Tag: opinion

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Opinion Viewpoint

I Believe E. Jean Carroll: Here’s Why

The author as a college freshman (Photo: Courtesy Mary Loveless)

This is a repurposed version of a speech I gave at the “Memphis Monologues” program, in which women tell real, personal stories to raise awareness of their experiences.

In light of writer E. Jean Carroll’s recent rape and defamation suit against Donald Trump, I felt my story had some currency. Seeing Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina going after Ms. Carroll with the same old “attack-the-victim” ploys we might have hoped had died out, I thought it time to dust it off.

I was raped in college. This event isn’t something that defined me, and it’s not something that derailed my life or rewrote my story; it’s just a real thing that happened.

Growing up, I was the goody-goodiest of all goody-goodies, and to say that I was innocent doesn’t begin to cover it. I started college, wide-eyed and chaste, and immediately began dating an upperclassman. He was cute, he drove a cute car, he had cute friends, and his fraternity had great parties. It was fun to be liked, and I really liked him.

By the end of freshman year, we were fighting a lot — specifically over sex. He wanted it. I didn’t. I always made sure we stopped short of my definition (and Bill Clinton’s) of “having sex” — when a penis enters a vagina — and until you did that, you were a virgin. I was determined to remain that virgin until I was married. We went on like that through my sophomore year.

I was away for the summer after my sophomore year, and when I returned home in August, I decided to break up with him — but first, we had to go to Florida with a big group for a wedding.

One night, he dragged me out of a fun house party. He wanted to leave, I didn’t, and I was highly annoyed. Out in the driveway, he wanted to go somewhere so we could make out, but I was having none of it, so I turned to go back into the house. He grabbed my arm, spun me around, and slammed me against a car door. Whatever I said in response, it made him mad enough to hit me in the face.

That was it. One strike and you’re out. I told him we were done, went back inside, and drove home to Tennessee after the wedding with my roommate, telling him to find his own damn way home.

Over the next two weeks, he called, wrote, cried, and sent flowers, but I stuck to my guns. I arrived back at college excited for the new year. Friends had already started setting me up with dates.

I don’t remember what he said that made me drive over to see him at the off-campus house where he now lived, but I must’ve felt sorry for him, or needed to pick up some mementos or pictures. Or something. Anyway, I went.

I could go into a lot of detail here, but it’s not really necessary. And I don’t want to give him too much focus.

In his room, he begged me not to break up, but I told him it was too late. He pinned me down. I thought I heard someone else in the house, so I hollered for help and he hit me — again, to shut me up — and then he raped me. I struggled, got away, and left. In one fell swoop, he had taken from me what I’d refused to give him for two years.

But the bigger story, now, is not the rape itself , but how everyone in my life reacted to it.

First, how I reacted. It didn’t occur to me to report it — after all, I had gone to his house, and we had dated for two years, so who’d ever believe me? Also, then everyone would know — horrors of all horrors — that I. Was. Not. A. Virgin. I reacted, like most women in my generation probably did, with a combination of silence and shame.

I did Olympics-caliber mental gymnastics to convince myself that it never really happened. I took this memory like a piece of chewed-up gum in a tinfoil wrapper and balled it up into the teeniest little morsel and then buried it deep in the back of my mind, rarely —if ever — even thinking about it, and NEVER breathing a word of it to another living soul.

Then, in 2016, the odious Donald Trump slithered onto the national scene. Late that October, before the election, my wonderful husband Bill and I were talking about the Access Hollywood pussy-grabbing tape and the first group of Trump sexual assault accusers who had come forward.

Bill — like most men— couldn’t understand why the women wouldn’t have sought justice all those years ago. “If something that horrible happens to you, you report it!” he declared.

I argued that of course those women would NOT have come forward, for any of a million reasons — fear of not being believed or being blamed, the need to protect a job, power disparity, being ashamed that it happened.

Suddenly, 42 years of tamping it down, keeping it secret, and even pretending it had never happened fell away, and I blurted out, “I believe the women because Scumbag Jones raped me in college, and I’ve never told anybody!”

Bill was shocked. I told the story, and he started asking questions: “Why did you go over to his house?” “Why didn’t you report it or tell anybody?”

Let me tell you what one of my daughters said about this part of the story: “Usually, those questions would sound ignorant and would make me indignant. But because I know Dad, I kind of hear those questions as coming from the same desperate place as when you’re watching a horror movie — ‘Oh, God, why is she going in there?! Doesn’t she know there’s a monster in there?! Stop!’”

After a lot of talk and healing, and newfound understanding on Bill’s part, we got past this bump in the road, and Bill came out of it much more supportive of me, and a much stronger ally for women.

Shortly thereafter, I told my daughters, and while they were marvelously sympathetic and caring about it, they didn’t seem surprised. I’m not sure if rape is more common today or if it’s just less taboo, but they didn’t take it as earth-shaking news.

One daughter said: “My generation processes it with anger, while yours processed it with shame.” One thing’s for sure: They do not blame the woman.

For a couple years, I rocked along with only my family knowing about this. Not that I was hiding it. It just never came up.

Then came the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings, and the stunning and compelling testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I wondered, if my rapist had been nominated for high office, would I have the courage to come forward and speak out? Hmm.

He actually did become a lawyer. But the higher office thing never happened, because at some point he was convicted of some kind of white-collar fraud and went to prison for awhile.

Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?

Later that week, I was at lunch with a couple of friends, and one asked if we believed Dr. Blasey Ford. “Yes, absolutely!” I exclaimed. “Because I was raped in college and I never told anyone!” After I told my story, another of the friends told us that she also had been raped and had never told anyone. A few months later, I told some college friends, and likewise, everyone had their stories — whether it was them, or a daughter, or another friend — everyone had them.

And the funny thing about telling a woman friend that you were raped in college and never said anything about it for 42 years — she doesn’t ask you a bunch of questions. She just reaches across the table, grabs your hand, and says, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Flash forward to the E. Jean Carroll trial, which ended last week with the jury finding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. The things she’s been attacked for by Tacopina are infuriating. (Side note: Tacopina looks — and acts — more like a mob lawyer than most movie mob lawyers.)

How could a rape take place in a little dressing room? I’ve been in those dressing rooms at Bergdorf Goodman — indeed, Bill’s been in there with me when I looked for a formal dress — and they are huge.

Why didn’t she scream? Any of a number of reasons, and Carroll answered that on the stand — numerous times.

Why didn’t she report it? In a way, she did report it, since she told two women friends, when I never told a single soul for 42 years.

Why didn’t she report it to the police? See my reasons above, especially the one about power disparity. One of her friends actually told her not to report it because of Trump’s power and cadre of lawyers who would “bury” her.

It seems to me that E. Jean Carroll’s experience with Trump mirrors that of so many other women, and I’m in awe of her bravery for following through.

You go, Ms. Carroll. I believe you.

Mary Loveless is a sexual-assault-surviving, gun-owning, Planned-Parenthood-patient-escorting Southern debutante, and a former writer/editor for Memphis magazine.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Public Health 101: Guns

Photo: Joe | Unsplash

A Texas “gun enthusiast,” Francisco Oropeza, 39, was firing off his AR-15 in his yard Friday night, April 30th, about 40 miles from Houston. He was known to be touchy, so, despite the noise and danger, no one approached him. Finally, after 11 p.m., his neighbor did. He said something like, “Hey, man, can you not do that? We’ve got an infant in here trying to sleep.”

So, in America, what does a righteous gun owner do when his rights, his dignity, and his command over his own property are threatened by such outrageous demands? Of course, Oropeza marches to the offending neighbor’s home and bravely stands up for his Second Amendment rights. He shoots most of the family dead — five of them, including an 8-year old. Two smaller children were saved by their mothers shielding them with their bodies, and of course that was just an extra affront to the intrepid rifle owner, who shot both women dead. As of this writing, Oropeza is apparently surrounded by law enforcement.

So it goes. There is nothing to be done in our fair land. In Texas, it’s particularly sensitive. That’s where Trump did his kickoff rally to honor those who tried to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost the election. He did it in Waco, naturally, where, exactly 30 years ago, right-wing religious cult members — the Branch Davidians — were killed in a stupid ATF raid that was then marked by the militia members bombing the Oklahoma City federal office building on the Waco siege anniversary. Trump played on all this, either with his speech or with imagery on a big screen behind him. At least one preacher calls Trump “anointed of God … the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Alllllrighty, then.

Trump repeated much of his message at the recent National Rifle Association convention, telling the gun rights crowd, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Yeah, you da man, Trump. I’m betting Oropeza heard you loud and clear.

As did Ettore Lacchei, of Antioch, Illinois, who approached his neighbor doing some leaf-blowing in his own yard in the late afternoon. Lacchei didn’t get the neighbor to immediately stop, so he naturally assumed control of the situation by shooting his neighbor dead in the head. That was April 12th.

Most of us have heard of young Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old Black kid who was supposed to go to a Kansas City, Missouri, house he didn’t know and pick up his younger brothers. He knocked on the door, but it wasn’t the right house. An elderly white man, Andrew Lester, who, according to his grandson, had become increasingly devoted to Trump, didn’t risk opening the door to this skinny kid. He courageously shot the boy in the head right through the glass and then shot him again in the arm as he lay bleeding. Miraculously, Yarl is still alive. Lester explained that he was afraid due to “the size of the male” and described his victim — er, the threatening Black male — as “around six feet tall.” Yeah, um, Ralph is 5-feet-eight and 140 pounds.

The Gun Violence Archive notes where mass shootings happen but no one died, and it seems that, so far this year, Jasper, Texas teens hold that record at a party where 11 were shot but everyone survived. Should we assume the shooter was highly trained and only meant to wound partygoers? Guns, alcohol, and teens. What could go wrong?

What happens, politically, when these routine mass murders committed quite often by MAGA followers, and certainly almost always by NRA believers, are considered by our illustrious elected officials?

We are told most frequently that, in the wake of such tragedy, now is not the appropriate time to talk of change; it’s time for thoughts and prayers. Of course there is no let up to these killings committed by the Proud Boys who defend unlimited gun rights, so I suppose we just deal with an ongoing tsunami of thoughts and prayers and perpetually postpone actual change.

Sometimes some pesky mothers and others do the legwork to get new gun laws passed, as they did in my state of Oregon, but, as always, the alert lawyers from the NRA, sport shooting groups, etc., come to the rescue and those new gun laws are stopped, usually overturned, since we have a Second Amendment to protect access to combat weaponry.

And everyone knows it’s impossible to repeal an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, right? Well, there was that one time … the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment. But that was special because the 18th Amendment was Prohibition. Repealing the Second Amendment? Want to try? We know how to deal with such betrayal. Lock and load.

America: where all attempts to curb access to guns are shot down. Should we raise a glass to that? And I suppose we should stop calling children who are murdered anything but our expression for war casualties who happen to be 4, 5, 6 years old, “collateral damage.” If it’s good enough for Vietnamese children, Afghan children, Iraqi children — good enough for your children, right?

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, PeaceVoice senior editor, and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of civil resisters in court.

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At Large Opinion

No Ifs, Ands, and Bots

It was not obvious that something could go wrong. (Photo: Devidgrutz | Dreamstime.com)

I was shocked and dismayed recently at the most unlikely of places: a company lunch. I don’t get to the physical office much these days, so a co-worker kindly brought my mail to the get-together. Imagine my horror when four of the letters turned out to be hate mail, each criticizing a different column I’d written in the past few weeks.

The person who wrote the letters didn’t sign them (shocker), but it got me to thinking — maybe I’ve been too harsh lately. Maybe I need to tone down the rhetoric a bit. My wife, who’s much more tuned into the zeitgeist than me, suggested I try one of those new AI bots designed to help writers fine-tune their prose. I thought, why not?

After downloading a popular AI program, I submitted this week’s column to my new digital editor. It bleeped once and told me my options were: Proofread this but only fix grammar; Proofread this strongly; Proofread this lightly, improving clarity and flow; Proofread this significantly, improving clarity and flow. I went for the latter — I mean, why do things halfway? It was a revelation! What follows are samples of the column, followed by the digitally edited version in italics:

Just exactly what level of greed did it take to impel CNN to give twice-impeached, serial philandering, tax-cheating, insurrection-leading, secret-document-stealing, election-tampering, lying douchebag Donald Trump an hour of free television to spew his lies in a “town hall”?

Hello, fellow humans. This week’s column (by me) in the Memphis Flyer newspaper is about the CNN cable television network’s decision to hold an hour-long Town Hall on May 10th with Donald Trump, the former (2016-2020) president of the United States (the country in which we both reside). I think this is a bad idea.

This is the kind of unmitigated media avarice that got us Trump in the first place. From the moment the former president descended on that damned escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015, the television networks swooned, thrilled to learn that letting an orange-colored, poofy-haired, former reality-TV star spout racist, misogynistic garbage and lie his ass off made for stratospheric television ratings. Trump was the golden boy, and the networks gave their viewers wall-to-wall coverage of the candidate from that point forward, raking in unheard of levels of ad revenue all the while. What could go wrong?

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he rode an escalator down two levels. Television networks covered the event — which got excellent ratings — and continued to broadcast coverage of Mr. Trump for many hours a day throughout the campaign for the 2016 presidency. During this period, Mr. Trump made many controversial statements, which raised viewership levels and allowed television networks to earn high profits. It was not obvious that something could go wrong.

CNN says it will have a moderator for the town hall, but that Trump will answer direct questions from the audience, which, according to a network spokesperson, will include “Republicans and other voters.” In other words, Trump will have free rein to continue to lie about the 2020 election, the January 6th insurrection, those missing official documents, his rape trial, President Biden, the “Russia hoax,” and whatever other stream-of-consciousness fantasies erupt from his addled cortex. Awesome stuff, CNN!

CNN has announced that Mr. Trump will answer questions from members of the Republican Party and other voters. There will be a moderator for the discussion, topics for which are expected to include the 2020 election, the January 6th event at the U.S. Capitol, the handling of official government documents, and other possibly controversial subjects. CNN is awesome.

Fact-checking Trump in real-time is like standing under Niagara Falls with a bucket and expecting to keep your shoes dry. It can’t be done. He uses his mouth like an AR-15, and his lies are the bullets. Letting this ass wander around a stage with a microphone and a national television audience will only further normalize this dangerously aberrant behavior. Simply put, it’s journalistic malpractice, CNN. And I have two words for you: “You’re fired!”

No errors detected.

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Opinion The Last Word

Art Is an Economic Asset

Stax Music Academy (Photo: Memphis Music Initiative | Facebook)

We, as a city, have to create secure pathways for our young people to develop their talents, pursue aspirational careers in the creative economy, and secure Memphis’ rich cultural legacy into the future.

Often, when we think about Memphis’ cultural offerings, we’re stuck in the past and limited by how we define and value the city’s heritage. Memphis is known worldwide for its music, food, and culture, but we don’t always support the diverse array of makers, producers, dreamers, and thinkers pushing culture forward in Memphis and beyond. There is incredible untapped economic potential in the arts and cultural heritage sector. In order to unlock that potential, we must evolve the way we think about Memphis’ creative economy and what it encompasses, push for policies that provide better access to capital and capacity building for artists and creative entrepreneurs, and provide sustained funding for arts nonprofits and creative businesses. We must shift our policies and practices to lower barriers to cross-sector workforce development collaboration so that we can create stronger bridges from education to industry for young people interested in pursuing careers in the wide array of creative fields in Memphis.

In the days following the death of Tyre Nichols, images from his online photography catalog began to circulate online. Clicking through the beautiful photos, it is obvious and tragic to realize that he does not have a chance to develop his talent because his life was so cruelly stolen due to the atrocities committed against him. When we talk about the future of our city (and our city’s arts sector), we’re talking about young visionaries like Tyre. It’s vital that we resource organizations, spaces, and individuals who reflect our city’s arts and culture now — one day, they will be the leaders of the sector.

Last fall, the More for Memphis Arts & Culture Collaborative launched a survey to gather the voices of Memphis creatives — particularly Black creatives whose work fuels our city’s arts ecosystem — to get a better understanding of the challenges facing the sector. One of the key findings was that although the arts are a major economic driver for our city, the sector is critically under-resourced relative to the amount of tax revenue it generates. In 2019, the arts sector generated more than $8 million in revenue, but received just $2.02 in per capita funding — less than half of the national per capita average — for an ROI of 1,000 percent. What’s more, between 2018 and 2022, only 28.81 percent of the public funding for the arts in Shelby County, including pandemic relief funds, went to organizations led by people of color.

That lack of baseline investment makes it incredibly difficult for artists to make a living as creatives in Memphis. Survey respondents said that they struggle to make ends meet, often working multiple jobs and long hours to keep the lights on. It also impacts whether young people are able to see a place for themselves in Memphis’ creative economy. Young people are the lens through which we must vision a better, more equitable future for our sector and our city. This is where art starts in Memphis. In a city that is more than 60 percent Black, this is a racial justice issue. There is a disconnect between how we, as Memphians, view Memphis and how Memphis is sold to the world.

As part of the More for Memphis project, we are working to recenter Blackness at the heart of Memphis’ cultural heritage so that we can better define the contours of the arts and cultural heritage economy here in Memphis beyond music tourism and traditional, often white, mainstays that often derive from Black cultural forms. Memphis’ celebrated arts and cultural heritage economy should highlight important cultural and historical assets like the National Civil Rights Museum, Mason Temple, Hattiloo Theatre, and Collage Dance Collective, in addition to world-renowned assets like Sun Studio or Graceland. That starts on the grassroots level, with more support for organizations that are led by and serve Black and brown people, and more support for individual creators.

In addition to better supporting artists, we must also recognize and value creativity as an important workforce development skill in any field. The creative economy is made up of knowledge workers who possess critical thinking and design skills that transfer across all sectors, with overlaps in forward-looking fields like healthcare innovation, business technology, and advanced manufacturing. To be a competitive economy in the coming decades, we need people who can think outside of the box and who can adapt to new technology and new innovations — all traits of creative thinkers. We must equip our young people to be the foundation of a thriving, more equitable creative economy.

The arts and creative industries must no longer be left out of the economic and community development conversation. By developing economic and business development policy and practice to better support the needs of creatives, especially Black creatives and Black heritage sites, Memphis can begin to realize the full value of the arts as an underutilized economic asset.

Rychetta Watkins is the director of grantmaking and partnerships for Memphis Music Initiative. She is a passionate advocate for increased equity, access, and opportunity in education, the arts, and philanthropy in her hometown.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Look Away, Dixieland

Abraham Lincoln (Photo: Alexander Gardner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Here’s something of an ode to the South, my home for 30 years now. It’s called “Red States.” Enjoy.

Red States, where the state amphibian is the gerrymander; where the GOP supermajorities rule with a closed fist and minorities have no voice; where legislators are mostly rural, ignorant, and mean; where the governors are small men with small intellects and smaller hearts.

Red States, where Confederate flags still fly; where racism — subtle and blatant — still lives; and where its long, ugly history isn’t allowed to be taught in school.

Red States, where LGBTQ rights are threatened; where drag queens are vilified; where you can’t say gay (or gender) in school; where hateful ignorance (and lustful hypocrisy) comes dressed in the cheap suit of a rural preacher.

Red States, where books are banned; where libraries get unfunded; where public schools are starved and tax dollars go to private academies; where college students are urged to report their professors for thought crimes.

Red States, where abortion is murder; where forced pregnancy is the law; where doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmacies must conform to a religious doctrine; where 10-year-old rape victims must carry their rapist’s baby to term.

Red States, where more people live in poverty; where salaries are lower; where hunger is more common; where more housing is substandard; where homelessness is rampant.

Red States, where voting is harder; where precincts are fewer in poor neighborhoods; where students have to jump through hoops to register; where you can’t offer rides to the polls or a cup of water to those waiting in line.

Red States, where hospitals are dying from a lack of funds because Obamacare was named for a Black man; where health insurance isn’t for everyone; where alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes kill more people; where the infant mortality rate is high and getting higher; where life expectancy is low and getting lower.

Red States, where guns are sacred totems untouchable by the laws of man; where you can buy a pistol in 10 minutes and walk out with it strapped to your body; where innocent people are slaughtered; where the shrieks from grieving families go unheard; where mass shootings by disturbed humans carrying weapons of war are a necessary sacrifice, an offering that must be made to the Holy Church of the NRA, blessed be thy name. …

Oh Lord. Amen.

I’m so sick of this shit, so sick to death of what is happening in our so-called red states. And I’m particularly angry — and sad — about how this hateful cabal is slow-murdering the American South, turning it into a one-party banana republic and rolling back the calendar to the 1950s for all who dare to color outside the lines.

Not all red states are Southern, but all Southern states are red (with the possible shaky exception of Georgia). And those of us living here are experiencing what the entire U.S. would look like under unbridled GOP rule. Yes, we reside in a “blue” city, but you have only to look 180 miles to the east, to Nashville, where now-unchecked GOP legislators are trying to take over the airport authority, and where they attempted to reduce the number of members of the Nashville Metro Council because it voted to reject holding the Republican National Convention there. And if these bozos are jacking with Nashville, just imagine what mischief they could do in Memphis — a city they already hate because we have the nerve to be majority Black. (Not to mention, that uppity Justin Pearson comes from here.)

So is there any hope of changing any of this? Yes. Tennessee, for example, was a blue state until a decade or so ago. We can hope that the gun-reform furor that erupted in the wake of The Covenant School shootings will sustain, here and elsewhere. We can hope the pro-choice vote that has swung elections around the country in the past few months will turn out in 2024. And we can hope that at some point the South will rise again. Only better.

I’m reminded of a closing line from Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural speech, given as the bloody Civil War was staggering to a finish. It summed up his hopes for his divided country: “With malice toward none,” he urged, “with charity for all.” Amen to that. Amen, amen.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

AI Robots Invade the Classroom — So What?

Life is messy and writing is messy. (Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters | Unsplash)

The future tapped me quietly on the shoulder the other day and suggested that I take a moment to learn about the writing bots. They’re coming!

Excuse me, they’re here. And they struck me as alien invaders, this recent manifestation of artificial intelligence on the internet, which college students, high school students — anybody — can download, feed a topic, and get it to write an essay for them. Is this technology’s next step, after Roomba the robot vacuum cleaner? Humanity is relieved of one more odious task — writing stuff.

“The chatbot,” Kalley Huang pointed out recently in the New York Times, “generates eerily articulate and nuanced text in response to short prompts, with people using it to write love letters, poetry, fan fiction — and their schoolwork.” Apparently, all you need to do to get the AI bot to produce a piece of prose (or poetry?) is give it a subject and whatever other information is necessary to define the topic you want it to blather about. It can then access the entire internet for its data and produce whatever — your English paper, your love sonnet. The possibility of student cheating has suddenly become dire enough that college professors are starting to rethink their writing assignments.

I have some advice for them. But before I get to that, I need to calm my own pounding heart. Writing — to me, as a lifelong journalist, essayist, poet, editor, writing teacher — can be difficult as hell, but every hour devoted to a project is a wondrous adventure, a reach into the great unknown, a journey of discovery, of learning, of becoming. I have described the columns I write as “prayers disguised as op-eds,” and it’s that word, prayer, that swelled and started palpitating as I stumbled on the existence of the writing bot. Should we let AI start writing our prayers? Should we shrug and simply stop being our fullest selves? Life is messy and writing is messy — it has to be. Truth is messy. If we turn the writing process over to the AI bots, my existential fear is that humanity has taken a step toward ending its evolution, ensconcing itself in a prison of conveniences.

“Due to its free nature and ability to write human-like essays on almost any topic, many students have been reaching for this model for their university assignments,” according to the website PC Guide, focusing its attention on an AI bot called ChatGPT, which recently proved smart enough to pass a law bar exam. “And if you are a student hoping to use this in the future, you may have concerns about whether your university can detect ChatGPT.” These words start to get at my primary concern about the whole phenomenon: Critics are missing the point, as they lament that the university’s grading system is under assault. OMG, has cheating gotten easier?

And suddenly it gets clear. When it comes to writing, there’s always been a gaping hole in the American educational system, a mainstream misunderstanding of the nature — the value — of actually learning to write … finding your words, finding your wisdom, finding your voice. Let me repeat: Finding your voice. That’s where it starts. Without it, what do you have? I fear this is a silent question that plagues way too many students — way too many people of all ages — who were taught, or force-fed, spelling and grammar and the yada yada of thematic construction: opening paragraph, whatever, conclusion.

I quote my mentor and longtime friend, the late Ken Macrorie, one of the teachers who bucked this system oh so many decades ago, when I was an undergraduate at Western Michigan University. He was a professor in the English department: “This dehydrated manner of producing writing that is never read is the contribution of the English teacher to the total university,” he wrote in his 1970 book, Uptaught. He was writing about his own career. He was trapped in a system that disdained most undergrads and their writing and often managed to force the worst out of them, aka academic writing, such as: “I consider experience to be an important part in the process of learning. For example, in the case of an athlete, experience plays an important role.”

Dead language! May it rest in peace. Artificial intelligence can no doubt do just as well, probably a lot better. Macrorie quoted this oh so typical example in his book — the kind of writing that is devoid of not only meaning but soul. His breakthrough discovery was what he called free writing: He had his students, on a regular basis, sit down and write for 20 minutes or longer without stopping — just let the words flow, let fragments of truth emerge, and share what you have written. Worry later about spelling, grammar, and such. First you have to find your voice.

I wound up taking his advanced writing class in 1966, two years after he began using free writing as his starting place. Wow. I found my way in … into my own soul. I learned that truth is not sheerly an external entity to be found in some important book. We all have it within us. Doing a “free write” is a means of panning for gold.

And this is the context in which I ponder this recent bit of techno-news: that students don’t have to rely on plagiarism to fake an essay. They can simply prompt a bot and let it do the work.

But that’s not the essence of our social dilemma. As long as the system — let’s call it artificial education — focuses on “teaching to the test” and insists on reducing individual intelligence to a number, and in so many ways ignores and belittles the complex and awakening potential of each student, we have a problem. AI isn’t the cause, but it helps expose it.

Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound.

Categories
At Large Opinion

The 10 Commandments of Woke

Thou shalt walk in a park and forest bathe. (Photo: Megan Lee | Unsplash)

Visit a Park. Follow a trail or a path until you are immersed in nature. Stop for a moment and listen. Take in the bird-song, the whisper of the breeze through the trees. Breathe in the wood-smell. Feel the earth beneath your feet. (The Japanese call it “forest bathing.”) Then give thanks that some woke folks once had the foresight to preserve the corner of nature you are now privileged to experience. 

Read a Banned Book, maybe even one you’ve read before. There are now hundreds to choose from in the U.S. And support your local libraries and independent bookstores. They are an endangered species in many parts of this country. Reading is fundamental. So is the right to choose what you want to read. 

Be a Voice for Choice. Never forget that abortion services and pregnancy counseling are also healthcare, and all women deserve the right to make their own medical decisions without government direction or interference. Religious beliefs and political ideology do not trump core human rights in this country.

Consume Real News. Don’t be fooled by websites and “news” organizations that exist only to excite your confirmation biases. While no media organization is perfectly neutral, the reporting in most major newspapers is relatively free of bias. Some of the most balanced news (not opinion) sources, according to the AllSides Media Bias Chart, are AP News, BBC News, NPR News, PBS News, Reuters, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal.

Don’t Spread BS. This could be considered a corollary of the preceding commandment. Before posting something on social media or otherwise amplifying any content, google it and check the source. If it seems too good to be true or perfectly aligns with your own beliefs, be suspicious. Mark Twain, for example, did not say all things the internet says he did. Be a spreader of truth, not, er, bullshit. 

Speak Your Mind. State your political views freely and clearly when asked or when otherwise appropriate. There’s no need to fear offending others if you speak the truth. In fact, polite silence in the face of racism, homophobia, misogyny, lies, or hate-speech indicates that you are okay with it. Don’t be okay with it. Also, it’s okay to say, “Happy Holidays.”

Don’t Fear History. The saying goes, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” These days, too many people are trying to bury history so they can freely ignore it. Or repeat it. They want to suppress any portion of the past that makes them uncomfortable, like slavery, lynchings, and segregation, to name a few things some white folks don’t want to talk about. Being uncomfortable with parts of our past is part of the process. Otherwise, yes, we are doomed. 

Stand Up for Gun Reform. The United States is a scary place, a civilian battlefield where innocent people are being gunned down by military-grade weapons so often and in so many places it’s become a mind-numbing parody. Too many of our legislators are in the bloody pockets of the NRA. It’s long past time to pass sensible gun legislation, including reinstating the assault weapons ban. We can’t give up this fight. 

Do Say Gay. It’s getting hard out there for LGBTQ+ folks, so show your support for gay-friendly businesses and organizations. Hey, maybe drink a Bud Light and go see a drag show. And let young people know, as soon as they are curious about it, that being gay isn’t scary or something to be made fun of. Introduce them to your Aunt Peg and her wife. Take them to Disneyland.

Believe in Science. Climate change is real. The oceans are rising. Temperature levels that used to be unusual are now the new normal. Severe weather events are more commonplace. Floods and droughts rack the globe. Coral reefs are dying and ice caps are melting. Your beachfront property may soon be worthless — or gone. Also, vaccinations are not a government plot, tobacco can give you cancer, and you should go ahead and schedule that checkup with your doctor. Trust me on this.

Categories
Editorial Letter From An Editor Opinion

May Flowers

A Santa Fe (not Memphis) skyline. (Photo: Paul Brady | Dreamstime)

Editor’s note: Flyer writers will occasionally share this space.

The stormy spring season has thrown a wrench into my carefully crafted plans this year. Power outages, lost internet connections, new patio furniture hurled from my balcony thanks to strong winds, and rained-out soccer games have been April staples (although my hamstring is grateful for the last one). But as the old saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers.” April has indeed been a bit of a wet blanket, but it’s set to usher in some other notable moments for yours truly.

One such moment is May 12th, a day I’ve had circled on the calendar for the better part of this year. That day, as I’m sure most of you readers are aware, is the official release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, in which the intrepid hero Link will continue to traipse around the wild expanse of an open kingdom of Hyrule. That big mountain off in the distance? You can go there, if you want. The ocean stretching off into the horizon? Go build a boat and sail. Or just fly around the floating island in the sky, soaking up the joy of unparalleled freedom in digital format.

While the game and its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, do capture a freedom unlike anything else in the medium, such wanderlust was a big part of my live, non-digital time growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The views from our patio unfolded endlessly into an expanse of snow-capped mountains, infinite blue skies, and rollicking fluffy clouds. And the recurring pastel sunsets, I must inform you all, put Memphis’ to shame. That little peak jutting up way in the distance? Well, odds are that you can probably head over, hike up to the top, and catch a different view of the sunset.

I picked up a friend before heading to the Porter-Leath Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival this past weekend, and she stopped by my car trunk for a few beats. “Why do you still have your New Mexico license plate?” she asked, with a mixed look of both interest and distaste. And that proved to be an excellent question. This summer marks the start of another year in Memphis and as a citizen of the Mid-South. And I don’t regret a second of it, learning about the city, finally having a professional basketball team to root for, and having close proximity to the best kind of barbecue. But as I’ve settled into the humdrum routine of life as an adult in a city that requires a car for traversal, it has sometimes felt like a balancing act of absorbing the influences of my new city and holding on to that fleeting feeling of freedom from my Santa Fe years.

No longer can I step outside and immediately set foot onto an interconnected series of complex mountainous hiking trails or turn to my left and see someone walking their llama up a dirt road. The yellow license plate, complete with the requisite Zia symbol in the middle, has always been a pleasant reminder of the sky-blue desert days before I begin a journey to work Downtown that requires nimble maneuvering through myriad speed bumps, construction zones, and our patented potholes. This might all sound a bit negative, but I love my new city. I wouldn’t change a thing about my time here and hope to have many more memorable Memphis years.

But my pieces of Santa Fe have been drifting away in the past couple years. My New Mexico driver’s license disappeared along with my entire wallet at a Grizzlies playoff game last year (still worth it), and now this summer, the state of Tennessee is insistent that my NM license plate finally be replaced with one of their own. The dilly-dallying of our county clerk has given me a little extra time with my beloved yellow plate, but my last material connection to New Mexico isn’t long for this world. It’s been a steady companion over the years, as I’ve navigated some mild fish-out-of-water feelings while functioning alongside many friends and colleagues who have personal and long-standing connections to Memphis and the Mid-South. I’ve always wondered when I can truly call myself a Memphian, or perhaps that benchmark was passed long ago. Again, I love being part of the 901 and all it entails. But letting go of the yellow license plate has just been that little bit harder than I thought.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

What Faith Activists Bring to the Struggle for Labor Justice

An exhibit of the Memphis sanitation strike at the NCRM (Photo: Jdpphoto12 | Dreamstime.com)

As millions celebrated Holy Week and Passover last week, many clergy and lay activists delved into their own faith traditions to link these observances with ongoing struggles for economic justice.

An interfaith worker-justice Seder in Long Beach, California, retells the Passover story of liberation in contemporary terms, relating the ancient narrative to contemporary struggles for freedom and economic justice on the part of hospitality workers. An interfaith “stations of the worker’s cross” drew workers, clergy, and community activists to Downtown Los Angeles hotels last Friday, where they walked from hotel to hotel, calling attention to the denial of hotel workers’ rights and dignity.

Such observances call to mind the important role, particularly since the mid-20th century, that clergy and lay activists have played in American labor history. These activists helped reframe workers’ struggles within the ethical language of scripture, calling on employers and the community at large to fulfill a collective responsibility to their fellow human beings, no matter their status or station in life.

When Dr. Martin Luther King took up the cause of Memphis’ striking sanitation workers in 1968, he supported their unionizing efforts in response to the dangerous working conditions and oppressive racism they faced every day — as well as to wage levels that left 40 percent of them living below the poverty level. In the speech he delivered to strikers and others on April 3, 1968, Dr. King called for what he labeled a “dangerous unselfishness,” citing Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan to frame the crisis at hand. He said, “The question is not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ [but rather] ‘If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That’s the question.”

The following evening, Dr. King was felled by an assassin’s bullet. It took 11 days of rage and violence in 125 cities all over the country before Memphis’ mayor allowed an agreement between the city and the sanitation workers, honoring their right to form a union. The agreement provided significant improvements in working conditions and prohibited the use of race as a barrier to promotion. As one sanitation worker explained to a reporter several years later, “When he [Dr. King] was here in the strike, every man wanted to stand up and be a man. And that was the whole story. We wasn’t counted as men before then. Every man be counted as a man now. It’s no more ‘boy.’ … It’s no more of that Uncle Tom now. … You be treated as a man.”

Faith traditions provide a language that widens the horizons of self-awareness and collective identity. They also motivate activists, clergy, and laity alike, to march and picket alongside workers, offering pivotal community support that can help turn the tide in labor conflicts. In 2008, Smithfield Foods, at the time the largest pork producer in the world, agreed to a union contract with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) at its 5,000-worker plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. As labor scholar and activist Jane McAlevey described the win, “It was the single largest private-sector union victory of the new millennium,” all the more significant for taking place in a state with a low union density and with a company that had fought off unionization for the preceding 14 years.

Religious leaders, including Reverend Nelson Johnson and Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, played a critical role in organizing pickets and in boycotting Smithfield products at a North Carolina grocery chain — as well as in leading a protest at an annual company shareholder meeting. Johnson framed these protests in terms of community: “By calling this a community struggle, we began to change the frame and break down the structural division and set it up so that if justice is the issue here, then everyone in the community is invited to be part of the campaign.”

These benefits of faith-based activism — ethical framing and on-the-ground community support — have helped energize struggles for economic justice throughout the nation.

When the Memphis sanitation workers struck, Dr. King’s close friend and associate, Reverend James M. Lawson, came to understand that event as a “threshold moment” which significantly broadened the struggle for human rights. When he moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s after teaching nonviolence and leading nonviolent campaigns throughout the South, Lawson began addressing more directly and forcefully what he called “the question of economic exploitation and rapaciousness.”

With other faith leaders, he cofounded in 1996 an organization called Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), an organization that mobilized activists in support of janitors, security guards, hospitality workers, and other low-wage workers — winning significant union victories along the way. The interfaith Passover Seder and stations of the worker’s cross I mentioned above are sponsored and cosponsored, respectively, by CLUE.

At a time when increasing inequality has pushed millions of Americans into poverty or great economic insecurity, the need to reaffirm genuine community within a framework of economic justice is more urgent than ever. This season of holiday observances is one in which these issues merit both deep reflection and action.

Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice, writes on labor and immigration from Los Angeles. He is an emeritus professor (nonviolence studies, English) from California State University.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Sex, Lies, and Statuary

David by Michelangelo (Photo: Massimo Lama | Dreamstime.com)

When Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to describe his test for obscenity in 1964, he responded: “I know it when I see it.” This much-quoted bit of judiciary shorthand was offered in the case, Jacobellis v. Ohio, in which the state of Ohio fined Nico Jacobellis, a Cleveland Heights theater owner, $2,500 for showing the French film, Les Amants (The Lovers), directed by Louis Malle and starring famed actress Jeanne Moreau.

Stewart went on: “I have reached the conclusion that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

In so ruling, Stewart struck a blow for art, in this instance a film that explored the emotional and physical dimensions of an affair, but that was not pornographic in any sense of the word.

One can only imagine what Potter might think of the school board and administrators in Florida who last week fired their principal for allowing a teacher to show sixth-graders in an art class what it called “pornography” — a picture of Michelangelo’s statue David, widely regarded as one of the most important artworks in the history of mankind.

The statue, which depicts David just as he’s about to go into battle against Goliath, stood in the central square of Florence, Italy, from 1504 until 1873, when it was moved indoors to Florence’s Galleria dell’Accademia due to concerns about weather damage. It should be noted that the statue was originally commissioned to stand in a cathedral but was moved to the central square so that more people would have a chance to view its magnificence.

So why, you might ask, would the administrators of Hillsdale Academy’s Tallahassee Classical School object to its sixth-grade students viewing Michelangelo’s masterwork? What could be more “classical” than Michelangelo?

There’s a one-word answer, and I bet you can guess what it is: penis. Yep, David’s artistically sculpted junk is up there, right where it’s supposed to be on a human male, and this was a big problem for the administrators. Spurred by complaints from three parents, the right-wing idiocracy swung into action.

It makes me wonder if these folks have ever heard of Stormy Daniels. I mean, if you want to see what pornography really is, just google “Stormy Daniels films.” Try explaining that to little Braxton. And how are these Hillsdale administrators going to talk to their students about the forthcoming legal brouhaha surrounding former President Trump and the aforementioned woman he paid $130,000 to for doing absolutely nothing wrong at a hotel in Lake Tahoe?

(Note: It’s at this point that I’m duty-bound to remind you that if the name Hillsdale Academy sounds familiar, it’s because it is the smarmy religious-based operation to which Governor Bill Lee wants to give millions of your tax dollars in lieu of that money going to public schools.)

But finally, to be fair, I guess I have to point out that there is some historical precedent to Hillsdale’s overreaction to the sight of David’s massive marble peen. In the mid-1800s, Great Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum installed a full-size replica of David in one of its central galleries. Upon her first visit, Queen Victoria staggered backward, hand to chest, and was heard to exclaim, “Oh my stars and garters! What am I looking at? Make it stop!” The museum then had a fig leaf created that was hung on the statue whenever the queen paid a visit. How, er, hard was that? Perhaps Hillsdale could show its students the fig-covered version.

No, it’s not a perfect solution, but these days it’s any port in a Stormy.