oh, carol. you're losing me.

Just because I have brown skin (and breasts) does not mean I'm voting for Carol Moseley Braun for Mayor.

I think I'm even supposed to be one of her target demographic: woman of color, professional, educated, tired of old boy politics, pro choice, progressive, feminist-y, and modern. But I'm not digging Carol's style right now. Her campaign style is definitely not...modern. It's a mish mash of crankiness, recalcitrance, bull-headedness and iron-fisted charm. If her campaign was a CEO, I'd hate to work for her.

Am I supposed to be impressed she convinced Meeks and Davis to drop out? I wonder if their capitulation was due to her directly or the result of inevitability? Rev. Meeks insulted gays, women, Latinos, Asians, and people who knew gays, women, Latinos and Asians. Danny Davis is old (this isn't me being ageist; he's seriously old. Grandfather old. He won't make it!). And he's a demigod in his district. Why would he trade in his demi-deity to paint a target on his back as Mayor of a city with a huge deficit and mounting infrastructure issues? Does the fact she's the last black woman standing mean I'm ready to vote for Carol?

Not really.

To be honest, her reliance on tired Old Black Dude (OBD) traditions makes me, a modern brown woman, even more tired. The OBD circuit is not where I come from. For once, can't we ignore that old dog/pony church circuit show? As the daughter of a pastor, I don't know what's more insulting: politicians polluting a church with their shilling, or pastors allowing them to do it. And watching her play 'gotcha' games (like the flip flop about the tax return) with the media is not helping me. Neither is her futile crusade against the parking meters. (She want to sue because it was a bad deal? They didn't pay enough? I think that milk is spilt.) Her comfort with the OBD circuit ages her - and alienates me.

Is the OBD circuit emblematic of what her administration would be?

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, but has Braun left hers? Perhaps that's a little unfair of me, but I see a woman in her very well kept Hyde Park home, occasionally venturing out to give a few speeches and raise some money during a luncheon. She's a genteel lady who lunches -and I'm not.

The communicator in me believes in stories - not so much campaign cliches - but narratives of a vision. But what's Carol's story? What's her vision? Will she put Chicago on the path of something new or does she think it's good enough just to maintain the status quo? Where does she see Chicago going and how will she steer it? And why her? What's her value proposition? I've read her site (after weeks of searching for it) and all I can think of is blah blah blah.

On Christmas Eve, M- and I were having lunch somewhere in the art gallery district and overheard some regular guys talking about the Mayoral race. One of them said, 'She's a nice lady. But she just wants a job.'

Ouch.

Folks like me want to know what's inside the package. Black ministers don't do it for me. Neither do the unions. Who are the thinkers, the doers, the innovative creatives who are going to help you get Chicago back on track (if you think the wheels have come off.) When Chicago is threatening to fracture into sectarian groups again, how is she going to engage the whole public to rally around her, as the symbol of this city?

I'm the public, Carol, and you're losing me.

What Would Jesus Do? The Opposite of What You're Doing

So Obama called the Philadelphia Eagles owner to talk about two random things: greening the stadium and Michael Vick’s second chance. And, in the words of one blogger, all hell broke loose.

This is what I think about second chances: we all deserve them.

But he killed dogs!
Henry Kissinger was instrumental in the death of thousands of southeast Asians, and yet, he is considered an elder statesman of US diplomacy.

But he killed dogs!
This country voted for Geoge W. Bush (twice) and now he’s earning millions on his book and speaking tour - after starting two wars, crashing our economy and tanking civil rights in this country all in the name of fighting terror.

But he killed dogs!

Yeah, he did. So did this guy.

Because he killed dogs, now Michael Vick is a black man with a prison record. His nifty NFL contract is the only variable separating him from the fate of hundreds of thousands of other black men with prison records.  Perhaps it’s the rarity of second chances for these men that makes Obama’s recognition and commendation of second chances so startling and impolitic for the rest of us.

So who deserves a second chance? Who deserves an opportunity for redemption and repentance?

Unlike Tucker Carlson, whose grasp of the Golden Rule and Christian love/forbearance is rather shaky, my father shows me what it means to give someone a real second chance. As part of his ministry he has mentored black men from all paths: gangbangers, ex-cons, drug dealers, alcoholics, burnouts, and probably one or two men with pasts so violent and abhorrent we would run away from them. While it exasperates me (as it exasperated my mother) to watch him make such an exhausting effort for so little return, I have a feeling that I am missing the point.

The results may be few and far between to most of us but the effort is what matters; my father is doing something no one else in the world seems to want to do: love and help black men.

My sister and I came home from school one day to find some strange man washing dad’s car in the driveway. In the kitchen, mom was watching from a window and we asked her who that man was. She sighed.

‘It’s another of your father’s men,’ she said. ‘He came to bible study and now he won’t leave. He has a metal plate in his head where he was shot by police for drug dealing. What is the point?!’ Another big sigh. My mother could only see wasted effort.

My sister and I, however, were fascinated that a man could have a metal plate in his head.

I’m happy to say my mother was wrong. That man with the metal plate built a construction business, has a wife, three sons he’s fighting to keep alive, a house in the Valley, and is one of my father’s best friends. When my mother died, with his big construction hands, he lovingly wrapped all the little Christmas village houses my mother had collected and took them home because he said they reminded him of Lucy.

And right this very minute, my father is boarding a young man with obvious emotional and mental issues from Indiana. This man had heard my father’s sermons, contacted him and drove to California to escape whatever personal hell had been pursuing him in his hometown. Like a black Boo Radley, he lives in my father’s house and silently endures the squinty-eyed side-glances from me and my sister when we visit.

What does he want? Is he trying to take advantage of my dad? What if he’s crazy?

‘Lock your door, dad,’ I said to my father on the phone one night. ‘If he goes nuts, make it hard for him to kill you.’

‘Little girl, you need to stop. He’s just trying to get back on his feet.’

‘Well, when will he?? He’s been there for months! Why’s it taking him so damn long? Why can’t he find a roommate on Craigslist? Why does it have to be you?’ I know I sounded like my dead mother but I couldn’t help it.

My father sighed.

‘You girls have never understood this. Not even your mother. It has to be me because no one else will do it. You don’t understand. No one loves the black man. We’re beaten and ashamed and neglected and put away. No one loves us. No one. And so if I don’t, who will? Who will show this young man he’s a creature of God? If it’s not me, who will do it? The county? The welfare system? Who, dammit, who?’

(I am actually tearing up remembering this conversation.)

My father loves the black man and cares about what happens to him when it’s not politic to do so. His ministry to black men is not necessarily about finding someone a job or keeping him from the law. His effort, and hopefully Obama’s call, is about showing these men that they have a second opportunity to become, and be seen as, a full human being again.

It’s the point that everyone is missing – even the well-meaning dog lovers, feminists, Maddows, Ezra Kleins and asshats like Tucker Carlson.

So who deserves a chance to be regarded a full human being again? Michael Vick does. And every black man like him.

This is White Supremacy

So I'm getting ready to go to a wedding in Kenilworth (one of Chicago's closest 'sundown' towns, incidentally) when I read this article in my FB feed: Arizona public school is being forced to change little black and brown kids in a mural white because some assholes are offended by the mere visual reminder that not everyone is white.

So far reaction has been "Wow, those Arizonans are freaking crazy, with their racist thoughts and all."  Well, yes and no.

Yes, they are freaking crazy but this isn't racism. This is white supremacy.

When a state, by large unspoken agreement of its people, decides to ellide the very presence of the racial Other then we're beyond 'race bigotry' + power = Racism. We're into the land of: You are not white so therefore you are not worthy of citizenship (SB1070), a place in our history (see ethnic studies bans and textbook revisionism) or even artistic or public representation.  When the black and brown people are told their presence isn't wanted in public that's a strong statement of who IS welcomed: whites only.

To me, that means Jim Crow. And if we're all students of history, we all should recognize Jim Crow, or bullshit 'separate but equal' segregation, as a tool of white supremacy.

Disenfranchisement is more than just being treated differently - it means one has no public, legal or civil recourse to wrongs done to you. It means you have no right to participate in civic life - voting, for instance. When applied to ONLY people of color, it is a white supremacist method of social control.

So let's start calling the racists what they really are: Jim Crow apologists and white supremacists.  Because now we know what we're dealing with.

silence.

"the police threw a “flash bang” through the front window. it blinded everyone inside; it lit aiyana on fire.


the news reported a tussle with the grandmother, during which the firearm discharged. everyone in the family says there was no tussle, that the grandmother was throwing herself over the baby when aiyana was shot in the head.


what do you call the blinded, terrified groping of a grandmother who knows her grandchildren are in the room, blasted from safety and sleep into chaos and danger, whose granddaughter is on fire? how do you comfort a man like aiyana’s father, which was forced to lie face down in his daughter’s blood by the same police officers who killed her?


the police shot and killed aiyana. they shot her in the forehead. her family saw her brain on the couch. by accident, perhaps. which doesn’t even matter to a 7-year-old. you don’t get let off any hooks for your intentions in this case, officer." (source)

I want all of us to think about how often these 'accidents' happen.
I want all of us to think about where these 'accidents' happen.

Because they aren't happening in New Trier.
They aren't happening in Westwood.

Then I want you to think about those to whom these 'accidents' occur.

And that's all I want you to do.  Think.
No talk. No discussion.

Because I am too goddamn angry to say another word about this.

at last, the religious right gets honest

From Exposing the Christian Right's New Racial Playbook News & Politics AlterNet:

At the Freedom Federation meeting, Rodriguez's rhetoric epitomized how the religious right is reframing its core issues to build a new army for "spiritual warfare" on sexual impurity and its consequences. Appearing on a panel moderated by Richard Land, who for decades has been the public and political face of the Southern Baptist Convention in Washington, Rodriguez said, "Let me be very blunt here. I don't believe white evangelicals or white conservatives alone can repudiate the spirit of Herod, the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah, the spirit of Jezebel."


During the summit's closing rally, Rev. Arnold Culbreath, an African-American minister from Cincinnati, Ohio, admonished young women for their lack of purity. Culbreath is billed as the urban outreach director of Life Issues Institute, Inc., an anti-abortion organization, and the leader of the group's Black Life Initiative. "I want to say a word to the young ladies: Stop making it so easy for the young men," Culbreath said. His words were met with applause. "God has designed us to be the pursuers," he continued, "and you to be the pursuees." [emphasis mine]

Before, the religious right had always tip-toed around their obsession with gender roles and appropriate feminine behavior. Oh, sure - they want to save babies and segregate gays, but they'd never cop to the charge that they focused on these issues because a reproductively autonomous woman or gay man/woman challenged notions of hyper-patriarchy and 'natural order.'

They'd just chalk it up to God or the Bible and hide their intentions behind mealy-mouthed Jesus-talk.

But at last, their agenda is overt: in order to break the hold the Dems have over African American and Latino votes, the christian right is overtly positioning themselves to be the voice of pre-modernity by going after those issues that cross all racial/ethnic lines: killing teh babehs, gays, and sluts.

What's the spirit of Herod? Abortion.
The spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexuality.
The spirit of Jezebel? Those goddamned women who like sex, have sex and use birth control, aren't married, flout (male) authority, work outside the home, feminists, loud-mouthed bitches and so on. In other words, women like me. Or you. Just .... women.

The social ick factor posed by abortion, homosexuality and feminism for religious conservatives has never been in doubt. But it's interesting to see how they've pitched race out the window in order to unify disparate factions under a banner everyone can get behind: hetero-coersive patriarchy.

Can I get an amen? (I'll write later about thoughts of how this movement appeals to the not so latent patriarchal tendencies among some black clergy and how it soothes their fear of the 'Sapphire' and tries to build a cage around black women's agency in order to support and protect the black male ego.)

And they're willing to build a socio-political movement behind it:

That vision of social justice is -- like the traditional religious right -- anti-government and theocratic. For the "multiracial" Freedom Federation, it is focused on saving black and brown babies from the spirit of Herod. In a panel discussion on social justice, Engle said, "prostitution in America is fueled majorly [sic] out of the foster care system. Government is going to produce that kind of thing. Here is where the church becomes the outrageous lover, the outrageous answer." [emphasis mine]

(It's interesting to note how Engle's thinking turns the government into a pimp - and, of course, there won't be any thinking about how such a hyper-patriarchal model of gender creates the man who buys the trafficked woman... )

The way Engle connects domestic trafficking to the foster care system makes me take a closer look at the ways that evangelical groups have begun to advocate around international and domestic sex trafficking and wonder how their advocacy on those issues(the presence of which anti-violence against women groups have warily welcomed) is going to merge with this new fight to rescue America from the Herods, Sodomites and Jezebels among us.

And how are their wary feminist/pro-woman partners going to navigate that?

(I'm thinking specifically of particular 'rescue and restore' ministries that have worked with established feminist anti-trafficking groups; these groups have very heavy 'American patriot' overtones/imagery and a definite vibe of 'manly Christian men rescuing endangered frail, corrupted woman in order to restore her to home and hearth, where she rightfully belongs.' It is a discourse ripped directly from the 19th century Victorian playbook.)

The religious right has always fascinated me. One, because I come from it and understand it; and two, because their narratives and goals are so very, very narrow and familiar. Throughout history there have been those who have fought to hold back time and progress. Despite the lessons to be learned in literature, history, art and psychology about the unhappiness and damage such a narrowly defined culture can produce, they fight on.

And keep losing. For every women who is educated, employed, empowered and autonomous, beholden to no one, they lose.

I hope we women are strong enough for this fight again.
...
Bible story time!
Who is Jezebel?

It's one of the most vivid and violent stories in the Old Testament. I read it constantly when I was a little girl.  Jezebel is married to Ahab, who covets a man's land. Ahab dithers so his wife strategizes to steal the land, kill the owner and make the land a gift to Ahab. The prophet Elijah forsees doom because of their sin and when the kingdom is attacked, Ahab dies in battle and Elijah orders Jehu to find Jezebel and throw her from the highest tower. The dogs lick her blood and eat her body, leaving only her hands, feet and head - the tools that schemed, wrote the order and delivered the gift to Ahab. 

And....that's who sexually impure women are supposed to be: scheming, murderous, manipulative sluts who deserve to be thrown off a tower and eaten by dogs.

(Think I'm exaggerating? Church folk interpret this story exactly like this.)

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.

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.

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.

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.]

oh, the time suck.
enjoy The 50 Most Racist Movies.
(some of which i actually enjoyed, at one time!)

(isn't that an interesting thing? you can derive enjoyment from something that is also racist, which does not negate said racism. i think that's interesting.)

What I Learned This Week

1.  I learned 6 strategies and tactics that should help me on the market this year (through these folks) - and simultaneously learned that I've been wasting valuable time on my jobsearch.  Oh, and I finally learned what 'personal branding' meant.  (Do you have an interview bucket list?  Me neither!!  Do you have your communication strategy in place?  I don't!)

2.  I learned that I have a short fuse when it comes to gathering consensus.  It's so clear to me what an action plan should be and it pains me to have to wait until other, dithering folks come around.  In other words, I don't frakking care.  You want something done, or don't you?  Then *do* it.

A note:  if you are a non profit taking an advocacy position you are afraid your Board will not support, take the time to cultivate and engage them on the issue; not doing this leads to vague, unclear, ineffective communication,  your advocacy efforts die on the vine, and your Board becomes a hindrance rather than a help.  They individually may not be 'for' tax increases, but the services your agency delivers relies on increased state revenue - which comes from taxes and which impacts the folks you serve.  Effective issue advocacy can't happen unless you have a Board willing to 'get' it.

3.  I've also learned that we (i.e., the U.S., the 'West', France, the industrialized world) have royally, historically screwed over Haiti; the teeny bit of aid we're sending over there is a drop of relief in a vast ocean of FUBAR we (the U.S.) have left them to drown in.

For example:
However, due to the fact that France and its allies (including the United States) forced Haiti to make reparations to French slaveholders in 1852 in the amount of 90 million gold francs ($21 billion today), Haiti was forced to pay France for the next one hundred years for its independence and has subsequently become the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. (here)

100 years to pay rich countries $21 billion.  What the HELL is that?!

4.  I've learned how important it is to be authentically You.  (This isn't about me, but about folks in general, and women of color in particular, so maybe this is about me. But it isn't really.  It really was prompted by something happening to someone else. Really.)

I thought being an academic was my authentic self; but my years with a coach and a therapist showed me how it never felt authentic to me at all and was a burden to me for a long time.  For years, thinking about being an academic, and then not being an academic, gave me panic attacks.  Authenticity isn't supposed to send you into panic.  Sure, am I a smarty pants?  Yes.  But this right now is my authentic self - a self that couldn't exist without that other one.

My 66-yr old father is finally discovering his 'authentic self' and it has nothing to do with being a pastor, father, grandfather or whatever other box we've put him in.  (His journey has made me closer to him and I can only hope my sister can make it through her journey of finding her authentic self - beyond 'Good Wife' or 'Dutiful Daughter.')

5.  It's also freaking hard to eat only 1400 calories a day - especially during a Chicago winter.  And having a boyfriend is great but hanging out with him watching old horror movies. LOST and Dr. Who is making my ass spread (hey! don't be dirty); add to that the stress of work and the few pounds I'd shed creep back.  Dude.  I need to get back on track.  Deciding how to spread 1400 calories over a full work day without feeling ravenous by the time I get home is fucking hard.

But I also have to be ok with myself.  Getting to the other side of 200 will be a long-term commitment.  I'm not going to get it right all the time but, eventually, I'll get there.

6.  Speaking of M-, I've learned that I've chosen my choice.  He's on my team now.  I'm learning what it takes to be One instead of Two.  And, yes, it's just as wrenching as I thought it would be.

Shit.  I'm going to be late.  M- is coming over for movies and whatnot.  Gotta go and pick up some beer.
(Damn! There go my 1400 calories.)

precious wrecked me and i don't even know why

just saw Precious.
wow. this is not going to be an analysis - just my first impression. but still, wow.

the bus was packed with a bunch of african american teenage girls and i just thought it was because school was out and they were going to the mall. nope. they were all going to see Precious. the theater was full of these young girls. and the theater was pin-drop silent.

(movie going with teenagers in the audience? it's never pin-drop silent.)

i wouldn't say the movie craft is *brilliant* but it's still a movie that should be seen - with performances that should be recognized:

Mo'Nique (without a doubt, so far ahead of anything she's done before.)

Gabourey Sidibe (for an unknown to carry this whole thing is amazing - this could *not* have been done by a Hollywood actress. no way. they're too mannered, too practiced, too fake, too stiff, too soap opera-y. it would be the equivalent of watching Holly Hunter play a dysfunctional cop from Oklahoma - sinewy and wrong.

my one quibble: i know most of Precious' subjectivity lives in her head but it would have been great to see more of her inner life, her push, somehow made more visible, other than the fantasy sequences that allow her to disassociate from whatever blow she's just received. This is a point that someone else - PostBourgie? - made somewhere and i agree with it.)

the other girls in the ABC class (don't you recognize each of them?)

after i saw it, i walked around for a few blocks wanting somewhere to sit and cry but that would have just looked crazy. it made me look at my aunts, the girls i knew from my church, the girls i see on the bus - differently.

if you've seen it, or read the book (which i haven't) would love to hear your thoughts.

doubled conversations: or, this is not about hair

i love my Girls. i really do. we are like family.
but sometimes ...we have conversations that misfire.

we're talking about Chris Rock's movie about hair, the anger some older black women had about it making them look bad in front of white people and somehow we're talking about if white people think about black people's hair. my XRoomie said white people don't think about black people's hair at all.

i snorted. 'they may not think about it consciously but they sure do want to touch it a lot.'

XRoomie said 'what are you talking about?'

i said, 'i cannot go a week without someone wanting to touch it, compliment it or comment on it. it's fucking fascinating to them.'

XRoomie said, 'when does that happen?'

our friend T- said, 'when i worked at the Center [on the south side] all the girls wanted to touch my hair.'

i said, 'that's totally different. the context is different.'

XRoomie said, 'i've never seen that happen. i've never heard of that.' and she mentions some women of color she's worked with who never mentioned things like that happening.

'they wore wigs and weaves all the time,' she said. 'they thought it was hilarious watching their senior partners get confused when their hair changed.'

'i'm sure this has happened to them. almost every woman of color i know can tell stories about white people wanting to touch their hair - with or without permission. that's fucking problematic,' i said.

'well,' she said. 'that's your baggage.'

'that's not my baggage, that's our history. and i'm sure that if they weren't talking about how annoying this shit is in front of you, they are talking about it with their black friends.'

we went back and forth about baggage and history for a bit but this is where something interesting happened: XRoomie insisted that the conversations she'd have with these women would be the SAME as the ones they have with their friends of color.

that's when i stopped. i shrugged and said, 'ok.'

leaving unsaid, of course, was the admission that there are conversations i only have with my friends of color that i would never have with my white friends. (or my white boyfriend, for that matter.)

also left on the ground was whether this habit of splitting conversations was particularly fair. fuck it. i'll think about fairness later.

so we went back to watching a show about a white south african family held hostage by a taiwanese rapist.

[noted because of this and this.]

in the weeds

I am a Bruin from the early 90s. I went to UCLA at the apotheosis of Derrida, the battles for ethnic studies, Bloomian debates about the value of multiculturalism, the identity wars, the canon wars, and the LA Riots/Uprising.


Two events stood out for me during that time: my introduction to semiotics and becoming a AAP tutor for first generation students of color. (If there are old Bruins of color out there from the 90s, give a shout out if you were AAP, too.) The two events stand out because they reinforced each other.


I remember reading some text, about Saussure, explaining the signifier, the signified, the sign and how this can be a lens through which to create meaning, or interpret meaning, in the world and it was like that moment in The Matrix, when Neo could finally see the code running behind everything. It was the concept of systems of meaning, of 'hidden' ideologies and values that fascinated me. It was glorious play to break down the semiotic system of the Western, for instance; or to disassemble the semiotic system of a Vogue magazine. Lay over this a growing gendered and racial politicization through hanging out with feminist and proud brown undergrad and grad student tutors in AAP (who could even politicize math) and suddenly my way of looking at the world changed.


Like Paul on Damascus, my scales had fallen away.


There are no accidents, my reading taught me. There is no 'But, it's just a monkey!' Because the chain of signification doesn't end with the word or image 'monkey.' Every piece of the sign has its own signifier and signified, and these bits have cultural histories and meanings of their own. The words and images are fraught with ideological, culturally hegemonic meaning; for something to be without value or meaning, its conception would need never to happen.


It is sheer mental laziness that people cannot ask simple critical questions about what is going on around them:

What does this mean (both literally and ideologically?)
Where is this coming from?
What is the value system manifested by this event/image/language, etc.?
Where do I meet these values?
Where do these values come from? (what is the context?)
Who wants me to agree with these values and meanings?
Who benefits from my agreement?
Who doesn't?


From my Tweets, you can probably tell I've been taking a look at the Van Jones resignation and the rhetoric that led to his resignation.

What does this resignation mean? It means several things. It
means that we lost an important policy maker and progressive on the frontline of
green economies and policy; it means that it will be that much harder to bring
green economic empowerment to urban (i.e., of color) communities; it means that,
once again, a smart man was brought low (however temporarily) by mediocre minds
beneath him.

From the opposing side, it means that the Big Black Buck stereotype
works.

It also means that the progressive movement is wearing a target on its
front.

Where did this come from? It came from Glenn Beck who has lost all
his major advertising sponsors because of the petition campaign waged by
ColorofChange (of which Jones was a founder) in protest to his white supremacist
remarks about President Obama. He, and other conservative hosts, drew a
target on Jones and went for it.

What is being valued? In the action against Jones, racial
stereotypes, racialized anxiety about communists and militants and 'un-American'
behavior is in play. In the larger political drama, the values of the
status quo are firmly supported.

Where do I meet these values? They bother me, deeply. Beck's
campaign was as big an example of race-baiting that I've ever seen.

(Let's pause here: what distinguishes the campaign that ColorofChange
launched against Beck and the one Beck ran against Jones? Ideological
honesty. ColorofChange is an anti-racism and racial justice organization;
Beck's language was identified as supporting the ideas of white supremacy and
they petitioned sponsors to distance themselves. Were Beck's words white
supremacist? Yes. In contrast, Beck's campaign was fabricated out of whole cloth
- both the rationale for it and the claims made in it. Would he admit his attack was racially motivated? No. But it is, because no other explanation has merit.)

Where do these values come from? They come from long-standing white
supremacist history and practice of demonizing people of color who threaten the
perceived status quo or current power structure.

Who wants me to agree with these values? The side Beck fights
for. Those whose interests would not be met by a green economy benefitting
poor communities and communities of color. Those whose interests would not be met by a successful Obama administration.

Who benefits from my agreement? The side Beck fights for. Those
whose interests would not be met by a green economy benefitting poor communities
and communities of color. Those who have an interest in a failed Obama administration.

Who doesn't? Those outside the power structure Beck supports.
(meaning: the rest of us)

Systems are systems. But they aren't impersonal systems. They come from us and we, whether we're talking about race or gender or sexuality or class, have a choice to support the system, to critique the system and/or to dismantle it. (If that's even possible.)

The Van Jones action, and others planned by men like Dobbs, Beck and Limbaugh, has made me look closely at the continuing activities of the GOP and their operators against this administration. It's hard to find what's redeeming about them, anymore.

Do they really want to become (in the words of Tim Wise) the Afrikaner party of the United States? Do they want that? Do they really want to hang a sign on this country that says 'For Whites Only'?

Because if that's what they want, we should call it what it is.

it's all connected: land theft yesterday, wealth gap today

From Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty in The American Prospect:

"Economic studies also demonstrate that inheritances, bequests, and intra-family transfers account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other demographic and socioeconomic factor, including education, income, and household structure. These intra-familial transfers, the primary source of wealth for most Americans with positive net worth, are transfers of blatant non-merit resources. Why do blacks have vastly fewer resources to leave to the next generation?

Apart from the national failure to endow ex-slaves with the promised 40 acres and a mule after the Civil War, blacks were deprived systematically of property, especially land, accumulated between 1880 and 1910 by government complicity and fraud as well as seizures by white terrorists. During the first three decades of the 20th century, white rioters destroyed prosperous black communities from Wilmington, North Carolina, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Restrictive covenants, redlining, and general housing and lending discrimination also inhibited blacks from accumulating wealth." [bold emphasis mine]

Remember this post, during the longest election cycle of the year? (And the one I wrote about the lynching exhibition?)

This connects to that. The dots are so easy to connect once you know what they look like.

hello, white racial frame

When the story about Caster Semenya was on Good Morning America this morning it triggered my memory.

What was said about Debi Thomas - that she was pure Sport compared to Katarina Witt's Art?

What was said about Surya Bonaly:

You know, competitors like Surya and Midori Ito, they had the really
masculine, exotic sort of style and yeah, it got them some great technical
marks. I mean, not many women are out there attempting triple axels.
But skating is really all about beauty and sophistication and all the really
powerful women skaters have modeled themselves after Grace Kelly or Audrey
Hepburn, or that sort of a thing. That’s what our women have to offer and
it just comes natural to them. And I’m not saying they’re not up there
technically. I mean, they’re obviously not as aggressive as someone like
Surya, but she’s never really had the respect, you see. She’s a great
skater, in an exotic kind of a way I suppose, but she’s missing the classic
basics our girls have. And she’s not the nicest person out there either,
let me tell you…

(sure, the quote comes from a Canadian coach but US media commentary pretty much conformed to this; Dick Buttons would be brutal on Bonaly during her skates for not being graceful, for having more jumps than grace, for showing bare legs, for being so muscular, for 'attacking' the ice. Thanks, Dick.)

What continues to be said about the Williams' sisters.

What was once said about First Lady Michelle Obama, that she was shaped like a 'horse'? (Wasn't this on the Daily Show?)

Back to Caster Semenya: The GMA correspondent didn’t blink at all as he’s describing how this athlete has to have her genitals examined, her chromosomes counted and analyzed and her organs picked over, like she’s a ‘thing’ rather than a human being. It’s like a live autopsy. Like Sarah Baartman, all over again. Once again, we see the disturbing tendency of the West to literally/figuratively dissect Other women.

Do we really have to remind folks about the intricacies and pervading influence of nationalist, white supremacist, imperialist, colonialist discourse?

(And I'm not going to recreate the scholarship here. Why not? Because I'm not the only one who can use Google Scholar. Shit.)

this blog is AWESOME

i usually save all capital letters for sex or food or really great leather bags.

but this woman's blog deserves it: Fugitivus.
you need to read her.

i sort of wish she lived in chicago and we could have a beer. i might develop a creepy, blog-girl crush on her. i'm already envious of her turn of phrase.

anti-sexist, anti-racist and funny as hell.

thanks to my fellow blogger, m. leblanc, for introducing me to her.

busted: my knee and race relations

I sat in the Northwestern ER for 3 hours yesterday because I misjudged the distance between a curb, a flowerbed and a sidewalk at 2 am on Sunday morning. I fell, bounced and landed so hard on the edge of a concrete step, a divot of flesh was wedged from my knee and I barely avoided smashing my kneecap.

Some moments from the past 48 hours:

Sitting in my kitchen, both of us ready for bed, my leg in his lap, while we both look at my divoted knee, getting totally grossed out at all the bloody flesh. He looks up and says, 'It'll be ok, babe.'
I say, 'I might need stitches.'
He says, 'Do you want to go to the ER?'
I say, 'No...it can't be that bad, right?' Despite how wrong we both were, it strikes me that, other than my parents and my very close friends, no one has taken care of me before. Correction: I have not allowed anyone to take care of me.

Post-makeshift bandage, kissing in my kitchen, while the thought runs through my head that blood or no, busted knee or no, there is always room for a frolic.

The next afternoon, hobbling and exhausted after 3 hours in the ER, hearing a knock at my door and there's M- on his bike who dropped by to check on me and feeling a little, 'awww!'

And before the fall (heh), waiting for my hot dog at the Portage Theater during the monster flick triple feature, while M- runs into an acquaintance and hearing him introduce me as his girlfriend.

A milestone? Or is it a milestone when *I* start introducing him as my boyfriend, instead of 'my friend, M-'?
...
In other, more serious, news that has nothing to do with Ding's new relationship, here's a post on the Gates/Crowley Affair from the Tenured Radical about the 'danger' posed by white folks. (Thanks to SybilV's Tweet at Bitch, Ph.D.)

This whole thing has only made it obvious to me that conversations about 'race,' 'race relations', etc. are woefully uneven and won't ever get to any useful point because, frankly, we're all at different reading levels. It has also made it clear that the training I received from UCLA re: semiotics comes in handy. Because when we talk about race, we are really talking about conflicting systems of knowledge and conflicting mythologies that form the foundation of that knowledge.

There is a mythology (of history, of human interactions, of experience) that most North American white people unblinkingly buy into and which people of color (unless they have been privileged by class - and even then, only very rarely) have never had the luxury to believe.

Like, the policemen are our friends. Or, Bridgeport is a perfectly nice community to live in. Or, missionaries just want to read the bible to you and give you blankets. Things like that.

Using Pat Buchanan as an extreme example, there won't be any common ground wrt race relations until we first see the Buchanan mythology of America as intrinsically flawed, one-dimensional and, at its core, the product of white supremacist ideology. Or, if that phrasing makes one uncomfortable, then perhaps White Racial Frame is more palatable.

(what Feminism 101 does for basic feminist discourse, RacismReview does for academic studies of race/anti-racist work and is a gem of a site if you're honestly interested in anti-racist discourse.)

I remember using one of Pat Buchanan's early essays about the 'manifest destiny' of America, waay back in the early 90s, as an extreme tool to challenge the idea of 'neutral' values (as well as provide the ideological backdrop of cowboy narratives.) Values are never neutral. Some ideology, or interest, is at play. And, frankly, since the White Racial Frame constitutes the foundation of our western culture it is, unfortunately, everywhere. Right thinking people naturally distance themselves from a Buchanan because he is so blisteringly and overtly racist (and his Southern accent doesn't help) but fail to see the how the White Racial Frame invisibly informs our culture and our experiences and, consequently, makes them complicit in disseminating it.

Which brings me back to the Gates/Crowley Affair. Listening to our national media, and the pundits - as well as the folks around here - speak so simplistically about it makes me think that, unless all parties get on the same page, 'talking about race' with most non-people of color will continue to be like speaking to a Stockholm Syndrome victim.

jimmy carter is still my favorite president

so, in the post below, a long time reader advises me of the value of the 'conversation' between those who believe different things. and i value that advice. i even value the belief in the need for dialogue between disparate ideas and people in political discourse.

(goodness knows one wouldn't want to be seen as an obstructionist, in any way.)

but i disagree about some of the 'conversations' we're having.

there are just some conversations that aren't open to ... conversing.
or conversion.

things like combating sexism and misogyny. things like anti-racism. or things like civil rights for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

at the beginning of the 21st century i am not prepared to 'converse' with anyone re: how important it is for people to be on the empowering and progressive side of these issues. frankly, it shouldn't be up for debate. logical, reasonable, civil, civilized people aren't sexist, racist or homophobic.

(it's the same way i don't waste my time arguing with people about the existence of God.)

jimmy carter just ended his 'conversation' with the southern baptist convention over their centuries-long, continued sexist treatment of women and the social impact that treatment continues to have. why shouldn't he?

(and no, i have no opinions on whatever this Elders thing is, which sounds like something from a comic book.)