June 10, 2012 – RI Future

June 10, 2012June 10, 2012

Why We Celebrate the Gaspée Affair

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380px-Gaspee_Affair — The Gaspée going up in flames

Imagine the state police identified an area where a high level of drug-smuggling was being committed. So they sent a police cruiser in, part of a unit effective enough to really make the dealers angry. One day, the cruiser broke down in the middle of the street. Hearing about it, the dealers got together, went out, dragged the officers from the car and shot one. Then they torched the car.

If you read that story in real life, you might be completely horrified at that kind of behavior. Yet, that’s almost exactly what the Burning of the HMS Gaspée was (I’m only reducing the scale). Regardless of your opinion of the Navigation Acts, Rhode Islanders actively engaged in criminal activity. You can justify that criminal activity by saying the law itself was unjust, but at the end of the day, plenty of Rhode Islanders were still breaking a law.

All of this isn’t to say shame on Rhode Island for celebrating the end of the Gaspée. It’s actually to say that it’s a great thing. Gaspée continues to have lessons today to how Rhode Islanders (and Americans) go about resisting unjust laws. Ideally, we should agree that violence isn’t the solution. We want no police officers shot, no cruisers burned.

That it came to that should be considered something that was specific to the time. But the idea that we can be so antagonistic to an institution like the British customs service should demonstrate to us a solution: that we can, and should, ignore unjust power structures.

Taking the historical view, this wasn’t something that was simply Rhode Island-specific. It wasn’t even specific to the Thirteen Colonies. Across the Americas in the 18th Century, European powers were reaching out and enacting a series of administrative reforms designed to increase control over their colonies. In the case of Spain, they actually reduced taxes across the board in the colonies, but because the new Spanish administrators were so much more competent at their jobs, revenues increased. This sort of thing resulted in very angry colonies, from Maine to Buenos Aires.

Which tells us a lot. There are plenty of laws today that if enforced broadly would cause an uproar. Drug laws are the best example. We can already say that they are being enforced, just very case-specifically (our “highly-policed communities”), which tend to be poor and non-white. And even with that enforcement 42% of Americans have admitted to smoking pot (only New Zealand comes close; the Netherlands has a percentage half that and it’s legal there). If our drug policy extended beyond our highly-policed communities and into the suburbs and rural areas, the uproar would be deafening.

It’s good that we’ve passed both dispensaries, and passed decriminalization (though the governor still needs to sign it). But ultimately, these are half-measures. Anything less than legalization, regulation, and taxation is a farce. We’re seeing the same problems that led to the Gaspée Affair take place in microcosm today: local authorities are lax on enforcement, or passing laws counter to central government policy. Americans have signaled they are ready for a conversation about drug policy. But it’s delusional if we don’t believe that conversation must include space for legalization.

The Gaspée Affair took place when the British were unwilling to have a conversation about what it meant to be a British citizen and subject, and whether that conversation was a two-way street or not. Ultimately, they found out that when the conversation ended, action began.

I’ve always thought that as Rhode Island, we have a difficult Revolutionary War history. Beginning with a violent murder in 1772, Newport occupied with a siege culminating in an exposure of the difficulties of French and American cooperation, and ultimately having to be forced in accepting the United States Constitution by the threat of being taxed as a foreign nation. But that’s not really it.

The Gaspée and its demise should be a symbol of Rhode Island’s inherent nature to dissent. That we should embrace this is very important. We should always dissent. We should encourage dissension. Whether it’s Roger Williams, or Thomas Dorr, or more modernly Jessica Alqhuist, our ability to argue for new ideas and against establishment ones is our ultimate strength. That will be unpopular. It will be unpopular even among Rhode Islanders. But that’s okay. You dissent not because you believe in the popularity of your ideas, but because you believe you are right.

Which is why Gaspee Days is the most Rhode Island holiday that we celebrate.

June 10, 2012June 10, 2012

How Sports Shapes Our Politics and Why it Matters

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Still think sports and politics exist only in exclusive hemispheres?

On Thursday, June 7, the Smith Street entrance to the Rhode Island Statehouse was dominated by a two-story Green Monster-green banner congratulating the Boston Red Sox on the 100^th anniversary of Fenway Park.

Inside, state officials were struggling to deal with the aftermath of that day’s bankruptcy filing of 38 Studios, the video game company that Curt Schilling, whose hero status in New England seemed enshrined in granite after pitching the Red Sox to one big victory after another en route to two world championships, brought to Providence…thanks to a $75 million loan guarantee offered in 2010 by the state Economic Development Corporation and supported by the vast majority of state officials at the time.

Would an entrepreneur who had not helped end the Red Sox’ 86-year world championship drought have been offered such a deal? Would an African-American athlete (other than perhaps Magic Johnson) have been the recipient of such largesse at R.I. taxpayers’ expense?

Sports and politics do bleed, clash, and intersect not only on the large stages of society, but also on smaller ones such as the local pro and college teams you follow, and even youth sports, as a quartet of journalists and activists made clear at Saturday’s Netroots Nation 12 forum “How Sports Shapes Our Politics and Why it Matters,” NN’s first sports-related panel

While the sports world may sometimes seem to be another arm of establishment power (athletes and coaches preaching God, country and family, Schilling supporting conservative causes and NBA legend/Nike pitchman Michael Jordan’s famous reason for steering clear of politics, “Republicans buy sneakers, too”), there is something else bubbling beneath the surface, said Dave Zirin, Sirius XM host, author and contributor to ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” who boasts of being once called “state-run media scum” by Rush Limbaugh.

The sports world has given birth to radicals in the past, he said, most notably Muhammad Ali, whose resistance to the draft made him an international celebrity well beyond that usually accorded a world heavyweight champion. While many athletic superstars have arrived since, notably Jordan, Tiger Woods and LeBron James, none have pursued influence beyond world championships and multimillion-dollar endorsement deals.

“It says something about how successful the people who run sports have been at disassociating sports from radical politics,” Zirin said.

Which is not to say progressive politics and pro sports don’t co-exist. This year, he said, the NBA has seen players respond to the Trayvon Martin murder (including Carmelo Anthony’s “I am Trayvon Martin” Facebook photo) and the Phoenix Suns’ protest of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration crackdown by wearing their “Los Suns” jerseys for home games.

Then there is the “It Gets Better” campaign, born of the rash of suicides among LGBT teens, managed by Eden James, campaign director for Change.org, a website promoting online petitions that has become a go-to source for fans ranging from those wanting coaches fired to seeking apologies from players who have made sexist, homophobic or racist statements.

The series of videos designed to promote acceptance of the LGBT community began last year with a San Francisco Giants fan who wanted to see his team take the lead on the cause. With the support of 6,000 online signatures from Giants fans (and several mayoral candidates), the team produced a video with messages of support from several players and coaches.

“We asked members to start petitions to their own teams. It’s what we call a wildfire petition, taking a national issue to local targets,” James said.

Sam Maden, a 12-year-old Red Sox fan from Nashua, N.H., whose gay uncle Chris had recently died, saw the video and started a petition to the Red Sox to create one of their own, said James.

“The Red Sox weren’t originally interested in a video, but after Sam got national coverage, they realized it might be a PR issue. It became a tipping point,” said James, noting that a number of other teams have joined the Red Sox and Giants in producing “It Gets Better” videos (but the New York Yankees don’t have one yet).

Even though Title IX, which brought about the explosion of growth in girls’ and women’s sports, is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year, gender equality, identification and sexuality issues in sports still haven’t gone away, said Diane Williams, a teacher and coach at Williston Northampton School in Massachusetts, a former high school and college athlete, and current member of the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby team.

“I’ve heard about young girls not playing sports because they feared being perceived as gay,” she said.

The “lesbian question” has long hovered over the promotion and marketing of the most successful women’s pro sports league in the country, the WNBA. For every lesbian player like Sheryl Swoopes who has come out, there are many whose sexual identity remains under speculation.

“The WNBA has worked to portray a particular identity for its athletes,” William said. “If you were gay, they’d say, ‘That’s great, but please don’t ruin it for us.’ ”

Dr. Eddie Moore Jr., director of diversity at Brooklyn Friends School, wrote his dissertation on a study of African-American football players who attended small colleges in theMidwest, who found many people whose encounters with their race came only via television. He said he was struck by the response of one player in particular: “They believe the myths and stereotypes about you.”

Displaying Forbes’ list of the top 10 most hated athletes (with only two whites, the NBA’s Kris Humphries and NASCAR’s Kurt Busch) and statistics that 97 percent of the nation’s newspaper sports editors are white (94 percent men), Moore said much of what readers and viewers learn about athletes “is told from a white male supremacist viewpoint.”

When athletes’ troubles make the media, he said, “The frame isn’t ‘white athlete,’ it’s ‘nigger.’ Is this frame possible influencing the way in which you do your work?

Sports talk radio is not always distinguishable in viewpoint from news talk radio, admitted Zirin: “It’s a wretched sewer designed to police athletes who speak out.”

But those who sometimes find sports talk shows like WEEI’s morning “Dennis & Callahan” indistinguishable from conservative talk radio perhaps shouldn’t push the next button so soon, Zirin advises.

“It’s one of the few areas where people of all political stripes tune in. It’s an interesting place to challenge ideas beyond the politically segregated world we live in.”

The forum was moderated by Charles Modiano, sports media critic and editor of POPSpot.com.

June 10, 2012June 11, 2012

Legislature Ignores Public Transit in Budget

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Who cares about buses? Apparently no one on Smith Hill.

The House Budget, to be voted on Thursday, contains not a penny in new revenue for RIPTA. It also contains no ideas, proposals, or signs that anyone in the House Fiscal staff spent more than a dozen minutes thinking about the agency. This is hardly surprising, since the Governor’s budget didn’t have anything to say about it, either. Despite several years of a funding crisis, RIPTA still struggles to get anyone’s attention.

This, of course, is also hardly surprising. No one in a position of authority actually rides the bus. The Governor doesn’t, the Speaker doesn’t, the Senate President doesn’t, even though the service from Newport to Providence is excellent, with over 60 buses traveling back and forth every day. There aren’t even any members of the RIPTA board who are regular bus riders, besides Anna Liebenow, who has MS and uses a wheelchair. Two current board members have told me they made a point to get on the bus once or twice after their appointment, but that’s not quite the same thing, is it?

This isn’t to say that no one rides the bus. RIPTA provided 26 million rides last year, which works out to serving between twenty and fifty thousand people every day. Over half of them are riding to and from work (like me). Lots of them own cars, which they leave at home to leave more room on the highway and more parking spaces for you.

And, of course, lots of them don’t own cars, or can’t drive, and the bus is their lifeline, the way they get around this state. But who cares about them? In the halls of the state house, RIPTA is widely viewed as a program for poor people. Consequently it is a poor system, and it’s therefore socially acceptable in that world to ignore it. There are a couple of seats on its board designated for people who represent either poor people or disabled ones, and that’s pretty much that.

The House budget does provide for some capital investment to buy new buses, but that’s not RIPTA’s problem. Their problem is that a big part of their budget comes from the gas tax, and when gas prices rise, more people ride the bus and less gas is sold. Since the gas tax is a set number of pennies per gallon of gas (9.25 cents out of the 32 cent per gallon gas tax), when gas prices rise they get more riders at the same time they get less money. It’s a crazy way to fund the system, but that’s nothing new. Now, despite several years of three-dollar gas and full buses — standing room is not unusual on the lines I ride — there has been zero constructive action to fix the problem.

You should understand a couple more things about RIPTA. One is that compared to other similar sized systems, we get very good return for our dollar from the agency. Comparing rides provided per year to expenses, RIPTA comes out very well in head-to-head matchups with its peers around the country. The other is that to my knowledge, except for a one or maybe two subway lines in Japan, there aren’t any public transit systems anywhere in the world that don’t have a subsidy of some kind. Just as there aren’t any road systems who don’t require a subsidy. Public transit is a matter of public infrastructure and should be supported as such. We’re not talking about a mint. RIPTA’s deficit is estimated at about $9 million at this point, a little more than one thousandth of the overall budget.

At the current deficit, and with no change at all, RIPTA has approximately half a year left before they can’t make payroll. This won’t happen, of course. What will happen is service cuts that will be devastating for everyone who relies on the bus. Without buses there will be around 10,000 more cars on Rhode Island roads every day, along with many more people than that cut off from jobs they travel to, or just unable to get around because they can’t afford a car — or because they can’t drive.

So come on, tell your Representative or Senator that we need public transit. (And do it today!) We don’t need more buses without the money to run them. Call Helio Melo, the House Finance chair and tell him that just because he doesn’t ride the bus doesn’t mean that nobody does. Tell Gordon Fox that not everyone can afford a car. Tell Teresa Paiva-Weed that our state will be a cleaner, more pleasant place to live — and drive — with a healthy and well-funded bus system. We need more people on the bus, not fewer, and letting RIPTA choke on gas tax fumes is exactly the wrong direction for our state to be going.