Early Morning Notebook: Mid Summer of an Election Yr

Lincoln Project Energy: we did not become Republicans to be THIS racist in public. We have to work...in an office.

Evangelical Energy: God gave me social security so I could have the peace and comfort to vote for people trying to take it away from me.

Irony: if Georgia and Florida elected the blk Dem they would have shutdown earlier, with more force, and been out of the pandemic quicker...and Trump would be more popular in those states b/c the residents wouldn't have suffered the consequences of GOP policy. But also your conservative white grand daddy might also be alive b/c of those blk dems...so he could vote for Trump. Oh the lasagna layers of America's wacky moral compass. Blk ppl saving old white ppl so they can go out and hurt blk ppl in order to get rich white ppl who will kill poor white ppl...and then blame invisible Mexicans and ANTIFA. And the sick poor white ppl will hate these imaginary libs until their last dying, covid-diseased breath. Afterward, real Mexicans and gays move into their homes, spruce up the neighborhood, and increase property value. And then they'll get kicked out by rich white ppl.

Werking Poor: now that unemployment is at 20% can we just go back to calling ppl poor? 'Working class' is really just poor-in-training. And most ppl accept the title b/c we carry a lot of shame around money. But the majority of the country was and is one paycheck from disaster...aka poor. And the top 1% call you 'working class' so you don't think about the systemic reality. But really you are the "working poor." You will spend most of life on the edge of poverty AND you will have to work your ass off just to stay alive. And so will your children. Your pension, healthcare, housing, and education was, is and will continue to be under constant attack by the rich because it is psychological warfare to get you to be meek and scared and ashamed...and unable to see that there are far more working poor people than the 'inherited rich class.' It has nothing to do with pleasing Jesus or 'working' into or up from your class. You are the working poor. And until you change the economic model, the rich will just try to hide the reality from you by giving you fancy aspirational titles while denying you basic human dignities.

Black Squares: the Neoliberal Infantilization of Blackness

There is an underground secret being held by a lot of black artists at this time.  A secret that we dare not speak in public. We would be hounded, castigated, thought of as coon and sellouts. I receive these calls late at night, I get texts, DMs, messages sent on Instagram. It's usually a black artist I know who has no one else they can share these thoughts with and no way for it to be air on social media without a backlash. The secret is intersectional, complex, and composing various thoughts that goes something like this...

-first off, they fucking hate the social media protest of black square profile. They hate the silence and obtuse symbolism of Instagram activism. It's virtue signaling co-opted by Amazon and Starbucks. It's Nancy Pelosi kente cloth cosplay. Yet, it was mostly unquestioned in media and corporations, which is scary. It is a sign of an unthinking, herd reaction from people not seeking change, but seeking a false equivalence of equality through superficial gestures of 'likeness.' It is the flexibility of amoral capitalism and thirsty individual clout chasers who adopt the fashions of the time, while maintaining its core problematic nature.

-while well-intentioned, a lot of the neoliberal work on race feels infantilizing toward black people. The idea that blackness has to plead and beg whiteness to live, to breathe, to be acknowledge. That idea many strong black outliers find to be deeply insulting to their independence.

- there are actually a lot of black thinkers and artists who are independent minded. They became like that through training and survival. They are deeply suspicious of both right- and left-wing media pushes and activists trying to galvanize them in any way. Some of them have carved out a very difficult existence by avoiding the waves of public opinion, avoided speaking on diversity panels at white institutions, hosting workshops. These independent black thinkers are very wary of becoming 'professionally black' and 'performative black' for white liberals. Yet, in a time of crisis this is what black artists and thinkers are often called on to become...a free, unpaid, full-time race counselor to white people and then a spoken-word rage artists.

- many independent black thinkers were educated at white institutions that gave them small or large portions of black art. This was the art handed down by white professors to the class and a little wink toward the young black artists as if to say 'don't worry, soul brother! I got you.' And usually the black thinker was left an uneasy feeling, as if he was being listened to without consulting. A lot of times these black pieces meant to signify blackness in America were written under times of crisis and upheaval. Some of the work is good and nuanced. Many of the art is not. Not because the black ancestors were bad artists. But because they were trying to address a crisis in a direct way. Their mortal souls were in danger, fire was in the street, sirens were ringing out in the neighborhood...and it's very hard to be nuanced and layered while surrounded by war. But the truth of their protest spoke to the moment and became famous. The truth of all good protest art speaks to the moment. The problem is that -outside of that moment and time- the art feels dated, thin, screechy, and preachy. This is true for most protests art, regardless of color. The problem is that black art in white institutions is almost solely defined by protest art from the 60s and 70s. The education received is that to be a black artist is to protest and here is the narrow avenue of expression to protest. But the same is not true for white artists. No one would ever say that Clifford Odets left-wing socialist plays represent white protest art. And furthermore, most of Odets plays are terrible. With the exception of "Waiting for Lefty" his work has fallen out of favor because it strikes a hollow strident tone in protesting class inequalities. It spoke to the moment but has not aged well. Meanwhile Arthur Miller and Paddy Chayefsky were one generation removed from Odets and were able to take his politics, sit with calmer heads and slightly more detachment, and produce classic pieces of art that are still studied today. "All My Sons" and "Network" rest on the back of Odets voice and politics, but it built on it so that the politics didn't overwhelm the craft and tastes of the individual.

- if you are raised on bad protests art and told that your blackness is in direct proportion to the extent you support and want to continue this genre...then you hesitate. Is your white professor gaslighting you? Are they intentionally sabotaging your future by getting you to commit to a form that feels dated, hollow, and thin? Do they not see your complexity? Or are they trying to say your complexity is too...complex to be black? It will not get validated and rewarded. Will one have 'perform a version of blackness' for white audiences to eat? And isn't that just another form of racism...neoliberal racism...infantilizing racism that forces us all to become the children of Richard Wright's "Native Son?"

- James Baldwin wrote a famous essay "Notes on a Native Son" in which he blasted Wright for making this very kind of protest art filled with cheap caricatures that made white liberals feel guilty. The gist was that it wasn't art...it was a pamphlet. Some people said Baldwin was just jealous. Other people made in personal...what right does a gay black artist have to tell Wright about blackness? And the swordsman pary from the other side: what bearing does Wright have to publish from the luxuries of Paris with his white wife a piece written to inflame people with such claptrap...with such cheap racial maneuvering...with a viewpoint that Wright doesn't even believe because how could he marry a white woman and hold these thoughts about her race? How could the author move to the artistic epicenter of whiteness and craft "Native Son." Well he was performing for white audiences and they loved it.

- 75 years later most high school students have to read either "Black Boy" or "Native Son." It is the requisite black art novel you get in high school. Almost no one outside of lit majors still read Baldwin's criticism. And yet, the criticism seems more valid that the original art. The criticism seems to offer more nuance, tone, and tastes then this portrait of a murdering/raping hulking black man whose literal name is Bigger. It's as if Wright was giving his character a name to remind himself of the man thrust of story...bigger crimes, bigger hopelessness, bigger archetypes, bigger and more operatic tragedy.

- As Ayana Mathis wrote in the NYTimes.... “Native Son” sold an astonishing 215,000 copies within three weeks of publication. Thus, a great many people received a swift and unsparing education in the conditions in which blacks lived in ghettos all over America. Of course, black people already knew about all of that, so it is safe to conclude that Wright’s intended audience was white. And, in any case, I don’t imagine many black people would have embraced such a grotesque portrait of themselves. Bigger Thomas is a rapist and a murderer motivated only by fear, hate and a slew of animal impulses. He is the black ape gone berserk that reigned supreme in the white racial imagination. Other black characters in the novel don’t fare much better — they are petty criminals or mammies or have been so ground under the heel of oppression as to be without agency or even intelligence. Wright’s is a bleak and ungenerous depiction of black life.

Wright knew this, of course — his characters were purposely exaggerated, in part to elicit a white audience’s sympathy and to shock it into racial awareness and political action. But where does that leave his black subjects? Let us consider some other works published in roughly the same era: Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Jean Toomer’s “Cane,” Ann Petry’s “The Street.” Like Bigger Thomas, the protagonists in these books are black, suffering under segregation and, for the most part, poor. Unlike Bigger Thomas, they are robust and nuanced characters — not caricatures endlessly acting out the pathologies of race. Much of the black literature of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, explicitly or implicitly, was concerned with race in America. How could it have been otherwise? For better or worse, many of the characters in the literature of that period were representational to some extent — black people in the real world were the correlative to black characters on the page. And this is significant, because when black writers affirmed their black subjects’ full humanity, the scope of their novels included the expectation that the real world would change radically so that it too could affirm and acknowledge that humanity. I am led to wonder, then, about a character like Bigger Thomas. What future, what vision is reflected in such a miserable and incompletely realized creature?

- What many black artists and thinkers are confiding with each other in private is that we fear the next wave...the pandering black art that will be created after this moment. We worry about the silencing of complex artists of color by both gatekeepers who are white, brown, and black. We worry that future generations will read the art and artists that represents this moment and find us cheap and hollow and pleading toward white gatekeepers.

- So what does it matter? We are talking about the survival of black voices and souls. What does it matter if the art isn't as complex, if the novels are pleading urgently. Our political movement IS pleading urgently and rightfully for life. How can art compare to such an urgent cry? If Black Lives Matter, then all of them do...the nuanced ones, the biracial ones, the ones who are right-wing, left-wing, the sarcastic ones, the cynical black voices that stand askance the political correctness and feel castrated, the black voices who don't want a white liberal pet or to be treated like a baby needing protecting. The full scope and dimensions of black voices matters, not just the ones performing blackness for white media.

- The final shame in this moment is that no one is uniting the two key elements to the entire game. It is race AND class. White socialist artists like Odets made the same mistake but they emphasized the brotherhood of all classes, while failing to address the deep-seated racism amongst many of his poor characters which would prevent them from uniting with black and brown workers. Conversely, BlackLivesMatter art makes the fight about race when deconstructing capitalism is key to fighting inequalities in race. Black Lives Matters but it will matter even more so with universal healthcare. It will matter even more so with universal income, abolishing prisons, abolishing bail. It will matter even more by defunding the police, but not as punishment. It will matter because in defunding the police you are sapping the primary punitive weapon used against black, brown, and lower class people and then taking those resources and putting them into the community. You are taking energy away from the fear police instill in disempowered groups, which is the fear of unjust punishment by the government for both small and large offenses. They know the system of punishment is unfair because they see millionaire pedophiles walk away from our courts with a slap on the wrist while black people end up in jail for year because they can't afford bail before their trial. Due to lack of economic opportunities, many innocent black people lose their jobs while just waiting for the chance to see a judge. Many poor white people will also rot in jail waiting for trial simply because they are living paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford bail.

Coronavirus is killing a large swath of black people because the virus is playing on capitalist inequalities. Black people -on average- have poorer healthcare, less insurance, and less security. This not an accident. The labor pool of capitalism depends upon cheap and desperate class willing to put their bodies in harm's way. Disproportionately these bodies are people of color. But there are also many many older Americans and white people are dying because they have to go work at the meat processing plant or the Amazon shipping facility. Capitalism feeds on the vulnerable. And then racism makes sure that the white and black co-workers suffering in factories never fully talk to each other. So the system continues, the unions weaken, the fear is stoked. Race and capitalism go hand-in-hand, but liberalism seems to think it can address the problems as separate things.

The very concept of race was created by white settlers entering into the 'New World.' They needed a divisive tool to implement harsh, colonial capitalism with free labor. For added complexity, colonial added a third element to the mix: White Christianity. So faith in God, race, and capitalism is the lethal triangle.

Black thinkers and artists of alternative minds creep around the edges racial upheaval. They see the changes needed, support fighting racism but are also scared of losing their independence. They are worried about performing blackness for whiteness. They worry about blanket statements, racial caricatures, and mediocrities. And they don't want to pandered, infantilized, castrated, and turned into helpless victims. But more than that...they are scared of losing their freedom and individuality. They are scared of that most American concept of pursuing their own happiness and setting forth their own unique voice. It's difficult to do that when all people want is a performance of what they think all black people must be feeling. They don't want to speak on your diversity panel, listen to white liberals on instagram crying about their privilege, or placate corporate America with a black square on a social media profile. 

The Default and Death of the Republican Party

The death of the Republican Party has been anticipated for a long time. What wasn't anticipated was that in their death throes they would try to dismantle, muck-up, and freeze the American federal government to the point of creating a global panic.

Apparently we're a few days away from defaulting on our debts. The nation is at a historic crisis point. The causes of the impending catastrophe isn't due to war, lack of money, or civil insurrection. It is a pre-planned and initiated drama aimed at satisfying a small group of radicalized followers whose disdain for a sitting president and opposition party has blocked out any rational thought as to the greater good for their own country.

Throughout Obama's presidency, Republicans in the House of Representatives have threatened to shut off funding for the entire government because of disagreements on individual bills. Rather than going through the process of election and majority rules, the GOP has now pivoted to suicide bomber tactics. They intend to destroy themselves in the hopes of causing damage and pain to others. It's not clear if they have dreams of getting to a GOP heaven with 67 virgins who look like Ann Coulter, but they certain do love using their manufactured disaster to visit the Elysian fields of Conservatism: Fox News.

The Default Crisis has been great for TV news ratings and stirring outrage on both sides at the expense of crippling our ability to regulate, tax, pay debt, and function as a federalized government. What is sad is that we have been heading toward this point in our history for a while. For many decades a small group of radical Conservatives have associated America with their way of thinking exclusively. If there's dissension then it can't be American. Despite this unbending belief, the country has changed in the last 30 years. Their demographics are dwindling. The party for people who think like Old White Men is running out of members and they can't find a way to convert a significant portion of women and non-Whites over to a philosophy steeped in xenophobia, isolationism, misogyny, and bigotry. Despite all the flags and country music, a vast majority of the younger generation isn't buying into the idea that one party holds the exclusive rights to Patriotism and Americana. In response to this, the patriotic Republicans are going to burn down America. This act of willfulness they claim is out of love, in the same way that an abusive person beats, burns, and kills their battered partner and then says 'why did you make me do that? You know how much I love you, right?'

They've dug the hole and intend to get out of it by going deeper: now some members are threatening to impeach Obama for the default. The very destruction they've worked to bring about is -in their eyes- a sign of Obama's treason. He should have given into their demands. Even though he was twice elected by large margins, even though Dems maintain control of the Senate and many states in the union, it is Obama who must bend to the will of 30 House Republicans. And if he doesn't then the country will fail and, at that point, he will be responsible for the crisis they created. It's Mad Hatter logic.

The GOP claims it wants government out of our lives...except when it comes to a woman's vagina, or illegal immigrants, mandatory sentencing, Black teens being illegally stop n' frisked, or unarmed people of color being killed by law enforcement officers and vigilantes. They are fine with government taking a very violent and coercive role in the lives of Brown and Black people, invasive procedures against women to humiliate them away from having a right to choose abortion, denying basic civil rights of privacy to all, splitting up families through deportation so that children are abandoned, adding more rules to make it more difficult to vote for minorities. It makes sense when their ideal America looks like a 1950s TV sitcom.

But other than your body, health, and mental well-being, the GOP want government out of our lives so we can be free to...enjoy unregulated water supplies and breathe in toxic air, eat genetically modified food, work below the minimum wage, have employee benefits stripped away, and plunge 300 million citizens into the hellmouth of unregulated casino capitalism.

The Default crisis isn't an aberration. It's a long-term cancer that continues to pop up in manufactured disasters by a few people who are losing their way and losing the country. I just hope the majority of people don't let an angry few take everyone down with them.

The death of the Republican party has been diagnosed but it's not the shifting demographics. The cancer of hate in their body politics is too far gone to salvage its remaining virtues. Their perspective is too warped on memories to see the present reality. In short, the patient's condition is terminal and there's no need to linger. For the sake of our children and all future generations, the Republican party can commit itself to one last patriotic deed: to die.

Gay Marriage: A Buddhist/Christ Perspective

This is not 'the' Buddhist perspective but merely 'a' perspective from someone who has a deep respect for Christianity and Buddhism. Yesterday, history was made when a sitting US president expressed his support for gay marriage. President Obama created another historical moment in his first term by stating the obvious: gay people are the same as everyone else and should be allotted the same rights.

His 'evolution' on this issue wasn't so much as an upward progression as just stepping back and allowing the decaying walls of political prejudice to collapse under their own weight. His leadership on this issue isn't as heroic as some left-wing pundits will make it seem nor is it as obvious to just say he's following the poll numbers. But President Obama looked at the untenable political, cultural and ethical position and refused to hold it any longer.

It is the same shift that President Kennedy was forced to make with the civil rights movement. Kennedy knew the situation of continued discrimination was absurd, obviously unjust, and going against basic concepts of America. But he wasn't in a rush to help out Blacks. If civil rights leaders would have taken another 10 years to set out demands, then I'm sure President Kennedy would have been fine to let the discrimination continue for another decade. But the issue came to a boil under his presidency due to outside circumstances, increasing violence, media attention, and an organized movement demanding change. At that point Kennedy was merely simply stated the obvious: Blacks are equal and the time to pretend otherwise has ended. Some times leadership takes the form of just stating the obvious. And that is when the greatest violence can erupt. 'The obvious' often triggers 'the delusional' fears of those who see themselves as guilty of benefiting from discrimination.

The backlash against school desegregation that started under President Eisenhower spilled out across the country as White parents were forced into seeing the obvious. The courts, the president, and even the legislative branch finally agreed that it was time to muster up and to be willing to look at what was always there: there is no inherent difference in nature and therefore should be no difference in government policy. Segregationist clung even more desperately to their delusions of the glorious past. When that failed to work, racists switched tactics from the halcyon bigoted past to the dystopic equalized future. Race wars, mongrel children, and white kids 'infected' with lower intelligence all became a part of a whisper campaign to get people to fear the future.

Generations later we see the same tactics played out on gay rights. The glorious past of hetero-normative marriages never existed and it certainly didn't exist on the premise of discriminating against same-gender couples. We will see a backlash against seeing each other as equal that will  be phrased in foreboding signs of God's judgment against greater freedom. It will be the same excuses and same logic used in past arguments against liberty for all.

Conservatives will insist that marriage has always been between a man and a woman. This is an outright lie. Marriages in many ancient cultures have been between same genders. These cultures seemed to exist just fine for hundreds -and in some cases- thousands of years.  No smiting, no asteroid-inflicted apocalypse to signal some spiritual deficiency. Those ancient societies collapsed and reformed as societies often do. There seemed to be no reign of fire for Ancient Greeks, Native American tribes, African empires for allowing gay marriage. There extinction was almost always due to warfare, greed, and human factors.  But let's pretend for a moment. Let's pretend that it's true for the purpose of analysis that  'marriage has always and will always be between a man and a woman.' The reasoning splits for this historical and spiritual lie off into several contradicting points, as illogical reasoning often does.

The first and most crude reasoning is that God wants it that way. This is kindergarten logic that's spouted mostly by Christians on this issue but is used by all religions when it suits them. It supposes that one side knows what God wants over another. How they came to this conclusion is anyone's guess. But God -the very definition of infinite love and light according to every religion- wishes to exclude a particular group from His presence. God wishes for some people to remain in darkness and pain. If this were true then that voice of exclusion contradicts the very definition of God. It would be impossible for one to both 'be infinite love' and exclude at the same time.

God doesn't deal in exceptions. Humans, on the other hand, are all about exceptions and divisive rules. By deduction those voices of exclusion can't be of God but are probably of something else. Furthermore to believe that God is only speaking to some people is Old Testament logic that only some are 'chosen people.' Once again, this goes against Christian values that atonement has made everyone the chosen people. The concept of Jesus being the Son of God wasn't exclusionary. The principle of his teachings is just this: I am and the son of God AND so are are you. Once again, this is based on the principle of infinite light and love. Jesus was following this perfectly and therefore there could not be any difference between him and others. If there was even the slightest bit of exceptionalism ('I am Jesus, son of God, and you are unwashed trashed.') then all of his teachings become meaningless. Atonement means that the riff has been healed between brothers and sisters. Love extends itself because God is here and now in each person. This is important because it can be applied to any issue where one side says 'God said 'no' to these people.'

God would never say 'yay' or 'nay' because that is a dualistic mode of thinking that could only exist in a split mind that sees darkness and light. There is no darkness in Christ consciousness and Buddha-mind because where it goes, there is light. So to be present is to be light. No epic battle of good vs. evil is needed. God merely needs to exist and contradictions go away. Oneness is the natural state of all things.  God is. There is no stance to be taken because God is above stances and exceptions.

We have started off with the first, biggest, and most egregious contradictory rational that supports the  lie of 'marriage only being between a man and woman.'  This is a Buddhist debate tactic: start off with biggest error first and all others fall away. The smaller arguments don't hold up against any legal or ethical standard.

The other reasoning dispassionately states that it would be nice to help gay Americans but that has to be left up to the states. Federal government can't interfere with states and their rights. Mitt Romney began floating that trial balloon out there only moments after Obama's announcement. The federal government always interferes with states when it deals with civil rights. If the national government didn't do this then we would be living in a confederacy of loosely attached independent regions. We do not. We live in a federal system where certain protections and fundamental values must be the foundation for 'Americans.' In cases of ethical conflict we are always "Americans first' and "Floridians and New Yorkers' second. We pledge allegiance to a national government and its values. This reasoning is not only unsupported by history but it's the very crux of why we moved into a federal national government: you can't live in a country, trade, and pursue liberty if there is no community standard. Marital choice along with property rights and freedom of religion are the principles to an individual's 'pursuit of happiness.'

Another argument bridging from this last statement is that freedom of religion is being intruded upon by federal government. There is no religion that is based on denying gay marriages. Furthermore, these same-gender marriages aren't forced on to churches. They are legal contracts forged between willing parties to enter into a union. That is what a marriage is in the eyes of the federal government. All the dressings, religious ceremonies, and traditions are left up to the individual. If there isn't a religious order willing to undertake the marital demands of the two parties, then they can have their marriage at a courthouse.

The final main argument is that gay marriage some how threatens heterosexual marriages. Gay relationships no more threaten straight relationships than people eating meat threatens my vegetarian diet.  Even people eating meat in my presence does not threaten me because I know what I want. That's why I can joke with my friends who are carnivores and try to 'tempt' me with flesh. There is no allure because I know what I want. If I didn't know what I desired, then there might be temptation. If, for example, I was a militant vegan and became irate at anyone eating meat in my presence, then I probably have some lingering questions in my mind about what I'm eating. If straight people feel threatened by the presence of gays, then there is probably some internal doubt about their own status. All defenses come from feeling attacked. All feelings of being attacked come from some internal guilt or uncertainty. In that case, the issue to be resolved isn't the external conditions that shift with the situation, but the internal mindset which reacts out of guilt.

There are several more illogical reasons used to support a historical lie, but why go into all of them? It's still a lie and all of the varying contradictory rationale come from the same source: fear.

There's a famous Zen statement: let go or get dragged. At a certain point, fear protects us. At a young age it encourages competition, analysis, debate. But as we grow up, fear becomes a hindrance to progress. The same things basic stimulus I used to study as a child ($5 bonus from parents, cookies from teacher, and fear of falling behind) now seem silly. The reptilian brain only go so far in a progressive, multicultural, fast-changing culture. It's time to let go of fear.

When this country was founded most of the people were not free. Women were in bondage to husbands and fathers, Blacks were enslaved, poor farmers existed as serfs for the wealthy. The writing in the Constitution wasn't a statement of reality but a promise of the future. The founding fathers -slave owners, wife beaters, illegal brewers, and Indian killers- knew what the people were capable of taking on. They were a wild civilization living under the threat of attack by local tribes and European nations. America existed as a young ideal trapped on all sides by the fear of basic survival.

Once basic security was established it wasn't long before the abolitionist calls became too great to go unheeded. Then it was women's rights, civil rights and now gay civil rights. It is an upward spiral toward what we said this country would become. If we are to show our best face to the world, then we must know our fellow man as equal, regardless of race, religion, or orientation. There is no other way to overcome the outside darkness of fanaticism, terror, and fear except to dispel it with liberty. President Obama took one more further step toward extending the light to all people.