the limits of the single story

This is so perfect, I don't want to ruin it with my prattling: People of colour are not a story of suffering . . . Or resistance. « Restructure!

We should be familiar with the 'single story' told by our most familiar -isms: racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, cisism, etc.

But:

What is the 'single story' that feminism tells?
What is the 'single story' of our national identity?
What is the 'single story' of your city or town?
What is the 'single story' of your religion or political party?
(Even the Tea Party has a 'single story' being told by the MSM and others.)

What is the 'single story' of your work - especially if you work for a non profit human services organization?

This is not a weird question: the 'single story' most orgs tell is of the broken down - nevermind the agency that these populations have shown, or that these populations very well might have their own stories to tell. But the 'single story' we tell about these populations is a direct product of the racial/class power and privilege of those of us who work in these orgs.

A friend of mine recently confronted this single story issue when she was preparing a proposal for a large corporate donor for one of our service areas. She was in the middle of writing it when something began to niggle at her. The whole thing felt wrong. The women we were purporting to serve weren't in it at all. It was all stats and 'statements of need' that made it seem like the west side of Chicago was just a bombed out crater, where women wandered the streets begging for bread and children lived in boxes. It was a standard grant narrative that painted the worst picture, without any room for self-determination, agency or stories other than the one we told of poverty levels, literacy rates and lack.

So my friend retooled her proposal to make that niggling itch go away.

It's significant to note that my friend is a woman of color (it is.) And when the proposal was reviewed by a non person of color, the shift in frame was immediately noted - and instantly edited. My friend was told that the single story of women's experiences on the west side is the preferred story to donors - this is the reality that needs to be made even more starkly solid, and repeated everywhere we go, and to everyone we solicit.

The voice of our org, therefore, must reflect "No possibility of feelings more complex than pity." We must reify, no matter how problematic, unfair or racist, a power and privilege that has "the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person."

As a writer I know that I've been guilty of telling only one story. It's an easy shorthand to fall into, especially if this is the way one's sector works. I don't quite know how to end this post except to hope that those of us who are privileged to be in the position to tell the stories of others take our storytelling seriously - and resist the impulse to tell them singly.

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.

a tardy post for MLK day

So I’m in a café yesterday, relishing in Dr. King’s holiday – and the day off it affords me. Yeah, I could do some volunteering but I work my arse off for a women’s org that empowers women and eliminates racism every day. I think I can do with a day off from official do-gooding.

So I’m reading the paper some guy left behind and two stories jump out at me: the one about Matisha Goens who left her 8 mo-old baby at a police station on the south side and the one about the additional costs gay couples incur just to have the bare minimum of privileges straight couples get to have.

Some questions prompted by the Matisha Goens story:
Why are we criminalizing this young mother for doing exactly what she ought to have done (rather than keep her child and risk future abuse and neglect) when it’s clear that more needs to be done to fix a system of care that is overburdened and lacks the necessary capacity for young parents like Goens?

Though she’s being charged with a misdemeanor and not a felony, how will Goens receive the help she needs? If she becomes a mother again, how will she build the skills to be a safe and nurturing mother?

One solution might be something called the Young Parents Program (funded through the Ounce of Prevention) that seeks to give young parenting women the skills and capacity to mother -- and which could prevent what happened to Goens from happening to other young mothers. Through this program, young mothers attend regular support groups, gain parenting skills (which aren’t intrinsic behaviors, incidentally), are visited regularly by program counselors, are observed and taught to be better mothers. If young mothers experience high levels of stress, feelings of isolation and depression, this program helps these young women develop coping skills and regain their confidence in their abilities to mother their children – which also helps them make crucial decisions to strengthen their childrens’ lives. They can see the possibility to attend school or find better employment rather than see no other way out than to leave their children at a police or fire station.

But if our state’s budget takes another header into the toilet, this program goes away – much like it did for 3 mightmarish months last summer when the FY10 state budget proved inadequate and the Ounce lost the funding it needed to keep this program running. As our state’s fiscal crisis spirals further out of control, and our leaders refuse to take action, stories like Matisha’s will become more common.

Another question:  Why don’t we listen to young women who express their doubts about motherhood? It’s rather clear (to me, anyway) that Goens knew she didn’t have the wherewithal for early motherhood. Her own mother says Goens had expressed doubts about her pregnancy and her ability to mother; she had talked about adoption but her mother thought it would get better once the baby arrived.

(I can’t even deal with the kind of wacky logic that is.)

Goens became more depressed and isolated during her pregnancy and had, once she gave birth, had already tried to give away her baby. Why didn’t anyone listen to her? Why are we in the habit of discounting what young women tell us about their own situations?

If a young woman says she can’t handle motherhood, don’t you think she knows this better than others? Beyond this instance, if a young woman expresses doubt about her ability to be pregnant, to be a mother, why in the world don’t we take her at her word and get her what she says she needs in order to alleviate the problem? (And yes, I’m also talking about access to reproductive services like abortion.)

I often make fun of the decision-making skills of teenagers (whose decision-making centers in their brains aren’t finished developing yet) but when it comes to this, I’m willing to give them a benefit of the doubt.

And just a short statement about today’s piece in the Trib about the legal hoops same-sex couples have to jump through just to have the bare minimum of straight people’s legal rights:

When the world works ONE way to the marked benefit of a significant population, it should work the exact same way for everyone else.

That’s what justice is.
That’s what civils rights are.

And anything else is bullshit.