...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!
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
She's Right: Why Not?
This year, I AM GOING (not going to say planning or trying to go) to the AMC.
Why not help send me and some other lovely ladies? Via Noemi:
Why not help send me and some other lovely ladies? Via Noemi:
AMC. We need to get there.We have fundraised, asked for grants, compromised, felt energized, asked for days off, gotten free airline tickets, borrowed time, overcharged credit cards and emailed/talked/made plans with friends and strangers across the lines.And still call us shameless, we ask for more. Y porque no?
please consider donating to these fine, chingona mujeres
Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz, raising chingona mujeres. Sending single mami love
laMamitaMala.com
mamitamala@yahoo.com
Elle, southern sistorian, who I shall meet one day even if we live closer than other folks. Oh we shall share a beer very very soon
http://elleabd.blogspot.com/
mselleg@aol.com
blackamazon Sydette otherwise known as the bad ass who I love
http://guyaneseterror.blogspot.com/
Sydette@gmail.com
Fabiola, fabmexicana who guest blogs here, leaving pedacitos de su corazon.
Otra mami soltera de Califabmexicana@gmail.com
Noemi Martinez
spiller of dreams-single mami hermanaresist.com
csdistro@gmail.com
ms. cripchick
a powerchair-roaring queer radical woman of color
cripchick's weblog
stacey.milbern@gmail.com
Many of us will be taking part in the Women’s Media EquitySummit on July 16th.At the AMC, we’ll be involved in several different caucuses, meetings and generally raisinga ruckus wherever you may find us. And OUR KIDS WILL BE CAUSING ALL SORTS OF MAYHEM AT THE KIDS TRACK AND IN GENERAL. It will be a sight to see. Things will happen. We will write/blog about it.
On Brisenia Flores
When I was working on my dissertation, I had to read quite a bit of “immigration” literature for my last chapter. One of the books I remember most was John Higham’s Strangers in the Land, because so many others referenced his assertion that throughout U.S. history, nativism and xenophobia have ebbed and flowed.
I remember that, because as I’ve said before, I think we are caught in a peak period and it seems we have been for well over a decade now.
But having the historical perspective to see it as part of a pattern, to know that it might recede some day, does not make it any less painful to live through, especially as we bear witness to the beating deaths of Luis Ramirez and Jose Sucuzhañay, the disrespect shown to the memory and family of Ana Fernandez,
And the murder of nine-year-old Brisenia Flores.
I heard about Brisenia Flores a few weeks ago, from the Sanctuary, VivirLatino, and via Twitter. She and her father were murdered, and her mother was shot, in their home, in the middle of the night, by people "associated" with the Minuteman Project.
I have been unable to get the words together to write about this child, because of all the thoughts racing through my mind:
Racists still come to our homes and murder us in the middle of the night.
Still.
This reinforces for people of color how tenuous the safety of our children is.
Still.
We live in a white supremacist patriarchy that claims to value a certain family structure while violently disrupting that structure in families of color.
Still.
How long are people going to deny the violence that permeates so much right-wing extremism? What do we expect from people fed on a constant diet of "us vs. them" and "retain-our-privilege-at-all-cost?" Why aren’t more of us repulsed that it’s cloaked in the language of love for “God and country?”
Beyond all the symbolic things, a nine-year-old child and her father were killed because of hatred. Even then, we can’t talk about that without feeling the need to air the murderers’ opinion that Raul Flores, Jr., Brisenia’s father, sold drugs.*
As if the Minutemen need justification to act violently against a Latin@ family and community. As Maegan notes:
__________________________________
*I have not read anything that backs the truth of that claim, and yet the NYT juxtaposes it with the local Sheriff’s observation that “there is ample drug activity between here and the border.” Now, he doesn’t say that Raul Flores, Jr., is connected to it, but that quote is somehow relevant when talking about the murder of a Latino man who lived near the border.
I remember that, because as I’ve said before, I think we are caught in a peak period and it seems we have been for well over a decade now.
But having the historical perspective to see it as part of a pattern, to know that it might recede some day, does not make it any less painful to live through, especially as we bear witness to the beating deaths of Luis Ramirez and Jose Sucuzhañay, the disrespect shown to the memory and family of Ana Fernandez,
And the murder of nine-year-old Brisenia Flores.
I heard about Brisenia Flores a few weeks ago, from the Sanctuary, VivirLatino, and via Twitter. She and her father were murdered, and her mother was shot, in their home, in the middle of the night, by people "associated" with the Minuteman Project.
I have been unable to get the words together to write about this child, because of all the thoughts racing through my mind:
Racists still come to our homes and murder us in the middle of the night.
Still.
This reinforces for people of color how tenuous the safety of our children is.
Still.
We live in a white supremacist patriarchy that claims to value a certain family structure while violently disrupting that structure in families of color.
Still.
How long are people going to deny the violence that permeates so much right-wing extremism? What do we expect from people fed on a constant diet of "us vs. them" and "retain-our-privilege-at-all-cost?" Why aren’t more of us repulsed that it’s cloaked in the language of love for “God and country?”
Beyond all the symbolic things, a nine-year-old child and her father were killed because of hatred. Even then, we can’t talk about that without feeling the need to air the murderers’ opinion that Raul Flores, Jr., Brisenia’s father, sold drugs.*
As if the Minutemen need justification to act violently against a Latin@ family and community. As Maegan notes:
The goal [of Shawna Forde and Gunny Bush] wasn’t to observe, document and report as Jim Gilchrist, the leader of the Minuteman Project, has said in trying to distance himself from his associates charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of aggravated assault. The goal was to use violence against a family viewed as expendable to help further their cause of using violence against those viewed as expendable.
__________________________________
*I have not read anything that backs the truth of that claim, and yet the NYT juxtaposes it with the local Sheriff’s observation that “there is ample drug activity between here and the border.” Now, he doesn’t say that Raul Flores, Jr., is connected to it, but that quote is somehow relevant when talking about the murder of a Latino man who lived near the border.
Friday, June 26, 2009
I Didn't Know "Rest In Peace" Came with a Citizenship Requirement!
ETA: A new note at the bottom
Do you ever just sit back and wonder who and what we are becoming?
When the DC metrorail crash occurred earlier this week, nine people lost their lives. When the list of the names of the dead was released, it contained the name of Ana Fernandez, a mother of six.
While the family has been "grateful for the genuine expressions of sympathy," they did not expect another effect.
Ana Fernandez's image and name have prompted hateful, harrassing calls from people demanding to know her immigration status.
My personal response was, "Does it matter?"
Have we really sunk so low that we comb through the details of tragedies, looking for things that make us feel "suspicious?"
Have brown skin and a Spanish surname become enough to arouse that suspicion and make us act in heartless, disturbingly inhuman ways? (That question is rhetorical, of course).
Ana Fernandez's family is having to balance their grief with this sudden demand to explain:
They're also having to defend themselves against the stereotypes of lazy immigrants who come here to "live off" others. Fernandez's sister said:
And from one of her children:
For the record, I'd like to repeat that Fernandez's family reports that she did have legal status and all her children were born here.*
For the record, large numbers of people with Spanish surnames and brown skin have been in the United States for 160 years now** and in places that would become part of the United States for generations before--at some point, New Spain extended from one coast to another across the southern portion of what is now the United States.
Given that, inferring anything "suspicious" from the appearance and name of Ana Fernandez is not only desperate, it doesn't necessarily make sense.
Except, I guess, in a place fully ensconced and invested in its latest wave of nativism.
H/T Maegan
________________________________
*I've gone back and forth about writing that, because what I'm trying to say is that the accusations are unfounded, but what I worry it sounds like is, "Because they've met this arbitrary citizenship standard, they have a right to grieve and be treated with respect." Her family should be allowed to grieve in peace and she should be treated with dignity in her death whatever her/their immigration status is.
**I dated that from the Mexican Cession, forgetting to reference the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, that had the effect of bringing significant parts of New Spain (including Florida) into the U.S., as well.
Do you ever just sit back and wonder who and what we are becoming?
When the DC metrorail crash occurred earlier this week, nine people lost their lives. When the list of the names of the dead was released, it contained the name of Ana Fernandez, a mother of six.
While the family has been "grateful for the genuine expressions of sympathy," they did not expect another effect.
Ana Fernandez's image and name have prompted hateful, harrassing calls from people demanding to know her immigration status.
My personal response was, "Does it matter?"
Have we really sunk so low that we comb through the details of tragedies, looking for things that make us feel "suspicious?"
Have brown skin and a Spanish surname become enough to arouse that suspicion and make us act in heartless, disturbingly inhuman ways? (That question is rhetorical, of course).
Ana Fernandez's family is having to balance their grief with this sudden demand to explain:
Ana's sister said the accusations aren't true.
"Right now, the whole family is in pain. She was here legally, and all her children are legal. They were born here."
They're also having to defend themselves against the stereotypes of lazy immigrants who come here to "live off" others. Fernandez's sister said:
"We all work, OK? And we're going to get through this."
And from one of her children:
"She was always working -- working two jobs. She did whatever she had to to take care of us," said Evelyn Fernandez, her oldest daughter, who is enrolled in a GED program. "She was a strong woman. She never needed anyone to help her."
For the record, I'd like to repeat that Fernandez's family reports that she did have legal status and all her children were born here.*
For the record, large numbers of people with Spanish surnames and brown skin have been in the United States for 160 years now** and in places that would become part of the United States for generations before--at some point, New Spain extended from one coast to another across the southern portion of what is now the United States.
Given that, inferring anything "suspicious" from the appearance and name of Ana Fernandez is not only desperate, it doesn't necessarily make sense.
Except, I guess, in a place fully ensconced and invested in its latest wave of nativism.
H/T Maegan
________________________________
*I've gone back and forth about writing that, because what I'm trying to say is that the accusations are unfounded, but what I worry it sounds like is, "Because they've met this arbitrary citizenship standard, they have a right to grieve and be treated with respect." Her family should be allowed to grieve in peace and she should be treated with dignity in her death whatever her/their immigration status is.
**I dated that from the Mexican Cession, forgetting to reference the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, that had the effect of bringing significant parts of New Spain (including Florida) into the U.S., as well.
On the Death of Michael Jackson
The first video I showed my son then. The title seems appropos to how I'm feeling.
(A cleaned-up version of a comment I made here)
As a feminist, as a rape survivor, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, as someone who once adored the "King of Pop," how do I process Michael Jackson's death?
I grew up in a little southern, rural town where racism was alive and well. Seeing a black person as glamorous and famous as Michael Jackson meant the world to me. Seeing that his popularity crossed color lines--I mean, I remember distinctly thinking, "White girls scream and pass out over him?" They'd have been ostracized in my town.
It's not that I idolized him as some sort of post-racial icon--I don't believe in that shit, not for this country, in our lifetimes--but that here was a symbol that, my God, it wasn't so bad for us everywhere.
Then there were the other, simpler things. I loved his music. I had a crush on him. I thought he was cool without being "hard."
When the allegations came, I was angry at him, because I believed them. I knew what it was like not to be believed as a survivor, and I didn't want to do that to those children.
And I was angry at me, because I believed them.
Thanks to exposes and the nonstop media fascination, I had given Michael my own, hardly professional diagnosis. I thought he was profoundly hurt and always searching for his childhood, trying to live it vicariously through children. I thought he didn't know how to set appropriate boundaries--he really thought of himself as children's "friend." I thought somewhere along the way, he may have crossed the line in a hurtful, heinous way.
So, yes, I was mad at him.
And felt sorry for him.
And cared about him.
And identified with those children and worried about them.
In short, I was confused, felt guilty for caring for him.
I still am confused. But I know news of his death shook me, saddened me unbelievably. I don't know how to deal with it. I can't pretend that I didn't care, that part of me didn't still care a whole lot about an imperfect, sad man who may have done some unforgivable things.
Sometimes, I realize that I'm human, that how I feel won't always be logical or rational or even, to some, defensible.
But I'm not getting on the defense on this one.
I sincerely hope Michael is happy and at peace now.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Where Is Jada Justice?
Update: Police believe they may have found her body
Update II: mzbitca confirmed for me that her body had been found. Rest in Peace, Jada.
Jada is two years, ten months old and has been missing since June 16 from the Gary, IN, area. Jada is "an African-American child about 2 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 35 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes and a light brown complexion."
In the last couple of days, (as noted by some critiques) Jada's case has begun getting more national attention. Her mother was on Nancy Grace's show Tuesday night. And cnn and msnbc sites had articles as of the 23rd, I believe.
Local news outlets have been covering the case.
If you have any information, call 1-800-CALL-FBI
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
One of These Things Is Not Like the Other...
Remember the Loud and Clear post? Consider this an addendum.
Yesterday, the Nixon Library made "more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents" public, much of it online.
One of the things revealed is that, while Nixon didn't make a public statement about Roe v. Wade, he had mixed feelings about the decision. He worried, like so many concernedtrolls citizens, that the ability to fuck without one of the biggest "penalties"* would turn women into loose, sex-crazed sluts, thereby unraveling the fabric of the United States:
But he did recognize that sometimes, women might need abortions (emphasis mine):
Because apparently, a white woman having consensual sex with and becoming pregnant by a black man is equivalent to/"just as tragic as" being raped and becoming pregnant. I put it in these terms, not because black women didn't/don't have children with white men, but because this is the combination that has always been seen as "tragic." White southern men, for example, spent many of the early years of the "New South" warning about such relationships and trying to ensure, violently, that they didn't occur.
The newly released recordings also document Nixon's anti-Semitism (as recordings before have done):
It's funny how Republican leaders for the last 50 years or so have been accusing racial/ethnic/religious minorities of "stirring things up" and provoking the attacks on themselves by demanding to be seen, heard, counted. It's the height of privilege-- and evidence of a sad lack of empathy--to view someone's struggle for rights as an inconvenience to your own life and the source of your righteous indignation.
And as to the part I emphasized, note that he is speaking, what, one generation after the Holocaust? I don't even have flippant analysis for that--he was just an asshole.
_________________________________
* Meaning forced pregnancy and childbirth
Yesterday, the Nixon Library made "more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents" public, much of it online.
One of the things revealed is that, while Nixon didn't make a public statement about Roe v. Wade, he had mixed feelings about the decision. He worried, like so many concerned
Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.”
But he did recognize that sometimes, women might need abortions (emphasis mine):
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”
Because apparently, a white woman having consensual sex with and becoming pregnant by a black man is equivalent to/"just as tragic as" being raped and becoming pregnant. I put it in these terms, not because black women didn't/don't have children with white men, but because this is the combination that has always been seen as "tragic." White southern men, for example, spent many of the early years of the "New South" warning about such relationships and trying to ensure, violently, that they didn't occur.
The newly released recordings also document Nixon's anti-Semitism (as recordings before have done):
The tapes also include a phone call from February 1973 between Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, during which Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.
“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said.
At another point he said: “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”
It's funny how Republican leaders for the last 50 years or so have been accusing racial/ethnic/religious minorities of "stirring things up" and provoking the attacks on themselves by demanding to be seen, heard, counted. It's the height of privilege-- and evidence of a sad lack of empathy--to view someone's struggle for rights as an inconvenience to your own life and the source of your righteous indignation.
And as to the part I emphasized, note that he is speaking, what, one generation after the Holocaust? I don't even have flippant analysis for that--he was just an asshole.
_________________________________
* Meaning forced pregnancy and childbirth
Monday, June 22, 2009
Really, Justice Thomas, You Don't Have to Go that Far to Prove a Point
Whatever that point is:
Clarence Thomas casts lone vote against Voting Rights Act
In your haste to show all of us unambitious, whining, dependent black folk up, do you even know what the point is anymore?
Clarence Thomas casts lone vote against Voting Rights Act
In your haste to show all of us unambitious, whining, dependent black folk up, do you even know what the point is anymore?
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Demand MS Reunite Mother & Baby Daughter!
Via BfP, this Request for Action from the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA):
Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English, as her native language is Chatino, an Indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico that is spoken by some 50,000 people.This made me so angry and reminded me about this article I'd seen some time ago--different circumstances, same disregard for/devaluing of immigrant women's mothering.
The hospital provided her with an “interpreter” who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital’s interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.
The hospital’s social worker reported “evidence” of abuse and neglect based on the following:
* The “baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;”
* The “mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula.” (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
* “She does not speak English which puts baby in danger.”
Ms. Baltazar Cruz’s baby was snatched from her after birth at the hospital and given to an affluent attorney couple from the posh Ocean Springs who cannot have children.
The authorities made no effort to locate an interpreter in her native tongue. MIRA located an interpreter who is fluent in Chatino in Los Angeles CA and has interviewed the mother extensively with the interpreters help. The mother has been accused of being poor and not being able to provide for this child. No one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.
Meanwhile, there is word in the Gulf Coast community that the “parents to be,” have already had a baby shower celebrating the “blessed arrival” of this STOLEN child!
PLEASE MAKE CALLS & WRITE LETTERS DEMANDING THE SAFE RETURN OF BABY & REUNITE WITH HER MOTHER
If you believe this is unjust and outrageous and goes against all moral and religious beliefs and values, please call or write to the presiding Judge and the MS Department of Human Services to STOP this ILLEGAL ADOPTION! Stealing US born babies from immigrant parents is a growing epidemic in the United States. Many Latino parents have lost their children this way!
Honorable Judge Sharon Sigalas
Youth Justice Court of Jackson County
4903 Telephone Rd.
Pascagoula, MS 39567
(228)762-7370
Children’s Justice Act Program
MS Dept. of Human Services
750 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202
Call (601)359-4499 and ask for Barbara Proctor
For more information please call MIRA at: (601) 968-5182
MIRA Organizing Coordinator
Victoria Cintra at (228) 234-1697 or Organizer Socorro Leos at(228) 731-0831
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Life, the Update
Thank you to everyone, here, on facebook, and via e-mail, who expressed concern, offered prayers, kind words, good vibes, etc. I have had a tumultuous two weeks, but everything else fades compared to concern for my dad.
Last Thursday, he had the lower portion of his left leg amputated. This time, the wound is healing just fine. They moved him today to a rehab that his doctors promise us is the best in the area. And of course, while I have all the "What can we do to facilitate his physical and emotional healing/get him through this?" sorts of questions, my sister had the practical ones. "Is the place clean? What's their health record like? Are the caretakers kind? What should we do about having a ramp built at home?" I'm smiling as I think of it.
Everything else is coming along. The car probably only needs a radiator. The conference is over and I didn't suck. My grad class dropped to six, but is back at seven, so it might hold. The baby shower turned out nicely. I finished my survey syllabus (wasn't stressing initially cuz I teach it every semester, but condensing fifteen weeks to five? Gulp!). I still have some worries, but am feeling a bit better.
I wish I could hug all of you back and cook dinner for you.
Last Thursday, he had the lower portion of his left leg amputated. This time, the wound is healing just fine. They moved him today to a rehab that his doctors promise us is the best in the area. And of course, while I have all the "What can we do to facilitate his physical and emotional healing/get him through this?" sorts of questions, my sister had the practical ones. "Is the place clean? What's their health record like? Are the caretakers kind? What should we do about having a ramp built at home?" I'm smiling as I think of it.
Everything else is coming along. The car probably only needs a radiator. The conference is over and I didn't suck. My grad class dropped to six, but is back at seven, so it might hold. The baby shower turned out nicely. I finished my survey syllabus (wasn't stressing initially cuz I teach it every semester, but condensing fifteen weeks to five? Gulp!). I still have some worries, but am feeling a bit better.
I wish I could hug all of you back and cook dinner for you.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
You Know What?
Today is a seesaw. Some good things accomplished, but not everything. More stressful news--but job-related and nothing serious.
I think I will take a nap, then get up and cook. A whole lot of stuff for my huge extended family. And I think I will take advantage of being in Louisiana and go to the local drive-thru liquor store and order an extra large margarita-strawberry daiquiri mix with lots of salt on top.
Because on days like this, I feel my attitude being horrendous the more I focus on the "serious" stuff. And then I feel bad for my horrendous attitude. And in the end, I am at home and this is the most vacation I'm going to get this summer.
I think I will take a nap, then get up and cook. A whole lot of stuff for my huge extended family. And I think I will take advantage of being in Louisiana and go to the local drive-thru liquor store and order an extra large margarita-strawberry daiquiri mix with lots of salt on top.
Because on days like this, I feel my attitude being horrendous the more I focus on the "serious" stuff. And then I feel bad for my horrendous attitude. And in the end, I am at home and this is the most vacation I'm going to get this summer.
Thank You, Wanda Sykes
...for getting to the heart of why articles like this:
bug the hell out of me.
I won't pretend that I remember all the details of the article--I read it while waiting in the dentist's office. That was a nightmare because I have a jacked mouth and I can't clearly recall much about that day. :-)
I do know the article had a "This group thinks this of her; that group thinks that. Who is she really???" sort of vibe.
Wanda Sykes gets at the heart of the "Who is she really???" question.
H/T Anxious Black Woman
bug the hell out of me.
I won't pretend that I remember all the details of the article--I read it while waiting in the dentist's office. That was a nightmare because I have a jacked mouth and I can't clearly recall much about that day. :-)
I do know the article had a "This group thinks this of her; that group thinks that. Who is she really???" sort of vibe.
Wanda Sykes gets at the heart of the "Who is she really???" question.
H/T Anxious Black Woman
Catch My Breath
Daddy and Deuce 9 June 2009This is not a good week. I am behind on my interview schedule. I am trying to wrap up the presentation-that-shouldn't-be-a-paper for next week's conference. I am coordinating a baby shower.
And mostly, I am being really, really quiet about my dad. He's been in the hospital for a few weeks now. He complained of a sore foot for a while. The local clinic took his word that it was his gout and prescribed a pain medicine. The people at the dialysis clinic took one look at it, discovered a badly infected sore, and sent him to a hospital. The people at the hospital were bothered by the look and smell of it and sent him to a VA hospital.
They tried antibiotics, then amputated two of his toes and some of the padding on the bottom of his foot.
He is a diabetic, with kidney failure, and congestive heart failure and he still smokes. His circulation is much lower than poor. The site of the amputation is not healing because of inadequate circulation. Today he told us, "They're going to have to amputate it." I thought he meant his foot, which was enough to bring tears to my eyes.
A few more minutes into the conversation, I realized he meant his leg from below the knee down. I stood at the sink in his room, washing my hands, and telling myself, "He is trying to be calm. Don't you dare start crying. Don't you dare."
I am already feeling the guilt of having made a wholly inappropriate and probably hurtful comment. The doctors had been asking him, since the discovery of the sore, had he stepped on something. He said no, because to his knowledge, he hadn't. A few days after he was hospitalized, my nephew discovered a nail in his shoe. I told him in a teasing way, "Daddy, I done cussed you out! You know you have to be careful with your feet."
It was a little flippant remark on my part. A couple of days later, when we were on the phone, he said something to the effect of, "I can't keep beating myself up, but I was supposed to have a mirror and check my feet."
He didn't need my little inconsiderate comment, because he's been "cussing" himself out, feeling guilty and sad. And I've been thinking, "Why did I say that?"
There's also the fact that my dad is usually this stoic person--when he's been in the hospital before, we've been distraught and worried about getting to see him and he always says things like, "You have a life, a job, kids, etc, don't worry about me," as if that's possible.
But this time, he's been very open about being lonely, a hundred miles away from home (and more than 400 away from me). He was ready for me to come home. Sometimes when I call, he'll sound so tired and I'll say something like, "Daddy, I don't want to wear you out." And a couple of times he's said, "I'm okay. Just talk to Daddy for a few minutes," and I know he's bored and lonely and worried. I talked to my dad for 40 minutes on the phone last week; I don't know if that's ever happened.
I can see the sadness and I wonder if he's thinking about his mortality--he's already older than his father and two of his brothers were when they died. He's worried about walking again and having to go to a nursing home if we can't get the house right.
And I'm worried, worried, worried, too. I have to leave Sunday because my son is going to summer school for math and I have that conference. Honestly, I'd say fuck summer school because he's going to fifth grade anyway, but he has struggled with math since pre-K and he only met three of four standards in math this year, even though he passed it for the year with a B. Multi-step word problems give him fits. He can't miss more than three days or he will be considered a non-completer. The three days I decided he could miss were June 9-11, so I could have some time at home.
Then, he's in summer school until July 2 and I start teaching summer school July 6. When will I have a moment to travel again? My car has 154,000 miles on it, but I can't afford to just up and by two plane tickets to a small rural airport with short notice. There's also the fact that the drive, at least 8.5 hours, by myself, is a bit much for me these days. But how can I not be here for my father's major surgery?
And the conference, my God, I'm cobbling that together bit by bit, but can I be unprofessional for a moment and say that, right now, it seems like the most inconvenient thing in the world to me? My heart is not there. I feel guilty about that as well, because they're paying me a significant sum for a day's work (ok, more than a day, when you count prep, but you know what I mean).
Then there's summer school, which I feel mostly prepared for. But the fall! Two new preps! I've only begun to fight!
I know I'm all over the place, but I needed to vent. I don't know whether I'm coming or going, I swear. I'm just resolved not to cry because if I start, I will not stop until I have a headache that further complicates things.
Even as I type this, I'm trying to put it together in my head. Today is just Wednesday. I can stop dreading this conference, flesh out the admittedly good outline I've already done (the presentation is only 20 minutes and I'm supposed to encourage the participants to engage. Then, the 30-minute workshop I lead afterward will be on how to use related primary source documents). I can do two interviews tomorrow rather than one. I can get someone else to assemble favor bags for the shower. I have lots of help, and we've already done 90% of the work.
But right now, I don't want to be calm. I want to say all the shit that is plaguing me.
Please think of my dad.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Things Heard 2
A few nights ago, my son and I were having a debate while having dinner. He considers himself quite the dancer and gives credit to people like Chris Brown and Omarion. When he told me that, I said, "They're all just copying Michael Jackson."
I thought it would be an off-handed, everyone-knows-that sort of comment.
My child laughed. How good could Michael Jackson be? This new crop of dancers had their own styles! Michael Jackson could not possibly be better than a whole bunch of young dancers whose names he rattled off.
This despite the fact that he himself salivates over the Thriller video.
"Wait," I said, with more than a little attitude, "until we get home!"
When we made it home, I sat him in front of youtube and played four or five MJ videos. He eventually admitted the supremacy of Michael Jackson, but then re-watched a couple of videos.
"What is it?" I asked, because he was all frowned up and staring at the screen.
"He looked a lot better when he looked like us!"
I thought it would be an off-handed, everyone-knows-that sort of comment.
My child laughed. How good could Michael Jackson be? This new crop of dancers had their own styles! Michael Jackson could not possibly be better than a whole bunch of young dancers whose names he rattled off.
This despite the fact that he himself salivates over the Thriller video.
"Wait," I said, with more than a little attitude, "until we get home!"
When we made it home, I sat him in front of youtube and played four or five MJ videos. He eventually admitted the supremacy of Michael Jackson, but then re-watched a couple of videos.
"What is it?" I asked, because he was all frowned up and staring at the screen.
"He looked a lot better when he looked like us!"
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Enjoy Feeling Uncomfortable?
That's the question Deron Bauman asks about the feeling created by this video, which I saw on ClusterFlock.
I'm still looking for evidence that this is satire. Has to be, right? Lyrics after the fold, but I just had to highlight a few.
A mildly amusing moment: A young white man who attends Dartmouth raps, "It's not the hand you were given, but how you lay down your cards."
WTF moment 1: Rapping, "Don't matter if your (sic) gay, straight, Christian or Muslim," after having said, "Thank you Miss Cali for reminding us of marriage," and after issuing the warning that "Terrorists were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Now they're in our neighborhoods, planning out doomsday."
WTF moment 2: Rapping, "Everyone can succeed, Because our soldiers bleed"
Just a little musical interlude for your Saturday afternoon.
H/T Laurie, whom you should really, really follow on Twitter
Serious C:
“Yo this ones for all the young conservatives.
I rep the Northeast and I’m still a young con,
Let your voice release, you don't have to be obamatrons.
I debate any poser who don't shoot straight,
Government spending needs to deflate,
Your ideas are lightweight,
Ya careers in checkmate
I frustrate. I increase the pulse rate
I hate when,
government dictatin, makin, statements, bout how to be a merchant,
How to run a restaurant, how to lay the pavement
Bailout a business, but can't protect an infant
Deficiencies are blatant, young con treatment
I stand one man, outnumbered at my college
Thank you Miss Cali for reminding us of marriage
Can't support abortion, and call yourself a Christian
I support life, you're a puzzled politician
Terrorists were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay,
Now they're in our neighborhoods, planning out doomsday
No such thing as utopia,
no government can control ya, baby ya,
Reap the benefits hard work, self reliant
Listen to Stiltz, my dude’s a lyrical giant
Yo Stiltz... make it two time... please”
Stiltz:
“I'm 6'9 head and shoulder above the rest
Liberals playin checkers, I'm playin chess
My conservative view is drill baby drill
You can say you hate me but
I'm praying for you still
My dislike for thee most def is not hyperbole
Taxes are the subject and I will spit them verbally
I'm just livin life a conservative philosophy
Sorry Hilary not a right wing conspiracy
We need more women with intellectual integrity
I'm talkin Megyn Kelly not Nancy Pelosi
My main motto is you best work hard
It's not the hand you were given, but how you lay down your cards
I don't speak lies but I spit the facts
28% the new capital gains tax
Porkulus bill lacks a few stats
The more money we spend, the more mine is worth Jack
The Bible says we're a people under God,
Usin radar for radical Jihad
AIG was hooked up by Chris Dodd
A classy gift ain't an Ipod
The standards of my crew ain’t republicans dude
I'm reppin Jesus Christ and conservative views
Study history and true conservative moves
Every single time they refuse to lose
I’m starting to see a modern day Jimmy Carter
When really nothin but a Reagan era starter”
Serious C:
“Yo, We americans son
Hit ya with some knowledge
The movement has begun
Everyone can succeed
Because our soldiers bleed, for us
I said it in the verse,
now I'll say it in the chorus”
Stiltz:
“We young conservatives son
Hard work is our motto
The movement has begun
EVERYONE can succeed cause our soldiers bleed, daily
My views are rock solid, no chance you can break me”
Serious C:
“Phase me, make me, into something that ain’t me
Serious c... can’t nobody shake me
great like the Gatsby, poppin posers like acne
Don't matter if your gay, straight, Christian or Muslim
There's one thing we all hate, called socialism.
It's loathsome, and America ain’t the outcome,
Raise taxes on the people,
And you’re gonna feel symptoms, problems
I gotta message for a young con:
superman that socialism,
waterboard that terrorism”
Stiltz:
I fulfill the role that's inherently mine
Teaching politics through my rap and my rhyme
I'm signing off this track with a question in mind
How will this country get its precious change in time?
Three things taught me conservative love:
Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged
Saving our nation from inflation devastation
On my hands and my knees praying for salvation”
Serious C:
“Yo, We americans son
Hit ya with some knowledge
The movement has begun
Everyone can succeed
Because our soldiers bleed, for us
I said it in the verse,
now I'll say it in the chorus”
Stiltz:
“We young conservatives son
Hard work is our motto
The movement has begun
EVERYONE can succeed cause our soldiers bleed, daily
My views are rock solid, no chance you can break me”
I'm still looking for evidence that this is satire. Has to be, right? Lyrics after the fold, but I just had to highlight a few.
A mildly amusing moment: A young white man who attends Dartmouth raps, "It's not the hand you were given, but how you lay down your cards."
WTF moment 1: Rapping, "Don't matter if your (sic) gay, straight, Christian or Muslim," after having said, "Thank you Miss Cali for reminding us of marriage," and after issuing the warning that "Terrorists were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Now they're in our neighborhoods, planning out doomsday."
WTF moment 2: Rapping, "Everyone can succeed, Because our soldiers bleed"
Just a little musical interlude for your Saturday afternoon.
H/T Laurie, whom you should really, really follow on Twitter
Serious C:
“Yo this ones for all the young conservatives.
I rep the Northeast and I’m still a young con,
Let your voice release, you don't have to be obamatrons.
I debate any poser who don't shoot straight,
Government spending needs to deflate,
Your ideas are lightweight,
Ya careers in checkmate
I frustrate. I increase the pulse rate
I hate when,
government dictatin, makin, statements, bout how to be a merchant,
How to run a restaurant, how to lay the pavement
Bailout a business, but can't protect an infant
Deficiencies are blatant, young con treatment
I stand one man, outnumbered at my college
Thank you Miss Cali for reminding us of marriage
Can't support abortion, and call yourself a Christian
I support life, you're a puzzled politician
Terrorists were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay,
Now they're in our neighborhoods, planning out doomsday
No such thing as utopia,
no government can control ya, baby ya,
Reap the benefits hard work, self reliant
Listen to Stiltz, my dude’s a lyrical giant
Yo Stiltz... make it two time... please”
Stiltz:
“I'm 6'9 head and shoulder above the rest
Liberals playin checkers, I'm playin chess
My conservative view is drill baby drill
You can say you hate me but
I'm praying for you still
My dislike for thee most def is not hyperbole
Taxes are the subject and I will spit them verbally
I'm just livin life a conservative philosophy
Sorry Hilary not a right wing conspiracy
We need more women with intellectual integrity
I'm talkin Megyn Kelly not Nancy Pelosi
My main motto is you best work hard
It's not the hand you were given, but how you lay down your cards
I don't speak lies but I spit the facts
28% the new capital gains tax
Porkulus bill lacks a few stats
The more money we spend, the more mine is worth Jack
The Bible says we're a people under God,
Usin radar for radical Jihad
AIG was hooked up by Chris Dodd
A classy gift ain't an Ipod
The standards of my crew ain’t republicans dude
I'm reppin Jesus Christ and conservative views
Study history and true conservative moves
Every single time they refuse to lose
I’m starting to see a modern day Jimmy Carter
When really nothin but a Reagan era starter”
Serious C:
“Yo, We americans son
Hit ya with some knowledge
The movement has begun
Everyone can succeed
Because our soldiers bleed, for us
I said it in the verse,
now I'll say it in the chorus”
Stiltz:
“We young conservatives son
Hard work is our motto
The movement has begun
EVERYONE can succeed cause our soldiers bleed, daily
My views are rock solid, no chance you can break me”
Serious C:
“Phase me, make me, into something that ain’t me
Serious c... can’t nobody shake me
great like the Gatsby, poppin posers like acne
Don't matter if your gay, straight, Christian or Muslim
There's one thing we all hate, called socialism.
It's loathsome, and America ain’t the outcome,
Raise taxes on the people,
And you’re gonna feel symptoms, problems
I gotta message for a young con:
superman that socialism,
waterboard that terrorism”
Stiltz:
I fulfill the role that's inherently mine
Teaching politics through my rap and my rhyme
I'm signing off this track with a question in mind
How will this country get its precious change in time?
Three things taught me conservative love:
Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged
Saving our nation from inflation devastation
On my hands and my knees praying for salvation”
Serious C:
“Yo, We americans son
Hit ya with some knowledge
The movement has begun
Everyone can succeed
Because our soldiers bleed, for us
I said it in the verse,
now I'll say it in the chorus”
Stiltz:
“We young conservatives son
Hard work is our motto
The movement has begun
EVERYONE can succeed cause our soldiers bleed, daily
My views are rock solid, no chance you can break me”
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Why Your Community Ain't Like Mine
Subtitle: And How You Make Sure I Know That I'm Not Welcome. A recent look around the blogosphere and mental cataloguing of episodes of epic fail prompted me to think about community, and lack of community, and "exclusion" right now. These are some of my (incomplete, choppy, certainly not perfectly worded) reflections.
Part One: Realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are the same people you knew before… Realize that parents can be activists, but they are also parents. -Noemi
when you have a child
no one finds it tragic.
no map records it as an instance of blight. -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
They would chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label... Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me. -Gloria Anzaldúa
I’m teaching a class this summer in black women’s history. The other night, I previewed a film about Mrs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Commonly described as “unflinching” and “uncompromising, she was active in anti-lynching and civil rights agitation. She was also a suffragist. One of her friends was Susan B. Anthony. The relationship between the two women hit a rocky patch in the 1890s, when Wells married and began to have children.
Wells-Barnett noticed that Anthony’s attitude toward her changed. In the film, Paula Giddings, one of Wells-Barnett’s biographers, noted that Anthony began to “bite out” Wells-Barnett’s married name.
Eventually, Wells-Barnett felt it necessary to call Anthony out about it:
Anthony was questioning Wells-Barnett’s dedication, her supposed prioritization. She had her own perception of what Wells-Barnett’s activism should’ve looked like and resented the change. What she didn’t understand, according to Wells-Barnett, was that “I had been unable… to get the support which was necessary to carry on my work [and] had become discouraged in the effort to carry on alone.”
I thought about this question Noemi asked wrt community-building:
What does it mean when what you believed to be community abandons you?
I also thought about Kevin. He has, to put it lightly, been disturbed by the attacks on First Lady Michelle Obama by feminists who question her “feminist creds” and deride her dedication to family. “This shit goes way back, Kev,” I wanted to say after watching that documentary.
What I had said to him when he noted all the “Stepford Wife” comparisons, was “WoC are never supposed to prioritize our children and families.” Defined as laborers, our work is always presumed to better serve someone else's needs or goals. That other women think they can tell us how to be feminists is no surprise.
But my answer had it shortcomings. It’s not so much a matter of priorities. One thing I’ve learned by studying early black feminists is that some of those divisions are false—their activism was shaped to improve the lives of women, their families, and their communities. There was not necessarily a sense of "divided duty." Activism is not always easily divisible into neat categories. That's why those black clubwomen believed "a race can rise no higher than its women." That's why Anna Julia Cooper wrote
Susan Anthony's distress and the more spiteful critiques of Michelle Obama fail to take into account this interconnectedness. But these critiques prompt me to think also of Little Light's words, about how threatening our love and our attempts to define our lives and our activism for ourselves can be perceived:
Part Two: To build a community, parents and children should be welcome and not feel they can’t attend a meeting/event because of their baby(ies). ... [D]on’t you want the next generation to care about the same things you care about? When will this happen? -Noemi
[F]eminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with. -BfP
If feminism is supposed to work to improve the lives of all women, if it about forging connections and building communities for women, period, then I don’t understand this either. Oh, not so much the OP, though I think it does make some false divisions.
But the comments. At the very least, feminists should respect other women’s choices to have or not have children. But outside and within some feminist communities, childfree women are under excessive pressure to conform to what is considered normative. Those who choose not to have children are regarded as suspect, strange, threatening. Their choices are dismissed as temporary or mean. Those who don’t have children, but for reasons other than choosing not to, are pitied, regarded as incomplete and barren--which has to be one of the coldest words I’ve ever heard used to describe a human being.
As the mother of one child I get only a tiny bit of that, and it is wearying. I am routinely asked, “You really don’t want any more? What if you get married? What if a, b, or c happens?” Often, the implication is that I am selfish, both for not wanting to invest the enormous amount of time and effort required to parent a baby and because my son will be “alone” or “lonely.”
You know what my response to that is not? Attacking other women. I don’t think I have had some magical experience that childfree women are sorely lacking and will forever be deprived because of. I can honestly say that many days, I only survive motherhood. I don’t master it, I don’t excel at it.
But how do you nurture and create community when things like this stand? When women are called “moos,” “breeders,” and “placenta-brains” and their children “widdle pweshuses” and “broods?”^^ When you cast your community as one in which women who have children and women who are childfree are diametrically (perhaps, diabolically) opposed and that mothers (gasp) are taking over the movement and leaving slack that others have to catch up? When it becomes clear that some of us are not welcome into your community? When your remarks indicate that you are, in fact, chillingly “independent of community?” I borrowed that phrase from BfP and the moment she said it, my mind began clicking.
All kinds of feminists can nod when I write about the lie that is the capitalistic ideal of “rugged individualism.” They can see the cruelty and efforts at social control when I talk about the attacks on poor mothers that begin and end with “Why are you having kids and who do you expect to take care of them?” They can see the patriarchy at work in the divide and conquer strategy that is the “mommy wars.”
But they can’t see the damaging individualism inherent in their feminism. Of course, I don’t mean in choosing not to have children—familial and community obligations are commonly fulfilled by all of us, not just mothers. I mean the sentiment revealed in expressing aversion and revulsion towards women who do have children. As Noemi asks,
They can’t see the analogy between conservatives saying, “Who do you expect to take care of them?” and some feminists “roll[ing] their eyes when someone brings up childcare.” They can’t see the divide and conquer so apparent in “women with children v. childfree women.”
If feminism is about meeting “our” needs and some of “us” are mothers, why is it seen as a hostile takeover if I ask about childcare? If I express concern about keeping a roof over our heads or clothes on my child’s back? If I write about how my feminist consciousness is often raised by my experiences as a mother? If that is what your feminist community is about, then to quote Noemi again, “This is not community. This is not a welcomed community.”
Part Three: What new skills and influences will single parents give their children if the community doesn’t think it’s important for them to be involved? -Noemi
you have chosen to be...
in a community
that knows that you are priceless
that would never sacrifice your spirit
that knows it needs your brilliance to be whole -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
I struggled for a few days trying to find the words to say what I wanted to say about my community of WoC, why I feel it as community, why I think other women feel it as community. Should I use the words mutuality, reciprocity? Should I use the word vulnerable--because in the loving and trusting, in refusing to hold ourselves "independent of community," we do make ourselves vulnerable, but we also make ourselves strong. "Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be," wrote Audre Lorde, "not in order to be used, but in order to be creative."
I don't know the exact words for an accurate description. I do know that I don't feel that I have to compartmentalize. I don't have to spend a lot of time developing a defense of why this or that is a "feminist issue" with clearly, neatly defined parameters. I don't feel that there are parts of who I am that I cannot discuss or bring into the community.
I do not feel the false divisions. Why?
Because if I had to choose one word to describe Alexis Pauline Gumbs, it'd be love and I am humbled by how it infuses her words and actions.
Because cripchick expresses pride in our kids as they journey to become revolutionaries. Also, I'm convinced the sun shines out of her.
Because Fabi, Noemi, Lex, Mai’a, and Maegan and others write about revolutionary motherhood.
Because I find myself wanting to take that machete out of BA’s hands and go off on people who make her feel “gunshy" and I know Donna does, too.
Because women cheer when Baby BFP speaks.
Because Sylvia virtually cheered me through that PhD and I smile each time I think about writing her name-comma-Esq.
Because Lisa writes letters to her Veronica.
Because BfP invites us to take our own journeys and come together to share the discoveries.
Because Adele always hears me. Always.
Because Kameelah writes of creating community with her students, centering their art and the way they see the world, and she invites us in.
Because Anjali answers my questions about caring for our communities on macro and micro levels.
Because BA agonizes when she wonders what La Mapu learned about the importance of WoC voices when she witnessed an event in which those voices were, once again ignored.
These are just a few reasons, a few examples of the sense of accountability, to each other, to our children, to our work on- and off-line (and thank you, Aaminah, for helping me to understand that). Maybe this isn't unique to my community. But as WoC, a community that finds us and our work and our involvement "priceless" is not common. What WoC do commonly discover in feminist communities are
But back to that accountability, that rejection of "independent of community." I finally found words that reflect some of what I feel. And me being me, of course I found them in a book. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins writes,
Part Four: We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump. … [N]o one could understand what it was like… to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness" is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences, because someone is always eager to take your place -BlackAmazon
[I]f feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing... well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement. -BfP
I mentioned the example of BA and La Mapu last so that I could roughly segue into this. I’ll begin by saying that inclusion is rarely worth a damn--it is used as a substitute for "bona fide substantive change."** It’s arrogant to think it’s up to you to “include” us in feminism. We’ve been there, part of the foundation, existing as "the bodies on which feminist theories are created."
And you know what? People who think they have the power to include also often exclude.
Yes, in a specific sense, I’m talking about the Brooklyn listening party. I hurt for Mala, especially when I read this:
I hurt for BA and La Mapu and Ms. Poroto and all of us.
And, yes, I was angry, too, about the listening party, about the general reception of the SPEAK! CD, about how it is reflective of how the voices and efforts of WoC are regarded.
From the moment BA wrote this
I wondered, how is it made, this decision about which feminists are important enough to support? Why do I read about this book, and that appearance, and this podcast, and yay, yay, yay when it comes to white feminists…
But everything is eerily silent when it comes to the work of WoC?
The vows of support,
the “oh, yes, ‘your issues’ are important!”, ***
the “I totally recognize how very necessary your voice and your experiences are to feminism,” it all melts away, words belied by (in)action.
Not just this time.
I am left thinking of the name of Donna’s blog and the quote from which it is derived:
I am left wondering, like Noemi, why are we a luxury?
Expendable and interchangeable--important enough to be invited, too insignificant for anyone to develop a real idea or plan for how we are to get there.
Flighty and abstract, with all that focus on love. Or, as Nadia says,
In/Ex-cluded.
Part 5: For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. -Audre Lorde
[T]hose tools [of patriarchy] are used by women... against each other. -Audre Lorde
Things I fully expect to happen in the aftermath of this post and this one and so many others: WoC themselves will continue to be ignored, while their words and theories are appropriated, depoliticized, made more "palatable."
There will still be attempts to define how our work, our activism, our "priorities" should look--and justifications for why our failure to adhere means we can't be part of certain of communities.
People will continue to scream "get off your ass and do it yourself, stop bitching, stop complaining, stop crying racism, stop stop stop, pull yourselves up by your boot straps and just DO IT!" while simultaneously ignoring that we have been "just doing it" forever with no need for outside motivation and admonishment.
I will from time to time, get angry, feel isolated, say, "Fuck this! What is wrong with you?!"
Then I will sigh, and take comfort in the fact that "there’s us.
it’s the best thing about being us."
I will take comfort in the fact that we know
our words are not a luxury
our love is not a luxury
we are not a luxury. We know that... and quite often, that is enough.
__________________________________
*Toni Morrison read this part of her memoirs in the film, but you can find it and the quote I mention a few lines later, here.
^^ETA: Clicking links led me to this critique by mzbitzca
**PHC, Black Feminist Thought, 6.
*** Wherein "our issues" are always about our victimization, never about our activism and agency--that's objectification, too.
Part One: Realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are the same people you knew before… Realize that parents can be activists, but they are also parents. -Noemi
when you have a child
no one finds it tragic.
no map records it as an instance of blight. -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
They would chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label... Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me. -Gloria Anzaldúa
I’m teaching a class this summer in black women’s history. The other night, I previewed a film about Mrs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Commonly described as “unflinching” and “uncompromising, she was active in anti-lynching and civil rights agitation. She was also a suffragist. One of her friends was Susan B. Anthony. The relationship between the two women hit a rocky patch in the 1890s, when Wells married and began to have children.
Wells-Barnett noticed that Anthony’s attitude toward her changed. In the film, Paula Giddings, one of Wells-Barnett’s biographers, noted that Anthony began to “bite out” Wells-Barnett’s married name.
Eventually, Wells-Barnett felt it necessary to call Anthony out about it:
Finally, I said to her, “Miss Anthony, don’t you believe in women getting married?” She said, “Oh, yes, but not women like you who had a special call for special work. I too might have married but it would have meant dropping the work to which I had set my hand. She said, “I know of no one better fitted to do the work you had in hand than yourself. Since you have gotten married, agitation seems practically to have ceased. Besides, you have a divided duty. You are here trying to help in the formation of [the Afro-American] League and your eleven month old baby needs your attention at home. You are distracted over the thought that maybe he is not being looked after as he would if you were there, and that makes for divided duty.”*
Anthony was questioning Wells-Barnett’s dedication, her supposed prioritization. She had her own perception of what Wells-Barnett’s activism should’ve looked like and resented the change. What she didn’t understand, according to Wells-Barnett, was that “I had been unable… to get the support which was necessary to carry on my work [and] had become discouraged in the effort to carry on alone.”
I thought about this question Noemi asked wrt community-building:
[E]ver think why parents stop being involved in community events and meetings?
What does it mean when what you believed to be community abandons you?
I also thought about Kevin. He has, to put it lightly, been disturbed by the attacks on First Lady Michelle Obama by feminists who question her “feminist creds” and deride her dedication to family. “This shit goes way back, Kev,” I wanted to say after watching that documentary.
What I had said to him when he noted all the “Stepford Wife” comparisons, was “WoC are never supposed to prioritize our children and families.” Defined as laborers, our work is always presumed to better serve someone else's needs or goals. That other women think they can tell us how to be feminists is no surprise.
But my answer had it shortcomings. It’s not so much a matter of priorities. One thing I’ve learned by studying early black feminists is that some of those divisions are false—their activism was shaped to improve the lives of women, their families, and their communities. There was not necessarily a sense of "divided duty." Activism is not always easily divisible into neat categories. That's why those black clubwomen believed "a race can rise no higher than its women." That's why Anna Julia Cooper wrote
Only the BLACK WOMAN can say "when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me."
Susan Anthony's distress and the more spiteful critiques of Michelle Obama fail to take into account this interconnectedness. But these critiques prompt me to think also of Little Light's words, about how threatening our love and our attempts to define our lives and our activism for ourselves can be perceived:
It is time for us to acknowledge that our love is an act of war.
It seems distasteful to say. It feels wrong. Our love, our lives, our nurtured gardens and families, we say, these are not weapons. These are not acts of violence. To us, they are not.
Nonetheless, there are those who insist breathlessly, endlessly, that they are...
The very act of not getting to define everything for the rest of us is the end, for them.
Part Two: To build a community, parents and children should be welcome and not feel they can’t attend a meeting/event because of their baby(ies). ... [D]on’t you want the next generation to care about the same things you care about? When will this happen? -Noemi
[F]eminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with. -BfP
If feminism is supposed to work to improve the lives of all women, if it about forging connections and building communities for women, period, then I don’t understand this either. Oh, not so much the OP, though I think it does make some false divisions.
But the comments. At the very least, feminists should respect other women’s choices to have or not have children. But outside and within some feminist communities, childfree women are under excessive pressure to conform to what is considered normative. Those who choose not to have children are regarded as suspect, strange, threatening. Their choices are dismissed as temporary or mean. Those who don’t have children, but for reasons other than choosing not to, are pitied, regarded as incomplete and barren--which has to be one of the coldest words I’ve ever heard used to describe a human being.
As the mother of one child I get only a tiny bit of that, and it is wearying. I am routinely asked, “You really don’t want any more? What if you get married? What if a, b, or c happens?” Often, the implication is that I am selfish, both for not wanting to invest the enormous amount of time and effort required to parent a baby and because my son will be “alone” or “lonely.”
You know what my response to that is not? Attacking other women. I don’t think I have had some magical experience that childfree women are sorely lacking and will forever be deprived because of. I can honestly say that many days, I only survive motherhood. I don’t master it, I don’t excel at it.
But how do you nurture and create community when things like this stand? When women are called “moos,” “breeders,” and “placenta-brains” and their children “widdle pweshuses” and “broods?”^^ When you cast your community as one in which women who have children and women who are childfree are diametrically (perhaps, diabolically) opposed and that mothers (gasp) are taking over the movement and leaving slack that others have to catch up? When it becomes clear that some of us are not welcome into your community? When your remarks indicate that you are, in fact, chillingly “independent of community?” I borrowed that phrase from BfP and the moment she said it, my mind began clicking.
All kinds of feminists can nod when I write about the lie that is the capitalistic ideal of “rugged individualism.” They can see the cruelty and efforts at social control when I talk about the attacks on poor mothers that begin and end with “Why are you having kids and who do you expect to take care of them?” They can see the patriarchy at work in the divide and conquer strategy that is the “mommy wars.”
But they can’t see the damaging individualism inherent in their feminism. Of course, I don’t mean in choosing not to have children—familial and community obligations are commonly fulfilled by all of us, not just mothers. I mean the sentiment revealed in expressing aversion and revulsion towards women who do have children. As Noemi asks,
why is motherhood and heavens forbid, single parenthood a step back in the eyes of activists and feminists? If the choice to terminate a pregnancy is radical, why isn’t the choice in being a mother radical?I mean feeling that it's okay to demean and dehumanize whole groups of people because they made a choice you would not or because of their age, and repudiating any suggestion that said groups can be an important part of your community.
They can’t see the analogy between conservatives saying, “Who do you expect to take care of them?” and some feminists “roll[ing] their eyes when someone brings up childcare.” They can’t see the divide and conquer so apparent in “women with children v. childfree women.”
If feminism is about meeting “our” needs and some of “us” are mothers, why is it seen as a hostile takeover if I ask about childcare? If I express concern about keeping a roof over our heads or clothes on my child’s back? If I write about how my feminist consciousness is often raised by my experiences as a mother? If that is what your feminist community is about, then to quote Noemi again, “This is not community. This is not a welcomed community.”
Part Three: What new skills and influences will single parents give their children if the community doesn’t think it’s important for them to be involved? -Noemi
you have chosen to be...
in a community
that knows that you are priceless
that would never sacrifice your spirit
that knows it needs your brilliance to be whole -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
I struggled for a few days trying to find the words to say what I wanted to say about my community of WoC, why I feel it as community, why I think other women feel it as community. Should I use the words mutuality, reciprocity? Should I use the word vulnerable--because in the loving and trusting, in refusing to hold ourselves "independent of community," we do make ourselves vulnerable, but we also make ourselves strong. "Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be," wrote Audre Lorde, "not in order to be used, but in order to be creative."
I don't know the exact words for an accurate description. I do know that I don't feel that I have to compartmentalize. I don't have to spend a lot of time developing a defense of why this or that is a "feminist issue" with clearly, neatly defined parameters. I don't feel that there are parts of who I am that I cannot discuss or bring into the community.
I do not feel the false divisions. Why?
Because if I had to choose one word to describe Alexis Pauline Gumbs, it'd be love and I am humbled by how it infuses her words and actions.
Because cripchick expresses pride in our kids as they journey to become revolutionaries. Also, I'm convinced the sun shines out of her.
Because Fabi, Noemi, Lex, Mai’a, and Maegan and others write about revolutionary motherhood.
Because I find myself wanting to take that machete out of BA’s hands and go off on people who make her feel “gunshy" and I know Donna does, too.
Because women cheer when Baby BFP speaks.
Because Sylvia virtually cheered me through that PhD and I smile each time I think about writing her name-comma-Esq.
Because Lisa writes letters to her Veronica.
Because BfP invites us to take our own journeys and come together to share the discoveries.
Because Adele always hears me. Always.
Because Kameelah writes of creating community with her students, centering their art and the way they see the world, and she invites us in.
Because Anjali answers my questions about caring for our communities on macro and micro levels.
Because BA agonizes when she wonders what La Mapu learned about the importance of WoC voices when she witnessed an event in which those voices were, once again ignored.
These are just a few reasons, a few examples of the sense of accountability, to each other, to our children, to our work on- and off-line (and thank you, Aaminah, for helping me to understand that). Maybe this isn't unique to my community. But as WoC, a community that finds us and our work and our involvement "priceless" is not common. What WoC do commonly discover in feminist communities are
real experiences of having hard work devalued – many members of a supposed community literally saying, your work is worthless, you’re haters, critique sliding off like teflon.
But back to that accountability, that rejection of "independent of community." I finally found words that reflect some of what I feel. And me being me, of course I found them in a book. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins writes,
[T]he conceptualization of self that has been part of Black women's self-definition is distinctive. Self is not defined as the increased autonomy gained by separating oneself from others. [S]elf is found in the context of family and community--as Paule Marshall describes it, "the ability to recognize one's continuity with the larger community." By being accountable to others, African American women develop more fully human, less objectified selves. Rather than defining self in opposition to others, the connectedness among individuals provides Black women deeper, more meaningful self-definitions.
Part Four: We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump. … [N]o one could understand what it was like… to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness" is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences, because someone is always eager to take your place -BlackAmazon
[I]f feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing... well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement. -BfP
I mentioned the example of BA and La Mapu last so that I could roughly segue into this. I’ll begin by saying that inclusion is rarely worth a damn--it is used as a substitute for "bona fide substantive change."** It’s arrogant to think it’s up to you to “include” us in feminism. We’ve been there, part of the foundation, existing as "the bodies on which feminist theories are created."
And you know what? People who think they have the power to include also often exclude.
Yes, in a specific sense, I’m talking about the Brooklyn listening party. I hurt for Mala, especially when I read this:
Pero it’s not real enough for people who said they would come to a listening party to support something that means alot to me and other hermanas that I love. It’s not real enough for them to visualize my carrying a stroller with a 30 poundish toddler up and down subway stairs, walking miles not for exercise pero so that I don’t have to buy subway fare and can afford milk, walking to change a bag of pennies, thinking of pawning some earrings. It’s real enough for me to go talk to young people about identity, media, gender and race, pero it’s not real enough for people to think it’s important to support what we do beyond a cursory pat on the head for a job well done little spic girl who we can’t even be bothered to name. I have been invited to two national conferences this summer, pero there is no money to get me there and of course the orgs who want my face, my race and my gender can’t be bothered to actually spend money. They will find another woman of color, mami of color, Latino blogger to take my place, one who they deem more worthy because they can pay their own way or because they play the game well, etc etc.
I hurt for BA and La Mapu and Ms. Poroto and all of us.
And, yes, I was angry, too, about the listening party, about the general reception of the SPEAK! CD, about how it is reflective of how the voices and efforts of WoC are regarded.
From the moment BA wrote this
ONCE AGAIN
with people this time being extended the olive branch and courtesy of the voices of my sisters and the hospitality of my BEST FRIEND
have not tried to help contact or even SPEAK one iota
and did not have the COMMON FUCKING DECENCY to return contact on PERSONAL INVITATIONS.
I wondered, how is it made, this decision about which feminists are important enough to support? Why do I read about this book, and that appearance, and this podcast, and yay, yay, yay when it comes to white feminists…
But everything is eerily silent when it comes to the work of WoC?
The vows of support,
the “oh, yes, ‘your issues’ are important!”, ***
the “I totally recognize how very necessary your voice and your experiences are to feminism,” it all melts away, words belied by (in)action.
Not just this time.
I am left thinking of the name of Donna’s blog and the quote from which it is derived:
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
I am left wondering, like Noemi, why are we a luxury?
Expendable and interchangeable--important enough to be invited, too insignificant for anyone to develop a real idea or plan for how we are to get there.
Flighty and abstract, with all that focus on love. Or, as Nadia says,
our solutions are disregarded as being…
-too imaginative, not practical
-amatuer, short sighted
-not real organizing / change-making / “movement building”
In/Ex-cluded.
Part 5: For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. -Audre Lorde
[T]hose tools [of patriarchy] are used by women... against each other. -Audre Lorde
Things I fully expect to happen in the aftermath of this post and this one and so many others: WoC themselves will continue to be ignored, while their words and theories are appropriated, depoliticized, made more "palatable."
There will still be attempts to define how our work, our activism, our "priorities" should look--and justifications for why our failure to adhere means we can't be part of certain of communities.
People will continue to scream "get off your ass and do it yourself, stop bitching, stop complaining, stop crying racism, stop stop stop, pull yourselves up by your boot straps and just DO IT!" while simultaneously ignoring that we have been "just doing it" forever with no need for outside motivation and admonishment.
I will from time to time, get angry, feel isolated, say, "Fuck this! What is wrong with you?!"
Then I will sigh, and take comfort in the fact that "there’s us.
it’s the best thing about being us."
I will take comfort in the fact that we know
our words are not a luxury
our love is not a luxury
we are not a luxury. We know that... and quite often, that is enough.
__________________________________
*Toni Morrison read this part of her memoirs in the film, but you can find it and the quote I mention a few lines later, here.
^^ETA: Clicking links led me to this critique by mzbitzca
**PHC, Black Feminist Thought, 6.
*** Wherein "our issues" are always about our victimization, never about our activism and agency--that's objectification, too.
Monday, May 25, 2009
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."
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."
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Now Do Something about Bank Fees, Please!
**ETA: An explanatory video at the end of the post**
From BBC News:
But these damned banks!
It’s bad enough that they pay debit transactions from largest to smallest to maximize the overdraft fees you pay.* An example:
From an article written by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY):
Bankers are resistant to changes like those proposed by Rep. Maloney. Says one Fred Solomon, all you have to do to avoid the charges is know your balance! Only, in the real world, if you’re out running errands or you make a number of small transactions, it’s sometimes difficult to keep a running balance at all times. Also, some of us fallible people make errors in subtraction and addition. Balances fluctuate, particularly when you use your debit card: a transaction might appear as an authorization, disappear, then reappear days later and wreak havoc on our accounts. Sometimes, companies place a hold on more funds than we actually use, lowering our available balances and potentially causing us to overdraw while the funds are on hold. And I know I can't be the only person who's written a check, noted it in my register, but weeks later, when I'm four pages further on in the register, the long-held check posts to my account and I have to adjust my balance because I'd forgotten about it.
Overdraft fees disproportionately affect the young—who use their cards more and make more small purchases—and people with low incomes—who can ill afford to pay back the exorbitant fees. On top of the fees themselves, some banks charge a daily or weekly fee if your account is in the red. With regards to low-income bank customers, bankers’ admonishments that you can easily track your balance via text message or online banking is especially hollow. Many people with low incomes don’t have contract cell phones (which typically require credit). On the pre-paid plans** (problematic, in and of themselves), text messaging costs extra.
Online banking is not always at their fingertips. We've long noted the digital divide between "the rich and the poor." Having internet access at home could mean 1) having to have a landline,*** which requires credit, the ability to pay the monthly bill, and the willingness to increase that bill by as much as $50 or $60 to include internet service and 2) being able to afford a computer and related upkeep. I was also angrily amused by this little helpful tip (found, admittedly, in an article that is wary of banks and debit cards but only because it suggests credit cards as a better alternative):
A couple of years ago, my small-town Louisiana bank began to engage in an even more insidious practice. Let’s say you have $15 in the bank. You use your debit card for $6. That authorization reduces your available balance to $9. A $12 check posts to your account that night. You are charged a $34 fee for that, even though the debit card transaction is still only in authorization or memo-post stage. Now your account is in the red, -$37. Well, the next night, when the $6 actually posts to your account, you are charged for that, as well. Now, initially you had $15—shouldn’t one or the other of those transactions have been paid without fee, since they were both below $15? And if the reason the check caused a fee was because money was withheld from your balance for the debit card transaction—why do you have to pay a fee on the debit card transaction?
I remember reading an article about other banks doing it last summer, but I can’t find it! What I did find was this more succinct explanation in the comments here:
I'm not at all saying that customers should overdraw their accounts and face no penalties. What I'm asking is, with the way the practice is (d)evolving, how is this distinguishable from predatory lending--excessive rates and fees that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable customers while banks find more and more ways to assess them? I mean, while reading, I ran across articles that mentioned that not only are customers not warned they're overdrawing their accounts and being extended credit they didn't ask for, but banks that do set a number of maximum overdrafts per day set the number high, at six or seven, so that you can rack up $200+ in charges in one day. Like payday loans, overdraft fees can dig you into a hole out of which it seems impossible to climb. You don't even opt-in or get info on the ridiculous interest rates of what amounts to an overdraft loan.
So while I am glad for the Credit Card Holders’ Bill of Rights, please, somebody, do something about these banks!
ETA: This video explains the "Gotcha Fees" and the disproportionate effect on the young:
(H/T Los Anjalis)
(Crossposted)
_____________________________________
*They do the same with checks. I remember years ago, my bank paid checks in check number order. Now, they pay them from largest to smallest.
**Pre-paid phone plans are something the rabid right has never heard of, apparently. God, am I glad I missed all this.
***Poor people are among those least likely to have a landline.
From BBC News:
President Barack Obama has signed into law extensive new restrictions on the ability of US credit card companies to charge fees or raise interest rates.The BBC summarizes the major changes effected by this “Credit Card Holders’ Bill of Rights” and Boston.com offers even more detail. Just a few highlights:
Creditors cannot increase the annual percentage rate (APR) during the first 12 months of opening up an account.So, good on that front.
Creditors are prohibited from opening a credit card account for any college student who does not have any verifiable annual gross income or already maintains a credit card account with that creditor, or any of its affiliates.
Creditors are prohibited from charging a fee to make telephone and web-based payments.
Creditors [must stop] charging fees for [cardholders’] spending beyond their limits, unless the cardholder chooses to allow the issuer to process the excess spending, and restrict any "over-limit" fees.
But these damned banks!
It’s bad enough that they pay debit transactions from largest to smallest to maximize the overdraft fees you pay.* An example:
Here’s how it works: Say you have $1,000 in your account and make a series of debit transactions in this order: $25, $300, $10, and $750. Only that last $750 charge will have put you over the limit of your account (in this case, by $85). However, if the bank reorders your debits as: $750, $300, $25, and $10, you’ll be overdrawn as of the second transaction, allowing the bank to collect three overdraft fees instead of one.If a charge will overdraw a customer's account, why don’t banks simply decline it or at least warn customers that they’re about to overdraw? Well, banks love collecting that average overdraft fee of $34!
From an article written by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY):
In 2007 alone, banks and credit unions collected $17.5 billion from overdraft fees, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). CRL has also found that the overwhelming majority of customers, 80 percent, would prefer that their debit card transaction simply be denied rather than covered for a fee.For a few years now, Rep. Maloney has been working on legislation that would offer customers some relief from the overdraft racket. In her words:
I have reintroduced the Consumer Overdraft Protection Fair Practices Act(H.R. 1456) in the U.S. Congress, which would require notice to customers at the ATM or point-of-sale terminal when a purchase is about to trigger an overdraft -- and would give consumers at the transaction point a choice of whether to accept or reject the overdraft service and associated fee.Debit card use is the source of almost half of overdraft fees. That is particularly costly to customers:
My bill would also require banks to get their customers' permission before signing them up for an overdraft program, and it would prohibit banks from manipulating the sequence in which checks and other debits are posted if it causes more overdrafts and maximizes fees.
Debit-card overdraft loans are more expensive than overdraft loans from any other source, including overdrafts by check. Debit-card overdrafts cost people $2.17 in fees for every dollar borrowed, compared to check overdrafts, which cost $.86 per dollar borrowed.Or, put another way:
Most debit point-of-sale overdrafts are small, averaging less than half this $34 fee, meaning that these overdraft loans cost nearly $2 for every dollar advanced to cover the shortfall.Banks claim to do customers a favor by automatically enrolling them in “overdraft protection.” Belying their generosity is the fact that many banks don’t allow customers to opt out of the involuntary overdraft protection plans—I can’t understand why they don’t get customers’ permission first, especially given the fact that most would prefer the transaction(s) be denied.
Bankers are resistant to changes like those proposed by Rep. Maloney. Says one Fred Solomon, all you have to do to avoid the charges is know your balance! Only, in the real world, if you’re out running errands or you make a number of small transactions, it’s sometimes difficult to keep a running balance at all times. Also, some of us fallible people make errors in subtraction and addition. Balances fluctuate, particularly when you use your debit card: a transaction might appear as an authorization, disappear, then reappear days later and wreak havoc on our accounts. Sometimes, companies place a hold on more funds than we actually use, lowering our available balances and potentially causing us to overdraw while the funds are on hold. And I know I can't be the only person who's written a check, noted it in my register, but weeks later, when I'm four pages further on in the register, the long-held check posts to my account and I have to adjust my balance because I'd forgotten about it.
Overdraft fees disproportionately affect the young—who use their cards more and make more small purchases—and people with low incomes—who can ill afford to pay back the exorbitant fees. On top of the fees themselves, some banks charge a daily or weekly fee if your account is in the red. With regards to low-income bank customers, bankers’ admonishments that you can easily track your balance via text message or online banking is especially hollow. Many people with low incomes don’t have contract cell phones (which typically require credit). On the pre-paid plans** (problematic, in and of themselves), text messaging costs extra.
Online banking is not always at their fingertips. We've long noted the digital divide between "the rich and the poor." Having internet access at home could mean 1) having to have a landline,*** which requires credit, the ability to pay the monthly bill, and the willingness to increase that bill by as much as $50 or $60 to include internet service and 2) being able to afford a computer and related upkeep. I was also angrily amused by this little helpful tip (found, admittedly, in an article that is wary of banks and debit cards but only because it suggests credit cards as a better alternative):
Keep a cushion of money in your account to avoid bouncing checks or debits. Decide that you are not going to let your account fall below a certain amount, like $1,000; when you see it getting close, transfer money into it from another account. If you don’t have the money to replenish it, then you should cut back on spending.A cushion? A thousand dollars? Multiple accounts with money in them? Umm…
A couple of years ago, my small-town Louisiana bank began to engage in an even more insidious practice. Let’s say you have $15 in the bank. You use your debit card for $6. That authorization reduces your available balance to $9. A $12 check posts to your account that night. You are charged a $34 fee for that, even though the debit card transaction is still only in authorization or memo-post stage. Now your account is in the red, -$37. Well, the next night, when the $6 actually posts to your account, you are charged for that, as well. Now, initially you had $15—shouldn’t one or the other of those transactions have been paid without fee, since they were both below $15? And if the reason the check caused a fee was because money was withheld from your balance for the debit card transaction—why do you have to pay a fee on the debit card transaction?
I remember reading an article about other banks doing it last summer, but I can’t find it! What I did find was this more succinct explanation in the comments here:
Some banks use a process called paid on available and a pending debit card transaction will hold the "available" balance before the transaction even posts to the account.Another description is here. In addition to the double charge the first commenter I mentioned discusses, I am also particularly troubled by the fact that this can happen with debit card purchases (not just the check example I used)--you swipe your card, go over, you're immediately assessed a fee, even if you make a deposit before the end of the banking day.
This can cause other items to overdraw the "available" balance, causing an overdraft, plus when the actual transaction goes through, it will charge an additional overdraft if still negative. Basically, a pending debit card transaction can cause 2 overdraft fees using this method.
I'm not at all saying that customers should overdraw their accounts and face no penalties. What I'm asking is, with the way the practice is (d)evolving, how is this distinguishable from predatory lending--excessive rates and fees that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable customers while banks find more and more ways to assess them? I mean, while reading, I ran across articles that mentioned that not only are customers not warned they're overdrawing their accounts and being extended credit they didn't ask for, but banks that do set a number of maximum overdrafts per day set the number high, at six or seven, so that you can rack up $200+ in charges in one day. Like payday loans, overdraft fees can dig you into a hole out of which it seems impossible to climb. You don't even opt-in or get info on the ridiculous interest rates of what amounts to an overdraft loan.
So while I am glad for the Credit Card Holders’ Bill of Rights, please, somebody, do something about these banks!
ETA: This video explains the "Gotcha Fees" and the disproportionate effect on the young:
(H/T Los Anjalis)
(Crossposted)
_____________________________________
*They do the same with checks. I remember years ago, my bank paid checks in check number order. Now, they pay them from largest to smallest.
**Pre-paid phone plans are something the rabid right has never heard of, apparently. God, am I glad I missed all this.
***Poor people are among those least likely to have a landline.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Apparently, We Forfeit Our Right to Respect and Love
**Trigger Warning**
One of things I notice most, while living as a fat girl, is how often I am invisible until people want to express their disgust/pity or marvel at how ____________ I am (for a fat chick, of course). That blank has been filled by all sorts of adjectives during my life--smart, happy, well-dressed, pretty. But backhanded compliments like that are the flipside of the expressions of disgust/pity. Both are rooted in my perceived lack of self-respect. How can I have any respect for myself if I've "let myself get like this?" And, more importantly, how can I expect anyone else to have respect for me?
So, I witness disrespect expressed towards fat people in this life almost daily. For me, the cost of living under and resisting the disrespect, the disgust, the dehumanization is so high sometimes.
Especially when I realize the hatefulness follows us after death.
Teresa Smith died Tuesday in Indianapolis. Because she was a large woman, the police and the coroner did not feel the need to treat her with respect.
I usually avoid comment sections at most places, but because I thought I knew how these would be, I peeked. I don't advise you to. One commenter argued that she forfeited her right to respect because, obviously, she did not have self-rspect. Another opined that her boyfriend was there just for rent--so much embedded there. How could he find a fat woman attractive? How could he have sex with her? How could he love her?
That last assumption brought me back to one of her neighbors' comments about the dirty carpet slung across her body: "I would have never let them throw that on my loved one."
It would not surprise me one bit if officials from the police department and the coroner's office treated Teresa Smith this way, in part, because they could not fathom that she was someone's loved one.
H/T to my cousin, Tren, via e-mail and to Laurie.
(Crossposted)
One of things I notice most, while living as a fat girl, is how often I am invisible until people want to express their disgust/pity or marvel at how ____________ I am (for a fat chick, of course). That blank has been filled by all sorts of adjectives during my life--smart, happy, well-dressed, pretty. But backhanded compliments like that are the flipside of the expressions of disgust/pity. Both are rooted in my perceived lack of self-respect. How can I have any respect for myself if I've "let myself get like this?" And, more importantly, how can I expect anyone else to have respect for me?
So, I witness disrespect expressed towards fat people in this life almost daily. For me, the cost of living under and resisting the disrespect, the disgust, the dehumanization is so high sometimes.
Especially when I realize the hatefulness follows us after death.
Teresa Smith died Tuesday in Indianapolis. Because she was a large woman, the police and the coroner did not feel the need to treat her with respect.
The Marion County Coroner's Office has come under fire after it was revealed that an obese woman was dragged from her home and hauled away on a trailer in front of family members following her death.Lest you have sympathy for the supposed dilemma faced by the police department and the coroner's office:
[snip]
[T]he deputy coroner made the decision to call a towing service to remove the body from the home.
"We debated for quite a while about how we were going to get her out of there and so we finally decided, since we didn't have a van that was large enough to carry her, it was decided between (the police) department and the coroner's office to use (the truck)," said Detective Marcus Kennedy.
Smith's boyfriend and the couple's 13-year-old son, along with several neighbors, watched as Smith's body, still on her mattress, was dragged across the courtyard of the apartment complex, strapped down on the wrecker and covered with a piece of carpet.
Former Chief Deputy Coroner John Linehan said he was shocked and dismayed that appropriate steps weren't taken to remove the woman from her home.But therein lies the rub, Mr. Linehan! She forfeited her humanity because she was fat.
He said that fire and medical personnel have equipment available for handling patients up to 1,000 pounds and that moving obese individuals is not all that rare of an occurrence.
"When they scoop up dead dogs off of the street they don't treat them that way," he said. "It's just not the way to treat a human being."
I usually avoid comment sections at most places, but because I thought I knew how these would be, I peeked. I don't advise you to. One commenter argued that she forfeited her right to respect because, obviously, she did not have self-rspect. Another opined that her boyfriend was there just for rent--so much embedded there. How could he find a fat woman attractive? How could he have sex with her? How could he love her?
That last assumption brought me back to one of her neighbors' comments about the dirty carpet slung across her body: "I would have never let them throw that on my loved one."
It would not surprise me one bit if officials from the police department and the coroner's office treated Teresa Smith this way, in part, because they could not fathom that she was someone's loved one.
H/T to my cousin, Tren, via e-mail and to Laurie.
(Crossposted)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Teh Gayz: In Ur Homes, Confusing Ur Children
Are the people in charge of advertising for NOM made of epic fail?
OK, yeah, that's a rhetorical question.
This ad rehashes the tired old lines that people who are gay having rights and living their lives, is immensely threatening to children's well-being. But as Genia pointed out, it has an added message:
Some other things stood out to me as I transcribed the video. While there are three boys and three girls, only one of the girls speaks, while all of the boys do. Instead, the girls are directed to "look scared," from what I can tell. The boy who gets the most talk time is, not-surprisingly, fair-skinned and blond. And, as Liss noted when I e-mailed her the link,
Transcript after the break.
LB = Little Boy; LG = Little Girl
LB1: Grandma, my teacher says… if grandpa was a girl, that’s ok! You could still be married.
Shifts to image of frightened/confused looking LG1.
Voiceover: If we change the definition of marriage…
LG2: God created Adam and Eve? That was so old-fashioned.
Voiceover: Our kids will be taught a new way of thinking..
Shifts to image of confused looking LG3.
LB2: He should’ve created Anna and Eve!
LB1: If my Dad married a man, who would be my mom?
LB3: I’m confused
Voiceover: Marriage is between a man and a woman. Call Governor Lynch today and ask him to support marriage by not supporting House Bill 436.
Genia hat tips Renee.
(Crossposted)
________________________
*The NOM site dates the commercial to Fall 2007--even before the madness that is the "Gathering Storm" ad. Apparently, they dusted it off, tacked on the stuff about [NH] Governor Lynch, and voila!
OK, yeah, that's a rhetorical question.
This ad rehashes the tired old lines that people who are gay having rights and living their lives, is immensely threatening to children's well-being. But as Genia pointed out, it has an added message:
The latest* anti-gay marriage commercial uses really young and really cute white kids to spread the organization’s bogus message that gay marriage is a serious threat to society. I’m guessing NOM figured people would worry more about gay marriage if the lives of cute white kids were at stake.Emphasis mine.
Some other things stood out to me as I transcribed the video. While there are three boys and three girls, only one of the girls speaks, while all of the boys do. Instead, the girls are directed to "look scared," from what I can tell. The boy who gets the most talk time is, not-surprisingly, fair-skinned and blond. And, as Liss noted when I e-mailed her the link,
I just LOVE how the final note is the kid saying, "I'm confused!" as if the world has to be structured so that it's easily comprehensible for childrenI suppose this ad is a perfect one for modern-day social conservatism.
Transcript after the break.
LB = Little Boy; LG = Little Girl
LB1: Grandma, my teacher says… if grandpa was a girl, that’s ok! You could still be married.
Shifts to image of frightened/confused looking LG1.
Voiceover: If we change the definition of marriage…
LG2: God created Adam and Eve? That was so old-fashioned.
Voiceover: Our kids will be taught a new way of thinking..
Shifts to image of confused looking LG3.
LB2: He should’ve created Anna and Eve!
LB1: If my Dad married a man, who would be my mom?
LB3: I’m confused
Voiceover: Marriage is between a man and a woman. Call Governor Lynch today and ask him to support marriage by not supporting House Bill 436.
Genia hat tips Renee.
(Crossposted)
________________________
*The NOM site dates the commercial to Fall 2007--even before the madness that is the "Gathering Storm" ad. Apparently, they dusted it off, tacked on the stuff about [NH] Governor Lynch, and voila!
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