Godheval

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This is where denial comes in – because in order for someone to want to improve themselves, they have to first accept that there is something wrong in the first place.  For those infected with the white virus, whether they realize it or not, their symptoms are not merely benign but ostensibly to their benefit.

I did not list hatred as one of the characteristics of the white virus, and that’s because it isn’t.  Hatred is a response – a coping mechanism for the fear that is a symptom of the white virus.  Whiteness juxtaposes people of certain features – mostly Western European – against everyone else.

Where those others are seen as a threat to safety or resources, the whiteness virus fosters an adversarial relationship.  Ironically, the only real threat is the white virus itself which, as one of the most formidable memeplexes in existence, reinforces its hold over the infected by encouraging either the assimilation or annihilation of those others.

As its purpose since the onset has been propagation – and again we see this manifest physically and memetically – the whiteness virus instills fear of change most of all.  Change in the form of any shift in the social or political dynamic, in the form of miscegenation, in the form of multiculturalism.

Whiteness cannot thrive in a non-hostile environment, and so its survival as a cultural phenomenon – also manifest in the misguided survival instincts of the infected – depends on conflict between groups, namely any conflict that allows the infected to maintain any real physical, social, cultural, economic, or emotional distance between themselves and everyone else.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so they say, so let us dispense with any “intentions” and be straightforward with what is absolutely essential to reconciliation – the absolute annihilation of the whiteness virus, and the vaccination of the youth against future infections.

If it is not clear that I am speaking metaphorically, let me state plainly that I am, and that I am not advocating any physical action against any group of people.  Even though the whiteness virus has allowed for unconscionable violence on the part of the infected, to react with violence would only strengthen the adversarial climate that allows the virus to thrive.

The ultimate weapon against the whiteness virus?  Information.  But information alone is nothing without incentive.  And that incentive can only come from the infected themselves, by sheer strength of will, out of a sense of right and wrong.

The first stage is always denial.  But it’s about time to move forward.

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Speaking of prejudices, another interesting point was made by Andrew Liepman, deputy director for intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center.  He said:

The potential terrorist indoctrination and recruitment was a consequence of these clusters, and is the product of “the refugee experience of fleeing a war-torn country combined with isolation, perceived discrimination, marginalization and frustrated expectations.

“Perceived discrimination” is a troublesome phrase, because it eliminates by default the suggestion that the discrimination was real.  It suggests that not only did Liepman consider discrimination as a potential cause for radicalization, but that he then consciously decided that it was only a matter of Somali perception.  He could’ve simply said that the Somalis face discrimination – something no one would’ve doubted – without any additional qualifiers.  It could’ve been left to the audience to decide whether or not it was real or perceived.

To downplay the possibility of discrimination as a mere matter of Somali perception is to potentially ignore a critical aspect of their experience.  Xenophobia, after 9/11, has reached new heights, and so it is not only possible, but likely that Somali-Americans experience discrimination as a result of this fear.  Nevermind the prevailing prejudices that mark the experiences of anyone considered “black” in the United States.  Perceived discrimination indeed, Mr. Liepman.

It is all too common for members of the demographic majority, who are not likely to experience any meaningful discrimination, to downplay the discrimination of minorities as either exaggerated or as cases of “hypersensitivity”.  This turns responsibility for discrimination away from the perpetrators and towards the aggrieved, in effect blaming them for their own negative experiences.  Framed within a discussion about homegrown terrorism, this diminishes any attempts at empathy, and bolsters the case for considering Somali-Americans a threat, because not only are they frustrated and isolated, but also delusional.

Ultimately, in identifying discrimination as a risk factor for radicalization, it doesn’t even matter whether it is real or perceived, and either way suggests a need for a more equitable interface between the Somali-American community and the greater American society.

If we are going to dismiss any or all experience of discrimination as existing only within the perception of the aggrieved, then perhaps this rising threat of homegrown terrorism is a mere matter of perception as well.  At what point does a problem cross over from simple perception to a living breathing phenomenon?  Is it only when it affects the demographic majority?  Which then is more real, the “threat” presented by innocent Arab and Muslim American citizens in the aftermath of 9/11, or the prejudices those Americans have faced since that fateful day?  Which then, was a mere matter of perception?

Shirwa Ahmed, if we can even be certain that he was involved in the Hargeisa-Bobaso bombings, would be the only known example of terrorist threat emerging from the Somali-American community.  It is important to note in this case, that the attacks were conducted in Somalia, probably in response to the lingering tensisons and political instabilities there.  It is not completely unreasonable for a recent Somali transplant, culturally isolated in the United States, to seek purpose in his homeland, where his memories and emotions are still tethered.  None of this implies that any other individual with similar experiences would turn any such frustration or isolation into a desire to attack the United States.

Connecting terrorist activities in another country to the fears of potential terrorist attacks in this country is not only reckless, but intellectually irresponsible.  At the same time, to dismiss what may be a very real experience with prejudice as only a matter of perception is to ignore one of the factors that may make certain members of the Somali-American community susceptible to radical ideology.

Terrorism is too often viewed as a random and/or purely evil act, with no precedent or rational cause.  There is no group of people, national, cultural or religious, that in itself presents a greater threat of terrorism than any other.  It is always the situations surrounding a group that increases the risk – situations that create fear, desperation, or a hopelessness so pervasive that death becomes a viable option.  Addressing the problems facing any community before they become risk factors is vital to reducing the threat of terrorism.  Addressing a problem begins by acknowledging it, rather than dismissing it as a mere matter of perception.

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There have been some mutterings that the Steele appointment was akin to Affirmative Action – that is to say, that he was chosen exclusively for his ethnicity.  However, while it is true that Steele was probably chosen at least in part for being African-American, it is hardly an example of Affirmative Action, because the Republican National Committee is under no obligation to fulfill any quotas in their appointments.  The Steele appointment, unlike Affirmative Action, was not an attempt to foster greater inclusion, but the kind of exercise in racial politics for which the GOP has become notorious.

President Obama’s ethnicity played no small part in his election.  While he certainly was elected by virtue of his vision, his eloquence, and a message which resonated with a country’s desperate grasping for change, it is true that he may not have gotten as much attention were he not African-American.  He galvanized the vast majority of African-American and other non-white voters by virtue of being non-white himself.  He powerfully contradicted long-standing stereotypes of African-Americans in the public consciousness, and made people pay attention long enough to hear his message.  And out of a resistance to the racism that they had long denied but were forced to acknowledge as it reared its ugly head at Obama, many Euro-Americans voted for him as well – at least in part as an affirmation that they, unlike the nationalist fringe, were not party to such ugliness.

Given all this, it becomes clear that the dynamic between Obama’s ethnicity and his success as a politician is rather complex, not a simple 1-to-1 correlation.  In other words, he most certainly was not elected because he was African-American, but it was in part because he was African-American that people paid attention long enough to notice that he was a strong candidate.  A misunderstanding of this dynamic illustrates a greater misunderstanding of American racial dynamics in general.  And it is this kind of misunderstanding that has virtually ensured that the African-American vote, and that of other minority groups, have been lost to the Republican party for generations.

During the Illinois Senate race of 2004, the GOP found itself up against a strong Democratic candidate, one who happened to be African-American.  Their response to then Senate contender Barack Obama was Alan Keyes, a last minute substitute for Jack Ryan, who had suddenly withdrawn from the race.  Keyes, who had never been a viable candidate for any office, and had near zero political power or influence, was remarkable only for being one of very few visible African-American Republicans.  Predicated on the false assumption that Barack Obama’s singular claim to fame was his ethnicity, the GOP seemed to think that putting up an African-American candidate themselves would cut into his market share.  They were dead wrong.  Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes’ 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.

The GOP attempted a similar strategy in the 2008 Presidential campaign by selecting Sarah Palin as their Vice Presidential nominee, in an apparent attempt to draw the female voters they perceived the Democratic party to have lost by not selecting Hillary Clinton.  It backfired.  Women resented the suggestion that they were voting based on gender rather than an understanding of the issues – an understanding Sarah Palin vividly illustrated that she did not possess.

Now with Michael Steele we see the GOP again using blackface [sic] in an attempt to counter the widespread popularity of Barack Obama.  Strange that they would attempt the exact same strategy that failed not only once, but twice – a further indication of how out of touch they are with the electorate.  While Steele may have merits outside of his ethnicity, they have not gained him any worthwhile recognition, and until now he has been a barely relevant figure in American politics.  It is noteworthy to mention that his popularity was most significant amongst African-American Republicans, who as a minority within a minority, sometimes find public representatives hard to come by.

Since his appointment, Steele has hit the ground stumbling, making a number of gaffes and self-contradictions, all the while demonstrating that he, like much of the party, is out of touch.  Were he not African-American, would he have referred the economic stimulus as “bling bling“?  Would Minnesota representative Michelle Bachman have said to him, in a laughable attempt to speak AAVE, “You be da man“?  Or would Steele have declared it necessary for the GOP to have a “hip-hop makeover“, by initiating an “off the hook” public relations campaign?

It is as if Chairman Steele is trying to remind everyone that he is African-American, just in case they’d forgotten since they last time they saw his face.  And of course blackness – nevermind the 400+ years of rich history and traditions, struggle and accomplishment – is foremost defined by stereotypes and pop culture slogans.  Perhaps to people with zero knowledge of history, and whose only frame of reference when it comes to African-Americans is the television.  It may be that Steele is so out of touch with African-Americans that he has felt a need to mentally renew his own “membership”.  In the process, he is making a complete fool of himself.

Given hip-hop’s political origins, a case actually could be made for the GOP using the culture as a medium for galvanizing new party recruits.  However, doing so would require the GOP to take hip-hop seriously, not condescend to it by throwing around obsolete catch phrases.

If Michael Steele knew anything at all about hip-hop, he would know of its capriciousness, its capacity for rapid change, that the flavor of the day can easily be replaced by the flavor of the next minute.  Had he known anything about hip hop, he might’ve paused before making statements that were not only long out of circulation within the hip hop lexicon, but have since been co-opted by those who would ridicule the culture.  Probably everyone who embraces the culture, and anyone who at least appreciates the music, cringed collectively every time Michael Steele invoked hip-hop from some podium.

African-Americans as a group – diverse in their interests, their concerns, their ideologies, their practices – are a microcosm for the larger American population.  It stands to reason then, that in spite there being some unique issues to contend with, African-American concerns are simply American concerns.

The Republican party, in its stalwart resistance to change, its clinging to static values and obsolete principles, has proven itself of late to be ill-representative of the American population, and ignorant of those concerns.  Michael Steele therefore, as a man equally out of touch with the group from which he was selected, is the perfect choice to lead them.

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But when we look at needs as they apply to groups, they do correspond to a qualitative hierarchy – the socioeconomic stratum. Generally speaking, those at the bottom of the stratum are struggling to fulfill the basic needs. This is not universal, and I do not mean to suggest that self-actualization is not possible for those in poverty. Afterall, how we define poverty varies from place to place. The people of Bhutan – in South Asia – have a per capita income of around $1300, which places them in abject poverty by U.S. standards. Yet the people of Bhutan, who hold a measurement of “national happiness” higher than economic wealth, are mostly happy. Happiness, where it is a regular characteristic of a person rather than circumstantial, is closely correlated to self-actualization.

In the United States, the hierarchy of needs is superimposed by a second hierarchy – of want. The difference between wants and needs is that needs are dictated by the bodies and minds of people and mostly on a subconscious level. Maslow’s model does not state that people knowingly act on their needs, but that needs function on a more subversive level. Wants and needs can and do align where a person becomes conscious of what they need and how to acquire it. However, all too often, wants displace needs – filler instead of fulfillment. Wants are like empty calories – food that fills your stomach and satisfies the immediate hunger need, but not the underlying nutrition need. A child may want candy, but needs vegetables.

Wants, unlike needs, are dictated not by individuals themselves, but by the external environment, from peers to the greater society. The United States economy is under-girded by people’s willingness to spend money. It is not enough to spend only on those things we need, but also on the things we want. In fact, the economy would be starved if we only purchased according to our needs. What we have is a culture of consumerism, where value is ascribed not only to goods, but to people according to their ability to purchase goods – material wealth.

The pursuit of wealth is not only a sidetrack from climbing the hierarchy of needs, but displaces it with the hierarchy of want. The hierarchy of needs leads to self-actualization – where a person is no longer acting on subconscious needs, but making regular conscious movements towards limitless personal growth. The hierarchy of wants does not ever lead to fulfillment of any sort, and in fact only leads to more and increasingly difficult to attain wants.

Individuals at the helms of the government and industries of the United States and other capitalist economies understand this dynamic well – and in fact, their positions in the socioeconomic stratum depend on it. That is not to say that people in high government positions and at the tops of corporate ladders are removed from the hierarchy of wants. They may actually be the most entrenched. As they fulfill higher and higher wants (meaning rarer or more expensive), they eventually come to a point where the goal is to attain greater ability to fulfill wants. Material wealth becomes the end in itself rather than any means to an end. This stage of the hierarchy of wants leaves people stuck within the hierarchy of needs, most often the esteem needs. The phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” invokes the need for the esteem of one’s peers, or self-esteem based upon one’s status in relation to one’s peers. People stuck in the hierarchy of wants fail to recognize that wants are endless and that satisfaction can only come through fulfilling one’s needs.

With that background laid out, we can get to the real meat of the essay. I have little interest in the vices of of the materially wealthy, only in how they affect everyone else. Just like the people on the top of the socioeconomic stratum, those at the middle and bottom are also mired in a hierarchy of wants. In creating and sustaining an economy based on consumerism, we have created a veritable culture of want. This ailment of society is particularly chronic and systemic within the lower class, much to their detriment. The idea of competing with the Joneses is patently absurd when one has yet to fulfill the most basic needs.

Our era of mass communication has only compounded the problem. Whereas it should be – and at its best is – a system for educating more people and faster, it is also a medium for spreading the memes of want. Before television and the internet, the economic classes were vastly divided by both material wealth and wealth of information. The poor could not even conceive of the pleasures of the wealthy and in a way it was to their benefit. Climbing the hierarchy of needs is possible even in poverty – as the example of Bhutan indicates. Once exposed to the prospect of wealth, but without any sustainable means of acquiring it, the poor can become mired in the hierarchy of wants as well. An interesting side note is that the people of Bhutan were amongst the last to have television, as it was banned from the country until 1999. This is probably not unrelated to their ability to achieve happiness in conditions that we in the “first world” would consider poverty.

Through television and the internet (radio to a lesser extent since it lacks the crucial visual component), the middle and lower classes were delivered images of seeming wealth and prosperity that are based on the hierarchy of wants. False associations were made between material possessions, social status, and happiness – again a displacement of needs by wants.

In rare instances, a member of the lower class may see a near instant teleportation to the top of the socioeconomic stratum, foregoing the natural and healthy progression of climbing the hiearchy of needs, and taking a shortcut through the hierarchy of wants. As a result, many of the needs remain, and like the already wealthy, they remain trapped in the esteem needs. The hierarchy of wants continuously changes the status quo for esteem needs – bigger and more expensive houses, faster and fancier cars, ever gaudier jewelry.

Worse yet, these individuals become an exemplar for other members of the lower class, who identify with them on the basis of their once-shared socioeconomic status. As mentioned before, the sudden leap from the bottom to top is exceedingly rare, but as the mass media constantly inundates our society with accounts of the materially wealthy, their stories seem more prevalent than they actually are. In fact, the prospect of skyrocketing from bottom to top overnight is mostly a delusion, and it is in pursuit of this impossible goal that leads many individuals and groups towards self-destruction.

Although the terms “culture of want” and “hierarchy of want” have so far been used interchangeably, but it should be understood that the hierarchy is merely the foundation for the culture. The culture of want is a memetic cancer that has extended into every sector of human life. The best way to understand it is to examine the different instances where wants displace needs and continue to inhibit personal growth. As mentioned earlier, at the base of the hierarchy of needs are the physiological needs such as nourishment. The body needs certain substances – like proteins, vitamins, minerals – which can be fulfilled by eating the right kinds of foods. Originally human beings collected their food directly from the surrounding environment, but today we rely on a food industry.

The trouble, however, is that the food industry, in seeking to increase its wealth by expanding and speeding up production, has taken numerous shortcuts. If you recall the distinction I made earlier between wants and needs, it was that wants are dictated by the external environment. That is the case here, as the food industry – through massive advertising campaigns – tell people what they want. Fast food in particular satisfies our immediate hunger – a want impulse – but falls short in providing nutrition – a need. Worse than that, these products are often detrimental to our health. Those at the helm of the food industry decided that it was more important to fulfill their want for more wealth than to continue to supply us with what we need. This wants-over-needs initiative is amplified in poor communities, where fast food outlets are disproportionately allocated.

Another example of the culture of want phenomenon can be observed amongst lower class African-Americans. The causes behind the chronic poverty amongst African-Americans are numerous and beyond the scope of this essay, but I would like to highlight an important shift in how many perceive their plight and envision the way out of it. During the so-called Reconstruction era, in the aftermath of slavery, African-Americans – both newly emancipated, and the freemen of the north, conspired to elevate the status of what then was an African-American community of mutual plight and aspiration. Education was the cornerstone of a movement towards personal and community growth. One product of this movement was the foundation of institutions today known as “historically black colleges and universities” or HBCUs.

However, due to the prevailing blight of racism, which maintained a distinct separation between the races in terms of access to resources and influence, a glass ceiling was set that placed severe limitations on just how high most African-Americans could aspire. This barrier was not only physical and social, but emotional. It was not only that African-Americans observed and lived within very real limitations, but that they also internalized those limitations. These emotional limitations remained even after the physical and social limitations were no longer imposed by law.

Compounding upon this emotional limitation is the ideal of the “American Dream”, where anyone can achieve anything if they work hard enough. Except that the American Dream was not inclusive of African-Americans, and completely ignores any concept of inequality. An added consequence to the rosy American Dream “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” ideology is that when one does work hard, but due to the very real social inequalities does NOT make it, it results in a psychological backlash in which the person blames him/herself for their inability. After all, they are told that it’s all a matter of “personal responsibility”. The idea becomes that if you didn’t make it, you just didn’t work hard enough, or to hear some tell it, you just weren’t “smart enough”.

Many African Americans, who as a group are disproportionately lower class, subscribe to the overall American standard of high-materialism and excess – the culture of want – in spite of the fact that they do not have the means to sustain such a lifestyle. Because education – once recognized by forward-thinking African-Americans as essential to personal growth – is so inadequate in many poor areas where African-Americans are the majority, it does not appear to offer a viable path towards success.

This is particularly relevant to young people in the lower class, regardless of ethnicity. Students who stay in school all the way through – and this is a particularly daunting challenge in poor communities – are not seeing opportunities that are much better than those of the people around them who didn’t finish. They see drug dealers, athletes, musicians, or even people who quit school and work hard at an honest job making money, more of it, and much sooner. And in a culture of want, money is the ultimate prize,  the ultimate measure of self worth. Why toil through school when there is no apparent guarantee that it will give you any greater advantage, and while the local drug dealers and big name rappers are getting what they want right now? Ideals such as self-actualization are not only obscured, but inconceivable.

Due to the quality of education in poor areas, students are not even given an idea of the possibilities outside the culture of want. They are given the standard subjects of reading, math, and science, but there are slim pickings when it comes to art, technology, and higher liberal arts. By contrast, public schools in high-income areas feature state of the art technology, up-to-date educational materials, and a greater spectrum of classes.

The result is always another generation of kids who are not only under-educated and unmotivated, but also disinterested in the school’s meager offerings. They see no way to connect the dots between an inadequate school and a successful life.

The fairytale lifestyles seen on the television and internet, especially when compared to the reality in their own neighborhoods, are simply more appealing than what school has to offer. Compound upon all of that a lack of mentorship, such as teachers working for a paycheck without any mental or emotional investment in the success of the children. At best they’ll fail to motivate and inspire, and at worse, they’ll add to the problem. They may even be the most recent products of the same system.

In poor communities, you often have a bunch of under-educated people with the wrong values and bad priorities, disillusioned with life, hopeless, and perhaps even angry. Material comforts – from clothing to technology to drugs – and status comfort appears to be a solution to one’s grievances.

The result is a culture where people spend beyond their means to compensate for feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness, and because they were never shown a viable alternative. But these same people, in spite of their financial, educational, and even spiritual poverty, still manage to contribute to the economy in a big way. Therefore it is not in the interests of those at the head of government or industry to promote the personal growth of those at the bottom of the stratum. Worse yet, they see it as being in their best interests to keep the poor spending beyond their means, as we witnessed during the subprime mortgage crisis. Poor and uneducated people continue to stimulate the economy without ever elevating their station. They remain trapped within the culture of want, at the expense of making any progress in climbing the hierarchy of needs.

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But all of this made me aware of another phenomenon – a sort of “spite bandwagon” that people seem to leap on even against all reason that says they should not. What I mean is that George W. Bush is one of the most heavily criticized Presidents in American history, but in spite of that criticism, his supporters only rallied to his side even more defiantly, throwing verbal assaults like “liberal” and “bleeding heart” at anyone who dared to challenge him. They also seemed to take his meager abilities as an orator, rife with mistakes and political “no nos”, as something that made him more personable, something that perhaps made him more human than politician, and enabled them to identify with him. They took criticism of his speech as personal attacks by high and mighty academics or would-be expatriates who should “leave the country if they don’t like it.”

I’ve noticed this “spite bandwagon” in other situations as well. In most polls preceding the 2008 U.S. Democratic Presidential Primaries, Hillary Clinton was the clear front runner, leading Barack Obama by anywhere from 10 to 25 percentage points. The reasons for this I’ll leave to political analysts, but one thing that certainly contributed to the rather sudden shift in favor of Obama was that Clinton was the first to draw blood by resorting to negative campaigning. It seemed that although more people were supporting Clinton, they still at least had a favorable impression of Obama, and her negative attacks were something that may have caused people to rally in support of Obama in spite of her.

In general, I think that the American people simply don’t want to hear negative politicking, even as they slow in traffic to stare at car accidents, flock to violent movies and gather in front of violent TV shows, and devour all news about the social downfalls of celebrities. In other words, they love negativity in just about any form, but keep it out of their politics. Otherwise they may be inclined to keep a war monger in office just to spite the world for daring to criticize their decision.

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