Oh, the good old days…. September 27, 2008

Tonight I watched the daily show episode in which Bill Clinton was interviewed. You should go and check it out here if you have a second. Honestly, it really made me miss him as president. The dude is fucking smart and no matter what you want to say about him personally, he was a pretty kick ass president. It also brought up my resentment that Hillary lost the democratic ticket in this election. They would have been a power couple for sure, and that wouldn’t have been a bad thing!! Both of them are extremely intelligent and try and do the best that they can for this country. I’m sad they won’t get the chance to try and turn this country around.

You should watch the interview though as Bill had some things to say about the current financial crisis and the criticism that Hillary has received for not supporting Obama “enough”. I only wish that Jon Stewart had a longer show, I would have loved to hear Clinton’s view on Sarah Palin.

Kind of on a random note, but with the news constantly providing me with evidence that America is falling apart I have begun to pay more to things on the international front. I have a sneaking suspicion I will be wanting to bail out on this place if things continue they way they do. I will now have two friends living over in England that I absolutely promised to go and visit next year and I’m sure I will be tempted to stay.

With that being said, congratulations to Rwanda, the first nation in the world to have a female majority in their parliament. Again, and surprisingly enough, Africa is leading the forefront in women in government. A few years ago Liberia democratically elected the first female president.

I was interested to find out that Rwanda actually has a gender quota in which 30% of parliament must be women, but that recently women have been gaining more support in government involvement in excess of this quota. Part of this is the fact that women are actually 56% of the population and that they are actually seen as being more trustworthy and responsible then males when it comes to issues of the community. This is understandable when we remember the violence that Rwanda saw with the whole genocide issue they dealt with a few years back.

My friend Rachell left today for Cambridge University (she will be missed!!) to begin her masters in philosophy and part of her focus will be on gender quotas. I’m not sure how I feel about them myself and I can’t wait to be able to pick her brain on what she comes up with!

After seeing the treatment of women throughout this election its nice to see that elsewhere women are making some progress.

And of course with the election coming up on us so soon I’m not going to be able to help myself and start paying attention more to the news and such. I’m going to get really annoying about getting people to vote, so if you don’t like politics, or are deciding to spit in the face of a right that people die for else where in the world and don’t vote, you probably shouldn’t talk to me the next month.

Registration deadline is October 15th in Massachusetts!! Get your registration in now!! Voting is important!!!! If you need more info check out Rock the Vote.

With all due respect to YOU good sir……. June 11, 2008

[disclaimer:  my tone can sometimes come off as too critical or condescending.  This is by no means meant to be so.  It is one of my flaws as a person.  I'm working on it.  Until I get over it I won't make any attempts to run for office because god knows I wouldn't want to be called an "elitist" (okay, sorry...that was sarcastic)]

I am posting again today in response to a comment left by Bryman.  His comment made me aggravated, excited, and then grateful.  Aggravated, because no matter how much I try to not care about these things, I always get pulled back in somehow.  Excited, because I can’t help but not be when talking about these issues.  And grateful, because he is giving me the opportunity to clarify some points for you.  This is not a personal attack on him or the things he wrote in response to my original post.  Without him in my life I wouldn’t even have this silly blog.  So in advance Bryman, thank you for challenging me!!

I was not trying to make the point that poverty is not racist.  I was making the point that minorities are stuck in the state they are (right along with some white people) due to a lack of money.  This leads to a lack of access to education and stable, safe living environments.  This lack can then in turn lead to crime.  Both of these things can lead to stereotypes of minorities being both stupid and prone to crime and violence which makes people not want to hire, live near, or even speak to them.  Their current state is not due to the color of their skin anymore.  When I said that racism was not an issue, I meant in the legal sense of the word.  The instances you bring up are in fact punishable according to the law, although I agree that this does not not always happen.  That is not to say that they do not still occur, but now there is the full force of the law behind these types of offenses.  While racist may still exist, we don’t really like to tolerate it as a nation as a whole and it is most certainly frowned upon.

There is never a true discussion about race in this country which is the point I was hoping to get across.  The only ones truly allowed to discuss it freely are the minorities themselves.  “White” people tend to walk a fine line in discussing race issues.  Racism is feared by public society  and is not publicly accepted and any comments seen as “racist” tend to label the speaker as one as well.  If we are to have a true discussion about race, the white folks need to be able to speak up too.  No true effective change can ever really be accomplished unless both sides are able to speak to each other, and honestly.  We shouldn’t have to watch our mouths simply because someone might get offended.  People have offensive thoughts and we need to put them out there sometimes so that we can actually deal with them instead of pretending like they don’t exist.

This is what I meant when I said that it is time to move beyond race as such a critical issue.  I feel that the fact that a black man has been nominated for the presidency will help contribute to this.  Not that it isn’t an issue, but today it is not the direct cause of many of the problems that the very group is experiencing.  This is true because people on the same income level encounter the same difficulties.

Another point I’m sick of hearing, and I know that by saying it it will put me close to that line I spoke about, is the demand for greater representation of minorities in politics.  And please, before anyone gets all up in arms let me explain.  Sure, more minorities should be involved in politics than at the current moment.  But it needs to be accepted at a certain point that the minorities in this country are called such because they are in fact a minority in the population in the nation as a whole.  Furthermore, where are all the hispanics?  They beat out the blacks and the asians in terms of numbers and I’m sure if you counted the illegal ones along with the legal ones they would probably even get close to beating out the number of white people.  Lets take a moment to step back and look at some of the other countries in this world in which there is a minority ruling over the majority.  Several African nations have this problem where the white people are the minority and control the government.  Should those black folks be pissed?  God damn right they should be.  The true majority interests are not being heard which can create a sad state of affairs for most of the people living in those respective countries.  There are other nations that have this problem and I encourage anyone to take a look at them (A great book for that is World on Fire by Amy Chua).  My ultimate point is that we are only going to see so much diversity in politics.  There should absolutely be more of it, but we should always be wary of a minority ruling over a majority (like rich over poor perhaps?) and the reason why I tie it in with Hillary is the fact that women represent a little over half of the population and we are a fraction of the representation in politics.  At some points in history there was even more minority members in congress than females of any race.  This I find absolutely absurd.  I’ll take a minute here to insert some statistics from the current members of congress (taken from wikipedia so probably not the most academic source but it will have to do):

In the Senate, there are 16 women, the highest number in history. There are 13 Jews, three Hispanics (Mel Martinez, R-FL; Bob Menendez, D-NJ; Ken Salazar, D-CO) two Asian Americans (Daniel Akaka, D-HI; Daniel Inouye, D-HI), one Arab American (John Sununu, R-NH), and one African American (Barack Obama, D-IL). The 110th Congress includes the most religiously-diverse House in history, including the first Muslims (Keith Ellison and André Carson), the first Buddhists (Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson), and 30 Jews. There are 42 African Americans (including two non-voting delegates) and 74 female representatives. There are also 27 Hispanics, three Asian Americans, and one Native American (Tom Cole, R-OK).

So ultimately out of 635 members of the Congress (435 for the House and 100 for the Senate) 90 (14%) are women, 43 (6 %) are Black, 30 (4%) are Hispanic, and 5 (0.07%) are Asian.  The US Census reports that in the population as a whole 12.2% is black, 14.8% is Hispanic, 4.4% are Asian, and lets just put women at 50% to make it easy (although in truth it is a little more than that).  So half the black population is represented in congress as of now.  By far the best representation of any minority group in the country (and I’m throwing women in the mix as they are always thrown in as a minority even though in truth they are the majority).  And just look at those poor Asians, or even the lone Native American, man do I feel bad for those guys, they must truly feel out of place.  Again, women have the worst representation overall, making up only 14% of Congress even though they are roughly 50% of the population.  And of course that is only on a national level but I feel its serves as a decent example for my purposes.

Some other random statements to throw at you too (mostly from things I have randomly read or experienced the last two years so if anyone needs citations I’ll be happy to get over to the library and look them up for you, I swear I’m not talking out of my ass).  Did you know that there are more minority students enrolled in Ivy League schools then there are poor people from any background?  That when I was applying to college I found an abundance of scholarships for women entering the sciences but that I couldn’t apply for any of them because they were directed at minority students, usually regardless of economic status? Not to mention the fact that especially in Boston, there is a racially diverse black population comprised of people who have immigrated from Haiti or Cape Verde.  So essentially what those scholarships are saying to me is that a person who has immigrated to this country, or whose parents have immigrated to this country, just like my grandparents did, has had such a hard time that they need extra help going to school?  So a female Haitian immigrant has access to funds that her female Russian immigrant peer might not simply based on the color of their skin?  Don’t they both encounter the same barriers?  Its total Bullshit.  My family on both sides NEVER OWNED SLAVES.  I shouldn’t have to pay for the fact that a bunch of assholes feeling guilty because a 150 years ago their families did.  My grandfather moved here when he was 6, got plunked into a first grade classroom not knowing a word of English.  He busted his ass, learned a trade, bought a house and raised a family and you couldn’t even tell that the man is able to speak fluent Italian.  Many people struggle and work hard just to secure the basic American dream of owning a home and raising a family in safety.  Do they need help?  Sure, but it ain’t just about the black folks anymore, so yes, its time they get over it.  We’re all having a hard time right now, regardless of our skin color.

So no, with all due respect, I would say that I am not ignorant at all.  I have been reading, writing, and discussing issues like these throughout high school and into college.  I allow my eyes to stay open to the world around me and the various experiences that ALL people experience.  I will not bow down or shut my mouth because of the color of MY skin.  I am entitled to speak about whatever I want, just like anyone else.  Not to sound like an ‘elitist’ but I could throw a few books at you, and ones written by some very smart black people, that totally support my point.  I think that it is great that Obama has not let race become a major issue in his campaign.  I think that if he keeps that up he will have a better chance of winning.  People are tired of hearing the race card.  We all need to get over it.  Older people like your grandmother or whomever else that feels they wouldn’t vote for someone based on color needs to examine why exactly they are saying that and perhaps because they are aware of their trivial bias, they should elect to stay home on voting day come November.  Sure tons of older people still have issue with race.  They have seen a lot in their day, and for them I am not sure much can be done to fix it, so really, why try to talk them out of it?  Why can’t our generation drop the bullshit of the generation before and start new?  The fact that people of color in my age group are still trying to pull the race card is just fucking silly.  We were both sitting in the same fucking room, on the same college campus, being taught in the same way, by the same professor.  So is it really that much of an issue still for our generation?  Still throwing that discrimination card around?  You’re right, when you’re different you feel it.  When you’re black in a room full of whites you feel different.  When you’re white in a room full of blacks you feel different.  If you’re a girl in a room full of boys you feel different.  When you’re fat and in a room full of skinny people you feel different.  Hell, just today I was given a judgmental look on the train by an elderly black woman.  Did it bug me a little bit?  Sure it did, but GET OVER IT!!!!  It doesn’t solve anything to continue to whine about these things.  Lets sit down and really take a look at why these populations aren’t succeeding.  Lets have a real dialogue where we can both talk about what’s affecting us.  I am positive we will find that today, it has nothing to do with the color of our skin.  

I stand by my point, its time to move beyond race.  Not that it is not still a factor but its not the whole pie.  There is a lot more at work than simple discrimination based on skin color.  Again, I am not a racist.  If you perceive me to be so then you are allowing yourself to remain ignorant of the fact that race issues affect everyone and everyone needs to speak about them.  Its not just white and black, its also red and yellow.  We are a nation of African-Asian-Hispanic-Native-Irish-Italian-Russian-German-Muslim-(etc) American’s and we all got shit to say, so can’t we sit back and try to listen and maybe without all that horrible judgement?

[I had some more points to bring up about why I feel Hillary's campaign failed.  I have done a ton of research on woman in politics, as well as woman in music and the similar barriers they face as I was supposed to do a senior thesis on the subject but ended up losing my advisor so I never actually wrote it.  If I started to bring up all that this thing would literally turn into a book so I will have to leave that for another day.]

I would never let a woman kick my @ss…….. June 7, 2008

……If she tried something, I’d be like, HEY! You get your b*tch @ss back in the kitchen and make me some pie!” — Eric Cartman

I preface this by saying I am not a racist, a republican, or a even a liberal (feel free to ask me what I feel my actual political status is and why).  If you find my opinions offensive or biased you should probably just get over it.  You don’t have to agree or even change your mind, but at least let it make you think………

I wandered over to CNN today to update myself on the election.  You would think I would pay more attention seeing as there was a black guy running against a woman and I happen to be a political science nerd.  After finding my true love in political philosophy during my junior year of college I have pretty much left politics to the politicians.  I would much prefer to sit in a room and read books all day and discuss ideas of the world that will never be practical.

So the black guy won.  Good for him.  I’m actually really glad.  And if anyone of color dares to sit across from me and tries to get me to believe that their life is harder than mine simply for the color of their skin, I will be seriously tempted to punch them in the mouth.  Again, I am not a racist but I have been accused of being one.  I think this is mostly because I have a big mouth and I refuse to let ridiculous statements go uncontested.  I don’t have that so-called “white guilt”.  I’ll tell someone what’s on my mind regardless of the color of skin of the person that I am speaking with.  If they can’t deal with it, oh well.  It’s just like when I open my mouth about something a guy does.  Sure I get called a bitch but oh well, all I was really doing was speaking my mind, which if I remember correctly is something GUARANTEED by the constitution of this country.  So I shall politely say, fuck off and don’t count on me shutting up anytime soon.

I sat through many classes with my peers of color and heard them argue that their lives were more difficult, that they faced challenges in their lives simply for the color of their skin.  Well, like I said, I can’t keep my mouth shut when things like that are said.  I was supposed to believe that I was white and therefore I have no ass, cannot dance, and just coasted through life.  First, my italian child bearing hips give me quite a nice ass as I am often told.  Second, I can dance, and just as well as some of the hispanic and black friends I have spent time with, in fact one even told me that I wasn’t white based on the fact that I “dance like a spanish girl, with a black girl’s ass”.  Needless to say one of the best and most ridiculous compliments I have received in my life.  Lastly, how dare someone of color sit next to me and tell me my life was easier.  One girl happened to come from a two family household, and in fact grew up in a house, attended church regularly, and her family was contributing to a portion of her college tuition.  I am a child of divorce, I have lived in 2 different foster homes in 2 different states.  I can’t remember the last time I lived in an actual house with my family.  And the biggest to me is that I was responsible for 100% of my college tuition.  I busted my ass to find scholarship funds and apply for loans just to secure enough money to meet my basic needs.  So how dare she, or anyone else judge ME on the color of MY skin.  

And of course in my angry, passionate outburst, I forgot the taboo that white people are NEVER supposed to stand up and defend themselves when it comes to race.  How dare I speak about discrimination?  I am white and my life was all fine and dandy because of it (note intense sarcasm here).  I have always brought up the point that race is not the issue here anymore.  It is illegal to discriminate based on the color of a person’s skin.  And while discrimination based on skin color does still occur, so does discrimination of other kinds as well.  I have always taken the stance that it is now a class issue.  A majority of minorities also happen to be on the poverty level, but their white counterparts encounter the same difficulties and it accomplishes nothing to try and keep them separate by stating that a lack of education, crime, and spread of disease, etc. are all “black” issues.  They are poor people issues.  I have been discriminated against, or made to feel inferior based on both my gender and my social class, so while I do not understand racism, I certainly do understand discrimination.  You can be white and know what that feels like.

And I would just like to take a side note here and say that I abhor (yes, abhor, holla GRE vocab review books, and yes I just said holla) being called white.  I am an italian-irish american.  How dare anyone sweep my ethnic heritage under the rug.  I don’t understand the quiet polite “white” families in America’s heartland just as much as any black person doesn’t understand them.  Minorities are loud so the stereotype states?  Have you ever had dinner with an Italian family?  Or an Irish one? Or even worse, the mix of the two?  My family is ridiculous.  We always yell, we all talk at the same time, we like to eat food, we interrupt each other, we don’t hate the occasional drink.

Back to my point.  I’m glad he won.  I’m still not sold on him being the better candidate yet but I’m hoping his talk about change will actually turn into some action for change.  I’m glad because now in this country we can maybe grow up a bit and learn that until we can move beyond the trivial issues and focus on what is really plaguing this country.  We need to work together to move beyond race and get to the real heart of our problems.  Because trust me, the last thing that the rich white guys in charge of this country want is the poor white people to make friends with the poor black people and realize that we have more in common together than we do with the rich white dudes, and oh shit, we even out number them too!

So again I am not a racist.  My point is that we ALLLLLLLLL need to shut the fuck up about race and get to work on fixing the mess that those rich white fucks will be leaving us with.

 

P.S.  I am a little miffed that Hillary lost.  The way my feminist mind sees it, by looking at demographics, there are more women in this country than black people.  But we’re more okay with a black dude than a woman in charge of this country?  You’re right, gender discrimination couldn’t possibly be at work here.  Maybe next time, just to be sure, we should confuse the fuck out of them and have a black woman run.  What will we do then?  If she lost we might have to actually admit that politics in this country is STILL male dominated……..but that will be a political outburst for another day.

I couldn’t help but wonder….. May 30, 2008

Today the Sex and the City movie opens all across America.  I am what you would call a fan of the show.  I have seen all six seasons and more than once.  I’ve laughed and yes, even cried during an episode or two.  I am however, extremely pissed about this movie coming out and I have several reasons for feeling so.

The first would be that I felt the series ended exceptionally well.  It concluded in a way that there really is no need to find out what happens after.  As far as I am concerned this film is just an attempt to make more money off of a very successful series.  That kind of crap always pisses me off.  They are trying to force more out of something in an attempt to make more money and I feel that projects like that often take away from what came before.

The second is that I find tremendous issue with the fact that the premise of the movie revolves around Carrie marrying Big.  I in fact can say that I HATE that plot line.  The relationship between Carrie and Big carried through the entire series and it had its ups and downs.  They were both getting older and had both experienced their issues with commitment.  Big had been married twice before and Carrie had attempted to get married but found she couldn’t go through with it.  I enjoyed the end of the series because despite it all they found each other again and in a way seemed to understand that their relationship wasn’t the fairy-tale romance that every girl (minus a few of us of course) thinks is going to happen to them.  I enjoyed the show because it was real.  It showed that relationships aren’t always like they are in the movies or romance novels but yet here they are turning it into that very same thing!

By now I am sure you are all starting to understand my aversion to the concept of marriage.  I have always felt this way in my life.  No one ever believes that I truly feel like I do not ever want to be married.  There is honestly only one person in my life that has ever made me feel that maybe someday MAYBE I would like to enjoy that type of celebration.  But even that fact irritates me a little.  One boy comes into my life and I feel a little high from the chemicals that the so-called feelings of love release in my brain and I drop some of the most important things that I believe in, going against my principles simply because someone else made me happy for awhile.  Well luckily that situation ended and I was able to return again to the world of sanity and logic.  I feel that marriage is not something that is really needed in today’s society.  It doesn’t really serve any purpose other than the fact that it makes people “happy”.  Anyways I’m losing my point….back to why this movie is pissing me off…..

The third is that so many girls/women are so god damn excited for it.  I can’t think of a worse movie genre other than the “chick flick”.  There are very few of them that I can even sit through.  I like to see things explode.  I like laughing at stupid sexual humor.  I like seeing aliens battle predators, robots, laser guns, spaceships and ridiculous visual effects.  I like movies about comic book heroes.  And I HATE when they throw a love story into the mix of them.  I am all for gratuitous sex scenes at the conclusion of a crazy fight scene…..but all this love crap?  Honestly?  If you’re going to have a genre of the “chick flick” or “romantic comedy” leave the mushy love crap in those horrible movies, stop polluting the rest of the film world.  

Why do females give into these fairy tales?  Do we honestly still think about being a pretty pink princesse rescued by a prince charming?  Its absolutely absurd and the more we peddle this crap to our daughters and each other the more you will see females searching for something that just can’t exist anymore.  I see it as a major source of unhappiness for women and a source of conflict when they actually find themselves in a relationship.  If you want to be saved, save yourself.  IF I do ever decide to raise a child (most hopefully through adoption rather than childbirth) I don’t think I want to expose her to the silly world of Disney princesses and bullshit fairy tales that give us the hidden message that we should just look pretty and wait for a big strong man to come and take care of us someday.  I think that we as women as a whole need to examine our “culture” and start to make some changes, primarily by leaving behind the notions fed to us in films such as these.

[*If you're a female (or a male secure about himself enough to appreciate strong, intelligent women) reading this I would look into a series of books called "Girls to the Rescue" by Bruce Lansky.  They are a collection of stories about females being the heroes.  They were written/collected by a father who was bothered by the fact that none of the stories he was telling his daughter were teaching her to be strong and independent (and props to him for noticing).]

And finally for those who know the show somewhat well:

The fourth and last reason is that I am a Samantha (with some tom-boy Miranda qualities thrown in).  I don’t like relationships.  I’m sexually experimental and I am most happy having sex “like a man”, that is with a lack of emotional attachment.  I’m independent and like to stand on my own.  This movie is mostly going to center around Carrie I am sure and all of the above mentioned bullshit that I find issue with.  I never enjoyed the weird fashion, the “fabulous” times they had at ridiculously expensive restaurants and bars, or did I ever find most of the men they were with exceptionally attractive.  I enjoyed the writing and the fact that the show embodied what women do talk about when they are together and the everyday issues that they can face in the world, especially when it comes to sex.

In the end I will most likely end up seeing the movie, but needless to say my expectations are not very high……..

little old ladies can still change the world May 28, 2008

I am currently reading “The Second Sex” by Simone De Beauvoir.  I usually do most of my reading on the commute to and from work and today as I was getting off the train I was  stopped by an old lady who asked me if I enjoyed reading the book.  She looked up at me and put her hand on her heart and said “I didn’t think anyone still read that.  It makes me so happy to see it, that was our bible back then”.  The look in her eye was so emotional I didn’t know how to react.  I wish I had stopped to speak to her more, but we were both swept up in the crowds leaving the train and heading in opposite directions.  It was one of those rare brief moments in my life that I will always remember.

It made me think of where our so called “feminism” stands today.  “Feminists” themselves are still considered on the fringe of society.  I have never really understood why this is.  The fact that I have been asked by other girls “oh, so you’re a feminist?” is absolutely shocking to me.  Shouldn’t we all be feminists?  Being a feminist is nothing more than standing up and saying that you deserve to be treated with the dignity of a human being.  Not treated as a man per se, but a human.  I’m pretty sure that any girl (or woman if you’d rather) doesn’t want to be told what they can and cannot do, simply based on their gender.

The stereotype of a feminist brings to mind the myth of the burkenstock wearing, short-haired, man hating lesbians.  For any of you that have seen the movie PCU, the style of the “womynists” would be indicative of this stereotype.  The fact is, that is a total myth, these type of feminists don’t really exist.  I consider myself a feminist, and yes, while I would rather spend my days in jeans and a t-shirt rather than a pretty pink dress doesn’t mean I fit into that extreme at all.  I am far from man-hating, and in fact have more male friends in my life than female ones, and while I have wandered down the road of sexual exploration, I am pretty sure that I am not a lesbian.

It’s disappointing that more girls/women feel that there is nothing left to stand up for, or that mistreatment and inequality only happens in third world countries.  In reality our work is far from done.  Yes, women have seen an enormous increase and freedom since the 1950’s but there is still more to go.  Beauvoir wrote “The Second Sex” in 1949 and it is shocking to me that most of what she says is still relevant today.  While women may have seen and increase in freedom or “equality” male attitudes have not really changed in that same time.  Boys (I have met very few actual men in my life) still hold the same biased perceptions of female behavior and thinking.  On the other sided however, as a girl who spends most of her time around boys, I sometimes find that these perceptions are not always totally out of line….but that is a topic for another day.

As I explore feminism more on an intellectual and academic level I wonder if I will be able to find the reasons why, we as females/women/girls, have dropped our banners and stopped demanding what should be ours as fellow human beings.  I wonder if I will reach my old age and see a young girl reading the books that radically changed my life when I was their age?  My hope is that maybe they won’t have to.  Maybe the future does hold an equal rights amendment to the constitution, women in combat roles in the military, and the true acceptance of those who do not want marriage or children in their lives (it is my belief that women are not accepted when they do not want children or marriage.  It is still seen as a necessary and sought after step in life, that if a woman does not reach it is made to feel like she is missing out on something, but again more on that later….).

So thank you little old lady on the train.  You helped me realize how much your generation accomplished in your lifetime, and how big of a deal it really was, and hopefully that our generation can go on to accomplish even more.  You still have an impact on the world because you have had an impact on me.