Playing with sound

https://vr.shapeservices.com/listen.php?hash=5e563080f5ee587b4bd3994d790aa9688e7f59b97d16955bb

i'm just testing out an iPhone app to see if it might help me with my blogging. ___ Sent via VR+

Psychological profile

I don't recall the first time my mother mentioned it to me, but I do remember the repeated message: When you get stopped by a police officer, do not talk back, do not react, do keep your hands visible, do not make sudden moves and, most importantly, do not let your pride get the best of you.

And then she would say, in words almost as fleeting as an exhale, that she was grateful I wasn't a boy.

You see, being brown and male presents a whole other set of variables that were too terrifying for her, a black mother, to ponder. It was scary enough for her to think, past the indignities she experienced in a 1950s American south, of her feisty daughter who "grew up white," for the most part, forgetting her place when faced with authority who might not have as much respect for her life as she was taught to have for authority.

I remember the first time I was pulled over at night, with a girl friend (who was also black) in my car. It was in Rancho Mirage near Eisenhower Medical Center. Desert nights are lighted primarily by distant stars. Date groves that line the street enhanced the depth of darkness -- and vulnerable aloneness -- when we were pulled over. The emptiness of the streets seemed almost to echo audibly. No witnesses.

Just seconds before I made that left turn, we had been two carefree teenage girls singing at the top of our lungs to the latest Bobby Brown hit. Then the red and blue lights bounced off all of the unlighted surfaces. The light air in my Ford Escort grew heavy. In the first flash reflected off my rear-view mirror, our faces tightened and our bodies stiffened.

Instinctively, we became what generations of blacks before us had taught us to become: cautious and compliant -- and black. Without even a glance at each other, she put her hands on the dashboard and I quickly slipped my license out of my purse and put my hands on the steering wheel after I pulled over. It wasn't motivated by fear, but more by rote, instinct.

It is a lesson that so many brown people know almost before they learn to tie their shoes. They know there is no value in being proud when the person who has the power is a cop with a gun. Bullets and gun butts trump pride every time. It's not a question most of us think worth asking. We already know the answer.

The question that wended its way through my mind, the same way I might wonder about what's for dinner, was will we leave this alive. It was the only question. Our parents, cousins, grandparents, aunts had told us that. We knew story after true story of proof that it wasn't outside the realm of reality that we might not, no matter why we were pulled over.

In this situation, was there ever a real danger? I'm guessing not. Does that change the way I feel about the situation or would have reacted? Again, I'm guessing not.

The recent case of Dr. Gates has many black and brown folks talking about what they have learned to suck their teeth and roll their eyes at as routine, even if an exception these days. In the LA Times, there's a story headlined "Black males' fear of racial profiling very real, regardless of class" that attempts to explore the topic.

Like Henry Louis Gates Jr., they are professionals, men of status and achievement who have excelled in a nation that once shunned black men.

And for many of them, their only shock -- upon learning of the celebrated scholar's recent run-in with police -- was the moment of recognition.

They know too well the pivotal moment Gates faced at his Massachusetts home. It was that moment of suspicion when confronted by police, the moment one wonders, in a flash of panic, anger, or confusion -- Maybe I am being treated this way because I'm black.

Next comes the pivotal question -- Do I protest or just take it?

The point it misses is that it's not really a question. It's never a question. Being ponderous and considering motivations and which course of action to take is a luxury most in these situations cannot entertain.

Not that the "it's because I'm black" assessment is always the assumption as much as a subconscious readiness. I think more processing the questions in the story, it's like a checklist that one begins to put into action the second an officer is in one's orbit.

To this day, that is always the case when it comes to my infrequent encounters with police with that particular power relationship. It's not a question of whether they approached me because they see black.

Ultimately, that doesn't matter. It's usually, for me, more about the uncertainty of how they will treat me because they see black. I know, like most of us know, that reacting -- letting pride escape from the chains we bind it in the bowels of our beings in such instances -- will elicit nothing good in the presence of power.

Now that's not to say that every situation takes a turn for the worst. The reality is I have been treated simply as "a citizen" in most of my encounters. That fact, however, does not ever change the checklist.

I think just as an officer may, based on his or her extended experience in dealing with the lesser elements of society, be inclined to view a situation through squinting skepticism, a brown person may see through the scrim of a shadowy history. It is a matter of persistent perception versus a reflection of reality.

Having never been a cop, I can only imagine the adrenaline and fear officers experience so many times in a single day. My brief ride-along when I was in grad school in New York gave me a fleeting glimpse of what it must be like. Every call that night was a wash of tension, anxiousness, energy, alertness, excitement and split-second judgment as pivotal moments seem to play out in slow motion between blinks.

And, as Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book "Blink," it is what goes on between those blinks that can determine how each of us handles and processes our encounters.

Reunited and it feels so good

I'm off to my 15-year reunion at Scripps College. So many things have changed since 1994 at this amazing women's college. One interesting change is that instead of embracing La Semeuse or the athletic mascot of the goddess Athena, current students have embraced...

...the squirrel.

Most of us alums are rather perplexed about why an infection carrying rodent in search of nuts is a good idea for a student-selected mascot, but I'm trying to embrace it. "Scripps Squirrel Girl" is chronicling her adventures during reunion weekend.

Scripps Squirrel Girl hardly reconizes Elm Tree Lawn. At graduation 1994, the lawn was shaded by aging elms that created a gazebo of history and import as Scripps women for decades passed under and through them. Maybe they'll grow back.

There was a workshop on decoupage. SSG was moved by the beautiful black and brown faces she found in the clippings and pasted them on a box as the beginning of a project.

So moved by nostalgia, SSG nearly forgot herself around the winetasting at Margaret Fowler Garden. No, Scripps Squirrel Girl, no need to, um, flash back to senior champagne brunch!! Shirts stay on!

Um, what are you?

In April, NPR tackled the topic of what not to say to mixed-race colleagues. But you know, I personally take license to ask. My approach sometimes catches them off-guard, primarily because it's not what they're used to hearing.

My question: What's your beautiful blend?

Fellow blenders, how do you ask -- or do you ask at all?

Here's a link to that NPR program

NPR: What Not To Say To A Mixed-Race Colleague

A toast that was more of an unwelcome roast

The other day, I was the subject of a mini roast that gave me a little insight into how people I have called friend might have seen me, and frankly it gives me pause about them.

I'm a member of a group I have really enjoyed participating in over the past three years. It follows the same agenda every week, including introductions. Frankly, we've all done them and we've all heard them, so sometimes folks use a bit of creative license with them. Sometimes we have a little fun with each other. But at the heart of the group is a sense of decorum and process.

This is why I was so taken aback when one member assigned to do introductions this past week took things past playful into insulting.

A bit of background: I recently chopped off, oh, all of my hair. It wasn't as concerted an effort as a "makeover" as some who have seen it seem to think. But I'm guessing by the reaction it has had that radical result. I'm ever so flattered that folks have nice things to say about the new look. But since compliments generally cause me to squirm a bit, some of the attention causes me to blush and wilt a little internally.

Back to the toast-roast. When this club member got to me, he started out with the gushing about my "new look." I braced to keep from spontaneously combusting from my own discomfort with attention I can't control or guide.

And then, although I am quite self-deprecating at times and have a healthy sense of humor, he went somewhere I was completely unprepared for. He said, in essence, that it was a marked and necessary improvement on my apparent prehistoric cavewoman look. You know, wild hair, wild attire. Essentially, saying I was notably unkempt. What was also hurtful was that this wonderful group of people laughed in affirmation, it seemed. Or maybe they were just being polite to the speaker. It hardly felt polite to me -- as a brown woman who proudly wore her ethnic hair in a natural, unprocessed state and her ethnic clothes.

I get to do introductions next week. That should be interesting....

'Biracial people are problematic' still -- statistically speaking

I remember when I first heard that statement made nearly 15 years ago. It was during my graduate year as we students were being instructed on doing exit polling for the 1994 election.

I also remember the shock of the explanation I got from my grad school's resident computer-assisted reporting expert (a white professor) that detailed how annoying those of us who identify as black and white, in particular, are statistically by pulling out the "one-drop" rule.

As I relayed my disbelief that this conversation actually took place at a respected institution of higher learning, I was told by a (black/brown) professor: "You're black; get over it."

Fast forward to 2009. Well, apparently, there's still a statistical problem. This time, the onus of the complication is being thrust onto the researchers. Peter Schmidt reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education that a group of researchers analyzed data on more than 22,000 undergrads that 49 colleges gathered as part of a national study on "living-learning" programs in 2007 and found that the three approaches employed didn't quite suffice.

How researchers classify a biracial population, says the paper summarizing the authors' findings, “can have profound implications” for both the descriptions of students that arise from those researchers' work and the conclusions that result from their analyses. “Unfortunately,” it says, “there is no single solution to this empirical dilemma. Indeed, each approach has its strengths and its limitations.”

The Mixed Heritage Center has the entire story posted (although I wonder whether it's in violation of copyright since the Chronicle of Higher Ed itself doesn't post the whole piece for all to read).

Ultimately, what does it say? Folks still don't quite know how to deal with us.

On being biracial

I just was trolling YouTube and found a few voices across the internet on being biracial This is more of an academic exploration of multiracial identity: