Pacifica Project Presentations

There was no color essay on Tuesday. I have been busy the past few days because my high school has a graduation requirement that ends with presentations at the convention center. Students have identified a community and a need—a charitable concern such as feeding children, tagging salmon, collecting litter, or coaching kids—then designed a project to address the need, put in dozens of hours, researched a related issue and written a lengthy persuasive essay, and finally, yesterday, presented their projects to the community at the Seaside Civic & Convention Center. Their 12-15 minute talks required visuals and rehearsals beginning last week at school and then all day on Tuesday in their assigned rooms downtown.

I meant to skip the Pacifica Project Presentations this year, its 26th. I was a member of the original team that designed the program, and one year when the mastermind behind it all, Mike Hawes, was unable to be there, I hosted. I always create the program and attend rehearsals. This year, I was tired (more about that some other time). In the end, I managed to see two full presentations and parts of four others. It was, as always, an inspiring evening.

Mr. Hawes made me cry (not the first time) in his opening address about the inspiration of these earnest young people and the need for hope.

Students worked hard, many of them at work on their projects a year or even several years before. More than a few were deeply impacted by their service. One young man who volunteered at a weekly community event found that this forced him out of his dependence on media and into relationships with people face to face. He said it reminded him of the need to see and talk to people, to hear them. A young woman who tagged on to an existing anti-bullying program in another state discovered that she wanted to more and organized a parade in favor of kindness and hope.

I started two blog posts, but was unable to finish either of them because I was so focused on these Pacifica Projects.

This afternoon while my husband was collecting our mail, I heard a father explaining the Golden Rule to his little girls:

“If you want people to be kind to you . . . “

In the mean time, Rosanne Barr tweeted a series of deeply offensive messages (more than just the racist one) and her show was cancelled by a network unwilling to defend or overlook her remarks. Samantha Bee used a horrible word to describe Ivanka Trump and people are scrambling about that one. Trump, who has said equally terrible things without apology, made the recent events about himself, which is to be expected. He has no principles beyond his personal popularity and fortune.

This morning (Thursday), republican John Kasich called for the Senate to get their act in gear and do something about DACA. He wants something to be done. In a CNN interview this morning, he said that Congress should not wait for permission from Trump. It was not their responsibility to pass only what the executive branch wanted. They should, in the end, be doing something, the right thing, he said, and I hope he pulls his people together.

In the interview, Kasich could not resist a partisan remark that he didn’t know what the democrats stand for—which is unfortunate especially since DACA is a program most compassionate people of both parties defend. Still, it is a republican talking point to say democrats do not take a stand. The unfortunate corollary is to wonder if Barr and Trump’s locker-room talk is what too many of these congresspeople stand for?

I believe most republicans are horrified by these ugly comments. I think the vast majority of Americans are decent people who respect Gold Star families, POW, women and children and men of any color and station, and most honor ordinary courtesy.

This brings me uncomfortably to my son’s recent distress about Samantha Bee. Yes, she is a left-leaning comedian, and yes, my husband especially loves her (he has lost respect now). She is married and a mother and she is not polite about politicians she disagrees with. Is it okay for her to be vulgar, but not the president? Is it fair for her to call names she would certainly condemn coming from a politician? It’s worth thinking about.

There is false equivalency coming from every direction. Anti-Nazi protesters are not equivalent to Pro-Nazi protesters, at least not given our world history. And sexualized workplace comments are not equivalent to rape. Any abusive behavior is to be condemned, but on the scale of abuses, there is error and lapse in judgement and there is clear, egregious abuse of power.

Hitting Up

I have always contended that humor at the expense of some individual or group only works when the blow is delivered up. That is, it is fair to challenge and ridicule the richer and more powerful, to laugh at the expense of those with a superior position in society. It’s a cheap shot to ridicule the weak and powerless. It is in Christian scripture to serve the powerless, it is part of our national character to support the underdog, and it is the over-size bully on the playground we are all inclined to dislike.

“With the rich and powerful, always a little patience.”

I am deeply concerned with principle, with doing the right thing regardless of the impact on myself. Nevertheless, I often site my own experiences to explain my positions.

In high school, I used to sneak out of the house to walk all alone. I was depressed and lonely and struggling. Walking in darkness was my way of coping, a way of avoiding death. I felt close to death at times.

The significance of this is not just that when I write about depression, I am speaking from experience. It is also true that in hundreds of solitary walks, I was never attacked, and I avoided people and spoke to no one, even on weekend nights when drunken people in cars were common. I hid in shadows and if I felt something was off somehow, I did not question my own judgement, but took steps to keep myself safe.

A gun would not have served to protect me. I was brought up with guns, taught how to take apart and assemble, load and unload. I do not hate guns, but I do fear the impact they have on frightened people. If I had a gun, the most likely result, statistically, would be that it would be taken from me and used against me. Toddlers kill their parents or a sibling accidentally every year. Police officers, trained to perform, miss their target 72% of the time when they fire in a real life situation. I would not expect to do better than those who have made law enforcement their profession.

Back in my teens, I ducked behind hedges to avoid being spotted by drivers in cars or drunken walkers, and I avoided populated areas. I walked across campus alone in the dark every term I attended the University of Washington. (There were advantages to scheduling an early morning or evening class in those days.) One night I was walking down the hill from Denny Hall, a paved but dimly lit path I followed regularly. That evening, I looked ahead at the mountainous overgrown cherry laurels just ahead and stopped. Something felt wrong. I didn’t hear anyone or see anyone in that dense twenty-foot mound of shrubbery, but I turned aside anyway. Following a more open path cost me seconds and might have kept me safe. Ted Bundy was killing women in those years around Seattle and I fit his preferred victim profile. No one admitted there were campus rape statistics to track in those days, but terrible things happened. I knew of terrible things happening. Maybe it was only luck that I was never attacked, but I was aware, I wore a rape whistle, I splayed my keys between the fingers of my fisted right hand. I walked like I knew where I was going, and it was true.

Today, America is a dangerous place, and some of the danger comes from people slinging guns around. The responsible gun-owners I know keep their guns locked up, and I honor their family tradition of filling their freezers. I honestly do not want to take away everyone’s guns, but I also do not believe than guns are the only way to be safe. Our national obsession with guns is not a Constitutional right, but something more cynical. The harboring of guns and ammo with no purpose but to kill our fellow citizens amounts to dangerous paranoia. Our nation was founded on many things, a promise of semi-automatic weapons was never part of the original plan.

A small minority of people are terribly afraid of gun regulation. It is ironic, isn’t it? Especially given that the second amendment specifically calls for a “well regulated militia” and this wording refers back to an ancient tradition in Britain of requiring all adult males to train in military skills because the kingdom did not maintain a standing army large enough to defend the country. In case we have not noticed, we have the largest military the world has ever know. It consumes 43% of our discretionary funds—an enormous weight upon our budget and one reason we have little left for education and health care. Yet, we are so frightened we must allow ordinary citizens to have military weapons in their homes?

I’ve been accused of being too optimistic about human behavior. But I see things differently. I recognize that people do terrible things every day. I recognize that accidents happen. People make mistakes. But if we were at heart such terrible monsters as some seem to think, I wonder how I survived my parents’ temper with I was an obnoxious child. (You know I had to have been obnoxious now and again.) We survive because we are social animals, committed to working together for the common good. At least, that is how I was raised to understand my country.

It’s been a while since men at my school considered it appropriate to make a retirement speech suggesting that a male teacher was putting moves on a teenage girl. Ten years? Maybe longer. Maybe not so long ago. Not long enough.

I heard them make such remarks and others. The promise of a better grade if a girl would lose ten pounds. “She’ll thank me.” The detailed speculation about what a girl might have done at a weekend party, spoken in the Library where other students could hear. Those are mild examples, much worse was suggested at that banquet. A school guidance counselor got up and left the room that evening. Unlike him, I went to the Ladies until the speech was over. I couldn’t leave because I was making a speech about someone else later in the program, a decent man who did not find his peers’ bawdy humor the least bit funny.

Did I say anything to anyone about the off-color remarks? I believe I did. Was there a reaction? Not so’s you would notice. My distress was not important. My professional opinion did not count. I was being fussy or a “feminazi” or needed to get a sense of humor.

Worse happened.

This was the world I lived in. Mostly, it still is.

I am expected to ignore inappropriate remarks, pretend they do not embarrass or offend me, that there is such a thing as harmless “locker room talk.”

The experiences of women have not changed enough since that evening. Teachers, coaches, and school safety officers have had inappropriate romantic relationships with students. Local cops. Prominent members of the community. That is, they have had a romantic relationship with a minor student, which is never appropriate. The girl is inevitably blamed when this becomes known. Her own peers, even the girls, blame her. They may even ostracize, harass, and threaten her. I remember this from my own days as a young girl. The girl is blamed. Did she do something stupid? Probably. It’s why we have rules about minors. Young people do stupid things all the time. It’s our job as adults to stop them, not to tempt them. But adults do tempt them, and then they step away. The man denies improprieties publicly, and perhaps privately feels he has done no wrong. Clearly the girl tempted him.

Stupid girl.

A Senator is called a disgrace and forced from office for making decidedly inappropriate gestures. The person calling for that man to abandon his career, makes specific and crude remarks. Each man claimed afterward that he was only joking. Only one of them removed himself from office.

Neither one was Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein or Humbert Humbert. Only one was a buddy of a convicted pedophile, also accused of sexual harassment, also accused of physical harassment . . . and President.

Unless the offender is a democrat, the President blames women. Naturally.

A “Lolita” is a colloquialism for a “sexually precocious girl.” ~~“No one knows . . .”~~ It’s easy to forget that Lolita is not the main character of the novel by that name. The main character is a middle-aged man who marries a mother in order to gain access to her 12 year old daughter. TWELVE YEARS OLD. He grooms and abuses that child. Lolita, the title character, will end up ruined, pregnant, and dead. But no one throws the term “Humbert” around like a dirty joke. It’s the adolescent girl (who died, remember?) whose pain becomes a dirty joke tossed at girls.

It’s easy to see how men excuse their indiscretion and abuses. For one, they have been encouraged to be assertive and certain. Aggression is rewarded, but hesitation is a weakness. Doubt is a weakness. Apologizing is weakness. Among men, that it. The rules are different for women. And, of course, for men in our society, being weak is absolutely not an option.

Being weak as a woman is allowed, even encouraged and considered attractive. Willingness to doubt, to question our own actions, to rethink, change our minds, apologize . . . all allowed, but then this humility is also often used against us. But demonstrating assertiveness and certainty? “Unladylike.” “Offensive.” “Aggressive” and ugly in “the weaker sex.” A woman projecting that sort of confidence unleashes a landslide of ugly words. Do I need to list them all here? “Unlikeable.”

Both men and women are caught in this terrible stereotype of gender-enforced behavior. The narrow, brutal definitions of what it means to be a woman or man allow us scant wiggle-room for individuality, male, female, or anyone else.

But when strength is considered a character flaw and weakness is considered attractive . . .

And when we talk about it. Out loud. Oh, dear. When we try to defend ourselves . . . that’s just not something we should be talking about. Right?

This year, a dear colleague is retiring. I am not attending the banquet. The banquet on the year I retired was not offensive, but absurdly wounding, and as a retiree I do not feel compelled to attend ever again. My friend will be given a good speech (I know who is in charge) and I wish him well. There is not a wisp of scandal associated with him, and times have changed enough that no one would find it amusing to invent or exaggerate a sorry and humiliating (for someone else) story for the occasion.

Times have changed, but not enough. Too many in power believe they have a lock on decency. And they are wrong.

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