Month: August 2014

by Dish Staff

D.B. revisits the question of whether ISIS can really live up to its self-proclaimed “statehood“:

IS’s mission is to create its own caliphate, but until now many of its sources of revenue have depended on its host states. … IS has not proven adept at running anything other than the most basic functions of a state in the past—dispensing justice and, in most cases, providing bread, the staple food. In 2013 in Raqqa it attempted to take over the opposition’s civilian-run local council, which had continued to pay road sweepers and keep ambulances on the road. Locals say it soon handed back control after it failed to deliver, angering residents. The IS model of stealing from and feeding off the Syrian and Iraqi states has worked well so far. But it will become much more difficult for IS to rule its territory if the Damascus and Baghdad governments stop being so helpful.

That’s why a massive humanitarian aid effort is a big part of Zalmay Khalilzad’s suggested action plan for how to defeat ISIS:

The humanitarian catastrophe resulting from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria requires a massive response. This is essential strategically. Friendly countries who host large number of refugees, such as Jordan and the Kurdish region of Iraq are at risk of destabilization. For displaced Sunni Arabs, poor refugee conditions can lead to radicalization and opportunities for IS to recruit them. If we allow IS to exploit this opportunity, the threat could expand exponentially. Moreover, IS is seeking to establish itself as a quasistate, providing humanitarian aid and services in areas it controls. The international community and its local partners must compete for the hearts and minds among refugees and communities seeking protection from or willing to align against IS. This competition will be waged in part in the provision of humanitarian relief and basic services. It is a competition that we must win.

Looking at the varying maps of ISIS’s sphere of influence, such as the one above from the Institute for the Study of War, Kathy Gilsinan asks whether the group really controls all of the territory in which it operates, and whether that matters:

Crucially, while those control zones don’t amount to 35,000 square miles worth of territory, they do encompass major population centers, which tend to be concentrated along major roads. “The aims of the ‘Caliphate’ explicitly include population control, and ISIS has continued to prioritize the acquisition of populated geography,” [ISW Syria analyst Jennifer] Cafarella writes. So the key elements of the Islamic ‘State’ are its network of population centers, oil resources, and military infrastructure, connected by roads. With its territorial expansion, then, ISIS is something more than an al-Qaeda-like terrorist organization enjoying safe haven in a defined geographic area. Syria and Iraq are not sheltering the group as the Taliban did for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In some respects, ISIS bears more of a resemblance to the Taliban, which similarly terrorized civilians but, unlike al-Qaeda, held clear, albeit incomplete, sway over a defined territory.

by Dish Staff

Jess Row ponders why “most white writers, like most white Americans, particularly those over 30, still feel a profound psychic distance between themselves and black people”:

[T]he defining experiences for people my age (that is, Generations X and Y) fall in the tumultous years between 1988 and 1992—the years of Tawana Brawley, Howard Beach, the Central Park Five, and the L.A. Riots—when a furious debate over canonicity and inclusion raged in the academy, when Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton came to prominence, Malcolm X superseded MLK, when Ice Cube talked about killing blue-eyed devils, and t-shirts everywhere said “It’s a Black thing…you wouldn’t understand.”

That era seems like ancient history now, but it has everything to do with why American fiction and poetry remain relentlessly segregated spaces, even though many of our greatest and most visible artists are artists of color. For many white Americans, the takeaway message of that complicated time, consciously or sub- or un-, was like a second, post-Civil-Rights response to “The White Negro”: that for a white person to try to say anything meaningful about race, or racism, was not only ridiculous, but shameful, and also somehow dangerous.

Row concludes by addressing a likely counterargument: So what if white writers ignore race?

It’s a valid question, and one I’ve asked myself many times: if the world is full of artists of color talking about race, why do I need to get in on that action? If there’s this vibrant, rich, visceral, scary conversation already underway, who cares if white writers choose not to participate? The best answer I can give, the only honest answer a writer can give, is a selfish one: it’s interesting to me. It’s good material: the tension, the friction, the rich possibilities of embarrassing oneself for a good cause. (As the white rapper Sage Francis says of himself, “Poorly developed, yet highly advanced / the black music intertwined with the white man’s line dance.”) It’s about writing honestly and going deeper into life, yes, but it’s also just a source of happiness. You could even take a cue from Talib Kweli and call it “the beautiful struggle.” For me, it’s been a relief, too: to realize that this bitter earth is the one place we all have standing.

by Dish Staff

Jesse Singal argues that registered sex offenders should be able to live wherever they please:

[L]aws designed to restrict where sex offenders can live are really and truly useless, except as a means of politicians scoring easy political points by ratcheting up hysteria. There are many tricky social-scientific issues on which there are a range of opinions and some degree of debate among experts, but this isn’t one of them. Among those whose job it is to figure out how to reduce the rate at which sex offenders commit crimes (as opposed to those whose job it is to get reelected, in part by hammering away at phantom threats), there is zero controversy: These laws don’t work, and may actually increase sexual offenders’ recidivism rates.

As for where sex offenders do live, Alyssa Coppelman interviews Noah Rabinowitz, who photographed a Florida religious community the majority of whose residents are part of that population:

I read that there’s quite a demand from sex offenders to live there. Have many of the community members lived there long, or do they move on at a certain point?

“The smallest infraction of the community’s rules by one the residents will get them kicked out. Though, it very rarely happens. Only a few miles away, there is a community of sex-offenders, not allowed to inhabit Miracle Village, living under a bridge. Only a small fraction of housing in the state of Florida is available for a convinced sex-offender. Application numbers are very high and admission, based on a voting system, is very selective. Moral and ethical judgments aside, the residents are trying to live out their American Dream, in the only way the law and society will allow. Some discuss their hopes for life after their time in Miracle Village, but many find it to be a safe place and wish to stay.”

by Dish Staff

Alexis Sobel Fitts highlights evidence of it:

In a study of the Chicago broadcast media, a research team found that black defendants were more likely than defendants of other races to be shown through a mugshot rather than a personal picture or none at all. Another study of television coverage found black suspects are twice as likely as white suspects to be shown on camera under police restraint. While it’s difficult to pinpoint whether a particular suspect is being covered more harshly because of their race, taken in tandem this data points to a dangerous precedent: Black men are easily perceived as criminals, disproportionately to the rate they may be committing crimes.

It’s a similar framing to “Missing White Girl Syndrome,” a name coined to reflect the deluge of coverage when a young, affluent, white female goes missing—and the dearth of coverage when children of color disappear. Entities like the “Black and Missing Foundation” and shows like TVOne’s Find Our Missing are attempts to fill in the gap publicizing missing children who are not white. Scanning the faces of the missing children on these sites comes closer to the reality of the racial breakdown of missing persons: About 34 percent of missing persons overall, and 37 percent of missing minors, are black, according to FBI statistics from 2013. Who media coverage chooses to cast as victims, and what victims—like Brown—don’t fit neatly into the role, has a powerful effect on the mindset of the public who watch these reports and take with them a subliminal idea of what someone who might be victimized looks like.