Spotlight on Alice Wong

Fairly recently, I saw a tweet about a new book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, by Steven W. Thrasher, and that it featured Alice Wong:

https://x.com/SFdirewolf 

https://www.instagram.com/disability_visibility/

Twitter is great for parasocial relationships (though it was better before the ownership changed). Without having met someone -- sometimes not even having interacted -- you can develop respect and affection for people. 

If I remember correctly, I first started following Alice because of another book she edited that featured some people I had met and admired, along with many others I did not know.

Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century

It is exactly what the title says, but that doesn't convey the variety and beauty of experiences. 

There are different types of disabilities, different issues with them, and writers of different genders and races and sexual orientations. Within a relatively small amount of pages it contains much.

The Viral Underclass was from 2022. The post I saw was probably a re-post of something older, but it was new to me. I finished reading it June 21st of this year. While it is a very good book with important information. I am also fine with not finding it sooner. There are some other things that I have read since its original publication date that enhanced my understanding of it now.

Similarly, Disability Visibility came out in 2020, and I read it in 2022. However, that was fine because that meant I had already read Emily Ladau's Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally. That did not come out until 2021, but I felt like it gave me a good foundation.

I mention that because disability and accessibility are important topics, and you need to start somewhere. If you feel like you are getting a late start, don't worry about that so much; just begin!

Which is a long way of saying that when I was reading The Viral Underclass, it occurred to me that it would make sense to do an spotlight on Alice Wong. I had already read three books edited or written by her.

(Then, after Tuesday's post, I moved it up on the schedule because it felt more urgent.)

Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire

This was the most recently released and read, but works well as a follow-up to Disability Visibility. 

Once more, there is some wonderful writing. I was loving the book just from the first two segments.

One of the really amazing things is how few common contributors are between the two books. The level of representation achieved requires serious effort. It helps create a vision for how we can be different and better... which brings me to the other book:

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

I actually read this one when it came out, in 2022.

Speaking of that vision, I remember finding that here, but being surprised by it. What seemed to start by casting aspersions on intersectionality was really about how visible disabilities can become defining and confining, automatically creating expectations. Maybe people expected to write about disabilities would rather be writing romances or mysteries or ghost stories. It wasn't the path expected, but it was effective. 

Year of the Tiger had an account of the author's life, but there was also art and recipes and a crossword puzzle. The review described it as an impressionistic scrapbook, as opposed to a memoir. Yes, that makes sense. It did not have to stay within the confines of what was expected.

Alice Wong does good things, with creativity, humor, and connection, while continuing to attempt to help others.

https://linktr.ee/disability_visibility

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No one left behind

I am finally getting back to why it is important to make sure that we consider accessibility with all of our other issues. That includes protest planning (as mentioned fairly recently), but really, it is for everything.

I don't like that it has to be said at all because of the first reason, that it is simply the right thing to do. 

This is a sentiment that I have seen a lot, but as far as I know the first time was in 2017 with discussions about the Affordable Care Act (and people trying to strip it down and repeal it).

https://x.com/LaurenEMorrill/status/819714138213642241 

From Lauren E. Morrill:

My biggest problem in these ACA debates? I don't know how to explain to you why you should care about other people. 

I am going to go ahead and explain the self-interest part, and it's valid, but there's a limit to how far self-interest will get us.

Regardless, one reason to make sure that accessibility is accounted for is that many of these accommodations benefit others. For example, curb cuts exist because of people using wheelchairs, but benefit people pushing strollers and hand trucks and rolling totes. 

Many products that have been designed to assist with specific disabilities have ended up becoming very popular because they make things easier for people who are holding a child with one hand trying to do something that usually takes two hands, or that are just busy.

Perhaps one reason for that is because the borders of what would be defined as disability or not are often blurry.

This is partly due to the ground that it covers, but also the entry points.

When we think about the Americans with Disabilities Act, your first thought will probably be people in wheelchairs. Perhaps you will also include other mobility devices like scooters, and walking aids like crutches, cans, and walking casts. There are similarities and differences in their needs.  

That is also true of how those disabilities came about. 

Some could be there temporarily, due to injury or surgery. There are also episodic conditions that change. We had a family friend with multiple sclerosis who sometimes needed a wheelchair, and sometimes didn't.

There is a wide variety of congenital issues. I have had friends with cerebral palsy who have used crutches and wheelchairs (and sometimes nothing) because there were movements that were difficult. With other conditions, like brittle bone disease or Ehlers Danlos disease, various movements might not be difficult on their own but have a risk of injury.

That is just mobility, not taking into account issues with hearing, vision, mood disorders, or facial differences. Adding those areas would still not cover everything. I just read Say Hello by Carly Findlay, who has ichthyosis. She used the term "facial difference", and that is accurate, but there is also pain associated with it, and different versions that can have different severity levels.

Personally, it is weird for me to think of my diabetes as a disability. I have written about that, but there are also reasons that it gets classified as a disability. I need to be able to have access to food, mainly just meaning regular meal intervals, but the ability to rectify it if my blood sugar plunges. I would be unsuitable for some long shift factory jobs. I have also taken medications where I needed to be careful with my sun exposure. 

When we talk about disability, we are talking about a lot of things. That is part of why it is so important.

First of all -- and this relates to self-interest -- you not having a disability now does not mean that you never will. 

If you are born white, that is probably not going to change. Your gender and sexual orientation are probably not going to change (though understanding of them may shift), but you may have choices to make about how open to be and if there is gender affirmation care needed.

You could become disabled at any time. Then, even when there are changes you would expect with that, there would be others that you had not been able to predict at all, including in how you are treated.

There is not even time to go over all of the possibilities, but let me make a few points.

Many people have recently had to deal with new issues due to long COVID. The more often you get it, the more your odds of post-infection issues increase. (Which would be a great reason to take precautions like masking!) 

That alone should be a reason to want to be supportive. In addition, much of what we have learned about long COVID -- which is still pretty new -- has come from people who have it connecting with each other, describing their symptoms and what has alleviated those symptoms, and sharing experiences. They have been able to build up a body of knowledge that is then available for medical professionals, if they will listen.

It makes sense to listen to them, but also, it logically follows that with so much variety of condition and experience, we should be listening to people and trusting them to tell us the story of their own lives. 

We have a tendency to not be great about that with all types of marginalization, but disability is an area where there can be many more unknowns.

In that listening, we can create a better world for everyone. That listening has to happen first.  

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/11/affect-access-and-acceptance.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/09/identity-crisis.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/deferred-disability.html

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Black Country: Black Music Month 2024

It started with an article in Marie Claire:

https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/country-music-black-women-roundtable/ 

I had been thinking about Black people in country music since Country Carter was released and "Fast Car" won a Grammy. This article gave me several examples of people to listen to and a book to read. 

The initial article didn't quite give me 30 days of music. I did some other searches, but this article was a great starting place. There were two important things about it.

First of all there was the mention of DeFord Bailey as the earliest Grand Ole Opry star. My previous knowledge only went back as far as Charley Pride, decades later.

It also ended up pointing me to Alice Randall's book, My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future.

That gave me a lot more knowledge. If I had read it sooner, it might have changed some of the songs I picked, but I am okay with the songs I picked.

If I have one regret, I suppose it was using "Old Town Road" in February. It made sense at the time, but I had not known that this was going to happen. I don't like repeating, but it felt like "Old Town Road" was so significant that it needed to be included again.

I am including release dates, and ended up going in chronological order.

Well, there are several in the same years; I did not check specific release dates in that case. Regardless, you may notice that the numbers of songs go up between "Old Town Road" and "TEXAS HOLD 'EM". 

That is partly because the Marie Claire article was focusing on what is current, and most of my listening pool came from there. It does also seem like there may be some barriers being removed. I hope so. Country music isn't my thing, but diversity, equity, and inclusion is. Representation is important to me, as is ending erasure. 

Many of these influences did not get enough recognition, or they were recognized but then erased. 

One of the worst things from Randall's book was about DeFord Bailey. Relocating to Nashville, she was told at least twice -- by white men -- that the reason he faded into obscurity was that he got too lazy to write new songs.

Talking to a Black politician, Bailey had written a jingle for him later, and was still doing things in the community. Did that community work specifically get him shunned, or was laziness just the easiest explanation to put on it? It isn't always possible to piece everything together, but there are reasons to be skeptical of white people blaming a lack of success on Black pathology.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/06/final-thoughts-black-history-month-2024.html

About those barriers... one thing I admire about Beyoncé is that she seems to be very thoughtful and deliberate about what she does. As I looked up these various artists, a lot of them were getting recent plays on songs off of Cowboy Carter where they played a role. 

She didn't only use Black artists -- there are appearances by Dolly Parter, Willie Nelson, and Miley Cyrus -- but they are all also really famous. I suspect it was a pretty big boost for people like Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, and Tiera Kennedy.

I remember reading in Legends, Icons, & Rebels (from the Robbie Robertson spotlight) that Patsy Cline made a point of mentoring other women coming up in country, most notably Loretta Lynn. There is a little homage to Cline on Cowboy Carter, but there may be a bigger one in working to raise the profile of other artists.

For additional reading on Black Country artists, My Black Country may be your best bet, but here are some other articles I used:

https://www.tennessean.com/in-depth/entertainment/2021/09/23/black-country-singers-kane-brown-mickey-guyton-jimmie-allen-future/8156120002/ 

https://www.billboard.com/music/country/black-pioneers-country-music-grand-ole-opry-9433530/ 

https://briefly.co.za/facts-lifehacks/top/165926-top-black-country-singers/

https://www.wideopencountry.com/6-african-american-country-singers/

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/02/fast-car-discourse.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/03/daily-songs-february.html 

And -- of course -- the songs: 

6/1 “Muscle Shoals Blues” by DeFord Bailey (~ 1932)
6/2 “Bad Case of the Blues” by Linda Martell  (1970)
6/3 “Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone” by Charley Pride  (1970)
6/4 “Fairytale” by The Pointer Sisters  (1975)
6/5 “Green Eyes (Cryin' Those Blue Tears)” by Dona Mason with Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass (1987)
6/6 “You Do My Heart Good” by Cleve Francis (1992)
6/7 “Movin' On” by Po' Girl (2004)
6/8 “Country Girl” by Rissi Palmer (2007)
6/9 “My Heart” by Lizz Wright (2012)
6/10 “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker (2013)
6/11 “What Ifs” by Kane Brown ft. Lauren Alaina (2016)
6/12 “Moonlight” by Rhiannon Giddens (2018)
6/13 “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus (2019)
6/14 “Good Times Roll” by Jimmie Allen & Nelly (2020)
6/15 “Nobody's More Country” by Blanco Brown (2021)
6/16 “Stand For Myself” by Yola (2021)
6/17 “Good Love” by Shy Carter (2021)
6/18 “Raised Right” by Reyna Roberts (2021)
6/19 “Wild Turkey” by Amythyst Kiah (2021)
6/20 “Nightflyer” by Allison Russell (2021)
6/21 “Tall Boy” by Shaboozey (2022)
6/22 “Highways” by Denitia (2022)
6/23 “Praise the Lord” by Breland ft. Thomas Rhett (2022)
6/24 “Alabama Nights” by Tiera Kennedy (2022)
6/25 “Something to Dance To” by Willie Jones (2023)
6/26 “Nothing Compares To You” by Mickey Guyton ft. Kane Brown (2023)
6/27 “Love You A Little Bit” by Tanner Adell (2023)
6/28 “Blank Page” by The War and Treaty (2023)
6/29 “Bigger Than The Song” by Brittney Spencer (2024)
6/30 “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” by Beyoncé

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We still have power

That was the last thing I wrote in my 2023 journal (which I kept going until my birthday before starting a new one). There was some severe weather was expected. 

The power lines on our section of the grid are underground, which really helps protect them from fallen trees and things. I remember one time the power being out all of the nine miles between Jones Farm and 170th. Crossing that last street, everything was light and bright. 

Because of that, I was not worried about this particular storm, until a friend of Julie's insisted that we needed to be worried. This storm was going to be really bad.

Of course, he was on a different section of the grid.

It was, in fact, a really bad storm. We know people who had to go to hotels because of the loss of heat, or because a tree took out their roof (and car). 

Driving around a few days later, we were amazed at all of the downed trees and damage. A lot of it is still there. What fell across roads and onto houses was cleaned up, but if it just went down an embankment or across a ditch and snagged with other trees and branches, it's still there.

For that night -- without knowing what would happen, just where we were so far -- that phrase has stuck with me.

We still have power.

In writing about protest, one thing I have written about is the difficulty of exerting power, especially with increased concentration of wealth. I remember years ago trying to figure out how one could possibly exert any economic pressure on the Koch brothers. I did not come up with much.

We still have power.

To exercise it, we need to understand it.

The continued flow of electricity to my neighborhood was made possible by protective action, not by a show of force.

You can try building stronger and stronger power lines, but there are limits to how practical that gets. 

You can try cutting down all the trees surrounding them, but you lose the environmental and cooling and aesthetic benefits.

A show of brute force is only going to make the world uglier.

If we are going to do anything good, we are going to do it by taking care of each other. We will do it by caring about each other.

We will protect the most vulnerable against the most powerful.

We will care more about doing right than being right.

We will care more about being kind than being vindicated.

I'm not saying it's easy, but I am sure it's the only way.

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May Songs

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and so I chose songs by artists with that heritage.

There wasn't really any other theme. I tried to focus on artists who were actually in the United States, like last time, but using the ones that I remembered more and liked better.

It does mean that I am more familiar with a wider variety of musicians, which I like. However, I keep finding books about Black music that gives me specific themes and deep dives where I feel like I am doing something more there.

With Native American/Indigenous artists, while I do still find new artists, there is so much in terms of just figuring out which term to use and what implications and preferences come with that is its own thing.

The name of the month is even more problematic with Hispanic Heritage Month, but that has led to some interesting things too.

For this one I feel like I am on a plateau. 

I can live with that for now, but next year I hope there will be an idea for shaking it up (and that it will not be a vicious insurrection and descent into racist  horror).

Songs:

5/1 “Cello Suite  No. 1 in G Major, Prelude (Bach)” by Yo-Yo Ma
5/2 “A Place In The Sun” by Jake Shimabukuro (feat. Jack Johnson and Paula Fuga)
5/3 “Speed of Love” by James Iha
5/4 “Nothing Makes Sense Anymore” by Mike Shinoda
5/5 “The Bus Song” by Jay Som
5/6 “Family” by The Slants
5/7 “True Love” by Grace Kelly
5/8 “Laws of the Universe” by Toro y Moi
5/9 “Temptation” by Raveena
5/10 “Temple” by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
5/11 “We Won't Go Back” by MILCK X BIIANCO X Autumn Rowe (featuring Ani DiFranco)
5/12 “Weak Souls Walk Around Here” by Ogikubo Station
5/13 “Can't Let Go, Juno” by Kishi Bashi
5/14 “Be Sweet” by Japanese Breakfast
5/15 “We” by Clones of the Queen
5/16 “Resolution/Revolution” by The Linda Lindas
5/17 “Loyalty” by Blue Scholars
5/18 “Better With You” by Kurt Hugo Schneider and Katherine Ho
5/19 “Broke” by Jennifer Chung ft. Joules
5/20 “Still in This Game” by Only Won
5/21 “Love You Anywhere” by P.Keys
5/22 “Another Universe” by Melissa Polinar, Jeremy Passion, and Glenn Lumanta
5/23 “Star” by Mitski
5/24 “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” by Ruby Ibarra ft. Bootleg Orchestra
5/25 “Blue Nile” by Low Leaf
5/26 “Dig It” by Mountain Brothers
5/27 “Surya” by Awaaz Do
5/28 “wherever u r” by UMI ft. V of BTS
5/29 “29” by Run River North
5/30 “Thursday” by Asobi Seksu
5/31 “Back Of My Mind” by Bodysync X Dazy

Going forward, Wells over Wilson

This wasn't what I was planning on writing today, but I read something irritating and was flooded with thoughts. The challenge will be to make this not just angry venting.

Apparently people are talking about the Aloha mascot issue again.

I have addressed this before on the Sunday blog, in the second post in an ongoing series on dominator culture: 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/04/proud-and-mighty.html 

The post I saw today was from someone in an Aloha group. They rejected change on the basis of memories and traditions, but also brought up a different change where a different high school (it wasn't even in the Metro League, though we played them in the pre-season) had a name change from "Wilson" to Ida B. Wells.

And then she asked who even knows who Ida B. Wells is?

Okay, Wells is as close as I come to having a hero, and I have strong feelings on this topic in general, but also I am at the point where I feel like I shouldn't just scroll past friends saying stupid stuff. This is not a friend -- just someone in a group I am also in -- but that specific question can illustrate some issues.

First of all, as others have pointed out, changes going forward do not erase your memories. Just two days ago my sisters asked about a former Duck. I went through all of the Oregon basketball players from my time who had gone to school in the area. So Damon went to Wilson, but Antoine went to Jesuit, Orlando went to Benson, Terrell went to Grant and Jordy went to Beaverton. Thirty-five or so years later, this former manager remembers it all.

Here's something else I remember from Aloha. The mascot design was based on King Kamehameha, but with a certain amount of hand-making, he did not look the same on all of the jackets. So I remember some teasing about one looking more like Sam versus Hien and there were probably some that looked like Laramie, but whoever it looked like was always going to be a brown kid. This is because white supremacy is so baked into the structure of our society that if you are not the standard (not white), you are always marked as that. It will come up regularly.

I don't remember them acting offended in any way, but those regular reminders that you are different take a toll. I also was not the most racially aware kid back then... I might not have noticed. It takes a long time to get that some things have a negative impact, even if primarily in the cumulative.

I didn't think they had a problem with their color being noted, but I also remember, years after, a girl with Asian heritage saying she had worried about being looked down on for that in junior high.

She was pretty, and I thought she was popular (I realize now that I did not really understand popularity either). It never occurred to me that it was even possible for that to be an issue for her. That is the really effective thing about structural racism... it can work unseen to destabilize others.

Who is Ida B. Wells? She was a journalist born into slavery who pursued education to support her family, who pursued her civil rights through the law, and then advocated so strongly against lynching that she had to flee the South. Later in life she became a parole officer, not for the money, but so she could keep an eye on recently released prisoners and assist them. She was smart, strong, and persistent in caring about the greater good.

Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, set civil rights back. For all the progress that still needed to be made in 1912, at least the Civil Service was pretty well integrated. Wilson personally fired 15 out of 17 Black supervisors, and introduced screens and separate bathrooms and dining rooms for the Black rank and file workers. One man who could not be segregated due to the nature of his work had a cage built around his desk.

While he is best known for his anti-Black racism, Wilson was not limited to that. Ho Chi Minh tried to meet him at the Paris Peace Conference and was snubbed. He had better luck in Moscow.

This is not to blame Wilson for Vietnam. French colonialism played a much stronger role there, and there were other reasons to be radicalized. The point is that he harmed instead of helping, and he did so because he was a racist. 

It wasn't even that he was trying to preserve tradition, because progress had already been made. He wanted those clocks turned back.

A lot of our honors have gone to white men, because they have historically had power. Those men have also been comfortable with quiet racism if not actively racist. That's worth examining. 

It's worth examining what we do, and whom it affects and how. 

I have no idea how actively racist the original poster is, but that particular example... that's worth thinking about. 

If you can know about those two people and hate the change, you appear to prefer racism to antiracism. You can do that, but be honest about it, with yourself and others.

If the change bothers you, but it bothers you that you are bothered, this takes work. Don't be surprised, don't feel guilty, but work toward being better.

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Final thoughts: Black History Month 2024

My reading would be impossible without the local library system (including its participation in Inter-Library Loan). 

I though about calling this post "Keepers". In the course of the reading I found three books that I kept longer, wanting to refer back to them and get other people to read them, and eventually just realizing that I wanted to own them:

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi

(previously featured in https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/05/spotlight-on-stamped-black-history.html)

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

(previously featured in https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/05/antiracism-black-history-month-2024.html) 

Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

(featured on the Sunday blog, in the introduction to an ongoing series on dominator culture: 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/04/an-introduction-to-dominator-culture.html)

I think each of these books does a very good job of explaining and laying out important things. 

It doesn't mean that any of them are complete or the final word on their own, but individually they would each create a good foundation. Especially helpful would be reading all three.

They are also all very readable, which can't be said for every book that I find helpful. 

I was especially impressed by how accessible Wilkerson's prose was. One of the scenes in the movie based on the book and its creation, Origin, has Isabel talking with her cousin Marion, explaining what she is researching. Marion tells her that she needs to explain that in words for people like her. I have to think that was a guiding influence during the writing. Pulitzer Prize winners often indulge in much more superfluous verbosity.

So I recommend all three of those books. Check them out from your library (library orders support writers too) and read them. If you find them as valuable as I did, consider buying them. Recommend them to others.

Even though Caste is the book I have written about the least of these three, the other thing I want to write about is more from How to Be an Antiracist.

Actually, it started with something about the Moynihan report in Stamped.

The Negro Family: The Case For National Action may be remembered as the report that raised alarm bells about Black single mothers and ghetto culture. Kendi pointed out that while the percentage of births to Black single mothers had gone up, it was because married Black women were having fewer children. 

That was interesting, but he added additional information in Antiracist.

A fourth of Black households were led by single women. A fourth. Not the majority. Not even half. Not even close to half. A fourth.

It was twice as many as white households, so that is more. I won't even say it's statistically insignificant. But this is not the number that was implied when people were being all alarmed about it.

Back in 2015 I wrote about realizing that when looking at my Black friends,most of their parents were still married. I knew of of two divorces where the children still had contact with both parents, but also at that time there were at least two couples where one of the parents was dead.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/06/lies-we-tell-about-black-people.html

That actually leads to another issue, which I am especially aware of after reading African American Grief: life expectancy is lower for Black people in the United States. Between that and the higher rate of incarceration (though let me emphasize NOT a higher rate of criminality), how many of those households were missing a parent not because of a couple breaking up, but of them being broken apart? 

(Also, were any of those households led by two women?)

This is something that Kendi addressed too. 

I think it was inspired by Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, because I remember reading about that Oprah episode there too. She asked where the Black men were, for these single Black women. They did not seem to take into account the men in jail.

Kendi took that a step further, and I am going to have to make a weak attempt at paraphrasing. 

Criminalizing Black men results in no "good" Black men. Add the stereotypes about Black women being strong and angry and emasculating, and there are no "good" Black women (and we definitely get into misogynoir and stereotypes going back to slavery now). Putting it all together, there are no "good" Black people.

(Let's just assume that plenty of people will find a reason to judge non-binary people of any color.)

So this is the other thing that comes largely from Kendi (but let me also throw in a shout out to Theodore W. Allen's The Invention of the White Race): there are centuries of racist thought and dehumanization to justify mistreatment, including but not limited to slavery.

That mistreatment creates other problems, like unemployment which is strongly linked with crime.

Some will point to that as justifying the dehumanization, and some will fight really hard to beat the odds... work twice as hard and be twice as good (uplift suasion) ...but it doesn't work.

The only thing that will work is persistent antiracist thought, policy, and action.

That is everyone's job, and these books are a start.

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Protest planning

Last week I wrote about effective protest requiring a clear goal that was used to pick appropriate targets and appropriate ways of targeting them:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/06/i-protest.html 

That is not the only level of preparation.

I have mentioned before (though not recently), how big of an impact Ralph Abernathy's biography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, had on me. 

One part of that was him describing their preparations as "militant". It is probably generational, but when I'd previously heard that word, it was always being applied to Malcolm X and Black Panthers, not the "good" non-violent protesters.

(Another key realization was how the "violence" seemed to mainly consist of not ruling out self-defense.)

For the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the groups they worked with, "militant" meant that they drilled. Because of the commitment to non-violence, they drilled in withstanding verbal abuse and intimidation and how to go limp when people were trying to drag you away and techniques like that.

(There is a scene in Rustin that gives an example of this, leading up to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.)

What may not always be realized is that while there was a true appreciation for non-violence (which is completely logical when your leaders are reverends), it was also a strategy. They knew there would be television coverage. They knew that a lot of the oppression from white people was justified by the ignorance and savagery and every other negative stereotype that had been around back from when it was used to justify slavery.

When well-dressed, well-spoken, dignified people maintained their commitment to both their rights and to non-violence in the face of thugs like Bull Connor and his forces, it made a lasting impression on people who were undoubtedly racist, but still not comfortable with that level of abuse, and not really aware that it even existed.

It worked. Legislation was passed. 

Then the forces of white supremacy kept doing everything they could to dismantle that progress, including corrupting Supreme Court justices, but that's getting into a broader issue; I want to stay focused on the planning today.

I am going to do that by referring to two different sources.

First is a tweet from April 29th, 2024 by Rachel Kahn:

https://x.com/reachrachelkahn/status/1785057223195963672

It has been on my mind, along with seeing others post about various student protesters not being prepared for the fallout of what they started.

I should add that of all of the protests against the genocide in Gaza, the student protesters probably have the best chance of being effective. If their efforts are to get their schools to divest from Israel or issue a statement, students are a source of income for the school, and ideally a source of donations later. That does give some leverage, though it can still be very hard to make an impact.

We have still seen diplomas being withheld, and we are seeing harsher levels of treatment along lines of race and class.

What I think is most helpful in Rachel's thread is the stark reality of it. You could very easily be arrested and mistreated. You could be injured or denied basic needs. You might not get back home for a while.

There is no reason to believe that you can waltz in and make heroic changes without sacrifice. If that kind of change were easy, a lot of the things I have referenced so far wouldn't have happened, then or now. It doesn't mean you can't succeed, and it doesn't mean that complete or partial failure won't have value, but count the cost.

Those are decisions that you make about your own safety, but there are also decisions to make in terms of who can be included.

I have seen lots of complaints recently about march routes being chosen that are not accessible, and with no support for masking (which of course multiple places are trying to criminalize now), reinforcing that there is not a welcome for the disabled and chronically ill.

(Also, I ATE'NT DEAD's comment on Rachel's thread about having your medication labeled helped remind me of it: https://x.com/disabledtrans/status/1785074566781366624)

It reminded me of a presentation at #AffectConf by Diana Murray on accessibility issues to think about. Her information is linked: 

http://dmurring.com/accessibleactivism/

If you are not immediately sold on why that kind of access is important, I hope to help with that next week. Even before that, remember that increased accessibility helps everyone.

Curb cuts might exist because of people in wheelchairs, but then they also help parents pushing strollers, people wheeling carts or luggage, those riding e-scooters or Segways, and lots of others.

Things done to discourage homeless people from public spaces make those spaces less welcoming for everyone.

That's not a coincidence. So one question to sit with is whether we can be effective instruments for good while being thoughtless and uncaring about the needs of others?

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Spotlight on Gloria Jean Pinkney: Black History Month 2024

Getting back into the swing of blogging about books, it became a wonderful thing to realize I could just keep writing until I had caught up on everything after a few years stalled. Unfortunately, there was not going to be any way to clear out the column for Black History reading. 

While that is the list that I have been working on the longest, it is also the longest, meaning the most books. I have recently calculated that I can be caught up in 2029 without neglecting other areas of study, so that's the plan. 

Keep in mind that this is the tenth post for this month, covering just over one hundred books and movies. I got a big chunk covered when I did the spotlight on Brian Pinkney, son of Jerry and Gloria Jean Pinkney (and husband of Andrea Davis Pinkney).

However, at this typing I have reviewed 31 of Jerry's books, and have about 80 to go. I don't know if I will be able to find all of them, but I will get to as many as I can before next February.

Four of those books were done with Gloria Jean, and she only had one other book that I had not read yet, so obviously it made sense to get that book and clear out a little bit more.

The other thing I should add is that it is clear that Gloria Jean has written more than what is found on Goodreads or in the library, so I have to assume that a lot of the writing is happening in magazines and church publications. 

One thing we learn from the writing I did find is that she is very religious, being a prayer warrior and having a prayer partner. It makes sense that a lot of her work is to a targeted audience, and that is fine.

The other thing that comes up is that from her work here, family is a key role. Of her three children's books, two were written with her husband Jerry. For the other two, there are illustrations from Jerry and Brian, as well as photos from son Myles Pinkney, and also some assistance from daughter Troy Pinkney Ragsdale on Music. 

When I first discovered the family connections and wanted to look into them more, I had not imagined the artistic working together that they would do, but it feels like it makes sense for them.

Children's Books with Jerry Pinkney

Back Home
The Sunday Outing

The Sunday Outing is a prequel to Back Home, telling the story of how Ernestine was able to make the visit to her extended family in North Carolina. 

Children's Book with Robert Casilla 

Daniel and the Lord of Lions

Okay, this is the one that was not a family project. It is a simple retelling of the Bible story.  

Comes with a CD:

Music From Our Lord's Holy Heaven

The family participation (her husband and three of their four children) is especially appropriate here because the collection of songs are those she has sung around their home, with comments on their meaning, and then a recording of her singing, if you still have a CD player around. (It turns out I don't, which I probably should rectify at some point.)

The most religious of all...

In the Forest of Your Remembrance 

This is where the "prayer warrior" and "prayer partner" come in. I appreciate her stories of faith and listening for inspiration, as well as being a bit put off by references to Benny Hinn and Focus on the Family. 

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I protest

Picking up from where we left off last week, it was pretty clear that Reagan wanted power concentrated along lines of race and wealth in general. The specific concern about college protesters struck me more because of what I see with protest now.

There is a lot that can be said about responses to protests against the murders of George Floyd and Michael Brown, but for right now let's focus on Palestine.

A few months ago I was coming back from Sacramento. The traffic coming into PDX seemed unusually low. As we were leaving the airport, we saw the reason why: protestors marching against genocide in the road, stalling traffic behind them.

The other people in the car said several critical things about the marchers, including that not only would that not help, but that if they were made late for their flight they would immediately be against that cause.

"So being late would make you support genocide?"

Yes, that was perhaps a little aggressive, but this was important! I have less and less patience for people not thinking things through. (I am aware I may be alienating some people on Facebook as we get closer to the election.)

This led to a discussion on Israel and Palestine and the overall issues there. I said things that were hard to answer. There was an attempt to turn it to feeling sorry for the children, which I get, but is also a way of missing the point.

I don't want to go over all of that. There is probably more clarity for people now than there was at the time. Even so, you still have some people denying it's genocide, or arguing it's earned, or going full-blown Antisemitic, and various points in between.

I suspect that anyone who will support the slaughter in Gaza because of a protest was already supporting it. 

That does not mean the protesters are doing a good thing or doing it well.

I wrote on this topic a little in the wake of the Occupy protests, but not all protest is effective. Sometimes, all you are doing is ruining someone's day. I believe many are sincere, but I would not be surprised if some really enjoy being obnoxious while considering themselves morally superior.

What would make protest effective?

The establishment was bothered by student protesters and draft protesters during Vietnam, but I don't know how much it effected policy. We did see effective protests during the Civil Rights Era, so that might be a better place to look for examples.

Let's look at the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The reason to protest was clear. Not only did the seating rules mean that sometimes Black passengers were not allowed to sit even when there were empty seats, but because they needed to pay at the front and then go to the back door to enter, sometimes drivers would pull away. The drivers were more abusive than the company policy called for, but that system of inequality made it easy for drivers to show their power abusively.

The request was to end that policy of seating and entrance, as well as hiring Black drivers. Those were concrete steps that would improve the situation. They would not fix racism -- something much harder -- but they would remove some of the bolsters of racist abuse and make that area of life safer and more pleasant for Black passengers.

The bus company did not have motivation to fix this, but they did have motivation to make money; the boycott had a strong and direct impact on that.

It took them 381 days. That is not something you can do easily or without planning. It took ride organization and fund-raising, but also raising each others' spirits and providing encouragement when people got tired.

There is some planning involved in blocking a road or disrupting a Christmas tree lighting, but whom are you affecting and how?

Raising awareness can be worth something, but then is there a place to direct that awareness?

If you are striking at the pockets of a specific business, does that business have any control over the situation?

One of the sad things about the conversation in the car is that as we started reaching some understanding, and talked about effective protest, I had to admit that I could not think of good ways to catch the notice of people who would actually have an impact.

That is not just related to the situation in Palestine. If you think about climate change or other issues, the consolidation of wealth to the top 1% has made it very hard to hit them in their pocketbooks.

It doesn't mean that things are hopeless, but it will require different ways of thinking and acting and organizing.

It may require a complete rethinking of priorities.

Related posts:

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

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/06/dominator-culture-and-social-media-gaza.html

Hodgepodge: Black History Month 2024

We are winding down, though there will be two more posts in this section.

There were some things that almost became themes. For example, there were two works invoking feminism, differently, but in differently needed ways.

Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

I love both writers, and these are very different approaches.

Kendall focuses on how feminism needs to include economic issues and survival of the marginalized, or it is only maintaining privileges for the already privileged. Recent evens have shown how that doesn't necessarily work, even for the privileged, but there are other, crucial reasons to look beyond that goal.

Gay has a collection of essays about ways in which she might feel that she is letting feminism down by not upholding it correctly. We can have an idea of feminism that overlooks individual needs in the interest of purity, or simply by overlooking how difficult life can be and what is most important.

It is not a coincidence that both of these books were written by Black women (or that a white woman co-opted Gay's title when speaking against #MeToo: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/15/margaret-atwood-feminist-backlash-metoo).

For other potential themes, if you include the works by Amanda Gorman, there was quite a bit of poetry. Since she had her own spotlight, that left three, and I was not sure that needed its own post.

Poems by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

1919 by Eve Ewing

Eve Ewing almost got her own spotlight as well, but her other poetry book and her education book had already been mentioned in other posts in 2021. Then, while I have read some of her comics, she has been writing them so quickly that it would be too soon to do a spotlight for that. 

Suffice it to say, I will read pretty much anything she writes (and she has some Monica Rambeau books now!) so a comic spotlight is not out of the question. Maybe next year.

I would also read more Claudia Rankine. Harper was fine, but I think what I read was pretty complete.

The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay

Not quite poetry, but poetic in its own way, this is the result of an attempt by Gay to find things that are joyful, and delightful. There are 102 short sections. I like his long form work better, but this has value. It is better to break up the reading into short pieces, as he did with the writing.

Black Hollywood: Reimagining Iconic Movie Moments by Carell Augustus

Movie buffs are going to get more out of this than I did, because there are movies that I haven't seen and I know I was missing context. There is still some great photography, and some faces that are good to see.

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

This one was initially a little disappointing and is more disappointing in retrospect. The title implies a sharp, incisive wit. There is good information, but tending more toward the dull and academic. Then, just recently, I saw some people I really respect complaining of being misrepresented in Oluo's most recent book Be a Revolution. This was specifically related to disability. While harm and disrespect was probably not intended, it still appears to have been done. 

This kind of makes sense to me. While her So You Want to Talk About Race was excellent, I remember sections where she admitted to her own prejudice, more class-based, but it seems completely believable that she could slip into ableism. 

African American Grief by Paul C. Rosenblatt and Beverly R. Wallace

This work is a response to a realization that studies of the American populace focused on white people, and therefore were not complete. 

While it is pretty academic -- and I am not even in the target group -- I have been re-reading it because there are things that resonate that I want to understand better.

Finally, there were an additional three books that relate, but will end up in a post on rock biographies, and not specifically about Black History. I will list them here just to keep them as part of the record.

Will by Will Smith

Chuck Berry: The Autobiography by Chuck Berry

Up, Up and Away: How We Found Love, Faith, and Lasting Marriage in the Entertainment World by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. with Mike Yorkey

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Dynamite

I suppose one reason I have such a hard time getting to the point is that the points keep intersecting and circling back to each other.

They way we talk about money -- where tradition dictates that it is gauche and improper to talk about financial specifics -- works better to uphold economic exploitation. For example, not talking about wages makes it easier for gender and race-based pay discrepancies to persist.

That also helps the bigotries persist. Those who are earning more and getting better loan conditions can easily believe they deserve it, and that the only barriers to other people are their own flaws, laziness, or poor choices.

It's easy to believe that when you are on the other side of it as well. With both sides reinforcing each other, the tendency is to consolidate power.

What I was trying to get to a week ago was that college used to be much less expensive. I hinted at some of the factors that have changed that, but I wanted to get to one specific thing, and how it is part of a broader picture:

https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/

There was a time when the state of California had an amazing college system. A year at Berkeley cost California residents a $300 fee. Now, that was a long time ago... it would be more like $2000 annually now, but compared to $40,000 annually it still sounds pretty good.

California was not the only state with affordable higher education, but I do remember it being more practical for a young Beverly Cleary to live with relatives in California and attend college there (Berkeley, in fact) than in Portland. 

Still, college had been more affordable in general, and the GI Bill would have cleared some additional obstacles. Therefore, through the 1960s student debt was not a large factor, until Reagan.

While you would not expect the man who broke the air traffic controllers union to be in favor of sharing and spreading power, he had a head start before then.

Reagan had already come down hard on the state school system in his speeches while running for governor in 1966, but it was in 1970 that he actually shut the schools down.

He was running for re-election, so the decision could have been somewhat strategic (it worked last time), but I believe he sincerely hated the student-led protests against the war in Vietnam.

I do not believe that the statement of the threat was completely sincere.

As first stated by Reagan's education adviser, Roger Freeman, who was defending Reagan:

“We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].”

“If not,” Freeman continued, “we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.” Freeman also said — taking a highly idiosyncratic perspective on the cause of fascism —“that’s what happened in Germany. I saw it happen.”

I am not disputing that there was unemployment at the time of the rise of fascism in Germany, but it was not a highly educated movement either. The ones who embrace fascism most strongly are more likely to be anti-intellectual, correlating with their penchant for book burning. 

(Looking at Trump supporters, after whiteness the next common denominator is not being college-educated.)

As it is, the students protesting were disruptive, and probably embarrassing. It was happening right after advances in civil rights that Reagan would be working on undoing in just another ten years, so of course they had to go.

That sentiment about being careful about whom we allow to go to college? I hate the snobbery and arrogance of that. There is still some truth coming out, with an educated proletariat being dynamite.

Can we use that? Can we blow up prejudice and inequality and exploitation?

There are some serious obstacles, but there can still be hope.