A Few Actual Truths About Racism

An incredibly, incredibly confused person sent out a bulletin earlier today that I had to respond to. I've gotten one or two of these things before, but my response has been to delete the "friend" and try to damp down the sickening feeling that arose from reading their "thoughts." This time I had to protest. I had to take a stand over sheer, thoughtless ignorance. Because the people passing this hideous thing around are Christian parents raising children. They need to know that they are WRONG and since their pastor is evidently not getting through to them in church on Sunday, I'm going to attempt some tough love myself.

The title of the bulletin I received was "This may offend some, but it's the truth." I'm going to take issue with the very title in that it WILL offend MOST, and it's absolutely NOT the truth. I cannot reprint the entire thing here as it turns my stomach and makes me want to forget all about my optimism, but I'm taking excerpts about those "truths" and showing the fallacy for what it is. Here we go. The words in black are NOT mine. Pay attention, please.

There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans,
Native Americans, etc. And then there are just Americans.

Kinda stupid already. The actual "Americans" ARE the Native Americans. Our European ancestors are the ones who shoved their way in here and forced out the natives. And has the writer never heard the term "European American" or another term known widely as "Caucasian?"

You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You Call me "White boy," "Cracker," "Honkey," "Whitey," "Caveman,"...And that's OK.

I'm whiter than paper. Whiter than flour, even. But I've never, ever had these terms applied to me, even in jest. Even by drunks. So I'm guessing the color of the boy's skin wasn't the reason he was being called names in the first place. As for it being OK? Um, not it's not. Name calling is stupid and childish for any reason, but name calling in order to denigrate a person by race is, indeed, racist and NOT okay. Didn't your mamma ever teach you that?


You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you, so why are the ghettos the most
dangerous places to live?

Interesting to note, in the list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the country, 20 of them are in the region designated as the south. Mississippi, Louisianna, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas....Though I'm sure no one can deny the terror of the ghettos of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Apparently, if you want to be safe you must live in the midwest or the northeast. Or Wisconsin. (Sidebar here while I crack up about Fargo being twenty-five in the "safest" column. Watch out for those mulchers!!!)

You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Hispanic History Month. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Asian History Month. You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi. You have Yom Hashoah. You have Kawanza. You have the NAACP. And you have BET.

That entire paragraph skeeves me out. The United Negro College Fund came into existence in 1943, long after whites had been going to college (Harvard, the first college in the US opened in 1638 and it only took six years before a scholarship fund appeared there when it became obvious that poor people can get ahead easier if they are given some help. Now, I didn't look it up, but I'm going to assume here that black people were not permitted to enter Harvard in the sixteen hundreds. It might be, just maybe, that white people have had some breaks for four hundred years. And someone is complaining because blacks have had a college scholarship for sixty-four years? Really?

The other attacks in the above paragraph of vitriole are equally ridiculous. Presidents's Day celebrates 43 white men in one day! Columbus Day, unless you want to argue that he is Italian and does not count regardless of having found the damn country for us. I'm betting there were more than a few white Puritans having Thanksgiving dinner with Squanto. Valentine, a Roman martyr. And what about Easter and Christmas? Perhaps we should no longer celebrate those holidays as they do originally hail from the Middle East and since Jesus wasn't really what you'd call a white guy.

There are over 60 openly-proclaimed Black-only Colleges in the US, yet if there were "White-only Colleges" ...THAT would be a racist college.

There is no such thing as a Black-Only College. There are 114 Historically Black Colleges (I attended one myself) but those schools do not prohibit other races from entering. And up until 1964, ALL other colleges in the US, WERE white-only colleges. Three hundred and twenty-six years of white-only colleges in this country. Is there a way you can look at that fact and NOT call that racism?

The negativity continues in a diatribe against the Million Man march, the anger that white people are not supposed to show pride in their culture, and on and on, ending with this line:

Why is it that only whites can be racists?

I suppose, again, that this question stems from the writer's inability to look up facts, to suss out the actual arguments in his statements. Perhaps if he did so, he would find his world view shattered as his illusions about "inequality" and the poor, unfairly treated white man crumbled around him.

There is nothing to be prideful about in defending statements (ahem, lies) such as those listed above. Anyone professing Christianity should be sorely, sorely ashamed if those remarks reflect their own beliefs, and should go spend some quiet time in the New Testament re-learning their Beattitudes.

For now, this is all I can manage on this topic. It's taken a good chunk of my evening, fact-checking so as not to be as dumb as the original writer and then the constant "forwarders" of that nonsense, but I feel cleaner now. Fresher and a little more hopeful that someday these people will realize how petty and small their viewpoint is. How they are suffocating themselves into a tiny cloistered little world of anger. How a person can never rise up while he is shoving someone else down.

Party Till the Chocolate Chips

The party last Friday night was a success. My outfit was suitable once I tied the waist as tightly as I could with a black scarf AND put on the highest heels I owned so as not to drag the pants on the ground. Here's a pic. Be sure to notice how Rich looks as if he's off to have the time of his life. It's because I and my sister-in-law had just been talking about dancing.



As it turned out, there was no dancing that evening, but we did have a wonderful time. The restaurant showed me why sometimes beef is actually worth $40 (but only if I'm not buying...) and that really good red wines even pair well with lobster. Basically, it was a killer restaurant. Yummy, even. The best mushrooms, spinach, and white au gratin potatoes in the world. Or at least in my relatively small realm of experience.

After dinner our group, which consisted of six couples and one single guy, walked across Glenwood to visit a private club called Havana's. It turned out to be a cigar bar (who'da guessed, right?) but it was cozy and comfy and had a dart board we monopolized for a couple hours. Damon beat the boss and the boss's wife was from Sweden so she kept saying "Hit the wall!" in a very dry wit which cracked me up. On the way home, Damon burst into a rendition of "The Greatest Love of All" by Ms. Whitney Houston. I did not know why he started it, but I joined in for all I was worth.

Basically, a very nice evening of luxury and good company that was fully funded by the company, liquor and all, or should I say "all the liquor?" Which was fine because Rich was the DD for me, Damon, and Angela. So it was a good night....

Followed by my Sunday morning plans to bake cookies. I've always baked chocolate chip cookies for Christmas season, often passing them out to neighbors and friends as I tend to bake way, way too many. I use the same recipe every year. The same recipe my own mother has used for years and years. (This year I even had a good oven instead of the horrible gas oven that came with the house. The door wouldn't even close on that monster. We pitched it last summer.) But the cookies. Oh, the cookies turned out badly and I cannot figure out why. I have a reputation for burning things and this batch of cookies isn't going to help. But because they turned out so ugly they are funny, I'm offering myself up for entertainment value. Observe, the scene of the crime.



How the poor things came out so FLAT, I cannot figure.



And how these came out both flat and BURNED is, again, a mystery.



Those of you who are married to people who can cook? Love them. Appreciate them. Eat THEIR cookies. And send me some, would you? I have none for my holidays now!

A Christmas Conundrum

Christmastime is here. My mood is cheerful. And yesterday Rich called with an interesting proposition. Did we want to attend his company's Christmas party? Now, usually we are not social people, choosing to hibernate a LOT, but this sounds like a good time with free food at a GREAT place. (http://www.sullivansteakhouse.com/)

So, we're in. I'm even looking forward to the rare possibility of dancing. Then it hit me. Quite literally, I have nothing to wear.

Today I worked my heinie off and booked it over to Goodwill to see if I could pick up something simple and easy. Um, nope. So I went into my guest room closet where my banished, too-large clothes live now until they all sell. It occurred to me that maybe, just maybe I could take something from my previous cocktail-type clothes and make it work. (In case you haven't guessed, I've been watching Project Runway....)

I pulled from my closet a knee-length black dress and a knee-length black skirt with black lace overlay. Simple, classy, I thought. And neither no longer hit me at the knee, falling instead all the way to that mid-calf length that turns even lovely legs into tree stumps. Hmm. But maybe the dress with a belt. Egad, even the belts are too big.

Let me take a little break here to say I realize it sounds like I'm bragging about the weight loss, but seriously? I have a closet of clothes that do fit me and every single piece is a t-shirt/tank top/capri pant/gym shorts/sweatshirt motif. Seriously. And we're in a financial crunch so no new clothes and especially no new clothes that I won't be able to wear ever again since I'm going to shrink even further before another "occassion" will arise. So back to the dressing room.

The black dress might work if I tie up the waist with a scarf, perhaps a solid black scarf if I can recall what I might have done with it. The lace skirt might do as well if I pin the waistband way up under my arms in order to keep the hem just above the knee. But then I don't have any tops that will fall correctly to camoflauge the fact that my skirt is masquerading as an empire waistline.

Then I saw something forgotten in the back of my regular closet. It was behind the few suit jackets that Rich owns, over in the rarely used section of clothes. It was a bunch of clothes covered in a dry-cleaning bag. They were things that belonged to my sister, Beth. Kristen and I divvied up the clothes after Beth passed and these few pieces were things she didn't think she would wear and things I can either recall Beth wearing or just looked like her to me. (One fine example is the pair of snakeskin printed pants. She was wearing those at karaoke singing "Good-bye Earl" and I'll never forget it. No way those things are ever leaving my closet.)

But also in that bag was a sweater she and I used to fight over. I'd steal it from her closet because it looked so good on me and she'd steal it back just to keep me from looking so good in it. (or because it actually belonged to her... you know.) I looked at it and remembered wearing it years ago, when Kevin was a baby, when Rich and I were newly dating. I put it on and it fit.


There is no better motivation for my positive attitude today. That sweater is hanging in the "wearable" section of my closet even now, victoriously signaling my return to a smaller size. There are so few items of clothes in there right now that it's a pretty clear signal and should be an effective one for me.

I can't wear it to the party, true. Not nearly dressy enough. But something will work out, or something will work just well enough to get me through for now. Besides which, it's a martini bar. After a couple drinks, no one is going to notice my safety-pinned waistline anyway.

I'm positive.

I hope you all have parties and good times with friends and family coming up soon. Enjoy them all and enjoy this Christmas season!

Optimism is Catching

It's been a weird year. Serious financial stress. The boy entered high school. I returned to the workforce. And more that I don't write about, though I know it must seem that I spill my guts entirely here in my blog. Any of these alone would be stressful but together they pack a whomping K.O. punch.

Luckily, I discovered the secret to survival. And not just survival, but a true, progressive survival. Enlightenment, perhaps. The secret is optimism.

Who knew?

Some of you are guffawing even as you read this. I'm so ordinarily full of snark but am now championing optimism? Oh, believe it, Friend. I have had too much proof in the here and now to be a doubter.

My job hurts me, physically. Though it's getting better all the time (due to callous development) there are still muscles making themselves known to me every day. Last week I had the utter joy of having two days off IN A ROW. What bliss! What utter wonderfulness!!! On the first day off I awoke with a serious sinus pressure headache and a scratchy throat of a cold. "Of course," my snarky self said inside my head. But instead of wallowing in my despair, I took some Alka-Seltzer Cold Plus and went about my day. And went about the next day, keeping myself drugged to the gills at all times. On the third day of the cold, the day I had to return to the workforce with TWO houses to clean, a total of seven hours of scrubbing mind you, I wo-manned up for it. As I drove my boy to school at seven a.m., mainlining coffee as we went, I said out loud: "I feel GREAT! I'm going to have a GREAT day."

Kevin, of course, thought I was joking. He had watched my cold progress and knew I was about to have a killer day. Plus, he's been raised to the ripe old age of thirteen by the Queen of Snark. He just knew I must be kidding.

But I wasn't. I was determined to mean it. Even as he laughed at me I repeated that mantra again. And I left for my workday with cold medicine in hand and a forced good attitude at heart. And it worked.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Plus, when I woke Saturday morning, my cold was GONE. (let's have a brief commercial break here in honor of Alka-Seltzer Cold Plus. I highly recommend it.) But more than that, my optimism was still with me.

I've used that mantra, and the good attitude that accompanies it, several times over the last few days. It really works-- dulling a bad mood, shortening a dull chore, enhancing a short break. The optimism is even now slopping over into goodwill toward the world in general since I couldn't wait to share this information with all my friends.

It's my gift to you. Use it well and enjoy it. And though you may not believe it will work when you first try, just try it wholeheartedly.

Pure in heart would be great too, but only if you can manage it!

Enjoy the blessings of the holiday. (And no, I'm not still taking the cold medicine.)