Band Review: Tom Barrow and The Mantells

Tom Barrow followed me on Twitter a while back, and so I added him to the list for review. As I started listening this week I saw that in addition to doing his own thing, he also sings for The Mantells, and had a few of their songs on his Soundcloud page. Also, that number of songs just increased, because the Mantells had a new EP coming out. It did not feel right to ignore that, so I am reviewing both. It was the only solution.

There is a somewhat similar sensibility between the two projects, but I would say in the group it gets a bit funkier. This is perfectly logical, because on his own Barrow is acoustic guitar, which tends to be more mellow. Paul Simon fans would probably enjoy him. "Space To Rent" feels laid back, and "Tipsy" is much more sober than you would expect based on the title, but you are more likely to be able to dance to "How To Say It".

Favorites are "Key To The City" by The Mantells, and "Schoolyard Games" for Tom Barrow, but the music overall is easily accessible and worth checking out.

Everyone is from Manchester.

https://www.facebook.com/Tombarrowmusicmanchester

https://soundcloud.com/tombarrowmusic

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHr4iUkAkl9i2u7YfjQDMkg

https://twitter.com/tombarrowmusic

https://www.facebook.com/TheMantells

https://soundcloud.com/themantells

https://twitter.com/TheMantells

Band Review: The Background

I'm afraid this will be a short review, as this week has not been going the way I would want.

The Background is a four member band out of Dallas, Texas. They list themselves as Pop/Rock. They kind of remind me of pop punk, as there is a youthful energy to the sound, but sometimes pop punk can sound vapid, and there is enough heart here to prevent that from being the case. Some songs will add layers with piano or cheers or some extra element to make the music more rich, and I think that's what helps it work out.

Currently unsigned, they have recently released an EP, Sunrise, and it is worth a listen.

If you are near Dallas, they will also be playing at Sons of Hermann Hall on August 23rd.

http://www.wearethebackground.com/

http://thebackground.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDD64CcH2Ec1KaLaon01WnA

https://twitter.com/thebackgroundtx

Understanding satire

Assuming that if someone disagrees with you it is because of a flaw in their understanding is the sort of thing that really holds back humanity, so I'll stress once more that "You just don't understand satire" is really condescending. However, that alone would not have inspired this post.

Instead it comes from the comments that always seem to follow, where not understanding satire is paired with needing a sense of humor and never having heard of "A Modest Proposal". The problem with this reasoning is that "A Modest Proposal" is not a laugh riot.

It's actually pretty horrible, and I don't mean horrible in a "He wants people to eat babies! That awful, awful man!" way. It is horrible in exactly the way that satire is supposed to be, which is what makes it work.

Through English exploitation, agricultural regulation, and other factors, the Irish economic situation was dire. Some people did very well, but there were many people who could find no employment other than begging, and they were ragged and starving, including children. Swift references that, and very logically explains how the poor being able to sell their children for food solves all of this. Details like food preparation, time periods, and projected numbers are all covered and sound completely reasonable.

Of course any normal person recoils at eating babies, but as he points out that these children are not provided for, and that their lives are misery, it raises the question that if eating them is wrong, why is letting them starve right? Because that is what happens under the current situation, and it is set up that way so some may profit; is this superior to cannibalism?

There are features of satire that are adjacent to humor. "A Modest Proposal" is clever. The line about the landlords having the most right to the children as they have already devoured the parents? That's pretty on the nose. There is parody of the common tracts of the day. It can be offensive. There is the twist where the author gives you something you were not expecting. All of those things sound like it could be funny, but it really isn't comic.

Maybe this means that people actually don't understand satire. I read a few student comments that they were surprised upon reading the essay, because they were expecting satire, and then they realized what Swift was doing. I am going to interpret this as meaning that they were expecting satire to be funny and then realized that it was more effective the way it was. Or maybe they came around to the practicality of eating Irish babies, but I hope it wasn't that.

Satire works by taking what is familiar and everyday, but combining it with something repulsive that we cannot accept, but not so far removed from what happens in the status quo, thus making us question our acceptance of the status quo. So Animal Farm has funny parts and it is so clever, but if you are not disturbed by Boxer's death, it is less effective. Brazil can have laughs, but is it a comedy?

Obviously it can be easy for satire to go wrong, and I think it is useful to look at a failed satire as well, so I refer to Bret Harte's poem "Plain Language from Truthful James", otherwise known as "The Heathen Chinee."

Harte was sympathetic to the Chinese immigrants in California, who faced a great deal of prejudice and abuse. In the poem, two white men and one Chinese man play euchre, and while the Chinese man said he was not familiar with the game, and while at least one of the white men was egregiously cheating, the Chinese man is winning, which is because he is cheating too. The other cheater complains about being ruined by "Chinese cheap labor" and then physically attacks him.

The poem became very popular. Opponents of Chinese immigrants quoted it all the time. The first time I saw it was in Best Loved Poems of the American People, and there was no disclaimer that it was satire; so I just thought it was really racist.

Harte was embarrassed by this, and he did try and write a make-up piece, "Wan Lee" but Wan Lee had some honesty issues too, so Harte's sympathy may have been hampered by his own prejudices.

The poem is not a great poem, in terms of meter and clarity, but it did have elements of parody and some of the things you would expect to see in satire. I think its problem was that nothing was horrible enough. Hypocrisy, complaining about cheap Chinese labor, beating the laborers, having riots where Chinese people were killed and their property destroyed, that was all ordinary and acceptable. If only Bill Nye had cheated, but he blamed it on Ah Sin, would they have cared then? Instead of helping, Harte added fuel to the fire.

It may have simply been a situation where satire was not going to be effective. Satire is not for everything. Humor is not for everything.

And most importantly, humor and satire are not synonyms. Repeat that as many times as it takes.

Colbert, Zepps, and Park: One more time!

In March I wrote about the CancelColbert hash tag. This included a reference to Suey Park's interview with Josh Zepps, and the way he condescended to her, talked over her, and called her opinion stupid right before she cut the interview short.

As I was writing about attempts to silence women, I had been thinking about Zepps' attitude a lot, and just as I posted, there it was in my timeline again.

It came from Nick Katkevich, asking first about Zepps not being fired, and then if he had ever apologized to Suey: " As a fellow white bro, I know it's hard to reflect on our privilege, but its got to be done"

Zepps: It does. I reflect constantly on my privilege. The solution to bigotry is robust dialog, not pouting censoriousness.

Me: That's why talking over her telling you about her experience, instead of listening to her, was so rotten.

New person (over 2 tweets, errors are his):

she didn't relay her experience she spent 5 minutes insulting anyone that was white 1/2

and then when shut down acted all offended and refused to expalin why. 2/2

Me: Seeing his mind was closed, and it was, she moved on. Feel free to do the same.

The reason that I think this is kind of perfect is that the new guy is telling me what I saw, even though I saw it. Of course he's on Zepps' side!

I did rewatch the interview, because I am conscientious like that, and I stand by my previous evaluation.

First of all, I notice that Zepps quoted the foundation name, knowing that was repeating the offensive language, and he seems to enjoy doing it. I had not picked up on that the first time.

Secondly, the tweet he uses from Park specifically says that they are going for an apology, not cancellation, and her first response is really talking about why you use severe language (like "cancel") to get a response.

Next up is Zepps asking if she understands satire, which is a remarkably condescending question, but I will have more to say on that later. Park nonetheless gives a reasonable response about how you should punch up instead of down with humor.

Zepps asks whether it doesn't make more sense to go after Snyder than Colbert, and Park refers to her efforts in that area. This is where she first mentions white people, though it is specifically white liberals, and says that there are things they can do and that the backlash is more this feeling that they can't have fun anymore, which I think is an accurate assessment.

In giving that background, Park refers to the term "orientalism" which is a real concept that refers to real things that continue to be an issue, but Zepps calls the term stupid, and that it would be silly to get mad over the use of the word. He probably means it would be silly to object to the use of the word "Oriental" while she is talking about people doing the things that would fall under "orientalism", but then he needs to point out that it wasn't Colbert himself, it was the show's PR, which is not that strong a point, and talks over her some more.

(A lot of his points are things I addressed in my original post, which I will link to at the end.)

This is where Park points out that as a white male he is not in a position to understand how people of color might feel about it. Zepps interrupts again to say that being white doesn't mean he can't think, Park calls him out for being patronizing, Zepps tells her she can have an opinion but it's a stupid opinion.

At this point Park tells him that she is not going to enact the labor, and why, and the interview ends.

Responding to my new friend, this is not five minutes of insulting whites. (I am a white liberal, if anyone was wondering.)

Telling me that I do not understand racism the same way that someone who experiences it is accurate. The truth can be used as an insult, but I don't think that's the case here, and I doubt it would have been said at all if Zepps had been offering any respect. Judging only by this interaction I would say Zepps is a horrible interviewer, but maybe he is more respectful with men.

Actually, listening respectfully to all people might be a good point for Zepps, but there were two different points I had in mind. One came from a later segment, and I remember hearing him ask whether he can't have an opinion about women or racial minorities, or something outside his experience. I believe he pointed out that he is a minority in one way, being gay.

There are lots of straight people with opinions about gay men, are those opinions more relevant than the personal experience of those who actually are homosexual? Talking over someone to tell them why they are wrong about their life and their feelings before they even have a chance to tell you where they are coming from is rude, of course, but it is also arrogant and shortsighted, and really surprising for someone who makes his living as an interviewer on a network other than Fox.

Many people looked down on Park's ending the interview. I have seen people refuse to engage, and it often seems abrupt; there are two things to remember. One, and there were some links about this Wednesday, is that activists, especially women, get a lot of abuse, which takes a toll. They have a right to decide how they are going to spend their energy. It is important as a matter of self-care, and it is important as a matter of effectiveness. I found a quote that is helpful recently:

"The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing."  -- Toni Morrison

That's not to say that it is always intentional racist derailment, but they may not be interested enough to listen, or even if you could get somewhere, it still might not be the best use of what is always limited time.

I have tried engaging a few times, when someone else had stopped. Usually, they just don't want to understand.

One woman, after not getting the response she wanted from one activist (not Park), started claiming abuse and warning people, because she had started getting all of these spam messages and email problems, which clearly meant that they were malicious hackers targeting her now. This happened right around the time of Heartbleed.

I knew, but did not come right out and say, that even if the person she was mad at was capable of wreaking all this havoc, this woman was not worth the effort. Instead, I told her about Heartbleed, because it is good to know that information, and she was clearly not computer savvy. She eventually accepted that she had not been sabotaged, but she remained offended. After all, when she accused them of attacking her computer, they did not take her seriously at all!

Was that worth my time? If she changed her passwords and it somehow saved her bank account, maybe, but it was really irritating. Fortunately, I am not prominent, I don't have anyone trolling me, and I am not overextended at this time (though this last week has come close). That's not true for everyone.

I have noticed lately that worse things are happening more frequently. It wears you down. For anyone who decides that it is not worth speaking out, I can't blame them. If someone decides to take a hiatus, I understand. For now, I am here.

For that other bit of condescension though, that really needs it's own piece. Tomorrow we talk about understanding satire.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/03/canceling-colbert.html

http://heartbleed.com/

Stolen labor

There is a one day delay in getting to the incident I referred to Wednesday, because something came up that is time-sensitive.

Of course Wednesday was talking about efforts to silence women. I don't have time to work with all the aspects of the dehumanization that comes into play in its many aspects. There is a trend in society now to not value people or there work.

That can be something as simple as people not paying for music because they don't have to, even though they like the music and the people that make it. It can take the form of not paying interns, or offering to give freelancers exposure instead of money, because you can get away with it.

Sometimes, it can go like this:

http://walidah.com/node/369

I felt sick when I read this. I contributed to that Kickstarter. I felt like it was an important story, which is still true, but the tellers are falling into some of the same historical patterns that have created the story. I don't think there are bad intentions, but there is a lack of realization of where there should be credit, and permission, and boundaries.

The filmmakers do seem to be learning from this, and trying to adapt:

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/07/whitelandia_portland_filmmaker.html#incart_m-rpt-1

That is still ongoing, but already better than the next story:

http://chiefelk.tumblr.com/post/93517003309/giveitupcca-on-july-12-2014-it-was-brought-to

In the college's own response they refer to plagiarism, and then put it aside. There are horrible messages here for the students, and again, over and over there is this erasure, and discounting. Sometimes it is accidental and sometimes it is malevolent, but when you erase people in the process of doing projects about the erasure of people, there is a special level of amazement.

Tomorrow one topic that will come up is enacting labor, and so today's post is probably helpful for providing examples of what the costs can be, and why it is not always worth it. However, the real reason that I am posting this today is for this:

http://www.youcaring.com/nonprofits/teach-in-summer-fundraiser/212206

They are trying to turn a negative into a positive, to raise the same level of funding that someone thought their work was worth if done by someone else, and then to expand the educational efforts, because they will not be silenced.

Please help them out.

Band Review: The Bedroom Hour

The Bedroom Hour is an unsigned band from West London. Their album Hinterland was released about two weeks ago.

Listening to that along with 2013's Themes, my first thought was that Hinterland was a move into a more reflective and experimental music, but the foreshadowing was there. The haunting guitars run through all of the music, and there are really beautiful instrumental bits that are never overpowering.

Perhaps nothing predicted "Ww/Me", but that really means there is nothing like it. I don't even know how to describe it. There is a guitar thread running through it that reminds me of Billy Idol-era Steve Stevens, but there are other sounds that are very futuristic, and since the vocals are still kind of going in the haunting vein, maybe it's the percussion that grounds it.

The music is thoughtful and affecting, and that's what you carry away, but there is nonetheless some rock to it. That can especially be heard on "I See Suns" and "Tyrannosaur."

So, it's interesting to listen to. My personal favorites, "X Marks the Spot" and "Slow Motion Cinema" are on the older release, and yet I feel like there is a maturation and growing confidence going on with Hinterland that bodes well for The Bedroom Hour's future.

http://www.thebedroomhour.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thebedroomhour

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebedroomhour?feature=watch

https://soundcloud.com/thebedroomhour

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/themes-ep/id639762289

http://www.thebedroomhour.bigcartel.com/

https://twitter.com/Thebedroomhour

Band Review: From The Sticks

From The Sticks was pretty fun listening. Their songs are catchy, and there's a sort of a stripped down pub feeling to them. The music works for socializing.

I had been through the music alone three times before I checked out the videos, and I felt like those were lacking. There are creative effects used in the videos for "DMT" and "Ocean Flaws", but they don't feel very substantial, and then wondering if the videos sold the songs short, I started thinking that maybe the songs weren't very substantial. Then a slow and quiet cover of Blink-182's "Dammit" seemed to confirm that.

I started thinking of the band as more bubblegum music, but there are two important things about that. One is that the music in no way feels manufactured or canned, which is really important. The other factor is that I hadn't been thinking that until I saw the videos, so just listening to the music does not give the same impression, even though you would probably still describe the music as light and fun. "Boom Boom" may be the vest example of that vibe.

I do think there is room for some additional heft to the music, but not everything has to be heavy. I know the word "pop" has taken on a lot of negative connotations, but if we were back in the time where it wasn't an insult, I would call this likable pop. Ska fans should probably check it out as well.

http://www.fromthesticksband.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/FromTheSticks

https://www.youtube.com/user/Fromthesticksmusic

https://itunes.apple.com/album/dmt-single/id539065962?v0=9988&ign-mpt=uo%3D1

https://twitter.com/FromSticks

I won't shut up

It's funny how things work out. As I was writing yesterday's post, which along with the post before that was inspired by Stephen A Smith continuing to be awful, after I had already written about that, I was getting to the part about constant comments to women in general to shut up. I wondered if I should elaborate on that, and was thinking of different examples, but decided not to. Suddenly, one of my examples went live again.

Just to be clear, I don't expect that anyone is going to quit being awful because of my writing. I don't have a big enough audience for that, and people with much larger audiences don't really get anywhere either. I just mention it because sometimes I worry that I repeat myself, but I see now that everyone else is too.

Let's talk about general admonitions to shut up. Yes, I knew about Justin Lookadoo spouting off that "dateable" girls know when to shut up, and I found that easy to ignore because he is so ridiculous, and the kids he was speaking to knew it. And Steven L Anderson, best known for praying for the president's death, but also known for feeling that women even saying "Amen" in church is too much expressing their opinions, how can you take him seriously?

It started to get to me as I was thinking about a specific young girl's problem, and how everything she says is discounted by the people she needs help from, and I was thinking about it on a day when I had read about another conservative leader saying something about women needing to be quiet.

I can't find that article and who it was. It was not about the GOP's newest attempts at strategy, where they need to connect with women on an emotional level instead of an intellectual level. I keep thinking of Phyllis Schlafly, but I think that was because she had said a different offensive thing that same day.

I shook the article off when I saw it, because it just wasn't that surprising, but then thinking about my friend, it doesn't matter that it's not surprising. It matters that it is so prevalent that people get silenced.

It happens to different groups, but it seems to happen to women most of all.

Women who point out structural problems get abuse rained down on them. I've been seeing a lot of that:

http://www.shakesville.com/2014/07/this-is-what-has-been-happening.html

http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/internet-famous-visibility-as-violence-on-social-media

It comes from other women sometimes:

http://www.gradientlair.com/?tag=toxic+feminism

It comes to people from both genders who try and speak out about issues that disproportionately affect females:

http://jezebel.com/colleges-silence-and-fire-faculty-who-speak-out-about-r-1586169489/+callie

And an example of it showed up in my timeline again, just as I had decided that I was not going to write about it. Therefore today I wrote this, and it is good that it is my day off, because it was getting really long. The example will wait until Monday. 

Edited to add, the article I could find was not about the Prime Minister of Turkey, but whoever it was, they could be friends: http://www.shakesville.com/2014/07/theyre-not-laughing-with-you.html

Failure of imagination

I am a devout Mormon. I believe it, I live it, and I am in church on Sundays. In the Pacific Northwest, possibly as a reaction against all the hippies, it is common for church members to be politically conservative, though I am not. What I am getting at is that I frequently hear people whom I know to be very good people say horribly stupid and insensitive things.

I know this happens with other denominations too, and in other areas. I am not the most fun person to say something stupid around, so it could happen more too. And yes, some of them are not actually that good people, but for the ones who are, I really believe one issue is that their goodness limits their ability to imagine some kinds of badness.

For example, at one point there was some talk of kids these days, and that old chestnut was brought out about parents being too lenient, and how we were all spanked and turned out fine, but now everything is child abuse.

Yes, spanking was much more common when we were kids. I don't actually think that is the reason we turned out fine, but parents who were otherwise loving and nurturing who also spanked would not necessarily ruin a childhood.

That doesn't mean that there's no such thing as child abuse, and while they knew that on one level, I think there is also a failure to grasp that there are people who do not love and nurture their children like they will. When talking about a concept in the abstract, they imagine people like themselves, who are basically good.

I was thinking about this because of Stephen A Smith's apology, and especially Cari Champion's comments about his humanity and that wouldn't have been what he was trying to say. No, I still believe he really does believe that women provoke their abuse, and that his updated apology was still more about him and his good women than any changed understanding.

I do believe he is not likely to beat a woman, and so his coworkers can stand up for him -- he doesn't support domestic violence! However, maybe that is also why he finds it so easy to feel like the woman must have done something. He knows that Rice (and Mayweather and Chad Johnson) is a professional athlete with a powerful body who better know how to control his temper, but he still can't get away from wondering what she did.

Maybe Smith doesn't know what it is to have a bad temper that you have never learned to control because you get so much positive reinforcement, or you had it kind of controlled until the last concussion. He probably doesn't know what it is like to be a controlling abuser who knows how to spot vulnerable targets, isolate them, and put them through Hell, but that is something that happens. There are predators, and for a normal person, that is hard to imagine.

Perhaps it is a failure of empathy. It could be a scary thing to empathize with someone scary, but we don't even have to go there if we will allow ourselves to empathize with the victims by letting them talk. That's why it concerns me when there is so much focus on telling women to shut up.

And I know there are a lot of male victims of abuse, and I know there are a lot of attempts to silence minorities on the internet, though that seems to be especially women. I will probably spend more time on that, but the message for today is listen.

You do not know everything about the world or about everyone else's experience. You do not have to.

You do need to understand that you do not know it all, and you need to let other people have their own voice, like you get to have yours.

Listen.

Stephen A Smith again

I take a long time to get to writing about things. This happens mainly because I always have other things to get to first, and it works for me because I don't want to be leaping to conclusions, so having time to reflect and consider strikes me as positive. Also, it does give people time to get into more trouble.

Wednesday I posted about Stephen A Smith's defense of Mark Cuban. That was in late May, so the dust should have been pretty well settled, but I kept seeing things about him, here and there. Some of that was his defense of Tony Dungy, but then things really exploded with his comments on Ray Rice's two-game suspension for knocking his then-fiancée unconscious. Smith put his foot in it, caught some blow-back, and continued digging deeper with his attempts to explain himself, and why he really didn't say anything awful; he had just been inarticulate.

By today there is a somewhat better apology with no explaining thrown in, which I suspect has happened because someone has told him it was necessary - he has the exact same demeanor that he had before. Still, I want to examine the original comments more closely, and I am doing this relatively promptly, which I know is unusual. Sorry for anyone who gets whiplash.

First of all, I want to thank NJ.com for putting up a transcript. I had listened to the recording a few times, but there is a lot in there, and there are some actual problems with articulation - though not the ones Smith thinks he has - so having someone capture it in print is very helpful:

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2014/07/heres_the_transcript_of_stephen_a_smiths_comments_on_women_provoking_men.html

There are some interest points leading up to this. Last year Smith was able to interview Floyd Mayweather talk about how awful his 87 days in prison were, without asking about the battery domestic violence and harassment charges that got him there. Of course, other things he has said indicate that he found it hard to believe Mayweather's guilt. I mean, who ever heard of a boxer hitting someone?

http://pwrfwd.net/2013/04/29/how-you-talk-around-domestic-violence-espn-style/

https://storify.com/TimBaffoe/stephen-a-smith-s-twitter-history-suggests-he-s-so

I also want to reiterate he is always on the side of the structural power. Cuban's racism and Dungy's homophobia are understandable, and the big strong males who make millions of dollars well, maybe she's lying, or maybe she just had it coming. Okay, no, she didn't really have it coming, because that's a horrible thing, and it would be illegal, but she still started it.

Now, just for fun, the point by point analysis:

“We know you have no business putting your hands on a woman. I don’t know how many times I got to reiterate that. But-"

You will need to reiterate it at least once for every "but". When you say something true and follow it with "but", that's a pretty good indicator that crap is coming.

"as a man who was raised by women, see I know what I’m going to do if somebody touches a female member of my family. I know what I’m going to do, I know what my boys are going to do. I know what, I’m going to have to remind myself that I work for the Worldwide Leader, I’m going to have to get law enforcement officials involved because of what I’m going to be tempted to do."

As I condemn violence I admit my own proclivity for it, except that my violence will be in your defense, not against you. Me strong man! But I'm down with women; I was raised by one!

"But what I’ve tried to employ the female members of my family, some of who you all met and talked to and what have you, is that again, and this what, I’ve done this all my life,"

He's really starting to stumble here, but I think he is saying that he has at times gotten female relatives jobs and his male cohorts have met them, which makes the upcoming reference to hands being put on women fascinating.

"let’s make sure we don’t do anything to provoke wrong actions,"

Comment withheld at this time.

"because if I come, or somebody else come, whether it’s law enforcement officials, your brother or the fellas that you know, if we come after somebody has put their hands on you, it doesn’t negate the fact that they already put their hands on you."

Okay, this sounds to me like at least one of his relatives has been harassed in a job he has procured for her. I'm guessing more of a groping than a beating, but again, why is he making it about him riding to the defense?

"So let’s try to make sure that we can do our part in making sure that that doesn’t happen."

But what about those men that are serial abusers?

“Now you got some dudes that are just horrible and they’re going to do it anyway,"

Thanks for noticing!

"and there’s never an excuse to put your hands on a woman."

I'm not sure why you would feel the need to say that, unless...

"But domestic violence or whatever the case may be, with men putting their hands on women, is obviously a very real, real issue in our society. And I think that just talking about what guys shouldn’t do, we got to also make sure that you can do your part to do whatever you can do to make, to try to make sure it doesn’t happen."

Is that with the horrible guys that would do it anyway, or...

"We know they’re wrong. We know they’re criminals. We know they probably deserve to be in jail. In Ray Rice’s case, he probably deserves more than a 2-game suspension which we both acknowledged."

These would be much stronger statements without the "probably".

"But at the same time, we also have to make sure that we learn as much as we can about elements of provocation. Not that there’s real provocation, but the elements of provocation,"

It's not real, but study it. Why?

"you got to make sure that you address them, because we’ve got to do is do what we can to try to prevent the situation from happening in any way. And I don’t think that’s broached enough, is all I’m saying."

He's right. We spend far too much time talking about how people who make a living from violence for entertainment end up having violence spill into their personal lives, and way too much time talking about the objectification of women, or how people with wealth and fame abuse that. We totally need to spend more time talking about how you can prevent hair-trigger tempers from going off. There's not enough people talking about how women need to know when to shut their mouths.

"No point of blame.”

I am so glad you said that; I was totally confused.

And yet, I do not think Smith is really a bad person. I think he is sadly lacking in self-awareness, and kind of an idiot, but the mistakes he makes are really common ones, and make a lot of people feel really satisfied. "See? The black guy says it too!"

So he is a frustration, individually, but he is part of a larger systemic problem, and I'm still trying to wade through what I want to say about many things.

Anyway, here are some good links related to this story, and my original post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/07/25/ray-rices-suspension-and-stephen-a-smiths-impossible-domestic-violence-question/

http://deadspin.com/i-do-not-believe-women-provoke-violence-says-stephen-a-1611060016?

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/07/hoodies.html

Band Review: Black Sonic Revolver

Black Sonic Revolver is an independent band out of Manchester, and they stand as good representatives of one of my favorite music scenes. With a fairly minimalist set-up they deliver a rich sound that evokes a lot of classic rock and British Invasion sound.

The guitars sometimes seem a little fuzzy, and sometimes a little more jangle, but they always combine with the percussion and vocals in a way that gives the right groove. It's not that it would really serve as dance music (maybe "Play Along"), but it is good listening.

They were up for review a few months ago, it said they were supposed to come out with a new album on May 5th, so I put them on the back burner, checking periodically. Monday as I was selecting this week's bands the album was suddenly there, and had just gotten there, with a release date of June 21st, 2014. Sometimes things just work out.

B.S.R. is available via iTunes and Amazon, and can be previewed on Spotify.

https://www.facebook.com/BlackSonicRevolver

https://itunes.apple.com/album/id892433907

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L99I85A/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp?ie=UTF8&qid=1406328138&sr=8-2

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbvA044gbdB697VKhpGj0dQ

https://twitter.com/BSRevolver

Band Review: He Whose Ox Is Gored

He Whose Ox Is Gored is a four member band from Seattle, Washington.

While they would generally be considered a rock band, a friend of the band coined the term "Doomgaze", and that seems to fit the combination of heavy and introspective. They also reminded of Torche a bit, and sludge, but there are otherworldly elements that they introduce with synthesizers that make sludge not quite the right fit.

Songs border on the instrumental, with dramatic delivery. Their newest EP, with tracks "Nightshade" and "Charming the Snake", gives a good feel for the rest of the music. Music is available via Bandcamp, but the band is also touring now with dates primarily in the West. Tour dates can be found at http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/tag/he-whose-ox-is-gored/.

There was also a pretty good interview at http://echoesanddust.com/2014/07/interview-brian-mclelland-of-he-whose-ox-is-gored%E2%80%8F/.

https://www.facebook.com/hewhoseoxisgoredseattle

http://hewhoseoxisgored.bandcamp.com/music

http://www.reverbnation.com/hewhoseoxisgored

https://twitter.com/OxisGored

Hoodies

There are a lot of interesting things about what is going on with Sterling and the Clippers, which I may get back to. For now, I want to talk more about Mark Cuban and Stephen A Smith.

I do find it kind of interesting that there has been some concern about holding team owners to any expectations for how they conduct themselves, because it makes me wonder what would be found upon closer inspection, but that would just be speculation about rich people being awful; I'm not going to worry about that right now.

So let's just go right to the quote from Cuban's interview with Inc.com:

"If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face, white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere, I'm walking back to the other side of the street, and the list goes on of stereotypes that we all live up to and are fearful of."

Let's break that down a bit. In the admittedly small group of people that I can think of with face tattoos, there's only one who does not have a prison record that I know of, and that's Lars Frederiksen of Rancid, whom you could reasonably describe as a hard-core punk rocker.

Frederiksen could have a rap sheet that I don't know about, but he also worked out skateboard donations for shelter teens, so he may be the exception that proves the rule. Regardless, I know that a some of the better-known facial tattoos are either signs of having killed or willingness to kill, so that is a pretty serious thing. I don't like to judge people by looks, but if someone does not feel safe around a stranger with a shaved head and face tattoos, they may have a point.

Now, what was that other scary thing? A black kid in a hoodie. Right. You know who wears hoodies? Everyone. My kindergarten teacher sister wears hoodies. Middle-aged people out jogging wear hoodies, but also younger athletes, because they are often part of a team uniform, and marching band members often wear hoodies. I just saw a picture of Mark Zuckerberg in a hoodie, so very rich people can wear them. Yes, there are people who question his business practices, but I don't think anyone's going to cross the street out of fear of Mark Zuckerberg.

I saw a pink "Bride" hoodie that I believe was intended for bachelorette parties. There are lots of superhero-themed hoodies out there, so fans of comic books and movies apparently wear hoodies. I guess the scary part is just that he's black.

I don't remember hoodies being a big deal before Trayvon Martin's death -- before that most sartorial criticism seemed to be directed at sagging pants and backward baseball caps -- but okay, if Trayvon is going to be the symbol of scary black youth let's go back and get that story straight: he was unarmed. He was not the danger. He was walking back to his father's house from the store, which is neither illegal or dangerous to others, and it was only dangerous to himself because of racism that associates dark skin with crime and fear.

That brings us to ESPN commentator Stephen A Smith defending Cuban. "All of those folks ignored the part that he said about the white guy!" No, they didn't. The part about the white guy presented a false equivalency, and Smith bought into it.

"Sometimes it is about how you represent yourself, it is about how you present yourself."

Except that if you are wearing jeans and a hoodie, presenting yourself the way countless white teenagers do, you will still look like a criminal because you are black. I guess you need to wear suits all the time, but then I just read about a black man getting mocked behind his back for wearing a suit to an interview at a tech company, because that meant he wouldn't fit in with their casual vibe. There's no clear path to victory there. The game is rigged.

"And I don’t care who in the black community disagrees with me — I’m not interested in their disagreement on this particular issue because they are not looking at the bigger picture here."

For this, Smith has been called refreshing and brave. Standing with power is not brave.

Smith called Cuban honest, but accepting the surface story is not honest.

What would really be honest and brave is really taking an honest look at the system and finding the injustices in it. They have both made it, so to speak, so there's less incentive for them to do so, but again, just staying comfortable is neither honest nor brave.

Yes, some people make it. Barack Obama became president. Stephen A Smith became a sports commentator. Morgan Freeman became a respected actor. Yes there was hard work in all of that, but that doesn't negate all of the obstacles that are set up and have been in place to weaken education, demoralize, prevent the accumulation of wealth, and to criminalize so that no one blinks when you say an unarmed teenager looked dangerous because of his hoodie.

That is a corrupt system that leads to abuses. It means you can have for-profit prisons where people get warehoused for violations that have nothing to do with public safety and that are not equally enforced. It means that corners will be cut on food and medical care.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/20/2658701/private-prison-firms-quotas-cells-coffers/

http://www.startribune.com/262737551.html

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/06/30/3454874/michigan-prisons-aramark-contract/

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2013/12/2/arizona-s-privatizedprisonhealthcareunderfireafterdeaths.html

It means a water department will cut off water in areas that are black, and they say it's for late payments, but the abandoned properties are still getting water, paid bills are somehow not resulting in the water service being restored, and it really all seems to be a move toward privatizing the water company and emptying certain neighborhoods for redevelopment.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/22/naacp-says-detroits-water-shutoffs-are-racially-mo/

It means that black people who are in auto accidents and need help are shot by the people who should be helping them, but it's not a crime because who wouldn't be scared of a black person?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennett-l-gershman/i-didnt-mean-to-kill-reni_b_4325738.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-09-17/news/sns-rt-us-usa-police-accident-20130915_1_unarmed-man-front-door-taser

It seems that there would be a lot of work for brave and honest people to do here. It's a pity that with the resources Smith and Cuban have, honesty and courage are not among them.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/05/racist-music-videos.html

Also, this is a pretty good piece on the Sterling situation:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2014/05/nba-owners-rights-a-sterling-guillotine-stock-for-all-clippers-other-thoughts.html

Respectability

This last round of reading softened me up on W.E.B. DuBois a bit.

One thing I have found is that though I am getting over it, I was once very easily swayed by the opinions that I read if they at least sounded logical. So if other writers were frustrated with DuBois, I picked that up, and so when I was reading more recently about his efforts against Marcus Garvey, my response was more like "It figures" than to reflect more on that.

Reading about Ida B Wells, it was clear that this sort of thing went on all the time. This should not have been a surprise. I have seen the same thing happen with dog rescue groups. It doesn't matter that everyone cares about the dogs; this person disagrees on how to do it, or whom to work with, and bitter feuds develop, turning people with at least some common goals into bitter enemies who sabotage each other.

I could be mad at DuBois some more for the sake of Wells, and if it comes to a fight, I will always choose her. One thing that helped though was there was more to be mad at with Booker T. Washington.

It may not be fair to vilify Washington either, but the part that I keep getting stuck on is that he thought that respectability would be the way to stop lynching. He knew that most lynchings weren't really about the black men raping white women - he admitted that. He should also have been able to see that the industrial-based education he focused on would not bring that much respect if Southern white leaders were so willing to see it happen. He still promoted the idea that acting nice would solve the problems. Achieve respectability.

Respectability was what drew the lynching! Financial success was attacked. The Memphis Lynching that politicized Wells so much had nothing to do with rape; it was an effort to remove financial competition. Yes, when the arguments would come up, people would talk about protecting women, but that's not why they did it.

I am more aware of this because of seeing similar calls for respectability on the internet. Respectability is not a solution. Clothing or language use may be cited as a reason to dismiss what someone says, but they would find another reason, because the real problem is the ideas.

I'm not saying that presentation never matters. In the 60s marchers dressed well and were polite and non-violent because they were fighting a stereotype, and those images were carried by television and they affected people. You may also have noticed that they didn't end racism or oppression.

I guess there are two points I want to make here. One is to not believe that if you just ask nicely enough and are patient enough, it will all work out. There is no precedent of that being true. The marches were important for image, but they were done in conjunction with economic pressure like boycotts, and court cases, and nothing came easily despite everyone being very clean and polite.

The related point, and this is convenient since asking nicely does not work, is that niceness is not owed. There is no obligation to make sure that the person who is profiting from your oppression does not have to feel uncomfortable about it.

This is something John Howard Griffin wrote about his experiences with Black Like Me:

“Our townspeople wanted to ‘keep things peaceful’ at all costs. They said I had ‘stirred things up’. This is laudable and tragic. I, too, say let us be peaceful; but the only way to do this is first to assure justice. By keeping ‘peaceful’ in this instance, we end up consenting to the destruction of all peace—for so long as we condone injustice by a small but powerful group, we condone the destruction of all social stability, all real peace, all trust in man’s good intentions toward his fellow man."

You can't keep the peace if you don't have it in the first place. When people are telling you how to act, it's important to understand what goals are really being served.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/02/nice-and-kind.html