So Obama called the Philadelphia Eagles owner to talk about two random things: greening the stadium and Michael Vick’s second chance. And, in the words of one blogger, all hell broke loose.
This is what I think about second chances: we all deserve them.
But he killed dogs!
Henry Kissinger was instrumental in the death of thousands of southeast Asians, and yet, he is considered an elder statesman of US diplomacy.
But he killed dogs!
This country voted for Geoge W. Bush (twice) and now he’s earning millions on his book and speaking tour - after starting two wars, crashing our economy and tanking civil rights in this country all in the name of fighting terror.
But he killed dogs!
Yeah, he did. So did this guy.
Because he killed dogs, now Michael Vick is a black man with a prison record. His nifty NFL contract is the only variable separating him from the fate of hundreds of thousands of other black men with prison records. Perhaps it’s the rarity of second chances for these men that makes Obama’s recognition and commendation of second chances so startling and impolitic for the rest of us.
So who deserves a second chance? Who deserves an opportunity for redemption and repentance?
Unlike Tucker Carlson, whose grasp of the Golden Rule and Christian love/forbearance is rather shaky, my father shows me what it means to give someone a real second chance. As part of his ministry he has mentored black men from all paths: gangbangers, ex-cons, drug dealers, alcoholics, burnouts, and probably one or two men with pasts so violent and abhorrent we would run away from them. While it exasperates me (as it exasperated my mother) to watch him make such an exhausting effort for so little return, I have a feeling that I am missing the point.
The results may be few and far between to most of us but the effort is what matters; my father is doing something no one else in the world seems to want to do: love and help black men.
My sister and I came home from school one day to find some strange man washing dad’s car in the driveway. In the kitchen, mom was watching from a window and we asked her who that man was. She sighed.
‘It’s another of your father’s men,’ she said. ‘He came to bible study and now he won’t leave. He has a metal plate in his head where he was shot by police for drug dealing. What is the point?!’ Another big sigh. My mother could only see wasted effort.
My sister and I, however, were fascinated that a man could have a metal plate in his head.
I’m happy to say my mother was wrong. That man with the metal plate built a construction business, has a wife, three sons he’s fighting to keep alive, a house in the Valley, and is one of my father’s best friends. When my mother died, with his big construction hands, he lovingly wrapped all the little Christmas village houses my mother had collected and took them home because he said they reminded him of Lucy.
And right this very minute, my father is boarding a young man with obvious emotional and mental issues from Indiana. This man had heard my father’s sermons, contacted him and drove to California to escape whatever personal hell had been pursuing him in his hometown. Like a black Boo Radley, he lives in my father’s house and silently endures the squinty-eyed side-glances from me and my sister when we visit.
What does he want? Is he trying to take advantage of my dad? What if he’s crazy?
‘Lock your door, dad,’ I said to my father on the phone one night. ‘If he goes nuts, make it hard for him to kill you.’
‘Little girl, you need to stop. He’s just trying to get back on his feet.’
‘Well, when will he?? He’s been there for months! Why’s it taking him so damn long? Why can’t he find a roommate on Craigslist? Why does it have to be you?’ I know I sounded like my dead mother but I couldn’t help it.
My father sighed.
‘You girls have never understood this. Not even your mother. It has to be me because no one else will do it. You don’t understand. No one loves the black man. We’re beaten and ashamed and neglected and put away. No one loves us. No one. And so if I don’t, who will? Who will show this young man he’s a creature of God? If it’s not me, who will do it? The county? The welfare system? Who, dammit, who?’
(I am actually tearing up remembering this conversation.)
My father loves the black man and cares about what happens to him when it’s not politic to do so. His ministry to black men is not necessarily about finding someone a job or keeping him from the law. His effort, and hopefully Obama’s call, is about showing these men that they have a second opportunity to become, and be seen as, a full human being again.
It’s the point that everyone is missing – even the well-meaning dog lovers, feminists, Maddows, Ezra Kleins and asshats like Tucker Carlson.
So who deserves a chance to be regarded a full human being again? Michael Vick does. And every black man like him.
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Friday, October 08, 2010
if only men read women's literature
[Note: These opinions are my own. I don't consult with others before having them and I don't ask permission before sharing them. This is my prerogative as the owner and writer of this space. Do I really need to say this?]
If only more men read more feminist literature the vast unknown-ness of their wives would be laid bare and life would be less confusing.
During the various ups and downs of watching my family 'find themselves' I'm struck at how hard it is for a woman to break free of social expectations. Like Lucy Honeychurch, my sister is bucking all the expectations of her class, gender, mothering status and perceived orientation and, in the process, making everyone around her freak out. Even I am stunned, watching my sister go through a process that makes me think of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own or Kate Chopin's The Awakening.
Her defiant refusal to remain in her marriage has apparently broken the rules of her little social community. In this community obligation to family (including friends) and church supercedes anything else, no matter if you're dying inside. But now, suddenly, relationships and identities are thrown into upheaval, children are endangered and all of morality has been upended and requires defense. Justifications must be made, core motivations must be plumbed and Someone needs to give a public accounting of how one has Betrayed Everyone.
Certainly, there was a betrayal. But which comes first? The betrayal of vows, or the desperate scramble for air that prompts the betrayal of vows? My brother in law asked me if I thought it was 'ok' that my sister did what she did. But I don't think in those terms. I try to put myself in her shoes and imagine what could have been done to facilitate the most immediate break in a marriage, deliver the greatest shock and bring things to an inevitable, and irreparable, conclusion. And then my sister's actions make sense.
But it doesn't make sense to the male members of her community. Their reactions are interesting. I think hysteria is accurate. There's also a degree of anger, seen especially in their demand for my sister to 'explain herself.'
All because a woman decided she wasn't happy.
What happens when men aren't happy? They can pull a Tiger, flaming out in a collection of hostesses and sleazy text messages. Or they can pull a Pastor C-, pushing everything down, only to release the unhappiness in bursts of furtive vacations. What do women do? We suck it up. We swallow our unhappiness until it turns us into the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper. Or we kill ourselves like Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.
Again, I don't think men read a lot of 19th century domestic fiction. If they did, women's unhappiness would make a lot more sense.
A patriarchal society always inhibits a woman's autonomy and refuses to see her as an agent with a value system of her own. Her freedom, her independence doesn't exist unless some man authorizes it. And this is what I see. Men (very nice ones) demanding that my sister give an accounting of her actions because they're not satisfied with any of the answers they've received. These aren't bad men - they're just men. In defense of one of their own, they want to reassert control of a situation that she has set in motion.
For this, her journals have been secretly dissected, in an effort to find these answers when the woman herself is standing in front of them, repeating, "I wasn't happy. This wasn't me. I lied from the start. I never wanted any of this - wife, marriage. I was only that other person for everyone else."
Let's go back to literature (where all answers can be found, actually. At least humanist ones.) At the end of A Room With a View, Lucy Honeychurch is living in Florence with George Emerson, isolated from her family, even from her staunchest supporters like Rev. Beebe, because that is the price a woman pays when she betrays all expectations of her.
When a woman has defined for herself what her freedom entails, and she dares to take it, she finds herself cast outside of the castle walls. Imagine the Disney castle gone dark and quiet. The moat is filled and the drawbridge pulled up.
The only thing she has in front of her is the open world.
And it's worth it.
If only more men read more feminist literature the vast unknown-ness of their wives would be laid bare and life would be less confusing.
During the various ups and downs of watching my family 'find themselves' I'm struck at how hard it is for a woman to break free of social expectations. Like Lucy Honeychurch, my sister is bucking all the expectations of her class, gender, mothering status and perceived orientation and, in the process, making everyone around her freak out. Even I am stunned, watching my sister go through a process that makes me think of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own or Kate Chopin's The Awakening.
Her defiant refusal to remain in her marriage has apparently broken the rules of her little social community. In this community obligation to family (including friends) and church supercedes anything else, no matter if you're dying inside. But now, suddenly, relationships and identities are thrown into upheaval, children are endangered and all of morality has been upended and requires defense. Justifications must be made, core motivations must be plumbed and Someone needs to give a public accounting of how one has Betrayed Everyone.
Certainly, there was a betrayal. But which comes first? The betrayal of vows, or the desperate scramble for air that prompts the betrayal of vows? My brother in law asked me if I thought it was 'ok' that my sister did what she did. But I don't think in those terms. I try to put myself in her shoes and imagine what could have been done to facilitate the most immediate break in a marriage, deliver the greatest shock and bring things to an inevitable, and irreparable, conclusion. And then my sister's actions make sense.
But it doesn't make sense to the male members of her community. Their reactions are interesting. I think hysteria is accurate. There's also a degree of anger, seen especially in their demand for my sister to 'explain herself.'
All because a woman decided she wasn't happy.
What happens when men aren't happy? They can pull a Tiger, flaming out in a collection of hostesses and sleazy text messages. Or they can pull a Pastor C-, pushing everything down, only to release the unhappiness in bursts of furtive vacations. What do women do? We suck it up. We swallow our unhappiness until it turns us into the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper. Or we kill ourselves like Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.
Again, I don't think men read a lot of 19th century domestic fiction. If they did, women's unhappiness would make a lot more sense.
A patriarchal society always inhibits a woman's autonomy and refuses to see her as an agent with a value system of her own. Her freedom, her independence doesn't exist unless some man authorizes it. And this is what I see. Men (very nice ones) demanding that my sister give an accounting of her actions because they're not satisfied with any of the answers they've received. These aren't bad men - they're just men. In defense of one of their own, they want to reassert control of a situation that she has set in motion.
For this, her journals have been secretly dissected, in an effort to find these answers when the woman herself is standing in front of them, repeating, "I wasn't happy. This wasn't me. I lied from the start. I never wanted any of this - wife, marriage. I was only that other person for everyone else."
Let's go back to literature (where all answers can be found, actually. At least humanist ones.) At the end of A Room With a View, Lucy Honeychurch is living in Florence with George Emerson, isolated from her family, even from her staunchest supporters like Rev. Beebe, because that is the price a woman pays when she betrays all expectations of her.
When a woman has defined for herself what her freedom entails, and she dares to take it, she finds herself cast outside of the castle walls. Imagine the Disney castle gone dark and quiet. The moat is filled and the drawbridge pulled up.
The only thing she has in front of her is the open world.
And it's worth it.
Monday, February 22, 2010
the woods apology: asian mothers and ethnic programming for the win
When Tiger Woods's infidelities broke into the public sphere last year I joked with some friends that when straight-laced, boring, repressed folks crack, they go big or go home. On some smaller, deeper level, I even sympathized with his crack up: when a revered father dies the mooring that steadied you disappears so, of course, you go off course. My own personal experience mirrored his, in a way; when my mother died, I went through my own 'grief sex' period - years where I slept around like a sailor, to feel anything that would break through the white noise of my mother's death.
But it took an offhand comment from an old college friend about Woods' press conference on my Facebook page to look at Woods through a very familiar, and particular, cultural lens- a lens that those in the media have, of course, overlooked.
From my friend on Facebook:
"Tiger Wood's apology (and his mother's reaction during it) made him seem more Asian American to me...
Suddenly it all clicked: brother may look black (to some people) but, if there's one thing I know about mix-raced asians, if the mother is asian, you are gonna get a huge dose of asian culture exposure (read: guilt) and it will be hardwired into you even if you have to adapt to other cultures (whether you like it or not, mama's gonna rig it)...so his cultivated characterless-ness, the extreme privacy and (surprise!) the lapsed Buddhism angle, coupled with the public self-shaming in front of family (not wife but elders)...hmmmmm...this all sounds very familiar. Stern mommy in the front row completed the scene.
All the media asked: why the hell did he feel he need to do that public apology? Because every bit of his asian upbringing told him this was the proper thing to do!
Once I saw him in that all too familiar formation with his mother who is so often un-present in his media representation, I suddenly realized who was responsible for the daily grunt work of making him into a man: the feeding, the schlepping and the occasional (or not so occasional) slap. I saw him in a room full of aunties, sitting in a corner and being told to be quiet while they talked business. This is a bound to be an intense part of his psychic make-up...and probably more crucial to a private sense of self, given the fact that American media wants to produce a public image of blackness for him.
The media didn't understand the mom's stern posture, followed by hug gesture...they thought she was cold...and maybe in their eyes she is...but what I saw was a reversion to certain basic childhood patterns. Nugget from my childhood: Southeast Asian moms always make you tell them what you did wrong before they tell you never to do it again.
So, this explains why Tiger Woods would not let go of his Asian-ness, despite the criticism by whites and blacks that he was trying to shirk his blackness. His attempt to multi-identify was seen as a cop-out by people who only saw obsessively in terms of black and white...but his core sense of self was constituted by rituals of pain and pleasure that came from some powerful asian american mother-son bond(age).
When mom gets to handle the discipline, she also gets to handle the ethnic programming. With my sisters who have married outside of the race, I have noticed that they excessively program vietnamese-ness into their children's early self-constitution (like a trojan horse computer virus) just because they know that at some point, some other culture will "claim" their children.
Case in point: Throughout my early adulthood, I would encounter my eldest sister's children taunting me because they could speak better Vietnamese than me and felt themselves better attuned to Vietnamese-ness. Now, they hardly ever want to speak Vietnamese, because they're blond and nordic-looking...but almost always, especially at emotional moments, they revert to classic patterns of vietnamese behavior."
I responded:
"Oh my god, yes! My mom was far scarier than dad when it came to discipline - and the stealth bomb she would pull out was 'you're a bad daughter.' (It was understood that this meant I was a bad Filipina daughter.) Responsibility, obligation, duty, protecting the family name and upholding family integrity. Seen as an asian son-almost every aspect of his behavior is understandable."
I'm fascinated at the way our mainstream culture is perpetually tone-deaf to the nuances of multiple cultural identities. When I looked at his press conference again, the whole thing screamed Asian family discipline and apology. The focus on self-respect, restraint, the ultimate importance of family and the lessons that family can teach, rather than the 'lessons' taught by over-indulgent celebrity and vice; for those of us who grew up with an Asian parent, these are familiar themes that were pounded into us throughout childhood. But then, also, the discipline of the public apology, the ritual of apologizing to those you've shamed: the inner family first, then outward. His public, and the media, is last. Who's first? His mother and wife (and the presence of the wife is immaterial - the presence of the mother is primary.)
The press was miffed there was no Q&A - well, the press was just a minor necessity. The real focus were those people sitting in the front row. The apology was less a PR stunt (though it served as one, too) than a necessary step in repairing his bonds with his Asian identity and upbringing - embodied by his mother, in particular. My takeaway: don't mess with Asian mothers, man. They'll make you apologize in public.
But it took an offhand comment from an old college friend about Woods' press conference on my Facebook page to look at Woods through a very familiar, and particular, cultural lens- a lens that those in the media have, of course, overlooked.
From my friend on Facebook:
"Tiger Wood's apology (and his mother's reaction during it) made him seem more Asian American to me...
Suddenly it all clicked: brother may look black (to some people) but, if there's one thing I know about mix-raced asians, if the mother is asian, you are gonna get a huge dose of asian culture exposure (read: guilt) and it will be hardwired into you even if you have to adapt to other cultures (whether you like it or not, mama's gonna rig it)...so his cultivated characterless-ness, the extreme privacy and (surprise!) the lapsed Buddhism angle, coupled with the public self-shaming in front of family (not wife but elders)...hmmmmm...this all sounds very familiar. Stern mommy in the front row completed the scene.
All the media asked: why the hell did he feel he need to do that public apology? Because every bit of his asian upbringing told him this was the proper thing to do!
Once I saw him in that all too familiar formation with his mother who is so often un-present in his media representation, I suddenly realized who was responsible for the daily grunt work of making him into a man: the feeding, the schlepping and the occasional (or not so occasional) slap. I saw him in a room full of aunties, sitting in a corner and being told to be quiet while they talked business. This is a bound to be an intense part of his psychic make-up...and probably more crucial to a private sense of self, given the fact that American media wants to produce a public image of blackness for him.
The media didn't understand the mom's stern posture, followed by hug gesture...they thought she was cold...and maybe in their eyes she is...but what I saw was a reversion to certain basic childhood patterns. Nugget from my childhood: Southeast Asian moms always make you tell them what you did wrong before they tell you never to do it again.
So, this explains why Tiger Woods would not let go of his Asian-ness, despite the criticism by whites and blacks that he was trying to shirk his blackness. His attempt to multi-identify was seen as a cop-out by people who only saw obsessively in terms of black and white...but his core sense of self was constituted by rituals of pain and pleasure that came from some powerful asian american mother-son bond(age).
When mom gets to handle the discipline, she also gets to handle the ethnic programming. With my sisters who have married outside of the race, I have noticed that they excessively program vietnamese-ness into their children's early self-constitution (like a trojan horse computer virus) just because they know that at some point, some other culture will "claim" their children.
Case in point: Throughout my early adulthood, I would encounter my eldest sister's children taunting me because they could speak better Vietnamese than me and felt themselves better attuned to Vietnamese-ness. Now, they hardly ever want to speak Vietnamese, because they're blond and nordic-looking...but almost always, especially at emotional moments, they revert to classic patterns of vietnamese behavior."
I responded:
"Oh my god, yes! My mom was far scarier than dad when it came to discipline - and the stealth bomb she would pull out was 'you're a bad daughter.' (It was understood that this meant I was a bad Filipina daughter.) Responsibility, obligation, duty, protecting the family name and upholding family integrity. Seen as an asian son-almost every aspect of his behavior is understandable."
I'm fascinated at the way our mainstream culture is perpetually tone-deaf to the nuances of multiple cultural identities. When I looked at his press conference again, the whole thing screamed Asian family discipline and apology. The focus on self-respect, restraint, the ultimate importance of family and the lessons that family can teach, rather than the 'lessons' taught by over-indulgent celebrity and vice; for those of us who grew up with an Asian parent, these are familiar themes that were pounded into us throughout childhood. But then, also, the discipline of the public apology, the ritual of apologizing to those you've shamed: the inner family first, then outward. His public, and the media, is last. Who's first? His mother and wife (and the presence of the wife is immaterial - the presence of the mother is primary.)
The press was miffed there was no Q&A - well, the press was just a minor necessity. The real focus were those people sitting in the front row. The apology was less a PR stunt (though it served as one, too) than a necessary step in repairing his bonds with his Asian identity and upbringing - embodied by his mother, in particular. My takeaway: don't mess with Asian mothers, man. They'll make you apologize in public.
Monday, December 21, 2009
unmasking Ding
some things will be changing around here.
if anyone follows me on Twitter (or pays attention here) you'll notice that my pseudonymity is just about to disappear. i've decided that i've been hiding my professional light under a bushel for long enough and if i'm going to start going after what i want, i need to start pushing my 'personal brand.' sigh.
for years, Ding/ChurchGal has been a 'brand' of sorts, but i can't really take advantage of that as 'Ding' forever, you know? it would be like walking around in a cowl and hood.
so...this means that Screed will start migrating some of the personal stuff to another place. (can't really build a reputation on swooning over the boyfriend, you know?)
if you want to follow my Tweets, you can still do so here.
what was my new year's resolution a few years ago? Make An Effort.
this year, i'll add to that: Make An Effort and Be Ambitious.
Or maybe the other way around: Be Ambitious and Make the Effort.
or maybe i'll just condense it: Kick Ass.
if anyone follows me on Twitter (or pays attention here) you'll notice that my pseudonymity is just about to disappear. i've decided that i've been hiding my professional light under a bushel for long enough and if i'm going to start going after what i want, i need to start pushing my 'personal brand.' sigh.
for years, Ding/ChurchGal has been a 'brand' of sorts, but i can't really take advantage of that as 'Ding' forever, you know? it would be like walking around in a cowl and hood.
so...this means that Screed will start migrating some of the personal stuff to another place. (can't really build a reputation on swooning over the boyfriend, you know?)
if you want to follow my Tweets, you can still do so here.
what was my new year's resolution a few years ago? Make An Effort.
this year, i'll add to that: Make An Effort and Be Ambitious.
Or maybe the other way around: Be Ambitious and Make the Effort.
or maybe i'll just condense it: Kick Ass.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
jimmy carter is still my favorite president
so, in the post below, a long time reader advises me of the value of the 'conversation' between those who believe different things. and i value that advice. i even value the belief in the need for dialogue between disparate ideas and people in political discourse.
(goodness knows one wouldn't want to be seen as an obstructionist, in any way.)
but i disagree about some of the 'conversations' we're having.
there are just some conversations that aren't open to ... conversing.
or conversion.
things like combating sexism and misogyny. things like anti-racism. or things like civil rights for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
at the beginning of the 21st century i am not prepared to 'converse' with anyone re: how important it is for people to be on the empowering and progressive side of these issues. frankly, it shouldn't be up for debate. logical, reasonable, civil, civilized people aren't sexist, racist or homophobic.
(it's the same way i don't waste my time arguing with people about the existence of God.)
jimmy carter just ended his 'conversation' with the southern baptist convention over their centuries-long, continued sexist treatment of women and the social impact that treatment continues to have. why shouldn't he?
(and no, i have no opinions on whatever this Elders thing is, which sounds like something from a comic book.)
(goodness knows one wouldn't want to be seen as an obstructionist, in any way.)
but i disagree about some of the 'conversations' we're having.
there are just some conversations that aren't open to ... conversing.
or conversion.
things like combating sexism and misogyny. things like anti-racism. or things like civil rights for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
at the beginning of the 21st century i am not prepared to 'converse' with anyone re: how important it is for people to be on the empowering and progressive side of these issues. frankly, it shouldn't be up for debate. logical, reasonable, civil, civilized people aren't sexist, racist or homophobic.
(it's the same way i don't waste my time arguing with people about the existence of God.)
jimmy carter just ended his 'conversation' with the southern baptist convention over their centuries-long, continued sexist treatment of women and the social impact that treatment continues to have. why shouldn't he?
(and no, i have no opinions on whatever this Elders thing is, which sounds like something from a comic book.)
Friday, May 29, 2009
why the story matters
This is my parents' story:
One of my parents was an immigrant; my other parent grew up in a Compton project. One of my parents never earned a college degree and worked as a secretary her whole life; my other parent earned his college degree at night school while working in a warehouse and then earned his Masters at the same time i was entering college. Both of my parents were poor, abused, refused housing, worked blue collar jobs or civil servant jobs and yet still managed to buy a home, send two daughters to college and have a good life - all while living in south central L.A.
If we're honest, their stories weren't supposed to end this way. Their stories were supposed to end in the projects or somewhere back in the Philippines.
But their story becomes my story and follows me to grad school, corporate America and it's here with me now.
Why my story (and the story of Ursula Burns or Sonia Sotomayor or my parents) matters:
Because it gives the lie to the story that this world is only for powerful white men. It is a powerful middle finger to the socially constructed, and supported, narrative that women and people of color have a 'place' they need to stay in.
You can call us affirmative action babies; you can say that we aren't qualified or that we stole a job from some long-suffering, more qualified white dude, but who the fuck cares what you say?
(And this is why I love the 'cool' of President Obama. You call him an affirmative action baby? Were you the editor of the Yale law review? Are you the President of the United States? Didn't think so.)
We're going to keep fighting to be in your board rooms, your courtrooms, your senate floors and your offices. And who cares how you say we got there. We got there.
And once we're there, our presence will be a reminder that the story of our 'place' is a lie. It is a horrible, hateful, disgusting lie and we proved it's a lie. Those places you claim as your own will become our places, too. Maybe this is the truth you can't stand. Maybe this is the thing that makes your batshit crazy racist rhetoric so batshit crazy.
The old story of where people like me belong will eventually be chipped away, erased. And even if it won't disappear completely, if it takes another 400 years or so, what gurgling satisfaction there will be when one more of us with a story stands in a room we were never meant to enter.
Our stories don't matter to you?
Our stories aren't for you.
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