connecting the dots

This is the story of fatal domestic violence: Frantic call after 4 found dead: 'He killed everyone' - Chicago Breaking News.
Though the suspect in this story had a record based in Wisconsin his story is not necessarily unique to it.

This story is also one of our state's weakening social safety net.

In March, a FY11 Department of Human Services budget briefing laid out these stark realities:
Mental health community services would be reduced by $90 million
Mental health providers would be warned to provide only 'crisis' care
All non-Medicaid spending would be eliminated - meaning that acute or chronic care would be unfunded.

Because of these draconian cuts, according to an agency official, the mental healthcare system in Illinois would be set back 30 years. Imagine that.

It's a very basic example of how bad things trickle down:
State budgets get slashed due to billion dollar deficits ->
Public Safety budgets get reduced ->
Human/Social/Mental health services get slashed ->
State programs for the treatment of incarcerated mentally ill adults are defunded ->
Mentally ill prisoners are released to free up space ->
Transitional/supportive housing and care for mentally ill ex-prisoner is eliminated ->
Mentally ill ex-prisoner goes untreated (and unhoused) ->
Mentally ill ex-prisoner re-offends, a result of their untreated mental illness as well as their homelessness ->
Mentally ill ex-prisoner re-enters criminal justice system ->
Criminal justice system catches and releases them again, because there is no money for guards, prisons or treatment.

And so on.

We could play the same game with rehabilitation services, alcohol and drug abuse services, or even childcare. Oh, not to say that all those who receive those services end up in the criminal justice system, but that insufficient funding for each of these areas creates a series of unintended consequences for communities which are ill-equipped to deal with them in the first place.

The community organizations who do this work do it precisely because the state can't.

And now, because of the indefensible lagging and delay of most (not all) of our elected officials, the state won't.

In mental health alone, over 3000 jobs will be lost in Illinois.
Anywhere between 23-87 mental health organizations will close (depending on their niche population.)
4000 adults in residential care will be impacted.
70,000 people (including 4200 children) will no longer have access to mental health care.

So that's the mental health 'dot.'

In addition to the education 'dot.'

And the public safety 'dot.'

There are a lot more dots if you really want to see them.

How many other dots need to be connected before our elected officials get off their complacent asses shrug off their complacency and do what they need to do?

dear religious people: stop picking and choosing bigotry

Eric Zorn: Hateful parents, teens conspire to throw fake prom for learning disabled students and a lesbian couple

I had a few assumptions already in my mind about this small community and this latest story just confirmed them.

Assumption: this town is all about conformity and tightly regulated social order.
Assumption: this town is not...open to outsiders.
Assumption: this town has the small-minded meanness required to maintain a rigid social structure.

Check, check and check.

Zorn links to a post here (and here) that has even more details on what kind of mind could think this was ok.

It's interesting to note what kind of blinders they're using to justify their really cruel behavior.
They just wanted a regular prom.
They didn't want all the attention (hence 'laying low.')
They didn't want to knuckle under the 'demands' of a student 'no one really liked anyway.'
They wanted to end the year 'right.'
They wanted their year 'back on track.'

What all this equals to is selfishness (as well as a huge gulp of bigotry.)

The notions of fair play, equality, kindness, ethical behavior, or even basic decency didn't enter their minds.

Before all the kids put their Facebook profiles on lockdown, they were pretty vocal about how much they loved Jesus but it's clear they didn't internalize any of the Sunday school lessons embodied by Jesus' encounters with the socially marginalized. 

If these kids saw the woman by the well, what would they have done?
If they came across the prostitute about to be stoned by the Pharisees, what would they have done?
If they were forced to have dinner with a tax collector, what would they have said?

Is it a stretch to guess these kids and their parents would have no problem shunning, stoning or isolating people who aren't like them? 

Is that what Jesus taught?

Superficially religious folk conveniently ignore the simple lessons Jesus taught.  Of course they cling to the Pauline injunctions against homosexuality  - which also happen to support their bigotry.  Their stubborn privileging of this injunction rather than the commandment to 'love your neighbor and treat others like you'd be treated' supposedly gives them cover for righteous behavior. 

After all, they say 'you can't pick and choose' which parts of the Bible you're going to believe and live by.  Good point. But picking and choosing, however, is exactly what you're doing when you choose to treat someone with hate and exclusion rather than love and compassion. 

Here's an exegetical tip to folks who use the picking/choosing to justify their bigoted reading of scripture: when you are confronted by an apparent conflict in the Bible (in this case the conflict between loving your neighbor or telling your neighbor to go to a fake prom because you hate gay people), err on the side of love and acceptance.

And if that's not enough to give pause to knee-jerk bigotry, here's my question to all those self-righteous religous folk out there who'd rather be an empty tomb than filled with the love of Christ:

When it's your time to meet your Lord, do you really think God is going to judge you if you treat gays, lesbians and trans people like human beings?

(yeah. don't get a baptist preacher's daugher on your back about jesus, man.)

Remember when I'd post almost weekly about the weddings column in the Times?
Funny how I don't do that anymore.

Vivienne La Borde, Kaddu Luyombya - NYTimes.com

This Whisper of a Wince

First, the links:
Jill Scott says something.
And Ta-Nehisi Coates says this.
Then Racialicious said some other things.
And then Coates had a PS.
And then we wrap up the week with Kevin Powell writing all us black folk a letter.

And now, the stories (which aren't prescriptive, merely illustrative):

When my friend Prof. L- sent me the Coates link I wrote him back. 'When ppl open their mouths and tell me how they 'feel' when they see another person's relationship choice I want to tell them to keep their personal issues to themselves. If they aren't about to say 'I hope they're happy,' then folks need to STFU.'

And Prof. L- replied,'Is there much of a distance from discomfort to disapproval?'
...
Here's another story:
When I was in therapy, my therapist (a WOC) started to dig deeper into my family background when our sessions began to concentrate on intimacy and relationships and why I felt I was such crap at them.  She wanted to know about my relationship to my father; what it was like to grow up in my old Baptist church; how I felt growing up in such a patriarchal and religious environment; what I really needed in a relationship.

My relationship to my father: I love the man, and I'm his 'duffle bag' (don't ask) but he was/is also the only man to make me ramp up to rage in under 10 minutes when the subject is women, men, politics or women in the bible/church.
What it was like growing up in my old Baptist church: it was like being a visitor from the future and you landed in 1898. BC.
How I felt growing up in such an environment: I was angry at all the bloviating old black dudes who were traditional, controlling, bullying, manipulative, insecure, and completely transparent with their greed and ambition. I hated that I had to compete with them for my father's attention.  Because I was better than they were, I had contempt for them.
What I needed most in a relationship:  Safety; recognition; personal integrity; comfort; to be taken care of; trust; mutual, unconditional support.  Acceptance.

Dr. C- would ask, 'And you can't find this in black men?'
I'd say, 'I probably could, but I don't give them the chance to show me. I am so angry, I can't see straight. All I can think of is those men in that church or I'm anticipating how they are going to turn into those types of men.'
Dr. C- would ask, 'Those men in the church. What was your primary method of dealing with them?'
I'd say, 'Competition. I had to beat them. I had to be smarter than they were, than their children were. I had to be a better church person than they were. Understand the bible better than they were. Even if they didn't let me preach, I had to be better at preaching.'
'Why?'
'So my dad would tell me 'good job,' or something. They didn't think a woman could be a leader in anything and I had to show them I was better than they were.'
Dr. C- (who was married to a very nice black man) would say, 'What do you think about trying to date a black man?'
I'd say, 'Well....ok. If you think that will help.'
And she'd say, 'It always helps to challenge our fears.'

And I tried.  But every conversation I'd have with a black man would either remind me of a tired R&B song or fill me with such panic attack anxiety I took a break and fell back into a liaison with B-, which was even more unsatisfying because it was finally clear to me that he was utterly incapble of giving me the things I needed most.

But at least he didn't remind me of that old Baptist church.

Then, when I was at the point of letting my Match.com account expire, I met M-.  A white guy. Who didn't graduate college. Who worked blue collar most of his life. Who wouldn't know Foucault if Michel bit him on his ass. Who, when he drove me home on our first date, said he wanted to make me a mixed CD and cancel his Match account the next day.  And I never spoke to, or saw, B- again.  Because of a white guy.  The Other.

This month marks our 1-year anniversary. It is the most emotionally satisfying relationship I've had since grad school.
...
A third, and final, story (which long-time readers may have already heard):
When it was time for me to go off to grad school, my cracker barrel, deeply southern godfather pulled me aside after evening church services.  I was leaving for Michigan in a couple of days and I was excited. Scared, too, but excited. In my imagination, Ann Arbor looked like Boston. (Yes, I was completely inaccurate but the main point was it was 2000 miles away from my provincial church.)

It was clear my godfather was trying to do the avuncular thing and this was the sterling piece of advice that he gave me:

'Don't jump the fence.'

What kind of backwoods, country folk-ism was this? I was blank-faced for a few seconds until his fierce gaze and the eventual, firing synapses in my brain made me stiffen. Don't jump the fence.  Don't leave your side of the social divide. Don't get involved with a white guy. Don't sleep with a white guy. Don't have sex with a white guy. Don't betray your people.  I wanted to slap his southern face.

'My father 'jumped the fence,' James.'
'Well, now. That's a little different. You just be careful. Don't jump the fence. Stay where you belong.'

I stomped away and seethed for hours. That was the last time I spoke to him.

Just this past year, my father told me that old James had died and it was revealed that he had had an affair with a married woman in the church for years. My old anger at his goatish hypocrisy rushed back at me and all I could do was sputter over the phone about that 'fucking old man.'
...
The 'heart wants what the heart wants' and it's usually because of something pushed so way down deep, you can't even recognize it.  So I get Scott's wince.  I do.  (I'm a student of African American history and literature; I've read the same history books and wondered why everyone gets play but a black girl.)

But I've got a wince of my own and the whisper of it makes me almost ashamed; I almost want to hand in my own Black Card of Racial Solidarity because of it. Almost. This is not to say that my triggers are the fault of others. It's not all black men's fault that I have this whisper of a wince. But I have it.  It has caused me to close one type of door between me and black men.  Other doors (filial, platonic or professional ones) remain open; just not intimate ones. In this regard, the man who has given me what I need is a white man.

Not all white men. Not every white man. A white man.

When we are together, the looks or stares (or whether someone may or may not have a wince) people send us don't register with me.  He is more aware of it than I am. And he is now more aware of the complex ways that our being together works as a kind of social shorthand in different parts of the city.  (He'd never say it that way; he just tells me, 'My Mexican neighbors like me better now because of you.')  But shorthand or not, when he looks at me he tells me that he has been waiting his whole life for me and I know that because of him, my heart is bigger.

So wince away, you Scotts of the world.  You can't help it.  It's not your fault.

Holy Week and the Hutaree

I spent the morning in bed with M- on Palm Sunday so I watched The Greatest Story Ever Told, instead; I had quite a good time being reminded of the simplicity of my faith: love your neighbor as yourself and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Simple. In the horrific ideology of the Hutaree (and militias like them) where is Love Your Neighbor? Where is Do Unto Others? If this is the greatest commandment, then why is it so easily trumped by guns, violence and murder?

I blame Christian comics.  What a world.  They'd take contemporary characters (like Archie) and use them to tell Christian stories and morality.  I read things like The Cross and the Switchblade or 1970s retellings of the Prodigal Son (so groovy!).  But the best one?  The one I remember the most and which laid the foundation for me becoming the Bible Answer Girl in my Saturday Bible class?  This one.

The Revelation is like Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson dropped acid and then took Ecstasy and then maybe dropped into a huge K-hole.  And I, like every fundamentalist kid in America, swallowed every psychedelic drop. 

(Note: the comics about demon possession were even more awesome than the ones about the Rapture.)

And it's this version of Christianity and the 'end times' that Christian militias either want to catalyze or hope for.  (Clearly, however, something was lost in translation. If the Hutaree are believers, wouldn't they be snatched up in the Rapture? So who are they training to fight against if they aren't going to be here when the battle happens?)

The point is: none of this makes sense. The story of The End Times is a fascinating story for a kid to read.  It's the best comic book ever.  But with adult eyes, it has no relationship to the words and precepts of Christ that I actually believe. 

Because this is Holy Week, I'm supposed to contemplate the submission of Christ to His destiny, the cross.  Like a good Christian, I'm to sit in the dark on Maundy Thursday and feel the weight of His death - and look forward to the final celebration of His resurrection on Easter. With the resurrection, the commandment to love one another is eternal. This is the cycle that gives Christianity its meaning.

Not the crazy last chapter.

No one like Mondays. Especially when you come into the office and discover your laptop has been stolen. Along with 4 others.
...
In other news, M- and I have taken another teeny step toward solidifying our relationship. I know it seems strange to mark progress like this but that's the Spock in me. I need to know that I'm achieving something or it's not worthwhile.

A friend of mine and her partner are looking for a place together and it got us thinking: would we be open to moving in together?

Having just moved out on my own, and also just renewed my lease, I'm not in any particular hurry. And we're both older and stubborn, set in our ways. And we both seem to have different ways of living. What would we be like living together?

So I asked him.
He said, 'Not like now. I'm living in a dusty dark man cave because I didn't give a damn. But if we lived together, I'd really want to make a home with you.'

'You don't think we'd get tired of seeing each other, all the time? Every day?'

'This is why I'm thinking we'd get a large place. A room for us, a room for my stuff, an office for you.'

'What about your collection? Wouldn't you need to touch it, look at it, go through it all the time?' (I know comic book boys. They're weird about their collections.)

He said, 'What am I? Rainman?'

We didn't come to any firm conclusions but now it's out there, on the table between us, ready to be taken up again later.

And this weekend will be Easter dinner with the parents of a good friend and maybe some other of my friends - a retest of the two of us in mixed company.

pay no mind to the woman behind the curtain

I may be one of those women so long decried in business magazines: the woman who silently seethes for lack of proper recognition.

If I was a man, I doubt that ManChristina would be so...acquiescent about being the 'voice' for his boss.  I doubt ManChristina would be ok standing behind the curtain, writing the words that get other people kudos.  I also doubt ManChristina would be so slow trying to figure out what ManChristina was going to do about it, without sounding petty or childish. 

In fact, I don't think ManChristina would give a flying fuck whether he sounded petty or childish.

Oh, sure. ManChristina would understand that this is part of being on a communications team, but sooner or later, he'd simply say: 'I want fucking credit for my work.'

I wonder what ManChristina would say to me?

ManChristina: You are being such a whiner.
DeliaChristina: No I'm not! I'm trying, really hard, to be a team player!

MC: (snort) Whatever, you big baby.
DC: I don't want to be the ... disruptive, angry one. Uh, anymore.

MC: You also don't want to be the one who gets credit. Your choice. (shrug)
DC:  You don't understand! We're a team! Our team's job is to make the CEO look good. So...that's what I do. I do the policy research, create the argument and serve it up all nice so she can repeat it.
MC:  (snort) That's some bullshit.
DC: You don't get it.  That's what a communications team does.  Our labor goes into lifting the profile for the organization.

MC: Then why are you so mad? If that's your job, that's your job!  Deal.  Suck it up.
DC: You're such an asshole.
MC: And you're a whiny baby! Why are you so angry, then? Don't you like being the researcher, writer, argument-maker, secret policy brain?
DC: No! I am tired of being the smart brown girl who does the frakking work and then some savvy, connected white chick comes along and then uses my work to get the big byline, sweet gig or promotion! Aagh!

MC: Then what. Are. You. Going. To. DO.
DC: I have no frakking clue.  This is not the best job seeking market, you know.  Communications folks are a foot thick on the ground out there....(whine whine)
MC: You need to stop making excuses and do fucking something.
DC: You are no help, ManChristina.

MC: You need to stop being such a girl.

Apparently, ManChristina would be a sexist pig.  Huh.

go, team!

(Two weeks ago)
M: So babe. We've been invited to a party in a couple of weeks on Sunday. You free?
DC: On a Sunday? Always.
M: Cool. We'll talk about it later.
DC: Wonderful.

(last Saturday night, pillow talk)
M: Babe, don't forget we have that thing tomorrow.
DC: Oh, right.  What is that again?
M: It's my godson's birthday party.  We'll be in and out.
DC: Wait. Children?!?

(Sunday afternoon, Walgreens greeting card aisle)
M: These cards suck.
DC: You could get him a blank card and just write 'Hey, Happy Birthday, kid!' (lady next to us snorts)  They're twins, right? What about a card for the other one?
M: Naah. They need to learn how to share.
(I laugh really really loudly.)

(Sunday afternoon, Oak Park bungalow, livingroom couch)
M: (whispering) Do you want anything to eat?
DC: (whispering) No. Your godson picked his nose and touched all the cheese on the cheese tray.

(soon after)
Host: Ugh. That Sarah Palin.
M: (to me) He hates Sarah Palin.
DC: Oh? (having no clue what the political waters are here)
M: He used to be a raging Republican but now -
Host: I'm more Libertarian. It's the gun issue, mainly.
DC: Really? You...like guns?
Host: Oh, I don't own any. But don't say I can't!
DC: Ah.  Yes.  (to M-.) Los Angeles has guns everywhere. My dad has a gun.
Host: And that's his Constitutional right!
DC: (silently taking sip of Sprite)

(later)
Hostess: Did you know M- was our best man?
DC: I had no idea!
Hostess: (pulling out photo album, showing me a photo of the bride herself, hoisting M- in her arms) He's always been slim.
DC: I see that.
Hostess: M- is one of the best guys; he really is. (Giving me a hard look.)
DC: I know.  That's why I'm keeping him around.

(much later)
VeryNiceLady: Oh! They're voting on that healthcare thing today! You work with government - what do you think?
(M- is very very silent next to me. VeryNiceLady's VeryConservativeHusband gives me the fish-eye.)
DC: You know, I was at a panel discussion earlier this year and it was so interesting! There are some unintended consequences, I think, to healthcare reform that local municipalities haven't quite thought about, yet.  (I blather on about public healthcare and Stroger Hospital) But there's no doubt that something needs to be done.  I mean, premiums in Illinois are predicted to jump at least 25% by 2015!  There are questions, though...
VeryNiceLady: (nodding) I know what you mean...
M: (whispering) Thank you.

(last night, on the phone)
M: They invited us for dinner next week.

Teamwork, you know?

I have apologized to my coworkers for being such a flaming bitch during the entire month of February. I think my mood will be much better in March, especially once I refill my Ativan prescription.  The snow is gone, the sun is out, and I don't have to wear snow boots anymore; how interesting that my mood is directly related to how cute I am able to look.  For instance, today is all about the Naughty Librarian With Red Pumps.  I feel fabulous; I look fabulous. I smell good.

Happy Tuesday to all!
...
So I think my sister L- will be moving back in with dad.  He seems to think she's on solid ground, but is worried that my brother in law is about to lose it.  (As am I; though he's a very cool guy, he is rather regimented.  And we all know what happens when regimented people crack their shit up.) While I'm concerned for everyone back in LA - especially my dad, who is SO not prepared to have one of his daughters move back in with him and put a crimp in his 66-year old bachelor lifestyle - my thoughts naturally, of course, turn to me.  What does my sister's divorce mean to me??

My bottom line: Sweet lord, I'm so glad I'm not married!  Marriage is apparently crazy-making. It carries a psychological and cultural expectation of permanence that doesn't encourage one to be in the Now - it's all about two inexorably bound timelines that stretch waaaaay into the future. Like, into Eternity. That is a lot of pressure. And I'm so glad I don't have it!

I mean, yes. I love M-.  He is my guy.  But we live in two different spaces. We spend days apart doing our own thing.  Our timelines, while running alongside each other's for a bit, aren't bound. They can diverge, oh yes they can. There is no expectation of Eternity. Oh, there's an expectation of mutual monogamy (though we've tentatively discussed other arrangements - as well as mutually decided our relationship is too new for us to get too creative with its structure.) But there's no expectation of frakking Eternity.

I try to imagine myself married and I can't get past imagining what I'll wear to the courthouse for a civil ceremony.  (I'm thinking a creamy, soft suit with nipped in jacket and pencil skirt and some kind of nifty hat. And really really hot shoes. And nude fishnets.) Or, if I get past that, I think of the small, intimate afternoon luncheon at a nice French restaurant afterward.  Then that's it. My imagination goes dark.

Anyway, I know there are a few among all 15 of my readers who enjoy their marital state and this is not to say y'all are chumps.  I think y'all are champs! 

You have chosen, however, a life structure that confuses me to the core. 

Ok, it's after 9. Carry on!

can't a brown girl get an amen? no? really? *crickets*

How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get « OkTrends

Interesting:
Black women write back the most. Whether it’s due to talkativeness, loneliness, or a sense of plain decency, black women are by far the most likely to respond to a first contact attempt. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and, overall, black women reply about a quarter more often that other women.

Hmph. We are not chatty. We are polite.

Also interesting:
Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.

Sigh. Harsh.

I know nothing about stats; but I know online dating like the back of my hand. And this...is interesting. Whatever submerged, unconscious racial stereotyping floating out there is doing us some serious damage. Not all of us black/brown girls care but, really?? EVERY single dude (including the black and brown ones) diss us on dating sites? Damn.

Apparently, M- and I are outliers.

stuck on amtrak, i think about relationships

Talking to my dad yesterday about the utter destruction of my sister's marriage he asked how things were going with me and M-.

I said we were going strong and he said something like, 'You two will be screaming at each other like all the rest.’

‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘I think I'm doing pretty well here; we actually talk. We're honest.’

Dad snorted. ‘Honest. I’m honest.’

‘Whatever, Dad. M- and I actually talk about how we feel and we don’t wait for shit to blow up before we do. I know exactly why I’m in this relationship and so does he. If that changes anytime soon it won’t be the end of the world for us.’

‘We’ll see,’ Dad said.

It’s funny; Dad has seen how repressive and strangling the conventional rules of marriage are, and have been for a lot of people. He even admits it. But it’s a weird sort of reflex to not only see people conform to that convention, but see them twist in it and suffer. Maybe that's a Baptist thing. For all that the folks I went to church with clapped and congratulated each other for marrying, they practically salivated with pleasure when those marriages cracked and crumbled.

There was this strange mentality: 'You thought you were so special. So different. But you're not. You're just as miserable as I am. You're no different.'

This must be a black Baptist thing. Yeah.

In any case, I refuse to conform to it. And then people can marvel at my unconventional happiness.

As well as kiss my ass.
...
In related news - related to my sister's marriage and my and M-'s relationship - I had been thinking that this would be the summer I bring a boy home. Yeah, sort of a big thing. But not really. Folks go on trips all the time!

But with the destructin of my sister's marriage, where the hell will we stay?!

Yeah. It's all about me. It IS!

if only the poor were more like me!

If only poor people understood nutrition! The Fat Nutritionist

That post up there, btw, is brilliant. Unfortunately, she had to shut down comments because some folks were deliberately misreading her thesis, which I will repeat and clarify for you:

You want people to eat better? Give them enough money, a place for cooking and storage, and access to a decent variety of food.

There. That's her thesis in a nutshell.

I'll boil it down even further:
So, if we want other people to shop and consume like us, in our hip, healthy, and globally conscious ways, then they're going to need what we have.

What do I have that most really poor people (earning < $16k/annually) do not?
I have a properly operating kitchen, with counter space and lighting.
I have a gas stove that lights when I turn it on. (And all burners that work.)
I have a large refrigerator that freezes the things that need to be frozen, and a fridge that keeps my butter from melting and my food from spoiling.
I have a pantry that is free from bugs and mice so I can store dry goods there.
I have a running sink with water that isn't all gunky or rusty.
I have a mexican mini-mart, a walgreens, AND a large, clean Dominick's all within short walking distance.
I have a dude who sells fresh fruit/veg from the back of his truck during the spring/summer.
I also have about a $50/week grocery shopping allowance. Sometimes, I go over my allowance and buy $100 in groceries/week.
I live in a part of town that does not have slum landlords.
I have a few bus lines within walking distance and a train line.
I work in a part of the city that hosts farmers markets during the summer that I can visit on my lunch hour.
I have Bon Appetit, Saveur, Cook's Country Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated and a stack of other cookbooks from Borders and friends in my kitchen.
I have internet access to Epicurious.com.
I have a wok, pots, pans, serving platters, mixing bowls, forks, utensils, measuring cups, cutting boards and towels.
I have a place to store them.


I also have a job, no kids, healthcare, access to public transportation, flexible work hours, and adequate housing.

Basically, I am middle class, with typical bourgeois middle class tastes and habits.
...
Here is a completely irrelevant personal story (irrelevant because personal stories, while illustrative, are not prescriptive):

My parents were poor before they were middle class; the clothes I wore were not my own but hand-me-downs from another family. We received bags of groceries from anonymous church members - there would be a package of Peppridge Farm cookies in one of those bags. Or a bottle of Tang. A block of gov't cheese could last a really long time - for tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches, ham/cheese sandwiches, on crackers, in the toaster oven slapped over white bread.

We were poor but we ate dinner every night: chicken, pork chop or steak, a salad, rice and a desert (jello or ice cream). A glass of whole fat milk. In the morning, it was a hot cereal, orange juice or toast with butter and then to the bus.

Eventually, our meals got more complicated - coinciding with my mom going back to work and my dad getting a better job. Then we were shakily middle class.

There was a Chinese supermarket two blocks away for emergencies (we didn't trust their meat after one bad incident), and if we had to drive to a supermarket, there was a Vons or Ralphs only 15 min away by car. I remember going with mom every week after she got home from work to do grocery shopping. I hated unloading our 10 or 12 bags of groceries, my arms held stiff, the plastic handles making red rows in my skin.

Think of that. 10-12 full bags of groceries. Every two weeks. For a family of four. Without fail.

Whether we want to acknowledge it, this is the middle class standard most of us have running in the backs of our minds when we tell poor people to eat, or grocery shop, better. We never have their memories in our heads. We don't think about how the hell they're getting 10-12 heavy shopping bags from the supermarket 2 miles away from their house, on foot, with only a couple small kids to help them.

Much less from organic farmers market to farmers market.

...

Do you know where poor people live? Oh, not your hipster living in Ukrainian Village in an apartment no bigger than two cubicles at your office. Real poor people. Like, over in Greater Grand Crossing or Austin. Or Lawndale. Or Chicago Heights. Like, in those places you can see from the Green Line headed toward Cottage Grove. Or those places you see if you take the #66 bus all the waaaay west to the end of the line. Ever check out the apartments in that neighborhood that always sees the police action? Or the 'hood that always gets the helicopters hovering over it? Do you know how really poor people live?

I've only been in my Aunt D-'s apartment two or three times. It is so stuffy, I want to gag. Incense smells try to cover up other smells, but don't. And in the hallway outside, that splotch is either shit or vomit. I won't go in her kitchen. (I have never been invited to see her kitchen.) I don't dare ask to use the bathroom.

Once, when I dropped off some clothes and extra pots/pans/cooking pans, she kept us standing in her living room. There are only two bedrooms in this 'garden' apartment and I think she sleeps on the couch in the living room, giving the bedrooms to her daughter and son. She complains about the landlord who won't fix anything; he just collects the reimbursements from the gov't for providing Section 8 vouchers. She says, though, that once my cousin reaches 18, their rent is going to double or my male cousin will have to move out. (18 year old black boys, it seems are a threat to building.)

Down the street from Aunt D-, there is a KFC, McDonalds, a fried fish shack, a Chinese joint and a couple of gas stations, where you can buy cigs, bottled water or soda pop. The nearest real supermarket is in Hyde Park which is about a couple of different buses away. That's where the Walgreens is, too.

She doesn't have bus cards, so I gave her a few with $10 on them. In Chicago, one bus ride is $2.25. How far can she get on that? And how often? You do that math.
...
At my very tony Presbyterian church we once had a social services program to help provide healthier meals to really low-income neighbors. (You'd have to find these neighbors with a magnifying glass and move a few neighborhoods over, but they're there.) A friend served on this task force and they were told to help develop and test cook menus for this project.

But there were rules:
Think healthier ingredients, not necessarily 'healthy'.
The meal's ingredients couldn't cost more than $10, total.
It would have to be enough to serve at least 4.
Meal preparation couldn't involve more than 1-2 utensils.
The meal had to be cooked/served in the same dish.
It had to be able to be cooked on a hot plate.
Task force members could not assume refrigeration was available.

When you or I are cooking 'healthy' how many of these rules do we break?

It isn't class warfare to point out that the poor live differently from us. To ignore that fact maintains our caste system rather than demolishing it.

So until we are prepared to solve the 'problem' of their poverty first, perhaps we should keep mum with our 'advice' to poor families about making better nutritional 'choices'.

(And that means you, Jamie Oliver.)

my espresso bean mood...lifting

Reasons for the sudden uplift:

1.  M- and I are still going strong.  We've both admitted to minor, ridiculous jealousies; we don't need to fill the air with chatter; we're still the most boring couple ever; the sex is still...good god; we're both frakking adults about shit (like work stress, scheduling, my HoboMouth, listening to the other person) and I'm getting better at being part of a public couple.  My travel schedule to Springfield isn't as horrendous as some have to endure, but for me, it's annoying as hell; the best part about coming back is emailing him from the train and telling him how I missed him while I was down there. 

He noted, "You always miss me more when you go to Springfield."  (Then he makes a problematic joke about thalidomide, which never fails to make me guffaw, which is equally problematic. I know. I'll repent later.)

And I do miss him more.  I've found that he steadies me when work makes me nuts.  The idea of not having him to quiet my crazy mind almost brings tears to my eyes.  I wouldn't want to deal with what I'm dealing with at work if I didn't have him to come back to.

Uh. Yeah.  Anyway...

2.  I was accepted into the 2010 Spring Leadership and Policy Institute through the NWLC!  I'm so excited about this opportunity!  I've said to myself that if I was going to be serious about a public office career, then chances like this would be key.  And, they paid for my lodging!  AND - the White House Project bootcamp is coming to Chicago in May!  Maybe I'll go after that, too.

3.  I'm realizing how my satisfaction is so often connected to my core strengths.  As a leadership exercise, we were given this book and my 5 core strengths turned out to be: Ideation, Input, Focus, Achiever, and Connectedness.  Apparently, when things go out of whack or I feel that these needs of mine aren't being met, I go to my Dark Side: my dark, sarcastic, bitter, negative, highly critical side.  It's not pretty.  But I'm becoming aware of it - and how it can really negatively impact a team. So I'm trying really hard to not indulge in my fits of grrrr!  It's not productive.  (Though I still really like the Stockholm Syndrome analogy.  It's apt.)

So there you have it. I'm coming back into the light - and I achieved something I never would have achieved a year ago!  (And, clearly, my revamped resume rocks.)

dear GOP: help my friend get healthcare

Dear GOP:

I'm so glad you're concerned with the plight of the millions of American people (especially women) who are either under-insured or uninsured.  Seeing your concern during the Healthcare Summit yesterday prompted me to write you.  I'm actually hoping you can help a friend of mine.

She's a very hardworking woman and a rather wonderful friend.  (She makes the best hummus, ever!)  Like others in the financial services industry, she was laid off a few years ago from a multi-million dollar financial services firm in Chicago and she has only recently been able to find steady work as a sub-contractor for a federal gov't office. In the 3 years between her initial layoff and her contract work now, she has gone back to school and started her own business.  But when her rather generous severance package ran out, she had to give up COBRA coverage and purchase an individual healthcare insurance policy.

Then she ran into a few issues.  The economy got very soft and she needed to supplement her small income by working some uneven retail jobs.  I don't know if you know, but most hourly retail jobs don't pay benefits.  Her business wasn't really making a profit and her savings were dwindling.  Retail only paid her several hundred dollars a month and her expenses (rent, food, utilities, insurance) were eating the majority of her savings.  Pretty soon, her savings were gone.  So last year, she went on food stamps and reluctantly canceled her individual health insurance. Later that year, she was late with her rent and when her landlord started to make noises about eviction, she moved in with a friend with a spare room because she was literally steps away from being homeless.

You should know she discovered a lump, too.  She's had this lump for about a year now and has never had it checked.  Breast cancer is rampant in her family history.  She's working a full time job with this federal government office but only as a contractor, which doesn't offer benefits of any kind.  So even though she's earning some money, she has to put a lot of it into savings in order to get ready to move out - she can't live in her friend's spare room forever.  Anyway, the point is she hasn't gotten her lump checked.  It's still there.

I keep telling her there are public services in Illinois for breast screening for low income women (since she only earned $16,000.00 last year, I think she qualifies as low income.)  But she refuses because she doesn't want to get slammed with a preexisting condition when she finally gets managed care.  And now that flu season is still kicking around in Chicago, she's got this bad cough and her job won't let her take any days off so she's going into work sick.  It would be great if she could get a few antibiotics into her.

Can you help her?  It would be great if you could let her know that you guys have a plan to resolve her situation.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

A Concerned Friend

when doing good is like being taken hostage

Funny how, when you get prescribed Ativan because talking with your sister about her divorce makes your heart pound, you find yourself taking the Ativan more because work is kicking your ass and driving you toward a major meltdown.

Working for a non profit human services org in this environment (i.e., Illinois) is like being taken hostage and developing a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.  There's nowhere else to go, you're grateful you still have a job (though you don't know how long that'll last), you're dependent on the vicissitudes of a sector that's completely unsustainable in its current form, as well as the political whim of a bunch of downstate reps who don't give a shit and, as a result, you start identifying with the conditions of your hostage-taking:

Of course it's right and natural for me to tamp down any resentment that my last two promotions have gone completely unrewarded.
Of course it's an equal trade that, instead of merit raises for the past 3 years, we should be happy for random jeans days.
Of course it's ok to work over 40 hrs/week and look at your annual compensation and think, This is not making sense but hey, it's for a good cause.

Sounding bitter?
You bet.  And I'm not the only one.  There is a growing air of dissatisfaction and resentment growing in the ranks here.  And I'm not even talking about frontline folks who have sacrificed a hell of a lot more than the rest of us.  But in the so-called 'high performing' team, the team that is perceived to receive a lot of perks, we are beginning not to feel so inspired by being so high-performing.

Our high performance comes at a price and we're tapped out.  Literally and figuratively. 

Our resentment isn't so much about the fiscal situation we're in.  We know whose fault this is; we know our sector has been bent over a barrell and frakked for the past 20 years by folks down in Springfield.

Our resentment is burbling because so much is being heaped on us, things are starting to fall apart and instead of pulling back, the heaping continues.  In a healthy environment, some of our initiatives make sense.  But we're not healthy; we're in constant crisis mode.  There's an expectation that resources get cut but of course output not only continues but triples.  Ok, I understand that mindset.  But sooner or later, we're all going to start reaching our breaking points. 

Sooner or later, the uncertainty of being on unemployment is going to seem a LOT more appealing than putting up with this crap.

At least when you're on unemployment, you get to rest.  You get to breathe.  You get to slow down a little.  When you're on unemployment (and I have been) you don't find yourself taking anti-anxiety meds in the middle of the day.

And I think half the team is just about there.

I think about what it was like leading a union. Ha ha.  In this kind of situation, dept stewards like me would be advocating union members first to log all their hours and the kind of work they do, then get ready to 'work to rule.'  It was a low pressure, but effective, work action when the administration didn't feel it was necessary to compensate for the actual work that was being produced.  If you're only supposed to work 20 hrs a week, only work 20 hrs a week.  If that meant curtailing office hours, so be it.  If that meant cutting short on class prep, so be it.  The goal was to get compensated for ALL the work you performed, not just part.  If you had 1600 union members suddenly working to rule, a lot of shit didn't get done and the administration would be forced to rethink their pay structure.

Of course, non profits aren't usually unionized.  In fact, our employment handbook makes unionization grounds for discipline and/or dismissal. (Ironic, huh?)

But goddammit - we are getting close to some kind of Norma Rae moment.  Just saying that's what the tea leaves look like.

Huh.  I'm beginning to see how one becomes a Teabagger.

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.

ready, set, go! maybe.

From the House chamber gallery yesterday, I watched my state reps chit chat, talk on their iPhones, surf the web, eat lunch, snooze, doodle, confab and a few of them were even paying attention to the bill debate going on. What follows is a very paraphrased version of the proceedings:

Dem Rep: ...and so I think my Baby-Daddy registry amendment to bill Such and Such is a good idea.


GOP Rep: Uh, I don't get it. I'm sure my esteemed colleague knows his community best but I'm not sure I get the point.
Dem Rep: Well, there are baby daddies - or maybe not. But we won't know unless there's a list of them. A list of Baby Daddies.
GOP Rep: I still don't get it.
(And the debate continues like this for a while. Then - )
Dem Majority Whip: (standing) This amendment makes no sense; pull it.
Dem Rep: (sigh) I respectfully withdraw my amendment.
GOPRep: I still don't get it!
Sith Lord of the House (aka, Speaker): Next bill, Clerk.
Clerk: On a resolution protesting terrorism, Miranda rights, the use of the super max prison for terrorists who have been Mirandized and extolling all things good about America.
Sith Lord: Who wrote this?
Patriotic GOP Rep: That would be me; I really think it's important to protect our state and read this resolution on the floor because the Obama administration is going to destroy everything we hold dear and this resolution will somehow be meaningful.
Sith Lord: (hard stare and sigh) Why can't this go to committee?
Patriotic GOP Rep: Because I want to read it on the floor. My colleagues agree with me.
(tiny GOP minority cheers)
Sith Lord: Are you sure you don't want this to go to committee?
Patriotic GOP Rep: No. Read it.
Sith Lord: I say we don't read it and I have this handy procedural rule that will allow me to kill it. Duly killed.
Patriotic GOP Rep: I protest!
Sith Lord: I call for a vote: shall I be Sith Lord and have the right to kill this puny resolution or shall I not? Finger vote!
(computer screens all light up)
Sith Lord: 69 votes for me and none for you. Everybody, to my chambers! (exeunt)

And so on for the next hour. I had to give it to the scrappy Patriotic GOP member; while Sith Lord was conferring with his leaders, he tried to reintroduce his resolution but the Sith Lord's second just repeated the procedural vote results from a paper and ignored him over his protests. Up in the gallery, a woman leaned over to me and whispered, "That man over there just got dissed, didn't he?"
I whispered back, "Big time."
She sighed. "This is why nothing ever gets done."

My COO, who was waving to her aunt on the floor, leaned over. "After seeing this, don't you want to be down there?"
"No. I would lose my shit."

She gave me a hard glance. "You know you love it. This is all a show, and you know that. The real work happens in those committee meetings. That guy knew he wouldn't get his amendment. And he knew his resolution wouldn't make it out of his mouth." Nodding down at the now silent Patriotic GOP member.
"And that makes me want to do this, why?"
"You're still young enough to try this and either make it or not. But you have about 3 years to plan. You should make a decision soon. My aunt can help."

Later, at the train station to return to Chicago, my COO introduced me to her uncle, a retired blue collar worker whose main job is to make sure Rep Auntie X made it to her meetings in Springfield from the south side.
As we were shaking hands, the COO said, "She's feeling the call."
Uncle X gave me a look and said, "Well now."
"We'll see," I said. "I'm interested but ..."
"Well," he said. "My wife won't tell you this, but I'm not anybody's elected anything. With every election, the quality is going down. They're getting stupider and stupider. If you're worth it, and my niece doesn't back people who aren't worth it, then you should do it. You'll be needed."

On the train, my COO said. "You'll need 3 years to get a mortgage, a fundraising base and a network. You have a strong network already partly in place. And you need a target. Westside districts will be hard; northside might be doable; southside would be easier. My aunt's would be ideal."

"I don't want to move to the south side!"
"Delia Christina, you need to be serious. If you're going to do this, the DO THIS."

This was still on my mind when I got home, exhausted. If one day of basically nothing exhausted me, what would a whole job do to me? If one session made me disgusted, what would hundreds of them do? If I secretly thought elected official X was an asshat, what would prevent me from calling him that to his face? And if people like me (or you) don't step up, what then? What about my writing? What about the book that's been growing inside me? What about my relationship? And have I said I don't want a frakking mortgage!?

So that's what's on my mind: trying to plan the next three years to maybe be ready for a go in '14. Or not.

Take me to your Leader

Last summer I was in a conference room with two colleagues and our COO, a very smart and wise woman who had seen things, done things, been in campaigns, had managed people, teams and orgs – and had a mixture of savvy and thoughtfulness I wanted to emulate. It was at the height of the state budget crisis and we were all afraid of losing our jobs, feeling pressured to make sure our programs survived and the women we helped would continue to be helped. It was a summer of fear and frustration but also a time when we all stretched ourselves beyond what we thought were capable.
It was also when I learned what it took to lead an organization and how different it felt from the inside of the bubble than the outside.

I was sitting with the PR officer and the Associate Director of Communications and we were crafting both the internal and external communication strategies; on the table was the dicey problem of managing internal fear of mass layoffs and shut downs. Do we tell staff about possible furloughs, layoffs or wait until everything was settled and it was too late for staff to make plans for their families? I was pushing for more transparency, having learned through a corporate lens that if you trust your frontline with difficult news they can come through for you and the fear and panic will likely subside once they know what’s happening.

The PR officer was feeling frustrated at the perception people seemed to be stalling making decisions and our AD was arguing for adopting a really conservative, cautious line. So the COO walked in on our intense debate and after she listened for a bit she closed the door.

‘I’m not supposed to share these things but I think I should in order to share with you what’s happening at the senior management level. So you know what we’re struggling with. In a RIF over a certain size, there are state and federal rules that mandate how much notice you need to give your employees. If it’s up to and over 50%, it’s 60 days. If it’s about 25%, then 30. But we don’t know what contingency plans we’ll have to put in place, yet. We just don’t know.

But RIFs alone won’t save the agency, and we need to save the agency. It’s in our charter and bylaws, we’re mandated by our Board and there you are. So there are furloughs or pay cuts for those who survive the RIF. But how to structure furloughs? If we structure it badly, it impacts health benefits and at a time like this we all need our benefits; if we structure it badly, we could also expose the agency to risk, in terms of legal action. And we’re also trying to do the right thing and abide by the laws and statutes of the state. So we’re trying to find little bits of a puzzle at a time when we’re flying completely in the dark.

We also don’t want to create a panic. We can’t have half our staff quitting in fear when we still have work to do. So you see that we are dealing with all these details that could have some serious, lasting ramifications for our employees.’ She paused. ‘So, in our position, what would you do?’

We were silent. All the debating flew out the window. The differences of opinion flew out the window when faced with the heavy details and choices our bosses would have to make – choices that would materially impact a working family.

‘We are so fucked,’ I said. There was laughter. ‘You’re right. We can’t go public with all this. They’d freak. I’m freaking just listening to you.’

The COO smiled. ‘And this has been what’s happening at every senior manager meeting, every day. We’re all freaking. Just control the panic until we can figure out the least harmful way of dealing with this mess. And get us that budget back, Delia.’

(When she left the room, I’m sure that’s the moment our PR officer decided to revise her resume and go on the market.)

From the outside, it looked like our leaders were fumbling in the dark, deliberately not sharing information for bad purposes, or withholding the truth for some weird lack of trust (which was sometimes deserved); on the inside, the choices to be made were so weighty, the details and consequences so damaging, a workable solution couldn’t be arrived at, yet.

From the outside, they lacked leadership and direction; they weren’t fighting hard enough; they weren’t doing what they promised; they weren’t doing what we wanted them to do. From the inside, they knew damage would occur, but were still struggling with how to triage the damage.

What would you do? How would you lead?

Talking about leadership (which I do a lot) and actually leading – while taking in the entire contextual universe of that act – is hard. And it’s not about winning. ‘Winning’ and leading are sometimes in conflict. Did my agency win? Hard to say. We’re still around. But that RIF took place; we laid off about 30% of our headcount; we lost 10% of our multi-million dollar funding. There were pay reductions; there were service reductions. There was anger and resentment; we said goodbye to some good people. We lost a lot.

But we came through it because our leadership made really hard decisions that were not going to feel good for the rest of us – and their decisions were made with the intent of trying to mitigate the damage to the rest of us.

For the past several months, I’ve been reading all sorts of right and left analysis of what’s happening with the Obama administration. I keep reading posts and articles admonishing more ‘fight,’ more ‘kick ass,’ more ‘do something’ – which all imply winning, not necessarily leading.

And what they’ve been saying has reminded me of that conference room debate I had with my coworkers. Why isn’t more being done? Why aren’t they telling us? Why aren’t they fighting harder? Why are they not telling us the truth?

I don’t have answers to any of that. But I know questions like those come from a position of fear and desperation, emotional states that don’t lead to good decision making. And I also know this: until some of these sideline analysts and writers are ready to put on their big girl panties and sit in that big chair and make the decisions that will bring down damage in order to save the larger whole, then those folks need to shut the fuck up reevaluate what they really want in a leader.

professional tip #1: put on your big girl panties

At first, my sister's divorce was making my heart pound erratically but now it's work.  And now I carry a bottle of Atavan.

A couple of days ago, emails were colliding in my inbox and it became too much. I busted into BossLady's office and had a mini-breakdown.  It just suddenly dawned on me that there was a LOT riding on my success or failure.  Money, funding, staff, jobs, livelihoods. My chest felt like it was going to burst.  And I felt like there was a big target painted on my back.

"I just wanna know that I'm not on the hook for the whole strategy leading this place," I said. "I mean, I'm not..I can't...I'm not an executive! I'm just pulling shit out of my ass!'

BossLady understood. 'So what are you saying? You're overwhelmed?'

Our COO stopped in. 'What's going on?'

I said, "I'm freaking out. I feel there's a big target on my back and there are a lot of expectations and I can't handle it. This is totally above my pay grade. LITERALLY."

But if I thought there was sympathy from my awesome COO, there was none.

With a voice like a blunt instrument, she said, 'Sorry. We *are* relying on you to provide the strategy. This is what you do and what we need from you.'

'Jesus. I'm about to lose my shit,' I said. 'I am so not comfortable with that. I'm not used to that. I'm used to giving suggestions, advice, throwing in some 'have you thought ofs' - not 'this is the whole freaking plan and it came out of my head'!'

You know what's in my head?  Most of the time, bravado and useless crap!  But apparently, that's my job - to marshall my natural talent for bravado and academic bullshit in order to get what we need to survive.  It was a really heavy moment. My job wasn't a game. There was no room for shrugging and saying 'oh well, maybe next time.' There was weight to it.  And it was hanging around my neck and I was scared.

It's terrifying, sometimes, to see yourself the way others see you.  (And this, one week after bullshitting my way through letter of recommendation! The irony, you know?)

My two bosses were sympathetic but not really feeling me more than that.

The upshot: put on your big girl panties, DeliaChristina.

asshat of the day: who else?

Let this be a lesson, kids: when you mix white privilege, male privilege, boredom, celebrity, and a hugely over-indulged ego you grow up to be John Mayer. You've been warned.

Round up of responses to the 'very very' Mayer:
John Mayer's "Very" Wide-Open Window Into U.S. Race Relations - Psychology Today (this one was more empathic than others.)

John Mayer: A black woman responds - Salon

When Racefail Meets Playboy: The John Mayer Interview - Racialicious

Should We Give Him a Pass on the N-word? - BlogHer

John Mayer and his white supremacist man-bits - Feministe

Mayer Reveals His Authentically Racist Self - Whose Shoes Are These Anyway?

Was he high? Was he serious? Who cares? If I keep getting my 'black card' revoked for my lack of pop culture knowledge I want his freaking 'hood pass' permanently suspended!

Parts of his interview (esp. the part about having a white supremecist cock) reminded me of that opening hook up montage in The Wedding Crashers - our two heroes will sleep with *anyone* - just not black women. I honestly don't care who people sleep with - but I always look aslant at folks who cross out whole ethnic groups and don't interrogate it. I include myself in this number; I will admit there are whole countries of men I am not interested in meeting.  Maybe I should give Mayer some slack for being so horrendously honest about his racial preferences.

Whatever. Any dude who needs to look at 300 images of porn just to get going in the morning is an asshat. Frak his honesty.

this is MY country

Rachel Maddow unloads a bunch of righteous fury on Tom Tancredo, the Teaparty and their dangerous, seditious, white supremacist nostalgia.

I connect this moment to Black History Month because, personally, I'm tired of February being the month we use to sing gospel songs (badly and too slowly), revisit big moments Black Folks Did Something That Shamed White Folks Into Thinking We Were People, or to complain about how janky and/or 'post' Black History Month we are now.

For months, it should have been clear that the narrative running beneath anything the Teaparty does or says has been about citizenship; crazy and fringe as they are, the Birthers were onto something. Oh, the thing wasn't Obama's actual birth certificate but the question it prompted: Who is allowed to be American in this contemporary America? 

The ideologically correct answer is any of us and their rejection of our national ideal lies at the dark heart of this seditious movement. (And, yeah, I'll call it that because that's exactlly what it is. Just the same way I'll also characterize it as white supremacist.)

The nostalgia they indulge in speaks to a time when national identity and citizenship was very narrowly defined by race, and every institution of this country supported that narrow definition. Without things like Black History Month (and the people who actually know it), without people like Howard Zinn (rest in peace, truth teller), a TeaPartier's nostalgic wish to 'take back' their country floats in our public discourse without context or challenge.  Black History Month should exist to counter their narrative, to make their narrative a lie. 

Black History Month is understood to be the culmination of a civil rights fight that ended a long time ago.  But it's evidently not over - not as long as there is a burgeoning movement in this country to question my citizenship, my rights to equal protection, my rights to an American history .  As a country, we are young in our plurality and we forget that the world the TeaPartiers lost (and dream of ) could easily return - if we let their seditious wishful thinking take hold.

Still wanna celebrate Black History Month? Let's make a deal.  I'll ignore all the bad Negro spirituals being sung in mainline churches in Sundays this month if y'all read up on things like vote suppression, red lining, the source of racial wealth disparity and our long history of intstitutional racism - and tell these Teaparty sons of sedition to go frak themselves.

...and more on the Idaho 10 (love the name)

Americans Jailed in Haiti Plead for Help From U.S. - NYTimes.com

Sigh.

Reading the comments, I'd say their hold on American sympathy is dwindling.

sheeple

The story about the 10 Baptists in Haiti just gets sadder and more bizarre:

Idahoans in Haiti agreed to pay $7,000 a month to house children in church center, newspaper says News Updates Idaho Statesman

They never had lodging arranged; they didn't have the proper paperwork; they had no clear plan; they had no experience running a facility for children; they were either going to give these children up for adoption OR they were going to be with them forever - in any case, frak their families.

I don't want these sad people thrown in jail; you've recovered the children (who are in a 'real' orphanage) so why not expel them from Haiti and bar them from ever returning?

And please - good hearted Christian ladies! Stop - adopt some critical thinking skills before rushing into the unknown.

professional tip #15: write your own letter of rec

I just wrote the most outrageous ode to my own awesomeness:

"With her help we have become a model of advocacy in the region and we’re proud of the generous way she shares her knowledge with our sister associations to build capacity. We now enjoy a reputation for being ahead of issues, for being a ‘first-responder’ on issues critical to victims of assault and working poor families. It’s difficult to ascribe direct causality but there is no doubt we could not have achieved this without her combination of guts, smarts and resourcefulness."

There's more but I'll stop there.

I'm applying for a competitive leadership bootcamp in DC for May and part of the application is two letters of recommendation. Who'd I pick to recommend me? My CEO and COO (I think having leadership behind you matters).  But they're busy women so I wrote the letter for them, sent it to them, said they could edit it as they saw fit  - and I'd do the rest.  One down, one to go.

Writing it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. 

Have you written a letter of your own awesomeness?

On my path to get to The Next Step I'm becoming a big believer in being your own biggest fan - especially if you're a woman.  Remember that article folks were talking about a month or so ago, about what women needed to do to be more successful - and the upshot was 'be more like a dude'?  Well, no.  I wouldn't know how to be a 'dude' if I tried - but I like being one of the smartest people in the room (and I'm not afraid of being that person in the room who also says 'I don't get it.') I like knowing what I'm capable of and doing it; I like knowing that there are things I can do better than other people. 

Why be ashamed of it?  Why be apologetic for it?
(I'm not saying be a dick.  Just be...who the hell you are. Unless you really are a dick. I can't help you with that.)

To me, not apologizing for being you (constructive warts and all) is being your own biggest fan. And being forced to write it all down makes you define who you are for yourself.  That's why I don't understand people who ask for recommendations and then leave it up to others to say something nice about them.  You're really going to trust other people with your reputation and image?  Really??  Risky.

Anyway, it felt good writing this letter.  It reminded me of why I do the work I do and why I've stayed where I am.  It returned to me some of my purpose.  And when my CEO signed off on it with a fluorish without changing one word, I squee'd a little inside.

Now if I could just conquer my fear of the networking event...

if i was white i'd bore myself to death

This was interesting (in that way that makes you sit back and go, 'Huh.')

This piece in RaceWire posits that the LATimes' method of 'personalizing' their paper to individual readers suffers from what the folks over here call the 'white racial frame.'  (The writer doesn't actually use that term but I'm sure that's what she meant.)

From Hing's piece:
'...I should have known from the get-go, the whole thing is a gussied up marketing survey. And because, as a woman of color, I am not part of their marketing plan. The whole system is powered by Visual DNA, a company with “patented technology proven to increase Revenue Per User.” Visual DNA’s tagline is: “We transform unknown users into known people.” Only problem is, they’re not interested in knowing anyone whose goals, values and interests fall anywhere outside of a very narrow range of people.
The whole exercise is the most heterosexist, white, male, corporate America view of the world.'

(Sounds like the white racial frame to me.)

But I was a little skeptical - I mean, I've taken marketing surveys before. I have yet to meet a survey that acts like a scalpel encoded with your DNA. However, almost immediately, I felt...nonplussed. The choices they gave me to best represent my possible interests, values, issues, self-images, goals, ideas were so frakking White!  I mean, really.  You're going to ask me what's great about America and all I see are white men in suits, skyscrapers, American flags, white servicemen, white people silhouetted against a sunset and then a bunch of latinos holding an American flag? What the hell is that?

So I picked the most innocuous thing I could that didn't scream Mitt Romney:

A blank hand with a computer. This is what's great about America to me because they didn't have any frakking women of color to choose from.

When they asked me about my issues, all I had to choose from were nifty pics of sterile labs, hospitals, a forest (with a white person in it), a wedding cake with two grooms on top of it, more military, a brown person graduating, and a bunch of other stuff that yelled Ozzie & Harriet.  So what did I pick? The brown person graduating - which is lame compared to my 'real' issues (women's rights, poverty, racial inequality, politics, communication...I can find pictures of these things, why couldn't they?)

But then they asked me what success meant.  Dude. They showed me variations of a white family on a boat. Which image did I pick?

An empty, sterile home. (It works, kind of; I consider myself very successful if I have a clean house.)

And don't even get me started on what there was to choose from when I had to identify my Art or my Music.

But the kicker was how they put all my janky, second rate choices together to form my 'white racially framed' profile.  According to them, I am a Live Wire!  I have 'traditional values,' like relaxing with the kids (what the hell?), going to the mall (or soccer pitch), and I have all the excitement of a Sarah Palin speech.

I didn't think it was possible but it's true; the LA Times just made me white. I mean, I'm fairly bougie, but this? They sucked the color right out of me.

All kidding aside, this is what is so frustrating about living within the white racial frame all the time.  I dare say some (white) people will take this survey and also disagree with their profile.  'I don't like flags, the military or picket fences! I like really hip, interesting esoteric things that weren't represented on this survey at all! Marketing surveys are never accurate! You're reading too much...blah blah white privilege white privilege white racial framing...!'  

(And, because, again, this is not about how white people experience the world, but how people of color experience it.  Not a person of color?  STFU.)

I'm talking about the person of color who takes it and, puzzled, ends up just picking random things because we weren't considered at all at the front end of this project; as a result, our view of the world is erased and never represented (and, yes, our view of the world *is* different than yours in alot of ways).  This erasure of our sensibilities, this constant invisibility of our identity - our very presence, even - is a daily strain and source of frustrated disappointment.

As a result of our erasure, the picture of our national culture, our national identity, is diluted. It does our culture a disservice to erase whole peoples like this - just because some marketing guy can't figure out how to fit the rest of us in.  

[If you're a person of color (or a woman, I daresay - the survey comes across as very 'male') please take the visual survey. It's the best example of racial framing I've seen in a long time.]

[Updated: Here's another version of white racial framing.  No young Hollywood actors of color exist? Really?  Nowhere? Like here or here or here or here?  Again, some people aren't trying hard enough.]

what are they thinking?? now we know.

So.
Have you read the GOP poll results from the Kos folks? Holy crap.

They polled 2300 (massive sample) self-identified Republicans and the results made me spit out my cereal.
I swear I don't want to indulge in any lazy name-calling, but what the hell??

These are just some of their answers:
They want Obama impeached. (why??)
They believe he's a socialist.
They barely believe he does *not* want the terrorists to win. (a significant number, however, think there's some wiggle room here.)
They don't want gays to marry, have civil partnerships, serve in the military, receive benefits OR teach in our schools. (so how DO they think gays should be treated?)
They want contraception to be outlawed.
They don't want sex ed taught in schools.
They don't want workers to be allowed to unionize.
They don't want immigrants to be allowed to become citizens.
They think the birth control pill is an abortifacient.
They think the Book of Genesis is a valid lesson to be taught in our science books.
They think ACORN stole the election. (sigh)
They (overwhelmingly) think Sarah Palin is more qualified than the POTUS to be POTUS.

Thankfully, they also think marriage is an equal partnership and women should be able to work outside the home. So, I guess, yay for women. Barely. (Women also like having birth control, asshats, so that we're not constantly dropping babies - so that we can work outside the home.)

Oh! And this:
They believe folks who aren't Christian are going to hell.

What does this kind of fundamentalist theology mean for governing a pluralistic nation? (Which we ARE.)

How do you govern if your base thinks like this? I'm not being facetious. This is a serious question.

How does one develop effective public policy if your base is this....retro. (That's the kindest word I can think of.)

And am I the only one who feels a tiny bit of pity for these folks who see the world through such a paranoid, irrational, illogical, and ungenerous lens?

For the whole poll, go here.

suffer the little children to come unto me...legally

Asked what he thought about the Americans’ claims to be doing God’s work, Mr. Denis shrugged. “What is God’s I leave to God,” he said. “What’s the state’s is ours.”

Ah. God and state.  What is Caesar's and what is not.

The story of the Baptist missionaries playing Pied Piper to a bunch of Haitian kids gives me a Sunday School flashback rash. In Sunday School I learned all about the miraculous things that faith could do: it could roll away a stone from a tomb; it could raise the dead; it could be as small as a mustard seed yet grow into a mighty oak; it could allow you to walk on water, feed hundreds with just a few loaves, it could make you lay down your nets and follow some guy (nevermind about providing a living for your family depending on the revenue of what you caught.)

Basically, if you had the faith of a child you could be a superhero. You could do Anything!!

Or it could land you in jail.
Right now those 10 well-intentioned Baptists are sitting in jail, and quoting Phillipians. The significance of Phillipians? It's the letter Paul wrote while in jail awaiting trial in Rome to the church in Phillipi. He's writing to friends, reassuring them, encouraging them and sharing how his faith (slightly bigger than a mustard seed) in Christ has carried him through this period of darkness.  It's a beautiful letter, I've always thought. 

But Paul is also the go-to apostle when it comes to invoking martyrdom and going 'balls out' for the Lord.
'Limits be damned! I'm on fire for Christ! I am His Chief Sinner! Arrrgh!'

But the Phillipians letter also shows the limits of faith; for all his faith, Paul is still going to trial.  He will be executed in Rome. He will eventually bow his knee to Caesar. His faith is great, but his faith can't stop the workings of the state.

I don't think faith exists to embolden magical, fantastical thinking.  And it was fantastical for those people to think they could 'rescue' Haitian children and then ...what? Just scoot them over the border and keep them indefinitely?  Seems so.  My religious training has always taught that you have faith *in* Christ -- but don't get all crazy with it.  In other words, being faithful is great but that doesn't mean the State can't exert its own will on your ass when you break their laws.  (That's what landed Paul in prison in the first place.)

I also don't think God communicates to us in mysterious, ill-thought directives, despite what someone's father might say: “They were acting in faith. That may sound trivial, but they were acting not only in faith but God’s faith.” God wanted them to ignore procedure and just snatch children across the border? Really? God works like that? I'd like to see that demonstrated, somewhere.

This is also the uncomfortable tension between how we practice our evangelical faith (I say 'we/our' because I can't really get rid of it, no matter how many presbyterian cocktail parties I attend) and the rules of the world we live in.  Faith doesn't exist in a completely rule-free zone.  On one side you have John Brown; on the other, Scott Roeder.  On one side you have the many missionaries who have been in Haiti for years, delivering critical services. But on the other, you have the nagging, troublesome tendency of faith groups to enthusiastically 'fix' things without thinking if they really ought, to the detriment of the very people they're trying to help.  Unintended consequences are a bitch.

One's faith may say 'Save teh poor fetus babehs!' So you shoot Dr. Tiller.  Well, suck it up.  The state has a rule for that. 
One's faith may even say 'Rescue the poor little black babehs!' So you load up a bunch and take them without permission. Their country has a rule for that.
One's faith dictates gays are an 'abomination.' So you strip them of civil rights.  Well, our constitution has a rule for that.

I understand what walking in faith means to an evangelical. You walk by faith, not by sight. You believe there is a purpose, a meaning ahead of you and you walk toward it, even if the path is scary. But where does faith and common sense take leave of one another? Does walking in faith mean to put aside critical thinking skills? Does it mean to ignore the rules of a sovereign country?

To quote a blog friend of mine: You may believe those babies are better off in Idaho, but that doesn't make them 'orphans'.

reasons why having M- isn't such a bad idea

1. He has a beer waiting when I come home from the office at 10 pm.


2. He is my buffer between me and the crazies when I'm not in the mood.

3. The first thing he says when I come thru the door is, 'Hey, there's my girlfriend!'

4. He's not jealous of my job, which he knows I love.

5. He actually pays attention to my job even though he isn't that clear on what I do.

6. He protects my space.

7. He warms up the freezing cold spots in bed.

8,9,10. Other stuff one probably shouldn't say publicly on a blog. Cough.