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Profiling

A trained criminal psychologist is qualified to lay out a possible profile for a certain type of criminal. You are not qualified. A governor or politician is not qualified. A celebrity is not qualified. Oprah Winfrey is not qualified. Neither is a judge, jury, or prosecutor. Neither am I, for that matter. Michael Jackson is not an “obvious pedophile” because of his “creepy attitude toward children,” his being “out-of-touch with society,” his “kinky/gross porn collection,” his or his attorney’s “fainting in court,” or his “affinity for plastic surgery.” We do not know what the “profile” for a pedophile is and we are not qualified to make such base assumptions. I refuse to form an opinion on Michael Jackson’s guilt or innocence, but I would venture to say that child molesters are the most wrongly profiled group of people in our culture.

Here are some characteristics that “common sense” would appeal to when looking for a likely pedophile. They are common social attitudes based on one-case scenarios and fictional assumptions. They have been used in the media and/or in court against Michael Jackson, John Ramsey, and other popularized cases. The “typical” pedophile is:

1. Male
2. Homosexual
3. Unmarried
4. Effeminate or “soft”
5. Lurking/antisocial/strange
6. Beady Eyes
7. Catholic
8. Nervous Twitch
9. Can never be “cured.”

(I venture to declare the opinion that all of these assumptions are false.)

We are also not qualified to profile any other type of criminal or deviant act. Scott Peterson is not a murderer because of his “cool, calculated personality,” or his “suspicious demeanor.” Michael Schiavo is, similarly, not after his wife’s insurance money because Michael is “cool and level headed,” “unemotional,” or “so adamant.” John and Patsy Ramsey did not kill their daughter because of their “unusual emotional reaction,” their “theatrical display of emotion,” or their “immediate recourse to a defense attorney” that occurred AFTER John Ramsey was declared suspect (feel free to check me up on that last one because I’m not completely sure about it). If any of you have ever walked in on your mutilated daughter lying on the basement floor after searching desperately for her for hours, maybe you would know why John Ramsey would want to “destroy evidence by moving the body” when he ripped the duct tape off his daughter’s body’s mouth and carried the the corpse to the police. We are not qualified to profile these things, and neither are journalists. Accused people are either guilty or innocent because they either did or did not commit the crimes they are accused of, and we will never know the answer to any of these cases beyond a degree of socially perceived probability (although we kill a proportion of them off with lethal injection anyway).

I am continually disappointed by the way the corporate media (sometimes known as as the “liberal media”) frames criminal cases. Calls for suspended judgment and rational restraint are far dispersed between repeated points of attention drawn to “facts of [sensationalist] interest” that the News Establishment found while squatting outside the accused’s home. Journalists, who I hope have had some degree of education on issues pertaining to law and justice, should know how not to paint the news with glitter or lead viewers to paint it with unsubstantiated and irrelevant information. The role of journalism is to question verdicts and defend possible innocence (which is why open trials were guaranteed by the Constitution), not reinforce and generate public opinion. In a country where nearly half of the 3,456 inmates on Death Row are black (as of Jan. 1st), I want to see more questioning. To take this a step further, I think that the way journalists allow people on trial to be framed gives us insight into how it presents other news, on topics ranging from the Social Security “crisis” to the personalities of politicians to the war in Iraq.

Poetry 6:6-8 (An Experiment in Translation)

When you write poetry, go into a private room, shut the door, and write in secret. There, words that churn up through silence will say what they must with precision. When you write poetry, do not use meaningless crypticism and heavy devices as the self-important do. Such people think that writing so will make their words profound, but instead their work is gutted of truth and in the end says nothing. Do not write like that: ignore your fear and ego to let the poems speak themselves, because true poems know what to say before they are written.

Borderline

Experiment in Progression

Just for fun, I thought I’d post some more pictures. This series demonstrates two things. First of all, I change a lot. Second, a message for all you ugly high school freshmen: realize through my example that you’re in an awkward age and it gets better as you get older. I went through many phases: during my later high school years I bleached my hair about 4 times. During everything after Fall 2001 and before spring 2004 I had braces (clear on top, so not entirely visible in photos), so I tried not to smile. I had super-long and nappy sideburns (a.k.a. “chops”) between late spring 2003 and early fall 2003 (a period that is not pictured) and started growing a beard in winter 2004. I’ve changed clothing styles about every 6 months, throughout the series, but managed to change style while continuing to wear the exact same clothes. That’s just the kind of person I am, always changing, always re-inventing myself, and I’m sure I’ll be somebody completely different a year from now.

Update

I just wanted to update you all on what I look like now since my hair is growing out and I have a beard. These are pretty laid back pictures; no streaking, sex, coke lines, pot, or drunken vomiting, but you can all rest assured that I still get my share of crazy stuff that doesn’t get photographed.

Exhale

I am trying to breathe you out of my body.

I’m Wearing my Boyfriend’s T-Shirt

Get some sun.
He loves you, but in his own way.
Take a few deep breaths.
Spirituality can be invented if not achieved.
Tickle his chakras.

I want to bathe in you, to wrap you around me like a blanket and take all of you in, carry as much as I can hold and give myself to what’s left. I want you as a pill, I want the injection. I want to hold you in my lungs. I want you in any form you come, but please, please, come.

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NAMBLA

I’ve heard that the poet Allen Ginsberg was a member of a group called NAMBLA.

For those of you who don’t know what that stands for, NAMBLA is “North American Man Boy Love Association,” and I’m told that the group is about exactly what its name suggests. In spite of this, I think I’ll join. I’m not a pedophile or anything, and I really don’t approve of NAMBLA’s mission at all. I just like how the acronym sounds when you pronounce it as one word. Nambla. Feel it. It sounds Eastern, it sounds Indian, like a Hindu or Sikh holy word. Like a chant, a sacred invocation of the name of God in decroded old bodies and chicken meat. What a beautiful irony.