Sexist Jokes Promote Violence Toward Women

As readers know, I've been interested for a while in the use of humor (particularly satire) for social justice work, as well as understanding what makes racist and sexist jokes morally problematic (check out the philosophy of humor tag). Now Spanish researchers have done a study that suggests that young men who listen to sexist jokes somehow become desensitized to statements that justify aggression and violence toward women.

Surprising?

Democracy and Civil Disobedience: Philosophy Cafe @ Powell's Books: Aug. 1

Yesterday, I participated in the Philosophy Cafe at Powell's Books. Its a new event organized by a new friend of mine, Brian Eliot, and his colleague, John Farnum. The hope is to involve everyday folks in philosophical discussions about a wide variety of topics. My talk yesterday focused on "Democracy and Civil Disobedience". Brian and John told me we reached the highest audience numbers with this one (about 55 people total). After I gave my presentation, the audience asked some questions and then they were broken up into small discussion circles. John, Brian, and I listened in to some of the conversations. There was some great soul searching about whether or not people thought they would be willing to put their lives, jobs, reputations on the line for justice and whether non-religious people could have the same fortitude to engage in social justice work and nonviolence as figures like Gandhi, King, or Chavez, who were all deeply spiritual men. (I pointed out Barbara Deming's, work as a secular theory of nonviolence)



The talk I gave provided two views on the legitimacy of civil disobedience (which I defined, following Rawls, as "the public, conscientious, and nonviolent refusal to obey laws or commands of the government in order to bring a change in such laws or commands").

I offered two arguments from Socrates in the Crito which say that CD should not be allowed because: 1) laws and government institutions are "like parents" in that they provide the conditions for nurturance for a person to live and flourish and as such, they are owed obedience and gratitude by citizens who benefit from them; and 2) to the extent that a citizen stays in a society and abides by the laws and government power without dissent, then an implicit contract is formed in which the citizen agrees to accept the legitimacy of the laws and government. If a citizen does not like the laws, then he can leave; if he does not, he accepts them and the power they hold over him.

I then countered with Martin Luther King's point that even if a rule is legal this does not make it moral. There are just laws and unjust laws. While we have a legal and moral responsibility to obey just laws, we have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws.

I finished by talking about why nonviolence is the method with which we ought to think about making social change. Sometimes, when the injustices of our society are grasped in their enormity, it might seem that only violent upheaval can make the changes needed so that people will not suffer or die any longer. I offered some quotes by Cesar Chavez on how armed struggle rarely results in a situation of social justice and ended with the views of Barbara Deming. She says that nonviolence is the most ethical way to resist evil because it resists oppression "with one hand", but offers the other hand to the oppressor to reassure them that we do not seek their destruction or suffering.

John Woo Gets Punked: Should Nonviolent Protest ever be Mean?

Via this exciting new blog, Waging Nonviolence, a video from an Australian comedy group confronting Bush Administration torture apologist John Yoo in his class at Berkeley. My favorite part comes when the protester is asked to leave by administration and he says he is going to go to the human rights class down the hall.



Eric Stoner, the blog author, writes that such protests, confronting officials and ridiculing them, make him uncomfortable and can seem unproductive. Is it perhaps because they seem mean-spirited or disrespectful?

Gandhi believed that nonviolence should be done with a spirit of charity and King with a spirit of love and respect for the other who might be doing wrong.

Is ridicule an appropriate form of social criticism/protest?

Should 39th Become Cesar Chavez Blvd in Portland? Interview on the Mark and Dave show (1190 KEX AM)

(Cesar Chavez Street in Austin, Texas. By Larry Miller via Flickr)

I was interviewed on the Mark and Dave Show on 1190 KEX Am News radio yesterday about the legacy of Cesar Chavez. You can listen in here (the show plays during rush hour from 4-7pm. My interview is during the last hour, about 3/4 of the way through the podcast)

Yesterday, the Portland City Council voted to rename 39th Avenue after Cesar Chavez. Seems like there is a very big political controversy over this. For the past few years, the City Council has made missteps in trying to get a street named for Chavez, angering various groups in the process.

As I said in the interview, I think its appropriate that a major city on the West Coast do something to honor Chavez (especially considering how much agriculture is part of the Oregon economy!) I don't really have an opinion as to whether a street is the best way to do that.

What I think is unfortunate is how the issue of the street becomes one of recognizing Latino/a contributions to the city ( some of the mayor's remarks suggest that this is a way of honoring Latino/a history in Portland). This reinforces the idea that Chavez was an ethnic leader most of all. Chavez always pointed out that the farmworker movement, and the United Farm Workers in particular, was multi-racial. In fact, the first big strike by the farmworkers was organized by Mexican and Filipino workers (led by Larry Itilong). Here is Itilong, alongside United Auto Worker labor leader Walter Reuther, and Chavez:



Personally, I think it would be great if Portland had a public school named after Chavez. Maybe one of the Portland Community College branches? How about a work center for day laborers in NE so they they could have a place to meet, instead of having to stand around the street corners off Burnside? Maybe one that could offer legal advice, provide child care, and even English classes for free? Something that could make a real tangible difference in the quality of worker's lives would truly honor Chavez's legacy.

"Men Live Better Where Women Are in Charge"

Not surprising really.


Ricardo Coler went to live among the Mosuo, a matriarchal ethnic minority in China. He talks about his experience in this Der Spiegel interview.

It would be interesting to get a more ethnographic account of this society (to flesh out what "living better" really means, how "work" is distributed and what the women think about the whole situation). But from Coler's description, it sounds as if the Mosuo live like the bonobos.

Mark Rudd as Commencement Speaker? (or What can Kids today learn from a terrorist)

I can't imagine OSU ever doing this, but one can dream. Timothy Noah, over at Slate.com, suggests that colleges and universities shouldn't recruit successful people to give the commencement speech at the end of the year. Instead, schools should get failures--people who have screwed something up in their lives and can talk about the wisdom they gathered from the experience. One of his examples is our old friend, Mark Rudd. Here is Noah:

"Mark Rudd. Rudd (author of Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen) is a refreshing departure from Weather Underground veterans like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who continue to glamorize their radical past and to deny the Weather Underground's violent intentions. Rudd sees "very little positive" in the Weather Underground and much to be ashamed of, including its destruction of Students for a Democratic Society, the anti-war group the Weather Underground grew out of. He does not deny that the explosives that killed three of the Weather Underground's members in a Greenwich Village brownstone in 1970 were intended to kill soldiers and their dates at a dance at Fort Dix, N.J. He feels bad about the toll his life took on his parents. Worthwhile message: Don't intellectualize violence."

What a great talk that would be! (And I agree with Noah's review of Rudd's work in comparison to Ayers. Fugitive Days is a bore and a tad pompous. Rudd actually has some lessons for people about politics today)

Check out Mark talking about his new book on C-Span here.

New Film on Cesar Chavez in the Works!

I received an email from director Dieter Heisig about a new biographical film on Cesar Chavez in production right now! Finally! Here is the press release:

Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott of the late 1960s will be the subjects of a new feature film to be produced by German production company MN Visionen. “This is a long overdue project on one of America’s great heros – the man who fought for the underdog, and who first popularized the famous phrase in the recent US presidential election: ‘Yes, we can!’,” said MN Visionen head Dieter Heisig. During the 1960s and 70s, Cesar Chavez – an American migrant worker and union organizer – helped create and lead the United Farm Workers Union. Using methods of non-violence protest inspired by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, Chavez and the movement labored against phenomenal odds under the slogan “Si, se puede!”. His fasts and the famous March on Sacramento in 1966 were honored by many, including Robert F. Kennedy, while the Grape Boycott received international attention. The completed screenplay for this powerful film is based on the contemporary biography Cesar Chavez: Man of the Migrants by Jeanne Pitrone. It tells the story of a man and a movement dedicated to gaining the same civil rights for migrant workers as for all other American workers. It is estimated that well over a million U.S. citizens are still employed today as migrant workers under bleak conditions, many of them children.

MN Visionen is a newly formed independent German production company. Company head Dieter Heisig has worked as a producer and publicist for countless film, music and television productions in Germany, France and Austria.

For more information on the directer, go here (for those who read German).

Spielberg to Make MLK Biopic; Cesar Chavez Movie Far Behind?

Steven Spielberg has announced that he has cleared that way with the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. to make a biography movie about MLK.

I wonder how long it will be before a Cesar Chavez film comes along? I'm officially throwing my hat out there to be a film consultant for whatever project materializes.

I remember speaking to Luis Valdez a few years ago about whether he thought a movie would come out about Chavez. He said that it was still too early and it would be too controversial for some people who were involved in Cesar's life.

I have some casting suggestions already though. I always thought that Clifton Collins might have a shot as a young Cesar:



Here he is in Capote (2005). Brown him up, sorta like Lou Diamond Phillips in La Bamba, and you might have a Chicano leader:

A Modest Proposal: Anti-Fascism Day April 20

I don't know whether there is such a day on April 20 (the day Hitler was born). This is Holocaust Memorial Week, but it seems we should also have a day to rally against the attitudes and political habits that generate intolerant and arbitrary government. This great speech by Charlie Chaplin, from the film, The Great Dictator, is relevant, even over 60 years later (in fact, Chaplin's call reminds me of the ideas of Martin Luther King, jr--read his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, in which King talks about the need for a revolution of values)

Cesar Chavez Day 2009

Sorry to have been away for so long. For the past few weeks, I've been touring around the country, talking about Cesar Chavez.

Today is Chavez's 82nd birthday. Check here to see if there are any events near you celebrating his life and work.

If you are in Detroit today, come see me at the University of Detroit-Mercy!

Que viva La Causa!

Dolores Huerta Becomes a Cultural Icon (Finally!)

Glamour magazine recently did a photo layout of young actresses and singers portraying "women in history" (even though some of the women depicted are cultural icons or fictional characters and not actual persons).

But among them was America Ferrera (of Ugly Betty fame) as Dolores Huerta, co founder (with Cesar Chavez) of the United Farm Workers union.



Its about time this woman got the icon status she deserves.

I recently was excited to get a copy of the A Dolores Huerta Reader by Mario Garcia. Hopefully, this work can start to attract scholarly attention to Huerta's role as a nonviolent activist in U.S. history.

Should Latino/a Workers Occupy a New Republic (Windows and Doors)?

A group of mostly Latino/a workers, who were laid off from a window factory in Chicago, have decided to stage an occupation of the factory rather than be turned out. You can read about this group of workers and the national attention they are bringing to the worries of ordinary working people here.

It seems that the workers feel they were not given full consideration of federal law before being laid off and are asking the owners of the factory, who claim they are broke, to give them the entire severance and vacation pay they are due. The workers claim that they will stay until Christmas, if need be.

The union to which the workers belong claims that they are simply engaging in an action that goes back to the 1930s when American workers would nonviolently occupy factories to pressure owners with their demands.


The occupation by the Republic Windows and Doors workers reminds me of the factory take overs in Argentina after the 2001 economic crisis. There, many factory owners also went bankrupt and simply left town, leaving the workers with little or no notice of a shutdown. Instead of simply accepting defeat, the workers of many of these factories went back to work and occupied facilities. They started to run the factories on their own, creating their own forms of management and production. Workers began to develop their own theories of a non-hierarchal work place, and of democratic decision making on the shop floor, that started to spread throughout the country. Soon, neighborhood assemblies were forming, in which people could talk about their reactions to economic crisis, and plan collective action that was independent from the state institutions and political parties. Some of these citizen activists called this kind of grassroots democracy horizontalism. You can read more about this movement here and also here.

The Republic workers aren't currently thinking of running the factory on their own. They simply want to get what is due to them. But wouldn't it be a great example if ordinary workers could take production matters into their own hands and demonstrate how the economy really works because of them and not because of the generosity of capital lending financial institutions which are pocketing so much of the taxpayer bailouts?

Does it Matter Who Wins? Obama, Palin, and Strategy for Social Justice

No matter which party wins today in the presidential race, it will be an historic election. One the one hand, we might have our first African American president. On the other, we might have the first woman vice president. Either way, the end result will be an individual in a position of power who would never have been allowed there by the Founding Framers of this country.

Courtney, over at Feministing, reports on the feeling in the air in the multiracial, multicultural streets of Brooklyn, NY. If Obama wins, she writes, it will provide hope for youth, and renewed faith for elders that social justice movement can work.

Undoubtedly, we are in historic moments. Some cautionary notes:

Malcolm X, speaking in 1964, on the eve of the passage of the historic Civil Rights Act, warned his audience not to be content with making reforms in the United States. He urged them to think more broadly, in terms of human rights. He said of American politics:

"Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate."

It is certainly true that an Obama administration will be different, and perhaps, more receptive to social justice concerns. But social justice will require more than just having the right people in place at the table or in the White House.

William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolishionist, refused to vote in elections because he felt it gave legitimacy to a political system that behaved immorally. I think it is problematic to think of voting as an expression of purity. There are those who will not vote for either McCain or Obama because they believe both represent compromised positions. They will vote for third party candidates, who will most certainly not win, because they cannot bring themselves to tie their fortunes to someone they consider distasteful.

There is perhaps another way to think of this. Machiavelli taught us (in the Discourses) not to think of politics as a game of virtue, or to honor our politicians because of their honorable characters. Instead, he taught that politics is an arena of struggle. If you don't participate, you risk allowing other groups into that arena who might threaten your liberty. Political action, then, ought to be strategic; how best can you defend your views? Voting should be seen as a strategic move rather than as a direct expression of your views, making sure that the political arena is open enough to allow you to manuever in it. In this sense, voting third party in U.S. elections might not be the best thing to do, since it is most certainly a wasted vote and unlikely to create any strategic space in the political arena (though it might make you feel personally good)

Garrison wrote, in 1838:

"There are those who disapprove of every form of political action, on the part of abolitionists.... We cannot yield to this reasoning. It proceeds, we think, upon a narrow view of the subject. Politics, rightly considered, is a branch of morals, and cannot be deserted innocently. …We, however, view political action chiefly as a means of agitating the subject.... To conclude this part of the subject, our true policy is not to turn party politicians, but in politics as elsewhere to stand firm by our principles, and let the politicians come to us...."

Despite whomever wins in the presidential race today, the power to make change will still depend on grassroots organizing and ordinary people who will push those in office. We will have to be strategic.

New Interview on KUCI's "Justice or Just Us?"

Last week, I had a great interview about Cesar Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence on KUCI's program "Justice or Just Us" with activist-scholar Jarret Lovell. You can listen to it here

Peace Sells, But Who's Buying?: America Now the Largest Arms Dealer in the World

The United States now accounts for more than half of all arms and military equipment sold in the world today (about 52% of the world market in arms sales). This amounts to about $32 billion in arms profits, up from just about $12 billion, only 3 years ago.

The U.S. government claims this is done in the name of security and the promotion of peace. Peace through strength and force of arms is captured by the idea of "negative peace" (described here by one of the founders of peace studies, Johann Galtung). Negative Peace usually means the absence of fighting or outright aggression. Thus, the U.S. is hoping that by arming the world, there might be more negative peace in the world as nations will be less likely to pick fights with heavily armed neighbors.

It's the same logic that motivates school districts in Texas to allow staff to carry guns--if school shooters know that teachers are packing heat, they will be less likely to go on rampages. Or if they do begin to rampage, then they are more likely to be taken down in a fire fight with armed teachers, hopefully sparing the lives of more innocent students (so the story goes)

But Galtung notes there is another notion of peace--positive peace. This means the presence of political, economic, and social conditions that make it less likely that conflict will devolve into force and violence. Martin Luther King, Jr. usually said this involved the "presence of justice" in the world. The question might become then: how much aid is the U.S. offering the world to try to create conditions of positive peace?

It seems not as much as it spends selling arms. Figures suggest that, in 2007, the U.S. gave out about $21 billion in non-military foreign aid, which is about less than 1% of its gross national income. Sounds like a lot until you consider that in 1998 we spent about $8 billion just on cosmetics and the Europeans spent about $50 on alcohol (and probably spend more now, some 10 years later).

Are we more secure in a world awash in weapons? Is it better that the world use our weapons rather than someone else's?

The Military-Industrial Complex and You

"If the law is of such nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law." Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's famous essay on civil disobedience addresses the question of disengagement from government and a reliance on individual conscience. He feared being absorbed in a mob mentality, in general, and lost in a movement of mindless people who utilized the coercive power of the state in particular. Remember, of course, he spent time in jail for failing to pay taxes during the U.S. invasion of Mexico--a war he considered to be especially unjust. His example inspired Gandhi and Cesar Chavez to think that one of the important principles of nonviolence is: non-cooperation with whatever is humiliating is paramount.

I know some people who refuse to pay their federal taxes because they don't support the military and I know a lot more who wish they could bring themselves to take such a stand against the government.

But a new book suggests that our involvement in the military and its operations is far more complex and raises questions about our collective responsibility and culpability. Nick Turse demonstrates that the military-industrial complex is quite wide; that is, the number of corporations that do business with the military is quite vast and many of them provide ordinary goods and services that most people use on an every day basis--the the toothpaste and shampoo we use in the morning, the appliances we fill our house with, to the stations we watch on televsion. We literally cannot escape from some kind of involvement with an organization that provides material assistance to the military and its capacity to cause destruction.

Thoreau had Walden to which he could retreat and experiment with self-reliance. In our highly integrated, technology society, it seems that there is less space with which to exercise the first principle of nonviolent ethics.

Does the size and reach of the military-industrial complex in modern America morally implicate civilians in any violence, destruction, or human rights violations that the military may commit?

Why Cesar Chavez is Relevant Today

Podcast of an interview with me on Santa Fe Public Radio.

The Only Diet for a Peacemaker is Vegetarian

Sometimes in my Peace Studies class, students embrace pacifism as a kind of political philosophy, but they reject it as a personal belief system. That is, they think pacifism should be the norm for nations and that there should be no war, but they think that physical violence is sometimes necessary on a personal level. Namely, they want to reserve the right to protect themselves or loved ones in self defense. Some people argue that this is contradictory--if pacifism is an ethical doctrine, then it must apply universally to all people and situations in which aggression presents itself. See this for arguments about possible contradictions in pacifism.

John Dear presents another perplexing issue. He maintains that to be an authentic and effective peacemaker, someone dedicated to the activism of nonviolence, requires a vegetarian diet.

The production, processing, and consumption of animal protein is environmentally unsustainable and unhealthy, Dear says, and he presents various images of peace and nonviolence from Biblical sources to suggest that vegetarianism is a world view best suited to bringing peace to the world.

Is it contradictory to be a nonviolent activist and be a meat-eater?

Here is a video of Cesar Chavez suggesting that it might be:

Cesar Chavez Book Tour: I spend my summers talking about Nonviolence, too

This past weekend marked the beginning of public readings for my book Cesar Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence (UNM Press 2008). You can find out some of the information about the book and the readings in New Mexico here.

Here's a picture of the book signing at Bookworks in Albuquerque's North Valley:



I was honored by a visit from Mark Rudd at the reading:




Now to get on Oprah and Jon Stewart!

(Photos courtesy of Marta Kunecka)

Honoring Cesar Chavez at 81

Today would have been Cesar Chavez's 81st birthday. He died in his sleep in 1993, reading a book on art. His life was cut short, not by an assassins's bullet as was Martin Luther King, or Malcolm X, or his colleague, Robert Kennedy, but because of years of self-denial. He suffered for years because of the fasts that he took on in the name of the farmworker struggle. During his life, he voluntarily denied himself food three times for periods of longer than 20 days. The toll on his body was immense. He underwent debiliating back pain for years. But during his last fast, in 1989, he told people he felt guilty and ashamed because he did not know how much the farmworkers in California had suffered as a result of pesticide use. So he fasted in order to be miserable, to feel pain, because the farmworkers felt pain, and he wanted to show solidarity with them. As a result of these choices, he died before his time, as do many of the workers whose lives are spent in toil so that the rest of us can simply eat.

Here you can listen to a lecture by Cesar Chavez, entitled "Reflections of Social Justice", a year before his death, at Harvard University. (The voice of Dr. King is well known to us, less so is the calm, yet passionate, voice of Cesar). In this lecture talks about pesticide exposure, the sexual harrassment of women farmworkers, the history of union labor in the fields, and the requirements of social justice.

What's interesting in this talk--in this period leading up to the presidential election this fall--is how Cesar discounts the idea of social change through electoral politics. For poor people, he says, it doesn't matter which politician get elected. The key to social justice is to realize that real change only takes place through people power--ordinary folks organizing themselves to put pressure and coercion on the powerful to change. There is power beyond the ballot box.


I examine these ideas of his in my book that was just released: Cesar Chavez and the Commonsense of Nonviolence. I hope some readers will be able to send me their thoughts on the book eventually.

Viva Cesar!