what's anti-western?

i'm in shock after reading this, and really scared. russell k. pearce, republican, is afraid of people of color who dare to question the stories they're told about what it means to be american. and he happens to have the power and the political backing to do something about it. my baby sister goes to school in arizona. :( legislation against "anti-western" education? and by that they mean critics of hegemony, domination and oppression are no longer welcome? i'm deeply concerned.

my favorite quote from the news article? check it:

Rep. John Kavanagh, a member of the Appropriations Committee, said he hopes the measure helps return cultural studies in the state's schools to a "melting pot" model.

"This bill basically says, 'You're here. Adopt American values,' " said Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican. "If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture."

want more? article here. i'm quoting the legislation below, after commentary from a poster on the NAME mailing list...

So basically this amendment which was passed earlier today would do the following remove any sort of Chicano Studies, African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies amongst other programs on from any public campus K-12, Community Colleges, Universities, throughout Arizona. It would also make it illegal for groups that empower students culturally from meeting as they could be considered to not agree with dominant western thought. So basically if you don't think like he does your pretty much ******.


PROPOSED

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AMENDMENTS TO S.B.

1108

(Reference to Senate engrossed bill)

Strike everything after the enacting clause and insert:

"Section 1.


Title 15, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding sections 15-107 and 15-108, to read:

START_STATUTE15-107.


Declaration of policy

The legislature finds and declares that:

1. A primary purpose of public education is to inculcate values of American citizenship.

2. Public tax dollars used in public schools should not be used to denigrate American values and the teachings of western civilization.

3. Public tax dollars should not be used to promote political, religious, ideological or cultural beliefs or values as truth when such values are in conflict with the values of American citizenship and the teachings of western CIVILIZATION.


START_STATUTE15-108.


Denigration, disparagement or encouragement of dissent from values of American democracy and western civilization; prohibition; enforcement; prohibition of race-based organizations; definition

A. A public school in this state shall not include within the program of instruction any courses, classes or school sponsored activities that promote, assert as truth or feature as an exclusive focus any political, religious, ideological or cultural beliefs or values that denigrate, disparage or overtly ENCOURAGE dissent from the values of American democracy and western civilization, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious toleration.

B. This section does not prohibit the inclusion of diverse political, religious, ideological or CULTURAL beliefs or values if the course, CLASS or school sponsored activity as a whole does not denigrate, disparage or overtly ENCOURAGE dissent from the values of American democracy and western civilization.

C. On request of the superintendent of public instruction or the superintendent's designee, a public school shall promptly provide copies of curricula, course materials and course syllabi to the superintendent of public INSTRUCTION. the superintendent of public instruction, after providing appropriate notice and conducting an appropriate hearing, may withhold a proportionate share of state monies from any public school that violates subsection A. The superintendent of public instruction may take reasonable and APPROPRIATE regulatory actions to enforce this subsection. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to enlarge the authority of the superintendent of public instruction to regulate the CONTENT of curriculum in public schools.


D. A public school in this state, a university under the JURISDICTION of the arizona board of regents and a community college under the JURISDICTION of a community college DISTRICT in this state shall not allow organizations to operate on the CAMPUS of the school, UNIVERSITY or community college if the organization is based in whole or in part on race-based criteria.

E.

For the purposes of this section, "public school" means any of the
following:

1. A school district.

2. A school in a school district.

3. A charter school.

4. An accommodation school.

5. The arizona state schools for the deaf and the blind.

" END_STATUTE

Amend title to conform

RUSSELL K.

PEARCE

what is wrong with us?

this is a screenshot of the cnn page (shitty emphasis mine) where i watched the video about the two-faced child recently born in india. notice anything strange about the right side of the screen? check the top ten most popular videos. why is it that the news that mary louise parker (um, wait, who the hell is that again?!) is not engaged more popular than, oh, real news? who have we become? who have we always been?

password

random note: i don't know if this is happening to you, but a weird pop-down menu greets me when i come to my own blog, asking if i have a password. i don't know what the fuck that is. i am sorry if you're experiencing it as well. if you're not, i am worried about the state of my sorry computer...

also, this is not turning out to be the best week ever. fuck it all, vh1, why can't you leave a little "best"-ness for the rest of us? having a lot of drama at work, created a little personal drama for myself by pressing the wrong button on my cellphone (numerous times) tonight, and am looking at even more drama presenting itself in the office tomorrow. at least i have good friends (new and old) to help me figure it all out (and/or to listen to me babble nonsensically and offer necessarily nonsensical advice).

it's only tuesday.

bring it on, week! i think i'm ready.

i may have a problem

the contents of my "chocolate shelf":


does anyone really need that much chocolate? i guess i do, because i'm cra-azy.

oh, also, i forgot that i took a picture of the david leibovitz chocolate chips i made last week, and they look great, so here's an image.

i think i'm making nicole's addictive chocolate chips this week (sans nuts) so i can share with my pals (especially sonj, who hates nuts and whose preferences i always ignore. :)). mmmm. soup and cookies. and a play. that's a sunday for ya.

a damn shame

have you heard about this? an entire school district is on the verge of losing its accreditation? is anyone surprised that the district is "predominantly black"?

choice quotes-

"For the county's nearly 53,000 public school students, loss of accreditation would mean they would not be eligible for state scholarships or be accepted at many universities. They also would have difficulty transferring to other high schools."

"According to the report, Clayton County Public Schools' nine-member school board is so "dysfunctional" that it has had difficulty recruiting a superintendent, teachers and bus drivers. It accuses board members of nepotism, conflicts of interest, micromanagement, lax fiscal responsibility and failure to audit school attendance."

so nine people can take away 53,000 black students' chances at higher education, but we don't hear about it in the nightly news. we don't read about it on blogs. it's tucked away in the LA Times Education section and swept away in the midst of election frenzy. if this country were to do right, these would be front-page stories.

and geraldine ferraro refuses to be sorry for suggesting that barack obama is lucky to be a black man.

does anyone want to go start a quilombo with me? anyone?

the ferraro controversy

h/t to too sense on this clip.

if you jump ahead to 4:02, you'll see barack's response to the silliness that is geraldine ferraro, and then, soon after you'll get a taste of eugene robinson's genius.

one note to msnbc: throughout the second half of the clip y'all have ferraro's name egregiously misspelled. egregiously. i mean, come on now.

i feel kinda bad for whoopi

um have campus newspapers always been hotbeds of racist bullshit?

well, maybe.

this very astute young man apparently is interested in teaching his asian peers a lesson. satire can be funny, sometimes. sarcasm can be funny, sometimes. plain stupidity is never really funny.

"if it's war the asians want..."

good ol' max actually shares his email address at the end of the article. feel free to share your thoughts.

school's response/statement...

one ferry, three men, lots of anger

**sorry, long post!**

i took the staten island ferry and to and from SI today for work. both trips started calmly, with my head buried in reading material, and both ended with me in the midst of a good amount of anger. the first time (on the way there), i scribbled a poem in the back of the book i'm reading, almost running into the two men that inspired its writing (it needs revision, badly); the second time (on the way back), i wrote a blog post angrily on the margins of a piece of paper i found in my bag. i'm going to share both pieces here.

i don't know what's up with me and anger lately. there's something, though, about constantly feeling like me and mine are being openly dismissed/used/abused by others that just makes my blood boil a little bit. i bite my tongue, i don't fight, but my silence doesn't erase my anger.

i write my anger, and hope that it will resolve itself.
(there)

tears of rage, or
my brother always says i cry too easy


90 miles,
they say

two white(?) men.
the Staten Island ferry.

90 miles?
yeah, yeah
90 miles from Miami to
Coo-ba

yeah.
so close, they get
here
and their feet are
still
wet!

yuk, yuk.

90 miles.

as a tear of rage
seeped out of my eye,
i neglected to share
that cuba is 90 miles from
key west,
not
miami,

and when they
shouted out
the aryan nation
as the only
"solution"
to miami's
"problem,"
i didn't say
that the problem is
ignorant bigots like them,
wearing 9.11.01 tee shirts.

i didn't say that
i'd prefer
wet feet
over
ignorance and hatred
any
day.

i didn't say
that our country
was built with
wet feet,
or that

it would seem that
along with
drying feet
come
shrinking brains and narrowing
minds.

i didn't insult the
man's
accent or
intelligence,

i didn't make
sweeping generalizations
about the group of
people
i believe he most resembles.

i didn't blame him and
his "kind"
for my lack of
comprehensive health insurance
or my
$60,000 in
student loans.
.
.
.
.
i didn't expect him
to understand
my tears
or my
language.

///
there are just so. many. things. i
didn't say.

*****
(back)

why is it that black middle aged men so often consider my body their property? at least once a week i am confronted with men old enough to be my father commenting on/trying to touch/eyeing my black female body.

there is something in their attention, too, that is about my youth. the way they comment and gesture suggests that i am, at once, their daughter and their concubine, simultaneously innocent and deviant.

today, one man decided that his avenue to interaction with me would be schooling me on manners. after he sat next to me, staring at me for a number of minutes, i yawned without covering my mouth. i felt warmth near my cheek, and i realized he had raised his hand to almost touch my face! "cover your mouth when you yawn," he said. "you're so pretty!"

i gave him the stinkeye and went back to reading. after assuring me that he wasn't "trying to teach me anything," he decided to model the correct yawning "procedure" with his newspaper. i asked him to leave me alone and promptly called my mother, telling her loudly that there was a crazy man next to me. he continued to stare openly and smile creepily throughout the (too long) SI ferry ride, and to place his coffee cup as near my thigh as possible without actually touching me. he protested when i rose to move away.

why do men, black men who are supposed to be supports in my community, alternately ignore and abuse this idea of me? i can't get the attention of an educated black man under 35 for my life, but granddaddies are in large supply for the position of fetishist.

i don't understand what is both so alluring and off-putting about me. is it my independence? my unwillingness, as one friend put it a few weeks ago, to "pretend to be weak"? is it my personality? my expectations? because none of those things are on display. i don't know how to erase myself enough to lose the attention i don't want and to gain that which i so desire. to be honest, it depresses me to think that i will never be fully attractive to the men that are most attractive to me as myself. it depresses me to think that in order to find a life partner i have to deny parts of myself. it depresses me to think that i either have to give up on finding love, or be willing to define love as old men touching my face without permission on a ferry, or young men cheating on me and refusing to call what they feel love. youth breeds man-boys unready for relationships, and age breeds man-boys who want 25 year olds like the woman i am now, "ripe and fresh."

ugh. what a freaking day.

well this sucks

one of the few perks of my promotion here at work is a move to a window office and a nicer, bigger monitor.

downsides:

• the new desk faces away from the door, which means anyone entering can see my screen, which means i can't blog without detection anymore
• the new monitor is huMONgo, and anyone entering from behind me can read what i'm writing tres clearly, which means i can't blog without detection anymore.

damn, i guess i'll actually start to have to get some work done.

is anyone else feeling a little uncomfortable?

there's something about the way that barack is currently being presented in the press that bothers me.

an article from today's front page of nytimes.com:

Obama Outshines Clinton’s Success at Raising Funds

By PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY

After the Clinton campaign said that it had raised $7.5 million online this month, the Obama campaign that it had raised the same amount in 36 hours.

okay, okay, why am i hating, you ask?

well, for one, there's a typo in the blurb. they forgot the word "said." i've been known to publish a few typos in my day, but i'm not the new york times, goshdarnit!

for two (is that how you follow up to the phrase "for one"?) , i don't like the way this is being spun. i don't know who's spinning it, though i am pretty sure barack's campaign is at least partially responsible. this dirty, competitive, one-up-driven typical politics stuff is exactly what i thought i wasn't going to get from mr. barack obama, and what i'm tired of getting from our biased, somewhat ridiculous national press machine.

i thought this campaign was going to be about change. i thought we were hoping for unity. what i didn't think the campaign about was petty schoolyard bullshit about who was picked first for the softball team.

now i know that it's not really that drastic. and i know the press is pitting the two against each other in hopes that people will do what i have done and get other people to click through to their sites. i know. and i know that if obama didn't toot his own horn, the media would continue to spin the news in the direction of their own endorsed candidates, trying to change the minds of americans in a not-so-subtle, completely dishonest way, without any ability for the campaign to get the truth out there.

i guess i just wish american politics could be more about the issues and not all about the benjamins. i wish being a viable candidate for president didn't necessitate being a multimillionaire. i wish our individual votes counted for more, and were counted more accurately. i wish i really believed that the quality of my life, and the quality of life of people that look like me all over the globe, would actually be positively affected by anyone that could actually be elected to the presidency of our country. i wish my hope weren't so shallow and short-reaching. in short, i wish the world were a completely different place.

that's not happening anytime soon.

so in the meantime, i do what i can. and so does barack. and i settle for what i can have right now.

i need a man, part 1

so do you remember this blast from the past? p. diddy and usher sharing a laundry list of the things their "girl"s needed to be in order to make them happy? well i think it's time we ladies made a laundry list of our own.
i had two somewhat disturbing conversations this weekend with female friends who have decided that much of the abhorrent behavior displayed by men is "to be expected." you know, things like lying and cheating, using women for their bodies, being arrogant and selfish, needing the women in their lives to pretend to be weak in order to highlight their "manliness." i have trouble with that notion. i don't know why i would be interested in settling for a partner (for life or for a week) who isn't interested in doing the sort of self-maintenance (mentally and emotionally) that i do. i don't expect anything from a man that i don't also expect from myself. so this morning, i've decided to make my "i need a man" list.
(funnily enough, my dad told me to make a list like this a long time ago and i thought the idea was crazy. silly me. dave is no fool.)

be this, or be gone list

1. honest. and by honest i don't mean just when it suits you. i mean respect and love me enough to tell me the truth, even when the truth is not about you being disappointed in me, but rather you being disappointed in yourself.
2. able to admit that you're wrong. this is actually a challenge for me. it's something i work on, and something that most of my friends struggle with as well (ahem, friend-of-mine out there! mark-paul gosselaar??). it's natural to want to be right, but sometimes in a relationship your partner needs to hear that you know what you did was wrong and that you'll work on it.
3. well-groomed. and by that i don't mean that you have to get man manicures. but please wear a decent pair of jeans, a matching shirt, and have a pair of cute shoes. i like a man that looks and smells good. just don't bring the pretty-boy arrogance with you.
4. in possession of a nice smile. there are things i can deal with-- awkward movement, lack of rhythm, slightly effeminate affectations...it's all love. one thing, though, that i'm not down with is a man who doesn't know who their dentist is. figure it out. and halitosis is not a terminal sickness. you can cure that shit.
5. not broke. no need to be uncle scrooge and swimming through cash in your personal safe (did anyone else ever think that looked painful?) , but have enough to be comfortable picking up the bill every once in awhile. i don't require especially expensive restaurants with a dude, and i'm happy to cook at home (with you, not just for you), but when we have a nice night out, don't get stuck trying to tabulate your bank balance in your head, asking if i have any cash for the tip.
6. knowledgeable about the hanging of mirrors. i have a mirror that i've needed hung for about 4 months now. glass makes me nervous, so i haven't wanted to chance it with just my google-knowledge. and, unlike my life in cali, there's no home depot around the corner with do-it-herself classes. i need you, man.

there's more, i'm sure, but i need to get dressed for work. so, like p. diddy, i'll be back with number two and a little ginuwine. :)

i know i rip off jezebel way too often, but

their montage on whoopi on the view this week is TOO GOOD!

i haven't loved whoopi this much since jumping jack flash!

i can't embed the video, so you have to click through.

enjoy!

can we talk about intersectionality for a moment?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

hmmm. was bill clinton the first black junkie president?

cuz he's talking like his brain's on drugs. you know, like those saturday morning commercials with the egg in the frying pan? i mean, straight crack talk. what is this?

"At the Greenville event, Bill brought up Obama’s joking reference to him in the debate, about how Obama would have to see whether Bill was a good dancer before deciding whether he was the first black president.

Bill, naturally, turned it into a competition. 'I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him, even though he’s much younger and thinner than I am,' he said. 'If I’m going to get in one of these brother contests,' he added, 'at least I should be entitled to an age allowance.'"
- from Maureen Dowd's 1.23 op-ed in the Times, emphasis mine

Okay, so, granted, Obama's "joking reference" was a little silly, as it really relies on a sort of critical consciousness that we can't take for granted in America's voters. I mean, why set people up to potentially think you mean what you say? That's a quick way to end up Dave Chappelle-like, running off in a frenzy of self-loathing and getting lumped in with Mariah Carey's really crazy ass.

So Obama has been a little silly and given a setup, but what does Bill say? Bill's response to this "joke" is a suggestion that he is, in fact, at least as black as Barack-- now he as a white man is eligible for a "brother contest"-- go fuckin' figure! And I was sitting here thinking that a white man that goes through his life with all the privileges of white supremacy at his back, and who has SERVED AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES would have to acknowledge that there's really no way for his dumb ass to be black, literally or figuratively. You would think that he would acknowledge the assertions of the completely idiotic black leaders that feel the need to open their mouths every G-D day and then modestly back away. You would think he would intelligently point out the differences in his experiences and that of a black person, and express a sense of flattery, but that the assertions minimize the reality of racism and discrimination in this country. You would think.

Basically, it would be hoped that he would put down the crack pipe, if only for a minute. Bill, as we "blacks" often say to each other, you've GOT to do better.

get your game up

just spent 15 minutes on the bus listening to a man bullshit his girlfriend over the phone. i mean, WOW.

not only did dude screw up his story over and over again ("I'm walking to the train station over here in Brooklyn...what's that sound? Oh yeah, did I say I was walking? Oh, my bad, I'm on the bus, baby!"), he was also trying to get at me in the process! dude, i know you're lying to another woman RIGHT NOW. and badly, to boot! no, i'm not gonna give you my fucking number. and you're the second dude i've met this weekend wearing british knights (yes, readers, by british knights i mean british knights).

if i thought i could have jumped off the bus fast enough to get away without any possible injury i would have blown his story up, but i'm just not that nimble. oh well.

interview for being a fellow advisor is coming up soon. keep the digits crossed!

i'll leave you with an ode to footwear:

OMG! and another one bites the dust...

yet another of my little whiteboy star crushes of the nineties has died of an apparent overdose!!!! :( what's wrong whiteboys? what happened? oh, brad, if only you had made it onto "dr. drew's celebrity rehab" in time!

i know i sound really shitty right now, and like i'm mocking this, but i'm not. i'm actually really serious. i'm actually really emotionally kind of shaken up. brad renfro is dead, and it makes me sad.

what is happening to our generation?

Question 1: Are you Black?

Question 2: Where did you get your research? Cuz it sounds like you've just been listening in a Burger King or a McDonald's!
- Questions posed to Prof. Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School,
author of Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal

Listening to "Sales History," a Brian Lehrer show podcast, tickled me this morning. For one thing, I'm days and days late on the show (originally broadcast on 1.10), which shows you that I have subscribed to far too many podcasts in my love frenzy for "my pretty lady." ("my pretty lady" is my ipod, btw.)

The second thing, though, is that I feel the media is bringing out every Black dude with a degree or some money to share their thoughts on the thoughts of a "community" that is so large and diverse in its constituents that I don't think anyone really knows who they're talking about, or to, for that matter. The idea that a Harvard Law professor, or anyone else for that matter, really knows what "Black America" can or will do, think, or believe is a little crazy, because there isn't one Black America. As someone who grew up in South Florida, has family in the Deep South and the Caribbean, and has now spent a good amount of time in both Southern California and the Northeast, I can tell you that there is no one "blackness" in this country. And a black kid in San Fran is going to have a much different take on this election than one in Marietta, Georgia. No doubt about it. So why can't we just leave the issue well enough alone?

As the commentary around Barack's race continues to intensify, I don't know how I feel about the myriad media sources bringing in people like this Randall Kennedy dude (who is black, by the way, and whose research was, granted, not at all based on conversations overheard in fast food joints) or Shelby Steele (who is on a podcast I have yet to listen to).

I don't want to know what they think, and I definitely don't want them telling "White America" what I think for me. I'll do that with my vote, thanks very much.

this american life: post-9/11 truth

listening to last week's "this american life" episode brought me to tears this morning on the train.

"shouting across the divide" is a set of stories about muslim-non-muslim relations, and act 1 (which is as far as I got between 125th and 34th streets) is the story of a young girl whose family is ripped apart post-9/11 by the unbelievable power ignorance and blind faith can have in a culture that discourages critical thought. i won't be silly enough to suggest that our culture is the only one that fits that description, but i will be bold enough to say that we are a part of that sad, sad group.

Stream it, and know this young girl's story.

sexism @ work

The quietly pacifist peaceful
always die
to make room for men
who shout.
- alice walker

I'm not exactly dying, but I am feeling the push to make room for a man who shouts at work. I think that I am drawn to female-led workplaces because I am very sensitive to the propensity for men, regardless of their political leanings, their race or their sexuality, to be fully, ragingly sexist in their dealings with women around them. As a teacher I feel that I worked more for my students than anyone else, and little (or big) boy- and girl-sexists didn't make me feel quite as defeated (being absolutely in charge over them helped too).
Now in the adult workplace, I am lucky to be surrounded, for the most part, by really chill guys who have their heads on straight. Respectful, thoughtful, open, and mentally present to the negative effects of white supremacy and patriarchy.
One man, though, is different. He is, somewhat unfortunately, African American and old enough to be my father, unfortunately because I think it is those aspects of his identity that cause our coworkers to expect the two of us to have an affinity. We get along as individuals, but within the workplace he has a sense of superiority and a desire to be in control that is frustrating. I, being the person who believes in bottom-up, collective decision-making and watching out for those below you as a way of watching out for yourself, find myself being trampled by his shouting. I don't know that the way he treats me is based in sexism exclusively-- he treats the men that are, in his mind, "below" him in the workplace in a very similar way. I, though, am not below him, and I do think there's something about my womanness that makes him feel that he can push me around in spite of our supposed equality.
Next stop on the self-development express: speaking up for myself horizontally, not just vertically. Not letting someone else make my job miserable or uncomfortable.

This mid-twenties thing really fucking sucks.