Saturday, December 20, 2014

Blue Lives Matter Misses the Point

There is a social media campaign going on in conjunction with pro-police themed rallies and protests
around the country known as Blue Lives Matter. This all started with a facebook page purporting to support the work of the New York Police Department. The page was created by an unnamed user, and according to Buzzfeed
The page’s creator insisted that the rally [in New York City] was not meant to be a response to last week’s anti-police protests and that he or she did not see the situation as a racial issue.“It’s just something to support the men and women who risk their lives for law abiding citizens against the criminals in our society,” the creator of the page wrote to BuzzFeed News. “Did you see the most common hashtag was #AllLivesMatter. Isn’t that really the point? Or is it just a black issue? Aren’t there black police officers?”
By appropriating #BlackLivesMatter the creator of the page is implicitly acknowledging that this issue is about race, regardless of what he or she says. By creating the hashtag BlueLivesMatter the creator is setting up a simplistic dichotomy that completely misses the point of #BlackLivesMatter and reduces it to police verses black people. That's not what #BlackLivesMatter and the accompanying protests are all about. This is the latest incarnation of the civil rights movement, it is not about disparaging the police. It is about recognizing the systematic injustices that an entire segment of the American population faces at the hands of law enforcement due to the color of their skin. Furthermore, the BlackLivesMatter movement is in response to incidents in which law abiding citizens were unjustly killed by police officers.

It is not that the lives of police men and women don't matter, it's about pointing out the fact that black lives do matter. The problem is that when young black men are murdered by police officers, and even by vigilantes like George Zimmerman, the perpetrators of those crimes are never held accountable for their actions. When police are shot or killed by civilians those perpetrators are always arrested, charged, and sentenced to jail time. The same does not occur when police officers murder civilians. Furthermore, often times police officers with dismal records are allowed to continue their work.

For example, look at the officers involved in the killing of Tamir Rice in Cleveland. One of the two officers involved, Frank Garmback was just this year involved in a $100,000 settlement with a citizen resident who filed a lawsuit against the officer for excessive force. The other officer, Timothy Loehman, resigned from a short stint with the Independence Police Department after it was recommended that he be let go. As reported in USA Today a 2012 internal memo said the following of officer Loehman:

[D]uring a time on a gun range [Lowhman was] "distracted" and "weepy," while being "incommunicative," according to Deputy Chief Jim Polak.
 "He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections," according to a letter from Polak. "I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies."
Officer Loehman was hired as a police officer with the Cleveland Police Department after this memo came out. He should never have been hired in the first place, and at the very least officer Gambrack should never have been put back on patrol after the settlement for excessive force. He should have been permanently assigned to desk duty.

And of course, need I even mention the case of Eric Garner in Staten Island? Here we have a case where the medical examiner determined that the cause of Eric garners death was homicide. According to Time:
On Aug. 1, a New York City medical examiner determined that the cause of death in the Garner case was “homicide,” specifically the neck compressions from  Pantaleo’s chokehold and “the compression of [Garner’s] chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police,” according to spokeswoman, Julie Bolcer.
On top of that there is video of the incident in question:


 Despite the video and the conclusion of the medical examiner the officer involved, Daniel Pantaleo, was not indicted by a grand jury for his actions. 

This is exactly the problem. Police officers who beat and kill unarmed black men are not held to account for their actions. Yes, the police do have a very dangerous job, and they are given the right to use deadly force in certain situations. Unfortunately, when deadly force is used in a way that goes well beyond the authority given to law enforcement they are not held to account. Any criticism of their actions, any protest at the lack of accountability and the systematic injustices that lead to such incidents are treated as an attack on the profession of law enforcement itself. It simply is not an attack on law enforcement. It is a valid and justified critique of a corrupt and inequitable justice system that allows these things to occur. I have respect for authority, but I do not respect authority figures who abuse their authority and power. The very actions of certain police officers, along with a criminal justice system that excuses those officers for those actions is exactly why we need the #BlackLivesMatter movement. We already know that blue lives matter. We see that in the fact that if you injure or kill a police officer you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Police dogs are even afforded more legal protections than black people as can be seen in the case of John Rush (and no, I am not excusing Mr. Rush's actions in this case). The same cannot be said if a police officer injures or kills a civilian, especially if said civilian is black.

The ideas that we can respect law enforcement and critique the system within which they operate are not mutually exclusive.  I'm glad that there are a lot of good people out there who are willing to risk their lives every day to bring law and order to our society. I am saddened  and angered by the fact that we do not hold these public servants to account for abusing their power. Police officers are given an incredible amount of power in our justice system, so they need to be held to a much higher standard when excessing that power. Police officers are charged with protecting and serving all civilians, not just some. 


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Just Because a Black Man Said it Doesn't Mean You're Not Racist

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Editor's Note: I am not going to go into the complexities of the systematic racism and historical inequities that the unrest in Ferguson represents. Nor am I going to go into the nuances of white privilege and how our blindness to it perpetuates racism. And I will not address the efficacy of property destruction as a form of protest. Killer Mike, Jaeah Lee, Carol Anderson, Manic Pixie Dream Mama, Peggy McIntosh, Jesse A. Myerson and José Martín have all done a much better job of addressing these issues and I encourage you to look at what they have to say. Lastly, my pen name is Erasmus P. Sinclair, and my birth name is Brian Scott Lehrer. I stand by these words I write as both Brian Scott Lehrer and Erasmus P. Sinclair. I accept the responsibilities that I have to the public when exercising my right to free speech. 

With the decision by a grand jury not to bring charges against police officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown I've seen the expected flood of vitriol, ignorance, and hatred coming from white people incensed by the unrest in Ferguson. The protestors are being called uncivilized, animals, criminals, and other such dehumanizing things. I see people commenting on social media about how white people never riot over anything and always work within the system to redress grievances. However, with this most recent development in the Michael Brown murder I'm noticing a lot of white people sharing posts and videos on social networks created by people of color who don't feel that racism is a systemic problem in America anymore, and that the onus is solely on African Americans to rectify their status in our society. I don't doubt that these ideas and feelings are well thought out and sincere. I don't presume to question the efficacy the myriad ideas and opinions being debated within the African American community. What I do question is the sincerity of those Caucasian Americans sharing these posts in their claims of not being prejudiced.

Unfortunately, the sharing of these posts does not strike me as being motivated by an honest attempt to spark a civil dialogue about racism in America. One need only look at the comment threads below these posts to come to such a conclusion. As a white person I've had more than my share of discussions with other white people in which they try to justify their biases with the old "I've got a black friend that agrees" trope. Sharing posts by African Americans condemning other African Americans strikes me as the same thing. This is the digital version of the 'my black friend' argument. The 'my black friend' argument is called the 'friend' argument by Rationalwiki.org, and defined thusly:
The friend argument is an argument used by people who want to claim knowledge about and/or sympathy with a group, by referring to their "friends" belonging to this group. It is commonly used to clear and absolve oneself from suspicion of racism, xenophobia, or other kinds of prejudice. It is a particular form of the "Not prejudiced, but..." statement.
I don't believe that all people who use the 'my black friend' argument are actually racist. I think it is more likely that they are unaware of their biases and privilege. This is something that many white people experience, even those of us that have taken up the cause of social justice. Biases by their very nature are very hard to detect within oneself, so prejudices which arise from these biases are equally hard to detect. It's not a problem if you haven't yet worked to detect these biases. But it is a problem if these concepts have been explained to you and you choose to ignore their implications.

In this instance (the popular use of digital 'my black friend' argument on social networks) people are unaware of several dynamics that are occurring when using this argument. Firstly, the arguments made in many of the posts being shared are the same exact arguments that were used historically by whites in power to justify slavery and Jim Crow. They are the same arguments that are used today by the white supremacy movement. Just because some members of an oppressed group happens to agree with those arguments does not necessarily justify or support those arguments. It just shows us that this specific group is just as diverse in thought as any other. Secondly, by sharing these posts you are at the very least tacitly endorsing those ideas, unless you state otherwise at the time of posting. Hence, you are a member of a privileged group making the same old arguments made historically by past oppressors to justify their injustice; and you're doing it while wearing the mask of that oppressed group. Lastly, you're inserting yourself into a discussion you were never invited it to. Jamie Utt puts it very well in the post 4 Reasons White People Can't Use the N-Word. Although the author is speaking specifically of use of the n-word I think it's apt with regards to the 'my black friend' argument:

No matter how long that conversation goes on in Black communities, though, White people do not get to take part.  I’m sorry.  As the ones from whom the word of violence and oppression must be reclaimed, we do not get to have a word in that conversation.  Plain and simple. . . The question being asked is, in essence, the epitome of White Privilege.  As White folks, we tend to think that every door should be open to us, every conversation should be ours, every space should welcome us.  We think this way because, when it comes to racialized spaces, that tends to be the case.  We have the privilege of having our voices heard and our presence recognized in just about every space there is.  Thus, we HATE IT when we are told that we are not actually welcome in a conversation.  But here’s what we need to understand: we’re the only people that get the privilege of access to whatever racialized space we want. . . Just because we are not welcome to use one word in the English language does not mean that we are being 
discriminated against.  It means that we, rightfully, need to shut up and listen.
Making the 'my black friend' argument does not necessarily mean you are racist, but it does reveal an ignorance of aspects of our history and of the lived experiences of African Americans, past and present. That does not mean you are dumb or bigoted. All it means is that you received the same poor education in history that most American's have received, and that like most white Americans you likely have not been broadly exposed to African American communities.

However, there is one post that is going around in the guise of the 'my black friend' argument that reveals not only bias and ignorance, but overt racism. Titled "An Old Black Veteran Speaks His Mind" this is a contempt filled, hateful, blatantly racist screed supposedly written by an 83 year old African American veteran on his death bed. The author uses the n-word practically as a form of punctuation and spews nothing but hate and contempt for black people. It's reminiscent of the worst filth spewed by the segregationists and Klansmen of the Jim Crow era. According to Snopes.com the source of this letter cannot be verified. The editors at Snopes.com concluded that:
By November 2014, it seems concerns about the anonymity of the e-mail hampered its spread, as a name became attached to the commentary: William G. Lillas. For months, the remarks circulated without attribution, and it's not clear how the name "William G. Lillas" adhered to it. It's possible the missive was reposted or e-mailed by a person of that name, creating the incorrect impression the reposter was the original author.  
While the words are aimed at the presumed failings of black Americans, we can't find one forward or notable repost of the item that didn't come from a white person. Most likely, the e-mail forward was authored by a white person who wished to express unpopular racial prejudices and felt the image of an elderly (and wise) black gentleman with a proud history of military service was the most authoritative candidate to deliver his list of grievances with a number of racial issues and general events. 
It is appalling to see people post this with absolutely no comment or disclaimer. One can only presume that by sharing this post with no comment that you in fact endorse the views expressed. I ask all those that are sharing this post, would you write these words and put your name to them? If you would not, then you know it is wrong. You might fear being ostracized by friends. You might even fear for your job. And you should. The rights guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights protect you from being stifled by the federal and state governments, but they do not protect you from the personal and social consequences of your words. Our rights are inextricably linked to responsibilities. I have a right to oppose an unreasonable search and seizure by agents of the state, but I have a responsibility to acquiesce to a warrant signed by a judge. I have a right to bear arms, but I have a responsibility bear those arms safely. One of the responsibilities that comes with your right to free speech is to stand by your words, not to hide behind the words of other's. If you believe in what 'William G. Lillas' has to say, then say it yourself, don't put on blackface and say it.





Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Classism on the Left

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I consider myself to be a progressive secular humanist. Broadly speaking my politics come from the political left. As an educator I take my pedagogic cues from radical and progressive pedagogues such as John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Johathan Kozol, and Maria Montessori. In high school I was part of a local punk/ska scene dedicated to anti-racism and inclusivity. In college I organized against the Iraq War and the Bush presidency, and in grad. school I marched with Occupy Portland. That is to say, most people would call be a liberal. Most of my immediate social circle is liberal and I live in a liberal city. I live in a gigantic echo chamber, and most of the time I enjoy the liberal cacophony.

Like all groups of people we liberals are not monolithic. For example, despite my politics, I am supportive of GMO technologies, skeptical of direct democracy, and supportive of the use and further development of nuclear power. All of that being said, I believe that there are core values that are fundamental to being a liberal. Among those is a belief in social justice and equity. Unfortunately, although many liberals speak the language of inclusivity, there is a minority who do not include low income white people in their egalitarian vision.

Please let me explain what this is not. This is not an argument against the concept of white privilege, it very much does exist. Low income white people still face far fewer obstacles in life than upper income black people. However, white privilege does not protect one from classism, it just makes it sting less. White people still have an easier time pulling themselves out of poverty than any other group of people. But that does not mean they are not marginalized when they are in the depths of poverty.

That being said, I have a message for my secular, progressive, and liberal comrades: when you call people white trash or rednecks you are being classist. When you share 'People of Wal Mart' posts on Facebook you are being classist. When you attend 'White Trash' parties or dress as a 'redneck' on Haloween you are being classist. When you cast aspersions on people for eating ramen and Big  Macs instead of organic food, or for liking NASCAR and country music, you are being classist. When you do these things you are marginalizing and dehumanizing poor white people. Not only that, but you are also trivializing very real, very difficult lived experiences of people. When you laugh at 'The People of Walmart' for being obese and wearing clothing that is way to small you are laughing at the fact that they don't have regular access to cheap, healthy food, and that they cannot afford new clothing that fits better. When you attend a 'White Trash' party you are making a costume out of a culture. You get to play poor for a few hours, then go home to your luxury condo. When you belittle people for their food choices you are ignoring the broader socio-political context that leads to food deserts.

In a thread on Facebook earlier today I saw one person call out another for using a homophobic term, and in the very next comment associated such terms with "rednecks/frat boys." To be fair, when I called this person out they quickly recognized this inconsistency and thanked me for pointing it out. I could go through a whole list of examples of such calssism I've witnessed on the left, but that would be redundant.

Not all liberals are classist, but there is a substantial calssist minority among the left. Classism hurts the left, especially since many of us on the left seek to make society more inclusive and equitable. If we are to create a more just, open, and equitable society we need to include everyone. We can not exclude people because of superficial signs of social class. Just because someone lives in a trailer park does not mean they are racist. Drinking Bud Light and watching football does not make someone homophobic.

We are living in a moment where the many liberal ideas are becoming more and more mainstream. With things like the ongoing protests in Ferguson, Missouri, the rolling back of same sex marriage bans, and increasing environmental activism we can see that the left is slowly but surely dragging our country kicking and screaming into the 21st century and out of the dark ages. Let us not fall into the same depths of group think, othering, and confirmation bias that we so often warn others to avoid lest we lose our grip on this precarious moment in history.

Friday, October 10, 2014

In Defense of Compassion, Empathy, and Human Dignity

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Over the last several centuries humanity has undergone a moral and ethical revolution. Despite the continued existence of warfare, bigotry, fanaticism, slavery, misogyny, poverty, starvation, and preventable disease, people across the globe are becoming more aware and less tolerant of these travesties, as well as actively fighting against them in ever increasing numbers. It will likely take several more centuries, if ever, to completely eliminate these stains on human morality. However, people like Malala YousafzaiEugenie Scott, and Edward Snowden are working every day to fight against ignorance, oppression, hatred, and the degradation of our minds and bodies. These incredible people, and millions others like them, are motivated not by greed, vanity, or a desire for power. They are motivated by compassion, empathy, and a respect for the dignity of humanity.

Unfortunately there is persistent and violent resistance to such efforts. Groups and movements such as ISIS and the PUA community seek to hold humanity in a perpetual state of ignorance, brutality, superstition, and hatred so as to protect or enhance their own power and privilege at the expense of the rest of humanity. Global hunger is rampant despite a global surplus of food. War rages in the middle east, Ukraine, and South Sudan, among other conflicts. Africa American communities across the Unite States face the constant threat of police brutality. We still face incredibly serious challenges to humanity, and it is not a given that we will not soon find ourselves in a global dark ages. Despite the progress made over the last several centuries we can still loose it all.

Compassion, Empathy, and Dignity
As mentioned above those that seek to make life better and more fulfilling for all of humanity are motivated by compassion, empathy, and a respect for human dignity. Let's take a moment to define these terms.

Compassion, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the sympathetic consciousness of others' distress and a desire to alleviate it.

Empathy is the feeling that you understand and share another person's emotions and experiences.

Dignity is the quality of being worthy of honor and respect.

The Importance of Compassion, Empathy, and Dignity
In order to treat others well we need to feel compassion for the suffering of others. Compassion is what starts us on our way to taking action to relieve suffering. Empathy is what makes others' experience of suffering salient to our own experience, and thus facilitates compassionate responses to injustice. In order to feel compassion and empathy we need to accept that all persons are born with a basic, inviolable right to personal dignity. By virtue of being alive and having the capacity to feel distress and pain all persons are entitled to have their dignity respected by all others. Dignity is not earned, it is inherent in our very existence. Denial of one person's dignity is a denial of all human dignity.

The Maligning of Compassion, Empathy, and Dignity
In contemporary American society these virtues are not only marginalized, they are often maligned and seen as signs of cowardice and weakness. This is perhaps best manifested in the persona of the 'Equal Opportunity Hater.' I've often heard people in my life justify their own racist, misogynistic, and bigoted humor on premise that they don't target any one specific group with their hate and invective, they target all groups (even their own) with their hate and invective. I used to be one of these people. I would make incredibly hateful and insensitive jokes and cower under the cover of equal opportunity hate. It unfortunately took more than one time for me to be called out for my insensitivity to realize that my sense of humor was hateful and bigoted, despite the fact that I dished it out to all groups. I thought I was being provocative, witty, and edgy, when in reality I was being ignorant, short sighted, and hateful. I know from my own experience and that of others that not all equal opportunity haters actually believe in the absolutely vile things they spread. But that still doesn't make it right. The fact is that in the end, regardless of intentions or justifications, such humor is what helps society to turn a blind eye to the real depravity and injustice in the world. The sting of hatred is not lessened by spreading it around more, it is only intensified.

As I have become more sensitive the world around me I've been called weak, overly sensitive, too politically correct, and all of the other terms people like to use to denigrate any feelings of compassion, empathy, and respect for the dignity others that I wish to express. Instead of asking people to stop being so sensitive, ask yourself 'What have I done to appear so insensitive?' Ask that person why they feel offended or slighted instead of telling them they should not feel that way. When you do that you are completely denying what they have experienced. Expressing feelings of empathy and compassion is not a form of cowardice as many would like to believe. I can say from my own personal experience that it is much harder, and for some people riskier, to call out bigotry than it is to perpetuate it though witless humor. If you feel a need to cloak your prejudices and biases in the guise of equal opportunity hate then you are the one displaying cowardice. To claim to be an equal opportunity hater is to shut down any critical examination of the intent and effect of your humor. The unwillingness to lay your beliefs bare to critical examination is a sign of intellectual and moral cowardice.

Conclusion
We live in a time where hatred, bigotry, and injustice is no longer invisible. More and more incidents of police brutality are documented on video, wars are streamed live on the internet, and corporate and government malfeasance are more readily exposed than at any other time in the past. Abolitionist, Transcendentalist, and Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, said of the institution of slavery in 1857:
Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.
Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long all America will tremble.
We need to continue the work begun by so many other so long ago. Those of us that learn to feel and embrace compassion, empathy, and human dignity are on the right side of history. Let's not let the blights of our past and present blind us and pull us unaware back into depths of hatred, ignorance, and depravity which so many have fought, and continue to fight, to pull us out of.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I understand that Facebook has announced that it will be cracking down on users who do not use their legal names, and that you will specifically be targeting drag queens to begin with. As many critics have rightly pointed out this will have a disproportionate effect on drag queens and transgender persons as many people in those subcultures use pseudonyms for reasons ranging from wanting to be known by their performance identities, to not wanting not to be stalked and potentially killed by bigots. I'm not going to go into the specifics of how this policy specifically hurts and targets members of the LGBTQ community. Bloggers, such as FlowerGirlXy10c41n3 at Jezebel have done that issue much greater justice than I could. Nor will I go into how this policy will put people in danger who are trying to hide from those that would do them harm, as Heina Dadabhoy has done a much better job of that at Freethought Blogs.

No, Mr. Zuckerberg, I want to focus attention on a comment of yours from an interview you gave a few years ago:
"You have one identity,” he emphasized three times in a single interview with David Kirkpatrick in his book, “The Facebook Effect.” “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” He adds: “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” (http://www.michaelzimmer.org/2010/05/14/facebooks-zuckerberg-having-two-identities-for-yourself-is-an-example-of-a-lack-of-integrity/).
Now as one privileged white man to another vastly more privileged white man, your comment belies a complete lack of empathy, compassion, and understanding cloaked in a pseudo intellectual philosophy of radical transparency. A friend on Facebook, Steven Sagan Olsen, summed up where your philosophy falls flat with the following comment:
Facebook's philosophy of radical transparency only works if all agents are well-intentioned and reasonable. We don't live in that world, so anonymity and pseudonyms are a tool that good people can use to protect themselves
Those that use pseudonyms do it for myriad reasons that seem to elude your myopia, and lack of integrity is rarely one. As noted above, many people in this world are not well intentioned and reasonable, and most of us don't have the advantages that you have to shield yourself from those people. I use a pseudonym on Facebook because I work in public education, and certain aspects of my personal life and my political opinions could very well damage or even destroy my career. This does really happen. Let's take for example Ashley Payne, a teacher from Apalachee High School in Georgia, who was asked to resign after her principal found out that there were pictures of her drinking alcohol on her private Facebook profile, as well as a post in which she used an expletive. A pseudonym may very well have helped her avoid this. I'm not even going to get into the fact that her profile was set to private, hence the principal having no right to tell her what she can and cannot post.

I do not use a pseudonym because I lack integrity, I use it to maintain my integrity. The aspects of myself that I share on Facebook are those parts of me that I feel most passionate about, those that allow me to express myself as fully as I can without fearing for my career. Not being able to speak freely is a direct assault on my integrity and autonomy, and that is why I use a pseudonym. Yes, I am white and male, so that shields me from a lot. But I don't have your billions of dollars to protect me from wrongful termination and the inevitable lawsuit that would follow.

Mark Zuckerberg, please reconsider this name policy and show the world that you have empathy, understanding, compassion, and integrity.

Sincerely,
Erasmus P. Sinclair
a.k.a
Brian Lehrer

Monday, September 15, 2014

Common Core: What It Is, and What It Is Not

Pundits, politicians, policy makers, parents, and teachers are in an uproar over the Common Core standards. On the political right pundits and politicians such as Michelle Malkin and Boby Jindal view Common Core as an unconstitutional federal takeover of public education intended to propagandize children and turn them into a horde of gay/secular/socialist hobgoblins. On the political left critics such as Karen Wolfe and Diane Ravitch view Common Core as a federal/corporate ploy to dismantle public education and hand it over to private interests that will turn our children into sociopathic, Monsanto loving, fascist automatons.*

Now, what I've done hear is create two straw men. I created a caricature of critics from both the right and the left (although my caricature of the right was less of a stretch). I've glossed over some fine detail and nuance in the arguments presented above by Common Core critics and it would behoove the reader to click on the links above to examine the minutia of their positions. Nonetheless, I set up these straw men because the average consumer of outlets such as MSNBC and Fox News will likely come away believing in such caricatures. Unfortunately, as with most everything in the universe, the truth is rather opaque and not very amenable to dichotomous thinking.

Common Core was developed by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSS), with substantial funding coming from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.** It is not a federal program, nor has the federal government threatened to withdraw educational funding from states that do not adopt the standards. Individual states voluntarily adopt the standards and decide how to implement and assess them. States that adopt Common Core are welcome to add to the standards as well. However, there is a federal initiative known as Race to the Top which offers grants to states that adopt the standards, among other conditions. This is certainly an incentive, but it is hardly the coercion that critics make it out to be, nor is it in any way a mandate.  Additionally teachers, principals, parents, and students all contributed towards the development of the standards to varying degrees.

Common Core is a set of standards and nothing more. It is not a curriculum. A curriculum is a planned course of study and student teacher interactions centered on a specific subject or topic and includes lessons, materials, activities, assessments, and approaches. The main purpose of a curriculum is to create a continuing, coherent, educative experience for pupils. Meeting standards is a secondary purpose and can be easily accommodated without diluting the curriculum.  It is not a testing regime. A testing regime consists of the physical standardized tests, and an entire state and district level bureaucracy that designs, administers, and evaluates the tests. Common Core doesn't specify content, materials, or teaching methods. What the standards actually specify are specific skills that students should be able to demonstrate at the end of each grade. For example, one of the grade 6-8 literacy standards for social studies states:
[Students will be able to] determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
CCSELA-LITERACY RH.6-8.1 
Teachers have widely varying degrees of latitude in terms of choosing the materials, content, and practices he or she believes are most appropriate for meeting any standards. For the most part in this country curriculum is designed at the individual school and district level, and testing regimes are developed and coordinated at the state level. Common Core changes none of that. The Common Core Initiative is currently developing standardized tests specifically aligned to the standards, but states are free to develop their own tests aligned to the standards. Common Core does not mandate that states add more standardized tests to their testing regimes. Most states are simply replacing existing standardized tests with Common Core aligned tests. Similarly, text book companies are developing materials aligned to Common Core, which schools and districts are free to purchase and use, or not. Like curriculum development the purchasing of books occurs at the district and school level. All of this is par for the course in public education. States and text book companies regularly align testing regimes and materials to state standards and local curricula. 

The real problems with Common Core come down to implementation and ideology. At the state level governors and legislators are using Common Core as a way to push their specific ideologies about what public education should look like. Some states are tying the standards to teacher evaluations, while other states use it as a way to justify the shifting of funding away from public school towards charter schools and voucher programs. Most prominently, many states are moving way too quickly to overhaul their testing regimes putting undue stress on teachers, students, and parents across the country. All of this is being done in the name of Common Core, but there is nothing in the Common Core standards themselves that calls for any such things to be done.

The lesson to take away from all of this is that the debate over Common Core standards has largely (although not exclusively) been motivated by political ideology. If you're a parent with children currently in school then you should be worried about how quickly and haphazardly your local schools, districts, and states are implementing Common Core, but the standards themselves are not the problem. If you have a problem with specific content that your children bring home, then meet with their teachers. If you have problems with the nature of the standardized tests that your children are required to take, then contact your local state legislator and petition your state government. If you have a problem with the federal government offering financial incentives to states for anything related to public education, then contact your congressperson. Absolutely none of the above problems are the result of the Common Core standards themselves. Those are problems which are deep, old, and endemic to public education in the United States.

*In the interest of full disclosure I work as a substitute teacher and I'm certified to teach at the secondary (middle school/high school) level and admit that I am more sympathetic to the critiques of Wolfe and Ravitch than I am to those of Malkin and Jindal.

**The link above is to a thorough piece from Amy Golod at US News and World Report debunking myths about the Common Core Standards. Any factual statements in this post about the Common Core standards are from this source. The facts are easily corroborated here, here, and here.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

It Just Keeps Getting Worse, and They Keep Denying the Science

Source
For over a decade I've readily accepted the science behind climate change, because it is good science.Global warming deniers such as Charles Krauthammer would have you believe that climate change science is far from 'settled,’ as if the consensus of ninety-nine percent of climate scientists that the climate is warming, and that is anthropogenic means nothing. A similar consensus exists among physicists regarding gravity. Deniers like Krauthammer are not only wrong, they are dangerous. They are dangerous because they are spreading misinformation and a bastardized notion of science that confuses the general public, which in turn leads congress to enact destructive environmental policies based on the confusion and ignorance of their constituencies.Even if the science wasn't 'settled,' as Krauthammer would have you believe, considering the general direction in which all of the research is pointing, we should be extremely worried.Let's take into consideration two stories that broke earlier this year: a story from the Sydney Morning Herald regarding the toll that climate change will take on Australia's ecosystems and economies, and an article published in Nature Climate Change which suggests that the Greenland ice sheet may melt much sooner than originally expected.
 
A story published in the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revised Fifth Assessment Report on climate change outlined a series of great threats that Australia will have to face in the coming decades. Some of the pending threats include decreased crop yields, further decay of the Great Barrier Reef, the potential displacement of millions of people as they flee the ever warming interior of the continent, greater risks of flooding (which will threaten Australia’s mining industry), and increased risks of destructive wildfires.  

At about the same time the journal Nature Climate Change published a report entitled “Sustained mass loss of northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming,” in which the authors show that “that the northeast Greenland ice stream, which extends more than 600 km into the interior of the ice sheet, is now undergoing sustained dynamic thinning, linked to regional warming, after more than a quarter of a century of stability.” This is incredibly important, and scary, because as noted in an article published by the Weather Channel:


The stability of the region is particularly important because it has much deeper ties to the interior ice sheet than other glaciers on the island. If the entire ice sheet were to melt -- which would take thousands of years in most climate change scenarios -- sea levels would rise up to 23 feet, catastrophically altering coastlines around the world.

In other words, the northeastern section of the Greenland ice sheet acts as kind of a thumbtack holding the rest of the ice back from slipping into the ocean and melting. Rather than seeing a three foot sea level rise over the next century, as has been predicted by many climate models, we could see a twenty three foot rise in sea levels by the end of the century if the whole of the Greenland ice sheet were to melt. A three foot rise in sea level will be disastrous for coastal cities around the world. A twenty three foot rise would be catastrophic.

What these two stories have in common is that both illustrate how previous models regarding climate change have been wrong, and not in the direction in which we would prefer.  Rather than finding out that things will not be as bad as we thought we are consistently finding that things will be, and in some cases are, worse than what was initially predicted. Of course this is how science works. Scientific knowledge is in a constant state of flux. As we gather more data and develop more sophisticated instruments, techniques, and models, we refine and clarify our understanding of the natural world. Unfortunately, as we refine climate science we are continually finding that it is worse than we thought.

What is important to note here is that the IPCC and the journal Nature Climate Change are not Greenpeace or the Sierra Club. Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are political environmental organizations that focus on policy and have a specific political agenda (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I happen to support). While their policy recommendations are informed by science they are primarily political organizations.The IPCC, on the other hand, is a non-partisan global scientific organization which operates under the auspices of the United Nations. It is composed of the best climate scientists from across the globe who come together every five years to draft a report that summarizes the global scientific consensus on climate change. At this point, that consensus is pretty damn consistent and solid. The journal Nature Climate Change is a well established, independent, peer reviewed scientific journal which sets rigorous standards for publication. Krauthammer and fellow deniers want you to believe that the IPCC and Greenpeace are one and the same. This is dangerous, because this is how the public comes to be so confused. One can disagree with Greenpeace on political grounds and still be in the right. Not so regarding the IPCC, because the IPCC is not a political organization. Politics are democratic, but science is not. When a majority of scientists come to the same conclusion, it must be accepted. There is no “other side” to be heard in most scientific issues. This is why most biologists refuse to debate creationists, because there is nothing to debate. Similarly, this is why pundits such as Krauthammer need to stop pretending that organizations like the IPCC and journals like Nature are akin to political organizations such as Greenpeace or the Sierra Club. People get the impression that the work that comes out of those august scientific organizations are just political opinions, not scientific fact.

Climate change deniers need us to believe that politics and science are the same thing.  Herein lies the danger. They are not the same thing. These deniers let their politics inform their interpretation of science, and the public in turn does the same. What we need to be doing as citizens, and what our leaders need to be doing, is letting science inform our politics. To do the former is to do a great disservice to the public, and to damage the scientific enterprise as a whole. This complete upending of science to support political ideologies endangers us all. It allows people like Charles Krauthammer to misinform and confuse the public about the real world, which leads to poor and disastrous policy decisions on the part of our leaders.  In order to save our planet and our civilization we must learn to separate politics and science. We can begin do this by ignoring those that deny science, like Charles Krauthammer.  

Monday, August 25, 2014

I Will Never be Murdered Like Michael Brown


I will never be murdered by a cop the way Michael Brown was.  That is, unless I attempt suicide by cop, and even then this is not guaranteed.  I can say this confidently based on my own personal experiences, and those of many of my friends, as white people interacting with the police.

Between the ages of eleven and nineteen I had multiple run-ins with the cops for minor offenses. Fortunately, I do not have a criminal record.  I was never convicted of any major or minor crimes.  I was never even charged with any misdemeanors or violations.   

My history with the police began when my friends and I took up skateboarding.  I was a white kid from a working class family living in a working class town in upstate New York.  All of my friends were white and came from a similar background.  Some of my friends were a little more poor than me, others a little more well off, and a few very well off.  We were all white (well, the friends I got into trouble with were all white).

Those early episodes with the police revolved around our skateboarding.  Like many towns across America we did not have a skate park.  In fact, we had nowhere to skate.  So what did we do?  We skated in parking lots, abandoned properties, and on the streets and sidewalks.  We were not allowed to skate in any of those places.  We would find a good curb in a parking lot, spend a few minutes trying to grind it, and then a business owner or resident would call the police.  The cops would show up promptly and kick us out.  For the most part the police were intimidating, but that's because they were bigger than us and had guns.  They usually treated us pretty well.  Sometimes they were a bit gruff, but rarely mean and never abusive.  They would just tell us to leave the property and we'd be on our way.  Sometimes they would even bullshit with us for a few minutes.  One time a cop even tried to ride my skateboard (after asking my permission, of course).  Nonetheless, we fancied ourselves rebels and would give them the finger and call them pigs behind their backs.  The cops took that in stride and pretended not to notice.  This continued throughout my six year skating career.

As I got older I would get into slightly more trouble.  I started drinking and smoking pot in my early teens.  My friends and I would have wild house parties involving underage drinking, drug use, and occasional vandalism.  Those parties were often broken up by the cops.  Nonetheless, none of us were ever arrested or charged with anything, unless someone drove away drunk or did something particularly egregious, such as verbally or physically attacking the officer, being caught with drugs, or fighting.  Often times the parties weren't even broken up, we would just be asked to quiet down.  This was largely due to one individual in our crowd that actually enjoyed talking to cops.  He would often spend a few minutes chatting it up with the police that came to bust up the party, and then he'd come back to the party and announce that we could all stay as long as we kept the noise down and didn't try to drive.

When I was seventeen I was busted for possession of a small amount of marijuana.  This time I was actually handcuffed and detained in my local police station for about an hour while the arresting officer completed the paperwork.  I asked him while he was cuffing me if he thought someone like me (ie: innocent looking white kid) was going to get high then go out and rape and pillage.  He told me no, he didn't think that, that he was just doing his job.  He went on to add that he wished that people would just smoke pot in their homes so he didn't have to waste his time with petty offenders like me.  He gave me no grief for asking about this and treated me as an equal during our entire interaction (well, as equal as possible given that I was being detained by an agent of the state).  I had to go to court for this offense.  The real kicker in all of this is that my court date was the same date that I had to be in traffic court for a speeding ticket (unrelated to the possession offense).  I had to attend the same court for both offenses.  I first stood for the traffic ticket.  Since my father knew a state trooper my ticket was knocked down to a faulty tail light and I was ordered to pay a small fine with no points on my license.  I walked out to the back of the courthouse, paid my fine at the window, and then walked back into the courtroom to await my second hearing.  The judge seeing me walk back in looked up and shook his head.  When I stood for the possession charge I was given an ACD.  ACD stands for Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal.  When one gets an ACD the understanding is that as long as that individual does not get into any trouble over the following six months their case will be dismissed.  It is not a conviction or a form of probation.  It is a delayed dismissal. In other words, I got away with it.

My last run in with the police occurred on Halloween when I was nineteen.  I was in college and was headed to a party with a group of friends.  It was a pastime at my school for students to break the wooden parking gates at the entrances to the various campus parking lots.  On this particular Halloween I decided to get in on that tradition and I promptly ran my body through a wooden parking gate breaking it off.  It was good, old fashioned vandalism.  Unfortunately, since this happened so regularly, and since it was Halloween, the local police department had officers staking out the parking lots on campus just in case some jack ass like myself decided to take part in our college pastime.  I broke the gate, and before I knew it a cop was running up behind me.  I ran as fast as I could.  There were other officers positioned ahead of me, so I stopped running after only a hundred feet or so.  The cop pursuing me tripped and sprained his ankle.  I was detained by the police for the second time in my life.  And again, I was only detained for as long as it took for the arresting officer to complete the paperwork (still made it to the party, only an hour late).  I apologized to the officer for causing him to injure himself.  He told me it was all right.  He said he was mad at me and didn't like me very much at that point, but that he'd heal and get over it.  I think it is relevant to mention here that the arresting and injured officer was African American.  Think about that for a moment.  I resisted arrest by running, and the arresting officer was injured in pursuit.  I was only charged with vandalism.  How might that have played out if I were African American and the officer was white?

I attended court for the vandalism charge, and again I was given an ACD and paid no fine.  This was my third ACD.  The first was for the possession charge, and the second I received for getting too many speeding tickets.  That second ACD had expired less than a month before I received the third.

Students across all races and socioeconomic strata are guilty of offenses similar to the ones I committed as a teenager.  Yet, students of color are disproportionately disciplined by school systems and the police for these types of offenses.  I have seen this first hand having worked both in poor, predominantly black schools, and wealthy, predominantly white schools.  In the wealthy, predominantly white schools students often don't even have to answer to the police for their transgressions.  These things are kept quiet and quickly forgotten.  In the poor, predominantly black schools such transgressions earn students suspensions, expulsions, probation, time in juvenile detention, and hefty fines.  

When I was twenty I was walking down the street late at night, drunk, and a police officer driving by gave me a lift home.  When Michael Brown was eighteen he was walking down the street in the middle of the afternoon, sober, and police officer drove by and shot him.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Vermillion Desterenephous

Source
I don't know how long ago the virus hijacked all of our neuros. A lot of people have been lost in an infinite dream as they waste away back in the primary thread of reality. Some of us have learned how to live with the virus though. We can jump from one thread (ie: a simulated universe) to the next at will. But we still need help from those on the outside, those that never had neuros in the first place, to bring us back to the primary thread from time to time. Most of us, those like myself that can jump from one thread to another, spend our time exploring the threads. I have a particular fascination with Vermillion Desterenophous.

* * * * *

In many threads Vermillion Desterenophous has no meaning whatsoever. I know it means nothing in the primary thread. I once found a world in which vermillion desterenophous is a type of plant/animal hybrid that secretes a sweet, reddish jam-like substance which attracts passing animals. After ingesting the fragrant substance the animal soon becomes lethargic and falls into a euphoric stupor. Once the prey is sufficiently disoriented and tired the vermillion desterenophous extends a broad and very soft leaf, usually about two meters long and a meter and a half across. The prey, upon noticing the leaf, will lie down on it and fall asleep. The vermillion desterenophous will then secrete more of its' jam-like substance to further incapacitate its' victim. The leaf then envelopes the prey and secretes a caustic acid which quickly dissolves and digests the slumbering animal.

In another thread I found that Vermillion Desterenophous was the name of a punk band that overthrew an oppressive government and took the reigns of power. Very quickly Vermillion Desterenophous became even more despotic and sadistic than the government they overthrew. They began a mass extermination of anyone who listened to or played country music. Those unfortunate souls that enjoyed country music were given a chance to convert by being locked in a plain white room with lights on twenty-four hours a day. Music from Black Flag was piped in constantly, and once they pledged allegiance to Vermillion Desterenophous and the Dead Kennedys they were freed. Those who did not convert were beheaded. The severed heads of the victims were then shout out of t-shirt cannons into the audiences at Vermillion Desterenophous concerts. The heads of these apostates quickly became collector's items and a speculative-bubble soon formed over the ever rising prices of these severed heads. Eventually over thirty million people were beheaded for being punk apostates. With the market saturated the price of severed heads eventually dropped dramatically, the bubble burst, and within a week the economy had come to a halt. Amid rising unemployment, hyper-inflation, and mass beheadings the people quickly grew weary of Vermillion Desterenophous. Vermillion Desterenophous was overthrown in a military coup lead by the renegade general and country singer Hart Headly. The Headly regime proved to be just as despotic.

Perhaps the best incarnation of Vermillion Desterenophous that I saw was in a thread where the whole world was at peace. Vermillion Desterenophous was a poet, playwright, and philosopher who came up with a philosophy of radical empathy towards all living creatures. He was given the title of Supreme Bard and Philosoph of a nation, Gondwanaland, already dedicated to charity and egalitarianism. His concept of radical empathy was quickly embraced and spread throughout the world via Gondwanalands' foreign policy. I think one of the reasons why radical empathy worked so well in this world was because the total population of sentient beings numbered only fifty million.

In one world vermillion desterenophous is a radical economic and political ideology that has caused centuries of despotism, violence, and war across the whole world.

There was one thread where vermillion desterenophous is just a weed.

In another it is a type of concrete.

This is what is so amazing about the virus. This is why I love jumping worlds. I've learned to control it perfectly. It's like an old time google search. I just think of a term or a concept and I'm there. It's fantastic! I can search anything, absolutely anything. Even something as meaningless as Vermillion Desterenephous. Who would of thought that something so absurd as Vermillion Desterenophous could actually mean something in so many worlds! In the primary thread it is utterly meaningless, but in so many others it's everything. I can come up with anything and I almost always find a thread in which my non-nonsensical babel actually means something. Take for example something totally ridiculous, even more so than vermillion desterenephous, like Henry Kissinger. Again, totally meaningless in the primary thread and many others. But I found one thread in which the United States engaged in a brutal and aggressive war in Vietnam. In this thread Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State to President Richard Nixon and one of the key architects of a secret war in the country bordering Vietnam, Cambodia. Not only did Henry Kissinger have meaning in this world, but he was also a war criminal. In that thread President Nixon was forced to resign amid a growing scandal over the release of a secret history of the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. Henry Kissinger, along with many others, were never held to account for their crimes. It was very similar to what happened in the primary thread, but there the aggressive war was fought in Algeria instead, and the president who was disgraced and impeached over it was John F. Kennedy.

And of course there are many other worlds where Henry Kissinger means something. In most worlds Henry Kissinger is an invasive species of fungus that destroys whole ecosystems. Such similarities between threads is actually quite common. I have found that the words, names, and phrases I make up often have the same or similar meanings in different threads. It seems that there is a continuum of existence for all things. A certain essence which life maintains across realities. The closer one thread is to another the more subtle the differences between them. One can judge the distance between threads by the abruptness of a jump. The more radical the difference between one thread and another the further they are away from each other. So if you are reliving your childhood one moment and then orbiting a gaseous planet in a distant solar system the next then you just made a big jump. Conversely if the only difference between two threads is the existence or non-existence of a single leaf on a tree then your jump was minute and probably imperceptible. In fact most jumps are imperceptible with the differences between threads simply being the placement of a single atom.

Often the similarities are not to be found in a creatures physical manifestation but in its effects of the wider world. This is why Henry Kissinger is a war criminal in many threads and an invasive species of fungus in others.


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Gremlins Behind my Eyes

The gremlins behind my eyes spoke my dreams to a murder of crows.
Set shallow in my pupils the little beings watch the coursing, thriving, bio-electric mass of protein that is my mind.
That little glimmer in everyone’s eye, light reflected off of their metallic suits.


The little gremlins watch our thoughts.  They observe, analyze, model, and predict.
Benign, usually.  They just gather and absorb.  


But this time . . .


This time they found reason to tell those damned crows!
They told them about my dream of the camps.
The old crows and young heard of degradation and despair.
They learned of waste, carrion, and fear.
Old crows and young learned nothing new,
They cawed and cried for sorrow and joy.


And I asked the little gremlins behind my eyes “Why did you share my dreams with this murder of crows?  Why did you share that one dream?”


The gremlins starred from my shallow pupils, metallic suits glinting in the fluorescence.  They would not answer back.


“I would happily share my dreams, the good and the bad.  The limitless and the void.  The crows know of the void, we all know the void.  We are of it, the universe eats us.  The darkness of the void motivates urgency, passion,  and meaning in our being. Yet you only show them the void, and not the brilliance that illuminates it.”

But the gremlins only stare blankly, and get back to work.