Another image in honor of UW's number one spot for volunteers

Photos and such for my Peace Corps/Global Citizenship map

Signed by President John F Kennedy on March 1, 1961, Exec. Order 10924 created the Peace Corps on a pilot basis. As President Kennedy proclaimed in his remarks for the occasion, "Our Peace Corps is not designed as an instrument of diplomacy or propaganda or ideological conflict. It is designed to permit our people to exercise more fully their responsibilities in the great common cause of world development."

Love

Mornings, the smell of coffee, parents, your favorite book/movie/actress, chocolate, friends, work... these and more are all things people love. Why is love so frequently reduced and confined to romantic/sexual love? Why are we told that we cannot possibly be happy without it? Why do people expend so much time and energy seeking out 'The One' person right for them, often neglecting their friends and family when they (think they) have found that person?

Companionship, sure, that's plenty important. But there's no need to place such an emphasis on romantic companions. I remember learning about Sternberg's triangular theory of love in my human sexuality class. In his theory, there's a triangle with the points labelled intimacy, passion, and commitment. Different types of love are placed on the triangle depending on the combination you have. For example, "consumate love" is in the middle of the triangle because it's intimacy + passion and commitment. Infatuation is pure passion, and "companionate love" is intimacy + commitment (e.g., a very close friend, a godparent, etc). You can check out the triangle and more about the theory at Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_theory_of_love

Anyway, my point is that I think US culture focuses too much on what Sternberg calls "fatuous love," or passion + commitment. I think we fool ourselves into thinking it emphasizes consumate love, when popular culture really focuses on just two things: sex and marriage. In fact, many movies, books, etc, reinforce the idea that the "two" sexes are far apart, misunderstandings are inevitable, and true intimacy isn't likely, possible, or even desirable. There may be some intimacy represented, but a relative shallow form of it that does not extend very far.

Moreover, US culture then suggests that our goal in life is to seek out this love, marry them, and have a child, buy a house, etc, etc. If you don't have a child or buy a house, that is OK in theory, but if you don't get married to that person once you've found them? That is just so weird. Why wouldn't you get married? Isn't the point of any romantic relationship to test your compatibility for marriage and then do it? (Ignore the tax penalties, of course, those don't matter when it comes to true love!)

And, of course, if you never even find that person, your life must be incomplete. No matter if you have a warm, close relationship with your large family. Or if you have many strong, intimate friendships. Positive relationships with your colleagues, a close-knit community of neighbors, peers, or any other group. You could have a support network that is much stronger and healthier than those of many people who supposedly have "consumate love," yet your life is still considered lacking, unhealthy, and incomplete. Many people still think despite growing up in homes where their parents' relationships were unhealthy, despite having terrible relationships (or no relationship at all) with their parents, despite witnessing dysfunctional family dramas again and again. Their emphasis is still on finding that one person. And then withdrawing from the world to their own little bubble of happiness.

What a recipe for UNhappiness. In many cultures where the passionate aspect of relationships is considered less important, people tend to be happier in their marriages. Divorce is less common, and not always because of social taboo or legal difficulty. It makes sense--how can your partner measure up to your expectations when you expect perfection all the time? When you expect them to provide all of your emotional needs and have no other outlets for your thoughts, feelings, and affections, no other people with whom to share your hobbies, interests, and passions? No two people can ever be identical or share the exact same interests and preferences on everything.

Just a few thoughts. Maybe I'll post something soon about a need for more community.

Prison reform and abolition

I have been thinking about doing a post on prison reform and abolition for over 6 months now, but it has always seemed like such an insurmountable task that I kept putting it off. In particular, I wanted to do a series of posts documenting not only the rationale and logic behind it, but giving the extensive evidence proof of claims such as, "the prison-industrial complex/penal system is racist." However, that is a very overwhelming task. In this post I shall focus on the bare-bones logic of it with only a little explanation, but I may do follow-up posts once I have the framework up.

The first contention: our current prison/"justice" system is not currently working properly. (Reasons for prison reform)
Evidence:
1. The system is racist at all levels--people of color are not only more likely to be pulled over, questioned, or otherwise harassed by the police, but they are also more likely to be convicted of their charges (even in the face of exonerating evidence), receive longer prison prison sentences for the same crimes, and be denied parole. I could go on about this, but won't. Might provide some links.
2. The system is also classist. Low-income communities, poor/working-class areas are over-policed. People from working-class background face many challenges in the court system, some of which are similar to those faced by people of color, some of which are related to the difficulty of getting your own lawyer (public defenders are terribly overworked, and sometimes meet their clients a mere 5 minutes before trial...), or other issues. Once again, because of discrimination against poor people, juries tend to be harsher on people who are obviously from working class backgrounds (anyone seen 12 Angry Men??).
3. The very definition of a crime is messed up. "Loitering" and "trespassing" in public parks is often a crime, and many other laws target working class people or the homeless--you can be arrested for unpaid parking tickets, yet few of the rich people who routinely evade taxes are even investigated. Once you get a ticket for a crime like loitering, if you are homeless you may not be able to pay, which lands you in jail, which makes it harder.... Not to mention that stealing cars usually comes with more consequences than stealing millions of dollars from thousands of people (back to class: blue-collar vs. white-collar crime). Many forms of rape aren't even legally considered rape.
4. Political prisoners are also treated terribly. There are a surprising number of them languishing still in US jails. Their crimes range from Communism to working in liberation or the anti-war movements in the 1960's and 70's to (and this actually happened) giving a speech about how you can cost corporations money by sending them completely black faxes. Demonstrating outside of the Republican National Convention. WTO, anyone? Many of these crimes also have very inflated sentences, and people have been arrested for doing no more than exercising their first amendment rights. While arguably not as bad as in the 1960's and 70's, when the FBI was openly killing activists without even covering up the evidence (Fred Hampton--left the bloody sheets and bullet holes proving he never could have fired), the level of surveillance and repression of activists of all types of downright scary. Most of these activists their watching are struggling for things like social justice and trying to do good.
5. Did I mention selective enforcement? Think back to all the celebrities who usually get off scot-free or with very low sentences for drug, alcohol, or sex-related crimes. Many people who normally have no problem with the punitive aspect of the criminal justice system cried that it would be unfair for Roman Polanski to serve time for his crime of providing alcohol and drugs to a 13-year old, then raping her multiple times in multiple ways while she continued to say no. After all, that was many years ago, he has a wife and kids, etc, etc. More on sexual violence later, but suffice it to say that if it's unfair to him, it's unfair to everyone. We shouldn't let everyone off the hook, just think of a better system. After all...

The second contention: Prisons don't prevent crime. (Reasons for prison abolition)
The only way they could ever do this is if we locked up each and every person who ever broke any law (probably most of us, right?) for life. Even then, crime within prison--which is rampant in certain forms, and which guard often condone or even engage in--would continue. However, incarcerating people has not been shown to reduce the amount of crimes people commit. In fact, prisons and jails are considered revolving doors by many because of the high rates of recidivism (re-offense). This is for lots of reasons, but here are a few.
1. Prison, by definition, is designed to punish, not to rehabilitate. What skills are prisoners learning in prison? Usually not job skills, although that happens sometimes. More often, it's easier to forge criminal connections with fellow inmates. Prisons sometimes get people more involved in crime than before. In addition, the punishment prisoners receive in prison can be very intense--and according to the UN and Amnesty International, sometimes inhumane and in violation of many treaties to which the US is a signatory, as well as our own laws. This takes a mental and emotional toll on many prisoners that hampers their recovery once outside.
2. Once out of prison, job opportunities are limited. For many jobs, even a marijuana possession conviction (and let's be real, think about what percentage of people in Seattle have had some point in their life smoked pot or at least had it in their possession) makes you ineligible or drastically reduces your chances of being hired. Once again, you often don't gain knowledge or skills relevant to the legal workforce, and you usually don't gain experience in a field either.
3. In addition, you probably don't have a place of your own anymore (certainly for working-class prisoners this is usually the case). However, staying with family or friends, if they are on certain types of government aid, may jeopardize their ability to stay on that aid. If you are lucky to have family or friends in the area who are willing to take you in, you still may not be able to take them up on it if you were convicted of a gang-related charge. For many of these charges, ex-prisoners are banned from going into certain areas or else they violate their parole and go back into prison. For example, the entire Central District. Given that the CD is the historically Black area in Seattle, if you are black and grew up there, many people you know probably still live there....
4. Parole is also very easy to violate at times. I used to volunteer in juvie, and a kid got locked back up for violating parole because he was "associating" with a felon. His older brother. This kid was only 14--was he supposed to just move out, cut off his family, and support himself? There are many other examples.
5. Rehabilitative, community justice, and other alternative models have been shown to be more effective at reducing crime than prisons. Re-entry and drug rehab programs that take place at alternate facilities and avoid incarcerating people tend to have much lower rates of re-offense.
6. Speaking of drugs... prisons don't usually deal with drug addictions. There are waiting lists of over a year at many rehab centers--and some drugs are dangerous to go off on your own because you can die--but while you're waiting you can still be imprisoned for years for possession. Even though you were trying to get help.
7. Prisons also have a terrible record of dealing with mental health issues, and the system usually ignores when crimes are committed by the mentally ill, unless you can get them classified as "insane," in which case people are generally institutionalized in mental health institutions rather than prisons.
8!!! Prevention is best/solve sources of crime. All prisons can do is react to crimes already committed. They don't deal with things that cause crime: poverty, inequality, a culture of impunity (around certain crimes), drug addictions, mental health issues, cycles of violence, lack of [insert basic need], institutional oppression, etc. We deal to deal with these issues or else crime will just continue to happen.
9!!! Doing a bad thing does not make you a bad person automatically.. We all make mistakes. Some crimes, like rape, are fairly socially acceptable in that we live in a rape culture that blames victims and creates excuses for perpetrators. See www.thecurvature.com for good discussions on rape culture and "unrapeability." We need to change the way we perceive the world around us and educate youth. Not lock people up.

Third contention: prison is very expensive
Prison is expensive to run. In fact, many of the rehabilitative programs that take place in alternate centers both have better results and are cheaper to run! Why aren't we running to start more of these programs? The cultural impulse to "make people pay" for what they've done, even when it's counter-productive. People don't care how much prison costs, but they do care when jails start paying for cable. Because prisoners don't deserve anything other than a cold hard jail cell and three pieces of bread a day.

Rebuttal: Murders and rapists
Usually when I talk to people about my views, they always want to know about the murderers and the rapists. First of all, murderers, rapists, and ALL other violent offenders account for about 20% of all prisoners (Human Rights Coalition). Letting all the non-violent offenders out of jail would get rid of most prisons. Moreover, murderers, rapists, and pedophiles combined make up less than 1% of the prison population (Critical Resistance). 1%!!!! Even if we kept these folks in, we'd practically be at prison abolition already.
Plus, many murderers, rapists, and pedophiles aren't in jail anyway. Think about all the police who murder innocent civilians but are acquitted of wrong-doing because it was "an accident." That's what the crime of manslaughter is there for, folks. Think about all the priests who were never jailed. And the vast majority of rapists are never even accused of a crime. Even the government estimates that only about 40% of rapes are reported, my guess is that the figure is much higher. That's not even looking at the number of unreported prison rapes because, I'm sorry, stealing a gold necklace doesn't mean other prisoners and guards should be able to rape you. Raping someone doesn't mean someone else should be able to rape you. Rape is rape and rape is unacceptable. End of story. Continuing on... only about 4-6% of *reported* rapes end in conviction. That leaves us with the conservative estimate that about 1.6-2.4% of rapes end in conviction. Even with repeat offenders, 90-95% probably never serve jail time. When you think about the fact that various government agencies estimate that between 1 out of 4 and 1 out of 6 women are sexually assaulted at least once, that means that, even accounting for repeat offenders, a significant percentage of the male population has probably committed sexual assault.*** Many will even admit to it in surveys.... as long as you don't use the words rape or assault. Scary??? It should be, since the current prison-industrial complex isn't protecting you from the vast majority anyway... (Will post more on the specifics of this issue later.)


There are many others who have written on this subject. Prison reform/abolition organizations include Critical Resistance, Human Rights Coalition, and Prison Activist Resource Center. Check out works by Angela Davis, Betty Pettit, and Loic Wacquant, among many others.

Bloggers include Renee at Womanist Musings (check out http://www.womanist-musings.com/2010/10/we-create-recidivism.html), Karnythia at www.theangryblackwoman.com, Cara at www.thecurvature.com (focus on violence against women and sexual violence), and many more! I'm much indebted to these bloggers and the blogosphere in generally for helping to shape my thinking around this and many other issues.




***Female-on-female, male-on-male, and female-on-male sexual assault does occur, but the vast majority are male-on-female, thus my focus. However, men are even less likely to report rape, so the figures we have on that are even less reliable and I'm sure rates are higher than we'd like to believe.

One White Girl PondersStrange Behavior, by Marilyn Buck

It is strange to me
that so many white folks
were upset and enraged
by the federal carnage
at the fundamentalist farmhouse
at Waco

These same "folks"
were not distraught or outraged
by the Philadelphia firestorm
where Black people
were massacred
and Black folk's homes
became ashes

It is strange to me
that the po - lice and FBI
are not running around
kicking in white folks' doors
or stopping all blond or brown-haired men
wearing Levis or Brooks Brothers suits
or Stetsons or John Deere caps
You know:
a search, brutalize, blow-away mission
like those in South Central LA
Washington DC
Harlem or el barrio

After all, wasn't it
all-American white males
who blew up the federal building
in Oklahoma City?

It is strange to me
how civilized government agents can be
when it is their friends
they are looking for

It is strange to me
how much fear
the "white" world carries
in its under-siege shoulders
bullet-proofed chests
and M-16s
to ward off the shadows
of half a millenium of
massacres and killing fields
slavery, lynch mobs
and death penalties

Not only is it strange
it’s time
for radical behavior
modification

My translation

Ser and estar

Oh marine
oh boy
one of your problems is that you don't know
how to distinguish ser from estar
for you everything is to be

so let us try to clear things up

for example
a woman es buena
when she sings the psalms out of tune
and gets a new refrigerator every two years
and sends her dog to an analyst every month
and only deals with sex on saturday nights

on the other hand, a woman está buena
when you look at her and your puzzled eyes go blank
and you dream of her dream of her dream of her
and think that a martini will give you the courage
but not even then

for example
a man es listo
when he earns millions over the phone
and evades taxes and his conscience
and buys into a good retirement plan
to cash in when he turns seventy
and it's time to fly to capri and paris
where he manages to rape the gioconda right in the louvre
with his speedy polaroid

on the other hand, a man está listo
when you boys
oh marine
oh boy
appear on the horizon
to inject him with democracy.


There are many options for the title. I like "Ser and estar," but there are other options, such as "To be and to be" or "Ser and estar, or to be and to be." It depends on what you want to emphasize, how close you would like to remain to Benedetti's version, and how much knowledge your intended audience would be expected to have of Spanish. I don't think "Being and Seeming" is an appropriate title for several reasons. First off, the point of the poem is the confusion between the two different forms of "To be," to which the Spanish title gives a clue but which this title does not reference at all. Secondly, 'being' and 'seeming' are not accurate translations of 'ser' and estar,' particularly with how Benedetti uses them in his poem.

For the bulk of the poem, I used Hatfield's translation as a guide, since I do think that he is generally a good translator. I think that for this poem, however, he translated too much of it. Since the issue in question is a (political) language lesson about ser and estar, it makes most sense to me to leave all the uses of these words in. This is especially the case because their replacement with 'being' and 'seeming' is actually inaccurate in some of the examples Benedetti uses. For example, a man does not seem done for when the Marines come in--he is done for. The difference between es listo and está listo is that the former means "he is smart" and the second means "he is done/ready." In this case, Benedetti implies that "he is done" in the sense of "done for" because the Marines have arrived to "inject him with democracy": kill him. It does not matter that the average reader may not actually know the difference between the phrases--the poem does indeed explain. In addition, footnotes are easily and not infrequently added to poems for just such explanations. That was my main issue with the translation, but there were a few other places where I translated more directly than he did.

More on translation--a poem by Mario Benedetti

Here is a poem by Mario Benedetti that demonstrates some of the difficulties with translating. I will give the Spanish version first, followed by the English translation in the book I have, and then the way I would translate and why.

Ser y estar

Oh marine
oh boy
una de tus dificultades consiste en que no sabes
distinguir el ser del estar
para ti todo es to be

así que probemos a aclarar las cosas

por ejemplo
una mujer es buena
cuando entona desafinadamente los salmos
y envía mensualmente su perro al analista
y sólo enfrente el sexo los sábados de noche

en cambio una mujer está buena
cuando la miras y pones los perplejos ojos en blanco
y la imaginas y la imaginas y la imaginas
y hasta crees que tomando un martini te vendría el coraje
pero ni así

por ejemplo
un hombre es listo
cuando obtiene millones por teléfono
y evade la conciencia y los impuestos
y abre una buena póliza de seguros
a cobrar cuando llegue a sus setenta
y sea el momento de viajar en excursióna capri y a parís
y consiga violar a la gioconda en pleno louvre
con la vertiginosa polaroid

en cambio un hombre está listo
cuando ustedes
oh marine
oh boy
aparecen en el horizonte
para inyectarle democracia.


Being and Seeming (trans. by Charles Dean Hatfield)

Oh marine
oh boy
part of your problem is that you don't know
the difference between "being" and "seeming"
to you everything just "is"

now let me explain

for example
a woman "is" good
when she sings the psalms out of tune
and gets a new refrigerator every two years
and sends her dog to an analyst every month
and only deals with sex on saturday nights

on the other hand, a woman "seems" good (at least to me)
when you gaze at her and your puzzled eyes go blank
and you dream of her dream of her dream of her
and think that a martini will give you the courage
when not even that'll do it

for example
a man "is" done
when he earns millions over the phone
and evades taxes and his conscience
and buys into a good retirement plan
to cash in when he turns seventy
and it's time to fly to capri and paris
where he gets to rape the gioconda right in the louvre
with his speedy polaroid.

on the other hand,
a man "seems" done (done-for, that is)
when you boys
oh marine
oh boy
appear on the horizon
to give him a dose of democracy.

---
My translation and rationale follow in the next post.