“Let’s…put in place public discussion forums in the media, at school, at the university. Forums in the workplace where we can speak with respect and dignity…about liberty and about the Other, to accept and tolerate each other. Perhaps it’s high time to make our cultural revolution without attaching ourselves to any model: let’s invent our cultural revolution right now, without waiting, as a matter of urgency…. The great work of thought, reflection and culture must get started as soon as possible. ‘Living together’ must be invented. And that mustn’t come from discussions and debates among initiates in colloquia and symposia, but from the reflections of ordinary citizens, which is where the road maps of future generations will be laid out. The great work involves calling into question not only the system, but an entire way of thinking.

“We must evolve from a fixed way of thinking to one with many variables, from an absolute reference point to many different reference points. All that without forgetting that we aren’t alone in the world, and without self-absorption. So let’s evolve.”

Here’s a great article about Occupy Wall Street, by the way.

O.  Ah, yes, a local! Where are you from, dear man?

L.  I am from Nablus.

O.  Hmm. (flips through his manual, which contains colored illustrations of traditional dress) Why, no, that’s impossible! You are dressed like a man of Sinai. The natives of Nablus dress thusly. (shows the local his colored plates)

L.  Even so, I am from Nablus.

O.  Then, sir, you are incorrectly attired. Your headdress is wrong, don’t you see? And your belt, it should be black. Either that, or you are a liar.

L.  (a bit heatedly) I should know where I am from!

O.  (turning away) These people are as innocent as children. No logic or reason in their actions. They can’t tell black from white, wouldn’t recognize their own mothers — they are impossible!

Why? Because people over thirty have a stake in the system, and they are more interested in preserving it, than in sharing it with you. Either that, or they have no clue what’s going on, but they need to pretend that they do, in order to preserve their self-respect and get through the day.

Either way, their hands are dirty. They are opposed to idealism because it has failed them, or more exactly, because they have failed it. They have made compromises they want to believe were necessary. “That’s just the way the world is,” they will say. “We do what we can to survive.”

I’m over thirty, so I know what I’m talking about. Of course, you shouldn’t trust me. Trust only yourselves. Until you are thirty, then turn to self-doubt.

A Congolese man has filed a complaint against Tintin in a Belgian court. He accuses the classic adventure comic by Belgian author Hergé of being racist in its 1930s portrayal of the Congo, and he wants to see it banned. Jeanette Kavira Mapera, the Congolese Minister of Culture, defended Tintin in the Congo in an interview.

“In the old days, when this book was written and its creator was inspired, in fact, the Congolese didn’t know how to speak French. Even today, a Congolese isn’t the best French speaker. At the time described in this book, in fact, to put a Congolese to work or to get him to work, it was necessary to use a stick. Today, in certain environments, to send children or adults into the fields, it is necessary to do it with strong measures.”

Hergé himself, who was only 23 when he created Tintin in the Congo, was less of an apologist for his work than the Congolese minister. As he put it later in life, “I was fed on the prejudices of the bourgeois society in which I moved.” One wonders what prejudices the minister herself carries, if she considers it normal “in certain environments” to send children into the fields by force, even today?

“You have given me this opportunity to shine so dammit I’m going to shine.” — Antoine Dodson

An act of ordinary heroism (July 28):

YouTube remix, 8 million views (July 30):

Internet celebrity (August 10):

Background here and here. Musings about “race and media” here.

UPDATE: From a Reddit comment thread:

“I’m really glad he decided to capitalize on this, rather than let other people produce shirts and other merchandise. Remember, beneath the outrageous interview is a guy who ran into his sister’s bedroom to stop a rape — he deserves all the good fortune he can get.”

From Antoine Dodson himself (August 15):

“I’m really starting to get mad because everyone is out for money and don’t care about whats really going on. I’m not going to play this funny role anymore. I really haven’t foreal. Realize that my goal is to be a business man not a joke and… lately people been taking me there. That is not who I am. Understand that I was just mad and wanted justice for my sister. It wasn’t made to be funny. Although I thought it was funny but all jokes are aside now. People are really sweeping this under the rug. I hope that this man will be caught. You don’t know how this changed our life. So I guess it’s funny that we are moving from house to house too. I guess it’s funny my little sisters are scared t death to sleep at night. I guess it’s funny that he may climb in someone else’s window. This is not a game so don’t take it there.”

From blogger Dr. Goddess:

“There is nothing wrong with Antoine. Or his story. Or how he chose to express himself. Kelly [Antoine's sister] and Antoine were very clear… they live in the projects. They are also Southern… they live in Huntsville, Alabama. And they both had a right to be exceptionally angry about Kelly’s attempted rape. Yet, even in their rage, they exhibited more intelligence and articulated a sense of well-being than many of the persons who have been elected or otherwise appointed (and some self-appointed) to represent us.

“Embarrassed by Antoine?! Please. We should be thankful he’s here. He may just force us to redefine our priorities and how we think we understand one another.

“Antoine Dodson’s character seems to be better than most.”

She goes on to remind us of how this all started. This is the story of a poor family living in public housing that failed to keep them safe. They reached out to the authorities in the aftermath of an attempted rape and were not taken seriously — so they got mad. This inspired her to write a letter to the Huntsville, Alabama authorities on their behalf, and she provides contact information on her blog for anyone else who wishes to “hold these people accountable.”

UPDATE 2: It occurs to me that the reason this young man’s cri de coeur touched a chord with so many of us — “Y’all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, ‘cuz they’re rapin’ everybody out here” — is because it reflects the unease we all feel in these troubled times. Don’t we all somehow feel under assault after a decade of economic crisis and war, with no end in sight? As Antoine said in a radio interview about all the newfound attention his family is getting:

“We’re not used to this, you know what I’m sayin’? Like, everybody steps on us, you know what I’m sayin’? People degrade us, so it’s like… all this love that the world has been showing us lately, is like, ‘Man, this is so amazing,’ and every time I get a chance with my sister, we cry about it, ‘cuz it’s so amazing, like, ‘Wow, two and a half weeks ago, nobody cared.’”

So doesn’t this young man speak for all of us, and our sense of powerlessness in some way? Haven’t we all wondered how this could possibly be happening, how there could be millions out of work and at risk of losing their homes, how communities could be closing their libraries and shutting off streetlights for lack of funds — yet the government, under a new president and a new party, still seems powerless to end the disasterous policies that brought us here? Antoine at least did something. He stopped a rapist, he protected his family, and he spoke up as we’d all like to do. So in this, the more I think about it, he is a hero — an accidental hero, the best kind.

Fame has become an existential condition: If your image isn’t reflected back at you, then how do you know you’re alive?

Reminds me a bit of this:

We live today in a society where it is necessary to see yourself, or your likeness, in the media as confirmation of your existence. People scan the television dial, major magazines, movies, or the latest pop novel to find someone who resembles them, someone who is out there mimicking their actions and gestures in the big arena. … Lest we forget, this whole scenario is market driven, and if your image does not appear en grand across the whole media superstructure of America, it is because the marketing mechanism has not deemed your niche to be worthy of selective attention, and thus—O humiliating failure!—there is nothing out there for you to buy. Which is to say, You don’t exist, go die. … You have no identity, you are invisible. You don’t even need to be “disappeared” because you are already not there.

This was written back in 1994, so it took the New York Times just sixteen years to catch up. Though I will give them credit for distilling the idea to its purest form.

I thought it would look ugly, but I like it….

The first thing to know about me is I was born in the wrong place. I should have been born somewhere where people are free and full of love. Instead I was born in a world where people play power games and fight for scraps. That word “scraps” explains the problem, I think. Instead of sharing a mountain and enjoying the whole mountain, which belongs to no one, each person wants a piece. One person sees he can make a nice little business selling soft drinks to the hikers there, and another doesn’t like that because it spoils the view from his veranda. So the power games begin. The once calm and happy mountain is divided into warring territories. In the world into which I was born, this pattern repeats itself at every level, from children competing to be their mothers’ favorite, through the power games of generals who kill millions to win an extra star.

It’s been this way, we are told, ever since there were people. Even animals do it, a war of survival in which the predator is the next victim. Even plants do it, with vines strangling a great oak to reach the sun. So it isn’t people’s fault, apparently. The universe is hard-wired this way, it seems. There isn’t really a place here for someone like me, who would be happy to live on air, water and sunlight, feet scarcely touching the ground. Instead, the world being what it is, I’ve been forced to make compromises—but as I’ve already said, it’s not my fault. In a world like this one, such compromises are inescapable. The whole mountain doesn’t exist—there are only scraps.