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    26

    Riane Eisler Comes to Portland - Real Wealth of Nations

    Filed Under books, capitalism, class, events, heteropatriarchy, local, people, workshops | Leave a Comment

    I agreed to serve as moderator at Riane Eisler’s presentation on her book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics. Dr. Eisler is best known for writing The Chalice and the Blade, and having been an influence on David Korten, author of The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

    Dr. Eisler’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion featuring four Portlanders who are working in areas related to children, sustainability, food, and local currency. We’ll be looking at how to create and support a “sharing and caring” economy in which meaningful work, families, health, and the environment are priorities - not afterthoughts.

    The event will be held at First Unitarian Church (SW 12th and Main) in downtown Portland at 7pm on Friday, October 26, 2007. Co-sponsors include KBOO community radio. Tickets will be sliding scale, $5-$20 - but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. Seating is limited (to about 600), so purchase your ticket today!

    Click below for a link to pay using PayPal, your debit/credit card or checking account.

    A little background information: Real Wealth of Portland was organized by several local women, namely Marcia Meyers and Pat Osborn, who both attend First Unitarian Church. They started a small group, which expanded to include me (Hafidha), Andrea Drury, Celeste Howard, Kimberly Ford, and Judy Bennett. The group has been meeting weekly since the first week of August to strategize ways to organize book groups, and foment a caring and sharing revolution in Portland. Marcia’s been indispensable; she has helped to coordinate bringing both Dr. Korten and Dr. Eisler to General Assembly in the past.

    For more information, questions or comments, please visit realwealthpdx.com or email realwealthpdx@adrury.com

    Click here to buy tickets!


    Popularity: 39% [?]

    Sep

    21

    Thoughts on Jena Six and Growing Up Black

    Filed Under anecdotes, current affairs, from the heart, race, sadness, small happinesses | 6 Comments

    I’m grateful that so many UUs have mobilized themselves to address the immediate situation of the Jena Six, while also calling attention to the underlying racial and class prejudices of the criminal “justice” system. It’s been amazing to witness the growth of awareness - among white folks, among very young people, and even in the news.

    Where my emotions get all mixed up is hearing people express incredulity that this could be happening - in 2007. To me and many other black people there is nothing shocking about this; it’s business as usual. Fifteen years ago, post-Rodney King riots/uprising, while watching an evening news commentary of racial relations, the newscaster (it may have been Peter Jennings) took me by surprise by saying, (paraphrase) “It may come as a shock to many of tonight’s viewers, but some African Americans actually believe there is a conspiracy to destroy black men in this country.”

    Upon hearing this I sat up straight. What did he mean “actually believe?” As if it weren’t true! For me it was always just true. Being raised by black parents - one who grew up poor in the South, participated in sit-ins and experienced his high school being integrated; the other who grew up in NYC during the 1970s - there were just things you were taught about the world. Living in Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, and (later) a primarily black suburb in Long Island meant that my formative years were spent with black people, learning to see things through the eyes of black people. Until I was twelve years old, white people lived on tv and in books and sometimes at my school(s) - probably much the same way black people exist for many young white children.

    Even after almost two decades of living in white communities, attending a white church, associating with mostly white people, and attempting on many levels to “move beyond” race, and see people as individuals, I can’t get away from the fact that there is little justice for black men in this country. I never learned to expect it. What I learned is that you will be outraged, and outraged and outraged again. You will see people’s eyes roll sideways as they suspect you of paranoia. Although I do anti-racism workshops, sometimes I just feel at a loss for how to make them understand. Yes, this is wrong. yes, I wonder how this could happen - all the time! It is always there, weighing on us.

    What makes me sad is that even with all of the outward pressure currently bearing down on the authorities responsible for “the Jena 6,” it is still a battle for these young men’s lives. Why such a battle? Why is it so easy to lock them up as if their lives were nothing?

    Years ago, when one of my brothers was having conflicts with teachers at school, one of his (white) teachers took my mom aside and told her (paraphrase), “When I look at your son, I see myself at his age. I understand what he’s going through. He’s just a kid. The problem here is that when other teachers look at him, they can’t see themselves in him (because he’s black).”

    When it comes to race relations, sometimes my faith flags. I’m still a humanist; I believe we can work this out, that there are enough people willing to do the hard work of opening their eyes, examining themselves, and challenging each other to create justice and peace. I’m glad that for some folks, this is new, galvanizing, or makes them angry. In this moment, I feel none of these.

    related posts:
    Not So Random Feelings on Race
    What is the Value of Young Black Men in Our Society?

    Popularity: 31% [?]

    Sep

    21

    Head on Backwards

    Filed Under humor, lil things, small happinesses | 2 Comments

    Today I went to the chiropractor. Last week I sat up in bed and suddenly got … stuck. This has been happening about twice a year ever since I almost broke my neck trying to clear a clogged gutter while standing on a folding chair. Don’t do that (esp. when the chair isn’t completely unfolded). But this week the pain’s been more severe than usual … and lingering.

    Finally I made an appointment with my dad’s chiropractor, and he took x-rays of my upper back and neck. I didn’t even know chiropractors did that! (Sometimes I forget they are actual doctors; must’ve learned about them at the same time as acupuncturists because I always associate the two.) Anyway, enough tangents! The point is:

    My neck is inside out. Or, if you prefer, my head is on backwards.

    I am not lying! (Exaggerating, maybe, but only a little.) I saw the x-rays! One’s neck is supposed to bend forward, but mine is inverted! How the hell did that happen? My first impulse was to blame it on the LH, but couldn’t figure out how to pin it on him (yet). But my neck being inside out certainly explains my very stiff shoulders, and also why it hurts to turn my head very far to the left or right. The doc displayed more high tech gadgetry when he sat me down in a chair hooked up to a machine called the ProAdjuster. No bone-cracking twister-ifics today - he simply put some device that looked like a price scanner on my neck which made a POP POP POP noise. But it felt like it wasn’t doing anything (just being a chunk of plastic). He did that on my neck, my shoulders, and down my spine. Thirty seconds later it was all done. Supposedly this will get my head on straight.

    It’s magic!

    Maybe I need to get out more; this was way, way too exciting an experience for someone in her (very) early 30s.

    Popularity: 18% [?]

    Sep

    20

    Apple Just Does It Better

    Filed Under being creative, lil things, small happinesses | 1 Comment

    Wow. A word processing program that differentiates between letters and fliers. Spreadsheets that recognize people use databases to organize all kinds of information, not just formulas. And in both you can drag and drop. Point and click. Add photos. Make checklists. Advertise garage sales.

    I love Apple software. Two years after going back to Macs (following ten years of serial monogamy with PCs) I’m still learning about Apple’s handy programs. Sometimes I’ll be sitting in my office feeling sad because I can’t get the chores checklist or the book club flier to look right. Then my knight with shining gadgetry swoops in and declares, “Whatever are you using Office for? You should be using iWork!” And voila - there it is: in full color! Amazing! With wonderful templates to start from. I can’t believe it!

    If we ever get a dog, we definitely must name it Mac.

    One of iWorks Numbers templates

    This ain’t your granddaddy’s spreadsheet. A usable template from Numbers - iWork’s better-than-equivalent to Excel.

    Popularity: 17% [?]

    Sep

    12

    Parents Just Don’t Understand

    Filed Under heteropatriarchy, movies, people, pop culture, questions | 4 Comments

    Yesterday the theme of parenting reoccurred throughout the day. At lunch with my grandmother, the issue of spanking came up; and while watching The Last Mimzy it became overwhelmingly apparent how typical it is for parents to not listen to their children.

    During lunch, my grandmother spoke about how she got spanked more than her sister because, as the oldest child, she was expected to know better. She still believes in spanking, and tends to equate spanking with discipline: Parents who don’t spank their kids are letting their kids run wild; some kids need to be spanked more because they’re bad/hard-headed, and so on. At one point she admitted that she probably didn’t benefit from spanking, but she still thought it was the right thing to do.

    When the LH told my grandmother that he’d never been spanked by his parents, she said, “Wow. You must have been an angel.” He laughed and said he had most certainly not been an angel. But his parents were the “hippie” parents who sent the kids to their room to calm down, and then talked about what had happened; the kids even had input into what their punishment would be! And both kids and parents were expected to apologize to each other if they’d been disrespectful in any way. A consequence of this is that the LH and his brother actually liked and got along with their parents when they were teenagers. Unlike most of their friends, they didn’t feel the need to lie, and they trusted their parents to be fair and reasonable.

    My grandmother thought this was pretty interesting, and shocked me by offering that, because of this, the LH and I were likely to have well-behaved children even though we weren’t going to spank them! Later, when the LH mentioned that he was raised as an atheist, she shocked me even further by agreeing that belief in God had nothing to do with whether you could raise children to be good, moral people. I swear, if I had proposed these things I would have gotten no end of argument. The LH has a way of getting my family members to agree with him on pretty radical points. Just a few weeks ago, with a few sentences, he had my religious, anti-evolution brother conceding that human beings were descended from the same ancestors as apes!

    Anyway, back to the subject of children: last night we were watching The Last Mimzy, a science fiction family movie about two siblings who find relics from the future. Weird but truly exciting things start happening to the kids, and the parents (mom in particular) get freaked out. But instead of asking the kids what’s going on, or where they found the “toys,” they become very reactionary, trying to get rid of the toys, or calling in experts. It doesn’t ever occur to them to get the full story from the children before drawing conclusions, or to take the time to observe their children’s relationships to the objects.

    Somehowthe desire to protect one’s children didn’t include being in dialog with them. Instead there was a real pattern of interrogation followed by assumption followed by decision. And it didn’t matter how the kids responded to any of these steps - that was the trajectory the parents were on.

    All of this has me thinking about how, from birth, I’ve been conditioned to ask questions, gather information, and make decisions. Often it’s just easier to make assumptions - it saves time - in the short term, but the misunderstandings can cause confusion long after the initial interaction is forgotten.

    It’s also astonishing to me how what many parents want more than anything is for their child to be normal. In Mimzy, the mom is really upset that her kids are exhibiting qualities of genius. “Something’s not right,” she says. The dad doesn’t get it at first. After all, what’s so wrong about suddenly excelling at science? But when his daughter demonstrates telekinetic abilities, he jumps onto the same page as mom: surely something is wrong with his child, and it must be examined and corrected so that she can be normal again!

    What we don’t understand is frightening, I know. But I wonder how much confusion and pain it causes when we stop listening because we think we know our children or the other people in our lives. Is it really any less than if we just admitted that we don’t?

    Popularity: 32% [?]

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