Filed Under: Shoulda Seen That Coming

After giving the dog a bath today (hashtag awwmaaaaannnn), Kieran announces that “I need a towel to give my bike a wash.”

“Sure!” I say, picturing this:

I give him a towel, figuring he’ll give his bike an imaginary wash, and that’ll be the adorable end of it. Instead, a minute later, I hear

I can’t even be mad about it, really. He told me what he was planning…

Don't You Just Hate Nazis? Otherism and "The Interview"

I've seen a lot of talk recently about how horrible it is that Sony Pictures has canceled the release of "The Interview" in the wake of terrorist threats of violence against movie theaters that show it.  What I haven't seen much of is talk of how this was a horrible movie to make in the first place. Let me be clear: I don't support terrorism.  I think I can stand on a professional record of not liking it a whole bunch.

I also like freedom of speech.  Yay, I'm writing stuff!  Down with North Korean douchebags!

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about how this is a movie about the assassination of a foreign head of state at the hands of the U.S. Government.  If this head of state had been, say Angela Merkel, probably there wouldn't have been terrorist threats and criminal hacking to prevent the movie from coming out.  Because Germany isn't that kind of place, and yay for them.  But also because who cares - nobody would have seen that movie in the first place.  Nobody would have wanted to.

And this, from the country that gave us the Holocaust!

It's offensive, crass, tasteless... you name it, that's the premise here.  If Bollywood came out with a snazzy dance number about knocking off Obama, you can bet we'd be up in arms.  Hell, we'd probably be up in arms if they did it about assassinating former President Bush, because, well, that ain't cool, man.

Let's also add that this is even more illegal than torturing people, because no administration has attempted to redact the section of Reagan's Executive Order 12333 that prohibits the CIA from engaging in assassination.  Torture is shitty and we should all know better, but when the President telling you that it's okay, it's easier to see how it happens.  That hasn't happened with assassination.

One could carry a strong argument that the meaning of the word "assassination" may have been abused in order to allow for drone strikes, but "for political purposes" is pretty central to what Reagan was trying to do with EO 12333, and I can't think of a world in which the killing of a recognized head of state by another government isn't an "assassination".  You can argue about whether waterboarding is "torture", but not whether it is "stress-inducing".

So "The Interview" is offensive and perpetuates myths that make America look even worse, internationally.  I imagine it's funny - I definitely laughed at "Team America" - but is funny enough to justify it?  There's a difference between an offensive portrayal of Kim Jong Il in "Team America" and the depicted assassination of Kim Jong Un in "The Interview": one's an ass-ination, the other's an assass-ination.  Extra "ass" there, you see?

In other words, it's one thing to make a foreign head of state out to be an idiot.  It's another to depict his murder as a good thing.

I'm not arguing that the movie doesn't have a right to exist.  I may be arguing that it should never have been made, but not because it's something that should never be said or depicted.

What I am saying is that it's pretty fucked-up that we think that this is okay, and moreso that we think that this is entertaining.  What does it say about us as a society when we are so totally comfortable with the first-degree murder of the figurehead of a - [cough]coincidentally[cough] - yellow-skinned nation that we find it humorous, but we balk at the nation's espionage agencies so much as tapping the phone of the head of a primarily white one?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that North Korea is not a nice place to live, and that Kim Jong Un is a huge part of that.  I'm pretty sure that the people there could be doing a lot better than they are, but they happened to be born to be ground under the bootheel of a dictator and their lot in life is the suck.  Guess what?  There are a ton of places like that in this world.  It's not okay.

But neither is it all right for us to make fun of them.  Because that is what we are doing, when we say that it's all right to giggle over their Dear Leader getting blown to bits.  We aren't doing it in solidarity with them, because we think that, yeah, he really is a bad guy who needs to die to make the world a better place.  We're doing it because it's a joke.  It's hilarious.  We are telling them that the man who is so singularly responsible for their continued misery warrants nothing more from the United States than a Hollywood punchline.

How do we, generally moral and upstanding people, fall prey to this racist bullshit?  How can we not sympathize with what it would be like to be in North Korea, despising our own leaders, and to know that this movie was coming out?  It's because we've been told, over and over, that North Koreans are Other.  And we believe it.

They live in a "closed-off society".  They're part of the "axis of evil".  They talk about their "Dear Leader" - aren't they funny!  They're different from us!

We do this because we're human.  We want there to be outsiders that we can disregard.  We want to know who's ours and who's not.  We want to know who we can laugh at, or who we can enslave, or who we can eradicate, without having to worry about it.

Consider "Inglorious Basterds".  It's a movie about Jewish terrorism, torture, mutilation, and the political assassination of a head of state at the behest of the U.S. Government.

Buuuut... they're Nazis.  Nazis are the ultimate Other.  You can do whatever you want to a Nazi and nobody feels bad about it.  Carve up his face?  No problem.  Scalp him?  Ehh... go for it.

Now, Nazis do bad things.  Really, really, really bad things.  "Holocaust" is not a nice word and never was.  We want to hate them.  We want to turn our brains off and not think about them as people, because my god, how could people do that to other people?

By not thinking about them as people, that's how.

So don't succumb to otherism.  Don't be an otherist.  Don't side with morally corrupt moviemakers, even if they may appear to be the little guy being scared shitless by North Korean bad guys.  They aren't the good guys, here.  Nobody in this whole mess is worth your time, unless you happen to be an FBI cybercrime investigator.

Speaking of being scared, don't be terrorized.  Spend sixty seconds thinking about what you'd have to do if you were a North Korean commando who wanted to commit an act of terrorism in the United States.  First, you'd have to get here.  Great, I'll just book a flight!  Except I'm a North Korean who wants to come to the U.S., so no way am I getting a visa without an anal probe of an interview.  Or you could get a fake passport that would get you through security... but you've gotta do that for every member of your team, because if anybody gets caught, the jig is up.  Then you have to get here, and get weapons, and pick a target...

Nope.  Not gonna happen.  North Korea can't do it.  Hell, the United States would have trouble doing it on our own soil in the month timeframe that the North Koreans have had since they knew the hack against Sony was successful.  There's just no chance.  It's an empty threat.  There are reasons why we don't see a lot of terrorism on American soil: it's really, really hard to do.

So go see a movie.  I hear "Big Hero 6" is good.

A Flood of Fear: Ferguson to Richmond

It’s not a good day to be a police officer in America.

Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Eric Garner. Now Rumain Brisbon, and I’m almost certainly missing more names than I’d care to think about.

Too much death. Too much horror, tragedy, blood. You can’t help but get some on you, just by wearing the uniform. You didn’t kill anybody, but when you put it on, you’re not Bill or Jane or Tariq or Wei Lun: you’re a cop. And cops killed those people.

Most police officers are good people. They’re kind of dick-ish people, because the job attracts that sort and they’ve seen some real shit, man, and you’ve got to be emotionally tough and forceful to do the work. But they’re good. They want to help. They try their best to do a tough job. They believe in justice.

Many of them probably look at Darren Wilson and slowly shake their heads. Some of what’s rattling around in there is disbelief and condemnation. How could he have let this happen?

But some of it is sympathy, and rejection of what could all too easily be their own fate.

“Not me,” they pray. “Please, don’t let it ever be me.”

Police officers aren’t some different category of being from you or me. Tomorrow morning, one of us - if physically able - could go down to the police academy, apply, and join their ranks. We’d have the vest. We’d have the badge. We’d have the gun.

And we’d have the duty: to uphold the law, as best we could with the tools we’d been given.

I think about what tools I would want, if it were me. I’d walk out my door in the morning, wearing a target. My neighbors are pretty nice, so I don’t think they’d be gunning for me, but you never know when somebody’s having a bad day and all they see is the uniform. I’d definitely want the vest.

And then…? I’d spend the rest of my day confronting people, because when you’re wearing the badge, every question is an accusation. I’d want to know how to soften that, to know how not to be fighting, all day, every day, every time I opened my mouth. I’d want to be able to reassure people that I was there to help.

I'd want to know how to help them not be afraid.

I imagine the moment when words would not be enough. There are times when it's my job to take someone to jail, and there are no right words. My heart is racing; adrenaline is pumping. I’m ready for a fight, because it looks like that’s what’s coming. I don’t want to get hurt. I want to go home to my family tonight. I’ve got a wife, and three little kids. Doesn’t matter if the other person is six-four or four-six: if they’ve got a gun, I’m in mortal danger. And even if they didn't, because of the job, I brought a gun, so if we get into fisticuffs and they ring my bell, it's suddenly their gun.  Just by showing up in uniform, I've escalated this to a possible life-or-death struggle.

Right now, Death is very close, running chill fingers through my hair, whispering, beckoning…

So I would want to be able to tell him to shut the hell up and go away. I would want to be able to face that fear and do my job and go home. Because my job is not to kill this person. It is my job not to kill this person. I am a police officer, not an executioner.

But things are bad, now. I am scared. I don’t have the luxury of waiting to make a choice, and my decision right now may mean that my kids never see me again.

I imagine this, and I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, except never to be here. What tool helps me here? A taser? Pepper spray? Some option other than a bullet? You can’t ask me to die right now.

How do I trust that I will live through this, if I don’t shoot right this second?

That’s the tool I want. I want the answer to that question. I want to know how we can ask anyone to do this job, one that can be filled with existential terror at any moment, and expect them to make good choices. How to choose life, instead of death?

We are asking normal people, like you or me, to be in an impossible situation. To face death, but not to choose it. To know that there is an easy answer when they are truly afraid for their lives, but not to use it. To know that there is a way that promises their kids get to see them again, but to leave it in their holster.

That's what I'd need if I were a police officer: the knowledge of something better than fear, and the compassion to help others find the same. That's what we need more than body cameras: soothing voices. Patience. Kindness. Sympathy in the face of anger. And a system of support for police officers that helps mitigate their fear, that acknowledges their human weaknesses.

The good news is, it appears that we can give police officers the tools they need.

Witness the police department in Richmond, California, which hasn't killed anyone in their community of 100,000 people since 2007.  It feels weird to write that like it's a huge accomplishment, but apparently it is. The police chief, Chris Magnus, has prioritized community policing and extensive training for his officers, and it's made a difference.

Police in Richmond are in their communities.  They know the Michael Browns, the Tamir Rices.  They also know that if they kill anybody, the chief is going to take it seriously.  But more than fear of the chief and affection for their neighbors, they have the training - the constant, continued training - that teaches them how they can go into violence when they must and bring everyone out the other side.

I have been trying to write this story for a week now. Every time I sat down and read it again, I felt awful. Like a phony. Oh, the poor, terrified police officers with their guns and their vests and their legal system that tells them they do no wrong. Poor them! Their fear is a problem, yes, but it's not the problem. If I would have hit the publish button, all I would have been telling you would be the lies inside my own head. My own fears. My own hopelessness in the face of horror.

Because I got the story wrong, too. Just now, I took you with me, down the wrong path. I could have rewritten it all, but I wanted to let it stand.

It's not about taking away police officers' fear. It's about giving them something better to believe in. It's about investing them in life.

I should have known better. Stories are supposed to help us. They're supposed to teach us how to be better. They're supposed to help us find our happy endings. But they can trap you, not let you see your way out of them. They can blind you, just like they blinded Darren Wilson. But here's the point:

We can choose a new story. Always.

That's what Chris Magnus did in Richmond. He took the old story about a war on crime and he got rid of it. He told the story of the police officer who works for the people, not against them. He knew the fears that his people would face and he helped prepare them to face those fears, so that they could tell his story to their communities through word and deed. He didn't just fix the problem. He fixed the way that his officers and everyone in his city thought about the problem. He literally made history.

I'm not going to pretend like I've got anything to say about how. But I believe that the story can change. We can do more than just fix the problems in the justice system and the police force and in lower-income neighborhoods. We can change the narrative from problems to solutions, from conflict to community.

It will take courage. And maybe a few free hugs.