Things We Just Don't Want to Know

Last Saturday Bob Herbert, Op-Ed columnist with the New York Times, had a sad but thought provoking column regarding the life and death of Michael Jackson and how it reflects a whole era of extreme immaturity and grotesque irresponsibility that was already well under way in America. The craziness played out on a shockingly broad front and Jackson’s life, among many others, would prove to be a shining and ultimately tragic example.

It was the 80s, Ronald Reagan was president, making promises he couldn’t keep about taxes and deficits and allowing the readings of a West Coast astrologer to shape his public schedule. The movie “Wall Street” would soon appear, accurately reflecting the nation’s wholesale acceptance of unrestrained greed and other excesses of the rich and powerful. Sound familiar?

In neighborhoods through much of black America, crack was taking a fearful toll. Young criminals were arming themselves with ever more powerful weapons and prison garb was used to set fashion trends. Hip-hop would soon appear, and then the violence and misogyny of gansta rap.

All kinds of restraints were coming off and it seemed to many of us then that it was almost as if the adults had gone into hiding. The deregulation that we were told would be great for the economy was being applied to the culture as a whole. Women could be treated as sex objects again as misogyny, hardly limited to hip-hop, went mainstream. Astonishing numbers of men abandoned their children with impunity. Most of the nation seemed fine with the idea of going to war without a draft and without raising taxes --- sound familiar???

As Herbert says, in many ways we descended as a society into a fantasyland, trying to leave the limits and consequences and obligations of the real world behind. Politicians stopped talking about the poor. We built up staggering amounts of debt and called it an economic boom. We shipped jobs overseas by the millions without ever thinking seriously about how to replace them. And, we let New Orleans drown.
Jackson was the perfect star for the era, the embodiment of fantasy gone wild. He tried to carve himself up into another person, but, of course, there was the same Michael Jackson underneath – talented but psychologically disabled to the point where he was a danger to himself and others.

Reality is unforgiving and there is no escape. Behind the Jackson façade was the horror of child abuse. The court records and reams of well-documented media accounts contain a stream of serious allegations of child sex abuse and inappropriate behavior, but Jackson, a multimillionaire megastar, was excused as an eccentric. But to me, one of the worst and most inexcusable, is the fact that often small children were delivered into his company to spend the night in his bed by their own parents. One case of alleged pedophilia against Jackson, the details of which would make your hair stand on end was settled for a reported $25 million. He beat another case in court.

The Michael-mania that has erupted since Jackson’s death – not just an appreciation of his music, but a giddy celebration of his life, is just another spasm of the culture opting for fantasy over reality. We don’t want to look under the rock that was Jackson’s real life.

As with so many other things, we just don’t want to know.

The Power of a Dream

There is a documentary film out that is playing in select theaters around the country that has a powerful message. I haven’t seen it as yet, but the reviews and discussions about it are moving. Bob Herbert is one of those who has seen it and wrote about it in his Op-Ed column with the NYT today. The name of the film is “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”. It is the story of a woman and her family had endured the agony of civil war in Liberia who speaks of a dream she had in 2003 in which someone urged her to organize the women of her church to pray for peace. “A crazy dream,” she said.

It must have seemed like little more than wishful thinking and surely not much to fight back the forces of Charles Taylor, who was tyrannical president at the time and the brutally predatory rebels who were trying to oust him from power. Herbert says that the violence was excruciating. People were dying the tens of thousands, rape was commonplace, and children were starving. There were scenes showing even small children whose limbs had been amputated.

According to Herbert, for him it was about much more than the tragic and the ultimately uplifting events in Liberia. It was about the power of ordinary people to intervene in their own fate. Perhaps we could all learn a lesson from this movie. Not that our current problems could in any way be compared to what the people of Liberia suffered, but it does show what people with a common goal can achieve.

The film captures the almost unimaginable horror that war imposes on noncombatants; the looks of terror on the faces of people fleeing gunfire in the streets; children crouching and flinching, almost paralyzed with fear by the sound of nearby explosions; homes engulfed in flames.

It’s the kind of environment that breeds feelings of helplessness. But Leymah Gbowee, the woman who had the crazy dream, would have none of that. And she should most definitely be a lesson to all of us.

Ms. Gbowee not only rallied the women at her Lutheran church to pray for peace, but organized them into a full-blown, all-women peace initiative that spread to other Christian churches and then to women of the Muslim faith.

They wanted the madness stopped. They wanted an end to the maiming and the killing, especially the destruction of a generation of children. They wanted to eradicate the plague of rape. They wanted all the things that noncombatants crave whenever the warrior crowd – whether in the U.S., the Middle East, Asia –wherever – decides it’s time once again to break out the bombs and guns and let the mindless killing begin.

When the Liberian Christians reached out to “their Muslim sisters,” there was some fear on both sides that such an alliance could result in a dilution of faith. But the chaos and the killing had reached such extremes that the religious concerns were set aside in the interest of raising a powerful collective voice.

They had sit-ins, stand-ins; they moved out of the churches and mosques to demonstrate, to protest, to enlist all who would listen in the cause of peace. Working with practically no resources save their extraordinary will and intense desire to end the conflict, the women’s initial efforts evolved into a movement, the Liberian Mass Action for Peace.

Their headquarters was an open-air fish market in the capital, Monrovia. Thousands of women showed up daily, praying, waving signs, singing, dancing, chanting and agitation for peace. And nothing could stop their rallies at the market, not the fierce heat of the sun, not drenching rainstorms, nor the publicly expressed anger of Mr. Taylor, who was embarrassed by the protests. Oh, I bet he was pissed – my words this time, not Mr. Herberts!

But it worked! A tentative peace was established, Mr. Taylor went into exile in Nigeria. The women continued their activism. Three years ago, on Jan. 16,2006, in an absolutely thrilling triumph for the mothers and wives and sisters and aunts and grandmothers who had worked so courageously for peace, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as the president of Liberia – the first woman ever elected president of a country in Africa. Hey, sound familiar? Remember what we have just done? Okay, maybe we should take notice and make sure Obama has the support he needs so that he’s not forced into actions that already have people complaining about being disappointed in him. For God’s sake, for our sake, give him time and the support that he needs instead of the already steady flow of friggin’ criticism!

Liberia is hardly the world’s most stable society. But “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” reminds us of the incredible power available to the most ordinary of people if they are willing to act with courage and unwavering commitment. And let me underline in red, no bad mouthing a president in office for less than a month who is trying desperately to bring people together from both sides to bring about the change that we need. Not to mention our own Democrats who are behaving about as badly as I’ve ever seen! When does the nitpicking stop? When do people and politicians, for maybe once in their life, try to do what’s best for the country instead of squabbling? I have lots of questions, but not so much for Obama as for the rest of us.

To read the whole article without my big mouth, check out Herbert’s column for today.

An Interesting Social Experiment

From The Effective Club

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

How many indeed, seems it might be time to stop and not only smell the roses, but listen to the music that is all around us every day in so many ways, in the laughter of children, in the voices of friends. Take a moment today, stop for a moment and listen to the music.