Natural disaster reveals human disaster

Yesterday I came across something I wrote about a year ago. It was a news piece I wrote from the Kenyon newspaper in response to the Haiti earthquakes last year. I ripped it off a couple articles I read, but it's not bad. And really, I rip everything I write off something else. If I could write it over, I'd do it differently, but it definitely took me back, and I thought it might be fun to share here:

About 20 years ago, an earthquake registering as 7.0 magnitude hit one of the richest cities in the most powerful country in the world. Just a week ago, another earthquake registering as 7.0 magnitude devastated the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco, Calif., left 63 dead and an estimated 10,000 homeless. The 2010 Haiti earthquake in Port-au-Prince has, thus far, left 200,000 dead and an estimated 1.5 million homeless. The term "structural violence" explains the ways in which social structures put certain groups in harm's way. Some such social structures include racism, sexism, heterosexism and nationalism.

The disaster in Haiti was unavoidable, because technology to prevent earthquakes does not exist. The level of poverty at which most Haitians live, however, was certainly preventable. The infrastructure in Haiti was horrible even before the recent earthquakes and could have been mistaken for that of a country recovering from a crisis. Haiti has only two modern airports, while its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has nine international airports. Only ten percent of the city dwellers and a paltry three percent of rural inhabitants have access to electricity. Roads in Haiti are notoriously unreliable; they have potholes large enough to be actual roads, so they are not capable of handling large construction vehicles such as trucks or bulldozers.

Now, after the earthquake, the situation is dire at best. Because of the lack of infrastructure, there are not enough medical supplies to go around. Even the simplest necessities such as routine antibiotics, rubbing alcohol and blankets are in high demand. Thousands of patients who need immediate medical attention are being ignored. The clinics set up for emergency care resemble war zones; surgeons are operating without anesthetics and using rusty hand saws sterilized with vodka. Dead bodies are being shoveled into dump trucks due to the public health risk of rotting corpses lying all over the city.

A non-profit called Partners In Health (PIH) has been right in the thick of the medical situation. Since many aid groups were located in Port-au-Prince, PIH's rural location made it uniquely able to respond to the earthquakes. The World Health Organization has put PIH alongside the Haitian Ministry of Health to take charge of the Public University Hospital because of its long history in Haiti. The PIH's current focus is a two-step plan to set up makeshift clinics in Port-au-Prince by moving in materials from PIH's rural facilities and to establish a supply chain through the Dominican Republic to bring in medical supplies from the U.S. PIH does not consider itself a charity group, but a collection of people who live within communities to build healthcare systems and promote solidarity.

Despite these unimaginable conditions, the spirit of the Haitian people, as always, is still alive. They have been through hurricanes, enslavement, colonial oppression, foreign army invasions and homegrown tyrants. According to doctors working on the ground, Port-au-Prince is empty. No police or United Nations forces are around to keep order, only regular people helping other people out. The co-founder of PIH, Paul Farmer, said, "The Haitian people have a lot to teach us about climbing out of hell."

In the face of such dismal circumstances, it is easy to feel helpless and act passively. There are, however, many things one can do. A first tangible step is simply to learn something about Haiti. It is difficult to expect to help anybody if you do not care or know anything about them. You could read the works of Edwidge Danticat, a 2009 MacArthur Genius grant recipient and is a novelist who specializes in the narratives of the Haitian daily life experience. One of her most well known books is Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that was a National Book Award nominee.

Abstractly, I would encourage you to start simply and consider the words of Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

from ken

PS - I have to add this in, have you heard anything about Haiti in the past 12 months? This is the world we live in.

1/29/11

http://www.kenyoncollegian.com/2.14787/support-haiti-relief-1.1925728#.TjSZqm-ktIc.email

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Is Christianity relevant?

Currently at church we’re doing something called advent conspiracy, where the idea is to give one less Christmas gift and instead donate that money to an international cause. Our church is getting at this point through creativity and art. My girlfriend painted something to contribute to this project, and so I shared an interpretation of her painting.

We were supposed to discuss bible verses, Matthew 25:31 – 46, which to summarize: the blessed are those that help people.

Ok, now, this is what I shared (paraphrased and revised):

I think in these verses, Matthew is getting at the core of social justice, and what it means to follow God. Simply put, helping those in need of help. So I wanted to start with something I heard the other day when I was at Danna and Katie’s bible study studying James 2.

James writes, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” We talked a lot about how people should show what they believe through their actions. If Christians believe in God they should let their actions speak for themselves and love everyone, regardless of the social implications.

But interestingly, James only touches on faith with no action. He has nothing to say about action with no faith.

This lead me to the obvious question: If action is faith, then what is the point of Christianity? Should we all just stop coming to church and worship activist gods like Martin Luther King and Gandhi? Does this make Jesus irrelevant?

So for a while I kept thinking about this and I think my answer to that question is why I need God.

Christianity is relevant because helping other people is really, really, hard.

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with people. I couldn’t live without people, and I am constantly blown away at how good people are to me. But at the same time, they ruin my plans, they cut into my time, and they just generally bring chaos into my life.

Because I hate people, helping people is hard. It’s easy to take on too much, it’s exhausting, and it constantly challenges you. Really, it’s just a pain to focus on other people. It seems way too easy to burnout in a life of following God and helping people.

But I think with God we have the ultimate pillar to lean on. God is an endless stream of living water to refresh us. When we lack discipline, God can help us. When we lack energy, God can help us. When we lack courage, still God can help us. And that’s why Christianity is still relevant to me.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

From the one who has been entrusted with much,

Sidenote to start: I struggled a lot with writing this post. Largely because it has a similar to tone to a previous post I wrote that I felt was too judgmental. However, I have a piece of paper taped to my door that says, “TODAY, BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.” I think this anger is a part of my voice, so I’m just going to trust, and let it come out…

Recently there was a foiled terrorist attack at a downtown Portland Christmas tree lighting. link I was talking with some friends about how he should be thrown in jail and never see the light of day. How could someone say they wanted to kill as many innocent children as possible?

One of the greatest thinkers of our time, Malcolm Gladwell, a columnist for The New Yorker, recently wrote a book called Outliers. In the book, Gladwell debunks the American myth of individual success being attributed to individual effort. Instead, he supports a societal perspective of success in which the privileged receive more opportunity for success, a theory called “The Matthew Effect,” named after a verse in the Gospel of Matthew:

“For unto everyone that has shall be given, and he shall have in abundance. But from him that has not shall be taken away even that which he has.”

I believe “The Matthew Effect” is real. I have a first hand recollection of it. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a suburban world, taught general rules of politely interacting with other human beings, and without being that motivated, I found myself binge drinking Keystone Lights while receiving a degree from a competitive liberal arts college.

At said liberal arts college, I encountered several incredible mentors: Coach Duane Gomez, Campus Minister Jeff Bergeson, and Professor Joan Slonczewski. They were all painstakingly patient with me and waited for me to come into my own, but also supported me when I wanted to push. In all three cases, they just randomly fell along my path.

In addition to outstanding mentors, at an impressionable stage, the people that fell into my life weren’t drug addicts or manipulative pimps, but a girl that opened my eyes to the global atrocities of the have’s and have-not’s, and slowly got me to think outside of my small selfish mind.

My story of individual success is due to this incredible environment. It gave me sufficient time to be coddled so I could develop into my own. Which begs the question? What did I do to deserve all this? And better yet, what did other late-bloomers do not to deserve this? That’s fucked up.

It’s easy to get guilt-tripped about falling ass backwards into success. Gladwell, a New York Times best-selling author who was also surrounded by a great developmental environment, says about his book, “Outliers wasn’t intended as an autobiography. But you could read it as an extended apology for my success.”

I don’t think guilt is the right response. I don’t think such opportunities exist in the world so we can feel bad about our success, apologize, and hide in our shadows. So what is the right response? Well, the Gospel of Luke has additional ideas about those privileged few.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

The Outliers framework suggests that society is responsible for individual success, but I want to extend the idea and claim that society is also responsible for individual failure.

I believe the failed terrorist attack in Portland was not an individual failure, but a societal one. This failure is not the responsibility of this poor 19 year old. It falls squarely on the shoulders of the society that puts violence, war, and power on a pedestal. It falls on the mentors that weren’t in place to teach him moral values. It falls on his peers that weren’t there to love him, and show him the incredible value of even a single human being. It falls on all of us.

It’s up to each individual to take what they like from the Gospel of Luke quote. But I believe for those privileged few in this messed up world, like it or not, we are the leaders of society. It is a lot to ask to fix the world. It’s super fucked up. But recently I’ve been hearing the stories of a lot of people who got the short-end of the society stick, and I think it’s our responsibility to capitalize on our opportunity and rectify societal failures.

"And Quenton Cassidy moved out into the second lane, the lane of high hopes, and ran out the rest of the life in him."

- John L. Parker, Once A Runner

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

What is Social Justice? Again.

This past spring I organized an event at Kenyon College called Social Justice Week. The week ended with an event in which several campus activists answered the question, what is social justice?

I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t have an answer now. However, I heard that a maturing painter has to paint and paint, and then every once in a while, take some white paint, and cover his whole canvas to start over. Each time he figures out the artist that he isn’t, he gets closer to the artist he is.

I see these next few years of my life as crucial, I feel like my vision is slowly revealing itself, stroke by stroke.

A few years ago I came across a book called Everything Must Change. The contents of the book were mediocre, or at least, I feel that way because I can never remember anything from books, but the title has stuck with me. I believe in innovation, and being a radical, and that everything must change.

Martin Luther King Jr. said,

“After you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.”

I learned much through my work with social justice at Kenyon College. I did a lot of flag-waving and getting in people’s faces about poor people that needed our help. It was a lot of pointing out that people should care about something, without any real reason why. Kind of run of the mill social justice work.

This sort of guilt trip can work for the short-term. I was able to raise a ton of attention for Haiti and a lot of money to send down there. I learned that people will gladly pay to rid themselves of their guilt.

I know I’m stealing this idea from some book, but I can’t remember who I’m stealing it from. The problem with guilt is that when that bill is paid off, whether by a literal check or a couple nice gestures, people can clear their conscience and move on. I know this because after spending so much effort raising money for Haiti and being given a Humanitarian Award for my work, I couldn’t care less about the people of Haiti.

This protest method of achieving social justice has carried the tide of social justice to where it is today, and for that I praise it. However, I just don’t know that it is my answer. I see myself as the painter who finally built up the courage to pick up the white paintbrush.

With that white canvas, I want to find another way. A way from which I can’t just clear my conscience. A way that makes me care.

So what is my answer to, “What is social justice?”

I’ve heard this sort of lingo in activism culture, that the word “radical” and the word “radish” come from the same latin word meaning “root”. And so, a radical, like a radish, must always be concerned with its roots. To fight any issues of social justice, HIV epidemic in the Ukraine, gender inequality in the church, lack of strong education in predominantly non-white neighborhoods, I believe it always has to come back to the root causes of inequalities.

So what is the root of the problem, at the most basic microscaled level?

I’m not willing to think outside of myself. I’m not willing to sacrifice my own well-being for the community.

To change, like a radish, I want to operate from the underground. A subversive, much slower form of progress, but also hopefully, a real form of progress. I want to throw myself into a community, and learn its struggles, to really understand the human condition, and through that understanding figure out what I can do to help.

So, what do I envision as my painting of social justice? I guess I see it as trying my hardest to slowly let go of the luxuries in my life and making friends everywhere I go, but also being intentional about seeking out the right friendships.

I want to end with a Cesar Chavez quote that I love. It was taught to me by an activist I admire greatly, “It was never about the grapes or the lettuce, it was always about the people.” Any social justice movement always has to be rooted in the people, and I think right now I am trying to develop my roots.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

photo by Wesley Oostvogels

Why hip-hop?

I just finished reading a brilliant guide to writing by hippy Christian Anne Lamott called bird by bird. The premise of the book is that writing is not about being published or finishing a screenplay. Instead it’s about opening your soul to reveal unspeakable truths.

This insight is precisely why I wanted to write. I wanted to be open with myself, admit my struggles, allow others to connect with my struggles where they might, and not worry so much about the judgment of the majority that won’t connect. Since making this realization my appreciation for art and artists has grown tenfold.

There are certain truths that cannot be revealed through speech. There is something inherently beautiful about the metaphor in a beautifully depicted novel, a perfect moment captured via photograph, or through a simple but catchy beat. Of all forms of art that catchy beat might be my favorite.

I love music for its availability to everyone. Movies, art, and books tend to be on the high culture side, but music is much more of an equalizer across all corners of society.

Especially through pop culture, music has the ability to crack into the mainstream. Whereas the average person might not want to listen to a lecture about poverty in the developing world or read an article about how injust the world is, it’s a whole different story to listen to a song that speaks to those same injustices. Music can be an amazing vehicle to get people thinking about truth.

One of my favorites is the Somali-Canadian rapper/poet K’naan. You’ve probably heard of him from his 2010 World Cup promotional anthem “Wavin’ Flag.” But one of my other favorites is “ABCs”, a song that highlights the violence that comes from the helplessness of poverty. He describes his own music as “urgent music with a message.”

Breaking through rap stereotypes, his music shows everything that is still relevant about modern hip-hop. Similar to other hip-hop greats like Nas’ "If I Ruled the World" and 2pac’s "Changes", K'naan writes about the state of the world, specifically the struggles he saw growing up in war-torn Somalia.

His music, a mixture of American hip-hop and Ethiopian jazz, is so catchy that his message is unavoidable. It’s really a blessing that his message is one of thinking outside the small compartment of ourselves. Such a relief that there are still mainstream artists out there trying to tell a truth.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Reducing poverty is big business, eliminating it is revolutionary

So I’ve been noticing a recurrent theme in my life, and it was brought up again in a recent New York Times column called Slumdog Tourism. The column discusses tourists who travel to slums in developing counties to see poverty first-hand. Presumably, these tourists are caring people who just want to understand the poverty behind the charities they generously donated to or have seen on TV, but the article argues that these tourists are harmful to the cause. The people who live in the tourist destinations are degraded and all they get in return is a little bit of pity money.

This reminds me of a famous quote by Martin Luther King Jr.:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s greatest stumbling block is not the White Citizens Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating that absolute understanding from people of ill will.”

These tourists are exactly the prototype for people King was frustrated with. They are probably just looking for an easy way to satisfy their conscience or to give off the impression that they care about global issues. They just want to read the latest New York Times bestseller about poverty reduction, donate some cash to a new trendy non-profit, throw around some statistics about AIDS, and generally seem like they care.

I know this because I am one of those tourists. It’s way easier for me to give people who are homeless some money or food than to engage in their lives and daily struggles.

I read a wise line from Shane Claiborne’s inspiring book, The Irresistible Revolution the other day that said,

“Reducing poverty is big business, eliminating it is revolutionary.”

These days talk about poverty and donating to charities is at an all-time high. Helping people and creating a better world seems to be on everyone’s mind. Which is great, but it’s almost becoming a “pop sensation,” highlighted by the recent Haiti earthquake where people all over the world donated their hard-earned money to the relief cause. It’s great that people made that first step to write a check for Haiti, but who still thinks about that little country? Where are the people who are willing to get their hands dirty, and engage with poverty for the long-term and really work to eliminate it?

I want to learn to have such compassion, and I know that such compassion can’t be born overnight, but rather developed over time. I guess the key is to be patient, and take small steps to try to engage yourself in a community and learn about their needs, hopes, and desires. To try to understand, and really care for people.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

photo by Aaron Escobar

Cultivating Community

One of my friend’s families took on an ambitious project of starting a local foods market in their hometown, a small town in rural Ohio. When the project finally came together, it was incredible, tons of people came to buy local maple syrup, beef, tomatoes, everything. They called their store Local Roots, and marketed the slogan “Cultivating Community.”

I bought a t-shirt with their slogan on it, and it’s stuck with me ever since. As I’ve started to realize that friends are the point of life, I’ve been trying to cultivate community everywhere, especially in places that seem to lack it.

One such place is the gym. Generally, when I go to the gym, I put in my headphones, zone in to my workout, and plug out an hour. That made me think, there must be a way to build community here! And as usual, there was an obvious option. I usually run in the mornings, and as I run past the handful of other people out before the sun is up, I wonder what makes these other runners get out here by themselves. Then I realized, why not start an early morning running group!

When thinking about building community though, it’s easy to get caught up with the idea of community and forget about the people that are actually involved. I once heard an important quote that touches on this idea.

“The man who loves community will bring it down, but the man who loves people will build community around him.”

You can’t go around working and trying to build this abstract concept of community. People don’t just come together for the sake of community. Rather, people come together because there are other people they like, care for, love.

That’s what makes the second part of the quote make sense. People will come together, around a person who is their friend. So that’s a simple thing I’ve been trying to work on, just being a better friend.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

photo by Tracy O

Activism and patting myself on the back

One of the first things I wanted to work on out here in Portland is how I thought of myself as an activist. I had a great conversation about social justice, in which we talked about the importance of agency, and actually helping the people we want to help, rather than helping ourselves.

I was reminded of this conversation in a book I just finished reading called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. At one point he asks, “Do we want to be social activists, or be seen as social activists?” Damn. Of course, it’s a little bit of both. Do I want to help people? Sure. But do I avoid the attention when people talk about what a good person I am? Of course not. And did you know that social work is dominated by women? Don’t think I didn’t notice that.

Anyways, I wanted to change this about myself while in Portland. I wanted to start by actually learning about the poor and the people I supposedly wanted to help. I wanted to learn to relate to them and understand their problems at a deeper level than, you are poor and I am not, I will help you. The playwrite Bertolt Brecht wrote, “The compassion of the oppressed for the oppressed is indispensible. It is the world’s one hope.” Brecht was definitely onto something. There are tons of rich people who survive cancer and decide, I want to raise money for cancer! Everyone always has a soft spot for people who struggle with the same thing they do.

As a way to work on my lack of solidarity with the poor. I decided to join a church that is way different than one I expected to be joining. The church is called Agape Church of Christ, and about 20% of the attendees are homeless. There are prostitutes, recovering alcoholics, hoping to be recovering drug addicts, etc. On July 4th, I went to a church BBQ hosted by one of my homeless brothers at the church. I later found out that he had paid for the BBQ with his food stamps. I was floored. Here I was hoarding my OHSU paycheck that I get for eating snacks, messing up experiments, and thinking about what to write here, and here was this guy giving literally everything he had for his friends. If I could ever learn to care with a portion of the heart of his, I would probably be on to something about being “an activist”.

from ken

Are you working on changing in your life? Tell me about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com