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December 27, 2006
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my family was just with me in Santo Domingo for two weeks. One of the things that marked our time together was a series of fine discussions: in the car, over meals, while cooking and getting ready for bed.
A standout in the lineup was a discussion on whether to give to people asking for money on the street. This is a dilemma, I think, that hits all of us small-town Midwesterners when we get to big cities anywhere and especially to places like the Dominican Republic.
My dad was out one morning taking photographs in the mountains northwest of Santo Domingo, and he met some kids who lived by the side of the highway. They were very friendly and posed for a photograph.
Half an hour later he passed their house again and stopped again, wanting to show his appreciation for their friendliness. He asked for the kids' mom and dad – but they were working and dead, respectively. So he presented a U.S. $20 bill (he was mostly out of Dominican pesos and small U.S. bills) to the oldest of the group, a 17-year-old girl.
The topic came up briefly on Dad's return, and then again when we were having lunch with a professor of mine.
Dad said he usually puts his money toward structural solutions, but he sees it as a question of "both-and." There should be a place for random acts of kindness as well – and we must have faith that the person will put the money to good use.
Mom wasn't sure if the money given would do more good or more harm. She suggested that if these kids learned they could earn tips by being friendly to tourists, maybe they wouldn't see the need to continue at school or develop other skills.
I responded that in a world of unlimited resources, the "both-and" strategy would definitely be the way to go. But as part of an organization working for structural change, I'm experiencing the scarcity of resources for our kind of work. I don't feel we have the luxury to give our money where we don't have any idea how it will be spent.
Good people using their energy to commit random acts of kindness is maybe one of the reasons our world is still in the awful shape it's in. Individuals working for change separately – the "thousand points of light" theory – aren't capable of transforming systems; organizations and mass movements are. What we need now, if we're serious about changing this world, is to forget about random. What we need now are deliberate, coordinated, sustained acts of kindness.
My professor commented to me later that she had never seen anything like this discussion before. She had never seen a father so open to hearing criticism from his children. Over lunch. She was jealous of us.
She said she wondered if we could have these kinds of discussions because love isn't at stake. That is, the amount we love each other won't be affected by a disagreement or confrontation here or there.
I've been thinking quite a bit about this. What would it mean to take that idea – that love isn't at stake here – into every potential argument or disagreement we might face?
December 26, 2006
I had the pleasure of welcoming my mom, dad and brother to the Dominican Republic from the 13th to the 25th of this month. This was all of their first trip to this part of the Caribbean.
We spent time on the beaches of Las Terrenas, in the mountains of San Cristóbal, on the dirt roads of Los Botao Boca Chica and in the homes of several of my friends in the capital.
My family stayed with me in the Justicia Global community house. We drank tropical smoothies of banana, pineapple and passion fruit. We ate plantains prepared in a staggering number of ways – hervidos, maduros, platanitos, mofongo, mangú and pasteles en hoja. We ate candy canes and granola imported in their suitcases and laughed together a great deal.
Jason went with me to a class I'm taking on the Gender Perspective in Development. The class that day brought a gender perspective to science. Western science has historically presented itself as the "only objective, neutral, natural way" of understanding and ordering the world. We looked at how the scientific method – the very ways of formulating the questions to be asked – invalidates and makes invisible women's work and contributions to society.
To give a simple example, we instinctively measure wealth and power in terms of money. Those who work for pay (generally men) are afforded the power of purchase and accumulation in the market economy. Those people (generally women) who make it possible for others to enter the labor market with clean clothes and full stomachs are unremunerated, unvalued.
We begin to see that the economists who measure a country's well-being according to a money-based Gross Domestic Product are starting from sexist assumptions about what kind of work is worthy of measure.
We notice that science is often a tool used by the privileged class to "prove" and justify its oppressive position in the social order.
In 1994 Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published The Bell Curve, a "scientific study" with lots of charts and tables and research in U.S. schools, arguing that "Poverty and inequality result from individual deficiencies, lack of will and genetic flaws."
The fundamental question becomes: Why, then, do we even do science at all? Now that we see science is just as problematic as any other measurement, just as susceptible to coopting as any other tool, why don't we just forget about science altogether?
The answer, Jason and I concluded after class, is not to totally discount the power of argument that the scientific method offers. Nor is it to try for perfect objectivity in an imperfect world. Science must become our tool as well, and we must be clear that our objective is contributing to a body of knowledge for change.
What else should we be doing with our time, our education, our privilege? Jason reflected. Anything less than using it to end injustice would be kind of irresponsible.
After that we went home and drank some more delicious smoothie.
December 11, 2006
Thanks for joining us again, friends, on this week's version of "Where Are They Now?" Today's guest is an internationally renowned actor and performer, and recently in all the tabloids – everyone, please welcome Timoteo Sánchez!
Thank you, Dwayne. I'm very honored to --
Don't mean to interrupt, Mr. Sánchez. But my name isn't Dwayne.
Ah, pardon. May I take this moment to point out, then, that I'm not an internationally renowned actor or performer, and to my knowledge I haven't appeared in any tabloids lately.
[Awkward pause] Heh heh. Well, wouldn't you know it, folks? The joys of live television! It seems I have with me the introduction for next week's guest, Hugh Grant. So, Mr. Sánchez ... who, then, exactly are you?
I, uh, I live in the Dominican Republic, I'm part of the organization Justicia Global, I enjoy granola and cheese, though not always at the same time –
Hmm, that's just fine, Mr. Sánchez. One quick question before we go any further. This is a show called "Where Are They Now?" Have you ever been missing for a long period of time, or out of the public eye, anything like that?
Funny you should mention that, Dwayne. I've actually been AWOL on my main public forum, Tim's Non-Bloggish Blog, for almost a month now.
In and out of rehab clinics, caught on camera with foreign women in Barbados and the like, I'm sure.
Not exactly. I think that's next week. Um, I've actually been in New York, taking an up-close look at the greatest subway system on earth or under it. Now that the Metro is coming to Santo Domingo, we're seeing a real need to research the sociological implications of such an infrastructure on urban populations.
How fascinating. Any preliminary findings?
Yes, we've been quite pleased. An extensive web of underground tunnels connecting distant parts of a metropolis with efficient, affordable public transportation seems to have several notable effects: increased public drumming and breakdancing, increased exhibition space for makers of popular spray art, and a surprising increase in human kindness, especially toward children in strollers. Also, we've noticed inter-ethnic dating is up.
I'm intrigued. Tell me first about the strollers.
Well, Dwayne, it turns out New Yorkers aren't so hard-hearted and hurried as the world makes them out to be. Time and again we would see people, usually women, assisting other women with strollers. They hold doors for them, help them carry the strollers up and down stairs, or hand the baby's bottle back if it were dropped. Once we even saw a stranger offer a little girl a banana when she was hungry.
So you mentioned this in relation to Santo Domingo's new Metro. Are you projecting increased stroller sales in the Dominican Republic in the coming years?
The strollers themselves actually have very little to do with our study. We're much more concerned about the fraying social fabric in Dominican society, exacerbated by the dumping of mounds of money originally destined for education and health care into a huge Metro-sized hole in the ground.
I see. So what about the inter-ethnic dating? Maybe you could tell the folks at home how you're measuring that.
We're still in the preliminary research stages of this one. On a personal note, I'm finding myself rather attracted to a woman who is half Jewish.*
That's very special. Moving on -- Timoteo Sánchez, what are your plans now that you're back in the international spotlight?
Well, Dwayne, I don't really consider myself to be in the international spotlight. Unless you mean that light up there coming from behind the studio audience.
That's correct. That's the international one.
[Pause] I suppose I would like to do a jig.
Go right ahead.
[Stands; jigs.]
What a treat, folks. There you have it – Timoteo Sánchez, back in the saddle again. Join us next week for the latest in the life of a renowned actor and performer who has recently been in all the tabloids!
*Editor's note: The woman in question, on reading this post, has raised an objection regarding the fullness of her ethnocultural background or lack thereof. She argues one cannot have half an identity; she embraces her Jewishness as part of the integrated whole of her being. The editorial staff sees her point and regrets the error. |
