If y'all didn't know, y'all better know. Berkeley is host to all types of freaks, eccentrics, lunatics, shapeshifters, and assclowns. Between 1600h and 1700h Pacific Time today, I had ridiculous encounters with 3 characters of the sort that are unique to this crosssection of Cali life. For lack of government names, I will label these three Agatha, Mr. Fab, and Fascista.
The twenty-five minute session with freakshow Agatha began when I approached her table on Telegraph, which is the main commerical artery south of the Berkeley campus. She vends a number of knitted goods, including hats and dolls. The first outrageous claim mentioned by Agatha was that she is in the Guiness Book of World Records for her number of hat creations, which was a dubious assertion. Though rather portly and unhealthy in appearance, she claims to have been a martial arts champion and one-time runway model. Her ashy arms and messy dreds reveal that she has been subsiding in squalor for quite a while, pushing her cart of knitted goods, books, language-learning tapes, and political propaganda from East Oakland to Berkeley daily, since she claims that the "Black Negro" busdrivers refuse to pick her up anymore. One of the most persistent aspects of her undeniable psychosis is a profound racial consciousness that results in a horrible sense of self-loathing. Claiming to prefer the company of cowboys, rednecks, cops, and militiamen, Agatha professes a lot of hatred for those of her self-identified "darkie" skin tone.
Here's an example of one of her monologues, uttered as she manically paces back and forth in front of her table, helmet perched on her dreds and Israeli flag curiously draped over her shoulders: "I used to be a gdamn student here, I'm almost a genius I would say. Shit, I studied language and culture, and I have almost 400 languages. I've lived in 5 countries and married almost as many men. Berkeley is a fake liberal town, and those black Negroes robbed me over New Year's but thankfully two Asian guys ran after them to get my goods back. Oh, I like Asian guys. Had an Asian husband once, have a Finnish husband now. But, Finnish is one of the only languages that's been hard for me to master. I have 400 languages. Here, look at this writing in Macedonian, Hebrew, and Russian. I got Bulgarian, Arab, Persian, Chinese music, but these black girls always come by saying 'Why you gotta be frontin' with that whitey music.' They don't even understand that black music is not the only music. I love Johnny Cash, do you know Johnny Cash? You aren't some Arab or white liberal are you? I hope you're not one of those types with tight jeans and cellphone walking around dating Asian girls but don't even know she happens to be Korean and not Chinese. Yea, these people didn't mess with me when I had my tall Finnish husband here, but I know if I had a darkie husband here, then they would all give me shit. The cops are always messing with me, they don't even know that I lived at Bob Marley's house for 6 months and that I am marketable. You know about marketing? The reason why I'm marketable is that I could go down to Southern California..."
So she never hesitated to read off everyone else's ethnicities. The Tibetans across the street who were oppressed by the Chinese, the white t-shirt guys who didn't get messed with by the cops because they had the right skin tone. This woman was racially obsessed to the extreme, bipolar, and at least moderately schizophrenic. Agatha insisted many times that she was borderline genius, had lived in 5 countries, and hated governments. She was a quintessential Berkeley freak, but she really lamented the liberal elite, so maybe she didn't fit into the local mold so well.
The next character I came across at a sneaker boutique down the block called So Fresh Kicks that vends high end footwear to fashion-conscious NorCal ballers. Mr. Fab is a rising Oaktown rap-star, with five-figure gold fronts and ultra color-syncronized hat-t-shirt-jeans-sneaks combo. Not only was he pulling out several different wads of Benjamins from his Evisu pockets, but his 5'5" sidekick with a 4X long black tee was consulting him about what color laces he would need to appear in Houston in order to sync up with the Astros colors. Damn I love sneaks, but some of these dudes are buying up really played out styles that makes your eyes sore just gazing at them.
The next freak I met I will call Fascista, for she harangued me for stepping 6 inches off the curb and into the street while the crosswalk light was still red. Our dialogue occurred as follows:
"You know what you're doing is illegal, right?" she said.
I responded, "Oh, yea, I'm from back east, so we cross the street when we feel like it."
Then she screamed ,"Did your dad teach you that? I bet he doesn't cross the street when it's red. Your generation is the most uncivilized yet."
"Well, actually, my dad happens to cross wherever and whenever, but there's nothing criminal about that on the East Coast," I replied.
She contemptuously responded, "And, murder of a pedestrian is illegal."
So apparently, she had some kind of a guily conscience about - maybe hitting someone who had been crossing the street? These Californians can be very strict in their application of anti-libertarian government regulation. It's a very highly regulated state of things around here.
Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Cartoon Contest
The world has been gnawing away at its fragile cultural barriers lately. People seem to exalt offensively "free" speech because a hegemonic control over organized violence and information exists to put the uppety and powerless in their "place." To push those ethnic buttons, each group in this interethnic strife appears keen on staking out a claim on what aspects of its culture are sacrosanct and what assets cannot be claimed by other groups.
In my mind, the satirical cartoons of Mohammed aren't so different from a news video I recently viewed about a public high school teacher calling his pupil "niggah." Ok, so the prevailing theme seems to be that there are certain offensive ways of addressing one's own people or heritage that are only acceptable if engaged in by members of one's own group. Many Muslims are privileged to cite Mohammed and the Islamic creed in justifying political behavior. Similarly, in their estimation, black Americans uniquely possess the cultural right to address one another by racially sensitive terms. But, when the hegemonic power usurps this ethnic privilege in order to critique or deconstruct the ethnic speech or behavior, there is a violent and indignant reaction. Ethnic groups don't like to be told how to govern their own intra-cultural exchange.
The most evident and pressing notion that emerges from these controversies is that white/Western society controls, to a significant global extent, material and informational flows. Attained via the use of constant and concerted organized violence, the West maintains its domination over most of the vast non-Western sea of peoples. So, when the West affirms that it has the right to label or define the terms of someone else's intraethnic culture, violence is bound to erupt. Spasms of such conflict occur essentially only in the non-West at this historical juncture because the Western world has attained such an extreme level of wealth and control that underprivileged white people no longer need to revolt in a violent fashion - leaving such outbursts for the so-called ethnic entities that the West enjoys labelling as morally inferior because of this need to engage periodically in violent struggle with the West in response to their subjugation. When pushed to the limit, this paroxysm of anti-hegemonic fervor on behalf of the subaltern classes functions as an expression of inferior material status and invites a crackdown on these rebellious, ignoble savages.
This discussion of ethnic battles cannot possibly begin to explain the extent which certain groups have been included/excluded from the West. In America, the integration of Hispanics and Asians incorporates entirely different factors and is beyond the scope of this blogline. The cyberoisie might address such things later on, but these groups, like all other ethnic groups mentioned and assumed to be homogenous, classifiable, and generalizable are so complex that it becomes very difficult to reach any conclusions that could begin to be judged as scientific.
In the eyes of the subjugated groups (those actually present within the geographical confines of the metropolitan West, those who inhabit the periphery, and those of Western heritage who sympathize with the non-Western powerless), the Mohammed cartoons and the white use of the N-word are attempts to irreverently rub in the fact that the West is the ultimate legal arbiter of speech and violence. Though the West largely fashioned its dominance out of a persistent tradition of violence carried out under the aegis of the Judeo-Christian godhead, Western reactionaries feel that they must preserve their control over the discourse. The indefatigable power wielded by the West to crush resistance invites unfortunate violence upon the epicenters of Western life. A clash of civilizations exists empirically because people perceive it as such. However, normatively, a statement that there is an ongoing clash serves merely to egg on the perpetrators on both sides who seek to exacerbate tensions. There are huge numbers of Muslims and blacks who seek to justify their monopoly over their own cultural deities. Provocation of this desire to preserve the barriers of cultural exchange invites a seemingly irrational reaction on the part of the dominated groups.
Is this justified? Do white people have the right to toss around the n-word just because black people have this right? Do white people have the right to characterize the Islamic prophet because Muslims possess this right? To understand cultural barriers means that we must observe limits. There is undoubtedly humor in racist jokes and classifications that cannot be enjoyed by those outside the specific group because such labeling appears to threaten the group's power over its own destiny and image.
Retaliation for obdurate white behavior brings on the potential for cartoons satirizing Jesus with a machine gun aimed at the barbarians/infidels or depicting a Jew swiping a gentile's possessions. Ethnic stereotyping always consists of truthful (and potentially hurtful) elements. The hegemonic civilization is held to a higher civilizational standard, however, precisely because it already is in the lead. (Thus, Danish newspapers are said to be compelled to observe standards not observed in the Arab press and the Israeli government is obligated to abide by rules not followed by other Middle Eastern regimes). The West is castigated for pushing Islam a la limite. My sympathy goes out to those Danes and those Muslims who aren't engaging in the fundementalist discourse. The reactionaries on both sides fall into foolish assumptions about the intentions of that mysterious Other. The Other is exotic, seductive, dangerous. The more we seek to understand the Other, the more we erect barriers around Us that excludes Them. Thus, additionally and paradoxically, the more the Other seeks to call attention to its status, the more it identifies itself as different and separate. There will never be an end to ethnic, racial, or cultural conflict. It is a permanent feature of human, tribally fragmented civilization. Of course, its permanency ought not be exalted, but it's idealistic to declare postmodern society as postethnic. Ethnicities hybridize and collate, but they do not disappear.
I simultaneously mock, celebrate, and condemn ethnic divisions because it's so incredibly difficult to preserve a one-sided perspective. Though my voice arises from the hegemonic West, I cannot stop myself from advocating the position of the oppressed Other. I find myself caught in the middle of the civilizational schism.
So who wants to submit a cartoon satirizing Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed? Can we extract ourselves from the ethnic categories to which we belong and critique all our affiliations? Or are we limited to labelling/classifying only according to the cultural and "legal" rights ascribed to us?
In my mind, the satirical cartoons of Mohammed aren't so different from a news video I recently viewed about a public high school teacher calling his pupil "niggah." Ok, so the prevailing theme seems to be that there are certain offensive ways of addressing one's own people or heritage that are only acceptable if engaged in by members of one's own group. Many Muslims are privileged to cite Mohammed and the Islamic creed in justifying political behavior. Similarly, in their estimation, black Americans uniquely possess the cultural right to address one another by racially sensitive terms. But, when the hegemonic power usurps this ethnic privilege in order to critique or deconstruct the ethnic speech or behavior, there is a violent and indignant reaction. Ethnic groups don't like to be told how to govern their own intra-cultural exchange.
The most evident and pressing notion that emerges from these controversies is that white/Western society controls, to a significant global extent, material and informational flows. Attained via the use of constant and concerted organized violence, the West maintains its domination over most of the vast non-Western sea of peoples. So, when the West affirms that it has the right to label or define the terms of someone else's intraethnic culture, violence is bound to erupt. Spasms of such conflict occur essentially only in the non-West at this historical juncture because the Western world has attained such an extreme level of wealth and control that underprivileged white people no longer need to revolt in a violent fashion - leaving such outbursts for the so-called ethnic entities that the West enjoys labelling as morally inferior because of this need to engage periodically in violent struggle with the West in response to their subjugation. When pushed to the limit, this paroxysm of anti-hegemonic fervor on behalf of the subaltern classes functions as an expression of inferior material status and invites a crackdown on these rebellious, ignoble savages.
This discussion of ethnic battles cannot possibly begin to explain the extent which certain groups have been included/excluded from the West. In America, the integration of Hispanics and Asians incorporates entirely different factors and is beyond the scope of this blogline. The cyberoisie might address such things later on, but these groups, like all other ethnic groups mentioned and assumed to be homogenous, classifiable, and generalizable are so complex that it becomes very difficult to reach any conclusions that could begin to be judged as scientific.
In the eyes of the subjugated groups (those actually present within the geographical confines of the metropolitan West, those who inhabit the periphery, and those of Western heritage who sympathize with the non-Western powerless), the Mohammed cartoons and the white use of the N-word are attempts to irreverently rub in the fact that the West is the ultimate legal arbiter of speech and violence. Though the West largely fashioned its dominance out of a persistent tradition of violence carried out under the aegis of the Judeo-Christian godhead, Western reactionaries feel that they must preserve their control over the discourse. The indefatigable power wielded by the West to crush resistance invites unfortunate violence upon the epicenters of Western life. A clash of civilizations exists empirically because people perceive it as such. However, normatively, a statement that there is an ongoing clash serves merely to egg on the perpetrators on both sides who seek to exacerbate tensions. There are huge numbers of Muslims and blacks who seek to justify their monopoly over their own cultural deities. Provocation of this desire to preserve the barriers of cultural exchange invites a seemingly irrational reaction on the part of the dominated groups.
Is this justified? Do white people have the right to toss around the n-word just because black people have this right? Do white people have the right to characterize the Islamic prophet because Muslims possess this right? To understand cultural barriers means that we must observe limits. There is undoubtedly humor in racist jokes and classifications that cannot be enjoyed by those outside the specific group because such labeling appears to threaten the group's power over its own destiny and image.
Retaliation for obdurate white behavior brings on the potential for cartoons satirizing Jesus with a machine gun aimed at the barbarians/infidels or depicting a Jew swiping a gentile's possessions. Ethnic stereotyping always consists of truthful (and potentially hurtful) elements. The hegemonic civilization is held to a higher civilizational standard, however, precisely because it already is in the lead. (Thus, Danish newspapers are said to be compelled to observe standards not observed in the Arab press and the Israeli government is obligated to abide by rules not followed by other Middle Eastern regimes). The West is castigated for pushing Islam a la limite. My sympathy goes out to those Danes and those Muslims who aren't engaging in the fundementalist discourse. The reactionaries on both sides fall into foolish assumptions about the intentions of that mysterious Other. The Other is exotic, seductive, dangerous. The more we seek to understand the Other, the more we erect barriers around Us that excludes Them. Thus, additionally and paradoxically, the more the Other seeks to call attention to its status, the more it identifies itself as different and separate. There will never be an end to ethnic, racial, or cultural conflict. It is a permanent feature of human, tribally fragmented civilization. Of course, its permanency ought not be exalted, but it's idealistic to declare postmodern society as postethnic. Ethnicities hybridize and collate, but they do not disappear.
I simultaneously mock, celebrate, and condemn ethnic divisions because it's so incredibly difficult to preserve a one-sided perspective. Though my voice arises from the hegemonic West, I cannot stop myself from advocating the position of the oppressed Other. I find myself caught in the middle of the civilizational schism.
So who wants to submit a cartoon satirizing Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed? Can we extract ourselves from the ethnic categories to which we belong and critique all our affiliations? Or are we limited to labelling/classifying only according to the cultural and "legal" rights ascribed to us?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
