Gina Harris's Blog, page 35
March 10, 2023
Black History Month 2023: Daily Songs
As I was thinking about an area of musical focus for this Black History month, I started thinking about historical songs. I decided to focus on that.
I know of songs that exist but I did not use, but I also know there are songs out there that I don't know about. There are certainly songs that that have not been written yet.
There is always the questions of whether to focus specifically on African American history or not. I did want there to be more than slavery and civil rights, so I started with some songs about Africa before 1619.
That only included three songs at the start, but I ended up including some South African history as well.
Part of that is my love for Stevie Wonder, and thinking about his Apartheid song, and some other songs I am fond of. It became more than that, because while prejudice was an issue before, Apartheid did not become an official policy until 1948, not long after World War II.
That was interesting to me, because so frequently after a war where Black people served, we see an increase in prejudice and attempts to codify that racism. Then the two struggles became entwined for me. It was a nice surprise to find a rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday" celebrating Nelson Mandela.
There is a chronological order to the songs. "Apartheid (It's Wrong)" comes right after "The Tuskegee Airmen Suite", rather than later when awareness was growing in the States.
(Also, there are a lot of songs about the military.)
I think the music is important. Artists United Against Apartheid was my first introduction to Apartheid. Even then, I didn't really grasp that Sun City was specifically a luxury resort, and I did not recognize so many people in the song then (DJ Kool Herc!), but it told me there was something and then I was primed to learn more.
These songs matter, and the events matter. It is not a coincidence that the death of Emmett Till and the Montgomery Bus Boycott are both situated in 1955.
There are links to articles with the 28 songs for the month. Sometimes they surprised me; as I was looking for one about the Tuskegee Airmen, I found a recent obituary. It is not so far past.
Because there is so much not covered and so much work left to do, I wanted to end with something showing hope. "We Shall Overcome" was an obvious choice, and presented by an HBCU choir was also an obvious choice.
I had also thought about James Brown for celebrating Black pride, and then there were feelings about the Super Bowl, so I threw in five extra songs for March, but no articles.
The upcoming songs will be getting back to Motown, but that will be a different post. There is a topic in this song list that needs its own post.
Then I have an idea I love for Black Music Month in June, though I am not sure if I can pull it off.
Songs:
2/1 “Mama Africa” by Angélique Kidjo
https://phys.org/news/2018-11-africa-cradle-humankind.html
2/2 “I Might Have Been Queen” by Tina Turner
https://blog.rhinoafrica.com/2018/03/27/9-ancient-african-kingdoms/
2/3 “Medieval West Africa” by Griot B
https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/timeline/africa_before.htm
2/4 “Slave Song” by Sade
https://aaregistry.org/story/chattel-slavery-in-america-a-definition/
2/5 “Ship Ahoy” by The O'Jays
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/atlantic-slave-trade-history-animated-interactive.html
2/6 “Toussant L'Ouverture” by Santana
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-haitian-revolution-and-the-hole-in-french-high-school-history
2/7 “The Ballad of Nat Turner” by Lonnie Glass
https://web.archive.org/web/20100829172548/http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20051111-nat-turner-slavery-rebellion-virginia-civil-war-thomas-r-gray-abolitionist.shtml
2/8 “Heaven's Door” by Alice Smith
https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2020/06/harriet-tubman-conductor-on-the-underground-railroad/
2/9 “Charging Fort Wagner” from Glory by James Horner
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/06/01/restoration-boston-shaw-memorial
2/10 “Buffalo Soldiers” by Bob Marley
https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/jack-hadley-black-history-museum-to-host-9th-annual-buffalo-soldiers-heritage-festival
2/11 “Jim Crow Blues” by Lead Belly
https://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/a-brief-history-of-jim-crow
2/12 “Marcus Garvey” by Burning Spear
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/garvey.htm
2/13 “Harlem Hellfighter” by Tom Morello
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/one-hundred-years-ago-harlem-hellfighters-bravely-led-us-wwi-180968977/
2/14 “Harlem” by Duke Ellington
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/02/23/hurston-hughes-harlem-renaissance
2/15 “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday
https://www.biography.com/news/billie-holiday-strange-fruit
2/16 “Tuskegee Airmen Suite” by Richard Kaufman and London Symphony Orchestra
https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/harold-brown-1924-2023-u-s-air-force-officer-tuskegee-airman/
2/17 “Apartheid (It's Wrong)” by Stevie Wonder
https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid
2/18 “Bakai” by John Coltrane
https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/aug/28
2/19 “Rosa Parks” by Outkast
https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/rosa-parks-beyond-the-bus-boycott-a-life-of-activism
2/20 “Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/the-story-behind-nina-simones-protest-song-mississippi-goddam/16651/#
2/21 “Biko” by Peter Gabriel
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/steve-biko-the-black-consciousness-movement-steve-biko-foundation/GQWBgt1iWh4A8A?hl=en
2/22 “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/stevie-wonder/happy-birthday
2/23 “I Ain't Gonna Play Sun City” by Artists United Against Apartheid
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/little-steven-sun-city-protest-song/
2/24 “By the Time I Get to Arizona” by Public Enemy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham
2/25 “Keep Ya Head Up” by Tupac
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-17/latasha-harlins-memorial-playground-black-lives-matter-south-los-angeles
2/26 “Yes We Can” by will.i.am
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/yes-we-can-a-speech-by-barak-obama-2008
2/27 “I Can't Breathe” by H.E.R.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/us/george-floyd-trnd/index.html
2/28 “We Shall Overcome” by Morehouse College
https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/story-behind-the-song/the-story-behind-the-song/we-shall-overcome/
3/1 “Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud” by James Brown
3/2 “Black Man” by Stevie Wonder
3/3 “Don't Touch My Hair” by Solange feat. Sampha
3/4 “Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika” by the Khayelitsha United Mambaza Choir
3/5 “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Sheryl Lee Ralph
March 7, 2023
What we accept
Ultimately my solution for all abuse is going to be caring about the truth. It resolves false accusations as well as real abuse, and is a good overall part of caring about people and the world in general.
I will spend some more time on that.
For now, there is that problem of apathy: I'm not reading all that, I don't even know who this is, this does not affect me.
As is my custom, I am going to go about it in a roundabout way.
James Dewees is not a predator, but Jimmy Urine is.
James Dewees played with My Chemical Romance. Their singer Gerard Way is married to Lindsey Way, bass player in Mindless Self Indulgence, which is fronted by Jimmy Urine. Urine's wife Chantal Claret is good friends with Lindsey. MSI and MCR have toured together, but also MSI toured with Claret's earlier band, which is how they met.
Full disclosure: I sponsored the MSI Kickstarter, and have reviewed MSI, Chantal Claret, and a solo album of Urine's.
When I saw there were accusations I read them and found them credible.
The first thing I remembered was an MSI member reminiscing about how Jimmy made a beeline for Chantal when their tour together was starting out, making sure to introduce the bands which he did not usually do. It sounded like a cute story then, but it occurred to me to check the age difference.
Jimmy Urine is 13 years older than Chantal Claret. He was 12 years older than the 15 year old at the center of the sexual assault case.
They were also both adults when they got married, but it looks different now.
The other thing that came to mind was another friend of Jimmy Urine's, James Gunn.
(James appears to have been a very popular name from 1966 through 1976.)
Gunn was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy when old offensive tweets were dug up making jokes about molestation and pedophilia.
At the time I remember reading about a "To Catch a Predator" party that Gunn threw. Urine and Claret attended.
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/james-gunn%E2s-how-to-catch-a-predator-party.1464580/
Just to be clear, I still do not have any reason to believe that Gunn was being anything other than "provocative". It reminded me of things I had heard about "Tarts and Vicars" parties or "bad taste" parties.
As I was thinking about the assault, I wondered how Urine's friends and band members felt about this. Did they have any idea that his "jokes" were real? Did they feel differently about it?
Maybe they didn't think about it that much. It's not that long ago that dating a high school girl was coded in movies as kind of a loser but sympathetic. There are Pineapple Express (2008), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). In 1993 I think Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused is supposed to be cooler than them, but I am not sure.
Here's the thing; in 2004 it came out that former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt had abused a teenage girl. They called it an affair initially, of course. Not only did people push back on that, but they started talking about the victim and the effect it had on her life, and it was damaging to her. It is bad for development. It is trauma.
It is still touted by skeevy old guys to get them young before they're ruined, developing minds of their own and self-respect and things like that.
Now my feelings are just more being fed up that anyone finds humor in making fun of terrible situations.
It may be worth nothing that the people who dug through James Gunn's old tweet were pretty awful people, but the fuel never should have been there in the first place.
Children really do get molested and abused. There is no humor in that.
I think it takes a remarkable amount of privilege to be able to dress up as exploited people for fun. There have to be better ways of using that privilege.
It is surprisingly easy to get to the point where nothing moves you anymore.
That is a good reason to care as well.
March 3, 2023
Hispanic Heritage Reading: Final thoughts for 2022
(ETA: I posted as 2023, but 2023's month hasn't happened yet. Remember, I was catching up.)
This is to give some more attention to the books that did not necessarily fit into any of the previous posts.
Best for young readers:
A Box Full of Kittens by Sonia Manzano
Dolores Huerta Stands Strong: The Woman Who Demanded Justice by Marlene Targ Brill
Manzano, whom you may know better as Maria from Sesame Street, wrote a picture book, so when I say young readers... younger for this than for the Delores Huerta book, which is probably good for tweens and middle schoolers.
I can recommend either of them.
For people with complicated families:
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Violence Girl by Alice Bag
Among other characters, Caramelo starts with "the horrible grandmother". As much as you initially feel that the title is mean, you cannot deny its justice as you continue to read. Then there is a reversal and you learn how she became as she was. All along there is a dialogue between the author and the departed grandmother about how she is being portrayed.
Although it is fiction, there are events at least inspired by Cisneros' own life, even if some of them were only things that seemed to be happening at the time.
Bag's story is more straightforward, with less fiction, but still with people who hurt each other; they also love each other and have good times together. In addition, you do see how violence inspires other violence, and you get an interesting look into the beginning punk scene in Los Angeles.
If you want more music history...
Decoding Despacito: An Oral History of Latin Music by Leila Cobo
I found this one fascinating. I know I will want to return to it eventually for all that there is about different musical styles, how they came together, and what happened when the songs they inspired were released.
I will also definitely want to get back to...
What You Have Heard Is True by Carolyn Forché
Sometimes there are books that cover so much information -- often things that I partially remember -- that I know that there is much more. That was true with Decoding Despacito, but music history is lighter than the history of El Salvador and US involvement in that. I have a note to later check out two movies, some historical figures, and Forché's poetry.
More tracing the connections:
Aztlán and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War edited by George Mariscal
Silver, Sword, & Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Maria Arana
Arana's book is probably the more discouraging of the two, but it is not hopeless.
It is also more ambitious, weaving together different elements that have influenced the area over time. For example, for "silver" there is the use of it in pre-Columbian times, the European demand for silver and the impact of the new silver supply there, and the mine workers today.
I had mentioned Aztlán way back when writing about the songs, because of a poem in there that compares California Chicanos and Tejanos, if you will, and their musical tastes.
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/hispanic-heritage-month-2022-songs.html
There are contrasts between those cultures -- perhaps not as much as there would be between Nuyoricans and Cuban expats in Miami, but still significant.
That was interesting food for thought, but it was not the primary contrast, which was between the movement for peace and the recognition of the immorality of war, and also the long tradition of military service among Latinx families.
This was a good background for some of the other reading. The heavy enlistment of Mexican-American soldiers did not stop the white enlisted men from going after Mexican zoot suiters.
It also reminds me of Ken Burns trying hard to get a racially balanced four part series on WWII, but he really needed a fifth part.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2007-09-25-0709240238-story.html
The book is a collection of many disparate voices, even if seemingly from one culture, in a time that was culturally significant for the country. Some of those pieces may not be as well-written or as easy to relate to, but recognizing that variety is important.
If you are really into oratory:
The Words of Cesar Chavez by Richard J Jensen
This was not what I expected, though it was right in the title.
Yes, there is some biographical information on Chavez which is very interesting. Yes, you get to read quite a bit of his speeches and the contexts. And yes, there are also long passages evaluating the rhetorical methods and Chavez's performance as a "rhetor".
The focus on that is not even wrong; Chavez was a remarkable speaker and would not have studied rhetoric at the level at which he used it, but it is kind of a niche interest. There are probably biographies out there that would have made me happier.
I think the real problem is that I don't care for literary fiction:
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Roxane Gay read and praised this book before it was published, so I had been waiting to read it a long time.
It is good, but it is also a lot of people making bad choices, and fictional. In a great over-simplification of things, l like what I read to be real or happy, but why would you choose to wallow in despair? (Except that sometimes the material requires it, but there are reasons I mainly read non-fiction now, and when I do read fiction it tends to be YA.)
It felt a lot like I felt about The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez, way back in 2019.
Coming up...
In theory, around September 15th I will start again, and it can include the rest of those movies from that one list, and the four books I added after I started this round of reading, and the authors listed by Sandra Cisneros in A House of My Own, and material in my El Salvador note from What You Have Heard is True. For whether I start on time, and how much of it will I get to and how long it will take me...
and yet, I feel good about the journey.
February 28, 2023
Why didn't it matter?
For a quick recap, two years ago I blogged about allegations against musician James Dewees.
The allegations were on an Instagram page that claimed to be from multiple people. After reading through every post, I found the the accusations were that he preyed on vulnerable women so he could get money from them and live with them, not what "predator" generally brings to mind. There were other issues, and those were the things I posted about in the original blog.
After receiving two angry but anonymous messages, I later went back to check the Instagram page and it had been deleted.
It changed nothing. Shortly after the allegations first came out, Dewees was fired from his two main bands. That never changed.
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/06/james-dewees-is-not-predator.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/02/james-dewees-is-not-predator-part-2.html
It does bother me for James Dewees himself, but it also seems to reflect bigger issues. That's why I am still writing about this.
So, why didn't it matter?
I think there are a few different factors.
One is simply a matter of power.
That certainly refers to the amount of fans James Dewees has, but it also refers to my not having a large audience.
Realistically, I could also have tried harder; posting twice in two years is not a super-focused effort.
I don't believe more effort would have paid off. Maybe if those efforts were toward building my audience first, but I don't know.
Some of that is also the means. I mentioned the "I'm not reading all that" response... blogs don't seem that popular right now. Maybe if it were picked up by a popular podcast, that would work.
I am not the ideal person to make that happen. I don't have the patience to listen to podcasts, let alone produce them or network with them.
We here get into an area where the question becomes what one's responsibility is.
I have very little interest in building my brand or my fan base, but I do have an interest in promoting justice and fairness and seeing people do well. Do I have to change how I do things to be effective?
While we can certainly argue that popularity should not act as protection, and that justice should not require fame, we can also see examples indicating that maybe that is how it works.
That matters, because the other thing that I think is a real issue is apathy about what happens. Do we care enough about what is right? Do we care when it does not directly affect us?
Next week, more examples, and more questions.
February 24, 2023
Hispanic Heritage Reading: Clemente
Let me start with some background.
One of my high school jobs was at K-mart, and one of the areas I worked was tidying the toy aisle. It faced rougher treatment than, say, cleaning products.
Those toys included baseball action figures, and that was where I first saw Roberto Clemente.
I don't remember the series, but Willie Mays was another one. I think Clemente stuck out because I had never heard of him before, but also because his photo was so engaging.
I don't merely mean that he was handsome, though he was. There was this openness and strength coming through. He apparently had that effect on people in person, but it doesn't always come through in a photo.
Later on I learned that he had died while on a flight taking humanitarian supplies.
I would not have been opposed to learning more about him, but I guess what got him into this round of reading was a Jeopardy! category on graphic novels that were biographies. I had read Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, but not even heard of the four others. I have read all of them now.
The most graphically lush was Mike Allred's Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams.
It's opposite was The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television by Koren Shadmi, starkly black and white.
The two made a good pairing for such different lives treated so differently, but similar in excellence.
(Plus there are scenes where Bowie sees a gremlin on a plane wing, clearly referencing The Twilight Zone as well as Bowie's discomfort with flying, but in the other book Serling looks out at a plane wing and there is no gremlin, even though you are thinking of the gremlin.)
Houdini: The Handcuff King wasn't that good, and seemed to speculate more than was necessary.
21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago was okay, but I felt like there was a lot missing. That is when I decided to read Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss.
Having now covered which books related to Roberto Clemente and why, here are three thoughts:
One small part of the comic was Roberto being irritated with The Lone Ranger and Tonto's name meaning "fool" or "stupid" in Spanish.
Here's the irritating thing; I read it in July 2021, and I don't remember what they called him in the Spanish comics. There was something else. Maybe Toro?
It resonates more now, after watching Machuca, because they had been building an analogy of the friendship between Gonzalo and Pedro, using the popular comic, with the question being asked of whether an white person and an Indian can truly be friends.
That was the first time in the movie that I really thought about the color difference. Gonzalo was lighter-skinned and it saved him from being relocated with the rest of the shantytown.
Not seeing color is good, right?
Let's move to the next thought.
Clemente did have a lot of pride in his origins. As a Black Puerto Rican, he faced language and color barriers in the States that he did not experience at home; that was a hardship.
There were some issues in Pittsburgh, but it was worst during spring training in Florida, which had more entrenched segregation back then. That meant that there were bars and restaurants that his white teammates could go into that he couldn't. There were times when he could not ride with them, and he could not stay at the same hotels as them.
This would be frustrating anyway, but it stands out because there was a former teammate who was asked about Clemente and said that Clemente never tried that hard to get to know them. The teammate did not seem to reflect on how much of that social time was held in places where their Black teammates could not enter.
He didn't have to notice, and he didn't; that is one reason why not seeing color -- even if true -- is not ideal.
Finally, there is the matter of Clemente's death.
It wasn't what I thought. I had this image of a plane having issues mid-flight and just disappearing, no remains being found.
In fact it was an overloaded, under-maintained plane that had issues right on takeoff, but it was near the ocean, and did go into the shark-infested waters. There were some traces found, but not much of the people inside.
The relief was for Nicaraguans affected by an earthquake. While it was destructive enough to create many problems, those were worsened by the government at the time. A previous shipment had only gotten through because Clemente's name was invoked, and that was why he felt the need to go personally.
Clemente had always felt he would die young, and often that it might be in a plane, and he'd even had a presentiment that something bad was going to happen at New Year's. Those would all be reasons not to go.
He was also someone who believed strongly that if you weren't helping others you were wasting your life. Perhaps all of those feelings reconciled him to the risk, even if he was not expecting that flight to crash.
And yet, there is still so much else that contributed to the death.
If President Somoza had not been holding up supplies, and exploiting the situation. Or if he were not a baseball fan, and Clemente's name wouldn't have made the difference...
If they had not needed another plane, and been offered one on short notice...
If that plane had not been under-maintained, and overloaded and unbalanced by people who should have known better as the professionals but did not care...
If those many attempts to revoke the plane owner's license had worked, so he wasn't even around offering his services to people who did not know how irresponsible he was...
And the owner died too, and the pilot whom he hired at the last minute, possibly ill-advisedly, so it's not that they were trying to be that incompetent, but it still happened.
Which I guess is to add that you may not realize how important the little corner that you oversee is. The corrupt president of a suffering country may know that he has real responsibility, though not think too much about the impact, but the aviation official who writes up a ticket, and the owner who fights it and the judge who allows the dismissal, the pilot who is tired and is trained, but maybe not thoroughly...
It all adds up.
February 21, 2023
James Dewees is not a predator, part 2
For this current round of writing, I kept thinking that it would end up revisiting this post. I was having a hard time getting started, until I realized I had the order wrong.
Here is the first part, from June 2021:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/06/james-dewees-is-not-predator.html
In summary, there was an Instagram page that accused musician James Dewees of being a predator, and about the time that came out he was fired from two band, which seemed pretty damning.
I read those posts and found a lot of holes, but the biggest one was that even though the word "predator" was used, predatory behavior was not demonstrated. The premise was that he was using women for money, but it didn't really hold up.
Obviously there is a lot more detail in my blog post, but what is missing is what happened after.
The next day, there was an anonymous comment on my blog, saying they knew it was hard but I just needed to accept that he hurt people.
I have to approve blog comments before they are published. If there had been contact information I would have engaged, and if there had been anything new that seemed relevant, I would have published it, even if I immediately posted a reply questioning it. As it was, if repeating accusations with no backup was enough, I would never have blogged about it in the first place. I deleted.
The next day there was a similar, angrier comment about how dared I call myself a feminist. It was still anonymous and without any substantiation, so I deleted again.
I remember from those comments feeling sure that it was her, that there had never been a "they" (which I already felt pretty sure about), and that my analysis was correct. I did wonder if there would be any new posts on the Instagram. I think it was a few days later that I checked.
The entire page was gone.
Did I do that? I don't know. Maybe.
(Near the end I included what things were easy to document, and that it seemed like material harm could be demonstrated pretty easily, so that may have had an effect.)
Did it matter? Not really.
I mean, James wasn't suddenly back in bands, and as recently as December there was a post with someone asking about James and someone calling him a pedophile, even though that was never among the original accusations.
At the time, I did do some searches, and I did post a link to the blog in response to one tweet about the accusations. I got this response:
"I'm not reading all that, but I'm happy for you, or sorry that happened."
That was actually the first time I saw that one, but I have seen it many times since. It is a proud declaration of unwillingness to engage, except not responding at all would be more effective non-engagement.
It was more annoying because the person who posted it was not the one who asked; not saying anything would have been fine.
On a different level, it was worse than annoying, because it was so wrong.
Someone lied and damaged someone else's life, and not only did people not care about that, what they remembered was worse than the original lies.
I believe what I did was right -- even without it mattering -- but I also at times feel bad about it. The false ones are such a low percentage of accusations in general... is that even a good focus area?
Except, that is the one where I might actually have something to contribute.
In addition, I can't believe that the price of standing up for the wrongfully accused is harming others who have been abused. It certainly doesn't have to be.
A big part of that will be listening to accusations. That is important for the victimized, but that listening is also what allows the false accusations to unravel.
It seems obvious, but then we break into teams, where we like this person, or hate this person, or have unacknowledged bias against this person.
There is a lot to unravel, and I am going to spend some time on that.
Otherwise, the one thing I did differently before posting this was that I took the Word document that had all of the screenshots and quotes and saved it as a PDF, just in case anyone is ever interested.
February 17, 2023
Hispanic Heritage Reading: More mission memories
Back in 2018, some reading I did regarding Native American (including Canadian) history reminded me of some things from my mission. While at the time they sounded vaguely wrong -- which is why they stuck with me -- what I read years later clarified something that was definitely wrong and racist.
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/02/nahm-mission-memories.html
This time it happened during a different reading month.
Our branch president in one area had served in the Navy in World War II. He was telling a story at one time about going out and looking for these "zoot suiters".
I don't remember exactly how I expressed my chagrin, because it sounded like looking for trouble and beating people up, which is of course not very Christian. He defended it by describing the way they dressed, giving the impression of them as being disreputable people who were really asking for it.
He did not make clear that they were Hispanic.
It would not have made the story sound better, but it was key.
It made sense that he focused on how they were dressed, because part of the war efforts involved saving fabric by using less cloth. A good zoot suit used some extra yardage.
But it was really the racism.
There was prejudiced newspaper coverage about the dangerous gangs before there was a fabric issue, and much of that coverage appears to have been based on insinuation rather than actual threat.
It does make sense that he did not mention them being brown people; we were there working with Laotian refugees and it might have seemed hypocritical.
It was more surprising that he mentioned going out and looking for a fight, except that I think there was a part of him that felt good and strong and right then. After all, they wasted cloth!
Fifty years later, I don't think he had moved past that understanding.
There would have been opportunities. After then-governor Earl Warren appointed a commission to look into it, the results included this statement:
“In undertaking to deal with the cause of these outbreaks, the existence of race prejudice cannot be ignored.”
Also, what eventually stopped the riots was military personnel being confined to barracks. The "dangerous, criminal" element was not rioting on their own, despite making up the bulk of those arrested.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/zoot-suit-riots
Surprisingly, this additional learning did not damage my view of President Shepherd that much; I mean, I felt that it wasn't good, even without understanding why, and it was not the sum total of him as a person.
It does get me really irritated about the song "Zoot Suit Riot".
The song does pay some homage to Mexican-American musician Lalo Guerrero, but mostly I started realizing it is a song of cultural appropriation.
Musician Steve Perry calls it "an expression of proud marginalism", admitting that it is not deep.
Well, that makes sense too. They needed to capitalize on increasing popularity by rushing out a new album, including four new songs. That's not a situation that encourages depth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riot_(song)
Without wanting to be too hard on the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, we should be deeper. When there is a marginalized identity that you can play around in for fun, but it is rooted in racism that you never have to experience, ignoring that is part of upholding systemic racism.
We need to be better.
That can start by listening to those who are marginalized.
The specific materials for this were watching Zoot Suit, the 1979 play by Luis Valdez or, in my case, the 1981 filmed version.
In addition, I read Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle.
The siblings in this book may enjoy the music and dancing, but they also have schooling and jobs and they face prejudice. That part of their experience reminded me of two other books:
Dolores Huerta Stands Strong: The Woman Who Demanded Justice by Marlene Targ Brill
Dolores Huerta's youth and schooling shows some more about the racism at the time, as a a biography this book was very much a part of this reading. The other was not:
Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama by Diane Fujino
Being Japanese-American had different challenges for World War II, but there are similarities just the same.
February 14, 2023
A Valentine
Twitter quality went down again, and at a time that demonstrates why that is an issue, but I want to keep it kind of short and positive today.
One thing that I expect to go off on soon is how dominator culture manifests in taking sides, where you will find people wholly devoted to their team at the expense of any logic or integrity.
There are forces that skew in that direction, so I am not saying this is the only cause, but I suspect one cause is a lack of self-worth.
If you don't feel like you have much value or make much difference, it may seem more plausible that affiliating with someone who has wealth or fame or beauty will be the ticket, like you can share theirs.
You can't, but if you were feeling like that was your path, maybe then you would feel compelled to overlook their faults and deny any wrongdoing on their part. Maybe that would lead to things like doing name searches and camping out in the mentions of strangers who criticize your hero.
This is purely speculation. I see it happen, but I don't know for sure why it happens. My first thought is that it's weird, but then my second thought is "Maybe they don't like themselves."
There are a lot of forces out there telling you that you are worthless.
But you're not.
That's the important thing for me to say.
You have value as a living being, a human, a child of God.
There is room for disagreement on the best way of saying that. Some people won't be thrilled with the religious reference on the last one, but if I just say "a human" that seems to overlook my value for other living beings.
And I know some no longer living who are dearly missed.
They all matter, and so do you.
You are also capable of making a difference, but you will be able to do that better by showing kindness and support to those around you, organizing for social change, and working for a better world. No, you may not accomplish all you want to, but it can still have worth, especially on an individual level.
With my love,
Gina
February 10, 2023
Hispanic Heritage Reading: Catching up
That section had two posts, and there were more comics than usual:
I didn't write about it, but I was reading all along. I'd had a list that was my goal, and I was waiting to write until I finished that. This happened when I finished Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by Robert Maraniss on January 25th, while on vacation.
(I'd said that was coming up: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/sports-movies.html.)
The thought was that I was going to finish all of the books related to Hispanic Heritage that were already on my list. Then I would go to the list of authors that came from Sandra Cisneros the following year. I guess I start that in September now, for 2023.
Of course, I did add books that were not expected. Also -- because I like to thwart myself -- I went through my Goodreads to-read list, and found four relevant books that were added to the Goodreads after I had entered books in the spreadsheet.
I think I will try and mix them in with the authors I took down from Sandra Cisneros.
As it is, here is the overall list of books:
A Box Full of Kittens by Sonia Manzano
21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago
Aztlán and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War edited by George Mariscal
Silver, Sword, & Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Maria Arana
Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Dolores Huerta Stands Strong: The Woman Who Demanded Justice by Marlene Targ Brill
The Words of Cesar Chavez by Richard J Jensen
Decoding Despacito: An Oral History of Latin Music by Leila Cobo
Violence Girl by Alice Bag
What You Have Heard Is True by Carolyn Forché
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss
While I had already written about movies, I forgot that there were three others.
Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado -- This was a documentary about a television personality who gave horoscopes and was very popular. I was not familiar with him, but it was interesting and there would be many people who do remember him and for whom it would be a big deal. There are some sad twists, but ultimately I am glad that this project came when it did, and that he was able to get some recognition again.
Zoot Suit -- Long ago in Spanish class we read a piece about Luis Valdez. He is known for being the writer and director of La Bamba, but he had done much more than that and I have always wanted to see one of his plays. As it turns out, there was a filmed version of Zoot Suit that even had some familiar faces in it (Edward James Olmos, Tyne Daly, and Tony Plana). Ultimately, at some point I should read more about El Teatro Campesino.
Encanto -- I'm sure I would have watched this eventually, but it happened sooner because of people writing about trauma, and also quoting lyrics from "Under the Surface" that sounded like me. I have written about the movie, but in a different context: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/all-better.html
As you can see, as I have started writing more, other references come up. That includes Decoding Despacito (and that I will want to revisit it) and Aztlán and Viet Nam in writing about the daily songs:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/hispanic-heritage-month-2022-songs.html
I know that there are at least two topics that relate to some of the books that I will want to address further; then we will see how it goes. Given the years gone by, more than one post is probably fair.
In the meantime, it may be interesting to know that 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente was in a Jeopardy! category on graphic memoirs. I had only read one of the clues previously (Fun Home by Alison Bechdel), but I have read all of them now.
I read Violence Girl by Alice Bag because it was on a list of rock biographies, some of which I had read, and several of which I had no interest in, but she was one of six that I added to my list.
February 7, 2023
Meanwhile, back on Twitter...
Yes, I am still on Twitter. I have noticed some changes, and there are some things that I know are happening that don't affect me directly.
For example, I am not a big account, and I am white, so I don't generally draw harassment. When I see it happening to others, I still report it, and they are not responding well.
The result that I see more is that there are people moving away from Twitter whose input I value. That is a loss. There are still some great people, but they could go at any time, and there isn't a good reason to discourage them.
It would be surprising if Twitter were doing a good job of limiting racist or sexist harassment, because they have not only made a big deal of inviting the worst people back, but also they are doing things to push engagement with those terrible people.
For example, I had to block Kyle Rittenhouse and Marjorie Taylor Green. I never followed them, or liked anything they posted, or felt anything but disgust for them, and yet there they were, showing up in my feed.
Of course the current CEO says this is important for free speech, but it is a very specific type of speech that he values.
I know a lot of people have been finding this amusing, some for believing it proves that Elon Musk is no genius.
There was already enough evidence.He still has weirdly obsessed defenders (which I believe is part of something else I will get to at another time).That ignores the question of whether there is a greater purpose.Now, if there is a greater purpose being served, that still doesn't make him smart.
Twitter has been important for raising marginalized voices, which is not something I would expect Musk to support. It has also been a valuable resource for organizing, especially in the Middle East. With Musk's relationship with Saudi Arabia, that might be more deliberate than incompetent.
Don't get me wrong; the Saudis could totally be harnessing his hubris without letting him onto the plan. Of course, they could also want it to succeed financially and have plans to murder and dissect him if they lose money.
I do not claim to know anything on that level; that's his problem. From a business point of view, Twitter's profitability was going to be in advertising, where a good user experience and competence in placing the ads was always going to be the key. Taking away the staff that was in charge of that, messing up ad roll-out and user experience, and attempting to compensate by asking your verified accounts -- who draw users and increase their satisfaction -- to pay for the privilege... that is not smart, and I believe Musk is not smart.
However, that can work well for taking away an important tool for organizers and a chance for people to tell their stories, especially the marginalized, while amplifying voices of hate... that is a completely separate goal. It has also been indicated that information will be turned over, even from direct messages, so reasonable expectations of privacy are gone. It's evil, but I believe Musk is evil as well (and still not smart).
Shortly after the transition, there really were thoughts that one day the servers would be down, and it would just be gone. That seems less likely now, but I remember sending messages to people I followed, mentioning things I liked or wishing them good luck... just whatever I remembered not wanting to leave unsaid.
I don't blame anyone who has left, but I have stayed. I am staying for the people.
So far I do not have any interest in switching to some other platform. Frankly, I'm a relic anyway; look at me blogging when even cool old people are doing vlogs and podcasts.
I've got to be me.
Part of being me means caring about people, and looking out for them. While I can do that on Twitter, I will. That is one way in which Twitter worked well for me. I may be doing that now with a more enhanced awareness of how finite some things can be. I hope I am using that awareness to be more thoughtful and open.
For the various things that Twitter did well, it was valuable. Its destruction via increased racism and incompetence is wrong. It is a loss.
Whether the incompetent guy is also being manipulated by smart people is interesting, but if it's sheer incompetence, that loss is no less real.
