Lucidly Dreaming (Part II)

(You'll either want to start with Part I or just revel in the lost, confused feeling. Totally your choice.)

I've never figured out the why, who, or anything else about the Violent Bad Guy dreams. I can never see the face. There are no features, just dark, like a shadow, like just nothing there. He's big. Deliberate. He never speaks. Like when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come won't say shit to Ebenezer Scrooge. Silent, scary motherfucker. He chases me (of course he does), and I can't run or scream. I mean, I try, but my legs are congealed oatmeal, they just won't work, and I fall down and my screams come out with all the force of a weak kitten, despite practically herniating my diaphragm with the effort. He doesn't hurry. He doesn't have to. He knows I'm not really going anywhere, even while I claw at the grass and scream my nonfunctional throat raw. The thrill is in the chase, and he likes it nice and slow. It's terrifying. Pins-and-needly prickling in my bowels, my organs go slack, like they're going to slip out of me.  The grass comes out by the roots in my hands, and my feet keep slipping. My muscles won't fucking work, and he's coming.

Could it be any more "classic nightmare" here? The only thing I'm missing is an escape route through my school locker where I can't remember the combination.

He never actually catches me, though. I wake up. Every time. Which tells me that shit must be scarier to the lizard part of my brain than splatting onto the concrete was in the falling dreams.

The Violent Bad Guy dreams would come maybe a couple of times a year. I could never tie them to any real-life event or person. I mean, I had a pretty idyllic childhood. My biggest trauma was probably when that deranged German Shepherd tried to rip my face off but had to settle for a goodly chunk of my arm when I instinctively blocked my face with it. Pretty interesting, having the deep tissues of my arm hanging out there on display, but nothing some stitches and a good plastic surgeon couldn't fix. I never had bad dreams about it, though, and besides, Violent Bad Guy was a two-legged stalker, not a berserker dog. Other than that, my most tortuous ordeals were mowing the lawn, toting firewood up the hill in the snow, and wailing tragically when my dad unplugged the phone without warning during my Very Important Conversations. He also made these annoying kissing sounds when I was talking to my boyfriend. Even so, not really the stuff of nightmares.

So fast forward a couple of decades and change, from the nearly forgotten falling dreams to me closing in on thirty, still occasionally dream-fleeing Violent Bad Guy, but not giving it much thought. One day, in a rare conversation on the subject, someone asked if I'd ever considered lucid dreaming. I had to ask what that was. "Pfft, oh, that's some bullshit," I said. "Please. Like I'm going to magically be able to run now because I decide to. Gee, great idea, why didn't I think of that? Sure, okay: I decide I can run now. Poof!" My friend opined that maybe it wasn't about running. Maybe I should consider confronting Violent Bad Guy. Ask him what he wanted with me and who he was.

And I freaked the fuck out.

I did not want to know who Violent Bad Guy was, what he wanted with me, or anything else about his creepmeister ass. I mean, do you really want to know Jeffrey Dahmer's motivations when he comes a-calling? No, you just want to get the fuck away from his ass. You're not going to ask him to tea for a nice chat, you're going to run, Forrest, motherfucking run. Or at least claw the grass till your nails bleed and low crawl like an Airborne Ranger in the kill zone after you fall down. Ask him what he wants, my ass. I don't give a fuck what he wants.

My friend quietly suggested that I may want to investigate my extreme reaction as well as the lucid dreaming idea, to which I emphatically replied, "Fuck that."

Some time later, at the library, one of the display books was about lucid dreaming. Weird. What are the odds? Flipping through the book, I realized that turning the falling dreams into flying dreams had actually been some form of lucid dreaming. Cue Twilight Zone music. I checked out the book. (This was before Wikipedia had emerged as the foremost authority on life and everything in it.)

The next time Violent Bad Guy showed up in dreamland, I was vaguely aware of it being a dream. I still didn't want to ask him shit. The idea of hearing whatever voice he was packing ... too much hell no to even contemplate. Darth Vader would probably sound like Dora the Explorer by comparison. No. But I felt calm. Controlled. I think it's about the control. The deciding. It felt like things change now. I remember that calm from way back when I decided I wasn't going to fall anymore in the falling dreams. It's like things have already changed, even before you've actually done what you've decided to do, even before you know if it's going to work, because you feel different. Resolute. You're not afraid. It's really an incredible [what the fuck, you mean this was all I had to do all along?] feeling. I wish I could duplicate it in real life, feel that sure and solid, but I guess in real life you know way down deep that there's no out, no waking up. There's no locker combo to remember and no National Geographic (Reader's Digest) article assuring you it's physiologically impossible for the worst to happen.

He was coming, like he was always coming, but I didn't have that fear where your organs go all loose and tingly, where your muscles go soft and weak. I didn't run or scream. He was getting closer -- I told him to stop. I told him I wasn't going to run. That I wanted him to leave. That I wasn't afraid now. I even threw in some hokey, woo-woo shit about him no longer having power over me. Hey, it was an intense moment; I went with it. He kind of expanded, genie-out-of-a-lamp style, like he was going to just envelop me, absorb me without chasing me at all [oh, fuck], but he didn't.

He just walked away.

Yeah, kind of anticlimactic, but that's how it went down. Sorry.

I'm not really a woo-woo type of person, but I do believe there are things that we as humans don't fully comprehend. Dreams are still a mystery to me. I don't have a clue why they're so bizarre, and I don't know how they relate to our lives or or what purpose they serve. What I know is that I've never again experienced the terror of falling in a dream since the night my I made my little-kid self fly instead. And that it's been nearly two decades since I told Violent Bad Guy to leave, and I have not dreamed about him since.

I know. Woo-woo, crazyass shit. I swear, I'm lucid.

Lucidly Dreaming

So the subjects of sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming have come up, what with so many of you writing about ghosts and weird dreams of late. I haven't experienced sleep paralysis (probably just jinxed myself), but I do have a lucid dreaming story. I know. Cue scornful eye roll. When I first heard of lucid dreaming, I pronounced it bullshit and made some joke about Ouija boards.

My elder daughter's original art. Perfect for illustrating a weirdass-dreams post.

I'm not really a woo-woo type of person, but I do think there are things that we as human beings just don't have the capacity to comprehend. Things we just can't wrap our brains around. This is true even without the woo-woo aspect.

Take dogs, for example. A bloodhound has about 300 million scent receptors in his nose, compared to our 5 million. Dogs can smell cancer and Parkinson's disease. They're freaking scent savants. The smell section of their loyal, little pea-brains is 40 times bigger than ours. That whole "they smell fear" thing? Basically true. They smell pheromones and whatever weird shit gets released when we break out in a sweat. They can probably smell sad poetry in our tears.

Dogs are basically experiencing a whole world that we don't even know is there. Wild.

Granted, it's probably for the best, given what dogs like to sniff. I don't care to know the intricate, subtle notes of the steaming horse dung enrapturing my dog any more than I care to sniff my friend's ass in greeting. I'm fine with a handshake, thanks.

Norm? That you? Come closer ...

Sure, we trump dogs with our comparatively keen eyesight, but we're the naked mole rats of the world compared to eagles. Dolphins and bats hear a whole spectrum that we can't. Echolocation and shit. Vampire bats and pit vipers can find your ass by some kind of thermo-detection, and that hairy, eight-eyed spider? It can see ultraviolet light.

Good luck killing it with fire.

So given that we humans can't even perceive normal, everyday goings-on that animals with sharper senses experience as the norm, it's not a stretch to think that there may be other things we can't pick up on, let alone comprehend.

I don't know how or why my grandma was there at the end of the bed my first night home from basic training, shortly after her death. She was there by the collection of Avon decanters she'd given me over the years. You know, those bottles where the plastic cap is the top half of a lady and the bottom is a glass skirt full of noxious, flowery perfume you never wore because your signature scent was Love's Baby Soft. My mom said it was a dream. That's what people say when you tell them some crazy shit that happened at night with no one else around. Except it didn't feel like that. Grandma was there. Admittedly, as ghost stories go, it was kind of a non-event. She didn't say or do anything. She didn't levitate or make objects fly or reveal some profound universal truth that changed my life. She was just there.

I don't mean like "in a dream" there. I mean there.

But dreams are weird, too. If they do stem from something lodged deep in the subconscious, that's disturbing because that shit  is bizarre. Bizarre like you might need therapy. Or a straitjacket. Do dreams try to give us weirdly coded answers to life or are they just completely random? Do they portend future events? My mom dreamed about Bobby Kennedy's assassination before it happened. Imagine seeing the TV replay your dream. Freaky. No wonder she said Grandma came in a dream.

Not sure I want to delve into my daughter's subconscious. Love you, honey. You know that ... right?

I've never experienced sleep paralysis, but the esposo has. It only ever happened at the family house. Where both of his parents died. His siblings all agree that there's some kind of ... something ... in the house. A presence. I know. Woo-woo shit. Surprising, because the esposo could win the prize for most practical, sensible person on earth.  So his stories of waking up to the feeling of something, someone, pushing down on his chest and him not being able to move were kind of freaky, as he's not generally down with nonsense or woo-fuckery. It seemed to fit the description of sleep paralysis. Okay. Reasonable explanation. But my reasonable, practical esposo still feels as though something, or someone, was there.

And it hasn't happened since we moved into our apartment over four years ago.

I said earlier that I'd thought lucid dreaming -- where you consciously take control of your dreams while you're dreaming -- was bullshit, but I actually had an experience with lucid dreaming as a very young child. I just didn't know at the time that it had a name or even that it was anything odd or controversial. It wasn't until decades later that I even realized that what I'd done was lucid dreaming. You know, that woo-woo bullshit I didn't believe in.

Like this, but from the cloud instead of the bank.

When I was little, I used to dream that I was falling. Like from clouds or skyscrapers. High bridges. It was terrifying. I don't know if I had the falling dreams because of my intense fear of heights or if I developed that fear because of the falling dreams. I don't suppose it matters. I'd usually wake up before impact, petrified, but not always. Sometimes I couldn't wake up before splatting against the concrete rushing up at me. I never actually died in the falling dreams, but I always thought I would. My hands are sweating now, just thinking about it.

Then one day I read that it was impossible to die in a dream because the shock to one's system would be too great; the brain protects us by making dream death impossible. I nearly peed from relief. Okay, the article also mentioned isolated cases in the South Pacific where people's hair had turned white overnight from the shock of having dreamed their death, but I dismissed that. I lived in Kansas, not the South Pacific, I reasoned. I was, therefore, safe from dream death, according to little-kid logic. Now, I want to say I read this in National Geographic, but it was probably Reader's Digest and of questionable veracity. No matter, it was an enormous relief to me as a child. This was one time when reading things that I was too young for worked to my advantage, unlike those unfortunate incidents with The Amityville Horror and Audrey Rose. Still not sure if The Joy of Sex and that whole Anaïs Nin thing worked for me or against me, but hey, that was childhood in the days before passworded Kindles.

Anyway, the next time I dreamed I was falling, I wasn't quite as terrified. I knew, on some level, that I wasn't going to die. I remember waking up and being aware of the difference. The next time, it was stronger. Maybe I was closer to being awake, I don't know, but I was cognizant enough to know not only that I wouldn't die, but also that I wasn't going to fall at all.

I would fly.

And I did. It was wonderful. Even better than the time I dreamed I was galloping through open fields on a real horse. I never had another falling dream after that because now I could fly. Sadly, the flying dreams quickly tapered off until I didn't have them anymore, either. I tried to make them happen, but they never did. I never realized there was anything unusual about all of this. I was so young, I guess I just chalked it up to outgrowing the falling dreams. I never gave it much thought beyond that.

I wish my daughter could illustrate my life. 

I've had three recurring dreams in my life besides the falling/flying dreams. There's the tornado dream: a tornado is coming, and I'm responsible for kids and/or animals. I'm literally herding cats. Or toddlers or puppies. I get the last stragglers corralled in a basement, only to see that others have gone out to look for me or each other. I tell the remaining ones to stay put while I go find the others. Rinse, repeat. So freaking stressful. The tornado dream comes when I really feel out of control of my life.

There's also the house dream, which is decidedly more pleasant. I'm exploring a labyrinth of a house, with towers and turrets and secret passageways and all manner of delightful secrets, sometimes even pets. This one comes when I'm facing a big change in life. It's usually good, though surreal, except when a stairway goes wonky so I can't get to where I need to be, and there's a black hole under the stairs. I've never actually fallen from a gone-wrong stairway, though, which I attribute to the flying dreams of long ago.

And then there's the Violent Bad Guy dream, which brings us to the crux of today's tale.


To be continued ... 

(Oh, get that knot out of your panties, it's already almost finished. This is a blog, not The New Yorker; I passed the bounds of brevity a couple of paragraphs back. Also, JP: payback's a bitch, baby.)

Columbus: Bold Explorer or Genocidal Asshat?

(In which I suspend snark and translation tales to address marked asshattery. Fine, there's still snark. I wrote this in 2007. I'm surprised every year by requests for it, so ... the debut at the new digs.)

In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Remember that? That little rhyme is probably why 1492 is the one date we actually remember from school. I bet you can name all three ships too: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. In third grade, I made miniature versions out of construction paper. I used Popsicle sticks for the masts. It was fun.

Too bad they don't teach you the rest of the story in school.


In fourteen-hundred and ninety-three, Columbus stole all he could see.

What are we really celebrating on Columbus Day? Ask any school kid, and little Johnny's likely to recite, "Columbus discovered America." Except he didn't. He didn't "discover" it, and it wasn't present-day "America". The man thought he had found India by the backdoor. Like some 15th-century Rick Steve tour. He and his crew murdered, raped, and enslaved the people who were already there. Christopher Columbus never even set foot on what we in the United States call "America".

Nevertheless, he has a holiday and a place in every textbook in this country. Textbooks that don't teach us what really happened. At best, you get a watered-down, whitewashed [ahem], quick mention. Like this:

Much controversy exists over Columbus' expeditions and whether or not one can "discover" an already-inhabited land. The natives of the Bahamas and other islands on his journey were peaceful and friendly. Yet many of them were later enslaved by the Spanish. Also, it is known that the Vikings explored the North American coast 500 years before Columbus.

Nevertheless, Columbus' expedition was unique and important in that it resulted in the first intertwining of Europe with the Americas, resulting in the first permanent European colonies in the New World.

Wow, they actually mentioned enslavement, and the land already being inhabited (and therefore, already discovered, asshat). But we quickly move on past that unpleasantness, right on to the "Nevertheless..." bit. After all, his murderous asshattery did lead to the first permanent European colonies in the New World, and that's what's really important.

Because nothing is real until the Europeans say it is, y'all. If you don't believe me, just pick up any US textbook.

History is written by the victors.
 ~Winston Churchill

You got that right, Winston.

the lowdown

In my daughters' History of the Americas class, the instructors taught from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: 1492 to the Present. If you haven't read it, click it, order it. I'm serious - please get this book. Anyway, they were fortunate. Howard Zinn is not usually found in high school history classrooms. My eldest's instructor also held a mock trial for Columbus, in which my daughter was prosecuting attorney. The kids in the "regular" classes don't get this perspective. They get the regular textbooks. Which could, if I were in the habit of digressing, bring me back to the subject of who is and isn't represented in the IB honors classes, and the system of advantage in our institutions. But I won't digress.

Zinn doesn't gloss over what happened. He presents a very different version of history, using primary sources (What a concept!) that we're going to look at today, such as the journals of Columbus and others who were there. This description of the Taino -- renamed "Indians" behind the faulty navigation -- was penned by the invader himself:

... they are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary they offer to share with anyone . . .

. . . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. . .

They would make fine servants . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

~Christopher Columbus, personal journal

Ah, colonizer thinking at its best. Didn't even cross his mind to respect the people already on the land. Shoot, it didn't cross his mind to even see them as people. Because it wasn't really about exploration, it was about ownership. It was about taking whatever the fuck you want, even if someone else was there first. You want gold? Take it. Take it in the name of your Almighty God, because that makes everything all right. Those people already living here? Take them, too. Hell, make them get the gold for you. Less work. If they don't cooperate, kill them. Or cut their hands off.

That'll learn 'em.

Columbus got gold fever when he saw some of the Taino wearing small gold earrings. He brought 500 natives back to Spain as slaves. Well, 200 didn't make it, actually, but no matter; he managed to convince the Spanish royalty that there was gold in them thar hills, and was funded for a second voyage. This time with 17 ships and over 1,200 men to colonize their find.

Hey, if there's gold to be had, go after it -- you can't expect uncivilized brown folks to manage a valuable commodity like gold. Or oil. (But that's another story.) It's time for some conquering and subjugation, by gawd. Problem was, there really wasn't that much gold to be found.

So they instituted a quota. Zinn writes:

They ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

Taino who didn't meet the gold quota lost their hands.

So if your 14-year-old son couldn't collect his quota of gold because it basically wasn't there to collect, some guy who had just shown up on your land one day would cut off your son's hands. Maybe leave them dangling from his arms. For a laugh. Make you watch.

Think about that.



According to James Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me, the Spaniards forced the Taino to work in mines. The ecosystem was affected, and the people suffered from malnutrition on top of the beatings, rapes, and disciplinary amputations. Diseases ran rampant, immunities were low or nonexistent. The Spaniards forced the people to carry them from place to place. Because who wants to waste energy on walking when you've got hands to cut off and people to string up? Those who survived all that were driven to suicide, abortion, even killing their own newborn infants in order to spare them from life in those conditions.

Pre-Columbian population estimates vary, but run as high as 8 million.
-- By 1496, the estimate is about 3 million.
-- By 1516, about 12,000.
-- By 1542, fewer than 200 were left.
-- By 1555, they had been essentially exterminated.

Yeah, that's called genocide. Mass murder at the hands of the bold explorer. But that's not all:

Because the Indians had died, Indian slavery then led to the massive slave trade the other way across the Atlantic, from Africa. This trade also began on Haiti, initiated by Columbus's son in 1505.

~James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me

Whoa, what? Did you all catch that? Because this is important: after Dad and pals decimate the Native populations, Junior heads to Africa to replenish the labor force. The African slave trade. Because they killed off the Native slaves. Way to carry on the family legacy, Junior. Genocide and slavery.

This is what we're celebrating, people. 


A Dominican priest's eyewitness account -- not an opinion, an actual eyewitness account:

Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits.

It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies. And also, those lands are so rich and felicitous, the native peoples so meek and patient, so easy to subject, that our Spaniards have no more consideration for them than beasts.

And I say this from my own knowledge of the acts I witnessed. But I should not say "than beasts" for, thanks be to God, they have treated beasts with some respect; I should say instead like excrement on the public squares.

~Bartolomé de las Casas, Dominican priest and settler, personal journal

Damn. That's some greed, right there, folks. That's a serious entitlement complex. And, I'm thinking, it's not too far off from some things going on today, 500 years later.

The Spaniards, in a clever act of rationalization, would read a proclamation -- in Spanish, of course -- informing the Taino that the land and everything on it now belonged to the invaders to do with what they would. If the people chose not to cooperate after hearing the proclamation, well, that's their own fault, isn't it?


More from the Dominican priest -- again, dude was there. He saw this shit (emphasis mine):

They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them, but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house.

They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike.

They took infants from their mothers' breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, 'Boil there, you offspring of the devil!' Other infants they put to the sword along with their mothers and anyone else who happened to be nearby.

They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive.

To others they attached straw or wrapped their whole bodies in straw and set them afire. With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim's neck, saying, 'Go now, carry the message,' ...

They would cut an Indian's hands and leave them dangling by a shred of skin and they would send him on saying, 'Go now, spread the news to your chiefs.'

They usually dealt with the chieftains and nobles in the following way: they made a rid of rods which they placed on forked sticks, then lashed the victims to the grid and lighted a smoldering fire underneath, so that little by little, as those captives screamed in despair and torment, their souls would leave them...

~Bartolomé de las Casas, Dominican priest and settler, personal journal

Yeah, that's the real story. That's the unpleasantness that our history books left out.

So if you skimmed over that part, go back and read it.

It's one paragraph, people. One minute.

That's what is still being left out of your kids' history books now, and what your kids probably did not learn about last week. On Columbus Day. But hey, maybe they made a paper ship with Popsicle sticks, or a sailing hat. They might have learned about Old World foods and New World foods, or talked about what it might have been like to be on a ship for 69 days.

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So ...

That's what happened. And now we have this holiday. Why?  Why, with all this information -- from the actual journals of Columbus and others who were there, no less -- are we still teaching our children that this racist murderer is some great icon of exploration and innovation? Why do we still have a federal holiday, giving the man and his actions the tacit approval of our government?

Well, for one thing, our government still holds him up as an example for us all in the pursuit of our great goals. Read between the lines and weep:

Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith.

~George H.W. Bush, 1989 speech

::::::::::::::

In 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail on a journey that changed the course of history. On Columbus Day, we celebrate this voyage of discovery and honor an Italian explorer who shaped the destiny of the New World.

Christopher Columbus' bold journey across the Atlantic opened new frontiers of exploration and demonstrated the power of perseverance. His journeys inspired other risk-takers and dreamers to test the bounds of their imagination and gave them the courage to accomplish great feats, whether crossing the world's oceans or walking on the moon.

Today, a new generation of innovators and pioneers continues to uphold the finest values of our country discipline, ingenuity, and unity in the pursuit of great goals.

~George W. Bush, October 8, 2007

::::::::::::::

Our Nation is built on the efforts of men and women who possess both the vision to see beyond what is and the desire to pursue what might be. Today, the same passion for discovery that drove Columbus is leading bold visionaries to explore the frontiers of space, find new energy sources, and solve our most difficult medical challenges.

~George W. Bush, October 9, 2006

:::::::::::::

Did you catch that bit about finding new energy sources? Wake up, people! How much has really changed? Yesterday's gold is today's oil. Our government, still today, holds Columbus up as an example of the "monumental feats" that can be "accomplished through perseverance and faith."

And to the victors belong the spoils.

Here's the thing:

As long as Columbus is officially held up as a bold explorer, forcible domination of groups who have something we want -- gold, oil, land -- continues to be seen as the norm. Invasion and colonization of groups deemed to be "less civilized" than we are continues to be seen as natural.

If Columbus were to be officially recognized as a mass murderer, if the holiday were no longer sanctioned by our government, then we'd have to examine history through a different lens. We'd have to examine ourselves, as individuals, and as a country.

We'd have to ask ourselves the question:  If forcible invasion and domination was wrong then ... how do we justify it now?

History is indeed written by the victors. And it's perpetuated by those who benefit from that victory.

Carlos Latuff, artist

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- UPDATE - 
I wrote this in 2007. Since then, the city of Seattle voted to observe Indigenous People's Day instead, thanks to a lot of hard work by tribal communities and allies. Other cities have passed similar legislation. Alaska, Oregon, Hawaii, and South Dakota do not recognize Columbus Day. South Dakota, ahead of the curve, has celebrated Native American Day since 1990. Fewer than half of the 50 states still give a day off work for Columbus Day. 

Here in Costa Rica, they celebrate el Día del Encuentro de las Culturas, which is something like "the meeting of the cultures". Right. That was some meeting. Or you could interpret it as "clash of the cultures". Other Latin American countries celebrate Día de la Raza. People here are pretty clear on what old Cristóbal Colón was all about.

I was disappointed to see the annual presidential proclamation confirming Columbus Day for 2015, but heartened (a bit) to see that President Obama did at least talk about the effects on the Native population and the importance of tribal sovereignty. It's something. I guess. I'd hoped he'd step all the way up, though. At least he said "exploration" instead of "discovery". Baby steps. But damn, that baby is taking hella long to walk. 

I hope to update this post one day with a federal proclamation recognizing Indigenous People's Day. 

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For more real info about Christopher Columbus and other assclowns, ditch the textbooks and pick these up. This post is just the tip of the iceberg. Columbus is just one piece of a history that has been, in large part, mistaught.

A People's History of the United States: 1492 to the Present, Howard Zinn

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen

Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, James Loewen

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Dear Split End Salon

Dear Split End Salon (Aurora Village in Shoreline, WA)

Thank you for the complimentary hair cut I received at your shop yesterday. Of course, the term "complimentary" loses its value a bit when it means free because we fucked your hair up so badly that we couldn't, in good conscience, charge you.

Please let your stylist Laura know that the Kristy McNichol look is over. As is the Florence Henderson mushroom top with accompanying flip. It wasn't cute then, and it's really just laughable now. The short, choppy layers, the butchered bangs, the feathering? Not flattering, and so not necessary. Let it go. Yes, I admit, I was crushing on Shaun Cassidy in the 70s, but do you really think I want to see an older, fatter version of him staring back at me from my mirror? That shit's not funny. This morning, while brushing my teeth, I had the overwhelming urge to pull a crazyass Britney Spears move with my son's clippers.

Also, I'd like to point out that the last thing a client wants to hear while sitting in one of your vinyl chairs, is the stylist sucking in her breath with an, Oh, Jesus! I'm so sorry... Yeah, really, that sentence should just never be uttered in a hair salon. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's legal cause for a justifiable beatdown.

Apparently, your current hiring practices include taking on the layoffs from Super Cuts, because I haven't had such a bad haircut since my mom swindled me into getting the Dorothy Hammill in 4th grade. Even the basic training cut I got at Fort Jackson worked better than this. Truth be told, my drill sergeant's cut worked better than this.  And he was bald.

When family, friends and colleagues do not reassure you with the requisite Bad Haircut Platitudes, you know it's bad. When your new haircut draws no comments at all, and you work around all women and gay men, it's a sure sign something has gone awry.

When you pathetically resort to fishing for compliments and only receive So ... what made you cut your hair? or Are you going to grow it out again? that's a clue that someone with some scissors fucked up your head in a major way. (Looking at you, Laura.) My own son brought me pity-coffee at work today. He also snapped a picture of my head with his cell phone before running away. I'm pretty sure it's already been sent to his sisters at college, or possibly posted on the Interwebs.

A military high-and-tight suddenly doesn't seem quite so drastic. I will not, however, be coming to your shop to get it. In fact, I will never set foot in your salon again. I've made sure to tell anyone who asks, exactly where I got my "interesting haircut". Nothing like a living, breathing - and yes, crying - advertisement, is there?

In closing, may I suggest you screen your stylists a bit more carefully? In this economy, I'd imagine you have lots of potential hires to choose from. A little quality control would be nice. You had a good thing going - Adrienne, Halona, or Nicole M. would never have let this shit go down. Your standards have slipped.

And Laura, honey, you need to know that being apologetic and friendly does not make up for me living with this fucked-up, feathered shag on my head. I'm sure you're a nice person, but you should not be wielding scissors in a professional capacity. If I were you, I'd cross the street if you see me coming any time in the next few months. If I knew where you lived, I'd put Nair in your shampoo bottle. That may sound bitchy -- okay, unhinged -- but listen, honey, someone actually used the word "bouffant" in a conversation with me today. Again, that shit's not funny.

Split End Salon, I spit in your general direction. Thanks for the memories.

Disgruntledly Yours,
A Former Client

Vivisection

Do you all remember The Rat? If not, click and go read -- absolutely essential backstory for today's tale of intrigue.

What? You think I don't see you trying to skip ahead? Please, I can hear the heavy breathing from here. You probably read Cliff Notes as a kid. To quote the Brady Bunch dad, You're only cheating yourself Bobby; and cheaters never prosper. In fact, sometimes they end up divorced with an ex-wife who suddenly develops a penchant for voodoo dolls. That's right, Bobby. Think about it.

I'll wait.


Okay, so the other day I come home from work, open up the fridge to grab a beer, and come face to face with ... The Rat. Like you didn't see that one coming.

Yeah, okay, you got me. Ha, ha, very funny, son. But wait ... what's that red ... holy scalpels, Batman! The Rat had been stitched up like a grisly FrankenRodent! It's true. The Rat was sporting an I-incision with bright red stitching, complete with decorative beadwork. Apparently, my eldest and my youngest spent the afternoon in a study session reviewing Male Offspring's freshman biology lab notes.

Here are the gory details. My kids are nothing if not creative. And twisted.

Warning: This presentation is intended for mature audiences and contains disturbing elements of extreme violence, blood and gore. Animals were definitely harmed for this presentation. Procedures not carried out by licensed medical personnel.

Tonka: Built for Boyhood!

I've got toys on my mind. No, not toys for grown-up ladies, you naughty freaks. Toys for kids. Specifically, girl toys and boy toys.

Gender-specific toys.

Our favorite Big Ass Belle recently posted about "girl toys" by PLAYSKOOL. Meaning, of course, pink and flowery toys that revolve around, what else?

Housework!

Lynette's Girl Toys post brought to mind a Tonka commercial I saw recently, advertising their toys which are "built for boyhood". Yep, Tonka is Celebrating 60 Years of Boyhood! It turns out Hasbro is the parent company of both Tonka and PLAYSKOOL.

That's right, PLAYSKOOL, of Rose Petal fame, and Tonka, built for boyhood, wedded together to helpfully model gender-appropriate play. How precious. The commercials for PLAYSKOOL's Rose Petal Cottage include this sugary sweet melody:

I love when my laundry gets so clean,
Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!
In Rose Petal Cottage, my home,
A place of my very own!
So "taking care of my home" is the dream, dream, dream PLAYSKOOL wants for Teen Demon and the Bohemian? Because they're girls? I'm sorry, but washing socks and mopping crusty bits off the floor isn't exactly what I dreamed of for them while watching them sleep in their cribs.

It's sure as hell not what they're dreaming of for themselves. I know this because of the dirty socks and crusty bits on their floors.  No interest.  They could a Rose Petal attitude adjustment, come to think of it ...

At Hasbro.com, we learn that the Rose Petal Cottage

empowers preschool girls to use their imagination inside and around their very own play space, featuring everything they need to role-play alone or with friends.

From baking muffins to washing clothes to caring for their dolls, girls now have a place where they can set their imaginations free.

"Everything" a girl needs to set her imagination free? Is there no one in their marketing department without a penis? See, this is what happens when there's no diversity in hiring, people.  Maybe a toy kitchen is one thing to set imagination free.  And guess what, Tonka, my son loved the hell out of his toy kitchen.


And Tonka. Here's what their current commercial has to say about our future heads of households:

Boys! What can you say? They're just built different.
And now ... they can play their way!
It's built around what he does naturally. It's a shape sorter - or not!
Then, it helps him learn to walk. And chase!
Then [it's] his own sweet ride - from baby to big boy. All in one toy.
Let's face it; boys are built different.
And Tonka's got the blueprint.

Built different?  (Also, differently*, Tonka.  Adverb.)

So ... boys "naturally" exercise their minds and bodies by sorting shapes, running and chasing, while girls need nothing more than a pink playhouse to serve as "an entire world where your little girl can play, discover and explore."

Entire world?

Trouble with that is, the world they want my little girl to discover and explore is comprised of only a laundry room, nursery and kitchen. Probably she'll be expected to clean up after Tonka-boy, since he's shown tracking mud all through the house in his commercial, while mom smiles indulgently.



I find this purposeful gender-based marketing very disturbing. The unspoken gender expectations are ingrained so deeply within our society, it's virtually impossible to avoid them. So when toy companies purposefully SAY things like "boys are built different" and "taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream", it leaves no doubt in kids' minds as to what's expected of them. What is "normal".

When toy companies purposely perpetuate gender roles, that pisses me off, because they're making my job harder as a parent.

If my little boy believes certain activities are more suited for him, likewise he will develop the belief that other activities and expectations are more suited for the girls and women in his life. Not only will he feel comfortable playing with trucks or light sabers, he'll also feel comfortable expecting the girls in his life not to do those things.

Tonka has told him that trucks are "built for boys". If I do nothing to balance the messages Tonka and PLAYSKOOL are sending him, he may one day feel comfortable with his mother, sisters, or wife in their Rose Petal kitchens, making that sandwich for him while he's out in the living room watching the game.

Um, no.

Male Offspring knows that females are all about watching the game. He would no sooner expect me to hit the kitchen before half-time than he would expect me to sprout wings and fly.



So, what about little Suzy, careening her Tonka truck around the living room? What about the little boy who loves playhouse tea parties and hates mud? How do they feel after seeing these commercials? Especially little Johnny. Society can deal with a tomboy, but a girlieman? Not so much. Chances are, Johnny will soon learn to keep that shit under wraps and play with the damn truck. At least when people are watching.

Both of them are getting a clear message about what it means to be a "normal" girl or boy.



My kids had gender-specific toys, sure.

Teen Demon was a wild hellion in her day. She loved her Little Tykes kitchen, and her pink doll stroller -- pink is still her favorite color -- and the girl bakes like, well, a demon. But, she also rode her Tonka truck like demolition derby time. She personally brought out my appreciation for that whole Tonka Tough thing, before Male Offspring ever came on the scene. She had a toy tool belt that she wore everywhere. With pink hiking boots. She didn't take any guff from little boys.

Yes, Male Offspring loved him some trucks and 'dozers. Tonka would've loved to have his rough-and-tumble boy-behind in their commercials. He was all about the boy toys. They probably would've cut scene, though, when he came clacking onto the set in his sisters' dress up clothes, sporting a pink tutu, white gloves and pearls with a purple straw hat. He adored the pastel pink Little Tykes Cottage. Especially talking on the toy phone, which should've given me some warning as to the boy's future cell phone addiction.

So yeah, my kids loved their girl toys and boy toys. Not like you can really avoid it. Nevertheless, according to Tonka & PLAYSKOOL, my kids were a bit confused as as to proper play for their respective genders.




Well, fear not - no more fretting over ambiguous gender behavior! Tonka, in order to help you navigate the gender divide, has helpfully provided Parenting Advice for Boys.

(Hey, Tonka, I'm pretty sure you meant to give parenting advice to parents of boys, not the little tykes themselves, right? How much do you pay your editor?)
Anyway, if your little darling sports a penis, don't worry, Mom, help is on the way:

Little boys can seem like alien creatures, especially to Moms who were raised as little girls! So to help you speak "boy language," here are some tips from Lawrence Cohen, PhD, Playskool Advisor and author of Playful Parenting.

Heavens! How did I ever manage to raise Male Offspring without learning to speak "boy language"? No worries - Doc Lawrence has tips to help clueless moms decipher their little boys:

(Yes, this shit is actually up at the Tonka site )

9-18 months: During this stage, your son will be learning all about himself, including what it means to be a boy... you can keep the emotional connection going by having your own truck that rolls alongside his (or sometimes gently crashes into his!).

My own truck? Are you sure, Lawrence, because ... I'm a girl. I'm "built different".

2-3 yrs: This is also the stage where "boy humor" begins; this type of humor--filled with jokes about body parts and bodily functions ... seems to be a product of some combination of boy biology and boy social training.

So fart jokes come from "boy biology"? What does that even mean? Is there a gene for fart jokes?

3-5 yrs: Some mothers try to eliminate every expression of aggression from boys’ play, but that doesn’t work--and besides, if we got rid of all aggressive stories, we’d have to exclude stories from Shakespeare, the Bible, and even history books!

The Bible? How'd that get slipped into a toy site?

And get this:

All Ages & Stages: Recognize that your son is absorbing all sorts of information from TV and movies, including many messages about what is expected from boys and men. The media -- and our own expectations -- can give boys the wrong idea that there is only one very narrow definition of masculinity.

No shit, Lawrence! Media like ... Tonka commercials and this website, asshat! How did they not catch that?

I call bullshit, Tonka. This guy should not be giving parenting advice. You should not be paying him.


So ...

---What if ... all types of play were presented as a choice for all kids? Without the frilly pink or tough blue packaging.

---What if nobody thought a thing about Johnny having tea party with his teddy bears, or playing with playhouse dolls?

---What if Suzy could play Pop Warner football or collect model cars instead of Barbies ... without being called a tomboy, without folks assuring her mom she'll "grow out of it"?

---Maybe then, Johnny grows up to be a sous chef in some fancyass restaurant. Or an awesome stay at home dad who knows how to fix a furnace and connect with his kids. Maybe Suzy fixes cars or runs a corporation.

---And maybe, if that were the case, taking care of a home might truly be seen as an option for both genders, not an expectation for one. In which case, it would probably be valued a lot more than it is now. Then role models - and advertising - for kids would be a whole lot different.

Maybe then Suzy feels OK being a cheerleader ...

... and a football player.

And maybe her brother grows up thinking his sister is pretty cool, and not necessarily girlie ...

...because he remembers

carrying that cheerleader's

football pads.

Yes, as a matter of fact, that was a shameless excuse to post cute pics of Teen Demon and Male Offspring. But there is a related point:

Teen Demon recently found out that her school no longer allows male cheerleaders. What? Apparently, there used to be guys on the football/basketball cheer squad. (Teen Demon cheers for wrestling - because the football/b'ball squad is a bunch of Barbie-bitches. According to her.) But the advisor - an adult - decided she didn't want guys on the squad about three years back.

What's sad is Teen Demon actually knows a couple of guys who would like to cheer. And, she said, it would actually make a better cheer squad, on account of the awesome stunts they'd be able to do with guys in the mix.

Male Offspring was in the room during this conversation, and he didn't snicker or make faces. What he said was, "That sucks. If girls can do wrestling and football, it's not fair that guys can't cheer. That's just dumb."

No, son, it's not fair, and it is dumb. I'm glad the kids were bothered by this, rather than thinking "cheerleading's for girls". If it were up to Hasbro, however, that would've been a different conversation.

And that's what's pissing me off about these commercials.

"But It's 2007!"

It seems ignorant comments are not just confined to my son's history class.
(Read "Yes, Virginia, People Still Do Say That Shit", if you haven't yet.)

So this is a list of local situations that I've seen personally in 2007, in case anyone still is clinging to the notion that racism is over.

Male Offspring, while fully expected to excel at sports, did not receive the IB* application packet when the other kids did. This despite the fact that he took sophomore math and honors science in the 8th grade. Despite the fact that both sisters are/will be succesful IB diploma graduates.

(*IB = International Baccalaureate, an international honors program.)

No one could tell me why. Something in the IB coordinator's "Sorry about that, but the deadline has passed now ... he can try next year, though," gave me the feeling they just wanted me to quit asking.

Next year? Excuse me? He's supposed to jump into this program after missing the first year? And then you'll wonder why he's not successful? No. Fuck that. Fuck you. He earned his place same as those other kids, he's going in this year.

Thank goodness for his counselor. We got him in through the back door. He'll have his shot.

But I've learned that it is part of my privilege that I am listened to and often see results when I go to address an issue at the school, and even that I have that expectation. (Often there is visible relief when I show up to deal with a situation.  "Oh!  So ... YOU'RE Male Offspring's mother!  Okay!  Sooo nice to meet you!") Many, many parents of color I've spoken with do not experience the same results when they address things. In this case, the parents of color I talked with said they didn't even know about the IB application, let alone the deadline.  This says something about who receives information. And who doesn't. If it weren't for the fact that I'd already fought to get my girls into the program, I wouldn't have known that this opportunity existed for Male Offspring.

They are usually the only black students in their IB classes. And I had to fight for that.


------------------------------------
There is an African American girl in Teen Demon's class who is the personification of school spirit. She is student body president, is involved in school clubs, and one of the few black kids in IB. Her grades started to slip; she was stretched too thin with all her activities. She was told to consider moving to regular classes. That's a message about the expectations for her.

Another girl, a white girl, actually wanted to drop IB. School was not her biggest priority, she wasn't involved in clubs, sports, or activities. She actively attempted to move to regular classes. Not only was she encouraged to stick with it, they did not allow her to drop out.  Let me say that again:  they did not allow her to drop out. She eventually did, but those adults had expectations of her; they fought for her, they encouraged her, despite the fact that she wasn't even interested in the program.

The first young lady was not encouraged. They did not fight for her. In fact, she was told maybe IB "wasn't the place for her," even though she had three years of that program under her belt, even though she contributes to the school in many ways. There were expectations for her as well.  Fortunately, she is not living down to those expectations.

Same school, same program, same teachers and administrators.  So even being class president isn't enough to overcome the disparity in treatment and in expectations here.  What the hell, people?


------------------------------------
The Radical Bohemian somehow got marked in the school's records as "white". This means her grades - excellent - were being credited to the white category as far as school performance. This pissed us off, as she was one of only two black students in the IB program for her year, and now her performance was being credited as a white kid. I asked both the school and the district how that had happened.

Apparently, when we moved here, there was no provision for bi/multiracial students. You checked one box, and one only. So she didn't check any. (These days she just checks black) Well, it turns out that,

Caucasian is the default.

What? I'm sorry, did you actually just say "Caucasian is the default"? No shit, we knew that; I just didn't know it applied to my daughter's school records as well as to life in general. I was told by a different person:

Oh, she's such a good student. Since you didn't check a category, someone probably looked at her grades and her WASL scores, and made a judgement call.

Are you fucking kidding me? So ... let's see if I've got this straight:  good grades + good standardized test scores + IB program = Caucasian kid? I don't think so. Unconscious bias, anyone?


------------------------------------
A Latina student was asked in Spanish class last week, where her family was from. She'd been taught her family history and Chicano history since she was a little girl. She is also shy, not one for speaking up. This though, was one area she knew, and she confidently told the teacher her grandparents were from the northern part of Mexico. The teacher looked at her name again and replied, smiling,

No -- Spain! Look at your name. Your family must be from Spain.

then she turned to the class and said,

Do you know why I say that? Because _________ is fair-skinned, and her last name is Spanish. Mexicans have the influence of the Indians, so many of them are dark-skinned.

All the kids in the class turned to look at this young lady. Surprise.

Are you kidding me? How arrogant. This teacher, who, by the way, speaks the most awful, gringoized Spanish I've ever heard, has the audacity to correct this child about where her family comes from, AND throw in some fucked up racist incorrect shit on top of it?

That young lady later said she felt stupid in front of her class. Like she didn't even know her own history. How do you undo that feeling?

My son has the same teacher. He says she has asked other students with last names like Garcia and Sanchez, why they are in her class. "Why don't you already speak Spanish?"  What?  Look, lady, do you speak Swedish?  No?  Why the hell not?  Explain yourself.

This is the most qualified individual the district could find to teach Spanish? You seriously expect me to believe there was not a more qualified native speaker who could teach Spanish? And you think there's not been a need for affirmative action?

In fact, I'd suggest that this one local situation is a great example of how our system has included automatic affirmative action for whites since before we even became a country. In addition to being ignorant about her field of study, this teacher (whom Teen Demon also had for two years) is not even an effective instructor in her field. But she's the one they hired, she's the one who gets to teach the Spanish language to kids in this school. Hello, people, the white kids lose out too, in situations like that. That means your kids too, they're getting fucked up, substandard information in classrooms like this, all across the country.

Is it any wonder US folks in general are abysmal at speaking other languages?


------------------------------------
This same student, last spring, went on a field trip to the UW. Her mother put the trip together on her own, after finding out that the colleges only recruited from honors classes, and that a whole group of Latino kids had never been exposed to a college campus. The girl was fired up after the trip. This shy young lady got her nerve up and actually asked the school club administrator how to go about setting up a Latino Students Club. The advisor told her this:

I'm not sure that's such a good idea. It's not inclusive, you know? I mean, what if a white student wanted to start a white supremacist group here on campus? How would that make you feel?

Really? Are you fucking kidding me? An adult in this school actually compared a Latino Student Club to a white supremacist group. A hate group. What message does that send this student about the value of her culture? What does that say about the level of awareness we accept from the people in positions power? And why was this person permitted to take that action which is against the school handbook/policies on starting up student clubs? We can have a prayer group and a Young Republicans club, but not a Latino Club?

So between those two incidents with this particular student, what do you think the chances are that she, with her already shy personality, will take another chance on speaking up? What is the lasting impact on her? And without that club she wanted to start, what are the chances that she'll even find any support or understanding in the school?

(She did, eventually start the club. She had to fight for it, she had to bring in allies, but it's there now. It is very popular, and the young lady is coming into her own through the business of running it.  She's winning.)


-----------------------------------
An individual in a high position in my area took a group of her (white) staff to the Central District of Seattle in order for them to "learn what it's like to be a minority". I'm serious. So they trooped in for a meal, and now, apparently, they understand what it's like for, say, a student of color to be the only one sitting in a white classroom. Really. That hour is somehow equivalent to living a lifetime with a constant awareness of your environment behind the history of being black in this country? That must've been one hell of a meal.

Oh, and they also, apparently, have increased their cultural understanding with collard greens!

This was relayed to a group of black women and a Latino man in that well-intentioned way that suggests the person expects approval or even accolades for her actions. Or a cookie. The person relaying the story did not pick up on the reactions of the group. She truly thought she had done a good thing, and that she's ready for diversity work now.

More harm than good here, people.  This lady and her cohort may conclude that since they were fine on their dinner outing, a black kid in a white classroom should be similarly fine. If he's not fine, they may see it as his fault, because after all, they managed when they were the "minority". For an hour. They may be even less willing to listen to voices of people who do live this stuff every day, because now they "know from experience".

Sigh.

So now, how to deal with that person, and her staff, who are in positions to affect things for young people? Her good intentions have made the work even harder for those around her, and she has no idea.


-----------------------------------
So yeah. These are just a few of the things I've personally seen or heard about, the kinds of things still happening in 2007. These are the things that well-intentioned people say and do. It happens a lot.  This is just a sampling.

And it wears a kid down after a while.

Yes, Virginia, People Do Still Say That Shit.

So here's what happened to my son in history class the other day. First off, preface this with the fact that my son is the only black student in all of his IB* classes -- a fact he noticed the first day of school.

(*IB is the International Baccalaureate program -- a worldwide honors program. The US is pretty new to it. The number of US schools offering it is limited, but growing. I chose this particular district specifically for IB, as it was the closest I could get to the education the kids had been getting in Hungary. Students of color are underrepresented in IB, African American kids in particular.)

Okay, so Male Offspring is taking Non-Western IB History this year. (the non-Western part is something, at least.) Last Thursday, the teacher is giving the lesson about how human life originated in Africa, the migration of the peoples, yada-yada. One young lady raises her hand and says it makes sense that life would've begun there, as it's

warmer there, and stuff can probably grow better than in a cold place.

OK, she's getting her reasoning skills on. She continues with,

Plus, black people have the really broad foreheads and noses. They look like monkeys, so it makes sense that they would've come first, since they're the ones closer to monkeys.

Oh, yes, she did.

And every child in that classroom turned to look at my son.

Because that's what happens when you are the only person of color in the classroom. At that moment, my son was not "Male Offspring", he was "the black kid in class".

My son could not tell me what the teacher said in response. He said he was shocked, everyone was staring at him. He said the teacher looked stunned and didn't really know what to do. She did say something to the girl, but he couldn't tell me what.

He said all he could hear was noise in his ears.


----------------------------------------

Now, I know there are a lot of folks living under the shiny illusion that this shit doesn't happen any more. People invariably respond with, "That's terrible! It's 2007!" Well, it happened in my kid's classroom last Thursday. If you're surprised by that, either your kid is white, or you don't live in this country.

I met with his teacher. Like you all didn't see that coming. A friend who works me in the parent group and who knows Male Offspring came with me.

We thought she was a student. No joke, people. This is her second year of teaching. She graduated from this very high school in 2001. She was like, soooo totally young! I had some assumptions and biases of my own, my first thought (besides "Holy shit, she's not a student?!) being "Oh, this little girl is not going to be able to handle this situation." I had to check myself, however, as we talked.

I had an idea about how to address what happened -- more about that in a minute -- but I wasn't sure how that was going to go. I can imagine if I were a teacher in her position, I might be nervous about meeting the parent. I might feel defensive or embarrassed. So I thought maybe she'd see any suggestions on my part as a judgement, as overstepping into her area.

She didn't.

I tried to get across how that felt for my son, the history behind that remark, the fact that he had no allies in that classroom who understood. Yes, other kids were shocked, thought it was wrong, but no one really understood. And no one spoke up.

I asked how she had initially responded to the young lady in question, and actually I think she did pretty well for being a new teacher caught off guard with such a loaded comment. Better than certain veteran teachers I know, that's for damn sure. Also, I should've said earlier that she did apologize to my son after class, and admitted to him that she hadn't quite known what to do.

I told her that SHE was my son's ally in that classroom, she has to be that for him, because every kid looked to her for direction on how that situation was going to go down. I told her I did not hold her accountable for what comes out of a student's mouth, but I do hold her accountable for addressing it. I fully expect her to have my son's back in that classroom.

I thought Miss Thang would get defensive or make excuses or gush about how she toootally understood. She didn't. Girl may be young, but she's sharp; I'll give her that. She looked me in the eye and said "Okay. That's my position, then." All right. She also said, "Obviously this student has missed some things we've been talking about in class. That says to me it's time to reteach."

It's time to reteach. Go on, girl.

I went into the meeting with 3 objectives:
1) I wanted the student to know her remark was inappropriate and hurtful, and I wanted her to get the correct information so she hopefully won't be spouting that shit again.
2) I wanted the other kids in the class to get the correct info, and to have an example of how to address comments like that.
3) Most important, I wanted my son to come away from this feeling empowered, not humiliated. I wanted him to know that he does not have to accept those statements, and I wanted his expectation to be that the adults in life will address that shit immediately.

Anyway, Miss Thang was on board with all of it, she wanted to learn how to be prepared for the next time. Which was a nice change. I told her my idea:

I wanted his class to see Race: the Power of an Illusion, a three-part PBS documentary.

Part I involves a high school science class in which the students do DNA swabs and blood pricks, then type their DNA. Before they get the results, they form hypotheses about whom they believe they'll be most closely linked to genetically.

Not surprisingly, they predict along racial/ethnic lines; the black kids believe they will be the closest, genetically speaking, to other black kids, the white kids predict they will be most like other Caucasian kids. Ditto for the Asian and Latino kids.

The results, of course, come back the opposite of what they'd thought: one African American young man finds he is genetically most similar to a blond, Russian classmate. A Caucasian student finds that in addition to having a 100% match with someone in the Balkans (which he expected, given his family history), he is also a 100% match for an African individual, which he did not expect. Another white student is most similar to an Asian girl in his class.

The film goes on to talk about race being a social construct, and the history behind that. It talks about the two migrations of people -- the first dying out, the second being modern humans. ALL of us. It covers how we all came about on the same timeline, that there are no separate species of humans, no lines from an earlier time, no group that is more/less advanced, and how any visual differences are a result of geographic adaptations after migration, not from genetic coding.

In other words, none of us are closer to monkeys than any of the rest of us.

Basically, it breaks it down in scientific terms that race has no biological basis; no gene, or group of genes, is common to a particular race. Race cannot be identified genetically. I was surprised to learn that there is twice the genetic variation between two penguins -- which, to my eye, look identical -- as there is between any two humans.




But ... past science did make a false connection between genes and race and intelligence, past science was used to purposefully construct the social aspects of race. In fact, the film covers how the Nazis actually had used US racial research to form their bullshit theories.

We all know how that turned out.

Here's the thing:

If a particular group of people can be shown, according to "scientific evidence", to be savage, to be less intelligent, less capable of self-governance -- closer to animals than your own group -- how much easier to justify taking their land and confining them to reservations? How much easier to rationalize enslaving those who are less than human? How much easier to convince ourselves that beating, lynching those who are "closer to monkeys" is necessary to keep them in line? That selling them as property is okay? How much easier is it to send those who are "inferior" to concentration camps? How much easier to justify Jim Crow laws, miscegenation laws, if some folks are shown to be closer to animals than others?

Pretty damned easy, according to history.



So the monkey comment, besides being incorrect and ignorant, has a whole shitload of history attached to it, even still, today. If you think the monkey comment was no big deal, that particular bit of history most likely does not apply to you and yours.

My son will remember that little girl opening her mouth and ignorance falling out, he will remember every eye in that room turning to him. He'll remember hearing nothing but white noise roaring in his ears while the teacher struggled to address it, struggled to find something to say to this girl.

Something that wouldn't humiliate her too much.

He will remember that time in 9th grade history class when his classmate said black people look like monkeys. He'll remember how that felt. And he will be fully aware of the history behind that belief, enabling it to still be voiced in 2007.  He will also remember he has a voice.


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Afterward: (ha, look at me trying to play author and shit.)Miss Thang showed the film to all her classes. She had the kids write their ideas of race before the film. Afterwards they wrote how the film did or did not affect their views. She said it went well, that she was encouraged by some of the kids' papers.

She said she'd like to incorporate that film into her classes every year. She's going to bring it up to the science teachers, and try to put something together with them for later in the year.

And for the record, no, that is not the usual response.

I was impressed with Miss Thang, and yes, I checked myself on my own assumptions that I'd formed upon seeing her bouncy blonde ponytail and wide-eyed. perky smile. I learned a lesson too.

So, my son will not forget this experience, it will leave its mark; but he will also remember that the adults in his life dealt with that shit, and he'll be more prepared next time. He'll remember that his class learned that shit is not okay and not correct. And hopefully, he'll remember that a little change was made in his school as a result of addressing that ignorant remark.

Autoflush: When Innovation Isn't Good

So what is the deal with automatic toilets?

Welcome to the world of the Thinking Blogger, y'all.

You all know my department has temporarily relocated during the sprinkler installation so as to avoid death by asbestos 10 or 20 years from now. The new building has autoflush toilets. You know, with the little infrared beam that decides when you're sitting and when you're done.

(Side note: why isn't infrared spelled "infra-red"?)

Autoflush in my building needs to be recalibrated. That shit's just not working. Either that or autoflush is fucking with me.

At first, I was cool with the new water closet digs. Check out how the seat curves up at the rear, cradling your ass like an old recliner. Nice. So nice, in fact, that I was testing it out, leaning forward and back a little, appreciating the secure feel of the seat, when

FLLUUUSH!

The toilet autosprayed my ass. Literally. Damn it!

Fine. Lesson learned: no leaning around, no testing out the seating arrangements.  (Oh please. Like you've never done that.)  As long as I kept reasonably still on the porcelain throne, things would be fine.

Wrong.

Next trip, I go in, grab one of those paper seat covers -- or as my dad calls them, ass gaskets -- because this is a public toilet, after all. Punch out the center and lay said ass gasket down on the seat. Unbuckle belt, unhook pants, pull down, turn around to sit dow--------

FLLUUUSH!

Shit. Now I'm doing the bare-assed crouch maneuver over this power-flushing, porcelain vessel, the ol' bladder thinks it's time to let loose the stream, and I can't sit down because the toilet has autosucked my seat cover into its watery depths.

Shit. Practice some kegels, straighten up, awkwardly turn back around whilst keeping my knees apart so as to keep my pants up off the tiled germfest under my feet, grab another ass gasket, and repeat. This time, I back way up, so the autoflusher won't read me as "sitting" already.

It worked! I'm sitting, ass separated from the petri dish of a toilet seat by my properly placed prophylactic paper. Relief.  Except ... oh, no. This is turning out to be a Number Two occasion. Fine. Not the most convenient time and place, but whatever.  Like it's never happened to you.

So, I'm done. As the Airborne Rangers say, "Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door ..." I try to leave (on the count of four), but the autoflush has not kicked in.

I wait.  I wave my hands around. Do a couple of squats.

Nothing.

Some autoflushers have a manual override. In other words, a good old, regular flushing handle. Not these. Auto all the way, baby.

I back way up. I wave my hands in front of the reader, and wait again. Nada. The toilet sits, silently automocking my ass with its feculent cargo. I resort to duck-walking toward the rear of the stall, straddling the toilet, facing the wall, so my pelvis is blocking the reader.

At this point, two women enter the bathroom, laughing and chatting. Great. There is a knock on my door. "Oh!" The woman suddenly stops chatting with her pal, quickly moving on to the next stall. Great. There is nothing to do but the backward duck-walk. My new neighbor can't help but see my rear-facing shoes retreat, unless she's counting ceiling tiles. I'm sure this confirmed her initial suspicion that I am either 1) experimenting with pissing like the boys, or 2) I am packing.  Great.

About this time, autoflush kicks in with a vengeance.

Too little, too late, you porcelain bastard.

Bonfire of the Vanities

So, Male Offspring got back from football camp last night. Teen Demon had to pick him up, as I am still ensconced in my new cubicle with my colleagues, dealing with our recent relocation. Whole'nuther meaning to "close quarters". I thought one colleague was readying to give me a lap dance, but she just wanted to use the printer.

I put my dollar away.

Anyway, my daughter picks up her brother from school. Now, he'd told me he had a surprise for us once he got back. I was curious, as he could not be persuaded to spill the beanage. My phone rings:

Annoying Ring! Annoying Ring!

Me: Hello?

Perky Female Friend of Male Offspring: Hi! Is ____ there!?

Me: No, I'm still at work, he's not with me.

Perky Friend: Oh. Wait! Okay! Can you please tell him that Perky Friend said, "Ohmygod, I sooo can't believe you got a mohawk!"

Me: ... (a mohawk?!) ... Sure. I certainly will. Thanks for calling, Perky Friend.

Perky Friend: OK!! Byeee!!

Oh, this was going to be fun. I live for these times. Doesn't quite make up for the stretch marks, but hey, what can, really?

I pick up the phone:

Male Offspring: Hello?

Me: You got a mohawk?

MO: ...

Me: Mmm-hmm. That's right. You can run, but you can't hide.

MO:  How do you ...

Me: Those eyes in the back of my head? Yeah. Maybe think about that next time. When were you going to tell me about this little styling adventure?

MO:  That was the surprise! That's what I was going to show you! Who told you? Did TeenDemon call you? Man! I can't believe she to--

Me: She didn't tell me.

MO: But ... you're still at work! How do you kn--

Me: How I know doesn't concern you.

MO:  Did Coach call you!? Crap! Coach didn't call you did h--

Me:  I can't believe you did this. You're grounded.

MO:  What?!? But, why -- grounded?! Are you serious?! But ... it's my hair! What about the beach bonfire tonight? You said I could go! It's my own hai--

Me: Gotta go, things are crazy here.

MO: What? No! Wait, I need to --

Me: *click*

Of course, later he claimed he knew I'd been joking all along. Hey, whatever you have to tell yourself.  The mohawk is pretty cool.  He calls it his 'frohawk.

So I end up chaperoning the beach bonfire. The idea is to burn the last vestiges of middle school in a blaze of glory before moving on to the vaunted halls of high school.

Kind of an adolescent cleansing ritual involving fire, marshmallows, and illegal fireworks.

All week I'd tried to get the lowdown on this bonfire business. I thought he called from camp because he missed me. Or at least because he knew I'd miss him. He called to ask permission to go the bonfire. I, of course, had questions about an event involving darkness, fire, hormones, high tide and a bunch of boys fresh from football camp, pumped up on adrenaline and testosterone. (This was before I even knew about the fireworks.) I had questions like,

• Who's sponsoring the bonfire? (I don't know)
• Is it a school event? (I don't think so)
• Well, is it a city event, or just a private party? (I don't know)
• What time does it end? (Um, probably after dark?)
• Who will be there? (My friends)
• Do your friends have names? (You know. Just my friends!)
• Who is supervising? Are parents going? (Probably. I don't know)

Finally, half an hour before the big event, I am put on the phone with someone named Rachel's Mom. (None of us have names. We are all ______'s Mom.) We parents decide to pull together and start this high school thing off with a strong united front. In short, we're chaperoning.

I saw one firework go off a few inches from someone's hand. I saw a kid throw a firework into the fire, and then (get this) reach into the fire pit with his bare hand to retrieve it when it didn't go off. I saw another kid balance on the edge of the fire pit on one foot, while he kicked some logs around with his other foot to "rearrange things". I saw kids pushing each other while precariously bent over to roast marshmallows with what looked like a toothpick.

One kid shot a firework through a buddy's legs. Hello! I mean, seriously, I'm all for fun, but do they not know they could lose a hand? Or an equally useful appendage?  Yeah, Junior, you might want to hang onto that for later.  Just sayin'.

At least they weren't spraying Silly String into the fire, which can ignite the string and blow up the can, just like the warning on the side of the can says. (That, apparently, once happened when another parent foolishly left the room during a birthday party. Amazing what tidbits of information surface when parents compare notes.)

The fact that there aren't more grown men walking around with eye patches and bionic parts amazes me. I didn't see a single girl doing these things. A little testosterone is a dangerous thing, people.

Male Offspring missed all these pyromaniacal goings on, as he and New Girlfriend were sitting on a piece of driftwood, the 'frohawk silhouetted against the sky, watching the sunset. Well, they would've been, had the sun been visible. They were actually sitting on a piece of driftwood watching the various and sundry shades of grey swirl around. Pacific Northwest, people. I was actually proud -- okay, fine, smug -- that he didn't get sucked into the frenzied drama.

Next up, high school.