White Guy Diary: The Cultural Appropriation Edition

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How can we reconcile the anthropological concept of cultural diffusion with the arising critique of the practice of cultural appropriation? I will never argue against the idea that systematic oppression exists, or that it marks with trauma wherever it goes, but the instinct to always protect against hurt -- a noble one surely -- is it always in our best interests? When I was hurt, I knew where my cards lay, where others' cards lay, so I could best play the hand I'd been dealt. The asymmetrical power of a host and a minority culture makes the profiteering off the minority culture certainly odious in a Marxist framework of understanding.

Critiques of cultural appropriation tend to be morally consequentialist. That is, they focus more on the outcomes of actions and behaviour, rather than on the motivations and intents of the actors in such actions and behaviour. They argue that the harm done to those traumatized by oppression by these images, by the act of appropriating culture, often rooted in rude parody, taken up by the host culture renders them morally suspect at best and simply morally wrong at worst. They tend to discount the intent of any member of the host culture as insignificant to their moral calculus, to use a term of William Vollmann's. Certainly the appropriation of cultural practices can come out of a place of respect, admiration, and love. But by sacralizing the trauma of the oppressed's experience, by prioritizing theoretical future pain against any notion of beneficial intent, they reify it and make it harder to overcome. I tend to lean consequentialist, but I must admit outright eliminating considerations of intent makes me uncomfortable. But who knows. . .perhaps this is white fragility, and perhaps they are right.

We cannot be killed with even a thousand paper cuts. On the other hand, pain is an obstacle to pragmatic organizing in anti-oppression work. Humans have always learned from each other; learning is always an appropriation. How am I, as a white guy, supposed to engage this great "shut-up and listen" exercise, without being somehow influenced by what I hear, by taking it to heart (too much, some will whisper to each other behind their backs). And hasn't this "taking it to heart" affected me, consciously and unconsciously, such that I might not appropriate that culture without any conscious intent at all, but simply through the processes of psychological sublimation and Freudian slips? Does this not produce a cyclical relationship between host and minority, where I listen, learn, appropriate, then lose the cultural war? Nobody likes losing all the time. Cultural diffusion: contact produces sharing, whether you like it or not.

One thing that irks me about cultural appropriation debates is how inconsistently they are applied. A straight, white man writing through the voice of a black woman is a no-no, but a Korean family in Toronto opening a Sushi shop is a-ok. Again, here is where the asymmetrical power card comes in handy, because we can aver that the Korean family is making a peer-to-peer cultural appropriation, whereas the white man, even if he is "raising awareness" of issues faced by black women,  is making a downward appropriation. No Korean family is going to chastise a white guy eating in their restaurant, no matter how blatant a downward appropriation it is because you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The irony cuts both ways. That Korean family could not give a flying $^$# about cultural theorists' arguments about appropriation, or they might have a college-going child who does, at most.

Cover art for bands that don’t exist 2.

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Cover art for bands that don’t exist

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The Daily Regimen - Trevor Cunnington

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The sound of aggregate activity

Breezy in the late, stabbingly bright blue

Of an afternoon

Soft yellows caress

The late-out-of-the gate lilacs

Smelling sensual, lurid.

What rest can be got from this swirl

Of smells overpowering

Malefactors everywhere

Actors and blinks, nods, and who’s hooligans.

Read them the Cactus riot act.

She flowers every seven years

Or if the new moon follows on the first

Friday after Easter infection,

Then, only then, will she spread her. . . petals

It was in a photograph, or –gram

Heavy metal pelt stain melt brain; ham radio

Operator; one caught in the electricity

Wires.

I saw him on my walk home from world.

Singing ‘ole glory to the world,

A face turned murderous

As if a cloud smirched the soulful sky.

In the corner of the photograph,

A figure in sticks, wrapped in the dangerous

Sourcery of the exorcism,

Darkness swirling off him in colour grids

Dextrous fingers of the toppling dominoes

In the foreground, under the table,

Barely visible.

Flim flam, hone it for the street corners.

In the hides of summer, wearing

Sun’s great glory on the sweat-sheened skin

We can write about life,

Or we can write about life.

Precipitating the “oh, not the ‘we’ shit again.”

II

The happiness of a single fuck not given

The apathy trickle-down vectors

Swerving high on unpredictable

Ever veritably new, improved

Dazzling desuetude.

III

Suet in a fur-trap.

A straw, balanced on a camel’s back,

Photographed.

For a response to a query

Responded to and refuted

From every corner of the crypto-verse.

The cacti, in a row, made a fence

To keep the cattle in,

Some do it,

Some don’t.

IV

The next time she appeared,

A blue streak ran rampant around

The orbituaries climbing out of the newsstands.

Surprise factor, attention disperser.

Social facts uncalled upon.

This is poetry’s rent.

Tantamount to a slope of fine powdered salt

To cushion our 20 feet jumps

Down a steep incline.

Don’t think too much

Or you will start to smell the cowpaste
Piling up in the meadow. 

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 Photo taken at Guildwood Park, Toronto

Filtered with Photoshop App

Valentine's Poem by Trevor Cunnington

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Life's Debris

love, a catafalque

decorated with celtic knotwork

bearing a loved one, soon to rest

under epitaph blankets

love, a flying buttress supporting

the ceiling of our aspirations, sistine

cages that entrap soul-vapours that

should disappear up the chimney's

conglomerate, the gates of sinuses

flush with that histamine rush

love, a dorian pillar embellished

by gargoyles, guardian angels

long since deserted, absent, on

a pilgrimmage to pleni-potential.

love, an arched proscenium, a window

between observer and observed

occluded by thick clouds, delicate

light grey billows weighing on

lungs during a scene change

love, the doorway you huddle in

during an earthquake, plaster hail

raining all around, plunging a trail

through floating, churning dust

love, that bitter metal taste

of carbonic acid after drinking

a vanilla coke.

 

love, the unending war

against dust.

love, that idol of idols,

that fire inside,

that phoenix

singing songs

that resound

through the ages,

ever anew.

______________________________________

Glossary

catafalque - a raised platform on which a dead body is placed
pleni-potential - a play on "plenipotentiary," a person with the authority to act on behalf of another
histamine - a chemical released by cells damaged or inflamed by allergies
conglomerate - a pebble and rock composite held together with cement

A Review of Frank Davey's Biography of bpNichol (2012), by Trevor Cunnington

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This biography, that connects the poet's life with his work, is a welcome addition to the corpus building around Nichol. It explores the relationship between Barrie Nichol - the living breathing human being, as excavated from conversations with friends, relatives, colleagues, and acquaintances; from letters; and from archives – and bpNichol, the authorial persona created by Nichol to pull himself out of the dreamworld he inhabited, according to Davey.

It forwards the theory that Barrie's psycho-therapeutic work is a crucial tributary of his poetic work. While I am not qualified to evaluate this theory (I'm not versed enough in Nichol's poetry, having read only Zygal and some excerpts of the Toronto Research Group, bp's theoretical, albeit playful collaboration with Steve McCaffrey in a course I took with Christian Bök at the University of Guelph in 2002), I would still like to offer some reactions and thoughts.

My initial reaction to the book was “I think this is the first biography that has made me less interested in the person it's about than I was before I picked the book up.” However, I persevered, and I'm glad I did. Davey is an engaging writer, although his thoughts are sometimes muddled. For example, take this passage:

“He [bp] told Bowering he was creating the whole narrative out of a series of images that would constitute a two-week period in the life of a family, a period in which, as one would expect, nothing is resolved. The reader enters and leaves the narrative in the middle, and 'hopefully' will experience a resolution through the leaving of it. The images will be all that the reader knows about it. That's why he's calling the novel 'idiomatic,' he told Bowering, because it's the normal 'family' story. The explanation, however, seemed to say as much about Barrie's understanding of family, or about what is usual in a family, as about the novel” (238).

Um, what? Seriously, what just happened here? Some of the clarity problem in this particular instance may have been inherited from Nichol himself, as he's the one being paraphrased, but if you're writing a biography, you better have enough of a grip on your subject to clarify some of the subject's more incoherent thoughts. Nothing is resolved, but the reader will hopefully experience a resolution? Is he talking about relating to the aimless structure of life portrayed by the in media res technique as itself some kind of resolution? Furthermore, idiomatic is a word used in linguistics to refer to expressions in language that are “more than the sum of their parts,” so to speak. Translating each of the parts of the expression literally will not produce the intended meaning of the expression. How does this relate to “normal family experience?” Idioms, I guess, are common expressions. So if you consider “normal” and “common” synonyms, this metaphor works. Ok, so with some very close reading, I could figure out that much. But what Davey means by the next sentence (beginning “The explanation, however. . . “) needs more elaboration as the logic is unclear.

Furthermore, Davey makes a big deal out of Nichol's intent from the 1960s onward to subvert the arrogance of many poets' preoccupation with precious (with that word's pejorative connotations culled from writing workshops) wisdom as the occasion for the writing of poetry. To express such wisdom, as an author with the mastery of experience, Nichol objected to stridently, apparently. However, in the sections detailing Nichol's work at Therafields, the experimental therapeutic community for which he served as vice-president, and Nichol's discussions of this work, he adopted the founder's discourse of mastery. Lea Hindley-Smith, the founder, “had been moved by Bergler's book to 'change her own destiny rather than blame others'” (82).This contradiction between his lived experience as a therapist, proclaiming mastery of experience and himself in a privileged position to help his clients do the same, and his avowed poetic intent to eschew such arrogant language, is a thorn in the side of Davey's poetry-therapy theory.

Furthermore, some of his poetry contains some of these golden nuggets he finds so repugnant and arrogant. Take, for example, these lines quoted by Davey, from “Book V” of The Martyrology Book 6 Books:

moving reservoirs of cells & genes

stretches out over the surface of the earth

more miles than any ancestor ever dreamed

. . .

tribal, restless, constant only in the moving on,

over the continents

thru what we call our history

tho it is more mystery than fact,

more verb than noun,

more image, finally, than story.

These lines are redolent of the “preconceived notion of wisdom” bp (and others such as Charles Olsen) rebelled against in poetry. While it is true that people certainly change their views as their experience changes them, it is Davey's job to elucidate this development in Nichol's poetry. Instead, Davey returns to this youthful rebellion several times, making it a central point or major departure for his poetic work. For a dedicated avant- gardist, the first stanza of this quote in particular has a harmonious sense of meter and rhyme (if partial, or slant). Most of it is insightful and “wise” as well. . . until the last line quoted. I find the frozen associations of the word “image” do an injustice to his previous line about history being more verb than noun. A photograph, after all, is an image extracted out of the flow of time. I suppose you could argue that this line is a subversion of the “preconceived wisdom” of the poem, but I think it weakens its internal coherence. I also think he missed an opportunity for a playful self-reflection of the line “tho it is more mystery than fact” as itself a fact, considering the always incomplete nature of archives. And by extension, this line and its implications allude to the challenge of writing a faithful biography, which by and large Davey has done.

Criticism aside, I found this book fascinating because of the connection it explores between Nichol's deep involvement with psychotherapy and his poetry. It was also edifying to learn about Nichol's peripatetic childhood, his hermetic “dreamworld,” and his relationships with other Canadian literary figures. I was familiar with his relationship with Steve McCaffrey, but his relations with other poets and writers such as Daphne Marlatt, Michael Ondaatje, Dennis Lee, and bill bisset came as a surprise and a delight to me.

I was also surprised at how high-profile his sound poetry projects were, such as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. For a Nicholophile, to learn about how he felt like his creative input was constantly marginalized in that project is a must. The last chapter provides a useful summary of some of the main critical responses to Nichol's work: the “theological reception,” those that emphasize his “ideopoems” that merge comic strip art with conceptual visual poetry, and those that focus on The Martyrology as the keystone of his creative output. This summary is indispensible for those interested in a critical engagement with Nichol's work. Despite its shortcomings, Davey's biography was well worth the time.

 

Images from Zygal (1985), Coach House Press.

 

 

An Ecclesiastical View on Visual Culture (if you will excuse the pun)

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So it's been a while since I posted anything. If any of you are disappointed, I apologize. Sometimes the lemonade that life throws you can't be turned into lemons. Anyhow: busy is busy.  Here's something I wrote in 2009 about the "new" academic field of Visual Culture. Trigger warning: academic language ahead.

The Insufficiency of Linguistics in the Age of the Machine

Visual Culture is a discipline that tries to put in a comprehensible framework images, which are visual data that have been interpreted, endured in memory, become represented, and have accrued significance in the processes of interpretation, remembrance, and representation. It is somewhat analogous to Saussure’s seminal work on linguistics, but rather than focus on language as language, it analogically expands analysis of the structure of the communicable into the field of images, and their manipulation through techniques and technologies of seeing and looking. As culture is a way of life, as well as shorthand for organized and intentional sensual experience in the form of various arts, Visual Culture’s object is how visual data inform the practice of culture. How do configurations of visual data cohere as signs through structures of meaning? What kind of strategies do encoders use to enframe interpretation and to what ends? What strategies do decoders use to interpret, with what motivations, and to produce what results?

On the other hand, an image is fully communicable in language. Ezra Pound’s poem “In the Station of the Metro” or William Carlos William’s poem “The Codhead” are proof positive of this. Furthermore, in literate society the visuality of language irrevocably changes its use, as scholars from Eisenstein, Havelock, and Ong to Innis and McLuhan have noted. In Visual Culture, then, the problem emerges of the insufficiency of linguistics to interrogate visual data and its tendency to collect significance like a magnet collects iron filings. This metaphor is apt both because a sign, a certain distillation of sensory – in this case visual – data, starts off as many disparate parts, but in the process of encoding or decoding it joins parts into a whole, a whole which is greater than simply the sum of its parts. The magnet is consciousness. The extrapolation of linguistic concepts into a wider field of sign production, observation, and interpretation, such as that accomplished by Barthes, is the essential act of Visual Culture, and it is predicated on the irreconcilable hybridity of human, machine, and perception.

Is Visual Culture new, emergent, or any of the other modifiers that reveal the coy imbrications of academia with the market (new and improved!)? Emphatically no. The political cartoonist extraordinaire of enlightenment England, Cruikshank, in the process of observing politics and culture through various degrees of mediation – which necessarily implies representation – must have employed some of the same strategies, or at least trod in similar cognitive footsteps, as contemporary cultural critics have in their analyses in order to draw his cartoons in the first place. One must interpret visual aspects of culture at large in order to consolidate visual data and subsequently encode such a complex but simple-seeming formulation as a cartoon.

For example, in this cartoon, Cruikshank depicts people from various classes working together to export orphans to the colonies. In the nineteenth century, children were not guaranteed the same rights as they are now. Corporal punishment was the norm, and orphaned children were a social problem that warranted, to some, an easily solution: ship them out to the far reaches of the empire. It was common practise also to ship unwedded and pregnant women to the colonies in the interests of "social hygiene." With a nod to Jonathan Swift's satirical essay "A Modest Proposal," Cruikshank here lambastes the practise as dehumanizing. The top hat and erect stance of the man in the centre emblemizes "polite society," that of refined gentlemen. The other man's stance, slightly stooped, and his raggedy bowler testify that he belongs to the working classes. A woman, in the background, also pitches in. This cartoon shows the co-operation of different social groups, often in conflict in other arenas, all working together to rid their society of a group beneath them all -- unwanted children. The tension between the emblems of civilization and an obviously barbaric act -- shoveling children into a cart -- shows the active nature of Cruikshank's "reading" of his visual environment, and then redeploying its parts for persuasive purposes.

With regards to "newness," I usually side with the author of Ecclesiastes, who laments “there is nothing new under the sun.” To claim there is something new is at the same time to claim complete and total knowledge, an act of arrogance, and further, of ignorance of one's own ignorance. However, the pixilated milieu of contemporary existence, especially with regards to communication, has made it such that these liminally conscious processes should be brought into the foreground and conceptualized, following Marcuse’s notion that the image and its superabundance militates against conceptual thinking.

Letter from Tom Thomson to the world

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I have found enlightenment.

My body was never found

Because I absconded

To the muskeg

Further north

North further than the last road.

I am not rotting in the muck

In tea lake.

Ironically, perhaps,

enlightenment

Lurks in places

Unlit.

Thoreau is here,

We discuss

Our proud sons,

Lawrence Harris and Mahatma Ghandi.

If you wonder

How I got this letter

Through, if my

Situation is as I say;

Suffice it to remark

That here we don’t

Need any radio, laser,

Telegraph, phone,

Smoke signal,

Or even seanceer.

We live in your minds,

Which wrote this. 

Weapons of Mass Destruction

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Fruitvale Station Review by Trevor Cunnington

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Fruitvale Station is a special film that does almost all the right things. I find my thoughts returning to the film quite often in the week since I’ve seen it. It takes a familiar narrative, adds a few surprises, bucks the mold of emotional evocation in film, does some daring things, some plain things, and some innovative things all with panache. It acquires a particularly intense gravitas because of its roots in real events in recent history. I saw it in Toronto, in a less than half-full, smallish theatre, and I hope it was less than half-full because it has been running for a while. This hope is particularly strong because of the resonance between Oscar Grant’s murder by the BART police and the recent murder of Sammy Yatim on a street-car in Toronto. Where is the word of mouth momentum?

The familiar narrative is that of the struggling young black man in urban America, and the difficulty of escaping the ghetto. It takes as its point of departure a cell phone video of the real life event of Oscar Grant having his head slammed into the concrete of the Fruitvale transit station in Oakland, California, and then being shot by BART police officers. Thus, it does a daring thing, narratively speaking – it shows the end of the story first. Not only that, but the footage is so jarringly authentic, I must admit it made me feel a little nauseous. (The advantage of this approach is that the film can’t be “spoiled”). Then, it rewinds to the day leading up to this event, and we follow Oscar trying in difficult circumstances to be a better person. Difficult circumstance #1 is he cheated on his girlfriend, with whom he has a young daughter. Difficult circumstance #2 is he has been fired from his job at a grocery store for lateness. Difficult circumstance #3, we find out later, is a troubled relationship with his mother that he tries to mend by taking on responsibility for the success of her birthday party on December 31, 2008.

After a terse interchange about his activities for the day with his girlfriend, he heads out to the grocery store where he used to work to try to get his job back. One of the innovative things about the film is the blending of onscreen action with a second screen: that of his cell phone as he texts and dials various people. Thus, it tries to deal with the opacity of phone interactions in real life to offer a more internal glimpse of Oscar’s life to great effect. The sequence in the grocery store is marvellously executed. He gets his friend to get him some high-quality crab for his grandma’s famous gumbo, and notices a young white girl struggling to make a decision for a type of fish for a fish fry. After some slick signals with his friend, he lets her know he works there, but is on his day off. Then he calls his grandmother, a master traditional cook, to instruct the young woman. The meaning of this scene is lent some interesting ambiguity by the context of his conversation with his girlfriend in the second scene of the film about cheating and the context of his visit to the grocery store. Being that we don’t know a whole lot about the character yet (except that he has the characteristically fatherly tendency to curry favour with children out of the disciplinary reach of the mother), he could either be trying to pick up this young woman, or he could be trying to go the extra mile in customer service to get his job back. When we learn more about his character, the latter becomes the more likely interpretation.

After this exchange, he tracks down the store manager to beg for his job back. The manager refuses, and we see Oscar has a temper as his voice escalates in anger. The sound editing of this part is masterful, with very subtle ominous tones accompanying his raising voice. As a tactic of persuasion, he asks rhetorically and heatedly if the manager wants him selling dope again (marijuana). This makes no difference, as the manager has already hired someone else. Then we see Oscar driving around in his car, alternately listening to music, and making plans on the phone. One of the plans is his mother’s birthday party, so he speaks both to her and his sister, who can’t make it because she’s working (probably a low-paying job). His mother chastises him for talking on the phone and driving, so he jury-rigs his phone under his skully hat so that he has both hands on the wheel, then he pulls over, showing how he is trying to be more responsible. He’s 22, and we can grant him some slack on this front. He also makes a phone call to a drug buyer to make an appointment.

It is on the rocks (the visual symbolism is telling) of the waterfront that he has a memory, narrated via flashback. The memory is of the year before, when he was in prison for his mother’s birthday, probably for dealing marijuana. His mother visits him, and they discuss his girlfriend and his daughter, from whom they’ve kept his incarceration secret. During their terse conversation, which begins with his mother asking about a welt on his face, a leering inmate makes a stray comment directed at Oscar, and Oscar explodes in anger. Presumably, this is the man responsible for the welt. After this explosion, Oscar’s mother implores him to calm down, and then tells him she will not visit him any more. He then erupts again and is restrained by prison guards, but it is not in anger this time, but despair, as he repeatedly yells an apology to his mother as she walks away in the foreground. This scene likewise has great sound editing, with the same ominous tones accompanying his outburst. We can see the absolute no win situation he’s in: if he doesn’t put on his tough front, he’s liable to suffer consequences later, but by putting on the tough front, his mother’s regard for him suffers.

After this memory, we see him take the bag of marijuana, and empty it over the rocks and the water. When his buyer shows up, he hands him a small packet for free and apologizes by saying he already sold the pot. The buyer rolls up and smokes, and then he goes to pick up his girlfriend from work and his daughter from the day care. His girlfriend verbally heckles him for smoking pot in the car before picking up his daughter, and he doesn’t bother to correct her. We realize later that he is probably mulling over what to tell her regarding his lost job. When they pick up their daughter Tatiana, we see him race her to the car, and this scene is tastefully rendered in slow motion with the sun in the background helping to signify the great relationship he has with his daughter.

Later, as they plan to go out to the city to celebrate the new year, he suggests staying in. She presses. A sequence of his mother’s birthday party is likewise well rendered with overlapping dialogue and a nice touch of domestic realism. His mother urges him to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) instead of drive to San Francisco so they don’t have to worry about being sober to drive. All good advice that ends in catastrophe, with all the tragic implications that the girlfriend and mother must bear afterwards. The train gets delayed, so they are stuck on it when the new year turns. But, never fear! Someone has speakers and an mp3 player, and the subway car erupts in a party. Then, to return to the familiar narrative, Oscar’s prison past catches up to him when the man who threatened him during the conversation with his mother recognizes his name when the woman whom he helped at the grocery store sees him and calls his name. In this moment, his troubled past catches up to him and erupts in violence. The BART police are alerted, and the tense events leading up to the shooting are well-acted on all parts. My favourite thing about this film is the editing in the last few minutes. While Oscar is in critical condition in the hospital, having been shot in his back, the bullet piercing his lung and causing massive internal bleeding, we see a shot of him and his daughter Tatiana, speaking lovingly with each other. Unlike most films, which use music manipulatively in moments like these to evoke emotions, Ryan Coogler chooses to leave this segment totally silent. The result is heart-rending. The last two shots are absolutely gut wrenching, as the director includes in the final shot footage of a shy, downcast real-life Tatiana attending the anniversary of her father’s death. Thus, the film is bracketed by amateur video shots to lend its story an extremely endearing authenticity. This is the only film in the last six years I’ve been to that I’ve heard people audibly sniffling at the end.

For my theory nerds, this film is a great example of Benjaminian historiography; it does important work of salvaging history from the distorted view of the victors by telling it from the perspective of the people who get squashed in its imposing march. It is aesthetically wonderful: it doesn’t shy away from metaphor and symbolism to add heft to the story it tells and it is also daring and innovative. For me, it is a close call between this and The Hunt (Jagten) for best films of the year. Indeed for these two films and The Place Beyond The Pines alone, it has been a great year for film.

The Sound and the Fury: Visualizing Plot Points, Motifs

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Three Attempts at a Cheshire Cat: Trevor Cunnington

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Trayvon Martin: A Tragedy provoked by Racial or Class injustice?

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Trayvon Martin’s case, for better or for worse, has fired up the race debate once more in America, and while I think the idea that we live in some post-racial society is naïve and that work still needs to be done for full equality to be achieved, I’m not entirely convinced that race is the most important factor in the tragedy. I would like to suggest that perhaps class and behavioural norms played a greater role in the events that led to young Martin’s death. I do not wish to assert that the not-guilty verdict is faultless (the prosecution botched the case by overcharging Zimmerman, according to some), but neither do I think that Zimmerman deserved a guilty verdict on a second-degree murder charge after I reviewed the facts of the case.

Some media personnel have been fired for misrepresenting the facts of the case for sensationalist purposes, actions which arguably resulted in this case becoming a flash point for the discussion of race in America. NBC in particular aired edited versions of Zimmerman’s call to the police regarding Martin’s “suspicious behaviour,” which included, according to him, cutting behind houses and walking leisurely in the rain. These edits were defamatory and unethical. In one, Zimmerman is heard saying “This guy [Martin] looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something... He's got his hand in his waistband, and he's a black male.” In an even more distorted edit, NBC aired Zimmerman saying “This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black.” The exclusion of the dispatcher asking about the race of the suspicious person made it seem as if Zimmerman racially profiled Zimmerman, as if he had offered information about Martin’s race without solicitation. Zimmerman has launched a defamation suit against NBC for airing this questionable edit.

I would like to draw attention to the reasons for Zimmerman suspecting Martin in the first place, before I offer evidence that contradicts the portrayal of Zimmerman as a racist. Zimmerman’s reasons for calling the police were that Martin was not hurrying in the rain, that he had his hand in his waistband, that he was cutting between houses. On the one hand, we have the police call as hard evidence; on the other, we have Zimmerman’s side of the story. We also have various witnesses’ perspectives. The missing part of the story is Trayvon Martin’s point of view and we must not underestimate this. In an interview granted exclusively to Fox news, Zimmerman said “I felt he was suspicious because it was raining. He was in-between houses, cutting in-between houses, and he was walking very leisurely for the weather. ... It didn't look like he was a resident that went to check their mail and got caught in the rain and was hurrying back home. He didn't look like a fitness fanatic that would train in the rain.” In other words, he was suspicious because his behaviour did not fit any of the moulds of Zimmerman’s expectations. Zimmerman was a Neighbourhood Watch Captain, was studying Criminal Justice, and had been mentored by Sanford police. He had trained in the observation of suspicious behaviour by the police, for whom social norms of propertied people are the standards to which they hold all people. This is the subtext of Zimmerman’s comment about the mail. It did not occur to Zimmerman that Martin was cutting behind houses as a short-cut on a rainy night. It did not occur to him that Martin may not even mind the rain so much, that he may even enjoy it. Why not?

Below I have copy/pasted parts of the transcript of George Zimmerman’s call. I have included what I think is important and at least described what I have excluded. My idea of what is important in this phone call lines up with many others.

Zimmerman: Hey we've had some break-ins in my neighbourhood, and there's a real suspicious guy, uh, Retreat View Circle, um, the best address I can give you is 111 Retreat View Circle. This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy is he white, black or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing?

Zimmerman: Yeah. A dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, and either jeans or sweatpants and white tennis shoes. He's . . .[unintelligible], he was just staring. . .

Dispatcher: Ok, he's just walking around the area. . .

Zimmerman: . . . looking at all the houses

Dispatcher: Ok.

Zimmerman: Now he's just staring at me.

(some directions given, unimportant)

Zimmerman: Yeah, now he's coming towards me.

Dispatcher: OK

Zimmerman: He's got his hand in his waistband. And he's a black male.

Dispatcher: How old would you say he looks?

Zimmerman: He's got button on his shirt, late teens.

Dispatcher: Late teens ok.

Zimmerman: Something's wrong with him. Yup, he's coming to check me out, he's got something in his hands, I don't know what his deal is.

Dispatcher: Just let me know if he does anything ok.

Zimmerman: How long until you get an officer over here?

Dispatcher: Yeah  we've got someone on the way, just let me know if this guy does anything else.

Zimmerman: Okay. These assholes they always get away. (gives same directions) Shit he's running.

Dispatcher: He's running? Which way is he running?

Zimmerman: Down towards the other entrance to the neighbourhood.

Dispatcher: Which entrance is that that he's heading towards?

Around this point in the phone call, you hear the car door open.

Zimmerman: The back entrance . . . fucking punks

Dispatcher: Are you following him?

Zimmerman: Yeah

Dispatcher: Ok, we don't need you to do that

Zimmerman: Ok.

The next exchange is about Zimmerman's information (name, address, etc.) Zimmerman says after he's asked his apartment number "It's a home it's 1950, oh crap I don't want to give it all out, I don't know where this kid is."

The rustling noises on the phone, starting when Zimmerman gets out of the car, settle down a little while this exchange happens, but start again near the end of the call, when the two discuss logistics about meeting the dispatched police. Considering the material of the red jacket he wore that night of the confrontation, these rustling noises suggest to me that he stopped walking, then started again.

Before I continue, it should be noted that three weeks before the shooting Zimmerman called the same police line and reported a man looking in the windows of one of the houses in the gated community where the shooting happened. Although the man escaped, a man was arrested four days later in connection with this incident with stolen jewellery and a laptop in his backpack, and Zimmerman identified the man he saw. If I were Zimmerman, I would feel a little more relaxed after that, seeing that perhaps the culprit for the string of burglaries in the neighbourhood had been caught. Rather than relax, however, Zimmerman maintained the same level of hyper-vigilance.

One of the witnesses, who provides us with only a second-hand version of Trayvon’s perspective, said that she was talking on the phone with Trayvon until moments before he was shot, which is borne out by cellular records. She said that Trayvon told her that a “creepy cracker” was staring at him, and then following him. She said that Trayvon had lost the man, but that he had reappeared again. She testified that she told him to hurry to his father’s house in the gated community, where he was staying temporarily, and this is borne out by the fact that Trayvon’s body was found only 64 metres from his father’s home. The witness testified that after the man following Zimmerman reappeared, Trayvon asked Zimmerman “why are you following me” to which Zimmerman responded “what are you doing around here?” The witness said after that she heard the sound of the two scuffling. The credibility of this witness was severely damaged when the defence showed that she lied under oath about being in the hospital on the day of Trayvon’s funeral after they could locate no hospital records. But the question I have, the one that does not depend upon a faulty witness’s testimony, is how Trayvon could have had one hand full with the skittles and fruit drink, talk on the phone with the other hand and “have his hand in his waistband?” In the transcript, Zimmerman says “Something's wrong with him. Yup, he's coming to check me out, he's got something in his hands, I don't know what his deal is.” How does Zimmerman not recognize that he’s on the phone, and as such, might be distracted, thus explaining why he’s “looking around?” Of course, Zimmerman’s on the phone, so he’s distracted, too. It was incredibly stupid of him to follow Trayvon, whether or not he is an “A” student. It was also stupid that he didn’t identify himself as a member of the neighbourhood watch to Trayvon. Perhaps the dispatcher should have been more assertive as well in instructing Zimmerman not to follow Trayvon, rather than merely say “we don’t need you to do that.”

Many are saying if Trayvon was white, he’d still be alive. That may be true. Race parity in the jury would certainly have been desirable and just. But the problem with the race argument is that Zimmerman may have earlier attended a City Hall meeting to complain about the former police chief of Sanford and how he handled a case where the son of a police officer beat a black homeless man. The leader of the NAACP broke ranks with black leaders such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson’s call for escalation in protests, perhaps because of the letter he received from a concerned relative of Zimmerman’s. Another problem is that Zimmerman is Hispanic and himself has African-Peruvian heritage. When it comes down to it, Zimmerman’s ungrounded suspicion may have been restricted to the way Trayvon dressed and how he acted. Had Trayvon dressed in a “classier” way, would there have been suspicion? Had he driven to the store for his treats, would he still be alive? A young man died that night, a young man for whom there was no evidence found that he committed any crime the night of the shooting, and justice has yet to be served. I believe the prosecution did a terrible job. I think a charge of manslaughter was more manageable and more just for all those involved.

Sources and Notes: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/25/dershowitz-trayvon-prosecutor-overreached-with-murder-charge/?test=latestnews and http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/second-degree-murder-charge-may-be-hard-to-prove-i/nN26Z/ Some feel that the appointed prosecutor felt media pressure for an exaggerated charge in order to get re-elected. The cutoff date for qualifying to run against State Prosecutor Angela Corey was nine days after the Republican filed charges. For more details on this, consult http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/251911/19/Prosecutor-in-Trayvon-Martin-case-wins-re-eleection
http://m.newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2012/04/23/nbc-news-president-network-should-probably-apologize-air-repeated Note, this source may be tendentious because it proclaims itself dedicated to exposing liberal bias in the media. However, NBC employees were fired and/or disciplined over the misleading edits. For more information on this, see http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/wtvj-reporter-fired-for-making-similar-edit-in-george-zimmerman-911-call_b46599
http://thegrio.com/2012/07/18/zimmerman-says-he-was-not-pursuing-trayvon-martin/ Please note that the defense’s decision to grant exclusive rights to the Fox network, known for its conservative bias, strikes me as cynical manipulation. That the Martins hired a publicist to drum up media attention, and the media’s subsequent misbehavior helped no one in this situation.
In none of the seven instances that George Zimmerman called the police did he volunteer the race of the suspicious person until asked by the dispatcher. See http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/05/11045284-in-police-calls-zimmerman-mentioned-race-only-when-asked?lite.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/02/zimmerman-family-member-calls-naacp-racists-says-there-will-be-blood-on-your-hands-if-george-is-hurt/. This story would be easy enough to verify with members of city council. I do not know whether it has been thus verified.
Transcript of George Zimmerman's call to the non-emergency police line:
http://www.motherjones.com/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman
You can listen to this call here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trayvon_Martin

Painting & Film Chapter II: David Cronenberg

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In my imagination, two images have been juxtaposed for a while, conjured by the flights of fickleness engineered by my memory. The one is of the creatures in David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, a stellar adaptation of a very difficult book to translate into film. Leaving issues of faithful adaptation aside, Naked Lunch stands on its own as a film. The level of difficulty in adapting it as a novel is perhaps only equalled by Finnegans Wake and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the latter of which, if you ask me, would make a better television sit-com than a film. Back to the issue at hand. The other image is Max Ernst's painting Napoleon. I have long harboured the suspicion that the mugwamp creatures in Naked Lunch were modelled on Napoleon's weirdly amphibious face in Napoleon. Today, using my google-fu, I decided to test my suspicion, and I show you the results below.

 Mugwamp from Cronenberg's Naked Lunch

Max Ernst's painting: Napoleon

Result: The faces are similar with folds of skin and flattened nose and lips. Colour is roughly consistent. However, the mugwamp has a more beak-like mouth that is smaller. As well, the painting doesn't feature the variegation that the mugwamp has, and of course the eyes are monochrome. The Napoleon figure in the painting also has more pronounced eye sockets, although the size, shape, and beadiness are quite similar. Conclusion: The production designer or costume designer may have been inspired by Ernst's painting. Here is the description of mugwamps from Burroughs: 

Mugwumps have no liver and nourish themselves exclusively on sweets. Thin, purple-blue lips cover a razor sharp beak of black bone with which they frequently tear each other to shreds in fights over clients. These creatures secrete an addictive fluid through their erect penises which prolongs life by slowing metabolism. (In fact all longevity agents have proved addicting in exact ratio to their effectiveness in prolonging life.)

Well, there you have it. I think the similarities between Cronenberg's mugwamp and Ernst's Napoleon are interesting. It is possible that the production designer or costume designer were more influenced by alien designs of science fiction movies and television series such as Star Trek. Regardless, the similarities for me are interesting enough. Incidentally, the mugwamps were originally Republican candidates who supported Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland because of the corruption of the Republican candidate, and thereafter came to mean a political deserter, or an overly sanctimonious politician who scorned party politics. 

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