Beware of Rabid Professors!

Okay, so far this entire story seems to be limited to local news in the Boston area and the social network accounts of indignant Black people, but I think this story might be somewhat relevant to a trend in "post-racial America". Black Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. was arrested at his own home because he was somewhat rude to a police officer. Some (very reasonable) people say that we should wait until all of the facts came to light. Then the police report was released to the public. Obviously, the officer writing the police report would not write anything unbecoming of himself, but some of the things he did write are hard to explain:

I asked Gates for photo identification so that I could verify that he resided at -- Ware Street and so that I could radio my findings to ECC. Gates initially refused, demanding that I show some identification but then did supply me with a Harvard identification card. Upon learning that Gates was affiliated with Harvard, I radioed and requested the presence of Harvard University Police.

This part of the police report made me question the police officer's objectives. If he knew that Gates did in fact live at that address, why was it necessary to involve the University's police. I wonder if the police officer wanted Gates to get in trouble with the University, perhaps endanger his employment. Gates was arrested on the charge of disorderly conduct because he "continued to yell, which drew the attention of both the police officers and citizens, who appeared surprised and alarmed by Gates's outburst" even after the officer had left the house. I wonder which drew more attention: a middle-age man yelling from his porch or multiple police cars parked in front of said man's house? Gates was allowed to go home but another Black Harvard professor claims that he too had been accosted by police.

Professor Allen Counter claims that in 2004 two Harvard police officers mistook him for a robbery suspect as he crossed Harvard Yard. They threatened to arrest him because he could not provide identification. This incident happened in broad daylight.

This is what people are calling "post-racial" America. We have a Black president but children in Philadelphia are being denied access to swimming pools and college professors are being arrested in their own homes for "disorderly conduct". In economically and socially stressful times, we hope that we can press on for a less backwards future.

Quotes and information is courtesy of http://www.boston.com/.

Do not kick the hobos!

Nobody likes a free-loader. No one likes feeling as though they've been had. Lots of people make fun off homeless people and the idea of fighting hobos. I don't believe that all hobos are just unlucky people. A couple of years ago I saw Oprah interview a homeless man who had blown $100K in 6 months in a documentary called Reversal of Fortune. This man was able-bodied with a healthy mind and a lack of respect for authority that made it difficult for him to keep a job. In the documentary, he admits that he prefers being homeless because no one can tell him what to do. This is the kind of hobo most people think of when they want to commit violent acts against homeless people.

Now, imagine this:

A girl and her father are walking downtown at the end of a work day. The girl is wearing a T-shirt promoting peace. The father is wearing a suit. Then the father stops to talk to a smelly, shabby man sitting on the sidewalk.

"I haven't seen you in a few days," the father says.

The homeless man mutters something the girl doesn't quite catch. The father nods in understanding.

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry to hear that," says the father. He then fishes in his pocket for some spare dollar bills. He gives them to the homeless man. "Try to take care of yourself."

Then the girl and her father depart.

When they are out of earshot of the homeless man, the daughter asks her father what the homeless man said. Her father tells her that the man is mentally retarded. He was attacked a few nights before and had been in the hospital until that morning.

Those few moments with my father and that homeless man seriously changed my outlook on life. Many people would argue that plenty of retarded people have jobs, but that's not the issue. The problem is that many homeless people are mentally insane and unable to receive treatment or mentally retarded and unable to find the support necessary for them to thrive in our complex society. People tend to think that violence against lazy hobos is warranted because of their behavior. Tragically, many people don't think about the unfortunate mentally challenged hobo that actually was attacked.

Because nothing interesting happened at Sotomayor's hearing...

I would like to present a poem by the late 60's poet d. a. levy courtesy of oldpoetry.com

When i was a little kid
my parents never told me
i didn't find out until
i got out of high school
then when people asked me,
I ASKED THEM,
"NATIONALITY OR RELIGION?"

When i was a little kid
my parents brought me up as a christian
that when i discovered,
i was different
i wasn't THAT sick!
so at sixteen
still being a virgin forest
i decided
i must be a buddhist monk,
Then when people asked me
I TOLD THEM, i told them
"Not me, man, i don't belong to No-thing"

In the navy
a swabby once asked me,
if i wanted to go to the
temple with him,
i told him
"Not me, man, im the last
of the full blooded american indians."

it became confusing
so after a while
when people inquired
"Hey..ah..you arnt......are you?"
i answered
"with a name like levy,
what the hell do you think i am?"
A Ritz Cracker? A flying bathtub?
An arab? etc.

But now its getting pretty hip
to be a jew
and some of my best friend are
becoming converted to halavah,
even the crones who suddenly
became World War 2 catholics are
now praising bagels and lox
i still dont feel on ethnic things like

"Ok, we all niggers so lets hold hands."
&
"Ok, we're all wops so lets support the mafia,"
&
"Ok, we're all jews so lets weep on each others shoulders."
so now when people smile and say,
"Hey, you're one of us,"
i smile and say,
"Fuck you, man,
im still alive."

I'm not much of a poetry analyst, but this poem made me think. I don't know that it changed the way I think, but I did do a lot of thinking after I read it. The last two lines really stuck out: "Fuck you, man, / im still alive." It made me think, What are these labels? Should the way we describe ourselves also be how we define ourselves?

As a minority, I had always been told no to forget where I came from and that my race and my gender are a major part of who I am. And yet, in some ways, it seems that my race and gender have little effect on how I define myself. I am not stereotypical in any sense of the word. I do not like to follow mindless trends. For the most part, I take the consequences into consideration before I do something. These things have nothing to do with my gender or my ethnicity.

Also, as a living, breathing human being, I can easily reinvent myself. I can be jewish; I can be buddhist; I can be anything as long as I am alive. And really, that is all that matters. Labels are obsolete because people are dynamic. You can use them to describe but not to define. For me, this doesn't mean that labels are bad and we should never use them. It just means that people are always more than their labels and we should never let those labels restrain or determine our thoughts or our actions. Just because some people share a particular religion or ethnicity does not mean that they are compatible.

If you disagree with this poem or what I say about it, please remember that this is not an analysis. I just wanted to express the feelings that a particular poem stirs in me. I'd like to learn about how other people feel about this poem or other poems. Feel free to comment!

Brunono

So, the movie Bruno was released today. I've been anticipating this movie as a feel-good summer comedy. What's not funny about some flamboyantly gay foreigner trapezing around the nation, mocking politicians, celebrities and normal people alike? But, should we consider it cruel that these everyday people are subjected to the kind of treatment that politicians and celebrities supposedly condition themselves to handle? We all know that, in order to film Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen told the government of Kazakhstan that he would be making a documentary of their country. While not entirely untrue, the opening scenes of that movie hardly present the country in a factual (0r at all flattering) light. According to TMZ, this time Cohen has emotionally traumatized a woman by using the Bruno character to pose as a celebrity and disrupting a charity bingo tournament for the elderly. The woman is now confined to a wheelchair and walker because she fell during the course of the incident.

In Cohen's defense, I was deeply impacted by the movie Borat. I thought of it as a social commentary as opposed to a comedy. Some parts I considered funny and others I considered gross, but it was still fairly insightful. And (who knows) maybe this woman is exaggerating the trauma of the incident. Maybe she just wants money out of a movie that she is sure will be successful. I'm not going to tell anyone to boycott the new movie. I still want to see it. I just hope that we take something out of these kinds of movies besides a few cheap laughs at potty humor. I personally do not believe that we should take pleasure in the misfortune of others. However, I do think that we should pay attention when average citizens are brought to our attention. We might find out more things (pleasant and unpleasant) about our country through movies like this.

My First

On my first post, I would like to say that this is a blog by a college student about the things going on in this world. I hope to cover everything from news to politics to entertainment. Feel free to comment whether you agree or not. Maybe you can change my opinions on some things!