Blackface EnVogue?

This morning while getting ready I turned on CNN to catch up on the news. Unfortunately I can't find the link to the clip (here it is, but it keeps loading "undefined) I saw this morning but the title link does prove the validity of the story.

Apparently French Vogue released a photo shoot with models wearing "blackface." That's right, high fashion has deemed it appropriate to paint white super-models black.

A brief history lesson, blackface began in the 19th century in the incredibly popular minstrel shows. These shows basically depict white comedians painted to look like Africans. The routines frequently poke fun at African Americans by using "black dialect" and generally making a mockery of their conditions as slaves and second class citizens. In short, it is among the most racist acts in US History and is still a very sensitive subject today.

Why then did French Vogue decide it was "OK" to use blackface? If I remember correctly, the CNN news clip stated that the article was to be a celebration of models. Yet no black super models were used. One such theory states that because many other nations have not had the storied civil war/right history that the United States has, they are less sensitive to the negative ramifications of such an act.

As an African American woman, I believe this photo shoot to be distasteful, demoralizing, degrading, and disgusting!

But it brings up a very interesting question. Just how long do we have to "walk on egg shells" regarding race? When can we all say the "n-word", when can affirmative actions stop, when will everything stop being a black/white issue?

The idealist in me says, soon and very soon. Our President is black, after all.

But stories like this show me that that thought is an illusion.

We will never be able to rid ourselves of history as long as there are those who still remember it, and I believe it is a travesty for any African American to not know our history, how far we've come, and more importantly how far we have to go.

Just as there is an American National Anthem, there is a Negro National Anthem and it's words tell the story of being black in America.

You wouldn't ask a US citizen to stop singing the Star-Spangled Banner, so don't expect the black American to stop singing Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Which subsequently means, don't ask the black American to forget the horrors of the past and allow it to be OK to commit them here in the present or in the future.

Lift Every Voice and Sing - The Negro National Anthem Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of liberty; Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet, Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered; Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee. Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee. Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand, True to our God, true to our native land.

Lockerbie Bomber Goes Free

I will admit that I am a little impassioned about this story since I went to Syracuse University and many of my friends were Remembrance Scholars. But that does not change the fact that Scotland is creating a great injustice!

My Synopsis: 35 Innocent SU students and 208 other passengers had their lives violently taken from then in a terrorist plane bombing over Lockerbie Scotland on Wednesday December 21st, 1988. Alleged motive, anger of US foreign relations with Lybia in the 80s. But don't take my word for it.

Recent Events: After serving 8 of his minimum 27 year sentence Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi is was released today by the Scottish government because he is dying of cancer on ground of compassion. (See title link for NYT Story).

Are we to assume then that the wishes of a dying terrorist trump the wishes of 200+ mourning families, the US Secretary of State, 7 other US Senators, not to mention many international citizens?!

Why have sentences if you can get out them for good behavior, or "compassion"? If one exhibited good behavior or compassion to begin with would you not be free anyway?

Rabbi Michael Melchoir address this issues very poignantly when a Chautauquan asked him about how do we show compassion for Megarahi. While he didn't offer an opinion, he made the stance that compassion is a two way street and we cannot just look at it from one side. Thus my judgement does reflect this attempt to see compassion from both sides.

Ideally, and though it disgusts me to say it, Megrahi should be released. This is compassionate. I cannot imagine the most compassionate leaders of history thinking otherwise. However, this is a illusion. We do not live in a compassionate world. And showing one act of compassion towards a terrorist is going to have negative repercussions that will circumvent the compassion showed. Removing the illusions that surround idealism, we see that you cannot show compassion for someone who has bastardized human rights.

You want further proof: Munich jailed a90 Nazi 65 years after his first trial. He is certainly near death, but Germany doesn't believe compassion should be on the side of those who failed to show it just because they're dying.

But is something really compassionate if it creates injustice?

H.R. 3200

No one can deny that we need health care reform in this country. The question is, who's reform are we going to make a reality?

Rather than posting the ridiculous signs and quotes that are emerging from town hall meetings, I've decided to do something a bit more constructive.

First, the title of this blog is the link to the actual bill. All 1,017 pages of it. Knock yourself out. Second, if reading the entire thing seems to daunting, try reading the OpenCongress Summary. Third, rather than allowing news clips, debates, photos, and sound bites to sway your opinions, take a look at the GOP's plans for Health Care Reform. Fourth, check out The White House Reality Check and the CBO's Second Analysis of HR3200 And lastly, STOP listening, STOP watching, STOP reading anything else until you've reached your opinion on what plan seems best for your political ideologies.

And if you're too lazy to do any of that, then you shouldn't be calling anyone or attending anything.

As far as I'm concerned the two valid concerns with HR 3200 are about your ability to keep your current insurance plan, and cost. The truth in the first concern does not come out of misinformation, but directly from the Congressional Budget Office's FIRST (remember there is a SECOND) analysis of how the health care plan will payout in the long run (See page 4 specifically). In the long run, employers may or may not choose to continue to provide the same insurance they do now, thus the loss of your plan. However, it should be noted that even with the current system your employer could change your plan.

The second concern has yet to be adequately addressed by either side. Either way you slice it, this plan will cost a whole lot of money. To which I quote Economist EJ Dionne in his speech at Chautauqua Institution this summer, "The only time the congressional budget office cares about costs in when it's time to give health insurance to poor people" (I'm paraphrasing, it's been a few weeks now).

Ideally, America will join the rest of the industrialized countries in having Universal Health Care. For this to happen, we need people to be well informed and drop the illusion that this is something we can afford to split hairs over.

Do We Need Population Control?

Among the many reasons we're in the current eco/eco (economic/ecologic) crisis is because, we're simple over using our resources.

Want proof? Our world population is projected to reach 7 billion in just 2 years! (see title link). Over population means more food, more gas, more water, more pollution, more jobs needed, more health care, more education, more, more, more. The title question then becomes valid, do we need population control?

The idea came to me a few weeks ago by reading my friend's blog. His idea of only having one or 2 children was then reaffirmed by a later article from Yahoo News. [Edit] another friend recently posted this article from CNN regarding India [/EDIT]. With all the collaborating evidence I decided to wiki population control.

The effects of lack of consistent, solid information and resources regarding contraception in developing countries is certainly a factor here. But that doesn't account for Nadya Suleman (the Octomom) or Kate Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus 8. Granted yes, both of these multiple births were the result of a SUPER EFFECTIVE IVF, but it should be noted that both of these women already had at least two children, and Suleman already had six!!! Do we need population control? I know it sounds like some crazy communist idea, but can our world support 7 billion people? Joel Cohen did some research but if you don't already have the book, apparently "one half of the estimates are under 7.7 billion, which if correct means we will not be able to sustain our currently projected world population for long."

Sounds like something needs to be done to me.

The reality of this happening, at least in the States, is an illusion. Many of our women are waiting so long to try to get pregnant that it's often hard for them to do so. Ideally though, more people in positions of power (that probably means you) will support organizations like United Nations Population Fund.

Impeach Gov. Sanford?

When it comes to sex scandals, Americans are caught in the dust of their British counterparts, but unfortunately the list of American political infidelity is growing.

Enter the newest cheating politician, South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford with his disappearance and affair. Despite the controversy surrounding his affair, it's not his sex life that caught my interest today, it's GOP Senator Dave Thomas' movement toward Sanford's impeachment. His grounds? Misusing state funds for travel. According to South Carolina state law, all travel must be done by the most economical means possible. Gov. Sanford decided this meant First Class, which ended up costing South Carolina an additional $13,700.

There is no doubt this is a violation of state law, and thus a legitimate grounds for impeachment. It matters not how much extra money is spent. If the law says you shouldn't fly first class, YOU DON'T FLY FIRST CLASS! But the real question is, would this really have been an issue if Thomas wasn't looking for a reason to get Sanford out of office because of his sexual escapades? While I'd like to thinkthe spending would be noticed, the CATO Institute's 2008 report on Governors' spending (warning, the PDF is long, but true political nerds will enjoy!) actually give Sanford an A! Thus while he might have over shot his personal budget, overall, Sanford did what he was supposed to do.

Idealistically, Sanford would be impeached (or even resign). He broke the law and his marriage vows. But this is an illusion. A little less than 14K is nothing to a large city budget, let a lone a state budget. Sanford will likely finish out his term and not be re-elected.

Adulterer or not, can we move on?

Motivation 3.0

One of the perks of being at Chautauqua all season with a job that has most of it's events in the evening is that I get to attend the great lectures that take place twice daily. Today's 10:45 lecture was Daniel H. Pink.

Credentials: 3 Best selling books (NYT, Wash Post, and BusWeek), Yale JD, and vice-presidential speech writer.

Pink's lecture was a case against the motivation factors that have prevailed for business and education over the last, I believe he said 400 years. Incentive-based pay. Or as he called it, Motivation 2.0. Slightly above Motivation 1.0 which is the motivation to survive. Instead, he highlighted a series of scientific studies to make the case that incentive-based pay does not work the way we think it does (since I'm no longer attached to a legit library, you'll have to deal with this Harvard Business Review article to back him/us up). What does work however, is autonomy, creativity and purpose.

That is to say give someone something to do that allows them to think outside the box, manage their own work, and show them how this work will be of great impact on society and people will perform above and beyond what you could even imagine.

Governing our business and even our school systems around this is certainly Idealistic. But the illusion is thinking that our current economic crisis had nothing to do with the motivation strategies used in business in the 20th century. It's an illusion then to think that Pay for Performance will work in our Education system.

What these studies done over the last 40 years show is that pay for performance will work, if you want students to get higher test scores. Pay for performance will not work if you want teachers who will work towards genuinely educating the mind of our future. Pay for performance will churn out data. But it will not yield the teaching that will encourage students to continue to learn. Why will this, why did this, not work? It is because the problem with incentive based pay is that once the incentive is removed the behavior stops. Do we really want teachers who only work hard when there's an incentive for them if we've seen what happens when CEO's only work hard when there's an incentive for them?

When it comes to white-collar jobs and teaching, the idealistic solution without illusions is a fair wage that eliminates financial stress, the opportunity to chart the course as you see fit, so long as you know it will benefit society.

Autonomy, Creativity, and Purpose.

When asked about his political views, President John F. Kennedy eloquently responded:

"I am an idealist without illusions"

When it comes to impacting positive change on society, it matters not whether one considers themselves liberal or conservative, democrat or republican, independent or progressive. What matters is having the vision of change and the firm grasp on reality to make it happen.

There are many blogs operating under this very philosophy of idealism without illusions. This blog however, was beget out of a need to form the collection of thoughts regarding current events as they relate to the trajectory of changes being made to impact the future. The topics of concern are thus:

• International Human Rights
• Religion & Government
• American Economics
• US Foreign Affairs
• Health Care
• Education
• Agriculture
• Energy
• Civil Rights
  

While political leaning of this blog can be assumed from the header, altruism and egalitarianism are the ethical lenses by which events will be discussed. Consequentialism and utilitarianism will likely (although not entirely) not apply.