The Opera

Indigenous Day 2022: Freedom Fighter and Resistance Leader Hatuey

By Pamela Nagler
Published 10/11/2022 6:00 Am PST

October 11 is Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day depending on where you live and what your perspective is. To say the least, celebrating Columbus these days can be a very complicated business. Too many people have read his journals and studied the history, too many people have examined the meaning of discovery, to fall into those old tired tropes of Columbus hero worship. Columbus statues have been removed in Chicago, Mexico, NYC, Boston, Baltimore and many other places including LA. 

Suffice to say, there remains much to deconstruct about Columbus landing on the island he called Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic) where he and his men proceeded to massacre and subjugate the Taino - all by his own admission. 

But Columbus’ sphere of influence was vast. Even in his own time, the Spaniards extended their reign of terror beyond Hispaniola to include other islands Columbus misnamed the West Indies, the present-day Caribbean Islands. 

When potential landowner who later became a Dominican Father, Bartolomé de las Casas arrived on the islands, in 1509, Las Casas explained how Columbus influence other Spaniards who “perpetrated the same outrages and committed the same crimes as before, devising yet further refinements of cruelty, murdering the native people, burning and roasting them alive, throwing them to wild dogs and then oppressing, tormenting and plaguing them with toil down the mines and elsewhere.” 26, penguin 

And, in 1511, when the Spaniards invaded Cuba, the story was really no different from the earlier stories on other islands, except for maybe, one singular figure emerged - Hatuey, a leader of Native resistance.

Earlier, Hatuey, a cacique or leader had fled his homeland of Hispaniola, arriving in Cuba with canoes holding 400 of his people. Las Casas reported that Hatuey warned the people of Cuba:

“we have to throw them [the Spaniards] into the sea . . .They tell us, these tyrants, that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with iron that our weapons cannot break.” 28, penguin

Hatuey and his people battled against the Spanish, but the Spanish managed to capture him. Before tying him to a stake and burning him alive, the Franciscan Father preached to him about the everlasting life and the consequence of Hell if he did not accept the Christian God. Hatuey, in turn, asked the Father if Spaniards went to heaven. Las Casas reported:

“When the reply came that good ones do, he [Hatuey] retorted, without need to further reflection, that, if that was the case, then he chose to go to Hell to ensure that he would never again have to clap eyes on those cruel brutes.” 28-9, penguin

After Hatuey’s execution, the Spaniards continued to massacre large settlements of Cuban Natives - the Arawaks. Of those that they did not enslave or murder, some attempted to flee, but others chose death by suicide: “Men and women hanged themselves and even strung up their children.” 30, penguin They saw this as an alternative to being tortured or worked to death.

Children, without their parents, died of starvation. The Spaniards pursued those who ran away, until Las Casas noted that the “whole of the island [of Cuba] was devastated and depopulated . . . transformed . . . into one vast, barren wasteland.” 30, penguin

Present-day Cubans are forthright about their colonial history. A bust of Hatuey sits in front of the oldest Church in Baracoa, in the main town square of the first city the Spanish colonized. Some tour guides will tell you that the nearby Yumurí River, lined on each side by sheer limestone cliffs, means ‘beautiful river,’ but others will tell you that Yumurí means ‘I kill myself’ because this is where the Arawaks threw themselves off of the ten-story drop-offs to escape the oppressions of the Spanish. The coffee plantations on Cuba display the chains, shackles and goads next to the excavated farm implements at ground level, just downstairs from the colonists’ former opulent dwellings upstairs.

REFERECES

Casas, Bartolomé de las. Nigel Griffin, trans., Anthony Pagden, intro. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. 1st Edition. London: Penguin, 1999. pages 26-30. 

Interspecies Assemblage: The San Gabriel Valley through the lens of Jesús Romo

“Riding the River”

Text by Daniel Talamantes
Photography by Jesús Romo
Published 6/22/2022 6am PST

This essay was produced by Boom California, a publication dedicated to inspiring lively and significant conversations about the vital social and cultural issues of our time in California and the world beyond…. The Pomonan is Co-Publishing this Essay

Taking Shape of the River

“In it, you realize the river has no shape,” reflects Jesús Romo on his photo, “Riding in the River.” The photo depicts a pair of vaqueros wading through a tributary in Whittier Narrows. Above the horses’ cannon, water splashes above their knees, infusing motion in the still. Twilight eclipses a vaquero’s greeting hand and sombrero as his riding partner advances toward us—or is he following Jesús Romo? Ripples, ephemera, trace the contours of Jesús Romo’s ghost in the water, out of frame as he puts the scene in focus. The patina of ordered ripples contrasts with the shoreline brush of shadowy chaos.

“Riding in the River,” though taken recently, feels like it belongs in another place and time. The photo conjures modalities in movement, of diaspora, and an environmental legacy that were once ubiquitous in the region, but now reduced to a rare and confined natural space. Wilderness and vaqueros elicit a pathos or melancholic reflection of what could have been. While the photo may hint toward a better depiction of the San Gabriel Valley’s natural setting, it does not necessarily portray the accurate social history of Mexican and Latinx communities. Still, it shows how vaqueros or vaqueras have gained success in claiming public space and reclaiming Mexican presence in the San Gabriel Valley.

What remains of Whittier Narrows is only a hint of what the region used to be. As David Reid in East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte writes, “[Whittier Narrows] ensured the survival of some 400 acres of forest, lakes, trails, lawns, and soccer fields… preserved a link to the Whittier Narrows area’s history and to the natural world… and offers the first taste of the natural world to many locals.”1 Always under threat of development, Whittier Narrows, cleaved and siloed by the 60 freeway, 605 freeway, and Rosemead Boulevard remains a site of natural wonder, preservation, and recreation for the surrounding communities of Avocado Heights, El Monte, South El Monte, and La Puente, among others.

“Riding in the Narrows”

The oneiric quality of Whittier Narrows is troubled by the waking reality of the Whittier Narrow Dam. Despite community efforts to preserve Whittier Narrows by relocating the dam further down the river, the dam ultimately punctuates the city and county’s priority for energy extraction and management. But there’s a great irony here: the county’s erection of the dam had arguably secured Whittier Narrow’s survival. This is an important consideration. It evinces this space as an example of a contested site of culture and power. The dam becomes a veritable metonym for the industrial and settler control and extraction of diaspora’s flow. Just beyond the frame, a titanic urban landscape lurks. It encroaches. Matrices of roads and freeways, telephone wires, and pipes fasten to strangulate the veritable island of wilderness. Waste facilities, manufacturing plants, and distribution centers leech pollutants into streams and soil. The air over it so thick of smog can be noisome of sulfur, ammonia, rubber, or other strands of toxic fumes.

“Trail ride with Esteban and company”

In winter, without any other form of access or way bridge neighboring communities, Jesús Romo explains that the tributaries are the only passable trails connecting this natural corridor to his community of Avocado Heights, until they are too deep to traverse. Auto industries, waste facilities, and housing developments converted a rich agricultural and natural landscape into grids of pavement, fences, pipes, and wires. Avocado Heights, among many surrounding communities, became what city planner scholar William Fulton refers to as the “suburbs of extraction” where Latinx individuals, despite attaining political power, struggle in economic scarcity to find resources and fund public services.2 Furthering this, scholar Laura R. Barraclough writes in Charros: How Mexican Cowboys are Remapping Race and American Identity, suburbs of extraction like the many in San Gabriel Valley, “[find] themselves empty-handed, with few strategies available beyond luring businesses such as casinos, pawn shops, and scrap metal recycling yards—all of which…extract any remaining wealth from already-disinvested sources.”3

“Employee at feed store near Sports Arena”

Situated between the Puente Hills, California canyons and Whittier Narrows, Avocado Heights is an unincorporated neighborhood east of the 605 freeway and just north of the San Jose Creek which feeds into the San Gabriel River. The town’s population remains approximately fifteen thousand people, yet it is surrounded by much larger cities such as City of Industry, La Puente, El Monte, South El Monte, and adjacent to a constellation of other unincorporated communities such as Bassett and North Whittier. A distinct feature of Avocado Heights is its designation as an equestrian district which traces its legacy to the vaqueros of early Californio’s and Mexico—of which hold a vast majority of the demographics. And while Avocado Heights has a prominent identity and agency of its own, its characteristics are as interpretable as the river.

“Rancho Jimenez”

“Mis tíos”

Wading through the river, vaqueros interact with assemblages of making and being. Contested sites, specific histories, and cultural exchanges emerge and submerge in expression of power and resistance. Though we can abstract histories and narrative from the photo, “Riding in the River” is material. The photograph is now a part of Whittier Narrows’ ecology. It is a fragment of the location, both as a living portal and as artifact. It would not exist if not for its historical contingency. Despite attempts at cultural erasure or despite the elision from regional, state, or national narratives, Avocado Heights is immutable. Photographs expose. They are taken, putting moments, people, and places into focus.

“Colitas”

“Community desfile”

“la paseada patron saint festival in Avocado Heights”

“Community desfile” and “la paseada patron saint festival AH style” are celebrations of the patron saint festival, La Paseada. Celebrated in Avocado Heights annually, this is the second biggest event in Avocado Heights Park after the Easter celebration. Romo says, “Starting a few years ago after a group of different families in the area formed an association to raise money and connect with their loved ones back home by several individuals who were undocumented and unable to visit their home communities.” The organizers of the event originate from Las Palmas, Jalisco and like most patron saint festivals, these are religious celebrations that coincide with the whole community having the week off.

The celebration in Las Palmas is known for having a large cabalgata (cavalcade) to inaugurate the event, Romo continues, “Given that this is horse country, we all join in their festivities in the Avocado Heights version as if we are there in Las Palmas for the week.” Along with the tamborazo, a reina (queen) usually carries the American and Mexican flag while following an altar containing the patron saint. The Independence celebrations in Yahualica, Jalisco are on September 16, 2016. The celebrations in Avocado Heights and among the equestrian community, at times, closely resemble the celebrations in Mexico.

“Industry Expo feria de caballo español”

It is not uncommon for the escaramuzas and charros of the San Gabriel Valley to compete with some frequency down in Mexico, or to attend an annual coleadero at their ranch, and then to come back to the US and give an update to their family and group of friends about the latest community gossip, who’s the leading equestrian athlete, and what musical group headlined the event. For being a relatively small neighborhood, Avocado Heights epitomizes in many ways this unique bilateral relationship with Mexico. These are not relationships that exist because parents grew up in a particular place, but rather, these are relationships that are constantly reinforced by the consistent back and forth travel that occurs for recurring events, such as the patron saint festivals, or the patriotic independence celebrations.

“Privadita”

“Filming a music video”

“Horse Parade in Jalisco”

On September 16, 2016, in the city streets of Yahualica, Jalisco, Romo joins a cabalgata underway. The vaquera centered in the photo is named Nadia. And while she doesn’t announce her sexuality publicly, she is widely known in the horse community for being a prominent fixture at horse events and is often seen accompanied by her partner. Romo explains, “After marching on horseback in the parade, Nadia hired the banda and it was myself and one other escaramuza, kind of a protege of Nadia’s, who joined her for an impromptu parade once again throughout the town.” Nadia was not dressed in the typical escaramuza outfit, but rather a charro outfit. “She triumphantly led us on a long-winded post-march route with a loaded gun in her holster. It was a very public and triumphant display and I just had to document the photo.”

In Nadia’s story we have a unique exposure to the dimensions of gender embodiment and representation. She is both a leader and yet presents herself in traditional charro outfits. Likewise, her partnership, according to Romo, remains a discretionary fact. It is no doubt the case that vaquero culture celebrates and predominantly masculine traits. Yet, it is and historically has been a space and identity that has opened gender fluidity and resistance. Across the United States and in Mexico, vaquerx spaces foster hetero-, homo-, and transsexual performance. Massive conventions occur every year in cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, and Mexico City which host queer reuniones vaqueros. The events feature live performance combined with regional Mexican food, drink, music, and dancing. Though these conventions are unique, they also amplify the reality of the vaquero/a/x everyday—one very present in Avocado Heights. Romo, who established his ranch in Avocado Heights as a queer space for artists and vaquerx, disrupts masculinized narrative in his photographs’ style and through his positionality.

Historian Susan Stryker argued that gender representation is analogous to a digital image. She writes, “It’s unclear exactly how [a digital image] is related to the world of physical objects. It doesn’t point to some ‘real’ thing… it might in fact be a complete fabrication built up pixel by pixel or bit by bit—but a fabrication that nevertheless exists as an image or a sound as real as any other.” Like the digital image, gender is a construction, not a material fact. Pixel by pixel, bit by bit, the bodily stylings through clothing and accessories, a person’s behaviors and interactions, their movements, dancing, songs, vocal utterances, and expressions add up to the mix of gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, and nationality identifications present in vaquerx lifestyles.

Away from the recursive performance of male bodies in vaquero spaces, Romo shares that out on the trails, men transcend typical male behaviors and share intimate details and stories about their lives with each other over bonfires. They exhibit acts of care, play, and bonding that transgress traditional male roles. Heteronormative behavior characteristics are often found to be more fluid where the binary gender model of nuclear family orientation is out of the picture. Men and women ride together in the desfile around the central park of Avocado Heights to show off their horses, socialize, and play. Performative gender hierarchies, though present here in there, are most often ambiguous and indeterminable within these events or settings. Vaquero/a/x practices can disrupt imposed binaries and essentialist notions through endless re-imaginings of sexuality models/gender models, white/brown bodies, and middle class/working class lives. Vaquero/a/x performance digitizes and decolonizes the body. Like music, it blends and flows in measures and meter imperceptibly.

“Towards the San Jose Creek River Trail”

“Ranch in Avocado Heights”

Horses become the witness of human behavior. Witnessing their play, love, and connection, exists an entire irreducible lifeworld. The horse, the viewer from vantage of horse, is immersed. They can grasp a sense of the embodied experience but are always in some way dispositioned. One can lament the separation, but the degrees of connection and distance are innate in every interaction, whether that is by photograph or in embracing a partner for the dance. The interaction between man and animal exposes gestural language. In behaviors between animal and human, or photographer and researcher, or dance partners are modes of interaction, coding and decoding practices, and unconscious and conscious choices.

In “The Vaquero Way” a horse trainer, Sheila Varian explains, “The Vaquero method of training is a beautiful song sung with the softness and beauty of the rhythm of the horse. It is about the total harmony and togetherness of horse and rider.”7 The process of becoming a vaquero often begins at an early age. Training involves more than the act of breaking or taming a horse, but developing a mutual relationship, a partnership with another being grown from mutual respect. The best horses are trained over varied terrain and can navigate their surroundings through experiential learning. Feeling and unity with the horse comprise the methodology.

“Pajaretes”

“Recycled wood chips”

Like a photographer and their subject, or a historian and a past culture, animals and human beings train together to become “available to events.”8 French ethologist Jean-Claude Barrey’s analysis of a phenomenon called isopraxis. To him, isopraxis articulates the “unintentional movements” of muscles that fire and contract in both horse and human at the exact same time.

“Talented riders behave and move like horses… Human bodies have been transformed by and into a horse’s body. Who influences and who is influenced, in this story, are questions that can no longer receive a clear answer. Both, human and horse, are cause and effect of each other’s movements. Both induce and are induced, affect and are affected. Both embody each other’s mind.”9

Animals and humans, like material and their environments become response-able. The interface reveals that between space and place, signifier and significant, forms lose distinction. Through iterations, intention, and idiosyncratic relations, emergent patterns evince rich cultural understandings.

“Herrero”

The complex, interactive relations described between Avocado Heights’ connection with horses, their fellowship of other riders, how the vaqueros/as become innate stewards of the land, and how this connection ties history to the present situates humans, nature, and horses are central actors in the story. As anthropologist Anna Tsing invokes, “Species interdependence is a well-known fact— except when it comes to humans. Human exceptionalism blinds us.”10 No matter the cultural variety available, many believe humanity, the biological human, is a constant. Instead, from molecule to ecosystem, humans reshape as they are reshaped. In considering the domestications that closely knots humans with horses and all other organisms, Tsing asks, “What if we imagined a human nature that shifted historically together with varied webs of interspecies dependence?”11 She and Haraway submit that humanity is an interspecies relationship. It is more than us. It is more than human.

With the connection to the horses, the specific natural history of the San Gabriel Valley, and continual exploitation of the community’s health, Jesús Romo’s photographs convey that we are indelibly intertwined with our environment. Our subject of human nature and what is natural has historically excluded, or marginally considered, nature as a critical element of culture and society. Human behavior is a part of natural processes and never exempt from them. Everything from viruses, evolution, mycelium, deforestation, drought, food systems, tectonic shifts, to cosmic events are essential explanations for behavior. Environmental racism through development discourse is not just material but epistemic violence. Between fact-retrieval through the modalities of linguistic conventions, embodiment and space, or nature, these are “exposures” which emancipate past stories, events, places, things, and people from the rigor of hegemonic, settler, colonial regimes. As each modality can lead one down a lifetime of research for just one subject alone, the researcher alone depends on this collaboration to make something of the findings. The intention of the project and the responsibility of its representation are most important.

Photographs, when not outright exploitative practices, almost ensure a type of embodiment or positionality less credible in alternative medias. Jesús Romo’s positionality, affiliation, and agency inspire an even greater trust in the content and intentionality in representation. Jesús Romo ’s photographs are exposures of interspecies assemblage of the San Gabriel Valley.

Notes

[1] David Reid, “Whittier Narrows Park,” East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte, edited by Romeo Guzman, Caribbean Fragoza, et al. Rutgers, 2020. 191

[2] Barraclough, Laura R. Charros: How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity, 1st ed.. University of California Press, 2019. 164

[3] Barraclough, Charros, 159

[4] Kara L. Stewart. ”The Vaquero Way.” Horse Illustrated. November 16, 2004

[5] Donna Haraway. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2008.

[6] Vinciane Despret. ”The Body We Care For: Figures of Anthropo-zoo-genesis.” Body & Society. Vol. 10(2–3): 111–134. DOI: 10.1177/1357034X04042938

[7] Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Friction: an Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005. [1] Ibid.

Daniel Talamantes is a writer from the Central Valley of California. He is working toward a doctorate at Claremont Graduate University currently as an environmental historian, ethnographer, and environmental justice activist. Essays, short stories, and poems of his have been published with Entropy, Elderly, SF Chronicle, Soft Punk, to name a few. His first poetry chapbook Ruminate Emergent was the winner of the Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series and set to be published Fall 2022. 

Jesús Romo is an activist, photographer, and resident of Avocado Heights. You can find him on the trails and fighting for clean air, water, and land with and for SGV residents.

Boom California is a free refereed online media publication dedicated to inspiring lively and significant conversations about the vital social and cultural issues of our time in California and the world beyond. It aims to be the place where the most serious discussions are happening about the world in California and California in the world. To do this we host academic conversations in the forms of peer reviewed articles that both highlight and advance scholarly discourse about California culture, and do so in a manner that is public-facing and oriented toward the social and practical concerns of ordinary Californians.

Harriet Tubman Was An Abolitionist In Case You Forgot

Benjamin F. Powelson,
Auburn, N.Y. 1823-1885
Courtesy of Library of Congress

By Julian Lucas
Published 8/15/2022 6am PST
Updated 8/15/2022 6:30pm PST

“Defund the Police” might be a phrase that ‘pisses’ many of you off, but if Harriet Tubman were alive today she would be a police abolitionist. She would be a prison abolitionist. She wouldn’t call the police for help because she would understand their goal is to arrest and incarcerate. Being born into slavery, she understood what is was like being held in captivity. Furthermore, we should all know, or at least should understand, that our modern-day police originated from slave patrols.

Harriet Tubman would understand who is disproportionately arrested and incarcerated in the US.

If Harriet Tubman had been alive during the Great Migration, she would have been guiding 6 million Black people from the rural south to the urban north to escape Jim Crow laws and the formation and rise of the Klu Klux Klan. She would have helped guide my father’s family out of Greenville, Mississippi to the south side of Chicago.

If Harriet Tubman were alive during the Great Depression, she would have fought for including Black people in the New Deal because we all should realize, by now,  that Black people were left out. Harriet Tubman would have helped my grandmother Mattie, my aunt Sis, and my great-aunt Minnie obtain social security benefits, unemployment insurance, and federally-insured subsidized loans. Instead, those so-called ‘government handouts’ were often only issued to White Americans. 98% of the subsidized loans were issued to Whites so that they could move away from Black people to create the suburbs in places like Pomona and Covina, California or Park Forest, Illinois. 

If Harriet Tubman were alive right after WW2, she would have helped my father, Thomas Lucas known to his peers as Be-Bop among other aliases depending on the setting. Harriet would have also helped over one million other Black GIs, receive their benefits from the GI Bill - benefits that would have given them a ‘leg up’ on obtaining college degrees and housing. If the GI bill had been made available to the Blacks as promised, it would have helped them enter the American middle class. My father, a US veteran, wouldn’t have had to run underground gambling joints and work in bowling alleys fixing the bowling machines if he had the same opportunities extended to him as were extended to his white peers.

If Harriet Tubman would have been alive during the Civil Rights years, she would have supported Malcom X. She understood that while Martin wanted to integrate, Malcolm knew that the fundamental problem was that the Black communities lacked the resources of the White communities. 

Harriet Tubman understood all this because she had received only $200 for her three years of service in the Civil War, under Abraham Lincoln. Harriet was no fool and wasn’t going to settle for less. She spent the next three decades seeking the additional compensation she deserved. During the late 1890s, she submitted her affidavit to Congress explaining her request for payment of an additional $1800 as the proper compensation for her military service commensurate with what her white peers received. She understood there was a significant gap in pay between Whites and Blacks - a gap that exists today. 

Harriet carried a pistol and a sword during her missions to free slaves just as Malcolm felt it was necessary to guard himself and his family with a rifle. 

If Harriet Tubman had been alive, Malcolm and Martin wouldn’t have died violent deaths by gunshot but would have been laid to rest peacefully of natural causes. If Harriet Tubman were alive during the War on Drugs era, she would have saved my cousins, Alvin, Kenny, and Kylie, including the millions of Black lives that were lost to the system and to early graves. Harriet understood that both business and the government benefit from prison labor, and she would have also understood the school-to-prison pipeline and how it systemically targets Black and Brown youth. If Harriet Tubman were alive today, she would have done more than kneel in protest alongside Colin Kaepernick, or march in a Black Lives Matter Protest. She knew well the injustices - the killing of Blacks at the hands of the Police and the overrepresentation of Black people in the prisons. I know this because she said, “Every time I saw a white man I was afraid of being carried away.” Harriet’s statement reminds me of the time in my life when I was a Black youth growing up in a predominantly White city being constantly harassed by police.

So when people get upset over the phrase “Defund the Police!” - remember that Harriet Tubman would have been fighting the whole time to abolish the police and prisons because let’s not forget, Tubman was an abolitionist. 

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Whites make up 76% of the population, but only 69% of the arrests, while Blacks, who make up 14% of the population, constitute 27% of the arrests. Furthermore, Black U.S. residents (465 per 100,000 persons) were incarcerated at 3.5 times the rate of white US residents (133 per 100,000 persons) at midyear 2020.

LINKS
FBI Crime Report 2019
Jail Inmates 2020
How the GI Bill’s Promise Was Denied to A Million Black WII Veterans
For Black Artists, the Great Migration Is an Unfinished Journey

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, creative strategist, a purveyor of books and writer in training, but mostly a photographer. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking unhoused veterans to housing.

Critique of Zionist Propaganda

By Gilbert Aguirre
Published 2/23/2022 6:00Am PST
Photography Ahmed Abu Hameeda

An email sent to UCR students from the UCR Life email list on May 27, 2021, caught recipient’s attention with the subject heading: Antisemitism then and now. Instead of providing information on antisemitism, an abhorrent form of discrimination which has no place in civil society, the piece intended to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism and erase the existence and justified resistance of Palestinian people. This is my critique of the interview of UCR Jewish Studies professor Michael Alexander, and his interviewer Omar Shamout, for the disingenuous framing of critiques of the apartheid, settler-colonial state of Israel as antisemitic. Their discussion can be read here (1).

In the article’s opening lines, anti-Zionists educated on what anti-Zionism and antisemitism are, are made aware that the framing of this article is entirely disingenuous— the working definition of antisemitism in the article comes from the Anti-Defamation League, which classifies antisemitism as being “based on age-old stereotypes and myths that target Jews as a people, their religious practices and beliefs, or the Jewish State of Israel” (2). I will repeat that antisemitism, like all forms of prejudice, is absolutely abhorrent and must be destroyed by any means necessary. However, in framing critiques of Israel as antisemitic, activists fighting for justice in Palestine are silenced, as the Anti-Defamation League’s definition of antisemitism functions to quell dissent of Israel. Shamout proceeds to frame the purpose of his interview with Alexander as a response to “data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League [which] shows an increase in violent attacks, vandalism and harassment of Jews in the U.S., around the world, and online, since fighting broke out between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers Hamas earlier this month.” So, in analyzing this framing, actual antisemitic attacks are being lumped in with “vandalism and harassment,” keeping in mind that the working definition of antisemitism in Shamout’s piece includes critique of Israel as antisemitic, vandalizing the term “Free Palestine” on a wall, or critiquing Israel on twitter would also qualify as antisemitic. Again, critiquing Israel is not antisemitic, and this framing portrays a fictitious world in which critiques of Israel have the same material impacts on Jewish people as violent hate crimes committed by white supremacists.

Additionally, the data compiled by the ADL reporting an increase in antisemitism is contested. In an analytical article published by Jewish Currents, a magazine committed to leftist Jewish discourse, Mari Cohen questions and analyzes the data and methods that contribute to the ADL’s report. Cohen, like many leftists, is concerned by the weaponizing of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, and her analysis contributes greatly to how the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism contributes to misinformation and skewed data— which the ADL’s report exemplifies (3).

Another part of my critique will include the constant erasure of Palestinian people and Palestine as a sovereign state. In the quotation provided above, Shamout makes his first attempt, through the phrase “fighting broke out between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers Hamas—“ not Israel and Palestine, not the Israeli Defense Force and Palestinian’s resistance movement, not Israel’s occupying force and the Palestinian resistance; Shamout erases Palestine entirely, as if it were a dirty word. Shamout proceeds in the next paragraph to use the problematic framing that critique of Israel equates to antisemitism to assert, “while hatred toward Jews is sadly nothing new, these incidents are framed against the backdrop of recent Middle East violence, a surge in pro-Palestinian sentiment,” which implies that Palestinian existence is itself a problem. So I ask, what exactly does the term “pro-Palestinian sentiment” imply? What makes “pro-Palestinian sentiment,” in other words defense of Palestinian’s right to exist and resist violence from the state of Israel, support hatred towards Jewish people? Would the international movements and demonstrations against police violence after the murder of George Floyd be considered “pro-Black sentiment”? Why is Palestinian existence framed as a problem?

Shamout almost comes to see that anti-Zionism is separate from antisemitism when he asks Alexander, “Many of the recent antisemitic incidents have used the term ‘Zionism.’ Can you explain what Zionism meant historically, what it means today, and how the term has been used by racists to target jews?” To which Alexander gives a bloated, incoherent response that doesn’t state the clear intentions of Zionism, which is a colonial project whose modern conception was proposed and propagated by Theodor Herzl (4).

Zionism, a political position, is framed by Alexander as, “simply Jewish nationalism: the desire for the Jewish people to have and hold their own state,” ignoring that this political position hinges upon the colonization of Palestine, and the genocide of its native occupants. Alexander seems to support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as he states, “Let’s not forget, the logic of self-determination implies the cleansing of everybody else in order to achieve a majority. Cleanse or be cleansed. The logic is stark, but to date it remains the main means by which nation states are formed.” So I ask, how did UCR News allow this violent, genocidal speech to get published to its student body? How can a professor be unashamed of giving a defense of what he himself refers to as “the cleansing of everybody else in order to achieve a majority”?

Shamout, expecting an answer to the question “So it’s fair to say that not all critiques of Zionism should be cast as antisemitic?” receives another bloated, asinine response where Alexander goes to further defend genocide. Alexander proposes a both-sides defense of genocide in his next monologue, again not answering the question, as he states, “Zionism is as legitimate and as problematic as any other nationalism”— to this point I argue that nationalism against an oppressive force is legitimate (5). Nationalism against colonizing forces has been used historically by Cubans proud of their nation’s decolonial revolution, the Irish Republican Army’s resistance against British colonial rule, and Palestinians’ fight against the Israeli government that actively pushes Palestinians out of their homes, murders Palestinian children, and bombs densely populated territories (6).That nationalism is quite separate from nationalism that seeks to oppress another group, and expand the nation’s borders, disregarding human rights and international law— which is precisely what Palestinians have been resisting since the birth of Zionism. Alexander continues, “it is problematic in the sense that having formed an ethnic majority, Israel turns around and polices its remaining minorities.” As a reminder, the minorities Alexander refuses to name are Palestinians. Additionally, the Palestinians Alexander refuses to name have only become minorities as a result of Israeli occupation, a modern project that ironically results in some Palestinians being older than the illegitimate state of Israel. “Nearly all majorities do this. This past year, we all saw once again how the American policing of minorities is no exception. The problem of minorities is systemic and is not particular to Israel or to the U.S. Yet that does not excuse Israel from the need to acknowledge and cease the violence of its nation building.” Although implicitly, excusing is exactly what Alexander is doing. To both-sides and what-about state violence via settler-colonialism and white supremacist policing in both Israel and the United States is a disingenuous deflection that attempts to justify the violence of Israel. Alexander is saying— Yeah, it sucks, but that’s just how it goes. By putting on an apolitical mask, in this case and in any other case, it is very clear that the person engaging in the both-sides / what-about argument is on the side of the oppressor. In the last two sentences of his pro-genocide diatribe, it appears Alexander returns to answer Shamout's question on whether or not all critiques of Zionism equate to antisemitism, I am not sure because Alexander has thus far shown a clear aversion to answering any question directly. He states, “I would say this is the great moral imperative and conundrum of the Jewish people in our time. Still, it is a conundrum that rightly should be admitted and shared by hundreds of nations and national movements.” Again, an asinine non-answer that serves to conflate all Jewish people with the ideology of Zionism, to serve Alexander’s personal political agenda. 


At the interview’s conclusion, Shamout asks Alexander, “what do you think are the best ways to combat antisemitism in our communities, both physical and online?” to which Alexander does not speak to antisemitism, but once again to the prospects and effects of propagating Zionism without consequence. His opening statement to this sentence is, again, incoherent, so I’ve done the work of decoding it. He states, “I would need to expand the purview of the mandate to include the elimination of Islamophobia and the denial of Palestinian rights to a free and self-determined state.” This thirty-one word sentence means almost nothing, but serves to frame the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a religious issue. Contrary to what Alexander is propagating, there are Palestinians of Muslim faith, Christian faith, Jewish faith, and atheists (7)— keep in mind the question Shamout asked concerned how to combat antisemitism, but Alexander’s monologue concerns Zionism. In the following sentence, Alexander reveals his true intentions as he states, “it would also have to include complete civil rights for Palestinians and other minorities who are Israeli citizens.” By granting Palestinians citizenship status, he is finally revealing his agenda as a one state solution Zionist. Under the proposed civil rights, Palestinians won’t have their land, and they would be citizens of the illegitimate state of Israel that imposed itself unto the Palestinian people.

Ultimately, this interview published by UCR News is unacceptable in its disingenuous framing of a human rights issue that affects the lives of real people, and has affected the lives of Palestinian students at UCR. In framing critiques of Zionism as antisemitic, and speaking almost exclusively to Zionism in an interview which is supposedly about antisemitism, Alexander constructs an argument that, within the argument’s fabrication, cannot be critiqued without being antisemitic. Furthermore, the answers Alexander gives are so bloated and incoherent, I don’t understand how he is a professor at UCR, as I’ve had more coherent and substantive conversations with my five year old brother, who would stand firmly against genocide if knowledgable enough to understand it— not provide a both-sides / what-about defense so that his in-group can commit atrocities without critique. To be explicit, my use of “in-group” is not an allusion to an antisemitic conspiracy, but a direct contention of the conflation of critiques of Zionism as antisemitic— a clear and obvious disingenuous framing that uses identity as a shield and weaponizes actual hate towards Jewish people, which has material consequences and thus should not be minimized to serve a political agenda.

LINKS

In Defense of a Lone Revolutionary: Christopher Dorner, Resistance, and Narrative - Parts One & Two

Essay by Gilbert Aguirre
Parts One & Two
Published 02/03/2022 11:05 Pm PST

Dorner’s Story

“The warranty of sanity is worth only as much as the social processes that generate it. I perceive a difference, however, between the collective outrages that we sometimes label madness and the idiosyncratic act of an individual “ Robert M. Cover, 1982


This is an analysis of ex-LAPD officer and former Navy reservist Christopher Dorner who was entrapped and killed by police in 2013. Southern California police conducted a manhunt for Dorner after he was the prime suspect in the murder of former LAPD captain Randal Quan’s daughter and her fiancée. Dorner posted an eighteen page manifesto on Facebook with the opening lines:

“From: Christopher Jordan Dorner /7648

To: America

Subj: Last resort

Regarding CF# 07-004281”

The case file number at the end of this citation refers to the complaint levied against Dorner that lead to him being fired by LAPD. This complaint was levied against Dorner, in his perspective, because he called out the abuse of his partner Teresa Evans who kicked a handcuffed, mentally ill man in the face. The reason Dorner sees the complaint levied against him as retaliation is because the department claimed he fabricated the incident entirely, and that lying about Teresa Evans’ conduct is the reason for his termination (Dorner,2013). 

During the investigation that lead to Dorner’s termination, Dorner claims to have revealed a conflict of interest amongst the Board of Rights judges that were to decide on his case, as the judges were friends and close colleagues to Evans, but of course these conflicts of interest were undressed (2). Thus, in response to having lost his job, Dorner states,

“I have exhausted all available means at obtaining my name back. I have attempted all legal court efforts within appeals at the Superior Courts and California Appellate courts. This is my last resort. The LAPD has suppressed the truth and it has now lead to deadly consequences.” Christopher Dorner, 2013.

The feeling of betrayal, and disillusionment of the prestige of empire because of how its corruption affected him, lead to Dorner’s individual acts of violence for personal redemption. After killing the daughter of the former LAPD captain who represented Dorner in his case, as well as her fiancée, Dorner was traveling east through Southern California and had shootouts with cops in Corona and Riverside. Including Dorner himself and the couple he killed, five people died in the process of the manhunt. Dorner was finally entrapped in Big Bear, California and surrounded by police in a cabin. They set the cabin aflame with Dorner inside, he was reportedly found with a gunshot wound in his head, likely fired by Dorner himself.



State Violence “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception”
—Carl Schmitt


Abolitionist scholar Dylan Rodriguez makes the important clarification that “police brutality” is a ham-fisted term, that rather the brutality of the police is simply cops doing their job. In his own words, Rodriguez argues, the term police brutality “is often used to refer to violent police practices that are utterly, ritually sanctioned by law”. Dorner speaks to this in his critique of Latino cops targeting and harassing Latino immigrants— because of their marginalized status in the United States empire, law sanctions more violent consequences for undocumented citizens. To this point, the former police chief Randal Quan— who represented Dorner in his case to the Board of Rights— and whom’s daughter Dorner killed, refers to himself as “a cop who had been respectful to everyone he arrested” (LA Times, 2013), the irony of this statement does not escape this writer just as it should not escape the reader. It is tremendously easy for a cop, whose occupation permits him to wield and exercise power as he sees fit, to view himself as having engaged in respectability politics while ruining the lives of others— this is simply what the job of being an arm of the state requires and incentivizes. As an arm of the state, the former LAPD captain Randal Quan is illusioned by his role of power, and is unable to see the contradiction of respectfully enforcing law to arrest and imprison the populace he claims to protect. Quan was so illusioned, he couldn’t imagine how someone, anyone, would want to retaliate against him or his family as a result of the “respect” he showed while subjugating Los Angeles community members to state violence.

In searching for Dorner after he was known to be the perpetrator of the murder of Randal Quan’s daughter Monica Quan, and her fiancée Keith Lawrence who was a Public Safety Officer for USC, Southern California police were on high alert (Research 15). And, as police on high alert typically equates to extreme violence without provocation, nearly killed three innocent civilians in Torrence, California. 

The first women, who made the mistake of driving a truck while Southern California police were conducting a manhunt, were delivering newspapers in the early hours of the  morning. The women, 71 year old Emma Hernandez and her 47 year old daughter Margie Carranza were going about their daily shift, delivering newspapers to a house that was under high security due to one of the residents being a high ranking officer. The truck Hernandez and her daughter were driving in was shot at over one hundred times (Sasha Goldstein, 2019).

A 4.2 million dollar settlement was eventually reached for Hernandez and Carranza. However, the discourse at the time makes it clear that police feel entitled to their power, and thus should only rarely face consequences. A “use-of-force expert” interviewed for the Los Angeles Times critiqued the large settlement, because “a payout of this magnitude typically comes in cases with crippling injuries and deaths” (Andrew Blankstein LA TImes 2013). This reality reveals that the motive of operations for the police is, again, not on accountability or public safety. The women shot at over one hundred times by seven different cops, each sustaining gunshot wounds, is somehow not enough damage or terror to justify a high settlement.

This sly, disingenuous discourse that surrounds— not “police brutality,” but policing— is what Christopher Dorner was disillusioned with. The lack of accountability sustained by state violence and disseminated through mass media and pseudo-intellectual rightwing discourse exist to reinforce the idea that police have a right to exist, and that their existence is somehow separate from, and not intrinsic to, extreme violence and repression.

Resistance

“Any group that seeks the transformation of the surrounding social world must evolve a mechanism for such change. There must be a theory and practice of apostolic ministry to the unconverted, a theory and practice of Leninist selection of cadres and class-consciousness- raising activity, or a theory and practice of legislation and deliberative politics. Of course, some associations - most limited-purpose ones - strive for small change in a world understood to be unproblematic if ill defined.” —Robert M. Cover

In this section I will be critiquing Christopher Dorner’s attempt at resistance. As I have made clear my support and admiration for Dorner’s resistance, here I will critique the individualist nature of his actions by placing it in context with an editorial released by The Black Panther Party’s newspaper, The Black Panther, in 1968. Although he sought to wage a war against the police, his resistance was shortsighted and not based in firm ideological ground, despite his staunch commitment to egalitarianism, informed by his liberal conception of race and indoctrination into the empire’s nomos, namely the illusion of American exceptionalism and the prestige of empire. In Dorner’s manifesto, he offers the problematic assertion, “I’m not an aspiring rapper, I’m not a gang member, I’m not a dope dealer, I don’t have multiple babies momma’s,” this inclusion in the manifesto functions as Dorner’s attempt to separate himself from racist stereotypes of Black men. Instead of critiquing these caricatures as problematic and rooted in white supremacist ideology, Dorner repeats them as truisms, so to say “I agree with those descriptions of The Other— believe me when I tell you I am not them— I am one of you.” In the manifesto, he continues; “I am an American by choice, I am a son, I am a brother, I am a military service member, I am a man who has lost complete faith in the system, when the system betrayed, slandered, and libeled me”.

I draw this point to critique Dorner’s ideology, which throughout his manifesto ranges from radical, to liberal, and even to prideful of the US empire. His logical ground, firmly against corruption but unable to see that the empire he praises is itself corrupt, lead him to confusion and anger— these feelings are what produced Dorner’s militant, shortsighted action.

So, what is resistance in the wild west? And where did Dorner go wrong? I will answer these questions with an excerpt from The Black Panther from a larger editorial entitled “Correcting Mistaken Ideas.” In the editorial, written by a Black Panther member by the name of Capt. Crutch,  the writer critiques the hyper-militant ideology of members of the Black Liberation Army— asserting that their refusal to work on propaganda and community outreach renders them useless and a threat to the revolutionary movement. A list he provides is pertinent to understand the misguided base of Dorner’s resistance. Captain Crutch states:

“The sources of the purely militant viewpoint are:

  1. A low political level

  2. The mentality of mercenaries.

  3. Over confidence in the military strength and absence of confidence in the strength of the masses of the people. This arises from the preceding three.”

By applying this critique to Dorner’s ideology, which he presents in his manifesto, and observing its impact on how his resistance manifested materially, we can better understand where Dorner went wrong. In observing a critique of The Black Liberation Army by The Black Panther Party, we are able to see how a political organization aimed at revolution, which understands “military affairs are only one means of accomplishing political tasks… We must not confine ourselves merely to fighting,” (Crunch) can work to provide an educational basis that would quell the purely militant viewpoint, and provide a network of resistance, as opposed to individual and isolated acts of violence against the oppressor.

The “low political level” Crutch critiques of the militant viewpoint are present in Dorner’s manifesto, as Dorner praises corrupt politicians such as “honorable President George H.W. Bush”; affirms to Hillary Clinton that “much like your husband, Bill, you will be one of the greatest… He was always my favorite president”; provides encouragement to Governor Chris Christie, stating “you’re the only person I would like to see in the White House in 2016 other than Hillary” (Crutch, Capt. 2017); and his misguided praise of Joe Biden, stating, “I’ve always been a fan of yours and consider you one of the few genuine and charismatic politicians” (11). Moreover, along with displaying a low political level in his manifesto, Dorner also displays the mentality of a mercenary, as his direct action against the LAPD, he states numerous times, is being done to clear his name— Dorner states explicitly, “The attacks will stop when the department states the truth about my innocence, PUBLICLY!!!”. These beliefs held by Dorner, alongside his racialized critique of the populace he separates himself from, further articulates what Crutch calls an “absence of confidence in the strength of the masses of the people” Thus, although being released forty-five years before Dorner’s resistance and death, his ideology and ill-informed resistance are precisely what Crutch criticizes. Crutch does not stop at criticism in his editorial for The Black Panther, he proceeds to offer solutions:

“The methods of correction are as follows.

Raise the political level in the party by means of education. At the same time, eliminate the remnants of opportunism and putschism and break-down selfish departmentalism.

  1. Intensify the political training of officers and men. Select workers and people experienced in struggle to join the party; thus, organizationally weakening or even eradicating the purely military viewpoint.

  2. The party must actively attend to and discuss military work.

  3. Draw up party rules and regulations which clearly define its tasks, the relationship between its military and its political apparatus, and the relationship between the party and the masses of the people.” (23)

These solutions, beginning with raising the political education of party members, an insistence on political training and its relation to militant action, and the enforcement of these practices via party rules are important in leading to an understanding of why Dorner’s story is critical to both narratives of resistance, and resistance in praxis. It is clear that Crutch is not disavowing the Black Liberation Army, but is rather being critical of them because their praxis, void of ideology, makes them less dependable, and thus harder to be in solidarity with.

PART TWO

Crutch’s critique provides a roadmap for people who both believe in and practice resistance against state violence, and also illustrate the importance of critical solidarity. By being critical and honest about Dorner’s low political education, his mercenary mentality, and his lack of faith in the rest of society, we are made aware of the necessity for political education and a network of support for radicals, disillusioned by the prestige of the United States empire.


Myth

“The very imposition of a normative force upon a state of affairs, real or imagined, is the act of creating narrative “

—Robert M. Cover,

In killing Dorner, the LAPD was able to end the narrative and stop his resistance by denying his right to go to court. If Dorner had been tried in a court of law, courts would, hypothetically, publicly validate the abuses Dorner called out in his manifesto— or they would be seen as unsubstantiated and unworthy of attention because Dorner himself would be on trial, not the reason for his action; a tricky reality of the verisimilitude of the court of law. The ethical man— broken by racism and corruption he witnessed firsthand in a system he had faith in —was again betrayed and silenced by a state sanctioned execution that parallels the American tradition of a lynching.  His death, and his body set aflame in the city of Big Bear is representative of what the violent arm of the state is capable of doing to its adversaries; not police brutality, but a state sanctioned murder— police simply doing their job. Dorner, who shed blood because he was broken, is representative of an individual has been sold a lie and grew to hate his role within it. 

In a New York Times article written after Dorner’s death, a liberal op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow wrote a piece titled “Don’t Mythologize Christopher Dorner,” in which he expresses disgust at those who make a hero of Dorner, and apologize or empathize with his action. He states, “fighting for justice is noble. Spilling innocent blood is the ultimate act of cowardice. Dorner is not the right emblem for those wronged by the system,” (Blow 1) but as someone who was wronged by the system, and as his resistance was informed by the ideology of that system, how is he not its emblem?

When Blow cites KTLA’s condolences to “anyone that suffered losses or injuries resulting from Christopher’s actions,” he acknowledges it as “the right sentiment: condolences for the victims and condemnation of Dorner’s actions. Period” (1). The narratives of both Blow and KTLA omit:

1. the two women who were misidentified as Dorner while delivering newspapers who were shot at over one hundred times (Goldstein 1), and

2. the man who, twenty five minutes later, was shot at after his truck was, again misidentified, and rammed by the same department.

Through both revisions, these acts of violence that are a direct result of police negligence and thirst for blood are framed as being a result of Dorner’s actions— not the police or their abuse. The passive voice in Blow’s critique is astounding— the narrative propagated by his omissions are unsurprising. In addition, Dorner’s entrapment and the burning of his corpse is both synthesized and editorialized in the sentence: “Christopher Dorner… who died this week in a cabin fire while on the run” (Blow 1), the section omitted by ellipses is used to call Dorner a fugitive and state his crimes. Blow’s intent is clear— to villanize Dorner and condemn anyone who sees him as representative of resistance and a possibility for accountability and change.

I argue the opposite of Blow’s op-ed— Dorner needs to be mythologized, not only to praise a man broken by a corrupt system, but to let the arm of the state know that we, as victims of their violence and members of the communities they occupy, will support and stand for anyone who is against them. As a corrupt occupying force that exists to protect property and reject accountability, resistance in its many forms should be praised to send a message. A message that states a corrupt, violent organization is deserving of whatever bloodshed comes as a result of their abuse.

In mythologizing Dorner, not only are the police made aware of their unrespected role of power, they are also aware that the public they occupy is against them. By praising revolutionaries, and even an admittedly shortsighted radical like Christopher Dorner, we create a network of support that uplifts resistors. We are aware that violence and the threat of violence brings change. Dorner himself stated that he was waging a war against the police because of their corruption, and what they did to him for calling it out. Critiques of Dorner as an egoist fall short of acknowledging the national context of early 2013— this was before the Black Lives Matter movement, and there were no major organizations to absorb his radical resistance. Instead, because there was no support network of resistance for Dorner, he was compelled to act alone in order to begin the violent change we need to combat a violently corrupt police force. Thus, through a framework of critical solidarity, people who believe in resistance and revolution can set the social and ideological base of escape for possible revolutionaries like Christopher Dorner by allowing Dorner to be a myth, identifying how his ideology impeded his resistance, and using the narrative of his resistance to educate and liberate people trapped in the illusion of American empire.

Blankstein, Andrew, et al. “Women Shot during Dorner Manhunt to Receive $4.2 Million from L.A.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 23 Apr. 2013, www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-apr-23-la-me-dorner-settlement-20130424-story.html.

Blow, Charles M. “Don't Mythologize Christopher Dorner.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Feb. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/opinion/blow-dont-mythologize-christopher-dorner.html?_r=0.

Cover, Robert M., "The Supreme Court, 1982 Term -- Foreword: Nomos and Narrative" (1983). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 2705. http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2705

Crutch, Capt. “Correcting Mistaken Ideas.” The Black Panthers Speak, edited by Philip S. Foner, 2017, pp 21-23. Print

Dorner, Christopher. Manifesto. 7 Feb. 2013. Pdf

Goldstein, Sasha. “LAPD Officers Who Shot Innocent Women during Manhunt for Vengeful Ex-Cop Violated Policy: Report .” Nydailynews.com, New York Daily News, 10 Jan. 2019, www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lapd-cops-shot-women-violated-policy-article-1.1602272.

Research And Destroy New York City. Communiqué From An Ex-Cop. 2013. Annotation of Christopher Dorner’s manifesto. https://researchdestroy.com/dorner-communique-from-an-ex-cop.pdf

Rodríguez, Dylan. “Beyond “Police Brutality”: Racist State Violence and the University of California.” American Quarterly, vol. 64, no. 2, June 2012 pp. 301-313. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23273518