Terror In France: The Rise of Jihad in the West

    Kepel blames France’s home-grown terrorism on left-wing politicians who exploit the country’s disaffected Muslim youth. He compares Sarkozy and Hollande (right and left) who both came to power after the 2005 Paris Riots, and the way they both used the troubles as a platform. Sarkozy stood on a platform of dealing harshly with the rabble, while the leftist Francois Hollande sought to attract the angry youth. Kepel then refers to the 1983 protest marches by Muslim youth, which were somewhat more peaceful than recent events, and which President Mitterand, an old socialist, exploited. Rather than look into the complaints by disaffected minorities, Mitterand used the unrest as a platform to attack the conservative parties as being racist.

   Gilles Kepel, a political science professor, doesn’t take sides; on the contrary he blames the right and left equally and doesn’t spare the media. He criticizes French papers that headlined the riots, as well as the US and UK papers that headlined “Paris is Burning” which really wasn’t the case. The destruction was almost entirely in the areas where the Muslim youth lived. The roving hoodlums burned the stores where they shopped, trashed the schools they attended, and vandalized the transportation that they commuted on. It all bears resemblance to the LA Riots in 1992; they burned the stores in their own neighborhoods while the tourist areas were left intact. In Paris and LA, the rioting did not damage any monuments.

    Another issue explored by the author is how the combative and belligerent people have no war. Mohammed Merah’s 2012 murder spree in Toulouse (three kids and a teacher died, filmed with his go-pro) was the work of a Franco-Algerian, too young to have fought in the Algerian war of independence. He started his spree by killing four French soldiers, and the irony is that three were from North Africa and one from the West Indies. Merah was a juvenile delinquent, served time in prison, and it was in prison that he came into contact with radical Muslims. This is a case of an angry criminal youth, lacking a casus belli, looking for ways to feel powerful. He ended up killing his own people.

    Kepel insists that the Muslim extremists in France are far different from the Salafists in the Middle East (who were militant from the start.) The French Muslim radicals began politically, according to the author, because the French government had a “dump them there and forget about them” attitude with regard to immigration. All the problems of the France’s immigrant housing project neighborhoods – AKA the Banlieus – built up over time and exploded in 2005. The financial crisis then made things worse, and Hollande took advantage of the Muslim vote, promising radical changes. Whatever these changes were, they never happened, and the government covered up all the problems in the immigrant communities. To make a long story short, Hollande sought out the votes of the Muslim bloc, then dumped them. They got played for suckers.

    There is one problem that is not discussed enough, and that is the policy of Laicite, or the banning of religious symbols in the public schools. The big challenge was in 2004 when a Kindergarten teacher - fired for refusing to remove her headscarf - sued and lost in the High Court. Obviously, this wasn’t good PR for the government, at least not if they wanted the support of the Muslims. The author doesn’t say if Jewish teachers were forced to remove skullcaps, shave off their beards, and cut off their payot. How are the Jews of France treated under this policy? Furthermore, do they send their children to their own religious schools? I also wonder what the Jews and Muslims do about the school lunches in public schools. If pork is served, do the children return home for lunch? I know they’re not allowed to bring pack lunches like the Americans and the Brits.

    One thing here is for certain, France has an internal problem that’s going to get a lot worse. But I wouldn’t be quick to blame the Muslims, for two reasons; first the government knew this was going to happen, and second, the discriminatory policies threw the proverbial gasoline on the fire.

On the Sleeve of the Visual: Race as Face Value

   Allessandra Raengo begins with a lynching photo from the 1930’s, where the shadow of a hanging corpse falls over a White crowd. She writes of how this Black man, reduced to a shadow, has become a non-person whose life the crowd can disregard. Then she moves on to Richard Avedon’s 1963 portrait of a former slave. Is the man’s tight-lipped expression one of anger and defiance? Or is it tough resolve and perseverance? Are we mistaking the face of age for one of pain? Or vice versa?

    Another chapter discusses appearance versus reality, using the movie Precious as an example. The movie itself tries to get the audience to see beyond the overweight teenager and her troll of a mother, perhaps to show how and why they are so beaten down by life. The actress Gabourey Sidibe made it onto the cover of Ebony, but not Vanity Fair, and Raengo points out the same thing with the actor in The Blind Side, so maybe Hollywood has a prejudice against overweight people? On the flip side, size does make a positive difference in The Blind Side, because the character’s size makes him an asset on the football field. But in Precious, the character’s immense size has no redeeming value. Does this tell us something about society’s view on gender body image?

    In the chapter The Money of the Real, Raengo displays a picture postcard from the 1860’s of emancipated slaves. In the front row, the children stand in Napoleonic poses with their hands in their jackets (or maybe just to keep themselves steady during the long exposures.)  Three of the children are light enough to pass for White, but the men and women in the back row are dark-skinned. Was the photo part of a ploy for donations to the school they attended? Was the children’s light skin supposed to be the abolitionists’ idea of progress?

   Kara Walker’s violent silhouettes, Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, and the lynching photos of the early 20^th century, all convey the changing attitudes towards race, particularly in how it’s portrayed in art. Allessandra Raengo’s book explored race in the visual arts of the USA, with well-researched sources and scholarly discussions.  

The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch

   I never could understand why Punch and Judy are so popular with British kids. Not only are they hideous to look at, but the plot of the show should be R-rated. First off, Punch spends the show beating his wife, throwing the baby down the stairs, and tormenting everyone he can. Secondly, he talks in a creepy voice that sounds like the squawk of a panicked chicken. Lastly, when he’s not beating his wife or killing their child, he’s trying to deceive his wife any way he can. I used to see Punch and Judy shows in England, and I sat through them out of stubbornness. The urge to run away was overwhelming.

The story here is equally creepy; a little boy spends the summer with his grandfather, at the old man’s creepy seaside amusement park, and then an old “professor” with an old-school Punch-and-Judy act shows up. The contrast, however, is that the “professor” has a teenage assistant (his last one is now doing time) who isn’t creeped out at all. On the contrary, he sees the old showman as a pathetic old fossil. It’s hinted that the assistant (or Bottler, as they’re known) is a juvenile delinquent who might get into crime, but I have to wonder if it’s the boy’s own lack of morals that makes him unafraid? While the protagonist is both fascinated and frightened by these creepy old men, the teenage Bottler sees right through them.

Enough about the story (everything Neil Gaiman writes is brilliant) so I can say how much I loved the pictured. Only Dave McKean could illustrate something as frightening and wonderful as this. By combining photos with hand-drawn illustration, he creates a haunting, lurid backdrop reminiscent of Jan Svankmajer’s animation. For those of you unfamiliar with Dave McKean, he’s the guy that did the Sandman covers in the 1990’s, and those things used to give me nightmares. Sandman was DC’s foray into mature-themed material, and Mister Punch would fit right at home in there.

A little research tells me that Punch comes from Pulcinello, a character from Italian puppet shows, and his name means “chicken” thanks to his massive nose and a voice like a rooster’s squawk. He’s violent, deceptive, and when confronted with something he’s done, he’ll feign ignorance and/or stupidity. He’s usually paired with Arleccino (or Harlequin in English), his agile trickster alter-ego, who I might add is descended from a more demonic character of legend (hence the multicolored costume.)

All Day

    Liza Jessie Peterson is a broke unsuccessful model turned poet, who in the spirit of most unsuccessful artists in New York, turns to education for a living. Her assignment – The Island School, where the youth of Riker’s Island are educated. Wait, scrap that, it’s where they are dumped during the daytime. She’s with them all day long, no switching from math to science to social studies classes, and as a former suspension site teacher, I can tell this is going to be the teaching job from hell. While some of the boys are hard-core offenders, almost all of them behave like rude children (well what  do you expect, they don’t want to be there anyway) and they will test her, mess up the room, and do silly things.

    Peterson faces a problem of many “teaching artists” who go from afterschool programs into full time education. While the afterschool programs are easier because the kids want to be there, full-time teaching is always difficult because of the kids who DON’T want to be there. If you think that’s a problem in a regular high school, imagine what it’s like in Riker’s Island, arguably the worst jail in the USA. It’s not like you can call the kid’s mother (there’s nothing she can do) or send him to the principal (there isn’t one) or expel him (there nowhere to go, this is the end of the line.)

   Here’s a horrible irony about teaching at The Island School, which I figured out on my own. You know how the worst kids will probably come to school late and miss your class? Well not at this school, because they’re physically forced to go at gunpoint! Do you remember the kids in public school who never disturb your class because they spend all their time in the bathroom? Well not at this school, because bathroom breaks are restricted! You’re stuck all day long with the kind of kids who you’d rather play hookey all day.

    Peterson does get some info about how the boys got there, but I doubt they’re all truthful. Some of them are definitely guilty of the crimes they’re accused of, while others were in the wrong place at the wrong time (like riding in the back of a car when the driver was carrying a gun and had just shot someone.) Some are in there because their parents can’t afford a non-refundable $2000 bail bondsman’s fee, others are foster kids whose legal guardians probably don’t care.

    An advantage that the boys have in going to school is that they can hang out with their friends instead of getting stuck all day with the nasty correction officers. They don’t fight much in the classroom, mostly just tossing ball of paper at each other. Maybe the school is the only place where they can still be kids.

Law and Disorder: The Chaotic Birth of the NYPD

    Brice Chadwick’s is less about the NYPD and more about what a mess New York City was in the 1800’s. The author prefaces the book by telling us that crime levels in pre-Civil War NYC were six times what they are today, even more at the time than London and Paris (not sure I agree with that one.) Regardless, the city was known for bad behavior, and the chance of getting robbed and murdered was high. There wasn’t much in the way of law & order, and the police were never much help.

    Chadwick’s first chapter discusses the constant rioting in downtown New York (well there wasn’t much of an “uptown” yet) and the Black churches, schools, and homes were a favorite target. The first great riot of the city was not the famous Draft Riot of the Civil War, but the Summer Riot of 1834 (seems like the trouble in this city is always worse in the summer) where the abolitionist meetings were attacked. The few police available did try to stop the riots, but with no results. There wasn’t much that ten cops (with limited armament) could do against 300 violent men, especially when those men had no qualms about killing the police. Maybe those cops just weren’t willing to risk their lives for the miniscule pay they got.

    Riots in New York City happened every time the poor got mad, whether it was the use of unclaimed bodies in medical schools (the Doctor’s Riot) or the high price of flour, or the killing of stray dogs, or the impounding of stray pigs. In one forgotten 1833 incident, stonemasons stormed a workshop and smashed the place, because the contractor was using cheap marble from Sing-Sing. Apparently, NYU couldn’t afford the craftsmen’s price, so they opted to use cheaper stonework made by convict labor (NYU always seems to piss everyone off when they build a new wing.) As for the police, they were driven away by the stonemasons (leave it to your imagination who was physically stronger) and the militia had to be called in. That alone almost caused another riot; ever since the American Revolution 50 years earlier, nobody wanted to see armed troops in the city.

   I will hand it to Bruce Chadwick for mining some unbelievable resources for this book. In the chapter on the Hellen Jewett murder, he brings to light some old first-person accounts of the city in the 1830’s, most of which I’d never heard of. Some were written by professional writers who toured the city, others are scholarly academic studies on crime. According to the sources, prostitution was rampant (not surprising, as the respectable classes did not engage in casual sex) and some women found it more respectable than being a domestic servant.

    Chadwick credits Fernando Wood with improving things. He was trusted and respected by the police captains, and he appointed the ones who could gain the trust of the rank-and-file. As long as there was no dissent within the ranks, the police would at least be unified. Unfortunately, there was no way for patrolmen to communicate with HQ (radios not invented yet) and few would risk their lives by going into certain areas (no way to call for backup.) When the old Metropolitan Police were scrapped and reorganized, the city had the Police Riot, where the old cops and new cops battled each other in the street.

    The anti-crime reformers clashed with the police as well as the crowds, because the reformers all came from the same class and school as the abolitionists. Lydia Child, for instance, was a Conservative educated Bostoner, and John McDowall was a divinity student from Princeton. They both criticized the police for the prostitution problem, since the madams were paying off the police captains for every brothel they opened (a fact that the Lexow Committee would concur 60 years later.) Lydia Child found the perfect cause when Amelia Norma murdered a client. The reason – he reneged on a promise to marry her – was used by Child to prove her point; men could do whatever they wanted to the women and face no consequence.

    The author does find one positive thing about the early NYPD, and that is the use of the photograph. When cameras first became available, the NYPD seized the opportunity, creating the world’s first “rogue’s gallery” with detailed descriptions. Other departments followed suit, as did the FBI and the CIA. Reorganizing the police didn’t help that much, and things would still be unsafe in the city. Conflict between the abolitionists and pro-slavery New Yorkers continued, leading to the Draft Riots of the Civil War then the labor union riots, then conflict between the Irish and Italians, and so on.

    Tearing down the Five Points slum and the old Gotham Court may have helped. It’s harder to attack a cop in a dark alley if there are no alleys anymore.

Hillbilly Elegy

    Hillbilly Elegy shares a few things in common with Townie by Andre Dubus III. Both grew up in lousy communities; both had parents who were incompetent; both rose above their circumstances. The difference is that while Dubus had to contend with a bad town, Vance’s worst enemy was his own family, and it followed him wherever he went.

    I wasn’t shocked or surprised by anything in the story, I’m very familiar with poor Caucasian families ruined by drugs (or their own bad ways) and whole neighborhoods full of neglected kids. What’s new to me here is the way the author discusses how the economy effected his family. They started out as uneducated, violent people from Kentucky, then they migrated to Ohio for factory work, but it didn’t cure their bad habits. Whether it was the nice home, or the good paycheck, or the middle-class neighbors, nothing changed them. They were still combative, took the work “no” as an insult, and failed to raise their children properly. Finally the factories closed, the jobs dried up, and all they had left was their aggressive behavior. That alone doesn’t pay the bills.

    What makes Hillbilly Elegy stand out from other similar memoirs (The Glass Castle, Burn Down the Ground, Townie, Breaking Midnight) is that Vance turns the story into an exploration of history. He explains how his community began, and describes the locations so well that you can almost smell the filth (and the trees) in Middletown, Ohio, (where his grandparents went for factory work) and Kentucky (where they returned.) He describes his grandparents as too tough for their own good, and they raise their daughter to have no self-control. By the time they realize the error in their ways, it’s too late; she’s gotten into drugs, neglects and abuses her kids, and can’t hold down a job. She does actually have a career – she gets a nursing license – but keeps loosing her job because of her behavior. Grandma’s money keeps her going, and the lifelong enabling of this addict doesn’t help.

   At least the story has a happy ending; Vance joins the USMC, goes to Ohio U on the G.I. Bill, graduates early, gets a scholarship to Yale Law School, gets in with the rights crowd. But he doesn’t “luck out” in his fortune – it’s all due to his own motivation – and that sets him apart from others in his hometown. Take for instance the first chapter of the book; he’s working a summer job in his hometown and the boss can’t find reliable people. There’s a young man working there, with a wife and kid to support, and the guy is always in the bathroom or missing workdays. This man has absolutely no understanding of what it means to have a job, and you can’t blame the rich guy who owns the factory. After all, isn’t he doing a service by offering the young man a job? As for Vance’s mother, she never gets herself off drugs, and that’s no surprise; her mother always bailed her out.

    I might add here that every single character in this book is White. The good, the bad, the wise, the foolish, the rich and poor, they’re all White people here. The media makes poverty look “Black,” but it ruins all races. In fact, the media plays a part later, when an Ohio U classmate, liberal and educated, calls the US troops in Iraq “murderers” and “babykillers.” Unknown to this college liberal (but well known to the author) is that a lot of US Marines were very liberal, and many of them detested President George W. Bush. It goes to show that people base their opinions on what they see on TV, hear from their parents, or both. Wherever Vance’s family lived – be it Ohio or Kentucky – there were families that had nice houses and stable lives, in contrast to his. It wasn’t through luck, but through responsibility and showing up to work on time. Everything boils down to what you learn at home. If your folks set the wrong example, you end up losing. Vance pulled himself up from it, but most do not.

    There’s a humorous anecdote in this book, with regard to “bible-thumping.” According to the author, it’s nothing but a stereotype – church attendance is not common in Kentucky – and it has a major effect on the people. The ones that go to church every Sunday end up happier and healthier, with a better support network and a clergyperson they can talk to. They make better decisions, and are less prone to being rash. Churchgoing effected the outcome of the 2016 election; the churchgoers wanted Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Ben Carson, but the majority (who don’t go to church) wanted – you guessed it – Donald Trump!

A Bintel Brief

    This is a wonderful book on the advice column of the Yiddish paper The Forward (now English language) where New York’s Jews could piss and moan about everything. The author uses simple drawings to illustrate the problems people wrote about, along with the events of the times. Keep in mind that Bintel Brief was from a time when the Jews of New York lived in poverty and couldn’t afford therapy; writing to the advice columnist was the only way to talk about your problems. The Forward had its own building on the Lower East Side, but the neighborhood that is now hip and expensive used to be a dirty slum. It was a terrible neighborhood, crowded, polluted, and filthy. Families were very large, so the mothers were worn out from repeated pregnancies, and of course they had to work to feed all those kids. There was no public welfare at the time; you worked, or you went hungry. Therapy was unaffordable to most families, so this was the only alternative to talking to your clergyperson. The writers of this column were usually better educated than most Rabbis, so the advice would be a little more practical.

    A lot of the problems written about in Bintel Brief had to do with marriage. There wasn’t any casual dating in those days, and a lot of Jewish New Yorkers had arranged marriages. Some of the letters were from women whose husbands were not as wealthy as they claimed; some were from women whose children were in love with non-Jews. You can learn a lot about how people lived in those days, before the safety net of food stamps and social security.

    There have been other books on the Bintel Brief column, which ended in the 1970’s, but I think the last book was published in 1990. This fresh and vibrant comic about the column will keep the memory alive for years, in an era when few Jews still speak Yiddish. As for The Forward, it’s also a bit of an irony that the building is now high class apartments; by the 1930’s, the Jews had fled the Lower East Side in droves, and by the 1950’s it was not safe at night. My mother used to visit the building in the early 60’s, when they had a renowned kosher cafeteria in the basement, and she has fond memories of the place. But you couldn’t be there at night, even in the 50’s, because of all the junkies that came out of the woodwork. The paper itself is now in English, but not as much fun to read. It no longer celebrates Jewish life the way it used to, now relying on stories about Israel’s bombings, or who’s donating the most money to UJA. Perhaps when people have real problems in their lives, they’re more concerned with reading about good things? The Jewish community weren’t always financially successful in this country; there was a time when a lot of us lived in the “low income” area.