Setting boundaries (before Thanksgiving!)

Something yesterday made me feel a need to post things that can make people smile and show support. Going over my list of things that can help, one of the big ones was "Don't hate."

I am also incredibly angry. I want to get things out about that, except I appear to have written most of it before; I am just angrier now.

What I was trying to draft was a refutation of all of the wrong reasons people have been giving for the election results. People are wrong and lying and that needs to be refuted. It was getting so long and unwieldy, though, that I think I need to take a step back.

My core feeling is that as important as it is to love people, it does not mean overlooking.

Harm has been done and more harm will follow. Many of the people who are a part of that harm are clinging to illusions about how it was a principled choice or for a valid reason or not destructive. 

Those bubbles need to be popped.

Again, there is a lot to write there, but for now, let's focus on navigating the relationships .

Interestingly, there is some remarkably early buyers' remorse among Trump voters. 

One reason is the proposed evisceration of the Department of Education. Parents of students with IEPs and the teachers who work with those students are starting to realize that department is the source of their funding. 

Oops.

Also, we have people crying about family cutting them off because of how they voted. They knew how their families felt, apparently, but did not believe there would be a penalty.

You may have people you care for who have been hateful or ignorant (or both), but they are coming to you now feeling sad or scared. What do you do?

That is a very personal decision. For Thanksgiving specifically, it is also probably a somewhat joint decision. 

I can give some things to think about.

This may be somewhat influenced by reading On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. While there were things that I did not think were completely right, it was still refreshing to see a hope in reconciliation and a focus on the work.

I am also thinking about my own boundaries, and how people who have been very abusive have come back with no apologies.

It's not that I was waiting for an apology, but when someone who has treated you badly wants to act like nothing happened, that sets a clear expectation that treating you badly is still on the table. 

You don't have to make room in your life for mistreatment. 

Am I equating voting for Trump (or a third party) to personal mistreatment? 

Does dehumanizing people other than you and siding with fascism make people kinder?

Again, it's personal. For me it is also informed by it feeling more and more like a matter of integrity to make sure everyone knows how and why they are wrong. That may not be well-received, but it could ultimately be instrumental for their integrity.

Love can mean saying "no". It absolutely does not mean never having to say you're sorry.

And if you find that your family or community are harmful to you -- whether that is physical or mental, whether it is intentional on their part or not -- do not be afraid to build new family and community. 

We are going to need it.

 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/06/borders-and-boundaries.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/on-paternal-side.html 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2019/02/slowing-down-forgiveness.html 

Changing plans

Here is an example of how the election has changed my plans.

I have written before about understanding the complications of US-Israel relations and how that affects our ability to stop the genocide in Palestine. Sure, part of that is not enough will, and influencing Netanyahu doesn't seem to be possible, but what about no longer supplying weapons?

My plan was to research the arms agreements that we have with Israel; what conditions are there? When does it expire and need renewal? Then build on that, writing to legislators and maybe put a petition on whitehouse.gov. 

I have never said this administration is perfect, but I believe that it contains fundamentally decent people who want to do good things. Ending inertia is hard, but there are people who can be more willing.

I have so little hope in the incoming administration.

Initially my only thought for helping anyone in Gaza now, post-election, is getting them out. Sadly, that takes money, something on which I am very short.

I am not the only one in that position. The mass consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few, pretty terrible people, is not helpful for the good things that we might want to do.

However, if you have some, here is a spreadsheet of different fundraisers for people in Gaza:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-DDMFyn-ttboPXrz1bB3MFk7BlzCwfugh4259Wh7U1s/htmlview

I have gotten a tiny bit more optimism, remembering that Israel does not get arms only from the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_arms_supplier_countries  

Some of those countries may be more open to influence. 

Actually, when I was writing letters in Amnesty International, they never had people write to their own governments, because there were countries where that was much more dangerous.

That has been one thing with reading about various countries in Latin America: governments can be much worse. Of course, we often had an influence on that oppression, and ours is about to get much worse.

Maybe some countries can be influenced. 

Maybe Israeli people can be influenced so that they turn against Netanyahu. Some already are against him, and he is pretty corrupt which can make the mere will of the people ineffective, but maybe.

It is worth noting that we have really made things worse, and many people are lying to themselves about that in various ways.

I see a need to write more things that can be hopeful and helpful, but also to cut through lies.

The increased posting may have to continue for a while.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/10/election-2024-some-thoughts-on-bidens.html  

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/10/palestine.html 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/10/complicating-factors.html 

Thinking of the children -- Pride 2024

For the rest of my reading, it mostly breaks down into two sections (with some overlap).

One area is activism, which I hope to write about that next week. I hope that I can learn things that will be helpful now.

The other part seems to start with empathy -- reading about people with different experiences should lead to increased empathy, so that tracks -- but then it seems to turn into being protective.

There's still a lot of overlap. 

I already mentioned When We Rise by Cleve Jones. He has primarily been an activist, so most of his memoir is about that. Several of the things I have jotted down for further research came from his book. However, the part of his book that has stayed with me the most was reading that as a teenager he had a stash of pills set aside for when it became unbearable; he gave them up when he found a magazine talking about other gay people.

He was not the only one who envisioned suicide. Others actually attempted. 

After all, regardless of what they knew was available, as children most of them had some difficulty fitting in and were punished for that, by contemporaries if not by family. 

Here are the rest of the memoirs, two of which were cited last week:

In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider
Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby
The Boy Beneath My Skin: A Black Trans Man Living in the South by Charley Burton
The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation by Raquel Willis
Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz

For the record, my favorite was Ten Steps to Nanette. Gadsby's recounting of her life and the analysis of how it created her comedy special was really insightful and interesting. I also liked The Risk it Takes to Bloom very much.

The Boy Beneath My Skin was really rambling and repetitive. It had unique elements, like some symptoms in early life that sounded like schizophrenia and also addiction that had much of his journey correlating to 12-step programs. There was untapped potential there.

Close to the Knives was the least traditional memoir. What really stayed with me is that he deals closely with two deaths. During that time he is ill as well, but it seems like he isn't, like maybe he was going to be one of the survivors. He died a year after its publication.

I didn't enjoy Amy Schneider's book as much as I thought I would, but I still learned from it.

And still, very consistently, there is bullying. 

Very frequently there is molestation. I would speculate about how there being a part of themselves that they feel they need to hide leaves them more vulnerable, but honestly sometimes molestation just seems really common regardless of orientation or upbringing; what is the deal with that?

As they get older, where they are at the age of consent, there are still situations that sit wrong as they are manipulated or fetishized, most noticeably with the Black transgender people. What is the deal with that?

Beyond this reading, it is not uncommon that you will see big age gaps in queer relationships. That is not automatically predatory, but it's a thing that happens. 

I think it happens more easily because the stigma on talking about queer relationships at all prevents talking about how to have healthy relationships.

To be fair, that is not limited to queer people. We see big protests about any sex education for children -- even though that largely focuses on being able to recognize and seek help for being sexually abused -- because of an apparent reluctance to tell children that their body belongs to them and they don't have to allow abuse. I mean, where would that stop?

Therefore, so much of the focus on danger to children focuses on drag queens, when the actual abuse cases over and over again are relatives, youth pastors, scout leaders, and people on set for kids in show business.

I know some people have a really hard time accepting that queer people exist and that can be okay, but my question is whether we can realize that this denial is harmful to many people, including many children. 

Bigotry can only cause harm.

We're in for a long string of lessons on how wishing harm to others will spread beyond our desires, but that specific lesson on child safety has been around for a while. Let's learn it.

One of the most interesting things was reading a small bio of Sylvia Rivera. 

I had read about a tendency on her part to make false claims about some of her actions, so had some skepticism. 

I had not known about her father abandoning her when young and her mother committing suicide when Sylvia was three. I had not known that she left home at ten, partly because of the disapproval she faced. 

(And that was after reading another book on her, which was a children's book, but seems like it could have been more informative. Fairy tales have children orphaned and on their own.)

That is so young to be fending for yourself. I could see how there might be some grandiosity and confusion. She did real work, and maybe it did not feel like enough. I just know that the more I learn, the more compassion I feel.

I want us to do better for all of the children.

Hispanic Star en espagnol: Sylvia Rivera by Claudia Romo Edelman and J. Gia Loving

Sylvia Rivera (Leaders Like Us) by Kaitlyn Duling

There was one book that was really disappointing.

My New Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein

It had been on my radar for several years, and then it occurred to me that it would fit in here. 

I was expecting that I would regret writing about my gender before reading it. Nope. It is too cutesy and scandalous and daring, all of which made it really aggravating for me.

That is a shame, because it can be really hard figuring it out. There are better resources and role models out there now, but we still have a ways to go.

I want people to have resources. I may not be the best source for some help, but if you see an opportunity to help, take it.

Need is only going up.

Bracelets

It is now time to apply that thinking about emotion and fear and practicality to the bracelets.

First, after the horror of another election became clear, there were many terrible feelings of fear, disappointment, anger and sadness. Completely understandable.

Then, apparently, some white women started to worry that they would be perceived as Trump voters. It's gross, but understandable. 

https://x.com/flossymaetacket/status/1854970291115704630/photo/1 

Apparently white women voting for Trump only dropped by one percentage point, and we are 37% of the electorate. The split was 53% of white women voting for Trump and 45% for Harris, despite the overturning of Roe largely made possible by Trump's Supreme Court picks... it makes us look like slow learners.

I am not sure of the order in which everything happened. There were definitely TikTok videos suggesting making blue friendship bracelets to show support, but then it looks like there were kits and ready-made bracelets marketed.

(Apparently there is also a call for shaving heads, but emulating skinheads seems like a weird way to stand against white supremacy.)

It made me think of the 2017 Women's March, where the predominant symbol became something representing white womanhood, where the presidential candidate who had taken the hits was ignored, and where they cut off a Black trans woman in the middle of her speech in their rush to get to the Indigo Girls.

It also reminded me of the conversations around #MeToo where men would keep chiming in with "Not all men!" Their focus on themselves and their hurt feelings prevented them from hearing what they needed to hear and work toward solutions.

"Not all white people", "not all white women"... not helpful.

Support can be shown with visible symbols. There are things like Orange Shirt Day and Red Dress Day. They may work to raise awareness, and as personal reminders, but they are hollow without additional action.

This is where spending some time on intent and desire can be helpful.

If we want to show marginalized people that we are safe, a bracelet is not going to do that. If it did actually become a symbol people trusted, you would see people wearing it with bad intent to get opportunities for harm.

If the people around you don't know whom you are safe for, why don't they know?

That is our looking inward. Do we let things go to avoid making waves? Are we unintentionally committing microaggressions? Certainty that you are "one of the good ones" is a great way to not actually be that good.

Are we listening? I found out about the bracelets because I saw Black women criticizing them; are you listening to people that do not look like you? 

Besides, should the key goal be making sure people recognize your goodness? Or should we be trying to reduce harm?

That's a harder task, but a better one.

These are terrible times. Easy symbols are not going to fix that. 

Cycling through the fears

Drawing fills some needs, while blogging and journal writing some other needs, but there are also times when I really need to make lists. I often type lists or make spreadsheets, but sometimes I really need to be able to write them.

Therefore, I am also working on this page where I write down different problems I expect in the wake of this election, along with things that might be helpful, and then potential problems with the solutions.

Allow me to give some examples. This will be three topics out of many.

Trump has promised mass deportations and Stephen Miller has promised to "turbocharge" denaturalization -- stripping citizens of their status.

https://theimmigrationhub.org/press/gop-plans-to-turbocharge-trumps-denaturalization-project-threaten-the-nations-core-values/ 

My mother has been a citizen since 1967. I don't even know if she will live past the inauguration and it's unlikely they will target old people in memory care. Still, there is a personal level on which that offends me.

That one won't probably hurt my family directly. There are other problems.

Although they say they are focusing on criminals, Ana Navarro has correctly pointed out that there are not enough "criminals" to provide those numbers, probably meaning family members who are citizens getting caught up. That means not just DACA recipients, but children born here.

In addition, last time around, because of the sweeping and racist nature of the roundups, occasionally citizens got swept up. It was surprisingly hard to get extricated once that happened.

https://revealnews.org/article/u-s-citizens-caught-up-in-immigration-sweeps/ 

Why, yes, the common factor in the people being rounded up -- with official status or not -- was skin color. That is the real reason it probably won't affect my mother, but she does have an accent and she lapses into Italian more frequently now. People often assume it is Spanish. 

She is probably still safe, but I have neighbors that could affect. It probably won't here in liberal Oregon, but it is still disturbing.

Then there will be the effect on business, which could affect food availability and will certainly affect GDP (and adds to the possibility of that dreaded inflation).

https://cmsny.org/how-trump-mass-deportation-plan-would-hurt-usa/ 

There is a sort of cycling through in the process: this part won't affect me, these parts probably won't but there is a real rage associated with this possibility, and this part will almost certainly affect me.

That is not to determine that things that don't affect me are not problems. What I hope it does is give me a better idea of where to take action, what needs more research, and what can go on the back burner. Maybe there is still fear, but ideally it is not panic, becoming more practical.

Here's another one.

Based on how many women are getting messages now about ownership, being murderers, and looking forward to the loss of their rights, I cannot help but think that sexual harassment and rape will be increasing. 

There could be a really long post on this, and that may happen. I just want to do a short mention now that perhaps it is time for more self-defense classes, or maybe I should get some pepper spray. I don't leave the house much, but it might be good to have on hand.

This is a very minor potential solution, but it brings up two problems right away. I remember reading about a woman who had taken self-defense training. They taught her to gouge eyeballs, but in the moment she could not bear the thought of the eyeballs falling onto her.

That may sound silly (and gross), but if you are gearing up to hurt someone, can you execute it? Would you be able to react quickly enough and follow through? Sometimes that requires drilling. 

Also, the other problem it brings up is that when women defend themselves they end up being charged a lot, almost as if even now their rights are not as fully respected.

Finally, this is a stressful time, and I already had a high stress load. That often affects sleep, which is not good for my blood sugar. I also overproduce a specific type of white blood cells, eosinophils. It's at a low level, but it is there and it seems to be stress-based because all of the other potential causes tested negative. These are the kind of things that wear your body down at a faster rate, so it may be shortening my life at a faster rate than before.

That is a reason to try and do things for stress reduction, and I can set goals with that. I do have a tendency to prioritize other things and other people, and that is not always wrong. Clearly there are people who are in more danger than me. 

There will be times when working against injustice or defending someone is more important than my white blood cell count, but I should understand that choice so I know what I am choosing.

Does this process calm me? I think it helps somewhat. It's my default, whether it helps or not.

With the art, feel your fears and your anger and sadness, but don't stop at feeling them. It is a starting place, not a stopping place.

Also, notice how it cycles, where I am looking at myself, and at my neighbors, and at the Gross Domestic Product, and thinking about other women, but also back to my health. De-centering is important, but sometimes centering is important too. Balance is hard, so sometimes the workaround is to rotate, looking inward, then outward, and then repeating.

Honestly, inappropriate centering is a big part of the problem with the bracelets. That's what we are going to look at tomorrow. 

Art therapy

A few days ago I posted about this bracelet idea from TikTok, which is a topic unto itself. 

As the discussion took shape -- along with other discussions -- the persistent theme was that people are feeling a lot of emotions and an urge to do something. That's all very reasonable, but the strong emotion and the sense of urgency is not necessarily great for planning. I had an idea and posted this:

This is what I think would be a great way to channel some of that anger and grief and fear: make some art with it this weekend. It can be poetry, song, drawing, photography -- there are so many ways to express yourself. You don't have to share, but if you want to please do.

I will too.

I drew this:

This is art therapy, not really art for art's sake and certainly not commercial. I mention that for two reasons:

1. It doesn't matter that I'm not very good at drawing.

2. It is reasonable to explain it rather than leaving the individual interpretation to the viewer.

My overwhelming feeling has been of fragmentation. There is that urge to do something to make things better, but do what and how and in what order? It's a lot of mental noise.

In case it is not clear, the more solid representation in the center is me with my head in my hands and on my knees. Then more abstract images coming out of me are me running, baking, talking on a cell phone, and prone (maybe due to despair, maybe for sleep).

If there are questions about the accuracy... I have reached out to people, though that was mainly through text. I do sleep on my face, though it is more of an issue lately that when trying to read I sometimes can't stay awake. I have not done any baking yet, but I am pretty sure I will. I haven't done a big baking since Sandy Hook, but I feel it coming on. 

I have not done any running, but it represents the urgency.

My brain is slowly falling back into a better order, though there are still a lot of unknowns. The clarity comes more from writing, but it doesn't mean that the drawing isn't valuable. Art can provide a better path for the things we haven't quite worked out intellectually. That is why it is good for emotions.

This may not be the end of it. I have had this idea for a poem in the back of my mind for a while, but I haven't actually tried writing it out; there is a certain snarkiness to the concept that I am not sure I could execute correctly. Still, if it keeps popping up, it may just be best to get it out.

The more important thing is that the art was just one step.

Emotions are real. They are often not good resting places, but they come up and that's not really something that you control, so feel them.

My recommending that people do some art was a way of validating those emotions, but then we move on.

One thing I had been wondering about before the election was whether I should be blogging more. This week, I will.

What do we do after we face the emotions?

Elections: Pride 2024

There has been a lot of memoir in this round of reading, mainly -- but not exclusively -- from transgender authors.

There are two incidents that are sticking with me. 

This departs from the order of writing I had planned on going in, and it probably puts me a week behind in my blogging. 

Some things should be different.

Obviously, both of these are from the 2016 election.

In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

Schneider had recently relocated to Oakland, but found community there and attended a theater with a live feed on election night. Everyone was excited to see the announcement of our first woman president.

You know how that turned out.

Some people tried staying there, hoping, but she felt that she needed to leave. She stopped in a convenience store she frequently visited. The owners were immigrants and dark-skinned. They were talking, and something was  -- bothering is not exactly the right word, but something she couldn't understand. What she realized is that they weren't surprised. All of the white, lifelong citizens -- even though marginalized in some ways by their sexuality and identity -- had still been sheltered from knowing that so many people would really choose Trump.

The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation by Raquel Willis

The intro to Willis' book is about her being invited to speak at the Women's March. 

Years ago I expressed concern about it and chose not to go, mostly due to it adhering so much to white feminism. 

Willis expressed some of the same concerns, but then they asked her to speak, and I was wondering if I misjudged them. Then, during her speech, she was cut off.

It happened just as she referred to the erasure of trans women of color, but that wasn't why. 

It wasn't exactly a coincidence. Apparently, it was a matter of someone being in a hurry to get the Indigo Girls on, and maybe just being too easy to not prioritize given a Black trans woman her time.

It is hard to feel like we have learned what we needed to learn.

 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/i-did-not-march-rally-or-burn-anything.html

 

Democracy and the 2024 election

I have been posting daily about election-related things. That has included bad things about Trump and Vance, good things about Harris, Walz, and Biden, and things about business and media literacy.

I was starting to do one last post for today, and it started to have too much substance. I thought, okay, it's a blog post, and then it started to get kind of long for that too.

I generally do have a lot to say, but I am going to try and stay focused on this one aspect.

I was thinking about it because of the ballot box fires, but that came about because of the Proud Boys claiming they will be at polling places and various lawsuits about not counting ballots or removing voters from rolls. I was thinking about how great vote-by-mail is, but then in states with that, you still have people trying to take away the vote from people they don't like.

Of course, they have to be assuming they won't like those votes for the ballot box fires, but they are happening not just in states that tend to vote blue, but near the larger cities, also more likely to be blue. I mean, maybe it would make more sense to try it in Seattle than in Vancouver, but I if it's the same car in Portland and Vancouver, maybe they are too lazy to drive all the way up to Seattle.

It's probably someone different in Phoenix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_ballot_drop_box_arson_attacks_in_the_United_States 

Anyway, what I was thinking about was all of the times I have seen people chime in -- when democracy is mentioned -- that we are not a democracy, we are a republic.

That is not a lie; on a federal level our laws and a lot of our budgeting are done by elected representatives. 

That is even frequently true for states, though 26 states have ballot initiatives or referendums available.

Those initiatives and that selection of who represents... I believe that is important, even though imperfect.

I can't help but notice that the people who have been so quick to negate democracy have tended to be conservatives. They tend to be the same ones who get irritated that the votes of some counties have more weight, without really dwelling on how that's because there are more people in those counties. 

(You know, if we decided the land should vote instead of the people, it would just end up being the land owners voting. Don't they already do enough damage by lobbying and buying up news sources?)

It also seems worth noting that some of those less democratic/more representative institutions -- like the apportionment of electoral votes and legislator allotment -- tend to favor the former slave-holding states. 

I will also note that when people put forward conservative ideas, it is unusual for it to be original; they tend to come through the same few sources and then get amplified.

Then I see men tweeting about how women shouldn't be allowed to vote (something coming up a lot this election cycle, even though one would think it had been settled over a century ago).

It makes sense that a party that knows that it can't win if everyone votes would teach contempt for democracy. 

It doesn't make it a good idea, and it doesn't make it right, but it makes sense.

I just wish people didn't fall for it so easily.

I know we are capable of better.

That's my wish going forward, and my goal is to help with that.  

More movies! -- Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

By more movies, I don't mean that I have already written about some this year and now am writing about more. 

(Actually, some El Salvador reading that should bring in another movie and a documentary.)

Instead, this is going back to that professor's list of movies he used in class that really helped you understand the country:

https://x.com/MPaarlberg/status/1560397489156624384

There was a list of fourteen films, and I have been slowly working my way through. That is not just due to my usual speed issues, but also that some of the movies have been harder to locate. 

I was able to find four in 2022 and five in 2023, but it was hard to be optimistic about finding the final six. As I managed to view three of them this year, it feels more likely that next year I will be able to finish.

For this year's movies, there were some stark contrasts.

Who is Dayani Cristal? (2013)

This is mostly a documentary. Gael Garcia Bernal does some retracing of the path, but it is not really re-enactment. There are times when it almost feels that way, as he is passing through these same places and using the same transportation, meeting some of the same people. Really it is that there are so many people following that same path.

It started with a body in the Arizona desert. The people who try and identify these bodies and return them to their families have one clue, a tattoo across his chest, "Dayani Cristal". 

Eventually they find the Honduran family of the man, learning his identity. We meet his parents, wife, and his children, including Dayani Cristal, his daughter. 

Like many, Dilcy Yohan Sandres-Martinez tried to make it to the States to earn more money. The need was more urgent due to a son's leukemia treatments.

Immigration "reform" has done more to increase death than decrease attempts.

I was touched to see the caring dedication of the research team. 

La Sierre: Muerte en Medellin (2004)

I have to put an asterisk on that date. I found it described as a 2005 documentary and a 2006 television episode that was about half the length of the movie. I assume that the full-length movie was cut down for television presentation. I watched the full version (as far as I know), but the credits showed the year 2004, which is why I am using that.

Medellin is a neighborhood in Colombia which is run by teenage paramilitary groups. Two members and the girlfriend of an imprisoned member are followed by the cameras.

The first most horrifying part is how young they are, and the frequent reminders of how young they are. There may be an extent to which it matures them prematurely, but they really are kids. (And they are very much children having children; Edison was a 19 year old father of six.)

The next most horrifying thing was the apparent futility of it all. Even as they defeat one group, it leads to more war. They work out an amnesty, but there are other neighborhoods. 

It did remind me of the organizations in the favelas in Tropa de Elite 2, but it also made me think of the Crips and Bloods.

Tres Bellezas (2014)

Given that there is so much less death, this shouldn't be more disturbing... maybe it is just differently disturbing.

A former beauty queen in Venezuela is determined to have one of her daughters become a beauty queen as well, setting her daughters at odds with each other and neglecting her son. Even when she briefly gives up beauty there are similar dynamics, but pageants return. It is ghastly, tragic, and terribly typical. 

Constant death and poverty are hard, but they are not the only things that are soul-killing.

For some context: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/12/venezuelans-obsessed-with-beauty

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/01/hispanic-heritage-month-2022-movies.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/la-raza-heritage-month-movies.html 

Some thoughts on strategy

Last week I wrote that I think Biden has done a good job, without being perfect. 

Frankly, I think it's strange that we seem to expect candidate to be perfect now. I mean, we are still voting for humans.

I also mentioned how carefully he had to tread to avoid setting off more violence now that some people have become so confident choosing it.

In fact, he seems to be pretty good at negotiating and navigating. You can't always get others to come around, but when successful, a big part of that is often using caution and tact to not exacerbate the situation.

I think that is a big part of why there is not a harder public line against Israel. 

I don't think it's the only reason. I think the United States' own colonialist history and guilt about the Holocaust has led to a historic support of Israel that is hard to throw off, not to mention the years of treaties and congressional approval... I understand why things don't happen quickly, and that there is a limit to how much one government can influence another government. 

All of which is to say that as horrifying as the genocide that Israel is wreaking against Palestinians is, I also understand that there is a limit to how much our government can do to prevent it, and that there might be things being worked on to that we don't see. 

Now, let's look at the people saying they won't ever vote for "Genocide Joe". 

Given the previous points, that phrasing may indicate that they are not really considering political nuance in any depth.

I will also concede that they are not necessarily operating from a point of honesty and sincerity. I recently saw someone who had posted that he would vote for Harris if she chose Walz for her running mate. He changed that after she did. 

I can only assume he was sure that the pick would not be Walz, so the excuse he built in did not work. I am also sure that his tweets were not a strong factor in the final decision. I only mention it because I don't think it pays to assume good faith in all cases.

Let's assume good faith... once you say that a party can never win your vote, you have no bargaining power. There is no point in the party trying to appease you; they need to pursue other votes.

I won't say that it's not frustrating; I am frustrated all the time.

I will say that I am not petulant enough to forget other people in danger.

Let's look at other ways the position can play out: wanting the death to stop, they decide they will vote for Trump. 

That doesn't sound like it will work. 

Okay, believing that neither party is good, they will vote for a third party candidate or a write-in or not vote. 

That may work to demonstrate displeasure, but it will not do anything to stop the death.

Can showing the displeasure be a moral stand?

Well, maybe, but it is a moral stand that sells out women, LGBTQIA+ people, people of color, people with disabilities... it is going to add a lot of suffering and additional death to the death.

I have seen people profess complete comfort with this. Perhaps that makes them single issue voters.

That can be a strategy that works. To the extent that anti-abortion voters have made great strides toward making abortion harder to get. I am not sure how many abortions they have prevented, but they have certainly created a lot of suffering.

Perhaps being a single-issue voter is a better strategy for causing harm. That could explain a lot.

As much as being against genocide should be a good place to draw the line, what about Sudan? and the Central African Republic? Is it that the US does not have as much to do with those?

I am sure that many people who decide to abstain are probably in states where Trump is unlikely to win. Since the electoral college still exists, they may be right, but some of those margins get pretty close.

Also, choosing spite over participation makes me wonder how much they will contribute to the many repairs needed, no matter who wins.

Spotlight on Yuyi Morales -- Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

No, I am not done with the Pride Month writing. There will be more on that.

As my different reading sections are starting to overlap more (especially as I finish up the post-2016 election reading) I am trying letting the writing overlap and alternate as well. 

I don't know if I will stick with it, but there are ways in which I think it may be helpful.

Yuyi Morales seems like a good starting place. I first learned of her from a book that featured both her and Jerry Pinkney, so she connects to my Black History reading.

In trying to locate her work, I have run into some confusion. Among the books listed on Goodreads there was one, Le Costume de Malaika, by Nadia Hohn. I found one called Malaika's Costume and requested it (different language editions is nothing new), but the illustrator of that book was Irene Luxbacher. Was there a French edition illustrated by Morales? 

I went to her Wikipedia page to check. That bibliography mostly matches Goodreads, except that there is no Malaika's Costume (the French edition on Amazon shows the same artwork and lists Luxbacher). Wikipedia does show another book, Todas las Manos Buenas by F. Isabel Campoy, that Goodreads does not have.

I am trying to get a hold of that now, but tracking down books can be tricky, especially children's books. 

Maybe Yuyi is a good test case for blending and mixing things up.

Another reason that is appropriate is her own artistic style. While she can draw and paint, she will often mix in dolls and fabric and other materials. Sometimes it is blended so skillfully it is hard to be sure what was drawn and what was not.

That makes it seem appropriate that two of her books are tributes to artists: her illustrations for Amy Novesky's Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O'Keeffe Painted What She Pleased and Morales' own Viva Frida.  

Many of the books have strong senses of familial love. It may make sense that among her solo books are a counting book, an alphabet book, one featuring a game of hide and seek, and two books about a little boy imagining himself as a luchador. It would be easy to believe that those were inspired by her son Kelly as he was learning and growing:

Just a Minute! A Trickster Tale and Counting Book
Just In Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book
Little Night
Niño Wrestles the World
Rudas: Niño's Horrendous Hermanitas

That is easy to imagine because of the love infused in Dreamers. 

In Dreamers, Morales tells the story of her and her young son coming into the United States. During a difficult adjustment they find libraries and children's books. 

In addition to the beauty and inspiration found in the story, part of the fun is seeing familiar book covers. A future reading month could launch from that, at some point. 

While the term "Dreamers" has a specific meaning now, in the book it is about a mother and child discovering what they can become. There is optimism, but also an awareness that there are dangers. This is echoed in Bright Star, and it makes Morales' participation in a book for Project Amplify, Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz, logical. 

I am glad that I learned about Todas las Manos Buenas before I read the foreword Morales wrote to Celebrating Cuentos: Promoting Latino Children's Literature and Literacy in Classrooms and Libraries. In it, she refers to Campoy, and I knew the context that Campoy's work was the first book Morales illustrated (also a friend):

My friend Isabel Campoy wrote once that there are no Latinos in Mexico. or El Salvador, or Cuba, or in any or the twenty Hispanic countries for that matter, because Latinos is actually the term used to refer to the Spanish-speaking population (and their descendents) of the United States. For the same reason, I realize now, I had to come to a foreign country to become who I am: a Latino author and illustrator. I have learned that to be labled Latino also defines such things as the shelves where my work will be displayed. I sense danger in any term that specifies ethnicity, as if being Latino, or African American, or indigenous suggests the possession of a monolingual voice and a specific vision meant to be understood only by those who are already familiar with these. I must say that I do not fear this label. In my path through schools and in visiting my readers, I have learned that children take from our work what they need the most.

Additional books illustrated by Yuyi Morales:

Ladder to the Moon by Maya Soetoro-Ng
Sand Sister by Amanda White
My Abuelita by Tony Johnston
Floating on Mama's Song by Laura Lacámara
Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie
Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull
Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes

Election 2024: Some thoughts on Biden's presidency

I mentioned earlier holding off on some plans to connect more. It would be fairly perilous in an election year. People can be so annoying. More annoying than usual, I would say, except that some of the worst people are making that their personalities now. If I have old affection for them I hope they can come around, but this may not be the time to look for it.

Anyway, one of the minor issues -- and the reason that this post is specifically about Biden rather than Harris or Trump -- relates to the pressure on him to step down, followed by the outcry from those who cried that the previously professed loyalty to Biden was clearly insincere when everyone got so happy about Harris being the new candidate.

Allow me to clarify my thoughts.

I believe Biden has done a good job as president. I think that is more important than debate performance, especially when at our current level of polarization no one is watching the debates to make up their minds. They are watching the debates to reinforce what they already believe. The people who do not find Trump's narcissism, grift, and incessant lying disqualifying aren't going to change. It's awful, but that's how it is.

I would also like to throw out something that I read early on in his presidency, about how much danger there would be of more insurrection, which required some careful treading and diplomacy. Biden has faced a lot of open obstruction, but yes, there are people who were willing to hang a vice-president if it would bring them closer to their desired dictator for life. That group quite possibly includes members of the Secret Service, who are supposed to be the protectors. And with protocol and propriety, you have to send away the dog instead of them. 

Then, that there was so much nitpicking at every minor gaffe as a sign of his age, when he has a speech impediment, he has always been kind of known for gaffes, and the competitor is Trump, who can barely string a coherent sentence together... pressuring Biden to step down seemed very misguided, except it was probably more racist.

Because we had a competent vice president right there, certainly more qualified than Vance. Except she's a Black woman. 

There were just too many reasons to think that was part of the motivation.

Look, I can sympathize with a certain amount of fear about a woman losing to Trump; the last time was devastating. I still feel pretty strongly that the solution to fighting the racist misogynists is not becoming them. For one thing, the people who specifically want terrible white men will never be satisfied by one of ours.

So I was irritated with those -- and they were pretty much rich white men -- who were pressuring Biden to step down. 

Then, when Biden stepped down endorsing Kamala Harris, guaranteeing that she was the choice going forward, it was beautiful.

First of all, Biden no longer has to bother with the debates, he can focus on governing. Good!

We did not suddenly become less progressive. Good!

It was a good move and well executed. I applaud (and only a little bit because it ticked off people who had ticked off me).

Is Biden perfect? Absolutely not. Harris won't be either. 

People are upset about Israel and Gaza, including me. However, the guy who relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is not going to be better for Palestinians. Even if a third party candidate had a chance, looking at this crew, none of them should.

I would have gladly voted for Biden-Harris, and I gladly filled out by mail-in ballot Sunday night for Harris-Walz. 

It is absolutely still important to push for change. Next week I hope to write more about that. 

Pride Month: Continuity

I haven't been putting the year, like "Pride Month 2024". This is not a regular thing for me. 

Last year I was writing for Transgender Awareness Week, which was in November. We are almost there again, and with LGBT History month being now in October, or Pride being in June or July, there are lots of options for a regular rotation. 

When I finished writing about the transgender reading last year, I realized there were more books that I was going to want to get to. I planned to do that in June. That is why I have been thinking of it as Pride reading this year, but I do not know what my pattern will be. 

Here were some things that I knew after last year:

I knew that Janet Mock and Jonathan Van Ness each had another book, and I would read those, which I now have.

Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness

I can really see the value in reading things in order. 

For Van Ness, Love That Story was material that was important but did not necessarily fit into the first book. If I had read that first, I might have appreciated the greater context given in Over the Top.

In Mock's case, Redefining Realness did come first, but was missing some things that were important chronologically. Reading the things she thought of after putting the first book out in the world gave a more depth. That worked well.

I think both books are also a reminder that you can never tell a whole story. It doesn't have to be a lack of openness or anything intentional. Not only is there always more, but also sometimes things look different after more time and thought.

I knew I was going to want to spend more time on the Interface Project after suddenly not being able to get Eden Atwood out of my mind.

http://www.xysuz.com/the-interface-project 

https://www.interfaceproject.org/stories

That ended up being useful before I got to any of the books. The Olympics brought it up.

Let me be clear that I do not know that Imane Khelif is intersex; it is pretty clear that Umar Kremlev is shady. Nonetheless the topic came up and I had a source for more information on something that people really oversimplify.

Finally, while my focus was specifically on transgender people, there was also some historical reading about the larger movement. This may be another reason why this year feels more like it is related to Pride and the larger group. (I am aware that there are often inclusion issues with organized Pride activities.)

Regardless, after reading And the Band Played On, I started wondering about some of the people who were mentioned in the book, but not mentioned as having died. (It is about the early days of the AIDS crisis and there are lots of deaths.)

Two I remember looking up were Larry Kramer -- who had died, but not until 2020 -- and Cleve Jones.

Cleve Jones is still alive. He has a memoir.

When We Rise: My Life in the Movement by Cleve Jones 

First of all, it was inspiring to see that people did live. Yes, we know now that there are drugs that can fight HIV and AIDS, but for people who had it then, and saw so many of their friends and lovers die, that was not guaranteed.

In addition, just from reading Jones' book, there are at least two more movies and another book that I need to look into. It's not going to happen this year. 

I know that something will happen again at some point in 2025.

For now that's as specific as I can be.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading-memoirs.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/transgender-awareness-reading-until.html

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/08/gender-olympics-and-dominator-culture.html

Allowing space

I have been going back and forth with a very serious decision recently: whether to get social media set up on my phone.

It would mainly be for travel. I used to have a laptop that traveled with me. Once I day I could log on and post the song of the day and any relevant blogs and wish people a happy birthday, but it died quite a while ago. 

Right now I am also posting political content daily through the election as well as trying to stay connected to people. That I might have times when there are a few days with no posting is a concern.

I never worried about using the laptop, but somehow it feels different with the phone.

I suppose this is partly because most people keep their phones on them all the time; something I never did with my laptop. 

It is also because of merging, like Instagram with Facebook, but probably more because Musk ruined Twitter and Zuckerberg is evil and even Google no longer has not being evil in their charter... do I really want to reinforce that connection?

(It is a teeny bit because being in school gave me a new Google profile besides the one that has everything else. That only adds a small level of complication, but does act as a minor deterrent.)

As it is, we have had things come up twice now preventing travel; maybe I just shouldn't be planning on going anywhere.

I am not saying things will never be different. For now, my phone remains mostly just a phone, that sometimes take photos. It's pretty handy being able to call or text from wherever.

While it is technically still a "smart" phone, that part pretty much never works. I know I could figure that out, and I would have to if I were going to maintain social media use while traveling.This decision makes that a moot point.

This means that when I am watching television, I am watching television. 

(I wish my sisters would do that. So often they are there but missing things because their faces are in their phones. I rewind a lot.)

When I am on the bus, I will be reading, or thinking, or watching and even talking to people.

That's not awful.

In church, I... okay, sometimes my mind is wandering rather than me really listening -- there is room for improvement there -- but I am not scrolling my feeds.

Yes, it would theoretically still be possible to be like that with social media on my phone, but it's even easier when the phone has nothing there.

It was also a choice to allow me to have days off from what I am doing, no matter how important it feels. Breaks are important too. 

Pride Month Movies

I feel like it ended up being a very good selection. That was mainly luck, though it is the luck that you get from putting yourself out there. 

Two of them came up when I was searching on George Takei; he narrates Who's On Top and appears in Do I Sound Gay?. The other two were in my Netflix suggestions, I think because of watching Rustin and a Hannah Gadsby special.

I am writing about these in the order in which I viewed them, not in the order they were released. 

Disclosure (2020)

This is about the portrayal of transgender people by Hollywood. 

One of the most illuminating parts was going over the reveal in The Crying Game (1992). The person finding out vomits, and then all of these other films coming after doing that too. They are mainly comic films, like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but still, it enforces that this is the standard reaction.

That is dehumanizing, but the film is great for showing many of the humans that it hurts.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) 

I have not found much in the way of books on Johnson, which had been part of my plans. This documentary was a good start, giving more about her life and death, just as it describes.

One of the most emotional parts is a former roommate wondering if his actions put her in more danger. 

I knew there were questions about her death, and this does a good job of laying them out.

Do I Sound Gay (2014)

Filmmaker David Thorpe starts getting very bothered by his vocal inflections; hence the title question. (It is worth noting that this happened just after a breakup, and thinking of getting back into dating may have increased insecurity.) Thorpe works with a speech coach, as well as talking to friends and actors about "sounding" gay.

I found it interesting that apparently a big part of sounding gay was ending sentences upward, as if asking a question. One of the exercises for not doing that was a phrase with a specific cadence: "I am right. I am always right." Now that's a phrase that encourages finality.

It made me wonder if part of it was a lack of confidence, and a way of being deferential to be more acceptable. If that's the case, maybe it is something to work on, but if changing the speech patterns is pursued due to self-loathing, then maybe a therapy other than speech would be better?

(Now I am doing it, but I watched a 77-minute documentary. I should not be that confident making assessments.)

Who's On Top?  (2020)

As indicated earlier, this came up on a library search for George Takei, and I impulsively requested it. I had no idea it was set locally, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Yes, the title sounds like a double entendre. The documentary is about a group of four LGBT people (and it is literally one Lesbian, one Gay man, one Bisexual woman, and one Transgender woman) preparing to climb Mt. Hood together.

I really felt for each of the individuals, learning more about them and what being "on top" would mean for them. Seeing Portland and familiar locales was great. It was even cool recognizing all of the newscasters in the clips of stories of deaths, injuries, and search and rescue efforts on Mt. Hood. 

I may have heard before, but it did not really register, that Mt. Hood is the second-most climbed mountain, with only Mt. Fuji having more annual climbers.

I cannot stress enough how little I am interested in mountain climbing. There are so many other activities you can do with less danger, that don't require going to special low-oxygen rooms to condition and starting at midnight so the sunlight doesn't melt your path. I mean, Touching the Void was pretty horrific, but they were experienced climbers so the movie focused on the unusual things that went wrong. 

These are mostly beginners, so there is more time spent on that process of just getting to where you can reasonably expect to safely make the top. It's not that I was really thinking about it before, but knowing more now, uh-uh.

That wasn't the point of the movie, but understanding it was part of getting to know the climbers. 

The movie was great. It was also the one I watched most recently, and it appears I still have some emotions about it.

Exploring my sexuality

When I am doing a series of posts, it often feels right to go in threes. 

There is a long history of people conflating gender and sexual orientation, though I think there has been progress on that. It may be less common for people to think about the difference between sexual orientation and sexuality; that's whom you're interested in and what you do with them, right?

It may be much more about how you do what you do, and not exclusive to the bedroom.

First of all, I should say that in a lot of my feminist readings over time, I have noticed that for many men sex is mostly about force; not necessarily rape, but how hard even the consensual sex is done. 

I remember one woman who had a boyfriend like that. Later her doctor thought she had been violently assaulted because of the scarring. She hadn't really enjoyed it, but she accepted that was how it should be.

Then you have men who claim women are actually incapable of orgasm; it's the only acceptible explanation for why a woman has never had one with them. There is this new trend -- and it is so ignorant I hope it is not widely spread, but can't be sure -- where there are men saying that sperm alters women's DNA so if you have children with a non-virgin, those children will have traits from other men.

No. That's not how that works.

This mindset of sex being something for dominating and changing a woman (without pleasuring her) is really the same misogyny that pays less because they refuse to consider the work equal, while at the same time demanding more household labor and emotional labor without admitting it is labor.

My point is not to bash men (and of course they are not all like that) but to point out once again that dominator culture ruins everything. (I have spent several posts demonstrating that on the Sunday blog.)

What I am more interested in is how things can be better. Some examples come to mind.

First is the segment "Getting Real" from My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen.

She starts at a beach where a recent ileostomy has made her feel worse about her body. The many Barbie-perfect bodies (the companions of wealthy men also there) around her made that worse. Then a middle-aged woman -- older, and a little heavier, but with complete confidence -- sauntered out. All of the men and many of the women stopped and looked at her.

"It was my first lesson in the difference between perfection and sexuality."

She moves on to a patient who had always been perfectly beautiful, then needed a mastectomy, and her transformation. The most important part of it was still about the first woman:

"Real sexuality heals. In its presence I could begin to reclaim my own sense of possibility and wholeness, and I am grateful to this woman for inhabiting her body in this way. Without knowing me at all, she helped me to begin to inhabit my own life."

As traumatic as a surgery that removes part of your body can be, you don't need one to be aware of your own body's lack of perfection. If we think of sexuality as sexiness and believe it requires perfection, that can mess us up pretty badly, even if not as badly as equating sex with domination.

Somehow, we need to appreciate the marvels of our bodies and of each other to get at that healing and wholeness.

Alice Wong's Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire would surely have some food for thought, but right now I am thinking more of Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power".

For her, the erotic should be a part of sex, but it was also part of creativity and strength. 

"Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy."

Look, I have given you three options for further reading and they are all worth looking into. Our individual paths toward wholeness may look very different.

I know that I have felt called toward healing for some time. Part of that journey is my own healing, and part of that is bridging the rift with my body that started so young. There are ways in which I am already better, and areas that still require some work.

It's worth doing for yourself too.

The never-ending Pride Month (Pride 2024)

This is not about how Pride Month was officially June and I am still getting through the books I planned on reading (though that would be a completely logical guess).

It is not about how although Pride Month is officially in June but Portland celebrates it in July (because of Rose Festival and graduation and everything). I was more aware of the timing because I volunteered there this year, so it was my first year attending.

This is more about how in my other reading I kept encountering queer authors.

I thought about titling this post "Is everybody gay?", but I was concerned that it could seem derogatory. Instead, I am going to save a really corny and obvious joke for the end.

The pieces started falling into place when I was reading How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler.

It would not have been unreasonable to read it for Asian-American heritage, or even science, but it came up because a friend recommended it and I had asked friends for their favorite books because of a reading challenge.

Imbler is queer. 

I might not have even noticed that if more time had elapsed between reading How Far the Light Reaches and The Viral Underclass, whose author Steven Thrasher is also queer. 

Of course, I was also reading Ocean Vuong and Demian DineYazhi in between. 

Now, DineYazhi's work, An Infected Sunset, was inspired by the Pulse Nightclub shooting; I was reading that specifically for Pride. He nonetheless could fit comfortably into my Native American Heritage month reading, and probably will be mentioned when we get to that, just like Ocean Vuong was featured in the Asian-American reading.

The point is that the boundaries are blurring, and I think that's a good thing. 

Often when there are attempts at representation, it is not done with very much thought. So, if we get a lesbian couple where one half is Black and one is of Asian descent, without any insight into how their backgrounds go together, that might not advance us as much as we would like. It will still make some people really angry, and it may help in terms of acclimatization to something other than a white monolith, but there are probably missed opportunities. 

More people from a wide variety of experiences telling their stories and sharing their viewpoints helps in many ways. It can be more honest than even the best-intentioned white straight person checking boxes. 

Consider The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. A gay Black man is probably going to have a more accurate perspective on that than I could. I encounter inequality in some ways, but there are ways in which privilege shelters me. I want to reach beyond that.

One interesting thing I just learned (from an e-mail from the Movement for Black Lives) is that October is LGBTQIA+ History Month. Now my writing is timely!

Sure, it seems like I should have already known that, and starting in the second half of Hispanic Heritage Month and going right to Native American Heritage Month could present some conflict, but the key is more to learn and remember, not the schedule. (Says the person who is always behind, and is now thinking that maybe October 2025 should focus on queer Latinx and Native American people, but there is a lot of indigenous overlap there anyway.)

If anyone is curious, other queer authors featured during Asian-American Heritage month were Laura Gao (Messy Roots), Trung Le Nguyen (The Magic Fish), and George Takei. 

Around that time period I also read The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson. That was more for science; I don't have a strict schedule there.

Ready for the corny joke?

Maybe the real Pride Month was the friends we made along the way. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/09/spotlight-on-george-takei-apahm-2024.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/09/summer-reading-challenges.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/08/graphic-novels-for-apahm-2024.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/07/spotlight-on-alice-wong.html

Exploring my sexual orientation

Don't get too excited; I'm still straight. I do still have some thoughts.

Part of that has been wondering how much was social conditioning.

I know that I started experiencing sexual attraction when I was a senior in high school. There was a definite flip of a switch.

Before that I'd had crushes, but even before that, I was always interested in boys.

When I was three, I got engaged to the boy next door. There was a boy at church I thought was cute. I knew other boys but they didn't seem to matter the same way. Why? I don't know. This was attraction, but not sexual; why some and not others?

Getting to those crushes, I definitely had types, but I am not sure where they came from. I was capable of being persuaded.

For example, in junior high I liked baby-faced basketball players. I was never attracted on my own to short guys, but I was talked into it, at least once. If other people say someone is good-looking, it must mean something, right?

Then, in college when I fell in love with someone, anyone who reminded me of him caught my attention. 

There was still a pretty specific height range (about 6'2" to 6'4"), but not quite as lean (more football player than basketball), dark hair and piercing eyes. 

The last time I fell in love, it did change my type again. Still tall, but less dramatic hair, a beard (but not a long bushy one) and usually wearing a beanie. Well, you can imagine how often I see that in Portland. It does catch my attention, though I take it in stride more than I did in my early 20s.

I skipped a step. 

I did fall in love in high school. Until writing this, I did not remember it changing the type of guy I was attracted to. I was thinking maybe there was no one else like him, but then I remembered a guy in a commercial, and another one in a movie. Yes, I was noticing similarities. The only real effect was that I have always wished Elias Koteas well in his career. (But it was really just the hair that was the same, and Elias Koteas did not keep the hair.)

Here's the thing that was really important; each of those three times, it was love at first sight. It resulted in attraction, but was more like a recognition.

That's how attraction works for me. As indicated, I can talk myself into an attraction, and have, but I have always regretted it. 

Most importantly, while I cannot necessarily say that they had the same reaction to me, we were mutually drawn together. The more I got to know them, the more I liked them. We wanted to spend more time with each other. Whatever that pull I felt was, it made sense for me to listen to it.

Unfortunately, I was so sure that they would get tired of me that I tried to limit that time, even though there was nothing I wanted more than more time. 

There are two things with that.

First of all, any healing that you can do makes everything else better. I realize lots of people enter relationships loaded down with emotional baggage -- it happens -- but my particular combination of dysfunction was not well-designed for that.

Secondly, having tried various things that did not work for me, I don't have any interest in replaying that. Thinking about online dating or any other type of effort just sounds awful.

If I were to feel that pull again or could reunite with one of my previous loves, that would be a different story, but I'm not looking.

That being said, I do feel good knowing. My examined life is worth living, and I have learned from it.

And, if there is something that is weird about you, or seem impractical or ridiculous, but is actually what specifically works for you, honor that. 

Spotlight on George Takei, APAHM 2024

The downside of having this pause between the other Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage month and the George Takei spotlight is that I have come up with so many more thoughts than I expected. 

Waiting was a matter of necessity. In addition to wanting to catch up on daily song posts, two of the books were only available through Inter-Library loan and it took a while for the requests to come through.

Therefore (in a big departure for me) this post may wander.

After reading his graphic novel account, They Called Us Enemy (2019), and his children's book, My Lost Freedom (2024), I started wondering what else there was:

To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu by Geoge Takei (1994)

Oh Myyy! by George Takei (2012)

Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back by George Takei (2013)

To Be Takei (2014)

Allegiance (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (2016)

I don't usually include years for books, but timing is somewhat relevant here.

First of all, for the regular autobiography, To the Stars, there is a big gap between it and the other writings. 

It is such a big gap that he was not publicly out yet. It was a really entertaining book and there is so much that was interesting, but it is also weird because he is so publicly out now that you keep waiting for a mention; it just doesn't happen.

Then, at some point, he starts having a real social media presence. That inspired the two books and the documentary, which is largely about his activism and awareness raising. A lot of that is for LGBT issues, but it is also for issues of racism and remembering Japanese internment, so also the genesis of the stage play, Allegiance. 

It is after that when we get the books related to internment but geared toward younger audiences. 

That is all a logical progression. I also discovered a couple of other movies that will relate to the Pride month reading, so in fact Sulu is the bridge.

Here is where my thoughts become somewhat messy. 

First of all, the two books about internet use are not great. Part of that is simply that they are outdated; that is a thing that happens with technology. An older person figuring out the internet is likely to be more interesting to him than to almost anyone else. 

The books are not as amusing as his posts, though he does replicate many of them.

There is also one point of frustration for me.

When I first became aware of his posting, it related to a clip of a person in a store getting up from a wheelchair to get something off of a shelf, and people were mocking that person for using a wheelchair when they didn't need it.

Many people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices can stand and even walk. They may not be able to do it for extended periods without heart strain or dizziness, or perhaps they are at high risk of dislocation. There may be a lot of pain involved, but there are lots of types of disabilities and health issues. Thinking that every person in a wheelchair is totally paralyzed at least from the waist down is ignorant. Mocking that is cruel.

He got some push back. I don't think he handled it quite as badly as William Shatner, but he didn't come around either. In the books he talks about offending people. He defends humor and freedom of speech, but he got why mocking Japan after the tsunami was wrong. 

It doesn't make him different from many other celebrities. I don't think he's a bad person and I don't dislike him, but I do wish he was better in that way.

The next point of messiness is about Allegiance, though he didn't write that. 

Admittedly, I have not seen it; I have only read about it and listened to the soundtrack.

You have a very close brother and sister falling on different sides of the loyalty question, where the sister resists and marries another resister, and the brother joins the army and serves heroically, but the white woman he fell in love with is killed in a scuffle.The brother and sister are estranged for sixty years until her death.

There are a lot of things that are unrealistic with that. First of all, there was one person shot in an internment camp, and it was an old Japanese man. I don't think it makes sense to make the martyr a white woman. 

Most families seemed to stay close. There are a lot of different experiences, and I don't know them all, but that didn't seem right.

Also, they make a real person the villain, but in what seems to be an exaggerated way. That feels irresponsible and wrong.

I did find some other thoughts on that issue, from people who actually saw it and are closer to the issues, so I am going to let them comment:

https://www.nichibei.org/2015/11/a-jaclers-perspective-of-allegiance/

I'm sure some of it is for dramatic effect, but I still think there could have been a better story there. Maybe it would have better if it were based more on the Takei family.

For more about the internee experience, They Called Us Enemy really is excellent. 

I also recommend We Are Not Free by Traci Chee. She came from a large family, and maybe that made it easier for her to depict multiple different attitudes but where connections persisted.

Finally, in reading about Takei's early acting career, the same names kept popping up. This was fun in a way, because I have my own fondness for Keye Luke and Nobu McCarthy. Then it was a reminder of how much their ethnicity limited their roles, and they were relatively lucky in terms of finding work. 

That reminded me of Nancy Wang Yuen's Reel Inequality, but other things as well. 

There is still a long way to go.