Twisted Curlz

A dogged interest: You might just have a service dog on your lap

2010-12-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today at Nickel Diner in downtown Los Angeles, I had nearly had lunch with a chihuahua in the restaurant. The pooch was perched atop the lap of its human, its head occasionally resting on the table.

Now I've seen dogs at eateries with outdoor patio dining. No big deal. But never have I seen a dog sitting at a restaurant table, as if it were an invited guest. Actually, the dog had all fours on the table at certain points during our mutual stay.

When I asked the manager about the restaurant's policy on pets at the table, she informed me that the humans offered certification that this mini-muffin of a canine was a service dog.

A service dog? What possible service could this timid and tentative creature possible offer? And offer from the arms of its owner.

To be clear, there is a legal distinction between service dogs, therapeutic dogs and pets. Service dogs, the American Disabilities Act states, are not pets. Service dogs are the only ones permitted anywhere its human goes.

I suspect that, since the male human with the long-haired chihuahua kissed its mouth, it wasn't on the job at the time. The dog's carrier also sat next to them on the booth. But, honestly, for all I know, the animal might have been a working animal. Although, again, I'm not sure what service a dog being kissed and carried can perform.

This experience, complete with the female human making sure to linger while holding the dog with its backside to my face as she passed to leave, got me to wondering what the standards and rules are related to service dogs.

As it turns out, your lap dog might just be a service dog -- if you say it is.

While several states offer certifications, there are no overarching standards for service dogs -- nothing legal and binding -- as far as I can tell. The ADA site states that:

a proprietor cannot ask a patron about their disability, to prove or detail it;
a proprietor cannot ask to see certification that the dog in question is actually a service animal;
a proprietor cannot deny access to said pooch, unless it poses imminent danger or health hazard to other patrons -- allergies don't count.

Granted these loose parameters are in place to protect disabled persons from being persecuted, so they can go about their lives in the most normal, unfettered way possible. A noble and necessary approach.

However, the lack of certification requirements leave open wide chinks for unscrupulous pet owners to exploit something intended to protect the afflicted.

But there are consequences for falsely posing as a disabled person and claiming your precious pet is a service animal when it's not. The California Penal Code (Title 9, Chapter 12) states in section 365.7 is a misdemeanor:

(a) Any person who knowingly and fraudulently represents himself or herself, through verbal or written notice, to be the owner or trainer of any canine licensed as, to be qualified as, or identified as, a guide, signal, or service dog, as defined in subdivisions (d), (e), and (f) of Section 365.5 and paragraph (6) of subdivision (b) of Section 54.1 of the Civil Code, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.

Of course, they have to prove, somehow, that you aren't disabled -- and that's something about which they can't even ask.

So, Paris Hilton -- and all you others with lap dogs you take everywhere -- Tinkerbell could be a service dog, if you say she is.

Falling Down: A walk with a mission

2010-10-02T07:04:00.001-07:00

About 6 months ago when I started training for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, my partner in mischief said he always wanted to do the walk Michael Douglas did in the movie Falling Down. Today, since I had an 18-miler to do, we walk from downtown to Santa Monica. Wish us luck. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Treadmill torture

2010-05-06T08:05:00.001-07:00

Nothing deep here. Just wanted to leave word -- in case this workout is the end of me. Think Blair Witch Treadmill. Sweat, tears, snot...the works.

Oy. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:N Brand Blvd,Glendale,United States

I'm back

2010-05-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided to return to blogging as I embark on an adventure of making a new me for 2010. Stay tuned. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Colorado St,Glendale,United States

Psychological profile

2009-07-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-05-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-02T07:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

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:

The truth in Romeo's revelations

2009-04-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

I always love the soul-stirring desk-side chats I have with my good pal Romeo. (It's a pseudonym, of course, but one that is amusingly apt.) We often sit lost in each other's words and stories, giggling louder than our mostly emotionally antiseptic workplace typically encourages or endures. The fun part is the comfort of the candor with which we can speak -- and the absence of even the remotest physical attraction. It's like finding an emotional sanctuary or spa to drop in on.

Something he said in our exchange yesterday has burrowed its way into my mind and lingered.

Here's a rough memory of his words:

Women are exquisite and exceptional creatures that are so much more advanced than men. They are better equipped to navigate and nurture human interactions. And ultimately, when it comes to love, women are like a heat-seeking missile trained on its primary target. The man has just to finally realize he will comply.

Initially, a surprised snicker escaped my lips in hearing the truth for him -- a man who has many times fallen victim to such a creature -- in this declaration. But I began to consider this in terms of my own amorous adventures.

In relationship after relationship, save one, all were conquests of my initial design. I laid eyes on them and knew they would be mine. It was neither in any truly determined or plotting way nor was the knowledge infused with conceit or hubris. It was more as a statement of casual fact, a reality that just had to be played out.

I had thought it always just the willful nature of an only child and determined Capricorn. But it's not just me. A number of my girlfriends seemed, like the Mounties, to always get their men. I do think there's something more to it. It

Rather than this being an empowering revelation, it was a bit disturbing to me.

Playing off Pat Benatar's equation of love to a battlefield, the men I have set my sites on have not always been high-value targets for my perceived ultimate mission -- marriage and family. The music afficianado whose libido was a tad too fortissimo, the emotionally broken history buff, the happy-on-the-outside mathematician, the sharp yet slightly snarky attorney, the gentle-souled yet tortured techie.

Don't get me wrong. They are now some of my best friends in the world -- and among my most valued advisors -- but probably never should have been locked in a loving glance or had his fingers entwined with mine.

As a result I've been pondering what kind of heat my missiles must have been seeking and how I can redirect their course.

Is it that we're super-sensitive creatures that can sense what can get or have, or super-willful, stubborn, undetered and single-minded in our inherently animal approach to dating and mating?

Or maybe it's just a myth. Something Romeo offered up as an explanation for his being a willing target.

A reflection at the dawn of Obama's inauguration

2009-01-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote this for the LA Times' Top of the Ticket blog on the morning of Barack Obama's inauguration:

WASHINGTON -- People have come here from all across the country to be part of history and today's inauguration.

Among the hordes are several of my cousins, who flew from Northern California; my godmother came from Kansas City with her other goddaughter from Hawaii. I, too, felt compelled to be here, but not merely to witness “history.”

I came to our nation’s capital this week to witness progress, to create a live, indelible snapshot for my mental scrapbook and to share the experience here with my 9-year-old godson who, like President-elect Barack Obama and me, is bicultural.

Being here transcends the political. To me, it’s about this country’s culture, fabric and fiber. Seeing this inauguration is an opportunity to begin to heal what has been a great painful and persistent shared psychic bruise that has remained deep beneath the surface of our society.

Throughout the presidential campaign, even as support began to swell across the country for Obama, I was as certain as I was about my own name that America was not culturally mature enough in its nationhood to get beyond its own past. I think somehow this knowledge -– more certain and unwavering than belief -– has subconsciously been one of the bedrocks of my, and maybe even a shared, understanding of life in America.

I have known that, as the biracial child of a black Jamaican and a white American, I have been an American with an asterisk.

So when this country elected to the highest office in the United States of America Barack Hussein Obama, who is to be the first black to serve as president, I had to come to bear witness -– show with my existence that this is, indeed, true.

The ability to see yourself reflected in your leaders, particularly when it seemed a certain impossibility, is important. I have this plastic ruler in my desk drawer at the office that displays the pictures and tenures of the U.S. presidents up to William Jefferson Clinton. Every once in a while, I pull the thing out, look at it and shake my head. Although these men represented us all, I knew no one on it truly represented me.

In some ways, it feels a bit like the end of the movie “The Matrix,” when Neo confronts the system that everyone unknowingly was plugged into, offering them “a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.”

As Obama utters the oath of office this morning, his family beside him, I believe I will sit quietly in a combination of stunned disbelief and pride.

Disbelief that what I feared to even imagine has actually come to pass and pride in my country for being more than I had believed it was able to be. I may finally begin to reconcile and reconfigure my American life, asterisk erased.

Thirty-six: A new chapter

2008-12-26T13:58:00.000-08:00

In about 10 days, I'll be turning 36. Not all that remarkable, as people have done this and will continue to do this with little effort. All I will have to do, technically, is wake up. And God willing, I will.

My hope for the next year is that it be a year of help. I declared 2008 a year of hope -- and hoping and being hopeful can be hard work. Cynicism is a protective shell we often build around ourselves to guard against the occasional pain and disappointments that hoping can you vulnerable to.

So, having managed to chip away at the collective and my personal cynical coating, I'd like to call for 2009 to be the year of help. Help in a global and local sense.

It just seems like a natural human progression. I'd like to be help and be helped. To do that, I will volunteer more, change my attitude and approach. Essentially, do good and be better. (Being good might be too much to aim for in just one year.) What does that translate into? Three significant commitments per month, resulting in 36 new accomplishments by the end of the year. This will equal the years I will have walked the Earth.

Ambitious? Ridiculously so.

The first three (starting locally and small):

Start and finish a book
Get out and active at least three times a week
Eat better (5-6 times a day of a good mix of food types)

My ultimate goal for 2009 is to be more of a help than a harm to my world and the people I encounter. Call this a resolution, but I need to build up the resolve to make change in my life and in others'.

Anyway, happy new year. Much hope and help to you in 2009.

Blended families

2008-12-14T00:51:00.000-08:00

Have you seen the current remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still"? With Keanu Reeves, it stars Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith (Will and Jada's precocious and talented little son). I loved that they cast a brown child in that role and didn't make a huge statement about his brownness. It was a modern, millennial family dealing with the death of a mutual loved one killed in Iraq -- and the impending death of a planet. Bigger issues than race. It was a non-issue. Baby steps.

Voices on Election 2008

2008-11-03T23:18:00.000-08:00

I invited friends on Facebook and through email to offer their musings about this election season. This will be a growing collection of voices over the next couple of days. Here are the unedited offerings (feel free to add your comments):

In a word! Amazing!! I don't think I going to get to sleep tonight. I live in a Republican territory and I went running around the neighborhood wearing my Obama t-shirt chanting O-Bam-A, O-Bam-A. I called my mother and father and screamed on the phone to them. They were on Pennsylvania Avenue outside of the White House with noise maker. They are 76 years young. I called my brother, Willie and told him he was wrong, "This is what it means to be Black in America." I called my college friends, my high school friends, my European friends overseas. Hell I even called my friend Eric, who is President George W. Bush's personal photographer and told him he was out of a job!
-- KM, Ventura County
On TV, my hometown of Bloomington is one blue pixel in the red screen of Indiana. My mom is excited that Indiana is "in play," but I don't expect it to vote blue (i.e., for a Democrat). The mass electric energy of the voters, especially first time voters, reminds me war protests and rock concerts. Democracy is so much bigger than any individual. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States!
-- Cedar Boschan, Southern California
Timeline: Hope. Fear. Maybe. Perhaps. Wishing. Anger. Weariness. Exasperation. Anguish. Democrats piss me off. Black people piss me off. The Clintons piss me off. The media pisses me off. Hope again. Black people reinspired me. Intellectualism has reinspired me. The concept is bigger than one man. Yet one man stands as its symbol. Now its a celebration. But I'm still a little scared. What will *we* do. Each of us.
-- Anonymous, Atlanta, GA
I woke up early this morning, and made my way down to the polling location just a block over from where I live. There was a short line that fed itself into the apartment complex in West Hollywood that the polls were at. The line grew rapidly with a thickness and a quickness. As I ambled in lazily, while glancing at my watch to make sure I could still get to work, I saw countless hopeful faces. I even bumped into my friend, Pollyanna, from high school, who had somehow gotten there earlier than myself. It was ramshackle and somewhat primitive technologically, but I feel good. I hope that my vote is counted, and I hope it all works out. I believe in Hope... and hopefully it will prevail! And yes, it's a beautiful day in LA... get out there people!
-- RA, West Hollywood
The sun is up, the clouds are parting and for the first time in any election I can remember, lines at polling places are already forming. Even this (glorious) unseasonable rain adds to the feeling that something extraordinary is happening today.
-- VT, Malibu
This election season showed women their day in the White House is coming। It also inspired minorities, people from broken families, and difficult economic circumstances that with talent and tenacity America is still a place where you can live your dreams। It showed a grassroots movement spurred along by five and ten dollar donations and the internet can topple the establishment। No matter who wins tomorrow night, hope has already triumphed in so many ways। Let's hope this historic moment is a turning point that leaves Americans better off in four years!
--NG, Los Angeles

It's almost here!!! I can barely stand to go to work tomorrow or Wednesday। I want to scream and shout। Or maybe it will be stolen away. I was even paranoid about which mailbox to put my ballot in for fear that the mailman might know who I'm voting for and throw my ballot away! I made a copy of my ballot and framed it. Maybe I will frame the Nov 5th paper too. And I've been praying like crazy for Barack. For his safety and that of his family. It is bittersweet. Mom (and Dad) would have been so excited. But I'm here and I'm going to celebrate hard enough for all three of us!
--DAWA, Union City

I felt tonight, while driving around my neighborhood, like I did on Christmas Eve as a kid. I feel like Santa is coming tomorrow.
-- LK, Pasadena

Many of us live our lives with an understanding of what's possible -- where the limits are on the horizons and skies into which we venture। We know how high we can aim, even if we can't articulate or acknowledge it। I know I've learned over the years to manage my expectations even as I pushed ahead into any arena I wanted to enter। This dream management was so pervasive that I couldn't even dare to imagine what I knew to be impossible. I couldn't dare because to be disappointed by a dream deferred, denied, would sting more than never having dreamed at all. Whether it is woman, brown or blended, the wings we have been allowed to soar on were borrowed and would be rescinded if we dared soar too high. Only if your existence has been shaped by invisible and arbitrary boundaries can you know the inexplicably overwhelming feeling it is to be proved wrong, to find that those boundaries that have shaped your understanding of your world, to which you and the world you occupy have on occasion inadvertently clung, cease to exist. It changes your eyes, your head, your heart, your life.
--CM, Glendale

This election is historic. I marvel at what we are witnessing, and feel bowled over by the probability that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. I never thought a Black person, much less a Black man could be President of this country, at least not in my lifetime. So, his candidacy (in my mind) has challenged us all to face the obstacles we've come across as a community with a view to transcend them. It doesn't make everything perfect and certainly doesn't end racism, but Barack's candidacy represents a huge leap in our consciousness, affirming loudly "yes we can," no matter how many times we've been told the opposite. We are a people that have long survived against the odds, and our legacy of triumph over tragedy is not new, still I don't think we saw this coming. I suspect many of us are in awe of Barack and his family, just think we may finally get the chance to paint the white house Black (smile). Seriously, though we can't take this historic moment lightly, a Black man will likely be President - amazing! This is definitely part of what Martin, Malcolm and countless others lived and died for. Yet, with all that said I am not voting for him because he is Black, if that were the case I would have voted for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but I am voting for him because he is the best person for the job. Barack Obama is educated, eloquent, analytical, compassionate and human. I am confident he will represent my views better than any other candidate and will work to improve healthcare, education, foreign policy, and immigration, not to mention end the war in Iraq, and the fact that he's Black is just the icing on the cake. I am excited and energized, and look forward to voting for the first time for Barack Obama. In closing, I can't help but thinking of the women and men who lived Jim Crow, marched with Dr. King, and followed the teachings of Malcolm X, they must be overcome with pride and elated at the prospect of an Obama presidency. I won't forget them tomorrow as I cast my vote.
--DR, Stanford

As the mother of two children of color, Senator Obama's candidacy (and real shot at winning) means I no longer feel like a liar when I tell my kids they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. As the mother of two beautiful children of color, I simply cannot convey how POWERFUL the images of the Obama girls playing on the White House lawn will be (just got chills, people). The facts: our first 16 presidents could have owned Barack Obama as property; our first 30 "First Ladies" could not vote for their own husbands. How can we not be filled with wonder at this historic moment we find ourselves living in? I've been with Barack since day one (and got called out by some feminist sisters during the primary season, for sure); tonight, I'm exhausted, excited, filled with pride, HOPE, and some trepidation, too. I'm superstitious by nature, but I won't lie, the champagne is already on ice! Let's revel in this historic day and remember to toast our ancestors and elders who brought us "to the mountaintop" with their blood, tears, and often with their very lives.
-- DD, Northern California

Hope against hope

2008-10-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier of this being my year of hope.

Well, hope is harder to come by when the clouds gather with such aggression and persistence that there's no sign there ever was a sun.

While my career is undeniably on the upswing, it's in a place that's wrestling with every fiber of its existence with external and economic forces. Living through this again feels in some psychologically parallel universe like living in an abusive relationship. The cycle of emotional violence for all involved from executer to executed should be criminalized.

And speaking of economic forces, I'm watching from between squinted eyes my retirement savings slip out of the till. As my bank goes through some identity shifts, I keep fighting the urge to retro and go all Great Depression, shoving money in the mattress.

There appear signs in this society that make it seem less a haven for diverse peoples and ideals than a stagnant cesspool of acrid exchanges and acrimony bubbling up from its depths.

But here's the deal. When things seem hopeless, that's when hope is essential.

Call it seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, or call it being an optimist or having faith.

Fear is a very powerful force. It can mobilize you, or it can freeze you in your tracks. It can make rational people give in to irrational activity. Fear can blind even those typically gifted with foresight of clarity.

When wading through a sunless swamp mired in fear and muck, hope is harder to come by. But it's in that darkness that even a flicker of hope can help you see there's a way out.

What is they say? Hope springs eternal.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,

An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

Not one drop = black

2008-07-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

It appears that Chinese is the new "black."

As if racial classification weren't already complex enough, now South Africa has added additional shading to an already colorful issue. (Chromatic reference intentional.)

Throughout the United States of America, people of color and newly arrived immigrants over the years have done everything they can to distinguish themselves from blacks. But the Pretoria high court issued a landmark ruling on June 18 classifying Chinese South Africans as "black."

According to Chinese Assn. of South Africa, citizens of Chinese descent make up less than 10,000 of the South Africa's 47 million population.

The significance of this ruling is that these citizens will be eligible for protection under the laws designed to redress economic imbalances under apartheid, which ended 14 years ago.

Apparently under apartheid rule, Chinese citizens were considered "coloured," a term describing a person of mixed black and white descent. But following the end of apartheid, that classification no longer applied to South African Chinese.

In the democratic era, the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act and the Employment Equity Act did not indicate whether Chinese citizens qualified as disadvantaged people. The country's employment equity and empowerment laws distinguish "black people" as a generic term that means Africans, coloureds and Indians.

You can read more about this at AFP, Voice of America, WSJ, AllAfrica, Google News

Out with the laundry

2008-07-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

The serendipity of life can be amusing at times.

These days, many of us live our lives, silent and separate from those who surround us every day. We wander the streets confined to cars, or close ourselves off by creating concerts in our heads by plugging our ears with iPods.

We miss potential connections all the time. Instead of opening up, we construct false stories to fill the void.

There's a woman in my apartment complex I have considered my "laundry nemesis." Every time I even think about doing laundry, there she is, already in the laundry room using the one washer and dryer we have for the building. Even when the door is closed and I walk up thinking it had to be free at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, there she is, this wizened white woman with reddish tufts of bird-feather hair inside the room just waiting for me to open the door.

The septuagenarian parks two spots down from me, and in the three years I've been here, we've exchanged maybe 10 words total, usually only in pairs at a time. Most of the the words I've wanted to say have been in my fantasy conversations telling her off for hogging the laundry room. I have assumed she has nothing good to say to me either.

Today as I was getting ready to go on a fairly ambitious bike ride, I passed the laundry room on my way out of the complex. My Laundry Nemesis was using a cane, so I asked her about it.

"You're using a cane. Are you OK?"

From that seemingly innocuous question came an amazing moment, a totally unexpected exchange of one human being with another.

She went from telling me that she had just gone through arthroscopic meniscus repair surgery to telling me about her wonderful family. We both stood in the carport outside the laundry room exchanging family stories.

She told me about how her daughter Diane, who was in the military at the time, shared with her that she had met someone else in the military -- but "Mom, don't freak out," she said. "He's black."

Without a flinch, I just let her tell her story.

Iris -- her name, which I found out after three years of being secret rivaling neighbors -- went on to say that he cherishes her daughter as the love of his life. When her daughter Diane was giving birth to their first child, she nearly died. Her liver was practically "ground beef," she said. And after delivering the baby by Caesarian section, the doctors had to put her in a controlled coma for several weeks. Iris told me this through tears.

A few weeks ago before Iris' surgery, 18 years after the child's birth and Diane's miracle recovery, Iris was in Texas visiting her beloved biracial granddaughter, her pride and joy, for graduation. Today, this man she was skeptical about for her daughter is a beloved son to her, devoted husband and dedicated father to her two grandchildren.

Today, we laid down the dryer sheet. I stood with my laundry nemesis for about an hour in front of the site of our imaginary battles, sharing tears and tales.

You never know how you're going to connect with people when you ask them how they are and listen to what they say.

Finding my own mixed roots

2008-06-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

Question: What am I?

Answer: I am part of a growing and vibrant community of multiracial and multiethnic people.

It's refreshing to say I'm part of a community -- and actually feel part of that community.

This weekend, I was honored to participate in the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in celebration of Loving Day.

In addition to readings and screenings, there were conversations -- organized and informal. It was amazing to see so many wonderful ethnic blends, almost like going to heaven, or at least a haven. At most, I've been around 4 or 5 people of multiracial/multiethnic background.

But on Saturday at the Democracy Lab of the Japanese American Museum in Little Tokyo, everywhere my eyes darted, head turned, body passed was another person who was touched by multi-ethnicity.

The panel I moderated was a discussion on living betwixt and between with Jordan Elgrably, Angela Nissel and Elliot Lewis. Each panelist gave a taste of their experiences.

An Angeleno and Arab Jew, Elgrably shared a portion of an essay about his longing for the fruit of the exotic loquat tree that lingered during his studies in Paris. This, he discovered some time later, was rooted in parallel longing for a connection to a distant and mildly mysterious French Moroccan father.

Nissel, a Philly native who grew up with her black mother and absent her white father, read from her book "Mixed: My life in black and white." Her mother was a Black Panther, her father white.

Journalist Lewis gave a top 10 signs you're living a multiracial existence. He also shared from his book "Fade" a passage chronicling when he became "black." When his mother, who was biracial, signed him up for school when he moved to live with her in the South, she checked the "Negro" box. This was not an identity he had ever worn until that moment, and to him it didn't quite fit.

The conversation was like a guilty pleasure -- to get to sit and talk with other folks living on the dash between this and that who also have wrestled with and ultimately embraced their identity ambiguity. There was also affirmation just from hearing that they too have had several transitions of identity.

It was akin to external self-chat. And it was a conversation I hope to continue with them and the many other interesting people I met Saturday.

Filling in the color of fading photographs

2008-06-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Some children love to bury things in the backyard. Part of the fun was digging them back up -- once you remember where you buried them in the first place.

As adults, we bury things as well. But we spend less time digging things back up, I guess it gets more difficult to go as deep as we must to find them again.

So was the case with me recently.

A few years ago, a friend asked me when I was showing pictures of my father and mother why I didn't have any of us together. There are certainly many photos with my mom, and there's a good share of me as a child with my dad. Even some of Mom and Dad before my birth that resurfaced after Dad's death.

But I hadn't ever thought of that. I couldn't think of any pictures of all of us together.

I remembered us being together -- at the beach, at the house, at the holidays. To a large degree, though, the people in my life now, including the cousins I grew up with, never knew my family as a family.

And since our close friends and family serve as a mirror in our lives, there was no reflection of my family as whole. Period.

The image of "family" didn't linger in my own mind either. As a child of divorce, family was often a 2-person unit.

I managed over the years to bury, very deeply, emotions about not having been a family. In fact, I reveled in being a bit of a loner, dependent on myself. Hey, it works for an only child anyway.

My response to family became a bit more distant: These are people I'm tied to by blood, not always by choice. With the inevitable death of my mother, I'd be an orphan, all alone without family -- just relatives.

"Relatives" to me is such an unemotional term. It's very clinical, maybe even moribund.

But I did have family. My dad and brother, David, were actually part of my childhood.

I guess because, like the snapshots themselves, the colors of my memory had faded significantly, and I shaded them in with what I could to keep some aspect of the whole intact, even if my shadings didn't match the reality.

When my mom handed me a number of fading photographs taken when I was 2 years old, so many things came flooding back.

The years of holding back the fears that I was denied the love a child deserved from a mostly absent father, the sting of his occasional alcohol-soaked reactions, the longing for and hope of an emotional embrace to envelope me and let me know I'm OK no matter how different I am from every one of my closest relatives.

The rush was overwhelming.

The flood streamed down my face as I sat in the recliner staring at the fading photographs that couldn't have been more clear even if they had been shot seconds before.

I wept. I wailed. My body shuddered.

I was Daddy's little girl.

I was an adored little sister.

I did have the other side of my family holding my outstretched hand even as I thought I was grasping in a futile attempt at connection.

These snapshots of the past helped fill in so much of my present.

Sheer Sheen

2008-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

In AARP magazine, there's an interesting interview with actor Martin Sheen, who is half Hispanic. It's written by Nancy Perry Graham in the July and August issue. Here's an interesting snippet about identity from the chat:

A: “My dad never spoke in public because he was not made to feel proud of his accent. He had the most beautiful Belizean accent imaginable. I loved it. He was the greatest storyteller. I could listen to his voice—it was like listening to a musical instrument. But he was never made to feel proud speaking outside. There were a lot of Italians and other Latins but no Hispanics.”
Q: “So did you grow up identifying more as being white than Hispanic? You did change your name so as not to be typecast.”
A: “I never changed it officially. I never will. It’s on my driver’s license and passport and everything: Ramon Gerard Estevez. I started using Sheen, I thought I’d give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late.” (Laughs.) “In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn’t keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad.”

2008-06-06T18:23:00.001-07:00

Mixed Roots fest

2008-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going. Are you? The Mixed Chicks are hosting this inaugural Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival 2008 at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. Here's the description of its target audience: anyone who identifies as "mixed," has a trans-racial or trans-cultural adoptive family, or who supports interracial and intercultural relationships is welcome. It's from June 12-14....And it's FREE!!!!

30+, flirty and fabulous

2008-06-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

In the matter of days, I've been outted as brown, down and "serially single" in the LA Times.

I allowed one of my fav human flirtinis into the inner sanctum of a Girls' Night Out to see "Sex and the City" with an eclectic group of gals.

Here's what he had to say about the experience:

Guys, you can survive 'Sex and the City'
Man should not live by bread alone. Every once in a while, he should turn off The Game, ditch the remote, put on some clean clothes and embrace his feminine side....

Getting back on track...

2008-06-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

...Literally.

Over the last year -- through a bunch of life stuff from my mom's health issues (she had more stitches than Frankenstein), a new demanding job, the death of my aunt and of much of my will to get up and get going -- I stopped doing the things I know are part and parcel with living a healthy life.

As hard as good habits are hard to make, they are really easy to break. Especially if you're doing it over and over so that you get REALLY good at bad behavior.

So I'm getting back on track and will be tracking my progress and adventures in weightloss on my sports-related blog Twisted Ankles.

I'm hoping a public accounting will help keep me honest. ;-)

What has 'brown' done for you?

2008-06-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

So I outted myself. And it was liberating and scary at the same time. I initially hesitated when I typed "biracial" to identify myself in a piece I recently wrote.

As a biracial woman in her 30s, I was pleasantly surprised to see such diversity in gender, generation and ethnicity at the Jewel City 29 club that meets at Glendale's American Red Cross office.

It was just a passing mention. But maybe that's what gave me pause: passing.

Don't think I'm delusional. There's no way, except maybe by phone, I'd pass for white. And that's certainly never been among my many goals in life anyway.

It was more that I've been silently passing for black among my colleagues. They have assumed, and it hasn't been a huge issue. I mean, heck, for most of my 12 years on the job, there weren't many of us -- black or brown -- at all and even fewer in prominent leadership positions.

These days, I've been more comfortably calling myself "brown." This is one color around which no cultural associations or expectations have been built.

Maybe it was just the year of being biracial that lead to a bout of euphoric and public self-identification. Or maybe it was just time to stop allowing others to paint me in the color of their choice.

I was reading a piece in Newsweek today and was intrigued to see my embracing of 'brown' also used by Richard Rodriguez in a piece advising the best known biracial personality today.

Brown is not a new color to America. Our past is as brown as our future. Indeed, Americans are paying to have their DNA appraised and they are discovering that their family's past was browner than any grandparent led them to suppose.

Often 'biracial' is more political than I intend it to be. It can be taken by some as a rejection rather than an embracing. Though accurate, I'm trying on brown for a bit as a spoken-word identity and wearing biracial out in print.

On a related note, check out a project on MSNBC.com, called

The latest word

2008-06-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a bit. Here's some of what I've been up to:

Opening up at Toastmasters to tackle fear of public speaking
By Michelle Maltais, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 1, 2008

You're introduced to make a presentation. Suddenly, your legs go numb, your mouth gets dry, your mind goes blank and the only thing you hear is your heart throbbing.
Sound familiar?
For many people, public speaking tops the list of immobilizing fears. And with e-mail and text-messaging becoming near-universal forms of communication, many of us don't get enough practice at just plain talking.
But there's an old-school solution in this digital age, and it beats the potentially psychologically scarring practice of visualizing audience members in their underwear: Toastmasters. More

My hometown from 8000 feet up

2008-05-25T21:13:00.001-07:00

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Tram view

2008-05-25T21:09:00.001-07:00

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Mixed reviews

2008-04-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Gotta love when the media rediscover something. These days, it's biracial people. (Yeah, apparently we've been hiding in plain sight.) I love this line from Angry Black Woman's blog post on the topic:

OMG! The multiracials are coming!! They’re going to hit us with their curly-but-not-kinky hair and stare at us with their not-quite-epicanthically-folded eyes and loom over us casting their milky brown shadows!!! And they’re trying to TAKE OVER!!

A recent piece in the NY Times explored what it means to be biracial in America in its article titled "Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race" following a lauded speech on race by a political candidate. (Yes, I'm going to great lengths to not mention presidential candidates since it isn't the race, well the political one anyway, that I'm focusing on.)

Many people still stick to a one-race label, even if they are of mixed descent, researchers say, sometimes because of strong identification with one racial group, and occasionally because of a conscious effort not to dilute the numbers of the group they most identify with. In interviews, people of mixed race said their decision about how to identify themselves was deeply personal, not political; it is influenced by how and where they were reared, how others perceive them, what they look like and how they themselves come to embrace their identity.

The Guardian responds to this story on its site.

If Americans are truly interested in a post-racial politics, it seems necessary that they stop doing a racial calculus every time a person doesn't fit into their preconceived notions of race, and just allow him or her to exist comfortably across, or in between, races, or better yet, exist purely as an individual. The idea a person must fit into either or any racial camp for that matter must be jettisoned and recognized for what it is: the flotsam of our deeply racist past.

I've gone through numerous shifts in identity. These days, I hold to being biracial and possibly lean one way or another depending on day or situation.

When with family -- and "family" is only the relatives on my mom's side as I have no real relationship with anyone still alive on my dad's side -- I mostly feel embraced. But I do notice that I've never brought a guy home to be with my family. The closest was putting one boyfriend on the phone with my cousin.

Is it because my beaus have mostly been white? Possibly. Or it could be because of the men I choose regardless of race.

Of course, at work, I'm not able to check all the applicable boxes. I can work 4 jobs in a single workday, but I can't be more than one race. Go figure.

So, in protest, I've decided to acknowledge in box form only my Iroquois heritage.

What is inactive loading?

2008-03-25T15:41:00.001-07:00

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Freedom of the Press

2008-03-24T19:28:00.001-07:00

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

End of diversity?

2008-02-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

A program that helped really start my career is being suspended.

This is beyond unfortunate considering it is the source of diversity in staff and understanding of life key to properly and fully covering a city as diverse as Los Angeles and a country as colorful and eclectic as America.

I certainly would not have been given a job as a 23-year-old where I did, though a worthy, eager and infinitely trainable candidate.

My hope is that this company will find a way to continue to encourage, employ and promote diversity in the newsroom. Especially since the vast majority of minority copy editors on staff came exclusively from this program.

Only time will tell.

Copy Editing Cut from This Year's Metpro Program
The Tribune Co.'s Metpro program, which has trained more than 240 reporters and copy editors of color over the last two decades, has stopped training copy editors, at least for the time being.
The switch is the result of a decentralization in which the participating Tribune Co. newspapers play the predominant role in shaping the program, Gerry Kern, Tribune Co. vice president for editorial, told Journal-isms.
Metpro formerly consisted of a reporting program that took place for 10 months at the Los Angeles Times and 14 months at a second Tribune Co. newspaper, and a copy editing portion in which the trainees spent their first 10 months at Newsday and then 18 months at a second Tribune Co. outlet.

Ostrich races

2008-02-18T12:24:00.001-08:00

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Walk-by shooting

2008-02-15T18:02:00.001-08:00

Just reading all the signs

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Walk-by shooting

2008-02-15T17:30:00.001-08:00

Just reading all the signs

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Everything's coming up roses...

2008-02-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

You know, it's really interesting the impact of reinforced cynicism. The world I live in and work in values a narrow-eyed view of society and life in general, encourages and feeds this view.

While replete with my own variety of fears and insecurities, at my core I'm an optimist, wide-eyed and wandering. This is why I get hurt, fall down and occasionally laugh, sometimes at myself.

I've spent that last few years perfecting the requisite cynical squint and sneer, which is so appealing and great for the skin.

So filled and overflowing with more cynicism that should be legally permitted, I finally declared this year, 2008, (for myself at least) the year of hope.

It's been a long time since I've felt a golden glow from inside. So today, I've got so much sunshine inside that no one else's clouds could turn me gray.

On go my rose-colored glasses so that I can open my eyes wide again. An unfilled glass returns to being half full.

Sure, clouds will continue to come; I just won't let them linger as much :-)

Happy Friday!

Candy cane lady

2008-02-15T11:35:00.001-08:00

So I was just sitting at The Toasted Bun sipping coffee and reading my newspaper when a white-haired woman in a white dress adorned with candy canes left this on my table. She announced herself: "I'm the candy cane lady! Happy Valentine's Day!" Then she sat down for a bit of brunch. Just another day in L.A. posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Speech...SPEECH!!!!

2008-02-13T15:43:00.001-08:00

I'm a member of Toastmasters. I joined a little over a year and a half ago. It was an attempt to restore and refine skills I had honed over a lifetime of speaking, performing and presenting.

You see, I became a tad rusty after having spent a couple of years cooped up in a solitary office, communicating primarily through email and IM.

So fast forward to today. I'm now serving as president of my club, Jewel City 29 in Glendale. And tonight is the beginning our club-level version of the International contest. "International" requires contestants to deliver an "inspirational" speech.

Last year, I freaked out a bit out of fear and expectations, self-imposed mostly. I still did fairly well, but having performed for most of my life in some capacity, I didn't feel it was the home-run hit I should have or could have had -- mostly because I got in my own way.

Today, we received word that there are yet again more job cuts to be made at work. I'll tell ya, that is certainly something that can cause one to feel less than inspired.

But somehow, writing, memorizing, practicing and embodying this speech has done what I thought might not be possible today -- it has actually inspired me.

I realized in writing this speech that I actually have lived my dreams, to one degree or another.

When I was asked at work in trying to plot out a career path over the years what it is I wanted to do, I'd say, "everything."

At the time, I was doing a bit of copy editing, some writing, some multimedia. I was being encouraged to pick a path. Hey, kid, you can't have it all.

But I want to; why not?

Fast forward a few years. I am doing it all. And even though I'm probably doing too much of it all, all at once (pacing myself and temperance would be good things to practice), I'm having the time of my life.

Here's the text of my speech:

Title: Wake up…You’re dreaming!
[Stage direction: Lying on the floor, head on pillow and covered by blanket, looking straight up]

I have a dream….[Pause]
[Sitting up] Mr. Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters and honored guests...Honestly, how likely am I to realize that dream lying here on my back?
Whoever said that dreams had anything to do with sloom or slumber was dead wrong.
To elevate your dream from make-believe to make-it-real, you’ve got to get up and get going. [Getting up to standing]
As Walt Disney said, If you can dream it, you can do it. Just because he’s the father of Fantasyland doesn’t mean that his words should be dismissed. Disneyland and the Disney empire started with just a dream and a mouse.
Real dreams, ones that flirt with our minds and tickle our souls, are meant for pursuing, not for pretending, pondering or postponing. However detailed, they are resolute, not ambiguous.
Think about it. When recall your dreams, from childhood, how did they come? Were you uncertain, did you weigh risk versus reward? Or did you just know that it was possible?
My dreams were always lined with certitude and shaded with resolve, not self-doubt.
Not just the big dreams, but the little ones too. Ones that an adult might dismiss as impulse or whimsy.
One summer when I was about 8, my mom and I visited New York and hit all the tourist haunts.
The Statue of Liberty was always fascinating to me. There was something about seeing the world from the highest point I could get on this beautiful green-tinged beacon of hope – this woman standing, proud and certain, holding the torch of enlightenment and tablet of knowledge.
I never told my mom – until we were at her foundation.
“Mommy, I want to go up and not stop until I reach the top,” I announced, with eyes wide and determined.
Now, inconveniently enough for both of us, Mom was having a personal emergency (too many spicy Jamaican patties earlier in the day, I think) and she was sure her destiny had her elsewhere on the ground level. A bit dismissively and with her back turned, she said, “Well, you can go if you want, but…”
That was all it took. I was already to the 3rd level by the time she turned back around. Granted, for a parent, this part of the story probably inspires a different emotion – one more akin to terror.
But see it from the child’s perspective. I was living my dream. I ran up those stairs, level by level by unending level as fast as my spindly 8-year-old legs could take me. And I didn’t stop until I reach the highest point. I reached up and stood on my tippy toes and peered at the world.
A child has the eyes of innocence, and sees things as they could be. A child is not worried about making an adult decision.
We need to cultivate more of that wide-eyed, childlike hope in ourselves.
As adults, we get comfortable. I mean, isn’t that the goal? The longer we live, the more we acquire, the more comfortable we get, the more we think we have to lose by making an error in judgment.
Fear. It’s that dark, looming figure that finds its way into our dreams, and poisons our resolve and hope. We go back to sleepwalking through life. We need to wake up.
You cannot wrap yourself up in the familiar fuzzy blanket of self-doubt or bury your head in the pillow of apathy.
You’ve got to get up and get moving to make your dreams a reality.
How?
First, recognize what makes dreams die...and what makes them live. Foster an environment that nurtures dreams and helps them to flourish. Feed it daily.
Do it for your children. Do it for yourself.
I work in a world replete with cynics. Nothing can kill the spirit more than being bombarded with cynicism. But hope, dreams can lift you up and make the improbable become possible.
Next, make a plan. You wouldn’t uproot your home and drive from California to New Jersey without some kind of road map or directions, would you? Even if you make pit stops and course changes on the way, you at least will solidify in your thinking and in your actions that you are transitioning your dream from notion to putting it in motion.
You see, opportunity is attracted to people with a dream. Dreamers are the first to be hired, first to be offered the chance to try something new.
The bigger the dream, the faster doors open.
Think about it. People without a dream are last to be hired, last to be promoted and often first to be fired.
Dreamers develop an attitude that radiates energy; they have a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. And it’s infectious.
If you dream it, you can do it.
The true nightmare is to find when you finally do wake up that you haven’t sought your dreams and you have no time left to do it.
So, dream. Dream big, dream little.
Just don’t sleep on your dream. Wake up, and make it happen.
Mr. Toastmaster.

My new favorite ad

2008-02-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Self reflection

2008-02-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was reading a book (whose title is more political than I choose to be) by an author I would have been scorned in college for having read by the black racialists I associated with in the Black Studies department.

Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the premise of the book, it was an interesting exploration into my own identity as a biracial woman.

The fact that I seem to be more comfortable relating to and dating white men has become a comfortable joke between me and my desi best girlfriend, who also has seemed to prefer a vanilla flavor. My biracial first cousin asked me straight out over lunch back home at the TGI Fridays when I was in college: "So I hear you date white men."

I nearly choked on my curly fries.

Now, I don't choke when asked. Yes, I am more comfortable dating men of a certain experience and background. More often than not, they tend to be white.

Over the years, I have attributed this to being biracial or being from Palm Desert (a predominantly white area) or having been raised by a Jamaican of a certain class and education.

After having read most of the above mentioned book, though, I'm more certain it's because with these white men I haven't had to choose an identity, whatever foundation upon which the identity is built.

Whether true or not, with a black man, I have to sublimate what is actually the core of who I am. I am the daughter of a white man and a British-influenced West Indian, raised in a golf-and-tennis desert resort area. I grew up with a Jewish best friend, and among girls whose hair turned green from chlorine-soaked summers. My vocal inflections are more valley than Southern, and "dude" is still stubbornly part of my vocabulary.

So it's a working theory for now anyway :-)

Mixed reports: News of the multiracial across the web

2008-02-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

From the Telegraph:

Mixed-race babies 'were sent to the US' By Graham Tibbetts
Thousands of illegitimate mixed-race children fathered by American GIs were given up by their British mothers and shipped across the Atlantic, according to newly released papers.
The issue of how to deal with the unwanted offspring of the illicit affairs divided the country towards the end of the Second World War and exposed the racial prejudices of the time.
Black US servicemen during the Second World War Thousands of unwanted mixed-race children fathered by American GIs in Britain were sent to the US.
It was considered so serious that there were dire warnings it could harm Anglo-American relations and the Government was urged to treat the children as "war casualties".
The problem began to emerge in 1944, when increasing numbers of US servicemen were stationed around Britain.
Many of the women they fathered children with were wives of British soldiers fighting abroad....

Talk about mixed up

2008-02-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes family can just be offensive.

Don't get me wrong. You love them -- even if you can't, they're still your kin.

One of my relatives on the black American branch of the family apparently has distinct views about his soon-to-graduate teen's choice of college. (I make that distinction because there are also the Jamaican and the white American branches.)

So, he seems to believe that his son attending a historically black college will up the chances of his son marrying black. You know, because somehow it would be bad if he married a white or Latina or multiracial woman.

OK, shwaaa?

Never mind that his brother's longtime girlfriend is Latina, his uncle's first and soon-to-be third wives are Latina, his wife's brother's girlfriend is Latina, his half-sister is black and Latina, oh, and three of his cousins are biracial (one is black and white, and the other two are black and Latino).

Maybe that's just too much mixing for his liking.

I love my cousin, but some of his ideas are just baffling.

One might be hopeful that a child finds growth and success and happiness. But I didn't realize folks from such a multicultural family still saw fit to put a colorstamp on love.

With thinking like that, his son will end up finding the one non-black person on the campus with whom to become smitten.

I love karma.

Tragic Mel Atta: Mane Attraction

2008-01-27T22:19:00.000-08:00

Playing Cat and Mouse

2008-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

OMG! This is sooo wrong -- but so incredibly addictive.

Clay Kitten Shooting

Have you seen this?

2008-01-27T04:05:00.000-08:00

As I was doing some insomniac Googling, with some random French movie playing on AMC in the background, I happened upon a link to the Caucasian Rights Foundation.

This website and related MySpace page claims the organization is a legit 501(c)(3). Instead of reading the article on the "birth of the multiracial identity," I clicked through to this provocative sounding site. (I'm trying to confirm its non-profit status, but the IRS website was down.) Here's how the site is described:

Equality Through Equal Representation
We are a legitimate non-profit organization that fills a gap in the civil rights arena.
There are many ethnic organizations that ensure rights and freedoms of their particular ethnic group.
The Caucasian Rights Foundation Inc. will emphasize on those who are Caucasian American.
Caucasian Americans are a conglomeration of many different and distinct ethnic groups that are of lighter color skin.
Discrimination against many of these ethnic groups has been common since the discovery of this great nation.
This discrimination has been overlooked due to everything from the lack of civil rights during the early years of our nation to a representation of these individuals not being "politically correct."
There is a large number of Caucasian Americans that feel if they were to stand up against the discrimination that they experience then they will be labeled a racist.
We not only support and defend the rights of Caucasian Americans but also increase understanding of the many different Caucasian cultures and traditions.
We hope that through education and understanding of Caucasian cultures and histories that we can both preserve it for the future education of Caucasian American children and educate Americans as a whole on the diversity and complexity of Caucasian Americans.
The Caucasian Rights Foundation Inc. is not a hate group. The Caucasian Rights Foundation Inc. believes that everyone should be proud of where they come from and the history of their ancestors. We do not believe that this history makes a person better or worst that anyone else, only unique, and that a person should not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.

Like I said, provocative.

I-Toon: Too cool to pass up

2008-01-27T03:07:00.000-08:00

OK, so in the now-rare chance to troll the blogs, I found a cool little addition to one of my faves. It's an I-Toon!!!! Light-skinned-ed Girl introduced on her blog this web offering that allows you to create your own comic characters and comic strips. So being in a creative yet non-unique mood, I decided to try one. The strip is called "Tragic Mel Atta," covering the life and trials of a biracial woman in the process of being and becoming.

Testing your Constitution

2008-01-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

Since the hint of a possibility of the candidacy of the wife of a former two-term president, I have been intrigued by the question of whether that former two-term president could become someone's vice presidential running mate. (This academic interest doesn't take into account whether personality would permit this arrangement.) But let's take a look. The 22nd amendment, ratified in 1951 following a thrice-elected president's passing, lays out presidential term election limits.

Amendment XXII
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

In theory, a former president who has served two terms by election to the office of president could still be eligible to serve as vice president, second in line to the presidency. It is "in theory" since there has never been a test of this in the courts. According to Linda Monk's interpretation of the words of the United States Constitution, 10 years is the maximum term any president can serve. The breakdown of that is two 4-year terms (or 8 years) by election and 2 years by term assumption.

A literal interpretation in my view doesn't state that explicitly. This amendment states that "no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President" -- in other words, one who was not elected to the office proper -- could be elected as president more than once following that service.

So, if you take this on its own and play it out in a non-consecutive approach, assuming that a twice-elected president might become vice president under someone else's administration and that person is unable to finish out his/her presidential term, then this former-president-turned-vice-president could end up serving up to 4 more years. Of course, this would depend on when the person elected relinquished office.

However, here's the wrinkle. Some argue that the 12th amendment serves to quash that theoretical possibility.

This amendment covers how the president and vice president were selected. Prior to this amendment's adoption in 1804, the one with the most electoral votes became president and the runner-up became vice president. The 12th amendment separated the balloting process for these two positions.

There is one sentence that may negate a former twice-elected president's run for vice president:

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Technically, a twice-elected president is ineligible for the office of President, according to an amendment inked more than a century after this one was.

Well, ineligible for election to the office, but not for service in the office.

And, technically, a vice president assumes the office when an elected president dies or is removed.

Of course, some might interpret that line to refer specifically to qualifications for election, not intended to exclude a previous president from running.

I wonder how the 12th amendment's intent could be extended to include what's covered 147 years later. Other amendments aren't interpreted to interact retroactively.

From a purely academic standpoint, it would be interesting to see this tested in the courts.

What's your take on this?

Gen Y: Why the obsession with sex and race?

2008-01-11T23:17:00.001-08:00

This is an interesting Op-Ed by Rosa Parks suggesting that the terms that previously defined "others" who were maybe marginalized as viable presidential candidates seem no longer to apply to a Gen Y. It suggests that the media coverage focused on questions framed in terms of race and gender are misguided for younger voters:

Increasingly, the media obsession with whether Americans will be less likely to vote for a black man or for a woman is also beside the point -- because to an emerging generation of younger voters, the very terms in which the questions have been framed no longer make much sense...

...For younger voters, "Do you think a woman or a black man could be a good president?" is the wrong question. As women and men increasingly work side by side and share power, as the U.S. becomes a more complex, multiracial and multiethnic nation, younger voters may increasingly be asking themselves a very different question: Can a middle-aged white guy possibly be qualified to lead us into the future?

Yay!!

2008-01-04T11:17:00.001-08:00

I made it another year! It's my birthday -- and I couldn't be happier to be alive :-)

What's in a name?

2008-01-01T19:57:00.000-08:00

There's an interesting exchange going on about the preference of what to call the community of people of the African diaspora. (How's that for a hedge?) The blogger at The Angry Black Woman says she's not fond of using African American and prefers black or people of color.

So far, that post has generated more than 70 comments. Very interesting commentary.

I recall having visited the King Tut exhibit at LACMA and eavesdropping on the various conversations. One white woman was explaining to her associates something about the exhibit and, bless her, she was trying to "use the right term." She kept referring to the Egyptians as "African Americans" instead of Egyptians or Africans.

What this showed me in living color was that, whatever an individual's preferred term, "black" and "African American" are not synonymous.

I have long had misgivings about embracing AA as an identifier 1. after a black studies (or was it African American studies?) prof asserted that "all of us have ancestors who were slaves in America" to a group of black students (not true for this 1st generation American), and 2. when I realized my friend whose Mom was from America and Dad was from Zambia was more African American than I'd ever be.

Anyhoo, that blog entry is worth a read.

Girls and their curls

2008-01-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

In a quick indulgence of catching up on the blogs I love, a glance at Light-skinned-ed Girl's post on fear of a biracial curl sent my mind racing about a topic I sometimes try to ignore, other times try to indulge and other times try to influence (but never control).

While I'm single, I do have a constant partner: my mostly unruly, never-to-be-tamed, please-please-PLEASE-just-stay-in-one-place, weather sensitive, begging resistant, full of personality, sass and charm curls.

My hair and I have a special relationship -- most biracial girls do with theirs. (You'll note the name of the blog.) One of my nicknames growing up in local theater was "Curly Kid," which apparently was hard to shake (or brush off or comb through or fill-in-your-own-groaner-here).

I grew up with my mom. The only similarity between our hair was that it was on our heads, but even that was limited as I shed like a Keeshond in summer. Not pretty.

(We had one house cleaner approach us very concerned to tell me it wasn't healthy to lose hair at that rate. I had to part my hair from my face to see who was talking, perplexed this woman was deeply concerned I was about to go bald when clearly I was channeling Cousin It.)

Mom wasn't able to help me with my hair, really. She enjoyed it as a novelty, I think, twirling it around her finger into ringlets. We lived in Palm Desert, where no black people lived--or worked as hairdressers, apparently. So my hair was treated as white. This was fine while I was a child, and my hair remained accommodating.

When we did go to black hairdressers, they gooped it up with the foulest smelling grease. No thank you!

As a teen, I discovered heat. Hot combs, curling irons, crimping irons. Yes, I crimped my bangs and stood them on end. (No, there are no pictures of this hairstyling horror.) All of my friends were doing this. All of my friends were white.

None of them ended up with teeth marks seered on the back of their necks from accidental contact with the hot comb. But that was the price I chose to pay to get my hair straight.

I'd aim for a mix between the lead singer of Dead or Alive, Boy George and Madonna, if you can imagine. Ultimately, I think it ended up more Chaka Khan (think "I Feel For You") than anything. I think I'd fool myself into thinking that I was white--but by white, I mean raceless. You know, the assumption of culture neutrality, mainstream, the dipstick of being in America.

But then I would be brought back to reality when a well-meaning white girl with bone-straight blond hair would correct her obviously deluded brown friend.

"Your hair isn't straight," she'd say. "It's frizzy."

Crash! That was me landing back on Earth.

And that's about when I started to hit the bottle.

At first, it was a little product here, a touch of product there. It began with a dab of Dippity Doo. But then a dab wasn't enough. I went through bottles.

Then I began, gulp, mixing. Gobs of conditioner to offset the drying of the gel. When I went shopping, I'd look pleadingly at the checker not to give me the raised eyebrow as I placed 4 or 5 different massive bottles on the conveyor belt. In my hand, a colorful chemistry experiment of green goo and white, then pink.

I responded to fire the way the Wicked Witch of the West did water.

After college, I had to cut back this habit severely. Being a poor grad student in New York will make you prioritize. Besides, that's what scarves and hats were for, right? But being an aspiring television reporter made that plan unfeasible.

I recall getting an unexpected question from a very serious and somewhat secretive classmate of Egyptian descent. (She was almost defiantly NOT black but Arab.) The next semester we'd have to do on-camera reporting that we'd likely use on our reels.

She walked up to me with urgency in her eyes: "Are you going to straighten your hair?"

Frankly, that was the last thing on my mind. But then I began to panic. Of course, hair. I'm brown. There are no curls on the news. Well, only that inexplicable, oddly orchestrated anchor flip. But no one, no one anywhere in the country on a station worth looking at had a head full of sass.

Somehow hair became less of a daily annoyance and more of a political and professional statement. "I'm brown, but not ethnic" it would have to say.

Fate didn't have me pursuing a career on television, but it did for my classmate. And from seeing her now on the news in L.A., I'm assuming she is straightening as her hair is never out of place, no hint of sass.

After years of hair pieces and processing, I've lost my interest in trying to bend and break my hair to the will of others.

But still for care, I live somewhere between black salons and those who see me walk in and have their pupils dilate.

Before anyone pulls out anything sharp, I check out their hair. I will sit only if there's a hint of body, a bit of bounce somewhere in there.

Welcome, 2008!

2008-01-01T08:08:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!!!

Meet my resolve

2007-12-30T20:54:00.000-08:00

So, here it is again. The dusk of one year, the dawn of another.

And so it is time again for what for some is an exercise in futility. For me, it is an exercise in focus.

Hey, I adhered to most of last year's resolutions. (Except for the whole making time for exercise and entertainment.)

In 2008, I aim to find the good portions of the self I shed in 2006. While that gal had her flaws, she made time for life -- activity, love, sometime loving activity.

The 2007 version of me was, well, kind of a pill and a slug -- but it wasn't all her fault.

2008 will be about making and spending. No, not money. Making time for myself and spending time doing things that enhance and enrich my life. This includes getting out with friends I have neglected in the past six months and finding new places to meet new ones.

The year will be filled with midnight rides and movies, music and museums, odd festivals and sun-kissed fun. Part of the plan is to participate in a sprint triathlon, which means I must get serious about the training for it.

It will be a year of altitude, not attitude. A higher plane, if you will. I plan to change my perspective internally and externally by going on a journey -- a metaphorical one and an actual one or two. I will lighten my load -- physically (my body), psychically (my mind/spirit) and professionally (work will not own me; will get more than a day pass from the plantation). And that will also mean simplifying other aspects of life. Shedding those things that are unnecessary from possessions to perceptions and attitudes.

So there it is. I have a big year ahead, a new chapter that I'm looking forward to writing.

Tell me what yours are...

New glasses

2007-12-29T17:55:00.001-08:00

Here are the sunglasses

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

New glasses

2007-12-29T17:54:00.001-08:00

Here are the J-Lo's

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Declaration of Independence

2007-12-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

My birthday is coming up in less than a month, and I've been in need of some serious change. So, with that in mind, I've come up some things I need to do for myself. A declaration of independence of sorts:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person to redefine and, in some cases dissolve, the bonds that have constrained them and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle her, a decent self-respect and sense of self-preservation require that she should declare the causes which impel her to the separation.
I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

To that end, I will commit myself to the finding a healthy balance of the responsibilities in my life in aspiring toward living freely in pursuit of genuine joy so powerful that it radiates from within.
As a loving and responsible woman, I will give all that I can to the things in my life I deem worthy of my energies, however, always in balance with loving myself. I will comport myself with that as the underlying precept.
The foundation of who I am, flaws and all -- complete with empathic compassion, a competitive drive, and the need and desire to please others -- must remain intact. However, this cannot outweigh the importance of the preservation of self -- in terms of health, spirit, activity, community, solitude, peace, self-determination.
I commit myself to loving others, but not living them. I will do all that is in my power to encourage and facilitate their happiness but with the full understanding that I am not responsible for anyone else's happiness. And no one else is responsible for mine.
Thus it is an imperative that I spend my life living it, not waiting or postponing fully tasting and digesting the enjoyment of existing -- from pain to elation.

And so I plan, starting this next year, now, to grab a fork and dig right in to life, tasting its every sweetness and bitterness, texture and fiber. I pledge this to myself.

Watch your language

2007-10-28T15:22:00.001-07:00

Ok, what's wrong with this picture?

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

2007-10-25T06:25:00.001-07:00

Notice the odd juxtaposition of the car with the church. I guess professing self-love isnt a bad thing.

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

2007-10-25T06:21:00.001-07:00

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

I don't play cards

2007-10-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

I was having a chat the other day with my ninja lawyer friend about the return of a certain celebrity former defendant to media coverage. In describing this person's previous encounters with the American judicial system, ninja lawyer used a term that to me is more repugnant, and frankly dangerous, than many racial slurs. (As I've written before, a slur, to me, is only as powerful as the recipient chooses to make it.)

If there's one term I really can't stand it's "play the race card"--and its use really set me off. I think I cowed him a bit, which is unfortunate since I love verbally sparring with him.

Whether or not this particular celebrity former defendant is, was, or ever will be found guilty isn't of interest to me so much. A legal verdict was rendered and accepted in that case under the parameters set by the national and state constitutions.

To me, the interest lies in the semantics, the discussion of whether a "race card" was played as opposed to whether race was employed improperly or exploitatively as a defense.

This short-hand term makes light of race as a socially-constructed and accepted institution that defines, refines and confines, limits, lifts, enhances, colors and shades in certain contexts in American society. It is a term that gets tossed about, often by white folks to talk about the use of race as a defense or mechanism or defense mechanism.

Sometimes the use of "race card" suggests that the user believes race was not an issue, or at least not a relevant one, and can diminish what may have been siginificant to the other player.

In addition to folks in the majority race using the term, men sometimes refer to the gender card being played when a woman prevails at something they felt they were entitled to. That's the key.

In my view, the thing that the phrase's use and its users don't take into account is that race is a card that's played every single day and by an unnamed player--if you choose to buy into that notion of game playing.

This "race card" is usually kept in a death grip, close to the vest and never has to be laid on the table. Yes, blacks and other minorities aren't the only ones with cards. Those in whatever is the majority or prevailing group hold cards too.

The difference is the house is accustomed to winning.

And now, instead of holding all the cards and writing up all the rules, the "house" has to let others in the game.

This is not to say that racial or gender inequity or harassment isn't made folly by intentional misidentification or misuse. But let's all stop playing games, and instead call a spade a spade.

Longtime no see...

2007-10-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Soooo, it's been about two months since my last post. Life has been a rollercoaster ride with no stops at the station. You really have to be careful what you wish for. Not because you might actually get it, but because it might actually get you.

Goodness, Gracious, Great Ball of Fat...

2007-08-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Finally, it is gone!! I've seen the last of this lipoma.
For far too many years, I've dreamed of getting rid of the random "fatty tumor" (aka lipoma) that one day took residence in the crease of my right arm.

On Tuesday, nervously I hopped up on the exam table, stretched my arm out and turned my head in the other direction. The surgeon, a very festive man with salt and pepper hair and piercing eyes and die-hard iPhone fan, then stuck me with a numbing agent--sadly nothing to numb before the numbing agent. Poke, poke poke, sting, sting, sting.

But in no time, he was slicing and dicing. Apparently a small vein got in the way, and bloop, it's gone, tied off never to be heard from again. Soon, out popped this peach-colored ball of compact fat, pictured above and below.

I can't tell you how relieved I was to finally have this thing out of my arm. It impeded my good blood-donating vein. So now it's off to the lab for testing. I'm all stitched up and on the mend.

Although it wasn't really adversely affecting anything, I didn't like the idea of anything with the name "tumor" in me anywhere. Besides, no one could guarantee me that it wouldn't shift from a benign growth to something sinister.

Though these things can return, I'm hopeful there will be no more.

Life goes on...

2007-08-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

I have been away from my blog home for over a month. So much has happened. A new job, trips to and from Vegas and Sonoma, new friends made. As far as the new gig, my work world has changed so radically. I feel that I'm learning new skills and better employing the ones I have picked up along the way. It's just now, a month in, that I feel as if I have a better handle on the gig--at least for now. I discovered that it's a bad idea to taste and buy, particularly for someone with expensive tastes. A few of the NoCal wineries that resonated with me where J Winery, Bella Vineyard and Wine Caves and Armida, home of Poizin. A group of us girls had such a wonderful time in Healdsburg. At the end of the weekend, I ended up with receipts from places I vaguely remember buying from. I think I even joined a wine club somewhere along the line. What I do distinctly recall was learning about the tastes I like--and the ones I don't. Until this trip, I had mostly written off red wines as not appealing to me. But now I know I like spicy and bold reds. (Who knew there was actually a difference!!) I also recall one of our drivers stepping a bit out of line. He started telling jokes with "big black man" as a character. That's never a good sign. I flashed back to fourth grade and the "big black nurse" joke that the teacher persistently told. Anyway, lesson learned. The plastic stays at home next trip--or at least at the hotel.

What's Old Is New (Rant)

2007-07-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

If you were to assess whether there is a dearth of new ideas based on what's on TV and in movie theaters, you would certainly come to the conclusion that we're totally tapped. A great show in the '70s, Bionic Woman is back. The Transformers and Underdog are new and upcoming movies. Recycling is great, but seriously... Someone, please come up with something new!!!

Spice Racked

2007-07-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

With the return of the Spice Girls to global consciousness, just wondering why Mel B--a.k.a. the mother of Eddie Murphy's latest edition--was dubbed "Scary" Spice. According to Wikipedia, she was dubbed "scary" by the British press for her in-your-face persona. Hmmm. OK, maybe that's Salty Spice or Saucy Spice or Scrappy Spice, or maybe even Surly Spice. But Scary?

Mixed Media

2007-07-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

In British mag The Observer today, there's an interesting piece about the complex and interwoven nature of racial identity.

From the piece headlined The genes that build America:

Last year, Professor Peter Fine at Florida Atlantic University had an idea for an art class. He would gather a group of students to produce work around their idea of their racial identity. But as part of the class he asked them to take a DNA test that would break down their racial background. His bet was that most of the class - of whom the majority saw themselves as whites of European descent - had no real idea who they were.

He was right. Of 13 students, only one turned out to be completely European. The rest displayed a mixture of European, Native American, African and Asian genes. The one black student turned out to be 21 per cent white. Fine himself - who admits to looking like a corn-fed stereotype of a white Midwesterner - discovered he was a quarter Native American. 'I honestly think these tests could have a large effect on American consciousness of who we are. If Americans recognise themselves as a mixed group of people, that could really change things,' he said.

Fine has a point. For centuries, America has been less a racial melting pot and more a stew, where different communities bump up against each other, but keep mostly to themselves. Yet, as millions of Americans take DNA tests, they are discovering a surprising truth: America's strict racial lines are, in fact, blurred.

[snip]

The great southern writer William Faulkner once wrote: 'The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past.' Nothing illustrates that more in America than the identity revolutions being inspired by genealogy and DNA research. They show that actions and people hidden in the past - even to the point of being encoded in someone's genes - can profoundly shape the present. Even change it.

The piece mentions the complexities of identity that touch leaders such as Al Sharpton and Barack Obama. As it says, the man who could be "America's first ever black president will be the direct descendant of white slave-owners."

Turning Vegas Upside Down

2007-07-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

If you have a chance, check out my piece on latimes.com. It's in the Travel section.

He Said, She Said on "I Do"

2007-07-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

This was published some time ago on Forbes.com, but it's still an interesting point-counterpoint on gender roles in marriage.

Point: Don't Marry Career Women
By Michael Noer
How do women, careers and marriage mix? Not well, say social scientists.

Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.

Counterpoint: Don't Marry A Lazy Man
By Elizabeth Corcoran
Studies aside, modern marriage is a two-way street. Men should own up to their responsibilities, too.

Girlfriends: a word of advice. Ask your man the following question: When was the last time you learned something useful, either at home or work?

Read the rest of both articles here.

Happy quatorze juillet!

2007-07-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

Today is July 14 (quatorze juillet). In France, it's called Fête nationale. In English, it's generally known as Bastille Day.

On this date in 1789, the French took one large step toward independence. After growing disenchantment with Louis XVI's monarchy, on July 14, 1789, several hundred Parisians marched to the Bastille Prison and killed the governor. This sparked the French Revolution, which brought about the end of the monarchy.

My father was of French descent and regularly donned his beret on Bastille Day. So, as a nod to my dad, I did wander through the L.A. area today with my beret.

Joyeux Jour de la Bastille, mes amis!

--liberte, egalite, fraternite

Do you remember Optimus Prime?

2007-07-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

I will be the first to admit that I'm a total geek when I want to be--and sometimes also when I don't.

Last night, I succumbed to the suggestions of my department's intern that I go see Transformers.

Let me tell you...IT WAS FREAKIN' RAD!!!

No, the story isn't gonna win any Oscars, nor will the acting. But, ya know, the effects well could get the Academy's attention.

Frankly, though, that's not the only reason to see a movie. For me, this movie was about transforming me back to that goofy girl who got a kick out of chilling with her then-closest friend's younger brother to watch this cool animated series after school. It made me that wide-eyed kid entranced by battles between the Decepticons and the Autobots, Megatron and Optimus Prime. I was again the kid who wanted to be first to see Tron, who dutifully watched another friend's big brother and his friends tear up the Space Invaders game at the pizza joint next to McDonald's.

To that end, the movie didn't disappoint. It was a reality-suspended, delightful jaunt back to a worry-free childhood, when all we had to worry about was whether the Autobots could kick Megatron's butt. (And who was really worried, right?)

C'mon, sing along: Transformers...more than meets the eyes...Transformers...robots in disguise!!!!

Check out this troubling version of the theme song by Smosh.

Did ya know...

2007-07-14T19:09:00.001-07:00

...that Australia used to have a policy, essentially, of enforced whiteness. Some dear friends of mine are visiting the folks down under and passed on this little bit of info. From Wikipedia:

The White Australia policy is a generic term used to describe a collection of historical legislation and policies, intended to restrict non-white immigration to Australia, and to promote European immigration, from 1901 to 1973. However, the Policy started unravelling some decades earlier than this, with reforms starting in the 1940s that encouraged non-British and non-white immigration. From 1973 onwards, the White Australia policy was for all practical purposes defunct, and in 1975 the Australian Government passed the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act which made racially-based selection criteria illegal.

The 1975 Racial Discrimination Act made the use of racial criteria for any official purpose illegal.

While traveling along that continent, here's a little bit of news from New Zealand. Apparently, in one publication, an "expert on intelligence" there is promoting the idea of discouraging (or maybe disabling?) the less educated from profuse procreation. The headline?: Put the pill in the tapwater--top prof

The Dating Race

2007-07-14T12:33:00.001-07:00

I am listening to the Mixed Chicks podcast. Their latest episode covers the topic of relationships with black men.

I wonder whether parentage colors how we see our mates and those to whom we are attracted.

The women who produce this podcast have racially white mothers and black fathers. My blend is the flipside. My mother is racially black, and my father was white.

Over the years, I have dated just about every race in some combination or another. But the reality is I have embraced the fact that I feel more comfortable with men from a certain experience--generally white men, or men who have lived in a certain socio-economic, generally suburban reality.

Dr. Freud might have had something to say about that.

Of course, the ladies mentioned with raw honesty feeling more comfortable in the presence of black men because they know they will be seen instantly as physically attractive. I can relate to that.

But on the flip side, subconsciously, I think I feel more comfortable being the "exotic" among non-blacks. In the past, I would feel self-conscious and exposed as different in the presence of black men. On a light and somewhat simplistic note to illustrate, with whites, I dance with abandon not caring whether I'm doing this move or that move properly, whether I'm bobbing my head on the up beat or the down beat. In a black dancing situation, I would rather watch or proceed with caution.

But truthfully, the dating situation whether white or black isn't that different. The expectation might actually be the same from black men as from those seeking the exotic. The difference, I guess, is that the non-black doesn't usually feel compelled to "teach" me how to be black or remind with some measure of scorn that something I have done is "white."

One of the women on the podcast said she isn't attracted to people who look mixed. I wonder about that. For me, I'm completely attracted (generally speaking) to multiracial men. Anyone who knows me knows that The Rock is the ultimate man for me. (Wowza!!! drooling...) Some of the men I have dated have been Japanese and white, Korean and white. The blend usually isn't relevant, but looking back, there's usually been a measure of white in there somewhere.

That said, oddly enough, I usually find light-skinned men with green eyes a bit sinister in appearance. Take Terence Howard. I fully accept him in the villain roles he plays, but his roles as hero or romantic lead are harder for me to take. (The same doesn't hold true for my acceptance of biracial women with those same features.)

It's interesting to explore the hangups of society and how they interact with our own individual associations and preferences.

The fun thing about relationships is that, truly, there is no requirement for equal opportunity. It is an area that is incredibly personal and one in which prejudice (as in prejudging) and preference, I believe, are fully appropriate.

Left in Limbo Without a Stick--or Chair

2007-07-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

As I blogged about earlier, I recently finished a trip to Jamaica with my elderly mother--she hit me in the leg with her cane for writing that she's elderly. She's in her 70's, is diabetic and had knee replacement and hip replacement surgery all in the last 6 months. So she's not running 100 meter dashes or playing hopscotch these days.

We had AAA book the trip, and they confirmed wheelchair service with American Airlines throughout the trip. All was fine except when we landed back in the U.S. at Miami. We had yet to travel through immigration. Mom had to hobble off the plane, like the other 2 or 3 disabled passengers. The desk jockey there, a bit put out that folks were asking him anything, claimed wheelchairs were coming and asked the elderly and injured to hobble on past the glass door just beyond the A5 International gate. As soon as the last one limped by, the man sealed the glass door, leaving us somewhere in between with no one attending to us.

On the other side of the glass were passengers "in the U.S." watching us sit and wait. Eventually two chairs came for the other people, leaving us to fend most literally for ourselves. After about 15 minutes of waiting for the next wave of wheelchairs supposedly coming, I pressed my lips up to the split in the door and shouted over to "America" that we were American Airlines passengers who had been abandoned. We needed a wheelchair, and one was sitting on the other side of the glass--across the border, if you will. The AA agent on the other side of the glass about 30 feet away turned and looked at me, then walked to the other side of the barrier. I guess my California accent was too foreign for her to understand.

By this time, I'm flapping about feeling a bit like a moth trapped in a glass jar. I gestured wheels and chair to the passengers across the glass border, and I put my hands in a pleading prayer position to get them to ask the male agent facing them to just open the doors and let us use the chair not 5 feet away.

Finally, he sealed the glass doors to the U.S., opened the doors to our nationless purgatory, passed us the chair and quickly sealed back the border.

Wheels at last!

Of course, by this time, we had been on the ground for about 45 minutes to an hour, our luggage seemingly neglected and abandoned as we were by our airline, the one with which we had "confirmed" wheelchair service. As I breathlessly wheeled her, the walker and our 4 pieces of hand luggage up to the carousel, they were just beginning to wheel our overstuffed suitcases away as suspiciously remaining.

Still I couldn't get anyone from AA to help push my mom as I stumbled with the stuff. I had to stack it high up on her healing hips and race across what has to be the country's largest expanse of an airport. What had been a two-hour layover was transformed into a high-speed chair race as we completed the process of entering the states, going through customs, rechecking bags, going back through security--this time a clumsy effort as I had to wheel her over to be hand checked and oversee the scanning of our belongings and get scanned myself. Without stopping even for a sip of water, we made it to our gate just as they were preboarding the flight.

So much for the friendly skies. Next time, I'm going on Air Jamaica.

Definition of a Chain (Letter) Gang

2007-07-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

You cannot trust everything you read online. Provocative forwarded emails gain momentum, get posted on blogs and perpetuate themselves. Just because you find it in a Google or Yahoo search doesn't make it factual or accurate. I just received a forwarded email from my mom about how NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume recently announced the redefinition of the word nigger. Here's the text of the email, which has also made its way onto many, many blogs celebrating the news:

NAACP wins on "nigger" in dictionary. A Small Victory...A Giant Step (Thanks NAACP)!! There has been a change in Webster's Dictionary. Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recently gave a speech at Virginia Tech Everyone was informed that a landmark decision was made last week with the people at Merriam-Webster Dictionary. They have recognized the error of their ways. So, beginning with the next edition, the word nigger will no longer be synonymous with African-Americans. It shall be duly noted that it's a racial slur and not what African-Americans themselves are. Along with this, all racial and religious slurs will finally be indicated for what they really are - cruel and evil slurs too often used to degrade people.

Yes, my 10th edition Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary published in 1995 does define nigger as a black person. But there's a slight problem with this email flying around cyberspace. Mfume left that post in 2004. Webster's online dictionary offers the altered dictionary definition. Plus, if you think about something so important--and if it were so recent--don't you think we'd see NAACP representatives all over the newsy talk shows? It would be in the paper, on TV, not just floating around in an email, whose source is unidentifiable. No story in NYT, LAT or WashPost. Nothing on CNN, MSNBC or Fox. And, more importantly, nothing on the NAACP website. This appears nowhere in press releases going back from now to 2005. It may be good news, but it's not new. Well, there is a mention of the offending word, but what's on the NAACP website is an event planned for Monday, July 9. The group is planning a mock funeral, in hopes of burying the word during its 98th Annual National Convention in Detroit.

I'm Baaaack

2007-07-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

One of the resolutions I came to while in Kingston was that I'd return to my core. That includes returning to my lifelong commitment to exercise. The last 6 months have been a major departure from everything I have held important. To that end, tomorrow I start running again. I'm aiming to mark my 35th birthday (next year) with some athletic feat. So the training starts with 2 miles or cross training tomorrow. I found a cool little website called MapMyRun.com, where folks have posted possible runs in my 'hood. I think I might try this one in the near future:

Rum Raisin'

2007-06-29T22:28:00.001-07:00

Among the highlights of our Jamaica trip was a day trip to the parish of St. Elizabeth. This just happens to be the home of the Appleton estate. The property extends to include 12,000 acres of cane. After paying $975 (in Jamaican dollars), tour goers are treated to a special blend of rum punch. We were told immediately it wasn't like the regular rum punch, which follows the recipe of "1 of sour, 2 of sweet, 3 of strong, 4 of weak." Our tour guide said there was nothing weak in this blend, which used four different types of Appleton rum. And truly, he wasn't kidding about nothing weak. Whew! So, off I stumbled with my sister-cousins Gillian and Jennifer, giddy and ready to learn the lore of how this chest-warming treat is concocted. First, we met a true ass. His name: Paz. As our tour guide talks, a lazy donkey with a celebrity attitude (you could just see it in the way he lumbered) comes out and allows himself to be attached to an antiquated contraption once used to extract the juice from the sugar cane. After learning the way it was done before everything was mechanized, we move from past to present. And the present was strong with a stink of what to me was reminiscent of aged, potent green olives--a soured too-sweet smell that hung in the air. We were permitted to enter the distillery--but no cameras allowed. They use four very large containers in their pot still process. (While in there, we likely sweated out whatever alcohol remained in our systems. I was sweating so profusely that I could have held my cup under my chin and enjoyed another drink of rum.) It is in this process that the liquid goes from 8% alcohol to 90%, we were told. It moves from kettle to the first reservoir then to the second reservoir and finally to the condenser. The final product there was likened to moonshine or rocket fuel. Next we visited the aging house, which we were told was the smallest of the 15 on the island. Its capacity is 8,426, but currently held about 7,500. The others have a capacity of over 31,000 barrels. As the rum ages, it grows darker. The oldest rum in the room, our guide said, was from 1983. The barrels that hold the rum are made of imported white oak. The youngest is in for a minimum of 3 years and the oldest a maximum of 30 years. (Our guide said that beyond 30 years there isn't anything left in the barrel.) After having been in the sauna that is the distillery, I found the aging house a welcome contrast. While there was no fan or cooling system, the room was a respite from the humidity outside. It was cooled not by AC but by RC, our guide said: Rum conditioning. The sultry air speeds the aging process, called "tropical aging." Our guide told us that it would take 63 years elsewhere to get the same flavor as 21 years in Jamaica. True? Who knows. What I do know is this. The rum that is sold in Jamaica is definitely stronger. It's 43% alcohol there but is exported with 40% alcohol, to conform to international standards. The byproduct of this process is molasses--which we got to taste. Once you get past the initial over-sugary taste, it's quite yummy! But the best part was the open-bar taste test of 13 different rum products made by Appleton. They were: 1. Appleton Special (aged 3-7 years) 2. Appleton Estate V/X (5-10 years) 3. Appleton White/Genesis 4. Finzi 5. Overproof (not blended, 126 proof and 63% alcohol) 6. Cocomania (40% alcohol and one of my new favorites) 7. Rum Cream 8. Banana Cream 9. Coconut Cream 10. Rum & Raisin Cream 11. Coffee Cream 12. Ramona (very popular among the group) 13. Blue Mountain Mist (31% alcohol and a new favorite) Boy, did we girls have fun. We got to try different combinations, such as Coco Mania with Ting or Blue Mountain Mist with Blue Mountain coffee or Mud Slide and Banana Cream. (The company website also has a drink recipe generator!) Here's a glimpse at my cell phone-shot video of the experience.

Loving Decision Event

2007-06-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

Light-skinned-ed Girl has a nice personal recap of the Loving Decision conference in Chicago. And My American Melting Pot offers memories of the experience as well. I'm hoping that next year, I will actually be able to take my mom and some of my best friends, who themselves are in interracial relationships with biracial/bicultural babies. Locally, there's a BBQ in honor of the Loving decision's 40th anniversary at Dockweiler beach, sponsored by Multiracial Americans of Southern California. Here are the details:

Date: June 30 Time: 3-8p.m. Place: Dockweiler Beach 2000 Vista del Mar, Playa del Rey, CA, 90296 in front of the RV Park (call 818-481-4516 for exact location)

Family Reunion

2007-06-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

So it's been about a month since I've written. A lot has happened in those four weeks. My mom and I took a little adventure to Kingston, Jamaica, for a family reunion of sorts. A cousin marked her 80th birthday, and everyone turned out from all corners of the world--parts of Africa, Britain, all over the U.S. (California, Texas, NY, Connecticut and Florida). Her husband, Lloyd, was Mom's first cousin. All of the members of the Goldson children of Alma Campbell have passed. Louis, the last remaining Goldson of that generation, passed away earlier this year. My mom is the last living decendent of the three Campbell sisters--the women at the center of the family. From them were born the Wades, Goldsons, Hayles, Maltais. So when it turned out that the flights wouldn't accommodate my wishes to pass through Chicago to pop in to the Loving Decision Conference, while I was quite bitter, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to connect with my family--this time for something other than funeral. This vacation was the best thing that could have happened in my life.

What a Boob...

2007-05-30T23:51:00.001-07:00

I just went surfing across the blogosphere at one of my fav stops. I always like to snoop in on what Akshun J has to say. Monday's offering? Boobs--yes, you read right. Boobs! I've always known he was a breast man, but here he affirms he's a fan and proponent of free-range breast. Check it out. Best piece of advice from his post? "The reason I LOVE boobs is that no two are the same. Quit trying to fit someone's idea of beauty and be happy with what you've got."

Choose Your Words Carefully

2007-05-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

"Language exerts a hidden power, like a moon on the tides." That's how American writer Rita Mae Brown characterized the impact of words. Lest any of us unwittingly enunciate a tidal wave, I feel compelled to warn you: Your words have power. Words are more than syllables smashed together strategically to convey a thought. In fact, in the pre-natal era of this nascent country, the "birth coaches," our forefathers, so respected and valued the import and impact of words they drew up an amendment protecting the freedom of expression. This, in a document outlining the rights, privileges and responsibilities of the citizenry--comprising mere words, right? Words have power. Words can uplift--"I have a dream." They can oppress--"how many times do I have to ask you to take out the trash?" They can affirm and ensure humanity--"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." Or they can ensnare and imprison--"Guilty." Words have power. It is from the innocence of children that we can observe the miracle of language and expression. Have you ever watched a child muster the ability to transition from having sound dribble from his lips to coherently combining sounds into word, effectively communicating. Or have you comforted a disconsolate child with gentle, assuring phrases? Your words have power. Words can heal or harm. I recall some experiences from my lifetime on both ends of the spectrum. The recent challenges my mother endured with me by her side have been important lessons. She had two surgeries--one planned and one unplanned. After the first one, I was a good cheerleader, or at least a decent one. I was able to easily chirp out genuine encouraging, supportive and inspirational phrases to help her find her footing and her confidence after knee-replacement. Two months later when she fell, breaking her hip, my cheerleading routines were harder to perform. This second time, the words that spilled from my lips were less encouraging. "I hate my life." "This will never end." "You will need me here for the rest of my life." The more I spewed, despite her healing bones, the more I broke her spirit. My words had power. After seeing her body and confidence bend with every negative utterance, I tried to rein in my honesty and adjust the course of my perspective--and lose the self-pity routine on the way. A few supportive words, a positive attitude bolstered by the language, helped to make some small steps toward healing her battered confidence--and my beleaguered spirit with it. Think about harsh words someone used with you--and the indelible mark it left on your psyche . Think about the harsh words you might have used on someone else. Your words have power. Back in 1990, the year I graduated from high school, I traveled with a group of 30 students from along the Pacific Coast throughout Europe. For some of us, this was our first trip sans serious chaperon. Before we left American shores, the hundreds of us participating in the People to People Student Ambassador program were given a pep talk. From that talk, I remember 4 words: Don't be a vulture. After we teens finished snickering about the imagery, the words sunk in. Don't circle or lie in wait for the vulnerable, only to use words to pick at them. Don't be a vulture. That became my call to action. From that, I decided to instead be a dove. Find a way to say at least one kind thing to every person in my group every day. By using kind words to uplift, I became a kinder person. It was transformative. Although the adage says that actions speak louder than words. That may be so, but words inspire action. Your words have power. Remember, that with power comes responsibility. Embrace and accept the responsibility. What you say also says something about you--not just the meaning you intend to convey. So, as parents tell their children, use your words. And choose your words carefully.

--Inspired by my Toastmasters speech, completing Competent Communicator manual

In the Mix (5/20)

2007-05-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Where's Soledad:JSOnline.com--Anchor's away. She and Miles O'Brien, co-anchors of CNN's 'American Morning' show, were removed and replaced in April by the too-pretty John Roberts and newcomer Kiran Chetry. And while my mom is thrilled not to have a side of Soledad with her morning cuppa, she has wondered where she was hiding. But don't fret. CNN's own rainbow-coalition-wrapped-in-one isn't going anywhere. She tells Tim Cuprisin: "They re-upped me and gave me a promotion." Public Works: Baltimore Messenger.com--Eighth-grader Maya Wilson will be on the bus. Well, her poetry will be literally on the bus. With her poem, "Mulatto Girl," she was among 14 winners of Baltimore MTA's "Words on Wheels" contest. This program exhibits the works of Baltimore City junior high students on posters, designed by Maryland college of Art students, on all MTA vehicles. Mocha Moms: NPR.org-- In this week's Mocha Moms, three white women discuss their experiences mothering sons of color. They talk candidly about the joys and the challenges. More Minorities: FoxNews.com and MSNBC.com--A new analysis of Census Bureau data finds that America is becoming more diverse, with minorities topping 100 million for the first time in 2006. That means about one in three Americans was a minority last year. Fewer Multiracial: USAToday.com--The share of Americans who identify themselves as multiracial has shrunk this decade, an unexpected trend in an increasingly diverse nation. FOIA Reform: I came across a letter that was sent to Senators Reid and McConnell in support of the OPEN Government Act of 2007. This is a bill that has been put on the schedule for Senate debate. There is a long list of organizations including the Society of Professional Journalists, SPCA, ACLU, Republican Liberty Caucus, League of Women Voters and Center for Energy Research that support it. The bill is an attempt to strengthen section 552 of title 5, United States Code, or Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), which is an invaluable tool for journalists and others to peel back the curtains on what's really happening in government. It's worth reading up on.

Dear Senator Reid and Senator McConnell: We write on behalf of the undersigned group of 100 business, public interest, and historical groups and associations to endorse the OPEN Government Act of 2007 (S. 849), as introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator John Cornyn.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is the public’s most significant tool for ensuring integrity and accountability from the federal government. Unfortunately, FOIA’s promise of ensuring an open and accountable government has been seriously undermined by the excessive processing delays that FOIA requesters face across the government. The OPEN Government Act would:
• Close loopholes in FOIA; • Help the public get timely responses to FOIA requests; and • Improve agency accountability and require better management of FOIA programs.

Chocolate Dips

2007-05-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

So it appears DC isn't Chocolate City anymore. It has sprinkles now. The WashPost reports that census estimates show the district's longtime designation as a majority-black city is waning. The numbers of non-Hispanic white residents have risen and the numbers of black residents have decreased. The story attributes the demographic shift to anecdotal evidence of the draw of affordable housing in these areas.

The impact on the city's racial makeup is noticeable. In 2000, blacks made up 60 percent of the District's population. By 2006, that figure was 55 percent.
If the trends continue, the city will almost certainly cease to be majority black by 2020, said Robert E. Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "It will wind up more like a Los Angeles or a New York, with no clear majority."

Just Say Yes

2007-05-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

You know, I've worked for the same company for 11 years this month. And in those 11 years, only once before had I made a decision about the course of my career. In 1996, I decided to say yes to entering a program, an opportunity I couldn't afford to pass up. From that decision has come an amazing journey, an adventure in serendipity. I applied for a job I didn't know existed and didn't quite understand, and came to excel at it, by some measures. Five years after I was hired into permanent full-time status, I was off again on another adventure. This one was completely uncharted. Multimedia wasn't an area newspapers were known for. I remember weeping inexplicably at the cake-and-punch gathering thrown by my department, a group of seasoned, hardened journalists, each struck with a perplexed visage, as if they were watching a squirrel turn into a chicken. (I was moving about a yard, but it turned out to be a world away.) Throughout the past five years, I've gotten to pioneer many efforts in the multimedia department--and in the past 2 years live through three different administrations. The one frustration I've experienced is that I stopped growing professionally about 4 years ago. There was nowhere to go, except to bang my head on the wall, repeatedly, of course at varying intensity. But things have changed. Opportunities opened up. What's different now from times past is that this was a decision I had to make--to go or not to go. Every other work move was decided by someone higher up than I was. After I initially decided to move to Long Island, NY, from my cozy and crazy life in the Palm Springs, Calif., area, my contributions as a "decider" ended. It was decided by a committee that I should return to Los Angeles for the next phase of the training program for which I went to NY. It was decided that I should start in Orange County and then move to the downtown LA office after 9 months. It was decided that I should be hired as a permanent full-time employee after a month there. It was decided I should become a radio producer for the section on top of my full-time gig. (And after I nearly went wiggy from working 6 days a week--12 hours on 5 of them--it was decided I should get a more regular schedule again.) Along the way, I did get to assert preferences occasionally. But all the doozies went to someone else. So when faced with a large decision about an opportunity that was quite different from my current gig, I looked, pleaded, for someone who could just tell me what to do. I always joke that I don't make decisions over the weekend--a coy line I use on beaus to encourage them to take the lead while dating me. However, I found my line not to be just a line. I don't make decisions. So I stalled, I pondered, I weighed. I sought counsel from everyone I ever dated (some of my most trusted advisers, actually), good friends, random people on the train, my personal trainer, the aesthetician between wax applications, an elderly Armenian man in the park, some gal I pulled up next to at a light. You get the idea. And from that I had polled enough people to give me a majority vote. And then I thought, there must be something I'm missing. Things aren't ever this perfect. This position offered everything but one point of what I had been looking for in a job at this point in my career. Also at this time in the industry in general and in the building in particular, my indecision, I thought, might have been blocking someone else more desperate for a landing than I from stepping into something they actively sought. I mean, after all, I just answered my phone--I didn't go looking for the opportunity. (How could I? I didn't even know it existed for me.) Then it struck me as I drove home from a class in Westwood a week ago. I have begged and begged and begged for change. I have outlined in my heart very specifically what I wanted, what I thought I needed. So for me to turn my back on this opportunity would be the most inappropriate, ungrateful and ridiculous reaction I could possibly come up with. So, I pulled out the courage from the bottom of my nailless toes and dragged it up past my lily liver and oversized gutless insides to muster the strength to form the only word that should have come from my mouth. I said yes to opportunity, yes to the chance to succeed, yes to an undefined future, yes to an unguided path. How wonderfully unsettling. Who wants to be settled anyway. I'll leave that for sediment. I'd rather be stirred.

History In the Mix

2007-05-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

What a terrific undertaking over at Light-skinned-ed Girl's blog. She's declared May a month to explore the contributions of multi-racial/multi-cultural Americans. It's worth popping in there. She writes:

It is incredibly important to recognize that multiracial people have a history. Multiracialism and multiculturalism may be relatively newly coined words for our country, but they are not new realities.
Like Black History Month, Mixed Race People History Month is designed to educate the public about the contributions of mixed race people. We are not tragic mulattoes. We are part of the vital fabric of America's history (both black and white).

So far, she's touched on Jules Lion, Anastacia and Philippa Schuyler.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage...

2007-05-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

The last time I wrote, I was off to my buddy Phil's wedding. I had expected to see lots of influential desert people, to schmooze with old schoolmates from elementary school, to eat (well) in the open air of a citrus orchard and to dance with my date Brian. I expected to cry--I always blubber at weddings. I even expected to see someone I used to date--with someone else. What I didn't expect was how I'd feel. That was most unsettling. In fact, even though I didn't shed a tear, I've been in mourning since the wedding. The mourning comes in as the reality seeped in. Our friendship has forever changed. He isn't Phil anymore. He's Phil-and-Lisa. My friend whom I've known since second grade is no longer "he"; he is "we." Now don't get me wrong. I'm so truly happy for my good friend's happiness. For him to want to marry this woman means she is so very special. He cares very much for her and went to great lengths to make his proposal to her beyond memorable. (Trust me, I wept when he told me.) While I will miss my buddy, the thing I noticed at the reception was that my friend had become a man--not a 30-something, a guy, my pal. He grew into his role as Mr. to her Mrs.

Cinco de Mayo

2007-05-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

Ole! I'm off to a my dear friend Phil's wedding. It's almost unbelievable. I'm really pleased for him and Lisa. My best boy friend agreed to take me, so I'll get to wear my brand new heels. (He's a strapping 6'6" tall. Really a wall of man.) It should be nice to see old friends from elementary school. I love weddings. Everybody gets to dress up and have a good, acceptable public weeping. It's a time of celebrated innocent hope. Often as the tallest single person shoved onto the dance floor, I'll be sure to keep my hands down so I don't stand out as a must-hit target, meanwhile aiming not to get bonked by that flying symbol of that hope: the bouquet.

May Day in L.A.

2007-05-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at the May Day march through downtown Los Angeles today, from latimes.com. I work downtown. Last year, we were totally blocked in our building by hundreds of thousands of marchers. This year, estimates put the crowd at about 25,000 at its height--although the march started out with very thin numbers, like about 2,500 at 10 a.m. Click here for the video.

Good Times

2007-04-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful weekend! Mom came out to L.A. for a visit, and we hit the Book Prizes at UCLA. It's always a treat to be among the literate and literary at least for an evening. My mom was a bit taken with Sean Penn (whom she calls excessively talented and pretty-ugly). Saturday morning, it was off to the mall for an afternoon of beauty. I bought her a whole new makeup set, you know, something that actually matches her skin tone. While there, we encountered a tanned, fresh-faced man who was a little too intrigued by my mom. As he was testing various lipstick colors on his hand, he'd look back at Mom, who was sitting behind him. I asked whether he had Viva Glam; he did. "What color are you wearing?" he asked Mom. As it turned out, he was reflecting on having worked with Ella Fitzgerald as her makeup artist. I got an eyebrow wax while she was getting her nails done. (It's never reassuring to hear your aesthetist cackle as she rips hair and flesh from your face.) Just an overall nice weekend.

South L.A. Revival Stuck

2007-04-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

As I wrote about earlier, a lot of reflecting is being done about the progress of South Los Angeles 15 years since the riots, which has been deemed slow at best. Here's a piece from LAT's

Latinos are a growing presence in a community that was once the center of African American life. Many middle-class black and Latino families have moved out of the area for better schools and safer streets. Those remaining are disproportionately poorer and have fewer job skills. [snip] By almost any economic measure, South Los Angeles has lost ground compared with the city and county. The area, bordered roughly by the Santa Monica and Century freeways between Alameda Boulevard and west to the city limits, grew jobs by only 0.4% from 1993 to 2005, versus 24.6% growth for L.A. County as a whole, according to the state Employment Development Department. The area's average wage grew 21.3% in that period, versus 47.3% for the county. Grandiose plans to revive the community as a hub for manufacturing and other service-sector industries are largely unrealized. With so few jobs in the area, many residents commute to low-paying service jobs as maids in airport-area hotels, as day laborers on the Westside or as security guards.

Do you remember how things were 15 years ago in L.A.?

The Things You Learn at the Theater...

2007-04-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

Mom and I happened into some tickets to a preview performance of "Loot" at A Noise Within in Glendale. Included in the program was a neat little cheat sheet on the Queen's English. Here's a little bit of what was on it:

bird: mildly offensive term for a woman
knocked us up: woke us up
piss-taking: attempts to mock, to deflate
put them in the club: make them pregnant
take the mickey: tease, make fun of

Mixed Bytes

2007-04-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Where are the nation's 7 million multiracial people?

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Although almost 7 million people identified themselves as multiracial in the 2000 U.S. census, which was the first year that more than one race could be indicated in the census, this population is virtually ignored in all aspects of society. [snip] I believe our reluctance to acknowledge that there is a growing number of multiracial people is due to our reliance on stereotypes to make snap judgments about people. We don't feel comfortable not knowing exactly how to categorize people.

What's in a Name

2007-04-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

As Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet: That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet. That's certainly true of many things. But when it comes to identity--racial and ethnic--some names really stink. Across the blogosphere at Light-skinned-ed Girl, the topic of how multiracial folks identify themselves has been broached. The timing is impeccable. It was something I had been ruminating on for a bit. Just yesterday, a guy at work asked, "What are you? I mean what else are you other than black?" (He himself was from Belize and appeared to be a blend.) The "what are you" question is one that can be a loaded one, used as a weapon in offense against the person asked or in defense of the inquirer. There are so many issues tied to identity. People need boxes to mentally check to be able to properly process one another. There's the perceived politics of it as well. Growing up, I heard them all, or at least many of them. I was called "half-breed," "mixed," "mixed up," "woolly lamb" (my art teacher; don't ask), zebra," "Oreo," "white girl," "ebony&ivory," "black but don't know it," "pinky" (somewhat lovingly by black relatives), "light-skinned-ed with good hair," "Creole," "cafe au lait" (that's coffee with cream, for our non-Francophones), and, following on the coffee theme, "half and half." Then there's the one I absolutely abhor: "Mulatto." This word sends shudders down my spine. Now, some of this I have come to embrace with humor. For whatever reason, I have a special fondness for Oreo anything (ice cream, cake, you name it). And I began collecting zebra knick-knacks here and there, as my personal inside joke (which I've now shared with the world). Since it's my prerogative as Mr. Bobby Brown says, I have different answers depending on who's asking and my mood. Sometimes, I'll answer in the specific: black and white. Other times, I'll answer about my parents. But more often than not, these days, I say I'm biracial or bicultural, which actually are different things, but both are true for me. My mother is a black Jamaican and my father a white French-Canadian American--thus two races (black and white) and two cultures (Jamaican and American). Or there's the version a friend in high school came up with: FrenchJamaiDian American. That's a significant enough distinction to me because I was raised under heavy influence from my mother who did not grow up black in this country--as a minority. She grew up as part of the majority culture in a small then-British country. Trust me, that does color one's view. (For the record, when I write distinction, I mean it in the sense of a different experience, not a better one.) If folks ask more, again, it depends on how I assess the source of curiosity. Frankly, I'd rather just be called by my name and call it a day.

David Duke on VTech

2007-04-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I even accidentally stumbled into this briar patch of cyberspace, but there I landed. David Duke, yes THE David Duke, weighs in on the "true" problems that led to Cho shooting up the Virginia Tech campus. (I'm not keen on the idea of directly driving any traffic to his site, so sorry no link here.)

Although the multiculturalists preach incessantly about the enrichment and love that will emerge from a multiracial society, in reality ethnic conflict has been the greatest source of violence, civil and international war, and hatred than any other single cause on earth. Multiracialism and multiculturalism, despite the media poster depictions of light and dark hands interlocked in friendship and love, generates incredible amounts of alienation, frustration, hatred and yes, violence. Nations composed of people that are similar to each other in culture, religion, shared history, and even in personality and genetic traits, tend to be more stable, the more adjusted and comfortable, less alienated in a nation that better fits their unique character.
Increasing numbers of alienated people are like explosives waiting for someone to light their fuse. Seung Cho’s fuse was lit by minority attitudes that legitimize hatred, even violence against America and ultimately the White people who built it. At Virginia Tech and every other university in the United States there is an incessant mantra complaining of “White privilege” and “White racism.” Check out the blogs and the statements of major organizations on almost any American campus. Any individual fault, shortcoming, or even crime is laid at the doorstep of White people.

As the fine writer, Steve Sailor wrote in recounting the words of an anonymous commentator, “I wonder how many times Cho heard the phrase ‘white privilege’ while he was in college?”

In fact, Cho’s presence at Virginia Tech is proof that there is no longer any “White privilege” in America. Cho was an English major at VT and one only has to read his papers to quickly realize that his talents in the English language were appalling poor. Does anyone not believe that better-qualified European American students would have more competently filled his chair in the English classes he took? In fact, Virginia Tech and all major universities in the United States have programs that blatantly discriminate against European Americans in admissions, graduate programs, and in the hiring of teachers and professors. Every White college graduate in English knows of the discrimination existing in graduate programs, and once the White student achieves a PhD he faces an uphill battle in finding a professorship. The great majority of universities are seeking to improve their minority teacher ratio. This quest for increased minority faculty will often count for more than the better grades and evaluations of White students and the fact that many of them come from higher-rated academic institutions.

Wow, I didn't think it was possible to twist a tragedy of this magnitude into an origami-like tool for such a race-based nationalist agenda. I pondered not giving this thinking any play, since I am furthering its reach by featuring it in any way. However, the reality is that it's out there, it's reaching someone, and our turning a blind eye to it doesn't make it go away. All of us, whether we agree or not with this, need to know this position does exist.

Mixed Bytes

2007-04-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

SoCal Lawmaker Eyes Cutting Cherokee Funding Over Ex-Slave Vote

A black congresswoman is seeking to cut off funding for the Cherokee Nation after the tribe's recent vote to revoke citizenship of slave descendants.

Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., said the Bush administration has dragged its feet after the March 3 tribal referendum, which removed an estimated 2,800 black slave descendants from tribal rolls.

The tribe insists that the vote last month had nothing to do with race. But Watson and about two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to the Interior Department last month expressing outrage over the vote and asking how the government could intervene. (more)

In the Hips and On the Lips

2007-04-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting pairing--almost indecipherably similar--of Beyonce and Shakira in this video for "Beautiful Liar." (For those using FeedBlitz, you might have to click into Twisted Curlz to see the video.) Yes, they are incredibly gorgeous and captivating. I wonder, though, what they are actually selling. OK, I don't wonder. It's practically girl-on-girl porn. Check it out for yourself:

He Had Me Until--HELLO!?!

2007-04-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

OK, I was reading Dispatches From the Hogtown Front, a blog touted as being " devoted to examining how immigration and multiculturalism are changing Toronto and Canada." This writer, Hyphenated Canadian, was making an interesting point about history as, well, propaganda--or really an assimilation tool. He writes:

Education, including the teaching of history, has historically been one of the ways nation-states have promoted a sense of patriotism and shared identity among their citizens. I believe a shared sense of national identity is essential to democracy.

He asserts that Europeans becoming American couldn't do so by learning about Africans, Mexicans or Indians. Interesting theory, right? The piece talks about schooling being the indoctrination of children into American culture, requiring them to pledge allegiance--an act, I'd assert, that Americans in general eschew and condemn in other countries and cultures. As he writes, "Every nation gives its children a national education." True enough. Here's where I went "Schwa?"

This history served the country well, so long as the population was overwhelmingly white, and the two traditional minorities — blacks and Indians — did not have voices. All this changed, beginning in the 1960s. The civil rights movement gave voices to blacks and Indians, and changes in immigration laws brought a massive influx of non-whites. It was the end of a certain kind of America.

Not at all untrue. But is that such a bad thing? This multicultural experiment called America is unlike many, if not most, practically homogeneous cultures and nations. Is that "certain kind of America" something we should romanticize or lament losing? Wasn't that certain kind of America one in which women were relegated to a lesser role, one in which human beings from certain places not treated as human? Are these "American values" worth spreading? And isn't that a different America from the one being created today? History is organic. We're always adding to it--we're living today the future of the past and tomorrow's history. So does it not make sense that as our story is being written that history reflect the change in plot line?

Stoned for Forbidden Love Affair

2007-04-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

On latimes.com tonight, by Tina Susman:

A forbidden love affair that ended with a young woman being stoned to death led to more bloodshed Sunday when gunmen dragged 21 members of a religious minority off a bus and shot them dead, Iraqi police and witnesses said [snip] Police and residents of Bashiqa, where most of the victims lived, linked the attack to the stoning death there this month of a Yazidi woman. She was slain by fellow Yazidis angry over her conversion to Islam and love affair with a Sunni man.

Talking like a white girl...

2007-04-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

In Sunday's Chicago Tribune, Michelle Obama addresses, among other things, the question of black authenticity.

"I heard that growing up, 'You talk like a white girl,'" Obama told the Tribune on Friday in her first solo interview since her husband announced his candidacy for president in February. "There isn't one black person who doesn't understand that dynamic. That debate is about the pain that we still struggle with in this country, and Barack knows that more than anyone.
"One of the things I hope happens through our involvement in this campaign is that this country and this world sees yet another image of what it means to be black."

It was listed at Bossip.com as the quote of the day. The comment string attached to that post is an interesting conversation. There is a mention of trying to assimilate. Such assimilation isn't always about blacks trying to "sound white," or even whites trying to "sound black," for that matter. In some regards, it can be blacks trying to "sound black" to help put in place a protective mask, as it was in my case. For a while, anyway.

Mixed Bytes

2007-04-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

Around the web:

Looks can be deceiving: Montgomery Blair High's online student newspaper touches on issues faced by its multiracial students, particularly those who appear different from the classifications they choose:

Psychologists agree that racial stereotypes can profoundly inform human behavior. "To a large extent, other people do define you," says Belinda Tucker, a social psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "How you look definitely affects how other people treat you, and therefore your identity." Because appearance plays such an important role in contributing to how people are categorized by their peers, mixed-race individuals who are mistaken for white encounter issues all their own.

Picking Fights: Larry Elder writes in the OC Register that the firing of Don Imus is an example of hypocrisy and selective outrage related to race.

Studying Multiracial Students: This article attempts to guide faculty in assisting students with multiple heritages.

Given the wide range of experiences multiracial students have, it is important to avoid lumping the needs of all multiracial students together.

FYI: Here's a portion of a recent press release going around L.A.

On Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 12:00 noon at the Los Angeles Sentinel, a
prominent diverse  group of women representing, political, social,
cultural and economic positions including elected officials, entrepreneurs, and
educators will come together in solidarity to call attention to the
recent attack on Black women.

This gathering is a rebirthing and a wake up call to women around the
country reaffirming and reclaiming the respect and definition of who we
truly are.

Check the link above for more info.