“Hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism. Hope is a discipline… we have to practice it every single day.”
— Mariame Kaba
You are getting two for one today. I wanted to post a piece of music, Our Phoenix by Mari Esabel Valverde, because it is a heartbreakingly beautiful reaction to the white-supremacist incited and enacted violence and terrorism in this country, Buffalo, NY as the most recent instance. The words are from a poem (full text of Our Dangerous Sweetness in the link) by Amir Rabiyah, who was born in London, England, to a mixed Cherokee and white mother and a Lebanese and Syrian father and who, as a trans poet, explores living at the margin.
I thought, though, that another one of their poems is more powerfully hopeful, needed in a world and era where positive thinking is ever harder to conjure, as well as gloriously full of double-meaning. So here’s my daily dose of practicing hope. And besides, I can show you what’s currently on my kitchen windowsill, glittering in the darkness …still waiting for blossoms, though.
Cactus Flower
We flash victory signs in the darkness, so the darkness may glitter. — Mahmoud Darwish
As the sun sets—we set our plan into motion. Our sole purpose to overthrow
any assumptions, to change the course of ordinary thinking.
Our work begins by speaking to darkness and telling darkness soon :
we will demonstrate through the secrecy of stars,
earth’s magnetic embrace how we can be many things at once.
So much of the work we do is internal, goes unnoticed, uncompensated.
We get written off or not written at all, labeled freakish, prickled, rough around the edges.
We learn to thrive in the dry humor of soil; carry water in our bellies to quench our own thirst.
We survive, over again. Adapt. Even after being carried in the beaks of birds, dropped elsewhere,
far from our roots, we grow. We flourish. And when least expected, when histories
not told by us, for us, claims we are defeated,
we gather our tears as dew. We release our anguish, intoxicated by our own sexed pollen. We burst,
displaying the luscious folds of our petals.
by AmirRabiyah
And if you you are in the mood for analysis rather than poetry, read this. Or this from the Jewish perspective. Or this from an economic-systems approach.
“If you are not willing to see more than is visible, you won’t see anything.” – Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006).
Ruth Bernhard’s words tugged at my brain during my most recent encounter with one of Maryhill Museum’s Exquisite Gorge II artists. Bernhard was a pioneer among women photographers best known for her abstract images of female nudes. The artist created a portfolio of work across her lifespan that politicized the private long before the public feminism of the 1970s. Mentored and adored by some of our photographic greats, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, the German photographer tried to make us see what is often not visible, pushing the viewer away from the typical objectification of nude models towards an empathy that allows some tenderness to emerge, but also visions of female desire.
Being willing to see more than what is “visible” is important for both, the viewer of a particular work of art and the one who creates it. This is especially true if the art is informed by anthropological and historical considerations, as is the work of Lynn Deal who will provide a fabric sculpture for Maryhill Museum’s Exquisite Gorge II exhibition this summer.
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THE EXQUISITE GORGE PROJECTII
“…a collaborative fiber arts project featuring 13 artists working with communities along a 220-mile stretch of the Columbia River from the Willamette River confluence to the Snake River confluence. The project, again initiated by Maryhill Museum of Art and following the original one by printmakers in 2019, takes inspiration from the Surrealist art practice known as exquisite corpse. In the most well-known exquisite corpse drawing game, participants took turns creating sections of a body on a piece of paper folded to hide each successive contribution. When unfolded, the whole body is revealed. In the case of The Exquisite Gorge Project II, the Columbia River will become the ‘body’ that unifies the collaboration between artists and communities, revealing a flowing 66-foot work that tells 10 conceptual stories of the Columbia River and its people.”
Artists and Community Partners:
Section One: Oregon Society of Artists–Artist: Lynn Deal Section Two: Lewis and Clark University–Artist: Amanda Triplett Section Three: Columbia Center for the Arts, The History Museum of Hood River County and Arts in Education of the Gorge–Artist: Chloë Hight Section Four: White Salmon Arts Council and Fort Vancouver Regional Library–Artist: Xavier Griffith Section Five: The Dalles Arts Center and The Dalles-Wasco County Library–Artists: Francisco and Laura Bautista Section Six: The Fort Vancouver Regional Library at Goldendale Community Library–Artist: Carolyn Hazel Drake Section Seven: The American-Romanian Cultural Society and Maryhill Museum of Art–Artist: Magda Nica Section Eight: Desert Fiber Arts & REACH Museum–Artist: Ophir El-Boher Section Nine: The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation–Artist: Bonnie Meltzer Section Ten: ArtWalla–Artist: Kristy Kún Frontispiece: Tammy Jo Wilson and Owen Premore
Deal, born in England, was raised in New Mexico and spent much of her adult life in Oklahoma and some years in Texas. Her interest in fabric and design dates back to her childhood and eventually brought her to the Pacific Northwest, a fertile region for fiber artists, where she joined the Columbia FiberArts Guild. Deal’s background in all things fiber is rich: she earned a BA in Design and Human Ecology from the University of Oklahoma and received her MA there as well, then worked in various roles, director, curator, exhibit and education director and site manager among them, for the Metcalfe Museum, the Tulsa Historical Society and the Texas Historical Commission among others.
Antithesis (2001) The traditional layers of quilting are reversed, the ties are purposefully elongated rather than traditionally short.
Once she realized that clothing and costume design, the typical occupations for many interested in working with fabric, were not for her, Deal focussed on researching and exhibiting domestic textiles at the intersection of private creation and society’s structural conditions. That exploration included studies of cross-fertilization between women crafters who belonged to different classes and races in the 19th and 20th century South of the U.S.
A specific area of interest was the quilting of a Louisiana plantation owner, Cammie Garrett Henry who opened Melrose Plantation to visiting writers and artists, making it an important community during the Southern Renaissance—a period of intense artistic production between World War I and the end of World War II. Henry, a White woman, incorporated motifs and techniques from indigenous Hawaiian work into her quilting. The quilts of her Black domestic servant, Clementine Hunter, on the other hand, started to display motifs that described the architecture and daily views of the White plantation world around her. Hunter, mostly admired for her folk art paintings, became one of the best known artists of Louisiana. Rather than staying away from what would today be termed “appropriation,” these women integrated various cross-cultural elements that enriched their work.
Parallel Paradigms (2016) A piece contemplating reproductive inequalities and risks.
Deal’s artistic practice is clearly informed by both the historic techniques and configurations she immersed herself in, and the way a deeper view of the world could be communicated in crafted work. Her wall hangings and sculptures do require intense visual exploration, since an immense load of detail work sometime delays the appreciation of the larger picture. So much to look at, in terms of varied materials, methods of stitching, application, patterning, and color.
She loves it all, the spinning, weaving, sewing, embroidering, dying, carding, and quilting. No technique is left behind – nor are types of materials; wool, tulle, silk, cotton, beads and buttons, silkscreens panels, odds and ends abound. What emerges are stylized portraits of a world as perceived, “wool her paint, stitching her brush, fabrics her inspiration,” as she phrased it. Seemingly innocuous titles invite the viewer to go beyond the plethora of detail and explore possible meanings. Here is a perfect example: At the Party.
At the Party (2016) Excerpts
The quilted scroll shows the appliquéd figure of a young Black girl or woman, dressed up, hair beaded, behind a wrought-iron fence, covered with Mardi-Gras beads and seemingly random cotton loops, once used to make potholders by domestic workers whose hands were not to be idle. The prominent fence, however happily colored and skillfully embroidered, excludes the figure, puts a barrier between viewer and subject, and can almost be perceived as a small cage. No amount of magnolia pinks and stereotypic New Orleans’ festive cheer with its abundance of beads can ultimately obscure the reference to slavery and racial segregation.
Looking beyond the easily visible, of course, is required.
Similar insights reveal themselves, when you contemplate some of the other, unfortunately timely topics:
Or here, a recent sculpture by the artist, Keen Waters (2019) alluding to the fragility of the river eco systems, the harm induced by dams to fish runs, pollution at the bottom.
Keen Water (2019) Excerpt.
For the Exquisite Gorge II project, a rich silken river, stitched with metallic thread reflecting light, will flow underneath a canopy of colorful gauze leading from sunrise to sunset, forming the letter M to honor Maryhill Museum. On the bottom, fabric covered container lids will remind of the plastic pollution ubiquitous to our waterways.
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I consider Lynn Deal an heir to an age-old practice of, however subtle, political expression through the crafts. Traditionally relegated to the female domain, a domestic chore or diversion, craft was always perceived to be a lesser cousin to the fine arts. True even if and when it enhanced the social status of the patriarchs displaying the incredible handiwork of their female household members, whether in French castles, American plantations, English country manors or churches, producing true works of art like the Bayeux tapestries. If you looked closely enough, however, it had a voice.
The combination of textile arts and politics is nothing new then. In the last decades, it has become a defined movement known as Craftivism,popularized byBetsy Greerand groups like the Craftivist Collective, founded by Sarah Corbett. The goal is to use craft to change or improve on what is wrong with our world, a goal clearly contained in Lynn Deal’s artistic pursuits, to create with solidarity and respect, to provoke thought and help women to express themselves in ways that might include producing in private spaces, on a small scale, rather than commercial production.
The artist and carding tool, carded wool.
Cooperative work is included – with many eyes and hands creating statements that can range from environmental concerns, to feminist issues, to anti-war unity. The medium of knitting or crocheting is entering the public space, with yarn bombing or other kinds of textile decoration. So is quilting, and in some instances embroidery. (Ref.)
Marianne Jorgensen Pink M.24 Chaffee Tank (2006) (Protest against the war in Iraq – the pink covering consists of more than a 4000 pink squares- 15 x 15 centimeters – knitted by volunteers from Denmark, the UK, USA and several other countries.)
Craft has historically been a mode of direct action. Take one of the earliest examples, the 19th century Female Society of Birmingham, whose members sewed innocuous “work bags” (traditional holding your embroidery needles and sewing) which they filled with anti-slavery literature and sold across Britain (over 2000 of them!) The materials were carefully chosen – East India silk, satin and/or cotton – materials that were thought not to be produced from slave labour. Each bag contained a card that stated the choice of materials and asked the new owner to boycott slave labour goods. With the proceeds the women supported the anti-slavery movement in the 1820-30s. (Ref.)
The late 19th century women’s suffrage movement used handcrafted banners and embroidered sashes, with the Arts and Crafts Movement interacting with the women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Europe, in the campaign for the right to vote. The same could be found among the women of America’s National Woman Suffrage Association, founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1869. They began to fight for a universal-suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution and used symbolic colors (yellow for light, white for purity and purple for loyalty) on their hand-crafted banners.
Nashville Equal Suffrage Association 1920 ( Source Tennessee State Museum)
There are also many versions of quilts made to protest social issues, from Georgian slave Harriet Power‘s story quilts,
the work of slave descendants at the community of Gee’s Bend in Alabama, to the 1980 International Honor Quilt, instigated by Judy Chicago, that honored mythological and real women as well as women’s organizations in its 549 quilted triangular pieces.
International Honor Quilt (University of Louisville/Hite Art Institute (2013)
Lynn Deal’s studio
There is also the incredible quilting work by Gina Adams, a descendant of both Indigenous (Ojibwe) and colonial Americans. She produced a series of quilts (2015) called The Broken Treaty, cutting out the letters of entire Broken treaties–these were pacts written by the United States and Canadian Government and signed by Native American Tribes — from calico cotton, the fabric that made White Americans very wealthy. The letters are placed on weathered antique quilts that were made during the time the treaties were signed.
Embroidery takes on new forms in the hands (and from the creative brains) of contemporary craftivist artists. Australian artist Michelle Hamer, for example, provokes with image of billboards, stitched to great effect. I fear her 2013 work is taking on renewed relevance in our current Supreme Court debacle.
Michelle Hamer (2013) We’re All Gonna Die, Girls.
Craft, fiber and methods of working fiber, clearly have been transformed into a tool of communication with others outside the domestic sphere. Artists use their skills in manipulating fabric and wool to create not just something beautiful, or interesting, useful or simply endearing, but to make us think about what it takes to make our world a better place. In its public appearances, from pink hats worn at demonstrations to AIDS quilts laid out at the Mall, crafts have assumed an important role in American society.
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Upwards Endeavors (2015)
I am fond of beads. As a teenager one of my most cherished possessions was a multi-string bracelet of tiny glass beads, faded pinks and purples. It had been acquired from hippies who proudly proclaimed themselves grave robbers, stealing pieces of the ornamental flower wreaths fashioned from these beads from old French and Italian graveyards, long exposed to the weather and neglect. The frisson of such a violation added to the attraction of a 16-year old, no doubt.
Years later, while traveling through Northwest Africa in 1971, hunting at bazaars for antique Millefiori glass beads (not the fake ones for tourists) that had been part of commercial trade during colonial times, became a game.
Nowadays, jewelry made by a talented friend using Venetian glass, is a source of joy.
I have mostly associated embroidered beadwork with indigenous art, a pillar of Native American tribal design, for example. European colonial settlers brought glass beads, replacing previous beads made of copper, shells or bone. This led to adaptive, often ingenious changes in working with the materials:
“Faced with the challenge of integrating these new materials, women turned to familiar basketry techniques for ideas, adapting traditional basket-making methods to weave beads and native-made fibers into bags, caps, straps, and hair ornaments. Visual evidence for this can be seen in the motifs found on 19th-century woven bead work from the Pacific Northwest, which correlate directly to those used by women on their baskets and flat bags. This presentation will provide examples of loose-warp woven beadwork from three Native American tribes in the greater Pacific Northwest: the Tlingit of Southeastern Alaska, who focused more on embroidered beadwork than loose warp weaving; the Wasco of the Columbia River Valley, who wove beads until about 1915 at which point loose warp weaving techniques were gradually replaced by beading “on a frame;” and the Pit River Indians of Northern California, who created some of the most idiosyncratic objects, shaping their tubular bags in unusual ways.” (Ref.)
Bead embroidery can be found in Japanese history as well, and has played a significant role in African cultural history. Little did I know how much bead work was also represented in European work, even though I knew about the commercial bead manufacturing centers in Italy. Pretty mind-blowing, when you look at examples like these from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection:
Clearly Lynn Deal has a lot to work with, having found her own ways of integrating beads into her sculptures. They are elements of joy, of playful attention magnets, small messengers of harmony against backdrops of unease. Work that makes you try and find a balance, as it was intended to do.
Then again, Frankie, the pet rabbit, couldn’t care less – having free run of the studio makes for a happy life, no further improvements needed.
the process of spreading through and being present or perceived in every part of something. Oxford Languages Dictionary
I wish the sculptures I am presenting today would not trigger associations of something malevolent, if not evil, pervading the space around us, creeping in, sliding through, erupting through protective barriers and consuming the space we inhabit. It is remarkable work by a Brazilian artist, Henrique Oliveira, and does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the national and international assaults on human rights, or the authoritarian creep, or the misogynistic and racist slime surrounding us, but I could not force my brain to see it any other way. Then again, that is what extraordinary art does, mirroring the world as is.
It’s not just gloom. It really is a state of fear, or worry morphing into anger, if not rage, when encountering the next bit of horrifying news. People are killed in wars, killed by heat in Asia not known in these dimensions, needlessly dying of a virus for lack of organized protection. Now we learn that the old Christian men (and woman) in power in this country have decided to take rights away that they consider not “historically rooted,” tolerating the death of countless women, never mind their loss of control over their own bodies.
per·ver·sion/pərˈvərZHən/noun
the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended. Oxford Languages Dictionary
The draft of a leaked majority Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, points to a future that perverts everything liberal democracies have fought for, to an extent that is hard to fathom. It is not just about the right to safe, legal abortions. Alito’s draft opinion explicitly criticizes Lawrence v. Texas (legalizing sodomy) and Obergefell v. Hodges (legalizing same-sex marriage). He says that, like abortion, these decisions protect phony rights that are not “deeply rooted in history.” (Which is, by the way, exactly how Justice Robert Taney argued in the Dred Scott decision: “no African-American, free or enslaved, had ever enjoyed the rights of a citizen under the Constitution. For more than a century leading up to the ratification of the Constitution, blacks had been regarded as beings of an inferior order, altogether unfit to associate with the white race … and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”)
Never mind the selective reading of “history.” It was not until the 1820s – 1840s that abortion got criminalized in this country. The right to determine the fate of women’s own body has been assigned for over 50 years now, 20 % of our 244 years as nation. Not enough history? More importantly, look at the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by people.” Evolving rights were acknowledged, because not all future developments could be known.
If you connect the assault on the right to privacy, the pointer to the historic past, and the discussion found in conservative think tanks and law schools, we have to worry about assaults on all the rights that have been granted: the right to racially-integrated schools highly among them, to inter-racial marriage, to gay marriage, to life-saving gender-affirming medical care, and the right to vote in fair and free elections.
What sounds like nostalgic longing for a past by retrogressive justices is really a toxic power tool to re-establish complete control over those who served in prior centuries: the poor, the non-white, the 3/5 of person, the female contingents of our societies that were subjected to the preferred standing of property-owning males.
I recommend to read this Atlantic article by Adam Server for the details of Alito’s SC decision draft. I urge, if you have the time, to go back to an older book, that presciently spelled out what we are embarking on, while analyzing similar movements of the past: Hanna Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Arendt wrote this book after World War II had ended, fully convinced that even darker days were ahead, with totalitarian ideals going to surge and rule. Maybe her timing was bit off, but what she feared is slowly emerging across our world. Looking just at our own country, the U.S, inequality has risen to unthinkable heights, elections are under attack in systematic ways never seen before, from simply not accepting election outcomes to manufacturing every possible obstacle to free and fair voting, or means of influencing voters via hidden funds and manipulated mass media.
We do live in a world in which it seems, as she wrote, “as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.” In fact, you don’t even have to organize the masses any longer, if you have found ways to suppress them. Arendt looked back at the history of Nazi Germany in particular, but also European racism and imperialism in general, and warned: Human rights are not to be taken for granted. “To have such rights, she observed, you must not only live in a state that can guarantee them; you must also qualify as one of that state’s citizens. The stateless, and those classified as noncitizens, or non-people, are assured of nothing. The only way they can be helped or made secure is through the existence of the state, of public order, and of the rule of law.“
Think through who qualified as non-citizens in this country before the addition of the 14th amendment to the Constitution. For that matter, refresh you memory of all the “historically rooted” rights women did not have in 1787. Here’s a good reminder. And here is what an evolving legal system that incorporates the enlightenment of our times looks like: White women couldn’t vote before 1920. Women of color couldn’t vote until 1965. Interracial marriage was illegal until 1967. Americans with disabilities act was signed in 1990. Being subjected, subjugated, controlled again seems to be the nostalgic dream of the men who are now able to make the law – or, as I see it, a mockery of it.
Alas, Hannah Arendt also reminds us of another aspect of history – then and now. She pointed to the passivity of many people in the face of authoritarian rule, by the widespread willingness, even eagerness, to believe lies and propaganda. “In the totalitarian world, trust has dissolved. The masses believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.” And talking about propaganda – the airwaves, 24 hours after the drop, are filled with uproar over the act of leaking, conveniently suppressing the core of the message, the threatened loss of constitutional rights.
I truly fear, though, that after some initial ruckus, that passivity will hold here and now again. DO prove me wrong, to my eternal delight.
All photographs above are from Oliveira’s work, referenced on his website.
Images below are a compilation, shown before, from my series Tied to the Moon, about women’s experiences and life events, for timely reasons.
Yesterday was May 1st, International Labor Day, the traditional day for honoring workers and workers’ movements internationally. It originated, interestingly enough, out of the labor union movement in the U.S. in the late 1800s, calling for an 8 hour work day. Would’t you know it, the day is not officially recognized in this country today, since any sort of emboldening international solidarity is resisted.
(In honor of May 1st, today’s images are of posters around the world, found in postings by @Jacobin.)
In any case, it is a day that sees protest marches around the world, not all related to labor issues but more generally questioning capitalist rules or political developments (in France, for example both the left and the extreme right were protesting yesterday against Macron’s victory, in Germany large blocs of people protested against housing prices and policies and in favor of feminist politics.) These protests often see large police contingents posted to intervene if violence breaks out, to arrest those perceived to break laws and to protect interests of the state. In Berlin alone, 6000 police officers were posted across the weekend.
When those arrested are brought to trial, the police are called on to testify as eyewitnesses. This brings me to the actual focus of today’s blog, the many myths surrounding the evidence provided by police in general criminal proceedings, as described in a paper by psychologists Kathy Pezdek & Dan Reisberg, Psychological Myths about Evidence in the Legal System: How Should Researchers Respond?, to be published in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory & Cognition in June.
The article describes some of the myths that pervade the legal system. I will alert you to the myths that are listed and why it is important that we become aware that they, as it turns out, have no basis in fact. I will not reiterate the scientific literature that shows how these myths are debunked, which is the core of the scientific paper, but would go beyond the scope of a blog. (Preprints for the whole article can be requested here: Kathy.Pezdek@cgu.edu, or here: reisberg@reed.edu.)
Myth #1: Officers are More Accurate Eyewitnesses than Civilians
Judges, jurors, and many others believe that law enforcement personnel are more credible than other witnesses when they testify in court and, moreover, that officers are more accurate eyewitnesses than civilians. A related claim is that identification evidence provided by police officers is more reliable than identification evidence provided by civilians, and thus the safeguards generally required when civilians are asked to make an identification – safeguards that include proper instructions before the identification, a properly constructed lineup, and so on, are not needed for police officers.
The reality: Police officers have no advantage as eyewitnesses in identifying the perpetrator. Some studies even suggest they are at a disadvantage.
Myth #2: High Stress Improves the Accuracy of Memory
Many people buy into the belief that stressful events are better remembered – and, in fact, are remembered accurately, completely, and with little or no forgetting as time goes by. Ain’t so, and that goes for police officers as well. If anything, high stress impairs memory, rather than enhances it. In addition, memory for stressful events, just like memory overall, can be influenced (and distorted) by post-event misinformation, so holds no special status.
In other words, then: officers suffer perceptual and memory distortions when under stress, just as civilians do.
Myth #3: A Sleep Cycle after a Use-of-force Incident Improves Memory
There are many policy proposals supported by state legislatures and police unions that there should be a “cooling off period” after the use of force before questioning the involved officer, periods trending in length from 72 hours to 10 days. Often this proposal is part of a policy termed the “police officers’ bill of rights.” The claim is that this delay will improve memory, in addition to helping the officer regain composure and get some rest. This stands in conflict with what the evidence shows: delayed reporting is inferior to reporting immediately after an event. Memory fades, folks.
In addition, delay in reporting creates a risk that the officer (or any other witness) will encounter information that can merge with their original memory, undermining memory accuracy. Confusing the source from which you gained knowledge is also enhanced with he passage of time. Even if one did not eye these proposals suspiciously as a tool for the involved officers to get their act together and prepare and coordinate testimony, the suggested delay will hurt not help the finders of fact and the legal proceedings in general.
Myth #4: Double-Blind Lineups are Unnecessary
For photographic lineups, a double-blind procedure is one in which the lineup is administered by someone not involved in the investigation, so that neither the administrator nor the witness is told which photo shows the police suspect. With this procedure in place, the witness makes a selection guided only (one hopes) by the witness’s recollection of the actual culprit’s appearance, and not due to some (involuntary or voluntary) cues or hints by the administrator, and this does diminish bias in identification procedures. Despite their protestations, police officers are not immune to the effects of non-blind lineups. In other words, they, too, should be asked to identify culprits using the double-blind procedure.
Myth #5: Viewing BWC Footage Does Not Contaminate Officers’ Memory
After using force, law enforcement officers are asked to write a report, describing the episode. In many jurisdictions, police insist that they should write the report only after reviewing their body worn camera videos. Any suggestion to the contrary has been strongly rejected by police organizations. This refusal ignores the data that show how memory accuracy is contaminated by seeing the video. It provides the officers with actually-not-remembered information, and this information is simply absorbed into their eventual “memory” report – exactly the pattern expected based on decades of research on post-event suggestion.
Myth #6: Police Officers Can Accurately Detect Deception
There is a widespread notion that police officers are trained to detect liars and are better than your average civilian at doing so. Just for the record: we are all pretty lousy at detecting deception: on average not much better than tossing a coin. Law enforcement officers are not much better in their performance – but do assume that they are. Their confidence levels in their ability to detect lies stand in little correlation to their actual abilities. Training or experience do little to improve these skills, but they seem to feed into false assurance about skill levels.
Why does all this matter?
For one, if legal decisions are made based on false assumptions (evidence given by police witnesses is superior, thus can be trusted over diverging evidence, for example,) we are in trouble. Educating judges, attorneys, jurors and the police themselves seems important to avoid false conclusions that decide people’s fate. These myths are also often reflected in policy documents that govern both law enforcement and legal procedures. It seems important to debunk the mistaken beliefs of policy makers as well, given how consequential these myths are.
The poem below was written this year in obvious response to what’s lurking. Volodymyr Dibrovar is a scholar at Harvard’s Ukrainian Research interview, historian Timothy Snyder was the translator. Dibrovar is a writer, translator and literary critic, a laureate of the Mykola Lukash Award in Translation for his translation of Samuel Beckett’s “Watt” (1991) and the Ukrainian BBC Book of the Year Award for his novel “The Andriivskyi Descent” (2007.)
I am posting it not to feed the increasing depression I see rising in myself and many around me, but because I think it speaks to something larger than the horrors of war alone. The sulphur fumes of a desire to annihilate born out of contempt and clinging to power are spreading everywhere, nationally and internationally. I write this after the Hungarian and before the French election this weekend, and cannot but wonder why fascism is even allowed at the doorstep, much less across it.
My photomontages today were work commissioned byThe North Coast Chorale in Astoria for a 2016 concert performance of Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man – a mass for peace (which in turn was dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo conflict.) The music uses the structure of a catholic mass, but is filled with diverse, surprising and moving texts from all kinds of sources.
As it unfolds it brings the listener closer and closer to the devastation wrought by war, the emotional emptiness and trauma that comes with loss and being a victim as much as with being part of the perpetrating forces. It ends with appeals to hope, with a belief that we can and must pursue peace and that memory of the suffering must be kept alive to avoid repetition of warfare.
Look!
The barrier between us and the netherworld. We don’t usually see it. Why should we pay attention? Our cares are heavy enough already.
But something has happened.
Do you see?
The membrane is broken, a miasma of lies and hatred flows out. It drains will and reason from the weak. Even the strong are in shock.
It seems to defy the laws of physics
It is what it is, look out.
Toxic, not to be touched, not yet named. And that’s our problem.
What is unnamed escapes unpunished.
Where’s our word for spasmodic contempt and blinding annihilation?
For a lie so thick it absorbs every truth?
Search. To name is to know.
That is the only rule.
Of our only game.
Volodymyr Dibrova, (2022) Translated by Timothy Snyder.
***
Дивися!
Ось той невидимий кордон, який захищає нас від потойбічного світу. Тому ж ми його і не бачимо. Нащо він нам? Ми й без нього ледве даємо собі раду.
Але щось сталося.
Бачиш?
Загата розірвана, і з рани цебенить суміш ненависті та брехні. В слабаків вона відбирає розум і волю. Сильних вкидає у шок.
За законами фізики такого не може бути.
Але так є.
Обережно!
Це – дуже токсична субстанція. Її не можна торкатися. Тому вона й досі не має назви. І в цьому проблема.
Усе, що не названо, вислизає й лишається непокараним.
Де ж нам знайти влучне слово для корчів ненависті та бажання нищити все на своєму шляху?
Або для брехні, настільки щільної, що її не можна розчинити ніякою правдою?
The doves are back. Parading in front of my window, giving me stern looks that I have not put out any seed, puffing up when the cold breeze strikes. Next week is supposed to have 76 degrees one day, snow the other. Crazy.
The song sparrows are singing their little heart out, perched on my pear tree, about to blossom.
The wood violets are exploding.
The trillium are in full swing.
Maple and elderberries are stretching to the light.
Bluebells hiding in the shadow.
And importantly, the bleeding hearts are back. Just around the corner, clusters in the woods.
These are wild flowers, Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra Formosa,) not the cultivated ones that you find in English cottage gardens (shown below).
There’s a somewhat timely story as to how the name, Bleeding Heart, got transformed into an insult along the lines of “such a bleeding heart liberal…”
As early as the 14th century, the phrase referred to a sincere emotional outpouring, found in poems by Chaucer, for example (Troylus and Chriseyde):
That nevere of hym she wolde han taken hede, For which hym thoughte he felte his herte blede.
Later, so Merriam-Webster dictionary tells me, the term was associated with religious iconography, referring to the bleeding heart of Christ. It was connected to his teachings and compassion for the poor, sick or struggling.
Leave it to a right-wing American newspaper journalist, Westbrook Pegler, a nasty Senator, Joe McCarthy, and a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, to turn a thought of brotherly love into an insult.
Pegler was a hater. The list was long: Communists, fascist, Jews, liberals. In the context of a new bill before Congress, he coined the term bleeding-heart liberal in 1938. The bill? Aimed to curb lynching.
Pegler argued that lynching was no longer a problem the federal government should solve: there had only been eight lynchings in 1937, he wrote, and “it is obvious that the evil is being cured by local processes.” The bill, he thought, was being “used as a political bait in crowded northern Negro centers.” (Ref.) He, by the way, became too right-wing even for the John- Birch -Society, which threw him out eventually.
The term found full attention when picked up by Joe McCarthy in the 1950s who called Edward R. Murrow one of the “extreme Left Wing bleeding-heart elements of television and radio.” Leave it to Ronald Reagan, then newly elected Governor of California, to make it his own in the 60s: “I was quite the bleeding-heart liberal once,” he told Newsweek.
Let’s co-opt the term! I am a proudly caring, compassionate, social-justice oriented bleeding-heart progressive! There! The world needs us.
Oh, and the lynching bill? Finally, passed this March after a century or so. It failed on 200 (!) previous attempts. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which was introduced by Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) in the House and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate, is named for the 14-year-old Black boy whose brutal torture and murder in Mississippi in 1955 sparked the civil rights movement. The three no votes: Republican Reps. Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Chip Roy (Tex.) Glad they were not on the jury during a contemporary lynching victim’s trial, Ahmaud Arbery.
(Sacral) Music is from 18th Century Ukraine today.
“Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it’s true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.” – James Baldwin “An interview with James Baldwin” (1961), in Conversations with James Baldwin.
It seemed counterintuitive, no, odd, really, that my first reaction to a piece of gorgeous, intense, riveting music were thoughts about visibility. After all, what we perceive is more likely associated with visual media, film in particular, and yet here I was surrounded by sound, listening to the orchestra dress rehearsal of The Central Park Five, Portland Opera‘s upcoming production.
Left to right: Donovan Singletary as Antron McCray, Bernard Holcomb as Kevin Richardson,Victor Ryan Robertson as Raymond Santana, Aubrey Allicock as Yusef Salaam, Nathan Granner as Kharey/Korey Wise.
Maybe it’s not so odd after all, when you consider that truly good art makes things visible that are otherwise hidden beneath the mere consideration of images or words. Maybe it is the emotional reaction that music in particular can stir up that connects you to what lies invisible under the surface of narratives. This might be particularly true for stories that you intellectually witnessed in your own time, and thus think you have a grasp on, until art opens up a different dimension previously foreclosed, disturbing the peace. That said, the video projections, the lighting and two opera stages on top of each other, echoing separate worlds and power hierarchies, visually helped intensify the emotions.
On top stage: Hannah Ludwig as the Assistant District Attorney, Johnathan McCullough as The Masque (he plays numerous white characters across the opera.)On Bottom stage, left to right: Aubrey Allicock as Yusef Salaam, Nathan Granner as Kharey/Korey Wise, Bernard Holcomb as Kevin Richardson, Donovan Singletary as Antron McCray.
The Pulitzer Prize winning opera composed by Anthony Davis (Libretto by Richard Wesley, conducted by Kazem Abdullah,stage directed by Nataki Garrett) recounts the horrifying 1989 tale of innocent youths (aged 14-16) accused and convicted of beating and raping a woman in New York’s Central Park, after they falsely confessed but then recanted, with no physical evidence connecting them to the crime. The story focusses on the many aspects that led to this outcome, with lasting damage done to the defendants despite the eventual vacating of the verdict, when DNA evidence and the confession by the true perpetrator exonerated them. The case made salient the racial inequities in our criminal justice system. The $40 million settlement with the state of New York did not buy back the time lost and sorrow inflicted on kids (and their families and communities) as young as 14 years of age, spending years incarcerated (the one 16 year-old 13 years in adult prison!) for a crime they did not commit.
For me, the music captured the tension inherent in an adversarial system built into the criminal courts, the racism both structural and individually applied that so often erupts in cases of violence against white women. It also echoed the preconceived assumptions about crime-prone black youth, and the career ramifications for police and DAs as well as aspiring politicians like a former president who involved himself in fashioning public opinion in what turned out to be a stepping stone to an election campaign.
Christian Sanders as Donald Trump
The music conveyed the fear, the paralysis, the disbelief of the victims of procedural malfeasance. For me, it made the legal and social injustice of this case visible at a gut level, allowing us for a short while to walk in the defendants’ shoes.
Others at OregonArtsWatch, who know much more about music than I do, will write about the Portland Opera production in coming weeks. What I want to do today instead, is to make visible, from my perspective as a former lawyer and psychologist, how this is not an isolated case, however brilliantly captured by Davis and the musicians who moved me so. Let’s look at both the myths surrounding false confessions and the general processes that can create them in ways they affect criminal trials every single day.
***
I believe that many of us share deep concerns about our legal system. The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, but 20% of the world’s prisoners, a huge number especially when we consider the horrific circumstances that define incarceration (Ref.). In addition, black Americans are incarcerated 5 times the rate of white Americans (Ref.). Blacks constitute roughly 14% of the U.S. population, while in some states they constitute over half of the prison populations. You have to worry about what these numbers mean.
Moreover, there is no question that the legal system routinely makes horrible mistakes, including getting the basic facts wrong, as the Innocence Project has proven with the high numbers of DNA exonerations they have brought about. Specifically, scholars talk about myths, that pervade and erode the legal system. One example includes the so-called sexual assault myth – the idea that the prevalent form of sexual assault involves a stranger leaping out of the darkness. The reality is instead that sexual assaults are vastly more likely from someone you know. Given that the American legal system counts on the common sense of jury members to reach a sensible verdict, we have a problem if some common sense beliefs are mistaken and rely on myths: it can have tragic consequences in the legal system and elsewhere.
Left to right:Elliott Paige as Antron’s Father, Babatunde Akinboboye as Raymond’s Father, Ibidunni Ojikutuas Antron’s Mother, Jazmine Olwalia as Sharonne Salaam.
A different set of myths concerns confession evidence, starting with the widely held belief that false confessions are quite rare. And here the common sense appeal is powerful. After all, why would someone confess to a crime, and invite punishment, for something they didn’t do? As a related myth people assume a false confession would only be produced by someone who is mentally ill or attention-seeking, or someone who has been physically coerced (yelled at, threatened, beaten) by the police. (Ref.)
All texts are photographs of the supertext panels that displayed the words that were sung. Surtitles were written and produced by Ethan Cope Richter.
There is no doubt though that these myths are myths. For example a national database of exoneration cases shows us that 13% of the cases involve confessions we now know to be false (another take by the Innocence Project that relies on DNA evidence only, claims the rate may be as high as 1 in 4.) The numbers get worse, much worse, if we zoom in for a closer look. In the same database, among exonerated juveniles, 36% involved confessions we now know were false, and if you look at the youngest juveniles in this data set (12-15 years old) 57% confessed to a crime they did not commit. These were, of course, the ages of 4 of the Central Park Five. Kids this age are less mature, more impulsive than older ones, they are more gullible, and they don’t always think about long-term consequences.
***
How is it possible that there are so many false confessions? Let’s look at the interrogation process. Police have become remarkably skilled in what scientists call “psychological coercion” (note not physical coercion). This process involves many specific levers, often used in a back and forth combination, but there are three overarching themes. First, no matter how many times the suspect denies the crime, these denials are refused, ignored, or rejected, or even sneered at. The message to the suspect therefore is that not confessing is not an option. To drive this point home, this process can stretch out over two or four or ten hours, leaving the exhausted suspect too tired to resist, and eager to do anything to escape the interrogation room. To up the pressure, police do most of the talking, set the agenda for topics of conversation, decide when breaks are happening and in classic settings – small room, no windows, no clock, no distractions, uncomfortable chair – they keep at it to maximize confrontation.
The second broad theme involves multiple efforts toward minimizing the cost of confessing in the eyes of the suspect. This includes offering the suspect a variety of excuses, “You were drunk, you were under stress, you just ran with the crowd, they asked for it!” and with these excuses the suspect might think s/he is confessing to something that is understandable and not so blameworthy. Often this minimizing is established via presenting a contrast: “We know you are not a terrible person; you’re just a guy who made a mistake.” The police also puff up whatever evidence they have (including utterly false claim about the evidence which they are allowed to make since they are legally allowed to lie in interrogations). The message to the suspect here is that they are likely to be convicted with or without a confession, so that confession costs them nothing.
The third major goal involves a package of strategies that suggest benefits from confessing. Police are not allowed to promise leniency, but they are wonderfully skillful at hinting at leniency along the lines of “How do you think the prosecutor is going to react when she sees that you stonewalled us? And how do you think she would react if you were open and took ownership of what you had done?” Interrogators also suggest psychological benefit from a confession once they have determined the defendant’s allegiances: they lean on religion, if they think you’re religious. They stress the aspects of healing of closure for the assault victim if they think you have some loyalty to the victim. They point at the responsibility towards the community if they believe you have strong links there.
Do these levers work every time? Surely not, but they work often enough that false confessions do happen and that is profoundly troubling because a confession of almost any sort virtually guarantees a conviction.
Johnathan McCullough as The Masque, Hannah Ludwig as the Assistant District Attorney
***
Why do police engage in these tactics? For one, and the data are clear on that, because they do result in factually true confessions a large percentage of the time. But many interrogators also deny the possibility that false ones are happening at all or are happening with regularity, or they are willing to tolerate this error. Secondly, police are explicitly trained to do interrogations in this way with many training programs across the country based on what is called the Reid Technique which instructs in the above-listed application of tools: coercion, situational control, minimizing the cost and maximizing the potential benefits of confessions in their communications to suspects. Even if officers have not had formal training, they learn about these tools from colleagues who had and so continue in this vein.
Police understand that their interrogation techniques are confrontational, often a determined push to confirm their suspicions by alternating carrots and sticks, and even coercive. Police believe, though, that we are all protected by two safeguards. As it turns out, both of the safeguards turn out to be hollow. One safeguard relies on the idea that police can figure out before the interrogation who is guilty and who is not, and therefore they aggressively push for confessions only with presumed guilty suspects. There is, unfortunately, overwhelming evidence, that most police officers when trying to decide who is lying to them and who is not, perform at a level only marginally better than a coin toss. This guarantees that they will use coercive techniques with people that they have wrongly decided are liars.
The other supposed safeguard comes after the interrogation, when police seek further evidence that will corroborate, or perhaps undermine, the confession. Here we run into a problem called confirmation bias, with the essential notion being that, once you have a confession, it biases what other evidence you look for and how you interpret what you encounter. The result? A false confession can invite the collection of further evidence that seems to support it, so that bad evidence leads to more bad evidence.
Babatunde Akinboboye as Matias Reyes, left, Nathan Granner as Kharey/Korey Wise, right.
What can be done about this, especially given how these issues interweave with strong patterns of racial bias? That bias manifests itself in some officers’ willingness to assume a black suspect is likely guilty and proceed accordingly in the interrogation. That bias is also evident in the power dynamic of an interrogation, with a police officer relying on social distribution of power to bully a black youth. There is also a tendency for interrogators (as well as teachers and school administrators) to bear in mind that a white kid is a kid, while failing to make the same crucial adjustments when interacting with a young person of color. Black girls are seen as more adult than white girls at almost all stages of development. Black boys are constantly judged to be older than they are (adultification) and, importantly, the older they seem, the more we consider them culpable. (Ref.) Finally, given the economic inequities in our country, a white suspect is far more likely to have decently paid legal representation compared to the resources available to POC.
Where does this leave us? Here, the importance of art. Narratives and documentaries can inform. Art can move, often in a lasting way. Will it move police officers to change their practices? Perhaps not. Will it shift legislatives votes? Likely not. But we’re at a place in which ordinary citizens can have extraordinary power. In a criminal trial, jury verdicts must be unanimous. (Ironically, this has been true in 48 states for years; it is only recently true in Oregon and Louisiana). On a jury, a single citizen empowered by this production, remembering his or her reaction to the music and the story it conveyed, introduced to reality rather than clinging to myth, can hold firm and may be the stalwart obstacle to decisions resting on false beliefs and leading to catastrophically wrong verdicts. Portland Opera’s choice of a timely and important piece of contemporary music, beautifully staged and performed, might have long lasting consequences and not just providing us with a riveting night at the opera. Art empowering justice
I started with a James Baldwin quote, so let me also end with one:
“Well, if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goesto the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most!—and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person—ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin – No Name in the Street.
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Portland Opera presents:
The Central Park Five
Composed by Anthony Davis Libretto by Richard Wesley
We were walking along the promenade, kids visiting from L.A., a rare treat. The sky and the light changed rapidly, threatening showers, then sun emerging. Remarking on the brown, muddy water of the Willamette river, I mused about writing about the dangers of cyber war for water treatment centers. “You shouldn’t,” I was told, “it’s too depressing.” Couldn’t help but think of a snarky poem from the 1930s, by one of Germany’s most astute satirists and writers, Erich Kästner. He urged to face the truth and not insist on pretending that the world is all right. I follow, quite obviously, in his footsteps, with the same approach, though not his talent. (Below is the original for my German readers and my attempts at translation which can, of course, not capture the elegance of his rhymes, but I think I got the gist.)
“Und wo bleibt das Positive, Herr Kästner?”
Und immer wieder schickt ihr mir Briefe,
in denen ihr, dick unterstrichen, schreibt:
»Herr Kästner, wo bleibt das Positive?«
Ja, weiß der Teufel, wo das bleibt.
Noch immer räumt ihr dem Guten und Schönen
den leeren Platz überm Sofa ein.
Ihr wollt euch noch immer nicht dran gewöhnen,
gescheit und trotzdem tapfer zu sein.
Ihr braucht schon wieder mal Vaseline,
mit der ihr das trockene Brot beschmiert.
Ihr sagt schon wieder, mit gläubiger Miene:
»Der siebente Himmel wird frisch tapeziert!«
Ihr streut euch Zucker über die Schmerzen
und denkt, unter Zucker verschwänden sie.
Ihr baut schon wieder Balkons vor die Herzen
und nehmt die strampelnde Seele aufs Knie.
Die Spezies Mensch ging aus dem Leime
und mit ihr Haus und Staat und Welt.
Ihr wünscht, daß ich’s hübsch zusammenreime,
und denkt, daß es dann zusammenhält?
Ich will nicht schwindeln. Ich werde nicht schwindeln.
Die Zeit ist schwarz, ich mach euch nichts weis.
Es gibt genug Lieferanten von Windeln.
Und manche liefern zum Selbstkostenpreis.
Habt Sonne in sämtlichen Körperteilen
und wickelt die Sorgen in Seidenpapier!
Doch tut es rasch. Ihr müßt euch beeilen.
Sonst werden die Sorgen größer als ihr.
Die Zeit liegt im Sterben. Bald wird sie begraben.
Im Osten zimmern sie schon den Sarg.
Ihr möchtet gern euren Spaß dran haben …?
Ein Friedhof ist kein Lunapark.
*************************************************
“And Where’s the Positive, Herr Kästner?“
You send me letters, again and again,
with the question, thickly underlined:
"Mr. Kästner, where’s the positive?"
Well, the devil knows where it's at in these times.
You’re still reserving the empty space
above the couch for the good and the bright.
You still deny that, besides being smart,
you need to summon your courage all right.
You retreat, once again, to Vaseline
to pretend there's butter on the stale, old bread.
You insist, yet again, with a trusting mien:
"Upgrades to seventh heaven are right ahead."
You sprinkle sugar on top of your pain
and assume the sugar will make it flee.
You overstretch your wide-open heart
and rock your flailing soul on your knees.
The human species has been falling apart
and with it house and state and world.
You request that I'll fix it with a pretty rhyme
and think that that way the pieces hold?
I don't want to lie. I will not lie.
Times are black, no white-washing can be allowed.
There are others who’ll pamper you happily
and some even do it for free in this crowd.
Invite the sun to all body parts,
and wrap up your worries in tissue paper!
But do it quickly. You have to hurry,
or else the worries get greater and greater.
An era is dying. It will soon be buried.
In the East the casket is fashioned right now.
You'd still like your fun and games in a flurry?
A graveyard is no amusement show.
So what is it about water that makes me invite you to store enough to last for some days for you and your pets, independent of earthquake prep?
Cyber attacks can unfortunately do more than just interrupt water testing. They can actually manipulate things to poison the water. Why should that happen here, you ask? Well, that’s probably the same question pondered by almost any municipality in this country and the you have cases like the one in Oldsmar, Florida, last year. A hacker, using someone else’s stolen credentials, gained control of the operational panels and drove up sodium hydroxide content in the water to poisonous levels. It was caught, fortunately, swiftly enough to prevent lasting damage, but that was a question of luck. (Ref.)
The Biden administration has certainly been on alert for the threats, during normal times associated with cyber criminals or individual actors. They have an active program in the works to heighten security measures. How that plays out if we are – however indirectly – at war or in conflict with more sophisticated and powerful state actors, I have no clue. We are seeing in real time how a population can be cut off from water during a war, as reported from Ukraine.
And yet these worries are a drop in the bucket, compared to the general situation of water scarcity and quality in the world. Here is ICCP’s new report on the ravages half of the world is facing in the light of climate change. I think we can all intuit the overall picture. What I did not know is how few of the suggested adaptation strategies are actually tested for whether they work or not. These strategies are aimed at water hazards (droughts, floods, groundwater depletion, glacier depletion) or water-related direct responses (irrigation, rainwater harvesting and wetlands conservation).
There are more than 1,800 climate change adaptation strategies registered worldwide, yet only 359 had been analyzed for effectiveness. We do not know if most of these strategies actually reduce the impacts of climate change on health, safety and economy. Here is an overview of the types of adaptive measure we are talking about and what we know they might or might not accomplished. A muddy picture.
No white-washing then, even if we wanted to. But before you curse me for drowning you in miserable thoughts at the beginning of the weekend, here is an antidote. A bit of sugar to sprinkle, if you will, after all. The link describes the public hotline where you can dial in to receive a (pre-recorded) pep talk by – Kindergarteners! Call 707-998-8410. My favorite: option #4 – the laughter of 5 year-olds as a cheer-me-up.
A pod village for the houseless, next to the Hawthorne Bridge
Join me on a walk? Take your rubber boots – the Pineapple Express has arrived, an atmospheric river that transports moisture from the tropics to the northern areas of the planet in great masses. In simpler words: it has been pouring.
And this is the foot path …..
I needed to get out yesterday to get away from the news, so many horrors all at once. Nobody able to predict what will happen next, how to approach a situation where the unchecked power over weapons destroys lives, a people, potentially the world as we know it. The reactions in favor of greater militarization in Europe are understandable but go so against the grain of what a nation – Germany – has tried to do for decades in acknowledgement of its history. All of a sudden there are billions available to fill the coffers of the weapons industry, when poverty and houselessness and lack of social services are unabated. Let me hasten to add, I do not have a clue what the right thing is to do, with the stakes so insane. And I do understand that you cannot defend yourself against unlawful, imperialistic military invasion with bare hands.
Much mud carried by the fast stream
The refugee situation is raising ambiguous feelings as well. It is great how hundreds of thousands of fleeing Ukrainians are welcomed in neighboring nations. It is horrifying that people of color have been treated very differently, not just in general (think Polish treatment of Syrian refugees) but in this particular instance – Black and Brown students studying in Ukraine not allowed across the borders, pushed out of trains and busses, humans of a second order. The internet is full of suggestions that Africans make it immediately to Romania which is set for flights to Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
And then there is the situation of the Jews whose fate is so tied to the history of Ukraine, the unspeakable terror against them during WW II, whose Holocaust memorial at Babyn Yar has been bombed by Putin yesterday. Their status as refugees, outside of Israel, has been a double edged sword. Or even within Israel – it is the occupied West Bank that will house the influx of Jewish Ukrainians, complicating things for the Palestinians.
I was thinking back to an essay describing the experiences and difficulties of Eastern European Jews emigrating to Germany in the 1990s when Germany accepted a contingent of Jewish refugees to polish its own image, to signal repentance of past deeds.
I also remembered Hannah Arendt’s words, so applicable to the moment. In the link, her short essay We Refugeesis printed in full after her portrait.
Windfall
But lest we forget, there are also people in Russia whose life will take a devastating turn as we speak, who have few choices for protest or action to change what is decreed from above. Here is a short essay from 2 days ago by a young Russian Jew who is grieving.
And then there is a novel about a survivor of another war in Ukraine, that comforts us with a tale of resilience. Here is an excerpt of Kurkov’s Grey Bees.
Nature on my walk pretended that nothing had happened. Ignored the fact that it was so warm that everything seemed to explode in growth spurts several weeks early. An unstoppable push towards renewal.
A few of the small birds were happily chirping along, including a female ruby crowned kinglet, a miracle to catch with the camera since they move at lightning speed. (Below are Towhee, song sparrows, a female junko, killdeer and the kinglet.)
The geese did their thing, coming and going.
The wild currants joined the chorus of plants in a landscape that defiantly put up some color against the grey sky.
As did the rest of the flowering beauty:
The pussy willows, in different stages of growth, seemed to suggest that tears can be beautiful adornment, and that they will roll off by themselves – well, my mind prone to anthropomorphising suggested that, but I did not complain….
Spring is all about renewal. Renewal is also humanity’s highest good, enshrined in democracies who are willing to take risks, accept the unpredictable, renounce the statism that aristocracies or authoritarian regimes want to enshrine. Renewal is about a livable future, not an oppressive past. It is upon everyone of us to support that project of renewal, within and beyond our borders.
When the rain got too hard I found a shelter, and some earlier visitor had left something behind. At least the kids here can still assume that nothing has happened and engage their fairy worlds. Wish it was true for every child in the world.
