who gets to be american? a jeremiad.

Well, according to Kathleen Parker, it's all about the blood.

From her column:

It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots. Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Fry’s political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.

The blood that somehow conveys heritage, values, national identity and civic belonging. If you don't have the right kind of 'blood' then you're not a 'real' American. You're a wannabe, a poser, a fake. You have no claim on this American birthright because you aren't 'pure-blooded' American.

You're a mutt, impure, Other.

Is any of this ringing anyone's bells? Even without graduate degrees in history?

Because we should know about bloodlines and blood spilt for sacrifice. Sweet holy jesus, this Parker woman dares to tell anyone in this country (who isn't white) that the sacrifices their families were forced to make because they were Other in this great country of 'opportunity' and 'plenty' don't count.

Who hasn't sacrificed to be an American? Who?
Have black people not sacrificed?
Have the Chinese not sacrificed?
Have the Japanese not sacrificed?
Have the Native Americans, for god's sake, not sacrificed?
Have the Mexicans and the South Asians not sacrificed?
Who is not sacrificing so that they can participate in and assume this American identity?

All our histories in the past two hundred years have all been litanies of the sacrifice and 'blood' of Others. Why does our 'blood' not count and other 'blood' does?

This column so infuriated me, the only thing that could make me feel good about my anger was this Lincoln quote:

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."

I knew this election season would bring out people's subterranean ugliness, the thoughts that whisper around their heads they would never dare bring out into the light, but I thought folks would treat this historical moment with a little bit more class. How naive of me. Once again, the white supremacist underpinnings of this country have jumped the leash.

You are killing me, America!

I keep giving you chances; I keep thinking, this isn't everyone. It's the media; it's some snaggle-toothed nutter living in the woods; it's just some run of the mill white person who doesn't know any people of color so they're just sort of stupid; or it's Fox News (see nutter). But this came out in a nationally syndicated column. This piece of xenophobic, nativist trash (which reads no different from the xenophobic, nativist trash from the 19th and early 20th centuries) was approved by someone. Someone's lizard brain read this and thought, 'Eh, what's the big deal? It's just an op-ed.'

Gah! If America was a person standing in front of me I'd slap them!

Pat Buchanan wants me to 'be grateful.' He wants me to shut up and be grateful I live in a place that suffers from the worst case of degenerate racism, a place that makes no significant movement toward recognition of or reconciliation for its white supremacist past. But here's our chance! Here's a moment - a gorgeous, breathtaking moment! And what do we do with this moment? We say he is not (and by extension, we are not - I am not) a 'full-blooded American'!

Oh, America, you make we wanna holler!

I can't be grateful when I keep waiting for this country to grow. the fuck. up. I keep waiting for it to do some frakking introspection. Look back at OUR history and make some little effort to change. But this country, rather than look backward with a critical and repentant eye, looks behind like Lot's wife and can't feel its limbs turning to salt.

[h/t: Too Sense: Oh, Hell No.
And here's that excellent post on the Buchanan 'black gratitude' mess at Obsidian Wings.]

Ask A Working Woman Survey 2008: do it!

when i was in college i turned up my nose at Woolf's A Room of Their Own. i thought it was classist, elitist and bourgeois.

ah, youth. now i reread it and, yes, it's still so very British Public School, but the main point of Woolf's essay is still important: women require economic autonomy and fiscal stability to have the lives they want (and need) in order to support themselves, as well as those who depend on them.

when poverty strikes (and, these days, it's striking more and more often) women are particularly vulnerable. as the traditional caretakers within communities, we juggle children, jobs, healthcare, and education needs; poverty makes it more difficult to shoulder those responsibilities. poor women, in essence, need to be superhuman just to make a few frayed ends meet. but this isn't a situation that just affects poor women, or women making below $15k/year. this is now a reality for middle class women. wages are flat, industries are shrinking and working mothers and women still aren't being paid what men in our same positions are making. basically, if you're a woman, economic instability is a very real possibility.

in this primary season, the conversation around economic issues has been presented as a white, male, middle class issue - or a white, male, blue collar issue.

where are women in this issue? what are our economic concerns? what are our needs? what are our burdens?

well, now you have a chance to share what those concerns are.

the AFL-CIO and Working America has launched the 2008 Ask a Working Woman Survey; they are looking for women to take this survey. you can check it out on the ALF-CIO news blog here or take the survey directly here.

i think survey results will be available next month so go do it!

whew! crazy pastor not my dad.

Too Sense: Black Pastor Says Obama, Oprah, and Wright are 'Trinity of Hell'

so imagine the shudder of dread i experienced when i came across this post:

Let's see, according to this guy: Oprah betrayed white women (who put her
where she is today) by supporting Obama; Wright and Obama are closet gays, and
Obama stayed at Trinity United Methodist because he was having a gay
relationship with Wright; George Soros gave $200 million to Obama's campaign,
and Obama spent all of the money on white hotels and white media; in the
"Trinity of Hell" Wright is the Father, Obama is the Son, and Oprah is the Whore
Girl, looking to be President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State.

my first thought was, 'Please, lord, don't let it be dad, caught on tape saying something totally crazy on his website...'

and it wasn't! it was some other black pastor who doesn't like oprah winfrey!

sorry, dad. (you know i love you!)

are pigs flying?: the religous right leaning to obama?

via Jack & Jill, this article seems to posit that the Religious Right is cracking up and the flotsam are breaking for Obama.

my first reaction was to go, Hmm. Really??

a few months ago, we saw the Religious Right (R2) go slightly nuts with their rejection of Romney, their pragmatic shunning of true-blue, 'not electable' fundamentalist Huckabee and their reluctant embrace of McCain.

but does that mean the R2 is going for Obama?

i'd say no. rather, what this article demonstrates is that the term 'evangelical' is just as diverse as the term 'progressive.' (as this primary season has demonstrated, there are schisms and fractures all over the liberal/progressive community. class, racial, sexual orientation and religious differences have uncovered a shifting and discomfitted coalition that hasn't had to face the fact in a very long while that not everything is about holding hands and singing Kum Ba Ya, you know?)

there are an emerging group of evangelicals (like Jim Wallis) who, rather than focus on hot button issues like abortion and homosexuality or whether or not dinosaurs existed, tend to look at other 'values' issues like the care of the earth, the treatment of the poor, war, or human rights issues (like trafficking, immigration, rape in the Congo and Darfur, genital mutilation, etc.) through a lens that we would say is more 'progressive' than their counterparts in the R2.

but i'd be very comfortable in saying they don't represent the R2. who's the Religious Right? look at james dobson, hagee, and the current leader of the southern baptist convention. that's the religious right. and there is no way in frakking hell their constituents are going to break for the Dems.

i'd say this group the article, and the other links in the Jack & Jill post, describe moderate evangelicals. these are evangelicals who believe in actively spreading the gospel (as well as the power and necessity for conversion) by focusing on issues that can make the most impact on a person's life now, rather than later. with issues like poverty and the environment, they're not necessarily already preaching to the choir about issues that are 'easy' rallying cries for those already hanging out inside the fundamentalist clubhouse . these are folks who just built a different clubhouse - same tree, different branch.

can the Dems depend on this emerging moderate evangelical bloc?

no. well, maybe the Dems can depend on these folks for those issues that speak to a moderate evangelical sensibility - like AIDS, global poverty, war/peace, the environment, or human rights (outside of abortion and/or gay rights, unless the Dems can find a way to message reproductive justice and gay rights as part of human rights, or social justice, issues. which they haven't successfully been able to do for the moderate evangelical crowd because the Dems just haven't taken the time), etc.

(i keep drawing a line between moderate issues and hot button issues because i think those moderate evangelical issues are 'missionary' issues; you can build a nice youth trip or awareness raising campaign around these things. you can't necessarily do that around reproductive justice or gay rights without looking like, well, the Religious Right.)

this isn't to say that i think moderate evangelicals don't belong under our progressive big tent. quite the contrary. but if the tradeoff is to give on some fundamental progressive issues, like abortion or gay rights, just to curry favor with some moderate evangelicals as part of a measly electoral strategy, then i'm more than wary.

(and why is our first inclination to tradeoff, anyway? let other people tradeoff if they wanna vote for us!)

and if the Dems really think it's going to be a good idea to climb up on that slippery slope and begin to couch our values in even stronger language of religion, then i wonder what kind of weed someone's smoking up there in Democratic headquarters.

Jack and Jill Politics: Religious Right -leaning towards Democrats?

The New Republic has an excerpt of Jeff Sharlet's The Family that will give anyone pause about the benefits of mixing politics with religion. [via The Revealer]

he has a point: The Huckabee Option

As the interminable death march to the convention continues, we have to ask ourselves a question:

Why is this happening to us? Where did we go wrong? Why has the spectre of political unity forsaken us?

It's because Hillary Clinton didn't go to church enough.

Everyone who goes to church knows you're supposed to turn the other cheek. Some of us are better at this than others. (Not me. Oh, I turn the other cheek but then I seethe inside just waiting for some righteous justice to fall on someone's head. You hear that, anonymous men of UConn?) Mike Huckabee, though he scared me as a presidential candidate, apparently internalized this golden church lesson, as this post from Shakesville makes apparent:

Shakesville: The Huckabee Option

But what are the chances that Clinton will suddenly have a 'come to jesus' moment and back off her wacked out scorched earth campaign strategy?

About as many chances that those asshats at UConn who assaulted Melissa Bruen will be identified and prosecuted.

asshat: the entire state of Missouri

The Initiative for the Prevention of Coerced and Unsafe Abortions (via Bitch Ph.D.)

This is how I imagine a conversation to go if such a law was established in Illinois:

Ding: I need an abortion
Nurse: Hm. Really. Why?
Ding: Because I'm pregnant and don't want to be. (Ass)
Nurse: Hm. I'm afraid that's not good enough. Are you being forced to get this abortion?

Ding: Yes. I'm being forced by the very fact that I am pregnant. If I wasn't pregnant, I wouldn't ask for the abortion.
Nurse: You're rather hostile.
Ding: I'm hostile to you because you are standing in the way of me not remaining pregnant.

Nurse: Would you like an ultra-sound?
Ding: No.
Nurse: Have you received counseling?
Ding: Have you?
Nurse: I think we might need to order a psych evaluation. For your safety. Just in case you're being forced to get this abortion against your will.
Ding: I'm not. Have at it. Abort away.

Nurse: I'm sorry. I can't. I'll need to refer you to our social worker who can evaluate your state of mind and then recommend -
Ding: How long will that take?
Nurse: Her earliest opening would be...next month.
Ding: So I'd have to wait another four weeks for my abortion.

Nurse: Yes. Then, perhaps another couple of weeks for an appointment.
Ding: So maybe another 6 weeks until I can get an abortion, pushing me further out of the window to get an abortion before it's considered a 'late term' abortion and not able to get one at all. You're basically going to stall this thing as long as you can until I'm forced to either give birth or rip this fetus from my own belly.
Nurse: Definitely a psych exam is in order.

(Ding lunges across desk.)

Nice fantasy, huh? Unfortunately, Missouri is taking steps to make sure you don't just have to imagine having asshat conversations like this; they actually want to legislate it.

People, it's time for a revolution.

[Note: Dad, I'm not really pregnant. That was totally made up. Do NOT get excited. There are no grandchildren on the way over here.]

another asshat: the men of UConn

What kind of world do we live in when a woman, who's in the middle of her own sexual assault, fights off her attacker (in a rather bad-ass way, too), then when she's calling out for help, a group of male bystanders then SEXUALLY ASSAULT her for defending herself??

This is what we mean by rape culture. Rape culture says that women's bodies ought to be available. Rape culture says women's default answer to sex is 'yes.' Rape culture says it is unnatural and punishable for a woman to defend her body. Rape culture says it is appropriate for a man to violate a woman's physical space. Rape culture says it is men who can have physical autonomy but women none. Rape culture says that these anonymous men have more legal rights to protection than the woman who fought off her own fucking attacker.

Rape culture says it's ok to raise your sons like this.

This is rape culture and I'm frakking sick of it. Someone needs to track these guys down and take a hammer to their testicles. Really.


[h/t Feministing; read the post and read Melissa Bruen's original post. Her bravery is astounding and exemplary. If UConn doesn't take suitable action, they need to be sued. Here's a thought: has anyone ever thought of bringing a class action suit on behalf of campus rape victims against a university for not suitably protecting its female population?]

'crossing the line'

From The Revealer, I came across a little item pointing me to an interview between the Family Research Council and religious right activist Janet Folger about some electioneering activities the FRC has planned.

The usual (non-tax status threatening) stuff: pre-packaged sermons on hot button conservative issues, candidate comparisons (hmm) and then comes this:

"We're going," he said, "to prompt pastors and say to them that, you know, we really believe that they need to challenge some of the things, some of the thinking that we have going on in our society, which is that separation of church and state doctrine, that we really need to preach the Bible on these issues and apply them to the things that are going on in the culture today." [emphasis mine]

Uh-huh. Pastors really need to challenge that separation of church and state thing. Yeah.

You heard it, people. Right from the right's mouth.

Talk To Action Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith

the other shoe drops: anti-choicers don't want you to have contraception!

Feministing has a story here about the campaign from the American Life League to stop folks (uh, women) from using the Pill. It's called The Pill Kills!

Yeah, well. It DOESN'T. Basic science, people. Basic. But who cares about basic science when you can write frakked up stuff like this:

The birth control pill does not reduce the number of abortions. The only difference is that you are killing the baby earlier.
[T]he pill and other contraceptives can stop a tiny child’s implantation in his/her mother’s womb because the pill irritates the lining of the uterus so that the tiny baby boy or baby girl cannot attach to the lining of the uterus and the newly formed human person is aborted and dies. This is called a chemical abortion.

Never mind the fact the Pill prevents ovulation so there's no egg to be fertilized. Never mind the fact the Pill cripples the sperm to prevent it getting to the egg. Never mind the fact ... oh, hell. These people are ass and facts mean nothing to them.

Personally, I cannot extoll the wonderfulness of the Pill enough. It regulated my periods, it cleared up acne and, taken in a super concentrated dose, it also backed me up after a condom malfunction. (Yay, Plan B!)

So frak off, sex-hating old Bible thumping ign'ant prudes. Leave our contraception alone.

(And did I not call this 4 years ago?? I totally called it! Not satisfied with messing about with abortion, the 'I hate women' crowd goes for contraception. Arrgh.)

But what am I thinking? They don't even think married people should use contraception.

Ok, you know what my issue is? It's this: If these people really believe that the Pill kills tiny, cute, little homonculi, then fine. Be stupid. That is their right to be so ignorant, they think a fertilized egg is a person. Fill your quiver, baby. (And then home school the quiver and form a militia and get on the ATF watch list. Whatever.)

But they need to stop telling the rest of us to get on board with their freaking weirdo religious ideas!

Because that's what this is: it's a religious idea about when life begins. Religious freedom means they can do whatever they like; but it's a frikking imposition on MY religious and personal freedom when their actions can negatively impact my ability to control my Supreme Court-supported ability to control my own frakking fertility - according to my own religious ideas.

So. Whose religious ideas win? Mine? Or theirs?

Jeebus. I got so worked up I need a cocktail.

a must read

Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog

I really can't say enough about this blog; it's like a refresher course on feminism that I can go back to again and again. Even now, when my current thoughts on feminism and my place in it is sort of shaky.

(Oh, Feminism. Never fear. I will never completely desert you. But I will be that annoying woman in the corner raising her hand and asking really annoying questions about some folks who stand next to me, under this so-called Big Tent.)

So. On this very busy Monday, wherein I will be swamped until the wee hours of the early evening, refresh yourselves at the well of feminism and reacquaint yourself with why you call yourself one.

Iron Man: my new boyfriend

oh. my. god.

i don't care if you've never heard of Iron Man, never read a comic book (what are you, a philistine?), never even knew comic books existed and don't give a crap who Stan Lee is. i don't care if your boyfriend owns all these weird dolls (oh, action figures) and they're taking over your apartment and all you want to do is pile them in the backyard and set them on fire.

this movie is teh bomb.

it's better than the X-Men movies (not that hard); better than Spiderman and his tired adolescent angst; and gives the recent Batman a serious run for its money, if not totally surpassing it with the quality of the script, acting and action. this movie made a man encased in titanium erotic. hello!

favorite bits:

1. Robert Downey, Jr. - how hot is he? how funny and witty and sad can he be? and when his eyes get all teary and he's regretting all his life decisions in a cave in Afghanistan? sigh.

2. The bromance - at last, masculine friendship that isn't totally about measuring the size of one's dick.

3. The pacing - hail to Jon Favreau for making a movie that actually captures the 'ohmygod what's going to happen now???' spirit of comic books. every beat in the story was struck blam blam blamblamBLAM!

4. The script - wow. dialogue that was actually character-driven and not merely 'cartoony.' it was sly, spry and wry. loved it.

5. Women I could like - ok, there's only one woman who really matters and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) wasn't a screamer, a frail chick who needed to be rescued or a belligerent neurotic with issues. she was capable, supportive, knowing and decidedly not foolish. (the other woman in the movie just needed to be recast. the actress was awful and bland.)

6. Humor - at last! a comic book movie with a sense of humor! i'll chalk this up to Favreau and Downey's snarky sensibilities. yeah, the Christian Bale Batman has a certain hangman's noose humor about it, but it's so...heavy. blah. and the X-Men movies? pullease. dour, overbearing and way too earnest about its own allegory. give me the wink and the sharp quip delivered by a guy you can actually believe can carry it off.

7. Robert Downey, Jr. - sigh. really. he is just so...yummy. sure, he's short; he's in his 40's; he's a little worn on the edges. that's history, baby! and sure, when he takes off as Iron Man there's a little balletic grace to that little hand flip he gives that might not be really very macho. but i don't care! he's hot!

i'm about to start babbling about this movie. i should stop.
oh! but one more thing!

now i'm gonna have to start reading Iron Man - and isn't *that* the measure of success for a comic-based movie?

(thank goodness saturday is Free Comics Day.)

countdown to italy

4 weeks.

then i'm blowing this pop stand and lolling in the hot Tuscan countryside, drinking wine, eating pizza and saying things like 'Non sono Americana. Sono Canadian. Whatever.'

4 weeks and i will leave this horrific primary season behind me (only to come right back to it); i will try to leave behind our nation's unexpiated racist past and present.

(come on, sean bell's killers get off completely?? no punishment at all? people go to jail for accidentally killing someone with their motor vehicle! 50 rounds! unarmed! LORD JESUS!)

4 weeks and i will be on fricking vacation from this frakking mess of a country that i love with all my heart, even though recent events are making me struggle with my affection. it seems like every little privilege i enjoy feels like a bribe. or like a stack of crumpled bills on the side of a bedstand, at the very least.

in 4 weeks, i will sleep deeply, i will explore eagerly and i will float lethargically in the villa's 4 ft pool that Roomie chose so i can't drown.

thank god there's italy because lord knows here is riding me like a pony.
...
there's so much still to do.

i know we're 4 weeks out but i have a running list in my head of the things that need to be taken care of: i have to hold the mail, unlock my phone, alert my bank, transfer funds, wrap up work stuff, make a list of things to pack, actually pack, copy recipes, learn a bit more italian (i'm actually not bad with the accent!), and resign myself to the fact that, yes, i will be on my period while in italy. dammit.

(forget that summer fantasy of white linen and a summery light wardrobe. i will be bleeding like MacDuff's mam.)

an acquaintance last night gave this piece of advice: "Never pass up an opportunity to sit, eat or pee. You never know when you'll get another chance." i will take that advice to heart, slowing down my group of friends as i take every opportunity to sit, eat and pee. perhaps all at the same time.

and did you know urban outfitters has really cute, cheap cameras? unlike the coldly perfect pictures taken with digital cameras, these take really wonderfully lo-fi photos, sort of blurry and saturated with light and all sorts of imperfections. i'm thinking about getting the Diana+Edelweiss or the Holga.

and i need to get my hair done. i think i'm officially over being completely 'natural.' not for anything political, but for danged expedience. the summer is around the corner and i do not want to mess with the frizz. Tia at Shake Your Beauty mentioned something called a 'conditioning relaxer' and i think i need to try that. i just need to loosen the curls here and be less frizzy.

wow. a whole post on totally frivolous crap.
excellent.

[crossposted at my other blog, too. no, i won't link there. my dad reads this space!]

one more time, this time with feeling

if you haven't already dropped dead from Obama/Clinton/Longest Primary Season EVAR Fatigue, then perhaps you have some thoughts on Wright, more distancing, the black church (whatever that is) and racial politics.

here's my thought about the whole thing:

Church. State. Divided.

why are we even discussing this?

[if anyone needs it spelled out: it's like the chocolate and peanut butter thing. if you don't want your politics to suddenly turn into the Nearer My God to Thee hour, then keep politics out of your churches - and keep your churches off the political radar. when the Church steps onto a public platform, all sorts of lines get blurred - and when the political process suddenly starts to require folks to make religious proclamations in order to pass some kind of political fitness test, then that's problematic too. movement in either direction pulls Church and State closer together until the one is indistinguishable from the other.

capisce?]

Jack and Jill Politics: Rev. Michael Pfleger Holds It Down In Fox Interview On Wright, Farrakhan and "Hate"

Jack and Jill Politics: Rev. Michael Pfleger Holds It Down In Fox Interview On Wright, Farrakhan and "Hate"

Remember what I said about Fr. Pfleger when this whole Wright thing happened?
Well, now FOX News got the full on Pfleger experience - right in the face.
The last 3 minutes are awesome. I had to jump up from my desk at work and wanted to yell out, 'Preach!'

[and i'm really enjoying reading the folks over at Jack & Jill. they're on my feed.]

fine. i'll watch the primaries.

a scene from yesterday, a gorgeously sunny day in chicago with relatively mild traffic while Roomie and Ding left their offices early

Roomie: so what's on your schedule this week? dates?
Ding: nah. a work event and a board meeting. maybe a boy later on this week but nothing's confirmed.
Roomie: what do you want to do? dinner?

Ding: (sigh) but where will we go? what will we do? what will we eat? choices...i'm incapable of making them.
Roomie: mmm, jibarito....
Ding: we can't have jibarito for dinner. that would totally mess us up for the rest of the night.

Roomie: (sigh) jibarito. what about tomorrow? let's watch the primaries at Enoteca Roma.
Ding: euww. no. i can't watch the primaries. i'll just get mad.
Roomie: o-kaay. no primaries.

(silence)

Ding: no, we can watch the primaries. let's do that. i'll just get mad if clinton wins. and the pundits, i want them to die. and i'm too busy this week to be pissed off.
Roomie: it'll be fine. wine, cheeses, nibblies, primaries with other obama folks. perfect.

so, even though my earlier enthusiasm about this election has practically been beaten from me by this too-long primary season (thanks for that, Democratic Party), i will endure one more night of primary returns and hope i don't slip into an election-induced depressive rage.

churchgal, where are you?

you know that wall you hit when there's so much going on in the news that you just want to hibernate and watch Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who all weekend?

well, i've hit it. i've crashed into it and it has given me a headache. i have no idea what's going on in pennsylvania, have almost lost all interest in our political shenanigans and, frankly, if someone told me the moon exploded and killed hillary clinton or barak obama i'd sort of shrug.

instead, i've been spending my time doing things that i really like: hanging out on a friend's back porch, drinking beer, petting her dog and catching up on what's going on; shooting pool in a tiny neighborhood bar with maybe a new friend; enthusiastically writing the crappiest first draft of a romance novel ever, reading comic books like Scalped and Mouseguard; going on a few dates (shrug) and watching the days slowly stretch themselves longer as we leave winter behind and impatiently wait for summer.

(chicago has decided to skip spring entirely, this year.)

so let's hear it.

what are you all up to while the days get warmer?


some things i'm reading this morning:
The Canadian Press: Birth control choices abound for women over 40; the pill, IUDs are safer

'compassion' replaces 'religion'

so, did anyone catch the Compassion Forum last week? (or was it over the weekend? this way too long primary cycle is giving me a hangover.)

how neat that this forum jibed perfectly with my complaint last week that our public political discourse is not being served by the constant introduction of 'faith' - or compassion, whatever. (remember when we all thought Shrub was a 'compassionate conservative'? we all should have learned a lesson from that but, clearly, we didn't.)

anyway, if you caught it and have thoughts about it, i'd love to hear about it.

[and, over here at A Moderate Voice, the writer asks why we even needed this lame forum.]

thank ye, marse!: more on black gratitude and the rev wright nonsense

Obsidian Wings: Where's The Gratitude?

an excellent post (via Bitch Ph.D.) in response to Pat Buchanan's totally frakked up commentary on how grateful black folk should be to white folk. (roll of eyes here)

what's cool about the post is that it doesn't deal with the 'grateful' issue but, rather, gives some rather pointed criticism of Buchanan's poor grasp of public policy and the history of so-called 'generosity' on the part of the government toward blacks.

you must read it. go. do it.
...
this rev. wright thing clearly has some long legs and i think it's been running for so long for several reasons:
1- white folks are still surprised at instances of black anger and black folks are frustrated that no one ever takes their anger seriously
2- it's always nice drama in this country to take down an 'uppity negro' like obama (and his supporters)
3 - this country still wraps itself in knots when it comes to discussing racial/ethnic difference because it still can't acknowledge that the ideological default in this country is still white and male (and straight, for that matter.)
4 - our public discourse has been permamently polluted by the discourse of 'values' and 'faith.'

this last thing is interesting to me (and the Obsidian Wings post touches on this briefly in one of the comments, I think.) i think we can all remember the advent of the Values Voter, that poll-skewing and election-swinging voter who, rather than keep the separation of church and state sort of firmly in place, decided to pretend his polling place was a church pew and made all sorts of decisions based on how closely a candidate seemed to hew to his/her own faith background and their willingness to let their faith inform public policy.

sensing a powerful new voting bloc, politicians scrambled to appease the Values Voter and pronouncements of christianity, faithfulness, prayer, kneeling and all sorts of pharisaical nonsense started to appear all over the place. every election cycle, our candidates went through a dumbshow of evangelism, of piety and visited every major evangelical pulpit in the country. no longer content to be crazy and whacked out behind their pulpits, mini-Dimmesdales were suddenly on every major cable news show to blather on about their faith-based revolution, out to change the culture and return this country to its god-fearing roots. they wanted us to go back, before the feminists, the humanists and the gays started mucking about with things. meanwhile, the rest of us wondered how the hell 'faith' became a litmus test for public service or a new language within public discourse.

(and, quite frankly, if the feminists, gays and humanists were really in charge of things, life would be a lot more fun, if you ask me.)

as a result of all this hollow talk 'faith' is a line item in our federal budget and a pastor's sermon has become a trial of a candidate's patriotism. see how neat that is? a private utterance in a church has far-reaching consequences for someone's public, national identity.

is anyone else totally frightened that the veil separating our private, religious thoughts and expressions from our public selves is beginning to disintegrate?

had a church com'tee last night
have a date tonight
have a tax appt and coaching appt tomorrow night
maybe another date the next night

churchgal has been busy.

but, in the meantime, how about reading an article on how superdelegates' kids are strong arming them to break for obama? (heh)

asshat: wal mart

Learn More about the Shank Family

Who are the Shanks?
They're the unfortunates whose wife and mother was hit by a truck, suffering brain damage and now living handicapped as a result. They're the family who won a modest settlement from the truck company who crashed into her. They're the family whose injured mother just began to earn health benefits from her employer, Wal Mart (can you tell where this is going?), a few days before the disastrous accident.

They're also the family Wal Mart successfully sued last year to recoup healthcare expenses by going after the settlement the family was going to use to provide long term care for their mother.

Is Wal Mart aware that, sometimes, it's important to NOT be perceived as EVIL?

a little busy

sorry posting has been so light.
work has been hectic and with all the cuts being proposed in the President's FY09 budget, organizations like mine have gone into super self-defense mode. So, while I haven't been writing here, I've been writing my arse off at work about the continued need to keep programs serving rape and assault victims in the budget.

but rest assured that i haven't stopped thinking about things over here and that there are connections in my brain being made about the recent Rev. Wright flap and how this crap never would have happened if politicians were actually serious about that little thing called 'the division between church and state.' (oh, and if the so-called Values coalition, two or three elections ago, hadn't exploited religious fervor in the first place as a substitute for political ideology.)

so, what have we learned?

Obama Tries to Shift Focus Away From Race but sees a drop in support, according to a poll mentioned in the Times.

What have we learned from the past few days? Well, that Americans are dumber than ever when it comes to talking about race or racial identity and that no one will ever say the words 'white privilege' on air.

Jesus. As long as Obama stayed imbued with the halo of his media-created 'magical negritude' then he was all right. But - as soon as he became associated with a less moderate point of view about America and America's treatment of communities of color, then he's militant and somehow unworthy of the candidacy.

(And HRC? All she has to do is sit back and watch it all happen.)

I spoke with someone about this today (a white woman that I respect a great deal) and she said that what disturbed her most about how this whole thing is playing out is how this is impacting speech. (And let's be clear about one thing - you might not like what Wright said but it's not hate speech.) Not only is this an instance of 'guilt by association,' something that would never seriously damage a white political figure, she said, 'If churches are where communities can safely vent their frustrations and troubles, then this means that those spaces are no longer safe.'

Here in Chicago, are we suddenly going to pore over the sermons by people like Rev. James Meeks or even Fr. Michael Pfleger at St. Sabina's if they say something critical of white supremacy?

Because that's what Wright was talking about: White supremacy. Not you, oh clueless, individual white person. Get over the interpersonal and intentional way of framing your discussions about race or racial justice. It's not about YOU, it's about the structure of white supremacy in this country. How many times do we have to say this before you frakking get it??

(Angry? Yeah, I'm angry. I'm always angry when I'm confronted with stupid.)

But, more importantly, we've learned that the much-ballyhooed 'post-racial' era in America is about as real as a jackalope.

(The president of the Chicago Urban League wrote a letter to the Editor here in the Chicago Defender about her reaction to the flap.)

my reactions to the obama reaction to the media's reaction to the wright reaction to...

Rather than spend my valuable time creating talking points for an upcoming lobbying campaign at work, I'll jot down some random questions in the wake of the speech Obama gave today (which were in reaction to the public reaction to some old Jeremiah Wright comments.)

Primarily, my questions are about mainstream (i.e., white) reaction to black anger and I'll try to keep my thoughts as succinct as possible. (Thoughts about the theology, or lack of theology, represented by Wright's remarks are outside of my skill set.)

Why is it, whether expressed in the way that Wright had done, in the comedy of Dave Chappell or the comic strips of Aaron MacGruder, that folks can't seem to understand where black socio-political anger comes from?

What and who is served by the public pressure for Obama (or any black person) to distance himself from the problematic comments like the ones Wright made (or even the ones made by Farrakhan)?

What fears are assuaged once this distancing has happened and, conversely, what fears are stoked when a black person refuses?

What allegiances are being sought through this kind of pressure?

Why must people of color perform this kind of white supremacy power dance when individual white people don't? (For instance, we have yet to see any kind of thorough, heavily wrought distancing from Hillary Clinton after Ferarro's avowedly pro-white comments were made.)

And why does the word 'minstrelsy' come to mind?

obama's speech today

if you missed it today, here's the transcript:

.. “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

[i'll try and post my thoughts about this later]

Shocking, yet not really: the Spitzer thing

The Eliot Spitzer Stuff - New York Times

On the way home yesterday as we were listening to NPR run down the whole sordid Eliot Spitzer scandal, Roomie and I were wondering why public officials just can't keep it in their pants. Or, rather, why male public officials can't keep it in their pants. What is it about a lonely hotel room, solitary hours and public scrutiny that leads to really ill-advised phone calls to sex workers?

This profile seems to lay it all at the feet of being 'reckless.' Perhaps. Maybe it's the high pressure of being a guy with power. But weird how we don't see scandals about women in power getting caught in sexually compromising positions. Or maybe not so weird. Their scandals are about illegal nannies or covering up hubby's bad business practices or tax evasions. Interesting how women in power have scandals still linked to domestic disturbances while men in power seem to get in trouble for making public service a libidinal pleasure dome.

Amen: Compassion Fatigue

LutheranChik's "L" Word Diary: Compassion Fatigue

Before I get lost in all the post-primary hand-wringing I just wanted to bring to y'all's attention this really thought-provoking post from LutheranChick about compassion fatigue, or that wall some people in the pastorate hit when, to use a business term, the ROI isn't forthcoming.

What would be an acceptable Return on Investment? Well, something indicating that an impact has been made; change or improvement, however miniscule.

After years of being senior pastor of a small community church, which came after being senior pastor at a medium Baptist congregation, my dad told me and my sister this past weekend that he's calling it quits.

"I don't want to stop being a pastor, but I don't want to be pastor of that church anymore,' he said, sounding more frustrated and angry than I've ever heard him sound. 'I've taken them as far as they can go and I'm tired. No matter how many sermons, bible studies, counseling sessions, nothing changes - they don't change. All that time I could have spent with my wife, with you daughters that I spent with them and it hurts."

My sister and I said, "It's about time. They were killing you."

So, in a way, this post is for my dad who's 64 years old and deserves a frakking rest.

From LutheranChik:
I have a friend who, through her church work, got involved with a similarly dysfunctional household. Soon she was being called in the middle of the night with requests like, "So-and-So is in jail. Can you go and bail her out?" She'd schedule doctors' appointments for the pregnant unwed daughter only to have the daughter refuse to comply with the healthcare provider. She'd arrange for the family matriarch to get hooked up with this or that social service, only to have the woman fail to show up for appointments or turn in paperwork. After many months of this, my friend was becoming physically ill, anxious and filled with guilt over somehow "not doing enough" for these people. "Whenever I say I'm done with them, I think, 'What would Jesus do?'" she said, tears in her eyes.

Maybe I'm just channeling the values of my hardworking blue-collar parents, but I can't help but think that at some point Jesus would tell immature, deadbeat parents to look for work, and pursue social services for which they're qualified, with the same energy that they look for excuses; and to make their children, rather than their own comfort and whim, the family priority.

...
In this Lenten season, this post also makes me think about Christ's short ministry and just how much it must have taken to be on that path of His, knowing where it would end and dragging those disciples behind Him as they consistently misunderstood His mission and vision. I wonder if he ever asked for a new group of guys who were a little bit more swift on the uptake.

And I think about the disciples, ordinary men struggling with everything they're seeing and hearing, following but getting some things wrong along the way. I wonder if they ever sat around and thought, 'WTH??'

...
The board that I sit on in my church governs our social service programs and we were in the middle of putting together some materials for external funding. Part of our standard language describes our mission as transforming lives which is a pretty feel-good claim to make. But the man who directs one of our programs said in a meeting once, 'We don't transform lives. We feed people. We give them clothes. We meet a material need. Are their lives transformed when they come to us, when we help them? I have no idea.'

His words were like a really cold bucket of water being thrown over my head. Is it even possible for us to transform lives?

Anyway, I hear you LutheranChik. Hang in there.

Mortified: sometimes you can't make this stuff up

remember when our mothers or our naughty aunts gave us our first blank journal? they told us to write our deepest feelings and thoughts and we did. boy, did we. and remember when you found your old diary and read through them and shuddered in absolute mortification?

well, now you can wallow in other people's shame.

i've been to the Mortified show twice and, each time, i laugh until i nearly pee in my pants. writers/performers get up and read from selections of their childhood/youthful/teenage diaries and journals and it's the most embarrassing night of spoken word performance EVER.

but it's also the most familiar. no matter what your background, your class, color or religion, there is something pretty universal about the act of writing down your myopic adolescent angst. i hear these stories and i recognize myself in all of them.

my favorite story has been from a guy who's now a youth pastor or something; he went to a pretty strict lutheran college and his piece is all about being 18, horny and sanctimonious. it's written in the voice of a regular, churchy guy who wants to be godly (desperately) but likes the girls, too, and it's basically the funniest, truest thing i've heard someone read about what it's like to be a young fundamentalist christian and a young horny bastard, all at the same time.

my favorite line went something like: "Daily masturbation does not lead to cascading joy."

it gets me every time.

Mortified: coming to Chicago

i'm so there and so should you be.

Sick Days Access: Call to Action!

I'm blowing some anonymity here but it's worth it:

My agency is part of a coalition, led by Women Employed and including Heartland Alliance, working with lead sponsor Rep. Julie Hamos to change the fact that 3 million private sector workers don't have the right to a single sick day.

Our basic bill proposes a way for these workers to accrue just 7 days of paid sick time over the course of one year. (For every 30 hours worked, a worker can earn 1 hour of paid sick time.)

The bill, HB 5320, has been introduced. There's support for this in the legislature but to move the bill out of Rules, through Labor, and towards a vote on the floor, we need more.

So we need stories.

We are looking for stories from people in Illinois who can talk about their need for paid sick days—either you used to work somewhere that didn’t have it when you needed it (and what happened), or you are currently working and don’t get paid sick days.
We’re looking for brief summaries that we could turn into a letter, use as part of legislative testimony, or perhaps include on a fact sheet.

If you have a story, email takeastand@ywcachicago.org.

You can, of course, request your story to be as anonymous as you want it to be (i.e., Sarah, 34/Retail/Addison.)

We hope you can help. (If you're also interested in helping us lobby for this particular piece of legislation, you can send an email to that same address.)

[edited to remove Chicago Coalition for the Homeless as a coalition partner]

feminism 101: but what about the women...?

FAQ: But doesn’t evidence show that women are just as likely to batter their partners as men? « Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog

thank goodness this blog exists. it's written by a very smart person (see? i'm not going to assume it's a woman, though i think it is) and handily dispatches with the misconceptions, lies and inaccuracies directed toward feminist thought and practice.

this one is particularly nice. if you've participated in any discussion that deals with rape, violence against women, domestic violence or whatever, sooner or later some MRA-type guy is going to coyly ask the 'well, what about the women who - ' question.

'what about women who batter men?'
'what about women who falsely accuse men of rape?'

it's annoying and frustrating to deal with because those questions are utter crap and i never have the stats in my head to counter them.

well, now i do.

thanks, Feminism 101!

election 08: let's get real about 'experience'

Candidate Comparisons « Think On These Things

If you follow the link above, you land on a really good (and, yes, pro-Obama) collection of sources that compare the records of Obama and Clinton. Though the blog leans toward Obama, the links it provides are pretty good. (Any good researcher knows that the quality of your source material pretty much decides the validity of your results.)

I'm going through the links right now, when I should really be working, so why don't you join me?
I'll check back later.

you're not the boss of me!

Kansas HS says female cannot ref boys game - Wednesday February 13, 2008 9:40PM:

"The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs."

So, there was this one time back in college when I was talking (er, arguing) with my dad about why women are supposed to be subject to the authority of men and why his sexism was a problem to me.

Dad: I'm not a sexist. It's what the Bible says, Ding.
Me: But that's only within the context of the church and/or a married relationship. (Which I still think is crap but I decided to give that to my dad to make the argument a little easier.) So, ok, women can't preach or teach men in the church and we're supposed to bow and scrape when we're married. Fine. But that doesn't mean that women are supposed to be submissive to ALL men, everywhere, does it?

Dad: (long pause)
Me: I mean, so there's a woman doctor. Is she just supposed to take a back seat to some random guy because he's a guy? What about if you were on a jury? Does that mean a woman can't be a foreman on the jury because there are men there? What about female bosses? Does that mean that because of a few verses about the place of women in church, that all women everywhere can't be in positions of authority? Because that's totally sexist and if you agree, it means you're a sexist, too.
Dad: (silence)
Me: Yeah. Thought so.

You know, I really couldn't be the feminist I am now if it hadn't been for my Dad.

give me a break: anti-military or asking hard questions?

When Strains on Military Families Turn Deadly - New York Times
War Torn: Slideshow
War Torn: The Cases
Criticism of War Torn (follow the links)

This particular part of the series makes me feel like a voyeur peeping into the seamy scenes of mental instability, pain and violence. But it's valuable in pointing out a dangerous lack in the military (one that I've written about again and again): the military's increasing inability to address issues like mental health, violence against civilians (although the articles reveal that these soldiers also turn against one another) and particularly domestic violence.

While I can understand criticisms of the series' methodology (I'd think they'd also want to look at those crimes of violence that weren't big enough to warrant a newspaper story) I think it's a narrow view to say that this series is 'anti-military.' (It's also hyperbolic to say that the article is 'lying.' There are no untruths here, only really uncomfortable and stark realities - some of the men and women coming back from our 'war on terror' come back damaged.)

So, here's a question to ask our pro-war candidates this election cycle: if they're going to commit our men and women to a 100-year war on terror, what are they also going to do to address the real human cost of such a war?

Now, that's not being anti-military, is it? Heavens, no.

if it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny

an author walks home on 9/11:

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

Hand-wringing About American Culture - Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? - New York Times

we're not only hostile to knowledge, if we saw it, we'd light some torches, chase it though the streets and then tar and feather it. then we'd go home and drink a beer.

gird your loins. a work-related complaint is coming:
i have a blazing headache.
i'm putting together two earmark requests (whoo-hoo, 'pork'!) and i'm struggling with putting together boilerplate for our programs
i have two church meetings after work tonight and i'm really not in the mood to sit in a board room for two hours
i'm just bushed - my mornings have started earlier than normal and lasted later than usual.

and tomorrow! tomorrow, the cute plumber is coming by and i have to work from home so he can replace the sink and...and... hm.

maybe that last one ain't so bad.

Black History Month: some resources

RACE - The Power of an Illusion PBS

this was a really great series. my favorite episode is the third, where it examines how the idea of racial difference is supported and disseminated through our institutions and, particularly, immigration and housing policy.

if you want to have a more meaningful engagement with what black history is, go here and read the transcripts. you'll learn something.

Black History Month: A Case for Voting Black

My aunt's apartment was stifling hot and smelled strange but I tried to ignore it.

"Our people took the name of Mr. C-, you know. He owned our family and when the war was over, we just kept the name," she said.
"I don't know anything about that time. I mean, no one's told me stories about it," I said.

"Well, it's here and there." She thought a little. "You know, there is a story about a relative of ours. The rest of the family kept the C- name and stayed in Alabama. But one left. He came up North and disappeared."

"Disappeared? Why'd he disappear?"
"Because he passed."
"No!"

"Yes. He was white. Real white. Your great granddaddy passed for white for a while; his wife could pass, too.” She paused again. “I don’t know how your grandfather got so dark. Anyway, he came up to Chicago and the story is that he worked in a store and started a business. But he never got back in touch with the rest of the family. He's lost."

She said this like he just wandered onto State Street and just couldn’t find his way back.

"I have *never* heard this story!"
My aunt sighed. "There aren't that many family members left who know it."
"Huh. Fascinating."

Unfortunately, I have totally forgotten what my passing distant relative’s name was.
...

The new Skip Gates special on PBS is full of these stories of passing, diaspora, disappearance and reinvention. (But sometimes I wonder if my own family's narrative is real or just patterned on other stories of black family lines whose origins are just as murky or tangled.)

What strikes me about some of these early stories of lost family members reclaimed is how prominent black-owned land figures into them and how crucial the land is to forming early black identity as well as ideas of freedom and citizenship. The program begins with Gates visiting the land his family has owned for 6 generations and passes by a parcel of land his family had owned but had to sell. Since part of their own genealogical story is lost to them, their farm acts like an anchor for their identity. In subsequent conversations with celebrities like Chris Rock, Tina Turner, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle or Tom Joyner, Gates reveals that their families had once owned land - 40 acres, 62 acres, 65 acres - donating or selling some of their land to build schools or churches.

The revelations about property and land ownership become a source of pride in their family. What is it that Rock says – If he had known this before, it would have taken away the inevitability that he would be nothing. And property is usually the vehicle for these stories to come to light; they act like a bracket around early black families: you were property and now you have property.

At the turn of the century blacks owned between 12-15 million acres of land; by the 30s and 40s that number shrinks to just a little over a million. For many of these black families the land is a foundation to build their newly acquired identities as freed people that suddenly disappears, forcing their story to jump, only to be picked up further down the line. What happened? What happened in those intervening years? Did African Americans just suddenly decide, "Hm, you know, owning land sucks. Let's pick up and go north"? Usually something else happened to make a family, or even a whole black town, disperse.

Tom Joyner's family story is a good example; Gates finds his great grandmother but her paper trail ends somewhere in late 19th/turn of the century Carolinas, only to pick up again several years later in the north. Joyner has no idea why she left home or what the story of his family is but Gates and his team discover the reason: His family owned a substantial parcel of land but when his two great uncles are accused of murder and executed, the family sells their land to pay for legal fees and the remaining family flees the area. But Gates' team also uncovers that the accusation was probably false, specifically targeted at the two great uncles because they were part of a black landowning family.

Chris Rock asks how his own ancestor could go from slave, to soldier, to legislator, to landowner, to sharecropper all in 10 short years; Gates simply answers, Reconstruction ended. We're left to conclude what happened to Julius Caesar Tingman's land on our own.
...

Three years ago the exhibit "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" came to the Chicago Historical Society and it was a hard exhibit to walk through. Again, I noticed stories of black land ownership (or burgeoning private enterprise) running alongside the photos of ‘extra-legal deaths at the hands of unknown persons' (which is how the Society described the lynchings that spread throughout the country from Reconstruction to roughly 1965 or '68.)

In 2001, the AP ran a series called 'Torn from the Land' that researched and confirmed claims of widespread land theft - claims that are crucial to the reparations movement. Opponents of the reparations movement say that it's a fallacy to punish or extort money from people today for events in the past; slavery is over. I counter that the cost of these past events is still felt today through procedures that, are legal and that still disproportionately affect poor communities of color, i.e., partitioning, rezoning, ‘revitalization’/gentrification, and eminent domain. These legal maneuvers aren't 'extra-legal' or as extreme as lynching but they sure do have the same result – displacement, dispersal, diasporas.

Personally, I'm sort of neutral about the reparations movement. Do I want my father's family to be paid money because of slavery? Not really. What I want is a deeper, more public acknowledgment of how slavery impacted and drove our capitalist system, and how our nation's participation in the slave trade laid a foundation for practices, industries and institutions that not only continue to have an adverse affect on communities of color today but still provide the elite in this country with wealth and prosperity. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Land is at the bottom of our American imagination and mythology. The land was the lure and the land has allowed us Americans to earn our claim to citizenship - we stole it, settled it, colonized it, killed for it, and exploited the shit out of it. American land is a metaphor for our political and national identities at home, as well as a justification for our acts abroad.

As an African American, though I am a participant in (and benefactor of) this American history, I am distant from it because of how the land figures into our own fraught, black history: we were counted with the land, we worked on the land, we fought and were killed for the land. More acted upon than actor, we have seen our roles in history marginalized or elided, but now we approach a moment where, at last, our acts can be writ large and with boldness.

I say we owe a debt to our ancestors for the sacrifices they were forced to make – if we have the chance to take a firm step toward repaying that debt, toward reclaiming the lost land of our identities as black Americans, then we should take it now.

Super Tuesday!

the best line of the night, so far:

CNN pundit guy: No one's more conservative than Huckabee! He doesn't believe in evolution, gravity or photosynthesis!

Ding and friends: (raucous laughter)
...
we're all sitting here with our projection sheets, wine and pizza like this is our superbowl. it is fantastic to see the GOP go completely schizoid.

election 08: what's a delegate?

The Role of Delegates in the U.S. Presidential Nominating Process - Council on Foreign Relations

now i know.

(i voted this morning and it was exciting! you could tell that folks made a very special effort this morning to get into the polling place. i skipped all the judge stuff, voted for my alderman, the water reclamation folks and, of course, presidential candidate. this was the first ballot that i could remember voting for delegates.

anyway, happy super tuesday!

i'll be watching the returns tonight with some friends. will you?)

election 08: does being 26 count as experience?

NPR: Tracing Hillary Clinton's '35 Years' of Experience

a friend of mine sent me an email this morning that ranted, basically, "I'm so sick of hearing about Billary's experience! My god! If she had 35 years of experience, she was 26 years old!"

i have to say that i never really paid that much attention.
but good point.

why isn't our media calling bullshit on that?

(yeah. i'm no fan of the Billary lately.)

well, i've *been* to Canada

Southern racists adopt "Canadian" as a euphemism for "black" - Boing Boing

are you frakking kidding me?!

hm. i wonder what could be a useful euphemism for racist asshat...

hey, don't forget about the SOTU tonight!

The State of the Union Address Drinking Game 2008

you can pretty much get plastered if you just take a shot every time he says 'freedom.'