Once upon a time, women weren’t allowed to wear pants (trousers, for you Brits). In our more enlightened age, women are free to wear pants, or dresses, or even colorful bits of string. Meanwhile, men have taken to trotting around in dresses all the time — very, very manly men included.

Yet, when it comes to the high school prom — that pinnacle of teenage sobriety and good manners, that sanctuary of moral upbringing where no hoochie mama may set foot — a boy wearing a dress is still off-limits. So says the principal of a high school in Gary, Indiana, who prevented a male student from coming to his prom last week in a slinky fuschia dress and heels.

She did let in a female student dressed in a tuxedo, however. And, a few other students who were “half-naked.” But boys in dresses? No way. That would be sacrilege against the prom gods.

“Girls can dress like a boy and they are just seen as tomboys,” pointed out Taleisha Badgett, the female student who wore a tuxedo to the prom. “It’s not a big deal. But if boys wear girls’ clothes, it’s a problem.… That’s not right.”

“I already had approval to go to the prom,” said the de-prommed student, Kevin Logan. “I do have constitutional rights. I asked [the principal], ‘Why are you doing this to me? This is my prom. This is like the most important night of my life.’”

Well, it may not actually turn out to be the most important day of your life, Kevin — think of it instead as the one day in your life you’ll ever see a wrist corsage — but that fuschia dress probably didn’t come cheap. Luckily, the state ACLU chapter is on the case.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Continuing my post on Wednesday about Lawrence of Arabia and its relevance to today’s conflict in Iraq:

Lawrence recognizes the disunity among the Arabs, and attempts — ultimately vainly — to bring the tribes together. “So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe,” he tells Ali, “so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel.” The division is real, but what right does a condescending foreigner have to voice it? Feisal, the Arabian ruler who seems to inspire the greatest loyalty among the fractious tribes, reminds Lawrence that Arabia was once great. “In the Arab city of Cordoba, there were two miles of public lighting in the streets when London was a village … nine centuries ago.” It is a theme that scholars of the Middle East have dusted off, amid some controversy, to explain the festering anger among today’s population: Once the Arabs were great, so now the poverty and oppression of their people are especially difficult hardships to bear, calling them to arms against the perceived aggressors.

Then as now, the ally is quickly becoming the enemy, because of a perception of ulterior motives. In the film, the British insist that “British and Arab interests are one and the same,” and yet they show with their very actions the clear limits of their concern for Arab welfare. The British will not give the Arabs any artillery, for example, because “you give them artillery and you’ve made them independent,” one British official points out. The royal navy is holed up protecting the Suez Canal in Egypt, instead of joining the Arabian forces in their fight against the Turks, because the canal is an “essential British interest” — albeit of “little consequence” to the Arabs. Finally, there is the betrayal of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret understanding between France and Britain to carve up the former Ottoman lands after the war’s end, which gives the lie to all the glad affirmations of independence for the Arabs. “General, you have lied most bravely, but not convincingly,” Feisal tells the British commander after his protestations that no such agreement exists. With such a history of Western duplicity, it is no wonder that the Iraqis view the U.S. occupation with skepticism, especially since the Bush administration has yet to take the simple, good-faith step of disavowing any permanent military bases in Iraq.

(You may point out that the American government does not have the same interest as the British or French in establishing Middle Eastern colonies, but before you do you may want to read Chalmer Johnson’s insightful book on American foreign policy, The Sorrows of Empire, which focuses on the U.S. military’s peculiar, telling obsession with military bases.)

The revolt that happened in the Arabian desert a century earlier may offer lessons to us today, as America attempts to win the heart of another Middle Eastern land in search of freedom. The mantra today, once again, is for the Iraqis to have the discipline of democracy — to quell their age-old tribal animosities, to come together in the ecumenical spirit of nation-building. But that inevitably clashes with the Arab people’s shrewd understanding of power and politics, as this exchange between Feisal, Lawrence, and another British officer, Colonel Harry Brighton, makes clear:

Brighton: Dreaming won’t get you to Damascus, but discipline will. Look, Great Britain is a small country, much smaller than yours … It’s small, but it’s great. And why?

Feisal: Because it has guns.

Brighton: Because it has discipline.
                  
Lawrence: Because it has a navy. Because of this, the English go where they please … and strike where they please. This makes them great.

The dialogue is fiction, of course. (For a discussion of aspects of the film that are not historically accurate, read this.) But the man Lawrence did exist, and to this day he is revered in the Middle East for supporting Arab independence from both Ottoman and European rule. Lawrence became a hero not just because of his leadership and courage, but also because he believed — when many did not — that the Arab people were worthy of freedom, and had the right to choose their own destiny. In our search for a favorable conclusion to the American intervention in Iraq, we could surely use more leaders like him.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Jackson Bentley, American journalist: Your Highness, we Americans were once a colonial people, and we naturally feel sympathetic to any people anywhere who are struggling for their freedom.

Prince Feisal, Arabian monarch: Very gratifying.

Bentley: Also, my interests are the same as yours. You want your story told. I badly want a story to tell.

Feisal: Ah, now you are talking turkey, are you not?

I recently watched Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean’s 1962 epic, and kept thinking throughout the film how much it reminded me of another Western power’s involvement in Arab lands. The film focuses on British army officer T.E. Lawrence and his role in uniting the Arab tribes against their Ottoman oppressors during World War I, but it has quite a lot to say, too, about modern-day Iraq under American occupation. (For those who forget, or haven’t seen, the film, here’s a helpful synopsis, and here’s the script.)

In Arabia, the superior military might of the Turkish Ottoman forces weakened under a barrage of guerrilla attacks by Arab Bedouin horsemen, who blew up railroad tracks, disrupted supply lines, and made daring raids when the enemy least expected them. “The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped,” Lawrence muses during a discussion with Arabian leaders. “And on this ocean, the Bedouin go where they please and strike where they please.” The failure to appreciate the strength of guerrilla warriors fighting on their own turf has doomed many a mighty army, from the British in America to the Turks in Arabia to the Americans in Vietnam to the Russians in Afghanistan — to, perhaps, the Americans in Iraq.

The Turks could not be accused of half-heartedness in quashing the Arabian insurgency. In fact, they had a practice of viciously torturing captured Arab fighters. “In their eyes, we are not soldiers but rebels,” explains Prince Feisal, who leads the Arab forces. “Rebels, wounded or whole, are not protected by the Geneva Code … and are treated harshly.” So the Arabs would leave no wounded for the Turks: Those they could not carry to safety, they killed. Rather than being intimidated into submission by Ottoman brutality, the Arabs showed all the more determination and defiance. This should give pause to the U.S. politicos who, in the name of victory against terrorists, have opened the door for violations of the Geneva Conventions concerning the torture and indefinite detainment of prisoners. Immoral policies such as these may have the most unintended consequences.

Another of the film’s themes is the violent divisions between the desert-dwelling tribes of Arabia. The Howeitat fight the Harith, who fight the Hazimi — an endless circle of jealousies and vengeances, waged over the desert’s scarce resources. “He was nothing,” says Sherif Ali (played by Omar Sharif), who has just killed an Arab stranger who was drinking from his tribe’s well. “The well is everything.” Water was the desert’s gold in those days, but now it is oil that has become everything — reason enough to kill Sunni or Shia or Kurd in today’s bloody conflict of part-religious, part-tribal origins. In fact, the dispute over sharing oil revenues is one of the central issues tearing apart the country’s new government and threatening civil war.

On Saturday I’ll have more to say about the film and its message for today’s Arabian insurgency.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

This is supposed to be New York, the world capital of diversity, the home to countless cultures and creeds, the one place you can go — whoever you happen to be — to find a sympathetic ear for your beliefs, maybe even a parade in your honor.

But then you turn on the radio and listen to the Big Apple’s favorite shock jocks spouting off about “gooks,” “slant-eyed whores,” and “tinkling” on little girls.

Troi Torain, the Power 105 disc jockey known as DJ Star, was arrested today after going on a racist, sexist, R. Kelly-esque tirade about a radio rival’s wife and daughter. He called the wife, who is part Asian, a “slant-eyed whore,” and then threatened the 4-year-old daughter, calling her a “little half a lo mein eater” and saying he wanted to have sex with her.

Covering all his bases, Torain also called his rival, DJ Envy, a “faggot ass nigga.”

I suppose one racist turn deserves another. You see, DJ Envy was one of the “Miss Jones in the Morning” crew at Hot 97 who got in trouble last year for playing a song that mocked the victims of the Asian tsunami, whom they called “chinks” and “Chinamen.” Without a doubt, this kind of behavior is normal for morning radio personalities, who apparently must caffeinate themselves to the point of foaming-at-the-mouth racism and sexism.

Torain especially. In 2004 he phoned a call center in India and called the customer service representative a “bitch” and “filthy rat eater” on the air.

Here’s some excerpts from the “Star & Buc Wild” show on the day that Torain had his pedophilic meltdown, courtesy of the office of New York Councilmember John Liu:

Star: Somebody holla at me and tell me about his whore wife and his kid. 866-678-8270 …  Somebody get at me about his whore. His whore wife and his kid, this little ugly ass kid, I hear. Where … where does this kid go to school? I got five hundred bucks for that information. Somebody email me or gimme a call. Just tell me where his kid goes to school. Let’s see who’s really gully on the microphone. Five hundred dollars, in my pocket, right now. I need to know the school, this faggot ass nigga, DJ’s kid goes to school.

Star: I’ve got information on DJ Benji, aka … what’s his name again? Envy. I’ve got information on his gook. His baby’s mother.
Buc Wild: A gook?
Star: Hampton University, uh, cats used to run trains on her. Green BMW … I’ll get to all this in a few minutes.

Star: Oh! And, I got the information, the school his kid goes to.
[Woman’s voice] Really?
Star: Yeah, I’m savin’ that one. That’s, that’s … That’s the one I’m gonna pull out if I have to. If I have to. Oh yes, I’ll, I’ll come for your kids. I will come for your kids. I finally got the information on his slant-eyed, whore wife. The information on his slant-eyed, whore wife. Yes. A cat who actually ran a train on her, contacted me. [chuckle] Allegedly ran a train on her once upon a time. Allegedly. Once upon a time. Ejaculated all over her face …

Star: No, let me just touch on this real quick. But there’s a woman out there right now who pushed out a little lo-mein eater by a DJ down by the sloppy station. I got at this alleged slut whore, heh, and this little half a lo-mein eater … Yes, I disrespected your seed. If you didn’t hear me, I said, I would like to do an R. Kelly on your seed, on your little baby girl. I would like to tinkle [urinate] on her.

“Call the cops”? Nigga, please, there’s no bodyguards. I carry the 9 [millimeter gun]. Most of the cats that are with me, have felony convictions, they can’t carry. I’m disrespectin’ your seed. I would like to skeet [ejaculate] on the face of your seed. Now that’s, that’s real talk dawg. You have to come holla at me now. Call me, I’ll meet you somewhere, but don’t act like you were waiting in some parking lot with like 50 niggers. Please.

Now, again, to the woman, who carried that little mongrel for 9 months … I’m coming for your seed. Did you hear me? [“squirt, squirt, squirt” noise] I want to do an R. Kelly in the mouth of your seed fam[ily]? You holla at me now, I’m the easiest man in the world to find. [snickers] And my name is The Hater. You holla back now, DJ Envy.

Star: Let me see now, uh, DJ Benji attention! In case you didn’t hear me, I said, I want to put some mayonnaise in between your baby girl’s ass crack and take a bite.

Now that you’ve read all of that, you might consider taking a long shower and then listening to the soothing sounds of NPR to purify yourself.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen