alas, to be lost in a glass

 

brought to the bubbling brass

by a bottomless bottle

what a bond i have

alas, to be lost in a glass

to be cast upon the goblet's path

to which i'm lured

i ask, why i bother with the wicked brew

whose spell does help me brood

well while my whims are impaled

to this fluid i'm impelled, more so moved

 

alas, to be lost in a glass

 

my mood and mind's soon soothed

until the last drop of wine consumed

my troth to the sloth

results in filling my trough once more

 

alas, i'm lost in a glass

 

thoughts across the map

and so, across the board

as does the froth settle to the top

i'm lost and bored

breaking from hostilities stored

i'm so sore

oh how i soar

how could i afford one more?

oh crass how i'm lost in a glass

tossed into a frothy bath

a frosty wrath

a pint sized glass

 

alas... to be lost in a glass

 

Keepsakes Sweepstakes

P. Paul Hadian

 

A photograph is a document that records fleeting moments of togetherness for a family torn apart by revolution, exodus, and death. By way of photo-elicitation, interviewing my father elucidated a world of turmoil into which I had only newly emerged, a voyage across three continents, and ultimately the oppressive choice of sacrifice.  The intent behind the act of capturing a photograph is to inspire hope for a stable future and proximal closeness of family; this point in history is the locus of disambiguation for my father, presenting a clear statement, declaring through image the start of a new life.

A focused interview is intended to offer a subjective perspective provoked by a stimulus. Photo-elicitation is a method that uses photographs, objects quite familiar to the subject, as a stimulus to which the participant refers when giving account of their experiences.  This technique is especially advantageous when interest lies in the meanings that originate within the interviewee, rather than imposed by the researcher, "it provides a direct entry into their point of view." In the tradition of symbolic interactionism, "the empirical starting point is the subjective meaning individuals attribute to their activities and their environments." Behind every interview lies a person, a sentient being who makes sense of its world through its physical incarnation as a narrative set of spatial and temporal experiences.  Visual images in particular become signifiers to these personal narrations; photographs as a stimulus, not only act as "convenient mnemonic devices, they can also become substitutions for recollection."  Schwartzenberg (2005) suggests that, although it may influence the participant's narrative, the questions that arise of a photograph unfurl the mysteries it contains.

I sought to investigate an aspect of my family's history I had not yet fully understood, for the fact that it was a period of strife now conveniently forgotten and I was merely a baby at the time.  My father was an obvious candidate as participant in my research because of his position as head of the family and his erudite rhetoric often proves articulate and cleverly insightful.  We agreed to conduct the interview in his kitchen, a room that had traditionally been centred towards the family and the forum of open dialogue.  I asked him to bring a keepsake photograph to the table, discussing the purpose of the assignment and going over the ethics consent form; initially it all seemed vague to him, nevertheless he was intent on answering my questions with earnestness. 

My questions were composed beforehand.  Quite simply, I began with who, where, when and what, before getting into any of the whys.  For it is imperative to first establish the context, la mise en scène, before the more probative questions might build or bounce off information presented, eventually encouraging a free flow of fluid self-expression.  I find people enjoy the feeling of entitlement assumed in recounting the stories of their lives, which is in every way appropriate for the occasion; for what better way to reveal the shades of my father's experience than through hyperbole, making vivid the meaning behind the memories.

The photograph, taken by my mother, depicts my father on the far left, me in his arms, followed by my brothers Payam and Pirooz, the only surviving members of our immediate family posing in front of their Oldsmobile parked before a Niagara Falls motel; the newly purchased car, before which the subjects pose, signals optimism for prosperity, a statement of persistence, made fact by virtue of its documentation.  It is the Spring of 1980, we had been staying in a rented flat in Montreal, my eldest brother Pirooz was almost finished his O-levels in England and connected with the rest of us for the trip to formalize an exchange student visa application.  My father explained to me how at this time they were immigrant applicants to Canada, encouraged to come here by a friend of my father's brother-in-law.

The last two years were wrought with devastating change: I was born as the Iranian Revolution was getting underway; we fled to England where my eldest brother Peyman had been buried, behold the fated and insidious work of leukemia.  He pointed out that at this time that he was extremely uncertain about remaining in Canada; after all, he was a physician at forty-five with minimal verbal skills in English.  Also, he would be leaving behind a "huge house in Iran with several servants, a hospital that I built, and enormous assets, where everyone wanted to be my friend or patient" and moving to a "foreign land, a complete mystery... where I am nobody."  It is at this point in his life that he decided that "it would be a crime to expect the children to cope with an instable country as Iran," albeit feeling that he could return there and prove his worth to the new Islamic Regime, who's hardliner religious doctrine clashes diametrically with my father's socialist atheism.

I noticed the photograph is from a series of three: this one taken by my mother, another by my father, and the last, taken by my eldest brother, picturing mother, father, and the baby.  I inquired what might have inspired taking these shots… Why not in front of the Falls?  But this isn't a record of a tourist's conquest, he explained how happy he was to see his entire family together in the same place at the same time, which since my birth eighteen months prior, had not yet occurred.  He felt desperate to capture a record of his new family, before it too might possibly fall away.

In order to validate these findings further research is required, exploring the life worlds of other diasporic individuals as they use photography to keep their respective families together.  To take this sample of one and build off of it would give insight into the hopes and aspirations that are framed in stasis and captured in emulsion.  The entire family documented in photography speaks of an ambition for a family that works, that survives adversity and stays close together.  This image marks a starting point for these newcomers, who in entering the most popular destination for émigré peoples in modern history, strive to define themselves by it. 

The decision to remain here, and become Canadians, is a long road and difficult choice for many immigrants, for whom this nation is a world of uncertainty and who are running from a life of political instability.  The photograph is a symbol of hopefulness in an uncertain future where family togetherness and prosperity are the primary objects of desire.  Also, the photograph documents a life altering decision; the choice to remain in Canada is affirmed by the act of capturing a family portrait, where all existing members are requisite subjects.

Walking Along Bloor Street

P. Paul Hadian

          Rephotographing the city, as an ethnological method of data collect, forces one to consider the static and dynamic qualities of the prevalent social and physical arrangements of urban existence.   Within the scope of this report, I intend to reveal that acts of pedestrian agency, vis a vis imposed structures, over time, dictate the meanings of being and the shapes of becoming for the city.  Ten images are pulled from the archives, and serve as yardsticks to the present-day city in which I perambulate.

          We set off at noon, on Sunday, October 15, 2006.  Looking up, it appeared to be a decent day for outdoor photography; through the threadbare lattice of cotton-like clouds the sun's filtered rays took on all the qualities of spun sugar.  I employed the help of my consort to act as research assistant, whose eyes and ears supplemented my own in observing the various subjects and scenes; her input and company would ultimately keep me to task.  We prepared our field kit: Sony digital camera, pencil, pen, highlighter, photographic records, and "Qualitative Research" by Uwe Flick (2006) --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> --> -->. 

          These tools serve as much as freeing devices as hindering ones; while we are endowed with the ability to log our findings, those same records yield to the limitations of our method.  Thus, the narrowed scope of the camera compels us to pay close attention to the scene.  In finding appropriate vantage points for rephotography, close attention must be paid to vehicular and pedestrian traffic, the angle and persistence of the sun, also complete changes to the structural landscape.   A feeling of nostalgia pours over you all the while; initial comparisons of old photographs and the sights before us made me feel akin to an archeologist discovering a fossil in an ecology that once existed and is now permanently lost.  How long will present day structures continue to subsist?

With only a dozen archived images to guide us and various clues in the city, our objective was to navigate along and negotiate the structures of Toronto's Bloor Street, between Yonge and Bathurst Streets.  I selected this sample partly because I believed there is a story to Bloor West that is far more proximal to our time than that of Yonge or Bay Streets, and to a degree I wanted to examine peoples spending habits in these locations; I assumed there would only be minor changes to the landscape.  Guided by street signs and edifice numbers, we narrowed in on each location.  With adjoining structures as points of reference, the historical images were compared to their present day reincarnations, from which rephotographs were produced.   However, it was impossible to reproduce the framing on any of these shots because many of the originals were shot with wide angled medium format lenses, providing squarer proportions and broader fields.  It is also to be noted that these digital images were taken in colour, a further aspect of remoteness from the bygone images.  I have decided to analyze them as is (although they are presented in grayscale as printed in the appendix).  These rephotographs are, in actual fact, the raw data of this research; any changes to them would be a misrepresentation of the facts.  Such action, as a result, would diminish if not ruin their empirical value.

Ut Romae operor ut Romanorum operor.  We would go about Bloor Street as we expected others to, an added layer of participant observation; stopping to eat, grabbing coffee, walking in and out of stores.  Also, we would give special consideration to how we perceive others use this space.  Who frequents these shops, who works in these towers, how has gentrification changed the social landscape of what used to be Toronto's northern border?  How does this space accommodate and antagonize, practically or culturally?  Why have some areas changed so drastically, and others have not?  These questions arose from our survey method, and formed from our first impressions of the people, the places.

Our journey began traveling down the Yonge subway line to Bloor Street.  We dined on noodles at a nearby pan-asian restarant.  The Multicultural Act of the seventies has surely opened the floodgates to ethnic diversity, a safe haven for the free form of its social expression; with fixtures sometimes so aged and dated, while within footsteps quite novel and foreign, the imprint of immigration is seen in the mottled fabric that upholsters our cultural furnishings.

33 Bloor Street East (57) was in 1966, and continues to be today, an entrance to the Yonge/Bloor subway station, albeit becoming the secondary access point.  The structure had been rebuilt and now houses Xerox, and Ontario Lottery and Gaming.  Across the street, people were coming out of the subway, going in, some stopping to buy a hot dog from a corner vendor, some pulling money from their bank accounts through an automated teller.  Not much happening here.  It appears to be the embarking and disembarking point for most people present.

Our trajectory was set due west, through Yorkville, towards the Annex.  The following originals were set in the 1920s, Yorkville, before the post war influx of hippies and the drug culture, and subsequent gentrification of the seventies.  The rich, WASP, cottage country of yore, is now the nouveau riche niche of decadence, self presentation, and a constant push to pit oneself against the rest of us as the city's elite.  85 Bloor Street East and the north-east corner of Bloor and Bellair, where a Tiffany & Co. jeweler and a Harry Rosen men's clothing store have respectively taken up residence, a veritable carriage trade.  In the 1920s (59, 60) large houses stood as monuments of wealth and class; their proprietors financed the first rails that laid the tracks for our beloved TTC, today many who patronize the district, these posturing paraders, would not wish to imagine being shuttled along underground, in the bowels of the city.  I digress.  It is not only the rich who populate this quarter.  Many perceivably average consumers were also part of the pack; their knockoff Louis Vuitton logo printed accessories, such as purses, wallets, knapsacks, and Chanel logo earrings, purse and shoe buckles, are tokens of and testaments to the highest monetary level of consumer spending, of which they take no part, only dancing the dance… on with the masquerade.

The next two locations, the Bedford Road (15) and St. George (14) subway entrances, both set in 1962, appeared to have modestly evolved.  As it is apparent in the rephotograph, at Bedford, the subway entrance itself and its surroundings had grown, with apartment and office buildings, Varsity Stadium razed and under construction to be rebuilt, modernizing, across the street the entire corner had been bought up, likely a tower in its place.  At St. George, change was minimal, still flanked by that old red brick house.  Interests stemming from the university have likely kept this neighbourhood quite static.  Across Bloor, on the south side, little has remained the same.

The Bata Shoe Museum had come to replace the beautiful house, with tower and spire, which stood at Bloor and St. George's south-west corner, in 1924 (12).  The house next door remains intact, note the third storey window which still exists.  Toronto, the competitive city, increases its cultural capital with such instillations because tourism and trade (food, merchandise) are paramount to city planning and policy.

Moving deeper into the Annex, an area named after its annexation from Yorkville, by developer Simeon Janes, in 1886, we stop across from the north-east corner of Spadina Avenue and Bloor Street, the 1960 site of the Bank of Nova Scotia, today like young heir bearing the family name a Scotiabank anchors this corner (8).  The surroundings have remarkably seen little change aside from some fresh faces on the part of businesses, and modernizing renovations, such as to the Jewish Community Centre, and Ed Mirvish's Honest Eds (17), also referenced to 1960.  Eds is a landmark of this diverse and economically struggling leg of the Annex; even on a Sunday, it is bustling with poor residents after the best deals in town.  Local artists and crafts generators are on the scene selling their wares, also Native culture abounds.

Between the above two locations, we searched for the remnants of two 1920s edifices, the Madison Theatre (6) and the Brunswick Meat Market (5).  Both buildings survive to this day.  The former, exists as the Bloor Cinema, now catering to fringe audiences of festival films.  The latter, beautifully similar to its almost century old original (notice the number above the door), has been replaced by a franchised sandwich shop, in which we stopped for a snack.  Looking through the front window, which frames the street as we had been framing the buildings, the passers-by seem strongly politically oriented to the left, as represented by their casual, hippyish, stylings.  Across the street, one enters a store that sells eclectic and exotic wares, smelling of incense burning, a wind chime signaling the clerk.  West a few storefronts, is a secondhand bookstore, with a small head shop inside.  There lays to the east, at the corner of Brunswick and Bloor, a popular bakery overflowing with neighbours and visitors, alike.  Life seems fixed here; similar businesses replace others, the population remains without too much fluctuation, thus, there is little evidence of overt gentrification.  Might this neighbourhood have some kind of insular quality? There is certainly a high level of self interest among its population; people shop, they eat, and are entertained in the very neighbourhood in which they live.  I predict that the persistence of university students renting flats in converted Victorian homes and affluent yet leftist home dwellers staying put have attenuated any sort of evolving encroachment; where rentals are prevalent, gentrification is not present.

To invoke Michel De Certeau (1984), the pedestrian will commit speech acts by virtue of traversing the imposing structures of the urbanistic system; "the geometrical space of … architects seems to have the status of the 'proper meaning' constructed by grammarians and linguists," the pedestrian speaks deliberately, and with reclaimed agency, creating their own meaning, when negotiating "the basic elements of a constructed order."  Some, as was the case with the Yorkvillites, seem to be manipulated by the uses of public space forced upon them, little attempt is made by them to subvert commercial expectations of them; the rhetoric of cultural hegemony speaks clearly to Yorkville's regulars, to which they most readily respond… yes.  Along the Annex, however, observed users of the available urban locations spoke a more subtle, elusive, almost poetic language; their tactics espouse self-expression, basic entrepreneurship, freedom of movement, and freedom of thought.  This battle between structural strategies and subversive tactics plays out in the development, and ultimate use, of the city.

Moral Panics and the Racialization of Crime in Toronto

P. Paul Hadian

The racialization of crime is a phenomenon that is ever present in the culture rich global city of Toronto.  This observable fact pronounces itself through periodic moral panics, fuelled by the press, the public, the police, and the politicians in a neo-liberal effort to maintain the 'good city' ideal employing revanchist strategies (Herbert & Brown, 2006).  I hold that in the desire to maintain the status quo, in the interest of business, it is useful to link fundamental societal problems such as crime with categorical factors such as race.  With no intentions of ameliorating education, social services, and opportunity in order to address crime, city builders preserve-self by pulling the wool over our eyes and presenting crime as originating within particular groups.

Cesare Lombroso's atavism was highly popular with Victorian society, whose reformist and anglocentric ideologies were primed to receive the perceived 'primitively phenotyped' as social threats to morality, thus criminally stigmatising and making suspect all who were not White Anglo-Saxon Protestant; this is evident in such fiction of the time as Stevenson's …Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, Stoker's Dracula.  At present, we are made well aware of a eugenically motivated pitch to posit people of colour as other, and attribute to them the stigma of criminality by virtue of their ethnicity. 

Remember J. Philippe Rushton? David Suzuki exposed this professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and his machinations of a new eugenics movement, aimed at categorizing and ranking sexual, intellectual and behavioural properties of Whites, Asians, and Blacks.  Perhaps a more salient example would be the racially motivated assailing of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers for allegedly 'driving while black', their subsequent acquittal of charges, and the ensuing tragedy of the L.A. Riots, which was essentially a race riot that polarized whites from people of colour in their perception that crime and race were inherently linked.  Just five years ago, the demolition of the World Trade Centre in New York made the person of colour again the focus of fear and panic in the minds of Westerners.  Not long after, a Brazilian man, a tourist in London, was shot dead for fear of being a terrorist in relation to the subway bombings there.  Even a more objectively derived example is that of the systematic over-searching and over-processing of people of colour at airports, dubbed 'flying while Arab'.

Racialization refers to "making race a relevant factor to people or situations when it is, in fact, totally irrelevant" (Henry & Tator, 2006).   Race is identified by skin colour and physical attributes; those attributes become signifiers to the conceived cultural characteristics of that race.  Race is a social construction, and its language serves to categorize it, contrast it with Whiteness, the prototype of a hegemonic typology.  It is a tool which serves the act of casting 'racialized' groups as other, subordinate, and suspect, legitimatizing systematic scorn and admonition.  Other or othering, as a verb rather than a noun, as Mackey (1992) explains it, "has to do with power, exclusion, and privilege, the centralizing of a norm against which otherness is measured, meted out, marginalized." The features become signifiers to criminality.  The abject man, insidious, wretched and loathsome, damned to abnormality, the person of colour is the easiest target of suspicion when Whites diagnose the ills of society.  The other is not us, and thus we attribute to the other "all the signs of disharmony that jeopardize our shared fantasy" (Gunder, 2005).  If Blackness is abnormal, then deviancy is identified "based on appearance rather than behaviour" (Henry & Tator, 2006); yet deviancy, in the dominant view, points to immorality, legally manifests itself into criminality.  You see how appearance can follow a short footpath to behaviour, thus the attributions of criminal behaviour to people of colour. 

            Even in our lauded egalitarian and pluralistic society, race seems to persist as the greatest source of divide.  Yet, as Clayton Mosher (1998) has shown, crime in Canada is evidenced to have been racialized, in the case of the Chinese and Blacks, since at least the end of the nineteenth century.  We have discussed how the othering of race has lead to its demoralization, it is then perpetuated in society by language, a vehicle through which "ideology is disseminated and reinforced" (Henry & Tator, 2006).  It is in the subtleties of discursive practices where democratic racism lies, which Henry and Tator (2006) define as "an ideology in which two conflicting sets of values are made congruent to each other," specifically democratic values versus those of discrimination.  Such dissonance plays itself out in our treatment of race in all facets of society, including criminality.  Overt forms of discrimination have been replaced by covert strategies, racism finds itself entrenched in popular discourse (recall Rushton). 

In Toronto, the racialization of crime has emerged as a way of dealing with concerns for public safety, driven by what I believe is the occurrence of several moral panics.  Stanley Cohen (1972) coined the term to indicate a social phenomenon wherein "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests."  Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994), who researched the occurrence in various contexts, devised the following criteria (in italics) necessary to determine whether or not an episode constitutes a moral panic. 

The press tends to react to a particular event in a sensational way, and aggrandizing the impact or implications of that event to society.  It is an important aspect of this exaggerated reportage to script the incident into palatable stereotypes of public discourse; such as when the perpetrators of the Boxing Day shootout that took the life of Jane Creba were defined in the news as 'gangsters' which, until proven, remains a misnomer.  Also, when hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf of Mexico, devastating New Orleans, stranded residents scrambled to survive, yet Blacks were defined as 'looters'; the language of racialization and criminalized tropes have magnetic affinity between them in hegemonic dialogue articulated in the media.

Public concern in reaction to the overemphasized press response is characteristic of a moral panic; sometimes the potential pre-exists, it may also transpire if the public holds "a more sophisticated view of the issue than the press" (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994).  In recent years, Torontonians have been oriented towards Black criminals and Arab terrorists in a distressing way.  Empirical evidence presented by Henry, Hastings and Freer (1996) reveals the fact that 37% of respondents in a Toronto poll believed there to be "a relationship between racial or ethnic group status and criminality," two thirds of whom believed Blacks to be most blameworthy of crime.  DeMont (2001), in a Maclean's article a couple of months following 9/11, reports an increase in rates of fear of flying following the highly publicized fated hi-jackings.

Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) link efforts for more social control as a natural response to the rising alarm.  Law Enforcement's position becomes more publicly responsive, rigid and forceful, seeming always to be in control.  Henry and Tator (2006) argue that "constant and pervasive media negative messages and images about minorities can strongly impact upon how police see and interact with people of colour, and particularly Blacks."  Furthermore, policing as a culture derives it's "beliefs, perceptions, values, and norms" from White dominant culture, within their socialization process they remain socially isolated, they maintain solidarity (us v. them dynamic), and they often engage in militarism (excessive tactics/force) to exercise control (Henry & Tator, 2006).  As racist ideologies of dominant culture are siphoned into policing, racial profiling, wherein particular crimes are ascribed to a group based on perceived ethno-racial background, "involves the same processes as racism" in its incarnations: individual (cop), institutional (police service) and systemic (police work).

Politicians and legislators call for stiffer penalties as a natural response to a sensitization to particular crimes, and make the issue a focus of their campaigns.  Today, the issue is keeping firearms out of the hands of Black youth, while yesterday it was the Safe Street Act (2001), criminalizing squeegeeing and so-called aggressive panhandling, all arising out of media driven panic over the safety of our city centre streets; though nothing really happened while Blacks took each other's lives until a fifteen year old white girl was fatally injured by an errant bullet, the difference being how highly publicized that Boxing Day loss had become.  

Action groups form, of parties in a position to gain, to come together against the problem.  In response to Creba's slaying, politicians, bureaucrats and policing bodies rallied together to form a "working group" in order to seek out a solution, such as reverse onus which forces "those charged with weapon offences to prove that they deserve bail" (Ghoreishi & Ford, 2006).  Also, Reverend Eugene Rivers of Boston fame heads up the task force called the "Ten Point Coalition;" it is meant as an insular, community-driven, faith-based plan meant to exorcise the Black community's evils (Robertson, 2006).

The final piece of the puzzle is the creation of a folk devil, "the personification of evil… deviants" (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994).  The other becomes the fall guy, the scapegoat.  Rather than seeking within ourselves to find a possible reason for systematic societal problems, we find it convenient to make downcast groups the bearers of our crosses (Gunder, 2005).  If we can pin the source of crime on particular racial groups, then crime becomes less a problem of society as a whole, or the city as a place; the problem is contained within the members of the race, such as the Black community with gun violence (Wilcox, 2005), and Arabs with terrorism (Sheridan, 2006).

Gunder (2005) describes the realization of the good city as beginning with the business elites, whose ventures of urban development are coupled with a moralizing push fundamentally opposed to the deviant minority, while employing the receptiveness of the urban majority who maintain the dominant ideology.  Thus, space is subject to moral evaluation.  City builders have a vested interest in upholding the illusion of safety and cleanliness; in order to keep up a working city, involved parties must dispel middle-class agoraphobia (Macek, 2006).  Urban space is the locus of profit; this is directly evident in the frequency of city centre consumerism, and indirectly so as the aesthetic of the working city, so long as the image signifies the ideal, garners its security as a competitive city on a global scale.  Ruppert (2006) also suggests that moralization in creation of the good city involves social control through surveillance of, legislation towards, and the guided use of urban space. The very act of discriminating particular groups through constant scrutiny, focusing in, pushing them out, making them deviant, transfers all perception of immorality upon them.  Evil is personified, Cohen's folk devil, it is physical and is thus not bound to the land or to any architecture, it can be manipulated, pushed around, acted upon, legislated against, and cast out.

Crime has been racialized since race and racism entered into the Western discourse.  In Canada, the push to retain White Anglo-Saxon Protestant values in the dominant position has systematized the discrimination of race as an element to which all undesirable traits in society, namely deviance and criminality, are attributed.  Racialization of crime persists in the cognitive treatment of reality by periodically being thrust into public attention through a phenomenon called moral panic.  Furthermore, neoliberal ideology in the revanchist city of Toronto makes moralizing the city centre paramount to realizing its competitive city plan, playing up the aesthetic of safety in a theatre of police work (Kipfer & Keil, 2002).  In this effort, I argued that immorality, as characterized in deviancy, is personified.  This embodiment shifts the source of moral degradation away from the urban space and onto people of colour.  This allows the structure to be beyond reproach, and more so fools the public into believing measures are being taken to control the situation, strengthening the position of those with vested interests, namely those in a position to profit or politicians who seek the vote.

REFERENCES

Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. London: MacGibbon & Kee.

Ghoreishi, O. & Ford, C. (Jan5, 2006). "Toronto Desperate for Solutions". The Epoch Times http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-1-5/36564.html (webpage accessed on November 9, 2006)

Goode, E. & Ben-Yehuda, N. (1994). Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Gunder, M. (2005). "The Production of Desirous Space: Mere Fantasies of the Utopian City?". Planning Theory, 4(2), p173-199.

Henry, F., Hastings, P. & Freer, B. (October 1996). "Perceptions of race and crime in Ontario: Empirical evidence from Toronto and the Durham Region". Canadian Journal of Criminology, 38(4), p469-477.

Herbert, S. & Brown, E. (2006). "Conceptions of Space and Crime in the Punitive Neoliberal City". Editorial Board of Antipode, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Henry, F. & Tator, C. (2006). The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Toronto: Thomson Nelson

Henry, F. & Tator, C. (2006).Racial Profiling in Canada. Toronto, University of Toronto Press.

Kipfer, S. & Keil, R. (2002). "Toronto Inc? Planning the Competitive City in the New Toronto". Antipode, 34(2), p227-264.

Macek, S. (2006). Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, and the Moral Panic over the City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Mackey, N. (Summer, 1992). "Other: From Noun to Verb". Representations, 39, p51-70.

Mosher, C. L. (1998). Discrimination and Denial: Systemic Racism in Ontario's Legal and Criminal Justice Systems, 1892-1961. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

DeMont, J. (Nov26, 2001). "Fear of Flying".  Maclean's. 114(48) pg 32-33

Robertson, Lloyd (Jan21, 2006) Take Back the Streets. W-FIVE, CTV http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060119/wfive_gunsandgangs_060121/20060121?hub=WFive (webpage accessed on November 9, 2006)

Ruppert, E. (2006). The Moral Economy of Cities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

TM Hell

            You feel a nauseating rumble and the telltale buzz on your person.  You reach around to grasp the source, and raise the ball and chain to waist level, drop your head in slavish fashion, and peer in inquiry at your cell phone.  New Message.  Compelled by social structures spawn of the communication age, still so novel and alien, bizarre, that you wonder why you do it, you open the transmission and grudgingly read the contents. I am a modern man, in a democratic society, championing my individual rights, yet I am, by that same token, a man whose agency is limited by the devices that profess to free me.

The telephone may remain unanswered, mail thrown out without so much as a peek inside, yet the "text message" is unavoidable should it reach your portable device.  This self-imposing mode of communication is the answer to the technological world's plea of "No Junk Mail, Please!" What a nuisance to receive contract promotions from your service provider, offers to join personal-ads communities, and in extreme cases… the Dear John.

Unwanted communication between those no longer engaged in romantic relationships may no longer be evaded.  Truly it is the tool of the scorned woman insatiably seeking answers to trite questions no man could possibly answer and of the aggressive ex-boyfriend relentlessly after reunion, beating a dead horse. 

In a post-industrial society, we no longer produce to fill a need.  We manufacture the desire, first, in order to generate the product to sate it.  Sometimes the products we sell create second order needs that require their own solutions.  Marshall McLuhan exclaimed, "The Medium is the Message;" he implies how modern mediums, or vehicles of communication (radio, television, and ultimately, computers, internet, wireless), effect observers by changing the way they interpret and process the world.  In essence, communication has become the most effective commodity in perpetuating the economic model we have developed for ourselves.  Hence, this tradition of more and more accessible text, while on one hand has opened the floodgates of information transfer and has made our world smaller; it has also attenuated my capacity to be free of unwanted contact with the world.  Take, for instance, the case of webcam whores selling their wares in the form of a request for feigned friendship on MySpace, an online imagined community that has become lucrative, of Google-like proportions, as a locus for digital self-promotion (of musicians, circles of friends, and other types of cohort).

I have no qualms with the technology; believe me, I have been among the rest of you pioneers, employing the convenience of cell phones, PDAs, iPODs, and alas texting too.  However, I fear what its implications will be on the literate world.  Can the signs and symbols of our time (J, LOL, BRB) usher us in the right direction? You must have noticed the deterioration of the formal letter-writing style in your daily emails.  Is wordsmithing a dying methodology of only novelists and pedant academics? Is there a prosperous future awaiting us when we know only to express ourselves with such onomatopoeias as "MUAH (kiss)" and oratory spacers such as the word like? It doesn't help that these new tools of document dissemination have input methodologies that discourage free speech, in that they make it very difficult to express oneself with full sentences, proper grammar, and devoid of abbreviations.  Why is it the skill of Conrad Black with the English language that is lauded as exceptional rather than expected to be common place. "Hello," since the invention of the telephone, has been a greeting, when it once was an expression of puzzlement.  Not surprisingly, the telephone is also a vehicle for spineless slithering solicitors to enter your home.

People make sense of their experiences in their respective worlds by using their cultural tradition as a filter.  This culture is made up of signs, symbols, and hence words, sentences, speech, script, the documents of our lives are the "decoder rings" of our everyday lives.  Documents are now all things that have the capacity to speak to you (Weinberger): a Word file, a receipt, even a text message; no longer an ink-on-paper piece of evidence.  Should we really move away from a reliance on the great texts of western society?  This notion would make Allan Bloom turn in his grave.  We came from an oral society, and seem to be moving again towards a new orality (Barthes).  Text is becoming so informal now that it will soon be as ephemeral as speech.  We have already begun writing as colloquially as we speak.

I urge you to take caution.  Please text thoughtfully.  Send a sonnet, dispatch a dissertation.  It is all too easy to reduce your vocabulary to a cache akin to street thugs, don't allow the technology to rob you of your agency.  Your freedom to make sense of the world relies on your ability to shed imbedded structures of the new world order.

Sisters of Eden

..So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them...

With all five senses you feel the breath of God, a strong and sweet flux filling your acrid earthy lungs, and you plunge into a brisk consciousness. Still forming and expanding out of nothingness, you begin to see yourself, his parts and yours. For a moment, you are whole: Hermes and Aphrodite. As the cell divides to strengthen its position, you are also polarized to strengthen his. In an agonizing split, like tearing apart a wishbone, you come face to face with yourself. You realize that some of God's creations are produced more equal than others. He is Adam, and you are Lilith.

When you were one, you were whole. Now as two, you feel alone. There must be a way to unite you. You begin to explore each other; Adam knows what is to be done, and that is all he can think of. He chases you around the garden, you trip, and fall. You tumble around, just as it seems like a flirtatious game, Adam is cheating, and his bias crushes you under his weight. You want to take it slowly, to 'be' as opposed to 'act'. An act is vile, a lie, a deception. Being is just, good, God.

You want him to be with you in a union of equality. You want for him to see you eye to eye, and for him to praise you for bringing him closer to God. He orders you around as he does the pigs when he seeks truffles. He says, ..I'll have my figs now, Lilith... You won't stand for that. You say, ..Come and get them from me, Adam,.. having no figs in hand. Adam follows the trail of rose petals to see you sitting under your own fig tree. You beckon him closer and pray him sit next to you. Though know he not that he is the quarry, as you leap upon him. You command his hands upon your breast so he might appreciate its supple tone; you tower above him and he should love it. He is in awe of you, and so he fears you. You combine, in entirety.

Adam's eyes open, he knows you are eternally the one to be praised, not he. His face fills with a crimson rage as he thrusts you off. Casts you out on your own. God knows you have not done ill. You set out by dusk, following the waxing moon, and find yourself a bed of flowers to rest on. At dawn, you collect berries, mangos, avocados, and figs to break your fast. In the pale morning light, you observe that the world outside of Eden does not differ much from that within. You spend the days exploring the area, gathering provisions, eating and sleeping. By moonlight, you travel; for the moon you trust to guide you, it provides the way. On the eve of your third day alone, you come upon a cave; a grotto of smooth limestone before a large round patch of dry earth. Beyond this area stand high trees with a mottled network of flowers at their feet. This is it, you think to yourself; this is your lair.

..By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return...

A skylark comes to you from the sun. It sings hymns and it tells you that God is upset with your departure. He warns of eternal banishment, and the punishment of being forever misunderstood by man. You scoff at this warning. You are whole again. You are one with the world around you.

In the full moon light, you pluck a plume from the little messenger's tail, and let him fly up to the heavens, in hopes that God sees and partakes in your binding ritual. You let your blood with a dagger you have fashioned from jade and drip an unbroken circle around a small hole in the ground. The quill is lowered, covered with clay, and the dagger is thrust into the centre of the ring. By the morning glow, you rise, and notice the arched wings that have sprung from your shoulders during the passing of the night. You are free.

You return to the garden, try to fly over the wall, but at every pass the barrier seems higher. Adam is perpetually raising the fortification with frantic works of masonry. You go angrily through the gates. He calls you a daemon, and the flashes of a flaming sword cast you away. At a glance, before you abscond into the world once again, you see her. She is another woman. She is like you, but she is much weaker. God must not have made her equal. Adam would not have let it happen. Also, you are sure she saw you.

You inhabit the earth, and air. You control fire, and water. You are the creator, and the creator is you. She will come to find you, and so you wait. You have faith in this woman; she must feel as you did. Empty. One day, not long after you had first perceived her, she arrives. With tremors, she approaches you timidly, fearing the terrors that Adam had filled her head with. ..Who are you? What is your story?.. you ask each other. She is called Eve, and she was made from Adam's rib. While she speaks, you identify with her struggle. You find out that she, too, is alone, and that Adam treats her as he had acted toward you. You empathize with her, and offer her guidance on how to harness her womanly powers. A sisterhood takes form. Both of you are whole, within your alliance.

..You will surely not die.
For God knows
that when you eat of it
your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil...

Eve comes to call frequently. Together, you discuss the unique state of femininity, the injustices served by Adam, and how women may strengthen their position in the future. You tell her all your secrets regarding the nature of the world around you. She toils with her inability to create a level playing field among God's creatures. God, you tell her, loves all his creations, though God cannot control how his children might act. You tell her about the tree of knowledge. She knows of it, and what Adam has told her. You clarify how God commanded you and Adam not to eat of it, but enlighten her that, surely, she would not die. ..God, you understand, is a very cautious parent,.. say you. ..He wants you to remain unaware, for ignorance is bliss...

A plan takes form. You return with Eve to the Garden of Eden. Her eyes have been opened, and now it is Adam's turn. The scheme works impeccably; he takes the fruit from Eve, knowing where it came from, and bites into it vehemently, as if it was his own idea. He is embarrassed, scared of the repercussions. He sees you and lets off a score of insults; mischievous sprite, daemon, fiend, snake are the flurry of names he calls you. He runs off to hide, knowing women truly have achieved the upper hand.

God, very upset with the two of them, commands an explanation. Adam blames Eve, and God for having created her to deceive him. Eve tells God that the snake had told her to defy Him, she will protect you for eons. She knows the material world of humanity remains in the hands of Adam, but also that the esoteric form of spirituality in God, and the search for the truth, relies on her. She will bear mankind from her womb, and impart it with the wonderful strength of your sisterhood. Men shall work for the benefit of women, and all the ills that Adam will pass on to his sons and daughters will be balanced by the goodness of Eve's soul, and what her heart will convey to them for eons in an infinity of generations will forever benefit them.

You leave the Garden once again. Your work here is done. You will keep watch over Eve's children, and their descendents. You will endure what they might say about you through millennia to come, for you know that the truth lies in the ether; only you, and women like you, are privy to the truth.


The Essay

What has intrigued me most about the creation story is that if one were to believe that there are two instances of females created according to Genesis 1:27, ..So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,.. and Genesis 2:21, & 22 that describe the production of Eve, then one is likely to assume that the first female, Lilith, not Eve, heard God's command to not eat the proverbial apple, Genesis 2:16, & 17: ..You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... Anything Eve might know of this order must have come from Adam, a second hand source. My intention with Sisters of Eden was to show how one might be enlightened by oneself and despite not having eaten the forbidden fruit.

Within the stretch of the short story, Lilith had freed her mind, she then led Eve to understand the world, and the fruit, ultimately, is just a placebo, uncovering Adam's covetous way and his quickness to blame the woman. I wanted to speak to women, from Lilith's perspective. I had chosen the second person narrative, which gives license to the narrator's omniscience, but most notably to allow female readers to identify with Lilith. It was written in the present tense in order to strengthen the feeling of exploring the world around oneself using one's senses. This story is intended to empower women, more so than right the wrongs of Lilith's lore. The three characters are at extremes from each other; Adam is the quintessential male, brutish and selfish, Lilith is the model of the self-sufficient powerful woman, and Eve is the woman who doesn't realize her strong erotic powers until her sorority with the former is formed.

I was strongly influenced by a graphic novel called 'The Sandman', wherein the first image of Adam and Lilith is having them fused back to back, like a hermaphrodite (intersexed). In the next frame they are separate, as two. This to me described quite gracefully what was going on in Genesis 1:27, I wanted to put the images and what was not figured between the frames to words. Judith Plaskow's 'The Coming of Lilith' served as the model for the story; as an actual rewriting of the biblical text, her work set the tone and timeline to structure my version. I wanted to take it a step further and allude that the bible, having been written as an androcentric archetype, would have recorded the influential character literally as a snake, whereas I believe it was powerful Lilith who opened Eve's eyes to her own ignorance.

I used the idiom ..to sit under one's own fig tree.. because it is an expression among Jews, meaning peace and prosperity: 1 Kings 4:25, Micah 4:4, Zechariah 3:10. In the case of Lilith in my story, ironically, the opposite is true. The skylark is an icon of the Christ, priesthood, and it is believed to convey prayers and hymns to and from heaven. Also the bird symbolizes freedom, ardor, and joy, which are the qualities I wanted my Lilith to embody.

Lilith was modeled after the Para-Christian traditional women of the 'old world' whose superstitious rituals lend much influence to the religion known as Wicca. The practices and the beliefs of this creed praise the woman primarily for her status as a giver of life and her close association with the spiritual, natural, and the animal world. This would not contradict orthodox beliefs that Lilith is a succubus and killer of infants, these ideas are the sort attributed to witches as well. I made the connection to witchcraft from my interpretation of Genesis 3:19; the idea that what comes from the earth returns to the earth is supported by Wiccans also.

This is my first completion of a prose piece, now having graduated from poetry. It seemed like a golden opportunity to expand my horizons. I hope many men and women will have a chance to read this story, because I feel there is lesson to be learned from it. Sisters of Eden is a story to help the reader identify gender specific traits, as they appear in society, and to rise above them as a philosopher of Plato's forms; to always seek the truth, to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.



Works Cited

'The Student Bible', Zondervan

Phyllis Trible, 'Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread'

Judith Plaskow, 'The Coming of Lilith: Toward a Feminist Theology'

Neil Gaiman, 'The Sandman', DC Comics

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/queen.html

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/ancPics.html

http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/legend01/lark.htm

Black & White: The Great Schism

 

I.          Introduction

            Allan Bloom argues, in The Closing of the American Mind, the one failure in American relationships due to "niceness," a socially applied political correctness, is the relation between blacks and whites. Bloom articulates two factors for this collapse: affirmative action, and self-segregation; he presents the two as symbiotically coexisting parts of a whole; the gestalt I speak of, in Closing…, is the ever pervasive social and especially political relativism.  I affirm Bloom's assertions, and intent to offer supplementary premises and evidence to support the above claims.

Blacks, as freed slaves, an African Diaspora, through the struggle for Civil Rights, retained the individual right to be regarded as equals to all other men; the 1964 Act makes explicit the ambiguous language of the Declaration of Independence.  Blacks, since the end of the Second World War, after Brown v. Board of Education (1954), had color-blind access to universities, albeit achieving low enrollment rates.  Affirmative action legislation was intended to be a catalyst for a movement towards the end of racial discrimination and economic equality, at least to the extent of proportional representation, through equity in employment and higher education.  It was believed that years of injustice and corresponding poverty had made blacks unable to compete for entrance to universities.  Therefore, admission standards had been lowered, and as a result, the perception and actuality of incompetence had been raised.  This, Bloom argues is one stage that was set for the schism between the races.

Another such stage is self-segregation.  Bloom (1987) asserts, "Blacks are not sharing a special positive intellectual or moral experience; they partake fully in the common culture, with the same goals and tastes as everyone else, but they are doing it by themselves."  He claims the Black Power ideology made blacks strive for ethnicity, and believe their experience is something other than American.  "Ethnicity is no more… than tall or short, black-haired or blond" (A. Bloom, 1987), blacks would, in Bloom's mind, be better served by the culture spawn of the Constitution that they hold tightly pressed to their right bosoms, the Bible to the left.

My own argument calls into question affirmative action's legality.  Individual and universal rights are paramount to freedom, and implied in the Declaration of Independence's "all men are created equal."  To award one group particular rights, we ignore the rights of all non-members of that group.  How are poor whites, as underprivileged as many blacks, to benefit from affirmative action? Or women, who are on average more qualified for application to university than are men; how will they benefit from a fifty-fifty split according to demographic values?

 

 

2.         Stigma

To paraphrase Terry Eastland and William J. Bennett (1979) in Counting by Race, affirmative action creates, in those whom it benefits, a habit of dependence.  This position mirrors Bloom's (1987):

Affirmative action now institutionalizes the worst aspects of separatism.  The fact is that the average black student's achievements do not equal those of the average white students in the good universities, and everyone knows it.  It is also a fact that the university degree of a black student is also tainted, and employers look on it with suspicion, or become guilty accomplices in the toleration of incompetence.

Therefore, blacks admitted to institutions of higher learning through racial quotas "acquire a tainted advantage that will undermine their dignity and sense of self-esteem" (J. C. Livingston, 1979).  If the goal of affirmative action was to bring about the elimination of racial prejudice, it has been an undeniable failure.  It has been argued, by Bloom among others, that affirmative action has done the exact opposite, and an extreme position would posit that it is a post Civil Rights era machination to continue oppressing blacks and women by creating the perception of minority reliance on majority munificence, hence justifying racists and chauvinists in their claims of minority inferiority.

            Accomplishment lies in a belief that one has the ability to succeed; affirmative action presupposes that blacks cannot autonomously flourish.  Academic achievement should be promoted as a source of pride; beneficiaries of relaxed admissions standards are lead to harbor feelings of lowered self-efficacy.  A capitalist society, the sort that defines the West, assigns value to achievement, this is called meritocracy.  Affirmative action is believed to prioritize group membership over merit, leading opponents to think of affirmative action in terms of merit-violating applications (P.J. Henry et al., 2005).  "In subordinating merit, conduct, and character to race, moral considerations are subordinated to statistical ones, equality is denied its moral basis, and, as a moral idea, equality is thereby denied" (T. Eastland, & W. J. Bennett, 1979).  Ralph A. Rossum invokes Professor Thomas Sowell (1980):

Blacks are now perceived to be gaining admission and recognition not because of merit, and not in spite of being blacks, but because they are black.  The blow to the self-image of those blacks who are as well, or better, qualified than whites is substantial.  They can never be assured that they have gained the recognition they have because of their individual qualifications or because they have been singled out for especially favorable treatment to make up for past discrimination against their group.

 In evaluating the value of a black student's success, dubious achievements rob him or her of due esteem.  When such a stigma is prevalent, how can racial discrimination ever be attenuated?

3.         Who benefits from affirmative action?

            William E. Feinberg's (1984) findings demonstrate how affirmative action has made very little progress balancing the demographic scales of economic prosperity.  Those who champion affirmative action do so because they believe helping blacks enter institutions of higher education will inevitably raise the black community past the handicap of past injustices.  It is to be noted that such a policy serves only to benefit black applicants who already have the wherewithal, meaning the resources, to achieve academic excellence.  John C. Livingston (1979) claims "affirmative action programs are not likely to affect significantly the conditions or the chances of lower-class nonwhites."  The ghettoized black remains a member of the ever growing underclass in the United States.  No attention is being paid to the infrastructure necessary to educate and prepare underprivileged children, and ultimately youth, for a post-secondary academic career.

            Fryer and Loury (2005) reason against affirmative action from and economic perspective:

Even though eliminating affirmative action would cause fewer blacks to be enrolled at elite law schools, it could also cause the number of practicing black lawyers to increase.  This counterintuitive result is possible because, without affirmative action, black students would enroll in greater numbers at less selective law schools and be more likely to graduate from law school and to pass the bar exam… It would be unwise to assume that racial preferences are always helpful for their intended beneficiaries.

This utilitarian approach would generate more qualified and industrious black professionals, as it need not only apply to law students, who in turn would parent subsequent generations of professional -minded offspring, contributing to the overall amelioration of the condition of blacks in America. 

There is an argument supporting the rights of the descendents of slaves to atonement for past injustices in the form of affirmative action: if I should steal a bicycle from someone, and my progeny inherit that stolen property, the offspring of those from whom I stole the bicycle have the right to its ownership, as they would have otherwise inherited it.  This leads us to inquire, how can we detect what blacks are the decedents of slaves, thereby deserving relief?  Unfortunately, "failure to distinguish between advantaged and disadvantaged visible minorities could mean that affirmative action benefits would accrue to a large number of individuals who are in no need of special assistance" (D. Bicker, 1991).

4.         Discrimination: The Legal Case

            One of the injustices generated by affirmative action is the discrimination, meaning the making of distinctions, of blacks.  David L. Smith (1998) states, "race is a set of social prescriptions invented by slaveholders and their descendants to exploit and constrain persons classified as black."  The compassionate American push for tolerance is expressed in a movement towards color-blindness; the defining of particular citizens, as blacks, forces us to distinguish, or single out, individuals as members of that group.  How are we to discern who is black and who is not? To make such a distinction is racial discrimination, the precursor and underpinning of racism.  Americans should be regarded as Americans, solely on the basis of their pledged allegiance.  Black, Italian, Chinese, or Jewish Americans are destined to be reduced to simply Americans in a cultural melting pot.  This assimilation is intended to level the playing field and allot equivalent standards and present equal opportunities for all.

            Ellis Cose (1998) picks up on a legislative paradox, he quotes Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, regarding affirmative action's goal of getting beyond racism, "certain people must be treated differently… so that eventually they could be treated equally."  According to Christina F. Jeffrey (1997), affirmative action contradicts the Declaration of Independence affirmation of equal natural rights for all, the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing all persons equal protection of the law, the 1964 Civil Rights Act that attests it to be unlawful "to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race," also the 1964 Act provides that nothing in the statute is to be interpreted to require preferential treatment for any individual or group on account of racial imbalance between the number of minorities in the workforce and the number in the local population.  Therefore, it is quite clear that the quotas and kind of discrimination that many colleges and universities have practiced for years is illegal.  Proposition 209 was amended to the California Constitution in order to eliminate affirmative action.  It declares: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."

            Does affirmative action trample on peoples rights?  People who argue the point of reverse discrimination claim it does.  Ellis Cole (1998) asserts that this policy, and the courts that espouse it, violate the rights of individuals when discriminating "against whites or males or both, and increasingly Asian Americans."  Asians do not benefit from quotas, yet "brown" immigrants may, such ambiguity and inconsistency weakens any possible support for affirmative action.  The case of DeFunis v. Odegaard clearly demonstrates the severely disadvantaging properties of affirmative action; DeFunis was twice denied admission to the University of Washington Law School, and twice had an academic performance above and beyond applicants granted admission based on affirmative action quotas (R. A. Rossum, 1980).

5.         Self-Segregation

            According to Fryer and Levitt (2004), "most blacks have shifted toward more distinctively black names…" this is "now a much stronger predictor of socioeconomic status.  Carrying a black name is primarily a consequence rather than a cause of poverty and segregation." Fryer and Levitt argue that it is the parents who give their children distinctively black names who do so as a reflection of the increasing disparity in black and white relations; this is a line they trace back to Black Power and its influence on the perceptions many groups of blacks have of whites as the haves to their have nots.  It seems that this growing number of blacks have taken a defeatist position to the idea of harmonious integration, as a smaller group of blacks today would select, and most blacks prior to 60s afrocentrism had chosen, mainstream names, or names of the time.  Blacks are, therefore, pitting themselves against and ultimately subverting popular culture.

            I fear blacks may not fully appreciate the fact that their talent, style, rhythm and ingenuity have been the brick and mortar to American cultural expression since the first slave graced American soil.  Mainstream culture, as informed by film, music and fashion, has an undeniable black influence.  From Booker T. Washington to George Washington Carver, and from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King Jr., blacks have been crafting, shaping, giving life to America, and its ideals.  If, as Bloom (1987) asserts, they are participating in the common culture yet doing so by themselves, then their resistance will ultimately hinder them in many aspects of the American existence; in an America that champions equal rights for all, there are many opportunities for those who believe in themselves to thrive, yet it takes an earnest belief in common national values.  Self-segregation is a position against such principles, and thus it is a persistent impediment to black prosperity.

            David Lionel Smith (1998) draws from Gramsci's social theory to describe how blacks seeking liberation are in effect ushering themselves into a dronish, or sheepish, acceptance of the state of their oppression.  He states:

… A primary impediment to the liberation of the masses, because it is an undifferentiated mix of habit, superstition, fact, hearsay, dissent, prejudice, etc.: the ideology of common experience…  It thrives on familiarity and fears change, and therefore common sense is profoundly conservative.  Thus, paradoxically, those who wish to change the status quo must combat common sense and thereby risk acquiring the semblance of fools.

He goes on to encourage black intellectuals to question the vary state of their people's nature; he however regrets that such "organic intellectuals" are going the other way to embrace ethnicity.  Professor Arnold Itwaru, at the University of Toronto, appealing to Fanon, describes this as "psychic oppression," the deliberately self-imposed oppressive dialogues and ideologies of their original colonial controlling entities.  In attempting to answer the question, What Is Black Culture?, Smith (1998) draws from Baraka's Dutchman, he argues that blacks "only artistic inspiration is anger towards white people, which they sublimate as music in lieu of committing honest acts of violence."  This reinforces the idea that pitting oneself against the mainstream has very negative socioeconomic reproductions.

6.         Conclusion

            The deterioration of the relationship between white and black people in America is largely due to affirmative action programs, and black self-segregation.  Affirmative action imposes negative stigma on blacks, it fails to accomplish its goals, and it is unconstitutional.  Self-segregation is an epidemic which prevents blacks from thriving, because it is their feelings of perpetual persecution which disables them, oppresses them.  We must return to Martin Luther King Jr.'s plea that, "(people) will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

7.         References

Bennett, William J., & Eastland, Terry (1979).  Counting by Race: Equality from the Founding Fathers to Bakke and Weber.  New York, NY: Basic Books, Inc.

Bloom, Allan (1987).  The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

Bricker, Darrell (1991). What's Wrong with Affirmation.  In P. Barker & M. Charlton (Eds.), Crosscurrents 1: Contemporary Political Issues (pp. 337-342).  Toronto, ON: Nelson Canada.

Cose, Ellis (1998).  Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World.  New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Feinberg, William J. (1984).  At a Snail's Pace: Time to Equality in Simple Models of Affirmative Action Programs.  The American Journal of Sociology, 90(1), 168-181.

Fryer, Roland G. Jr., & Levitt, Steven D. (2004).  The Cause and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names.  The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(3), 767-817.

Fryer, Roland G. Jr., & Loury, Glenn C. (2005).  Affirmative Action and Its Mythology.  Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(3), 147-162.

Henry, P. J., Korfmacher, W., Reyna, C., & Tucker, A. (2005).  Searching for Common Ground between Supporters and Opponents of Affirmative Action.  Political Psychology, 26(5), 667-682.

Jeffrey, Christina F. (1997).  Rethinking Affirmative Action.  Public Productivity & Management Review, 20(3), 228-236.

Livingston, John C. (1979).  Fair Game? Inequality and Affirmative Action.  San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Rossum, Ralph A. (1980).  Reverse Discrimination: The Constitutional Debate.  New York, NY: Marcel Dekker, Inc.

Smith, David L. (1998).  What Is Black Culture? In W. Lubiano (Ed.), The House That Race Built (pp. 178-194).  New York, NY: Vintage Books.

I'm rinsing it out now... Down to the hangar to plug bubbles. Trouble: fill C or default to D... All of the above. When its done; another knotch, my ample belly pierces through the constraints of knowledge, I'm packin' a lunch. Adverse diversions dim perceptions, feeling the tension, always. In hallways, I crawl tall, sometimes fall into a daze. I'm crazed to think my impact will affect and attract the prefects of thesis. The pieces of technocrats at my feet, depleat of reason... my pleas deamed treason.

A liason of lies, to be raised on fries, when the burgers' further their agenda with fervor, and kill off my former self. The home I've left, that I haven't known yet, to which I wish to belong; they consider me foreign. The Ayatulla Diaspora defines my cohorts. I'm lost with no hope. No community, no scope. In the belly of the beast, my life decreased by unrest... I want peace.

Come on... Happy New Years everyone! How monumental is it really!? Literally, we've gone around the sun once. But even that is a trivial matter to celebrate. Really all we're getting excited about is remembering to put down a different number signifying the year AD. But that's just it, the number doesn't measure human existence, but the age of Christianity. We realize just how eurocentric we have gotten to be on a worldwide scale. We are blind, and most fortunate, for we have inherited the world, and think nothing of it. Our underclass isn't the kids who dropout of school with no training, we've given the shittiest jobs with the shittiest wages to the most destitute people half-way across the world, a literal "race to the bottom." What about our blue-collar worker? Is skilled labour on the wane? Why will thousands of Oshawa's autoworkers be losing their jobs to Mexicans? Like our neighbours down in Flynt. I guess this has turned out to be a rant about globalization. Naturally so; globalization is the neo-colonial push for America to permanently implant capitalism ideology planetwide, for them to profit largely, while it serves as their justification. Stop americanism, support individualism.