thoughts in my head: the problem with 'glee'

So I know this afternoon’s thought-provoking and conclusive post was meant to act as a finale to my (mostly) daily posting kick. But while I wrangled over the dilemma of whether to post tonight or not I realized- this is my blog, and if I have something to say I’m going to say it, regardless of my nice conclusions.

If you know anything by now, please know I have opinions that tend to not go unvoiced when the feeling is strong or provocative enough. And while I have yet to mention it here, there is (yet another) television show I have some big feelings about, and this particular show is perhaps a bit more mainstream than my beloved Doctor Who. The show is, of course, Glee.

I’ve been with Glee since the very first episode (unlike Who) which, considering I went to a quasi-Arts school and am a professed theatre geek makes total sense in the frame of their target demographic. Were Glee merely about high schoolers singing cute songs, I would watch it. But thankfully, Glee is so much more than another Mean Girls with some showtunes thrown in.

Glee is going where no other show has gone before; it actively promotes its interracial, multi-religious, various sexual orientation identified cast. Glee is the first show that I have seen that includes not only a struggling gay teen (Kurt) but also one who is totally confident in himself (Blaine, portrayed by the love of my life that is Darren Criss. (I swear I’m not fangirling, I swear!)). These two boys have kissed on screen, as have the two women Santana and Britney, all of whom are breaking conventional stereotypes surrounding the queer community. Santana is a total maneater and is super attractive, shattering all those norms people think lesbians fall into (you won’t catch her eating granola or wearing Birkenstocks). Furthermore, in the slew of other characters themes like identity with religion, race, and being a minority or outcast have been explored in some truly creative and fresh ways that always retain the real message that is the heart and soul of the show: embrace your inner freak, because that’s the best part of you.

I really love Glee for all of the aforementioned reasons, as you might infer from the glowing review.

But there are some aspects of the show that I am really not a fan of. And these facets of the program really need to be criticized and honed in upon, because to be frank, I expect a lot from a show that preaches its own capability to do a lot.

To begin with, the sheer amount of auto-tuning going on in every single song is (a) disheartening and (b) kind of insulting. These singers are all phenomenal and yet the Glee producers feel the need to touch up every note so that their voices are mere machines. Part of what makes music so beautiful- especially live music, which is what they are supposed to be singing- are the mistakes. An awkward vibrato or occasional missed note gives the performance a more human quality that makes it accessible and genuine. Besides, I took years of voice lessons and was in choir since the dawn of time so I could sing, not a machine! What’s the point of that anymore if you’re just going to clean it up and make it sound like a robot? And what’s offensive is the fact that these actors, many of whom have trained their voices their whole lives, are being belittled to what an auto-tune device can produce. Come on, Ryan Murphey, you’re better than this. Lea Michelle was on Broadway for heaven’s sake; her belty notes need not be augmented.

And I’m the first to admit how much I love electronica and hip-hop beats (we all know ALL CAPS is fond of lathering on the auto-tune). But never 100% of the time, and never as a replacement for powerhouse voices like Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes.* My qualms with Glee, though, do not solely rest with the fake singing.

In tonight’s episode, Emma, the neurotic Guidance Counselor with known OCD, finally caved in to the sleezy-cheesy Mr. Schuster (the Glee club’s teacher) and went to see a psychiatrist. Things I approve of: her character seeking professional help for a serious problem after admitting that she does, in fact, have some anxieties that need to be addressed. Things I do not approve of: the way in which her appointment went.

In the show, Emma confesses how afraid she is to admit her OCD problems and how much anxiety has dominated her life since she was young. After some discussion with the therapist that lasts approximately 2 minutes, the therapist tells her she needs to have talk therapy and to take prescription medication that will ultimately alter the chemicals in Emma’s brain.

What?!  Enter a problem faced in contemporary American culture and society: medicalizing serious mental health issues in a way that proclaims medication to be the cure to all mental illness. I do not dispute the benefits of prescription medication, they absolutely have their use and place. But to prescribe, after one hour-long session, medication that will alter one’s brain chemistry? And to liken mental illness to Diabetes? Fat chance we’re going to let this one slide, Glee.

Problem one: Diabetes is purely biological. Yes, it has to do with lifestyle and dietary choices, but ultimately diabetes means you don’t have enough insulin. To solve this problem requires a regiment on your eating habits and, if necessary, insulin supplements. This does not belittle the disease (in fact it seems pretty wretched) but it is by no means similar to Depression or being bipolar. Mental health is both biology and environment, which therefore means one little pill will not cure Emma’s compulsion. There is no easy cure to mental illness(and I’m not saying that Diabetes has an easy-peezy cure either). It requires mental discipline, a strong desire to get well, a support system, and sometimes medication. But not medication prescribed after one heartfelt session.

Yes, the psychiatrist also said weekly therapy. I agree wholeheartedly, despite having no letters strung along to the end of my title. But she still told Emma to take brain-altering medication after an hour. An hour! This is crazy, people! You can know someone for years and not really know what they need!

I realize this is a complex issue that gets very personal, very quickly. Medication helps. I dare not dispute this,  but I contend the ease with which Glee often treats the problems of its characters. Pills won’t cure Emma, just as confronting surface-level problems with the complexity of sexuality won’t reinvigorate the country-wide conversation on gender and its construction, or that treating high school like it’s the determinant of the rest of your life (which, take it from me, it most certainly is not) is a healthy lesson to teach the kids who watch the show.

So to conclude, I do really love Glee. Yes, I hold it to a very high standard in ethics (far higher than Raising Hope or whatever trash comes on afterwards) but I think this is because the show sets that standard. When you take on radical issues of gay rights at this point in our country’s social awakening, you got keep that banner high and your eyes ahead. Yes, the TV show is excellent at showing that gay rights are human rights and really we’re all just people trying to get by and be happy. Thus the harships and happiness and just plain relationship-ness of Kurt and Blane, Santana and Britney, and every other freaking couple on the show (did I mention that I hate how the only consistently single character in the Glee club is the strong, independent black woman?) And yeah, I know it’s just a TV show and I’m probably super-over-analyzing it, but it is a show that is speaking for the voice of my generation (if I may be so bold). So this generation-member has some qualms to voice with the show.

So there.

Do you watch Glee? What do you think of the show?

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current jam: still "judas" lady gaga. 

best thing in my life right now: blaine serenading kurt. melted to the floor and then into the ground. keane + darren criss = magic!

days until departure: still 35!

*Amber’s voice, to my ear, is the least touched up, which is comforting because girl is FIERCE!
And thanks to my friend Nora for helping me formulate some thoughts on this post! 

thoughts in my head: not all nonprofits are made equal.

As my hiatus from my 30 Day Photo Challenge persists a little longer, I’ve been prompted with some tough questions and wonderful inspiration concerning the actual “work” I will be doing in Uganda this summer. And all of these questions find their root in the same idea: not all nonprofits were made equal.

My dear friend and mentor Thera wrote an incredible blog post today about a counter-movement to the One Day Without Shoes event called One Day Without Dignity. I highly encourage you to read it!

In her post she explains her qualms with the One Day Without Shoes event; mainly, that one-time drop-off gifts of charity (like shoes, clothing, or school supplies) are bad aid. The one-time hand out harms the local economy by making free what many local artisans, merchants, and businesspeople work very hard to make and depend on sales for their livelihood. It undermines much of local culture and also embodies a lot of really inconsiderate Western presumptions.

While many one-time gifts are made with the absolute best of intentions they more often than not cause strife and dependency among people who are perfectly capable of being resourceful in their own right. Thus her (and my) qualm with One Day Without Shoes: TOMS is a for-profit company. Thus, the Day Without Dignity campaign was launched by members of various NGOs around the world to talk about what makes a good NON-profit. 

However, after poking around on TOMS' website a little more, I did learn that they are more invested in the communities they do "shoe drops" in that I originally realized.There are 5 facets to the TOMS campaign that make their program more sustainable then others, and they are (in their own words from their website): 

1. Giving Partners must be able to repeat giving shoes as the children grow.

2. Shoes must aid their giving partner's existing goals for the health and education for children who otherwise would not have this opportunity.

3. Providing shoes may not have a negative impact on the local economy.

4. Giving Partners must be able to receive large shipments of shoes.

5. Giving Partners can only give shoes in conjunction with health and education efforts.  

So, yes, TOMS is a for-profit company. But they are making an enormous effort to be a sustainable, good influence where they "drop" shoes, which I immensely respect. 

This brings me to my second prompt of inspiration, Hank Green’s three-part vlog about his trip to Haiti with water.org. Again, I warmly recommend you to watch all three of these videos. His third has yet to be released but, based on what he said in the second vlog, I’m going to wager a guess about what it will concern: what makes water.org such a wonderful nonprofit.

In his words, water.org functions on a “new model of charity” in which the recipients of aid are encouraged to be independent, rather than dependent, concerning their need. This is because water.org, which essentially builds wells in communities in need of clean water (something mentioned as a pretty explicit need in Thera’s marvelous blog post), works incredibly hard to make sure that within the community where the new well is built there is an infrastructure of sustainability in place both ecologically and socially within the community.

No charity or non-profit is perfect, because nothing is. But it is important for me as a volunteer and as a donor to be aware and conscientious of which charities and partnership organizations I choose to support. This is because I absolutely believe hand-outs are not the stuff of real change in communities of need.

This lesson I learned in an extremely visceral and hard manner, which I want to share with you if only so that I can explain from my own experiences why I know for my own that hand-out charities are not good.

When I was in Uganda when I was fourteen, my mother and I brought with us some gently used toys my brothers and I no longer wanted with the express intention of sharing them with the children of the communities we would visit. We had the absolute best of intentions, believe me. In my world, I treasured my toys growing up. They were a vessel by which my imagined stories became real. But I was fourteen and knew only my own world of growing up in the privileged USA.

It was a few days into the trip when the group was climbing off the bus in Gulu, Northern Uganda. A cluster of children had gathered around to watch and seeing them, my mom and I decided to give them some of the toys we’d brought.

This decision is one I think I will always regret and feel guilty for. The children started fighting for the toys and suddenly the bag was ripped from our hands as the oldest kids pushed the younger ones out of the way to take as many as possible. It was horrible to watch and I had no idea what to do.

They were just kids living in a really tough world, and I had wanted to share with them something that had brought me joy as a little one. But I did not think that hand outs mostly go to those who can get them, not necessarily those who have more need. I had made a lot of presumptions in my own saintly-ness for parting with these toys and in my eagerness I did not stop and think about how best to give the toys to those who needed them most. And these were just toys, not even food or water or clothing.

Yes, I was young and yes, I really didn’t know any better. If I had been older and wiser I would have asked the leaders of a community in varying capacities about who in their town had children with some serious need. I would have then asked them to discretely deliver the toys, or, better yet, I would have given the toys to an organization with a long-term relationship with a community that perhaps had serious needs already satisfied, so toys would have been a nice treat for ill children.

Water.org is by no means the first or only organization to figure out how the best of intentions can wring the worst of outcomes. There’s a little saying my mother always told me “If you give someone a fish, you’ve fed them for a meal- but if you teach someone to fish, you’ve fed them for a lifetime. However, they must be willing to learn how to fish.”

This is a model that has existed for a long, long time. But when charities send out shoes at the first sign of bare feet without first asking if these shoes are wanted, needed, or going to go to the right place that promotes giving fish and not the willingness to learn or the ability to fish. Yes, that’s a gross overstatement and by no means am I saying people who have received TOMS shoes don’t have innovation or a desire to learn or grow, nor am I calling TOMS a terrible company with the worst of intentions. I am saying that the model of the "charity" needs to progress, quickly, into a model of partnership. I am saying we need to recognize TOMS is a for-profit company with some really wonderful intentions to promote positive growth.

Obviously I like TOMS, having participated in the One Day Without Shoes event and owning two pair. So call me a hypocrite. Or, call me an educated consumer.

I love my TOMS because they’re cute and comfy shoes and both pairs were loving gifts by my Aunt and Uncle and father, respectively. I treasure them because, as I might have mentioned, I’m damn lucky to have as many shoes and love in my life as I do. And I like that they are trying, as a company for profit, to use their profit for providing shoes. But I also support fully organizations like MCC, water.org, and Habitat for Humanity that were created to make lasting and educated change.

And now, for the third source difficult inspiration for this post: a dinner conversation. Last night at a lovely, lovely dinner in Cape Cod (a post on that to come) a friend of my friend’s asked me what I was doing this summer. When I replied with my plans to live in Uganda for two and a half months, she asked a little sharply “Is this a Bible thing?”

And in that question flooded a thousand thoughts. My anger at groups that function not only as hand-outs, but self-congratulating hand-out charities that do so in the name of a religion. My further frustration that I, who identify as a Christian but one who also reads the Upanishads of Hinduism and the writings of the Buddha and would die for the acceptance of people of all sexual orientations and believes in the validity of all faiths, am immediately judged to be someone who also promotes such convert-the-heathens-with-self-loving-grins charity. And perhaps most of the internal dilemma of what in heaven, hell, and earth I am going to do with this inescapable call to Africa in “the real world.”

So I picked the more tangible reply with “Well, sort of. I’m working with the Diocese of the Church of Uganda, but it’s not a convert-the-heathens deal.” I went on to explain that I want to live my life as a servant and a learner, that I am a pilgrim going home and it’s a complicated growing-up thing, and that above all I am going to LEARN and not to teach.

What do I know, anyway?

I can recite passages from Harry Potter. I know more about women’s aviation history than anyone in their right mind should. But the real stuff? I’m wandering in a big forest of knowledge and desperately trying to take every second in and praying to God I do something with my life that will make my Mom and Dad proud. I want to love and learn as much as possible. And God knows that’s enough for me right now.

So that’s why I am going to Uganda, and that’s why I think we all need to carefully think about what change we want to promote. I love my TOMS, I loved participating in the One Day event, and that doesn’t change. We’re all broken, and I think most of us just want to make the world a little happier each day, self-congratulating hand-out charities included. Let’s take these good intentions, though, and apply them in a model of non-profits that functions as a partnership, not a charity. Yeah, it’s going to be a whole lot harder. But change is hard. 


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current jam: tchaikovsky's serenade for strings
best thing in my life right now: SPRINGTIME!
days until departure: 55

thoughts in my head: ends and means

Clearly, this Religion paper has been kicking my thoughts into a spirals and circles. Fortunately for me, the paper is due tomorrow, so I'll finally have to put the writing aside and focus on other things. But I doubt I'll ever stop wrangling with the concepts we have confronted in this class- but I am happy to sit in the process for a while.


I actually had said Religion class this morning (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30 in the morning, sunshine!) and we listened to one of Dr. Fr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s early speeches. I'm not sure of the title, but it definitely comes from either 1955 or 1956 because he was discussing the importance of pursuing justice by nonviolent means in relation to the fabulous Ms. Rosa Parks. Listening to his words never fails to give me chills and tears (much like watching the Ben Kingsley Gandhi film never ceases to completely enrapture me for the entire three hours of its duration)! 


In the sermon/speech, he spoke of innumerable profound things, but a quote that most resonated with me was: "Moral ends must be achieved by moral means." He spoke this in reference to the necessity of pursuing justice by nonviolent means. 


In this line of thought, a well-met end is not moral if it was not from a well-intentioned inception/action. This is very like Tolstoy, who believed that our actions are either inherently moral or immoral, not determined by consequence. Bonhoeffer, conversely, said that the consequence was what deemed an action to be right or wrong (thus justification for assassinating Hitler). 


So the end, then, MUST be justified by the means?


If after this awful, bloody battle in Libya ends in a new government and a free people, is it tainted? I think yes. But then again, despite Gandhi's tireless efforts in the liberation of India by nonviolent means, Pakistan was still created as an independent nation rank with tension between the Muslim and Hindu communities. Also tainted, but not inherently by the religions involved or lack of effort from millions of people. 


Arrgh, this food for thought is really starting to fill my brain with more than it can chew!


In other news, I will be starting a new blog series either later this afternoon or tomorrow (probably tomorrow). This series of "thoughts in my head" will not cease, but I think it's going to be an occasional theme when I've got more controversial/pondering-worthy material worth posting. In the meantime, I will have some lighter posts that will provide an interesting framework to compare my life here, in the states now, to my life in Uganda this summer. 


ALSO: my radio show goes back on air this Saturday from 10 AM - 12 PM EST! If you'd like, you can listen by going to this website (www.wmhcradio915.org). I will actually be interviewing my Religion professor, John Grayson, about his Top 10 Songs. It's going to be very exciting; he's met Rosa Parks, Archbishop Tutu, and a lot of incredible people (while being one of the most humble and kind people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting). 


Okay, off to wonder about if the universe is shaped like the earth (or just whether I want a chai or not, you know. Life of an eighteen-year-old). 


thanks for coming along on this ride with me, friends.


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current jam: "sons and daughters" the decemberists (favorite album of all time = the crane wife)
best thing in my life right now: sunshine-y weather and the weekend fast approaching!
days until departure: 73

thoughts in my head: can nonviolence exist without violence?

Allow to me begin by thanking all of my new readers/followers for checking out this blog! I know my last post generated a lot of attention from various people (a special thanks to my friend Mary Day Saou whose photography blog you should definitely check out by clicking here!) and consequently, you’re here! So thanks!

 Since my last post I’ve been toiling away on a paper for the aforementioned Religion 238 class. We were asked to critique and explore an ancient text’s approach to violence/non-violence, for which I selected two passages from the Gospel of Matthew from the Christian Testament[1].  While wrestling with a thesis, it occurred to me that the very word nonviolence itself assumes its existence is contingent on violence. The more I thought on this, the more qualms I had with the very word itself; for me, nonviolence is far more pervasive and powerful than violence- so how could this be justified in a word which prefix and composition suggested the very opposite? And then, BAM, I had a thesis. So I’m going to share a chunk of my first draft here:

It would be easy to say that nonviolence is merely the absence of violence, which, considering the prefix of the word nonviolence itself suggests as much, seems to be a logical conclusion. I contend this statement, but in order to explain, we must first define the parameters and meaning of violence itself. Violence is any idea or action that is rooted in hatred; it can be psychological or physical, internal or external. Violence comes from within the individual and therefore can exist within only one person. Since all humanity is capable of violence it exists in all of us, which enables enormous acts of violence like the war in the Gaza Strip to occur.

Nonviolence, conversely, is an idea or action that comes from Love. This Love is powerful, transcendent, and most crucially it cannot exist in the vacuum of one soul. Love comes from the divine, explored in the Christian faith through the embodiment of God in Jesus Christ, and therefore by its very nature must exist between two souls: that of the divine and of the human. Love, like hate, has capacity in every soul and therefore can transform populations and people, toppling governments and creating unity. Love, unlike hatred, however, does this through the method of nonviolence and active resistance that honors and respects the integrity and precious gift that every human being is. Yet Love and hate are not inverses of each other; they are eternally held in tension with one another, for each emotion contains the same amount of power and capacity for change. Each requires the same vested amount of time and energy to commit fully to the depth of the feeling, leaving apathy as the inverse of both Love and hate.

Furthermore, because Love and hate are held in tension with one another we have the ability to dually love and hate, as though there were a magnetic weight strung on a string between two poles, each pulling the magnet towards themselves. We have the choice within this tension, the choice to either act upon Love or to act upon our own bitterness and hatred. What we choose defines who we are and the entire course of our subsequent lives. The Christian texts call upon us to be perfect and to choose Love, just as Christ chose Love for humanity. This command to act and work in the here and now validates our actions here on earth as profoundly consequential. We are, therefore, compelled to choose wisely.

Nonviolence, which ultimately is a path of Love, is not a passive act but rather a way of life that demands of its followers courage, vigilance, and endurance. To live into what Mahatma Gandhi referred to as our ahimsa means we must undergo the path less trod for the rest of our living days…

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There is another five pages where I explore the duality of Love and hate, so if you want to read more say so in the comments and I’d be happy to share (once I finish editing, of course!).

While writing, I was still pondering Rachel Corrie and her tragic, complex death. Rachel herself was practicing Gandhian nonviolence tactics, but emails with her mother revealed her fundamental doubts about resisting without retaliation:

“I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs … The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world … What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.” (February 27, 2003)

Clearly, Rachel had legitimate reasons to fundamentally question her actions as useful or justified. But while she had these doubts, her death was ultimately an act of nonviolence and Love for the people whose home was about to be destroyed. In the same Von Klemperer article about Dietrich Bonhoeffer(The Terrible Alternative: Christian Martyrdom in the Twentieth Century), Von Klemperer explains that while the situation Bonhoeffer was in was extreme, his actions were also dire. It’s back to that extremity of choice idea: are martyrs so compelling because they are so extreme? In the same email to her mother, Rachel explained that she did not think she was an extremist any longer:

“Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.”

Rachel, unlike Bonhoeffer, was not planning an assassination as a means of ending the “chronic genocide.” But the odds she faced and the dire situation the people of the Gaza Strip were/are in is horrific. While writing to her mother there were explosions going off! I think she is completely justified in her absolute belief that the whole world needs to focus on stopping genocide.

But where?

I’ve been reading a great deal on Libya lately.  The horrific rape of a country and people is overwhelming. Where does it stop? 

I think it’s too late for nonviolent resistance in Libya. Does that mean I don’t believe in the power of nonviolence/Love/Christ/universal ahimsa? Is all that thesis-thinking proved false in the midst of a war with a tyrant like Qaddafi?

Or is it merely too late- too many wrong decisions, too many violent acts turning in on themselves creating an imploding reality bent on destruction because the voices of active, nonviolent resistance were not listened to? What then?

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current jam: "flume" bon iver

best thing in my life right now: bon iver and my mom.

days until departure: 74

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[1] Matthew 5: 38-48 and 10: 16-34

thoughts in my head: rachel corrie

 this is an experiment for my blog, which i have (as you can see just up above) entitled “thoughts in my head.” the genreal idea is whenever i have an idea surrounding something controversial, difficult, or weighty and need to explore my thoughts on the issue i will get it all out here and create a forum for you to respond and help me with the thoughts from your head! my thinking is that it will be a bit of a running series. how’s that for eloquence?

This semester I am enrolled in one of the most profound classes I will have taken. You may or may not know this, but I take my education very, very seriously, and as such have taken a wide scope of classes over the years. Each held their own special lessons for me and I treasure everything my wonderful teachers gave me from elementary school right on up to my first-rate women’s college. I know some of you read this, so let this be my public thank-you. Uganda would not have been happening for me without your support.

This particular class, though, is very special to me, because it is a Religion class exploring the dichotomy/tension between violence and non-violence through sacred and secular texts. As someone who advocates for and very much believes in non-violence, this has been a very challenging and powerful class for me. I love everything about the class: my professor, who is brilliant and jumps up and down when he really wants to make a point; the texts we have read so far; the fact that I am in the class with one of me dearest friends, Hattie; and most of all how pertinent I feel the class is to how I think about and perceive the world I live in.

And while I could blog to my heart’s content about the Bhagavad Gita and Thomas Merton, today I want to tell you about the thoughts in my head about one particular case study of non-violence. This is, of course, the story of Rachel Corrie.

For those of you who do not know who Rachel Corrie was, this website goes pretty in-depth about her life. But for the purposes of now, here is a little backstory: Rachel was a 23-year-old senior at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington. She had taken a semester off to work for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to promote peace in Palestine. She was bulldozed alive on March 16 while she stood in front of a house as an act of non-violent protest against the IAF (Israeli Armed Forces) crushing the home that belonged to a family living on the Gaza Strip. She died within the hour.

I have no pretenses here; I know very little about the Israel/Palestine conflict and therefore am not saying anything derogatory towards the people of Israel. I do feel that there is an enormous web of confusion, deceit, and unfulfilled promises surrounding Israel, but that blame cannot be assigned to one singular person. Clearly, this is a hot topic. Rachel’s death has been disputed by the Israeli government as a tragic accident, despite photographic evidence and a number of eyewitness all proclaiming the bulldozer driver had plain view of her and deliberately crushed her alive.  In the interest of fairness, this is a website that serves as a voice counter to pro-ISM organizations, should you care to have a look by clicking here.

Nevertheless, the reason why I want to write about Rachel has very little to do with the politics of the situation under which she was killed. Rachel Corrie strikes a very deep chord with me for a number of reasons, but most importantly because there are quite a number of similarities between her and I. She loved to glue things to her wall (have you seen the background in my vlogs?), she loved Pat Benetar, she went to a small liberal arts college, and most importantly, she forsook almost everything to devote herself to fighting for what she believed to be a just cause.

In my class we read a number of articles on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a minister involved with the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler). In one article by Klemperer, Bonhoeffer is described as a martyr; neither justified in his hanging nor wholly to be pitied and thought of as a saint. Klemperer goes on to say that “martyrs rarely are easy.” This made me think a great deal about what it means to be a martyr. Why are we so fascinated by them? Is it in the complete and total devotion to a cause that defines you to be an extremist, and therefore completely un-relatable but totally admirable?

To me, Rachel Corrie is a martyr. She was murdered, but the debate surrounding her death rages on. The US government refused to allow her body to be brought back to the states for a funeral and there was very minimal media coverage surrounding her in America.* This harkens a sense of mystery around her; the shushed-up, put-in-a-corner cause becomes far more important because those who know about it are compelled to give their voice to that which has been silenced.

Rachel herself was a voice like that. She did not believe she could speak for the Palestinian people- only they could speak for themselves. In her own words, from an email to her family on February 20, 2003 (about a month before she died):

“Many people want their voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US, rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself. I am just beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the ability of people to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds.”

Everything about that particular quote resonates with me. While I was having a blast in Canada last week with two of my best friends in the world, the whole time I kept thinking about how different my next international adventure is going to be. Having traveled and done non-profit work in developing African nations previously, I do have a decent idea of what my life will be like, but to be honest, I do not know how living in Uganda is going to impact me. I am so blessed to have some amazing friends in my life who are going to support me in transitioning between the continents (hello, Gann!) but the more I read of Rachel’s emails home from Palestine, the more I am pondering this transition. On February 27^th, 2003, she wrote:

“When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I've ever done.”

Of course, she never returned. And furthermore, I will not be in the midst of a “genocide” (her words) like she was. But the sentiment and the idea are practically essential. Living abroad is going to be incredible, difficult, and one of the most important things I can do. Not important because of what I will be doing for the various schools and NGOs, but important to me for my own satygraha and achieving my own ahimsa. But it also is going to be really, really difficult to transition back into college life.

I am up for the challenge, though. Willing and waiting.

What do you think of Rachel/martyrdom/Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

*Conversely, Britain reported on her for nearly two weeks, and Alan Rickman worked with Katherine Viner to produce a one-woman show surrounding Rachel’s written work, entitled My Name is Rachel Corrie. This play is in fact how I came to learn about her and her life story. You can have a look here.

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current jam: “like a rolling stone” bob dylan

best thing in my life right now: rehearsal this afternoon for ‘moustache guys’!

days until departure: 75