Ambiguity and the White Male in America.

Mireya Navarro, "Hurdles Still Remain for Ground Zero Settlement," in The New York Times, March 13, 2010, at p. A15.
Al Baker & Anahad O'Connor, "Suspect Arrested in Attack In Midtown Bar's Restroom," in The New York Times, March 13, 2010, at p. A15.
Anahad O'Connor, "Mother Tosses Child in River, Then Jumps In, Police Say," in The New York Times, May 12, 2010, at p. A23. (Alleged Israeli immigrant, DEVI SILVIA, a 33-year-old Upper West Side woman was charged with attempted murder after throwing her 19-month old daughter into the Hudson River. 30 years in prison for this woman? No, long prison terms are usually handed out to women associated with impermissible sex: "Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey.")

During recent years many white males have begun to grumble with good cause about being "screwed by the system." These are the "guys" (right word) who did everything right. They stayed out of serious trouble, graduated -- often with difficulty -- from high school, sometimes they have even survived a blue collar state college, maybe served in the military. They married their high school sweethearts and got jobs as firefighters, cops, government workers.

Suddenly, the orderly world these guys knew with tidy expectations of home owning, kids in private schools, decent cars, and a pension for their winter years has vanished. Somebody or something pulled a fast one on them. Yes, that something is called "history." ("Hunger in America.")

One such hero, in my judgment, is Kenny Specht, a former NY firefighter struggling against thyroid cancer after working at ground zero on 9/11.

A catalogue (or "catalog," as they say in the UK) of illnesses now afflict those who risked their lives on 9/11 -- many of whom are without medical coverage or attention. Let us hope the health care bill passes the Senate and becomes law.

In a recent issue of the Times, the two articles listed above appear on the same page. One of these articles describes the incident in a "Hell's Kitchen" bar that left a seriously injured woman on the floor of a bathroom after a vicious beating. The other article describes the fate of firefighters and police officers made sick by their experiences at ground zero, who are struggling for benefits against an indifferent as well as increasingly impersonal legal and administrative system. 

Our images of men -- especially, blue collar men -- are often dictated by incidents like this beating of a woman in a bar and not by the more common heroism of ordinary men in police and firefighting, or other such jobs at the low end of the economic spectrum.

This contrast in articles is highly revealing of the sources of justified (mostly) male anger. Recent arrivals -- often persons with criminal records and others, especially "minorities" -- seem to make out whereas blue collar guys and gals get screwed. As they say in the neighborhood: "Something's not right!" ("Americas's Love of Violence.")

"The police arrested a suspect on Friday in the attack on a 29-year-old woman who had been beaten and left bleeding and unconscious in a restroom stall at a Midtown bar, the authorities said."

The assumptions about this event were fascinating. Feministas assumed that the "perpetrator" would be a "black or hispanic male." In fact, reports are that the individual charged for these offenses is either an Israeli or other Middle East immigrant.

Why did so many women assume that the assailant would be a minority male from the projects or a comparable setting? 

This false perception is generated more by media images than by experience. These are the same persons assuming that minority males cannot spell or write grammatically. I wonder why they make these assumptions? Prejudice, perhaps? 

This would be a good time for New Jersey persons to insert some "errors" in this essay.

We MUST speak a language of images, as a society in the world today, or we will become irrelevant or misunderstood. Astonishingly, in America which invented this language of images, we are making almost no attempt to define ourselves in the world in this medium that reaches every sort of person. This is absurd because we are allowing others to define us in unflattering ways. 

No solution to antiamericanism will be found until this issue of definitions is addressed. Perceptions -- especially, cultural perceptions -- will become realities. Defining ourselves does not mean lying about our imperfections, but emphasizing our freedom to discuss those imperfections publicly. Have they censored my writings, again? ("Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")

"That's who commits crimes!" Feministas say, "minority males." No, not really. Crimes are committed, mostly, by young men from all blue collar areas in the city and of every ethnicity at about an equal rate. Increasingly, young women are also committing crimes with almost the same frequency as males. In fact, poverty is more of a determinant of criminal behavior than any ethnicity. 

One new "error" inserted and corrected, not as bad as I thought it would be.

"The police said the suspect, MBAREK LAFREM, 30, a construction worker from Norwood, Pa., was seen in surveillance video they released on Thursday. The man in the video was leaving the bar, Social, on Eighth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets, minutes after the attack early Thursday."

" ... The police said that Mr. Lafrem had wanted to dance with the woman, who is [a nurse] from Connecticut, but that she declined. He then followed her when she went to a basement restroom; he barged through the stall, and as she tried to pull up her pants, he tried to pull them down; a law enforcement official said. Then he attacked her the police official said."

Attempted rape is almost as bad as actual rape. Assaults, batteries (not the kind you put in appliances), thefts, slanders, inhumanities are things that I can understand very well because I have experienced them. I also appreciate the highly significant details found in the description of what followed these events as the attacker exited the premises where the incident occurred:

"The assailant left through the bar's front door, the police said."

Why should he sneak out of the bar? He did nothing wrong in his own estimation:

"Police video shows what officials say is Mr. Lafrem walking north on Eighth Avenue at 2:17 a.m. and shaking his right hand as if he was in pain. A different surveillance camera caught remarkably clear images of him later at a nearby store, the authorities said."

This is what social scientists and psychobabblers describe as the "death of affect." This man may have killed a woman, for all he knew, as a result of a nothing incident that every man experiences dozens of times. Obviously, the event in the bar was only the trigger for the release of pent-up emotions which "normal" persons express through articulation, creative work, or discussions with others. Most revealing is the indifference to his actions and their effects on others, especially disdain for the person that he had injured, severely and maybe lethally. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.")

"Something's not right." You said it. The alleged culprit strolled into a bodega (i.e., candy store) for some soda pop and snacks and left without paying for these items, enjoyed a casual promenade towards the subway without the slightest hesitation, nervousness, or seeming recognition of fault, guilt or responsibility for harm caused to others. No doubt this man would have justified his behavior as somehow the fault of the woman who rejected his advances or "failed to cooperate" with his wishes. The bodega owner is a Latino who probably deserves to get screwed in Mr. Lafrem's estimation.

Why shouldn't he be displeased with others? What's the big deal? I have interviewed such suspects. The experience is often surreal because one senses a sincere inability to grasp the common human experience of moral agency. The claims of others on our concern and attention are simply non-existent for such sadly deluded men and (sometimes) women. In New Jersey, such sociopaths are often government officials or attorneys. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey.")

This is a death-like condition associated, in my estimation, with the loss of religious feeling and cultural decline, among other factors, such as displacement of identity and interactions by way of commercial relations and technology. Compassion is an impossible and absurd emotion for such persons who prefer to slander victims behind their backs. ("A Comment on the Mystery of Evil" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

If this woman from Connecticut had been a "virtual female," generated by technology, then she would have been amenable to this man's wishes. ("Simone" and "Cherry 2000.") 

Others exist in commercial cultures to satisfy our expectations and needs, not to have feelings and needs of their own which must concern us. Too many women have become or been made into "virtual" females in order to be "liked by oppressors in masculine roles." Does this phenomenon explain the death of Brittany Murphy? ("A Doll's Aria" and "Not One More Victim.")

The goal of achieving personal identity is to exit a condition of robot-like displacement of subjectivity in order to "achieve oneself" as a person with a messy subjectivity or inner-life, everything that behaviorists say does not exist. ("The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem" and "Behaviorism is Evil.")

A big screen t.v. meets our needs without complaint. A car does the same. However, the world of other persons seems to contain these annoying rival subjectivities with wishes and needs to counter our own expectations. "I exist," as Sartre says, "in the gaze of the other." 

The yearning for control of those other or alternative interiorities/subjectivities may have something to do with Abu Ghraib. The world seems to be filled with annoying other persons whose values and ideals are not only different from ours, but actually conflict with our desires for "how things should be." ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")

We learn to cope with such difficulties with some regard for the FEELINGS and RIGHTS of others. Do you remember diplomacy, negotiation, peaceful resolutions of conflicts? Spacing of paragraphs has already been affected in this essay. I am afraid that we can expect many more defacements of this work. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

We owe the men and women who served the nation on 9/11 -- especially, New York police and firefighters -- all that we can provide to them. If there were a "Walk for the Heros of 9/11 and Their Families," I would go on that walk and raise money among friends and neighbors. The AIDS walk is coming up. I will be on it. The fate of the heros of 9/11 is about the community that is New York.

We owe the woman beaten so savagely in this incident our compassion, concern, and assistance. If there is any consolation for her then it may be found in the thought that the rape was not successful and that the altercation ended quickly for her. Many torture situations linger for a much longer period of time. Rapes are always far more devastating psychologically than they could ever be physically. The solution to events described in both articles is to feel more, not less. We must "heed the call of the other," as Albert Camus describes it in The Fall. This is what Simone Weil means by attention to the reality of other human beings who suffer and despair. ("Would You Have helped Catherine 'Kitty' Genovese?")

The challenge for all of us is to see beyond the tribalism that burdens our society at this difficult moment in our history to our common humanity by tempering our appropriate anger at these evil actions with sorrow and pity at the loss of the defendant's humanity, also consolation at the preservation of the victim's moral status -- despite her suffering -- as a healer and good person. This is a religious observation that has nothing to do with the supernatural or sectarianism. 

Get well soon.