Month: May 2012

And Yet, Here You Stand

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A little over a week ago, Jack Reese, an Ogden, Utah high school student committed suicide. He was gay and a victim of homophobic harassment. But if you read about him, he was just a regular teenager – he liked to draw, was interested in Japan, had a boyfriend, and liked to play XBox. Because his sexuality was different from others’, did that justify harassment, assault, or battery that was so pervasive that it drove him to hurt himself? 

In a great editorial, the Salt Lake City Tribune wrote that people’s attitudes about LGBT youth need to change for this harassment – and its sometimes tragic results – to stop. But that’s not all – 

They learn from legislators who refuse to extend civil rights to gays and lesbians that “those people” are not as valuable as straight people.

The country is beginning to come to terms with the notion that homosexual Americans are still Americans, regardless of their sexual identity. Their rights aren’t diminished or ended based on whom they love. It doesn’t matter, frankly, whether you know that homosexuality is hard-wired in the brain, or you still think it’s a “choice” – no one should be discriminated against or harassed to the point of suicide. 

The Tribune’s editorial cartoonist, Pat Bagley, created this, which perfectly encapsulates the way humanity typically demonizes things that are “different” before acceptance sets in.  Sometimes, it’s a change that takes millenia. Homophobia is among the last forms of hate and discrimination that is acceptable to large swaths of the American population.  It’s changing, but not quickly enough. 

Disrespect Your Opponents, Town, Selves

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A few weeks ago, a story hit about a black family being all-but run out of Buffalo’s Lovejoy neighborhood. 

This week, we have the Clarence Middle School girls’ lacrosse team suspended and punished for apparently hurling some ethnic/racial slurs at their opponents during a lacrosse game against Sweet Home. While there seems to be an allegation and multiple denials, we’ll never know precisely what was said or by whom.  

In fact, I’ve heard from kids who attend the Middle School that it was Sweet Home kids who were calling Clarence girls – some of whom on the lacrosse team are Black – names. Based on that, perhaps Sweet Home should also suspend its team. 

Both events are absolutely deplorable. This sort of behavior – this sort of thinking – is completely unacceptable and inexcusable in 2012 America. The Lovejoy harassers of the Coopers operate under the same hateful mindset as a girl who would yell “ni**er!” at any opponent in a game. I know we can never be free from racial animus, but it’s important to point it out and criticize it when it happens. 

Kids aren’t born racist; it’s something they learn from their parents and their peers. These incidents remind us that racial animus and ignorance transcend geography, wealth, and class. 

But in comparing the Lovejoy incident and this Clarence story, there are two stark differences – in the community response to hatred.  While neighbors and politicians in Lovejoy went out of their way to downplay the abuse of the Coopers, and try to pin as much blame on the victims as possible, the Clarence school administration immediately punished the lacrosse team. Although no one admitted to having hurled racial epithets at the team from Sweet Home, the Clarence school superintendent said, “[w]e determined there is evidence to believe that the allegations have merit.” 

A four-game suspension isn’t the end of the world. It isn’t jail or a school suspension. It’s a time out, during which these girls will learn that it’s completely inappropriate – even when engaged in two-sided trash talking – to call someone a “ni**er” under any circumstances. Or any racial epithet, for that matter.  These girls aren’t even in high school, and they’re learning a very important lesson about what is and is not acceptable in a civilized society. If we’re going to take this seriously, then let’s take it seriously. 

Afghanistan 2014

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President Obama addressed the nation yesterday from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and on the first anniversary on the elimination of Osama bin Laden, he explained that Afghani security will be Afghani-dependent beginning in 2014. Afghanistan and the United States also executed a “strategic partnership agreement” whereby the United States will work with Afghani security after 2014, but no permanent occupation will take place, and no bases will be built. 

Although the President says the “tide has turned” in the Afghan war, the country has by no means returned to any semblance of a pre-1973 stability or security. This is a country that hasn’t known peace and normalcy in almost 40 years, and it’s unlikely to know them anytime soon. 

But that’s soon going to be Afghanistan’s problem, not ours. What’s important here is that the withdrawal of American involvement will enable the Afghani government to start talking to the Taliban which, if it renounces violence, will be invited to participate in government. We may have been appalled by the Taliban government’s treatment of its citizenry – particularly its women – we went to war with them over their harboring of al Qaeda, not over their internal affairs. We weren’t so appalled by the Taliban that we did anything about their patrons in the Pakistani security service. 

And since al Qaeda was driven into Pakistan and out of Afghanistan, the mission has been muddled, at best. We helped set up the Afghani government that controls very little outside of Kabul. This is a country with a 12% literacy rate for females and 43% for males; with a $900 annual per capita GDP.  What Afghanistan needs isn’t more fighting, but investment in education, infrastructure, and to produce things that don’t involve poppies. That investment obviously can’t come from Afghanistan, which barely has a pot within which to piss, and – as in Iraq – American withdrawal risks further instability and the intervention by Afghanistan’s more malevolent neighbors.  The US should dedicate itself to make resources available to help Afghanistan educate its people and give them economic opportunity. 

But more importantly, President Obama closed with this: 

“As we emerge from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it is time to renew America. An America where our children live free from fear, and have the skills to claim their dreams. A united America of grit and resilience, where sunlight glistens off soaring new towers in downtown Manhattan, and we build our future as one people, as one nation.”

It’s also important that we stop fighting wars in Asia and start fixing our own problems here at home. 

A Democrat Not Playing Perpetual Defense?

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If you thought Obama 2012 was going to be like the Democrats of yore, who would forever be on defense and let the Republicans control the message, you’d be wrong. 

For instance, this ad is now airing in Ohio.  It should be called “boom goes the dynamite”. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5e0QoUdPJM]

And for those of you wondering whether Obama will run on his record, wonder no more. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WbQe-wVK9E]

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