Thoughts From a Trayvon Martin Rally

It is difficult for words to express how disgusted I feel with the jury’s decision in the Trayvon Martin case. A vigilante with a history of paranoid behavior racially-profiled and stalked a black boy who did nothing wrong whatsoever, and when the boy confronted his stalker and tried to defend himself, the stalker pulled a gun and shot the boy to death. Those are the indisputable facts of the case. People who argue in George Zimmerman’s favor claim that Trayvon, a lanky teenager, must have been in an advantageous position over his one-hundred-pound-heavier assailant. Of course, we have heard the “who really had the advantageous position?” question before – from those who defended the police following the Rodney King beating.

I read the “acquittal” headline on Sunday morning. It took several minutes for the words to cohere, and when they did, a series of dreadful thoughts began running through my head. What if, instead of Trayvon, it was one of my friends of color who were stalked and killed because they “looked suspicious” and tried to defend themselves? What does this decision confer to these friends of mine about their value in “modern” American society? I made a simple sign – “Justice for Trayvon” – and headed for the Union Square protest.

It began with several hundred people holding a speak-in. Anyone who wanted to speak was encouraged to do so. Because we lacked a PA system, speakers were instructed to use short sentences, which were then repeated (and thus amplified) by the crowd, like affirmations to a prayer. This ”Mike Check” method had a unifying effect: upon echoing modest words such as “I have two black boys,” I can immediately empathize with each speaker and begin to understand the more nuanced implications of the jury’s decision on their lives. Local politicians, university professors, community activists and concerned citizens all took their turn to speak, as facilitated by a charismatic and expertly-competent organizer, bearing the scorching weather in a tie and vest.

We then marched around Union Square Park. Our numbers were not yet large enough to take to the streets, but I nevertheless felt grateful that those around me shared my anger and cared enough to voice it. I chanted at a conversational volume, preferring to internalize the imploring words: “our children matter, our children matter...”

A teach-in followed wherein crowd members offered a diversity of perspectives on the tragedy. None were particularly radical or vengeful, and all expressed a desire for solidarity. In fact, this desire to coalesce against the broad idea of injustice led more than one speaker to declare that Trayvon’s murder was “not a race issue”: a sentiment with which I completely disagree. A series of other speakers pointed the blame at problems in the black community, including drug use, late-night liquor stores, gang membership and gangsta rap. This also irked me, not only because these had nothing to do with the murder of Trayvon Martin, but also because it speaks to an inculcated sense of inferiority within African-American culture; it suggests that Trayvon was killed because black people don’t behave themselves. Such opinions are the painful result of centuries of white supremacy in our country. Fortunately, more than one speaker voiced an opinion with which I agreed; for instance, one woman argued that, although race is a social-construct with no biological basis, racism certainly exists and exerted its deadly-self on poor Trayvon Martin. I also agreed with those who spoke against the legal system. Laws such as “Stand Your Ground” and “Stop-and-Frisk” are designed and utilized to maintain racial hierarchies in America.

The afternoon progressed and our numbers swelled into the thousands. Feeling tired, I was just about to split – I had even handed-off my sign to a fellow demonstrator – when the protesters spilled into Broadway. I joined the march with renewed energy. This time, I chanted the chants at the same angry volume as those around me, shouting “Justice for Trayvon Martin” “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Stop-and-Frisk has got to go!” and a slew of others.

I looked around at my fellow protesters and noticed that a large proportion of them were white. Although thrilled by the number of white people showing camaraderie with the slain black child, certain fears occurred to me: do the majority of people of color feel so disenfranchised by their level of inequality that they think their voice does not matter? Does their voice, in fact, matter in America today? How at-risk do people of color feel at protests? Do they worry that a display of political dissidence could leave them suffering the same fate as Trayvon, perhaps at the hands of the NYPD – those paid to “protect” them? Let us be reminded that the name “Amadou Diallo” still holds a certain currency in New York City.

A fight almost broke out when some onlooker presumably said something calculated to incense a red-headed protester into a furious, threat-filled tirade. At first, the instigator walked away, but then, perhaps feeling the need to prove both himself and his own racialist views, he reversed towards the red-headed protester with all the foolish bravado of a rooster and the kind of smile Eichmann would smile if given a new red pen and a long list of names. Had it not been for a short, stocky black woman rushing towards the fast-escalating fight and risking her own well-being by standing between them, the instigator would have surely swallowed a few teeth. I wondered how the media would have reported the irony of two white men throwing punches, when they were so readily-expecting the “aggressive black male” stock character to explode into riot across urban America that night.

Incidentally, it was that same, culturally-ingrained stereotype that killed a teenage boy a year and a half ago.

A Sociopolitical Anthropology of Office Behavior

Ah, the office: a place more awkward than a class reunion at Introvert High School. Prior to actually wearing the white collar, all I knew about offices was borrowed from Kids in the Hall, which, I daresay, was a grand introduction:

Because politics is off-limits, I fill my conversation with mock-shocked statements about the weather ("can you believe it's raining again?") or reminding my coworkers of the day ("ugh, Monday!"). If I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I’ll allude to some weekend debauchery, but as far as my coworkers are concerned, my Saturday consists of laundry, laundry, laundry.

During my first week, my coworkers took a marked interest in me: the youngest, newest inhabitant sharing their corridors and copy machines. They would constantly ask:

"What's your background?"

Which translates into a question about whether or not you're qualified for your position. For other tyros to the office habitat, and for those likewise lacking in actual job experience, ranting about academic accomplishments seems to have a neutralizing effect, thank the high holy heavens.

Determining the intonations of everyday office language could be paradise to the paranoid. Is "you're so nice" office lingo for "you're such a naive little boy"? Does "get home safely" suggest an inability to take care of oneself?

In addition to language, there's the whole, dire matter of politics, both the interpersonal and macro-level kind. How can we be honest with one another if we are advised not to speak about politics when "the personal is political"?

Veganism is a case in-point. At first, whenever a staff member offered a pastry, a fruitcake or somethings' leg, I'd turn-down the food without explanation. Human Resources identified that I was refusing every food offer. I was told that this could be taken as offensive - not accepting the gifts of others - and so I confessed to my deviant lifestyle. Admittedly, the whole point of veganism is to make a political or philosophical statement, so my initial reluctance to declare my morality sounds less logical than a spray-tan salon in the middle of Oompa-Loompa-land.

Then again, given my apathy towards isinglass and my wardrobe of more than few wool garments, any attempt to share my “reduce harm” mindset seems superficial. I’m not a particularly good vegan; why, I’m worse at veganism than Hitler was at making Jewish friends.

A greater sense of shame resulted from my not challenging the political discourse of others in my office. One coworker (“A ‘liberal,’ but not a “blame-America-first liberal’”) recently claimed that imperialism was a “mixed bag." I'm genuinely embarrassed for not shutting him down; yet, considering my newbie status, I wouldn't want any argument to explode and leave me scraping coins from the subway again. Thus the binds of capitalism.

Finally, being a man in a mostly-female office leads to its share of awkwardness, especially around the damned water cooler, which, I've discovered, forces us to retreat into medieval gender roles. Once I was asked to replace the water tank by an unsmiling, bird-like woman who communicates using automobile sounds. “Beep Beep,” she says, meaning “hi” or “excuse me” or “I am censoring a series of two swear words.” Intending to parody her stereotype of male strength, I said something along the lines of “let me know if you need help with anything else He-Man related,” which I followed quickly with, “I’M SORRY THAT SOUNDED INCREDIBLY SEXIST.” I shouted it across the hall. She didn’t care either way; she simply beeped along like a fussy Fiat in a jubilee traffic jam.

Another female co-worker “needed a man” for the same job, and when I happened to overhear her, I stepped-up to the proverbial, masculinized plate. She thanked me a little too profusely for “acting like a man,” "being a real gentleman" and emphasizing my general manliness in general. Did I offend her? Or were my chest hairs a little too visible? I approached her later on and asked whether she was insulted by my help. She was not; as it turns out, she was emphasizing manliness to emasculate the other male coworker in the room who did not help.

Thank goodness for this one person with whom I work - the other fellow leftist in my office. Whenever we talk, she launches a shameless rant about the importance of feminism, her hatred for her daughter’s hipster boyfriend (whom she impersonates with a hilarious, lackadaisical Californian accent) or her love of Ian MacKaye. I knew we were cut from the same cloth when she looked at my Doc Martens and said that, in her days on the New York City punk circuit, they used to call them “shitkickers."

“Lose Your Fingers!”

A recent, lengthy walk to the edges of Bensonhurst led me to a folksy-looking bric-a-brac shop. Inside, below racks and rows of delicate teacups, porcelain figurines and various other pieces of precariously-cluttered daintiness, there beamed a beautiful, flame-colored electric guitar. The mock Fender's presence seemed like a deliberate artistic statement: a discordant bit of loudness among the myriad quiet, fragile, civilized things displayed.

I expressed interest. “Fifty dollars,” said the jovial, Eastern European shopkeeper, “but for you, forty-five.” When I turned-down the offer, he said, good-humoredly, “I hope it doesn’t end-up with one of those bands that smash their instruments at the end!” He repeatedly smashed an air guitar and laughed to himself.

On the walk home, I decided that I had made a mistake. I thought about the guitar constantly. I even decided to give it a name: "Jocylin." Several more days of rumination passed before I returned.

Jocylin was still there, smiling her big, fierce guitar-grin. I walked over. A small boy, perhaps the store owner’s son, seemed to mirror my enthusiasm. He wanted me to play.

“You gotta do it,” encouraged the boy, “lose your fingers!”

“Lose your fingers?”

“Yeah!” said the kid, “you gotta lose your fingers!” That extra “L” struck me as a perfect metaphor. I held Jocylin for him and began alternating between C- and G-Major as he pawed the strings with his fingertips. The two of us spent a minute "losing our fingers" on the guitar, smiling widely all the while.

I bought the guitar and high-fived the kid as I left.

Once outside, I defrocked Jocilyn from the plastic bag that the shopkeeper ridiculously wrapped her body in: the world should see her. At first, I carried Jocilyn by the neck – like a dead, flame-colored phoenix, ready to burn and reemerge, electric and anew – but because holding Jocilyn in this way felt somehow disrespectful, I instead began carrying her like an assault rifle. As I forged ahead through the streets, as high on adrenaline as a successful revolutionary, it occurred to me that I was wielding a far more powerful weapon: all an assault rifle can do is kill a man.

Jocilyn turned heads. Once, a group of kids, away from their mother’s tether, saw the guitar, stopped what they were doing, and lined-up against a wall: staring awe-eyed, as though for a newly-coronated king in his first royal ride down High Street.

For the amp, I went inside a local music store, where I gravitated towards the black hole in the center letter of “VOX.” I was sold once the owner mentioned the “wah wah” sound effect option, hearkening me back to that bizarre advertisement/track on Pebbles Box of Trash:

10 Nostalgic Songs

As my pre-post internet search for "nostalgic songs" would suggest, nostalgia is a very personal thing. Every similar list I came across was radically different from the last, in terms of genre, time-period, etc. Therefore, perhaps most of what follows is only relevant to my own, narrow experiences, but hopefully there's something here to which you can relate.
***

"Losing Haringey," by The Clientele

Remember those long, contemplative walks? Remember that feeling of 1982-ness: dizzy, illogical, as if none of the intervening disasters and wrong turns had happened yet?

"Slide," by Goo Goo Dolls

Remember consolations?

"I Will Remember You," by Sarah McLachlan

Remember the last time we saw each other? I've long associated this one with graduation day...

"Fast Car," by Tracy Chapman

Remember forgetting it all to wild exhilaration?

"You Get What You Give," by New Radicals

Remember the 1990s: Beck, Hanson, Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson? Remember what the Staten Island Mall looked like back then?

"Green and Grey," by New Model Army

Remember the one who got out, sold out?

"Drops of Jupiter," by Train

Remember your best friend always stickin' up for you? The best soy latte that you ever had?

"Late Night, Maudlin Street," by Morrissey

Remember moving away from the street you grew up on?

"Post World War Two Blues," by Al Stewart

Remember your youthful idealism? Which way did the 60's go?

"Talent Show," The Replacements

Remember how cool we all thought we were in our younger, dumber years?
(Hon. nostalgic Placemats mention: "When it Began," of course)

Neckties; Or, Adventures in Vasoconstriction, Part III

Although I learned during week one that they were not mandated by the company dress code, I continued wearing neckties to my new job until week three: mostly because, for yours truly, the image of me in a necktie was as novel a sight as a gorilla in a shopping mall reading Anna Karenina. The novelty has since lost its affect – like similes with gorillas or puns on the word “novel” – and with summer fast approaching (let’s hope Greenland doesn’t start thawing again), only the hipsterest hipster could bear wearing a sweat-slopped business-noose for the sake of ironic self-parody.

The lesser reason that I kept wearing ties was as a social experiment: do people treat necktie-wearers differently? I discovered that the courtesies and hostilities of everyday urban social interaction remain: what changes is who exchanges what.

For example, in my non-work attire, I accidentally happened upon Chevy's: a menswear shop on 86^th Street in Gravesend. The moment I entered, the owner, sitting behind the counter, asked, with a very subtle enmity:

“Can I help you?”

I responded “just browsing!” and began perusing his wares. Much of it was Italian-made, which meant, to my own paranoid, left-wing head, that I could buy something and not fear that it came from a sweatshop.

As I walked to the back of the store, the owner rose and began sneaking quick glances at me, strongly resembling nervous butler with a peasant in his midst. I felt self-conscious and unwelcome. When I approached a rack of neatly-hung jeans, the contempt he held for my class and kind became clear:

“Those jeans cost $135. Is that a problem?”

Such a question can only be asked to humiliate. “No,” I lied, “that’s not a problem,” but I nevertheless considered buying a pair just to best him. I smiled savagely and asked if he carried the jeans in a size 29.

“I don’t,” said the sallow, class-prejudiced, pathetic little fuck.

“That,” said I, Shakespearean, triumphant, “is a problem,” and I left, mouth puckered inward, teeth clenched tighter than a streetfighter’s fist.

Blatant classism is bad enough, but I was more disturbed by how my peers, or those whom I would regard as such, treated me when I wore a tie. In the subway, my fellow countercultural twentysomethings, with their piercings, thrift-store clothing and chunky headphones blasting almost loud enough to drown-out their student loan anxieties, no longer looked at me with an acknowledgement of <DROOG> in their eyes. No matter what your actual job entails (I would consider my line pro-social), no matter how much David Graber or Michel Foucault you’ve read, and no matter that you’ve listened to every song on Sandinista! at least twice, a necktie immediately makes you The Man.

The absolute worst, however, was the socially-engineered, resentful obsequiousness of the very poor; the exaggerated nicities that we assume we should bestow on those of high rank. Having that directed at me was the straw that broke this camel's heart.

Thus lay a mess of neckties on my dresser table, gathering the same dust that all things, splendid and decrepit, generally do.

Kale Tries Zumba

I was six years old when I first expressed an interest in dance. Knowing it was deviant – but not quite knowing why – I told my parents that I wanted to try ballet. Ma, likely bothered by the thought of wee Kelsey in a tutu, forbade this, which could explain why I am about as limber as firewood today. Who knows what would have happened if I enjoyed ballet and became a dancer? Maybe I would have become a world-class ballerino, in that stunning physical shape which always accompanies dance talent. Damned heterosexism.

Throughout High School, I assumed it was cool to dance like Ian Curtis:

And throughout College, I thought Thom Yorke had all the right moves:

In truth, I probably resembled Mark Corrigan:

***

Very recently, when given the option to either try dance or exercise at a local studio, I chose both, in the form of Zumba. I looked-up some clips on YouTube before going. The various dances looked complicated, but I believed that the instructor would teach us the basic moves as we went along. This was not the case. As our instructor explained, she would bellow out the occasional instruction, grunt or sound effect while dancing, but we were mostly advised simply to copy her moves. After assuring my fellow tyros that any movement at all was valid, she cranked-up the volume on her yellow boombox and suddenly started dancing. Everyone joined in. I gave it my best shot.

There were wall-length mirrors directly in front of me, reflecting the moving Zumba instructor; behind her danced the class, slightly delayed, like a string of incompetent back-up performers. I was the worst. While the instructor’s arms appeared to be wooing a potential lover with martial arts, violently declaring amoré, my own flailing arm gesticulations must have resembled one of my old, Israeli uncles trying to haggle-down the price of a used car. My lower body, attempting to imitate the instructor's sexual, feminine struts, instead jerkily frolicked about, a bit like a bunny winning the lettuce lottery, or a young child who really, really needs the bathroom. Hence my attempt at Zumba'ing.

Welfare, American Style

On my current budget, it would be impractical for me to buy many of the foods that I like to eat, such as fruits and vegetables. I consequently applied for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, or “food stamps,” as the program once was called (and as everyone still calls it). If Ayn Rand believes that this makes me undeserving of love, so be it.

My nearest benefits center is in Coney Island. The area has a strange still to it this time of year, likely exacerbated by the lingering, spectral presence of Hurricane Sandy. Inside the building, the walls are painted off-white, with a mauve color rising like a cheerful water-stain about three feet off the floor. Triangles of this mauve paint have peeled, exposing the sad concrete walls underneath.

Those seeking benefits are an extraordinarily diverse lot. When glancing at their faces, I can’t help wondering about their respective countries of origin, and which regimes they survived.

She must have survived Mao. He somehow endured Stalin. That shawled woman with the waddling child might have fled Assad…

I have also noticed that a significant number of the workers at the benefits center appear incapable of smiling, empathizing or betraying any other sign of their presumed humanity. Those with Russian or Western-African accents are usually beneficent; it is, unfortunately, my fellow Americans who tend to treat people the worst. This rude, apathetic and, in some cases, abusive treatment is the inevitable result of my country’s individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mindset. Often, when someone in need of assistance points out some procedural injustice in their case, those in the position to help instead respond by repeating themselves, only louder and more slowly: e.g., “YOU NEED TO HAVE AN EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION FORM.” Vitriol fills their eyes as they speak. You would think they were dealing with an infamous paedophile from a television news story.

Perhaps apathy and suspicion are meant to safeguard against benefits fraud, even if the grounds for these suspicions are largely stereotypical and not reflected in actual fact:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/10/08/center-on-budget-and-policy-priorities-defends-government-assistance-programs-from-gop-scorn/

I requested a fair hearing trial after my initial application for food stamps… er, “Supplemental Nutritional Assistance” was rejected. However, the date on which this was scheduled clashed with a dentist appointment (Medicaid was surprisingly easier to attain: I first assumed that the price of the program would make acceptance a novelty, but then I realized that, as a publicly-funded health care program, it’s probably cheaper than private care…). I asked if I could reschedule the date of my hearing. I could not. What should I do?

“You’ll have to decide which is most important to you,” said the woman at the desk, with a strange smile ticking-up the corners of her mouth.