The Unapologetic Mexican's Take On The Melting Pot

At the risk of turning into a directional map for the purpose of routing readers to other blogs, I simply must turn you all on to this cartoon by Nezua Limon Xolagrafik-Jonez (The Unapologetic Mexican). He used it to illustrate his response to a commentator who has a generalized problem with the existence of people of color in what he apparently perceives as "his world." Not only is Nezua's response extremely clever (no, I'm not going to tell you about it - you have to go read it), but the cartoon is slammin'. This is clearly a man to watch.

My Annual Post On Sports

It isn't very often that I read an article in Jet - or even the New York Times - and find myself reminded of my stats classes in grad school. There's a reason for that. Such articles are few and far between because most ordinary folks can't understand what statistical analysis really means, as a rule. This is one of the reasons people are so quick to say flatly, "You can prove anything using statistics." What they mean is that statistics can be used to "prove" anything - right or wrong. But the reality is that "statistics" can only "prove" "anything" to them. If you have a clue, statistics can only bear out the facts.

When I first read about the study conducted by Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, I knew there wouldn't be much flap over it, even though there ought to be. Then, when I saw the article in the Jet Magazine, I really winced. It was virtually unintelligible. That is, I read it twice, and I couldn't make heads nor tails of what it was supposed to be saying. I would have ignored it, if I hadn't already understood the first piece.

Wolfers and Price found that, during the course of the thirteen N.B.A. seasons from 1991 through 2004, White referees called fouls at a greater rate against Black players than they did against White players. In fact, they went so far as to say that the difference in the rates "is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game." Whoa!

The crunchy part read something like: "Across all specifications, we find that Black players receive around 0.12-0.20 more fouls per 48 minutes played (an increase of 2-1/2 to 4-1/2 per cent) when the number of White referees officiating a game increases from zero to three." The bottom line: a difference of about two victories in an 82-game season.

The N.B.A. went ball-istic, of course (sorry I couldn't resist). The Commissioners rushed right out and had their own study done, which "found," needless to say, no such problem. Three independent experts hired by the Times to examine both studies, however, declared the Wolfers-Price work far more credible, though they may have been ham-strung somewhat by the fact that the N.B.A. refused to provide the underlying data they claimed to use to make their alternate conclusions.

The N.B.A. shouldn't take it all so hard. First of all, the fact that the whole society is rampantly racist is easy to document. Are the N.B.A. Commissioners trying to claim that it and it alone stands above the socially institutionalized norms? I would hope not. Secondly, it's not as if someone is accusing them of intentional oppression. When they said the league does not consider race in the hiring process for referees, nobody (and certainly not Wolfers or Price) claimed otherwise.

When the referees are taken out of the equation, however, it's hard not to catch the differences. "Player-performance appears to deteriorate at every margin when officiated by a larger fraction of opposite-race referees," write Wolfers and Price, except for shooting free throws (when the referees are irrelevant). And there you have it.

The researchers have tried to reassure the N.B.A. Commissioners that they're not calling anyone racist, per se, but bias based on skin tone can be subconscious, they say. "You see two players [collide] on the floor and you have to call a block or a charge. Does the skin color of the players somehow shape how you interpret the signals your brain gives you?"

The numbers say they do. "Basically, [our research] suggests," says Wolfers, "that if you spray-painted one of your starters White, you'd win a few more games." Damn! No wonder the playing fields are still not level. Folks that look like me gotta win part of the time.

Black Dialogue!

Side note before I post my next Jet comment: run, don't walk over to Professor Zero to catch a double performance by The Perceptionists!! I won't say anything else except don't miss the second song. Oh. My. God. They are too good!

Billy Ray Johnson Finally "Won"

Billy Ray Johnson, a developmentally disabled African-American man in his forties was beaten almost to death in 2003 by a bunch of young White guys at a Linden, Texas, "pasture party" (where they had "invited" him, apparently to provide the entertainment). As many of you probably know by now, Johnson was recently awarded $9 million dollars in a civil court case handled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This is a good thing, right? Of course, it is, but none of the perpetrators of this crime got more than 60 days in jail and I can't find anywhere who's gonna cough up the $9 million.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad they pushed the envelope. I'm glad the jury voted unanimously in Johnson's favor. And I'm glad he'll get whatever he does get however long it takes. He's going to need help to pay for the intensive care he's going to need for the rest of his life. But come on now, what makes this different from the day before the beating occurred? Do we really believe that liquored-up White boys in Linden, Texas, are not going to exercise their racist inclinations any more? Or are they just going to bury the bodies in the future - the way they used to?

The fact is that none of these good ol' boys went to prison, where they would have been doled out a regular dose of retribution in the general population, assuming they lived through the orientation process. They got off, just like Emmett Till's murderers got off in 1955. And Billy Ray Johnson and his family are the ones who will continue to suffer, not to mention other people of color who know better than to think this means they're protected by the laws in the U.S. of A.

How long are we going to insist on the idea that there's progress while White men can still walk away from a crime such as what they did to Johnson? How long are we going to pat ourselves on the back about the civil case, while criminal charges are not upheld? How long are we going to see this new verdict as a "win" for Billy Ray Johnson, who will live out the rest of his life in a nursing home?

Administrators at a Los Angeles charter school fired two teachers this spring for helping seventh graders plan a Black History Month program on the Emmett Till killing. The administrators wouldn't discuss the firings, but apparently, they felt the story was "too graphic" and one of them was quoted as saying, "We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered, but on how do we dress for success, walk proud, and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made." Well, at least everybody's on the same page, huh?

Ditto, And Mo' Ditto

In the interest of clarifying any ambiguity a reader might have as to my "editorial policies," (yes, ma'am!), I'm linking this morning to The Unapologetic Mexican's very clear expounding on why I can co-exist with lizards in mi casa, but not with cockroaches. And if that makes no sense, you'll want to drop on over and read this post.

Many years ago, when I was living with my two young children in a rundown apartment in a rundown neighborhood, I got tired of fighting the roaches and reached a point where I thought, "Well, WTF? How bad can it get?" A month later, I had learned that I didn't have nearly the tolerance I was going to need to deal with how bad it got. And at that point, it was all out war.

While I hate to have to be heavy-handed, this is my house. Be aware, trolls and other people who wave the First Amendment as they puke Ugly and then want to wipe their mouth on my sleeve on their way out the door. Now that I'm baaa-aaaack, we'll be having none of that. ;^)

Hate Groups In The House

I got my latest Intelligence Report from the Southern Poverty Law Center yesterday.

*big sigh*

It is invariably a bummer to read and yet, like a bloody car wreck, you can't take your eyes off it. I turn page after page, reading the articles, studying the photos, increasingly nauseated, but glad for the information. People who hate Jews. People who hate Mexicans. And, of course, people who hate African-Americans. Not to mention what they think of people like me. What a potpourri of horror.

This issue holds the annual "Year in Hate" list of all the recognized hate and patriot groups (by location), as well as hate websites, which can mask where they are, of course. As usual, Florida ranks third, after California and Texas, for sheer number of active hate groups -- pretty impressive when you consider how much smaller in size we are. Forgetting about the rest of the state, there are represented within spitting distance of where I am (in alphabetical order):

American Front
American National Socialist Workers' Party
Confederate Hammerskins
Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Heritage Foundation
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
League of the South
National Socialist Movement
Nationalist Coalition
White Revolution
White Nation Network

So now we know.

Malcolm X

I couldn't let this day end without acknowledging that it is Malcolm X's birthday. And while I would love to do some hellified tribute to his truth, I think it would be more to the point to just go ahead and give you an opportunity to hear an example of how he himself laid it out there. "The Ballot or the Bullet" is one of my favorite speeches by Malcolm X. Here is one version in print and a slightly different version to which you can actually listen. May we be appropriately thoughtful as we honor his memory this day by considering what he was saying about a situation that has improved so very little - in reality - since he said it.

Thanks, Rush

If Don Imus was dumped for calling a women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hoes," then Rush Limbaugh should surely be dumped twice for airing a so-called spoof of Al Sharpton attacking Barack Obama using the strongest possible kind of racist insults and stereotyping of both these famous African-American men. You can catch it here on YouTube, of course. Not that I think individual White Men are the problem, you understand. Removing one White guy from the public eye doesn't get rid of racism by a long shot or even begin to prove our culture isn't racist, but when somebody decides to parade naked down mainstreet--a personal choice, after all, and indicative of a certain lack of mental health, right?--don't we help them into the ambulance on the way to the funny farm?

It's enough already, Rush. Thanks for continuing to do what you do so we can do what we gotta do.

Vonnegut May Be Dead, But His Attitude Will Live On Forever

I am, honestly, trying to find my way back to focusing only on what I like to call "the socially-constructed, political notion of 'race,'" but things keep getting in the way. Like the Mexico trip. And now, the death of Kurt Vonnegut, one of the writers of the past century that has been instrumental in helping many of us realize that there's more than one way to interpret what's going on around us and that we as individuals play a role in it all. At Vonnegut's last campus appearance, as described by Harvey Wasserman here, the pundit demonstrated that he might have gotten old, but he hadn't gotten apologetic as yet. A hundred years from now, if we last that long, they'll probably call these pithy gems "vintage Vonnegut":

“The only difference between George W. Bush and Adolph Hitler is that Hitler was actually elected.”

“I'm lucky enough to have known a great president, one who really cared about ALL the people, rich and poor. That was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was rich himself and his class considered him a traitor.”

“We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries. They run everything. We have no Democratic Party. It's financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans. So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever.”

“I'm trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It's becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil.”

“All the [corporate] money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there's no tomorrow, there really won't be one.”

“There are no factories any more. Where are the jobs supposed to come from? There's nothing for people to do anymore. We need to ask the Seminoles: ‘what the hell did you do after the tribe’s traditional livelihood was taken away?’”

“To hell with the advances in computers, YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what's inside you. And don't kill anybody.”

“We should be kind to each other. Be civil. And appreciate the good moments by saying ‘If this isn't nice, what is?’”

Kiri Needs Our Support

Those of you who remember Kiri Davis, budding young film-maker extraordinaire, may want to hustle right on over to CosmoGirl to vote for her in a contest, the prize for which is a $10,000 scholarship. Apparently, you can vote again every day for the duration (which I certainly intend to do), but we'll need to generate the support of others, as well, if we want to put her over the top. She certainly deserves whatever efforts we can generate on her behalf. I, for one, am delighted she's in the running. The most impressive nod I got at the age of sixteen was a ticket to Illinois Girl State. Davis has already established herself nationally. I just LOVE the internet. And talented young people. And Bronze Trinity, who gave me the heads-up this morning.

Memories of Mexico

One of the things I did this spring while I wasn't doing this was to spend eight days on a service learning adventure with twelve other people (including nine students) in Cholula in the state of Puebla, Mexico. This post is for the people I met there and what they taught me and what they told me and what I felt while I was with them. And how I am changed for all time, I think, by the experience. These are some of my memories of Mexico, in no particular order.

I remember buying water in the airport (having been warned at least one billion times NOT to drink unbottled water in Mexico) and walking out of the shop back to Arturo Ortega (our trip coordinator), realizing that I had zero idea of what my change should look like, showing it to him and saying "Is this right?" Looking back, I realize how frightened and out of my element I was at that point, how pumped with adrenaline, how hyper-vigilent and excited I was, and how green, green, green. Fortunately, this phase passed. Quickly.

I remember riding through Mexico City on a bus I had expected would have crates of live chickens aboard (it didn't) and my eyes were burning. "Why are my eyes burning?" I asked a fellow trip-mate who had spent a good bit of time in the country some years ago. "Because they still use leaded gas," he replied. And that was my first lesson in the cold realities of globalization. Not at all complicated or hard to grasp. Just my supersensitive spoiled-rotten eyes trying to shut to avoid exposure to what they're not used to. And me thinking, "I see..."

I remember arriving at our base of operations in Cholula (a house operated by Community Links, an organization that must surely be the cream de la cream of such outfits, having been in the business for more than fifteen years and deserving of far greater accolades than I could ever provide here); hearing Arturo tell us in no uncertain terms that we are not even to rinse our toothbrush in tap water, that we are not to flush the toilet paper (basket provided next to the toilet), that we are not to flush anything unless "it's" brown ("if it's yellow, let it mellow"--omigod, I thought, shades of the sixties, which pleased me no end for some reason, feeling smug since I'd done this before); that we are to rinse, turn off the water, soap down, then rinse again, rather than let the shower run; and that we should try to keep showers to one per day, if that.

Much later in the week, after getting to know Arturo well enough to trust that he wouldn't think me an ass for asking, I asked, "Would it be possible to make the pipes capable of accepting toilet paper or is there just nothing to be done?" He smiled at me (the over-indulged child) and replied with a kindly, but pointed question, "Why would you want to put paper in the water supply when it isn't necessary?" And I'm caused to think of a paragraph I read years ago describing how people in the U.S. like to flush problems (and problem people) "down the toilet"--much like we went from dealing with our body waste (digging holes, spreading lye, filling it in and moving the outhouse) to disposing of it by sitting on an immaculate white ceramic "throne" and flushing, as though the waste, paper, process or problems never really happened.

I remember standing in the community room at Calpulli de los Ninos in Tlaxcalancingo (a poorer neighborhood in Cholula), where indigenous children learn dances many of their people no longer remember and educational programs are offered to reawaken the mighty spirit of ancient cultures. The wall at the back of the stage in this building deep into Mexico is glorious with the images of Che, Allende, Zapata, La Adelita (the woman warrior), the poet king Nezahualcoyotl, and school-teacher/revolutionary Lucio Cabanas, but Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well. I stare at the pictures. I consider the fact that these people know that we are all connected, that all true heroes belong to everyone, something most of us do not realize in the U.S. Imagine, I think, La Adelita on a wall in Tampa. She will be my new advisor, I decide. Along with the others.

I remember listening to Justino telling us the history of his people through Chenelia (one of our trip-mates, a young woman from the Dominican Republic, who steps up to the plate as translator, overwhelmed, but rising to the occasion like a hero herself and quickly becoming comfortable in her unexpected role). He describes how more recently, those with the power have been stealing the land from the indigenous people, buying it when necessary, but often just finessing it away, since indigenous people couldn't originally understand the concept of owning land any more than you might imagine owning your mother. Once they began to organize to keep the land and hired a lawyer, the lawyer was just summarily murdered and now they stand alone, since no one is willing to represent them. Sitting there, in that room, I know that Justino's voice is the voice of his ancestors and that the land is their soul, not just a geographical location, and I wonder if there is really hope for the future of any of us. If the Earth is our Mother and we don't know it, then are we perhaps wandering like orphans, lost and helpless against the forces of evil that would destroy our Mother and leave us without a home?

Later, Justino's wife, Patricia, who has a Master's degree in psychology, explains how they came to establish Calpulli de los Ninos, the word 'calpulli' dating back to Aztec roots meaning 'community organization.' They want to be a bridge for the indigenous poor to return to the land, to remember their former glory, the former ways by which they survived in a paradise of beauty and health and sustainability before the White man came. There are three hundred sixty-five pyramids in Cholula (one--the largest in the world--dates back more than two thousand years). When the Spanish arrived, they enslaved the people they found there and then forced them to build a church on every single pyramid. So now, every night, there are fireworks to scare away the devil so that whichever church in Cholula is holding its festival the following day will not have to worry about that.

Most of the indigenous people are Catholic now, of course, but their weddings are followed by a "dance of the flowers" and another where they "dance with their dinner," bobbing and weaving with vegetables and jugs of drink and chickens not yet plucked and even whole pig carcuses on their way to the coals. They may be Catholic, but their cells remember a different time, a different way, a way that lasted far longer than this latest one. Attending mass on Sunday in a church built by slave labor, worshiping with old brown women who didn't come to my shoulder, I was reminded of a line: "We are known by our scars."

I remember stopping at a little hole-in-the-wall store to buy a bottle of Penafiel Naturel Agua Mineral de Manatial (a sparkling orange-flavored beverage we don't have in Tampa, more's the pity) and then swigging on it while walking down a dusty street behind two little boys with their arms thrown over each other's shoulders, dogs barking wildly as I pass each house, some running into the street to make sure I don't come any closer, some barking down from a roof where they have a better vantage point from which to ward off intruders.

I remember flipping big flat cactus leaves so they'll dry on the other side and then, later, picking a bushel of hand-sized leaves, the tiny spines, no bigger than fine hairs, sticking right through my leather gloves and into the tips of my fingers and thumbs where some of them still are, irritating, painful, reminding me of the activity, like infinitessimal bits of shrapnel that don't intend to go anywhere until they're damned good and ready.

Later, I bought an eye of God decoration to hang over my bed, be-feathered and beautifully painted with ancient designs around a wheel of spokes made of larger cactus spines. I want to remember how badly my back hurt before I finished even one row of flipping leaves. I want to remember how hard it was to coax my fingers to pick the smaller leaves when doing so caused the tiny spines to stab my soft flesh in a hundred tender places. And I want to remember how I felt when they told me that a worker has to pick 5000 leaves to make $150 and I could barely stand to pick 250.

I remember walking down a dirt road between two cactus fields, discussing with remarkable adeptness and a clear understanding, considering our language barrier, the connections between the interests of the political and economic elites in our respective countries and the suffering of the Mexican poor. Two tall and modern buildings, corporate offices sporting air-conditioning and even in-door swimming pools, rose out of the dust directly visible from where we stood. The intention, we were told, is to turn this area, so "wasted" on its indigenous population, into a "safe neighborhood" worthy of those who want--and can afford--the accoutrements of a "better life": golf courses and fine homes, such as some of us have in the U.S. The indigenous, of course, and their cactus fields will have to be brushed aside to wherever they go when a country--or at least its elites--move forward.

We were about to turn back for Calpulli when a woman with impeccable English and the vaguest tinge of Spanish heritage about her came walking out of nowhere.

"Are you just a student group or might you be interested in buying some land?" she started the conversation in an oily voice.

We admitted to being a student group, but welcomed her information and she was glad to give it. From what she told us, the land in that location is very cheap, though she assured us with a wink that it was much cheaper when she and her husband moved into the area from a more urban setting. Needless to say, we were all stunned. Like an object lesson from hell, she carefully presented and represented everything we had just been told about the situation. And suddenly, the military men that seem so liberally sprinkled everywhere with their automatic rifles and even shotguns came into clearer focus and took on, if that's possible, an even more ominous tone.

I remember sitting in a sweat lodge participating in a ceremony conducted by Patricia and Alberto, an Apache with long dark hair and sun ceremony scars on his back and chest. I come out after three hours, staggering, covered with the dirt from the floor of the sweat lodge. At some point during the proceedings, I become unsure that I can bear the ordeal, but Patricia and Alberto give me tea and gently convince me to stay. When I tell Alberto that I'm not steady enough to hold the pipe, he holds it for me. I put a rock next to my heart, thinking I will take it home for my circle of grandfather stones. Later, another rock is in my hand, saying, "Take me." "But what do I do with the one that has already learned my heart beat?" I ask. "You leave it here," came the reply in my head. "You bury it in the soil of this lodge."

I am hungry for knowledge of the ancient ways. I understand them and I am not afraid. I am a bird with a curved beak and sharp eyes. She who sees far.

I remember eating real tacos made of diced pork, tender and cut off a tall rod, like lamb for gyros often is. I remember eating a huge Mexican breakfast cooked excellently and with great love by Arturo's uncle. I remember helping Saude prepare spaghetti and good bread for the team 16,000 feet up a mountain at a silent Hermitage facing Popocatepetl, a volcano continually visible from every vantage point of our trip and continually steaming, too. I remember buying churros (sugar-dusted fried bread sticks) to eat while walking down a street in Atlixco one day, after visiting the city hall where I saw a mural memorializing the workers who died fighting for their rights. I wanted to eat something they would eat, made by hands that were their hands. Then, I bought a candle and lit it in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe, asking whoever was listening to take care of the workers who still fight for their rights and risk dying.

I remember eating mango and strawberry milk and some kind of blue corn drink for breakfast at Delefino's and Tomas' table. I remember eating chiles en Nogada (a poblano chile stuffed with fruit and nuts and covered with a creamy sauce) in Puebla, a modern city that is inching toward Cholula even as we speak and threatens to swallow her and gentrify her and push her people into the desert. And I remember eating Zukaritas (frosted flakes complete with Tony the Tiger) most mornings for breakfast. Except for the Big Breakfast day and the time I ate the leftover dessert somebody dragged home from the marketplace. I decided, what the heck, it was probably more nourishing than the Zukaritas and, at least, it was Mexican.

I remember shoveling manure, a small mountain of manure, some of it brown and dry and some of it green and wet and incredibly strong-smelling, into a pick-up truck. I was not nearly as good at this or as committed to it as the students were, but I did what I could when I wasn't taking a turn at breaking up concrete to lay a fresh slab or sitting on the porch feeling like a humiliated sloth.

At one point, in desperation, I went to Patricia and asked if she had a bandana I could use to cut some of the strength of the odor. She whipped out a green printed square and tied it around my face, whispering, as she did so, "Like a Zapatista." I did my best shoveling after that. In fact, while one of the paintings I brought back is a colorful oil depicting light coming down into a Mexican courtyard, one is a small, stark, black and white painting of a Zapatista's eyes. It was done by an artist that intended to give the proceeds of its sale to the revolutionaries. No, they told the artist, use the money to start an art program for the village children. "The true revolutionary," said Che, "is guided by a great feeling of love."

I remember Delefino's and Tomas' seven-year-old daughter playing the guitar and singing for us and then demonstrating how well she could read. I remember eating meat from their table while they ate noodles. I remember looking at their wedding photos and somehow, communicating with them how beautiful they all were.

I remember waking to the rooster in the morning and descending to Marguerita's kitchen where women of all ages were busy preparing food. Watching them, I felt silly and useless until I saw someone sweeping and volunteered to help. But I couldn't even do that correctly. When I was handed the scoop to pick up the dust from the courtyard, the woman who would have been sweeping instead of me bent down and retrieved two thin plant leaves that had wound up in the pile, returning them to the rest of the leaves the grandfather had brought in from the garden and laid by the kitchen door. The respect she showed in that simple gesture, respect for her grandfather's work, respect for the family that would be serviced in some way by those leaves, respect for the leaves themselves and the Earth that provided them, was something my sped-up, Publix-generated life-style does not begin to reflect, but while I was oblivious before, now I cannot forget.

And lastly, I remember carrying Carlita, Delefino's and Tomas' baby, campesina-style, wrapped over my back in a rebozo, peering out around my right elbow, just as she had peered around her mother's the first time I saw her. Ah, Carlita, will I see you again? Will I know you when I see you again?

I started remembering before the plane crossed the border into Texas. Miguel's face with his sociologist's eyes twinkling at me above his grin. Arturo's knowing smile as he unapologetically hawks the wares of the artisans he supports in Oaxaca and Puebla and Peru. Saude clapping her hands to express the joy that bubbles out of her gentle heart. Arturo's uncle taking my arm whenever I would stumble on a broken bit of sidewalk or start to step out into the street at the wrong time.

My tiny apartment has been revolutionized by the bright colors that followed me home. There is Mexico everywhere I look. And it has drawn more to it. The pillows and dishtowels have become bright with bold stripes. I listen to Arturo's folk songs as I get ready for work in the morning. I teach in the bright yellow blouse and red painted earrings I bought to wear home, like a transplanted flower from a garden far away. And I am most self-consciously, but adamently, wearing the woven bracelet I allowed someone to tie on my wrist while we were still in Cholula.

And there are other changes. For the first time in a while, I've sent some money to my friend in Haiti, the one who feeds the street kids, even if there are thousands of them and they're going to need to eat again tomorrow and I only have so much. I've come up with an idea for a book I could write with Patricia, even though we can barely communicate and neither of us has anything like the time that would be necessary to do it. I've started to feel funny about flushing paper down my own toilet. I've begun to appreciate the greenery around me in a whole new way and wonder how I could spread those trees to Tlaxalancingo. And I'm cooking pork chops with rice and corn for dinner, even though there's nobody here but me. I've slowed down some. I look at things longer. And I share what I've learned as often as I can.

Coming down off the mountain on the hot and bumpy ride back into Cholula, I asked Miguel what the evacuation signs along the road were about. "They're in case the volcano erupts," he responded.

Considering this for a moment, it occurred to me that the silent Hermitage we had just left, where every room is an individual and collective work of art, where statuary and plummeting waterfalls and stained glass abound, has been in a continual process of daily development for nearly thirty years. "But..." I sputtered, incredulous, "couldn't it take the Hermitage with it, if it blew?"

"It could," he agreed.

"Well then, why put thirty years of building into something that could be wiped away at a moment's notice?" I challenged.

"Because it's all just part of life and death..." he said, and I remembered seeing the artisan standing mute at the Hermitage gate as we left. I had picked up a rock to bring home to my circle of grandfather stones and, approaching the gate, I held it up, asking with my eyes if it was okay for me to take it. He nodded, smiling gently. So, now he knows that if Popocatepetl erupts and if it takes the Hermitage, there will be a stone, thousands of miles away, with which to begin a new edificio, a new building, a new place to be on and of the Mother, Earth.

There is no beginning. There is no end. For any of us. Ever. We are One.

Siempre.

An MLK Quote On The Day Of His Death

Since this is the day (in 1968) that Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered, I'd like to offer one of his lesser used quotes:

"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my White brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."

The Changeseeker's Manifesto

If we are very fortunate as a human being, at some point in time, we reach a level of conscious awareness of reality. I do not use this word lightly, nor perceive it as a relative matter. Just because two beings are locked in mortal battle over a disagreement in perception does not mean that their realities are, in fact, different. One may see the matter as "red" and the other as "green," but the matter is either "red," "green," or whatever color it is, regardless of how either of them perceives it and no matter which of them wins the battle. I would argue that, however skewed the current paradigm on a given topic, reality is reality. Or as the Navaho put it, what is, is.

I believe that life is more important than money and that because of this, anything that prioritizes the production of capital over the protection, honoring, and sustenance of life on this planet is not only inappropriate and ill-advised, but insane. If we continue as a human race to sacrifice Life on the altar of Money, we will ultimately commit what Johan Galtung has called "mass, deliberate, collective suicide." Therefore, I seek ways to make this clear and to live my life on a daily basis rejecting as often and in as many ways as possible those principles and practices that maintain within me the continued addiction to consumerism, while placing those who "have" in a position of more value than those who "have not." And I do, thenceforth and forever, ally myself with those who work to live, rather than seek to destroy.

I believe that men and women are not gendered at birth, but that the patriarchal power structure that has been in control for thousands of years socializes us to perceive our Selves as specifically and particularly divided in characteristically stereotypical ways in spite of the fact that there is a clearly visible and widely-ranged continuum of sexuality that manifests itself in ways both bold and delicate. The idea that men are superior to women in any way, which is then used to justify male dominance and subjugation of women, is so couched in error and violence as to be maniacal. Therefore, I seek ways to make this clear and to live my life on a daily basis rejecting this definition of myself and others. And I do, thenceforth and forever, ally myself with all people who seek to present themselves as fully valid in their own personhood.

I believe that the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" was developed in the sixteenth century for the express purpose of the exploitation of people of color by those who inhabited the continent of Europe at that time and that this exploitation continues still--brutally, unapologetically, and with the realization of great wealth. As a person bearing the physical characteristics attributed to Europeans and European-Americans, I accept the responsibility of becoming ever more cognizant of this reality, ever more sensitive to its effects, and ever more committed to changing it. I do not perceive myself as worthy of particular benefits such as are bestowed upon me, often without acknowledgement or even awareness. And I find the pervasive nature of these benefits and the rationalizing forces used to suggest that they are reasonable both egregious and ignominious. The damage that has been done to and continues to be perpetrated against people of color is so unconscionable as to be unforgiveable. Therefore, I seek to make this clear and to live my life on a daily basis most humbly rejecting this system of White Supremacy and privilege in all its forms and manifestations. And I do, thenceforth and forever, ally myself with those who struggle against this system, regardless of what they look like or who they are.

I believe that all life is sacred and that not to honor it--in all its forms--is to disrespect and dishonor not only one's Self, as well as all that came before us and will come after us, but also the very Creative Source from which we spring. I believe that there are solutions to all human dilemmas presented at this moment around the world, once it can be established that life is sacred; that it is more important than money; that men and women and children are not roles to be played, but persons to be loved and respected; and that all humans--regardless of their appearance, their cultures, their differing levels of ability, and their socio-economic status--are equally beautiful, equally vital, equally necessary, and equally deserving of all the earth has to offer. And I believe that our survival is being threatened by those belief systems that do not recognize and codify these realities. I work to change the paradigms that are responsible for those threats. And I celebrate daily those who work with me toward the day when we can know that we are all--finally--free.
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The Mara Berendt Friedman poster featured above is available from the Syracuse Cultural Workers collective.

The Gates of Hell Book List

My last post was on the struggle of standing at the gates of hell where people--and most particularly young people--of all types, but most particularly young people of color are thrust by a society that does not appear to care that they are human and, in fact, seems hell bent, if you will, on seeing them founder there. Since I wrote that post, some books have come to mind that might be interesting to those who find themselves trying to be of service in such settings. They aren't many and I'll just list them here in hopes that readers will add other titles in the comment thread.

Failing Grades: How Schools Breed Frustration, Anger, and Violence, and How To Prevent It by H. Roy Kaplan

The Way it Spozed To Be by James Herndon

Understanding Black Adolescent Male Violence: Its Remediation and Prevention by Amos N. Wilson

A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court by William Ayer

These books are very different from each other and I'm making no claims for how they may or may not apply to a given situation. I have not included the (too) many books I have found inspirational or instructive that were just about poverty, the inner city, disenfranchised youth, and so forth, because the man for whom I wrote the original post on the gates of hell is already well involved in that setting and after thirteen years probably could write a book himself. But I got special and helpful input from each of the books above and look forward to seeing what you might add to the list.

The Gates of Hell

With six courses to teach (which means 14 times per week in the classroom) plus being the advisor to the Sociology Club plus trying to seal down a permanent position so I can pay my rent for the rest of my life plus helping to plan an 8-day trip to Mexico over spring break AND beginning to learn Spanish plus trying to think about getting things published, I consider it a special day when I get to read a few posts on somebody else's blog. I remember fondly going from blog to blog last summer for hours on end and writing two posts in one day, if I was so inclined.

More recently, I was reaching a point where I wondered what it would take to force me to the mat again. It's not that I don't have topics. I keep a running list of blockbuster ideas I deem worthy and even needful of addressing. And I still have "A European-American Sets Me Straight" to finish...eventually. But I'm rushed in the morning, whipped at night, and running from activity to activity even when I'm home on a Saturday and refuse to get out of my red plaid flannel pajamas. Reading preparation alone for six courses is pushing me into a new pair of glasses.

Then, I checked my emails yesterday and found that I had a new commentator on my latest post.

"Howdy from Oklahoma," he began.

"My wife and I are high school English teachers in urban Oklahoma City high schools. My school is 70% African-American...[and] has all the problems of urban schools. Our students are 90% free/reduced lunch. We have a negative school environment, poor discipline, high absenteeism, high drop out, poor attitude. I've been here 13 years. Recently, I read that black males who drop out of school are twice as likely to be unemployed or in prison than they are to have jobs. So I feel that I can't give in to despair and that I have a holy mission to be here. But I wish I felt more competent. I know how to survive in my school, but I worry that my teaching is ineffective. I'd be glad to get whatever help you can offer me. Thanks, Lynn Green"

And just like that, I'm here. Nodding. Captured like a fly between the window and the screen. Mesmerized by his paragraph like a frog staring at a bonfire, instinctually realizing on some level that no rational person would make even the most well intended attempt to reply to this in public. The fire's too hot and I'm too small. Frogs get their gizzards cooked that way. I've seen it happen. What made him think I'd have pixie dust?

But the thought of Lynn Green standing at the gates of hell, catching bodies and minds and psyches as they fly by, is more than I can resist. Still, where do I begin? He's not really asking me for some kind of tidy answer. He knows better. He's just trying not to buckle under the weight of his holy mission and calling out to someone he thinks will understand.

Oh, Lynn. How do we wind up at the gates of hell anyway? It often feels so difficult--and on some days ridiculous--to keep believing that there's hope. We've been in this phase, after all, for nearly four hundred years. And rather than seeming to move in a healthier direction, it's apparent the blight has spread and is spreading. The forces of evil (if you will) move like a noxious fog over the face of the earth, enveloping more and more people and animals and trees. Much that is beautiful has been torn asunder and left for dead. And still we stand at the gates of hell, prepared to do battle as if we are not mortal, but rather some kind of mythological figure that did not name itself and cannot give up the fight because we never chose it in the first place.

Back in the covered wagon days, when I was going into prisons by court order to speak and counsel and serve, the men used to ask me, "Why are you doing this?" And I would say, "Anybody can do time. I'm just doing what I would hope someone would do for me, if I was locked up." But the fact is, I didn't know the answer. I was just being glib. Not that the answer I gave them wasn't true, but how did I come to know that? WHY did I want to do what I would hope someone would do for me, if the tables were turned?

For everyone of us standing at the gates of hell, there's a hundred thousand or more just schlepping along through life the best they can, thinking about remodeling the bathroom or trading in the car or planting a bigger (or a smaller) garden this year. And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with planting gardens or remodeling bathrooms? They earned it, didn't they? I mean, the poor (and the disenfranchised and the suffering and the wartorn) are always with us, aren't they? How does it get to be someone's holy mission to do something about it when there may be nothing to be done; that is, when there's no easy answer and it might all just get worse?

One thing's for sure: you don't volunteer for these gigs at the gates of hell. Nobody in their right minds by any popularly understood and accepted general standard would volunteer to put their heart on an altar on a daily basis and then set it on fire day after day while we miss many more than we're ever able to catch. We drop in exhaustion at the end of a trying day, only to arise and do it again, as if we had no perception of any other option. And when others say, "I couldn't do what you do," we think "I can't do it either. But I do..."

I look back over the different gates I've stood at--the prisons, the drug facilities, the juvenile lock-ups, the residential programs, the social service offices, the universities--and the faces come back to me like Botticelli paintings. The man who'd been in the hole for five years already in the dark side of a hill, leaning close to the bars and whispering "How do you learn to love again after you've forgotten what it feels like?" The bright-skinned Latino kid who wrote a play about the street and wouldn't discuss being forced to rob people at gunpoint to feed his mother's crack habit. The African-American kid who went back to detention for jumping a cop who was manhandling his friend in the courtyard of the facility--while the staff watched. The endless string of beautiful young women of color who admit with their eyes flat that they accept "dates" to pay the bills and buy their kids school supplies. The elderly African-American woman we found sitting alone in her dark, cold kitchen without food because she was too embarrassed to tell anyone her checks had been stopped and she didn't have anyone to help her. The college athlete forced to attend workouts at five in the morning, so he falls asleep in class, knowing no one really cares if he graduates. The Jamaican boy supporting six younger siblings who I saw stopped on the street by a police officer in broad daylight. I had worked with the boy in the past and just happened to be across the street to witness and then intervene as the officer proceeded to bounce the boy's head back into a brick wall every time he gave the "wrong" answer to a question. And where are they all now?

The schools are full of stories, full of pain. I used to tell "my" boys that learning to read is the most revolutionary act they could commit, but most of them did not imagine themselves to be revolutionaries. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," they would say, a sentence I had first heard in the prisons two decades before.

For a while there at one point, a decade ago, I'd have ten-minute conversations with a boy who literally couldn't say three words without using some kind of sexual term. So--for as long as he could stand it--we would practice having casual conversation. About television. Or the weather. Or some other equally irrelevent topic. The goal, of course, being to talk without the "F-word" appearing even once as a noun or a verb or an adjective. And he eventually managed to get into a slot at a vocational rehab program. But I found him in the adult Department of Corrections data base the other day and had to stop looking up names because, after locating three of "my boys" grown up, but in jail, it was starting to get to me.

I used to give them candy as rewards for reading, nutritional guidelines be damned. Snickers bars were very popular (I wonder if there's a commercial in that somewhere?). And that was before I saw "Dangerous Minds." When I brought mini-chocolate bars to my college classrooom once last semester, I thought of the boy who shut the blinds and locked the door so that no one would know I was teaching him to read. I had found a 70-page book about car engines at the second grade reading level and when he finished it, he announced, "That's the longest book I've ever read!" and then demanded immediately: "Where's my Snickers?"

One year, I asked a roomful of sixteen-year-old minority summer school students why they thought so many kids drop out and they decided that not being able to read is one big reason. They agreed that it's embarrassing to admit by the time you're a teenager that you can't do the work because you can't read the words. So kids "act up" and get thrown out of class to avoid the humiliation of having their "secret" known.

When I suggested telling the teacher in the class, they assured me that when they tried that, they are often brushed off with an unapologetic, "That's not my problem. You should have learned that already."

"It's not your fault if you can't read," I told them, "It's the system's. Everyone of you wants this or you wouldn't be sitting here. The school board is supposed to see to it that you're provided a basic education. And reading's about as basic as you can get. It would have been great if you'd been able to get it before now, but you have a right to this and you need it, if you're going to be able to live a decent life. So if you don't know how to read, walk up to your teacher and say 'I need to read!' And if they won't help you, go to an administrator and say 'I need to read!' Until you find someone that will help you, no matter how many you have to approach." Did they? I don't know.

I remember doing an interview on the phone once for a piece of research I was doing on gang boys. I was on the phone so I wouldn't risk compromising the kid by knowing what he looked like, depending on what he decided to tell me. He was an articulate African-American boy--fifteen-years-old--and seemed both mature beyond his years and quite intelligent. When he told me that he had dropped out of school, I asked him why and he said, "Because all my friends dropped out."

"I didn't ask you about your friends," I countered. "I asked you why you dropped out."

This time, he considered my question for a moment before answering matter-of-factly, "I got tired of being treated like I was stupid." And I thought to myself, "I'll bet you did."

I mentored him just the tiniest bit and he went back to school, graduated, and got a good job at the university, where--as an employee--he could take courses for free, which he did. Then, he got married and bought a mobile home, so I thought he had beaten the odds, but the last I heard, he was back in the streets. I don't know what caused him to fall back, but I can only imagine how difficult it is to be a young African-American man or woman in a racist society.

The bottom line, Lynn, is that standing at the gates of hell is a head butt on a good day. And for every success story, there's gonna be twenty or thirty or more you're going to have to watch get past you. But keep in mind that somewhere up the road, there just might be another person who's successful where you haven't been. And, besides, you don't know what all you're really accomplishing. Have you ever seen a tiny sprig of green climbing up out of a crack in a sidewalk? Your biggest job, in the end, is to plant seeds, seeds that you may never see grow, but that will grow just the same.

Often, when I speak to a group or even a single person, I will think to myself, "Now what do I want to put in this person's mind, if this is my only shot ever?" On one such occasion, a boy in a facility I was working for was about to be arrested for murder. Everybody knew that if he got word of it, he would go over the wall. And he was hard to talk to anyway. But I had to say something. So, I walked up to him in the courtyard, stood there a minute and said simply, "No matter what, change is always an option. You know that, right?" He looked me dead in the eye--something I had not seen him do with anyone yet--and said, nodding, "Yes."

Sometimes, that has to be enough.

Oh, Lord, I'm Back To School...

with little time to blog or visit blogs. Nevertheless, I want to point to a couple of things you should check out:

The first is "Freedom Writers." I expected it to be a re-make of "Dangerous Minds." All I have time to say is that it's better than that. Hillary Swank had the suave to stay out of the way and let the movie be the story of the kids whose work appears in the book, which I intend to buy. If you've been following my "How To Be An Ally" series, see this.

Secondly, Rachel introduced an excellent website this week called Understanding Race. It's a project of the American Anthropological Association and quite interesting. Kudos to Rachel for this.

Lastly, Peacechick Mary makes some important points here. They are not so much specifically related to race, but it's a short jump to understand the racial implications of her very astute and well-described observation.

"Yep! It's In There."

At thefreeslave, there are some serious statements being made. Huzzah, huzzah! I'm haunting that blog these days and you will, too, if you aren't already and you relate to what I write. Start with this post, for example, on White progressive resistance to accepting that one cannot be raised as a European-American in the USA without being infected by "the virus" of institutionalized oppression in the name of racism. Then, sample at will.

Oh, yeah, and don't miss the duets Maxjulian (thefreeslave) and Askwhy have been engaging in over there (such as this one). Music like that feeds the soul!

You're welcome. ;^)

Goodbye To The Monkey House

What seems like a long, long time ago, when I was a young woman blazing a trail through a life she made no attempts to control, I somehow came across "Welcome to the Monkey House" by Kurt Vonnegut and related in one way or another to almost every story. His ascerbic wit and magical thinking expressed for me the wildness of what I saw all around me, in which I was so anxious to participate.

"Welcome to the Monkey House" was not my first experience with this kind of relating to the written word and its authors. I still remember a very strange short story I read in the Saturday Evening Post when I was eight. By the time I was fourteen, I was writing very strange short stories myself. And at eighteen, I was reading the short stories in Playboy (who could afford the well-respected writers I wanted to read and anyway, I didn't know about The New Yorker at that point).

The first book I devoured was J.D. Salinger's "Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters, and Seymour, an Introduction," which I used like a Bible for the early years of my adulthood, which might explain why I hardly came up for air, burning the candle in the middle (rather than both ends the way ordinary wild ones do).

Don't get me wrong; I'm not blaming Salinger for anything. I just mean that his words lured me out of the mundane middle class sleepnotic state in which I was raised into a grander internal adventure. He woke up all my dogs, as it were. And some of them were given to rooting in garbage.

"All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of holy ground to the next," he wrote. "He was kind of a paranoic in reverse; he suspected the universe of conspiring to make him happy," he wrote. The message I got: that words can reach out and talk to strangers. That you can blow them up like balloons and release them to float away endlessly. And that, once released, you can hurry to the next fire, the next adventure, the next idea, the next opportunity, the next balloon. Oh my God! I was so alive!

It was no accident to me that Vonnegut named his title story "Welcome to the Monkey House." It was decades later before I discovered sociology, but I still refer even yet to "the monkey house" of society, belligerantly refusing to explain to the hapless listener. Are we not, after all, just primates in cages of our own construction in a building we call home, having long since lost any ability to imagine or implement a freer, healthier, more joyful existance? Beating each other with thigh bones over food we don't enjoy and going in and out of heat, we manifest a reality I long to label--in spite of everything--a "little piece of holy ground." So I followed Salinger's pipe like the child of Hamelin I was and eventually found my voice, thanks to a man named Richard who had found his voice in a dark hole in a federal prison.

When I go back and read the revolutionary rhetoric being published under my name in 1972, my voice, amazingly, is the same. It is my voice, still. The same voice I use in the classroom or in front of any group. The same voice I use when I'm interviewed. The same voice I use with my friends, family, and students. On this blog. Even in emails and letters. I am sometimes quieter, less intense, but slip down the rabbit hole at a moment's notice, have learned to accept the floor giving way, have learned to accept the raised temperature, the amused expressions, the fact that some people follow me around for this. The fact that I sometimes feel as if I'm channeling some larger manifestation. The fact that I sometimes know I am. The fact that it doesn't matter. I'm not in control.

Would I choose this voice? There are those who suggest we do choose our adventures, and in any case, I wouldn't have it any other way. But I haven't always felt like this. There was a lot of pain at one point or another. A lot of it. And some confusion, too. And a good dollop of self-loathing, I think, at least for some years. Being in overdrive. Following the breadcrumbs with no idea whatsoever of where they were leading, but taking them as reassurance in a forest frightening, if not primely evil.

And now? It is 2007. I consider the surprises that came in the last twelve months, mostly pleasant and all pleasantly resolved. I consider the small triumphs, indicators, I have decided, that I am on the right track and moving in a direction that will likely bring new and greater triumphs. And I consider the guidance I have received from supporters that did not even exist twelve months ago when I started this blog.

This year there is every possibility that I will move far away from where I am now to a vastly different type of geographical location. I have been where I am now for nearly six years, which is average for me. I am hungry for a higher energy level or perhaps an even lower one--some change that will focus me more strongly on the task at hand--the reduction of institutionalized oppression in the name of racism against people of color in general and African-Americans in particular.

This year there is every possibility that I will move at least one and possibly two or even three of my books. I don't know how to explain the sense I have of this. I am entering my book on race to a creative non-fiction competition, but I'm sure there will be many others. I have already joined a writer's organization, paid the registration fee for their conference in February, reserved my room and even booked my flight, but that's certainly no guarantee of anything. I originally set as a goal to have 200 Word document pages of this blog in a year (toward eventual publication, I hope, as a follow-up to my other book on race) and I will reach that goal in a post or two, with much feedback that what I write is sound and valuable and maybe even startling (yay!), but that doesn't seal anything down. Still, there is a knowing in my gut that it is all coming to fruition.

In 2005, when I finished "Reduced to Equality," I had no idea that even excellent books can take years--and multiple submissions--to get published. Like a fresh recruit to the army of official wordsmithery, I was ready to go on the road, alert in my desire to show off my newly acquired commitment. I purchased clothing that would travel. I even bought a passport. And then I sat.

I was befuddled. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go, I mumbled in a disgruntled voice. I was supposed to be standing on a stage somewhere fighting the good fight against racial oppression. Forget that I was already fighting it. Forget that I had been fighting it for more than forty years already. Forget that I'm not a General, let alone a Commander-in-Chief, but rather more of a petty officer, as it were, just "waiting for orders." Forget that I have even yet personal issues that get in my way psychically. I was ready to move, dammit! But still I sat.

I went into something of a funk. Even refused to write anything but this blog for a while--months and months actually. Quit sending out my query letters. Played a lot of computer games. Threw myself into teaching in a way that screamed "avoidance tactic." But the shift has come anyway. I can feel it, though it's hard to explain rationally. What's going to happen? I'm not sure. But it's gonna be an interesting year, that much I know. And now that I've stopped chafing at the bit, I can eye the track a bit more evenly, shaking out my muscles, finally ready to run the way I've been prepared to do, not frantically, but with joy. It's going to be a very good year. Goodbye, monkey house; hello, yellow brick road.

Should New Acquaintances Be Discovered

I guess everybody's got their thing, huh? I spent my whole new year's eve so far reading the new Erase Racism Blog Carnival. And it's the best one yet. There's a few old favorites and a bunch of great folks I hadn't read before. Christina did a terrific job of putting it all together and deserves many readers.

Being as you won't probably see this until 2007 (snicker), I suggest you do yourself a huge favor and read it as your first act of the new year. It'll take a minute because there's more than a couple, but it'll be kind of like visiting folks on a holiday, going from house to house, shaking hands and sipping egg nog and bonding with those who wish us all well.

As for me? Well, while you're going from blog to blog, feasting on the hearty fare of speaking truth to power, I'll be dutifully posting a new blog entry for the new year--a year in which I wish us all the joy of growing, the satisfaction of knowing, and the blessing of peace.

Happy Holidays From The Big Apple

Happy holidays to all my regular readers. I am in New York City trying to eat myself into a larger size jeans, while I walk so much there's not much likelihood of that happening. I would love to do a real blog post from here, but I'm moving too fast to develop a real topic as yet. Still, checking my emails in a computer cafe across the street from Tompkins Square Park, I just had to say hi and wish you well and know that when I get home, I'll look at this post and remember everything...with great joy.

I did have coffee in Greenwich Village with another blogger. We talked about other stuff. Like ordinary people. Come to think of it, why am I not surprised? (Hey, Judd! It was swell to meet you.)

Blessings.