Morbid, Risque and Christian – What do you let art do to you? What do you hope your art will do to others?

Can you envision
Trinitarian Personhood?

My aim in this post is to encourage Christian art and artists. I believe that my criticism of critical Christians is a necessary means to that end. But Christian art critics, those who engage and exegete culture and the arts, both within and outside the boundaries of “Christian” art should, I hope, also find support and encouragement.

Randy Elrod

Randy Elrod[1] writes, “If you are an artist who also happens to be a Christian, expect to be judged and misunderstood.” In his experience, that misunderstanding and judgment is most likely to come from Christians who require any artistic expression to be “neatly wrapped up with a ‘happy ending,’” creating “art that is propaganda, and art that is shallow and without layers of meaning.”

Given the layers of meaning some assign to my art, even my preaching, I’m apparently doing something right. For example, I’m very fond of an image that intended to depict ecstatic abandon in worship. A friend of the model referred to it instead as “that one where you’re ‘possessed.’” It’s not just my photography, either. 

"Jesus, lift me up..."

After a sermon that had been clearly and repeatedly announced in advance, including the subject being “PG-13” in nature, the critique was initially that “we’re not used to hearing those words in church.” When I explained that I had very carefully selected accurate and inoffensive terminology, the clarification was that “we’re not used to that topic being discussed in church.” Being an expository preacher, covering whole books of the Bible section-by-section, I could not resist asking whether they saw any other topic being covered in the scheduled passage.

That conversation ended well. Others have not. And so, I still face the temptation to skip over or allegorize those passages where God chooses to deal with areas that “we” would prefer to ignore. Most usually, it is death and dying, or sexuality and marriage that provokes such a reaction. But in an independent, non-denominational community church that seeks to practice theology-in-community, and where our backgrounds and traditions vary widely, the landmines can be all but invisible until you step on them.

"It was right here a moment ago."

As a photographer, too, I find that there are times when an image just needs to be created or, when less premeditated, captured in the moment. Those images to be created often involve human persons, themselves created to bear the image and likeness of the one God eternally existing in three persons. In those instances, I feel compelled to negotiate carefully with my collaborators. I try to be clear about their sensibilities and boundaries, and ensure that their comfort levels are honored. Why? Imagine seeing an image of you being portrayed either as dead or as death itself. That experience could provoke an even stronger reaction than when the homecoming princess finally sees why her mother doesn’t agree with her fashion decisions. It’s best to be warned and prepared in advance.

"Sleeping Beauty in Black"

The results of our collaboration, though, occasionally inspire wrath from friends and family. How severely? According one model’s boyfriend, we were “gonna burn in hell cause he is a pastor and believes in taking risqué photos.” (I did withhold my response of “wait ‘til he sees the morbid ones!” but I did allow myself to visit his Facebook page. His own photographic artistry includes obscene gestures, misogynistic intimidation, drug use, and a particularly interesting nude of himself reclining on an American flag. But there I go, criticizing the critic. Back to the subject at hand.)

"See who He is; see who you are."

Most of my readers and hearers know that I prefer the question “What would Jesus have me do?” But it does have its foundation in emulating “What would Jesus do?” So, does the Artist who created the universe as an expression of His character and attributes understand these misunderstandings? Absolutely. The Apostle Paul writes, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”[2]

So, dare we risk misunderstanding? The only alternative is to deny the creativity in us as part of God’s image and likeness. Instead, I believe, we should ask “is there place for art that provokes a reaction, while maintaining a boundary this side of impropriety or indecency?” (That is the definition of risqué.) For all the passages in which God includes explicit depictions of sex and death, those topics actually combine as the central theme of the books of Esther and Ruth in particular, and figure heavily in the narratives of Samuel and Kings. Where it is most difficult to focus attention away from the physical nature of romantic relationships is in the marital ode that is The Song of Songs.

Josh McFarland
Hardin, Montana

In his book on The Song of Songs, my colleague and former classmate Josh McFarland[3] lists the following as just some of the blessings of studying Biblical sexuality. “It is part of our revelation from God; it is a necessary component of a healthy worldview; it can release the energy of joy and praise in a new and vital direction; correct and transform our thinking about romance and sexuality; help protect us from lethargic or unworthy thoughts about God’s creation; exalt and enliven couples’ feelings about their relationship; embolden our corporate attitude; confront errors and falsehoods at loose in the world; it can ennoble our understanding of God.”[4]

Do some of my images make you think about sex and/or death? Yes, or at least I hope so. But more importantly, I hope they make you think about what you think about sex and/or death. Why? Because the damage our silence is doing to subsequent generations[5] especially by our silence on sexuality, but equally so regarding death and dying, continues to spread throughout the church and the communities we are called to serve. If we do not consider these subjects (sexuality and marriage, and/or death and dying) within the Church, then we have little standing from which to criticize the conclusions being reached about them in our surrounding communities and culture.

What happens when we decide to ignore these subjects?

Roger Ebert
More than just a movie critic.

The late film critic Roger Ebert is, in my opinion, underestimated as both an exegete of culture and a religious philosopher. I am often inspired by his reflections on the messages being preached by plot, dialogue, imagery, structure, and other elements of films throughout history. Here is his observation of the effects risqué and morbid art can and should have on us: “Of course the movie is rated NC-17. I believe more horror films should be made for adults, so that they are free to deal with true malevolence in the world, instead of retailing the pornography of violence without consequences. A generation is growing up that equates violence with action, instead of with harm. Not long ago The Exorcist was re-released and some young moviegoers laughed all the way through it. A society that laughs at evil eventually laughs at good, and then loses its way.”[6]

"Sincerely Skeptical"

For Christians to restrain their own artistic expression, or to refrain from addressing certain topics, is to tear down the clearest signposts pointing to The Way we hope that more in our society will find. The arts provide us with the most direct conduit into our hearts and thus our culture. If my art gives us a reason to discuss these indispensably important issues, then I’ll gladly weather the critiques, and the criticism. I hope you choose to do so, too.

---

[1] Randy Elrod is formerly Pastor of the Arts at a Southern Baptist megachurch in Franklin, Tennessee. His post is entitled “Three Reasons Why Christians Art Creating More ‘Edgy’ Art” and can be found here.

[2] Romans 1:20-21, New American Standard Bible, 1995 revision.

[3] Josh serves a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation in Hardin, Montana and holds a Master’s of Divinity from A.W. Tozer Theological Seminary.

[4] Josh McFarland, Pieces of Eden: Reflections on Romance and the Love of God from the Song of Songs (Bloomington, Indiana: Westbow Press, 2015), xi.

[5] Josh McDowell and Dick Day, Why Wait? What you need to know about the Teen Sexuality Crisis (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994).

[6] Roger Ebert, “Santa Sangre,” The Great Movies III (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 346.

Common Core Haters: You Won't Like This Post (Even if you agree, you'll wish I took a more conciliatory tone. Tough.)

Quick. No pencil. No paper. No fingers. No Calculator. Not even an abacus.

Solve the following:

Did you? And more importantly, how did you?

You may have seen the chart below, or some of the multitude of similarly presented discouragements to the nation’s public educational professionals. As you probably know, that’s a group of which I am enamored, proud and, when necessary, defensive. This is one of the times when I think a defense is necessary. You’ll note that the creator of this little ditty made the mistake of closing with a question. As I’m fond of telling anyone who’ll listen: “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” My answer follows the chart. Enjoy.

I'm so glad you asked.

Actually, the "new way" really is one of “the old ways” that most of us actually do math in our heads. Those who use pencil and paper...well, that's not always handy, is it? And as for the calculator crowd, as with the Google gaggle...well, let's go back to talking about people who are willing to think at all.

For the sake of this example, my processing of the problem works this way:

293 is 7 less than three hundred. So, subtract 300 hundred from 568 and add the 7 to get 275. On paper, that probably looks like a mess. In my head, Apple Hill is 275 feet higher than Banana Hill. (Of course, I would have to confirm that there is an Apple Hill and/or Banana Hill by Googling them. And I would then find links to follow, and I would, that would explain to me the relative merits of growing apples on taller hills than those on which bananas should be produced. But that’s the kind of thing I do when I’m either procrastinating or trying to entirely avoid thinking about something else. So it can wait while I endeavor to make us think about this.)

What I’m seeing in Common Core is about teaching people to think (i.e., to process mentally—without paper, pencil, calculator, computer, smart-phone, a smart-enough-friend, or even enough fingers and toes to avoid searching for an abacus). More importantly, it’s about teaching people to think more quickly, more creatively, and at a younger age. One important side-effect will be a greater appreciation among those students for the varying ways in which different individuals and groups approach and solve problems. This is a good thing, and is likely to decrease bullying behavior by lowering the number of children who imagine that someone who shouts loudly, threatens others, and occasionally backs up their threats through physical violence must be...if not "right" about a particular issue, then at least...placated. So, we may be promoting a culture in which "thinking people" not only don't "engage in bullying behavior" quite so much, but may even speak up in opposition to those who do. And these changes may result because they appreciate that someone may think and act differently from them and still be deserving of air, warmth, water, and food. As I said, this is a good thing...that many oppose by shouting loudly and threatening others, if not resorting to physical violence (that I know of, yet).

Thus, the critics of common core, generally speaking, seem to have some other set of priorities. Foremost among them seems to be that children should not be trained to think better than the vast majority of their elders. At least that's the tone I perceive in the critiques I keep seeing.

So, to close, let’s consider “The Old Way” that all of us, apparently, found so intuitively logical during our own mathematical novitiate.

So, starting from right to left, which is, of course,  how we were taught to do everything else in life prior to third grade (NOT):

•  Step One: Starting on the right side, because we were told to, three is less than eight, so we can simply subtract and that leaves us five in the ones column, which is, of course, the third column, not the first column (which one might expect since it was called the ones column, but that hardly needs explained to brilliant children like we once were). But remember, we’re starting from right to left, even though that's just like…well, nothing else in our educational career has prepared us to do.
• Step Two: Despite the fact that two is less than five and we should be able to simply subtract, leaving us three in the hundreds column (which is the first column, since there clearly aren’t a hundred columns, and the other two are the tens and the ones—but you already knew that going into second grade math, didn’t you?), we’re working from right to left, so the center column—“the tens column” as anyone should be able to intuitively deduce—is next. But nine is more than six, and while it would seem simpler to subtract six from nine, the nine is under the six, so we’re subtracting that instead. By a later grade we would know that this would leave us negative three, and our subsequent answer would be 3(3)5, since we all knew to put negative numbers in brackets. But let’s imagine that there was a developmental process to our education, and force ourselves—as the teacher would have—to go back and try again.
• Step Three: Since Step Two failed to meet with the teacher’s approval, we’re going to subtract nine from six in the tens column despite the apparent impossibility of doing so. Thankfully, there are hundreds that we can take from the first column (which is the third column we’re dealing with, but you’re already starting to think that either Hebrew or Mandarin will be your next language class, so we’re all good with that, right?). Now, we take one of the hundreds from the five, making sure to cross out the five and write in a four, then adding the one to the six. This does not make seven, however. The one that we added to the six is a one from the hundreds place. And, before you ask, “No, it’s not one-hundred-and-six, either.” (Remember, you’re much smarter than today’s public school teachers. So don’t you dare fall behind at this point!) The one that we took from the five in the hundreds place is added to the six we already have in the tens place, which means we have one hundred and sixty, from which we will subtract—not nine, but ninety—leaving us with seven(ty).
• Step Four: Assuming we remembered to cross out the five in the hundreds place and write-in the four instead, we’re now faced with the simple task of subtracting two from four and getting two. But I will mention here that even though we memorized “two plus two is four,” unless we engage some level of critical thinking, number sense, and logical reasoning, we’ll have to wait until we memorize “four minus two is two.” In either case, though, I think we might be excused for understanding that the meaning of any of the following is not so immediately evident, nor even so intuitively deducible as proponents of “the old ways” have suggested. 

Here's what we ended up with:

So, why isn't this a better answer?

(I have some aspirin for you here in my drawer.)

Dear George Will – Let’s Get Real about “Real Rape” and Its Prevalence on Campus

I didn’t leave the factory without the math chip being installed. But, frankly, I have not found it as necessary in serving the needs of the persons and communities around me until just now.

George Will, in his June 6 column for the Washington Post’s website (you’ll find it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html), draws the ire of many in the sexual assault victims’ advocacy community by using sexual assault statistics as a means for condemning the federal government’s continuing intrusion into all matters public and private alike. He’s free to confront expansive government all he wants. But I do object to his misguided and inaccurate marginalization of those who are being objectified, exploited, oppressed, and destroyed by the continued pattern of sexual violence on American college campuses.

He suggests that what he perceives to be over-reporting of sexual assault (i.e., “We’re just making this up,” is what I understand him to claim.) is a result of the fact that rape victims enjoy “a coveted status that confers privileges” with the result that “victims proliferate.” Well, I would agree that victims continue to proliferate. But it is because of marginalization and shaming like that in his op-ed piece more so than it is by throngs of young women eagerly seeking to “join the club” by experiencing sexual assault.

If George Will is right about the statistics (which would depend upon the definitions used by those collecting the statistics—specifically, he mentions the Ohio State University officials to whom just 98 “sexual assaults” were reported “in the years 2009 to 2012”), then we should accept his assertion that the claim is spurious that “one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college.” But only if his math checks out (and only if he isn’t playing sleight-of-hand by conflating “real rape” and “sexual assault” statistics and, since he doesn’t footnote as an "opinion writer," it’s impossible to tell).

His calculations: 98 assaults reported, taken to be 12% of the assaults which actually occurred. Thus, 817 assaults total among a population of 28,000. He gets that as 2.9% rather than 20% of the population. Now, in any “averaging,” anomalies abound. It could be that Ohio State is so far outside the norm as to be roughly 85% safer than most other college campuses. It could also be that there are some missing statistics in Will’s calculations.

For one thing, can we count to four? No. We’ve been out of school too long, apparently. Statistics from Ohio Statue University for the “academic years 2009-2012” (2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 – for a total of 3 years) is not the same as “for the calendar years 2009-2012” (4). Multiply the statistics for the three selected years (which are, remember, suspiciously low) by 33%. Still, we’re now only talking about 130 assaults, instead of the 98 that Will represents in those “four” years in which, "some claim," there are one-in-five college women assaulted.

On this next matter, though, I have to admit to moving beyond the statistics available. I don’t know if every sexual assault counts in the eyes of Ohio State University officials. But knowing the anecdotal evidence from campus safety officers elsewhere and the vast difference between those and the “officially reported” statistics that show zero reports in categories for which there were definitely incidents on a particular campus, I believe I can be allowed to make the assumption below.

So, consider that there are multiple categories of sexual assault that do not involve the physical penetration of a penis into a vagina. What percentage do we assign to “real rape” as opposed to these other categories? To use an illustration from my previous post, “The Euphemisms of Sexual Assault,” being subjected to an “inappropriate touch” by someone who had become “overzealous” would be unlikely to generate a police report in the campus office that must also share those statistics with potential students and their parents. Is the physical act of penetration completed in 50% of all assaults? Hardly. Is it as much as a quarter of the time? Not according to the counselees who’ve shared their stories with me.

For the sake of the math, let’s assume that the rate of “real rape” is as high as 20% of all sexual assaults committed, only against women, and we'll also limit ourselves to the four year period Will alludes to (though we’ll actually count to four, not three). If we’re right about the assumptions we’re forced to make by Will’s nebulous terminology, then there would be 130 rapes reported. If that figure represents, as he notes, 12% of the rapes which actually occurred, then instead of 817, we’re looking at 1086. Using our highly subjective evaluation that as many as one-fifth of sexual assaults involve “real rape,” then every four years at Ohio State University, on average, a total of 5430 women students should expect to be sexually assaulted.

Will does get one statistic right. Ohio State’s website shows a total enrollment on their Columbus campus of 57,466, with a male/female ratio of 50/50. So, of the 28,000 women about whom he writes: only 19.4% will be victims of sexual assault, not 20%. At least not at Ohio State University during the years that Will selected for his calculations.

Thank you, George. We stand corrected. But we're still not going to run out and try to join the privileged class of rape victims. Far too many of us are already there.

The Euphemisms of Sexual Assault

Assaulted, but apparently hesitant to say so.

I only know who Sarah Hyland is because of one of those sidebar links next to an unrelated, very cute and charming video shared by a Facebook friend. The linked article says she’s an actress in a popular television series in which, according to the Internet Movie Data Base, she plays a naïve and gullible minor. Wikipedia calls her character “the stereotypical ditzy teenage girl.”

More important to me than all this, for multiple reasons, is that she was, according to the report, “inappropriately grabbed” by an “overzealous fan.”

The article is by “an Associate Editor (who is) still in awe that she gets to write about and interview pop stars for a living.” If you were to Google the incident, you would find a fuller portrayal of the event than is expressed even in the further details within the article itself. You’d also likely find that Sarah Hyland has a boyfriend, Matt Prokop, who chose to be clearer about the “inappropriate touch” by “a fan” than Hyland apparently felt she could be in her missive to the Twitterverse. I might have refrained from some of his language—but I think I would have expressed an all-too-similar sentiment in the heat of the moment. (Though I would have suggested it occur while the attacker was under Hospice care, of course.)

Knows what assault is, and says so.

Appropriately, the 29-year-old adult male who assaulted an actress portraying an especially vulnerable minor was not killed, but merely arrested. The actress was shaken sufficiently to cancel the remainder of her appearance. The boyfriend was clear regarding his impressions of the assault as well as his intentions toward the attacker.

So, what’s not clear here? To illustrate that, let me digress for just a moment.

Without including any identifying details, let me say that I have, on several occasions, with multiple clients/counselees/parishioners, been asked to offer my opinion on whether the sexual assault they had experienced was, in fact, something other than “inappropriate” at the hands of someone who had become “overzealous.” My perception has been, in each case, that there really was no question in the mind of the person who had been assaulted about what they had experienced. What was unclear, however, was whether anyone, anywhere, at any time would give them permission to say aloud: I was raped.

(Re-reading that last sentence aloud, shouting at the top of your lungs whenever you see italics, may approximate my tone. While typing it, I feared momentarily for the structural integrity of my laptop.)

So, perhaps having cleared that up, there is one thing that remains unclear to me.

Uncertain what assault is, or at least whether to say so.

How does a young and admittedly awestruck “Associate Editor” remember more carefully that she is not only writing about human beings, but that she is writing to human beings? I hope that others who have influence in her life may help her toward this. Because, in fact, not only is she writing to just any human beings, she is writing to primarily young, impressionable human beings, some of whom, quite clearly, already struggle to hope that someone, somewhere, and soon will give them permission to say:

I was not “inappropriately touched” by someone who became “overzealous.” I was assaulted by an attacker, and it was wrong.

“Too Big to Fail” – Too Dangerous to Live

“…if people thought about real issues and needs instead of manufactured desires, the economy would collapse and we’d have total anarchy.”

Years ago, my sister-in-law noted that her parents had paid $25,000 for the home in which they raised her family. She and her husband had recently purchased a home in which to raise their family for roughly $250,000. She asked if I thought that, by the time they purchased homes in which to raise their families, our children would be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 million. I replied that I felt there was little chance that our children would be purchasing homes at any price, since by that point the entire system would have collapsed into chaos and anarchy. She tried to laugh, until she saw the entirely sincere look on my face. “You really believe that could happen?” she asked. I only said, “Yes.” But inwardly I knew what I wanted to say: “I believe that should happen.”

My optimism has since been rewarded, and thwarted almost simultaneously.

A manipulative marketing system manufactures our needs, and then sells us goods and services to meet those “needs.” This system, however, is not merely unsustainable; it has, in fact, collapsed. And when it did collapse, we missed a great opportunity for liberation. We could have allowed the dust of Lehman Brothers, et al., to simply settle into the substrate and let emancipation grow up in its place. We could have refocused our society’s values and priorities on previously unattainable luxuries like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Unfortunately, those who entice us to ever-more-excessive spending for ever-more-transient gratifications also effectively sell us our “public servants.” And we, in turn, elevate those “servants” to political office where we imagine they will control and guide the beasts which are allowed, yet again, to drag our economy forward and upward and, most likely, over some similar cliff in the near future.

In such a system, it isn’t surprising that some manipulate the math to their advantage. Nor does anyone reasonably deny that they have returned to doing so today. What does surprise me, however, is that most of us assume the truth of their claim—that they were “too big to fail”—as though their failure would result in some unmet need in our society. In fact, the “needs” they would fail to meet are the ones they have manufactured through their manipulative marketing.

But who can we blame? We are the ones who allow them to “create demand” for their goods and services. We are the ones who bandage our insecurities with trinkets and toys. We are the ones willingly oblivious of one another, absorbed instead into technology’s counterfeit relationships. We are the ones who feed the beast. We give them billions for things we do not need. Then, when they overindulged and consumed all we gave them and too much more, they told us we need them. That they are “too big to fail.” And so we gave them billions more—for no goods or services whatsoever—because we don’t know any other life than being enslaved to them, feeding their quarterly shareholders’ reports, and masking our pain with more purchases.

But we can face the painful truth, together: They are not serving us. We do not need them. There are alternatives. Stop buying their lies. Stop buying their stuff.

Stop feeding the beasts that are eating our children.

Parents of Unvaccinated Children: “Parasites?” Really?!

This post is in response to a Facebook meme picturing Amanda Peet, with a quote attributed to her as, “Frankly, I feel that parents who don’t vaccinate their children are parasites.” A friend shared the image and noted, “Well…she’s a bit harsher than I would be. But still….” Here’s my take on the semantic implications of “parasite,” as well as some recommended alternatives to the term.

Mistletoe: Our Favorite Parasite.

I agree it's a little blunt.

But it does seem supported by one prevalent thread of the logic. It seems to go like this:

First, let's say that I believe the potential side-effects of vaccinations could pose a risk to my children.

Second, again imagining, I hypothetically believe that prior generations of vaccinated children and the majority today who vaccinate their children have so reduced the risk of certain diseases that, even unvaccinated, my child is unlikely to contract those diseases.

Therefore it follows that I can avoid one remotely potential risk to my children (vaccination) because the other potential risk (disease, disability, and/or death) has been made even MORE remote by the majority who have chosen (past and present) to vaccinate their children.

Given that thread of logic, "parasite" is entirely accurate. I would be leeching benefit from the resources accrued through the risks and responsibilities of others.

But there is at least one alternative thread of logic.

Clearly, this is far preferable...

1-If vaccinations are an unnatural intrusion into the natural order, and

2-if they do pose a risk of potential side-effects from proactively disrupting the regular decimation of the human population through epidemic disease, then

3-it stands to reason that a more natural course demands that we only react to disease once it has occurred, and then only to quarantine all who have potentially been exposed. This will allow us to see whether our children are genetically preferred or not (or, for those who object to the "survival of the fittest" implications, more divinely loved or not) on the basis of whether or not they survive the outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, polio, etc.

Of course, those who would choose this second option, to impose their own preferences in this risky experiment upon the lives of others' children, would not accurately be considered "parasites."

...to this. Isn't it?

Some have called them psychopaths, which denotes them as responding appropriately, but to a reality other than what the rest of us are perceiving. (Remember, it's always the "sane" majority who gets to define "crazy.")

To others, their inability and/or unwillingness to consider the needs of persons with whom they interact would label them sociopaths.

Either way, to be clear about our main point here: "parasite" would not apply.

Instead, by inevitably introducing disease into their surrounding networks of trusted relationships, they would more accurately be described as "pathogens."

I am in favor of inoculating ourselves against them.

How I Helped to Kill Trayvon Martin (and countless others)

During our son’s elementary years, we felt the need to define certain “Rules of Engagement” regarding the bullying taking place at his school. “If you can walk away, walk away. If you have to run, there’s no shame in that. But if they keep you from getting away, aim directly for their nose. Whichever way they turn, you’ll hit something that will hurt them. But keep hitting them only until you can get away. Stick to the Rules of Engagement, and we’ll have your back, whatever consequences the school might impose on you.”

The Rules of Engagement worked well. But they were based on an assumption that there was a responsible adult (a pair of us, actually) who would step in and set things right, even when later policies of “zero tolerance” penalized all parties involved in any altercation, punishing even those who failed to prevent themselves from being bullied. In most communities, however, that trust, that we could acquiesce temporarily to various injustices because someone would eventually set things right, has eroded. In others, that trust has been entirely destroyed by similar tragedies, even where those are less conducive to the simplistic divisions preferred by the publicity-mongers.

As trust diminishes, it makes way for fears that many find quite justified. Should a young black man be afraid of being “in the wrong neighborhood?” Racial profiling is not just a matter of traffic stop harassment or stop-and-frisk policies. The ongoing bias in charges filed and sentences imposed are well-documented. Should homogenous neighborhoods keep watch over those who “clearly don’t belong here?” The fears that prompt Community Patrols and Neighborhood Watches are exploited by law enforcement agencies in support of their pleas for more budget and personnel support. Here, in the Fall River Valley of Northern California, a former sheriff quoted his deputies' response time as between thirty and forty-five minutes, so long as the call was received between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Outside those hours, there were no officers available to handle calls from our area. What he intended as a fund-raising ploy became fodder for justifying vigilantism.

How did these factors affect the events of February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida? Were both parties mindful of the history of racism, paranoia, community self-protection, and the justifications for deadly force under Florida law? We don’t know. None of us served on the Zimmerman trial jury. The evidence offered, at best, omitted any testimony to Martin’s state of mind prior to the incident. We cannot judge the level of fear each would have felt. Blacks in many areas have rightly come to expect something other than justice. Gated communities with neighborhood watches have rightly come to expect limited response from law enforcement. In these and other groups there is no longer a secure assurance that anyone will step in and set things right. Increasingly, any sense of security and justice is being left to us as individuals and communities to negotiate for ourselves.

Add to this “make-my-day,” “stand-your-ground” environment the desire for a more immediate gratification of our human nature, and a do-it-yourself-justice attitude is likely to prevail. Thankfully, in my son’s case, he addressed that temptation humorously over the family dinner table, rather than during a parental visit to school administrators. He asked permission before requiring forgiveness: “Dad? That kid that’s being mean to Sarah? Would it be alright to tell him, ‘Take hold of my wrist, and don’t let me go, no matter what happens?’” I assured him that, while technically fitting the rules of engagement, he could only count on my support if he were reactively addressing an actual danger, not intentionally provoking a confrontation.

Again, we cannot know which of these (or any others) may have been the attitude of either Martin or Zimmerman. We do know that many benefit from increasing our distrust, if not hatred of one another through harangue and diatribe. At best, they ignore, but perhaps willfully provoke the rising dangers of these fears, calculating the potential profits from more such confrontations in the future. I want to condemn them for doing so. But, am I numbered among them? I don’t pursue their publicity and celebrity. I try hard to never exploit personal tragedies in support of any stand I would take. And I have an accountability structure around me to, hopefully, ensure that should I cross those lines—I get called on it very quickly.

http://www.standupforkindness.com/kindness-pledge/

So, why do I feel culpable for this and other lesser known confrontations? When I cannot assure my community that someone will step in and set things right (or even try), I bear responsibility for perpetuating their fears as well as their desire to secure themselves through whatever means they choose. I help to perpetuate the systems and structures that diminish their security, even as they feed off of the fears engendered by each new report of each new confrontation. In fact, in the absence of past confrontations to report, even small-town papers will prophesy future doom “if the appropriate steps are not soon taken.”

All this occurs even within almost perfectly homogenous communities. With regard to the Martin-Zimmerman incident, fear and distrust between two individuals of “perceptible ethnicity” may have been heightened on that basis. Their minority status, however, most certainly provided opportunity to exploit this tragedy as a platform for racializing further what is better seen as an endemic system creating similar incidents within, between, and most certainly against the communities we are called to serve. The many similar tragedies since February 26, 2012 have not drawn similar attention. These have occurred among those whose differences are not so easily stereotyped, and thus will not be so publicly exploited. Yet it is the fact that they occur, not their potential for exploitation and analysis, which should motivate us to more consistently structure just relationships into and among our communities. They need to know that someone is committed to step in and set things right.

Another Tragedy of Trayvon and George

By way of invitation to a Portland area forum on the Trayvon Martin case (details available here)), Dr. Paul Louis Metzger asks “Why did this case receive so much attention, especially while other similar cases never got so much as a mention?” From my vantage point, isolated at the time in the mountains of Northern California, dependent upon mass media for details of what I first noticed in social media postings, I can only offer observations and conclusions bounded by those limitations. But here they are.

I first saw mention of the shooting in someone’s vehement reaction to Geraldo Rivera’s infamous claim that part of Martin’s attire, a hoodie, was responsible for his death. Mass media’s habit of covering media’s coverage almost immediately raised an impenetrable fog around any hope of finding facts about the case online. Too few quaintly preserve the ancient journalistic endeavor in our country: piecing together a story with some congruence to the events being reported. This archaic ideal, however, has little place in the competition to be the first to report any new sliver of conjecture by anyone, even when that conjecture is not being made by witnesses, law enforcement, or expert observers, but simply by another media-staff commentator weighing in on “facts” not yet in evidence.

So, one reason for the attention to this case appeared to be nothing more than our macabre glee at having fresh bodies to feed to the selachian (“of or pertaining to sharks”) demands of the news-cycle. But there were at least two other details that prompted the furtherance of the feeding frenzies.

Trayvon Martin, and to a lesser extent (as a Prussian-surnamed, self-identifying Hispanic) George Zimmerman, provided a concrete metaphor for the fears of blacks, Hispanics, and whites alike. This fear of “the other” (xenophobia, as discussed previously in this blog) comprises the potential for such deadly misunderstandings on the basis of preconceived stereotypes. The logic seems self-evident that “the stranger” should fear me at least as much as I fear them. And should some chance exchange inadvertently provoke a confrontation, then I should be prepared to do to them as they, I imagine, would do to me, should I appear ready to do it to them. Add to this the minority status of both parties, and for many white Americans the potential for discussion was opened more broadly. (This is likely the primary factor that kept this story at the top of the editorial priorities, above other, similar cases in the interim.)

According to Herschell Gordon Lewis, there are four great marketing motivators (some of us prefer the term “manipulators”). In his estimation, as I recall, greed, guilt, and exclusivity follow well behind fear as a means to influence others. And self-promoters who feed on our society’s fears in order to raise ratings, sell books, fund studies, and otherwise scavenge the carrion of tragedy were in abundance for weeks and months after the death of Trayvon Martin. Their number includes activists as well as commentators, news-readers as well as politicians, and, too frequently, religious leaders as well as regular citizens. But before we decry the growing school of sharks, we should remember that the profits they divide among them do come from somewhere. And it is those sources of their resources who bear responsibility for the actions we support. Real consequences in real lives result from our decision to watch incessantly, trying to be among the first to share, or like, or tweet, or otherwise prattle on about whatever suppositions are painted across the backdrop of the next new tragedy.

There is much more to be said, no doubt, about the reasons for such attention being raised over the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman story. I pray that the forum in Portland will be fruitful in recognizing a variety of other issues as well that may diminish the potential for similar tragedies in the future. Among the issues addressed, however, should be my personal culpability (and yours, too) for the consequences of continuing to consume “news-like products.”

Human beings are regularly distilled into fuel for fact-less fires signaling only the same, dangerously stereotypical perspectives. And when there are too few suppositions to report, we watch reports of what others have either chosen or failed to report regarding the too-few suppositions already available. Know this, though: some will base their actions tomorrow on the fears we have helped to instill in them today. Lest we sacrifice even more of our brothers and sisters to the gods of technological gossip, we are overdue to disconnect ourselves from this media machine.