Edu-ma-ca-tion

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of checking out the Islandic/Danish band Croisztan, who are self-declared freedom fighters for the fictive Eastern European country, Croisztan. With a mix of punk, Balkan folk music, heavy metal and yes, even disco there wasn't much you needed to understand lyrically besides the constant yell for "Vodka!" I enjoyed this band and they totally took me back to the daze of hanging out at CBGBs, or smaller, dives around lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and all my friends' bands like the Negatones, or really, really back in the daze when Sweet Diesel played around the East Village. Gosh, that was a LONG time ago. I can't even remember half of the bands we checked out--
It was funny, my sitting there in this little club and I couldn't help but think how out-of-place I should have felt. It was a room mostly of younguns and of course, Danish and Islandic crowd. I was the only Black person there for a minute and I laughed on the inside at how unpredictable as human beings we are. I mean, one of the quotes that really resonated with me when I heard it for the first time was Isaac Julian's suggestion that you can never guess someone's politics from their race, national origin, sexuality or gender.
Earlier last night I joined a friend of mine at her house for dinner and she told me that she would be inviting two other friends. It was a wonderful evening, and we all chatted about the usual topics of conversation: Love and politics. They were certainly progressive women, and it was a delight to be in their company, exchanging ideas and experiences over white wine and cigarettes.
Anyway, I don't really know how the subject came up, but we started talking about Palestine and Israel. It's interesting, but my experience has always been that Danes tend to romanticize the Palestinian situation--with a comment being dropped last night, although jokingly, that one of them needed to find a Palestinian lover. It reminded me of how some white women or men romanticize the other--whether it's Black people or any other group of people who have been historically oppressed and how in this very act itself is the act of dehumanizing the other. It's like you either have to be this poor, innocent victim and if you dare break out of that role, then you are fucked up cause of all the horrible things that have happened to you! Whew!
Where is the humanity in all of this?
So, the conversation continued about Bosnia, and through one woman's assessment, the situation in Bosnia happened, according to her, due to lack of education.
The red lights went off in my head.
Let me break things down to you dear readers: An education does not a better human make you. I have traveled the world, met many different people from all walks of life and there are royal assholes across every social strata, color line and international borderlines. I promise you this. On the other hand, there are beautiful, amazing, human beings with love as deep as the un-ventured seas as well: I promise you this as well.
We live in a society that tells us that the way to a better life is through education and material accumulation. And while I love school, and truth be told, if I could have afforded it, would have been in school for the rest of my life, I will tell you this: For many of us, Education gives us access to a world that we actually do not support.
Let me break it down to you: While my education (and mine was a damn good one, thank goodness to my progressive, left-wing education!!!!!) opened my eyes to Marx, Paulo Friere, Borges, Zora Neale Hurston, Baldwin, Spinoza blah blah blah it also alienated me GREATLY from where I came from, a process, in the end that was not worth one of the most expensive educations in the United States of America.
I am not, nor will I ever buy into the capitalist dream. I couldn't care less about your fancy cars, big salaries and fancy college degrees. I have met too many people with these things who have failed on the most important level: that of being a human being. So, for someone to claim that the reason why one group of people turned against another group of people based on LACK OF EDUCATION is preposterous to me. That's like people who say, "Poverty makes criminals." Hello? What kind of bullshit analysis is that? That's like saying that rich people can not be criminals. Excuse me? All these bullshit generalizations--I am so friggin sick of them and the scary thing is this woman was going on about how it was their inability to critically think about the information they were receiving which led to the attempted genocide of their neighbors. Hello, what about your ability to critically think?
And let's get back to the education thing: Can someone say Nazi Germany? I think many of them would have qualified as pretty educated folk.
I think the danger in all of this is pointing our fingers at other people who fail each other and in the end themselves. I think the danger is believing that there is something that separates them from us, and that such behavior can never visit upon us. We in the west, in relatively "peaceful" societies (how we term violence is a whole nother story) do ourselves a great injustice when we do not sweep the doorways of our own souls before looking over our borders and saying "them" cause in the end, "them" is us, and we, are them.
Just like, I am sure, some 20 something Danish kid was looking at me last night, with my little pumps and bourgie-looking attire, with some suspicion, and just like, as out-of-place as I should have felt, I, like every one else in that room, belonged there--because in the end, we are all human and no amount of money, education, material possessions will ever take the need away of constantly examining how we react to each other and what we choose to do with each interaction. And as Croisztan reminded us throughout the night, sometimes the only word that needs to be understood is, "Vodka!"
Happy Sunday,
the lab