Art – Page 43 – Robert Bettmann

Pride: By Any Means Necessary?

There has been a viral video going around of a comic talking about how “Everthing is So Great but Nobodys Happy.” In the video, comedian Louis CK shares some appealing common wisdom.

Looking through his channel on You tube, I came across the following video in which he backhandedly addresses racism, arguing that being White is way better. Here is the video:

Regardless of his intent, it’s impossible for me not to associate his comedy with “White Pride.”

I’m a Jew, which makes me white to everyone but White people. I don’t associate White Pride with my heritage, but with the people who spray painted swastikas on synagogues in my home-town. A quick search of the phrase White Pride” online got me to the White Pride Archives: News for People Who Love Their Heritage. Without even looking at the site, I have a strong sense that what’s inside is racist. I associate the term White Pride with bigotry.

I have a very different association with the term Gay Pride. I associate Gay Pride with very positive assertions of equality.

We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!

Perhaps the positivity of pride – be it Black Pride, White Pride, Male Pride, Women Pride, Jewish Pride or Gay Pride – is directly related to the weakness of its possessor? If a group with a lot of power has a lot of “Pride”, its bad, but if a group with little power has “Pride” its good?

Amanda Hess, writing in last week’s City Paper, reported on a criminal attack in which two transgender men were beaten by a group of Lesbian women. The attack was apparently motivated by a sense of betrayal; one of the transitioning men was a former Lesbian who was now too good for that identity. It is impossible to defend the attack, but given the difficulties of Lesbian life it’s pretty simple to see how Gay Pride morphed into these criminal actions.

I’ve been thinking about slippery moral slopes recently, because I’m creating some Dance on the subject. Where are the crossing points for certain ideas – like pride. I listened to the rap song “Break the Grip of Shame” by Paris yesterday. Embedded in the song is a speech by Malcolm X which proudly declaims:

“We declare our race on this earth to be a being. To be a human being. To be respected as a human being. To be given the rights of a human being. Indivisible and binding. And we intend to bring it into existence by Any Means Necessary.”

Pride is a moral stance; an assertion of worth. The communal sense of self that Pride provides perhaps only remains positive when not divorced from other aspects of a moral life.

From Hank David

I have been thinking tonight about Thoreau…. his statement that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Even when unhappy, there can be a control from positive isolation. And everyone likes control, especially if they are unhappy.

When I worked at Union Station I befriended a few homeless dudes, and would occasionally get them food. They weren’t grateful for just anything. They wanted what they wanted. Very specifically. If you’re doing a nice thing, you want it to be nicely received, but what I took from that experience was this: somehow not having control makes people try and assert a control that may be inappropriate. I’ve noticed this occurring among those in poverty of all sorts.

Desperation and distance makes people distance themselves even more to be in control. They judge to be right. To make their decisions, their work, their unhappiness, right.

The full Thoreau (paraphrase, apparently):

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Big ups, Hank Dave. Big ups.

Activism: Going once, Going twice….

The Wall Street Journal reported on March 3rd that art historian Cai Mingchaio had backed out of his winning bid at a major Christies’ auction. Mr. Cai bid anonymously for two statues – one of a rat, and another of a rabbit. The incomplete sale starts another chapter in an ongoing dispute over ownership of the bronzes. The Chinese government challenged the sale prior to the auction, claiming that the statues had been looted from Beijing’s Imperial Summer Palace when French and British forces attacked in the mid-1800s.

Kelly Crowe in the Journal wrote,

“No one has ever backed out of a winning bid to make a political statement before, art experts say. The surprise move tarnishes the biggest estate sale in auction history, the $476 million auction of the collection of the late designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berger in Paris last week…. Mr. Cai stated at a recent news conference in China: ‘I have done my part. I am not going to pay.'”

Mr Cai’s actions are the second high profile case of civil disobedience by auction in the last three months. The first occurred December 19th, 2008 when University of Utah Economics student Tim DeChristopher faked his way into an auction for gas and oil drilling rights and bought rights to prevent exploitation of undeveloped public lands.

As reported in the Huffington Post, Mr. DeChristopher’s plan was to disrupt the auction, and he feels he accomplished his goal.

“I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself,” the Salt Lake City man said. DeChristopher won the bidding on 13 parcels, auction records show, and drove up the price of several other pieces of land. DeChristopher snapped up 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks but said he could afford to pay for only a few of those acres. The sale of the leases has drawn complaints from environmental groups and scathing criticism from actor Robert Redford. Activists said the sale would threaten Utah’s wild lands and spoil the view from some of the state’s spectacular national parks with drilling rigs.

In both cases these individual actions were part of ongoing conflicts. While Mr. Cai does not expect prosecution, he will be impacted by his actions, possibly being barred from future sales. Mr. Cai owns an auction house in China, and cleared his credentials for this sale based on prior purchases completed.

Mr. DeChristopher did expect prosecution, but his case was thrown out. The Utah Daily Herald covered the Utah man’s victory lap speeches at several environmental gatherings, reporting,

Feeling no need to win friends or defend against his detractors, DeChristopher allowed no middle ground in his speeches on Thursday, saying not only is civil disobedience ethical, but necessary to make seismic social shifts needed to protect the environment.

“We need to start pushing a lot harder and taking a less compromising stand in defending our future,” he said. “The movement needs to take a stronger stand, to push the boundaries. … I did have the power to change. People were locked out of the process of how are we going to use our own public lands, the lands we all own.”

Utah has a strong history of civil disobedience, and was a home to one of its most famous perpetrators. In Edward Abbey’s “Monkeywrench Gang”, thinly-veiled versions of the author and three friends pedaled around the southwest pouring karo syrup (sugar) into the gas tanks of logging vehicles, and cutting down billboards with chainsaws. Whatever we might think of their ethics, or their respective causes, Cai and DeChristopher’s financial sabotage – activism by economic trickery – exposes a new front in the centuries old war of peaceful civil disobedience.