Why Everyone Should Care About Racism

 As the protests arising from the failure to indict in the Ferguson and Michael Brown cases, play out in the media I have been surprised and touched by the number of white people who are also outraged by injustice in the system. Racism was once a legal and socially acceptable part of life from the inception of our nation, which incidentally was founded by revolution and civil disobedience, lest we forget, to the late 1960’s civil rights movement. Since then it has been driven underground, but has remained a virulent force. It is time for it to go.

Beautiful lives are being destroyed everywhere from this pervasive moral decay of society. One that comes to the top of my mind is that of my younger brother Gabriel. He was a bright and gifted child, who happened to be born into an impoverished family. He was intellectually curious, so at the all white school he attended briefly (our family moved frequently due to evictions), he was excited to be assigned readings about the Incas in Peru. He read what the teacher assigned, and then went to the library to check out more books on the subject and read them too. When the teacher held a discussion on the assignment he excitedly raised his hand to contribute to the conversation what he had learned from his additional reading. The teacher scolded and shamed him in front of the class for not restricting the conversation to the reading she had assigned. My heart was heavy when he told me the story. I told our parents about it, but they did not go in to talk to the teacher about it. After that Gabriel lost interest in school, and a couple of years later he dropped out before graduating.

By the age of 17 Gabriel grew to be a tall and handsome young man of 6’4” with a quick wit who was very popular with the ladies. He wasn’t able to earn more than 3 dollars an hour at MacDonalds, and that money was taken from him by our always needy family. He learned that he could make quick money and buy new clothes by selling drugs. He almost died, but miraculously survived when someone cracked his skull open in an alleyway two months before his actual death. He promised me he would stop, but then, just before Christmas he wanted to do one last deal to buy presents for his family. He did not survive this time. My soul felt crushed and I mourned for well over a year. I could not enjoy Christmas for nearly 20 years. He was much younger than me and felt more like a son than a brother to me. There were many years in my life and my early education where I tried to ignore issues of race and social justice, and just focus on school and homework, and getting a job, but I came to learn that issues of social justice were an important part of my education and my full participation in life.

My family is bi-racial. My mother was white, and my father was black. They were so in love they bucked the social system in the early 1960’s to get married and have a family and had 3 children together. Dad went on to marry two more times and had 10 more children from each of those unions. All of the children , except the three from his second wife grew up with my father. Two of those children died in infancy, and one was adopted into a different family. We have reconnected with him, and he, incidentally, is a police officer. For his own protection in the current climate I will not share his name. Race was never discussed in our household, which never prepared me for the real world, where it mattered very much. I could see the devastation that being a black amputee married to a white woman was causing on Dad’s earning opportunities myself, whether or not he chose to acknowledge it. Every Spring Dad would put on his suit and tie and go out to look for a job, and most times come up empty handed. He would then take to his bed and drink, before starting the whole cycle over again. We barely scraped by on his disability check, and a lot of the time we went hungry, until the 3rd of the month, “big shopping day.”

All of my siblings have now grown up, and some of them are still struggling and living in poverty, which leaves them more vulnerable to crime, but in each of them I see a spark of hope, great spirit, and a will to survive. I see it even more in their children. We need a society with more open doors and less judgment. We need to start as early as possible with the children, encouraging them to make friends with others who are not like them, and share their toys. We need to make society a place that is safe to play on the streets, and to be curious about learning. At every stage in life there needs to be place, a door to walk through where there is opportunity for growth and change for the better. It is true that some individuals make bad choices that lead them to where they are, but then again, we need a society with more good choices.

I see many parallels between racism and misogyny. Women are told that they won’t get raped if they don’t dress too sexy, and blacks are told by the likes of Bill Cosby and others, that if they just dressed right and spoke proper English they wouldn’t be oppressed by racism. That is simply not true. The most fastidiously dressed, well educated, and well behaved black people still experience racism. Moreover, they are often afraid to speak out, or reach out and lend a hand to other black people who are struggling, because they feel their own positions are tenuous and highly dependent on the beneficence of white people. That is not true freedom.

Black people need and depend on leadership from everyone in the struggle for a more just society. They have become America’s scapegoats and bogeymen. They are randomly chosen as demonstration dummies for legalized murder, as if to say “let me demonstrate my power and authority on this life that doesn’t count. If you step out of line it will happen to you too.”

Tribute to Gabriel from Desiree Goodwin on Vimeo.

A Late Question From the Audience, My Thoughts on Theaster Gates in Conversation with Bill T. Jones at the MFA

Since artist/activist Theaster Gates came to the GSD as a Loeb Fellow in 2011 and I saw his introductory lecture to the GSD community I have been a big fan. He sang rather than spoke the words to his speech, while showing visuals in a slide show of the spaces he had converted in blighted neighborhoods using art (refurbished shoe shine chairs) to finance his projects to rebuild the economic infrastructure. Occasionally he paused and spoke like an erudite professor, before breaking into street slang, and then bursting into song again. It was unexpected, riveting, mind blowing, thought provoking and dynamic. This man powerfully expressed the pain of excluded and alienated people, and announced at the same time that he had arrived to the heights of academia and that his intellect was a lethal weapon conquering and overcoming the obstacles of oppression. I have not missed an opportunity to see him since then, and was really looking forward to his conversation with famed dancer, choreographer, and AIDS activist Bill T. Jones.

What I encountered at tonight's lecture were two esteemed African American artists with an easy rapport having a very elevated and mostly polite intellectual conversation about artists as fertilizers of a community, using the worm and the elephant as a metaphor, the worm being the artist who digests and breaks up the ground, and the elephant, I suppose being the entity that has the capital to finance art projects that will benefit the community. They discussed an artistic collaboration they had worked on, but showed only stills, no video, no song, no motion! Instead, they used words and conversation to discuss each others roles in creating and defining space, the importance of ownership of space for agency to express oneself artistically, and to invite others in, and the importance of funding art to revitalize communities. The element of race occasionally entered the conversation, but not racism, which seemed to be ignoring the "elephant in the room," given the nationwide and international protests against police brutality playing out in the media. Even Drew Faust, the President of Harvard University tweeted a photograph of herself wearing a "Black Lives Matter" T shirt this week.

When the time came for questions from the audience my thoughts were percolating, but I didn't know what to say. A professor in the audience raised an observation of the two of them playing out the roles of the wise elder (Bill T. Jones) passing down knowledge to a disciple (Theaster Gates), but how Theaster Gates quickly reversed the roles in conversation coming up the the level of his elder. Another person asked a question about coping with being an aging dancer, and passing down the art to others, and another audience member asked a question relating to compassion. I was tongue tied until I left the lecture and wandered into the gallery upstairs to see Theaster Gates' work on display, entitled "Sweet Land of Liberty" a framed wall hanging composed of fire hoses used by the police against civil rights protesters in the 60's, an item made from material representing the fabric of society's infrastructure used to suppress marginalized black people fighting for inclusion.

As I left the museum my question came to me: "what do you think the role of the artist is as an agent of social change?" After all, his many accomplishments in that role were extolled and highlighted in the description of the lecture on the MFA site. I'm sure the audience would have been all ears, but it never came up.

http://www.mfa.org/programs/lecture/theaster-gates-the-artist-and-cultural-spaces

A Evening At Wegman's

Last weekend my boyfriend and I checked out the new Wegman's in Burlington, partly motivated out of my nostalgic memories of Wegman's in Rochester in my childhood. There the store evolved in the 70's from a regular store to a high end supermarket with grocery dioramas with fancy names like "Olde Worlde" featuring gourmet foods like aged cheeses, dried meats, and preserves. The first thing we noticed was the covered enclosed parking lot, shielding us from the snowfall that evening, making this supermarket resemble a high end department store.

I didn't see the fancy food displays with polished wood produce stands I recalled from my childhood, but there was a large food bar with a seating area for dining on two levels, and an escalator leading to restrooms on the second floor. The sprawling store was unusually quiet, and not too crowded that evening.

We explored the meat section and deli, finding some high end options like dry aged steak, and a very large section of marinated meats, and pre-sliced deli meats, as well as a large liquor section. We didn't want to spend an extended period of time there on our first visit, so we decided to seek out the specific items I was looking for: cat food and tea, and mulling spices. Here we were pleasantly surprised. I was able to find Purina Cat Chow Complete for $3.99 for a 3.15lb bag, almost half of the price it is at other grocery food chains, so I had to buy two bags! I was also able to buy a 12 pack of Fancy Feast cat food for $6.59. I also found crystal cat litter for only $5.99 for 4lbs. Usually crystal cat litter is sold in 8lb containers for about $15.99, and can only be found in pet stores or online, not in the average grocery store. Crystal cat litter has a special dessicant that absorbs moisture from pet waste. I like to mix it with clumping litter, which can be extremely heavy used on its own. This was a bargain price, so again I had to buy 2. Another coup in the pet supplies was the Wegman's brand of clumping litter. I bought a 21lb container for only $6.19.

When we looked for tea we found a cornucopia of high end brands, most often found in gourmet boutiques, cafes, and health food stores: Tazo, Stash, Tea Forte, Tulsi, and Republic of Tea, as well as some of the average brands like Constant Comment, Celestial Seasonings and Lipton, in a variety of exotic flavors. I bought the Tulsi Cinnamon Rose tea, Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger, and Constant Comment (a childhood favorite). They didn't have mulling spices in the store, unfortunately.

We were pleased with the bargains we found, but for our average shopping needs Market Basket still has better bargains for meat and produce, though Wegman's is now my number one choice for pet supplies and tea. The store is so large I'm sure there are more treasures waiting to be discovered by discerning shoppers.

Saying Goodbye to Buffy

Buffy was a really rambunctious kitty when I brought her home in 1995. I lived alone in a studio in Newton Corner. Whenever I would make the bed she would dart back and forth under the sheets making air tunnels. She liked to run down the hall and screech to a halt, like the cats you see in cartoons. Other favorite tricks were lying under the dresser on her back and pulling herself out by her paws to take a peek at the room, or climbing up the coats hanging on the door at night to look out the transom window at me when I was sleeping.

She could be cranky and demanding sometimes. If I was talking on the phone too long she would do things to get my attention, like knock over the garbage, jump on the table, and swing from the telephone cord while looking at me innocently. One day while I was talking on the phone, relaxing on my futon, she dive bombed and bit my bum really hard repeatedly. It did the trick. I paid attention to her.

She was always curious about whatever I was eating. She liked to try desserts, ice cream, my oatmeal as I was getting ready for work. I couldn't leave her alone with anything I was eating or drinking. One day I had made a drink with milk and a little Kahlua in a tall skinny glass. There was only about an inch of it left in the bottom. I went in the other room to do the dishes, then peeked around the corner to see her very carefully dip her paw in, swish it around the bottom, then carefully pull it back out and lick it off without tipping the glass over. I would have finished that drink without ever knowing the difference, but I knew she was that clever.

Buffy was a coquette. One day she was being very cranky with me and would growl and and scratch me if I tried to pet her. Then my boyfriend at the time came over and she purred and cuddled in his arms. I said I was surprised because she had been very snappy with me. I tried to pet her again, and she snarled and took a swipe at me. My boyfriend said proudly, "She likes MEN!"

Buffy has been with me for 19 years, but in recent years she has become increasingly frail. She is losing the ability to walk steadily, and when I brought her in to the vet a month ago they told me that one of her kidneys had failed. Yesterday when I came home she was stuck in the couch cushions and was too weak to pull herself out. She didn't want to eat. She jumped out of my arms and thrashed around on the floor unable to run away. I wrapped her in a blanket and tried to make her comfortable. Then she surprised me and jumped in and out of the tub a few times. She made the attempt to walk around very unsteadily, dragging on one of her legs. Except when she was batting around her dry food to subdue it and kill it before eating it, she was always fastidiously neat and clean. It was heartbreaking to watch her drag herself to the litter box despite her obvious great pain and weakness.

Buffy has had an amazing long life. For many years vets have told me she has a heart murmur, yet she outlived my younger cat, George, who died very suddenly at the age of 9 in 2011. I was devastated because I didn't see it coming. Buffy was 16 at the time. Now she has become almost emaciated, and her fur has become matted. Her skin is too sensitive for normal grooming. I know it is time to say goodbye and I'm spending a last few hours with her before I take her in to the vet to be euthanized. It is a very hard decision, but I know it is the most merciful thing I can do. I don't want her to die in pain while I'm at work. She still found the strength to put her paw on my arm as she is resting beside me on the sofa. I already miss her.

Any One of Us Words From Prison at Out of the Blue Gallery

Last night I was privileged to see the first show on Opening night of Any One Of Us: Words From Prison, a local production in honor of V Day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. This work was compiled by Eve Ensler in her work with women prisoner survivors of domestic violence. The production was powerful, emotional, riveting, engaging and at times a little repulsive in what it revealed about the capacity for cruelty and evil from the people who we are supposed to trust to love and protect us.

The show was produced by Chanelle Doctor, and the ensemble cast is a group of Lesley College students who act out these roles with passion and ferocity, moving from the states of dream like reveries of disappointed expectations to the rage of acting out defending their lives, their battered souls and bodies. The men who abused these women were family members, husbands, lovers, and prison guards, both professional and blue collar. If these women had died they would have been viewed as innocent martyrs to domestic violence, but because they survived by becoming perpetrators of violence, which they saw as the only choice left to them, they are imprisoned with the memories of abuse they did not ask for, and subject to the continuing abuse of prison guards. They have escaped one patriarchal abusive situation to end up in another.

Knowing how little time they had to rehearse the production, it is surprising in its finesse and attention to detail. Harsh realities are made harsher by the contrast of beautiful singing, and dance like menacing stage choreography. Violence against women is pervasive in our society, and many of us have been victims of domestic abuse and violence, or know someone who has. One point that is often overlooked is that violence against women also has a devastating effect on men who grow up witnessing and experiencing it and being emotionally traumatized by it, often perpetuating the cycle of abuse themselves. This cast does a superb job of giving a voice to the voiceless, and driving home the point that no one chooses to be abused. I could happen to any one of us.

The production has 3 shows remaining at Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St. near Central Sq.

April 26 7pm and 9pm

April 27 3pm


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Remembering the Marathon Bombing

Today I am remembering the Marathon bombing, almost a year ago. In the space of one week the bombing happened, my long term relationship ended, and the city was on lockdown. I suddenly felt very isolated in my own life, but connected to everyone by the thread of shared tragedy. In America we seldom experience such random and widespread devastation first hand. We only see it in the news in other parts of the world. It caused many people to reassess their lives because we realized how fragile and fleeting it could be.

Today I am meditating and praying for more compassion and peace in the world. It is a privilege to take it for granted that we can go out in masses with our families and celebrate athletic achievement at a world famous event, and even participate in it without fear, and without worry. We should be grateful that most of the time on Marathon Monday, our greatest concern is chilly gray weather, and the late coming of Spring, not weapons of mass destruction that might take our lives, our loved ones, and maim and destroy our bodies and our infrastructure within seconds.

For a few days we were forced to look beyond our own little microcosms and ponder the meaning of life, not just for ourselves but for others in the world who live with the threat of terrorism daily. Sometimes new life rises out of the ashes. What seems like the end is really a new beginning, a new era of compassion, and a new awareness to our connection to all of humanity.

Black and Blue Beatlemaniac or Rain on My Parade

One of the legacies left to me by my father is that I am a huge Beatlemaniac. Their music was the soundtrack of my childhood,

before I could speak or walk. Of Dad's 13 children, I am the one who has inherited the gene. I lost my father in the summer of 2012. Beatle music is one of the strongest connections I have to him. I didn't realize until I was much older that it was very unusual that he, as an African American man loved the Beatles so much, though his tastes in music were very eclectic.

Over the years I have collected Beatle music, swooned to their love songs, and evolved from favoring "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," to their later more complex psychedelically inspired music. This year I saw Paul McCartney in concert at Fenway Park, Beatlejuice, a tribute band, and tonight I went alone to the Citibank Center to see Rain, another Beatle tribute band. I had tried to round up friends to go see the show with me, but ended up going alone. I felt very proud of my independent spirit and fortitude, that I had survived so many emotional hurdles this year, including the loss of a significant relationship. I felt I had discovered a badass new me.

I managed to score a really great seat at the back row of the mezzanine, the perfect distance from the stage, not too far away,

but far away enough that I could imagine that I was really in the presence of the Fab Four. As I took my seat I observed that I seemed to be the only person of color there, and there were a lot of empty seats in the "good" section where I was, though the auditorium had a decent crowd. When the music started I felt transported to another world, the costumes were brilliant and well tailored, the sound rich and vibrant, the musicians almost doppelgangers for John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and the light show created a dynamic and engaging visual palette. I imagined Dad was in the seat next to me, or John, or George, and I sang and danced along with the music.

After intermission the show started again and I was again transfixed by Beatle magic, when suddenly my reverie was disrupted by a old woman usher standing over me demanding to see my ticket. I started searching my purse frantically realizing I was missing the performance. I couldn't find it. I said to her, "I paid for my ticket, this is my seat." She again demanded to see my ticket, saying, "This whole row was empty,I didn't see you here before." The song ended and "The Magical Mystery Tour" began, I said again, "I PAID for my ticket, you are making me miss this song." She said "I'm going to have security escort you out, and you will miss the whole show." The awful truth dawned on me. "You're racist!" I heard myself shout. She continued standing over me demanding I produce proof that I had my ticket. "I don't know where my ticket is," I said finally. She stalked off, to get security I thought. I looked in my backpack, and found it. I clutched it trembling for the next two songs. Then I consciously tried to make myself relax and enjoy the rest of the show and put the ticket away.

What about me made her think I didn't belong in the good seats at this concert? What about me made her feel entitled to disrupt a show I had paid my hard earned money to see, and that she was probably seeing for free as an usher? I suddenly felt very alone in the world. I thought to myself, "Next time I'll need a white person to accompany me to legitimize my presence."

Fueled by righteous indignation I went to find the manager after the show. When I found the usher captain's station, I recounted

my story to the three people standing there. One of them, a young white woman said "she probably didn't mean anything by it, she probably checked everyone's ticket." I insisted, "no, she just came to ME." The house lights had already gone down, and I was grooving to the music and she popped up next to me like an angry spectre. I started telling the story again this time beginning with how much I was enjoying the concert until she ruined it for me. I inexplicable dissolved into tears, though I had been filled with rage. I felt it was my duty to tell my story, to make my voice heard, so that it would not happen to another person of color.

The usher captain asked to see my ticket and asked for a description of the woman. Then he offered to let me come to see the show again free of charge. I accepted the offer. I hope the second time I see it will erase the bad memories of the first.

In Search of the Holy Kale

Since I started my 30 day fitness plan about a week ago, which includes monitoring my activity through FitBit, keeping a food diary, exercising when I can find the time, and juicing almost daily,including a good amount of kale, which is packed with vitamin K, I discovered a wonderful dish at Highland Kitchen in Somerville called Shredded Kale salad. It was dressed with a lemon vinaigrette, pomegranate, and shredded parmesan cheese, and other delectable ingredients that made me forget I was on a diet. It was so good, I wanted to repeat the experience at lunch yesterday.

I eagerly looked up the menu for Veggie Planet, no kale salad. I googled kale salad in Harvard Sq., and saw rave reviews for the kale salad at Tory Row. I bundled up, braved the bitter cold, and rushed out to the restaurant to put in my order. What they brought to me was a plate of a substance that closely resembled green confetti, and tasted about as good. On the menu it was described as a combination of roasted and fresh kale with spices. It tasted like bitter ashes, and had a gritty, sandy texture, and didnt seem to have any dressing or other vegetables in it. I tried to brainwash myself that it was so good for me, as I choked it down. I inhaled the wrong way, and a piece of ash went down my windpipe. The bartender politely offered me a glass of water. Then I decided to order some chicken on top to improve the texture, so that I could at least swallow it. The grilled chicken was quite good, but at that point, a boiled egg would have tasted delicious. The chicken cost an extra $5. My barely palatable lunch came to a whopping $19 including tip!

Normally, I would have sent it back, but the wait staff were so nice, and it really wasn't their fault. I told them they should tell the chef to pay a visit to Highland Kitchen and try their kale salad.

Now I'm just biding my time, until I can hit up Highland Kitchen again...