Damsels in Distress

Recently the up's and down's of dating have been on my mind a lot. Partially that's because of my commitment to get out there and make the time to date. The other part is the conversations I've been having with friends lately. I have another friend who blogs about various topics and has posted one blog about dating from an economics stand point speaking about the value of eligible females being undervalued because of the basic theory of supply and demand. Then he later posted a blog about how women shouldn't take any disrespect and poor treatment from men they date. I guess with this logic, women are suppose to pride themselves at being respectably alone.

Well I let it drop back into the back of my mind for a bit, and now again a friend posts about this issue of "saving" or "fixing" "troubled" women. The friend posted under the heading, "Don't save her." I guess the question I keep coming back to is the question many men ask when women are attempting to "fix" them or make them "better" men. My question is, "Who gives you the final say on who needs fixing/saving?" Now of course there are some people in general we could probably all name who certainly need to get their lives together. But ultimately, who are any of us to judge where any person is on their process of life's lessons. I think it should be clearer this lesson about fixing or saving others is very much a lesson for those of us judging others and much less a lesson for the person walking a seemingly untenable path.

I think the real lesson is less about exactly where people are on their path of growth and more about those onlookers learning that it is not up to them to change someone else. And if men listen to this argument I'll be sure to listen to my own message when it comes to being overly critical and judgmental about the behavior of some men. The tone of some is that the individual is not worth saving. But I believe that is not the real issue. I believe the real issue is for the onlooker to not be so critical and domineering about what they have decided should happen with that person. I feel everyone has their own path to walk and that no one should sit in judgment of where a person is on their path.

I also feel the "saving" (again like the "fixing") tendency is much more about the onlooker's obsession with control than it is about where the person to be saved is in their life. I mean think about it this way. No onlooker can know what another person's destiny should be. Shoot! Not even the person living their life really knows what their destiny will be. So why would any onlooker feel they have the right to determine or anticipate what any other individual's life should or could be if the person was "saved" by them? I feel no human knows exactly what the Universe has in store. And often what humans have in store for themselves and each other far underestimates the person's full potential. Living up to someone else's expectations will most certainly end in failure, because ultimately, a person should life for themselves and not for others.

Now here comes a follow-up question. What, then, do you do if you really care about someone and would like to see them live up to whatever their fullest potential is, and you don't see them doing that. I think loved ones that are close to that person can confide in a person in a caring, and supportive way. But if you are someone interested in dating someone and have no real connection with the person yet, then self-control is where that impulse to control comes up. Instead of imposing your judgment on someone else's life, focus on controlling self and remembering that it's not your place to comment on where someone else is in their life. And if it really bothers you, you may want to look inside yourself and ask why someone else's behavior would affect you so profoundly. After some soulsearching, I would focus on finding ways to stay constructive and positive while also purging those who you don't feel are very healthy from your life. If you really feel someone isn't living right, what is most important is making sure you surround yourself with what deem positive people instead of ones you feel need saving.

WAR: Um . . .Good luck with that?

Some time ago before we pulled out of Iraq, I had an interesting email exchange with a friend of mine that works with children. It really got me thinking in the way that children make you think about things that you take for granted about life and how things work. Just thought I would share the exchange and my question of how one should react to an event that is so increadibly inhumane and yet such a mainstay in our international policy and dealings in the world. Can we get back to a simple child-like innocence where in the simple answer is that there shouldn't be any war? Oh I'm sorry I'll put down whatever it is that I'm smoking right now and get back to reality. Please forgive me for my momentary lapse. And of course the names of the children were changed for their protection.

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Friend: Today we made holiday cards for the soldiers in Iraq and these are what some kids wrote:

"Happy Holidays. I hope you don't die at war."

"Have a happy war. I hope you will have fun at war."

Of course these kids are rewriting...!!! oh and there were many "good luck" cards as well. Sigh.

Me: Lol!! That is so funny, yet sad, what the kids wrote. But you have to give them a break. I mean really, with war being such a dismal and inhumane phenomena why would kids, or anyone else for that matter, know what's appropriate to say about war? I mean really, the liberals say we hate war but don't hate the troops that are being trained to kill other people on command. The conservatives say we need more war training and preparation and we'll just have to sacrifice those lives because the bigger picture of war is more important than the individual lives that are sacrificed. I mean really, which one of these statements is really very appropriate anyway? I don't think the problem is with the kids, I think it's with the whole idea of war in the first place.

Friend: Yeah. It's true. I don't think many adults explain why people are fighting and what we are fighting for there in Iraq to kids anyways.

[Linda] wrote, "Dear people in Iraq , I am so sorry about what happened to your houses, .....and I am writing this for the soldiers who died at war..."

This says a lot. Who is going to write letters to the Iraqi people??? Seriously, I think [Elliot]

sincerely meant it when he wrote, "I hope you don't die at war."

It's just that it may sound insensitive (even if it's written by a kid) to a soldier who reads it.

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I feel this whole issue is rich with possibilities for learning and illuminating the social failures and lack that we have as a nation. A couple of questions that spin out for me from this exchange are:

How do insufficient explanations for the reason for war in our childhoods affect our response to war as adults?

Do any of us really understand the reasons we are given as to why war is truly necessary or are we just as clueless as children?

How powerful is peer pressure on children to fall in line in support of war?

How powerful is peer pressure on adults to fall in line in support of war?

Are there any good reasons to have a war or does the awkwardness of the children's "well wishes" speak to a deeper issue that there is really no reason to wish anyone involved in war well?

How have we as adults accepted the idea that fellow citizens should be signed-up, trained, and committed to an undying loyalty to systematically kill others?

If war is a necessary evil, how do you wish any evil phenomena well?

What are the ways that people address and cope with societal "necessary evils" such as war?

How did we get here . . . to a place where instead of saying "No" to war, it is a societal duty and responsibility to honor and support those who (no matter the reason) have been trained to kill and get killed in the line of duty?

How to we talk about and better cope as a society with the psychological and physical damage of troops and their loved ones that results from war?

Of Faith and Fear

"There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting. . ."
- Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon by Wei Wu Wei

So I'm reading just the first few pages of Ed Groff's thesis entitled "Laban Movement Analysis: An Historical, Philosophical, and Theoretical Perspective" and an issue that's been knocking around in my head lately resurfaced (probably because as I was reading, a Pentecostal work-study student was listening to a religious radio show on his computer). Somewhere between reading about objectivist and constructivist philosophies and listening to the faint whisper of bible verses in my ear this idea came back to me. I'm thinking of this notion of faith and fear. . . how religious conservatives can speak about faith and yet have such an intense fear of the world falling apart if things aren't maintained to their standards.

Consider these two world views (only two of many of course but go with me for a moment here): 1) A world of absolute and static reality and ultimate truth. A world where the religious factions tell us that a father god created all things and the scientific factions tell us that nothing exists until it is officially proven to exist. 2)A second version of the world where the world is only what you make of it. Any person's reality of the world is based on personal perception, cultural background that is ever-shifting. This is a world of uncertainty where your understanding of the world is understood to be different than that of your neighbor and even possibly different than it was just a moment ago. It is a dynamic world of uncertainty, change, and infinite possibilities.

Now to my point. In a religious world where faith is the order of the day, how is it that fear dictates so much of the culture? There is fear of those who don't believe in the same religion. There is fear of the government. There is fear of having your money taken away to go to those less fortunate. There is a fear of people who don't look or act like you. There is a fear of stepping outside of the bounds that your religion has established. There is a fear of war (let me be more specific here. It's only scary if your country isn't the one perpetrating the war right?). There is a fear of those who don't believe the same things or live the same type of life as you. There is fear of those who don't look like you or think like you. I say all of this to say, what ever happened to faith? Whatever happened to faith squelching the fears and doubts of the believers? How is it that faith only counts if it is faith that what your religious, political, and media celebrity leaders are telling you is accurate? How is it that faith is not for those who have faith that all people have the potential for goodness and humanity? How is it that faith isn't for trusting that giving to those less fortunate will generate at least a minute but certainly worthy positive effect even if you think the majority will squander it? How is it that faith isn't for believing that the president that may not look like you or have a familiar name is somehow connected to that oh so important divine order of things whether you agree with his political decisions or not? How is it that faith isn't for trusting that the religious beliefs of others may actually be a positive and productive part of their culture as yours is for you? How is it in general that those that so vehemently believe in God don't trust that he knows what he's doing even if you aren't as knowledgeable about all the aspects of the situation as maybe you should be. And most of all, why is faith not used in oneself to believe that attaining knowledge on your own and from opposing sides of an argument won't give you an incite into a situation that brings you piece of mind and an understanding of balance? If the faithful truly believe that God is the God of all things, why is it that the faithful only have faith in the "divine" role such a minute population of God's creations?

Race: an emotional topic. . .

Race:
1) An emotional topic and method of categorization created and enhanced by years and years of Western ethnographic, scientific, economic, and socio-political bolstering.
2) An inaccurate way of categorizing groups of people based on identifiable visual markers only. These visual markers then inaccurately establish a person as a group-member of usually only one specific ancestral source.
3) An inaccurately simplistic categorization of the location of a person's ancestral background.
4) A way of inaccurately grouping people together in categories that presuppose cultural similarities, biological traits, and often socio-economic status for the benefit of the current social order.
5) The precursor and catalyst for the necessary invention of and older concept but modern word, "stereotype."
6) A socio-cultural method established within a culture of heirarchical power structure that encourages individuals to compete with, alienate, and think of each other as unlike themselves or working towards an opposing goal, conclusion, or solution.
7) One of many common reasons sited to hate another individual.
8) A means of getting a group of individuals to identify with each other on a very specific group of commonalities deemed valuable, identifiable, timeless, and defining.
9) A means of getting a group to value certain traits they have in common with a smaller group and deny other traits they have in common with the rest of the population.
10) A social invention used to make commonalities of a whole society invisible so as to divide and control peoples encouraging them to believe they have more in common with each other inside the group than they have in common with populations outside of their group.
11) A method Western civilization in recent history has created of grouping and categorizing populations that has been adopted by most of the modern world.

The Production of Class: The Performance of the Personal in our Economic Crisis

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you know about the recent saturation of talk about the economic crisis, outsourcing jobs, the collapse of the auto industry, etc. It’s the economic analysts’ moment to shine with the facts and the figures, the expertise and the inside story on all the financial sector’s ups and downs. But what the financial sector and economic experts don’t seem to really point to is the performance of economics. I haven’t seen (and that’s not to say it’s not out there) any economists or financial experts speak to the issue of our classist economic system and how the image of a booming economy has been sold to us by the media, public sector and private sector’s incestuous relationship when it comes to money.

I was watching Book-TV today with Jon Jester speaking about his book, “Flat Broke in the Free Market.” He spoke about various economic systems around the world and their effect on the working class. One point he made is that our economy no longer produces or creates for its population. Instead we 1) outsource our jobs, having someone else make things for us paying them next to nothing (something they couldn’t get away with in this country the way they can in other countries), and 2) charge other countries ridiculously high rates, some as high as 30%, to borrow from us (something they HAVE managed to do in this country.) He also mentioned that the way we structure our economy in the U.S. is really just a continuation of the colonialist structure where you don’t work yourself. Instead you hire people for inhumane wages to work for you while over-charging others for the products made. Sound familiar?

His explanation sounded very well-researched and clear. But what I couldn’t stop thinking about is the social and valuative underpinnings of the economic structure. I’m talking about the selling of this as a good idea to the American people. How were we convinced that this was a more advanced, productive, fulfilling way to live and support ourselves? Since when does a hard days work and creating what you use and using what you create connote a dated, primitive, obsolete, uncivilized, underclass way of life? Since when is making the things you use a third-world way of working? How did we as American’s convince ourselves that it would improve us as people and as a society to have other people do things for us (that we’re totally capable of doing ourselves) for a wage that keeps them in a permanently secondary class?

I mean if you really take a look at this phenomenon I think it’s pretty pervasive in our culture today. From my time in NY, seeing the Brown nannies pushing White babies in strollers being paid by parents who often aren’t paying taxes for the nannies they employ and God only knows what else they’re not including in the wage consideration. From my home in North Carolina, you see people who, instead of buying from the farmer right down the street (a person they can look in the face and hold responsible if their food turns up tainted,) would rather buy their veggies from a mega-store that also sells tires. There people see purchasing a lower-grade product from the store as “fancier” than making it yourself or buying from a local producer. How did we get here?

I’ve seen the misery first hand of upper-class children I’ve had the pleasure of teaching. They are miserable because of 1) the pressure to remain at the top of this fabricated economic food chain and 2) the emptiness they feel not ever really having the pleasure of creating, maintaining or producing something substantive in their everyday lives. I mean really, many of these kids don’t lift a proverbial finger in their lives, know nothing of an honest, hard days work, and can’t quite figure out where the sadness in their gut comes from. They can’t sort out that cynicism is the order of the day because they are absolutely terrified to try to “do” anything a working person might struggle to do. The moment you expect many of these children of privilege to fail at something, to work hard at something, to honor the ability that each individual has, you have a totally different child.

In a culture where everything is made by someone else, society lacks the pride of creation, of knowing a craft, of honoring the individual techniques and methods garnered in the process of producing something. Sure we may have more stuff, but we’re unhappy because we’ve given away all our money to get it instead of experiencing the hard earned work it takes to make something, the pride of bartering or negotiating for something, or the gift of finding that special producer in your area that has the most unique style, talent, or signature characteristic in her or his work.

It’s the fear that false competence and karmic backlash dole out that keeps us unhappy and working way too hard. We know that this hyped-up overvalued culture we’ve sold to people is a farce. We work harder because we’re constantly spinning our wheels to make sure others don’t find out. We don’t sleep because we know that we’re screwing the people we’ve hired to work for crap wages. ( “Crap wages? Oh that’s a technical term I’ve picked up from the economists. Lol.) We know in our heart of hearts that it’s wrong to take advantage of those who will work for less but do the same job we expected to get paid well for. So we exhaust ourselves with creating all these reasons, justifications, and excuses as to why we’re really doing them a favor by not treating them as equal human beings. And then we wonder why we’re unhappy and exhausted.

I’m saying you don’t need to know much about the economy to know why we’re dissatisfied with our current economic situation. I would argue the issue is much closer to home and far more familiar than we realize. It doesn’t exist in that indecipherable financial analysis of our current condition. It doesn’t lie in the incomprehensible economic trends we’ve made an attempt to understand. Instead it lies within our own socio-cultural value system. This issue is one that I hope is a bit easier to fix and one I know is lot easier to control. It starts within each of us, a place far easier to change than Wall Street, Capital Hill, and the rest of the world. I say put on new shoes folks; don’t try to cover the world with rubber soles.

Slavery and the Holocaust Question

So I was watching the Tavis Smiley show the other night. He was interviewing Berry Gordy. Berry was talking about what all the artists from Motown had to go through in the 60's and 70's. He also mentioned the help his first wife provided in helping him build Motown. That’s right, first wife as in divorced at least once. And the idea of what Black folks had to go through back then and the effects of it on the psyche of Black folks even today got me thinking. My mind began to spin into this abyss of all the effects of slavery on the African psyche. I mean when you really think about it . . . even as a person who isn't an expert in African or African diaspora, it's unbelievable to think about the fallout that slavery has created on the minds and bodies not just of Africans but on how people see people of color in general.

This train of thought reminded me of a question I’ve often stumbled upon in conversation with people about Black folks and slavery. Nowadays I most often find it a topic of contention when discussing the abysmal horrors of the German holocaust. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: Black folks often find it insulting and frustrating to see the Jewish holocaust vindicated as such a horrific event in history by cultures who have not addressed slavery with the same (horror, retribution, reparations, . . . . you fill in the blank).

Other person: But the Jews suffered greatly at the hands of the Germans. It's not good for you to down-play the tragedy of the holocaust by bringing up slavery.

Me: Why does bringing up slavery negate the horrors of the holocaust? Why do people not recollect that German Blacks were certainly considered inferior and were killed as well? Why is it that bringing up another horrific event in human history that was responsible for the death of more people, lasted longer, and was more pervasively practiced on most every continent on the globe considered a negation of what happened during the holocaust? Why is it wrong for Black folks to mention, when talking about a horrific dehumanizing event such as the holocaust, the event that happened to Black folks. Why is mentioning slavery, that tragedy that was never vindicated as (at the very least) equally horrific, an event deserving retribution, acknowledgment of wrong-doing and apologies, and reparations so inappropriate?

Other person: Yes but in slavery people were just slaves. They weren't killed en mass.

And then I arrive at my predicament. Aside from the fact that people were certainly killed en mass during slavery. Not even considering the fact that so many Africans died and were thrown overboard during the Middle Passage that sharks changed their migratory path through the Atlantic to reap the benefits of a newly found reliable food source. Even if we do not consider that more people died during the slave trade than died during the holocaust or that slavery lasted for far longer, I ask you to consider this question:

Is it really worse to die than to survive and be subject to generations of slavery?

And from this question comes a whole slew of other questions like: Was it worse to have died in the Middle Passage or to have survived and endure the affects of slavery? Is it better to die as an African or to live as a slave? Should Africans have committed suicide rather than live as slaves?

I often wonder this when in conversations or when I see the affects of slavery still affecting Black people. Depending on your thoughts on the afterlife and the earthly life, I think this question is an interesting one. You see, for those who are religious and believe in an afterlife, do we really think that living as slaves and having to survive the affects of slavery generation after generation is better than dying? Living rather than dying for those who don’t believe in an afterlife might be even more difficult to swallow. Afterall, if there's nothing that exists after death, is dying really the ultimate suffering? Or if there is nothing after death, is a life of slavery and then seeing your future generations be subjected to the same fate worse than death ?

I mean really . . . think about the things that have plagued African-Americans since the 1400’s. Should all slaves have refused to live as slaves and killed themselves thereby making slavery a non-option for Africans or is it really better that we survived? Is it better to have survived the torture, the beatings, the hangings, having your children ripped from your arms, the rapes, the castrations, the loss of your name . . . your heritage . . . your culture, the unlawful imprisonment, the inability to marry the person you love, the inability to defend your family, the inability to learn to read, the inability to dance or play the drums, the inability to use the same facilities as Whites, the inability to get a job you are qualified to hold, the inability to provide for your family, the inability to make decisions about your life for yourself, the humiliation, (and my personal favorite -- sarcastically speaking of course) the patronizing help from those that mean well but are really just plain insulting?

Can you imagine the course that history might have taken if Africans refused to live as slaves? Would it have kept the myth of African inhumanity alive until the present-day making most every African’s humanity inconsequential like it still is in some parts of Africa today? Or could our refusal as Africans to live as slaves have made the prospect of stealing slaves from Africa unprofitable and untenable allowing things in Africa to return to a normative Africa without the influence of Whites? Or maybe it would have been something somewhere in-between.

And for the sci-fi/philosophical junkies out there a whole other line of questions comes up about alternative time-lines. What would it mean to change the course of history by having those abducted from Africa die in opposition to the prospect of slavery? I mean does that mean that I would never have been born or does it mean that there would be a chance for me to live a totally different life as an African who never knew the affects of slavery on my psyche? How could we even consider this question with no real idea of how alternate realities would play out?

I just wonder. The fact that, as an African-American living in the year 2009 with a newly-elected Black president, I can still seriously consider this question makes the power of slavery even more real and visceral to me. Can anyone consider with me the world if Africans systematically refused to live as slaves and committed suicide instead of succumbing to enslavement? Which would really be better? Is an attempt to wipe a group of people off the face of the earth worse than convincing the earth that a group of people are eternally inferior and yet worth keeping around as slaves?

To the excuse-making Brotha's: Now What's your Excuse?

To the excuse-making Brotha's: Now What's your Excuse?
Current mood: inspired
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Alright Black men who have talked about the world being against you. The honeymoon is over for all of you who complain about not being able to navigate through the world because of your gender and your skin color. Now that the country has elected a Black man into office as the leader of the free world, what will be your excuse as Black men now? Not to say that racism and sexism has spontaneously and completely disappeared with the election of Obama. But now you have to admit that there are good black men who have paved the way for you to work the system. Now you have to admit that with hard work and determination you can excel at whatever you want to do.

When you can't find a job will you say that it's because you're a Black man or will you acknowledge that everyone is in a shitty space because of this economy? Will you consider that it may be the "manly" chip on your shoulder, your mental anticipation of not getting the job that prevents you from getting that job or will you blame the interviewer for not wanting to hire a Black man?

When you choose to have a relationship will you be selective and only engage with the quality women you know you deserve or will you "get with" any woman with poor morals and values, low-self esteem, that can easily be manipulated? Will you allow yourself to be emotionally available and defer to her advice at times because you know you picked a good one who has her shit together, or will you remain distant and stoic in the relationship thinking yourself to be the lone leader? When you lay down with a woman, will you take full responsibility for your choice of partner or will you call her a ho AFTER you sleep with her? Will you take responsibility for not wearing that oh so essential rubber, or will you blame the woman for tricking you into it? Will you man up and not just "take care" of your child but also pay the child support the child needs or will you accuse the mother of being a gold-digger when she drags you to court? Will you go through the necessary legal channels to fight any choices made by the mother that are, in your mind, bad decisions for your children (cause I ain't even gonna deny that there are trifling, scorned women out there) or will you complain and withhold financial support? Will you now get serious and focused on being a good father and husband with a good woman because now you know how very possible it is or will you continue to "play the game" never really making yourself emotionally open to, trusting, respecting, honoring, or committing to a good woman?

When you are wronged by someone or some organization (cause you KNOW that ain't going away overnight) will you internalize the injustice, take your own revenge, or will you go through the proper channels to make the system and the world better for everyone else that has to deal with those same problems?

When you have someone criticizing your dreams or who you are, will you strive to do better to prove them wrong, or will you believe them and use the verbal bashing as an excuse to keep doing what you're doing? Will you accept the challenge of striving to do better in this new post-Obama age or continue to live a life of mediocrity out of fear of trying? Will you take the responsibility of being a good role-model for those within your community and abroad, or will you continue the minstrel antics the entertainment and mass-media dictate to you?

Now that Obama has proven that it doesn't have to be like that, now that we know that many White folks aren't as ignorant and fearful as we thought they were, what will your excuse be now?

I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to get one of these for the Black women in a post-Obama world. Bring it on!