Paris Day 2 - All Kinds of Conflicted - Part I

On my second day in Paris, I felt all kinds of conflicted. En serio. (I like the Spanish translation of "for real").   I think it's one of the signature aspects of the human condition, we being bodies and spirit, creatures of sensation and reflection.  I mean, every time you roll in your gas guzzler rather than walk or bike, every time you make some consumption choice that has zero-sum implications, heck every time you have that eat way more of pint of ice cream in one sitting (and some of y'all eat the whole pint) in the beginning, middle and/or end of the experience you might very well be like, should be glad or mad. 

So, this is how I felt about the Chateau de Versailles, which was first built in 1623 but came into its current form in the late 17th C upon the direction of Louis XIV.  It is was to showcase "all the glories of France."  It's massive.  It's grand. And, my senses tell me that it is quite glorious indeed.  The wall sized paintings, ornate interior decoration (dang, antique rugs as "wallpaper"?), and gold everywhere puts Jay's "all black everything" in perspective.   The Hall of Mirrors is breathtaking.  Ditto the "gardens."** 

But, as I thought about how grand this all is, I couldn't help but think, also, about the backstory, the inevitable cost.  Let's be real, and think back to the conditions that make settled, complex societies possible.  The existence of a Versailles is nothing if not the definition of surplus, Pluto*** if subsistence characterizes most societies of plant Earth. 


And, yet in Versailles a candid acknowledgment of the basis of its glories are the several rooms dedicated to depicting Frances's many battles (victorious) and the fallen heroes whose sacrifice, well, you know.   Though he died after they were hung, the four largest paintings were commissioned by Napolean.  Did all that war and conquest enrich the French state?  Mainly.  Did it raise the sea level of prosperity for the common Frenchman or Frenchwoman?  Maybe?  And what of the vanquished?  If that be another European or major state, don't cry for me Argentina. 

But if the vanquished were the equivalent of the schoolyard bully's violence, that is, the enslaved, the colonized and so on, then what?  And being in the skin I'm in, how should I really feel about this whole thing?  Reminds me of a famous black figure, I can't remember who, maybe Malcolm or JB, who said his world changed when he realized that in the real world he and his people were the Indians he was rooting against in the Hollywood westerns.

And something not quite a sidenote, as America is just like France back then, we with our super subsidized gas and have it exactly your way every day Starbucks lattes have to be honest about the ramifications of an American retreat from, to put it gently, being active (or most euphemistically, energetic) on the world stage.

But again, my senses shouted, Wow!

 

 

***



________________________________________

 * Something earlier shoulda been footnoted instead of included in the main body. I forget.

**This summer I planned to work on my "garden."    Hmm, I feel like language constable is about to knock on my door and say, "Yer garden?  This world ain't big enough for Versailles and your backyard to both be called gardens."  Sigh. 

*** Or Jupiter if you want to take 1) the grandeur literally and 2) account for Pluto's dethronement as a planet, the end of the ancien regime you might say.

Paris - Day 1

Three places besides the Yay Area I'd like to live for a year: Maui, Kobe, and now very much in the running, Pari, France.  I haven't even been here 36 hours yet and it's already begun to take hold. 

 I'm staying in St. Germain de Pres  in the sixth arrondisment. It's one of the more upscale parts of town. Heck, the apartment building of my Airbnb studio has TWO courtyards.    And half a block up the main drag is littered with shops like Cartier, Montblanc, Hermés and Patrick Rogers Chocolatier (If that dude came bragging to my high school reunion I'd be like, "Slow your roll dude, it's just chocolate!")  (5 seconds later: "Oh snap, Wait a minute! I know this bright, funny, beautiful, woman, OMG  ;-) who loves chocolate...!  Vous avez une carte de visite?"). Lol.  

(By the way, this is all iPhone voice dictation because my HP netbook I brought with me for more convenient Internet browsing email etc. is a piece of crap. So you don't know how hard it is to edit myself when I'm just talking. But then I think does anyone really want to read aaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllll this?)

(Note to self: whenever I think something should be put in parentheses I probably should reconsider whether to include it at all. Help needed but not wanted: an Editor). 

Anyway, that said I had my first experience of this is what they say, but this is how it really is that traveling affords. It's funny that the guidebooks suggested that Le Marais in the fourth and   Saint German in the sixth were the only places to stay, and well good luck keeping all your money (or limbs) if you were to venture to Montmartre. I went there today after the Black Paris tour led by Ricki Stevenson and Miguel Overton Guerra,  and I got to say it's just a leafy, vibrant place. Sacred Heart (Sacre Coeur) and terraced lawns below it  attract a large number of people, tourists and local folks, it seems, to just lounge  and enjoy the open space. 

Sure, men whose origins are equatorial and southerly hawked bootlegged Heinekens and frozen bottle water. (My French studies have utterly  failed me;  for all I know the two euros I paid for a Cristaline that was 3/4 iceberg  was €1.5 too many; for all I know I could've bought a Heineken instead.).  So maybe these guys  might not have such free reign in the 4th or 6th but here in the 18th they sell freely.  

And a word on being ripped off:  these would be economic(?) existential (?) cousins of the three-card Monty guys who were run off in the New York Times Square face lift, but someone tell me how  all those "upscale" shops on Rue de Rennes hawking $20 chocolate bonbons to carry in $500 handbags aren't  in fact a bigger rip? Is it the bright lights, air conditioning and starched shirts that misdirect? 

Anyway, maybe Montmartre and the 18th are The Mission (SF) or Oakland. ( Oakland of now or Oakland when it was a byword and a crinkled nose,  it's all still oakland)   My main point is it is highly habitable; you don't have to stay half a block off Union Street, Rodeo Drive or Park Ave to be "safe", much less have a full and enjoyable experience. 

 Anyways the trip to Sacre Coeur  was preceded by the Black Paris tour.   So many cool facts besides just those revolving around Josephine Baker or  Richard Wright.   There are the biographies of people like Chevaliers, Bessie Coleman and one amazing, Forrest Gumpian Eugene Jacques  Bullard.   Here are three other tidbits that are either fundamental or  funfactamental (funamental? No? Ok...) about the origins and/or preservation of Paris. 

 1. The Egyptian Isis  is the patron deity. Paris is most likely a derivation of Par-isis (the s is silent, obvi)  which literally means the  devotees of Isis.  Isis Horace story. Many similarities to the more well-known examples of mother son father dynamic, least least of which is Mary, God the father and is the father incarnate son.  Ever heard of the black Madonna? It's Isis and Horus. 

2.  When Louis the 14th initiated the city's rebuilding he mandated that all the buildings be constructed with the same materials as the pyramids are made of i.e. limestone and imported millions of tons.  But also he wanted the same type of artwork that he had observed in Africa. So he commissioned master Malian ironworkers, Adinkra, to make them and many of the designs include classical west African symbolilogy such as that representing sankofa. The ironwork and designs are literally everywhere in the city.   And as the tour guide Miguel took pains to point out, this is Louis the 14th.  Have you seen Versailles? he wasn't doing anything on the cheap; he really did get the best. Also he wasn't bringing in a servant/laborer class to destabilize the social order;  Paris already had serfs. 

3.  OMG, a black woman, trained in Paris, is the one who made the best of Franklin D Roosevelt that we see on the dime  Whuuut!?!

Favorite Old Thing #1: Mcrophone Check

Like dating someone new, the sense of a new thing's awesomeness is quite acute; you are often compelled to tell any and everyone about it.   It really should be everyone's favorite thing.  At some point, however, you realize it's no more than your own private Idaho.   There's no shame in that, but it's a little dull to act as if it's for everyone.   That's the danger of touting the new thing:  by the time I sit down to speak on it, its "favoriteness" has invariably faded.  So, instead I'm going to tout media, culture, music, art, etc., which have stood the test of time (for me)  but still does not enjoy, I believe, the audience it deserves.  Call it: my favorite "old" things.

So, favorite old thing #1:  NPR Microphone Check with ATCQ's Ali Shaheed Muhammad and veteran music journalist Frannie Kelley. 

Microphone Check is true and golden.  A hip hop history, but served up with the very grounded wisdom of Ali Shaheed, and a certain earnest, not too shy existence on Kelley's part.  You could go straight to their episodes with Pete Rock, D-Nice or Hank Shocklee of P.E., but can just as easily get served up something profound in the interview of a much lesser known (and much younger) artist.  So the link here is to Terrace Martin, a hip hop [music!] producer and horn player in the Los Angeles crew that includes Kamasi Washington and Thundercat.  Enjoy.

http://www.npr.org/sections/microphonecheck/2016/04/08/473407997/terrace-martin-i-believe-you-should-be-yourself

My New Favorite Thing #1

Ok, in all honesty, I have had several new New Favorite Things in the recent weeks since this first New Favorite Thing. And I know many of you done been up on this long before I even knew it was legal to karaoke in your car. (Imaginary you's right now, I figure, because I wonder how many of those page views on my data page are actually just, umm, me).  Or before I knew it possible to teleport a new passenger in without even stopping...   

That said, in honor of its awesome favoriteness-ness, I'm nonetheless using it to launch My New Favorite Thing Series.  

(Hey, did you see how I'm trying to do that whole Amy Cuddy/William James/somatic feedback/ smile first and then you'll feel happy sort of thing?  I mean, doesn't just suggesting favorite any-thing make you happy-(er)?  Ok,or at least not sad(der)? Ok?)* 

                     Carpool Karaoke with                          MICHELLE OBAMA!!!!!!

*Very, very old old and, yeah, ill-advised favorite thing: parentheses.  (-:  :-)

Melania Trump and Plagiarism - Gross Incompetence or Something More Suspect?

Apparently Melania Trump's GOP Convention speech plagiarized Michelle Obama's.  You might consider this simply another example of the campaign's gross incompetence, and draw a line between this and the inevitable incompetency of a Trump presidency.   But I think The HRC campaign would  be smart to shrug and move on.   Two reasons why Democrats and the liberal leaning media should not take the bait:

 One, we've seen this movie before.  Sympathetic non-politicians flubbing their lines and bumpkin-relatives trapped in a time warp, better to look the other way than grant them the sympathy vote.  Remember Clint Eastwood "empty chair" at the 2012 GOP Convention.  He seemed senile, and was undeniably old, the Dems were smart to keep the snickering to a minimum, lest they turn the GOP's lemon into lemon-aid.  Deny Trump, courtesy Melania, the sympathy vote. 

Two, besides granting Melania the sympathy vote Dems run the risk of reprising their role as the PC police.  I can see a surrogate  now: "Plagiarism? Which part?  Did Michelle Obama also become a citizen on June  28, 2006??  (Then sideways wink). Do we really want to get started on the citizenship of her husband??  Anyways, this is another phony issue brought to you by the PC Police.  Mr. Trump will never be distracted by trivial issues like this when America is burning.  While ISIS is beheading babies.  While thugs, yes thugs, are gunning down cops."  Let it go.

***

I also think there's an extenuating reason why a Trump speehwriter could write or approve such obvious plagiarism: they don't give damn. You could call it a species of white supremacy. Dismissively, their underlying sentiment is: We're taking back EVERYTHING.  This is all our stuff, even the words you claim as your own. 

Perhaps I'm overreacting, but the dismissiveness here reminds me of the very first case we covered in Property class when I was in law school, Johnson v. M'Intosh. It establishes the legal justification for  expropriation of Native American land.  Yep, manifest destiny. When it came to establishing who possessed this land we call America first, John Marshall, that paragon of what, judicial craftiness, was pretty direct, uncrafty, unabashed.   Just like Melania Trump's plagiarism.

 
 

You Down With O.P.P.?

The true virtual reality is Other Peoples' Pain, I've often said.  You can't feel what you can't sense or see.  It's like what Ice Cube's Boyz n the Hood character, Doughboy, said, 

"Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood. They had all this foreign shit. They didn't have shit on my brother, man."  

Doughboy was in pain.  His brother Ricky had just been shot and killed.  But it didn't seem to register beyond his block.   Sometimes that non-acknowledgement is just ignorance, willful or benign.  Sometimes there's full knowledge but zero feeling.  Either you feel the cold.  This all comes to mind in the aftermath of yet another shooting of a black man.

 I wonder how many, right now, have Alton Sterling on their mind.  Alton Sterling, the beaming, bright and black man shot dead last night on a dark, dark street in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Sterling's death is an outrage.  You can see footage of the shooting here.  Pinned on his back, shot like a dog.

If a tree falls in the woods and his name is Alton Sterling and there is a cell phone to record all that happened, then the truth of a man or woman's last moments before falling, being fell, might come to light.  

But if a tree falls and his name is Not Alton Sterling and only the police are there, who has faith that they would tell a true story?  We know how some might (justifiably?) feel, in the moment.  But after the fact, has any ever told a true story?  And, we also know, many don't feel no kinda way, anyway.

According to the Guardian, in 2016 to date 558 people have been shot by police, and 135 of them have been black.  I wonder about those among us for whom, behind those barbaric numbers there is a specific name, a twinkling smile, a hearty laugh, a warm hug, an irrepressible optimism or, yes, also, someone just short of redemption, just short of another consecutive day of being on the right path, a man or woman under a cloud but who could - who would - have made it to the other side with a little more time, love and support. 

But I also think on other recent tragedies and the extent to which they register emotionally.  After the Paris terrorism attack an outpouring prayers, well-wishes and identifications with France.  What's it called when you overlay a translucent flag over your profile picture on Facebook?  That.  But after equally horrific acts of terror in Turkey, Bangladesh, a smattering of coverage; mostly indifference.   That has to sting if you are Turkish or Bengali.

***

I've been trying to come to grip with this fact of (our) life.   By identifying with some people's pain but not others, particularly when I bear no familial or direct personal connect to their culture or heritage, I am both validating one group and devaluing the other.  

You can't be everything to everyone, no doubt, but it doesn't minimize the impact of the ignorance on public policy. For example, to pivot to a topic often on my mind, not only are many white people still oblivious to the way their race can privilege them (which includes being shield from state harm), but they are also unaware of the current and historical institutional application of disadvantage - pain - to black peoples.  Little to no idea urban schools are, comparatively, so underresourced.  Or, no idea how often realtors, bank and rental agents discriminate.  Or, unaware, often incredulous, of the extent of nakedly unjustified police violence against people of color.  Or, that historic entitlements like Social Security, were not available to domestic and agricultural workers (sharecroppers).  Or, what the dissimilarity index is, or the concentration and isolation effects of segregation on employment, education and public safety. And yet...  Yes, with little idea and even less feeling, and yet with privilege and advantage continuing to accrue, many white Americans met with deep resistance the very public attempts to directly compensate (busing, affirmative action) for centuries of slavery, oppression and general plunder.

Other people's pain.

Waking Up, Pt. 2 - Never Did? Never Would?

It is the 4th of July, and so even more than Brexit and our "silly season" of politics, to quote Pres. Obama, this day offers annually an opportunity to consider what our country has stood for and where we stand now.  Frederick Douglas' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" is still the gold standard for a critique of the national myth.    You can read it here.   

So I'll pick up here where I left off, which is to think on what might be called our current political "self-concept".  The first thing that occurs to me is that we in America operate with a certain existential security, perhaps even arrogance, about the stability of our political order, and assumptions about its essential legitimacy.  It partly  explains mainstream media and pundit class getting the Trump candidacy sooo wrong.  They were - we were -- unblinkinly dismissive.  
     Surely the bombastic Donald Trump could never win the GOP nom, it was said last Spring.  
     He’ll flame out by close of summer.   
     By October.   
     After Ben Carson has his day.   
     By the debates.    
     By Iowa.   
     Once the field really consolidates.   
Really smart people, like Nate Silver smart, crunched the numbers and came to the same conclusion.
     
Nope.  This undeniably racist dog whistler secured the nomination and has formidable popular support.   And still, after all that, many think, America could never…  Why is that?
      
Besides the many checks and balances embedded into the very structure of our government, the party system itself has long been another significant firewall against, to take the most non-normative word I can think of, the fringe.   So, not only could some crazy like say, Hitler, never hold office, but the likelihood that such a person would even make it past the semifinals, the primaries, has been viewed by most as nil.* 

       

Another key assumption underlying all the incredulity, all the we would nevers is a belief that, well, America never did.  That is, our democratic order is stable and has been, though imperfect, nonetheless legitimate.  Essentially, a reflection of our popular consent.    In the ancient civilizations class I teach to 6^th graders, kids precociously scoff at the claim of Greek democracy when merely 1 of 7 people could actually participate.   Establishment historians apply a standard that I would call, “quantum of consent,” and so though the bar may have been raised, steadily over the centuries,  both the Athenians at 1 of 7 during the Classical Age, and America, say at 1 in 4 circa our founding, qualified as democracies because a requisite “quantum of consent” prevailed. 

“Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone.” 

Black people, of course, might beg to differ.  Fred. Doug. certainly did.  For most of American history government as a reflection of popular will was painfully inapplicable to black people and most other racial minorities.  But what did black people do?  Well, we endured, struggled to survive, to maintain our dignity, and maybe for the most hardy, faithful and/or lucky, managed to craft a marginally better life for children.  This is what we could live for and live we did, nonviolently and with great expectation.  But for years the majority of America, which was or became white, deemed this arrangement, still without the consent of a large minority of the governed, democratic enough. 

So, as Van Jones and others rail (pun intended) that our train could jump its track, I am reminded of that knowing inquiry, also the title of James Baldwin’s penultimate half-decent novel, “Tell me how long the train’s been gone.”  (I know, mixing metaphors I am).    In reality the train may have long since left the station, always with vast number of seats unoccupied.  

Of course, in all manner of ways, black Americans and other people of color have found seats on the train.  The poignancy of the Black Lives Matter Movement is, partly, that blackness prevents certainty of a safe passage; a certain threat prevails that, without due process, procedural or substantive, we could be summarily thrown from train.  And sometimes, that threat is fulfilled.  So, an insecure belonging, you might say.  

But now there has arisen an argument that corporate capture of the electoral process has eroded the “quantum of consent” necessary, in our times, to call our democracy legitimate.  Enter Sanders.  Or, that along with that, erstwhile racial minorities themselves have also “captured” (somehow, from marginal stations) politics and government.  Enter Trump.    

So, will the train run the tracks?  And, for that matter on this 4th of July we might ask, who the hell is on the train, anyways?

_______

* A year ago, amidst the din of naysayers, Van Jones was prescient than most but even he only went as far as the plausibility of Trump running as an independent.