Saturday night, A and I went out with a couple of friends we don’t see often enough. We spent the evening doing private-room karaoke. We were there for FOUR HOURS and their were only four of us in there. That is a lot of singing. A LOT.
We didn’t get home until 2:30 a.m.
Now it is two full days later and I am still trying to recover.
Man, we are getting OLD.
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Just a quick follow up on the past couple posts:
The Preschool Teacher - Yes, she is pretty harsh with the parents. She scares the bejeezus out of me, so I nearly hyperventilate with fear on the days when I am supposed to bring snacks. What if what I bring isn’t acceptable to her standards?? The horror!
But, Mrs. Kim is really great with the kids. She is firm with them, but that’s ok. M likes her school. She likes her friends. She likes the teacher. Today, M spent her morning scrubbing pumpkins (?!?) and she can’t stop talking about it.
We will just keep doing what we want at home, and (now that I have had a little talk with A about bring “home” work to school) Mrs. Kim will be none the wiser.
On the Anti-Racism post: I am not going to run Racism 101 on this blog. I write about my own experiences and how I have interpreted them. This doesn’t mean that I am accusing YOU or other white people who have similar experiences of being racist or whatever. That is up to you to decide, not me.
Also, when I say that I have identifited racist tendencies in MYSELF, I am not going to sit and defend them or the fact that I believe they are racist over and over. The hardest part so far of becoming anti-racist is the choice to stop being defensive about hearing the word “racist” applied to my actions or thoughts.
I am a recovering racist. I can’t change what I don’t acknowledge, so I wear that label proudly. For me, part of being anti-racist is to take responsibility for my actions and thoughts whether they directly hurt someone else or not.
In the previous post, when I was acknowledging the fact that all Asians used to look alike to me, I was alluding to white privilege. While I went to a very white high school, by the time I was in college, I lived in a big city and went to a very diverse university. Had I ever bothered to get to know even one person of color? No I had not. I was a WOMEN’s STUDIES major, for crying out loud. All I did all day was sit in class and talk about gender, race, class, and oppression. Did that matter? NOooo.
I never ever went out of my way to make friends with anyone who wasn’t white. If I had, maybe I would have been able to tell them apart. I had plenty of opportunities and I never took advantage of them. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like such an utter jackass when I couldn’t identify my boyfriend in a photograph of him with his Chinese students.
By the way, “I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time” is the first item listed in Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. It is a great article and a great place to go if you are just starting to think about white privilege. Another great article is So You Think You’re an Anti-Racist? 6 Critical Paradigm Shifts for Well-Intentioned White Folks.
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One more note: Commenting here is not your right. If you can’t be respectful of me and the other people, then your comments get deleted. If you use multiple names or irritate me too much, you will be banned. You can’t come in my house and pee on my floor over and over without being asked to leave.
(The one exception to this is my dear friend Animal who posts under many different names and invariably posts incredibly offensive comments. That is just how he is and I tend to think he is pretty funny.)
Just a little note – some of us have better visual memory than others. I am white and have a hard time picking my own children out of a crowd of white people. Both of my children have expressed exasperation with me for walking by them in stores etc. Sometimes it is lack of experience with people of different races and sometimes it is just poor discrimination skills. Oh, well.
I’m very, very, very disappointed in 4 hours of Karaoke. How much pain can you guys inflict on yourselves!?
I really enjoy your writing – all of it is thought-provoking and makes me examine how I live my life and treat others. I too was raised in an all white town with an all white school. Diversity to me then meant I had friends with different hair color. How much my life has changed for the better by choosing be surrounded by those of a different background than me. How embarrassed I am of the way I used to think – I simply was ignorant and that is not acceptable.
hm. can i come over and just pee on your floor one time?
talk about an awkward situation…
This has nothing to do with your post…
Did you see one of your ads? It’s for Glenn Beck! Dude! Glenn-one-step-down-from-Rush Beck! bbbwahhhhh!
STill thinking about the anti-racisist post. And how I try, but I am not ready to be declared and anti-racisist yet. Something to think about…
Those are good rules.
I put in a new cement floor in the basement and added a radon sealant.
Now, when you stay over, you won’t die…and I won’t have to hear about radon detectors.
I agree with what you’re saying about the subtleties of racism and the struggle to be anti-racist. I grew up white in South Africa – was in my junior year of high school when Mandela was released – and though my family was always engaged in struggling against apartheid I am very aware of the racism that was bred into me. A few years ago, an American from the South first used the term “recovering racist” to describe himself and it was an ah-ha moment for me. To me, it indicates an ongoing internal struggle against racism, and it acknowledges the differences between how I may think or feel, and how I choose to act. It also feels less loaded with a heavy weight of judgement – this is where I start from, and I do everything I can to change from here, without spending too much time agonising about the past (which I can’t change).
I appreciate posts like these, that help me find resources for anti-racism, and that help me listen and learn without my constantly asking and demanding of POCs that they be the ones to educate me. It’s not their job to help me (though I am grateful when they do.) I very much appreciate learning from someone who has thought more and longer about this than I have had occasion to. Thanks, A.
Was going to warn you about the Glenn Beck ad showing up, but I see joybucket beat me to it
The guy is a racist, misogynist, and overall disgusting pig.
From mediamatters.org:
Glenn Beck claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant “comes across the border in the middle of the night”: “One, they’re terrorists; two, they’re escaping the law; or three, they’re hungry. They can’t make a living in their own dirtbag country.”
Thanks for the resources! I always enjoy reading your blog, and appreciate you sharing it with us.
That probably wasn’t meant the way it sounded, but… When I read your post, the impression I got was that you think you ought to have gone out of your way to make friends with people just because they were of other skin colours. Now, if I’d been one of those people, I think I’d have been pretty PO’d if someone was trying to make friends with me just because she saw it as some kind of anti-racist self-improvement project.