It's that time of year, as we move through the solstice, celebrate the many winter holidays, and wrap up the past 365 days in a nice little package called last year, when we turn around and see the people we see everyday with new and appreciative eyes. I am so grateful to count as my friends and coworkers some of the most intelligent, dedicated, innovative people I know. So often I grumble my way through my days, consumed by my stress, and anxiety, and irritation. Yet, in the midst of all of that, amazing people are making amazing things happen. Everyday.
So here's to taking a deep breath and a step back and remembering to see and to acknowledge all the awesome in this life. To all of my dear friends, incredible colleagues, wonderful classmates, and brilliant family: all my love to you this Holiday Season, and every auspicious wish for the New Year.
Love,
RMS
12/23/10
12/19/10
The conversation that brought me back from hiatus
You may have noticed I've not been in the writerly way for a while. Turns out that full-time teaching and grad school topped off with student teaching makes for an exhausted RMS. I've had things to say, but I've mostly been saying them to the pot of soup cooking on the stove, or the towel rack. But the other day I had a conversation with a colleague at work that had the rusty gears in my head turning for quite some time. It started out about Twilight, but ended up about so much more.
She wanted to know if, in my professional opinion, I thought Twilight was appropriate for her 8th grade daughter. After letting me know that her daughter is not terribly mature, she let me weigh in. I didn't get all Twi-ranty because, well really, that wasn't the point now was it? And I came down firmly on Twilight's side. Not because it's a great piece of literature, but because it is a largely innocuous and incredibly popular one. By this point every tween and teen in America has read it (or so it seems to me) and to deny her the chance to participate in the popular culture phenomenon of her adolescence is just cruel and necessary.
As we continued talking it became clear that her mother's concern was really sex and drugs. Not a problem, since Twilight is, after all, abstinence porn. Turns out that at the root of her strict policing of her teen daughter's reading habits, was a very real fear of books being a source of negative peer pressure.
"Sometimes, I think, that they read about it and they they want to try it. Right?" she asked me.
I've written before on how I think the exact opposite is true, and that was the conversation I delved into. About how teens read about things that they would never do because they want to understand them. About how drinking, drugs, and sex are a real part of the world. About credibility. About how the world is a place full of dangers and I'd rather my kids read about them than experience them first-hand. And finally, about how if anything is going to send your by-all-accounts-good-and-decent-kid down the rabbit hole it's going to be her peer group, not the library. In the end, it's about building your relationship with your teen. About having that conversation about myth and reality, fact and fiction, fun and dangerous fun. And about never turning away from that conversation, no matter how much you may want to.
What do you think?
She wanted to know if, in my professional opinion, I thought Twilight was appropriate for her 8th grade daughter. After letting me know that her daughter is not terribly mature, she let me weigh in. I didn't get all Twi-ranty because, well really, that wasn't the point now was it? And I came down firmly on Twilight's side. Not because it's a great piece of literature, but because it is a largely innocuous and incredibly popular one. By this point every tween and teen in America has read it (or so it seems to me) and to deny her the chance to participate in the popular culture phenomenon of her adolescence is just cruel and necessary.
As we continued talking it became clear that her mother's concern was really sex and drugs. Not a problem, since Twilight is, after all, abstinence porn. Turns out that at the root of her strict policing of her teen daughter's reading habits, was a very real fear of books being a source of negative peer pressure.
"Sometimes, I think, that they read about it and they they want to try it. Right?" she asked me.
I've written before on how I think the exact opposite is true, and that was the conversation I delved into. About how teens read about things that they would never do because they want to understand them. About how drinking, drugs, and sex are a real part of the world. About credibility. About how the world is a place full of dangers and I'd rather my kids read about them than experience them first-hand. And finally, about how if anything is going to send your by-all-accounts-good-and-decent-kid down the rabbit hole it's going to be her peer group, not the library. In the end, it's about building your relationship with your teen. About having that conversation about myth and reality, fact and fiction, fun and dangerous fun. And about never turning away from that conversation, no matter how much you may want to.
What do you think?
10/25/10
Native who, now?
While discussing the Civil Rights Movement in class the other day, a student accidentally said "Native Americans" instead of "African Americans." We were discussing some core concept words (segregation, integration, power, powerless, persecute) and one of my co-teachers took this opportunity to bring Native Americans into the discussion.
"Who are the Native Americans?" she asked.
"Stone Age!" comes a reply from a bright student in the back of the class.
"Native Americans are still alive?!" quickly followed.
So taken aback, we stared at each other - eyes wide, mouths gaping - for a good 15 seconds (which sounds like no time at all, but leading a discussion of 30 sixth graders, it is an eternity). Finally, we continued the conversation, explaining that Native Americans live today in cities, towns, and reservations, and struggling in this off-the-cuff context to do justice to the history of our country's first people.
I've spent a great deal of time reading about Native representation in children's books and texts, especially Debbie Reese's excellent blog, American Indians in Children's Literature and the resources published by Oyate press. I've written extensively on race and representation in books for children and young adults. Yet, I've never seen first hand the effects of this Native erasure so clearly displayed. It was horrifying. I don't expect my students to know much about the Native genocide, AIM, the forced sterilization, and modern life on say, Pine Ridge Reservation. But I do expect them to know that Native people exist. I'm terrified of an education system that so fully disappears the more unsavory aspects of our history.
10/11/10
Cabaret
Oh how time, she flies right by, eh? And now here we are - mid-October. I'm still savoring my summer reading list, and putting off reading Mockingjay as long as possible. To supplement the feminist YA I've been immersed in, I went up to Cambridge, MA last weekend to see Amanda Fucking Palmer in the American Repertory Theater's production of Cabaret.
Now, normally, I wouldn't consider Cabaret an at all feminist piece. Then the A.R.T. got a hold of it and turned the gender and sexuality all to sexy, twisty, salty pretzel pieces. As far as I'm concerned, it was just what the musical needed. There was a lot to love about the production - the interactive Kit Kat Klub venue, the sing-alongs and table service, the sheer talent on display, the sick hollow feeling when you turn around in act II and notice the Nazi soldier, stony faced and at attention, two feet from your happy cabaret table, the gut-wrenching ending designed to remind a generation that doesn't know anyone who lived through the Nazi regime, just what was in store for their new friends at the Kit Kat Klub. The insidious fascism is there all along, and as the production moves forward it peels off the layers of leather, lace, and greasepaint . . . to great effect.
So all that said, perhaps what I loved most was the way this production respected Sally Bowles. When she makes the decision to stay in Berlin, without Cliff, her rendition of Cabaret is not a piece of triumphant denial. Rather it is a painful, heartbreaking, bitter acknowledgment of the future to come. It will stay with me for a long, long while.
*****If you've never seen or listened to Cabaret, the rest of this review/discussion may be hard to follow. Solution? Go watch it! Or listen to it!******
Now, normally, I wouldn't consider Cabaret an at all feminist piece. Then the A.R.T. got a hold of it and turned the gender and sexuality all to sexy, twisty, salty pretzel pieces. As far as I'm concerned, it was just what the musical needed. There was a lot to love about the production - the interactive Kit Kat Klub venue, the sing-alongs and table service, the sheer talent on display, the sick hollow feeling when you turn around in act II and notice the Nazi soldier, stony faced and at attention, two feet from your happy cabaret table, the gut-wrenching ending designed to remind a generation that doesn't know anyone who lived through the Nazi regime, just what was in store for their new friends at the Kit Kat Klub. The insidious fascism is there all along, and as the production moves forward it peels off the layers of leather, lace, and greasepaint . . . to great effect.
So all that said, perhaps what I loved most was the way this production respected Sally Bowles. When she makes the decision to stay in Berlin, without Cliff, her rendition of Cabaret is not a piece of triumphant denial. Rather it is a painful, heartbreaking, bitter acknowledgment of the future to come. It will stay with me for a long, long while.
9/2/10
Ripples
I realize I've been on and on about consumption choices lately, but I think it's incredibly important and I've started straying from my sphere of like-minded bloggery goodness and I'm baffled by the lack of scope displayed in so many me-centric posts and comments. So I'd just like to say again, "Your choices affect others." Say it with me, one more time,
"Your choices affect others."
The cloth for your clothing was grown and processed by someone. Your clothes were made and shipped and sold by someone. Your food was grown and picked and shipped by someone. If you're not veg*n - your food used to be someone. And it was raised, slaughtered, butchered, packaged, shipped, and sold by someone. The same goes for your shoes, your music, your books, your toys, your knickknacks and pots and pans . . . . your everything. Our choices have far-reaching consequences.
So when someone comments on a post asking if people buy organic produce by asking, "Like, does it really matter if your banana, whose peel you're throwing away, is organic?" I say, yes. Yes, it does.
You can certainly argue that a sweatshop job is better than no job, or that migrant farm work is still work. However, the results of the United Farm Workers Take Our Jobs campaign seem to speak for themselves. With national unemployment still at nearly 10%, the UFW has not been overwhelmed with applications. Maybe because a bad job is a bad job? With a net worth of $8.2 billion , Phillip Knight (the CEO of Nike) is the 52nd richest man in the world He could probably afford to make sure his workers are paid a decent wage.
And that's the thing - yes a job and a wage is better than nothing. But this working for pennies an hour, without any rights or privileges, no sick time, no vacation, no bathroom breaks, in horrible, poisonous conditions . . . it's making other people incredibly wealthy. The choice isn't a terrible job or no job. That's a false dichotomy. There exists the third option of . . . a good job.
We are complicit in this and we, as consumers, can help to effect change. Every little bit helps. We can throw stones and make ripples. Enough of us can make waves.
"Your choices affect others."
The cloth for your clothing was grown and processed by someone. Your clothes were made and shipped and sold by someone. Your food was grown and picked and shipped by someone. If you're not veg*n - your food used to be someone. And it was raised, slaughtered, butchered, packaged, shipped, and sold by someone. The same goes for your shoes, your music, your books, your toys, your knickknacks and pots and pans . . . . your everything. Our choices have far-reaching consequences.
So when someone comments on a post asking if people buy organic produce by asking, "Like, does it really matter if your banana, whose peel you're throwing away, is organic?" I say, yes. Yes, it does.
You can certainly argue that a sweatshop job is better than no job, or that migrant farm work is still work. However, the results of the United Farm Workers Take Our Jobs campaign seem to speak for themselves. With national unemployment still at nearly 10%, the UFW has not been overwhelmed with applications. Maybe because a bad job is a bad job? With a net worth of $8.2 billion , Phillip Knight (the CEO of Nike) is the 52nd richest man in the world He could probably afford to make sure his workers are paid a decent wage.
And that's the thing - yes a job and a wage is better than nothing. But this working for pennies an hour, without any rights or privileges, no sick time, no vacation, no bathroom breaks, in horrible, poisonous conditions . . . it's making other people incredibly wealthy. The choice isn't a terrible job or no job. That's a false dichotomy. There exists the third option of . . . a good job.
We are complicit in this and we, as consumers, can help to effect change. Every little bit helps. We can throw stones and make ripples. Enough of us can make waves.
8/26/10
Speaking Out
I've written before on the death penalty and our prison system as it pertains to children and people of color. Anti-death penalty is another label (like vegan and pro-choice) that I am happy to use, a mantle I wear proudly. I have more experience with the justice and prison systems than most who know me would expect, and I think that this experience informs and shapes my veganism-as-anti-oppression philosophy. It is part of the reason I strive to buy organic and fairly traded produce and clothing, avoid retailers that rely on sweatshop and child labor, and buy handmade and local when possible. It's all connected and in this imperfect, hyper-commodified, capitalist world, I want my dollars to do good work.
I mention all of this only because of a disturbing dream I had last night. I was a lawyer working a trial in some German Expressionist courtroom. I have no idea the whys or wherefores, or even the outcome of the trial. The only thing that is still stark and clear in my mind is this moment: the judge, wild haired and crazy-eyed, stands and leans cartoonishly out over the bench at me. He points at me, all imperiousness. "Sometimes the only thing to speak to a man's innocence is that man. That does not negate the fact of his innocence. Ten years from now, when the lies are revealed and the truth is known, the world will look at you."
It was terrifying . . . and true.
I realized as I awoke, that I am far too much the armchair activist and, that I need to start speaking my mind more. Amongst friends, family, and colleagues, I often hold my tongue (which may seem surprising to those who know me!) in an effort to keep the peace. Sometimes in an effort to keep a powerful conversation from being derailed, sometimes in an effort to just let something hurtful, ignorant, or wrong-headed slip on by because I am too tired, anxious, or angry to deal with it. When it is the latter, I am not being honest with myself or with those I love. And I am certainly not doing all I can to make my small slice of the world a better place. So less commiserating with the converted in empty halls and behind closed doors and more honest engagement on issues that matter to me (in real and internet life).
I mention all of this only because of a disturbing dream I had last night. I was a lawyer working a trial in some German Expressionist courtroom. I have no idea the whys or wherefores, or even the outcome of the trial. The only thing that is still stark and clear in my mind is this moment: the judge, wild haired and crazy-eyed, stands and leans cartoonishly out over the bench at me. He points at me, all imperiousness. "Sometimes the only thing to speak to a man's innocence is that man. That does not negate the fact of his innocence. Ten years from now, when the lies are revealed and the truth is known, the world will look at you."
It was terrifying . . . and true.
I realized as I awoke, that I am far too much the armchair activist and, that I need to start speaking my mind more. Amongst friends, family, and colleagues, I often hold my tongue (which may seem surprising to those who know me!) in an effort to keep the peace. Sometimes in an effort to keep a powerful conversation from being derailed, sometimes in an effort to just let something hurtful, ignorant, or wrong-headed slip on by because I am too tired, anxious, or angry to deal with it. When it is the latter, I am not being honest with myself or with those I love. And I am certainly not doing all I can to make my small slice of the world a better place. So less commiserating with the converted in empty halls and behind closed doors and more honest engagement on issues that matter to me (in real and internet life).
8/13/10
Summer Reading
After Bechdel-ing my movie, TV on DVD, and book collections (recognizing that the Bechdel test is woefully inadequate for TV and books, given the general span of their story/character arcs), I decided to up the awesome chick quotient in my summer reading by focusing on books about girls (but not necessarily for girls). So after a couple of weeks in Italy, I returned home eager to get reading. I turned to my old friend, Bitch magazine for help. With the assistance of the awesome Bitch community, Miss Print's Chicklit Reviews and the Amelia Bloomer project, I crafted a summer reading list that looked something like this:
Gravity by Leanne Lieberman
Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole
Celine by Brock Cole
Kendra by Coe Booth
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Andromeda Klein by Frank Portma
Kiki Strike ("butt-kicking girl superspy") series by Kirsten Miller
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie, Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale by Holly Black
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
For the Win by Cory Doctorow
Anything by Tamora Pierce
The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
The Alchemyst (sequels The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer) by Michael Scott
Cut, Sold by Patricia McCormack
The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
NoMANsland by Lesley Hauge
In a gilded cage by Rhys Bowen
Libyrinth by Pearl North
The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan by Nancy Springer
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
The Burning Time by Robin Morgan
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters (the first book to be discussed by my dear friend Miss Print's new online bookclub!)
and to round out the YA binge, Enlightened Sexism : The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work is Done by Susan J. Douglas
While some of these are re-reads (the joys of re-reading an excellent book, I cannot put into words), I'm approximately 1/3 of the way through the list (in no particular order) and I could not be happier to have spent the last couple of weeks immersed in stories about well-developed, three dimensional, young women. I've said it before and I'll say it again, kids need to see themselves realistically, lovingly, and empoweringly portrayed in the fiction they read. As a teacher, if I'm to be able to recommend excellent, powerful, and just plain good books to young women, kids of color, poor kids, gay kids, trans kids . . . I need to make sure that I am actively searching them out. Lazy reading means shoddy readers' advisory and a frustrated RMS.
As a side note to this . . . a blurb about internalized anti-feminist rhetoric: I haves it. I realized sitting in Logan airport, on my way home from a weekend up in Boston, that I was thinking, as I read Enlightened Sexism, "I wonder what these people think of me." Which is absurd and a tad ego-maniacal, because waiting to board a plane, people have a lot to think about besides me and whether or not I am a rabid, frigid misandrist. But for more than a second, I wondered.
I'm going to work on that.
Gravity by Leanne Lieberman
Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole
Celine by Brock Cole
Kendra by Coe Booth
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Andromeda Klein by Frank Portma
Kiki Strike ("butt-kicking girl superspy") series by Kirsten Miller
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie, Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale by Holly Black
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
For the Win by Cory Doctorow
Anything by Tamora Pierce
The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
The Alchemyst (sequels The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer) by Michael Scott
Cut, Sold by Patricia McCormack
The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
NoMANsland by Lesley Hauge
In a gilded cage by Rhys Bowen
Libyrinth by Pearl North
The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan by Nancy Springer
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
The Burning Time by Robin Morgan
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters (the first book to be discussed by my dear friend Miss Print's new online bookclub!)
and to round out the YA binge, Enlightened Sexism : The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work is Done by Susan J. Douglas
While some of these are re-reads (the joys of re-reading an excellent book, I cannot put into words), I'm approximately 1/3 of the way through the list (in no particular order) and I could not be happier to have spent the last couple of weeks immersed in stories about well-developed, three dimensional, young women. I've said it before and I'll say it again, kids need to see themselves realistically, lovingly, and empoweringly portrayed in the fiction they read. As a teacher, if I'm to be able to recommend excellent, powerful, and just plain good books to young women, kids of color, poor kids, gay kids, trans kids . . . I need to make sure that I am actively searching them out. Lazy reading means shoddy readers' advisory and a frustrated RMS.
As a side note to this . . . a blurb about internalized anti-feminist rhetoric: I haves it. I realized sitting in Logan airport, on my way home from a weekend up in Boston, that I was thinking, as I read Enlightened Sexism, "I wonder what these people think of me." Which is absurd and a tad ego-maniacal, because waiting to board a plane, people have a lot to think about besides me and whether or not I am a rabid, frigid misandrist. But for more than a second, I wondered.
I'm going to work on that.
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