August 2010 – Page 11

Diets all around!

Well, here’s some research that can’t possibly be misconstrued: a new study published in The Lancet has documented an association between the amount of weight a mother gains during her pregnancy and the birth weight of her infant. Since birth weight can be used to predict adult BMI, cue the ZOMG! Obesity! commentary. “For babies, studies are just now beginning to show that the effects of tipping the scales at birth may linger throughout life. Many experts suggest that excessive nutrition in pregnancy creates an abnormal uterine environment that permanently changes the baby’s brain, pancreas, fat tissue and other biological systems, said a co-author of the study, Dr. David Ludwig.”

(A note: some of what follows may be triggering for people who have experiences with eating disorders.)

And, of course, since the womb is a baby’s first environment, this is one more thing that pregnant women can be policed on. “As more and more Americans struggle with obesity, the role of early prevention is key [and] early prevention may also extend to the development of the fetus,” said Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician/gynecologist. William Callaghan, acting chief of the maternal and infant health branch of the CDC added The Lancet paper “just adds more fuel to the fire that [managing weight gain] is an absolutely critical part of preconception care and prenatal care.” Of course, the doctors both go on to mention the importance of good nutrition and and exercise, serving once again to conflate weight with health.

When I was pregnant with A, I became highly attuned to the ever growing list of things I was and was not supposed to be doing. There were the obvious things (drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, using various controlled substances), and the less obvious things (not eating cold cuts). But the list went on and on and on. Restrictions on fish, cheese, processed foods, sprouts, spinach, caffeine, sugar substitutes, hot tubs, any activity where I might fall down, sleeping position, you name it. And every time I casually mentioned that I would give anything for a blue cheese burger and a beer, I would get a very stern “But the baby! You don’t want to risk it!” response.

I see a role here for practitioners to engage with their patients about eating habits, in no small part because pregnancy is enormously taxing on your body and it’s good to make sure you’re getting enough vitamins and drinking enough water. (I’m actually surprised that this isn’t already a part of what practitioners talk about with patients.) However, I do not recommend the strategy one of the midwives took with me early on in my pregnancy, which was to lecture me about my BMI and losing weight. (Keep in mind here that I’m on active duty: my job requires working out 5 days a week, passing regular fitness assessments, and maintaining either a specified weight or body fat percentage.) Ultimately, I gained very little weight during my pregnancy, and lost it all rapidly after delivery owing to some truly horrific medical complications from the delivery. When my daughter was two weeks old, I went back in for follow up and mentioned that I was really worried about how much weight I’d lost. In two weeks, I’d lost all of the weight I gained during the pregnancy plus another 10 pounds. The doctor laughed. “Oh, women don’t normally worry that they’ve lost weight after a pregnancy.” I glared. “I don’t care about that. I’m asking because I am worried. Losing thirty pounds in two weeks isn’t normal, even if you’ve just had a baby.” “Oh, well, I think you’re fine from a health point of view, but let us know if you keep losing weight. You’re really lucky.” In case anyone was wondering, being hospitalized for eight days and having hideous medical complications makes a girl feel really lucky that at least she lost weight.

I’ve got concerns about two different ways this could go. First, there’s even more pressure on women than there was before about losing weight, dieting, and the moralizing and guilt that follows. It’ll just be amplified when it comes to pregnancy: “Well, it’s fine if you want to be selfish and overweight, but think of your baby! Dooming a child to a life of being overweight!” We already live in a world where the word policed doesn’t just mean social pressure and stigma for some women for conduct during pregnancy: it means criminal prosecution. This has the potential to become just one more thing where pregnant women are judged, shamed, and guilted about not providing a perfect uterine environment. (As though there is such a thing and that women are able to control it like that. Environmental exposures, anyone?)

The study’s authors conclude “In view of the apparent association between birthweight and adult weight, obesity prevention efforts targeted at women during pregnancy might be beneficial for offspring.” Well, yes, it might, if done in a way that’s constructive, understanding of the fact that significant and sustained weight loss is not a realistic goal, and focuses on good eating habits as part of a healthy pregnancy. But I’m not particularly optimistic that’s how it’ll shake down. You’re likely to wind up with people saying truly asinine things like “The idea that a big baby is a healthy baby, and a crying baby is probably a hungry baby who should be fed, are things we really need to rethink,” Dr. Birch said. Spoken like someone who’s never had an infant.

News Flash! Pre-meds Don’t Make Better Doctors!

A recent study in Academic Medicine challenges the conventional notions of what students need to do to prepare for medical school. Mt. Sinai Hospital has a program called HuMed, in which they offer guaranteed med school admission to college undergrads (sophomores and juniors) who are majoring in the humanities or social sciences, and they waive the other requirements – no physics, no organic chemistry, no MCATS.

Turns out the HuMed students do at least as well as the traditional students on every measurement except their scores on the first step of the three-part licensing exam (which, by the by, has been clearly shown not to correlate with anything meaningful in one’s later career in medicine). HuMed students are far more likely to receive an honors grade in their psychiatry rotations, and also more likely to select primary care and psychiatry residences. The only other difference is that they are more likely to take leave for non-educational reasons (which to me says that they are more likely to have rich lives outside school).

I was an English major in college, with a concentration in American Studies. I wrote an undergraduate thesis on the works of Eugene O’Neill. I also took the premed requirements, because I had to, but taking organic chemistry, as usually taught to undergrads, and getting a decent grade doesn’t mean that you actually understand anything. I had to learn everything over again in pharmacology, anyway. I did receive honors in my psych rotation, and I chose a primary care specialty. I read this study and smiled, and felt validated.

And then I saw this:

In an independent comment, John Prescott, MD, chief academic officer of the American Association of Medical Colleges, noted that this program is “unique and shows that you can take highly qualified students and they will succeed in this setting.” He points out, however, that this is not an “either/or” discussion. “We need physicians who can communicate well, who can adapt to change, and display altruism. But we also need physicians with a sound foundation in scientific principles.”

Um, what? It’s not an either/or, but it is? We can either have docs who can communicate with patients and display altruism, OR we can have docs with a sound foundation in science? Huh?

I have had patients ask me where I went to college and what I majored in, but I’ve never had anyone say “Oh, you were an English major? Well, could you go find me a physicist instead, please?” I’m here to tell you that it is entirely possible to be a doctor with good communication skills and a strong scientific fund of knowledge, and if you were the one wearing the stupid gown with the draft in the back, you’d damn well want both.

Toeing the Line

The big new issue facing female lawyers today: Peep-toe shoes.

Yes, the legal blogs are in a tizzy over the question of whether women should or should not wear peep-toe shoes to court, because said shoes may be “provocative.” (To which I say: Better provocative clothing items, please). As is the case whenever women’s work attire is brought up, there is no consensus on what is or isn’t appropriate. Some judges think it’s fine if women wear peep-toe pumps — they wear peep-toes too! Some other judges think it’s inappropriate! Some people on the internet think toes are too sexy to be shown! Some people on the internet think it’s ok to wear peep-toes, but not full-frontal (full frontal!) open-toes! Some people on the internet worked with This One Woman who wore this one Totally Inappropriate Sexy Thing! Some people on the internet think I should make them a sandwich! Other people on the internet think this whole conversation is inane!

…and I am in that last camp. If you are spending hours of your life arguing that women should not wear peep-toe shoes to court or to the office, I would suggest taking up a hobby, or perhaps volunteering somewhere. You will never get those hours of your life back! You could have spent them playing with puppies (I hear the ASPCA does good work), and instead you were debating the relative provocativeness of toenails as compared to toe-cleavage. Because, really, women in the law have bigger issues to worry about than whether another attorney or a juror or a commenter on Above the Law is going to think we’re unprofessional floozies who “risk losing credibility and respect” because our toenail polish is visible.

Bigger issues like, “Can I wear a sleeveless top to the office when it is 105 degrees outside?” (Answer: No. Says the lady in the sleeveless top).

SYTYCD Season 7 Top 4

Spoilers below!

This week on SYTYCD: I was so overjoyed about last week’s results, that I didn’t mind the forgettable dancing so much. Jump over to the recap and discuss with me.

On The Cover

Do you remember the picture in National Geographic of the so-called Afghan girl?

The photograph, taken by Steve McCurry, was of Sharbat Gula; her image adorned the cover of a 1985 issue of National Geographic (The link is to National Geographic’s discussion and review of the story almost 20 years later). I was barely aware of the wider world, then, but as I look back through web discussions (weird, that the web doesn’t go back to 1985, eh?), it seems that the Western world was fascinated with her face, her possible life, her unknown story, her “exotic green eyes,”…. You get the picture. She became a symbol; McCurry won Best 100 National Geographic Pictures.

There’s so much to be said about this story, about the confluence of race, gender, and feminism, about the practices of marketing and Western media — it’s an uncomfortable and disturbing mess. Her value as a symbol was and, indeed, is still so compelling that National Geographic went back in 2002 to find her, to see what had happened to her. Among the outcomes of that visit was a second image of her face — discussion this time is about how hard her life has been. The two images are at the root of a kind of Shepard-Fairey-like tradition of making and remakings of the image — some with honourable intent and some not — all over the internet. (The link is to google image search for “Afghan girl.”)

And now, there’s a third. This latest photograph is the focus of my post today. It’s on the cover of TIME magazine. Once more, the face of a beautiful, young Afghan woman stands in for a discussion of war. This time, however, the woman is visibly disabled. As the cover makes clear, the torture that rendered Aisha disabled, is one of the consequences/risks of an American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the consequent return of the Taliban. I have nothing to say about this thesis; my focus is the value of disability in this picture.

Some More Provisos

I will not be embedding the image here for copyright reasons, primarily, and because I am not happy with it — even given the argument that it is part of a tradition.

In no way, do I think what happened to Aisha is at all acceptable, excusable, or forgivable. Nothing I am about to write is intended to convey that. This post is a reflection on how the disability that resulted from an unjust punishment is being used to further the discussion of war and women’s rights.

In no way, do I wish to convey the idea that I do not think women’s rights in Afghanistan are of critical importance; I think women’s rights are a signal human rights issue. I am trying to understand the role of disability in the discussion of women’s rights.

You can read an abridged version of article and see the photograph I’m talking about here. Beware the comments.

The Photographic Tradition

I don’t know who reads TIME; I don’t. I don’t know how many of TIME’s readers are old enough to remember the National Geographic photograph in the original or how many became acquainted with Sharbat Gula’s story when National Geographic visited a second time. I do think, however, that there is a mainstream audience out there that is able to recognize that the TIME photo refers back to the National Geographic picture. My bet is that when they make the comparison between the two covers, Aisha will be cast negatively. And that disturbs me. How many of TIME’s readers will look at the image and recognize Aisha as beautiful, exactly as she is? How many of those readers will use her disability as the reason that no one could ever find her beautiful. “As is” is important to me here, because I find sentiments such as “despite her disability,…” as deeply patronizing. Disability can be integrated into one’s understanding of a whole and hale human being.

I’m not saying that I think Aisha’s particular body is a natural part of human variation; it’s not. (Just in case you thought I was making a pollyanna disability rights and culture argument — I am making a disability rights and culture argument, just not a simple one.) Some children are born with bodies that might be comparable; others acquire them through surgery or medical conditions. I believe in the beauty of these bodies; Lucy Grealy’s achingly beautiful Autobiography Of A Face in which she discusses beauty, disability, and faces was one of the texts that helps me arrive at such a statement.

Aisha withstood several acts of unbelievable violence; she has a before and after that I think might complicate how we understand her photograph. This video discusses the photographer’s approach.

Transcription

Aisha for me was one woman that really stood out. She’s staying in a shelter in Kabul. There was a court case against her within the tribe. She said that as punishment men took her and cut off her ears and her nose. For me, it was more about capturing something about her. And that was the really difficult part. You know her headscarf fell slightly back and her hair was exposed. And she had the most beautiful hair. And I said to her, you know, “You really are such a beautiful woman, and I could never understand or know how you feel it, you know, by having your nose and ears cut off, but what I CAN [emphasis hers] do is show you as beautiful in this photograph.” I could have made a photograph with her looking or, or being portrayed more as the victim. And I thought, “No. This woman is beautiful.”

In the voiceover, Ms. Bieber finds Aisha beautiful, but that recognition comes not from a consideration of her face or her body as it is now; it’s prompted by an admiration for her hair. (How many times has a white woman found beauty in the hair of a woman of colour?) I suppose I should be glad that Ms. Bieber can see Aisha’s beauty, no matter what its source. But I remain frustrated with the cover image. S.E. Smith (who wrote here earlier this summer) reminds me that Ms. Bieber probably didn’t make the decision herself: covers are editorial decisions. But let’s say, for a moment, that a decision was made and that Ms. Bieber consented. The decision (which is not discussed — does Ms. Bieber deny her own agency? She’s not disowning the photograph) is to go for the pose that most resembles the world-famous image of Sharbat Gula.

The discourse surrounding the photograph of Sharbat Gula is comprised in large part of discussion of her beauty and, in particular, her eyes. In the photograph, Aisha is posed to recall Sharbat Gula’s image — both women are placed in similar light, with similar head and body positions with regard to the camera, both women wear a headscarf that reveals their hair, both women stare intensely into the camera. The signal difference between the two women is that one is visibly disabled.

This image would not have to be cover of the magazine. In fact, I would argue that it is the cover primarily because of the power of Sharbat Gula’s image and the, by contrast, negative shock value of Aisha’s disability for readers in the mainstream US (but possibly also Western) world. Ms. Bieber, would not have had to use Aisha’s picture at all — there are other women in the article. Ms. Bieber would not have had to pose her in this manner — there’s another picture of her in the article, seated cross-legged and smiling, full face to the front, at the camera. She’s not even in that position in the video in which Ms. Bieber talks about how she took Aisha’s picture. No. Ms. Bieber’s decision (which, incidentally, she doesn’t discuss) is to go for the pose that most resembles the world-famous image of Sharbat Gula. It’s deliberate. It’s the money-shot.

Regardless of how disability plays out in Aisha’s world, the vast majority of readers of TIME live in a culture that understands disability as tragedy. As shocking. As among the worst things that can happen to you (bar death). Mainstream American culture thinks it knows disability and knows how to read it. Ms. Bieber has a history of photographing disabled bodies (there’s an image of a wheelchair user in this video of her “Real Beauty” pictures). But the work she does in the Real Beauty series does not come through in this photograph — perhaps because of the context and placement of the image. Here she (and or the editor) uses Aisha’s disability to trade upon the readership’s sympathies and their horror: this and other unknown kinds of disability are a direct result of the US departure from Afghanistan. This is not about Aisha; it’s about the message of the article.

That women’s rights will be at risk, should the US leave Afghanistan is really not a debatable issue. In fact, looking at Aisha’s story, it seems pretty clear that women’s rights are at risk even while the US is in Afghanistan. So why does the story need Aisha’s disability?

The relationship between feminism and disability rights is, as the blogosphere repeatedly shows, vexed. Mainstream feminisms simply don’t know what to do with disability. And here, it seems to me that the argument is simple: disability is a screen upon which the narrative claims of women’s rights are projected. (As a disability rights activist, I would have to sigh and say, “again.”) There is no understanding that women’s rights and disability rights do not have to be mutual antagonists. Instead, the Bieber image, as contextualized in TIME, attempts to make women’s rights off the back (so-to-speak) of disability rights. Aisha’s body is the quickest route to publicizing a serious message. It’s the easiest, most visceral, most unthinking, sloppiest way to get a point across.

To those who would protest that Ms. Bieber was just trying, as she said, to make her look beautiful, I would say that the problem of Western mores, beauty, and disability for people who live non-Western worlds is equally vexed. Anyone remember the beauty contest organized by a white Norwegian, presumably able-bodied man for female amputees in Angola? The mainstream blogosphere discussion was about how important it was for these women to regain their self-esteem. How problematic is it that the non-disabled white folk seek to restore and communicate the beauty (in their own terms) of disabled women of colour? (Links are to my site and to feministe’s own slightly horrifying discussion.) Oh, and in case you were wondering how invisible the disability aspect of Aisha’s story might be, check out this NYT piece, classily entitled “Portrait of Pain.”

We will never be able to approach these and other complex questions about the relationship of disability, feminism, and beauty unless we have a wider understanding of disability itself. I am going to moderate comments. I ask that you consider this conversation as being part of the process of exploring and understanding some of the ways disability, race, and feminism might travel together.

Where There’s Smoke

My dad quit smoking cigarettes in public in 1964, but he still smoked cigars (and snuck cigarettes at home) when I was a kid. My mother smoked cigarettes, publicly and a little defiantly. I’d been dating John for six months – most of my junior year of high school – before I found out he was smoking (he hadn’t exactly lied to me about it, but he’d never lit up around me, either). I didn’t know until his mother told me.

I thought of that today as I walked past a man in the hallway at work and smelled the residue of his cigarette smoke from about four feet away. How was it possible that I had been physically intimate with someone and not realized he smelled of smoke? It was possible because I was used to it. Smoke was in the air I breathed, it clung to my clothes, it permeated the car I was learning to drive. I’m sure my hair smelled like cigarettes (as well as Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo. Hey, it was the 70s). I never smoked, but you wouldn’t have known that.

My mother was always very proud of the fact that her house didn’t smell of smoke, but the first time I returned to college after break and opened my suitcase, I realized I couldn’t take my laundry home – I had to bring dirty laundry back to to college and wash it there, or it reeked. And three months after my mother finally quit smoking, she replaced all the carpets and had the house repainted – because of course it did smell of smoke. She just hadn’t noticed because she was used to it.

Privilege is like smoke. When we’re living with it, you don’t notice it. It’s in the air. It’s all around us, invisible, ubiquitous. We don’t notice the privilege we share with others; we only notice what surprises our senses and our brains – the way I could smell pot smoke on someone, even when I was living with my cigarette-smoking parents.

As I unpack my knapsack, a task I will continue to work at for the rest of my life, I can feel my senses opening up – and once I’ve started to notice a piece my privilege, it’s as if I’ve opened that suitcase again back in my freshman-year dorm. It’s startling, and disturbing. Some pieces are more obvious to me than others – my class privilege often remains invisible to me. I’d like to wash it off, but it’s more complicated than that.

Cigarette smoke is harmful even to those who don’t smoke (I had ear infections twice a year until I moved out of my parents’ house); privilege is more harmful to those who don’t have it, but the existence of the kyriarchy harms us all. We’ll have to work together to kick the habit.

call for submissions: this bridge called my baby: legacies of radical mothering

This Bridge Called My Baby: Legacies of Radical Mothering
http://thisbridgecalledmybaby.wordpress.com/

“We can learn to mother ourselves.” Audre Lorde, 1983

All mothers have the potential to be revolutionary. Some mothers stand on the shoreline, are born and reborn here, inside the flux of time and space, overcoming the traumatic repetition of oppression. Our very existence is disobedience to the powers that be.
At times, in moments, we as mothers choose to stand in a zone of claimed risk and fierce transformation, the frontline. In infinite ways, both practiced and yet to be imagined, we put our bodies between the violent repetition of the norm and the future we already deserve, exactly because our children deserve it too. We make this choice for many reasons and in different contexts, but at the core we have this in common: we refuse to obey. We refuse to give into fear. We insist on joy no matter what and by every means necessary and possible.
In this anthology we are exploring how we are informed by and participating with those mothers, especially radical women of color, who have sought for decades, if not centuries, to create relationships to each other, transformative relationships to feminism and a transnational anti-imperialist literary, cultural and everyday practice.

“We don’t want a space where kids feel that only adults can imagine ways to strengthen our communities and protect ourselves against the Architects of Despair,” Sora said, “and we don’t want adults to feel that either. We want to create a space where all of our imaginations help each other grow; but we realize that kids might get bored from sitting still the way that adults tend to do, so we set up the play room with toys and games.” Regeneracion Childcare Collective 2007

Sometimes for radical mamas, our mothering in radical community makes visible the huge gulfs between communities, between parents and non-parents, in class and other privileges AND most importantly the wide gulf between what we say in activist communities and what we actually do. Radical mothering is the imperative to build bridges that allow us to relate across these very real barriers. For and by radical mother of color, but also inclusive of other working class, marginalized, low income, no income radical mothers.

“Parenting and being a role model to kids in your community is important because they will be the activists of tomorrow. And they will be our gardeners and mothers and bakers. They will question our generation, they’ll write their own history, create new forms of art and media.” -Noemi Martinez 2009

We find the idea of the “bridge” useful because we believe that the radical practice of mothering is at once a practical and visionary relationship to the future IN the PRESENT, a bridge within time that can inspire us to relate to each other intentionally across generation and space. We also acknowledge the not-so-radical default bridge function of marginalized mother in society. How our children in particular get walked all over in terms of public policy that criminalizes our mothering and movement spaces that claim to be creating a transformed future without being fully accountable to parents or kids.

“I came into the Third World Women’s Caucus when it was well under way. The women there were discussing the caucus resolution to be presented to the general conference. There were Asian women, Latin women, Native Women and Afro-American women. The discussion when I came in was around the controversial issue of motherhood and how the wording of the resolution could best reflect the feelings of those present. It was especially heartening to hear other women affirm that not only should lesbian mothers be supported but that all third world women lesbians share in the responsibility for the care and nurturing of the children of individual lesbians of color…Another woman reminded us of the commitment we must take to each other when she said ‘All children (of lesbians) are ours.” -Doc in Off Our Backs 1979

We see this book as a continuation of the accountability invoking movement midwifing work of the 1981 anthology This Bridge Called My Back in that it:
a. is the work of writers who see their writing as part of a mothering practice, as not career, but calling and who believe that their writing, and their every creative practice has a strategic role in transforming the possible world.
b. contextualizes contemporary radical mama practices in relationship to socialist and lesbian mothering practices experimented with and practiced in the 1970’s by writers including Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Adrienne Rich, Third World Lesbians conference, Salsa Soul Sisters, Sisterhood of Black Single Mothers
c. seeks to speak to those who participated in that earlier practice and who have been informed by it as a primary audience, and to connect those who have not have access to that work to it

We invite submissions including but not limited to the following possibilities:

*Manifestas, group poems, letters, mission statements from your crew of radical mamas or an amazing group from history
*Letters, poems, transcribed phone calls between radical mamas supporting each other
*Accounts of your experience as a radical mama
*Reflections on enacting radical mamacity at different ages
*Motivations for/obstacles in your practice of radical mothering
*Conversations with your kids
*Rants and rages via the eloquence of a mother-wronged
*Your experience of radical grandmothering
*Self-interviews, interviews with other mamis
*Birthing experiences
*Ending child sexual abuse
*Mothering as survivors (survival and mothering)
*Mothering with and without models
*Mothering and domination
*Mama to-do lists
*Mama/kid collaborations…
*Radical fathering
*Overcoming shame and silence in the practice of radical mothering
*Ambivilence, paradox, emotions, vulnerability
*Experiences of state violence/CPS
*Balancing daily survival
*Loss of children, not living with children, custody arrangements and issues
*Sharing your stories from where you live
*Everything we haven’t thought of yet! Take a deep breath and WRITE!!!!

Please send submissions via email to
alexispauline@gmail.com
maiamedicine@gmail.com
and china410@hotmail.com
or via snail mail to
P.O. Box 4803 Baltimore Maryland 21211

by April 1, 2011.

black girls like us

look. i am not abusive to my kid. not even close. and neither is her father.

she is a happy, healthy three year old. she speaks three languages, loves to dance middle eastern style, and explains to strangers that ‘mama is from america’ but she is from bumblebee (the name of her preschool).

but, us american society, history, government is abusive to black children.

and egyptian society and government is abusive to black children. i know this cause i worked with sub saharan african refugees in cairo. i worked with ex child soldiers and teenage sex workers from sudan, refugees from eritrea and ethiopia. they are stuck here in limbo, cairo, legally segregated from the rest of egyptian society, not allowed to attend public schools, hospitals, racially profiled by the police, making 150 dollars a month is a considered a good job, living in ghettos, and struggling to either be repatriated or moved to europe, the usa, or australia.

they have been my teachers, my students, my friends.

some of them are mothers, and many of them didn’t have a real choice in the matter.

a lot of them look like me.

a lot of them don’t have the luxury of child free spaces, because many of them are children, themselves.

i know what abuse is. i grew up with it, day after day, year after year. and there are times when i would rather have my daughter with me at a bar, than with a babysitter that i barely know.

i work really hard so that my daughter knows that she is a person. because it is rare for black girls or women to be allowed to be people, a full fledged person, in this world.

Sydney, Australia feminist blogger meet-up on 29 August!

Announcing a meet-up for feminist blog folk in the Sydney region. You don’t need to write a blog yourself or be a regular commenter or anything, it’s just an invitation to come and hang out with some like-minded folk for a couple of hours.

Here are the details:

When? Sunday, 29 August, at 11am.
Where? Victoria Park, in the grounds of the University of Sydney, on Parramatta Rd. It’s just opposite Broadway shopping center and the start of Glebe Point Rd. As to where precisely: there’s a big bridge across the lake; we’ll be meeting to the right of that. (That is, the right as you face Parramatta Rd, but don’t worry, we’ll be next to the bridge and pretty conspicuous.) As to how to get there, see below.
What are we doing? We’re going to hang out an have a chat and, for those who are inclined, a picnic! So bring some blankets/chairs and your own food to eat as these things will not be supplied!
Wet weather plan? Well, that really depends on how many people come, so I will let you know for sure when we have the numbers down. It doesn’t look like it will be raining on that day.
Accessibility: There are wide bitumen pathways and a few benches in the Park. Our wet weather plan will definitely be wheelchair accessible. If you are concerned about how to get there, find a route by calling 131500 or on http://www.131500.com.au and clicking the ‘easy access only’ button when the results of your search come up. If you have any accessibility concerns at all, please do not hesitate to email me at chally [dot] zeroatthebone [at] gmail [dot] com.

So, in order to secure that wet weather plan, I need you to RSVP very promptly so I can gauge numbers. Please respond by 14 August to say if you (and anyone you’re bringing with you) will be coming. (If you’re really not sure if you can make it, please leave a comment saying so and let me know as soon as you possibly can.) Sooner is better than later, and I’d like to get most responses within the week, please!

This meet-up was the idea of Chloe from Feministing, who’s coming back to Aus for a bit, so you have her to thank for the suggestion!

So, how to get there: You can take most buses from outside Town Hall Station and they leave frequently from Central Station. The bus will have “P’matta Rd” on its electronic display sign. It’s a big park so it’s hard to miss, but just ask someone if you’re worried!

Leave RSVPs in comments or email me: again, my email is chally [dot] zeroatthebone [at] gmail [dot] com. Don’t forget to specify if you’re bringing anyone else along; family and friends are definitely welcome!

[Cross-posted at Zero at the Bone]

But I didn’t mean that…

There was at least one comment on my last post talking about what A’s pediatrician might have meant when she said princess skin and whether or not she intended anything negative by it. And honestly, did it matter anyway? I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time: I don’t care what the pediatrician (or anyone else, for that matter) intended when she said princess skin. I care that she said it. And it matters a whole hell of a lot.

First, some Jay Smooth.

Transcript follows.

Transcript: [The whole video is shot in black in white, with Jay Smooth facing the camera delivering the following speech. Periodically, small clips of text in yellow font appear on either side of his face to emphasize a point.] Race! The final frontier. No matter what channel you watch, what feed you aggregate, everybody everywhere is talking about race right now. And when everybody everywhere is talking about race, sooner or later you’re going to have to tell somebody that they said something that sounded racist. So you need to be ready and have a plan in place about how to approach the inevitable “That sounded racist,” conversation. I’m going to tell you how to do that.

The most important that you’ve got to do is remember the difference between the “What they did,” conversation and “What they are,” conversation. Those are two totally different conversation and you need to make sure you pick the right one. The “what they did,” conversation focuses specifically on the person’s words and actions in explaining why what they said and what they did was unacceptable. That’s also known as the “that thing you said was racist,” conversation, and that’s the conversation that you want to have. The “what they are,” conversation, on the other hand, goes a step further and uses what they did and what they said to draw conclusions about what kind of person they are. This is also known as the “I think you are a racist,” conversation. This is the conversation you don’t want to have, because that conversation takes us away from the facts of what they did into speculation about their motives and intentions. And those are things you can only guess at and can’t ever prove, and makes it too easy for them to derail your whole argument.

And that is the part that’s crucial to understand. When you say “I think he’s a racist,” that’s not a bad move because you might be wrong, it’s a bad move because you might be right. Because if that dude really is racist you want to make sure you hold him accountable and don’t let him off easy. And even though, intuitively, it seems like the hardest way to hit him is to just run up on him and say “I think your ass is racist,” when you handle it that way, you’re letting him off easy because you’re setting up a conversation that’s way too simple for him to derail and duck out of.

Just think about how this plays out every time a politician or a celebrity gets called out. It always starts out as a “what they did,” conversation, but as soon as the celebrity and their defenders get on camera, they start doing judo flips and switching it into a “what they are,” conversation. [Making a mock serious face] I have known this person for years, and I know for a fact that they are not a racist and how dare you claim to know what’s inside their soul just because they made one little joke about watermelon tap dancing and going back to Africa! And you try to explain that we don’t need to see their soul to know they shouldn’t have said all that shit about the watermelon and focus on the facts of the situation. But by then, it’s too late because the “what they are,” conversation is a rhetorical Bermuda Triangle where everything drowns in a sea of empty posturing until somebody just blames it all on hip-hop and we forget the whole thing ever happened.

Don’t let this happen to you. When somebody picks my pocket, I’m not going to be chasing him down, so I can figure out whether he feels like he’s a thief deep down in his heart. I’m going to be chasing him down so I can get my wallet back. I don’t care what he is, but I need to hold him accountable for what he did. And that’s how we need to approach these conversations about race. Treat them like they took your wallet and focus on the part that matters: holding each person accountable for the impact of their words and actions. I don’t care what you are. I care about what you did.

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I really like this video because it gets right to heart of what’s so problematic about characterizing something/someone as racist. One only need look at the recent Tea Party/Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Brietbart debacle to see how incredibly sensitive people are to the idea that someone might call them racist. It’s as though they have internalized the idea that being called a racist is a terrible, terrible thing. It’s a blight upon one’s soul and deeply hurtful to be called a racist, don’t you understand!? But they haven’t really internalized the idea that having something you said called racist (a) isn’t character assassination or commentary on one’s soul (b) that’s there’s anything to be sorry for. Here’s a great example: I hate Obama, but I’m not a racist even though I draw the President with overly racialized features and invoke a wide variety of racist tropes in my artwork! How dare anyone demand an apology from me!

Of course, you don’t even have to turn to such egregious examples: my story about the pediatrician works just fine, too. I am quite certain that the doctor didn’t mean anything derogatory when she said it. I’m 100% certain that she thought it was either neutral or complimentary. However, princess skin and those comics don’t exist in a vacuum. If the comment thread on my post is anything to go by, the princess narrative (and who gets to be called a princess on the basis of appearance and who doesn’t) was genuinely hurtful to people as they were growing up. Every single time it gets repeated, that narrative reinforces the privilege which underlies it. Little, seemingly inconsequential* remarks matter.

Which is why intent doesn’t count when you’re talking about the harm done and the reinforcing of privilege. It doesn’t matter if the doctor is well-meaning or not. Sure, her intentions might make a difference if I were to go to her and say “Hey, I think saying princess skin was problematic for the following reasons,” in the hopes of a constructive conversation. But it’s not going to make the slightest bit of difference to the people who are hurt by that narrative. Once again, the princesses are white (and pale), blond, and blue-eyed.

Here’s the other thing about intent: I am a white person in a society that privileges whiteness, and that gives me power. My skin makes me per se more authoritative, more visible, and more credible than if society weren’t racist. When I, intentionally, negligently, or thoughtlessly, reinforce stereotypes and racist tropes, it’s yet another drop in the deluge. Even if it’s small, it’s a genuine contribution to systemic racism and the privileging of whiteness. (So, by the way, is inevitable the “but I’m a good person and I’m sorry, can I have absolution and a cookie?”) The doctor, like me, is white. She’s also got access to that increased power. I don’t want to be trite, but with power comes responsibility. You have to be careful with saying things like that, because people really do hear it.

*And let’s be clear here: the ability to see something like that as inconsequential is another manifestation of privilege.