Why Rocky Inspires

NPR has a story up titled, "The Rocky Balboa Metal Montage Workout," noting how inspirational the film's theme song is for those who want to hit the gym. The piece isn't intended to be terribly deep, but one might question why the Rocky theme song and filmatic series is so inspirational, and for what demographic?



The entire Rocky series was about making working-class white men minorities who could overcome all obstacles (i.e., black men with more resources) with hard work and a supportive wife. Thus, no matter how talented were the black fighters, no matter how many steroids Russian fighters took, Rocky could take 'em out.

From a macro point of view, governmental programs (e.g., affirmative action) are not needed, and the white race is ultimately superior due to their better work ethic; governmental policies that make up for past discrimination are unnecessary -- if Rocky can rise from poverty strictly through hard work, so can those lazy minorities (sarcasm). And then there's more pointed aspects of race and masculinity.

While Eddie Murphy's standup comedy had its own forms of discrimination, for instance homophobia, his analysis of Rocky with regard to white men's insecure feelings is right on. Though minorities gained power since the Civil Rights Movement, Rocky, reinvigorates their sense of power and entitlement (warning: strong language):

Human Trafficking by Taiwanese Fishing Companies

Another example demonstrating how slavery operates in the 21st century:

• Tricked by fake agents in their home country who are paid upfront by workers
• Promised a larger salary by fake agents
• Forced through intimidation to work unreasonable hours
• Once labor used up, fake agents are out'a there

From IRIN:

Ko Hla* paid an agent US$800 and then started work on a Taiwanese fishing ship, thinking it was good money at $260 a month. He toiled 18 hours a day.

“We weren’t allowed to complain, we weren’t allowed to contact our [families]. Often we were beaten and intimidated,” the 30-year-old said. “It wasn’t what we expected.”

He quit 16 months later and returned home to find that the agent, who was supposed to send his salary to his family, had run away without making a single payment.

Due to limited job opportunities and low incomes, tens of thousands of Burmese seek work abroad, hoping to earn a better living, but many like Ko Hla and his friends fall prey to human traffickers.

And of course slavery follows gendered patterns:

According to the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), Burmese women, children, and men are trafficked to Thailand, China, Malaysia, South Korea, and Macau for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced labour.

Myanmar is also a transit country for trafficked Bangladeshis to Malaysia and Chinese to Thailand.

The Burmese government says China is the main destination, followed by Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Women and girls are trafficked to China for forced marriage and sex work, while adults and children are sent to Thailand and Malaysia for forced labour and sexual exploitation.

“The victims of trafficking blindly believe whatever they’re told by the brokers without trying to get correct information regarding the job,” Nan Tin Tin Shwe, anti-trafficking coordinator of the international NGO World Vision, told IRIN.

This is the typical system that emanates from unregulated capitalism and greedy capitalists. Examples abound...

"This is Alabama. We speak English."

Anti-immigration sentiment continues to sweep across sectors of the United States. In this ad gone viral, Tim James, who hopes to be Alabama's next Governor, proposes public policy denouncing aspects of inclusive multiculturalism -- English-only drivers license exams. James appears to be riding the political wave that crashed on Arizona last month.



Of course such policies are justified by arguing that coerced institutionalized assimilation helps non-English speakers blend into American workplaces and other social settings. If this policy were implemented, however, finding work and/or getting to work would be all the more difficult for English Language Learners who needed to drive in order to pursue their occupational goals.

Also of significance, James ties English Language Learners (i.e., immigrants) to increased state costs. No surprise here -- scapegoat "alien" people of color by connecting them to the recession.

Using restrictive means to push for assimilation does nothing to help coalesce society. Knowing most immigrats want to learn English, provide for effective bilingual education.

Globalization, Corrupt Government, and Ubiquitous Violence: Papua New Guinea

Nothing terribly new here. However, if one is looking for an example of how governmental institutions and international big business contribute to civilian exploitation and increase the likelihood of violence across societal domains, take a look at Papua New Guinea.

Extensive ethnic conflict tore apart PNG throughout the 1990s due to mining companies' oppressive work conditions. Now, IRIN News reports how the law has been re-structured, such that indigenous persons cannot assert their land rights when the government colludes with private "developers.":

Papua New Guinea’s indigenous people have lost their right to challenge developers and the state over deals involving their land and resources.

[...]

The changes remove the rights that Papua New Guineans have had for years to protect their property from environmental harm and the right to sue for compensation for environmental damage and the customary rights to claim compensation for environmental harm.

Disputes concerning land and resource rights between indigenous groups, the government and corporate entities are not uncommon in PNG. While figures vary significantly, more than 5,000 people lost their lives on the island of Bougainville off the east coast of PNG between 1989 and 1999 following a bitter fight over compensation between Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), an Australian-owned mining company, and the hundreds of indigenous landowners it displaced in Panguna.

The conflict escalated into a bloody civil war between members of the indigenous population and government troops.

The PNG state is further bolstered and protected by a violent police force, that according to the United Nations, utilizes torture to control prisoners:

The expert said the standards of hygiene at Mount Hagen Police Station were “beyond description,” and detainees were forced to urinate and defecate in bottles and plastic bags, which were then picked up by female detainees and piled up in the small common space.

Mr. Nowak was also concerned that “prisoners who escape are subjected to severe punishment, amounting to torture, including through brutal beatings with bush knives and gun butts, shooting detainees at close range and cutting their tendons with axes and bush knives after they are apprehended, with the intent of disabling them.

“The victims are usually kept in punishment cells, without any medical treatment, which sometimes even led to their death,” he added.

Considering that the state utilizes violence to extract the country's natural resources and control resistent members of the population, it is hardly surprising that family violence and violence against women is high in PNG.

The concept of "structural violence" suggests that those who are oppressed tend to utilize the same forms of oppression committed against them, upon others. This is because in experiencing their own oppression, they learn how to best acquire power from their oppressors, in this case through highly violent means. However, since they do not have the means to revolt against their oppressors, they use their oppressors' tactics on those less powerful, in this case women and children:



Of course since PNG is a small country in the Pacific, these cases of ubiquitous violence that stem from macro structural exploitation, generally stay off the international media radar.

Expulsion as an Option of Dominant-Minority Relations: Israel and the Occupied Territories

"Expulsion" is defined as "an effort to drive out a group that is seen as a social problem rather than attempting to resolve the problem cooperatively. This policy often arises after other methods, such as assimilation or extermination, have failed" (Parrillo, 2008, p. 137).

A good example of expulsion, in combination with extermination, occurring right now is the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territory of the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces. In the aftermath of the 2009 Gazan War (in which the death tolls were substantially higher among Palestinians), Isreal's sanctions have become even more ugly. A fairly balanced, rationale perspective from The Independent, "Leading Article: A costly misjudgement by Israel":

Confused though the picture might be, however, what has so far emerged conforms to a pattern that has become all too familiar. Confronted with a situation it saw as threatening, Israel applied massive armed force – force that would appear, at least, to have been out of all proportion to the circumstances. Acting apparently without warning, Israeli forces closed in when the boats were still in international waters, 40 miles from the coast. At that point there was no immediate threat, as most people would see it, either to Israel's blockade, or to its national security – and these are not necessarily the same thing.

Yes, it can be argued that the aid flotilla was conceived by the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) as a deliberate provocation. The presence of elderly people and at least one baby on the boats does not detract from that. And yes, it can be argued that the plan to breach Israel's sea blockade of Gaza was foolhardy. Israel insists that its blockade is designed to thwart arms shipments destined for Hamas. It was never going to stand idly by as the ships came within reach of the coast, however peaceful FGM's leaders might have professed their intentions to be.

The catastrophe and the shame is that this is not the first time such an unequal confrontation has taken place. Time and again, Israel has found itself applying military force and swiftly prevailing, only to lose whatever moral high ground it had at the outset. No one – at least no one in an internationally recognised government with the possible exception of Iran – disputes Israel's right to defend itself if its security is threatened. But since Hamas seized control of Gaza three years ago, Israel has repeatedly shown itself at its worst. It is not only the vast imbalance between Israel's professional military might and the armed fighters of Hamas. Nor is it only the suffering caused to Gaza's residents and the apparent irrationality of many aspects of the blockade – including the ban on building materials needed to repair the war damage.

Above all, it is Israel's abject failure to devise ways of defending itself other than by overwhelming military force. Faced with mass demonstrations or aid shipments that are cast by their organisers as peaceful, Israel still has no answer beyond a call to arms. It cannot, therefore, be surprised when most of the rest of the world then judges the means to be excessive and disproportionate to the ends.

As clearly stated, it is Isreal's dominant power (i.e., "gunboat diplomacy") in the form of militarisitic might that is a central variable in this violent mix. Irrespective of who fired the first shots in this latest tragedy, the ongoing imbalance in death tolls (even on ships hoping to provide humanitarian aid) demonstrates how discimination can mainfest in its most extreme forms (explusion and extermination) when power disparities widen.

As the global community continues to watch, or simply condemn Israel, the social dynamics that enable these tragedies will persist.

Gendered Consumerism and Romance: Sex And The City

A great synopisis of how Sex And The City reaffirms traditional notions of gender. True, there's women's sexual liberation and role reversal with regard to male objectification, but is expanded objectification how society should "even out" gender inequality? Or should we just work to stop objectifying?



I'd have to agree, Sex And The City, much like the film Just Wright, really revolves around women finding the right guy, despite their intellect and occupational prowess. And the tie between women and shopping, well, the connection is not made much tighter than in this series.

I like the term, "open cultural product" (a product that can be interpreted and enjoyed in multiple ways). However, I think given Sex And The City's character demographics (white, upper-class), their central romantic goals, and propensity for fashion, I don't know how "open" the series truly is.

More on the Ban on Ethnic Studies in Arizona

Let's hope Arizona's backlash to minority rights is not leading the way for the rest of the United States. The latest is a ban on ethnic studies, alleged to be divisive for society.

Let's face it, if classes are relegated to 1 or 2 courses on "American history" and/or "European history" throughout high school as mandated by the government, absolutely key issues of systemic discrimination are going to be excluded, which were central to the building of America. There is no denying, America would not have been built in the way it was without, among other travesties, slavery or the extermination of Native American tribes.

Also excluded will be the key concepts that revolve around these ugly, but central, aspects of American history and contemporary society. Without understanding, or even knowing, these key concepts (e.g., discrimination, cultural diffusion, assimilation, race, power, stratification, amalgamation) and how they still operate in society, students will be deprived of learning the critical thinking skills that we all need when we go out to work in the "real world."

NPR's Talk of the Nation did a decent job in illustrating both sides of this issue in this 30-minute podcast: "Ariz. Ban On Ethnic Studies Divides Educators."

A few things, however, are being lost in this discussion, or only marginally addressed. First is the fear factor, and how this ban on ethnic studies coincides with xenophobic immigration policy. Most demographers state that by 2050 Caucasians will no longer comprise a numerical majority in the United States. Thus, while we can expect some states/regions of the country to oppose backlashes to minority power (for instance, Los Angeles' proposal to boycott Arizona), we can ultimately expect increases in proposed policies against immigration, ethnic studies, and affirmative action.

Moreover, we can expect that these proposed policies will be tied to the ongoing demonization of people of color through other "red flag" issues, namely crime and deviance. That is exactly how proponents of Arizona's immigration law framed their argument -- among the brown people who might resemble immigrants visually, we need to know who is a U.S. citizen and who is not, because if they are not, they just might be a violent drug cartel member.

I found this great example, "Arizona's immigration law creates a police state for immigrants in order to solve a drug-war problem," where Phoenix city councilman Sal DiCiccio is quoted,

You know, if you look at what's happening in the state of Arizona -- I really want to talk about this, this is more a plea to the national audience -- they need to take a look at what's happening in our state. In the city of Phoenix alone, the area that I control along with the other members of the council and the mayor, but we have a responsibility to protect our citizenry. We had over 350 kidnappings in the city of Phoenix alone, primarily due to the illegal immigrant trade (video available HERE).

Fear induced code words?: "Watch out, that Mexican looking guy might kidnap you or your child, so let's check all Mexican looking people for their papers."

Also being lost in the discussion (unsurprisingly) are the global connections that make our immediate locales all the more multicultural. Whether it be through major trade policies (NAFTA) that cause immigration (legal and illegal) or information technology advances, our world will continue to become increasingly connected. Thus if anything, a need for ethnic studies classes will be even more necessary.

We should not be questioning whether or not ethnic studies classes should be offered (i.e., either have 'em or cut 'em entirely). More appropriate questions might be, how should ethnic studies courses be offered, and how can education as a whole be valued in such a way that a multiplicity of voices and perspectives are adequately included in the curriculum.

Er, uh, wait, that's right. I forgot, we don't value public education in the United States. It increases taxes.