Turning Their Backs on Justice

If the police want to turn their backs on NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio, that's their prerogative. They are citizens and have the right to make a political stand, even on their jobs. To assail that right is to assail the 1st amendment rights of all workers. Unlike the military, they have a union that can sound the alarm when something is wrong in the system. In this way, the political expression of police is deeply tied to the health of our democracy. And that's why the stand that many in the political leadership of police unions have chosen to make has been both disappointing and unsurprising. 

Talkingpointsmemo.com has an interesting article about the reactions of police unions to widespread police brutality protests. The article notes that police are feeling under threat and their political leadership is more aggressively answering their critics. The back-turning on DeBlasio is the most high profile, but before that Gabe Crocker, president of the St. Louis County police association, was publicly demanding "discipline" for what he deemed the "misconduct" of Saint Louis Rams players who protested with a Hands Up salute before a game.

Note to Rams Players: Hands up only denotes innocence
when you're catching a football. For a touchdown.

The article talks about the shift in philosophy in law enforcement after 9/11, that went away from community policing to counter terrorism and how it lead to a deterioration in community relations. Charles Wilson, national chairman of the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers, puts it this way:

"People just don't think the system is working fairly for them. In some respects, I have to tell them, 'No, it's not,'" he said. "The basics of community policing are still the same. You have to understand the people in the community. You have to be able to gain their trust and respect.

Now that's a start. We need police union bosses to make more speeches about the ways that the integrity of police work has been undermined by the prison industrial complex: how officers are encouraged, and sometimes required, to put as many black men in jail as possible, no matter their innocence or guilt; how decades of corrosive drug policy has snatched whole generations of black lives, either on street corners or behind bars;  how some municipalities use the court system as a fundraising enterprise, ensnaring poor communities in a web of exorbitant fees for tickets and court services; how police lives are endangered to enrich the lives of white collar criminals on both sides of the law. Give that speech and I'll burn all my hoodies, remove Chief Keef from my spotify, and give out free belts to all the children with the lowly pants. Ha-lle-lu-jah.

Instead, they want to talk about respecting the law. They want to talk about accountability. They want to talk about "impoverished culture." They want to restrain us with bootstraps and Cosby sweaters.

Cos Conspiracy Note: Cos is no conspiracy victim. If ever the people who conspiritate
needed his pudding pops and victim blaming, they need it now. Don Lemon ain't cutting it.

One of the main dilemmas that police as a political force have is a simple equation that hasn't changed much since this country was a tiny Slavecom startup: demand for police is proportional to White fear of Black men. There are whole libraries with laws designed to imprison black bodies. And there's a job, with a badge and a gun, for each of those laws.

Slavery Note: Amendment 13 doesn't ban slavery, it bars
involuntary servitude "except as punishment for crime". 

It's no slander to police at large to point out this connection. In its most humane form, police work, whether it's in America or Europe or Africa or Asia or wherever, ensures that justice and the rights of the afflicted are protected. We are, quite simply, how we police. The people who are willing to take up this responsibility, people of moral conscience and humanity, should be honored for their sacrifice. They tend to us in our most human, and inhuman, moments. They can restore a sense of order and hope to shattered lives. The problem is that the inherent injustice of the system makes it so hard to act morally, especially when such action threatens political capital.

It would also be hypocritical as a teacher to deny the connection my profession has to the justice system. Teachers can pretend like we don't see the prison pipeline awaiting our students at the door, but it's there. Ask a prisoner where they learned their first lessons about systemic brutality and they'll probably direct you to an elementary school classroom.

Illustration: Seth Tobacman

And that's one of the reasons that it's so important to have organized teaching labor that has the opportunity to have a voice, even if that voice has been compromised by self-interested politics at times. Think what you want about Chicago's teacher strike a couple years ago, but who else was willing and able to put the corporate takeover of our school system on blast? Who else but Karen Lewis was calling out the inherent racism in the setup? Teacher's unions are far from perfect, but who else is going to be left to speak on behalf of poor children of color once they're gone? 

And that goes the same for police. Teachers have to defend ourselves from critics who say that we care more about our salaries than reforming the educational system that inequitably serves the children in our care. In order to have any credibility within the communities they work, police have to show they are advocates in reforming a racist justice system designed to destroy the lives of poor people of color. It's a tall order, that flies in the face of entrenched economic and political interest, but anything less is criminal.

The Violence Monopoly

This is the Cuomo:

It's named after Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, who is pushing a ban on extended clips for  semi-automatics. It's plastic. It's the product of a 3D printer. It works. You can find the specs for it online.

Although it may seem like a gun control story, it gets at a much bigger issue: the true power to deter a tyrannical corporate state is going to be based in technology, not guns.

Those that think they're standing up for "freedom" or "rights" are a century behind the times. If you don't have access to technology than a gun will never protect you in the world that's taking shape around us. 

Sooner than you think, there will be plastic guns that can be printed and immediately put to use. The right to bear arms will immediately be redundant because guns will be produced so cheaply and with innocuous materials. The plastic guns will be everywhere, kind of like the way the metal ones are in my neighborhood.

That scenario is untenable for a number of obvious reasons, but also because our government needs to have a monopoly on violence. And a monopoly on making money off the mechanisms of violence. So, now the government has a serious question to consider: who can and cannot have a 3D printer? If you want to protect the liberty of your children, you better be less worried about oiling up your Bushmaster and more worried about what happens when they move to seize the internet.

In the words of Andre 3000, "While you running around rantin and ravin about gats, nigga they made them gats, they got some shit to blow out our backs, from where they stay at"

Side note: What is so 3000 about being in a Gillette commercial?

But woe to my community when these guns become more widespread. I doubt we'll get 3D printers in the hood any time soon, but I'm sure there will be a lot of bright eyed entrepreneurs looking to sell our shorties plastic shotties. 

The War on White Terror

I'm glad the White House released evidence that we've all long suspected: NeO is really just a Jake Sully in disguise. Same narrative, different genres. 

 
It was funny to hear the commentators saying that they doubted NeO could clap em. The underlying assumption is that he's soft. That he can't fight. He's already proved them wrong. Do we have to review the debate footage with John McCain.

Or remind you of when he said this:

Or any of these people:

Jack Ryan

Alan Keyes
Clark Kellog

Jesse Jackson
Somali Pirates

Bill Clinton
Donald Trump

Jim Demint
Osama Bin Laden
Mitt Romney

Whether you dig him or despise him, if your honest with yourself you have to admit that dude doesn't touch the canvas often. Now that doesn't mean he's going to come through and save the day on gun control. I kind of doubt he will.

But he's got to do something. If it hasn't hit home by now, he'll never get it: Somebody has to stem the flow of gun overproduction. The people who are making billions on this are not patriots. These are multinational corporations, run by people who aren't worried about the Constitution. The only part of the constitution that corporations are ready to defend involve making money. Some might say it would be irresponsible to the stockholders if it was any other way.

I have students who know the girl who was killed the other day in Chicago. The ones who knew her talked about how good a friend Hadiya Pendleton was. She had just got done performing at the inauguration, for Christ sakes. Dead a week later. Unfortunately she's typical. Her death seems just as inevitable as the slaughter at Newtown. I'm not trying to hard or cynical, but I don't see how a major move against death sellers is not inevitable. He has to take on the corporations that support the NRA puppet. The corporations that flood the hood with cheap killing machines. But first he has to convince the White man to stop being so scared. Call the initiative: The War on White Terror.

The War on White Terror is all about getting white folks to stop being so scared all the goddamn time. Of course the president wouldn't frame it that way. His slogan could be something simple like, White People Ain't Got Nothing to Be Afraid of. Up to this point he's been trying to run a covert campaign with the same message. That's why he was bowling and throwing baseballs and making beer in his garage. And it's mostly worked, but what about all of the people who just don't like Black people? You holding a gun is never going to look right.  

In order for that photo to be a political asset, you have to convince that same white man that it's a good thing you're skeet shooting. As far as he's concerned, you could be holding a Mac-10 or an uzi or a spear. At the end of the day you're just an agitated nigger who needs to be pacified. If NeO released the photo to help White Americans to confront their fear of a Black Planet, I'm all for it. If he did it to try and get in the good graces of racists, I'm not feeling it. 

But in the meantime, Mr. President, Misstra Knowitall stands ready to do whatever I can to assist in the War on White Fear. My first initiative will be to sell a line of greeting cards that you can send to your white friends. The occasion: Thank You for Not Being Racist! Even if they are racist, send it to a white person you appreciate. Not only will you do a good deed, you'll do a good turn for your country.

Stay tuned for the link to my Etsy. 

The Grey: A Screen Shot Collage

Through an unfortunate series of events, Misstraknowitall finds himself home alone. Instead of fixing my leaky shower or grading a desk full of student essays, I delved into my Netflix queue and finally watched The Grey. Maybe it was missing my ladies at the beginning of a new year, but something about Liam Neeson's battle against wolves and his fear of mortality grabbed me. So, I used screen caps to make a collage about it. The words are all captions from the film. Wannaseeithereitgo. 

  

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We Almost Lost...

In light of current events.

Pardon me, Brother

Dear President NeO,

Although I appreciate you finally using your pardoning power after all this time, I don't think carefully considered my earlier post, Top Five Black Men That Need Pardons. Instead you pardoned somebody for "mutilation of coins" (?). That's okay. We knew that we would have to wait a while for you to bring some food out the backdoor of the big house, but it's been two years now and we must all deal with the harsh reality that if you don't send these pardons through now, before the Presidential election season really starts to heat up on January 1st (!), then they're not going to happen. Here's an updated list:

5. Remy Ma

They told Reminisce Mackie to Lean Back in the belly of the beast for shooting a close acquaintance after a bout of heavy drinking. Word to Dick Cheney.

Sorry, Remy. The "Four Loko" defense only works for Rethugs

4. Michael Vick

Have you seen this brother throw the football lately? Who would have thought that Michael Vick would be more popular than you, NeO? If The Michael Vick Experience ends with a Super Bowl, you might actually pick up a few percentage points by giving out this pardon. Don't worry, Bo is nothing if not a pragmatist.

I'm tired of defending you, Mr. President.

 3. Shyne

Well, he's out now. I mean he's free, not that he's got an album out. Swell guy though.

2. Kwame Kilpatrick

I can see the wisdom with this one. If you were going to issue Kwame a pardon, you might want to wait until his ignance reaches it's peak. That way you don't have to double pardon him later. Although Mr. Kilpatrick has been a marvel, a phenom of ignance if you will, you have to believe that he has yet untapped reserves. There's a Marion Barry in you yet, KK.

Maybe it's time to call in that Rick Ross collabo.

1. Clarence Thomas

I'm with you on this one, NeO. Not only is it impossible to pardon someone from their own mental incarceration, even if you did, we both know Ichellemay would go up side your head. Get your, girl, CT. She's really not helping your case with the phone calls.

Don't be playing on my phone.

And while you're at it...

Blade

They got the Daywalker, NeO! You know Deacon Frost is somewhere laughing his ass off. Forget about North Korea. What about the world wide vampire conspiracy to suck our blood using pointy fangs and a Constitutionally illegitimate tax code?

The Profound Insights of Viagra Online

 

I have seen the coming of our computer overlords, and they have posted comments to my blog.

As you might imagine, blogging can be tough to regularly maintain, especially when you put a lot of time and effort into writing a piece and don't get much response. You can use Google Analytics to look up data on people who visit your site, but it's hard not to be discouraged by the deafening sound of crickets after you press "publish post". That's why it's cool when readers take the time to comment on a post. Whether the comment is informed or not, it's always nice to see that someone out there thought enough of you and your writing to give some kind of response.

And that's where my friend  Viagra Online comes in. Back when I first started blogging, I would get comments on posts that were basically like email spam. Just a few words, they would direct you to a link where your computer would download the latest digital VD, infecting your operating system and giving your hard drive the digital drip. Blogger got smarter after awhile and made up that annoying Rorschach test thingy which required you to correctly interpret a series of words and numbers to leave a comment. That worked for awhile, but then a couple weeks back I noticed a comment on an older post, Five Pearls of Incredible Hulk Wisdom:

The lesson this movie left us with was impacting. I really find the true meaning of the movie, or at least I guess so.  

The syntax was a little tortured, and the misuse of "impact" made me cringe, and the insight wasn't much of an insight, but at least someone was reading my stuff, even if they seemed only semi-literate. I smiled and all the work seemed somehow worthwhile.

But then I noticed the author: Viagra Online. My heart fell and I chided myself for being such an easy mark for a dumb computer. I promised myself to never again let my enthusiasm for post comments blind me to  Viagra Online's deceptions.

A couple months later I got an interesting comment to my post about the connection between Rick James and Neil Young:

In 1965 a great deal of things were going on, I was a kid by then, so I couldn't notice any about music or the popular bands at the moment like Rick James and Neil Young Buy Viagra Cheap Viagra.

This comment threw me for a loop because although Viagra Online was obviously still fixated on luring me with the promise of cheap Viagra, I couldn't help but be touched by its endearing reflection on growing up in the topsy-turvy sixties. At some point during its daily spamming, Viagra Online  had read something that had touched its binary soul, and caused reflection. It was almost enough to make me consider visiting the poison link, just as a gesture of reciprocation (not for the cheap Viagra).

A couple days later Viagra Online visited my site again, this time reading a post on Funk artist Pedro Bell:

I have always thought that funky issues are cool, indeed. However, I am pretty impressed to see how did you managed to organize your several ideas in such a great way, then thanks a lot for sharing this matter

I had to stop myself from replying to this comment. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I seemed to be witnessing the dawning of intelligent consciousness in a spam computer. Not only that, but a spam computer that thought funky issues were cool. And a computer that was impressed with how I organized ideas! It dawned on me that with all this talk about how technology will shape our lives, maybe writers won't even need human readers anymore. Maybe instead of trying to get 1,000 human fans to read and support me as a writer, maybe I can get a 1,000 computers to visit my blog and say nice (although inane) things about me. Instead of a book tour, I could just let Viagra Online spam my next book to millions.

I was feeling pretty good about our relationship until I got a comment a couple weeks later on my post about John Mayer and his KKK member. The writer posted as "Anonymous" but I recognized the voice:

Thanks for sharing this, it's pretty cool to know about it. By the this handsome guys turns me on to visit Viagra Pharmacy to enjoy with my husband. 

My old friend Viagra Online was posting again, but had decided to leave its name off the comment. There was the familiar friendly tone, but I could see right through its vague reference to my post as being "pretty cool to know about." For a moment I thought the reference to "handsome guys turns me on" might be some kind of compliment, but that seemed highly unlikely. The bastard had not read a single word.

The final straw came later that day when I noticed another comment from "Anonymous" on my post about the re-ascension of the Light Skinned Brother:


Most of this brunette guys are pretty handsome, in fact I just loved black mans they are different to the others. They turn me on to visit Viagra Pharmacy to enjoy with my husband. 

Not only did this comment show a profound lack of understanding for what I was writing, I was also troubled by the possibility that my new friend Viagra Online might be a racist. What exactly does it mean that "black mans they are different to the others"? And the confession that they "turn me on", what's that about? And now Viagra Online was married? Having a spam computer readership was supposed to make things more simple, but now I felt more confused and alone (and unread) then ever. I racked my brain to think of a clever Facebook status update that might capture the absurdity of the situation, but I couldn't come up with anything. 

I Just Loved Black Mans

 And maybe that's the point. Maybe that's how the computers will do it. They'll separate us into our own digital enclaves and then get us hooked on their vague, positive affirmations. And before we know it we'll all be clicking our way to an oblivion of Viagra Online.

The Undercover Others

Out of all the older people gathered in the school library to hear me talk about how I was going to be supervising them, this Black woman was most clearly trying to distinguish herself as not a fuddy duddy. Her short hair was immaculately styled. Her eyebrows were impeccably plucked and thinly penciled to her brow. Her ears sagged with gems. She wore a purple and rose-red jumpsuit, satin soft. The thickness of her lenses could never undermine the stylishness of her gold frames. Her smile was church-pleasant as I offered my hand to shake.

This was my first official foray into the purgatory of public school education. After kicking around Minneapolis for a couple of years as a journalist/strip mall clerk/Notary Public extraordinaire, I signed up for Americorps Vista. Back then I was shocked by the events of 9/11, but I was even more shocked at the world that was being formed in its aftermath. I remember being in a park near my house, shooting baskets with some shorties when it struck me that this was just the beginning of a lot of suffering. That these youngsters would be growing up in a new type of world. Although I felt sadness for the people who lost their lives in the Towers, I couldn't help but dread the deaths yet to come. Prodigy of Mobb Deep described it perfectly on Survival of the Fittest, There's a war going on outside, no man is safe from. So instead of joining the military, I signed up as an Americorps VISTA in Baltimore Maryland. I worked in a school as a programs coordinator. One of the programs brought retired seniors in to tutor elementary school students. I acted as site supervisor, which mostly involved a lot of paperwork. I hadn't had much experience, but I always enjoyed talking to older people. They tend to be wise, and willing to candidly share that wisdom.The word "wisdom" is, of course, at times open to interpretation.

Her hand shake was soft and firm. Her teeth bright.
"Hi, my name is Abdel," I said.
"What did you say?" she said. Her hand flinched back to her ear, like she had been suddenly struck deaf.
I'm used to people clowning with my name. White people usually just have a pronunciation issue. In Minnesota people heard either "Ed" or "Bill" when I told them my name was Abdel. They didn't have the linguistic palette to hear what I was saying, so I often had to repeat the pronunciation. Having a name like mine requires one to have a sense of humor, but sometimes it's a struggle.
"It's Ab-del," I said to the woman, trying my best to reassure the anxiety I saw brewing in her eyes.
"Abdel?" she said, her voice quivering. "What are you, some MUSLIM?"

For the record, I am not a Muslim. Even though my name is Arabic for "servant of Allah," no one in my family is Muslim [not that there's anything wrong with that!] and I have never actually been inside a mosque. My name, Abdel Shakur, is a product of two non-conformist individuals who wanted me to have a unique name that would signal a new age in both of their families. So they gave me the last name of Black liberation icon Assata Shakur. If I was a girl, I would have been named Assata Shakur, and probably would appear at the top of every government no-fly list ever. So, my name is an expression of belief on the part of my parents, just not in the way you might think. 

I couldn't tell if the library had gotten colder or whether it was just perspiration cooling my skin. We stood in the aftermath of her question, standing close, both confused. I thought at first that she was joking, but I could see that the fear and disgust curling within the folds of her face was genuine. It made me sad because I got the sense that I was always going to be an Other to this woman, no matter what I said. Despite my wanting to build a sense of connection with this woman, I was destined to only be a young man of indistinct nationality with a terrorist name. I smiled broadly and tried my best to change the subject.

That incident comes to mind as we witness the NeO narrative enter an ominous phase. Before your eyes you are seeing our first Black President transformed into the Other. First there was doubt about his origin. Then doubt about his Blackness. Now it's about his god.

I guess I'm not surprised. In 2008, Barack used his special mulatto powers to bend himself into whatever hopeful shapes people could imagine. It's called passing--duh, our people invented it. Even as he stood taking that oath, supported by throngs, I knew it would get bad. Every president is destined to reach a point in their presidency where they are unpopular. Everything has a season, politics are no different.

Despite his seeming transcendence, one of the primary tenets of race still remain: a white man's cold is a Black man's flu. My father often notes that a Black man's negatives are easier to exploit than a White man's. In our culture, very few of the narratives about Black men don't end in some kind of depravity. Michael Dukakis lost the presidency because of one of those narratives. Barack is essentially his own Willie Horton.

Now, it's important to say that I count myself among those disappointed in the NeO presidency thus far. Health care was a major victory, but we thought 2008 would mark a turning point in the battle against the complete corporatization of our political and economic systems. We had the crazy dream of keeping the wizards of finance from actually going ahead and selling our country away. But day by day it becomes more clear that the bill of sale was given a long time ago. Our President has become merely a delivery man in a messiah uniform. I still love the brother and find inspiration in his intelligence, strength, and swag, but I realize the jig (so to speak) is up. In the words of Biggie, things done changed.

Despite my disillusionment, I realize the consequences of abandoning a prominent and controversial Black man during a time of strife. Black people on the whole were ambivalent about Martin and Malcolm at the time of their deaths. Everybody loves them now, but as their narratives were shaped by powerful unseen forces, Black people had mixed feelings. First, Malcolm was too militant. Later, Martin was not militant enough. Both died much less popular than they had been previously.

And let me also be clear: I'm not suggesting we issue the "R-Kelly Pass" for Barack. You know, the pass that makes a prominent Black man morally immune to any kind of scrutiny in the eyes of Black folks? Those who claim to be our advocates need to not be our pimps, no matter how much swag they have. NeO promised us a lot and has not delivered like he said he would. Although not recognized as such, civil liberties is one of the most important Black issues in this country. Historically, we have bore the brunt of the coercive power of American government. At one time we were actually owned by our government, so there is no bigger priority than Never Again. And our President knows this. And yet after almost 20 months in office, it's still not clear how the Obama presidency is indistinct from the Bush presidency on the issue of civil liberties. And that sucks.

But this thing about him being a Muslim is inexcusable. This brother is being setup. He is being called "tyrant," "traitor, "criminal," "alien". If you put the word "Black" in front of any of those words, you start to see the danger that is brewing.

A lot of people doubted the wisdom of the president's remarks regarding the so called "Ground Zero Mosque". People said he wasn't involved in the controversy until he propelled himself into the debate, but they're wrong. The controversy has been ginned up to get people to reset their consciousness back in time to 2001. In the ruins of the towers, Bush waved his bullhorn and told everyone that we wouldn't forget the events of 9/11, but he really meant we wouldn't forget what we felt that day: fear and anger.

NeO realized that the intolerance being shown in the political discourse was not disconnected to his own political fate. NeO and Tinkerbell have one thing in common: their existence is dependent on our ability to believe in the fantastic. Whatever you want to say about him, our President doesn't draw his power by catering to the baser instincts of his constituents. He's no fearmongerer and he's too intellectually proud to become one. Contrary to popular belief, NeO didn't invent the idea of hope, he's just the most gifted manipulator of it in American political history. If he's going to be a two-term president, he's going to have to get people hoping again. That's why the mosque is important.

I felt a lot of pride when I first read his comments :

As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.

The message underlying the speech is quite simple: We are a nation of laws. One of those laws prevents discrimination based on religion. You can't discriminate. End of story. Nothing really controversial there, but in desperate times even the idea of religious freedom becomes controversial. But NeO knows that he couldn't stand on the sidelines on this one. He made a beautiful and very clear statement about what he believed. And then he equivocated. And equivocated about his equivocation. And then he just stopped talking about it.

There's a part of this narrative that NeO has very little control over. If America is determined to erode all of its civil rights, than there is only so much he can do, especially considering the state of the economy. But whatever he does, he shouldn't equivocate. If he wants us to believe again, he's got to show us that he's willing to take slings and arrows for greater purposes besides political expediency. It probably won't get him a second term, but it's probably the only way he'll be able to leave that big White House not haunted by his own presidency.

And we can't afford the luxuries of bitterness and apathy. We have to realize the need to speak out for those outside of our communities who are being Othered. Whether it is about gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or national origin, we've got to fight for the civil rights of everyone in our society, even if they have a name that's scary or hard to pronounce. Second term or not, if we don't take up these fights, we'll lose the only thing that can save us: hope.

Archie Bell and the Drells

We all need to tighten up. 

What is done can't be undone, son.

Splice is not a new story. It's all about the consequences for those whose vanity and arrogance lead them to play God. We've seen it before. What's troubling is the terrible punishment Splice imagines for its female Frankenstein.

**Word of warning, if you haven't seen Splice, don't read further because I'm about to spoil the hell out of it.***

Splice acts like it's concerned with a lot of different moral issues surrounding genetics, but it basically boils down to a gruesome parable about how female fascination with vanity leads to rape.

You have two scientists, Clive and Elsa, who are in love and also the top genetic "morphologists" in their field. They are paid by a corporation to design life forms that synthesize proteins. The life forms are composed of genetic material from cows, horses, pigs, etc. Once they have matured fully, these synthesized organisms produce proteins that that can be sold by the corporation. The creatures are hideous, but they make dough, so everybody's happy.

Dear Adrien Brody, we still ain't cool. We ain't forgot about Halle Berry.

Billy Bob wasn't enough for y'all, huh? Signed, All Black Men.

Except for the woman. Elsa wants to take the logical (to her) next step and create a hybrid using parts of human DNA. Clive doesn't think it's such a good idea, but is helpless before her feminine wiles. Before you know it, they shake the tree of knowledge and out comes the future.

The future, a creature named Dren, looks like a walking penis for the first half of the movie, so I guess I should have been known that something was up.

uhhh...

Earlier it was revealed that Clive wanted to have a baby "conventionally" but Elsa said she didn't want to have to give birth. "Maybe when we figure out male pregnancy," she jokes. In the mad scientist stories we're used to (hint: Frankenstein is a man) the creation of the monster is motivated by the character's vanity, but this vanity is of the intellectual nature. The man wants to be able to out-think God. Elsa, on the other hand, is just concerned with creating without increasing her dress size. "Is this even about science?" pleads Clive. Uh, nooo.

Throughout the movie, we see pictures of Elsa staring at herself in the mirror or staring at pictures of herself with her mother when she was younger. She even teaches Dren to look in the mirror and to embrace her "feminine" gender by putting on makeup and wearing jewelry. She does too good a job because Dren starts exhibiting her own symptoms of vanity.

One of the most interesting things about the movie is that as Dren becomes more and more human in appearance, her mother becomes less and less humane. After a nasty confrontation with Dren, Elsa's vanity and arrogance push her off the deep end, and she cuts Dren's stinger off. Unfortunately, she later learns that the stinger doubles as a youknowwhat.

And Clive ends up sexing Dren for some reason, which is just about the weirdest thing I've ever seen in a movie. Maury to the millionth power. Although it's disturbing, at least it still feels new. I can't name too many science fiction movies that so embody the Electra complex. But, just when you think you're going to get something new, Dren dies and becomes a dude.

And for what the movie was trying to do, this is the only way it could have ended. The Frankenstein story always requires a punishment for the foolish scientists. In this case, the male scientist is punished with death because he bit the apple, but the female scientist requires a punishment that Dren isn't capable of.

'sup, girl?

Dren as a dude is bigger, faster, and stronger. For some reason he can also talk, although he obviously wasn't Hooked on Monster Phonics because all he can say to Elsa is "inside you."*

Which brings us to the end. It's too bad that a movie which opens up so many possibilities in terms of looking at gender ends up settling for a lot of cliches with frightening implications. The woman looks in the mirror, falls in love with what she sees and is punished. Elsa loses the man she loves, her career, and ends up being impregnated by a monster.

In the end I just ended up feeling bad for Elsa. Too bad she wasn't born male, maybe then she would have been lucky enough to die like a man.

*Side note: BARF

You better tell your story fast...

Junot Diaz had an interesting article in the New Yorker about the lack of narrative in the year long presidency of President NeObama. Diaz argues that NeO has not been able to frame his legislative efforts inside a greater narrative of his presidency. Diaz cites the rethugs' use of 9/11 as a masterful example of how narrative can be used to drive policy.

To this, I have a few things to say:

1. The first year of the NeO presidency reminds me of how I felt after I watched the sequel to the Matrix: slightly disappointed. The Matrix ends with Neo ascending to a seemingly infinite level of power. He tells us that he is going to get rid of all the rules and boundaries. He crosses from the Rubicon of potential and (literally) flown into the realm of actualization. It might sound corny, but the first movie left me wondering if some large part of myself had not been just changed by what I had seen on the screen. Maybe everything was different now.

And then came the sequel. I've written extensively about the dreaded White Dreads from Reloaded, but let's just say that no matter what happened in the second movie, we were bound to be disappointed. The election of Scott Brown was my White Dread moment.

No, we don't use gel!

2. Diaz makes a good point about the importance of narrative in a presidency, but he doesn't recognize the genre that NeO is "writing" in. We are talking about the story of the Presidency of the United States here. Don't get it twisted, this is a Western. The main character has always been a White man. This particular White man has always had to bust his guns. The vast majority of the bullets have been caught by colored folk (whether they be Injuns or Hajis or Charlies or run-of-the-mill-Negroes) in the interest of "settling the land."

What? That's what I thought.

Bush and the Rethugs rode that narrative so well because they were traveling a well worn path that everyone could understand. On 9/11, once again the White man was under attack and answered the call, reluctantly, of course, to save the day. (The story got a little old near the end there, especially when it became blatantly clear that the rethugs were more apt to blast their friends in the face than smoke out and round up the offending redskins.)

That's why the Tea Partiers have it so easy. Hell, all they had to do was watch the first twenty minutes of Birth of a Nation to figure out their political platform.

Well, we don't care what Senator Brown said in his speech. His daughters are NOT available.

But there's no question about NeO's writing ability. On the campaign, he constructed one of the greatest political narratives the world has ever seen. He reached out as a beacon of redemption for an entire nation. If our country could put centuries of prejudice and hatred aside and take a leap of faith for this brilliant, special man (and his family), than maybe there could be hope that the vision of America we always here about could be real for all of its citizens. And if NeO had been able to fly into the clouds on inauguration day (high, high over Aretha Franklin's hat), that would have been the perfect ending of that story. But that's not what happened.

What's happened is that NeO is in the midst of about ten different narratives, from overt and covert wars on multiple continents, to health care, to immigration, to economic disaster, to natural disaster, to an education system in turmoil, to Scott Baio (!) trying to clown his woman. Trying to unite all of these these narratives within a single overarching structure is something that would even make Dickens shake his head. It also doesn't help that in the traditional POTUS western NeO would be the one wearing the feathers, shaking a tom-tom. Western's are all about the domination of the Other, and in order for NeO to be successful against his opposition, he's got to rally White support against the an Other that is White. That's complicated.

For real? Charles in Charge. Do you really want it? Because we can make it happen for you.

3. But in the end, I think Diaz is right. NeO has made some decisions, like state secrets, like the bank (giveaway) bailout, like escalation in Afghanistan, like the expansion of executive power, that cause me considerable pause. One of my favorite professors, Alexs Pate, used to always talk about the importance of discovering the "goodness" of a character. Goodness doesn't necessarily mean that the character is good, but that you have a firm grasp on the motivations behind their actions. They are consistent with who they are, even if that consistency makes you shudder. Dick Cheney may be many things, but his goodness is not difficult to grasp, though his narrative may be shallow. He is a satisfying villain because you know what he is going to do: evil. NeO, on the other hand, is harder to get a sense of because so many of the things that he has done, or not done, have gone against my understanding of who he is a character. Not that I've given up on him by any measure, but he's getting a lot more complicated than I imagined.

You just had to put on the black hat, right?

4. My hope for NeO, which I guess is the hope I have for all of us, is that he take the risk to evade the Western genre. It doesn't matter if you put Tyreese Gibson in the starring role, the Western is about domination. To regain the confidence of the American people in his POTUS narrative, some will advise that he needs to dominate, he needs to start collecting some scalps. Historically, during similar ebbs in popularity these scalps have been "scalps of color". (See: Clinton, Bill; Bush, W. George; Bush, George H.W.; et cetera)

Although I give NeO mixed reviews so far, I hope he has the courage to resist the trappings of the genre and take a stand that's principled, even if it costs him a sequel.