Data is what drives the economy, and demographics reflects our culture. Without data that reflects what we like, do, spend money on, eat, love and believe in, then Google and FaceBook wouldn’t exist. At least, not for free. Well, at least you wouldn’t have Mark Zuckerberg’s personal cell phone number, address and favorite toilet paper… The problem with data, however, is that there’s too much of it. I don’t need to know if Mr. Zuckerberg wears boxers or briefs. There’s so much data in fact, that there’s no way to really respond to all of it, all the time. Spammers have figured some of it out, and aliens from planet Zorg are right now, as I type, pointing their universal translators at this blog post, and selling the data to Google.

Recently my wife and I were perusing our Verizon Fios movies for purchase selections. The interface is impossible to navigate, so we clumsily scrolled through different categories, trying to figure out the different options available to us not-so-frequent-TV-viewers. Genre categories kept us on track, as we were looking for something exciting – something to go with the half-bottle of Shiraz we had waiting on the coffee table.  We got to ‘horror’, and we don’t watch horror movies much, if at all.

I knew right away that something was very, very right. I’ve always considered the behemoth Disney to be the source of much self-

Horror Barbie

hatred, low self-esteem, racism, sexism, but I never thought of it as a source of horror. However, as I mentioned, data drives our economy, and the accuracy was astounding. In the ‘horror and sic-fi’ section, there she was – Barbie, in different cinematic scenarios. For all I could tell, Barbie Mermaid was a mass intellect murderer from the future. How better to seal Ken’s fate.

It’s the culture of negative, stereotypical media that has destroyed our credibility as a compassionate people. But luckily, we have a bright future, just knowing that for once, data mining and demographics offer an honest and realistic view of the world. Apparently, enough people responded to movies on this video rental system, to build a database that provides truth. We like truth, because lies are ugly.

We have a very diverse culture, and data cannot possibly reflect all of the truths of every aspect of our identity. We can, however, find humor…and horror, in raw data.

I’ve been on the road again, doing workshops and performances in different parts of the country. I am asked often, “Have things changed?” Answer always is, “Yes. To a degree. And not.”

When you’re flying east and west, driving north and south, when you’re seeing the country for what it is, meeting thousands of humans, all with their own stories, when you’re attempting to make connections on ideas and solutions that may be a bit challenging, the road becomes conduit, the connection between worlds.

So why bother with the rules of the road?

Most highways have two lanes. Travel and passing. You’re supposed to stay in the travel lane, and only use the passing lane when necessary, or when someone in a refurbished Yugo or oversized camper is trudging along at 39 mph, and you feel like it’s your right to gun the engine as you pass, as if they’ll look at you with more respect, and bow to your pompous, elite disposition, just because your engine is bigger.

Passing has always been a privilege, especially for those with the means. Being White is a privilege. Being male is a privilege. Being wealthy is a privilege. Being strong, smart, good-looking, tall, successful, sexy, thin and employed is a privilege. Being all the above is obviously a privilege. If you’re not any of these, and you’re on the road, passing can be a scary thing to attempt.

The question is, when you’re on the road, do you have to pass? Is the destination more important than the process, the trip, the experience?

The rules of the road are clear. Reasons for them are written, studied, required. But you have the right. You have the means. But will you pass, and leave the possibility of connection behind?  You might end up at the same diner, same hotel, same store… and you might then get in to a line. Where there are also rules. And where you can’t pass.

I hope that we find that our cultural speed limit is realistic, and that those who make the rules continue to evaluate and check for safety concerns. I hope that we’re okay with the travel lane because it represents our hard work that made it possible to move about. Because if not, those who have less will always be on the off-ramp. Never to catch up.

But if you are to pass, and the world is ready for you to pass, and passing is a matter of survival, then pass with caution…and ease back in to the travel lane.

And we thought highways were free.

Oh, such a typical theme – Educated British voice-over, talking pompously about some ‘third-world natives’, accompanied by images of topless women holding their emaciated babies, dancing, carrying food on their head…This of course is the same voice you’ll hear over footage of wild animals mating, and eating each other. You know the drill. Decades of the stereotype of the other, coupled with adjectives such as, ‘primitive’, have washed over our media consciousness. Disney, Hollywood, prefaced by famous heroes like Bob Hope, John Wayne and Bugs Bunny, elevated the status of ‘civilized’ people, to insure their place closer to God. All these images, footage, audio of the ’3rd World’ were shoved in to our breakfast cereals, prize at the bottom, because in the end, the elite on top, win. They make the language, they make the rules. And those in power, laugh at the ‘natives’ – the way they dance, sing, carry their belly-bloated babies – all too distant. And kids watch the cartoons, and learn the ways of the adults, making fun, making faces, making

Glenn Blech

stories and dances to mimic these people they’ll never come to meet. And that propagates, spreads throughout the world on TV, radio, movies, magazines, YouTube…

However, those ‘primitive’ people, don’t reciprocate with similar assumptions and stories about others. They don’t chillax after a union-guarded 5 hour day directing traffic, full with donut and a frappuccino, watching re-runs of The Westerner Who Came To Do The Documentary About Our Lives And Promised We’ll Get On Dr. Phil. They don’t gather around on game night, chug beer and scratch their tubby abdomens during half-time, to pull up on YouTube a silly video that might be called, The Massachusetts Suburb Housewife Learns To Milk A Goat And Spilled The Whole Bucket Carrying It Home On Her Head.

The culprit? The media. We have control over what we watch. We can say no. We can teach our children how to decipher media that is destructive, mean, sexist, racist, homophobic… and we can certainly respect that humans who live in different conditions are as human as we are.

If we really are all that ‘civilized’, we’d actually act like it. We’re not ‘first’. They’re not ‘third’. And I’d still like to know who’s ‘second’. However, we do know who’s last… and least.

Q: How do you describe yourself?
A: Human
Q: Uh huh. That was cute…in the 60′s. But your name, Spanish, right?
A: Via the Philippines and hundreds of years of Spanish Colonial rule, slavery and forced last names…so the occupiers could tax them.
Q: So, Hispanic?
A: No. Spain is not in South America. Spanish name, Filipino by ethnic heritage.
Q: Are you always this difficult, Professor?
A: No, only when asked these simple questions.
Q: Moving along…what is your wife?
A: Human
Q: Come on, seriously, is she like you?
A: Seriously, she’s human.

Half-Answer

Q: Well, what is her race?
A: Human.
Q: Are you kidding me? Where is she from?
A: America. She’s American.
Q: You know what I mean, right?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: So what nationality is she?
A: American.
Q: South American?
A: North American.
Q: So, she’s White.
A: North American does not imply White.
Q: Just tell me. What is she?
A: I already told you. She’s human.
Q: Would you STOP it?! Just tell me!
A: I’m guessing a picture of her would make you happy.
Q: YES! Show me a picture of her!
A: I don’t have one.
Q: Okay, this has gone too far. You’re just playing with me, aren’t you?
A: I think I know what you might be asking. You’re asking me, what color is my wife’s skin.
Q: YES! YES! What COLOR is your wife?!
A: Ah. You should have asked that at the very beginning.
Q: I did! So why didn’t you just tell me?
A: Because you’re not ready.
Q: You’re telling me that I’m not ready?! What COLOR is she?!
A: You ready?
Q: YES! FOR THE LOVE OF HUMAN KIND! What color is your wife?!
A: Skin color.
Q: Are you serious!?
A: Flesh tone. Epidermis shade. Human hue.
Q: What are you, a robot?! Are you some kind of a bug-ridden robot with no human feelings?!
A: No, I’m human.

Inoculation is required to prevent things like tuberculosis, the flu, and extreme cuteness. Hanna Montana successfully responded to all three. But there is no inoculation for bigotry. I’m not even sure if the scientific community has thought about it. Because that would be pretty cool if they did… and had federal support. Imagine the announcement:

Realty Barbie: Rosie

“After 20 years of minimally funded R&D, the CDC and FDA researchers and scientists have successfully tested a new inoculation designed to reduce the possibility of contracting bigotritis, a well-documented condition commonly known to afflict people at any age or demographic. Shock Jocks, such as Rush Limbough and Don Imus are famous examples of individuals with seemingly incurable cases of bigotritis. US Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John McCain have also publicly displayed their handicap caused by bigotritis, on numerous occasions, causing public relations professionals to keep their clients’ conditions under wrap. Tests for the new drug will be offered as a trial to willing subjects for the first twelve months, and soon after will be made available  to most hospitals and clinics around the country. There is no evidence of potential negative side-effects, but critics muse that, without proper filtering, the drug could literally bring down Hollywood, Disney, comedy clubs, morning drive talk radio, fundamental religious elitism, politicians and the new Mattel merch phenomenon, ‘Reality Barbie’ talking dolls, with Rosie O’Donnell as the flagship, pull-string bigot.”

Feel better.

I’ve worked hard for 17 years to eliminate racial categories. BIG uphill climb. It’s kinda like talking about religion or class, while waiting in a long line at the seasonal ice cream store on the last day of summer. We have not moved forward, and with President Obama having chosen just ‘Black’ for his racial designation on the 2010 nation census, not much hope.

So I propose we introduce color-coded water fountains again. Just for a while. Like a month or two. Just long enough for the media to go crazy, shock jocks so shocked they’ll stain their jocks, and politicians to run from all photo ops featuring anything to do with water.

Defunct and abandoned factories could be retooled for temporary assembly lines to build these new water fountains. Jobs will be created, law makers would make even more serious money, athletes would leave their portable water bottles at home, and we’d save billions of tons of plastic by eliminating bottled spring water.

There's something in our water.

We’ll place these color coded water fountains everywhere. In front of the Lincoln statue, next to NYC UN headquarters, 42nd St in NYC, Hollywood Blvd in LA, every school, public building, airport, building lobby, apartments, day care centers, and every mixed-race house will get as many as they need…anywhere where just a little splash of color will brighten up the mood.

Maybe then, while people scramble to get in to line at the appropriate water fountain, maybe, just maybe, everyone will just have a conversation about ridiculous race categories are, and  get in to the shortest line because it’s really just all about drinking water. Which after all is most of our body.

Drink up.

Earlier in my broadcast television career, I spent several years as a video editor. Evening news, short form docs, then PBS’s Frontline, with it’s hard-hitting political documentaries. Relatively soon after I started in full-length political and social issues documentary production, George Bush Sr. engaged in operations in the Middle East. As an editor, I have thousands of hours of footage memorized. Much of the footage during this time was of war. From frontline mini camera footage, to nighttime infrared evidence of engagement. Bombs, planes, tanks, infantry, explosions, yelling, screaming…even footage we were not allowed to show on television…footage that said too much about how cruel human beings can be, including the enemy, US soldiers and the US president himself. A generation later, 9/11, under the leadership of his son, George Bush Jr., there was a foreign attack on US soil. Back to the scene.

I have not been to war, nor do I ever want to. I was once told, as a child, “You ain’t a man until you’ve been in combat”. At 49 years old, I can say very comfortably that I am exactly the man I would like to be, and never experienced combat. But I’ve seen it. The footage of the atrocities committed on both, rather, all sides, will always be in my head. I could tell you what tape a certain sequence is on, what the time code number is, how many seconds the shot is, even how I’d use it to maximize the impact of the scene.

After I left the world of cold journalism, I needed to purge myself of news, images, sounds and sound bites, and went cold turkey. The visual caffeine had kept me in a state of heightened awareness, and now, the headaches would begin…

On September 11, 2001, I had been a college professor, teaching television production for about two years. By this point, I had managed, somewhat, to get most of the female and some of the male students to refrain from producing violence themed video projects. A half an hour into class, the attacks were announced, and everyone desperately looked for the closest TV that was broadcasting, live, the events in NYC. I quietly went to my office, and called my mother. She lives uptown from the twin towers, but I just wanted to make sure she was okay. Meanwhile my father, in Tokyo, called my mother to see if I had been on a plane that morning, as I live in Boston and fly a lot for business. I did not look at the TV. I went back to the studio to tell my students to go home and avoid crowded areas if at all possible. I drove home and walked in to my house, where my wife and a friend were watching the TV, transfixed and horrified. Still, I did not look at the TV, and went outside to think. The weather was perfect. The sky was clear. Birds were chirping. But slowly, the sounds and images of tanks, missals, explosions and screaming came back.

home

9/11 will always be in our minds, and I’m still saddened by that day. But having not spent the time to soak in the images that horrified so many, and having given myself the opportunity to observe the clear skies, and hear the birds, is what I prefer to remember about that day…just knowing that somewhere in the world, everyday, there is a 9/11, that never gets caught on video for the world to cry over.

History learned in books is numbered in pages. History learned by observing is numbered in images and sound. History learned spiritually is numbered in lifetimes.

There is never a need for violence, real, games or otherwise. We need time to heal in our own, short, precious lifetime.

Peace.

My recent post on National Public Radio’s On-Point show, via WBUR in Boston, on the politics of race and President Obama.

As the country’s first mixed-race, White & Black president, the president has the opportunity to represent the fastest growing demographic groups in America -multiracial. The politics of race is predicated on race being created for politics and power in the first place. The acknowledgement of race as being a political construct is the first step toward removing race from our collective political mindset. If President Obama had selected more than one ‘race’ on the 2010 national census, that would have sent a strong message to the US and world that he truly exemplifies the fusion of identities that is indicative of this country. He chose Black, however, negating his mother and grandmother’s identity and his upbringing in the various places in the US and abroad, culturally speaking. If his mother and grandmother were still alive today, and stood with him at inauguration, how would they respond to him choosing only ‘Black’ as his identity on the political platform of the Office of Management and Budget? True, the president is perceived as Black, but like myself, has a ‘White’ and ‘Black’ parents, and international experiences that design him. He certainly didn’t have a typical ‘Black American’ experience, so I see the focus on him being Black as a political way in which to position him. Yes, in the race, race is important because as a nation we have lingering need to place ourselves in boxes. Must we continue to do this politically, when emotionally it’s difficult enough? The tough stance, but the right one, would be to use his mixed heritage as an advantage to bring us all together. For him, that’s White American, Black African and Indonesian experiences. This is the beauty of America.

It’s been a little over twelve months since our two girls moved in with us. The common word is ‘adoption’. But the word adoption, like ‘lactose intolerance’, has potential negative connotations. Being lactose intolerant is an inheritable condition. It is a biological, chemical reaction to milk, which is, natural and for a short period of time in our early years, necessary. If you blurt out in public, “lactose intolerant”, people generally react. Some might be overly cautious, some might be curious as to what the word means. Some might find it funny, and some might just empathize.

The sisters moved in at 8 and 15 years old. They don’t look like us, they have a history, and they are well enough ‘aware of the stare’. When we’re on the street, or in the supermarket, on the subway or at the playground, it is clear that some people are clearly lactose intolerant. Cuz you can smell it from 20 feet away. There are those who are overly cautious, some might be curious as to what the relationship is, some might find it beautiful, and some might empathize.

I grew up in Japan, as a ‘gaijin’ – foreigner. Fluent in the language, and became Japanese, by culture, as a little kid. Japan is my home, but I got plenty of stares, fingers pointing in my face, telling me that I’m literally an ‘outsider’. I came back to the United States for college, and in the first week, overheard two Japanese students talking about the Americans around them as foreigners. I’ve spent my whole life ‘aware of the stare’. As a mixed-person, I am aware of the stare. As a parent of two beautiful girls, I am aware of the stare. And the girls are aware.

Perspective is like pizza. And pizza has cheese. And cheese is not good for all those people who are lactose intolerant. And yet, everyone loves a good pizza. We all want to know ‘what’ someone is. We all want to define. And in the end, family is about love. So if you’re going to stare, be aware. A smile, a nod…a hello would be nice. And then someday we can share the stare, at the pizza that lay before our hungry eyes.

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In one lifetime:

All In The Family

• We regenerate every cell in our body at least 6 times.
• The earth goes around the sun, on average, 72 times.
• Chris Rock will have used the ‘N’ word 1,576,800 times (60 x day).
• 800,500,000 people in 28 countries try to be ‘Black’ by wearing hoodies, walking with a swagger and nodding their heads to inappropriate rap music that their extended families would disown them for.
• The average teenager will drink 385 quarts of milk directly from the container.
• 68 people will covertly switch Bibles with The Koran or other religious publications in major hotel rooms.
• 3 billion people will deny passing gas, despite the overwhelming evidence.
• Every human, as they lay dying, will realize race categories are stupid.