The Mechanized City

I just left a meeting at the place I work, City of Iowa City Parking Department. The management of the department and of the city have been planning for future developments to improve the downtown area, some of which will eventually alter my job. It’s interesting to see the functioning of government from a slightly inside perspective.

Being a liberal city, the government here is very obsessed about such things as transparency and providing optimal services. There is some bureaucracy involved, but not as much since it’s a smaller population, not even large by Iowa standards. Also, surprising to some people, I’ve observed how Parking management doesn’t seem overly focused on profit-making, despite Parking being the only department that actually makes a profit. Everything is about serving the public. They take their role as civil servants very seriously.

(Although not focused on the profit of the parking department, they are focused on overall tax revenue. So, the ‘public’ in question particularly includes anyone involved in the downtown economy. The downtown business association — going by a different name these days — is directly involved in such city decisions. As such, the city is very focused on the profit of downtown businesses and thus the happiness of prospective customers.)

I’ve wondered about some of the recent changes, as I get to see much of it firsthand with my job. I’m a parking ramp cashier. I started out working in an empty lot that had no ticket spitter or even gates. Everything was done manually and it was a bit chaotic. Over the years, they keep adding new elements to parking such as building new ramps and now putting in self-pay stations. Eventually, my job will be replaced by what they call and ambassador position which then be my new job. Being an ambassador means I won’t be stuck in a booth and my job description will involve more customer service of the ambulatory variety, i.e., going to the customers when they have problems and generally being out and about doing what needs to be done.

They’ve invested massive amounts of money into technology. Along with self-pay stations, they have cameras everywhere and they are looking into various other possibilities: new meter systems with more options such as paying by smartphone, license plate reading machines, etc. One idea is that they might save money in the long run because they’ve let recidivism decrease the number of employees, but I doubt that can be a very central goal since they are spending such a vast amount of money in the process. I suspect they could run the parking department very cheaply with almost no technology at all.

It’s not really about money. It’s about information. Technology means data can be collected, stored, organized, and analyzed. Also, it is data that can be provided to the public as part of the services offered such as maps showing where open parking is at any moment or where a bus is at any moment.

The future is all about information. It’s not data for the sake of data as might be seen in the bureaucracy of a more authoritarian government. It’s all data with a specific purpose, the idea of a smoothly running machine, an entire city mechanized. Some might find that disturbing, maybe even dystopian. As for me, I’m just a curious observer.

Iowa City: Public Good & Democratic Government (pt 2)

This is a continuation of a previous post which can be found here. Read that post first in order to understand the background to this post. I’m writing this post with the assumption someone already knows what I’m talking about.

* * *

I first noticed outsourcing in Iowa City government when I began working a seasonal job for Parks & Recreation, the job I had immediately prior to being hired by the Parking Department. I worked in the Central Business District (CBD) at that time. Our job was to clean the downtown area, mow some grass, and occasionally do a bit of gardening. Their were garbage cans that needed to be changed regularly and it was part of the work that was the responsibility of Parks & Rec, but it had been contracted out. I’m not sure the reasoning for it being outsourced. All the work I did in Parks & Rec could have been outsourced. There was no obvious logic for why some jobs are outsourced and others not.

The same goes for Parking. They are trying to outsource some of the janitorial work, although the City Council supposedly denied the request earlier and Parking management is planning to make a second request. I know neither the ultimate reasons of management in making the request or the reasons of the City Council in their initially denying the request. I also don’t know why management is making a second request. I did go to a meeting where management explained their basic reasons, but I still don’t know what is motivating their choices. I see no rhyme or reason it beyond saving money. However, why not outsource all of parking? Instead of just taking part of the work away from city maintenance workers, why not just outsource all of their work and eliminate their positions entirely? These are questions I have no answers for.

A maintenance worker told me that management wasn’t entirely sure how to keep the maintenance workers busy if and when the outsourced workers take over the janitorial part of their work. This maintenance worker was wondering why they had outsourced the work of maintenance workers when it was that work that partly justified the very existence of maintenance. They still have other work to do. There is always equipment to be fixed, painting to be done, and other maintenance type work. However, in the past, maintenance workers in Parking did more janitorial than they ever did maintenance. So, it makes one wonder about the future of maintenance positions. Once a part of the job has been outsourced, it logically follows all parts of the job can and should be outsourced if saving money is the priority.

The City government combined the Parking Department with the Transit Department, and so the work and some of the positions of the two is now combined. The building where the buses are housed and where the offices are located was partly funded by federal money. From what a bus driver explained to me, they can’t outsource the work done in a federally funded building. Management has dealt with this challenge by having Parking maintenance workers take over some of the janitorial work in that Transit building. So, some of the work is being shifted around while some positions are being entirely eliminated in Transit.

This outsourcing seems like a possible trend. Even before recent problems in the national economy, Parking management had already contracted out some of the work: window cleaning, ramp washing, etc. As far as I can tell, outsourcing has increased over time, at least in the departments I’m familiar with. However, not all work is being outsourced which is what I find curious.

Some office work, for various reasons, has increased in the Parking Department. So, even as they’ve been eliminating the lower jobs, they’ve been increasing the office jobs which includes an increase in management positions since I began working. Why do they need more managers if they are outsourcing more? They could outsource much of the management as well and just have a head of the department to oversee it. They could even eliminate both Parking and Transit as an independent department and put it under the management of some other department. Or they could contract the entire ramps to be run by a private company while the city would maintain ownership and certain control of standards and pricing. Certainly, they could at least outsource most of the office work, especially that which deals with secretarial work. And they could have the entire fiscal side of parking taken over by the department that deals with the city’s other areas of fiscal management.

Parking management, by going down this path of increasing outsourcing, might be making it inevitable that their own jobs will eventually become obsolete, assuming the reasons they have given are followed to their logical conclusion. Ignoring logical conclusions, let us just consider it from a moral angle. Why do managers who eliminate other people’s jobs feel so safe that their own jobs won’t be outsourced? This relates to a similar conundrum: Who watches the watchers? I remember when management put in cameras to watch cashiers, but they conveniently didn’t put cameras in their own offices. Managers handle money as well and have many more opportunities for illegal activities than cashiers do. It’s similar to congressmen having publicly funded health care while refusing to cooperate with health care reform that would create single payer or public option. Obviously, there is a moral hypocrisy involved in this. I don’t think it’s intentional. It’s just people acting like people, and it is simply difficult for people to take as seriously what effect others as they take what effects themselves. It’s not a matter of management or politicians being bad people, but only a fair system can ensure fair results. If the system isn’t democratically operated with public transparency and public responsibility, then unfair results are inevitable no matter how good the people or how good the intentions.

The point I’m trying to make isn’t about the moral intent or moral self-awareness of management. They are just normal people doing their best in a challenging situation where a lot is expected of them in terms of finding solutions. Everyone’s motives and biases can be questioned. My intentions can be questioned for I’m certainly not a neutral observer, both as a city employee and as a union member along with being a longtime resident of this city who feels a part of the community. The intentions of the union can be questioned since union members are specifically being targeted. The intentions of private businesses seeking government contract work can be questioned, especially if there were any personal or professional ties to government officials (crony capitalism) and maybe even more especially if there was any lobbying that happened about this issue (a slippery slope toward possible corporatism). Anyway, everyone’s intentions are potentially suspect because these are decisions that affect everyone in this community, even random citizens who are completely unaware of what is going on. Everyone has skin in the game for the future of Iowa City is at stake.

It’s precisely because everyone has skin in the game that I hold the position I’m advocating here. Government decision-making, especially at the local level should be as public, as transparent, and as democratic as possible. What I’m advocating, however, isn’t how the decision-making has been done so far. In particular, issues involving local government increasing outsourcing and/or privatization of public services are obviously publicly important and should therefore be publicly discussed. I only learned of management’s decisions long after they were made, although I should be fair in pointing out that management has made some efforts in being transparent such as eventually telling about what they are trying to do. Still, it is obvious that transparency hasn’t been the priority of Parking management (along with city manager and city council). That is the main issue that the recent article pointed out:

“In an email to the City Council, Steven Miller, president of A[F]SCME Local 183, took city administrators to task for notifying workers of the layoffs a week before the holidays and days after the union and city had reached a tentative five-year contract deal that included union concessions.”

This kind of dealings creates mistrust. The union made concessions in good faith. Having learned of this afterwards, it is impossible for the union to not feel deceived and betrayed. The management knew about this when asking for concessions from the union. It is conveniently self-serving that management decided to withhold this information until after the conclusion of a five-year contract discussion. That is not democracy. In fact, that is anti-democratic or at least undermining of democracy which amounts to the same difference.

This isn’t about pitting employees against management or unions against union bashers. That is part of the problem. We are all part of the same community. What harms any of us harms all of us. And what helps any of us helps all of us. I doubt management was intending to attack or undermine democracy, but intentions aren’t the point. Rather, the point is about results, intended or unintended.

If democracy is harmed, then it should be seen as undesirable by all involved, including management. To be democratically fair, management should go back to the discussion table with the union. They essentially lied to the union in order to manipulate them or that is how it appears from the outside. In essence, that seems like union bashing in that it has the seemingly intentional result of targeting the union in an unfair way (without such an intention, such actions make no sense). I realize management wouldn’t think of it that way. That is what I keep coming back to. It doesn’t matter how any of us perceive ourselves or how we rationalize our own actions. The main thing that matters in a democratic society is democracy itself. Everything else should follow from democracy and everything should reinforce rather than weaken democracy. That is what we should aspire toward in all of our dealings, even when it isn’t to our personal advantage. If we give up on democracy for short term personal gain (or even just for bureaucratic efficiency and cost-savings), then we don’t deserve democracy. When the government acts contrary to democracy, the consent of the ruled becomes invalidated.

From my perspective, this keeps coming back to clarifying the purpose and meaning of democracy. Our government, in theory, is based on the consent of the ruled, i.e., “We the People” (note how “People” is capitalized and directly referred to with the plural “We”). According to the Constitution, what exactly is it that We the People do? We the People establish the government, not the other way around. As later clarified throughout the 19th century, this is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” (the wording of which was probably based on the similar wording of previous Americans, specifically the abolitionist Theodore Parker and the Senator Daniel Webster; but the idea behind the wording probably was most compellingly expressed by Thomas Paine). Despite the imperfections and failings of Democracy and the American Dream, it is this ideal of self-government that has continued to inspire generation after generation of Americans.

It’s easy to forget this in the messy details of running a government bureaucracy. That is understandable. People are just trying to do their jobs. Democracy and bureaucracy don’t always mesh well together, not without a lot of self-sacrificing effort and seeking of consensus. Democracy is not easy. If you want easy, then try dictatorship or monarchy, try theocracy or fascism. But democracy is purposely designed to be difficult, at least in the short term. It is the long term that democracy most clearly proves its worth. Because of this, many people feel uncertain about democracy. Do we really want to put all that effort into protecting our freedom and rights? Why not just be lazy by going for for the quick and easy answers? The democratic process of transparency and consensus is messy, tiresome and often irritating.

It’s something Americans have struggled with from the beginning. Even early colonists, founding fathers and otherwise, were of mixed opinion about democracy. Many wanted democracy, especially the majority of Americans who were being oppressed and disenfranchised (non-whites, non-protestants, indentured servants, slaves, women, those without property, etc). If it was up to the majority, we would now have a democracy where all were treated equally. But among the elite, opinions were more conflicting. Some of those with influence (Paine, Franklin, Jefferson, etc) were more egalitarian in their vision of a democratic society while others opposed democracy because they correctly understood that democracy undermined their elite status and power over everyone else. It was class war right from the beginning. The Revolutionary War wouldn’t have been a success if the majority hadn’t fought for democracy, but the moment independence was won the democratic majority was legally and militarily put back in their place.

This class war continues to this day in every decision made by every government, local and national. Recently, this has been seen with the Occupy movement. The legal question has been raised about who owns public lands, i.e., “The Commons”. In a democracy, “We the People” own “The Commons”. So, to ask who owns “The Commons” is to ask whether this is or isn’t a democracy. If the government owns “The Commons”, then such public property is no longer “The Commons”. Either the government is “of the people, by the people, for the people” or it isn’t. Either the people own and control the government or otherwise the opposite becomes inevitable. The consent of the ruled necessitates that there is actual consent. If decisions are made undemocratically by Parking management or anyone else, then there is no opportunity for consent of the ruled. It simply is rule that seeks to force consent or else to disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t consent.

I’m trying to be very clear that this isn’t just some small, insignificant issue of local politics. It’s symbolic of everything going on in the country right now. And it is symbolic of the conflicts that have existed for longer than this country has existed. In every decision our government makes, in every government decision “We the People” do or don’t accept, the future of our communities and our society is being formed. This isn’t ultimately about outsourcing. It is about a collective vision of who we aspire to be. We become what we do. We become what we allow to be done to us, what we allow to be done in our name.

Iowa City: Public Good & Democratic Government

Here is a local issue that effects me personally, but it’s very similar to local issues all across the country.

Union calls city layoffs ‘deplorable’
Proposal would eliminate five full-time positions

“Miller says the union wants the city to explore other cost-cutting options before laying off workers, and he points to “extras” such as city vehicles driven by the city manager and police and fire chiefs, and the temporary specialists hired during the flood recovery process as areas that could be axed. Miller also questioned the immediate need for capital improvement projects like the $30 million parking facility slated for downtown and the multimillion dollar pedestrian ramp recently built over Interstate 80 on North Dodge Street.

““Not all avenues have been explored that we need to explore yet before we start laying people off,” Miller said Thursday. “That’s my opinion. We’d like to sit down with the city, get in touch with employees and see if we can find any cost-saving measures and suggestions they may have to avoid layoffs.”

“Vic Zender, the transit worker whose job is on the chopping block, has worked for the city for 15 years and said he is the city’s lone transit body mechanic. His job includes repairing not only the city buses but maintaining other vehicles, such as police cars.

““Since it’s a one-man operation, I cover everything for the city,” Zender said. “It doesn’t seem logical for the budget cut to come from that one area, since it’s a one-person area and it serves the whole city.”

 * * *

I have an insider’s view. I’ve worked for Iowa City Parking for more than a decade, and so I’ve been there longer than some of the people in the department’s management and longer than many people in the local government. I’m not even surprised by the changes that are happening. I saw it all coming. Some of the changes are even things I talked about with a supervisor years ago before I even knew the city officials were considering such changes. It was just inevitable that changes would come. These changes involve factors beyond mere economic challenges.

Let me explain where I’m coming from.

In attitude, I’m more or less a typical Midwesterner. And it is as a Midwesterner that I care about what happens in this Midwestern town.

In terms of politics, I’m liberal-minded and a union member, although I don’t vote for Democrats (actually, I’m supporting Ron Paul at the moment, not that such things should matter). Despite being on the left, I often have discussions with right-libertarians and fiscal conservatives, and so I know that perspective.

My ‘liberalism’ is of the moderate variety that seeks compromise and agreement, win/win instead of win/lose. Also, my ‘liberalism’ crosses over with libertarianism, especially with issues of civil liberties but I’m also suspicious of big government when it comes to collusion between the public and private sectors (hence the Ron Paul support). If I had been alive when the GOP was a moderate party, I would have voted for Eisenhower (corporatism and military-industrial complex being of the same cloth).

Even as a union member, the union angle isn’t my primary concern here. I am glad to see the union speak out, but I’m not writing this post from the perspective of a union member. Besides, it’s not as if I’m a union representative or anything. I’m not even an active member of the union. The union is small and very few employees belong to it. The union doesn’t even have the power to strike. Mostly the union just negotiates contracts. This is a rare moment when the union makes an offical criticism of the city government. And the reason the union spoke up is because they felt decieved and betrayed.

Even as a city employee, I’m not thinking about this in personal terms. It is true that the changes the city government is making threatens my job. My position will be eliminated in the near future and it’s not yet clear if I’ll be offered another position or if it will be a position I will want. My particular job isn’t being outsourced but is instead being eliminated because human cashiers are being replaced by self-pay stations (the future is here and the machines are taking over). My department is Parking which a while ago was combined with Transit, the former runs the parking ramps and the latter the buses. It is personal to me, of course, but my concern here is more as a citizen who happens to have an inside view of the situation.

It is, however, the personal angle that causes me to write this as a blog instead of as a letter-to-the-editor. As a city employee who still has a job at the moment, I have absolutely no desire to draw too much attention to myself and I for damn sure don’t want to be the center of attention. I made some comments to the article in the local newspaper, but that is as far as I wanted to take it. This post is a continuation of and an expansion on what I said in those comments.

 * * *

I’m skeptical of big government (as I’m skeptical of big business) and I’m strongly critical of our present corrupt political system on the national level, but I think about local government very differently than federal government. If democracy is possible (something I occasionally doubt), it is most likely to function well on the local level. I’m very Midwestern in my faith in community and grassroots democracy. I don’t hate government, but I do want a democratic government that is responsible to the local community and serves the public good.

I know the people who manage parking/transit. They are good people dealing with a difficult problem. Everyone is struggling with the economy in its present state, but that is all the more reason we should be careful about the decisions we make in duress. It’s true we must solve the short-term problem of saving tax-payer money. However, if we don’t use enough foresight, we might find that short-term solutions could lead to unintended long-term problems. The public good is a very precarious thing, difficult to create and maintain while easy to destroy and corrupt.

Iowa City, like many communities, is in a tight spot. But such difficult times can be opportunities when great improvements are made because people become aware of the need for change. In the past, this led to great public good such as the use of government funds to renovate downtown and build the ped-mall. We should be wary of wasting tax-payer money, but we should be also careful about slowly picking away at the government services that produce public good for our community.

Outsoucring easily becomes a step toward privatization. I don’t know if outsourcing is always bad, but we should consider the potential results of the choices we make, esepecially when those choices become permanent. Do we want to move in the direction of privatizing public services? It’s quite likely true that a private company could operate parking ramps, buses and even libraries cheaper than the government. But that doesn’t mean that a private company would necessarily charge less (might even charge more) to customers who use those services. And they might not even offer a better service (might even offer a worse service).

I take these issues seriously. Over the years, I’ve often wondered why the city operates parking ramps when private companies could do so. The reason the government does so is because the government has been able to offer a high quality service at a low cost to the public, something that a private company probably couldn’t accomplish. The government can do this because the government isn’t concerned about profit. So, do we or do we not value this service provided by the city? Oursourcing suggests private companies can do a better job in terms of offering cheaper services even if not a better service. If saving money is what the local government cares about, they could entirely privatize these departments and they would never have to worry about costs again. Why not?

I don’t mean this just or even primarily as a criticism of outsourcing. I mean this as a serious set of issues that should be publicly debated by the community rather than decided in private by non-elected government officials. We are at this moment experiencing changes that will determine the future of Iowa City. This is something everyone should be concerned about and so everyone should be involved in. I offer my opinions on this matter as both a public servant and as a concerned citizen.

* * *

The following is actually the first comment I made. Although I stand by the truth of what I wrote, I felt like I was being too harsh or too absolutist or else just no showing my full perspective. This led me to writing the above thoughts for balance. So, here is my initial gut-level response:

This is what I don’t understand. If something is done for the public good and can’t be done well by the private sector, then it should be publicly operated entirely. If something isn’t being done for the public good or can be done well by the private sector, then it should be privately operated entirely.

The city has sought to outsource work for both parking and transit (i.e., buses). If the city keeps outsourcing these jobs, obviously the city is saying that they think the private sector can do a better job than the city can do. The only rational reason why the city doesn’t simply privatize the entire departments by letting them be made into private businesses is that the city wants to keep the profit while using cheap outsourced labor.

The city likes outsourced labor because it isn’t unionized and the labor is cheap because such jobs rarely have good pay or good benefits. But mere profit isn’t a good reason for the city to continue operating these departments. Fiscal conservatism has caused a warping of the very purpose of public services run by the government.

Either privatize these departments or keep the jobs in the city. It is the mixing of private and public that has led to corporatism on the national level (especially with contractors in the military). Once businesses develop a dependency on government contract work, a cozy relationship develops between certain sectors of business and the government. Once money starts flowing back and forth between politicians and business owners, it is unlikely to lead to positive results in the long run. Do we really want our local government copying the bad habits of our federal government? Do we really want to risk the possibility of increasing corporatism in Iowa City?

* * *

More than anything, what is on my mind is the issue of community. As a liberal-minded left-winger (or as socialist-leaning left-liberal), I realize community isn’t something that happens by accident. This goes way beyond this or any other recent issue. For many years (much of this past decade), I’ve been thinking about the importance of community and what it means on the local level. I’ve even written about it before on a number of occasions (for example: Public Good vs Splintered Society).

The issue of community, however, has become particularly important with recent problems of economic downturn and political divisiveness. Add to that the risk to our very democracy, especially of the local grassroots variety, from rabid fiscal conservatism and corrupt neoliberalism. On the local level, there have been many things that have come up.

Most recently, for example, there is the plans to build yet another multi-use apartment building (Red Avocado, Defunct Books to make way for new multi-use building: Iowa City bookstore, restaurant ordered to leave). This is about the endless conflict between community and capitalism. There are already many multi-use apartment buildings and many aren’t even filled to capacity, specifically the ground-level storefronts. There is a boom in student numbers at the moment which has promoted growth, but this boom isn’t likely to last. More importantly, most of these new apartment buildings aren’t being built to last as long at the houses that they are replacing. It’s quite likely that these apartment buildings will not be maintained once a profit is made out of them which means they almost inevitably will fall into disrepair and get bought up by slumlords. Neighborhoods, like communities, are hard to rebuild after they have been destroyed. Besides, who wants a future city filled with decrepit apartment buildings where once beautiful old buildings used to be.

Many people have a nonchalant attitude about community. They just don’t understnad its value or they don’t appreciate how difficult it is to create and maintain. This is particularly true among fiscal conservatives which is a distinction between them and more traditional conservatives.

I spoke to a fiscal conservative who is a Christian (a combination I’ve always found odd, at times verging on the hypocritical with some views) and he demonstrated this difference. The church he attended had reached capacity and would require a new building for the church to grow. As a fiscal conservative, he assumed growth was better than maintaining the past. This fiscal conservative also had moved around a lot because of career and so had little investment in the community. He didn’t understand why many church members didn’t want to move. It took my liberal mindset (or, rather, my Midwestern liberal mindset) to explain it to him. The church wasn’t simply a physical structure. It was part of people’s sense of community and home. It was where people grew up, got married, and raised their kids.

Fiscal conservatives, however, just see the economic and the physical aspects, and so they can’t see the difference between one building and another, between an old church and a new church, between a thriving neighborhood of beautiful old houses and a multi-use apartment building with no character. I understand what might be gained by building something new. I’m not against economic improvements if they are done with foresight and done with a goal of long-term benefits for the entire community. The problem isn’t that I don’t understand or value such faith in improvements through entrepreneurial investments. Rather, the problem is that fiscal conservatives and many capitalists don’t understand the view of those living in a community who want to defend their community. They often don’t understand why laissez-faire capitalism shouldn’t always or usually trump local grassroots democracy, why individual decisions shouldn’t necessarily trump community decisions. They have faith in laissez-faire capitalism and it can take a lot to shake that faith.

There is a trade-off that should be acknowledged and taken seriously. It isn’t just a decision to be made by individuals. The impact of these decisions will be communal and will last a very long time, for generations in fact; the direction we choose to take as a community might even be felt a century from now by the future residents of this community. For this reason, these decisions should be made by the community. If the community doesn’t want a neighborhood destroyed, why should they allow it be destroyed?

It’s not even about being for or against free markets. What is about is how one chooses to define free markets. To me, a market isn’t free if the people involved in and impacted by the market aren’t equally free; this means feedom in terms of real impact on real people instead of just theoretical ideals of ‘freedom’; if some people are more ‘free’ than others in their influence over the future of the community, then it ‘freedom’ becomes a facade of power. Community is about everyone being involved, not just wealthy capitalists or well-connected politicians. It relates to a confusion many people have about socialism. Socialists are against laissez-faire capitalism but, despite what many think, not necessarily against free markets. Many socialists, in fact, are for free markets as an antidote to laissez-faire capitalism. For this reason, socialism has its deepest roots in the Midwest, a region that has always valued both community cooperation and a hardworking entrepreneurial spirit, both being seen as in alignment rather than in conflict. It was the Milwaukee Sewer Socialists who cleaned up the corruption of crony capitalism and built a thriving economy and community by working with small, local businesses.

In the Midwest, there is a history of small, local business owners who care about community. This culture of community still influences Midwestern business owners to this day, but it is a value system under threat. Capitalism has led to big businesses taking over family farms and thus destroying the once thriving communities that were built around those family farms. Having grown up and lived in this particular Midwestern town for most of my life, I have a good sense of and appreciation for the Midwestern business sensibility. When I was a kid, there were still many corner grocery stores, but they went out of business for various reasons such as licensing fees being put in place that favored big businesses. For most of the time I’ve worked for the city, I’ve rented from the Alberhasky family who have run a number of businesses for generations in this town. Doug Alberhasky operates the rental part of the family business is a perfect example of the Midwestern businessman. I’ve interacted with him a lot over the years. You can tell that he cares about the buildings he owns, many of them historic, and that he cares about this community he lives in and is a part of. Being responsible to his business isn’t separate from being responsible to his community.

Iowa City is lucky, unlike many other towns in Iowa (and the rest of the rural Midwest) that are facing far more severe problems. It’s people like the Alberhaskys who help maintain what is still good about this town, even during these economic hard times. Just because there are economic challenges, it doesn’t follow that we should stop prioritizing community. If anything, we should prioritize community and all aspects of public good even more during economic hard times. That is what made the Midwest so successful in the first place, what made it into what we now know of as the ‘Heartland’. As explained in The Middle West - Its Meaning in American Culture by James R. Shortridge (p. 19), the Midwestern conflict with laissez-faire capitalism goes back to the first generations who settled here:

“The economic depression helped to foster a sense of regional identity and independence for the Middle West, in part by bringing people together and forcing cooperation to temper frontier individualism,. The experience also broke many of the financial ties that bound the region to the East. Much Eastern capital had been invested in Kansas and Nebraska prior to 1887. Some of it had come as loans from family, some as support from the Free State movements prior to the Civil War, but most had been pure business investments. The money encouraged large-scale speculation in land, town sites, railroads, and nearly every other aspect of life that accompanied the settlement of the praire in the two postwar decades. Some fortunes were made from this speculation, but when hard times in the early 1890s produced defaults on loans, the two regions blamed each other for the troubles. Prairie farmers were irresponsible spendthrifts in Eastern eyes; Easterners were selfish, unfeeling exploiters from the Western perspetive. The financial troubles quickly became a regional political issue, spawning debates over free silver, protective tariffs, and populist reforms in general. They even created the first hero for the Middle West, Nebraska’s William Jennings Bryan.

“The financial crisis affected familial as well as financial ties, dividing peoples who had already begun to drift apart. Kansans and Nebraskans who had been Eastern born and thus were “full of Eastern thought, energy, method, and sympathies” were replaced by a generation who had known only the prairies. “To such people the West was home,” wrote a Kansan; “Western ways and Western ideas are inbred.”"

In the past, economic hardship strengthened local communities. But now economic hardships are so much larger than in the past. And sadly it seems more likely that community will be weakened in the process.

* * *

This hard-earned community spirit is easily lost if we aren’t careful. This brings me back to the original topic that I began with. The city government, for good or ill, is often the last defense of local community. Citizens can’t protect their commuity if their government doesn’t represent them.

The challenge of modern government is that so many decisions are complex. I can understand why the management of city departments would rather not involve the public in their decisoin-making. Democracy is messy, difficult, and time-consuming. But that is also the strength and advantage of democracy. It disallows decisions to be made too quickly that might end up having very bad results. Careful decision-making is particularly important when considering issues that will have long-term impact on the community.

Working in government, it could be easy to lose sight of the community aspect of one’s job even if one grew up in the community. It could begin to feel as if it were a job like any other job and one might forget that it in reality isn’t a job like any other job. Running a government isn’t just about cutting costs and increasing efficiency. If government isn’t about the community, then it is worse than useless. This should never be forgotten.

In recent decades, however, fiscal conservatism has become dominant in politics. A major element of fiscal conservatism is either privatizing government services or else outsourcing them. That such fiscally conservative strategies have even been introduced into a liberal college town like Iowa City shows how much power social conservatives have over our society. Even conservatives in Iowa tend not to be radical right-wing fiscal conservatives. The Republican-voting Western Iowa gets more federal welfare through farm subsidies than does Democratic-voting Eastern Iowa. Iowans, whether on the left or right, tend to be very moderate.

I see this connected with community for moderation is necessary in maintaining communities where people sometimes disagree. Cooperation isn’t possible without a willingess to compromise when it benefits the public good.

I feel like those making the decisions to outsource maybe don’t fully appreciate what they are doing. Too many decisions are made without enough foresight. I don’t know if that is the case in this situation, but I would advise that we follow the precautionary principle in considering massive changes. The city hasn’t even offered any evidence that outsourcing would either save money or create better results for the public. That is their argument, but as far as I know they’ve offered no data to back it up. Yes, outsourcing is an easy answer for providing a quick fix of cost-saving. But is it the best solution for all involved?

All I want is public discussion, just the good ol’ fashioned grassroots and community-oriented democracy that the Midwest is known for. If the community decides it is in favor of outsourcing, then I’ll support it as part of this community.

Stephen Bloom & Iowa: 2 Anecdotes

The other night I was talking with someone about Stephen Bloom’s article about Iowa. This person graduated from UI for journalism. She didn’t take any classes from Professor Bloom and she hadn’t read the recent article by him, but she did work in the same building as him. She interacted with him enough to have formed an opinion of him as a person.

Going by her description, he doesn’t sound like a nice person. The two anecdotes she offered showed him as being very confrontational and judgmental.

The first anecdote was when she was working in the same building. She needed to get office supplies and so went down to the office supply room. With the supplies in hand, she got back on the elevator where Bloom now was. He accused her of stealing office supplies for no apparent reason, besides her carrying office supplies. It was her job to get office supplies which is why she had a key that allowed to her to open the office supply room. Bloom simply saw a student with office supplies and somehow just knew this person was guilty.

This girl, by the way, is very normal looking and a life-long Iowan. She doesn’t have crazy hair, doesn’t have tatoos, doesn’t dress in any odd way. She doesn’t do drugs or look like someone who does drugs, especially not meth. She has perfectly fine teeth, not yellow or decaying or fallen out. If anything, she is so blandly normal looking as to be easily not noticed. Bloom apparently is just generally suspicious of all Iowans. Since all Iowans are poverty-stricken meth-heads, it follows that they need to steal office supplies to support their habits.

The second anecdote she heard from a friend who took Bloom’s class. He presented a news article about a guy who hanged himself. The article apparently described the incident in some detail and was well written. He asked the class what they thought of it. Many pointed out that it was well written. Bloom then said that the person who died was his friend and he verbally attacked all the students who had made positive comments about the article. After that, he presented a letter-to-the-editor by what I think was the young daughter of the deceased and he praised the letter.

Bloom thought it was mean of the journalist to heartlessly describe the man’s death, but he the implication seems to be that he thought the emotional and subjective expression of the girl was somehow good journalism. This is ironic considering that Bloom was similarly inconsiderate toward Iowans in his recent article, filled with bigoted stereotypes. The difference, though, is that the journalist describing the death was being accurate and Bloom made up a lot of his facts and details… or else over-generalized and exaggerated. Also, it is odd that Bloom believes emotional subjectivity is better than factual journalism. It is apparent that Bloom takes many things personally and so writes his own journalism from a subjective rather than objective position.

Public Good vs Splintered Society (pt 2)

This is a continuation of my thoughts from my previous post. I won’t summarize my thoughts from that post. So you probably should read it first to understand the context of what I’m writing about below.

 - – - 

I wanted to be clear that I wasn’t directly speaking of racism. There is something more fundamental that can manifest as racism but not necessarily. It’s related to xenophobia. More generally, it’s related to the conservative predisposition of fearing that which is different or new.

This type of fear doesn’t inevitably manifest in negative ways. Sometimes there are good reasons to be mistrusting or cautious… and sometimes not. Also, everyone including liberals are prone to extreme wariness and even fear at times, but research shows that conservatives are even more prone and that right-wingers are so prone they live in almost constant state of mistrust and suspicion.

This is important because it goes beyond fear. If you’re afraid of something, you probably won’t deal with it well because fear constricts your options of how to respond. A conservative who is afraid of the strange and new probably won’t respond constructively to the strange and new. Is it any surprise that right-wingers who mistrust the government also are very bad at governing? Is it any surprise that research shows that those who believe in conspiracy theories admit that they would conspire if given the opportunity? Is it any surprise that conservatives who dislike compromise seek to attack anyone who wants compromise and then blame the other party for their failure to submit to the conservatives’ position?

Liberals are the only demographic that has a majority support for compromise. This is very problematic for a democracy where compromise is absolutely necessary in order for the government to function and for different groups to be fairly represented by the supposedly representative government. In an increasingly diverse society, this is increasingly problematic. Conservatives will only ever agree to policies when those policies are in their favor which means when they have the power to enforce policies in their favor.

Well off white conservatives have always become anxious whenever new groups asserted their right to be fairly represented.

It happened when the second wave of Scots-Irish immigrants arrived. It happened with the Chinese and German immigrants later on. It happened when slaves were freed and when women got the vote. It happened with the Catholics and Jews who sought political positions. It happened with the Japanese during WWII. And now it’s happening with Hispanics and Arabs.

It doesn’t matter how many generations these people lived here. All that matters is that they were and in some cases still are perceived as being different.

Racism is often the end result of this xenophobia, but it is’t the fundamental issue. In America, there is this ideal of diverse people working together. Not just conforming. Some conservatives and right-wingers say other groups should conform to the WASP culture. It’s fine to be a Catholic or Muslim just as long as y0u keep it to yourself. It’s fine to be gay or an atheist as long as you don’t speak about it openly.

The WASPs will claim that their culture is and should be the dominant culture.

They will rationalize this in saying that this should be so because they are the majority. Well, once upon a time Native Americans were the majority before European diseases and genocide wiped out most of their population. In Texas, Spanish-speaking Hispanics are the majority. Should all Texans conform to that majority? Why not? Shouldn’t Hispanics be fairly represented?

When their majority argument is challenged, WASPs will simply say their culture should be dominant because it’s always been dominant. So what this dominance was created and maintained for centuries through horrific violence and oppression. Might makes right, after all.

In the end, as a good liberal, I don’t want to blame anyone, not even WASPs. I’m tired of the blame game entirely, no matter who it’s directed at. If you’re a genuine conservative, sure feel free be cautious about the changes happening in society. But enough with the fear-mongering and race-baiting. Don’t use bigotry as an excuse to hate the democratic government. Don’t promote class war to push away the ladder once you’ve made it to the top. Don’t distort Jesus’ message of love to defend a system of injustice and suffering. Conservatism has a healthy role to play, but radical conservatism is unhelpful, dangerous even.

Americans have proven to be able to do great things when we all work together. Republicans, Libertarians and Tea Partiers, I ask this of you: Please quit attacking what makes America great simply for reasons of your personal agenda. America isn’t just about the upper classes or whites or Christians. It never was and never will be.

During the Populist Era, Northerners and Southerners worked together to fight those seeking to take over the government and oppress the lower classes. In some of the first labor unions, blacks and whites worked together.

Earlier last century, conservatives didn’t hate the government but actually sought to create a government that was truly for and by the people. The Republican Party used to be the party of progressivism and moderation, the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Republican Party helped create the infrastructure (the interstate highway system, the national parks system, etc) of America through progressive taxation including high taxes on the rich. The Republicans, instead of fighting their own dark fantasies about ‘welfare queens’, used to fight the KKK.

The Progressive Era was also a time when liberalism reigned. Liberalism reigned all the way through Nixon’s early political career. Some of the greatest progressives were Republicans. Eisenhower used the military to enforce desegregation. Nixon campaigned on helping blacks and later helped pass the EPA. It was a time when people believed that America was a great nation and that it was the responsibility of the government along with the support of the public to do great things. The government used to send men into space and used to build great technology such as the internet. The Progressive Era created high-paying jobs that were secure and had pensions. Manufacturing jobs were kept in America and Americans were proud of our growing economy. Everyone benefited. It was a good society where literally everyone’s boat was lifted. Progressives gave a generation affordable higher education and created the middle class.

This isn’t patriotic propaganda. This isn’t just history. We are still benefiting from the sacrifices our grandparents and great grandparents made to build this great society. For decades, we’ve been living off the work of past generations while allowing the infrastructure crumble around us. It’s become an age of hyper-individualism and endless wars, in fact wars that are often against the American people. Instead of wars on drugs, why don’t we have a war on political corruption? Instead of tough on crime against the poor and minorities, why don’t we have tough on crime against the corporatists and bankers who nearly destroyed our economy?

It’s not too late. We can take responsibility as generations past did. We could create a great society once again.

At times, it seems so simple. Maybe it is as simple as our collectively creating what we collectively hope for or what we colletively fear. However, when digging deeper, there are all kinds of factors.

I was reading the book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State by Andrew Gelman. The following passage caught my attention last night while I was thinking about why conservatives seem to trust less or value less the ideal of a shared community, i.e., community beyond their own in-group.

Looking at people who moved from red (strongly Republican) states: those who move to other red states are poorer, those who move to purple states are slightly richer (on average), and those who move to blue states are richest. Among those who moved from purple (battleground) states, we see the same pattern: the poorer go to red states, the richer go to blue states. Looking at those who moved from blue (strongly Democratic) states, we again see that the poorest went to red states and the richest went to other blue states. In fact, people who moved from one blue state to another are in the richest category, on average. This does not demonstrate that people move to states or regions that are more culturally compatible to them, but the data are consistent with that possibility. A related idea is that higher earners are moving to richer states because of the economic opportunities available for educated professionals in these places.

One link between economics, voting, and social attitudes has been noticed by journalist Steve Sailer, who hypothesizes that rich, coastal states now favor the Democrats because of increasing house prices, which reduces affordable family formation (marriage and childbearing), in turn limiting the electoral appeal of Republican candidates running on family values. Sailer attributes some of this home price difference to what he calls the Dirt Gap—coastal and Great Lakes cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco are bounded by water, which limits their potential for growth, as compared to inland cities such as Dallas or Atlanta: “The supply of suburban land available for development is larger in Red State cities, so the price is lower.” The Republicans do better among married voters, who are more likely to end up in more affordable states that also happen to be more culturally conservative.

This reminded me of the distinction I noticed between more conservative Southern states where people value family as community (Scots-Irish fundamentalism and kinship ties) and more liberal Midwestern states where people value community as family (Catholic and Quaker focus on community-building: schools, hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, etc).

As the above passage describes, working class and lower middle class conservatives who vote Republican tend to live in or move to Republican states for a simple reason. Unlike poor social conservatives who vote Democratic, these slightly more well off conservatives have enough money to move and yet not enough money to move to the more wealthy communities. So they go to places where there are suburbs which means places with vast open land to build suburbs. The Midwest doesn’t have such vast unused space and maybe that is why the value of community has survived in the Midwest whereas it hasn’t survived as much in Republican strongholds.

The thing about suburbs is that they’ve tended to be very lacking in traditional community structure. People tend to work far away from where they live. Suburbs often aren’t designed for walking and often don’t have parks or neighborhood schools. They are the antithesis of community and at the same time they are the destination of socially conservative Republicans, especially those who are white (which is most socially conservative Republicans). Suburbs tend to lack multiculturalism and racial diversity which might be another thing that attracts socially conservative Republicans.

This cuts to the core.

Research has found that those who grow up with multiculturalism and racial diversity will as adults be more socially liberal. It’s probably also relates to the research that shows liberals tended to have many friends in their childhoods.

As such, the type of communities we create (rural farming, cities, metropolises, suburbia, etc) creates a particular mindset that allows certain ways of seeing community and disallows others. Community doesn’t just happen. It is created. And if we don’t create it consciously, it might not take very positive forms. We’ve destroyed the natural order (i.e., hunter-gatherer communities) upon which human nature evolved. Our society has become dysfunctional because it’s gone so far beyond our origins as a species. Returning to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle isn’t possible without the complete destruction of civilization and a mass die-off of most of the world’s population. A ‘natural’ (i.e., unplanned) community isn’t a choice that we have at this point. Even conservatives in refusing to invest in the larger community are creating a particular type of community.

From an anecdotal perspective, Garrison Keillor describes (in his book Homegrown Democrat) the difference between liberal city-dwellers and conservative suburbanites:

“[ . . . ] there is a high value placed on public services. If you call 911 in St. Paul, the cops or the EMTs will arrive within four minutes. In the Republican suburbs, where No New Taxes is the beginning and end of politics and emergency services depend on volunteers, the response time can be anywhere between ten or fifteen and thirty minutes.”

Keillor is basically what has in the past been called a Sewer Socialist. In an earlier time in Milwaukee, there were socialists in political positions. They were of the pragmatic (i.e., non-ideological) sort that is common in the Midwest. Like Keillor, they were proud to have some of the best public services around at that time. On a practical level, socialism just means that you care about your neighbor rather than seeing community as merely a collection of self-focused individuals.

Many Americans have so completely forgotten what community is. When they see community, they have a fearful knee-jerk response: Socialism! Communism! Oh no, those who care about the public good are going to destroy our society!

 - – -

There is one factor that explains the impossibility of discussing all of this fairly and openly. I recently came across research about the backfire effect.

Basically, the backfire effect is when someone becomes stronger in their beliefs (more unquestioningly dogmatic) when they are confronted by facts that contradict or disprove or bring doubt to their beliefs. It intuitively makes sense, although I’m sure there are complex psychological mechanisms behind it.

What is relevant to my discussion is the demographic most prone to the backfire effect. Do I even need to say it? Unsurprisingly, conservatives are more likely to become more dogmatic when challenged even when or especially when the facts are against them. Liberals, on the other hand, don’t necessarily change their beliefs with new facts; it’s just that they’re less likely to become even stronger in their beliefs which seems to imply that liberals perceive facts as being less threatening.

This puts liberals in an almost impossible situation. Is it any wonder that no matter how much liberals seek to compromise they rarely ever get any compromise in return from conservatives. Liberals love compromise, a weakness and a strength. It’s because liberals love to compromise that they are able to live in multicultural, multi-racial cities. Study after study shows liberals love anything new and different, including ‘foreigners’. But the typical conservative response to anything unusual, even rotting fruit as shown in one study, is to respond with disgust.

Love of compromise is one ‘failing’ of liberalism. The other ‘failing’ is love of knowledge. Even when a fact disagrees with a liberal position, a liberal is more likely to welcome the new info, even if just for reasons of intellectual curiosity. Most (by which I mean the vast majority of) academics, scientists, writers and journalists are self-identified liberals. It’s a combination of liberals loving knowledge and the love of knowledge inducing a liberal mindset. Sadly, the more conservative someone is the less they probably love knowledge, and studies have shown right-wingers are prone to outright anti-intellectualism.

So, what is a poor liberal to do?

The answer isn’t to give up on compromise and knowledge. The real problem is that many liberals don’t understand the conservative mindset. The dogmatic tendency of conservatives and right-wingers correlates to their religiosity. I suspect that religiosity explains one other thing. A fact by itself is less convincing to a conservative. What convinces a conservative the most is anecdotal evidence and stories. Essentially, the Bible is just a bunch of anecdotes and stories, an anecdote being a story is considered real. Also, the evangelical tradition is all about personal experience of God or Holy Spirit which is the ultimate anecdotal evidence.

Everyone loves stories, but I think conservatives put a special importance on stories in a way liberals don’t. To a liberal, a story is a story. To a conservative, a story is reality. The story of Jesus is real, despite the lack of historical fact and even despite the internal contradictions of the New Testament. The most powerful story is the story that is seen as fact. Such a story is especially powerful if it actually is based on fact. It’s not that conservatives hate knowledge, but between a fact and a story conservatives will prefer the latter.

This is why conspiracy theories and global warming denialism are so convincing to conservatives and right-wingers. A conspiracy theory is a story and global warming denialism is often couched in terms of conspiracy theory. It just doesn’t matter to many conservatives that it’s a fact that most climatologists agree that human-caused global warming is real. It doesn’t matter because climatologists aren’t trained, as preachers are trained, in telling a good story.

Liberals love story as well. I do think stories are more powerful than anything else. Stories are what cultures are built upon. Liberals fail when they forget this. As George Lakoff explained:

“Progressives too often fail to clearly state the moral principles behind the American tradition. Our arguments often sound like an abstract defense of distant “government” rather than a celebration of our people, our public, and the moral views that have defined our tradition and the real human beings who work every day to carry them out.”

The root word for ‘science’ means to split or dissect. The root word for ‘art’ means to put together or join. This might be why knowledge and story so often conflict, but they don’t have to. Knowledge and story can work together. Old stories can be taken apart so as to create new stories that bring together. In a multicultural society as we live in, we can take the pieces of our cultural heritage and form something greater than the sum of the parts.

Story can be the bridge that brings liberals and conservatives together. In the past, America had a story about a shared society and that story inspired many generations of people in the first half or so of the 20th century. The greatest story is that which is lived through collective enactment. I’ve often wondered what story (i.e., myth) we are collectively enacting.

The dangerous part is unconsciously enacting a story. When that happens, a society is controlled by the story, trapped in a narrative. We can be mere characters in someone else’s story, such as an ancient story from an ancient book, or we can be storytellers. As William Blake said,

“Invent your own mythology or be slave to another man’s.”

To translate that into the terms of this discussion: Invent our own cultural narrative or be slave to the narrative of another culture. Invent our collective sense of community or be slave to the broken remnants of the past.

If we react out of fear, we will create a society driven by fear. Such a fearful society will result in dysfunctional communities, isolated communities set against one another, broken communities where past traumas are never healed. Only an act of creation can heal. Only retelling the story of community can heal a community.

 - – - 

George Lakoff summarized well the situation we collectively face:

“Democracy, in the American tradition, has been defined by a simple morality: We Americans care about our fellow citizens, we act on that care and build trust, and we do our best not just for ourselves, our families, our friends and our neighbors, but for our country, for each other, for people we have never met and never will meet.

“American democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the American Dream, is the dream of a functioning democracy.

“Public refers to people, acting together to provide what we all depend on: roads and bridges, public buildings and parks, a system of education, a strong economic system, a system of law and order with a fair and effective judiciary, dams, sewers, and a power grid, agencies to monitor disease, weather, food safety, clean air and water, and on and on. That is what we, as a people who care about each other, have given to each other.

“Only a free people can take up the necessary tasks, and only a people who trust and care for one another can get the job done. The American Dream is built upon mutual care and trust. 

“Our tradition has not just been to share the tasks, but to share the tools as well. We come together to provide a quality education for our children. We come together to protect each other’s health and safety. We come together to build a strong, open and honest financial system. We come together to protect the institutions of democracy to guarantee that all who share in these responsibilities have an equal voice in deciding how they will be met.

“What this means is that there is no such thing as a “self-made” man or woman or business. No one makes it on their own. No matter how much wealth you amass, you depend on all the things the public has provided — roads, water, law enforcement, fire and disease protection, food safety, government research, and all the rest. The only question is whether you have paid your fair share for what we all have given you.

“We are now faced with a nontraditional, radical view of “democracy” coming from the Republican party. It says democracy means that nobody should care about anybody else, that democracy means only personal responsibility, not responsibility for anyone else, and it means no trust. If America accepts this radical view of democracy, then all that we have given each other in the past under traditional democracy will be lost: all that we have called public. Public roads and bridges: gone. Public schools: gone. Publicly funded police and firemen: gone. Safe food, air, and water: gone. Public health: gone. Everything that made America America, the crucial things that you and your family and your friends have taken for granted: gone.

“The democracy of care, shared responsibility and trust is the democracy of the American Dream. The democracy of no care, no shared responsibility, and no trust has produced the American Nightmare that so many of our citizens are living through.“

Public Good vs Splintered Society

I was talking to a conservative about local politics and economics. This helped me to clarify my own liberal views about this liberal community.

I’ve lived in this relatively small city (Iowa City, IA) for most of my life and I’ve worked in many jobs here, including the last 10 years spent working for the city. I’ve seen the town change and I’ve studied the town’s history. To put it simply, I’m ‘invested’ in this town. This town is my childhood home. This town is the only community I’ve ever felt a part of.

I’m not sure how typical this city is, but it’s a good example of a planned city. It originally was intended to be the capital of Iowa. They even went so far as to build the capital building around which much of the downtown formed, but the capital was later moved to a more central location in the state. Iowa City wouldn’t exist as we now know it if not for that initial taxpayer funded investment. Instead of a capital, we got the University of Iowa which also has brought in massive state funding.

However, this city doesn’t survive on just the taxpayers kindness. There are two hospitals, a Catholic hospital and the University hospital, the latter being one of the best hospitals in the country. There is also a thriving downtown with hundreds of businesses, although it’s of course changed much over time.

Also, Iowa City has many parks, recreation centers, public parking ramps, a very nice public library (plus the university has numerous libraries all open to the public), and a very nice pedestrian mall (where many of the businesses are located). At one end of the pedestrian mall, there is a hotel and a conference center, both having been built on publicly owned land (the hotel being built on the very public street that was closed when it was turned into a pedestrian mall. The pedestrian mall was built and the entire downtown renovated in the 1970s with public funding (some combination of federal and local). A mall was also built near the pedestrian mall and was planned by the city government as part of the downtown renovation. The mall now only is half stores and half offices for the university (besides it now only halfway serving as a mall, it seems to be thriving as well).

Near downtown, there is a historic district which still has the original brick roads. The city government has only approved buildings in that area to fit in with the historical architecture. There is a genuine care (by the public and by the local government) about this town’s history… along with care about its future.

All of these public investments have paid off massively. Iowa City has often been listed in various top 10 lists of cities to live in. It’s even a favorite destination for the elderly and the disabled because of our fine public services, including a large senior center downtown. And, of course, people from all over the country and all over the world come to Iowa City to either attend or to work at the university. Because of the university, we have the oldest writers’ workshop in the world and have been given the title of the first UNESCO City of Literature in the US. The pedestrian mall, the downtown in general, the various parks and recreation centers; all of these are extremely popular destinations. During the warm times of the year, there are bands that play in the pedestrian mall every week and there are several festivals. Between the university, the city and the senior center, there are always events, activities and groups available for people of all ages and interests. We have a fairly popular public access channel with tons of locally produced shows.

There is a strong sense of community in Iowa City, but community doesn’t happen on accident. It must be created through civic action, through public participation and, yes, through a willingness of taxpaying citizens to support it all. People are willing to pay for it because they believe in the vision of a thriving community. We have community theatres, including a theatre building that was saved through public donations. Furthermore, there are many churches in Iowa City that are strongly community-oriented. This town is a place where even the most destitute will find their basic needs met.

Community is an odd thing. It’s hard to measure its value. The only aspect that can indirectly be measured is land value which is mostly created through public investment in infrastructure (road building and maintenance, plowing, water, emergency services, etc). Without such public infrastructure, land has little economic value in and of itself. But even the land value doesn’t begin to capture the value of community. As social animals, we collectively are the value of a community. We swim in and breathe community like fish in water. Community is often easier to notice when it’s gone.

“Not much that we do in our personal lives makes much economic sense, just as most things we do for money make no sense in personal terms.”
~ A Language Older Than Words, Derrick Jensen, p. 138

For some strange reason, most American ‘conservatives’ no longer seem to believe in community. Yes, they like community, but they don’t like what is required to create community. They’ll argue that governments can’t create jobs. If that was so, Iowa City wouldn’t have a thriving downtown with a strong downtown business association. Maybe it’s a midwest thing. Iowa City is a very liberal city, but many people on the city council are business owners. Even business owners want public investment. The nice downtown wouldn’t exist without public investment. Iowa City is an example of what Republicans think is impossible.

Before Iowa City’s renovation, the downtown was becoming rundown. There had been political upheaval with riots downtown. There were many old buildings that weren’t being maintained. There were empty gravel lots all over. The downtown wasn’t thriving and many citizens were afraid to go downtown. It would have been easy to let the downtown turn into a slum or simply die as has been allowed to happen in many cities. It would have been easy to have privatized all the parks and public services. It would have been easy to lower the taxes on the rich using the rhetoric that this would increase job creation and trickle down. But if that had been done, the downtown would probably still be rundown.

It wasn’t just taxpayer money that saved downtown Iowa City. The money could have been wasted, even with good intentions. What makes Iowa City unique is that it’s filled with liberals (and traditional conservatives) who actually believe in community and are willing to personally invest in building community. When the downtown was renovated, someone or some group obviously had great vision and it was far from utopian. This vision was very practical in its implementation and in its results.

 - – - 

So, why don’t conservative Republicans have faith in community in the way liberals do. I’ve written about this before, but it continually bewilders me.

Why is it that Republicans only trust the government when they are in power?

Why is it that conservatives have so little faith in what makes America strong?

If conservatives truly believed communism was inferior, why did they have such immense faith that it was probable communism might succeed?

“The core presumption of Soviet communism was that people would work hard for the well-being of the state, even with no personal payoff. That always seemed unlikely to me–in fact so unlikely that I always believed that Soviet communism was destined to fall of its own weight. The communist conspiracies were inconsequential because the system was certain to fail. I was then struck by the odd perception that the people most paranoid about the rise of this doomed ideology were the conservatives who should have been the most confident of the ultimate success of the American economic experiment. They were instead the least confident and the most fearful of being overwhelmed by the Soviet system.

“When communism fell at last I was not surprised because it seemed to me always destined to fall. Why was my liberal mind more confident of our system than the conservatives that constantly pronounced us doomed to fall to the evil Soviets?”

This demonstrates my point. Liberals have less fear of enemies because liberals are more confident in American society, in the American public, in the American economy, in American communities, and yes even in the American government. Liberals simply believe in America. Full stop.

So, why don’t conservative Republicans have an equal confidence?

I’ve recently become more clear in a particular insight. Republican conservatives, for the most part, aren’t traditional conservatives. The American political tradition originates from the British political tradition. The British conservatives were the the traditionally conservative Tories; and the Tories defended the British government. Since the American revolutionaries were fighting the British government, by default they were fighting against the conservatism of their day, the Tories. Henry Fairlie clearly differentiated between traditional conservatives and modern conservatives:

“The characteristics of the Tory, which separate him from the conservative, may briefly be summarized: 1.) his almost passionate belief in strong central government, which has of course always been the symbolic importance to him of the monarchy; 2.) his detestation of “capitalism,” of what Cardinal Newman and T.S. Eliot called “usury,” of which he himself calls “trade”; and 3.) his trust in the ultimate good sense of the People, whom he capitalizes in this way, because the People are a real entity to him, beyond social and economic divisions, and whom he believes can be appealed to, and relied on, as the final repository of decency in a free nation. The King and the People, against the barons and the capitalists, is the motto of the Tory.”

A traditional conservative doesn’t hate his own government. The government is a social institution which maintains social order. There is nothing a traditional conservative cares about more than social order and there is no more basic manifestation of social order than government.

This was further clarified by another discussion I was having with the same conservative that got me thinking about all of this. In the second discussion, I mentioned the phenomenon of the black demographic (which applies to some other minority demographics such as Latinos).

Blacks mostly vote for Democrats. In fact, they are the most loyal base of the Democratic Party. This is interesting as they are conservative rather than liberal. Democratic-voting blacks are even more socially conservative and more conservatively religious than even the average Republican. The division between the two parties isn’t liberal vs conservative. Rather, it’s traditional conservatives (aligned with liberals) vs modern conservatives (aligned with right-wingers). There are still some traditional conservatives left in the GOP, but not many. They are the last remnants of the Eisenhower Republicans. Most people today label traditional conservatives as ‘moderate conservatives’ or even simply as ‘moderates’ because they are, after all, moderate compared to right-wingers.

As I’m bewildered by the right-wingers who call themselves conservatives, the conservative I was speaking with was bewildered by these minorities who are so traditionally conservative and yet vote Democratic. He genuinely thinks they are brainwashed. No, they are just religious. Upper class and upper middle class white people (the base of the Republican Party) simply don’t understand traditional conservatism, especially as it relates to religion. To a poor and disenfranchised person (i.e., minorities), religion plays a much more pivotal role. If you are a well off white person, you grow up with lots of advantages and privileges which makes life easy. The well off white person is less obviously reliant on community and so they can focus on a more individualistic worldview. Most black Americans don’t have such luxury. For them, religion is their community in a world that is often against them. Religion isn’t merely an individual choice, isn’t merely a nice moral group to belong to. For minorities, religion is about survival.

This is why blacks (and latinos) mostly vote Democratic. Liberals only make up a small portion of Democratic voters, far from being a majority. However, both conservative blacks and liberal whites are aligned in defending traditional conservatism. The only difference is that the former wants more involvement from churches. Minorities want churches to be allowed to accept government funding in order to participate in the improvement of their own communities. This love and appreciation of community (i.e., it takes a village to raise a child) is a shared ideal of conservative blacks and liberal whites.

Democrats only seem predominantly liberal as compared to Republican right-wing values and rhetoric. What many call liberalism, especially fiscal liberalism, is in many ways the same thing as traditional conservatism. Because right-wing Republicans have largely abandoned traditional conservatism, liberals have sought to defend it against those very same right-wingers. Right-wingers have increasingly become viciously critical of traditional conservatism. There is an obvious race element here. Most Republican right-wingers are upper class whites and most Democratic traditional conservatives are poor minorities.

I think race is the key issue. There is still some overt racism, but mostly it’s not racism as we normally think of it. Research shows racial bias still exists and that it’s often institutionalized. It’s not individuals who typically hold racist beliefs, rather what some call racialism. More generally, it’s a sense of xenophobia.

Let me shift gears for a moment and then I’ll return to the racialism/xenophobia issue.

Americans once achieved great things as liberals still envision. The interstate highway system which allowed the post-WWII industrialized economy to boom. The national park system which might be the best in the world. The publicly funded higher education that almost singlehandedly created the middle class by encouraging social mobility. America wasn’t made great through privatization and tax cuts. During the Great Depression, the federal government created jobs (building the court houses and city halls we still have today, building the trails and picnic shelters we still use today, etc). We now have higher unemployment than even during the Great Depression. In response, our present federal government (along with local governments) have decided to cut government jobs and cut any services for those who have their jobs cut. This is what is called cutting off your nose to spite your face.

When Americans believe in and value community, they build community. When they don’t, they destroy community. Social mobility once was increasing in America and now it’s decreasing. Economic equality once was increasing in America and now it’s decreasing. Both directions are choices we collectively make through public policies and public investments (or lack thereof).

Right now, Germans are doing great things in their society as Americans once did. I brought this subject up with the same conservative with whom I discussed these other topics. His response went to the core of the problem. He pointed out that Germany has a more demographically consistent population, i.e., less multiculturalism and less racial diversity. This is true. And this is how racialism/xenophobia ties back in.

The Progressive Era and the post-WWII period were defined by three factors. Immigration was low, taxes were high, and liberalism reigned almost entirely unchallenged. It was the mirror of what America has been in recent decades (and it has similarities to what Germany is now).  It was also a time of cultural conformity because of the uber-patriotism during the two world wars. It was a weird mixture. Blacks were expected to know their place and yet prosperity gave a freedom for liberals and traditional conservatives to fight for civil rights. Whites dominated culture. It felt safe to whites to fight for the rights of blacks. But later on when blacks began fighting for their own rights it was seen as dangerous, especially by right-wingers.

Anyway, what my conservative discussion partner was saying was that Germany’s present success isn’t possible in the US because US no longer has a conformist culture. To be cynical (maybe overly cynical, I don’t know), what this translates to is that upper class white Christians (meaning the present conservative Republican demographic) are only willing to invest in the common good when majority of the population is like them or is forced through conformity to be like them. Most upper class white Christians if they were being honest wouldn’t disagree with my assessment, although they would state it differently.

Here is where my liberal attitude kicks in. Change isn’t something to be afraid of. Or, rather, change is only made fearful through resistance. Conservatives end up creating their own worst enemies. Even if conformity is always good, that is all the more reason to invest in the public good. If you want other groups to conform, you should encourage them to participate in society. Attacking Muslims and blaming minorities will simply splinter society. Wars on drugs and poverty, Culture and class wars will simply create a society of conflict and mistrust. Conservatives face the dilemma of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

As a liberal, I’d point out that even change passes. Yes, whites are becoming a minority. Yes, atheists and the non-religious are a growing demographic. Yes, change is happening. But change has always been happening in America. To mistrust change is to mistrust what America stands for. The previous 1950s status quo was built on massive changes that happened in the late 19th century. Now we face the results of massive changes that occurred with the late 20th century. But, as liberals understand, a new status quo will inevitably form. Society has to once in a while stop to catch its breath before moving on.

This doesn’t mean, however, that change can be stopped. Taking a snapshot of one moment in history such as the 1950s will offer a very distorted vision. But even if you admire the 1950s, then seek to re-create the positive conditions that made that era great: massive taxpayer investments in the public good (instead of massive taxpayer investments in the military-industrial complex, in building more prisons, in oil subsidies, etc).

We as a society have a choice. We can continue to invest in the future (our children’s and grandchildren’s future). We can continue to support the social compact America was built upon. And we can continue to believe in the American Dream. Or we can isolate ourselves and hope someone else will solve all of the problems that we collectively face.

Other Americans being different than you (whether black or Muslim or whatever) is no excuse. To believe in America is to believe in Americans, all Americans. Just realize that to not support a democratic government is to not support America. A representative democracy must represent, fairly and equally, all Americans and not just a single group seeking to maintain it’s power and privilege. As a liberal, I have faith that America is even stronger than the cynicism and political opportunism of even the worse racist right-wingers. As Americans, we will overcome the difficulties that face us, but there are many difficulties that could be entirely avoided if we were willing to work together.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Fighting For Gay Marriage

This caught my attention for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, Zach Wahls is very well spoken in this speech. I have major respect for him after hearing this. I’m rarely inspired by something I hear in the media.

Secondly, Zach Wahls lives in the same town I live in (Iowa City). From what I read, he has lived here for much of his life. I don’t know if I’ve ever met him, but I think I’ve seen some of his articles before (here is an article he wrote about gay marriage).

In his speech, he mentions going to church. I was curious what church he went to. Iowa City is a very liberal town with many liberal churches, but of course it turns out he goes to the most liberal church in town (a Unitarian-Universalist church). I used to attend that church some years ago. It speaks well for the UU tradition that he was raised in a UU church.

I’m not sure how much coverage his speech will get, but I did notice that he was mentioned last year in an article from The New York Times.

Anyway, I must admit it makes me a bit proud to live in a town that produces such high quality individuals. It also makes me proud of Iowa in general. I really like Iowa. Listening to his speech, I was touched by his expression of Iowa values. I get tired of all the radical politicizing from the Southern states. Iowa is truly the middle of the country, both geographically and ideologically. The Midwest is called the Heartland for a good reason. Some people think of this as just flyover country or just another backwoods rural state, but Zach Wahls’ speech reminds the rest of the country why Iowa has always been one of the most politically influential states.

- – -

I noticed another blog post about gay marriage (by combscp who commented below) and I thought it relevant to Zach’s speech. What is interesting is that Zach is making a conservative argument for gay marriage. From that post, here is Ted Olsen’s article making the case for gay marriage and the following is a video of Maddow interviewing Ted Olsen and David Boies:

- – -

If you want to hear his response to all the attention his speech has received, here are a couple of videos with interviews:

Iowa City: UNESCO City of Literature

Posted on Nov 26th, 2008 by Marmalade

UNESCO has given my hometown of Iowa City the grand title of City of Literature.  Its UNESCO’s third Literary City in the world (following Edinburgh and Melbourne), and the first Literary City in the US.  Quite an achievement for a small midwestern town.  Sadly, at the same time, Live from Prairie Lights will no longer be broadcast by NPR.  Prairie Lights is an independent bookstore that has hosted the readings of many famous writers for almost two decades.

The main reason that Iowa City was chosen is because of the local Writer’s Workshop.  It began in 1936 and I’ve heard its the oldest in the world.  Many well known writers have lived here, and the town is filled with aspiring writers of course.

After a year of multiple tragedies, this is a nice positive to end the year with.

Access: Public 4 Comments Print Post this!views (124)  

Tagged with: Iowa City, Iowa, UNESCO, City of Literature, Writer’s Workshop, Prairie Lights

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about 5 hours later

Nicole said

 

congratulations. that’s something to celebrate.

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about 9 hours later

Marmalade said

 

Thanks, NIcole!  I find it exciting.  Its probably because I grew up here that the ambition of being a writer rubbed off on me.

If you had to pick Canada’s City of Literature, what would it be?

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2 days later

Nicole said

 

Tough call as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are all very strong in this area…

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2 days later

Marmalade said

 

When I think of Canadian fiction, I think of Charle de Lint’s fictional city Newford.  However, de Lint said something interesting about Newford.  He said that Americans tend to think its a Canadian city and Canadians tend to think its an American city.  Apparently, he purposely used some characteristics of both Canadian and American cities.

So, I guess Newford can’t be Canada’s city of literature.  Too bad! 

John Bior Deng: R.I.P.

John Bior Deng (source for image: Gazette Online)

Recently in my local town of Iowa City, there was an altercation that led to a death.  The man who died was a Sudanese refugee (see Wikipedia article about Lost Boys of Sudan) which just makes his death all the more tragic.  Even when you move to an entirely new place, trauma from your past has a way of catching up with you.

 - – -

Shooting victim was refugee from Sudan by Lee Hermiston

Police said Thursday the man fatally shot by a Johnson County deputy last Friday was a Sudanese refugee. Investigators initially had difficulty finding family members of transient John Bior Deng, 26. But many people offered suggestions, leads and conducted their own research after police made a plea for help. Iowa City Police Sgt. Troy Kelsay said investigators learned after locating surviving family in Omaha that Deng was likely one of the “lost boys of Sudan,” a group of more 27,000 who were orphaned or displaced during the second Sudanese civil war. That war lasted from 1983 to 2002 and killed an estimated 2 million people.

[...] “That goes along with what little we did know about John Deng,” he said. Police found a Texas identification card on Deng. Kelsay said two surviving family members traveled to Iowa City on Wednesday to identify Deng’s body. He said they were not parents or siblings. Police said the family members told them that they last spoke with Deng in June. They were under the belief that Deng at some point had a job and a place to sleep, and they were unaware that he had been homeless, Kelsay said.

“They were distraught for a lot of reasons,” Kelsay said. “I think they genuinely would have helped if they had known.”

Transient by Peter Small

And how could you not be?

When all around the settled world

lay burned to the ground

by the men on horseback with the guns.

You had to flee all that you knew:

mother, father, hut, playmates, herd of goats,

to join on foot

with the little boys lost

remnants along the salvaged road

carrying rags, hunger and memories

accompanied by snakes and death and soldiers

all the way to Ethiopia and beyond.

 * * *

The death of John Bior Deng was investigated and deemed justified (by rightly or wrongly dismissing the 2 or 3 contradictory eye witness accounts).  The scenario isn’t precisely clear because of these differing eye witness accounts and because of a generally confusing scenario that escalated quickly.  As I see it, the justification of the killing is highly suspect… by which I mean that there are too many unanswered questions to allow for an absolute conclusion.

 - – -

Deng killing was justified, report says by Lee Hermiston

Johnson County Deputy Terry Stotler was justified in shooting and killing John Deng, according to an Iowa Attorney General’s report released by the Johnson County Attorney’s office on Friday.

However, at a news conference, at least a half dozen members of the public appeared to be largely dissatisfied with the report’s findings.

Watch KCRG video reporting the incident

Watch KCRG video interviews with friends and family at funeral

Watch KCRG video of Attorney General publicly stating the conclusion of the investigation

Watch KGAN CBS 2 reporting of incident

 * * *

 Survivors of the unspeakable,

the pieces of the dismembered village

scattered to Texas, Minnesota, Iowa

like fallen seeds awaiting some new harvest.

You here among us

continued along your trail

to salvage our remnants –

cans and bottles

each for a nickel.

 * * *

My Initial Analysis:

For some reason, the information about this case has been hard to find online, but the city has made all of it available on 2 disks which can be purchased for 15 dollars per disk.  Why do I have to pay 30 bucks (which isn’t cheap) for the investigation data that my tax money paid for?  Why not release all of the data (911 calls, on-car police video, crime scene photos, the unedited transcripts of eye witness reports including the contradictory ones, etc.) so that the public can decide for themselves?  It would be easy to do.  They could post it on the city website.

Also, all of this was made available to the media and yet I haven’t seen much of it being presented in the media.  Why?  Instead, I’ve mostly had to rely on secondary sources (i.e., newspaper articles).  I’m forced to trust that the authors of these secondary sources have seen and fully analyzed all of the data and objectively reported on it (which, considering the rampant bias in this case, is hard to determine).

So far, I’ve only been able to find the 911 calls and the official report.  If any further data or media is available online, please tell me about it.

To the best of my understanding, the following is the scenario according to all of the eye witness accounts.  My only overt bias is that I included all of the eye witness accounts instead of dismissing the ones that were inconvenient.  As an outside observer, I can’t determine the validity (or not) of any of the details of any of the accounts.  As Fox News says: “We Report, You Decide!”

John Bohnenkamp, a “respectable” older white man employed by the University of Iowa, was leaving a local bar (Hawkeye Hideaway) a little after 7 pm on Friday July 24th (it’s highly probable he was intoxicated and as far as I know he hasn’t denied such being the case) when he noticed John Deng, a homeless black man (oddly, Deng was referred to in the media as a “transient” even though he had lived in town for 2 years having even been employed in the past).  Deng was collecting recyclable bottles and cans, and had accidentally dropped some while crossing the street or the parking lot.  Bohnenkamp, instead of trying to help Deng pick up his recyclables, aggressively approaches Deng while yelling at him (when exactly he became openly confrontational towards Deng is unclear, but one account supposedly claims he was already acting confrontational even while some distance away).

It’s unclear the order of events, but Bohnenkamp at some point started beating on Deng and Deng at some point stabbed Bohnenkamp.  Either Bohnenkamp started punching first or Deng stabbed first.  The investigation, according to one article, concluded that Deng stabbed in self-defense after being attacked by Bohnenkamp (although I don’t think the official report used the term “self-defense” in describing Deng’s actions), but other articles seemed to want to paint the picture that Deng stabbed before being physically attacked or at least they were being unfairly hazy on the issue (the official report doesn’t offer many details other than a 911 caller mentioning someone having a knife before the shot).  What is absolutely clear is that Bohnenkamp started the fight and intentionally escalated it.  To add to the confusion, a crowd formed around the two.

Sometime during all of this, the plainclothes (wearing shorts and a t-shirt) Johnson County Deputy Terry Stotler saw the altercation and tried to stop the fight but neither Bonenkamp nor Deng would back off.  Some eye witnesses claim that the deputy announced who he was and announced he had a gun, other eye witnesses claim he didn’t, and still other eye witnesses as far as I can tell made no claim either asserting or denying either of these other claims.  Also, some eye witnesses claimed Deng was still holding the knife and others claimed he wasn’t.

What is known is that both Bohnenkamp and Deng were focused on each other and there is no evidence at this time that either of them noticed or heard the deputy.   At some point, Deputy Stotler tried to step in between them or somehow get them to separate.  The Deputy claimed to see the knife still in Deng’s hand and so this is the justified reason for the Deputy having his gun pointed at Deng (the argument is that his pointing the gun at the poor black guy had nothing to do with racial or class prejudices).  Bohnenkamp had knocked Deng down when he was beating on him (supposedly after the Deputy announced his presence and had his gun drawn). Deputy Stotler told Deng to stay down and the he told Bohnenkamp to leave the scene (“Run! Get out of here”), but either they didn’t hear him or intentionally ignored his commands.  They were solely focused on each other and on continuing the fight.

In particular, it’s possible that Deng didn’t even notice Deputy Stotler (or recognize him as a Deputy) considering his limited comprehension of the English language (some bystanders claimed Deng spoke to the deputy in English, but even if this were true it wouldn’t prove Deng knew the man was a Deputy nor that he understood what the Deputy had said) along with being slightly intoxicated and defending himself against a severely aggressive man who wouldn’t back away.  Also, Deng was a man who had escaped a violent and traumatic past.  He was living alone and homeless in a foreign land.  Here he was being beaten up by a white man while surrounded by a screaming crowd of white people.  His mind surely was in a state of complete fear.  Even if he did notice the deputy with a gun, it was just another white guy threatening him.  He was in a fight for his life, and obviously he was correct.

As Deputy Stotler was warning Deng, the crowd was yelling for the deputy to shoot (one article stated the report said that Bohnenkamp himself had yelled at the Deputy to shoot).  The Deputy claimed he saw Deng tense as if he were going to stab again (which is specifically what certain eye witnesses disagree with) and so shot him somewhere in the mass of his body (abdomen or chest).  Deng died soon after.

If you prefer, I noticed an article on the Iowa City Press Citizen which offers MP3 format of the 911 audio from the shooting of John Deng:

The first audio file is a recording of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office contacting Iowa City Police, advising them that “Fifty-two eight” (Deputy Terry Stotler) is on the scene of a fight on Prentiss Street.

The next audio file is of two witnesses calling in to 911. Shots can be heard partway through the first call.

Two more witnesses call in. Shots can be heard almost immediately on the first call. The second call comes in after the shooting.

The last file is of Deputy Terry Stotler calling in the shooting to Iowa City Police.

The declaration of the killing’s justification was based on Deng wielding a knife which is probably the case but was never proven (I haven’t even seen how they determined it was Deng’s knife other than the Deputy claiming he was holding it at one point).  Besides Deng’s death by gun, the only fact that is absolutely clear is that Bohnenkamp was the initial and primary cause of the altercation.  However, Deng’s blood was tested for alcohol and yet Bohnenkamp was never tested (even though Bohnenkamp went directly to the hospital where it would’ve been easy to have drawn blood).  Bohnenkamp started a fight which is against the law and so it would’ve been legal to have arrested him.  In fact, not only would’ve it been legal but it would’ve been moral and just to have arrested him.

Is it a mere coincidence that a homeless black foreigner gets killed while the respectable white local guy gets to go home even though his actions led to someone’s death?  If Bohnenkamp or any other respectable looking white guy had been holding a knife, would Deputy Stotler have been so quick to shoot to kill?  Probably not.

Deputy Stotler was within his rights to shoot, but he didn’t have to.  Besides trying to intervene in some other manner, he didn’t have to go for a kill shot.  A gun has multiple bullets and shots can be taken very quickly.  He could’ve first shot at a non-fatal location of the body such as the arm or leg, but instead he chose to shoot at the center of Deng’s “mass”.  Couldn’t he have spared a bullet or two in trying to disable Deng before going for the kill shot?  The official explanation is that deputies are trained to shoot to stop which means shoot to kill no matter what the situation  Another question that came up is why don’t deputies carry non-lethal weapons which have proven to be extremely effective in most situations.  The report stated he wears (was wearing?) a fanny pack in which he keeps his gun and badge.  They make fanny packs of a large enough size to carry a non-lethal weapon, but for unstated reasons apparently “civil deputies” aren’t issued non-lethal weapons.  This line of questioning has never been answered.  Apparently, the only choice the deputy had was to ask them to stop fighting or shoot to kill.  Shouldn’t there be some other options?

In some countries (such as the UK), the police don’t carry guns.  I would assume that knife fights happen in these other countries.  How do they intervene with non-lethal force?  Obviously, lethal force isn’t the only answer.

Anyways, this justification is what goes for justice in our society.  Either this investigation was biased or simply bungled, but either way it was far from being satisfactory.  I assume that Deputy Stotler had the best of intentions in mind (and so, in that sense, his actions were justified), but some of his own admissions could be interpreted as demonstrating a bias in how he treated the two men differently.  The official report, of course, ignored any possibility of bias which implies a potential bias in the investigation itself.

Whatever is the case, we’ll never get to hear Deng’s side of the story.

 - – -

Official Investigation Report: Quotes and Comments

The  following is a more detailed response to what is specifically said in the report.  Just as a quick note, I’ll say the investigators do seem to have tried to be fair to an extent and much of the analysis is evenhanded.  I commend them in being somewhat open about the process… but, of course, I have some strong criticisms.

 John Bior Deng death investigation (official report)

As one would expect, these eleven reports are inconsistent in many details.  They are consistent, however, in all important respects.  None of them contradict Depuy Stotler’s account in any significant matter.

None dispute, and most specifically observed, that (1) Deng and Bohnenkamp were fighting, (2) Deng displayed a knife, (3) Deng stabbed Bohnenkamp, (4) Deputy Stotler arrived, displayed his handgun and repeatedly identified himself as a deputy sheriff, (5) Stotler ordered the two to desist, (6) The two failed to obey Stotler and kept fighting, (7) Stotler attempted to intervene between the two, (8) Stotler ordered Deng to drop his knife, (9) Deng refused Stotler’s order.

One or more also verify, and none dispute, that (10) the three were within a few feet of one another, and (11) Deng was holding a knife and moving forward when Stotler shot him.

Although the investigators did consider the contradictory witness accounts, they ended up dismissing them entirely.  That aspect of the bias in the report was obvious, but I noticed what appears to be some other biases which are more subtle.  The report is slanted by what data is emphasized and in how it’s presented.

I’ll have to read the report more carefully, but this particular passage seems unclear in its conclusions.  It may be true that “None dispute, and most specifically observed”.  Even assuming this is correct, how many specifically observed and how similar or dissimilar were those observations (details are more important than generalized declarations).  Furthermore, weren’t the dismissed witness accounts disputing some of these observations?

Even more importantly, the last paragraph states “One or more also verify” which seems to imply that it was a minority of the witnesses who claimed that the three were close to each other and that Deng was holding a knife while move forward (towards Bohnenkamp?).

Beyond all of that, there is a further problem in the report with how Bohnenkamp is treated.  I’m glad they gave more info about his actions.  My criticism is that they mostly treat him like a central witness rather than as the instigator of a fight that led to the death of the person he attacked.  There are those who demand that Bohnenkamp be investigated, but there are also those who question why Deputy Stotler told him to flee a crime scene after the Deputy witnessed him beating up Deng. 

Continued from official report:

The fact that Deng was displaying a knife at the time he was shot is also evidenced by the audiotape of a 911 call made by one of the witnesses during the incident.  On this tape, the caller’s mention of a knife is heard seconds before the gunshot.

This supposed fact isn’t proven simply because someone mentions a knife.  There was a knife that was present.  That isn’t disputed.  The caller said, “He had a knife” before the shot.  But the caller doesn’t identify who had the knife or where it came from.  From this caller’s statement, nothing can be determined with absolute certainty.  What is stated in the report is just speculation (which is in disagreement with several of the witness accounts).  Even accepting that it’s a probable conjecture, it’s still different from a proven fact.  I keep wondering how they even know it was Deng’s knife (as far as conjectures go, maybe the knife was Bohnenkamp’s and Deng wrestled it from him… just conjecture of course).  I also wonder at what point can everyone agree they first saw Deng holding the knife (among the witnesses, there may be a majority but there isn’t a concensus that Deng was holding it when he was shot).

This is where audio from the scene would be helpful, but I don’t know if the cameras on the police cars also pick up audio.  I’d like to hear what the police said and asked of the witnesses.  For instance, how do we know one or more other officers didn’t ask some leading questions or make statements that would bias what the witnesses wrote down?

The problem is that the facts are limited and the accounts are contradictory which forces speculation.  On the Iowa City Press Citizen website, commenters who were defending the shooting kept complaining about the speculative questions of critics of the shooting.  However, even the investigators have no choice other than to speculate because without speculation they couldn’t absolutely conclude it was justified.  One way or another, the investigators are going to twist the facts and slant the accounts in order to make a case for justification.  They’re the authorities and so of course they’re going to try to defend the actions of the deputy.

Here is some evidence that the results of the investigation were possibly a foregone conclusion:

KGAN CBS 2 article

After the shooting, Deputy Stotler was put on paid administrative leave while DCI and Iowa City Police investigated the situation. Johnson County Sheriffs Department says he returned to work several weeks ago though, before the investigation report was finished and submitted to the Iowa Attorney Generals Office.

“We understood the situation. We didn’t have all the facts but we felt it was appropriate to bring Deputy Stotler back to work,” says Sheriff Pulkrabek.

CBS 2 asked Sheriff Pulkrabek twice why Deputy Stotler was able to return to work before the report was finished. Both times he simply said the decision was up to him and he believed Deputy Stotler did everything right the night the homeless man was shot.

This is what I’d expect.  If you’re in a position of authority, you’ll tend to believe the opinion of someone else who is in a position of authority.  It’s human nature to defend those you feel identified with.  The question is whether it’s morally just considering that the investigation was ongoing.

There is a further interesting comment from the article:

“Law enforcement is trained to stop the threat. Stop the threat is to shoot at the center mass that’s how we train, says Pulkrabek. He continued saying, when aiming for the torso there is always a chance the shot will kill. However, aiming anywhere else or firing warning shots is too dangerous to any bystanders.

This is a rational for a general statement, but I would prefer to know the factors of Deputy Stotler’s decision in this specific situation.  So, aiming anywhere besides Deng’s mass would potentially be dangerous to bystanders.  That is reasonable considering the purpose of shooting Deng was to protect the other people nearby (Bohnenkamp in particular).  However, I haven’t seen it stated that any bystanders were behind Deng from where Deputy Stotler was standing.  If such were the case, then it’s a point that should be clarified.

The following is a key section of the official report:

Bohnenkamp struck Deng on the side of the head with his fist, knocking Deng to the ground.  Deputy Stotler stepped between Bohnenkamp and Deng, pointed his handgun at Deng and again ordered Bohnenkamp to leave.  Bohnenkamp did not leave.

Deputy Stotler admits that he told the assailant to flee the scene of the crime directly after Bohnenkamp had punched Deng so hard as to knock him to the ground.  Why would a Deputy tell an assailant to flee the scene of the crime?  Furthermore, why does he point the gun at Deng when it’s Bohnenkamp who is acting directly aggressive in that moment?

I did appreciate that they gave Deng’s background as I think it’s important that he isn’t dehumanized simply for being homeless.

John Deng’s license indicates a birthday of January 1, 1983, but in all likelihood, he did not know his actual birth date.  He is one of a group of South Sudanese Dinka tribesman known as “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” who suffered extraordinary mortality and hardship in their odyssey to America, which they began as child orphan victims of tribal and religious genocide during the 1980s.  He entered the United States in 2001 under refugee status, initially residing in Fort Worth, Texas.

According to compatriots in Omaha, Deng had reduced contact with them in recent years.  He had numerous alcohol-related contacts with Iowa City law enforcement beginning in June, 2007.  At the time of his death he was residing in a transient camp near the old Iowa City animal shelter at Kirkwood and Clinton Streets.

  The next paragraph in the report bothers me:

A person is justified in use of deadly force to defend against the use of deadly force against himself or another.  A knife, when used as a weapon to stab another person, creating a sustantial risk of death, permanent disfigurement, or protracted impairment of bodily member or organ, is deadly force.

Yes, this is true.  Then again, beating someone so hard that you knock them to the pavement is also deadly force as defined here.

Maybe Deng was going to stab Bohnenkamp again, but maybe Bohnenkamp was going to beat on Deng some more.  Did Deputy Stotler happen to notice whether Bohnenkamp’s fist was clenching?  I doubt it.

Anyways, why did Deputy Stotler shoot at Deng to protect Bohnenkamp who started the fight and wanted to continue it?  If Bohnenkamp wasn’t worried about being stabbed, then why was Deputy Stotler?  Going by the witness accounts, it seems Bohnenkamp had the advantage as he was beating up Deng despite the knife.

Plus, it’s important to note that it isn’t illegal (as far as I know) to defend oneself (with or without a weapon) when being physically attacked.  It wasn’t illegal for Deng to threaten to stab or even to stab someone who was physically attacking him (and you most definitely can kill someone simply by beating on them enough).  In Iowa, it’s legal to carry a pocket knife and the report didn’t make any claims of it being an illegal size.  The only thing that Deng did that was illegal was to not obey the Deputy, but Bohnenkamp wasn’t obeying the Deputy either.

One other detail from the report brings questions to my mind.

When Deng was approximately five feet away from Bohnenkamp, Stotler saw Deng “tensing up, getting ready to stick him again.”  At that point, Deputy Stotler fired one round at Deng.

So, Bohnenkamp was some distance away.  Taking into account Deng being intoxicated and just having been beat to the ground, he wasn’t likely to cover that distance very quickly.  Bohnenkamp had plenty of opportunity to remove himself from danger if he so desired.  Who was Deputy Stotler trying protect and why?

 - – -

Summary:

(1) I think the alternative witness accounts should be considered more seriously.

(2) Even dismissing the alternative witness accounts, I think Deputy Stotler’s actions should be analyzed more carefully for potential bias.

(3) Even if Deputy Stotler is given the benefit of the doubt, Bohnenkamp’s actions are unforgivable and he should be investigated (along with an investigation of why his blood alcohol level was never tested).

(4) Whatever the judgments made of the individuals involved, it’s sad and the case should be studied to see if there are ways to prevent this in the future.

 - – -

Further comments on Prejudice and Profiling:

I wrote some extensive comments and so I posted it separately.

John Bior Deng: Racism, Classism

 - – -

Newspaper Articles:

Here are some various articles about the Deng case.  I quote extensively from them to present some of the questions, criticism, and alternative views.  My purpose is to show that many people share my concerns and there are good reasons for those concerns.

Shooting justified, AG’s office concludes by Lee Hermiston

Deputy Attorney General Thomas H. Miller, complied the final report, which is based on investigation completed by the Iowa City Police Department, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Attorney General’s office. Thomas said there were essentially 16 people encompassed in the investigation – Deng, Bohnenkamp and his wife, nine witnesses interviewed at the scene and three people who were later subpoenaed after comments they made about the shooting were published in an area media outlet.

The statements of those three men, which were contradictory to statements made by the other nine witnesses, are largely discredited in Miller’s report.The men reported Deng did not have a knife and Stotler did not identify himself as a deputy.

 

Homeless man did not threaten deputy, 2 witnesses say by Adam Belz

 Two men who watched a Johnson County deputy shoot a homeless man to death Friday night tell a story that’s sharply different from the account police have so far provided.

The 26-year-old homeless man was not wielding a knife and did not lunge at the deputy before the deputy fired, said Brock Brones and Mike Tibbetts, both of Iowa City.

“There was no knife, there was no lunging,” Tibbetts said. “I saw a cop shoot a guy in cold blood.”

Brones, 22, and Tibbetts, 40, who both work for a telecommunications company in Iowa City, got off work at 7 p.m. Friday and drove with another co-worker to Old Capitol Brew Works to have a drink. As their vehicle was coming out of the alley next to City Electric, which was blocked by bags of cans and bottles and some broken glass, they saw the episode unfolding to their left and turned off the radio so they could hear what was going on.

A skinny black man was lying on the pavement with his head against the tire of a car about 40 feet away. He was missing teeth, his clothes were dirty and he had blood on his torso. The deputy, wearing civilian clothes, had a gun pointed at the man, and a third man — whose side was covered in blood — was standing next to the deputy telling him to shoot, Brones and Tibbetts said.

The homeless man on the ground appeared to be drunk, they said. The deputy told him not to get up, or he would shoot, Brones and Tibbetts said.

“I don’t give a f—,” the homeless man responded.

The deputy repeated the threat, and ordered the man to stay down. Again, the homeless man said he didn’t care. Then he stood up, spread his arms, and stumbled a few feet to the side before the deputy shot him in the chest from about 15 feet away, Brones and Tibbetts said.

The two men insisted the homeless man had no knife when he was shot.

In fact, Brones said, the homeless man was wobbling, and, though he disobeyed the deputy, he never made a threatening move.

“It wasn’t aggressive,” Brones said. “He was just drunk.” 

 

Our View – Justifying the shooting raises more questions

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another — the classification is for advantage of the lawyers. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary” (1911).

[...]But the report raised a number of new questions when it stated that, after Stotler had arrived on the scene and had his gun pointed at Deng, Bohnenkamp allegedly refused to follow Stotler’s command to flee. Instead, the report states, Bohnenkamp allegedly punched Deng in the head so hard that the man fell down. Nor did Bohnenkamp, according to the report, follow Stotler’s repeated orders to flee even after Deng stood up and eventually made what Stotler considered a threatening move.

Because Bohnenkamp has offered no comment on the incident — and because Deng can’t comment — we still don’t know what all was said between the two men. The report states that Bohnenkamp initiated the confrontation when he yelled at Deng for dropping some bottles, but we don’t know why the confrontation seemed to escalate so quickly or why Bohnenkamp didn’t flee when given a chance.

Nor do we know how much (if any) Bohnenkamp had been drinking before the incident. Although Bohnenkamp had just come out of a bar, investigators did not measure the 63-year-old’s blood-alcohol content — despite Bohnenkamp having been taken to the hospital where a blood sample presumably could have been procured easily.

  

Questions still remain in Deng death by Michael Dale-Stein

Why in his right mind would Bohnenkamp care, let alone confront, a man who accidentally spilled his means of income? My first thought is that by consuming alcohol, Bohnenkamp’s inhibitions and judgment were to the point that he felt persuaded to do so. We’ve all seen the homeless people carrying garbage bags full of cans, but I have found no good reason to clash with them.

Although the police investigation tested Deng’s blood-alcohol content and found it to be .295 percent, they did not find it necessary to test Bohnenkamp’s. It is unacceptable for the police not to test the alcohol level of a man leaving a bar who was involved for the death of another, whether it was in self-defense
or not.

I say responsible for a good reason.

When Stotler identified himself and drew his gun after Deng stabbed Bohnenkamp, the deputy specifically yelled “Run! Get out of here” to Bohnenkamp, according to the official report. Instead of fleeing the situation, Bohnenkamp escalated it by striking Deng in the head, which prompted Deng to charge with the knife. Then Stotler discharged his weapon.

  

Deng and race relations by Cliff Missen

This privilege was apparent at Friday’s news conference, particularly in the comfort with which members of the all-white panel were able to justify the actions of the white belligerent in the case. John Bohnenkamp, a white 63-year-old facilities worker at the University of Iowa, had, according to most witnesses, felt obliged to harass and physically assault Deng, a black man, because Deng had spilled bottles he had collected for recycling. Not once during the proceedings did our white leaders question this act.

So this is the kind of community we are building: One in which 60-year-old white guys, upon leaving a bar, are deputized to monitor inebriated young black guys and make sure — using physical force if necessary — they clean up their litter?

From all the accounts we have, it appears that the white man was determined to cause a ruckus — despite his wife screaming at him to leave. The white man physically assaulted the black man before being stabbed with a pocket knife. The white man disobeyed an officer’s instructions several times, continuing to attack the black man.

Yet after the shooting the white man was not arrested. He did not have his blood alcohol tested. His role in causing the tragic event was not investigated.

Switching positions

The report states that the white officer displayed his badge, identified himself as a deputy and drew his gun and pointed it at the black man. He ordered the two men to move away from each other. The white man then hauled off and slugged the black man in the head hard enough to send him sprawling onto the ground. The white officer kept his gun pointed at the black man and then coached the white man to run away.

Imagine yourself in Deng’s shoes at this moment. You’re a young, intoxicated Sudanese refugee with middling English skills. You’ve been physically assaulted by an enraged old white man. You’re trying to defend yourself. Another white man shows up in street clothes and points a gun at you. The first white man delivers a powerful punch to your head that sends you flying off of your feet. The white guy with the gun is still pointing it at you and telling the other guy to run away.

Now let’s stop the camera for a moment and switch positions. If the white police officer had identified himself, ordered the combatants to part and then watched a black man slam a white man in the head, I’m fairly confident that the same group of white community leaders would have stood before us on Friday and assured us that the white officer was justified in shooting the black man.

But in real life, the white officer did not point the gun at the white man after witnessing the blow to the black man’s head. He did not try to arrest him. He did not demand that he lie on the ground. He did not do or say anything to assure the black man that he was not in greater danger.

Bohnenkamp, who is probably more responsible for the tragedy than anyone else, is given a pass. It’s the white man’s privilege. The white police, who did not follow up on the case, are given a pass. The white county attorney, who said she sees nothing wrong with the lack of an investigation so far, is given a pass.

Deng, who probably died a frightened man who thought he was defending himself against a raging drunk, is buried.

  

The ongoing controversy of John Deng by DI Editorial Staff

Before the incident took place, Bohnenkamp and his wife were inside the Hawkeye Hideaway, a tavern on Prentiss Street. At the time they exited the bar, Deng was crossing the street carrying bags of bottles, one of which spilled its contents. Bohnenkamp then confronted Deng, ordering the Sudanese man to pick up the bottles. Why in his right mind would Bohnenkamp care, let alone confront, a man who accidentally spilled his means of income? My first thought is that by consuming alcohol, Bohnenkamp’s inhibitions and judgment were to the point that he felt persuaded to do so. We’ve all seen the homeless people carrying garbage bags full of cans, but I have found no good reason to clash with them. 

Although the police investigation tested Deng’s blood-alcohol content and found it to be .295 percent, they did not find it necessary to test Bohnenkamp’s. It is unacceptable for the police not to test the alcohol level of a man leaving a bar who was primarily involved — and somewhat responsible — for the death of another, whether it was in self-defense or not.

I say responsible for a good reason.

When Stotler identified himself and drew his gun after Deng stabbed Bohnenkamp, the deputy specifically yelled “Run! Get out of here” to Bohnenkamp, according to the official report. Instead of fleeing the situation, Bohnenkamp escalated it by striking Deng in the head, which prompted Deng to charge with the knife. Then Stotler discharged his weapon.

 - – -

Did authorities conduct a complete investigation? 

No.It seems John Bohnenkamp was partially responsibly for John Deng’s death and should be charged for being involved in the altercation.

 33% (18)

No. They should have checked Bohnenkamp’s blood-alcohol concentration.

 20% (11)

Yes. They used what resources were available to them.

 13% (7)

Yes. It’s over and done with.

  35% (19)

 

In whose interest, safety?  by Vershawn Ashanti Young

First, everyone knows that Stotler has been absolved of any misjudgment, mishandling or wrongdoing in his shooting of Deng. But any citizen who can read should be alarmed by his own account of the events.

In the report given to the public, Stotler says he arrived at the scene where John Bohnenkamp had instigated an altercation with Deng. Stotler writes that he immediately told Bohnenkamp to “run, get out of here,” without trying to find out what had taken place beforehand.

Bohnenkamp did not leave the scene but instead became emboldened and hit Deng so hard that Deng fell to the ground. Instead of apprehending Bohnenkamp, Stotler said he again told Bohnenkamp to leave the scene. Bohnenkamp refused.

Deng begins to get up and perhaps stumbles or perhaps makes a move toward Bohnenkamp — no two statements agree on which — and the officer shoots him because Deng refuses to drop a small knife!

I asked the officials at the meeting if Deng had been a pregnant woman, would Stotler had allowed Bohnenkamp to hit her and knock her to the ground and then encourage Bohnenkamp to leave the crime scene.

I was not exactly posing a hypothetical scenario as much as I wanted to take attention off Stotler/Deng and ask about proper protocols. What should an officer do when a person clearly assaults someone in the officer’s face? Encourage the offender to run or handcuff him?

It’s a huge problem that Stotler by his very own admission repeatedly encouraged the only assailant he witnessed commit a crime to leave the crime scene. And, it’s an even bigger problem that Stotler shoots the victim of battery because he maybe made a threatening move, maybe made a move in self-defense.

I ask you, reader, if you were involved in an altercation that you didn’t start, and the police arrive and allow the perpetrator to continue not only to berate you but beat you, knocking you to the ground, would you drop your knife?

  

Citizens for social justice by Vershawn Ashanti Young

In May, in a conversation with Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson, I predicted that a black man would be killed this summer by a local police officer, probably under unclear circumstances. I also said that the citizens of Iowa City would probably be insufficiently enraged.

I was right about the first prediction. According to local media reports, John Bior Deng, a 26-year-old black man, was killed Friday by Terry Stotler, a plainclothes civil deputy for the Johnson County Sheriff’s department. And the circumstances are unclear: There are conflicting reports from the officer and some eyewitnesses. The officer says the man was threatening another civilian with a knife. Two people who said they witnessed the event told another local media outlet that there was no weapon and that the officer shot him “in cold blood.”

I hope I’m wrong about the second prediction. Concerned citizens of Iowa City should expect a full disclosure of the details about the actions that lead to Deng’s death, about the investigation and about what, if any, actions the police department, city and state will take.

Each citizen’s concern should stem from both personal and community interest. We respect our police, depend on their sound judgment for our personal safety and well-being, as well as promoting a safe environment in our city.

We also expect that the police will protect all people — middle-class ones and homeless ones alike — and are well-trained to handle complicated circumstances that seek to sustain people’s lives. We should expect police to protect their own lives as well as any and all those involved in any activities they’re investigating.

This case, as reported, has big and serious questions. One is: Why is that 26-year-old homeless man dead? We don’t know all the facts yet. But we should certainly want to, especially given the contradictory reports.

One of my own concerns is about the way Deng is being represented as a trouble-maker — a criminal, a nuisance to our town — as if that somehow justifies his killing and alleviates others involved from responsibility. Homeless or not, unpleasant or not, drunk or not, this man, like everyone else in the city, had rights. Were those rights protected, respected?

Because the summer breeds more trouble than winter, just as night is scarier than day, and because of the unfair way I perceive some media and some city residents represent black men, I raised the prediction with Charis-Carlson. There is a tendency, I think, to associate what some say is an increasing crime problem with blacks — blacks that many say are ruining Iowa City.

Perhaps some of this true. I’m uncertain about that. But what I know for sure is that no group of people should be vilified as a group. No group of people should be made to feel as if they can’t live in a town or that they somehow have less rights or concern than other citizens.

This kind of belief, when it’s shared and spoken, leads to ambivalence regarding the lives of the group. We don’t care as much about them. But we should. When we don’t, it contributes to a disregard for them. And that disregard is represented in how we much concern we show in cases like the dead homeless man’s.

 * * *

And we seemed so green and settled here,

could you find a life, a wife?

But kind strangers do not suffice

when inside howls a whirlwind

as loud as burning houses.

And our own quiet houses

which you pass by on your daily sojourn

are none of them as settled as they seem.

 * * *

John Bior Deng - Friend, Family, Human Being:

I was glad to see a few articles that describe who John Deng was as a person.

Two views of John Dengby Diane Finnerty

Iowa City resident John Bior Deng, 26, died of injuries from a single gunshot wound on July 24. Deng was well-loved by his Iowa City friends and was described as a kind, generous man who would always say “God bless you” as he passed you on the street.

Deng was originally from the Sudan and came to the U.S. as a refugee who overcame many horrendous struggles, including having survived brutal experiences in his home country where his people were ravished by a civil war between 1983 and 2002.

Deng was only 26 when all of the struggles of his life brought him to Prentiss Street the evening on July 24, where he was killed by a white police officer after getting in a fight with a white man who yelled at him for breaking bottles on the street. Friends who knew Deng say that the account of him “throwing bottles” onto the street would be unlikely, given that the bottles were Deng’s income.

Friends are very glad that the man whom Deng stabbed, John Bohnenkamp, is still alive, and they are very confused at what might have happened to enrage the person they otherwise knew as gentle and kind to stab another person. It is yet to be determined what the other Iowa City resident said to Deng and how it was said, but some eyewitness accounts tell a different story than, as yet to date, has been reported in the newspaper.

The Iowa City Sudanese community mourns the loss of their young brother, as well as the loss of their community’s nascent sense of safety in their new homeland far from the brutal violence they experienced in Sudan. 

 * * *

We heard later you found some peace

with the players of the drums whose hands,

beat with the time of the heart,

with the voices of a father, a mother and cousins.

“I so happy,” you said.

 * * *

He wasn’t just some homeless transient passing through.  He had lived in Iowa City for a few years and even had been employed for part of that time.  He was just a guy with a troubled past that finally caught up with him.  He was an alcoholic which is a common way to deal with trauma.

Even so, he was just a person like the rest of us… just trying to get by in life.  But his life wasn’t simply a thing of misery.  He had friends and family.  And he apparently had some very happy moments here in Iowa City.  I liked the description of him involved in the drum circle.  I’ve spent much time in the ped mall and I’m very familiar with that drum circle.  As I live and work downtown, I’m sure I had seen Deng around in the past.

Some note different side of John Deng by Abe Tekippe

Canganelli, who said she was not defending any of Deng’s alleged actions, acknowledged that while “there were a lot of issues he was dealing with,” the person Shelter House staff was familiar with was “quite personable,” “quiet,” and “even-tempered.”

Others in the community who had encountered Deng agreed.

“He didn’t have a lot of English under his belt,” said Cliff Missen, the coordinator of Yahoo Drummers, a group that plays on the Pedestrian Mall on Monday nights. “He had a good sense of rhythm, though; I know that much.”

In the weeks prior to his death, Deng had joined the drummers downtown, said Missen, who is also an associate director of the UI School of Library and Information Science.

He said he didn’t even know Deng’s name prior to the shooting, because they spent most of their time drumming, not talking.

“We were looking forward to seeing him on Monday,” Missen said.

Just before Missen went to the Pedestrian Mall on Monday, he found out Deng was the man who had been shot over the weekend, prompting the group of drummers to play a slow, mournful song in his honor.

Though he had only met Deng a few weeks before his death and he admitted he didn’t know him very well, Missen said his memories of the 26-year-old have resonated.

“My last vision of him was standing behind the drums [July 20],” he said. “He just had this grin from ear to ear. He said in his broken English, ‘This is happy, this is so happy.’ It gives us a little comfort that he had those moments of joy.”

 - – -

For various reasons besides his death, thinking about Deng saddens me.  I assume he probably lost family in Sudan and certainly lost his home, and so I was surpised to learn he did have some extended family members also in the US.  However, this saddens me as well.  It seems he wasn’t in close contact with them.  His family didn’t even know he was having troubles.  I suppose Deng felt ashamed.  He was dealing with problems that were just too large.

In Memory of John Deng by Gark

His uncle Peter from Houston, Texas related to the overflowing crowd that while Deng was considered by many to be “homeless”, in the Sudanese community, if you have family, you have a home. He was saddened that Deng did not let others know what his situation was. Others explained that in Sudan, many members of the family would share their plates, their huts, and so on. His cousin from Michigan described their childhood in the Sudan and how all of them had come to the United States for the freedom they could not have in their war torn country. His cousin from Nebraska encouraged anyone who may have witnessed his death to step forward and help them to understand the killing of a young man they and many others knew to be peace loving.

A cook at the Salvation Army described her conversations with Deng as uplifting and that he was very sensitive to offending her, offering “five minute apologies” if he suspected he said anything that might have made her uncomfortable. Another woman explained how he would bring her a chicken sandwich and cherry cola when he’d see her in the Ped Mall. Another told of how he helped to deliver chairs from the UI Surplus with a smile.

Many reflected that the newspaper accounts of the events leading to Deng’s death made him a person they did not recognize and wanted people to know the Deng they remembered. 

 * * *

But we have guns here too, and knives

and angry words and nighttime and confusion.

And the bullet you had fled for so long

found you here in this green, quiet place

(we may never know all the what or why).

 * * *

Davey Collins, of Iowa City, beats his drum during the funeral service for John Deng, 26, of Iowa City, held at Lensing’s Oak Hill in Coralville on Saturday, August 8, 2009. Deng played in Collins’ drum circle on occasion.  (Source for image: Gazette Online) 

Lost Boys – Related Issues of Deng’s Past:

John Deng’s death brings up many issues.  There are the basic issues of poverty, homelessness, class, and race.  But there is the issue of immigration and refugees.  In particular, refugees such as the Lost Boys of Sudan pose a problem for this country, but also for the world at large.  It brings up issues of morality and there is no simple resolution.  The people who need the most help are those who for that very reason are the hardest to help.

Deng having survived the Sudanese genocide was no small feat.  He had the opportunity to start a new life, but trauma has a way of haunting a person and one never forgets it (technically known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).  Many would claim that the problems of refugees from other countries aren’t our problems and we shouldn’t be allowing them into our country.  This is not only cold-hearted, but it’s also a fatalistic view of human nature.  Many Lost Boys have become productive citizens, but many have had continued problems adjusting.

On top of the trauma itself, there is the stress and challenge of adapting to an entirely different culture and way of life.  For example, I think I saw an article report that Deng had missing teeth which would be common for the Lost Boys because the removal of teeth was part of their tribal initiations, but in America missing teeth have a very negative connotation.  These young orphans sometimes lacked education (or lacked the proof of their education) and there difficulties most definitely didn’t end with coming to America.  Basically, they had everything going against them.  They stuck close together because they all shared a history of loss.

The question is how did Deng end up here in Iowa City.  There is a Sudanese population here, but Deng didn’t begin his new life in Iowa (a KCRG article – Family of Homeless Iowa City Man Shot by Deputy Grieve and Ask for Answers– did mention he had some family in Iowa and one family member (Tiir): ”Deng’s death isn’t the first family death they’ve had involving law enforcement. He said another cousin died in a Des Moines jail, but didn’t elaborate.”).  According to the official report, he was “initially residing in Fort Worth, Texas.”  This fact is eery in that, as reported in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, another Lost Boy recently stabbed someone in Fort Worth.  Fortunately, no one died in that case.

Stabbing suspect is ‘Lost Boys’ refugee by Elizabeth Zavala

FORT WORTH — A man shot by police Monday after they said he repeatedly stabbed a UPS driver on her delivery route was one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” refugees who came to Fort Worth this decade, a minister said Tuesday.

Police identified the suspect as James Panchol, 32. Panchol was in critical condition Tuesday and was scheduled for surgery at John Peter Smith Hospital, said Sgt. Pedro Criado, a police spokesman.

A hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday that she had no information on the man, but Gatjang Deng, a friend of Panchol’s, said he was in critical condition with gunshot wounds to his neck, left arm and chest.

Wichieng Wetnyangran, associate pastor of African Immigrant Ministries at Peace Lutheran Church in Hurst, said Panchol was part of the group of about 40 Lost Boys who came to Tarrant County in 2001. More than 4 million refugees came to the United States to escape years of civil war and famine in their country.

“It’s absolutely a shock,” Wetnyangran said of reports that Panchol is a suspect in the stabbing. “That was a part of the life they ran away from. They were hoping their lives would change.”

Wetnyangran, who had a similar role at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort Worth when the refugees arrived, recalls that Panchol had to undergo treatment for mental illness but does not remember the specifics.

Deng, also a Sudanese refugee, said Panchol was prescribed medication a few years ago for a mental condition but was unsure whether Panchol was still taking it.

According to Texas Department of Public Safety records, Panchol pleaded guilty in Tarrant County in 2002 to a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.

During Monday’s incident, officers were called about 12:30 p.m. to a reported stabbing at the Bent Tree apartments on Randall Way in west Fort Worth. Witnesses told police that the man approached the UPS driver and repeatedly stabbed her in the back, according to reports.

The driver apparently broke free and ran, police and witnesses said. The man was chasing the woman when police arrived. He was ordered twice by officers to drop the knife and refused each time, police said. When one of the officers fired a Taser at the man, he charged her, police said, and the other officer shot the suspect with his weapon.

“They told me the Taser did work, but the suspect pulled the probes out of his body,” Criado said. The officer who deployed the Taser was treated for minor injuries and is on paid administrative leave.

The UPS driver, whose name has not been released, is 50. She was treated for stab wounds Monday at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth, was listed in good condition and was expected to be released Monday night, Criado said.

The suspect and the driver did not know each other, he said.

 - – -

I was doing some web research on the Lost Boys of Sudan.  There are plenty of success stories.  Some went onto college or became active in helping their fellow Sudanese (in the US and in Sudan).  What I was struck by is there desire to accomplish their goals on their own and they supposedly haven’t accepted much government assistance (although some church communities offered help when they first arrived).  One thing that can be said about these Lost Boys is that they are survivors and they can take care of themselves (which, however, has obvious downsides as some problems can’t be solved by one self).

A New Life for a ‘Lost Boy’ of Sudan (NPR)

‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ Finally Find a Home (NPR)

‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ Reunion (NPR)

Revisiting Sudan’s Haunted ‘Lost Boys’ (NPR)

Lost in America (salon.com)

Are the Lost Boys still lost? (Seattle Weekly)

Stress issues still plague ‘Lost Boys’ of Sudan (azcentral.com)

Sudanese “Lost Boys” in the United States:Adjustment after Six Months (BRYCS)

The Lost Boys of Sudan: Ambiguous Loss, Search forFamily, and Reestablishing RelationshipsWith Family Members (Family Relations Journal)

Resettling the ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ in the United States: BU medical researchers find family, community engagement may mediate traumatic reaction (Science Blog)

The “Lost Boys of Sudan”: Functional and Behavioral Health of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Resettled in the United States (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine)

It’s a sad fact that there are a number of examples of Lost Boys who have lived troubled lives and in some cases died violently.  For those like Deng, life didn’t work out so well.  Even for those who are successful, the trauma of their past (and the still occurring violence in Sudan) isn’t easily forgotten.

This is extremely sad because it’s unnecessary.  Idealistically speaking, violence is unnecessary as a general rule, but that isn’t what I mean.  There was an attitude after the Nazi death camps of WWII.  Many people thought we had fought the good fight and we had won.  Never again, was the collective declaration.  Yet, genocides keep happening and some of them have been far worse than anything experienced by the Jewish community.

Between imperialistic colonizing and the World Wars, 20th century Africa was left in endless conflict.  The many genocides that have occurred there were caused by Western interference in local cultures which gave favor to particular groups.  Even America, which isn’t generally considered imperialistic in the traditional sense, was built upon the slave trade coming out of Africa as it was being colonized.  The race clashes in the US have their origins in the history of colonized Africa.  African-American slaves saw more trauma than even the Lost Boys, and it was upon this collective trauma that the African-American community was built.  Colonization, exploitation, slavery, cultural destruction, World Wars, genocide… all of the modern world is built on collective trauma.  The Lost Boys are just a sign of the times.

John Deng may now be dead, but this deep-seated conflict in the world remains.  People who think they can isolate themselves and their communities from these problems are being very naive.  Besides, too many Americans forget that their own ancestors were also refugees escaping persecution and ended up spreading their trauma to every other culture they met (be it Africans or Native Americans).  None of us are innocent, but all of us are deserving compassion.

 * * *

You were laid here to rest

so you could settle at last in the earth,

where your village rejoined around you

their prayers burning with sorrow and memories.

And we are none of us so settled,

not so settled

as we seem.

Mourners gather as the casket is lowered during the burial service for John Deng, 26, of Iowa City, held at St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Iowa City on Saturday, August 8, 2009. (Chris Mackler/The Gazette).  (Source for image: Gazette Online)