Racism, Time Magazine-style in 2016

If the Academy were a cooler, hipper, smarter bunch–and let’s not even say a more diversified one, because being white is no excuse for having bad taste–Chi-Raq, Spike Lee’s timely, raucous reimagining of Lysistrata, might have been among the Best Picture nominees.   -Stephanie Sacherek in Time Magazine, February 11, 2016

I think Stephanie Sacherek is speaking of her own self in this case.

http://time.com/4217056/oscars-america/

Painful racial realities and posturing

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/crime/article/NAACP-Police-involved-shooting-a-cold-blooded-6850343.php


As a person of color who has to deal with the unpleasant racial realities every day of my life, who remembers writing an impassioned review of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1967 at Meany Middle School, I feel compelled to write this review.

I am wondering what Dr. King would have thought of the actions of local chapters of the NAACP in recent years such as the Seattle chapter (see link above).

Self-righteousness, arrogance, posturing, a disdain for opinions for other than one's own, a rush to judgment before all the facts are known:  these are not in accordance with the values I he believed in.

Workshops on non-violent conflict resolution and condemning machismo/no-snitching within the community would go much further than immediately exploiting for political advantage the death of a black man.


[If anything should happen to me, questions should begin to be asked of the downtown YMCA and of Yelp for direct or indirect implication.  It pains me to reflect on the fact that often within minority groups, minorities are persecuted as much or even more than in the society at large].

Updated review of YMCA February 22, 2016

Eek!  Still methinks not.

* * * * *

After having filed complaints with the Washington State Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau, this week I finally received a rather robotic response from the downtown YMCA ("the facts were documented and do not align...").

Instead of a formal apology and a reprimand, much less the dismissal, of its director Cynthia Klever, I was offered a prorated refund of a month's membership dues.

This was an egregiously insufficient response.

It took one person's refusal in the Deep South to sit at the back of the bus to change things in this country.

I refused to accept being treated as a second class citizen at the YMCA.  In the 13 years I was a member, I witnessed over and over again this YMCA (1) not living up to its own self-professed values and (2) not enforcing its rules impartially.

* * * * *

"Why is that towel there [still in the locker]?    Is it clean?  Yes?  [smarmily], YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT [put it in the tub]."

[The floor of the locker room is often or usually covered in wet, used bath towels; the lockers full of half used towels hanging down.  Yet I never observed this same staff person admonishing anyone else over taking half a dozen towels at a time or throwing their used towels right and left].

* * * * 

Me:  "This man really chewed me out at the pool."

Membership director, 1/3 my age, (raising voice, pointing, scolding):   "BUT THAT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO. ["You're being unreasonable.  You don't have the right to set your own boundaries with people.]"

Me:   "He's been stalking me ever since.  Please talk to him."

This kind of disrespect really hurt.  It still does.

Is this what the YMCA should be teaching?  

* * * * *

Carefully documenting my experiences, I pointed this out in my Yelp updates.  Pressure was placed on Yelp to have those ten years' reviews expunged from the public record.

In the end the whistle-blower was punished.

Cynthia Klever needs to be dismissed.

The last incident at the YMCA in itself warrants a lawsuit against the downtown YMCA for psychological trauma and humiliation.

Being uncomfortable--and eventually angry--about being mistreated--and going public about it (on Yelp) is not an ethical reason to terminate a membership.   

Except at the downtown Seattle YMCA.   

Thank you, YMCA, for strengthening my resolve to continue to fight racial discrimination and prejudice the rest of my life.

Even if I cannot see changes within my lifetime.


* * * * *

"J'ai assez vecu pour savoir que la difference engendre la haine." 
--Julien Sorel in Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir

May my words benefit other sentient beings.

What is political correctness? One example.

Following the lead of media, people today are reluctant to identify the skin color of someone who has assaulted them for fear of being attacked as racist.


 

Two sides of every story: Compassion and Fairness

In the parallel, dildo-inflated/infatuated universe of The Stranger, there is only violent crime committed (1) by white policemen and (2) against black people.

There are two sides to every story, and the one not told by this newspaper--my best gues--is that police get "this way" because they frequently are on the receiving end of verbal abuse:  taunts, heckles, threats, rage, hostility, disrespect, even fists or feet, from strangers/their local communities.

And there is the "fear" factor:  they're dealing with not just homeless and/or mentally ill people, but also violent criminals.  And they just don't know where or when they may be victims (think of the four Lakewood policeman killed while sitting in a coffee shop in Tacoma).

It's not easy being a policeman even for those with the toughest dispositions.  And if they make one mistake, it's either themselves or the other guy.

And they'll get blamed in any case.  No wonder they retreat into their police guilds.  No understanding from the media, too intent on a witch hunt with a predictable story-line.

They may indeed have few ways to let off their steam other than in the typical "man" ways our society has given them.

White police should not be patrolling black neighborhoods; let black people take responsibility for the safety of their communities.
I am confident in their ability to do so.