Thoughts Aloud

"You are black and I am white

You are blind as a bat And I have sight"

- Ebony & Ivory (SNL version)

In the wake of the latest (over)played U.S. race card, the loutish, last century remarks of a set-in-his-ways old fool, hackles are raised again that, as a nation, the United States has made zero progress in terms of race relations (and/or cultural tolerance) over the centuries.

This is nonsense.

As is often the case, it's the secretly hating and seething themselves, the self-righteous, gas baggy, glass-housed souls, who heave the most aggrieved, loud stones.

To hear them tell it, these thought police -- these angry, directionless ministers beseeching their already converted choirs ... Donald Sterling is a Klansman.

Such extreme vilification of an old fool is not only also nonsense, it's a danger:  To shine a spotlight of any kind on extremism only feeds it.  Donald Sterling is no Cliven Bundy ... and he's not particularly extreme in his outlook.

Donald Sterling is an old man.

My dad, 80-something, is also 'up there' in age.  Stormin' Norm has been known to blow hard too, and -- unpleasantly -- reveals on occasion some of Sterling's, shall we say, irascibility ... This statement of fact does not excuse either of them.  It just is:  old boys will be old boys ... and old ladies and teenagers, Wall Street wolves, working women and children ... You get the idea.  There are segments, and often unpleasant behaviors which come with each territory, and within varied contexts.

A universal regulation of speech, of opinion -- no matter how unpalatable -- cannot apply.

Yes, there are laws, as of course, there should be.  There is hate speech, incitement ... Donald Sterling wasn't hating.  He was caught with his pants down, in an old man's moment.  The kind that I'm willing to bet you, and virtually everyone you know -- male or female, black or white, in fact, young or old ... with few, if any, exceptions -- has (had) on occasion.

Depending on how one defines the term, most of us are "racist", to some degree.  To dispute this is to deny the problem.  But the paradigm has shifted over the past fifty years, so that overt bigotry and non-tolerance is the exception, not the norm.  We should accept this fact as a glass half-full starting point, at least, and advance with it ... and not keep expecting, thereby creating problems.

Beyond this, there is a little matter of privacy, in the fact that Donald Sterling was recorded having his blathering, pants down, old man's moment ...

"Right" or "wrong", whatever Sterling (or I, or you) may think, and whatever words he (I, you) may choose, to express random thoughts as they form and present themselves, in private -- are his (mine, yours).

  

Why was this old man's private conversation being recorded?

And was he aware it was being recorded?  In the U.S., it's a crime in some states, including California, to record individuals without consent.  Did Donald Sterling know he was being recorded?

We'll leave that to the lawyers, for now.

I'm not defending Donald Sterling (nor my old dad, when he pipes up) ... and I'm certainly not defending any racial "privilege" Sterling thinks he might have; nor the toxic, old school attitudes which he apparently retains from his younger self, in a bygone era, towards women, money and the "ownership" of human capital ...

But I will say that I empathize, as an often wrong individual -- a human being -- whose reasonable expectation of privacy becomes violated.

Rape and Privacy

In light of the Edward Snowden revelations, which ended up forcing the hand of President Obama and the NSA (indeed, "a victory of sorts" for Snowden) -- and in fact, because of the acknowledgment and now, legitimization, of the government's dumpster diving on not only American but global citizens -- there should no longer be any expectation, reasonable or otherwise, of privacy in human existence.

We have crossed that bridge, and there is no looking back.  Data mining, marketing "preferences", "targeted" advertising being "served" ... cameras everywhere (and in every hand): mounted on dashboards, hanging from street lamps, hidden in ceilings, hats and eyeglasses ... capturing, then "sharing", our every pain, our every shame, our every vainglory, assigning blame ...

Photo(s) by Jglo

In many ways, we've become a much better, cleaner, safer, more responsible world:  all performing as model citizens now, caring Samaritanism, the norm - No longer every man, woman and child a solo act, but performing with our best stage voices and collective foot forward, because all of us know that the cameras are on.

Of course, banks still get robbed ... identities stolen, people get assaulted on quiet streets still.  Nigerians and others still try to get over, and handbags and gladrags still get heisted (recently, from directly beneath an ostensibly upturned corporate nose).

In many ways, we're stalled the same.

Perhaps the most discernible difference between our world pre-1984 and now, is that in today's world -- our world of the hard sell; of crass and obnoxiously mass consumerism ... a world where Christmas "season" begins after Labor Day and "Back to School" is already being shoved down our throats in July (mere weeks after the kids are set free from one school year, they're told to start saving and spending for next!) -- it's not surprising to see every website I visit demanding I "join" it; or being instructed on every website to "follow", "share", "like" (or see what my "friends" like) ... or "log in using Facebook" or some other "service" ...

We don't care what you use to log in, just LOG IN.  So we can mine your data, target your preferences and know where you go online, what you do, so that in the end, we know what to do with you!

Go ahead, "opt out" (if you can find how to do it) - it doesn't matter:  we still know you've visited youporn before coming here, and we appreciate your business!  Or "Yay" ... or "Let's have some milk with those cookies" (or "Don't be evil") ...

See what we did there?  We just allayed your valid concerns about privacy with a cute little word thing, and lulled you into a soft zone of comfort.  Dropped a roofie in your browser refreshment, so now you'll give it up to us.

In the real world, offline, the identity of rape victims is shielded.  In the privacy-sucking world of the wide web, there's no such protection.  We're all exposed, subject to further penetration and perpetual abuse.

But wait ... It's consensual.  We're giving it up, and giving in.  There's no such thing as consensual rape (Is there??) ... In the real world, offline, it may be poor form to blame the victim.  But for most of us, online, we ask to be raped.

And we're getting exactly what we deserve.