Japan

Hi friends,

To tell you the truth, right now I am so terrified, so sad, so angry, but mostly terrified because of what is going on in Japan.  My brain keeps trying to comfort me with all kinds of strategies.  But the fear just comes bubbling back up.  I just feel like our planet and our human existence is so threatened by all these human-made horrors.  I'm thinking principally of the nuclear plants, but also all the violence and weapons being used against people in Libya and so many other parts of the world.  It becomes easy to hate oneself for being human.  How can we do such horrible things to ourselves and one another and to the earth?  It really is overwhelming me right now as I look at Mallika's beautiful smiling face in her school photograph.  If we were living in Japan, I would be so angry right now.  Because we live here, I'm more scared and sad.  I don't know if these emotions do anything to help anything, but I do know that they're here in the room with me as much as the oxygen is -- breathing in, breathing out.  Fear and sadness, fear and anger, fear.  And the fear makes me want someone to blame.

Maybe it's just the news that I happen to catch, but I've noticed so much coverage and so many images of nuclear power plants.  Not really so many of people.  In contrast, I remember lots of images of crushed houses and more domestic things and crying, suffering people during the Haiti earthquake.  I recognize that there was no nuclear meltdown threat going on in Haiti, but that's not the whole story.

I've been thinking a lot about Werllayne Nunes's artist's statement at his show last week where he talked about how poor people of color from the global south rarely get depicted as joyful.  His art does a wonderful, powerful job of countering that important fact.

I also read a friend's facebook post yesterday with a CNN blog about why it is that Japanese aren't looting.  The blogger (Cafferty) published a lot of random people's speculations about the explanation for this phenomenon, and my friend also posted on fb that she thought we in the US had a thing or two to learn from Japan.  I kind-of had to wonder what those one or two things were -- that next time we have a natural disaster we should replace all the Black people with Japanese?  She didn't specify, but given the bloggers' contributors' comments, it's not too hard to reach that conclusion.  Read on...

"Unlike our Katrina disaster, the Japanese don't see this as an opportunity to steal everything in sight. The so-called civilized world can learn much from the stoic Japanese."

"The people of Japan love their country and do what is best for the nation, unlike the United States where we love our country and do what is best for ourselves."

"The Japanese are resourceful, innovative and disciplined people with a great sense of national pride. While they also have criminals and felons, it is not quite in comparison to the sleaze balls we have in our streets. It was disgusting to watch these scum bags loot stores in New Orleans during Katrina when they should have helped their fellow citizens in need. While watching the devastation in Japan is heart wrenching, it is so refreshing to see the civility of people within the calamity they are facing."

And my very favorite:  "Personally, I've always thought it's because they're a more highly evolved race."

When people don't know shit and when they're scared, they look for order, for explanations that make sense to them, for scapegoats. (I'm included in this "people" category too, BTW.)  And all it takes is a little scratch for the rabid racism to come spewing out.  I've seen it happen too many times to count, and this seems to be no different.

Before I sign off, I'll say that I've found yet another cultural anthropologist that I like -- Keibo Oiwa, who has founded the Sloth Movement.  I like.

Peace (and stay alive while you're at it),
Briana

P.S. I'll be traveling tomorrow, so no new post until Monday.