Safe Summer 2015

Eula Biss on how a threat becomes a plague

Alternatives to policing in the Black Freedom Movement

The world’s first all–Asian American dance rock band wrangles with trademark law

Ovid and the literature of rape

$8 2 Oregon Humanities 3 Summer 2015

Oregon Humanities (ISSN editor editorial advisory board Departments 2333-5513) is published trian- Kathleen Holt Features: Safe Debra Gwartney nually by Oregon Humanities, art director Julia Heydon 921 SW Washington St., Suite Jen Wick Guy Maynard 4 12 25 150, Portland, Oregon 97205. Win McCormack Editor’s Note Plague Fears Group Therapy by eula biss by dionisia morales We welcome letters from assistant editors Greg Netzer 6 In an ongoing apocalypse, how Copping out at an uptown readers. If you would like to Eloise Holland Camela Raymond Field Work do we know when to panic? slumber party submit a letter for consider- Ben Waterhouse Kate Sage Vanport Multimedia Project ation, please send it to the Rich Wandschneider ✢ copy editor Grand Ronde museum and 17 31 Dave Weich ✢ This Is Not Just a Cloud editor at k.holt@oregon- Allison Dubinsky cultural center Humanity Trademark Offense humanities.org or to the Matt Yurdana in Perspective mentors ✢ OH by simon tam by michael heald ✢ ✢ Embracing grief in the address listed above. Letters communications/ News Thanks to our funders An Asian American musician wilderness publications intern Talking about Dying gets into trouble for naming his may be edited for space or band the Slants. Julia Withers clarity. 11 36 Oregon Humanities is From the Director 21 The Rim of the Wound provided free to Oregonians. Civil Rights with Guns by wendy willis An open letter to the students To join our mailing list, email 40 by kristian williams Posts Alternatives to policing during of Columbia University’s o.hm@oregonhumanities. Readers write about “Safe.” the Black Freedom Movement Multicultural Affairs Advi- org, visit oregonhumanities. sory Board, with a special org/magazine, or call our 44 note to my daughters office at (503) 241-0543 or Read. Talk. Think. (800) 735-0543. The Great Detective by Zach Dundas ✢ The Life and Legends of Calamity Jane by Richard W. Etulain ✢ Sounding Race in Rap Music by Loren Kajikawa ✢ Below the Radar by Alison L. Gash ✢ What the Dying Have Taught Me about Living by Fred Grewe ✢ Founding Grammars by Rosemarie Ostler ✢ Turtleface and Beyond by Arthur Bradford ✢ Crooked River by Valerie Geary

46 Croppings Daily Objects at the Arts Center in Corvallis OREGON STATE PENITENTIARYOREGON STATE 4 Oregon Humanities 5 Summer 2015

Editor’s Note

Safely and Bravely

HIS SUMMER, MY DAUGHTER LEARNED SELF- walks through our neighborhood alone, why she must learn to T defense at a music camp for girls. At the weeklong camp, trust her own instincts—even if she offends someone or seems kids form bands, compose music, write songs, play music, make unfriendly—above all else. zines and T-shirts, and revel in girl power, but they also take a But how can I teach her that in protecting herself she workshop on how to physically protect themselves. shouldn’t isolate herself from the rest of the world? As our July “If someone comes up to you and grabs your throat,” my Think & Drink guest, writer Eula Biss, said, the idea that we can daughter said, pretending to reach for me, “you make your arm each create our own little societies in our homes is disturbing: really straight and shove your fingers right here.” She gestured “What do we owe each other as citizens?” This obligation—that to the vulnerable hollow at the base of her neck. She showed me we move together toward good, generous, compassionate lives a couple of other techniques, each detailing how to escape from despite the myriad ways we hurt each other daily—is what I feel various attacks. Watching her move clumsily from one pretend pressing on me even when my strongest urge is to lock the scenario to the next, I felt my heart break a little bit. windows and doors and draw my little family close in around me. I’m a parent, so I’m used to heartbreak—the tiny little fis- But again, doubt: can my daughter—can any of us, really—learn sures that form with every step my children take toward adult- to live both safely and bravely in the world? hood. But this one felt different because my perspective was The essays that follow explore threats of words and ideas, suddenly different: rather than seeing her as moving away fear and vulnerability, ways we challenge one another, ways from me toward some vague place, I clearly saw the place, the we protect one another. That many of these rise out of relation- one filled with external threats of violence, accidents, and ships between parents and children isn’t surprising: Perhaps earthquakes, and internal ones, like failure, disappointment, the last times we felt truly safe were in our childhood. Perhaps and despair. we instinctively conspire to preserve those times and recre- And when I imagined my child in this place, I felt new doubt. ate them when possible. Or perhaps we revisit them again and The list of instructions on keeping her safe has been, so far, again to test old frailties, draw new insights, and wield new pretty straightforward: wash your hands, wear your seat belt, tools for living in a precarious world. wear your helmet, don’t chase a ball into the street. But I know kathleen holt, Editor these warnings won’t be enough. I’ll soon have to explain to her [email protected] why she is learning self-defense, why she must be alert when she

Cover Art Ideas for “Move” This issue’s cover is by Hye-Ryoung Min, a online at oregonhumanities.org), then send Please consider the constraints of a New York–based photographer whose work us the following by October 12, 2015: magazine cover (e.g., vertical orientation, was on display earlier this summer at News- • A high-resolution digital image (300 dpi nameplate, and cover lines). We are most pace Center for Photography in southeast at 8” x 10”; scans or photographs, JPEG interested in works by Oregon-based artists. Portland. or TIFF) Submissions can be sent to If you’re an artist and have work that • Your name, the title of the work, the type [email protected] or by post we might consider for the Fall/Winter 2015 of media, as well as contact information to Oregon Humanities magazine, issue, on the theme “Move,” we’d love to (email and phone number) 921 SW Washington St. Suite 150, Portland, know about it. Please familiarize yourself • Description of the relationship of the OR 97205. with our publication (back issues viewable image to the theme 6 Oregon Humanities 7 Summer 2015

Training Center. In 2014, Laura Lo Forti came on board as project director, leading a series of free workshops in which volunteers combined recordings of Vanport survivors’ stories with archival photos and video to create short mul- timedia pieces. “They’re talking about the same event, but Field Work from very different perspectives,” Lo Forti HUMANITIES ACROSS OREGON says. “We edit [the interviews] with other lay- ers of storytelling, and then we go back and ask the survivors if that’s a good representation of their story.” The edited stories, collectively titled The Wake of Vanport, were first screened last fall to a standing-room-only crowd at Vancouver Ave- nue First Baptist Church. Subsequent screen- ings have been similarly packed. “That was fantastic. It really made me feel TIM LABARGE good to see that outpouring of people,” says Marge Moss, a Vanport survivor who contrib- Our supporters make uted her story to the project. “It’s important that people know the history. The people that this magazine—and so lived there, we were human beings, and we didn’t matter.” The screenings drew interest from many much more—possible. more Portlanders eager to have their expe- Take a look at how much donors like you helped riences recorded. “More and more former Vanport residents are contacting us and say- Oregon Humanities accomplish around the state ing, ‘What about me? I also have a story,’” Lo in our 2014 Annual Report, now available online Forti says. “And not just people from the black at oregonhumanities.org. community—this is a story that touches many communities.” Moss, who was born in Louisiana, says she remembers Vanport, which had integrated works of music, dance, theater, art, and film. schools but segregated streets and medical “This is a story of community strength and facilities, as a place of relative racial tolerance. resilience,” Lo Forti says. “We are acknowl- “It was like culture shock when we moved edging that Vanport was a community. People there,” she says. “I had never associated with came with hopes to build a future, escaping any other races. In Louisiana we were not awful realities. They came with hope and

INTISAR ABIOTO allowed to look at white people in the face. The strength. It is the entire experience we are exposure in Vanport was very good.” celebrating.” Audience members at an over- With Hope and Strength early snowmelt, rushed in through the crack. Starting this summer, Lo Forti is partner- To learn more about upcoming events capacity 2014 presentation of Volunteers are working to preserve memories of In its path lay Vanport, Oregon’s second-largest ing with libraries, churches, schools, and senior related to the Vanport oral history project, visit “The Wake of Vanport” at Oregon Historical Society Vanport, Oregon’s lost city. city and the nation’s largest housing project, centers around Portland to set up recording vanportmosaic.org. built in just 110 days in 1942 to house the tens booths where volunteers will interview former BEN WATERHOUSE Want to keep HE 1948 VANPORT FLOOD AND of thousands of new Oregonians who came to Vanport residents in what she is calling a “story up with the T Portland’s response to the housing crisis work in Portland’s wartime shipyards. The harvest.” Her goal, she says, is to “create better humanities in it brought about did much to shape the city. city’s 18,000 residents, many of whom were understanding across communities in this city Chachalu Rising Oregon? Today, a dedicated group of volunteers are black, had been assured earlier that day that we all love.” Grand Ronde museum and cultural center working to document the experiences of those there was no need to evacuate. The city was More screenings are upcoming, including displays history while looking to the future. • Visit oregonhumanities.org who lived in Vanport and survived the flood. completely destroyed. one on August 28 at Embassy Suites in down- to sign up for our monthly On May 30, 1948, the railroad dike on Smith The Vanport Multimedia Project was town Portland and one as part of the Vanport AST YEAR, GRAND RONDE HOSTED enewsletter • Like us on Facebook Lake, just north of Portland, was breached. started in 2011 as a program of the Skanner Mosaic Festival, which will commemorate a conference called Terminating the L • Follow us on Twitter Water from the Columbia River, swollen with Foundation’s North Portland Multimedia the sixty-eighth anniversary of the flood with Tribes, Restoring the People, an event funded 8 Oregon Humanities 9 Summer 2015

Oregon Humanities News history, and interviews from members. Accord- ing to Cole, phase two will consist of interactive NEW CONVERSATION PROJECT exhibits, a language lab to teach the reserva- PROGRAMS Our 2015–16 Conversation tion lingua franca, Chinuk Wawa, and space for Project catalog is now available. Topics revolving and permanent exhibits. include hip hop in the Pacific Northwest, Chachalu means “the place of burnt tim- the role of privacy in our lives, and income bers.” It refers to the yearly controlled burns inequality, among many others. Oregon yielding new growth in the valley. For Grand nonprofits and community organizations Ronde, it symbolizes the tribes’ continued can apply until September 30, 2015, to host growth from the ashes of cultural destruction. programs this winter. Visit oregonhuman- AARON M. SMITH ities.org for more information or to find a conversation near you.

BRADLEY LENO Pairing Up FINAL THINK & DRINK OF 2015 Join us Mentor program provides fresh perspectives to in Portland on September 23 at 7:00 p.m. in part by a grant from Oregon Humanities. A display at the Chachalu Tribal both students and volunteers. at the Alberta Rose Theatre for our final According to Kathy Cole, the cultural education Museum and Cultural Center in WEISMANN-YEE KYLE Think & Drink of 2015, featuring Genevieve and outreach program manager at Grand Ronde, Grand Ronde features a carving of IONNE MARKEY FIRST HEARD salmon returning to their birthplace Bell, a cultural anthropologist at Intel. Visit the conference was a chance to share with tribal about Humanity in Perspective (HIP) at twenty-nine years in customer service at Nor- Dionne Markey shakes hands with to restart the circle of life. D oregonhumanities.org for more information members many of the exciting discoveries made a poetry workshop. A fellow workshop attendee dstrom. She was intrigued by HIP but unsure. Adam Davis at the 2015 Humanity in Perspective commencement. about the event and how to purchase tickets. in researching the culture and history of the had graduated from the free college-level “I said, I don’t know—it’s been a long time since tribes at Grand Ronde and in western Oregon. course for adults living on low incomes, spon- I’ve gone to school,” she recalls. NEW BOARD MEMBERS Oregon In 1954, the Confederated Tribes of Grand sored by Oregon Humanities in association Markey eventually enrolled in the course Humanities is pleased to announce the Ronde, which consisted of more than twenty- with Bard College, Marylhurst University, and and was matched with a mentor named addition of two new members to the board seven different nations from western Oregon, Reed College. Markey had lived in Portland for Sandra Dixon, a Portland Community Col- of directors: Nels Johnson is with the Thorn southern Washington, and northern Califor- fifty years, and she was mostly retired after lege employee who had graduated from HIP Run Partners’ Oregon legislative practice nia, had their federal designation stripped and the Multnomah Education Service Dis- when Congress signed the Western Oregon trict, and Alberto Moreno is the executive Indian Termination Act. The various nations director of the Oregon Latino Health Coali- had been living on a reservation in the south- tion and chair of the Governor’s Commis- ern Yamhill Valley since 1856. In that year, the Where There Are sion on Hispanic Affairs. We seek nominees US military, in its continued effort to move all for our board who are interested in con- Native American nations in western Oregon People Who Care, necting Oregonians to ideas that change away from encroaching white people, com- lives and transform communities. Find pelled the nations to sign seven treaties ced- There Is Community. more information at oregonhumanities. ing millions of acres to the United States and org/about-us/nomination-process removing them to the reservation. With the passing of the 1954 act, the seven treaties were 2016 PUBLIC PROGRAM GRANTS nullified and each member of Grand Ronde was Oregon Humanities Public Program Grants paid $35 for their share of the sold land. Many are between $1,000 and $10,000 and are members drifted away from Grand Ronde, awarded to nonprofit organizations in where they had been virtually imprisoned, Oregon to support programs that promote unable to come and go without permission, for diverse perspectives and explore challeng- nearly a century. The tribal cemetery was one ing questions. The deadline is October 31, of the few remaining links to the past. 2015, for letters of interest, and guidelines Stories, exhibits, and recordings about this We are proud to work with nonprofits are now available at oregonhumanities.org. history are now housed at the Chachalu Tribal throughout our region that share Museum and Cultural Center. The tribal gov- our vision of building healthier WE’VE MOVED Our home for the last ernment has laid out two phases of development seven years will soon be turned into a hotel, for Chachalu. Phase one is now complete. It is communities. Working together, we so we’ve moved our office just down the a permanent collection that includes photos of are dedicated to better health for street to the Pittock Block in downtown chieftains and tribal members, sacred objects, individuals, families and communities. Portland. Our new address is 921 SW Wash- maps of the original locations of various tribes in ington St., Suite 150. western Oregon, and recorded tribal mythology, Learn more about how Cambia Health Foundation gives back at cambiahealthfoundation.org. 10 Oregon Humanities 11 Summer 2015 FROM THE DIRECTOR

herself some years earlier. Volunteer mentors That’s why Andrea Cano, a seasoned group Funders provide academic and moral support to HIP facilitator and intercultural community leader, Keep Oregon students, checking in with them via weekly is excited to be one of eight Oregonians chosen Listening, phone calls and occasional meetings to keep to travel the state from now through January Learning, and mentees engaged in their studies and on track 2016 to lead Oregon Humanities’ community again. Bottles and tubes were everywhere. Pro- Exploring to complete the course. The pair discussed conversations about death and dying. tection for all these pale bodies, all this white class materials such as the Declaration of Sen- “It’s such a special invitation,” Cano says. skin. It was hard not to make much of how Thanks to the support of timents from the 1848 Seneca Falls Conven- “My hope is that these conversations bring attentive we were in protecting ourselves. our generous funders, tion on women’s rights. “I’d ask her questions,” together an intergenerational, intercultural By then the Charleston shooting had begun Oregon Humanities Markey says, “and she’d break it down for me audience.” The Talking about Dying program, to arise spottily in conversation: family mem- connects tens of thou- and make it simple. Having a mentor who is in which OH is presenting in partnership with bers shook their heads, cast their eyes down- sands of Oregonians to school straightens you out. It’s a very good pro- Cambia Health Foundation, will offer public ward. Then it was back to the beach, the kids, life-changing ideas. This year so far, the following gram that they have.” opportunities in thirty-eight communities the next meal. There was no talk of why it hap- funders have helped us For Dixon, who is taking master’s-level throughout the state for Oregonians to have pened or what it might mean for South Caro- make Oregon a more classes in educational policy at Portland State what OH program officer Annie Kaffen calls “a lina, for the country, for us. dynamic and vital place University, the mentorship was another step tough but critical conversation.” I found to my surprise and shame that I to live: in a long relationship with HIP. Her son, who “This program speaks to Oregon Humani- was able to check out. For hours at a time I did attended the free child care provided dur- ties’ mission so directly,” Kaffen says. “The not think about Charleston, about the people • Meyer Memorial ing her HIP classes when he was young, later topic transcends many boundaries. It’s some- who were killed, the family members who Trust: $75,000 two-year went on to enroll in the program himself. As thing that’s going to happen to all of us, but it’s responded with startling generosity and grace. award for core operating for working with Markey, Dixon says, “She not going to happen the same way, and we’re One day, I forgot or decided not to apply support enhanced my life in general. It was great get- not going to talk about it the same way.” sun block and ended up with a fresh burn. My • The John R. Gatewood ting the perspective of someone who had lived In fact, a 2013 Pew Research Center survey wife’s cousins commented on the hue of my and Mary Z. Gatewood through some of the things we discussed.” indicates significant differences across racial KIM NGUYEN skin. We all laughed. At night I was kept awake Fund, the Redtail Fund, Some of the course material was challeng- and ethnic groups when it comes to questions by the heat rising from my chest and arms. I and the Ward Family ing, both academically and otherwise—for about death and dying. For example, black and finally fell asleep and awoke in the morning Fund of the Oregon example, a unit on the nation’s founding doc- Hispanic respondents were twice as likely as refreshed: the air conditioning, the big quiet Community Foundation: uments. “She’s African American, and I’m white respondents to say they would pursue house, the locked door. $30,000 for capacity The Risk of Trust building African American. Realizing that the Consti- every possible medical intervention to pre- For the rest of the trip I wondered about tution was not written for us,” Dixon says, was serve life, even when faced with incurable ill- the hour before the white man at the Emanuel • The James F. and difficult. “A lot of times historical documents ness and great pain. African Methodist Episcopal Church pulled Marion L. Miller Founda- have a lot of pain in them. We looked at it and These differences may be explained by cul- a gun from his bag. He was, I learned, wel- tion: $25,000 for Oregon said, ‘That was then, this is now—otherwise we tural views on family and religion, as well as N THE WAY FROM THE AIRPORT IN comed into a bible study session. He sat with a Humanities magazine ADAM DAVIS wouldn’t be in a class and have this opportu- distrust rooted in a long history of institutional O Atlanta to a family reunion in South Car- group of people who were, I imagined, making • The Collins Foundation: nity to learn and grow.’” racism within the American health care indus- olina, I heard that people had been murdered meaning of their lives together, perhaps try- $18,000 for Humanity in Having graduated in April, Markey says her try, which has been shown to provide people in a church in Charleston. I heard that the ing to make sense of how to live well in a world Perspective and Idea Lab study of American history, classical philoso- of color with less aggressive care and worse victims were black and the shooter was white. that makes it more difficult than it should be. • The Kinsman Founda- phers such as Plato, and art have had a lasting health outcomes than whites. These issues, There was too little information and too much They welcomed in a stranger, listened to him, tion: $15,000 for Conver- impact. “I look at pictures differently now,” along with personal stories and questions that to absorb, and my kids were in the back seat and talked with him. sation Project she says. She looks forward to returning to her are more spiritual in nature, are all up for dis- before I knew it we arrived at the beach house. They could have locked the door. They had • The PGE Foundation: poetry workshops with a new perspective. cussion as part of the program. The next morning thirty-five people were good reasons to. They could have done more to $10,000 for Idea Lab ERIC GOLD “Our state is expanding ethnically and cul- coming and going, and there were hugs and protect themselves, the risks having declared • Juan Young Trust: turally,” Cano says. “We need to be able to talk catch-ups and trips to and from the beach. themselves over and over again. This commit- $7,000 for Idea Lab about how we live together, but also how we die In the house nobody said anything about the ment to trust—this is the risk that democracy • Jubitz Family Founda- Talking about Dying together.” To find out where a Talking about shooting even though it was in the newspa- asks for and rarely receives. tion: $5,000 for Conver- Communities throughout Oregon welcome a Dying conversation is happening near you, visit per and on the news. That evening as we held It may be obvious but I believe it bears sation Project critical but challenging conversation. the Oregon Humanities calendar at oregonhu- hands and bowed heads, a young cousin who repeating: to ask anyone to trust is to ask a lot. manities.org. had been asked to say grace offered thanks for To ask some people to trust—people who have • Autzen Foundation: GROWING MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE ELOISE HOLLAND great reasons not to—is to ask a great deal. $3,500 for Idea Lab the opportunity to be together as a family, to A is hard at work, in Oregon and nationally, share food and health. When he finished, peo- Inequity shows up in many places and ways. • Leotta Gordon Founda- to bring discussions about death and dying ple said amen. Nobody said anything about It showed up horribly for people connected tion: $2,500 for Idea Lab into the public sphere. Still, it’s relatively rare the shooting. with the Emanuel African Methodist Episco- to talk with friends and neighbors about this The next day I fixated on sun block—every- pal Church in Charleston. I wonder where and sensitive topic. one applied it, reminded each other, applied it how it shows up for you. 12 Oregon Humanities 13 Summer 2015 Safe Plague Fears In an ongoing apocalypse, how do we decide when to panic?

EULA BISS

HORTLY AFTER HE TURNED FOUR, dutifully read all the information the doc- S my son slept in my arms like a heavy new- tor had given me, while still maintaining the born baby while a doctor impressed on me that secret belief that none of it was true and that his allergies, which now included some food food could not hurt my child. allergies, could pose a serious threat to his In the lists upon lists of things my son was health. My observations, in part, had brought advised by the doctor to avoid, one item in par- us to this diagnosis, but I doubted both myself ticular caught my attention—the seasonal flu and the doctor as I looked down at my son, shot. Children with egg allergies can react to who appeared perfectly unthreatened in his this particular vaccine, which is grown in eggs. sleep. After the doctor left the room, a nurse My son had already been vaccinated against demonstrated the EpiPen I would need to use the flu, just as he had already eaten many eggs, if my son ever had a life-threatening reaction but I could see the irony in the possibility that to nuts. “I know,” she said when she saw tears a vaccine posed him special danger. Thinking well up in my eyes while she pretended to jab with the logic of a Greek myth, I wondered if herself forcefully in the thigh with the syringe. my interest in immunity had somehow invited “I hope you never have to do this.” Later I would immune dysfunction for him. Maybe I had JEN WICK STUDIO WICK JEN 14 Oregon Humanities 15 Summer 2015 Safe

even at the Pores with the Air, and there generate, or emit most from without and cannot be anticipated by our acute Poisons” strikes him as unlikely. He has heard that if a per- medicine. Both speak to our most basic fears. son with the plague breathes on a piece of glass, “there might liv- But novel But novel diseases, in their capacity to serve ing Creatures be seen by microscope of strange monstrous and as metaphors for foreign others and anxieties frightful Shapes, such as Dragons, Snakes, Serpents, and Devils, about the future, tend to generate better copy. horrible to behold.” But this, he writes, “I very much question As I write, two new diseases have been mak- the Truth of.” Faced with the plague and unable to make sense of diseases, in ing headlines. One is an avian influenza that his own observations, the narrator is left to reckon with improb- emerged in China, the other is a novel corona able theories and pure speculation. Several hundred years later, virus that was first detected in Saudi Arabia. I find his predicament eerily familiar. The latter, which is the most threatening new Bubonic plague still exists, but it has ceased to be the Plague. their capacity disease of the moment, has been given the The afflictions that take the most lives worldwide are now heart unfortunate name Middle East respiratory disease, stroke, respiratory infections, and AIDS, which is the syndrome. only one of these that tends to be characterized as a plague. The In the past century there have been three number of lives a disease claims, as Susan Sontag observes, is to serve as major influenza pandemics, including the 1918 given him, like poor Icarus, fragile wings. not what makes it a plague. In order to be promoted to plague, Spanish flu pandemic, which killed more people I did not admit this fear to the doctor, but I a disease must be particularly feared or dreaded. I have lived than the First World War. That pandemic proved did ask her what I had done to cause these aller- through the emergence of a number of well-publicized diseases, particularly deadly for young adults with strong gies. I hoped to reverse the damage, or at least but I never felt threatened by Ebola, or SARS, or West Nile virus, metaphors immune systems, as it caused an overwhelming stem it. The possibility that I was not to blame or H1N1. When my son was an infant, I feared autism, which immune response. In 2004, the director of the did not initially occur to me. The doctor, her- seemed to be spreading like a plague, particularly among boys. WHO announced that another major pandemic self a mother, spent some time assuring me that And when he developed allergies, one after another, I began to is inevitable. “It’s not a matter of if, but when,” a although the origin of allergies is mysterious, feel dread. Perhaps the final qualification for what constitutes a bioethicist friend tells me. With this probability there was probably nothing I could have done plague is its proximity to your own life. for foreign in the air, novel influenza outbreaks are often differently. I myself have allergies, as does my “Can you imagine,” I ask a friend while reading A Journal of the accompanied by a flurry of media attention, husband, so if I was to blame, she suggested, Plague Year, “seeing people all around you dying from a disease some of which tips into fearmongering. But even it was only for carrying the genetic material I and not knowing what is causing it, or how it is passed, or who when influenza is made foreign or animal with carry. This did not satisfy me. Neither did any- will be next?” Even as I say this, it occurs to me that my friend others and a new name, like Chinese bird flu or swine flu, thing I went on to learn about allergies, about lived in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and we do not seem eager to imagine it as a plague. which we seem to know very little. saw nearly everyone he knew die of a disease about which almost Influenza is too common to evoke our fear of the nothing was known. San Francisco in 1989, he reminds me, was unknown. It is not exotic or remote enough to THERE IS A PASSAGE IN DANIEL DEFOE’S not entirely unlike London in 1665. anxieties trigger our fear of alien others. It is not disfigur- A Journal of the Plague Year in which his nar- Later, perhaps because I am still reckoning with the strange- ing enough to threaten our sense of self. It is not rator wonders how the disease finds its vic- ness of how both near and far the plague of London feels to my spread in a way that inspires moral repulsion or tims. He does not believe, as others do, that it own time and place, I ask the same question again. “Can you the threat of punishment. Influenza does not is simply a “Stroke from Heaven.” He is certain imagine?” I ask my father. By his silence I understand that he about the serve, in other words, as a very good metaphor that it is passed from one person to another. can. My father sees the sick every day—a plague is endlessly for other fears—it has to be frightening simply “Spread by Infection, that is to say, by some cer- unfolding before him. “We don’t have bodies falling out of win- for what it is. tain Steams, or Fumes, which the Physicians dows,” I say to him hopefully. “We aren’t digging mass graves.” The pediatrician Paul Ollit mentioned to call Effluvia, by the Breath, or by the Sweat, or “Yes,” he says, “but we’re seeding a bomb.” He is referring future, tend me, during an interview about his work, that by the Stench of the Sores of the sick Persons, to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The overuse of antibiotics has he had recently seen two children hospital- or some other way, perhaps, beyond even the led to strains of bacteria that are difficult to rid from the body. ized with influenza. Both had been immunized Reach of the Physicians themselves . . .” Indeed, One, C. difficile, is even named for its difficulty. In the case of C. against everything on the childhood schedule it would be over 150 years before physicians difficile, over 90 percent of infections occur following a course to generate except the flu, and both ended up on heart and would know that the plague is passed by fleas. of antibiotics. An alarming number of the patients he sees in the lung machines. One lived, and the other died. As the plague spreads, Defoe’s narrator has hospital, my father tells me, are infected with resistant bacteria. “And then the next day, when someone comes an understanding that contagion is at work, The persistence of resistant bacteria and the emergence of into your office and says, ‘I don’t want to get and some inkling of germ theory, but he rejects novel diseases are among the top public health threats of the that vaccine,’ you’re supposed to respect that that theory. The idea of “invisible Creatures, twenty-first century. One of these threats comes from within better copy. decision?” Ollit asked me. “You can respect the who enter into the Body with the Breath, or and is the result of our modern practices. The other comes fear. The fear of vaccines is understandable. 16 Oregon Humanities 17 Summer 2015 Safe

drowned in their own lung fluid. What will we do The complaint that preventive measures against the flu were out of proportion to the threat strikes me as better applied to our military action in Iraq than to our response to an unpredictable virus. Vaccinating in advance of the flu, critics suggest, was a with our fear? foolish preemptive strike. But preemption in war has different effects than preemption in health care—rather than generat- ing ongoing conflict, like our preemptive strike against Iraq, This strikes me preventive health care can make further health care unnec- essary. Either way, prevention, of war as well as disease, is not our strong point. “The idea of preventive medicine is faintly un- American,” the Chicago Tribune noted in 1975. “It means, first, as a central recognizing that the enemy is us.” In 2011, studies of an H1N1 vaccine used only in Europe revealed that it caused an increased incidence of narcolepsy in question of Finland and Sweden. Initial reports suggest that the vaccine triggered narcolepsy in about 1 out of every 12,000 teenagers vaccinated in Finland, and about 1 out of 33,000 in Sweden. Research is ongoing and there is more to know, particularly motherhood. how exactly the vaccine may have contributed to narcolepsy in SARAH GIFFROW that particular age group and population, but the incident has already been used to confirm existing fears that we are our own enemy. A problem with a vaccine is not evidence of the inevita- ble shortcomings of medicine, but evidence that we are, indeed, going to destroy ourselves. “Apocalypse,” Sontag writes, “is now a long-running serial: not ‘Apocalypse Now’ but ‘Apocalypse From Now On.’ Apoca- lypse has become an event that is happening and not happen- ing.” In this era of uncertain apocalypse, my father has taken to TRADEMARK reading the Stoics, which is not an entirely surprising interest for an oncologist. What he is drawn to in their philosophy, he tells me, is the idea that you cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you feel about it. Or, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” What has been done to us seems to be, among other things, OFFENSE that we have been made fearful. What will we do with our fear? This strikes me as a central question of both citizenship and But you can’t respect the decision—it’s an motherhood. As mothers, we must somehow square our power How I named my band “The Slants” and got unnecessary risk.” with our powerlessness. We can protect our children to some The fact that the 2009 H1N1 influenza pan- extent. But we cannot make them invulnerable any more than into trouble with the government. demic did not take more lives is sometimes we can make ourselves invulnerable. “Life,” as Donna Haraway SIMON TAM cast, oddly, as a public health failure. “When writes, “is a window of vulnerability.” all was said and done,” Dr. Bob [Sears, author of The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Deci- Excerpt from On Immunity. Copyright © 2014 by Eula Biss. FEW YEARS AGO, MY BAND, THE SLANTS, WAS INVITED TO PERFORM AT THE sion for Your Child] writes, “the hype and fear Reproduced with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapo- A Oregon State Penitentiary. To many, sending an all-Asian American dance rock band into around the H1N1 flu turned out to be unwar- lis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org. a prison with a significant neo-Nazi population seemed like an invitation for disaster. However, I ranted.” The pandemic was not as bad as it didn’t question the decision until we actually showed up and were handed bright-orange vests to could have been, but it was not inconsequen- wear over our clothes. Our singer asked if it would be okay to take them off mid-concert, since our tial. Somewhere between 150,000 and 575,000 suits and vests could get quite warm. people died from H1N1, over half in Southeast Eula Biss is the author of three books: On Immunity: An “Sure,” the guard said, “but if an incident occurs, the orange vests let the sentry towers know Asia and Africa, where public health measures Inoculation (from which this essay has been excerpted), who to avoid shooting.” Got it: keep the safety gear on. were scarce. Autopsies suggest that many of the Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, and The We continued through security with significant precautions at every step. There were bars and previously healthy people who died of the flu Balloonists. She was a guest at Oregon Humanities’ armed guards everywhere. The clanging of the doors would echo loudly for a while every time one were killed by their immune response—they Think & Drink in Portland in July 2015. was opened or shut. It was a place designed for containment, not comfort. 18 Oregon Humanities 19 Summer 2015 Safe

I named the band the Slants because keystrokes, they wiped away the voices of thousands of Asian The USPTO can say it doesn’t have enough resources to do Americans. research on every application that comes in, or that it has to We started digging deeper. Rather than focusing on whether wait for a massive shift in popular culture over sentiments it represented our perspective— or not Asian Americans actually believed our use of the word toward a particular word, phrase, or image. However, this to be disparaging, we started questioning why the USPTO subjective application of the law brings a chilling effect to free or slant—on life as people of color. accused us of using a racial slur to begin with. After all, slant expression, especially on the part of individuals who wish to can mean any number of things, and the racial connotation was convey irony, neutralize slurs, convey artistic or political ide- relatively obscure. In fact, over the years, the trademark office als, or engage in parody. It was a deliberate act of claiming has received eight hundred applications that include variations And it is subjective indeed: The USPTO has refused “wanker” of the word, but not one was rejected for being racist toward for use on clothing, but approved it for beer. “Pussy Power” was Asians—until an Asian applied. rejected for entertainment services, but “Pussy Power Revolu- an identity as well as a nod to Asian Trademark officials admitted they considered the word a tion” was considered acceptable for clothing. “Madonna” was racial slur in our application because “it is uncontested that rejected for wines on the grounds that it would be scandalous, American activists who had been applicant is a founding member of a band … composed of mem- but a different “Madonna” application was then approved. And bers of Asian descent.” They then presented evidence, including nearly every racial slur known for Asian Americans has become photographs of Asian people on our website, a “stylized dragon” a registered trademark at some point: jap, Oriental, chink, slope, using the term for decades. on an album cover, and an illustration of an Asian woman on an and, of course, slant. album cover. The fact of the matter is that this law has been unfairly tar- Ironically, our band was too Asian to use the word slant. geting minorities since it was drawn up in the 1940s, and over- USPTO thought people would draw the conclusion that our coming it would be a small but important victory in the greater Eventually, we stepped onto a large field surrounded by con- the iconic scene of O-Ren Ishii and her gang of Crazy 88s walk- band’s name was a reference to our ethnicity. In other words, battle for equality. For anyone who has been marginalized crete walls—a place called “the big yard.” The stage was set up ing into a restaurant—not because of the gore or the soundtrack, anyone who wasn’t Asian could register a trademark for slant because of race, sexual orientation, gender, age, religion, or any- at one end with a thin line of plastic police tape stretched across but because I realized it was the first American-produced film without it being considered a racial slur. It was startling and thing else, this is especially meaningful, because the law says the front—the only thing separating us from nearly two thou- I’d seen that depicted Asians in a cool and confident manner. The deeply frustrating to realize that despite trying to use language that our communities should have the right to set the tone on sand convicted criminals. We’d been scheduled to perform the film industry was bad, but the music industry may have been to help protect my community from stereotypes and racism, appropriateness, rather than some disconnected government year before, but a large riot had put the place on lockdown, so worse: I couldn’t think of a single mainstream Asian American I was being denied the right to trademark my band’s name agency that believes it should protect others from uncomfort- they’d postponed the concert. This fact didn’t do much to settle music artist. because of my race. able or disagreeable ideas. my nerves. I admit I was making assumptions about the kinds I wanted to change that with the Slants, the world’s first and Through this process, I’ve come to understand that laws are In April of this year, the US Court of Appeals for the Fed- of people who are sent to maximum-security prison: murderers, only all-Asian American dance rock band. Not only did we cre- designed to maintain the status quo. But shifts in language and eral Circuit affirmed the trademark office’s decision about our rapists, and drug dealers. ate our own brand of ’80s-inspired synth pop, but we also got identity politics require that bureaucracies move beyond simple band’s name. One week later, in an unprecedented move, the While we played, a small crowd assembled in front of the involved with social justice: we toured the country fighting ste- cultural competency and instead navigate inconvenient and court vacated its ruling and issued a legal order for me to argue stage, and a larger one walked around the yard, getting the only reotypes about Asian Americans, leading workshops, raising unknown waters. the constitutionality of the law so the court could reexamine it. hour of outdoor time they’d have for the day. As we launched money for charities, and sharing our culture through our music. Some may argue that the trademark office’s actions were Our case suddenly proved to be useful, especially to a federal into our cover of “Paint It Black,” hundreds of prisoners jumped Letters of support from marginalized communities poured in. not racist. But racism doesn’t look only like white supremacists judge who routinely has expressed interest in protecting the and cheered. During this time, our attorney recommended that we reg- burning crosses or wearing white hoods. Racist actions don’t trademarked name of the Washington Redskins. At the end of the concert, a small group of shirtless white men ister the trademark on our band name, something that’s com- have to fit a stereotype of what racism is to be racist. Denying a Some fear the disruption of this law: after all, if it were to approached the police tape. Several of them were completely monly done for national acts. However, the US Patent and right based on race is the very essence of racism. It is evidence be repealed by my band’s trademark case, then there would be covered in swastikas and white pride tattoos. A large man in Trademark Office, or USPTO, swiftly rejected our application, of a racist system. And like all other systems, this is one that is almost no legal recourse to have the Redskins’ trademark reg- front came up, towering over me. He seemed nervous as he claiming our name was disparaging to Asians. To support their resistant to change. istrations cancelled. Some also worry that my case will serve as handed me a piece of paper and asked for an autograph. claim, officials used sources like UrbanDictionary.com, a photo In my opinion, the role of the government shouldn’t include a Pandora’s box or floodgate for disparaging or offensive trade- “It’s for my daughter,” he said. “I want to tell her that I met of Miley Cyrus pulling her eyes back in a derogatory gesture, and deciding how a group can define itself; that right should belong mark registrations. For instance, the law that could cancel Red- the band.” anonymous posts on Internet message boards using the word to the community itself. It’s clear in example after example that skins might also be used to cancel the NAACP’s registration, He went on: “I know I have these tattoos, and I know what slant as a racial slur. the dominant group is not only inconsistent but also sometimes since the phrase “colored people” in the organization’s name you must be thinking. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I named the band the Slants because it represented our per- completely off base when it comes to understanding the senti- could be considered disparaging by many people. Yes, these they’re mistakes that I don’t want my little girl to make.” He said spective—or slant—on life as people of color. It was a deliberate ments of people who have been marginalized for centuries. things might happen, but we shouldn’t let the fear of some offen- he wanted to show that he could learn, that he could change his act of claiming an identity as well as a nod to Asian American We’re fighting for more than a band name: we’re fighting for sive trademark registrations trump the rights of marginalized heart and mind even if he couldn’t change what was stained into activists who had been using the term for decades. the right of self-determination for all minorities. Things like communities. his skin. I’ve been fighting in courts to register our name for the this are the subtle indignities that people of color have to face And if we believe that the trademark office has been protect- That concert was one of the most powerful experiences of my past five years. I’ve supplied thousands of pages of evidence, every day: slights that don’t seem big enough to make a fuss over, ing minority groups, then we’ve all been fooled. As it is being life. I went in with all kinds of assumptions, but those changed including letters of support from community leaders and Asian yet continually remind us that challenges to the norm (read: applied in our case, this law is discriminatory. It only maintains when we talked with the prisoners. American organizations, independent national surveys, and white, homogenous culture) are not welcome. One of the more the norm, and that norm is white homogenous culture, with no I started the Slants nearly a decade ago because I wanted to an etymology report from one of the country’s leading linguis- amusing instances was the trademark office’s denial of the Japa- recognition of people who are practitioners of change. We live in change people’s assumptions. I remember watching Quentin tics professors. The trademark office was not swayed. They nese word for luck—fuku—as a restaurant name, for fear that it a country where equality has been defined by white, heterosex- Tarantino’s Kill Bill on DVD in 2004. I paused the film during called our effort “laudable, but not influential.” With just a few might look like an obscenity. ual, cisgender men for hundreds of years, and it’s time to bring 20 Oregon Humanities 21 Summer 2015 Safe

The Slants signing autographs (left) Below: Cover of an issue of the Black Panther and performing newspaper (bottom) at Oregon State Penitentiary. Right: Robert F. Williams, president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s, and his wife, Mabel Williams

language to reappropriate ideas. Just because we don’t under- stand or agree with how someone creates social change doesn’t COLLECTION OF THE FREEDOM ARCHIVES mean we should prevent it. When it comes to social justice, we should ask questions and have meaningful conversations instead of making assumptions. In the winter of 2011–12, our band spent the holidays per- forming for soldiers serving overseas. While one branch of the

government was working against our band, another branch, BLACK PANTHER PARTY the Department of Defense, called on us to do some outreach on its behalf. This was shortly after news spread about harsh OREGON STATE PENITENTIARYOREGON STATE hazing practices used on Asian American military recruits. One encounter on that tour really stood out. We had just finished playing a concert at a NATO base when other community groups to the table. We should not be afraid of the local commander approached me. “That was incredible,” he using the expression of who we are to catalyze change. said. “We’ve had a lot of acts here—big names, too—but I’ve never Artists don’t begin their careers thinking about how to dis- seen soldiers from all of the different countries dance together Alternatives to police in the Black Freedom Movement mantle laws that they aren’t even aware of, and I’m certainly not like that.” an exception. When I first started the band, the intention was He continued: “Also, I have to apologize. As the commander KRISTIAN WILLIAMS to take on stereotypes about Asian Americans, inject pride into of the base, I’m expected to make appearances at these kinds our ethnic heritages, and increase our community’s visibility in of things. But when I first saw your poster, I didn’t know what the entertainment industry. to make of this ‘Oriental’ band. However, now I know I should But what I’ve come to see is that assumptions can be effi- never really judge these things on the surface.” HERE IS A QUESTION THAT HAUNTS whatever it takes to keep you and your family cacious. The trademark office assumed that our name was “Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here,” I said. “Also, T every critic of police—namely, the ques- safe. The solutions they offer typically have the inherently a racial slur and that the Asian American commu- you shouldn’t use the word ‘Oriental,’ because it makes you tion of crime, and what to do about it. appeal of simplicity: more cops, more prisons, nity would feel disparaged by it. When our community loudly sound like a racist. But thank you.” Since the 1960s, the right wing has made longer sentences. The unspoken costs come expressed otherwise, officials assumed that approving our name That night, fighting stereotypes of Asian Americans didn’t crime a political issue and identified it with in the form of fewer rights, limited privacy, would set a precedent that would create more paperwork and come in the form of a lecture or a workshop on the model minor- poor people and people of color. Because the greater inequality, and a society ever less tol- open the door for other controversial trademark applications. ity myth or a debate over “Asian privilege.” It happened through left has largely refused to make crime an issue, erant of minor disorder. These political tactics What if, instead, they treated us as applicants of any other race, sincere fellowship powered by Chinatown dance rock. That it’s also failed to challenge this characteriza- are nothing new, of course, but the scale of their as people instead of ideologies? What if our government’s laws night, the victory happened simply by showing up and having a tion. Successive waves of politicians—of both effect—2.2 million inmates in 2010, according reflected the capacity for people, entire communities, and words meaningful conversation. parties, at every level of government—have to the Bureau of Justice Statistics—is unprec- and identities to change? learned to stoke the public’s fears of rape, mur- edented. And unless the left can do better, we As it is, our legal system on trademark law feels like a prison der, drive-bys, carjackings, school shootings, have to expect that these same solutions will created to keep disruptive ideas from coming into the main- and child abduction, as well as rioting and be the ones offered in the future. stream. Officials may believe they are protecting the general Simon Tam is best known as the bassist and founder of the terrorism, and present themselves as heroes, The fact is, the police do provide an impor- public from harm, but they are actually erecting walls that Slants. He is also an author, musician, and self-proclaimed as saviors, as tough-talking, hard-hitting, no- tant community service: protection against discourage people from mobilizing for social justice by using troublemaker. nonsense, real-life Dirty Harrys who will do crime. It is not their chief function, and they do 22 Oregon Humanities 23

not always do this part of their job well or fairly—but they do As much as they it, and it brings them legitimacy. Even people who dislike and fear police often feel that they need the cops. Maybe we can do without omnipresent surveillance, racial profiling, and institu- BLACK PANTHER PARTY were concerned tionalized violence, but most people have been willing to accept these features of policing, if somewhat grudgingly, because they have been packaged together with things we cannot do without: about the police, the crime control, security, and public safety. Because the state uses this protective function to justify its own violence, the replacement of the police institution is not Panthers also took only a goal of social change, but also a means of achieving it. The challenge is to create another system that can protect us from crime, and can do so better, more justly, with a respect for seriously the threat human rights, and with a minimum of bullying. What is needed, in short, is a shift in the responsibility for public safety—away from the state and toward the community. of crime and sought The thought that community-based measures could ulti- mately replace the police is intriguing. But if it is to be anything

more than a theoretical abstraction or a utopian dream, it must From an to address the fears be informed by the actual experience of history. One place to issue of the look for community defense models is in places where distrust of Black Panther the police and active resistance to police power have been most newspaper of the community acute­—in other words, the Black community. Deacons made it their mission to protect civil rights workers and visitation days, and offering classes during CIVIL RIGHTS WITH GUNS the Black community more generally. Armed with shotguns and the summer at Liberation Schools. (Several of they served. As early as 1957, Robert Williams armed the NAACP chapter in rifles, they escorted activists through dangerous back-country these programs are described in a collection Monroe, North Carolina, and successfully repelled attacks from areas, and organized round-the-clock patrols when racists were edited by Judson L. Jeffries, entitled Comrades: the Ku Klux Klan and the police. Soon other self-defense groups attacking Black neighborhoods. As one Deacon explained, “You A Local History of the Black Panther Party.) In appeared in Black communities throughout the South. The wasn’t going to receive much protection from the police,” so Black Baltimore, they offered direct financial assis- largest of these was the Deacons for Defense and Justice, which people “had to protect ourselves.” In fact, the Deacons sometimes tance to families facing eviction, and during claimed more than fifty chapters in the Southern states and four had to protect Blacks from the police. As one member told jour- the summer provided a free lunch to school-age in the North. As documented in Lance Hill’s book The Deacons nalist William Price, they eavesdropped on police radio calls and children (in addition to the free breakfast). In for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, the responded to the scenes of arrests to discourage the cops from Winston-Salem, the Party ran an ambulance overstepping their bounds. The Deacons also served as a disci- service and offered free pest control. The Indi- Charles Sims, plining mechanism within the movement. On the one hand, they anapolis branch provided coal to poor families head of the worked to calm “trigger-happy” youths seeking revenge against in the winter, held toy drives at Christmastime, militant African The Man. On the other hand, they confronted “Uncle Toms,” seiz- founded community gardens, maintained a American civil rights ing and destroying goods purchased from businesses under boy- food bank, and cleaned the streets in Black organization cott. They also helped identify informers, who were then publicly neighborhoods. In Philadelphia, the Panther the Deacons upbraided by a group of women from the NAACP. clinic offered childbirth classes for expect- for Defense Williams and the Deacons influenced what became the ant parents; in Cleveland and New York, drug and Justice, most developed community defense program of the period— rehab. These “Survival Programs” sought to displays replicas of Ku the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). The Panthers, meet needs that the state and the capitalist Klux Klan robes as Bobby Seale put it in his memoir Seize the Time“, patrolled economy were neglecting, at the same time in 1966. pigs.”Visibly carrying guns, they followed police through the aligning the community with the Party and Black ghetto with the explicit aim of preventing police brutality drawing both into opposition with the existing and informing citizens of their rights. When police misbehaved, power structure. their names and photographs appeared in the Black Panther The strategy was applied in the area of newspaper. The Philadelphia chapter pushed the tactic further, public safety as well. As much as they were with“wanted”posters featuring killer cops. concerned about the police, the Panthers The Panthers also sought to meet the community’s needs also took seriously the threat of crime and in other ways—providing medical care, giving away shoes and sought to address the fears of the community clothing, feeding schoolchildren breakfast, setting up hous- they served. With this in mind, they orga- ing cooperatives, transporting the families of prisoners for nized Seniors Against a Fearful Environment BETTMANN/CORBIS 24 Oregon Humanities 25 Summer 2015 Safe

(SAFE), an escort and busing service in which the 1948 Arab–Israeli cease-fire. Gang violence immediately young Black people accompanied the elderly on dropped. That summer, truce areas averaged two gang-related their business around the city. In Los Angeles, homicides each month, down from sixteen the previous year. the Party opened an office on Central Avenue What’s more, peace proved contagious. In his book Street Wars: and immediately set about running the drug Gangs and the Future of Violence, Tom Hayden reports that at dealers out of the area. And in Philadelphia, a 1993 meeting of more than a thousand gang members in LA’s neighbors reported a decrease in violent Elysian Park, the Mexican Mafia declared an end to drive-by crime after the Party opened their office, and shootings and threatened that those continuing the tactic would an increase after the office closed. There, the be “dealt with” in prison. They specifically forbade the killing of BPP paid particular attention to gang violence, women and children, and suggested that disputes be settled by organizing truces and recruiting gang mem- single combat. Drive-bys immediately declined by 25 percent. bers to help with the survival programs. By 1998, gang-related homicides were down 36.7 percent. It may be that the Panthers reduced crime The truce held for most of a decade, and even longer in by virtue of their very existence. Crime, and Watts—no thanks to the cops. The police did everything they gang violence especially, dropped during the could to disrupt the cease-fires, using many tactics famil- period of their activity, in part (in the estima- iar from the COINTELPRO campaign against the Panthers. tion of sociologist Lewis Yablonsky) because Hayden reports that police conspicuously surveilled negotiat- the BPP and similar groups “channeled young ing meetings, and cops raided parties celebrating the cease-fire black and Chicano youth who might have par- or promoting neighborhood peace. Truce leaders were arrested ticipated in gangbanging violence into rela- on old, minor, or dubious charges, and were sometimes targeted tively positive efforts for social change through for deportation. Groups like Homies Unidos, which promoted political activities.” intergang dialogue, found themselves subject to continuous harassment. Police even tried intimidating witnesses wait- GANG PEACE ing to testify about the truce before the California state sen- When the Black Panther Party collapsed, ate. They also infiltrated the negotiating teams, spread rumors gangs—especially the Crips—filled the vacuum intended to create distrust, and wrongly labeled gang mem- they left. Yet the influence of the Panthers’ gang bers as informants in a bid to provoke retaliation. CAPA leader abatement work could still be felt decades later. Michael Zinzun photographed uniformed cops spray-painting In 1992, shortly before Los Angeles exploded one gang’s colors over another’s, a likely trigger for a turf war. in rioting after the Rodney King verdict, sev- (The photo was later published in CovertAction Quarterly.) eral of the city’s gangs entered into a cease- It seems that, however much the cops may have disliked fire. As documented by anthropologist João H. gang violence, they liked gang peace even less. “Banging” kept Costa Vargas in his book Catching Hell in the the gangs divided, thus weaker, and produced fear and hostil- Group Therapy City of Angels, the process of negotiation had ity in the broader community (which could then be leveraged begun more than a year earlier and continued into a measure of support for the police). “Trucing” may not for years after. It was initiated by older gang have united the rival sets, but it did mean they weren’t shoot- members and was supported by the Coalition ing at each other quite so much, and the effort brought them a Copping out at an uptown slumber party Against Police Abuse (CAPA), an organization level of community support. It’s not hard to see why the cops founded by former Panthers deliberately try- would prefer one over the other. Whatever their limitations and ing to keep the Party’s legacy alive while also contradictions, in the period of rebellion, gangs represented DIONISIA MORALES learning from its mistakes. CAPA served as an an armed challenge to state control. As with so much of police intermediary between gangs early in the pro- activity, here, too, reducing crime is less of an issue than main- cess, and the Nation of Islam provided security taining power. during direct talks. Later, CAPA helped found the Community in Support of the Gang Truce An excerpt from Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in Amer- HE SIX OF US SAT CROSS-LEGGED IN FLANNEL NIGHTGOWNS AROUND THE GAME (CSGT). In addition to supporting gang negoti- ica by Kristian Williams. Reprinted with permission. T board. ations, CSGT offered young people video, com- “It’s my turn,” Susan said. She picked a card from one of the stacks in the middle of the board puter, and job training, and agitated for reform and read it out loud: Assume the fetal position, close your eyes, and rocking back and forth, make of the criminal legal system. appropriate sounds. On March 27, 1992, representatives of Kristian Williams is the author of Our Enemies in Blue: She got an easy one. Bloods and Crips sets from four housing Police and Power in America, the third edition of which It was a few months into the start of seventh grade. The week before, Susan had called to invite projects in Watts—Nickerson Gardens, Jor- is being published by AK Press in August. He is also a me to her sleepover. She had lots of plans for the party. She wanted to put on a cabaret where we dan Downs, Imperial Courts, and Hacienda Conversation Project leader, facilitating the program made up the songs and dances. She thought we could build a stage using books and pillows, and Village—signed an agreement modeled on “Keeping Tabs on America: Surveillance and You.” make a curtain in the doorway. She wanted everyone to dress in men’s clothes as costumes. 26 Oregon Humanities 27 Summer 2015 Safe

“Be sure to bring an oxford shirt and a necktie,” she’d said over the phone. “The shirt can be any color but needs to have little buttons on the collar. Okay?” “Okay,” I’d said. But it wasn’t okay. My father didn’t have that kind of shirt. His button-downs had spread collars, the ones with thick tri- angles that flared stiffly. And he didn’t wear pale blue, white, or Susan was new, pastel pink, like Susan’s father did. My father wore shades of yel- low and brown, which complemented his dark complexion. And and I thought my father’s shirts didn’t have a logo on the pocket—no alligator, or polo player, or sheep suspended by a ribbon. But I couldn’t tell Susan that; I didn’t know her that well. In fact, I didn’t know any- maybe she would one at my school well enough to admit that I didn’t have the right shirt to bring. That afternoon on the phone we’d talked only be more like me about the cabaret; she’d never said anything about the game. After her fetal-position performance, Susan received five “with it” votes from the rest of us and moved her piece on the board. or maybe she “Now me,” said another girl. She drew her card: Do an inter- pretative dance that shows how you feel when you think nobody wouldn’t notice likes you. Another easy one, I thought. when I was We were playing Group Therapy. When Susan had gotten the box down off the bookcase outside of her parents’ bedroom, the other girls either seemed to have heard of or played it before. In pretending to be white writing on the all-black lid, the box read: Is it really a game? Game night at my house was sporadic and typically involved someone else. rounds of Clue or Monopoly. When Susan unpacked the pieces for Group Therapy, I didn’t see any silver medallions, fake money, or golf pencils. The playing board was a circle divided into yellow, red, and blue segments labeled “hung up,” “group therapist,” and “free.” Besides the bulbous, white playing tokens, the rest of the game consisted of stacks of cards. “I don’t know how to play,” I’d said, hoping to sit out. I went to a private middle school, where I wasn’t like most of “It’s easy,” Susan said. “You’ll get it right away.” the kids. They wore sneakers I couldn’t afford and spent week- In the game, each player takes a turn and chooses a card ends at their country houses in the Berkshires. They often ate from one of the three piles of color-coded “therapist” cards. The out at restaurants and knew how to ski. And what impressed me player then performs the action that is stated on the card. After the most was that they lived in apartment buildings with door- the player responds to the card she has drawn, everyone else men. When I was invited for play dates, I measured the distance votes to determine whether the player was “with it” by acting between my life and theirs by whether they had a housekeeper, honestly or had “copped out” by not being open with the group. a cook, a nanny, or all three. My family had none. The player who drew the card then moves her piece according to My parents worked hard to afford the school. We weren’t the results of the group vote. The object of the game is to get so poor, but we weren’t rich either. I never invited kids over to my many “with it” votes that you are the first to reach the “free” spot apartment because even if I could trust them enough to ignore on the board. I didn’t know it then, but the game was the byprod- what I considered the obvious deficiencies of our small, three- uct of the sensitivity training experiences and personal growth bedroom apartment, I couldn’t risk that they might discover we groups popular in the 1960s. By the time of Susan’s party ten had cockroaches. During the day, the bugs usually didn’t show years later, these therapeutic principles had been boiled down to their twitchy, antennae heads, but you never knew when you the dimensions of a ten-by-twenty-inch box and were available might spot a papery brown egg case on a counter or in a corner. In in retail stores. seventh grade, I looked forward to meeting new kids. Susan was So far, I was losing the game and trying not to be obvious that new, and I thought maybe she would be more like me or maybe I was losing on purpose. she wouldn’t notice when I was pretending to be someone else. MELISSA MCFEETERS MELISSA 28 Oregon Humanities 29 Summer 2015 Safe

For me, Susan’s party was like a I had been to Susan’s house once before and animal species have natural camouflage that helps them avoid feelings, reserving judgment, and protecting we’d had a good time listening to records and attack. Some change their appearance to blend in to their sur- confidentiality. Or maybe the instructions did flipping through copies of Seventeen maga- small ecosystem roundings and others alter their behavior. Then there are spe- include that information, and we skipped over zine, but with the other girls around, there was cies that don’t try to hide at all and instead protect themselves it. Growing up with two brothers, I’d learned more pressure to impress her. Seventh grade is within the by standing out. We’d read about brightly colored tree frogs that that boys tended to test their boundaries with a time of developmental awkwardness, marked clash with their green surroundings because vibrancy sends the each other through physical feats and fights. by training bras, sanitary napkins, and acne. message that they might be poisonous. For me, Susan’s party But my experience with girls at school had That makes going to a sleepover with a bunch larger, hostile was like a small ecosystem within the larger, hostile environ- taught me that they could do more damage with of twelve-year-old girls you don’t know a form ment of middle school. I just wanted to look and act like every- an over-the-shoulder glance or a well-timed of social risk-taking: everything has to be just environment of one else; I felt safest when hiding in plain sight. raised eyebrow than with any thrown punch. right. When I told my mother that I didn’t want When Ricardo Montalbán delivered his closing lines on That, after all, was why I hadn’t dared show up to go to the party because of the shirt, she rum- middle school. Fantasy Island at eleven o’clock, I thought I was in the clear. I to the sleepover with the wrong kind of shirt, maged through my father’s clothes to find one. thought we’d turn off the TV and get ready for bed. But instead, and why, now, I didn’t dare tell the whole truth “How about this one?” she said, holding Susan tiptoed down the hall to see whether her parents were still when I drew my cards. I just wanted someone up a tan button-down. “Or these?” She had a I just wanted to awake and returned with the box she’d pulled from the book- to win so we could stop. light brown shirt in one hand and a gold one case. She didn’t say that we weren’t supposed to play, but the way Looking around the living room I pictured in the other. look and act like she carefully closed the door between the living room and the Susan’s parents playing with their friends, hall leading to her parents’ room made the act feel forbidden, as chairs pulled around the coffee table, empty IF I HAD GIVEN HER A MOMENT LONGER, if she’d plucked a copy of The Joy of Sex off the shelves instead of wineglasses set down on the floor by the couch she would have also found the peach- and everyone else; the Group Therapy game. or on one of the built-in bookcases. This was butter-colored ones. But I turned to leave the a game for people who entertained; it was no room before she could ask, “What’s wrong with I felt safest when WHEN WE’D STARTED THE GAME, EVERYONE HAMMED wonder that my parents didn’t have a copy. My them?” because I didn’t know how to tell her up their responses the first couple of rounds, mostly trying to get parents went bowling on Friday nights, but that everything was wrong with them. And they hiding in the other girls to laugh. But Susan wanted us to take the instruc- never invited anyone from their league back weren’t just the wrong color with the wrong col- tions on the cards seriously and told us we should stop goofing to the apartment for a drink. My father was an lar style. My father’s shirts lived downtown, and around. She wanted us to play to win. alcoholic, and my mother refused to have liquor the shirts belonging to the other girls’ fathers plain sight. Now, it was my turn. I drew a card. It read: Talk about your in the house, so my father drank at the local lived uptown. My father’s shirts came from loneliness. bars instead. Each night we didn’t know what stores in our neighborhood and not the stores This card would have been hard to answer honestly, but it to expect when we heard his key in the door. east of the park. And even though the shirts the was an easy one to dodge. My mother never suggested hosting a cocktail other girls would be bringing might be subtly “My brothers don’t live at home anymore,” I said. “And I party and bristled when they had to attend one. different in cut or color, they would have a gen- closet. The tight cotton weave was soft like pajamas; it was really miss them.” It was too easy to imagine how quickly an eve- eral sameness to them and wouldn’t look like perfect. We spent the late afternoon making up routines and I looked around the circle of girls. They seemed to be waiting ning of Group Therapy at my house would turn anything my father wore. scavenging for props. When the girls asked my opinion about for more. sour after my father had had a few beers. Of all The days before the party, I chewed the whether we should build a stage, I didn’t take a side. “A stage “They’re much older than me, but we’re really close. I feel of my secrets, this was the most important one inside of my lips and cracked my knuckles would be cool,” I said. “But maybe we don’t need one.” I wanted lonely now that it’s just me at home with my parents.” to conceal. It was the one that even my mother until they felt hollow and wide. Being invited to stay on good terms with everyone. After dinner, Susan’s I got one “with it” vote and four “cop outs.” I moved my play- didn’t tell anyone. As we played, I made a list to Susan’s was a sign of inclusion, but being parents politely sat through our haphazard production before ing piece backward on the board. If I had been interested in win- of the questions I prayed weren’t hiding in the included was no guarantee of acceptance. The retreating to their bedroom and surrendering the living room, ning the game, I could have told the girls about the time in grade stack of “therapist” cards: night before the party, my mother folded one of where we unrolled sleeping bags and made pallets out of sofa school when a group of kids snickered at my polyfill jacket that Pantomime your father’s greatest flaw. my father’s shirts and a tie in a plastic bag and cushions to settle in for the night. The oxford shirts and ties was supposed to imitate the down jackets that were so popular. In one sentence, tell the group what you’d put it by my door. In the morning, I pushed it were scattered on the floor like shed skins. I felt free of them. I could have told them that I never said anything about the inci- change about your parents. under my bed, told my mother I had packed it We made popcorn and huddled around the TV to watch the ABC dent to my mother because it only would have made her feel bad What’s the last thing you want anyone to with my things, and strategized how I’d lie to Saturday night primetime lineup: Love Boat and Fantasy Island. about not being able to buy the fancier coat. But saying those know about you? Act it out. Susan about forgetting it. Anyone taking a quick survey of the room wouldn’t have things would have blown my cover. When I suggested we all go to bed, the girls When I arrived at Susan’s, the cabaret plan- picked me out as different in my plaid flannel nightgown, fuzzy The instructions to the game didn’t include any explanation accused me of wanting to quit because I was ning was already in full swing. Susan opened blue socks, and ponytail. A casual observer would not have of an effective therapeutic group. We didn’t know, for example, losing. When I asked if I could just drop out, the door and swept me up in the action. When detected my secret: how much it mattered to me that I didn’t that good groups emphasize the universal truths that bind indi- they told me not to be a baby. I told her I had forgotten a shirt, she ran out of have the clothes, trendy shoes, fancy apartment, or rich parents viduals together. Nor did we know that groups have ground rules “Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep going.” her room and yanked an extra from her father’s the other girls had. In science class we’d learned about how some about creating a safe environment for sharing thoughts and Two turns later, one of the girls drew this 30 Oregon Humanities 31 Summer 2015 Safe

The girls laughed remembering how much trouble we’d had putting up the curtain for the cabaret and sang lines from the songs we’d made up. But I focused my attention on Susan’s mother, who was making pancakes for everyone. She worked two pans and served each girl one pancake at a time. I thought this was inconsiderate, because it’s never satisfying to eat them card: Which one of your fellow players is the least that way. My mother had a much better system. She kept pan- honest? She didn’t hesitate before pointing at cakes warm in the oven, put a whole stack on the table, and then me, saying that my answers were too polite doled out fresh ones to add to people’s plates. When Susan’s and that I was trying too hard to be everyone’s mother offered me a pancake, I told her I felt too sick to eat. But friend. really I was thinking that nothing I could eat here would sat- “Yeah, it’s a game, but you’re not really fol- isfy me. At my house, I could put a pat of butter between each lowing the rules,” someone said. pancake and keep a small lake of syrup on the side. My father I thought, Even the makers of the game liked an extra-tall stack—five or six in a tower that he soaked didn’t think it was a game. It said so right on in syrup. He wouldn’t have liked eating breakfast here either. I the box. asked Susan’s mother for a glass of water. Drinking it made me

“And you never had an opinion about the feel less hungry. NOLTING MIA cabaret,” said another. When my mother arrived, she instinctively raised her hand “No offense,” the first girl said. “But it’s to my forehead to feel for a fever. I thanked Susan and her really annoying.” mother for inviting me and told everyone I’d see them at school. Everyone held up their “with it” cards in They waved and screamed my name. “Feel better,” they said. I support of her frankness about my lack of hon- could still hear them at the elevator after Susan’s mother had esty. They waited for me to vote. I had a choice closed the door. to make: lash out, red-hot angry, and give them “Did you have a good time?” my mother said. This Is Not a reason to think twice about hurting my feel- I nodded. ings in the future, or go along with it. I held up “Did you feel sick all night?” my “with it” card. It was the first honest thing I shrugged. I’d done all night. My face felt warm and my On the way home, I asked my mother if she would make pan- throat started to purse. I willed myself not to cakes for me. Just a Cloud cry. I thought the girls were being mean, but “I don’t feel as sick anymore,” I said. really I was upset with myself because I hadn’t We walked to the subway station and while we stood on the been fooling anyone all day. I pulled my knees platform waiting, I made a plan for retrieving the bag with the up to my chest and tugged on the inside of my shirt from under my bed. I’d get it while my mother was cooking, Embracing grief in the wilderness lower lip with my teeth while the girls played bring it to the kitchen, and set it on an empty chair. Then I’d sit in on. I tested how hard I could bite down on the my usual spot at the kitchen table, in the corner facing the win- MICHAEL HEALD flesh without flinching or breaking the skin. dow. I’d rest my feet on the supports and press my hands on the I don’t remember how much longer we tabletop to settle into my chair. This always made the tabletop played or who won. When we finally turned creak when it shifted on the pedestal. I could hear that sound so off the lights, I only remember pretending to clearly—a low wooden groan accented with a throaty pop. The E’RE CAMPED ON A BLUFF, AND kind of shelter you’d find even in a stand of baby be asleep while the others talked in whispers. train roared into the station, and we boarded and found seats. A W the early afternoon sun is unrelent- trees. So we’re out in the elements. On the other When I woke up, there were Group Therapy tension softened in the space between my shoulder blades as the ing. In this kind of heat, everything looks sort side of the clearing, Aly and Mollie are playing cards scattered around the floor. Someone doors closed and the train lurched in the direction of home. of washed out. My tent shimmers a couple of with the dogs. The others are bushwhacking must have swatted the board with an arm or feet from the chasm, or at least what feels like a somewhere above the lake, looking for a nine- a pillow in the night. I knew I didn’t want to chasm, a miniature gorge carved by the stream hundred-year-old tree. help clean them up, so I told Susan’s mother that empties from the lake. Over by the lake, Dempsey and I end up scooting our Crazy that I felt sick and wanted to call my mother to the forest is too dense to spread out in, plus Creeks into the hollow behind my tent, where pick me up early. I got dressed and packed my Dionisia Morales is originally from New York City but now the bugs, plus the snakes, and the funny thing we wait for the shade to arrive. It’s actually things, and sat in the kitchen with the other calls Oregon home. Her essays have appeared or are forth- about old growth is that the trees have taken not my tent, it’s my parents’, the ageless gray girls while they ate breakfast and I waited for coming in Crab Orchard Review, Hunger Mountain, Colorado such a beating over the centuries and are miss- REI wonder, still standing after more than two my mother to arrive. Review, the MacGuffin, and elsewhere. ing so many limbs that they don’t provide the decades. I wonder when they last slept in it. Has 32 Oregon Humanities 33 Summer 2015 Safe

Getting sick, such a pleasure when Mom was there to take care of me, has become the loneliest part of living alone. MIA NOLTING MIA

it been eight years? Ten? At what point will it T H REE SILHOUETTES EMERGE AGAINST THE “Is she still eating?” Andy asked. Andy, a doctor, was online When I was a kid, when we were new to stop being theirs? cloudless sky: Jack, Russ, Brett. Past the poison oak, over the at weird times because he was in Rwanda. Portland, I loved the rain. The idea of things I’m reading a book by my friend Scott. fallen trees, through the wildflowers, up the ledges, they’ve “Well, she certainly hasn’t lost her sweet tooth,” I replied just going on as planned, no matter how wet it Scott’s going to be famous, I tell Dempsey; found their way to the top of the mountain above the lake. proudly, almost defiantly, before admitting that it had been sev- got, was mind-blowing. In New York, all it had in fact he already sort of is, because he’s not They’ve probably even found the tree. Their arms are raised. It eral days since she’d eaten anything other than applesauce or taken was a forecast and we were stuck at home. afraid to tell the truth. The theme of this book is is their hills, not mine, that are alive. ice cream. But out here, middle-school soccer was just a a sound, I read aloud. It goes like this: Tick, tick, “Have you ever known an anorexic?” Andy asked, as gently bunch of slide tackling in the mud. Sometimes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. ONE WEEK BEFORE SHE DIED, I WAS LYING AWAKE IN as possible. “That sweet smell is one of the things we look for. It we couldn’t even find the ball, but the ball ulti- “Hmm,” says Dempsey. her room, thinking about raisins. A watched pot will never boil, means she’s starving.” mately was beside the point, which was to get as “Isn’t it great?” but we were quickly learning that stage four sarcoma doesn’t I blinked at those words, angry at Andy for thinking I was dirty as possible. In high school cross-country “I think I need more context,” he says. obey the laws of physics. Over the thrum and gurgle of the oxy- ready for the truth. Gradually, I realized her voice was coming I’d swim through the stuff with a wild-eyed “Here,” I say, gesturing vaguely at the gen machine, I could hear her slowly drowning. toward me through the dark. “What are you doing?” she was thirst. But ever since I moved out on my own, ancient, fucked-up trees. “How’s this for I had a curfew all the way through high school. Midnight as asking. it’s been different. Wet clothes aren’t so great context?” a freshman, 12:30 as a sophomore. It got progressively looser “Sorry,” I said, closing my laptop, regretting its glow. “Did I when you have to go to the laundromat. Not to Dempsey rocks back and forth in his Crazy as I neared the end, but one thing that didn’t change was that, wake you?” mention that getting sick, such a pleasure when Creek. no matter the time, I was always expected to crack open my “The blankets,” she said, picking at them. Mom was there to take care of me, has become “Whatever,” I say. “Tick, tick, tick. I couldn’t parents’ door and let Mom know I’d made it home safely. She I piled them at the foot of the hospital bed. Her fever had the loneliest part of living alone. I know I’m not ask for a better book to bring out here. As long couldn’t fall asleep, she explained, until she heard my voice. jumped to 102. I grabbed a washcloth, soaked it in cold water, supposed to say this as a Portlander, but the as it doesn’t rain, I’ll be happy.” Their room was at the end of a long hallway on the second floor and pressed it to her neck. I could feel the heat radiating from rain? It makes me feel vulnerable. We retreat into our usual cozy silence. Inch of our house. If I’d been drinking, I would stop in the kitchen her skin. Every few minutes I rushed to the bathroom to run “This is not just a cloud,” I say, digging out by inch, the sun begins to sink behind the crest and scoop a handful of whatever I found in the pantry into my more cold water on the washcloth. When she was feeling strong my poncho. It’s really starting to come down. of the tent. How grateful I am for the shade and mouth. Cereal, chips, or, if there were any, raisins: raisins were enough to roll onto her side, I slid the washcloth to her back. All Everyone’s layering up around the fire, trying the book and the tired legs. How grateful I am like tiny sponges, erasing all evidence of my evening in a matter this time I was fighting the urge to wake my brother, or Dad, or not to give in. Everyone except for the dogs, for friends who put up with me, friends who of seconds. Auntie Carol, but tonight was my turn, and they needed to rest, who know better and have already begged call me on my shit, friends who get me out of I no longer chewed raisins to disguise my drinking, even and what could they do that I wasn’t already doing? their way into Russ and Mollie’s tent. Whereas my apartment. How grateful I am, I realize though, for the past month, I had been drinking far more than we humans, we may have whiskey, we may have with a start, for how quickly Mom died, that was good for me. I had also been kissing her nonstop, kissing her AS THE SMOKE FROM OUR CAMPFIRE BEGINS TO CURL stories to tell, but we’ve still got, what—two, her dying didn’t go on all summer, all year. That every time I entered the room, every time she smiled, every time skyward, I feel a drop on my forearm. Or maybe I’m just imagin- three hours of daylight to get through? The fire this weekend, in a way, was one of her final gifts I accepted the truth of what was happening. One of the strang- ing it. “Did anybody feel that?” I ask. is hissing sort of sadly, the coals rolling toward to me—oh, but how can that be true? How can I est things about the illness was that her breath smelled differ- “It’s just a wet cloud,” Jack says, blowing on the fire. each other, looking for dry spots, then glaring be grateful for that? How can I be happy? ent. Sweet, unexpectedly fresh, as though the cancer blooming “Come on,” I say, “you’re not even looking up.” up at us like why even try. “I don’t think I can do One answer comes in the form of our friend inside of her were in tune with the arrival of spring. It was the “I wouldn’t worry about this turning into anything,” he says. this,” I tell my friends. I tell them I’m going to Jack’s unmistakable tenor, echoing across the first week of April, and Portland had become terribly beautiful. Nevertheless, we quickly gather everything we’ve scattered go stand under a tree. valley. “Up here!” Jack hollers. “Up here!” I sat up in bed, opened my laptop, and e-mailed my friend around the bluff and throw it in our tents. If it does rain, I confess They think I’m joking. Andy to find out if it was normal for cancer to smell this good. to Jack, I can’t vouch that the ageless gray wonder will keep us dry. But I’ve already left the fire. My plan, I 34 Oregon Humanities 35 Summer 2015 Safe

We were so far past the point where she better. “You can’t just sit here watching me for the rest of the night,” she said. could protect me, but But I have to, I wanted to say. Don’t you understand? I’ll never let you die. Her hand found the back of my neck. As if I were the one who she was never going was sick. As if I were the one who needed comforting. The tears gathered at the end of my nose. I held my hands open but in the darkness I couldn’t catch anything. “Darling,” she said, “you to stop trying. These need to rest. You have your own life, too.” For so many years, so many jobs, so many deadlines, and were still her arms. so many excuses, that’s what I thought I wanted—my own life. Space. Independence. Freedom. All the big words. But fuck the big words. What I wanted was the courage to say a word I hadn’t I was still her baby. said in decades.

O N THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CLEARING, THE This was still our hell. path bends around the lake and into the forest. When we got here yesterday, I made it maybe a quarter of the way around before turning back, convinced that there was poison oak all over the place. This time, at least I’m wearing layers. Every fifty steps or so I pass a pink ribbon. The ribbons are tied to the undergrowth, probably the work of a concerned fisherman. There’s no question that I’d lose the trail without them, but I’m too angry about the guess, is to stand somewhere within earshot, as rain to think about the symbolism. Stupidly I take a swipe at if we’re all just waiting for the bus and they’re one of the giant ferns, and it shakes itself off on my feet, soak-

the dummies getting wet. But as I look closer, ing my shoes. Stupid, stupid, I say. No matter how deep I go, how NOLTING MIA I notice that the trees at the edge of the clear- many ribbons I pass, I can’t seem to get underneath anything. ing aren’t just beaten up; they literally have The undergrowth thickens, the path narrows, but above me it’s no branches. It’s kind of like being stuck in a just wet air and bare trunks. crowd: you’ve got this illusion of shelter, but I blunder on and arrive at a fork. To my right, the path hugs when you look up there’s nothing there. the lake. To my left, it goes up. I don’t remember this from yes- terday, up being an option. Maybe I didn’t make it this far. Maybe reminded me of how it felt, as a child, to stretch out in front of Mommy, I send you across the lake. T H E HARDEST PART OF HOSPICE I didn’t want to. the fire, resting my chin on my hands. I’d barely been able to When she is everywhere, I fall silent. How home care was the change in philosophy, the Tonight, though, I have a choice. And I choose up. That’s get through the last page, the part about the bell, the bell that long have I been out here? The day is nearly fact that there were no more emergencies. Even where I find her. The one with the branches. almost everyone stops being able to hear. gone, but it’s still raining. I wonder if the others when her fever spiked, even when she couldn’t I’ve never hugged a tree before. Never gotten past the cliché, When I said it, her eyes snapped open. Was she blushing? have stuck it out at the fire. I wonder if there’s stop coughing up blood, the ER was off-limits. never dug my nose into nine-hundred-year-old bark, never knelt I said it again, luxuriating in every part of the word. any whiskey left. I wonder if the dogs will want It was up to us and the growing pile of meds on on nine-hundred-year-old roots, never allowed myself to feel all “What are you doing?” she said, fighting back a smile. “Why to come. the bathroom counter to see this through. those slow, quiet centuries. It’s so dry beneath her, the pine nee- are you saying that?” I’m running through the woods. I’m follow- “Is that any better?” I asked, pressing the dles under my toes are crinkling like crepe paper. But soon all I I kept saying it and saying it. I didn’t expect anything to hap- ing the ribbons. Soon, I can smell the smoke. I washcloth to her collarbone. can hear is my own grief. It’s awful and elemental and unhinged pen, I just wanted her to hear it. can hear the voices. It’s time to get my friends “You’re so good to me,” she said. and ecstatic. I haven’t let myself go like this since the moment Somehow, she found the strength to lift her arms and pull me out of the rain. I didn’t deserve those words. I knew there she died. I didn’t realize how hard I was looking, or that it was in. We were so far past the point where she could protect me, but was more I could be doing, things I was over- even possible, but forty-five days later, here she is. she was never going to stop trying. These were still her arms. I looking—ice cubes wouldn’t cross my mind was still her baby. This was still our bell. until the following morning. Caregiving seems NOT LONG BEFORE SHE DIED, I MANAGED TO SAY IT. Michael Heald is the author of Goodbye so simple from afar, but when it’s 2:00 a.m. and We had just finished readingThe Polar Express. It was spring, TONIGHT, I’M RINGING IT AGAIN. to the Nervous Apprehension, a col- lection of essays. A writer at large for you’re actually doing it, simple doesn’t enter but all week long we’d been on a Christmas-story kick. Some- Mommy, I fold you into the soil. Runner’s World magazine, he is also the equation. thing about the fresh, expensive smell of Chris Van Allsburg’s Mommy, I breathe you into the bark. the publisher of Perfect Day Publishing. After a while, she told me she was feeling illustrations, combined with the smoothness of the pages, Mommy, I mix you in with the sap. He lives in Portland. 36 Oregon Humanities 37 Summer 2015 Safe

The Rim of the Wound An open letter to the students of Columbia University’s Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board, with a special note to my daughters

MIKE MCQUADE MIKE WENDY WILLIS

READ WITH INTEREST YOUR RECENT OP-ED IN yet it made my heart sink to watch four bright, I the Columbia Spectator arguing, among other things, that passionate young women toss Metamorpho- Ovid’s Metamorphoses should be assigned with a trigger warn- ses onto the bonfire and prepare to light the ing because of the story “The Rape of Proserpina.” As you put it: match. Yes, the Western canon is too white, too male. I made the same argument when I was an Metamorphoses is a fixture of Lit Hum, but like so many texts undergraduate thirty years ago. And unfortu- in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive nately, it’s still true. material that marginalizes student identities in the class- But let’s stick with the specifics of “The room. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives Rape of Proserpina” for a moment. Many of of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and dis- our readers will know it in its Greek form, the cuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low- story of Demeter and Persephone, though the income background. version I love is the translation by poet Ted Hughes, and he retains the Roman version. You clearly struck a nerve, because there’s been a lot writ- As a refresher, here are the highlights: Ceres, ten about your letter and what it means for higher education. goddess of the harvest, was busy making the Some people are supportive and sympathetic to the experiences Roman Empire a fertile and productive place that might lead a young person to need a trigger warning in the until the giant Typhon—who was buried under first place, while others cluck-cluck over how thin-skinned and Sicily—started “vomit[ing] ashes / Flame, lava, coddled kids are these days. They fret that your parents—and all Sulphur.” Pluto, god of the underworld, feared contemporary parents, which I guess includes me—are so pro- his roof would collapse, so he came to the sur- tective and overinvolved that students are unable to withstand face to check for damage. Aphrodite saw her even the slightest discomfort or intellectual challenge. opportunity to bring the chaos and mischief of That line of argument makes me a little defensive, being both love to the nether regions, so she goaded Cupid a mother of daughters and a sexual assault survivor myself. I’m into shooting his arrow deep into Pluto’s heart. deeply concerned about young women like you and my daugh- Proserpina, Ceres’s daughter, was gathering ters—when they are old enough to get there—being safe at flowers in a field with her friends, and “[i]n the college. It is essential and it ought to be above argument that sweep of a single glance,” Pluto became mad students who are combat veterans or sexual assault survivors with love. Being the god of the underworld, he or victims of other traumas should be able to immerse them- kidnapped a terrified Proserpina and took her selves in the world of ideas without unnecessarily reopening old to his kingdom as his wife, which sent Ceres wounds. And, yes, I am tired of the mom being blamed for every into a fit of rage and grief. She ransacked the one of society’s perceived weaknesses. world and demanded Proserpina’s return: I’m your friend. I’m a feminist. I’m old enough to be your mother. I want what you want—a world where injustice is With an instant epidemic, throughout the chased into the night by fierce kindness and right action. And island. 38 Oregon Humanities 39 Summer 2015 Safe

She broke up the ploughs with her bare It wasn’t just the rape that was familiar, but the sudden descent a kind of diagram that separates hands, into darkness despite all my efforts to stay in the light. It was heaven from earth from hell. Forebade the fields to bear a crop also the confusion of connecting to a deep, sometimes frighten- Of any kind. She made all seed sterile. ing, inner life while being expected to be smiling and present- This is not to suggest that you and your friends are the biggest This island, that had boasted its plenty able in the outside world. Later, it was the tug of war between threat to metaphor in the culture. But I do want you—along with The thing that is making Throughout the world, lay barren. being a daughter and being a wife. my own daughters—to be the ones with access to the mystery. As soon as the blade showed green— In recent years—for obvious reasons—it’s been Ceres I look Now I fear that the most well-known metaphors are those being the grain died. to for comfort. Of course I worry myself sick about my own offered by advertisers. Of course capitalism—the market, as we us feel unsafe is not a Floods, heatwaves, and tempests daughters’ safety and whether some dark lord will pluck them quaintly call it—has no incentive to generate myths and stories Sluiced away or dried and blew off the tilth. out of my motherly nimbus. But Ceres is so much more than a that sit with us in our grief and confusion and anger. It has every The bared seeds were collected by birds. doting mother. Despite her devotion to sunny wheat fields and incentive to try to convince us that with enough money and con- collection of ancient the fruits and flowers of the world, Ceres has a fierceness that is sumer goods, we can buy anything, including immortality. Tales Ceres’s negotiating position was seriously not to be trifled with. One of my favorite moments in the story is of suffering and disaster are not particularly useful in selling strengthened by her destruction and relent- when she takes a break from her desperate search for Proserpina moisturizer. myths; it is the fact that lessness, so her brother Jupiter—the mightiest to drink a jug of water infused with barley and herbs. A “cocky But let’s be real. Immortality is not for sale. The thing that is of the gods and Pluto’s brother—arranged for brat” jeers and calls her a “greedy guzzling old witch.” But he making us feel unsafe is not a collection of ancient myths; it is Proserpina to return to the world of the living. does not know who it is he’s decided to mock. Ceres throws the the fact that the world is not safe. I don’t say this to excuse vio- the world is not safe. But Proserpina had violated one of the condi- jug of broth in his face, then slowly and methodically shrinks lence or repression. But I do say it to wake us up. The world will tions of the underworld by eating seven seeds him, transforming him into a newt. Believe me, as an adult, never be safe enough to save us from our own deaths. By turning of a pomegranate. As a result, she was allowed educated, professional woman who sometimes finds herself the away from myths that grapple with pain and violence, we are to come back to the surface for only half the impatient recipient of what has brilliantly become known as turning away from the companionship of the immortals. year. For the other half—one month for each “mansplaining,” I wish I had a jug of barley broth and the power And in my book, the immortals go far beyond my favorite seed she had eaten—she returned to Pluto and to transform someone into an amphibian. But at least I can turn dead white guys—Ovid and Dante and Blake. When I am casting of the unconscious. As my grandmother might the underworld, dividing both her time and her my inner eye toward Ceres and know that she has—and through about for guides—or at least traveling companions—in the peril- have said, you are bright as a shiny penny. But nature between dark and light, between cold her, I have—the last laugh. ous swamps of the inner life, I turn not just to them but to the I will add this: You—like all of us—are bound and warmth, between sunny meadows and the Truth be told, I even recognize the impulses of Aphrodite. dreamlike novels of Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende. to confront the darkness sooner than any of depths of hell. Though I hate to admit it even to myself, it is sometimes sorely I lie awake poring over the numinous images of Adrienne Rich us would like. And if we turn our faces away It’s a stark tale. Proserpina is kidnapped, tempting to use the “tickling barbs” of love (or at least desire) to and Vénus Khoury-Ghata. I seek out the stories and poems that and pretend that winter will never come, we raped, and held hostage by the king of the move the needles of power, to—as Aphrodite put it—“expand our touch the unconscious, that hang around when confusion and are doomed to live under fluorescent lights underworld, and that is nasty, violent busi- empire.” despair threaten to overtake me entirely. and heat lamps, taking selfies and preserving ness. Though I had probably heard the story Shit happens, ladies. And it’s unfair. And I hate it. And I wish I am in search of art that is rich in what the Spanish poet Fed- only that which is singular to us. Then what? sometime before I arrived at university, I didn’t it weren’t that way. But I want you to have the full range of tools erico García Lorca called duende. The word duende itself refers We will have chosen our own imprisonment, a study it seriously until I read Metamorphoses to keep becoming the badass women you are meant to be. Can to a foul little goblin that appears in Spanish myths and fairy conscription to a world of surface, corporatized as a freshman. That was the same year I was you imagine what it must have been like two thousand years ago tales, but in Lorca’s construct, duende is the sense of earthy fore- images, fearful of that which reminds us that sexually assaulted by a classmate. And that with no heat, no air-conditioning, no emergency broadcasting boding that brings the artist face-to-face with death. It is duende we are bound for pain and death. And if we are was a nasty, life-changing business as well. system? “The Rape of Proserpina,” along with many of the sto- that gives flamenco its devastating combination of vitality and unable to look into the face of suffering—our One I didn’t want to be reminded of in honors ries in Metamorphoses, offered a human-scale rendition of that desperation. As Lorca put it, duende is “a sort of corkscrew that own and that of others—we seal ourselves into literature. And one I don’t want to be reminded which is fearsome and capricious and unexplainable—earth- can get art into the sensibility of an audience ... the very dearest our own individual experiences that we replay of now. And one I don’t want to write about in quakes, violence, winter. And for all the intervening years, the thing that life can offer the intellectual.” in their particularities, cut loose from the arc my hometown magazine. But I do write about stories have offered companionship as we struggle with great I hate to be the one to tell you this, but from my advanced age, of human experience. it because I know that I am one of the 20 per- mysteries and great pain, including the pain of being raped. it is looming death that increasingly injects intensity into the It is a frightening thing, reliving trauma, cent of American women who will be sexually But we are not bound to take myth literally, and we are tough hours of my life. There are days when I cry all the way to work, but our souls—as Lorca put it—“love the rim of assaulted in their lifetime. And I write about enough to use it for our own purposes. As the American poet knowing that our days are numbered, knowing that I will drop the wound,” and myth lays down a path for us it because my identity—including my identity Louise Glück puts it in “Persephone the Wanderer”: these particular children at these particular schools only a few to find each other across cultures and millen- as a survivor—has changed over those years, more times, even if the repetition sometimes seems enough to nia. Come close, dear ones, let’s walk the path and so has my relationship to the myths of You are allowed to like make me chew my foot off. I am keenly aware of the dangers of together. I’ll reach for your hand. I hope you’ll Metamorphoses. no one, you know. The characters the world, the ones facing my daughters and the ones facing you. grab mine back. In the nearly thirty years since, I’ve turned are not people. But that awareness makes it (almost) impossible to take even to the tale of “The Rape of Proserpina” and its They are aspects of a dilemma or conflict. the carpool for granted. So I’m with Lorca when he stands on the Greek counterpart again and again despite its edge and cries out: “Pain is made flesh, takes human form, and shocking title and the violence at the center of Three parts: just as the soul is divided, acquires a sharp profile. She is a dark woman wanting to catch Wendy Willis is a poet and essayist it. The story—like all great metaphors—just ego, superego, id. Likewise birds in nets of wind.” living in Portland. She is also the executive director of Kitchen Table keeps opening up. As a young woman, I found I don’t write this to bust your chops for calling out Ovid, but Democracy, a national nonprofit sisterhood in the brutalization of Proserpina. the three levels of the known world, it is a dangerous thing for a culture to lose access to the language dedicated to democratic governance. 40 Oregon Humanities 41 Summer 2015 Safe

and don’t let me see you again.” As the first smell of tear gas wafted into our consciousness, we headed down Jeffer- son under the watchful eyes of Detroit’s finest. Almost fifty years later, as I reflect on what has I don’t feel safe when I must fear being happened in Baltimore, New York, Ferguson, denied a job or a home or admission to Posts and many other cities, I wonder what would READERS WRITE ABOUT SAFE have happened if we had been two black boys a good school because someone may on a motorcycle that hot August night. MARK OLDANI, Portland not like the color of my skin. Baby on Board Crossing the Line ’M A FIRST-TIME MOM. MY BABY IS EFORE I COULD GET THE DOOR What Will It Take? I still in my belly, so I guess some people B open, he said, “We can’t miss this.” OMETIMES I CAN FEEL THE EYES would not identify me that way, but I am. And I thought, “There is no way.” But I felt, Hell yes. S staring. Or maybe it’s just how the inter- I’m accident-prone. It was August 9, 1966, and sweltering. I viewer looks at me, then looks at my résumé, I lost teeth at Southeast Thirty-Second and was fifteen and Randy was sixteen. The 1966 then looks at me again. Do I risk speaking my should be angry. We are not safe. Lincoln a few years ago when I did a curb shot Detroit “mini riot” had broken out. Detroit was truth, or do I continue to go along to get along? As an artist, I must speak out. I cannot over the handlebars of my bike. I nearly broke a segregated city; at that time one of the divid- I know I make many people feel uncomfort- afford to be “safe.” I take pleasure knowing my ankle running trails in the gorge. I slip in ing lines between the African American and able. But is it my responsibility to make them that, in my persistence in taking risks, I con- boots when it’s raining, and I’m an LA driver. white neighborhoods was Conner Street. By feel comfortable? tribute to the development of a safe world I can be both reckless and sloppy. And now day, people moved back and forth across Con- My problem is not about being trustwor- where all voices are allowed and judged on I am the temporary house of a dependent and ner to work and conduct other business. By thy or cautious, or being a risk-taker and con- their ability to move us forward as members of fragile and scary-to-handle-for-the-first-time night, white people like me lived and slept in troversial. The very fact that I am black in the human race. tiny human. our protected neighborhoods. America with the audacity to speak about the MARIAH L. RICHARDSON, Portland I was an awful babysitter. The last time I That day, rumors had spread from the implications that brings threatens my sense had that job, a baby rolled off the sofa under troubled corner of Pennsylvania and Kerche- of safety. I don’t feel safe when I must fear the coffee table, and I think I was probably val that police had attacked members of the being denied a job or a home or admission to Both Inevitable and Near paid $12. Afro-American Youth Movement. The hot a good school because someone may not like HO HAS THE RISKIEST, MOST On Mother’s Day I fell down a flight of stairs summer just got hotter as police roamed, snip- the color of my skin. This circumstance can W controversial job at Oregon Health at an estate sale. I tumbled out of control and ers prowled on rooftops, and buildings went up automatically deem me as untrustworthy. I & Science University, up on the hill, tower- somehow continually fell on my back to pro- in flames. On the way to Randy’s motorcycle cannot hide my physical appearance. My very ing above downtown Portland? The surgeon tect my precious cargo. I had to be monitored I yelled, “Mom, Randy and I are going swim- existence is in danger because of stereotypes mending the malformed heart of the newly for twenty-four hours. The hospital provided ming.” I didn’t wait to hear her answer. and fear. I am not safe. born? The internationally famous cancer spe- respite, the illusion of a guarantee of life, of We headed up Kerby to Kercheval. As we When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassi- cialist, debuting experimental chemotherapy? immortality. crossed Conner, the unmistakable smell of nated, my mother draped a black cloth over his I believe I had that job. For nearly twenty Returning home I realized how unprepared burning tires and wood filled the air. Windows portrait that hung on the hall closet door of our years, I was the hospital’s palliative medicine I felt—I did not want to be left alone with the had been smashed, and glass, trash, and fire public housing apartment. His willingness to physician. job of carrying this little one. But I know that hoses littered the streets. A policeman yelled, be a risk-taker and controversial should have At an institution “where healing, teaching my baby is covered in prayer and amniotic fluid, “Get the hell out of here!” We took off up a side meant that I would be judged by my character and discovery come together,” as the slogan and—even though I’m a klutz—I realize it will street to Jefferson Avenue just in time to see and not by my color, period. We shall overcome. goes, I was responsible for pointing out when never be safer than it is floating in the space of the police amassing for the assault. And yet each week we hear about another that promise would remain unfulfilled. my inner sanctum. While we were stunned by the sights and unarmed black/brown/red person being Seemingly every day, I had to reveal to JULIA BARBEE, Portland sounds, two policemen ran up, yelling. The gist gunned down. The biggest risk to our collec- patients and their families that hopes for heal- was, “Are you crazy? Get home.” tive safety is seeing color as the “other.” ing were no longer sustainable, that treatment Realizing the danger that we had put our- What will it take for us all to feel safe? had failed, that death was both inevitable selves in, I felt pretty stupid saying, “We just Self-reflection and a willingness to release a and near, that the time had come to prepare wanted to see what was going on.” position of privilege. A desire to celebrate dif- thoughtfully for the end. The hot summer just got hotter as police In mock anger, one yelled, “Watch the news!” ference. A tearing down of walls that separate Typically, the response would be tearful The policemen laughed, releasing the tension. in the name of safety. An understanding that acceptance, often accompanied by expres- roamed, snipers prowled on rooftops, and “Really, boys,” he said, “there is a curfew, and institutionalized racism perpetuates the idea sions of sincere gratitude that someone had buildings went up in flames. by all rights we should arrest you. Get home. that black people are beasts. Schools, govern- been willing, finally, to break the veil of silence. Your parents must be worried sick. Stay on ment, media—all have taught us that we are Not infrequently, however, I would be Jefferson until you cross Conner. With all the not good enough. You are taught that and we torched by a spouse, parent, child, or sibling— police you will be okay. Just get out of here now, are taught that. We are angry and everyone never the afflicted—for having the temerity to POSTS 42 Oregon Humanities 43 Summer 2015 Safe

continued from previous page A Kind World blur to gray as well, blending slang from Cen- Everything Is Held ’ VE ALWAYS FELT THAT MY FATE tral America with that of northern Mexico and LL AROUND MY HOUSE, THINGS I is the same as that of the other animals that the occasional Spanglish word. I enter into this A hold things. Above my dresser, hooks hold share this planet. When I was a child, it hurt me fray every morning to direct the flow of traffic necklaces and sparkly bracelets. A funky piece to see the farm animals butchered. Back then, to school. of window screen from my old house in Aurora no one imagined such things as factory farms, We are in Portland, Oregon, far from the holds earrings, the posts slipped through the which would increase the misery of farmed US–Mexico border, far from the students’ tiny holes, the clasps pushed on from the back. I felt I was in danger from my animals. In the fifties, in my family, punish- native countries, and far from where they On my bedside table, a small bamboo tray holds ments were severe and positive reinforcement were apprehended by Immigration and Cus- cream and a clock. parents, as the animals were. I was not a concept. I felt I was in danger from toms Enforcement. This is no ordinary school: My kitchen cupboards are filled with jars knew how the animals felt. my parents, as the animals were. I knew how all of the students are male, between the ages that hold filberts, pumpkin seeds, dal, kasha, the animals felt, presided over by beings who of fourteen and seventeen, and in the custody rice, coconut, almonds, oats. The tiny bowls we had no understanding of them or concern for of the federal government. Many are coyotes, brought back from Portugal and Mexico hold a their welfare. foot guides who led groups of migrants across tea bag or a few olives. Everything is held. I just read The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth the Rio Bravo on the border between Texas and I remember when you held me, when I was Kolbert, and it reminded me of what I already the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. In this staff- sleepy or laughing or sick. Wrapped in your know—that human beings are destructive and secured facility, it is not a long journey from the arms, feeling contained somehow made me unable to empathize with forms of life, includ- dormitory where they sleep across the court- feel stronger. Before you, aching to be held was take away all hope, give up too soon, pull the ing other humans, that they consider to be yard to the classrooms, yet each movement is that too-loose, edgeless feeling. I know why my rug out. unlike them. Or maybe I should say “sympa- carefully directed, monitored, and scoured for grandson wants to be swaddled. I came to appreciate these emotional back- thize,” because some humans do know they are signs of inappropriateness or misconduct. You put something in something. Give it a lashes as unavoidable complications of a risky causing pain, and they enjoy that knowledge. As they line up for school, I stand before place. A holder, not to constrain it, but to frame Next theme: Move but indispensable procedure. To avoid such I live on a large piece of land, and I don’t per- them, shoulders squared, feet placed apart. I it to its best advantage, to protect it from harm, For the Fall/Winter 2015 issue, complications would mean not engaging at all, mit hunting or the killing of trees or wildlife. I return their grins and carefully ignore any to offer it up. tell us your stories about mov- depriving all other patients of the benefits of an eat only plants. I pretend I live in a kind world, lingering glances. My small stature and fair I love those stores where you can buy things ing on, moving over, feeling moved, being moved, making honest and timely conversation. where heartless killing does not take place. skin, not to mention my femaleness, stand in to put things in. Who thought to make a thing a move, or keeping things in Sometimes I would transgress professional That’s what it would take to make me feel safe— sharp contrast to their gray masculinity. I bid just for that? A clever design with just the right motion. Tell us about a time boundaries, usurping a senior physician’s pre- a respect for all life, not just human life. But as them good morning and announce any changes shapes. Bespoke. you left or relocated and what rogative as ultimate arbiter of when enough is we all know, human life is not respected either. made to the daily schedule, pausing for ques- Everyone should have that feeling of a thing you learned about yourself or enough, and suffer that colleague’s wrath. Just think: If people thought twice about tions. They may yell a couple of unrelated but fitted just so. Made for you, to hold you, what- the world as a result. Send your I remember the moment I realized I had lost killing a mouse, would they harm or kill benign expletives. This is how the school day ever you are. A tilted hook a bracelet won’t fall submission (400 words maxi- the stomach for risk. another human? If humans respected other begins. off of. A clean jar, scrubbed of sticky labels, for mum) by October 9, 2015, to “Your catastrophic abdominal injury has animals’ lives, would they be destroying their Despite the boundaries that the program round brown filberts. Not to achieve supe- [email protected]. caused permanent intestinal scarring and habitats with coal mining, oil exploration, continually reminds us to reinforce, these rior order, but to be known. For the world to Submissions may be edited for blockages,” the senior surgeon explained care- clear-cutting? Would species be hunted to young men manage to make me feel boundless. acknowledge your presence. This is you. This is space or clarity. fully to the youngish man. “You failed surgery. extinction? Would humans reproduce without In our close quarters, with the ugly carpets and your place, this bamboo tray. This is your shape, You will never eat again. Your only other option considering the animals who will be raised and the recycled air, they teach me to see things as this tiny pottery bowl. is lifelong total parenteral nutrition (TPN) killed, as if they were inanimate objects, to feed they truly are, with their outbursts and their A few years after our house was finally by vein—which is not an option because you our increasing numbers? Would our earth be in reticence, their honesty and their frustra- paid off, our neighbor’s home on Terwilliger already show signs of liver failure from TPN.” the danger that it is in now? tions. I teach some of them to read, some of Boulevard slid down the hill, crushing the I waited for the surgeon to reveal the ines- Human life may continue, but we may con- them to play guitar, and some of them to love house below it and damaging two others in its capable truth: “This means you will slowly tinue on alone, without the animals. What kind learning. In the precious moments when their path. Not long after, we had ours bolted to its starve to death over the next several months.” of world will that be? eyes fill with joy at a new discovery, I see a full foundation. Instead, he followed with an upbeat “So let’s MARILYN BURKHARDT, Hebo spectrum of color and emotion that flares and When insomnia pesters me awake, I lie keep trying!” I, too, played it safe, too weary to burns insistently. Each day reminds me of the there and breathe. No tray or bowl can contain engage. importance of seeing them and letting myself my nighttime thoughts. I still have work to do. Caring for the dying is not wearying. Labor- No Ordinary School be seen in this miraculous, contradictory time But when I look around, and I see things ing against the resistance to dying is. HEY COME TO ME IN SHADES OF and place, and in a world where we would oth- cupped, as in palms, and if I can trust, as Rilke I left the youngish man to twist agonizingly T gray. Gray gym shorts, gray gym socks erwise be completely invisible to one another. wrote, that life has not forgotten me, that it in the silence. And I twisted as well, for a few stuffed into plastic flip­-flops, and hair gelled DANIELA JIMÉNEZ, Portland holds me in its hand and will not let me fall, more months, before leaving OHSU for good. into elaborate formations atop their heads, then, for that moment, I feel safe. PAUL B. BASCOM, Portland yelling Que pedo!, which literally translates BIJA GUTOFF, Portland to “What fart?” in Spanish. Their speech may 44 Oregon Humanities 45 Summer 2015

Below the Radar Alison L. Gash Oxford University Press, 2015

Political scientist Alison L. Gash contrasts high-profile legal fights for civil rights, such as the twenty-year battle for recogni- Read. Talk. Think. tion of same-sex marriage, things that make you say o. hm. with other efforts—same-sex parents fighting for parental rights among them—that The Life and deliberately pursued their goals Legends of through low-profile action. She Calamity Jane concludes that sometimes the Richard W. Etulain quickest way to achieve social University of Oklahoma Press, 2015 change is to stay out of the headlines. An unorthodox woman for her —Ben Waterhouse time, Calamity Jane led a life more common to a frontier What the Dying man, drinking, gambling, Have Taught Me fighting, and spinning a yarn of about Living personal greatness. In this biog- Fred Grewe raphy, prolific historian Richard Open Waters Publishing, 2015 W. Etulain traces the troubled upbringing of Martha Canary, her A refreshingly candid and transformation to Calamity Jane sometimes humorous account before she was twenty, and her of one man’s journey to find Turtleface and Beyond death in 1903, then dives deeply grace through others, himself, Arthur Bradford into the myths and stories that and God. Hospice chaplain Fred Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015 surrounded her life and ponders Grewe’s book straddles the why her myth prevails. genres of memoir and self-help, Georgie, the narrator of Arthur Bradford’s linked short story col- —Carole Shellhart offering readers a look into the lection, Turtleface and Beyond, is dim, unlucky, and also strangely author’s work with the dying, endearing and resilient—and so is the collection as a whole. Sounding Race in as well as suggestions for ways Accidents and oddly placed animals are everywhere, but it’s the Rap Music that we all might live more tone that stands out and makes it all work. “I wish I could tell you meaningful, present lives. more accurately,” Bradford’s Georgie says, “what it felt like to Loren Kajikawa —Annie Kaffen be lying there with my leg stuck in the chipper.” But in a way he University of California Press, 2015 already has told us, and, strangely, it feels almost good to hear. Founding Grammars —Adam Davis For the layperson, musicologist Rosemarie Ostler Loren Kajikawa’s fascinating St. Martin’s Press, 2015 Sounding Race in Rap Songs Crooked River can be a bit of a brain stretch. Linguist Rosemarie Ostler Valerie Geary Luckily, his easy writing style investigates the long-running William Morrow, 2015 and enthusiastic explanations debate between grammatical The Great Detective make his argument—that the traditionalists and defenders Valerie Geary’s debut novel is breakbeats in rap music both of common language usage Zach Dundas a story of family loyalties and carry and create meaning about Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015 throughout American history. secrets told through the eyes of our culture’s understanding of Lively and engaging, the book two young sisters who find them- race—accessible even to those In a lighthearted blend of travelogue and cultural criticism, Zach explores grammar’s intimate ties selves caught up in a murder of us who never progressed Dundas, a co-executive editor of Portland Monthly and diehard to morality and class, tracing the investigation after discovering a beyond the plastic recorder. Sherlock Holmes fan, searches for the source of Arthur Conan evolution of American language body near the home they share —Eloise Holland Doyle’s inscrutable sleuth’s enduring appeal in New York, London, through 200 years of gram- with their reclusive father. Geary Pasadena, and more incarnations of 221B Baker Street than an mar books, starting with Noah finds the familiar in small betray- uninitiated reader might have thought possible. To have a new book by an Oregon writer considered for Read. Talk. Webster’s efforts to distinguish als and secrets the siblings keep, American English from that of each trying to protect what they —Ben Waterhouse Think., please send review copies to Oregon Humanities magazine, 921 SW Washington St., Suite 150, Portland, OR 97205. Great Britain. hold most dear. —Julia Withers —Carole Shellhart CROPPINGS 46 Oregon Humanities

Oregon Humanities connects Staff Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. Oregon executive director Humanities programs encourage Adam Davis Oregonians to learn about and discuss communications/program associate social, cultural, and public issues. Eloise Holland editor/associate director The Conversation Project offers Oregon nonprofits Kathleen Holt and community organizations low-cost programs that development director engage community members in thoughtful, challenging Kamla Hurst conversations about ideas critical to our daily lives and our state’s future. program officer Annie Kaffen Think & Drink is a conversation series that brings Oregonians together to discuss provocative ideas. office manager Mikaela Schey

Idea Lab is a summer institute for Oregon teens and director of finance and operations teachers who use the humanities to consider the Carole Shellhart pursuit of happiness and how it shapes our culture. development associate Humanity in Perspective (HIP) is a college-level humani- Maggie Starr ties course. HIP provides economically and education- communications associate ally disadvantaged individuals the opportunity to study Ben Waterhouse the humanities with the guidance of college and univer- sity professors. program coordinator Kyle Weismann-Yee Oregon Humanities magazine is a triannual publication devoted to exploring important and timely ideas from a variety of perspectives and to stimulating reflection and public conversation.

Public Program Grants provide financial support for nonprofit organizations across Oregon to conceive and implement public humanities programs.

Oregon Humanities also convenes reading and discus- Susan Rochester, She Has a Memory of Trees and Fields and Nothing More Sarah Fagan, Time Together, Time Apart sion groups, and hosts panel presentations on topics of public relevance and concern.

Oregon Humanities programs are funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Oregon Daily Objects: Sarah Cultural Trust, and by contributions from The three young artists featured in this exhibit at the Arts individuals, foundations, community Fagan, Susan Rochester, Center in Corvallis each depict mundane items—cups, spoons, organizations, and corporations. For paper, pencils—in surprising ways, removing them from their more information about Oregon Humanities, or to learn how you can help expected contexts to shift viewers’ understanding of their Sandee McGee more Oregonians get together, share meaning. In her still life paintings Sarah Fagan shifts from the ideas, listen, think, and grow, please October 8 to November 24, 2015 traditional three-quarter view to an aerial perspective, pre- contact us at: The Arts Center senting arrangements of small items in isolation, like speci- 921 SW Washington Street, Suite 150 700 SW Madison Avenue mens. Also featured in Daily Objects are photographer Susan Portland, OR 97205 (503) 241-0543 or (800) 735-0543, fax Rochester’s unsettling staged vignettes of animals in human Corvallis, Oregon 97333 (503) 241-0024 (541) 754-1551 habitats and conceptual artist Sandee McGee’s photos of sculp- [email protected] theartscenter.net tural arrangements of paper and plastic. oregonhumanities.org Non-profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 1274 Portland, OR

Oregon Humanities 921 SW Washington St., Suite 150 Portland, OR 97205

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Board of Directors

chair Paul Duden, Portland

vice chair Sona Karentz Andrews, Portland

treasurer Ed Battistella, Ashland

secretary Matthew Boulay, Salem

Stephen Marc Beaudoin, Portland Jeff Cronn, Portland Kimberly Howard, Portland Nels Johnson, Portland Erious Johnson Jr., Salem Emily Karr, Portland Win McCormack, Portland Alberto Moreno, Portland Pamela Morgan, Lake Oswego Ron Paul, Portland Denise Reed, Astoria Chantal Strobel, Bend Rich Wandschneider, Enterprise Janet Webster, Newport Dave Weich, Portland