November 25, 2007

Enough With the Drama!

I love to watch home construction shows. Not the commercial-ness of something like Flip That House or whatever it's called, but something like Extreme Home Makeover where the house is torn down and re-built? Now that I love.

And, I'll admit, I enjoy seeing people who would otherwise fall through the cracks get a shot at something really cool. I mean, there was the woman who just kept taking in foster kids ... a family whose teenaged son became paralyzed ... a variety of different situations where families need healing as a family ... and some space and stuff as well. I mean, there was the girl who was UV "sensitive" ... she was essentially allergic to the sun. The show installed special windows so that natural light could come into the house without harming the little girl ... and they also set up some specially treated canvas in the backyard so that she could go out in the back without getting ill as well.

The family they're helping for the 100th family is equally deserving. The Swenson-Lee family is a blended family, but not blended in the way that you think. The Swensons have a girl, twins and another baby on the way.

The Lees were a mom, dad two girls and two boys. Then, Dad and the oldest girl were in a car wreck. The car rolled and all young Taylor remembers, is the vehicle rolling and then the ambulance trip. Her father was dead. At the age of twelve, her mom's ex-boyfriend became violent. Broke into the house and tried to kill her mother. Her mom did all the right legal things. Swore out the complaints. Had the restraining order filled out. Her new boyfriend stayed the night at their house because the ex was still threatening to harm her.

Taylor was afraid one night. She just had a bad feeling. So, she slept in her mom's room.

The ex-boyfriend came back. With a gun.

Twelve-year-old Taylor was in the room when her mother and her mother's boyfriend were shot and killed.

So, the Swenson family (the mothers were sisters) became the Swenson-Lee family.

It's a hell of a story. The kids are obviously traumatised. And the Swensons had never counted on being a family of ten people.

Enter Ty Pennington and Extreme Home Makeover. While the Swensons had a nice house, one that would have been big enough for their family of six ... but adding another four kids really cramped the house back up.

Now, one of the important things that this show does is to match the people with style they like. For the kids that usually involves a room that really reflects their interests and personalities ... skateboarding, France, etc. For a kid like Taylor who has had such a rough time, having something that is just hers is really important and will help her healing.

So the fact that the show exists ... the work that it does ... I like all of that.

But Ty Pennington scares me. That man has more personality than should be humanly possible. He's annoying and pushy and I think he must have some severe hearing loss cuz he is LOUD.

But even that is something I can live with.

What pisses me off is the artificial drama they try to create.

There was NO reason to take the two young boys and ask them ... after discussing how hard it is to have lost their parents ... if they could wish for one thing in the world, what would it be. Of course they teared up. Of course they said they'd wish their parents were alive again.

This story has enough tears in it. It's a natural drama. There is no reason to script additional tears just because.

I would rather see more of the designers deciding what they're doing ... what goes into deciding the floor plan ... how they build some of their nifty touches.

There's just no reason to force these people to relive their pain for ratings. If Extreme Home Makeover wants to do a good thing, then do a good thing. You're airing it, that's enough pats on your own back. There's no reason to tell the story over and over and over again to make sure that anyone strolling through the room whilst the show is airing knows how good Ty and ABC really are.

Enough with the artificial drama. It's unnecessary and hurts the families you purport to help.

As for the Swenson-Lee family? Like many of those chosen by the show, they're highly deserving. They've used this tragedy to try to bring more awareness to the problem of domestic violence. And, I suspect that they also requested that windows and doors and such that could be re-used be recycled to help other families which needed a little boost.

I'm happy for the Swenson-Lee family. They deserve some relaxed, peaceful and safe times. The fact that they are also trying to bring awareness to the problems of domestic violence only makes them even more special. Not everyone can turn tragedy into a cause to champion, much less such a good cause.

You see, there is a terrible balance to strike in the law when it comes to either domestic violence or child abuse. A cop can't arrest a person until after they've done something wrong. And, there are people who actually need to vent by saying stupid shit that they regret later. Not saying it's a good thing for them to do ... not saying that it's not terrifying to experience that. But mouthing off doesn't always equal action.

So, how do you know? How do you know when someone mouthing off is just mouthing off? How do you know when they actually mean it?

In terms of the law, it's impossible to tell. And, most police departments are not set to prevent crime ... they are there to investigate crimes which have already happened.

So for the Swenson-Lee family to work on creating awareness and to help their state begin looking at the laws ... it's a special story.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:02 PM | Comments (2) | Struggles | Stumble

November 19, 2007

Reflections

It's a big week this week for a lot of reasons. Thanksgiving will always be an odd time of year for me. I dreaded the coming of November as a child ... it meant the holidays were approaching and I preferred school to the winter holidays. Not so much because I was an academic geek, but because it gave me something constructive and often at least semi-fun to do. It meant I socialized with other kids.

Being home for the holidays, on the other hand, was stress. We were either preparing to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving or we were preparing the meal at the house. And while Mom didn't do any spectacular meals at any time, she stressed out about them all the same.

But like so many things at our house, it was all stress and the appearance of tradition rather than reflection and tradition. We didn't really reflect on what we were thankful for as a family. Sometimes, because I was an odd child who genuinely enjoyed quiet contemplation (almost as much as I enjoyed babbling with friends at school) ... sometimes I would try to engage in that thankful reflection by myself. It generally turned into a plaintive wish for different parents, however, and since that simply wasn't what Thanksgiving was about, I eventually abandoned the attempts. And about the time I abandoned them, my mother would begin bringing it up at the dinner table, trying to force us to say every little thing we were grateful for: the house, our family, the house, our stuff, a father who was a good provider, our stuff, oh yeah our health ....

But it was rote answers. What we were supposed to say. Mom had already decided what we should be thankful for and we were supposed to rattle off the correct answers with the proper respect and "thought" in our voices. However, by that time I was a teenager, full of the teenager's contempt for fakery. I like to think that it would have been one thing if we'd been seriously contemplative rather than regurgitating Mom's answers ....

After I moved out of the house, Thanksgiving was simply a day that I neither went to work nor school. It was a day to make Koogali (an old family recipe which I intend to make, take pictures of and share with you one of these days). It was a day to relax and a day to work on the inevitable mess in the house. It was a day to get caught up before a long weekend of frenetic work. On rare occasions in those early years, it was a time for a family visit and dinner.

When I moved to Indiana for graduate school, Thanksgiving remained simply a day off work and school and nothing more. We didn't have the money to go back to Texas to visit. We didn't really cook unless I made Koogali ... perhaps we warmed up some store-cooked turkey ... maybe we made chicken breasts. My ex and I were not big on cooking.

At that time Thanksgiving, like all the holidays, were simply bittersweet to me. It was nice to have a day off. But it was also a reminder that I simply didn't have the kind of close-knit Leave It To Beaver kind of family that I longed for.

And then 1999 rolled around. I'd been sickly, off and on, for about 2 years. I kept going to the doctor and getting fed antibiotics. He wouldn't run even a simple blood test. I'm not a particularly sickly person and I was finally getting irritated and nervous by 1999. By the beginning of '99, I was now getting sick just about every other month. I knew something was not right, but my doctor was not doing anything except phoning in another round of antibiotics.

Monday, the week of Thanksgiving, I finally dragged myself down to a doc-in-the-box that afternoon. The older doctor there, semi-retired but still practicing for the love of his profession, instantly takes a blood test. I listen at the door as he calls my doctor and yells at him. This is not good.

Tuesday, I see my doctor again. He's going to send me to a specialist and he's ticked because I can't get in that same day. This doesn't sound good to me. All I know is my hemoglobin is a 5.8 and apparently that's not good.

Wednesday, I see the specialist. I'm given a bone marrow test (this doesn't sound good) and then asked which hospital did I prefer, St. Joe or Memorial? Umm, neither? This was not an option.

So, Thanksgiving of 1999 I spent in the hospital, no diagnosis ... the specialist turned out to be a hematology/ oncology specialist. I had no idea if I should be thankful to be alive ... or preparing for a painful death. It was Saturday before I found out that I had Hodgkin's, aka Cancer Lite.

In the past eight years, I've gone from an adjunct professor of first year writing (with no health bennies ... yes, cancer, chemo and no health insurance ... it was fun) ... to a full-time instructor with health bennies at that same school. In February of 2004 I was told that my services were no longer needed there, but that I was to finish out the school year. It was a very painful semester of teaching. I still miss teaching. Every day. But, full-time teaching gigs at the college level are not easy to come by. So, I looked elsewhere.

Thanksgiving of 2004, I had interviewed for a job as a copy writer at a dot com based locally. It was one of perhaps two interviews I'd had since I started really looking for a new position in April. I got that job and was to start the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving of 2007 now ... and I was laid off in July. I'm thankful for the severance package I've got. But today I looked at our old website ... and I see that the new owners have finally taken it over. There's so little left of what we had done. The logo that Alan designed is still intact. The nifty triangles that I think Rob adapted from Alan are there. And that's about it. The first project I worked on there, a huge educational piece ... that's gone. All of the work that Warren, Cory, Alan, Rob, Bob and I did on the site design ... it's gone.

I've had just one good interview since July. And that was about 3 or 4 weeks ago, so I guess it's too much to hope that I managed to land that job. The interviewer did tell me that they had over 60 applicants for the one position. They interviewed 8 of us. I'm thankful to have been one of the 8. My ego needed that little warm fuzzy even if I didn't get the job.

So even while I'm thankful this year that I have a steady paycheck even if I don't have a job, that I'm not in the hospital facing a cancer diagnosis, that I have a partner who loves me, that my little sister is expecting her first baby in just 3 months, that I celebrated my 20 year high school reunion by re-connecting with several beloved friends, that some old relationships seem to be getting more healthy ...

... a part of reflection for me will always hold a certain wistfulness as well. I am thankful for those things and more. And yet, I regret that I haven't secured a new job yet, that I haven't used this time off to completely whip the house into shape, that I am still in Indiana and not Texas, that I still haven't gotten my life to the point where I can begin the rigmarole required for adopting a child, that I still have not managed to single-handedly bring about world peace and ended poverty, that I am unable to help a friend whom the system has neglected from the day she was born and who is now in a wheelchair and a nursing home because no one in the system will listen to her, that ....

The list always goes on and on until I do nothing but dwell on the fact that I am not a perfect super-being; I am merely a fallible human.

I am thankful. But rather than simply being thankful for what I have, I choose to focus on what I can accomplish still.

That one day I may learn to walk in balance, to walk in beauty, to walk in harmony.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:20 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Struggles | Stumble

November 15, 2007

His Birth Day ... EMDR

So last year on this date, I posted a rather disturbing picture. I didn't think much about it. It was an instinctual thing I was driven to make that evening ... and then post. I was, for some reason, surprised when MsDemmie asked about it and so, followed up with a bit of an explanation.

This year, the 15th of November was upon me without my hardly even realizing it. Last year I was compelled to commemorate ... this year, hardly a blink. Instead, I was thinking that the 15th of the month is when Gaia unveils that month's collectible item.

It wasn't until I got home from therapy that I realized what a momentous occasion today has been for me. I have found over the last several years of therapy (yes, and I thought I would work really hard and be completely done in a single year, maybe less ... what? I am NOT an over-achiever! lol) ... I've found that trying to process and move past a couple of very intense experiences when I was between 5 and 8 ... well, it just wasn't happening no matter how hard I tried. So, it's been off to a new therapist to try some specialised techniques.

Today we did EMDR on the most troubling of events. Quick description of EMDR is that it addresses events which were so intense that they were not fully processed ... and it does it by creating a physiological "calmness" to help you process. I've explained that badly. Scanning the "Description of Therapy" section of the EMDR article at Wikipedia will explain it better than I!

Today is my father's 68th birthday. And to "celebrate" that, I went to therapy and, for the moment at least, I reduced the power he has over me.

An odd sort of way to celebrate his birthday ... but one much more constructive than last year's (no matter how cathartic that little exercise was).

Amazing what an hour's work done in a new and different way can accomplish what some 30 years of trying to do was never able to accomplish. The brain is truly an amazing and incredible place.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:21 PM | Comments (5) | Struggles | Stumble

November 13, 2007

Rage

Let's ignore the computer issues whilst posting today, okay? Okay.

Before my computer went wonky, I was in the midst of contemplating writing about not just the school shooting in Finland, but the rage that precedes such events.

It seems to me that most of the "developed" or "Western" world has a serious issue at the moment. We have this incredible tension between the needs of the community and the needs of the individual. In the U.S. we see this tension even more sharply than some other civilised countries, I think, because there is a such an incredible emphasis on "you can be anything you want to be."

Unfortunately, the second half of that phrase has been left off of the popular culture: if you are willing to devote everything to that desire. And sometimes, realistically, not even then.

So let's say you are 15. You have reached that age by which you are at least starting to see through the pat answers and platitudes of the adults around you. You are now seeing through this myth that the "kids" around you will "grow up" and behave like "adults" ... and you see through this because it's becoming increasingly more clear to you that the adults around you often act as "childish" as the "popular" kids in your school.

You cannot do what you want.
You are expected to act more adult than the adults around you.
You are treated like a child.
You are beginning to believe that life does not actually get better after high school, just more complicated.
You are beginning to believe that those kids who have it easy in high school, the jocks, the rich kids, even the academic-oriented kids ... they are going to have everything.
You are beginning to believe that you are, in fact, not special.
Your hormones are coursing through your body, creating all sorts of havoc. And whilst you have heard this, it has happened so organically that it simply feels like this is your life, not hormones.

Why should others have it so easy? What have they done to deserve to have an easy life? Why do they get what they want when you have to struggle just to settle for your second or third choice? Dammit, "you can be anything you want to be" ... why do people say that? The privileged can be anything they want to be ... the rest of us can be grease monkeys instead of engineers ... CAD drafters instead of architects ... baggage handlers instead of pilots.

Charlie Decker, a high school senior, details how he had long been fighting his growing rage against the authority figures which populate his world. He finally snapped and hit one of his teachers with a heavy wrench he had taken to carrying in his pocket; after much wrangling and discussion, the incident was dropped and he was allowed to return to school. His mental problems only proceeded to get worse, and, as the actual story begins, during a meeting with the school principal, he snaps again. This time, he storms out of the meeting, goes to his locker and gets a gun he had previously taken from his father's desk. He sets the locker contents on fire, then proceeds to his classroom where he kills his math teacher Mrs. Underwood. The locker-fire sets off an alarm, and the school begins to be evacuated. Another teacher, Mr. Vance, comes into the classroom to tell the kids to leave, and Charlie shoots him as well. The school is evacuated even more quickly and the police and media arrive on the scene.

from Wikipedia

This is the plot beginning of Stephen King's least published Bachman book, Rage, published in 1977. King had asked his publishers to let the book drop out of print by 1999, after Michael Carneal killed three fellow students in Kentucky. Supposedly the boy had a copy of Rage in his locker. King stated at the Vermont Library Conference in 1999:

Do I think that Rage may have provoked Carneal, or any other badly adjusted young person, to resort to the gun? It's an important question, because it goes to the very heart of the wrangle over who's to blame. You might as well ask if I believe that the mere presence of a gun makes some people want to use that gun. The answer is troubling, but it needs to be faced: in some cases, yes. Probably it does. Often? No, I don't believe so. How often is too often? That's not for me or any other single person to say. It's a question each part of our society must answer for itself, as each state, for instance, must answer the question of when a kid is old enough to have a driver's license or buy a drink.

Some of us are equipped either by nature, nurture ... or by support network ... to work through the rage.

Others of us are not.

We question when an adult does something horrific. When an adult murders and murders, we want to know what causes someone to go so wrong.

But when a child strikes out, we wail. When it's a teen, we are on the fence. If a child is old enough to plot mayhem and destruction, then he should be considered an adult, according to some.

But the situation is simply not that pat.

The most poignant line of the excellent The Incredibles movie is when Dash and his mom are talking in the car. Helen tells her son, "Everyone's special, Dash." He replies, "Which is another way of saying no one is."

They are both correct and this tension between everyone being special in some way ... and the overemphasis of the too-simplistic "everyone is special" can create an unreasoning rage in hormone ridden teenagers.

What pushes one pissed off adolescent to mass murder, another to suicide, another to suffer through, and another to quietly implode?

I think this is the real question for us to ask when confronted with yet another school shooting.

In fact, this is the question for any person-induced tragedy, not just adolescents. We simply tend to be more apt to wail about a 15 year old than a 25 year old and wail more about a 25 year old than a 35 year old.

However, that kind of unthinking age discrimination frustrates me. That 35 year old has likely been carrying the rage of the 15 year old for 20 years, trying to control it, trying to grow past it. And one day, it just seems to finally be a pressure too much to bear.

When we couple this type of "it's unfair" rage with the size of our societies, it amazes me not that such incidents happen, but that they do not happen more often. Rather than speaking of worst of humanity, I think the fact that these explosions do not happen on such large scales more frequently, particularly in the larger areas, I'm amazed at how this speaks more of the inherent goodness prevalent within people that they can refrain from this type of rage release on a regular basis.

Don't misunderstand me - I find mass murder abhorrent and an aberration. However, in looking at the rage behind the behaviour, and with the ease of which so many people can hide in our society (many without even meaning to hide) ... I am amazed.

I know a woman who refuses to live in a neighborhood where all of the neighbors know each other. She does not want the attention. This same woman is a devout Episcopalian, but refuses to go to a small church ... she does not want the attention. She works in a large company as a nameless drudge ... she does not want the attention.

She hides from our society, and the size of our society allows her to do this quite easily.

I think of the high schools with only grades 10-12 with 1000 students per grade level. 30 teens per class. Teachers harried by unnecessary paperwork, discipline issues, more grading than they can accomplish in a 40 or even 50 hour workweek.

How easy is it for those teens to hide in plain sight? To "get by" doing what they need to do to remain under the radar ... and all the while raging that no one really notices them for who they are.

It takes a great deal of effort to reach out to just one teen who feels so slighted and as if no one listens to her or takes her seriously. It takes more effort than most of us feel we can expend.

And if that teen has a broken "pressure release valve" ....

So, what do we do? Do we quit emphasizing that everyone is special? Do we emphasize more fully that we are all unique instead of the more generic "special"? Do we mouth inane patter designed to make everyone feel good (until they realize that it's only inane patter)? Do we make an effort to reach out to all members of our community? How do we reach out to those who have decided they don't want nor need our attention? And how do we sort out those people who truly don't need our attention from those who say they don't need it ... but who desperately do need the human connections?

Guns might make it easier to harm more people in a short amount of time, but the issue is not really about the tools used to wreak havoc. The issue is what is it within us that causes a need for wreaking that kind of havoc?

How do we create the connections we need to feel less isolated and alone and more a part of something?

How do we weigh the balance of our need to be individuals ... and the good of the society around us?

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:15 AM | Comments (2) | Struggles | Stumble

October 27, 2007

The Measure of Success

A couple of things have happened here at Red Monkey over the last week. One, my recent post about Martin Anderson, whilst not garnering a lot of comments, has been getting a ton of traffic (for me) from Stumble. That same post has also aided in my being tagged a Thoughtful Blogger by Alan from The Thin Red Line.

I read over and over again in the blogosphere, that you have to pick a topic and stick to it if you want your blog to succeed. Those people generally define success in number of people subscribed to your Feedburner or how many unique hits you get per day.

Certainly, when I taught first-year writing, I told my students the same thing for their papers. Pick a topic, narrow it down into one argument. And certainly the people who treat their blog this way have a kind of coherence that Red Monkey does not.

The problem is, with a blog, we don't know how long the full writing will be. A paper of 5 pages, of 11 pages, has limits defined by the length. You can't fully explore the effects of birth order on how a person responds to the education system in five pages without redefining your goals into "I'm just giving an overview." Even in a paper of 10 pages, you might just concentrate on how middle children need a different kind of attention in school than oldest children, youngest or onlies. It takes something larger to discuss the "whole" issue.

I don't know how many pages my blog will be. It's a different beast.

I do not have a mind which stays focused on one topic for very long at a time. As a child, I rejoiced in the idea of the Renaissance man and the jack of all trades. My mother had a distinctly different take on this, believing that specialisation was the way to go and she used to say, with her disapproving voice, "Jack of all trades, master of none." And then give me that raised eyebrow look that said, "You can do better than that."

However, it was the fact that I could both teach freshman writing and design websites and act as our departmental computer consultant which landed me my teaching gig. And it was the fact that I could both be copy writer and knew web design that landed me my last job. People like the fact that they can get a "2 for 1" deal. And, while there are times that you need a specialist, the more specialized the need, the fewer jobs there are for that need.

My blog brings in people interested in a wide variety of things. Some people check in periodically for sketches. Some for photos. Some for stories. Some for commentary. Some disappointed people come looking for those damn Red Monkey jeans of which I'm so sick.

By the numbers, this is not a wildly successful blog. But it does serve my needs ... a place where I can write things and discuss what is important to me ... and know that at least some of it gets read and shared.

And since this is the third or fourth time someone has graced me with a Thinking Blogger award, I know that my blog serves the purpose for which I originally created it: making myself and others think.

That makes this a successful blog to me. I don't need more than that.

Thanks Alan!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:38 AM | Comments (5) | Struggles | Stumble

October 13, 2007

Serenity: Oh God, Oh God, We're All Going to Die

Martin Lee Anderson was sent to a boot camp for juvenile offenders at the age of 14. The first day there, he threw a fit at the exercises, like most 14 year olds faced with what looks to them like pointless indoctrination. He wanted to stop, he called it bullshit. Typical 14 year old rebellion. And, of course, you can't have that in a boot camp. You have to have fast discipline. So, the guards jumped the kid and "forced him" to continue the exercises. They held him down, they put him in take-down, they applied pressure points ... and I gotta say, I'm not sure how those things are forcing the boy to continue exercising ... sounds pretty much like forcing him to be still, to me. Finally, they forced him to inhale ammonia.

During this process, the boy went "unresponsive" in official-ese.

The first autopsy declared that the boy had a previously-undiagnosed blood disease which the staff couldn't have known. And that this was the cause of death. Announced five weeks after the boy's death.

Video showed the boy being kicked and punched. And ammonia capsules being shoved up his nose.

The family screamed.

A second autopsy was called for, the dead boy exhumed to be examined again, this time by the coroner of the county as well as several other forensic pathologists and a New York State Police coroner as well. The results indicated that the boy did have the "trait" of the blood disorder (meaning it was pretty much a non-issue rather than an active disease). They also noted that despite the bruising, the boy was not beaten to death.

According to the press release by the state attorney, nearly 5 months after the boy's death:

Martin Anderson’s death was caused by suffocation due to actions of the guards at the boot camp. The suffocation was caused by manual occlusion of the mouth, in concert with forced inhalation of
ammonia fumes that caused spasm of the vocal cords resulting in internal blockage of the upper airway.

Governor Jeb Bush claimed he was disturbed by the findings and that he would ensure that justice was served.

Was Martin a bad kid who deserved to be beaten the first day at the camp?

According to the BBC, "The teenager had been sent to the camp for violating probation by trespassing at a school after he and his cousins were charged with stealing their grandmother's car from a church parking lot."

So, the eight various employees found themselves embroiled in a criminal suit.

Their defense? They used the procedures of the camp, designed to instill discipline. They claimed the boy was faking illness to get out of the exercises.

The response to Martin's death has been that all of the state's bootcamps are now closed. The head of the department of law enforcement stepped down.

The verdict has now come back after just 90 minutes of deliberation. Despite the fact that Governor Charlie Crist recommended the state pay $5million to the family, the jury has found the 8 defendants not guilty.

The all-white jury. Sitting in on the trial in which a 14 year old black boy was killed.

For whatever reason, I don't normally think of Florida as a part of "The South." Georgia is, of course, but for some reason, Florida is just kind of a separate entity, I suppose, in its own way like Texas is and Alaska and Hawaii.

When I look at an all white jury taking just 90 minutes to decide this case dealing with the death of a 14 year old black boy ... I have to re-think my gut reaction to not consider Florida a part of The South.

And I know better, really. I know that it doesn't matter what state we discuss. There are still numerous cases of racism around the United States, on a regular basis.

When Martin was killed, there had been ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY complaints of excessive force at the boot camp where he'd been killed.

After Martin's death, the use of ammonia capsules was banned. After Martin's death the use of violent measures such as punching and kicking the inmates of the camps was banned. Approximately four months after Martin's death, the boot camps were closed.

Was Martin Lee Anderson killed because he was a black boy?
Were the employees directly involved in his death acquitted because they were judged by a white jury?

I don't know.

I suspect these things are true. I suspect this because of my own experience. I fear that this is true and it hurts me.

Recently, a young man on BlogCatalog asked Do You Care About Racism?

And I had to respond, hell yes I care. I had to respond that I do think about this every day.

Do I care because of Martin Anderson? Yes, it's true that his story makes me care. It's true that the story of the Jena 6 makes me care.

But I also care about the issue of racism because of what I, personally, witness every day. Not in "The South." I witness it in northern Indiana. I watch as people cringe from the dark-skinned black man across the street.

I watch as people make fun of the Orthodox Jews who walk through our neighborhood on their way to shul.

I watch as people treat the latinos in town as less than human.

I watch, and I try to not stay silent. I try to NOT be the voyeur witnessing the pain of others.

And I get "that look" from my "fellow" whites. They are not happy with me, and I don't care.

For whatever reason, as a child, I knew that there was no difference between myself and "them mexicans." There was no difference between me and Jon Comb, who happened to be Jewish. There was no difference between me and Paula, the black girl who befriended me in junior high.

The only difference between "them" and "us" was circumstance. Colour did not enter into it. Other people's perceptions of us coloured who they thought we were. But it really didn't matter which of us was white, brown or black.

I mostly do not see colour, myself. I haven't seen colour since I was about seven.

Why can't everyone else? Why does it matter to ANYONE if someone is black, brown, yellow or white? What does it matter if they are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu or Muslim?

Why must we keep sticking our noses into other peoples' private lives?

Do I care about racism?

I hurt knowing that people cannot celebrate differences but must instead rail about anyone different from themselves. So, yeah. I care. Not about the various colours of the people I know and don't know. I care that others are not colour blind. I care that people even fucking notice the difference between Jamaal and Chaim and John and Juan.

But what really haunts me?

What really haunts me this month of October ... this month of the dead ...
are the number of dead in the name of "I'm right and you're not" ... whether we're talking race or religion or just good old-fashioned us versus them.

Does this haunt you?

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:12 PM | Comments (7) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble