We’re not going to rehash that Charlie Hebdo debate that goes nowhere about the character of satire. Either you get it or you don’t & those who do aren’t much inclined to quibble with the obtuse over whether CH’s racist pickaninny portrayal of African refugees is actually insightful social criticism. You can’t–to be frank–reason with white supremacy.

The thing about satire–the art of mockery–is that it’s so versatile. It can be lowbrow or highbrow. It can have vulgar farting & sexual bawdiness like Chaucer or picaresque fantasy & goofiness like Cervantes; it can be lacerating in social criticism like Jonathan Swift & Brian O’Nolan or completely apolitical like Month Python. It is often iconoclastic, nihilist, & cynical but it is also always funny & at its heart it is profoundly moral because it ridicules & vilifies social folly even if bereft of hope that things can ever be better.

Political cartooning is the most democratic art form, emerging in the 17th & 18th centuries with the democratic revolutions that overthrew feudalism & brought in capitalist nation-states. It’s a democratic genre because it indicates a change in power relations by the ability to lampoon power without being guillotined. The obsequious posture of serfs is replaced with the defiance & ridicule of free-born workers.

Regrettably, racist caricature has always been part of cartooning (except perhaps Daumier) because colonialism is a political feature of capitalism from its earliest days. Blacks, Jews, Arabs came in for the worst of it in European & US caricature. The simian portrayal of Irish shifted to the simian portrayal of Blacks that was used to incite violence & social hatred & stigmatizes caricature to this day–including of Obama & elite athletes. Unfortunately the racism led political cartooning to cooptation by the ruling elite so that, as an example, Dr. Seuss was drawing racist caricatures of Blacks, Arabs, & Japanese for commercial ads & WWII war propaganda.

So what does all that have to do with Charlie Hebdo & this recent blasphemy mocking the death of baby Aylan Kurdi–which offers a McDonald’s Happy Meal over the body of a child & says nothing about the barbarisms of EU refugee policy? In brief, because it is gratuitous & not just bereft of humor but of respect for anything. It is simply pornographic with amorality. And to what purpose? Only to show they hold nothing sacred.

When you hold nothing sacred there really is no need for satire, is there? When you skewer drowned infants rather than the abuse of power or human folly you are not longer producing satire but its parody in the service of social hatred. Charlie Hebdo wants us to gasp at their audacity when we are appalled more by their cruelty & complete lack of humor.

Je suis Charlie Hebdo, no way. Je suis Aylan Kurdi.

Photo is poster of Charlie Hebdo cover.

(Thanks to Lisa Forman for sending me this photo)

PS: This is the last post I hope I will ever do on this despicable piece of political rubbish.

In learning to confront verbal abuse & bullying for the purpose of ending it, we have to confront our attitudes about ourselves which come from how we’re socialized. Women are most often the targets of insult because we’re taught to be gracious, even affable in the face of indignity. Many men also get caught if they don’t fit the stock character assigned to men. Men are taught to ward off abuse by using the stone-face mask, the Clint Eastwood “make my day” persona. And it works. But the problem is that it requires cocooning socially, holding yourself back from interactions with others, not being able to participate fully in social exchanges. If you like other people, that doesn’t work for you, but the affable person is the most likely to be targeted by bullies because of their openness.

The most important attitude to disabuse yourself of is that in some way you invite abuse, that you’re doing something wrong, or have some quality that makes others want to crap on you. You feel you have a sign on your forehead that says “victim” or “kick me.” You may feel that way because you’re so often targeted & in fact, many (including parents) will say outright you have a magnetic attraction for abuse. That’s nothing but baloney & horse manure. You don’t have to do a damn thing to provoke an abuser & it’s more likely your charms & virtues that provoke them. Is it possible that sometimes you did or said something awkward, even stupid? So what? Welcome to the human race. To err is human & all that jazz. It doesn’t mean you deserve insults.

There are particular psychological qualities that provoke bullies—like being easy-going & open. Or simply for being female. But there are also physical features that can make you a target: being short, especially for a man; being heavyset; having a prominent nose or ears; balding at an early age; a high-pitched voice in a man; a girlish voice in a women; being gay, effeminate or tom-boyish; the use of heavy makeup or no makeup at all; being “classically” pretty or not; having darker skin; having facial blemishes; having wide hips, prominent or small breasts. It doesn’t take much at all for the bully to locate what you may feel vulnerable about & zero in on it for ridicule.

The repertoire of abuse includes snide put-downs; insinuating remarks; gestures like eye-rolling or elbowing; snickering contemptuously. Sometimes the insults are masked & all you can discern is the contempt behind the comment. That’s the sniping style of bullying. The rule of thumb in discerning if it’s abuse or not? If it feels like it. Never underestimate the power of gut reactions. Could be your body talking to you.

So in thwarting abuse the first thing to dump is the notion that you (as many will tell you) are “your own worst enemy.” Rubbish! Nothing you do—unless of course you’re an abuser—justifies anyone taking liberties with you. You have a right to demand respect & not be treated like someone of no consequence. Of course when you do that you will be challenging the rules of social power in a society based on misogyny & inequality. Well screw those laws. They’ve no right to preempt your dignity & self-respect or to deprive you of peace of mind for being a gracious loving person.

For a long while assertive training has been in vogue but as many have found out in employing it, it rolls like water off a duck’s ass to many abusers because it depends on their good-will or belief they are reasonable—which they most often are not. And it requires pedagogical homilies explaining to them what’s wrong with insulting you. Leave their moral education to others. Your sole commitment is the pedagogy that comes with kicking ass, with aggression training—to teach them in no uncertain terms that you will not stand for insults. Period.

Once again, attitude is everything in aggression training. With a commitment to yourself to live with dignity, you stand tall (even if you’re only 5 feet tall), hold your head high, & learn the techniques for parrying the abuse.

Let me tell you a personal story about how I learned these techniques. When I first worked in a predominately male factory, the 6’4” union steward would come to my enclosed work station every night at lunch break for the sole purpose of sexually harassing me. He was extremely aggressive & offensive & I responded assertively: “Jim, I don’t talk to you that way & I don’t want you to talk to me like that. Blah blah blah” He waited till my speech ended & then continued his sexual suggestions. Not knowing how to stop him, I approached a fellow worker in frustration. He said to me, “What he’s doing to you is a sexual assault & you need to respond to it aggressively. The next time he starts, you say to him “Screw pal!” I’d never spoken to anyone like that & I said so. My coworker said “If you want to stop the harassment, that is what you need to learn. I would be willing to fight that battle for you but if you’re going to win your place in this environment you will have to learn to fight these battles yourself.”

So I went home & spent a weekend in front of a mirror practicing saying “Screw pal” so it didn’t come out in a whimper or with an iota of self-doubt.
When I went back to work I waited for the union guy to show up & when he did I screwed up all the energy I could muster to blurt out that “Screw pal.” I thought he’d snicker at me & I would be the fool. Instead he looked shocked & turned around & walked out. A monster was born that day & I’ve never looked back. And I never allowed him again to even look my way.

In exercising my new-found powers, I’ve learned one doesn’t have to swear. It’s perhaps preferable, though not essential, if you don’t. Always keep your dignity & be true to yourself if don’t like to use harsh language. Don’t be afraid to use it either. The point of practicing that “screw pal” scenario is only to cop the attitude behind it—the attitude that doesn’t cower behind self-doubt but comes out swinging. It’s the attitude that renders power, not the cursing.

Don’t give explanations. Don’t bother to tell someone why you’re offended. And don’t look for just the right words. Eloquence & long-winded speeches are not an advantage. Keep your language terse; in fact make it as short as possible. Don’t be afraid to blunder or stumble on your words. Just say “Stop.” “What do you mean by that?” “Are you talking to me?” “Go away.” And always accompany your words with the evil-eye. Don’t smile to soften the blow or they’ll take it as equivocation. Don’t be afraid to go overboard or ballistic either—like saying “Go to hell,” or “Get lost bucko.” Don’t worry about issuing empty threats. More than once, I’ve told someone I had eight brothers & if he didn’t stop harassing me, they would break every bone in his body. Don’t worry about roughing someone up if they’re not afraid to humiliate you.

If some physical or emotional feature of yours is often targeted, develop a stock phrase for rebuttal. For example, I’m 5’2” & often was teased for being short—something that never occurred to me I should be self-conscious about. An over 6-foot coworker once said to me, “I know how you little women compensate for being so short; you get big mouthes.” I retorted “How do you compensate for being so ugly?” He didn’t speak to me for 6 months & when he did the first thing he said was “Do you really think I’m ugly?” “No,” I said, “in fact you’re good-looking. You’ve just got a big mouth.” Find a phrase like that & keep it short & sweet. No explanations. If they make fun of your nose or your ears or you color or your height—whatever—nip it in the bud the first time. Try never to let them repeat ridicule a second time.

If you don’t get it right the first time, keep practicing attitude in the mirror. Don’t hate on yourself, don’t think you’re one of those who just can’t defend yourself. Don’t ever sell yourself short or underestimate your indignation when it comes to bullying. It’s all about attitude & a commitment to yourself that you will live in dignity, with the respect you’re due.

The purpose of all this is not some quid pro quo of abuse. Who the hell wants to spend their lives fighting or parrying off insults? The sole purpose is to let abusers know you will not be hospitable, that you will make it difficult for them to humiliate you or any others. When you’re old & gray what will still eat at you are the moments you let others run you around the block because you didn’t know how to stop it. Humiliation takes a long time to heal & it does because you internalize & begin to believe that somehow you are responsible when someone treats you like crap. To speak coarsely: screw that notion.

The late 19th century & early 20th century was the era when anthropology–a fundamentally racist “science”–was developed because it was the era when it was thought indigenous peoples had decisively been vanquished throughout the Americas. The ruling elites developed natural history museums to record the extinctions of millions of people & exonerate the barbarism involved in wars of extinction by glorifying “Indians” as the “noble savage.”

White supremacy & colonialism have peculiar social & psychological ways of dealing with the enormity of the violence perpetrated. In his book “Playing Indian,” Phillip Deloria describes the role playing involved from the Boston Tea Party where participants dressed as Indians, to Boy Scout & other group rituals, to cowboy & Indian movies, to sports teams with Indian insignia. ‘Playing Indian’ permeates society till today because the issue of genocide is historically denied & has never been dealt with politically or socially because it continues. And it continues not just in the US but from Alaska to the southern tip of Latin America with multinational enterprises expropriating indigenous lands for agribusiness, mining, oil drilling.

After the wars of extermination in the post-Civil War era–led by former Union generals commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln–Native Americans who survived were driven on to reservations where they lived defeated in squalor & poverty. It was at this time the ruling elite, including J.P. Morgan, commissioned photographers to record the Indian way of life for anthropological purposes. They believed Indians were going extinct & wanted to document them. They certainly weren’t paying photographers to record the realities of reservation life.

The photos which are stunning portraits are more often staged & inauthentic to the attire & certainly to the lives of the subjects. They are glorified, romanticized images of the “noble savage” & fundamentally white supremacist in intent.

An adjacent point about anthropology museums is their distinction from museums of fine art. The latter are considered the venue of the highest achievements of human artistic creativity; natural history museums are considered the repository for primitive ‘artifacts.’ You don’t get more repugnant & supremacist than that.

It was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s that changed the study of US history due to the development of Black & Native American studies. Along with ‘playing Indian’ rituals, historic deceits are the nature of colonialism. To today, school text books do not include the study of genocide against Native Americans nor the study of slavery from a non-supremacist point of view. But the Americas will not heal from this continuing catastrophe until it corrects the historic record. That’s why the present role of Native Americans against environmental plunder from the North to the South Poles is so important. They have re-entered history rather than pass serenely to extinction.

(Photo by Lee Moorhouse)

Conditions in Gaza make building the economic & cultural boycott of Israel an imperative. Not to panic, but it is actually an emergency situation. According to a recent report from the UN Conference on Trade & Development, Gaza could become uninhabitable in five years (2020) if the 8-year Israeli blockade is not lifted.

This photo which looks like Armageddon is a young boy sleeping in the shell of his family’s home which the Guardian-UK tells us ‘witnesses claim was destroyed by Israeli shelling’ in its carpet bombing spree in 2014. The sepia tone of the photo is from a sandstorm enveloping the entire region–which must, like winter & inclement weather, make sleeping outside & life in general a living hell.

Do you think it’s possible the Taliban really has infiltrated the US as the right-wing claims? The Dadeville City Council in the southern state now known as Talibama passed an ordinance last month banning saggy pants in public. Councilman Frank Goodman said “I prayed about this; I know that God would not go around with pants down.” Who knew God wore clothes?

Now in a purported claim to be egalitarian, the City Council has added short shorts & mini-skirts to their dress ban. The city attorney says banning women’s attire will “take a little more creativity on my part” to write into law. Isn’t that always the case when you’re trying to cover for your racism by using misogyny? At least he can still visit his favorite porn sites to look at women’s butts.