GONE TOO SOON: Justice for Two Bullied Boys

When Houston resident David Truong arrived home on Thursday evening, he saw his stepson, Asher Brown (right), curled up on the floor. Truong thought Asher was listening to music or reading. If only. Asher was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Once the back story was revealed, one could safely say that Asher Brown was bullied to death.

Asher, 13, had told his parents that very morning that he was gay. Smaller than other children, described by his step dad as a bit “clumsy,” Asher was also a follower of Buddhism. According to news reports, one of the boys who continually taunted him had tripped him and caused him to fall down a flight of stairs at school – twice. Reportedly, this followed 18 months of continual bullying by a group of boys who called him derogatory names associated with homosexuality, and who made fun of him because of his Buddhism. The parents’ appeal for help from the school administrators fell on deaf ears.

Upon reflection, one could say Asher was rather evolved for a barely pubescent boy. To have come to terms with his sexuality, to have made steps to understand a rather complex philosophy, and to endure the constant wrath of his peers suggests that Asher was a person of real substance. But every person has a breaking point. Here is what Asher’s mother and stepfather had to say about him:

The same day that Asher’s suicide was reported, there was another suicide in the news. This time it was a male Rutgers University freshman and violin prodigy, Tyler Clementi. Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi and another freshman, Molly Wei, both 18, conspired to plant a webcam in Clementi’s room and broadcast a live image over the Internet of Clementi having sex with another male student. When Clementi (right) found out, according to two witnesses, he jumped to his death from the George Washington bridge.

Many of you who are reading this were bullied when you were children. I was. I was an asthmatic kid who couldn’t do much running with the other kids, and I was the only Jew as far as the eye could see in my middle-American, middle-class, mid-20th century neighborhood. I was different. It seems in our culture we can sum it up like this: Different, bad; Conformist, good. If you were bullied as I was, you were probably fat, or foreign, or gay, or learning disabled, or quirky, or physically weak, or naturally artistic, or poor, or physically disabled, or … well, fill in the blank. You were different. Tyler Clementi was reportedly an introverted, gay violinist. A prototype for bullying, you might say. Watch:

We could chalk the whole bullying sub-culture up to youth, ignorance and peer pressure, I suppose. But how, then, do we explain the husband who continually bullies his wife, even to the point of physically abusing her? And how do we explain bullying within the corporate system? I worked in the corporate system for what seems like 100 years, and I witnessed repeated instances of bullying in board rooms, in office settings and in the presence of clients and co-workers. I witnessed male corporate bullies verbally abusing female subordinates, seemingly so that they could maintain the status quo of the corporate boys club. I witnessed female corporate bullies verbally emasculating male subordinates in the name of 1970s feminism and progress. Bullying is really about power. And the power that it represents is really about ego. It seems there is an ego-centric need among some humans to belittle other humans.

Bottom line: I believe Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei (below, right) should be charged with first degree murder, which of course, implies full intent to kill. If they did not intend to physically kill Clementi, they surely intended to murder his spirit. So far they have only been charged with crimes related to privacy, which carry maximum prison sentences of three to five years. There is legal precedent to at least charge them with civil rights violations. What is clear is that Clementi, whose body has not been found, died because of Ravi and Wei.

I believe the boys who taunted Asher Brown should be expelled from school, turned over the juvenile authorities and tried in court as adults – for murder. The boy who tripped Asher and caused him to fall down a flight of stairs twice had intent to cause bodily harm. The fact that Asher did not die until later, by his own hand, does not change my mind. I believe bullies murdered Asher Brown. School administrators, who now claim they never received complaints of bullying from the parents, are clearly lying. I believe they should be tried in court, as accessories to Asher’s murder. It is now about accountability.

Had he lived, Asher, a Buddhist, may have brought peace in the world. Clementi, a skilled musician, may have brought melodic art into the world. Ravi, Wei and Asher’s tormentors brought nothing into the world except pain and death. In our society, when one brings about pain and death, they are tried by a jury of their peers and punished. Am I missing something here, or are these individuals not criminally responsible for the deaths of two young people? And since they are, I want justice.

NEWSFLASH: THE NFL BOYS CLUB IS ALIVE AND WELL

If you had never heard of Ines Sainz, or TV Azteca before this week, you most likely have by now. For the past decade, Sainz has been a reporter for Azteca, the second largest Mexican television network. And even though this week was full of events like the last primaries before the November election and fiery anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan, Ines Sainz emerged as the chief headline-maker. It seems Sainz entered the New York Jets locker room, with full permission to interview Mark Sanchez. Apparently the Jets started catcalling and making offensive comments toward Sainz and before you know it, big headlines coast to coast.

Remarkably, the big controversy here does not seem to be whether it was okay or not for the players to do what they did. The controversy has more to do with Sainz’s tight clothing. The good old American boys club has risen up en masse to blame Sainz for what happened. And the most boisterous part of the American population has also risen up in defense of the players. Sainz, they say, has jeans that are too tight, a chest that is too big and a gender that is unwelcome in the locker room of a professional sports team. Reportedly, when another reporter in the locker room asked Sainz if she was okay, Jets lineman Kris Jenkins (above, left) piped up with, “This is our locker room.”

None other than Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show the next day, “The locker room is a refuge for the players. What was she doing in there anyway?” He then referred to Sainz as “bootylicious.” Associated Content, from Yahoo put forth this headline: “Ines Sainz Says 'No' to Provocative Dressing as Her Breast Pours Out of Her Shirt.” During a FOX interview later that day, while Sainz was explaining to the anchorman what happened, FOX put up a photo of Sainz in a form fitting short dress and pulled in a tight closeup. Then they showed a photo of Sainz in the jeans she was wearing the day of the incident, at which time the anchor said, “There are the jeans you were wearing. Could they get any tighter?”

It gets worse. Clinton Portis (right) of the Washington Redskins chimed in with these comments: "And I mean, you put a woman and you give her a choice of 53 athletes, somebody got to be appealing to her," he said. "Somebody got to spark her interest, or she's gonna want somebody. I don't know what kind of woman won't, if you get to go and look at 53 men's packages." Portis had nothing to say about the Jets behavior. Evidently he believes any woman in sexy clothing is fair game for caveman humor. Later he apologized for his comments, clearly having been called on the carpet by the higher ups.

There’s more: Arizona Cardinals defensive tackle Darnell Dockett (left) got all a-Twitter about the incident. He tweeted this: “All I can do is LOL at the jets Female Reporter! She walks into a locker room full of men and think some one not gonna say nothing LMFAO. I don't know what was said to her or whatever but u just have to know u going into a TEAM LOCKEROOM, and if its that serious WOMEN STAY OUT!" Dockett was accommodating enough to include a photo of Sainz, with this comment: "Now why would u wear this!!! IM DONE!!"

Predictably, Dockett apologized later, after the inevitable slap on the wrists by the big boys in Arizona.

The day this all happened, I was driving home with WRNO 99.5 FM playing on my radio, listening to media throwback/talk show host John Osterlind, during the coveted evening drive time hours. Osterlind devoted a significant part of his show to the Sainz incident, clearly put out that anyone in America could be the least bit upset about how she was treated in the locker room. I called in and told Osterlind that he sounded just like a guy who blames a woman for getting raped because she had on a tight skirt. I also told him that it’s not 1965, and the culture has shifted. I told him if the same thing happened in a corporate setting, the offending catcallers would be called into Human Resources and perhaps their jobs would be on the line. Osterlind’s response: “Paul, you got me all wrong. I’m a feminist. I love women.” Oy. Then he thanked me for the call and disconnected me. Ah, the power of radio.

Later, Osterlind put forth his theory that Sainz got what she wanted out of the whole ordeal. After all, he posited, the next morning she was interviewed on the Today show by Meredith Vieira and on every other major network. Osterlind’s contention is that Sainz wanted the publicity. He also repeatedly referred to Sainz as a “so-called reporter.”

It is clear that Osterlind is in the majority as it relates to the reaction to Ines Sainz. No one has taken the time to mention that Ines Sainz has a law degree from the Universidad de la Valle in Mexico, and a master’s degree in tax law. I’m thinking that before the entire U.S. population writes the woman off as a flake, we might want to step back from her breasts and recognize her credentials and the fact that she has reported for Aztec TV for almost a decade.

Let the masses fight it out about Ines Sainz. I’m more focused right now on the Jets players. We are here in post-feminist America, in 2010 having this same old conversation we used to have ad infinitum in the 1970s. The same day the Sainz incident happened all of the predictable women’s groups came forward with the buzzword, “harassment,” and men coast to coast came forward with “shut up.” We start to think maybe we have taken a step forward and then a bunch of 20-somethings with too much testosterone pumping through their bodies and more money than any kid would ever know how to handle, show us the step forward we thought we had taken was a façade. Same old, same old.

Why did someone in the Jets organization not go down to that locker room and spit out the word “respect” to these guys and start to lift the bar on this kind of throwback behavior? Are we going to perpetuate the “boys will be boys” b.s. for yet another generation at the expense of everybody else? Here is what we get for allowing this frat boy mentality to go on: Just this week, Floyd Mayweather was arrested on domestic abuse charges in Vegas for allegedly punching the mother of his child in the head. Oh, and let’s not leave out NFL legend and CBS sports analyst Shannon Sharpe, who was arrested this week for allegedly forcing a woman to have sex with him and threatening her life. Gainesville, FL police reported this week that Florida State player Chris Rainey was arrested for sending his on-again, off-again girlfriend a text message that said simply, “Time to die, bitch.” And let’s not forget Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger,(left) currently serving a four-game suspension for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in a bar. And while we’re at it, how about former NFLer Mark Fields who beat up the mother of his child, outside of a day care center while the child was present?

The list goes on. Athletes are still being given a major pass on behavior that other citizens know will end their careers, their marriages and their big, fat paychecks. Every time we let a bunch of NFL players do their male bonding thing by humiliating a woman, we validate their free pass to buck societal norms, to empower themselves to chuck gentlemanliness for savagery and to simply further their misguided sense of entitlement. Two words for these guys: Grow Up.

And Then Five Years Passed

If you live long enough, you come to find out that the phrase, “This too shall pass” is more prophecy than cliché. My final exam in “this too shall pass” was Hurricane Katrina, which blew in just over five years ago. What has passed since then is the initial widespread panic, some of the anger at the U.S. Government’s inept non-response, and the confusion about what to do next. However, what remains is a distinct memory of all of the above that will guide many of us New Orleanians for the rest of our lives. We feared the total loss of our city, and if you have been to New Orleans, you already know a greater loss there really could never be. New Orleans is all about its natural magic, and if we had lost that to a hurricane, nothing would ever have been the same.

Five years later, we are ourselves again, but with one important addition. Katrina never really leaves us. Here is how it shows itself. Two New Orleanians will be talking to each other about something they did in the past. One of them will inevitably say, “Was that before the storm or after?” And in some cases, they’ll just say “before or after.” New Orleanians now measure everything in their lives according to before Katrina happened or since it happened. Further, it is common to talk about flooding now. Before Katrina, flooding wasn’t really a topic, ever. Just last night I was telling somebody that I would someday like to move to Bayou St. John [a New Orleans Mid-City neighborhood].My friend’s immediate response was , “It floods over there.”

I believe we are going to define the first decade of the 21st century by the mighty triumvirate of 9/11, Katrina and the BP oil spill. And we’re still working to get over all three incidents. We Americans are quite divided right now on the issue of whether a Muslim Mosque should be established on the grounds of 9/11. As for the oil spill, although it has stepped back from the headlines, it is still very much an issue in S.E. Louisiana. BP appears to be making efforts to bow out of the aftermath of this tragedy by unreasonably delaying payments to thousands of people who filed legitimate claims for loss of income or property. And Katrina? Well, as predicted, national media descended upon us in late August to “commemorate.”

They focused on the French Quarter, downtown and uptown. They showed lots of freshly painted houses, blooming gardens, a tree-lined St. Charles Ave with its resurrected streetcar line. They saw tourists and lively hotel lobbies and old New Orleans with a bit of a facelift. But if only they would drive a few miles outside of safe zone and take a look at parts of St. Bernard and parts of Eastern New Orleans. There they would see communities that are merely a shadow of their pre-storm condition. Vacant houses, houses without roofs, vacant lots with just parts of the foundation of a house left and more. They’ll see potholes verging on sink holes; they’ll see overgrown fields that used to be residential blocks. They will see Katrina, five years later, up close and personal, and it is a site that leaves newcomers stunned.

And now with part of the city amputated from the rest of New Orleans, the next phase begins. Just days before the five year mark, the blame game started. Cops are coming forward to say that after Katrina, they were under orders to shoot looters. Do what you have to do, they allegedly were told – “if you can sleep with it.” And guess who supposedly said that: New Orleans’ shady former police chief, Warren J. Riley,(left) who at the time was second in command. We are being told that there was a meeting of some sort inside the Harrah’s Casino building, and that’s where the directive was given. If true, essentially the top cop was telling his subordinates that a stolen laptop and a human life are of equal value, so go on – shoot them. If true, it is a lesson in inhumanity that we learned from Katrina. Riley’s response: "I didn't say anything like that. I heard rumors that someone else said that. But I certainly didn't say that, no.”

Somebody’s lying, but who? And while that battle rages in the city, elsewhere who else but Brownie himself is speaking up. You remember Michael Brown, (below, right, with Chertoff) the then head of FEMA. Just days after the storm President Bush told him, “You’re doin’ a heck of a job, Brownie.” That stellar job performance Bush referred to involved Brown’s negligent management of his agency that resulted in people living in the Superdome for four days in 100 degree heat. He now claims any negligence came from people over his head, like Michael Chertoff, the homeland security chief at the time. And now, five years later, Denver radio host Michael Brown shows up on the anniversary, in New Orleans. Wait – it gets worse: He has a book coming out about his experience during Katrina. Brownie -- Brass balls or total cluelessness? You be the judge.

Katrina’s back on the front page, much to the regret of many of us who live here. August 29, 2005 was the day that every single New Orleanian learned they could not depend on law enforcement or their own government to save their lives. The explanation was that they could not get supplies in. That’s odd, I think, because two days after the storm I got in my car and drove straight out of the city onto I-10 and left the New Orleans behind. If I could get out that easily, why couldn’t they get in with food and water and medical help? Media was everywhere in New Orleans within 24 hours. How did they make their way in but the most powerful government in the world did not? We were lied to. The worst part of being lied to by your own government is simply that you can never fully trust them again. It tells us that here in the Southeastern quadrant of the U.S., we are on our own, flying without a net.

The winds and the floods stopped a long time ago, but Katrina is still happening. That’s hard to convey to those who are not here, but we who are here know it well. We know that a lot of office space in downtown New Orleans is vacant, and has been since Katrina. Companies are afraid to come here. We know that those responsible for the inept response have yet to be held accountable in a meaningful way. The top five got away with, well - murder. They are Kathleen Blanco, Michael Brown, Ray Nagin, Warren Riley, and the ultimate failure, President George W. Bush. We know that people lost their lives when they could have been saved. And most importantly, we know that the best and the worst of human nature and behavior exhibited itself on those soggy post-Katrina days, and if nothing else, the storm was a life lesson in selfishness, selflessness and compassion.

"I AM NEW ORLEANS"

"I AM NEW ORLEANS" by Vince Vance (c)2009

FADE OUT DR. LAURA

Racial issues have been front and center lately. A quick recap: Mel Gibson, Shirley Sherrod, Barack Obama, Andrew Breitbart – aahhhh, the memories. But the woman of the hour right now is Dr. Laura Schlessinger, radio talk show host, who thankfully announced the end of her radio career this week on Larry King. It all started when she, of the “tough love” advice radio format, recently lambasted a caller who sought advice on a racial problem in her own family. Listen:

First things first. Dr. Laura, as she is known, has a Ph.D in physiology from Columbia University. Respectable – some might even say impressive. But how a physiologist got herself an audience of about nine million listeners who tune in to hear her advice on love, life, career, family, etc., is anybody’s guess. Over the years, Schlessinger has consistently made outrageous, judgmental, arrogant statements that angered some and invigorated others. After Rush Limbaugh (approx. 20 million listeners) and Sean Hannity (12 million), Schlessinger has often tied for third place in Arbitron radio ratings with the likes of Glenn Beck. Schlessinger is a provocateur with few scruples, and a topical opportunist. Not long ago her listener base was estimated at 10 million, and that loss of about a million has to be weighing heavily on her tightly-coiffed head. It was predictable that she would pull something like you just heard, but disturbing just the same.

Just days after her ridiculous tirade, and after a half-baked on-air apology, Schlessinger no doubt saw the writing on the wall and said this:

Schlessinger is positioning herself as a victim of an overly predatory culture that preaches political correctness, when the truth is that she is a product of social change growing pains. The culture has decided that racist rhetoric is not acceptable any more. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It has to do with respect for all human beings, and the recognition of the responsibility that comes with the First Amendment. One cannot lean on the Constitution to support racial prejudice. Moreover, one cannot lean on the constitution to whitewash her imminent dismissal from the airwaves. I suspect the Talk Radio Network saw the immediate loss of sponsors and decided Schlessinger had become a liability. She knew that and had to put a spin on the situation that would allow her to leave with dignity.

Fortunately, the public is smarter than that, and we know what happened to other public figures when they cavalierly dismissed entire segments of the population.
Schlessinger’s personal and professional history does not inspire confidence. Here’s some juicy Dr. Laura stuff: In the 1970s she proclaimed her feminist self, but by turn of the century, she was anti-feminism. In the 1990s she went through the arduous process of converting to Orthodox Judaism, but by 2004 she announced she was no longer an Orthodox Jew and was having a tough time “connecting with God.” You may recall the hoopla about her mother’s death, when it was revealed her mother’s body was found in her condo, after having been dead for about two months. Schlessinger’s public response was typified by this statement: "I'm horrified by the tragic circumstances of my mother's death, and so sad to learn that she died as she chose to live -- alone and isolated.” (One wonders if her mother “chose” for her body to remain unfound for two months). In the late 1990s, Schlessinger, who was increasingly positioning herself as a pillar of virtue, was shocked when nude photos of her popped up on the Internet. A longtime-advocate of monogamy and faithfulness in marriage, it is common knowledge that the good doc had an affair with a married man, while she was still married to her first husband. A few years ago she told her listeners that men need a lot of sex, so women should “put out on demand” even if they don’t feel like it. As for her views on homosexuality, Schlessinger calls it a “biological error” and contrary to holy scripture. She also said that homosexuality is all about “pedophilia and the bestiality and the sadomasochism.”

Worst of all is what she said on her radio show about the death of young Matthew Shepard, who was murdered by two men who tortured, beat and tied him to a fence and left him to die in 1998. Dr. Laura: “If Matthew hadn’t been willing to leave [a bar] for sex, he might still be alive. That certainly doesn’t make him responsible for his own death but when you put yourself into a situation of going off to have anonymous sex with people you meet at a bar, what kind of person is gonna leave with you? Usually scum.... This was a terrible tragedy but it’s also one that might have been avoided if he had simply gone home with his friends instead of thinking he was gonna get a little."

For a long time, Schlessinger’s outrageous behavior and on-air comments were the stuff of media gold. She was widely talked and written about, and up until the early 2000’s she was still receiving awards for something or other. But that was then.

Now, Laura is treading water, at best. Harken to Don Imus,(below, left) who was at the top of his game when he made racist comments on his own show. Imus is back on the radio, but teetering on oblivion. At the time, Schlessinger wrote this on her blog about Imus: “"His remark was insulting, stupid, mean and ugly. It was so seemingly 'off-the-cuff' that it felt too casually familiar a thing for him to say." Laura should have thought of that before she made her recent comments, huh? On Monday, August 16, GLAAD, the Women's Media Center and Unity Journalists of Color all encouraged her advertisers to abandon her.

On Tuesday, August 17, Marc Morial, former mayor of New Orleans and currently head of the Urban League, called on the Talk Radio Network to drop Schlessinger’s syndicated radio show. Watchdog group “Media Matters” issued this statement: “It's clear the airwaves are no place for Dr. Laura's hate speech. By choosing to sponsor her, Dr. Laura's advertisers are not only funding her offensive radio show, but are implicitly endorsing its content."

So, Dr. Laura, since you chose not to think before you spoke, I choose to thoughtfully respond to your racist tirade this way. We humans (black and white and other colors) are trying to evolve the word “nigger” out of the language. Every time a public figure like you decides to say the word to a large audience, we are shot back several giant steps. The word “nigger” is a symbol of reducing another human being or group of human beings to their lowest common denominator. You are not in a position to do so. The airwaves you use are offered to you as a privilege, not as a basic right. Other public figures (Michael Richards, Mel Gibson, Don Imus, etc.) have been relegated to public humiliation and shame for doing just what you did. Since you, in your persona as Dr. Laura, choose to give advice to the masses, I will more humbly, as self-appointed Dr. Paul, choose to give my advice to just one person – you:

Dr. Laura, you should have used your position to lift the national conversation to a better place. You were in a position to flood the airwaves with smart rhetoric about issues that concern us, in a way that will add something constructive to the mix of ideas. You are a million listeners down from last year at this time because your words are damaging and hurtful to millions of people. You are underestimating the American public: We are smarter and more progressive in our thinking than you think. We will not rally behind a radio talk show host who dismisses an entire race of Americans. Feel that ice getting thinner under your well-pedicured feet? That’s the feeling of smart, forward-thinking Americans tuning you out. You can go quietly or we can digitally dismiss you, and it appears we just did.

KATRINA Five Years On...

Music by Bruce Springsteen - "My City of Ruins"

TAKE THIS JOB...PLEASE!

Hey, did you hear the one about the flight attendant who got into an argument with a passenger who stood up while the Jet Blue airliner was still taxiing at JFK? Yeah, and then the passenger opens the overhead compartment and it hits the flight attendant in the head. Wait, wait…it gets better…the flight attendant gets on the P.A. system, tells all the passengers to go fuck themselves, engages the emergency slide, grabs some beers and slides down to the tarmac. Do you love it?

The story hits the evening newscasts, goes national, and suddenly flight attendant Steven Slater is a new American hero. Sort of a twisted modern-day Horatio Alger. People are talking about him all over the Internet, on Facebook, everywhere you can think of, and most of the comments are singing his praises. What is going on here? Slater was later arrested at his house, charged with a few felonies, but curiously, his bail was set at a measly $2500. How does a guy who has been a flight attendant since 1994 suddenly reach the breaking point and slide away? High drama, you might say, but something tells me a move like that only comes after something has been boiling inside of him for a long, long time. Hey, work with the public for a while and see if you don’t want to slide away.

The hard truth is that a LOT of American workers hate their jobs. How many? Well, in January the AP published poll results that indicated only 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work. The numbers tell the story. Only 56 percent like their co-workers and only 51 percent like their boss. I once had a co-worker who talked incessantly and who ended every single sentence that came out of her mouth with the phrase, “You know what I’m sayin’?” I had fantasies of standing on top of my desk, in my cubicle and screaming, “Yes, goddammit, we know what you’re saying. We get it. Shut up. Die.” I didn’t. I should have Steve Slatered her.

Steven is this year’s poster kid for job dissatisfaction, but how deep does it run in our culture, and how many
of us feel we are wasting our precious time? How many of us are harboring escapist thoughts, or worse, hatching plans to set off the sprinkler system or slip some ecstasy into the boss’s morning coffee? That brings us to PleaseFireMe.com.

The stated purpose of the web site is: “Since drinking at work is no longer socially acceptable – except on AMC – PleaseFireMe.com is here to get you through the hellish work day. Post your gripe or join the chorus – let the world know you are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. The Man might be saying “let them eat cake” in the break room every friggin' day someone has a birthday, but we are starting a new revolution and our rally cry is Please Fire Me.”

Apparently a LOT of people would rather be fired than endure another hour of occupational torture. There are so far 71 pages of comments on the site, each with its own brand of desperation. The comments range from “Please fire me. My boss just typed “google” into the Google search bar,” to “Please fire me. My boss called me a “fucking idiot” and waved a loaded buffalo rifle at my stomach.” And then there’s this: “Please fire me. The woman in the office next to me groans like she’s having an orgasm every few minutes.” And, my personal favorite: “Please fire me. A gay, black, holocaust denier who thinks Hitler was misunderstood is my new “manager”.

The truth is that we spend an inordinate number of hours in our lives working. And if we build up that “hate my job account” inside of ourselves, we’re going to blow like Steve Slater. Or worse. You’ve seen those stories about people going all postal at their places of employment and blowing their co-workers away. Maybe you know the feeling. I’m fortunate in that I do not hate my job, but I used to have jobs that I really hated. Once I had a female boss who cussed a lot and blew cigarette smoke in my face and told me not to be a whiny baby. I swear. When I finally went to her office to resign, I told her I would stay three weeks to make sure everything was in order before I left. Her response? “Well, I guess I should thank you for that. You could have f__ked me in the ass on this one.” I’m telling the truth. Kathy V., you know who you are. And anybody who worked at a hotel in New Orleans in the 1980s that starts with a W and ends in estin knows who I mean, too. What a lady.

I have long since changed careers and found job satisfaction, and I do not take it for granted. The prison-like environment of a job that you hate can push you to the brink. Or worse. Just this past week a man who worked for a beer distributor in Hartford, CT, killed eight co-workers and then himself. Evidently, he too hated his job, and felt the workplace was racist. Omar Thornton had been asked to resign earlier that day.

It brings to mind the vacuous statement, “It’s not personal; it’s business.” Of course it’s personal. It is all personal. Steve Slater was in an interpersonal altercation when he decided to take a slide down to unemployment. And Omar was probably on fire inside. People were reportedly leaving graffiti in the men’s room, pictures of a noose, with the words, “Kill the nigger.” Does it get any more personal than that?

Steve Slater is an instant folk hero with the same message as the fictional Howard Beale in the 1976 film, “Network.” Beale,(left, played by Peter Finch) you will recall, opened the window, stuck his head out and bellowed, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.” Just like Slater was mad as hell. Sixteen years of waiting on people inside a sealed tube, 30,000 feet up could do that to a man. And Beale, a creation of master-writer Paddy Chayefsky threatens to kill himself on live TV, just after he is fired. Just like Omar Thornton did away with himself, just after being let go. It’s personal.

Meanwhile, over at Facebook, (the 21st century town square), the crowd is roaring about Steve Slater. No less than six pages have been established about and for him. One of them is titled, “What Would Steve Slater Do?” Its stated purpose: “WWSSD is a place for people to discuss stresses of our workplace in a safe environment. We would like to show our gratitude to the one person who actually did what we all dream about.”

Wow. Just wow.

SAME SEX MARRIAGE: CHECK THE CONSTITUTION

Your culture is shifting – can you feel it? If you feel vaguely uncomfortable, apprehensive and possibly even scared, you are not alone. Right now, major shifts in the American culture have everything to do with inclusiveness and exclusiveness. We are moving toward including the homosexual segment of our population, as we move closer to excluding our immigrant population. Ying, Yang. Push, Pull. Aahhh, ouch. Feel it?

I will save the immigrant portion of this topic for another day, but today let’s talk same-sex marriage. It is front burner now. You know that. It has been inching toward the front of our collective consciousness for a very long time now, but U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker just gave it the necessary impetus to speed itself up. Republican-appointed Judge Walker, on August 4, 2010, ruled that California’s controversial Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, in spite of the millions of Californians that voted otherwise in 2008. Proposition 8, you will recall, was a measure that made same-sex marriage illegal in California. Widely seen as precedent setting in the U.S., Prop 8 has given talking heads material for years now, and threatened to deny millions of Americans their constitutional rights.

In his ruling, Judge Walker (below, left)wisely and sensibly wrote this: “Moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, has never been a rational basis for legislation.” (Page 133). He also made the inevitable comparison to our country’s mid-20th century struggle with inter-racial marriage. He wrote: “Race restrictions on marital partners were once common in most states but are now seen as archaic, shameful or even bizarre. When the Supreme Court invalidated race restrictions in Loving, the definition of the right to marry did not change. Instead, the Court recognized that race restrictions, despite their historical prevalence, stood in stark contrast to the concepts of liberty and choice inherent in the right to marry.” (Page 114)

When Walker refers to ‘Loving,’ he is referencing the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, a 1967 Supreme Court decision that invalidated the 1924 Racial Integrity Act that outlawed interracial marriage. The plaintiffs in the 1967 case were Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who married in Virginia and were subject to criminal prosecution under the Racial Integrity Act. Watch:

Now, 43 years later, similar dynamics are showing up in the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage in America. You might think we had settled this equal rights dilemma all those years ago, but clearly we did not. Somehow, because two people with the same reproductive organs fall in love, America has collectively decided to disenfranchise gay people. How do you feel about that? Do you feel that you, as a citizen, have the right to deprive other citizens of their rights because of their sexual preference? Are your rights as a citizen in any way tied to your sexual organs? Let’s carry that just a step further: What if your rights as a citizen were challenged based on some things that you have done sexually in your life? Think back, real hard now. What if, all of a sudden, your citizenship was challenged because you had sex with someone other than your spouse? Or what if you were no longer allowed to visit your spouse in the hospital because of that one time you had sex with a prostitute? Or wait, what about this? What if you were turned down for military service because you like three-ways?

The very noisy objections of the anti-gay marriage movement are typified by one Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, a right-wing Christian group dedicated to conservative policies. Perkins has been vocal in his staunch objections to all things homosexual. I like to think of Perkins’ group as Anita Bryant on acid. But that’s just me. Listen to what Perkins had to say about Judge Vaughn’s ruling:


You and I both know that 50 years from now we will look back on this the same way we look back on Loving v. Virginia. As I said earlier, you can feel the culture shifting right now. Even 10 years ago it was unheard of for some major corporations to extend employee benefits to the partners of gay employees, but now it is almost de rigueur. The idea of two men or two women adopting a child was not even considered just a few years ago, and now there are thousands of such families. The thought of making it legal for openly gay men and women to serve in the military was not even up for discussion not long ago, and now we are on the cusp of repealing the discriminatory, ill-conceived “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. It is happening, albeit perhaps not as swiftly as some citizens prefer.

In America, social change happens at a snail’s pace. When it does happen, as dictated by the judicial system, there is an inevitable backlash from those who cling to tradition, even if that tradition is flawed and discriminatory. In the end, when social change focuses on marriage, as it did with the Lovings, love trumps politics, history and prejudice. That will certainly happen again, but this time the recipients of equal rights will be gay Americans. That could include your sister, or your uncle, or your boss, or your best friend or your son’s best friend, or your pre-school teacher or…well, fill in the blank. These individuals are not anomalies. Rather, they are your fellow citizens.

Judge Vaughn’s ruling is not a radical move. Instead, it is an effort to extend equal protection under the law to all citizens. It is not an effort to change the law, but rather one to enforce existing law. The 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” With that very simple statement in mind, Vaughn wrote the following in his ruling:

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”

That says to me that the only way gay Americans can be prohibited from marrying other gay Americans is by amending the existing U.S. constitution. Since that is unlikely to happen in our lifetime, I suggest you break out your tux, or your party dress and get yourself to the church on time. There are wedding bells about to ring coast to coast and surely you won’t want to miss the fun.

AND NOW...BACK TO 1968?

For those of you out there who are up to here with Mel Gibson ad Lindsay Lohan , let’s talk North Carolina and its contemporary version of racial segregation. Oh, what’s that you say? You thought that was all taken care of 40-some years ago. Well, think again. North Carolina is quietly taking steps to re-segregate its public schools.

Here’s the short version: Wake County, county seat of Raleigh, NC, has a long standing policy of promoting diversity by balancing percentages of low-income students in area schools. Wake County originally bused children to keep schools racially balanced, starting in the 1970s. In 2000, the schools began using family income as the basis for diversity. Today, there is a movement afoot to go back (way back) to a system of neighborhood schools, in which students would attend the school closest to their homes. Critics of the proposed revamp point out that this policy will result in some schools being grossly overcrowded, and others half empty. But the bigger issue has to do with race – is Wake County hatching a clandestine plan to keep whites together in some schools and blacks in others? It would appear that way.

I’m from the sixties. People in my generation know from segregation. Until high school, I cannot remember ever talking to or interacting with a black person. In high school, out of a student body of about 1500, roughly 300 were black. The first time a black kid said something about his “crib,” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Sitting behind a black kid in English class was culture shock. After a racial uprising in the cafeteria one day, my driver’s ed teacher said in class that the problem was that “negroes” didn’t “understand their place.” When black students occupied and took over a building on campus one day in protest of something or other, we were all put on school buses and taken home. As we frantically boarded the buses, the driver told us to all lean forward with our head between our knees, apparently to keep us from getting shot or something. The day after Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, there was not a black face to be seen on the sprawling campus. The football coach was heard to say, “Enjoy this while you can, kids.”

So, as Wake County endeavors to turn the calendar back to 1968, consider this: Do we really want to dismantle the hard fought for progress that at least minimally homogenized our previously separatist society? Do we want new scenes of white men pulling black kids off of school buses? Do we want our kids to have my limited mid-20th century experience? It is highly unlikely that diversity in the American workplace will be slowed or cancelled. If a white kid grows up with kids who all look just like him or her, what happens when he or she goes to work for a black woman, or ends up competing for a promotion with a Hispanic guy? And, in this planned, segregated society, will our kids grow up to create segregated communities like the ones their misguided elders forced upon them?

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC school system dismantled its diversity policy way back in 1999, favoring a neighborhood school system, instead. The result? The NC Department of Education reports test scores in Charlotte-Mecklenburg have consistently been lower than diversified Wake County. Are Wake County separatists about to create an under-performing student body?

Having lived through those sixties, I have to wonder what this is really all about. The cynic in me reluctantly believes that legislation does not a harmonious society make. So, even though landmark law was enacted in the 60s, racial intolerance is still rampant. Racism, in some ways, is bigger and “badder” than it was 40 years ago. Exhibit A, of course is President Obama, whose every move is scrutinized for racial bias. Exhibit B? Arizona. Enough said there. Know this: Wake County is not an enigma in an otherwise racially balanced 21st century America. Other cities, (such as Chicago) seem to be clandestinely moving toward re-segregation. Keep an eye on this…like everything else that happens among us, it is about you.

THE U.S. GOVT. vs. THE FIRST AMENDMENT

If you think you are getting the whole story about the BP oil spill and subsequent efforts to contain and clean it up, guess what: You’re not. In fact, the story has been stymied from all quarters since the beginning of this catastrophe. First, it was BP stalling the press from getting the whole story or photographing the unfolding tragedy. Now, the U.S. government has weighed in with unreasonably punitive new rules of its own.

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander for the government’s response to the BP spill, has routinely been less than transparent about what is happening along the coast of Louisiana and surrounding areas. But now, his secrecy has taken a giant leap. Last week, Allen announced tighter restrictions on press coverage of the spill. The new rules invoke a 65-foot required distance from all animals, workers and equipment related to the spill. Violators will face fines of up to $40,000 and possible Class D felony charges. A Class D felony charge carries the potential of a jail sentence of up to 25 years. Admiral Thad Allen calls the 65 feet rule a “safety and security zone.”

Allen defends the new rule by saying local government officials have complained that there could be safety and security issues involved. So far, not one local government official has owned up to those concerns. So what is really going on here? Watch:

Add to this the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has already imposed air restrictions that prevent planes from flying below 3,000 feet over the entire spill area. So, we are not allowed to see clear images from the sky or on the ground. How do you feel about that? Me? I’m not feeling too good about it. As I see it, my First Amendment rights are being violated by the U.S. government, and by BP, a public corporation. After Allen’s new proclamation, BP was quick to issue an open invitation to the media. Reportedly, cards went out from BP to 40,000 cleanup workers informing them that they can talk to the media if they want to. How interesting that BP believes it has the authority to give American citizens “permission” to speak to other American citizens. Arrogant would be an understatement. But BP evidently felt it needed to do quick damage control after the government effectively issued a media blackout. Good cop, bad cop, you might say.

BP’s new open policy toward the press apparently did not reach the security department of BP’s Texas City, TX refinery. Photographer Lance Rosenfeld, covering the spill for ProPublica was detained by a BP security officer, local police and a man who identified himself as an agent of the Department of Homeland Security. Listen to what Rosenfeld had to say about the experience:

What happened here is in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. And if you think that this form of censorship is an isolated incident within our government, consider the new directive issued by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Back in February, Gates announced the Pentagon would lift the ban on coverage of dead military personnel, whose bodies routinely arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. That seemed like a step in the right direction. However, recently General Stanley McChrystal, senior military commander in Afghanistan, was relieved of his command after statements he made to a Rolling Stone Magazine reporter, criticizing President Obama. Very few Americans disagreed with the decision to replace McChrystal. However, after this incident, Gates imposed new restrictions on media interviews with military personnel. No interviews will take place now without first being authorized by the Pentagon. Again, this is your government controlling the flow of information from your military. As a reporter, I can only imagine the hoops one would have to jump through to get the Pentagon to approve an interview. Those hoops equal delays of information, which equals keeping the public (you) in the dark about issues that directly affect your life.

So, what are we citizens to conclude from the disparate Gates directives? Should we conclude that the Pentagon is okay with media coverage of the dead, but not comfortable with reportage about living military figures? And there’s more: Nothing was made public about the memo Gates issued regarding the new restrictions. The New York Times reports that the memo was funneled to the newspaper by a Pentagon official who was not authorized to release it. So, Gates, who has been repeatedly verbal about his determination to provide transparency and access to the press, evidently decided to restrict the media without even letting media organizations know about it.

Keep this in mind: Any time you lose a freedom in the country, you are not likely to get it back. We have already lost most of our right to privacy. Technology and cultural shifts intersected to cause that. Moves like the ones described herein threaten our freedom of expression. What’s next? Will private citizens be prevented from criticizing the President? Will oil spill cleanup workers be forced to sign confidentiality agreements? Will newsworthy photographs have to be approved by the government before they are made public? Every one of us, including the restrictors, loses when the free flow of information is interrupted or prevented. The national conversation and everything that informs it is critical to the democracy. The democracy may not be perfect, but the last thing it needs is arbitrary censorship.

Are you listening Secretary Gates? How about you, Admiral Allen? And how about you, citizens?