Racism. Bad. No question. No argument. It does, however, [some ears are probably already pricked up with that disclaimer, "however" ] appear that there's a tendency to call it racism whenever a "White" has a problem with a "Black". I don't think it works the other way around since years of injustice renders logic in any given case moot. If your Black and you got a problem, for sure it's racism. That is, on the part of the offending one. I'm pointing to, as I see it, that it's "racism" whenever anyone says it is. If you're Black, then it's incontrovertible. If you're White, well, aren't you woke as F. So here's the story. A White woman in my town had a complaint with a Black family over her questioning them about needing a permit to install a patio on their property. What was the basis of that kerfuffel is not clear. Apparently conflict between the two parties has been going on for some time. Here's a complete rendering of the situation.
Net, net, they apparently don't need a permit, they asked the woman to leave, she went ballistic, claimed they assaulted her, went batshit crazy in the street, the family recorded it all, the neighbors joined in, the woman called the police. Police are investigating. Local youth staged a protest parade. Here's the deal that confuses me. Where in all those facts is there grounds for calling it racism. There might very well be, but I don't see it pointed out in the story. Just that she's White and they're Black? Oh, I see. It can't be explained any other way. After the facts were explained, the Black family comes forward adding this: [I find it interesting how the racist theme got inserted into all that.] " ... [see quoted text in article] When challenged about her flawed legal conclusions, assumption of right, her lack of agency over our home and our eventual demand that she leave our property immediately, Susan decided to call the police and make a false report of assault," Fareed Nassor Hayat wrote. "She invoked centuries of brutality in her call to the police and sought to put her black neighbors back in their place. She believed that we were required to answer her questions and smile while doing so. But to her surprise, her efforts were met by two proudly black human beings, parents, lawyers, law professors, activist, community members, neighbors, citizens and fighters, who refused to submit." I believe the foregoing is called ... opinion. Maybe true in this case, just don't see it in the facts. Oh, excuse me, when you're right your opinion is in fact, fact. How did we get here. Let me digress. Could it be all the liberal political and media harping on how Potus is a racist. And, whoever else tangles with a person of color? Well, that may not be a fact, but it's my opinion. Since I'm White the point is negotiable. As in, we'll not stop until you agree with us. Totalitarianism may in fact come from the Left. No surprise to me. What's more, keep in mind, the homeowner is a lawyer. He should know better. But, hey, he's a lawyer. You know what they say about lawyers. White lawyers, in particular. He [of the Black family] then went on to acknowledge his other white neighbors who came to his defense. And, flatly claimed racism as the motivation on the part of the woman in the dispute. "Their efforts were antiracist ideology at work. Each neighbor declared to her and the police that she summoned, that she was a lie and no such assault occurred," he continued. "She left our home, rejected and unfulfilled, yet still empowered to do future harm. To her Black Lives Don’t Matter when up against her presumed inalienable rights of whiteness. She did not see the flaw in her ways or apologize for her behavior. Her type, the racist, must be rejected and ostracized like she was today by Norrinda and I, but equally important, by our white neighbors here in Montclair and our white and non-white allies worldwide." There's probably more to it. The homeowner asserted that the irate woman's motives were racially motivated, and the she is a racist because she acted the way she did, or acted the way she did because she's a racist. I stated on a social media page this: "Okay. I don't know what sparked the incident. I'm confused about how it makes her a racist. Yes, I know she's "white" and they're "black". Is that the long and short of it? Police are investigating. But, let's not wait for the facts." I got back some heat seemingly for not being able to see the clear fact that the woman is a stone racist. One comment refereed to "... white [people's] (usually women's) constant weaponization of race against members of their own community and using the police as a pawn/shield in instances where police presence is wholly unnecessary." Apparently the term is "Karen" for how absolutely how common it is for white women to call the police, weaponize the police. One other comment dismissed my post with, "Typical response." Geez! I was told to read the article. Which I did. There's a bunch of facts. Maybe some that haven't come out. Who knows. The homeowner said the woman is a racist. Maybe. But, I don't see anything in the article substantiating that other than the man's opinion. There's gotta be more to it. It does seem rather confusing, that business of claiming she was physically abused, and the counter denial. Someone is lying. And, someone is full of it. Chances are there's more than enough blame to go around.
Rethinking That Jesus
Just sayin' ... one man's satire and hyperbole is another's blasphemy. You know That Jesus. The fulfillment of the Old Testament. To some, anyway. The Savior of the world. God's only Begotten Son. Born of the Virgin Mary. That Jesus. Now we are in a cultural maelstrom where everything is being examined and sorted out over transgressions in the past — John Wayne said some racist stuff. Chris Columbus, apparently not such a good guy [people with degrees from Columbia are getting nervous]. Michael Jackson, you know what that makes you if you still listen to his tunes. So watup with Jesus. Jesus. World Redeemer? Or, world class prurient sexual predator of biblical proportions? One name need only be mentioned: Mary Magdalene. In case you haven't heard the gossip, she was a known prostitute, and Jesus was a friend. "Friend." Hmmm. There's that much disputed biblical reference to how Jesus didn't want Mary Magdeline to touch him after the Resurrection. In Latin it goes, "Noli Me Tรกngere". "Don't touch me." It's a speculation about WTF that was all about. Not worthy? Lover's quarrel. Jesus ... jealous. My contribution, "I just rose from the dead and all you want is a Tangerine!!!" Wild speculation: "Meet me in Tangiers." Side Note: Dear Jesus, forgive me [for I know not what I do]. I'm putting all my chips down betting you have a sense of humor about yourself. Notwithstanding the portrayal we get from all those clerics who present themselves with folded hands, speaking in prayerful hushed tones, singing doleful chants, and just being sooo spiritual in you name. My take, the more "spiritual" it appears, the more likely the opposite is the case. One word, pedophelia. And, let's not forget the celebrity evangelists. There's money in religion. In God We Trust. But I digress. This is all about pointing out the batshit absurdity we're seeing in the news. Things like statues coming down. Racist? Better to look into the small fraction who aren't racists. Reparations? Hey, I'm Polish. How about all those offensive Polish jokes. Hand me some cash. He sexually molested me! Okay, out he goes. What no due process? Believe women. [Nancy Pelosi is a woman.] The Dixie Chicks, now the Chicks. Hey, you chicks! That term is offensive too. Dumb bitches! Seems you can't avoid offending someone over something; somewhere, sometime.
A Poem for Judgement Day
We did it all
we did it all
We made it all happen
And, that
and, that
and that ... And
You say the world needs fixin'. So it seems. Consider how if one wants to do some good in the world, maybe they should fix themselves first. Otherwise you're only making matters worse, all your so called good intentions notwithstanding. Blind leading the blind kind of thing.
Aldo Huxley must be spinning in his grave. He wrote those novels no doubt with the intention of pointing up the folly and danger of a totalitarian utopianculture. Cautionary fiction. Nowadays, I'm thinking we may be living in such a world. Or, at least, inching up to it. Fast. After all we all just want to get along. Right? Maybe it's in the water. Or the air? Conspiracy advocates have been grousing over chemtrails for years. Who knows? [My barber had a term for the universal drug ... "Copacetic". Universally effective.] But, here it is ... We read in the news this morning how real estate folk are shying away from the term "master" in describing the so called "primary" bedrooms and bathrooms. It's not a ban, as such. Just a move in the right direction. As if. I see that as a bridge too far. Funny though, how we seem to take directly opposite sides on so many things. WTF? [I add the question mark (?) for major emphasis. Because the acronym as you may know already has the question implied in its construction.] Wonder where else in the culture we can do a little spiffing up? There's the Dixie Chicks. Now, just "Chicks". Not far enough if you ask me. Just try sidling up to a group of women some evening at a bar and say, "How'ya chicks doin' tonight?" See what I mean. It all seems innocuous enough; it's just language. Wars have been fought over less. Slippery slope, it is. You've no doubt heard about statues coming down. Just wait until someone objects to The Jesus who hung — no pun intended, forgive me Father — out with a prostitute and assorted lowlifes. If that one catches on and goes all the way, the bright side is we'll have so much more valuable real estate after all the churches come down. And, come to think about it, so many more "primary" bedrooms and baths.
It seems that Education — educating the children in particular — is always a good, reliable political football. How to improve on it? Cut out the waste? Keep costs in line? Affordability? Evaluate results? Teacher evaluation? We’re gonna do better now that our people [insert your party of choice)] are in office.
Currently, I am seeing the idea being floated to tie teacher compensation to student performance. Imagine being a teacher having your family’s bread and butter and very financial security strapped to the cooperation of some unmotivated juvie, who shows up in your class probably ill prepared from his last semester of underachievement. It’s not a bad idea on the surface. Provided the proper commitments and requisites are in place. Key things; probably ones that no one has been thinking about much; if, at all. You decide. The magic word: “Commitment.” I would be very wary of a plan that presumes commitment only on the part of the teacher, but exacts none from the student; or the student’s family, who presumably are the responsible parties for that little dear thing. And, when do our children become responsible human beings, anyway? In the Catholic Church where I was raised the age of reason is considered around seven years of age. That’s when you should know right from wrong. Or do we think our children become responsible adults, slam bang at the age of legal consent, only on their 18th birthday? Would that we could manufacture a pill that gets students to be as committed to their studies as they are to their Facebook. After all, we already have a drug to keep them quiet if they are prone to hyperactivity. [My stylist, the Great Richard of Scottsdale, predicted the universal drug of the future: Copacetic™ “It’s for… whenever”.] But just what is a good education anyway? I am sure that is under discussion, but what is the consensus? Back to that in a second. And, with a really good idea to add to the mix. I thunk it up, after all. It’s got to be good! [Just like in the so called Health Care debate, the focus is mainly on costs and delivery. Not, what is health in the first place? Or, what constitutes proper health care? And, the best question ever, how is what we are doing actually delivering, measured on the same kind of metrics that any even half-witted business person would employ? (Donald Trump comes to mind.) The statistics have been well known for some time. The USA spends more on health care with poorer results than most of the rest of the world. Did anybody say… the fix is in? Chris Rock said it good, he said that there ain’t no money in the cure, the money’s in the medicine. Word! With all those smart folks running things, it would seem that someone would apply the same critical evaluation to the American health care system as they would to any old business venture. There is talk already that the cost of health care in America is taking us down the tubes. As the vogue puts it, “not sustainable.”] [I just read a rather lengthy piece in Time Magazine on the subject of Singularity. That’s when [projected to occur in the year 2045 by one very smart technologist Raymond “Ray” Kurzweil] electronic technology will make humans superfluous, insofar as having to be smart about what to do and probably not have to do very much either to get it done. There’s more to it than that, but the unstated and possibly unnoticed assumption as far as I can see is that all the troubles of the world are just because we haven’t been smart enough. Yet. And, that technology and science will see us through. What do you expect a technocrat to say? Pray? Go to a neurosurgeon with a headache, and you get your skull cracked. I wonder just how aware that guy is about what he doesn’t know? Of course he isn’t. Who could be? It is only upon awaking that we are aware of having been asleep. Or, as the great R.D. Laing* has said, it is only after having emerged from our delusion that we realize that we were crazy. I paraphrase. Better, does he even wonder that there may be underlying assumptions in his worldview that are the Ozymandian** sands upon which he has built his life work? (** excellent poem.) Take Jack Kervorkian (please!), a fellow Detroiter; Dr. Jack… “My dear fellow, there’s nothing in my medical-scientific knowledge that can save you, so let me kill you. And... you’re welcome.” Smart rules the day is a pillar of the prevailing myth of progress. (I see recently that The Donald Trump is sniffing at a possible 2012 President bid. Now there's a smart one for you.) And don’t get me started on how all those wise guys who are projecting all this techno-utopia — dystopia? — remain unaware of how they are conjuring all this heady stuff in the bubble of Cartesian dualism. You know Renรฉ Descartes … “I think, therefore I am.” You think? Just who, or what is doing all that thinking? Where and when? Oh, in the purely conceptual (illusory) framework of space and time where all this universe in unfolding? Think about that! It may not be generally well known, but the Cartesian bubble, in fact, did burst. At some undisclosed place and time in recent history. [If you happen to know those details, please enter into a Wikipedia, search: "We're Not in Kansas Any More."]
History is dead too, if you haven’t been paying attention. As if we still live in a world where the only thing is this and that, right and left, right and wrong, yes and no, 0’s and 1’s. Well, we do. There’s more though. Or, less, depending on the kind of Vedantist you may be. Or the notion from scientism that thought is merely an epiphenomenon of the aggregate of material of the human body. We separate body and mind for conversation sake. Just try doing that for real. That we can think our way out of this mess. Maybe there will be intelligent computers someday, even more intelligent than humans. Intelligent enough to render every thing fully explained, interconnected, completely buttoned up; past, present, and future. Every possibility covered. Hurry the day! But, so who plugs it in in the morning?] But just what is a good education in the first place? Hear a voice of wisdom…
Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken
up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving
stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward
by thee into ever-widening thought and action–
into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
Let my country awake.
Rabindranath Tagore
We have come to this world to accept it, not merely to know it. We may become powerful by knowledge, but we attain fullness by sympathy. The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. But we find that this education of sympathy is not only systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed. From our very childhood habits are formed and knowledge is imparted in such a manner that our life is weaned away from nature and our mind and the world are set in opposition from the beginning of our days. Thus the greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected, and we are made to lose our world to find a bagful of information instead. We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography, of language to teach him grammar. His hunger is for the Epic, but he is supplied with chronicles of facts and dates ...Child-nature protests against such calamity with all its power of suffering, subdued at last into silence by punishment. (Rabindranath Tagore, Personality, 1917: 116-17) NB: That was from way back in 1917! Still fresh. I am in a field of education — Rolf Structural Integration — that often is fit into the so called CAM health care domain; Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Health care modalities in that category include many more holistic approaches than in conventional medical health care and bring in a range of other, often more natural based/sourced methods, tools, and prescriptions outside the mainstream reliance in conventional medicine on pharmaceuticals, invasive surgeries, and high tech machines and appliances. (Not that there is anything wrong with that. Some of my friends are doctors.) The Rolf Method is used very successfully in medical conditions where the balance of the body architecturally is causative or implicated to some extent. Sort of like, “Hey, my tomatoes aren’t so good … did you think about staking them properly?” Or, “I have these terrible headaches … Of course you do, hunched over that computer all day the way you are. Sit up straight!”
Beyond therapeutics, Rolf Structural Integration fosters the kind of whole body balance that is essential for top physical performance and full creative self-expression. It is truly speaking an essential life lesson — how to live a balanced life, based on an imminent ingrained knowing from deep down to the bones.
Being a long time committed practitioner of this educative craft, I've been following the current conversation on education in general. You can lead a horse to water, but… well, you know. So too, with the kids. Or, anybody else for that matter. You present them with the best, easiest to grasp, clearest, most complete body of knowledge and what do you need to have for them to take it in. There are many factors. I just want to suggest one to focus on for now. Let’s see that they are paying attention. And one way to at least guarantee that there is even a possibility that that can happen is proper posture. Sit up straight, like momma say. Simple, but I wonder how many teachers just slog along in class not noticing their charges slouching at their seats.
I am not proposing a solution to a problem that I just happen to have a solution for. I do. My first question before President Obama makes me the Czar of Proper Posture is simply, just where did the kids learn to sit in the first place? What, you say? Learn to sit? Everybody knows how to sit! Well, just because you sit, doesn’t mean that you know how. As they say, just because you have the equipment, doesn’t mean you know how to handle the funk. Regarding those seemingly automatic things like standing, walking, sitting, even breathing, we are mostly self-taught. Trial and error, mostly. Random, if you look around. So I am suggesting that we add into the required curriculum some basic education on proper sitting. Maybe after a positive track record with that we can expand to standing, walking, breathing, and the other basics on how to properly use the body. After we get those little devils to sit up straight, we then add in the rule that the class doesn’t proceed without 100% attention. Here!, teacher … body and soul. [I once wrote then President Clinton with basically the same idea. I got back a nice form letter with boilerplate on how as a small business person I would certainly be interested to know that he is working diligently to make sure that there was affordable health care. Or, something roughly like that. The point is, just like for little Ralphie in A Christmas Story. After waiting on pins and needles for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, it arrives at long last, and he’s listening to the radio broadcast one evening to get the secret message to decode. And the message … “Drink more Ovaltine.” Rip off. Hey, Bill, give me a call sometime. We’ll go for a beer. Since we’re on such close terms.]
*R. D. Laing … It is of fundamental importance not to make the positivist mistake of assuming that because a group’s members are in formation this means that they’re necessarily on course. Children do not give up their innate imagination, curiosity, dreaminess easily. You have to love them to get them to do that. The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.
On the White Man’s Education
On June17, 1744 Commissioners
from the English colonies of Maryland and Virginia negotiated a treaty with the
Indians of the Six Nations at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As part of the deal the
Indians were invited to send boys to school at William and Mary College. If the
Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their sons to that College, the
government would take care that they should be well provided for, and
instructed in all the learning of the white people.
In expressing their deep
sense of the kindness of the Virginia Government, in making them that offer:
". . . For we know that you
highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the
maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you.
We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal, and
we thank you heartily.
"But who are wise, must know
that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will
therefore not take it amiss, if our ideas of this kind of education happen not
to be the same with yours. We have had some experience of it:
"Several of our young people
were formerly brought up at the colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were
instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad
runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either
cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an
enemy, spoke our language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for hunters,
warriors, or counselors; they were totally good for nothing
"We are however not the less
obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it; and to show our
grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of
their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we
know, and make men of them.
Dear One ... I hope you can hear this. [You're not one in my experience to pay too much, if any, attention; much less to heed my advice.] I really don't live sealed in Amber. To be some your quaint memory of better times forgotten on the back of some shelf. You can't make me responsible for the image you created of me in you mind. You don't like that image. It seems so. What can I do to change your mind? You made it up in the first place. What can I do? So here it is. When you hold someone outside your heart — for whatever good reason and justification — that part of your heart is not available to you or to the ones you do want to love. So, for your own sake alone, if you may have anything against me ... give it up. Please, not for my sake. [Though that would really be a miracle for me.] There's so much wisdom I've learned around that point. I'd like you to consider it. Maybe, as a first step, simply to look at it. Set aside for a moment how this may plug you into feeling "pressured". [In my experience around that feeling/thought of being pressured, when that comes up I find it's worthwhile to examine myself to see whether it's just plain old obstinacy to hold on to a long held ignorance. Especially so if it's a position on which those around you give implicit, if not outright, agreement.] Well, what I can do is say these things to you. It's such a double bind to be closed off from a loved one's circle with no way to break through. Not even any listening ear. In fact, most exasperating, to see that any attempts to do so only entrench the situation; add more bricks to the wall. As for me? What other people may think of me is none of my business. That's a bit of sage understanding worth pondering.
SO YOU WANNA DO SOME GOOD?
We do get "too soon old and too late smart".
He awoke one day to the need to pay attention to his spiritual life. It seemed that this not only meant saving his own soul, but the souls of others. Saving the world really. Laudable notion. Just, how to go about it?
After much and many efforts and lots of blind alleys the grace came from One who had completed the spiritual journey admonishing that to save the world first to clear up your own mess, purify your own heart really. Otherwise, the Knowing One said, you are just making things worse.
So he reset his trajectory and went about clearing up his neuroses, freeing himself from burdensome conditioning, training his mind to rest in the ineffable stillness at the heart of things.
You eventually get it about how until you have helped your own self you really can't help others. Going about such things half-baked only makes things worse.
Then — GEEZ — when you start to get a glimmer of the truth and power of that advice, after all the years' of sadhana, you eventually realize nothing necessarily needs be done. At all.
Of course, it's not a position to take. This doing nothing. Always. That's wrong too. Remember That Buddha ... The Middle Way?
Be comforted that what presents itself to be done you will do it. But only now, with clear eyes and an open heart.
