Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 871

February 7, 2016

A fortified bonanza of white men and manhood: What the hell was I doing at the biggest gun trade show in the world?

The 2016 SHOT Show was held this past week in the cross hairs of the Las Vegas Strip. It’s the biggest gun trade show in the world with 62,000 attendees and industry dealers from 100 countries showing the latest in firearms technology. Every possible gun, bullet, sight, silencer and ballistic pogo stick you could imagine was on display. The “SHOT” in SHOT Show stands for Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show. Because these are people who may occasionally mow down deer with assault rifles. The SHOT Show is run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry based out of Newtown, Connecticut, three miles from Sandy Hook Elementary. Next to the NRA, it's America’s other big gun lobby. The NSSF says its mission is: "To promote, protect, and preserve hunting and the shooting sports." Meaning, it's argued against limits on high-capacity magazines and supports legislation allowing concealed carry. It's also tried to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating chemicals in ammunition. The NSSF doesn’t want you using the words “assault rifle.” It’s just a rifle to them. AR actually stands for ArmaLite rifle, which is the company that first developed them in the 1950s. It was made clear I was not to ask any of the exhibitors about gun control. Nor was I to ask questions like, “Is this the same kind of gun that shot the kids at Sandy Hook Elementary?” Strolling into the immense grid layout, I entered Sands Expo Center’s 630,000-square-foot vortex of testosterone and power. A fortified bonanza of white men and manhood. My initial conversations with exhibitors were about smart gun technology -- the use of fingerprint recognition or transmitters to unlock the trigger mechanisms of a gun. Some were OK with it, some were not. Vendor Omer Kiyani of Smart Tech was there from Detroit with his IDENTILOCK fingerprint-access trigger lock system. He’s a parent, who wants his kids to be safe from the gun he got to keep them safe. Those against smart guns have problems with their reliability. They say the fingerprint access won’t work if a hand is covered in blood, possibly at the moment the gun is needed most. Lots of smart guns also rely on batteries, and a dead battery could render a gun useless as well. A few gun owners I spoke to didn’t like the smart gun technology because they don’t like the idea that the government could potentially “disable all the guns with the touch of a button.” Further down the carpet was a display of gloved mannequin hands with hypodermic needles stuck up against them. This was TurtleSkin, from New Ipswich, New Hampshire, which make needle-proof gloves. “Think about police officers having to search pockets and bags,” the rep said. “HIV, hepatitis C and other blood borne diseases can be transmitted from needles pricking skin. It’s a real danger. We can protect up to a 28-gauge hypodermic needle.” Next, a bullet booth caught my eye. ICC Ammo out of Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania. They make lead-free bullets that don’t ricochet. The representative said, “You wouldn’t believe how many people are injured every year from ricocheting bullets. Anywhere you’re firing guns in close confines, these bullets are safer.” The technology is called frangibility. A frangible bullet breaks into smaller pieces when it strikes an object harder than it. The drawback? These bullets cost 30 percent more. “In 2006, New Jersey was going to have their law enforcement go lead-free,” the rep said, “but when they saw the cost, they backed off.” After a couple of hours of wandering, the tactical Law Enforcement and Armed Forces sections became indistinguishable from the hunting sections. The SHOT Show’s motto is “gear up.” Guns were everywhere, rifles the size of station wagons. It all devolved in my head. There were AR-15’s near the sporting section. Gear Up, for people who might like to spray automatic rounds at fowl and pheasants? You never know when that trumpeter swan is going to unload its M50 Mega-Cannon at you from the reeds. Guns bigger than barges were in the duck/buck booths. “Really, what ducks are you hunting with these things?” I asked. “A duck that’s a tank?” Made a stop at the SHOT Show beer bar and had a light beer. Overheard someone say, “Guns need alcohol almost as much as they do bullets." You ever heard of a red-breasted merganser? They’re large, thin diving ducks with orange to red-orange bills. Two men in a booth for sights discussed a hunt, but I thought they were saying "mansplainer," not merganser. The taxidermy and mounting of a mansplainer, so I moved closer where I realized it was a bird they mounted not a man. Big NRA banners over a matte black NRA Jeep read, “Every gun owner must engage in the fight. NRA Ring of Freedom Members are essential to preserving the second amendment.” Ring of Freedom Members also go straight from the gun show to the Cheetah Lounge Strip Club. People in the infrared section were the most normal. They just want to see at night. Here is how to get kicked out of the pistol section: inspect a Glock for eight minutes. When the rep approaches, turn away quickly, like he’s trying to steal your slice of cake. Everyone I talked to there was voting Republican. They don’t want Democrats in office, yet Democrats politicking for stricter gun laws cause gun sales to spike. What benefits the firearms industry goes against their beliefs. Fear is their ally. I felt like I needed protection, so I found Miguel Caballero’s booth, the bulletproof tailor from Bogotá, Colombia. He’s the king of discreet, wearable, bulletproof fashion, from military grade down to casual suede. At some point, we will all be bulletproofed. (A few weeks earlier, Caballero had shot me with a .38 at his warehouse in Bogotá.) In Vegas he was excited to unveil a new vest, combining riot-proof, bulletproof and stab-resistant elements. He said his objective at the show was to find new distribution channels in the U.S. The SHOT Show has a list of 110,000 gun shops in America, where his products could potentially be sold. Caballero stores will open in China this April. I asked Caballero what the future of bulletproof technology is. “Liquid armor,” he said. “It will get thinner, lighter, stronger and more discreet.” He also talked about developing sound waves to the point where they could be deployed to alter and slow approaching bullets. “It’s way, way in the future, but maybe it could be.” What Caballero is talking about with the sound waves is basically a force field. You heard that right. Force fields and deflector shields are coming. The end of the SHOT Show was a Trump-voting stampede spilling through the corridors of the Sands Center into the early evening air of the Vegas Strip. Like sperm getting shot out of the vast sparkling gonad in the desert toward gambling and the golden egg. All these people, wall-to-wall gun supporters, who think more guns are the answer. I had all the infrared sights and moose-call whistles I could carry. Run for your lives. Trent Moorman is an Atlanta-born writer and drummer living in Seattle. His work has appeared in VICE, Rolling Stone,Tape Op and Motherboard. For five years he has had a music column in print with Seattle’s The Stranger Weekly. He was once kicked out of a Yanni teleconference. Recently, he was shot by a bulletproof tailor in Bogotá, Colombia.The 2016 SHOT Show was held this past week in the cross hairs of the Las Vegas Strip. It’s the biggest gun trade show in the world with 62,000 attendees and industry dealers from 100 countries showing the latest in firearms technology. Every possible gun, bullet, sight, silencer and ballistic pogo stick you could imagine was on display. The “SHOT” in SHOT Show stands for Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show. Because these are people who may occasionally mow down deer with assault rifles. The SHOT Show is run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry based out of Newtown, Connecticut, three miles from Sandy Hook Elementary. Next to the NRA, it's America’s other big gun lobby. The NSSF says its mission is: "To promote, protect, and preserve hunting and the shooting sports." Meaning, it's argued against limits on high-capacity magazines and supports legislation allowing concealed carry. It's also tried to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating chemicals in ammunition. The NSSF doesn’t want you using the words “assault rifle.” It’s just a rifle to them. AR actually stands for ArmaLite rifle, which is the company that first developed them in the 1950s. It was made clear I was not to ask any of the exhibitors about gun control. Nor was I to ask questions like, “Is this the same kind of gun that shot the kids at Sandy Hook Elementary?” Strolling into the immense grid layout, I entered Sands Expo Center’s 630,000-square-foot vortex of testosterone and power. A fortified bonanza of white men and manhood. My initial conversations with exhibitors were about smart gun technology -- the use of fingerprint recognition or transmitters to unlock the trigger mechanisms of a gun. Some were OK with it, some were not. Vendor Omer Kiyani of Smart Tech was there from Detroit with his IDENTILOCK fingerprint-access trigger lock system. He’s a parent, who wants his kids to be safe from the gun he got to keep them safe. Those against smart guns have problems with their reliability. They say the fingerprint access won’t work if a hand is covered in blood, possibly at the moment the gun is needed most. Lots of smart guns also rely on batteries, and a dead battery could render a gun useless as well. A few gun owners I spoke to didn’t like the smart gun technology because they don’t like the idea that the government could potentially “disable all the guns with the touch of a button.” Further down the carpet was a display of gloved mannequin hands with hypodermic needles stuck up against them. This was TurtleSkin, from New Ipswich, New Hampshire, which make needle-proof gloves. “Think about police officers having to search pockets and bags,” the rep said. “HIV, hepatitis C and other blood borne diseases can be transmitted from needles pricking skin. It’s a real danger. We can protect up to a 28-gauge hypodermic needle.” Next, a bullet booth caught my eye. ICC Ammo out of Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania. They make lead-free bullets that don’t ricochet. The representative said, “You wouldn’t believe how many people are injured every year from ricocheting bullets. Anywhere you’re firing guns in close confines, these bullets are safer.” The technology is called frangibility. A frangible bullet breaks into smaller pieces when it strikes an object harder than it. The drawback? These bullets cost 30 percent more. “In 2006, New Jersey was going to have their law enforcement go lead-free,” the rep said, “but when they saw the cost, they backed off.” After a couple of hours of wandering, the tactical Law Enforcement and Armed Forces sections became indistinguishable from the hunting sections. The SHOT Show’s motto is “gear up.” Guns were everywhere, rifles the size of station wagons. It all devolved in my head. There were AR-15’s near the sporting section. Gear Up, for people who might like to spray automatic rounds at fowl and pheasants? You never know when that trumpeter swan is going to unload its M50 Mega-Cannon at you from the reeds. Guns bigger than barges were in the duck/buck booths. “Really, what ducks are you hunting with these things?” I asked. “A duck that’s a tank?” Made a stop at the SHOT Show beer bar and had a light beer. Overheard someone say, “Guns need alcohol almost as much as they do bullets." You ever heard of a red-breasted merganser? They’re large, thin diving ducks with orange to red-orange bills. Two men in a booth for sights discussed a hunt, but I thought they were saying "mansplainer," not merganser. The taxidermy and mounting of a mansplainer, so I moved closer where I realized it was a bird they mounted not a man. Big NRA banners over a matte black NRA Jeep read, “Every gun owner must engage in the fight. NRA Ring of Freedom Members are essential to preserving the second amendment.” Ring of Freedom Members also go straight from the gun show to the Cheetah Lounge Strip Club. People in the infrared section were the most normal. They just want to see at night. Here is how to get kicked out of the pistol section: inspect a Glock for eight minutes. When the rep approaches, turn away quickly, like he’s trying to steal your slice of cake. Everyone I talked to there was voting Republican. They don’t want Democrats in office, yet Democrats politicking for stricter gun laws cause gun sales to spike. What benefits the firearms industry goes against their beliefs. Fear is their ally. I felt like I needed protection, so I found Miguel Caballero’s booth, the bulletproof tailor from Bogotá, Colombia. He’s the king of discreet, wearable, bulletproof fashion, from military grade down to casual suede. At some point, we will all be bulletproofed. (A few weeks earlier, Caballero had shot me with a .38 at his warehouse in Bogotá.) In Vegas he was excited to unveil a new vest, combining riot-proof, bulletproof and stab-resistant elements. He said his objective at the show was to find new distribution channels in the U.S. The SHOT Show has a list of 110,000 gun shops in America, where his products could potentially be sold. Caballero stores will open in China this April. I asked Caballero what the future of bulletproof technology is. “Liquid armor,” he said. “It will get thinner, lighter, stronger and more discreet.” He also talked about developing sound waves to the point where they could be deployed to alter and slow approaching bullets. “It’s way, way in the future, but maybe it could be.” What Caballero is talking about with the sound waves is basically a force field. You heard that right. Force fields and deflector shields are coming. The end of the SHOT Show was a Trump-voting stampede spilling through the corridors of the Sands Center into the early evening air of the Vegas Strip. Like sperm getting shot out of the vast sparkling gonad in the desert toward gambling and the golden egg. All these people, wall-to-wall gun supporters, who think more guns are the answer. I had all the infrared sights and moose-call whistles I could carry. Run for your lives. Trent Moorman is an Atlanta-born writer and drummer living in Seattle. His work has appeared in VICE, Rolling Stone,Tape Op and Motherboard. For five years he has had a music column in print with Seattle’s The Stranger Weekly. He was once kicked out of a Yanni teleconference. Recently, he was shot by a bulletproof tailor in Bogotá, Colombia.

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Published on February 07, 2016 11:00

February 6, 2016

Why Chris Christie’s beatdown of Marco Rubio was the only moment from the GOP debate that mattered

The moment when Saturday night's Republican presidential primary debate was effectively over came long before the seven candidates left the stage at the St. Anselm's College Institute of Politics in Manchester. About 30-odd minutes in, ABC’s moderators, the frankly abysmal Martha Radditz and David Muir, turned the klieg lights onto Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio. What transpired next was one of the best pieces of debate-stage political theater in recent memory (which isn’t saying much; although I’d bet guys like Carl Diggler had fun). And if it’s possible for a moment from a debate to have a lasting impact on a presidential campaign — which recent history suggests is no small question — I’m guessing that the gleeful whooping Christie proceeded to administer to Rubio will be remembered as one such moment. Before I explain why, though, you’ll have to let me set the scene. Going into the debate, neither Christie nor Rubio were especially likely to come out of next week’s New Hampshire primary with a win. According to the polls, overall, New Hampshire remains what it has been for much of this primary: Trump territory. The real game, then, was over which “establishment” candidate — Rubio, Bush, Christie, or Kasich — would finish second (or conceivably third, if Cruz was the runner-up). After parlaying a third-place finish into first-place momentum in the Iowa caucuses — with a lot of help from the media, by the way — Rubio was the most likely second-place finisher. Which explains why Christie, who has basically been living in New Hampshire for the past year, started hammering the senator as a novice with no accomplishments; a nice guy, sure, but also a rookie. It explains Bush and Christie’s unofficial, temporary détente, too. It was bound to be dramatic, therefore, when Christie and Rubio were first pitted against one another. Still, even if we acknowledge that the matchup of these two abnormally telegenic politicians (in the broadest sense of the term) was bound to make for better television than the somnambulant, passive-aggressive, I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed nonsense Dr. Ben Carson was laying on Sen. Ted Cruz, the results were extraordinary. Things got started when Rubio was asked to respond to Christie’s allegation that, after experiencing the presidency of Barack Obama, who was elected as a first-term U.S. senator, it would be especially unfortunate if the Republican Party were itself to nominate Marco Rubio, a first term U.S. senator, for the White House. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Christie had said (bettering his former benefactor, George). Rubio’s comeback was pretty good, if a little obvious in its intent: He argued that experience was overrated; if it mattered, Vice President Joe Biden would be a good candidate for commander-in-chief. He then argued that an unspoken premise of the criticism — that Obama has failed in part due to his inexperience — is faulty. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, Rubio said. The president is not a fool; he’s a menace. Christie wasn’t having it, dismissing Rubio’s Biden straw man and recommitting to his initial attack. Rubio’s a nice guy, a smart guy, Christie said; but the simple fact is that he’s never had to make an important decision. This got a noticeable round of applause from the audience. And perhaps that’s why Rubio then proceeded to self-destruct. What Rubio’s next five or so minutes such a disaster wasn’t really what he said — but the fact that he had already just said it. Looking mighty flummoxed, Rubio tried to parry Christie’s second attack by pivoting once again to Obama, hoping to bring the crowd around to his side by using generous helpings of ideological red meat to help their tribal identification overwhelm their intellect. It had already failed, but he was doing it again. Worse still, his second answer was almost a verbatim repeat of his first. Remember: The knock on Rubio has always been, essentially, that he’s a lightweight. He’s young, pretty good-looking, and he exudes the kind of Kennedy-esque earnest, “idealistic” machismo that seems to send a thrill up the legs of the Republican Party’s aged voter base (as well the aging ranks of the elite political press). As they once said of that cherubic whippersnapper Al Gore, Rubio is an older person’s idea of a young person. There may not be much there there, in short. Well, it’s hard to imagine anything Rubio could have possibly done that would more immediately, and humorously, affirm the caricature. Here he was, really being challenged for the first time — and by Christie, a world-class bully, no less — and he was wilting. He was like an artificially intelligent robot confronted with a logical question his programming couldn’t handle. I worried for a moment that my stream of the debate had begun to skip. Whether due to incompetence or pity, the moderators tried to move on. But like a really big, mean, and sadistic shark, Christie was all over it. He mocked Rubio for falling back on his talking points — something all politicians do, but rarely so conspicuously — and continued to shred the senator’s (lack of a) record, as well as tout his own hands-on experience governing New Jersey. Rubio tried to tu quoque Christie, noting that the governor had only grudgingly returned to the Garden State during a recent snowstorm. Christie all but rolled his eyes and laughed it off while the audience booed — at Rubio. And then, unbelievably, Rubio started to fall back into repeating the talking point (let’s not pretend Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing…) yet again. “There it is!” Christie interjected. The crowd was with him. Rubio’s emasculation was all but complete. And, I swear to God, about 40 minutes later, he used the same line again. Now, as I said at the beginning, this was far from the end of the night’s festivities. But I’m guessing that the whole rest of the debate put together won’t matter nearly as much as those five minutes. Because perhaps more than any other single traditional element of a presidential campaign, the response to debates — especially primary debates, and especially primary debates on a Saturday night — is influenced by the media. Sometimes it’s a negative influence, granted. But that’s influence all the same. And the media, I promise you, is going to be obsessed with this first, most dramatic Christie-Rubio confrontation. Because not only does it make for good television and good copy (here I am, 1100 words in, and you’re still reading), but it’ll make for great late night jokes and “Saturday Night Live” skits, too. That’s thanks, in part, to its already fitting a pre-established narrative. Christie, the bully you like despite yourself; Rubio, the young, handsome and über-ambitious empty suit. So expect Christie’s dismantling of Rubio to be the part of Saturday night's debate that people remember — if anyone remembers any of it at all. It does not rank among the United States’ most inspirational moments of civic engagement, admittedly. But if nothing else, it showed that professional bullies like Chris Christie can provide a valuable public service every now and then.The moment when Saturday night's Republican presidential primary debate was effectively over came long before the seven candidates left the stage at the St. Anselm's College Institute of Politics in Manchester. About 30-odd minutes in, ABC’s moderators, the frankly abysmal Martha Radditz and David Muir, turned the klieg lights onto Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio. What transpired next was one of the best pieces of debate-stage political theater in recent memory (which isn’t saying much; although I’d bet guys like Carl Diggler had fun). And if it’s possible for a moment from a debate to have a lasting impact on a presidential campaign — which recent history suggests is no small question — I’m guessing that the gleeful whooping Christie proceeded to administer to Rubio will be remembered as one such moment. Before I explain why, though, you’ll have to let me set the scene. Going into the debate, neither Christie nor Rubio were especially likely to come out of next week’s New Hampshire primary with a win. According to the polls, overall, New Hampshire remains what it has been for much of this primary: Trump territory. The real game, then, was over which “establishment” candidate — Rubio, Bush, Christie, or Kasich — would finish second (or conceivably third, if Cruz was the runner-up). After parlaying a third-place finish into first-place momentum in the Iowa caucuses — with a lot of help from the media, by the way — Rubio was the most likely second-place finisher. Which explains why Christie, who has basically been living in New Hampshire for the past year, started hammering the senator as a novice with no accomplishments; a nice guy, sure, but also a rookie. It explains Bush and Christie’s unofficial, temporary détente, too. It was bound to be dramatic, therefore, when Christie and Rubio were first pitted against one another. Still, even if we acknowledge that the matchup of these two abnormally telegenic politicians (in the broadest sense of the term) was bound to make for better television than the somnambulant, passive-aggressive, I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed nonsense Dr. Ben Carson was laying on Sen. Ted Cruz, the results were extraordinary. Things got started when Rubio was asked to respond to Christie’s allegation that, after experiencing the presidency of Barack Obama, who was elected as a first-term U.S. senator, it would be especially unfortunate if the Republican Party were itself to nominate Marco Rubio, a first term U.S. senator, for the White House. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Christie had said (bettering his former benefactor, George). Rubio’s comeback was pretty good, if a little obvious in its intent: He argued that experience was overrated; if it mattered, Vice President Joe Biden would be a good candidate for commander-in-chief. He then argued that an unspoken premise of the criticism — that Obama has failed in part due to his inexperience — is faulty. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, Rubio said. The president is not a fool; he’s a menace. Christie wasn’t having it, dismissing Rubio’s Biden straw man and recommitting to his initial attack. Rubio’s a nice guy, a smart guy, Christie said; but the simple fact is that he’s never had to make an important decision. This got a noticeable round of applause from the audience. And perhaps that’s why Rubio then proceeded to self-destruct. What Rubio’s next five or so minutes such a disaster wasn’t really what he said — but the fact that he had already just said it. Looking mighty flummoxed, Rubio tried to parry Christie’s second attack by pivoting once again to Obama, hoping to bring the crowd around to his side by using generous helpings of ideological red meat to help their tribal identification overwhelm their intellect. It had already failed, but he was doing it again. Worse still, his second answer was almost a verbatim repeat of his first. Remember: The knock on Rubio has always been, essentially, that he’s a lightweight. He’s young, pretty good-looking, and he exudes the kind of Kennedy-esque earnest, “idealistic” machismo that seems to send a thrill up the legs of the Republican Party’s aged voter base (as well the aging ranks of the elite political press). As they once said of that cherubic whippersnapper Al Gore, Rubio is an older person’s idea of a young person. There may not be much there there, in short. Well, it’s hard to imagine anything Rubio could have possibly done that would more immediately, and humorously, affirm the caricature. Here he was, really being challenged for the first time — and by Christie, a world-class bully, no less — and he was wilting. He was like an artificially intelligent robot confronted with a logical question his programming couldn’t handle. I worried for a moment that my stream of the debate had begun to skip. Whether due to incompetence or pity, the moderators tried to move on. But like a really big, mean, and sadistic shark, Christie was all over it. He mocked Rubio for falling back on his talking points — something all politicians do, but rarely so conspicuously — and continued to shred the senator’s (lack of a) record, as well as tout his own hands-on experience governing New Jersey. Rubio tried to tu quoque Christie, noting that the governor had only grudgingly returned to the Garden State during a recent snowstorm. Christie all but rolled his eyes and laughed it off while the audience booed — at Rubio. And then, unbelievably, Rubio started to fall back into repeating the talking point (let’s not pretend Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing…) yet again. “There it is!” Christie interjected. The crowd was with him. Rubio’s emasculation was all but complete. And, I swear to God, about 40 minutes later, he used the same line again. Now, as I said at the beginning, this was far from the end of the night’s festivities. But I’m guessing that the whole rest of the debate put together won’t matter nearly as much as those five minutes. Because perhaps more than any other single traditional element of a presidential campaign, the response to debates — especially primary debates, and especially primary debates on a Saturday night — is influenced by the media. Sometimes it’s a negative influence, granted. But that’s influence all the same. And the media, I promise you, is going to be obsessed with this first, most dramatic Christie-Rubio confrontation. Because not only does it make for good television and good copy (here I am, 1100 words in, and you’re still reading), but it’ll make for great late night jokes and “Saturday Night Live” skits, too. That’s thanks, in part, to its already fitting a pre-established narrative. Christie, the bully you like despite yourself; Rubio, the young, handsome and über-ambitious empty suit. So expect Christie’s dismantling of Rubio to be the part of Saturday night's debate that people remember — if anyone remembers any of it at all. It does not rank among the United States’ most inspirational moments of civic engagement, admittedly. But if nothing else, it showed that professional bullies like Chris Christie can provide a valuable public service every now and then.

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Published on February 06, 2016 19:37

When my doctor told me I’d be delivering my baby at 32 weeks, I looked at her like she was crazy. Nothing was ready. Not the crib, not his room, and certainly not me. At the same time, I was also a little relieved. My pregnancy had been miserable, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. My son weighed 3 pounds, 10 ounces at birth and was immediately whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit. I was still recovering from pre-eclampsia and a C-section, and could barely get myself down the hall to see him. There were so many things to remember about his care that I felt overwhelmed. He came home after about a week but then had to be readmitted a few days later because he couldn’t regulate his body temperature. I felt helpless and afraid. In those early days, he spent a lot of time sleeping, and that gave me plenty of time to search the Internet for parenting advice.

The strange thing about parenting in the social media age is that it’s both overwhelming and empowering. You can always find plenty of answers to your 2 a.m. feeding questions -- but which answer is right? Like everyone else addicted to social media, parents gravitate toward like-minded people for parenting advice, articles, clever memes and book recommendations. But parenting-by-Internet isn’t just about finding information. Fretful new parents eventually become parent curators, sharing their own collection of resources. Part of what drives the cycle of searching and curating is the desire to figure out who you are as a parent and who you want to be. What’s your personal parenting brand? Attachment parenting? Free-range? Helicopter? Tiger mom? Snowplow? Peaceful parenting? The options are as endless as the Internet.

Once I started to recover from pre-eclampsia and my son grew strong enough to come home again, I desperately wanted to put my miserable hi-tech pregnancy and birth behind me and parent in an intuitive and natural way. I wanted it to feel easy. In those early days, my personal parenting brand was a combination of natural and attachment parenting with a dash of “whatever works.” I practiced co-sleeping and wore him most of the day in a sling. I spent scads of money on the right lactation consultant so I could breastfeed successfully. I bought expensive natural baby-care products and organic baby food. I felt strong and empowered, and no small part of that was fueled by the mass of information I was getting from the parenting information bubble in which I’d found myself. I frequented the Mothering.com message boards and Kellymom.com for breastfeeding. I read the Dr. Sears "Baby Book" and Naomi Wolf’s takedown of the hi-tech birth industry, "Misconceptions." And the cherry on top of the placenta smoothie was that I was living in San Francisco at the time, so I was surrounded by plenty of like-minded parents in real time too.

Within the natural parenting universe, anti-corporate sentiment is common. Parents consciously reject “big food” conglomerates, formula companies and anything emblazoned with licensed characters. But there are corporations in the natural parenting universe too, with carefully composed brands backed by strategy and money. “Dr. Sears” is one of the most recognizable names in the baby products industry. Jessica Alba’s The Honest Company is known for its line of nontoxic natural baby products. Even health and wellness gurus the Food Babe and Gwyneth Paltrow (aka GOOP) have crafted strong personal brands that resonate with their followers, many of whom are moms. But what is the value behind the brand? What do these companies and personalities stand for?

Despite its relatively unassuming name, one of the most recognizable and highly trusted brands for many parents is the Environmental Working Group, or EWG. I know the EWG well. I frequently relied on their first “Dirty Dozen” list to tell me when I should buy organic and avoid those dangerous pesticides dripping from my “dirty” conventional produce. Like so many other parents, I just assumed the EWG’s recommendations were incontrovertible. Blogger Shayna Murray relied on the EWG’s dirty dozen and sunscreen guides when she first became a mom too. “My daughter has both eczema and mild asthma so I was always looking at ways I could keep her conditions under control while minimizing the use of medication. Anything that I could do that seemed "natural" just made sense to me.”

It was only fairly recently that I learned that even though the EWG has secured the trust of many parents, some of their warnings and recommendations don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. So how did they become such a trusted name?

“Environmental Working Group” sounds so much drier than Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Their no-frills, academic-sounding name has always made the EWG appear legitimate, apolitical and above the fray. The name says this is the place for information. We’re trustworthy. We’re doing the work. Formed in 1983, the Environmental Working Group became a household name by publishing buying guides aimed at warning consumers about the toxins and chemicals all around them. Buying the wrong countertop spray could put your health at risk, or so the EWG’s concerns about these products seemed to suggest to nervous, environmentally conscious parents. EWG’s consumer guides are so commonly cited by mainstream media outlets that many parents accept their recommendations without question. For years I was one of them. I remember pondering the produce options at Whole Foods because every decision at the grocery store felt important, like I was protecting my child from dangerous chemicals. Elizabeth Williams, a mom I spoke with, says she also used to follow EWG’s advice, even though “these lists also caused me quite a bit of anxiety, because my family's budget simply couldn't afford organic produce or the brands of recommended sunscreen.” Parents like myself often interpret these warnings as cause for fear and alarm, even when scientific evidence to support the EWG’s concerns or calls for labeling is lacking.

When experts review the EWG’s consumer guides, the findings often come up short. In their Dirty Dozen list, the EWG publicizes what they call “dirty” pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables without mentioning that what they describe as “dirty” pesticide residue levels are actually safe because they're well below "tolerance" levels set by the EPA. In their most recent sunscreen guide, the EWG warns consumers to avoid sunscreens containing oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate, but the U.S. Skin Cancer Foundation and many toxicologists disagree. The EWG recommends that consumers avoid GMOs despite the scientific consensus on their safety. Their warnings about formaldehyde in baby products got Johnson & Johnson to remove a preservative from their baby shampoo formulation, even though the amount of formaldehyde was miniscule and not associated with any elevated cancer risk.

Dr. Alison Bernstein, the mom and scientist behind the popular Facebook page Mommy PhD, has been critical of the EWG’s methods: “Instead of providing knowledge and education to consumers, the EWG has built a brand around small bits of information designed to induce fear. Their hazard scores in the Skin Deep database exaggerate risks and do not consider exposure, which they admit in their methodology.”

I understand why parents would assume products made with natural ingredients are safer than those made or grown with synthetic chemicals. We associate nature with good health and what’s best for us, not cancer or poisonous plants. But whether something is natural or synthetic doesn’t have anything to do with its toxicity. Arsenic is completely natural, and completely deadly. My daughter’s eczema causes her skin to become raw and red if she uses soap or cream containing fragrance, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Burt’s Bees or Irish Spring. Still, it’s not surprising that parents feel confused and frightened about which companies they can trust. We’re bombarded with information about risk without any means for placing that risk in context. Dr. Alison Bernstein (introduced above) adds, “I agree with the overall goals of EWG for safe cosmetics and consumer products and agree with some of their proposals regarding reforming the regulatory processes governing ingredients used in cosmetics and consumer products. However, such decisions must be based in sound science.”

Parents become lured in by the EWG because the organization's extensive databases of scary-sounding chemicals have the veneer of science and seem positioned to trigger parental anxiety. The EWG often publicizes its findings with some reference to rising rates of conditions like autism, food allergies and obesity, conditions that seem frightening because they don’t have a simple explanation. A press release about organic produce sales and the EWG’s guide to pesticides includes a warning about the national obesity epidemic, for example. Or they raise dire-sounding concerns without bothering to offer any further explanation. In a press release for the Dirty Dozen, EWG Senior Analyst Sonya Lunder says, “Pesticides are toxic. They are designed to kill things and most are not good for you. The question is, how bad are they?” Shouldn’t a “senior analyst” be able to offer some sort of answer to that question?

President and co-founder Peter Cook attributes the EWG’s success to their ability to make “the environment something that’s personal.” The EWG name has become so valuable and recognizable that it’s now the centerpiece of a new venture the Group calls EWG Verified. Recently, the EWG filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register the trademark EWG Verified with the tagline For Your Health. Their empire-building plans are extensive -- the application lists diapers, baby bottles, baby food, bed linens, HVAC units, mattresses, coffee, juices, spa services and more. The EWG plans to license the trademark -- that is, charge an annual fee in exchange for use of the brand on its packaging -- to select natural and organic companies in order to grow both their brand and their income stream. According to the EWG Verified page, the revenue will go to support the EWG Verified program and to ensure "that EWG can continue its critical research and distribute it to consumers and beyond." Given the trust (albeit misplaced) that the EWG name enjoys, the possibilities are huge. EWG earns money from its licensees (even the potential ones -- the application fee is $500) as well as from sales of licensed products through affiliate links on its website. So, the EWG could give select products a high rating, sell its name to those highly rated products, and then collect the revenues and garner increased brand recognition.

This isn’t an entirely new strategy for the EWG. They’ve long had financial ties to the products and industries they evaluate. Mark Hyman sits on their board and uses the EWG sunscreen guide to recommend Vitamin D supplements that he sells through his online store. Board member Christine Gardner is a brand ambassador for Beautycounter, also one of EWG's corporate partners and prospective licensee in the EWG Verified program. The EWG also gives its best score to and sells sunscreens from the Honest Company. That company was founded in part by the former CEO of Healthy Child Healthy World, an organization that has now been subsumed by the EWG. The EWG’s “Sun Safety Coalition” — a partnership between EWG and the companies it recommends — sells its partner companies’ sunscreens on the EWG site and in retail stores that participate in their program. And there are other companies that the EWG recommends that also support EWG financially. For example, the EWG gives most of Juice Beauty’s skincare products a 1 rating, the lowest possible hazard score, and they’re also an EWG corporate partner. EWG Verified is just a much more brazen version of their strategy. Now more than ever, their plans for profit are tied to the very companies they’re supposed to be independently reviewing.

The EWG doesn’t just want more money. It also wants to increase its influence and power, especially with parents. To make that happen, the EWG needs an army. According to its current strategic plan, EWG wants to “cultivate a network of bloggers to engage women, especially moms, and expand the reach of EWG content.” One of the most popular and vehemently anti-science health and wellness bloggers, the Food Babe, was recently photographed with Cook at the EWG holiday party. The EWG also plans to recruit 50 volunteers to personally lobby for the EWG’s legislative agenda in every state. Maybe the EWG can recruit the #foodbabearmy.

The EWG is as revenue-minded and strategic as any for-profit corporation, which isn’t against the law so long as revenues are spent consistently with their mission. But what is the EWG’s mission? What is the value behind the brand and what do they really stand for? The EWG says its goal is to “empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment.” But stoking fears -- particularly in vulnerable parents -- isn’t empowering. Spreading panic and paranoia isn’t empowering.

Do you know what's in your tap water? What about your shampoo? What’s lurking in the cleaners underneath your sink? What pesticides are on your food? How about the farms, fracking wells and factories in your local area? Do you know what safeguards they use to protect your water, soil, air and your kids? Which large agribusinesses get your tax dollars and why? What are GMOs? What do they do to our land and water?

The EWG doesn’t seem to want parents to find the actual answers to those questions, which are often complex and require scientific research to untangle. If parents knew the facts, the EWG couldn’t prey on our fears. And whether one’s brand involves luxury or healthy living — fear sells.

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Published on February 06, 2016 16:29

Shonda Rhimes has it, so does Obama: What is cultural competence?

They are a bunch of smart-ass white boys, who think they know it all. —Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, August 1984 Andy Young had run out of patience. Having spent his life working in the trenches of social change and politics—supervising Martin Luther King’s voter registration drives, organizing civil rights protests across the South, and winning his own races for Congress and then mayor of Atlanta—he was trying to help Walter Mondale’s team develop a strategy for the 1984 presidential race against Ronald Reagan. When he was elected to Congress in 1972, Young had successfully applied grassroots organizing practices that included transporting 6,000 Black voters to the polls on election day, and he repeatedly urged Mondale’s team to invest resources in registering and mobilizing voters of color, but his words were falling on deaf ears. Finally, he had had enough and his frustration boiled over at the National Association of Black Journalists convention (NABJ), where he made his now-famous “smart-ass white boys” comment. Thirty years later, Young stood by his words. “Unfortunately, I was right,” he said at the NABJ conference in 2014. “Mondale let the experts there take over the campaign and put the money into television and did not get out the vote.” More than thirty years later, progressive politics are still dominated by “White boys.” White men comprise 31 percent of the American population and just 23 percent of Democratic voters but they control nearly 90 percent of what happens in Democratic politics and progressive advocacy. Whether the current crop of largely male Caucasian consultants is equally “smart-ass” as in the eighties depends on who you ask, but what is clear is that what I call Smart-Ass White Boy Syndrome continues to this day. By the way, you don’t have to be White or a man to be afflicted with the syndrome. Its symptoms are a persistent disregard for the country’s communities of color as a political force and an inability to do the basic math necessary to appreciate the size and power of the electorate of color. Also, not all White guys suffer from this; some actually “get it.” The fact remains, however, that the world of progressive politics is dominated by White men at a time when the future of the progressive movement depends on solidifying the support of the growing number of people of color in America.

* * *

“What is Cultural Competence?” In 2016 and beyond, progressives will not be able to rely on the historic opportunity to elect the first president of color as a way to motivate voters of color. Going forward, great cultural competence and expertise will be required to inspire and mobilize the New American Majority. Turning today’s multiracial movement for justice and equality into a lasting political force will not be easy. As Obama’s Harvard Law professor Chris Edley once remarked, “Dealing with race is not rocket science; it’s harder than rocket science.” In order for the Democratic Party and the progressive movement to succeed in a racially charged, multiracial society, great cultural competence is imperative. The business world offers instructive lessons about how to develop and apply cultural competence. Starbucks has been working for fifteen years to develop a toehold in the Chinese market, opening five hundred new stores and working on fifteen hundred more. By 2016, China is expected to be Starbucks’s largest market outside the United States. To make these inroads, the coffee company is not just exporting the products and services that work in the United States. In order to achieve success and market penetration in China (a nation of tea drinkers, mind you), Starbucks has turned to local leaders and embraced the local culture by forging partnerships with local companies, holding meetings with the parents of employees in a nod to the importance of family culture, and even developing products that incorporate green tea. CEO Howard Schultz explained his understanding of the essence of a culturally competent approach when it comes to business:

What we want to do as a company is put our feet in the shoes of our customers. What does that mean, especially in China? It means that not everything from Starbucks in China should be invented in Starbucks in Seattle. . . . We want to be highly respectful of the cultural differences in every market, especially China, and appeal to the Chinese customer. So as an example, the food for the Chinese stores is predominantly designed for the Chinese palate. In the past, we were fighting a war here between the people in Seattle who want a blueberry muffin and the people in China who say, “You know what, I think black sesame is probably an ingredient that they would rather have than blueberry.” And I would say that goes back to the hubris of the past, when we thought, we’re going to change behavior. Well, no, we’re not going to change behavior. In fact, we’re going to appeal with great respect to local tastes . . . for the first time, [we’re] trusting that the people in the marketplace know better than the people in Seattle.

Schultz’s reference to hubris suggests that Starbucks had to first get past the business world’s equivalent of Smart-Ass White Boy Syndrome in order to succeed in a new, non-White market. And just as one wouldn’t go into China without cultural consultants and guides, American politicians shouldn’t go into Asian American, Latino, Native American, Arab American, or African American communities without culturally competent advisors. Who better to craft compelling political messages than people who have lived and personally experienced the cultural realities of those whose votes are being sought? In the world of arts and entertainment, African American screenwriter, director, and producer Shonda Rhimes’s phenomenal success with the TV shows Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder illustrates how presenting characters who authentically look, sound, and talk like the shows’ target audiences can resonate in a deep and lasting way and result in traction and loyalty. Scandal star Kerry Washington—the first female African American lead in a network television show since Teresa Graves in Get Christie Love! in 1974—talked about Rhimes’s influence, saying, “Shonda has changed the culture of television in that more and more people can turn on the television and see themselves.” Rhimes’s shows were among the most watched on television in 2015. Learning lessons from Rhimes’s success, 2015 was a breakout year in television as Hollywood discovered the impact of providing fresh and compelling culturally diverse programming with actors of color cast in lead roles. Fox Network’s Empire, a Black hip-hop King Lear story, was the most successful new show on television that year. Additional successful new people-of-color-led shows included Fresh Off the Boat, the first sitcom featuring an Asian American family in twenty years, the Mexican telenovela-inspired Jane the Virgin, and the African American sitcom black-ish, all of which secured strong ratings. In politics, one of the best and most well-known examples of cultural competence occurred during the 2008 presidential primaries when White Americans had their sensibilities shocked by being exposed to an angry Black preacher. Rev. Jeremiah Wright was the pastor at the Chicago church the Obamas attended, and like many Black preachers, he was known to engage in colorful rhetorical flourishes. During one lengthy sermon condemning America’s history in relation to people of color, Wright said, dramatically and with great inflection, the following:

The United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains . . . [the government] builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America—that’s in the Bible— for killing innocent people.

The video of that segment of the speech—especially the “God damn America” part—was then broadcast repeatedly on television and spawned more than three thousand news stories in one month. Of course it’s no accident that this sermon—which had been delivered five years earlier— came to light during the height of Wright’s most famous parishioner’s campaign to become the first Black president of the United States. Many Black folks thought little of Wright’s flourishes and critiques of America. (In fact, my aunt Janis was so excited that she texted me, “Go tell it on the mountain and write that Wright is right!” I texted back, “Do you want Obama to be president?”) The mainstream media and White swing voters, however, were horrified. ABC News typified the tone of media coverage with a headline that blared, “Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11.” The first sentence of the article perfectly illustrated the alarmist coverage: “Barack Obama’s pastor says blacks should not sing ‘God Bless America’ but ‘God damn America.’ ” Obama’s White consulting crew didn’t know what to do. Obama, however, did. He understood that he had to give a speech directly addressing the country’s racial fears and anxieties. Afterward, advisor Anita Dunn reflected that the decision to deliver the speech was Obama’s and had there been a discussion among the staff, “most of the people in the campaign would’ve advised against it.” Obama insisted on giving what became known as the “race speech,” where he straddled the color line by affirming the Black American experience while educating Whites and allaying their fears. Unlike most of his other speeches, Obama didn’t turn to his White speechwriter, Jon Favreau, but took the lead in drafting that crucial address himself. In the speech, “A More Perfect Union,” Obama placed Wright’s comments within historical and sociological contexts. He said, “The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning . . . the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.” After affirming the experience of African Americans, Obama went on in his speech to let White Americans know that he understood their frustrations. “When [whites] are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.” Finally, he challenged Whites and Blacks alike to bridge the racial divide. “We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. . . . Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’ This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.” It was, by all accounts, a masterstroke and a case study in cultural competence. MSNBC host Chris Matthews said it was “one of the great speeches in American history,” and a New York Times editorial said, “It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better.” Black voters identified with Obama’s words, White voters’s concerns were alleviated, and the Obama juggernaut marched on. A month after the Rev. Wright controversy, Obama again had a chance to show off his mastery of cultural competence. During an April 2008 debate, Obama was pummeled with attacks by both the moderator, George Stephanopoulos, and his opponent, Hillary Clinton. The next day, during a speech before his supporters, he referenced the attacks, displayed his knowledge of hip-hop culture, and, without saying a word, brought the crowd of young people and students to its feet, clapping their hands and pumping their fists. What Obama did was reference hip-hop mogul Jay-Z’s popular 2003 song, “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” The song was on The Black Album, which sold more than 3 million copies and was well known by the younger, multiracial hip-hop community. The song’s message: Leave negative people and experiences behind by brushing them off like dirt on your shoulder. The refrain goes:

If you feelin’ like a pimp nigga, go and brush your shoulders off, Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off, Niggaz is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you, Get, that, dirt off your shoulder.

In the song’s video we see young Black men and women brushing off their shoulders, the men after they had been stopped and searched by police and women after dealing with catcalls. In his speech, Obama talked about the attacks he’d weathered in the previous night’s debate and said, “I understand [the attacks] because that’s the textbook Washington game. . . . And when you’re running for the presidency, then you’ve gotta expect it, and you know you’ve just gotta kinda let it. . . .” Then, just like in the Jay-Z video, he silently brushed off his shoulder. Boom! The crowd went wild. Obama smiled, and the message was clear: Ain’t nobody got time for that. That was cultural competence in action. Cultural competence also makes a huge difference in assembling the nuts and bolts tools necessary to win an election. In 2014, Rida Hamida, an Arab American organizer in California, was working to turn out the Arab American and Muslim vote in Orange County (total population 3.1 million). The campaign’s tech needs and voter lists were controlled by a White consultant. Hamida asked the consultant for a list of Arab American voters that her team of volunteers could call as part of their get-out-the-vote program. The consultant gave her a list with fewer than 5,000 names. Surprised at the low number, Hamida asked if she could have access to the voter file so that she could assemble the call list herself. When she was done, she’d identified 62,912 Arab American and Muslim voters. Technically, what the White consultant did is understandable since he probably looked to see how many people in that area had checked the box “Arab American.” But census forms are woefully deficient in terms of their design vis-à-vis many people of color. Fortunately, Hamida has deep knowledge about Arab Americans and how they identify themselves. She knew to search by individual Arab and Muslim majority countries—Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.—and found ten times more people than the White consultant in charge of the voter file had. Hamida’s team contacted and turned out many of those voters. One of their preferred candidates, Bao Nguyen, won the race for mayor of Garden Grove, California, defeating the White incumbent by fifteen votes (yes, one-five). Hamida’s story illustrates the invaluable difference a campaign consultant with cultural competence can make in an election. Notably, both Rhimes’s shows and Obama’s race speech exemplified how the same vehicle can be highly effective in speaking to Whites as well as people of color, illuminating another aspect of cultural competence: the most truly cross-cultural people in America are people of color. Due to the dominance of White culture, many people of color have to master at least two cultures in order to succeed—mainstream, middle-class White culture and their own racial group’s culture. Clearly there are always exceptions to the rule, and it would be silly to suggest that every person of color has cultural competence. But when 97 percent of political contracts go to White consultants, as our audit of Democratic Party spending found, the message from the political world seems to be that people of color are in fact worse at reaching their own communities than White consultants are. In truth, it’s both common sense and verifiable that generally people who have lived a particular cultural experience have more insight into how to communicate with those who share that experience. Smart-Ass White Boy Syndrome is a serious threat to the prospects of the progressive movement overall and the Democratic Party in particular. Too many people in political leadership are ignorant of the power and potential of the New American Majority and believe that ours is still mainly a White country where White swing voters are the most important demographic to pursue. As long as progressive leaders and decision makers keep following this belief, one compounded by arrogance and the refusal to recognize and address one’s ignorance, progressives will increasingly fail and flail in future elections and battles. Cultural competence in campaigns and the rest of the progressive movement is needed now more than ever in order to connect with the New American Majority. It’s been thirty years since Andy Young cast down the gauntlet. We can’t afford to wait another thirty. Excerpted from “Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority” by Steve Phillips. Copyright © 2016 by Steve Phillips. Published by The New Press. Reprinted here with permission.They are a bunch of smart-ass white boys, who think they know it all. —Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, August 1984 Andy Young had run out of patience. Having spent his life working in the trenches of social change and politics—supervising Martin Luther King’s voter registration drives, organizing civil rights protests across the South, and winning his own races for Congress and then mayor of Atlanta—he was trying to help Walter Mondale’s team develop a strategy for the 1984 presidential race against Ronald Reagan. When he was elected to Congress in 1972, Young had successfully applied grassroots organizing practices that included transporting 6,000 Black voters to the polls on election day, and he repeatedly urged Mondale’s team to invest resources in registering and mobilizing voters of color, but his words were falling on deaf ears. Finally, he had had enough and his frustration boiled over at the National Association of Black Journalists convention (NABJ), where he made his now-famous “smart-ass white boys” comment. Thirty years later, Young stood by his words. “Unfortunately, I was right,” he said at the NABJ conference in 2014. “Mondale let the experts there take over the campaign and put the money into television and did not get out the vote.” More than thirty years later, progressive politics are still dominated by “White boys.” White men comprise 31 percent of the American population and just 23 percent of Democratic voters but they control nearly 90 percent of what happens in Democratic politics and progressive advocacy. Whether the current crop of largely male Caucasian consultants is equally “smart-ass” as in the eighties depends on who you ask, but what is clear is that what I call Smart-Ass White Boy Syndrome continues to this day. By the way, you don’t have to be White or a man to be afflicted with the syndrome. Its symptoms are a persistent disregard for the country’s communities of color as a political force and an inability to do the basic math necessary to appreciate the size and power of the electorate of color. Also, not all White guys suffer from this; some actually “get it.” The fact remains, however, that the world of progressive politics is dominated by White men at a time when the future of the progressive movement depends on solidifying the support of the growing number of people of color in America.

* * *

What we want to do as a company is put our feet in the shoes of our customers. What does that mean, especially in China? It means that not everything from Starbucks in China should be invented in Starbucks in Seattle. . . . We want to be highly respectful of the cultural differences in every market, especially China, and appeal to the Chinese customer. So as an example, the food for the Chinese stores is predominantly designed for the Chinese palate. In the past, we were fighting a war here between the people in Seattle who want a blueberry muffin and the people in China who say, “You know what, I think black sesame is probably an ingredient that they would rather have than blueberry.” And I would say that goes back to the hubris of the past, when we thought, we’re going to change behavior. Well, no, we’re not going to change behavior. In fact, we’re going to appeal with great respect to local tastes . . . for the first time, [we’re] trusting that the people in the marketplace know better than the people in Seattle.

The United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains . . . [the government] builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America—that’s in the Bible— for killing innocent people.

If you feelin’ like a pimp nigga, go and brush your shoulders off, Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off, Niggaz is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you, Get, that, dirt off your shoulder.