On Gardens and Growing, Sowing and Reaping, and LOVE!

"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love," Hosea 10:12.

My dissertation/manuscript was heavily inspired by Jacqueline Jones's Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow. In the dedication, I thanked my mama for sharing her life story and told her, "I always knew we were your labor of love. I hope that you are proud of the fruits."

For some reason, I am heavily invested in those kinds of metaphors, the ideas of people planting and sowing and harvesting, particularly the idea that we sow now to provide a bountiful harvest for our children. One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalm 126:5--"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."

I also love John 4:37-38--"Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” And every time I was called to do the devotion, I read Ecclesiastes 3, including, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven... a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."

My mother STILL will keep me in line with warnings like these:

"Whatever one sows, that will he also reap," (Galatians 6:7)

"As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same," (Job 4:8)

"Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail,"(Proverbs 22:8)

"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind," (Hosea 8:7)

What's my point on this Father's Day? Here it comes: I've given my mother a lot of credit for planting and tending and weeding and nurturing us. But my dad was an excellent gardener, as well. Because this is just my second Father's Day without him, there is still so much I am working through. I have to bite my tongue when friends talk about their relationships with their dads sometimes--my dad would frown heavily upon the feelings of resentment I have and my desire to say, "SO???? My daddy loved me and did things for my over-grown ass too!"

But I have come to the point that I remember more often with smiles than tears. And I want to thank my dad, via the words of an old poem, for his wonderful work sowing and reaping. I think we're some okay harvests :-)) I hope he knows that we take his model seriously and are always planting for this generation of grandchildren he loved so.

Happy Father's Day!

Our Father Kept A Garden

Our Father kept a garden,
A garden of the heart;
He planted all the good things,
That gave our lives their start.

He turned us to the sunshine,
And encouraged us to dream,
Fostering and nurturing
The seeds of self-esteem.

And when the winds and rain came,
He protected us enough;
But not too much because he knew
We would stand up strong and tough.

His strong and good example,
Taught us right from wrong;
Markers for our pathway that will
Last a lifetime long.

We are our Father's garden,
We are his legacy.
Thank you Dad, we love you,
Because you sowed our dreams!

An Observation on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day

"WHY IS IT THAT MLK IS CELEBRATED SO MUCH, BUT MALCOLM X IS SLOWLY SLIPPIN OUT OF OUR MINDS, HE TAUGHT US HOW 2 STAND UP, AN FIGHT THE MAN WIT THERE OWN SHIT."

I often decry the sanitizing and beatification of MLK, Jr., because it makes him all conveniently palatable and ripe for consumption. It makes him safe for white people to admire and accept and celebrate.

But I don't often mention the flipside of what that means for his image. The quote above was written by one of my cousins. I've heard the same derision repeated by students in my classes. They think of MLK, Jr. as obsequious, unreal, too willing to compromise, the polar opposite of their image of the fierce, uncompromising Malcolm X (and I should talk about the construction of him at some point). They claim to respect MLK, Jr. and his work, but they feel that he could have gone farther and that he too easily said "what white people wanted to hear."

And, after a mental eye-roll and side eye, I ask them, can't they imagine, given all they've learned over the course of an "African American History from 1865 to the Present" class, that there would've been people who thought of him as uncompromising? Who didn't want to hear his messages of social and economic justice and equity? Who thought of him as a threat? I also ask them to define militant. Is it a term that has to be rooted in the willingness to take up arms?

Typically, I can at least get them to re-consider. But the idea that I, as a "progressive" historian, am considered the ridiculously "revisionist" one?

I think, in the future, I will have my students spend a few minutes juxtaposing my cousin's quote, their own perceptions, and this article by Fred Grimm, which notes:

The icon of the national holiday, the Disneyfied hero celebrated by school kids, a replica of the original made into someone palatable to business and civic leaders across the political spectrum, hardly resembles the righteous rabble-rouser who inflicted so much discomfort on the American establishment.

[snip]

[M]odern powerbrokers, in their prosaic tributes, tend to forget the Martin Luther King Jr. whose causes would have a stinging resonance in 2012 America.

After a year when some political leaders have tried to gut public worker unions, they might find it a bit inconvenient to recall the Martin Luther King who was gunned down in Memphis in 1968 during a campaign to organize the city garbage workers.

In a time when the American middle class has noticed that the one percent was scarfing up an ever greater portion of the nation’s wealth, while its own relative buying power has been frozen since 1970, King’s demands for economic justice might seem just a bit too contemporary. (Someone might also notice that his movement’s Resurrection City, the shanty town protest against economic disparity, erected a month after his death, might as well been called Occupy Washington.)

Amid so much apprehension over the lack of judicial restraint in the use of roving wiretaps and other surveillance authorized in the Patriot Act extension signed by President Obama, our political leaders would rather forget about the Martin Luther King whose home, office and hotel rooms were bugged, for years, by the FBI. (J. Edgar Hoover explained the “unshackled” surveillance of King as a way to track, “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.”)

After a decade of war in Afghanistan, with that long, bloody, pointless diversion into Iraq, it’s doubtful that the we’ll hear our President or congressional leaders from either party quote from King’s anti-war speech in 1967, when he called the United States, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

Certainly, the politicians behind the coordinated campaign in 14 states (including Florida) to enact new voting restrictions, would be vexed by the Martin Luther King who fought to bring voting rights to the disenfranchised.

And I will remind them that King himself acknowledged and accepted the fact that, in his time, he was considered "an extremist":

...though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. [...] The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? [...] Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

The one-dimensional, heroic caricature that we have made MLK, Jr., into does a disservice to the legacy of our creative extremists and the work of dissenters in shaping and re-shaping this country.

On Law & Order

The emphasis on and call for "law and order" has often been synonymous with the suppression of social justice struggles in our society. Martin Luther King, Jr., realized that and spoke eloquently of it. Today, as some of us commemorate his birthday, I just want to quote relevant passages from his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and the "Statement from Alabama Clergymen" that prompted the letter.

The Alabama clergymen had already written a statement called "An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense." They imagined themselves moderates, negotiating between southern segregationists and civil rights workers, each equally "extremist." See, there's a problem with proclaiming oneself a "racial moderate" or "neutral." Because the perspectives of dominant groups are normalized and regarded as the default, those perspectives are often viewed as “neutral.” In the case of social justice struggles in the United States, the so called “moderate” perspective, in reality, centers the feelings, thoughts, and ideologies of non-marginalized people. King wrote, for example, that white moderates took the same paternalistic view of African Americans as white southerners who were more overtly racist. As a result, he had been

...gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate.

King also pointed out how the moderates’ claim that the Birmingham protests were "unwise and untimely" revealed their privileged status as “white” in the racial hierarchy and their inability to fully understand African Americans’ perspective:

Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait."

Unaffected by the "disease of segregation," clergymen composed a statement that insisted on the importance of obeying the law. They implied that the legal system and the institution of law were logical and just and that justice would be the result if people use them. The clergymen acknowledged no distinction, King claimed, between just and unjust laws. Segregation laws were unjust, examples of "dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

So, why did the Alabama clergymen, who imagined themselves moderate and even sympathetic to African Americans insist on "law and order" and define civil rights demonstrations as representative of disorder that "incite[d] hatred and violence?" Why did they suggest that African Americans pursue their cause via the courts--a suggestion not rooted in any historical or social context, as African Americans had received little redress in southern courts--instead of "in the streets?"

Obviously, the people who will or do benefit from the system in place have a vested interest in maintaining and/or prolonging the status quo through the use of "law and order." Order was more important to them than any semblance of justice, despite their claims:

[The moderate] ...constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; ...paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; ...lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

And, in the case of the "moderate" Alabama clergymen, King theorized they had a problematic definition of peace, that prioritized "a negative peace which is the absence of tension" over "a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

King called for moderates to shift their perspectives and to realize that the "calm" appearance of order often obscured the violence necessary to maintain it:

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation.

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake.

Do me a favor? Keep thinking of justice and positive peace, not "order," as the foundation upon which we should build.

Happy MLK Day!

Thanksgiving Thoughts

I am thinking about how Thanksgiving is a story we weave for ourselves so we don't have to focus too much on the horrific reality of what happened to indigenous peoples before/after this "story."


I am thinking of all the people who mark this day as a "Day of Mourning."


As part of this culture, I am thinking of that for which I am thankful. In a few hours, my family, (largely) spared and well for another year, will pour into this house with an abundance of food and warmth and children and love.


I am thinking about the physical absence of my father and feeling that, but I am thankful for what his life of work and sacrifice and love made possible. I am sitting in a house he bought with an education and gift for words he helped make possible. I have a security-in-self, an assured-ness that I am loved and appreciated that he fostered.


So, it should come as no surprise that I have a wide variety of thoughts and feelings and observations. I am, after all, a SIStorian who is quite interested in the way U.S. history is constructed and taught in ways that encourage nationalism, often at the expense of (hi)stories that don't fit the narrative. I am also very much a product of this country and a Christian heritage that emphasize the need to be and express thankfulness.


I don't try to figure me out--neither should you :-))

Happy King Day...

OK, OK, remember the dream. But while you're at it, remember the righteous anger, the willingness to go to southern jails, the reasons why we can't wait (isn't it funny how we still tell people who are marginalized to wait for change--as if our comfort is more important than their lives?), the critique of race and whiteness, the burgeoning analysis of class divisions, and the way he understood love:

To be great, you need "a soul generated by love."

Driving out hate? "Only love can do that."

"At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love."

Just remember SOMETHING else beyond a speech that has been co-opted by advocates of the "new racism": the colorblind clique.

From Memory to Oral History

*This is a blending of previously published posts.*

In the top drawer of my parents' dresser, my dad keeps souvenirs of his time in Vietnam. When we were kids, we loved the money from Taiwan and the yellowed letters. We weren't so interested in the little medal in the black box. He'd tell us, time and again, to stay out of his stuff. But Daddy was a big pushover and we couldn't resist the allure of that treasure.

When I got older, I realized the medal was a Purple Heart. He'd been a Radio Telephone Operator and had gotten shot in his neck and shoulder. We used to trace the scars--not finely or precisely done, they resemble railroad tracks. They are firm lines that rise up from his skin, the result of an infection and keloids.


I moved the Purple Heart from the drawer and into my mom's china cabinet, a display that matches nothing else in there. "Why'd you do that?" he asked. "Because I don't think you should keep it buried," was my snappy answer. "Mm-hmm. Except you don't tell me what to do. I'm your father; you're not my mother," he said. But he left it alone.

My dad doesn't talk about VietNam. He used to, he says, when he was young. But then people would ask him things like, "Did you kill anybody? What is that like?" And he'd get so angry, so offended, that he thought it was better just to make the subject taboo.

So there are only three occasions on which I've been able to get a little bit of his story. I interviewed him once for a Vietnam and Watergate class I took while working on my Master's. Basically, I just let him talk. My professor, himself a VietNam vet, found the transcript riveting. My dad has a way with words that can keep you enthralled. I remember that my professor smiled and repeated my dad's words about arriving "in country." "I haven't heard that in a while," he said.

The second time was for a colleague [in graduate school] whose dissertation was about the war. He wanted to know more of my dad's story. Again, my dad opened up a little. "An RTO?" my colleague said, when I shared my dad's memories. "He had a dangerous job."

All I could say was, "Really?"

"You have to keep his story, elle," he told me. "Whenever, however he wants to tell it."

Finally, I went to DC a couple of years ago. My dad has never been to the VietNam memorial. I asked him if there were names he'd like me to shade. He thought for a while and then gave me three. One of them included an old guy that they'd looked up to. By old, my dad meant 27. So I got there, with my friend John, without paper or pencil (didn't think to bring it). In my purse, I had an envelope, that I tore open, and a golf pencil. We looked in that book, found the sections of the wall, got down on our knees and shaded the names. When I went to Louisiana a few weeks later, I presented it to my dad sheepishly. "I didn't have paper," I said. "It's okay," he said rubbing his thumbs over the shadings. "It's okay." Still, I felt badly.

When my parents moved last winter, my sister and I helped pack an old dresser while my dad supervised. There, in the top, was the money and the letters. And inside a Ziploc bag, was the envelope. "Daddy!" I said, surprised. It was his turn to look sheepish. "Aw, Ugly," he said, "I told you it was okay."

Since I first wrote this post for Veteran's Day in 2006, my father has mentioned his time in SouthEast Asia to me one other time, after hearing "Taps" on youtube, an experience that was triggering for him.

Upon hearing it, he said, "That is a sad, sad song."

I asked him was it only played at funerals.

"Oh, no. Sometimes when you get back from a battle, they play it in honor of those who died. It's especially hard on you when it's a good friend," he explained.

"I got so very tired of hearing that song in Vietnam."

Getting 'em While They're Young

This picture has little to do with this post, beyond the theme of how our kids are taught what is gender appropriate at a young age--I found these shoes (excuse me, these HIGH-HEELED BOOTS!!!) in the girl's dept when I was shopping for my goddaughter. She's a six-year-old first-grader.


As a parent, I have decided on many occasions, that the patriarchy is out to do my efforts and my child in. The most recent realization occurred on Valentine's Day.

My son has a "girlfriend" back in Louisiana for whom he wanted to buy something for Valentine's Day and have it delivered to the school on February 13. He told me this the afternoon of February 13. He moped and whined for a while until I snapped, "She wasn't able to get you anything, so both of you can forgive each other!"

At which point, he informed me, "Valentine's Day is for girls!"

"Why," I asked, "is Valentine's Day for girls? What does that mean? Who told you that?"

"Girls are the ones who care about that stuff," was the only substantial answer I could get.

Silly, sentimental, emotive girls care about that stuff.

So, we talked for a bit, but I was still left with the, "Where does he get this stuff?" feeling.

I got a partial answer the next morning. We were up early and he turned the T.V. on to the Disney Channel. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on and I made him leave it there because I love the "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog" song they sing when the problem is solved. Don't ask, I just do.

Now Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a show for pre-schoolers. As such, it teaches colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. As an added bonus, it teaches gender roles!

Anyway, the episode was, "A Surprise for Minnie." Mickey had forgotten Valentine's Day and was trying to hurriedly make a card for Minnie (seeing as how Valentine's Day is for girls and all). Mickey got his card done, but poor, clueless Donald still had no gift for Daisy. Daisy prompts and prompts, but Donald is still lost. Daisy stomps off with her arms crossed.

Mickey appears in the corner of the screen to tell us, "Uh-oh. Daisy's gonna be so sad if Donald forgot her Valentine's Day gift." Then Mickey calls upon pre-schoolers to save Donald's fat from the fire! They use the last mousekatool, a piece of ribbon, to fashion a bow for Daisy. Upon seeing the bow, she goes into full, eyelash-fluttering, soft-voiced forgiveness mode. Donald whispers a grateful, "Thanks, guys."

Valentine's Day: negligible nuisance for men, holy holiday for women. As I was typing this post and re-watching the episode, I asked my son, "So what does that episode make you think?"

"That it matters to girls, but it doesn't matter to guys."

"And why do you think it matters to girls?"

"Because they like that kind of stuff, bows and hearts and stuff."

My dejected slump of the shoulders did not go unnoticed. He said, "It matters to me."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you can show people how you feel about them. And you can show them respect and that you care about their feelings."

I have to teach him, of course, that you don't have to wait for an over-commercialized holiday to do those things. But I'd be lying if I said his words didn't make me feel a little better.

What to Do with Myself...

Because I'm helping coordinate her reception and take care of a few wedding details, my friend Dee volunteered to cook my portion of my family's Christmas dinner. Dee is a throwback to another time with the soul food cooking, so I happily agreed.

So it is Christmas Eve. I've wrapped 97% of the presents I'm going to wrap. Dee is making collard greens, ham, and chicken spaghetti and offered to make the dressing. That is more than enough for my share.

And I have nothing Christmas-y to do. My son is gone with his dad, my sister is doing last minute shopping, and my parents don't feel well.

I am at a loss as to what to do with myself! I'm supposed to make a white chocolate cake, but I'm almost out of the notion of trying a new recipe. I made red velvet cake and a fudge cheesecake at Thanksgiving, so I don't want to do those again. Peach dumplings can't be made until tomorrow and the crescent rolls I need to make the dumplings cost $637 in a town with two little grocery stores, so those are iffy (I refuse to drive out of town on Christmas Eve. REFUSE!!). My mom already made lemon pies. That is about the extent of my dessert repertoire.

I need a task.

Fruity Friday

Of all the things my son could have volunteered me to make for his class party, he had to choose a damn fruit tray. Not a $2 bag of chips. Not juices or plates or candy.

A fruit tray, when I'm broke and not done Christmas shopping. And he told me all proud, "Guess what I told Mrs. F you'd bring?"

"What?"

"A fruit tray!"

"Did?!" I looked at him with one raised eyebrow and he went for flattery.

"I told her you do them all the time for weddings and stuff and you do a really good job."

So here is my hasty Friday morning fruit tray:


The fruit awaiting the cream cheese dip:


A close-up. The lopsided-ness is a direct result of the fact that a pint of itty-bitty strawberries was $4+, while grapes were about $1.70 a pound:


The cream cheese awaits a splash of milk, some powdered sugar and a little vanilla flavoring. It really is better to do it by hand with a fork or a whisk because a mixer makes it more like frosting than dip. And yet I mixed. File that under, "I don't know why I do the shit I do sometimes":


Done! (Well okay, after this pic, I went back and added/spruced up the kale).


Ready to go in a festive little bowl:


I'm ready for this winter break, I swear.

Best Birthday Present Ever!

auntie elle & DEUCE!!!

My family made it here yesterday! We met in Houston and had a late lunch with Kim before driving back here. My mother and sister are cooking a soul food dinner for us and I'm going make myself a cake.

Happy birthday, me!!!!

Gearing up for the Holidays

Deuce, with Alex, in Coti's hat

Two days before he turns seven months old and one week until I see him!! I am so ready for my Deucie-Deucie-Fat-and-Juicy (and yes, I call him that in my head, for real).

Anyway, the time between now and January 2 will pass in a busy blur (hopefully, a pleasant, busy blur) for me with Thanksgiving, finals, graduation, archive visit, Christmas, and New Year's intoxication all looming. I'm currently getting ready for my mom, sister, brother and sister-in-law and kids for Thanksgiving. Hectic, but okay.

Anyway, are you celebrating Thanksgiving? If so, how? And, (the important question :-) what are you cooking??

Co-Blogger Kim Does NOT Know the Rules

Dear Kimi,

On today, your birthday, the year in which you, mrs. o, and I* all turn 28 for the seventh time, you are expected to announce your birthday upon the blog so that it may be treated as the great day of reverence that it is. You must allow people to come adulate and bask in the greatness that is you.

Happy Birthday, sweetie.

_______________________________________
*in an amazing!!!! coincidence, I think our temporary co-blogger, BFP is the same age, as well. This is the best 1974 1980 blog in the whole world!!!

On This Day.....

28 years ago, my mom brought home a baby girl. At that time, I was her only child and I was six years old. I looked at what my mom called a bundle of joy and asked my mom if she could take her bundle of joy back to the hospital. Thank God my mom was an intelligent woman who informed with much laughter, that I would grow to love the bundle of joy just as she did. Of course, she was right. Happy Birthday little sister. I Love You and yes I know-that's childish:)

Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday to my Daddy, 61-years-young today.

Here is his absolute favorite song.

Halloween Birthday

Happy Birthday to my cousin, Trin.

She's a whole 28 years old!

I hate her.

Happy Halloween

My sister-in-law is in nursing school. They had a costume contest this week. She decided to represent Pam Grier's 1970s movie characters.



"Cute," I told her, "But next time..."

"... less smile, more gun."



Happy Halloween, all!

A Day that Lives in Infamy

My son says he's out of school because they're celebrating Columbus Day.

To which his droll ass mama says, "I don't know about anybody else at that school, but you are mostly certainly not celebrating Columbus Day."

Or, what Nezua and La Mala said.

ETA: If I ever teach the first half of the U.S. survey again, maybe I'll walk into my Texas or Louisiana (summer school) classroom and begin with this:

Every inch of North America is Aboriginal land which was stolen at the point of a gun, starvation, and the intentional introduction of disease.

I'm totally prepared to fight my way out.

Happy Birthday!!!!

Alex! This birthday has been a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time coming.

Love you!

happy birthday

Trying to type from the cell mid-new faculty orientation. hope it works.

happy birthday to my sister and brother, born on the same day, 12 years apart.

which only heighhtened my middle child, "where do i belong?!?!" angst.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my son.

He's ten today.

When I tell you a decade can fly...