"Blonde Skin"

Typical of most young children my daughter has a fascination with physical features.  Since she could speak coherently she has been describing people by the color of their eyes, the color of their hair, their size, and whether or not they are a boy or a girl, short or tall.  I've never really given this habit much thought until her recent fascination with skin color. 

She has a habit of grouping us at home by our physical features- saying things like "all people with blue eyes like chocolate and people with brown eyes don't," or "all the boys like corn and the girls like peas."  This never really phased me (she was right) until recently when she started sorting us by the color of our skin.  She has coined the term 'blonde skin' which is how she describes being white.  We have talked briefly about race and when I exlained that some people are Black and some are white she countered that no one has black skin just brown. 

Her innocent observations unnerved me.  Is my 5 year old racist?!  Why is she sorting us by our skin color?  A few days ago she said "only people with blonde skin can color" as she was making a picture.  Instinctively I told her not to say things like that, that it wasn't nice.  But will my own preoccupation with skin color only perpetuate racist sentiment?  Afterall, is what she said really any different than when she had sorted us by eye color, hair color, or gender?  Ultimately I want her to look beyond all of those physical characteristics and see what is truly important.  Maybe the best way to teach her that our physical traits are unimportant is to not overreact to the things she says when she has no idea of the potential offense she is committing.

Say it AGAIN! (They Obviously Can't Hear You!)

So what if it's been heard before?  Clearly nobody is listening so let us say it (or sing it) again!
Lady Gaga's latest hit "Born This Way" has been criticized for being unoriginal.  She has been accused of copying the music from Madonna's "Express Yourself" and the concept from a 1970's song "Born to Be Alive."  As long as there is art there will be immitation and in my opinion that does not invalidate true art.  All artists (musicians, painters, fashion designers, architects, etc.) are inspired by their predecessors and immitate them.  "Born This Way" at the very least does remind me of Madonna and there is no denying that "Express Yourself" and "Born This Way" fit perfectly together in a mash-up.  But isn't Lady Gaga's song the first to openly argue that LGBT lifestyle is not a choice but in fact a way that you are born?  It is at least the first song to do it AND be this popular, right?  What is it about human nature that makes us want to tear something apart as soon as it gains success?  If nothing else this song provides a message that is much needed in our society- 'Love and accept yourself because you are not a mistake!' 

Born This Way
by Lady Gaga

My mama told me when I was young
We are all born superstars
She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on
In the glass of her boudoir

"There's nothin wrong with lovin who you are"
She said, "'cause he made you perfect, babe"
"So hold your head up girl and you'll go far,
Listen to me when I say"

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way

Ooo there ain't no other way
Baby I was born this way
Baby I was born this way
Ooo there ain't no other way
Baby I was born-
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way

Don't be a drag -just be a queen
Don't be a drag -just be a queen
Don't be a drag -just be a queen
Don't be!

Give yourself prudence
And love your friends
Subway kid, rejoice your truth

In the religion of the insecure
I must be myself, respect my youth
A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital h-i-m (hey hey hey)
I love my life i love this record and
Mi amore vole fe yah (love needs faith)

Don't be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you're broke or evergreen
You're black, white, beige, chola descent
You're lebanese, you're orient

Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cause baby you were born this way

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life
I'm on the right track baby
I was born to survive

No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made
I'm on the right track baby
I was born to be brave
I was born this way hey!
I was born this way hey!
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way hey!

Comedians Hit a Funny Bone or Hit a Nerve?

Last Saturday my husband and I went to the Comedy Cellar in New York City with some friends. The show was hilarious and we got to see a lot of really talented comedians. While watching the show I couldn’t help but think about how the comedians Saturday, and so many of today’s most popular comedians, play on our biases to write their jokes. Most notably comedians use racism and racial stereotypes but there is certainly some sexism and other ‘isms’ thrown in the mix. I couldn’t help feeling a sense of freedom at not only being able to laugh at these biased jokes, but at the fact that everyone in the room clearly understood and appreciated the humor even though a lot of it was blatantly bigoted. But mostly it got me thinking: why is the topic of race okay when comedians bring it up as a joke? 
 
Obviously these racist scenarios and stereotypes resonate some degree of truth or else they would not be so universally funny. The truth is not the accuracy of the stereotypes but instead it is the fact that the stereotypes are simply flat-out wrong and yet they persist. Comedians are excellent at indirectly getting to the heart of real issues by poking fun at our own ridiculous biases and showing how easily they falter in the real world. What is it about our culture that only allows us to reach truth through comedy, as if that makes it any less true or us any less guilty of being racist or harboring racist sentiment?

Similarly, in our current polarized political landscape, the only news shows worth watching are the ones that don’t claim to be real news outlets but instead call themselves comedy shows; shows like The Daily Show often get at more truth and real issues than the actual “news” broadcasts ever do. Why is that?

Maybe we are just taking ourselves too seriously. In an age of political correctness, have we maybe gone too far? Biases are, after all, human nature; we all have them- good, bad, profound, superficial. I’m not trying to say that racism is right or okay but I do think that we should stop trying to hide it, or at least stop trying to disguise it with humor. On second thought if the humor is the only way to get to the truth then we shouldn’t stop the jokes. Instead maybe we should take some of that insight into our everyday lives. The simple fact that these biased jokes make hundreds of thousands of people laugh has to mean that we all secretly know the truth right? We all really know that we are all really racist, or sexist, or whatever. What if we stopped taking it so seriously? Could that be a way to actually overcome it? If race stopped being such a taboo topic, maybe we could finally overcome it‘s subsequent ‘ism.’ Exposing our biases might just make them disappear. Sure comedians will have to write new material, but there will always be in-laws.

When Will Women Get What They Want . . . . Without Feeling Judged or Guilty?

Somehow in the fight for women’s rights we lost our right to be mothers.

Women today can do and be anything. Over the past 50 years women all over the country have fought hard to obtain the equal rights we enjoy today. Though we still fight to obtain equal treatment and recognition with our male counterparts, we are undeniably in a far better place than we were 50 years ago, right?
I think the answer is yes, but while we have come a long way we are certainly no where near there (wherever “there” is).

In an interview on Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air, Wednesday, April 13^th, guest Tina Fey discussed some of these issues and how she brings them up on her show, 30 Rock. While listening I was annoyed by a clip played from an episode where Tina Fey’s character, Liz, tries to talk a young 20-something out of her decision to marry. As it turned out, my annoyance vanished with my laughter as I listened to the ridiculous clip. The 20-something explains to Liz how she has known her fiancé for “2 months in 3 weeks” and how she wants to have babies before she misses the window to be a hot mom.

But the topic still made me wonder; what would someone like Tina Fey have to say about me? I’m 20-something, married and have 2 children. Going against the current trend of putting family on hold in order to work on a career, I put my career on hold in order to have a family. While I’m pretty sure that if I ever had the chance to talk to Tina she would not accuse me of having babies young in order to be a hot mom, I do worry about what people think of me because of the choices I’ve made. What stereotype do I fit into? And why am I so preoccupied with this?

Maybe part of the reason is because of the way friends ask me how I am; patronizingly as though there is no possible way I could be 25, married, raising two children AND be happy. Well I am happy! And the only things standing in the way of complete bliss are the stigmas put on young motherhood by our society that simultaneously fights for the rights of women! Well, which is it? Can women be whatever they want to be? Or is the truth more that we can be whatever we want to be as long as it fits into the status quo and what authorities on the subject deem to be the best choices.

But wait one second, what were women of the last hundred years fighting for if not the right to have the freedom to be what and who we want to be; whether that is a mom and a wife, a relentless career woman, a nun, or a stripper?

Tina and Terry go on to discuss the double-standard of women as sex symbols and as I listened to Tina Fey I realized that she most certainly gets it. She sums it up brilliantly:

"It's just such a tangled-up issue, the way women present themselves — whether or not they choose to put their thumbs in their panties on the cover of Maxim and judge each other back and forth on it. It's a complicated issue, and we didn't go much further on saying anything other than to say, 'Yeah, it's a complicated issue and we're all kind of figuring it out as we go.'
" . . . But I find it interesting that Olivia [Munn, a correspondent on The Daily Show] gets people who go after her on some of these sites because she's beautiful, and that's part of it. I think if she were kind of an aggressive, heavier girl with a Le Tigre mustache posing in her underpants, people would be like, 'That's amazing. Good for you.' But because she's very beautiful, people are like, 'You're using that.' It's a mess. We can't figure it out."

It is a mess indeed! But brave people like Tina Fey, who slap you in the face with these issues on shows like 30 Rock, will help us figure it all out.

Listen to Wednesday's Fresh Air interview with Tina Fey
Watch "TGS Hates Women" 30 Rock Episode

A Final Word on Race (For Now) . . .

A few days ago I naively responded to a post entitled 'One Race' on the blog Resist Racism. 

This was the post written by resistance on April 12, 2011:

    It was planned by teachers for their elementary school students.  They sang and
    displayed signs that read “One World” and “One Race.”
    More than 90 percent of the teachers were white.
    And no, it wasn’t supposed to be a Klan rally.

I didn't get it.  Naively I responded saying basically that we are all biologically one race (Read the original post and my stupid comments here).  While I am embarrassed by my own ignorance, I am also grateful for places like resistracism.wordpress.com where (even though I'm sure most of the regular contributors find my comments annoying and stupid) I can make those comments and be corrected or called out and at least walk away knowing more than I did going in.

But the real issue here is the fact that I didn't get the significance of the original post.  In typical naive white person style I questioned it thinking "how is this racist?"  I thought that I did see how it could be interpreted as racist but that the teachers were probably well-intentioned and so it wasn't really a big deal.  But it is a big deal!  My own initial response to this proves how this is a big deal; how there are so many white people out there who just don't get it!  And I am admittedly one of them.  

Affirmative Action

In college I had to do a project about Affirmative Action.  My partner was a Black girl and my professor who reviewed our project was also Black.  I have complicated feelings about Affirmative Action.  I feel that it is necessary right now and that it does a lot of good but I feel that it is a temporary solution to a much bigger issue.  I think that our real goal should be to no longer need Affirmative Action.  Ideally in a society with a true ‘level playing field’ where all people have an equal opportunity to succeed something like Affirmative Action should no longer be necessary.  I attempted to explain this feeling to my partner and my professor (I think in an effort to not sound racist I ended up sounding more racist and not articulating my thoughts fully) and they seemed (understandingly) to get annoyed with me and my professor concluded that I did not truly appreciate Affirmative Action. 

She was right.  How could I?  As a white person how could I possibly fully appreciate Affirmative Action?  But looking back on that experience I wish that I had fully articulated my thoughts on the issue and had a real discussion with my partner and my professor.  Largely because of my own fear of being labeled ‘racist’ (which inevitably as a white person I am anyway) and also because of the stigma associated with really discussing race I think I missed out on a valuable learning experience and an opportunity to start to dissect a serious issue concerning race.

Hurricane Katrina and Japanese Tsunami in the Media

Here's an article from fox.com, Official: Astrodome Can't Take More Refugees, from Friday September 2, 2005.  I was surprised that this article does attempt to rationalize the acts of violence quoting one police captain as saying "These are good people.  These are just scared people."  But because all major television networks were reporting the same few acts of violence (unconfirmed) it appeared to be much worse than it was.

After Katrina, crimes of the immagination is an article from the New York Times written by Jim Dwyer and Christopher Drew on September 29, 2005 which discusses the probability that many of the crimes reported to have happened after the hurricane in reality did not.

Finally, here is an article about Japanese victims, Japan Will Rise to the Challenge, written April 6, 2011 by Xiaxiong Yi.  This article paints a picture of coopertive, patient victims who have rallied together even in the face of such tragedy.

To compare tragedies is a dangerous thing; akin to comparing the feeling of loss relatives of a loved one feel.  There is no way to compare, both of these natural disasters were devastating.  However, I do think that government response in each situation has made a huge difference.  I believe that the presence of special forces in New Orleans only added more terror to the situation naturally causing tension and violence to escalate.  From this article from CBSnews.com, Japan's Troops play major role in tsunami relief, it seems obvious to me that Japan's military is not only viewed as more peaceful by Japan's people (the military is actually called the Self-Defense Force) but the troops were the ones providing food and water, cleaning up buildings to use as shelter, and physically digging through rubble in search of dead bodies (CBSnews.com, March 31, 2011) relaying a message of help and relief rather than of violence.  Having heavily armed, heavily armored police and special forces storming through New Orleans was inevitably going to perpetuate fear and violence regardless of the race of the majority of the victims.

Must it Always Come Back to Race?

Of all our biases I feel that racism is the most upsetting. Perhaps because there is so much misunderstanding out there regarding a topic that has been a major part of society for over 400 years. How can it be that we still do not understand one another? And how can it be that this social construct (race) can be such a powerful factor in our lives, even for those of us who feel raceless/colorless and who are not even aware of how it pervades our lives?

Over the weekend I heard an awful ‘joke’ about why there has been no crime in Japan after the earthquake compared with the crimes in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I won’t repeat it; it isn’t funny. But it did make me think about why and if this fact is even true. My instinct tells me it’s not; I’m sure there has been crime in Japan and I do believe it’s possible that the crime following Katrina was over exaggerated or that it may have seemed worse due to the sprawling coverage on Network news channels. Clearly this false perception that Black people are predisposed in some way to commit crimes and acts of violence is perpetuated by the media. While we are bombarded by images of Black men convicts the actual issues are never discussed and us white folk are left in fear and ignorance. People with limited imaginations and even less capacity for questioning are left with the most obvious conclusions; race must be a factor.

Well, of course race is a factor but not in the way that most people are led to believe. A Black person is not inclined to perform criminal acts because of some trait inherent in his race, but because the color of his skin makes him vulnerable to the systematic oppression in our society. After living with such oppression any person would be more inclined to act out, especially when surrounded by images of your counterparts imprisoned, dealing drugs, rapping, or playing basketball.

I am aware that this has all been said. These stereotypes are not news to anyone, especially not to people of color who live with them every day. But I think what has potential to be new is a real, open discussion about these issues between people of all races. Have there been any discussions in popular media outlets contrasting the actions of the victims in Japan with those in New Orleans? (Please post links to anything relevant!) While there is stigma around comparing tragedies for obvious reasons an open discussion could help to dissipate the detrimental stereotypical conclusions that people are drawing on their own.

Was there more crime in New Orleans after Katrina than in Japan after the earthquake? If so, why? I would be more inclined to think that it has much more to do with culture than race and most likely social status played a role too. What about the feeling of being abandoned by your own government? I’m sure that also angered people into criminal action after Katrina. But the point is that these ‘jokes’ are being spread around white communities fueling the fire of bigotry while the actual issues at the heart of this ‘joke’ are left ignored.

A Crucial Read Regarding Race

I first read Peggy McIntosh's article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, in college in my Women's Studies course and it forever changed my perception of racism in America.  Like Peggy I too was taught and believed that racism was only an individual act and not in fact a systematic problem.  Before starting this blog I questioned how I, a white female, could have the audacity to write about racism.  But I now realize that I am an integral part of the machine of insitutionalized racism.  I (along with every white person) allow racism to continue by being privileged and doing nothing about it.  As long as we stay away from one another we will fear and/or hate one another and continue to live apart and the cycle of white privilege will continue.  So what do we do?  Come together as common human beings?  Open up about the taboo topics of race and privilege until they no longer shock, intimidate, or scare?

A Few Follow-up Thoughts to White Fright . . .

Think of a situation where you have felt similarly (White Fright).

Why do you think people tend to surround themselves with people of their own race? Sure we could call it human nature but does that make it right? Of course it is understandable for us fearful humans to have a tendency to stick with people who are the most like us. We are afraid of differences because those differences represent what we do not understand and what we do not understand we fear. But why?! And why not try to change it!?

I want to hear from you!

Agree? Disagree? Understand? Appalled?

Tell me!

I specifically want to hear from the other side. I know there are people who have similar experiences as I did and this is not about an affirmation of my insecurities. I am more interested in what those African Americans were thinking when they saw me and my white family in their foodstore. Or even more interestingly how does it feel to be Black in an all-white school, or an all-white office? Or Mexican, or Haitian, or Pakistani? What are some of the things that I will never, can never, understand as a white female?

White Fright

I like to think of myself as an open-minded individual free from biases and predisposed notions and so I was taken aback by my own feelings during a grocery trip a few months ago. What I am about to admit I did not mention to anyone, not even my husband who was with me at the time. But in an attempt to promote the openness I hope to inspire with this blog, I am about to admit personal feelings that I am ashamed of.

A few months ago I was surprised by how it felt to be one of the only white people in a local grocery store. I felt awkward and out-of-place. The feeling of discomfort was almost tangible and I might even go as far as to say that I was (on some level at least) afraid. I can say that I did not act as if I were disconcerted in any way and I am confident that no one would have known how I really felt, but I will also admit that I have not been back to that particular grocery store.

To better understand this maybe it would help to know a little about my personal background. I grew up in a predominantly white, upper-middle class rural New Jersey community. I attended a small high school with a graduating class of around 200 of which maybe 2% were not white. All of my teachers were white and only one administrator was African American whose time as our elementary school's vice principal lasted one short year.

It was not until I went to college in Boston that I really began to understand the effects that living in a homogenous place had on my misunderstanding of the world. Before I attended college I had believed that racism was a problem that individuals faced and not in fact the systematic problem that it is; a systematic problem that pervades so many aspects of our lives from the media to politics, from early childcare to secondary education.

Even though I grew up surrounded by people like me I did eventually go to college in a major city with a diverse population and I've since lived and worked in places where I was a minority. So why was my shopping experience so discerning? Why did I feel so uncomfortable surrounded by so many people who I percieved as different from me?

Now imagine the situation reversed. While I am ashamed of how I felt when I was a minority in this situation, I do think that it has allowed me to understand in some small respect how most minorities must feel in so many situations; so many of them more significant than my little shopping scenario.