Gyasi Ross - Powerful Talk

Spent the workshop time with Gyasi Ross and story telling.  And now he's the keynote speaker.  Let's see what he adds.

See Native student in class filling out Harvard application. . .  well, I'll let him finish the story.


Story, talking about his dukene.  Empirical fact:  respectable white folks have studied this and come back and said it was true.  We humanized this information, this is a beautiful father/son moment.  I'm teaching my son something that could have serious health consequences if I didn't have this conversation.

Sometimes if we talk about race, we get squeamish.  Well, if we don't have this conversation, it's ok.  But there are serious consequences if we don't have this conversation about race.  If we don't have these conversations with our kids and nephews and nieces.  If I don't tell him that native kids get arrested more than others, or that native kids drop out of high school more than others, then he's at great risk.  If I don't tell my nieces that 1 of 3 native women are likely to be raped, it has consequences.

White fragility is a real thing.  We're going to have an honest conversation, but these issues have consequences.  We have to be able to say 'penis' and not giggle, say 'racism' and not giggle, say one in three women are sexually abused and not giggle.

When we talk about racial equity, we need to separate it from racial equality.  We conflate terms, their catchphrase for 2016.  No.  There's a meaningful difference.

Game of monopoly, but there's special rules.  Start of with Treaty of Cession - everyone in the state of Alaska except Natives.  So, you can't own land.  And slavery for black folks - you can't own land, can't vote.  This game of Monopoly started in 1776.  John Marshall, Doctrine of Discovery, whoever finds this land, it's their land.  You folks didn't own it anyway, it's communally owned, so you didn't actually lose it.  Then there was a land grab.  White males taking land.  And the accumulated so much land that native people were pushed to the corners and assumed dead.  That's why treaties were made because dead men tell no tales.  By 1900 less than 250,000 left.  From maybe 90 million.  White people had been buying land from 1776 to maybe 1885, and going around that Monopoly board and getting all the good property.  Then 1887, 1886, said, OK blacks and Indians, you can buy stuff now.  But, there isn't much land left.  White private ownership 856 million acres.  Black private ownership is 70 million acres.  Native ownership is 3 million acres.  That's current day.  That's the difference between quality and equity.  Equality is having the same opportunity, rights, possessions.  That ship's sailed.  That's gone.  So we move into the reality of Equity.  What can we put into place to make it seem that we started at the Monopoly board at the same time.

Well, now that we have this many acres of land, now we can be equal.  Case in Texas this year - Fisher v U of Texas, Austin.  We have to be equal.  No, you've been around the board a few times, and we need some compensatory action to be sure that people of color have equal opportunity.  Leads to displacement.  And this is where whites get uncomfortable.  At some point, opportunity, college education or jobs needs to be equal.  It's a zero sum game.

I'm Gyasi Ross, I'm a lawyer.  I went to Columbia.  I need to nickel and dime this.  $2500 for law school exam.  Data behind it.  Took first practice exam.  Mediocre.  Found the money for this class, washed dishes.  Six week class.  During those six weeks, my test score went up 30 points, to the degree I could get into whatever school I wanted.  I felt like a rich white person for one second.  It's about institutional benefits.  It's not about white guilt for an individual.  University of Missouri, this school was built with slave labor.  No black person should ever pay for tuition at U of Missouri.  We have to work this equation right.

Stories.  Partners for the next ten thousand years.  Great theme.  Irrespective of history, we're stuck together, so it behooves us all to work on mutually beneficial solutions.  So there has to be some displacement of people who've gone around the monopoly board much longer.

Abraham Maslow.  After hierarch of needs, he studied with my people, the Blackfeet.  At the top of the hierarchy is self-actualization.  These Blackfeet have it different and right.  They actually start with self-actualization at the bottom.  Ten year old's playing with the babies.  They start of knowing why they're here.  Advanced economics - is as opposed to the white world where we hoard wealth, we get five portions and five houses, the way the Blackfeet accumulate wealth - and then they give it away.  Potlatch, powwows, where they give it away.  Opposed to white folks  . . .  tragedy of the commons - the prototypical capitalistic story.  The grazing area, the common area, where they bring a cow or sheep.  And the place so ample they could feed everybody in town.  So great, that people said it could feed a little more.  Capitalism happened.  Everyone wanted to be the person who brought the extra sheep, soon it's over grazed.  No good to anyone anymore.  That's why we have global warming today.

We have solutions.  Uncle Billie Frank Jr. - he identified a problem.  He said, "I'm a fisherman.  I fish salmon.  this is how my family fed itself for 20 million years."  Remember those treaties that we don't have to honor because they are all dead.  He looked at the treaty that says we can fish in perpetuity.  He got arrested 52 times over the course of 29 years, with the intent of redeeming his treaty rights.  Up here in Alaska - I got such an education here Vicky thanks - because I didn't know about Etok Edwardian, Elizabeth Peratravitch, Katie John.  These stories of equity, of justice of liberation, are right in front of us.  Answers not coming from DC.  No saviors.  These answers come from us.  People willing to get arrested to pursue equal rights and equity.

Strategy.  First, give up belief in immediate gains.  At breakout session we talked about power, heartbreaking story.  We talked about McKensie Howard from Kake.  This is equity in a nutshell.  Understanding about Native people, unapologetically, that we are in a unique kind of jeopardy that we didn't create.  We are required to find those gatekeepers who get us to that equity.  Those folks who fought didn't know there would be an end to it.  Billie Frank went on for 29 years.  I think about slavery.  Those folks didn't know - book Martin Delaney, first black science fiction writer in 1850s, about freedom for blacks.  I'm going to try to create this reality.  I'm sure Billy Frank had the same thought when arrested the 26th or 27th time, must have seemed like science fiction.  Same when Etok talked about Native claims.  In the heat of the moment easy to get caught up in short vision of time.  Understand that Uncle Billie got arrest 59 times over 29 years.  That's a short time in terms of the ten thousand years.  We have to be in this for the long haul.

Point #1 about Equity - we have to be in it for the long haul.

Point #2 - We have to have those authentic conversations.  We have to be loud, not hide.  There was an event with Bernie Sanders.  Two black sisters took the microphone.  Next thing I'm on the stage.  Afterward.  I was conflicted.  I'm an ally of black lives matter but also of Bernie Sanders.  I heard white allies.  It was a worker movement.  Mostly white people.  Heard these voices.  They had our support until they pulled this.  If you're going to conflate the action of two people with a nationwide movement, then you were never with us to begin with.  We have to identify the people who are really an ally.  You don't speak for me.  You can't turn and run when a native or black person does something that offends your sensibility.

We have to identify strong allies.  Going back to the example in Kake.  Find those allies, whether they are in the media.  We talked about it, about reliving the trauma.  To have to wait two days for any kind of services from the state of Alaska, and as a lawyer, it's unconstitutional.  Need allies at BIA.  You have a trust responsibility to our community.  You need to treat us as if this was your own child - that's your trust duty.  Then, we need to push them.  Can't be afraid to offend their white sensibility.  Like I had to say penis to my son.  I had to say it.  It's hard conversation, but we have to do it.  We have to hold them to the standard of being an ally.

Finally, when I look at equity, I realize that people spend money on what they value.  Capitalist culture.  Want to know what people value, look at where they spend their money.  We hear the stories of diversity, of equal rights, even equity.  But we don't necessarily see the money.  To remedy that. . . mike goes out . . .ok,  Similar to these allies, we have to be willing to use, see, white allies, now us taking a little ass whuppin.  Our values aren't screamers, well, sometimes we have to scream.  She was bad (Petravich).

At times we mistake our learned behaviors with our ancestral behavior.  Where I'm from on Blackfeet reservation.  We like to play that shy thing too.  But history says we're fairly aggressive and demonstrative.  County Coup (?).  I like Sam  - if we were at war with him, I'd sneak him into his camp and slap him on the back of the head.  I could have killed him, but didn't.  I humiliated him.  When I go back to my camp I get my face painted and I'm celebrated.  Nothing shy about that.

Chicken dance you have your chest out, show off, like a prairie chicken.  Courting dance.  Nothing shy or modest about that.  That shyness and quietness, I think comes from boarding school, from a beatdown spirit, often from end of a gun.  See their parents helpless to do anything about it.  First time they hear English and white people - what my grandpa told me - taken away to boring school,  they poor kerosene on me - all natives have lice - and chop off my hair but don't tell me why, if they do, I don't understand anyway.  If I speak I get punished because I only know one language - get my knuckles wrapped and my mouth washed out with soap.  That's where this shyness and weakness come from.  When I see Katie John, I don't see a shy person.  I see power, command.  I think we need to tap into that DNA, not that learned history, really apart of our past, it's just a drop in the bucket of our existence.  That small period of time when we were vulnerable, that's nothing at all.

Again, these are rough notes, lots of missing bits and pieces.  I'll add some video later - it takes a while to upload.  But this was an important call to Native peoples to look at the long haul in demanding equity.  And to keep white allies on their toes too.  And I'll go through this later and edit it more too.  j;k

We have to reclaim, say things loudly, publicly, unapologetically.  These are important conversations, no matter how awkward it is.  This conference is beautiful.  It's a start.  But understand, the way I read things, we are at the infantile stage of achieving equity in this state.  Because learned behaviors hard to get away from - those were survival behaviors.  We can't judge them.  But we can see, we're not going to do that any more.  Going to get rid of a general white supremacy.

Thank you very much.

They say 70% of statistics are made up on the spot.  So question me.  How do we change laws and policies?  We have about ten minutes

Q:  Fairbanks 4 case, blanket immunity police and courts have.  How do we take away the blanket immunity, how do we get the accountability.

A:  First, can we have round of applause for George Frese.  Plea agreement is unconscionable.  We have to be the keepers of the story.  We can't let those stories die.  We need to record them, get them into the school curriculum.  No quick solution, has to be in the long run.  Until it's an accepted part of the conversation.

Q:  How do we deal with blood quantum issue - like dogs.
A:  Tribes have 100% autonomy to define tribal membership.  Some base it on descendency.  Other places it's different.  We adapt.  We've adapted a million times.  We've adapted quicker than anyone else in the world, except in Papua New Guinea.  I think we have to do it in a way that's meaningful and relevant to who we are.  In my tribe they wanted to get rid of it, but I think we have to replace it with something.  Move from ethnicity to nationality and citizenship - residence and language.

Local Experiences, Some Music And Dance

It's hard to keep up here on the blog. We've done a lot of group work, we've had lunch, and now we have two Yup'ik women - Panigkaq Agatha John Shields and Piiyuuk Olivia Shields talking about their experiences being married to black man and being half Yupik and half black. Stories about maintaining Yu'pik language and culture as well as black culture.



And some musical and dance expression.

Jay Smooth: How do you keep showing up in the face of an unjust system that has no fear or accountability?

[Again, these are rough notes.  My apologies to Jay Smooth if I made errors or left too much out.]

Jay Smooth -  Keep my hip hop name, keeps me from being too serious.  Hip Hop was a way of carving out space to express ourselves.  And this can become rebellious act, a space for invisible
people to see and be seen.  Whole world was watching, but that world has coopted and used. it.  That's the role it played for me from an early age.  I was a pretty isolated kid, as someone of mixed descent - dad black, mom white - often had the "What are you?" conversation with people.  Now appreciate that conversation about in-groups and out-groups.  When people don't know where you fit, it allows the conversation.  But as a teenager still trying to figure my identity, it was much harder, but then that hip hop world gave me a place to find myself.

That work is what I try to replicate when I speak on other social issues.  To maintain that sort of community, need to learn to speak across differences in that community.  Any adult from the hip hop community has to find ways in your community to call people out when they use that internalized racism.

Showing his video How to tell someone their racist.





Missed a bit here.  Now talking about studies that show racism still happens.  Study of people helping accident victims - black/white victims and helpers.  Show racism is internalized.  What connects us all as humans is our human imperfection.  Hard to do when any mention of racism brings out defensiveness about one's racism.  Oscar events over white nominees - no they weren't consciously excluding blacks, but they just didn't see it.  I had the same problem with hip hop and seeing that mostly we only had dudes and had to consciously get women.

If have some sort of ritual to remind you, it helps overcome that implicit bias.  Just like having a checklist so I don't forget my phone, key, and wallet when I leave the house, to make sure.  Has some effect on implicit bias, but doesn't end it.

I can't be narcissistic in the conversation - am I good?  George Frese yesterday asked important question.  My partner June passed away a few months ago.  It's been very difficult getting back to work, but seeing him yesterday has been inspiration.  Question:  How do you keep showing up in the face of an unjust system that has no fear or accountability?  

Flattening out MLK - making him into a Hallmark card, sanitizing him so he is less threatening.  People today dismiss Black Lives Matter are the same kinds of things they said about MLK at the end of his career  - not organized, lots of energy.  His work defined by tireless work, trying to find the next steps, the last years of his life when he talked about the post civil-rights era - next era of revolution until economic equality, no justice until structure is changed.  No grand victories in the last years of his life.  Book on equality was a flop.  Civil rights for workers didn't work.  People in his own circle told him he shouldn't be talking about economic justice.  He was racked by doubt.  Considered therapy but couldn't because FBI following him meant it would be used against him.  Not that his last years were a failure, but that tireless work with not grand victories, that is the work.  You need to show up every day.  That's the way we take those small steps toward justice and equality.  And he did find inspiration with organizing the poor and the sanitation workers.  Lesson he reaffirmed, even when no moments of glory, to do the work and be with the community is the glory.

This is a 10,000 year* effort without a doubt.  Need to struggle every day and do the work.
*theme of the workshop is "The next 10,000 years."

EJ David: "We don't want people to not see our color, but to value our color as equal to theirs."

EJ David is speaking.  [This talk was outstanding and is well worth reading this whole post.]

Thanking, all the folks who made this possible.  The folks at First Alaskans.  The room at Egan Center is full.  

My culture - core value is Kapwa -  "a shared inner self"  we are all connected, who one exists in another.  You are all my kappa.

[Warning:  This is a rough transcript of DJ's talk]

I was born in the Philippines.  A place colonized by Spain, then by the US.  Grew up in context of Western ideas.  Common for light skin Filipinos to see dark skin as ugly, unacceptable.  Regard English fluency as intelligence.  Everything made in USA regarded as good quality and Filipino items lower quality.  And I bought into it.  No choice but to absorb it, like air.  It was my world.  I  hated my brown skin.  I stayed away from the sun.  Thought I had to learn perfect English.  I lost my sense of kapwa with darker Filipinos.  I internalized the oppression of my culture.  I wanted to separate myself from the Philippines, to be in Disneyland, New York City.  My dream came true as teenager when I moved to Barrow, Alaska.  

Not exactly Disneyland or NYC.  Lessons I learned in Barrow.  I love Barrow because it's where I began to wake up.  I saw how the Inupiaq people value their culture and world view and began to ask why I didn't have that.  Filipino is born wanting to be white.  I also saw the struggles of our Inupiaq brothers and sisters.  Became conscious of discrimination I faced because I saw Inupiaq people faced.  I realized we aren't born hating ourselves.  Racial oppression was the teacher.  How does it affect all of us.  

Developed a lot of relationships.  Five main thoughts to share with everybody:

1.  Racism still exists, even in Alaska

National conversation on racism now.  It didn't go away and suddenly came back.  Racism just went underground, became more subtle and hidden.  Still very real.  Just not on the national consciousness.  Took recent tragedies to bring it back to national consciousness.  

But not here in Alaska.  Most common reason  - "Who cares what's happening in Lower 48 cause there is no racism here in Alaska."   On FB page someone wrote, we should not make a problem where there isn't one.  Anchorage has the most diverse neighborhoods.  Alive and well here, more subtle, but here.

Comes out in Social Media.  After Mike Brown tragedy, many Alaskans commented - they should be disappointed their son was a thug.  And more.  Lots of nasty comments.  Refugee brothers threatened last year, messages painted on their cars.  Messages to immigrants, like me, that we aren't wanted.  

Justice - Fairbanks 4 in prison for murder they didn't commit.  But 4 men who were caught on camera killing an immigrant.  White man texting who hit native man, got 18 months.  Supreme Court justices who question native links to their villages.  

Racism alive and well in Alaska.  Racism not dead, it's deadly.  Communities already suffering, maybe even dying, of it and we don't even know.

2.  We need to become aware and address modern forms of racism - these more subtle, invisible forms of racism.  Can't just focus on the outrageous.  We notice them.  I'm not surprised, because in touch with reality, we know it exists.  What is threatening to me is the seemingly large number of people who are emboldened by those outrageously bigoted statements and actions.  We are bound to have outlyers, but what scares me is the seemingly large numbers of people who agree with the hate.  I feel surrounded by hate and bigotry. We have to address the invisible, subtle racism.  That's the part that lets racism hide and even come off as acceptable.  It leads us to question our reality, our experience.  "Did I just experience racism or am I being overly sensitive?"  We blame ourselves for being offended by it.  Instead of changing system of racism, we change ourselves, internalizing our oppression.  These racist conditions do not allow us to reach our full potential.

3.  A colorblind melting pot ideology is problematic.  Easy solution is to not see race.  Like seeing race and color is racism.  On the surface looks attractive.  Catchy buzzwords.  Seeing race is not the problem.  Racism is.  Seeing color isn't why racism exists.  Pretending to not see color doesn't solve racism.  It doesn't bring people of color up to be equal.  Color blindness denies our existence, our experiences.  Our racial identities are part of who we are and our connections to others.  We don't want people to be blind to them.  Don't want people to ignore these parts of us.  We are proud of who we are, so we want people to see and respect the entirety of who we are, including our color.  We don't want people to not see our color, but to value our color as equal to theirs.  Colorblindness makes race a topic we shouldn't talk about, which means we can never address and solve racism.  Says we should all be the same, all blend together, ignores what makes us unique.  The melting pot concept tries to erase us, erase our culture, our race.  MLK's dream to be judged not by the color of our skin, but the quality of our hearts.  Not because he didn't value the colors, but because he wanted them all to become equal.  Rather than become color blind, we should be come race conscious.  Research seems to support that.  Being colorblind can lead us to thinking, feeling, and behaving in very biased was.  Research suggests we need to become more racially aware to become aware of our biases and privileges.  We need to become color conscious, not color blind.  We are able to hold multiple world views, we don't have to just hold one.  We don't need to become just one.  We can learn to respect multiple world views.  

4.  Seeing and celebrating diversity is not enough.  In Anchorage we talk about how diverse we are and how awesome we are.  But we also need to ask, who are the people in power?  They do not reflect the diversity we are talking about.  We have never had a non-white governor or mayor.  Assembly members don't even come close to the diversity we are so proud about.  This tells us that racial equality is a problem.  A part of racism is power, so this power imbalance shows that racism is alive.  Look at all the stats - education, health, justice system, socio-economic status, types of jobs.  All these disparities are here.  Further, racism is very common here and affects all these health concerns - nationally and locally.  Research shows all this.  Negative health impacts of racism is intergenerational.  How do we move our communities forward?  How do we make our leadership reflective of our community?  How do we go beyond galas and celebrations?  How do all of us get opportunities to reach our full potential.  

Over the years I've had friends tell me, "Hey EJ, why are you still talking about racism?"  Hate the game, not just the players.  Yeah, I hate the game too.  Let's change it and make it better.  Let's make it fair, equal and just for all groups.  

5.  Acknowledge, see how we are all connected, all kapwa.  Let's remember our shared inner selves, our shared humanity.  Remember and acknowledge all the social identities we have.  Not just racial oppression, also sexism, homophobia.  Not unique to people of color.  Not related to racial and ethnic groups.  Also experienced by many groups in US.  Women.  LBGTQ community.  Need to make connections between our experiences to the experiences of other groups.  See all oppression and see the enormity of it.  And develop desire to overcome it.  

Smooth And Wise - Some of US's Most Astute Observers Of Racism In Anchorage Monday And Tuesday

First Alaskans are having a blockbusting conference on racial equality Monday and Tuesday with outstanding national and local experts here.

Here's the whole program.  Things start at 8am Monday, but you could probably drop in whenever you have time.

Also, you can watch the keynote speakers live online.


Here's one of J. Smooth's recent videos.




And Tim Wise's.  Tim's been here before with Healing Racism In Anchorage and I got to meet him then.  He was fantastic.  He knows his stuff!




Here's more on some of the speakers from First Alaskans' website:

Panigkaq Agatha John-Shields & Piiyuuk Olivia Shields (Yup’ik) – powerful mother/daughter educators for indigenous knowledge systems and advocates for racial equity.

Tim Wise – among the nation’s most prominent antiracist essayists and educators. He has spent the past 20 years speaking on methods for dismantling institutional racism.

Maori Whanau – featuring Kate Cherrington and invited guests – the indigenous peoples of New Zealand have a unique voice and experience that can inform and inspire us to look beyond the status quo at what is possible when respect for indigenous peoples is the foundation upon which the wider racial equity movement is built upon.

Jay Smooth – a New York-based hip-hop scholar and cultural commentator, best known for his award-winning Ill Doctrine web video series, shares messages that both call out what is happening while giving solid instruction and ideas on how to transform our society.

Gyasi Ross – an attorney, author, and spoken word artist from the Blackfeet and Suquamish Reservations. Ross uses storytelling to deepen the understanding of Native American and social justice topics, giving us the opportunity to better understand, from a creative, cultural, and political context how history, oppression, and laws work.

E.J.R. David – a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, from Barrow, known for his advocacy and commitment to his Filipino heritage, and his research and publications on micro-aggressions, internalized oppression, and post-colonial psychology, to name a few. He is also a founding member of We Are Anchorage and is a member of the FAI ANDORE Visionary Council.

The 1491s – a sketch comedy group based in the wooded ghettos of Minnesota and buffalo grass of Oklahoma using humor to bring light to issues that indigenous communities face in America today.

There will also be an array of other Alaskans dedicated to racial equity, with powerful stories and expertise to share. The speakers will also have an opportunity to host interactive workshops and dialogues for deeper connection to their work, methods, and knowledge.

The theme is built upon respect and inclusion, and the summit is open to those interested in advancing racial equity as a shared value of all Alaskans. This is a working summit, so participants should be prepared to be part of making it a great experience. It will be an intergenerational, multicultural gathering, and youth under 18 are welcome with a chaperone. Our goal is that participants will leave the summit inspired and prepared to act and engage in exponential change at all levels – systemic, institutional, interpersonal, and personal.

Media credentials are available upon request. The registration fee will be waived for students and Elders.

Updates On Old Posts - Porno Condom Use in LA, Paxson's Poster And Creole Cowboy

Life moves along and things I've blogged about evolve.

An LA Times story the other day says a settlement looks close in the lawsuit against an LA vote to require porn actors to wear condoms.  The original post was in 2012  when voters approved the measure, and there was a follow up in 2013 when the first court decision came out. Apparently the condoms will stay, but the enforcement will be weaker.





And this year's Anchorage Folk Festival poster was done by Paxson Woelber, who I interviewed in 2009 when two of his short animations were in the Anchorage International Film Festival.




And don't miss the last night of the festival - Sunday, starting at 7pm at Wendy Williamson auditorium at UAA.  Jeffrey Broussard & the Creole Cowboys will play again.  The festival is free and it's one of the events that makes Anchorage a great place to live.

Is this part an update?  Well, the poster leads to the festival and I've got posts from previous folk festivals.
2015.  
2014.
2011.
2011.  This one has Kabala Shish Kebab.
2008.  Cajun and Creole is pretty popular up here.


There's a bit of video from Friday night to give you a sense of what they're like.  And only a sense, since I recorded this with my tiny Canon Powershot.  If you go to the festival, you'll get to hear their sound for real.  They'll be a number of other acts before them, you can come when you want.  Friday the auditorium was packed.

Why Did The Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor? Has Anything Changed?

The China Mirage tells the story of how missionaries serving in China and wealthy descendants of opium traders (like both the Roosevelt presidents) believed in the Christianization and Americanization of China and were easy prey for the Soong sisters who were married to Chiang Kai-Shek, Sun Yat Sun, and the richest man in China, banker H.H. Kung.  Their Chinese father had gone to college in the US in the late 1800s and became a Methodist.  And saw how much money Christians were sending to China and decided to take advantage.  All three sisters had gone to Wesleyan college in Georgia and spoke excellent American English.  Their brother TV Soong, graduated from Harvard and played an important role negotiating with top American leaders, including President Franklin Roosevelt.


Author James Bradley makes the argument that the Soong family took advantage of Americans' desire to believe that China was ready to become Americanized and Christian.  They helped form, with a number of prominent Americans, including the son of American missionaries in China, Henry Luce, the owner of Time  and Life magazines, The China Lobby.  Bradley tells us Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Mayling were on Time's cover more than any other people on the planet, including being Man of the Year in 1937. The Lobby painted this greatly misleading picture of China for politicians and the American public.

This false image of China played well and led, according to author Bradley, to disastrous results in China and Southeast Asia.  By aligning with the Soongs and Chiang Kai-Shek, Americans failed to see the rise of Mao in China and speeded up World War II's spread  into the Pacific. The US gave money and weapons to the Soong-Chiang alliance to fight the Japanese who had invaded Manchuria, but Chiang was more interested in fighting Mao and Ailing, the oldest sister, was more interested in filling her husband's bank.

There are lots of examples in the book of Americans dealing with the Soong-Chiangs - Americans who spoke no Chinese and had no background in Chinese history or present.  They'd go to China for a week on tour led by the Soongs, and come back with reports of their great army and how some military help would keep the Japanese at bay.  Bradley even says that the Soongs staged war zones and suggests that the Japanese soldiers they showed them in the binoculars were really Chinese actors.  The results almost always that the Soong's, with their perfect American English, good looks, and charming ways, successfully sell their highly misleading story of China and China's affinity to the US.

Overlooked was Mao's growing power and bond with Chinese peasants who made up most of the population, the loyalty and enthusiasm of Mao's army, or the incompetence of Chiang's army, and Chiang's interest in fighting Mao rather than the Japanese.  And not known to most, was that many of those Americans - missionaries, diplomats, businessmen - who lobbied for the Soongs, were also on their payroll.

Here's the plan one of their American educated Chinese employees offered to gain US support:

"1.  Recruit American missionaries, arm them with evidence of Japanese atrocities, and have them return to the U.S. to give testimony and speeches. (Tong emphasized that the American target audience would not know that the paid missionaries were acting as agents for the Soong-Chiang syndicate.  Tong wrote that he would 'search for international friends who understand the realities and politics of the Chinese war of resistance and have them speak for us, with Chiinese never coming to the fore.')
2.  Hire Frank Price (Mayling's favorite missionary) to lead the missionary campaign.
3.  Recruit American newsmen and authors to write favorable articles and books."

Besides lobbying for money and arms, they were lobbying to stop the US from selling oil and steel and other materials to Japan, which Japan used to invade and bomb China.  People at the State Department feared an embargo would prod Japan to retaliate.  At the very least, Japan would head south to take over the oil in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).  Having read other accounts of this battle in FDR's administration, I'm surprised that Bradley never (well, I still have another hundred pages to go, but I'm 3/4 into the book) mentions another argument - the money that US oil companies were making and and how that was helping an economy still recovering from the Great Depression.

Probably, you can see where I'm going with all this.  We know this is still going on today.  Who did the Bush administration rely on for advice on invading Iraq?  Which Afghans and Syrians have been advising our government on Afghanistan and Syria?  To what extent have Western educated natives of those countries been able to have undue credibility because their knowledge of English and of the US was so superior to our knowledge of their countries?  And how misleading were their assessments of how the war was going and how was their own personal wealth affected?

There were Americans who understood what was going on in China.  The US embassy's military attaché in China, in 1936, Colonel Joseph Stilwell, for example,

"observed Chiang's dragooned 'scarecrow' soldiers:  many were less than four and a half feet tall, under fourteen years of age, and barefoot.  Stilwell wrote in his diary, 'The wildest stretch of the imagination could not imagine the rabble in action except running away.'

Forty pages later,

[Colonel Stilwell] wrote:  'No evidence of planned defense against further Japanese encroachment.  No troop increase or even thought of it.  No drilling or maneuvering.  Stilwell also observed Mao's warriors, about whom he noted, 'Good organization, good tactics.  They do not want the cities.  Content to rough it in the country.  Poorly armed and equipped, yet scare the Government to death.'"

Then there's the secret army that FDR sends to China (led by the man who will be Stilwell's biggest nemesis later when Stilwell's in command of the US military in China.)

"Roosevelt was now running an off-the-books secret executive airforce through Ailing's front companies.  Claire Chennault was a private contractor - a mercenary - being paid by the China Lobby.  Roosevelt was sheep-dipping:  taking U.S. personnel, cleansing them with the fiction of their resignations, and then sending them off as secret mercenaries.  Today, many mistakenly believe that Chennault's mission was an American invention controlled by the U.S. military, but when he returned to Asia, Chennault reported back to Washington not through American military channels but privately, through his boss, T.V. Soong."

Bradley argues that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because Dean Acheson managed to block oil shipments in August 1941 without Roosevelt knowing.  This, plus the mercenary air force in China, and the movement of US navy ships to Hawaii, sent signals to Japan that led the Japanese to do what neither the Japanese nor the Americans wanted - start a war between the two nations.  While our history books paint the Pearl Harbor attack as a dastardly, the US was already supplying China with bombers and pilots - offensive weapons that could be used to attack Japan.

Disturbing that not much has changed.  Even though we have better access to information about what our leaders are doing, there is still much we don't know.  And Edward Snowden is still in Russia because they don't want us to know.  Democracies are in a quandary.  There's a need for voters to be able to assess what their leaders are doing, yet you don't want your enemies to know as well.  But better understanding of the Soongs well funded and massive campaign at the time, might have helped people ask for a more accurate assessment.  It will be very interesting to hear what Obama and others have to say in 20 years about who was doing what to influence our foreign policy in his administration.

I'm a little skeptical of Bradley.  I think he too may be overly sold on his own thesis.  Despite the power of the China Lobby, FDR's leadership style has his subordinates constantly in competition.  Instead of groupthink, there seemed to have been epic battles over policy, with FDR getting to hear a wide range of views.  Though the groupthink link above gives the failure to anticipate the bombing of Pearl Harbor as an example.  The book makes it clear that Secretary of State Hull was vehemently opposed to the oil embargo in fear of prodding the Japanese into a Pacific war, but I don't think bombing Hawaii was what they had in mind.  This may not have been so much groupthink as failure to understand what the Japanese were thinking.  There's an interesting passage in the book where Secretary of State Hull negotiates with the Japanese ambassador, a former naval admiral whose English was poor.  They didn't use an interpreter and the book's account has the ambassador not understanding Hull's warning and sending back to Japan a totally incorrect interpretation of Hull's message.

While we are warned that history repeats itself, it's also true that picking the wrong examples from history leads to bad assessments.  The domino theory was a key argument to get into Vietnam after Eastern Europeans fell into the Soviet sphere in 1946.  But was it the right one?  Would the Southeast Asian countries have fallen one-by-one to Communist leaders had we not gone to war in Vietnam?  That's still debated, but in part, we supported authoritarian pro-Western leaders (at least those who portrayed themselves that way as did the Soongs) over the nationalist, anti-colonial leaders, like Ho Chi Minh, who found support from the Soviets when we rejected them.

Life is endlessly complicated and seeing through the complications to the real issues is too.  Probably why a candidate like Trump appeals to a sizable minority - he makes it all simple.  He tells them what they want to believe, just as the Soongs did.

[Update Jan 31, 2016:  I should have mentioned that a 2012 post goes through Doris Kearns Goodwin's description  (in No Ordinary Time) of the lead up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Bradley's book cites Goodwin's book, and there's nothing that's inconsistent, but the two emphasize different details.]

Officials Shoot Oregon Protestor - What Does The Video Mean?

Officials shot one of the Oregon protesters at a road block.  They've released the video.  Lots of thoughts go through my head. 

Once more, why aren't officers trained in non-lethal restraint and capture? A shooting and a death should be the very last resort.   Cops who kill should be thought of as failing to do their jobs.  But they need better training.   I think of Asian martial arts masters whose training is for self-defense, and who use their control of their bodies to disarm their enemies. But a gun is so much easier. No years of training of the body and the mind.  Just pull a trigger.

I can't help but think - well, white guys get shot too.  But that's not the answer.  No one should get shot except in the most extreme circumstances.  I think the approach to wait things out was good.  Let the cold and the boredom take down the protesters.   The buildings are high priority places, particularly in the winter.  But then, why this?  Where's Zorro with his whip when we need him?  Where are all the Kung Fu masters?

I think of how people watching this who have no sympathy for the protesters, DO have sympathy for other protesters, and vice versa.

I think, in the future, others who see this will think:  if they're just going to die anyway, why not crash into the vehicles and take some cops with them, rather than swerve off into the snow?   Or maybe he thought he'd get around them.   This does counter the report that he was on his knees with his hands held high, but it still doesn't look good.

OK, these are all things that go through my head as I watch the video.  Maybe it only means that a cop, in a high adrenalin situation panicked and pulled the trigger.





The bigger issues are why Americans are angry and divided.  They involve the income disparity in the US.  College grads facing graduation with huge debts that cut down their options.  They need to get a job and pay off the debts.   They have less room to fail.  Of course, that's a luxury that Americans have had - second, third, and fourth chances - that other people around the world don't have. Many don't even have first chances.  

And even those who went into 'sure career' fields, like petroleum engineering, find out that timing is everything.  And it's older folks facing retirement with not much savings.  It's hard working folks who have saved their money who think their success is solely their own doing, who don't see the help they got along the way.  And feel no sympathy for those who didn't have the skills or the will power or the luck to retire financially comfortable.  And maybe they've got money, but the pursuit of that money has left many of their family members wounded.

The reports of white males' life expectancy dropping surely tells us something about the fears behind their bravado.

" Mortality rates were 60% to 76% higher than they would have been if the trends of the 1980s and 1990s had continued in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma."

Six of the seven mentioned are in the top ten most religious states.  And six are the six poorest states in the country (Oklahoma is #13.)

Anger and violence breed anger and violence.  Cooperation and generosity require a basic level of self-confidence and trust.  Yet even the most bitter are willing to give their money or their time to help others.

There are no easy answers.  We need to start talking to each other, stop demonizing each other, find common ground.  We need to stop fomenting hate and giving attention to those who do.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.

One thing that I can only hope might come from this video:  Angry white males watching this might, for even an instant, relate to angry blacks watching their sons shot by police.  Though most of the blacks we've seen killed on video last year were unarmed.

41˚F And Treacherous

41˚F sounds pretty reasonable for an Anchorage January evening.   But freezing rain on already cold streets is nasty.

A sheet of ice on the street.

Senate Majority Poll Finds 48% Of Survey Takers Support A State Income Tax at 25% Of Federal Income Tax

When I got the email survey last week from the Senate Majority, my eyebrows went up a bit when I saw that their income tax question pegged the tax at 25% of the federal income tax.  I'd just heard the governor's state of the state address where he proposed a 1% level.

Surely, this was meant to suppress the income tax support, I thought.  And today's ADN had a commentary by Dermot Cole making that same point.

And now I got an email with the results of the poll.  I checked the question on income tax first.  Even at 25% of the federal tax, 49% responded positively!  That must be a surprise to the Senate majority.

Click to focus 

There are several full blog posts to write about here.

1.  About the governor's state of the state address - which I thought was a refreshingly clear, straightforward, and honest outlining of the situation.  He laid it all out.  This much is our gap.  We can:

• Cut
• Use Permanent Fund and Other Reserves
• Raise New Revenue

He pointed out that cutting all state employees wouldn't put much of a dent into the deficit.  For some people, shutting down government is the only way they will start to see all the things they depend on the state government for.  Immediate impacts will be no state troopers, no snow plowing or other road maintenance, prisoners would all starve in their cells or have to be released.  You think you'd have trouble flying because Alaska hasn't adopted real ID drivers' licenses, wait until we have no licenses at all, or license plates.  What will the Canadian border folks do with all our out of date plates trying to go through?  The airports would shut down.  Then there are things that will take longer to happen - people will start getting sick from things like bad water.  But that's another post.

The governor offered some options - what he wanted from the Permanent Fund (no limits, but the dividend would come off oil royalties, not investment earnings as I understood the speech), what size income tax (1% of Federal), and no sales tax.  He explained why he made the choices he did - income tax would capture those who were not residents of Alaska but worked here and sales tax is local government's way to raise money and he didn't want to add a state sales tax on top of the local taxes.

And then he said he wasn't set on the specific options, but he was set on the outcome.  He got the biggest applause when he said, "I will always put Alaska’s future above my own.  I didn’t run for gov to keep the job, but to do the job."

2.  About the different revenue options and who wins and loses from each.

Since corporations don't get Permanent Fund Dividends but they do pay income taxes, you can guess what they want.  More money from the Permanent Fund and no income taxes.  We should tap into the Permanent Fund, because that's what it was set up for in the long run - to be an endowment for Alaska.  The non-renewable oil could be turned into renewable capital, and a portion of the state's budget could be funded from the interest.  They key is how big a hit the Permanent Fund should take now and whether income taxes should also be added in.

Poorer folks get a bigger benefit from the PFD than the wealthy.  They would pay less in income taxes.  And they would pay a bigger percent of their income on a sales tax than the wealthy.

And who has the money to sway the public?  The poor and middle income or the wealthy and the corporations?  You can see where this is leading.

GCI has already started a coalition to push for big hits for the Permanent Fund.

But 48,2% in support of an income tax that's 25% of the federal tax is huge!

But the legislative majority hasn't been too good about paying attention to what people think if it's not what they think.  They're still suing the governor over medicaid expansion, despite overwhelming public support.


I'd also note that the * with the explanation for the 25% figure (that's what Oregon has) was NOT on the survey itself.

Here's a link to all the poll responses.