Hello, Culture Shock, My Old Friend

I've undergone transcontinental relocation enough times to know better, but I honestly thought this time would be different.

This time, I was in my twenties – old enough to cope; not like when I was a child, trying to grow up at the same time as adjusting to new places.

This time, I was moving to from the UK to the US – a paltry cultural difference. Was I not a connoisseur of American TV/movies/internets? Had I not lived from the ages of one to seven in Alabama? Surely I was entirely prepared for all aspects of life in the States.

This time, the decision was wholly mine – not dictated by my parents (whose choices, admittedly, I don't recall ever objecting to, and sometimes actively encouraged). I'd never wanted anything more than I wanted to move 5000 miles west and take my rightful place as a grad student in ~California~.

And, of course, it really did seem that way at first. I instantly felt as though I fit in. School was everything I hoped it would be. New friends were abundant and wonderful. The weather was gorgeous. For about three months, it was like being ever so slightly drunk all the damn time.

For the past three months, though, it's been more like being ever so slightly hungover all the damn time. This is literally textbook culture shock, and it's really stupid that I wasn't prepared for it. I just... thought it would be different.

I thought it would be easy, because I was comparing it to the last transcontinental upheaval. That was when we moved from Kenya to Scotland, which is a hell of a cultural transition. That was when I was thirteen, which is a hell of an age. In comparison, this move should have been a cakewalk.

I thought it would be easy, because I imagined that I would be used to this by now. I am a third culture kid. Wanderlust runs in my veins. I crave new places. Not for me the desire to be settled. Not for me the need to feel from somewhere. Not for me the constant belittling comparisons of the new place with the vastly superior place where I last lived. Me, I positively revel in the fact that everywhere on Earth I am a stranger in a strange land. You can't feel homesick if nowhere is home.

I thought it would be easy. I was wrong.

Final (I Hope) Words On The Rioters

You can attribute the riots to naked human greed, selfishness, and lust for violence. And you wouldn't be wrong.

You can also state that the cause of World War One was naked human greed, selfishness, and lust for violence. You can say that they were the cause of the Holocaust. Of British colonialism. Of genocide in Rwanda. Of every terrible thing humans have ever done.

And you would be right.

But – and this is history 101 – obviously they're not the only cause. Because, if they were, riots and World War One and genocide wouldn't be events to be commented upon, analyzed, and condemned. They would be happening nonstop. Brutality is latent in all of us, but humans as a group don't go round acting on this brutality without some kind of cause. Even if the cause is only opportunity without fear of the consequences (in which case, we should be asking why there is opportunity and why there is no fear of the consequences).

By blaming only the greed and selfishness of individuals, who are you helping? What are you achieving? You're not helping people who have lost everything to the awful arson and looting. You're not helping the people who feel powerless, disenfranchised, and angry. You're not helping the people who feel so disconnected from society that they think it's okay to smash shops and steal stuff and set buildings on fire. You're not helping the society that has failed to make these people feel a part of it.

And you're sure as shit not stopping this from happening again.

London Riots, Media Narratives, "Scum"

I used to trust the media to tell me the truth, tell us the truth

But now I see the payoffs everywhere I look

Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?

Revolution calling...

--Queensrÿche, “Revolution Calling”

First of all, that is an awesome song off a seriously awesome record. Second of all, it is some cold hard TRUTH.

One of the things I love about social media is its ability to tell us what's really going on. The more I engage with the blogosphere, the more I understand how mainstream news sources are all skewed to a certain framework. It's not a great conspiracy; it's not even necessarily a bad thing – it's just that every part of the media has an agenda. Value-neutral example: earlier this year, when all the US news sources I follow were glued to the protests in Wisconsin, the only US-related item in the BBC evening news was coverage of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. That's because the BBC's agenda is to be the British Broadcasting Corporation, so it skews Britain-centric. What's important is to be aware of the skews and biases in the media you consume – and, ideally, to vary your news media diet enough that you can piece together a picture of the world by seeing it from different angles.

What's astonishing to me is how many people I know are uncritically consuming the mainstream media narrative of the London riots.

David Cameron has called them “criminality, pure and simple” and promised a tough response. An awful lot of people are being very vocal about their agreement with his rhetoric and his tactics.

For days now my Facebook feed has been flooded with snarling, reactionary calls for the protestors' blood. When I posted a request for people not to use the nasty, dehumanizing, highly prevalent term “scum”, I got a wealth of “but they ARE scum!” responses.

Now, I joined Facebook when I started university, so my Facebook friends are primarily people who are attending or have recently attended one of the world's highest-ranked universities – which is a nice way of saying that my friends are predominantly white and middle-class. And, as much as it sickens but doesn't really surprise me to see the awful violence spreading across England, I'm sickened but unsurprised to the same degree to see my Facebook friends spew hatred and violent rhetoric about the rioters.

I don't condone the violence. Obviously. But the braying self-righteousness of these responses is indicative of people who don't want to try to understand. They're not prepared to engage with the complexities at hand. They're not willing to examine the socioeconomic and political contributing factors. It seems to me that they just want to point the finger at looters and arsonists, declare their moral outrage, and sit back feeling smug that they would never act like those scum.

Well, how the fuck do you know that?

Youth unemployment is over 20%. Not everyone can get into a top university and rely on the mater and pater to support them financially (speaking, I hasten to add, as one who did and is doing exactly that). Not everyone can broadly trust the police to not kill them. Not everyone is white and middle-class. Who the hell are you to judge people “scum” when you haven't even tried to understand where they're coming from?

To you, it's just teenage hooligans embracing their greed and lust for violence. To you, it's just mindless criminality. Why not consider the decades of disenfranchisement and poverty, the long-term unemployment and feelings of hopelessness? Do those not factor in at all?

Read this article. Read the comments on this Shakesville piece. Try thinking critically about the narrative spoonfed you by the media-political complex. And chew on this for a second:

Though I'm a peace-loving, Jesus-loving, violence-condemning hippie radical of the far left, it's not the riots that are making me despair for humankind. It's you.

Oh, London

I may have grown up in Alabama and Kenya and Scotland; I may be about to move thousands of miles away; I may have spent only about 15% of my life there - but, if there's anywhere in the world I consider home, it's London.

London! The very name sets my heart beating faster. City of culture unparalleled. City of sprawling humanity. City of my life's significant moments. City full of my friends and relatives.

Oh, London. Looking on from the outside, I don't understand what is going on; but my heart is very much inside you, burning as you burn, breaking as you break. Plague and fire, 7/7 and Blitz: every threat you've outlived has left you shattered, yet stronger.

I'm afraid and I'm appalled. I can only pray that people will come to their senses. I can only pray that the ones I love will be safe. I can only pray that my beloved city will cope.

London, my London... Be strong. Have faith. Bear up. You are Neverwhere, you are Un Lun Dun, you are Mother London. You are London. There's nothing you can't face down.