The Friday Sex Blog [White Feminists, Shackling, and the Carceral State]

Hola mi gente,
I am sick of white feminists¹ whose sense of privilege extends to thinking they can browbeat me, a Latino, and lecture me on oppression.

Real life example: One day, after being screamed at by a young white woman for walking too closely to her (I live in NYC, it’s fuckin crowded!) while ignoring the white man who was walking in closer proximity to her, and then being followed by security at a rare books store that I have shopped at countless times, a co-worker -- a white woman raised in the south -- thought it was appropriate to attempt to correct my language in front of two (white) female interns I was charged with supervising. The word she found offensive? “Guys.”

What her privileged white ass didn’t know was that the interns and I had been in conversation about language. In fact, I have been at the forefront of advocating against stigmatizing language for almost two decades. So, my using “guys” to refer to all of us, was part of an inside joke. If you know me, you know I didn’t stay shut on that and I gave her a piece of my mind. The irony was that, for the two interns, her behavior was a lesson in how not be a feminist.

So, yeah, if your feminist analysis doesn’t include intersectionality², you can kiss my Puerto Rican ass.

Shackling and the Carceral State

When I was the director of a Brooklyn-based reentry project, I made a concerted effort to use its resources to reach out to women. How it happened was that one day I was thinking out loud with some my women participant-leaders about why more women didn’t utilize our services. One of the women laughed and said, as if it was as plain as the nose on my face, “Because you’re thinking like a man, Eddie!” and they all started laughing.

When I thought about it, however, I realized, painful as it seemed, that she had a point. Just for the record, I identify as a feminist. I’m also aware that I do as a man in a patriarchal society, so I have blind spots. I see my role as an ally, as in, how can I help. I’m also a man of Puerto Rican descent, so it’s not like I’m clueless about the impact of white patriarchy.

In any case, I met with the few women of the project and we came up with a few ideas. That’s when it was decided that I would bring my leadership development workshop to women about to be released from jails/ prisons. That’s how I ended up at the Rikers Island detention center for women, Rose M. Singer, or Rosie’s, as people who worked there called it.

I am an experienced group facilitator, having run men’s and mixed groups for years, but I have to tell you, running women’s groups was one of the most challenging experiences in my career. Well, I shouldn’t say challenging. It was challenging in the sense that I learned so much, especially in the area of leadership development. It was also one of the most rewarding, and the women had as much of an impact on me as I hope I had on them. After more than ten years, I still see some of “my” women, some of whom have become activists and advocates in their own right.

At one point, I thought the women would be better served if I hired a woman to help run the groups, but they revolted! LOL They didn’t want me to leave. Sure, there was some transference going on, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. As one of the participants put it, “Most of the men we’ve known weren’t good to us, Mr. Eddie. Maybe doing this work with you, will help as a model so that in our future relationships we won’t make the same kind of choices.”

They taught me so much… 

One day, when I got to the workshop, the group was huddled together, whispering. In the middle there was this lovely young black woman, she was maybe nineteen years-old, if I remember correctly. Unsure of herself, the women encouraged her, saying, “You can tell him, he’s one of us. You can trust him. Go ahead, tell him.”

Then this young woman, barely out of her teens, proceeded to tell me a story that was so horrific, it traumatized me, and I hadn’t experienced it. She told of her experience of being shackled while in labor. In her retelling, she began to experience again the brutality of giving birth as a slave. Before she was finished, her tears were flowing and, breaking protocol, I took her in my arms and hugged her. Here was a young girl who could’ve been my daughter… man, I’m upset just thinking about it. 

Can you imagine that? Here are in the 21^st century and black and Latina women, and poor women are being forced to give birth while shackled. Giving birth while in captivity. Going into labor while shackled like an animal. This is as a form of state-sanctioned rape (which also happens a lot in women’s prisons). 

For that group’s graduation, I invited a state senator, Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, who was an ally, and I told her about this practice. The senator did not believe me. I didn’t blame her, because it was hard for me to believe. We spoke to several medical personnel and, though at first they wouldn’t say it on the record, they confirmed that it was true.

My god… 

The Senator Montgomery went on to make that issue her signature policy and working with a coalition of women’s groups, they were able to pass legislation to make the practice illegal. I went on work for an organization that played a pivotal role in helping to pass this piece of legislation. In fact, during a day of lobbying, I ran into one of the women who was part of that workshop cycle. However, that’s the bare minimum. There are loopholes in at least nine of the states with laws -- either no specific language about shackling women during their first, second, and third trimesters; when they’re being transported to the hospital; or postpartum. That means pregnant women are still being shackled in states where there are laws against shackling pregnant women. Luckily in New York, an additional law was passed that closed off the loopholes.

But this still happens across this nation. I believe there are 28 states that still practice this particular form of barbarism. We are savages.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Notes:

1. Briefly put, intersectionality is a theory of how different types of discrimination interact.
2. White feminism is a brand of feminism centered around the ideals and struggles of primarily white women. While not outright exclusive, its failure to consider other women and its preoccupation with Western standards and the problems faced by the "average woman" is often alienating to women of color, non-straight women, trans women, and women and men belonging to religious or cultural minorities.

The People in the Bubble

Hola Everybody,
Consider supporting my writing work by donating whatever you can here. Your generosity will be very much appreciated.

Mini Lesson of the Day: White Supremacy is the normalizing of racial superiority in a society that permits white people to be individuals while people of color are collectively held as outsiders.

Today… we take a glimpse behind the veil. Just a little. 

Orphans of the Bubble

Once as a child my class was taken on a school trip. One morning, we all boarded the yellow school bus and headed to the Aquarium. I was fascinated by the menacing shark with the predatory smile. But even as a child, I understood that the shark lived in a world of its own, with its own reality.

Gringos¹ are a lot like that old shark -- they’re unable to experience the world outside the glass. It’s as if the United States is a gigantic terrarium, an immense biosphere or bubble which has cut it off from the rest of the world. How else can we explain the characterization of a center-right, pro-corporate, pro-war presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, as a “progressive”? Only in the insular bubble of contemporary life in the U.S. could a neoliberal candidate be deemed progressive in any sense of the word. This is a person who used racist tropes such as lazy black women and subhuman black and brown children to help pass legislation that threw poor people under the bus and incited the mass incarceration of mostly Blacks and Latinx.

It seems to me that the only explanation for gap between reality and America’s perception of it comes from the film, The Truman Show. The plot of the movie revolves around the affable but naïve protagonist who goes about his daily activities without being aware that he is, in fact, in a gigantic reality show. His hometown is actually a set for a TV show and from birth, he has been manipulated and controlled by the producer and the director. The gullibility of the UStian public would be better understood if we were all living on a stage set in a town called Liberty and threatened by a roving hoard called Evil Black Super-predators.

We’re all being conned.

Not too long ago, the con was called the “Axis of Evil.” UStians believed, as they often do when instructed on the Television Machine by their elected leaders, almost every scary reason cooked up by the likes of Bush, Cheney, and the NY Times. The rest of the world laughed. Their amateurish attempts at mass deception contained awkward truths that were surprisingly childish for a group that had access to the most massive propaganda machine the world has ever known. But they only had to utter their latest lie to be cheered by their subjects. “We’re number 1!” we cheered as we were led to the slaughterhouse.

As a former con man, I can appreciate a good scam. I know how hard it is to pull off the Big Con. Rationalizing a war can’t be easy and takes a lot of skillful finessing and this one was complicated. There was the bait (“the terrorist”), then the switch (weapons of mass destruction), then another switch (kill the despot, make the world safer), and yet another (regime change).

Whew! That’s a whole stack of lying right there!

But these amateurs failed and they failed miserably. If you going to pull off the Big Con, the lie must be simple and it must repeated -- often. These idiots, already having proven their incompetence in matters economic (and almost everything else), fumbled, and their build up to the Iraqi invasion broke every rule in the con man’s game. Bush and his handlers fell into the trap of elaborating, backtracking, and adding on. Instead of the Big Con, simple and effective, their lies grew more and more elaborate and complicated. The result being that instead of one good reason to go to war, piles of bad reasons were offered, which gave the skeptics in other countries the opportunity to unmask the fables.

Today, the con is an economic one. I mean, it is true that almost all cons are motivated by economic gain, and this one was no different. Simply put, trillions were paid out to the very same con men who almost took down the world’s economy. In fact, according the governments’ own accounting, the total cost of the bailout was $22 trillion! Now, don’t hate, this is one of the greatest cons in the history of con games. Imagine that you and I robbed a bank and, after getting caught, not only do we avoid serving time, but we are rewarded for our efforts. I have to admit of harboring at least some measure of resentment regarding this particular con. Every time I got caught, I was sent to jail or prison and often had serve sentences measured in years.

Today, both presidential candidates are pro-corporate shills, with one being a billionaire who has fleeced the country he now wants to lead of hundreds of millions of dollars, and the other a life-long politician who fought to make it possible for the wealthy to fleece the US public. They are good friends, by the way. Adding insult to injury, both claim to be for the “little guy,” meaning you and I. But, as real estate mistress, Leona Helmsley, complained when she got caught with her hand the cookie jar, “Only the little people pay taxes.”

If you think all of this is too obvious, please note that UStians deep-throated the whole thing… all of it. You might also say this is old news and in our attention-deficit society, and you are probably correct. But I mention all this because, like bad porn, the construction of UStian social policy has a very predictable progression. One summer it was that Obama was going to kill granny with is death panels. This summer Mexican immigrants were the new “terrists.” The weapons of mass destruction this year are brown people who come here to spread their infections and “drop” litters of future cop-killing, sex-crazed, drug-addicted sociopaths. On the other side, the Bernie Sander’s campaign, which looked to slightly alter spending to create true universal healthcare, invest in education, and fix our infrastructure, became Hillary’sRed Scare opportunity. Everybody in the corporate press went into full attack mode against the Sanders people. In fact, people were being paid to troll the comments sections of pro-Sanders op-eds! I kid you not. 

But if one looks past the bubble even a little, you become aware that the hype about immigration is really today’s version of the Iraqi invasion, which, by the way, hasn’t been paid for.

And this is how it’s been for decades. Today, it all falls under the idiocratic opiate, the lesser of two evils. People, people who call themselves progressives, in fact, are justifying their advocacy for a right-wing, pro-fracking, pro-mass incarceration, pro-war candidate by continually bleating the mantra, “Lesser of two evils, lesser of two evils, lesser of two evils… ” and browbeating those who refuse to fall in step. So, we will most likely get eight years of Hillary and I don’t think we can afford it. For the most part, people in the United States can’t see past the bubble and it will be our undoing.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

1. I don’t like using the term “Americans” to denote people in the United States. Hence I will use UStians or gringos. For Spanish speakers, gringo refers to someone from the United States, particularly a person who is a White American.

Evolving Consciousness

Hola Everybody,
One can tease out political differences quite simply. How individuals view the role of government, define freedom, and what they consider a just society is directly related to their level of moral reasoning. In addition, knowing where people stand in terms of their capacity for moral reasoning allows for more collaboration.

I was at two interviews today. Wish me luck. Also please consider supporting my writing and advocacy work by donating whatever you can HERE. I’ll be frank here, at this point, your generosity helps me with carfare so I can ride the subway to job interviews and decide whether I will lose my cellphone service or my property in storage.

But! I kid you not… life is good (if difficult at times).

Moral Development

... Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
 -- Henry David Thoreau

Not too long ago, I participated as part of a panel with a woman. We were addressing college students, and what struck me about this particular woman was the extent of her self-centeredness. I found it interesting because she sought me out before we spoke and mentioned that she too was a “practicing Buddhist.” Her version of Buddhism, it seemed to me, was simply meditation. I had a teacher who once joked that practicing Buddhism without ethics was like trying to row a boat without first untying it from the pier.

From what I gathered, her whole existence centered on her and she was oblivious to how she was connected to her environment; how her actions reverberated and caused ripples. In her world, what mattered was the conscious cultivation of her ego. In fact she could actually see the “logic” in the needless death of an infant. You may have heard of the moral dilemma that if the death of one infant would save hundreds, it was morally justified? This woman would gleefully strangle such a child. This is what happens when you mix Ayn Rand with meditation! LOL Nothing could be further from my vision of Buddhist practice.

Two people, two different worlds.

This got me to thinking and I have come to realization that “practicing meditation” or any set of mechanics isn’t enough. I have come to realize that we create our world according to our level of consciousness/ awareness. It’s the same with love. For some people, love’s reason is the satisfaction of the individual. Love is something that you go “out there” to get in order to satisfy a hunger for connection. Similarly, religion and everything else is filtered -- distilled -- according to where you stand in terms of your level of moral reasoning.

I’ll explain. Let’s look at moral development as a starting off point. Let’s say, for the sake of this post, that moral development has three distinct stages. At birth an infant hasn’t been socialized into its culture’s ethics, standards, and conventions; let’s call this the preconventional stage. It’s also known as the egocentric, in that the infant’s awareness is largely consumed with self -- self-absorbed. But as the young child begins to learn its culture’s rules and norms, it grows into the conventional stage of morals. This stage is also known as ethnocentric, in that it’s focused on the child’s particular group, tribe, clan, or nation, and therefore tends to exclude those not of its group. But at the next major stage of moral development, the post-conventional stage, the individual’s identity expands to include care and concern for all peoples, regardless of race, color, sexual orientation, or creed, which is why this stage is also known as worldcentric.

If you’re still with me, you can see that moral development tends to move from “me” (egocentric) to “us” (ethnocentric) to “all of us” (worldcentric). This is an example of unfolding waves of consciousness. 

Using this consciousness map as a framework to understand reality one can see how religion (or love) will manifest itself differently in a person who’s at the egocentric stage than a person who’s at a worldcentric stage. Both people can be just as devout (or “in love”), but spiritual practice will evolve according to any one individual’s level of moral development.

To further illustrate, imagine love from a morally egocentric perspective. Love at this stage resembles a yearning -- something like an addict's need for a fix -- an ego boost. Same thing with almost anything you look at in life: perception and meaning changes according to what level you are engaging the world. Religion from an egocentric perspective resembles the global wave of fundamentalism currently threatening our existence. And I mention fundamentalism in all its manifestations -- including our own home-grown Christian fundamentalism.

I find all this quite interesting because a lot of my work involves advocating for systemic change that is essentially an attempt to move collectively from one stage to another. But it’s also interesting because it helps me tease out the idiosyncrasies when someone says, “I love you.” Perhaps we need to know a little more about others and ourselves as we travel on our journey. For what may sound like “I love you” may in actuality mean “I love me.”

What would our national or geopolitical dialog resemble as people moved up the ladder of the stages of moral reasoning?

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...