NATIVE AMERICAN GARBAGE LEAGUE

The singular landfill in Hawaii is along the Leeward Coast in Oahu, an area that houses a poor community of indigenous, or native, Hawaiians. So, when you want to relieve your country of inordinate amounts of garbage, why not parallel dump it near an Indian reservation in the United States? Makes perfect sense, right?

Honolulu officials had been contemplatING sending 100,000 tons of plastic-wrapped bales of garbage every year to the state of Washington. Hawaii Waste Systems, a Seattle-based firm, had the audacity to authorize the waste-dumping on land overseen by the Yakama Indian Nation. Needless to say—or it must be said!—the insensitivity to indigenous peoples is alarming and the ostensible imperviousness to issues of environmental justice is simply mind-boggling!

Hawaii’s Big Island has enough land, but there is an ordinance barring any dumping of garbage hailing from outside the island. Heaven forbid if another landfill would block the beautiful scenery that brings in millions of dollars from the tourist industry each year! Rather, since certain folks already are used to being put upon and oppressed, what would be wrong about continuing such discriminatory practices by putting a landfill by or on an Indian reservation?

Congratulations on the restraining order that the tribe won against the U.S. Department of Agriculture before the first bale of garbage would be sent to Washington! After all, the potential dangers to individuals’ health is astronomical, albeit it is not known exactly what type of spillage and corrosive effects could eventuate. The USDA has become a bit notorious regarding some of its decisions as of late. Add this one to the list!

I guess there is a positive side to this near-debacle. A group of citizens, usually ignored, was able to win a federal court case against the USDA! A tribal group empowered and somewhat vindicated in the USA? That’s news! That some people of conscience were able to expose the irony and injustices involved in this transfer of stuff—fantastic! There is still hope in judicial system, despite its unseemly record with regard to natives and people of color. A large percentage of Hawaiians are people of color, but, apparently, those in positions of power could overlook their history and unwittingly, perhaps, make policy discriminatory to their racial ancestry and to other folks of color who have been mistreated and underserved. A bit confusing, to say the least!

Four decades ago, a group of sanitation workers wanted to be treated as adult human beings. Today, sanitation workers are able to make decisions whether other human beings are going to be treated fairly! Ah, the more things change, the more things stay the same!

WHAT'S UP, DOC (LAURA)?

Dr. Laura Schlessinger knew that she was being provocative with her guest, but she did not care. She ignored the response of the caller who had expressed distaste for the expletive the radio counselor was reiterating. The discussion of interracial marriage, and the specific concern her guest was sharing, did not warrant any reference to using the so-called n-word. Schlessinger’s insistence on recounting her use of the term was indisputably deliberately insulting and insensitive—and she consciously chose to do it. The “it” can only be characterized as hate speech.

Dr. Laura embarked on a commentary completely irrelevant to the issue at hand and definitely beyond her expertise. Bearing the cloak of white privilege and arrogance, she felt at ease remarking on the status of race relations after the election of the country’s first black president. Her ability to control her show, to disconnect from guests, and to make statements as if she is in the know about subjects about which she is substantially ignorant demonstrates the very definition of racism.

Schlessinger wants to have the liberty to be able to use incendiary rhetoric whenever she pleases, even when her words cross over into the area of hate speech. She made the claim that she did not call her guest the n-word; however, the tone of her echoing that word betrays her xenophobia and disrespect for the millions of people who believe that term to be derogatory, explosive, and unconscionable. At sixty-three, having spent over twenty-five years on the air, she is financially solvent and able to quit her show to avoid engaging in the necessary dialogue regarding not only her impertinence, but also her impudence. She is running away from the discussion of her actions, and she has the privilege to eschew any responsibility for her feckless behavior.

In our very racialized society, there probably should remain the perspective that the n-word cannot be spoken in the same manner by African and European Americans. It may be reduced to an unfair double standard, rather than appreciating the historical and social circumstances and contexts that necessitate the distinctions about who can say what at the present time. As a civil libertarian, I am a strong advocate of freedom of speech and antagonistic towards censorship. Nevertheless, I do believe the court of public opinion analyzes what is fitting and proper to attribute to people, and the masses of people need to be ready to censure the remarks of a commentator without embracing the scourge of censoring.

What intensifies the racist juggernaut of Schlessinger’s words is her disparagement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her comment about that organization is belittling and, again, demonstrates a depreciation of history and the celebrated role of that organization in concert with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Last year, the NAACP celebrated 100 years since its founding and the wonderful work it has done during that period to oppose the perniciousness of discrimination. Schlessinger took advantage of the recent attacks of the NAACP on conservative politics and media to throw a dart at that esteemed organization.

It is an irony that Dr. Schlessinger’s comments reveal that prejudice, stereotyping, and the paradigm of racism are alive and well in this country—especially when she seemed to be claiming that racism is illusory today and that people are taking advantage of a black president to claim that race is still a problem in the United States. As she departs from the air waves in December, let us be thankful for this lesson she has so graciously taught us!

REMEMBERING LOUIS ARMSTRONG

Recently, I was driving in my car and happened to pop into the CD player a disc of the greatest hits of Louis Armstrong. I don’t listen to music very much, but when I do, it’s usually some old gospel tunes or rhythm and blues and some pop—all, of course, from the second half of the twentieth century. Usually, I settle for a few recognizable songs, changing the selections like a couch potato with a remote in one’s hand. In a daze as I manipulated local stop signs, detours, and the scourge of young pedestrian traffic, I caught the lyrics to a song called “What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue.”

Cold, empty bed,
Springs hard as lead,
Pains in my head,
Feel like old Ned.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?

No joys for me,
No company,
Even the mouse
Ran from my house,
All my life through
I've been so
Black and blue.

I'm so forlorn,
Life's just a thorn,
My heart is torn,
Why was I born?
What did I do to be so
Black and blue?

I'm white inside,
But that don't help my case.
'Cause I can't hide
What is on my face,
Oh! What did I do to be so
Black and blue?

What stopped me, literally, in the middle of the road was the line: “I’m white inside, but that don’t help my case.” I was floored, flabbergasted, flummoxed, and flapping my arms all at once in the little cabin of my vehicle, not knowing exactly what to do. I was aware that many black entertainers had disparaged Satchmo as being an Uncle Tom or too friendly with whites in the heart of Jim Crow America. Nevertheless, I was very fond of Pops, whose ubiquitous sweaty brow and oft caricatured soppy white handkerchief and unique gravely swoon and strong white teeth and bulging brown eyes were the thrill of audiences across the globe. How could this man, whom I was told I could perfectly imitate in high school and college after he had passed away, allow his trumpeter’s lips mouth such an ostensibly self-deprecating line?

I found myself becoming quite angry as I listened to the CD over and over again until I finally made it to a parking space at my place of employment and practically ran to my office to surf the Internet all about this gruesome folly. I had gotten upset because the audience, which I assumed was predominantly white, thunderously applauded the song as if they were impervious to its tragic meaning. I read and reread the entire lyrics and discovered the wonderful story of another musician I had loved in old movies and had just seen recently in Stormy Weather and a documentary about black bands during the Harlem Renaissance, namely Fats Waller.

Waller had a countenance that could just make you break out in instantaneous laughter and you didn’t know why. He was a gifted pianist with a knack for one-liners and for songs that could make you laugh uproariously or cry like a newborn baby! I came to feel that the song must have been partly written in jest, with a tinge of sarcasm or an ironic flair, yet intentionally and glaringly heartrending as a depiction of internalized racism. It was one of those Ah, ha, moments for me that softened my bitterness as I took some time to watch clips of Satch and Fats and Ella and Mahalia and Lena and the Duke and Count and. . . .

It’s no wonder that, during the 1950s and 1960s, the period of the classic Civil Rights Movement, many black musicians joined together to raise money for the cause. They had been and were still enduring a vicious system of structural racism that the ordinary citizen had resigned themselves to and called home. They fought it tooth and nail, and would not let it drag them down into the quagmire of fatalism and self-hatred. Rather, they repeatedly bucked the system and their music, while shortly winning the hearts of their white audiences, continually threw daggers at the heart of bigotry and ignorance.

As I watched the final clip of the aged Louie singing “Mack the Knife,” tears welled up in my eyes and my posture improved and I was compelled within myself to challenge those artists of yesteryear who belittled him as a buffoon, like the character Steppin Fetchit or Buckwheat of The Little Rascals fame. I now saw a very generous man who had lived through a lot and who had become a gentle soul in spite of a system that could make anybody embittered or suicidal or diffident. Mr. Armstrong had straitened my back—disallowing anyone to bring me so low as to feel humiliated, inferior, or broken. What a wonderful world!

MADNESS OVER A MOSQUE

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

These are the marvelously prescient words of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, and they cannot be more relevant than today’s headline news. President Barack Obama made the mistake of appearing to support the erection of a mosque two blocks from “ground zero” in New York City. On Friday, August 13, at a White House dinner breaking the sunup-to-sundown fast during Ramadan, Obama spoke on the right of Muslims freely to practice their religion and to build a mosque on private property, even if it is in lower Manhattan. He did not advocate or endorse the building of the proposed worship and community center at the specific location near ground zero, but his hopeful remarks to Muslims a\from home and abroad in the State Dining Room was elevated to a political debate during an intensely contentious mid-term election cycle.

The current location where the Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center would be constructed, 45-47 Park Place, is already in use by the Cordoba Initiative, a Muslim outreach group, for Friday prayers. Muslims are already there! And they have been there since late last year. The mission of the CI is, in part, to foster interfaith dialogue and mutual respect for all religions. The head of CI has been commended for his advocacy of religious tolerance and cultural acceptance, and many are aware of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s indefatigable efforts—including a number of Jewish civic leaders and scholars.

Countless politicians seem to think that supporting such a project a couple blocks from Ground Zero is tantamount to forfeiting their election bids. They assume that the issue is too touchy for U.S. citizens, and they denounce the venture because opinion polls signal that many are adamantly opposed to such an establishment.

When Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke out against the Vietnam War and was roundly criticized by a diversity of people, he responded that he was not a “consensus leader” and did not make his decisions based upon public or popular opinion. Rather, he stated, it was better to be a “molder of consensus” than a “searcher for consensus.” Thus, he continued his opposition to the war and his support of the War on Poverty until his death by an assassin’s bullet. Such ethical decision-making is rarely seen or heard of today!

What appears to be infecting rejecters of the Muslim community center is xenophobia about the Islamic faith as well as ignorant misconstruction of the Muslim majority. This fear and misinterpretation calculatedly associate perpetrators of the attack on the World Trade Center with all Muslims. The history of racism in this country, if it teaches anything, is the story of repeatedly prejudging and making assumptions about people without any empirical evidence. It’s like the white lady who runs in and locks her door of her house at dusk because a swarthy man is about to walk pass. That lady should not project her perspective, based on anecdotal material garnered from media and personal experience, onto that man because the perpetrators of evil in those stories and individual encounters were of darker hue. Christians, because they authored the Crusades and were unconscionably lax in responding to Hitler’s genocidal remonstrations, cannot be characterized as violent marauders and anti-Semites based on such historical witnesses. Likewise, the Cordoba Initiative cannot be gainsaid because the planners are of the same faith as the murderers on 9/11!

Denying the Cordoba Initiative its fundamental right to the free exercise of their religious expression by building a vital and vibrant community center is wrong. In this instance, New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg is right on target when he stated characterized Obama’s words as a “clarion defense of the freedom of religion.” His words are, indeed, patriotic and aligned well with the U.S. Constitution, unlike Rick Tyler, spokesman for Newt Gingrich, who declared that putting a mosque near Ground Zero would be like “putting a statue of Mussolini or Marx (or Lenin) at Arlington National Cemetery.” Gingrich himself stated something very similar, that the location of a mosque near the World Trade Center should be opposed: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington” and “we would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.” These statements are ludicrous, a subtle form of hate speech, and antithetical to the principles of human decency, respect for the facts, and intelligent analysis. Sadly, the Anti-Defamation League, which I highly appreciate, has made Gingrich a strange bedfellow.

It’s nice to see Pres. Obama being a hammer rather than an anvil, a thermostat rather than a thermometer. It’s about time!

BIG BROTHER & ENCRYPTION

Yes, I own a Blackberry, as do many individuals for personal and professional use. Because the cell-phone business is highly competitive, the fact that numberless people—allegedly ninety percent of the U.S. population—own a cell phone is a bad market reality for the makers of the smartphones, Research in Motion (RIM). Why? Since there is such a glut, a surfeit, of phones in this country, RIM is compelled to go to new markets so that the company can continue to grow, make profits, and stay in front of the competition. It is a necessity to do this expansion in a capitalist economy that is cutthroat, dog-eat-dog, and based on the logic of greed.

Hence, when countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, including China and Russia, balk at some of the impregnable security RIM has installed in its devices, the art of compromise comes into play. So much so, that the company must resolve the issues these countries have with the encrypted services while still having the go-ahead to enter their telecommunications electronic gadgetry industry.

We in the United States might point the finger at these countries by saying they are too conservative, repressive, and unsophisticated, but we must remember the adage that three fingers are pointing back at us. The nature of the capitalist game is to corner as much of the market niche that is possible and to work indefatigably to that end. In essence, it is to become a monopoly, like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), and Google, to name a few.

A monopoly can be looked at both positively and negatively. On the one hand, cornering a market or being primarily associated with a particular product is usually a marker of success. You have arrived! On the other hand, such “success” stifles competition and enslaves consumers. John Sherman, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and others are figuratively rolling around in their graves!

One aspect of the ordeal that is admirable, in this blogger’s opinion, is the power demonstrated by the threat of a ban or a boycott. In the commercial world, such threats are anathema and they usually result in repressive actions or compromise battles. At bottom, they are designed to attack sales and profits, and no company chiefs want to stare the potential of losing business and capital based on a disagreement that could be resolved. Would that peoples in the United States utilized the economic boycott in creative ways to encourage more livable wages and fairer employment practices!

In the final analysis, protection smartphone owners with doubly encrypted messaging are something worth keeping. Encroaching upon the expansionistic desires of a market giant is one thing; prohibiting placing a premium on privacy is quite another—especially when the rubric of national security is used. If governments want to spy upon their own people, not to mention other persons in their countries, through cell phones, then they should use their hired help to find ways to outsmart the manufacturers and not try to force these company leaders to deny citizenship rights and liberties to their own citizens.

HIP, HIP, HOORAY! NOW THERE ARE THREE!

As a pacifist, I appreciated the boldness of the dean of Harvard Law School when she challenged free and full access of U.S. military recruiters on campus because of the unconstitutional “don’t ask, don’t tell” decree. She had guts, and I relished her taking the U.S. Solicitor General position as the mentor for whom she clerked, Thurgood Marshall, had filled more than four decades earlier.

She will definitely add strength to the liberal, i.e., progressive, wing of the U.S. Supreme Court and, at the age of 50, will eventually take the vanguard in the quest finally, to paraphrase a biblical quotation, “to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24). The fact that Elena Kagan has not served as a judge in the past is, in my opinion, somewhat of an asset, for she will add fresh approaches to debates about issues that are currently quite prosaic in their judicial followership of thinly-veiled ideological stances. It appears also that she will not be so confined to the letter of the law that she will forget the spirit of the law.

What is simply grand about Kagan’s confirmation is that in October of this year, she will sit with two other women—Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor—on the bench, the largest number of that gender ever to serve on the highest court in the land!

Apart from not being a judge in the past, Kagan’s credentials are superb and speak for themselves: Princeton and Oxford Universities and Harvard Law School; clerk for Washington appeals court judge Abner Mikva and Justice Marshall; law professor at University of Chicago; special counsel to then-Sen. Joe Biden; associate counsel to Pres. Bill Clinton; and U.S. Solicitor General. Any remarks about fitness, qualifications, or unpreparedness are sheer poppycock.