Southern Snow

It's the last day of the first month of the new year (and new decade)--is that simple enough for you? It's also a frozen wonderland outside. Yesterday my town received 8 inches of snow. This was the scene near my home (I was out walking my dog--luckily I still had all my winter gear from living for 7 years in Massachusetts, including an amazing pair of boots that were tested in the Alaskan tundra and are rated at 20- below zero).



And this was the scene this morning, as seen from the porch of my home (that's my dog "B"):



Now, for all of you living in areas where 8 inches is a fairly routine event in late January, I'm sure you are saying "OK, so what?" But for anyone who understands what snow means south of the Mason-Dixon line, you will understand that 8 inches in my hometown means that EVERYTHING shut down. Most weekend events were cancelled. The airport cancelled all flights in or out. A birthday dinner I was to attend was cancelled, both out of concern that some of us wouldn't be able to get in our cars and drive as well as out of concern that the restaurant may not even be open. Main roads got plowed but not very well--not like in New England--plowed means most of the snow is pushed to the side and a bit of salt is scattered, but it's not clean and from the way I saw certain cars skid, people here DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IN THE SNOW/ICE. And, of course, no one has chains or snow tires, and even the 4-wheel drive cars are still finding it challenging.

All of which means, I've been homebound. Which is fine by me. I've been able to do a lot of reading and saw a indie movie by Wayne Wang, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, based on a short story by Yiyun Li (be on the lookout for a future movie review). I'm also re-reading a collection of short stories by Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (look for a future book review) in preparation for teaching it in a few weeks. So all in all, things are moving pretty slow around here. I don't have anything more illuminating to offer at this point. Although I do have a few links for you to look at that I'm going to title "Outrageous!" -- as in, topics/themes that other bloggers have written about that any reader of this blog will find to be absolutely ridiculous/awful/outrageous:

*The Chris Matthews kerfuffle of "I-forgot-he-was-black" with respect to President Obama. Both What Tami Said and Stuff White People Do have their own insightful takes on this matter.

*WWII racism courtesy of the U.S. military "How to spot a Jap" -- lets hope there's not a 2010 edition of "How to spot a terrorist" (although what am I saying? Of COURSE there's a 2010 edition--just maybe not in such a handy-dandy pamphlet form) -- hat tip to Angry Asian Man.

*Justice Alito mouthing "Not true" at the State of the Union address by President Obama--thing is, as Huffington Post blogger Doug Kendall details, it IS TRUE.

*Finally, the latest installment of This Week in Blackness -- watch for yourself, but as usual, Elon is on fire!

Taking "Save the Date" cards to the next level

My brother "C" just sent me a link to Angry Asian Man's blog that had this youtube clip of Jeff and Erin's wedding. It really brings the whole "save the date" card to the next level. Of course, I definitely noticed that the couple in question are not only an inter-racial couple, they are a white-female & Asian-male inter-racial couple, with Erin being a few noticeable inches taller than Jeff--skewering all sorts of sterotypes about gender roles and racial pairings. But really, see for yourself--the production values are AMAZING and whoever they got to do this voice-over sounds just like the iconic movie voice-over guy (who died a few years back).



Congratulations Jeff and Erin--may your marriage be just as action packed and thrilling as the trailer you put together. And congratulations on breaking down all sorts of stereotypes about mixed-race couples. Kudos to you--I hope you have a fantastic celebration in Los Angeles on 10/10/10!

Visuals matter: the faces of power in America

I just finished watching the State of the Union address (and the Republican rebuttal) and am half-listening to the spin doctors on CNN dissect the details of Obama's speech and rhetorical flourishes.

But what I want to concentrate on are the visuals. Because while, of course, the substance of his speech or more importantly, the substance of the policies that his administration have and will make, are what we should pay attention to, first and foremost.

HOWEVER...

I have to say that visuals matter. Symbolism that isn't simply symbolism but representations of actual power matter. Seeing women and people of color in positions of power on national television matters.

I say this because I was really struck by the visuals of Obama's cabinet walking into the hall. I knew that this cabinet was one of the most racially diverse in the history of Presidential cabinets, but actually SEEING these faces/bodies was really remarkable.



[Aside: I should note that the cabinet is not quite as good in terms of gender equity, but I mean, look at both the Senate and the House, as well as the Supreme Court Justices--still a boy's club any way you slice it. And to test yourself about noticing gender inequity--look at the above image. If your first reaction was that it "looks" like there are equal #s of women to men in the above cabinet photo, count the actual bodies--you might be surprised, but researchers about a decade ago showed that when people are given a photo of equal #s of women and men, they often believe that women are the majority because we are so underused to seeing actual gender parity we confuse it for female dominance when it does occur]

I have never seen 3 Asian American cabinet members, let alone such a mix of African American and Latino cabinet members. And of course I was gratified to see Justice Sotomayor front and center with the other justices.

I was thinking of how important it is to have rolemodels, visual rolemodels. Like seeing Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House. Just knowing that this is possible for women--like it's possible for people of color to achieve high ranking positions of power in our government, is a powerful message.

I was especially struck by these visual images of power given a search for a senior administrator at Southern U. The pictures and bios of all three candidates were published in the school paper recently. All three were older (in their 50s-60s) white men. It was discouraging, to me, as a younger female faculty member of color to see that the face of power in the university system is still white and male. It makes me feel that Southern U. is paying a certain lip service to diversity but that when push comes to shove in terms of positions of real power, we're really interested in the old boys network. And it's disappointing and disheartening and certainly not encouraging of me, as a younger faculty member, to want to go into higher ed administration because it feels like I'd just be giving myself a headache bumping up against that glass ceiling.

Am I a Southerner?

Recently I was filling out an application that asked me how long I've been with my current employer. Since coming to work at Southern U. coincided with my move to "The South" I realized that I've been here for over 7 years. Which means I've lived here longer than I've lived anyplace else in my adult life. And the only other residence I've called "home" for a longer stretch was when I lived in my childhood home in the Bay Area from 4-18.

So I have to ask myself: Am I a Southerner?

I actually posed this question at a talk last year at Southern U. It was with respect to the question of Southern identity and how long one must live here or whether there are other markers (namely race and ethnicity) that legitimizes one as a Southerner more than another. The short answer I was given from one of the panelists (and a few audience members, all of whom I should tell you are academics working in Southern Studies) is that yes, I am, indeed, a Southerner--should I choose that label for myself. In other words, what all these good professors (many of them Southerners themselves) were telling me was that I was free to choose this as my identity if I am comfortable.

But they also acknowledged that there may be others, outside of the ivory tower or the hallowed grounds of Southern U., who may question my self-identification as Southern. After all, I do not speak with a Southern accent, was not born nor raised here, and perhaps most incriminating of all, I do not eat BBQ (or more precisely, the BBQ I favor is Kansas City style--you know, the classic ketchup based bbq sauce smothered over pork ribs...yum!). I also don't "look" Southern, because lets be honest--most folks have in their minds either someone who is African American or white American. Maybe American Indian if you claim to be Cherokee or Lumbee. But Asian Americans in the South? Not really what you think of when you are asked to picture a Southerner.

And yet I found myself wondering about whether I am, indeed, a Southerner after stumbling across this passage in Abraham Verghese's memoir, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids:

"I suppose this is when you know that a town has become your town: where others see brick, a broken window, a boarded up storefront, you feel either moved to tears or to joy. The map of the town becomes the map of your memories, the grid on which you play out your obsessions, on which you mark your great loves and your enmities; its geography becomes your destiny" (Verghese 186).

When I came across this paragraph I dog-earred it because it really SPOKE to me. Because I know the feeling that Verghese is expressing--the sense of deep connection you have with a place. The sense of a community you feel a strong affinity for--that you own.

And that's how I feel about my small Southern town. I feel it when I'm walking my dog around town. Or when I go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. Or coming back from the gym and waving to my mailman. I notice the stores that are opening and closing or the new coat of paint on a restaurant or the porches that go up or come down on my neighbors' homes.

I don't want to just be a visitor here. I want to invest in my community and feel like I am a part of its landscape. At the same time, I must be honest and say that if you were to ask me if I'm a Southerner, I'd laugh. In fact, when I was traveling to Canada over the holidays the custom official, who looked at my form, said to me, "Are you really from the South," to which I replied, "Oh NO, I'm from California--I only work in the South" and he laughed and said, "I didn't think you sounded like a Southerner" and waved me through.

Looking back on that encounter, it seems a bit unfair to my current community to say that I'm only here because of my work circumstance. It is true--if I were let go from Southern U. I would undoubtedly be looking for another professor's gig somewhere in the world--college teaching is in my blood. But it's also unfair to think that I'm only here biding my time because of my job. Because I DO feel that the map of my town has become the map of my memories as Verghese writes above. So perhaps, one day, I'll willingly and eagerly claim the title of Southerner and proudly pledge my allegiance to this region. In the meantime, I'll just make do with small steps--like having a "y'all" creep into my speech from time to time.

If we're all living in a postracial world, Colson Whitehead must be its ruler

I know I've waxed rhapsodic about Colson Whitehead's satirical skills in the past. I just finished re-reading Apex Hides the Hurt since I'll be teaching this text next week, and I'm once again struck by Whitehead's spot-on sense of irony when it comes to exploring and explaining race in the 21st century. One of the things that he does in this novel that I really appreciate is that he does not ever tell you when a character is a person of color; instead, he reserves his racial markers for all the white characters in his fictional realm. It's an inversion of what most writers (esp. white writers) do in their fiction, namely leave out the race of all the characters and the main protagonist so that we assume whiteness to be the default, only mentioning someone's race when they are not white.

Anyway, I came across this piece that Whitehead did back in November forNew York Times Op-Ed piece on the postracial world we're all living in. It's a wonderfully satirical and sardonic look at life in the U.S. a year after Barack Obama's historic win and ascendancy into the Presidential office.

I know that there are people who really do believe that race no longer matters. That we are, indeed, experiencing life in a post-racial America. I also have some prime ocean real estate to sell them in Nevada.

The art of the apology--giving and receiving

Since I wrote about a racial gaffe I made yesterday, I've been thinking about apologies. In the news, lately, there has been the high profile apology of Harry Reid for making racially insensitive remarks. And the apology-that-isn't-really-an-apology from Michael Steele, who used the racial slur "honest injun" on the Fox network, right before denouncing Reid for his "Negro" remark.

So it got me thinking about apologies--why we make them and what we want to accomplish through the apology, both in the giving and the receiving of the apology.

I suppose much of this is content specific. But I think when it comes to the racially insensitive remark or even the blatantly racist slur, what we want is something heartfelt and genuine--we want an acknowledgement that there has been an injury and that the person apologizing understands this and isn't just paying lip service.

In other words, the apology should be not a matter of interpretation (the "I'm sorry you think I said that thing that you think is insensitive so I'm going to apologize for it and imply that you are being over-sensitive") or a consequence of getting caught (the "I'm sorry you had to overhear me say that comment but I'm not really sorry for the comment in and of itself"). Instead, the apology should be authentic and real--it should come as the result of some self-reflection and deep thought, or at the very least a recognition that your words or actions really harmed someone and you really don't want to make comments or do anything that is harmful anymore.

A few years ago, a camp leader led a group of kids in a racist children's rhyme that mocked Chinese accents. I wrote a letter to the camp leader, explaining why the rhyme was offensive and how disturbing it was to hear it repeated in the campus gym. The next day I got a phone call from the camp leader, expressing his genuine dismay and sincere apology for reciting that rhyme. He really had no idea that it was racist--and we had a productive conversation about why it was. While part of me thought it was incredible that he wouldn't understand that repeating the word "chinky-chinky" wasn't offensive, I decided that I needed to take him at his word and grab the educational opportunity in front of me--and most importantly, to acknowledge his apology as genuine.

And I think when we are faced with a genuine apology we need to accept it gracefully and find a way to move on. I know it's hard--I mean, we may question how much the person making the apology really "gets" it. But I think if we are going to be anti-racist educators, we have to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to move onward and forward, not to forgive and forget, but to forgive and educate.

Apologizing for the racial gaffe

This semester I'm teaching a grad seminar on race and cultural studies in contemporary America, and one of the things I emphasized was that despite the amount of reading I've done and research I've conducted and despite the fact that I've taught both grad and undergrad classes on various racial topics, I'm really not a race expert. In fact, no one I know is a race expert. It's just too slippery a concept--it's like nailing jelly to the wall (a phrase I've stolen/borrowed from a dear colleague of mine in History--don't you love that expression!). Race is such a flexible, fluid, changeable concept. I think the best that any of us can hope for is to educate ourselves, continually, and to be open to admitting that we will all make blunders when it comes to racial sensitivity.

And yes, I have made blunders. I think it's important to share them with all of you, because if I'm going to call myself an anti-racist ally and educator, I have to own up to the moments when I make mistakes. And perhaps something we can all learn from is how to deal with that OH NO moment when you realize you've said or done something insensitive--how do you recognize that moment, make amends, and move forward?

So I'll share a story with you, that may seem very mild to completely inoffensive to some of you, and for others it may seem totally out of line. What is important to know is that I recognize it for being racially insensitive.

I was having lunch with two colleagues--one a friend in the same department as me who is Latina and the other, a new post-doc who is American Indian. I had met the new post-doc once before--I'll call her "J"--and I wanted to introduce her to my friend "L" since "L" and I had gone through the same post-doc program that "J" was currently in. We also all work and teach on issues of race/ethnicity. I'm setting the scene to indicate that anyone who was at this lunch would have been aware of racial issues--we were three women of color who are racial minority faculty who teach on racial matters. So when I talked about the hiring priorities at Southern U.'s law school, guessing (since I'm not part of their law school faculty) that replacing a critical race theorist who had left years earlier was "low on the totem pole" for them, I was clearly forgetting who I was with.

The minute that expression was out of my mouth I quickly realized the insensitivity of that remark--saying it in front of my new American Indian colleague. ACK!

"J" didn't bat an eye. Neither did "L." We continued our conversation, and I wondered, feeling slightly panicked, whether "J" was just being nice or wondering if she didn't feel comfortable confronting me, for a number of reasons. I thought about saying something at various points through the remainder of our lunch, but somehow I just didn't know how to return to that moment--and I didn't know whether it would make "J" feel more uncomfortable if I brought it up. And I wondered if, perhaps, it wasn't as offensive as I guessed it was. In other words, I was continually rationalizing my silence at what I knew to be an offensive comment.

I got home and thought about it and realized that I needed to do and say something. So I wrote an email to "J" and as directly and simply as possible I apologized. I told her I didn't have a good excuse, only that I recognized, right after the words left my lips, that it was offensive and racially insensitive of me. And that I would be better, in the future, to excise that expression from my lexicon. I didn't try to overly apologize. I didn't talk about all the American Indian friends and colleagues I knew or the novels and films I had seen featuring American Indians. Or my sympathy and understanding of the plight of Native Americans. I acknowledged my remarks as racially insensitive. I apologized for saying them. I told her I hoped we could have lunch again in the future.

And what was "J"'s reaction? She actually said she had no recollection that I had made that remark! She literally didn't hear it (perhaps she was subconsciously tuning me out and giving me a pass?). She also said that she appreciated my apology and recognized that it couldn't have been easy for me to do it.

I wish I could say she was wrong--that I didn't hesitate to send her that email message. But I did hesitate. I did wait. I didn't say anything during lunch--not when the remark flew out of my mouth and I knew it was insensitive. Not throughout that lunch when I kept looking carefully at "J" and "L" for their reactions. Not when I immediately got home (because I forgot about it). It was only later that night, when the pin prickles of guilt nagged at me that I opened up my laptop and sent that email message to "J". I say this because it would have been easier for me to let it go--but it would also have bothered me, even if it didn't bother "J" or "L" (who I talked to after I got "J"'s email and who also said she didn't register the remark).

It's not easy to admit when you are wrong. It's even harder to acknowledge when we say things that are offensive and that hurt others or that put us in a bad light. But it is important that we do own up to our shortcomings, esp. when it comes to the racially insensitive remark.

And for those of you unsure of why the expression "low on the totem pole" is offensive, we need to really understand the significance of totem poles to American Indian culture. The expression is blithe and off-handed and doesn't recognize the sacred nature of totem poles. They are majestic and regal and they represent the family and kinship networks of American Indians. They shouldn't be relegated to off-handed remarks made to signal low priorities (which, by the way, is an inaccuracy--totem poles are not necessarily arranged in hierachical order top to bottom). And I should know better, especially since I saw some very beautiful and breathtaking totem poles on a summer trip to British Columbia.

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. He was born on January 15, 1929. If he were alive today, he'd be 81 years old. On Monday, the nation will honor Dr. King with a holiday. But another way we honor his legacy of activism and social justice is to dedicate this day as a day of service. And honestly, I can't imagine a better way to celebrate the life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. than by giving back to your community (click here for a link to the Day of Service page to find local service projects in your area).


Happy Birthday Dr. King. We have a long way to go to achieve real racial equality, but I think you'd be happy to know that we're still fighting the good fight and that we have made some progress, since it is the first MLK day that will see an African American as President of the United States.