Jason Sanford

Why Super Angry White Man is a pretty shitty superhero

Here's a tiny glimpse at the power of a white man: Once, while traveling out of state, I cashed a third-party check at a grocery store without showing any identification.

That may not sound like much, but my wife—who is a proud black woman and watched the episode unfold—couldn't believe her eyes. “I'd never get away with that,” she said later. We still laugh at the memory, which has become light-hearted shorthand for all the things in life I get a pass on due to me being a white man.

I was reminded of the check-cashing incident while reading the excellent essay “Donglegate: Why the Tech Community Hates Feminists” by Alice Marwick. While I'm sure most tech savvy people are aware of Donglegate, I still highly recommend reading Marwick's essay. In particular, pay close attention to her thoughts about “'Men’s Rights Activism' (MRA) — groups of men who refer to feminism as 'misandry' and advocate vociferously that men face more discrimination than women.”

Now, Men’s Rights Activism is both new and old information to me. This is the first time I've heard of the term, but the sentiments behind it—the belief that men, and especially white men, are being persecuted—is sadly not new. I've heard similar complaints for the last two decades. If a woman or a person of color dares to advance past a white man in life, out come the snide comments. That it's affirmative action. That they're not as talented. That the world is now biased against white men.

But as a white man, let me publicly call bullshit on this. I have never been discriminated against or held back in life because I'm a white man. Have other people beaten me to jobs because they were better than me or had a connection I lacked? Yes. Have I missed out on publications and awards because other writers were better or luckier than me. Again, yes. But my being a white man hasn't held me back one bit.

But what I have seen in life is how women and people of color have to work twice as hard merely to play on the same field as white men. I first saw this while growing up in Alabama during the decades after the Civil Rights Movement. But I've also witnessed this everywhere I've gone. I've seen women and people of color—merely because of who they are—be passed over for jobs and have their opinions dismissed and continually be given the worst assignments.

So why do so many white men now complain that they're the victims? Because the world is changing, and change scares the shit out of some white men. It used to be white men didn't have to compete against women or people of color. Now we do. Never mind that the playing field is still nowhere near level and fair—just the thought that being a white man isn't the power-trip it once was is enough to send some white men into fits.

Why do so many white men complain they're discriminated against? Because the funny, ironic truth is no one whines as much as a white man denied.

So-called Men’s Rights Activism is simply some white men justifying discrimination and privilege. It's simply some white men complaining because they didn't get handed what they wanted in life. It's some white men complaining because they don't have the balls to compete on the new playing field of life. (And if whiny white men hate one thing most of all, it's having their own sexist terms thrown back at them like that.)

Instead of whining about discrimination, or turning into the nasty superhero Super Angry White Man and hurling racist and sexist comments at anyone online who disagrees with you, white men should instead do like women and people of color have always done—deal with life. Work things the best you can. If you lose a job, get a better education or more training. If you hit a wall, find another way around.

But white men, hear this from one of your own—stop the whining. Sometimes life is unfair and sometimes it's a crap fest. But blaming your woes on women and people of color isn't just silly, it's wrong.

A letter to my cousin about his "Christian" case against President Obama

Dear Cousin:

Today I read your Facebook post about the Christian argument against President Barack Obama and I'd like to give a few words in response. I appreciate you saying that disagreements over abortion, homosexuality, legalized drugs, and so on are not at the core of this Christian objection, and that arguments over such topics go endlessly in circles without ever reaching a conclusion.

I understand why you said this. In our world of instant news and instant gratification, it often seems like people on all sides of any issue have replaced discussion with attacks. That we now wear our opinions on our skins like obscene tattoos so we can showcase exactly what we believe and why everyone else is wrong. 

Tragically, there have always been people who behave this way and there always will be. The simple truth is that the screamers of the world attract far more attention than is their due, and there are also always people who desire to bludgeon others with their opinions.

The good news, though, is that those who continually scream out or beat up others are forgotten as soon as someone with an even louder voice – or a bigger stick – comes along.

No, the people who scream and beat don't win the debate in the long run. Instead, what changes people's hearts and minds are the actions of those who still see discussion and debate as a pathway to true understanding. When someone says they believe in something and then lives their life along the lines of that belief, only then do others pay attention. Only then does a discussion begin to change minds.

And that's how the world truly changes.

Which brings me to your comment that "the fundamental case Christianity has against Obama is that his big, liberal government attempts to position itself as a substitute for God."

I strongly disagree with this. In all my time as a citizen of the United States I have yet to meet a person who desires our government to be a substitute for God. Are there people who see government as a way to help others? Yes. As a tool for justice and equal opportunity? Yes. As a means of creating a basic level of safety and protection so people in our society can reach for their dreams? Yes.

In fact, if you look at the preamble to our Constitution, you will see these desires so eloquently expressed:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Naturally, people will disagree on the route to achieve these goals, but that's a good thing. As I mentioned, when debate and discussion is combined with how a person lives their life, true change results.

Which brings me to the life and words of Jesus Christ, whom you use to object to our current president.

According to the Bible, Jesus truly lived the words he spoke. When asked for the greatest commandment, he agreed that is was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And that the second commandment was “Love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus also had many other things to say about how people should live their lives, including the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the famous "If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” Jesus also has many things to say on helping the needy, being charitable, not judging others, and quickly settling matters with anyone your disagree with.

But nowhere does Jesus take aim at government or liberals.

This doesn't mean Jesus didn't talk about political issues. In fact, Jesus was extremely revolutionary in his political statements. His statements that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" remains as controversial now as it was two millennia ago. He also condemned corruption and had little use for those who abused their authority. 

One of the few statements Jesus ever made about government is also, in fact, one of the most quoted: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." And when Jesus speaks of Caesar he is actually talking about a governmental head who believed he was a god. But instead of attacking Caesar for this obviously false belief, Jesus basically said there is a place for both government and for God, but don’t forget which is greater. And that's in reference to a government which did see itself as a god lording over its people, as opposed to the United States where we practice, in the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, "government of the people, by the people, for the people." 

Which brings me to your comments about the United States government and its proper role in society. Since you are using Jesus to condemn what you see as big government and those you see as liberals, I must ask what would Jesus do if confronted with the challenges of our modern world. Would Jesus want health insurance companies to deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions, or to drop their coverage when they became ill? Would he want corporations to pollute our world or steal the life savings of people? Would he want to cut Social Security or Medicare so we can keep our defense spending at a level higher than the next ten highest spending countries combined?

Or instead, would Jesus support sensible government regulations and a common-sense approach to dealing with our budget problems?

I’d like to think we could agree on what Jesus’ answers to those questions would be. But I also know that people can disagree about the meaning of Jesus’ words.

But what we can’t disagree on are the actions of Jesus’ life, and how these acts can be applied to our current day political debates.

The Bible is very blunt about the people Jesus associated with – he actively sought out the sinners and outcasts of that time and place. Adulterers. Tax collectors. Samaritans. And even Roman Centurions. This doesn’t mean Jesus agreed with all these people or the lives they led. But he was friends with them and discussed life with them and didn’t pretend that the artificial walls we throw up in in this world must forever keep us apart.

If Jesus could find common ground with those whose lives didn’t mesh with his teachings, why can’t we do the same with those we disagree with? I know you mean well, but when you say Christianity is opposed to Obama, are you doing like Jesus did and reaching out to others, or are you building more walls to keep up apart?

We can disagree on the proper role of government, but always remember that our government is made up of us – the people of the United States. And Jesus had very pointed statements on how people were supposed to treat other people.

I don't expect you to change your mind about President Obama. But if we want our country to have a bright future, we must all work together and find common ground. And that means we must bring everyone together – be they of the same or different religions, religious or not, gay or straight, rich or poor, happy or hurting, optimistic or despairing.

Because the alternative to coming together is to continually scream at and beat each other up with our opinions. And we both know that is not a path Jesus would have chosen.

 

The Peace Corps in a non-peaceful world

Americans often get rapped by people outside our country as being insular and ignorant of all things not prefaced with a giant, glowing U.S.A.! While there's some truth to this stereotype, it overlooks the strong desire among many Americans to bridge the differences between the United States and other countries.

One of the most famous ways Americans try to do this is with the Peace Corps. Since 1961 over 200,000 American have served in the Peace Corps, including myself and my wife, with both of us serving in Thailand. This service is not without risk. As documented by the Fallen Peace Corps Volunteers Memorial Project, 284 Peace Corps Volunteers gave their lives while pursuing the Peace Corps' mission. Many more have been injured, assaulted, or subjected to violence.

It’s for these last reasons that yesterday the Peace Corps announced it was pulling its Volunteers out of Honduras and will no longer send new Volunteers to El Salvador and Guatemala. This is obviously a controversial decision. According to Jared Metzker, a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, the decision is also cowardly because PCVs understand the dangers they're signing up for.

As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I understand and to a degree embrace Metzker's attitude. But I also don't want Peace Corps Volunteers to face a constant risk of serious injury or death. Peace Corps pulled out of Honduras after one Volunteer was shot (and, according to what I've heard from other Volunteers, experienced a number of rapes and near constant assaults on PCVs, which wasn't targeted at the Volunteers but instead resulted from out-of-control violence and political upheaval in that country).

During my time in the Peace Corps I was only physically threatened a single time, and was able to escape with no injury because of my large size and ability to bluff drunken idiots. However, several other Volunteers who served alongside me were raped or assaulted. And that was in the peaceful country of Thailand. A Peace Corps Volunteer who'd transfered to Thailand said that in her previous host country, every Volunteer in her training group had been physically assaulted or raped at one time or another. Every single one.

However, the experience she described was an extreme and, to a large degree, politically motivated. And before you think this violence only occurs overseas, the rate of violence among overseas PCVs is probably lower than they would experience in the U.S. In fact, the vast majority of PCVs experience no violence or threats to their safety.

But as Jared Metzker said, all Peace Corps Volunteers understand that trying to improve this world is not without risk. And when you get down to it, the reason our world needs a Peace Corps is because this world is not at peace.  

While I understand why Peace Corps pulled out of Honduras, this is still a sad occasion. Honduras had one of the largest PC missions in the world and those Volunteers were helping so many people. But I also think the reason I'm grieving this closure is because of the special connection I have to both the country and the PCVs there.

During my senior year in high school I spent a month in rural Honduras working on an aid project. On one of my days off I met three Peace Corps Volunteers, who drove up to the ranch where I stayed. I ended up helping them with their clean water project and, by the end of the day, knew I wanted nothing more than to be a PCV. I no longer remember those Volunteers' names, but they showed me how to make a positive difference in the world. They also taught me that the biggest impact the Peace Corps makes is by building personal relationships between Americans and people around the world.

It's because of those Volunteers that I joined Peace Corps. So I hope in a few years the Peace Corps will return to Honduras.

Doomsday Clock is great propaganda but a poor predictor

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has now adjusted the minute hand on their famous Doomsday Clock. This is significant because the clock, first created in 1947 to "convey how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction," has only been previously adjusted 19 times across six decades.

As a symbol, I have nothing against the Doomsday Clock. In our individual lives it’s always a good thing to remember we’re all mortal—that one day we will die, meaning we’d better live the best life we can in the time we have left. The same sentiment applies to the fate of our species. It’s a goodness to remember that, despite what the human ego may scream at us, our species has only existed on this planet for a short time and could easily go the way of the dinosaurs (those that weren't the ancestors of birds, that is).

However, as an accurate predictor of how close humanity is to destruction the Doomday CLock leaves much to be desired. For example, the above image from Wikipedia shows how close humanity was to destruction during the clock’s 65 year history. The closest we’ve supposedly come to killing ourselves off was in 1953, when we were at “2 minutes to midnight” after the United States tested the first thermonuclear device, followed nine months later by a similar H-bomb test by the Soviet Union.  But while the Doomsday Clock in 1953 warned of our imminent destruction, a study of history shows humanity was actually further away from killing itself than the clock suggested.

Yes, the risk of a nuclear war existed during that time period. But the stockpiles of weapons controlled by the U.S. and Soviet Union in 1953 were not yet sufficient to destroy humanity. That wasn’t, however, the case in 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. In recent years it has been revealed that this incident came extremely close to triggering a nuclear war at a time when there were indeed enough weapons to destroy the world.

But despite this, the Doomsday Clock in 1962 was relatively far removed from doomsday and was about to climb to the "safest" position it has been at any time except for immediately after the end of the Cold War. What I believe this shows is that it’s not true scientific analysis which drives the Doomsday Clock—it is the political perception of the involved scientists. The explosion of the first H-bomb was a startling event for the human psyche. For the first time, we had the ability to create weapons which could—if produced in sufficient numbers—destroy the world. It didn’t matter that there were not yet enough of these weapons to actually do this deed. All that mattered was perception.

The same thing happened in the late 1980s, when numerous arms control treaties were passed and the Cold War ended. The Doomsday Clock was literally behind the times and had to be continually reset to reflect this new reality.

So while the Doomsday Clock is a great propaganda tool for reminding humanity of the harm we could do to ourselves, as a predictor of the actually risks of an apocalypse the clock is as flawed as any other human artifact.

Why the Stories We Initially Tell Are Never Accurate

So Osama bin Laden is dead, killed with a shot to the head by U.S. Navy Seals. As should be expected with any big story, in the days since his death announcement the details have changed. Initially the government said bin Laden resisted the Seals and was killed. Then came reports that bin Laden died firing a weapon, and that he'd used his wife as a human shield.

Except those last reports are not true. While it still appears he resisted or made threatening moves, he held no weapon. And his wife, instead of being a human shield, evidently ran at the Navy Seals, who shot her in the leg. And that is merely the current story. I fully expect the story to keep adapting as new and more accurate details are released.

However, some people are angry that the details of bin Laden's killing have changed. Glenn Greenwald is outraged that the original narrative of bin Laden's killing – which framed him as "cowardly" and "violent-to-the-end" – will be the narrative people remember, even if it's not true. He compares this to previous stories which were later proven wrong, such as "Jessica Lynch's heroic firefight against Iraqi captors to Pat Tillman's death at the hands of Evil Al Qaeda fighters" and blames this on the media simply accepting "false Government claims." The argument Greenwald makes is seductive; even Andrew Sullivan asks "Why Exaggerate?" in response to Greenwald's post.

However, instead of assuming nefarious motives at work I wish Greenwald and others would simply apply occam's razor and try to see that, when dealing with the release of information around a big story, almost all initial reports are inaccurate. While this can at times result from outright lies and distortion, in most cases the root cause is the imprecise nature of human communications.

Two factors are at work here. First, humans must communicate a vast amount of words in order for specific information to reach another person (for the specifics on this, read the great book The Information by James Gleick). In addition, it doesn't matter if you want to tell someone a basic fact such as "The sky is blue" – the simple truth is those four words are not all you are communicating. Instead, you are also communicating your tone, your inflection, your body language, your power or lack thereof, and many other variables. Secondarily, the person receiving your words doesn't only have to comprehend all of this but also must process the overall message through their own personal filter of how they see the world, which includes everything from their own biases, beliefs, attitudes, and social standing to their relationship and trust with the speaker.

Considering all that, it's a wonder people can communicate with each other at all. This is also one reason why people immediately remember only half of what they are told. It's not that people are pigheaded about actually listening to others – although that can also happen. Instead, it's because people are trying to comprehend much more than simply a few basic words.

This lack of precision then slams against the human need to share stories. Whether you call it gossip or chitchat or conversation, humans have a primal need to continually share information about all aspects of our lives. And when something big and out of the ordinary happens, it's all we can do not to run screaming to the next person we see and tell everything we know.

This primal need to share stories also applies to people in group settings, such as the government. Once bin Laden was killed and the people who knew what happened were cleared to speak, they opened a logorrheic floodgate. Nevermind that many of the details they passed on were wrong – the people passing this information throught what they had to share was correct. At times like this group communications behave like a vast game of telephone, where whispers are passed from person to person until the meaning of the words change beyond all comprehension. Unfortunately, this is often how official information on big stories spreads into our society. There is not one major news event from the last century –  be it Kennedy's assassination, the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and so on – where the initial information released by U.S. government officials was totally accurate.

This doesn't mean these officials were neccesarily lying. Could they have biases in promoting certain information? Certainly. Could they have been eager to release certain information because it confirmed their worldview? That's true of all humans. But the simple truth is initial communications around earth-shaking events are almost always not the final story.

What's funny is that the people who are uncomfortable with the changing storyline around bin Laden's death are also the very people who want more openness from our government. But openness is a double-edged sword and means that when big news events occur information will often be released which is ultimately proven inaccurate. Since the alternative is to wait hours or days until all information is properly vetted and verified, I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Perhaps one day our society will develop to the point where we have accurate information at our fingertips before any of us engages in our global games of gossip and telephone. But I'm not holding my breath.

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The Abattoir of Mediocrity

I don't write or read much horror unless I fall into it sideways while sloshing around in my usual science fiction or fantasy. However, I love the British horror magazine Black Static. The magazine's editors and writers are always slicing their readers into bloody excellence, and the opinion pieces they publish are great beyond measure.

Case in point: Christopher Fowler's essay in Black Static 22 on "Why Mediocrity Rules." As Fowler states, he now actually hates the mainsteam. "Not because of who watches it – people will watch anything put in front of them – or who writes it – writers develop good ideas for years only to have them eviscerated or turned down outright because of passing fashions – but because of who decides what we watch and read."

As Fowler says, there are creativity killers in every profession, people who slink from position to position leaving "trails of destruction in their wakes, like snails." And while Fowler doesn't go into how the new media landscape of YouTube and Twitter and self-published ebooks are changing these trails of destruction, I haven't yet seen a ton of excellence rising to the top. Instead, when the "The Bed Intruder Song" receives 50 million views I'd say mediocrity has found new ways to thrive.

This doesn't mean every artist who whines about their lot in life deserves to be showered with praise. Fowler quotes John Cleese in his Monty Python architect sketch, when he delivers a slaughterhouse instead of a block of apartments and the clients complain. As Cleese says, "That’s the kind of blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I expect from you non-creative garbage." Not that Cleese should be allowed to build an abattoir to slaughter apartment dwellers. But the architect who eventually wins is in his own way worse than Cleese's character, and is praised for creating an absolute monstrosity.

I wish I could link to Fowler's essay; instead, I'll simply say you should subscribe to Black Static and that Fowler touches on some of these points in this recent blog post.

As Your Great-Grandparents Saw the World

For the last two weeks I've been thinking about an essay Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote called "Grappling With Genosha," which explores why the pre-Civil War American South—and by extension, the entire United States—supported something as morally wrong as slavery.

Coates finds "almost any explanation that invokes individual evil to be unpersuasive." Instead, he says one must look at how society and self interest makes people rationlize and support things they might personally disagree with. Many people in the pre-Civil War South no doubt realized slavery was wrong but supported it because of the cumulative weight of their culture and self-interest. That's why slavery was accepted. It was far easier to go along with the evils around you than to take a stand which may cause you to lose your social standing, job, family, and much more.

I agree with this analysis. While it is easy to look back at slavery and say we enlightened modern people would never have supported such a horrible system, we're saying that from the comfort of a 150 years distance. Instead of saying how you'd have fought against slavery if you'd been alive back then, find a major societal trend in today's world and see how accepting you are of it.

For example, gasoline powered automobiles create polution and other planet-wide side effects. But how many people are willing to cut themselves off from the benefits of the internal combustible engine? Instead, the best people seem to do is slowly change things. To hope that one day technological advances will result in cleaner engines so we can have the benefits of cars without the bad things. I wonder what our descendents will think about such rationalizations?

And that is at the heart of how to view history—time changes what humans are willing to accept and how we see our world.

Last year I took part in an Authors and Ideas Panel at the World Fantasy Convention. One of the participants—author S.M. Stirling—said something which really resonated with me. To quote:

"If a writer is arguing for a point of view or a belief in their work, that's not what they really strongly believe. The things you believe most strongly, the things you never even think to argue about—your default assumptions about what the world is, what humans beings are, how they operate, that sort of thing—that suffuses what you write. These things vary both between individuals and over time. That's one of the reasons it is valuable to read stuff written a long time ago. You're looking through alien eyes. There is no one more alien than your great-great-great-grandparents. Reading stuff they wrote gives you a valuable corrective on assuming that you are the default condition for human beings. That your basic assumptions are the laws of the universe and will endure forever, or that everything changed up until it came to you and your glorious self and now it will be that way until the end of time."

I love that quote. And Stirling is absolutely correct. No one is more more alien than your great-great-great-grandparents.

But that also brings to mind how our great-great-great-grandchildren will see us. To them we will also be totally alien and they will likely condemn us for the moral choices we made—choices which to us seem totally acceptable but to our descendents will be nothing but evil.

This isn't to say slavery was anything but morally wrong. I hope that if I'd lived back then I'd have taken a stand against this evil institution. But as Ta-Nehisi Coates points out, we don't have that luxury.

Instead, Coates says that to understand how you would have lived in the past "You almost have to forget who you are and start thinking about what you might have been. But if you're going to go there, you have to go there. If this feels safe, comfortable, or affirming, you've done something wrong."