As I sat, wolfing down stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner, my uncle, a Harvard alum and self-professed Crimson fanatic, turned to me and asked "Susie, when you go abroad, what will you miss the most about Harvard?" My answer? "Nothing." Shocked and appalled, he asked "You're not gonna miss anything?!" I said, "My friends. But beyond that, nothing." Normally, I try to be polite because that's how my parents raised me but at that moment I truly felt honesty was the best policy.
After the semester I've had, I've spent many hours contemplating how disappointed and angry parents would be should I drop out of college, find a husband, have a baby and set up a small but lucrative cookie shop on the boardwalk of Venice Beach in California. The funny thing, though, is that while I've had all these fantasies of escape, I found one particular movie (which is a film adaptation of a best-selling book), Eat Pray Love, completely repulsive.
Well, to be fair, over the holiday I tried to watch it but I only got about 15 minutes in. So I can only safely speak about the quarter hour that I saw and my disdain while watching it. Julia Roberts plays a woman who is bored with her life and so, in her late 30's, she decides to drop everything and spend a year in Italy, India and Bali.
Now, while this part of the film does offer the important feminist message that women shouldn't stay in relationships they aren't happy with, the explanation of her unhappiness seems silly. Her husband tells her that he wants to go back to school for a Master's in Education and poor Julia can't take it. "A man who wants to educate himself to learn how to educate others? How disgusting!" Since this is my blog and I'm allowed to state my opinions I will go ahead a say it: you shouldn't divorce a spouse purely because he or she wants to get a Master's degree.
Luckily enough, the film doesn't entirely suggest that the reason she's mad is because he won't be able to provide financially for her. It doesn't imply, as a film from the 1950's might, that his re-education process would be problematic because she, as a woman, would be forced to be the breadwinner. That is one possible interpretation, though, of the cause of her anger: that she would have to assume a man's role and be a provide while he broke husband got his degree. The film teeters on these perilous lines of gender essentialism and it also plays up racial stereotypes in which brown, third world individuals share their ever-present, ever-exotic wisdom with her. In one review of the film, the critic referred to the original book as "privilege literature" which captures the messages of this movie perfectly.
I say all of this by way of unpacking the reasons why I thought this specific movie problematically explored the nature of personal escape. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm all for taking breaks when you need to. I, for example, am also about to embark on a break while I study at Oxford University for the spring semester. While that sounds like the definition of privilege (and it is), I hope I'm not as not racist and classist about my experience Roberts' character was in that movie. I hope that I can use the time not as a vacation to reward myself but as a reflection period. I hope that it isn't a time I use to avoid boredom or to give myself something new to do. Like Julia, "I want to marvel at something" but I don't wanna do it with the same flat, boring expression that she did. And I don't expect an Indian men to read my palms to tell me what's gonna happen in my future, either.
I guess the biggest reason that I look forward to this break from Harvard is that it will allow me to gain perspective on the things that have happened to me here and that it will allow me to see how else I can exist in the world. After a semester which involved visiting people in hospitals, encountering loved ones' illnesses left and right, moving out of my room and into a another one because of a problematic living situation and losing friends in the process, enduring mistreatment at the hands of multiple men on campus, adding two incredibly stressful and time consuming extra-curriculars to my schedule and taking on an extremely demanding course load, I'm done with Harvard for the time being.
While we can't all be 39-year-old upper middle class white women with the flexibility to travel to multiple countries in search of inner selves, maybe Julia Roberts' character can offer one important bit of advice: we all need to find a way to take pauses in our lives to think about where we've been, where we are and where we hope to go. Whether we study abroad, travel often, write, listen to music, exercise, pray or hang out with loved ones, we need healthy ways to escape our routine and to try to feel whole. Why is it so hard for us to give ourselves these breaks, though, and why do we always make excuses for finding personal stability? What's up with that?
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
One-way Pleasure: Pornography and Capitalism's Effects on Men and Women
Have you ever been at a party, having a great time focused on nothing but your two-step when you realize something larger is going on around you? This happened to me a few nights ago when I went to a fraternity-hosted party at a hotel in Boston. It might sound random but last year when I was foolish enough to believe I could be a Social Studies concentrator (no offense to the lovely individuals in that department), I was most struck by Karl Marx's work, which flashed back to me that night. In his texts, he talked about the insidious nature of capitalism and the way it compels all of us to compete in a market system whether we explicitly give consent or not. Since I read his work and, tragically, took an Economics course, I have reevaluated my views on competition and have realized its inevitability. And also its extent: you can even see it in Americans' sex lives.
How do I reckon this? Well, first of all, I believe we can see it both in the sex industry and on the dancefloor. As my economics professor discussed, most goods are more valuable the more rare they are. That's why diamonds cost way more than chocolate. Though hand me a piece of chocolate at the right point of the day and I might be yours forever. Daydreams aside, though, rare and in the American case, extreme, things are typically favorable. Pornography, for example, was once something disseminated in a few films, images and magazines. Now in 2010, the public has access to and consumes pornography easily and frequently. The more twisted and violent the films are, the more they are watched. This fad of new and unseen ways to abuse women is so popular, in fact, that it has its effects on everything from erectile dysfunction (ever that seen that Sex and the City episode where Miranda's lover can't get "ready" without porn playing in the background?) to changing gender norms in dancing.
Mainstream pornography, not specialized fetish films or imagery, is increasingly pushed to extremes that often focus on excessive violence towards women. Choking, slapping, and brutal language are no longer reserved for BDSM films: they are the norm in mainstream films and clips that are easily accessible for free with the help of basic internet connection. They are ever-present in the most popularly consumed films.
The funny part about all of this is that while it's simple to dismiss these films purely as fantasy, we don't take the time to stop and ask why these are our fantasies in the first place. Why in the past, when women had less financial or social power, was porn less hostile towards them and why, in a new era in which double duty as mommy and career are more present, do we fantasize and sexualize violence against women?
One of the clearest examples of the fact that porn does not remain purely a fantasy but instead affects our reality is the popular trend of grinding during dances. For all the freaky-deaky clips you can find on Youtube of people dancing wildly on Soul Train, for example, in the 70's, you'll be hard pressed to find images of women turning around, bending over and grinding with their male partners.
However, if you're a college student in Boston or any part of the country, you can expect to see this display on any dance you show up to. As a result of the undying competitive part of my nature and the fact that I've grown up in a capitalistic society that compels each individual to compete for what you want, regardless of the personal or ethical costs, I've regularly behaved in ways that compromise my feminist values for the sake of getting male attention. While I'm not exactly the wildest of wild things, I participate in this ritualized trend along with my female and male peers mostly because it is a learned behavior and because we grew up in a time in which it was all we've ever known.
Why does it seem natural to our generation, though, for women to bend over for whomever shows interest in them and for men to expect that they can do this to whomever suits their fancy at a given moment at a dance? Why do we expect that it's more important for men to receive pleasure without women getting anything in return (except, perhaps, for the emotional and psychological reward of knowing someone momentarily wants you)? I believe it has to do with a culture of pornographic films which feature women being treated in a way that often has more to do with them being hurt than pleased. As I've witnessed at many parties (I could also be hitting up the wrong parties but seeing as I've witnessed this many a time at a variety of parties with a variety of demographics, I believe it's a widespread thing),I know it is a common cultural phenomenon that reflects changing attitudes towards women: if you belong to a patriarchal society, one of the best ways to degrade the rising power of women is to sexualize their pain and subjugation and to carry that over into dancing practices.
If you see a bold, powerful, outspoken woman on campus, for example, who speaks her mind and who seems to have a strong future ahead of her 5 days out of the week but you see her bent over, faced away from a man without the man kissing her or doing anything to try to please her sexually every Friday and Saturday, you re-think how much security the woman has. On the one hand, she might just be confident in her own ability to separate the sexual from the personal but on the other hand, she might be a girl who has been made insecure enough by society to see herself as an inevitable pawn in a capitalistic, sexist, and patriarchal practice of one-way pleasure. Why is this something we've allowed ourselves to accept and why isn't it expected that men are supposed to do us ladies right, too? What's up with that?
How do I reckon this? Well, first of all, I believe we can see it both in the sex industry and on the dancefloor. As my economics professor discussed, most goods are more valuable the more rare they are. That's why diamonds cost way more than chocolate. Though hand me a piece of chocolate at the right point of the day and I might be yours forever. Daydreams aside, though, rare and in the American case, extreme, things are typically favorable. Pornography, for example, was once something disseminated in a few films, images and magazines. Now in 2010, the public has access to and consumes pornography easily and frequently. The more twisted and violent the films are, the more they are watched. This fad of new and unseen ways to abuse women is so popular, in fact, that it has its effects on everything from erectile dysfunction (ever that seen that Sex and the City episode where Miranda's lover can't get "ready" without porn playing in the background?) to changing gender norms in dancing.
Mainstream pornography, not specialized fetish films or imagery, is increasingly pushed to extremes that often focus on excessive violence towards women. Choking, slapping, and brutal language are no longer reserved for BDSM films: they are the norm in mainstream films and clips that are easily accessible for free with the help of basic internet connection. They are ever-present in the most popularly consumed films.
The funny part about all of this is that while it's simple to dismiss these films purely as fantasy, we don't take the time to stop and ask why these are our fantasies in the first place. Why in the past, when women had less financial or social power, was porn less hostile towards them and why, in a new era in which double duty as mommy and career are more present, do we fantasize and sexualize violence against women?
One of the clearest examples of the fact that porn does not remain purely a fantasy but instead affects our reality is the popular trend of grinding during dances. For all the freaky-deaky clips you can find on Youtube of people dancing wildly on Soul Train, for example, in the 70's, you'll be hard pressed to find images of women turning around, bending over and grinding with their male partners.
However, if you're a college student in Boston or any part of the country, you can expect to see this display on any dance you show up to. As a result of the undying competitive part of my nature and the fact that I've grown up in a capitalistic society that compels each individual to compete for what you want, regardless of the personal or ethical costs, I've regularly behaved in ways that compromise my feminist values for the sake of getting male attention. While I'm not exactly the wildest of wild things, I participate in this ritualized trend along with my female and male peers mostly because it is a learned behavior and because we grew up in a time in which it was all we've ever known.
Why does it seem natural to our generation, though, for women to bend over for whomever shows interest in them and for men to expect that they can do this to whomever suits their fancy at a given moment at a dance? Why do we expect that it's more important for men to receive pleasure without women getting anything in return (except, perhaps, for the emotional and psychological reward of knowing someone momentarily wants you)? I believe it has to do with a culture of pornographic films which feature women being treated in a way that often has more to do with them being hurt than pleased. As I've witnessed at many parties (I could also be hitting up the wrong parties but seeing as I've witnessed this many a time at a variety of parties with a variety of demographics, I believe it's a widespread thing),I know it is a common cultural phenomenon that reflects changing attitudes towards women: if you belong to a patriarchal society, one of the best ways to degrade the rising power of women is to sexualize their pain and subjugation and to carry that over into dancing practices.
If you see a bold, powerful, outspoken woman on campus, for example, who speaks her mind and who seems to have a strong future ahead of her 5 days out of the week but you see her bent over, faced away from a man without the man kissing her or doing anything to try to please her sexually every Friday and Saturday, you re-think how much security the woman has. On the one hand, she might just be confident in her own ability to separate the sexual from the personal but on the other hand, she might be a girl who has been made insecure enough by society to see herself as an inevitable pawn in a capitalistic, sexist, and patriarchal practice of one-way pleasure. Why is this something we've allowed ourselves to accept and why isn't it expected that men are supposed to do us ladies right, too? What's up with that?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
$ Money, Money, Moooonnnaayyyy $
October is an incredibly difficult month at Harvard. Reality sets in that it's no longer the beginning of the year, midterm season begins, and people start wearing suits all the time. Why? It might have something to do with the invasion of corporate recruiters and the onset of punch season (what students at every other college in America call "rushing"). This will not be a rant about how elitist and repulsive final clubs are: plenty of people on campus discuss this issue all the time. It would be hypocritical of me to complain about them, in fact, because I have enjoyed myself at some of the places precisely because they are supposed to be important spaces on campus. What interests me about this time is that you get to see, in a practical manner, how important belonging to a perceived space of power is for some students' identity here at my favorite Ivy and about what all this means for me, as well.
Having grown up in the New York private school scene and spending the past 2.5 years on this campus, I'm no longer shocked as I watch young men (and women) struggle to enter "powerful" social circles. I'm no longer washed anew each day by how many people plan their careers and futures at the age of 19, 20 and 21. Nor do I begrudge the people offered these opportunities to take full advantage them. Instead, this month reminds me of something: one day, I won't be in school anymore and I will have to make my own way financially. Much as I try to pretend that my life will always be about school, watching other people suit up to get into the right clubs in order to make the right connections which will eventually lead to the right careers and lifestyles grounds me a bit.
I realized this, that is, the power money and my future have over me, most especially last week when I lost my wallet in a cab. Seems mostly harmless, no? You lose your stuff and you try to find it. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. It wasn't harmless, though. My debit card was subsequently stolen and used to make purchases at Footlocker (I've never shopped at Footlocker and have maybe visited 2 of their stores in my 20 year existence) and in various grocery stores in Dorchester (again, places I've never visited). In addition to being robbed and deprived of access to money, I began to depend on other people to help me do what I wanted to. Chinese food at 2:30 in the morning? I had to ask my friends for it. A slice of pizza and a Vitamin water? I needed my friends to agree to pay for it before I could safely know that I could have it.
It wasn't only the lack of agency to make my own purchases and the fact that I had to depend on the kindness of others that got to me: it was the fact that I realized, like many of my male peers, that money and power are connected in such a way that not only is the physical paper important but that these entities define our sense of importance. I spent those days feeling empty and useless for no other reason than that I was missing access to my savior (aka my debit card). I shouldn't have felt breathless as many times as I did considering food, shelter and my lovely classes were all available to me in addition to all the supportive people in my life who surround me. But what continued to get me down was this belief that without the ability to navigate my surroundings with money and, in my mind, free choice, I had no "value."
I also discovered this fear that not only money but the idea of money controlled me as I've sat through various career fairs and events this past month. Much like final club boys, I've been dressing up to give the appearance that I am someone "worthy" of belonging to wealthy institutions. I've donned heals for consulting companies, Teach for America presentations and public interest careers. And I've felt like a prostitute at each one of them: "Come here, baby, hire me. I'm the one you want. I'm wearing the right clothes and I'm smiling the way you like, right?" At the same time, I realize that this is and will be my reality in the next couple years and in my future in general. I'm getting a little too long in the tooth to deny that anymore and, quite frankly, it keeps me up some nights.
My main take away from all of these experiences is that I need to balance reality with an awareness that the capitalistic terms we use to refer to ourselves such as "valuable" and "worthy" are themselves problematic. How can I do this, though, when I wake up each day in a Harvard owned bed and the consciousness that I will have to make good on the promise of a great (and in American terms, this is usually defined financially) future? Are the desire to be financially secure and to,at the same time, reject being defined by my bank account mutually exclusive? More realistically, why can't I calm myself even with this new perspective? What's up with that?
Having grown up in the New York private school scene and spending the past 2.5 years on this campus, I'm no longer shocked as I watch young men (and women) struggle to enter "powerful" social circles. I'm no longer washed anew each day by how many people plan their careers and futures at the age of 19, 20 and 21. Nor do I begrudge the people offered these opportunities to take full advantage them. Instead, this month reminds me of something: one day, I won't be in school anymore and I will have to make my own way financially. Much as I try to pretend that my life will always be about school, watching other people suit up to get into the right clubs in order to make the right connections which will eventually lead to the right careers and lifestyles grounds me a bit.
I realized this, that is, the power money and my future have over me, most especially last week when I lost my wallet in a cab. Seems mostly harmless, no? You lose your stuff and you try to find it. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. It wasn't harmless, though. My debit card was subsequently stolen and used to make purchases at Footlocker (I've never shopped at Footlocker and have maybe visited 2 of their stores in my 20 year existence) and in various grocery stores in Dorchester (again, places I've never visited). In addition to being robbed and deprived of access to money, I began to depend on other people to help me do what I wanted to. Chinese food at 2:30 in the morning? I had to ask my friends for it. A slice of pizza and a Vitamin water? I needed my friends to agree to pay for it before I could safely know that I could have it.
It wasn't only the lack of agency to make my own purchases and the fact that I had to depend on the kindness of others that got to me: it was the fact that I realized, like many of my male peers, that money and power are connected in such a way that not only is the physical paper important but that these entities define our sense of importance. I spent those days feeling empty and useless for no other reason than that I was missing access to my savior (aka my debit card). I shouldn't have felt breathless as many times as I did considering food, shelter and my lovely classes were all available to me in addition to all the supportive people in my life who surround me. But what continued to get me down was this belief that without the ability to navigate my surroundings with money and, in my mind, free choice, I had no "value."
I also discovered this fear that not only money but the idea of money controlled me as I've sat through various career fairs and events this past month. Much like final club boys, I've been dressing up to give the appearance that I am someone "worthy" of belonging to wealthy institutions. I've donned heals for consulting companies, Teach for America presentations and public interest careers. And I've felt like a prostitute at each one of them: "Come here, baby, hire me. I'm the one you want. I'm wearing the right clothes and I'm smiling the way you like, right?" At the same time, I realize that this is and will be my reality in the next couple years and in my future in general. I'm getting a little too long in the tooth to deny that anymore and, quite frankly, it keeps me up some nights.
My main take away from all of these experiences is that I need to balance reality with an awareness that the capitalistic terms we use to refer to ourselves such as "valuable" and "worthy" are themselves problematic. How can I do this, though, when I wake up each day in a Harvard owned bed and the consciousness that I will have to make good on the promise of a great (and in American terms, this is usually defined financially) future? Are the desire to be financially secure and to,at the same time, reject being defined by my bank account mutually exclusive? More realistically, why can't I calm myself even with this new perspective? What's up with that?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Humiliation in the Age of Reality TV and the Internetz
Last week, after a series of wreckless weekends, a failed date, and the crushing realization that I'm half way done with college, I came to the conclusion that I needed a change. Naturally, the first place I looked to for that change was an online dating site. OKCupid is definitely not for the faint of heart. The site incentivizes you to answer more and more questions by reminding you that the more you fill out, the more public your profile will be. Delicious.
So in my crisis mode, I decided to join partly for laughs, partly because my friends were doing it (a little peer pressure never hurt nobody) and partly because I would like to meet people outside my usual social circle. Men-type people. My first mistake, though, was thinking that at the age of 20 years old, I needed to be advertising myself as a hot commodity in the virtual world. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we kids these days insist on embarrassing ourselves regularly?
Maybe it's because if you turn on the TV at any given point in the day, you will see young people doing a whole host of things that make no damn sense. There's Fear Factor, Jersey Shore, Judge Judy, Teem Mom, For Love or Money, I Love New York, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, etc. The amount of "reality" we consume that is based on pure self objectification and humiliation is astounding.
One of the first reality shows was The Real World, which aired in 1992 and which was filmed in New York City. It basically centered around a group of diverse young people doing hood rat things with their friends/ roommates in a giant, unaffordable New York loft. I'm willing to say that this show can be viewed as a predecessor to some of the tomfoolery seen (sometimes by me at my weakest of moments) on TV at any hour of the day.
This sense that the institution of being young involves self-ridicule and humiliation seeps from the TV screen onto the computer screen, too. You don't have to search Facebook long before you find pictures of people you awkwardly-don't-know-but-are-"friends"-with-anyway doing things they shouldn't if they happen to ever want a job in the future. In fact, a recent study by HGSE Prof. Howard Gardner and Research Director Carrie James suggests that teens and young people's social responsibility and ethics are sometimes compromised while surfing the web. No surprise there, given the recent string of teen suicides as a result of cyber bullying. As fun as it is to access any and everything at whenever one wants to on the internet, it's also a terribly dangerous tool.
And no one knows that better than I do after spending half a week on an online dating site. Though I gave answers before about why I decided to join the site, I really can't think of any logical reason why I did it. It could have been because of those damned eHarmony commercials that lie and say "1 in 5 couples meet online now." The point is, when gregarious and personable friends tell you how easy it was to find people on the internet, don't lie to yourself by saying that you're just as outgoing as they are if you really aren't. I guess even over the internet, people can still tell that I'm shy.
It really is an unnecessary humiliation, though, to watch as 55,000 people are online and none of them of them contact you for days at a time. When you're able to track the number of people who could be interested in you but who aren't contacting you, it reinforces whatever insecurities you might have, whether they're reasonable or not.
My question about all this belief that youth= intentional, self-sacrificing embarrassment is this: have young people always been inclined to be this masochistic and finally just now found the tools to act on those desires OR has technology ushered in a new age where youth culture has been taught that this is the only way to exist? If my half week stint with OKCupid has taught me anything, it's that putting yourself out there might be really cute in real life but not as hot on the internetz. What's up with that?
So in my crisis mode, I decided to join partly for laughs, partly because my friends were doing it (a little peer pressure never hurt nobody) and partly because I would like to meet people outside my usual social circle. Men-type people. My first mistake, though, was thinking that at the age of 20 years old, I needed to be advertising myself as a hot commodity in the virtual world. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we kids these days insist on embarrassing ourselves regularly?
Maybe it's because if you turn on the TV at any given point in the day, you will see young people doing a whole host of things that make no damn sense. There's Fear Factor, Jersey Shore, Judge Judy, Teem Mom, For Love or Money, I Love New York, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, etc. The amount of "reality" we consume that is based on pure self objectification and humiliation is astounding.
One of the first reality shows was The Real World, which aired in 1992 and which was filmed in New York City. It basically centered around a group of diverse young people doing hood rat things with their friends/ roommates in a giant, unaffordable New York loft. I'm willing to say that this show can be viewed as a predecessor to some of the tomfoolery seen (sometimes by me at my weakest of moments) on TV at any hour of the day.
This sense that the institution of being young involves self-ridicule and humiliation seeps from the TV screen onto the computer screen, too. You don't have to search Facebook long before you find pictures of people you awkwardly-don't-know-but-are-"friends"-with-anyway doing things they shouldn't if they happen to ever want a job in the future. In fact, a recent study by HGSE Prof. Howard Gardner and Research Director Carrie James suggests that teens and young people's social responsibility and ethics are sometimes compromised while surfing the web. No surprise there, given the recent string of teen suicides as a result of cyber bullying. As fun as it is to access any and everything at whenever one wants to on the internet, it's also a terribly dangerous tool.
And no one knows that better than I do after spending half a week on an online dating site. Though I gave answers before about why I decided to join the site, I really can't think of any logical reason why I did it. It could have been because of those damned eHarmony commercials that lie and say "1 in 5 couples meet online now." The point is, when gregarious and personable friends tell you how easy it was to find people on the internet, don't lie to yourself by saying that you're just as outgoing as they are if you really aren't. I guess even over the internet, people can still tell that I'm shy.
It really is an unnecessary humiliation, though, to watch as 55,000 people are online and none of them of them contact you for days at a time. When you're able to track the number of people who could be interested in you but who aren't contacting you, it reinforces whatever insecurities you might have, whether they're reasonable or not.
My question about all this belief that youth= intentional, self-sacrificing embarrassment is this: have young people always been inclined to be this masochistic and finally just now found the tools to act on those desires OR has technology ushered in a new age where youth culture has been taught that this is the only way to exist? If my half week stint with OKCupid has taught me anything, it's that putting yourself out there might be really cute in real life but not as hot on the internetz. What's up with that?
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Networking, Theft and Creativity: A Review of "The Social Network"
I've had an addiction for roughly 4 years now. Unlike an addiction to drugs, shopping, alcohol, or even sex, there is no rehab for Facebook. I'm on the site regularly and it might be considered my number one extracurricular activity. It's a time to be weird and creepy (which I excel at) and to "reconnect" with those people who you see every day of your sad, sappy life. One of the funnier things about the site, though, is that I was invited by my friend to join as a sophomore in high school and can't really remember life before Zuckerberg's creation. Or rather the Winklevoss' creation that Zuckerberg manipulated and stole. See, on Thursday night or , more precisely, Friday morning I went to the midnight showing of The Social Network, the new movie out about the creation and development of Facebook which challenges all of our notions about where the site actually came from.
First of all, before that night, I'd never been to the Harvard Square movie theater, which is both a travesty and mystery given that I've been visiting this campus since I was wee. Somehow it was just one of those obvious things that I've never done (similarly, I'm a life long New York who's never been to the Empire State Building). But I finally got around to it in the most Harvardian way possible: I went with other Harvard students to a Harvard Square movie theater to watch a movie about Harvard students' shenanigans. How many times can I say "Harvard" in a couple sentences? The answer: many, many times. Anyhow, I thought the movie was absolutely fabulous.
There were clutch lines like "Mark, I have to study" to which Mark (played by Jesse Eisenberg) replied "No you don't. You go to BU" and the one where one of the giant, WASPy crew twins exclaimed, "I'm 6'5, 220 and there are two of me!!" I had a great time watching the movie's portrayal of the final club and social scenes on campus. I've seen many unfortunate things at parties here at school but I've yet to see girls in nothing but their underwear and heels at parties. Maybe I'm just not hitting up the prime spots on my Saturday nights. Part of the fun of watching the movie was dissecting which things felt realistic(like the social pressure placed on males to insinuate themselves into particular power circles) and which ones didn't (the buildings looked nothing like they do in real life).
I felt this way about the movie overall but there was one element of the film that got to me: Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg. It's like when you go to H&M and you look from across the room at a really cute gray sweater. It's everything you've been dreaming of and you know it'll complete that outfit you planned to wear to dinner next Saturday. Then you walk up closer to it and all the detailing is fabulous EXCEPT for the random patch of rhinestones along the collar. The collar is obviously a central part of the top and it will be seen by all but it's just not quite right. That's exactly how I felt about Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg.
If you wanna play a slightly autistic person, inhabit the person's slight autism. If you wanna be relentlessly obnoxious, be relentlessly obnoxious. If you wanna play a pathetic person, act as a pathetic person would. But how could it be, Eisenberg, that Zuckerberg was all three of these things but still social enough to ever have any friends? Don't get me wrong: Harvard has more than its fair share of weird and unfortunate humans. However,Eisenberg's portrayal makes the Facebook creator seem less like a socially challenged person and more like a maniacally brilliant man-child. Without seeing the movie, it's hard to communicate the difference between being a tool and being other worldly (in a bad way) but to me, the story didn't make sense because if in real life Zuckerberg was as unpleasant as he appeared in the film, he would have no social contact to speak of.
The oddity of his demeanor was especially distinct and bizarre when compared to the other characters in the film. Andrew Garfield's portrayal of Saverin as an innocent but likeable bystander made sense in the context of someone who'd been ripped off and JT's depiction of Sean Parker (a man who made and lost millions by stealing music and offering it to people for free) as a sleazy individual seemed believable. Armie Hammer captured what the Winklevoss' must have been like. But there was just something about Eisenberg that felt too forced and too robotic to me.
Zuckerberg is clearly a smart or at least clever man who figured out how to create a social networking site that would, in a few short years, revolutionize the way young people interact across the planet. It's interesting that the movie tried to at once demonstrate his creativity and passion for this website and at the same time focused on possibility that he ripped off the Winklevoss' original website. Was he inventive and brilliant or was he merely a thief? The movie doesn't really answer the question.
At the end they do tell us that the twins won a $65 million settlement, which you'll know, even if you struggled with arithmetic in grade school, means that each twin got $32.5 million. And I've heard they're still trying to go back for more. I mean, it's true, $32.5 million is chump change at the age of 25. However, I do think it's enough to get by on. Like you can maybe get some ramen with that and take your girlfriend out to Denny's with that twice a year.
This movie to me was funny because it showed the intersection between money, creativity and white male identity. It reflected the motivations behind these people's actions and the complexity of power structures: the Winklevoss's had money and social power while Zuckerberg had the creativity and skills not only to make his own website but to capitalize on their idea. In America, it doesn't matter whose idea comes first. As "The Social Network" reveals, the ability to enact an idea and to figure out a way to monetize it is the only thing that counts. Whether Zuckerberg's character was as putrid and weasely as the movie insinuated, one thing's certain: he's made his mark (haha, get it, that's his name...Mark...ok I'll stop) on social affairs. Does this mean that I have to be as relentlessly unbearable as Zuckerberg to get ahead in life/start a social revolution? Is that my only option? What's up with that?
First of all, before that night, I'd never been to the Harvard Square movie theater, which is both a travesty and mystery given that I've been visiting this campus since I was wee. Somehow it was just one of those obvious things that I've never done (similarly, I'm a life long New York who's never been to the Empire State Building). But I finally got around to it in the most Harvardian way possible: I went with other Harvard students to a Harvard Square movie theater to watch a movie about Harvard students' shenanigans. How many times can I say "Harvard" in a couple sentences? The answer: many, many times. Anyhow, I thought the movie was absolutely fabulous.
There were clutch lines like "Mark, I have to study" to which Mark (played by Jesse Eisenberg) replied "No you don't. You go to BU" and the one where one of the giant, WASPy crew twins exclaimed, "I'm 6'5, 220 and there are two of me!!" I had a great time watching the movie's portrayal of the final club and social scenes on campus. I've seen many unfortunate things at parties here at school but I've yet to see girls in nothing but their underwear and heels at parties. Maybe I'm just not hitting up the prime spots on my Saturday nights. Part of the fun of watching the movie was dissecting which things felt realistic(like the social pressure placed on males to insinuate themselves into particular power circles) and which ones didn't (the buildings looked nothing like they do in real life).
I felt this way about the movie overall but there was one element of the film that got to me: Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg. It's like when you go to H&M and you look from across the room at a really cute gray sweater. It's everything you've been dreaming of and you know it'll complete that outfit you planned to wear to dinner next Saturday. Then you walk up closer to it and all the detailing is fabulous EXCEPT for the random patch of rhinestones along the collar. The collar is obviously a central part of the top and it will be seen by all but it's just not quite right. That's exactly how I felt about Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg.
If you wanna play a slightly autistic person, inhabit the person's slight autism. If you wanna be relentlessly obnoxious, be relentlessly obnoxious. If you wanna play a pathetic person, act as a pathetic person would. But how could it be, Eisenberg, that Zuckerberg was all three of these things but still social enough to ever have any friends? Don't get me wrong: Harvard has more than its fair share of weird and unfortunate humans. However,Eisenberg's portrayal makes the Facebook creator seem less like a socially challenged person and more like a maniacally brilliant man-child. Without seeing the movie, it's hard to communicate the difference between being a tool and being other worldly (in a bad way) but to me, the story didn't make sense because if in real life Zuckerberg was as unpleasant as he appeared in the film, he would have no social contact to speak of.
The oddity of his demeanor was especially distinct and bizarre when compared to the other characters in the film. Andrew Garfield's portrayal of Saverin as an innocent but likeable bystander made sense in the context of someone who'd been ripped off and JT's depiction of Sean Parker (a man who made and lost millions by stealing music and offering it to people for free) as a sleazy individual seemed believable. Armie Hammer captured what the Winklevoss' must have been like. But there was just something about Eisenberg that felt too forced and too robotic to me.
Zuckerberg is clearly a smart or at least clever man who figured out how to create a social networking site that would, in a few short years, revolutionize the way young people interact across the planet. It's interesting that the movie tried to at once demonstrate his creativity and passion for this website and at the same time focused on possibility that he ripped off the Winklevoss' original website. Was he inventive and brilliant or was he merely a thief? The movie doesn't really answer the question.
At the end they do tell us that the twins won a $65 million settlement, which you'll know, even if you struggled with arithmetic in grade school, means that each twin got $32.5 million. And I've heard they're still trying to go back for more. I mean, it's true, $32.5 million is chump change at the age of 25. However, I do think it's enough to get by on. Like you can maybe get some ramen with that and take your girlfriend out to Denny's with that twice a year.
This movie to me was funny because it showed the intersection between money, creativity and white male identity. It reflected the motivations behind these people's actions and the complexity of power structures: the Winklevoss's had money and social power while Zuckerberg had the creativity and skills not only to make his own website but to capitalize on their idea. In America, it doesn't matter whose idea comes first. As "The Social Network" reveals, the ability to enact an idea and to figure out a way to monetize it is the only thing that counts. Whether Zuckerberg's character was as putrid and weasely as the movie insinuated, one thing's certain: he's made his mark (haha, get it, that's his name...Mark...ok I'll stop) on social affairs. Does this mean that I have to be as relentlessly unbearable as Zuckerberg to get ahead in life/start a social revolution? Is that my only option? What's up with that?
Friday, September 3, 2010
Brangelina vs. Aniston: A Look into Reproductive Rights
About a decade ago I watched this movie about a sullen chick who'd sort of lost her way and ended up in an insane asylum with some actual crazies. That movie was called Girl, Interrupted and technically starred Winona Ryder but more importantly centered around her friend Lisa, played by Angelina Jolie. I was a weird 10 year old/ I'm still weird but I had a real fascination with mental illness and with how media sources portrayed people who are colloquially referred to as "nuts." I found it even more interesting that Angelina not only played an insane woman in film but also seemed to have a few screws loose in real life, as well. She was kissing her brother, having major Daddy issues, wearing a vile of blood and, most pitifully, dating Billy Bob Thornton.
Cut to about ten years later and now the woman is juggling 6 kids, a career as an action film star, her peace work in foreign countries and a sex life with Mr. Brad Pitt! Things have certainly changed for her but it's one particular moment in her life that gets my attention: the moment when she "stole" Brad Pitt from Jennifer Aniston.
I'm clearly a devotee of celebrity gossip and of celebrity interviews and I always remember hearing that Brad Pitt wanted children. In fact, I think there is an American law that determines that it would be a crime for him not reproduce. It's there in fine print somewhere, I swear. The man's gorgeous. Jennifer Aniston, on the other hand, clearly didn't want to: didn't wanna be pregnant and didn't want to adopt as evidenced by the fact that she hasn't done so in the five years since this all broke out. May sound harsh but any woman who says, "no, no Brad Pitt, I'm holding out for someone better to be the father of my children (biological or not)" can't have it all together. That might've been a fair excuse while she was starring on "Friends" but after it ended, they still stayed married without having any babies. Then entered Angelina.
The reason I'm thinking about this now is because last night, I was speaking with two friends about the movie Salt. They both agreed (in jest) that Angelina was wrong to have taken a woman's husband and it got me thinking. What right does any spouse have to deprive the other of a child? Alternatively, what right does a partner have to force the other person to be a parent if he or she doesn't want to? They wisely asked me why I assumed that she even could have kids or didn't want to have children. They suggested that maybe at one point towards the beginning of their marriage they both wanted to be childless but he changed his mind or that maybe they planned for children and then she decided against it. Maybe there were fertility issues involved. Whatever the case may be, I don't believe that two people who are in love have to or should stay together if they have radically opposing ideas about having children.
They could've adopted children or been foster parents. There are a multitude of ways for people to become parents. But a few definite ways not to be a parent include not getting pregnant and not taking in children who aren't biologically yours. In the Jennifer-Brad-Angelina triangle, it's clear that after he left Aniston, he chose (along with Jolie) to become parents to a brood of children. Clearly he wanted to be a parent: no man finds a woman with two adopted children, stays with her as she adopts another and then proceeds to procreate twice more with her if he isn't interested in the job.
In the conversation we had, my friends did the crucial job of asking me to illuminate my point and why I believed so fervently that this shift in relationships was understandable and just. I didn't make the judgment call because I think women should all be babymakers or that I was trying to claim that women who can't have children are somehow less than women. The truth is, I would make the same assertion if a woman wanted to have children and her male partner didn't. This is not, at it's core, a question of gender issues. To me, reproductive rights and fairness are the focus of this debate regardless of whether the person is a man or a woman. Not to go all creepy and morbid (i.e. Angelina circa 1999) but the fact of the matter is that we are all on this planet for a limited amount of time and the closest any of us gets to immortality, should we desire it, is by reproducing our DNA so that it can be passed on for generations and generations or by sharing our personality traits with adopted children.
With that said, I feel that every person has the right to choose the best scenario that either allows them to pursue this possibility or to decide that he or she has no interest in doing so. What I don't think should happen, is that a person has these options limited on account of who he or she is partnered with. If two people are going along fine until they hit this very important issue and realize they wanted two entirely different things, I don't believe that each of these individuals ought to be obligated to stay with his/her partner for the sake of maintaining a relationship.
By no means do I want to downplay the importance of the love and mutual devotion between couples but I don't think it's reasonable to claim that Brad did the wrong thing by leaving or that Angelina was a homewrecker. It's hard to break something, in this instance, a marriage, that is truly and honestly unshakeable. Pitt should not have cheated on Aniston (in fact, that was his true crime) but his decision to leave a woman with seemingly little interest in childrearing for someone who shared his desire to be a parent makes perfect sense to me. Should we really be deprived of children or forced to have them because the person we love has other interests? Actually, how can we believe someone truly loves us if he or she doesn't want us to do the best we can to get things we want out of life? What's up with that?
Cut to about ten years later and now the woman is juggling 6 kids, a career as an action film star, her peace work in foreign countries and a sex life with Mr. Brad Pitt! Things have certainly changed for her but it's one particular moment in her life that gets my attention: the moment when she "stole" Brad Pitt from Jennifer Aniston.
I'm clearly a devotee of celebrity gossip and of celebrity interviews and I always remember hearing that Brad Pitt wanted children. In fact, I think there is an American law that determines that it would be a crime for him not reproduce. It's there in fine print somewhere, I swear. The man's gorgeous. Jennifer Aniston, on the other hand, clearly didn't want to: didn't wanna be pregnant and didn't want to adopt as evidenced by the fact that she hasn't done so in the five years since this all broke out. May sound harsh but any woman who says, "no, no Brad Pitt, I'm holding out for someone better to be the father of my children (biological or not)" can't have it all together. That might've been a fair excuse while she was starring on "Friends" but after it ended, they still stayed married without having any babies. Then entered Angelina.
The reason I'm thinking about this now is because last night, I was speaking with two friends about the movie Salt. They both agreed (in jest) that Angelina was wrong to have taken a woman's husband and it got me thinking. What right does any spouse have to deprive the other of a child? Alternatively, what right does a partner have to force the other person to be a parent if he or she doesn't want to? They wisely asked me why I assumed that she even could have kids or didn't want to have children. They suggested that maybe at one point towards the beginning of their marriage they both wanted to be childless but he changed his mind or that maybe they planned for children and then she decided against it. Maybe there were fertility issues involved. Whatever the case may be, I don't believe that two people who are in love have to or should stay together if they have radically opposing ideas about having children.
They could've adopted children or been foster parents. There are a multitude of ways for people to become parents. But a few definite ways not to be a parent include not getting pregnant and not taking in children who aren't biologically yours. In the Jennifer-Brad-Angelina triangle, it's clear that after he left Aniston, he chose (along with Jolie) to become parents to a brood of children. Clearly he wanted to be a parent: no man finds a woman with two adopted children, stays with her as she adopts another and then proceeds to procreate twice more with her if he isn't interested in the job.
In the conversation we had, my friends did the crucial job of asking me to illuminate my point and why I believed so fervently that this shift in relationships was understandable and just. I didn't make the judgment call because I think women should all be babymakers or that I was trying to claim that women who can't have children are somehow less than women. The truth is, I would make the same assertion if a woman wanted to have children and her male partner didn't. This is not, at it's core, a question of gender issues. To me, reproductive rights and fairness are the focus of this debate regardless of whether the person is a man or a woman. Not to go all creepy and morbid (i.e. Angelina circa 1999) but the fact of the matter is that we are all on this planet for a limited amount of time and the closest any of us gets to immortality, should we desire it, is by reproducing our DNA so that it can be passed on for generations and generations or by sharing our personality traits with adopted children.
With that said, I feel that every person has the right to choose the best scenario that either allows them to pursue this possibility or to decide that he or she has no interest in doing so. What I don't think should happen, is that a person has these options limited on account of who he or she is partnered with. If two people are going along fine until they hit this very important issue and realize they wanted two entirely different things, I don't believe that each of these individuals ought to be obligated to stay with his/her partner for the sake of maintaining a relationship.
By no means do I want to downplay the importance of the love and mutual devotion between couples but I don't think it's reasonable to claim that Brad did the wrong thing by leaving or that Angelina was a homewrecker. It's hard to break something, in this instance, a marriage, that is truly and honestly unshakeable. Pitt should not have cheated on Aniston (in fact, that was his true crime) but his decision to leave a woman with seemingly little interest in childrearing for someone who shared his desire to be a parent makes perfect sense to me. Should we really be deprived of children or forced to have them because the person we love has other interests? Actually, how can we believe someone truly loves us if he or she doesn't want us to do the best we can to get things we want out of life? What's up with that?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
"The Good Ones" and "The Bad Ones": A Debate about the Mosque Near Ground Zero
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11th 2001 I had newly become a sixth grader. By that afternoon, my world had been rocked. I spent my entire childhood living in a Battery Park City apartment not even two blocks away from the Twin Towers. My home was destroyed that day and my sense of security in this city and frankly in this world was absolutely shattered. My family was fortunate enough to survive that day and to have started our lives over again but the hurt of the day will never leave me.
With that said, someone might assume that I would harbor prejudice against all Muslim people because the people responsible for the attacks were also Muslim. But I don't. Even though a huge part of my world was ruined on that day, I don't make the inexcusable mistake of associating all Muslim people with those who created terror that September morning. That's why I've been so shocked by the extremely negative response to the proposed Mosque that could be built 2 blocks away from Ground Zero. The other thing that gets me, which my mother articulated very well to me when we spoke of this, is that the title "Ground Zero Mosque" sounds just like a headline constructed by advertising executives sitting around a table, figuring out how to "brand" this story. The mosque will be at Park Place which is not on top of Ground Zero nor directly next to it. It's two blocks away. In New York real estate, we don't even go two blocks without multiple Starbucks' and Duane Reades.' 2 blocks in Manhattan terms means a WORLD of difference.
Leaving real estate aside, let's take a quick glance at the Constitution of the United States. You know, the principles that make us uniquely American. The rules we're all supposed to live by. The undeniable standards which we're supposed to hold ourselves to. Now if you don't like reading too much and it gives you a headache to go too deeply into it, then let's just look at the first one. The very first one says the following: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What most people take this to mean is that you have the freedom to practice religion regardless of where you choose to worship. This means that all the people in downtown Manhattan and anywhere who are rejecting the plan to build a mosque near the site of the September 11th attacks are actually suggesting that the builders forego the first principle of the United States Constitution to make an exception...where there absolutely shouldn't be one.
While I believe that this very basic legal reason should suffice and should end all public discussion about whether this building should be built, there is clearly something deeper here. These protestors are asking for the prohibition of this building because it would be an official indication that the U.S. has declared Islam an un-American religion. The problems with this are limitless but here are a few key points that stick out in my mind: 1) how dare we declare anyone's religion unfit or unworthy when our good ol' American principles of liberty and freedom directly state otherwise?; 2) calling ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave is rendered entirely useless when we try to place bans on people simply because they share the same religion or ethnicity as those directly linked to terrorist attacks; and 3) I'm so surprised that after years of trying to be PC and hide racism towards, oh I don't know, every minority race that exists in this country, people haven't figured out how to conceal their Islamophobia.
From another angle, let's think about this: after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 (the largest terror attack prior to 9/11), no one said that all blond males in Oklahoma City should be banned from living in the area. The only time people are willing to blame an entire class of people for the actions of a few is when the criminal or criminals belong to a minority group.
In the times when I've watched the news long enough to sit through the stories about these protestors, I've watched people make comments like "this mosque is un-American" and "they can have a mosque wherever they want but just not here" and, my personal favorite, "we don't know which ones are the good ones and which ones are the bad ones." Now if the rules that define our nation allow us to practice religion freely, then no one religion can be persecuted as being "un-American". Furthermore, the second statement suggests that you can be free everywhere except for right here. Reminds me of when blacks were free to live however they wanted in their homes and go to school anywhere BUT with little white children. The people foaming at the mouth with signs of how their sons and daughters and cousins and fathers died that day have let their emotions, and not their knowledge of the rules of this society, get the better of them. Whether you personally feel comfortable with a religion or not, or use all Muslims as scapegoats in your own mind, you really shouldn't claim that you want to protect the rights and freedoms of the United States and enter a public sphere saying that some people just don't deserve that.
And the final statement about the "good ones" and the "bad ones" is the best because it illuminates the struggle that minorities continue to deal with in this country. When people start seeing bad apples in one group and using those examples to generalize about everyone who even remotely looks like those criminals, we've lost it all as a nation. I'm pretty damn sure that the potential mosque goers at this site will be no more like the terrorists that day than I am like any black criminal on Death Row.
We can't just bend the rules because this was a massive volume of people who died or because it shook up the nation or because it is "insensitive." A mosque and Islam have little connection to the terrorists who flew into the towers. It's not only embarrassingly racist and prejudiced to hold these beliefs but it's really shameful and inconceivable. Whether you feel personally comfortable with Islam or any religion for that matter, it is certain that it would be illegal not to build this house of worship on the grounds of religion alone. If the mosque isn't built, and didn't join the other mosques and churches that are already in the area, it should be because of zoning issues and financial reasons alone. I mean are we really gonna say a certain group of people should be less free to practice religion because people who looked like them once did something horrifically destructive? What the hell is up with that?
With that said, someone might assume that I would harbor prejudice against all Muslim people because the people responsible for the attacks were also Muslim. But I don't. Even though a huge part of my world was ruined on that day, I don't make the inexcusable mistake of associating all Muslim people with those who created terror that September morning. That's why I've been so shocked by the extremely negative response to the proposed Mosque that could be built 2 blocks away from Ground Zero. The other thing that gets me, which my mother articulated very well to me when we spoke of this, is that the title "Ground Zero Mosque" sounds just like a headline constructed by advertising executives sitting around a table, figuring out how to "brand" this story. The mosque will be at Park Place which is not on top of Ground Zero nor directly next to it. It's two blocks away. In New York real estate, we don't even go two blocks without multiple Starbucks' and Duane Reades.' 2 blocks in Manhattan terms means a WORLD of difference.
Leaving real estate aside, let's take a quick glance at the Constitution of the United States. You know, the principles that make us uniquely American. The rules we're all supposed to live by. The undeniable standards which we're supposed to hold ourselves to. Now if you don't like reading too much and it gives you a headache to go too deeply into it, then let's just look at the first one. The very first one says the following: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What most people take this to mean is that you have the freedom to practice religion regardless of where you choose to worship. This means that all the people in downtown Manhattan and anywhere who are rejecting the plan to build a mosque near the site of the September 11th attacks are actually suggesting that the builders forego the first principle of the United States Constitution to make an exception...where there absolutely shouldn't be one.
While I believe that this very basic legal reason should suffice and should end all public discussion about whether this building should be built, there is clearly something deeper here. These protestors are asking for the prohibition of this building because it would be an official indication that the U.S. has declared Islam an un-American religion. The problems with this are limitless but here are a few key points that stick out in my mind: 1) how dare we declare anyone's religion unfit or unworthy when our good ol' American principles of liberty and freedom directly state otherwise?; 2) calling ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave is rendered entirely useless when we try to place bans on people simply because they share the same religion or ethnicity as those directly linked to terrorist attacks; and 3) I'm so surprised that after years of trying to be PC and hide racism towards, oh I don't know, every minority race that exists in this country, people haven't figured out how to conceal their Islamophobia.
From another angle, let's think about this: after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 (the largest terror attack prior to 9/11), no one said that all blond males in Oklahoma City should be banned from living in the area. The only time people are willing to blame an entire class of people for the actions of a few is when the criminal or criminals belong to a minority group.
In the times when I've watched the news long enough to sit through the stories about these protestors, I've watched people make comments like "this mosque is un-American" and "they can have a mosque wherever they want but just not here" and, my personal favorite, "we don't know which ones are the good ones and which ones are the bad ones." Now if the rules that define our nation allow us to practice religion freely, then no one religion can be persecuted as being "un-American". Furthermore, the second statement suggests that you can be free everywhere except for right here. Reminds me of when blacks were free to live however they wanted in their homes and go to school anywhere BUT with little white children. The people foaming at the mouth with signs of how their sons and daughters and cousins and fathers died that day have let their emotions, and not their knowledge of the rules of this society, get the better of them. Whether you personally feel comfortable with a religion or not, or use all Muslims as scapegoats in your own mind, you really shouldn't claim that you want to protect the rights and freedoms of the United States and enter a public sphere saying that some people just don't deserve that.
And the final statement about the "good ones" and the "bad ones" is the best because it illuminates the struggle that minorities continue to deal with in this country. When people start seeing bad apples in one group and using those examples to generalize about everyone who even remotely looks like those criminals, we've lost it all as a nation. I'm pretty damn sure that the potential mosque goers at this site will be no more like the terrorists that day than I am like any black criminal on Death Row.
We can't just bend the rules because this was a massive volume of people who died or because it shook up the nation or because it is "insensitive." A mosque and Islam have little connection to the terrorists who flew into the towers. It's not only embarrassingly racist and prejudiced to hold these beliefs but it's really shameful and inconceivable. Whether you feel personally comfortable with Islam or any religion for that matter, it is certain that it would be illegal not to build this house of worship on the grounds of religion alone. If the mosque isn't built, and didn't join the other mosques and churches that are already in the area, it should be because of zoning issues and financial reasons alone. I mean are we really gonna say a certain group of people should be less free to practice religion because people who looked like them once did something horrifically destructive? What the hell is up with that?
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