Frogger

I don’t have time to write this
I don’t ever have time
to write this
but I write this
to believe in
me
there’s
a window
I forget to open
which needs windex
and caress. there’s a window
this window that you see unclearly

camp just outside it. find the indoor
shadows of afternoon wind
with a peek. make pale
your knuckles.
make pale what
you’ve known.
grow
anticipation
without held breath
and sweat unevaporatable
sweat, cling, but don’t protect.
there’s an open window, open anew

open again

This weekend I traveled to Buffalo. Apparently, as my aunt pointed out, I hadn’t been there in four years. Last time, I was there, we went to my aunt and uncle’s best friends’ house for dinner and I thought they said something that made me think they were Republican which I decided made sense because they were rich. Last night, that guesstimate was disproved, but I was welcomed again to the world of conservativity.

My uncle turned 60 and two of his best friends from college—who only looked grayer and wider back to front, then they did as groomsmen in a superb wedding photo—came to the party from out of town to surprise him. At the end of the night, the 27 year-old, head-recently-shaved/buzz-cutt-ed, nephew from Boston got to listen to three couples talk about the politics of the day.

My aunt surprised me. She went to bat for Hilary and said the 2000 Bush election was a sham. My uncle didn’t like that McCain is now courting “extreme conservatives.” One of the couples lived in Atlanta and was conservative democrat, a little more conservative than my aunt and uncle. The other couple lives outside Washington, D.C. and have worked for the government (military and foreign service) all their lives. The wife seemed to be somewhat neutral, but the husband was a republican.

Lately in these situations, I enter with a mix of interest, cowardice, and restraint. If I start raging about my opinions I find that people whose thoughts I want to know about, and why they came to them (since I don’t agree with them on the whole), will shut down or write me off. This is true to a lesser degree with diplomatic disagreement—I have to pick and choose my moment—and the first 45 minutes of the conversation was about retirement and how no one in my generation is going to be able to do it unless we start saving now.

There was a lot of mistrust and criticism of the government from all sides, and the majority of people, after a discussion of recent US Presidents, decided that good people make bad presidents, and vice versa. Although nobody seemed too hot on W.

The Republican chose his moments to exert his opinions, “You want to elect Democrats?? Then my taxes will be higher than they already are!” or when the group talked about a group of muslim fundamentalists that had been arrested in Buffalo or Toronto tied to a terrorist ring, he said, “Well they came from a terrorist camp in Egypt” and someone else said “I think they had actually gone to an Egyptian University” and he replied, “Like I said, a terrorist camp.” Then he went on to complain about “the Muslims” for a while until he got a confused look on his face. “How can you tell a Sunni from a Shiite?” And then the group went on to debate this for a while in an exacerbated, but jovial way.

Unfortunately, they turned their attention to immigration and bilingual education. The long-time school teacher said, “My father came here from Italy, spoke Italian at home, kept his Italian, but learned English at school. My grandparents learned English quickly as well.” She must know cuz she was there…oh wait…

I’ve heard this argument recently from other White adults whose parents had a similar situation but still did fine learning English and making a great life for themselves out of nothing. Thus, “Hispanic or Spanish or whatever they are” immigrants should do the same. “This is America. We speak English.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.

The Republican, who despite his ignorant, hateful earlier comments, seems to know the most about politics and history, probably following it closely for his work and the Beltway chatter, pointed out “the inundation we have of one group of immigrants now from Latin America is much higher than any one language group in the past. I’m worried that we’ll just have so many English speakers and we’ll have to conduct government like in Canada where you have to translate everything.” He kept coming back to this point, and although he, like seemingly all six of the old friends in the room, supported English only programs, I could tell from his extra wincing that maybe he didn’t know if that was realistic.
The conversation eventually turned to the fact that many Latino families don’t speak Spanish, and that too often people assume that they will. “Learn English and Keep Your Spanish” must be the motto they’re espousing, with the undercurrent “Learn two languages (even though I only know one!)”

The teacher pointed out that students should either sink or swim within English language programs. I couldn’t hold back.

“But they sink. Many of the students sink.”

“It’s true,” she said. “It’s a shame.” She seemed to think that bilingual education coddled the non-English language students and left them behind.

The big birthday party early in the day had over 100 attendees, and I noticed one Japanese man. None of the other people appeared to be people of color, although some might have been.

My uncle, the night before, took me through a neighborhood that he described as “predominantly Black, predominantly lower middle class” where the Bills (pro football team) used to play long ago. After they moved a minor-league baseball team had played there and he said that day games were attended well, but that at night “people wouldn’t come to this neighborhood.” We were driving through at dusk on the way to a classical music concert that was very well attended.

Be like us. This is America. Be as white as you can. Learn English. Be a legal immigrant. Don’t worry about historical perspective, or racism, or your community. Don’t worry about your race, especially if you’re people “choose crazy muslim names” or god forbid, want to vote in their own language “Oh, I don’t support that at all!” said my aunt. Just blend in. That’s what we did (or at least one of our ancestors did). Never mind White Privilege, Classism, and all that other jazz. It was just as hard for us as it is for you. It musta been. It was hard (and I refuse to believe some other immigrant had it harder). And don’t make us pay taxes for you, ok?

That’s what I heard. But I couldn’t tear into them. Because I felt like I was hearing why people vote how they do in this country. And that maybe the major difference isn’t between way right and way left, maybe it isn’t even major. Maybe a bunch of people in the middle (and I realize I’m only talking about reasonably wealthy white folks here) just sway on a few issues which sway their vote. Bill Clinton would probably say so, his centrist model seems to have proved it. Believe me, I expect Hilary to be the same way. She supports the death penalty, you know.

Wish I had a tape recorder but wouldn’t have known how to diplomatically use it. Luckily my mind is still spinning with each of these people’s truth and how whatever they read in the news, they believe. Maybe I should become a journalist.

boston

so I’ve lived here almost two years now and the place still mystifies me.
what I already knew, and “discovered” further this spring is that there are (at least) two bostons. there’s the not-very-racially-diverse back bay/beacon hill/south end/jamaica plain/west somerville/west Cambridge/west Roxbury/roslindale economic power source tossed salad with a lotta lettuce. And then there’s the Dorchester/Mattapan/Roxbury/east Cambridge/east Somerville/revere/Chelsea/hyde park eastern and southern half moon primarily habitated by people-of-color. Fortunately I had the privilege to work in the latter boston this spring, so I would no longer have to entirely speculate about the boston most of my friends don’t know about/ignore.

of course I’m wrong about all this already. I don’t really know boston; I know some history, and I can see some trends, but much of my perception, despite lived experience, is in guesstimate, speculation, and stereotype. I want to voice some of those here, however, in order to flush them out.

I have a few friends in nyc and dc who have told me how boston is not (that) diverse. I remember reading the last installment of a series focused on race in the boston globe last year that interviewed a black family that moved here—many of their friends asked them, “Why Boston, they have so many problems there” or “It’s so racist there.” The family, after having a hard time living here (in a predominantly white neighborhood) moved to the South, where they feel more at home.

When I walk around the former boston, esp. in the red squares (davis, Harvard, porter)—btw, my Microsoft word just capitalizes when it wants to, and I don’t want to comb it—it seems like the area is diverse. I don’t feel like people of color are the majority, but compared to college campuses at which I’ve worked (Pomona, Williams, and Lesley), the economically richer parts of Cambridge and somerville seem pretty multi-ethnic. in fact, harvard’s campus seems to have a more diverse population than any of those other schools, tho it also seems more tied in with Harvard square life. However, a lot of the folks seem to keep to themselves. We—I’m not gonna disassociate myself although I want to—just roll like we are still undergraduates, de facto keeping to ourselves and occasionally getting frustrated that many people of color are keeping to themselves. when I’ve been to adams morgan or Dupont circle or backstage at the daily show—oh wait I haven’t been there—it was a pretty similar experience. often it’s a suburban phenomenon and maybe it’s not even a phenomenon here, but if it’s not, how and why do many people think boston’s not diverse?

“well, it’s really segregated”

I’ve heard that phrase in a lot of cities from some of my white friends. Albany, NY; DC; even LA and NYC. People live in neighborhoods. Cultures stick together, often necessarily, especially if they don’t speak the language or don’t bask in the privileges of a dominant population. As many of you know, ‘Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria,’ is one of my favorite books.

I remember a poet, radio dj, and director of the Office of Black Student Affairs at the Claremont Colleges warned us, in a group conversation about race, about using the term segregation. Segregation to him meant forced from the outside. Native Americans and American Indians are segregated to reservations, and Blacks and Africans were segregated to slavery, to the back of the bus, to a different bathroom and water fountain. There are many more examples, some more subtle but just as institutional and debilitating.

I wrote most of this a few days ago and have though revising, shaping, or extending it; really pushing my intercultural training to show what I’ve learned, but the semester is over and to humble my Mastery, I figure I’ll remember the key rule of intercultural learning. Communication, best facilitated through asking questions and asking for feedback, is the key. So please, give me your thoughts on this.

i definitely shouldn’t be awake but since it’s summer i’m-a try to should all over myself less.  keep it clean.

frame:  lately, i’ve been conjecturing that maybe the person i’ll end up with, or marry, if that said person exists–i’m, sometimes proudly, not a person of faith–is on my friendster.  i imagine there’s a 47% chance, or something ;), that they are.
            i’ve also been wondering how guarded to be with my blog, because they people i know who’ve read it look at me differently than they did before…but i sort of like that, and dug convinced me this weekend that there is no game to be played.  i’ll just do what fills right, and the gold will collect in my sieve.

if my future someone is on here, i like the idea of being vulnerable, because my deeper self constitutes the potential for longest love.  i don’t really believe that love and compatibilty can last together, despite the great tree metaphor that artemis told me (two trees standing next to each other each growing at their own pace–i added that maybe their leaves brushed in the wind), but love lasts.  you could see it in my eyes

  for instance, in my nyc hullaballo i made plans with bunches of people to chill today/tonight.  but the plans were still, and i didn’t want to keep calling peeps on the phone with new incantations of this evolution.  but the night, and who did come out, made it sweeet.

it’s a red sky at night.  can the sailers tell if it’ll be gone in three hours?

ooooooo i’m not awake.  i’ve fallen asleep thrice writing this.  it’s 4:03am eastern standard and i rise at 7:47.  get me a ticket for an aeroplane, chaka khan

   a daunting try in limelight.   i often fall asleep with people who are speaking to me if i’m lying down even if it’s over the phone.  but……..the subject of this blog refers to fantasy.  as i graduate and possibilities arise, i live in fantasy.  everyone i could be with i’ve been with.  any job i could do or goal i could set i’ve done.  y’all might not have been there when it happeneD in the future but, my past is yet to be.  it’s glorious

back to the sleep i haven’t started.  short and disconcerting and even.  the rested theater signs seem to cut through any crowd, without leaving a mark.  i know this overture