An open letter to This American Life

Posted 19 March, 2012 in Politics & Activism, Radio

19 March 2012

Dear Ira Glass and the staff of This American Life,

Four of us gathered around a laptop in Brooklyn last night to listen to the live broadcast of the retraction episode of This American Life. We started with a real feeling of respect for the idea that TAL would spend an entire episode fact-checking its own broadcast, coupled with worry that the problems with Mike Daisey himself would lead to a lessening of concern about Apple’s labor practices. We came to the show with varying levels of familiarity with TAL. All but one of us had listened to the original Daisey episode, and two of us are regular TAL listeners.

In the initial segment, in which Rob Schmitz tracked down the translator, we all found ourselves asking several basic questions:

1. Why was the translator any more credible than Daisey? What about this was different from any “he said/she said” argument?
2. What, if any, influence did Apple, Foxconn or the Chinese government bring to bear on the translator or on This American Life?
3. Is it just a coincidence that the retraction episode aired just as Apple launched a new iPad?

During the interview with Schmitz, Glass and Daisey, we were struck by Daisey’s unfortunate inability to better frame his performance. Rather than simply saying “some of these characters were composites of people I met and stories I heard from workers who had first-hand knowledge,” he stumbled around and sounded very insincere. It’s important to say that we all felt, upon hearing this segment, that the original story shouldn’t have been broadcast as aired on TAL. That might also be true even if TAL had included a disclaimer about the composite nature of some of the characters, although that’s harder to judge.

The most disappointing part of the show was the final segment in which Glass spoke with New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg. This entire segment came off as an ill-informed or willfully ignorant dismissal of the role of first-world consumption in harming the lives of the people who make what we consume.

For example:

Duhigg: We know from Apple’s own audits and the reports that have published that at least 50 percent of all audited factories, every year since 2007, have violated at least that provision. More than half of the workers whose records are examined are working more than 60 hours per week.

Glass: Now, is that necessarily so bad? I mean, aren’t a lot of these workers moving to the city to work as many hours as possible? They’re away from their families; they’re young; and they’re there to make money and they don’t care.

This exchange is built on the idea that there’s no possible way to run the world other than the way it’s currently being run. Are you seriously suggesting that anyone wants to work 60 or more hours per week and wouldn’t gladly trade that for 40 hours at a decent wage? Have we really become so inured to human suffering that we actually believe people want to work at slave wages for giant multinational corporations? Is this the most we can imagine for our fellow human beings?

This segment of the show also suffered from a very first-world-centered opinion about how other cultures work. For example:

Duhigg: That being said, I think that China is a little bit different and that the expectations, particularly as a developing nation of workers, are a little bit different. I don’t think holding them to American standards is precisely the right way to look at the situation.

There’s a lot wrong with that statement. To begin, it’s maddening to hear two well-off white American men talking about what the Chinese want from their working lives. How do you know? And what would make you assume that what they want is different from what you want?

Additionally, it’s hilarious to hear about “American standards.” Our guess is that there are quite a few people within walking distance of the New York Times building or the WBEZ offices who could tell you a thing or two about what it’s like to be a worker in America. Particularly a non-union worker, as almost all private-sector workers are. Of course, it would be a challenge to ask an American about what it’s like to manufacture electronics, given that we have people in developing nations do that for us now.

The final nail in this coffin was Glass’s remark toward the end of his talk with Duhigg:

Glass: But to get to the normative question that’s kind of underlying all the reporting and all the discussion of this, the thing that we all want to know when we hear this is like, “Wait, should I feel bad about this?” As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad? And I don’t know that I feel so bad when, when I hear this.

To Duhigg’s credit, he seems fairly surprised by this statement and offers several reasons why Glass should feel bad, although he says it’s not his job to tell Glass how to feel. But Glass’s statement struck us as the fundamental problem underlying this episode, which was that people of privilege with little sympathy for workers were much more concerned with protecting their own reputations than exposing injustice.

When the show ended, one of the regular TAL listeners in our group said, “I feel like I want to take a shower.” We all felt that way. It was extremely disappointing and a perfect example of why more people don’t know or care about the plight of workers here and abroad.

Sincerely,

Jake Aron
Jason Crane
Emma Goldsmith-Rooney
Kate Moser

Brooklyn, NY

POEM: original black

Posted 11 February, 2012 in Jazz, Music, My poems, Poetry, Politics & Activism

original black

three men in white
investigating black
all-caps BLACK

digging at:
        the roots
        the rhythms
        the rhymes

blood samples
lined up against
blue-black bodies
strands of DNA
leading to Pryor’s
“original black”

Andrew Lamb
(“The Black Lamb”)
lives behind this poem
his saxophone weeps
for New Orleans
salty tears running
down black cheeks
saliva on cane reed
sweat on his brow

there were two black
kids in my high school
out of twelve hundred
one Cambodian girl, too
(“a boat person”)

“the thing I like about you”
John said to me
“is that you talk
to black people
just like other people”

just.
like.
other.
people.

/ / /

This poem was inspired by two things: going to see Vernon Reid’s Artificial Afrika at Dixon Place last night and then listening to Andrew Lamb’s brilliant album New Orleans Suite again this morning.

POEM: sweet violence

Posted 13 January, 2012 in My poems, Poetry, Politics & Activism

sweet violence

can come with an open hand
or at the tip of a sharp tongue
it covers up the salty taste of tears
you call me “sweetheart” afterward
I can’t think of anything to say during dinner
that won’t sound like a lie
later, in bed, you lace your fingers in mine
I hold my breath like a condemned prisoner
my hair is turning gray on this diet of ashes
my tongue lies heavy in my mouth
I’m betraying the fading light beneath my skin

/ / /

It’s been a while since I finished a poem. I wrote this one at the Museum of Modern Art in New York today after seeing the “Sweet Violence” exhibit for the second time. Please go see it if you can.

POEM: Rivera’s The Uprising

Posted 12 November, 2011 in My poems, Poetry, Politics & Activism

Listen to this poem using the player above.

My sister and I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the new exhibition of murals by Diego Rivera. I wrote this poem based on one of them.

Rivera’s The Uprising

it’s her hand, not his
that stops the soldier’s blade
while with the other
she cradles her newborn child
who cries from the noise

the dead and wounded
cover the ground like fallen leaves
as a phalanx of armed men
in earthen brown
swing wooden rifle stocks
at the faces of the newly free

men in peasant caps and overalls
no weapons but their fists and hearts
stand shoulder to shoulder
under a sky red with waving flags
on ground red with spilled blood

she holds her crying child
with the hope of a new mother
and the desperation of the wall
against her back
she will not give in
she will not give in

Straight people support LGBTQ rights, too

Posted 5 July, 2011 in Politics & Activism

From Stonewall Celebrates As Marriage Equality Passes – June 24, 2011

I support equal rights for all members of the LGBTQ community. And, as it turns out, I’m straight.

I say that because I’ve already been tagged as gay by many acquaintances and strangers who seem to think that only LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) people can support and advocate for LGBTQ issues. I’m certainly not worried about being mistaken for gay. In fact, emphasizing that I’m straight makes me a bit uncomfortable. But for the purposes of the point I’m about to make, it’s necessary.

Back in the early 90s, I had a good friend who came out as a lesbian. She was the first openly gay person I knew and, because she was (and still is) very important to me, I became very open about my support for LGBTQ issues. In addition to being vocal, I often wore a triangle necklace and had a bunch of LGBTQ stickers on my car … eventually leading to its windows being smashed in a Tucson parking lot on Christmas Eve in 1995.

Later on, I was a stay-at-home dad for a year and I took care of my son and also the daughter of a lesbian couple. I normally don’t think of them as a “lesbian couple,” but I’m identifying them that way for the purposes of this essay. In that same town, I befriended another Lesbian Couple (TM) both through our shared anti-war activism and a passion for cycling. All these folks are some of my favorite people in the world and I was thinking of all of them when I was dancing outside Stonewall on the night that the marriage equality bill passed here in New York State.

From Stonewall Celebrates As Marriage Equality Passes – June 24, 2011

Along with everyone else, I was live-tweeting from Stonewall during the big celebration, and several people on Twitter and Facebook congratulated me using language that made it clear they thought I was gay. As things quieted down a bit at Stonewall, I went to the Undead Jazz Festival wearing my “Legalize Gay” shirt. Several people again congratulated me in a way that made their perceptions clear. I didn’t correct anyone, nor did I use it as a moment to say, “I’m straight, but you’re right, it’s a great victory for everyone, straight or gay.”

The other night I was at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, wearing an “I heart NY” shirt (above, with my cousin Lynne) which I had altered by drawing an equal sign in the heart. During the evening a woman who self-identified as a lesbian saw my shirt and we had a lovely chat about the passage of the law and what it means for the future. At the end, she gave me a high-five and said “Yay for us!” Again, I didn’t say anything about being straight.

There are two reasons why I don’t mention my sexual orientation in such situations. One reason is just the social awkwardness of sharing a moment like that with someone and then saying something that would seem to make the moment a bit less shared.

The other reason is that I don’t want to be seen as afraid or ashamed of being identified as gay. I often think that if I said “I’m straight” in those situations it would make it seem like I was trying to distance myself from the LGBTQ community. “Hey, I support the issues, but I’m a heterosexual!”

A friend recently pointed out that it was sad that some people assume that only LGBTQ people support LGBTQ issues. I agree. These issues have been central to my life for more than two decades, and I’m proud to be a vocal supporter. (And by the way, I’m no hero. Many activists have done far more than me to bring these issues to the public arena.) And while I’m a bit hesitant to say that LGBTQ rights are the civil rights struggle of our era — because I think there are other civil rights struggles that need fighting, too — I certainly think the fight for LGBTQ rights is one of our major civil rights battlegrounds. I want to be able to tell my kids that I stood up to be counted on this issue.

So yes, I’m straight and I’m a supporter of LGBTQ rights. And I hope you’re a supporter, too.

POEM: warm bodies

Posted 12 March, 2011 in My poems, Poetry, Politics & Activism

I recently visited the excellent Museum of Chinese in America in New York. This poem was partly inspired by that experience.

warm bodies

we are happy to have warm bodies
to throw at their guns
Chinese, black, dynasty, diaspora
anyone but our own sons

what happened to thirty paces
the crack of the pistol
as the mist rose off the dawn ground

when did we start loading the chambers
with soft flesh
gunpowder burning the skin
as we launch the children of the poor
at the children of the poor

praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
and if he gives you any trouble
shoot the fucker

it’s a hard equation
but that’s how we do math these days
with mercenary sensibility and a lead-pipe cruelty
not even John Cusack can make charming

the baby in the bassinet
has dynamite in her mouth
the fuse trails off under a door marked
RESTRICTED

in the morning you find a card in your mailbox:
“Manzanar — Wish You Were Here!”
the accompanying cartoon
helps our boys track you down
by the way you walk and the slant of your eyes

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