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oh yeah
Alas and forsooth. I neglected to mention that the protest is on Saturday, January 18th. We're also at the old meijer every Saturday at 11:30 anyway if you can't make the 18th.
eieio
Rally tomorrow. 11:30 at the old meijer, corner of Jackson and Beacon Boulevard. Come and support peace in Iraq. We'll be demonstrating with signs along the highway for half an hour or 45 minutes and then we'll head for Central Park. We'll be following all the rules to the letter--no walking in the streets, don't walk when the light's red. At Central Park we'll have hot chocolate and several varieties of cookies. A speaker from Grand Rapids will talk on the present situation in Iraq. Join us! endwarnow@msn.com
eieio
Racism, anti-semitism, religious bigotry, good lord. 6th hour: Across the room from me, somebody calls his friend a "Jewish monkey." For some reason, no one finds this objectionable. (Somebody make sure that Matt reads this blog entry.) When I expressed distaste at the comment people actually started defending the guy. All right, since people wouldn't let me get out my whole argument without throwing in red herrings, I am going to state it here, loud and clear. A) The term "Jewish" was used as an insult. This is not analagous to being called "Christian" because Christians have not been systematically harassed for 2,000 years, driven from whatever country they were living in, stereotyped as being "dirty," and "money-grubbing", and killed in the thousands in the Holocaust.
B) "Jewish" was used in conjunction with "monkey." Associating a people with subhuman characteristics has been used to stereotype people throughout history--look at characterizations of Africans, Irish during the 1800s, and the Germans during the World Wars. Associating a group of humans with animals, most commonly the monkey, has the effect of dehumanizing people, making them easier targets for harassment.
C) Supposing the person who said this does not think that he was using it an insult. It does not matter what the intent was--one must deal with the consequences of one's actions even if they weren't planned. The result was that, taking into account the association of monkey with "Jewish" and the history of intolerance that Jews have faced, the phrase was a slur.
D) Someone suggested that this utterence was random. The guy himself said, I believe, that it "just came out." If this is so, it is great evidence for the suggestion that the fellows has subconscious or maybe even acknowledged biases against Jewish people. "Jewish monkey" is nothing like the truly random utterences this guy has come up with: calling someone a poodle is meant as an insult but the poodle does not represent an ethnic group, a race, a religion, or a people. In sum, this slur, spoken when the person was comfortable in his surroundings and thus likely to express his underlying feelings, is evidence of underlying racism and bias present in our school. Why was no one in the class appalled? I hope the teacher didn't hear him, because he did absolutely nothing about it.
eieio
School on Monday. Blood and guts. Researching madly for NHD--Dred Scott. Trying to find a new angle on an old story. Farenbacher wrote a bloody long book.
Need to do history homework. Need to study for exams.
Tomorrow going to see Bowling For Columbine. Supposed to be a good documentary.
Less than interesting fact about gerbils: The common pet gerbil originated in Mongolia. California and New Mexico have laws against importing gerbils because of their warm climates.
In Brazil, the gov't voted to postpone buying a bomber so it could spend more on humanitarian projects. Too bad I didn't take Portuguese instead of Spanish.
Listen to the BBC, it rocks like a jiggy boulder.
eieio
Ok. I'm a paranoid internet user, so I don't know why I'm starting this blog. I also have no time, so don't expect entries to be long.
Latest political views:
Bush threatens North Korea by calling it an axis of evil. Korea, worried about being attacked or at the least pushed around by the US, responds by building up nuclear arms. Bush has a hairy canary and acts as if North Korea is being completely unreasonable. He is trying to pretend that the US has never threatened the country? North Korea is acting in a completely rational manner.
Here's my philosophical (and, unfortunately, a reasonable, not off-the-wall question) for the day: If the government is going insane on you and you think you may be faced with a 1984 situation in a couple of years, is it better to save your backside and shut your mouth so that when the change occurs you are safe and the government has nothing on you--or do you fight with all your might, speak up and shout your dissent and protest in the streets in the hope that by trying your hardest to avert a totalitarian society, it will not occur? The obvious, moralistic answer is to use the second approach, but it has severe, severe repercussions if we do get a despot: torture is back and it's improved, that is, for the torturer it's improved. They'll use psychological manipulation on you, kill your family--ahh, I'm scaring meself. If we all work together, we'll defeat the 1984 menace. We just have to resist and let the government know that we won't take it. I don't want to have to become a revolutionary.
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