Some good friends of mine are currently on trial in Brighton. One night in January last year they entered the premises of EDO-MBM, an arms manufacturer, and smashed the place to smithereens. There were no employees around at the time - there was no intimidation or violence, just the destruction of property.
The backdrop to that night's events was Israel's murderous assault on the residents of Gaza. That assault had been underway for some days when my friends entered the factory; they, along with millions of decent human beings around the world, were appalled at what was going on. They knew that the company EDO-MBM - who owned the factory - supplied Israel with components for their weaponry. With world leaders squirming away from taking material action against Israel's barbarism, my friends stepped into the breech. They acted as best they could to prevent further blood shed.
My friends are heroes, and my earnest hope is that they will be acquitted. You can follow how the trial is going here.
(As an aside: it is nearly eighteen months since my friends took action to save lives. All of them have suffered serious disruption to their lives through court-ordered curfews, court appearances, police raids etc. One, however, has suffered more than all the others: Elijah James Smith has been in jail on remand since the night of the action. His treatment is a disgrace, and a shocking indictment of the British justice system. Although I fervently hope for a "not guilty" finding, it's terrible to think of the privations that Elijah has endured. No verdict can give him back the last year and a half.)
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Friday, 9 April 2010
Fostering with Bristol City Council
My partner and I recently applied to be foster carers through Bristol City Council. In January we were told that our application would not be accepted, and we should wait for a couple of years before reapplying. The reason given for this decision was that my partner had suffered from (at times severe) post-natal depression between January and April last year.
I feel strongly that our experience of applying to be foster carers was deficient on a number of fronts, as I will explain below. This article should not be construed as an attack on individuals working within Bristol Social Services; rather I wish to give some constructive criticism of the systems that are in place for fostering children in Bristol (and possibly elsewhere).
[1] Forms versus interviews
In April 2009 we contacted Bristol Social Services about fostering, and a few weeks later we lodged our application; this was done via a one hour interview, conducted by a social worker in our home. Over subsequent months we filled out a number of different forms, as did several referees, and our doctors. In December 2009 a second interview was conducted by the same social worker (duration roughly thirty minutes) who took some more notes. Then in January we received a phone call telling us that our application had been rejected.
Over the nine months of the application process we were in contact with one social worker for a total of ninety minutes. This period of time was deemed sufficient to assess our ability to foster children. Clearly the application system relies far more heavily on information gathered via forms than it does via the interview process.
This fact was brought into relief when our social worker explained that she would need to write a memo with regard to one aspect of our application (I forget exactly which one) which would then be passed to her boss who would discuss the memo with HER boss, and the pair of them would then decide whether or not the application could proceed. So two people who have never met us discussed a memo written by someone who'd been in our company for an hour, on the basis of which discussion a conclusion about our fostering ability was drawn. Am I alone in thinking this absurd?
Fostering children is a human activity; forms can help but they can't tell the full story. In order to make a proper assessment of our suitability to be foster carers two things are required: the first is time. The managers at Social Services will no doubt protest that their workers don't have the time to conduct lengthy interviews with every John Doe who walks through their door. I don't doubt that; but they'd have a lot more time if they filled in less forms.
The second vital requirement is the good judgment of the social worker conducting the interview; the only person to actually meet us! This worker should be trusted and empowered to use that judgment. In fact it would be better if there were more than one worker involved. This must be an improvement on managers with memos.
[2] Motivation in the system
Perhaps this is a good place for me to reiterate that I am NOT seeking to attack social workers. They have an impossible job; they are no doubt over worked. I have no complaints about the individual worker who oversaw our application.
A social worker's job is impossible because the consequences of anything going wrong are momentous. The damage that may be done to a child placed in a bad home doesn't bear thinking about. The papers are regularly filled with stories of social work gone wrong, and the opinion-makers are ever ready to condemn any hapless social worker who errs in the line of duty; working in Family and Childrens Services must feel like negotiating a mine field.
And this metaphor clearly informs the way the system works: every fostering placement is a potential mine ready to blow a social work team to smithereens. So what then is the motivation for that team to place children in the community? If a child is already in a care home, then a social worker risks a hell of a lot in approving their move to a foster home... and what do they gain?
Far better to pore through those forms in the hope of finding some reason to reject a fostering application. You've been depressed? We can't have that! And the social worker breathes a sigh of relief...
But now here's a question: does this system really operate so as to maximise the well-being of the children involved? In light of the impossible situation that social workers find themselves in, one must recognise that social worker teams are compelled to look after their own well-being too - and this is quite a different thing.
All those forms are the paper trail that will get them out of jail (maybe literally) should anything go wrong. A social worker wants to point to a form and say "look, she was depressed, that's why we rejected them." Compare this to the alternative: "although she'd been depressed, we talked for several hours, and I was convinced that this would not be a significant impediment to them fostering." In the current climate that won't save their skin if the shit hits the fan.
But now think of the child sat mouldering away in a care home wishing for the chance to have a normal family life for a little bit of time. We're told that foster carers are really needed; that there are kids in exactly this situation. How is this system helping them?
[3] Trial by process
Nine months to make an application to be a foster carer (or more precisely to START such an application) is too long. The one positive that came out of our application being rejected is that we were both relieved to put an end to dealing with such a ridiculous bureaucracy.
Those nine months consisted of filling in forms, of ringing up offices and leaving messages asking for updates on what was happening, of generally being mystified and perplexed. One might argue that there needs to be a fairly high threshold for foster carers - they need to show that they're in it for the long haul. I don't disagree with this, but that threshold should not be a bureaucratic one.
The application process as it stands does not test one's ability to parent children, it tests one's ability to interact with a lumbering bureaucracy. To cope with rules and regulations imposed from on high. To cope with not knowing who is responsible for what, and what decisions are being made by whom, and when. And, of course, to cope with forms.
It is worth noting that over the nine months we spent applying to be foster carers we received absolutely no encouragement from Family & Children's Services to persevere through the process. Outside of the two interviews, there was virtually no human communication beyond a couple of answering machine messages and a single email.
What is more all interaction (via message and in the interview) was based on what official information was missing, and on those aspects of our domestic situation that were perceived to be potential problems. The idea that we might have had something positive to offer was never explicitly recognised.
[4] Depression
Some background: my partner suffered post-natal depression from January until April 2009. The depression was mainly triggered by severe and prolonged sleep deprivation (our baby was waking us sometimes six or seven times a night). The depression ended when our baby started to sleep through until 5am, and as a result of medication and therapy that my partner sought out when she realised she was becoming depressed.
It was a horrible depression. It was also a very reasonable response to a fairly hellish situation. My partner identified that she was depressed for herself, and she sought help quickly. But it's interesting to see where that label got us. If she'd stayed at home, cried a lot, neglected the baby, and shouted at me, then Family and Children's Services would probably never have heard of what had happened.
But, although she cried plenty, she didn't neglect the baby or shout at me, instead she did her best to face up what was happening to her. Calling her experience "depression" helped her to deal with it. It helped her to get the attention that she needed from doctors. It gave her (us) a framework within which she could process her emotions, and her distress, and find some healing.
The problem is of course that, in the eyes of many, depression is a pathology. It's a box that can be ticked on a form; a reason that can be given for a rejected application. Never mind that it's just a word that describes - very inadequately - a vast range of human experience.
To be fair to the social services, they did delve into what my partner experienced. The motivation for the second interview was for the worker to explore past episodes of depression that my partner had experienced (and that had surfaced in a doctor's report). In the interview our worker asked questions about what happened, and asked us how we thought we would cope with the stress that fostering might inflict on us... And then a memo was written, and "no" was the deafening reply. One can't help but think that the writing was on the wall as soon as the box was ticked.
[5] The ideal carer
The depression issue was just one area where somehow our family situation didn't conform to the model that the system has in mind. (For instance, the social worker expressed some bemusement when we explained that we lived with a friend.)
If you live in Bristol you may well have seen posters and adverts across town (on the side of buses and bus shelters especially) encouraging people to adopt. They make a point of saying that ANYONE can adopt - you might be a single black Jewish lesbian pensioner... it's all the same.
But if you've been depressed any time recently, then don't apply. And who hasn't? If, as I suggest above, the system is geared towards finding a reason to reject somebody's application, then who will pass? Clearly the system very much has a certain type of person in mind when they envisage a foster carer.
For instance I would contest that the experience of being depressed may well be an advantage when it comes to being a foster carer. It is part of the range of human experience; it may well be the experience of a child in care. Being able to understand what is happening to you when you are depressed, and figuring out how to respond is a skill of immense value.
But how do you quantify such a thing? Certainly not through a form. The system as it stands wants matchstick men for carers; human experience is an aberration, a pathology...
[6] Some suggestions
It seems to me that the system of fostering children needs improvement. Here are some specific suggestions:
These suggestions also suggest a change of attitude from the wider public (and, in particular, the media) to the job of social work. We should not be so eager to stick in the knife (via media witch hunts, or lawsuits) in the event of something going wrong; rather serious consideration should be given as to how the system can be materially improved. That, at least, is the aim of this essay.
I feel strongly that our experience of applying to be foster carers was deficient on a number of fronts, as I will explain below. This article should not be construed as an attack on individuals working within Bristol Social Services; rather I wish to give some constructive criticism of the systems that are in place for fostering children in Bristol (and possibly elsewhere).
[1] Forms versus interviews
In April 2009 we contacted Bristol Social Services about fostering, and a few weeks later we lodged our application; this was done via a one hour interview, conducted by a social worker in our home. Over subsequent months we filled out a number of different forms, as did several referees, and our doctors. In December 2009 a second interview was conducted by the same social worker (duration roughly thirty minutes) who took some more notes. Then in January we received a phone call telling us that our application had been rejected.
Over the nine months of the application process we were in contact with one social worker for a total of ninety minutes. This period of time was deemed sufficient to assess our ability to foster children. Clearly the application system relies far more heavily on information gathered via forms than it does via the interview process.
This fact was brought into relief when our social worker explained that she would need to write a memo with regard to one aspect of our application (I forget exactly which one) which would then be passed to her boss who would discuss the memo with HER boss, and the pair of them would then decide whether or not the application could proceed. So two people who have never met us discussed a memo written by someone who'd been in our company for an hour, on the basis of which discussion a conclusion about our fostering ability was drawn. Am I alone in thinking this absurd?
Fostering children is a human activity; forms can help but they can't tell the full story. In order to make a proper assessment of our suitability to be foster carers two things are required: the first is time. The managers at Social Services will no doubt protest that their workers don't have the time to conduct lengthy interviews with every John Doe who walks through their door. I don't doubt that; but they'd have a lot more time if they filled in less forms.
The second vital requirement is the good judgment of the social worker conducting the interview; the only person to actually meet us! This worker should be trusted and empowered to use that judgment. In fact it would be better if there were more than one worker involved. This must be an improvement on managers with memos.
[2] Motivation in the system
Perhaps this is a good place for me to reiterate that I am NOT seeking to attack social workers. They have an impossible job; they are no doubt over worked. I have no complaints about the individual worker who oversaw our application.
A social worker's job is impossible because the consequences of anything going wrong are momentous. The damage that may be done to a child placed in a bad home doesn't bear thinking about. The papers are regularly filled with stories of social work gone wrong, and the opinion-makers are ever ready to condemn any hapless social worker who errs in the line of duty; working in Family and Childrens Services must feel like negotiating a mine field.
And this metaphor clearly informs the way the system works: every fostering placement is a potential mine ready to blow a social work team to smithereens. So what then is the motivation for that team to place children in the community? If a child is already in a care home, then a social worker risks a hell of a lot in approving their move to a foster home... and what do they gain?
Far better to pore through those forms in the hope of finding some reason to reject a fostering application. You've been depressed? We can't have that! And the social worker breathes a sigh of relief...
But now here's a question: does this system really operate so as to maximise the well-being of the children involved? In light of the impossible situation that social workers find themselves in, one must recognise that social worker teams are compelled to look after their own well-being too - and this is quite a different thing.
All those forms are the paper trail that will get them out of jail (maybe literally) should anything go wrong. A social worker wants to point to a form and say "look, she was depressed, that's why we rejected them." Compare this to the alternative: "although she'd been depressed, we talked for several hours, and I was convinced that this would not be a significant impediment to them fostering." In the current climate that won't save their skin if the shit hits the fan.
But now think of the child sat mouldering away in a care home wishing for the chance to have a normal family life for a little bit of time. We're told that foster carers are really needed; that there are kids in exactly this situation. How is this system helping them?
[3] Trial by process
Nine months to make an application to be a foster carer (or more precisely to START such an application) is too long. The one positive that came out of our application being rejected is that we were both relieved to put an end to dealing with such a ridiculous bureaucracy.
Those nine months consisted of filling in forms, of ringing up offices and leaving messages asking for updates on what was happening, of generally being mystified and perplexed. One might argue that there needs to be a fairly high threshold for foster carers - they need to show that they're in it for the long haul. I don't disagree with this, but that threshold should not be a bureaucratic one.
The application process as it stands does not test one's ability to parent children, it tests one's ability to interact with a lumbering bureaucracy. To cope with rules and regulations imposed from on high. To cope with not knowing who is responsible for what, and what decisions are being made by whom, and when. And, of course, to cope with forms.
It is worth noting that over the nine months we spent applying to be foster carers we received absolutely no encouragement from Family & Children's Services to persevere through the process. Outside of the two interviews, there was virtually no human communication beyond a couple of answering machine messages and a single email.
What is more all interaction (via message and in the interview) was based on what official information was missing, and on those aspects of our domestic situation that were perceived to be potential problems. The idea that we might have had something positive to offer was never explicitly recognised.
[4] Depression
Some background: my partner suffered post-natal depression from January until April 2009. The depression was mainly triggered by severe and prolonged sleep deprivation (our baby was waking us sometimes six or seven times a night). The depression ended when our baby started to sleep through until 5am, and as a result of medication and therapy that my partner sought out when she realised she was becoming depressed.
It was a horrible depression. It was also a very reasonable response to a fairly hellish situation. My partner identified that she was depressed for herself, and she sought help quickly. But it's interesting to see where that label got us. If she'd stayed at home, cried a lot, neglected the baby, and shouted at me, then Family and Children's Services would probably never have heard of what had happened.
But, although she cried plenty, she didn't neglect the baby or shout at me, instead she did her best to face up what was happening to her. Calling her experience "depression" helped her to deal with it. It helped her to get the attention that she needed from doctors. It gave her (us) a framework within which she could process her emotions, and her distress, and find some healing.
The problem is of course that, in the eyes of many, depression is a pathology. It's a box that can be ticked on a form; a reason that can be given for a rejected application. Never mind that it's just a word that describes - very inadequately - a vast range of human experience.
To be fair to the social services, they did delve into what my partner experienced. The motivation for the second interview was for the worker to explore past episodes of depression that my partner had experienced (and that had surfaced in a doctor's report). In the interview our worker asked questions about what happened, and asked us how we thought we would cope with the stress that fostering might inflict on us... And then a memo was written, and "no" was the deafening reply. One can't help but think that the writing was on the wall as soon as the box was ticked.
[5] The ideal carer
The depression issue was just one area where somehow our family situation didn't conform to the model that the system has in mind. (For instance, the social worker expressed some bemusement when we explained that we lived with a friend.)
If you live in Bristol you may well have seen posters and adverts across town (on the side of buses and bus shelters especially) encouraging people to adopt. They make a point of saying that ANYONE can adopt - you might be a single black Jewish lesbian pensioner... it's all the same.
But if you've been depressed any time recently, then don't apply. And who hasn't? If, as I suggest above, the system is geared towards finding a reason to reject somebody's application, then who will pass? Clearly the system very much has a certain type of person in mind when they envisage a foster carer.
For instance I would contest that the experience of being depressed may well be an advantage when it comes to being a foster carer. It is part of the range of human experience; it may well be the experience of a child in care. Being able to understand what is happening to you when you are depressed, and figuring out how to respond is a skill of immense value.
But how do you quantify such a thing? Certainly not through a form. The system as it stands wants matchstick men for carers; human experience is an aberration, a pathology...
[6] Some suggestions
It seems to me that the system of fostering children needs improvement. Here are some specific suggestions:
- people who want to be foster carers should be interviewed properly, and fully, and by more than one person.
- the application process should not require nine months of bureaucracy.
- social workers at the coal face should be given full and proper training so that they feel confident and empowered to make decisions. Using memos to pass decisions to management should be eliminated.
- social workers should be supported and encouraged to give children the opportunities they need. They should not be stretched so thinly that they spend all their time covering their own back.
- the box-ticking approach that results in a pathologizing of life experience should be eliminated.
These suggestions also suggest a change of attitude from the wider public (and, in particular, the media) to the job of social work. We should not be so eager to stick in the knife (via media witch hunts, or lawsuits) in the event of something going wrong; rather serious consideration should be given as to how the system can be materially improved. That, at least, is the aim of this essay.
Monday, 22 February 2010
Death in the family
Two of my best friends lost their baby daughter very recently. Sophia, the woman in question, is writing a blog to help her cope with life after Salome. Read it. Read it especially if you need reminding what are the important things in this world. Read it if you are given to complain about stupid bullshit little things, those stupid things that sometimes make us forget how fortunate we really are...
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Letter to Sustrans
I wrote the following letter last week. More details, plus a response from Sustrans can be found in this IndyMedia article.
Hi Sustrans,
I'm one of your supporters (can't remember my number just now). I ride past College Green, Bristol, every day - I believe that's where your offices are. Today as I rode past traffic was banked up because a cyclist was lying in the road injured. I don't know what happened - she was surrounded by people so I didn't involve myself...
I'm writing because this incident focussed my mind on something that has been concerning me for a long time. Bristol is supposed to be a cycling city. There is - apparently - a huge pot of money available to improve cycling in Bristol. But, it seems to me, nothing has happened! I ride my bike to work every day, plus on week-ends. It is my primary mode of transport. NOTHING has improved for me since this money came through. I know that there have been improvements around St Werburgh's - a footpath was widened into a cycle path. This is the only development I'm aware of.
So why am I writing to you?? Because, as I understand it, you are involved in deciding how this money is spent. And because you are the good guys! I'm sure if you had your way the centre of Bristol would be closed to traffic, and we'd have cycle heaven. How I long for the day! I don't doubt that the problem in all this is the council who, so far as I can tell, hate bikes with a passion. Or, at least, they love cars a hell of a lot more than they love bikes.
I wish you the very best of luck in advocating for cyclists in the negotiations that go on with the council as to how this money is spent. But I need you to know that right now, things are just getting worse. And I'm afraid that the council are using this "Bike City" nonsense as a way of green washing the issue away. They're letting the Bike City label excuse them from making any material changes on behalf of cyclists.
At some point some one is going to have to decide that life is made more difficult for motorists. If this decision is not taken then there is no avoiding the fact that cycling in Bristol is on an inevitable downward spiral. Cars are far and away a cyclist's biggest problem, as I'm sure you're aware. I would NOT encourage commuting to work by bike in Bristol to anyone new to cycling. It is very dangerous. (Two of my friends are disabled because of bike accidents in Bristol.)
I would like you to seriously consider your role in the Bristol Bike City program. I am very much afraid that, by trying to work from the inside, you are inadvertently letting the council get away with murder. You need to consider the possibility of withdrawing from this program so that you can publicly state that "this council is not helping cyclists". Because it's true, isn't it?
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.
Hi Sustrans,
I'm one of your supporters (can't remember my number just now). I ride past College Green, Bristol, every day - I believe that's where your offices are. Today as I rode past traffic was banked up because a cyclist was lying in the road injured. I don't know what happened - she was surrounded by people so I didn't involve myself...
I'm writing because this incident focussed my mind on something that has been concerning me for a long time. Bristol is supposed to be a cycling city. There is - apparently - a huge pot of money available to improve cycling in Bristol. But, it seems to me, nothing has happened! I ride my bike to work every day, plus on week-ends. It is my primary mode of transport. NOTHING has improved for me since this money came through. I know that there have been improvements around St Werburgh's - a footpath was widened into a cycle path. This is the only development I'm aware of.
So why am I writing to you?? Because, as I understand it, you are involved in deciding how this money is spent. And because you are the good guys! I'm sure if you had your way the centre of Bristol would be closed to traffic, and we'd have cycle heaven. How I long for the day! I don't doubt that the problem in all this is the council who, so far as I can tell, hate bikes with a passion. Or, at least, they love cars a hell of a lot more than they love bikes.
I wish you the very best of luck in advocating for cyclists in the negotiations that go on with the council as to how this money is spent. But I need you to know that right now, things are just getting worse. And I'm afraid that the council are using this "Bike City" nonsense as a way of green washing the issue away. They're letting the Bike City label excuse them from making any material changes on behalf of cyclists.
At some point some one is going to have to decide that life is made more difficult for motorists. If this decision is not taken then there is no avoiding the fact that cycling in Bristol is on an inevitable downward spiral. Cars are far and away a cyclist's biggest problem, as I'm sure you're aware. I would NOT encourage commuting to work by bike in Bristol to anyone new to cycling. It is very dangerous. (Two of my friends are disabled because of bike accidents in Bristol.)
I would like you to seriously consider your role in the Bristol Bike City program. I am very much afraid that, by trying to work from the inside, you are inadvertently letting the council get away with murder. You need to consider the possibility of withdrawing from this program so that you can publicly state that "this council is not helping cyclists". Because it's true, isn't it?
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.
Sunday, 23 November 2008
Refugee voucher exchange in Bristol
Yesterday the Bristol Refugee Rights (BRR) and Bristol Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign (BDASC) held a stall outside Tesco Metro in Broadmead. I went down to see them, as I'd heard about a voucher exchange that they were running.
A member of BRR explained to me that people who arrive in this country and apply for asylum are split (by the authorities) into two categories. Those whose cases are pending receive a small amount of money, on which they have to try and live; they're the (relatively) lucky ones. The other group are those whose cases are rejected, but who remain in this country (there are a number of recognised reasons as to why people do this, e.g. there is a war and no rule of law, or perhaps their cases are under appeal). This group of people are given no money; instead each week they receive £35 worth of supermarket vouchers. They must live entirely from Tesco or Asda or Sainsbury.
What makes this system completely intolerable is that both groups of people, although they have legitimate reasons to stay in the country, are not allowed to work. This system is wrong on every level:
- it denies people the right to work; a right which is fundamental and vital for dignity and self-esteem.
- support is minimal in any case, but asking people to live entirely from corporate supermarkets is outrageous.
To counter this shite situation, BRR have started a voucher exchange: so, today I went down to their stall and gave them £20 which they will pass on to an asylum seeker. In return I got £20 worth of the asylum seeker's supermarket vouchers. Shopping at Tesco's is not my idea of a good time, but at least I have the option of going elsewhere, so I was glad to help.
This exchange needs to expand - there are a lot of asylum seekers who'd love to swap their vouchers for some real money. If you'd like to help contact Bristol Refugee Rights: dropin@hotmail.co.uk or 0117 9080844. Alternatively drop in to their centre, on Newton Road near Easton Leisure Centre. They're there on Wednesday mornings or all-day Thursday.
The nice lady from BRR said they really need people to send them cheques. They can then send back vouchers, and start expanding the exchange operation.
Two postscripts:
- The BRR woman also mentioned the case of Abraham Ghebre Michael. He fled Eritrea after being mistreated and hospitalized for refusing to go into military service due to his religious beliefes. In 2003 he sought aslyum in Britain. The Home Office have turned down his claim and now Abraham is homeless, destitute and without a solicitor. Amnesty have tried to tell the Home Office how dangerous it is to go back to Eritrea but no one listens. How can we call ourselves a civilised country, when this is how we treat people who ask for our help?
- As I've said already, this voucher scheme stinks on a number of levels. The fact that the government won't give money out to people whose applications are rejected put me in mind of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. What's wrong with people being given money, and the freedom to choose what they spend it on? Why have we become so keen on voucher systems, and the like? People will answer that it's in the name of accountability: "we don't know what they'll spend it on". It's the same reason people won't give money to beggars.
Bollox to that, I say. And George Bernard Shaw agrees: how dare we swan around imposing our middle-class morality on those that we think are in need of it? Mr Doolittle sums it up:I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth.
Friday, 7 November 2008
Angela Davis and Barack Obama
Last night I had the privilege of listening to Angela Davis, a woman I have admired since I first heard of her, and her activism. She was speaking to a philosophy conference so this was not the occasion to spit fire; nonetheless, though her delivery was restrained, the content of her words was as uncompromising as I expected.
What was most interesting to me was that she spent some time reflecting on the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency. This has been an event to which I have felt a strange, and unsettling ambivalence. On the one hand I am supremely glad that the Republican beast is dead (as Bill Hicks put it); and that the beast has been killed by a black man is so much more magnificent. On the other hand I am not a believer in substantial change from above; I do not look towards US Presidents for hope, for in my lifetime all I have ever seen from that quarter is war and malignant oppression.
Angela Davis articulated this dual response very well. On the one hand she was prepared to honour the moment in which the US, a country so riven by the colour line (c.f. W.E.B. Dubois), has elected a black man to the presidency. She felt the joy of the moment, and marvelled at the joy which was being expressed by millions of people across the US, and across the globe. She called this an aesthetic response which I think describes the moment splendidly. My understanding of this phrase is this: that the President is a black man is important primarily (exclusively?) because it is a post of such symbolism; finally America has a black face, if you like. Black America has been given a part to play in the aesthetics of the nation, in the way that the nation describes itself, and is described by others. For black Americans this is hugely significant, and hugely affirming: aesthetics are important.
But now contrast this with Angela Davis' description of her own activism: she has not spent a lifetime fighting for black liberation so that blacks can be included in the oppressive structure of modern America. No, she has been fighting for a new social structure in which all people, black and white, can play their part. When she was on the run in the 1960's, her dream was not of a black president but of no president and, instead, a society of fairness, and of justice. A neat way to represent this is her affirmation of the term black liberation, which was the term she and her peers used to describe what they were fighting for. It is a term that contrasts sharply with the idea of a struggle for civil rights; this latter suggests a struggle to be included in American society, whilst black liberation suggests a more militant idea, that of being free from American society in its current manifestation.
Thus, for Angela Davis, the aesthetics, and the substance of this week's vote are somewhat at odds with each other. It is this tension which I have also felt, and which explains my ambivalence very well. There is an imperative, then, to "continue to be radical", as she put it. While editorials may opine that this week's vote draws a line under America's racism, and marks the final victory for the civil rights movement, we should bear in mind that life for an American black man or woman remains fraught. They remain over-represented in the prisons, as victims of crime, as the poor. Their health is poorer than the average American, but they are under-represented in hospitals because of a lack of universal health care. The list goes on.
I will end this piece with some quotes from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States". It seems appropriate that, in a week which many are calling historic, we remind ourselves of some of the harsh realities of America's history. It is a history that has been transformed for the better by the struggle of ordinary people; that struggle goes on.
Quoting Sojourner Truth, legendary ex-slave, black activist and fighter for women's rights in the 1800s:
Quoting Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and celebrated writer:
Frederick Douglass again:
Quoting Chief Black Hawk in 1832:
On the American war of independence and still true today:
On farmers in the 1700s crippled by debt in an unjust economic system:
Quoting Edmund Wilson on World War II:
What was most interesting to me was that she spent some time reflecting on the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency. This has been an event to which I have felt a strange, and unsettling ambivalence. On the one hand I am supremely glad that the Republican beast is dead (as Bill Hicks put it); and that the beast has been killed by a black man is so much more magnificent. On the other hand I am not a believer in substantial change from above; I do not look towards US Presidents for hope, for in my lifetime all I have ever seen from that quarter is war and malignant oppression.
Angela Davis articulated this dual response very well. On the one hand she was prepared to honour the moment in which the US, a country so riven by the colour line (c.f. W.E.B. Dubois), has elected a black man to the presidency. She felt the joy of the moment, and marvelled at the joy which was being expressed by millions of people across the US, and across the globe. She called this an aesthetic response which I think describes the moment splendidly. My understanding of this phrase is this: that the President is a black man is important primarily (exclusively?) because it is a post of such symbolism; finally America has a black face, if you like. Black America has been given a part to play in the aesthetics of the nation, in the way that the nation describes itself, and is described by others. For black Americans this is hugely significant, and hugely affirming: aesthetics are important.
But now contrast this with Angela Davis' description of her own activism: she has not spent a lifetime fighting for black liberation so that blacks can be included in the oppressive structure of modern America. No, she has been fighting for a new social structure in which all people, black and white, can play their part. When she was on the run in the 1960's, her dream was not of a black president but of no president and, instead, a society of fairness, and of justice. A neat way to represent this is her affirmation of the term black liberation, which was the term she and her peers used to describe what they were fighting for. It is a term that contrasts sharply with the idea of a struggle for civil rights; this latter suggests a struggle to be included in American society, whilst black liberation suggests a more militant idea, that of being free from American society in its current manifestation.
Thus, for Angela Davis, the aesthetics, and the substance of this week's vote are somewhat at odds with each other. It is this tension which I have also felt, and which explains my ambivalence very well. There is an imperative, then, to "continue to be radical", as she put it. While editorials may opine that this week's vote draws a line under America's racism, and marks the final victory for the civil rights movement, we should bear in mind that life for an American black man or woman remains fraught. They remain over-represented in the prisons, as victims of crime, as the poor. Their health is poorer than the average American, but they are under-represented in hospitals because of a lack of universal health care. The list goes on.
I will end this piece with some quotes from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States". It seems appropriate that, in a week which many are calling historic, we remind ourselves of some of the harsh realities of America's history. It is a history that has been transformed for the better by the struggle of ordinary people; that struggle goes on.
Quoting Sojourner Truth, legendary ex-slave, black activist and fighter for women's rights in the 1800s:
That man over there says that woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches.... Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-upddles or gives me any best place. And a'nt I a woman?
Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'nt I a woman?
I could work as much and eat as much as a man, when i could get it, and bear the lash as well. And a'nt I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children and seen em most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'nt I a woman?(p.122 More on this speech)
Quoting Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and celebrated writer:
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that revelas to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. (p.178)
Frederick Douglass again:
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle.... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedds nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will... (p.179)
Quoting Chief Black Hawk in 1832:
I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the winter. My warriors fell around me... The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sunk in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk... He is now a prisoner to the white men... He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came, year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian, and took at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal.
An Indian who is as bad as the white men, could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eaen up by the wolves. The white men are bad school-masters; they carry false looks, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to let us alone; but they followed on and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterers, lazy drones, all talkers, and no workers...
The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse-they poison the heart... Farewell, my nation!... Farewell to Black Hawk. (p.130, full text)
On the American war of independence and still true today:
Here was the traditional device by which those in charge of any social order mobilize and discipline a recalcitrant population - offering the adventure and rewards of military service to get poor people to fight for a cause that they may not see clearly as their own. (p.77)
On farmers in the 1700s crippled by debt in an unjust economic system:
The crowd went back to the square, broke open the county jail, and set free the debtors. The chief justice, a country doctor, said: "I have never heard anybody point out a better way to have their grievances redressed than the people have taken." (p.92)
Quoting Edmund Wilson on World War II:
We have seen, in our most recent wars, how a divided and arguing public opinion may be converted overnight into a national near-unanimity, an obedient flood of energy which will carry the young to destruction and overpower any effort to stem it. The unanimity of men at was is like that of a school of fish, which will swere, simultaneously and apparently without leadership, when the shadow of an enemy appears, or like a sky-darkening flight of grasshoppers, which, also all compelled by one impulse, will descend to consume the crops. (p.233)
Monday, 27 October 2008
Aldermaston Big Blockade
I'm helping out with press work for the Aldermaston Big Blockade, which is happening today. The first press release can be viewed here.
Police manhandling protesters at one of the entrances to the Atomic Weapons Establishment
And while I'm discussing inspiring protests against weapons manufacturers, a group of Bristolians recently took the fight to Raytheon, manufacturer of parts for bunker busters and cluster bombs. Two of the protesters camped on Raytheon's roof for 38 hours. Read about it!
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