Ancient history through a very modern lens *

Archaelogists believe they may have found the site that holds Cleopatra’s tomb. Among the treasures found at nearby digs are coins that bear Cleopatra’s image and a bust of her.

You’d think these coins would be treasured primarily as priceless ancient artifacts or mementoes of a beloved queen. But they are valuable for another reason. A couple of years ago,** scholars examined another coin bearing Cleopatra’s image and determined: “The popular image we have of Cleopatra… that of a beautiful queen,” was wrong. Apparently, the news that Cleopatra might not have looked like Elizabeth Taylor was shocking to some.


Thus, we have the problem of figuring out what to do about Cleopatra--when you tie most of a woman's achievements/activities to her "incomparable" beauty, how do you now, when she is (ridiculously) judged by current standards to be "ugly," tell her story? How does it change? To what do we attribute Caesar's and Antony's "weakness" (as affection or regard for a woman is so often called)? Surely, Cleopatra's intelligence or cleverness or personality could not have been enough?

These new coins rescue us, again, from those questions.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist, said the coins found at the temple refuted "what some scholars have said about Cleopatra being very ugly".

"The finds from Taposiris reflect a charm... and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive," he said.

So she is, indeed, worth our continued fascination.
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*Though ancient cultures had their own beauty standards and such ephemeral things as beauty standards are subject to change.

**Though the debate about Cleopatra's beauty predates this.

"Whites Only"

Recently, when I asked my students an exam question about World War II and pre- and during war mobilization, I began with the statement, “During the first half of the 1940s, Americans found themselves confronted with the paradox of fighting racism abroad while sustaining a racially/ethnically stratified system at home.” Of course, that is a broad statement—you could argue, for example, that given the fact that the military was segregated, the U.S. sustained racism abroad during the war, as well.


And now, the BBC has found another way in which the U.S. “sustained racism abroad” during the war:

Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory.

Much of the Free French fighting force (65%) was African, and they had made tremendous sacrifices:

By the time France fell in June 1940, 17,000 of its black, mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead.

Many of them were simply shot where they stood soon after surrendering to German troops who often regarded them as sub-human savages.

But the U.S. and the U.K. were dismissive of their service. When the liberation of Paris seemed possible in 1944 and Charles de Gaulle insisted that the French lead the liberation,

Allied High Command agreed, but only on one condition: De Gaulle's division must not contain any black soldiers.

In January 1944 Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith, was to write in a memo stamped, "confidential": "It is more desirable that the division mentioned above consist of white personnel.”

To create the “whites only” illusion,

Allied Command insisted that all black soldiers be taken out and replaced by white ones from other units.

When it became clear that there were not enough white soldiers to fill the gaps, soldiers from parts of North Africa and the Middle East were used instead.

In a sense, this is not surprising for the U.S.—a nation that had always downplayed black military personnel’s service, that relegated black service people to menial duties, that until World War II, excluded them from certain branches of the military. The degradation of African Americans military service went so far that, in 1925, the Army War College issued a report detailing why African Americans were unfit for combat and could never be pilots.

But this seems somehow, particularly low, that in the midst of what was supposed to be a great triumph, the U.S. took the time to strengthen and assert policies that were supposed to be the very antithesis of what it was fighting for.

Lighter Is Better

I cannot pinpoint the moment that I, as a little black girl, began to absorb the messages about the desirability, the attractiveness of lighter skin. There were all the moments my mother admonished me to stay out of the sun, a lifetime of growing up with the knowledge that, of my three aunts, the fair-skinned one with the green eyes was considered the “prettiest,” the childhood argument/fight experiences in which adding “with your black (meaning dark) self!” made an insult even worse.

There were the times I watched pregnant women in my community grab the hands of straight or curly haired, light-skinned people and rub those hands across their stomachs—so the “good” hair and light skin would rub off on the baby. There were the times people asked my sister and I if we had the same father, because I was lighter than she. There was also the fact that I was an early romance-novel reader; I wish now I had a nickel for all the mentions of “pale” or “alabaster” flesh (quivering flesh—it was always quivering flesh!)

And then there was the media—I was bombarded with images of black women who were attractive because of their long, straight hair, fair skin, and non-brown eyes.

The message sank in early—one of my first school memories is walking to my kindergarten classroom, hand-in-hand with my white classmate, Robin. I remember looking down at our clasped hands and wishing mine was more like hers.

I was four years old.


I began with a personal story, but the belief that lighter-is-better is a problematic one throughout black communities, particularly for black women. I remember, as a child, watching a Whoopi Goldberg monologue in which she was pretending to be a little girl. She, too desired lighter skin, and decided to try with chlorine bleach. “All I got,” her character said, “Was burned.” The character was half right—chlorine was not the solution, but bleaching was. And the agent of choice, increasingly in the U.S., was hydroquinone.

Flipping through old black newspapers and magazines, you can see the ads for Fashion Fair’s Vantex, Ambi, and Dr. Palmer’s. Back in the day, they were more to the point, promising to lighten and whiten the skin. In the aftermath of black pride movements, they promise that their 2% hydroquinone formulas will fade or lighten discolorations and give you a more even skin tone. How can we argue with that? Unspoken, of course, is that the undesirable “dark spot” in need of fading/lightening is the entirety of our brown and black skin. (Though, given the image at the top of this page, and the name of the product, you can give “Fair & White” credit for being honest, I suppose.)

I cannot pinpoint the moment that I realized that the lighter-is-better issue was an issue for many other WoC, either. In grad school, my friend Jesse—who was Mexican American—told me a story about his mother’s despair that his sister looked “native” while he himself was fairer. His uncle had tried to console his mom by reasoning, “At least she’s pretty.”

And then I began to read stories about various African countries in which skin bleaching was unbelievably popular—even after hydroquinone and the mercury used in some products caused burns, and other painful ailments, and were linked to conditions like ochronosis, which is marked by

marked by the darkening and thickening of the skin, as well as the appearance of tiny dome-shaped bumps and grayish-brown spots.

Women in Mali reported being shunned if they didn’t use the product. And a hairdresser in Tanzania explained her use of skin bleach:

You hear that if you want to look beautiful, then you have to look like a white person and to look like a white person you have to use these creams.

Asian women are targeted, as well—a couple of month’s ago Women’s E-news described an ad on Hong Kong’s public transit system:

One video you might easily find yourself staring at promotes lingerie and is made by the Japanese company Wacoal.

In the lingerie ad, a serious young man first runs his hands over the bosom and buttocks of a thin woman with dark hair. He is then shown working in a futuristic laboratory crafting undergarments from his observations. In the final scene, an Asian woman with long blond hair and light skin wears a diaphanous gown to highlight her newly sculpted hourglass figure and turns to smile seductively at viewers: She has taken on Caucasian features.

And if you have the heart (and the stomach), you only have to click over to youtube to look at some of the Fair & Lovely ads for India.

Being lighter, being closer to white, makes PoC more successful, more confident, more attractive. That message is drummed into us over and over. So when Maegan drew my attention to the Ponds’ Flawless White series on youtube that posits that being lighter also helps you win your lost love! (and being darker makes you greedy and evuhl), I should not have been surprised.

But, well, damn. And so, without further ado, I bring you this nightmare*:



Transcript:

Ponds Flawless White
Reduces dark spots and lightens skin in just seven days
Ponds Flawless White
Love’s Helping Hand

(crossposted)
______________________________________
*I am also interested in the ways this intersects with class. In one of the articles I read about skin bleaching creams in Asia, the author noted that darker skin was associated with working outdoors and manual labor, a designation many women didn’t want. I am aware of a similar sentiment in my community. Then, in one of the articles about Africa, a doctor expressed the belief that skin bleaching was more prevalent among the less educated. This is problematic for lower socio-economic class women whose low wages mean they turn to cheaper products (often black market) that are even riskier and that they may spend a disproportionate amount of their income on these “beauty” products.

Things My Heart Can't Take Too Much More Of

I'm late to this. Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, a 13-year-old Somali girl was stoned to death for adultery.

From what I gather, her father tried to report that she was raped by three men. Instead of apprehending the rapists, the militia held her for adultery.

She was sentenced to death and stoned in a public execution.

And as if it isn't enough to imply she asked for death by committing the offense of being raped, I also found this quote that maintains she literally asked for it:

Our sister Aisha asked the Islamic Sharia court in Kismayo to be charged and punished for the crime she committed," local Islamist leader Sheikh Hayakallah told the crowd.

"She admitted in front of the court to engaging in adulterous sexual intercourse," he added.

"She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply."

And when her family tried to intercede at her execution because of her screams:

[G]uards opened fire, killing a child, the witnesses said.

Hilarious!

You know the joke format where a comedian begins "Blankty-blank is so bad..."

And the audience chimes in, "How bad is it?!"

Then you get the punchline and proceed to ROTFL? Or be amazed by how bad "it" must be? I have one for you, play along.

elle: Starvation during the Great Depression was so bad of a problem...

you: How bad was it?

elle: It was so bad, "There were so many... people starving in New York that the West African nation of Cameroon sent $3.77 in relief."

you: (Appropriate response: Gasp "Wow" in amazement. Things must have been the lowest of the low if perpetually starving Africans* tried to help someone else!!! And $3.77 must be equivalent to a billion to an African nation!!!
_________________________________
A few alternatives to this view. I just ran across the last two, so I need to read more deeply, but the first comes from a former student who just happens to be from Cameroon.

think of it as the opportunity of a lifetime

Renee reports that Madonna is preparing to adopt another Malawian child, this time against the wishes of her grandmother.

I don't have much to add to what Renee said (or what Nezua said). I understand that there are millions of children who need homes, but there is just something unsettling about white people going into Africa and Asia and choosing children. Good intent aside, I just can't get past the history of colonialism, privilege (money & white skin > family & cultural ties), and all the "civilization" arguments.


Renee's post included this sentence:

Don't think of it as stealing foreign adoption, think of it as the opportunity of a lifetime

It reminded me of a conversation with my friend, Fran. I love her dearly, but she is very much on the "U.S. is superior to all else, especially Africa" kick. We used to argue all the time--she could excuse slavery, could deal with white supremacy, she was just glad "we" weren't in Africa.

Of course, pointing out to her that "we" would not have been if millions of people had not been brutalized, did not help.

So, we went to an art exhibit in Houston that featured works showing life in different African countries. Life, not the ever present images of death and destruction.* She did express surprise that there were people living in Africa.

But then she said, "I'm still glad our ancestors got on that boat."

So, the middle passage was the opportunity of a lifetime.

I have not broached the conversation since then.
_________________________________________
*I do not mean to downplay the importance of bringing attention to war and disease (especially AIDS) in Africa, but that I think images of those are used to portray Africa, Africans, and the Diaspora as "less"--civilized, developed, human--with no regard for historical or contemporary context.

"the penalty for being poor and a child and hungry in africa is to be raped"

Title from BlackAmazon.

Yesterday, via Hysperia, I learned that Human Rights Watch criticized the UN Security Council for doing "little to effectively prevent and address [sexual] violence" against women and girls in war torn areas. HRW urged the UN to correct this "historic failure." Marianne Mollmann, who is named as HRW's advocacy director for women’s rights said, "the council’s response has too often been: ‘Not our problem.’”

Not their problem? I remembered hearing, when I watched The Greatest Silence, how UN peacekeepers engaged in the rape and sexual assault of some of the world's most vulnerable women and girls. And yesterday, shortly after I read Hysperia's post, I read this one at Feministe and this one at What about Our Daughters? that linked to an article entitled Peacekeepers 'abusing children."

I think it's the word 'Peacekeeper' that ought to be in quotes.

When I teach my students about the founding of the UN, I talk about its role in trying to ensure international peace and protecting human rights. And yet representatives of the UN are, as this report by Save the Children states quite bluntly, subjecting children "to every kind of child sexual abuse and exploitation imaginable." As the name of the report implies, when the people who are supposed to render aid and comfort are hurting and humiliating these children, they quite often have no one to turn to.

It is not an anomaly, of course. I know that authors have written much about state/military/police violence against people.* But given the role of the UN--the fact that HRW thinks the Security Council has the authority to take a leading role in addressing and ending sexual violence in areas in conflict, for example--it is quite disturbing.

As is the fact that much of the abuse is never disclosed:

Save the Children says the most shocking aspect of child sex abuse is that most of it goes unreported and unpunished, with children too scared to speak out.

Disturbing, yes.

But I am neither shocked nor surprised.
_________________________________________

* In the blogosphere, BfP, Nadia, and Yolanda Carrington come immediately to mind. And as I am settling into reading Killing the Black Body more thoroughly, I see a lot of connect.

Today is the Global Day for Darfur

Via Kevin, Modern Musings has a list of bloggers participating on this day that marks five years of war in Darfur.

Kevin points to a new Human Rights Watch report.

And see Dave's links to Darfur Resources.

My Thoughts on The Greatest Silence and Rape in the Congo

Watching The Greatest Silence created a dilemma for me: it was both so difficult to watch and impossible to turn away from it. When Lisa Jackson mused that, for many of the survivors whom she filmed at one meeting, this would be the first time their stories were heard outside the meeting room, I was struck not only by how sad and how frustrating that was, but how true.

There are moments, themes from that film that stick with me. First, as An Anxious Black Woman pointed out:

there are TWO kinds of rapists lurking in the shadows (or boldfacedly emerging to terrorize the nation) of the Congo - the local soldiers and multinational corporations. So, these gang rapists - working in SOLIDARITY, I might add! - are perpetuating the violence.

Corporations take untold millions of dollars of natural resources from the Congo--a fact Chris Clarke wrote about a year ago.* Competition over these resources fuels the ongoing war with the catastrophic results on which Jackson focuses.

Then, there were Jackson's chilling interviews with the rapists. On the surface, they described their violent acts in terms of physiological need, portraying rape as a "natural" outcome--what happens when men have been in the bush too long without sex. Jackson attempted to ask them if the rapes were about power and sex. The interpreter dismissed her question, telling her that these men could not understand what she was asking. But I think he was wrong. The more the soldiers talked, the more it became obvious that they very much understood the power dynamic. They raped, some said, because they were ordered to do so. They made women and children suffer because they had suffered. Repeatedly, they said, "If she refuses, then I must..." and one of the soldiers offered an explanation based on men's superiority to women. One of the most chilling statements in that film began with, "Yes, she's a human being, too, but-" Because what follows is the implication that "her" humanity is somehow less than "his."

The nature of the rapes as well--the violent attacks with sticks and razors and hot coals that destroy women's bladders/urinary tracts and their uteruses--points to the fact that soldiers understand that they are waging a total war, that the murder and rape of women and children can destroy "enemy" nations. That is not to dismiss the purported "allies" who rape as well--the UN peacekeepers and the soldiers from these women's own communities, for example.

And so the stories that emerge from the film are disturbing. The women who are isolated from their families and communities because they have been "shamed" and because they can no longer control some bodily functions. The young woman who named her daughter "Lumiere," French for "light." When Jackson tried to grasp some triumph from that name--"She is your light?" she asked the young woman--she is told solemnly "No, I was obliged to accept her." The lack of adequate medical and emotional care--the clearly overwhelmed Panzi Hospital, for example. The dedicated Officer Honorine who reveals the overwhelming nature of her work--she is the only officer for child protection and for investigating crimes of sexual violence.

And the privileged, Western feminist in me railed at the fact that, for many of these women, their only hope is to find a man who will "accept" and help them. They are largely illiterate and lack paid workforce skills. To me, it seemed, so much of their lives was determined by their encounters and relationships with men. That is an analysis, of course, that places my feelings at the center, and so it is sadly insufficient and unfair.

A few days ago, Professor Black Woman wrote that "women's bodies are part of the battleground in wars" and, in that sense at least**, the rape epidemic in the Congo was not exceptional but part of a worldwide pattern. Anxious Black Woman expounded upon that today as she remembered

those Carib, Arawak, Aztec, Mayan, Creek, Cherokee, Iroquois, Inuit, Kanaka Maoli, Warai, and Jingili women whose genitalia were routinely cut out of them and placed on sticks, spears, and hats for proud exhibition. I think of the Khoisan woman from South Africa, Saartjie Baartman, whose genitalia was also placed on proud exhibition - not on a spear, but in a scientific bell jar. I think of imperialism and racism, and how both ideologies depended upon the institution of misogyny to maintain supremacy. I think of this long, long, awfully long history of women in general - and women of color especially - who are often targeted for the most brutal forms of violence and then enveloped in silence so that we dare not dwell on the traumatic memories or, worse, on the traumatic future that is surely set for our daughters.

In recounting how "disturbing" these stories are, I do not mean to discount the fact that these women survived and that spirit of survival comes through loud and clear. I remember how proud one woman was that, after surgery to repair her fistula, she was no longer wetting the bed. In that meeting that I mentioned initially, the nun who works with survivors opined that together, they could help each other, that speaking out, sharing their stories could ease the trauma, foster a sense of connectedness. Jackson filmed survivors learning trades and nurturing their children and tending their gardens.***

She also captured them singing. And laughing, a sound she remembered hearing so little of in the Congo.

Further reading (I'll add to these links):

Anxious Black Woman (to whom I owe so much)
Professor Black Woman
Lauren
SheCodes
Melissa
Marcella
Tasha212
Res Publica
Katie (here, too)

Then, there is always the question of what we can do.**** Here's a non-exhaustive list:
Anxious Black Woman challenges us to call out corporate rapists. (She's provided contact information).
Support Women for Women, International.
Support Doctors without Borders.
Support the International Rescue Committee.
Here is a link to the Panzi Hospital.

From the BBC:

The Panzi Hospital (for Victims of Sexual Violence)
8th Community of Pentecostal Churches in Central Africa (CEPAC)
Medical Department.
GENERAL REFERRAL HOSPITAL OF PANZI,
PO Box: 266
BUKAVU
South Kivu Province,
Democratic Republic of Congo

Christian Relief Network
CRN deal regularly with the Panzi Hospital
CRN, Christian Relief Network
(+47) 22 01 07 00
Email: info@crn.no

______________________
*Thanks, Lauren for the link.
**In speaking of Congolese "exceptionality," I say "in that sense" because Melissa's post points me to a WaPo article that suggests that the prevalence of rape in the Congo is, indeed, exceptional.
***Lex has a wonderful post about how tending our gardens also means tending each other--knowing " how to make each other grow."
**** As a teacher, I've been trying to get my post-45 class to make links, to be not-as-clueless as I was about rape and exploitation and war. We talked about "comfort women" in World War II. And when we covered the My Lai massacre, we talked about the rape of Vietnamese women. I did not assign The Greatest Silence, as I had not seen it, but I did recommend that they watch it. A couple of them did and one young woman asked me "Why do you think it happens?" a question that I re-directed to her classmates.

Blog in Solidarity on April 13: Congo Rape Epidemic

Via Anxious Black Woman, Sunday is a day of blogging solidarity:

Calling all bloggers, who are concerned about the Congo Rape Epidemic (some of us learning about the details of this conflict through Lisa Jackson's film, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, which aired on HBO this week), to post about the situation and offer strategies to fight this epidemic on Sunday, April 13, 2008.

I watched the film. I can't say much more than that right now.

The Greatest Silence

Thank you to Professor Black Woman and an Anxious Black Woman, who both posted about the premiere of The Greatest Silence on HBO tonight. From the website:

Since 1998 a brutal war has been raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Over 4 million people have died. And there are the uncountable casualties: the many tens of thousands of women and girls who have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army.

The world knows nothing of these women. Their stories have never been told. They suffer and die in silence. In The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo these brave women finally speak.

Before the last few years, I had never thought of rape as a weapon of war. I thought of it as something that invariably occurred during war, as part of a larger power struggle, but never as a systematic assault with consequences that affect so many.

I've learned a lot from BfP's posts, many of them archived in the nation/state violence category. Prof BW's analysis, I think, is embodied in her hope that this film:

covers the issues of rape and sexual violence as weapons of war in the Congo not as exceptional or part of a racialized narrative, which has been the way these issues have been presented to date, but rather as part of an increasingly astute understanding of how women’s bodies are part of the battleground in wars around the world. I am looking for this, not to erase the specificity of the violence in the Congo, which is a necessary part of any analysis, but rather to develop a language of addressing sexual violence that deals with its use as a tool of war throughout history and allows us to deal with the specific use against, and experience of, women in any given place.

Historiann talks a bit about the history Prof BW mentions here.

Here is the trailer for the film:



It premieres tonight at 9 PM my time, which is 10 Eastern.

There Is More than America

Today, one of my students, a young woman from Cameroon, interviewed me for a project on Nelson Mandela that she is doing for another class.

We had the most interesting conversation. After she interviewed me, she told me how she almost changed her topic from Mandela because when her teacher did an oral survey of the class, many of the students had chosen Michael Jordan and other athletes and celebrities. She could not understand, because the project is supposed to explore the person's impact on individuals and the world at large. "I know they are stars," she said, "But I was thinking, 'what?"."

Her teacher persuaded her to stay with Mandela. She also told me that she is still adjusting to living here and the perceptions that people have about her. One guy that she dated briefly apparently asked her if she knew people that rode lions. She asked me was it okay to call that a stupid question. I assured her that it was. He also asked her about her king. She told him they didn't have a king (too much Coming to America, I'm sure), but a president. Different African countries have different governments she told him, which floored him.

I told her that our kids are very USA-oriented. They just don't know the rest of the world. That's why we bitch about the idea of learning other languages or about other cultures. She laughed at that--"You all speak English," she said. "But French is my first language and I speak English and in high school, I studied German."

Then she told me how her roommate had been hesitantly asking her questions after looking through some of her pictures, "Y'all have beaches?" (Because all she's seen is pictures of African deserts); "You have a TV in your room? And a CD player?" These questions shocked my student. She said, over and over, she has to tell people, "Yes, we have what you have."

That response apparently bugged her ex-date buddy. He asked her one day, "If you have everything, why'd you come here then?" "To learn more," she said.

I told her all our kids hear about Africa is famine, war, and AIDS.

"But that is not all of Africa," she told me (I thought that was a simple but profound statement). She said that she thought that maybe Americans just didn't know about Africa. So she asked the guy what he knew about Europe.

Nothing. He claimed he only knew the States. And so she asked him, did he know all the state capitols. No to that, as well.

"So it is not only Africa," she said.

"I'm afraid not."

At which point she suggested a plan of action. She believes that all American students should write their "minister of education" and demand to be taught more about the world.

"America is big," she said. "And many people want to come here. But there is more than America."

Randomosity

• I have one student, bless her heart (yes that's a southern epithet), who asks me the most minute, detailed questions. I want to pull out my hair. It's not that I mind saying "I don't know," but that I resent saying it to questions like "What new Roman technologocal developments allowed them to beat the Carthaginian navy?" (I'm not kidding).
• My cab driver the weekend of the conference (was that really a month ago?!!) was Sudanese. He asked me had I ever been to Africa and I said no. He asked me did I want to go and I said, "Yes, I feel like I have to." He then asked me had I heard of Sudan. I nodded. He sighed and siad, "You've heard of Darfur?" I told him yes. Then, I asked, "Have you been to the area?" And he shut down on me, told me yes and it was somewhat bad, but it's getting better and that there is some new agreement that will end the trouble. I was stunned. The more I thought about it though, I began to wonder, what is it about nationalism that makes us dismiss and defend atrocities?
• Today, I heard some men inviting one of the history profs here to lunch. "Oh no," he said, "I'm on a budget, hence the fifteen cent ramen noodles." And I thought, "What the hell do you mean?!! The fat salary of a history prof won't rescue me from budgets and debt?" I had such high expectations. [/sarcasm]
• How invested in this world history class am I, that, when I jotted myself a note of what I wanted to include in this post, I wrote "Roman" noodles?
• I'm feeling all misty and stereotypically motherly today. My son is in Texas with my sister--he had to go to summer school for math. They come home every weekend and he always looks so sad on Sunday evenings when it's time to head back. Usually, I am the most unsypmathetic figure: "Next year, you're going to have to try. You're going to have to be responsible. Sorry you're missing all the summer fun!" But last night I got a bit teary when I talked to him and I missed him fiercely. He was all ready to get off the phone and I was asking the same questions in different ways. Ah, well.
• Belle will be 5 on June 21. Her mom is contemplating relaxing her hair. I started to elbow her in the face when she said that but 1) I've seen her fight two guys and beat the hell out of them and 2) I'm more of the "talk a lot of shit then say, 'just please don't hit my head or scratch my face,' school. We did talk about it though. Belle has excessively dry skin and we already have to wash her hair with medicated shampoo. On top of it, she has a temper and when she's mad, she pulls out her barettes or scratches her scalp until it bleeds. Her mom says it's getting harder to comb. To be fair, I don't comb her hair--I can't even make a straight part. I simply "brush it up" and reattach the barettes when she stays with me. But I don't think relaxing is the right answer.
• I love the camraderie between petit and bfp. It makes me feel good.
• Did elle ever say thanks to Quinn for all the links and book ideas for world history? Oh, nooooooo. elle is too shallow and self-absorbed. Thanks, friend.
• Zan tagged me. I'm getting to it!

Protect Darfur Women from Abuse and Genocide

Just got this from our Women's Studies Department:

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the petition: "Protect Darfur Women from Abuse and Genocide."

Please take a moment to read about this important issue, and join mein signing the petition. It takes just 30 seconds, but can truly make a difference. We are trying to reach 100,000 signatures - please sign here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/532375082

Once you have signed, you can help even more by asking your friendsand family to sign as well.

Thank you!

Please stop by The Petition Site. And for news about the Darfur genocide and what you can do, please regularly visit Daily Darfur.

Show Him that It Is Not in Vain

Quaker Dave has a new blog called Daily Darfur. If you can't click now, it's at http://dailydarfur.blogspot.com/. Please stop by. Often.

Updates on the World Beyond My Narrow Confines

One thing that has bedeviled my growth as a feminist and my research as a historian is an irrational belief that I have to read every single thing, know every single detail about a subject before I can write about it. I am frightened of my own lack of expertise and it immobilizes me.

Which is one of the reasons I post haphazardly about people of color in an international context. I need to learn more, read more, know more, I think.

Such teh bullshit. Nothing but excuses delivered in my typical, wide-eyed, shoulder shrugging fashion.

There are people who are helping me learn, though. Please read Quaker Dave's two recent posts on Darfur here and here. One of his commenters noted, "Believe me, when you post things about Darfur, people listen." She wanted to know what private citizens could do and Dave pointed her to this post. Quaker Dave also blogs extensively about the war we're waging on Iraq. The poignant combination of his words and chosen images have made the abstract so very real to me.

For the situation in Oaxaca, Mexico, visit BfP's site and click on her Oaxaca link. Her work on this, and so many other topics, is amazing. She probably has her eyebrow raised at my passing the buck to her with little of my own analysis, but I rely heavily on her posts for updates.

These examples of PoC struggles and oppresson are hardly all-inclusive, but I decided a while ago that I had to stop waiting until I knew it all and start somewhere.