Some of our Family Values

My daughter's school will be hosting a production of "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf," a poetic drama about African-American women. Some of those women deal with the effects of rape, forced pregnancy, domestic violence, and poverty; Some of the women despair, and others triumph.

The play satisfies our family's feminist theology. We believe that lyrical art like "For Colored Girls" is necessary for putting us in touch with the pain faced by many women, and with the courage they gather. It is one of the few works of art in which an oppressed group of women has found a voice that can transform an audience, and call the listeners to response. In our family, this call to response is a sacred value.

We believe in our responsibility, as well-educated and economically privileged women, to be constantly aware of injustices toward women, to be actively involved in correcting them, and to embrace and learn from the courage of women who rise above unimaginable squalor. We remember that -- because we have not yet overcome our history of enslaving African women -- that they are more vulnerable than we are.

We teach these values to our daughter. We discuss the observations she shares with us about injustice toward poor women, violence against women, rape, and abortion, in the context of our belief about our responsibility. It is why, we tell her, we have chosen the work we do every day; why we place the lives of people for whom we care above the money we get from caring for them; why we do not tolerate pejorative words against any woman; why we cannot make choices for any other woman based on our personal experiences; and why we believe that racism will not go away until we are convinced that our black sisters can actually teach us more than we can teach them.

The lessons she our learns at home are reinforced at her school. She and her friends have many opportunities, in a safe environment, to share with each other their experiences regarding sexism and racism. We see her not ignoring issues relating to even subtle forms of sexism and racism. We are grateful that our daughter's beliefs, formed in her family, are reinforced at her school.

In stark contrast, many girls and women are silenced about what hurts them, and the collusion imposed upon them to not find their voices perpetuates the violence against them. I know these girls and women well, as I care for them in my clinical practice. Works of art like "For Colored Girls" powerfully shatter that collusion of secrecy.



Here is my favorite line from "For Colored Girls:"

"I found God in myself
And I loved her
I loved her fiercely."

We are grateful for our daughter, who finds something sacred in herself, and in every girl she knows. And in this, we believe.

Newt Gingrich Comes Out

Remember when, in the 1990's, Newt Gingrich led the country in a socio-political revolution bearing the "MORAL MAJORITY" banner? Several people countered with this caveat: "THE MORAL MAJORITY IS NEITHER!" They may have been on the left, but they were right!

In today's damage-control interview regarding his marital infidelity, the aspiring Republican 2008 presidential nominee Gingrich told Focus on the Family founder James Dobson: "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards." Focus on the Family interview (to be posted in full today): http://listen.family.org/daily/

Gingrich denies he is a hypocrite for having an affair with a congressional aid while seeking prosecution of President Clinton's lie about infidelity, lest we forget that he sought prosecution for the lie, not for the infidelity.

Instead, Gingrich, who frequently campaigns on family values issues demonstrates his hypocricy for behaviors contrary to those family values. Gingrich has had two messy divorces. The first in, 1981, from his first wife Jackie Battley, he initiated during her recuperation in the hospital from cancer surgery. And now he admits that his second marriage to Marianne, ended in 2000 during an affair with his third wife Callista Bisek. At the time of the affair, Callista was a congressional aide more than 20 years his junior.

Gingrich suddenly resigned from Congress in 1998 after the House ethics panel reprimand for using tax-exempt funding to advance his political agenda, The "MORAL MAJORITY" agenda. According to WIKIPEDIA, the "Moral Majority" was a political Christian lobby group begun in 1979 which campaigned on issues it believed central to upholding its Christian conception of the moral law, a perception it believed represented the majority of people's opinions (hence the movement's name). The central issues it campaigned on were outlawing abortion, opposing state recognition and acceptance of homosexuals, enforcing it's vision of life, and censoring media that promote what it labeled as an 'anti-family' agenda.

See Ali G interview with Newt Gingrich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skv-wWCvGyw

View the blogs and polls; Gingrich's attempt at projecting moral rectitude by revealing his infidelity has not redeemed him.

Britney Went Bald

Recently my 14-year-old daughter recalled how, while still in middle school, her classmates insisted she looked exactly like Britney Spears. If only she had dressed and acted like her, she could be Britney's little sis! My daughter audibly, sighed at this memory, "I just never saw the resemblance."

Last week Britney checked herself out only 24 hours after entering a substance rehabilitation program in the Carribbean. A few days later she was spotted buzz-cutting her head at a San Fernando Valley hair salon, and then, receiving several dainty tatoos at a Sherman Oaks, California tatoo parlor.

A bystander interviewed by L.A.'s KABC-TV, which filmed Spears heading into Body & Soul Tattoo on Ventura Boulevard, said that the pop star had shaved her head because "she didn't want people touching her anymore."

My first reaction to Britney's baldness was to recall Melissa Etheridge at the 2005 Grammy's singing "Piece of My Heart" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zus0m6VIXY
Melissa, radiant with wisdom, awash with real emotion, let out a primal scream, releasing six months of pain from chemotherapy for breast cancer. She was screaming for all of us. She could have been screaming for Britney.

All during her adolescence, while girls in her age cohort were trying out different looks, refining their thoughts, and re-inventing their identities, Britney was being created by the media who owned her. Britney's early music paralleled and personified the control exerted over her by the recording companies. This girl learned in her tweens to be enslaved and used by the corporate big daddy, as in "Baby One More Time" ". . .When I'm not with you I lose my mind, Give me a sign, Hit me baby one more time . . .The reason I breathe is you. . . Show me, how you want it to be . . . "

Perhaps Britney is becoming the girl she describes in "Overprotected," where she tell us to "Say hello to the girl that I am! You're gonna have to see through my perspective I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am. . . so fed up with people telling me to be Someone else but me."

Go ahead, Britney, shave that head, get some tatoos, and try out some of your own identities. To do that you will have to feel your own feelings, think your own thoughts, and sing your own songs. When you are ready, let out a scream that comes from way deep in that place where feelings have been pushed down and drugged, blunted by alcohol, and smothered by some made-up image forced upon you.

By the time you let that scream out, you will be so real, so in touch with yourself, that all the girrrls will recognize you. Maybe then my daughter will see the resemblance.

Little Boxes

Yesterday as I was driving to work from my yuppie house in the burbs, like someone in the Indianopolis 500, except surrounded by SUVs instead of sleek racecars, I found myself humming "Little Boxes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvK0ZKaK6h8, written by Songwriter and social activist Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978). Oh how did I ever sell my soul?

Malvina Reynolds

Little boxes on the hillside
~ Little boxes made of ticky tacky
~ Little boxes on the hillside
~ Little boxes all the same
~ There's a green one and a pink one
~ And a blue one and a yellow one
~ And they're all made out of ticky tacky
~ And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
~ All went to the university
~ Where they were put in boxes
~ And they came out all the same
~ And there's doctors and lawyers
~ And business executives
~ And they're all made out of ticky tacky
~ And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
~ And drink their martinis dry
~ And they all have pretty children
~ And the children go to school
~ And the children go to summer camp
~ And then to the university
~ Where they are put in boxes
~ And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
~ And marry and raise a family
~ In boxes made of ticky tacky
~ And they all look just the same
~ There's a green one and a pink one
~ And a blue one and a yellow one
~ And they're all made out of ticky tacky
~ And they all look just the same.

Words and music by Malvina Reynolds. Copyright 1962, Schroder Music Company

Sweet Victory

Two weeks ago no one gave Serena Williams a chance of reaching the second week of the Australian open. The reasons they gave in the press were related to her lack of tournament play. Sportscasters decried her lack of fitness.

In my local tennis clubs the descriptive language was less kind. With a few exceptions, she was referred to as "fat" and a "diva," her choice of tennisware "outrageous." Few people were taking her seriously anymore.

I remember some similar discomfort among white people when Jackie Joyner-Kerse used to grace the track with coifed hair, loud manicures, and bright makeup. But any indignation was tempered with a tacit conviction by white sports fans that track was a black sport. Such confidence in dress and manner in a black tennis player has been offensive to many, and they "dog" Serena every chance possible.

Today Serena Williams answered her critics with an overpowering 6-1, 6-2 victory over top-seeded Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final. I take courage that she is an "out there" minority woman. Thank you, Serena.

Send In The Troops, (Not The Soldiers --The Grandmothers!)

On January 10, 2007 George Bush announced that he will send about 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq and said that it was a mistake not to have more forces fighting the war before now. Most American politicians, a majority of American citizens, and many pundits now concede they were wrong to support Bush’s invasion of Iraq, stating that the administration lied to them about its justification. Then, why, oh why, did he deploy troops to Iraq in the first place? What were the reasons for starting a preemptive war? The Bush administration did have reasons. Theories abound regarding these reasons, but no who knows what they really are has fessed up. Likely, they believe that the truth would be too sensitive to divulge to the American people, since doing so would inadvertently also inform the enemy of freedom, the terrorists. Or, maybe they believe we are not able to understand the complex nuances of contemporary sociopolitics.

Certainly, not articulating the truth about why we are at war gives rise to the reason the Bush administration can't quite define what winning would mean.

So now we will send 21,500 more soldiers to win a war in Iraq for some reason we don't know. . . No wonder I have been humming Holly Near's "1000 Grandmothers!"

1000 Grandmothers
Words and music by Holly Near

Send in a thousand grandmothers
They will surely volunteer
With their ancient wisdom flowing
They will lend a loving ear.

First they'll form a loving circle
Around the wounded wing
Then contain the brutal beast of war
Sweet freedom songs they'll sing.

A lullaby much stronger
Than bombs and threats to kill
A force unlike we've ever known
Will break the murderer's will.

To the prisons we'll invite them
The most violent men will weep
When a thousand women hold them strong
And pray their souls to keep.

Let them rock the few who steal the most
And rule with youthful charm
So they'll see the damage that they do
And will fall into grandma's arms
Two thousand loving arms.

If you think these women are too soft
To face the world at hand
Then you've never known the power of love
And you fail to understand.

An old woman holds a powerful force
When she no longer needs to please
She can cut your shallow lie to bits
And bring you to your knees.
We best get down on our knees

And pray for a thousand grandmothers
Will you please come volunteer?
No longer tucked out of sight
Will you bring your power here

Will you bring your power here?

© copyright. Holly Near recorded on her CD "Edge"

Tune into Greenstone Media

At last women have control of a media network! As goes Gloria Steinem’s Keynote Address to the Conclave Learning Conference, Minneapolis, July 14, 2006, it is "Broadcasting: As If Women Mattered." http://greenstoneradio.com/GSM/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 We now can listen to the voices of women talk about their experiences every day. Those voices may change our lives.

I remember a Spring day in 1978 when a woman's voice changed my life. I was studying to be a nurse practitioner. It was time to get my annual physical from the sweet nurse practitioner in the Student Health Services. True to her nurturing role, she inquired about my adjustment to being far from my home to attend to my studies in another city. I was a little homesick for my roommate back home.

Had I left a man or a woman back home? Her voice echoed into some vague hollow chamber of my brain. I had never spoken nor heard words for the experience of loving a woman.

She asked me if I had found the local Women's Community. I must have looked vacant, for she continued inquiring about whether I knew about women's culture or women's music. I understood every word, but could not comprehend what she was talking about.

She made me promise to go to a women's bookstore and buy Cris Williamson's "The Changer and the Changed."

I did. I rushed to my apartment, put that vinyl on and listened, to what years later Bonnie Raitt would call "a voice like honey on a cello," "I've been dreaming in the sun, won't you wake me up someone. . . . " When I looked out the window all that had appeared green and blue before this moment now popped in vivid azure, turquoise, emerald, and gold.

She prepared me with, "When you open up your heart to the living, all things come spilling in on you." So, I was ready to hear, "Sweet woman rising inside my glow, I think I'm missing you . . letting me know, taking me in, you let it all go . . . " and by the time she sang "Love of my life, I am crying, I am not dying, I am dancing. . ." I wept and danced around to strains of "What do you do for a living, are you forgiving, giving shelter."

It all happened in a few minutes. I had suspected all along that women's lives, apart from how they were tangled up with men's lives, were significant, worth singing about. Women's lives began to take voice for me that day. And I began to love them, love them all; love myself.

Some people actually think that loving women is all about having sex with them. I suppose this is why they find the notion of feminism disgusting, as though it were some sick man's pornographic daydream.

Loving women starts with believing in their words, and celebrating their lives. To learn how to do that we first have to listen to them. So we shall tune into Greenstone Media. Someone may give voice to something that sounds vaguely familiar and palpably real.

Gracie in Norway

This is my current favorite picture of Gracie, my 14-year-old daughter. One of her backpacking girrrrls must have snapped it in July, Gracie unaware, while they were trekking in Norway.

Gracie has not shown me this picture. I found it on her blog.

Some of Gracie's classmates' parents tell me they do not allow their daughters to blog. They are worried about cyberviolence. These same parents think I am nuts to have let my daughter travel out of the country to go backpacking at the age of 14; they also worry about terrorism.

Not I. I am more concerned that my daughter will not find her voice.

I read Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK when Gracie was in sixth grade. Her sixth grade teacher freaked out and called me when she realized that Gracie had chosen it as her "realistic novel." She advised me to read it before my daughter did. So I did. I won't ruin it by explaining why, but the protagonist spends most of her freshman year of high school in silence.

Now my daughter is a High School Freshman. She has not yet found her voice in writing. This is for a variety of complex reasons, and I will not go into them right now. So I work at helping her travel to wherever she can get on this earth. I hope for her to experience the world, and write about it wherever she will, and however she must. For real terrorism happens to girls when they are gagged and bound by the rules of what they may not say, or by what scripts they are forced to memorize and repeat .

Missing Barbara Jordan

"I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people."
-Barbara Jordan, Statement on the Articles of Impeachment, delivered 25 July 1974, House Judiciary Committee

So much for "strict constructionism" in constitutional interpretation.

What a patriot was Barbara Jordan! She definitely would have been the first Woman African American Supreme Court Justice had she not died of pneumonia in the 1990's. How different things would be going now. She would have been the protectress of all Americans.

How we now need our mothers and sisters and daughters in government!

For the text and mp3 audio of Jordan's speech: http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barbarajordanjudiciarystatement.htm

Knitting

Recently I have taken up knitting. I knit my thoughts and feelings stitch by stitch into the my creation on the circular needles. All of life's joy, frustration, sadness, happiness gets woven into the garment; and a little bit of dog hair, too.

I am making myself a sweater; but I paused long enough to make my daughter a pair of STITCH 'N BITCH HURRY UP SPRING ARM-WARMERS, from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller. I have almost finished the first one.

My mother taught me to knit when I was a little bit older than a baby. Then she taught me to purl. That's all. I made squares, many many squares of knit, or knit and purl in every possible permutation. She told me it would be too hard for me to knit a sweater. Ever.

I recently visited my mother (now 83) in "the home". I told her I was knitting. I thanked her for teaching me. She told me she didn't believe me. Oh, yes, she believes I am thankful for her teaching me to knit. She doesn't believe that I am actually making a garment. *sigh* I will have to take it to her . . .

Mother was a nurse in post-WWII Germany. The country was effete, and all the wool had been gathered to clothe Hitler's army and weave for them blankets. She unraveled a Red Cross blanket and crafted an intricate ski-sweater for herself. She knit me a plethora of sweaters. The Red-Cross sweater was my favorite, and I took it to college. I loved her inventiveness and bravery whenever I wore it.

Gratitude is fulfilling.

Projection

"I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see wistful sadness and existential angst when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies"~ Merrill Markow

I Don't Speak Hungarian

Hungary was the birthplace of my father's family, and they spoke Hungarian when I was growing up. NEM TUDOK MAGYARUL. (I DON'T SPEAK HUNGARIAN). I can't remember much else in Hungarian. I might as well be trying to blog in Hungarian; as much as I can talk English, writing it scares the bejeesus out of me!