Conflict

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A multicultural sash: opening the floodgates?

The Mexican-American graduation sash

At a high school graduation in Colorado, a student of Mexican-American heritage wanted to wear a sash to celebrate her bicultural identity. The school’s administration refused her permission with the justification that “allowing that regalia would ‘open too many doors.’” The student, Naomi Peña Villasano, sued the school but a federal judge last Friday upheld the decision barring her from wearing the sash. According to an article in the New York Times, at the graduation on Saturday, Ms. Villasano flouted the ruling and wore the sash anyway, apparently without incident. The article points out that Ms. Villasano’s case comes amid disputes elsewhere about what is protected free speech at commencement ceremonies. In Oklahoma on Thursday, the State Legislature overrode Gov. Kevin Stitt’s veto of a bill allowing students to wear Native American regalia at high school and college graduations.

In fact, schools in the US have recently become flashpoints for disputes that reflect the stark polarization in the political climate in the country as a whole. In Virginia, that was seen recently in new standards for teaching US history, with a first version of the standards downplaying the mistreatment of Native Americans, who in fact were described as the first “immigrants” to America. In many states, history curricula have been changed to align with Republican views opposing teaching the less savory sides of US history, such as the effects of slavery on the situation of African Americans today. Discussing sexual orientation in schools has also been a target, especially any introduction of topics related to LGBTQ+. That has led to book bans in many localities, including in the county next to mine in Virginia, Hanover County. There a local organization recently gave the school board a list of around 100 books it wanted banned. According to a news report from a local TV station, the group who submitted the proposed ban-list highlighted reasons ranging from content like “alternate gender ideologies” and “controversial social and racial commentaries,” to “alternate sexualities” and “self-harm.” A parent in the report commented, “We have seen this before. The Nazis have tried to burn books and erased the contents of those books.”

Indeed, the trend is very worrisome, as removing books from circulation stifles the ability of children to learn from the experiences of fictional characters (or of historical figures) that might mirror or illuminate their own lives and help them with the development of their personal identities. On a more positive note, I heard today that the English Department at my university (VCU) is seeing an uptick in the number of declared English majors entering the institution. The reason, according to the Department Chair: young people’s opposition to book banning.

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“You can’t see me” gesture and racism in sports

Caitlin Clark using "You can't see me" gestureThe recent Women’s NCAA basketball tournament captured the attention of the US sports watching public, something unusual for women’s sports. Games were exciting and featured players like Caitlin Clark from the University of Iowa, whose play was described in the New York Times as “transcendent” and “electrifying”. She is also a player who makes rich use of nonverbal communication on the course, raising her hand up to her ear to rouse the crowd or holding out 3 fingers on each raised hand to signal 3-pointers, her go-to shot. But she also has used gestures to “trash talk”, as in repeatedly using the “You can’t see me” celebratory gesture, popularized by wrestler John Cena.

The use of that gesture by Clark did not generate much in the public space until last week’s championship game, won by Louisiana State University (LSU) over Iowa. In the closing minutes, LSU’s Angel Reese using the gesturestar player, Angel Reese, herself used the gesture in front of Clark. She also held up her hand to Clark, pointing to her ring finger, meaning that she, not Clark, was going to be receiving the championship ring. After the game, Reese, who is African-American, was widely criticized for using the gestures. Reese subsequently defended herself, stating that Clark, who is White, had not been accused of disrespect for using the “You can’t see me” gesture. She also pointed out that Clark, in Iowa’s game against the University of South Carolina, had used a “wave-off” gesture to mock South Carolina guard Raven Johnson, while Johnson was on the 3-point line and Clark was at the foul line, indicating that Johnson didn’t need to be guarded because she wasn’t capable of making the 3-pointer (although later in the game she scored three 3-pointers).

It’s hard to see the difference in reactions to Clark and Reese as anything other than racism, holding a Black player to a higher standard than a White player. Clark herself afterwards stated that she was not bothered by Reese’s gestures and defended the right of women to engage in trash talk, as has long been customary in men’s sports.

Today is Easter on the Western Christian calendar, which this year coincides with the periods of other major religious observances, Passover and Ramadan. It should be a time of peace, reconciliation, and renewal. But conflict is rife today, from the ongoing war in Ukraine to Black Tennessee lawmakers being expelled yesterday from the state legislature (over protesting a school shooting). Violent conflict is occurring in the holy city of Jerusalem where clashes have taken place in the last few days at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, located close to historical and holy sites in Judaism and Christianity, notably that of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Conflict is perhaps inevitable in sports events, where it emerges naturally from competition, but wouldn’t it be great if that were its only manifestation in human affairs? And if it took only the form of nonverbal mockery?

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Creative symbols of protest

Protesters holding up the Friedman equation

If it is not possible for citizens to verbalize their views on issues of concern, it may be possible for them to use nonverbal means of expression. That is a necessity for protesters in countries run by authoritarian regimes. Some interesting ways of protesting are emerging from China in recent weeks. That includes protesters waving blank sheets of paper, while others make use of mathematical formulas to make their statements. According to a recent piece in the Guardian, the blank white paper represents censorship, and may also “be read as a reference to the deaths last week of ten people in a building fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, which was blamed on lockdown restrictions that protestors believe prevented the residents from escaping in time. In China white is a colour used at funerals.” A startling video was posted online of a woman holding a blank piece of paper, with a gag over her mouth and her arms chained. The formula that is being used for protesting is the Friedman equation, which governs the expansion of the universe. There are two symbolic meanings here as well. The first is that the pronunciation of Friedman is similar to “free的man” (free man), a cry for personal freedom. The second is the idea of “opening up” which relates to the meaning of the formula, symbolically referring to the need for the Chinese government to free cities from COVID lockdowns.

The public protests are very unusual in China, where even peaceful demonstrations are quickly broken up. It’s also remarkable that the protests are being held in many cities across China. As one might expect, the universities in China have seen numerous protests. As a result, many of them have been closed down and students sent back home. While the most recent protests have been sparked by the fire in Xinjiang, they have gone beyond calling for Covid lookdowns to be eased, with calls for not just freedom of expression, especially online, but even for the ouster of leader Xi Jinping. In China, those are dangerous opinions to voice.

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Monuments, cultural identity, and language

Soviet-era obelisk in Latvia recently demolished

Where I live, Richmond, Virginia, has in the US been a center of the recent movement to remove public monuments to individuals or movements associated with causes on the wrong side of history. In the case of Richmond, the monuments were statues of figures representing the breakaway Confederate States, determined to maintain the slavery of Blacks. The impetus to examine the appropriateness of public monuments celebrating racism came from the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Now in the Baltic states public monuments associated with Russia or with the Soviet Union are coming under increasing scrutiny and in some cases being removed. It is a phenomenon based largely on the Russian war on Ukraine.

However, the situation in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania is complicated by language issues. While the majority of inhabitants of those countries support Ukraine in the war, each country has a sizable number of native Russian speakers. Many of those people, ethnic Russians, support Russia in the war and do not approve of the removal of Soviet-oriented monuments. In Latvia, one third of the population speak only or primarily Russian. Recently, the Latvian government dismantled a tall obelisk erected in 1985 as a memorial to Soviet soldiers killed in World War II. According to a story in the New York Times, that obelisk was important to the Russian minority, with Russian speakers gathering at the obelisk each May 9 to commemorate the Soviet victory over the Nazis. It’s not just the ethnic Russians in Latvia who were upset over the demolition of the monument, the Kremlin accused European countries of attempting to rewrite history and disregarding Russia’s role in World War II.

According to the NY Times piece,

Latvia is not alone in seeking to dismantle symbols of the Soviet era: Other nations critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Poland, have said they will do the same. Estonia recently removed a Soviet-era tank from a World War II memorial, prompting a wave of cyberattacks from a Russian hacking group.

We can’t know how the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine (and its possible outcome) will affect Russia’s neighbors, especially the former states belonging to the Soviet Union. We do see now Russian citizens becoming less and less welcome in many parts of the world or in particular domains such as sports competitions. The European Union is currently debating whether to prevent Russian tourists from visiting EU countries.

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School politics escolates: Burning books?

Nazis burning books in 1934

Here in Virginia the fight over schools has recently intensified. As in other US states, school board meetings have become battlegrounds over what should be and should not be taught in schools and who should set policies on learning content and on other school policies. According to election analyses, the recently elected new governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won largely because of his embrace of the idea that parents should have more say in what is happening in elementary and secondary public schools. In his election campaign, Youngkin vowed not to allow “critical race theory” to be taught – the idea that institutional racism has been a defining feature of US life since the country’s founding. Interestingly, critical race theory is not actually taught in schools in Virginia (or across the country).

Another issue that has emerged concerns transgender students and how they should be treated in schools, especially regarding which bathrooms they should be using. There is actually a Virginia state law passed recently that requires school districts to accommodate trans students, allowing them to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. Despite that, this week a county close to me (Hanover) voted to deny that right to trans students.

Also in Virginia, one more issue that parents have raised is related to books. In some school boards, parents have objected to having some books available to students, those that deal with topics such as sexuality or racism. Youngkin ran an ad featuring a parent objecting to having students read the celebrated novel, “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison, a story dealing with the horrors of slavery. Several school board members in Spotsylvania County have gone further, urging libraries to burn offending books. Destroying books is an attempt to rewrite history, as books are the most important artifacts of human culture and history.

For those familiar with German history, that idea also raises a troublesome occurrence during the early Nazi period, namely in 1934 students in universities across Germany burning what Nazis considered offending books, namely those from authors with different political views (i.e., socialists) or by rejected ethnic groups (i.e., Jews). Among the latter were the works of the prominent poet Heinrich Heine. In one of his dramas, one of Heine’s characters voices a prophetic line: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen” [Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people]. A reminder that extremist words and actions have real world consequences, which may be horrific.

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Wear a mask – or burn it?

Public mask burning in Florida

In the US this week the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) issued new guidelines for wearing masks, advising even fully vaccinated individuals to wear them indoors in public settings, especially in counties with high numbers of coronavirus infections (currently the majority of US counties). This has led to some areas and cities to announce new guidance for schools and businesses. Some schools, universities, and companies have announced mandatory vaccinations, with exceptions due to medical or religious considerations.

In other areas, public opinion is moving in the opposite direction, with large numbers of people refusing to be vaccinated or to wear a mask. In fact, in some cities, masks have been publicly burned, in an act of defiance, with demonstrators objecting to what they see as government overreach and a loss of personal freedom. Governor DeSantis of Florida has been vocal in his opposition, announcing that he has no intention of issuing a mask mandate, refusing to “muzzle” his own son and other Florida children.

Others object to changing positions on virus prevention measures from the CDC. In fact, media and medical critics have not been kind in their comments on the CDC policy shifts. However, the changes in guidance are not capricious, but rather a result of changing conditions. The delta variant, much more easily transmittable, has dramatically changed the nature of the “war” against the virus, according to the CDC. Hence the changes in guidance. Wouldn’t we want public health measures to be in tune with public health dangers? On the other hand, politicians like DeSantis or Governor Abbott of Texas have little interest in science and don’t accept expert guidance. For them, political positioning seems to be paramount.

The burning of masks meant as a symbolic gesture of individual freedom of choice is actually a symbol of willful ignorance and denial of science. And also of a lack of care for one’s fellow human beings; not wearing a mask not only puts the individual in danger, but fellow citizens as well. Mask wearing has long been common in Asian countries, where it has been seen not only as a protective measure for the individual but as a sign of solidarity with others.

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Auschwitz and politics

Samuel Pisar and the cities from which Auschwitz inmates were sent

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 75 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. It’s interestingly the first day of work for the new US Secretary of State (= Foreign Minister), Antony Blinken, who was confirmed by the US Senate yesterday. At the event announcing his nomination to the position, Blinken spoke movingly about his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp and two other camps. From his school in Poland which had 900 students, he was the sole survivor, and also the only member of his own family to survive the war. He escaped from the camp at the age of 16 and hid out in the Bavarian forest.

Blinken spoke at the event about how his stepfather, hiding in the forest, heard a rumbling and saw a tank coming towards him, but not with the Swastika insignia, but rather showing a 5-pointed star, the indication that it belonged to the US army. Seeing the youngster, the driver of the tank opened the hatch; it was an African-American soldier. Pisar spoke the only English words he knew (taught to him by his mother): “God bless America”. The soldier hoisted him into the tank.

Blinken spoke of that episode as an indicator of the idea of “America” as the last best hope for humanity. His stepfather, Pisar went on to become a celebrated diplomat and international lawyer, with the goal of achieving world peace through ongoing conversation among all countries, both friend and foe.

Blinken intends to follow his stepfather in terms of fostering multilateral relationships and international agreements, a direction opposed to that of the Trump administration. He also announced that his intention as Secretary of State was to run the office with “confidence and humility”. If he follows through with “humility”, that will be a stark contrast to the Trump Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who entered into the position announcing that his approach would be characterized by “swagger”, something he repeated recently as he was leaving office.

Finally, the current Foreign Minister of Germany, Heiko Maas, presents a very different perspective. When interviewed in 2018 when he took on that position, he stated, “Ich bin wegen Auschwitz in die Politik gegangen”, i.e., I got into politics because of Auschwitz. He acknowledges Germany’s guilt and the responsibility it bears “for all time”, as Maas has repeatedly stated. That represents again a contrast to the Trump administration, which in its 1776 project, insisted on downplaying the US history of slavery and of systemic racism.

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Free academic speech or racial slur?

USC Professor Patton, removed from course

Earlier this month, the University of Southern California removed business professor Greg Patton from his classroom. His offense? In a lecture on linguistics, he used a Chinese word as an illustrating example of filler words (“um” or “like” in English). So far, so good, but that Chinese expression, 那个, or ne ga sounds a lot like a racial slur in English (the N word). That word is one that I have found to be tremendously useful when I’m in China. It means “that one” and comes in handy ordering in a restaurant when you can just point at a picture of a dish and say “ne ga”, i.e. I’ll have that one. Additionally, native speakers of Mandarin use it in conversation as a filler, as the USC professor was trying to illustrate, making the point that such words or sounds are common across languages. He made clear that the expression was Chinese (not English). Despite that, several African-American students took offense and complained. They wrote a letter to the dean of the School of Business, describing Patton as insensitive and suggested he be removed from his post. They wrote,

There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language and to use this phrase, a clear synonym with this derogatory N-Word term, is hurtful and unacceptable to our USC Marshall community. The negligence and disregard displayed by our professor was very clear in today’s class.

In fact, the letter sent by the students is incorrect, in that the Chinese term is not a “a clear synonym with this derogatory N-Word term, ” in fact not a synonym at all, i.e. a word with the equivalent meaning. It is at most a homonym (words sounding alike), but that is not normally seen as significant or meaningful when you are dealing with two different languages.

As reported in Inside Higher Education, the complaint and removal have been controversial with a petition for Patton’s reinstatement stating:

For him to be censored simply because a Chinese word sounds like an English pejorative term is a mistake and is not appropriate, especially given the educational setting. It also dismisses the fact that Chinese is a real language and has its own pronunciations that have no relation to English.

The professor himself apologized to those students offended, but also reported to Inside Higher Education, “Given the difference in sounds, accent, context and language, I did not connect this in the moment to any English words and certainly not any racial slur.”

In a report on the incident in The Atlantic, a fellow professor (from UCLA), Eugene Volokh, suggested how the Business School Dean should have replied:

This should go without saying, but of course many languages have words that sound vaguely like English epithets or vulgarities, and vice versa … Naturally, USC students are expected to understand this, and recognize that such accidents of pronunciation have nothing to do with any actually insulting or offensive meaning. To the extent that our first reaction to hearing such a word might be shock or upset, part of language education (or education of any sort) is to learn to set that aside. The world’s nearly one billion Mandarin speakers have no obligation to organize their speech to avoid random similarities with English words, and neither do our faculty (or students or anyone else) when they are speaking Mandarin.

On the other hand, as the article discusses, this kind of reply, as reasonable as it sounds, does not take into account the real feelings of the USC students who were upset by the incident.

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Cancel culture and shifting power

D. Trump Jr. at the Republican Convention

One of the expressions current in the media is cancel culture, a term heard many times at the Republican Convention in the US last week. At that event it was used as a political weapon against the Democrats; according to buzzfeed:

A few weeks ago, most Americans either hadn’t heard of “cancel culture” or were quite unfamiliar with the term. And then President Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention began. Since Monday night, primetime convention speakers repeatedly have warned of a future where conservative patriots are silenced and vilified as a nation led by Joe Biden descends into lawlessness. Democrats and the media, they’ve argued, are canceling your beloved founding fathers and will cancel you next if you don’t adhere to their politically correct point of view.

In fact, President Trump’s administration has been active in suppressing speech from opponents, labeling as “fake news” not false reporting, but any news item not supporting the President’s views or actions.

The term cancel culture has been around for a while and has little to do with any conventional understanding of what a “culture” is. Instead it references a social practice, principally on social media, involving ostracizing or shaming someone for their behavior,  thereby “cancelling” their participation in human society, making them social outsiders. There have been famous cases in which social media attacks, for perceived or real transgressions, such as offensive tweets in the past (the film director, James Gunn) or calling the police on a black bird watcher (Amy Cooper), have resulted not only being “cancelled” in the media, but actually losing their jobs.

The phenomenon has been interpreted as indicating a shift of power in society (at least in the US), giving more weight to social media over official government authorities such as the courts or police. As reports of incidents or transgressions turn viral online, immense pressure is placed on those connected to the “cancelled” (employers, landlords, associates) to disassociate themselves from those individuals. The NY Times has run a number of stories on cancel culture, including several by Jonah Engel Bromwich. In one recent piece he commented:

People tend to see cancellation as either wholly good — there are new consequences for saying or doing racist, bigoted or otherwise untenable things — or wholly bad, in that people can lose their reputations and in some cases their jobs, all because a mob has taken undue offense to a clumsy or out-of-context remark. Personally, I think it’s best viewed not as either positive or negative, but as something else: a new development in the way that power works — a development brought about by social media.

The views on whether this is a good development vary.  Harper’s Magazine published an open letter, signed by a number of influential public figures, “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” which decried the development. The letter received some negative feedback, with the signers being accused of fearing that their own power and influence would be lost. However one might judge cancel culture, it seems undeniable that the power of social media it demonstrates is unlikely to go away any time soon.

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“Karens”: women only?

Today a “Karen” was criminally indicted. The woman’s name is not Karen, but Amy, Amy Cooper. She appeared as “Karen” in the tweet seen here, posted by Melody Cooper (no relation), the brother of a bird watcher, her brother, Christian. Amy was walking her dog in New York’s Central Park, but contrary to the regulations in that area, her dog was not leashed. Christian asked her to use a leash, to keep the dog from scaring away the birds. She responded by threatening to call 911, telling Christian that she was going to tell the operator that she was being threatened by a black man. She did in fact call, saying “There is a man, African American, he has a bicycle helmet and he is recording me and threatening me and my dog…please send the cops immediately!”. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said today, in announcing the prosecution, “Our office initiated a prosecution of Amy Cooper for falsely reporting an incident in the third degree. We are strongly committed to holding perpetrators of this conduct accountable.”

So why is Amy Cooper a Karen? “Karen” has in fact become a popular online meme, typically used as shorthand for a white, middle-aged North American woman, reeking of privilege (whiteness, class, wealth) and selfishness (I matter more than you) who asserts her own rights over those of (racial, cultural, financial, political) others in confrontations captured on video and posted online. Many of those encounters in recent weeks deal with women asserting the right not to wear a face mask, even in environments in which that is required. Also reported have been women protesting stay-at-home orders, demanding the right to have nails done or to visit a hair salon. But Karens are not new. A recent report from the NPR program “On the Media” listed a host of Karen types, often with names linked to the activity they reported or the context of the encounter: Barbecue Becky, Bus Berator Brenda, Lawnmower Lucy, Pool Patrol Paula, Racist Roslyn, Walmart Mary, Airline Amy. In that report, the host, Brooke Gladstone, explored with Apryl Williams, a professor of communications and media at the University of Michigan, the origins of the Karen meme.

Interestingly, these annoying individuals seem to always be women. In that sense, the phenomenon resembles the complaints about speech patterns like vocal fry (use of a deep, creaky, breathy sound), upspeak (rising intonation applied to all utterances, not just questions), or use of hedges (disclaimers, tag questions), all associated with women. It’s not that these speech habits do not exist, it’s that social censure rarely is directed to particular male speech patterns like self-assertiveness, insensitivity, or excessive volume. Why the difference? In the US there is been lately a growing awareness of the reality of institutional racism in this society, but the same power structure, favoring white males, also tilts in favor of men.

BTW, the incident in Central Park occurred on May 25, the same day that George Floyd died in police custody. In the discussion on “On the Media” on Karens, Professor Williams emphasized that racism is at the core of Karen behavior:

It is the primary motivating factor for placing that call to the police. I’m not sure that if these incidences were happening to white people that they would feel the need to call the police at all. If they were, we would hear about it, as we have recently with COVID, where white people are being kicked out of stores because they refuse to wear a mask. So, if it were the case that white people were calling the police randomly on other white people, I think we would hear about it. The fact that these incidents keep happening to black people, black men in particular, says that we are still grappling with the same type of racism that we were dealing with under Jim Crow era segregation. And that’s central to these memes.

It may be that the US is at a turning point in race relations. Some recognition of male privilege, as well as white privilege would be welcome as well.

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The coronavirus and globalization

The President of the United States today labeled the Novel Coronavirus outbreak a “new hoax” from the Democratic party. It’s far from being a hoax, as the number of people infected with COVID-19 has continued to mount, particularly in countries other than China, where the disease originated. Particularly worrisome are outbreaks in South Korea, Italy, and Iran. Numerous cases in the US are reported as well, including some representing community transmission, i.e. not connected with known travel to infected areas or contact with others already infected. Today the first death in the US was reported.

The virus has led to understandable concern everywhere and to draconian measures to contain its spread in infected areas. Less rational are reported incidents in currently unaffected areas in which individuals perceived to be Chinese – or just Asian – are being singled out for prejudicial treatment or even abuse. CNN reported recently on a number of such incidents, demonstrating that “rampant ignorance and misinformation [about the virus] has led to racist and xenophobic attacks against fellow Americans or anyone in the US who looks East Asian”. A byproduct of those misinformed views is that Chinese-American businesses are losing customers, particularly Chinese restaurants. Normally popular and busy restaurants have become virtually empty. One response on Twitter recommended a possible response:

Air travel has been severely affected by the virus, with wide-spread reduction or cancellation of flights to and from affected areas. Global trade has been disrupted as well, with suppliers and manufacturers not being able to sustain normal supply chains. Apple, for example, has warned that its revenues will be down due to Chinese factories being shut down. While these developments result from one specific event, the virus outbreak, its repercussions point to the vulnerabilities of the massively globalized economic world in which we live. An article in the NY Times this week speaks to that phenomenon:

Even before the virus arrived in Europe, climate change, security concerns and complaints about unfair trade had intensified anxieties about global air travel and globalized industrial supply chains, as well as reinforcing doubts about the reliability of China as a partner.

Globalization has been under attack from various directions, especially through populist and nationalist views that blame international commerce, mass migration, and global cooperation for a loss of local jobs and perceived threats to established ways of life. The likely impact of the COVID-19, especially should it become a pandemic, is likely to strengthen those sentiments. As the NY times’ article put it:

The virus already has dealt another blow to slowing economies, and emboldened populists to revive calls, tinged with racism and xenophobia, for tougher controls over migrants, tourists and even multinational corporations.

That crisis of confidence in China extends beyond China’s ability to handle the virus, said Simon Tilford, director of the Forum New Economy, a research institution in Berlin. The lack of trust “will only reinforce an existing trend among businesses to reduce their dependency and risk,” he said.

But the spread of the virus to Europe will also have a significant impact on politics, likely boosting the anti-immigrant, anti-globalization far right, Mr. Tilford said. “We already see a lot of populist concern about the merits of globalization as benefiting multinationals, the elite and foreigners, not local people and local companies,” he said.

Politicians who insist on control over borders and immigration will be helped, even as the virus transcends borders easily. “Their argument will be that the current system poses not only economic but also health and security threats, which are existential, and that we can’t afford to be so open just to please big business,” Mr. Tilford said.

That argument may attract voters “who hate overt racism but fear loss of control and a system vulnerable to a distant part of the world,” he added. The virus also allows people to express hostility to the Chinese that they may have felt but had been reluctant to articulate, said Mr. Tilford. “There is already an undercurrent of fear of the Chinese in Europe and the United States because they represent a challenge to Western hegemony,” he said.

Instead of bringing peoples from different cultures together to fight the virus cooperatively, it looks like instead there will be a game of misplaced blame and an ongoing process of accelerated racism. Our leaders need to play the roles only they can play to warn against both panic and against xenophobia. We will see in the coming weeks to what extent that occurs.

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A Christmas market heralds the Great Replacement

I was in Germany last week and, among other cities, I spent some time in Nuremberg (Nürnberg), the second largest city in the state of Bavaria. For US Americans, the likely association of the city is with Nazi Germany, as it was there where the war crimes against top Nazis were held after World War 2. It was, in fact, a favorite city of Hitler’s, where the huge Nazi party rallies were held every year and where the infamous Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews were announced in 1935.

For many Germans, the association is likely to be different, namely, connecting the city to traditional arts and especially to Albrecht Dürer, a native son and one of the greatest artists during the transition from medieval art to the modern era. The city had one of the best-preserved medieval town centers, until leveled during the war. Another – and possibly the strongest association – many Germans have with the city is its Christmas Market (Christkindlesmarkt). Many cities, large and small, throughout Germany have such markets, which provide street food (most prominently sausages) and drink (Glühwein = mulled wine), as well as traditional artisan products, gifts, and local specialties.

Nuremberg Christmas market

Nuremberg’s market stands out due to the number and quality of artisan products and its reputation as the center of production of Lebkuchen, a traditional gingerbread-style cookie. It also has a long tradition which includes a competition each year for a young girl to play the role of the official representative (Christkind) of the market. Her role is to open the market in a formal speech (and fancy costume) the opening day and to serve for 2 years as a goodwill and publicity ambassador for the market and the city

Benigna Munsi of Nuremberg

This year there was some controversy in the choice of the Christkind, Benigna Munsi, the local daughter of a father from India and a mother from Germany. After her selection was announced, a member of the far-right AFD Party (“Alternative for Germany”) posted on Facebook, along with a picture of the 17-year old girl, the comment, Nürnberg hat ein neues Christkind. Eines Tages wird es uns wie den Indianern gehen.” (“Nuremberg has a new Christkind. One day we will suffer the same


Benigna Munsi as the Nuremberg “Christkind”

fate as the American Indians”). The comment evokes the anti-immigrant and nationalistic “replacement theory“, the idea that whites are being systematically (and with support from Western governments) winnowed out of majority status due to mass immigration and low birth rates among whites. The comment was roundly denounced in Germany, but its racist tone is reflected in commonly heard remarks from far-right politicians in many European countries today. The white genocide conspiracy theory of the “Great Replacement” (title of a book by French writer Renaud Camus in 2011) was also on display in the US in the Charlottesville alt-right march in 2017.

The irony of making this racist statement in – of all places in Germany – in Nuremberg was surely lost on the Bavarian AFD Party. But the rest of us should make the connection between such dangerous racist remarks and Nazi ideology, which lead to real, not imagined, genocide.

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Sophi’s choice is America’s shame

3-year old Sophi

From a story on NPR:

At a Border Patrol holding facility in El Paso, Texas, an agent told a Honduran family that one parent would be sent to Mexico while the other parent and their three children could stay in the United States, according to the family. The agent turned to the couple’s youngest daughter — 3-year-old Sofia, whom they call Sofi — and asked her to make a choice.

The choice the little girl was asked to make was whether she wanted to go with her father, to Mexico, or stay with her mother and her siblings, in the US. If this sounds eerily familiar, you may be thinking of the film starring Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, about a Polish woman in a Nazi concentration camp who is forced to make a horrendous decision about her family, namely to decide which of her two children will live and which will die.

How can it be that in the US we are tearing families apart? And that we are asking a 3-year old, likely already bewildered by her journey and the strange new culture and language, to make such a choice? The Honduran family’s dilemma is a result of the US government policy known as “Migrant Protection Protocols” — also known as “remain in Mexico” — which requires Central American migrants to wait in northern Mexico while their immigration cases are handled by U.S. courts.

Sofi’s family was trying to migrate to the US because the violence in Honduras was coming very close to the family; her grandmother was killed by the gang MS-13, a murder that Sofi’s mom witnessed. Sophi’s aunt was also a witness and was later kidnapped, tortured and slain to keep her from testifying against the gang. The gang then posted a note on the family’s door telling them they had 45 minutes to leave. That’s when the family decided to flee. Added to the very real threat of violence, little Sophi has a heart condition. A US doctor examined Sophi and pronounced her condition as serious. With the help of the doctor, the Department of Homeland Security was convinced to allow the family to stay together for now. Whether they are eventually granted asylum in the US is uncertain.

BTW, Sophi elected to stay with her mother, but she and her brother and sister wailed when their Dad was led away and clung to him to try to prevent the agents separating the family.

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Civility: Necessary or stifling?


President Trump mocking asylum seekers / Paul Sancya/AP/REX/Shutterstock

NPR has been broadcasting recently a series on civility, mostly centered on the increasing lack of civility evident in public/political life in the US. While there have been many calls for toning down belligerent and ultra-partisan speech, there are also concerns explored in the series that the advocacy of civility may be in essence an attempt to stifle minority voices.

The opening broadcast defines civility as the “baseline of respect” that we need to show one another, a kind of social contract not to step over certain lines in the ways we address others, particularly those with whom we disagree. Those lines of behavior represent unwritten, but presumably widely shared (within a culture) social norms. Many blame President Trump for breaking those norms and being largely responsible for the nastiness in the public debate in the US, with his wide use of disparaging names and nicknames for opponents. The name calling tends to create bitterness, hardening positions on each side and making it more difficult to reach consensus. Social media spreads vitriol quickly, and services like Twitter make it easy to make and spread inflammatory comments.

On the other hand, calls for civility can be seen as attempts to limit the public discourse on important issues, as a way to silence particular groups. Historically in the US incivility has been a charge leveled against those flighting inequality or injustice, as in the women’s suffrage movement of the early 20th-century or the civil rights protests of the 1960’s. The story cites Lynn Itagaki from the University of Missouri: “Civility has been about making sure that the status quo, the hierarchy of the status quo at the moment, which means racial inequality, gender inequality, class inequality, stays permanent.” To bring about social change, groups have found that it is necessary to demonstrate and disrupt, to be uncivil, in order to garner the public’s attention so as to have their arguments for change be listened to and acted on. The series gives as examples the ACT UP AIDS activists of the 1980’s or Colin Kaepernick inspired kneeling during the playing of the national anthem (to protest police violence against Blacks).

An interesting case study in the debate on civility is the Charlottesville City Council, just down the road from me here in Virginia. That’s the city in which the violent “Unite The Right Rally” was held in 2017. The local authorities were blamed for not doing enough to prevent the bloodshed. As a result, the meetings of the city council became free-for-all shouting matches. The mayor at the time tried to set ground rules for how long people could speak along with prohibitions on heckling, harassment or foul language. However, this was seen by some, especially African-Americans, as a means to exclude voices. Jalane Schmidt, a Charlottesville organizer for Black Lives Matter comments:  “Civility is actually used to shut down discussion. It is often a way to ‘tone police’ the folks that don’t have power and that don’t speak in four-syllable words.” The current major, a Black woman (Nikuyah Walker) has not enforced those rules of civility, allowing citizens to speak freely and at length. This has resulted in very long council meetings. According to Council member Wes Bellamy, there is now in the Council meetings a more inclusive view of civil discourse:

I could have a conversation with you and because my vernacular is not the same, and because a topic makes me more emotional and I’m more passionate about it, it doesn’t mean that I’m not being quote-unquote civil. It could just mean that when I was talking to you in a way that you may deem civil, you refused to listen to me.

The Charlottesville City Council may be an example of how messy and inefficient it may be to allow for a wide-ranging exchange of views. Democracy is often untidy and aggravating, but in the end it should still allow all voices to be heard. By the same token, I would argue that it is the responsibility of those in power to provide an example to others of helpful ways to define ones views and address disagreement. That means not belittling others and certainly not stooping so low as to mock those fleeing violence and injustice in their home countries, as unfortunately President Trump has done recently.

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Learning from history, or ignoring it

Lynching Memorial in Montgomery

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

History is not an abstraction: past events shape our culture and our view of others. That’s why it’s so important to get history right. Made-up history can be as damaging as made-up science.

An episode from the NPR radio show On the Media, The worst thing we’ve ever done, that was broadcast this week (originally aired in June) seemed quite appropriate for this time of the end of the year, when we take stock of the past. It was an interesting comparison of how a shameful period in a nation’s history has been viewed by later generations. The contrast was between Germany and its Nazi period and the USA and slavery. The report pointed to how many public reminders there are in Germany of the Holocaust and how it is extensively present in education and in the public sphere generally. An interview with Peter Weissenburger, journalist for the Berlin taz was enlightening in that regard. He talked about how ubiquitous the presence of the Nazi past was for him growing up, in school and in the media. For him, German identity is defined by Nazi Germany, something that can never be “resolved” so that it belongs to the past: “There’s no point in which we can say, ‘ok, we’re done now.’ This is always going to be what happened.”

In contrast, the period of slavery and the following violence and discrimination against African-Americans is far less known in the US, or acknowledged as a problematic period in US history. According to the report, many US citizens believe that in fact slaves were treated well and are skeptical that lynchings took place (despite numerous photos and other documentation). Indeed, there are monuments to well-known slave holders and heroes of the Confederacy, which defended the institution of slavery. The report discusses initiatives to bring to the public’s attention the crimes and injustice associated with slavery and its aftermath. In Montgomery, Alabama, the first capital of the Confederacy, there are two monuments to that past, the Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. As seen from the photos above, the massive hanging steel columns in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, each dedicated to a lynching in a particular US county, is impressive and haunting, similar to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. However, the project takes a step further, in an effort to bring home to local communities the reality of racist actions in the past. It is inviting communities where lynchings occurred to claim their histories in a tangible way:

The memorial is more than a static monument. In the six-acre park surrounding the memorial is a field of identical monuments, waiting to be claimed and installed in the counties they represent. Over time, the national memorial will serve as a report on which parts of the country have confronted the truth of this terror and which have not. (Monument’s web site).

The current embrace by some of “alternative facts” has led to the questioning of widely accepted scientific findings, in areas such as climate change and pollution. Pseudo-science is used to justify political views and further entrenched economic interests. History too can be retold, refused, or re-focused to accommodate political or ideological positions. The Nazis used pseudo-history to legitimize their power, presenting themselves as continuing ancient heroic Germanic traditions. Just as we need to learn from history, so as not to repeat it, we need to recognize how history and science can be distorted to support group interests.