Monday, April 20, 2015

#110

http://www.eliteskills.com/c/14576

I can’t track down the specific incident this poem is referring to. It’s frank about its subject, though. A child, it seems, was horribly drowned, and the NYPD let the perpetrators off the hook, an incident in Berryman’s more widespread accusation of frames and cover-ups.

In 2015, police corruption has been prominent in the news, especially with the seemingly unjustified use of bullets against black men. This is enabled by cover ups, a code of silence amongst police officers, and a blanket public tolerance of police misconduct, with lots of causes: Racism. (You think?) A brainless belief in American exceptionalism, i.e., we’re the greatest country in the world so these kinds of things can’t happen here and if you think that you’re a nattering nabob of negativity (thanks, Spiro Agnew) or some liberal elitist out to destroy the forces that protect the America we love. Fearful and/or cowardly officers, with some justification due to the absurd culture of radical gun ownership spreading through the country they’re forced to confront. And don’t forget simple murderous psychopaths mistakenly given the prestige and protection of a uniform and a badge, and which as a society we have trouble admitting the error of.

Depending on who I envision reading it, there are various responses I could make. More precisely, the language one might use would have to suit the audience: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark; systemic militarization of police forces coupled with inadequate enforcement of consequences and a culture of corruption. The man is freakin’ out.

I’m sheltered from it. I’ve had Cincinnati cops get snarky with me on one or two occasions, but they didn’t Taser me or shoot me, in part because I was polite and white. On other occasions, I’ve had cops let me go. (I got pulled over after a trip to the vet because I was speeding. I admit that. But I also had an outstanding parking ticket that I never knew about that I actually could have been arrested for. With a crying baby and a moaning cat in the car, he let me go. He could have taken me in and really, really wrecked my day.) But I admit that charges of police misconduct infuriate me as much as anything I can think of. Well, I resent power: I don’t like administrators, supervisors, people telling me what to do in general. But I haven’t moved to a heavily armed compound in Idaho over it either. These positions in the social order are all necessary, so I smile and do what I’m told because I understand it. But abuse that power? I want the abuser fried. (Freudian type-slip: I meant to type “fired” and it somehow didn’t come out that way. We’ll let “fried” stay. This happens to me at times; it’s normal when you type faster than your editorial superego can keep up.)

So, an angry political protest poem, about a specific instance of police misconduct, who swept the murder of a child under the rug. I’d be mad too. But what does this poem actually accomplish, I wonder? It appears to want to accomplish something, not just exist in some state of timeless beauty. There isn’t room for much specific prompting toward justice in publishing a poem, probably published a year or more, at least, after the alleged crime was committed. There may be district attorneys and prosecutors current with the latest in literary poetry, but I suspect they’re few. It’s not like a letter to the editor or to a Congressman or something like that. It has to have a broader agenda. I saw a painting in Paris once, now housed in the Musée d’Orsay, by Honoré Daumier, titled The Thieves and the Ass. The painting depicts a brutal murder, while the victim’s donkey is led away by an accomplice. I’ve often thought about this painting, and this poem reminds me of it. Obviously, the painting isn’t about seeking justice for the murderers who killed someone for the paltry prize of his donkey. It’s fictional anyway. The painting is a universal statement about human brutality, and there is more than a little bit of spit mixed in with the oil paint on this canvas. It’s a broad indictment of the stupidity of violence, and the presence of the donkey in the background underscores how “asinine” violence is in general. This painting came from an artistic sensibility who didn’t hold back on expressing contempt. The point is to pierce sentimental conceptions of life, France, justice—you name it—and display corruption and violence, as it really looks, for all to witness. I haven’t studied Daumier, but I would expect him to be an idealist on some level. He might paint such a violent scene to simply accuse his fellow degraded humans, a simple expression of spite and contempt (seems at least possible), but I would think there’s a further expectation that illuminating sin with the hot light of truth can have the effect of drying it up, like a trickle of dumpster juice that oozes out of the shade of its dumpster into the hot sun. It stops smelling at least. This gesture would rely on recognition of a fundamental impulse toward justice and the common good in most people. Without that, there’s no point in such a painting, other than the satisfaction of releasing spite, like hawking out a loogie.

B. is up to something similar. Art can on occasion have some kind of immediate sociological effect: John and Yoko singing “All You Need Is Love” on TV from their bed, or novels like The Jungle, some of Bob Dylan’s songs. But I tend to think it’s most effective over the long run, slowly changing attitudes and conceptions at a deep level. Picasso’s Guernica, with all its depiction of horror, was meant first to comment on this immediate level, since in 1937, when he painted it, the Nazi Fascists were just getting their war machine rolling. But the painting is most effective as a reminder to people of what certain of us are capable of, and as a warning against the next opportunity for inciting woe and chaos. B. is working as part of the counter-culture in his poem, criticizing police corruption broadly, even though the vehicle of his message is a particular incident. Of course, the lesson maybe wasn’t effective over the long run as he might have wished, but artists and those of us interested in justice at all levels will keep exposing and criticizing the donkey thefts as we learn of them. It’s one of art’s values.

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