Thursday, December 4, 2008

Black people are so homophobic..

I've waited for a bit on the Prop 8 issues. When it was first passed everyone was running around saying, erroneously, that it passed because Barack got the Black vote out. See below...

"Gays came back in some polls, but they couldn't pull out a win. Part of the reason is that Obama inspired unprecedented numbers of African Americans to vote. Polls show that black voters are more likely to attend church than whites and less likely to be comfortable with equality for gay people. According to CNN, African Americans voted against marriage equality by a wide margin, 69% to 31%. High turnout of African Americans in Florida probably help explain that state's lopsided vote to ban same-sex weddings. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081106/us_time/whygaymarriagewasdefeatedincalifornia"



Working in a Gay heavy area I always hear laments about the Black community being so homophobic, and after I politely inquire as to why they feel blacks are more homophobic than, say... white people in Virginia, Mississippi, upstate Pennsylvania, or the dirty south...I inform them that an unsubstantiated belief about a group of people - especially when that belief is negative - falls in the racist category.



But I used my new patience button and waited...I would soon be vindicated by numbers....Half of everybody is homophobic. We, blacks, have enough on our plates without singled out as the sole source of American Homophobia. http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/10/proposition_8/index1.html

I wrote the above weeks ago and still decided to sit on it because something was nagging me about it...In the Huffingtonpost.com there is an article by a UNION alum that postulates that we may not be the sole source of homophobia, we may not be the cause of the bill passing at just 6% of the population BUT we are overwhelmingly homophobic and 7 out of 10 blacks voted against the right of LGBT people to marry......

And that was what was gently tapping my conscious. In my effort to combat the inherent racism of the blame being cast on our community I forgot to turn around and give black people a good smack in the face. I, for one, will admit publicly that I am tired of having the same conversation with blacks pointing out the obvious and hurtful contradiction in extending civil rights to blacks (say the right to be...uhm, not be enslaved...or uhm the right to vote) while simultaneously withholding them from Gays and Lesbians.

It is a problem and it is not okay.

And pastor, please stop dragging around that same dusty bag of excuses, gay marriage in no way is going to harm the stability of African American marriages - - it might give me some more options though. lmao.

Read the article...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/proposition-8-is-not-abou_b_142994.html

Thursday, November 20, 2008

I'm pissed off vol.1

1) I am pissed that people are criticising Obama...haha...for using Washington insiders in his cabinet. First; every Washington democrat has worked or somehow been affiliated with the Clintons period! There is a difference between having 'worked' for them and being a Clintonian duh! AND, working presently for a government institution, you don't get ANYTHING done without insiders, as much as you would like to dream it can be done another way; you just make those fat cats work for you - - it is possible... (forgive the grammer - I'm going all post-modern grammer today)

2) I am tired of people assuming they know what Black Feminists professed to believe or work that we have accomplished without ever having READ a frickin book by a black feminist. It is the absolute height of ignorance - like - could you be more Sarah Palin?

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Bailout my ass - vestiages of bush's corruption..

Does anyone besides me remember being told that we were naive about the economy? Do you remember being told that we would enter into an all encompassing depression if we didn't pass this notoriously unpopular, sneaky, slimy, underhanded welfare to the banks?

If we don't get these toxic assets off the books then we will suffer untold horrors...that's what they said. Anybody who doesn't know that is living in fairytale land....

But, uh, wait.... Let's leave those toxic assets on there and do something else with the money...say buy stocks, no, uh, hold half of it and see how this works out....

Seriously, is a n y b o d y else tired of being lied to?

Did you see the Senate questioning of the bank execs as they tried to explain why they were still paying bonuses? The one guy, literally a 'fat' cat, said something like "we weren't using tax payers money we were using other money!"

Really?!

Cats have really big balls... It was lovely to see the dem get in that 'you know what', however impotently...

Friday, November 7, 2008

Not even time to celebrate..

I was all prepared to apologize for my steadfast belief in widespread white racism towards blacks, and especially towards African-Americans, and yet before I could celebrate just two days I have begun to hear an idea that was whispered during the primary and then disappeared. It was the idea that much of Obama's success rested on his NOT being a decedent of slaves.

One of the most egregious comments is being proselytized by one Maureen Dowd of the New York Times...she writes,
"But I had been astonished by the overt willingness of some people who didn’t
mind being quoted by name in The New York Times saying vile stuff, that a
President Obama would turn the Rose Garden into a watermelon patch, that he’d
have barbeques on the front lawn, that he’d make the White House the Black
House.
Actually, the elegant and disciplined Obama, who is not descended from
the central African-American experience but who has nonetheless embraced it and
been embraced by it, has the chance to make the White House pristine again."

Another author, Richard Rodriguez, repeated a similar sentiment on NPR stating that part of Obama's success came from white mother and absence of his 'bigamist' African father (he really said that) AND his non-associated with the decedents of the American slave narrative - this allowed him to become successful and reach these heights.

Now I am aware that I am the ever watching bird of prey for racist sentiment but I am quickly tiring of the attempt to divorce Obama's success from the story, read trail and tribulation, of Black Americans.

FIRST because Obama, and he would agree with me, is withdrawing the interest of Civil Rights blood deposited during the 1960's - the walls that were torn down in the 60's largely by Black Americans and their White American allies. These decedents of slaves, the so called central African-American experience, paid the price with their blood so that this future would be possible. When Dr. King, and Medger Evans, and Malcolm X, and Fannie Lou Hammer, and Rosa Parks and dam it Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglas and and and gave their lives for the basic freedoms of ALL Americans to be respected and dignified and protected by law - that is the 'central African-American experience' that allowed Barack Obama to stand where he does today. His presence, no matter his parentage, is inextricably tied to the history of Black Americans and attempts to divorce him from that is to, again, deny the humanity and contribution of Black Americas – hell, it even impedes our ability to claim ownership of our own country.


SECOND these sentiments double down on the very real division in the Black Community between Black Americans of African, Caribbean, and Home grown decent. This sentiment dangerously sparks ideas of ownership of success when it truly belongs to every person of color who endures and succeeds in spite of the racism that plagues us. Remember NJ Jersey troopers rarely check 'where your people from' before they stop you illegally. NYPD bullets don't stop moving because 'your people' were not descendents of a “central African-American Experience’.

There is a shared experience of racism and triumph that gives the black experience in America its patina. I, for one, refuse to see the richness of our experience emptied of meaning by thoughtless and incendiary prejudice. Don’t call me telling me I’m over reacting either – it subtle but there, I swear.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Step your game up...yes you...

This is the easiest blog I've ever written.

What this win means to you, especially you, is that the bar of expectation has been raised.

You have no excuse not to get that degree, to finish that project, promotion , _____________ -

no excuse not to be as great as you can possibly be.

Step your game up.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The lessons of Procrastination...not learned.

Procrastination has always been the bane of my existence. I never learned the value of delayed gratification. If you know me at all then you know I eat my dessert before AND after dinner.

When will I learn?!?

I am, presently, chumping at the bit of intellectual jealousy because of one Bob Herbert of the New York Times. I had planned to write about how it has never been more clear that we all need one another, that we are inextricably tied to one another for our health and well being. We are dependent on our fellow human to be responsible and not selfish in the raping of economy for self gain.

40% of our wealth controlled by 1% of the population!?! Aghast!

My point, however, was that this concern, and others I had planned to join together, were so eloquently, so concisely, so brilliantly conveyed by one Mr. Herbert that I would be remiss to bore you by repeating them in a lesser fashion.

So please, I beg you, read this column by, the fly in the milk of Nytimes.com, Mr. Bob Herbert and rest assured that you aren't the only sane soul in our country right now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/opinion/04herbert.html?em

Monday, November 3, 2008

I Love Bekabug...

But can anyone tell me how to become the black Rachel Maddow? I'm going to scratch up a plan and then you guys chime in...

Hope to see the sun soon, tomorrow maybe?

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Good black men - Identity politics

Bear with me, many thoughts, tentative connections....



I went to see a movie this Tuesday [shot out to free Tuesdays at Clearview Cinema], it was called Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom. For those of you unacquainted - the movie is an expansion of the 'gaybopra' [let the record show - I was the first to use the term] Noah's Arc sitcom that premiered on Logo about three years ago.



It follows the lives of four black gay men in various states of relationships, very much in the vein of Sex in the City, with Noah serving in the Bradshaw role, all the way down to the plaid cape adorned suit with knee boots that opened the movie. Let me just say - I am a fan.



The reason for the adoration has sparked the subject of this blog. One reason why I follow this show is because of its exploration of a side of black men that we women know exist but is never shown on television and rarely sees the light of day in the real world. These men are vulnerable, they cry, they search for love, they get taken advantage of, they take advantage of, they care about clothing, they are violent, they are weak, they are unsure, they are sweet and confident, they are arrogant and caring - in other words - they may be the most full expression of black masculinity as I see it. In popular culture, there are so many one dimensional cartoonish depictions of black men and the injustice of it drives me crazy - regularly.


Now to pass along a conflict that my mother mutters to the television - the liberal, and may I add racist, media seems to allow only black gay men to have the full range of emotional expression. For example, the black guy in the Starter Wife, the first episode. As soon as I saw that he was successful, classy, and hiring an interior decorator I knew he would later be revealed a gay. Fair disclosure - narrow emotional representations may betrue for men across the board but with so little alternatives for black men the rigidity carries a greater weight in its effect on the perception of what and who black men are.



Anyway, listening to these men discuss how these narrow, and ultimately false, archtypes of black masculity affect their daily lives got me to thinking about identity politics and what it would mean for black men to have a black man in the white house. Ideally, in popular media everyone's stories are told. Everyone can look to our culture and see themselves, but in reality only certain stories are told, and thus only those people 'exist'; and the rest of us must force ourselves into whatever archetypes are presented to us. The results of that are obvious to us who content with not being 'it' but are obscure to those who do not have to recognize it. Much like the way that certain white people say racism doesn't exist anymore, while few blacks would agree ( I would say none but every group has an asshole - what cha gonna do...?) - in other words, if you don't experience it you can deny its existence.


Can I diverge and give you an example of being reminded that you aren't 'the main charactor'? My friends and I were visiting Philly last year and there was a promotion bus for the Spiderwick movie that was coming out in the spring. They had this little round black girl standing out in the freezing cold asking tiny soccer moms and their chlidren if they wanted to come in and get their face morphed into a character from the movie. It was freezing, somewhere in the 20s, so we took out 28 year old behinds in the truck. They had two options; a tubby brown ratty knommy looking thing, or a beautiful elf-like fairy. Well dam it if we didn't all want to be the fairy, I mean who doesn't want to be a fairy [insert irony]? Have you been in the girls aisle of KB toy store lately? You would think its was our life goal to be dressed in pink glitter frilly plastic everything. Anyway my friends and I wait the requisite three days to receive our pic - the results...

Now upon seeing the pic it occurred to me that in the larger society I would never be the beautiful fairy. My fat nose and big lips -here to fore referred to only as luscious - were meant for the little fat knommy ratty furry looking thing!

I revisited all the work I had to do to love who I was and be comfortable with who I was and came out on top, but shit if it wasn't a shocker. Do you remember the comedy skit where Whoopy, as in Goldberg, puts the white shirt on her head and pretends to have long white girl hair? I thought I was the only one who did that - apparently it is a wide spread practice of girls with short nappy hair trying to be the "white blond girl main charactor"... enter round peg and square hole. What it means is that you are never the main charactor, never the person who deserves a side kick to help you through your angst. It means that outside of your surrogate role you have no meaning - unless you somehow convince yourself in your mind that you are the blond white girl main charactor or....the fairy.

My point, long ago, was this - having Barack and Michelle in the white house means that our story, to some degree, will finally be told (I said some!). America will be forced to content with our existence on a daily basis, force to deal with our intelligence, our success, and our competence every single time they look to popular culture. We will be able to fit in, to say that this is mine too; a round peg AND a round hole...snicker.

The black male Psyche will be able to look to popular media and see a new archetype with which to aspire; whether he wins or not. We have all been remarking how black men have so much of their personal identity tied up in this race and this why. I surmised that now they don't have to be the 'gangsta', or the successful but arrogant and emotionally unavailable doctor, or the perfect all around man who must be homosexual, or any of the other 'comfortable and non-threatoning' depictions of black masculinity. They now can be the hard working, intelligent, emotionally available father who takes care of his family, oh, AND has a strong black women beside him to close the deal.

Hold your head up good black men - I always knew you existed and now everyone else will too.

Update: Another irony tidbit - see how little they actually discussed the movie in this article whose title indicates the article is about the movie on salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/10/29/roundup/index.html

Monday, October 20, 2008

Quick and Dirty

A visit to SNL but not Meet the Press.

And we should take her seriously why?

H.Clinton really is shitting bricks...

This is our first female VP candidate (deep sigh of contempt)...beyond a joke...just pass the twilight zone and to the left of cruel insulting prank from white capitalist patriarchy. shots to b.hooks.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Its so dark and peaceful down here...

I'm still posting from my ostrich hole of denial but I wanted to point out how the mainstream press has FINALLY over the past week acknowledged that they too are concerned with the rabid race baiting of the McCain/Palin campaign (check out my previous blog which mentioned it waaaaaayyyy before those overpaid, successful, not in debt - never mind you know what I mean..anyway before those folks noticed it).

I just wanted to add and say that after careful consideration of the issues that I have been thinking about lately, especially of all the political things that have been revealed in the past week,

I don't give a dam.

About any of it. I registered to vote - so what. Obama isn't going to change anything. McCain, should he win, I suspect will fuck u further BUT, and here is the bright side, either way I still have to pay my student loans for the rest of my life. The whole end of it, whatever is left, even the tiny crumbs at the bottom of the bag - it belongs to citibank. Economy tanks, gotta pay my loans. Economy fixes itself, gotta pay my loans. I marry rich and have beautiful children, still...gotta pay my loans. Do you see a pattern here? I should sing it, add a hook, a video with naked girls and then maybe my life will mean something...and all before the age of 30.

I should just die. That would teach 'em. Come get this money now! I mean, I could just see myself looking up at those bastards from my grave like, "ha, who's winning now...shit faces..."

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Ziiing!

It just started and I've already started yelling! ha. Op...there goes another zinger!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Ayers who?

I would get into it but instead will post a for more interesting article...

The New Republic article reports:

It would have far more factual validity for Obama, or a surrogate, to publicize the fact that Track, the kid who joined the Army, did so because a judge told him it was that or jail due to his dealing drugs. I have a strong hunch, however, the Obama people would never get into that. Up until now the lady has annoyed me because of her ignorance and arrogance, but now I am furious, especially when her headline-making remark from yesterday was that Obama was not "fit" to be commander-in chief. I think the McCain people better lock the lady up again and tell her to zip it, because she is not fit to even ad-lib.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/10/05/margo-howard-palin-should-zip-it.aspx

I really am speechless. One kid is a single parent and other a drug dealer?! Really, I just have nothing to say right now.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Admit it... It's okay we were all dissapointed...

Okay -

She didn't fall on her face and give you fits of disbelief and insane giggles like the Katie Couric interview.

I must say that it was important for me that she did fall on her face. Not for my own sense of the evil pleasure at someone else's, who happens to be evil, humiliation but so that when she states lies - okay, mischaracterizations - [like Obama has voted for tax increases 94 times] we can appropriately place that statement in the, "oh yeah, the woman with her face planted in the floor said that" file. In other words ignore her she is, at the very least, an idiot.

Let me dig up some numbers for you - I love the Internet....lets go factcheck.org...
23 of those votes would not have resulted in a tax increase for anyone
7 were in favor of a tax increase for for many
11 would have increased taxes for people who made over 1 million bucks
the rest? repeat votes...

It does not need to be stated that we have moved from a place of communal disagreement - meaning that we disagree about our 'shared future' as a common people - to a place were we no longer plan on coming together as a people. We knowingly misrepresent the truth to win at the expense of community. You lie to your people to stay in power? As though you won't have to then be in community with the very same people you lied to and about. Am I making any sense? No?

One does not lie on one's own family - in this case the family being America - because it causes irreparable harm to the relationship between those two parties. What kind of person doesn't care about the affects of their own actions?!!! I'm an sadden to think that we have revealed the fissures of hate and intolerance between us and have no way to heal them. We kinda need like a uhm a therapist for the country...yeah, a big comfy couch for us to sit on and talk about our feelings.

It could go like this: Rebekah, Let's start with how you feel about your people being dragged over here to build an empire that they would not be able to participate in for 250 years....

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Ostrich syndrome

So I have decided that none of this matters anymore.
My impotence intolerance quotient has blown its top and has popped like the proverbial muscle cramp in that fleshy sensitive part of my thigh.

I figure I don't have any credit to lose, I don't have a mortgage, I'm at the bottom of the "who do we have to get rid of" recession list at my job, and my job is as recession proof as possible (gov't funded baby!!!). So I have taken to silently shaking my fist at Cspan and then gouging myself on movies...

The Duchess - overall great, rape scene spoiler alert (I am still shuttering)
The Brave One - black man saves white women, lacked substance (still rolling my eyes)
Ghost Rider - So bad it was good, (still wondering if nick cage will ever do a movie where he can hold up his head...)
Revolver - Guy Ritchie does it again, (seriously, the same...exact...movie...again)
The Emperor and the Assassin - Gong Li is always great

I could go on, sadly, I really could go on but you get my point....I mean there isn't anything else to do in this dark hole I've got my head stuck in.

Cant wait for THURSDAY... oh boy oh boy... this is one debate I might need company for...

and on tap for tonight's dark hole of denial:

Pushing Daisey's (seriously excellent intelligent clothes, I mean show - ha)
ANTM (excellent season, will it still spark without the head held high trannie???!?)
The Spanish Prisoner (supposed to be like 'the usual suspects' - a big shoe to fill...)

I should clean this hole, I think we're going to be here a while.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

OMG McCain

I can't take it!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT!!!!! OH MY LORD!!!!

So we are in crisis and what we need, let me get this right Sen. McCain, is less ability to ask you questions on how you plan to address the multiple needs of this country?

Uhn huh. Well, many people will fall for that response to your shockingly low polling numbers [and i hate polls] but I won't.

And the people like me - the people with brains - won't fall for it either, I promise you.

I'm a Republican *Ack!

Uhm, so - I think I agree with the Republicans.

My broke behind is not identifying with the rich in order to forget my own circumstances - likewise with race, i.e I hang out with white people; therefore, I am... I still think the Defense of Marriage document is a load of bull, and frankly, against the American ideals of freedom and self-expression -- and other shit that isn't any ones business but your own.

But socialism in Wall street?! I'm afraid not bub...tap that vein and stick in the mind numbing, thought stealing, common sense eroding, community damming republican juices. Yum... (although, if it's an I.V, I wouldn't be able to taste that, now would I?)

I was listening to NPR this morning and this economist guy - former Treasury before the guy we've got now - says we don't have to give them a dime, simply guarantee the bonds for the price they will be worth at maturity. Benake plans on paying Wall street an established price anyway (the pea that began this mess) so simply say that the government backs them and that will liquefy the market.

Such simplicity! Such clarity! Such transparency! (what?! no back,side,front, outside, inside deals?!)

"Anybody in Washington thinking of this plan?" asked the Mr. Lopane

"Uh, no"

Exactly - crooked bastards.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Vacation Day 2

Is anyone still angry that they have no say in this government bailout plan? That they are giving this money to people with clause in the bill saying that there will be no over site by any government (or anyone else for that matter) entity? How the hell do you give someone trillions of dollars of our money and the say all matters pertaining to that money is off limits?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

Diversionary capitalism...Is anyone else excited about the new Google phone? On T-mobile? http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/live-blogging-from-google-phone-event/?hp
mobile blogging anyone?

to the gym and then back to the couch...

Monday, September 22, 2008

On Vacation...

Scarfing down mike and ike's
Not washing...anything
Not thinking about how fucked up this economic bill is going to be for the little people
Waiting anxiously for the heroes premiere....47 mins and counting...

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Government Bailouts

This is not an original thought, in fact, it is active plagiarism - of Whoopie on The View, no less.

If the economy is tanking because people are not paying their loans (at least that was the original crack - have you heard about the 'future funds' where they make bets on who is going to default on a loan?!? That's how they make profits, by guessing a debt - insane!), and the tax payers give them the owed money, why doesn't that wipe out the debt the tax payer owes? You see? Don't they, in effect, get paid twice - a government check and then whatever your sorry, broke behind pays them? Shouldn't you not owe them anymore....don't we always get the bottom of the muffin....?

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Obama waffles

So have you seen this one? I wanted to just say "enough said" and go watch 'The Biggest Loser', but it isn't enough. I can't say enough about the fact that we are a racist country.

When interviewed, the inventors of this product noted that it was not meant to be racist - they simply thought it was a great way to play up the fact that Obama changes his stance on different policies - his 'waffling'. They even pointed out that they 'loved' Aunt Jemima pancakes and thus it was a compliment to place his face on the box - I suppose the reason why Republicans 'believe' obvious lies, that keep getting repeated until they become truth, is because they do the same thing in their daily lives! - a fucking compliment...they weren't even cracking a smile when they said it.

Never mind that you can't see the caricature of Michelle on the other side, never mind the demeaning history of Aunt Jemima and the obvious cooning highlighted with those pictures, never mind the fact that they enlarged his lips and made them shiny, never mind the insensitivity of using a painful memory of an entire portion of the united states as humor - this is a painful dehumanizing mockery of a man who deserves to be respected. To make history in the way he has, to fundamentally change the way people will campaign for the highest office in our nation forever, to come from a group of people who remain marginalized and discriminated against, means that he gets placed in a category of veneration.

The need and desire to tear this man down, to denigrate him in this fashion truly comes from a vicious spirit - a spirit that needs to believe in the portrait painted on the side of that box. There is an identity whose existence requires that people of color remain that caricature and not the President of the United States of America. What would these racist do, in their small towns (although don't think for a moment that I don't know they are on the train with me, chilling in Saks with me, getting an 8$ latte with me), if they had to face the reality of black intelligence, of black humanity?!? That's the real fight here, and that explains the true source of the viciousness in this campaign - it is a fight for ones identity, the ability of one to continue to say that old joke... no matter, at least I'm not a nigger.

Update: In case you didn't see it coming - Stacy and Adam - the green team A.K.A the black team got voted off the first episode.... because they were the 'strongest'...aka...whatever, i'm going to bed...

Zimbawe

My heart is so full of emotion at the situation in Zimbabwe. I have to say until now that I thought that Robert Mugabe was the bad guy and he certainly is, the vicious attacks, beatings, and murders of his own people, who were trying to stand up for a democratically elected government, fully place him in the 'bad' category. Yesterday, though, listening to him at the power sharing ceremony, lament about the corruption and influence of the western powers on his government I started thinking. Obviously this guy is using the very real corrupting influence of the U.S and other first world countries to convince his people that he should stay in power. The amount of death and destruction for power and influence is staggering, and the idea that you would do that to your own people - they are all Zimbabwean - that is crazy. See in the U.S - when our government mistreats us, we are usually immigrants, or blacks, or poor - few of us have shared a land, a bloodline for hundreds of years...so it's okay - your own blood though- heartbreaking.

The power sharing idea is that Mugabe, president for 28 years,(...i know right - how the hell...) would hold control of the army and Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister, would hold control of the police. While watching Mr. Tsvangirai yesterday, it seemed to me that he was very westernized - shaking his head at Mr. Mugabe's complaints about the west, scapegoating them for the problems in Zimbabwe and Africa at large - but that put me on edge as well. It seems to me that an African leader who identifies closely with the west isn't going to be a good thing either - shit, we can't be trusted.

So then - the choice is between, an obviously corrupted leader in Mugabe - willing to murder and beat thousands of people, willing to corrupt the economic system so that their money is virtually worthless (1 billion=50 cent, don't quote me) - and Tsvangirai, a westernized leader who could bring calm and the manipulating subterfuge of the western businesses. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

(lamenting voice) Oh, the corruption of government and power! Although Zimbabwe has taken it to a new level of evil, am I being dramatic to feel that we will be on a similar path should the republicans take office for 8 more years? I am right? Killing in the streets, in America??? Probably not though I still feel that way.

My prayers go out for the massive death and destruction that those people have survived in their fight for freedom.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Lastly--American Divides

i think it is important to point out that although the republican strategy is divisive, it is merely a reflection of the very real [racial] division that was always there. these small towns that everyone is talking about, the "low-information" voter is such by choice. the decision to "believe" that obama is a muslim and that his first birth certificate is a fake (and i will get that citation for you) is a willing choice. they are not "stupid" or low information, they are racist.

What obama has unwilling brought to the forefront is a conversation about race that america refuses to confront - and although he wants to be post racial - we are not. We shall see on 11/04 just how far we have come since my grandmother, as a little girl in the south, had to get into the street if a white woman was walking toward her on the side walk.

Update:http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/15/ohio/

My fears about Palin

now i have written elsewhere about why Palin scares me but eve ensler has written it so much better than i have, i had to share, my friend sent this to me today:

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.

In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life? Eve EnslerSeptember 5, 2008

why women can't have it all...

listen - on my way to work this morning i had to hear meridith v. hosting a discussion about why it's so hard for women to have both a career and a family. no one understands why this is a conversation that only women have to have and not men blah blah blah sexism blah blah other nonsensical words and thoughts.

uh duh, we, women, struggle to have it all because men don't pull their weight.

i read a study - no i'm not citing it, this isn't the new york times - that said that when women get married they increase their household work 6 hours... - and get this - men decrease theirs by 2 hours...

its simple - my sisterhood of the traveling intellects - men were able to do both because women stayed home and raised the family. as we moved into the world of work we were expected to both pursue our careers AND the traditional women's roles without the same support. of course you can't do both!

it means that we need to call men out for not being equal partners in the tending of the house and career.

and let me say this - this shit is an issue for middle class mostly white women - black women have been working and taking care of their children, alone, since slavery... welcome to our world sisters.

I'ma control freak...

that's the only reason a person would need to have two blogs. right now i'm at work and my co-worker is bemoaning the fact that i have joined the masses of self obsessed myopic people who think folks give a dam about what they have to say. ah well - it's done.

So give a dam what i have to say and i'll try to make it funny.