Politics + Family = KAPOW!

I came across this story online today that makes me feel ...not better exactly, but not alone anyway. From my own political alienation from my parents to my frustrating exchanges with the "young patriot," I know that I take these differences to heart. This election I've wisely steered clear of political discussions with my parents - but I think this is only possible because of the miles between us and the relative lack of contact. Frankly I think politics and religion (or the mess that happens when the two mix) are too important to ignore, and if I only talk about these issues with like-minded folks how will we ever sort it all out? But while I still take it personally there is danger that relationships will be damaged. So that's the task at hand.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27365905/

PORN is not LOVE

Burton Snowboards recently launched two board lines for men, the “LOVE” and “PRIMO” lines, which have rankled the ire of advocates for women, children, and the mentally ill. The PRIMO line features graphic depictions of self-mutilation; gruesome step-by-step images of making common hand gestures (peace, #1, etc.) by removing the unneeded digits. This line is condemned by mental health professionals and others who work with people who engage in self-harming activities, often times as a result of traumatic experiences like child sexual abuse.

The LOVE line is a collaboration with Playboy, and features images of nearly-nude women – apparently actual 1970’s Playboy pictorials. The bottom deck of the boards is adorned with a woman’s naked ass. The product description reads:

"Hi. My name is Love™ and I’m on the market for someone who’s looking to score serious action, no matter where they like to stick it. I enjoy laps through the park; long, hard grinds on my meaty Park Edges followed by a good, hot waxing. Whether you’re hitting it from the front or the back, my mid wide shape, supple flex, and twin tips like it kinky. Keegan and Mikkel love riding me, I hope you will too."

 

Yup, porn, from a business that claims to put innovation at the forefront. That’s right, porn, from an allegedly woman-friendly, Vermont-based business, whose co-owner Donna Carpenter has stated that the “overall mission at Burton is to be the brand of choice and an employer of choice for women and we see those two as very closely related. The more women we have driving the business and holding leadership roles the more we are going to appeal to women as a brand.” I couldn’t agree with Donna more, but I am confused by the approach Burton has chosen.

Burton has been unwilling to engage in dialogue, aside from brief, trite statements about artistry, blah blah blah, issued by email. So I brought my daughter Lily to her first protest rally at the Burton factory last Thursday. It was a beautiful, crisp Vermont autumn day. Protesters gathered in a park before walking the short distance to Burton headquarters. Burton let us know we were permitted on the first 3 feet of their property, which turned out to be a cattail-filled ditch. So we stood on the edge of the road, spread out 100 yards long. Organizers and speakers addressed us from the opposite side of the road, with a handful of Burton employees and/or supporters standing at the periphery. Cars and delivery trucks passed through the protest at regular intervals. But even with these less than ideal circumstances, the spirited group accomplished the goal of drawing attention to this gap in Burton’s social responsibility.

We heard from Mark Redmond, director of Spectrum, a nonprofit youth services organization that recently removed itself from a partnership with Burton aimed at getting youth involved with snowboarding (the Chill Program). It can be hard for nonprofits to stay true to their mission in the face of shrinking resources, so I commend Spectrum for their courage and integrity. Turns out others feel the same way, as individuals and businesses (including the Alpine Shop in S. Burlington) have come forward to donate equipment and passes so Spectrum’s youth can still get on the slopes this winter.

We invited someone from Burton to come speak with us, but aside from a silver-haired guy lurking behind the air exchange unit on the roof of the building and maybe this guy –

 

 there was no sign of an official Burton presence.

I think it was a great experience for Lily, and it felt good to me to finally take some concrete action. I’ve been talking to people individually and even trying to engage with some young Burton fans on a Facebook group page, but it’s been frustrating and disheartening to hear the ignorance and entitlement of some young men today. I think the march was as much about sending a message to Burton as it was to create a sense of community for the people working to hold businesses accountable for their $$-driven choices.

This Burton thing has been dominating my life of late. I recognize that this is a tiny drop in a huge bucket of corporate and media objectification of women, but it was a drop that landed in my backyard, so I felt compelled to get involved. I could write lots more – about how this isn’t about free speech, it’s a matter of judgment, integrity and social responsibility; about how you can’t get much LESS cutting edge than 70’s porn images; and about how there’s nothing comical about self-mutilation. But I need to put this to rest for a bit and spend time with my family! Speaking of which – I really love my husband, for how he “gets it,” for how he puts up with my obsessions and supports my passion about this issue. There is hope!

The Continuing Saga

What follows is my second "letter to a young patriot." I won't reprint his response to my first letter, but hopefully you'll get a sense from what I've chosen to focus on below. This has been a very challenging time - seeing at last the manifestation of his indoctrination into a fundamentalist Christian world view, and wondering how this could happen. I have some theories...maybe a post for another day...

*****


Hey, thanks for your reply. I’m moving past trying to change your mind about the vote, but would like to continue this dialogue if you’re willing.

My argument about the righteous anger of Rev. Wright was not meant to apply to Obama. I was just saying that in my opinion, there’s a lot of understandable anger out there, and that Obama is likely to be “associated” with lots of folks who are less than thrilled with the institutionalized oppression of ethnic/racial minorities and women. You can put me in that group, although I’m not able to claim any association with Obama. I think one of Obama’s strengths is that unlike me, he maintains a sense of optimism about being able to change the country for the better. I’ve never seen or heard anything that legitimately portrays him as harboring racial hatred toward whites, but as a member of a community, and as a community organizer, he has of course associated with folks with more radical views than his own. Again, I see it as a strength that he interacts with a broad spectrum of people, and is willing to name the inequality that is being exacerbated by current economic policy. I am so relieved to have a leader with the courage to talk about progressive taxation of the rich. By my value system it’s absolutely immoral that the richest Americans are getting richer while the middle class is disappearing, and the poorest are seeing critical government programs cut to fund the occupation of Iraq and tax breaks for wealthy corporations.

About the Ayers thing – I know they have had contact beyond the board membership. But the point of the white privilege article I attached is that what gets termed “bad judgment” when Obama’s involved doesn’t even merit a mention when it’s connected to McCain or Palin. There are a different set of rules being applied. I doubt McCain believes all the stuff that some of the people who have supported his campaign or pastors in churches he’s attended have said, but it’s not being transferred onto him as his belief system.

About racism in general - I don’t know about it going “two ways.” There’s not a universally accepted definition of racism, but most scholars agree that it goes beyond dislike of a particular race, and is related to the distribution of power, resources and privilege. So I think that racism can flow in a lot of directions, but I don’t think it can truly ever be directed at whites (as a group). You can be mad at your oppressors, speak out against them or even use violence against them – that’s not racism, it’s revolution. I don’t know if the dislike and prejudice of particular racial/ethnic groups can be eradicated, but I do believe it’s the government’s role to level the playing field as far as access to resources and opportunities.

People who hold the power are not likely to give it up all that easily. But when you do the math on the sheer volume of the working class vs the elites – 80% of “us” vs. 20% of “them” it’s a no brainer. That’s where these fringe issues come in. They divide us and distract us from what’s going on with the growing divide between rich and poor. And by fringe issues I mean those that are really more personal in nature (patriotism, gay rights, reproductive rights, etc.), and end up appealing to some core values we hold and can relate to more easily than the financial structures that perpetuate inequality. So you have an entire group, which I am beginning to understand that you consider yourself a part of – the evangelicals – who are willing to ignore these huge structural issues in order to focus on who can marry whom, or how to legislate morality. And that is very troubling to me.

You mentioned that I could guess that Obama’s “misinterpretation of the bible” wouldn’t be cool with you. I am not a religious scholar, but I researched the misinterpretation issue, and found a website about it that you might find interesting: http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com/#Info. There are quotes about Obama’s belief system that were very telling.

So you have to focus on your midterms, but when you are through why don’t you poke around a bit on the internet beyond the Focus on the Family website? I know from experience that things can always be taken out of context by the media, or twisted (or even completely made up) by detractors – so you always have to look at a number of diverse sources and consider the citations, go to the original source whenever you can, and look for independent analysis.

An Ode To Sean Hannity by John Cleese

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

This was the Poem of the week on one of my favorite blogs:

 http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/

Letter to a Young Patriot (my own version)

This is my response to someone near and dear to me who recently proclaimed that he can't vote for Obama because he's "not fond of whites or America either" based on his associations with Rev. Wright, that Ayers guy and an incident when he didn't put his hand over his heart during the national anthem.

Dear One,

First, I can understand why this information is concerning, taken out of context and amplified by conservative media types with no journalistic integrity (FOX news, etc.). And I don't claim that Obama has never made any errors in judgment or associated with people who speak their truths a bit more plainly than we are used to hearing. I just want to challenge you to dig a little deeper about these issues before completely throwing your vote away. The Ayers thing is ridiculous - that's like me being held responsible for something done by one of my associates on one of the boards I sit on, or one of my organization's donors. It is being harped on by the McCain Campaign and FOX because they have nothing else, and they're getting desperate.

The Wright thing is more complicated. I actually think black people have good cause to be distrustful and angry toward white people. As a white, Christian man you don't have any experience with oppression - you are a member of the "ruling class," and while you may not personally be oppressing anyone, you are reaping the benefits of membership. As a woman, I have slightly less privilege, but still recognize my elevated status as a white, middle class person and the perks it brings. We cannot understand how it feels to be held down for generations. I think there is a lot of righteous anger there - and the solution is to hear it and acknowledge it and move forward toward healing (reparations?), not condemn it. For some people, including many of my friends, the symbols of the country - flags, anthems, etc. - have been use to silence dissension, invade countries we have no business being in, torture political prisoners, and protect the wealth and privilege of the elite - the 20% of Americans who own 92% of the wealth, while those of us in the bottom 80% fight over 8% of the wealth. I know people who I respect enormously who won't "pledge allegiance to the flag" because their allegiance is to values, not symbols. So we are patriots, but not the kind that walks in a lock-step believing everything we read.

The bottom line is that one of these guys is going to be our next president, so it makes sense to me to spend a bit of time finding out which one comes closest to my values. I went to a great seminar last spring by a man who works to end violence, racism, etc - oppression in general. This is an article by him about evaluating candidates based on who benefits from their policy positions: http://www.paulkivel.com/articles/assessingpolicy.pdf

I know you are busy, but if you have a chance to check it out, tell me what you think. You know I'm only having this "discussion" with you because I think you are very, very smart and the US needs smart, analytical young people to engage in the political process, hard and frustrating as it is!

 Love you. 

A few little gifts to myself

Today is my 37th birthday. I tied up some loose ends - paid an old parking ticket and my overdue water bill, mailed a care package to my stepkids with the tie dye shirts we made in August (!) and some running tunes for my stepdaughter's upcoming marathon, and submitted a poem to be published. Okay, I just submitted it to the odd (in a pleasing way) little local bi-weekly classified paper that has 3 pages of literary material tacked on the front, but if my poem is printed I can claim the coveted title of published writer, finally.

There's this thing that eats your memory...what is it again...?

Today in the dentist's waiting room I read an article that mentioned how sustained cortisol levels in your blood - a marker of stress - can lead to memory loss. This evening, a mere 2.5 hours later, I attempted to recount the main points of the article to my husband. This is a rough transcript of the conversation - imagine a grocery store with the after work crowd, both my daughters making "suggestions" for the cart, me battling a slight hormone imbalance...

me: "So I read this article today about the negative effects of stress on health, and there was this part about - No Lily we don't need Apples!!! Stop begging! - anyway there was this link to..."

lily: "I'm not begging, I just asked if we could get apples!!!!

Fritz: "Let Mom get what she needs. She doesn't need your input."

Lily rolls her eyes.

me: "Maybe you and Dad should wait in the car so I can get through this with my sanity."

Lily: "NO!"

me: "Okay, so anyway, something about the cortisol levels in the blood doing something bad. I can't remember what it is but it really resonated with me."