From the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2015
And cause, you know, we love to be number one, here’s some March madness rankings of our gender gap compared with 100+ of our nearest neighbors. Spoiler alert, Iceland won global rankings of gender equity.
Today is International women’s Day, nestled snuggly inside Women’s history month. We could point out–similar to black history month–that women make up roughly 50% of humanity but all we get is one lousy month, but hey, we try to keep it positive at smntks. Instead, we’ll take a moment to celebrate some of the wins for women. Three cheers!
Our ranks of sisterhood have expanded beyond the binary-based boundaries previously known as womanhood. As our culture becomes more enlightened about the broad spectrum of gender we get more broads in our spectrum: we move past times when trans people were thought of as other and become instead sister (and brother). No justice can be won till we win it for everyone so standing in solidarity with all our sisters makes us stronger.
I can safely predict that we are gearing up for our first female President of the United States. I’m confident that if I’m wrong, and Trump is elected president we will all surely be destroyed, so you won’t be fact checking smntks–either way I win. We know from 8 years of an Obama administration that electing someone from a previously “unelectable” group certainly doesn’t end discrimination of all the people in that group. It’s easy to argue that racism in America has gotten noticeably worse in the last 8 years under our first black president. It won’t be different with our first female president. To quote Douglas, there can be no progress without struggle, so electing a female president shatters a boundary we’ll need to cross on our way to a gender neutral culture.
Speaking of broader spectrums of broads how about broader broads’ bods. This year we have seen a host of curvy beauties in places typically reserved for a more narrow body type. From the Victoria secret runway to the pages of Sports Illustrated, a rounder feminine body made it into the rotation of typical male fantasy fare. While this win lands squarely in the column of the objectification of the female form, we’re still going to chalk it up her as a victory for increasing acceptance of all kinds of sisters. Besides the broader spectrum of beauty was also featured in everything from fashion to fame.
With all these wins to celebrate, where’s the work going forward? Everywhere–you’ll remember that even our wins come with their own losses. The glass ceiling may be shattered for Hilary but remains stubbornly intact for many women, not to mention that legions of women around the world struggle at the edges of or in extreme poverty.
Malala Yousafzai has done amazing things to call for the education of all girls across the world. Even with the solid strategies, she has provided for world leaders, her vision remains a work in progress. Girls around the world are kept from getting the education they for a variety of reasons from economic to religious to cultural. In the US, girls do not face legal barriers to school, but with the US ranking 39th in education overall, making America great is going to take a substantial improvement in education.
Even with all the strides for equity and individual choice, women still walk a razor line between saint and sinner in order to avoid social judgement. Women have won the right to abortion, sex outside of marriage and the right to choose not to have children but struggle to exercise these right without being shamed. Slut shaming, attacking abortion patients and poo-pooing women’s personal life choices is still very 2016. In this video released by Anna Wise of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp Butterfly fame, she sings sweetly about the not so sweet double bind of the modern woman.
If you’ve ever been called a bitch or a slut, count yourself among the massive number of women stigmatized for nothing less that their own agency and freedom. It’s hard to walk the thin line drawn for women in our culture, but I have just the fabulous strut for this. Raise your glass for women today and take your victory stroll–broad horizons are ahead.
[header illustration by Lauren Campbell]
These times, these times. We will look back and know that these were the times that changed everything. The moment is now, but don’t let that stop you from taking a moment to reconnect with the now inside of you.
These times are hard: if you’re woke and paying attention, each day brings its own two-day sized dose of pain and heartache. The good news is that that feeling that you’re feeling is a side effect of revolution. But while you wait for the revolution to not be televised, how do you keep from dissolving into a puddle of woke up tears and anger? Smntks has a few tips to keep you in the struggle, no matter how real it gets.
Breathe: the first go to for some chill is surrounding that big heart of yours. Use those lungs to expel the poisonous energy we drink when we engage in spiritual battle with injustice. There’s a reason that yogis, sufi and puppies all expel breathe to reach maximum zen.
The conscious regulation of your breath calms your mind and floods your body with what it needs to make it to the next breath. String those breaths together and wha-la you’re meditating. Meditation is shown to increase all kinds of good things without the side effects of oh say Xanax and wine. Most importantly, give us a big dose of connection and empathy that can help us love our way through this crazy world. So take a breath–one that fills your lungs until you feel your own potential, and then push it out with all the fight I know you have in spades. Take five minutes of breaths. Take 500. They’re free.
Disconnect: You’re conscious. Me too. We’re not alone in this fight. It’s okay for you to take a break from the battlefield. There are a million of us here, so when you feel like you can’t take it anymore you have permission to exit, stage left, until you’re ready to reload. Sometimes the pressure–and the injustice itself makes us feel like we can never rest, but that is a sure recipe for failure. Shut off your media for a few days–studies say a three-day media detox can help you feel more balanced. Time away from the struggle can also help us remember what it is we are fighting for.
Find something nice to look at: What is your favorite thing to see? Kitties? Beaches? laughing children holding balloons? Go seek those things out and fill your eyes as deeply as you’ve filled your lungs. Research show that just looking at a large body of water can reset your inner workings. Besides, if eyes are the window to the soul, then our windows have surely been tainted by all we have been witnessing these last years. Clean your window with beautiful visions. Somewhere in your soul must reside the template of the utopic world you want to make. Every once in while, recharge that vision.
Make something: Fighting chaos and destruction can make us lose our way from the creator inside of us. Making something beautiful–whether it is a sock or a meal or an arrangement of flowers–can remind us of the power we have to complete copacetic constructions. Craft projects, unlike race and class, are constructions that you can control on your own. Making something–sock or society–is a process: slaying at the micro process of crafting will have you ready to slay the bigger beast of social process. You also might make something awesome for the battlefield!
Reconnect: Family and friends are not just for Facebook. Go see people that you love and who love you. Touch them (appropriately, please, unless they’re into it!), talk to them. look at how awesome the people that you know are. Ask the kids in your life about the future–and believe them. Talk about springtime, and spaceships and the time you laughed so hard milk came out of your nose. Give them something you made, and let them give you some love so you can top off for the next time the struggle gets too real.
These times, these times. We will look back and know that these were the times that changed everything. The moment is now, but don’t let that stop you from taking a moment to reconnect with the now inside of you. We need you–yes, you– to be a healthy conscious happy warrior for justice. So take a break. The fight will be here when you get back.
P.S. If you make something post a pic in the comments and I’ll share it out!
I was in line at T.J. Maxx in the gauntlet–you know the line that’s lined with socks and kitchen gadgets and stuff you don’t need but are likely to buy if you’re stuck looking at it long enough–and I saw this little gem:
I saw this candle with no frame of reference for how “ivy league” would smell but like cops and presidential politics, the old Ivory towers have faced their own waves of upheaval over the last two years. So maybe it smells like old money and racists S.A.E. frat boys? Perhaps it smells like a mattress worn by the girl next to you to bring attention to the lack of administrative response to sexual assault. Or is it the heady fragrance of pepper spray and banner paint. It certainly doesn’t smell like sunshine and roses.
Higher ed is a microcosm of the wider society–and if done right, should be first to incubate, test and perfect new ideas and ways of being. Campuses roiling with tension need real solutions that–when developed thoughtfully–can help the rest of society follow into post-apocalyptic paradise. And they’re full of young people fired up and ready to go.
This grey candle of college sure didn’t smell like like America’s shiny future, but it’s not too late to cook up some new scents–humility and transcendent humanity? superstrings and singularity? Let’s just start with the simple scent of justice and love. Anyone have a match?
If you’re like the other 187 million people in the US that own a smart phone, you wonder sometimes if it owns you. But what if you could take back control of that little electronic beast?
Ah, the siren call of dinging notifications–we love them, we hate them, we seem doomed to live with them. When was the last anything you did that was not interrupted by a phone? If you’re like the other 187 million people in the US that own a smart phone, you wonder sometimes if it owns you. But what if you could take back control of that little electronic beast?
Enter the dumb phone case, invented by Jeff Lam at Weiden & Kennedy . It seems only right to have and ad maker try to save us all from our phones: who knows better how to make media intrusive than an ad exec? Here is the answer to all your distraction.
Not only will this phone save you from the lure of your phone, dude’s not even going to charge you for your freedom. You can print this phone case out yourself using a 3d printer. No printer? No problem: here is a map of all the 3d printers in like…the world.
We have the concept to help you de-phone, and now you have the technology. The question is do you really want to be free?
This weekend in an increasingly unsurprising surprise-move, Beyonce dropped a surprise single, “Formation” which was surprisingly woke and, unsurprisingly, Black twitter’s collective head exploded. The video is a beautifully unapologetic apologia of black feminism, full of the trappings of contemporary blackness. And it is dope.
The video is full enough of symbols to bang out a media criticism master’s thesis, but you don’t have all night and I’m not paying tuition so I’ll try to hit the highlights.
The video starts out with Beyonce perched atop a New Orleans police car in a flooded out Nola neighborhood–throughout the song she references her family pedigree so often a video viewer might be forgiven for thinking that she is claiming Nola as her own. A few more establishing shots firmly establish that you are in the world of post Katrina New Orleans–and not the one where people celebrated the rebuilding of the city on the recent 10-year anniversary of the storm but the real New Orleans where both the storm and the regentrified rebuilding continue to slay local residents.
The video pays homage to today’s black radical feminists: born in the wake of a storm, splattered with the blood shaken from cops hands, awake, agitating, unafraid. Unlike Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood fantasy of women who slay, Beyonce shows us how real women slay in a world realer than anyone should want. She shows us sisters with real black bodies moving with power and agency. She shows us flashes of black culture unrecognizable to middle america–not the smiling coontastic network black, or the tear gassed protesters–but a black that exists where white America is not. She showcases a range of black beauty that is existing not in opposition or response to, but out beyond the ideal of white beauty. The press, the illuminuts, the haters, the cops all get zero fucks from the queen.
In the midst of times full of racial tension music has been both call to arms and therapist couch. Questlove’s call to artists to respond to the political realities of black America have seen a Wu-Tang-crew-sized response with artists from Talib Kweli and Killer Mike, to J. Cole and, of course Kendrick Lamar all providing soundtrack to the revolution. With so many women at the center of the movement for black lives, it seems only fitting that the ladies get their own black lives banger, special for the sisters.
Not only did Beyonce make this banging song, and this blazing video, but she also marched out onto the field during the Superbowl halftime show with a team of black dancers complete with raised gloved fists and afros tucked into beret a la black panthers. Yup, sandwiched in between Coldplay and Bruno Mars was a little slice of go-ahead-and-lose-your-mind-white-supremacists. Fox news dragged Rudy Giuliani out storage so he could yell about inciting cop-hate, despite the fact that Beyonce didn’t once reference cop hating–or 9/11, so this is really none of Giuliani’s business.
Beyonce has not typically been one to tread a political path in her music, but these times are making us all more woke than ever. She should be applauded for using her significant celebrity to highlight black women, especially in such a powerful and authentic way. As a mother to a beautiful baby-afro-wearing Blue, who does her own slaying in the video, Beyonce’s evolving black feminism is powerful modeling–of the cultural sense–for women both inside and outside of the black community.
The video to the song is rich with complex and layered symbolism. We see Beyonce in places all cut from the new southern gothic–row houses and interiors cramped with golden southern sunlight and old bookcases, a porch fit for Madame Levaux’s coven of witches in New Orleans. Natural hair, and white lace, Gucci body suits and second line–Beyonce’s evocative imagery represents America’s troubled waters as a proving ground for black girl magic where she is high priestess here to share with you her prodigious power to make America love black women. Like the culture of New Orleans itself, the story of black America she shows us is a layered petticoat of culture and of history.
So right about now, you should be feeling pretty good. Maybe ready to buy the song–but you’ll need to download Tidal because the song is only available via Bey boo’s music streaming service, which last we heard was costing the couple money. But it’s a great song! Maybe you’re ready to go see the Queen herself. Lucky for you, she-surprise!-announced a 40-city Formation stadium tour. Okay, no Tidal, no tickets, maybe just a little merch! We got that too:
At Shop.Beyonce you can cop any of the latest must have accessories to the struggle–perhaps a bag that lets others know hot sauce is inside-cute!-or would you prefer a phone case that says that you that bitch when you cause all this conversation. You can even get a sweat shirt that warns you will Twirl on Haters (wonder how long before Kenya Moore want her piece of the honeypie). Hey, what if you want to be Bey? You can even go to Vogue for a lookbook of Beyonce’s Formation styles.
It all starts to seem like an awful lot of commodification for a protest song. I mean no one’s rocking a Kendrick Lamar Aight trucker hat at martini-brunch. Is this video an authentic expression of Blackness or a carefully crafted product that commodifies the very images of resistance to sell back to the people its meant to uplift?
Last year, Beyonce and her Boo planned a summer tour together–the On the Run tour. The tour materials, complete with Bey in a Vogue-ish ski mask harken back to the old Bonnie and Clyde that had worked so well for the pair in the past. This time, tickets were a tough sell. In the time of Black Lives Matter, thuggin’ it out in between parties at the Met didn’t seem to get the same street cred that it used to. Nor could she go back in time to the Mrs. Carter tour, drenched in Eurocentric finery, and expect the very woke sisters of today to spend their hard earned cash on $100.00 tickets. Embracing the political issues her young fan base faces worked well for her on songs like Pretty, so sprinkling some #blackgirlmagic on her new work was no risk.
If the song pays homage to Beys own blackness and love affair with her people, why not use the more poignant imagery on the merchadise? Instead of having more realty tv twirlers, why not have any one of a number of powerful images from the video the shirts? Black hat middle finger up? First raised (in aGucci dress) on a cop car? Instead, the Formation money shot if you will is of her hanging out of a car window. It seems to beg a who did it better between her and Kendrick Lamar–and the joker.
Berets, afros, gothic, Nola, second line, cop cars, graffiti, flood, black hoodies, hot sauce, big frieda, ghanian chiefs, hot pants, police lines, black boys, hair shops, parasols–it starts to feel a bit like Bey collected everything running through the dreams and nightmares of black women and arranged it–artfully, elegantly–to conjure a sisterhood…and to sell sweatshirts. When she calls on us to fight, I’m not sure we agree on the end game. I think the best revenge would be justice, or maybe a culture shift, even a hint of equity but all she wants to slay for is paper. In fact, she strenuously defends her right to operate as a capitalist in free market economy: you can do that, but I though we were on some black power shit?
And before you tell me what they donate, know that Beyonce has a reported net worth of $250 million dollars. Peeling off bail money is laudable, but not considered to put them up among the ranks of active black philanthropists. It is good to see the couple helping out more after the long standing beef with Harry Belafonte ended just this past fall. The beef started when Belafonte called out Jay Z for his lack of activism. Jay Z’s recent pledge of $1.5 million from Tidal is a step in the right direction, but again, not enough to make them stand out in a field of philanthropists with smaller net worths.
About this time in my love affair with this song, I start to feel little over-committed. Oaky, so it wasn’t really this oh-hey-look-a-song-I-made-! since the world of Formation is way to formed from song to video and tour and live performance and even merch. The song-as-product takes lots of planning, and this one seems like it was carefully planned to push the very buyable world of Formation. It makes me wonder if the perfectly timed Superbowl controversy was about black bodies or green backs. Nothing makes teens loves something more that Fox declaring it demonic.
Is it possible for something to be both amazing and problematic? Yeah, symbolic constructions are often like that. Best believe this song and its video have earned the title instant classic. But the hyper commodification of black power imagery is selling a lot of product–something we are right to be watchful of. In these times we have little more than our own sense of self–we’ve got to guard that–even against Mr. and Mrs. Carter.
But its not too late, Bey, to be that black Bill Gates in the making–remember he quit the business to devote himself fully to charitable work and social change. Think of how amazing you’ll look slaying systemic racism in that Gucci. We’re here waiting for you, in formation.
If there’s one rule you can bet your lunch money on it’s that putting on blackface will get you flamed. It may get you lots of hits–you’re sure to get attention, but it may not be the attention you crave. Quick-someone send a link to smntks to Boglarka Balogh before she keeps helping African woman show off their beauty to the world! The Hungarian photographer, well travelled across the continent (of Africa) wanted to bring attention to the wide diversity and beauty of African women. In order to show African’s finest she took a bunch of pictures of…herself.
Yup, that’s right. Despite having a bunch of pictures of beautiful African women, she chose instead to don blackface and mimic her photoed beauties. Slowly for those in the back–in order to show how beautiful African women are she took their style and showed picture of herself a-la-“enough about me! What about you? What do you think of me?”
This is where appreciation becomes appropriation. The women are beautiful–so just show their pictures! To assume that their beauty is only accessible when filtered through the lens of a white body is racist. While I do believe that she believes that she is showing their beauty, she is little more than a thief, knocking off their looks and turning the authentic inauthentic. Boglaka, I admire the intention–and a dope set of passport stamps–but check you ego at the door and let the true beauty of Africa that you’ve captured shine!
Not to throw shade, but duck: In a head to head match up of the women she copied, I’m sorry but Balogh loses to every one. She looks best as herself, but most def can’t best an African beauty at being, well, an
African beauty. You be the judge: who takes the cake? Weigh in in the comment below for most beautiful African.
The language and framing of the Oregon standoff case shows again the huge disparity in not only how we talk about protest, violence and terrorism, but how we as a nation think about these things.
Someone forget to rest the chill button for 2016. Just few days into the new year we have a terrorist attack right here in America, and what’s worse, there seems to be some sort of news blackout going on. What’s the haps?!
Here’s the scoop:
On Saturday afternoon about 300 Muslims gathered to protest government abuse. After a peaceful march, a splinter group of jihadists–some known to police and the FBI for previous radical activities–broke off to head to a federal airport. They occupied a local federal building-an empty airport terminal-and reports of 15-150 people with an unknown quantity of guns have said thy are now prepared to hold the airport hostage for “years.” One of the leaders involved told a reporter they are willing to “kill and be killed” in the name of Allah.
Wait, no that’s all wrong. There is no armed muslim extremist group holding federal land. Besides, if there was, would Fox news be referring to them as Patriots? Hell no.
On Saturday afternoon about 300 Black Lives matter protesters gathered to protest police brutality. After a peaceful march, a splinter group of BLM leaders–some known to police and the FBI for previous standoff in Baltimore–broke off to head to a federal courthouse closed for the holidays. They occupied a local federal building-the courthouse-and reports of 15-150 people with an unknown quantity of guns have said thy are now prepared to the courthouse for “years.” One of the leaders involved told a reporter they are willing to “kill and be killed.”
Oh, wait, totally wrong again. Despite many, many protests in support of the movement for Black Lives, no part of the movement has staged an armed takeover. No leader of the movement has advocated kill or be killed. Fox called them Anarchists. I call them citizens acting within their constitutional right.
Here’s the real story:
On Saturday afternoon about 300 people gathered to protest government abuse. After a peaceful march, a splinter group of militia leaders–some known to police and the FBI for a previous standoff on the Clive Bundy ranch–broke off to head to a federal wildlife preserve. They occupied a local federal building on the preserve and reports of 15-150 people with an unknown quantity of guns have said thy are now prepared to occupy the preserve for “years.” One of the leaders involved, Ryan Bundy, told a reporter they are willing to “kill and be killed.” Despite the fact that an armed militant group has taken over federal property, listed demands, and is holding territory with weapons, no law enforcement has engaged with–or even driven out to monitor more closely the movements of the armed militants.
Yes, that story is correct. Now check out story 1 and story 2: can you imagine them ending with police falling back? would this ever happen?
Despite the fact that armed jihadists have taken over federal property, listed demands, and are holding territory with weapons, no law enforcement has engaged with–or even driven out to monitor more closely the movements of the extremists.
Or this?
Despite the fact that armed Black radicals have taken over federal property, listed demands, and are holding territory with weapons, no law enforcement has engaged with–or even driven out to monitor more closely the movements of the armed radicals.
Nope, never going to happen. The language and framing of the Oregon standoff case shows again the huge disparity in not only how we talk about protest, violence and terrorism, but how we as a nation think about these things. It is not just the way one group is treated, but the differential in validation, blame and punishment between groups where modern racism is at its most visible.
Apologists for the Oregon armed invaders are already lining up to minimize, deflect and defend. They are quick to point out that there is no looting. No looting? Don forget the deamnds. These “protesters” are demanding the federal government give them federal land–how’s that for looting?
Stay tuned.
How many words can you hurl at the behemoth of hate before your arm falls off, or worse yet, you come to despise the futility of your own meager weapons?
2015, by any measure, was pretty shitty. Unless you don’t watch the news, you know the past month season year has been intense–full of bad news, real tragedies and a world wide wrestling match with the most difficult issues humanity faces. I teach about media and race so this is my wheelhouse–writing about it all the time should be a given with so much to address.
But this year has tested even those of us who are comfortable in the challenging arena of isms. How many times can you explain that yes, racism exists, and no calling out racism does not make you a racist. How many words can you hurl at the behemoth of hate before your arm falls off, or worse yet, you come to despise the futility of your own meager weapons?
Tucked in between 1,134 black men killed by police, racism also made a come back in higher ed: remember the threats at University of Missouri, racism at fraternity SAE in March and at a different chapter in November and, in case you missed it, a heated debate in higher ed around professors’ using the n– word in class. Between writing, teaching about race and media, and fighting the local battle in my own tower, I ended the year despising more than just the futility of my weapons.
As an nontenured faculty of color at a predominately white college that focuses in part on social justice I believe I have a duty to prepare students who will combat structural inequality with a solid understanding of systems of oppression. Not surprisingly, our little community is not unlike many of the other higher ed institutions “dealing” with diversity issues.
I have been reminded that to speak out against racism, to name that racism exists in our community is a brave thing to do. The unspoken flip side to this compliment is that to name racism at the institution is dangerous business. I work on a contract, and can be released from my job of 10 years at the end of the year with no reason given. A decade of good teaching evaluations or hard work will not protect me. Each time I open my mouth and call out the racism I see, I am at risk. And I have felt at risk. Every time. Break came just in time to retreat and lick my wounds.
But every day is a new day, and a new year? Well, that’s a time for magic. I needed to clear the deck to get writing. Since the year has been so heavy, this isn’t any average clear the deck–I’m in my writing room stripping shit down to the bare walls.
Something about working on a household project unlocks a way of working on yourself. Stripping wallpaper is a junior high level metaphor for cleansing for a new year, so no surprise as I do I’m thinking about letting go, razing the ground to grow something, anything untainted by this years infestations.
But I’m also learning about how to pull down wallpaper that has been stuck to the wall since the 1950s. While hacking away with water and an ice scraper, I learned something surprising. the best way to pull it down is gently, softly and with love. Sure the wallpaper was coming up with the scrapper in resistant tight crumpled rows, begrudgingly, and an inch at a time. but if I spray it lightly, wait patiently and pull gently at the decay it comes off in long lacy strands that fall apart at the slightest touch.
While having drinks with my parents, my father said he always wished he could be forgiving. I was surprised: I reminded him that he had indoctrinated me with a pathological ability to let go. So many days coming home from being bullied at school, he would simply tell me, “Not everyone’s going to like you. Let it go.” When I gnashed my teeth and plotted revenge he would rustle his paper, fanning away the evil deeds of the world with a terse, “Get over it.”
He laughed when I reminded him. “I may have told you that, but that doesn’t mean I did it. I’ve never been able to forgive.” Quick to reinforce the old lesson, he added, “It’s good to forgive. Then you’re free and you don’t carry it your whole life.” I’ve spent years forgiving and this year more than any, trying to be free of the pain of racism big and small.
The promise of forgiveness is freedom. But when people refuse to acknowledge your humanity, much less take responsibility for trying to diminish you, forgiveness starts to feel too much like granting permission. I have been pained to learn that sometimes forgiveness means you carry the memory for those who forget they victimize you, and it is them that goes free, unburdened by having to confront their own small mindedness and bad acts.
Google wallpaper removal and their are lots of choices: chemicals to burn it off, machines to blast steam to disintegrate it off, paper tigers to shred it off. I thought that ripping off the wallpaper would give me a chance to rip something up, to release the burden of all I have forgiven, but instead I find just another reminder that this slow gentle relentless attack, for me, is the only way. Two days later I am still in there, peeling it off, rubbing it gently with water and then easing it off, sliding it to the floor and patting the wall clean.
Why? I want a clean room but I care about the wall underneath–I don’t want to be left with holes to fill and scratches to heal. My soft strategy rewards me. At the cost of checking my desire to destroy, the wallpaper comes off in long strands still holding the memory of all it saw. The war that I thought I wanted turned out to be a long moving mediation–both on the walls and in the work.
So I’ll scrape the walls slowly, and when they and my mind are clean I can return to the larger battle. With each strand in the pile I remind myself of the reasons to keep scraping away at racism. Fuck forgiveness and the risk of raising your fist. I speak out anyway. Because that’s who I have chosen to be. Because the students deserve teachers willing to advocate for their dignity. Because that is the job of a teacher–to provide a space for students to learn and grow. Because I have a responsibility to model what I teach. Because I will not be silent when something must be said. Because with no justice then can never be peace. Because racism hurts white people and they deserve to know the truth. Because hate will not eradicate itself. Because I believe that we can be better. Because I am black. Because I am human. Because we the people are still trying to form a more perfect union.
Because the moment is now. Happy new year.
With the end of Halloween starts that most intimate of season–the shopping season. Ahh, a time to curl up with a warm credit card, surround yourself with brand name goods, and share with your loved ones that most important of human emotions–the joy of opening a gift from the Apple store.
Let the onslaught of advertising begin! Deck the halls with piles of flyers selling disposable goods made unethically! Don you now an extra fifteen pounds from the constant push of candy and comfort foods! And rest you merry gentleman on the bench at the mall!
Lest you forget the real meaning of the season, I remind you that the period of time from Thanksgiving to Christmas is the most important time for retailers to turn slow summer sales into bottom line black ink magic. While people from both left and right fight for a less commercial Christmas season, the battle is not with bah-humbug atheists, but with bless-us-every-one businesses whose profit is tied up inextricably with your desire to give and receive love through the proxy of consumer goods. Do you really think they are going to abdicate profit to your childhood nostalgia? Not likely.
If you think those decrying to direct connection between family, feelings, and black Friday are forcing it, take a look at this ad from Best Buy, the first Christmas ad to air nationwide.
The ad, entitled “Win the Holidays” starts the season like the opening of a competition. we are thinking or feeling, but competing to kill it this Christmas. Don’t forget, its not just a gift, it is the key to love, as the ad explicitly reminds us.
So I give to you your first gift of the holiday season: freedom from the big lie of a consumer driven holiday season. iPads and bags from Macy’s and the right flaky biscuits and a beautiful sparkly rock are not love. Buying gifts for the holidays will not make your family happier beyond the morning of when they rip open gifts like wolves.
Believing that your love and relationships are paid for in black Friday lines or wrapped in Amazon boxes is a lie we choose to buy into when we are crushed beneath a tsunami of ads full of hugging families. I free you from believing this. I assure you that nagging feeling that you have that none of this shopping will deliver the promised intimacy is right; That suspicion that you will be equally happy hanging out and saving your money for snacks and warm blankies for cuddling in is confirmed. I gift you this reminder that the magic of the season comes from inside you, not inside a plastic shopping bag.
Susan X Jane 