tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:/feedtitania writes2016-09-01T11:03:41-07:00Erica Razookhttps://titaniawrites.svbtle.comtitaniawrites@gmail.comSvbtle.comtag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/lunch2016-09-01T11:03:41-07:002016-09-01T11:03:41-07:00Just stopping in<p>Main Noodle House on Sixth Avenue near 38th Street is the kind of place one stumbles into solely on the momentum of famish. </p>
<p>Do the red and gold decorations on the wall exist? We might never know, because who would waste a moment to look up.</p>
<p>In Main Noodle House on Sixth Avenue near 38th Street, they get what they need - a swift production of food, and more importantly, a well-kept promise of voracious, rapid consumption without fear of being recognized, observed or engaged.</p>
<p>When it’s over, they will leave as quickly as they came, without the slightest memory of what transpired or how. They’ll reemerge into their hopelessly busy empty day, at least now passing through it with the familiar comfort of a heavy, satiated stomach. </p>
<p>And that is good enough for today. It usually always is.</p>
<p>The barista in the coffee shop asks her what she would like. She responds with a gaze into her eyes so deep that says on its own, thank you for asking about my psychological well-being; that hasn’t happened in a while. After an infinite two second moment, she says, “hi. How are you?”</p>
<p>“I’m exhausted. But, I’m here.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, me too. Double espresso, please.”</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/forget-the-fat-lady-a-growing-choir-of-black-leaders-sings-hillno2016-07-15T09:45:28-07:002016-07-15T09:45:28-07:00Forget the fat lady: a growing choir of black leaders sings #HillNo<p>One would be hard pressed to identify a human rights movement in the United States that was not led by or substantially bolstered by African American leadership. Black activists, theologians, intellectuals, writers, politicians, artists and sports figures have, throughout the history of the country, led it, spiritually, culturally and legally, to some of its finest moments.</p>
<p>In the wake of <a href="http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2016/jul/14/usa-danger-zone-police-murders-black-people-rising/" rel="nofollow">ongoing waves of murders</a> and other brutal, violent attacks on black people in the US, non-black Americans of good conscience will look to black voices to guide their moral compass of how to move forward.</p>
<p>The country’s response to the most recent spate of violence is overlapping with the final moments of its presidential primary election season, and in both arenas, an enough-is-enough perspective is taking hold.</p>
<p>Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza stated unequivocally in an interview with Melissa Harris-Perry, when asked if the Bernie Sanders voter/supporter would vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, <a href="http://masscentral.com/the-blacklivesmatter-movement-wont-support-hilary-clinton-elle/" rel="nofollow">“absolutely not,”</a> citing, among other reasons, the legacy of mass incarceration of black people under Clintonian law and policy.</p>
<p>(While not specifically entering the political realm, in February, Beyonce and Jay-Z’s promised <a href="http://www.bet.com/news/music/2016/02/08/jay-z-makes-a-generous-contribution-to-black-lives-matter.html" rel="nofollow">$1.5 million donation to Black Lives Matter</a> was received by affiliated groups within the movement.)</p>
<p>In supporting Green Party candidate Jill Stein rather than Hillary Clinton yesterday, one of Sanders’ top surrogates, Dr. Cornel West both criticized President Obama, saying he’s “failed victims of racism and police brutality” and explained that “I have a deep love for my brother Bernie Sanders, but I disagree with him on Hillary Clinton. I don’t think she would be an ‘outstanding president’. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/14/barack-obama-us-racism-police-brutality-failed-victims" rel="nofollow">Her militarism makes the world a less safe place.”</a></p>
<p>In the same week, chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University, Professor Eddie S. Glaude, Jr, penned for Time magazine his reasoning for not supporting Secretary Clinton: “I am not suggesting that anti-racism or anti-sexism (or identity politics generally) don’t matter. But they can’t provide cover for business as usual—<a href="http://time.com/4402823/glaude-hillary-clinton/" rel="nofollow">a version of neoliberalism dressed in multicultural Chanel.</a>”</p>
<p>Professor Glaude has previously expressed his concern that <a href="http://time.com/4235720/democrats-sanders-clinton-black-voters/" rel="nofollow">America is suffering from an imagination crisis</a>, <a href="https://titaniawrites.svbtle.com/never-ever-lose-our-sense-of-imagination" rel="nofollow">an antidote to which I found via the Sanders campaign</a>.</p>
<p>The tide continues to gain force. In today’s Washington Post, professor Stacey Patton excoriated Secretary Clinton’s response to police violence in which the democratic candidate called for “unity.” Professor Patton instead called for direct accountability and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/15/we-dont-need-lincoln-inspired-racial-unity-we-need-whites-to-stop-being-racist/" rel="nofollow">highlighted the dangers of revisionist history</a> about politicians’ support for black freedom struggles.</p>
<p>These recent statements, of course, build on earlier critiques of Secretary Clinton’s candidacy from within the black public intellectual and artistic community, including from author <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/02/yes-i-will-be-voting-for-bernie-sanders/462183/" rel="nofollow">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>, lawyer, professor and author <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/" rel="nofollow">Michelle Alexander, (“The New Jim Crow”)</a> and rapper and civil rights activist <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-orangeburg-hbcu-killer-mike" rel="nofollow">Run the Jewels front-man Killer Mike</a>.</p>
<p>The changed environment from earlier in the election season, however, leaves much less space for DNC centrists to charge that diehard <a href="http://usuncut.com/politics/establishment-labeling-bernieorbust-privileged/" rel="nofollow">Sanders supporters act out of sense of white privilege</a>. Instead, the growing convergence of the Black Lives Matter and so-called “Bernie or Bust” populations is the clearest statement yet that the political stance against incrementalism in the deciding of the fundamental rights to be free from physical, economic and environmental violence is anything but a position of privilege.</p>
<p>For months, the media and the numbers have told us there is an undying black allegiance to the Clintons. One can point to a range of factors as to how that narrative was formed, including by stifling the voices of progressive black constituents, by almost everyone. (See, for example, #BernieMadeMeWhite on Twitter.) Regardless of what might have been the prevailing story of yesterday, however, it is not the proverbial fat lady who is singing today. </p>
<p>From what I see on the streets (especially as protests against police brutality have marched by my apartment building in Brooklyn) and in social media, there is unity developing – amongst people who’ve had enough with pandering and empty promises. There is growing unity; t’s just not the unity that Secretary Clinton and her superdelegates in the Democratic Party elite might have been hoping for.</p>
<p>But unlike those who would call the likes of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein “spoilers,” this wave of black thought and morality leadership is arriving at a moment when the DNC power structure could still adapt and overcome – in Philadelphia.</p>
<h1 id="seeyouinphilly-as-they-say_1">SeeYouInPhilly. As they say. <a class="head_anchor" href="#seeyouinphilly-as-they-say_1" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h1>tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/never-ever-lose-our-sense-of-imagination2016-07-12T10:27:36-07:002016-07-12T10:27:36-07:00Never, ever lose our sense of imagination<p>There are so many ways to die.</p>
<p>Our sack of bones and tissues are easily smushed by any number of physically stronger forces. And, presumably, that’s the end.</p>
<p>For some, the threat of irrelevance seems a pretty crushing blow.</p>
<p>More devastating, perhaps, has always been, for me, the loss of imagination. To not be inspired beyond the immediate backdrop of one’s life and its possibilities essentially signals a certain complacency with, a surrender to, the results of a power structure comprised largely by those who feared irrelevance. In other words, to agree to a landscape designed, overwhelmingly, by the living dead.</p>
<p>Without imagination, what is there but the triumph of corruption? </p>
<p>To be unable to escape a current reality with a vision of something else, something more, do we not, at that point, cease to exist as individuals? If we do not make our own spaces? If we simply ruminate within the boxes constructed by negotiations other people had. Compromises other people made. When we weren’t there.</p>
<p>If we do not make our own spaces, and guard them meaningfully, will our souls not be the dear, alligators, raccoons foraging for food in their own territories, the forests and swamps converted quietly and relentlessly, before their eyes, into the enclaves of homes built by others, for others? Will we not be hushed and persecuted and disappeared by the new inhabitants trying to enjoy their peaceful occupation undisturbed?</p>
<p>If we allow our imagination to be held hostage by the thieves called subsistence, endurance, success, in the current modes of measurements and benchmarks of these concepts, are we not merely sitting in a hot car on a hot day with the windows sealed? Do we not, at some point, wilt? Do we not, at some point, die?</p>
<p>Is there something so frightful about imagination? Why else would we bury it below our piles of wretched tasks and priorities? Why else would we honor the prophets of the past but fear and marginalize the ones in front of us? Is it just so much easier, so much safer, so much less work to agree to die? Avoid confrontation, avoid ourselves, be grateful for a half life and agree to sit there, and as an outcome, let our very life-forces melt into the upholstery in the breathless, searing, suffocating heat?</p>
<p>How do we, even so weary, crack those windows open, breathe again and stay alive? </p>
<p>There is a 17-month old boy I’m quite fond of. He walks, he runs, he investigates, he plays. He smiles, he laughs, he “reads” voraciously, he even dances a bit. And sometimes, in all his gusto, he falls. After a fall, he’ll pause in a moment of silence, but not more than a moment, before he utters “boom!” and then picks himself up and carries on with previously conceived glorious gusto.</p>
<p>Boom! </p>
<p>Now, what? Cry? Stop smiling, laughing, interrogating, investigating, wondering? Those questions do not seem to even enter his mind. And why would they? He’s alive.</p>
<p>Boom. </p>
<p>Boom.</p>
<p>Boom.</p>
<p>Now what? </p>
<p>Keep living. Keep imagining something better, with every new lesson we’ve learned informing our moral compass. Keep trusting, keep feeding our ever expanding sense of imagination of what can be.</p>
<p>When presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told a packed house in the Town Hall near Times Square, as he spoke of the tragedies facing Americans – homelessness, polluted water, violence and incarceration – to “never, ever lose your sense of outrage,” he was right.</p>
<p>Bernie was right. But the message was not complete. Outrage without imagination is a path toward disillusionment. If outrage wakes us up, imagination can carry us forward.</p>
<p>Let us not ever lose our sense of imagination.</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/how-bernies-courage-forces-us-to-find-our-own2016-04-15T13:36:56-07:002016-04-15T13:36:56-07:00How Bernie's Courage Forces Us to Find Our Own<p>Someone who lives a principled life can invoke inspiration or guilt and sometimes both simultaneously. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBGbhshnGCg" rel="nofollow">media clips</a> and <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/07/22/20_examples_of_bernie_sanders_powerful_record_on_civil_and_human_rights_partner/" rel="nofollow">evidence</a> of vintage Bernie Sanders project to many of our eyes and ears for the first time his lifelong commitment to the quality of life of working people, fairness and integrity in governance and markets, and allegiance to the fundamental rights of the discriminated, it’s not surprising that in addition to the tens of thousands gathering in public spaces out of inspiration, there are also many of us gathering (often in online spaces) out of guilt.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshaunking%2Fvideos%2Fvb.799539910084929%2F1033447310027520%2F%3Ftype%3D3&show_text=0&width=560" width="560" height="315" style="border:none;overflow:hidden;"></iframe>
<p>It would be hard to have lived as much of a life of consistency to values and beliefs as Sanders. Even the <a href="http://time.com/4077507/larry-david-snl-bernie-sanders/" rel="nofollow"><em>Saturday Night Live</em> parody of him</a>, a la “I own one pair of underwear. That’s it. Some of these billionaires have three, four pairs,” is not that far off from his actual repudiation of materialism and keeping up with the Joneses lifestyle. Talking to reporters in Iowa, he clarified that while the <em>SNL</em> underwear joke was not reality, it is true that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-larry-david-underwear_us_5624ee76e4b0bce347013f2b" rel="nofollow">as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he owned one suit</a>. When he was elected to Senate, he upped it to a few more, he said.</p>
<p>That’s almost impossible for our realty-tv-fabulous-wealth-selfie-obsessed culture to understand, let alone believe. </p>
<p>His no nonsense, no frills lifestyle feeds seamlessly his political and economic platform.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Educating your workforce? That’s not revolutionary. That’s common sense,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAyqQlUiuBY" rel="nofollow">he explained with characteristic collected assuredness</a> to a crowd, of estimates ranging from 27,000-49,000, in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-hanley/bernie-sanders-historic-r_b_9691736.html" rel="nofollow">Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan this week</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a city whose politics are known for being <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/in-ny-sanders-says-settlements-are-illegal-and-israel-slaughtered-innocents-in-gaza/" rel="nofollow">heavily influenced by hawkish Israeli lobbying</a>, he’s remained committed, in just about every public appearance, including the nationally televised <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/4/15/11437832/bernie-sanders-just-shattered-an-american-taboo-on-israel" rel="nofollow">Brooklyn Democratic Debate last night</a>, to his view that Israeli aggression against Palestinians has been disproportionate and unacceptable, and that this view does not conflict with his opinion that Israel has a right to defend itself, and to exist.</p>
<p>His courage has inspired many more than we even know. That’s probably because even when people express that transfer of courage, those quotes <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/04/why-media-ownership-matters" rel="nofollow">don’t make it to the final published story</a>. <a href="http://www.bestpoliticalmeltdowns.com/online-polls-show-bernie-won-debate-in-landslide-which-means-the-media-will-hand-the-win-to-clinton/" rel="nofollow">And reception of and support for his courage is erased by major outlets</a>. When I voted in <a href="http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/04/poll_who_won_thursdays_democratic_debate.html" rel="nofollow">this nj.com poll today</a>, it showed Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly winning last night’s debate:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/yrquuws8ibj9w.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/yrquuws8ibj9w_small.jpg" alt="njcom poll who won bklyn debate 15 apr 2016.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Nonetheless, <em>The Washington Post,</em> for example, concludes Hillary won, seemingly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/14/winners-and-losers-from-the-9th-democratic-presidential-debate/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_debate-1115pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" rel="nofollow">based on the tweets of people who follow it</a>.</p>
<p>It’s understandable that a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6" rel="nofollow">media industry controlled by a small, wealthy elite</a>, the <a href="http://theantimedia.org/crony-hillary-clinton/" rel="nofollow">same elite who fund Sander’s democratic opponent</a>, would pull out the stops – intentionally and subconsciously, I presume – to stop the kind of infinite courage loop Sanders is inspiring.</p>
<p>Just like fear, courage is contagious. As Gloria Steinem once said, “whenever one person stands up and says, ‘wait a minute, this is wrong,’ it helps other people to do the same.”</p>
<p>That is what Sanders is doing. He’s helping us to stand up and say, hey, this is wrong. Violence is wrong, domestically and abroad. Corruption is wrong. Division amongst ourselves is wrong. His courage is contagious and his integrity feeds its staying power.</p>
<p>That is an extremely frightening prospect to anyone realizing or feeling guilt for their own participation in the frauds Sanders exposes. In studying the psychology of corruption, I’ve concluded that fear, shame and guilt, more than potential pecuniary loss, fuels the oppression of the whistleblower.</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>Even those of us not on the top of the 1% pyramid are being confronted with a dose of moral correction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We may feel guilty that we haven’t done as much as he did with his means. We may feel guilty if we’ve never taken a public stance on an unpopular issue. We may feel guilty if we realize our complacence is part of the problem Sanders is shining a spotlight on. </p>
<p>I’ve decided to stay home in the US for this election season, putting on hold overseas anti-corruption work. We have plenty of corruption to address in the US. </p>
<p>Transparency International annually publishes a <a href="http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview" rel="nofollow">corruption perception index</a>, which tends to highlight African and other non-Western nations highly on corruption perceptions. This benchmark has always annoyed me because it is abused so easily to spin common beliefs about who is corrupt, rather than who thinks they are corrupt, as it may intend. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We Americans don’t tend to perceive ourselves as corrupt. We launder our corruption in legality in many ways, and draft our legislation in terms of the corrupt practices of others. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’ve said more than once that Nigerians are some of the most honest people I’ve met. Though the country regularly makes headlines for various illicit outflows of public assets out of the treasury, my moments in Abuja were characterized by the openness by which society labeled and called out official corruption and massive theft. </p>
<p>I’ve saved for continuing inspiration a 2014 tweet from a friend, Nigerian lawyer and author Elnathan John <a href="http://www.groveatlantic.com/?title=Born+on+a+Tuesday" rel="nofollow"><em>(Born On a Tuesday)</em></a>:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/thrgolqgjk5vna.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/thrgolqgjk5vna_small.jpg" alt="Screenshot_2014-10-05-10-49-15_1.jpg"></a></p>
<p>It forced me to reflect if comfortable Americans could do the same.</p>
<p>Luckily, the comfy class is now being assisted by a <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/323698-walmart-protests-black-friday/" rel="nofollow">growing class</a> of courageous <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/11/protesting-shameful-greed-40000-verizon-workers-set-strike-wednesday" rel="nofollow">working Americans</a> who are simply refusing to be quiet any longer, and by a slew of reports on <a href="http://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/Broken_at_the_Top_FINAL_EMBARGOED_4.12.2016.pdf" rel="nofollow">corporate tax dodging</a>, <a href="https://panamapapers.icij.org/" rel="nofollow">offshore (and onshore) vehicles for tax avoidance</a>, and the realities of our <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746" rel="nofollow">oligarchic levels of money in politics</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of succumbing to guilt, let’s at least be open enough to say we can be better, now. We can admit that while no one is perfect, and we should never endow martyrdom on any public servant, Bernie Sanders is a pretty principled, consistent, honorable citizen. With his historical and current practice of courage, he represents, in many ways, the best of what we can be, and, that’s why he should be president.</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/bernie-is-a-white-man-and-thats-ok2016-04-01T07:37:40-07:002016-04-01T07:37:40-07:00Bernie is a white man. And that's ok.<p>I remember last year when the US presidential candidates surfaced, and, with all due respect to Dr. Carson, I thought, “wow, it’s going to be so weird to have a white president again.”</p>
<p>As this long election season has played itself out, though, and I’ve <a href="http://qz.com/644985/privilege-is-what-allows-sanders-supporters-to-say-theyll-never-vote-for-clinton/" rel="nofollow">“checked my privilege”</a> and all that, I’ve come to the conclusion that Bernie is a white man. And that’s ok.</p>
<p>Even though it’s true that the majority of <a href="http://time.com/3934980/right-wing-extremists-white-terrorism-islamist-jihadi-dangerous/" rel="nofollow">domestic terrorists in the US are white</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-bank-diversity-2015-8" rel="nofollow">Wall Street upper ranks</a> are overwhelmingly white men, not to mention the many white male faces of police brutality, I still think we should give Bernie the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>It’s quite enough to take on big money and power, everything <em>status quo</em> and call for revolution in one fell swoop; Bernie Sanders is also faced with convincing certain female and black Americans that he’s their strongest candidate, notwithstanding being, unapologetically, exactly who he is – a white man.</p>
<p>Early on and ages ago, Hillary Clinton made it perfectly clear her plan to get popular support amongst democrats would center on being a woman, and the implicit one-dimensional interpretation of feminism that equates it wholly and exclusively with women, and then adopting whatever Bernie said that proved popular, all whilst being a woman, which made her “better.” She’d also invoke President Obama and her husband, the alleged “first black president” <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/08/toni-morrison-wasnt-giving-bill-clinton-a-compliment/402517/" rel="nofollow">a la Toni Morrison circa 1998</a>, when it came time to prove she was also “black.”</p>
<p>Saturday Night Live captured this phenomenon with sartorial precision when its Hillary character proclaimed, “in 2008 of course I lost, but I was running against a cool black guy. But this year, <a href="https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/democratic-debate-cold-open/2922867" rel="nofollow">I thought I got to be the cool black guy</a>.”</p>
<p>Bernie, for all of the content I’ve watched, which is probably way too much, hasn’t tried to be the cool black guy. Or a woman. And his now trademark Brooklyn Jewish accent and isms, and discussion of Israel prove he’s not trying to hide his religious or cultural background either.</p>
<p>(Michigan (amongst other states’) <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/09/bernie-sanders-won-americas-largest-arab-community-by-being-open-to-them/" rel="nofollow">voters have already dispelled the myth</a> that Arab and Muslim Americans would shy away from a Jewish candidate.)</p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/gloria-steinem-young-women-support-sanders-meet-boys-article-1.2522753" rel="nofollow">Hillary-Gloria Steinem SNAFU</a> went down (wherein Steinem said young women support Bernie to meet boys), Bernie joked that the noted feminist had once <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/01/time-bernie-sanders-became-honorary-woman" rel="nofollow">described him as an honorary woman</a>. He accepted the statement for what it was intended to be – a compliment and testament to his commitment to women’s equality – <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/politics/bernie-sanders-honorary-woman-gloria-steinem/" rel="nofollow">but admitted he didn’t really know what that meant</a>, to be an honorary woman.</p>
<p>Similarly, I don’t expect to ever see Bernie donning a pair of sunglasses and playing the sax on late night television. I don’t imagine he’ll be singing in black churches.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He’s not trying to be black, a woman, or not Jewish. His authenticity is the greatest testament to the reliability of his platform and its coherency to equality – you don’t have to be black to fight against discrimination, you don’t have to be a woman to be feminist, you don’t have to be Christian or Muslim to identify with their lives. You just have to have values, and act accordingly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sometimes his presentation and that of his supporters has <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/a-b-wilkinson/racial-blind-spots-the-gh_b_9406626.html" rel="nofollow">come off as tone deaf</a> to the persecution of black Americans and can feel miles away from the day to day reality of, as Dr. Beth Richie describes, “the prison nation” that, disproportionately, black people in the US contend with.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/why-black-voters-dont-feel-the-bern-213707" rel="nofollow">I haven’t heard anyone argue</a> that his campaign is as glossy fresh as President Obama’s was. And the Occupy Wall Street feel of some of his organizing base can definitely be a challenege to interact with, if you’re not a part of that club.</p>
<p>But I’m exhausted by decision making on the basis of marketing and packaging. And I know that Bernie has been Bernie long before white millennials started <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/march-for-bernie-is-an-occupy-wall-street-homecoming-20160131" rel="nofollow">organizing in Zuccotti Park</a>. (Sarah Silverman puts a nice collection of vintage Bernie moments together <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBGbhshnGCg" rel="nofollow">here</a>.)</p>
<p>Though Susan Sarandon has taken a beating for <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/03/30/yes_susan_sarandon_is_guilty_of_blind_privilege_why_her_comments_about_trump_the_revolution_are_so_wrong/" rel="nofollow">“her privilege” being the reason</a> she can refuse to commit to vote for Hillary should she win the nomination, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/" rel="nofollow">Michelle Alexander forewarned/asked</a>, in a recent Nation piece, if she and her fellow African Americans were really going to fall for this again? Ms. Alexander’s point is heavily reminiscent of a famous speech Malcolm X gave in Detroit in 1964, the <a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/mx.html" rel="nofollow">Ballot or the Bullet</a>, in which he implored fellow black Americans to not fall for the theatrics of party politics, especially without getting anything in return. </p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>Were Ms. Alexander and Malcolm also speaking from privilege?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having worked on grand corruption cases for the last six and a half years with people – in government, media and civil society in the US, Europe and Africa – I’ve seen how massive thievery of public assets is part and parcel of the societal oppressions that are more tangibly felt in our everyday. I very much agree with commentators who have pointed out that Bernie’s economic justice, anticorruption and antiracism agendas are very similar to where <a href="http://observer.com/2016/02/bernie-sanders-is-todays-martin-luther-king-of-economic-justice/" rel="nofollow">Martin Luther King</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MALCOLMXFILES/videos/1650329171914725/" rel="nofollow">Malcolm X</a> stood decades earlier.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watch-killer-mike-cornel-west-chat-with-bernie-sanders-about-mlks-legacy-20160119" rel="nofollow">MLK Jr Day chat with Bernie</a>, rapper/activist Killer Mike responded to Bernie’s question about why working class white Americans vote against their interest [and support the elitist fiscal policy of the Republican Party]. His answer was clear and powerful: “I understand how holding on to that whiteness can be the only thing you got. When you ain’t got nothing, whatever someone tells you you got, you got…I’m just saying, it’s time to smarten up.” Dr. Cornel West laid the political context to describe the phenomenon as a legacy of white supremacy:</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>“if they can scapegoat the most vulnerable, [they can] identify with the powerful symbolically, even as the powerful are still manipulating and dominating them.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Dr. West’s description extends beyond Trump supporters.</p>
<p>Economic inequality and all varieties of division, discrimination and hate are comfortable bedfellows. When things get bad, it’s nice to be able to blame someone else. Or, at least, it’s nice for the corrupt leaders to have us blaming people who don’t look like us, so they can evade any accountability for their own participation in the problem.</p>
<p>Since we now have extreme inequality, we should not be surprised by extreme expressions of fear and hate of the other. Everyone feels oppressed and angry and taken advantage of – whites, blacks, Muslims, women, youth, immigrants, and on and on. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-inequality-top-01-worth-as-much-as-the-bottom-90" rel="nofollow">That’s because the 1% percent thing is real</a>. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy" rel="nofollow">It means 99% of this country got beef</a>. So 99% of us are all fighting with each other while various opportunists use each jab as a stepping stool to more power.</p>
<p>In this context, the question of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/" rel="nofollow">reparations for the enslavement of African Americans</a> was raised (as it had been in previous elections). It’s a good question to ask. I’d add some additional claims of indigenous peoples. Bernie took a lot of heat for responding, in the negative, that <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-right-on-reparations/426720/" rel="nofollow">reparations are too divisive</a>. </p>
<p>Those who are working on the issue of reparations should continue to do so. From the recent <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/330934-un-recommends-usa-reparations-slavery/" rel="nofollow">UN working group recommendation</a>, it seems there might be growing space to address the issue. I hope those proponents, including the very eloquent Ta Nahesi Coates, will not drop the topic after election season. Any task as large as that one will take unstoppable persistence, organization and patience, and deserves ongoing commitment, regardless of who the next US president is.</p>
<p>It was, however, an impossible question for a candidate to answer correctly, given the current lack of foundation/support for it amongst the voting public, and the resulting negative answer fed a disproportionate backlash against the most progressive candidate. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The impact seemed to include a surrendering into the “common sense” of supporting the safe, known <em>status quo</em>, if after all, the hero was a fraud.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, the mainstream political and media machines were gunning down any suggestion of the feasibility of economic and social equality with round after round of <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/krugmans-attack-sanders-was-based-economic-study-produced-clinton-supporter" rel="nofollow">so-called economic analysis in barely veiled pro-Hillary opinion pieces</a>.</p>
<p>Is it that hard for us to believe that things could be a lot better than they are now? Do we really have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746" rel="nofollow">no concept of how much wealth, resources and space</a> a very small elite has captured? And how it is used to control information and opinions, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6" rel="nofollow">through the media</a>, which in turn protect the looting? Is it beyond our imagination that an old white guy from Brooklyn, New York might have actually survived 33 years in American politics, 25 of which in federal positions, and still come out swinging with a keep-it-simple-stupid perspective on how to turn things around?</p>
<p>Or do we know all these possibilities are real, but we’re much more comfortable in our little safe prisons, living with the reasonable logic of the devils we know?</p>
<p>I don’t fear a Hillary presidency. I don’t even fear a Trump presidency. I fear if we the people are so fearful of and obedient to exorbitant wealth and power, if we are so fascinated with delusions of the lifestyles of the rich and famous, that even when we see past the packaging, when we know in our hearts what we should do for our own survival and vitality, we don’t do it, because we’re too scared.</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/memories-of-fluff-from-the-corridors-of-slush2016-01-26T06:03:39-08:002016-01-26T06:03:39-08:00Memories of fluff from the corridors of slush<p>In an eerie dream, visions of a mysterious harmless organic substance would seep assuredly into all the tiny crevices of the massive city and, quietly, peacefully, momentarily shut it down. After a full year’s worth of bustling, it would simply overpower every human attempt to do, every ambition, every bit of crazy. </p>
<p>It would not say stop. It would make stop.</p>
<p>Maybe violence was taking a toll. Maybe there was just too much happening. Maybe I had become weary. I had this dream and I wished it would come true. And then it did.</p>
<p>Now we sludge through the tarnished-freezy-sloshy streets adorned with ankle deep puddles of icy soiled waters, heading dutifully to our duties. We concentrate on not slipping and falling on the way. We look forward to our toes being dry and warm by the end of the day, when we’ve removed our street slush armor. We return to the regular. </p>
<p>But, though ages ago it feels, a few days ago, there was this moment of quieting, when clouds of sugar blanketed our lives. And we didn’t do, we were.</p>
<p>It’s nice to remember.</p>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fAJSHOc5UXc"></iframe>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/tossing-mystery-a-2016-resolution2016-01-12T12:36:22-08:002016-01-12T12:36:22-08:00Tossing mystery, a 2016 resolution<p>The time has come and gone to announce the ways in which we will endeavor to improve ourselves over the next 12 months, but sometimes late is [most likely] better than never. </p>
<p>This year, I’m giving up mystery. (Aka, I just can’t even with mystery anymore.)</p>
<p>I’m done with doing and tolerating “ghosting,” the passive aggressive, the elusive, the avoidance. </p>
<p>All of these tactics, mechanisms of communication or non-communication, I’m convinced, waste time, undermine trust, develop unnecessary turmoil and psychoses, and keep us from self-realization. </p>
<p>The adage, ‘practice makes perfect’ comes into play - if what I “practice” is engaging in and accepting from others less than forthright attitudes and behaviors, I fear that’s what we’ll perfect - being untrue and unaccountable to ourselves and others. </p>
<p>The exception that might swallow the rule is not feeling obligated to engage with everyone who might - justifiably or unjustifiably - seek one’s time and attention. But I think that exception can be respectfully limited by the revised expectations that develop from a consistent practice of communicative honesty. </p>
<p>Herein goes nothing.</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/a-letter-to-hillary-clinton2016-01-09T21:37:28-08:002016-01-09T21:37:28-08:00A letter to Hillary Clinton<p>Dear Hillary,</p>
<p>Walking home through the park this evening, I started imagining what it would be like to meet you at a cocktail party, and what I would say if we met. Since that might well never happen, I decided to write you a letter instead. And, since I might not be able to get a letter delivered to you, I decided to post it here on my blog.</p>
<p>You know, as a woman, I really, really want to want you to win. I go to bed at night hoping tomorrow’s headlines will give me something I can proudly post on Facebook and Twitter. Something that will make me walk to my train stop with a bit more skip in my step about the prospects of our first woman president – and how she’ll make things so much better.</p>
<p>I so want to be excited about your candidacy.</p>
<p>But I can’t. You know all the reasons why, so I’ll skip the populist pitch and the feminist pitch. And, especially, the anti-war pitch. (But, yes, those reasons.)</p>
<p>You gotta give us something, though. Even Barack (since we’re on a first name basis) gave us hope. Hope is something. </p>
<p>For example, with the emails, I kept daydreaming, maybe Hillary will become an information privacy champion. Maybe she’ll point out that whistle-blowers show us that no server is secure, and that true security comes from trust and accountability. Maybe she’ll turn this around and we’d start to restore civility against the ever increasing norm of non-stop surveillance.</p>
<p>I know. That was wishful thinking.</p>
<p>But still – right now, the numbers don’t look so good. Do you want to risk losing twice without having stood for anything? Without having made a memorable mark? What will people remember? All the moneyed supporters in the world can’t buy a legacy.</p>
<p>The <em>It Takes a Village</em> theme – it’s a good one. And yet our village is being torn apart, displaced and deprived of security, education and opportunity. Corruption, greed and impunity have undermined its very conceptual and physical foundations. </p>
<p>Money doesn’t build villages, people do. </p>
<p>Invest in people to realize the village. A village that is not at war with other villages all the time, or too expensive for us to live in. One that has learned peaceful existence and co-existence. Where we know we’ll be okay when we’re vulnerable, sick and old. </p>
<p>It’s a solid American dream. Return to it. Stick with it. Run with it.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Erica Razook</p>
<p>Brooklyn, New York</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/leaf-portraits-looking-up-in-prospect-park-82015-11-08T15:52:37-08:002015-11-08T15:52:37-08:00Leaf Portraits <p>Looking up in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York, USA</p>
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<p>All photos, copyright Titania Returns, LLC, 2015. All Rights Reserved.</p>
tag:titaniawrites.svbtle.com,2014:Post/turn-off-the-donald-or-get-what-we-ask-for2015-08-08T09:32:25-07:002015-08-08T09:32:25-07:00From 1988 to 2015: hoodwinking, fraud and hate in US presidential debates<p>It´s quite obvious now that Donald Trump is intentionally spewing <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/8/3/9089495/donald-trump-racist" rel="nofollow">racist</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/08/so-which-women-has-donald-trump-called-dogs-and-fat-pigs/" rel="nofollow">sexist</a> and otherwise <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/donald-trump-5-craziest-comments-gop-debate-121124.html" rel="nofollow">polarizing and degrading one-liners</a> to capture the attention of the American public. </p>
<p>Sadly, the tactic of extreme baiting and rallying of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/just-listen/201507/the-psychological-appeal-donald-trump" rel="nofollow">people’s fears, disappointments and insecurities</a> has worked well for him so far. But should it be allowed in televised debates?</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Whether his raunchy appeal wears thin or results in actual impact in the elections, in the end, is it fair to drag the targets of these rants - mostly non-white people and women - through months of humiliating, objectifying attacks for the purpose of some strange entertainment? And is it fair to everyone else to be distracted and manipulated in this way?</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of Trump’s most outrageous displays, the Thursday night GOP debate, earned Fox News some of its highest ever ratings, with a <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/07/media/gop-debate-fox-news-ratings/" rel="nofollow">record 24 million viewers</a>, “bigger than all of this year’s NBA Finals and MLB World Series games, and most of the year’s NFL match-ups”. Viewership means advertising dollars and profits, which signals to executives to produce more of the same.</p>
<p>Should they be allowed to profit from what may be - or may be getting very close to - hate speech?</p>
<p>Ironically, it was The League of Women Voters which began sponsorship of additional election season debates, in 1976. But as the parties demanded more and more control over format, moderators, and other conditions, <a href="http://lwv.org/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud" rel="nofollow">LWV withdrew sponsorship in 1988, stating</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates…because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fast forward to 2015: Fox/Facebook sponsored debate filled with disparaging jabs at women, received by a cheering, laughing audience, all the while, a civil rights group, <a href="http://www.dreamdefenders.org/wtfig" rel="nofollow">DreamDefenders was censored</a> via deletion of their account on Instagram (owned by Facebook) during the debate. </p>
<p>Regulation of hate speech tends to depend on the standard of <a href="http://www.unc.edu/courses/2010spring/law/357c/001/HateSpeech/Legality.html" rel="nofollow">whether the speech would incite violence</a>. So, should we revolt? </p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Well, we can <a href="https://www.change.org/p/federal-election-commission-remove-hate-speech-from-presidential-debates?recruiter=13497604&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink" rel="nofollow">call on the Federal Elections Commission</a>, which oversees the Commission on Presidential Debates, to promulgate and make public regulations which would stop this kind of abusive speech and penalize violators.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This isn’t about silencing someone.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/22/third-party-groups-sue-f-e-c-to-try-to-open-up-presidential-debates/" rel="nofollow">Other candidates deserve attention</a> consumed by the irrelevant, sexist banter spewed by Trump. And we deserve to hear them.</p>
<p>Did Ohio Governor John Kasich <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/06/18/kasich-will-never-give-up-fight-to-expand-medicaid.html" rel="nofollow">quote the Bible</a> in explaining his programs to <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121395/john-kasichs-passion-poor-rankling-conservative-christians" rel="nofollow">assist the mentally ill and reduce prison populations</a>? That seems worth exploring. </p>
<p>How exactly do Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/08/07/bush-rubio-spar-over-common-core-state-standards-in-gop-debate/" rel="nofollow">views on education differ</a> and what are the facts supporting each?</p>
<p>How would the only black candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, approach issues of <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/06/ben-carson-race" rel="nofollow">racial profiling, terrorism attacks and police brutality against black Americans</a>? Maybe he has some ideas we should hear out. What do the others think? </p>
<p>Dr. Carson’s airtime during the debate was so limited, he replied to his second question, 40 minutes into the debate, “well, thank you Megyn, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/250509-carson-jokes-about-neglect-during-gop-debate" rel="nofollow">I wasn’t sure I was going to get to talk again</a>.”</p>
<p>And, how do any of these views compare with those of candidates outside the GOP top contenders?</p>
<p>There’s a real cost to us all if information about the candidates is suppressed in this way. If no governing authority will step in to return dignity to the debates, I say we tune out. #turnoffhate.</p>