Ambivalence in a hectic year

I'm twenty-six and still am not totally sure of what I'm doing to do when I "grow up" (whatever that means).

That isn't to say that I don't have a career idea, or a path to getting to any kind of settling point. But the older I've gotten, the more I've seen that such questions like "What are you going to be?" and the like are tailor made for people who do not have much interest in self-exploration or introspection.

To be honest, I have no clue what a "grown up" even is. I used to look at my parents as the example, but the more time goes on, I both have a deepened respect for my parents and a deepening confusing as to whether they are the paradigm I have for a "grown up". I can respect what they have lived and done with themselves by understanding their lives and contrasting them with my life (and in turn, I can more deeply respect myself in that way also). However, I also see at the same time that they're just as imperfect as I am. They have character flaws like me, they are not these all-encompassing beings I imagined they might be even seven or eight years ago.

I used to bust it hard at work to save up money to finish studying for a technical career that would supposedly launch me right into "adulthood", or at least a major phase of it. But I quickly found that following this path to its logical end wouldn't bring me much deep satisfaction. Money would only bide me so much time and so much happiness. It would never match up to the depths of my imagination and curiosity about the world. I knew that my career, in some form or another, would have to allow me to explore that imagination in some way.

It is this aspect of my life that has caused much confusion in my life in recent years, but also a lot of clarity, oddly enough. My perception is akin to a bone, constantly breaking and cracking in micro-fractures with the confusion I face in keeping true to my curiosity and imagination and facing the scrutiny of those who do not see things the same or have not learned to understand their own curiosity. Clarity is the rebuilding of that broken bone and its strengthening.

This year, 2011, has been a year of rebuilding in many levels of my life. I saw levels of myself that I never knew could exist, both in good and bad ways. I dealt with enormous good fortune, like graduating debt free from college, landing a small teaching job, staying active and in shape, and reaching out to educate people on the world in new ways. I made new friends, met new people, solidified relationships with old friends, and kept true with my family. In other respects, I faltered in some of my money savings plans and ended relationships with some people - some out of necessity, some beyond my control. The gains and losses, successes and failures have left scars and simultaneously strengthened by ambition to grow more and face reality head on, no matter how bright or dark certain aspects may be.

2012 is going to be a unique year in ways that are unknown to me for the first time in my life. But I'm ready for it and am confident in my ability to confront new experiences.

Thoughts on learning

I'm sure that I'm hardly the first person to make this observation, and I surely won't be the last, but in my experience: knowledge is a mixed blessing. It's both empowering and immiserating at times. I tend to side with it being empowering as to how I let the accumulation of knowledge influence my life, but it does not take away the misery that comes every so often with knowing how things truly are in the world. The more I began to learn about the world several years ago, the more I found I didn't know enough. And this pushed me to learn more and more, creating an even bigger space to be filled with possible sadness or concern. I crafted these feelings into a direction, which often changed, but has landed on a trajectory towards working for egalitarianism, equality, justice, and "positive" peace (as contrasted with MLK Jr's "negative" peace).

Before I knew much about the world, I could have been considered particularly happier than today by many peoples measures. My conversation topics didn't tend to go beyond much of anything superficial, I certainly didn't bring up topics that caused any rift between myself and any established friends I'd had for any significant amount of time, and I generally seemed more carefree. Little was I aware that this was my immaturity reigning free and unfettered.

The more I became aware of things, be it out of curiosity, accident, or flat-out necessity, the less I felt careless. I became more thoughtful of my interactions and the consequences of things I would do. This made me feel confident and empowered. At the same time, however, I would feel saddened and dismayed, all the same powerless to the forces of the world around me. This became the moment I decided to alter who I was at another level apart from my personal thoughts and actions - my interactions. I knew and know now that my holding knowledge is not enough. I have to apply it and spread it to others who are willing (and perhaps at times not willing) to listen. With knowledge (and subsequent power within oneself) comes not only responsibility but the ability to empower others to do the same.

Things are bigger than any one person and I've found that wanting to empower others have enhanced my bonds with family, friends, or even people I would be in a relationship with. Living for others, taking yourself out of the center of everything you do, learning to live in true cohesion with others - this has been the key, I've found. It has been the perfect way for me to link the power I feel within myself and the sadness I feel for the world around me, given the mixed-bag that is knowing the good and bad about the world.

Justice and Ideology in Examining Obama

I reject the notion that I'm supposed to kowtow to a party before ideology. That is not to say that I am dogmatic with any ideology any more than with a political party. I may align closely with a certain group of ideologies, sure, and I may find myself closer to one party than another, but at the end of the day, I can look in the mirror and say honestly: I am not a socialist, capitalist, communist, fundamentalist of any sort. I'm a human and I am interested in justice for everybody and everything. If this means allying with people who may use socialist means to achieve a just end, I will indeed ally with them. If this means standing opposite people who drape themselves in a flag they wave only when it means protecting themselves and people who think, look, and act like them and benefit accordingly, then I'll do so. As Malcolm X said, "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against."

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Pondering the 2012 election, it seems difficult for someone who is firmly and sincerely devoted to progressive causes and ideologies to feel halfway okay with voting for Barack Obama again. It's difficult to even air these grievances aloud, as much of the monopoly on criticizing the President has fallen on the side of the Tea Party. They've made an art form out of it in ways and it makes it difficult for the left to voice their dissent. They run the risk of their voice getting caught up in the fog of media coverage of an extremely loud, extremely active organization that, whether they realize it or not, support the policies that indirectly cause their own frustration and anger.

Indeed, President Obama has fallen down on the job in important moments when the left expected him to rise to the occasion. He pushed a lackluster stimulus bill that should have been much bigger than it was. He has repeatedly bent over backwards to placate Republican and right-wing feelings with extensions of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. He accepted a version of the health-care reform that gave the private industry what they want, even after they have been raising costs for years. He has done little to significantly scale back the growing and problematic defense sector. Indeed, the left has much room for grievance with Obama. The only consolation that it once held for backing him now and in 2012 was the feeling that, "It's better than a Republican".

But if Obama is to continually bend to the right rather than to the left, if he is to start negotiations from a destination that ensures a long term problem for the nation and long term political loss for the left, why would the left continue to support Obama? If right-wing policies are to be enacted, wouldn't it make more sense to let the right-winger enact them so as to not obfuscate the location of the problem in our national approach?

It's highly improbable that the right would welcome any Republican candidate over Obama. Even Ron Paul, who gets the Democrat nod with his approach to foreign policy and ending the Drug Wars, sits wrong with many on the left for his approach in other areas. However, it's looking even more improbable that the left is going to back Obama with the same confidence it did during the 2008 election. This could spell a real problem for the President. Low turnout to vote on the left or deflection to the 3rd party could mark one of many incidents that may spell a Republican win. In short, Obama had better learn the difference between allegiance to party, ideology, and justice soon. It could cost not only himself but many progressive causes ground in the long run.

Life experiences are a mixed blessing. I just gained a part-time position as an adult classes Spanish teacher in San Marcos, I've been out hanging with new friends and playing basketball more, I've been doing more reading for myself lately, I've been eating better, etc. At the same time, life has been really rough. Getting out of a long-term relationship (and possibly the friendship ending as well), dealing with health issues, preparing for the GRE, day to day money survival,...these things have taken their toll. But I always find a way to overcome them.

In the midst of it, the other day I was congratulated on my new job by a close friend. When I said I would still be at HEB, they said "At least you are one step closer to doing something that means something!"

While I understand they were only trying to encourage me more about my new job, I wish they'd have phrased it differently. But, even with the phrasing I didn't care for, I was glad they did so. I began to reevaluate my time at HEB. Of course, I don't believe my job title is anything that has made me gain much. All I've gotten from my paper title is some physical exercise, a little fruit and veggie in my diet, and a developed patience for people in general.

When I transfered stores from Georgetown, TX to Kyle, TX, I didn't expect to find anything other than what I'd found at previous stores in terms of discussion or personal encounters. I couldn't have underestimated where I was going more. I have had the pleasure, and still do, of working alongside and forming bonds with some of the brightest and most forward-thinking people I've ever known. If it weren't for my stimulating discussions with them, my revelations alongside them, I don't know what my school experience would have been like at Texas State. From history to politics, from philosophy to science, from music to movies, I have had discussions and relationships cultivated with these few co-workers in a ways that I could never have imagined.

At the same time, I know I've helped a few people a long the way. I don't refer only to personal struggles, though I've had quite a few of those discussions with these people. I've helped some people, as they've helped me, understand more fully where they see the world from. Some have changed with time and experience, some haven't. I've gotten so much more from the HEB I work at than anything the people running that store could have expected or thought of. My close knit group of co-workers and I may not always work together, but I know we're forever altered and changed as a result of having worked together for these past three years and for however much longer we should be fortunate enough to be around each other.

I don't know how I'm going to deal with a lot of the sudden confusing and problematic situations life has hoisted on me. I'm sure I'll handle it like I tend to handle most things. But I find a lot of comfort in the fact that when I moved out here on my own, starting into a new kind of unknown, environment of University and intellectual stimulation, I dealt with it in ways that I didn't even know were ways to deal with it. I found comfort, help, development, and growth in places I could have never expected. I'm sure that's something I'll run into again in this next phase of my life.

Baldwin's question

"I'm not a nigger. I'm a man. But if you think I'm a nigger, that means you need it. And you have to ask yourself why."

James Baldwin is, without a doubt, my favorite writer, speaker, thinker - EVER.

Rest assured, folks. What he says in that statement above it the question that America, specifically the power structure that is White America, has never dealt with.

When Baldwin puts that up, it goes not only for White Americans that project that sickening idea of the "n word" onto Black people. It goes for any White person who projects any racial notion of inferiority onto any people. Oh, they may use coded words like "I'm just talking about 'these' (group here), not 'these' (different subset of same group)". This is just the White speakers way of telling you that one group of people in the racial/ethnic group have "met up to the White standard of behavior" and another one is not doing so.

It is simply White Supremacy thinly veiled in a self-serving outfit of denial, false-intellect, and ignorance.

The more and more the White person clings to the identity they are finding themselves in, the more and more they need that "other" to hate, the less and less they will find that they actually understand themselves, their lives, and the people around them.

White people needed non-Whites to be crafted in their social context, to be reined in as "inferior" in their daily lives, and to build their entire lives in this context. Then, racism had to become the norm for them to feel okay with it. Whiteness as the norm had to be the water to the fish, that which they didn't even notice. It became their crutch for their intellectual survival, not noticing that it was indeed what would always debilitate not only their intellect, but their very humanity.

Today, much has been overcome, but the signs are abundant that much has still to be conquered, and the need for change is urgent.

When you - in this case a White person in a culture drenched in institutional and cultural White Supremacy - "need" an oppressed prescence to feel whole, to feel alive, that means you know that much less about how to survive without it. You know less about yourself. You can handle yourself less well without it. You are less strong without it.

When you begin to conquer that need that has been institutionalized into you through culture, media, your peers,... when you learn to rip out the root of your own ignorance and walk into the great unknown, that part of you that you have still not discovered after all of this time, you'll find that is the place where you can salvage the part of your humanity that the oppressive nature of your past held hostage.

Until then, your humanity is incomplete. Until then, your self-concept is flawed tragically. Until then, you are consumed, ruled, and driven by your own worst enemy - your ignorance.

Late-night rant...

I’m twenty five, about to finish college, and here’s what my life looks like: I work roughly thirty-two hours a week, have attended school full-time up until now, and pay rent, utilities, gas, car maintenance, insurance, groceries, and oh yeah, tuition and books. I also manage to fit in money for time with my girlfriend each month. Oh, and I’m doing all of this with keeping myself debt-free. I bust my ass most days of the week, try to exercise as well so as to stay in shape because I'm only going to be enrolled in health-care benefits for so much longer, and I try to maintain a semi-healthy diet. All the while, I try to keep reading more and more about the world, stay informed, and keep in contact with old friends, family, and keep strong ties that I am forming with people now.

But somehow, if I opened my mouth about half of how I feel about society and the world in general, without mentioning any of the above information, I’d be labeled a lazy, socialist, terrorist loving, anti-American, problem. Yes, me, the guy who throws out your fucking fruits and veggies so you can let 1/3 of them rot, is anti-American. Yes, the guy who pays his taxes so an army of his country can stomp up and down other countries in some bullshit parade to ‘spread freedom’ with the use of tanks and bombs while his country’s education system is fucked, as well as his country’s healthcare system that should clearly be converted to single-payer, is anti-American. What a crock of shit. This is not to mention the fact that my tax money goes to supporting our proxy in the Middle East, Israel, who commits UN violations every year against Palestinians, the very people they displaced with no justice. Violation of the UN statutes, one of the many reasons we decided to go into Iraq to begin with (or was it those Weapons we never found in there? Or the fact that Saddam was a dictator - that we put into power? Or the 9/11 involvement they never had, yet we never managed to prove?)

Yes, me, the guy who pays for his living, his schooling, and his personal life and has never asked for federal welfare (though I don't demonize people who may need it), is the lazy, socialist, scum. Is this right? Me, the guy who studies his ass off, reads non-fiction in his spare time to broaden his understanding of the world, and wants to solve problems facing everyday Americans, is anti-American because I don’t succumb to the bullshit idea of maintaining the status-quo because of what some old, 18th century, racist, sexist, classist, and agrarian assholes decided was “right”. Because I don't drape myself in the flag to support policies and oppose ideas I don't fully understand? The Founding Fathers, let alone the dogmatic group that worships them today, are not the be all, end all of political thought and ingenuity. They were wrong about the idea of Black people not being human, they were wrong about women’s roles in society, they were wrong about plenty of other things, so why the fuck does the rest of the Constitution escape similar critique? Why do we fail to put into context the rest of the ideas in that document? This doesn't mean I want to scrap the whole thing, but I don't want to be so sanctimonious to the paper that I can't tell what is clearly an outdated concept.

I'm often told, regardless of whether a person knows some of the facts about my life, that I 'just don't understand fully how the world works'. Typically, I've found that this comes from someone who has never dealt with the world in a way that doesn't shield them from the full effects of their actions. Or it comes from someone so arrogant that doesn't notice how built-in privileges to a system benefit them in ways that are the only life-force to their deluded vision of 'how things work'.

It’s a horseshit ploy formed, perhaps by amazing historical circumstance and chance, to keep elite interests in control of how things filter upwards in a society. It’s maintained because nobody thinks to challenge it. They don’t think to because they haven’t been taught to. And even if one does, they don’t get rewarded for it. In fact, it’s called a “problematic distraction” in the workplace, “killing the vibe” in most social settings, and “preaching to the choir” in academic settings. Thus, society is set up to keep us working, mindlessly chatting in our spare time in hopes of watching fat people ‘dance their asses off’ on cable TV, eating food from chains as a sign of social stature, and buying the newest, coolest gadgets made by someone in someplace we’ll never know using their resources they never see the lions share of profit from. So when does change happen in all of this (Obama voters, don't you dare fool yourself into thinking he's brought it)?

It's going to take more than Obama. It's going to take more than voting. No, I'm not talking ideas of armed revolution or tumult and chaos in the streets. I don't really think it's gotten to that point. But I don't discount the power of peaceful protest in the streets, and I do think that it is an integral part of what it will take to change things. I do think in addition that it's time people started to develop a real sense of self-reflection and tough-love within themselves that can keep a real movement for justice alive and spirited.

Knowledge

In a society, so far as I can tell, there are two ways to approach knowledge (that is, two ways to value it). Neither are mutually exclusive and can occur simultaneously. I don't see this fact as being "bad", so to speak, but I do believe having a higher concentration of one rather than another is preferable for a society that wishes to be aware and constructively conscious of its surroundings.

The first approach is that which seeks knowledge in order to question, experiment, achieve personal intellectual growth, challenge onself and ones context, and explore new territories. One may very well call it "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", but I'd rather say "knowledge for the sake of growth". The second approach is that which seeks knowledge in order to attain status, money, or power over others. The pursuit of intellectual growth is very much an after-thought and knowledge is merely a means to a monetary or power-related end.

When in one person or society the latter takes on a significantly higher concentration than the other in manifest goals, that entity is headed for serious and possibly existential trouble.

I don't mean to suggest that seeking skills or information that may gain one resources in a short term setting is bad as a rule or without exception. I only mean that most decisions made that lead to resourceful lives often involve much more long-term measures which include looking outside of an immediate context or understanding and acting appropriately.

We do make decisions in the short-term on occasion that impact us in resourceful ways for the long term. But these decisions tend to be habitual in nature. Take, for instance, smoking. Smoking cigarettes is a short-term action, bringing a short-term stimulant effect. However, it is, over time and with addictive habit, something that holds bearing on our long-term health. Very infrequently do we make short-term decisions non-habitually that reflect a reality for the long-term. That is, having one alcoholic drink a month or every two months is unlikely to affect ones health in any significant way that would alter resourceful living later.

And so, with knowledge, gaining knowledge for short-term gain or benefit may seem to be the most resourceful (cheating on a test to gain an A in a course). But doing less tangible work for knowledge, panning ones learning out for long-term benefit, brings us resourceful benefits over time and in advantageous ways we may not have predicted (opening a retirement account that you put small amounts into over time). Recently, I've begun to extrapolate this idea to many in my generation and how we as young-adults view education - specifically college.

I've attended three schools over the past eight years for various reasons. Two of them were community colleges, having changed from one to another for travel reasons, and the last (and most recent) was a public university. During that time and in all of these places my serious intent for a major has changed three times from Nursing (in which I graduated with a nursing license for work) to Biology (took a total of 20 hours in the field) to finally a double major in Spanish and Anthropology (with which I'll graduate in May 2011). I've thus experienced education from the technical, quotidian field in which I explored Nursing (meant for a technical job with a daily application) whose end of studying was to make money and provide a decent living. The rest of the studying had to do primarily with a love for knowledge of the subject. I'll return to this idea later. I've only introduced this information to explain how I've been around different areas of college life and have thus heard plenty of what is about to follow.

Most any college student would profess, if pressed, some value for education. But is seldom followed up with is a question as to "What do you value education FOR?" In this question we gain a much deeper understanding of the values of a society and its citizens approach to knowledge.

The typical representation of what I'm about to start into would focus on primarily a History major and a Marketing major. The two might chat and eventually reveal their majors to each other. Typically, the Marketing major might ask the History major "What are you going to do with that major?" In this question, the essence of that Marketing majors value of education is unveiled (and thus, the value of education for society is unveiled, as the open environment to ask and believe in such a questions authenticity would have to be fertile in order to permit it).

The Marketing major sees education and knowledge in a pursuit to gain something tangible. These is nothing wrong with this as a facet of educational attainment. People do, after all, need access to resources, and it would be silly to suggest that education not be some sort of indicator of how they might do so. But the underlying point of the question is often in a marginal yet notable jabbing manner. Obviously the marketing major knows what he/she will do with the degree. They'll obviously get a job selling something in the capitalist framework they are brought up in and are valuing so much as to make it the center of their pursuit for knowledge. The history major, unless the answer is to go to grad school, is latently understood by the other student to have either made a mistake or not know what they are doing. That is the entire point of the question, most of the time, and this tells us a lot about where education is in our society.

That the history major will not gain as immediatley and monetarily apparent as the marketing major is unimportant, as least to the major in question (or, anyways, it shouldn't be to my estimation). Studying history is the study of human records, activity, and more importantly - mistakes and misfortune. Studying this record and internalizing its lessons brings a reward that will intangibly go a long way for a person making political decisions, in voting for his/her society's future, and in raising their children in how to see the world. The benefits of properly learning such a discipline do more than possibly bring money. They bring the benefit of consciousness of ones interactions, decisions, and happenings in a broader sense.

This is not to deride the marketing majors choice for education. I have never studied marketing formally nor do I plan on it in the immediate future (though I do some for my tutoring freelancing). I simply mean to point out that from the point of view of power and influence in a society, the history major has to know why marketing majors will make money and what they will be possibly successful for. They have to know the value of that degree due to its obvious esteem in the predominance of advertising in our everyday lives and how it props up our dominant pastimes in the country (football, reality TV, etc.)

The marketing major does not have to, as a rule, because historical lessons are not as apparent nor are they socially sought-after to be understood and discussed. By virtue of the society's focus on one rather than the other, we see very quickly how much esteem is given to one instead of the other. The more tangible results given from one make us value marketing more, even if implicitly through how we reward its work on our everyday lives, and the less tangible results of valuing history go ignored or undervalued.

Like I've said earlier, it is not entirely wrong to want education in some degree as a measure of attaining tangible resources. I love to study Spanish and Anthropology, and do see how knowing other languages and cultures helps me understand my own point of view and place in the world more effectively (and that is, to be sure, my primary value). However, I'd be foolish to say that I didn't also at some level appreciate and take into account how knowing Spanish would help me in a job or how Anthropological knowledge might aid me in knowing about another culture in order to make my dealings with others at a job more pleasant. These, either directly or indirectly, help me in a monetary light.

My eventual point is that we as a society seem to be giving fertile ground to valuing the tangible aspect of education - in the sense of monetary gain, status, etc. through rewarding those who give tangible rewards in the moment - and giving less consideration to those scholars and citizens who value other types of knowledge who can contribute in ways not easily digested or tangible on first glance. This, in my opinion, is a mistake, and based on the understanding presented with the history major, I think we could take some of those facts as the first steps in changing our social attitudes towards knowledge. Not just for liberal arts sake, or for business majors sake - for all of our sakes.

James Baldwin: The Question

James Baldwin was a 20th century author and essayist, as well as a Civil Rights leader. He wrote several non-fiction and fiction books and lived for a good while in France in self-imposed exile. Another point to note is that he was also an open homosexual in a time in this country where doing so would put one at a considerable disadvantage for ones career prospects.

I'm not prone to professing a singular "favorite author", but if one ever came close, it is indeed this man. I feel like he had his finger on the pulse of the black-white racial drama better and more consistently than almost anyone else I've ever read.



This video is of James Baldwin being interviewed about both Malcolm X and MLK Jr. and where he feels the country was headed at the time with respect to racial relations. Be sure to check out where the discussion is headed - that is, the question. It's lucid and as relevant today as it was then, albeit in a different light or context. It's meaning and substance today cannot be denied in the minds of all Americans.

The Fear of the White Psyche

I often wonder what the first White father must have been feeling when he told his child about the Black man, whatever it was that he said. Reading history, I have several gut feelings on this.

I know plenty of what the White male says today about the Black male, both publicly and privately. This is a highly nuanced situation today, and the White psyche in the U.S. has undergone a transformation of sorts, not only in the way it deals with its own racist conditioning, but with the way it projects its racist conditioning. This transformation is largely due to historical context, but a transformation is not a destination in this country, anymore than the Civil Rights legislation was a destination or the abolition of slavery was a destination.

The interim, that vast span of time in which the White male psyche and identity developed between the arrival of Europeans to the North American continent and the people we see today, is not what I'm as curious about. I've done much reading and thinking on that in terms of how I can reconcile a way to approach what is increasingly being understood as the new problem of the 21st century, the "color-blind" (contrasted with W.E.B. DuBois's color-line), and indeed, this is still a relevant concern to be addressed. Instead, I've lately been wondering and studying more on what preceded the arrival of these people and what must have taken place internally in a cultural and social sense to allow such a cycle to unfold in their institutions and in their hearts and minds.

Indeed, what was the first White parent thinking when they played their role with children, as Neil Postman put it, of "sending a message to a future we cannot forsee"?

Suffice to say that I'll never truly know, but given what I do know about both living and being seen as White in North American culture, internalizing that life to now, and having read and analyzed history, I have an idea.

It has to do with a message (internal and external) of fear.

I don't imagine it's too far away from something once suggested by James Baldwin. Contrary to the popular narrative we like to remind ourselves of several days every year (both directly and indirectly), the first White people in America were not freedom seeking individuals. For that matter, they were scarcely "White people" at all. They were bands of unhappy people of Europe. They were not the winners of Europe, they were the disenfranchised. They sought prosperity, for one. And in their eyes, due to myths of God-sponsored Manifest Destiny, they had open arms awaiting them. Of course, for every prize, their is a price. There is a toll, physical, mental, or monetary (or all) to be paid. Europeans, by and large in an attempt to escape the wretched existence they feared in Europe, came to the shores of America, but with a sacrifice to make - an internal one that to this day is still being brought to account.

It is often said that the three original sins of this continent were that the land was stolen from the red man, worked by the black slave, and the white man had to become racist to feel okay about it. This term, "become" racist, is key, because this cultural-systemic initiation started a phenomenon deeply embedded in our country today. Indeed, in the Europeans escape from supposed misery, he put himself in a more miserable spot upon arriving.

He gained a psychological wage, in addition to the monetary wage he would garnish on the backs of those he would oppress or gain from. He would gain a social and cultural notion, albeit false, that he was above all else, no matter how poor his situation. He was poor, he was unheard, he was cast off to the side all of which if he were poor, but he could take some comfort in knowing he was not Black. As time went on, this psyche had to evolve as did the notion of Whiteness and race.

The White man developed, from his unchecked and unfaced fear from that continent his ancestors suffered in so many years ago, a false sense of superiority and power. His false power, however, was and is only that - false. He is slave to an urge he does not quite comprehend and can only feel driven by in a small way. He is constantly at war with himself because of this. The reactions to this struggle, this unmentioned turmoil, are as many as there are White people, to be sure. But more often than not, the turmoil has been time and again evaded, circumvented without courage and projected through aggression onto those more and more suspecting people he deemed and deems "non-White".

This turmoil exists in the mind of every White male, no matter how "conservative" or "liberal". This sentiment of directionless terror and confusion, stemming from centuries of hardening and crystallizing, is becoming harder and harder for many to ignore inside of themselves. The crystallization process may be halted and broken down to reshape a new identity in order for any White person to have the hope to regain what a corrupt system stole from them long ago and supports the theft of to this day - their humanity.

Whether Baldwin's statement that "This world is white no longer, and will never be white again" is becoming more or less true is something to be seen with time. But I can say this: White people cannot escape the misery of their past, the confusion of the present, and any hope of self-redemption in the future by evasion, furthering the fear they live with, and a lack of self-love and understanding. White people, in short, need to learn how to implement tough-love within themselves. Loving oneself and loving others is a difficult task, because one has to face and eventually let go of fear of hurt, fear of pain.

Non-white peoples lives as a legacy have been defined by a sort of existential and disenfranchised pain of identity unknown by White people in this particular context. This is the idea to begin with for White people, the idea to be internalized, but White people must be willing to confront the troubles that lie deep within themselves.

Indeed, the path White people choose is crucial and must be aimed at a humanistic goal: to work to arrive at the breaking down of this identity that is constantly being maintained by a structure of power, not only culturally and economically, but psychologically. The pain involved in the White mind of knowing one is both a beneficiary of the contract without having been a signatory is the key to beginning to take responsibility and starting the deconstruction. This internal struggle (no matter how long it may take, perhaps a life-time) is what appears to be the complementary process of the non-White struggle for self-empowerment and self-love in this place everyone is in now. Tim Wise, Robert Jensen, Peggy McIntosh...these people have identified the core of their fear. I just hope that other White people have the courage to do so.

Rage, Contempt, and Justice: The Process of Concentration and Clarity

The target of continual and systematic oppression, victimization, or disenfranchisement typically feels inevitable rage. It has root in the anguish and pain of being put at the hands of wrongdoing.

Rage of the oppressed, by itself, can destroy and consume an individual (or a group), giving vicarious energy to the oppressor. It either gives way to acquiescence (when rage goes untapped properly, or at all, and wears down an individual over time) or to violence (which tends to bring only momentary results and does not win the understanding of an enemy, thriving on hatred rather than love for humanity).

Rage must be, in the words of James Baldwin, dissembled. During this process, two things happen, and they're done by controlling rage with ones intellect. The thing is that rage does not go away, it merely reorganizes in this process. But the process cannot go unfinished, and must be realized through two dualistic means.

First, the intellect eventually does away with the thoughtless in the core of rage. Ones rage is given a rhyme and reason, a relative order. Second, what is left gives way to an undeniable and unquestionable feeling of contempt, often deeply seated. This is the funneled and reorganized way that the target of injustice hones their efforts.

This contempt puts the individual at inevitable war or struggle with its context (this includes, to a degree, with the individual themselves). The struggle, now approached intellectually, has at its end one primary goal: to rob the aggressor of their naivete or make it cost them rather sufficiently. Either case is what tends to bring about what the victim really seeks immediately and fundamentally: an affirmation of ones own suffering, pain, and humanity.

This affirmation, if reached, is the integral step towards the achievement of justice.

Of course, there will be resistance. Oppressors do not typically like to have their often unadulterated power just taken away. There are few, if any, examples of simple and struggle-free emancipation and recognition in human history.

One of the goals of the oppressor is to put at a certain human remove the clear understanding of the oppressed individuals own pain and lack of justice (resulting in the lack of dissembling of rage) so as to reduce the effects or boundaries of the victims thought processes and reactions. This is done in myriad ways.

One way is to teach the oppressed persons history or understanding of themselves in a way that delegitimizes their own place in what seems to be a "natural order" of things. This diffuses any sense of self-worth, at both an individual and group level. By teaching history, I don't mean solely rote classroom memorization and academic dishonesty (though this is an unquestionably strong tool). I also mean the culturally conditioned practices in speech, narrative, and philosophical approaches to dealing with the oppressed. This, in effect, diffuses the clarity and realization of oneself and minimizes the retaliation one has of not only oneself critically, but more saliently, of the society/context at large.

There are of course, several other ways in which the oppressor seeks to downplay the effects of their actions. The point is that these tactics reduce the chances of the oppressed in gaining the self-concept (and social concept) needed to overcome the position they are in.

This quelling of the victims framework comes from a different manifestation of rage: the manifestation through the footsteps of the oppressor. This rage is rooted in fear - the fear of oneself and what one does or does not know to be true about oneself. This, if unchallenged and not faced, eventually tends to evolve into a type of arrogance. This arrogance is what drives the oppressor to misuse what power or control they find in their hands to rein in over the victims they target.

What the fight for eradicating injustice ultimately means is a struggle, one between the oppressed overcoming the systems through which dissembling of rage and channeling of clarity are quelled and getting others to do the same, and the resolve of the oppressor in evading their roots of their rage, and in doing so, denying the fundamental human aspects, reactions, and processes to the very victims they are targeting.

The "You're Human!" moment...

Once, not too long ago, I heard someone (polite stand-in word for "white guy") at my workplace say something to a hispanic worker that I felt was notable for some further thought and criticism.

"I don't see you as Hispanic, really. You're pretty white (laughs). I just see you as a person".

This was said due to the person in question being clearly educated, well-spoken (in "standard" English, that is), and seemingly bright. The white person saying this did not see anything wrong with their statement, and to the contrary must have felt it was some kind of compliment. The compliment being, "You're smart, therefore you're white (and therefore, more human in my eyes)".

Doesn't this mean that the norm is of white people being seen or thought of smart and eloquent? What if a White person isn't? Are they less white somehow and a part of some other racial group? Nah, typically they're just "an idiot" - read that: an exception to the rule of Whiteness meaning humanity, smartness, etc. And for those White people that act so outside of designated Whiteness that it calls into question their Whiteness? Oh yeah, that's right, we already have done that historically. When whites act like what we conceive black people to act, we call them 'wiggers' to insult them (invoking the merging of White with an offensive slur against Black person, perhaps telling us how we may see Blackness in a way that we're not ready to face up to).

When Whites stand up for non-Whites, we say they're "probably hanging out with a lot of non-Whites, dating a non-White, too racially sensitive". There's always some individual instance or consideration of deviation when Whites break from the typical rank of behavior.

So just to get the connotations right at this point: white=good, non-white=bad. When you act a way that I see as racial, you're not White to me. You're not normal to me. You're a race. When you act a way that I designate as smart or educated or like me (white), you're normal.

Everytime I hear something like that, these are some of that sentiments that I gather from it:

"You're better than those OTHER [read: bad] people that are [racial group here], in fact, you're kinda like ME [read: good]."

"Seeing as race isn't important to my life [HAHA!] and you're in it, I'm going to have to ignore that you're [racial group] so that I don't have to think about such unimportant things as race and racism, and therefore move on to correcting my preconceived notions about other racial groups. Whew."

"Wow, you are an actual human being...therefore, it's simply not possible for you to be [racial group]!"

This is not the only way I've witnessed a habitual instance of White people invoking an engrained evasive tactic to facing up to their own racial preconceptions they may or may not be aware of. The same Hispanic worker in question was once asked by a White female patron if he spoke Spanish. When he replied "no", her expression was full of shock and a maternalistic sense to tell him, "Well, you really ought to learn! I mean, even I'm learning!" See, even though it's her faulty preconception that all dark-skinned people that may or may not be of Hispanic descent "must" speak Spanish, she has told herself that instead of facing up to this and changing it through work and self-criticism, it's on the "other" person to change their reality to suit her psychological constructions of people.

This White privilege in practice. This is White centrism in practice.

If you're frequently guilty of such behavior or attitudes, please, utilize some tact the next time you run into a person of color whose personality has "gone above and beyond" some preconceived notion you have of their 'racial group'. Then, do yourself (and all of us) one further and find ways to challenge this conception you have of people so that we might actually get to a point where we are "just people".

On Libertarians

Disclaimer: This post is not wholly representative of my typical writing and structure, but is more a response to a packed series of recent days spent talking with Libertarians.

Moving on...

Recently, I had a pretty extensive debate (surprised? ;)) with a Libertarian over the prospect of guns in schools. While I won't start on that one here, I want to make some notes about some of the ideas that Libertarians seem to entertain about not only everyone and their place in society but their own place in it.

First, let me get it out there: I'm talking about the ideology as it is manifested in the United States, as I'm uneducated on how it pans out in other countries (where it is even relevant there). I do personally think the ideology is warped and detatched from reality, which I will explain my reasoning for here. I furthermore state here that there has never been a functioning civilized society that has not had taxation or regulation. That all being out in the open, I find that most Libertarians fall under one of these two categories:

1. A teenager (or someone who is still living a teenagers, parent-subsidized life) reading Ayn Rand in his room, with enough money in his life that shields him from the full effects of his choices. And with zero consciousness of this fact. Typically, it's someone with no real experience in the real world.

2. People who play video or computer games and believe that DOOM and Mad Max are optimal descriptions of the potential nature of human interaction and relations. In short, one who romanticizes the world based off of nothing corroborated by reality.

Lately, I've run more into the first type (the shielded Libertarian) than the second (the romantic). I should also mention advisedly that the vast majority of Libertarians with whom I've had the opportunity to converse with are typically male, straight, and white in social categories. This is not always the case, but is in such frequency that it becomes unsurprising after a while.

I often hear Libertarian-minded types repeat a claim that "Well, if you don't like your job, just quit and get another one! It's the beauty of the free market!" as if that would change anything for an individual, as if the class of people blithely ditching their jobs are worlds different from the people most able to pack up and move away from a conventional, state-based dictatorship. They are often blinded, willfully ignorant of, or incoherently educated on class matters.

Structural and institutional realities are also something Libertarians tend to be either unaware of or grossly misinformed on. I’ve seen and heard from kids whose parents put them through good high schools, expensive after-school programs, and good colleges where they had their room and board, books and tuition fully paid for or subsidized in some other way they were not responsible for claim that they got where they were entirely on their own merit. They have a hard time imagining that someone without those privileges would find it more difficult to achieve on the same level. Also, Libertarians often deny that structural barriers to success even exist, and it’s typically because they haven’t encountered them. I had one person argue with a straight face that a CEO really works 2000 times as hard as a janitor holding down two full-time jobs.

Libertarians tend to tout an oft cited claim (with, funnily enough, no tough evidence to back up) that regulation kills efficiency and growth in the marketplace and economy. This is usually said with zero to no ironic understanding on their end that this most recent global financial crisis followed a decade of massive deregulation of the markets and historically very low tax rates. Using their simplistic litmus test, their philosophy fails on even a decade trial run.

Libertarianism is lacking in real world application and understanding, much like many of its adherents and preachers. Beware their simple, bumper-sticker explanations of events and phenomenon with no further analysis that holds up with fact and historical trends.

Delegitimization

First, let me say that this entry is no more than a simple venting of several repeated, and apparently accepted by many, talking points that I've heard repeated ad nauseum over the past few weeks.

1. Despite the massive support I've seen for the Egyptian protests, there is considerable resistance to the idea by many who tend to be found on the right. The nay-saying goes as follows: They're not used to democracy, it won't go right and will result in inequalities, etc. I'm sure if I pulled out a history book and deconstructed our dominant narrative piece by piece, I could find some pretty gaping inequalities in between our proclaiming to be a democratic, free, land and our practice. I'm sure I could find examples of genocide, slavery, gender domination, class inequality, all of which were socially considered acceptable and resisted by a relative and comparative few. I'm sure I could find injustices in our society today that are considered "fine" yet unacceptable when placed next to our stated ideals. Our democratic republic is not perfect and never has been. To place a bar of expectation on the Egyptians that we ourselves have never attained is suspect.

2. There has been an underlying tone of a "Muslim threat" headed for Europe in the last decade. This is usually referring to birthrates, using old stories about the Moors and Al-Andalus to bring up old fears and resentment for political purposes, and is cloaked in "multiculturalism" language. What I find curious about American right-wing "concern" about this is the fact that Europe is their favorite punching bag for their attacks on the left. "European, socialist, big government systems" are always some sort of underlying threat and are indicative of society, productivity, and political morality. European countries like France and Germany were implied to be wimps and cowards for either not joining in the War on Terror, or leaving in the case of Spain when they realized it was a hapless cause. If they're so politically base, socially lazy and worthless, and wimps in their convictions, what do we care? Europe is the boogeyman when they need them to be to further their domestic privatization causes, but a poor poster child for paternalism when it concerns the "evil, Muslims" abroad.

Tunisia breaking free of a despotic regime backed by France for years and Egypt breaking free of the same backed by our money are both good news scenarios for human self-determination. Creating benchmarks that not even we have measured up to in order to downplay their significance and credibility or invoking scare tactics about regions of the world that happen to border with them are laughable and should not be given more validity than a grain of salt, especially considering who is delivering the tactic.

Internalizing Empire

In the wake of the recent protests against the Egyptian leader Mubarak, the dominant focus in the discourse over what position the U.S. should take is not surprisingly predictable: whatever suits our interests. Indeed, many pundits and commentators, as well as politicians, have spoken of the need to do what is best to protect our goals in the region. But for a country that prides itself on being a protector of liberty and freedom, why do we fail to notice the larger irony of such a stance: that perhaps the interests of the Egyptian people and their desires might not be the same as ours?

If we truly respected the sovereignty of the Egyptian people, wouldn't we respect whatever came of their movement? Or would we simply use it as an example to continue viewing the unfolding of world events as a plot against us, further separating our national identity from the context of a global one?

When the U.S. has meddled in affairs before, such as our instrumental role in the coup against the first democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953, we laid the groundwork for a brutal regime to take charge, setting the stage for the 1979 Iranian revolution that has led to the repressive reactionary regime existing today. When we set the stage for Saddam Hussein to become leader of Iraq to take on said Iranian regime, we set the groundwork for a repressive regime to contend with later. This is not to mention the other meddling we've perpetrated in Latin America and other areas abroad, along with the subsequent backlash it entailed.

A failure now to support the movement of a free Egypt would fly in the face of our dominant narrative that the U.S. is a force for democracy and freedom in the world. This does not necessarily mean direct intervention, but at times the humble and non-paternalistic approach of respecting the outcomes of world events. It was the power of Britain and the U.S., afraid of what outcomes the popular election in Iran would mean for its oil supplies that drove the coup of an elected leader. But surely many in the West would agree that our dependence on Middle Eastern oil has brought us much more international folly, which in most cases could have otherwise been avoided, than good.

Our country needs to rethink seriously its current approach to foreign policy that seems to lack context and understanding of its place in world events, and that does not view itself at the center of all things. It's time to revise our approach to foreign affairs and remove this antiquated, ethnocentric mindset that views the wants of the world as in line with ours, and if they aren't, then we ought to make it so. That isn't a country whose ideals line up with those of liberty and freedom. They line up more with hegemony and empire.

The wants and interests of a free Egypt, as it advances slowly (just as the West did) towards a more stable form of democracy, may not be the same interests as ours. It's time the United States, as well as much of the West, faced up to that and accepted it.

The mythological golden age of "less government".

I've found that the arguments about "less government" (as absurd as I find the argument to be, given the current corporate-laden reality of decision making power should be "less corporate influence" vs "more") to be problematic in at least one fundamental aspect: its romanticism of a time that never existed. Proponents of "getting the government out of my life!", "let me keep more of my money", and getting back to core principles overlook some very important structural and historical realities, namely the large role that the federal government played in constructing the core of some of the right's biggest fantasies about the past and the role that it plays today in allowing businesses to run efficiently.

First, let me discuss the notion that "more government equals less freedom", or that at the least "more government means an impediment on my freedom." There is perhaps no easier way to debunk this simplistic, pat bumper-sticker idea than to look at interstate highways, the product of federal government projects and planning. I'm sure while reading this, there are no shortage of people who depend on the efficiency of interstate highways for travel, work, or other day-to-day activities. It provides a direct and relatively simple mode of transport to take care of daily needs. But what the average observer may take for granted is the plethora of government intervention that makes this efficiency and freedom of speedy long-distance travel possible. It is government law and regulation by the police department that ensures people drive in one specific direction to get to a location, to punish those who would drink alcohol and drive on such a fast moving highway, to exit at certain on and off ramps to get to their next location, to ensure speed limit so that accidents are less frequent, and so on and so forth. Even the fundamental root of the idea, the taxation that makes funding possible, is the result of government intervention. What the simple slogan ignores is that though taxation may be an easy scapegoat of an "imposition", the indirect result of the imposition yields far more liberties to achieve individual tasks.

Now that the basic assumption of this idea of the government involvement that does nothing but impede the liberty of everyday life has been shelved, that government is not simple "a necessary evil" but can rather be a necessary good is shown to be overly simplistic, let us look at the attitudes of the past that govern many of our current day outlooks on how modern day processes should be run.

Most Americans, regardless of ideology, tend to accept (even if latently) the idea that this country was built by rugged individualists, blazing into the Western hills and achieving success through nothing but their own self-reliance and determination. Sorry, but it just ain't so.

I'll leave aside the very simple way to debunk this idea, by invoking the money made off of slaves by individuals and communities, all the while entertaining the notion of and waxing harmoniously over their own self-reliance. Instead of the traditional way I would destroy this assumption, I'll investigate other events. I'm referring to the land purchases of the U.S. government of the West and the military displacement of the indigenous people that were living on the lands. While the latter is undoubtedly an example of an unjust use of government power, it is nonetheless an example that flies in the face of the individualist thinker who likes to decontextualize the past to suit his own needs currently. The government spent $50 million dollars on the purchases of Alaska, California, Texas, and the Louisiana territories. The Homestead and Preemption Acts then turned and sold these lands to the "rugged individualists" for next to nothing in comparison, all in the name of Western progress.

In the 20th century, it was the government that would aid primarily in establishing industry to set up the life that makes up the base of our lifestyle today, building and maintaining dams and irrigation projects, rural electrification projects brought to rural farmers during the Great Depression, and wired the country-side for "progress" as it built interstate highways to facilitate travel and commerce. Some 183 acres were given to railroad companies, those which facilitated the growth of logging companies that would prove invaluable to economic growth.

Indeed, the West has a long and detailed history of government dependence. Funnily enough, however, the United States has an unusual paradoxical history of anti-government sentiment, cocksure at every corner that the existence and maintenance of government projects and involvement in the lives of citizens is tantamount to destruction of the ability to pursure personal liberty and economic freedom. It is a history of misplaced rage, or a non-contextualized understanding of oneself as an individual and as a people in this nation.

It would seem that in the course of American history, and especially in the recent case of Tea Party rage, that government assistance, no matter how large or necessary for the growth and expansion of individual liberties, also breeds an ungrateful attitude towards those same exploits.

Understanding a bit of Physics through Biology

A recent article at the New Scientist reports research that suggests (along with a litany of other similar results and studies) that the laws of physics may not hold to be exactly the same across the universe. This would suggest that Earth would indeed be in some type of fortunate position for our bio-chemistry to support life.

While I will note before-hand that there is various scientific skepticism about these findings (which I would hope there to be, given these results would reportedly fly in the face of many integral understandings of Physics on Earth and in the universe), and though I am not even a slight-amateur about Physics (I can't claim to have ever taken even a survey course on the subject), I'd like to comment on something interesting about the suggestion.

I'd welcome the idea of variability in laws of physics across universal systems, should it turn out to be repeatedly confirmed. In my studies in biology and anthropology, I've found myself increasingly in agreement with the idea that no entity or feature follows any one rule or mechanism to achieve its function.

My recent research into the origins and mechanisms behind human speech and language brought me to understand the inner-workings of that environmental phenomena as follows: language as we know was neither born in any specific instance nor was it due to the existence of any one trait, be it neocortical or physiological. It appears to have developed on a continued spectrum of time and formulation around the existence and maintenance of several coinciding traits such as enhanced breathing control, gestures, ability to sharpen intonation, and neocortical expansion (and the skills being based in more than one area of the brain).

Language and speech could not have originated based off any rules to come about in any specific moment and due to a a single rule or entity determining its function to simply "switch on". Cave paintings in Lascaux, France have been popularly viewed as the "ah-ha!" moment for language, where a revolution of language simply exploded in Western Europe. However, evidence from North Africa and parts of Australia showing the ability for intentional abstract and complex though show that these abilities developed, if even in a more rudimentary sense, over a period of time. Why then would language suddenly burst from nowhere?

To extrapolate this idea to include the Earth, we would have to look at how processes on Earth work juxtaposed to its organisms. Organisms will tend to exist, evolve, or go extinct as a result of changes or continuations of ecological processes on Earth. That is, the organism affects and lives as a result of its context. If we view the Earth in a similar manner, it would be seen with the Universe as we would view an organism to its context on Earth. If one environment suits life a certain way on Earth, and this can and has changed over millions and millions of years to accommodate changing landscapes, why would the same not hold true for Earth in a constantly growing and changing Universe?

So if time, environment, and the intermingling of different physiological parts of an organism are what may have created the situation to sustain the emergence of human language as we know it, why would certain laws based off of universal and environments in space not yield a similar result for the emergence of the the chemistry necessary for life on earth? We already know that geologic events have profound impacts on what happens to biological processes here on earth both in animal and plant life, we know that other celestial events such as the moons activity influences oceanographic activity, so why would it be such a leap to understand the biochemical processes that sustain life to be subject to specific physics laws that may govern a certain part of a galaxy?

Why we should not disregard the rise of Sarah Palin (and no, I'm not a supporter).

America's Misguided Self-Conceptualization

Since the inception of the nation, political rhetoric of the United States has carried a recurring theme of "Americans" and how they make or made up the "best nation on Earth". To most mainstream observers in the country, particularly those of the 20th century, this idea may have overtly or latently seemed self-evident or generic, nothing worth examining or discussion in any critical or meaningful way. If it was discussed, and even today, it is discussed in a way reminiscent of either a schmaltzy or nostalgic way. In recent American memory, there have been two resurgent waves of this feeling, both encompassing similar, yet slightly differing defining elements.

The first was during the Reagan era. He came to embody an image of the "everyday" America (hence the slogan, "Morning in America"). He rejected, politically at least, the notion that something was wrong with the countrys approach to foreign policy. He put himself in direct contrast to the Carter administration, one that has previously been occupied with Human Rights and efforts to advance global peace. Obviously, not everybody felt the same way as Ronnie, but the feeling permeated both young and old and across political spectrums to his politically agile advantage. The demographics of the country, coupled with institutional practices and ideology of the time, allowed for a virtually unchallenged worldview in media and society of domestic and foreign policy honed under this mindset of renewed American identity, order, and exceptionalism.

What was not raised as a question, was the fact that the racial color divide in the country was still evident. Reagan's "Morning in America" tended to project the glorified image of the experiences of the White, middle-class image, an image remniscent of a mythological 1950's American utopia. Gaps in pay between Blacks and Whites had not closed significantly since Civil Rights legislation had passed, and American media images were still permeated with the same notion of "American Whiteness", the idea that Whites were the "norm" and "generic", sharing the universal outlook on society. This is still not to mention a male-centric outlook on society and the world taking root in European political thought pre-dating their very arrival. Reagan's approach took this gendered and racial outlook and utilized it to reject and regress on many in-roads made during the previous two decades in social justice achievements.

This renewal in the "American spirit" also provided a way to deal with the anxieties over U.S. policy failure in Vietnam, attacking those who would go against the renewed American spirit, implicitly demonizing any opposition from the American left. This ideology, and the subsequent national vigor it would cement in the American psyche for years to come, would come to define the bulk of Ronald Reagan's approach in the 1980's.

Challenges to reshaping the same paradigm

While post-Cold War challenges and redefining approaches to social policy came to define a bulk of 1990's American political discourse, the early years of the 21st century came to set the ultimate framework for a return to the vigorous nostalgia of the Reagan ideology. With a newly defined threat, terrorism, the United States once again came to define itself (as it had in the Reagan generation) with a global enemy. As it had in the 1980's, America was suffering from a national anxiety over its failures to execute an ambitious and idyllic policy in its Middle East conflicts. Thus, in this context we can view clearly the importance ( and possible worry over) the rise of Sarah Palin and other ideologues who share a policy eerily remniscent of that "other" wave of American exceptionalist rhetoric.

To look at this more critically, let us also take a look at the demographic changes within the country. Our country has become three things it was not or not as much so in the 1980s: more college educated since the 1980's (the college educated were a demographic instrumental to the election of Barack Obama), more technologically aware, and more ethnically diverse and furthermore populated by an identity not previously regarded as existentially threatening by the status quo: the Hispanic ethnicity. These three changes have come to define the challenges faced by the resurgence of the American exceptionalist approach, which, had Sarah Palin been the representative in 1988, for example, would not have been quite the stumbling blocks for her that they are today.

In spite of these changes and circumstances, Palin prides herself and defines herself in a familiar tone: unapologetic pride in the nostalgic feeling of American exceptionalism. What should be noted here is an ominous realization that one might arrive at after looking at the information above: Both Reagan in the 1980s and Palin today have come to represent a mythological America, a country that never was and is not today. It is an America taken out of socio-historical context to suit the psychological investment of what it considers to be its traditional "core" culture - the White, Male, Protestant.

To understand what Palin and this approach represents further, let us look at what is politically in opposition to her: the election and re-election of Barack Obama. As America is poised to become "majority-minority" in the next few decades according to the latest Census results, a demographic unseen on the continent since the founding of the nation, the rise of racial, linguistic, and religious diversity will be ever more present and visible in everyday American life for a large chunk of the country. This change, either ignored or not predicted by the Reagan coalition, has come to define the contrast to Sarah Palin's very rhetoric and approach. In the 1980's, Reagan's view of what America was went unchallenged in the way that escapes meticulous examination today (largely due in part to a 24 hour news cycle, in addition to the afforementioned demographic changes). Technology coupled with a newly shaped media has given new voice to those voices that might have been neglected in the Reagan years, and those voices are now going to rebut and attest to all of the contextual inaccuracies of this exceptionalist resurgence.

What does all of this mean?

Sarah Palin represents, on the surface, the last attempts of the rightist Baby Boom generation to perpetuate the globalistic ends many seem to have internalized by way of Neo-conservative ideologues and to salvage the legitimacy of this mythological image of the past (which necessarily creates a false "dilemma" in the minds of those adhering to this mindset). Thus, the cries of "I want my country back!" signal an anxious reaction to facing up to a reality that was never presented to them for so much time: the reality that America never was that infallible, exceptional giant that all others fell so far short of achieving. America, as a whole, never was at it's core made up of the White, Male, Protestant culture and approach.

What is quickly being understood by many observers is that the outcry of the recent Tea Party phenomenon is a manifestation of the fact that the "normal" America that is envisioned is due to a historical silencing of the realites of ethnic, gender, and religious minorities in the country, creating a false sense of cultural position and identity. When this psychological investment in this identity is challenged on the scale that it is now, you see the outbursts of denial, regardless of a lack of evidence to support the outbursts. This section of America sees the election of Barack Obama, a "socialist, Muslim, son of a Kenyan" as a threat because the context under which they (as a group) approach an understanding of the country is taken out of context of the realities of so many others that have not shared that experience. Their uniqueness of holding on to the monopoly of being "truly" American is slowly dissappearing.

What should be asked and approached from both ends of this divide is whether that section of America is willing to work together with so many that have been disenfranchised historically and give up the perks and privileges they've enjoyed for so long, or if they will fight to the bitter end to hold onto the institutional, social, and psychological advantages that come with identifying themselves the same way as they have tended to. What's more, it is in seeing this divide that the ultimate and more latent importance of the rise of and challenge towards Sarah Palin and this new exceptionalism is understood. It's a landmark moment for this county in it's social-demographic make-up. If approached responsibly, her supporters fears and anxieties may be an invaluable example for a lesson in broadening our view as a country into our historical past and social present. The approach of Palin's exceptionalism represents what America used to think it was. Obama (for all of his achievements or faults) is, in a sense, a representation, literally and figuratively, of what America is and has been becoming for some time (and the reaction to him as amplified by the media helps confim this): an America much more diverse than its psyche realized it was.