Finding Our Humanity: Calling on my fellow Euro-Americans

Last Sunday I was stopped by a member of my congregation… someone from what I call my church family. She mentioned THIS is why I cannot, will not, comply, written after I explained to my son that I would probably (or not) be arrested on the National Day of Non-Compliance. 

Arizona in Crayola: Multicultural, I guess. Non-Toxic, debatable.

 When I asked my son what might lead an officer to suspect someone was not in the country legally and he answered, with only a little doubt in his voice…

“Their race.”

To which I countered,

“What race are Americans?”

He responded, 

“White.”

With no hesitation. None whatsoever.

[snipped]

My son is only 14 years old, and already he’s picked up the subconscious message about who is American and who is not. My son is only 14 years old, it already it is imbedded somewhere in his subconscious that Americans are white.

 Read More

 
After confiding that she’d been thinking about that blog entry ever since, she started to talk about all the different classifications of Americans… Mexican, African, Native, Chinese etc.

I have to confess that I got a little nervous. Because the only thing harder than talking about race with people who are not white, in my experience, is talking about race with people who are. And I felt my shield go up, because I’ve heard one or two profoundly stupid things said in my church home, and I wasn’t sure what was coming. I was afraid it would be some argument about how all those prefixes should be dropped, and my mind was racing because I hadn’t been mentally prepared for a “that thing you said” conversation. But then she asked, “But what am I? Am I Caucasian or European American?” And I responded cautiously, still not sure where we were headed, “Well, there would be Italian, German, and Irish American…”

And then she asked the million dollar question. What can she do, in her day-to-day interactions, to challenge the assumption that Americans are of European descent by default, and everything else is “other.”

I wish I’d had a better answer. I’m a unusal case (in more ways than one, I know…) in that outside of work and church on Sunday, very few people who I see on a daily or weekly basis are white. I shared with her that I make it a point (with people who tend to use race or ethnicity to describe others when it is not relevant to the conversation), to mention EVERYONE’S race (aka, my “this white lady at walgreens” story), I don’t have those kinds of conversations often.

Tonight I was at a volunteer meeting for the Community Posada and someone (not white) mentioned Euro-Americans in a conversation, which was the motivation I needed to write this post and not table it until after I get all the other drafts in my head published. Most of the discussion on what I write happens in the link comments on my Facebook wall, but for the sake of centralizing feedback and hopefully providing some ideas and resources for others, I’d like to ask people to comment here and not on FB. You don’t need to sign up for an account to comment.

I want to hear from my Anglo/Euro/Caucasian American readers. Do you consciously use language to counteract the assumption that Americans are white by default? What does that sound like? How and when do you use it? What kind of reactions do you get? If you don’t, what kind of ideas do you have?

Thanks to all of you in advance, and a very special thanks to my sister. You renewed my faith last Sunday, as well as my commitment to continue witnessing, LOUDLY, about the costs of racism to white people. As proud as we may be to fight for justice, we need to acknowledge that we are also fighting for our own humanity.

A PS… This was written as a call for reflection & discussion to white/euro/anglo/gring@ people because I feel strongly we need to take more responsibility in creating equality and justice for all. People of privilege shouldn’t be looking to the people who are being oppressed to show us the light when we’re holding the matches and candles. That said, if you don’t fall into the targeted demographic and you have a suggestion about how we can do better or want to point out something we may do with the best of intentions that we really shouldn’t, jump right in.

Related Articles

• Own Your Beauty: On Being Multi-Racial in the Racist, Rural South (blogher.com)
• Why Racial Profiling Persists in Medical Research (time.com)
• All Are Alike Unto God: A Reaction to Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray’s _Standing On the Promises_ Series (motleyvision.org)



Saturday Share from Cyndi’s Google Reader

 

Cathleen Falsani: Anam Cara: Praying for Our Kids and Their ‘Soul Friends’ via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Cathleen Falsani on 9/13/10

An Anam Cara is someone with whom you share your deepest loves, fears, dreams, doubts, joys and sorrows. That soul friend will know him and love him for exactly who he is. He or she is a friend who will uplift him, reflect God’s love for him, and draw him toward his Creator, not away or astray. 

I prayed that, in the words of William Shakespeare, my son would take his soul friends into his heart and “grapple them to [his] soul with hoops of steel.” 

Cathleen Falsani is journalist, blogger and author of several nonfiction books, including the memoir Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, and the forthcoming The Thread: Faith, Friendship and Facebook. 

 Sounds From Mexico’s Bicentennial via NPR Programs: Tell Me More on 9/16/10 

Alfonso Andre, drummer for the Mexican band Jaugares, talks about the band’s remake of the song La Martiniana for a new album that commemorates the Mexican Bicentennial. Andre also talks about his conflicted feelings about celebrating Mexico’s history. 

What is the purpose of (sex) education via Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne on 9/15/10 

A good sex education might delay sexual activity.  In fact, a good sex education will ideally delay sexual activity.  But that’s not the main purpose of good sex education.  The main purpose of sex education is to support lifelong healthy sexuality.  We must take the long view here.  Sex education should not be designed to keep a student from having sex in high school – that is far too short sighted. 

Sex education must be designed to address individuals across their lifespans – to give them tools, skills, knowledge, and strength to understand their bodies, to be both introspective and appropriately communicative about their own desires, respectful about other people’s desires, and both safer and reverent about the entire process. 

White Feminists and Me: a Fable of Solidarity via Womanist Musings by Renee on 9/14/10 

I’m a 23 year old Sinhalese woman in Minnesota by way of Dubai by way of Sri Lanka. I am a Womanist, and part of my womanism is figuring out how to be in solidarity with my transnational sisters worldwide. I’m a daughter, a sister, a partner and a writer. I’m a brown girl who knows Shakespeare by heart and devours anything Toni Morrison. I believe in radical, revolutionary 

A Bleak Picture For Young Black Male Students via NPR Programs: Talk of the Nation on 9/13/10 

A report from the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation paints a bleak picture of how young black men fare in school: fewer than half graduate from high school. And in some states, like New York, the graduation rate is as low as one in four. The foundation’s John Jackson and David Sciarra of the Education Law Center discuss what’s needed to improve educational attainment among African American children. 

Middle Schools Are Disciplining Kids by Throwing Them Away via Colorlines by Michelle Chen on 9/14/10 

Talk all you want about improving our nation’s schools, but the fact is, students can’t close the “achievement gap” when they’re not allowed into the classroom. Yet school suspension rates are climbing and potentially stifling educational opportunity for disadvantaged middle-schoolers, according to a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

 

Activists have long warned of the school-to-prison pipeline–sort of the opposite of the honors track, steering poor kids of color into troubled adolescence and eventually the criminal justice system. The SPLC explains, “Disciplinary tactics that respond to typical adolescent behavior by removing students from school do not better prepare students for adulthood. Instead, they increase their risk of educational failure and dropout.” 

Conflating “Ethnic” and “Curvy” via Sociological Images by gwen on 9/15/10 

We’ve noted the fetishization of Black women’s butts before, and the conflation of non-White and curvy (also here). Yes, some non-White women have large butts and cleavage. So do lots of White women. And lots of women in all groups don’t have either, or have just one or the other, or have them but don’t still somehow manage to be very thin and toned overall. But having this body type is, in this case and many others, so identified as “ethnic” that White women who have boobs and hips become examples of “ethnic” beauty, not simply a version of female beauty. Notice that Scarlett Johansson’s body isn’t described as having “European curves” or, I don’t know, “British-American curves” or whatever her ethnic background might be in the way that Jennifer Lopez’s curves are perceived as an ethnic marker. It’s a great example of selective perception: women of all racial/ethnic backgrounds share body shapes, but certain physical features, such as hips, are seen as a group characteristic only for some women. 

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages) 

‘Values Voter Summit’ Will Likely Be Missing Jewish Voters: Conservative Conference Coincides With Yom Kippur via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Amanda Terkel on 9/15/10 

Yet it’s unlikely observant Jews will be able to attend the event, since it’s being held on Yom Kippur — the holiest Jewish holiday — which begins at sundown on Friday, Sept. 17 and ends at sundown on Saturday, Sept. 18 — right when the majority of the action at the conference is happening (including the Israel panel). In 2009, the Values Voter Summit took place during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. “Does the FRC think Jews don’t have values?” wondered Salon’s Washington Correspondent Mike Madden last year. “Or was this just the only fall weekend they could get into the Omni Shoreham hotel?” 

Anti-Defamation League spokesman Todd Gutnick said his organization didn’t see much of a problem with the conflict in timing. “Since these are all Christian groups involved, Jews wouldn’t be attending anyway,” he told the Huffington Post. Some conservative groups, however, are trying to make inroads with the Jewish community, recognizing that although some on the right consistently accuse progressives of being anti-Israel or even “anti-Jew”, Jews still overwhelmingly vote Democratic. On Monday, FreedomWorks, which helps organize many of the Tea Party gatherings around the country, told reporters that it was launching “a new initiative to reach out to racial, ethnic and religious minorities” — beginning with Jews, to coincide with the High Holidays. 

The Huffington Post contacted FRC Action for comment but did not receive a response. 

This Week in Blackness: White People and Black People Are So Different via Womanist Musings by Renee on 9/17/10 

Elon James has come up with a new This Week in Blackness, and of course I absolutely had to share it with you.  This week, Elon talked about the fact that Blacks and Whites experience the same event differently because of racism.   Whiteness has been taught to ignore this because it has been normalized therefore; it is quite easy to believe in a universal perspective.  There is a large difference 

Angela Himsel: Excuse Me, Are You…? via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Angela Himsel on 9/17/10 

On Yom Kippur, when I stand in synagogue for hours and recite the prayers, striking my fist against my chest to atone for my sins, and as I become more and more tired with the lack of food, water and more importantly, caffeine, it’s then that I feel a kind of certainty that God sees and loves each one of us in all of our totality, even the parts that we hide from one another and from ourselves. Wherever we are, whoever we’re with, God recognizes us and never needs to ask, on Yom Kippur or any other day, “Excuse me, are you Angela?” 

Off and Running Toward My Own Identity [Racialigious] via Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture on 9/7/10 

by Guest Contributor Collier Meyerson, originally published at Be’Chol Lashon 

 At 13 years old, in the planning stages of my Bat Mitzvah, my Hebrew School teacher called a meeting at his home to discuss details. He opened his door to see me, my father who is an Ashkenazi Jew and my black mother. Upon seeing my family, without asking, he regrettably informed us that the synagogue, would not allow me to perform the right of passage in their temple because my mother wasn’t a Jew. My wily mother, coyly and smarmily responded “oh, but her mother is Jewish.” 

Yes, it turns out my biological mother is a white Ashkenazi Jew. 

And with these words, my Hebrew school teacher, as though I was caught in the Woody Allen version of my own life as a film, threw his hands into the air and exclaimed “it’s Bashert [it’s destiny] then! You’ll have your Bat Mitzvah in the Temple!” In that moment I felt a definitive rage. I wanted desperately to be a part of the Upper West Side’s most exclusive and popular clique, Judaism, but felt what would prove to be an indelible stake in this idea of blackness, something pitted against Jewishness. And so there it was, in the home of my Hebrew School teacher that the two were separated, like oil and water. 

I was Black and Jewish but I couldn’t be both, I couldn’t be a Black Jew. 

Preparing My Kids To Be Able To Run Through Walls via Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture on 9/7/10 

by Guest Contributor Paula, originally published at Heart, Mind, and Seoul 

I think about the walls that threatened to thwart my growth when I was younger and how completely ill-prepared I was to handle them. If I’m being completely honest with myself, I realize that perhaps I’ve been far too generous in assessing how well equipped I was to deal with the very real walls of racism, prejudice and discrimination throughout my life. I have no doubt that my parents love and concern imparted upon me the knowledge that they were always there for me – and yes, that is huge in it’s own right – but as an Asian girl/adolescent/young adult, I recognize now just how unprepared I was in terms of not having the right language or effective strategies to be my own best advocate in my racially isolated world. 

 

Bloggers Unite – International Literacy Day: Reducing Illiteracy in the Prison Population Benefits ALL of Us! via THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY by Joanna on 9/8/10 

An estimated 20 percent of the adult population in the US is functionally illiterate. That figure SKYROCKETS to over 60 percent when you examine the literacy rates of the inmate population in jails and prisons across the country. And even more appalling is the fact that over 85 percent of juvenile offenders have literacy issues.

Considering that illiteracy commonly leads to lengthy and repeated bouts of unemployment (over 75 percent of unemployed adults have some problems with reading and writing) the low rate of literacy among the inmate population is a recipe for explosive recidivism rates. After all, if an ex-prisoner is unable to find or keep a job due to literacy issues, where else can he turn but back to the behaviors that landed him in jail in the first place?

Although a lot of people take the “lock them up and throw away the key” attitude toward prisoners, and would rather REDUCE the services available to prisoners, there is PROOF that literacy programs in prison CAN and DO help reduce the rates of recidivism, and can lead to an overall reduction in incarceration rates. 

 Us (Moms) vs. Them (Teens) via I am the Glue by Laura on 9/11/10 

This will be an 18 year round/fight.
Keep it clean…your language…your room…etc.
At the end of the match, the winner will be decided by who is left standing, or not in jail, or rehab.
I am taking bets now.
I got some insider information…shhh…this is on the down low.
Us moms are the best bet because we have been there and done that.
Got a teenager to show for it. 

What I Did On My Summer Vacation…or Why Water Communion Makes Me Uncomfortable via East Of Midnight by Kim on 9/14/10 

Can anybody explain Water Communion to me in a way that doesn’t make it seem like it’s a glorified Show-and-Tell and another example of how classist UUism can be?  

Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D.: Overturning the Texas School Board Madness? It’s Possible via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D. on 9/14/10 

Voters in Texas’s 5th District have the opportunity to put an end to the embarrassing and anti-intellectual actions that have diminished education across the state, and that’s an opportunity that will likely impact text book choices around the rest of the United States. I, for one, hope that they opt to do just that by replacing Ken Mercer’s madness with Rebecca Bell-Metereau’s thoughtfulness. 

Charges That a Civil Rights Hero Was an FBI Spy Shouldn’t Shock Us via Colorlines by Barbara Ransby on 9/17/10 

 These stories remind us not only that our government has routinely violated the basic civil liberties of so many black activists over several generations, but it reminds us of the complexities and limitations of presumed racial loyalty. The Black Press was given access to movement events and meetings in the 1960s that white reporters were not. Why? It was assumed that a level of racial solidarity and loyalty existed. Maybe that was true. But maybe it wasn’t. We continue to project false expectations onto politicians and self-appointed race leaders because of phenotype rather than politics, ideas and other more tangible markers of “loyalty” to oppressed people. Everyone who looks like “us” is not a friend, and everyone who looks different is not automatically the enemy. This is a simple lesson that some of us still have to learn. 

Promise of a better life leads to the nightmare of sexual slavery – CNN via articles.cnn.com on 9/18/10

Many people associate prostitution with women walking the streets in shady areas and being picked up by johns. But Claudia says the prostitution ring for which she was forced to work had a long list of clients who knew the price they had to pay, who to call and where to go. It’s a well-organized and lucrative underground industry. Luis CdeBaca monitors human trafficking at the U.S. State Department. He says there are no reliable figures on the scale of the problem, but forced prostitution from Mexico and Central America is a big part of it.

Related Articles

• Teens report high exposure to sex education (washingtontimes.com)
• Most Teens Receive Formal Sex Ed (webmd.com)
• A Bleak Picture For Young Black Male Students (npr.org)
• CDC: One-third of sex ed omits birth control (msnbc.msn.com)

CNN Student News

August 25 - Today, CNN Student News examines some stories of cause and effect. Home sales took a big dip in July; what might it mean for the future of the U.S. economy? The yen is doing well against the dollar; how does that impact Americans in Japan? Plus, take a tour of the most expensive school in America, and then visit our blog to share students' thoughts on what makes a school good.

 

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in my blog, though it’s come up on Facebook from time to time, but  I quit TV in January.  

For REALS this time.  

When we moved at the first of the year, I didn’t transfer the cable or go buy one of those special thingamabob’s you need to get a TV signal nowadays.  I’d just had enough. I was sick of seeing Tiger Woods, Jon, Kate, and their eight kids, and I was sick of seeing Joe Arpaio‘s pasty face on my television. Especially given the impact that Sheriff Joe’s criminalization of the Latino community was having on my children, I wouldn’t even watch the news if they were in the room. I figured I could read the news, and just about everything else we watch is either a movie, or can be found on the internet, especially since we can watch instantly on Netflix.      

But this also ties me to the computer… it takes a REALLY REALLY LONG TIME to read all the news! And when I sat down to talk to my children about my recent protest activity, I found a gap in current events. I wasn’t very good at keeping them informed about what was going on in our local, national, and global community. I downloaded the Blackberry Podcast App, and over the last couple of weeks I’ve subscribed to various audio and video podcasts so that we can listen to the news as we go about our business. One of my favorites, for the children and myself, is CNN Student News. At ten minutes, it’s the perfect length for a car ride. It’s commercial free, upbeat and manages to hold the attention not only of my 14yo ADHDer and my 10yo who’s only interest of late is lip gloss and jelly bracelets, but also my 7yo. It doesn’t address local news, but so far this week these podcasts have given us an opportunity to discuss the housing market, flooding in Pakistan, the egg recall, the Islamic Center, Iranian predator drones & the potential for nuclear weapons, and more. Monday night when I drove Tyler to his Civil Air Patrol Cadet meeting (only five minutes away), he said, “awww, man… can I listen to the rest of this on the way home?” So whether you’re a home schooler or just want your kids to be informed about current events without as much sensationalism as they’ll see on the local evening news, this is a fantastic resource.    

What is CNN Student News?

CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. This award-winning show and its companion Web site are available free of charge throughout the school year.     

CNN Student News – Special Coverage on CNN.com.  

Related Articles

• CNN Student News Transcript: August 25, 2010 (cnn.com)
• CNN Student News – August 24, 2010 (cnn.com)

Radical: You say that like it’s a bad thing.

So every time I watch a clip about Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center (aka, the Ground Zero Mosque), I hear someone say Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a radical.

I’d like to point out a few things… first of all, it’s a community center, not a mosque. There’s a difference. Kinda like the 92nd St Y offers services to the entire community AS WELL AS a synagogue. I’m guessing a good many people who are up in arms about this community center don’t live near it and probably have never been to Ground Zero… don’t know who lives and/or works in the area or what that community needs now, nearly ten years later.

Second: American Muslims lost their lives on 9/11 too. Nost only did the American Islamic community experience loss, they’ve been subject to increased discrimination, racial profiling, and hate crimes. Do non-Muslim Americans think they corner the market on pain and suffering?

Third: Masjid Manhattan, the mosque (as in, MOSQUE, not community or cultural center) that has been four blocks away from Ground Zero since 1970. Why, might you ask? BECAUSE PEOPLE OF ISLAMIC FAITH HAVE LIVED AND WORKED IN THAT COMMUNITY FOR AS LONG AS THE WORLD TRADE CENTER WAS THERE, BEFORE IT WAS THERE, AND HAVE CONTINUED TO DO SO SINCE IT’S BEEN GONE.

Did you think all these “radicals” up and moved or got jobs near Ground Zero to rub salt in your wounds?

And finally:

Moses was radical.

Jesus Christ was radical.

The signers of our Declaration of Independence? RADICAL!

Abraham Lincoln was radical.

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were radical.

Mary White Ovington & Jessie Daniel Ames were HELLA radical.

Martin Luther King Jr. was radical.

Mahatma Ghandi was radical.

Siddhārtha Gautama was radical.

Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama? Radical.

Stop saying it like it’s a bad thing… because every Freedom Fighter who ever fought for justice in this world was called a radical by their detractors. And if you don’t live in that community, butt out of it. If it’s not Obama’s business, what makes it yours?

via Ground Zero Mosque Imam Helped FBI With Counterterrorism Efforts.

Related Articles

• 9/11 Protests Over Proposed Islamic Center (VIDEO REPORT) (huffingtonpost.com)

It’s official: white people done lost they minds

We don’t need no stinkin’ facts. Frankly, I’m more scared of white people than Al Qaeda sometimes. The Jihadists are crazy, but some of my people are giving them a run for their money.

Rep.Gohmert, with all due respect, YOU are a terrorist. YOU are terrorizing the American public with wild speculation about some theory that might potentially happen in some wild realm of your imagination. What you did on the house floor is no better than yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. There’s a difference between credible evidence and wild speculation, and you should be able to decipher where that line is.

I have pretty much gotten used to the average Joe on the street insulting another’s patriotism in a disagreement like this, but I really expect better from an elected official, and a former judge.

 

What’s wrong with the idea of mothers sneaking into the country, giving birth, and sneaking back elsewhere to lovingly rear their children into U.S.-hating mini-Osamas? Besides the fact that there’s no evidence of such a phenomenon?

via PostPartisan – Terror babies? Really?.

Tea Parties, Coffee Parties… let’s all just have CAKE

In discussions about immigration and SB1070, people from both sides of the issue are prone to making sweeping statements and accusations about the other.  I had a really awesome talk with a “small government” friend this week, and we shared experiences of trying to engage people on the other side of the debate in dialogue about the ISSUE and finding ourselves on the receiving end of personal insults, both disappointed that people don’t want conversation; they are just looking for confrontation.

*heavy sigh* We can all do better than this.

I come from a military family… my mother, father, stepfather, grandfather and great grandfather all served in the military, so I grew up “everywhere.” I’ve lived in at least eight states… both coasts, the south and the midwest. I’ve lived overseas twice, and had the opportunity to visit several other countries as a result. I know, as one of my favorite hymns goes, that other hearts are beating in other lands, all just as beautiful as mine.

This is my song, oh God of all the nations

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

a song of peace for their land and for mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

This is my song, oh God of all the nations;

going to a party… a tea party, that is…

If you’re wondering if the title of this entry is a joke or a vie for your attention, it’s not. Well, definitely not the former, maybe a little bit the latter. This isn’t what I had planned for today, and even though this entry might make more sense if I publish the other one first, seeing as it is a detailed explanation of my personal views on SB1070, the article I have in draft will wait for another day, because right now I feel a need to “Witness.”

So, it happened like this… it was almost time to leave work, and I was well past done with stupid (I’ve been known to announce to the department, “Ok, that’s it… I’m done with stupid!”), and when I got up to put some docs I’d just reviewed in the next person’s inbox, and decided to visit a friend’s desk to insist that the happy hour we’ve been talking about for approximately two months needed to happen soon. He tortured me by listing all the weekends he’ll be out of town (damn single people), mentioned something about a rally he was planning on attending in DC, and then commented that he’d been planning on making me go to happy hour with him anyway.

Is it a tea party rally?

Well, no, but there’s nothing wrong with that. And a brief conversation about media coverage of tea party rally’s ensued… then,

How are you planning to “make” me go do something we’ve been talking about for two months?

Well, I know you and I agree on a LOT of stuff but we don’t believe the same things. And I know you’re not a wagon jumper… I know that you don’t just jump on the bandwagon, you have solid reasons behind it.

That boy couldn’t have melted my heart faster if it had been butter & he’d been holding a blowtorch. But I figured this had probably come up as a result of me wearing my Standing on the Side of Love shirt to work on July 30th, the day after the protests, which I realized in retrospect probably fueled a lot of speculation as to whether I’d spent the night in jail (alas, but no…).

So we got into a conversation about SB1070, and I explained my views on border security, the immigration system, and SB1070… what I think the problems are, what I think would fix them, etc. He listened, nodded frequently, and at the end of my monologue, said basically that my arguments are really solid, and when he’s tried to have conversations with people, all they can say is that it’s racist. To which I replied, “I agree that it’s racist, and this is why…” and as I spoke, he nodded, cracked a few grins cuz you all know I have no filters, and then said, “That totally makes sense, but nobody else that I have talked to has explained it that way.” And I talked a little bit about race relations, that in my experience, on one side you have a group of people who are very uncomfortable talking about race in mixed company because on the other hand, you have white people who are very uncomfortable hearing about race in mixed company. We as a whole are not very good at differentiating between personal racism and institutional racism, and white people are especially bad at it, and tend to assume that anytime someone says this law is racist, that they personally are being called racist and they immediately get defensive. The wall goes up and the communication goes down the toilet. More agreement from him, and he lamented that because he has favored the law, he’s been immediately being labeled a racist. I lamented that because I oppose it, because I actually believe in what we printed on the fucking Statue of Liberty, I get to be called anti American.

So as I’m preparing to go, he says, So do you want to go to a tea party rally with me? I thought about being in close quarters with that many white people (and yes, I have looked in a mirror lately)… “No, not really.” “C’mon, why? I’m serious, I’ve been to several and I’ve never seen anything like what hits the news. They’ve always been the nicest people, they just believe in small government like I do.”

And so I had to ask myself, OK Cyndi… WHY? You talked yourself hoarse two weeks ago about media bias and how deeply imbedded in our subconscious these racialized images are. Do you really believe that, and if you do, then you know that your reluctance to go anywhere with this friend who you admire and respect is based solely on a media stereotype. You’ve been all about the first principle… do you really affirm and promote the inherent dignity of all people? How many times have you commented wryly that you’re always preaching to the damn choir? You’re always talking about being the change you want to see in the world. Are you really open minded, or is that just CYNDI”S spin? Is this an opportunity for you to learn something and hopefully teach something?

So as I walked out I said over my shoulder, “I’ll go to a tea party rally with you if you go to an event with me.”

He said, Done deal.

I hope he likes yellow.

Ground Zero, Day One: National Day of Non Compliance

Just your average Thursday night...

The title is a little misleading; while this was day one for many who stood on the side of love that day, my community has been living under SB1070 for two years this coming February… under 287(g). Please note that when I say my community, I don’t mean my county or even my city. I mean, MY NEIGHBORHOOD. The student body at my son’s high school is 71% Hispanic, 22% Black. 4% White, 2% Native American, and .6% Asian. When Sheriff Joe “Bull” Arpaio does an immigration sweep, it’s not in Scottsdale or Paradise Valley, it’s in neighborhoods like mine that are going to give him the biggest bang for his buck… the highest numbers of “suspected” illegal immigrants for his media whoring. 

Unlike PurpleCrayon, friend and member of my church fam, I was neither shocked nor surprised by the show of force from the good Sheriff. It’s funny to me that the Sheriff’s Posse always seems to strike in the hours just before & after dawn or dusk, but there’s nary a Posse to be found in the wee hours of the morning as I lie in bed listing to what I hope is random, rather than intentional, gunfire. Don’t worry about those gangs of urban terrorists Joe… you go on and russle up some landscapers and day laborers instead, cowboy.  

I have been trying for a couple days now to sort through everything that happened during the National Day of Non-Compliance and throughout the weekend. How do I summarize all that I witnessed, everything I felt? There are so many different facets that I’m struggling to organize them, and I’m starting to think this might be a multi post series.

THIS is why I cannot, will not, comply.

I was talking to my son just a while ago about some events taking place later this week, and as I was explaining civil disobedience & non violent resistance (It’s like you ripping up that test last spring, even after the teacher threatened your grade), we talked a little more about why I feel SB 1070 is an unjust and immoral law.

Anybody who knows me personally would most likely agree that I probably talk to my kids about race, stereotypes and racial profiling more than anybody we know.  

According to statistics, they are conversations that many who are in a position to do so, avoid. These are not easy conversations to have, and there are many times where I feel wholly inadequate in teaching my children to navigate through this muck. Sure, there are plenty of rainbow conversations about how we’re all heart and spirit under our skin early on, but there are many more that are painful. Like taking a potatoe peeler or cheese grater to your skin. Because sometimes by the time it’s over, you are ready to flay the skin from your own body and every body else’s just to be done with it. Sometimes because someone said some hateful thing to or in front of your child or they said some hateful thing to someone else… but as time goes on, sometimes you learn they have picked up some stereotype or prejudice of their own.

But still, no matter how difficult or painful, these conversations are some of the most important a parent can have with a child.

When I asked my son what might lead an officer to suspect someone was not in the country legally and he answered, with only a little doubt in his voice…

AND THEN THE MODERATOR STARTED TO TAKE HER CLOTHES OFF

When I first came to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix, I was searching for a safe church home for my interfaith family. When I walked into the Memorial Garden, stood at the center of That Which Might Have Been, I knew I was home.  And naively, I thought nothing would ever hurt me there. I learned that just like any family, church family can hurt you in ways that no one else could. 

I’ve posted some unedited text as well as a link to the video from Plenary VII, and I highly recommend watching it, if not in full, at least from 02:25:00(ish) on. I watched a lot of  the GA from Saturday & Sunday on streaming video, and Gini Coulter’s moderator’s report was some of the most candid and honest commentary about racism, ableism, inclusion and white and able-bodied and financial privilege and accountability that I’ve ever seen spoken at a UU microphone in the ten years I’ve been a UU. Sadly, it’s not something that I’ve really seen discussed at all at a congregational level… which is not to say that I haven’t had a number of personal conversations with church fam or that a discussion about our need to embrace The Journey Toward Wholeness Path to Anti-Racism  with the same commitment as we did when we became a Welcoming Congregation never happened… maybe it did and I just wasn’t there that day… but in any case, I’m as much to blame for that as any. Most discourse about race is centered on our work in the 1960’s civil rights movement. We (and by we I mean the white UU’s) rarely discuss where we failed in the past and where we are failing now. And believe me, we are still failing. I know this, because people in my congregation, who I know would NEVER knowingly hurt me or my children, people who love us, have cut me to my very core.

Some of these incidents are nearly as old as my youngest child, and I still don’t have enough spoons to say, “That thing you said was racist/a stereotype/hurtful.” But I’ll get there, because they too are my family, and this community is our home. This is where my son learned to see not just a father god, but a mother god, and to see god within himself. My elder daughter was dedicated at the center of the sculptures, my younger in the sanctuary. My son and my daughters will come of age here, and bridge to young adulthood. My grandfather (may he rest in peace, if he ever stops rolling over in his grave) was laid to rest (so to speak) here. One day my grandchildren will dance Universal Dances of Peace with me when they come for summer visits. When I die, my ashes will be interred in the Memorial Garden, and that is where my children and my grandchildren will go when they need to feel me, much as it is where I go when I need to feel “God.”

It is my home.

I am a thirty-something country-urban-professional-hippie-ghetto-trailer park-anti-racist-pro-choice-standing on the side of love-station wagon driving-single-ADHD-volleyball/boxing mom of three multiracial children and a couple bad-ass dogs, and I am a Unitarian Universalist.

Dont Want to Put on My Booty Shoes | Bitch Magazine

excellent commentary on the OH SO OFFENSIVE Reebok EasyTone advertising campaign…

Kate Harding at Broadsheet compares this nasty campaign to the way Nike sells women’s shoes.

Nike’s far from perfect, of course, but when they used boobs, they belonged to Serena Williams and appeared under her crossed, muscular arms and a high-necked T-shirt that read “Athlete,” with the caption, “Are you looking at my titles?” When they used close-ups on female body parts and copy about how others might perceive them, it was with text like, “My mother worries I will never marry with knees like these. But I know there’s someone out there who will say to me: I love you and I love your knees,” and “My butt is big and that’s just fine. And those who might scorn it are invited to kiss it.” If the new Reebok ads help the company knock Nike out of the top spot, then I’ll admit that they made good business sense (after I’m done sobbing), but as it is, the market leader is the one that uses images of strong women who care more about being athletic than being pretty. The market leader is the one that figured out how to sell a major female fantasy: being treated with at least a modicum of respect by advertisers.

check out the complete article at Dont Want to Put on My Booty Shoes | Bitch Magazine.

She loves me, she loves me not: Black, White, or Illegal Alien?

I touched on issues surrounding the term illegal alien* a couple weeks ago in Walking the (color)Line, when I mentioned a couple ways I suspected this term has affected my children’s perceptions of the Latino community. There was a part of me that wondered whether I was reading too much into things… but let’s just say that’s no longer a concern. Within the last week or two, I read a blog or article about multiracial girls being asked what color their husbands would be. I wondered if Halle had ever heard or been asked something like this. I made a little note to self to bring it up, but Thursday night in the car, she raised the subject. She was talking about how she was going to date a boy for one year when she grew up, and asked if that was too long. I told her it depended on the boy; with some boys, a year might be too long, with another, a year may not be long enough. She suddenly started talking about whether this boy might be white or black and something about so and so… I interrupted and asked if people asked her that, and she confirmed. Then I asked, “Do you guys talk about that?” and she responds matter of factly, “Oh, yeah.” I asked if that was something that had just come up this year, and she said no, it was last year too. I asked how it came up, and she said, just when they talk about who they think is cute. She continued with her story…   

“Anyway, so and so asked me once, and I said he would probably be Black or White, but not Mexican, but then I met Tristan, and I like him and I think he’s cute, and he’s Mexican…”   

Her voice trailed off.   

I asked why she hadn’t thought she would date someone who was Mexican before Tristan.   

“Well, cuz they do a lot of bad things. I mean, they’re always on the news cuz they’re criminals… and stuff.”   

cue my breaking (anti-racist) heart.   

Needless to say, we had an immediate conversation about perception, stereotypes, racism, media bias, and Bull Connor Jr. Nickel Bag Joe Sherrif Arpaio. And we will continue to have these conversations (and others, like how there are a lot more people in the world than just Black, White or Hispanic), because this IS a big problem. And it’s not because this flies in the face of what I believe personally, but because the seed of racism is finding roothold in the heart of THIS child.   

Her love is like the ocean...

 

This is my UU, social justice, civil action child. This is the child who drew the line with her peers over the n-word. This is the child who has volunteered to mentor special needs kids or served in student government or both for three of the four years she’s been attending her current school. This is the child whose teacher has made it a point to contact me no less than three times so far this school year to express his gratitude to and  praise the way Halle had befriended a new ESL student, which makes me wonder that my daughter’s unreserved offer of friendship is already rare by the age of 10. This is the child who took the initiative, unsolicited, and went to a Spanish-speaking teacher to get a “cheat sheet” of basic conversational phrases, and carried two spanish english dictionaries with her every day for the first two months of school.   

“Now think carefully about what I’m saying, and why it matters. Here was a woman who no longer could recognize her own children; a woman who had no idea who her husband had been; no clue where she was, what her name was, what year it was; and yet, knew what she had been taught at a very early age to call black people. Once she was no longer capable of resisting this demon, tucked away like a ticking time bomb in the far corners of her mind, it would reassert itself and explode with a vengeance. She could not remember how to feed herself. She could not go to the bathroom by herself. She could not recognize a glass of water for what it was. But she could recognize a nigger. America had seen to that, and no disease would strip her of that memory. Indeed, it would be one of the last words I would hear her say, before finally she stopped talking at all. “ ~Tim Wise, White Like Me   

This is the depth of our racist conditioning.   

*If you’re unaware of the controversy over the term Illegal Alien or just don’t get why people are “making such a big deal about it” or that it’s not just about being politically correct, I found an article that sums up what is so very wrong about this expression very well: Why use of the term “illegal alien” is inaccurate, offensive, and should be eliminated from our public discourse. | Border Crossing Law Blog.

 

 

 

 

             

 

  

When one refers to an immigrant as an “illegal alien,” they are using the term as a noun. They are effectively saying that the individual, as opposed to any actions that the individual has taken, is illegal. The term “illegal alien” implies that a person’s existence is criminal. I’m not aware of any other circumstance in our common vernacular where a crime is considered to render the individual – as opposed to the individual’s actions – as being illegal. We don’t even refer to our most dangerous and vile criminals as being “illegal.”

  

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER — ReThink Review

Are you f-ing kidding? Reebok EasyTone commercial

Beware Young Girl.

This broke my heart…  how many Sara’s will we lose to the sexualization and objectification of women?

In response to the constant objectification of women, the recent gang rape of a 15 year old girl in Richmond, CA, the unjust incarceration of Sara Kruzan and even the highly publicized violence faced by Rihanna, conscientious rapper and activist Jasiri X has put out a track that discusses the injustice and inhumanity of these crimes.

you can find the lyrics at Beware Young Girl. – Feministing.