Gina Harris's Blog, page 140

Band Review: Viz Dawg

Matt Vizzi is the buffest rapper I have ever reviewed. It is easy to think of what he does as jock rap, as exemplified by "Get Me The Ball" his most memorable song. I like that he has something else that he is passionate about and incorporates it. Otherwise I did not find much memorable.
Rap fans may respond more, especially if they like sports.
https://soundcloud.com/matt-vizzi
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJoB8T7LEEtkMZZ_mygkuEw
https://twitter.com/Vizdawg

Not an accidental racist

It's not that a Trump presidency ever sounded less than horrible to me, but it has taken disturbing racist turns that I really need to get off my chest.
Maybe the first point to make is that no racism is accidental. Individuals may not intend to imbibe it, but there are people who have worked very hard at different times to separate the interests of poor whites from poor people of color, to discredit any gains made by people of color (often through outright destruction), and to roll back progress. Thomas Dixon Jr. wrote a false novel about Reconstruction, and D. W. Griffith turned it into a film. Woodrow Wilson re-segregated government departments that had been integrated. Those are just a few examples that come to mind easily.
There is also a legacy of politicians perpetuating those stereotypes - often cynically - to appeal to voters. Nixon and Reagan did this with tough-on-crime/war-on-drugs campaigning and legislation.
It often used coded language. Being openly racist stopped being acceptable in polite company, but you can say "urban", "crime", and "welfare", and the message is received (regardless of how many criminals and government aid recipients are white).
The GOP has held on tightly to their racist dog-whistles, and building on them. They should not have been caught so off guard by Trump's popularity. Yes, he dropped the veneer, but it was only a thin veneer at best. It was easy equally easy to believe that Trump was simply not intellectual or self-aware enough to see the value in maintaining any veneer. Instead of tying illegal immigration closely to crime, he can just call Mexican rapists. It got a laugh for Amy Schumer, so why shouldn't it work for him?
Trump's supporters respond to how honest he is, and you could think that because he has dropped the code and is speaking openly that is true, but he has adopted a whole new code. I guess the first warning sign was when Trump compared Hillary Clinton to Angela Merkel:
https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trumps-new-attack-on-hillary-echoes-white-supremacist-websites-70579c9d7e50#.3u48dtfws
I did think it was a strange way to go; Merkel doesn't come up a lot in casual conversation. Apparently I only though that because I am not a white supremacist. They hate Merkel, so referencing her strikes a chord with them.
Not long after that, Donald Trump Jr. referenced the gas chambers. This is another phrase that resonates with white supremacists. Jr. later denied that there was any Holocaust reference - and how typical of the reporters to assume so - but he is also the one to send out memes with Skittles and Pepe the Frog. The Skittles analogy offended a lot of people and drew some good responses anyway, but what was easy to miss is that Skittles have been a thing for white supremacists since Trayvon Martin's death.
It was still hard for me to believe that Trump Sr. was such a devoted racist. Even something that vile still seemed to require more depth than he has. I could buy that Trump Jr. is the committed white supremacist, but that between his influence on one side and Putin's on the other, there is a real nightmare world being created. Then this turned up:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-eugenics_us_57ec4cc2e4b024a52d2cc7f9
This may do more to explain Trump than anything else. His deep belief in the superiority of his genes could be why he thinks he is smart and good at business despite a great quantity of evidence to the contrary. It does seem primed to go right past narcissist onto sociopath, though I suspect that is more nurture than nature. (Okay, both.)
But the scariest thing that brings me back to is this:
http://bluenationreview.com/trump-is-seeking-a-white-nationalist-awakening-not-the-white-house/
This was posted before the Merkel comment, and it seemed to ludicrous. I mean, I saw the logic, and it seemed like a more achievable goal than winning the election, but still, could that really be his endgame? Now I'm not sure. Trump is sowing hatred, and confidence that the hatred is just. As he implies that his loss would be a sign of a rigged system, it worries me.
A Trump victory was always going to be a disaster; I never questioned that. It looks like he's working things so that disaster will accompany his defeat as well.
His defeat still needs to happen, but it's a concern.

Beyond sympathy

This feels like the right time to share an embarrassing story.
My mitigating factors are that it was when things had just started getting worse with Mom, and I'd had a really horrible week. Also, about a third of my Twitter time is bolstering up depressed teenagers. I got online and saw someone talking about erasure, referring to the erasure of Black contributions to history and culture. Suddenly "Oh L'Amour", by Erasure, started playing in my head, and it was the first thing that had felt good that week, so I replied about listening to Erasure, because they gave me a boost and I wanted to give her a boost.
It came off as very flippant. That wasn't how I meant it, but I hadn't thought it through. Danceable English pop has an important place in my memories and emotions, but not everyone shares that. When your people are being systematically erased, that is big enough that even if you love the band (and it could be hard to get past the name), it still wouldn't make the interjection welcome. Finally, that bad attempt to comfort came not at a time when she was expressing pain but when she was teaching. It may be tinged with pain, but that doesn't make it okay to derail the lesson.
The saddest part is that I did it already knowing about this:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/24/what-charlize-theron-doesn-t-get-about-black-hollywood.html
I saw it at the time, I understood what Charlize Theron did wrong without attributing any bad intentions to her, but I still repeated her mistake.
In Theron's case, beauty is complicated for women anyway. There are many social and media influences telling you that you must be attractive and why you aren't and how you need to change. It is easy to be sensitive to that, and want to be supportive.
I don't know if it gave Viola Davis a boost to be called hot, but I know it can't make up for years of history and dehumanization where your gender and color is constantly compared to animals, and has to be the opposite of feminine so you can work while the "real" (white) women are protected and put on a pedestal (which does have its own problems), and where you are assaulted and it can't even be rape because they're too promiscuous to be raped. And then if you say anything about it you're an "angry Black woman".
Even if Davis is getting good roles now, that doesn't change all the years that she didn't. It doesn't change things for all the other actresses who aren't getting their fair chance. That's exceptionalism, like President Obama being elected twice. There are wonderful things about it, but the problem is not resolved. That doesn't get fixed by a compliment. If the compliment eases the discomfort of the listener, and ends the conversation, well, when is it going to get fixed?
So, people get upset when the "racist" label is applied - even when you are identifying an action or something said as racist, without writing off the person. That's letting feelings derail again. If something is in fact racist, it is harmful, and therefore a decent person must be willing to listen to the criticism.
Structural and systemic racism are real, with deep roots. They also make it easier for personal racist beliefs to persist. A person can justify thinking of Black people as criminals because that's what they see on the news without examining how the media reports news or how the law is enforced, but inequality is a factor.
We had been at a point when it was considered bad and low-class to be overtly racist, but privately believing it and allowing the structure to endure was fine. That has brought us back to where overt racism has become really popular. Of course it did, if people won't openly face the structure.
Notice how many of these stories focus around Black women. They face racism and sexism together, combined into what Northeastern professor Moya Bailey has named "misogynoir". They are all too familiar with the depth and breadth of the problem. If we support them, we will be fighting the real ugliness.
Here are some more good posts:
https://medium.com/@Blackamazon/the-something-else-eleven-years-online-cf170db13935#.xrj3hcpng
http://www.xojane.com/issues/fasttailedgirls-sexual-assault-of-black-girls-is-not-a-joke
https://mic.com/articles/152965/meet-moya-bailey-the-black-woman-who-created-the-term-misogynoir#.QKuL3ts8E
http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2016/08/03/connect-the-dots-for-korryn-gaines-skye-mockabee-and-joyce-queweay/

Deplorable

It is completely characteristic of this election cycle that there has been more pushback about Hillary Clinton's use of the phrase "basket of deplorables" than the many nasty things Donald Trump says regularly. There is a different standard, which has been pretty obvious.
I did read one somewhat critical post that I respect, because at one point Clinton calls some in that group irredeemable - which no one can know - and also that she is speaking as an outsider to that group, which makes sense. I get that, and gladly offer the link in case anyone else wants to check it out:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/hillary-clintons-redemption-problem/article31826105/
Sarah Kendzior is an excellent writer with a deep background knowledge of both middle America and the Middle East.
Beyond that, I want to spend more time on what is right in what Clinton said. First of all, if you look at the full quote, there are a lot of caveats there. Nuanced communication doesn't make headlines, but it does more for increased understanding.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/11/context-hillary-clinton-basket-deplorables/
Her larger point was that Trump supporters include people who are wildly enthusiastic about the racism and people who are suffering and want change. That is completely true. It should be easier to reach out to and communicate with the people who are hoping for change as opposed to those who are thrilled that their messages filled with every kind of phobia you can imagine. That is a reasonable thing to say.
I am actually not sure how true it is, because racism goes deep and gets wound up with a lot of things. That can make it hard to talk about, though that's what we're doing this week. However, the point I want to make right now is that it is absolutely reasonable to call racism deplorable.
Race-baiting is deplorable. Misogyny is deplorable. Stirring up hatred is deplorable.
Last week I wrote about political correctness, where some people object strongly to pressure to use language that is not aggressively offensive (even though - or perhaps because - that sensitivity leads to greater understanding). Well, some people who object to any sensitivity on the part of others get remarkably offended when the harsh language is used on them.
I believe tomorrow I am going to write about the issues with personalizing talk of racism, and then Wednesday about how this racism is not accidental. Today is just that racism is bad. And soon we will get into how all of the -isms and -phobias connect, but for me the racism is the most central issue, because of its appeal to the Alt-Right.
Yes, misogyny has played a strong role, especially because Clinton is a woman. That appeals to some people, and the homophobia appeals to some religious groups. Racism has been a GOP dog whistle for a while, but this year it's coming out as a clarion call, and that is horrible. I'm fine with saying that. I don't want any misunderstanding about that.
Old justifications for racism were based on myths and self-interest. Current efforts to maintain it require valiant efforts to block out facts - efforts that could be better spent on improving things for everyone.
If you are holding on to the superiority of Western values, take a look at the evil the West has done through colonialism - evil that was justified as allowable due to the superiority and the cultivation that it brought, but it was just an excuse for unbridled greed.
If you want to talk about the superiority of Christian values, as a Christian I say that is not enough. My sister works with a Christian who is very critical of her as a liberal and as a Mormon. We thought the common ground might be love for others, but he flat out told her that he doesn't need to love everyone. If I were to take my values from him, I would be a worse person. I value kindness, and honesty, and compassion and generosity. Those traits should be found among Christians, but they are not limited to us.
I have been aware of Breitbart for a long time as an entity that doctors videos and manipulates things to push an agenda - often against people who are doing really good things. This association with racism and the alt right is new to me, but I can't be surprised by it. Dishonesty and manipulation - evil - goes right along with racism. That's how it works. Let's just be really clear about that.
And yes, people can buy into this evil without intentionally being evil, but there's a danger of infection based on the company you keep. Remembering that there are people there too, and there have been forces in society that make it easy to take comfort on that side is important, and generous, but there are also people who revel in it.
They are deplorable. It shouldn't even need to be said, but apparently it does.

Band Review: Yellow Shoots

Yellow Shoots is Greg Matthews of Philadelphia, a singer and producer, transplanted to Brooklyn and becoming a solo artist.
While many producers/remixers have more of a base in dance or hip hop, Yellow Shoots has more of an emphasis on R&B. Often fairly smooth, that increases the jarring effect the music has at times when it goes crude. I found this to be especially true on "More Alive", when the lyrics and the sounds felt at odds with each other.
There were some mixes I liked on the Soundcloud link while I was listening, but they then faded from memory. The music seems to lack hooks, which could be a byproduct of song selection.
As it was, the song that was most memorable for me was the one that felt wrong.
https://www.facebook.com/yellowshoots
https://soundcloud.com/yellowshoots
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzYdy6IE6v7bJqFiH2Gz7BQ
https://twitter.com/yellowshoots

Band Review: Heroes Like Villains

Heroes Like Villains is a pop punk band from Columbus, Ohio.
Their name seems to be inspiring me to use grander language. I'm not sure that their percussion really is majestic. It is effective though, working with the guitars to infuse the music with energy and life. Perhaps they are playing heroically, or perhaps it is more villainously, but I enjoyed the ride.
Currently they appear to only have six songs available, which can be heard via Youtube or Spotify. It does not require a lot of time to check them out, and is worth doing so.
Heroes Like Villains' Facebook page shows a short tour for the first part of October. Here's wishing them well.
http://heroeslikevillains.com/
https://www.facebook.com/heroeslikevillains
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RI4rTCUhjE2p7J1o8h2rw
https://twitter.com/HeroesLVillains

Ableist language

I'm guessing some readers may not be familiar with the term. It's relatively new to me as well. That's okay, we have a definition from copyediting.com:
"Ableist language is any word or phrase that devalues people who have physical or mental disabilities. Its appearance often stems not from any intentional desire to offend, but from our innate sense of what it means to be normal."
To give it a real application, using "lame" and "crazy" as insults is problematic, because there are people to whom those words have been applied in earnest, and it is dehumanizing to those people. Some readers may be frustrated with political correctness run amok. Let me tell you about my own process.
It started through Twitter, of course. As I would find new thinkers who were smart and knew about things that I didn't, I would follow them, and then see people that they were tweeting and quoting. Over the four years I have been on, as the people I follow have increased, they have opened the world up to me in new ways.
Because there are things that can be very new, it doesn't always register right away. I tend not to be overly reactionary now (in my early 20s was a different story), so when I saw the first reference to ableist language, I didn't have a negative reaction, but I remember it catching me off guard. I'd had no idea there was such a thing.
I did have some resistance. "Crazy" is used so flippantly and easily. Even if we only look at songs that I like that use the word, there's a lot. Did it really matter that much? I started to feel that it did.
One thing I thought about was how often some celebrity gets in trouble for getting angry and using "gay" or "fag" as an insult. It matters. It might not if we were at a point where people were fully accepted and safe regardless of sexuality, but we're not there.
We are certainly not at complete acceptance of disabilities. There is still mockery, aggression, dehumanization, and there is a very literal danger. Up to half of the people killed by US police are disabled. This can come from not recognizing deafness, or common spectrum behaviors, or a seizure, or simply not having a tolerance for someone who doesn't conform.
I also thought about talk of gun restrictions for the mentally ill. There are many different types of mental illness, so what does that even mean? (And I'm not getting into guns right now, but that will happen.)
There is not enough understanding of disabilities, but one in five Americans has a disability. That's a wide range. That includes people you know. Shouldn't we care about it?
I found myself reluctant to use the words. If something was a stupid idea, or illogical, or poorly-planned, any of those adjectives could be better than crazy. (I never used "lame" much.)
I hope I am more sensitive now, but another result is better communication. I am saying what I actually mean, instead of taking the common shortcuts. We feel like we understand each other with the shortcuts, and we do, but part of that understanding comes from ignoring a huge part of the human experience. That matters.
I have talked with people before about how so-called "political correctness" is really just not being a jerk, but there is another level to it too. Compassion and empathy are important, but beyond that, choosing how to speak is a decision to be informed. It is a decision to be smarter and to understand more.
We could use some of that.
Related links:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/ableist-language-matters/http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/09/post_177.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/07/naming-and-understanding.htmlhttp://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/03/pre-nahm-reading.html

Thinking about mental illness

My friends who take depression so seriously also take mental illness very seriously.
When you are young it is easy to be more passionate about things. That's not just that you discover more shades of gray the longer you live, but you are also aging and getting less energentic. Maybe it's related.
I understand their anger when people lightly tweet that their OCD is acting up that day, or call themselves depressed when they are merely sad. There are people for whom this is a debilitating condition. They have a hard enough time being taken seriously already, without making their condition a joke. It is hurtful and harmful. I also kind of understand the temptation to draw the equivalency.
It all started with an episode of "Head of the Class", a television series that ran from 1986 to 1991, focusing on a class of gifted students and their unconventional teacher. (Teachers, actually. It changed from Howard Hesseman to Billy Connolly toward the end.)
Anyway, in one episode a psychologist evaluated all of the students, I believe as part of a larger study. They were not patients, or technically invested in the results of the study. That meant they were not going to get the results, but their curiosity was unbearable and they were gifted. They hacked in and were devastated by their findings, as the notes made them all seem deeply disturbed.
After the usual sitcom-plications, the tester came back and explained to them that the terms they used were descriptive of tendencies, but none of the notes were diagnoses. They were fine.
It made a deep impression on me then that things that you might see a counselor for could still be present, even if not at the level where you would see a counselor.
This kind of came up in the story of my one friend. I said he had a tendency toward depression. Usually he is not depressed, so you would not say he had depression. It is easier to get him there than it would be for most people who are not depressed.
A lot of common OCD behaviors are issues related to risk and safety. I'll go back to popular entertainment with As Good As It Gets, but it is easy to see how hand washing and door locking can start as a form of protection, even if it takes on a life of its own. It seems reasonable that a person who is more anxious - even if they are not yet at the point where anti-anxiety medication would be recommended - might find that their anxiety focuses around things they hope to prevent.
What I am trying to say - and do not feel like I am saying elegantly - is that perhaps we have more similarities than we realize. Perhaps we have a lot that we can learn from each other.
Tomorrow I want to focus a bit more on how we get there.

It's not binary

Where I first started thinking about the word "binary", was related to its use in issues of gender and sexuality, where non-binary is used to express not fitting within the standard easy definitions. In its more mathematical use, binary is 1 or 0. Yes or No. The switch is on or off.
Some people get very uncomfortable with anything beyond that, wishing everything fit neatly into simple boxes, but life has a way of being more complex, with multiple interactions and variations, and nuances. Truthfully the difficulty is often more with the reaction than with the complexity itself. Is it really so terrible that there can be more than two answers?
Keeping that in mind, and returning to depression, I have dealt with people who will tell you that depression is strictly chemical, and medication is the only answer. These have primarily been young girls dealing with depression, and they have their reasons for seeing it this way.
However, I also know someone who said pretty firmly that the only real cure for depression is therapy, and medication is just something that can help you as you reach healing through therapeutic means.
So, as long as we are being anecdotal, let me throw out a few more. I have one friend who has a tendency toward depression, especially in winter as it is combined with Seasonal Affective Disorder. He still was able to manage it without medication until a really difficult divorce. It took him about three years to get back to where he didn't need the medication anymore.
During that time, there were people who told him he should be able to manage without the medication - that he should be using faith and prayer to overcome his difficulties. I still get mad thinking about the ignorance involved, and the casual cruelty that kind of ignorance makes possible.
I have another friend who was dealing with depression as a result of childhood sexual abuse. Medication did not help her; it only made her feel numb. This was a while back, and that was a common complaint for a lot of patients back then. I think medication has improved, but what she took away from that was that the problem was not her brain chemistry. She would have to heal from her experience and manage the after-effects in non-chemical ways.
When the young girls cling tightly to the chemistry-only definition, I know why they are doing it. They know that there is something chemically wrong that needs help, and yet they are constantly being told to get over it or suck it up or to be stronger. Their understanding of depression becomes part of their defense of their selves, and their right to have their problems recognized and treated.
What I also know is that they often have high Adverse Childhood Experience scores. When they were supposed to be developing their strength and resilience they were having supports kicked away and wounds inflicted that not only make emotional resilience harder but pose threats to their long-term physical health. So yes, there could be some emotional factors there, where counseling might be helpful, or workshops or lots of other things, but that is in no way any justification for putting them further down and calling them weak.
I do not doubt that the one counterexample needs talking therapy, based on his childhood experiences and his ways of dealing with things now; that doesn't mean it's the only way.
Another friend who was sexually abused had a specific issue with normal arousal causing feelings of disgust with herself, because of the associations with abuse. Yoga was helpful to her for that, giving her a different way of approaching her mind-body connection. I am glad that helped her. That does not mean that you can tell any abuse victim to just do yoga.
I am thinking of one more friend who was abused as a child. She went through therapy then, and was doing well, and then in her early twenties, in a different location and life situation, some reminders came up, and triggered her, putting her mentally in a bad place.
She needed to go back to therapy. It wasn't even for that long, but she needed to check back in, and have someone help her take another look.
There are a lot of different ways that mental health can work or not work. It is foolish of us to try and oversimplify it, or to think that we know better than someone else what will help them heal or cope. It is horrible that so often we respond with arrogance instead of compassion. That helps no one.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

Band Review: Western Education

Western Education has been a breath of fresh air.
The indie rock band from Lowell, Massachusetts is achingly earnest. This is helped by the pleading inflections that seem to come naturally to singer Greg Alexandropoulos's voice, but that is not the only factor. The instruments do unusual things. Sometimes it reminds me of jangle, sometimes slack-key guitar, but it can give a magical tone to the songs. This can be heard especially well on "Loyal Satellite".
"Peace" is a truly beautiful song, with lyrics that make you think. "Geneva" is a departure from most of their songs in tone, and yet it still seems to fit."Young Love" is their most triumphant.
Overall, this was just really good listening. I'm glad they put themselves on my radar.
Recommended.
http://www.westernedrock.com/
https://www.facebook.com/westerneducationband
https://www.youtube.com/user/westerneducationband
https://twitter.com/westedband