Stacy Parker Aab2009-11-23T21:43:37-05:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=stacy-parker-aabCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Stacy Parker AabGood old fashioned elbow grease.Bring the Nobel Peace Prize Home to New Orleanstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3165092009-10-12T14:10:09-04:002009-10-12T14:13:00-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/Don't look back. Like some video star who walks away from explosions with nary a glance over her shoulder, my mother taught me that this was the way to deal with the traumas of life. She survived her youth with men who drowned their suffering in alcohol by moving forward, moving forward. In this way she created a new life for herself -- and for me -- with my step-father. Never turn around, I can still feel her whisper, lest the inferno blind you, turn you to salt, or rob you of your love.
But is this always the wisest approach for individuals, much less nations? I saw what happened to men torn apart by unexamined pain. They poisoned others' lives as much as their own. Obsession with past hurts is unhealthy for sure, but so is the silence that does not allow for healing, for any chance at self-acceptance, or forgiveness.
Consider New Orleans. Don't look back is a common ethos of its Katrina survivors. Attempting to rectify, or even acknowledge injustices is risky, for it feels like ripping open the rawest wounds. Even if a survivor disagrees with the turn-the-page approach, the weight of reconstructing one's family, home and livelihood can be a crushing one, for credit cards aren't all that's maxed out in the recovering Gulf Coast. Day after day, what energy is left to sort through the anger and shame that rose up as wickedly as the surge waters through sewer grates?
Sometimes it takes outsiders to help. Currently, the FBI is investigating alleged police homicides and civil rights violations committed in those nether days after the levees breached. Justice for the victimized will always be a healing balm, but we need more than convictions. We need truth. Truth that might be difficult for whites to hear, for blacks to hear, for all of us to hear. Truth that might be difficult for rich people to hear. For the government leaders then and now. We need deep examinations of our systems and of our personal fears that lead us to fail each other so profoundly. How else can we hope to make peace with one another?
The White House announced last week that the president will travel to New Orleans in mid-October. Many of us have competing ideas as how best to harness presidential power in the service of rebuilding the city. However, the president can bring the peace prize home early if he does one thing: announce the creation of an 8/29 Commission.
Activists, including Sandy Rosenthal of Levees.org, have long called for such a commission. Since this is still an idea and not a mission, yet, its marching orders are still to be determined. I imagine the panel as equal parts 9/11 Commission, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Medical Examiner of the body politic. The panel should be tasked to establish once and for all why the levees failed, and allow us a good look at all of the pre-existing conditions present at the time of the trauma. This panel should also shine glory on those who rose to their challenges (Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, the US Coast Guard, heroic medical personnel and a 1000 churches come to mind). Like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this is not about putting people in jail, or widespread wealth distribution. This is about hearing people out. This is about creating a shared understanding of events. This is about agreeing on the wisest use of public resources to improve security and prosperity for all. This is about having a political class that knows how to take responsibility, not one that invariably runs from blame and liability.
I have faith that when the President travels to New Orleans this month, he will do more than visit a school, check out a levee, and walk the Lower Ninth. If the President creates the 8/29 Commission, he will prove to us that we are not a nation forever doomed to sweep problems under the rug until the floor rots beneath us. He will initiate the hard work necessary to bring us peace.
For more on the 8/29 Commission, please visit Levees.org.
If you know someone who has suffered a Katrina-related death, including indirect deaths, consider contributing their name to the Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List]]>The Radical Choice this Katrina Anniversary: Celebratetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2591692009-08-14T11:41:59-04:002009-09-14T05:12:02-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
But observers may be surprised to know that this Katrina anniversary, instead of organizing a memorial per se, or staging a protest, Chaplain Cull has made another choice. Perhaps a radical choice. He has organized a celebration of hope called "Silent Heroes and Hidden Gifts of Katrina," an event designed to spotlight the positive in a city that still struggles to recover, a city where grief is breathed in, out with the moisture in the air.
"The focus continues to stay on the chaos and controversy which I guess is simply the nature of the beast," said Chaplain Cull in a recent interview. "I am not trying to deny the reality of all the suffering and terrible things that went on [during and post-Katrina]. But there is such a profoundly beautiful side to the people here in New Orleans and the events surrounding Katrina that is just waiting to be exposed."
While first responders will be honored, the loving actions of everyday people are also on Chaplain Cull's mind, especially the actions of those who on TV may have only appeared to be pitiable victims in distress:
"Witnessing a grandmother like Gwendolyn Martin Washington lay injured on a shadeless expressway and offer her umbrella to the two young children with her is an act of kindness and love I will never forget. True selflessness epitomized. A lesson everyone can learn from, no matter who you are."
A focus on the positive this anniversary can make some of us anxious, make us afraid that people will forget the crimes and cruel indifferences we vowed to rectify somehow. But in traveling back and forth to New Orleans, I've learned that while no one in New Orleans or the diaspora wants to be forgotten, no one wants their lives reduced to mere victimhood either, and they don't want their abiding faith, their progress, or their positive moments ignored or diminished. For too many who are trying to cope, it can be discouraging to encounter national news coverage of life post-Katrina and have the focus so squarely on disappointments. If recovery requires optimism, as my oral historian friend Mark Cave says, then we can help our New Orleans neighbors by seeking some balance in the news coverage. We can seek the light as much as we seek the dark.
"The amount of suffering that took place here during Katrina was definitely beyond the scope of anything I have seen before," said Chaplain Cull. "But this in my mind and heart makes the acts of kindness and generosity I saw even more profound."
I couldn't agree more. This anniversary, I am going to follow Chaplain Cull and celebrate love, heroism, and the progress that survivors have made, wherever they are. I am going to reach out to my friends and near-family and let them know that they are cherished. If you have family or friends in the affected regions, I ask you to reach out to them, if just to say hello and see how they're doing and to listen to what they have to say. Just letting them know that they've got friends who care is an invaluable gift. Let's them know that they are never truly alone. Gives them the support no government can give.
For more information on the Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List, and to contribute the name of someone who died directly or indirectly, please click:http://www.katrinalist.columbia.edu/
To read the stories of Katrina survivors and those who came to their need, please click: www.thekatrinaexperience.net.
]]>Healing the Body Politic, One Commission at a Timetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1457632008-11-23T17:32:22-05:002008-12-24T05:12:01-05:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
I held my breath, hoping that this bargain would be short-lived. Once we had the presidency again we could spend our national energies pursuing truth as much as we did prosperity.
Time to breathe deeply. Yes, this Obama Healing feels so good. But to keep it going, we will need constant doses of truth. Truth about the present. Truth about the past. President-elect Obama has promised that he won't lie about national problems. I hope this promise extends to recent events, too. The body politic is pocked with so many festering wounds that it's a miracle we haven't all died of infection.
So please, bring on the commissions! We need blue-ribbon commissions devoted to assembling and studying the best information possible about our past crises, including the Katrina catastrophe (for more information on the proposed 8/29 commission, click on www.levees.org). Documentaries and investigative reports shine the light. But they are not enough. Crises of this scope need the power and interest of bi-partisan fact-finders, capable of producing information that all sides can know and respect as true. This is the path necessary for the reconciliation that a "no red states and no blue states" Obama has promised to push us towards.
This is a delicate and dangerous undertaking. The questions of liability and blame loom large, and many rightly fear having official fingers pointed their way. Let sleeping dogs lay, warn some. But if we do so, how do we explain to generations to come that we were just too tired, or too afraid, to talk about what went wrong? Given what we've witnessed of Obama's even-handedness, his desire to have all sides heard and his push for conciliation, opponents should feel reassured that such commissions would not lead to blood-thirsty beheadings.
The fact is, we may never get the courtroom justice so many of us desire. The President-Elect only has so much political capital, and has so much reforming to do. But we can pursue facts. The simple act of truth-telling can help heal the aggrieved--and help the rest of us learn from the mistakes.
Without trusted fact-finders, we get trapped inside our competing narratives. Too many people still look to 24 for their understanding of the effectiveness of torture. Too many people still believe that on August 29th, 2005, the levees were purposefully blown up by explosives. Until we can get our facts straight, we will perpetuate our worst beliefs about each other. Until we honor and admit previous hurts against each other, the spiral will only keep rushing downwards.
We need blue-ribbon commissions to push us to consider the best information available, so that we move out of our comfort zones and resist the urge to accept only information that reinforces our previously held views. Done right, commissions can bring us closer to the reconciliation necessary to heal the body politic.
For without truth, pain flourishes and can harden into a hate that begets the worst violence. We must do our part, at every level, to be open to truth, even if it hurts. I'm looking to our new government to lead the way.
]]>Eric Holder Is Change I Can Believe Intag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1447562008-11-19T10:56:25-05:002008-12-20T05:12:01-05:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
I disagree that Holder's nomination is just "more of the same." Yes, Holder served in the Clinton Justice Department, but that does not mean his nomination is not totally welcomed and savored by many of his supporters.
Why? Because the top cop in America will be a black man. Not just a black man, of course, but a highly-respected attorney who inspires confidence and hope.
Imagine being a black person and beholding Eric Holder as the highest-ranking law enforcement official. Suddenly I will see someone who not only looks like me, but who can see me and people like me and see us as individuals, not as problems to be contained. We will have a top cop who sees us as more than the dreaded other.
This is not to say that other AGs were incapable of this, but there is nothing like seeing the machinery of the federal justice system headed by someone like you to make you feel that you have an ownership stake in this society.
It would be an insult to Mr. Holder to expect him to treat anyone differently because they share his race or his politics. I just expect him to be fair. And as we know, fairness has been in short supply for the past eight years.
Like many Americans of all colors, I have a healthy respect, if not outright fear of law enforcement. Not because I commit criminal acts, but because law enforcement officers exercise so much power in our lives if they choose to do so. If we find ourselves wrongly accused, so much damage can be done to our bodies and spirit before we get the chance to clear our names. And if we are rightly accused, the punishment so often does not fit the crime. I have many friends and acquaintances in law enforcement, but that doesn't keep me from remembering that if I upset the wrong cop, or the wrong prosecutor, my life can be made miserable. That one can't always expect fairness in the criminal justice system.
Of course, black men have lead police departments in this country, and have held the highest judgeships, and that hasn't magically repaired all that is flawed with our systems.
We have so much work to do, still. I am just happy that Eric Holder may get the chance to do so at the Justice Department. As I watched Arianna Huffington guest host *The Rachel Maddow Show* on Monday, I thought, this all feels like a dream. A beautiful dream.
With Holder's nomination, the dream just got better.
]]>The Unsung Heroes of Obama's Victory: The United States Secret Servicetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1416162008-11-05T17:46:47-05:002008-12-06T05:12:01-05:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
As Obama spoke, I was too carried away with the moment to worry that someone in that crowd might have a gun. Then I saw the glass. I remembered that there's a force of men and women who never get to forget: the United States Secret Service.
In my former life, I served as a presidential advance person. I know the difficult push-and-pull that happens between the Secret Service and a protectee's staff. Staffers want their person out there and able to move about with as much freedom as they feel necessary. Agents, however, must think security first, and often do so in ways that can feel claustrophobic and limiting to the protectee. The catch is that these are the ways that keep the person most safe from harm.
Now consider last night, and a million rallies previous. Barack Obama, his staff, and his agents were brave enough and smart enough to figure out how to make him as accessible as possible without sacrificing his security. Clearly this was the fruit of intense negotiations and preparations, of staffers and agents working as teams. I never served as an Obama advanceperson, so I do not know all the particular inside-baseball. All I know is what I've seen: beautifully executed events with a candidate that people could celebrate, close enough to touch.
I watched last night thinking that Obama's agents are heroes who deserve our gratitude and respect. I thought about those days that post-9/11 where cops were kissed and firemen were lionized and thought, you know, our agents deserve that affection too! Talk about people who kept hope alive -- literally! So please, next time you see an agent, take a moment to thank him or her for their service. We will spend a lot of time contemplating the brilliance and energy of the Obama campaign staff and volunteers. But without the expertise and manpower of the Secret Service, as assisted by local law enforcement, yesterday could have ended much differently.
Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election]]>On Tuesday, Forget Plan Btag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1402592008-11-03T15:11:36-05:002008-12-04T05:12:01-05:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
Usually I would sympathize with such attempts at self-preservation. Many of us are emotionally invested in Tuesday's election in a way that's beyond rational explanation. Wholeheartedly, or with hesitancy, we cracked our shells of cynicism for Barack Obama and now that we're exposed, we don't want to get punched in our soft places -- which is no doubt how a Tuesday defeat would feel. If not worse.
Yet I am reminded of an interview I read with the comedienne Monique. She credited her success to her refusal to have a Plan B. She was afraid that if she spent too much time investing energy in back-up plans, and that's where she would end up.
That's the risk we face, too. But we're not talking about the fate of one performer's career. We're talking about the future of our country, and of ourselves.
So please, forget Plan B. We are one day away from Game Day. (Backclaps for those of you who have already voted -- you got to score early.). We tend to think of the two teams as Obama vs. McCain. The reality is that the two teams are Obama voters vs McCain voters. Whoever gets out the most voters out in enough states wins. Of course, the votes must be counted, and that's why we have legions of lawyers and watchdogs, like HuffPost, on the ready, and why we're working hard to win by significant margins.
The point is this: on Election Day we are no longer passive commentators and spectators. We are players. We've waited a long time to get back on the field. Now is our turn.
From now until Tuesday, I challenge every one of you to channel your inner evangelical and know that like church, it's not just enough to show up, but it's how many you bring along with you. Voting is just step one. Find a way to bring others. Work GOTV. Or do like CNN's Roland Martin said, make sandwiches and give encouragement to those waiting in long lines. Don't just sit around and steep yourself in anxiety. Find a way to play. The Obama campaign and MoveOn.org have made it ridiculously easy to participate. Today I worked a two hour phonebank shift (a great experience -- one mother even gave me her daughter's cell phone number to call and remind her to vote). You can do it, too.
Barack Obama does not need our worry. He needs our work. He needs us out there, playing the game like the champions we are. Champions don't waste pre-game energy making contingency plans. We need to focus on pulling as many folks to the polls as possible.]]>Danger and Hope on this Katrina Anniversarytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1224342008-08-29T16:48:52-04:002008-09-29T05:12:01-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/no way in Hades was I going to get on a plane and head directly for trouble, at least not of the meteorological kind.
"Cause I'm not going anywhere," Larry declared.
I laughed, but I knew he was serious. I also knew how this kind of attitude gets skewered by outsiders, many unaware of the mental gymnastics a person must make when preparing to face down a hurricane. From the outside, it's so easy to forget that evacuations cost money. That you need a place to go. That you must concern yourself with the wellbeing of loved ones who may be too unhealthy, and well, too crotchety to travel. That you don't want to leave your home and your businesses unattended, that you want to be there to repair any damage mid-storm. And then there's the pets...
Larry has a cat, as well as a beautiful home near City Park, and a business in the Central Business District. I can understand his desire not to abandon all that's his, especially as of today, when the slow-moving Gustav could land anywhere. But as forecasts change, his decision may no longer remain justified. As his friend, I don't panic for him -- yet.
But I feel for my friends who must make their decisions on the very day of the anniversary. As my friend Michael wrote me: "Emotionally, it's a very overwhelming feeling to be bombarded with urgent TV broadcasts of the regional storm preparation on the anniversary of the LAST storm." Knowing how most of my friends down there have either flirted with, or fallen into depression over the last three years, I know this time is drenched with anxiety. That they're natural "get up and go" might be sapped.
This morning, I also spoke with my friend Suzanne who has decided not to leave -- yet -- because her ailing mother is too frail to move. She shared her contingency plans, including checking her mother into a nearby hospital. "If things worsen, I'll reconsider [leaving]," she said, "but this storm does not look like another Katrina. There can't be two Katrinas in a lifetime."
I hope to God she's right.
This Katrina anniversary is not like the others -- neither for Louisiana residents, nor for me. This is the first Katrina anniversary where Gulf Coast residents await an approaching hurricane. Families across Louisiana weigh their options, figuring out what they should do. Many will forestall decision-making until the last possible moment, hoping the storm will shift, making evacuation unnecessary. Some will book their rooms elsewhere and just go, trying to treat this as a vacation, hoping that this time, it will remain as such. Depending on what kind of mandatory evacuation orders are given, some may be evacuated out of town by government-promised buses and trains, as well as concerned friends and neighbors. Others will simply remain. If there is any benefit to Gustav landing during the RNC convention, it must be that this time the response will be both competent and energetic from the federal level (yes, hope springs eternal).
For the first time, I count friends as among those making these decisions. This wasn't the case before Katrina. I knew nobody who lived in Louisiana. Hurricane evacuations were total abstractions, the gritty details foreign to me. I have since worked on a Katrina oral history project (www.thekatrinaexperience.net), and through this work, have made a few wonderful, deep friendships. I now join the millions across the country who worry for their loved ones on the Gulf Coast, wondering what they will do, hoping they will be OK, trying to offer whatever assistance we can.
I am going to keep Suzanne's hope in my heart. Hope that this is not another Katrina, hope that there will be no devastating landfall and 30foot+ storm surge, and that the levees will hold.
But, when it comes to the levees, we should not have to operate only on hope. We should not be afraid of the truth. And the truth appears to be that there were deep construction flaws in the New Orleans levee system, as designed by the Army Corps of Engineers http://www.levees.org/factsheet. The fact is, Americans all across the country live near Army Corps of Engineers' designed levees. How many floods will take before we focus our objective investigative powers on these systems?
Three years later, we're still calling for an 8/29 Commission. Please visit www.levees.org to see how you can help. It's important for Speaker Pelosi and for your representatives to know that we want an independent commission to get to the bottom of what really happened with the levee failures. Let this be part of our push to rebuild America's infrastructure. Let this be one small way you reach out and help New Orleanians on this anniversary.
]]>Still Counting Katrina's Deadtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1090562008-06-25T10:18:42-04:002008-07-03T05:12:01-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
In a recent piece in Baton Rouge's The Advocate, journalist Allen Johnson gives the latest update on state and local efforts to create an accurate accounting of the Katrina death toll. He focuses on the work of John C. Mutter, a professor of seismology at Columbia University's Earth Institute and an expert on the impact of disasters on national economies, who is working to measure the full impact of Hurricane Katrina.
Dr. Mutter defines "full impact" as "the entire awful landscape of death, the grief it causes, and the loss of spirit as well as the losses to the informal as well as the formal economy." While all of this not obviously quantifiable, Mutter believes that the more we know about the circumstances of individual deaths, the better prepared we will be to prevent similar deaths in the future.
I know Dr. Mutter through my own Katrina oral history work and have followed intently his efforts to go beyond the purviews of state officialdom and create the most complete list possible of Katrina deceased. In doing so, he has created the Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List. While he receives name-redacted information from state agencies, he also asks family members and friends of the deceased to submit directly to the list, given that many deaths may not be officially recorded in Louisiana or Mississippi records, and that families may wish to have the deaths publicly recognized. As for indirect deaths, he allows submitters to use their judgment as to whether they felt their loved one's death was hastened by Katrina and its aftermath.
In Louisiana, the direct dead count now stands at 902, according to state epidemiologist Raoult C. Ratard. In Mississippi, the number is 223, according to Sam L. Howell, director of the Mississippi Crime Laboratory. The Louisiana number includes out-of-state deaths, but only if the out-of-state coroners notified Louisiana, as most were doing for up to a month after the storm.
"Direct" deaths are attributable to the storm and its immediate aftermath. "Indirect" deaths, such as suicide, loss of continuity of health care and profound heartbreak are causes whose victims are unlikely to be counted by state coroners as "Katrina-related." Out-of-state deaths are most likely under-reported, too. There is also the difficult task of accounting for undocumented populations. And of course, there are the stories of killings during those initial dark days that must be either documented or dispelled -- a task that is not Mr. Mutter's, surely, but one that only investigative reporters seem interested in pursuing.
While no one is guaranteed an extra day's life on this earth, there are certainly deaths that appear to be exacerbated, if not outright caused by Katrina-related factors. Researchers can later subdivide the groups by causation; in the meantime, Dr. Mutter strives to create the most comprehensive list possible. If you know someone who should be included on this list, or if you have any questions or information to share, you may contact Dr. Mutter at the address below:
Dr. John C. Mutter
Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
405 Low Library
Columbia University in the City of New York
535 W. 116th St. New York, 10027
Jmutter@ei.columbia.edu
Arguably, this is the sort of work that could be sponsored by an 8/29 Commission if one actually existed. But it doesn't. I'm glad and grateful that Dr. Mutter has taken it upon himself to take the lead.
]]>Mrs. Clinton and the Dying of the Dreamtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.1007182008-05-09T15:05:38-04:002008-05-17T05:12:01-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
I hope this happens soon. After the May 6th North Carolina loss and Indiana near-loss, Mrs. Clinton is still acting like the gambler who is willing to bet everything on the smallest sliver of chance, even if that "everything" is her fortune, her reputation, and the futures of all of us who ache for a fresh start after the lies, criminality and incompetence of the last seven years.
In the Hollywood Screenplay, Mrs. Clinton's refusal to give up would make her the heroine. Her city may be burning to the ground by her own fire, but she is still standing glorious, tenacious. The only problem is, the rest of us aren't in that shot -- we're back at our houses, trying to save them from fiery destruction.
For the past year, Democrats have wrestled with the question: could there be another way? Many of us have answered yes, with Barack Obama. We believe there must be a way to win American elections with some degree of our integrity and dignity in tact, that we can win without aping the worst traits of our opponents.
Regardless, I mourn the dying of Mrs. Clinton's dream. We project ourselves onto these candidates, and I have long admired how Mrs. Clinton has relied on her own personal powers to imagine outcomes for herself new and unseen, pushing ahead with her visions when those around her might have counseled caution, or, not so nicely, told her she didn't have a chance.
Simply put: I love how Mrs. Clinton dreams, and has had the audacity to believe in her dreams. The kind of thing she and her husband criticized Barack Obama and his supporters for, yes. But as we know, criticism is so often autobiography.
For those of us who have pursued dreams, no matter how modest, we look at Mrs. Clinton and we get it. Or, I get it. I can understand how things go wrong. I know that I have criticized Mrs. Clinton for traits I've most feared in myself: an inability to admit my faults; a stubbornness that becomes brittle; a fear of being around too many people who don't share my goals, for fear that they be derailed. I feel I understand how powerful people can become steamrollers, trusting in their vision above all else, for resistance in any form -- helpful or hurtful -- is only felt as death to the dream.
If she were running against McCain already, I would applaud, celebrate, even lionize her never-say-die approach. However, she's running against the rest of her party -- her extended political family. Mrs. Clinton is acting as if she doesn't win now, there will be no tomorrow, and that simply is not true. There is a tomorrow -- whether she achieves this ultimate power or not. And because of this, she has no right to be so reckless with our future.
I remember after college dating a young man who lived in England while I lived in DC. We were very much in love, and felt the need to prove it by talking on the phone everyday. We took turns calling each other. I had budgeted $200 a month for telephone calls, which given my modest salary, was a lot, but I felt a worthy sacrifice for love. He was living at home at the time, and made an even more modest salary than I did. Yet, he still called me. For long periods of time. This caused big problems in his household. His mother would sit him down and tell him that he simply couldn't bankrupt the family just because he wanted to talk to his girlfriend, no matter how much we loved each other, no matter how much we felt we had to prove it with calls.
This is a simple anecdote, yet I connect it with Mrs. Clinton and her campaign. She is bleeding not just her family's wealth, but the party's chances in November. Just because she wants something badly does not give her justification to do anything necessary to get it, especially when the majority of voters so far choose someone else.
I do not believe Mrs. Clinton is a carbon copy of George Bush or Dick Cheney. She has aped some of their ways, but she is not the same. Unlike our current leaders, I believe she has a deep sense of the greater good. Now, this is her opportunity to prove her own mettle, her own depth of character. To do so, she will have to trust the unknown, like she always has, like she's never done before.
The dream may be dying. But there is no reason that this must be her last dream. Death may be about finality, but it is also about new beginnings. ]]>Obama and the Greatest Salve of All: Truthtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.921692008-03-18T16:08:00-04:002008-03-28T05:12:01-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
Then came Obama. He has shown us that a Democrat can be a strong contender without being a chest-beating poseur, without losing connection to what is true about himself as a man in this world. In this race he has shown no signs of shapeshifting -- he continues to be a man who brings people to the table. As a communicator, Obama is brave enough to speak truth and to speak it clearly and judiciously, when a thousand political know-it-alls would tell him to hedge and deflect, hedge and deflect.
This brings us to this morning, and the anticipated speech on race and his response to Rev. Wright. I read the transcript first. I read it and thought, wow, he's about to spend 30+ minutes speaking like a normal, learned human being, as if he were still a law professor with the mission to spread understanding as opposed to a politician who wants simply to push our buttons, and to do so without resorting to the usual codes and vagaries. When does this ever happen when race is discussed at the presidential podium? The speech already read like something extraordinary, and he hadn't even gave it yet.
Then he delivered.
At first, I worried that the speech would be too long. But holy cow, the energetic throughline -- I was startled the first time the audience broke into applause, because my attention wasn't faltering. He was speaking clearly and powerfully, straight to me, to us, from his head and from his heart. He did so for over 30 minutes, uninterrupted, on American and international airwaves. He spoke about the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, the ways, large and small, that black Americans have been cut down at the knees, and he did so in a reasoned way, as opposite to demagoguery as I've ever heard. He kept weaving between the personal and the political, and doing so without attempts to manipulate, just to illuminate, to offer us his truths and let us decide for ourselves.
Wow, I kept thinking. This much honesty x this much viewership=never happens!
He spoke of his white grandmother, of the great love they had for each other. But he also acknowledged that she feared the black men she saw on the streets, and that she was capable of saying hurtful, ignorant things about racial groups. Yes, I wanted to scream out loud: this is how people are! We are walking wonders of cognitive dissonance and beautiful contradiction! Creatures that can love one moment and fear the next. And thank you, Candidate Obama, for showing that you can still be a contender without throwing overboard every person who says something harmful to your political chances, that you can offer the reasons you disagree, without acting like a man who has been important in your life is suddenly dead to you.
Leading to what particularly moved me this morning, Obama's refusal to disown Reverend Wright. "As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me," said Obama. "He contains within him the contradictions -- the good and the bad -- of the community that he has served so diligently for so many years." After telling us why he found several of Wright's statements hurtful, he declared, with a steady and strong voice: "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community."
To stand up for the truth, the truth of his experience, before those bright white lights, in front of those flags, and to do so at a time when all the levers of federal power are within his grasp, to not choke, to be strong, to be a unafraid: this is a profile in courage.
And then, Obama does what he does so powerfully: he shows his deep empathy and understanding for those who have not walked in his shoes. He talks of how almost all Americans have had to struggle hard, and how in this fight for survival one can forget the privilege they have in the culture -- for what good does white skin do if you can't pay your kid's hospital bills?
Now, the games begin: the spinning and the parsing, some organically connected to what he said, and much that will just be sheer offense, the political communicators bent on taking him down by any means necessary. Regardless, we should all be thrilled that for one window in time, a presidential candidate was fearless enough to insert eight pages of honest, thoughtful argument into the record, and in doing so honored suffering with the greatest salve of all: truth. Because whether or not we agree with each others' statements, we must take the time to understand where we're coming from, or we're doomed to be locked in perpetual conflict.]]>The Latest Obama Distortion: Cult Figuretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.860632008-02-11T14:27:45-05:002008-03-28T02:48:23-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/NYT, Paul Krugman writes about the "bitterness" of the Democratic nomination fight, writing that he feels that the most "venom" comes from the pro-Obama voices. He goes on to say that Obama supporters "want their hero or nobody" and that the "Obama campaign is seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality."
Our hero or nobody? A cult of personality? Let's take a moment to deconstruct.
Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly tried to diminish the differences between her and her opponents. This Obama supporter isn't buying it. When it comes to policy proposals, the differences may be small. However, many of us look at these two candidates and see two different people, two different histories, two different approaches to governance. Why do we sense this? Because yes, these two candidates have different personalities. Personality is not just about being the fun guy to have a beer with. It runs deeper. We are not wrong to assess one's personality when assessing a candidate, because one's personality says much about how he or she will do the job.
Obama has an open, humble, flexible sort of brilliance that portends that he will bring amazing knowledge to the Oval Office, but will always remain open to ideas that don't fit in the preconceived framework of what is right and wrong. He does not give the sense that he already knows all there is to know, like she often does. He appears to have a different character--a personality that many of us believe would make him better suited for the presidency. Yet we point this out, and suddenly our concerns are written off as hero worship, the stuff of cults.
Cults. Yes. "Cult of personality" is great phrasing for them, no? If a voter isn't really familiar with the idea, they hear that word "cult" and they're thinking David Koresh. They think: dark, secret, and manipulative. Maybe even sleeper--an above-board way to conjure up all these fears those Muslim-baiting emails did. "Cult of personality" asserts that no *rational* person could rationally choose between Obama and Clinton.
But that's the thing: many of us do. And we first did so when the easy thing would have been to ride the Clinton train. But we chose not to. Not because we think Obama's the messiah--quite the contrary. We think he's a voice of reason, in a time when the presumptive nominee, the one we were told was inevitable, exhibited Bush-lite tendencies, going along with the Iran warmongering, refusing to apologize for her Iraq vote. We watch as every day she changes, constantly micro-calibrating her appeal with only one goal in mind: to win. The changes don't feel like evolution because they feel disconnected from the authentic person inside. There is nothing wrong with fighting hard, or wanting to win. But when it's always tactics above principle, there's a problem.
As Maureen Dowd pointed out last week, I feel that the Clintons and many of their operatives and surrogates have learned the wrong lessons from the 80s and 90s. We can frame issues, and our opponents, without resorting to untruthful distortions. Obama's campaign is not a Jackson campaign. People who criticize Clinton are not automatically Clinton-haters. People who wildly support Obama have not necessarily succumbed to a cult of personality. Many of us support Obama because we trust that he can be competitive without relying on these kinds of distortions. Framing is about focusing the eye. It need not be a lie.
As critical as I've been sometimes of Maureen Dowd's coverage of our presidents and the candidates, I think that she reveals something that is an eternal truth: character matters. How people approach their work, and their life, says something about the outcomes we can expect. We have had a long time now to see Mrs. Clinton in action, and to make our judgments on who would better represent us here and abroad. Don't write off our desires as cultish. Just because Obama's success gives us joy, does not mean our support is not girded by reason.
]]>Obama and the Rush of the Pendulum Swingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.849802008-02-04T22:20:15-05:002008-03-28T02:48:16-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
Look at yourself: you are the sum of all that you've lived and learned up until this point. What we did yesterday, what we experienced in our mothers' arms or at her table affects us today, and helps shape not just our physical reality, but how we perceive that reality. Call it karma, or just the energy flows resultant of millions upon millions of decisions, but actions that we and others have done in the past plant the seeds for our today and tomorrows.
Now, consider the Bush/Cheney years. These seven+ years of deep, down darkness. A time that so many of us fell into some degree of hopelessness or despair, feeling that the power they wielded was insurmountable. They spoke their Big Lies. They disregarded our laws with impunity. Their visions were Potemkin, but they were sturdy, and too many Americans were struggling too hard to spend much energy worrying about something they feel they are unable to change.
Cut to Obama, Super Tuesday.
Hear that sound? Yes, that's the whoosh of a rising tide. But that may also be the sound of the mighty pendulum, swinging back from that deep, dark place. I would argue that it went so far in one direction, it now swings back with a force strong enough to deliver us into a reality that a year ago, seemed the stuff of impossible dreams.
If we had had a relatively weak and moderate Bush administration, the American people might not be ready for something so "radical" as a black president, no matter how compelling and competent his candidacy. Since we Dems need a "winner," a black candidate would be too risky -- too much too soon. But after seven years of living with Bush shame, enough of us have been radicalized enough to step out of the fear that a black man is unelectable, and say, you know what, I'm going to embrace the best person for the job, no matter if I think the average Joe may be a closet racist.
That maybe, just maybe, the Bush years were so bad, that our desperation for a new start is so strong that we're willing to transcend our own fears -- especially our fears of each other -- and embrace someone our inner political know-it-all says is an unsure bet.
I'm not a prognosticator, and I can't see into the hearts of men. But I do feel that it is because of the brutality and criminality of these past eight years that I feel that if given the choice, many Americans could be inspired, and/or convinced, to do the positive, progressive thing.
Many of us have said over and over that the more people get to know Obama, the more they believe that he's the one. Let America get to know Obama in the same way the early primary/caucus states have, the way that those of us who have been paying attention have been able to do. We have nearly the whole year to get the rest of America acquainted with Obama. Once they do, I'm confident that majorities in the states we need to win will agree that its time to turn the page, and elect Barack Obama as president.
Don't get me wrong: I don't expect Obama to be a miracle-worker. However, there is a window open that wasn't open before. I believe that this man can keep this window open longer than Mrs. Clinton can. We need a window like this to push through any major legislative change. More importantly, we need a candidate like this who can finally call on us to do more as a people than to simply shop away our problems. We need a candidate, who with one simple vote on our part, can repudiate so much that was Bush-Cheney, and allow us to start again.]]>When Jail is the Price of Freedom: A Reality Check, Courtesy of MLKtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.824952008-01-21T13:22:44-05:002008-03-28T02:48:13-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
But there I was last summer, having a shift of consciousness right in front of this "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." If this had been a play, I'd have pooh-poohed the staging as too obvious. Why? Because I have a fear of being imprisoned. Or more to the point, I fear what can happen to you once imprisoned--once someone decides you're subhuman, or they want something from you that you can't possibly give. I've feared this for a long time. I've never been imprisoned before. Yet I live with this fear, and I brought it, full-grown, on my trip south to Mississippi.
I spent most of summer 2007 in New Albany, birthplace of Faulkner. Some of my friends and family were freaked out when I told them of my plans; say "Mississippi" and many conjure up the worst sort of violence and backwards thought. I had positive travel experiences there before, so I expected to be OK. And I was--I experienced only the warmest of hospitality from all whom I encountered. I lived with the grandmother-in-law of my college friend Becky. Miss Elizabeth (90, white, wise as she is elegant, with an "I Miss Bill" sticker on the car she still drives) would take me around and introduce me to her friends in town. I felt roundly welcomed.
Despite this, my fear of jail was never far from my mind. I was a young woman of color traveling alone. I drove an oldish black pick-up truck (Tuffy!) that kept threatening to die on me. My registration had expired; I needed to get to Texas to renew and that couldn't happen until I received a certain check--a long way of saying that it would take some weeks before I got sorted. In Michigan, an expired registration would get you a ticket. But down there, and a stranger in town...I knew an expired license could have you brought in. If I broke down, or got pulled over, would I be arrested, too? With no extensive network of local connections, how vulnerable would I be?
I lucked out: 3000 miles of travel and no breakdowns/incidents. But my fear of jail lived on. This fear was not just about "southern justice" or the lack thereof. It was a deep sensing that the "equal protection under the law" that I took for granted up North just wasn't as strong there--that the local power structures were more powerful than any federal or even statewide systems, and if I found myself on the wrong side of one of its enforcers, I was in trouble.
This all may sound master of the obvious, or, paranoid, but I've spent many years running around with a sense of bulletproof obliviousness to my true circumstances. I used to do presidential advance work overseas. By definition, you're supposed to be fearless. But often, this fearlessness is just stupidity. I think of the way we used jump into vans chauffeured by foreign drivers and race along mountain roads, laughing at the way our driver would cut people off, how close we seemed to crashing, no one even bothering to put on a seatbelt as if this were all a dream sequence with a guaranteed ending. We thought we were so protected--by our bosses, by our passports, by the USG. However, once I lived abroad, and actually started to soak in the dangers of my new home (Abuja, Nigeria) I vowed to myself to do my best to respect my situations, to see things as clearly as possible, so I wouldn't end up with ugly surprises that could have been avoided.
Ugly surprise-in-point: jail. I used to be quite vocal about this fear. On my last advance trip for President Clinton, in New Orleans in November 2006, I joked with the secret service agents, telling them I feared New Orleans' notorious Orleans Parish Prison (OPP). Growing up in Michigan, I never knew of any place as reportedly dungeon-like as OPP. Get picked up in suburban Troy and something tells me that the holding cell would smell as clean as a mopped classroom. But in OPP, I'd heard about roaches, spiders, and rats running rampant in the stinking heat--the stuff of living nightmare given my major bug phobias. (Don't ask how I survived the Gulf Coast South--I just did.)
I'd heard that anyone and everyone could end up at OPP--forget to pay a ticket and you could end up sharing an overcrowded holding cell with the roughest of New Orleans' criminals (and bugs). I remember how the secret service agents looked at me when I voiced my fear. One of them was like, what would you do to end up there? And I wanted to say, look, maybe for you guys in law enforcement, you with power strapped to your waists, it never occurs to you that you might not be on the giving end of order(s). But for those of us who have a healthy respect for the fact that fortunes do reverse, shit does happen, or worse, people do get targeted, it can't help but blow this Northern girl's mind that a missed ticket could lead her to a night of hell.
[I later came to learn that in New Orleans, you're supposed to know a judge--that a judge can get you out of OPP lickety-split. I never met a judge, but I did have an agent friend who promised me she outranked all the OPP guys, so I was not to worry. Still, I did.]
However, on that overcast July day in Memphis, I didn't have jail on my mind. I was too stunned by the sight of the Lorraine Motel, looking as it purportedly did on the day of Dr. King's murder 40 years ago (the rest of the museum was built around and into motel structure). A wreath marked the spot on the balcony where he fell. Others walked with me, their reverent, sad silence mixed with the squeals of kids coming in groups, coming with families, coming to learn about this man who has his own day, and his own street, in every city of the land.
I spent a long time inside the museum, reading many of the papers on display, doing the winding through that can feel like being herded, but helps the journey become even more experiential.
Then I came upon the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" display. There was a full-scale model of his jail cell. This has its own drama, of course. But I was pulled more into the text of the words hung on the wall. As I read, I felt two feelings: awe and shame. I felt the awe I had for his bravery grow with intensity. But suddenly, I felt shame for spending all this time tending to my fear of imprisonment. Not that jail shouldn't be feared, but the fact is, so many activists and everyday people before me swallowed those fears and walked facefirst into the fire. 40 years later, I sit here reaping the benefits. I live a life of relative freedom, mobility and peace. So much so, that I can travel the world as a representative of the American president. So much so, I can drive around the American South, relatively safe, uneasy not because I've been threatened, but because I'm so good at conjuring worst case scenarios. The progress is so utterly palpable.
I usually never think of shame as a healthy emotion, but I am grateful for the wake-up call I felt that day. Common people, like me, like you, went to jail. That was the cost. They paid it. So while I will keep my respect for the jailhouse, thank you very much, I realize that for all of us, as we fight against injustice, this may be the price we pay, too. I need to be zen about this possibility. Whether I will remains to be seen. But I did have an attitude adjustment that day, next to Dr. King's jail cell. So on this day, let me say thank you, Dr. King, for continuing to teach us by not only your powerful words, but by your mighty, mighty example. ]]>How Do You Heal a Broken Heart? Thoughts on Trusting Obama's Successtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.805122008-01-08T15:58:00-05:002008-03-28T02:48:10-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
I work for a university. One joy of doing so is being surrounded by smart, politically-engaged colleagues. The downside is that it's easy, in times like now, to spend work hours caught up in the campaign excitement. I was trying, for at least a few hours, to have an "Obama-free-zone."
No avail. From 9:30am until 3:30pm, 90% of my email traffic was Obama v HRC. My friends wanted to talk. I wanted to talk. Click on Drudge. Click on The Page. Of course, click on HuffPo. I was getting work done. But only in-between poll updates, and new takes on HRC's near-tears.
So when some of my colleagues started talking about Obama, and about his chances, I tried to tune them out. But it was hard. One young black woman spoke of how she didn't quite trust the Iowa results alone, that she would have to see what happened in New Hampshire. Another colleague agreed. There was some back and forth about how Iowa is not the end all/be all of indicators. But the bottom line was this: they just didn't trust that middle America, when Obama morphs from novelty to nominee, would maintain their support. Once colleague cited examples of white people she knew who once were rabid supporters of Obama only to now "suddenly" succumb to arguments of his relative inexperience.
I couldn't stay silent. I turned around and said look, sometimes, you can't just wait and see. You have to step out in support of your candidate. That the very act of stepping up for him is positive pro-action that changes the game. My other colleague retorted that while she respected my opinions, she had a right to be cautious. (And for this colleague in particular, Obama is simply not her first choice.)
However, at a visceral level, the caution argument frustrates me. For those of us open to supporting Obama, but feel we must wait and see, I'm afraid that doing so could lead us to miss our moment. As Obama himself says often, we don't have a right to be tired (or for that matter, passive).
Yet, the caution runs deep.
I am black. Or, as I can say now in 2008, I am mixed-race who identifies as black, and is usually only assumed to be black in parts of the South used to mulattas like me. While I've never been the victim of violent or persistent racism, I have felt the pain of exclusion based on my otherness having grown up as a brown girl in working-class ethnic white suburbs of Detroit. I have also been present to a million dunderheaded racist comments, and subjected to God knows how many assumptions that either due to my race, gender, or both, I'm not someone to be taken seriously.
However, it is only in my adulthood do I fully understand that due to the time and place of my birth, and the fact that my features are such that people think I'm Indian/Greek /Middle Eastern/almost anything before they think Black, I have not felt the boot on the neck (or to the body) that many other black folks have. As I move through the world, I feel like I encounter more cooperation than I do conflict. And if not cooperation -- at least not open hostility. These days, weird racial moments are only on occasion -- not the drip drip kick that others' live with everyday. As of 2008, I have not had trust, or hope, sapped out of me by outsiders, or by family members thinking they're doing me a favor by breaking me first.
So perhaps this makes me more like some of my progressive white friends who are willing to bet everything on Obama. Like the cat that has nine lives, maybe society has left me with a few yet to spend. I don't know.
The question of black reluctance takes me back to one of my first Katrina oral history interviews. I work on a Katrina oral history project. A few weeks after the storm I was the large clearinghouse in Houston where evacuees could come for state and charitable assistance. I asked another young black woman if she would speak with me. She agreed. Towards the end of the interview, I asked her what her dreams were for the future. She looked down and said that she doesn't dream, so she won't be disappointed.
I felt hit by a punch. I wasn't just sad -I was shocked. I'd never felt so insulated in a frame of mind before. All my life I've been a goal-setter surrounded by other goal-setters -- no matter the socio-economic background. But when I think of this young woman now, I can understand why so many black people, disappointed over and over again by the public process, may be reluctant to step forward and put their hopes (or stake their political futures) on a risky candidate.
To the weary, I ask them to consider this: Iowa was a public process. A majority of Iowans stood up in front of their friends, their neighbors, and absolute strangers and said Obama is our man. They did this across the state. Maybe some of them were even being happily PC about it -- making a public stand about who they are, what they believe in, and what America should be about, post-Bush administration. And you know what? Fine. Let some of Obama's support come from people making a stand. That's just as good a motivation as any, as far as I'm concerned, for the caucuses are just that: public performances. Performances that resulted in this critical consequence: they gave heart to those in New Hampshire and across the country that Americans won't just talk lip-service about Obama, but they will stand with him. That he indeed offers the strongest brand of leadership: the kind that inspires a wide swath of us to get out of our seats and do something.
So, how do you heal a broken heart? God if I know. I do know that even if your heart has known the blades of a Cuisinart, you have to be brave enough to get out there and try again. If you don't, you're choosing to live in fear and you're choosing to settle for less. ]]>The Quick Fix for Clinton that Might Actually Helptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.801122008-01-06T20:18:00-05:002008-03-28T02:48:07-04:00Stacy Parker Aabhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/
It's simple. Tonight, find a way a way to be humble. If you can, find a way to admit to a mistake. Go so far as to actually admit that you lost in Iowa, but that you *learned* from the experience. That voters told you something you actually heard.
Let me ask you: are you irritated by all those people who keep calling on you to show some vulnerability? At first I was annoyed, too. But now, I think I know what they mean. They don't want you to cry. They don't want you to be submissive or weak. They want you to show us that you know how to own your mistakes, to take responsibility the times you do less than well.
Your world is not going to fall apart if you do this. I promise. We all promise. And if it does, maybe this just isn't the job for you. The guy we have right now can't admit to mistakes, and no one thinks the job is for him either.
Unfortuantely though, if today's Note is any indication, humility doesn't seem to be on tonight's menu. When talking about your Iowa defeat, you didn't seem interested in acknowledging either culpability or lessons learned:
"The bruised-but-not-beaten narrative would seem to be the favorite storyline -- but Sen. Clinton isn't leading with humility. Rather than acknowledge defeat and say she's learning from the licks she's taken, she's...slamming Iowa? Imagine how badly Clinton would have lost the caucuses if these sentences were uttered 24 hours earlier: "You're not disenfranchised if you work at night," she said of the New Hampshire primary. "You're not disenfranchised if you're not in the state."
If somehow you learned in your youth that apology = weakness, please, de-learn this. Fake it if you have to. We're on our eighth year of this. The least we can expect from our leadership is a little humility, because no matter how smart and experienced they are, they are still human, they are still flawed, and the universe is going to find ways to stump them, maybe even knock them out.
Last February, William Saletan wrote a powerful piece outlining your apology problem. His piece was primarily about your refusal to apologize for your Senate resolution vote authorizing force in Iraq, ultimately comparing you to George Bush. His conclusion was pretty withering:
"Voters just repudiated a president who thinks that stubbornness is responsibility and that admitting mistakes is groveling. The way to act responsibly is not to act like him. It also happens to be the way to get elected. And if you don't understand the former, you don't deserve the latter."
Media Matters took interest in Chris Matthew's curious insistence that you refuse to apologize for fear of gender-based attacks. If that's true, you need to jump over that shadow pronto. You should know by now that *no one* thinks of you as some ditzy, dithering, weak-willed woman. Right now, you come off as mighty stubborn. And no matter how much we may be in agreement with many of your objectives, that stubbornness, that freight train one-way energy, that "you're either with us or against us" sabotages working relationships with other decision-makers, and clogs up your ability to take in new, vital information at critical points in time.
In my experience, the problem with people who know "everything" is that because they know "everything," they'll see the cliff ahead and keep on chugging because all their beautiful learned calculations say stay the course. The cliff may be fully visible, but that same beautiful mind will excuse the cliff away as immaterial -- and shush away well-meaning calls of warning. And there they go: chug, chug, chug right over the cliff. Problem is that when you're president, you take us all with you.]]>