What Spiderman Can Teach Us About Privilege and What to Do with It

When I tell people I get my morality from reading Spiderman comics, I'm joking.  But not really.

There's a comic that's been making it's ways through my different Facebook circles.  Read it right below, then please feel compelled to continue reading as I a blab on about what this might have to do with Spiderman.






So remember the famous tagline that's been made a pop culture saying since the movies came out, "with great power comes great responsibility?"  Let's explore a wee bit.

Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider, thus privileging him with new abilities and resulting in Spiderman.  Some would say he got lucky when given this gift.  He at first thought so.  Growing up by most accounts American standard poor or barely getting by lower middle class, his first thought was put that power into being a low level pro-wrestler and getting money.  Then when he lets a robber get away because the injustice wasn't "his problem," that same robber ends up killing his Uncle Ben.  He realizes that anyone's problem is everyone's problem and he must do what he can.

And this is when Spiderman begins to learn that every privilege is not only a gift, but a responsibility.  He could have stopped a killer.  That would have helped him personally, because his uncle (the breadwinner) would still be present.  However, it became realized that this was his duty.  His powers meant that he could do things that others couldn't.  So he soon realized that meant he had to do whatever he could to help others, just as others had helped him all throughout his life, and would continue to do so.

Yes, there are times when he wonders "why him?"  Why did he have the power?  Why did he have to help others?  Why couldn't he just go on blissfully ignorant and uneffected? And always he returns to the seemingly simple truth that he must.  With great power comes great responsibility.  Yet despite being a super strong braniac with agility and web powers to boot, he never loses site that Peter Parker is just another person.  His life just turned out a little differently.  In fact, he pines for the "normal" life but accepts the moral calling to hep others.

And this is one of the many places where I think we can learn from him.  He does not deny that his privileges exist.  (Yes, he wears a costume when using them, but that's a discussion better left to psychoanalysts.)  While he regrets them from time to time, he knows he can't change the past so he puts his energy into making them useful for everyone.  What good is a gift if you don't share it with others?

So now how does that translate to white privilege?  I don't have an easy answer.  But I do have what I've learned.  I've learned that life has granted me special skills.  By growing up at many times as a member of the majority or the minority, depending on times where I was just another white person, or times where I was the token Jew, I've developed a unique experience that helps me relate empathetically to a wider range of people, helping me as an educator and artist.  Or maybe making me into an artist and educator.  So what do I do with my strengths?  Just try and use them for money such as using my understanding of human motivations and skills as a writer to advertise products made in sweatshops, or instead use those same skills to help others, such as working with youth to use writing as a means to take on the world around them?

Then there's a great moment in Avengers vs. X-Men #9 where Spiderman explains to Hope, the fledgling Avenger (former X-Men), how one part of being an Avenger is knowing that you're not always going to be the most important person to a mission, but one day you will be.  And by the end of the issue he is the wisecracking, agile one who causes the success of a rescue mission to free basically all of the Avengers from an overpowered Colossus and Magic.  Basically, he distracts the overpowered X-Men, talks a little trash, jumps around, and plays them off of each other while the rest of the Avengers sneak out the back door with their tails between their legs.  This is a fable in line with the lion and the mouse about how everyone can be important and one day is.  Or on the flipside, never assume you're more important than anyone else, even if you've often been raised to believe that.

Just as nearly all great heroes represent some form of moral or ideal, there is the character who represents the opposite.  Batman's careful logic, deduction, and stoic nature juxtaposed by the grandiose insane genius of the Joker, or the power Superman was born into vs. all that Lex Luthor has created through his intellect.  One of the other sides of the coin for Spiderman is the Green Goblin.  Here is a man who wanted power.  Born into a wealthy family, he thought very much that he deserved everything he had.  In fact, he felt it wasn't enough.  He became the Green Goblin as a result of wanting more and more power.  And once the Goblin he drove himself more and more crazy, attempting whatever he could to stop Spiderman and eliminate the one form of checks and balances between him and more power.  He is someone blinded by his powers who serves as the antithesis to the proletariat protecting Parker.

So yeah.  Go read some comics.  You might learn a few things.

Love,
Jason

p.s. Fun comic history fact - Stan Lee was ready to quit Marvel after two decades of feeling he was just doing stupid comics that catered to Westerns, Horror, and other short lived fads.  Then his wife, probably the most unsung hero of comics, told him if he was ready to quit, why not just make the comics he wants, and if he gets fired, he got to make the comics he wanted, didn't he?  So he made comics, starting with the Fantastic Four, that were grounded in the philosophy of change one or two things about their realities, but then hold everything else extra true to the human experience.  And thus birthed the Marvel comics we know and love.

The Penis Writing Challenge

There's a lot of writing about it.  Crappy romance.  Feminist and humanist essays on the pervasiveness of phallic imagery.  Half of Freud.  Terrible erotic poems by "grown up" boys who think that talking about how great their (probably imaginary) sex is will get them two minutes in heaven.

I think you can do better.

So here's the challenge*.  Write about the penis (could be yours, could be the abstract concept of it, could be a creation myth about it (practical joke by God inspired by how turtle's heads work?), could be a science bio/anatomy poem, could be that time when your dad was teaching you to use the bathroom standing up for the first time and you were convinced his was so huge and wrinkly it must've belonged to a dinosaur**, etc...) in a way it hasn't been written about before.

The most important rules: write about it not as a weapon or a sexual entity.  There's a lot of good and decent and cliche writing on it as a form of weaponry, and a lot of... well... writing on it sexually.

Why write what others already did?

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with,

Jason Henry "Has-A-Penis" Simon-Bierenbaum




* And yes, this is me finally putting a writing prompt up.  And yes, I wrote on this prompt.  this morning actually.  That's why after coming up with the prompt a week ago or so I'm finally posting it.
** No, that image wasn't in my original draft, but now it might have to be.  This doesn't count as me putting up some of my creative writing.  Still holding true to that rule, even though I broke the paragraph limit and the daily limit for a while now.

A Repost and Some Thoughts on Connotation and Denotation as Social Practices

First read An Open Letter to Ann Coulter* from a Special Olympian for the context.  Then read it again.  Then share it with all your friends.  Then read it again.  Then donate to the Special Olympics.

Ok.  Now pretend you're not still clinging to your tissue box and let's break down some of the writerly magic of what just happened.

In James Scully's book of essays on poetry as social practice called "Line Breaks,"** his essay "In Defense of Ideology" has a great start talking about a left wing poster that says "No More Vietnams."  So much amazingness happens when he breaks it down as part of a time period, perspective, and social message, but some of the points to summarize:

• That message is coming from the ones who want to keep up some form of status quo and avoid a "pointless war," as more "Vietnams" will not benefit them and put their believed values at risk.
• However, to the Vietnamese and other nations resisting Imperial Oppression from the U.S. (this was the 70s-80s, so think about half of South America and bits and pieces of Asia), the successful Vietnamese resistance was a potential point of pride.  David kept exploding rocks at the Goliaths until they gave up and went home.
• In other words, to the ones able to watch wars from the safety of their homes and pat themselves on the back as radicals, they didn't want another war like this.  However, to the ones facing "legal" oppression, they had reason to want many more "Vietnams."  The idea brought about a sense of freedom and change and the pride that they did not have to be ruled by others.

A big part of what I took away from this is watch out for people (including the well intentioned and you yourself) passing off a connotation (suggested meaning) as a denotation (literal meaning).   In other words, in the phrase "No More Vietnams" the message is set up as assuming everyone would/should understand one direct meaning of that phrase, when in fact it is oblivious to the fact that there are multiple ways to interpret it.

The R-word, a main topic of this article, is a loaded, loaded word that is right up there with the 3 letter f-word and the n-word.  A main reason Stephens' letter is so effective is because he breaks down how Coulter is trying to use the word derogatorily without knowing the extent of what it really means and what being a human with Downs Syndrome means to a man like Stephens.  And he goes in!  Quickly, effectively, succinctly, and with love in the face of ignorance.    MLK would be proud.  The response is not only smart and sharp, but a speedy master class in linguistics in society.

Stephens knows what she is trying to mean by her use of the word.  He is no dumby.  However, instead of calling out the lack of thoughtfulness that would result in her using the word the way she did, he explores what being someone referred to by that word is really like.  Really thought provoking look into what we really may be saying when we use overlooked everyday phrases and terms.  And damn, is that a great piece of writing.

I know I have heard an educated friend or two describe Coulter's outrage  craving style as being "retarded."  After reading this article I think it is clear to say no, not even close.

With love and inspiration,
Jason

* for people having trouble with the fancy schmancy link, try this: http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/

** One of my essay books ever, and I love me some essays.  Though some are a bit too loaded with those big sounding academic words, most is pretty accessible at exploring the ins and outs of language, use of language, and how it is always a political act, even/especially when just supporting a status quo.  The foreword is by Adrienne-Bad-Ass-Rich, so you know it's something serious.

Prometheus Returns to My Life

So there's something about this show, maybe the myth, maybe my creative process around solo performance, I don't know, but there's something about it that makes me have to work in spurts.  This is a character I have been playing with/exploring for nearly four years now.  The rough draft of the majority of the show I wrote in a week.  And then I spent a weekend a week or two later writing the last monologue, which runs about 15 minutes long.  In between I just kind of let ideas grow and read what I could.  Well, here's to trying work that spark into a flame again.  24 hours.  All my waking work has to somehow relate to this.  Maybe I read different versions of myths.  Maybe I play around with lists of archetypes.  Maybe I work professionally on my cv to get those shows.  To be continued.

Revision, Too, is a Creation, and other notes on the continued writing process plus what essay writing can learn from creative writing

So one of the things I didn't get to cover in a poetry workshop yesterday was revision.  Honestly, that might have been a way I ended up dodging a bullet.  Teaching revision I find to be much more difficult than teaching writing, conceptualizing, approaches, and definitely more difficult than just helping someone produce 1 poem.  So here's some pointers on what helped me get better at revising, and some philosophies that may be able to help others.


Problems Resulting from How Essay Revision is Often Taught
All too often the essay, the main form of writing taught in classes, is taught as a simple algebraic equation.  Plug in a thesis, find three points along the lines of that thesis, and then give an ending that proves your thesis line works - an end that in many ways is not so much a development from the thesis but a repetition of it that is being passed off as something new.

The editing feedback a teacher gives is often along the lines of "fix your thesis," "better support your thesis," and small cosmetic treatments of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  Bandaids and cover-up instead of helping the piece of writing to grow.

Besides the implication of this for how the essay, a potentially lively writing form, is taught, it also structures much of the thinking around writing in general, which carries over to creative work.  I know that as a writer, especially when first really starting to take creative writing seriously, would mainly do spot checks when writing and believe I got it right.  I believed my poem was revised and finished.  (Wow was this holding me back!)  A lot of this had to do with how the original writing felt like a creative process, and over limiting it by cutting/removing/changing felt anti-creative.


Revision, Too, is a Creation
Would anyone say that the sculptor, chiseling away at a giant block of stone, is not creating?  Would anyone say that the ceramicist, adding on clay small piece by wet small piece, is not creating?  Yet why do green writers, enthralled by the act of creating, often limit themselves to focusing on forming that original mass and then maybe polishing it a little? The simple answer, the one that I know was true for me up until, oh.... two years ago, is that the initial writing feels fun and exuberant, while revision feels like editing an essay in the simplistic middle school sense.

Like the sculptor chiseling away a rock to what it could be, or the ceramist adding on pieces to what is already there, the writer has the ability to continually create on what they already have.  This should not stop at a first draft, but be a continued creation.  Unlike the ceramicist or the sculptor who is limited physically in just how much they can add, take away, and remold, the writer has the potential to be most creative when exploring just what their work of art could become during the revision process.

It is a process.  A process of continued creation, not so much of trying to get it "right" or "fixed", but get it better, and search in a million different directions to find out just what might make it better.  And maybe create something separate and wholly new in the process.


Revision Explored as the Creation of an Outfit
This is one of the best ways I have found to describe it.  Whether people do it well or not, they put together an outfit almost every day.  The more articles you have too choose from, the more possible outfits that can be achieved. Think of individual elements of a poem such as tones, images, lines, phrases, characters, moments, rhythms, etc... as individual articles of clothing.  My favorite pair of shoes have graphics of Batman on them.  My favorite pair of pants is covered in paint from a summer volunteer gig 5 years ago and has a rip in one knee.  My favorite button down shirt is striped in blues, browns, and blacks.  My favorite cardigan is a grassy green.  Obviously, while all have merits on their own, they are not going to work well together as an outfit.  In much the same ways, different elements of a poem in draft may have to be sacrificed for a more successful, cohesive overall poem.  When putting together an outfit I will think about who I will be with (audience) and what type of places/events we will be at (genre/topic/setting).  From there I will keep in mind a favorite article of clothing or two that works with said people and places and pick the other parts, from all the ones I have to choose from, around that.  And this is a basis of my revising process.  I will come up with many lines, images, ideas, and possibilities for a poem.  But then when it comes down to it, I pick the best ones that work with what the poem is going for, the effects I want it to have on an audience, and the elements of it I know to be truest.  And then the rest is picked and rebuilt around it.  Pick and play around for tones, vibrancy, contrast, textures, emphasis, and to explore what could be.


Revision as a Continued Journey
There are topics I have tried to write about over and over and have just not gotten the poem out of it that I think works.  Normally, that tends to be a sign not of me being limited but of the continued work I am doing to  stretch my range.  Possible tangent aside, I may explore a topic/character/moment idea a lot in different poems written around the same time or different times.  I may try and revise one and then just sit on it.  And then I write something much better 8 months later which I later realize to be informed by the first poem(s) I tried to write.  And then I keep working on another poem which I still haven't quite gotten where I want it to be.  Two poets I know, Usman Hameedi and Simone Beaubien, will have poems they've been performing for years that sound just a little bit different, or sometimes more than a little bit different, every time I hear them.  And always better.  Revision is not a rush to an end, but a continued part of the writing process.


But So what?  And How can this help other parts of life?
The point, if there is one main point to this, is that writing is a continued process of creation.  Revision is a way to continue that creation, not the fencing in of a creation.  This relates not only to creative writing, but everything from the outfit you put on and how you put it together, to the creation of essays and other more typically analytic writing.  Push the boundaries of what it could be.  Explore what is really important.  Explore what could be there.  And then continue creating.

In closing, Don't Stop Believing.  (In your continued creativity.)

Earn Your Network, or, my best bet explaining how all the hard work of the past eight years has lead to some of the cooler successes of the past one

You know that old saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know?"  God that can be a crippler.  There's some truth to that.  There's also a lot of myth to that too, and not the good kind.  I know I have seen example after example of people getting gigs they weren't ready for when there were better qualified artists getting looked over.*  I know there are also tons of super talented cats who get discouraged because they think they don't have enough time for art, and they wonder if it will ever go anywhere anyway.

I'm writing this based on my experiences and what I know of the stories of some of my friends.  I am not a professional artist (yet).  I am also in no way a starving artist (yet).  I have a day job that pays the bills well enough (for now).  However, I have had some pretty cool gigs in the past year, ranging from book festival performances to speaking on academic panels to guest/substitute teaching college classes.  Of all the gigs from the past year that I am most proud of, there is one thing that is consistent: I knew the person who booked me.

Does this mean I'm just some privileged jerk who knows the right people?  I'd like to think not, and that if I was, I wouldn't need to keep a day job.  I like to think that I've earned my contacts and that they saw something in me that made them think I was without a doubt the right choice.  A few quick case studies with names left out, and then some tips on how to earn your network:

1) Substitute teaching a collegiate poetry slam class. 
At first my thoughts when this was offered to me went something along the lines of "Are you serious?  That's awesome.  But seriously?  You know so many people.  Why pick me?  Am I just the best deal?  Is it being paid, or is this just something really cool for my resume and a favor for a friend?  Etc..., etc...., self doubt, excitement, and so forth."  Because I didn't want her to doubt giving her class over to someone just a year out of college, especially when there was a grad student in the class and a personal friend of mine who knows my juicy embarrassing stories in the class, I was appreciative, willing, and confident. 

When I saw the professor a week or so after the class went pretty well and I asked her, "but seriously, why me?" her loving and genuine response was along the lines of "you take this work seriously, you know your stuff, and you're not a jerk.  That's pretty rare, and I figured you might be able to use one more thing to help push your resume to a new level."  This paraphrasing is butchered, and she was way nicer and more glowing than I would want to try writing about myself.  It felt good to hear.  And it was a sign that I didn't just know the right person, but that the work I had been doing for the past 4 years as a slam coach, workshop facilitator, performer, and organizer had not gone without notice.  And that the gigs were starting to come to me.

2) Speaking on the Crossroads of Academia, Slam, and Activism at an area college.
So the man who was organizing this I met at an open mic.  He was there because the feature was one of his former students.  I was there because I had heard good things about her, and she was friends with my friends.  I find out the guy's a poetry professor and mention that career is a goal of mine.  I ask to pick his brain some time.  Well, learning about each other leads one thing to another and soon, based on who I was with, what he perceived that to say about me, and what he knew of how I talk, how I think, and what my resume was, he asks me to help him organize the event and be one of the speakers there.  And now that's an awesome night of my life, a new friend, and something else I can show I was capable of.

3) Being hired as a year long teaching artist in residence and slam coach at a college you've definitely heard of.
More than a year and a half ago I attended a performance art workshop series at this university that was open to the public and featured an amazing teaching artist.  One of the participants in the class was a freshman trying to start a slam team/culture at her school.  Well, her hopes were awesome, I wanted to see it happen there, and I stayed in touch with them last year, doing a few volunteer workshops, some free consulting, and one underpaid workshop because a) I believed in them and wanted to help, b) it pushed my teaching forward and kept me from getting rusty, c) it was a fun way to bolster my resume, and d) if I already showed I could do that type of work it seemed logical that it would get me more paid gigs in the future, yeah?  I remembered how as a performer, bringing good work to open mics lead to features and doing some features lead to getting asked to do more**.  Why shouldn't the parallel pattern be true as a teaching artist too?  Well, it worked. 

At the beginning of the semester I met with the club president to see how things were going and if there was anything I could do to help.  She asked if I knew anyone who might be able to be a slam team coach.  I said I would.  I would also be happy to put a call out for anyone else, but understand that there money is limited, I really like the work they do so would be willing to sell myself short financially a bit, and that I feel I have a very strong grasp of the club's values, strengths, plans and hopes.  And so here we are.

So yes, I knew everyone who gave me the coolest opportunities in the past few years.  Or maybe more accurately, I met them and was seen doing work they appreciated while presenting values and a work ethic they respected.  And then stuff happened.  And then that lead to more stuff.  Earning your network, in short, is about doing the work that gets people you meet to become people who are opening doors for you.  From the slam legend who directed my one man show and continues to be a friend and mentor of mine, to the fact that I am guest teaching a class at my old college this Monday, all the people who gave me these opportunities knew me, but I had also earned their respect and friendship.

Here's some tips of what it means to earn you're network:

• Do the work you want to do because you want to do it.  Want to get gigs as a performer or teaching artist?  Go be a performer or teaching artist.  Even if it doesn't really pay what it should at first.  Something I can tell from my friends who have been at it for twenty years or so, it never pays what is deserved, but it's the work you want to do.  So do it.  And eventually the right people will see it, so doing what you love becomes acing an audition you didn't know you were on.
• Be respectful, appreciative, but have the confidence not to sell yourself short.  I have asked people I know for gigs.  I don't always get them.  Often enough, in some form I end up getting them.  Eventually.  One of the advantages of having booked poets for so many years when running a college slam and doing other special events is that when I get to be on the other side of things, I know how much work they're doing.  I know they could've picked other people.  I know how to help make their work less and give them the appreciation they deserve.  With that being said, instead of looking back at gigs that I feel I could have got, I am not afraid to put myself out there and respectfully share what I might be able to offer someone else.  It is very rare that I will do something free, especially as this is becoming more and more a part of my income/livelihood, but it can be strategic and sensible to do the work for less money if needed so you can continue doing it and being desired.
• Take every opportunity, especially while you still have to be the one chasing the opportunities, and make it into a good thing.  In a theoretical sense, any place you are can lead you to another place.  So put on your boots, keep walking, and keep your eyes open for what's in front of you.
• Go for it!  At the end of the day, as long as you are reasonable and respectful and not too nagging, there is nothing to lost by seeking gigs or offering to do work.

When it comes down to it, maybe it's not about what you know OR who you know.  It's about how other people know you.  And going for it.

So yeah, hope this helps some people.  Agree?  Disagree?  Want to add on or share some of your experiences?

With love and joy and probably a few typos,
Jason

*This is without a doubt personal bias speaking which is part of why I am not using concrete examples.

** I will affectionately refer to this in the future as the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Effect"

Further Reading: A complimentary post that my friend Greg McKillop's put out about a month ago, How To Be A Loser And Still Get Your Band Shows