But what if the nuclear family turns into a dictatorship!

I remember being in a restaurant on campus, and seeing what looked like a gag gift from some porn shop, a riding crop like instrument, but on the end where the triangle piece of leather should be, there was a giant hand shaped soft plastic piece. I asked the person next to me, "what do you suppose that is for" (as it looked horribly out of place on a restaurant table-top) and he answered me in the very awkward way people answer questions they not only wish you hadn't asked but think you should already know the answer to, "Perhaps it is to hit naughty children"

This is not the last time I would see one of these...and no there is not a story of a sexy orgy.

Corporal punishment. This is a topic that is super complex and yet is sometimes overlooked as a "private" issue. But it really is quite important to have a dialogue about because physical punishment is ONE of the many ways we teach, and train folks to have "proper" behavior and function (dare we say thrive) in society....and it is one of the first forms of this is so called training that many of us recall with real clarity.

What made me start thinking about this was:

1.) I see people hit their kids in public here kind of often. In this year of being in Taiwan I have seen more people hit their kids than I have seen in my whole life living in the U.S. (and this ABSOLUTELY has to do with RACE, CLASS, and DEMOGRAPHICS in general.)

2.) Two different Taiwanese folks (not knowing each other) really identified with this video, I and thought it was really funny and that I ought to watch. This is a video of comedian, Russell Peters arguing that "white people must beat their children," and that most immigrant families beat their children whereas white families are "too soft" on their children(as if whites aren't also early immigrants to the Canada and the US). What I found kind of disturbing about this video is it is only funny...if you don't think about the children. If you only think about these "immigrant children" as grown adults, survivors of beatings, not only surviving but surviving to laugh about it. Disturbing thing number two: Peters argues white children's anger (or any child for that matter) is due to lack of physical punishment. Why are some children angry? Why are some adults angry? When we are angry do we just need a spanking? Actually sometimes anger is a justified and rational response (i.e. anger is response to injustice.) Anger becomes a problem when it is reoccurring, uncontrolled, and violent.

So I just keep thinking about this issue because the more I look at it the more I think about it, the more I realize this really is a social justice issue. I can't seem to find an articulate, well organized way to talk about it. For one, I am pretty ignorant about this issue and two, maybe more importantly, in the US this issue as viewed as a more "private" issue think about someone saying, "what's the government doing telling me how to raise my kids?" Or "these are my kids! You damn liberal-commie don't tell me what I can do with them!" Writing this blog has turned out to be a difficult journey in trying to stay coherent. Are you willing to read on? Willing to reel in the different strands of experiences, stories, ideology that i am going to vomit up for you?

Some might say, lighten up! It is just spanking your kids, for Christs sake! But I can't stop but asking, what are you really teaching your kid when you spank (as well as other ways of causing physical pain) her/him? Lots of folks say it is to deter undesired behavior, the child thinks "ok so if I don't do that, no spanking, no pain, therefore, I won't do that again) But, how could that be the ONLY message? I think it might send this message too: "so, since that person is older, bigger, my care giver, and that means they have some control over my body and lively hood." How does this translate to when we grow into functioning adults fully participating in society? That government is bigger than me, my caregiver (for all intensive purposes，think： infrastructure and "national security) and therefore has unquestioned and total power over my body and well-being. Does that seem fair? I don't think it does.

Human rights. This terminology---however complicated and tangled up in courts of law it is---gives me a warm-fuzzy feeling. This idea, that all humans, each and every one of us, are granted certain rights are often used to protect us(the people) from oppression and injustice (yes, an oversimplified definition to the point of being wrong...) It appears to me when talking about corporal punishment sometimes children don't seem to count as humans? Is it because we as children are not counted as a "whole" mentally, emotionally developed person? Why are children not guaranteed bodily safety.

How can we guarantee that just because an adult is administering corporal punishment that it somehow justified and appropriate? How do we know a child's punishment is just and fair in accordance to the offense? Does it mater if it is just or not? And if does not matter...why not? Aren't children...people?

After work enjoying a brew with some co-workers we discussed this very topic. And I remember one co-worker saying something that really made sense to me. He was talking about once when his son was playing near a very busy road that he knew he wasn't suppose to play in (something to this effect, something that was endangering his life) and he said, "When you spank a kid, sometimes it is a way to immediately make them understand that what they were doing (the said offense) could have painful, deadly outcomes." It kind of made sense to me, like if you get hit by a car it will hurt or kill you, so spanking kind of emulates this idea. This place=pain.

I read this regarding corporal punishment, in a book by my favorite author bell hooks', she was saying how a she was in a group of feminist minded women and was horrified by how they were proudly talking about "progressive" ways that they punish their children that included pinching a child's skin until they cried out in pain. bell hooks' asks us how we (as feminists or anyone who believes domestic violence is wrong) would react hearing a grown man saying, "yeah I felt my wife made a mistake and I pinched (spanked, hit, beat) her until she understood she was wrong." Probably not a fair or healthy way to resolve a problem in a relationship, right? Why does our outlook on inflicting pain on another human change when we are talking about children?

At a food stall eating doughnuts with a Taiwanese friend, chatting, he is like, "Actually hitting your kids is pretty common in Taiwan. All these people on the street right now, I would guess about 90% have been hit by their parents or teachers. There was a silence after that, one that I didn't know was deliberate or not, because it was hard to tell from his tone of voice if he felt any opposition to the stated fact. Am I saying child abuse is a problem in Taiwan? I have absolutely no evidence to support that. But what is clear...hitting kids is out in the open, and it is appears that according to common wisdom, corporal punish is viewed as necessary and not up for discussion.

But in the US I have heard a similar sentiment. I remember siting with my college dance team, a majority whom were African American identified, and them talking about "getting a whoopin'" and the worst one they ever had, and what their offensive was. The tone of the conversation was not that of wounded people, it was rather like they were bonding over this, laughing over this. I don't want you to get the idea that they seemed over-joyed with these experiences, however it did seem to be a little bonding moment none-the-less. And remember, boding over a common experience is not always just rejoicing, sometimes it is a way to heal or find community in a struggle. But I will never know...because I want not part of the bonding experience. And I also don't want you to take from this that I think "beating" only happens in African American or families of color. Not so. This is just a very vivid memory.

Whenever I talk about this subject everyone always asks, "well, were you spanked?" I think I was, I truly don't remember. According to my mom "never! Like maybe once or twice!" After stating this fact people always say, "see that explains a lot." What that even means, I don't know. I don't appear to be too delinquent right? Minus the occasional pot smoking and underage drinking I am pretty damn law-abiding. I have a bad temper sometimes...which my current boyfriend actually thinks is attributed to the lack of spanking during childhood. I am pretty sure it has to do with my coffee addiction and excessive heat in this climate.

I remember someone saying that if you remember being spanked it was unjust. And it you don't remember it means you "deserved it."

Or wait, and what about my enjoyment of being spanked in the bedroom? Is it all connected? Am I continually seeking the punishment I never had? Actually, I personally don't think one's preferences in bed represent what they lacked in childhood. But who knows what one is going on with our behavior? Even Freud got some of that shit wrong.

And I will say something this with conviction: parents aren't always "right." And they don't always have good ideas and they don't always do what is best for their kids. And in the US we have this idea, "well it's *MY* kid and I will do what ever I want when I am raising her/him" But what I want to ask: how does this concept of the a child as an extension of a parent or legal guardian infringe on a child's human rights? I am for real asking this question. For real. And I am not the first one to ask either.

So this was a incoherent rant about spanking. Just because it is in my face. Really. I turned around after buying a tea to see some old woman hit a kid upside the head for being too happy and doing a couple spins on his toes before getting on the scooter. It just made me cringe, ya know? It seems that the woman lost her temper, felt impatient like I do sometimes when I am hot, and I am thinking about getting moving and waiting on someone....

I've just been thinking...after seeing more clearer than ever...what it looks like when the parent is always right, and beating is normalized and laughed about. It just gets me thinking....gets me imagining a different type of family relation, a different type of community relation, perhaps more egalitarian....

Exercising my imagination. I have heard that imagination is a must for visionary politics.

You guessed it. I am hoping to become the liberal version of Christine O'Donnell...except brighter pant suits (is it possible you ask?, less conspires theories involving China, and also complete with a kick ass campaign song, Devo's Whip it Good, "when a problem comes along...you must whip it."

Whip it...oh dear, no pun intended. I believe in whipping societal and political problems NOT PEOPLE. Furthermore, I don't intend on actually using a whip...I was thinking more bad-ass policies and some infrastructure spending...." Ok...maybe a different campaign song.