“justice & liberty for all”? 2007.04.03
Posted by Hakuna in justice, politics, social commentary.2 comments
again, i find myself utterly disappointed in how far we as americans aspire to live up to our own values. this is an old story but i was amazed while reading a story in the ny times that it has now been more than five years since we began our “war on terror” (whatever that actually means) in response to “911.” one of our more questionable actions since then has been our holding of 45 men of various nationalities in a prison at guantánamo bay on cuba. these men have never been charged with any crime and last year, congress actually made it illegal for these men to challenge their detainment! here’s the paragraph that caught my attention:
The men have all been held at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years, and none has been charged with a crime. They filed petitions for habeas corpus, challenging their continued confinement, before Congress ordered in the 2006 law that all such petitions must be dismissed and no new ones could be accepted for filing.
we’re suppose to be about individual rights and the rule of law but do these actions accurately represent who we as americans really are? i certainly hope not! i hope it is just a reflection of a president and a republican party (btw, i am neither a democrat or a republican.) that has completely lost perspective!
but if this is the case, why are we — the american public — not outraged? we have lost our way because of fear and the “freedom” that we are trying to defend is being eroded by our very own hands.
race matters! 2007.01.31
Posted by Hakuna in ethnicity & culture, racism, social commentary.3 comments
this is a question and sentiment that i often hear asked or implied (usually by a european american male, but sometimes by individuals of color like Ward Connerly (photo to right)). it is one of my greatest frustrations as i have tried to help people see reality in north america.
i came across an article in the new york times yesterday that reminded me of why we must continue to be vigilant in our advocacy of those who are different from the norm or dominant group — in our context here in north america, that means white european north americans.
most white north americans believe that we live life on a level playing field. in the u.s., that means that all americans are afforded the same opportunities and that with enough will and determination, any american can achieve anything. my mom tells me that when i was born, her father (my grandfather) called from okinawa and commented with admiration that i could someday be president of the united states because i was born in the u.s. his sentiment reflects this traditional american belief and value.
we (as americans) want to believe this about ourselves and this is most true for those of the dominant ethnic group because to believe otherwise would disrupt the status quo. the dynamics of dominant and sub-dominant in a system are not unique to north america so i want to emphasize that this is not a commentary on european americans as a people group. one can see this dynamic play itself out virtually every system in the world.
this short article at nytimes.com reported a recent study which showed that a primary factor in income for immigrants was the amount of melanin in one’s skin. in other words, how light or dark one’s skin is has a significant impact on one’s earning potential. “how significant an impact?” you ask. so much so that one shade lighter in skin tone has about the same impact “as having an additional year of education.” the study found that those with the lightest skin earned an average of 8 to 15 percent more than similar immigrants with much darker skin.
Dr. Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, like English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin, and found that skin tone still seemed to make a difference in earnings. That meant that if two similar immigrants from Bangladesh, for example, came to the United States at the same time, with the same occupation and ability to speak English, the lighter-skinned one would make more money on average.
“I thought that once we controlled for race and nationality, I expected the difference to go away,” Dr. Hersch said, “but even with people from the same country, the same race, skin color really matters.”
Although many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin, she said her analysis showed that the skin-color advantage was not based on preferential treatment for light-skinned people in their country of origin. The bias, she said, occurs in the United States.
The New York Times: Study of Immigrants Links Lighter Skin and Higher Income
we live in a racialized society and race does indeed matter! it is more comfortable for us to believe that it does not because of who we want to believe we are as americans.
as an american, i am thankful and proud to live in a country that values freedom and equality! but “liberty and justice for all” is something we need to aspire to and and not something we have already achieved. it is not a reality that we enjoy today or have ever enjoyed in our country’s history.
angry & afraid! 2007.01.04
Posted by Hakuna in ohana ("family"), social commentary.2 comments
i just read an editorial in the new york times that left me angry and afraid! the author, lawrence downes — a parent of a middle school-aged girl — reflects on a recent outing with his daughter to her middle school talent show:
The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.
They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. …Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
i’m afraid because kyra is only eight now but sixth grade is just 2-1/2 years away! she is vivacious, charismatic and thankfully, still innocent. that innocence is part of the gift of youth, but increasingly, it seems like innocence is stolen at earlier and earlier ages in our society. why is there this obsession in our culture for children — especially girls — to look and act older than they really are?
i am angry because if media (hollywood and mtv) is hell-bent on driving our culture in this direction, where are the parents? when i read the editorial above, i thought that the girls must have been rebellious youth who surprised and shocked the audience and faculty of the school by this performance. sadly, this was not the case because mr. downes reports:
As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud.
i know that i cannot keep my little girl my “little girl” forever. i want to see her grow and develop into a young woman who will bless and transform the world! it appears that my spouse and i should expect little help from our schools, society and culture in nurturing her into this type of young adult.
is anyone else out there fearful and upset? i certainly hope so.
don’t wait till marriage! 2006.12.02
Posted by Hakuna in christian, friendship, marriage, ohana ("family"), social commentary.2 comments
there was a very interesting op-ed piece in the new york times a few weeks ago, but before i share some of my thoughts related to it, allow me to state unequivocally at the beginning that i have been married to an amazing woman for over 16 years now! (the photo of us to the right is from our first year of marriage in 1991.)
amy is certainly more than i than i deserve — both in character and beauty. i don’t want anything that follows to cause anyone (especially her if she reads this) to doubt my love and commitment to her or the joy that can be found in the institution of marriage. that being clearly and said, i will continue.
marriage is not and was never meant to be one’s sole source of relational intimacy. (please note that i did not say “physical intimacy”! marriage is a holy covenant that one makes to another and i do not believe it leaves any room for sexual infidelity.) in many places around the world but especially in north america, marriage is viewed as the single relationship in life that opens the possibility for one’s total happiness and satisfaction. to not be married in our culture means that there is something wrong with you and that you have absolutely no chance at having a full life.
marriage is not relational nirvana but this is exactly what our culture tells us it is! this warped view of relational intimacy has significantly contributed to what can only be described as an epidemic of loneliness in our society and world. professor stephanie coontz, author of “marriage, a history: how love conquered marriage,” in her ny times editorial writes, (bold added)
…in the last century, Americans have put all their emotional eggs in the basket of coupled love. Because of this change, many of us have found joys in marriage our great-great-grandparents never did. But we have also neglected our other relationships, placing too many burdens on a fragile institution and making social life poorer in the process. A study released this year showed just how dependent we’ve become on marriage. Three sociologists at the University of Arizona and Duke University found that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters. People reported fewer close relationships with co-workers, extended family members, neighbors and friends. The only close relationship where more people said they discussed important matters in 2004 than in 1985 was marriage. In fact, the number of people who depended totally on a spouse for important conversations, with no other person to turn to, almost doubled, to 9.4 percent from 5 percent. Not surprisingly, the number of people saying they didn’t have anyone in whom they confided nearly tripled.
before amy and i married, we discussed the nature marriage and of friendship and committed to one another that we would make our marriage one that empowered us to be better friends to others. we had witnessed so many newly wedded couples “disappear” from the lives of their friends and we did not want that to happen to us. we wanted our marriage to be a place were we would receive greater relational energy because of our marriage. marriage should increase our respective capacities to be a blessing to those around us — by god’s grace, we trust this has been the case.
i can certainly affirm that my deepest friendships have been a blessing to me and to amy (albeit indirectly in some cases). my significant friendships make me a healthier person and husband as well as father. they help me to see from perspectives other than my own and sharpen me to grow in areas of my life that i would be blissfully content to leave fallow.
in closing, i have many friends who are single. delving into the broad dynamics of singleness is beyond my purpose in this post, but if you are single and reading this entry, don’t wait for marriage to provide you with deeply satisfying relational intimacy! relational intimacy is not something to be saved for marriage. invest every resource you have into deepening your current friendships and create new ones with those you are drawn to today. don’t wait for the initiative of others! take risks of relational rejection and initiate, initiate, initiate.
It is in community that we come to see God in the other. It is in community that we see our own emptiness filled up. It is community that calls me beyond the pinched horizons of my own life, my own country, my own race, and gives me the gifts I do not have within me. -Joan Chittister
bumfights 2006.10.02
Posted by Hakuna in social commentary.10 comments
i was shocked and appauled when i saw this piece on “bumfights” on 60 minutes (cbs) last night! it made me extremely angry and sad that we could live in a society where this type of behavior on camera can make lots of money and be imitated as leasure activity. after the article below, i have a video from youtube.com that shows you a clip from one of the bumfights videos. it’s graphic stuff so i warn you that the web-article and the video will turn your stomach — that is unless you’re one of the 300,000 or so people who bought one of these evil videos.
update: youtube.com pulled the video for “terms of use violation” but the original cbs.com 60 minutes segment can be seen at http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2054122n for now. check it out before the link expires.
October 1, 2006
‘Bumfight’ Videos Inspired Joy-Killing
Florida Teen Tells Ed Bradley He Killed Homeless Man ‘For Fun’
Teenagers call it “bum-hunting” and it is a perverse national trend. Across the country, packs of teenage boys are stalking homeless people and attacking them, shooting them with paintball guns, beating them with baseball bats, even dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire. Over the last five years, at least one homeless person has been murdered each month, for no apparent reason.
Homeless advocates say that if any other group was being targeted like this, there’d be a national outcry. But as correspondent Ed Bradley reports, the only thing that seems to spark any outrage is when one of these attacks is captured on video.
Last January in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., two teenagers were caught on video surveillance tape as they beat a homeless man with baseball bats and ran away. The man survived. But that same night, the same kids beat another homeless man, 45-year-old Norris Gaynor, to death.
Seventeen-year-old Thomas Daugherty and 18-year-old Brian Hooks were identified by more than a dozen classmates as the boys on the tape. Still, they pled “not guilty” and are awaiting trial.
Since people living on the streets usually don’t report crime, there are no reliable government statistics. But the National Coalition for the Homeless, using local news reports and other sources, says that since 1999 there have been more than 500 such attacks, resulting in 180 deaths.
One of those killed was 53-year-old Michael Roberts, who was attacked in Holly Hill, Fla. in May 2005. Four teens, aged 14 through 18 confessed to the crime, saying they stumbled across Roberts in the woods where they had gone to smoke pot. Off and on over three hours, they beat him to death.
Jeffrey Spurgeon was the oldest member of the group. “The main thing that I can’t keep out of my head. That I keep thinking about 24/7 is Michael asking for help, and asking us stop, and screaming for help,” Spurgeon says.
Bradley met Spurgeon at his new home, a state prison in Jasper, Fla., where he has been sentenced to spend the next 35 years. He told 60 Minutes his 14-year-old, 220-pound friend, Chris Scamahorn, started the attack.
“Chris woke the guy up and started hittin’ him with a stick. So we all rushed in on him and then I hit him with the stick. And then we all left,” Spurgeon recalls.
Spurgeon says they went back three times and says each time the beatings got worse.
“And the third time when we come back, that’s when Chris had brought a two by four with a nail through it. And hit the guy on top of the head with it,” Spurgeon says.
Why did they do all this?
“I guess for fun,” Spurgeon says.
“These kids were obviously dangerous. And they had no idea why,” says Circuit Court Judge Joseph Will.
He spent weeks looking at the evidence before sentencing Spurgeon and the others to spend most of their adult lives in prison, with no chance for parole.”
It’s not just a mistake. It’s a conscious act that took place over a long period of time that resulted in the brutal death of a helpless harmless man,” Judge Will says.
Why does he think they did it?”
I think they did it because there was someone less powerful than they, to pick on,” the judge says.”
Do you think that it happened because he was homeless?” Bradley asks.”
I think it happened because he was homeless and he was helpless and he was one step down on the violence pecking order from those kids,” Judge Will replies.”
This is the new sport. In many parts of the country, it’s a rite of passage,” says Brian Levin, a criminologist at California State University in San Bernardino, and an expert on hate crimes.
Why would kids start beating up homeless people?”
Most hate offenses are not committed by hard core hate-mongers,” Levin explains. “They’re often associations of young males who looking for some thrill or excitement go out and attack a target that will help validate them. And a target that they think is vulnerable. One that they can get away with. And one that has some kind of negativity associated with it.”
And Levin says no group has more negativity associated with it than the homeless, who are often stereotyped as lazy, stupid and responsible for their situation. He says in many ways, they’re one group it is still “safe” to hate.”
It used to be gays, it used to be African-Americans. But now the vogue target in many ways are the homeless,” says Levin.
“How did this become okay? I mean how did it get to a point where kidsthink we can just go out and beat somebody up, some cases kill them, and that’s alright?” Bradley asks.
“Most recently there have been a series of films, horrible brutal films that dehumanize and degrade the homeless,” says Levin, referring to the Bumfight videos.
Bumfights is a series of popular DVDs in which homeless people perform degrading stunts for which they are paid a few dollars and a lot of alcohol. They also include clips of teenagers fighting. The DVDs cost about $20 and have sold 300,000 copies over the last five years.
The videos star Rufus Hannah, a homeless man dubbed “Rufus the stunt bum,” drinking to excess, falling down, performing dangerous stunts and fighting his best friend Donnie Brennan who is also homeless.
Brennan was even branded for the video.
These days, Hannah is sober, working full-time, and involved in a civil lawsuit to recover some of the money from Bumfights. Brennan, who’s still on the streets, is also suing. Both men claim they were taken advantage of by the film-makers because they were homeless.
Brennan says he got hurt in the making of the videos. “I broke my ankle in half. I broke my leg in two places,” he says.
He says the scenes were not acting but were “down to earth real.”
Asked if they made money from the site, Hannah says, “We didn’t make a damn thing.”
“Five bucks for beer every once in a while,” Brennan adds.”
Sometimes it was only two or three dollars. See, Ryan knew that when we got drunk, he could get us to do anything,” Hannah explains.
“Ryan” is Ryan McPherson, the 23-year-old creator of Bumfights. He sold the rights to the series for $1.5 million shortly after it came out, splitting the money with three partners. But he’s still defending Bumfights in court, and in the media.”
We’re merely exposing something that I don’t think a lot of people know exists. I think it’s interesting. I can’t imagine what would make somebody do the things that Rufus was doing to himself,” McPherson says.”
Because he’s an alcoholic and somebody gave him money. You gave him money, which he used to buy alcohol. Got drunk and he did it,” Bradley remarks.”
It’s not as simple as that,” McPherson replies.
McPherson points out that felony charges for his role in Bumfights were dropped. But he did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of staging an illegal fight. But Bumfights is worse than you think.
In some scenes, an actor calling himself “the Bumhunter,” along with some of the film-makers, actually attack sleeping homeless people, tying them up and gagging them with duct tape. 60 Minutes showed the scenes to McPherson.
How does he defend that?”It’s a skit,” McPherson says.”
Skit? You’re sneaking up on them while they’re asleep and assaulting them. It doesn’t look like a skit. It doesn’t say, ‘Hey, this is staged. This is acting,’” Bradley remarks.
“Oh, no, no, no. I’m not saying it’s staged. It’s saying that just the way it’s, the way it’s set up,” McPherson says, laughing. “I don’t know. I mean, the bumhunter’s not an easy thing to defend.
“Yet he is defending it. “Well, I’m trying to. It’s just, you know, it’s just hard to make sense of things when they’re just so absurd. I mean it’s just so absurd. I mean this guy’s rolling around in the dirt with homeless people and we’re trying to defend the notion that we’re responsible for the deaths of homeless people,” McPherson tells Bradley.
But police investigations have directly linked Bumfights to some of the attacks against the homeless, which have been steadily increasing ever since the series came out. Professor Levin says the connection between the videos and the violence is hard to ignore.”
They’ve created a whole cultural symbol now. There are now people who are doing their own videos,” Levin explains.
In Calgary, Canada for example, five teens – bored and high on drugs – made a home video of their attack.
When they found a homeless man sleeping in an alley, they took turns kicking him, beating him with a metal pipe and even breaking a bottle on his head. The victim survived, and two of the kids spent a year in jail.
60 Minutes showed the video to Ryan McPherson.”
What do you think of that? You start out with them yelling Bumfights,” Bradley asks.”
It starts off with them on drugs. But, yes, they yell Bumfights. Ya know, there’s nothing in Bumfights that can support that,” McPherson replies.
“As you see it. But they’re the ones who did it. They saw it. In their minds that was the next step for them, the logical thing to do. They saw a connection. Do you see the connection they saw?” Bradley asks.
“Okay. Yes,” McPherson acknowledges.
“You made Bumfights,” Bradley remarks.
“Great. But you, I mean, I’m not, I’m not hopped up on drugs. I’m a kid with a video camera just shootin’ stuff,” McPherson says.
He also doesn’t think he bears any responsibility at all when he sees stories about kids going out and beating up homeless people.
Back in Florida, Jeffrey Spurgeon told 60 Minutes that he and his friends watched Bumfights “hundreds of times.”
“That was their favorite thing to do. Was watch those videos and mock whatever was on it,” he says.
By mock, Spurgeon means copy. And he said they were doing just that the night they killed Michael Roberts.
“We were just trying to mock a show,” he says.
He also tells Bradley they thought it was funny.
How is that fun?”I don’t know just exciting I guess…entertainment?” Spurgeon says.
“What in the world do you do with kids who are sitting in the bushes smoking a little pot one minute, and the next minute beating a man to death? What do you do with kids like that?” Judge Will wonders.
The judge says Bumfights never came up in this case, and he was left searching for other reasons why four kids would beat a homeless man to death.
“The one trend that saw in those kids was that they felt as though they had been bullied and pushed around by everybody in their lives up until that particular moment. And the opportunity just arose,” he says.
“What would you say to kids who might be doing this? Bum-bashing. Bum fighting,” Bradley asks Spurgeon.”
I would ask ‘em what they’re gettin’ out of it. What, what’s so fun about it,” he replies.”
And they would say, ‘But what did you get out of it? You did it,’” Bradley says.”
Yep,” Spurgeon says. “And now I could tell ‘em, ‘Look at me now though. You still have a chance. Look at me.”
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CBSNews.com: 60 Minutes – ‘Bumfight’ Videos Inspired Joy-Killing
Over 1/3 of the Federal Tax Goes to What?!!! 2007.04.18
Posted by Hakuna in social commentary.1 comment so far
this can be interpreted in many ways. some might think this is a reflection of the dangerous world we live in and in order to defend ourselves, this is the cost we must pay. others of you believe that this pathetic budgetary reality is due to our country’s predilection for self-interest and dominance in the world.
i am certain that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but no matter what you believe about the “why” for this amount of spending on war and violence, i hope that this percentage disturbs you deeply!
(i tried to look up an estimate for what the u.s. government will collect in federal income taxes this year but could not find anything to relay to you. if any of you knows this figure, please inform us by commenting on this entry.)