bloop

Dear Diane,

Promise I will have my post up by tomorrow morning; I instead spent the night entertaining preteenies and watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower (I highly recommend it). However, a preview of my discussion:

http://www.sanaahamid.com/Cultural-Appropriation-A-conversation

Love,
Elina

Lazy Wednesday

Dear Elina,

Your comprehensive look into the Zimmerman murder case was much appreciated on this end. For various reasons I'm unable to match that depth of blogging this week-- and I'm just gonna embrace that fact. I wanted to do an opinion post on why feminist hero Wendy Davis isn't all that- but it turns out, she actually is all that. And then I was going to do a post on why I don't think Edward Snowden isn't all that either-- but that seemed too straightforward. So I'm just going to do a lazy Wednesday post of all the things I thought about today.

1) For me one of the most shocking headlines this entire month was this Indian school's lunch disaster. More than 20 children dead due to food poisoning from school lunches. It's serves as a great reminder that the country is only as strong as its weakest link. And if that link is your schools and public health- then that's worrying (side note: in many ways America's weakest link are its schools and public health- so that's promising).

2) This week left me questioning why I didn't think of this before, but celebrating now that it's actually done.

3) and the state current state of women's fashion. When alcoholism is fashion.

4) and thinking that the world is at least a little sweeter than sour

>>>>>>> my mind and body is literally fried from such a busy day. I'll be back on Friday with new thoughts and, like usual, brilliant ideas (oh gosh Diane, stop it, you're so right)

until then,stay safe,

- d

the injustices of our justice system

Dear Diane,

It's hard to not respond emotionally to the Zimmerman case, whether it's with anger or frustration or sadness at the not guilty verdict granted to George Zimmerman, now free of all charges (including second-degree murder and manslaughter) in the death of Trayvon Martin. All these emotions make it very difficult to approach this case without seeing 17-year-old Martin with his Skittles and Arizona drink as the victim, but I really did want to understand the raw evidence and testimony on the night of the shooting.

So here is all the evidence specifically in favor of the defense, play by play:

1. John Good, who lived at the complex where the struggle happened, testified that a man in dark was straddling someone wearing white or red and using arm motions going down multiple times. Zimmerman's jacket was red.

2. Officer Timothy Smith was the first officer to arrive on the scene. He said Zimmerman's clothes were wet on the back with grass. He also said Zimmerman told him he cried for help.

3. Zimmerman's police interviews calmly described his version of what happened that night.
• "something was off" about Martin
• Martin emerged from the darkness after Zimmerman got out of the car, punched him, knocked him down to the concrete, suffocated him and bashed his head down while saying "you're going to die tonight." He said he cried for help but shot Martin when it seemed like he was reaching for Zimmerman's gun.

4. Officer Doris Singleton said Zimmerman was dismayed and he did not show any ill will or hatred. This hurt the second-degree murder claim, as there needed to be malice or demonstration of a depraved mind.

5. The cry for help in the 911 call could not be determined: both Martin's mother and Zimmerman's mother said it was their own son. Martin's father said two days after the shooting, the voice did not belong to his son, but two weeks later, he said it did, a disparity the defense capitalized on. The FBI also said they could not determine whose voice the screams belong to.

6. Dr. Vincent Di Maio, an expert in forensic pathology, said Martin's injuries and the bullet trajectory imply he was on top of Zimmerman. He also said that while there only two cuts on Zimmerman's head, bleeding could occur inside the skull.
7. Zimmerman chose not to take the stand.

As we know from our brief youth legislature interlude, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury that Zimmerman was guilty of murder or even the more petty manslaughter is already a challenge, but looking at the defense's evidence, anybody can see the prosecution really had it hard. There remains no doubt in my mind, logically speaking, that Zimmerman is guilty. Based on the testimonies and the evidence, I imagine what happened that night as Zimmerman saw somebody "suspicious", that is, black and in a hoodie, and called the police to report what he saw. Despite police orders not to leave the car, Zimmerman got out of his car with his gun and started following Martin. There is no way to say who confronted who but there was an altercation with conflicting accounts, Zimmerman saying Martin jumped him and Rachel Jeantel saying she heard on the phone with Martin "get off, get off." But Martin managed to best Zimmerman, only to be shot in the heart.

Martin had no criminal history where as Zimmerman has a history of battery and possible domestic violence. I find it hard to believe Zimmerman was jumped by this 17-year-old whom the Zimmerman family has proceeded to make out as a drug addict and weapon procurer, failing miserably to convey their said "remorse and sympathy for the Martin family". The fact that he was alone, with a gun, and managed to get into a fight all while waiting for the police broke all the rules in the National Sheriffs' Association Neighborhood Watch program. 

What this whole trial came down to was how the jury judged Zimmerman, and the jury was given directions to judge whether or not Zimmerman responded out of self-defense. And what is Florida's self-defense law again? Florida's self-defense law, known as the "Stand Your Ground" law, has appeared twice now in the case's most pivotal moments. The first time the law appeared was when Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee (later asked to resign and did) released Zimmerman at 1 AM following the shooting. He held a press conference to claim that the Sanford Police could not arrest Zimmerman because he was protected by Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. The significance of this release shouldn't go unacknowledged because initially, Zimmerman was not even going to be tried for what he did. For this reason, Tracy Martin's press conference and the NAACP's demand for investigation by the Department of Justice began a year-long press fiasco surrounding the entire case. The second time the SYG appeared was when paraphrased in the jury's directions. So what is this law?

Florida Statute 776.013 (3)

"A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

This law largely favors the person alive because even if the prosecution proved that Zimmerman did provoke a fight with Martin, Zimmerman would only have been found guilty if the prosecution proved Zimmerman did not fear for his life. The only eyewitness testimony we have for Zimmerman's case is Zimmerman himself, and naturally, his freedom depends on him saying he feared for his life. That's it. That's enough to protect him under the SYG.

What I can't shake is how the jury may have responded had the six women received different instructions under the old law pre-SYG:

“The defendant cannot justify the use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm unless he used every reasonable means within his power and consistent with his own safety to avoid the danger before resorting to that force…The fact that the defendant was wrongfully attacked cannot justify his use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm if by retreating he could have avoided the need to use that force. “

Under this scenario, the prosecution would not have had to prove Zimmerman provoked the fight nor he believe he was in danger. They would only have had to prove that Zimmerman had the "reasonable means" to retreat from the fight instead of killing a 17-year-old boy.

--

Naturally, there are doubts raised that the SYG had anything to do with the Zimmerman case. In fact, the law was not brought up during the trial and the defense argues in the narrative that Zimmerman was not even in the position to retreat. However, it is critical to remember why the Sanford police were prohibited from making the arrest in the first place, at which point generated all the media attention. If that's not enough proof, juror B37 stated in the recent Anderson Cooper interview that she and the other five members considered SYG significantly when carefully reading their instructions.

Although we cannot assume Zimmerman learned how to work the system and SYG, another fact emerged during the case. Judge Debra Nelson originally showed the jury a TV interview in which Zimmerman said he had no knowledge of the self-defense law, but later an army prosecutor who taught Zimmerman a 2010 college class on criminal litigation testified that Florida's self-defense and SYG was frequently covered. Zimmerman was one of the better students.

So if you could guess, who the hell came up with this srsly shitty law ?? Yea well the spawn of all evil: the National Rifle Association. When the law emerged in 2005, the legislation won wide support from lawmakers, Governor Jeb Bush saying the law  was a "good common-sense, anti-crime issue." In response, a national gun control group passed out fliers telling tourists "please take sensible precautions," such as "do not argue with local people." Law enforcement officials and prosecutors also responded critically, saying it desensitized people to gun violence and death. The law in some form or another now exists in 23 states, including Alabama.

The SYG in and of itself presents a world view downright deplorable. Forget taking the high road and fleeing the conflict; "meet force with force." Even if the force is deadly.  It condones gun violence and negates every citizen's duty to retreat. The years after SYG was passed in Florida, the number of justifiable homicides has tripled from an average of 34 justifiable homicides to over a hundred almost every year. What more, further investigation shows that this law introduces racial bias into justifying a homicide. Just to show the magnitude of this bias, I charted John Roman's statistical analysis of SYG and non-SYG states (also see his nice interactive graph):

% likelihood homicide is justified

	Non-SYG State	SYG State
White victim / black shooter	1%	<1%
Black victim / white shooter	11%	17%

--

Which brings us back to why this murder happened in the first place. Despite all claims by the defense saying that George Zimmerman did not racially profile Trayvon Martin, it is pretty easy to infer what would have happened had Martin been white or even Hispanic… according to him, what merited suspicion was Martin "walking about, looking around" (see phone transcript).  What the entire nation cannot let go of is Zimmerman's decision to even leave the car and following Martin. Why did he have to do that? And why is the justice system not playing its part in bring people like Zimmerman to justice? Jenali Cobb's (all her) article struck me as especially powerful when she says:

"The most damning element here is not that George Zimmerman was found not guilty: it’s the bitter knowledge that Trayvon Martin was found guilty." 

He was guilty for walking down a paved sidewalk, which Zimmerman's lawyers made out to be possessing a weapon. He was guilty of wearing a hoodie, but at the very core of it, of being black. 

Sometimes we (you and me that is) can become stuck in the bubble of these wonderful, progressive, smart liberal arts students and it feels like our nation is in a post-racist era. But America is not colorblind - the United States is still working towards bringing social equality for all races and genders and if this individual case, which has been significantly amplified in importance by the media, can prove anything to the public, it is that time and progress are not directly related. If anything, we have backtracked. The absurdities of this whole case continue to be revealed, especially these two days following the trial, from the  ignorant, condescending, media-hating, bird-obsessed juror B37  to the fact that Zimmerman can now have his gun back. The entire system demands to be reexamined.

 When I was talking to my parents about this case, my dad was quick brush it aside, going on an off-the-cuff lecture about all the injustices of the world, including the Chinese justice system. I responded angrily, frustrated that he didn't understand the weight of the Zimmerman case on the American justice system. My parents do assume the best of the American system today, perhaps in contrast to how corrupt the Chinese system is. But I imagine they are not a minority: many, many, and though I do not dare say majority, people believe that our justice system is working as the system intended: to bring people to justice. But this assumption is naïve and in order for any change to be enacted, we have to challenge the system. We know that more than anybody else. 

--

Sorry about the crazy length of this post but I promise it can only get shorter from here. See you Thursday.

Elina

Dear Egypt .....and, you, too Elina

Elina,

Times are-a-changin'. Our past posts highlight how the world has changed its inhabitants, and how we (the Millennial generation) will change the world. I'd like to explore these two ideas a little further, with emphasis on social media-- probably the most influential tool for Millennialists-- and how it's been used in one of the most decisive times in the Northern African history.  

Weather one of these millenalist or one of these social media is undoubtedly central to their identity. In the Middle East we've seen social media empower Tunisian peasants in overthrowing their autocratic government and inspire the Egyptian Revolution to oust Mubarak. Two autocratic leaders in power for more than a dozen years, brought down by tweets and youtube videos.

But what happens when social media and the environment it creates overpromises?

Earlier this June (latest Time magazine article was the shiz) the Egyptians were at it again, a year after their successful overthrow of Mubarak, the crowds called for a coup of their own first democratically elected president Muhammad Morsi. The liberals argued that he was becoming yet another autocratic president, emphasizing Islam too much and secularism too little. His allies, the Muslim Brotherhood, complained he was too soft on the liberals. The battlefield to overthrow Mubarak was all over the internet; that is until they moved to the street. The internet did what it does best-- sharing and recreating ideas, fast.

But did this go too far?

I'm not one to justify the misuse of power, nor have I read nearly enough to know all of Mubarak's shortcomings, but I still tend to air on the side of caution for another coup (or whatever you want to call it).

I understand the irritation of the same old business, and to a certain degree I admire quick response-- but there's a double-edge sword: democracy takes time. It takes time for a country that wasn't democratic for its 6000+ year history to transition. It takes time for a country that was flirting with secularism, at best, to take that leap. And as Millennialists we know that social media is not known for its patience or its well thought out plans.

So Egypt, take a cue from the Occupy Wall Street missteps and make a plan, find and support one candidate before you rise up. Even if they're not the perfect candidate, that's the beauty of democracy: it's a compromise.

I've be reading so much about the Zimmerman trail, can't wait to hear your take on it.

xoxo

D

i'm a 90's bitch

Diane,

oh the woes of the Millennialist. We are by far the most narcissistic breed to live on this planet: even the act of writing this blog implies that I believe that what I write is worth being publicized. I am, after all, presenting a version of myself, a performance of a sorts, and to do that I have to tell myself "you are cool and ppl love you yes they think your dry wit is hiLARious." (but rly writers are just a muddle of self-loathing and narcissism). 

I think you really articulated your thoughts well - that is, our obsession with learning these thoughts and ideas and working to reconcile them in our liberal-artsy-Theory-of-Knowledge-esque way, and not knowing how all this will ultimately be useful in our near future / job prospects. I can't tell if we're just too narcissistic to acknowledge that we are NOT the only exception and stick our noses to the air, believing we can get by on our sparkling personalities. Not that we genuinely believe our personalities alone can pay the rent but the Millennialists LOVE to believe we can get famous just posting a witty tweet or quirky Instagram selfies. Sofia Coppola alludes to this too, the fact that the side effects of reality tv and social media in this new century give people the impression that fame is achieved overnight - you literally sleep and suddenly you're famous. 

No, I don't think we're so ignorant to believe in this overnight sensation syndrome (yea i just named it watch it hit the dsm v), your very post proved that, but we do want to change the world. In fact, Psychology Today wrote a surprisingly insightful article about "Generation Me." What starts as a "the kids are totally not alright" and a recitation of fact after fact about our empathylessness ends with the conclusion that we genuinely want to change the world and wear down societal expectations. We're just readjusting to where the wind takes us, and that's a world where narcissism is needed to even dent the competitive job market and conquer the models of perfection society churns. 

I think it's may even be more crucial to the job industry we're looking at (for us I mean anything that excludes anything STEM) because we're not casually curing cancer or solving Fermat's Last Theorem. For me, (srry imma stop speaking in the royal we haha) I can become frustrated when I realize I honestly don't have the mind capabilities to become a doctor or an engineer, even though I know I don't belong in any of those pursuits - and yet, when I was two hours over the Pacific and a woman needed medical attention, I felt powerless (as I'm sure did the other hundred people on the plane who weren't doctors). Doctors, engineers are so IMMEDIATELY impact society. They literally save people. 

The self-loathing part of me doesn't really believe I can change the world, whereas doctors will -- and this part of me is really scared I won't get the self-fulfillment I'm looking for. But my optimistic side significantly outweighs this fear. And I know I can change the world just by being alive. 

--

I couldn't resist responding to your eloquent post, but just so you know, I call the Zimmerman case so don't steal my topic. Till Tuesday.
xoxo,
Elina

standing water vs unobtainable dreams

Dear Elina,

Your last post (and boy, what a post it was!) brought me comfort at a time when I was questioning the very idea of your closing thesis-- "there is no true fulfillment from standing water." Of course leave it to me to translate these beautiful, culturally rich and intensely poetic ideas into a politically driven (and, therefore hopelessly boring) response. But I'mma do it.

(not-so) Recently something very dear to the both of us has come under attack: our liberal arts education. Last night I was watching Mike Rowe pretty clearly undermine the value of a liberal arts-like degree (ummm excusez-moi that is our terain). But it's not even the value of the degree (because, let's be honest, errybody's been doing that lately-- insert link of any article ever published about anything about higher education in the past three years), it's the prestige of it that was under attack and got me riled up. Rowe's argument is a good one- at a time when unemployment among college graduates is at an all time high, there are thousands of jobs (and really well paying ones!) that are left unfilled, not only because college grads aren't trained well, but because we don't want them. Being a mechanical engineer on tractors (while they can be promised a higher income that what my mom makes) isn't cool enough for our Millennial taste. Our affinity to a liberal arts education is the quintessential arrogance that makes up the persona of the Millenialist.

So why, my dear Elina do we force ourselves to study literature, economics, political science, just in order to compete for relatively few jobs (which we may end up hating in the end), when we know that we could have more stable jobs and the promise of a prosperous life? We do it because we belief in the very ideas of liberalism (note: not the political kind).

Reading your post gave me some insight into liberalism: We don't do things because it's necessary for stability in our lives, indeed, we do it for the exact opposite reason-- because we understand the danger of standing water. We value our education in more than just a way to get food on the table with our future jobs, we value it in a sense that is unknown to us right now. We value learning about Shakespeare and Adam Smith not only because it's kinda fun, but because, there is somehow the promise of using these ideas and the experiences given to us to deeply affect the world-- deeply affect it in a way that doesn't translate directly to a job market at this very moment.  Us changing the world may not happen. It probably won't happen, but isn't it the idea of it, and the lack-of promise that keeps us coming back for more?

And when we have high school reunions in the next few years, and we our peers who copped out decided to take the more practical route of education and career choices make more money than us, have higher standards of living than us, maybe are more well known than us, we may feel defeated, but at least at some point in time, we had the dream, the dream to break away from the poison of the mundane. And I think that dream is enough for me right now.

I'm not sure that I've really expressed my ideas well enough. But I think, if anyone, you would be the one to empathize with them. 

------> promise they'll only get better from here. 

-Diane

couplets in chinatown

Dear Diane, 

When I was buying tokens in Singapore (they use these blue coins !!) to get onto the subway from Chinatown to my hotel, I saw this childish scrawl on a wall nearby. When my dad first saw it, along with its Chinese counterpart, he immediately responded by saying "The handwriting is beautiful." I didn't really know how to respond, because the handwriting feels stilted and inconsistent (even in the size of the font) but it still feels very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Here is the original, written in Chinese by Tan Swie Hian.

I am in love with the language of the poem (although you could say it is prose):

(1) The nebula swirls with a dance around the River South;

The equator darts through a song around the sea shore.

(2) The buildings in harmony do away the remnant shadows;

The waste land of ruined gravels grows a million flowers.

A third wall said that his art / poetry / calligraphy are on display along the entire North East Subway line. From the distance, all this may feel inconsequential (it's not exactly original either), but the surprise of seeing the poem in such a chaotic place is part of the experience of public art.  I felt both overwhelmed and comforted seeing it - finding spaces for poetry to thrive is difficult, especially because for the public, poetry feels inaccessible and up in the air. But where should poetry and art be but in the public? Poetry builds connections between minds: it comforts us to know that this feeling of agonizing pain or relentless regret has been felt by somebody else before us. It reminds us that people do not totally regret life - which we need to be reminded in unattractive places such as underground subway stations - and that we can find something redemptive in the midst of faceless, likely SOULLESS strangers.

-

The "Couplets in Chinatown" talks a little bit about the history of Singapore: "The master plan of Singapore drawn up by Lt. Jackson following Raffles' recommendation shows areas were specially allocated to the various racial groups e.g. Chinese, Europeans, Chaliahs, Bagis, etc." Singapore, like the United States, was basically built by minority immigrants, although the minorities transformed into the majorities. While it was originally colonized by the British, the Chinese, Indian, British, and Malay cultures represent just how significant the immigrant population is - that is, significant to how ridiculously successful Singapore. It has the third-highest per capita income and is the fourth-leading financial power in the world, and if that's not enough, 1 in 6 Singaporeans are millionaires (the fuk???).

I've been thinking a lot about the act itself of moving or migrating, literally displacing your entire life to a new world in contrast to being a petty tourist. My most recent journal entry is about the dispersal of humans from one location to another, and that’s how I'm going to conclude this post:

I went to Gutian, [my dad's hometown], where I can't help but feel is a place where memories are being left to die and not even I, in my desperate attempt to archive every moment, can successfully document every moment. The exhausted bricks of my aunt's home probably remember more than she does, not that I'm saying my aunt doesn't cherish her memories but her house has no photographs, her living room centerpiece a tiger that was there when I visited five years ago. Perhaps being static in one place never feels worth documenting: In Factor Girls, Leslie Chang always talked about how in China, a family's history began with the migration of a person to a new place. The Chinese, at least the traditional Chinese, are characterized as static. If they can stay in the same place, they choose to: when my cousin Aveta graduated [in Scotland], she got two visas for her mom. Her mom chose to stay home anyway, saying she feared being in a new setting, lost in translation. In the 20th century, immigration from China was not a decision made but an inevitability, if you were a dissident from China. Now, Chinese billionaires / millionaires choose to leave China, as do students who study abroad. Chinese girls migrate to cities to find better work in factories, hoping to move up the work status ladder. These are all active decisions they make and I think this change is important to the momentum toward modernism China has been desperately trying to achieve. In Japan, people were previously tied to their land, their heritage land - when a samarai was ousted or in danger, he would always return to the homeland of his ancestors. The Japanese bakufu (gov't) had to instate laws to address this obsession with the past to remove ties that prevented people from migrating to industrial cities.

Movement is important. As comforting as stability is, there is no true fulfillment from standing water. "Expect poison from standing water." [william blake]. 

Love,

Elina

P.S. OUR FIRST ENTRY !!!!! tHIS is kind of a big deal get out the champagne.