
As part of that story, at the bottom of this post are a couple of links to videos about the Casa Grande Foundation (FCG in Nova Olinda, Brazil). The first link is to an interview with Yasmim (with English subtitles), who is one of the many delightful and articulate young participants at FCG.
The second link is to a video of me just winging it about FCG at the end of my first week there. Though the thoughts I expressed at that time were early impressions, they continue to ring true to me after a total of seven weeks spent at FCG on two separate occasions last year. Yasmim and I knew nothing of each other's videos when we spoke on camera, but I think the videos make a good pair.
About my phrase that the children are "learning to be owners of art and technology and connection": In using the word "owners," my intent was to describe the sense (and reality) of personal choice, investment, engagement and responsibility that the children have regarding their endeavors.
A story:
During my second visit to FCG, the children were all on break from school. Nevertheless, they showed up every day (or close to it) in order to do their jobs, continue learning, play and spend time with friends. Everyone associated with FCG was also preparing for an important event to take place later in the month. That meant lots of cleaning, washing, painting, dusting and reorganizing.
F, in his early teens, is in charge of the comic book library, and one day I was helping him there. On this particular day, I was dusting comics and other graphic arts books, giving them new protective plastic covers if they needed them, labeling piles according to author or illustrator, and setting the comics out on shelves. F's logic for organizing things wasn't clear to me so, after a spell of simply putting things where I'd been told, I asked him about this. How did he decide which comics went where?
F explained to me that some comics went together because the covers were particularly wonderful, others were organized by theme (e.g., super-hero, fantasy), yet others by author or illustrator, etc. F's choices made great sense to him. "Hmm," I thought. "This library is open to the public. How would community members know where to find the comics they wanted?" This was not the kind of library system to which I was accustomed. I continued to ponder this, and realized that anyone searching for a particular comic book would naturally discover any number of other comic books along the way, many of which would likely be enjoyable for him or her. It would be like hunting for a particular tree in the forest and discovering the beauty of other botany on the path.
The next time I spoke with co-founder Alemberg, I told him about my journey regarding the organization of the library (including my tree-hunting epiphany), and asked him how he thought about it. Alemberg replied that he always wants to leave space for others to enter, have an idea or a feeling about something, and take responsibility for getting involved. If there were only one way to organize the library, it would be a static place with no room for personal engagement or innovation.
As a fan of theater improvisation, I should have recognized this as very familiar territory; nevertheless the sky cracked opened for me. What a concept! To structure with the goal of engagement rather than that of uniformity or predictability! Imagine living that life.
Here are the videos:
Yasmim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
meg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
with love, meg January 17, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Welcome... back?
December, 2013:
I sit here outside my very dear friend's home in Felton, California, where the sun is shining on the tree trunk-sized branches of the huge "live oak" trees (a kind of oak, for those who do not know them); where small birds are flitting, chirping and chattering; where the red-headed woodpeckers hammer their cache of acorns into the holes they've drilled into the massive, thick-barked pines; where the morning frost sits on the rooftops (demarcating the shadows, as my friend pointed out, even as the sun melts the exposed areas); where other dear friends live below (this is their house) with their two silky cats whose dappled fur blends in with the dry-winter colors of the peaceful landscape. I have landed softly here.
The soft landing followed an uneven travel transition. After a tearful farewell in front of LHI, I'd had a long drive with a relaxed and lovely family: a hired driver, his wife and their three children who, by the time they dropped me off at the airport, had graciously invited me to visit them in their home outside Antigua on my next trip to Chajul. When I arrived at the airport just after 9 PM, I was told, "The airport is closed." "You're kidding, right?," I asked, knowing that the man was not kidding. He replied, "Here in Guatemala, the airport closes at 8 PM." Fortunately, there was an area outside the airport's cafeteria where I was able to spend the night, mostly sitting on my backpack on the floor, grateful to have a free indoor place to pass the time till my 7 AM flight.
Having come to associate Guatemala with the Ixil region, I'd lost virtually all sense of being there by the time I'd arrived at the Guatemala City airport. It is modern: large, all right angles, sliding doors, polished metal and lots of glass, digital monitors, people walking about in nondescript clothing while interacting with one or another kind of hand-held technology. There was none of the exquisite traditional textile worn by the women and girls of Chajul and the neighboring towns. Apart from being addressed in Spanish by airport staff (e.g., the security guard who came around at midnight to ask everyone in the cafeteria area -- now closed -- if they were "authorized" to spend the night there), there was little to suggest that I was not sitting on the floor of a US airport.
My transition back to the US had continued with a series of flights, the first of which took me into Houston for my passage through customs, immigration and the agricultural check. The immigration agent who reviewed my entry form was suspicious about my having been in so many countries. Really? All those countries? Was I carrying any tobacco or alcohol? Nine months of travel? Why had I been traveling? Was I carrying any tobacco or alcohol? (Yes, he did ask me again, perhaps thinking he'd catch me in a lie.)
On the immigration and customs form, I had not known how to respond to the question about having visited a farm because I was unsure of the question's intent. I had put a question mark, and this had landed me in the agricultural check area. In a huge room of conveyor belts and luggage scanners, where my entry had interrupted a conversation between the only two people present, I explained to the agriculture agent, "Well, no, I wasn't actually on a farm. But in the town where I lived, the streets were always full of farm animals: cows, horses, pigs, donkeys, chickens, ducks --" He cut me off, "Okay okay. I get it. Did you actually touch any cows? Will you be around livestock here in the US? Fine-okay-you can go." In Houston and then in Los Angeles, the airport staff often struck me as apathetic and stressed, if not actually rude (limited eye contact, sucking of teeth, rolling of eyes, audible complaints about one thing or another). Throughout my travels, really poor people with truly difficult lives had been overwhelmingly warm, kind and positive. I was not feeling happy to be back in the US.
January, 2014:
Having spent two weeks in Felton, nurtured by my generous friend and by nature itself (hmmm, nurtured by nature), I am now house-and-cat-sitting in Santa Cruz. This opportunity arose just before I left Guatemala, which was remarkable timing. My friend in Felton had told me I could stay with him for as long as I wanted -- just as my friends in other countries have said the same -- but it's always hard for me. How much generosity and good fortune can I accept? The airy, sunny and peaceful home in which I am now staying sits at the end of a generally quiet street, has a large backyard with lots of birds, and shares the grounds with a lovely neighbor (whose dog, cat and chickens I also get to enjoy). I love curling up with the cat each night, feeding the birds, and playing with the neighbor's dog.
It's hard for me to put into words what I am experiencing here in the US, and I'm not sure I even fully understand it. What follows are some odds and ends of my experiences and behaviors here, some of them embarrassing or shameful to me.
As soon as I arrived in the US, I craved sugar generally and chocolate specifically. In Felton, I shopped for some food at a mostly organic local food store, lay low for a day or so, reviewed the various financial and other records that my friend had so impeccably kept in my absence, and got into my car (which I was indeed able to drive). I used the car to run errands, because there is no public transportation near my friend's home. I avoided walking around the central street of the downtown area, because I didn't want to deal with the pre-Christmas crowds and the shopping energy, but I did "swing through" Trader Joe's to buy some things I needed. It was shockingly easy to do this. When I finally screwed up enough -- what? courage? -- to enter Costco for the vitamins and calcium I needed (wanted), I found myself picking up and examining jeans and jackets. These are items I do not need at this time, still having the worn but fully functional two pairs of pants with which I traveled for nine months. A friend's son gave me a warm, virtually new jacket, and I was extremely grateful yet found myself thinking, Do I want to get a women's jacket instead of keeping this men's jacket? Fortunately, I did come to my senses. When I went to my storage space to get some warm clothing, I grabbed two pairs of old jeans. Really? Two pairs of jeans? Two? Do I really need two more pairs of jeans? To my horror, I found myself continuing to look at the computer screen in front of which I was sitting when a friend called, even typing something briefly as we talked. I have returned to the gym, where I am thankful to be regaining some strength and flexibility. I have missed living my life in languages other than English. I miss the simplicity and directness of my life in the places I volunteered. I have a different tone of voice here. I went to see a musical for which a friend (in the production's orchestra) had given me a comp ticket, and I appreciated its complex and opulent stage set. I want to see movies. I can't stop noticing the enormous wealth of this country; the word "obscene" comes to mind. I am an active participant in all of this.
WHO AM I???
I talked with two friends from another country, about what it was like for them to be immigrants here. In particular, they are from a very warm, relationship-based, gracious and slower culture. I felt that I have some sense now of what they are missing. One of the friends talked about his experiences being/having a housemate in the US. He said that, in his country, housemates share everything; in the US, people decide whose shelf is whose in the refrigerator. I could relate to that entirely, having experienced the former during my travels, and the latter in my own shared living situations in the US. The refrigerator shelf now feels like a huge metaphor for so much of how we live in the US.
As soon as I landed in the US, I felt as if my almost nine months of life elsewhere had been erased. It was so easy to re-enter a way of moving, talking, interacting. At the same time, I often feel outside myself, noticing and questioning how I move, talk and interact. Some people have welcomed me "back," and I don't quite know what that means. Apart from rejoining some specific communities (e.g., a women's solstice circle, the theater improvisation community), I am not "back." I don't live here and I don't work here, yet I am not visiting here. There is an important chapter of my life unfolding here as I figure out what is next. I don't yet know where "what is next" will unfold, but I suspect it will not be here in Santa Cruz. When I do get "back," where will that be?
with love, meg January 7, 2014
I sit here outside my very dear friend's home in Felton, California, where the sun is shining on the tree trunk-sized branches of the huge "live oak" trees (a kind of oak, for those who do not know them); where small birds are flitting, chirping and chattering; where the red-headed woodpeckers hammer their cache of acorns into the holes they've drilled into the massive, thick-barked pines; where the morning frost sits on the rooftops (demarcating the shadows, as my friend pointed out, even as the sun melts the exposed areas); where other dear friends live below (this is their house) with their two silky cats whose dappled fur blends in with the dry-winter colors of the peaceful landscape. I have landed softly here.
The soft landing followed an uneven travel transition. After a tearful farewell in front of LHI, I'd had a long drive with a relaxed and lovely family: a hired driver, his wife and their three children who, by the time they dropped me off at the airport, had graciously invited me to visit them in their home outside Antigua on my next trip to Chajul. When I arrived at the airport just after 9 PM, I was told, "The airport is closed." "You're kidding, right?," I asked, knowing that the man was not kidding. He replied, "Here in Guatemala, the airport closes at 8 PM." Fortunately, there was an area outside the airport's cafeteria where I was able to spend the night, mostly sitting on my backpack on the floor, grateful to have a free indoor place to pass the time till my 7 AM flight.
Having come to associate Guatemala with the Ixil region, I'd lost virtually all sense of being there by the time I'd arrived at the Guatemala City airport. It is modern: large, all right angles, sliding doors, polished metal and lots of glass, digital monitors, people walking about in nondescript clothing while interacting with one or another kind of hand-held technology. There was none of the exquisite traditional textile worn by the women and girls of Chajul and the neighboring towns. Apart from being addressed in Spanish by airport staff (e.g., the security guard who came around at midnight to ask everyone in the cafeteria area -- now closed -- if they were "authorized" to spend the night there), there was little to suggest that I was not sitting on the floor of a US airport.
My transition back to the US had continued with a series of flights, the first of which took me into Houston for my passage through customs, immigration and the agricultural check. The immigration agent who reviewed my entry form was suspicious about my having been in so many countries. Really? All those countries? Was I carrying any tobacco or alcohol? Nine months of travel? Why had I been traveling? Was I carrying any tobacco or alcohol? (Yes, he did ask me again, perhaps thinking he'd catch me in a lie.)
On the immigration and customs form, I had not known how to respond to the question about having visited a farm because I was unsure of the question's intent. I had put a question mark, and this had landed me in the agricultural check area. In a huge room of conveyor belts and luggage scanners, where my entry had interrupted a conversation between the only two people present, I explained to the agriculture agent, "Well, no, I wasn't actually on a farm. But in the town where I lived, the streets were always full of farm animals: cows, horses, pigs, donkeys, chickens, ducks --" He cut me off, "Okay okay. I get it. Did you actually touch any cows? Will you be around livestock here in the US? Fine-okay-you can go." In Houston and then in Los Angeles, the airport staff often struck me as apathetic and stressed, if not actually rude (limited eye contact, sucking of teeth, rolling of eyes, audible complaints about one thing or another). Throughout my travels, really poor people with truly difficult lives had been overwhelmingly warm, kind and positive. I was not feeling happy to be back in the US.
January, 2014:
Having spent two weeks in Felton, nurtured by my generous friend and by nature itself (hmmm, nurtured by nature), I am now house-and-cat-sitting in Santa Cruz. This opportunity arose just before I left Guatemala, which was remarkable timing. My friend in Felton had told me I could stay with him for as long as I wanted -- just as my friends in other countries have said the same -- but it's always hard for me. How much generosity and good fortune can I accept? The airy, sunny and peaceful home in which I am now staying sits at the end of a generally quiet street, has a large backyard with lots of birds, and shares the grounds with a lovely neighbor (whose dog, cat and chickens I also get to enjoy). I love curling up with the cat each night, feeding the birds, and playing with the neighbor's dog.
It's hard for me to put into words what I am experiencing here in the US, and I'm not sure I even fully understand it. What follows are some odds and ends of my experiences and behaviors here, some of them embarrassing or shameful to me.
As soon as I arrived in the US, I craved sugar generally and chocolate specifically. In Felton, I shopped for some food at a mostly organic local food store, lay low for a day or so, reviewed the various financial and other records that my friend had so impeccably kept in my absence, and got into my car (which I was indeed able to drive). I used the car to run errands, because there is no public transportation near my friend's home. I avoided walking around the central street of the downtown area, because I didn't want to deal with the pre-Christmas crowds and the shopping energy, but I did "swing through" Trader Joe's to buy some things I needed. It was shockingly easy to do this. When I finally screwed up enough -- what? courage? -- to enter Costco for the vitamins and calcium I needed (wanted), I found myself picking up and examining jeans and jackets. These are items I do not need at this time, still having the worn but fully functional two pairs of pants with which I traveled for nine months. A friend's son gave me a warm, virtually new jacket, and I was extremely grateful yet found myself thinking, Do I want to get a women's jacket instead of keeping this men's jacket? Fortunately, I did come to my senses. When I went to my storage space to get some warm clothing, I grabbed two pairs of old jeans. Really? Two pairs of jeans? Two? Do I really need two more pairs of jeans? To my horror, I found myself continuing to look at the computer screen in front of which I was sitting when a friend called, even typing something briefly as we talked. I have returned to the gym, where I am thankful to be regaining some strength and flexibility. I have missed living my life in languages other than English. I miss the simplicity and directness of my life in the places I volunteered. I have a different tone of voice here. I went to see a musical for which a friend (in the production's orchestra) had given me a comp ticket, and I appreciated its complex and opulent stage set. I want to see movies. I can't stop noticing the enormous wealth of this country; the word "obscene" comes to mind. I am an active participant in all of this.
WHO AM I???
I talked with two friends from another country, about what it was like for them to be immigrants here. In particular, they are from a very warm, relationship-based, gracious and slower culture. I felt that I have some sense now of what they are missing. One of the friends talked about his experiences being/having a housemate in the US. He said that, in his country, housemates share everything; in the US, people decide whose shelf is whose in the refrigerator. I could relate to that entirely, having experienced the former during my travels, and the latter in my own shared living situations in the US. The refrigerator shelf now feels like a huge metaphor for so much of how we live in the US.
As soon as I landed in the US, I felt as if my almost nine months of life elsewhere had been erased. It was so easy to re-enter a way of moving, talking, interacting. At the same time, I often feel outside myself, noticing and questioning how I move, talk and interact. Some people have welcomed me "back," and I don't quite know what that means. Apart from rejoining some specific communities (e.g., a women's solstice circle, the theater improvisation community), I am not "back." I don't live here and I don't work here, yet I am not visiting here. There is an important chapter of my life unfolding here as I figure out what is next. I don't yet know where "what is next" will unfold, but I suspect it will not be here in Santa Cruz. When I do get "back," where will that be?
with love, meg January 7, 2014
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