June 14th, 1997

MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE JUST STAYED HOME
By Jackie Giuliano

Many showers.
Many shirts washed, dresses ironed and dry-cleaned.
Many cars started, spewing
Many pounds of harmful pollutants into our blessed air
As we washed, and primped
And dressed
And drove
[inhaling tire dust kills 40,000 people per year].

To see and hear the Dalai Lama,
His holiness,
Introduced by Richard Gere
The Wealthy Actor
And protected by Steven Segal,
The Wealthy Actor.

He spoke of the evils of
Racism.
He spoke of the wrongs of
Consumerism.
He spoke of the waste of
Anger.
He spoke of the need for
Compassion

Wonderful words,
To be sure.

But maybe,
Just maybe,
We would have all made a bigger impact on
Healing our World if
We
Had
Just
Stayed
Home.

-- Jackie Giuliano

His Holiness The Dalai Lama of Tibet, the spiritual leader of this subjugated and brutalized land, spoke at UCLA in Los Angeles on Friday, June 2. Many thousands of people went to experience this powerful man of peace.

Maybe I was hoping for too much. His message was, of course, a good and positive one. He spoke of the stupidity of racism, the need to consume less, and how anger hurts. His wonderful humor and humility and his ability to say "I don't know" contribute to the visionary quality of this person.

So was this winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize introduced by a political figure or a scholar or another Nobel laureate or by just an ordinary citizen who has been touched by his message? No, he was introduced by an actor, a person who, through his money (power) and his fame (power) and his privileged (power) position in our culture as a "celebrity" (our heroes), has "earned" the right to rub elbows with the leaders. Don't get me wrong - Gere is a good actor - I have seen many of his movies and he has been generous with some of his money.

I don't know. I am confused and bewildered by the energy of the evening. It felt like it should have been subtitled "The Dalai Lama Meets Hollywood." The energy of the evening felt "off" to me. I fear that my feelings are related to the disconnected feel of the evening, that pervasive theme through all these "Healing the World" ramblings. I have spoken with others who attended the evening and some felt as I did, others not. Maybe you can help. Let me share some of the "raw" observations that were going through my mind during the talk.

UCLA's Pauley Pavilion seats 12,800 people. It is a stadium, usually reserved for sporting events. I think that somehow, the setting was not appropriate for the talk - the concession stands, the harsh ushers used to basketball crowds, pushing and shoving with popcorn and hotdogs. Nearly half the theater was roped off, and it was by no means filled to capacity on the other half. Maybe there were 4,000 people. Let's assume that for now.

The average Los Angeles resident uses 100 gallons of water per day. Much of that water would have been spent showering, primping, and otherwise getting ready to go see the Dalai Lama. That means that 400,000 gallons of water were used that day.

Let's say that everyone came at least as a pair. That would mean somewhere around 2,000 extra cars were on the roads that night - an incredible amount of pollution. And UCLA charges $5 per car to park! That would mean an incredible $10,000 to UCLA just for parking alone (Does any of that money go to Tibet? I don't know.). Those who did not attend also increased the air pollution load. Westwood, the home of UCLA, is a busy restaurant and movie locale. The traffic jam was huge that night, resulting in many more idling and polluting engines than normal.

Admission for the evening was $15 and up. Let's assume an average of $20 per person. That would be $80,000 for the evening. The lighting, air conditioning, and other facilities for the stadium must be very costly as well.

There were very few people of color in the audience. Very few - there were none on my half of the stadium). The class structure of L.A. is filled with contradictions and inequities. Of L.A. County's more than 9 million people, 3.4 million are Latino, nearly a million are African American, another million are Asian or Pacific Islander, and nearly 4 million are Anglo. For some time, the majority of "Angelenos" have been people of color, yet a small, wealthy, group of elite manage the largest industrial center in the U.S.

The vast array of oil refineries and aerospace companies still provide relatively high-paying, skilled jobs for the mostly white, white-collar workers. But most of the workforce of the area works in the hotel, restaurant, garment, chemical, solvent processing, and electronic industries. These industries have workforces that are built on low-paid, usually non-union, mostly non-white workers. Seventy-five percent of these low-wage workers are people of color. And it will come as no surprise to learn that most of these low-paid workers are the ones that our culture has chosen to do the dangerous work. They are the ones most likely to be exposed to toxics from the metal plating, janitorial, garment, and electronics industries.

Many of the people of color in these industries are women, many of whom have suffered the worst management as well as environmental abuses.

Yet on the foundation of toxic exposure, poverty, and sweat that these people of color provide, a world-class, white elite dominates the Los Angeles scene. To quote a document put out by L.A.'s own Air Quality Management agency (AQMD) called "L.A.'s Lethal Air," L.A. is the dominant financial center on the West Coast, producing a "goldmine for corporate executives, film entrepreneurs, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, stockbrokers, and owners of luxury shops, pricey restaurants, and car dealerships."

Of California's 5,462 millionaires (1991 figures), more than half live in Los Angeles (along with 10 percent of all the board certified plastic surgeons in the U.S.). The AQMD document also reports on a growing fad among the L.A. wealthy: to tear down their 3,000 square foot homes and to build 10,000 square foot homes in their place in an "endless spiral of competitive accumulation."

The L.A. Weekly, an arts and entertainment newsweekly that has hard-hitting articles about the region, published its projections a few years ago for the year 2010:

• 10 million people living in the county
  
• 5 million people living in poverty
  
• 500,000 homeless
  
• a two-hour average daily commute to work
  
• average freeway speeds of 15mph during rush hour
  
• 100,000 deaths per year from poor air quality.

Can you begin to see my dilemma? All around me in Pauley Pavilion sat thousands of mostly white folk, privileged people with very nice cars (we haven't spoken of the incredible pollution put out by those cars to get there), very nice clothes, here to seek spiritual enlightenment from a powerful man surrounded by movie stars.

As I looked around the auditorium, there were people of color who caught my eye - they held ladders, mops, and cables. They weren't interacting with the public, though. Many older, white volunteers had the job of ushering, but as I said earlier, they were used to the more rowdy sports event patrons.

So where does this leave us? I am not sure. I don't think that the Dalai Lama has any interest in the deification of him taking place by his famous entourage. He is a man of peace and connectedness. He does not consider himself a deity. I guess I worry about the message that the presence of Hollywood gives the crowd - that you have to pay to get close to the "spiritual stars" and that "enlightenment" is a goal to be achieved through wealth, like any house or car or thing.

Please see the Dalai Lama if you can. He is a powerful presence. Hear his message. But don't stop noticing the issues and inequities of the world around you. It is "OK" to face the contradictions and to be confused. Unless you allow yourself to become frustrated and confused, there will be no possibility for change and growth. By experiencing the discomfort, the space will be created to long for comfort - and to do something about it.

RESOURCES

1. to learn more about the crisis in Tibet, visit http://www.manymedia.com/tibet/index.html

2. For works by the Dalai Lama, visit http://www.tibet.com/DL/index.html

3. To learn of the Dalai Lama's Nobel Peace Prize, visit http://www.tibet.com/DL/index.html

4. To learn of Richard Gere's generosity, visit http://www.sabre.org/sabre/about.sabre/pressrel/gere.html

{Jackie Giuliano is a Professor of Environmental Studies at Antioch University, Los Angeles, the University of Phoenix and the Union Institute College of Undergraduate Studies. He is the Educational Outreach Manager for the Ice and Fire Preprojects at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. }