Category: Blogging

Day 8: Provocation and Patience

Watch this video. This is what an occupying army during a war looks like:

This is a civil police force. I use civil in the sense of “not military”, as their behavior is anything but civil.

Instead of keeping the peace, they are actively provoking an angry response. It is as if their attitude is “ok, we got this cool paramilitary gear – let’s use it!”. This aggressive provocation is also not confined to a few bad groups; instead, we have seen over the past few days that this is representative of police around the country.

They don’t show the entire crowd, but from the bits you could see, they easily outnumber the police 10 to 1. Riot gear or no riot gear, if the crowd was ever angered enough to attack back, they would quickly overwhelm the much smaller police force. That hasn’t happened yet, but it doesn’t take a wild imagination to envision it happening soon.

And while a part of me really wants to see these bastards get what’s coming to them, in the long haul an event like that would be just what the Trump regime needs to declare martial law, suspend civil rights, and get rid of everyone in their way. Trump knows that if he loses the election he will be quickly indicted, and will no longer have presidential privilege to hide behind. I don’t doubt for a second that he would tear up the Constitution and embrace the strongman role if it means never having to give up power.

We just need to hang on for a few months longer, vote out Trump and the entire Republican party, and then we can begin restoring the country. There is a lot that is broken; electing the people who will do that work is the first step.

Day 7: Equipment

I’m deliberately taking a step back from my more political posts of the last few days in order to mentally process the events of the past weekend to get some perspective. Don’t worry, though, I’m sure I’ll be back to political commentary soon!

When people learn I’m a photographer, one of the first questions is invariably “So what kind of camera do you use?”. This is a perfectly understandable question, and also a completely irrelevant one.

When I first started out in photography, I had a friend who was a staff photographer for the city newspaper. He used a Canon F-1, a black-bodied professional camera. I noticed, though, that he used black electrical tape to cover the words ‘Canon’ and ‘F-1’ that were prominently written in white letters. I asked him about the tape, and he said that he got so sick of people seeing it and saying things like “Canon? Why don’t you use Nikon instead?” that he covered up the identifying marks.

A camera is a tool, nothing more. If you want to improve your photographs, buying an expensive new camera, or switching from Brand A to Brand B is not going to help.

I used to golf a lot, not that I was very good at it – I enjoyed being outside with a task to focus on, the company of other men, and, in retrospect, I enjoyed time away from my (now ex-) wife. Golf equipment companies are notorious for marketing expensive new clubs with the promise to hit the ball farther and straighter. But for everyone but the top professionals, it isn’t the club that’s holding you back; it’s your skill. You would be infinitely better off spending that money on lessons with a golf pro than on new clubs. Yet every year golfers spend their money on things that won’t help them improve.

This holds true in so many areas. New tools won’t make your woodworking better, and buying a vintage Stratocaster won’t help you play guitar better. So what will?

In almost all cases, the two things that will help is a good teacher, and lots of practice. The teacher can get you on the right path, and correct you when you stray off of it. You still have to put in the time, though, if you ever want to improve.

So when should you upgrade? When you’ve mastered that equipment, and its limitations are becoming an obvious hindrance to you. Or when different equipment offers functionality that your current equipment doesn’t (and you truly need those functions).

For photography, where you get the most bang for your buck is from better lenses, not camera bodies. Last year I dropped my camera and broke the mount for the zoom lens that was my main workhorse. When I looked for a replacement, I saw that there was a professional version of the lens that had better optics, a wider aperture, and tougher construction. I really considered it, but couldn’t justify spending an extra $1300 on it. So I ended up getting the same model as the one I broke, because as nice as the pro model lens was, I couldn’t see it improving my images enough to justify the cost. Maybe someday when money isn’t a concern…

The best camera in the world is the one you have with you.

Chase Jarvis

The quote above is from a book about iPhone photography. I found out about this book after I had made a similar statement about my realization that I could create some wonderful images with my iPhone, and one of the people I was speaking with mentioned the book. I don’t own the book, but I certainly agree with the sentiment. You can have all the fancy equipment in the world, but if it’s home in your closet when an opportunity presents itself, it doesn’t do you much good.

Which brings me to the answer to my choice of camera: the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II. I was in the market for a DSLR, and looked around at the different options. I read about a new style of mirrorless camera called the Micro 4/3 system, which was significantly smaller and lighter than the full-sized DSLRs. Since my primary mode of work is walking around looking for images, smaller and lighter were big selling points. I read the reviews, and chose Olympus because of its stabilization system, and the M5 as it was the middle choice that balanced features and price. I’ve been very happy with it, and the images I create with it.

Day 6: Revolution

I started this daily blogging last week as an exercise to help me get back in the writing groove during the “shelter at home” while unemployed reality of the pandemic. I had thought about writing about my photography, or my new sourdough breadmaking skills, along with an occasional political rant. Little did I realize just what was going to happen in the coming days.

You don’t have to look very far to see the coverage of the widespread protests around the country. In many ways it feels like a perfect storm of events, in a way that is summed up astutely by Trevor Noah.

I have read a lot of this coverage, but one particular thread on Twitter really summarized it best. Here is the first post of that thread; I encourage you to click on the tweet below to see the whole thread. Watch the videos, remembering that unless you are one of the protesters, the police in those videos represent you.

These people are protesting the brutality of their police forces. And how do those police respond? Watching these, it seems as though they think that even greater levels of brutality is the answer.

The thing that struck me reading and watching all this is numbers. The numbers of protesters vs. the numbers of police. Sure, the police have weapons, but all it would take is for the crowd mentality to be enraged enough for those people to fight back. I remember images of the Arab Spring almost a decade ago, when the citizens of those countries had had enough, and through sheer numbers overthrew several military-back dictators. If the protestors here in the US ever got similarly enraged, and decided to attack back, the police wouldn’t stand a chance. Sure, they would kill and wound many, but the sheer numbers of protestors would quickly overwhelm the police, and much blood would be spilled.

Much has been written about how we have no leader in the White House, but I see it differently. We do have a leader, but he is not leading us. He is leading the white supremacists, inciting them to assert themselves. We saw that when he encouraged the armed protests against the lockdown measures for COVID-19; we saw it back in Charlottesville with his “very fine people” comments. We see it in his embrace of strongman leaders around the world, and his disdain for the free press. They hear his words and are provoked to act.

Unfortunately, many of the police are also white supremacists, and are also hearing his words. They hear him say “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”, and take it as their marching orders to attack the protestors with ever-increasing levels of violence.

I don’t know what the next few days and weeks will hold. I have little hope for national leadership stepping up to calm things down; rather, I fear that they will continue to stir the pot. My only hope is that leaders begin to emerge from the people, and that these leaders can direct this energy into a positive direction. I saw one great example of this:

I hope that many others like Killer Mike come forward. And as I mentioned earlier, the police represent you. They do all of this in your name. Turning away from this with an “oh, I’m not political” is your cowardly way of saying that “I’m fine with all of this”.

Day 5: Protests and Anger

As the protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd spread across the country, I am inspired by the energy. I came of age during the protests against the Vietnam War, and have always associated those actions with a positive correction – analogous to running a fever to fight an infection. Racism, corruption, hatred… these are all diseases that, when unchecked, require a strong immune system response.

Anger is an energy.

Rise, Public Image, Ltd.

Not every part of these protests is perfect, of course. When anger is your fuel, it can express itself in destructive ways, especially in groups of people.

In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Many will continue to refuse to hear. They will focus on the negative: the looting, the destruction, etc., and completely ignore that which pushed people to react with such intensity. They will clutch at straws that somehow explain why it was necessary to kneel with your full weight for 9 minutes on the neck of a man who was handcuffed and face-down on the ground.

Kick over the wall, cause governments to fall

How can you refuse it?

Let fury have the hour. Anger can be power!

Do you know that you can use it?

Clampdown, The Clash

Growing up, I watched the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and by the 70s I thought that that was settled. But those forces of hatred weren’t eliminated; instead, they were pushed to the background. In my naiveté, I never imagined that ignorance like that could persist. I mean, wasn’t it clear that segregation was completely wrong? Wasn’t it clear that people were people, no matter their skin color?

They never did go away, though. They went underground, and spoke in “dog whistle” code to avoid being ostracized, since overt racism was not tolerated by the public. The election of Obama to the Presidency was the moment that galvanized these hateful people, and the Republican Party was all too willing to tap into it. I have written how the ascension of Donald Trump led to these people feeling free to once again be publicly hateful; my hope is that these protests start the pendulum swinging the other way, where racism, hatred, and bigotry are no longer tolerated.

Day 4: Racial Blindness

I’ve always hated the expression used by well-meaning white people: “I don’t see color”. They think that it means that they are open-minded, and treat everyone the same no matter their skin color. It’s a wonderful sentiment, isn’t it?

It’s also one that is only possible if your skin color doesn’t disadvantage you. For everyone else, they have to deal with the reality of being visibly different than those in power, and being treated differently (ok, worse) as a result.

Back in the late ’80s I had a friend who was black. He was in his early 30s, like me, had a young child, like me, and lived in a house he owned in northern NJ, like me. He was also very light-skinned, and dressed, well, like me. His appearance was the furthest thing from the “gangsta” style. We worked together, played tennis together, and got to know each other very well.

At work we were both on the evening shift. Since we lived near each other, we took the same route for the most part, and one particular evening I saw his car pulled over by a cop. The next day when I saw him, I started to give him shit about getting a speeding ticket, and he told me that he wasn’t speeding and didn’t get a ticket. I asked him why he got pulled over, and he told me that the cop wanted to know what he was doing driving through that part of town.

The look of confusion on my face must have been apparent, and he started to explain the problem of what we now call “driving while black”. This was the first that I had heard of such a thing, and told him that there had to be more to it than that. In those days I still hadn’t learned to listen when someone tells you of an experience that you can’t possibly fathom because you aren’t in that group that experiences discrimination. Fortunately, he was patient with me, explaining that this happens often enough that he knew how to respond in as non-threatening a manner as possible so as not to provoke the police, and that they always let him go.

Over the next few weeks we talked a lot about what it was like for him. Me, in my ignorance, assumed that since he was the least-threatening-looking person around, no one would harass him, but he had story after story about just that. One day we were hanging out at his house, and his wife asked him to run to a local department store to pick up something. When we got there, he told me to not stay with him, but stay close enough to watch the store security follow him. Once again, I thought he was exaggerating things, but I played along. He went to one side of department, and I went to a nearby aisle. I saw several people who I assumed were security, and they did seem to be looking at him and ignoring me. He then walked to the opposite side of the area, and sure enough, two of the security people moved with him to keep him in their sight. I walked around several areas, including crossing directly in front of them, and never got a second glance from them. But as my friend moved around, they followed.

From that day on, I always try to see color. Pretending that it doesn’t permeate our experience is only possible when you’re white and ignorant. The luxury to ignore race is what people mean when they speak of “privilege”.

Maybe some of you are feeling a bit defensive, thinking “I’m not racist!”, and I’m sure you aren’t, at least consciously. I wrote about unconscious bias before, and it is really important to be aware that it exists, no matter how kind and loving you try to be.

Don’t be blind to our differences! Instead, recognize them, celebrate them, and embrace them! And if you, like me, are lucky enough to have been born into privilege, don’t feel bad – it’s only a bad thing if you don’t use it to help those who weren’t as fortunate. We can’t overcome the racists of the world by turning a blind eye to these problems.