As we approach the beginning of a new year, the default mode for most of us, myself included, is to draw up plans for the coming year. Many of us have fallen away from those plans in the past, myself included. This year, I've decided to keep it simple, making one resolution and only one for 2014: To use what I have.
The idea came to me when I thought about how I had organized my pantry and, to my detriment, had to throw out a lot of food that had expired. I wasted a lot of food out of sheer disorganization. I could have fed myself, BMNB, and a whole host of others if I had donated the food before it expired. I decided going forward to use what I have -- to look in my pantry before making grocery lists or find recipes using what I already have.
The idea of using what you have applies to more than food in your pantry. Many times I think that if I buy this or that new gadget (Zumba DVD) or pay money for something I already have (a gym membership near my new job despite the fact that my neighborhood clubhouse has a well-equipped gym I already pay for with HOA fees), that I'm more likely to use those things. Tell that to the 7-part Gaiam Yoga series tape (yes, I have a DVD player that also plays VHS tapes) and the more than 60 workout tapes and DVDs I have, not counting the elliptical machine, aerobic step, Windsor Pilates strap, dumb bells, two inflatable exercise balls, yoga blocks and countless yoga mats I already have. If I merely used what I have (I have enough exercise DVDs and videos to do a different one every day for two months), I would have already reached my fitness and weight loss goals.
Just as the food was always in my pantry and the exercise equipment always in my house, what I need to accomplish whatever it is I set my mind to, I already have. I simply have to use it.
Using what I have isn't just about accomplishing things; it's also about the joy that comes from using the gifts that God gave me. If I had to describe myself, I would describe myself as a creator. I like creating things, whether through writing, crocheting, cooking, decorating, starting a business, brainstorming with friends or leading. I like figuring out what I need to do to make something out of nothing other than an idea and then doing it. And I'm pretty good at these things and enjoy doing them.
When you think of it, why would God give you a gift if he didn't want you to use it? And what a joy we get from using those gifts! I recently saw a video on Facebook in which the narrator said that the richest place in the world was the cemetery because it was full of all the unused talents and dreams that people had taken with them to the grave. The video exhorted us to, like a car driving a fumes, "end our lives on E," having used up all the gifts and dreams God gave us. Word.
My wish for all of you dear readers and myself is that we use the gifts God has given us. . . as well as all those Billy Blank Tae-Bo VHS tapes and hidden cans of salsa in the pantry.
Happy New Year!
A Double Standard in Judging Bigotry (Phil Robertson versus Paula Deen)
I noticed that Phil Robertson has been allowed to return to "Duck Dynasty." Well and good. Actually, I don't know how you allow someone to return to a show that probably would not exist without him, but hey, what do I know.
But isn't this a double standard in judging bigotry?
I noticed last week in Wal-Mart that none of the "Duck Dynasty" licensed goods -- t-shirts, blankets, etc. -- had been removed from the shelves. Yet, when Paula Deen was vilified for a racial slur she uttered decades ago, she not only lost her show, but her licensed goods were yanked from Wal-Mart's shelves tout suite.
So, Phil Robertson's comments that were offensive to two groups -- the LGBT community and the African-American community -- were less offensive than the one racial slur Paula Deen uttered in the '60's that was offensive to only one group?
Am I missing something here?
I guess calling ducks is more remunerative to corporate America than cooking them.
But isn't this a double standard in judging bigotry?
I noticed last week in Wal-Mart that none of the "Duck Dynasty" licensed goods -- t-shirts, blankets, etc. -- had been removed from the shelves. Yet, when Paula Deen was vilified for a racial slur she uttered decades ago, she not only lost her show, but her licensed goods were yanked from Wal-Mart's shelves tout suite.
So, Phil Robertson's comments that were offensive to two groups -- the LGBT community and the African-American community -- were less offensive than the one racial slur Paula Deen uttered in the '60's that was offensive to only one group?
Am I missing something here?
I guess calling ducks is more remunerative to corporate America than cooking them.
In Defense of Phil Robertson (The Right Thing To Do)
I haven't been following the dust-up about Phil Robertson's quotes in GQ magazine as closely as some, and I don't necessarily share the same feelings about them as does my sister, The Writing Diva. I think issues of race and sexual orientation in the South are more complex than those of us raised outside the South understand. When a white Southerner expresses a point of view about sexual orientation or race that isn't in line with moderate America's expectations, we're quick to dismiss that person as an ignorant, backwoods hick.
It's more complicated than that.
Maybe it's because of Nelson Mandela's recent passing that I'm stepping back and taking the longer view on what Phil Robertson said in light of his life experience and mine. Here's my life experience.
I lived in Mississippi for a year. What I learned living there is that even if Southern or rural Southern whites believe that the Bible forbids what you're doing or how you're living, that doesn't necessarily mean that they hate you or that they would mistreat you. My experience is that there is a Southern code of conduct, so to speak; I would call it "The Right Thing To Do": -- No matter what people might think of you or what you do, unless they're rabid racists, they're going to treat you with respect and human kindness just as they would want to be treated. The culture of respect runs deep in Southern culture. My mental litmus test for anyone, including Phil Robertson, is, "Would this person help me if I were stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire?" Trust me, you're more likely to be helped by a Southerner of any race than a Californian. Southerners of any race help strangers simply because it's The Right Thing To Do. I watch "Duck Dynasty," and although I've never met Phil Robertson, I think he would pass my litmus test.
There are a lot of Christians of all races who believe that homosexuality is a sin. That doesn't mean they hate gay people or would harm them. I don't recall there being this much of a dust-up when, on "R&B Divas," the singer Monifah, who came out, asked her daughter if she could support Monifah's union with her partner Terez. Her daughter said, "No, no I can't." It was a matter of faith, not hate, for her. It didn't mean that she loved her mother less; it simply meant that, as a matter of faith, she could not encourage a gay union. Good Christians are perfectly capable of hating the sin (or at least what they consider sin) and loving the sinner. They need to be because we're all sinners.
Finally, I think we have to look at context and life experience when taking the measure of someone. Phil Robertson's remarks about black people were based on his life experience, which I hazard to guess is rather limited. I doubt that black folks picking cotton with him back in the day could tell him how they truly felt about their lives and experiences. Just as we black folks today can't necessarily share all our feelings at work lest we be branded as radical or angry, I'd be willing to bet that the happy temperament of black folks that Phil Robertson experienced while picking cotton with them was the part of their feelings that was safe to share with whites during that time. That is what he experienced. The implication of his statement that this state of black affairs was "pre-welfare" and "pre-entitlement," although misguided and ill-informed, doesn't appear to me to be an expression of hate. Maybe I'm naïve.
I watch "Duck Dynasty," and I think many people who are quick to criticize Phil Robertson have never seen the show. I enjoy the show. The reason I enjoy it is because, like Tyler Perry's "Madea" movies, there's always a moral to each episode. I like that they are family that hasn't let wealth change them, they stick together, and they have all the same characters and problems that all families have: A crazy but loving uncle (Uncle Si); a patriarch (Phil Robertson) who, like many Southern patriarchs, is really ruled by the matriarch of the family (Miss Kay); and adult sibling rivalry (Jase and Willie). They end each episode at the dinner table saying grace and thanking the Lord for their blessings, like many families of all races do daily across the South. They truly appear to love one another, and it's clear that Phil Robertson loves his family deeply. What I don't see on the show, and what I've never seen, is hate.
I have advanced degrees from two Ivy League institutions, and I have lived all around this country. If you asked me to bet whether one of my "to the manor born" white Harvard classmates or white trash (his words) Phil Robertson would be most likely to help me if I were stranded by the side of the road, I'd pick Phil Robertson every time. He'd do it because, as a Southerner, he knows it would be The Right Thing To Do.
It's more complicated than that.
Maybe it's because of Nelson Mandela's recent passing that I'm stepping back and taking the longer view on what Phil Robertson said in light of his life experience and mine. Here's my life experience.
I lived in Mississippi for a year. What I learned living there is that even if Southern or rural Southern whites believe that the Bible forbids what you're doing or how you're living, that doesn't necessarily mean that they hate you or that they would mistreat you. My experience is that there is a Southern code of conduct, so to speak; I would call it "The Right Thing To Do": -- No matter what people might think of you or what you do, unless they're rabid racists, they're going to treat you with respect and human kindness just as they would want to be treated. The culture of respect runs deep in Southern culture. My mental litmus test for anyone, including Phil Robertson, is, "Would this person help me if I were stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire?" Trust me, you're more likely to be helped by a Southerner of any race than a Californian. Southerners of any race help strangers simply because it's The Right Thing To Do. I watch "Duck Dynasty," and although I've never met Phil Robertson, I think he would pass my litmus test.
There are a lot of Christians of all races who believe that homosexuality is a sin. That doesn't mean they hate gay people or would harm them. I don't recall there being this much of a dust-up when, on "R&B Divas," the singer Monifah, who came out, asked her daughter if she could support Monifah's union with her partner Terez. Her daughter said, "No, no I can't." It was a matter of faith, not hate, for her. It didn't mean that she loved her mother less; it simply meant that, as a matter of faith, she could not encourage a gay union. Good Christians are perfectly capable of hating the sin (or at least what they consider sin) and loving the sinner. They need to be because we're all sinners.
Finally, I think we have to look at context and life experience when taking the measure of someone. Phil Robertson's remarks about black people were based on his life experience, which I hazard to guess is rather limited. I doubt that black folks picking cotton with him back in the day could tell him how they truly felt about their lives and experiences. Just as we black folks today can't necessarily share all our feelings at work lest we be branded as radical or angry, I'd be willing to bet that the happy temperament of black folks that Phil Robertson experienced while picking cotton with them was the part of their feelings that was safe to share with whites during that time. That is what he experienced. The implication of his statement that this state of black affairs was "pre-welfare" and "pre-entitlement," although misguided and ill-informed, doesn't appear to me to be an expression of hate. Maybe I'm naïve.
I watch "Duck Dynasty," and I think many people who are quick to criticize Phil Robertson have never seen the show. I enjoy the show. The reason I enjoy it is because, like Tyler Perry's "Madea" movies, there's always a moral to each episode. I like that they are family that hasn't let wealth change them, they stick together, and they have all the same characters and problems that all families have: A crazy but loving uncle (Uncle Si); a patriarch (Phil Robertson) who, like many Southern patriarchs, is really ruled by the matriarch of the family (Miss Kay); and adult sibling rivalry (Jase and Willie). They end each episode at the dinner table saying grace and thanking the Lord for their blessings, like many families of all races do daily across the South. They truly appear to love one another, and it's clear that Phil Robertson loves his family deeply. What I don't see on the show, and what I've never seen, is hate.
I have advanced degrees from two Ivy League institutions, and I have lived all around this country. If you asked me to bet whether one of my "to the manor born" white Harvard classmates or white trash (his words) Phil Robertson would be most likely to help me if I were stranded by the side of the road, I'd pick Phil Robertson every time. He'd do it because, as a Southerner, he knows it would be The Right Thing To Do.
Home Ownership Is Not "Acting White"
This blog entry is dedicated to Bob "Treebob" Williams, who gave Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) the gentle nudge to buy his first home. Rest in peace, Bob.
Sadly, there are many characteristics that my people write off as "acting white": Being intelligent, speaking English well, doing well in school, having good credit. But there's one that strikes fear in my heart for the next generation: Home ownership.
The Housing Bubble and the Great Recession resulted in lots of African-Americans losing their homes. Many of us have written off home ownership, thinking of the whole real estate market as being shady (and there's something to that; more on that later) and of home ownership as being beyond our reach and for white folks.
The reason this scares me is that the gains we as African-Americans made in home ownership in the late '90's and early 2000's won't be regained if we as a people simply write off home ownership. Why does it matter? Because a home is the largest intergenerational wealth transfer that most people make. Because home ownership often sets the stage for paying for a child's education. Because home ownership can be part of the portfolio of assets that pay for retirement.
Watching us turn away from home ownership reminds me of an episode of "Sex in the City" when Carrie Bradshaw receives notice that her apartment building is going co-op. She's been given the opportunity to buy her apartment. One would think that Carrie, with her love of Manolos and all things luxe, wouldn't sweat buying her apartment. She does, though, because she can't afford it. So she writes off home ownership until, over lunch with Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, she discovers that they are all home owners. The vulnerability that Carrie felt -- that she could be out on the street at the whim of her landlord -- was palpable. In the end, Charlotte sells her wedding ring to loan Carrie the down payment on her apartment.
Home buying doesn't normally occur this way for black folks. That doesn't make it any less important.
The reason why I harp on this so much is that I wonder, "What will average African-Americans have to hand down to their children if they don't buy homes?" True, you will, on average, experience a higher rate of return from investing in stocks than in investing in real estate. And I don't consider home ownership to be a true "investment." But home ownership doesn't require the same level of expertise required to pick stocks, and it is highly subsidized by the government because of the mortgage interest deduction, and even more so if you are a veteran and qualify for veterans' home loans. You have to live somewhere -- why not own what you live in?
I'm not concerned about the wealth gap between African-Americans and whites for wealth's sake. I'm concerned about it because wealth means freedom. The more money you have, the more choices you can make about your life -- whether to go to college, where to live, what to do for a living. The ability to transfer wealth between generations is the basis for that economic freedom. Home ownership is part of the wealth transfer.
Yes, the Housing Bubble housing market was shady. Yes, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other financial institutions conspired to put African-Americans in subprime loans. Yes, we need to be smarter the next time around. But you don't throw out home ownership entirely because you got burned. It's not about you. It's about the generations to come behind you.
Home ownership starts with an intention. The intention leads to a plan -- improving your credit, saving your money, having a stable job. It requires sacrifice -- fewer shoes, fewer Xboxes and flat screen TVs, more savings. And it may require flexibility -- if you live in a high cost area, you might have to buy somewhere more affordable -- like Texas. Instead of a house, you might have to start out with a condo. Instead of new construction, you might have to start with a fixer-upper and watch home improvement shows and how-to videos on YouTube. You might have to buy your house with other relatives, maybe with two or more families. You might have to buy in a not-so-great neighborhood and convert your local school into a charter school. But over time, the appreciation in value that normally occurs with home ownership (Real Estate Bubble notwithstanding) will inure to your benefit and the benefit of your children and their children.
What scares me now is that there are real estate investment firms that are buying up unfinished lots and building new homes solely for the purpose of renting them.
Not selling them. Renting them.
This phenomenon is playing itself out in Atlanta, and it looks like it's targeted toward African-Americans who want to live in a new house and can't afford to buy where they want to live. It's like real estate crack -- once you get that high of living in a brand new home that you rent, you're not willing to make the long-term sacrifice to buy a home that you can actually afford and trade up later. It's like trading off long-term financial benefit for short-term real estate euphoria. And we're falling for this real estate okey-doke yet again.
People, let's not fall for this again. The only thing renting a house does is make the owner of that house richer.
And, for the record, home ownership is not acting white. My parents owned their home. My uncles and aunts owned their homes. My grandparents owned their homes.
Wouldn't it be a shame if the pre-civil rights, "Jim Crow" generation of African-Americans transferred more wealth to us through home ownership than we transfer to the generations following us?
Sadly, there are many characteristics that my people write off as "acting white": Being intelligent, speaking English well, doing well in school, having good credit. But there's one that strikes fear in my heart for the next generation: Home ownership.
The Housing Bubble and the Great Recession resulted in lots of African-Americans losing their homes. Many of us have written off home ownership, thinking of the whole real estate market as being shady (and there's something to that; more on that later) and of home ownership as being beyond our reach and for white folks.
The reason this scares me is that the gains we as African-Americans made in home ownership in the late '90's and early 2000's won't be regained if we as a people simply write off home ownership. Why does it matter? Because a home is the largest intergenerational wealth transfer that most people make. Because home ownership often sets the stage for paying for a child's education. Because home ownership can be part of the portfolio of assets that pay for retirement.
Watching us turn away from home ownership reminds me of an episode of "Sex in the City" when Carrie Bradshaw receives notice that her apartment building is going co-op. She's been given the opportunity to buy her apartment. One would think that Carrie, with her love of Manolos and all things luxe, wouldn't sweat buying her apartment. She does, though, because she can't afford it. So she writes off home ownership until, over lunch with Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, she discovers that they are all home owners. The vulnerability that Carrie felt -- that she could be out on the street at the whim of her landlord -- was palpable. In the end, Charlotte sells her wedding ring to loan Carrie the down payment on her apartment.
Home buying doesn't normally occur this way for black folks. That doesn't make it any less important.
The reason why I harp on this so much is that I wonder, "What will average African-Americans have to hand down to their children if they don't buy homes?" True, you will, on average, experience a higher rate of return from investing in stocks than in investing in real estate. And I don't consider home ownership to be a true "investment." But home ownership doesn't require the same level of expertise required to pick stocks, and it is highly subsidized by the government because of the mortgage interest deduction, and even more so if you are a veteran and qualify for veterans' home loans. You have to live somewhere -- why not own what you live in?
I'm not concerned about the wealth gap between African-Americans and whites for wealth's sake. I'm concerned about it because wealth means freedom. The more money you have, the more choices you can make about your life -- whether to go to college, where to live, what to do for a living. The ability to transfer wealth between generations is the basis for that economic freedom. Home ownership is part of the wealth transfer.
Yes, the Housing Bubble housing market was shady. Yes, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other financial institutions conspired to put African-Americans in subprime loans. Yes, we need to be smarter the next time around. But you don't throw out home ownership entirely because you got burned. It's not about you. It's about the generations to come behind you.
Home ownership starts with an intention. The intention leads to a plan -- improving your credit, saving your money, having a stable job. It requires sacrifice -- fewer shoes, fewer Xboxes and flat screen TVs, more savings. And it may require flexibility -- if you live in a high cost area, you might have to buy somewhere more affordable -- like Texas. Instead of a house, you might have to start out with a condo. Instead of new construction, you might have to start with a fixer-upper and watch home improvement shows and how-to videos on YouTube. You might have to buy your house with other relatives, maybe with two or more families. You might have to buy in a not-so-great neighborhood and convert your local school into a charter school. But over time, the appreciation in value that normally occurs with home ownership (Real Estate Bubble notwithstanding) will inure to your benefit and the benefit of your children and their children.
What scares me now is that there are real estate investment firms that are buying up unfinished lots and building new homes solely for the purpose of renting them.
Not selling them. Renting them.
This phenomenon is playing itself out in Atlanta, and it looks like it's targeted toward African-Americans who want to live in a new house and can't afford to buy where they want to live. It's like real estate crack -- once you get that high of living in a brand new home that you rent, you're not willing to make the long-term sacrifice to buy a home that you can actually afford and trade up later. It's like trading off long-term financial benefit for short-term real estate euphoria. And we're falling for this real estate okey-doke yet again.
People, let's not fall for this again. The only thing renting a house does is make the owner of that house richer.
And, for the record, home ownership is not acting white. My parents owned their home. My uncles and aunts owned their homes. My grandparents owned their homes.
Wouldn't it be a shame if the pre-civil rights, "Jim Crow" generation of African-Americans transferred more wealth to us through home ownership than we transfer to the generations following us?
If Mandela was a Communist and a Terrorist, What Were the Afrikaners?
I had been reading all the online tributes to Nelson Mandela, learning things about him that I didn't know (his favorite dish was tripe, which the author incorrectly identified as animal intestines -- tripe is stomach), when I made the mistake of reading the comments below one article. One commenter objected to the tributes for Mandela, calling Mandela a communist and a terrorist.
Really? And what were the Afrikaners?
I usually don't respond to stupidity because the response elevates the stupidity. But in this case, I won't let the ignorant corrupt history, anonymously online, no less. Never mind the fact that such comments violate the maxim that you should not speak ill of the dead.
We've seen this all before. When a great political figure, usually a person of color, is known for having stood up to make humankind accountable to the principles of freedom and equality, they are politically slurred in death without any reference to the context in which they acted. Think Dr. King.
True, Nelson Mandela had once been a communist. He also refused to renounce violence. But he didn't come to the world that way. If Mandela was a communist and a so-called "terrorist" (one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and sometimes both -- ask the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan), he was made that way by the Afrikaners who came to his homeland and corrupted the idea of democracy. I guess Mandela, like many oppressed people, had the nerve to think that democracy and freedom and equality should go hand in hand. How dare he.
And therein lies the problem. Anytime a government or any majority corrupts a system of beliefs -- whether it's democracy or religion -- people who suffer under such corruption turn away from it. Why would you continue to support a system of beliefs that people hide behind in order to oppress you? If Nelson Mandela, Bayard Rustin and Paul Robeson were communists, it was because democracy had clearly failed and oppressed them and their people. They were not wrong. The terrorists wearing the mantle of democracy were. Think Bull Connor.
If Mandela was a so-called "terrorist," it was because non-violence in pursuit of freedom and equality in what was ostensibly a democratic society had failed. Non-violence by black South Africans in pursuit of freedom and equality was met with bullets, not conciliation. Nelson Mandela becoming willing to use violence in defense of his people was no different than the Black Panther Party doing the same, and for the same reasons. George Washington fights for freedom, and he's a patriot; Nelson Mandela fights for freedom, and he's a terrorist?
So to call Mandela, or any person with the courage to be willing to die for freedom, equality and democracy, a communist or a terrorist without reference to the political forces acting against them at that time is sheer ignorance.
The difference between Mandela and most people is that he wouldn't have even engaged in this debate out of the spirit of reconciliation.
Really? And what were the Afrikaners?
I usually don't respond to stupidity because the response elevates the stupidity. But in this case, I won't let the ignorant corrupt history, anonymously online, no less. Never mind the fact that such comments violate the maxim that you should not speak ill of the dead.
We've seen this all before. When a great political figure, usually a person of color, is known for having stood up to make humankind accountable to the principles of freedom and equality, they are politically slurred in death without any reference to the context in which they acted. Think Dr. King.
True, Nelson Mandela had once been a communist. He also refused to renounce violence. But he didn't come to the world that way. If Mandela was a communist and a so-called "terrorist" (one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and sometimes both -- ask the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan), he was made that way by the Afrikaners who came to his homeland and corrupted the idea of democracy. I guess Mandela, like many oppressed people, had the nerve to think that democracy and freedom and equality should go hand in hand. How dare he.
And therein lies the problem. Anytime a government or any majority corrupts a system of beliefs -- whether it's democracy or religion -- people who suffer under such corruption turn away from it. Why would you continue to support a system of beliefs that people hide behind in order to oppress you? If Nelson Mandela, Bayard Rustin and Paul Robeson were communists, it was because democracy had clearly failed and oppressed them and their people. They were not wrong. The terrorists wearing the mantle of democracy were. Think Bull Connor.
If Mandela was a so-called "terrorist," it was because non-violence in pursuit of freedom and equality in what was ostensibly a democratic society had failed. Non-violence by black South Africans in pursuit of freedom and equality was met with bullets, not conciliation. Nelson Mandela becoming willing to use violence in defense of his people was no different than the Black Panther Party doing the same, and for the same reasons. George Washington fights for freedom, and he's a patriot; Nelson Mandela fights for freedom, and he's a terrorist?
So to call Mandela, or any person with the courage to be willing to die for freedom, equality and democracy, a communist or a terrorist without reference to the political forces acting against them at that time is sheer ignorance.
The difference between Mandela and most people is that he wouldn't have even engaged in this debate out of the spirit of reconciliation.
Thank You to the Family of Nelson Mandela
There's not much I can say about the passing of Nelson Mandela that hasn't already been said. I don't have the encyclopedic knowledge about him that historians and Wikipedia have. I participated in anti-apartheid sit-ins once or twice, not with the same commitment to the cause as some of my college and law school classmates. Much of what I know about him comes from accounts about him, not from what I observed first hand.
But there is something I can say that may not be said enough during this time of grief and mourning: Thank you to the family of Nelson Mandela.
We often forget that when someone accepts the mantle of leadership, they serve their cause, their country, or both, usually at the expense of their family.
Nelson Mandela's leadership of the ANC, his imprisonment, and his leadership of his country meant that his family was deprived of time that might otherwise have been spent with him. I doubt he would have had it any other way. His sacrifice was his family's sacrifice, too. They were deprived of him by imprisonment and then had to share him not only with the nation of South Africa, but with the world.
Thank you to the family of Nelson Mandela. At a time when you probably most wanted to hold him close and savor however many years he would have left after leaving Robben Island, you shared him with the world. The world is all the better for your sacrifice and his.
Godspeed, Madiba. My prayers, condolences, and deepest gratitude to the family of Nelson Mandela.
But there is something I can say that may not be said enough during this time of grief and mourning: Thank you to the family of Nelson Mandela.
We often forget that when someone accepts the mantle of leadership, they serve their cause, their country, or both, usually at the expense of their family.
Nelson Mandela's leadership of the ANC, his imprisonment, and his leadership of his country meant that his family was deprived of time that might otherwise have been spent with him. I doubt he would have had it any other way. His sacrifice was his family's sacrifice, too. They were deprived of him by imprisonment and then had to share him not only with the nation of South Africa, but with the world.
Thank you to the family of Nelson Mandela. At a time when you probably most wanted to hold him close and savor however many years he would have left after leaving Robben Island, you shared him with the world. The world is all the better for your sacrifice and his.
Godspeed, Madiba. My prayers, condolences, and deepest gratitude to the family of Nelson Mandela.
For Those of You Who Didn't Pass the CA Bar Exam the First Time (I Am One of You)
For those of you who didn't pass the California bar exam on your first try, I want to encourage you. I am one of you.
I remember getting the news that I didn't pass. I remember doubling over in pain, laying on the floor of my Oakland apartment nearly unconscious, hobbled by an infection that ravaged my kidneys, bladder and entire urinary tract.
I remember the guy I was supposedly dating at the time calling to "console" me ("Sorry you didn't pass . . . ") and hanging up despite the fact that he knew I was ill.
I remember one of my closest friends coming to the rescue, literally picking me off the floor and carrying me to the hospital, where I was told that if I had waited any longer I would have had to have been hospitalized.
I remember having to tell my family over Thanksgiving dinner that I had failed. My siblings tried to cheer me up and my dad reminded me, "You're the only one in this neighborhood qualified to even take the bar exam."
My mom was another story. She knew a pity party when she saw one. She said to me, and I've quoted her many times:
"Everybody falls down. But then you have to get up. I'ma let you lay down there for a little while, but then you have to get up."
So my exhortation to you is this: Get up. Do not let this one setback keep you from your future.
Let's clear up a couple of things:
The California bar exam usually has more people who fail it than pass it. More likely than not, you're in the majority, not the people who passed it.
Whether or not you pass the bar exam on your first try will not determine whether or not you will be a good lawyer. I've met a lot of great lawyers who did not pass on the first try and a boatload of lousy ones who did. The bar exam is not a reflection of your ability as a lawyer; it's a reflection of your ability to figure out what the bar graders want to see and give it to them in the manner in which they expect to receive it. Your law school may or may not have prepared you to do those things. I know mine didn't.
Harvard Law School, in my opinion, had professors who had little time or willingness to teach you the blackletter law you need to know like the back of your hand in order to pass a bar exam. The professors, for the most part, were more enamored of legal theory. Teaching the actual law was considered rather pedestrian, something you as a student could and should figure out on your own. I was able to get average grades with a mediocre knowledge of the law and the ability to parrot back whatever legal theory my professors were enamored of. Plus, most exams were open book exams.
The California bar exam, in contrast, was not, and it required a depth and breadth of knowledge of the law that I was not prepared for, despite the fact that my BarBRI practice exams said otherwise.
Another thing: You're more likely to pass the bar exam given in February than the one given in July. All the people who passed on the first try are gone, and there's a percentage of February takers who are multiple takers (more than two times) who, statistically speaking, may never pass. The competition is less, well, competitive. At least that's what Emerson Stafford told me, which leads to my next point:
Take a bar review course that has a focus on writing essay exams. Emerson Stafford was my bar review course instructor the second time around and the founder of Emerson's Tutorial Bar Review. Emerson taught his course from his Victorian home on Fell Street in San Francisco, and at every class we had to write a practice exam for the first half hour or so of the class in what was the equivalent of his living room. Just having to put pen to paper and write an answer, even if you didn't know the law, was good practice. As my knowledge of the law increased, my essay exams improved. Emerson has retired, but he has donated his lectures to the public. They can be found here. The BarBRI course I took the first time gave me a false sense of confidence about the quality of my essay exams. Emerson did not, requiring greater and greater analysis and a minimum word count to get a passing grade. Emerson was an engineer and had the statistics to show the minimum number of words needed on a California bar essay exam to be competitive. He also used to predict with great accuracy which topics would be tested on the bar exam. People who didn't even take his course would try to find out what his predictions were. If it weren't for Emerson Stafford, I doubt I'd be a practicing attorney today. I can say that about myself and my friends from Harvard Law School and Boalt Hall who were sitting next to me in Emerson's class.
Here's some more advice:
1) Put the entire bar review course on flash cards and memorize it. No, I'm not kidding. The process of putting the entire BarBRI bar review content from my first bar review course on flash cards -- over 3,400 or so flash cards written by hand in my case -- helped me learn all the material the second time around. I was writing those flash cards all the time and memorizing them everywhere and any time I could -- while eating dinner, while cooking dinner, while sitting on the toilet, you name it. I would separate out the flash cards I'd learned from the ones I hadn't learned and kept focusing on the ones I didn't know. By the time of the exam, there were only 200 out of the 3,400 cards that I didn't know cold -- about 5.8%. Not bad. When you are taking the bar exam, you have no time to think about what the law is -- you need to be spotting issues and writing analyses or picking the most correct multiple choice answer. You simply have to have all the law memorized. There is no short cut for this. I had to study for the bar exam the second time while finishing up my master's degree. If I can do it, so can you.
2) Categorize your errors. This is another thing Emerson taught me. Whether you're taking a multiple choice practice exam or an essay practice exam, categorize the errors you made into one of three categories: 1) Misunderstood the question; 2) Didn't know the law; 3) faulty analysis. If your errors are primarily category one errors, slow down when reading the question. If they are primarily category two errors, go back and review the law. If they are primarily category three errors, slow down in outlining your answer or analyzing the question.
Throughout my career I have been a law clerk for a federal judge, an associate with large and small law firms, a law professor, an attorney with a Fortune 500 company, and now the general counsel of a small government agency.
Not bad for someone who didn't pass on the first try.
Good luck and get up!
I remember getting the news that I didn't pass. I remember doubling over in pain, laying on the floor of my Oakland apartment nearly unconscious, hobbled by an infection that ravaged my kidneys, bladder and entire urinary tract.
I remember the guy I was supposedly dating at the time calling to "console" me ("Sorry you didn't pass . . . ") and hanging up despite the fact that he knew I was ill.
I remember one of my closest friends coming to the rescue, literally picking me off the floor and carrying me to the hospital, where I was told that if I had waited any longer I would have had to have been hospitalized.
I remember having to tell my family over Thanksgiving dinner that I had failed. My siblings tried to cheer me up and my dad reminded me, "You're the only one in this neighborhood qualified to even take the bar exam."
My mom was another story. She knew a pity party when she saw one. She said to me, and I've quoted her many times:
"Everybody falls down. But then you have to get up. I'ma let you lay down there for a little while, but then you have to get up."
So my exhortation to you is this: Get up. Do not let this one setback keep you from your future.
Let's clear up a couple of things:
The California bar exam usually has more people who fail it than pass it. More likely than not, you're in the majority, not the people who passed it.
Whether or not you pass the bar exam on your first try will not determine whether or not you will be a good lawyer. I've met a lot of great lawyers who did not pass on the first try and a boatload of lousy ones who did. The bar exam is not a reflection of your ability as a lawyer; it's a reflection of your ability to figure out what the bar graders want to see and give it to them in the manner in which they expect to receive it. Your law school may or may not have prepared you to do those things. I know mine didn't.
Harvard Law School, in my opinion, had professors who had little time or willingness to teach you the blackletter law you need to know like the back of your hand in order to pass a bar exam. The professors, for the most part, were more enamored of legal theory. Teaching the actual law was considered rather pedestrian, something you as a student could and should figure out on your own. I was able to get average grades with a mediocre knowledge of the law and the ability to parrot back whatever legal theory my professors were enamored of. Plus, most exams were open book exams.
The California bar exam, in contrast, was not, and it required a depth and breadth of knowledge of the law that I was not prepared for, despite the fact that my BarBRI practice exams said otherwise.
Another thing: You're more likely to pass the bar exam given in February than the one given in July. All the people who passed on the first try are gone, and there's a percentage of February takers who are multiple takers (more than two times) who, statistically speaking, may never pass. The competition is less, well, competitive. At least that's what Emerson Stafford told me, which leads to my next point:
Take a bar review course that has a focus on writing essay exams. Emerson Stafford was my bar review course instructor the second time around and the founder of Emerson's Tutorial Bar Review. Emerson taught his course from his Victorian home on Fell Street in San Francisco, and at every class we had to write a practice exam for the first half hour or so of the class in what was the equivalent of his living room. Just having to put pen to paper and write an answer, even if you didn't know the law, was good practice. As my knowledge of the law increased, my essay exams improved. Emerson has retired, but he has donated his lectures to the public. They can be found here. The BarBRI course I took the first time gave me a false sense of confidence about the quality of my essay exams. Emerson did not, requiring greater and greater analysis and a minimum word count to get a passing grade. Emerson was an engineer and had the statistics to show the minimum number of words needed on a California bar essay exam to be competitive. He also used to predict with great accuracy which topics would be tested on the bar exam. People who didn't even take his course would try to find out what his predictions were. If it weren't for Emerson Stafford, I doubt I'd be a practicing attorney today. I can say that about myself and my friends from Harvard Law School and Boalt Hall who were sitting next to me in Emerson's class.
Here's some more advice:
1) Put the entire bar review course on flash cards and memorize it. No, I'm not kidding. The process of putting the entire BarBRI bar review content from my first bar review course on flash cards -- over 3,400 or so flash cards written by hand in my case -- helped me learn all the material the second time around. I was writing those flash cards all the time and memorizing them everywhere and any time I could -- while eating dinner, while cooking dinner, while sitting on the toilet, you name it. I would separate out the flash cards I'd learned from the ones I hadn't learned and kept focusing on the ones I didn't know. By the time of the exam, there were only 200 out of the 3,400 cards that I didn't know cold -- about 5.8%. Not bad. When you are taking the bar exam, you have no time to think about what the law is -- you need to be spotting issues and writing analyses or picking the most correct multiple choice answer. You simply have to have all the law memorized. There is no short cut for this. I had to study for the bar exam the second time while finishing up my master's degree. If I can do it, so can you.
2) Categorize your errors. This is another thing Emerson taught me. Whether you're taking a multiple choice practice exam or an essay practice exam, categorize the errors you made into one of three categories: 1) Misunderstood the question; 2) Didn't know the law; 3) faulty analysis. If your errors are primarily category one errors, slow down when reading the question. If they are primarily category two errors, go back and review the law. If they are primarily category three errors, slow down in outlining your answer or analyzing the question.
Throughout my career I have been a law clerk for a federal judge, an associate with large and small law firms, a law professor, an attorney with a Fortune 500 company, and now the general counsel of a small government agency.
Not bad for someone who didn't pass on the first try.
Good luck and get up!
The Gift of Order (My Sister's Gift)
It took days, but I finally organized my pantry. Sure, the baskets from the Dollar Tree that I used to hold canned goods and condiments had already been labeled, and there was contact paper on the shelves (but not attached to it), but it wasn't organized and it wasn't functional. Stuff I use regularly was up high, while stuff I use occasionally was within easy reach. Now it's organized and functional.
This may not be a big deal to you, Dear Reader, but it is to me. Organization is not my strong suit. Nor is maintaining it.
I've been living in my house for five years, but I can say that I'm just now really moving in. In order to organize my pantry, I had to unpack wedding gifts that I had not opened since I married ten years ago. To be honest, I think that when Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) and I moved in, we just put stuff where we could find it and kept stepping. We didn't value functional organization enough to create it or maintain it. This is despite the fact that BMNB is a self-proclaimed neat freak. I think I brought him down.
To be honest, I thought the ability to organize a space, to create order from chaos, was a gift reserved to a few. One of those few is my older sister. She can look at a space that's a hot mess and create the Taj Mahal of organization -- beautiful and functional. She makes it look easy because it comes easily to her. I don't think she realizes that her ability is indeed a gift because it is second nature to her. She's the kind of person who goes through her mail weekly, tosses and shreds, and balances her checkbook to the penny. Pit her against any hoarder, and that hoarder is going down, although she would not want to work with hoarders because she doesn't want to work with their emotional issues. When I tell her that people pay good money to have people do what she does instinctively and for free, she shakes her head and says she wouldn't want to be bothered trying to get clients and making a business of it.
Because I thought organization was beyond my reach, and because I accepted the brand I and others put on me as this flighty, disorganized person, I would literally look at my pantry, turn my head in denial, close the door and walk away. I didn't realize what a gift having order is.
I had to not only want order, but believe that I could achieve it on my own. Having to prepare my house for an inspection by an adoption social worker and to host Thanksgiving gave me the gentle nudge I needed.
I started in the garage. "Everything goes through the garage," I told BMNB. We had been dragging around the same crap since we were both in college, and despite moving across the country, we never pared down our stuff. We just packed it up and took it with us, storing it when we didn't have enough space. It's been freeing to let things go, donate them, or Freecycle them. I'm a huge fan of freecycling -- you post what you have on your local Freecycle listserv, people who want it let you know, and you leave it on your front porch for pickup. Easy peasy. We're not done with the garage yet, but with Thanksgiving coming, we had to shift focus to the interior of the house.
I decided to make it fun by rewarding myself. Although I had trepidation about organizing and creating order, I knew that I do have a gift for creating beauty out of ho-hum spaces. I thought about what I'd really like to have to decorate our living room and family room, and I bought those items on sale, online or at thrift stores: Slip covers (since we won't be buying sofas anytime soon); curtains and drapery rods; chairs for my mother's dining room table (solid wood for $5 each from a local thrift store -- I got ten of them); headboards for the guest beds (I got them at a thrift store and plan to paint them); and a rug for the family room. I bought as much as I could as inexpensively as possible. My reward was that when I finished organizing the living room, kitchen and family room, I would get to put up the curtains, roll out the rug, put on the slip covers, and paint the headboards. My penchant for decorating/interior design would be the motivation for organizing.
If I had known how much peace order brings, I would not have needed to reward myself. Order is its own reward. When I walk into the pantry, it gives me peace. Once I cleared away stuff that was old, cleaned the shelves and lined them (this time I committed -- I actually attached the contact paper to the shelves), and put up wire shelving to hold appliances, I could slowly see the pieces coming together. When it was done, after throwing out a lot of old canned goods, grains and the like, I could see what food I really had. I could find things. And although I did it on a budget, the order in itself is just plain beautiful. It gives me peace to know exactly what I have and to be able to find it. I open that pantry door, and it's like a choir of angels starts singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
Having order is a gift, and you don't really appreciate it until you have it. And you can have it if you choose to achieve it.
I don't have my sister's gift of being able to instinctively create order out of chaos. She would have finished that pantry in hours, not days. I'm still not done organizing the rest of the kitchen, the family room, and the living room. But now I realize how much peace I deprived myself of all these years by thinking that order and organization were for other people and not for me. Like anything else worth having, you have to commit to achieving it and maintaining it, especially if it doesn't come to you as naturally as it comes to my sister.
If my sister ever changes her mind and starts a professional organizer business, I'll let you know.
For more information about freecycling, visit Freecycle.org for a local freecycling group near you.
This may not be a big deal to you, Dear Reader, but it is to me. Organization is not my strong suit. Nor is maintaining it.
I've been living in my house for five years, but I can say that I'm just now really moving in. In order to organize my pantry, I had to unpack wedding gifts that I had not opened since I married ten years ago. To be honest, I think that when Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) and I moved in, we just put stuff where we could find it and kept stepping. We didn't value functional organization enough to create it or maintain it. This is despite the fact that BMNB is a self-proclaimed neat freak. I think I brought him down.
To be honest, I thought the ability to organize a space, to create order from chaos, was a gift reserved to a few. One of those few is my older sister. She can look at a space that's a hot mess and create the Taj Mahal of organization -- beautiful and functional. She makes it look easy because it comes easily to her. I don't think she realizes that her ability is indeed a gift because it is second nature to her. She's the kind of person who goes through her mail weekly, tosses and shreds, and balances her checkbook to the penny. Pit her against any hoarder, and that hoarder is going down, although she would not want to work with hoarders because she doesn't want to work with their emotional issues. When I tell her that people pay good money to have people do what she does instinctively and for free, she shakes her head and says she wouldn't want to be bothered trying to get clients and making a business of it.
Because I thought organization was beyond my reach, and because I accepted the brand I and others put on me as this flighty, disorganized person, I would literally look at my pantry, turn my head in denial, close the door and walk away. I didn't realize what a gift having order is.
I had to not only want order, but believe that I could achieve it on my own. Having to prepare my house for an inspection by an adoption social worker and to host Thanksgiving gave me the gentle nudge I needed.
I started in the garage. "Everything goes through the garage," I told BMNB. We had been dragging around the same crap since we were both in college, and despite moving across the country, we never pared down our stuff. We just packed it up and took it with us, storing it when we didn't have enough space. It's been freeing to let things go, donate them, or Freecycle them. I'm a huge fan of freecycling -- you post what you have on your local Freecycle listserv, people who want it let you know, and you leave it on your front porch for pickup. Easy peasy. We're not done with the garage yet, but with Thanksgiving coming, we had to shift focus to the interior of the house.
I decided to make it fun by rewarding myself. Although I had trepidation about organizing and creating order, I knew that I do have a gift for creating beauty out of ho-hum spaces. I thought about what I'd really like to have to decorate our living room and family room, and I bought those items on sale, online or at thrift stores: Slip covers (since we won't be buying sofas anytime soon); curtains and drapery rods; chairs for my mother's dining room table (solid wood for $5 each from a local thrift store -- I got ten of them); headboards for the guest beds (I got them at a thrift store and plan to paint them); and a rug for the family room. I bought as much as I could as inexpensively as possible. My reward was that when I finished organizing the living room, kitchen and family room, I would get to put up the curtains, roll out the rug, put on the slip covers, and paint the headboards. My penchant for decorating/interior design would be the motivation for organizing.
If I had known how much peace order brings, I would not have needed to reward myself. Order is its own reward. When I walk into the pantry, it gives me peace. Once I cleared away stuff that was old, cleaned the shelves and lined them (this time I committed -- I actually attached the contact paper to the shelves), and put up wire shelving to hold appliances, I could slowly see the pieces coming together. When it was done, after throwing out a lot of old canned goods, grains and the like, I could see what food I really had. I could find things. And although I did it on a budget, the order in itself is just plain beautiful. It gives me peace to know exactly what I have and to be able to find it. I open that pantry door, and it's like a choir of angels starts singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
Having order is a gift, and you don't really appreciate it until you have it. And you can have it if you choose to achieve it.
I don't have my sister's gift of being able to instinctively create order out of chaos. She would have finished that pantry in hours, not days. I'm still not done organizing the rest of the kitchen, the family room, and the living room. But now I realize how much peace I deprived myself of all these years by thinking that order and organization were for other people and not for me. Like anything else worth having, you have to commit to achieving it and maintaining it, especially if it doesn't come to you as naturally as it comes to my sister.
If my sister ever changes her mind and starts a professional organizer business, I'll let you know.
For more information about freecycling, visit Freecycle.org for a local freecycling group near you.
God Bless The Child, Especially If The Pastor Won't
For S.T. My apologies for the delay.
Yours truly has been asked her opinion of a story in the news about Pastor Marvin Winans' refusal to bless the two year-old child of an unwed mother in a church dedication ceremony for two year-old children. The story states that the offer was made to bless the child outside of the dedication ceremony but not as part of it.
My response might surprise you.
Out-of-wedlock births present a problem for the black community, a large portion of which is steeped in religion and cultural beliefs. How do you celebrate the child of unwed parents without approving the means by which he or she arrived?
I would not pretend to tell the leader of a church how to run that church. I would not even think about telling Pastor Winans that he should do something he feels his faith compels him not to do. I do, however, think he missed a teaching moment and an opportunity to bring an entire family closer to God.
If I were Pastor Winans, I would have blessed the child and taught the child's parents. I would have required a meeting with both of them as a condition of having the child participate in the dedication ceremony. I would not have told them that they were wrong. I would not have shamed them. Instead, I would have explained what Pastor Winans must have believed was God's divine plan in requiring two parents to make a child and how a blessed union was God's way of making sure children would be taken care of. I would have asked why they hadn't married, and I would have put them in a support group for single parents to help them not make any more children out of wedlock. Most important, I would have tried to use the dedication ceremony as an opportunity to bring the entire family closer to God, to know His love AND His forgiveness.
In other words, I wouldn't have wielded my faith as a weapon of rectitude, but as a weapon of love and redemption. But hey, that's just me. I was raised to believe that a child is a blessing from God no matter how he or she gets here.
So there you have it -- BWB's response.
Yours truly has been asked her opinion of a story in the news about Pastor Marvin Winans' refusal to bless the two year-old child of an unwed mother in a church dedication ceremony for two year-old children. The story states that the offer was made to bless the child outside of the dedication ceremony but not as part of it.
My response might surprise you.
Out-of-wedlock births present a problem for the black community, a large portion of which is steeped in religion and cultural beliefs. How do you celebrate the child of unwed parents without approving the means by which he or she arrived?
I would not pretend to tell the leader of a church how to run that church. I would not even think about telling Pastor Winans that he should do something he feels his faith compels him not to do. I do, however, think he missed a teaching moment and an opportunity to bring an entire family closer to God.
If I were Pastor Winans, I would have blessed the child and taught the child's parents. I would have required a meeting with both of them as a condition of having the child participate in the dedication ceremony. I would not have told them that they were wrong. I would not have shamed them. Instead, I would have explained what Pastor Winans must have believed was God's divine plan in requiring two parents to make a child and how a blessed union was God's way of making sure children would be taken care of. I would have asked why they hadn't married, and I would have put them in a support group for single parents to help them not make any more children out of wedlock. Most important, I would have tried to use the dedication ceremony as an opportunity to bring the entire family closer to God, to know His love AND His forgiveness.
In other words, I wouldn't have wielded my faith as a weapon of rectitude, but as a weapon of love and redemption. But hey, that's just me. I was raised to believe that a child is a blessing from God no matter how he or she gets here.
So there you have it -- BWB's response.
The House GOP Members: Burning Down the House
"Watch out. You might get what you're after."
Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House."
It is only fitting that on the end of Day 15 of the Government Shutdown, and only one day away from the first-ever U.S. government default, I dedicate the Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" to the House GOP members. I couldn't imagine for the life of me that our elected leaders would play Russian Roulette with the full faith and credit of U.S. obligations and would be willing to tank not only the U.S. economy but the world economy in an effort to get back at President Obama.
Do they hate this Black man that much? Oh yes. Yes they do.
Before you go all ballistic and accuse me of playing the race card, let's call a thing a thing: This shutdown isn't about defunding Obamacare. It's about embarrassing and weakening this African American president whom the GOP has despised since Day 1 of his first term, what with Mitch McConnell vowing to make him a one term president (How's that workin' for ya, Mitchie?) before the President even started governing.
Note how the target has shifted. First they wanted to defund Obamacare. When they realized that the President wasn't going to roll over as easily as he did in his last term (see, that's what happens when a President is re-elected -- he can tell you to kiss his ass), they were lost trying to find any semblance of a bone to be thrown at them (e.g., medical device tax repeal) so they could declare victory and avoid embarrassment once polling showed that the nation primarily blamed the GOP for the shutdown. Instead of unconditional surrender by reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling without negotiation, these fools would rather "burn down the house" by incurring the first U.S. default. When your own party elder, John McCain, declares defunding Obamacare as a "fool's errand" (which he has done not just once, but twice within the last week), that should tell you to give up the ghost.
But not these rabid Republicans. They even have the nerve to protest outside of the monuments they have shut down and blame the President for the shutdown. They're worse than that sick joke about a child killing his parents and seeking the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.
Almost as insipid as these House GOP members are the people who support them, who have no idea of what a U.S. default would mean or even how "bad" Obamacare really is. BMNB (my husband, Black Man Not Blogging) and I have recently had the pleasure of having conversations with these idiots. I spoke with a clerk at Target who told me that Obamacare was going to run up the deficit. I told her that, in the short run, costs might rise, but in the long run, as more healthy and young people are forced to buy health care insurance, health care costs would go down and, as a result, the national deficit. I walked away and it hit me: I just had a conversation with an idiot. She probably makes minimum wage, works less than full time, and isn't receiving health care benefits. She needs to thank her lucky stars that there is Obamacare, because she's probably going to need it.
My husband's strange encounter with an idiot involved someone who told him she opposed raising the debt ceiling because it would just encourage the government to "spend, spend, spend." My husband responded, "The spending has already occurred. Raising the debt ceiling just ensures that the government can cover the bills it has already incurred through its appropriations." He, too, realized he'd just had a conversation with an idiot.
So here's to the idiots in the GOP who hate President Obama's black ass so much that they're willing to burn down the house. They're probably related to the Confederates who were willing to burn down a country because they hated black people so and the segregationists who were willing to lynch black folks instead of acknowledging our equal rights. Today's GOP idiots should at least have the intellectual honesty to put on their white robes and burn a cross in the White House lawn.
But as the song "Burning Down the House" says, "Watch out. You might get what you're after."
What the GOP Could Learn from a P-I-M-P (And Get the Government Running Again) (NSFW)
We're on Day 14 of the government shutdown, all because Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell don't know how to keep their party in check. There's a lot that the GOP could learn from a P-I-M-P. Hell, there's a lot they could have learned from Nancy Pelosi, who still keeps her party in check without benefit or need of the title of Speaker.
Mind you, I've written admiringly about pimps before, not because I respect what they do, but because I respect their ability to get something so morally bankrupt done with minimal (or minimized) transaction costs. If pimps (well, real pimps, not government pimps) were running the GOP, Senator Ted Cruz' idiot idea of shutting down the government until Obamacare was defunded would not have gotten far. (And kudos to Bob Schieffer for repeatedly asking how the GOP let Ted Cruz get this far. As far as I'm concerned, Bob Schieffer is the only thinking journalist on the Sunday morning talk show circuit.)
You see, pimpin' runs on rules and hierarchy that maintain smooth relations (and pardon the language -- it's the language of pimpin', not mine). Rule: A bitch can't look a pimp in the eye. Rule: When a pimp is walking on the sidewalk, a bitch gets off of it. Rule: A bitch can't talk to pimps other than her own. Rule: A pimp's bottom bitch has seniority and priority over the pimp's other bitches.
If seniority and hierarchy account for anything, and analogizing to pimpin', how is it that Senator Ted Cruz, who is, shall we say, "new to the game," able to lead a cabal of new bitches to shut down the government without the pimps (party leaders) keeping them in check? At the very least, no government shutdown formed in Congress should have gone off without the say-so of Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the say-so of more senior pimps, uh, leaders, like Senator John McCain (Mack of the Year, 2008). Even if the party leaders agreed with it, they, and not the Tea Party bitches new to the game, should have been leading the shutdown and deciding what terms would lead to the government's reopening, not the other way around. GOP, where are your rules? Where is your hierarchy? Where is your pimp game?
If Senator Cruz were a bitch, he'd be considered "out of pocket." The other pimps would have had permission to beat him for being "out of pocket" and leading the other bitches astray.
I guess the GOP's senior pimps, uh, leaders, have absolutely no pimp game whatsoever and definitely less than Nancy Pelosi. Imagine that.
Could someone from the GOP call Too Short so we can get the government running again?
Oh, and Speaker Boehner, the first rule of pimpin'? Don't love them bitches. Just sayin'.
Mind you, I've written admiringly about pimps before, not because I respect what they do, but because I respect their ability to get something so morally bankrupt done with minimal (or minimized) transaction costs. If pimps (well, real pimps, not government pimps) were running the GOP, Senator Ted Cruz' idiot idea of shutting down the government until Obamacare was defunded would not have gotten far. (And kudos to Bob Schieffer for repeatedly asking how the GOP let Ted Cruz get this far. As far as I'm concerned, Bob Schieffer is the only thinking journalist on the Sunday morning talk show circuit.)
You see, pimpin' runs on rules and hierarchy that maintain smooth relations (and pardon the language -- it's the language of pimpin', not mine). Rule: A bitch can't look a pimp in the eye. Rule: When a pimp is walking on the sidewalk, a bitch gets off of it. Rule: A bitch can't talk to pimps other than her own. Rule: A pimp's bottom bitch has seniority and priority over the pimp's other bitches.
If seniority and hierarchy account for anything, and analogizing to pimpin', how is it that Senator Ted Cruz, who is, shall we say, "new to the game," able to lead a cabal of new bitches to shut down the government without the pimps (party leaders) keeping them in check? At the very least, no government shutdown formed in Congress should have gone off without the say-so of Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the say-so of more senior pimps, uh, leaders, like Senator John McCain (Mack of the Year, 2008). Even if the party leaders agreed with it, they, and not the Tea Party bitches new to the game, should have been leading the shutdown and deciding what terms would lead to the government's reopening, not the other way around. GOP, where are your rules? Where is your hierarchy? Where is your pimp game?
If Senator Cruz were a bitch, he'd be considered "out of pocket." The other pimps would have had permission to beat him for being "out of pocket" and leading the other bitches astray.
I guess the GOP's senior pimps, uh, leaders, have absolutely no pimp game whatsoever and definitely less than Nancy Pelosi. Imagine that.
Could someone from the GOP call Too Short so we can get the government running again?
Oh, and Speaker Boehner, the first rule of pimpin'? Don't love them bitches. Just sayin'.
Dear Mr. President: Don't Blink, But Do Fart On Their Heads
Dear Mr. President,
When boys wrestle, especially brothers, the ultimate in victory is for the winning boy to not only sit on head of the defeated boy, but to fart on his head as well. In families, it's usually the older brother who ends up sitting and farting on the head of his younger brother as a deterrent to future challenges. Mr. President, you didn't grow up with brothers, but there's a lesson to be learned from the wrestling of boys.
But first, Mr. President, I have a message for you from my sister regarding this standoff with congressional Republicans: Don't blink.
In this standoff/government shutdown, there's far more at stake than just a budget or the debt ceiling. As you've so aptly put it, what is at stake is the ability to govern without being forced into false crises created by a small contingent of Republicans who are out of step with the majority of the nation. So my sister's advice to you, Mr. President, is to continue to stand toe-to-toe with them and don't even think about blinking. Don't flinch. Stand your ground. Which leads to a message from me:
Don't just sit on their heads; fart on their heads.
I, like so many other Americans, am so weary of Tea Party efforts to derail the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare." It's the law. They need to get over it and move on. The rest of the country has. Given that many of these representatives represent broke-ass states with people who desperately need health care (and could stand to back away from the fast food joints and processed foods in general) but fear anything with the word "Obama" in it, they ought to just move on. But shutting down the government and threatening the first U.S. government default ever? Now that deserves not just sitting on their heads, but farting on them, too.
The Republicans know they have backed themselves into a corner and are looking for a way out. They know that, the longer this goes on, the more dim their hopes become of recapturing the White House in 2016. They know all of this, but like a little brother wrestling his older, bigger brother, they don't know how to get out of this political headlock that will eventually lead to the political equivalent of you not just sitting on their heads, but farting on them as well.
When they capitulate, and they will, Mr. President, take that victory lap. Do whatever is the political equivalent of sitting and farting on their heads so they will think twice about pulling this stunt again.
Don't blink, Mr. President. But do fart on their heads, so to speak.
Sincerely,
Black Woman Blogging
When boys wrestle, especially brothers, the ultimate in victory is for the winning boy to not only sit on head of the defeated boy, but to fart on his head as well. In families, it's usually the older brother who ends up sitting and farting on the head of his younger brother as a deterrent to future challenges. Mr. President, you didn't grow up with brothers, but there's a lesson to be learned from the wrestling of boys.
But first, Mr. President, I have a message for you from my sister regarding this standoff with congressional Republicans: Don't blink.
In this standoff/government shutdown, there's far more at stake than just a budget or the debt ceiling. As you've so aptly put it, what is at stake is the ability to govern without being forced into false crises created by a small contingent of Republicans who are out of step with the majority of the nation. So my sister's advice to you, Mr. President, is to continue to stand toe-to-toe with them and don't even think about blinking. Don't flinch. Stand your ground. Which leads to a message from me:
Don't just sit on their heads; fart on their heads.
I, like so many other Americans, am so weary of Tea Party efforts to derail the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare." It's the law. They need to get over it and move on. The rest of the country has. Given that many of these representatives represent broke-ass states with people who desperately need health care (and could stand to back away from the fast food joints and processed foods in general) but fear anything with the word "Obama" in it, they ought to just move on. But shutting down the government and threatening the first U.S. government default ever? Now that deserves not just sitting on their heads, but farting on them, too.
The Republicans know they have backed themselves into a corner and are looking for a way out. They know that, the longer this goes on, the more dim their hopes become of recapturing the White House in 2016. They know all of this, but like a little brother wrestling his older, bigger brother, they don't know how to get out of this political headlock that will eventually lead to the political equivalent of you not just sitting on their heads, but farting on them as well.
When they capitulate, and they will, Mr. President, take that victory lap. Do whatever is the political equivalent of sitting and farting on their heads so they will think twice about pulling this stunt again.
Don't blink, Mr. President. But do fart on their heads, so to speak.
Sincerely,
Black Woman Blogging
The Hardest Part of Getting Old (The Stuff of Elders)
I'm 50. It's safe to say that there are probably more days behind me than ahead of me and I am now an "elder" of my family. The hardest part of getting old for anyone in my position is that, in these remaining days, you will be called upon to do the most difficult things, things you would not have been called upon to do as a child or even a young adult, if lucky, because they are the stuff of elders, and rightly so.
Most of the usual complaints about aging relate to health and body change -- diminishing eyesight and hearing, stiffness in one's bones, graying hair. But all the while your body is changing and your faculties are diminishing, you will be called upon to do difficult things and, because of your stature as an elder, you will be expected to do those things with grace and magnanimity, and without showing grief or any self-indulgent displays of emotion.
You will be called upon to walk with loved ones who are older than you on their journey as they battle life-threatening disease -- cancer, Alzheimer's, you name it -- without showing the deeply-held fears you have about what those battles hold for them.
You will be called upon to make medical decisions for others that are literally the difference between prolonging a life no longer worth living and releasing them to God.
You will be called upon to decide when a suffering pet must die and be responsible for making that death occur.
You will be called upon to tell a elder in ill health that he can no longer drive, live by himself, or even continue to live in his own home anymore.
You will be called upon to console a grieving child facing the death of a loved one for the first time.
You will be called upon to bury your parents.
You will be called upon to radically change your life to ease the oncoming end of someone else's.
You will be called upon to change the adult diapers of your beloved elders without looking uncomfortable or inconvenienced and with a look of love on your face.
You will be called upon to give hope in the most hopeless of situations.
All of these things you will be called upon to do, all the while calling upon all the faith and home training your parents and elders instilled in you. You won't think you can bear to do any of these things.
But you can. And you will. Because, as an elder, you're stronger than you know.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.
Most of the usual complaints about aging relate to health and body change -- diminishing eyesight and hearing, stiffness in one's bones, graying hair. But all the while your body is changing and your faculties are diminishing, you will be called upon to do difficult things and, because of your stature as an elder, you will be expected to do those things with grace and magnanimity, and without showing grief or any self-indulgent displays of emotion.
You will be called upon to walk with loved ones who are older than you on their journey as they battle life-threatening disease -- cancer, Alzheimer's, you name it -- without showing the deeply-held fears you have about what those battles hold for them.
You will be called upon to make medical decisions for others that are literally the difference between prolonging a life no longer worth living and releasing them to God.
You will be called upon to decide when a suffering pet must die and be responsible for making that death occur.
You will be called upon to tell a elder in ill health that he can no longer drive, live by himself, or even continue to live in his own home anymore.
You will be called upon to console a grieving child facing the death of a loved one for the first time.
You will be called upon to bury your parents.
You will be called upon to radically change your life to ease the oncoming end of someone else's.
You will be called upon to change the adult diapers of your beloved elders without looking uncomfortable or inconvenienced and with a look of love on your face.
You will be called upon to give hope in the most hopeless of situations.
All of these things you will be called upon to do, all the while calling upon all the faith and home training your parents and elders instilled in you. You won't think you can bear to do any of these things.
But you can. And you will. Because, as an elder, you're stronger than you know.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.
Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians (Trayvon Martin On My Mind)
Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
~ African proverb
I've been staying silent on the George Zimmerman trial. But really, why are we calling it the "George Zimmerman trial" when in fact Trayvon Martin's on trial, and he's dead? Just as in the African proverb, George Zimmerman, the hunter, is being glorified enough to be acquitted. I understand the difficulty of the prosecution's task -- disproving Zimmerman's self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt in a state that has a "stand your ground" law. It would be the height of irony and cruelty if the "stand your ground" law allows you to stand your ground and defend yourself against a confrontation that, but for your own actions, would never have happened, especially since it involved a teenage boy.
I feel so much for Trayvon's parents. I've seen this movie before. My family has its own George Zimmerman. His name is Christopher Allen Smith, he is white, and he killed my cousin Gidd Robinson in broad daylight in front of his kids. But for Gidd's mother, Gidd's fiancé, and our huge extended family banding together and putting pressure on the Yolo County District Attorney's Office to prosecute, Christopher Allen Smith would have gotten away with it. Like George Zimmerman, Christopher Allen Smith was in his vehicle at the time the events leading to a homicide occurred and could have driven away. Like George Zimmerman, Christopher Allen Smith decided to confront someone because he didn't like what he saw. Unlike George Zimmerman, Christopher Allen Smith stayed in his truck and, shooting across the passenger seat and his own child, shot my cousin, who was walking his daughter to school, because my cousin allegedly flipped him off.
In the case of my cousin, the story as my family understood it was that he was walking his young daughter to school, and Christopher Allen Smith was speeding down the street. My cousin yelled at him to slow down because there were children out. Instead of going on, Christopher Allen Smith turned his truck around, got into a yelling match with my cousin, and, allegedly thinking my cousin had a gun, reached over the passenger side of his truck and across his own seven year-old son and shot my cousin. Then he sped off, dumped the gun in the river, and rubbed his hands in mud to get rid of the gunshot residue.
Just like Trayvon Martin's murder, the case made no sense. Initially, the Yolo County District Attorney's Office didn't want to prosecute because they believed my cousin, who did have a criminal record, had a gun that he had thrown in the bushes or disposed of in some way, although searchers never turned up a gun. Then they didn't think they could prove that it was unreasonable for Christopher Allen Smith to believe that my cousin had a gun, in other words, that his claim of self-defense was imperfect and would support a murder charge.
But it didn't make sense.
My sister argued in a meeting with the Yolo County D.A.'s attorneys and staff, "It doesn't make sense. If Christopher Allen Smith was in the driver's seat of his truck, and the passenger side was closest to the sidewalk where my cousin was, and if he thought my cousin had a gun, why didn't he just hit the gas and drive away?" We all reasoned that in the time it would have taken him to reach in his glove compartment, pull out a gun, and shoot across his own child to repel some supposed threat, he could have hit the gas and taken his child to safety. What person shoots a gun across his own child when he can more easily flee to safety? And what person who has just been shot in the chest area is able to dispose of a gun or is even thinking of disposing of a gun? It just didn't make sense. Until the time that our extended family (which is huge) started meeting with the Yolo County D.A.'s office, the focus was on my cousin's criminal background and their belief that they could not prove imperfect self defense., i.e., that Christopher Allen Smith's belief that my cousin had a gun was unreasonable. And they had no murder weapon.
It took Gidd's mom and Gidd's fiance, both of whom were strong like Trayvon's parents, and my huge extended family, including Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) grilling the Yolo County assistant district attorneys and investigators as to why this wasn't being charged as a hate crime and why the FBI had not been involved, to eventually get the FBI involved. My understanding is that the FBI eventually found the murder weapon, and the Yolo County D.A.'s investigators found the evidence needed to show that Christopher Allen Smith frequented white supremacist websites and had an arsenal of illegal guns. If it hadn't been for Gidd's mom and his fiancé standing up, relentlessly pursuing justice, and getting the extended family involved in two meetings with the Yolo County D.A.'s office in which we relentlessly questioned them about the evidence, I doubt that Christopher Allen Smith would have been prosecuted, despite his highly implausible claim of self defense.
So as I watch snippets of the Trayvon Martin trial -- I can't bear to watch the defense not only make a mockery of Travyon's murder but make a mockery of the criminal justice system by starting a murder trial with a knock-knock joke -- who does that? -- I am reminded that justice isn't blind. I am reminded that, when it comes down to a racist's claim of self defense in killing a person of color, unless the victim has his own "historians," the murderer gets to glorify his claim of self-defense. I am angered that this trial has come down to whether a scared teenager attacked someone who was following him when that follower was clearly instructed by a 911 operator not to confront the teenager and was not in danger at the time he decided to follow the teenager. I am angered by the defense stating that Trayvon inserted race into the matter by calling Zimmerman "a creepy cracker." I am angered at the prospect of someone creating a situation where they can confront someone for no reason and, when the situation turns to their disadvantage, they can "stand their ground" and shoot the person they confronted without reason. I am angered that the defense called for four minutes of silence and said, "That's how long Trayvon had to run," as if running would have saved his life. This history of black men getting shot in the back for running in this country is long and sordid.
Other than the young woman who was on the phone with Trayvon, Trayvon doesn't have a "historian" to tell his side, allowing the Zimmerman defense team to glorify the hunter, George Zimmerman.
If both Christopher Allen Smith and George Zimmerman had simply driven away, two people would be alive today.
I'm not hopeful for a conviction in this case, and I'm sad for Trayvon's parents because, no matter what, they'll never see their son again. There is a twist to all this if Zimmerman is acquitted, as BMNB put it: "If he gets off, he'll be about as safe in America as Trayvon was."
The hunter may well indeed become the lion. Better have his own historian.
For more on the murder of my cousin, visit here.
Affirmative Action in Higher Ed Admissions Still Holds for Now, But Don't Get Too Excited . . . . (Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin)
I have to admit it -- I've been more interested in the U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming decisions on same-sex marriage and DOMA than I have been in the affirmative action in higher education case decided today, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. When it comes to affirmative action in higher education, I guess I'm just battle weary. I fully expect that, like the T-Rex testing the electric fence in "Jurassic Park," the opponents of affirmative action will, at some point, happen upon a persuasive theory and a receptive Supreme Court majority and do away with affirmative action. I'm way past holding my breath each time an affirmative action in higher education case reaches the Supreme Court.
As you can imagine, I was pleasantly surprised that the Supreme Court didn't strike down affirmative action in higher education in its entirety. This case came to the Supreme Court as a result of summary judgment solely on the issue whether the consideration of race in admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court tacitly upheld the proposition of diversity as a compelling state interest in higher education as part of a university's education mission, which was posited by the late Justice Powell in Bakke v. University of California. The inroad, if any, made by plaintiff Abigail Fisher was that the Supreme Court held that the courts below failed to subject the University of Texas' consideration of race to strict scrutiny to determine whether it was narrowly tailored enough to achieve the diversity objective, i.e., whether any other approaches that don't involve the consideration of race could also achieve the diversity the University of Texas was seeking. The case was remanded to the lower court for that more searching inquiry into the University of Texas' admissions program.
Proponents of affirmative action believe they've dodged a bullet.
I say don't get too excited.
Writing for the majority, Justice (and Sacramento homie) Anthony Kennedy pointed out one very important thing: The parties did not ask the Court to consider whether diversity in higher education is still a compelling state interest that would survive the strict scrutiny analysis used when the government bases a decision in whole or in part on race. Justice Kennedy noted that the District Court and the Court of Appeals were correct in finding that Grutter v. Bollinger called for courts' "deference" to a university's judgment that diversity is essential to its educational mission.
Them Justice Kennedy pointed out the way for the next challenge: "But the parties here do not ask the Court to revisit that aspect of Grutter's holding."
And that is precisely why the proponents of affirmative action should not get too excited.
The next challenge to affirmative action cannot succeed, IMHO, without taking down diversity as a compelling state interest in higher education. Justice Kennedy has pointed out the theory - revisiting "that aspect of Grutter's holding" that a university's judgment that diversity is essential to its educational mission is due deference by the courts. The only remaining hurdles are a receptive Supreme Court majority and some disgruntled applicant who thinks that some minority applicant "took" an admissions spot he thinks he should have had.
Maybe I'm just too battle weary and cynical when it comes to affirmative action in higher education. I can't help but think that the end of affirmative action in higher education will happen in my lifetime and we might as well get prepared for it.
I hope I'm wrong.
As you can imagine, I was pleasantly surprised that the Supreme Court didn't strike down affirmative action in higher education in its entirety. This case came to the Supreme Court as a result of summary judgment solely on the issue whether the consideration of race in admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court tacitly upheld the proposition of diversity as a compelling state interest in higher education as part of a university's education mission, which was posited by the late Justice Powell in Bakke v. University of California. The inroad, if any, made by plaintiff Abigail Fisher was that the Supreme Court held that the courts below failed to subject the University of Texas' consideration of race to strict scrutiny to determine whether it was narrowly tailored enough to achieve the diversity objective, i.e., whether any other approaches that don't involve the consideration of race could also achieve the diversity the University of Texas was seeking. The case was remanded to the lower court for that more searching inquiry into the University of Texas' admissions program.
Proponents of affirmative action believe they've dodged a bullet.
I say don't get too excited.
Writing for the majority, Justice (and Sacramento homie) Anthony Kennedy pointed out one very important thing: The parties did not ask the Court to consider whether diversity in higher education is still a compelling state interest that would survive the strict scrutiny analysis used when the government bases a decision in whole or in part on race. Justice Kennedy noted that the District Court and the Court of Appeals were correct in finding that Grutter v. Bollinger called for courts' "deference" to a university's judgment that diversity is essential to its educational mission.
Them Justice Kennedy pointed out the way for the next challenge: "But the parties here do not ask the Court to revisit that aspect of Grutter's holding."
And that is precisely why the proponents of affirmative action should not get too excited.
The next challenge to affirmative action cannot succeed, IMHO, without taking down diversity as a compelling state interest in higher education. Justice Kennedy has pointed out the theory - revisiting "that aspect of Grutter's holding" that a university's judgment that diversity is essential to its educational mission is due deference by the courts. The only remaining hurdles are a receptive Supreme Court majority and some disgruntled applicant who thinks that some minority applicant "took" an admissions spot he thinks he should have had.
Maybe I'm just too battle weary and cynical when it comes to affirmative action in higher education. I can't help but think that the end of affirmative action in higher education will happen in my lifetime and we might as well get prepared for it.
I hope I'm wrong.
If We Could Forgive George Wallace . . . . (A Conversation with Black Folks About Paula Deen)
Hi Black Folks,
Can we talk about Paula Deen? Quite frankly, the question of forgiving Paula Deen for using the N-word in the past is, IMHO, a conversation that needs to reside within the black community since that word is used to demean us and strip us of our humanity. So for all of my non-white readers, please excuse us while we black folks have a conversation about forgiving Paula Deen.
Oh, and for those of you black folks who routinely use the N-word -- rappers and the like -- you're excused from the conversation. As far as I'm concerned, you're part of the problem. I don't take a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude towards the N-word. To my mind, there is no acceptable use of the word. So, as far as I'm concerned, you have no place in this conversation, either.
Now, down to brass tacks. First, I'll admit my bias. I'm a Paula Deen fan. I like her wit, her charm, her grit, her backstory of overcoming adversity and taking her greatest talent and making something of it.
I also adore her Grandmother Paul's Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe. More on that later.
For now, the question we black folks "for true," to borrow a turn of phrase from our elders, should ask ourselves is this: If we could forgive George Wallace, can we (or why can't we) forgive Paula Deen?
Mind you, racism is racism. Governor George Wallace standing in the door of the University of Alabama stating, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," was as about as in-your-face with racism as one could get. Yet, black folks forgave him and voted him back into office. I've said it time and again -- we black folks are the most forgiving people on the planet. We have to be given that we live side-by-side with the very folks who fomented our mistreatment. George Wallace's political second act is a testament to black forgiveness.
That said, insidious racism on the down-low -- the kind Paula Deen is alleged to have practiced -- is the worst because it's shielded. It's like being attacked from an unexpected source, especially one whose image is that of home cookin' and Southern hospitality. Not white hospitality, Southern hospitality. Anyone who's ever lived in the South knows there are no more hospitable people on the planet than Southerners of any race.
We as black folks can't answer the question whether we should forgive Paula Deen until we're sure what we're forgiving her for. In her deposition, Paula Deen admitted under oath to using the N-word in the past. She did not admit to using it in the manner alleged in the racial discrimination lawsuit against her -- her description of black men who were to serve as waiters at her brother's wedding using the N-word. If indeed she did use the N-word as alleged in the lawsuit, perhaps she does not merit forgiveness because she hasn't really come to terms with her racism. For me, forgiveness isn't just about what you did, but whether you have the potential to learn from it and not do it again. Perhaps that's why black folks in Alabama forgave George Wallace -- the perception that he learned from his mistake and had the potential not to make the same mistake again.
My fervent hope is that Paula Deen isn't the racist she's portrayed to be and, if she is, she'll come clean about it, settle the lawsuit, and use this mistake as an opportunity to confront her racism and educate other whites who are racist about theirs. If she does, she will be worthy of forgiveness.
And if she is forgiven by us black folks, I hope she'll stick to cooking. I've made a lot of pound cakes in my life and tried a lot of recipes, including my owner mother's, and no pound cake I've ever tried, whether from a bakery or a home cook, comes close to Paula Deen's Grandmother Paul's Sour Cream Pound cake. I've taken that pound cake to family outings and had it literally snatched off the table along with the plate it arrived on. It's THAT good.
In a perfect world, Paula Deen would go on Oprah's Next Chapter, admit all the times she's used the N-word, get forgiven by Oprah, and OWN would pick up her cooking shows, putting Deen in the curious position of having her ass saved by a black woman -- a Southern black woman, no less.
Should black folks forgive Paula Deen? Time will tell. In the meantime, download that pound cake recipe before the Food Network takes it off their website and make one while you think about forgiving her.
Can we talk about Paula Deen? Quite frankly, the question of forgiving Paula Deen for using the N-word in the past is, IMHO, a conversation that needs to reside within the black community since that word is used to demean us and strip us of our humanity. So for all of my non-white readers, please excuse us while we black folks have a conversation about forgiving Paula Deen.
Oh, and for those of you black folks who routinely use the N-word -- rappers and the like -- you're excused from the conversation. As far as I'm concerned, you're part of the problem. I don't take a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude towards the N-word. To my mind, there is no acceptable use of the word. So, as far as I'm concerned, you have no place in this conversation, either.
Now, down to brass tacks. First, I'll admit my bias. I'm a Paula Deen fan. I like her wit, her charm, her grit, her backstory of overcoming adversity and taking her greatest talent and making something of it.
I also adore her Grandmother Paul's Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe. More on that later.
For now, the question we black folks "for true," to borrow a turn of phrase from our elders, should ask ourselves is this: If we could forgive George Wallace, can we (or why can't we) forgive Paula Deen?
Mind you, racism is racism. Governor George Wallace standing in the door of the University of Alabama stating, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," was as about as in-your-face with racism as one could get. Yet, black folks forgave him and voted him back into office. I've said it time and again -- we black folks are the most forgiving people on the planet. We have to be given that we live side-by-side with the very folks who fomented our mistreatment. George Wallace's political second act is a testament to black forgiveness.
That said, insidious racism on the down-low -- the kind Paula Deen is alleged to have practiced -- is the worst because it's shielded. It's like being attacked from an unexpected source, especially one whose image is that of home cookin' and Southern hospitality. Not white hospitality, Southern hospitality. Anyone who's ever lived in the South knows there are no more hospitable people on the planet than Southerners of any race.
We as black folks can't answer the question whether we should forgive Paula Deen until we're sure what we're forgiving her for. In her deposition, Paula Deen admitted under oath to using the N-word in the past. She did not admit to using it in the manner alleged in the racial discrimination lawsuit against her -- her description of black men who were to serve as waiters at her brother's wedding using the N-word. If indeed she did use the N-word as alleged in the lawsuit, perhaps she does not merit forgiveness because she hasn't really come to terms with her racism. For me, forgiveness isn't just about what you did, but whether you have the potential to learn from it and not do it again. Perhaps that's why black folks in Alabama forgave George Wallace -- the perception that he learned from his mistake and had the potential not to make the same mistake again.
My fervent hope is that Paula Deen isn't the racist she's portrayed to be and, if she is, she'll come clean about it, settle the lawsuit, and use this mistake as an opportunity to confront her racism and educate other whites who are racist about theirs. If she does, she will be worthy of forgiveness.
And if she is forgiven by us black folks, I hope she'll stick to cooking. I've made a lot of pound cakes in my life and tried a lot of recipes, including my owner mother's, and no pound cake I've ever tried, whether from a bakery or a home cook, comes close to Paula Deen's Grandmother Paul's Sour Cream Pound cake. I've taken that pound cake to family outings and had it literally snatched off the table along with the plate it arrived on. It's THAT good.
In a perfect world, Paula Deen would go on Oprah's Next Chapter, admit all the times she's used the N-word, get forgiven by Oprah, and OWN would pick up her cooking shows, putting Deen in the curious position of having her ass saved by a black woman -- a Southern black woman, no less.
Should black folks forgive Paula Deen? Time will tell. In the meantime, download that pound cake recipe before the Food Network takes it off their website and make one while you think about forgiving her.
The Makena Monologues, Part I: The Power of Rejuvenation
*Note: This is the first in a series of entries I wrote in my journal at the Makena Beach and Golf Resort, Maui, Hawai'i. The occasion was the week of my 50th birthday and Black Man Not Blogging's (BMNB) and my 10th wedding anniversary.
May 25, 2013
The weeks leading up to our sojourn were stressful. I have been under the gun at work, being micromanaged and challenged, working crazy hours. BMNB was pretty much left on his own to take care of himself and his mom. I was doing well to shower and get to work. We also had some major financial decisions to make in short order that were stressing us both out.
My life was waaay out of balance. I think both our lives were. I kept saying over and over, "I just need everything to stop."
The only reason we went on this vacation we really couldn't afford was we both decided we could not let the demands and stresses of our lives make us not take time to mark our ten years together as a married couple and my 50th birthday. I was resolute that this would be a vacation when I was absolutely NOT going to be available to be reached by phone by my bosses as I had been the last time I went out of town for more than two days. BMNB was so resolute that my job would not interfere with our departure that he made a threat that was so out of character for him: "If your bosses even think about getting in the way of our vacation, I'ma come up on your job and act a fool."
Indeed.
It took a lot of late nights to clear my desk, but I did. And then something magical happened.
We landed in Maui.
There's something about landing at the Kahului Airport that, even with its hustle and bustle, takes your blood pressure down about twenty points. The open air design, the palm trees swaying in the breeze, the smell of the ocean and plumeria in the wind just relax you. Everyone here is either on vacation or lives here, so either way, they're happy.
After getting our rental car and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we arrived at our hotel. Our travel agent at Costco.com -- yes, Costco.com -- snagged us a free room upgrade on the highest floor with an ocean view. When I stepped out on the lanai and saw the beautiful grounds and the ocean, I got my wish.
Everything stopped. And that's exactly what I needed.
I don't know about you, but I grew up in a family that didn't take vacations. My dad didn't believe in them and, truth be told, he probably couldn't afford to take his brood of six kids on vacation anyway. I think my late mom, SWIE (She Who Is Exalted), longed to travel but just accepted her vacation-less fate as part and parcel of being married to my dad.
Even in the less than twenty-four hours we've been here, I can already feel the difference in my body. I'm rested. I'm calm. Everything has stopped.
Like BMNB always says, we're not machines. Vacations, and the rejuvenation they bring, aren't just for those who are unable to cope. They are, in fact, for those wise enough to know that rejuvenation is part of being able to cope.
I think there is just something in the culture of the generation of black parents like mine that says you just need to tough out your life's circumstances and look for your reward in the afterlife.
I disagree.
I don't think God put us here to work perpetually and stressfully until we die. I think He put each and every one of us here to accomplish a purpose, and it's up to us to manage and maintain our health and mental well-being in order to accomplish His purpose for us. Rejuvenation is part of that management and maintenance, IMHO. Or put another way, if God didn't want us to take vacations and rejuvenate ourselves, he wouldn't have given us Maui.
So, Gentle Readers, take your vacations. Travel. Rest. Rejuvenate.
As I told BMNB, it's sad that I had to travel thousands of miles to get a long and good night's sleep, but boy, was it worth it.
Aloha.
May 25, 2013
The weeks leading up to our sojourn were stressful. I have been under the gun at work, being micromanaged and challenged, working crazy hours. BMNB was pretty much left on his own to take care of himself and his mom. I was doing well to shower and get to work. We also had some major financial decisions to make in short order that were stressing us both out.
My life was waaay out of balance. I think both our lives were. I kept saying over and over, "I just need everything to stop."
The only reason we went on this vacation we really couldn't afford was we both decided we could not let the demands and stresses of our lives make us not take time to mark our ten years together as a married couple and my 50th birthday. I was resolute that this would be a vacation when I was absolutely NOT going to be available to be reached by phone by my bosses as I had been the last time I went out of town for more than two days. BMNB was so resolute that my job would not interfere with our departure that he made a threat that was so out of character for him: "If your bosses even think about getting in the way of our vacation, I'ma come up on your job and act a fool."
Indeed.
It took a lot of late nights to clear my desk, but I did. And then something magical happened.
We landed in Maui.
There's something about landing at the Kahului Airport that, even with its hustle and bustle, takes your blood pressure down about twenty points. The open air design, the palm trees swaying in the breeze, the smell of the ocean and plumeria in the wind just relax you. Everyone here is either on vacation or lives here, so either way, they're happy.
After getting our rental car and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we arrived at our hotel. Our travel agent at Costco.com -- yes, Costco.com -- snagged us a free room upgrade on the highest floor with an ocean view. When I stepped out on the lanai and saw the beautiful grounds and the ocean, I got my wish.
Everything stopped. And that's exactly what I needed.
I don't know about you, but I grew up in a family that didn't take vacations. My dad didn't believe in them and, truth be told, he probably couldn't afford to take his brood of six kids on vacation anyway. I think my late mom, SWIE (She Who Is Exalted), longed to travel but just accepted her vacation-less fate as part and parcel of being married to my dad.
Even in the less than twenty-four hours we've been here, I can already feel the difference in my body. I'm rested. I'm calm. Everything has stopped.
Like BMNB always says, we're not machines. Vacations, and the rejuvenation they bring, aren't just for those who are unable to cope. They are, in fact, for those wise enough to know that rejuvenation is part of being able to cope.
I think there is just something in the culture of the generation of black parents like mine that says you just need to tough out your life's circumstances and look for your reward in the afterlife.
I disagree.
I don't think God put us here to work perpetually and stressfully until we die. I think He put each and every one of us here to accomplish a purpose, and it's up to us to manage and maintain our health and mental well-being in order to accomplish His purpose for us. Rejuvenation is part of that management and maintenance, IMHO. Or put another way, if God didn't want us to take vacations and rejuvenate ourselves, he wouldn't have given us Maui.
So, Gentle Readers, take your vacations. Travel. Rest. Rejuvenate.
As I told BMNB, it's sad that I had to travel thousands of miles to get a long and good night's sleep, but boy, was it worth it.
Aloha.
Here's to the Lionesses (Primary Breadwinner Women)
The Pew Research Center analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data and found that, in 40% of American families, a woman is the primary or sole breadwinner. I briefly saw a clip from Fox News in which Megyn Kelly was giving a smackdown to some male talking head who said that it wasn't the natural order of things for women to be in this position. I couldn't stand to watch the rest of the clip.
Not natural? Tell that to the lionesses.
In nature, lionesses are the primary meatwinner -- I say "meatwinner" because lions ain't eating bread out on the savannah -- for their families. The male lion is pretty much, well, useless, except for breeding. With all that useless hair upside his head, he throws off the hunt by announcing his presence. It's pretty much the lionesses -- basically one woman and her sisters -- bringing down the zebra and antelope and whatnot.
That's nature for real. Ask the lionesses, or a female bear, for that matter.
What disturbs me more is the idea of men talking heads criticizing women for doing what they need to do, in the words of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, " to keep their families fed." In a perfect world, men and women (or women and women or men and men) would share equally in the money earning and cooking and cleaning, etc. We women didn't make this imperfect world; we're just trying to make it better. Truth be told, what else could be expected once women started graduating college and entering graduate and professional programs in numbers equal to or exceeding the numbers of men? Did you expect women to not maximize our earning potential when many of us have student loan debt to service in addition to feeding families?
Instead of criticizing these women who are primary breadwinners, or bemoaning the demise of society, we need to applaud these women for stepping up and handling their business. If they were on welfare and staying at home with their kids, haters and Fox News talking heads would still be criticizing them.
In nature, if you want to eat, you're better off relying on a woman. That's nature for real.
Here's to the lionesses.
Not natural? Tell that to the lionesses.
In nature, lionesses are the primary meatwinner -- I say "meatwinner" because lions ain't eating bread out on the savannah -- for their families. The male lion is pretty much, well, useless, except for breeding. With all that useless hair upside his head, he throws off the hunt by announcing his presence. It's pretty much the lionesses -- basically one woman and her sisters -- bringing down the zebra and antelope and whatnot.
That's nature for real. Ask the lionesses, or a female bear, for that matter.
What disturbs me more is the idea of men talking heads criticizing women for doing what they need to do, in the words of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, " to keep their families fed." In a perfect world, men and women (or women and women or men and men) would share equally in the money earning and cooking and cleaning, etc. We women didn't make this imperfect world; we're just trying to make it better. Truth be told, what else could be expected once women started graduating college and entering graduate and professional programs in numbers equal to or exceeding the numbers of men? Did you expect women to not maximize our earning potential when many of us have student loan debt to service in addition to feeding families?
Instead of criticizing these women who are primary breadwinners, or bemoaning the demise of society, we need to applaud these women for stepping up and handling their business. If they were on welfare and staying at home with their kids, haters and Fox News talking heads would still be criticizing them.
In nature, if you want to eat, you're better off relying on a woman. That's nature for real.
Here's to the lionesses.
A Tectonic Shift in Priorities (Or Collateral Damage in the Mommy Wars)
We have a new person at work, who I will refer to as "NP" for purposes of this blog. NP has an infant. Today NP's boss, one of the highest-ups in the food chain where I work, blithely stated that NP would be assigned to work on an urgent assignment this weekend, without the slightest hint of prior consultation or consensus with NP. NP sat there with a shit-eating grin and did not protest. It sucks to be new.
Whoa, Nelly.
I thought to myself that if my boss had similarly committed me to work this weekend without consulting me, I would have said, "I have plans." Because I do. And I plan on having plans for the weekend for the next fifteen years or so years.
Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) and I are getting closer to adopting a toddler-age sibling set through foster care. As we get closer, I am alternately excited and nauseated at the prospect of what our life will become as late-life parents to young kids. We're marking some major milestones as of late -- BMNB turned fifty last year; I will turn fifty next month; and we'll mark our tenth anniversary five days after my birthday. If all goes as planned, we'll be parents by the end of the summer.
All of this has brought about what I'd call a tectonic shift in my priorities.
It is now more important to me than ever to have my weekends free for the family I'm trying to build and the life I'm trying to create for them. I don't want to be told with little notice and no opportunity to refuse that my weekend will be yanked out from under me. That's one of the reasons why I hated litigation -- the lack of control over one's schedule. When BMNB and I got married, we agreed there could only be one trial attorney in the family, and since I didn't want to be the trial attorney, it worked out well.
It is also more important to me to create the kind of family life for my kids-to-be that my parents created for me. We always ate dinner together as a family, and my mom cooked almost seven days a week. McDonald's was a treat for us because we only went there once a month, if at all. We ate huge Sunday dinners as a family, so much so that we were spoiled. We got to the point where we kids were turning up our noses at roast beef, turkey and ham. I'd give my left arm for my mom's roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy right about now. Hell, I don't even know how to make gravy.
Unlike most women my age, I've never taken time off to raise children. I've never had a maternity leave. My one and only pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, brought on in part, IMHO, from stress doing -- you guessed it -- litigation.
I want more living and less working. I have the nerve to expect more of life at this stage in my life. I actually feel I deserve to be happy in my career and home life, and if I can't be happy in my career, well, two tears in a bucket; motherf*** it. It just doesn't matter as much to me anymore.
I'm not like BMNB. He's happier than a pig in you-know-what practicing the law he practices. He has more freedom than I do -- an alternate work schedule, the freedom to work from home, and no bosses looking over his shoulder. It works for him.
Me, not so much. And I know that I'm running out of time to figure out how I'm going to make this all work because, sooner or later, that urgent assignment will come in, it will be my turn, and I will be expected to work over the weekend. My refusal will be considered insubordination. I'm already wearing a target on my back at work (it's a long story -- let's just say I'm in someone's cross hairs); any misstep can and will be held against me.
How much time will I take off to get our kids acclimated? How much time can I afford to take off?
Do I quit altogether and see if we can make it one BMNB's salary alone, even with the debt we have? That I can even consider such an option is a blessing that most women don't have, and I don't take it lightly. Do I just jump into motherhood and a new mother-friendly career (ahem, blogging?) at the same time and let go of the possibility of a pension, 401(k) and health care benefits in old age? What will our social worker think?
While other women are contemplating leaning in, I just feel like collateral damage in the so-called "mommy wars." Working moms and working-at-home moms (I think the term "stay-at-home mom" doesn't fully capture all the work that the term entails) seem to still be working this motherhood and career conflict out on each other instead of together opening up a can of whupass on the labor market to better accommodate parenthood. I would have thought that by this stage of the game, all the things that women need to parent and stay in the work force would have been standard issue by now in America -- paid parental leave, a child care center or pre-school on every corner, common and accepted part-time and shared work situations. But they're not, and each woman contemplating motherhood is left in a feral state to try to patch together some semblance of work-life balance. Lean in? At this stage, I don't care to lean in. I'd rather lean back, hold my kids-to-be, and read every single Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein book to them without worry. It is no longer a priority of mine to impress my superiors at work and continually prove myself to people whose opinion of me, in the end, doesn't really matter. What really matters to me is to know what it is to love children of my own and to share that love with BMNB. Everything else pales in comparison.
And the irony of it all? NP's boss is constantly out of the office with her sick children and doesn't work weekends. How's that for leaning in?
I don't know how this will all turn out, but I'm excited about what the future holds for BMNB and me.
Stay tuned.
Whoa, Nelly.
I thought to myself that if my boss had similarly committed me to work this weekend without consulting me, I would have said, "I have plans." Because I do. And I plan on having plans for the weekend for the next fifteen years or so years.
Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) and I are getting closer to adopting a toddler-age sibling set through foster care. As we get closer, I am alternately excited and nauseated at the prospect of what our life will become as late-life parents to young kids. We're marking some major milestones as of late -- BMNB turned fifty last year; I will turn fifty next month; and we'll mark our tenth anniversary five days after my birthday. If all goes as planned, we'll be parents by the end of the summer.
All of this has brought about what I'd call a tectonic shift in my priorities.
It is now more important to me than ever to have my weekends free for the family I'm trying to build and the life I'm trying to create for them. I don't want to be told with little notice and no opportunity to refuse that my weekend will be yanked out from under me. That's one of the reasons why I hated litigation -- the lack of control over one's schedule. When BMNB and I got married, we agreed there could only be one trial attorney in the family, and since I didn't want to be the trial attorney, it worked out well.
It is also more important to me to create the kind of family life for my kids-to-be that my parents created for me. We always ate dinner together as a family, and my mom cooked almost seven days a week. McDonald's was a treat for us because we only went there once a month, if at all. We ate huge Sunday dinners as a family, so much so that we were spoiled. We got to the point where we kids were turning up our noses at roast beef, turkey and ham. I'd give my left arm for my mom's roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy right about now. Hell, I don't even know how to make gravy.
Unlike most women my age, I've never taken time off to raise children. I've never had a maternity leave. My one and only pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, brought on in part, IMHO, from stress doing -- you guessed it -- litigation.
I want more living and less working. I have the nerve to expect more of life at this stage in my life. I actually feel I deserve to be happy in my career and home life, and if I can't be happy in my career, well, two tears in a bucket; motherf*** it. It just doesn't matter as much to me anymore.
I'm not like BMNB. He's happier than a pig in you-know-what practicing the law he practices. He has more freedom than I do -- an alternate work schedule, the freedom to work from home, and no bosses looking over his shoulder. It works for him.
Me, not so much. And I know that I'm running out of time to figure out how I'm going to make this all work because, sooner or later, that urgent assignment will come in, it will be my turn, and I will be expected to work over the weekend. My refusal will be considered insubordination. I'm already wearing a target on my back at work (it's a long story -- let's just say I'm in someone's cross hairs); any misstep can and will be held against me.
How much time will I take off to get our kids acclimated? How much time can I afford to take off?
Do I quit altogether and see if we can make it one BMNB's salary alone, even with the debt we have? That I can even consider such an option is a blessing that most women don't have, and I don't take it lightly. Do I just jump into motherhood and a new mother-friendly career (ahem, blogging?) at the same time and let go of the possibility of a pension, 401(k) and health care benefits in old age? What will our social worker think?
While other women are contemplating leaning in, I just feel like collateral damage in the so-called "mommy wars." Working moms and working-at-home moms (I think the term "stay-at-home mom" doesn't fully capture all the work that the term entails) seem to still be working this motherhood and career conflict out on each other instead of together opening up a can of whupass on the labor market to better accommodate parenthood. I would have thought that by this stage of the game, all the things that women need to parent and stay in the work force would have been standard issue by now in America -- paid parental leave, a child care center or pre-school on every corner, common and accepted part-time and shared work situations. But they're not, and each woman contemplating motherhood is left in a feral state to try to patch together some semblance of work-life balance. Lean in? At this stage, I don't care to lean in. I'd rather lean back, hold my kids-to-be, and read every single Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein book to them without worry. It is no longer a priority of mine to impress my superiors at work and continually prove myself to people whose opinion of me, in the end, doesn't really matter. What really matters to me is to know what it is to love children of my own and to share that love with BMNB. Everything else pales in comparison.
And the irony of it all? NP's boss is constantly out of the office with her sick children and doesn't work weekends. How's that for leaning in?
I don't know how this will all turn out, but I'm excited about what the future holds for BMNB and me.
Stay tuned.
President Obama's Comment About Attorney General Kamala Harris: I'm Not Offended, and Ain't I A Woman?
President Obama lauds California Attorney General Kamala Harris by saying she's brilliant, tough, dedicated and "the best looking attorney general in the country."
One of the local news channels here, CBS 13, showed a video of interviews with women -- and a guy or two -- asking them whether President Obama's remarks were offensive to women. The women gave mixed responses.
None of the women were African-American, which pisses me the hell off because, as an African-American woman, I've got a way different perspective on this and I'm tired of white women being the voice of all women. In the words of Sojourner Truth, ain't I a woman?
My perspective is different because I saw President Obama's remarks not as a gendered commentary, but a raced-and-gendered commentary, if you will, and an inside joke between friends. I don't recall President Obama ever making a comment about the looks of a non-African-American female, which is why I, as an African-American woman, respect him -- because his choices in women affirm us African-American women. I know this sounds anything but feminist, but hear me out.
I am one of the few African-American women who served on the Harvard Law Review with the President long before he became president. We weren't buds and he couldn't pick me out of a lineup, but I have to admit -- I expected that he, like many African-American men poised to be successful and powerful, wouldn't even choose an African-American woman as a mate, much less revel in the beauty of African-American women.
Many African-American men like President Obama are told that, precisely because they are successful and powerful, they don't have to "limit" themselves to African-American women. One African-American male student I met while attending Princeton told me that men like him could "trade up" and didn't have to date African-American women. In fact, he even deigned to tell me in so many words that I was lucky he was paying me any attention.
When I see so many powerful and successful African-American men date outside our race, I have to admit -- although I believe love knows no color, I wonder whether they ever considered dating an African-American woman or whether they bought into the message about "trading up." When you see Tiger Woods' parade of women past and present, it's pretty clear that he does not find African-American women attractive.
So when the Leader of the Freakin' Free World not only habitually gushes about his African-American wife's beauty -- a beauty that has been repeatedly derided in the mainstream press -- and goes on to compliment the beauty of another intelligent and powerful African-American woman, I'm not offended. I'm affirmed, strangely enough. So much of what appears in the media about African-American women is negative in so many ways -- like pictures on the internet comparing the First Lady to a chimpanzee -- that I'm happy that the one man who could pretty much choose any woman in the world revels in the intelligence and beauty of African-American women. No offense, but I don't want white women's experiences to be the barometer of whether I should be offended. They don't experience the world as I do. Never have, never will.
I'm not offended, and ain't I a woman?
The President was wrong, though. Eric Holder is the best looking attorney general in the country.
One of the local news channels here, CBS 13, showed a video of interviews with women -- and a guy or two -- asking them whether President Obama's remarks were offensive to women. The women gave mixed responses.
None of the women were African-American, which pisses me the hell off because, as an African-American woman, I've got a way different perspective on this and I'm tired of white women being the voice of all women. In the words of Sojourner Truth, ain't I a woman?
My perspective is different because I saw President Obama's remarks not as a gendered commentary, but a raced-and-gendered commentary, if you will, and an inside joke between friends. I don't recall President Obama ever making a comment about the looks of a non-African-American female, which is why I, as an African-American woman, respect him -- because his choices in women affirm us African-American women. I know this sounds anything but feminist, but hear me out.
I am one of the few African-American women who served on the Harvard Law Review with the President long before he became president. We weren't buds and he couldn't pick me out of a lineup, but I have to admit -- I expected that he, like many African-American men poised to be successful and powerful, wouldn't even choose an African-American woman as a mate, much less revel in the beauty of African-American women.
Many African-American men like President Obama are told that, precisely because they are successful and powerful, they don't have to "limit" themselves to African-American women. One African-American male student I met while attending Princeton told me that men like him could "trade up" and didn't have to date African-American women. In fact, he even deigned to tell me in so many words that I was lucky he was paying me any attention.
When I see so many powerful and successful African-American men date outside our race, I have to admit -- although I believe love knows no color, I wonder whether they ever considered dating an African-American woman or whether they bought into the message about "trading up." When you see Tiger Woods' parade of women past and present, it's pretty clear that he does not find African-American women attractive.
So when the Leader of the Freakin' Free World not only habitually gushes about his African-American wife's beauty -- a beauty that has been repeatedly derided in the mainstream press -- and goes on to compliment the beauty of another intelligent and powerful African-American woman, I'm not offended. I'm affirmed, strangely enough. So much of what appears in the media about African-American women is negative in so many ways -- like pictures on the internet comparing the First Lady to a chimpanzee -- that I'm happy that the one man who could pretty much choose any woman in the world revels in the intelligence and beauty of African-American women. No offense, but I don't want white women's experiences to be the barometer of whether I should be offended. They don't experience the world as I do. Never have, never will.
I'm not offended, and ain't I a woman?
The President was wrong, though. Eric Holder is the best looking attorney general in the country.
Baby Boomers Are Asking Themselves, "What The Hell Am I Doing Here?"
I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boom and am ineligible for retirement under my retirement system. I've had to sit back and watch those at the head of the Baby Boom make the decision whether to continue working or retire. Sometimes that decision comes down to finances, sometimes it comes down to health. For those who have the finances to retire and the health to enjoy it, I am increasingly seeing them ask themselves this question about their workplace:
What the hell am I doing here?
From what I've observed, this question is triggered in older Baby Boomers when workplace conditions become more onerous (like a bad boss), the pay becomes less (like furloughs), or they see someone in their age cohort with the same number or fewer years of service retire. It's as if they see a proverbial clock of their lifespan on the wall inching toward midnight, and parts of their lives outside the workplace become a powerful counterweight against remaining in the workplace.
Like grandchildren. Or a retired spouse. Or an ailing parent. Or just longing to do something more meaningful.
I've mentioned before that I have two siblings who are retiring this year. One will have 40 years' worth of state civil service, the other over 30. One is planning on going back to school and becoming a travel agent. The other is weighing his options, I think.
I can't retire, but I, too, feel the tug of other countervailing considerations in my life. We all go through different life stages, and different things matter more to us at different stages of our lives. Whereas most people my age have children who are leaving or have left the nest, I'm preparing to begin parenthood. I now realize that I don't want to spend a boatload of time at the office. I don't want to be the "go-to" person. I don't want to bring work home and I don't want to discuss work at home when I have my family in place. I want to be able to come home in time to fix dinner and sit down with my family and eat. Yes, fix family dinners. Feminists fix dinner, too. I totally get the "What the hell am I doing here?" question that older Baby Boomers are asking themselves.
Once the "What the hell am I doing here?" question is asked by older Baby Boomers, their spirits demand an answer. I've seen older Baby Boomers start to do the math -- figuring out how much they will draw in retirement, how much they can live on, the amount of Social Security they will get at 62 versus 65, whether they can downsize their home or if they will be doing something else after retirement to supplement their incomes. When all the right factors align to give them the answer they want or can live with, they pull the retirement ripcord and parachute out of the workplace. I am in awe of each and every one of them, especially those who slogged through soul-sucking jobs for years on end. I'm in awe not because they retired, but because they had the courage to ask themselves, "What the hell am I doing here?".
Rock on, Baby Boomer retirees. Rock on.
What the hell am I doing here?
From what I've observed, this question is triggered in older Baby Boomers when workplace conditions become more onerous (like a bad boss), the pay becomes less (like furloughs), or they see someone in their age cohort with the same number or fewer years of service retire. It's as if they see a proverbial clock of their lifespan on the wall inching toward midnight, and parts of their lives outside the workplace become a powerful counterweight against remaining in the workplace.
Like grandchildren. Or a retired spouse. Or an ailing parent. Or just longing to do something more meaningful.
I've mentioned before that I have two siblings who are retiring this year. One will have 40 years' worth of state civil service, the other over 30. One is planning on going back to school and becoming a travel agent. The other is weighing his options, I think.
I can't retire, but I, too, feel the tug of other countervailing considerations in my life. We all go through different life stages, and different things matter more to us at different stages of our lives. Whereas most people my age have children who are leaving or have left the nest, I'm preparing to begin parenthood. I now realize that I don't want to spend a boatload of time at the office. I don't want to be the "go-to" person. I don't want to bring work home and I don't want to discuss work at home when I have my family in place. I want to be able to come home in time to fix dinner and sit down with my family and eat. Yes, fix family dinners. Feminists fix dinner, too. I totally get the "What the hell am I doing here?" question that older Baby Boomers are asking themselves.
Once the "What the hell am I doing here?" question is asked by older Baby Boomers, their spirits demand an answer. I've seen older Baby Boomers start to do the math -- figuring out how much they will draw in retirement, how much they can live on, the amount of Social Security they will get at 62 versus 65, whether they can downsize their home or if they will be doing something else after retirement to supplement their incomes. When all the right factors align to give them the answer they want or can live with, they pull the retirement ripcord and parachute out of the workplace. I am in awe of each and every one of them, especially those who slogged through soul-sucking jobs for years on end. I'm in awe not because they retired, but because they had the courage to ask themselves, "What the hell am I doing here?".
Rock on, Baby Boomer retirees. Rock on.
Middle-Aged and Tired? Sleep Apnea Is No Joke!
Not all who have sleep apnea snore; not all who snore have sleep apnea.
~ My doctor
I didn't get the 100,000 signatures I needed for White House action on my Port Chicago White House Petition. What I did get in the interim may have saved my life.
I have been tired for a long time. Years. I just assumed this was what middle age felt like -- diminished energy, foggy thinking. I just thought this was menopause or my ferritin deficiency (ferritin is the back-up iron storage in your system) and I had to get used to it. I often wondered to myself and to Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB) how I was going to be able to parent small children when it was all I could do at the end of the day to fall out tired on the sofa after work.
My exhaustion didn't really become an issue until I continued coming in to work late because I was oversleeping. I went to get a doctor's note to verify my ferretin deficiency, and when I described my symptoms, my doctor replied, "That sounds like sleep apnea." I replied, "I DON'T SNORE!"
My doctor, ever her amazing self, said with Yoda-like wisdom, "Not all who have sleep apnea snore; not all who snore have sleep apnea." She referred me to my health care provider's sleep clinic, and after wearing a diagnostic monitor for one night, it was determined that not only did I have sleep apnea, I had moderate to severe sleep apnea.
WTF? I don't snore!
In a later visit with my doctor, I asked about my sleep clinic results and the fact that I had received a call from the sleep clinic for a return visit. She explained then that I had moderate to severe sleep apnea. That return visit to the sleep clinic? She dropped a bomb on me: "You're about to be fitted with a CPAP machine."
WTF?
I was still pretty much in denial. I had heard about CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machines and how uncomfortable they were to sleep with. "What if I don't use the CPAP machine?", I asked.
My doctor, ever the patient person, looked me dead in the eye. "Sleep apnea is serious. It can lead to cardiovascular hypertension. Basically, when you stop breathing while you sleep, the cardiovascular system that supplies your heart and lungs are working overtime to keep them oxygenated with the oxygen left in your system when you don't breathe. That leads to cardiovascular hypertension, which is extremely hard to treat. We don't even want patients to get to the point of having cardiovascular hypertension."
She continued, "Not only does sleep apnea present as cardiovascular hypertension, but it can also present as heart attack and . . . . " She listed a whole host of maladies I didn't want no parts of, and then the last malady stopped me cold: "It can also cause dementia."
Hold the phone. WTF?
It got me thinking hard. My mother, who was a smoker, had her first heart attack at 53. She also had early onset Alzheimer's, or at least that's what they thought it was. She died at age 64 of cancer.
And she snored. A LOT. I can remember my mom basically running on coffee and cigarettes for energy. I used to think she was tired because she had six kids.
Maybe, just maybe, she had sleep apnea, too. Sleep apnea tends to run in families.
I know for a fact that my thinking has been cloudy for the last couple of years. I've always had a facility with words, and I've had to work harder to write correctly and recall arcane vocabulary words that I once used easily and freely. I know for a fact that it takes me longer to read and analyze cases than it used to, that I can't remember names as easily, although I wasn't very good at names to begin with. The idea that this could get even worse for me without some kind of medical intervention? The idea that this silent disease I never thought I could have -- because I don't snore -- could kill me?
Since then, I've been telling everyone I know about sleep apnea, that it could happen to them, too, even if they don't snore.
When I went to the sleep clinic follow-up appointment, it was a sleep apnea class where we were being given a tester CPAP machine in order to calibrate the CPAP machine we would all eventually have to get. I was the only woman in the class. The rest were all men, most of then white, most of them way overweight. Just the kind of folks who, in my uninformed mind, would have sleep apnea: Men who look like Homer Simpson.
I told the class leader, a woman respiratory therapist, that when I was told I had sleep apnea, you could have rolled me over with a feather. "I don't snore. I don't consider myself way overweight. I don't . . . " She cut me off: "You thought sleep apnea was only for fat people who snore? Yeah, we get that a lot."
After being shown how to adjust the CPAP mask, which goes over your nose, use the oxymeter thing on a finger of our non-dominant hands, and set up the machine, we were sent off with tester CPAP machines and told to record our nightime sleeping experiences with it for a seven-day sleep study.
The first night, I almost cried. The CPAP mask and straps made me look like Hannibal Lector's little sister, and the sound of the air being pushed into the mask, although not loud, sounded like Darth Vadar breathing. I couldn't relax, and I couldn't get used to some machine pushing air into me. I knew that my life depended on getting used to this machine. With some adjustments (loosening the mask a bit, sleeping on my side), I got used to it.
It was the best week of sleep I had in years. I didn't feel tired waking up, and I had more energy all day. Even BMNB said I looked noticeably better. I didn't want to return the machine after my seven days were over because I didn't want to be without it, even for the interim period before I get my own.
The day after I returned it, even I could see the difference. I had dark circles under my eyes again, and I didn't have the same level of energy.
Another doctor who was reading my medical chart to me last week over the phone told me that it was shown that I stop breathing while I sleep at night 9.7 times per hour on average. "Basically, you stop breathing just about every time you go to sleep," he responded. "Good thing you were diagnosed."
The last thing he said to me? "We get folks in the emergency room all the time who have had heart attacks due to sleep apnea."
If you find that you are tired all the time, even after a full night's sleep, ask your doctor for a referral to a sleep clinic to be checked for sleep apnea. Don't assume that it's menopause, middle age, or just the way you are. I never, ever thought this would happen to me. Sleep apnea is no joke.
BWB
Make Black History: Sign The White House Petition to Pardon the Black WWII Sailors of Port Chicago
Two
hundred and fifty-eight African-American World War II sailors were court-martialed,
of whom fifty were convicted of mutiny, because they refused to continue
loading munitions after an explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine near what
is now the Concord Naval Weapons Station in California. They refused to return to work because they
had been relegated to the dangerous job of loading munitions because of their
race. It was the largest mass mutiny
trial in U.S. Naval history.
On July
17, 1944, at 10:18 pm, an explosion occurred at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine
involving 4,606 tons of munitions, killing 320 cargo handlers, crewmen, and
sailors. According to the Navy’s own
historical website (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq80-1.htm ), African-American Navy
personnel units were assigned to the dangerous work of loading munitions at
Port Chicago under the supervision of white officers. In his book
“The Port Chicago Mutiny: The
Story of the Largest Mass Mutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History,” author and U.C.
Berkeley professor Dr. Robert Allen (http://africam.berkeley.edu/faculty/allen.html) quoted one of the African-American
sailors convicted of mutiny as saying that the officers "encouraged" competition
by the black sailors in loading munitions tonnage and threatened punishment or loss of privileges.
On
August 9, 1944, 258 African-American Port Chicago sailors refused to return to
the work of loading munitions. When
given the chance to reconsider their decision, 208 of the 258 were willing to
return to work. Instead, the 208 were
subjected to summary courts-martial and given bad conduct discharges, and the
remaining 50 were charged with mutiny. After
32 days of hearing, 80 minutes of deliberation, and despite the presence of
Thurgood Marshall and his call for a formal investigation by the government
into the circumstances of the work stoppage, all 50 men were convicted of
mutiny. Marshall filed and argued an
appeal on their behalf with the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Office in
Washington, but the convictions were upheld.
Forty-seven of the fifty received clemency, were released from prison,
and eventually left the Navy “under honorable conditions,” but their mutiny
convictions stood. Rep. George Miller
(D-California), who represents the district where Port Chicago stood, sought to
have the convictions of the 50 reversed, with no success. The National Bar Association passed a
resolution in 1998 calling for pardons for the 50 convicted of mutiny, with no
success. President Clinton pardoned Freddie
Meeks, one of the 50 convicted of mutiny.
Now is
the time for President Obama to grant redress of this racial wrong and pardon the
remaining 257 of the African-American World War II sailors of Port Chicago who
were court-martialed and/or convicted of mutiny, many of whom have passed away
with this stain on their record of service to our country. No American serviceman or servicewoman should
be or should have ever been singled out for the most dangerous jobs in the
military based solely on race.
Short URL: http://wh.gov/vQzx
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