Mornië Alantië (A Promise Lives Within Us Now)

These may seem like darkness has indeed fallen, when Americans are being attacked while exercising their most fundamental freedom to protest, and the attackers are the agents of their own government. There have been some violent protests with destruction of public and private property, and a disproportionate number of attacks by heavily armed police on crowds marching to protest, ironically, the excessive use of force by the police. The president of the nation, in words reminiscent of Tsarist Russia or any absolutist government of your preference, has threatened to unleash the military against the civilian population, in the name of restoring "law and order"; one's attitude to this proclamation depends strongly on one's existing trust in his leadership. But a good sign of his true thoughts were revealed when he advised the states' governors that they needed to "dominate" their citizens through use of overwhelming force. Even more telling, however, was his statement in that same meeting that failure to crush the protests would make the governors look weak and foolish. And, so even as Washington DC is flooded by faceless but heavily armed paramilitary forces to help the president show his strength and courage, even as police cars mow into crowds of civilians, even as peaceful protesters are subjected to pepper balls that are not technically "tear gas" despite having much the same effect, even as crowds of Americans are attacked by police with batons and pepper spray, even on those nights when the nation burned and the shining city on the hill tethered on its foundations (seemingly made of sand, rather than the rock we always imagined), even in these darkest of times, I could not help but feel that things were never better, and was already smiling in anticipation of a much brighter tomorrow.

Let me start by saying that it's much easier for me to brush past the institutional racism suffered by most Black Americans. As an Indian, and a graduate engineer, I enjoy a position that is denied to black Americans who have been born in this country. But I am rejoicing not for myself, but for all victims of injustice in America. This is not the hopeful dream of a perennial optimist, but a reading of reality. As an outsider, I have the advantage of seeing the bigger picture in a way that is hidden to those living, and suffering, through the actual events. As a person, technically, of color (a term that I have the privilege to brush off without consequences, a privilege denied to black or Hispanic Americans), I do not suffer the burden of white Americans who struggle with the guilt of not having solved the obvious issues of racism and injustice, with the guilt by association of having family and friends who voted Donald Trump into power. Neither black or white Americans are free enough of their involvement in this tragedy unfolding before them to see that the dark clouds enveloping them have not a silver lining but that in fact the dark cloud is but a spot in a much larger bank of dazzlingly silver clouds.

The world has changed tremendously in the last dozen years. For black Americans, and for white Americans who are capable of human empathy, it may seem that the last eight years have seen nothing but a wall of shame covered with a mosaic of murdered Black men and women, people cut down for the crime of being black rather than any crime they may have actually committed. No crime deserves a death sentence, much less one executed before trial and with chilling finality. Eric Garner was selling cigarettes illegally,  Michael Brown had stolen a box of cigars using force, Walter Scott had an outstanding warrant over child support payments but not since medieval times have we executed people for such minor crimes; Trayvon Martin was walking home when a (non-police) vigilante followed him and an ensuing scuffle ended with him being killed, Philandro Castile was shot in a routine traffic stop, Tamir Rice was shot and killed for playing with a toy gun, Breona Taylor was shot in her home by police executing a "no knock" warrant (at the wrong place, just to make it worse, but that detail shouldn't even be important). On the face of it, George Floyd may seem like just another name on a long, endless and shameful list. But each death has moved the weight of public opinion towards its watershed moment. For the dead, for their families and for many in the communities that suffer and fear each day, the movement may seem glacial, and long overdue, and I cannot deny the justice in that sentiment. But I prefer to look at how the majority of the country is waking up to the injustice perpetrated in their name and finally they stood up and said, "No more!"

When Ferguson, MO exploded in anger, the right-leaning press could highlight that the race of the protesters and use that as rationale for ignoring their demands for justice. When Baltimore burned after another Black Man was shot by police, President Trump could insult the whole city and its black citizens and despite some objections, he could get away with it. But today, there are white people marching in the streets besides their black brethren. Liberal stalwarts of course have spoken up in the past, but too many other people sat quietly and allowed a matter of justice for all become by default a matter of the color of one's skin. When whites and Asians sat on the sidelines, the only voices raised in a demand for change were black and it was easy for their opponents to recast this as racial battle and racial issues make everyone uncomfortable and so too many of us walked on by like the priest on the road to Jericho. But not this time! Finally, we have seen that this is not just a matter of race, it is a matter of justice and equality and simple humanity. Of course, race played a role in the events that led to the murder of George Floyd and Breona Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery but they deserve justice, not because they were black or their killers white, but because no one should be killed the way they were murdered and finally America has realized that we are only as good as the worst of our responses. And so a chorus of new and powerful voices joined those who have struggled alone for years. Taylor Swift, once raised up as paragon of white womanhood by white supremacists (without her consent and against her desires) has gradually thrown of the shackles of fearful silence. She has found her voice now and leaped to the front lines (metaphorically) adding the power and reach of her enormous pulpit to spread the message.

One of the most uplifting and hopeful stories came from Minneapolis after the first nights of violence. A Bangladeshi immigrant restaurant owner saw his life's work burnt to the ground, and his response was, "let it burn, we need justice for George Floyd". He understood that the violence was not against him, that this fight was not just the fight of the blacks but a struggle for justice and as such it was  fight for all Americans - and coincidentally his restaurant was named Gandhi Mahal, honoring the greatest apostle of non-violent advocacy in modern history. The same sentiment was articulated by Hasan Minaj, in one of the rawest, most powerful segments of his Patriot Act I have ever seen. Now Hasan is not a surprising supporter of justice and equality but he turned the spotlight inward and challenged each of us, especially those with brown skin, to face up to our inner racist. Racism is not an easy issue, and is rarely defined in black and white, or between blacks and whites, but all Americans are now thinking of this, and only good can come from this introspection.

When Colin Kapernick knelt to protest police brutality, he was pilloried as unpatriotic and somehow the fight for justice morphed into respect for the troops. The only men who stood with him were black and white America complained that they did not want to see their football sullied with such unpatriotic behavior. That was three years ago, but today the world has changed and we have Carson Wentz and Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady speaking up for justice, voices that were conspicuously absent in the past. White coaches in the NBA like Greg Popovitch and Steve Kerr supported their black athletes, but the NFL remained tightly focused on their bottom line. Till today! Now we have thoughtful statements from a long line of football executives from Bill O'Brien to Brian Flores to John Elway admitting the mistake of their past silence. The few discordant statements from Vic Fangio and Drew Brees have been contested and since withdrawn - to be clear, they have every right to have their opinions, but they have been challenged and corrected on facts and have been forced to acknowledge reality. College coaches too have added their voices in support of change. For decades, the colossus that straddles the professional wrestling world has been a bastion of conservatism, and Vince McMahon has never been shy about casting all political positions he dislikes as unpatriotic and using the theater of the ring to humiliate those fictionalized and conveniently buffoonish enemies. But today a legion of his stars are standing proudly for justice, and some of them have marched in solidarity with the protesters. Like the NFL, other corporations are flocking to be counted on the right side of history, from Amazon to Nike to Uber and Lyft and United Airlines and Target and Snapchat and Twitter.

The swing in sentiment in Corporate America is telling. Corporations, and the NFL is one of them, have no moral compulsions, they do not make decisions because they are morally right. It is not a knock on corporations, per se - they are (with deference to the US Supreme Court) not people, they are amoral entities designed to maximize profit. They have not joined the calls for change because it is the morally right thing but because they realize that to oppose it, or even pretend that the problem does not exist, is against their own interests. The NFL and every other corporation are soulless but they depend on their workers and patrons and they have seen the signs - the public mood has shifted and it is time to align with the new winds of change or suffer loss of both staff and consumers. The change in the corporate mood is a sign that American sentiment has moved towards the light and the smarter and more nimble corporations are proving that reality.

The final, and most important proof that change has come, that it is now inevitable, is provided by no other than President Trump. His determination to crush the protests, his insistence on demonstration of strength stem for sheer terror on his side. He is scared, frightened that he can no longer bully the country nor gaslight them into apathy and his every move proves his weakness. When George Wallace threatened blacks during the civil rights movement, when Hosni Mubarak sent his army into the streets of Cairo, when Ferdinand Marcos did the same in Manila, when Indira Gandhi suspended the Indian parliament in 1975, when the Communist Politburo attempted a coup against Gorbachev in 1991 as the USSR crumbled, they were none of them acting as leaders secure in their position and they all fell before the strength of popular protests. Donald Trump is scared, as all those leaders were scared and his fantasies (and may they remain fantasies) of unleashing the military against American citizens stems from his knowledge of his own weakness, not matter how he may try to dress it up as strength. Strength never needs to strut and demonstrate its nature, a strong government has no fear of its own people. And in a democracy, the strength of a government derives from the support of the governed, not from the number of jack-booted stormtroopers it can line up in the streets.

Sometimes, governments manage to crush their people, as Deng Xiopeng did in Tienanmen Square. But the United States is still a democracy and I believe in the American Experiment. Despite all the damage done over the last three years, I believe in people and I believe that today a critical mass of the population has moved past sitting silently and passively while their fellow citizens suffer. And with each act of violence by the police, the case for change is made ever more clear. Perhaps Trump will survive this, perhaps the protests will dissipate, but I do not think it will be that easy. Change is coming and in the words of Viktor Lazlo (Casblanca), "This time I know we will win!"

When the night is overcome, may you rise to see the sun!

When It Really is Black and White

This past fortnight capped a most tumultuous period in US history, with both moments of soaring hope and expectation and  deepest despair, as the US Supreme Court dismissed the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act and then followed up with a sweeping statement judgement that legalized marriage equality across the nation, while a troubled young man walked into a historic Black church and allegedly gunned down a number of worshipers, simply because they were of a different race from him. While very few, if any, are willing to offer open support for the killing of unarmed church-goers,  the one aspect of this troubled period that worries me most is that so many may harbor deep feelings about which of the above three events were tragedy and which were cause for celebration. However, glad as I am over both the referenced court decisions (though I would have preferred a narrower, less flowery and more legalistic reasoning for marriage equality), this post is not about either of those issues - the Affordable Care Act may face more challenges, but the reality is that it is now a fact of life, and is ever more embedded in the way we buy our healthcare and any disruptions to this in the future are in no one's interest, except perhaps the most committed of ideologues, while the right to equality before the state is now catching up to the tidal wave of public perception that has swept much of the earlier prejudice aside, and it is hard indeed to imagine this country or any other stepping backwards on this matter.

Race relations and prejudices, on the other hand, are another matter entirely. I have largely ignored the topic, waiting for time and distance to provide better perspective, but the slow burn begun when with the killing of Trayvon Martin almost two and a half years ago, were fanned and kept alive by a series of events, from the shooting of Michael Brown to the even more tragic shooting of Tamir Rice.  Less tragic, but still very much an issue to those on the receiving end, were events like the seemingly excessive force employed by Dallas police against a teenage girl. These events were not connected, but they betrayed a sad pattern of inherent racial prejudice - it is unlikely that any of the police involved were racist in the conventional sense of the word, but their prejudice colored their perceptions and actions. It is just as important to note that prejudice colored the actions of the victims in some cases as well. This is not a defense of the killings, just a statement of fact, and it should be noted that the attitudes of young black men towards the police and justice system are justifiably founded, but that collective history, uniformly negative, definitely prejudiced them against taking their chances with the system and set both sides on a track that could only end in tragedy.

While discussing a level of tragedy between cases that all resulted in death may be insensitive, not to add impossible, the killings in Charleston last week are definitely of a different magnitude. This was the only case where the killer had no reason to employ force, except to wantonly kill. And the reported statements of the alleged killer drip with a hatred that most of us imagined long dead. And yet, in the midst of tragedy, the killer may have transformed this nation in a way he never could have conceived - he shone a light on the darkest recesses of our collective soul and dragged into the open the kind of attitudes and behavior generally restricted to the comfortable anonymity of online discussion forums. The unbridled racism and (all too human) ferocity reported by the survivors left no room for lukewarm sympathizers to cloud the issue with speculative non-questions and strawman arguments, while even those more overtly in agreement were aware that he had crossed a line that they did not dare to follow him across.

In many ways, the dangers that every young black man faces daily were finally, and irrefutably on display. The previous events all had something that could be used to obscure that fact - Trayvon Martin was in a physical confrontation with his killer, Michael Brown has just robbed a store which was enough to cloud the issue, even without his reported lunge at the police officer, the man shot from behind in South Carolina was running from a routine traffic stop, and Tamir Rice was holding a realistic looking weapon which he refused to drop when confronted. All these cases could be written off by those who wished to as nothing more than a bit of excessive force, driven by fear on the part of the killer, and the common thread could be ignored, the evidence of racial prejudice could be ignored. But the church killings offer no such convenient escape - a man walked in and shot down nine people, executed them simply because of the color of their skin. He has reportedly admitted that it was difficult to do because of how nicely they treated him for the hour that he spent there before acting, but he found it in himself to go through with his intended plan - he was going to execute them allegedly solely because they were blacks and he was white, and nothing in their personal behavior was reason enough to "forgive" them that sin. And in doing so, he showed all the world the truth - people still die today because of racist attitudes. I have seen an interestingly coordinated attempt to point to some cases where black men killed white people - equally interestingly there are no links or details to these reported cases. In any case the more likely explanation is that a home invasion that results in deaths is just that, rather than an overtly racist plan by radical black men. It is always possible that racist taunts or insults were uttered - racism is not exclusive to whites, and all of us have these tendencies. But the one fact that no one can ignore (or at least must strain incredibly hard to ignore) is that nine black people were executed as a result of race and nothing else; and once we are forced to acknowledge that, we must also face up to the reasons and accept, even if grudgingly that racial prejudices do kill and that today the vast majority of the killing has young black men as victims.

Sometimes, it takes a deep cut to remove the obscuring damaged tissue and start the process of healing. The many cases over the last three years showed us that there was a deep wound in our soul, but it took the Charleston killings to slice away all else and reveal the tumor of racism that lived on beneath. And we have begun the process of healing already. Forced finally to admit the overt racist overtones of the Confederacy and its flag, America has turned away and finally that symbol of prejudice and outdated ideas (like a state's "right" to allow enslavement) is coming down  - from State Houses and monuments to merchandise and computer games. There will still be some - Phil Robertsons and Cliven Bundys of this event - who will cling to their emblems of the past, but they are a dying minority and their overt racism will drive them into isolation as no one with an eye to the future is willing to embrace them or their brand anymore. And we should leave them free to be - they have a right to wrap themselves in the flag, no matter how much it offends the rest of us. We should be content that the State's endorsement of their prejudices is done, and that we have no more reason to fear them - like Sauruman, their staff is broken and their power gone and they can be left in their isolated towers of Orthanc (it goes without saying that the willful defacement of memorials to Confederate dead must stop immediately).

Perhaps the greatest response to the racist murders of Charleston is the one unfolding across America today - a new recognition of the distance we still have to go as a nation. As the President has said, we have come a long way from the Civil War and Civil Rights movement and there is little doubt that the US is one of the most tolerant nations around, where one can transcend skin color to succeed, but to become a more perfect Union, we still have a long road to travel and thanks to a young racist in Charleston, we have begun that journey, not to the racial civil war he envisioned but towards equality and justice for all.

Time and Perspective

When the case of Trayvon Martin's shooting at the hands of a Neighborhood Watch volunteer first exploded onto the national news scene a few months ago, as many other like-minded people I saw it as fairly straightforward - a vigilante had shot an unarmed teenager, and there was little more to debate. But I held back from blogging about it, certain that there were many details missing, knowingly or unknowingly omitted or distorted, and willing to wager that with time, the story would twist and turn beyond imagination. Rarely have I been more prescient and never has less ridden on my clairvoyance, and from the horrific 911 calls, to the "eyewitnesses" who offered inconsistent stories and whose eyewitness status was sometimes unclear, to the edited 911 tapes and a plethora of first hazy and then enhanced photos of the shooter, the story seemed to change daily. And the wider story associated with it also changed, from an out-of-control vigilante, to racist shadings, to strange counter campaigns against and in favor of hooded sweatshirts.

All of which showed only one thing, beyond doubt: there is no issue imaginable, that will not be hotly and passionately contested by the right and left wing of the national polity. And whatever position has been staked out by the one side will immediately be opposed by the other, even if their positions represent a diametrically opposite stance from the day before. I was especially disappointed in the tactics employed by the supporters of the slain teen, many of them self-professed liberals. I have, of course, long held that the loudest liberals are anything but and would be better described as leftwingers since they lack a true liberal attitude towards opposing points of view.  The worst was to hear these liberals start arguments with a disclaimer that the shooter's personal life and history were unimportant, and then go on to list all the negative details of that history - an underhanded way to undermine the man's character whilst simultaneously staking claim to a moral high road. Other supporters were even worse, with one person revealing the shooter's home address - no matter what one believes about the man's actions and motives, inviting another vigilante to intervene is unacceptable, and hypocritical. I suppose the Black Panthers make no claims to liberal attitude, and hence their reward for action in the case, while a poorly disguised call to vigilante justice, and reprehensible, at least should not reflect poorly on progressives in general. I would not say that the right-wing supporters of the shooter were any better, but I have never expected much from gun-rights advocates, and I deliberately hold  them to a lower standard than I do liberals.

But while a court will now debate the rights and wrongs of the case against the shooter, the story that unfolded aside from the shooting itself is more interesting and disturbing. The National Rifle Association has long belied its name by advocating for access to all sorts of handguns, and the right to use deadly force in any circumstances. They have succeeded beyond my worst nightmares and it is a testament to their success and tactics that they can still portray themselves as an oppressed group in danger of losing their weapons, even as a man who shot an unarmed teenager walked free after a brief statement to the police. It is also a testament of sorts, but to what I cannot say, that advocates for gun control know that news of an unarmed teenager shot down in his own neighborhood by a private citizen would be met with apathy that they sought to inject racist overtones into the story as the only way to draw support and interest. Indeed, it was the seemingly race-tinged aspects of the case that garnered far more interest nationally than the actual facts - an unarmed teenager, walking home from the store to his soon-to-be stepmother's house crossed paths with a volunteer watchman who consciously chose to precipitate that encounter, and at some point thereafter the teen was shot by the watchman. To any advocate of common-sense gun control, the fact that a teen, or man of any age, can be shot by a person who chose to initiate or at least precipitate the encounter is a tragedy; that the shooter can claim full right to do so under the law is a travesty. But America has drifted backwards to a state of almost mythical Wild West proportions, where every violent act is met with apathy at best, or a clamor for more weapons of violence. There are over fifty thousand homicides every year and half as many accidental deaths, but the merchants of death aver that the secret to less violence is more instruments of violence, more widely distributed amongst the population. Never mind that following in their logic, there was from start to finish only one way the encounter between teen and vigilante could possibly end, if both men were armed, and neither had the duty to deescalate the situation, or avoid a confrontation bullets would fly and one or both men would die, and possibly some people, some bystanders might have been reluctant participants as repositories for some stray bullets as well. It's fairly clear that under most circumstances, arming more people would never result in less violence, only more, but that is a message that may not be spoken today, much less will it be heeded by those who shape our laws.

There is a need in America today to debate issues, in depth and with reason and respect for opposing view points. Unfortunately, this does not happen, and seems ever less likely to happen. I am not looking back with rose-colored glasses, and it's obvious that intolerance of opposing views is hardly new in America or the world in general - Senator Joe McCarthy was not noted for his breadth of acceptance when it came to different political opinions, but what has changed is the medium of deliverance and the time we take to offer an opinion and respond to others' viewpoints. In the world of Demosthenes, it would take weeks, even months for a debate to play out and while the Laconians may have been celebrated for their exceedingly brief style of discussion, in general the lengthy periods between pronunciations left a correspondingly greater time for one to think over both positions and weigh the merits of all views. In a world of short attention spans, debate has been reduced to simply stating one's position in made-for-TV soundbites, devoid of substance and certainly not designed to engage the opposition in any meaningful dialogue. This is true of every topic, from union rights to Wall Street criminal behavior, from environmental protection to national security. And all too often the conversation is taken over by unelected actors, unanswerable to anyone, but possessed of great resources and a passion to thrust their view upon the world. Eschewing all compromise, the only intent appears to be to sweep aside opposition, no matter how reasonable their contrary logic may be or how small the differences may be. Misrepresenting one's opponent's position is a key method of discrediting their actual message and in a political world where citizens choose to get their news from outlets that already share their own positions, a nuanced dialogue is well nigh impossible.

And the Trayvon Martin case has highlighted, all too clearly the deep divides in society. Whether it was outrage that the President expressed empathy with the victim, and the victim's parents, or deplorable attempts to portray the shooter as racist, even to manipulating evidence to "prove" that theory or the intriguing idea that the real culprit in the shooting wasn't the man with the gun but rather the hooded sweatshirt the victim wore, the two sides have consistently talked over one another and done everything in their power to discredit the opposing camp. However, now that the case has been moved to the courts, it's time for everyone to take a deep breath and step back from screaming epithets at each other for a moment. It is interesting that if one simply listens to the other side, there are some reasonable, even cogent ideas that deserve rational scrutiny - perhaps one will reject them anyway after study, but at least study them rather than reject them out-of-hand. 

One issue that comes readily to mind is the rough treatment that one Fox commentator received for suggesting that the real culprit in the whole tragedy was the hooded sweatshirt worn by the victim. No doubt the gentleman was mistaken - the real culprit was the attitudes that drove the confrontation -  but there is nevertheless some truth to his opinion, no matter how poorly expressed. In a media storm where any criticism of the victim can be used to tarnish the speaker with the charge of racism the ugly truth behind his words are ignored. Racism did drive the tragedy, but it was not necessarily the overt racist attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan; rather it was the kind of almost subconscious thinking that tinges our every action with racist overtones whether we know it or not. Racism is not a simple "black vs white" or "white vs everyone else" story - every ethnic group is guilty to different levels (ask the average Chinese or Japanese person about the other, and there may be attitudes that would make the Grand Wizard ashamed). We, who pride ourselves on having risen above racial stereotyping need to only ask ourselves about how we'd react to meeting a group of African American teenagers in sweathshirts and drooping pants as against meeting, say, Chinese kids in similar attire. For myself, I know that I am infinitely more nervous around an all white group of bikers than any of my white co-workers would be - I do not consider myself an overt racist (though I don't pretend for a moment that I have risen past prejudice) but I still project my deep-hidden racially-driven fears onto a group I know nothing about and that fear fuels my reaction to them. When a person embraces a culture that furthers a dangerous stereotype - the hoodies, the faux chains and beltless pants around their knees that bespeak a gangster - it only furthers the unconscious reaction in the people around. The overzealous captain was very likely not driven by any racist beliefs, but his actions may well have been subtly influenced by racial bias all the same. While I would still demand that he answer for his actions, I do not believe that he should be libeled as a racist, not for a bias that not only lingers in even the most liberal and progressive of us, and which is constantly reinforced overtly and covertly through every media around us daily.

In the run-up to the last presidential election, Barack Obama delivered a landmark speech on race relations, effortlessly straddling the deep divide between the more conservative views on either side of the racial line. This would be a good time for a new speech addressing the less obvious divide between even middle of the road members of every racial and ethnic group. Meanwhile, as the Florida legal system prepares to try the man at the center of the tragedy, we would all be better served if we spent less time judging the principal actors and more time addressing our own inadequacies and  in the words of Polonious, "Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act...Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment." If there is one mistake that the shooter himself would admit, it would be hasty judgement based on superficial understanding and incomplete information, and it led to a tragic killing. Rushing to emulate that mistake would serve us no better.