Racism and uhm..local politics...
Nov. 16th, 2011 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatResisting the urge to discuss local politics...so will share this vid, which I swiped off of kristin.cashore's blog:
Assuming it posts. The title of this is Learning how to Love Talking About Racism or having the conversation about it. So if you have 12 minutes, watch. It's really good and funny in places.
Last week during our monthly anti-racism/pro-diversity social justice committee meeting...one of the members said something that has stuck with me.
Racism has no roots in biology in any way shape or form, it's purely psychological and sociological. Or a social construct deeply ingrained in our consciousness over time. And as a result racism while it does not exist in biology, does exist. It is ever present in everything we do.
True. Frustratingly true. I catch it in myself all the time. Where I work - luckily for me - forces me to confront my own racism on a daily, hourly basis.
Sigh, remember that bit about resisting the urge to discuss local politics? I failed.
I can't help it. But I put it behind a cut so you can ignore it.
One of the pluses regarding the OWS eviction - is increased media coverage. The media was not happy about how the police went about ousting the OWS. The reason? The police inadvertently arrested and beat up the media in the process, along with several City Council Members who were observing not camping on the site. Well, it is dark at 1 am in the morning...I guess it is a bit hard to see who you are arresting. Also, I'm guessing they thought they'd avoid this problem by doing it at 1 am in the morning.
So much for that idea.
I know I shouldn't feel sorry for the City, who has put up a brave front tolerating the protestors illegally camping in one of their private parks. [Note what is illegal is the camping in a private city park, they don't let anyone camp in parks in the city, including the public parks - they never really have, just ask the homeless who keep trying to do it. Actually you can't to my knowledge camp in State or Federal Parks either without a permit. They are sort of strict about this sort of thing. Americans like everyone else around the world are a tad nutty about their personal property rights. Why else do we have so many wars? It's always about the bloody property rights. Just ask the American Indians/Native Americans - who felt they should be able to camp where-ever and just wander about camping in different places willy nilly. Uh, no, said the settlers and ranchers and immigrants - you have to pick just one place and live there, actually wait - we'll pick the place for you and you can do whatever you want there. And we'll call it an Indian Reservation! You can have your own laws and everything! Doesn't that sound nifty? (Not really, but after a couple of really bloody fights over it, they gave in. Bullets are faster than arrows after all.) So no, this isn't a constitutional right.] But I sort of do fell sorry for the City (also the Native Americans, but that's another story).
The City is caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. The local business owners (not the rich Wall Street bankers - they don't care, the small fry - the little delis, coffee shops, pubs, small vendors and restaurants - those guys began to protest the OWS. Sure they liked the idea and all, but couldn't they do it somewhere else - not in front of their place of business? Losing business here folks!) began to complain - and pretty loudly. Fed up, the small business owners actually formed a protest of OWS on Monday. They got heard. Wonder of wonders. They'd been complaining for some time, but I guess it took gathering together and shouting on the steps of City Hall to get noticed. Possibly because as the business owners pointed out, they were losing business, and as a result laying people off and adding to the City's unemployment rate. The city doesn't need help with its unemployment rate...its doing quite well on its own in that department thank you. OWS was also having all sorts of security issues popping up - which happens when you set up a camp site in the middle of a busy and crowded city with over 150,000 homeless people. The City has enough security issues to worry about on Wall Street, it's not exactly like it wasn't deploying a ton of cops down into that district anyhow.
So while this was okay for oh a month or so...winter is coming and we have snow removal issues. This is becoming impractical people. I think they may have tolerated it longer if it were summer...but it's hard to tell.
The City could have dealt with the eviction better though. Beating up press corps/media outlets and kicking them out of the area - probably was not the best choice, since yes, that is a violation of the First Amendment. Also arresting people who weren't protesting the eviction...also not such a smart idea. Would have been a bit wiser to make it clear - yes, you can return tomorrow, you just aren't allowed to camp here and you have 24 hours to remove your belongings before we remove them for you. We're serious. We don't want to arrest you, but we will.
Not to be outdone, the OWS have decided to try and shut down the City on Thurs. Making me extremely happy for once that I got a job in Jamaica, Queens and don't live or work in Manhattan. Tomorrow is going to be a nightmare. Not only is it supposed to get colder, it's going to rain all day long. So, we're going to have protesters trying to stop subways (which were not running all that well today anyhow because of signal problems), rain, marches across the Brooklyn Bridge, and an attempt to shut down the Stock Market (good luck with that - very few things shut down the Stock Market and please don't cause a black out, I'd like to make it home.)
See here's the thing, I agree that people have the right to speak their mind and protest, but OWS neither has a clear message outside of the fact that they hate the current economic scenario (don't we all), nor a viable solution (outside of leaving your bank which isn't really all that viable - my big bank has actually been nice to me in some really horrible situations), and they are hurting and disrupting innocent people who agree with them in principle and aren't part of the 1%. The irony of course is that (outside of Bloomberg), the 1% really aren't affected by any of this - they don't take the subways or for that matter work at the restaurants along Wall Street. (The police by the way aren't the 1%, they are working class blokes who don't make that much money and can't afford to live in the city or send their kids to college.) I honestly think OWS needs to re-group and come up with another approach. I don't know what it is...but this one isn't all that effective.
Okay that was longer than I wanted. And a bit snarkier.
Assuming it posts. The title of this is Learning how to Love Talking About Racism or having the conversation about it. So if you have 12 minutes, watch. It's really good and funny in places.
Last week during our monthly anti-racism/pro-diversity social justice committee meeting...one of the members said something that has stuck with me.
Racism has no roots in biology in any way shape or form, it's purely psychological and sociological. Or a social construct deeply ingrained in our consciousness over time. And as a result racism while it does not exist in biology, does exist. It is ever present in everything we do.
True. Frustratingly true. I catch it in myself all the time. Where I work - luckily for me - forces me to confront my own racism on a daily, hourly basis.
Sigh, remember that bit about resisting the urge to discuss local politics? I failed.
I can't help it. But I put it behind a cut so you can ignore it.
One of the pluses regarding the OWS eviction - is increased media coverage. The media was not happy about how the police went about ousting the OWS. The reason? The police inadvertently arrested and beat up the media in the process, along with several City Council Members who were observing not camping on the site. Well, it is dark at 1 am in the morning...I guess it is a bit hard to see who you are arresting. Also, I'm guessing they thought they'd avoid this problem by doing it at 1 am in the morning.
So much for that idea.
I know I shouldn't feel sorry for the City, who has put up a brave front tolerating the protestors illegally camping in one of their private parks. [Note what is illegal is the camping in a private city park, they don't let anyone camp in parks in the city, including the public parks - they never really have, just ask the homeless who keep trying to do it. Actually you can't to my knowledge camp in State or Federal Parks either without a permit. They are sort of strict about this sort of thing. Americans like everyone else around the world are a tad nutty about their personal property rights. Why else do we have so many wars? It's always about the bloody property rights. Just ask the American Indians/Native Americans - who felt they should be able to camp where-ever and just wander about camping in different places willy nilly. Uh, no, said the settlers and ranchers and immigrants - you have to pick just one place and live there, actually wait - we'll pick the place for you and you can do whatever you want there. And we'll call it an Indian Reservation! You can have your own laws and everything! Doesn't that sound nifty? (Not really, but after a couple of really bloody fights over it, they gave in. Bullets are faster than arrows after all.) So no, this isn't a constitutional right.] But I sort of do fell sorry for the City (also the Native Americans, but that's another story).
The City is caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. The local business owners (not the rich Wall Street bankers - they don't care, the small fry - the little delis, coffee shops, pubs, small vendors and restaurants - those guys began to protest the OWS. Sure they liked the idea and all, but couldn't they do it somewhere else - not in front of their place of business? Losing business here folks!) began to complain - and pretty loudly. Fed up, the small business owners actually formed a protest of OWS on Monday. They got heard. Wonder of wonders. They'd been complaining for some time, but I guess it took gathering together and shouting on the steps of City Hall to get noticed. Possibly because as the business owners pointed out, they were losing business, and as a result laying people off and adding to the City's unemployment rate. The city doesn't need help with its unemployment rate...its doing quite well on its own in that department thank you. OWS was also having all sorts of security issues popping up - which happens when you set up a camp site in the middle of a busy and crowded city with over 150,000 homeless people. The City has enough security issues to worry about on Wall Street, it's not exactly like it wasn't deploying a ton of cops down into that district anyhow.
So while this was okay for oh a month or so...winter is coming and we have snow removal issues. This is becoming impractical people. I think they may have tolerated it longer if it were summer...but it's hard to tell.
The City could have dealt with the eviction better though. Beating up press corps/media outlets and kicking them out of the area - probably was not the best choice, since yes, that is a violation of the First Amendment. Also arresting people who weren't protesting the eviction...also not such a smart idea. Would have been a bit wiser to make it clear - yes, you can return tomorrow, you just aren't allowed to camp here and you have 24 hours to remove your belongings before we remove them for you. We're serious. We don't want to arrest you, but we will.
Not to be outdone, the OWS have decided to try and shut down the City on Thurs. Making me extremely happy for once that I got a job in Jamaica, Queens and don't live or work in Manhattan. Tomorrow is going to be a nightmare. Not only is it supposed to get colder, it's going to rain all day long. So, we're going to have protesters trying to stop subways (which were not running all that well today anyhow because of signal problems), rain, marches across the Brooklyn Bridge, and an attempt to shut down the Stock Market (good luck with that - very few things shut down the Stock Market and please don't cause a black out, I'd like to make it home.)
See here's the thing, I agree that people have the right to speak their mind and protest, but OWS neither has a clear message outside of the fact that they hate the current economic scenario (don't we all), nor a viable solution (outside of leaving your bank which isn't really all that viable - my big bank has actually been nice to me in some really horrible situations), and they are hurting and disrupting innocent people who agree with them in principle and aren't part of the 1%. The irony of course is that (outside of Bloomberg), the 1% really aren't affected by any of this - they don't take the subways or for that matter work at the restaurants along Wall Street. (The police by the way aren't the 1%, they are working class blokes who don't make that much money and can't afford to live in the city or send their kids to college.) I honestly think OWS needs to re-group and come up with another approach. I don't know what it is...but this one isn't all that effective.
Okay that was longer than I wanted. And a bit snarkier.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 03:44 am (UTC)Tomorrow will be very interesting. Potentially exciting -- my mother, who was a try hippy back in the day, keeps comparing the OWS spirit to the spirit of the sixties (though, she doesn't actually live here, so) -- but also potentially a big problem. I work in Union Square, where there's supposed to be a big student protest in the afternoon, so we shall see.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 04:06 am (UTC)But I feel like the "Occupy" element of the protest is just not sustainable, and not necessarily good, either, for a number of reasons (safety, disrupting small business -- the things you mentioned). At this point they don't really need it anymore, so I hope they don't try to find a different area to Occupy.
I agree. I think the danger right now is that they are disrupting the wrong people. If it's really the corporate lobby and wealthy lobby they want to counter-act? Then shouldn't they find a way to attack that? I get that the Occupy Movement was meant to show an alternative way of living - living without greed, as a community, with communal sharing and discussion and caring (although unfortunately counter-acted by some protesters who were just pissed off and wanted their share - that's the problem with free speech, you sort of have to deal with the people you don't agree with too, which was also part of the movement). But...they need to try something else now, move to a new stage. I don't know what it is though, but I keep hoping someone will come up with something.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 01:18 pm (UTC)NY1 is about as non-traditional as I can get, it's more local...and covers all the angles. They covered the police brutality pretty effectively but also covered the protests by the local business owners. Unlike the other news outlets - they analyzed it in depth on Tuesday from multiple perspectives. They aren't really available though to people outside of the NY area. But I think you can read their site online. Also unlike other reporters - they separate the editorials from the news coverage.
A rarity.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 05:03 pm (UTC)Twitter, facebook, many live blogs...aren't available from work. Also no time. I'm lucky I can get on lj or access email.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 05:12 pm (UTC)