Make Me Blog!

Tell me what you like most about any interpersonal relationship--romantic, familial, whatever!

I'm thinking...

No Apologies

If you haven't, you MUST read the entire post over at The Black Snob:

"If you have a child, what do you tell them? Especially him. What do you tell him? How do you tell him as his mother or his father or his grandmother or grandfather that you, the person he loves and trusts and believes in more than anyone in the world, that you can keep him safe? How does he believe you now? He knows you're full of shit now. He's on Facebook. He's heard and read about Trayvon. Someone who looked like him. Someone who was "good." How do you tell him that if he just stays in school and is "good" it will be OK? How do you tell him to handle something like this? Not a cop, just some guy. Some crazy self-appointed neighborhood watch guy with a gun who thought he was Batman that night? If you're a good parent you tell your kid that if some guy, some scary guy is following them, you tell him to run and if he can't run, to defend himself. Bad men in cars to terrible things to children and teens. You tell your son, if you can't run, if you can't get help, do whatever you have to do to stay alive. Fight, run, call out for help, make yourself trouble. Go down fighting, if you're going down. Don't do the thing the stranger in the car with the gun wants you to do.

But that doesn't keep you safe.

...there is no path that promises your child will be safe. And this is the world that we live in."

And that terrifies me.

I'm Here

I'm still here. Busy, but persevering. Feeling this song. I have a connection with Ms. Celie, after all.



"I'm Here"

I don't need you to love me
I've got my sister, I can't feel her now
She may not be here, but she's still mine
'n I know, she still loves me
I've got my children, I can't hold them now
They may not be here, but they still mine
'n I know
I know I still love them
Hey
Got my house
It still keeps the cold out
Got my chair
When my body can't hold out
Got my hands doin things like they s'post to
Showing my heart to the folks that I'm close to
I got my eyes though they don't see as far now
They see more 'bout how things really are now
I'm gonna take a deep breath
Hey
I'm gonna hold my head up
Gonna put my shoulders back
And look you straight in the eye
I'm gonna flirt with somebody
When they walk by
I'm gonna sing out
Sing out yeah
I believe I have inside of me
Everything that I need to live a bountiful life
With all the love inside of me
I'll stand as tall as the tallest tree
And I'm thankful for each day that I'm given
Both the easy and the hard ones I'm livin'
But most of all
Yes I'm thankful for lovin' who I really am
I'm beautiful
Yes I'm beautiful
And I'm here
Yes you are, you are here.

What's Up?

Give me some news! Interesting links! Good gossip! Delicious recipes!Anything :-)


This is the beginning of the semester and I have 3 classes this time. I haven't been keeping up with the world!

Well...

Not a lot to say right now. But I sat down. And I wrote. And since I am off today, I hope to come up with something else. But count this as my obligatory post-every-weekday-until-you-get-back-into-the-habit post.

21 days to develop a habit, I heard.

I'm on my way!

I'm Tryin'

Well, I've already surpassed the number of posts for all of 2011. And I've re-set my blog as my browser's home page, so I have to think about it.

I am hoping that this perseverance rolls over into my academic life. I've been on a writing hiatus since early-December. I really need to work on an article that is bugging me.

Wish me luck!

Link Love

So many of my friends have moved on to other venues; my blogroll was primarily a list of dead links or archived writings (valuable in their own right and I want to re-link).

I'm starting fresh! Give me ideas--I'll re-post this for a few days because I assume most people have more exciting lives than I on a Friday night. Who should I be reading?

Happy Blogiversary, elle, (abd) (phd)

Five years ago today, I began this blog with these words:

A few minutes shy of November 29, 2005, I'm beginning a new blog. Let's see how this goes...

I think it has gone swimmingly :-) I don't post as much as I'd like, but the friends I've made, the thoughts I've worked out, the writing I've done, the realizations to which I have come all have made this one of the most important endeavors I've undertaken in my life.

I don't know what the next five years will hold. Will I have a year in which I actually post consistently? Will I finally call it quits as the tenure clock shifts my focus away from writing anything but THE BOOK (that's how I think of it--a terrifying, in-need-of-revision thing that stands between me and job security :-)? I really don't know.

But I am glad I did this!

Taking...

...a much needed brain break. With the 4th and summer school coming up in the next week, I probably won't be back for a week or so.

See you later!

Nativism 2.0

Emily linked to Uniball Roller, who shares the story of:

tender2be, a college student without a credit score, a [probably-off-the-books] job on the side, and a baby on the way, [who] wants to know how to get an apartment without a credit score or a cosigner.

Another LJer, brooklynknight, puts two and two together and quickly comes up with seven. In response to her query, he posted:

I... gandered at her Journal and looking at it (she lives on cash and refuses to get credit, her LJ is russian) and I got the distinct feeling she might be here on an expired visa.

[snip]

if she is indeed an illegal immigrant then I have no desire to help her, I don't want her child born here either and frankly If I could prove she was an illegal I'd forward all the information on her I could get to INS/ICE.

Tender2be denies that her visa is expired and tells brooklynknight to

send your energy in more positive direction, 'd be better for you

Now, of course, brooklynknight's concerns have already been shaped by a misogynist nativism--the belief that tender2be is an immigrant trying to get over on 'the system' and the idea that immigrant women view their children as little more than assets through which they can attain a desired status (i.e. the anchor baby argument). There's also the fact that she repeatedly tells him she's not an immigrant (here on a student visa) but he argues with her about her own status until someone explains student visas to him.

After tender2be's initial response to him, brooklynknight's sexist/nativist tirade continues. Apparently, she was not sufficiently obsequious or threatened. He is offended by her tone and reports that he has exploited the perceived power differential between them:

In any case, the tempo of your reply has further raised my suspicions.

I've just sent all the information I've found on you to my friend at the local ICE office. If you're here legally, well you've got nothing to worry about and good luck!

He believes she is an undocumented immigrant, he claims to have just set her up for possible detention and deportation, and he signs off 'good luck!' As Emily says:

He thinks she'll be A-OK as long as she's got papers. Clearly, he hasn't heard of American citizens being deported.

Of course, when he is called out on his assholishness, he claims that he has nothing against immigrants--he just wants to make sure people "do it the right way."

The douchery... it boggles!

(Crossposted)

Just in Case My Descendants Look Back at this Blog...

...and regard it as a journal of my rather boring life, I don't want them to be like, "Dang, Big Mama/TeTe/Cousin elle/whatever!!, you really were out of it in January 2009."

I didn't observe the 96th anniversary of my beloved sorority on the 13th.

I let the MLK holiday pass with nary a word.

And I was almost silent on inauguration day.

But so the kids won't think I lost it, can I just highlight my favorite part of the day:



Well, Bush leaving and images of Malia snapping pics and Sasha just looking adorable.

I really don't have a lot to say today--I don't have writer's block, exactly. More like I'm lazy--I don't want to do the work to put to paper (or keyboard) all the thoughts, feelings, and ideas I've been having lately. My time has been consumed with work and the Kid.

I'll be back soon. Here and here. That's right--as soon as I get a coherent thought, I'll be writing here and at Shakesville. Wish me luck!

Feeling Sort of Meh...

A combination of things:

1) Post-holiday down feeling

2) A touch of homesickness

3) Writing a syllabus and school starts next week!

4) Feeling the upcoming semester already:

---- MWF classes for the first time ever, which takes away my long weekends (during
which, I actually do get work done).
---- Will it be hard to trim down to a 50-minute class?!?!?!

---- Teaching an honor's class, had a special project outlined that now I'm worried about. Thinking of ditching it in favor of a longer paper--but don't want their project to be "just" a paper.

---- My son has after-school extracurriculars out the ass--choir, skippers, Spanish, basketball, and maybe math tutoring. He wants to take guitar lessons--I'm thinking of looking into it because I want to encourage any interest in music. Can any one say frazzled single mom?

5) Presenting at the OAH and I want to seriously re-work that paper.

---- My department will reimburse me for some of the trip expenses, but have I mentioned that I'm not just rolling around in the dough yet?

6) Dee's wedding! Two months to go, and it's the little things that are stressing me.

7) Time to finish revisions on what I hope to be my first article. Really, it just is.

8) Feeling pressed for time and unable to keep up with blog-worthy topics at this moment.

9) Just finished "The Wire." Post to come. DRAINING.

10) The month of March--that's wedding, a panel I'm sponsoring, OAH, evaluations time. My spring break that month will be irrelevant.

Making that list made me feel better.

Send/leave me links to things you think I should read!!! I hope to be back up in the next couple of weeks.

C'mon, Muse

I really need to write something substantial...

working on my blogroll...

...as blogrolling seems to be permanently out of commission.

My goal is to enter one section per day.

That's my goal. Ahem.

Three Years???!!!

Not to voice an oft-repeated cliche (is that redundant?--isn't "oft repeating" what makes something a cliche?), but I have no idea where the time has gone.

elle, abd/elle, phd is three years old today. It began as an attempt to catalogue my journey through grad school as a single mother and someone affected by and writing about oppression of women, people of color, and the poor. I have grown so much in three years--I think I've learned as much from other bloggers as I did from some grad classes.

One of the biggest benefits for me personally and academically has been the encouragement of critical analyses by radical WoC--particularly things that I wouldn't have necessarily thought fell within the scope of my narrowly defined conception of race, class, and gender, and the expansion of my work and my mind to examine other systems of oppression like heterosexism and ablism.

In many ways, I'm still learning, still struggling, still saying shit that makes me bite my lip and shake my head later (I want to erase so much of my archives as I re-read :-). I've become so discouraged with my ignorance that I've had to take time off to reassure myself this space is mine to make mistakes and show knowledge gaps and be flat-out wrong sometimes. I am always encouraged by a quote that BFP left for me once, from Maya Angelou--"You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better." And I can comfort myself that this is true.

I finally feel as if so many things fit, in terms of my beliefs and politics and this blog gives me room to pursue my love of writing and my examination of self and the world at large.

I tried, so much as an adolescent and a young woman to keep a diary. And while this journal is not as unvarnished as a private one would be, it is still intensely personal, still full of my thoughts and dreams and fears and frustrations.

And I'm so proud that I've stuck with it.

Happy Blogiversary to me!

The African American Perspective at the Unapologetic Mexican

Intro stolen from matttbastard:

This week, The Unapologetic Mexican has a series of guest posts featuring various African-American responses to the election of Barack Obama, The African American Perspective, which runs through November 16th.

Posts so far have included:

Moya Bailey After the Morning After, After the Night Before
Black Amazon Can’t Think After Yet
Jose Vilson The Forever After
matttbastard Barack Obama: [Re]defining Possibilities

Today is my turn to wax sorta-poetic: Assessing the Secret of Joy

Carmen will also post today (here it is:
Is Barack Obama the needed bridge between blacks and Latinos?), Kevin tomorrow, and Lex on Sunday.

**ETA: I'd like to thank Nez and his "cocky assistant," M, :-p for the opportunity.

Technical Help

I need to update my blogroll. La Mala has moved. Sudy and BFP have renamed their blogs to reflect new paths/foci. And via incoming links, I've discovered some pretty cool people.

Blogrolling has been down for more than three weeks now, so I need to find another service like that. Suggestions for a good one that a technically challenged blogger could use?

All about Me!

This is what happens when you try to go to bed at a decent hour.

But since I'm up, I thought I'd complete the meme Renee and Kristy tagged me for.

The Rules:

6 Random Things About Me:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself. (See below)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (See further below...)
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

The Things:

1. I am horribly afraid of getting lost. I've lived in two of the largest cities in the country and have seen very few of their attractions except on field trips with my son and under the guidance of Kim or my sister. I want to take my family to do something out here when they come for Thanksgiving, but already, I'm going, "What if I get lost? What if we can't find parking? What if we get separated?" in my head.

2. I'm having moments now in which I think, "I really like my job." That might sound "duh," but keep in mind I've spent the last few years of my life waiting to live: "As soon as my kid goes to school... As soon as I pass comps... As soon as I write the dissertation... As soon as I get a job." There's still a lot of "As soon as I write the book... As soon as I get tenure..." but I'm feeling a bit more content.

3. Still working on the kind of mama I want to be and my kid is more than half grown. I snap a lot when I'm tired or aggravated or have said "Clean that pissy ass bathroom and you better start standing closer to the toilet!" a zillion times. And I will invoke the, "Because I said so!" answer, despite knowing better.

4. My feet are a total "oooooh" zone (in a good way ;-). I can hardly stand to get pedicures sometimes.

5. I am selfish (and I'll admit, scarred) enough to have said, "If I ever have another long term relationship, I don't want to be in love, but I want my significant other to be in love with me." Yes, because the all beneficent elle is smug enough to think she won't take another's love and devotion for granted or treat them like shit just because she knows they are so into her.

I chastise myself about that, but if I ever get my energy and interest levels up enough to be interested in romance again, I still want it to be more of a muted affection/mutual respect sort of thing. I've had enough drama and heartache.

6. The one man mrs. o and I have agreed to share:



To which our Soror Rashida would quip, "He ain't big enough to share!"

I know he has a lot of problems with the legal system, but see number 5. I ain't trying to fall in love.

Tags later. I'm about to try to drift off while thinking on a good weekend question.

I Love Your Blog

BFP loves my blog.

::does southern (b)elle swoon::

Okay, with that out of the way, I'm going to do this meme, too. There are so many blogs I love, though I'll try to keep this (reasonably) brief.

No surprise that I have to reciprocate the love first. I love La Alma de Fuego and its proprietor. So much that I'll stop there to keep from embarrassing myself with further fan girl behavior.

And Just_Me, k8, and Ragey are all special to me. My blogging life would be a lot lonelier (more lonely?) without them.

Ms. Sylvia? Gets mindless adoration.

Matttbastard--my favorite funny, on point political blogger.

Kevin, who some time ago said of me

She’s one of those bloggers that once you start reading her, you feel like she’s your sister.

That was also swoon-worthy and so very special to me because I feel the same way. A funny, sweet, brilliant brother with politics I love. ::sigh::

Quaker Dave. He's just... Quaker Dave.

Noemi. I especially love the posts about Texas and the poetry.

My favorite Mami. She's just bad!

Liss. As I told her before, mrs. o and I sit and ponder how absolutely delightful she must be in person.

Renee. Always a breath of fresh air. She reminds me so much of my sister--she tells it like it is.

Speaking of telling it like it is:

• WoC PhD, who's a personal and professional inspiration for me.
• Nezua at UMX. (He's also one of the coolest people on Twitter :-)
  

Giftie Etcetera. It's like watching a life unfold through witty, self-assured prose.

And man, Kai's writing (and of course, the stuff he writes about!)

No, I did not list my WHOLE blogroll!

Question...

I so enjoyed all the food stories and tips I got last weekend (and talking back and forth in the comments) that I think I'll ask another question for this weekend.

A few months ago, I read a paranormal romance novel*, chock full of demons. There were demons like lies, violence, pain, etc. But guess who/what else was a demon according to the author?

Hope.

BFP and Sylvia and I hashed this out on twitter. We pretty much decided, "She's right." Anjali tried to get us to be a little less pessimistic, to no avail.

So, without giving you my reasoning (at first), I want to ask, do you think hope is a demon**?
_________________________________
*Yes I read the whole series. No, no comments or observations on my leisure reading are permissible.

**Doesn't have to be demon in the religious or otherworldy sense. Do you think hope is "bad"/leads people astray is another way to put it, I guess.