Entitlement Gone Wild!!!

(subtitle: why I can’t live in Park Slope, and why no one should read online comments)

As promised, another blog post within literally days of the last one. Don’t get spoiled, though. You never know when I might get lazy again.

Anyways, let’s start out with some news/bragging: I recently moved out of park slope and into bed-stuy. And I literally couldn’t be happier about it. I’m sure I’m romanticizing the whole situation (it’s still new york, after all), but the fact remains that my first morning at my new place, I walked out the front gate and a passer-by said “good morning” to me. Shocking! Unheard-of! By the end of the week I had been introduced to not one, not two, but SIX of my neighbors. Who smile at me on the street, and sometimes talk to me on the subway. I’m in heaven. Which, of course, brings me to my current topic: hell. AKA park slope, Brooklyn.

I know what you’re going to say – hating on park slope is SO last season. But I say last season’s not all that long ago, and I don’t think the issue was properly addressed back then. Let’s quickly go over the typical reasons people might hate on park slope: it’s overpriced, over-gentrified, and full of self-righteous yuppie parents who want to turn the whole neighborhood into a playground for their entitled little children. It’s full of strollers, puppies, yuppies, and gays, all of whom will judge you on the street for not being one of them. True. But let’s “unpack” that, shall we?

There are a lot of reasons to hate park slope, some legitimate, some not. An example of “not” legitimate would be “I hate puppies.” No one hates puppies. Your argument doesn’t hold water. Similarly, no one hates good food. People do, however, hate overpriced good food. Which leads us to gentrification. The complaints about gentrification, and specifically the complaints about the attitude of park slope residents, get to the heart of the issue I want to discuss here: the false sense of entitlement that seems to permeate every aspect of white middle class culture these days (and not just in park slope. I guess this isn’t just about hating on park slope after all). Trust me, if anyone knows about the sense of entitlement today’s 30-somethings and soon-to-be 30-somethings seem to have, it’s a former Harvard student. I survived that, so now I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert, and in a fine place to talk about it on a larger scale: New York.

A recent Village Voice article prompted me to start thinking about this topic yet again. I of course recommend that you read the whole article (it’s very illuminating), but I’ll summarize it briefly here for your convenience: A well-off young Manhattan couple, with the help of some friends, purchased a building in prospect heights (just north of park slope, for you non-New Yorkers) at a price that was significantly under market value due to the fact that there were several rent-stabilized apartments in the building. They then began evicting, one by one, each of the rent-stabilized tenants (four families, to date) so that they could convert their own dwelling into a 20-room home. Only one of the rent-stabilized tenants remain, and the two parties are currently involved in a legal battle over her eviction. The current tenant, Evelyn Suarez, has been living in the apartment for 28 years and currently shares it with her boyfriend, her son, and two young nieces. She pays $402/mo for an apartment that most likely would rent for somewhere around $1800/mo if it was new to the market today. Various factors have been thrown around as arguments for one party or the other, including the fact that Ms. Suarez is unemployed, the fact that she has colon cancer, and the fact that the apartment is slated to be turned into storage space for the new owners.

Needless to say, the issue has blown up. There was a “block party” to raise awareness about it a while back, and something about a councilwoman speaking out against the landlords. Obviously there was a Village Voice article about it. More interesting, I think, is the reaction on the Brownstoner real estate blog (a blog heavy in park slope readership). I don’t want you to have to go through the painful process I did of reading every single comment, so I’ll just pick out some of the best ones for you (I’m sparing you the comments on the Village Voice website because, frankly, some are too racist to re-print):

“These renters could have purchased property but did not. Tough luck.”

“Why should folks who don't want to work be able to live off welfare in rent controlled privately owned housing? It's frigging nuts!”

“is it immoral to eat as much food as we eat in America while folks in Darfur starve?

everytime you go to grocery store to buy that big steak, the politicians should picket infront of the store so you feel guilty that someone who doesn't have the money to buy the steak can't have any.”

“I bought when I had no money, and did it as a single working class female by(1) saving every cent I otherwise would have paid in rent for eight years when I had a stabilized apt in Manhattan and (2) buying in a neighborhood that none of my friends would visit. I had to fight banks to get a mortgage, since the neighborhood was still redlined. It was called Clinton Hill. My parents wept and my friends said I'd be dead in a year.”

“This is retarded. The problem with long term rent control is it gets people used to living in areas they realistically cannot afford to. Another way of looking at it is rent control removes a major incentive to improve your lot in life through hard work and sacrifice: financial stress.

The guy who lived there for 17 years and didn't bother to learn English...gee, I wonder why he's not rolling in money right now? Must be the rich peoples' fault. They're so cold and heartless.

My view? Don't punish achievers (like the buyers) and don't coddle losers (like at least some of the tenants). Give the tenants their Section 8 housing and be done with it.”

And of course, my favorite:

“The sense of entitlement that is rampant throughout the city has no limits. Why are these people so special that they should prevent someone who has spent tons of hard earned money from using their own space exactly as they wish.

Rent stabilized units are an incredible perk that most of us will never enjoy. Be happy you enjoyed it while it lasted and respect people's rights to their own property!”

I’m going to resist the temptation to point out the myriad flaws in each of those posts individually, but I will point out that I think these posters and I have some disagreement over the meaning of the word “entitlement.” Because my argument is that at the end of the day, that’s exactly what this all comes down to. Entitlement, which dictionary.com unhelpfully defines as “the state of being entitled,” is a word I would define as “a belief that one is deserving of some benefit or advantage.” By definition, then, people who are DISadvantaged (aka people who can’t afford to pay market value for their apartment, perhaps) cannot really exhibit a “sense of entitlement.” People who do have certain social privileges and advantages, though (i.e. wealth), such as the type of person who might spend their free time reading a New York real estate blog, can and do exhibit a “sense of entitlement,” and nowhere is it more apparent than in their reactions to public outcry against injustice.

As you can see from the comments above, posters on the whole reacted in a number of fairly predictable ways, such as attributing all poverty to laziness rather than disadvantage; displaying indignance that anyone might want to deny the landlords the house of their dreams; decrying rent stabilization, welfare, and other forms of social programming as unfair to the hardworking middle class; painting themselves as ‘the victim’ by self-labelling as working class while simultaneously talking about working-class neighborhoods in a way that OBVIOUSLY indicates an unfamiliarity with them; and throwing up their hands with the argument that life is unfair, there’s nothing any individual rich person can do about it. In other words, entitlement. To acknowledge that not everyone has access to the resources necessary to lift themselves out of poverty, much less afford the down payment on a New York home, would be to acknowledge that you, as a New York homeowner, have in some way benefited from an advantage you did not earn. Which would mean you should be feeling guilty, which is not something you do feel/want to feel, so the whole thing must be bullshit. It’s the same reason people don’t like to talk about white privilege, male privilege, or any other types of privilege that generally seem to make our society uncomfortable. No one wants to be the bad guy.

The thing is, we live in a society with a whole long history of oppression, injustice, and general inequality. Which has, of course, led to an uneven distribution of resources and privileges. You can either deny that, and in so doing perpetuate it, or you can acknowledge it and try to change it. The reason I can’t move back to park slope: no one wants to acknowledge it. People who are well-off enough to be able to afford a neighborhood full of no one but their peers get a free pass to stop thinking critically about their place in society, and a sense that they’re entitled to all the comforts they desire, no matter the cost to people less fortunate than themselves. It’s that sense of living among people wholly unaware of their own privilege and content in that fact that makes me so uncomfortable in Park Slope, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, etc. It’s definitely not the puppies. I love puppies.

Dr. Dumbass, or How we Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hockey Mom

Alright, before I get into the post I recognize that I probably owe you some sort of “explanation” for my long absence from blogging. Its like this: as you may know, we started this blog because there’s a lot of really f*cked up shit happening in the world that makes us mad. Hence the tagline “we rage, so you don’t have to.” Blogging is actually a really great way of channeling some of that rage into slightly less negative energy, I’ve found. But recently, what with the presidential campaign heating up and the economy spiraling down the drain, there’s just been so much to rage about its hard to make a coherent sentence. So I’ve been reading a lot, writing…not so much.

BUT good news: I’m back. Time to channel all that rage into something productive again. If things go well, expect this to be the first in a series of blog posts that are NOT weeks apart from each other. And I apologize in advance: they may be lengthy. The topic of this one: well, the title says it all, I think.


Ok so down to business:

The remarkable and terrifying ascent of Sarah Palin to the national stage is so problematic in so many ways that I could probably write quite literally a hundred separate blog posts about it. There’s the sexism, the republicanism, the global warming, the foreign policy, the fucked up campaigning, the terrifying ambition, the cold heartless and oh-so-creepy way in which she responded to gwen iffil’s question about “what if the worst were to happen,” the accent that I think she may be exaggerating…seriously, the list goes on for miles. But today I’d like to focus on just one issue, and this is one that is not entirely Sarah Palin’s fault, although she’s surely not helping. I call it the war on intelligence.

This has been a common theme in politics for frankly as long as I can remember, but now that I’m old enough to care, I have to point out that it’s getting dangerous. The idea that it’s more important for a candidate to sell him/herself as likeable, and “average,” than it is to provide policy recommendations and prove him/herself knowledgeable in areas of domestic and foreign policy is deeply, deeply troubling, and nowhere is it more clear than in the Republican Party's marketing of Gov. Sarah Palin.

As Palin quite literally can’t seem to stop saying, she’s a “Washington outsider,” a “hockey mom,” and all those other run-of-the-mill, joe six-pack type terms that, when overused, can turn a vice presidential debate into a disastrous drinking game. Say it ain’t so, joe! Doggone it, she’s gone just a little overboard trying to be folksy and down-home. But my real problem with this is not how f*cking annoying she gets when she says “you betcha” for the ten millionth time, its that people actually LIKE this shit. People enjoy it when she replaces substance with fake authenticity. And yes, I realize that’s an oxymoron. at least i know what an oxymoron is.

As Barack Obama would say, “let’s be clear:” I understand why people want a president or vice president they can relate to. You want someone who you think you can trust to share your values. You want someone who appears to have respect for people like yourself, because if they don’t respect you, they may not have your best interests in mind. I get that. I agree with it. But that’s no longer what this is about. With Sarah Palin, you’re not getting a politician you can relate to, you’re getting a politician who IS you. And YOU are not qualified to run this country.

I think it was Maureen Dowd, shockingly enough, who verbalized it so well in a mock-conversation (god, she loves those) between Barack Obama and President Bartlett from The West Wing. Bartlett, in Dowd’s column, says, “Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence.” That’s just it. What in the name of all that is holy is everyone’s problem with excellence? Relatability is important, but more important, I want the person or persons I elect to office to be intelligent. I want someone capable. I want someone who understands economics better than I do, not someone whose confusion reminds me of my own and evokes my empathy. I want someone whose foreign policy plan would consist of something more than not second-guessing Israel. Sure, I want someone who reads the newspaper often enough to know which newspapers she reads, but that’s setting the bar a little low, no? I’d rather have someone who reads several newspapers and understands the nuance of what she reads. I’d rather have someone who not only understands economics better than I do (another seriously low bar), but understands economics well enough to handle the current crisis. I’d rather have someone excellent.

Running the country is a big job. Its one that I, after four years at an “elite” college, am in no way qualified to do. I would hope that the people who are actually campaigning for the job would have an interest in proving to me that they, in fact, know more than I do. But instead, the Republican Party seems intent on proving that they’re exactly like me. Worse, they seem intent on proving that I, with my Ivy League education, my love for arugula, and my newfound ability to pronounce Ahmadinejad, am “elite,” and that they are even more “average,” which in their twisted world means “better.” *I* recently injured myself trying to hang a picture on my wall. I like to dream that come January, our country will be led by people who pride themselves in being smarter than me.

To be honest, the really troubling part about all of this is the fact that I think we all know by now it’s not just the presidential election. The war on intelligence has permeated most aspects of American life. Being smart is just not cool. Our public education system is terrible, but being a champion of education will not get you terribly far politically. Creativity is excessively undervalued in this country, and, whether it is an accurate representation or not, the image of the “average American” that is being put forward by politicians is one of an unambitious, hard-working, not terribly bright, white man who likes beer and hunting, loves his family, and has no interest in politics outside his home town. My suspicion is that very few people actually relate to that characterization of the “average American.” The idea that white Americans living in small towns across the U.S. care about nothing other than working 9 to 5 and getting health care is frankly insulting: my suspicion, and by all means correct me if I’m wrong, is that people all over America have diverse interests beyond their basic human needs, and that given the opportunity to give their children a better education, no one would turn it down because it’s “elite.” So enough of this nonsense. I say we fight back and say “no” to mediocrity. And while we’re at it, dear god can we please say “no” to Sarah Palin?


Ok, I'll leave you for now, but here are just a few things I feel compelled to share with you, that I couldn't quite work into the post:

a great op-ed in salon on media reactions to palin

and this:



that's all, folks!

Sigh.. seriously?

On the heels of a particularly moving acceptance speech by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, Sen. John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate for the upcoming Presidential election.

All I have to say is that I am sick of this entire election/ordeal and am pretty royally pissed.  What an underhanded tactic.  I only hope that former Hillary supporters that were otherwise unswayed by Obama will not be easy to move to vote for McCain simply because a woman is on his ticket.  I am a woman and a feminist myself, but looking at some of Palin's super conservative stances (pro-life?) I don't think that I could be convinced to vote for her, not at all.

Blah.  This just goes to say- make sure you're registered, and that you get out and vote.

Review: Trouble the Water

Friday night I was all ready to settle into some television and a slice of pizza when one of my roommates forced me to get up off my butt and head downtown to the IFC Center to see the opening screening of a film called Trouble The Water.  Reluctantly I went (I can be really lazy- I was tired!) but fortunately was incredibly grateful that I did.

The film, executive produced by Danny Glover (who was there!  He was standing in my way as I tried to sneak in some outside food lol), follows a trio of Hurricane Katrina survivors who lived through the storm and are attempting to rebuild their lives in its environmental, social and economic aftermath.  TTW uses footage taken by the documentary makers, clips from news channels/speeches and home video caught by one of the main subjects of the film, Kimberly Rivers Roberts.

Roberts, her husband, and a friend (encountered during Katrina) return to New Orleans two weeks after the storm to find their homes destroyed.  Unlike what you'd expect, TTW doesn't just talk about how much of a failure the infrastructure our government's disaster relief groups were, but it brings life to the fact that the people whose lives were most devastated by the storm were already dealing with life-threatening situations, drug abuse, death and financial instability.  Kim's mother died of AIDS, both she and her husband were former drug dealers who were failed by the public education system, their friend Brian is a former addict, they have no bank account and- like so many others- couldn't leave New Orleans because they simply did not have the means.

Trouble The Water not only reminds us of what happened during Katrina (as well as the fact that the US Government cares very little about the impoverished minorities crowded in its urban centers) but brings to light the fact that the sicknesses exacerbated by Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (poverty, poor public education, drug use, STIs and STDs, violence, abuse) not only existed before the storm, but are still here and will be here long into the future unless we take some sort of action.  If there's only one word I could use to describe this film, it would be:

Real.

I strongly urge you to go if it's playing in your city- click here to find information on screenings and openings.

a bad week

the bad news just keeps rolling in: RIP isaac hayes, who was pronounced dead this afternoon after his wife found him collapsed next to the treadmill (my new biggest fear). apparently he and bernie mac recently completed a movie called "soul men." sounds like that movie is going to be accidentally depressing.

and word on the street is morgan freeman got in a pretty bad car accident earlier this week. damn.

Rest In Peace

Bernie Mac passed away this morning due to complications from pneumonia (combined with his sarcoidosis)- he had been hospitalized since August 1 and was expected to have a full recovery.

This is really sad, for obvious reasons.  Bernie was not only a great comedic talent (admit it- you cracked up because of at least one of his jokes or performances) but also discussed a lot of very REAL issues like poverty, inner city education and drug abuse in his performances.  He was totally real and unashamed of where he came from- and where a lot of his family still was/is.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the McCulloughs and the rest of Bernie's survived family and friends.

Politicians for Ohio

1.) I know our posting habits have been utterly atrocious, so you know- sorry for that.

2.) I'm visiting my family for a tiny tiny stint here in my beautiful home state of Ohio (I saw a Mommy duck and her baby ducklings crossing a road this morning!  Say it with me: Awwwww!) and as I was watching the local channels with my Mom I came to a realization- I have managed to avoid most campaign commercials in NYC.  True, I don't often tune into the local news (damn internet generation) but I know that I soak in all sorts of television, news and media.

It wasn't until I was inundated with "Time for a Change" and "No New Taxes" and "I am Barack Obama/John McCain and I approved this message" commercials that I realized just how serious everyone already is about this election in Ohio.

Clearly Ohio is one of the most major swing states and like, a prized jewel for all presidential hopefuls, but geez.  The moral of the story is, I'm definitely coming home and casting my vote in person- especially after the "let's not count any absentee ballots" fiasco of 2004- so that I can help dear old Ohio break out of her fucking up elections habit.

Make sure that you're registered to vote, if you aren't already- and whoever you think you'll be casting your vote for, make sure you're at least educated on their stance regarding the issues that most affect you in your day to day life.

a thought

i'm feeling both guilty about not having blogged in about a millenium, and too lazy to write a post, but i did have a thought today that i thought i'd share with you all...

when i first read about spain's new laws protecting the rights of apes, i was all for it. but then today it dawned on me that technically, when i'm doing the kind of office work i like to call "monkey work," it might actually now be illegal in spain to subject a monkey to my job. aka yes a monkey could do this, but a monkey would never have to stoop so low.

ouch.

Review: Personal Days

You're young.  You're restless, and every day you wake up earlier than you really want to hobble into the strictly-scheduled bathroom and create some semblance of "I'm alert" on your face and give yourself some mental pep-talk for the day ahead while you're washing the lethargy away.  All this preparation to go to a job.  Probably your first job.  Most likely not your last job.  And likely not your favorite job.  This is what the first year looks like to most undergraduates that find themselves working in an office that isn't quite i-banking/consultancy crazy but also isn't as free-spirited as how you'd imagine the lives of those young reporters and publicists are (although it's probably true that, as you're lathering that Clearasil on your face in the shower, they're mindlessly rubbing a stick of deodorant on, wondering where the weekend went).

It was this general feeling of being stuck in the workplace doldrums that made me notice the interesting cover of the book Personal Days by Ed Park, and it was my own general fed-up-ness with Corporate America that moved me to buy it after reading the little blurb on the back, which I will conveniently lay out for you here:

In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels.  There's Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who gives unwanted back rubs, aka "jackrubs" - to his co-workers.

On a Sunday, one of them is called at home.  And the Firings begin.

[Personal Days is] ... a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: "Where does the time go?  Where does the life go?  And whose banana is in the fridge?"

Before I get into my opinions of the book and what, if anything, it made me felt, let me go ahead and just lay out some of the basics.  It's a quick, easy and inexpensive read, taking only $13 out of my wallet and a couple hours of my time (the story only spans about 241 pages of this small paperback).  What's more, Ed's interesting use of formatting and storytelling (moving from first person descriptive, to casual, to an intimate confession from one colleague to another) draws you in, and if you've been working in real job for any span beyond the typical internship-commitment, definitely hooks you.

And the story itself?  Park does a great job of casually introducing you to each character, giving you a small glimpse into their personalities, dreams and backgrounds but leaving most of their personal development up to your own pure conjecture.  You are brought into this unnamed company through water cooler conversation and incomplete memos scrawled on Post-Its, and you are introduced to workers at their most awkward moments, sometimes only very briefly.  In essence Park makes you another worker at the office, privy to all the gossip that travels between cubes but not a connoisseur of any particular information- after all, how much do you really even know about the people that you actually work with?

I found the story, the dialog and the way in which Park unfolds his plot completely believable, totally engrossing and altogether endearing.  As much as I wanted each character to reveal more about themselves, to succeed in the office, I had an equally strong desire for them to be let go, to be given the opportunity to find that piece of them that invariably went missing while sunning day after day under the florescent lights of the floor.  Park creates a completely realistic (at times scarily so) portrait of the workplace that could really be applied to any industry or city, and at once thoroughly captures the essence of this generation's cynicism while simultaneously showcasing our enduring and ironic optimism.

To put it shortly: I completely enjoyed it, and recommend that you check it out.

Black? Help us keep out the Mexicans!

So I meant to blog about this a WHILE ago (like when I first read the article) but I've had a lot going on an dam a negligent blogger - sorry Kaya!  Anyway, according to the New York Times, the US Border Patrol, in an effort to beef up its forces, is now reaching out to young African Americans.  You read that right- border patrol is stocking up on Black kids.

Maybe I'm being a bit sensitive, after all I usually get pissed when I hear about one government group or another reaching into a very specific pool of minorities b/c they figure those kids have no other alternatives and little prospect for work outside of government or law enforcement.. but even so this seems severely fucked up.  I don't normally like to 'air family business,' but I think it's no secret that Black Americans have a huge and I mean HUGE amount of tension and resentment for ethnically diverse immigrants.  Why?  Well, outside of the normally American reasons ("they take away our jobs!" "they suck up resources!" "they take space in schools!") many immigrant groups come to America with a messed up view of Black Americans fueled by hip hop videos, violent movies and racist portrayals, and this perception can sometimes manifest itself in feelings of superiority.  Not to mention Black Americans are pretty much the lowest caste in American society, and the idea that people can come in from another country, be in America for a few months and already have more social and economic capital than Black Americans (who were the base and foundation of even creating America) is pretty fucked up.

So, even though you know they would never admit this, I think it's pretty obvious that this is definitely helping their recruitment agenda.  Kill two birds with one stone- help darken up the group that's trying to keep a country built on immigration "pure" and recruit kids that have a blind resentment (and sometimes hatred) toward a group of people that they have more in common with than they think.

You know, these are the times when my dual status as both a Black American and a first generation latino immigrant make me have all sorts of complicated emotions.  It's all just very sad.