I Call Spades

This is a tough one.  My title is a hook back to my last post on bridge.  In this post, though I suppose I have the game pinochle in mind; I am calling spades as a way of naming the trump suit -- more on that later..  But my title is also a play on the awful colloquialism of spade meaning African American and the historical colloquial saying "to call a spade a spade," meaning "to speak honestly and openly about something."  My post is about seeing, saying, and meaning.

I spent the thanksgiving day at the home of a relative; I ate and talked under the shadow of a swastika spray painted onto a silo.  Next to it were the digits 2022 (the year, according to some David Duke propaganda (not linking -- you can search 2022 and David Duke), the US will be a non-white majority).

They were on the silo last year.  We couldn't figure out what the 2022 stood for last year -- a google search on Aryan and 2022/white supremacy and 2022 filled me in this year -- but the Wizard and I hoped we had talked enough about the swastika and had spoken in such a way that it would be gone this year.  It was not.

Why didn't we turn around and leave?  We had our reasons; they are not up for discussion here.

On the one hand, my bitter self reminded me, there is a harsh and painful irony that, in this particular prairie state with its terrible history of relations between Native Americans and settlers on this particular day -- the day that the mainstream US celebrates the destruction of one people by another -- that I was able to see how scared the descendants of the white settlers feel of being displaced.  On the other hand, my non-white, disabled, justice and equality for all self just shriveled up; I felt numb.  Shocked.  It was still there.  And no one seemed to care.

The graffiti was painted by a late-teen/young adult male.  His mother said he was "acting out."  He said he was trying to scare trespassers away.  2022 was identified as a piece of class graffiti -- the five year olds had got a little wild.  No one -- not the painter or his family -- admitted to having the actual political views that swastika and David Duke propaganda would suggest.  I assume that to them the literal and specific meaning of these signs enabled them to function as a generalized symbol of badness, rebellion, and resistance, a symbol in which the literal meaning no longer had resonance.  A friend I talked with said they might have functioned in the same way that the Obama/Nazi comparisons worked for Newt Gingrich and other members of the right wing.  (Though we both shook our heads at the thought -- there has to be a point at which a genuine neo-Nazi is going to figure out that Obama's race is a major stumbling block being accepted by followers of the Aryan ideology).

Me, though?  I look at a swastika and see a swastika.  You might call that an interpretational limitation.  I know that the symbol had a deep and rich history before its occurrence in twentieth century fascism, but when I see it, I see the symbol of a hate and prejudice that endures unto this day.  This link goes to the google news for "swastika disabled."  It brings back the story of three men who used a hanger to brand a swastika into the arm of a disabled Navajo man; they allegedly also shaved the symbol into his head and did other violence to this man's body.  I see the symbol that is emblazoned in people's minds as the symbol of fascism and all that comes with it.  It's an interpretational limitation that I am proud of.

What does that graffiti mean?  What does it say about my relationship with my extended family -- would they have celebrated my death, too?  Or am I somehow not that despicable "Other them," because I had a tenuous connection to them?  What to do next?  What to say to the painter and to the rest of the family?  What does the agreement -- I suppose I should wait before calling it a conspiracy -- to excuse away its existence mean?  Is the painter an actual or wannabe neo-Nazi who scares his family?  Why would they invite me?  Why should I accept?  I don't believe that you can, in this day and age, separate the symbol of a swastika from its fascistic context, but what then?

One thing is clear: they don't seem to be under meaningful community pressure to remove these things.  The display and/or wearing of a swastika is not illegal in the US, as far as I know.  And no one in the community has come up with an argument or situation strong enough to convince them to remove it.  They aren't ashamed enough to remove it.  How widespread is this hatred?  A couple of people?  The whole damned town?  If I never return, they've won (on a lot of fronts that aren't clear in this post).  If I continue to return, I will continue to confront the signs of hatred.  I don't believe change is possible here; it's bigger than the family and the son.

I assume, if I return, that I will be physically safe.  I am not so sure about my psychic self.  The pain of being there, of talking and smiling, of pretending it wasn't there, of family conviviality is too much.

I call spades -- I suppose in a sense I am calling their bluff.  I don't suppose I can actually win the game.  But I am going to name the terms by which the game will be played from now on.

If I return, there will be no more fake politeness.  You may feel uncomfortable and inhospitable.  You may feel your cultural preferences and mores have been slighted.  You may not get to see yourselves as you would like to believe that you are.  You will not be given any more passes or benefits of any doubts.  I won't keep your secrets and stay silent for you any more.  If I stay away, you will not get what you want either.

I see your swastika, and I raise you with truth.

disability is a feminist issue

I'm sitting in a cafe, listening to the voices around me.

A man is forcefully explaining how to bid a bridge contract to the
woman next to him. It's an interesting conversation. He is
explaining with what I experience as a certain kind of rigidity. It's
not brutal exactly, but it is hard, authoritative and unyielding. He
sighs before he answers; he never looks at his companion, but speaks
in long-ish sentences and stares straight ahead. He makes eye contact
with me, but never with her.

As the conversation progresses, it becomes obvious that his companion
is having difficulty understanding the nuance of what he is saying
and, in particular, what went wrong with their bidding in the previous
game. It's clear that the man has the power in this conversation --
unnecessarily, as it turns out: Ten minutes in, the woman hits a
question to which he doesn't know the answer. "I don't know the rules
any better than you. I'm new to this," he retorts.

As far as the negative power relationship between men and women goes,
this conversation, sadly, would not stand out were it not for the way
in which the woman responds to the answers she gets.

For every thing she doesn't understand right off the bat or simply
gets wrong, she claims a disability. So far, she has memory issues,
is dyslexic, is losing her mind, is "slow....". As I listen to her, I
suppose that any or all of those things could be true. I don't know
how I could possibly make an assessment that would help me understand
how she learns and understands. And, technically, guessing disability
is a useless game. Nonetheless, as the stream of different
disabilities continues, I begin to wonder if claims of disability
function as a cushion between the painful abruptness of her partner
and her desire to do better and earn his acceptance. In other words,
the woman may be disabled in all these ways, but, in the context of
the conversation, disability also serves as an excuse/reason for her
"stupidity" in the face of her partner's "brilliance."

This conversation is an icon in the difficult relations of disability
and feminism.

Let's say that the woman is disabled in all the ways she claims. By
using disability as she does, she makes herself smaller, less
objectionable to the man; she dismisses herself and undervalues
herself. She does her best to dodge what might be a harsh remark
about her intellectual capacities. She does disability in the old
way, a way in which the value of our diverse minds and bodies is not
acknowledged. Her disability is a weakness that separates her from an
actively feminist goal of being an equal partner in the conversation
and the game.

If this woman had access to disability rights discourse, she would
perhaps be able to integrate her needs for a different kind or pace of
explanation into the conversation, the game, and their relationship.
She might be able to create a space in which both of them come to a
better understanding of what is possible. She might both understand
herself differently and be understood.

Let's say that the woman isn't disabled, that her claims of disability
are a figurative crutch, a verbal equivalent of a physical cringe
before the onslaught of her partner's blows. To use disability in
this way is to return to a portrayal of the helpless, nineteenth
century neurasthenic, an image that is the very antithesis of
contemporary understandings of womanhood. It is further to deny the
validity of a different aspect of women's experience. It is to deny
the validity of difference as a neutral part of the human condition.
Neither feminist ideals nor feminist discourse are advanced by such
rhetoric.

This conversation is another reason why disability is a feminist issue.

A Little Activism...

 

Disability Rights Advocates, a non-profit law firm, is investigating the accessibility of the taxis in New York City. If you use a wheel chair, scooter or other mobility aid and have tried to take a NY Taxi, we want to talk to you!  

We are analyzing many issues including:

• How easy or hard it is for you to get in and out of a taxi with a ramp? Without a ramp? 
• How do you get around New York City aside from Taxis? 
• Would you take more Taxis if they were more user-friendly for  you?
• Has not being able to get a Taxi ever resulted in you not getting to work, an appointment, or an event?  Or has it resulted in you arriving late?
• How do Taxi drivers treat you?

Please tell us your stories – your voice could play a critical role in improving Taxi service in New York.

Local Call: 212-644-8644

Mike Puleo, mpuleo@dralegal.org

Julia Pinover, jpinover@dralegal.org

Toll Free Call: 877-603-4577

Broken

I should have posted this yesterday, but was hesitating.

Uncle Tommy (not really an uncle, but a second, great uncle once removed or something...) fought in World War II.  He was captured, tortured, and "broken."  I say "broken," because that's what we (in our ignorance) used to say about him and his experience.  When he returned, his bones had been broken, I was told his wounds had scarred ridges all over his arms, legs, and back (if it was true, he hid them well), and he had PTSD (though we didn't know to call it that).  At the point in his life that I knew him, the family had started whispering: "He drinks to forget the war, you know, poor man."  "His mind isn't quite right, you know."  "He's not all there."  "He won't get help, of course; he's quite stoic about it all."  At family gatherings, he would sit without speaking in a corner while the rest of his family (wife, adult children, etc.) conducted the business of family relations.

We were no help.  What I knew about the War, I knew from the World War I poets, films such as "Dambusters" and "Bridge over the River Kwai;" I knew, too, from history books about the political history of the wars.  My education and cultural knowledge was fairly typical for the time; I might have been a bit heavily into the poetry side of things, but others countered that by being history nerds.  Despite all that, I -- no, we -- knew nothing of its human cost.

At first, I would watch him with a kind of fascinated stare (yes, I am sorry to say, it was *that* stare).  Then, I used to go and sit by him -- motivated partly by an ugly curiosity, weird pity, and utter loathsome self interest; I felt horrible at family gatherings, and he represented safety.  It turned out that we both played the flute.  We talked about different pieces that we could or couldn't play.  We occasionally fell into silence -- I like to think we were thinking about the same music, but I never asked.  Our connection was brief, but it developed over several years.  When he died (family rumour was "it was all too much for him, poor man"), he left me some of his music.

Regardless of the state of Tommy's mind and body, it is we who are broken.  It is we who drink in glorifications of war and heroism in the movies and kill the political systemic message of such poetry by treating it as individual expression.  It is we who refuse to provide support and systems of support to help our veterans; it is we who shame and silence them into a stiff upper lip.  We are the ones who both stare and look away.  Homelessness doesn't respond to swelling music and huge parades.  PTSD isn't best treated by ignoring it.

We do know better; we just aren't willing to pay for it, to look at it, and to talk about it.  That shame that belongs to more than one person in more than one nation.

Wheelchair Shawty

Over the past couple of days, well, weeks, probably (gosh, that's a lot of commas), the wheelchair shawty (a hip hop dance/move) has acquired internet mini-viral status (and possibly, club trend status).  You can find out what I am talking about here:  (Warning: if you follow through the links and look at some of the video, it's not good disability politics and culture.  And I am not actually linking for those reasons.)

So, yes, here is my usual critique of non-disabled prurient fascination with disability.  Here, too, my frustration with the premise that yet again disability is a province ripe for plundering without comprehension of the actual world that disability creates.  Here, again, my utter grrrrrrr with uninformed internet discussion about the dance -- southern hip hop sinks to new low in making fun of "handicapped" people.  In a moment of complete ignorance, one commenter actually called the whole thing "retarded."  Head2desk.  Fists balled.

How can we go there, again, without looking at the work of black disabled artists?  Why is this move/dance a trend in the clubs and why not the moves of actual disabled artists?  Don't know who is out there?  If you want to get started, check out the work of Leroy Moore.  His Krip Hop Nation is one of the places where black disabled hip hop artists can be found not depicted as isolated individuals doing their thing, but, rightly, as powerful artists who have a culture, tradition, history, and place in the world.

All that said, I am going to do something I've been feeling weird about doing.  I am going to take the dance movements out of context.  For the most part, I am convinced that the most rigorous analysis comes from ripping apart what you see, what you know about what you've been watching/reading -- the context and social meaning of it all -- and the relationships between these things.  It is my usual practice as a critic to read in this way.  As a dancer, however, I sometimes choose to read the movement only.  Yes, yes, there's all kinds of really ugly theoretical, moral and practical problems with this.  And I would agree that there are times when "reading out of context" is a pretense that both enables people to get by with prejudice and supports the oppressive systems that make prejudice possible in the first place.

But as a dancer, however, I sometimes find it valuable to read simply the movement.  I want to allow the movement to help me formulate new questions and new contexts.  Instead of reading "in" to the movement, I suppose it's more of a process of reading "out" from movement.  With this kind of reading, I hope to be able to ask new questions and new formulations.  I don't work necessarily from my principles and ideals; I read, hoping that I will be changed.  I recognize that this is a dangerous project and in the rest of the post, I hope that I will be able to walk that fine line.  I hope that I will be able to balance my principles and frustration (what I know) with my curiosity about what I see.  For there is something new in this wheelchair shawty.

In essence, the wheelchair shawty is a dance/move or two that is undertaken by non-disabled hip hop dancers -- at least according to what's currently on the net.  Your local nightclub might tell you something different.  It seems to have started in Atlanta (don't quote me on this) and is, now, roughly attached to the form of southern hip hop.  (Hip hop is not a unified blob form.)  Without the words of the song (yes, problematic), the dance itself consists of non-disabled imaginations and reproductions of wheeling.

Wait.

You think you know what non-disabled reproductions of wheeling are?  Think again.  Usually, when you see non-disabled people trying to use chairs or to signal that they are pushing a chair, you see shoulders and arms.  Somehow, the rest of the body goes slack (after all, it's probably paralyzed, right?) and the isolated arms are forced into extreme motion.  It always makes me laugh.  Here, on the other hand, while the dance itself sucks as a dance (it's made up primarily of how to copy wheeling movements, yawn), the way in which the movements are set up shows a very different understanding of body, wheeling, and chair.

The dancers doing the shawty wheel with their arms (and you probably wouldn't be able to propel a wheelchair the way they do it).  But they also wheel with their bodies.  And with a really low center of gravity.  When they strike the "wheel," the movement ripples through their bodies.  It is as if they understand the contact point between body, chair, and ground.  It is as if they understand how wheeling rolls through the whole body, producing a kind of unity between body, chair, and ground.  It is as if they understand the momentum of wheeling, the very momentum of the movement itself, the very unity of body and chair.

I say "as if," because of course it isn't quite true.  The dancers don't actually understand.  For example, one of the videos begins with a non-disabled guy sitting in a chair.  Sure enough, his body is slack, his attempts to push are all from the arm/shoulder.  And, weirdly, this all disappears when he stands up (well, you couldn't expect him to do the wheelchair shawty FROM a wheelchair, now, right?) and begins to dance.  I say "as if," because actual wheelchair users tend not, for a variety of reasons, to wheel with a butt wiggle and/or torso/spinal ripple from butt to head.  I say "as if," because, of course, this is not an actually reproduction of wheeled movement.  We all wheel differently; there are a variety of ways of using your body, striking the wheel, and rolling through the stroke.  There are schools of wheeling "figure 8 push" "straight down and forward, relax recover" and there are individual modifications and combinations.  No, wheeling is not a unified thing.

And yet.

Here, at last, is a non-disabled (and probably unintentional) acknowledgement of what I feel when I dance.  When I move.  When I push down the street, turn the corner, push off a wall....  In this video, I see a rare non-disabled understanding of that.  What to do with that?

Can I ask new questions about intersections of disability and dance?  Can I ask new questions about the intersections of disability, race, and dance?  Can I ask new questions about the importance of the body?  I'm not sure what those questions are yet, but you can be sure that as the next dance weeks unfold, I will be asking (and writing) them.

What You Know Is Real

The elections are tomorrow, and they are significant.  More and more often in this election, I keep hearing references to the word, "elite."  I don't know who these elite people are.  Are they the people who make over 250K?  The people with Ivy League degrees?  The people with PhD's (and some or all of the previous characteristics)?  The people who live in large houses?  Coastal cities or family compounds?  Who are the elite?

Actually, a better question for me is the fear and hatred that have become such a part of the election rhetoric.  As I see it, the US is looking at class conflict, race conflict, and conflicts of religion, gender, sexuality, and nationality and somehow all these are coded as class.  These are hard things to talk about -- among friends and family, much less publicly as a nation.  So, we talk about the elites -- people who are somewhat more visible and more static targets.  Class in a supposedly classless nation.  A while back, "status envy" was the new thing people were writing about.  About how we built houses, bought clothes, shoes, and purses.  The new thing was how we all were obsessed with signalling our social class and our concern that we might somehow be seen as less than someone else.  Now, things have changed. Everyone has less.  The stories people tell about themselves emphasize the less.

Well, I have some thoughts about "less."

It's funny, you know, when you are seen to be at the bottom.  Even though you think you are not.  Even though you strive to be seen otherwise.  It's a funny thing, being at the bottom.  For every move I've made in an attempt to make someone read me as I think I should be seen, I've also come to realize that I am as bad as the people who put me down.  Every time, I try to escape being seen as the lowest of some low, I try and put myself above someone else.  So, regardless of where I might actually be on the social scales that have mattered so much, I am learning to live as others see me.  And not as I want to be seen.

It's painful.  It's unreal.  My anger boils up inside me.  I want to have the privilege that I think I should have as a ...  and as a ....  I don't want to be read as a .... or treated as a ....  And every time I have those thoughts, I internally validate the oppressive structures that put others down.  No. I really think that learning to live as others read me is a worthwhile project.

Head down.  Wheels on the street.  Invisible.