sundries

[rm]

Last night we had a lovely dinner with friends of Patty's. Unfortunately, Patty now also has a terrible cold. Between that and being assailed by a mosquito last night, we're not as rested as we could be.

It also looks like much if not all of my upcoming corporate time in Europe may be resolved today, which is also good in terms of making plans and knowing what's going on.

Last night when I got out of the subway, Union Square was filled with sukkaths made by artists and there was a random band unrelated to that playing old time music. It was New York at its finest.

I know I'm supposed to be reading the Cyteen sequel right now, but Exciting Academic Film Text just arrived, so that's my subway reading first.

cleolinda is having a discussion about grief, mourning and character death at her journal. It is a bucket of spoilers.

Stories of the bacha posh, girls presented as boys in Afghanistan to increase a family's status and luck. Everyone knows they are girls presented as boys, but this is still better than having no boys at all. At puberty, their status reverts back to their female sex, and the change in social freedoms and expectations can be jarring.

yesthatjill is compiling a list of gluten-free products.

Offensive, but also mostly smart and very funny: stereotype-based maps of Europe from the perspective of different nations (and gay men). It mostly stays this side of taste (because it makes fun of everyone both the observer and the viewed) in each map. On the other hand, there were a few where I raised an eyebrow and said "you went there? Really?" Anyway, it is interesting.

Hey, watch out for the porny Twitter bug.

The return of the nutcracker. In this case, a drink in Harlem that's part of the underground economy. Article is both interesting and full of the New York Times being appalling in that way only the New York Times can be (sellers include "young and older women" -- er? how about "women"?)

The senate is having a vote on whether to discuss a bill that contains DADT repeal language. The outcome is unclear. The whole thing is depressing.

In reading this batch of letters in the New York Times I got thinking about how people get really freaked out by this idea of apologizing as a society or group for wrongs done. "I didn't own slaves, so why should I have to when I didn't do anything wrong?" or "I'm a guy, but I don't hate women, why should I have to deal with women mistrusting me?" Now, there's a lot of things at play in there, but aside from the obvious, one of them is about the nuance of words.

Collective apology is not the same thing as collective guilt is not the same thing as collective mandated self-hatred is not the same as individual expressing regret/remorse/apology for wrongs done by the society in which they live regardless of their level of personal complicity in them. And yet many of us, especially those of us in privileged positions tend to engage in the discussion in a way where we're obviously not seeing these distinctions. We talk a lot in these discussions about sitting down, shutting up and listening to what other people have to say; that's good stuff. Sitting down, shutting up and thinking about the nuances of words, however, can also be a big help.

Btw, when I post stuff like this it's because I've been thinking about my own impulses towards defensiveness and seeing the ways in which they don't make sense or aren't fair to other people or actively harm me as well.

Hey, can I ask you all to try to keep sizeism down in comments? It's an ongoing problem. Exercise won't make everyone thin; some skinny people just come that way; fat people aren't stupid; and a real woman isn't determined by her BMI or her genitalia. HAES, the evils of HFCS, dieting if that's your choice, eating better, our nation's increasingly sedentary lifestyle, beauty standards, etc. are, however, all welcome topics. But try to pause before you type it.

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I expect that the collective apology issue, in the US, is partly linked to our obsession with individualism; "I'm not like that group of people, not really. I mean yeah, I suppose I fit that stereotype, but I'm not like all those other people just like me! And when they do bad things, I want to make it clear that we aren't all like that and that I in particular am not like that!!"

This combined with our national personal responsibility issues means we suck at this shit. "We're Ay-murricans, that means we're free, free to do anything we want! I don'havta be responsible even for my own thoughts! I'm free to be irresponsible as sheeit!"

But I got less sleep than you did (none, here) and don't feel great either, so I may be more cynical than usual.

Do we even have a nationally recognized shame in our past that we can all agree on? Watergate? Or are they reclaiming that? I'm trying to think if there's a mechanism in our society for it, and not seeing one. There's things like "Presidential apology and some sort of reparations sixty years later", but do those things really register on the national consciousness? I'm not sure we as a nation-society have a public mechanism to admit shame and/or responsibility, apologize, and take steps to keep it from repeating. (I note with sadness that the Japanese model is starting to fail, even as I feel obliged to note that seppuku is not all that helpful unless it's figurative.)

Or is all that "I'm not ashamed of anything, america fuck yeah!" stuff a case of protesting too much, of low self-esteem resulting from failing and/or wounded national pride and status?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I expect that the collective apology issue, in the US, is partly linked to our obsession with individualism;

Undoubtedly. I think there is a lot of "You talkin' 'bout *me*?!" to go around. Some of it is probably, as you say, insecurity hiding under bluster. And good point about a lack of consensus about what we have to apologize for.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

And re: the Senate and DADT: I think Reid's rather stupid decision to allow the immigration waiver is gonna kill it. I'm hoping he may be holding that in reserve as a bargaining chip, but I think his position of allowing any not-defense-related amendments at all was a bad one. Dang, I hate riders to bills. When I'm in charge I'd like to pass something saying that riders must at least be on the same darn topic as the bill in question, and/or allow the Prez to have a limited line-item veto that only applies to riders.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

But the Dream Act is actually defense related, as those who are undocumented immigrants but were children when they got here (ie, not making the decision themselves) can apply to become citizens upon completing two years of college OR two years of military service, if this act passes. So it is related.

That said, I'm not sure they should have been combined, either. It's been an eye-opener to see supporters of DADT's repeal descend into racist anti-immigration rants, and supporters of the Dream Act get all homophobic as they each rant about having been inappropriately combined, in the same thread (not here, obviously; elsewhere)...

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

The Dream Act is only tangentially related to defense budgets, and with immigration even more screamingly insane on the Right these days than Teh Gay, it had even less chance of passing, IMO. Citizenship needs a serious overhaul anyway, not a feeble rider that only applies to a few cases. This is Harry Reid grandstanding to his pro-citizenship voter base as he clings to his job. (Don't get me wrong: I support the act, and Reid getting elected - just feel that it's sabotaging DADT and the budget in this instance.)

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Not arguing very strenuously here; I just had a bit of a reflex given how many people keep painting the Dream Act as some kind of amnesty bill (which you did not do).

And boy do I hear you about wishing that riders didn't exist, that bills stayed on their one topic and didn't get weighed down with so much extra that congresscritters literally can't -- however much some of the might want to -- read and go thru the bills carefully before having to vote on them.

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

"•Hey, can I ask you all to try to keep sizeism down in comments? It's an ongoing problem. Exercise won't make everyone thin; some skinny people just come that way; fat people aren't stupid; and a real woman isn't determined by her BMI or her genitalia. HAES, the evils of HFCS, dieting if that's your choice, eating better, our nation's increasingly sedentary lifestyle, beauty standards, etc. are, however, all welcome topics. But try to pause before you type it."

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you.

[alt_universe_me.livejournal.com]

So, I read "keep sizeism down in comments" and my brain immediately thought "Are my comments too long?" Then I read the rest of the paragraph, and facepalmed.


signed,
my brain on 4 hours of sleep

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

See, I'm resisting the temptation to post this in 50pt font :D

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I read the bacha posh story last night and knew you'd link!

Really interesting and highly depressing at the same time.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

The bacha posh practice is absolutely fascinating, for more reasons than I can count. I wonder if there is any fiction that centers around this phenomenon?

(If anyone reading the comments knows of any, please let me know!)

[mithrigil.livejournal.com]

Thanks to those maps, "Twinkreich" is now the funniest word ever.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd link to the Bacha Posh story.

Regarding DADT, did you catch Lady Gaga's speech (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/20/gaga.gays.military/index.html?hpt=C2)?

Aww man, those maps of Europe are freakin' awesome! Hilarious! The USA one is particularly scathing. In a bout of pure Narcissism, I was happy to see my own little land in the first map :)

[kayleigh-jane.livejournal.com]

That map is awesome; we are either Sodom or some type of drug!

On collective apology; our crown-prince apologised for the Dutch people for their role in the slave trade. I think he was right to do so; we do still call that time our 'Golden Age', our time of wealth based on the blood and suffering of innocents. This should be, and has been, aknowledged by the apology. It should still be aknowledged; I may not carry the direct guilt, but I do profit in some way from the actions of my forebears. Thus, as their descendant, I do believe I carry some of the indirect guild.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

See now, that's the interesting point. I used to be all, why do *I* have to apologize, as well (re slavery in the US, internment camps for the Japanese-Americans in California), until I realized that I DID benefit from these -- that the historical past has shaped a present in which I am privileged: white people being on average more wealthy and educated; owning more of the land in California than otherwise (a good deal of farming property was seized during the internments). I did nothing to cause the slavery/internment; obviously since I was never alive, but I benefit from it, here and now. History doesn't fade away and disappear, it peeks out in every crevice of the shape of the present.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I think there's a difference also between long-past events and ongoing or recent ones, and whether the people involved are still alive. I find it a little more difficult to "apologize" for events which took place in this country not only before I was born, but before any of my white ancestors got here (the NA ancestry feels even less inclined to have white guilt as they don't have a lot of responsibility). I can deeply regret the actions of Americans who supported slavery or evicted NA tribes from their lands, but I feel a bit odd about *apologizing* for them when I am in no way responsible and my white forebears all got here in the twentieth century.

This is not to say that I am not living in a society which resulted from these events, or that I don't have white privilege. Just that it seems odd and almost grandstanding of me personally to attempt to apologize for history, and doesn't really speak of any responsibility for current actions.

There's also a vast difference between a personal apology from a person, and a national apology, which is more what I think we're talking about. Let's take Bill Clinton personally apologizing and making reparations to the Hmong refugees who had been our allies in the Vietnam war and who'd been promised help, but were left to rot in Laotian refugee camps for years instead of being granted visas or citizenship, and in some cases military pay and rank. That is very different from me personally apologizing to one of those refugees for their neglect by America. The latter may be a nice gesture on my part, but is not a *national* apology.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Of course there's a difference between these kind of apologies. But one of the reasons I think that an apology for events of the distant (or at least before-ones-birth) is still constructive is that it opens the way for a more honest dialog, when one group of people at least partially admit to and own the privilege they have. That dialog is more potentially fertile ground for working on deconstructing present day structures that benefit one group and not the other.

By way of example, the Vancouver Conference of 2010 recently issued an apology for the results of the 1880 Milan Conference, which was the start of an especially devastating anti-signing campaign against the deaf. The emotional impact of that was very strong for me, even though I was not born anywhere near that time. But the fallout from that conference is exactly why I am where I am, why I was educated the way I was, why I am neither hearing nor Deaf, why even though I am profoundly deaf I've only begun learning to sign in the past three years. So what happened in 1880 isn't some obscure thing in the past, it's something that affected me all my life. It doesn't matter that all the educators and adult figures in my life when growing up probably never even heard of the Milan Conference. It doesn't even matter that no one in my family ever dealt with a deaf child until me.

It doesn't matter that you probably never heard of this conference until now. Every time you listen to a podcast, watch an uncaptioned youtube video, talk with your doctor over the phone to set up an appointment, leave your phone number down for a contact (and can actually use it), react to PA announcements in airports, etc, you are reaping these benefits and making use of a huge structure that I cannot.

So yeah. It doesn't matter that none of my ancestors, for example, owned slaves. It doesn't matter that a good portion of them came over in the reconstruction era. It matters that right now, I can get an apartment easily because of the color of my skin, that I can walk around a grocery store or clothes store without being watched suspiciously by the employees, that I can expect to be stopped by the police for legitimate reasons and not because of profiling. These are the things that happen now, today, everyday, regardless of who was doing what and when prior to 1865.

In speaking candidly about the privilege I have here, I hope to inspire others to think about their privileges too. Everytime someone I've talked with goes out and starts asking hey, how come this isn't captioned, and hey, how come no one mans that TTY machine you advertise as being "available"... yeah..

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I actually have heard of the Vancouver conference; being a wheelchair user, I follow some disabled rights stuff. :) (And I use a lot of CC technology; I have mild to moderate auditory-processing-disorder. I'm debating learning sign, although I am a little frustrated that ASL is so different from what's used in Europe, and might try to learn BrailleWriter or deafblind manual instead; or just text people next time I have an issue. Or I may be too dyslexic to learn either, which will suck, but I'm gonna try to learn at least phrasebook sign despite dyslexia and stupid hands.)

However, Vancouver is, like the President, an institution or its representative, not an individual. An institution has a historical lifespan beyond that of a single person, and bears conversely much greater responsibility.

I have been in the past in a semi-official position re: the US government, as an employee and as a child of US diplomats, and have thus been a representative of my country on a slightly larger than 'ordinary citizen' basis while overseas. On that level, I will apologize for government fuck-ups; while nothing like an official apology, it's a nice gesture to tell the Brit who is chewing me out for Bush Junior's idiocy that I am sorry and ashamed of our nation's actions, and that I and many of my fellow citizens were at the time working to change policy and get the idiot and his cronies out of office.


I am just an individual; other than my citizenship, I don't represent anything beyond myself (don't even have a job). My personally apologizing for global warming, even my contributions to it, will do absolutely squat for the polar bears (okay, it might have a tiny raising-awareness effect, but I think we're fairly well awareness-saturated on this one.) Me taking responsibility for my contribution to global warming may have slightly more effect. However, I believe that the more important tactic is to place pressure on institutions - government, corporate and so on - to take that responsibility as well. My personal lowered footprint is a drop in the bucket compared to that of an entire corporation.

Use that metaphor for racial (or other similar) inequality, and you may see why I would rather quietly go ab out my own life trying not to be a racist rather than make what feels to me like a rather grandstanding apology, and make efforts to repair present inequality by pressuring elected officials and institutions to actively seek equality.

It's probably just a difference in personal style of activism. (And may be because as a cultural Catholic, apologizing isn't nearly as important as actually doing penance or working to solve the problem.)

[kayleigh-jane.livejournal.com]

I see why you find it difficult to apologize for something neither you nor your personal ancestors were involved in; I don't even know if any of my ancestors were slave traders. Despite that, it's still something I benefit from. As a person, I can't apologize. As part of a nation, I can and should. Because the people it happened to also have descendants, who still feel the effects of the past in the present. So we apologize, as one people to another.

Responsibility for current actions is very important and should never be avoided. Sadly, it all too frequently is.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Adding in a bit more history. The Alien Land Law prohibited land ownership by non-citizens. The Japanese were not allowed to become naturalized citizens until 1952. Until 1936, a Nisei (American-born Japanese) woman who married an Issei (Japanese resident-alien) man lost her American citizenship. (This is a slightly simplified version.) California didn't get rid of miscegenation laws until 1948.

And, despite what some people try to claim now, getting rid of competition from the Japanese was a significant factor in the Internment.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

At my first college, we called that drink Reality punch. They served it out of the same trash cans they used for purple Jesus. My first college took their drinking very seriously.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

For two years. Annapolis branch. I dropped out and moved West.

You?

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Well, I had an extra shitty time, as i got into a war with admin my first winter because they wouldn't fix the heat in my dorm. We had to pile all our clothes on the bed so as not to freeze in the night and our toilet would film over in the night. The man in charge of housing insisted the heat wasn't broken and was to lazy to cross 40 feet of parking lot to check. We eventually won as he wrote a letter to my parents saying if I didn't stop demanding heat, they'd refuse me housing next year. My mother sent copies with a cover letter to admin saying that denying heat in winter and housing discrimination both being illegal, the next letter they'd be getting would be from our lawyer. They fixed the heat, but punished me in a variety of other ways.

This doesn't even get into the hypocrisy of asking me not to speak in seminar. This doesn't get into being stuck in the same core with two people I couldn't stand two years in a row. This doesn't touch us having to discuss solipsism for the first hour of seminar every seminar the spring of my first year. And on. And on . And on.

The final straw was me looking at my seminar mates two weeks into junior year and knowing what everyone would say before they opened their mouths. It dawned on me that the only class I was actually enjoying was french and the situation was rapidly deteriorating there due to the Proffessor's determination to bed me. I thought about all the upperclassmen I'd known over the years and I realized that, while some of them were cool people, I didn't want to be like that.

I left annapolis in the fall of '90. You?

[meirion.livejournal.com]

Now I really want to see the "according to Italy" one, because I can't read the label on Corsica. Not that I think that any of the rest of them are right re: Corsica, either, because everyone else just lumps us in with l'Hexagone!

[kayleigh-jane.livejournal.com]

I see why you find it difficult to apologize for something neither you nor your personal ancestors were involved in; I don't even know if any of my ancestors were slave traders. Despite that, it's still something I benefit from. As a person, I can't apologize. As part of a nation, I can and should. Because the people it happened to also have descendants, who still feel the effects of the past in the present. So we apologize, as one people to another.

Responsibility for current actions is very important and should never be avoided. Sadly, it all too frequently is.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm down with the apologizing (my family wasn't here until after slavery, but I still benefit from the legacy of it as a white person, and it in no way harms me to be mindful of that). In this case I was talking about places I think other people's discomfort comes from while also trying to make it clear that I think about these things not to judge people, but in order to be less of a fuckup myself.

[kayleigh-jane.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this was meant to be in reply to feyandstrange, not to your thoughts on it, though I agree wholehartedly.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

The issue of bachas/vachchas has a long history in Afghanistan and other areas in Central Asia. Dancing boys (who dress and dance as girls) also know as bacha or vachcha were very common until the early 20th century (and still have something of a presence as I understand it).

The importance of having a son is also really culturally rooted in ways that I didn't see the article address (but I didn't read it overly closely). Girls are often called "strangers" in the house, since they will leave to live with inlaws once married (and it is hoped that all of them will get married). Sons stay with the family and are thought of often like a retirement plan, since they bring a wife and children into the family who will help care for aging relatives.

[yamx]

The bacha posh article is fascinating. Makes you wonder how the prejudices against women can be maintained if people are pretty much willing to admit that girls can do everything boys can just by pretending to be boys.