What is Terrorism?

Analysis …

Last week, software engineer Joseph Stack flew a small airplane into a building in Austin, Texas, that contained offices for the Internal Revenue Service. Authorities say Stack, who according to an online letter he published before he crashed the plane into the building, had a grudge against the IRS. The deadly attack has prompted discussion over whether Stack’s act was an act of terrorism or that of a single, enraged individual, whether the reluctance to call the attack terrorism may be related to the ways in which we divide the world between Us and Them, and how we define “Them.”

Crooks and Liars |  “Fox News’ anchors seemed eager to assure viewers today that the plane-crash attack on IRS offices in Austin this morning was not an act of domestic terrorism. … this is true only if the conventional understanding of the word “terrorism” has now been narrowed down to mean only international terrorism and to preclude domestic terrorism altogether. Since when, after all, is attempting to blow up a federal office as a protest against federal policies NOT an act of domestic terrorism?”

Glenn Greenwald @Salon |  “All of this underscores, yet again, that Terrorism is simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon.  The term now has virtually nothing to do with the act itself and everything to do with the identity of the actor, especially his or her religious identity.  It has really come to mean:  “a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies.”  That’s why all of this confusion and doubt arose yesterday over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist:  he’s not a Muslim and isn’t acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the “definition.”  One might concede that perhaps there’s some technical sense in which term might apply to Stack, but as Fox News emphasized:  it’s not “terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to . . . terrorism in that capital T way.”  We all know who commits terrorism in “that capital T way,” and it’s not people named Joseph Stack.”

Racism Review |  “In my view, this is a good time for much careful reflection and action about the underlying, stressful, oppressive class, racial, gender conditions of this society. For example, the society’s structural conditions, mentioned in the suicide note, that sometimes play a role in driving people of any background to such extreme violence are also rarely examined in the mainstream media. One can and should examine these contextual conditions of suicide attackers closely without excusing such violence. They often tell us something about our societies. Clearly, the economic depression we are now in is likely part of his story. So, it seems to me, is the violent rhetoric of many in the “tea bag” movement and on white supremacist websites. This extremely violent talk and discussion probably makes violence seem “normal” to people like this suicide attacker. Why is there no mainstream media discussion of the broader racial and class and gender implications of this story, and the biased ways it is being handled?”

Matthew Yglesias @Think Progress |  “Stack’s stated purpose for undertaking the attack was to try to prompt a counterproductive overreaction: “I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.” It’s smart, then, that as a country we’re responding to his terrorism by trying to avoid counterproductive overreactions. But of course this is also Osama bin Laden’s goal and it’s also appropriate to respond to Islamist political violence in a similar spirit. We shouldn’t be indifferent to the risk of death by Islamist terrorism any more than we should be indifferent to America’s unusually high rate of non-political homicides or to America’s alarmingly high infant mortality rate or its large number of deaths in car crashes. But it’s important to try to think about all these problems in a rational spirit, and adopt reasonable policy responses.”

The New Yorker |  “Does a foreign passport make you a terrorist? That might mean that there was no such thing as domestic terrorism. What about an American working for Al Qaeda, or a foreigner who has a problem with the I.R.S., or with the Pentagon, or with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? Capture abroad? What if Osama bin Laden, as unlikely as it sounds, were apprehended in New York? Conversely, what about all the criminals who are apprehended in other countries, and then extradited here? And what about so-called home-grown jihadis? If a plane is flown deliberately into a building and you don’t know what the pilot was thinking or what nationality he had, did a crime or a terrorist act take place?”

Best of the Web …

The Best Journalism of 2009  |  TrueSlant

Throughout 2009, I kept a running list of the best journalism I encountered. Although I endeavored to remain as impartial as possible, note that I’ve been an employee of The Atlantic, that I’d eagerly write for numerous publications that received awards, that I have too many friends/acquaintances/professional contacts in journalism to disclose them all, and that the number of pieces I miss every year far exceeds the number I’m able to read.

In other words, this isn’t an infallible account of journalism’s best, but I aim to make it the best roundup that any one person can offer, one of these years I intend to do better than the committees who pick the Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards (the pressure’s on, especially since you guys charge entry fees), and if nothing else my effort encompasses writing that is well worth your time.

Sanaa, Yemen to Become World’s First Capital City to Run Out of Water  |  AlterNet

A Yemeni water trader profiled in a recent Reuters investigation explains that even though his well is 1,300 ft deep, he’s hardly extracting any water at all. The same goes for wells that are 2,000 and even 3,000 ft deep–in Yemen’s mountainous capital city Sanaa, more water is being consumed than produced. Families have reported going without getting access to water for weeks. Sanaa is home to 2 million people, and is growing fast–but experts say that if trends continue, it could be a ghost town in 20 years.

Kevin Smith & Southwest: The Tip of the Fat-Shaming Iceberg  |  Global Comment

Overall, though, fat-shaming is everywhere we turn. It happens in the erasure of fat bodies from the media. Women who are average weight are routinely photo-shopped to appear slimmer. Fat people earn less than skinny people, even though there is no substantial evidence that they are less competent. Doctors routinely ignore the medical complaints of fat people and assume that every illness or complaint is weight-related, even when the patient and medical evidence indicate otherwise.

We have been socialized to believe that fat is always the problem. If you cannot get a boyfriend, the answer is to lose weight. If you want to be successful in life, lose weight. The answer is always “lose weight.”

How to Expose the Corrupt  |  TEDTalks

Some of the world’s most baffling social problems, says Peter Eigen, can be traced to systematic, pervasive government corruption, hand-in-glove with global companies. At TEDxBerlin, Eigen describes the thrilling counter-attack led by his organization Transparency International.

Crossing into Privileged Spaces

Got privilege? Most of us in the United States do, actually. We got privilege*, and we have a tendency to walk through the world not even aware that it floats around us like a protective bubble. The problem with that bubble, being see-through, is it’s pretty hard to spot and even trickier to explain. Not only to other people, but especially to ourselves.

I am in the middle of watching 36 movies for a class about theological issues in film, and last night I watched the movie Frozen River. Frozen River is a gut-wrenching tale about the struggle for survival experienced by two single moms, one white, the other Mohawk, set near the Mohawk reservation in upstate New York. The women, both living under desperate circumstances, end up smuggling migrants across the Canadian border in the trunk of their car to make money to survive. The white woman, Ray, rationalizes her actions by explaining that she’s “no criminal” and that she’s only taking part in the trafficking of human lives in order to make the lives of her own children better and more secure. Lila, on the other hand, is so beaten down by the circumstances in her life that she simply can’t care; the smuggling becomes her only way of surviving with any dignity at all, as she sees it.

During their movements, whenever Ray gets agitated over getting caught by state troopers, Lila, who’s already under investigation by police and being watched by her tribe, calms her down by saying, “They won’t stop you, nothing can happen to you, you’re white.” And as the movie plays out, Ray discovers that even though she’s poor and a single mom, she still has one prize: She’s white, and she’s a U.S. citizen. She makes judgments about the migrants and Lila, and thoughtlessly threatens their lives with her actions, and receives few to no repercussions for her actions. When the police start investigating the human trafficking, she’s never considered a suspect. Because she’s white. She’s got that privilege going for her, and she cashes that privilege in until nearly the very end.

I thought this movie was a great example of how privilege works, and how fluid it is. Most of us, even those of us who don’t think we have it, have privilege of some kind, it just depends on where we are. Most of the time we only encounter our privilege, or lack thereof, whenever we cross into new spaces or territories, and in meeting new people who lived in circumstances that gave us privilege where the others have none. Ray encountered her privilege by crossing the frozen river with migrants in her trunk, and came to understand what privilege is: Ultimately, it’s what we can get away with (Check out this cartoon by the fabulous Keith Knight, reposted at Alas, a Blog, to see an example of what I’m talking about).

Privilege is difficult to discuss because it’s so fluid – so fluid that it not only changes from space to space but can even change from moment to moment. When we encounter our privilege, we too often remember the moments when we didn’t have privilege and use that as our frame to looking at the world. We think, perhaps, that “I am getting away with what I can here because I can’t over there.” But I think Knight’s cartoon, and Frozen River’s plot, provide space for us to think about our moments of privilege and the immunities that come with it, and wonder whether things might be different in those moments if the cast of characters were changed and the scene advanced.The frozen river looked a lot different from the perspective of Lila, or the migrants riding across it in the trunk.

What can we get away with? And if we are to live in a just world, should we get away with anything?

*Privilege, according to Webster’s, is “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor ; especially : such a right or immunity attached specifically to a position or an office.” The word is often used when discussing racial inequities (i.e. white privilege) but exists in other social relationships as, for example, gender or sexual privilege.

Beyond Apologetics Symposium Set for Feb. 25

Six nationally known scholars and pastors will propose new ways of thinking about ministry with transgendered, bisexual, lesbian and gay people during a public symposium at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, at the Tabbernee Conference Center of Phillips Theological Seminary, 901 N. Mingo Road in Tulsa.

Speakers will present summaries of their scholarly work and describe its importance to BLTG people, congregations, and the broader community. Topics include the dynamics of the “closet” in church settings, internalized homophobia and sexual shame, transgender experience as a resource for pastoral care, bisexual embodiment, and contextual care with GLBT-identified people.

There will be time for questions and discussion. The symposium is free and open to the public.

The event is part of a larger project titled Beyond Apologetics: Sexual Identity, Pastoral Theology, and Pastoral Practices, which brings together 12 North American scholars and pastors to begin creating a new generation of thought and practice for ministry with GLBT people.

“We are creating conversations among scholars, ministry professionals, and broader communities who share concerns about the health and well-being of LGBT people,” said Duane Bidwell, a former member of the Phillips faculty and currently on faculty at the Claremont School of Theology in California, who co-directs the project with Joretta Marshall of Brite Divinity School.

“Congregations can access a lot of resources that offer an ‘apologetics of inclusion’ for involving GLBT persons in the life of the church without condemning them,” he said.

“We want to move beyond arguments for inclusion to arguments for engagement. Pastors and others need theological stances and practices that take the experiences of GLBT persons seriously, so that those experiences shape the life of congregations and denominations.

“Our primary goal is to help spiritual caregivers and others engage in meaningful, informed, and proactive ministry with GLBT people.”

To that end, the project will contribute to pro-active pastoral care texts and models of education for seminaries, local congregations and pastoral care specialists, including mental-health professionals who integrate spirituality into their work.

The project was initiated by researchers at two Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) seminaries—Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, OK and Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX. Financial support is provided by the Carpenter Foundation.

Bidwell said “Beyond Apologetics” will create practical theologies that acknowledge and integrate GLBT experiences, theologies and theories. The spiritual and theological practices and understandings that will be generated—focused on gender, identity, sexuality, and community action—have the potential to benefit people of all sexual orientations, he said.

More than twenty local, state and regional LGBT organizations and faith communities have become local partners of the project, lending their names in support of its purpose.

Scholars and pastors presenting their preliminary work on Feb. 25 include:

• John Blevins, Emory University
• Malcolm Himschoot, United Church of Christ Minister
• Joretta Marshall, Brite Divinity School
• Darnell Moore, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
• Jason Hays, Brite Divinity School
• Leanne Tigert, Andover Newton Theological School

Other participants in the “Beyond Apologetics” project include:

Duane Bidwell, Claremont School of Theology
Kathleen Greider, Claremont School of Theology
Jeanne Hoeft, Saint Paul School of Theology
David Mellott, Lancaster Theological Seminary
Benjamin Reynolds, Chicago Theological Seminary
Steve Sprinkle, Brite Divinity School

For more information, e-mail beyond.apologetics@ptstulsa.edu. You can learn more at www.beyondapologetics.wordpress.com, or on Facebook under Beyond Apologetics.

When It Hits Home: An Evening Concerning Intimate Partner Violence

When It Hits Home: An Evening Concerning Intimate Partner Violence will preview the Oklahoma-made film “1 in 3” and host a dialogue and discussion session on the issue of intimate partner violence beginning at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 24, in the Mary Eddy and Fred Jones Auditorium at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave. in Norman.

The event is hosted jointly by the University of Oklahoma Women’s and Gender Studies Program, the Center for Social Justice, and The Xenia Institute.

The event will be held in two segments.  In the first part, participants will screen a preview of “1 in 3,” a film made by Norman resident and University of Oklahoma alumna Lagueria Davis.  “1 in 3” is a poignant and sometimes humorous tale of two women dealing with the different faces of domestic violence: one the wife of an abuser, the other a shelter worker facing her own family’s encounter with the problem.

In the evening’s second segment, dialogue fellows from The Xenia Institute will facilitate small discussion groups with the attendees. Through the discussion process, attendees will be given the opportunity to reflect on the film and transform their thoughts and feelings on intimate partner violence into active strategies that will address this issue.

Last fall, Lagueria Davis started the journey of her dreams by shooting her first feature-length film in the Norman and Oklahoma City area.  She enlisted the help of her friend and producer Gabe Miller, and together they set about accomplishing a daunting task: shooting a film in just 10 days. Cast and crew were enlisted through friends, co-workers and a local casting agent.  Local merchants and law enforcement agencies donated time and effort.  All involved were united by their concern about a pressing issue: domestic abuse.

For more information, please contact Clint Williams at The Xenia Institute (clint@xeniainstitute.org 405.321.8682) or Karin Jonsson at the Center for Social Justice (karin@ou.edu 405.325.3481).

Climate of Doubts

Analysis …

Massive snowfalls on the East Coast last week ramped up the debate over climate change, with both sides claiming that the storms proved their points. According to the New York Times, global warming skeptics called the record-setting precipitation global cooling, while climate scientists said that the storms are consistent with changing weather patterns spurred by rising global temperatures. That debate, which comes on the heels of “Climategate” — in which climate-change critics claim that some data has been falsified and a prominent climate scientist has admitted that some of the data on global warming was not well organized — may have changed the discussion about global warming, and not for the better, some experts say.

Project Syndicate |  “Climate evangelism is an apt description of what the IPCC has been up to, for it has exaggerated some of the ramifications of climate change in order to make politicians take note. Murari Lal, the coordinating lead author of the section of the IPCC report that contained the Himalayan error, admitted that he and his colleagues knew that the dramatic glacier prediction was not based on any peer-reviewed science. Nonetheless, he explained, ‘we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action’.”

The Intersection |  “For my part, I am convinced the fundamental factor is that our camp egregiously misunderestimated the skeptic/denial camp and what it was capable of. Our thinking went something like this: “the science keeps getting stronger, and now we have Obama…the tide has turned.” And so we were lulled into a false sense of security. Now, there is a hell of a lot of regrouping to do, and I am not even sure where to begin. But one thing is certain: We should never again assume that science alone is going to make the political difference on this issue, no matter how strong it gets.”

MoJo Blogs |  “The CRU emails mostly seemed overblown to me, and taken by themselves they’d probably have blown over pretty quickly. But start adding all this other stuff — even if none of it really affects the core claims of climate change — and the public is going to tune out even more than it already has unless the climate community either provides some explanations post haste or else makes credible commitments to clean up its act in the very near future.”

Global Post |  “‘There’s nothing like a very cold winter to convince another percentage of the American public that global warming is not happening,’ said American University professor Matthew Nisbet at Harvard University this week. Indeed, the Republican Party in Virginia seized on the mid-Atlantic “snowpocalypse” to produce an advertisement criticizing Democrats in Congress who support “cap-and-trade” policies that provide economic incentives to reduce pollution emissions.”

MediaMatters |  “Media outlets have referenced the emails apparently stolen from University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in their recent reports on “record snowfall” and criticisms of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggesting that the emails “undermined” global warming research or reporting claims about what they “appeared to show.” Those media did not report, however, that scientists and fact-checkers have found that the emails, in the words of FactCheck.org, “have been misrepresented by global-warming skeptics” and “don’t change [the] scientific consensus on global warming.”

Best of the Web …

Rethinking Work: Journalism as Labor  |  Global Comment

Communication, conversation, is inherently a good thing—more people having access to the tools to do that is as well. News organizations get scooped all the time without going out of business—getting scooped by bloggers occasionally won’t drive them further into the red. Indeed, it might drive them to wonder why so many people want to read that blog instead of their paper.

But the hard work of public interest reporting is too important to leave up to whims and volunteers, and if left solely to the market, will be done the same way much professional driving is done now: in service of the wealthy and powerful.

The Comedy Circuit: When Your Brain Gets the Joke  |   New Scientist

TWO polar bears are perched on a block of floating ice. One says to the other: “Do you know, I keep thinking it’s Thursday…”

To some, this kind of surreal humour is side-splitting. Others are baffled by it and can’t even raise a smile. Yet despite the importance of humour to human psychology, it is only the advances in brain imaging during the past decade that have enabled neuroscientists to pin down how the brain reacts when a joke tickles us. Armed with this knowledge, they are now solving the puzzle of why some jokes are funny to some people but leave others cold.

So what is a joke, exactly? Most theories agree that one condition is essential: there must be some kind of incongruity between two elements within the joke, which can be resolved in a playful or unexpected way.

Want to Serve? Be Gay or Lesbian; Don’t Be A Homosexual  |  Marc Ambinder @The Atlantic

Great job by the folks at the CBS News and New York Times polling department. They’ve uncovered a classic example of how language influences perceptions in polling. 59% of Americans agree that “homosexuals” ought to be able to serve in the U.S. military. But 70 percent believe that “gays and lesbians” ought to be able to serve in the military. So what are we to make of these confused Americans? “Homosexual” has become a pejorative term, too clinical, associated with a medical condition. But “gays and lesbians” are our friends — all around us, part of the community.

‘Avatar’ in the West Bank  |  Truthdig

Some Palestinians in Billin, the West Bank town famous for its civil disobedience, have taken a cue from the movie “Avatar.” Demonstrators have painted themselves blue, citing a parallel between their cause and that of the film’s indigenous protagonists, who fight against a foreign occupying force.

• Informed Comment  | “Yeah, but the implication from the film is also that you need some good people from the Israeli Army and academia to help out if the Na’vi aren’t to be obliterated.”

Will ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Be Repealed?

Analysis …

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen last week signaled a change in the military’s attitudes about gays serving openly in the military when he told U.S. senators that repealing the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ ban is “the right thing to do.” Mullen said:

“No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

The Pentagon says it could take nearly a year to study all the various issues caused by the ban’s potential lifting, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates said is necessary to prevent the military from “rushing into it, (and) mandating it by fiat with a very short timeline would be a serious mistake.” Over the weekend, other voices weighed in on the discussion, with Fox News war analyst Oliver North calling a possible repeal “a stunning assault on the military” and Gen. Colin Powell reversing his former position against the repeal, now speaking out in favor of allowing gays to serve openly.

Box Turtle Bulletin |  “The Military Times is a newpaper targeted at career military personnel. For the past several years the paper has been surveying its readership on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Tomorrow they will be releasing the latest results and today they pre-reported the findings.

“Opposition to gays serving openly in the military has declined sharply among those wearing the uniform today, the Military Times newspapers will report Monday.

“An exclusive survey of some 3,000 active-duty troops shows such opposition has fallen sharply from nearly two-thirds (65 percent) in 2004 to about half (51 percent) today. The survey results appear Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times.”

Slate |  “The secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs both endorsed the eventual repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Since its implementation in 1994, more than 13,000 members of the armed services have been discharged for homosexual conduct. We know what happens to a soldier who tells about his sexual orientation, but what happens to one who asks? Nothing. For most service members, it’s not even against the rules. The “don’t tell” half of the 1993 agreement between Congress, the president, and top military brass is a matter of federal law.”

Foreign Policy |  “Viewed from Israel, the continuing witch hunt against gays and lesbians in the U.S. military makes little sense. I have studied and written about the experience of gay soldiers in elite combat units of the Israel Defense Forces, where restrictions on gay enlistment were lifted in 1993, the same year the United States introduced the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy requiring gay and lesbian servicemembers to say in the closet or risk being discharged. There has never been any suggestion that the participation of these men has hindered the performance of Israeli combat units.”

RaceWire |  “What we haven’t heard is, who’s really being affected by this?

“From The Task Force study, Black same-sex households in the United States: A report from the 2000 Census:

““Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been used to kick Black women out of the military at a much higher rate than other groups. In fact, Black women are discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” at three times the rate that they serve in the military. Although Black women make up less than one percent of servicemembers, they comprise 3.3% of those discharged under the policy.

“But wait, it gets better. The same report notes people can be discharged under DADT even if they are not gay or lesbian, apparently there are cases where men have accused women who refuse unwanted sexual advances of being lesbians, or because the women are successful and some men do not want to serve under them.”

Open Left |  “There are a whole number of ways this could be done. It could be swift implementation overnight, or the Administration could slow-walk it with a 15-year plan, complete with segregated showers and pilot programs of integrated units. Or there could be another “compromise”. Later this week I’m going to be exploring what the range of possibilities and what an ideal implementation would look like. We still have a ways to go in terms of making sure the votes are there for repeal, but a new front is opening up on how and when repeal will be implemented- an effort which is also critical to keep an eye on.”

Best of the Web …

What if Senators Represented People by Income or Race, not by State?  |  Washington Post

What if the 100-member Senate were designed to mirror the overall U.S. population — and were based on statistics rather than state lines?

Imagine a chamber in which senators were elected by different income brackets — with two senators representing the poorest 2 percent of the electorate, two senators representing the richest 2 percent and so on.

Based on Census Bureau data, five senators would represent Americans earning between $100,000 and $1 million individually per year, with a single senator working on behalf of the millionaires (technically, it would be two-tenths of a senator). Eight senators would represent Americans with no income. Sixteen would represent Americans who make less than $10,000 a year, an amount well below the federal poverty line for families. The bulk of the senators would work on behalf of the middle class, with 34 representing Americans making $30,000 to $80,000 per year.

Race, Disability and Denial  |  Racialicious

Although I have been both black and disabled my entire life, for years I lied to myself about being disabled. I could appreciate the pride that accompanied the black experience, the historic and perpetual triumphs and tragedies that inspire the progress of a people. But disability was different. Disability was a curse much worse than the curse of Ham, and instead of accepting it I fled into a lie of being someone I could never be and should have never wanted to be. I became a victim of an able-bodied orthodoxy, one memorialized into my memory, derived from the seeds of my lived experiences and the veil of myths through which those experiences are strained. I believe we all succumb to societal orthodoxies in some way, because the procurement of favor demands it and it allows us to live without troublesome confusion. But for many of us, orthodoxies become a memorial, a shine at which we pray and to which we cling, all the while privately acknowledging that the shrine is not of our making, not to our liking and that it segregates and kills us very casually, very privately and very slowly. This photo helped free me from my denial.

In Bad Faith  |  The American Prospect

In advance of yesterday’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama was under pressure to use the opportunity to condemn the anti-homosexuality bill pending in the Ugandan Parliament. The legislation, which would criminalize homosexuality and require the death penalty or life imprisonment for certain “offenses,” has been described by human-rights activists as tantamount to instigating a genocide against sexual minorities, who are already persecuted in the African nation.

Obama, speaking just before the first anniversary of the launch of his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, once again fell into the religion-in-public-life trap: Faith is intended for good, and we must present it as such — regardless of its exploitation for ends that are less than pure, and regardless of one’s stated commitment to secular government.

Chris Matthews and the ‘Postracial’ U.S.

Analysis …

In comments after Wednesday night’s State of the Union address, MSNBC journalist Chris Matthews praised President Obama’s eloquence by stating: “I forgot he was black.” According to the Associated Press, Matthews explained that the African-American president’s address to a chamber filled with white people signaled that the U.S. has gotten past the racial divisions of the past. Several bloggers, particularly African-American ones, took issue with Matthews’ comments and pointed out that they prove just how not postracial the U.S. is.

Truthdig |  ““While there is some truth to the issue of progress in Matthews’ post-racial thesis, it is grounded in a privileged perspective that ignores what still needs to be done in order to achieve liberty and justice for all,” says Dr. Ulli Ryder, a professor at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. “From a lesser- or nonprivileged perspective, post-racial politicking is wishful thinking and must be mitigated by a closer look at social, political and cultural contexts. If we look at the ways in which we have dealt with events like Hurricane Katrina, increasing educational segregation, wars against Islam, immigration reform and the privatizing of our prisons it is easy to see that we have much work left to do.””

Alas, a Blog |  “So this whole thing with Chris Matthews “forgetting that Obama is black” falls into that same range of racism as “Pretty for a black girl” and the “You’re not like those other black people” claptrap often espoused by the “I’m not racist, but…” crowd. They’re coded as compliments, but the subtext is still an ugly one that frames racism as being the fault of the oppressed. After all, if we’d all just be a credit to our race then our problems would go away right? Right. Oh wait, no that’s completely wrong.”

Womanist Musings |  “Obama makes many comfortable because he has continually refused to speak truth to power regarding racism.   Some would say that this is because he is the president and should represent all of the people, however; all of the previous White men to hold the office made no qualms about assuring the continued success of Whiteness.   We have always been willing to promote members of a marginalized group, as long as they continue to act in ways that assure that the power structure remains the same.    Obama makes Matthews comfortable because his actions have repeatedly made clear that he is not about revolution.  Obama’s body may be encoded with historical inequity but that is as close as he is ever going to come to holding Whiteness accountable.”

Pandagon |  “The default view of successful leadership and its stature is presumed to be the domain of the white man, and when an accomplished black man rises to that position, he must have magically shed the negativity, ignorance and undereducated skin of the American black male to do so. That Matthews realized within moments what he said (even if he didn’t fully or deeply think about its origins) and tried to explain his thinking about that statement, it’s pretty clear that he couldn’t really go where the conversation needs to go on this matter.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates @The Atlantic |  “The “I forgot Obama was black” sentiment allows the speaker the comfort of accepting, even lauding, a black person without interrogating their invented truth. It allows the speaker a luxurious ignorance–you get to name people (this is what black is) even when you don’t know people. In fact, Chris Matthews didn’t forget Barack Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white.”

Best of the Web …

The Weird Elitism of ‘The Personal is Political’ Saps Our Strength  |  Global Comment

Has the old battle cry “The personal is political” been taken too far or perhaps, too literally?

More importantly, have our politics descended into a form of narcissism, of trying to purify ourselves so that we can look down our oh-so-enlightened noses at everyone else?

When our identity as “one of the good ones” becomes more important than reaching others, organizing suffers. It creates hierarchies instead of breaking them down. It creates that kind of elitism that makes people so angry—because they’re right, we are looking down on them. It becomes a kind of affirmation of who we are and why we’re different and better.

The Dark Side of Empathy  |  Andrew Sullivan @The Atlantic

From Bernie Madoff to Dick Cheney: how knowledge of the other can lead to tormenting them:

Weird, or just different?  |  TEDTalks

“There’s a flip side to everything,” the saying goes, and in 2 minutes, Derek Sivers shows this is true in a few ways you might not expect.

Faculty, Students Volunteer Time, Talent to Aid Haiti

Some faculty and students of the University of Oklahoma School of Music have volunteered their time and talents to present Hour of Need … Hour to Help, a benefit concert to help Haitian relief efforts at 4 p.m., on Sunday, Jan. 31, in Sharp Concert Hall. Musicians for the concert include Jonathan Shames, Stephanie Leon Shames, Irv Wagner and the OU Trombone Choir as well as a myriad of other performers. Gan Matthews, Norman bureau reporter for KWTV-News9, will emcee the concert.

The performance is free and open to the public. Donations are accepted at the door and will go toward the U.S. Fund for United Nations Children’s Fund, supporting UNICEF’s relief efforts for children in Haiti.

“I think Oklahomans can relate in a profound way to the devastation that Haitians experienced last week,” says Steven Curtis, director of the OU School of Music. “We have seen first-hand the impact powerful tornadoes leave behind and even with eye-witness experience of the 1995 Murrah building bombing’s aftermath, the widespread destruction of a 7.1 earthquake is still unimaginable.

“The dire need of day-to-day staples is why our faculty and students have volunteered their time and talent to put together an hour-long concert, to offer a venue to gather monetary aid for the children and people of Haiti. We chose to affiliate with UNICEF because of their core values as a humanitarian organization with 100 percent of the donation reaching the people who need it most.”

According to UNICEF’s Web site, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF is absorbing all, associated administrative costs so that 100 percent of every dollar given to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF will support UNICEF’s relief efforts for children in Haiti.

Cash and check donations are accepted at the door. Checks should be made out to U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

For additional information regarding UNICEF, please visit http://www.unicefusa.org/.

Additional information on the Hour of Need … Hour to Help concert can be found at http://music.ou.edu/.

For accommodations on the basis of disability, please call the Box Office at 405.325.4101.

Money for Nothing? Or Buying Votes?

Analysis …

The U.S. Supreme Court last week issued a 5-4 ruling Thursday that struck down prohibitions on political campaign contributions by corporations, saying that such measures aimed at control infringe on corporate First Amendment free speech rights. The decision means that corporations and unions will be able to spend unlimited funds on independent campaign expenditures. Reactions to the decision ranged from outrage by some who said the ruling has made U.S. democracy more corrupt to indifference because such practices are already in place anyway. What do you think of the ruling?

The American Prospect |  “If the Court rigidly insists that Congress can regulate only to prevent quid-pro-corruption, narrowly defined, then Citizens United has implications that extend well beyond what corporations can do. Justice Kennedy’s own opinion even hints at the possibility, as he notes that the evidence supporting the “soft money” limits – which apply across the board — rests on evidence about the connection between money and political access. While Justice Kennedy backed off from saying anything definitive, we may find that it was the Court’s discussion of corruption, not corporations, that matters most in the long run.”

Matt Welch @CNN |  “Even if you just can’t bring yourself to believe that people who take civil liberties seriously have long-held serious civil libertarian criticisms of campaign-finance laws, or if you simply think they’re all wrong, I’ll offer this last salve: It has never been easier for groups of citizens to swarm together and flow money through the Internet toward campaigns and candidates who excite them. Ask Ron Paul — or more relevantly, Barack Obama — what’s more powerful: $10 million from Dr. Evil Industries, or $10 each from 1 million people who can actually vote?”

Julian Sanchez |  “Why is it that so many people who clearly do think books and magazines and talk radio shows enjoy unambiguous constitutional protection, despite being corporate funded or operated, are simultaneously absolutely sure that paid broadcast spots are in an utterly different category? If one is above all concerned with exacerbating the translation of economic inequality into political inequality, it seems rather odd.  In effect, it means you only get to use your corporate money to get your agenda on the airwaves if (like GE or Time Warner) you’re big enough to buy them wholesale. But that’s OK, because you can pump money into all those other means of trying to influence voters; it’s just broadcast advertising that’s out. So I’d like to flip the reductio question around and ask: Given that people seem to mostly agree that all this other stuff constitutes protected political speech, why do so many people have such a different attitude about paid ads?”

Informed Comment |  “In Web 3.0 consumers will likely download content via the internet at will. Media is becoming pull media– individuals pull down what they want when they want it. Television may have to go to an iTunes model of charging per episode. In a pull-media world, for advertisers of any sort, whether pushing products or candidates, to get their message out and control it will become more and more difficult. Pull-media allows a fracturing of viewership (or participation– many consumers will be playing games rather than watching passively). The fact is that viewership for the 4 networks has already plummeted, and the advertising rates that companies now pay them to air commercials are unrealistically high, and appear to be a function of habit. What else could you do? There are hundreds of channels, then you add in the video blogs, the online gaming, and the blogs. Even if a network only pulls in a household share of 9 for the evening rather than the household share of 65 that that Gunsmoke used to on CBS, at least you’ve got that many households in one place, which is rarer and rarer. One of the few things Rupert Murdoch is right about is that there is not enough advertising to spread throughout the internet so as to support any particular newspapers or magazines. The buy of a half-hour attack ad by e.g. Morgan Stanley on CBS dissing Obama on October 25, 2012 just may not mean then what it would have meant in 1960 when CBS had a large proportion of television viewers and most Americans were television viewers, and there were only 3 networks. And if the attack ad is inaccurate, it will be shredded on social media or just ignored. All the vicious attacks on Obama, after all, did not prevent his landslide victory, since voters were tired of Republican shenanigans. Reality is still more important than media depictions of it.”

Alas, a Blog |  “As I think about it more…say goodbye to stopping global warming. In fact, bring it on!!! And there go environmental regulations!! And our food system will be going STRAIGHT to hell. No pass go, do not collect $200. Let us not even begin to think of the effects on the rest of the world. Remember how corporations did nasty things to Latin America with the full backing of the US gov’t? Does anyone think that they will stop now? Bolivia for instance, is already under pressure for its lithium.”

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Human Rights as Animal Rights  |  alias Bruce

Recently, a person I was talking with suggested that when we talk about civil and human rights, we ought to start bringing the rights of non-human beings into the discussion as well. Her idea being that just as we link, say, black rights with women’s rights with gay rights, we need to begin to link the rights of humans with the rights of other sentient beings. So that the welfare of non-human animals becomes part of the everyday progressive discussion about “justice” instead of being quarantined to the PETA and environmentalist end of the table.

This project gets messy. Because it is full of human ideas that we cannot just slap onto animal consciousness. For starters, what exactly is “sentience?” Who has it and who doesn’t? Is it even a fair standard? Can a non-sentient existence rank as highly on a worth-of-experience scale as a sentient one? And what is “freedom” or “the pursuit of happiness” to a garter snake?

Making maps to fight disaster, build economies  |  TEDTalks

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Social Justice Award Honoree Built Bridges Toward Community

The Xenia Institute will honor longtime Bridges supporter Jim Agar as its Sam Matthews Social Justice Award recipient at a banquet set for 7 p.m. Feb. 11, 2010, at First Christian Church, 220 S. Webster in Norman.

Agar has been an active supporter and fundraiser for Norman service organizations, primarily Bridges (formerly Independent Living Services for Youth), for which he has raised more than $100,000 in the past 12 years. Agar’s efforts have helped fund the Bootstrap Scholarship, which provides college funding to high school students who live alone due to family crisis. Bridges offers these students support such as food, clothing, medical care and housing, in order to help them graduate high school and pursue a college education or career. Bridges also provides one-on-one mentoring and guidance.

Lester Reed, a friend of Agar and a previous Sam Matthews Social Justice Award recipient, said Agar’s work with Bridges grew out of his giving spirit.

“To give an example, (Agar) went to college at Stanford and got a degree in business, and he came here in the insurance business and so forth, and he was one of the early ones to enroll in at that time the new human relations program at the university that George Henderson was responsible for,” Reed said. “But here was a guy who’d been successful in business and had that much sensitivity to enroll in human relations. It gives you an idea about him, doesn’t it?

“He’s that kind of a person, and I know in his own business efforts he has done this for several people, gone out of his way to make opportunities for them.”

The social justice award is named for Sam Matthews, who in 1967 was the first Realtor in Norman to sell a home to an African-American family. By selling the home to Henderson, a University of Oklahoma professor, and his wife, Barbara, Matthews had defied the unofficial real estate practices of the time that attempted to prevent Norman neighborhoods from being racially integrated.

Henderson, who taught in the human relations program at OU, was the third African-American appointed to a full-time faculty position and the first to hold an endowed professorship in Oklahoma. He created the human relations program at OU in 1969, and also was dean of the College of Liberal Studies from 1996-2000. He retired as the director of the advanced studies program in OU’s Department of Human Relations.

Sam Matthews posthumously received the inaugural award named after him in 2005; he died in 2000. Past award winners have been Joe Ted Miller, Lester Reed and Kay Holladay.

Agar, assisted by E’Ann Robinson, has personally secured funding, arranged mentors and awarded graduating students with a plaque marking their achievements. More than 50 students have received a Bootstrap Scholarship since Agar began fundraising for the scholarship in 1996.

Hal Smith, chairman and chief executive of Hal Smith Restaurant Group and a former Bridges mentor, said Agar was inspired to begin the Bootstrap Scholarship as a way of recognizing the efforts of students who persevere to stay in school despite hardships. He cites a letter Agar sent to him: “By lending a hand,” Agar wrote, “we may help a child become a productive and responsible adult. To know that we have tried and that we sometimes succeed should be ample reward for our efforts.”

Agar’s work with Bridges at first glance may not seem like the the type of act typically associated with social justice work, Reed said. However, Agar’s quiet generosity (“You don’t see him doing any of this for credit,” Reed said, “Jim’s not that way; he never has been.”) and thoughtful work to help cultivate relationships between Norman students and community leaders have helped create networks of care.

“His philosophy that he operated under even in his business was to make people feel part of it, people who had no monetary investment but to participate in the success of the business,” Reed said.

Reed, who has been a Bootstrap mentor, said that he knew several students who had participated in the program who, inspired by Agar’s work and the relationships they built with their mentors, in turn also became community leaders who generously give their time and attention to others in need.

“Those kind of things rub off,” Reed said.

Agar has been a part of the Norman business community for the past 55 years, and played key roles in several businesses. He has also been a community leader, serving on the Norman City Council, as a member of the Chamber of Commerce and president of the Norman Rotary Club, and as a supporter for several city and county events.

“We are thrilled to announce Mr. Agar as this year’s Matthews Award recipient,” said Clint Williams, executive director of The Xenia Institute.  His volunteerism in the community is a perfect representation of the vision of this award: regular people taking us a step forward toward social justice for all.”

The Sam Matthews Social Justice Award Banquet will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, in the fellowship hall of First Christian Church, 220 S. Webster in Norman.  Tickets are $20 and are available by calling the Xenia Institute at 405.321.8682, or by e-mailing Paige Hoster, assistant to the executive director, at paige@xeniainstitute.org.

The Xenia Institute brings people together, creates a safe space for dialogue, and transforms dialogue into action.

For more information about The Xenia Institute, call 405.321.8682, or e-mail Executive Director Clint Williams at clint@xeniainstitute.org.

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