Arts Documentary Video & Rachel Corrie
posted by on March 29 at 13:12 PM
If you haven’t read Brendan’s smart review of My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Rep, do.
Few Seattle theater productions ever become a common point of reference for people outside the theater scene, but I think Rachel Corrie has the potential to do so. And it should. What struck me over and over again about the play was how local Corrie’s writings were. People say that her diaries weren’t written for publication, but I think that’s at least half wrong. Everyone who keeps a private journal has some consciousness of a future audience, whether you’re aiming at your older self or fantasizing a public ravenous for your juvenilia. Corrie didn’t seem to imagine the entire world as her audience, I think—it was more like her friends and neighbors, her insistently local “community.” (And of course, her letters home are aimed at a specific audience, also with common points of reference.)
It’s far easier to understand My Name is Rachel Corrie if you recognize Corrie as a specific type—not a generic patchouli hippie activist, but an Evergreen student, and an Olympia kid. Not a flower child, a flower-bed child. A cultivated specimen. Evergreen as a school for crafty rebels who really just want to camp out forever in their parents’ backyards. A school that emphasizes experiential learning over—yes, at the expense of—critical thinking. (A friend of mine earned at least as many credits welding metal as she did reading books.) As played by Marya Sea Kaminski, Rachel Corrie seems almost identical to another friend I had growing up in North Seattle—who alternately aggravated and stimulated me in the exact same way. Even the declamatory style Kaminski uses (probably overuses) in the first half struck me as powerfully familiar. (That said, Kaminski, native Washingtonians say “too-wer” for tour, not “torr.”)
But what I really want to talk about is the video of Corrie as a 10-year-old kid, speaking clearly and precociously about her goal to end hunger by the year 2000, which closes the play.
I’m here for other children.
I’m here because I care.
I’m here because children everywhere are suffering and because forty thousand people die each day from hunger.
I’m here because these people are mostly children.
We have got to understand that the poor are all around us and we are ignoring them.
We have got to understand that these deaths are preventable.
We have got to understand that people in Third World countries think and care and smile and cry just like us.
We have got to understand that they dream our dreams and we dream theirs.
We have got to understand that they are us. We are them.
My dream is to stop hunger by the year 2000.
My dream is to give the poor a chance.
My dream is to save the forty thousand people who die each day.
My dream can and will come true if we all look into the future and see the light that shines there.
If we ignore hunger, that light will go out.
If we all help and work together, it will burn free with the potential of tomorrow.
It’s a really, really interesting choice, and without it, the play would be far more curt and aggressive—it would look more like the agitprop its detractors describe. The video raises innumerable questions, and I still don’t think I have a handle on all the possible directions it takes the audience.
1) Are we supposed to freeze Corrie in our minds as a 10-year-old kid, her ideology forever immature and fantastical?
2) Further, does this sort of thing contribute to the condescension we enlightened viewers employ when talking about Corrie—a “girl,” not a woman; a fragile blond naďf who let herself be used by those with more sophisticated political agendas; a randomly oriented radical who could just as easily have been protesting the G-8 or chaining herself to redwoods.
3) Why do we teach kids to be so stupid? Corrie obviously didn’t grab that kind of language out the ether—it’s the kind of artless useless optimism we DEMAND from children.
4) Was Corrie in a gifted program? She probably needed to be around smarter kids so she wasn’t constantly talking up to cooing adults.
5) Or alternately, are we supposed to regret the direction her life took? Are we supposed to see this 10-year-old as a pure little potential genie, who just should have been unbottled somewhere on the East Coast, who should have gone on to the Peace Corps or some sexless NGO that really aimed to facilitate food distribution and stop hunger?
But the video just sits there. It’s a little pile of recorded “objectivity” at the end of a play that otherwise ventriloquizes Corrie’s own words and opinions. It argues with her older self, I’m sure. I’m just not certain what point it’s making.
I take exception to your characterization of Evergreen. Yes, there are a lot of intellectually lazy people who would rather have the exhilaration of a cause and take yoga and puppetry classes rather than taking the time to gather information and analyze it. But Evergreen is what you make of it, I myself have done nothing but read books and learn how to be critical of everything (to the point of no longer being able to enjoy anything on TV, thanks Evergreen). Saying that Evergreen is a school where all you do is get credit for welding, basket weaving, and ignorant protesting is a sweeping and unfair generalization, even if there are instances that confirm it (which I can attest, there are).
We can debate the value of an Evergreen degree and whether or not students are taking advantage of what is available here, but do not say you are not taught to think critically here, because that seems to be the one thing that has been stressed with every class I have had here (I can't speak for the Environmental Sciences programs though, I have focused on social issues and literature).
Rachel Corrie was her own person and made her own choices, her evergreen experience may have reinforced them depending on the education and social life she chose, but it most certainly did not create them. Rachel Corrie was her own person before she ever even came to Evergreen and was her own person as she attended the school. Don't blame the school for not making her critical enough, because there were opportunities to do just that which were ignored. You can't just teach critical thinking, it has to be cultivated by the person as well as taught. Evergreen can't force that on its students.
Is Evergreen completely absolved of responsibility for Rachel Corrie? No, but it should not be saddled as the sole "ah ha" reason for her fate. The biggest failing of evergreen is probably that we are offered too many choices, making it that much easier to choose the wrong ones (but I like to think more personally rewarding when you choose the right ones).
What about all the other Rachels who died? This play is racist and anti-semitic.
I can't put it better than Brandon did. I graduated from Evergreen in 1990 and I doubt it has changed much since, other than now they has basketball. There is a lot more critical thinking going on there than you give credit.
I haven't seen the play or video, but this confuses me: "Why do we teach kids to be so stupid? Corrie obviously didn’t grab that kind of language out the ether—it’s the kind of artless useless optimism we DEMAND from children."
Are you saying that what 10-year-old Rachel Corrie is saying there is stupid? Because it sounds pretty damn impressive for a 10-year-old. Call me a hippie, but I think the world could use more artless useless optimism like that. How would you have 10-year-olds talk or think about world hunger? Lay out some policy initiatives, perhaps?
Growing up in Brooklyn, critical thinking was in the air we breathed. These Evergreen idiots with their air head politics wouldn't last five minutes on the East Coast. Rachel Corrie is an embarassment to Seattle. I'm glad The Stranger is leading the charge in bashing Rachel Corrie. Someone has to be the voice of Seattle's Jewish community. Rachel Corrie died trying to save a dentist's house. Jews die every day, where's the play about them?
Fuckin' A, Brandon H. Fuckin' A, elswinger.
Evergreen was the most stimulating, challenging, and frustrating environment I've ever been in - yes, I had classmates that we nicknamed "Zen Radio" and "Space" for their incredible ability to tune in, turn off, and burn out, but I also had classmates and professors who pushed me to define my thoughts and opinions clearly. It will be a crucible if you let it.
I didn't know Rachel, though we attended during at the same-ish time, but those that I've met who did know her first hand do not characterize her as a simple-minded, easily-influenced, brain-dead hippy, and I personally bristle at the idea that most students from Evergreen are.
Shoshana, you are insane.
East Coast schools are much harder. If I didn't have to live in Seattle for computer work, I'd move back to Boston in a heartbeat. Evergreen is a state funded hippy factory. I fuckin' hate hippies. The Stranger is the only local publication to print a smack down on Rachel Corrie. If hippies want to die under a bulldozer, let 'em. Just don't write plays about it.
Josh & Shoshana: Why do you even fucking live here? Josh say he can't get computer work in Boston (ever here of Kinkos?). What's you excuse Shoshana? This was a much cooler place to live before reactionary assholes like you moved in and raised our rents.
I have to agree with #1 on Evergreen. I didn't go there, I've been educated on the east coast, and I'm Jewish (if that's enough qualifiers). Evergreen is one of the last few schools in this country engaged in progressive pedagogy. Sure it has its faults and a huge hippy factor, but without these few schools who are more concerned with thinkers and challengers than turning out another mba, the world would be a much worse place. so lay off evergreen, as i see it, it is an endangered species.
"Old Seattle" types should go read the Weakly. I live in Seattle because I believe it can become a real city. The local Jewish community is growing in spite of rampant racism and anti-semitism in Seattle and I want to support that. The Stranger is the newspaper of Seattle's future, if you don't like it don't read it. Plenty of local Jews hate Rachel Corrie and everything she stands for. They are entitled to be heard.
I would agree that you get out of TESC what you put into it.
Where is this rampant racism and anti-semitism in Seattle? The main hater around here seems to be you.
Seattle made national news for it's antisemitism when the city refused to put up a Menorah to honor our sacred holiday. As for racism, just walk down the street and all you see is white people. I know racism and antisemitism, I've lived in a real multicultural secular state - Israel.
East coast schools are harder (therefore better?) and Evergreen is a hippie factory?
Hmmm, those statements don't smack of any elitism and ignorance at all.
Interesting how you people are looking at Rachel Corrie as the quintessential Greener. That just isn't the case though, and it is unfair to the rest of us to imply that it is. Like I said earlier, Rachel Corrie was her own person, not Evergreens (just like I am my own person and not Evergreens). Hate on Rachel Corrie all you want, you'd probably be right, but stop with the Evergreen bashing and stereotyping. You sound worse than the people who blame rock n' roll for all the trouble with kids today.
Ok Shoshana, now I get the joke. I have been Punk'd!
Having a critical mind isn't elitist, it simply means being smarter than other people. There is plenty of dumbed down media around. I read The Stranger for it's erudition.
Oh, so thats the troll with the pseudonym that Annie was talking about.
I did the Environmental Sciences program in the late 90's and graduated with a BA/BS. I agree that the place is a bit overrun with hippies, and I was a bit of one at the time, but I got a great education there. I've been in the professional world for the past 7 years and have learned to appreciate my schooling more every year as I continuously deal with "educated" people who didn't learn to think for themselves.
#12 has it exactly right, Evergreen is a school that gives you what you put into it. I had plenty of friends who picked the place because of the lack of grades (mostly rich kids from the East Coast...). I also had a lot of friends who took advantage of the opportunities available there that you can't get in a more traditional school with 300 people in a lecture hall listening to a TA teach their class. I recently reconnected with one of them who wrote a piece of legislation for Senator Lieberman that's now law.
Where else is seminar a integral part of an undergraduate education? How common is it for undergrads to get to do hands-on work with $500K scientific equipment and have almost unlimited access to their professors?
Sure, you can get a degree from TESC based on your independent contract which was all about touring with your friend's band (Hi Casey!), but on the other hand you can also do graduate level work right from day one if you're so inclined. That's missing from the big box schools.
I was there while Rachel was, I knew her in passing through friends who were close to her. She, like most everyone there, got out of it what she put into it. It's a tragedy that she died but no one should categorize her as simple minded or ignorant just because she had a passion you don't share.
Thanks to the folks who have posted about TESC based on their personal knowledge, I think it's clear who those folks are...
Fuck off to the asshats who think they know what the place is about because of a few stories they've heard.
"East Coast schools are harder." Keep telling yourself that dude...
"These Evergreen idiots with their air head politics wouldn't last five minutes on the East Coast." I know several who are working in DC right now on policy and doing quite well, thanks for your batshit crazy comments though!
Yep Brandon, that's the one.
Yes, please don't feed it.
Sorry, didn't mean to.
Evergreen is what you put into it?
Where else can you gets hands on experience with a 500K piece of equipment?
You are your own person?
Here's a newsflash, this is not unique to evergreen. These are blanket statements that apply to everywhere and anywhere, fro local community colleges to 4 year Universities.
Let's drop the East Coast/West Coast BS as well. UW could be placed against Harvard and MIT in many of it departments and has a better reputation in some.
However, Evergreen is not UW, Harvard, MIT or even WSU. Evergreen, a liberal arts school, has a reputation for being an overgrown Montessori school. If you are up for a challenge - you need not look far in order to find one. Then again, if you want to skate through school and be a political wonk hippie, this is a great place to be. A diploma is waiting for you after 4 years if you just show up and go through the motions.
Clearly Rachel set her path on far, far, far left political agndas on progams.
In the end these programs and professors have failed to support their responsibility in getting this kid killed.
Oh man. This is a pretty typical Evergreen debate. As an Evergreen student I'm currently working at the Washington State House of Representatives as a policy intern and all I ever get from people around here is "you don't look or act like a typical Evergreen student." You know what I say to them? "You obviously have never been there yourself."
Listen, the truth of the matter is that Evergreen has a loud minority of mindless hippies. I don't even think Corrie was one of those. She was an idealist at a point in history that NEEDS idealists. Anyway, Evergreen is an incredibly diverse place (diverse views, mind you; it is ethnically homogenous unfortunately).
To "Let's Get Real...": I work in an environment where I interact with the best and the brightest undergrads from UW, WSU, Western and virtually every other school in Washington. We've discussed the academic experience that we've gotten out of our respective schools at length and they've all expressed amazement at the advanced level of work that I've been allowed to work on at Evergreen. For instance; in my sophomore year I traveled to Bosnia and wrote a research paper examining the long-term social, economic and political impact of the civil war there in the 1990's. You could NEVER do that shit at another Washington 4-year (and I dare say 99% of the rest of the schools in the country).
And to the lame-ass who's crying "anti-Semitism": Listen, I'm aware that anti-Semitism is a very real problem but stop trying to play the perpetual victim. Nothing bothers me more than people who refuse to note that racism and hate can be a two-way street. You want to complain about people who aren't doing enough critical thinking? Look in the fucking mirror. Sure, there is a lot of Jewish blood on many people's hands. But there's a lot of Arabic blood on Jewish hands as well and to pretend that's not true is to show an incredible level of arrogance and ignorance.
Please, before you bash Evergreen try a little critical thinking yourself. Douchebags.
The kindest way I can assess Rachel Corrie’s Palestinian mission is in comparing her to Pasha Antipov, the idealistic revolutionary from Dr. Zhivago, whose rage of exclusive pity overwhelms his moral values. The immense suffering he saw turned him from a naive idealist to a brutal, mass-killing revolutionary. He was a lost soul.
Corrie, likewise, aligned herself seamlessly with suffering Palestinians, reserving for them her absolute pity to the extent that suffering Israelis merited nothing but a sneering hatred from her. Corrie’s idealism did not proceed from love but from ideologically induced hatred. She was an open apologist for Palestinian terrorism, and she died trying to prevent the work of an Israeli bulldozer, which was searching for munitions buried in the ground. Contrary to Palestinian reports, the bulldozer was not there to demolish a house, (houses used as cover for weapon-smuggling tunnels were demolished by the IDF). Any which way you look at it, those munitions were there to be utilized in attacks against innocent civilians. Corrie died protecting terrorist weapons. She was completely indifferent to the deaths these weapons spelled at a time when suicide bombings were a matter of daily occurrence in Israel.
Compare that poem she wrote at the age of ten, with this picture of her:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_JmLp3-GOxg0/RYN2w6QlfXI/AAAAAAAAABQ/LjQbhjQ1cXc/s1600-h/corrie.bmp
Oh Dear God, what a load of crap....
"For instance; in my sophomore year I traveled to Bosnia and wrote a research paper examining the long-term social, economic and political impact of the civil war there in the 1990's. You could NEVER do that shit at another Washington 4-year (and I dare say 99% of the rest of the schools in the country)."
A college Sophmore is totally unqualified to have an opinion on this subject. Newsflash, taking a 200 level course does not qualify your opinion on anything other than kissing you professors ass in hopes of getting a passing grade.
Okay, forget my opinion.
let;s see what the Princeton review has to say about Evergreen,
We are in agreement that Princeton is a good enough school to value it's opinion, correct?
but first, lets see about the other schools you mentioned:
University of Washington:
University of Washington Appears on These Lists
Best Western Colleges
This school is one of the 123 colleges named a Best Western College by
The Princeton Review. Our goal is simple: to identify some of the
colleges and universities that we feel stand out within each region.
See the full list
America's Best Value College
This school is one of the colleges designated as one of the best
overall bargains—based on cost and financial aid—among the most
academically outstanding colleges in the nation.
Washington State University Appears on These Lists
Best 361 Colleges
This school is one of the 361 colleges featured in The Princeton
Review’s book The New 2007 "Best 361 Colleges".
Best Western Colleges
This school is one of the 123 colleges named a Best Western College by
The Princeton Review. Our goal is simple: to identify some of the
colleges and universities that we feel stand out within each region.
America's Best Value College
This school is one of the colleges designated as one of the best
overall bargains—based on cost and financial aid—among the most
academically outstanding colleges in the nation.
And here it is, and this is no joke, this is how true academics feel about Evergreen (seriously, I'm not making this up)
The Evergreen State College's
Best 361 College Rankings
Click on the list name to see all the schools on that list or
click the category name to see all the lists in the category.
Rank
List
Category
#12
Best College Radio Station
Extracurriculars
#19
Intercollegiate Sports Unpopular or Nonexistent
Extracurriculars
#19
Nobody Plays Intramural Sports
Extracurriculars
#8
Students Most Nostalgic For Bill Clinton
Politics
#4
Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians
School Type
#17
Dodge Ball Targets
School Type
That's it.....
So stop trying to make Evergreen out to be something it's not. Your dellusions of the incredible challenging atmosphere? This may possibly be because you were completely ill-prepared to be accepted into a real school.
Evergreen is a hippy factory that turns out airheaded antisemites like Rachel Corrie.
What I'm attempting to say about Evergreen is that the play benefits from your acquaintance with the school, no matter what your opinion of its methods. Plenty of people have wrangled a decent education out of Evergreen, and plenty of thoughtless assholes graduated from my alma mater.
Faber: "Look in the fucking mirror. Sure, there is a lot of Jewish blood on many people's hands. But there's a lot of Arabic blood on Jewish hands as well and to pretend that's not true is to show an incredible level of arrogance and ignorance."
Sorry. I'm afraid in this rash and irresponsible attempt to sneer at Jewish fully justified fears, the writer reveals his own "incredible level of arrogance and ignorance". It's a good example of why "even-handedness" does not work, morally or historically.
Jews do not preach for a jihad against Arabs, nor do they teach their children that Arabs are descendants of pigs and apes and must be exterminated like scurrying mice.
The Jews who do fight Arabs are in Israel, so they are actually Israelis and they fight resisting so-far unsuccessful Arab attempts to annihilate them.
Israelis want nothing more than normalization and peace with their enemies. How have those responded? By launching terrorist attacks, and sending rockets into peaceful towns. By electing a genocidal government and declaratively insist that Israel must be wiped off the face of this earth.
A strange mirror image, that, of the relentless persecution, both of Faber's slanderous kind and Hamas' kind, Jews have had to suffer throughout history, as well as in present days.
Keep those blinders on!
"A college Sophmore is totally unqualified to have an opinion on this subject. Newsflash, taking a 200 level course does not qualify your opinion on anything other than kissing you professors ass in hopes of getting a passing grade."
Bullshit. Evergreen gave me the opportunity to challenge such a notion and challenge it I did. Is your head stuck so far up your ass that you think every student has the same academic abilities? Fuck you dumbass.
Ooh, now that I've used the toilet let me go back and challenge a few more of the assanine comments made by you ignorant fools.
According to the 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement Report, which is an annual report issued by Indiana University and Pew Charitable Trusts, Evergreen's level of academic challenge among freshman and seniors was marked in the top ten percent of all baccalaureate colleges in the nation.
Science programs at Evergreen are noted for significant discoveries, particularly with Phage and E.Coli, and inclusion of undergraduate students in high level research. Currently, Evergreen operates the only publically funded Phage research lab in the U.S.
Author and former New York Times education editor Loren Pope cites Evergreen as one of two public colleges in the United States in his book "Colleges That Change Lives."
While Evergreen may rank as a tier 4 school according to US News and World Report that ranking system is suspect because of Evergreen's unique grading system. The truth of the matter is that Evergreen has a very high rate of graduate and career placement including a significantly high rate of acceptance to Harvard Law.
Where else are you guaranteed a student/professor ratio of no more than 27-1 in every single class? The importance of academic support cannot be overstated and at Evergreen you get it in spades. You'll find burn-outs and lazy imbeciles at Evergreen, sure, and perhaps the ratio is slightly higher than at other Schools but that doesn't negate the fact that I've gotten a better education at Evergreen than most people get at the UW, WSU, Western, etc...
And to the individual who claimed that no sophomore could be prepared to tackle a research project at the level of the project I worked on; how better to prepare yourself for higher level work than through trial-and-error? My product may not have been perfect but I learned more than a student sitting in a classroom all year and I know more about the Yugoslav wars (and by extension post-Ottoman ethnic conflict which includes most of the Middle East, booyah!) than any person I have ever met without a doctorate degree.
Washington Monthly College Rankings ranks The Evergreen State College as the 47th best Liberal Arts college in the U.S.
Let's get Real...:
You forgot to mention that Evergreen is ALSO listed as one of the 123 Best Western Colleges and as one of the best Value Colleges by the Princeton review.
Good job continuing the trend of selective citation in this argument. For fuck's sake people, get your facts right before you bash a school you know DICK about.
"Jews do not preach for a jihad against Arabs, nor do they teach their children that Arabs are descendants of pigs and apes and must be exterminated like scurrying mice."
They may not preach what they practice but there is no denying the fact that Israel has ghettoized the vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs. Perhaps Israelis do not explicitly teach their children that Palestinians are the descendantes of pigs and apes and must be exterminated like scurrying mice, but that is how they treat Palestinian Arabs.
"The Jews who do fight Arabs are in Israel, so they are actually Israelis and they fight resisting so-far unsuccessful Arab attempts to annihilate them. "
That is up for debate. Mainstream Arab nationalism in Palestine has gone through three stages: 1.) resistance (including genocidal calls for the extermination of all Jews); 2.) two-state solutions (which called on Israel to give Palestinian Arabs just a portion of their historic land); and 3.) pluralist state acceptance which most Palestinians are in favor of. However, Israel has consistently accepted the wrong solution at the wrong time and are in many ways moving backwards through that progression as their power and influence has grown.
"Israelis want nothing more than normalization and peace with their enemies. How have those responded? By launching terrorist attacks, and sending rockets into peaceful towns. By electing a genocidal government and declaratively insist that Israel must be wiped off the face of this earth."
You reference a completely unverified claim. According to the facts on the ground Israel apparently wants anything but peace. Palestinians are culpable for a great deal of inexcusable violence but so is Israel. Rocket attacks on "peaceful" Israeli towns by Palestinian "terrorists" are just half of a vicious cycle of violence. You are truly ignorant if you deny the fact that Israel goads reactionary Palestinian violence. I'm not saying that the violence is excused but simply stating that Israeli violence is also inexcusable.
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