seen?

zadie smith has, over the course of a 3 novel career, developed a devoted following.

i am not one of those devotees.

i bought her first novel, white teeth, and read it over a long period of time. i am the kind of person who does not put a book down until i finish it. i found it to be clever, imaginative, but not terribly compelling.

her second novel, the autograph man, got by me without me noticing it. had never even heard of it until i began to hear the buzz about her third novel, on beauty. which i saw at target on black friday, when i went to go buy my lovely new microwave (stainless steel, yay!). i bought the book, because i wanted to give her a second try. because i could see she had writing talent, because i was wondering if on beauty might make a greater impression on me.

it did not. on beauty, though it received rave reviews, was ultimately unconvincing to me as a story. on beauty tells the tale of two families: the liberal belseys, white english father, (southern) black american mother, and their three young adult, american born and raised children (2 boys and a girl); and the conservative kippses, a (caribbean) black english father & mother, a son, and a daughter. zadie smith is a biracial, caribbean, englishwoman herself, so she certainly has some insights into varied worlds.

but there was nothing american about her american characters. their dialogue and thoughts read like what she imagines americans speak/think like. which is to say, it didn't sound american. and much of the action of the book takes place in the u.s. it would be one thing to write an american tourist family as secondary or periphery characters in london...then i could relegate the authenticity of the american characters to a secondary or periphery place. but these were main characters...the belseys occupy the lion's share of the narrative, so it seemed to me that they should be as authentic as possible. their vocabulary, their phraseology, the way they interacted with each - particularly with their parents - did not seem american to me. yet the narrator made sure to frequently comment on their americanness. this disconnect was jarring. after all, the back cover summary says the book is supposed to be about the culture wars that define our age. the culture should, i would think, be more accurately captured.

for instance, an argument seen between the belsey daughter and carl thomas, a young black from "the wrong side of tracks" (to use the words of papa kipps in the novel). daughter belsey has been doing her best to get carl's attention through lobbying for him to be able to take classes at the university she attends. but carl's not paying the kind of attention to her that she would desire. she brings up all her lobbying efforts, and he says:

"am i meant to be grateful?"

a young, black american man, from "the wrong side of the tracks" as they say, would not ever respond in such a way. it may seem a little quibble, but when the characters sound the same, it ended up undermining the idea of a culture war. mama belsey did not, to me, exhibit the southern woman qualities that the narration assured me she had. and although she was supposed to have broken away, somewhat, from her roots, the moments she was supposed to have returned to them rang false to me. except for one scene at the end...

it also seemed curious to me that the young belseys did not all seem interested in claiming their biracial identity. they either seemed to claim no racial identity at all, or they claimed blackness. growing up privileged (their father an art history at a presitigous new england college, attending prep school and prestigious colleges themselves, spending time in various cities around the world) , it would seem that this would logically present itself as more of an internal issue for them.

as for the plot itself, it wasn't unbelievable. it was a lively, entertaining read, and certainly ambitious. just not terribly spot on, as the british say.

Labels: literature, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

to the american people. not the american prez, apparently ahmadinejad has already written to the american prez, an 18-page letter, but bushy never responded.

msnbc is running a poll, asking if folks are interested in what ahmadinejad has to say.

i find the very idea of this poll to be absurd. who wouldn't be interested in what he has to say? the no option states: "his past comments have been too offensive -- and potentially dangerous."

to not find out what he has to say, to choose to remain ignorant, is more dangerous...because no one can pretend that what happens and gets said in the middle east has nothing to do with us in our american homes. not anymore. not after september 11th, and not after losing friends and family in various wars, not after reports of wars. you can assign all these events whatever meaning you want, but it's meaningless.

you can read his letter and agree, or read it and disagree...

but if you never ever read it, then you have to rely on other folks to make up your mind for you. now who wants to let someone else think for them?

exercise your freedom here.

Labels: current events, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

i had wanted to post this yesterday, but i was experiencing tech difficulties.

yesterday, i was watching good morning america (i always watch good morning america) and chris cuomo (i love chris cuomo's presence on my tv in the morning) did a segment interviewing mr. devon sherwood.

mr. sherwood is the lone black member of the duke university lacrosse team. the interview centered, of course, around the infamous rape scandal. chris cuomo asked him questions, and mr. sherwood, did his best to give his personal slant on how hard and trying the situation was, how conflicted he felt, how he received threats and whatnot, and i thought, ha: he's the token negro. he's the public token. don't i know how that feels?

token, not just because he's the lone black person on the team. but because he now got his opportunity to represent the black voice on the scandal. apparently, in the early days, mr. sherwood declined to comment or be interviewed about the case. i can understand that. in my contemporary civilization class, i skipped the day we discussed w.e.b. dubois's souls of black folks. i remembered how i felt when we discussed bartolome de las casas, and everyone praised his analysis of the injustice and immorality of the attempt to enslave the native americans of latin america. and i remember how i felt about the fact that neither the reading or the class discussion touched on the fact that he, after this brilliant analysis, went on to advocate for the slavery of the african.

i remembered further back. i remembered a music class in 8th grade. my elementary school was big on interdisciplinary learning, and in 8th grade, along with writing our theses, we studied the civil war in every class. and my music teacher decided to teach some civil war era songs, and in the middle of class he singled me out (courtenay) and asked me if i knew what a mammy was. cuz one of the songs we were gonna sing talked about mammy.

i was a token. i remember malcolm x wrote about tokens in his autobiography, and he was not complimentary. but i can say, at least the tokens of malcolm's era got to be first. he called them, negro firsts. the first negro nurse at such and such hospital, the first negro executive at such and such company. i don't get to be first, i get to be: "affirmative action candidate number 927346, how does the black community feel about this? today? do you identify with this? is the color line still the problem?" that's why i skipped w.e.b. dubois day in class. (and mr. dubois gets to be a token in life and in legacy, since his book is the only book by a black author that is required in the core curriculum at my esteemed university.)

well, i feel like the color line is still a problem, but it's not the only problem. it's not the only way that we get to be tokens. when we have to talk about being a woman in the workplace, we are tokens. or about being asian. or about this or that or blah blah blah, and while, of course, cross cultural dialogue (no matter how you define culture or cultural identity) is important, the line between genuine dialogue and succombing to the ease and convenience of tokenism is blurry.

the problem with tokenism: it holds hands with complaceny. yes, we have a woman, a black person, and asian, a latino, a muslim, a jew, etc. we've done our part. this person tells us what we need to know, and we don't need to know anything else. if this person agrees with us, then we are good people. if this person disagrees, this person tells us what we need to do to fix the problem, and then we are good people. but, it's all such gloss. for instance: mr. sherwood talked about receiving threats. yeah, ok, he received threats. the whole team received threats. are his threats different because he is black? or are they the same, cuz he's a member of a team?

to put it another way. i identify myself as black and a woman. i can speak for my pov as a black woman, but i cannot speak for black women. i dunno if mr. sherwood felt as though he were being singled out as a token. maybe he didn't. but proust had his madeleines (which triggered a string of memories for him) and i had this interview on gma.

who wants to bear the burden of being the voice of an entire group? and how dangerous is it if we get used to thinking one voice speaks for a people? how bout if we shift the paradigm? i propose we just be voices, voices you can agree with or disagree with for many many reasons.

i can only say what i would have done if a national news program came to me and asked me to speak on a subject that teeters uncomfortably on the edge pandering to tokenism. i would have gone on playing lacrosse and i would have gone on declining interviews. just like i skipped that class.

Labels: current events, so opinionated, voices

Posted by call me aja at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

and the quest to vilify continues. not that i'm trying to make an intellectual's argument here, but the idea of the other is so ingrained in humanity, that it seems to make sense to vilify. of course, the other is just an individual who, much like the self, is trying to feed and protect his or her family, enjoy some good things in life, and most of all live, breathe, feel.

the media, and its love of types and archetypes, helps in this quest. either this argument makes sense, or i have read too many books, have learned too much literary theory. overall, the newsworthiness of race to vilify incredibly underwhelming to me. still, my 2 cents, before i retire the issues:

the catholic church vs. the islamic community vs. the catholic church vs. the islamic community:
...i would just say that no one has a monopoly on the markets for intolerance or injustice. far too often, that marketplace is overcrowded. does one side not remember some prophet saying something about casting the first stone...does the other side not remember something about all the people of the book? if not, how bout trying to remember together?

bush vs. chavez vs. bush vs. ahmednejad vs. olmert vs. siniora vs. blair...
...actually, this is a game i'd like to call "[insert name of political leader here] vs the rest of the world, cuz obviously the rest of the world is out to get him." isn't it funny how interchangeable the names? anyone else notice a touch of the megalomania about most world political leaders? chavez can call bush a devil and bush can go on and on about his mandate to rid the world of evildoers, and everyone can claim that god is on their side, unless of course they do not believe in god, then they can claim that history will absolve them. yes a touch of the megalomania, and its not helping people live more just lives. i don't believe that most political leaders are malicious, i believe that they are out of touch with how their ideals play out in reality. on the people. i will also here repeat that no one has a monopoly on the markets for intolerance or injustice. far too often, that marketplace is overcrowded.

and i do not pretend to be an expert on world affairs. i am not. o, and just cuz i don't particularly care for politics, well, it doesn't mean i'm apathetic. but i believe more in the power of individuals to touch lives and change lives and change the world about them and their perception of it than i believe in the power of talking heads to alleviate international problems. by bickering, squabbling, clashing, and shooting guns. and slinging mud, even if you hit your target dead on, makes your hands dirty. a bit of responsibility might move me; throwing around culpability does not.

but talking heads will talk, and that is why i am incredibly underwhelmed by the newsworthiness of their talkin. it's not like anything here is new.

Labels: current events, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments

the title of this post is taken from the bible at john 1:1. but this is not so much a post about religion.

during some down time at work today (what an exhausting week it has been!) i was reading a blog that a coworker once brought to my attention because of a particularly amusing post about snowglobes. i hadn't looked at this blog in probably 2 weeks or so, and it looks like the blogger hasn't posted anything since last thursday.

one of last thursday's blog posts was about mahmoud ahmadinejad, president of iran, addressing the un. and the blogger apparently disagrees with mr. ahmadinejad's politics, and morals, and probably a lot of other things about him, as many people do. and obviously disagrees strongly, given the vehemence of the post. i didn't necessarily agree (or disagree) with all of what the blogger had to say, i couldn't help but mentally stumble, then scratch my head, then ask, "seriously?" over the next-to-last paragraph:

"All I'm saying is, every other so-called oppressed people have at least managed to get some good novels out of it. Bring me the Palestinian 'Invisible Man', and maybe I'll warm up to the notion."

warm up to what notion? that palestinians are oppressed people? but mr. ahmadinejad is president of iran, and as far as i know, iranians are not considered palestinian...unless they are people of iranian descent who reside(d) in palestine. then again, this is nitpicky, geographical argument is actually beside my point.

my point is that, in one's haste to condemn someone else's politics, one should not trivialize the experiences of millions of "oppressed people." i mean really...to reduce someone's experience to "at least you got a good novel out of it"...i'm sure that that comment is in jest, but sometimes even jesting goes a bit too far.

since invisible man is the example given, i suppose i will run with the example of the experience of the african diaspora. which, of course, is not a topic i am un-fond of expounding upon. invisible man is a good novel to read, of course, but more than that, it's a triumph, given the fact that for hundreds of years black people in this country were forbidden to learn to read, let alone write, for fear this would turn them against their "masters." it's a triumph, given that phillis wheatley was not allowed to publish her own brilliant work with a writer letter of approval from a group of white men. it's a triumph, given that the invisible man in the novel was able to write a novel that depicted a black man attending college, a triumph given that ralph ellison was able to attend college...these, i believe, are some of the things that maya angelou was refering to when she wrote of "the dream and the hope of the slave."

and the passage from the bible from which i take my title? writing a good novel is serious thing. for an oppressed people to write a novel which even people from non-oppressed classes and groups praise is nigh unto a miracle. folks put so much faith in words, that even in religious texts the word is a god. the ability to stand up and make people pay attention to words? that's power. what power the literate/voiced people have! oppressed people have died to get to the point where they could read simple sentences. oppressed people are not afforded freedom of speech, so when they get to the point where they are making you pay attention their words, please understand that they are working hard at throwing off their oppression. rastas understand this. that's why they don't ever use the term oppression. they say downpression, cuz that's what downpressors do...they keep someone down...but when you hear someone, they are getting out from under that downpression.

i picked the title because its the phrase that came to mind that most actively and stridently rejects and resists the reduction of an oppressed people's struggle to just a good novel. a few good words.

it's not ok to say or imply that the litmus test for oppression is whether or not that people rises to the point of writing a good novel. to make that the rule is to deny the oppression of say...i dunno, millions and millions of american people who are no longer around to write a novel about their oppression. i mean, in the caribbean native american people pretty much completely exterminated...if genocide isn't oppression, then i'm not sure what is. and the arawaks didn't write no great novels between the time columbus arrived and they died en masse of smallpox, bullets, and forced labor.

of course, the claim of oppression is a contentious claim, cuz people don't want to be oppressed, to admit to being oppressed, to admit to being oppressors, or to admit to abetting oppressors. and i'm not writing this to call any specific person or group of people oppressors. what i'm saying is: don't dishonor folks' struggles. don't reduce folks' accomplishments to an "at-least-a-token-i-hear you-blah-blah." writing a good novel didn't make up for the oppression that people went through for generations.

and honestly...if the one is unaware of palestinian literature, does that speak to a dearth of palestinian literature, or to ignorance on the part of the one who claims unawareness? i really cannot say why the novel is the test in this instance...but in terms of palestinian literature...the work of edward said might be a good place to start...and if we are going to conflate geography (yeah, i had to go back to the geography)...perhaps gibran....or rumi...or if we prefer our highly acclaimed literature to be definitely palestinian and more modern, how about tony-award winning suheir hammad? it's there...if one cares to look for it.

and one final note: another nitpick. the blogger asks how mr. ahmadinejad is being "allowed into this country." he's addressing the un. the un is not in this country. the un is the un is the un. the us is international territory, not american territory. for all anyone knows, a military helicopter could be landing him fair and square on un ground. that is all.

Labels: current events, so opinionated, voices

Posted by call me aja at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

it's inevitable that they will say/do ill-advised and inappropriate things. one would think that actors would make superb politicians just because...well, politics is all an act anyway. (i'm afraid that sentence seems glaringly ungrammatical. i'm sorry.) but let's examine the facts: ronald reagan becomes president, and we get star wars (a system of space-based defenses).

arnold schwarzenegger becomes governor of california, and we get this comment in reference to republican california assemblywoman bonnie garcia:

"I mean Cuban, Puerto Rican, they are all very hot," the governor says on the recording of a closed-door meeting obtained by the Los Angeles Times and made available on its Web site Friday. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it."

o, mr. governator. of course, this is no grandiose star wars scheme, but certainly ill-advised. publicly fetishizing a latina, as if latinas are not fetishized enough, and letting that get caught on tape? come on, even if you really think that...don't you realize that it is maria shriver who made your career? don't go jeopardizing that career by letting slip how you really feel about some other woman...

Labels: current events, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

for being preachy in the last post. i have very strong feelings.

Labels: aja, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

i'm on a million listservs, and i just got this email containing a link to a very interesting article on yahoo, entitled: "Minorities seek history class changes." the article goes on to detail common misconceptions people hold because, as well all know, history is written by the victors. it says:

"American students often get the impression from history classes that the British got here first, settling Jamestown, Va., in 1607. They hear about how white Northerners freed the black slaves, how Asians came in the mid-1800s to build Western railroads. The lessons have left out a lot.

"Forty-two years before Jamestown, Spaniards and American Indians lived in St. Augustine, Fla. At least several thousand Latinos and nearly 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil War. And Asian-Americans had been living in California and Louisiana since the 1700s."

you can find the rest of the article here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060820/ap_on_re_us/forgotten_history

ok, so they've got me hooked with the first two paragraphs. and while it's not telling me anything new, its kinda nice to see old facts in the news if they are facts that people often deny, or at least skirt. but reading further, i came to this paragraph which absolutely made my head spin:

"Some tales have gone untold because, in the less-diverse America of the past, minorities didn't make the decisions on textbooks and other means of passing along history. And in many cases, minorities who had faced blatant discrimination wanted to discard evidence of past horrors."

the LESS-DIVERSE AMERICA OF THE PAST? i was under the impression that this article was about the little-acknowledged fact that america has always been a diverse place, and now needs to start acting like it. but apparently, i misunderstood. apparently, america has always had its token minorities, and now that today's token minorities are making noise and having rights and stuff, its time to make a bit of a bow to them, and throw them in the history books.

if the lesson of history is supposed to be that people of all sorts were here from the founding of america, then we can't say that some tales have gone untold because america was less diverse. the paragraph has it almost right: these minorities didn't have any say in what information was deemed true and valuable history, and what was not. i don't know why that less-diverse america of the past bit was tacked onto that paragraph, because those few words, in my view, undermine the work of the entire article.

what a small, harmless, blamefree phrase -- a phrase, that is, that refuses to admit of blame. as though a diverse america only recently happened, as though diversity is a new and surprising, phenomenon, as though we kind of like it, but we think the way it was back in the day weren't so bad either. as though we could take this new way or leave by the roadside. and minorities, minorities, minorities...it really kinda makes me sad that we use this word, that we are not more conscious of our word choices. minority--as though a living, breathing individual who works and contributes to society is, in fact, only a small part of it. funny how we apologize to pluto and several other smaller heavenly bodies and rewrite the definition of the word planet to offer them inclusion, and they can't even feel. but we don't fully rewrite the definition of citizen, because we don't care how people feel when they learn that their history doesn't matter. not that much. ok, maybe a little. but just a little.

we don't think before we speak, and that's a shame, because words are so powerful. obviously, they are powerful--powerful enough that slaves were forbidden to read, powerful enough that people who could not perfectly recite the lord's prayer could be hanged as witches in colonial america, poweful enough that joseph mccarthy could get books banned, powerful enough that the federal government has recently upped the fine for using "inappropriate language" on primetime television. minority is not just a figure of speech. cuz speech is voice is life. and life is what you make it.

and here's the rub: the silencing of the histories of millions of people is no small, harmless, historical anomaly that's really no one's fault. part of the work of telling the whole story has to be recognizing, openly admitting, the fact that that silencing was a choice on the part of society.

but folks, here's the good part, we can now choose to not remain silent. and we can choose to listen, really listen, when other folks choose to openly use their voice.

Labels: it takes a village, never forgetting, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

but it must get its wear.
in fashion nothing is really new
but every season you have to
talk about it like it is.

so the next season of survivor, the teams will de divided by race/ethnicity: black vs. white vs. asian vs. latino. cbs says that they are well aware that it is controversial, but they are going forward with it.

i have ever been a member of what in the corporate world can be called affinity groups, that is, in college i was in the caribbean students' association, black students' organization, black theater ensemble, etc. and now, i am going to write about why the segregated survivor is not the same as racial/ethnic affinity groups.

but i think that its kind of obvious, given the terms i just used: segregated and affinity. an affinity group exists as organization to support the aims of a group of people with a common trait. it expresses the afinity of these individuals, not just to individuals who identify as they do, but in society in general. and, as these groups are affinity based, there is no one who can tell you that you do not belong, since the basis of belonging is that affinity, not of pre-assigned label. affinity groups are open to anyone who expresses affinty to the group. a segregated group imposes restrictions on who can join, and exists to prove and prove again the superiority of its membership over and above everyone else.

which sounds a bit like what this segregated survivor makes light of. segregated survivor is competition based, and competition between racial/ethnic groups is already fraught with CENTURIES of problems. if the white team wins, does it validate the existing unequal social structure? if the black team wins, its it somehow linked to their inherent athletic prowess? if the asian team wins, is it just cuz they are sooo smart? and if the latino team wins...well, i dunno even know if i can begin to address all of the questions there, given that latino is not a race in the same way that black, white, and asian are (according to the semi-official definitions that are used in the us)....if the latino team wins, i suppose all of the questions i just asked apply, and then some. i fear that segregated survivor is setting back america's collective subconscious by at least 45 years, possibly more. taking us back to the civil rights era, or something. are we next to retry brown vs. board of ed american idol style? call in if you think brown is right, call in if you think board of ed is right? i thought the supreme court already ruled that segregated is inherently unequal, and that segregation has no place in american society. and i have a really good question:

biracial/multiracial/ambigously ethnic people: were they assigned a team, based on appearance? the more i think about it, the sadder this makes me.

i guess i am disappointed that some corporate television suits would pander and make light of the problems of race and racism that persist in society today but throwing caricatures of them onto some deserted island/isolated wilderness and telling them to have at each other. unlike an affinity group, this ludicrous competition supports no one and nothing, promotes no dialogue on real issues. of course they are aware this is controversial, how could they not be? controversy is not a bad thing, but the worst part of this segregated survivor is that i can smell the dollar signs that motivated it. but since i can smell those dollar signs, i guess i shouldn't be surprised by it.

well, i have never watched survivor, i've never had a desire to, so i guess i don't need to mount a boycott of it.

Labels: so opinionated, tv, yeah i said it: race

Posted by call me aja at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

so it isn't exactly last night as i said it would be when i continued this post. sorry. but about marita bonner, i've decided this is the quote that i really love:

At least you know what you want life to give you. A career as fixed and calmly brilliant as the North Star. The one real thing money buys. Time. Time to do things. A house that can be as delectably out of order and as easily put in order as the dollhouse of "playing-house" days. And of course, a husband you can look up to without looking down on yourself.

the quote comes from "On Being Young--A Woman--And Colored," originally published in 1925. and what is immediately striking is how relevant it still is.

relevance: anybody read that article in forbes advising men not to marry career women? the definition of career woman, according to the article: college educated, makes over $30,000 a yearworks 35 hours or more outside of the home. why, according to this article, shouldn't men marry career women? simple: career women are, evidently, more likely to not want children, to be unhappy if the have children, be unhappy if she makes more money than the man, make the man unhappy if she makes more money, more likely to cheat, more likely to not cook and clean, more likely to finally divorce the man.

that someone would harbor such vitriol, and the publish it in forbes of all places, means that women are still looking for men that they can look up to without looking down on themselves. in truth, when i first heard of the article i just knew it could not be serious. now, i am quite afraid that it is serious.

what is perhaps most unfortunate is that this article seems to imply that happiness, for a man, is a person, a woman, who will have his babies and clean his house and ask him for money. is that what happiness is? shall we all set the bar so low?

i hope not. but if a man cannot, by definition, be happy with a successful woman, its the man who is not happy with himself in life. and perhaps the ego boost of being in control of a woman fools him into believing he is happy.

of course, what do i know? and according to the forbes definition of a career woman, i suppose i am a career woman. so i dunno, if this is what men are thinking then i guess i better really love my books.

o, but i actually do believe men are smarter than that.

Labels: literature, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments

i am embarassed for this show's existence.
flavor flav used to say, fight the power.
flavor flav said, don't believe the hype.
flavor flav once said, 911 is a joke.
now ::sigh:: flavor flav is the joke.
what makes me frown more than the show's
existence is that those people, those kids,
who are only just now hearing about flavor flav,
and only have absolute shuckin, jivin, and minstrelsy
to associate him with, have no idea of what he used to
be about. you know, back in those public enemy days.

ok, flav always brought the levity to public enemy,
and i'm not tryin to say he was an
extra-righteous righteous revolutionary,
but even in that there was more than a hint of being serious
about life. not so with this television show.
i remember being a young one back when, as digable planets
once said, the kids were rockin clocks. and those
leather africa medallions. remember those? well, i'm not
going to berate flavor flav, or vh1/mtv/bet/viacom for
giving him a platform for this nonsense. i'm just gonna
refer to the aformentioned "911 is a joke."
the video was pretty funny (sam jackson's overacting
at it's finest) but if you've ever been in a less than desirable
neighborhood, and had to call the police for some reason or
other, and waited for 2 hours for them to show up*,
you'll understand what i mean when i say that flav
used to actually talk about stuff. fear of a black planet, it
takes a nation of millions to hold us back, he used
to have something to say.

*"i called 911 a long time ago/ dont you see how slow they reactin?" my good friend works at a summer day camp at a church in bk. a child, no older than 7 years old, got some chemical in her eye, and needed emergency care. they called 911...it took 30 minutes for someone to arrive.

Labels: musica, so opinionated, tv

Posted by call me aja at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

i am in love with words. words themselves, their sounds, and their meanings.

but this is a post about a couple of words i hate.

ethnic-along came polly was on tv recently, and i watched it, and although it had its funny moments, i found it excruciating every time ben stiller's character said that polly had him eating ethnic food. ethnic food??? as in food that comes from an ethnicity? i find i hate the word ethnic for implying that there is such a thing as non-ethnic, and i hate this society for encouraging the idea that ethnic applies to non-white, or to some extent non-middle american. ethnic is two-syllable symbol of rather unfortunate exoticism, which leads me to...

exotic-mostly i hate this word when people use it to apply to themselves. how is it that you are exotic? is your skin green? do you come from another planet? because otherwise, as a human being, you are one of a family of billions, from a species that is nearly as old as time itself
(and certainly as old as our concept of time)--in other words, you are nothing new (though that is definitely not to say nothing special)

illegitmate-see previous post

african american-i suppose there is nothing inherently wrong in the term african american, other than it contains way too many syllables and that it its use can be divisive. i call myself black, because black is a color, and i love color, and color transcends nationality, and because the human animal is mostly a visiually oriented thing (as opposed to historically oriented).

politics-i hate the word politics because of what it stands for. i define politics as the process that inhibits justice and, well, common sense.

that's all i got for right now. there are more words, in life, that i dislike, but these are the ones at the forefront of my mind.

Labels: other stuff, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 6:55 PM | Permalink | Comments