But this time, apparently, someone has gone too far, Mellencamp. Or as McMillin put it to the AP:

“The town of Jena has for months been mischaracterized in the media and portrayed as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied,” Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin wrote in a statement on town letterhead faxed on Friday to The Associated Press.

He said he had previously stayed quiet, hoping that the town’s courtesy to people who have visited over the past year would speak for itself. “However, the Mellencamp video is so inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough.”

I have to say, I think Electronic Village‘s headline on its own Mellencamp/Jena story puts it best (thanks AfAm Political Pundit):

“Lyrics Anger Jena Mayor More Than Nooses Ever Did”

Mellencamp’s video, meanwhile, is pretty interesting as a memory exercise, stringing together a series of highly recognizable images associated with slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement. I must say, at first I had wished it could work a little harder, though I’m not sure what “harder” would look like. But it is especially good in the way it historicizes Jena as contemporary event in a long chain of other events, and that is actually extremely important.

After all, many of the video’s images are “recognizable,” but would they have been “remembered” without the song? Thank you, Mellencamp, for reminding us to remember.

The song’s opening lines, “An all white jury hides the executioner’s face / See how we are, me and you?” are also quite compelling, if only because in today’s world it is especially brave to ever consciously racialize anything, particularly race. I hear in these lines Down with Tyranny‘s claim that “Many of [Mellencamp's] most inspired songs are patriotic in the finest sense of the word, celebrating the inclusiveness and unity that brings people together,” for such coming together is impossible in the absence of responsibility.

And that is not to say that Mellencamp, or anyone white for that matter, is supposed to take responsibility for the events that took place in Jena, Louisiana. But, at the same time, if you have even a nascent sense that the Jena 6 case is about something bigger, for instance the pervasiveness of racism, particularly in relation to the justice system, then you must indeed take responsibility for acts done in your name. There is an eerie splitting in the first line of Mellencamp’s song; the jury is not the executioner, but they, consciously or unconsciously, give him harbor, give him safety in their blindness to their own “all-whiteness” and what that might conjure–to themselves and to others.

I am reminded of something I was thinking during the Tintin controversy earlier this year, which I read as being as much about complicity as it was about empathy. As I said then, this isn’t only about you as a white person, it is also about me as a black person. And if you imagine that we must both live in this country as people, then my feelings should be important to you.

Feelings. There is a vague tenderness in the second line, “see how we are, me and you?” Who doesn’t want to stay out of harm’s way? Who ever wants to think badly of himself, or to see some uncanny potential in one’s own actions– to recognize harm that might come regardless of intention? Who wants to be that small or to feel such powerlessness?

We are small, and I include myself in this. But we can be bigger, which is why singing and blogging and marching and talking and thinking are so important. Even though every act might not necessarily lead to an immediately palpable result, it is important to shake our bodies and voices, to remind ourselves and others that we are agents, for better or for worse.

Mellencamp’s attempt to reveal the executioner’s face also reminds of another famous protest song, Bob Dylan’s anti-war song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”:

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’,
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’,
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Here is the Mellencamp video, followed by the lyrics. Mellencamp has also released a statement on the video, which you can catch here:

“Jena”
Written by John Mellencamp

An all white jury hides the executioner’s face
See how we are, me and you?
Everyone here needs to know their place
Let’s keep this blackbird hidden in the flue

Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Take your nooses down

So what becomes of boys that cannot think straight
Particularly those with paper bag skin
Yes sir, no sir we’ll wipe that smile right off your face
We’ve got our rules here and you must fit in

Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Take your nooses down

Some day some way sanity will prevail
But who knows when that day might come
A shot in the dark, well it just might find its way
To the hearts of those that hold the keys to kingdom come

Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Take those nooses down

Oh oh hey Jena
Oh oh Jena
Oh oh Jena
Take your nooses down

Take those nooses all down

(c) 2007 John Mellencamp

I have been trying to decide if these are the most disgusting people on earth, because this really is the stuff of nightmares. We all talk about racism, and hate, and the persistence of our violent national past, but this is nonetheless an exemplary crime. Not unimaginable in its occurrence, but, still, the worse of the worse: a group of people who kidnapped a black woman, with no intention but to harm, degrade, and destroy. Leonard Codispoti, the local Magistrate in this jurisdiction,

“It was the worst case of human abuse I have seen since I have been a magistrate.

“Something like this is so horrifying it makes you want to puke. They got this girl out of Charleston and took her to Big Creek, threw her in a shack, raped and stabbed her, put a rope around her neck, made her eat animal feces and did other horrifying things to her” (Charleston Daily Mail, hat tip to Rikyrah).

And, I must say, I am a little bit surprised at how slowly the national has been on the story, despite pretty heavy coverage in the southeast. The AP only put out a video today (below), and Reuters hasn’t gone near it. CNN was shying away, though the story did eventually appear on CNN international. (In case you didn’t get the memo, outside the U.S., all the “news” is different. Even on CNN!) And indeed, why talk about a real sexual assault when we can instead obsess over Vanessa Hudgens in the nude? Why talk about a hate crime when we can instead debate Michael Vick’s racial victimhood?

My guess– and yes I am being snarky but I also really believe it– my guess is that as the defendants become more recognizable and categorizable as monsters, as exceptions, the story will spread. Until then, a slow burn, because the story is too ugly, too painful, and too real.

I struggled with putting their pictures on my site. Even though I think of my site as a space I share with you, a public space, even looking makes me feel dirty. So how to talk? More later.

Dad:”How’d he get such a big ring?” (NCAA’s gonna get him.)

Me:“Ohh, don’t just up and marry the cheerleader; you’re like 15!” (Momma’s gonna get him.)

husband:“I can’t believe Boise won!” (he’s from Boise, so he was actually watching the game.)

all of us: don’t do this on TV! (bad is gonna get him.)

Common sense says, “feel dread.” After that, I try to move on to other feelings, like ickiness from the goo factor (I guess he wouldn’t have proposed if they had lost?), or maybe snarkiness at how many black pro-athletes have white wives. Most likely, I would try to return to my general disinterest in football, since my attention was only caught by the proposal.

But once the dread is there, it will be there until something proves it wrong, because it is old and big, a mountain of “social baggage” (see article below), raining down bags of other people’s shit.

According to one site:

The pair is to be married Saturday in Boise but Johnson told the Idaho Statesman this week he and Popadics have received threats, which led to an increase of security personnel for the occasion.

According to Brian Grummell at Fanhouse, Johnson has stated that, ahead of his nuptials tomorrow,

“You take it for what it is — the less educated, the less willing to change,” Johnson told the Statesman. “But we’re not acting like we’re naive to all the stuff that’s going on. We know what’s been said. We’re going to make sure we’re safe at all times. It’s an amazing day for us, and we’d hate to have it ruined by someone.”

You see, that’s what I get. First I was all irritated with him (for his own good!) for being so naïve, and now I am sad that the naïveté is gone.

Hey, an update!I’ve added a news item on their wedding, below.

Also, CNN-SI had this story, which is pretty damn cute.

Apparently the wedding began with a prayer to end prejudice and ended with a broom-jumping.How new millennium young love is that?

Via Racialicious, I found this article at the L.A. Times, regarding Edith Isabel Rodriguez’s death at the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital:

… the existence of a security videotape showing the woman writhing for 45 minutes on the floor of the emergency room lobby and the public release this week of two 911 calls in which witnesses unsuccessfully pleaded with sheriff’s dispatchers for help.The case — first reported by The L.A. Times — has crystallized people’s fears that even in their most desperate moments, the emergency system won’t take them seriously.

Indeed. Though it’s interesting that the LAT story, as well as others I have looked at, take the angle that Rodriguez’s death is about a failure in the U.S. healthcare system. I won’t dispute that, but it is also important to recognize that this isn’t something that could “happen to anyone”; it’s not, as Arthur Caplan is quoted as saying in the article above, about “a kind of morality tale of a society gone cold.”

The story of Edith Rodriguez’s death is a story about how people of color are treated in the American healthcare system, a system whose structural brokenness amplifies the moral and ethical emptiness with which many blacks and Latinos are treated in American social systems. That system, it is safe to say, has always been cold as ice.

You can hear the emptiness in the calls made to 911, as Ms. Rodriguez was writhing on the hospital floor, bleeding and vomiting. And you can also hear the callers hearing it– which makes an understatement out of the LAT‘s assessment of the situation as “crystallizing” people’s fears. It didn’t “crystallize,” i.e. make apparent or bring into focus. It was merely a repetition of the too-real surreality people face everyday.

Even if you’ve heard the report discussed on TV, this one is worth listening to. Many of the accounts are quite edited and I’m not even sure where CNN gets their transcripts from; they’re barely related to the original text. An abridged transcript follows (my emphasis in color):

Operator: What’s your emergency?

Caller: There’s a lady on the ground… and we’re here in the emergency room .. and they are overlooking her.

Operator: Well, what would you want me to do for you, ma’am?

Caller: Send an ambulance out here to take her somewhere where she can get medical help.

Operator: OK, you’re at the — you’re at the hospital, ma’am. You have to contact them.

Caller: They have — they have a problem. They won’t help her…

[...]

Operator: … This line is for emergency purposes only. This — 911 is used for emergency purposes only.

Caller: This is an emergency, mister.(crosstalk)Operator: It’s not an emergency. It is not an emergency, ma’am.

Caller: It is.

Operator: It is not an emergency.

Caller: You have to see how they are treating her.

Operator: OK. Well, that’s not a criminal thing. This line, 911, is used for emergency purposes only.

Caller: It is an emergency.

Operator: … life threatening emergencies. It’s not. OK?

Caller: May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted.

Operator: No, negative m’am. You’re the one.

The painful quality of this conversation. It begins with the Kafkaesque surreality of this interaction as a scene of fundamental non-communication: “It is an emergency”; “It is not an emergency,” and it deepens the symbolic weight of an already tragic death.

There is something important in this conversation about recognition, about who has authority to understand a situation, and who has the power to ignore or negate that authority. I hear this in the ways the first caller signifies the power dynamic she is experiencing. You can hear her holding her voice, trying to sound knowledgeable and official as she talks to the operator, but also using language that signifies her awareness that she and the woman dying on the floor are fundamentally unrecognizable as subjects: “they are overlooking her.” And the caller knows whom she is talking to. “This is an emergency, mister.”

He hears something in her voice too. Is it race? What in her voice tells him that he really doesn’t have to listen? That this person has nothing relevant to say or cannot possibly know what she is talking about? Maybe it’s by virtue of where the call is coming from, a poor city hospital, an emergency room qua primary care facility, supposedly filled with people lacking wherewithal, lacking knowledge.

His condescension, cloaked and bathed in protocol, is in the “OK, you’re at… the hospital,” and his authority is implicit in the “OK. Well, that’s not a criminal thing“– which comes in response to the caller’s insistence that she who is present, not he who is not, knows and understands what is happening in this moment. Speaking on the problem of representing traumatic events, the holocaust scholar Dori Laub once noted that many situations we might think of as crises in witnessing– meaning that we aren’t getting testimony that really presents an event properly– instead constitute crises in listening. People are signifying, but we don’t recognize it, and thus don’t hear it.

I am not suggesting that the operator should be anything but official and professional, but here there is something specific in that tone. It’s hard to hear it if you aren’t used to hearing it. The caller is familiar, and it sets her off.

I am sure the 911 operator was shocked when the curse came: “May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted.” Her “too” is broad, aligning the operator with the dominant power structure that has brought them all to this tragedy. Who knows what race he is, but the operator is speaking through and for a kind of power. Tellingly, after her curse his diction switches more fully into a language of structural authority, “No, negative ma’am. You’re the one.”

10-4 ma’am. I don’t hear you.

I am reminded of when I was in labor with my son (you know, the one stolen by Sanjaya Malakar’s sister). It was after midnight on a Sunday, and the anesthesiologist, white and grumpy, was clearly irritated with my needing him, or rather, needing my epidural. He was cold and rough with me. Not rough like mean but rough like I was meat, which is worse.

The nurse, who was black, noticed this, and said something like, Marisa here is a professor at [insert fancy college name here]. It is silly, but this is information I often withhold unless relevant. I dislike giving some people the pleasure of “knowing” me, when otherwise I might well be, let’s say, invisible to them. The nurse, meanwhile, deployed it, thus assuring me better treatment.

It worked: thus informed, that ass stopped in the middle of what he was doing (i.e. preparing a needle for my spine), walked around the bed, held out his hand and introduced himself. In my affiliation I had suddenly flashed into subjecthood, transformed from she who required no recognition into she who was someone to know. To care about. To connect with.

Needless to say, we didn’t hit it off. I think my disinterest in him stressed him out.

Falwell was also so sinister because of how he cleared the space for hate “after racism.” By “after racism,” I mean that shift in our culture and political life after which outright, honest, plainspoken racism was just untenable. This created a real crisis for conservatives. Falwell and the Moral Majority made hate possible again. Or at least transformed racial hatred, giving it a code.

To me, part of what is so interesting about Falwell’s politics is the way its encoding of hate is actually quite pre-racism– if we imagine what John calls “fifties” racism as a post-civil war phenomenon. Prior to emancipation, racial difference was already heavily encoded as that which exemplifies all that is hateable. Slaves were simply thus slaves because they were not the chosen.

What we think of as racism today, however, is heavily influenced by the rhetoric of the civil rights movement, for instance describing racism as the denial of rights justified by skin color. The CRM took the humanity of blacks as a given, and moved the conversation to the question of rights and privileges. By helping America forget that language, the CRM trumped slavery’s rhetoric of blacks as the explicitly unchosen. I’m not saying it went away; I’m just saying that that way of thinking about race fell out of public consciousness.

By reinvigorating the language of being chosen, Falwell’s ministry “avoids” racism by taking away intent. We aren’t racist/homophobic/sexist, they might say, because we don’t have any intent against “them.” It’s not our fault that they don’t do what it takes (e.g. renouncing homosexuality) or have what it takes to be chosen too.”

Free from intent and thus released from any sense of culpability, hate is unmitigated by any sense of relation. There is something of the fallen, from the social fabric and even from the religion it professes, that makes Falwell and his ilk very, very scary to me.

Last weekend, on the bucolic Quad at Harvard University–typically, the site of a casual game of Ultimate, or perhaps an afternoon reading of some Shakespearean sonnets before English class-an unusual and, to some, frightening scene was played out. There were people throwing things! And running! And jumping! And most scary of all, every single one of them was black. So the Harvard students watching from their dormitory windows, growing increasingly agitated at the sights below, did what any normal, white Harvard student would do when they saw a large, seemingly unruly group of black people: They called the cops!

Uhm, what?

And here is some reporting from The Harvard Crimson:

Bryan C. Barnhill II ’08, president of the BMF, said that police officers asked the students whether they had a permit to be on the field, and left after students explained that they had gained permission.

Barnhill said that many of the participants had been wearing Harvard paraphernalia and the event had been approved by all the Quad House masters. He said the call to HUPD was “disturbing” because of the “assumption that we didn’t belong there.”

Seguing from one of our discussions in the last weeks of classes, I found this story particularly striking. Of course the students who called would never call it racism, because we still often think racism only has meaning in overt violence. It also speaks to how our ideas of race and racial meaning are tied to space: unexpectedly present on the Quad, those black students were not perceived as being the right bodies in the right space at the right time.

But, of course, they are students, meaning they were exactly the right people in their rightful place in the school’s historical and metaphorical center. And it is racist to assume they are in the wrong place, no matter how unfamiliar the scene may seem. If their appearance had been contextualized as a “black event” that everyone knew about, the response may have been the opposite; it’s so great they’re here! But don’ t they too have a right to their randomness? Or is that still a luxury for people of color?

And it is interesting, no? The students on the Quad say that many of them were wearing Harvard clothing. What would it mean to look right at them, but nevertheless manage not to see them as they are? Just kind of being there, playing dodgeball and capture-the-flag; could you get a more Seventh Heaven vision of college?

This is like some post-King, “hey weren’t you going to vote Obama for president?” page out of Ralph Ellison’s prologue to Invisible Man!

But really, Barnhill puts it best:

“In this day and age, racism rears its ugly face in ways that are much more subtle,” he said.

“We just want to show that subtle forms of racism exist, such as seeing a group of black people on Harvard property and assuming they don’t belong there,” he added.

Oh, and by the way, I know Gawker is just being snippy, which is the kind of thing I want from them, but this time, doesn’t their title, “Blacks Terrorize Harvard Students” kinda over-reinforce the race dynamic the article is criticizing?

And the aftermath: here are two more Crimson articles, Ashton Lattimore in an opinion piece, and an Editorial letter.

O popular imagination, you give so much… but never really seem to take much away!

It’s a nice photo and video clip essay, so please check it out. Further, as a way of producing an online essay, girlpower people might also find this an appealing way to share thoughts on visual and audio culture (I am happy to show you how to make one).