The Dangerous Necessity of Racial Self-Critique

Cross-posted at Rachel's Tavern.

I was listening to V103 driving to work this morning, a popular music station here in Atlanta. There was a heated discussion going on. I'm not a fan of the DJ and local celebrity host Frank Ski, but in comparison with the guest, Frank Ski was a towering fountain of wisdom. His guest was dismissing Don Imus as irrelevant because "Imus was just repeating things heard at barber shops" and the Rutgers basketball team "weren't the finest sisters around anyway". The ignorance was astounding. I flipped the station just as he started talking about how going to protest in Jena was pointless. This is why I'd make a terrible professional commenter... I have limited time in my life to listen to garbage like that in order to criticize it.

In response, Frank Ski was making some good points about institutionalized racism, internalized racism and "slave mentality". But I have to wonder... what was gained by granting his misogynist self-hating guest such a massive forum? Why do these interminable, repetitive conversations continue to fascinate so many people?

Recently, every time I hear similar criticism I think about the corresponding lack of reflexive self-criticism among white people, and wonder about its effect.

Minorities in America engage in massive amounts of self-criticism. Sometimes it's valuable and useful, in fact vital, because it helps people move forward as individuals and in communities. Other times it's damaging and wasteful. There's a whole economy built up around self-criticism, particularly by African-Americans. Bill Cosby's sold-out "what's wrong with black people" tours come to mind. Among Asian-Americans, criticism often takes place between genders and also between generations. "FOB vs. Twinkie" comes to mind. Blame your parents, blame the men, blame the women, blame your children, blame yourself. Blaming white people is pretty far down the list for many people of color. Another example: I was reading a desi magazine called "Little India" which had an editorial called "Damn Cricket". The next issue had a counterpoint called "Damn Those Who Damn Cricket". Both articles seemed to accept the premise there was something fundamentally wrong with Indians that needed to be fixed. Even when self-critique is done at a very sophisticated level, it frequently ends up on a pessimistic note.

When someone tips over from self-criticism to self-hate, a responder feels the need to jump in. "We're not that bad. We're people with pride and strength and dignity..." Other responders are so wounded by the expression of self-hate that they overcompensate in defense, refuse to see ANY flaws and won't be drawn into the most moderate, sensible self-critique. Back and forth should ideally be a dialectic moving us all forward. So often, it just turns into an endless seesaw. Hate of self-hate is still hate.

Some white people (e.g. Bill O'Reilly) live in a bizarre mirror world where minorities "won't take responsibility" and it's white Christian males who are "under attack" in the "culture war". But how many white men give sold-out lecture tours on the topic of What's Wrong with White America? I wonder how much money Tim Wise makes in a year from his tours and books? I think sociological/anthropological critique on the academic level is often counted as "attack on the white man," when in fact it's undertaken from the viewpoint of an artificially ahistorical, decontextualized observer, and has nothing in common with the kind of self-critique I'm referring to.

Lack of reflexivity frees up a lot of mental space to focus on other things. There's less anxiety. On the other hand, it may act as a force to make the social thinking of white people simpler, less three-dimensional. I wonder if greater harmony in race relations will come when we are all LESS self-critical, or when we are all more self-critical, but in a balanced fashion?

For the New Year, I've been thinking a lot about how to balance compassion and truthfulness. I won't say anything worse than I already did about Frank Ski's guest. The truth is that he hates women and he hates his own people... but I hope he eventually gains a better perspective on life.

Happy New Year!

---
*Updated (to add my response to a comment asking if Noam Chomsky was "self-hating")

Two issues here:

Is critiquing dominant culture, as a white person, really the same as a white person’s self-critique of white culture? In my opinion they overlap but are really not the same at all. Critiques of dominant culture can include non-white cultural hegemony and imperialism.

In my mind, self-critique is a broad spectrum that includes positive analysis of strength at one end, neutral analysis in the middle and self-hating at the far other end. From what I’ve read of Chomsky he’s not self-hating at all.

I think true self-hating white people (who hate their whiteness) are rare, but they are extremely unbalanced and possibly dangerous to themselves and others. They’re like Wapanese to the nth degree… people who hate whiteness so much they want to erase themselves and be some other race, and of course they can’t. The healthier way is to be critical of whiteness but not denigrate yourself over it, and have a positive identity overall.

I think there are a fair amount of white people who take this healthy approach and talk about it and communicate it. But like my example of Tim Wise, I wish they would get a lot more mainstream mass media attention than they currently do.

NYTimes Loves the ICS

This is the school where my husband and my mother volunteer as tutors. I know some of the kids mentioned in the article. The school is also the home of the Fugees soccer team.

NY Times

By WARREN ST. JOHN
Published: December 24, 2007

DECATUR, Ga. — Parents at an elementary school here gathered last Thursday afternoon with a holiday mission: to prepare boxes of food for needy families fleeing some of the world’s most horrific civil wars.

The community effort to help refugees resembled countless others at this time of year, with an exception: the recipients were not many thousands of miles away. They were students in the school and their families.

More than half the 380 students at this unusual school outside Atlanta are refugees from some 40 countries, many torn by war. The other students come from low-income families in the community, and from middle- and upper-middle-class families in the surrounding area who want to expose their children to other cultures. Together they form an eclectic community of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, well-off and poor, of established local families and new arrivals who collectively speak about 50 languages.

[...]

Check out the slideshow. The saddest part was seeing the refugee camp family photo, and hearing that the parents thought of their lives as absolutely finished... now, they're just living for their children.

Overall the article is very optimistic, though.

Short Post on Sexism

This month I read two great, thoughtful posts about sexism, feminism and Asian-Americans.

Both were by Asian-Americans, one by Kai at Zuky (Sexism and Confucianism) and the other by Jenn at Reappropriate (Helen Zia: Be the Change).

If you are interested in the topic, follow the links and read the comments. You will notice a startling difference in the quality of the dialog in the comments section.

This makes me so mad, I can't make this post much longer, but I wanted to get it off my chest and get back to enjoying my vacation.

Comments off.

Short Hawaii post

Well, I'm in Hawaii on my non-vacation vacation. A day of cultural exhibits and sightseeing wonders of nature is about to begin.

This is my second time visiting. I was here about five years ago, also visiting my dad.

I've been raving to my husband about the spicy octopus poke (seafood salad). He loves it too!

I'll see if I can post some pictures later. I've been taking videos. Most of the video is just showing what we're eating every night for dinner. We went to a farmer's market as soon as we got here and bought a lot of fresh vegetables.

SPLC Intelligence Report Winter Highlights

(Cross-posted at Rachel's Tavern. Rachel gave me a semi-permanent guest posting gig! I'll be posting race relations stories and analysis over there several times a month).

For great investigative journalism into organized racist groups, it's hard to beat the SPLC Intelligence Report.

Here are my highlights of this quarter's issue:

1) The Teflon Nativists: FAIR Marked by Ties to White Supremacy. Finally, someone put together all the evidence showing the racist scum at "FAIR" for what they truly are. FAIR are now officially listed as a hate group. Their good buddy Lou Dobbs is fuming, of course.

I have a lot of faith in the impartiality of the SPLC publications. While the vast majority of their coverage is dedicated to white supremacists, they cover other groups in quite generous proportion to their numbers and influence. Some examples are Nation of Yahweh, JDL, La Voz de Aztlan.

Groups like FAIR serve as the normalizing conduit between explicit and implicit white supremacist ideology. Dragging them out of their shadowy gray zone forces people to examine their hatred and take a stand one way or the other.

2) Bad Blood: Attack Illuminates Skinhead Underworld. A custody battle turns ugly and a woman has her throat cut. There's not a lot of social or legal implication here, just a gripping true crime story.

3) Execution Video Surfaces in Russia. Whoah. A different and very nasty flavor of racist anti-immigration extremism.

4) Behind the Noose. A short editorial about the rising tide of white resentment. The ending left me a bit cold, though. How do we move forward? Ignoring the issue and playing nice are obviously wrong tactics, but what are some of the right ones?

5) Odin Shows Up at Nebraska Beer Bash. On a lighter note.

If you donate to the SPLC, you should receive a paper copy of this publication every quarter.

Whipsaw

Things have not been going well on the adoption front.

This Monday I called my caseworker just to check in on some inquiries and wish her happy holidays. It sounded like she couldn't wait to get off the phone with me. No, nothing happening, never heard back, nope, no feedback on your homestudy, your homestudy is great, don't know what's going on, ok, bye. I call her every other week for a few minutes, it's not as if I hound her.

This sent me into a tailspin. I felt very hurt and disrespected. My husband and I had decided a while back that if nothing happened by the end of 2007 we would look into switching agencies or moving to some other kind of adoption. They've broken promises all over the place and don't bother apologizing. Some of it I blame on the people at the agency, but I know other people signed with other similar Atlanta-area agencies, and I don't know if it's much better somewhere else.

Our wait is just wrong. I've made almost 200 inquiries, mostly on boys ages five to ten, often two siblings, mild to moderate special needs, with little regard for race or ethnicity. We've applied for girls too, but there are more boys in the listings. We're not looking for a perfectly healthy baby girl. Why do these states list children for years? There are waiting parents out there as well as waiting children, but I guess the resources to match them are just not there. I've blamed a lot of things. Sometimes I've wondered if my race is a factor. Several other people say it almost certainly isn't, but it could be something in the background, as subtle as the workers looking at a picture of my husband and I and a child and having a passing thought that there are just one or two too many colors all together there in that picture, and then moving on to the next family.

The dominant reason is probably that this interstate matching system is chaotic and sucks, combined with my agency losing workers and being understaffed after the dual exodus a few months ago.

A lot of my mental energy this week has gone into trying not to feel sorry for myself and break out crying. This holiday season is very hard. Thank goodness I have a vacation lined up. We can't afford a real one but I worked out a great substitute. We got a last-minute frequent flyer mile ticket because we were willing to take a red-eye on Christmas Day. We'll be staying at my dad's retirement studio apartment in Hawaii. It's in a cheap, very non-touristy location and there won't be much to do except for relaxing and eating incredible seafood. My dad will be away in Japan. We've had an open invitation to stay there for years, but tickets to Hawaii are so expensive we haven't been able to take advantage of the offer until now.

Anyway, I thought we would be a family with children by now, facing a whole new set of joys and challenges. Instead, I feel like a year of my life has been sucked into a vortex. Last December I was happy and excited about the future. I had a huge amount of trust and respect for everyone at our agency. Now, I just feel sad and tired... so tired.

This week I've started calling up other agencies and contemplating a switch to foster-to-adopt. This would involve massive amounts of paperwork and be a huge emotional and mental change. With the route we're on right now -- "straight" adoption -- once a post-TPR child is placed, there is very little chance that they would be removed. All other avenues have already been explored and exhausted. The process is fairly smooth: placement, extended supervision, adoption finalization. Changing to the foster-to-adopt route, we would be expected to foster until we adopt. Perhaps our first child would be the one we adopted. Perhaps the first child would be reunified after one month. Perhaps an aunt or uncle would come forward after six months. We wouldn't know. There are many more children through this route and a great need for homes.

My husband and I feel the same way. We don't know if we can do it but we'd be willing to try. In theory, being part of a child's life while their family goes through a rough patch and then helping them reunite is something I support 100%. But in practice, how would it affect me? I don't know. Maybe I could do it, maybe it would kill me.

Here's a great resource: a transcript from a chat session called "Foster Care to Adoption: What Is It Like?". This part struck me.

Brea [foster care adoption social worker]: I would advise parents who are considering adoption to explore all of their options, with fostering-to-adopt being one among them. I don't think that fostering-to-adopt is for those who are going to be first-time parents. I would encourage someone in the position of not having any children and wanting to adopt to choose a route that will entail less risk.

If we did foster-to-adopt, I like to think I could send back a child with grace and compassion. What if I went crazy and acted badly? I can see why experienced parents who already have a child would be much better at this. Also, the idea of "testing the waters" before jumping into adoption is difficult for me to comprehend emotionally. I would feel terrible for not fully committing from the beginning. I know people who have done this and I understand the risks and rewards. I'm not ruling it out yet. But contemplating a switch is difficult.

I've been calling some local agencies and our county DFCS. Of course it's almost impossible to get to anyone on the phone. I keep getting put on endless hold, given the wrong number, sent to the wrong voicemail. Why does this have to suck so hard? It's clear what's wrong and how to fix it.

Then this morning I got a short email from my caseworker. We've made it to round two on a little boy from out of state we applied for back in July. There'll be a meeting next week where she'll present our case. This is the most progress we've made anywhere, on any inquiry.

I emailed her back thanking her. I dug up the profile again and looked at the picture of the boy, and then put my head on my desk and started crying.

I don't know what to do anymore. I feel slightly hopeful but mostly lost and weak. I guess we'll wait some more.

Local roundup

Georgia is still drought-stricken. Last month our doughy-faced overlord, Sonny Perdue, led a state prayer for rain. It rained a quarter of an inch a few days later. I'm impressed he can successfully read a weather forecast, but I don't think his prayer was overall any effective. We might get more rain if he volunteers to hang from an oak tree like the pagan kings of old! I should write him a letter. On the bright side it was very balmy this week and we even saw a man riding a bicycle with no shirt on.

In big local news, Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for dogfighting. I wrote about this briefly last year. Personally, I'm glad he got such a stiff sentence. I know many commentators have remarked that it looks very bad in comparison with light sentences for domestic violence. I can't subscribe to the "it shows a dog's life is worth more than a woman's" view, however. I can sympathize with it but there are so many links between both types of violence. A lot of people who work in animal control have noticed this. Here is a local example:

Have you ever seen a dogfight?
Yes, evidence of dogfights. They disperse when they know we’re coming. I look for scarring, scratching, their demeanor and animal behavior. … [There is] a lot of dogfighting in Atlanta. In northwest and southeast Atlanta [especially], mostly [in] the city, because of the income and they can hide them.

What type of animal behavior do you see?
They cower, [do] not look at you. One’s been doing it a lot will charge — no warning.

Why do they cower?
They aren’t aggressive. [The owners] can’t use them for fighting [so] they beat them, and throw them in the street if they don’t kill them. [The dogs] live in deplorable conditions, low-income housing. They can’t pay their rent, can’t feed their families, but are taking care of the dogs. If the dogs are abused, there is abuse in the home; beating their wives or their children.

It's also common that abusive men threaten women through their pets. According to this local pet-friendly domestic violence shelter...

Abusers hit, kick, throw, torture, and kill the family pets in an effort to terrorize the family and keep them silent about the abuse in their home. Concern for a beloved companion animal's welfare prevents or delays more than 50% of battered individuals from escaping domestic abuse, continuing to endanger themselves, their children, and their pets. Their concerns are legitimate: it is estimated that 88% of animals in households where mental and physical abuse takes place, the family pet is injured or killed when the victim tries to leave.

I think these are both compelling arguments to treat violence against pets seriously. It doesn't exist in isolation. As human beings we have a selfish interest to stigmatize it and stop it.

I have a frightening anecdote about a local guy known as a multiple cat-skinner... but on second thought, let's not go there.

There are some major changes going on with our adoption plans but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. Soon.

We are Your Overlords!

Micro-post here. Generally, I hate classic rock, but I happen to love "The Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin. It really fires up the blood on my Teutonic side. Here's an amusing version with rampaging kittens.

I'm working up a longer post again, maybe it will be ready this weekend.

Post-holiday update

It's been a while since I've updated. I've been pretty busy, plus I just haven't been inspired to talk about my life much. Hopefully I'll see some forward movement soon.

Thanksgiving dinner was a culinary success. I cooked four dishes: miniature crawfish patties and duck sausages for appetizers, collard greens and creamed parsnips. In our family we never use the words "cooking from scratch" because that's just always the way we do things. So I didn't actually kill the duck, but I did make the sausages from sheep intestine casing, duck thighs, pine nuts and port wine. It was a lot of work but it really paid off! The duck sausages lasted on the plate for about 30 seconds and everyone absolutely loved them. There's nothing like fresh savory sausages. I won't go into detail as to how I made them, but if anyone is really interested in making their own (it's not that expensive) just drop me a comment.

My CMS website is finished. And, I gave my job hunting seminar. The audience was small, but hopefully I'll give it again to a larger one, because I'm really happy with it and the content is very useful.

The adoption front is slow and depressing. I actually do think of it as a "front", mostly a cold front, sometimes a WWI type of front if I'm in an especially dark mood. Recently we decided not to go forward with an application for a child, because we received additional info that they had suffered from severe sexual abuse and were sexually acting out. It's not like we were the only choice for a family, but we ducked out early on. With other kinds of abuse and neglect you can sort of put yourself in their shoes and imagine what it was like and, from that basis, what it would take to move forward and get past it. Imagining is nowhere near the reality, but at least it's something. For severe sexual abuse and sexual acting out, if I try to think in that pattern, flashing sirens go off in my brain, my stomach starts tying itself in knots and I start wanting to bang my head against the wall to make the bad thoughts go away. Arrgh. We came to an agreement, we would find it almost impossible to deal with that kind of sexual acting out. I'm glad there are people out there who can handle and redirect that behavior but I don't think I'm one of them.

Violence, the Pathologies of Identity and a Desperate Longing for the Islands of the Mind

Warning: this piece is extremely long and rambling. It's about the things mentioned in the title, illustrated through some of the more unpleasant aspects of the lives of three people, including myself. It's revisiting a lot of things I've written about over the past year of this blog.

The most painful part of this piece was trying to write about Central Florida. I haven't done it very well. Every time I try to paint a picture in words I usually give up and starting sputtering and yelling things like "the pit, the pit."

So as a quick preface, sorry, Central Floridians. I hate that place. But there are some beautiful things there.

-------

When I was young I was always under attack in school. Whenever I left the safety of my home I had to put my head down and got ready for the inevitable.

I don't know exactly what to call what I went through. The word "bullying" minimizes it too much. It brings to mind a heavyset, mouth-breathing boy shaking other kids down for their lunch money… Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons. The kind of boy who rules the playground, but won't get very far in adult life.

A more accurate word would be "racist abuse." The scary part was that the abusers were completely unpredictable. One day I'd sit next to a girl or boy and have a nice conversation about dinosaurs, and the next day they'd follow along me singing "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these." These weren't sadistic kids from abusive homes. There were too many of them for that to be the case. Most of them were totally average.

I tried a lot of things to get it to stop: logical arguments, emotional appeals to stop hurting me, pretending that I couldn't hear or see them. For a little bit I thought if I could wear clothes from Benetton and The Limited, they would stop. My family's financial situation was comfortable, but we weren't that well off, so I never found out if wearing more expensive clothes would have helped. The only thing that helped, a little bit, was physical violence. The one time I used my fists and knocked down a girl, that made them keep their distance. They didn't yell in my face anymore; they stayed at a distance or left notes on my locker instead.

Recently I've wondered whether part of my psychic survival was due to my body. I've always been tall and broad-shouldered. I got my height from my Japanese father. Being tall made me stand out as a target, but it also made me look more powerful. They never managed to make me feel ashamed about my own body, although in the girl's locker room, they tried hard enough.

When I went to college in Miami, for a brief time a young woman lived next door to me and we ended up having an intense talk once that touched on all this. She was Latina, from the north, tall -- even taller than me -- and dark-skinned. I usually didn't talk about what I went through in school, and she was one of the first people I'd ever met who had some of the same experiences and was willing to talk about it. Like me, she was raised surrounded by white children who abused her. She told me she was so full of rage that when she was a teenager, she used to go nightclubs, pick fights with white girls and beat them up. She would pretend they had spilled a drink on her, or looked at her the wrong way. She said she was ashamed now, but also in a better place. It had taken her a long time to "find herself" and stop raging.

For women, the price of wielding violence is often heavier than receiving it. We're taught from an early age that boys who fight are natural, but girls who fight are vicious and freakish. Anyway, I left that intense conversation incredibly thankful that beyond that one time, I'd never used physical violence.

Both of us felt that those children had stolen something from us, and we had to fight to get it back. The second and truly healing step was to stop fighting to get it back. What we were looking for was not in their power to give back. We had to find it in ourselves.

The third person with identity issues I want to talk about is an old friend of my husband. This friend, who is white, used to live in Atlanta but he's moved far away and we don't talk to him much anymore.

He grew up near the same Florida town that I did. His family was a wreck. He ran away from home to escape his abusive father and was taken in by a group of skinheads. Unlike Miami, where white-power types understandably keep a very low profile, I knew that the skinheads in that other Florida town would be of the Nazi type. They'd taken over the scene and run off the anti-racist skins during that time period. The friend, who was painfully and exhaustively honest about everything else in his life, didn't like to talk about that time.

Later on, after he moved to Atlanta, he had a year-long relationship with an out gay black man. Then he decided he was straight and they broke up but stayed friends.

My husband's friend was a short and small-framed man. He loved to read books, drink, get into fistfights, talk about his emotions, cry, and discuss his Irish heritage. It's the Irish heritage thing that truly fascinated me. My husband told me all about his friend before we met for the first time. He told me his friend had a large IRA tattoo on his arm. Had he ever visited Ireland? Nope. I was astounded. I was even a bit mean to him the first time we met. "Why do you have the Italian flag tattooed on your arm?" I asked.

My husband, who has just as much Irish heritage as his friend, had gone through many long arguments about the IRA before. He was so sick of the topic that he never brought it up anymore.

I thought the tattoo was completely insane. A healthy way to explore your heritage would be through positive things like joining an Irish-American historical society, learning Gaelic, visiting Ireland… it's what I would think of from my perspective as a Japanese-American. Why jump into a conflict whose struggles you haven't lived? It seems patronizing to the people who have lived those struggles, the ones who stayed behind.

I believe it makes a huge difference whether your ancestors arrived as entrepreneurs, indentured, enslaved, rich, or starving and desperate... but it makes a huge difference in the new country. In the old country, the division is simpler. Some stayed, some left.

Japan and Ireland have an interesting emigration history in common. In the 19th and early 20th century, they were poor countries. Many left for a better life. Now, they're rich. Irish and Japanese nationals are not in much danger of being exploited by the descendants of those who left. Still, I think it's disrespectful for me to assume I know what's best for Japan because I have Japanese heritage. I have a lot of opinions on their politics as a human being and global citizen, but unless I actually move there and exercise my citizenship, I don't want to go beyond that.

In Miami, many of the ones who left another island - Cuba - thought they would be going back. But their children are already forgetting their Spanish. I visited Cuba once, and I noticed the feelings that Cuban nationals have for Cuban-Americans are very complicated. There's love, because many of these people are friends and relatives. There's also anger. "We've lived here. We stayed. We know what's best for our own country, not you, the ones who left for a richer one."

The Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro left Japan at the age of two. He said once in an interview that he thought he would be going back when he was a child, and he built up an imaginary Japan that was very precious to him. As he became an adult and realized he could never really go back, and that England was his home, he had to say goodbye to that imaginary Japan, and did so by putting it in his book An Artist of the Floating World. I never had that. When I left Japan I was old enough, at six, to remember it more as reality than fantasy, and to understand I was never coming back. My parents never gave me any illusions on that point… I'm not saying that bitterly. I'm actually glad. I had enough problems without having to deal with an imaginary Japan floating just beyond reach. Still, Ishiguro's words are very moving for me.

My husband's friend, a very intelligent man, had a blind spot when it came to his own claimed island. He had to defend it from the English. It gave him a purpose, a goal, an identity. He had mellowed out a lot by the time I met him, but my husband said he used to see him get into bar fights all the time. He could destroy men twice his size because he moved so fast and hit so hard.

Luckily, there aren't many Americans, especially in Atlanta, who have strong feelings for the other side. He may have wanted to get into fights over Ireland, but that wasn't likely to happen here, thank goodness. Now he's married with a kid and I don't think he fights anymore.

The idea of Ireland must have given him a lot of comfort over the years. Perhaps it was also part of a reaction against the Nazi skinheads who idolized England. We grew up in the same horrible, horrible place, but we knew there was something else out there beyond the Central Florida suburbs and strip malls. I had the luxury of growing up in a supportive family; he had to break a pool cue over his father's head. I had part of my childhood stolen by racist abuse; he had almost all of it stolen. I could go on like this for a while. Our similarities and differences are endlessly fascinating to me. Perhaps it's because he was so open about how he formed his identity, when most people, especially white people, are ruled by shame and defensiveness when it comes to this topic.

All three of the people I've talked about are lucky. We came out the other side. Instead of abusing other people and abusing ourselves, we're moving forward. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really a whole person, but then again, even if I'm not, so what? Human beings can go through life missing huge chunks of themselves. Wholeness can mean healing, or it can mean the impossibility of change and growth.

Ron Paul and Racism: A Funny Exchange (CHOW Baby!)

This is a big debate going on right now between power-bloggers David Neiwert and Glenn Greenwald about whether Ron Paul is taking money from, and catering to, white supremacist groups.

I skimmed some commentary about the debate but I can't claim to be all that knowledgeable about it. I might be voting in the Republican primary (we're allowed to do that here in Georgia) just to try and get someone elected who turns out to be easier for the Democratic candidate to beat. So I have sort of an interest in the topic, but not enough to really delve deeply into it.

As I was skimming, I ran across a hilarious and biting exchange in the 349+ comment section at Orcinus. Maybe you'll find it funny too. It gave me some much-needed comic relief.

Why don't you Ron Paul haters out there admit it....Just stop trying to put a cute twist on it and come out with it .You hate traditional America and everything it was built upon, (including the evil white men who made it) and you want to build a new foreign political system more in line with your more modern, socialistic and globalist viewpoints. One where you can blame all of society's problems on some other group and distort any facts that don't pass though your filters to help you and your friends ostracize your opposition. It's become the American way, if you can't buy them off, then destroy their reputation with lies and innuendo. Judged by those standards, perhaps we Ron Paul supporters are the odd balls in society now. I'm proudly, NOT part of the sheep pen! Wes | 11.14.07 - 11:15 am | #

>>You hate traditional America and everything it was built upon, (including the evil white men who made it) and you want to build a new foreign political system more in line with your more modern, socialistic and globalist viewpoints. Hint: if you want to discredit attacks on your boy as a cryptofascist, going in and spouting standard fascist apologia about rebirth of the nation, traditional values and red-baiting isn't the best way to go about it. BlackBloc | Homepage | 11.14.07 - 11:28 am | #

including the evil white men who made the blacks and Chinese make it fixed your typo, wes L.W.M. | 11.14.07 - 11:34 am | #

I'm proudly, NOT part of the sheep pen! Wes | 11.14.07 - 11:15 am | But I thought sheep shagging was a time honored activity in traditional rural America. Seriously, if the best you can do is to pull a Limbaugh and equate the absence of support for Paul with hating "traditional" America then you are wasting your time here. It begs the question, though, that since slavery was once considered traditional then is that a tradition that we should honour and respect? Gregory | 11.14.07 - 11:35 am | #

Gregory, on the issue of slavery, I think Ron Paul would say "let the states decide." I don't see why he would treat the 13th Amendment any differently than the 1st. To do so would violate his endlessly hyped consistent "constitutionalism." Rusty Shackleford | 11.14.07 - 11:39 am | #

Wes, haven't you got it yet? *We can't go back*. There's no way to return us to the conditions of the 19th century, however much you wish it. The attempt is destroying us: that is Iraq, that is Homeland "Security". That's the whole story here; the big one which underlies fascism everywhere. *We can't go back*. All we can do is try to coerce the present into your image of the past, with ever increasing violence, until finally there is only horror and failure. Why not go forward instead? I can't promise you your dreams, but at least there's something there. Randolph Fritz | 11.14.07 - 11:40 am | #

Rusty, It seems to me that the Paulistas yearn for a mythical Golden Age in 'Mur-ka when the coin was gold, the wife was in the kitchen and the black man was happily picking cotton in the field while singing spirituals. It must have been a great time to be a white man with money. How the 21st century must suck for them... Gregory | 11.14.07 - 11:46 am | #

It seems to me that the Paulistas yearn for a mythical Golden Age in 'Mur-ka when the coin was gold, the wife was in the kitchen and the black man was happily picking cotton in the field while singing spirituals. It must have been a great time to be a white man with money. How the 21st century must suck for them... Indeed. One of the commenters on Greenwald's original post nailed it by observing that what Ron Paul really is is a Confederate. I think that's correct. Rusty Shackleford | 11.14.07 - 11:50 am | #

I don't get? Sorry...........I didn't know there was anything left to get besides the Constitution. You know, limited government, the bill of rights, keep the government out of my business and pocketbook. That "stuff". I know from reading your posts that it's not important to you people. Do what you like. I wonder though, did you ever take any basic history class in school covering the basics of American Government, not written by an ebonics instructor? Wes | 11.14.07 - 11:52 am | #

Thanks for the update, Wes. There was still a shred of doubt about your racism. Rusty Shackleford | 11.14.07 - 11:53 am | #

Wes | 11.14.07 - 11:52 am | Yes, it is obvious from the extensive use of ebonics on this thread that we are clearly commie socialists intent on destroying America by corrupting the youth. Ebonics, Wes? That is classic. Up next, "Dittoheads Gone Wild". Gregory | 11.14.07 - 12:00 pm | #

Oh no! You called me a racist!!!!!! Stop!!!!! You're giving me chills! Wes | 11.14.07 - 12:03 pm | #

As a matter of fact, your personal attacks have done nothing but prove my points. Personally I don't care what color you are....I think you are wrong and ignorant of the facts. Just my .02 cents worth. Wes | 11.14.07 - 12:07 pm | #

I have the feeling, Wes, that you're the kind of guy who thinks that anything anybody says "proves your points," whatever they are. Rusty Shackleford | 11.14.07 - 12:12 pm | #

Yeah Rusty.....some of us are blessed that way. Well I'm off to spread the message to others while there is still time. Keep the faith! Chow BABY! Wes | 11.14.07 - 12:19 pm | #

Wes, Please continue to spread the Paul message. I cannot think of a better spokesman. Gregory | 11.14.07 - 12:21 pm | #

I agree with Gregory. Wes, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being the public face of Ron Paul's supporters. Rusty Shackleford | 11.14.07 - 12:22 pm | #

Update and Link to a Post about Social Workers

I've been superbusy recently. I'm working on a family website project involving full installation of a PHP content management system, developing a job-hunt training seminar for a volunteer project and guest blogging at Rachel's Tavern. My workload should die down in a little bit.

I was really wrapped up in the story going on at Foster Parent Maze. If you're one of my readers you've probably been reading over there as well. The problems they had with the lying social worker really touched a nerve with me, since I was lied to as well... although the consequences in my case were much, much lighter. Anyway, thank goodness they have a reprieve.

Also, here's a great new post from Larry at Reflections of a Foster Youth: What Foster Parents Wish Social/Care Workers Knew & Did.

I know there are many good social workers out there. Unfortunately, it seems like the system is rigged to burn out the good ones and float along the bad ones. The situation seems very much like that of public school teachers in poorer districts. There is no easy answer: improvements absolutely have to increase both accountability and stability at the same time.

Prosperity Gospel Con Artists in Hot Water

I wrote about these hustlers here and here. I was reminded of these posts because I just got a critical comment from a prosperity gospel advocate that happened to surf in. First of all, Xavier, if you check back here... I'm only a casual critic and not even Christian. But there are many, many Christians, including reverends and theologians, who know their bibles backwards and forwards and believe the prosperity gospel is a poisonous lie*. PLEASE open your mind and use logic to consider some of their criticisms, and send some of that 10%+ you are tithing somewhere it will do good, like to Mexico flood evacuees or charities here in the U.S., because right now it is going STRAIGHT to your preacher's swollen bankroll where he or she spends it on a pile of ridiculous bling. I am truly sorry you are being taken advantage of and hope you will be able to change your mind and switch your current "ATM deposit building" for a real church.

I'm also hoping the switch will be sooner rather than later, because a bunch of these people might be going down, and it could start to get embarrassing.

Senate member seeks financial records of Atlanta megachurches
New Birth, World Changers asked to provide details of spending

By CHRISTOPHER QUINN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/06/07

The gospel message that links God with dollars has been called to judgment before a powerful U.S. senator.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters requesting detailed financial documents to two metro Atlanta preachers and four other ministries nationwide whose leaders are known for opulent, or as the ministers would say, blessed, lifestyles.

Dr. Creflo Dollar, left, and Bishop Eddie Long, right, take communion together in a joint service at Phillips Arena in 2001. The men lead two of Atlanta's largest churches.

Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and has developed a reputation for demanding financial transparency from non-profits.

He wants to know how much Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia and the Rev. Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International in College Park make, how their church-issued credit cards are managed and how many cars, planes and foreign bank accounts they own. He has asked for information on the ministries' boards, business relationships and associated organizations.

"I'm following up on complaints from the public and news coverage regarding certain practices at six ministries," Grassley said in a press release.

The other ministers are the Rev. Benny Hinn, based in Grapevine, Texas; David and Joyce Meyer, Fenton, Mo.; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Newark, Texas, and Randy and Paula White, Tampa, Fla. All are well known in the evangelical religious broadcasting world. They are also known for preaching that financial blessings are part of Christian life.

[...]

In 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a story that looked into Long's founding of a charity that paid the minister more than $3 million over a 3-year period, bought him a $1.4 million house and paid for the use of a $350,000 Bentley car.

Grassley's letter to the Dollars mentions information that Dollar tried to raise $1 million from other minister to give to Kenneth and Gloria Copeland for a celebration of their 40th year of ministry and that Dollar's ministries gave more than $500,000 to them.

Kozeny said, "Some of the accounts were of particular concern about lack of transparency, about how [the ministries] spend millions while you have it all exempted from federal taxes."

*From BIBLE CITATIONS OF CRITICS
Critics of prosperity gospel point to the following passages:
• 1 Timothy 6:7-10 -- "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
• Matthew 6:19-21 -- "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. ... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
• Luke 18:22-25 -- "Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. … How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
• Revelation 3:14-17 -- "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."

Floods in Mexico

Million people hit as Mexico flood waters continue to rise

From: Me
To: Hank Johnson
Subject: International Relations
Via: http://hankjohnson.house.gov/contact_hank_write.shtml

I am writing as your constituent to ask that you work to provide urgent aid to the Mexican state of Tabasco.

I have not heard anything in the news yet about our response to the devastating floods affecting the state of Tabasco. 80% of the state is underwater and 300,000 people need to be evacuated before further rain hits. I hope Congress is working on efforts and coordinating with the Mexican government to assist in evacuating these people and sheltering the homeless.

If such efforts are not already underway, it is our duty as neighbors to initiate them. Mexico immediately sent an aid convoy in response to Hurricane Katrina and we could do no less to aid them.

Guest Blog Gig

I've been invited to guest blog at Rachel's Tavern for November. Whoo hoo! I'll be posting some stuff from my archives over there, as well as original racial analysis and commentary.

No other big news, except that the diamond dove chicks have moved out now. We'll visit them this weekend. Georgia is still dry, and ruled by idiots. Happy Halloween!

Thick as a Whale Omelette

Regular readers here know I've written a fair amount about the racist bullying I experienced as a child.

Well, I was just in a discussion over at American Family's about diversity and school choice. Some Asian parents discount diversity because academic excellence is such a high priority, so this idea of sacrifice and the importance of not being the only one or two of "your kind" was developed further in the comments. The commenter group was diverse, including a woman who discussed her experiences growing up as a blind person and how her identity issues compared to racial identity issues, a topic which I found quite interesting.

Then there were a couple bad apples. The most irritating one was a commenter called mccxxiii.

This comment puzzles me:

“by default, American society teaches Asian kids that they are weird, bad and freakish.”

Um... no. By default American society teaches Asian kids that they are super-smart and good at math and science. That has nothing to do with weird, bad and freakish. That’s, like, the polar opposite.

If you want to talk horrid stereotypes, the goth/theater kids are weird, the blacks and Latinos are bad (gangbanger, you know ...), and the closeted gay kids are freakish. Asian kids are the STARS... we *all* wanted to be them!!

Three thick-headed things:

1) Discounting what Asians (like me) have to say, because what do we know about being Asian.
2) Willful ignorance of the concept of "positive stereotype".
3) flat-out delusional statement about everyone wanting to be Asian.

Then in the next post mccxxiii strikes again.

I was the only kid in my class who stuttered, and kids of every race made fun of me. And it is most definitely *not* something I can just change or “make it go away”. (Should gay people just change and be straight, too? Huh?)

It will be with me for the whole of my life. It’s not the most pronounced or debilitating of any stutter in the world, but it’s enough to ensure that I spent my childhood being mocked and teased.

Talk all you want about white privilege, but I was just as sad and bewildered about that as *any* kid who was being made fun of about *anything*. Racism sucks, but it’s not the only thing in the world that sucks, and there’s no special martyr prize for anybody. We all have our crosses to bear. American society is set up to marginalize fat people, too. Should I be unpacking my backpack of skinniness while I’m at it?

Would I have wanted my parents to put me in a whole school full of stutterers so I wouldn’t feel different? I don’t know. Might have made me feel marginally better at the time, but it wouldn’t have helped me in the long run at adjusting to my difference. Certainly not enough benefit to warrant going to a “lesser” school academically.

Plus, if we had all stuttered we just would have found other things to make fun of people about. Kids are cruel. It’s a shame, but it is what it is.

Six more thick-headed things!

1) Oppression Olympics! Dripping with white resentment, they decide that racial minorities must have some special victimhood mojo. How can they get some? In this case, by stuttering.
2) Claiming that original post implies gay people can turn straight; exploiting gay people in the service of their dumbass argument
3) Lecturing everyone else about Oppression Olympics, when they were the one called the games and jumped the starting gun.
4) Condoning casual cruelty and bullying by children
5) Exploiting disabled people in the service of their dumbass argument
6) Ending their dumbass argument with an inane cliché.

Another thing that irritates me about the second post is that I also have a mild stuttering problem. It's never really slowed me down, and it goes away whenever I teach or force myself to get in front of a crowd. I also spent several years in a speech class in elementary school due to pronunciation issues. To this day, I'm suspicious of the reason why. I think it may have been just because I had an odd accent and pronounced my R's English-style instead of American-style. Anyway, I also got a fair amount of abuse for the way I talked.

But I'm not into measuring the amount of suffering, giving myself prizes for it and telling other people to shut up because they haven't suffered as much. All I want to do is talk about it, analyze it, and figure out how to keep it from happening to others. Going through what I did doesn't make me a better person. It just makes me more knowledgeable and more concerned about that particular topic.

I'm really not that knowledgeable about disability rights. However, I'm curious, and I read up on it when I can. One thing I've learned on a basic level is that there is a difference between illness and disability. I can instantly grasp that when someone has an identity as a deaf person, a blind person, an autistic person, a disabled person, that identity can become a really positive life resource and help build communities with other people. That's why I found the comment about blind identity so fascinating and thoughtful. On the other hand, comparing racial identity to an illness is just stupid and disrespectful.

Is stuttering a disability or an illness? It must depend on a lot of factors. I don't know the answer. Nevertheless, I wouldn't go to a stuttering forum or blog and say, "Wow, you think you people had it rough? Listen to what I went through, being Asian! I bet it'll make you feel like a bunch of pansies!"

Leaving the Nest Photos + A Chef Kid

There've been some exciting developments with our beautiful little parakeet-sized diamond doves.

They mated and laid two eggs shortly after moving in. The eggs were infertile and we threw them away after three weeks. They kept right on trying and got it right the second time. The eggs hatched at two weeks, Special D (dad) and Coco (mom) fed them diligently, and here are the chicks.

The family portrait. The chicks are perched on the edge of the nest, Coco is sitting high up in the grit dish, Special D is on a lower perch.

Another family portrait shot.

The two chicks. The one on the left was born larger and darker than the one on the right. The one on the right has his/her eyes closed because of the flash on the camera. It won't be possible to tell their sex until they're fully mature. Males have thicker orange eye rings than females.

You'd think this chick is bravely preparing to launch himself into his new independent life. In fact, he's a sneaky little sucker! He's already flown from the nest down to the ground, onto a perch, and back up to the nest again for his free regurgitated lunch. His parents are getting ready to have some new eggs, so there's only so long he can pull this "feed me, I'm still helpless!" trick.

We're giving the chicks away, and they're going to an outdoor enclosure to live with some ringneck doves. We can't keep them in the cage as they'd breed incestuously. The next time Special D and Coco lay eggs, we might use a form of birth control advised by a diamond dove website: replacing their eggs with plastic ones that they'll endlessly sit on. It sounds a bit cruel but I guess they don't understand the difference.

In other news, we went to an event today with some of the kids my mother and husband are tutoring. It was nice meeting the kids. I was helping to make the salad for the dinner, and a Congolese 5th-grader said he wanted to chop tomatoes. I'd heard this particular kid could be a hellraiser sometimes... but certainly not today.

I gave him some tips on chopping, because his chopping skills were frighteningly bad. Mine aren't that great, but I know to always cut away from my hand. I told him he wouldn't grow up to be a great chef if he cut off his fingers by accident! We talked about cooking for a while, and he was so enthusiastic about it. Of course he wanted to go to cooking school. He liked "Iron Chef" but his favorite show was "Hell's Kitchen". He wanted to know if Gordon Ramsay was really that mean in real life, or if it was all just for show, but I couldn't give him an answer on that one. He told me he cooked for himself a lot at home. I know the subtext for that statement could be very sad, because many of the kids in the program are parentified and take over the daily responsibilities that their parents, traumatized from fleeing war zones, can no longer deal with. Although we talked about famous chefs he clarified that his goal was very down-to-earth: chefs had good jobs and good pay, and that's why he wanted to be a chef.

I've never worked as a cook and probably won't in the future, but I do love cooking, and talking to a kid who loves cooking is a real treat.

Day in, day out, my feet are burning holes in the ground

I felt very low yesterday. Things are just not going along as they should. I got myself out of a bad mood yesterday by going to see a semi-crappy vampire movie. I'm reminding myself I have a pretty good life and a great family. I'm also a member of an eccentric blog community that includes fantastic people (some of you comment!) from whom I've learned a lot. So please keep the below laundry list of ills in perspective.

MAKING ME MAD AND BRINGING ME DOWN

-- my previous caseworker, the lying backstabber

-- my current caseworker, who never apologized for the previous one

-- The fact that we've made ONE HUNDRED INQUIRIES and have received nothing back on them, and a lot of that had to do with my previous caseworker putting inaccurate numbers in the homestudy

-- And when I ask for feedback on our corrected homestudy I can't really get anything. Maybe as new parents we're too inexperienced for the older children, and the younger children are too in demand for our homestudy to even make it to the top of the pile. If someone knows, they're not telling us. I believe we'd make a good family, a good home for so many different kinds of kids, but with every month this belief erodes.

-- That no one can tell me if my race is counting against me in the matching process, or if they do, I don't whether to believe them, because how many Asian adoptive parents in a black-dominated county in a white-dominated country are there…

-- When people tell me "there are Asian kids in the system" when there are not, or they're Alaskan Natives or Hawaiians, a TOTALLY DIFFERENT people and culture, and anyway, the Asian kids are probably "snapped up" by white parents, who for complex, depressing and racist reasons statistically prefer them over black kids.

-- Hearing parents talking about how it's perfectly OK to raise kids where they're the only minority of their type, surrounded by white kids, when that's exactly what happened to me between the ages of 6-14 and it was pretty much a nightmare hell on earth

-- How every discussion of about transracial adoption immediately turns into a discussion blaming, shaming or praising white parents, then sometimes gets turned around to discuss the actual children involved, but never makes it into a discussion of adoptive parents of color, which means I have to constantly fight against internalizing the idea that I either don't exist, am completely irrelevant, or can be mistaken for a white parent.

-- Ugly-ass geisha costumes on sale for Halloween. Dress your little girl like a yellowface ho!!

-- Hypocritical pro-adoption nativists who believe importing tons of children from other countries is great and should be subsidized while adults from those same countries who want to become Americans should be turned away at the border or their families ripped apart if they make it in and get caught.

-- People who say they are anti-adoption, then say they want to foster a teenager or support a pregnant mother in the foster care system, which is an incredible thing to help break the cycle of abuse and make sure the next generation keeps their babies, BUT they never seem to take that first tiny step of going down to the county office and signing up… maybe because it's so much easier, and cheaper, and more personally satisfying to just insult the characters and child-rearing practices of adoptive parents in online discussions.

-- The screwed-up foster care system in general, and specifically in the state of Louisiana

-- Hearing about foster parents getting insulted and persecuted by bad social workers, and not being able to complain and organize or unionize because, after all, if they're troublemakers they'll get their kids taken away and maybe put in a worse place

-- The Japanese government for pretending child welfare problems don't exist in Japan and sequestering abandoned and abused kids in institutions and denying them a chance at the college education that is even more crucial there than it is here

-- My dad for pretending adoption doesn't exist in Japan anymore, when he was my only chance to help me do the Japanese-heritage adoption I qualify for, and the only kind of international adoption I believed was right for me

-- Going through the photolistings day after day and reading the impersonal intimations of horrible pain and loss, feeling sad, feeling sorry for myself for feeling sad, then feeling weirdly guilty because however bad I feel reading and looking, it's nothing compared to LIVING it

-- Feeling inadequate when I emotionally involve myself in the subject, then feeling more depressed when I emotionally withdraw, because then the sense of forward progress and learning vanishes.

-- Thinking what I'm going through now might be much easier than going through what's to come.

-- Feeling like giving up, then feeling guilty for feeling like giving up.

Sigh... comments off. Next post I'll concentrate on something more positive.

Please let it rain today

This blog seems to be settling into a Weather->Plants->Racists!->Weather->Plants->Racists! cycle. Hopefully I will have some more adoption-related news soon.

For now, I am just watching the skies for rain. Our plants are begging for it. Our windfall water source -- the flooded basement next door -- was pumped out. It turns out the landlord really wasn't being negligent. What happened was some crackheads stole the copper piping from the basement without shutting off the water first. It has to be crackheads, since they tend to be the ones desperate and deranged enough to engage in such a high-effort, low-reward criminal activity. Despite all these problems the house has finally been rented, so I guess we'll meet our new neighbors as soon as the plumbing is fixed and they move in. I'll recommend they install an alarm system with an extra sensor on the crawlspace entry, like we already have.

I have tried to plant natives as much as possible, especially in the backyard. But even some of those are finicky. The leucothoe and mountain laurel are gasping. Our fall planting season is going to be ruined unless it rains, since I'm not going to bother planting a bunch of stuff that's just going to die off in the dry winter. We may have to write off our one camellia. Next year I'll concentrate on more drought-resistant stuff.

Japanophile Post Secret

I find the majority of Japanophiles/Wapanese to be obnoxious, personally insulting, ignorant as dirt and blatantly racist. You can see some of my "anti-geisha" posts for a mild example. There are much worse ones. Here's a forum response to the question, "Are you Wapanese?"

well, after viewing that, i'm still kinda saying yes. but i so totally understand the wigger comparison. but i don't try to be Japanese. i understand that i am white (french, british, and lebanese, to be exact). i am just a big fan of the japanese culture. and kids at my school who are Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, or any other Asian ethnicity, they dont' really embrace their culture. and i've never understood that. ever since i can remember, since i was like 4, i've been obsessed with Japanese culture. but i guess they're just like me...only opposite.

No, I am not like you, "only opposite". And that's really how they view Asian-Americans: pathetic failures who try to be white, and aren't even as good at being Asian as white people can be. If I had any sort of regard for their opinion, it would enrage me.

I also realize there is a certain pathos involved. I ran across a link to the "postcard" image below, which comes from a spin-off website of the "Post Secret" idea. It really makes me sorry for them. I'm not being sarcastic at all; I recognize their motivation and empathize. For them, Japan = escape, release, purification, metamorphosis, apotheosis.

I still don't want to have anything to do with those people. They really creep me out.

Weekend Update

Not much going on right now, folks. I was out on a business trip all last week and I'm just catching up on my regular blogs.

Today we spent all day watering plants, mulching and planting pansies. Our plants are desperate. The state of Georgia is going through a horrible drought right now, and you're not supposed to do ANY outdoor watering in our county. However, it turns out that the empty house next door has a flooded basement, so we've been scooping out their dirty but not-too-smelly water and using it to water our plants. The owner has got to fix the basement before the house can be rented, obviously, but he's being a cheap slumlord and not doing much of anything.

If the weather pattern keeps up, in about three months the city of Atlanta will be bone dry. We just won't have any water at all. This is the result of "stupid growth". I hope state politicians will finally feel a little motivation to address the issue once their toilets stop flushing.

Grill-out bragging

This is just a quick note to pat myself on the back, because I cooked a successful dinner tonight and ran our new charcoal grill very efficiently. I tried a few new things, and they all worked. Stats: All prep took place within three hours. The fresh ingredients for my dishes cost less than $40. There were 8 adults and 2 kids attending. I stuck to my diet, which still meant I was able to eat from 60% of all the dishes. Menu:

- grilled pork and red bell pepper kebabs
- grilled mild-peppery-rub chicken breasts
- very spicy ika poke (AKA Hawaiian-style squid salad) lightly grilled before tossing
- olive-oil-broiled butternut squash
- coconut rice with caramelized shallots
- marinated mushroom salad (not cooked by me)
- mango cream cake (not cooked by me)
- grilled marinated zucchini (not cooked by me)
- grilled corn on the cob
- potato salad (not cooked by me)

The temperature is perfect. We're still suffering from a drought, but it also means the mosquitos are scarce. This is an absolutely wonderful time to eat outside in Atlanta.

The Weird Hell of Honorary Whiteness

The great thing about talking about race on the internet is that people feel so much more free to express their true opinions. Of course, it's also this same thing that brings all kinds of horrifying words and ideas to the surface, and the reason why great sites like Rachel's Tavern have so many creepy trolls. It's a challenging subject, but ultimately very rewarding.

When I was young, dealing with racism threatened to dominate my life. How often have I talked about it since? Not very much. Only with a few family members and close friends... though not my father or mother. I haven't lived much around other Asian-Americans but I certainly haven't avoided them either. My best friend when I first went to an out-of-state school was Filipina. We didn't talk about it on any level other than the most superficial: "I had to deal with some stupid crap in school". "Yeah, me too." Part of it was getting the message pounded into me from all sides that it wasn't a subject anyone wanted to talk about. The rest of it was simply not wanting to appear weak or show any vulnerability.

Therefore, I'm glad I can discuss it here on my blog. I've wanted to do a continuation of my "Handling Racism as a Child" post for a while, because although I did a good job on that post, I need to take it further, relate it to the experience of others and explore some of the fallout.

I was motivated partly by a great, intensely introspective post I read at the Heart, Mind and Seoul about the author's experiences with "indirect" racism, and her thoughts on the phrase "just as good as white". The author lists many examples. Among the more indirect were jokes in her presence about black people. Some less indirect ones...

When I was in 8th grade, I was at a friend's birthday party. One girl named Julie was talking about a group of Chinese boys and ended her rant with "Freakin' chinks - what do they know?" A few people immediately looked at me, trying to gauge my reaction. Julie stammered a bit and finally said, "Ohmygosh, Paula. I didn't mean you, I mean you're not even Chinese are you? I hope you're not upset. I was totally NOT talking about you."

My experience was different. I didn't get the indirect stuff. When other kids ching-chonged and pulled their eyes, they were doing it right to my face.

At an early age, I never felt the ambiguity or nebulous fear that Paula describes in her piece. I just knew everyone was out to get me, because they were. There were some exceptions, but sometimes kids I trusted not to mess with me started hanging out with the kids who did, and then they changed.

I had the feeling from the very beginning that kids who were different, who were vulnerable like me, could be trusted more. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. Getting abuse from black and Hispanic kids... well, I'll have to save that for another interesting but very depressing post.

When I started getting older, and especially when I went to college, it was almost like stepping into the light from a dark tunnel. Random racist abuse levels dropped from daily to yearly! Wow! I knew things could get better. I'd been going to a great summer school with a lot of international students, so I'd already had a glimpse. I just didn't know it would get better so fast.

By that time I was already pretty conscious about racial issues. I didn't talk about them much, but I read and studied what I could.

And this is really where Paula's post hit home for me, because it was also the point I realized people weren't treating me that much differently from other white people. Was that good, or bad? Both, really... it was definitely confusing. Like I said, I had a "people of color" consciousness from a very early age. I'd always felt like the social world was made up of white people, and everyone else, and I was in the everyone else. Definitely a different path than some of the more common alternatives: a) not understanding why I wasn't white from an early age b) transitioning from a culture where I grew up among the majority.

Had the world really changed, or was this new acceptance a dangerous mirage? How should I think of myself now? Where was I?

Here's a figurative description of what it felt like:

Being an "honorary white" is like not receiving a formal invitation to the party, but at the last minute, another invitee says you might as well tag along.

You show up at the party and stand in the doorway, leaning against the frame. You have a drink. You'll have a great time, you tell yourself.

You notice that in the center of the room, people are dancing and having a really good time. You think about getting up moving further inside, but that might draw too much attention to yourself. Maybe they'd figure out that you don't really belong.

People walk up and talk to you. Normal, normal, normal.

You notice there are some people outside the party who can't come in, and they're glaring at your back. It makes you nervous. Maybe you should give up on the party and go outside and talk to them instead. Some of them look like nice people. But it doesn't look like they want to talk to you. And if the people inside see you talking to the people outside, they might slam the door on you.

Then someone inside the party slams the door shut on you anyway, with no warning. Damn, that hurt. Your fingers got mashed. You're outside now. CHING CHONG!

Then someone opens the door again, and you resume leaning against the doorframe, nursing your bruised fingers. You mention that someone slammed the door on you, but no one wants to talk about it.

The party continues. You're sick of it by now. But you can't just walk away... it's your job/school/life.

It's a really extreme example of how I felt about the situation. I wasn't that passive, and not even that tormented and confused, because after a certain point I made myself stop analyzing it. I had a lot of things on my mind and being in this hyper-aware state about my racial identity didn't help. After some point you just have to decide what's right and wrong, live by that, and walk away from the rest. By walking away I absolutely don't mean abdicating responsibility for social change. But it's not my responsibility to define exactly who I am and exactly where I stand at any given moment, no matter how much I myself might feel the need for that level of certainty.

That's why I like talking about these extremely uncomfortable and painful subjects. Ultimately, I find they lead to increased resolve about the need for a better and more honest future.

My caseworker could be a lot worse

I have to stop browsing tonight, because I keep reading things that make me angry... like this.

Another piece of the puzzle falls into place

I've often wondered why there are not more Chinese-American adoptive parent bloggers. In fact, I asked a well-known China adoption blogger about this, and she gave me some answers and linked to a few other Chinese heritage bloggers.

I'd like to establish that not all Chinese-American parents qualify to get expedited, as the rules are quite restrictive. Also, expediting doesn't sound terribly dramatic. If a non-expedited parent waits two years, maybe an expedited parent waits one year, or a year and a half.

This is just to give you some background on a very disturbing thing I stumbled on tonight. It's on the front page blog of a very large China adoption forum. It's sick, sad and racist... not the post itself, but the fact someone felt it was necessary to include the note at the end of paragraph.

http://chinaadopttalk.com/2007/10/03/notes-from-this-batch-2/
[...]
One thing to note, there seemed to be a bigger batch of expedite referrals this month than we’ve seen in a while. I’m guessing that there were between 30 and 50 expedited families referred in this batch. Still a very small batch, but at least maybe it’s not almost a tie with the smallest batch ever (yeah yeah, I know, in recent history, not ever). And, as a side note - I saw a lot of questions about expedites, so I’ll answer now that if one prospective parent was born in China (or if both parents of a prospective parent were born in China, and you can prove that, which often is not possible) then the CCAA expedites that family’s file. You usually don’t see any blogs listed of people who are expedited because oftentimes the adoption community says mean things to them. So please let these families bask in the joy of their new referrals without saying anything nasty to them in the comments. They followed the rules and didn’t do anything shady and I am happy for them.

So it's a preemptive defense against those out there -- and apparently they are somewhat numerous -- who are mad because Chinese-Americans are getting Chinese babies faster than they are.

It makes me so glad I am not a part of that community. Ugh! I feel like I need to take a shower now.

Great Immigration Proposal: Transnational Unions

Not much going on right now on the personal or adoption front. I'm on Day 4 of the South Beach diet, though. I have to say, the name always put me off. Having lived in Miami slightly before South Beach got all glammed up, I've associated "South Beach" with good coffee and cheap, fatty Cuban sandwiches. After looking into it, I really like the healthy eating principles, and it seems very balanced. I can have miso soup with tofu for breakfast! Cutting out rice has been really tough, but I'll get to add it back in small amounts later on. I'm just looking to lose the bit of weight I put on after quitting smoking two years ago.

I read this short article about immigration a week ago, and it's been on my mind recently so I'd like to share it. The interim proposal for immigration is fantastic and it's very much along the lines of what I've been vaguely thinking ought to be done.

Ultimately, I'm an open borders radical. If a US company is allowed, and actually required, to make denim jeans in a factory in Mexico, where they pay workers less, why aren't those same workers allowed to move to the US and do a similar job for more money? The border is a joke... for corporations. For human beings it's very real and even deadly. If the corporation is allowed to travel to where the labor is cheaper, the labor chould be allowed to travel to where the corporations pay more. I also believe in eliminating all the legal indentured servitude visas... the H1-Bs and H2-As.

Unfortunately most Americans aren't prepared to accept this concept. We have to get to a more just system slowly, and by many steps. Here's one great step! It's called transnational unions. I'm thinking about buying the book referred to in the article.

NY Times
September 30, 2007
Worker Solidarity Doesn’t Have to Stop at the Rio Grande
By LAWRENCE DOWNES

Comprehensive immigration reform was supposed to overcome the debate’s dead-end disagreements — It’s amnesty! No, it’s not! — by tackling multiple problems at once. It failed, miserably, twice in two years. Congress tiptoed back to the battlefield this month with a modest attempt to legalize some immigrant children who go to college or serve in the military. That failed too. Federal agents, meanwhile, have been feverishly raiding immigrants’ homes, taking parents away in the dead of night. The illegal population has not left the country yet, but it is terrified.

And yet for all that, the country is still no closer to figuring out how to handle the stream of workers over its borders, or how to be a global fortress when it is already a global magnet. What we need is a better debate.

Jennifer Gordon, a professor at Fordham Law School who won a MacArthur award for her work with immigrant laborers, is offering one. In a recent article she presents a compelling way out of one of immigration’s trickiest riddles: how to manage the immigrant flow in a way that is realistic, workable and fair to both newcomers and to native-born Americans.

Sealing them all out is impossible, throwing the border open unthinkable. Creating a permanent underclass of guest workers has a long, nasty history.

The challenge is to build institutions that conform to reality but lessen its ill effects. “We can’t revert to the fantasy that we can just turn the tap off,” Professor Gordon said. “We have to engage with the question, not abdicate the debate to restrictionists on the one hand and a corporate-designed guest worker program on the other.”

In “Transnational Labor Citizenship,” published last spring in the Southern California Law Review, Professor Gordon offers a new way to structure labor migration.

Her proposal would link the right to immigrate not to a job offer from an employer but to membership in a cross-border worker organization — a kind of transnational union. Migrants could work here legally, but only after agreeing not to undercut other workers by accepting substandard pay or job conditions. The organizations would enforce the agreement and protect members’ rights here and in their home countries.

The goal, she says, is “to bring up the bottom, not by shutting immigrants out, but by organizing them before they come.” Workers who follow the rules would become “transnational labor citizens” — supporting their families and the American economy while offering a powerful check on under-the-table exploitation.

Professor Gordon readily acknowledges the implausibility of winning that One Big Union on a continental scale. But persuasive precedents for her approach exist. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee, an agricultural workers’ union, signed a contract in 2004 to protect thousands of Mexican guest workers in North Carolina. In 2005, it opened an office in Monterrey, Mexico, to further its organizing efforts and defend its members from abusive recruiters there.

Last year, the United Farm Workers and Global Horizons, one of the largest suppliers of agricultural guest workers, signed the first nationwide contract covering immigrants. It provides employer-paid medical care, a seniority system and a grievance procedure to ensure that employers comply with the law.

Doubters will insist that it is crazy to expect immigrants to risk their meager paychecks to defend their rights and abstract notions of worker solidarity.

But they have already shown that they will. Professor Gordon won her genius grant after creating the Workplace Project, an organization of Latino immigrants on Long Island that uses its members’ collective power to regain withheld or stolen wages. Worker centers like it around the country are providing a surge of energy and optimism to the labor movement. Latino day laborers, organizing themselves at hiring corners around the country, are putting a floor on wages and thwarting abusive employers.

That’s why John Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., went to the annual convention of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network in Silver Spring, Md., in August and lauded their shared struggle.

The heart of Professor Gordon’s proposal is the insight that we can enlist immigrants themselves in upholding the lawfulness and high standards we hold dear. An immigrant worker who is unafraid is better than one who is vulnerable and easily abused.

As she sees it, politicians who so bitterly oppose day-laborer hiring sites and other attempts to regularize the underground economy are unwittingly enabling the exploitation and lawlessness they profess to oppose. The “transnational labor citizens” Professor Gordon envisions, on the other hand, would uphold American working standards as they assert and defend their own.