Fame
she veers from shadow to spotlight
shies from sun
not stars.
in pavement
there are holes where hands once were.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, October 13, 2008
Why Racism Still Exists
I recently received back comments on a portfolio I wrote for the Davidson Fellows award, and while I found most of the comments constructive, a few were particularly irksome. For those of you who don't know, my portfolio was entitled "The Digital Identity of Contradiction" and was about my generation's relationship with the internet and its impact on our identities. My second commenter, who I will refer to as "SHE" said two things that really bothered me.
1)" J-- consistently writes as "we," but she can't claim to speak for all American teens. That pronoun elides the huge differences between her and others her age who can't afford computers or iPods; not everyone in her generation is wired. More awareness of class issues would have strengthened "Generation?" considerably."
and 2) "Keep writing: you have a gift! But I think you need to make a conscious effort to extend your sympathy beyond your own social group. No generation is monolithic, especially not in a country as divided by income and educational inequalities as ours."
Ok, so, issues with comment #1:
At least 90% of my generation has access to the internet. The urban poor to whom SHE is referring has access to the internet via public libraries and many of them also have iPods and cellphones. This is a fact. If you've ever been to a library in the big city, you know what I'm talking about. In fact, if you've ever walked down a street in a big city, you know what I'm talking about. The 10% of my generation that doesn't have the internet would be either the rural poor- people who live in isolated areas without consistent wireless capability (and even they have the internet via public libraries and such) or urban/suburban poor who have strict parents who won't let them use the internet. Oh, and excuse me, I forgot the Amish.
So to sum up what I've said in the past paragraph, SHE is ignorant. SHE has made false generalizations about the group she thinks of as poor (aka black and hispanic urban youth) and has not bothered to actually learn about their lifestyle. In her mind, SHE has "otherized" them and assumes that they do not have the same access to information, internet, and general culture that SHE does. SHE assumes that they are different.
The other reason her comment upset me (yes, I'm a bit ticked) is that when I wrote my portfolio, I spent a lot of time thinking about class issues, and tried to pick things to talk about that weren't class-specific, such as iTunes and High School Musical. However, because SHE assumes that I am from a background similar to hers, she believes that my culture could not possibly be relevant to the culture of the "poor."
Issues with comment #2:
SHE says that I "need to make a conscious effort to extend my sympathy beyond my social group."
My social group? SHE's never met me. SHE knows nothing about me except my name, age, and where I'm from. How can SHE know my social group?
I'll tell you how. SHE has assumed that since I write well, am applying for a prestigious national award, and have a fairly generic last name, I must be white, upper-middle class, and live in a fairly isolated bubble of other white, upper-middle class teenagers.
Basically, SHE, meaning to help a naive rich white girl expand her horizons, exposed her own bias by assuming that I'm a naive rich white girl. The only thing SHE had to judge off of as far as who I am was my writing, and because I wrote well (and to a certain extent because I wrote about technology) SHE assumed that I must be white and well-off because in her mind, a black kid from the inner city wouldn't be able to write a 75 page portfolio about her generation. A Hispanic kid from the middle of nowhere wouldn't be able to compete for a prestigious scholarship. She's smart? Oh, she must be white and loaded.
Side note: I bet you ten bucks that if I'd had a really obvious ethnic name she wouldn't have written about my "social group" or called me "a talented writer, who hasn't yet risen above her own small pond." What does she know about the size of my pond??
So, back to relating this to the title. Racism still exists because of ignorance, which leads to blind assumptions, and ultimately otherization. Ignorance causes people to otherize groups, usually based on class, but often based on race. Examples: "Black people only listen to hip-hop, what could they have in common with me?", "Asians like math and rice, how can I relate", or, most damaging of all "The poor people in the ghetto live on welfare, with food stamps, and in the projects. I feel so sorry for them and their lives are so awful. I should help them by giving them clothes and toys and computers or whatever else they need."
The problem with the third statement is that it sets up the poor as the receivers and you as the giver. You always give. They always recieve. Nowhere in there is there an exchange of ideas or a willingness on your part to recognize the equality and humanity of the group you qualify as the receivers. You turn your charity into us vs. them. And they know it, even when you don't.
And because you have otherized a certain group, you are then incapable of seeing commonalities when they're staring you in the face. You assume that since a person belongs to that group, they can't have anything in common with you, and that the only people who have things in common with you are....you. That's why Joe Biden called Barack Obama "articulate" during primary season- he was (subconciously) surprised that someone like Obama could be reasonably well-spoken, and thus pointed out a quality of Obama's that should have been a tacit commonality. Within the group of people known as politicians, it is assumed that everyone is able to speak in coherent, reasonably persuasive sentences, but since Biden had otherized Obama, he was unable to recognize the commonality of articulateness, and thus decided to point it out as a positive abnormality.
I guess what I'm trying to get across in my inarticulate sort of way is that racism/classism/sexism still exists, despite the liberal agenda of helping the oppressed, and because of the liberal agenda of helping the oppressed. The liberal bias (exhibited so blantantly by SHE) otherizes the group they feel is oppressed because by defining a group as "oppressed" they inevitably define themselves as "not-oppressed", and thus in some intangible way (or often tangible) different from the "oppressed."
The alternative? Getting rid of us versus them. Don't help "them". Help your neighbors. Help people. Help America. Help the world. Help "us".
1)" J-- consistently writes as "we," but she can't claim to speak for all American teens. That pronoun elides the huge differences between her and others her age who can't afford computers or iPods; not everyone in her generation is wired. More awareness of class issues would have strengthened "Generation?" considerably."
and 2) "Keep writing: you have a gift! But I think you need to make a conscious effort to extend your sympathy beyond your own social group. No generation is monolithic, especially not in a country as divided by income and educational inequalities as ours."
Ok, so, issues with comment #1:
At least 90% of my generation has access to the internet. The urban poor to whom SHE is referring has access to the internet via public libraries and many of them also have iPods and cellphones. This is a fact. If you've ever been to a library in the big city, you know what I'm talking about. In fact, if you've ever walked down a street in a big city, you know what I'm talking about. The 10% of my generation that doesn't have the internet would be either the rural poor- people who live in isolated areas without consistent wireless capability (and even they have the internet via public libraries and such) or urban/suburban poor who have strict parents who won't let them use the internet. Oh, and excuse me, I forgot the Amish.
So to sum up what I've said in the past paragraph, SHE is ignorant. SHE has made false generalizations about the group she thinks of as poor (aka black and hispanic urban youth) and has not bothered to actually learn about their lifestyle. In her mind, SHE has "otherized" them and assumes that they do not have the same access to information, internet, and general culture that SHE does. SHE assumes that they are different.
The other reason her comment upset me (yes, I'm a bit ticked) is that when I wrote my portfolio, I spent a lot of time thinking about class issues, and tried to pick things to talk about that weren't class-specific, such as iTunes and High School Musical. However, because SHE assumes that I am from a background similar to hers, she believes that my culture could not possibly be relevant to the culture of the "poor."
Issues with comment #2:
SHE says that I "need to make a conscious effort to extend my sympathy beyond my social group."
My social group? SHE's never met me. SHE knows nothing about me except my name, age, and where I'm from. How can SHE know my social group?
I'll tell you how. SHE has assumed that since I write well, am applying for a prestigious national award, and have a fairly generic last name, I must be white, upper-middle class, and live in a fairly isolated bubble of other white, upper-middle class teenagers.
Basically, SHE, meaning to help a naive rich white girl expand her horizons, exposed her own bias by assuming that I'm a naive rich white girl. The only thing SHE had to judge off of as far as who I am was my writing, and because I wrote well (and to a certain extent because I wrote about technology) SHE assumed that I must be white and well-off because in her mind, a black kid from the inner city wouldn't be able to write a 75 page portfolio about her generation. A Hispanic kid from the middle of nowhere wouldn't be able to compete for a prestigious scholarship. She's smart? Oh, she must be white and loaded.
Side note: I bet you ten bucks that if I'd had a really obvious ethnic name she wouldn't have written about my "social group" or called me "a talented writer, who hasn't yet risen above her own small pond." What does she know about the size of my pond??
So, back to relating this to the title. Racism still exists because of ignorance, which leads to blind assumptions, and ultimately otherization. Ignorance causes people to otherize groups, usually based on class, but often based on race. Examples: "Black people only listen to hip-hop, what could they have in common with me?", "Asians like math and rice, how can I relate", or, most damaging of all "The poor people in the ghetto live on welfare, with food stamps, and in the projects. I feel so sorry for them and their lives are so awful. I should help them by giving them clothes and toys and computers or whatever else they need."
The problem with the third statement is that it sets up the poor as the receivers and you as the giver. You always give. They always recieve. Nowhere in there is there an exchange of ideas or a willingness on your part to recognize the equality and humanity of the group you qualify as the receivers. You turn your charity into us vs. them. And they know it, even when you don't.
And because you have otherized a certain group, you are then incapable of seeing commonalities when they're staring you in the face. You assume that since a person belongs to that group, they can't have anything in common with you, and that the only people who have things in common with you are....you. That's why Joe Biden called Barack Obama "articulate" during primary season- he was (subconciously) surprised that someone like Obama could be reasonably well-spoken, and thus pointed out a quality of Obama's that should have been a tacit commonality. Within the group of people known as politicians, it is assumed that everyone is able to speak in coherent, reasonably persuasive sentences, but since Biden had otherized Obama, he was unable to recognize the commonality of articulateness, and thus decided to point it out as a positive abnormality.
I guess what I'm trying to get across in my inarticulate sort of way is that racism/classism/sexism still exists, despite the liberal agenda of helping the oppressed, and because of the liberal agenda of helping the oppressed. The liberal bias (exhibited so blantantly by SHE) otherizes the group they feel is oppressed because by defining a group as "oppressed" they inevitably define themselves as "not-oppressed", and thus in some intangible way (or often tangible) different from the "oppressed."
The alternative? Getting rid of us versus them. Don't help "them". Help your neighbors. Help people. Help America. Help the world. Help "us".
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The center cannot hold.
We live in a time of virgins and whores, anorexia and obesity, creationists and atheists, and... Republicans and Democrats.
Where is the center?
We spend so much time worrying about terrorist extremists attacking our nation, but the real danger isn't from them. It's from us. The extremists we should be worrying about are the ones next door, on the nets, down the street, in the newspaper, one county over, on tv, one state up, in the movies. On Capitol Hill.
These are the men and women who will bring our nation down with their petty speeches and futile disputes that get us nowhere except....nope, just nowhere. Because they have to fight every inch of the way. We're either eating too much or too little. We're too rich or too poor. We're opiated masses or eternally damned, sluts or prudes, freely willed or predestined.
We can't ever be both.
Can't we ever be both?
I'm coming out. I'm a member of a rare, if not extinct species.
We're called moderates, and we're less popular than George W. Bush. Probably. We confuse people because we can't ever just agree or disagree, we have to compromise and explain and think, occasionally.
Thinking can be hard.
I am a moderate. I believe in monogamy, exercise, and moderate politicians, if they exist. I don't believe in free will or determinism, creationism or atheism, or anything else that's painted as black and white.
I see in color.
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold"- William Butler Yeats.
America is falling apart. I pray the center will hold.
Where is the center?
We spend so much time worrying about terrorist extremists attacking our nation, but the real danger isn't from them. It's from us. The extremists we should be worrying about are the ones next door, on the nets, down the street, in the newspaper, one county over, on tv, one state up, in the movies. On Capitol Hill.
These are the men and women who will bring our nation down with their petty speeches and futile disputes that get us nowhere except....nope, just nowhere. Because they have to fight every inch of the way. We're either eating too much or too little. We're too rich or too poor. We're opiated masses or eternally damned, sluts or prudes, freely willed or predestined.
We can't ever be both.
Can't we ever be both?
I'm coming out. I'm a member of a rare, if not extinct species.
We're called moderates, and we're less popular than George W. Bush. Probably. We confuse people because we can't ever just agree or disagree, we have to compromise and explain and think, occasionally.
Thinking can be hard.
I am a moderate. I believe in monogamy, exercise, and moderate politicians, if they exist. I don't believe in free will or determinism, creationism or atheism, or anything else that's painted as black and white.
I see in color.
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold"- William Butler Yeats.
America is falling apart. I pray the center will hold.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
What I've been doing for the past 2 months...
I don't feel like writing essays these days (namely today, yesterday, and the past two months I spent polishing my 75 page Davidson Fellows portfolio), so I thought I would share a few odds n ends that have been bopping about, some of which are quite old.
I will get back to writing real posts when I've found something to write about.
I will get back to writing real posts when I've found something to write about.
A Letter to the Media (Summer 07)
You tell me
I am what I want to be
And then you give me
A set of rules and expectations
Then you tell me
To "let my soul fly free"
While you tie me down
With your gross generalizations
You say you're accepting
That your arms are as open as your ears
And then you envelope me in
cool boyz
kissin' girls
all as corseted as Queen Elizabeth's court
by your "bygone" boundaries of
race, wealth, and the gods you tell me don't exist.
So let me tell you something.
I don’t need you
I need truth
Without your Cheshire Cat hypocrisy
I am what I want to be
And then you give me
A set of rules and expectations
Then you tell me
To "let my soul fly free"
While you tie me down
With your gross generalizations
You say you're accepting
That your arms are as open as your ears
And then you envelope me in
cool boyz
kissin' girls
all as corseted as Queen Elizabeth's court
by your "bygone" boundaries of
race, wealth, and the gods you tell me don't exist.
So let me tell you something.
I don’t need you
I need truth
Without your Cheshire Cat hypocrisy
No Smiles on Sundays (today)
I do not smile
Not because I am unhappy.
If you look
You can see the glints and gleams
That stir somewhere between my soul
And my retina.
I do not smile
Not because I am troubled.
The curve of my spine
Is not the curve of a girl
Who has ever had to bear.
I do not smile
Not because I am ugly.
I can assure you that my mouth
Is no gaping maw of rot.
I brush diligently.
No, I do not smile
Not because I am ashamed, abused, or abandoned.
I do not smile
Not because I do not want to.
I do not smile
Because I am waiting
Simply
For someone to ask me to.
Not because I am unhappy.
If you look
You can see the glints and gleams
That stir somewhere between my soul
And my retina.
I do not smile
Not because I am troubled.
The curve of my spine
Is not the curve of a girl
Who has ever had to bear.
I do not smile
Not because I am ugly.
I can assure you that my mouth
Is no gaping maw of rot.
I brush diligently.
No, I do not smile
Not because I am ashamed, abused, or abandoned.
I do not smile
Not because I do not want to.
I do not smile
Because I am waiting
Simply
For someone to ask me to.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Music in the Mainstream
Our parents fondly remember their childhood- the golden age of suburban paradise, where Beaver and his buddies frolicked from sun-up to sun-down with nary a protest from their mothers. Music came from the school of squeaky clean- so much so that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was a shocking declaration that turned many a community upside down.
Then came the Age of Free Love, where psychedelic lyrics that could mean whatever you wanted them to reigned supreme. "Afternoon Delight" was just an ice cream cone, right? There were no music videos to tell the public otherwise.
The 80s brought heavy metal and androgynous male singers to the forefront of the music movement. Lyrics were often socially charged and music was either LOUD or laughably synthesized (sometimes both!). The sole survivor of the cleaner music of the past was Billy Joel, as everyone else was busy experimenting with new instruments, sounds, and looks. "Video Killed the Radio Star" premiered on MTV. Oddly prophetic, doncha' think?
The early 90s were dominated by grunge and the beginnings of hip-hop, while the late 90s were a sensualized throwback to more innocent times- the music itself wasn't terribly offensive, but the vids were pretty provocative (coughgagBritneygagcough). Music in the mainstream wasn't terribly diversified...yet.
Somewhere around the turn of the century (or millenium, if you like) something funny happened. Everything became mainstream. The top ten albums of the (pre-Ipod) 2000s were made by the Beatles, Norah Jones, Eminem (x2) , Britney Spears, Linkin Park, N'Sync, Avril Lavigne, Usher, and Evanescence. The cleaner genres of the past came back with a vengeance, but so did bubble-gum pop, rap, hip-hop, R&B, rock, punk, and whatever you call Evanescence.
Prime example of this: Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve '07. I was sitting on the couch around midnight, listening to "the most influential artists of 2007". First came Tom Higgenson singing "Hey There Delilah", which is pretty much the sweetest, cleanest song ever written. Then came Akon, with his hit song that I unfortunately do not remember the name of, BUT I can tell you that the centerpiece of the song was "I'm a gonna F--- U, I'm a gonna F--- U" repeated over and over again. Sorry, I'm not a huge Akon fan.
The point that I'm trying to make here is, well, in what sort of crazy universe are Akon and the Plain White T's both accepted members of the mainstream? The whole point of a mainstream is that there's one MAIN style of music or clothing or whatever that dominates pop culture. Maybe there's a mainstream of heavy metal with a strong undercurrent of synth-pop, like in the 80s, but having the absolute extremes of music both in the spotlight at the same time? That's new.
I can give you a whole list of artists with virtually nothing in common that are (or were) mainstream at some point. For starters, Green Day, Usher, No Doubt, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, The White Stripes, Pink, Taylor Swife, Norah Jones, Amy Winehouse, Panic! at the Disco, etc.
I guess you can say that the music world is just mirroring what's happening in society. Extremes of obesity and anorexia, Democrat and Republican, and fundamentalist and aetheist are all parts of our generation's "mainstream".
Welcome to America.
Then came the Age of Free Love, where psychedelic lyrics that could mean whatever you wanted them to reigned supreme. "Afternoon Delight" was just an ice cream cone, right? There were no music videos to tell the public otherwise.
The 80s brought heavy metal and androgynous male singers to the forefront of the music movement. Lyrics were often socially charged and music was either LOUD or laughably synthesized (sometimes both!). The sole survivor of the cleaner music of the past was Billy Joel, as everyone else was busy experimenting with new instruments, sounds, and looks. "Video Killed the Radio Star" premiered on MTV. Oddly prophetic, doncha' think?
The early 90s were dominated by grunge and the beginnings of hip-hop, while the late 90s were a sensualized throwback to more innocent times- the music itself wasn't terribly offensive, but the vids were pretty provocative (coughgagBritneygagcough). Music in the mainstream wasn't terribly diversified...yet.
Somewhere around the turn of the century (or millenium, if you like) something funny happened. Everything became mainstream. The top ten albums of the (pre-Ipod) 2000s were made by the Beatles, Norah Jones, Eminem (x2) , Britney Spears, Linkin Park, N'Sync, Avril Lavigne, Usher, and Evanescence. The cleaner genres of the past came back with a vengeance, but so did bubble-gum pop, rap, hip-hop, R&B, rock, punk, and whatever you call Evanescence.
Prime example of this: Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve '07. I was sitting on the couch around midnight, listening to "the most influential artists of 2007". First came Tom Higgenson singing "Hey There Delilah", which is pretty much the sweetest, cleanest song ever written. Then came Akon, with his hit song that I unfortunately do not remember the name of, BUT I can tell you that the centerpiece of the song was "I'm a gonna F--- U, I'm a gonna F--- U" repeated over and over again. Sorry, I'm not a huge Akon fan.
The point that I'm trying to make here is, well, in what sort of crazy universe are Akon and the Plain White T's both accepted members of the mainstream? The whole point of a mainstream is that there's one MAIN style of music or clothing or whatever that dominates pop culture. Maybe there's a mainstream of heavy metal with a strong undercurrent of synth-pop, like in the 80s, but having the absolute extremes of music both in the spotlight at the same time? That's new.
I can give you a whole list of artists with virtually nothing in common that are (or were) mainstream at some point. For starters, Green Day, Usher, No Doubt, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, The White Stripes, Pink, Taylor Swife, Norah Jones, Amy Winehouse, Panic! at the Disco, etc.
I guess you can say that the music world is just mirroring what's happening in society. Extremes of obesity and anorexia, Democrat and Republican, and fundamentalist and aetheist are all parts of our generation's "mainstream".
Welcome to America.
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