The Latest

So, now I teach in an "urban" school - which is to say that the school I'm at is urban, but functional, and really diverse, which is to say, urban, but not 90% Black or Brown, which I know a lot of you (might) assume from the descriptor "urban".

It's interesting, in a whole lot of ways.

But, to be honest, I miss my previous school which was "urban" in the more traditional sense of urban - it was mostly Black and Brown children and 99% were struggling-working-class. The teachers had experience working with this population and it seemed, well, way-more real than the faculty and students of the school I'm currently at.

Which isn't to disparage the students or faculty of my current school - kids are kids, and to be quite frank, well, the faculty on the whole is also way more competent than the faculty of my previous school. I can't think of a single teacher at my current school to which I would just shake my head. But I also have questions about the "competent teachers' " abilities to deal in the environment of my previous school. Does this make sense? In a really weird and fucked up way, I wish I still had the opportunity to teach at school #1 (which is to say, I wish, but don't feel the compunction to actually pursue, the possibility).

I'm currently reading William Julius Wilson's latest tract and so far it makes a lot of sense (except for a quibble I have about the role of the state - and state-rejection - in his theory.) And so far, I feel like his thesis doesn't really apply to the majority of the students I now teach, but did at my old school, where students typically felt at odds with "the system" and therefore rejected a simplistic approach to education.

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I was recently listening to a college radio station on which they were interviewing a participant in the US social forum. As much as I admire the folks involved in the USSF, I wonder how many of my students (at my previous school) would see USSF as representing their interests or issues. Somehow, I think very few, if any. And what does that say about the Left in America today? To what extent is it a whole lot of energy and organizing and effort around important issues that ultimately ignore the basic issues of "the people"? How can we build a movement that is more than anti-corporate, but that deals intimately with the issues that we, the people, in the urban-core (aka - the ghetto) are facing?

A politics that is grounded in what are the ultimately easy issues of the middle-class (environmentalism, corporate-greed) cannot also appeal to those of us that deal with street-violence, statist-targeting, and cultural disapprobation. Which isn't to say that the political issues of the middle-class are unimportant or don't affect the working-classes of America, but rather that those effects are less perceptible or imminent than a lot of other negative pressures both endemic (cultural) and imposed (structural) - with the emphasis necessarily on the imposed issues, since the endemic issues are mostly a response to the structural ones (incidentally, this is what I've argued forever, but the recent impetus behind this argument is all Wilson).

The Gender Wars Continue

Seriously? If there is no other evidence necessary that sexism is alive and well - how about this story. I should probably apologize in advance for the idiocy of the whole thing, since one of my attempts with this blog is to raise the level of discussion and debate. And it's not like I'm a pop-culture trawler - I swear that I got to this via a series of links that started with the Huffington Post (though they've got some celebrity bullshit, too).

Anyways - here's the link.

This is the kind of bullshit that I thought died with the 90s. Dumbass-old-white-middle-class guys making stupid comments (and as an old-white-middle-class guy, I take offense at that). Though, I guess some things never go out of style. I noticed a couple of things in the second clip that struck me -

#1: asshole dude is wearing an American flag tie. This makes me laugh in that such articles of clothing were considered sacrilegious in the 60s (as a desecration of the flag) and were this the 60s asshole dude would be totally against such an idea. Also, this seems to me to be his shield against the shit he must know he's going to take about what he said the day before. Seems pathetic, but also telling that literally wrapping oneself in the flag is considered a defense of bullshit sexism.

#2: asshole's comment re: PhD - since when did "You have a PhD" become an ad hominem attack? In what world is being smart and educated a liability? What does it say about who you are and what you stand for that you are threatened by smart people?

#3: victim's suggestion that they compete in some sport to see who wins. Really? Okay - I understand that she's probably a little emotionally off-balance because of the bullshit her co-worker, who she sits next to on national television on I presume a daily basis, pulled. And perhaps she can be forgiven for attempting to be gracious about being a public victim of sexism. But it's a bad joke and it undercuts both the seriousness of what was done to her and her original position, that graciousness should win out over competition - that there is something beautiful about how the baseball bad call was handled. It reminds me of the GI Jane type of feminist that takes a social-political position that a woman can be as violent as a stereotypical man, which is true and fine in a sense, but one thinks there's more to it than as well as that the pressure should also be on men to be as nurturing as the stereotypical woman.

Which is to say that perhaps the contradictions are where the truth and beauty lie - we can all be strong and nurturing. Strength doesn't mean being an asshole, nurturing doesn't mean wilting.

What I've Been Saying

I have a pretty good opinion of my ideas - I guess if I didn't then I wouldn't be bothering to maintain a blog. On the other hand, often enough I find myself reading something that says exactly what I've been trying to say, but much better.

I had that experience today on the Dissent blog.

Nelson Lichtenstein analyzes the prospects for a rejuvenated Left within the context of a rejuvenated labor movement, which makes a lot of sense. He argues for an expansive and inclusive unionization (when I was in college, I was involved in a number of labor campaigns, although I was affiliated with a radical student group, not a union per se - I think this is an example of what Lichtenstein is promoting. For what it is worth - the Graduate Employee Organization welcomed us, while the more traditional unions such as SEIU and AFSCME looked at us like we were crazy - which I suppose we kinda were, but it could have been a fruitful, interesting, learning experience for all involved had those connections been made).

He also points out that the movement will only have power in as far as it is only loosely united with mainstream politics - we should be allies of the Democratic party, but not beholden. This was my gripe as a member of the house of representatives of the United Teachers Los Angeles early in my career - we seemed to be too often adopting a Democratic Party political line, even if it didn't really dovetail with our interests.

Lastly (or really firstly, since I'm addressing Lichtenstein's arguments in reverse order) he makes the point that the right has a history of getting more aggressive when the left is in ascendancy. This is a relatively new idea for me, so I'm not sure I agree yet, though I tend to reject this notion - he points to the 1930s and 1960s as times of right-wing aggression, though if you look at the periods that immediately precede those eras, you see the 1920s and 1950s - both decades known for anti-communist witch hunts and ascendant eras of the KKK. Next to those decades, the right of the 30s and then the 60s looks beleaguered and drawn out.

I suppose there could be an argument that the 2000s were the right-wing ascendancy and the 2010s will be a period of reprieve (God, I hope so) but the cynic in me also warns that the modern period started with the French Revolution and ended with the Cold War. We may have entered a new paradigm and can't really use the old patterns as a basis for understanding where we are and where me might be headed.

Israel and America

I wouldn't call myself a Zionist, but I understand the impetus and support the idea of Israel. I definitely support the ideals of many of the founders (many of the kibbutzim, for instance), at least the liberal humanists that sought to create a peaceful nation, modeled on the principals of equality, respect for the minority, liberty and human rights.

Unfortunately, the latest actions by the Israeli government have belied those ideals. I don't believe that Netanyahu and the ruling party really are interested in peaceful coexistence with the people that undeniably were living on that land when Palestine became Israel. The politics of fear and cynicism have triumphed in Israel (and quite frankly in a lot of other places, perhaps most relevantly in the United States).

But I can't, for the life of me, understand why Helen Thomas, a 90-year-old venerated and respected journalist, has been repudiated and condemned in some of the most forceful language because of her stated feelings that Israelis should leave Palestine and "go home - to Germany, Poland or the United States" (that's a paraphrase). I honestly don't see the problem with this point of view, although I don't agree with it, completely.

I understand that it is politically unwise to make anti-Israel statements in the US, for various and sundry reasons, but Ms. Thomas is a journalist, not a politician. Never mind the fact that if we in America can't have a rational, open discussion of Israeli policy, not only are the Israelis doomed, we are too.