Game Done Changed

When I was a little kid, there was a simple rule that governed fights at school.

Always get the other guy to swing first.

Kid logic dictated that if you enticed the other guy to throw the first punch, you couldn't be held liable for what happened after that. This meant engaging in complicated rituals that involved walking around and around in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, daring the other kid to swing first. Sometimes, unruly bystanders might grab one participant's hand and make him hit the other guy just to get the fight started.

Unfortunately, most teachers and school administrators didn't agree with our rock solid kid logic. Invariably, they would punish both students and turn a deaf ear to our pleas about who started the brawl. Sometimes, not being the aggressor would win brownie points with parents, but there was no guarantee.

I thought about kid logic and adult logic when I read this piece which was linked to at the Angry Asian Man blog.

Seems that a Korean student in Canada was handling his business in some game called "speedball" when one of his pale classmates decided he didn't appreciate his prowess and called him an "effing Chinese." The Korean student let homeboy know that racial slurs aren't good business, and the white dude decided to haul off and punch him in the mouth.

And that's where the story gets interesting. See, the Korean student is actually a black belt in a martial arts discipline. However, instead of unleashing the full fury of his fists, he only gives the white cat one good shot to the nose with his weaker hand. And he breaks the cat's nose.

Now, school officials not only suspended both students, but the police actually arrested the Korean student and some folks are talking about kicking him out of school permanently. There was recently a community march to support what he did, and complain about bullying, but school officials are still taking a hard line stance.

What's really good?

I mean, this seems pretty clear cut to me. The kids got in a fight. One kid started the fight by being racist, and by being a bully. Unfortunately for him, he picked on a kid who actually knew how to defend himself, and who had no problems beating his butt. The End.

Part of me doesn't think the Korean kid should even get suspended. Sure, he was fighting, but when somebody is throwing around slurs and punches, I think fighting is warranted. I know officials want you to run and find a teacher, but that ain't realistic in my opinion. In real life, becoming a snitch will only make your problems worse, and taking the strictly non-violent approach is guaranteed to get you future beatings from bullies. Your best bet is to attempt to diffuse the situation, and then use the bare minimum of force if that doesn't work.

It sounds like that's exactly what the Korean teenager did in this instance, and yet he's the one being punished excessively. This is mindboggling, yet not truly surprising. After all, what this story really boils down to is what happens when minorities respond to racism outside of the "accepted" channels.

During the Civil Rights era, 60 minutes journalist Mike Wallace did a piece on the Nation of Islam called "The Hate that Hate produced." It was an inside look at the black nationalist, religious group that focused primarily on their views about white people being devils, and their paramilitary leanings. The piece catapulted Malcolm X into the national consciousness and forever framed the NOI.

I've often wondered why 60 minutes spent so much time on the response to hate, but nowhere near that much time on the actual hate itself? I mean, there was no show dedicated to the violence the KKK and other domestic terrorist organizations were inflicting on black people at the time. There was no in-depth study of how racism affected housing, education and quality of life. Nope, hatred only became news when black folks started arming themselves and clearly outlining the source of their misery. 2520s.

That seems pretty analogous to the situation with this Canadian teenager. The racism isn't the the school's concern, the violence because of racism wasn't their initial concern either. Instead, the big problem is the fact that this Asian kid had the audacity to strike back, and strike back so forcefully, that there can be no doubt of his ability to protect his interests.

I guess that's a game changer.







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All things must come to an end, it is an inevitable part of the cycle of existence, all things must conclude.

Well, we're finally finished.

I said I would write a piece about each of Gandhi's Seven social sins, and now we're here at the end of the line with "Politics Without Principles."

I must admit that this is a tough topic for me because I've tuned out from politics over the past few months. I just got tired of the same trivial arguments, the ridiculous news coverage and the feeling that not much was going to change any time soon. Life, with all of its hardships, was complicated enough that it was easy to abandon my previous devotion to keeping up with the political world.

I offer no excuses, just the facts.

Plus, it's hard for me to think about the concept of politicians and principles. I'm not saying that all politicians are devoid of morals, but it's obvious that becoming a politician requires your morals to be fairly malleable. So, it's seems useless to talk about requiring politicians to have principles if we don't specify that those principles have to be absolute.

And that's a hard concept to sell in a world where people seem disinclined to understand nuance and inclined to distort everything. I guess it makes more sense to speak in cliches and vague euphemisms then to actually speak honestly and directly to the public.

Honestly, I've become so cynical that I don't expect many principles from politicians. I'll admit that I was caught up in the whole Obama movement, and, while I still think the brother will do a good job, the first 100 days of his tenure have driven home the fact that politicians can only do so much. I think he's a swell cat, but his outlook on life differs greatly from my own.

I guess I don't know what else to say about this sin, which is a bummer because I wanted to end this series on a high note. Oh well, some topics lend themselves to deep thinking, and other kind of make you say:

Duh.

Please let me know how you felt about the series, whether you found it useful or not. Thanks.

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Give It Up

This cat at my church came to me the other day with a proposition.

Seems like the church used to have a Boy Scout troop before I joined, and they are getting it started again. As part of that effort, they are starting something called "Explorers" and the guy was asking me if I might be interested in participating.

I was shook.

No, it's not because I'm scared of the Boy Scouts and their late night campfires. Nah, I was shook because I thought he was asking me for another chunk of my steadily dwindling personal time, and I was trying to figure out a way to decline without feeling like I was cheating God.

When I first decided to write about Gandhi's social sins, the sin of "Religion Without Sacrifice," was the one topic I couldn't wait to tackle. This sin cuts to the core of what I see as one of the major plagues on mankind.

It's not because all religious folks are bad people, or because they all refuse to sacrifice. However, many of us religious folks have focused on sacrificing in the wrong areas, and instead of making the world a better place, we've screwed things up horribly.

Look, I know we (and by "we" I mean Christians, since that's all I really know) try hard. Most of the church folks I know are just trying to live their lives in a better way. Sure, there are bad apples, but as a whole, I've found that believers of all colors and economic backgrounds care about serving God and being decent people.

As long as it's not too hard.

That's the catch. It can't be too hard. And when I say hard, I don't mean that most Christians refuse to do difficult tasks. Many believers have jobs or hobbies that require them to risk life and limb to make the world better. Or they may give massive amounts of their time and money to volunteer efforts. No, what I mean is that while folks might do difficult tasks, that don't do tasks that are difficult for them.

Now that's sounds kind of screwy, so let me break it down. I once told me wife that I don't have a problem with compromising, I just have a problem with compromising on things I care about. If she wants ice cream and I don't particularly care about ice cream, we can have whatever flavor she likes. If she wants to go to the movies, and I don't care about what movie we watch, then I might get stuck watching The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood. (That really happened.)

Compromise comes easy on those situation because I'm not sacrificing anything. I don't really care about the outcome, so anything can happen. But, when it's an issue that's important to me, like something involving a large outlay of my money, then I become so stubborn that mules passing me by on the street do a double take.

Our faith should push us to places where we are uncomfortable, it should have us constantly reevaluating our lives and how we are living them. In fact, I think the biggest sacrifice any Christian can make is to sacrifice "comfort."

My point is that not only is it important to make sacrifices in the name of God, it's important to make the right sacrifices.

It's not enough to sacrifice money, if time is the thing that's really valuable in your life. It's not enough to be at every function, if the thing you're really miserly about is your money.

Attempting to establish a deep personal relationship with God without being willing to give up things you hold dear is foolish...

Oh, and I agreed to do the Explorers thing at church. Turns out they didn't even need an additional time commitment from me.

Too funy.


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Power Tools

It would be easy to talk about abortion here.

Or maybe eugenics, or plastic surgery, or cloning or even stem cells.

If I was going to discuss "Science Without Humanity" and I decided to focus on any of those topics, I'm sure the activity on this blog would spike. All of those topics are controversial enough that it's a pretty safe bet that folks would feel the need to share their opinions.

I'm going to avoid the easy route.

I read quite a few blogs, and one of them I visit is run by a cat who goes by the name of Denmark Vesey. I find his spot interesting because they are often talking about things I'm not familiar with, which means I'm guaranteed to learn something new. We may not agree on a lot of topics, but I don't have to agree with you to learn from you.

Anyway, one of the recurring topics over there is whether there are genetic differences between the races as far as intelligence. It's the whole "nature vs. nurture" argument, but with a lot more big words and obscure studies. Several of the commenters adamantly oppose the idea that race and intelligence are linked, while others think that's the only obvious conclusion. As a tangent from this argument, the cats over there often discuss whether a large scale mapping of human genomes is an undertaking worth pursuing.

See, scientists have already mapped the DNA of several individuals, but it wasn't until recently that a fairly large scale effort was made to look at groups. Of course, when you're talking about DNA, large scale means slightly more than a thousand instead of millions because of the complexity of the work.

Now, some folks are gung-ho about the project and the information it may provide about genetic differences between the races. They point to the medical benefits of such information and just the pure pursuit of knowledge. It all sounds wonderful.

But, other cats are skeptical about any endeavor that seeks to categorize folks by race, and then analyze their genes. I guess it smells a little too much like the early funk of eugenics. After all, there is the question of how people were divided into "races" in the first place, and then there is the question of how information about differences and similarities is going to be used.

See, the problem is that without humanity, or compassion, science can become a pretty powerful tool of evil. Depending on the results of the study, folks may justify longstanding biases and discrimination as being warranted based on the fact that certain "races" are in fact genetically inferior. After all, people have been trying to prove the inferiority of non-whites for generations, and that is the reason why there has traditionally been a pell-mell rush by folks to avoid being classified as "non-white."

Honestly, I don't have a problem with information, and I understand the value of the genome project. What I also understand is the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. I understand how science and scientific discoveries can be twisted and skewed to represent whatever folks want them to represent.

Gandhi warned against the blind devotion to science and knowledge because he understood that without a higher power or calling guiding us, human beings have a tendency to abuse these very powerful tools. I think Gandhi understood that the urge to build temples to ourselves, to create our own person godheads, is only aided by the power bestowed by science.

Mankind has always had trouble controlling this urge since our creation. Many among us have seen science as the perfect vehicle to allow us to assume a spot alongside God. Whether it was alchemy or the dark arts, mankind has yearned for the power that science can bestow upon us, and often using that power to benefit humanity is an afterthought.

I think science is amazing. It's wonderful and awe-inspiring. The possibility of learning how our genes work and how they control our lives is enticing. But, I also understand that until we as humans learn to temper our power with humanity, with ethics, with compassion, we are like little children playing with assault rifles.

And that's deadly.





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