Dear Disgruntled Academic...

I started T.A.ing in my very first Ethnic Studies class a few weeks ago. In my introductory lecture, I tried to lay out for my students what the Ethnic Studies project is, and what its intellectual and political imperatives are. As I was winding up, my "take-home point" to them was about the keeping in mind the connections between theory and practice, and not falling prey to the idea that there is always already a rift between the two. Given that the project of Ethnic Studies emerged from radical, grassroots student movements, oftentimes theory is looked upon with great disdain within the field because it is presumed to signify the losing of one's roots, an act of "selling-out." I have a serious problems with articulations of such a split because it completely elides the intellectual underpinnings of the movement for Ethnic Studies, and it also presumes that grassroots work/activism is something distinct from, or other than, intellectual work. I didn't want my students to somehow come away with that idea, so I made it a point to emphasize that the rift between the two would exist only if they wanted it to; that is, it exists only in the moment of choice. And over the past few weeks, I have used the course readings to keep coming back to this point, so that they don't think I'm being an apologist for academia, or just pulling stuff out of my arse... but they actually see the connections manifest in the work assigned them.

The sad and frustrating thing though is that numerous academics themselves buy into this rhetoric about the split between theory and practice. It irritates the life out of me when I hear academics piss on intellectual work because it has no "real life implications." My response to these is, just because you don't see the connections doesn't mean they don't exist! The inability to note how intellectual work, theory even, impacts the everyday, and vice versa, signifies either a weakness of one's mental abilities (ok, I'm being a bitch), or a simple laziness. The dismissal of intellectual work doesn't make one somehow more radical; it makes them less capable of recognizing and confronting the socio-symbolic violences that pervade our world. It means that one has little understanding of how the world and human existence is constituted. The structures that we find ourselves confined within, subject to, aren't just a given - they are the effects of intellectual work. If you want to transform them, you've got to understand them in all their complexity... or else, you've lost the battle and the war.

I am sick too of those that valorize the 60s as if they represent a pure moment of political activism, untainted by intellectualism and "theory-heads." That form of idealization, in my opinion, does a deep disservice to the intellectual investments of those involved. It over-simplifies what was a complex, contentious moment of the political and intellectual re-writing of the U.S. Academics seriously need to re-think their mythologization of the 60s. This is especially true right now, in the context of the crises facing higher ed institutions, specifically the UC system.

I have heard folks complain that the acts of protest at the UCs are just an instance of the privileged acting out against pay-cuts and furloughs. First off, this is an oversimplification of the what's going on. The crisis also involves massive tuition hikes, larger classes, job loss among staff, etc. So the budgetary decisions in play have a more far-reaching effect than some seem to recognize - especially with regards working class and of color communities, as well as academic programs, like Ethnic Studies, that are, in fact, their heirs. Moreover, the conditions that have produced this crisis, and the effects they are bound to engender, closely mirror those in play in the 60s. Had students and activists in the 60s refused to walk-out, protest, and strike because they were intellectually and politically paralyzed by the fact their lot was better than those dying in wars in Asia, perhaps today we wouldn't have the language, the tools and the legacies that enable us to do the kind of anti-violence work that is actually possible today.

I am not trying, here, to deny that we are privileged to be in academia. I agree that as academics it is our responsibility to be aware of and continue to critique the conditions that make this privilege possible. But that doesn't mean we should piss that privilege away by merely complaining about how bad it is. We need to learn to use that privilege productively instead! That is crucial to the work of an academic!! We have an extraordinary opportunity to enable some form a social impact... we either use it, or get out of the way because there's many more deserving folks waiting to for a spot like ours.

Also, the next time someone talks to me about privilege with their Prada bag in sight... Internalize your critiques please!!

I am myself pretty disgrutled and cranky with academic right now. And in trying to rein in my frustration, rage too perhaps, this post may have turned out a little awkward. But, a couple of years, I wrote something similar for a student of color newspaper at Oberlin. I am pasting this here because I think it articulates a little better my displeasure with cranky academics.

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As I write this, I have just returned from a protest at Thurgood Marshall College, one of the six colleges at the University of California, San Diego. Marshall College, established in 1970 through a student movement initiated by fierce and radical scholar-activists such as Angela Davis and Herbert Marcus, was created specifically as a space for the intellectual and political growth of working class students and students of color. Central to the College’s academic requirements is the Dimensions of Culture (DOC) Program, an “interdisciplinary sequence that has Diversity, Justice, and Imagination as its main themes. In this course, which includes intensive instruction in university-level writing, first-year students study American social issues and gain an awareness of American cultural perspectives” (http://marshall.ucsd.edu/prospective/index.shtml).

Over the past few years the DOC curriculum, has been substantially “watered down,” which is evident, for example, in the replacement of the study of critical race theory with that of “downward assimilation” theory, a concept that argues that if new immigrant groups intend to successfully “Americanize” or assimilate, they must “avoid” interaction or integration with certain ethnic groups. Such spectacularly problematic, ignorant (and may I add, “pin-headed”) curricular changes were made in response to complaints from some “concerned” parents regarding the “indoctrination” of their children. Further, a college that was founded with a radical mission to serve underrepresented and disenfranchised students, now serves numerous (over-)represented and (over-)privileged students who chose to attend Marshall College because of its proximity to the beach and its wonderful residence halls.

In response to the growing critiques made by students and Teaching Assistants to the changing curriculum, the College recently fired 2 T.A.s for their political activism around the issue, defending its curricular changes and the firings through the rhetoric of “academic freedom.” The day’s protest, then, was to challenge these bogus claims of “academic freedom” and to demand the restoration of the critical, progressive mission that the College was founded upon.

I begin with this story because the on-going events at Thurgood Marshall resonate with my own memories of Oberlin, and will probably resonate with numerous other Obies, past and present. This is not to say that the events and circumstances at Thurgood Marshall are identical to those at Oberlin, or vice-versa. Instead, it is a comment on the non-uniqueness, un-exceptional-ness and non-isolation of the regressive changes occurring in various “social spaces” across the United States. Too often at Oberlin, we complain about the “Oberlin bubble.” But over the years I have come to realize that, while Oberlin may be spatially and socio-economically distant from the “real world,” it is in no way immune from, unaccountable for, or non-complicitous in the changes occurring “outside.” In fact, the “Oberlin bubble” is a microcosmic reflection of the “real world” – that space that we, so often, are tempted to valorize. As one of the speakers at the protest mentioned, what does it mean when an academic institution tells us that race and indigeneity and gender and class and nation are “controversial,” or worse still, “do not matter,” when each day people continue to die while crossing the border, and indigenous communities continue to encounter the violation of their environments and cultures, and immigrant communities of color continue to be subject to slave labor?

While academic institutions may not contribute directly to these unjust and inhumane circumstances, are they not perversely complicit – in line with the militarized nation-state and the corporatized global economy – in eliding the all-pervasive violence that communities continue to encounter across the various local and global spaces? I am not attempting to suggest here that academic institutions are as violent as, say, multinational corporations; rather, the point I am trying to make is that H/history, as living past and multiple futures, does not stop at the boundaries of Oberlin College, Ohio. The “Oberlin bubble” is part of the limitless, fluid and intersecting “bubbles” that constitute H/history. That is why it matters who Oberlin serves and what it teaches; whose voices are respected and whose dismissed; what is spoken and what remains mired in ghostly silences; what Oberlin values and what it proactively strives for. And more importantly, that is why the tireless and relentless social justice work of students, staff, faculty and alums at Oberlin, is crucial – it is not isolated action, restricted within the time and space of Oberlin, and it is definitely not any less “real” than that which occurs “outside.”

Yes, those of us in academic institutions are substantially more privileged and generally enjoy a greater level of security and comfort, at least within the space of academia; and while it is crucial to be critically aware of this privilege, to get bogged down by “privilege guilt” can be paralyzing and unproductive. Over the past few months, as a graduate student at UCSD, I have come to realize that non-complicit action is impossible – mired though we may be in the rhetoric of individualism, we are all intimately and violently linked to each other though oppressive systems and structures. Therefore, what is crucial to social justice activism is how we chose to insert and position ourselves, and our work, within such always-already complicitous frameworks.

I apologize for turning what was meant to be a “reflection piece” into a political spiel. However, I chose to write this because it is, in fact, what I have learnt through my time Oberlin. I owe Oberlin my life. While this statement may be somewhat of an exaggeration, it is not totally off the mark. I am where I am and I envision my future as I do because of Oberlin – because of my relationship with students, faculty, staff and alumni who were committed to social justice. It was at Oberlin that I came to consciousness, and learnt to be socially aware and active; it was also at Oberlin that I learnt to be angry, hurt, cynical and suspicious. But working through the pain and disappointments of Oberlin has been crucial to my ability to develop, what I perceive to be, a broader and more productive view of social justice work.

Oberlin is special, a friend (and also an Oberlin alum) recently said to me, while we were reminiscing about our time there. Yes, I responded, but it takes a lot of distance to recognize that. Oberlin has an uncanny ability to burn people out, but I hope that after some wounds have healed (even partially), we can “come back” to Oberlin to support those who come after us, and who continue to struggle for an Oberlin reflective of the revolutionary changes we envision for a global society.

A Little Bit of Me

I've been wanting to post on here for a while, but transitioning from vacation mode to work mode has kept me more than a little busy. This evening, though, I found myself in a slightly introspective mood. It's the effect of all those planets out there... all the trines and conjunctions and retrogrades and going directs. In any case, so instead of writing my prospectus or reading for section, I decided to do the "writing as self-therapy" thing, which I guess evolved into this blog post.

So, here's a little bit of me. Be nice.

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I am full of contradictions and, although it can get hard sometimes, I’m happy that way.


I’m never sure what one “needs” to know about me. And my limited knowledge of psychoanalysis inhibits my ability to profile myself.

Yes, I do tend to overthink things sometimes. And someday, I’d like to know Lacan inside out.

Which makes sense, given that I’m an academic – at heart, mind and professionally. Although, technically, I’m still a student... People back home still think I’m studying to be an engineer (which I was, over 10 years ago, till I saw the light), or that I work at the U.N. (where I interned for just one summer, 5 years ago). It’s funny how perceptions stick. But that might have something to do with the fact that I travel home once every 2-3 years. Flying to India is expensive…

I am an “almost math major,” which means that if I had one more class, I would in fact be a math major. But I decided that enjoying the last semester of my senior year was more important than having a major I wasn’t planning on using. Not that my “real” major, i.e. politics, is that useful either. A politics professor once told me that I think like a mathematician... which is partially true, I now realize, because I can design fantastically “logical” lesson plans, grading rubrics and essay-writing guidelines for my students. Not that I really believe in logic, or rationality, or truth. I think I’d rather be Nietzsche’s mad-man; but I’m not that “evolved.”

I love teaching. I think of it as a process of rocking the students’ world… mentally and emotionally. Academics are personal trainers of the mind. That’s why we’re so cool… and also potentially so dangerous. Though I’m never sure why academics are cast as the leftist plague. Has anyone looked at a college course catalogue or syllabus recently? I could count the instances of leftiness on my two hands. Besides, I’m proud to be a leftist (which, in my head, is different from being a liberal, which I am not. I could give you a spiel on that…)

I am obsessed with violence – not enacting it or the spectacle of it… I can’t actually even watch violent movies. But I am obsessed with understanding it, theorizing it. Say something to me, and I’ll show you the violence that underlies it… kinda. But that explains why, in another lifetime (my engineering one), I was obsessed with nuclear chemistry and quantum mechanics. The thought of it still makes me tingle.

I believe in karma, and astrology, and spirituality (even religion, to some extent)… all the things that a secular, “rational,” lefty is not supposed to believe in. But like I said, I think rationality is full of it… It all comes down to energy, and I believe in energy a hundred per cent. All those Enlightenment folks had it wrong… they were just terrified about their bodies (go Bataille!) and deflected those fears by focusing on the mind. But, of course, we’re still terrified by our bodies… we just sanitize them through beauty and glamour, and viola, the body becomes manageable, sexy even.

Some of the folks I know back home are taken aback by the fact that almost all my friends her are people of color and/or queer. I wonder why. I mean I wonder why the thin its weird. I mean, it's not like I hand out a questionnaire before I make friends, but I really being around people who don't think it should be my life's work to teach them about oppression. Those that I do do that for, I call students. And I get paid for it.

I sometimes fear what would happen if my friends from the States and those from back home were ever in a room together. I wonder in what ways they might be able to relate to each other... besides alcohol. I think any attempted “intermingling” might ensue in hilarity, or could turn out to be painfully embarrassing for me. But Saturn returns to my sign in 15 days. Which means, I get to start over… and find a way to integrate these two distinct circles that signify my two distinct lives.

I don’t do favorites. Because every time I propose a favorite, somebody around me is a bigger fan and more knowledgeable, and I end up looking like a phony. I was once obsessed with Jake Gyllenhaal. I did the whole web-stalking thing, reading fan sites… I stopped just short of posting on one of those sites or sending him fan mail. That lasted about a month… perhaps less. Also, I once mentioned to my co-workers that I “loved Rob Thomas.” They thought I meant really, like a true fan. A picture of him graced my office walls for an entire year, courtesy them.

I think Eddie Izzard is a genius. He's one of the smartest and most socially conscious comedians/actors out there. I own all of his routines on CD or DVD, and I saw him live last year in L.A. Also, I enjoy British humor better than the American stuff. But that might just be me being a good post-/colonial subject. :)

I don’t like poetry. I think it’s pretty and powerful and all that, but I can’t get into. Give me lyrical prose though, anyday. Gibran. Coelho. I do like spoken word though.

I think spicy food is the best cure for a cold. I went all the way to India and didn’t get myself any pickle. Now I have to wait till next month when I get paid.

I am pro-life and pro-choice. I support gay marriage but am anti-marriage in general and for all. I am Zoroastrian but I can’t get behind all the associated pedantic, formalist shtuff. I think Indians need to re-read Fanon. And if they haven’t read him yet, read him for the first of many times.

I have this weird desire to train for a marathon. Weird because, well, I have no idea where it came from. And also because, ahem, it’s me. Let’s see if it sticks. Hopefully. But I can weight-train like a dude… albeit not a super strong one. Just gimme time.

I love the sound of the 12.30 AM Amtrack in the distance, passing between Old Town and Downtown.

I need to drink more water and consume more protein.

I like eggs.

Today I Cried

I'll be leaving home again pretty soon. I'm not really sure how I feel about it... I feel like I just got here, and I've had a pretty good time. But I do have stuff to look forward to back in the States. Then again, I hate goodbyes.

In any case, the next couple of weeks are going to be pretty hectic. I'll be at the Critical Legal Conference at the University of Leicester the weekend of the 11th. And then, when I'm back in San Diego the following weekend, it'll be all about getting back in the swing of things. So, in short, I'm no certain how often I'm actually going to be able to write in the next month or so.

I recently recovered data from my old hard-disk and found some stuff I'd written a few years ago. Here's one of those pieces. I wrote it the day after George W. won re-election in 2004. It's kinda sappy perhaps... apologies. But a good reminder of how shitty that time was.

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Today I cried; I’m not sure why, but I did. I couldn’t move; I kept staring at my computer screen; I don’t know why. Sometimes it seemed like I was forcing myself to cry, so I’d stop; but then I’d cry all over again.

Today, the campus seemed dead; maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed dead. I think I saw other people cry; maybe they just had a cold, but I think I saw them cry too.

Today, I cried in public; I’m still not sure why I was crying, but I was. Each time someone asked how I was doing, I’d say fine and my eyes would well up.

Today is Nov. 3, 2004. I cried; I know others cried too. I’m not sure why, but it may be because

Today was a victory for indifference and ignorance; for insensitivity and arrogance; for fear and hate; for lies and deceit; for white supremacy and global supremacy; for corporations over people; for religion over faith; for ideology over ideas.

Today I cried. I’m not sure why, but it may be because

Today I felt anger, hurt, frustration, disbelief, rage, pain, hopelessness, shock, fury, fear, hate.

Today I cried because today I felt less human, less humane.

Today I cried; I know others cried too.

Today I cried and I think I know why.

Today I cry.

New Rule: No Shame in Being the Sorry Party

Bill Maher
posted Aug. 21, 2009
www.huffingtonpost.com

New Rule: If Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin all think America has never done anything wrong, we must be doing something wrong. Look at them: an empty suit, an empty heart and an empty head. It looks like the news team on Good Morning Hell. And what they've been competing about lately is who would not apologize the most. America is infallible, and apologies are horrible things that must never, ever be given. Except by me when I make a joke about the Pope. "We're perfect -- deal with it," is their new handshake. But I say, what's wrong with America occasionally saying, "I'm sorry"? Because these are the three sorriest white people I've ever seen.

If in your eyes America can do no wrong, you should really look into Lasik surgery. There's the rational, mature assessment of our country: that it's a great nation -- especially if you like fried foods -- but it also has its faults. And then there's the Republican view: that it's perfect and pure in every way and it's always right all the time, just like Leviticus and Ronald Reagan.

If the founders were alive today, Republicans would be giving them shit because the Preamble to the Constitution says, "In order to form a more perfect union? Hello, it's already perfect! Why are you suggesting American apologetics, Ben Franklin?"

One of the things that makes Republicans furious about our current president is their idea that Obama is always apologizing for America's biggest mistakes. Unlike President Bush. Who was one of America's biggest mistakes.

In his first week as president, Obama did an interview with Arab TV in which he said, "We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect." Thought crime! And then he went to Cairo and violated one of those absolute eternal rules the Right Wing is always making up out of thin air: "The president must never apologize on foreign soil. Lest our allies begin to doubt that we're assholes. "

But what did Obama actually say to make Karl Rove's head explode and the popcorn fly out? Cover your children's ears: When he was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said he did, the same way "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism." Yes, our so-called president actually said people in other countries might like their countries better. I was so shocked I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.

In her farewell speech -- if only -- Sarah Palin kept telling us "how she's wired." Now I'm not a doctor, or an electrician -- but this is faulty wiring, this worldview that, in her words, "we should never apologize for our country." Really? Never? Not for slavery? Or Japanese internment camps, or if we tortured the wrong guy at Guantanamo? The Indians? Nothing, Sarah? "The Real Housewives of Atlanta"? Shouldn't John McCain apologize for... you?

When did intractability become a virtue? Mitt Romney's new book is called No Apology: The Case For American Greatness. You can find it at Borders, in the "Suck-Up" section. It's such a perfect title, combining paranoia with arrogance: "No one has yet asked me to apologize but, if someone ever does, fuck them."

Conservatives think apologizing is a sign of weakness. It's what liberal pussies do, when they're not busy driving electric cars and feeling empathy. When in fact it's the weak and the scared who are too insecure to apologize. Apologies are actually a sign of strength. That's why six-year-olds hate them.

In Rwanda, after a genocide that killed a million people, they set up special courts where people stood up and said, "Hey, sorry I macheted your entire family. My bad." And believe it or not, in most cases, that was enough. That's the power of an apology. A recent study reveals that doctors who are willing to apologize to patients for their mistakes are sued for malpractice about half as much as doctors who aren't willing to apologize.

Apologies can do great things, and they can enable great things. And if you still don't believe me, I have three words for you: make-up sex.

Of the Two Largest Democracies

When the Congress Party won the national elections earlier this year, I felt a sense of pride for my nation. India has a multi-party parliamentary system. However, national politics in this country is dominated by the Congress (a more centrist, secular party) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (or the BJP - a right-wing, hindu nationalist party). Given that this year's elections followed close on the heels of the attacks in Bombay, I was terrified that the BJP would be voted back into power. Terrorism invokes, in response, the worst kinds of racism, communalism, xenophobia, nativism - the kinds of anxieties that right-wing nationalist groups feed off. And so, going off my experience with the U.S. response to 9/11, I was pretty convinced that the BJP would win... happily I was proven wrong.

National trends not withstanding, state politics, especially in Maharashtra - which is where I live and therefore what I'm most familiar with - seem to be becoming increasingly nationalist. Until a short time ago, the party in power was the Shiv Sena, a hindu/marathi nationalist party. And while the Congress is currently in power at the state level here, the Shiv Sena is still very powerful. As is its more recent, and apparently its more violent, off-shoot, the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (or the Maharashtra Renaissance Army). Most recently, the MNS was responsible for large-scale violence against taxi-drivers in the state, many, if not most, of whom are of North Indian descent.

This post though is not about Indian political parties. It is actually about the violent rhetoric and acts surrounding health care reform. For there is a strong connection between how parties like the BJP, the Shiv Sena, the MNS, etc function here, and the tenor of right-wing politics in the States, eve if the contexts and constituencies are not easily interchangable.

I recently read the an article by Cenk Uygur that captures this connection really well. The piece, although not particularly insightful in the context of those who get critical race politics, is still well worth a read. I've "redacted" though parts that I think are unnecessary because of the false and gratuitous yet inevitable glorification of U.S. democracy. Blah!


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The Last Gasp of the Angry White Man
Cenk Uygur
August 10, 2009



What we're seeing in these angry town halls these days is the last gasp of the angry white man. He's not quite sure what he's angry about, but he knows he's angry. It's not the world he used to know. He gets the disquieting feeling that he doesn't rule the roost anymore. And it's driving him crazy.

One of the chants at the town hall events was, "No national health care!" Okay, mission accomplished. No one has proposed such a thing. So, I guess they can go home now, befuddled at what they were yelling about.

The reality is that what they have been manipulated into arguing against is a public option that would give them more choices, not less in health insurance. It wouldn't nationalize health insurance at all, let alone any part of the rest of the health care industry.

But this isn't about health insurance. It isn't even about health care. You think those people are really this animated about having less health care options and making sure it costs more for them and their family? No, this is visceral for them. And it has nothing to do with their perceived choices on health care. This is about the sinking feeling in their stomach that they are losing power in this country -- losing control. That the reins of power are slipping out of their hands and they don't know what to do about it, except yell, really loud.

One guy famously shouted, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." Everyone is understandably amused by this. But there is a larger point here. They don't care about the logic of the issue at hand. I'm not convinced they even care what the issue is. These are the same people that were yelling at the Palin rallies. They were screaming just as loud then, and it was different issues, or no issues at all. Just name calling and fear. Pure, unadulterated fear.

At a recent Tampa town hall people were yelling at the top of their lungs, "Hear Our Voice." Ironically, that's all we could hear. No one could hear the congresswoman there. Or any arguments that were being made or any issues debated. All they could hear was the loud, angry voices demanding to be heard.

And who is stoking these fires? Encouraging and egging on these screams, this anger, this fear? Conservative talk hosts all across the country (and, of course, special interest groups funded by the health care industry who are relishing using these poor schleps as fodder for their effort to kill health care reform). They're telling them the proper response is anger. Don't wait your turn. Don't listen to the congressman. Shout. Be heard. Be angry. Obama is taking this country away from you.

The woman who now famously stood up in a Delaware town hall and demanded that her congressman recognize the illegitimacy of Barack Obama's birth certificate, said something telling in her rant. She said, "I want my country back!"

Indeed. Where did it go? Of course, the country is still right here. It's the "my" part that's missing. She doesn't want this country back. She wants her country back.

I want everyone to be heard, too. I hated it when the Bush handlers would keep out dissenting voices from their town halls. If conservatives are frustrated with some of the policy initiatives of the Obama administration, I think it's an appropriately democratic reaction to show up at town halls and ask questions. In fact, if they did it in a way that asked their representatives interesting and tough questions, I'd be proud of them.

Some of them are holding up constitutions. They finally got them out of the drawer where they were collecting mothballs as the Bush administration ran roughshod over that sacred text. They didn't seem to demand loyalty to that document as the Bush team eviscerated the Fourth Amendment.

But bygones be bygones, if they want to hold Obama responsible for his signing statements for example, great. You can argue he is impinging against Article I of the Constitution just as Bush did.

Do you think that's the argument the town hall screamers are making? Come on, can anyone really discern an argument? Could they point to one clause that they think Obama has violated? My guess is if challenged they would scream out the Second Amendment. Except Obama has not only not done anything to impose gun control, he has gone out of his way to rein in his Attorney General to make sure he also does nothing about it. It isn't about the Second Amendment. It isn't about the Constitution. It's about the anger.

It's a self-justifying anger. The angrier they get the more they feel the imperative to get angry. What is it? What's really eating away at them? I don't think it's a conscious racial thing for them. It's more a feeling of their way of life slipping away from them.

Think about it. If you worked at the local shop and in the old days you could get your son hired there, things were pretty good. Now, they tell you that they have to give the job to someone else's son. Someone that doesn't look like you, someone that you've never met or ever talked to. There's been a lot of generations of that now.


You think those guys are going to inquire into the history of racial prejudice in this country and why it might make sense to increase diversity in a workplace when some groups have been excluded entirely? No, all they know is that their son couldn't get the same job that their dads got for them. They want their country back.

Of course, this has been building up for quite awhile. But now they have lost their political power. Now the epitome of what they were fighting against is their new leader. His first hire for the Supreme Court is a Hispanic woman, who they hear is racist against white men and was only picked because of her race and gender.

And when the president is talking about a confrontation between a white man (a cop trying to do his job) and a black man (another one that got to be a professor, though God knows if he earned it), he immediately chooses the side of the black man -- without even knowing the facts. Man, they're angry. This is the guy they were warned about.

Whether their perception is true is not relevant. It's the intensity of the perception that is relevant. And on top of all this, they feel the whole system is rigged against the average guy (and they're right about this one).

The bankers get all the money. The government spends a ton of cash, but they feel like it never comes to them. It feels like the guys at the top are the ones who always make out like bandits (the fact that their anger against this is being used by those same guys for their own interests is of tremendous irony).

But then add on top of that, their team lost. They don't feel like the president is "one of them." Maybe that's not even malicious, or at least consciously malicious. But that's how they feel. The world is changing around them and every time they turn on the radio or television (which, of course, is glued to Fox News), they are being told they're right to be angry. And that their anger should be directed primarily at one man: Barack Obama.

That's where the trouble comes in. It's starting to feel like a third world country around here. In developing countries there are organized mobs. There are disruptions of political gatherings. There are angry crowds and talk of gathering weapons. Talk of revolutions (one man in South Carolina told Rep. Inglis that "there is not a day that goes by ... that I don't hear talk of revolution in our country.").

We're America. We're supposed to be better than this.

We're supposed to resolve our differences peaceably and civilly. We're supposed to listen to one another. We're supposed to have the best democracy in the world. As it stands, we're one burning tire away from Haiti. We have to dial this thing back down.

Of course, the problem isn't the progressives here. Their side won. The moderates and independents aren't necessarily boiling over with anger. No, in this case, it's the right-wing. And there's the problem. Because there does not seem to be anyone on that side who is capable or inclined to bring down the volume of the conversation. If anything, their response is more shouting, more disruptions, more rancor and more accumulation of weapons. As one local Republican nominee in Virginia put it, "We have the chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box." So, what happens when they keep losing at the ballot box?

It's beginning to smell a lot like banana republic around here. And there is no answer. If you try to suggest that they bring it down a notch, they scream censorship and warn their audience that their rights are about to be taken away from them. And so is their country. If you say it might not be such a good idea to have all of these weapons in the hands of all these angry men, they scream about the Second Amendment and tell their audience to hold on to their guns even tighter. And many have held on so tight that some of them even pulled the trigger.

How many more will? When does this stoking of anger and fear stop? And who would stop it? I really don't know. Here's one more thing I don't know. What happens if it doesn't?

Special 5

I'm not generally a huge fan of commercials. But there's something really special about these Airtel Special 5 ads. Maybe I'm just growing old, or super mushy, or both.

Coming Out

Being home over the past few weeks has reminded me just how strong, and potentially dangerous, emotional memories can be. I've always know that I have pretty a strong emotional memory, but being home has put it in overdrive. Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of these are not happy, pleasant memories, but unresolved negative ones, those that I can often hide from in the States. What in the States gets manifest as occasional nightmares, here take on the form of waking panic attacks.

Last night I was hanging out with one my closest friends here - we've known each other since I really don't when, but atleast for almost all our lives - and we started talking about intimate relations from our past. Listening to her talk about her most serious relationship, made me think of my own long, not serious, relationship with someone back home. Incidentally, the person she was dating then was also my "first boyfriend" - although while mine lasted less than 2 months, and I was 13 then, her's was her first adult relationship and lasted almost 3 years.

Unfortunately, for most of the duration of their relationship, I was in the States. I am not particularly good about keeping in touch with folks back home while I’m in the States. (As another friend recently complained to me, how is it that we can talk through the night while you’re here but once you’re gone, I hear 5 words from you once in 6 months? What to do though, I’m like dat only.) So, I just heard snippets from my parents a few times about what was going on with them, and I hung out with them a couple of times while I was back home for a couple of weeks in August 2004. From what I could gather then, the guy wasn't particularly ok with my friend hanging out or communicating with me. When I returned home for the summer a couple of years later, they had just recently been through a bad break-up. Consequently, we had never really spoken much about their relationship while it was still on, or in the immediate aftermath.

When we spoke yesterday, though, she was a bit more open and forthcoming about her experience in that relationship. And that made me re-live aspects of my own long relationship back home. Comparing our experiences, our reactions to them, and where we are each now in relation to them, made me wonder, what does it mean, what does it take to come out, openly, publicly, as a survivor of violence and abuse. I generally do not use the word survivor in reference to myself… and I think that that in itself has a lot to do with how I see myself, how much I have, or have not, come to terms with being, someone who has experienced, lived through an abusive relationship.

I use the phrase "coming out" quite deliberately. Because, as I understand it, the process of coming out involves developing the strength, the confidence, the sense of security... whatever one chooses to call it... to acknowledge one's own experience with, or existence as, something which is perceived as undesirable, unacceptable. When I say that coming out as a survivor of abuse or violence is a difficult, emotionally taxing process, I am not making an ground-breaking statements. But I guess the reason yesterday's conversation affected me a great deal is because it somehow brought to a head what I had been gradually realizing over my time home - that I have not truly resolved my experiences in an abusive relationship, that they still haunt me in extremely problematic and dangerous ways, and that in so many ways, every time I'm back home, I'm reminded very starkly of those experiences, although it's been almost 10 years since that relationship.

What brought all this home yesterday was when I asked my friend if she had ever witnessed my ex being violent towards me. Her response was incredibly hesitant, as if she'd rather not acknowledge that she had - not because of any sense of accountability that I might lay on her, but in order to spare me feelings of embarassment, and perhaps even shame. In order to spare me perhaps, the same feeling of discomfort that she appeared to be feeling in talking to me about her own relationship.

Thankfully, within the context of the States, I am more willing to, and more comfortable in, coming out. But the same is not true with folks back home. And yet it seems to me that it is with and among friends back home that this conversation is so essential. Although I have no actual "proof," just from the point of view of hear-say and, if I might be so bold as to add culture, the problem of abuse in intimate partner relationships seems to be a problem among folks of my generation in my community. And this is precisely a signifier of the intense heteronormativity that is privileged among us. With "boys" and "men" super invested in being "male," in protecting "their women" as their property, as they do their imported bikes and cars. I am not suggesting, obviously, that this is true across the board. But I feel safe in saying that is, as anywhere else, undoubtedly a problem.

And what is more problematic in this context is that the issue of domestic violence and abuse is, as far as I am aware, not really spoken of, even among a community that is supposed to be relatively "modern" and "progressive," like mine. It wasn't until I came to the States that I came to recognize that what I had lived through was not normal, and that there was a term for it - domestic, or intimate partner, abuse. The more I began to read, and think, and talk about it, the more angry and frustrated I became with my high school teachers who were more invested in protecting us "girls" - I went to an "all-girls" school - from "boys" by preventing us from talking to and interacting with them - I was reprimanded a few times for "talking to boys while in school uniform," and warned to think about "the school's reputation." They might have been able to "protect" us much better if they had engaged us in conversations about taking care of ourselves in relationships, in recognizing abuse, in encouraging us to talk to parents, friends, mentors about the nature of our relationships, in emphasizing to us that abuse is not normal, is not normalizable, regardless of which communities one belongs to, or which circles we socialize in.

If we can have sex-ed classes, which we did have some weird form of, I'm sure it requires no stretch of the imagination to include instruction on what a healthy relationship should look like. I know that I could have definitely benefited from that... and I know at least a few of my friends back home could have too.

I know that my teenage relationship has definitely haunted my adult ones too. I have not yet stopped having unpleasant dreams about my teenage ex, and I have most certainly projected my fears, anxieities with reference to him onto those who came later. I think much of my inability to excorcise this ghost is related to an uncertainity about what I went through and whether it was really significant. For instance, does the fact that I was between 13-17/18 when I had this experience make it more or less significant? Ironically (or is it?), while it is here, at home, that I have the most discomfort in dealing with what transpired, what the conversation yesterday made me realize, or reminded me, is that is was definitely real, made more so by the fact that little has changed over time, or as teenagers have grown into adults.

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From domesticviolence.in
published 4.17.09

In India there is a crime against women in every three minutes, one rape every twenty nine minutes and one recorded case of dowry death in every seventy seven minutes. Cases of cruelty meted out by husbands and in laws are seen in every nine minutes. Patriarchal terrorism where one partner uses economic and social power to maintain control over another human is very common in India and other Asian countries due to the subservient status of women.

The world statistics of domestic violence translates into 960,000 reported incidences of violence, against current or former partners every year. Three million women are abused every year by their husbands or boy friends. Around one out of three women in the world has been coerced into sex, beaten or otherwise abused by their boy friends. Women are seen to be more vulnerable to intimate partner violence then men world over.

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D.V. & Other Resources for Women in India

India Together
Narika
Sakshi