Unlearning Fear

Posted on by
Reply

Tyre Nichols. Philando Castile. Two men, just trying to comply with police instructions, end up dead for no good reason. How do we put an end to this disgrace?

Some deaths at the hands of police are just wrong. Some deaths at the hands of police seem unnecessary, but investigations reveal reasons for police use of deadly force. Sometimes the police are clearly the good guys, and the bad guys are truly out of control, dangerous to the public, and need to be stopped. When any police shooting is caught on video, the only thing we know is that we don’t know the whole story.

Here are a few things we do know: people, liberals especially, vastly overestimate all killings by police and especially the killings of black men.* Black Lives Matter leaders have pushed the narrative of out of control police departments targeting black men. This narrative only increases fear of police to the point that more men resist and/or flee which only increases the risk that force, perhaps deadly force, will be used on them. 

The prevailing narrative ramps up fear to what might be an irrational level, but the deaths of Nichols and Castile illustrate that some amount of fear is rational. Many police departments are trying to train and retrain officers to interact in ways that reduce the violent and intimidating tactics we associate with anyone being arrested. The goal is for everyone to come out alive at the end. Ideally, black men would know that this is happening, understand that the goal is for everyone to chill, cooperate with police, and end up alive, either released when appropriate or working their way through a justice system that is fair to all. 

The recent death of Tyre Nichols helped me understand why fear is still rational if you’re stopped by police. The question is when is it rational to let go of rational fear, that is fear based on reasonable evidence that police just might kill you? 

We, as humans, are not that good at judging risk, yet we do it all day every day. What’s truly challenging is recalibrating our level of fear when the calculations change. Yet, we can do this. Even I, with my long-standing fear of flying, flew on four airplanes in 2022 without any white knuckles. Somehow, the safety record for flying became so compelling that I had to dial back my fear, especially when it was obvious that the only way I could get where I wanted to go was to fly. Fortunately, no recent disasters occurred that would have interfered with my new-found confidence.

This is not the case however, when it comes to interactions between police and the public, especially the black and brown public. I can only imagine the emotions that ran through police departments that were making a serious effort to alter the tone of interactions with suspects in non-violent situations. Decent cops must surely have been devastated to see the videos of the beating of Tyre Nichols. Decent black men may surely have thought that things are never going to change. 

Fear can absolutely be rational. It can also be irrational. One of the challenges young women face is learning to calibrate their level of fear to the social situations they encounter as they enter the world outside their home. (I’m skipping the fear some children learn at home for now.) We’ve all heard about “the talk” that black mothers give to their sons in hopes that they will emerge unscathed from encounters with police. Calibrate your fear. Your best bet to emerge alive is to follow instructions.

And then, Tyre Nichols. Was Nicholas an exception? Yes. But how much of an exception? Were other examples simply not filmed for our viewing? How many examples? How long will it take for young black men to begin to let go of rational fear? If deaths as senseless as those of Castile or Nicholas happen only once a year, or once every two years, or five years, it will be enough to sustain the fear that lingers. Police must intervene to stop their peers who overreact. Young black men could benefit from recalibrating their fear of police, knowing that change is happening. Dialing back the violence and the rhetoric could occur at the same time from both sides. No, the burden shouldn’t be on young black men to unlearn their fear. But the reality is that their chances of sustaining permanent injuries or being killed are low enough to take a chance on compliance. I get why everyone might disagree with me, but I hope both sides will give peace a chance. 

* Sources:

Washington Post Data Base

Roland Fryer studies of use of force

Public estimates of police use of force

BDS vs Israel: Peace, Anyone?

Posted on by
Reply

As I write this, the US news is silent regarding antisemitic crimes. No recent shootings of Jews in synagogues, no take-downs of Jews eating at outdoor cafes in LA. I assume that Hasidim still get harassed on the streets of Brooklyn, and that swastikas still get sprayed onto any structure that might be Jewish, but that hardly qualifies as news nowadays.

The actually urgent news is coming from the streets of Israel where thousands of people are protesting Netanyahu’s plans to remake Israel’s supreme court such that he will have control of it. Until Netanyahu’s return to office last fall, it was fairly easy to be pro-Israel while wishing someone would put an end to the settlements in the West Bank. The rationale went something like, “all countries do deplorable things, but Israel is still the only democratic state in the Middle East.” If the current government succeeds in their judicial overhaul, will we lose that talking point?

Meanwhile, the people behind the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) aim at putting economic pressure on Israel to be nicer to the Palestinians. They have succeeded in gaining support across college campuses and beyond. Perhaps BDS is so successful because it seems to be the primary voice of Palestinians. Regrettably, IMO, it doesn’t support a two-state solution. This comes a shock to many because they are so successful in focusing on Israel’s bad acts that supporters often don’t dig deeper into their information. Essentially, they want Israel to cease to exist, to replace it with a single state with “equal rights for all.” In other words, no Jewish state in a country with an Arab birth rate much higher than the Jewish birth rate. 

If there are any Palestinians and Israelis who still support a two-state solution (I suspect there are and that they are keeping a low profile), they are not organized in the way that BDS is organized. 

Meanwhile, Jews within Israel and abroad have many opinions about the Jewish state, they have many different organizations to promote various opinions, and they have countless journals and websites to promote their views and elicit support.  (I’ll confess that I’m envious of a community in which disagreement is expected; I’m frustrated with people who are so settled on an answer that they don’t look for, and cannot reflect on, new information.)

When I write an article like this one, I generally spend days searching for information about different perspectives. I watch YouTube videos, scour websites, read articles and occasionally an actual book. I’ll share links to some of my sources at the end. One thing that has impressed me this time, is the rhetoric that now defines the BDS campaign and is used by some Jewish organizations as well. 

About the rhetoric: let’s start with settler-colonialism. I tend to think of settlers as people who willingly left one home in search of a better life in some new place many years ago. Nowadays, people migrate, but we don’t tend to think of today’s migrants as settlers. Unless you’re Woke and talking about Israel or white people anywhere at all.

I think of colonialism as the adventures of powerful countries searching for resources or trading opportunities in lands far afield from their point of origin. Colonial powers generally had advantages that enabled them to impose their will on residents of territories they exploited. These are not scholarly definitions, just my personal takes. Do Israelis count as settler-colonialist interlopers? 

Huh? Well, they are certainly not a colonial power; settlers, perhaps, at least back in the late 1800s when many Jews began immigrating in noticeable numbers to areas they associated with their biblical history. This migration enabled them to leave behind frequent, devastating pogroms in Eastern Europe that had prompted them to seek opportunities elsewhere. Some Jews have always lived in the Middle East, and the Arabs were not necessarily enemies. Jews lived successfully within the rules of the Ottoman Empire, though not as equals. Thus their biblical homeland seemed like a logical place to go.

What about charges of apartheid? I would suggest you read this article by the Council of Foreign Relations about Arab Citizens of Israel. Apartheid hardly seems like the right word to me. Does it to you? If so, please take time to comment. Israeli Arabs are not second class citizens under the law in the way of the Jim Crow era in the US. On average, they have larger families, less education, and less income that Jewish Israelis, but in much the same way that black people in the US have not yet caught up with white people on a variety of metrics. I suspect the BDS movement uses the term apartheid because they want people to conjure images of the brutality of the Apartheid regime in South Africa and they want BDS to be blessed with an assumption of the righteousness of its cause.

Then there’s the term occupation. Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. Rules are never the same in occupied territories as they are in unoccupied areas (ask a Ukrainian if you doubt me). It’s likely that an occupying army will be visible in occupied territories. People might have some amount of autonomy, but that is always subject to the whim of the occupier. Israel’s occupation has been contentious. They have allowed many Israelis to create settlements within the West Bank, a policy that is certainly cringe-worthy to most of us who consider the settlements illegal and want peace. 

Palestinians have a very long list of injustices done to them by Israelis, and the fact is that many Jews in America as well as Jewish Israelis criticize state actions. The Israeli state generally responds that its actions are in response to terrorist actions of Palestinians; often they are correct. But are state actions disproportionate? 

What does BDS say about occupation. BDS demands three things from Israel. #1: Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall. As I’ve said, “colonization” doesn’t make sense to me. So, on to occupation. “all Arab land” deserves some scrutiny. Perhaps they’re just referring to lands occupied after the 1967 war, but actually, BDS supporters say that all of Israel is on Arab land, and they want it all “from the river to the sea.” 

Demand #2 is for equal rights for all citizens of Israel. Funny, that. Some Israelis want equal rights for all citizens, meaning that Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish citizens would have to serve in the armed forces and give up other special considerations. In any event, I refer you back to the Council on Foreign Relations article.

Demand #3 is for the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties in accordance with UN Resolution 194:

“refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

So, here’s some math: Current population of Israel: 9,000,000; 20% of current population are Israeli Arabs: 1,800,000; BDS claims there are 7,250,000 people with the right of return. Population if all return: 9 million Jews, 9 million Arabs. Hmm. That could work, though, half them, half us? Peace on Earth? If the Jews didn’t want a Jewish State, that could work, but they do want a Jewish State. And why not. Iran? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? 

Here’s another perspective, “What Do Palestinians Want,” from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. How many words have been spent on Israel and Palestine since 1948? More words than bullets, I’m sure, and many bullets have been fired over that time. I find it exhausting. My sentiments have shifted more than once over the years. For now, I still support the idea of Israel, situated where it is, with some sort of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I’m absolutely angry that the citizens of Israel have elected Netanyahu again, and that he wants to take over the courts. I hope the protesters are able to prevent this. 

That said, I don’t support BDS. I’m OK with one Jewish state in the world. I don’t see anything constructive in the BDS program, and I see Jewish students on campuses across the country now fearful of “outing” themselves as Jews, Meanwhile, the de-platforming battles are ongoing with both sides scoring wins here and there.

The BDS movement has begun linking to the Black Lives Matter movement in the US claiming that Palestinians are in the same marginalized status as black people in the US. I don’t buy it. For one, I don’t buy the BLM narrative. The status of BIPOC people in the US has improved since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 60s and the end of red-lining in the 70s. 

Without getting hung up on that issue, the situation of the Palestinians in occupied areas is simply not comparable to the status of minorities in the US. Within Israel, Arab Israelis have full citizenship. Within the West Bank they live in an occupied territory and have limited rights. Gaza is its own mess and would do well to stop firing rockets into Israel. Israel, meanwhile, is surrounded by many millions of people who do not acknowledge its right to exist. 

Palestine could have become an independent state in 1948 but chose not to because they wanted Israel gone. Perhaps with the strength of the BDS movement, they will get their wish. But honestly, I think making peace with Israel would be the better path forward. 

Is the BDS movement antisemitic? Short answer: yes. My reasoning is this: I get how Jews came to want, and need, a Jewish state. The Holocaust was a plan to exterminate Jews. When I think about that, and about the antisemitism that exists even here, in a country that has been relatively accepting of Jews, I get why Jews want a Jewish state. They don’t trust us, and they shouldn’t. Sentiments can change, rapidly, in fact. 

Having a “safe place” is something that today’s college students should relate to. Just last week, Stanford Law School students shouted down a judge, Stuart Kyle Duncan, who’s a member of the 5th Circuit. He’d been invited to speak to students, but the heckler’s veto won out because some students claimed to feel unsafe. Prior to that a Hamline University professor, Erika Lopez Prater, was fired for showing, complete with trigger warnings, a classic painting of Muhammed that led a student to feel unsafe. Surely these students can understand how Jews, both in Israel as well as in the Diaspora might feel unsafe given the ancient rhetoric that lies just below the surface today, bubbling up at the first opportunity. 

Palestinians are not without agency in fashioning their own future. Jews are certainly expressing their opinion in the streets of Israel. If they don’t win this week, they won’t be giving up. No one is optimistic regarding Israel and Palestine, but surely people are getting tired of the ongoing conflict. Do conflicts only end when people are exhausted? Or can they end when new leaders appear who are willing to chart a new path forward?

Further reading:

Anticipating Israel’s Counter-Attack: Make the “One Democratic State” Mainstream Again

Critical Race Theory and the Hyper-White Jew

There’s Hope for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Palestine lost: It’s up to the Palestinian people to share their future now

And a book:

Woke Antisemitism: How Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, by David L Bernstein, 2022

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel

Posted on by
Reply

I’m beginning to see the dark at the end of the tunnel. Life is not returning to normal. We will never eat out again without observing how crowded the room is. We will never get on a bus without a mask. Every sniffle or scratchy throat will prompt us to find a rapid test for Covid. A positive test will send us into isolation, a negative test will comfort us only until we reach for the rapid test again in a few days.

Our lingering winter weather has kept us from some of our normal springtime outings. I’m sure that’s affecting my mood. A tour of the shops of one of our nearby tourist towns is a frequent February treat. Not this year. Yes, the buds are swelling on trees in our next door park, but we haven’t walked past them as often as usual. But it’s March now. Time to get out and about. I think we can. I think we can. I think we must!

Meanwhile, a new publication from Cochrane, a highly regarded research  firm in the UK, assures us that masking to prevent the spread of Covid is useless. They say this even though two studies specifically related to Covid show a positive effect of masking. Other studies occurred prior to Covid and were crappy studies. 

Furthermore: I have proof that masks work. Yes, I do. And here it is: I live in a retirement community of nearly 500 residents. We have 200 staff people who come and go each day. Due to low rates of Covid, residents dropped their masks many weeks ago. Employees were required to continue wearing masks at work. All employees. All day. Every day. Residents could or could not wear masks, up to the individual. Activities had returned to normal, meaning lots of in-person meetings – instead of Zoom – in large rooms and small. 

Guess what happened? We slowly began to see cases of Covid, most contracted outside in the real world. Our Covid trackers didn’t see much passing from resident to resident. Until the Super Bowl. Can you imagine a more perfect setting for spreading Covid than Super Bowl parties. Bunching up on sofas, eating, cheering, spreading germs with abandon. We had grown so lax that our neighbors had parties here, or went out to party with family. And then we had an explosion of Covid cases within our community. But guess what. Staff were immune to all this. Yes, we had a handful of staff who tested positive, but just a fraction of what was happening with residents. How could this be. My guess is that masks work.

Fortunately, most of our neighbors have had mild cases of Covid, but at least four have been sent to the hospital. No deaths yet from this current outbreak, but it’s early days. It often takes a while to die from Covid. 

My advice. Continue to mask up in stores; avoid eating out with crowds; test early if you have symptoms so you can call your doc and get Paxlovid. Good luck.

Buying Books in the Age of Amazon

Posted on by
Reply

I’m working on a review of the book Woke Antisemitism: How Progressive Ideology Harms Jews by David L. Bernstein. It has answers to many questions I get asked about Wokeness, and I recommend that people read it. No matter what words I string together, my answers never seem to satisfy anyone.

But there’s a problem: The book is only available via Amazon. I admit that that is only a problem for a handful of Amazon resisters such as myself. But I do wonder why it isn’t more widely available. Granted, it might be aimed at a fairly narrow audience, though it deserves the attention of anyone who cares about the narrow confines of acceptable dialogue these days. 

Before I caved in and created an Amazon account just to buy this one book, I searched for it via the websites of several bookstores in my area, both indies, Barnes and Noble, and the University Bookstore. The only place I could even order it was Barnes and Noble and the price plus postage made me pause. It’s the sort of book I might buy as an ebook, though I usually buy ebooks through Apple, just to avoid dealing with Amazon. Nope. No ebook through Apple Books. Grrr.

Why do I even care where I buy a book? A question that deserves an answer: I simply don’t want Amazon to have total control of which books are made available to the world. Once I caved, created an Amazon account, and bought the Kindle version of the book, I could see that it has an actual publisher behind it: Post Hill Press. But when I went to their website, and then to the division behind this title, WickedSonBooks.com, and then to the title, I learned that it supposedly is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Nook, and Kobo. Funny how those other options didn’t show up when I searched (via DuckDuckGo) for information. And, again, why is Apple absent from the list?

I would have bought a hard copy if I could have obtained one locally, but it didn’t show up in searches on my favorite indie websites either as an ebook, or in paper, even to order. Nor does our public library have a copy. If I were the author and actually wanted to sell some copies of this book, I’d be talking to the publisher to find out what the heck is going on. 

Back to my concern about Amazon. If there is any industry where I don’t want to see a monopoly, it’s the publishing industry. And there’s simply no doubt that Amazon has monopoly power over book publishing. If Amazon decides that Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage is likely to garner the ire of trans activists, it can refuse to sell it (fortunately there was enough resistance that that tactic didn’t work), or it can make sure that the title won’t show up in ads (that did work). We simply need multiple ways to get ideas out there into the “marketplace of ideas” so they can be read, digested, commented upon, and subjected to fierce battles. Without being contested, ideas won’t get refined and improved so the best ones float to the top. 

Fortunately, the seemingly lost cause of free speech has a serious new advocate as of 2022. When the ACLU decided that some speech didn’t merit its support, FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, took over the vacant advocacy territory. FIRE used to focus entirely on campus free speech issues, but expanded its efforts to include many more arenas in which ideas can be censored. It has hired new staff and is learning the hard way that defending our First Amendment is a very big job. I’m confident they are up to the task – and I hope they will keep an eye on the publishing industry for me. Yes, I know that publishers are not the government. 

If you, like most Americans, already buy everything at Amazon, look for Woke Antisemitism. I’ll be writing more about it soon.  

Can I Meditate My Way Out of Here?

Posted on by
1

Let’s imagine you are shopping for a new place to live. You want a walkable neighborhood, meaning that you can walk to a drug store, a grocery store, a bank, a library, a movie theater – the essentials of urban living. You find a neighborhood, find a dwelling place, the vibes seem OK. You move in. 

Your new place seems pretty good. It’s not ideal, but then few things are. You’re a stranger, but you soon discover that most of your neighbors moved here because they had friends or family already here. They ignore you. You join in some neighborhood activities, but in between organized events, no one calls, your doorbell doesn’t ring. Eventually, you offer up an open house for your nearest neighbors. People come! They mix with enthusiasm, they linger. But after they leave, your phone doesn’t ring; your doorbell doesn’t ring. Hmm.

As you sample the various public activities, you find a few that interest you.  You attend and join in the conversation. You begin to learn more about your neighbors. You learn that they are not exactly what they claim to be. They claim they are all about inclusion, that they seek out diversity, but the diversity they seek does not include the likes of you. What will you do now?

Will you pull up stakes and look for a different neighborhood? How far would you have to go to find one where your sort would be welcome? You could go back to your home town, but you’ve changed in ways that it hasn’t. You could move to Canada, but it’s changed, too, and now it’s worse than your new neighbors. You could find property in the country where you wouldn’t expect your doorbell to ring (but it did!), but you have health concerns that couldn’t be met there. 

Maybe the problem is you, not the neighborhood. Well, not maybe: it is. You actually are hoping for a neighborhood of adults, similar to the neighborhood of your childhood, where adults were curious to learn more about their neighbors without immediately sorting them into my kind and not my kind. I remember a remarkably inclusive neighborhood where my blue collar parents were invited to mix with the hoi poloi (they generally didn’t). Jews and gentiles mixed regularly. No, my neighborhood wasn’t racially mixed, but people had serious conversations about issues of the day including serious ones such as how to sort the town into two high schools in a way that didn’t create a ghetto school and a privileged school. 

I know a handful of adults, by which I mean people who are curious about what other people think. They want to learn why someone has an opinion that is at odds with their own. They admit that people with whom they disagree have some good points. Inclusion to them includes people with ideas that challenge them. If you are reading this, you are probably one of these people that I view as adults. Thank you for at least being curious if not actually open to my point of view. 

As for my dilemma about where to live, I don’t know what to do. This is a good place for my husband. If I followed my mom’s example and died before my husband, I’d want him to be here. But it’s not a good fit for me. Society in general is so thoroughly sorted today that there may not be a good fit for me anywhere. I’m not confident that I could find a place where I fit, and I probably couldn’t afford to move anyway. 

I have a few good role models here; people who likely share some of my views but just never share them publicly. I’m doing my meditations today on whether I need to give up, shut up, and join them. They have somehow found a way to be here without hoping to find any personal support here. Could I do that without descending into madness? I might have to. Wish me luck.