My wife recently took me to see the movie Les Misérables for my birthday. Afterwards, I was emotionally spent. The movie has lingered with me over the recent days, especially the powerful portrayals of the major characters. Yesterday, I saw this Huffington Post piece highlighting conservative Joe Scarborough's dark warning about the seeds of destruction being planted by the elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives. And that's when I had a revelation. That's when I knew. Conservatism today has become Javert.
Inspector Javert as portrayed by the Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe is a man bound by the mathematics of his own stiff adherence to the law. Javert lived and died in accord with his legalism--he was right and the prisoner Jean Valjean was wrong and that was the way the world had to work. 1+1 had to equal 2. Javert's insistence that Jean ValJean was wrong was as inflexible as his singing voice and as stiff as his
posture...until he finally shattered that stiffness along with his body on the harsh edges of a reservoir at the very end of the film. But by then it was
too late. Javert's character was not evil...you saw what his character might have been when he pinned
that medal on my hero, the little boy named Gavroche, who gladly laid down his life for his friends, the young revolutionaries.
And that brings me back to my revelation about conservatism today. When did conservatism become Javert? I remember a few years ago when I started to hear regularly from conservatives on talk radio and on Fox News that Democrats were either evil or stupid. Wait a minute! This is nothing I had ever grown up hearing from Republicans. This was new. My mother is a life-long Democrat. Ma is neither evil nor stupid...far from it. I can vouch for her. And yet in this new inflexible equation, my mother has to be Javert's mortal enemy. She could not be a fellow citizen. She could not be a pleasant neighbor. Ma, and anyone who does not see the world as Javert, has to be demonized as dangerous or stupid or dependent or as one of the 47% who supposedly "believe they are victims" and cannot possibly be convinced to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives." Even if this math was never ever true at all.
And that inability to see what stands right in front of one's face is the ultimate tragedy of both Javert and what has become conservatism today. Conservatives aren't any more evil than Javert was. But neither are Democrats, and the fact that Republicans can no longer see the good that stands before them in every encounter with Jean Valjean has become their fatal flaw. As pointed out by former Republican representative Joe Scarborough, this is a story that will not end well. And elected conservatives, now pacing the edge of a cliff of their own design, will not see the end coming until they have launched themselves over the edge of the precipice toward the hardest landing possible. Watch what happens during the midterm elections of 2014. Mark my words. Or as Javert might say, remember my face.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Monday, January 4, 2010
The Art of Identity in 21st Century America
There is an art to identity. In a recent article, right-wing commentator Shelby Steele misinterprets the obvious, getting himself trapped within the need promote a conservative ideology. Ideology locks us in small boxes. Within Steele's little box, Ronald Reagan is always the hero, the ever-meaningful icon of his right-wing political ideology. President Obama is misinterpreted, in contrast, as being "hampered by a distinct inner emptiness."
Other popular right-wing ideologues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have flooded the talk radio airwaves with open frustration over the popularity of the newly-elected President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The radio audience is repeatedly told that Obama is nothing but an empty suit, a symbol without any substance or fundamental values, and that the masses are enthralled with a cipher that we don’t really know anything about. I would argue that they are absolutely correct. Obama, in all of his identity travails—those internal to his separation from his father, those foist upon him by his current political detractors, and those resulting from the continuing navigation of those structural inequities of identity interpretation still strewn across the American landscape because of this nation’s forefathers inability to dismantle their homegrown racist inclinations—has been loosened from any fundamental moorings about the capability of Black men to become a floating signifier of identity. His signifying achievement is likewise the potential of all who travail, those who do not fit neatly the labels and the diminishments and the detractions, who wander the earth without certain identity.
Ultimately, Obama changes everything. All United States Presidents prior to Obama have signified a power structure that is derivatively Western and, thus, anti-Other. Obama, non-Western both in appearance and in his given name, has forever complicated the conversation about race and identity in America. Does Obama as POTUS and figurehead of the American experiment actually represent the American social drama we have known throughout history, an America that has been represented almost exclusively by non-Blacks in the media and public imagination? Of course he does, perhaps better than anyone else prior, whether everyone likes it or not. A cipher, yet to be fully told, can indeed represent a nation.
Of course, no identity is actually fixed; all identities tend to unhinge themselves over time. However, when a person becomes a floating signifier they also work to redefine the other identities in whose contexts they become enthralled. Within Obama’s proximal zone, the Democratic party and it liberal constituency have been redefined; the Republican party and its conservative constituency also finds itself redefined in their opposition to Obama’s success; Blacks have been redefined; people of mixed lineage have been redefined; marginalized people groups and their agency have been redefined; and the list goes on.
Steele is wrong. President Obama is not empty. Like me, like any other floating signifier, he is pregnant with possibility. He is full. There is an art to identity that makes all such symbols full. I discuss these matters and more in my new book, Cinderella Story: A Scholarly Sketchbook About Race, Identity, Barack Obama, the Human Spirit, and Other Stuff That Matters, which will be published by AltaMira Press in 2010. I consider it a work of arts-based research. I'll let you know when it's available.
Other popular right-wing ideologues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have flooded the talk radio airwaves with open frustration over the popularity of the newly-elected President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The radio audience is repeatedly told that Obama is nothing but an empty suit, a symbol without any substance or fundamental values, and that the masses are enthralled with a cipher that we don’t really know anything about. I would argue that they are absolutely correct. Obama, in all of his identity travails—those internal to his separation from his father, those foist upon him by his current political detractors, and those resulting from the continuing navigation of those structural inequities of identity interpretation still strewn across the American landscape because of this nation’s forefathers inability to dismantle their homegrown racist inclinations—has been loosened from any fundamental moorings about the capability of Black men to become a floating signifier of identity. His signifying achievement is likewise the potential of all who travail, those who do not fit neatly the labels and the diminishments and the detractions, who wander the earth without certain identity.
Ultimately, Obama changes everything. All United States Presidents prior to Obama have signified a power structure that is derivatively Western and, thus, anti-Other. Obama, non-Western both in appearance and in his given name, has forever complicated the conversation about race and identity in America. Does Obama as POTUS and figurehead of the American experiment actually represent the American social drama we have known throughout history, an America that has been represented almost exclusively by non-Blacks in the media and public imagination? Of course he does, perhaps better than anyone else prior, whether everyone likes it or not. A cipher, yet to be fully told, can indeed represent a nation.
Of course, no identity is actually fixed; all identities tend to unhinge themselves over time. However, when a person becomes a floating signifier they also work to redefine the other identities in whose contexts they become enthralled. Within Obama’s proximal zone, the Democratic party and it liberal constituency have been redefined; the Republican party and its conservative constituency also finds itself redefined in their opposition to Obama’s success; Blacks have been redefined; people of mixed lineage have been redefined; marginalized people groups and their agency have been redefined; and the list goes on.
Steele is wrong. President Obama is not empty. Like me, like any other floating signifier, he is pregnant with possibility. He is full. There is an art to identity that makes all such symbols full. I discuss these matters and more in my new book, Cinderella Story: A Scholarly Sketchbook About Race, Identity, Barack Obama, the Human Spirit, and Other Stuff That Matters, which will be published by AltaMira Press in 2010. I consider it a work of arts-based research. I'll let you know when it's available.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
How To Stimulate the Economy 101
1. Make something and sell it.
Be more than a consumer. Be a creator. Contribute goods or services to the marketplace. Be an entrepreneur.
2. Buy something from your local entrepreneur.
Support your friendly neighborhood maker of things or provider of services. Put dollars back into your local economy by being a patron of those who create, even if they are “just kids.”
3. Advocate for more arts and design instruction in our childrens' schools.
In the post-No Child Left Behind era in the United States and its narrow focus on reading scores, math tests, and closing the “achievement gap,” the American education enterprise is sorely in need of strategies to jump-start the ability of youngsters to innovate, invent, and think entrepreneurially during their years as K-12 students. We are missing a crucial window for investing in our economy long-term through the cultivation of young peoples’ potential to learn to think across the arts, design, architecture, and information technology disciplines. The great breakthroughs of the 21st century in areas like technology, communications, product invention or urban design are likely to be made by those most familiar with practices of innovation through having been provided early opportunities to do so. Starting interdisciplinary educational studies in college is too late to begin learning to team-think and innovate. A quality art education is also a design education.
4. Save so as to fill the storehouses, then share what you have stored.
Proverbs 30:25-
Ants are creatures of little strength,
yet they store up their food in the summer;
Americans need to save money again, but money should only be saved to be put to better use later. The Bible gives us a model. Ants don’t buy on credit. They have a practice of storing up what they will need.
5. Pray for a pragmatist President.
The "United" States is full of ideologues on the political right and on the political left, pulling us apart. The problem with ideologues, whether they are conservative or liberal, is that they refuse to admit that there is more than one way to arrive at the very same destination. Or worse, they are blind to the varying routes that many others are traveling on their paths as Americans. Only God gets to say, “This is the only way…follow me. Period.” As for us humans, we are merely feeling our way through this present darkness and we need to hold one another’s hands. That’s why, in divisive times, we need a President who is a pragmatist, someone with the confidence and strength to stand in the gap between the right and the left and help to reconcile the republic.
by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
Be more than a consumer. Be a creator. Contribute goods or services to the marketplace. Be an entrepreneur.
2. Buy something from your local entrepreneur.
Support your friendly neighborhood maker of things or provider of services. Put dollars back into your local economy by being a patron of those who create, even if they are “just kids.”
3. Advocate for more arts and design instruction in our childrens' schools.
In the post-No Child Left Behind era in the United States and its narrow focus on reading scores, math tests, and closing the “achievement gap,” the American education enterprise is sorely in need of strategies to jump-start the ability of youngsters to innovate, invent, and think entrepreneurially during their years as K-12 students. We are missing a crucial window for investing in our economy long-term through the cultivation of young peoples’ potential to learn to think across the arts, design, architecture, and information technology disciplines. The great breakthroughs of the 21st century in areas like technology, communications, product invention or urban design are likely to be made by those most familiar with practices of innovation through having been provided early opportunities to do so. Starting interdisciplinary educational studies in college is too late to begin learning to team-think and innovate. A quality art education is also a design education.
4. Save so as to fill the storehouses, then share what you have stored.
Proverbs 30:25-
Ants are creatures of little strength,
yet they store up their food in the summer;
Americans need to save money again, but money should only be saved to be put to better use later. The Bible gives us a model. Ants don’t buy on credit. They have a practice of storing up what they will need.
5. Pray for a pragmatist President.
The "United" States is full of ideologues on the political right and on the political left, pulling us apart. The problem with ideologues, whether they are conservative or liberal, is that they refuse to admit that there is more than one way to arrive at the very same destination. Or worse, they are blind to the varying routes that many others are traveling on their paths as Americans. Only God gets to say, “This is the only way…follow me. Period.” As for us humans, we are merely feeling our way through this present darkness and we need to hold one another’s hands. That’s why, in divisive times, we need a President who is a pragmatist, someone with the confidence and strength to stand in the gap between the right and the left and help to reconcile the republic.
by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
Friday, February 6, 2009
New Things Arisin'
I'm just learning how revealing Facebook can be. One of my friends wrote the following to one of her other friends yesterday and Facebook allowed me to view it:
___________________________________________________________
"I cannot STAND anymore of this black pride thing. He's a man - doesn't matter what color. All I care is can he do the job to the best of his ability and will he accept Jesus Christ. That's ALL I care about. I am so over all this making his family a celebrity and parading it all over the news. I am sick of black people rising up and saying that this is great for them. Well white people never held rallies to say what great things any white president did for us. This is becoming very racial, whether people say he's breaking down barriers or not. I don't like groups of people holding rallies because of their race or color. It's stupid."
___________________________________________________________
Well, let's make this personal. It is REALLY good to see a strong, Black, Christian family celebrated in the news. I grew up surrounded by families just like the Obamas, but they weren't celebrated. Instead, the news celebrated the dysfunctions in the Black community. That's all one would ever see, played out over and over again. It was easy to think that Black families made no contribution to the nation at all...now, that wasn't true, but watching the news and the absence of people from my side of the mountain on the red carpets or in the House of Representatives or in the White House, you got the impression we had little to offer, were hopelessly unpopular, and would forever be in need of a whole lot of help!
So I DO care that this highly popular, highly intelligent Christian man now holds the most powerful office in the world. It does matter. I rise up every day asking the Lord to help our new President do his job well. God knows it is no easy job to represent and serve the needs of every constituency in the nation when some of those constituencies don't like each other very much.
As for rallying behind our President, it's not the worst thing we can be doing with our time. If we can get the world parading behind America again, it means that the United States is a leading symbol again and we could all use some more of that in these hard times. No country leads just because it says so, we need to be able to look over our shoulder to see nations that actually DESIRE to follow us.
Finally, a reality check. African Americans did not invent the issue that people continue to have about our skin color. If anything was or is stupid, that's it right there. Until Blacks started to rally in recent decades to say that "Black is beautiful," Black people were portrayed as ugly, dumb, useless, dangerous, dirty, subservient, etc., you name it. So to have arrived at a day when folks of all colors and all nations are actually celebrating a strong and loving Black family as the First Family...well, I am, and we are stunned.
Frankly—and I don't use this word lightly—it's a miracle. God is up to something special here.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
- Isaiah 43:19
With love always,
James
___________________________________________________________
"I cannot STAND anymore of this black pride thing. He's a man - doesn't matter what color. All I care is can he do the job to the best of his ability and will he accept Jesus Christ. That's ALL I care about. I am so over all this making his family a celebrity and parading it all over the news. I am sick of black people rising up and saying that this is great for them. Well white people never held rallies to say what great things any white president did for us. This is becoming very racial, whether people say he's breaking down barriers or not. I don't like groups of people holding rallies because of their race or color. It's stupid."
__________________________
Well, let's make this personal. It is REALLY good to see a strong, Black, Christian family celebrated in the news. I grew up surrounded by families just like the Obamas, but they weren't celebrated. Instead, the news celebrated the dysfunctions in the Black community. That's all one would ever see, played out over and over again. It was easy to think that Black families made no contribution to the nation at all...now, that wasn't true, but watching the news and the absence of people from my side of the mountain on the red carpets or in the House of Representatives or in the White House, you got the impression we had little to offer, were hopelessly unpopular, and would forever be in need of a whole lot of help!
So I DO care that this highly popular, highly intelligent Christian man now holds the most powerful office in the world. It does matter. I rise up every day asking the Lord to help our new President do his job well. God knows it is no easy job to represent and serve the needs of every constituency in the nation when some of those constituencies don't like each other very much.
As for rallying behind our President, it's not the worst thing we can be doing with our time. If we can get the world parading behind America again, it means that the United States is a leading symbol again and we could all use some more of that in these hard times. No country leads just because it says so, we need to be able to look over our shoulder to see nations that actually DESIRE to follow us.
Finally, a reality check. African Americans did not invent the issue that people continue to have about our skin color. If anything was or is stupid, that's it right there. Until Blacks started to rally in recent decades to say that "Black is beautiful," Black people were portrayed as ugly, dumb, useless, dangerous, dirty, subservient, etc., you name it. So to have arrived at a day when folks of all colors and all nations are actually celebrating a strong and loving Black family as the First Family...well, I am, and we are stunned.
Frankly—and I don't use this word lightly—it's a miracle. God is up to something special here.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
- Isaiah 43:19
With love always,
James
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Community Organizing and the True Birth of a Nation
September 6, 2008
Near the conclusion of the 2008 Republican National Convention, the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and the new Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, were shamefully over the top in their attack on the credibility of Senator Barack Obama’s service as a community organizer. Giuliani started his rant on the meaninglessness of service as a community organizer as it appears on Obama’s resume by sneering, “I don't even know what that is.” Palin had the audacity to disparage the resume of Senator Obama in comparison with her own as she declared, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
Palin, Giuliani and the speechwriters of the GOP thus display an ignorance of the history of our own United States that is breathtaking. The United States as we now know it would not exist if it weren’t for the responsibilities shouldered by selfless community organizers and activists:
• The United States won its independence from the British Empire because of the service of community organizers. Paul Revere made his midnight ride to alert and organize the community! Community organizers in each colony were responsible for pulling together the groups of untrained local militia that were the first soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. To unite these widespread and loosely connected communities of local militia, George Washington was appointed as commander-in-chief by the Continental Congress in order to better organize their fighting efforts.
• The practice of slavery was defeated on American soil in large part because of the community organizing work of the early abolitionists.
• Women gained the right to vote in the United States because of the community organizing efforts of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement.
• The community organizers in charitable organizations like the Children’s Aid Society led the fight for child labor laws in the United States, and also originated innovations in child protection and welfare such as the first parent-teacher associations, the first free school lunch programs, the first free dental clinics for children, the first day schools for disabled children, the first kindergarten in the United States, and the first foster homes.
• The Civil Rights Movement of the United States was a nonviolent movement of community organizers who were willing to shed their blood and sacrifice their lives so that every citizen of our nation might be recognized as having the same rights by law regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Giuliani, Palin, McCain, and the speechwriters of the GOP all need a refresher course in basic American history. Giuliani and Palin also need to pick up their nearest Bible as soon as possible. Because as far as having responsibilities is concerned, the responsibility of a community organizer is the greatest responsibility of all, a responsibility understood only by those willing to follow the greatest commandment of all—Christ’s commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
Near the conclusion of the 2008 Republican National Convention, the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and the new Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, were shamefully over the top in their attack on the credibility of Senator Barack Obama’s service as a community organizer. Giuliani started his rant on the meaninglessness of service as a community organizer as it appears on Obama’s resume by sneering, “I don't even know what that is.” Palin had the audacity to disparage the resume of Senator Obama in comparison with her own as she declared, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
Palin, Giuliani and the speechwriters of the GOP thus display an ignorance of the history of our own United States that is breathtaking. The United States as we now know it would not exist if it weren’t for the responsibilities shouldered by selfless community organizers and activists:
• The United States won its independence from the British Empire because of the service of community organizers. Paul Revere made his midnight ride to alert and organize the community! Community organizers in each colony were responsible for pulling together the groups of untrained local militia that were the first soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. To unite these widespread and loosely connected communities of local militia, George Washington was appointed as commander-in-chief by the Continental Congress in order to better organize their fighting efforts.
• The practice of slavery was defeated on American soil in large part because of the community organizing work of the early abolitionists.
• Women gained the right to vote in the United States because of the community organizing efforts of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement.
• The community organizers in charitable organizations like the Children’s Aid Society led the fight for child labor laws in the United States, and also originated innovations in child protection and welfare such as the first parent-teacher associations, the first free school lunch programs, the first free dental clinics for children, the first day schools for disabled children, the first kindergarten in the United States, and the first foster homes.
• The Civil Rights Movement of the United States was a nonviolent movement of community organizers who were willing to shed their blood and sacrifice their lives so that every citizen of our nation might be recognized as having the same rights by law regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Giuliani, Palin, McCain, and the speechwriters of the GOP all need a refresher course in basic American history. Giuliani and Palin also need to pick up their nearest Bible as soon as possible. Because as far as having responsibilities is concerned, the responsibility of a community organizer is the greatest responsibility of all, a responsibility understood only by those willing to follow the greatest commandment of all—Christ’s commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
Moving Past Wright, Moving Toward Change
Originally posted: May 6, 2008
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck wrote an article posted on CNN.com recently arguing that "the timing of Obama's move away from Wright is odd."
Well, borrowing from one of Beck's catchphrases, here's what you need to know: A man's faith is between that man and our Lord. A spiritual mentor introduces a man or woman to the Word of God and leads a younger Christian in how to pray, how to persevere, and the like. Nothing more. Commentators like Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity must stop pretending that human beings are paper cutouts shaped by one another's hands. It takes the Lord to shape a character. Furthermore, each of us is capable of listening to another person on the things that make sense and filtering out the rest. We do it all the time. I listen to Glenn Beck on the radio a lot these days even though I disagree with 95% of what he says. But the 5% of what he says that resonates with me has value and I have to honor that 5%.
Now is the time to move beyond the divisiveness that says that you are on this side and I am on this side, and therefore you are entirely wrong and I am entirely right. If you are still playing by those rules, you've got it all wrong.
I'm already moving toward a change of heart and mind and politics. I'm listening even to those I don't entirely agree with. Are you?
James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
You Can’t Have It Both Ways
Originally posted: May 3, 2008
Senator Obama’s detractors cannot in one breath lambaste Jeremiah Wright as a person of questionable character while out of the other side of their mouths citing Wright as a credible judge of Senator Obama’s character as a politician...or, more to the point, as the soon-to-be-elected President of the United States. You absolutely cannot have it both ways.
James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
Senator Obama’s detractors cannot in one breath lambaste Jeremiah Wright as a person of questionable character while out of the other side of their mouths citing Wright as a credible judge of Senator Obama’s character as a politician...or, more to the point, as the soon-to-be-elected President of the United States. You absolutely cannot have it both ways.
James Haywood Rolling, Jr.
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