Amy Winehouse

Suffered to create beauty.  It is a universally-admirable act.

The ad hominem attack

This is difficult because when we talk about normative frameworks and institutionalized privilege, what we really mean is "white people have advantages."  Obviously, this is an unpalatable pill to swallow for white people.  This is why discussions of race escalate so quickly.  No one likes to be personally attacked.  However, when institutionalized racism works FOR you, an ad hominem attack feels very hurtful because it is unique or even unanticipated.  One is not used to being stereotyped, and it feels awful. For people who lie outside the norm, the ad hominem attack is always anticipated.  

Racism

So the most frustrating thing about racism is that the burden of proof is on the disenfranchised.  Here is my favorite tiny example of that in my actual life:

When I was in a summer English class at UC Berkeley, I said "make an inference" two or three times within the course of a conversation with my friend.  I strive to be a very precise speaker, not from any fear of discrimination, but because I love the English language.  

A classmate turned around and said, "I think that you mean 'influence.'"  

Since then, I deliberately emphasize the counterintuitive syllable of the word.  The common American pronunciation, "IN-frence," becomes "in-FER-ence" for me.

Let me break down why this is a small but significant act of institutionalized racism.

1.  The assumption was that I mixed up my L and my R, despite the fact that saying "make an influence" makes no grammatical sense in any context.  I am Chinese-American, and I "look" Chinese, although I am also told that I look like I am of mixed racial descent.

2.  Institutional privilege means that my classmate was completely sure that she was correct.  She also had a good intention: she was trying to help me by correcting me (even though she was wrong).

3.  Institutional disenfranchisement means that I was placed into a frustrating position: she was wrong to assume that I had mispronounced the word, AND she was grammatically incorrect.  

4.  So, even though I had done nothing wrong, I was now placed into a position where I had to bear a triple burden.  I would have to explain that I did want to use the word "inference," that she had made a mistake, and, and this is the worst and most paralyzing burden, I would have to phrase my explanation in a way that she could accept.  

In other words, pointing out her racism was off the table because her privilege allows her to write off my annoyance as a "race thing," instead of as a legitimate complaint about her very real mistake.  

She had the freedom to make a assumption based on my physiognomy, but I could not defend against that part of the assumption. 

5.  This bears repeating: I did not make a mistake.  She made a mistake.  But I had to contend with not only the burden of response, but with the catch-22 of responding.  

If I did not respond, she won because she would think that she was correct in both her grammar mistake and her condescending views.

If I did respond, see #4.  She still wins unless I can depend on her to be immediately reflective, which is, I feel, too much to ask of any human being.  I respect the hell out of people who are able to immediately see that they are wrong instead of looking for ways to rationalize or justify their mistakes.  It is rare and superhuman; I certainly find myself incapable of doing that.

In either case, I am placed, against my will, in a position to represent my race.   If I do not speak up, am I being stereotypically passive?  If I do speak up, am I being a stereotypically irrational and HYSTERical Asian GIRL?  It even ceases to be about race and my gender enters, like an unwelcome spectator bent on schadenfreude.

6.   She could walk away from that incident unchanged.  I could not.  To protect myself, I had to make the change.  I repeat:  The common American pronunciation, "IN-frence," becomes "in-FER-ence" for me.

Seven years later, the grammarian instructor of my English curriculum and instruction course complimented me on my use of "make a inference" because he hated it when people use "inference" as a verb.  I told that story, and everyone was shocked.  I was simply happy that the universe is full of circles.

Old Lady Post #1

I do not want to eat with you if you must take a picture of the food with your phone.

Reading

In reading Phil Jackson's Eleven Rings, I am realizing that I should let a book take me where it is going.  I often read with a purpose, and it is infinitely less enjoyable to read with a purpose than it is to read to go where the author wants to take me.

This is how I, as an English teacher, suck all of the joy out of reading.

This past year, 2012-2013, has been my least inspired year of teaching.  It was year six.  I want my seventh year of teaching and thirty-third year of life to be the best.

The key is something that I have long delayed because I am weak: discipline.  I now belatedly understand that my life, until now, has been an attempt to control everything in my life except for myself.  I do think that reversing the trend will be beneficial, and I also think that in another three years, I will probably want to change again.

This brings me to Eleven Rings.  First of all, I compose this post on my iPad, my keyboarding seems to want to title the book "Eleven Rongs."  I love that.  Secondly, my friends, knowing me, have misinterpreted my reading as "Elven Rings" and make the assumption that I am reading something Tolkien-related.  This is my reputation for nerdiness working for me.  Thirdly, I am really loving this book because I do not know what to expect.  I bought it for the drama of reading about Kobe v. Shaq, but I also bought it because I saw Phil Jackson on The Daily Show.  Jon Stewart was about to go on vacation, and he was totally scattered in the interview; I just remember how calm and serene Jackson seemed in contrast.

That was context.  I am loving that the book, so far, is a memoir that pulls together reflections on Jackson's mentors, spirituality, career, challenges, and protégées.  It feels like the universe is telling me that personal and career development happen in tandem, that I cannot, as I tried to do in the past, separate my personal growth from growth in my career (which largely defines me).  

This shakes out in mundane and boring ways.  I am getting up to work out at 8am in the mornings, three times a week this summer.  That has been lovely.  Physical discipline has really helped me hone in on my mental and emotional discipline.

Due to a hot mess of a recent dating experience, I have also decided that I must learn to overcome my deeply self-indulgent social passivity.  It masquerades as anxiety, but it really is my passivity.

Finally, Jackson listens a lot.  He reacts without being reactive - he quotes Adolph Rupp as saying "there are only two kinds of coaches: those who lead teams to victory and those who drive them."  That must be my teaching mantra next year.

Wife

It feels very strange to be pursued.  

I have a very difficult time saying "no."  Appropriately, I seem to attract men who have a very difficult time accepting a "no."  I do not understand this.  It seems like things escalate very quickly for me, and while this was perfectly fine when I was in high school and college, it is frightening now.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

We had an unrequited meet cute.  He saw me in a crowded bar.  I noticed his likeable face.  Our eyes never met.  I leave after an hour, afraid of new humans.  He feels regret.  

We see each other again at a different bar.  This time, we both know that it is a setup, the kind that is driven by a mixture of his regret and optimism.  He thinks that he made a mistake in his initial hesitation, should have talked to me earlier, should have just grabbed the first opportunity, life is too short for hesitations.  It seems to be just long enough for slogany life-hack clichés.  

I try to leave.  Again, I am afraid of human interaction.  Our mutual friend, poor girl, had to orchestrate another elaborate get-together just to get us together, and she is not having this, hell fucking no.  She secretly loves this.  Theatrically exasperated, she drags me to where he is talking to a guy, introduces us all, and leaves, trading me for his friend.

We smile.  It is uncomfortable.  

He is a finance guy.  I have no idea what that means.  This is true for me and funny to him.  We talk more.  He tells me that he knows my occupation.  I express dread at seeing that well-intentioned sympathy that collapses the faces of strangers when they know that I teach public school.  He adjusts his face.  I like that.  I like his face.  

He likes my jokes.  I think that he might also like my boobs.  We both seem to like to talk a lot.  He is kind, optimistic, and driven.  It becomes easier to meet his eyes, and we are laughing a lot.  

His family is wealthy.  Mine is rich.  We went to private school.  He went for high school; i went for primary.  After a while, we stop exchanging information and begin to explore each other through proxies like television and books.  He is excited that I am currently reading historical nonfiction about the father of Alexandre Dumas, and he loves The Count of Monte Cristo.  I am excited that he adores Game of Thrones, and he wants to help me like it.  Dragons!  We both like some other common things.

At this point, drunk acquaintance belchily informs us that we have been talking for too long.  There are other people, you know, get a room.  Neither of us has a witty riposte, so we just look at each other and smile without showing teeth.  Shambolic drunk relieves us of his presence; my social neuroses assert themselves.  It is time to flee.  We exchange information.  He asks if he can call me right away, if that would not be too desperate.

I want to tell him that I like his face, and that I am, for the first time in years, super-giggly about a boy.  

Instead, I tell him that it is not desperate, and I would love to talk or hang out again.  We make a date for the end of the week.

I have all the giggles in the car.  I do not want to go to work; instead, I would like to draw hearts around our names in my notebook.  I settle for Google-stalking him.  My face cannot stop smiling.

Thoughts in Conversation with Chuck: on Physical Discipline and/or Abuse

This comes from a conversation with my friend, Chuck/Charles.

I can't help thinking that spanking is a solid way to discipline children, and this is terribly barbaric to all of my non-Chinese friends (as well as to my Chinese friends whose parents really did physically abuse them). 

I could qualify this by imposing all kinds of reasoned conditions upon the act, or saying that spanking is certainly not the only way to discipline children, and of course, I'd never hit a child who wasn't biologically mine, and I'm never having my own, so there.

But I still have to explain that view, even though it will never matter to me because I will never be a biological parent.  So I can only take the perspective of one who has been spanked.

In Taiwan, I wouldn't have to explain anything, and that would be my cultural normativity working for me. It is not a privilege - it is just invisible because it is the status quo.

Here, my experience with spanking and being hit works against me. My dad kicked seven kinds of shit out of me on about three occasions.  

Some of my friends would call that shocking child abuse and express urges to hurt my dad (and have expressed that, believing that it would show support for me... how does hating my father make me see you in a positive light? It does not). 

And while it is questionable as to whether I truly deserved a few beatdowns or not, physical violence is a language that I know and understand, and I LIKE that I am fluent in it. I don't externalize that, but I get it. 

Barbaric, right?

I remember Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech, in which he says that he can "no more disown" the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's insane opinions than he "can disown the Black community." He also says that he "can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of Black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

 I cannot disown what some might perceive as brutality in me because it is real, and it is a part of not only my experience as a human, but a part of me and my sense of who I am. For the record, I do think that getting the shit kicked out of me by my father taught me to be strong. I am grateful for that, although I do not think that he had to do it quite as severely as he did.

I also know that much of my "unchosen" (inherent? inherited?) identity isn't about my cultural identity- my neurotic need to control the actions of others, for example, isn't necessarily a function of my Asian-ness - it is a combination of my father's anxious personality and engineering background (my dad is REALLY NICE, by the way - this doesn't paint him in the best light because I am focusing on one aspect of his identity at the expense of the rest of him, which is ultimately a grave sin - defining by one character trait in order to deify or demonize - so inhumane), and my mother's high expectations for staying on top of my shit. My desire for wisdom is certainly rooted in my Christian upbringing.

I would like to be someone who chooses who I am.  This reminds me of the Renee Montoya character in Greg Rucka's GCPD comics.  She chooses who she is in the face of massive pressure from that which is most important to her - her family, her work, her girlfriend. Ultimately, I think that the process of defining self comes from negotiating the culture that we find ourselves in, the culture that we create, and the culture that is imposed upon us. I think that just as you and I have our share of privilege, we also have our share of agency and maybe more than our fair share of self-awareness, which makes self-definition more fun. I am also using the term "self-definition," which is too self-centered. Obviously, we are defined as well - by the people we love, by strangers, by our enemies.

So I think that everyone SHOULD get to choose identity, and pull identity from wherever one would like. But I also acknowledge that for many, this is a privilege and a luxury.

I'm a little lost in what I have written, but I fucking love identity because it is so complex and interdependent. It is one of the building blocks of our humanity; it is mutable, and it is essential. I'm also a huge fan of Descartes, and his statement on identity is a nice summation of my thoughts: "I think, therefore I am." That is also how I define myself, by the way.

Hemingway, Shipman, Dostoevsky

I should be ashamed of loving Ernest Hemingway in the same way that I love Dostoyevsky.

I really do love them because, despite wildly different writing styles, they write the same emotions and stories.  They also sacrifice the same innocents on the same altars, except that Dostoyevsky uses children and Hemingway uses women.  But they are the same innocents.  They tell the same stories.

So I love the Evan Shipman chapter in A Moveable Feast because I realize that I never had to struggle, as Hemingway did, to love Dostoyevsky.  I feel very grateful for that.

The Book is for my Nose

My copy of A Moveable Feast smells like freshly buttered bread.  Reading it is like eating.

I want to watch myself square off a perfect pat of butter and smooth it across the expanse of the page using a lavish and circular motion.

I want to smell this book once a day.

Summer Reading

To read/reading:

 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 

 Drown by Junot!Diaz!

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom

THE DISENCHANTMENTS OMG BY MY FORMER COLLEAGUE OMG NINA LACOUR

Re-read:

The Brothers Karamazov

The Children of Hurin (it was bad the first time around, I forgot most of it, but I want to remember obscure Middle-Earth shit)

James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son

Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks

No unless I have time:

Gulp, Mary Roach

Fire Watch, Connie Willis

the new Khaled Hosseini

The new Stephen King

Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad

Read:

Diana Wynne Jones's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Fire Watch by Connie Willis

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Black Hole, Charles Burns

The Black Count by Tom Reiss

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

The Man in the High Castle, PKD

Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson

 the new Neil Gaiman that comes out later this month

Coupling

"... they would not make one another less sad, but they could, with great care, make a world that would accommodate their loneliness."

Yiyun Li, "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl"

I love that story so much that it hurts the balls of my feet.

EASY ANSWERS.  I HATE THEM.

Also, we won pub quiz last night, and I was buzzed, so I texted random friends to invite them to come join us at the winner's table next week.  My bragging is so passive-aggressive!

Finished:

Diana Wynne Jones's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloane), the 4th Morning Glories TPB.

Reading:

The Black Count by Tom Reiss, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks.

I have to re-work my reading list.  Too much goodness out there.

Cereal

Mundane-ass shit.

From January of 2008.

I have never dreamed you, but I dreamt two dreams about you this week.

In the first one, we were staying in a hotel suite with two other people.  We pushed our beds together because we had a lot to say.  

I wore a towel, and you wore a newspaper.

We held hands and talked.  We had a lot to say.  Then we took a walk and avoided people that we did not like on the streets of New York City.  A policeman wanted to know if we were a couple, and we could not tell him because we did not know.  He wanted to arrest us for avoiding people.  You talked him out of it.  We suddenly wore coats.

In the second one, we went to see a movie with seven gates, based on the short film Seven Gates.  Bob Dylan was in it, and we rested our hands on my knees through the show.

More hand-holding ensued.

After Dylan was killed, we bought a box of vegetables.

I was unhappy with the organic broccoli because a giant killer assassin beetle would scurry out of it, hide under the squash, and scurry back.  I took each vegetable out of the box, but the assassin never showed.

You were sympathetic.

A lot of other stuff happened, but I can't remember.

I do know that both times, I woke up feeling disappointed, wishing that I had not woken.

Audre

I used to think that the imperative "check your privilege" was cute and edgy, like the self-identified/self-diagnosed marginalized kids who use it at Marginalized Underprivileged Self-Esteem Summer Camp.  I totally would have used it in college.

Six years after I heard it for the first time, that gets right up my nose, it does. 

It scares me.  This is a rallying bully cry that comes from the legitimately-bullied.  Repeating the patterns of marginalization by attempting to create spaces where the privileged are de-privileged only turns the tables; no new tables are created and, most importantly, no one else is invited to the newly-turned tables.

So.  New king, same as the old king.

For me, the foundational texts for examining privilege come from Audre Lorde, as do all of my political loves.  Her ideas are a bit dated, a bit exclusionary, but I still believe that she made two major prophecies:

1.  The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.  I particularly like her rhetorical questions.

"What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of at same patriarchy?  It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable."

2.  Checking privilege is independent of marginalization.  I extrapolated that one, but here is the gist of that from "Uses of Anger":

"What woman here is so enamoured of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman's face?  What woman's terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny?"

To me, "check your privilege" is a valid request, but it is one that must be made to self at the same time as it is made to others, a Taoist eradication of desire for inclusion into the "fold of the righteous," the fold of vengeance, the fold of pettiness, the fold of competitive underprivilege, the fold of blind validation.

If not, then we only use the master's tools to remake the master's house in our own image.  Not a good look.