Last night, in an epic, edge-of-your-seat basketball game, Baylor and Notre Dame went head-to-head in 40 minutes of some of the best basketball I've ever seen.
Scattered around our living room were my three sons, ages 10, 5, and 1, my wife, and I. It was deeply important to me that my sons watched the game. It was also deeply troubling to me that the championship game of the women's NCAA basketball tournament was aired only on ESPN, and not on CBS, as equivalent men's games are (and as the men's championship will be tonight). Not to mention, even more troubling that the other games of the women's tournament were aired only on ESPN2, while the men's games were on channels with far easier access.
I want my sons to be a part of stopping this kind of unequal and unjust reception.
I want my sons to get used to seeing women as powerful, poised, bold, brave, and amazingly engage to watch as they compete at the highest levels of athletic skill.
However, because the culture of inequality is so immensely pervasive, it can sometimes feel overwhelming to change.
Case in point: in earlier games, as I tried to get my oldest son to be interested in the NCAA women's tournament, his reply came honestly and quickly, "I think the men are more fun to watch. It just doesn't sound super fun to watch the women play."
Resisting the huge to respond with incredulity and shock, I stayed calm, and started to ask that key questions for parents and educators: "Why?"
As it turns out, it wasn't because he had actually seen them play and thought they weren't as exciting or interesting. Instead, it was because he had heard that the men were the most engaging to watch. He had drunk the Kool-Aid of our cultural norms, evident everywhere and ready to be received as totally legit, that the real drama and excitement in sports was in watching the men play.
All my logic didn't really get through to him, but we watched the preliminary games, and he slowly started to get a little more interested.
Then, last night, we started watching the early coverage, hearing the truly remarkable stories about players like Arike Ogunbowale and her epic buzzer-beaters from the previous season to win the semifinal and final for Notre Dame.
We heard about Chloe Jackson and her courageous decision to transfer from LSU to Baylor for her last shot at a title, having to learn an entirely new position (point guard) on the job to make the move work.
We learned about Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw's powerful words on equality in the workforce for women, and we heard about Baylor coach Kim Mulkey's battle back from the darkness of losing a grandchild during her daughter's stillbirth in the past two years.
And then it was game time.
Baylor came out fighting, taking a commanding lead from the get-go. But over the course of the game, Notre Dame never gave up. In the second half, led by guards Arike Ogunbowale and Carolyn Mabrey, Notre Dame went on run after run, eventually taking their first lead in the game since they led 3-2 in the first minute.
I looked over at my 10-year old: mesmerized. Literally on the edge of his seat. Hands raising in hope or fear or shock and, yes, most definitely in awe.
He was loving every minute of this tense, talent-filled and effort-fueled battle for the 2019 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.
And as his dad, I loved watching him watch these women play.
I want him and my other two sons to learn early and often that women are leaders, game-changers, powerful and poised and worth watching, worth learning from, worth admiring, worth following.
This belief in no way diminishes my sons' own abilities or trajectories. Such a lie is far too often peddled by those fearful of change and equality.
No. Supporting, rooting for, and encouraging women to be their powerful selves does not diminish boys and men. Instead, it frees us to be fully human, too. It frees us to encourage, celebrate, and grow. It frees us to embrace equality and justice rather than harbor power and fear.
The definition of masculinity lies not in a forged and false notion of dominance, but rather in the embrace of authentic equality and progress for all people, not just those with certain attributes or labels.
That's what I want to try hard to practice. That's what I want my sons to learn from me.
Showing posts with label justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label justice. Show all posts
Monday, April 8, 2019
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Facing History with Courage and Hope
When I first started teaching high school students in Connecticut, back in 2003, I remember discussing the realities of racism in America with my students, and the horrific--and lasting--legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow era. My students were shocked to learn that the KKK was still active in 2003, and I recall many of them saying that they had thought racism was long gone.
No.
Today, I doubt any high school student in America would dare to believe that there is no such thing as the KKK. Because of the repulsive acts of cowardice among white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, students today are realizing a harrowing truth: racism was never defeated nor dead--it was merely in hiding.
I grew up in the town of Windsor, CT--a town just north of Hartford, where there is still a beautiful diversity of people. In all of my public school years, I had friends of many races, and I recall listening to the speeches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. on my Sony Walkman as I did my paper route. The speeches riveted me--their clarion calls for justice and equality, their evocation of America's ugly past towards African-Americans, and their hope for a more just future.
Listening to those speeches, though, and going to school every day where my classes always seemed to be 50% white and 50% black, I thought America had come a long way.
But when my best friend in high school, an African-American, and I created a dream to hike the Appalachian Trail together, I was somewhat shocked when he confided in me that he wasn't sure it was the smartest idea anymore. "Why not?" I recall asking--noting that we had trained with great discipline already. "Because there have been some racist attacks on the Trail lately," he said.
He was worried for his safety. As a young black man, he had to deal with a reality that I never did.
In more recent years, in my teaching in the 7th grade classroom, I saw a glaring ignorance. On the walls of my classroom were such notable figures as Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison. Students could only recognize King, and even then, many of them inquired, "Didn't he end slavery?"
However, I think my own initial ignorance, and that displayed by so many students, is evidence of America's hiding of its past. So many want to pretend that racism is over and done with--dealt with by passing a few laws and some slip-shod apology for slavery.
It is not.
So, my 7th grade students read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. In conjunction with these books, my students explored the racist voting literacy test Louisiana gave in the 1960's after the Voting Rights Act was passed. We read and discussed Ta-Nehisi Coates' "The Case for Reparations" and we watched footage from Eyes on the Prize.
Just last week, my wife and I welcomed out third child into the world: Joshua William Reynolds. We have both long believed in raising our sons to be kind, compassionate, gentle, and loving. Ever since we watched Jackson Katz's powerful documentary about the horror of male bravado and cowardice that masquerades as courage, Tough Guise, we have tried to create a family that aims for honesty, emotional-openness, and facing our hopes and our fears.
We grow as a family when we talk openly and vulnerably. We grow as a society when we reveal our wrongs, not when we hide and disguise them, pretending that they were not really all that bad. We heal when we make amends, not when we make false moral equivalencies.
The high schoolers and the 7th graders I taught evidenced something beautiful as they learned more fully about America's past: action. They wanted to know what they could do, how they could help change our country for the better. They didn't become America-haters, as so many seem to fear. Instead, my students became America-changers. They wanted to try to work to fulfill America's promises to all people--to the many, not just the few.
I am a highly imperfect man: imperfect as a father, as a teacher, and as a writer. But I long to try my hardest to live compassionately, to love deeply, and to stand witness to injustice and do whatever small part I can to try and stop it.
The middle school kid who heard powerful words on his Sony Walkman is now a Daddy. I want to make those words real to my sons. I want to help them see that courage is about making amends for wrongs, about facing history honestly and trying hard to do whatever we can to create a more just society.
No.
Today, I doubt any high school student in America would dare to believe that there is no such thing as the KKK. Because of the repulsive acts of cowardice among white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, students today are realizing a harrowing truth: racism was never defeated nor dead--it was merely in hiding.
I grew up in the town of Windsor, CT--a town just north of Hartford, where there is still a beautiful diversity of people. In all of my public school years, I had friends of many races, and I recall listening to the speeches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. on my Sony Walkman as I did my paper route. The speeches riveted me--their clarion calls for justice and equality, their evocation of America's ugly past towards African-Americans, and their hope for a more just future.
Listening to those speeches, though, and going to school every day where my classes always seemed to be 50% white and 50% black, I thought America had come a long way.
But when my best friend in high school, an African-American, and I created a dream to hike the Appalachian Trail together, I was somewhat shocked when he confided in me that he wasn't sure it was the smartest idea anymore. "Why not?" I recall asking--noting that we had trained with great discipline already. "Because there have been some racist attacks on the Trail lately," he said.
He was worried for his safety. As a young black man, he had to deal with a reality that I never did.
In more recent years, in my teaching in the 7th grade classroom, I saw a glaring ignorance. On the walls of my classroom were such notable figures as Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison. Students could only recognize King, and even then, many of them inquired, "Didn't he end slavery?"
However, I think my own initial ignorance, and that displayed by so many students, is evidence of America's hiding of its past. So many want to pretend that racism is over and done with--dealt with by passing a few laws and some slip-shod apology for slavery.
It is not.
So, my 7th grade students read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. In conjunction with these books, my students explored the racist voting literacy test Louisiana gave in the 1960's after the Voting Rights Act was passed. We read and discussed Ta-Nehisi Coates' "The Case for Reparations" and we watched footage from Eyes on the Prize.
Just last week, my wife and I welcomed out third child into the world: Joshua William Reynolds. We have both long believed in raising our sons to be kind, compassionate, gentle, and loving. Ever since we watched Jackson Katz's powerful documentary about the horror of male bravado and cowardice that masquerades as courage, Tough Guise, we have tried to create a family that aims for honesty, emotional-openness, and facing our hopes and our fears.
We grow as a family when we talk openly and vulnerably. We grow as a society when we reveal our wrongs, not when we hide and disguise them, pretending that they were not really all that bad. We heal when we make amends, not when we make false moral equivalencies.
The high schoolers and the 7th graders I taught evidenced something beautiful as they learned more fully about America's past: action. They wanted to know what they could do, how they could help change our country for the better. They didn't become America-haters, as so many seem to fear. Instead, my students became America-changers. They wanted to try to work to fulfill America's promises to all people--to the many, not just the few.
I am a highly imperfect man: imperfect as a father, as a teacher, and as a writer. But I long to try my hardest to live compassionately, to love deeply, and to stand witness to injustice and do whatever small part I can to try and stop it.
The middle school kid who heard powerful words on his Sony Walkman is now a Daddy. I want to make those words real to my sons. I want to help them see that courage is about making amends for wrongs, about facing history honestly and trying hard to do whatever we can to create a more just society.
Monday, December 8, 2014
It's a Swamp Thing
No matter what else is going on, being around trees, puddles, roots, moss, vegetation always brings peace. And right now, we are fortunate to be renting an apartment behind which a good-sized expanse of forest sits.
Overt the past week, Tyler and I have enjoyed bushwhacking within the forest--exploring any path that seems to call us, and walking through the EYE POKERS (twigs or thorns approaching eye level), the FEET GOBBLERS (any puddle area deeper than our shoe laces), and along the BALANCE BEAMS (long trees that have fallen and so afforded us ample opportunity to balance our way across).
There is something about bushwhacking that feels right. Something about exploring a forest without a path. Something about zig-zagging our way through notable sights, noises, opportunities.
And when, over this past week, the forest turned into a legitimate swamp with all the rainfall, this excitement grew. Now, we could leap from moss-covered rock to moss-covered rock. We could stretch our legs across substantial FEET GOBBLERS and see if we'd reach safety on the other side.
The swamp smells. The swamp is dirty. The swamp makes bushwhacking all the more riveting. And Tyler's desire to go out and explore it grows exponentially and correlates with the water level.
Meanwhile--as my 7th grade students explore with great cordiality and energy Avi's Nothing But the Truth, and as Jen and I prepare for Christmas, and as Benjamin, our one year old, takes his first wobbling steps on his own--I find myself reading and re-reading accounts of Ferguson.
I re-read all of the plot-driven events, all of the analysis, the commentary, the calls to action, the calls to change, the calls to consider, the calls to contemplation.
And as a swamp-exploring Daddy, I wonder what I will tell my sons when they are old enough to understand. I wonder how I will explain the kinds of balance our world needs, the very present realities of the dangers that lurk everywhere, and prevent justice for some based on what Toni Morrison calls a social construct--invented hate to match swollen, fearful hearts.
It is far easier to tell Tyler what moss-covered rock towards which to leap; it is more difficult to chart a path through the tragedy and pain our world sees played and replayed.
When Tyler and I explore the forest, we take a new path each time. Now that our forest has become a swamp, the possibilities for paths actually increase. The water--rather than hiding avenues--reveals them. The mucky water shows us leaps we never would have seen before. The dirty build-up affords us opportunities to see chances to buck tired, traditional views of safety in pursuit of something more real, something more right.
So, maybe it is a swamp thing. Maybe the injustice we see playing out is the ultimate call to make new leaps. Maybe the inexplicable pain and horror we now watch is causing a rise in the water level, demanding that we get off the paths we've been walking and start to make leaps toward justice.
They will not be easy. And they will throw us off balance. But the status quo is no longer even an option.
I do not have words to explain to my sons the kind of world I wish we lived in; and I know that thinkers and activists far more esteemed and brave then I am even say that such a perfect world of justice and grace is impossible--people like critical race theorist Derrick Bell, who believed that racism will always be among us, though our challenge to fight it is no less necessary.
However, I do have the words to tell my sons to leap. I have the words to tell them to look for the gaps where the water has risen, to see a trajectory across, and to go for it. And as they grow, I can hope to tell them to keep leaping--in the swamps, yes--but also in their schools, in their relationships, in their words, in their lives, and towards justice.
And I can hope beyond hope to model this leaping, however humbly and imperfectly I can.
Overt the past week, Tyler and I have enjoyed bushwhacking within the forest--exploring any path that seems to call us, and walking through the EYE POKERS (twigs or thorns approaching eye level), the FEET GOBBLERS (any puddle area deeper than our shoe laces), and along the BALANCE BEAMS (long trees that have fallen and so afforded us ample opportunity to balance our way across).
There is something about bushwhacking that feels right. Something about exploring a forest without a path. Something about zig-zagging our way through notable sights, noises, opportunities.
And when, over this past week, the forest turned into a legitimate swamp with all the rainfall, this excitement grew. Now, we could leap from moss-covered rock to moss-covered rock. We could stretch our legs across substantial FEET GOBBLERS and see if we'd reach safety on the other side.
The swamp smells. The swamp is dirty. The swamp makes bushwhacking all the more riveting. And Tyler's desire to go out and explore it grows exponentially and correlates with the water level.
Meanwhile--as my 7th grade students explore with great cordiality and energy Avi's Nothing But the Truth, and as Jen and I prepare for Christmas, and as Benjamin, our one year old, takes his first wobbling steps on his own--I find myself reading and re-reading accounts of Ferguson.
I re-read all of the plot-driven events, all of the analysis, the commentary, the calls to action, the calls to change, the calls to consider, the calls to contemplation.
And as a swamp-exploring Daddy, I wonder what I will tell my sons when they are old enough to understand. I wonder how I will explain the kinds of balance our world needs, the very present realities of the dangers that lurk everywhere, and prevent justice for some based on what Toni Morrison calls a social construct--invented hate to match swollen, fearful hearts.
It is far easier to tell Tyler what moss-covered rock towards which to leap; it is more difficult to chart a path through the tragedy and pain our world sees played and replayed.
When Tyler and I explore the forest, we take a new path each time. Now that our forest has become a swamp, the possibilities for paths actually increase. The water--rather than hiding avenues--reveals them. The mucky water shows us leaps we never would have seen before. The dirty build-up affords us opportunities to see chances to buck tired, traditional views of safety in pursuit of something more real, something more right.
So, maybe it is a swamp thing. Maybe the injustice we see playing out is the ultimate call to make new leaps. Maybe the inexplicable pain and horror we now watch is causing a rise in the water level, demanding that we get off the paths we've been walking and start to make leaps toward justice.
They will not be easy. And they will throw us off balance. But the status quo is no longer even an option.
I do not have words to explain to my sons the kind of world I wish we lived in; and I know that thinkers and activists far more esteemed and brave then I am even say that such a perfect world of justice and grace is impossible--people like critical race theorist Derrick Bell, who believed that racism will always be among us, though our challenge to fight it is no less necessary.
However, I do have the words to tell my sons to leap. I have the words to tell them to look for the gaps where the water has risen, to see a trajectory across, and to go for it. And as they grow, I can hope to tell them to keep leaping--in the swamps, yes--but also in their schools, in their relationships, in their words, in their lives, and towards justice.
And I can hope beyond hope to model this leaping, however humbly and imperfectly I can.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
What Beautiful Is
There is a stay-at-home dad I know who is funny and kind and gracious in conversation. He loves his two young daughters immensely. He writes about birds and trees in a large pad which he keeps in his back pocket at every playgroup. He also suffers from debilitating mental attacks and sometimes struggles deeply and intensely to cope with life and move forward.
This morning, I saw him. The man's smile could swallow an entire street. His youngest daughter walked beside him, her smile echoing his.
The great South African poet Dennis Brutus--who fought against the apartheid system and was even jailed at Robben Island in the cell next to Mandela's for his work--has two of the most beautiful lines I've ever read within his poem, "Somehow We Survive." Brutus writes, "Somehow we survive / and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither."
To think of the horror Brutus watched unfold in his lifetime--both that subjected to others and to himself--and yet to still be able to write these lines. To still be able to claim the survival of tenderness, the endurance of beauty.
Many of us face attacks that come in all forms and circumstances. If you're reading this, then most likely you and I are similar in that we do not face imprisonment for our beliefs and our quests for justice like Brutus did. And yet, the battles my friend, the stay-at-home-dad, faces threaten also to wither tenderness.
And each of us experiences, perhaps a thousand times a day, the subtle assaults from both within and without that long to make us believe that tenderness withers. Beauty is not sustained.
And that is true if we allow for the world's definition of beauty. If we assent to the notion that beauty is perfection, that tenderness is only possible where no mistakes are made, then we're sunk.
But if we, like Brutus, are willing to fight back against injustice in small ways and large, then we begin to forge a claim on the definition of beauty, the true meaning of tenderness.
What Beautiful is appears after attacks have been mounted and weathered. Rather than throw our hands up in despair and rage, then, we open our hands in readiness--willing the future to be different from the past. Knowing the present is our only genre for writing new stories, we learn to smile wide enough to swallow a street. We learn that tenderness may be frustrated, but it does not wither. True beauty never can.
SOMEHOW WE SURVIVE
by Dennis Brutus
Somehow we survive
and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.
Investigating searchlights rake
our naked unprotected contours;
over our heads the monolithic decalogue
of fascist prohibition glowers
and teeters for a catastrophic fall;
boots club the peeling door.
But somehow we survive
severance, deprivation, loss.
Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark
hissing their menace to our lives,
most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror,
rendered unlovely and unloveable;
sundered are we and all our passionate surrender
but somehow tenderness survives.
This morning, I saw him. The man's smile could swallow an entire street. His youngest daughter walked beside him, her smile echoing his.
The great South African poet Dennis Brutus--who fought against the apartheid system and was even jailed at Robben Island in the cell next to Mandela's for his work--has two of the most beautiful lines I've ever read within his poem, "Somehow We Survive." Brutus writes, "Somehow we survive / and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither."
To think of the horror Brutus watched unfold in his lifetime--both that subjected to others and to himself--and yet to still be able to write these lines. To still be able to claim the survival of tenderness, the endurance of beauty.
Many of us face attacks that come in all forms and circumstances. If you're reading this, then most likely you and I are similar in that we do not face imprisonment for our beliefs and our quests for justice like Brutus did. And yet, the battles my friend, the stay-at-home-dad, faces threaten also to wither tenderness.
And each of us experiences, perhaps a thousand times a day, the subtle assaults from both within and without that long to make us believe that tenderness withers. Beauty is not sustained.
And that is true if we allow for the world's definition of beauty. If we assent to the notion that beauty is perfection, that tenderness is only possible where no mistakes are made, then we're sunk.
But if we, like Brutus, are willing to fight back against injustice in small ways and large, then we begin to forge a claim on the definition of beauty, the true meaning of tenderness.
What Beautiful is appears after attacks have been mounted and weathered. Rather than throw our hands up in despair and rage, then, we open our hands in readiness--willing the future to be different from the past. Knowing the present is our only genre for writing new stories, we learn to smile wide enough to swallow a street. We learn that tenderness may be frustrated, but it does not wither. True beauty never can.
SOMEHOW WE SURVIVE
by Dennis Brutus
Somehow we survive
and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.
Investigating searchlights rake
our naked unprotected contours;
over our heads the monolithic decalogue
of fascist prohibition glowers
and teeters for a catastrophic fall;
boots club the peeling door.
But somehow we survive
severance, deprivation, loss.
Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark
hissing their menace to our lives,
most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror,
rendered unlovely and unloveable;
sundered are we and all our passionate surrender
but somehow tenderness survives.
Friday, November 23, 2012
One True Thing from Michael Reynolds: Everyone Deserves a Place at the Table
My second oldest brother, Mike, used to give me worksheets to do as a kid. He would exude teacherly joy as he described what I would need to do on the worksheets, then pass them out to his class (me) and then wait the appropriate time as I did my best. Mike would then collect the worksheets from the class and grade them, applying a large and quite sparkly smiley face sticker when I did well, and a You'll Get It! across the top when my work could--ahem--use a little improvement.
I was about six years old; Mike was ten. Since then, Mike's love of teaching and learning has taken him into the lives of wonderful students and school systems as both an elementary school teacher and a social worker. Even now, at the age of 35, Mike still uses sparkly smiley faces and stickers, and still offers gentle encouragement to others to keep working hard. Mike loves people with more grace than most of us can imagine. If you're white, black, brown, yellow, or any color of the magnificent skin-dyes this planet boasts, Mike is going to love you. If you're gay, straight, or anything else, Mike is going to love you. If you're rich or poor by any nuanced definition of the word, Mike is going to love you.
In high school, Mike volunteered with a number of super-cool groups, but it's his work with Special Olympics that is most powerful in my mind these decades later. I remember going to watch the sporting events where Mike would play alongside Olympians, sparkling smiles merging all around, and watching the gentleness, joy, and exuberant love for all around him just screamed from the playing field or basketball court. And as a kid brother four years the younger, watching this kind of role model was so deeply moving for me.
I'm really honored and excited to share One True Thing today from a guy I love deeply and whose example I will always admire and try to emulate.
Everyone Deserves a Place at the Table
by Michael Reynolds
For justice is love birthed, and justice leads us all to love more deeply.
 |
| Mike & Tyler at Clifford's Tower, York |
In high school, Mike volunteered with a number of super-cool groups, but it's his work with Special Olympics that is most powerful in my mind these decades later. I remember going to watch the sporting events where Mike would play alongside Olympians, sparkling smiles merging all around, and watching the gentleness, joy, and exuberant love for all around him just screamed from the playing field or basketball court. And as a kid brother four years the younger, watching this kind of role model was so deeply moving for me.
I'm really honored and excited to share One True Thing today from a guy I love deeply and whose example I will always admire and try to emulate.
Everyone Deserves a Place at the Table
by Michael Reynolds
 |
| Mike (far right) with brothers Matthew & I in ancient Jorvik garb |
Justice is rising. It is here. It is among us. It is within us. It is beyond us. This is one truth that gives me continual courage and hope. Not because it is an idea, or something to create in and for the future. But because I see it, hear it, feel it and experience it today. In the moment. In the present.
In the mother who chooses to keep a friendly and joyful spirit, while standing for what is right and necessary for her children, in the midst of the ever-present stressors experienced by her family, and many beyond her control. In the gathering of Catholics at "Call to Action's" National conference, standing as a people who declare through lived action and conviction that WE, all of us, are the church, and giving all an equal and valued place at the table of our faith and communion. In the laws and provisions that affirm marriage equality for all loving and committed couples who desire to share in this pledge of commitment. In the human spirit, that is alive and well, and stirring in us always, calling us to love more deeply.
In the mother who chooses to keep a friendly and joyful spirit, while standing for what is right and necessary for her children, in the midst of the ever-present stressors experienced by her family, and many beyond her control. In the gathering of Catholics at "Call to Action's" National conference, standing as a people who declare through lived action and conviction that WE, all of us, are the church, and giving all an equal and valued place at the table of our faith and communion. In the laws and provisions that affirm marriage equality for all loving and committed couples who desire to share in this pledge of commitment. In the human spirit, that is alive and well, and stirring in us always, calling us to love more deeply.
For justice is love birthed, and justice leads us all to love more deeply.
Friday, July 20, 2012
The Power of Voice
Two small black and white lemurs have the ability to scare away a whole army of predators--and after seeing these two docile, innocent-looking creatures in action, I believe it.
Today, Jennifer and I had our first parents-on-a-school-field-trip experience as we accompanied Tyler and his pre-school to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Retaining a heavy conservation mission, the park's ultimate goal is to help endangered species and to, when possible, return them in greater number to their native habitat. Currently, they are raising two rare Amur Leopards with this intention in mind.
And as Tyler and Jen and I saw various species--tigers! lions! meerkats! camels! wallabees!--the most fascinating creatures we encountered today were the two docile, innocent-looking bland and white lemurs. After eating, these two lemurs came close to one another and began shrieking louder than a chorus of toddlers having tantrums. Their shrieks rose to the highest alto equivalent, and the lowest bass depth. The shrieks went on, and on, and on.
I watched wordlessly, unable to pick up my jaw.
When the black and white lemurs were finished, the Lemur Expert--a young man whose affable nature and resistance to palm oil because of its destructive sourcing from Madagascar for hair products for Western consumers made him imminently engaging--told us all that this practice was a cultural tradition passed on through the generations of black and white lemurs.
If the sheer volume of the cries weren't enough to scare away predators, the variability in pitch and tone would be enough to make predators think that more than a dozen animals were gathered there rather than just two. In essence, their voices could carry enough power to translate into action--to make predators firmly believe that there'd be no point in attacking.
Contrast such lemur lobbying for life with many of our own visions of protection.
Recently, I finished Jonathan Kozol's groundbreaking book Savage Inequalities. Essentially, Kozol documents with clear facts and zero drama the essence of inequality in America' public education system. Schools in wealthy suburbs often have as much as double to spend per pupil in each school system, while schools in poverty-stricken areas (both rural and inner-city) have far less materials, resources, and sometimes class sizes that double those of their wealthier counterparts.
I was sharing some of my own passion for justice in this area of school funding with a friend on the phone, and he asked a great question, "What would you say to someone who says, it's not my responsibility to ensure that a poor five-year old kid I don't know gets the same education that a wealthy five-year old kid gets?"
I thought about his question for a while, and then realized how often hypothetical questions like these form the basis of a lot of individualized thinking. The essential premise is: it's not my responsibility.
Tax dollars for welfare, education spending, medical insurance? It's not my responsibility.
However, an interesting thing happens when marriage and abortion arise. Then, the stance transmogrifies into It IS my responsibility. Regarding these issues, arguments for protection of life and protection of marriage are promulgated.
What I find fascinating is that such protection is a veiled attack--and what's more, it doesn't cost any real money or any real sacrifice. It doesn't even cost any change in social order, class hierarchy, or systemic understanding. Essentially, it's cheap and easy to attack homosexuals and women who go to an abortion clinic and then claim to protect life and protect marriage.
Ultimately, what I shared regarding my friend's hypothetical question was this, "Isn't someone who asks a question like that saying that life is more valuable in the womb than out of it?" How can someone be outraged regarding abortion but watch a five-year live in poverty and receive an education unequal to her wealthier, suburban counterparts? Isn't that a death as well?
How can someone deride homosexual marriage under the guise of protection, yet not protect a woman's right to live without domestic violence, rape, unequal pay, or unaided childcare?
The answer--as it so often does--amounts to complexities of money and patriarchy. So much of society is predicated upon ways in which those with wealth and power can maintain wealth and power, and those in poverty remain in poverty. The education system, as Kozol writes, bolsters this inequality. Our society becomes more just only as those with wealth and power are willing to fight for those without them.
It's cheap and easy to throw punches. It's difficult to use one's own money and agency towards the ends of creating a more just society. But America is an experiment that is, theoretically, built upon the latter and not on the former.
Even two black and white lemurs are able to raise a chorus of shrieking so loud that the predators wouldn't dare come close. In our current climate, how can we raise our voices to that same effect--so that equal education, counseling services, domestic abuse prevention, community improvements, and the welfare of all children become the new moral imperatives?
How can we use pitches high and low to make the case for the five-year old student who also deserves an education--who deserves the same kind of protection of her life that conservatives are so forceful about in the womb, but seem to forget once she's been born?
If we are going to protect life and love, then we do so by opening our arms wider, not closing our fists around our own money and power tighter and tighter. And even a few black and white lemurs shouting out such a message of equality and justice can scare off a whole army of predators. I've seen it happen.
Today, Jennifer and I had our first parents-on-a-school-field-trip experience as we accompanied Tyler and his pre-school to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Retaining a heavy conservation mission, the park's ultimate goal is to help endangered species and to, when possible, return them in greater number to their native habitat. Currently, they are raising two rare Amur Leopards with this intention in mind.
And as Tyler and Jen and I saw various species--tigers! lions! meerkats! camels! wallabees!--the most fascinating creatures we encountered today were the two docile, innocent-looking bland and white lemurs. After eating, these two lemurs came close to one another and began shrieking louder than a chorus of toddlers having tantrums. Their shrieks rose to the highest alto equivalent, and the lowest bass depth. The shrieks went on, and on, and on.
I watched wordlessly, unable to pick up my jaw.
When the black and white lemurs were finished, the Lemur Expert--a young man whose affable nature and resistance to palm oil because of its destructive sourcing from Madagascar for hair products for Western consumers made him imminently engaging--told us all that this practice was a cultural tradition passed on through the generations of black and white lemurs.
If the sheer volume of the cries weren't enough to scare away predators, the variability in pitch and tone would be enough to make predators think that more than a dozen animals were gathered there rather than just two. In essence, their voices could carry enough power to translate into action--to make predators firmly believe that there'd be no point in attacking.
Contrast such lemur lobbying for life with many of our own visions of protection.
Recently, I finished Jonathan Kozol's groundbreaking book Savage Inequalities. Essentially, Kozol documents with clear facts and zero drama the essence of inequality in America' public education system. Schools in wealthy suburbs often have as much as double to spend per pupil in each school system, while schools in poverty-stricken areas (both rural and inner-city) have far less materials, resources, and sometimes class sizes that double those of their wealthier counterparts.
I was sharing some of my own passion for justice in this area of school funding with a friend on the phone, and he asked a great question, "What would you say to someone who says, it's not my responsibility to ensure that a poor five-year old kid I don't know gets the same education that a wealthy five-year old kid gets?"
I thought about his question for a while, and then realized how often hypothetical questions like these form the basis of a lot of individualized thinking. The essential premise is: it's not my responsibility.
Tax dollars for welfare, education spending, medical insurance? It's not my responsibility.
However, an interesting thing happens when marriage and abortion arise. Then, the stance transmogrifies into It IS my responsibility. Regarding these issues, arguments for protection of life and protection of marriage are promulgated.
What I find fascinating is that such protection is a veiled attack--and what's more, it doesn't cost any real money or any real sacrifice. It doesn't even cost any change in social order, class hierarchy, or systemic understanding. Essentially, it's cheap and easy to attack homosexuals and women who go to an abortion clinic and then claim to protect life and protect marriage.
Ultimately, what I shared regarding my friend's hypothetical question was this, "Isn't someone who asks a question like that saying that life is more valuable in the womb than out of it?" How can someone be outraged regarding abortion but watch a five-year live in poverty and receive an education unequal to her wealthier, suburban counterparts? Isn't that a death as well?
How can someone deride homosexual marriage under the guise of protection, yet not protect a woman's right to live without domestic violence, rape, unequal pay, or unaided childcare?
The answer--as it so often does--amounts to complexities of money and patriarchy. So much of society is predicated upon ways in which those with wealth and power can maintain wealth and power, and those in poverty remain in poverty. The education system, as Kozol writes, bolsters this inequality. Our society becomes more just only as those with wealth and power are willing to fight for those without them.
It's cheap and easy to throw punches. It's difficult to use one's own money and agency towards the ends of creating a more just society. But America is an experiment that is, theoretically, built upon the latter and not on the former.
Even two black and white lemurs are able to raise a chorus of shrieking so loud that the predators wouldn't dare come close. In our current climate, how can we raise our voices to that same effect--so that equal education, counseling services, domestic abuse prevention, community improvements, and the welfare of all children become the new moral imperatives?
How can we use pitches high and low to make the case for the five-year old student who also deserves an education--who deserves the same kind of protection of her life that conservatives are so forceful about in the womb, but seem to forget once she's been born?
If we are going to protect life and love, then we do so by opening our arms wider, not closing our fists around our own money and power tighter and tighter. And even a few black and white lemurs shouting out such a message of equality and justice can scare off a whole army of predators. I've seen it happen.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Dust Mites Must Die
I have always had an allergic reaction to dust mites. The dust mites themselves are infinitessimally small and infinitessimally gross. They crawl; they're alive. They make me sneeze in an ongoing succession that rivals the sound of a locomotive.
But after almost a year I was still joyfully free of allergy attacks. Perhaps there were no dust mites in York?
And then suddenly, as we hit our one year anniversary of our little experiment abroad, bam. The dust mites moved in. They must have been migrating here.
Coming to find me.
From America.
I'm no purveyor of conspiracy theories. But consider the facts: one year of dust-mite free living. Every season, no dust mites. Now, the dust mites are building paved roads in my nose. They're digging trenches and they're settling in for the long battle.
Today, as Tyler and I had a playdate, small drops of mucus continually fell from my nose--even right after I had blown it. When allergy attacks strike and I do not have a playdate, I am able to expertly stuff wads of tissue up my nose to prevent the mucus drops from exiting freely--No Skydiving Allowed. But during playdates, or any public appearances, it's hard to discern which is the worse sin: tissue wads in the nose or mucus drops.
Dust Mites love that I feel this ongoing tension. It's a fact little known about Dust Mites that, although they are infinitesimally small, they have enormous brains (comparative to their body sizes, that is). Their brains are extremely advanced, and unlike us humans, Dust Mites use all of their brain capacity.
Trust me; I know. Because I can hear the infinitesimally quiet laughter of the Dust Mites when they watch me battle impropriety.
Oh, really, your daughter is struggling with sleep as well? [mucus droplet, mucus droplet, drop, drop, droplet]
Dust Mites love this. They laugh like I'm Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up.
To date, Dust Mites have been winning the war in the last few weeks. But they don't know some things. For instance, they don't know that I have been writing a novel entitled Dust Musts Must Die. (Dust Mites, while possessing massive brains, cannot read because they have no eyes. This works in my substantial favor as a writer.)
Dust Mites Must Die is a very serious novel about a single Dust Mite named Finley who decides to betray his clan and befriend the boy who suffers tragically at the hands of the Dust Mite Bullies with No Hearts and Surely with No Empathy (but Possessing Massive Brains).
Dust Mites Must Die could be the most amazing thing I've ever written. It could be the most amazing thing anyone, anywhere, has ever written. Because, see, the whole novel is written in Latin. (I did this just in case Dust Mites ever evolve and develop eyes and are able to read English. I want this novel to withstand the test of Time, and so even if Dust Mites learn to read, it's highly improbable that they'll learn Latin as well.)
I was recently contacted by the estate owner of Leo Tolstoy's literary property. It seems that the estate owner has been planning a new edition of Tolstoy's classic War and Peace. (New chapters have been found, albeit with small smudges across them.) The estate owner asked if I would consider including a small selection from Dust Mites Must Die in the new, revised version of War and Peace.
These were the estate owner's exact words, actually:
"Dear Sir Reynolds,
Word has come along the winds, carried no doubt on the backs of a million infinitesimally small backs of Dust Mites, that you have a novel in the works entitled Dust Mites Must Die. I would be deeply honored if you would consider including a small selection of this novel in the upcoming War and Peace. The Leo-nator, my affectionate name for Senor Tolstoy, had a lifelong vendetta against those creatures. Even when he gave away all his land to his servants, and sought to emulate the life of Christ, he could never learn to love Dust Mites. I think he would very much like knowing your novel is joined, in part, to his.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Jon-Jon, Estate Owner"
As you can imagine, receiving a letter like this was stunning.
However, I need some time to mull it all over. After all, I still have to finish the novel (which is currently at 280,000 words, and I've only just completed the second chapter.)
If I keep going at this rate, Dust Mites may develop eyes before the work is ever complete. And that cannot happen.
So while mucus droplets still fall freely from my nose, the sneezes shout loudly and defiantly, I will not lie down.
(Because then the droplets will merely slide back into my throat, and that is disgusting.)
No, nor will I go gentle into that treacherous night. Instead, I will rage against the dying of my dignity, and I will finish Dust Mites Must Die, even if my fingers become stubs and my keyboard a mess.
I will finish, no matter what.
Dust Mites Everywhere Who Have Already Developed Eyes: consider yourselves warned.
But after almost a year I was still joyfully free of allergy attacks. Perhaps there were no dust mites in York?
And then suddenly, as we hit our one year anniversary of our little experiment abroad, bam. The dust mites moved in. They must have been migrating here.
Coming to find me.
From America.
I'm no purveyor of conspiracy theories. But consider the facts: one year of dust-mite free living. Every season, no dust mites. Now, the dust mites are building paved roads in my nose. They're digging trenches and they're settling in for the long battle.
Today, as Tyler and I had a playdate, small drops of mucus continually fell from my nose--even right after I had blown it. When allergy attacks strike and I do not have a playdate, I am able to expertly stuff wads of tissue up my nose to prevent the mucus drops from exiting freely--No Skydiving Allowed. But during playdates, or any public appearances, it's hard to discern which is the worse sin: tissue wads in the nose or mucus drops.
Dust Mites love that I feel this ongoing tension. It's a fact little known about Dust Mites that, although they are infinitesimally small, they have enormous brains (comparative to their body sizes, that is). Their brains are extremely advanced, and unlike us humans, Dust Mites use all of their brain capacity.
Trust me; I know. Because I can hear the infinitesimally quiet laughter of the Dust Mites when they watch me battle impropriety.
Oh, really, your daughter is struggling with sleep as well? [mucus droplet, mucus droplet, drop, drop, droplet]
Dust Mites love this. They laugh like I'm Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up.
To date, Dust Mites have been winning the war in the last few weeks. But they don't know some things. For instance, they don't know that I have been writing a novel entitled Dust Musts Must Die. (Dust Mites, while possessing massive brains, cannot read because they have no eyes. This works in my substantial favor as a writer.)
Dust Mites Must Die is a very serious novel about a single Dust Mite named Finley who decides to betray his clan and befriend the boy who suffers tragically at the hands of the Dust Mite Bullies with No Hearts and Surely with No Empathy (but Possessing Massive Brains).
Dust Mites Must Die could be the most amazing thing I've ever written. It could be the most amazing thing anyone, anywhere, has ever written. Because, see, the whole novel is written in Latin. (I did this just in case Dust Mites ever evolve and develop eyes and are able to read English. I want this novel to withstand the test of Time, and so even if Dust Mites learn to read, it's highly improbable that they'll learn Latin as well.)
I was recently contacted by the estate owner of Leo Tolstoy's literary property. It seems that the estate owner has been planning a new edition of Tolstoy's classic War and Peace. (New chapters have been found, albeit with small smudges across them.) The estate owner asked if I would consider including a small selection from Dust Mites Must Die in the new, revised version of War and Peace.
These were the estate owner's exact words, actually:
"Dear Sir Reynolds,
Word has come along the winds, carried no doubt on the backs of a million infinitesimally small backs of Dust Mites, that you have a novel in the works entitled Dust Mites Must Die. I would be deeply honored if you would consider including a small selection of this novel in the upcoming War and Peace. The Leo-nator, my affectionate name for Senor Tolstoy, had a lifelong vendetta against those creatures. Even when he gave away all his land to his servants, and sought to emulate the life of Christ, he could never learn to love Dust Mites. I think he would very much like knowing your novel is joined, in part, to his.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Jon-Jon, Estate Owner"
As you can imagine, receiving a letter like this was stunning.
However, I need some time to mull it all over. After all, I still have to finish the novel (which is currently at 280,000 words, and I've only just completed the second chapter.)
If I keep going at this rate, Dust Mites may develop eyes before the work is ever complete. And that cannot happen.
So while mucus droplets still fall freely from my nose, the sneezes shout loudly and defiantly, I will not lie down.
(Because then the droplets will merely slide back into my throat, and that is disgusting.)
No, nor will I go gentle into that treacherous night. Instead, I will rage against the dying of my dignity, and I will finish Dust Mites Must Die, even if my fingers become stubs and my keyboard a mess.
I will finish, no matter what.
Dust Mites Everywhere Who Have Already Developed Eyes: consider yourselves warned.
Friday, February 18, 2011
On Missing Sleep
In the past week, Tyler came down with a cold. It's nothing like the Winter Vomiting Virus that Tyler, Jen, and I all battled a couple of months ago, but the current cold was enough to wake Tyler up more than a few times each night, mucus attacking his throat and nose like angry red ants attack the kinds of things that angry red ants attack.
Thus, Jen and I have been lovingly batting our eyelids at that incredibly attractive persona: Sleep.
However, sleep has eluded us. We are both coming more and more to accept this as a somewhat stable truth: in the due course of parenting, Sleep is never a guarantee.
But I've had another reason to miss even more sleep than I should have this past week. A friend let me borrow Steig Larsson's Milennium trilogy, and I have been utterly and completely absorbed in the life of Lisbeth Sanders.
In the third book now, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (after having skipped the first of the three books because we had watched the Swedish film adaptation before leaving the States in September), it's hard to stop reading.
Lisbeth's journey is harrowing and tragic and sad and the part of me that won't stop turning pages keeps saying, She has to get justice! Someone has to do something...it's going to be okay for Lisbeth, right? Right?!
And so, the pages turn and I keep hoping.
It strikes me now that Lisbeth's journey is far too familiar to many women the world over: at the mericless hands of players far more powerful than they, be they police officers, government officials, or men who happen to be on the same trains or streets where they walk, late at night.
What makes Lisbeth's story so fascinating, and yes, stand-up-and-cheer-for-her-ish, is that she sees the corruption within the system--she sees how despicably so many men behave, and they way so many wield power to abuse. Patriarchy, too often, is synonymous with misogyny. And so Lisbeth acts.
What stands out, of course, if the reticence and passivity of so many of us men. A recent book published by Lisa Shannon entitled A Thousand Sisters details the author's account of her transition from comfortable life to getting involved in the fight for justice for Congolese women. Shannon leaves a comfortable life in Portland, Oregon to travel to the Congo to work with women there, and she realizes what is at stake, and what atrocities are being committed against women every day, every hour, every minute, yes, every second.
Shannon's work is remarkable, powerful, and a model.
But what the fictional character of Lisbeth Sanders and the real-life journey of Lisa Shannon ask us is simple: Where are all the men?
Where are we, men, when women are abused? Where are we, men, when power structures that oppress women are held rigidly in place? Where are we?
The answer is, sadly, all too clear: we are often absent from the picture. As bystanders, we might like to claim, Hey, I'm not the one doing any injustice! But this line is woefully incompetent. Did such a claim work for those German citizens who sealed their lips during the genocide committed by the Nazi regime?
Before Jen and I and Tyler left for York, my brother Chris and I went to Washington DC. During our trip, we visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and I was struck--as most are--by the gruesome atrocities committed during the Holocaust.
However, in one area, I found myself standing facing a wall with a quote written on it in massive letters, taken from Elie Weisel's harrowing memoir Night. The line said, "God is dead."
As a Christian-male-feminist-teacher-writer--husband-father-Democrat, I stood looking at the quote for a long time.
A long time.
I asked God, How am I supposed to read this, Lord? How could I ever say to someone who has experience such horror that such a claim is false?
I stood there and asked God as tears came down my cheeks and my heart burned inside of me.
And then, God spoke.
I heard this small voice bubbling up, and the words that became etched in my mind and soul were: "I am not dead, but my people have remained silent."
The words shocked me at once in their simplicity and their truth.
And in every great tragedy--even and especially those tragedies committed in the name of God but really nothing more than mass murder at the hands of men pretending to claim God as an excuse--the above line has been true.
In the Rwandan genocide, where were we?
In the current genocide in Darfur, where are we?
In the destruction and violence against women in the Congo, where are we?
In the systematic oppression of women in every country on the globe, where are we?
It has become painfully obvious that men--even good men--would often prefer to remain passive on the issue. And it has also become painfully obvious that those who profess to follow a faith don't see any of Christ's numerous class to action on behalf of the oppressed as reason enough to look outside the walls of their own church, and try to find something meaningful to fight for.
Sadly, for many in the Church, protesting gay rights seems to be the only rallying cry to which they respond.
But Christ, if we read what he's said and done, does something far different. He fights for those who are oppressed. He stands with the persecuted, the defeated, the weak, the poor, and the needy.
Christ never says, blessed are the rich and he never says blessed are those who judge others.
No.
It's time for men and for Christians to redefine--no, reinvent--the roles we have enacted for far too long. If we need a model, look at Jesus himself, who is startlingly different than most Christians I see today.
Jesus didn't dress in three-pieces suits, hang with the wealthy, and oppress women.
So, all of that to say that missing sleep is sometimes necessary when a voice of justice begins to creep into one's heart.
Perhaps we'll see a book like Lisa Shannon's come out which accounts for the way men will begin to stand up for equality and justice and oppose the oppression of women the world over.
Call me an idealist, but yeah, I'm holding my breath for this. It happens when those of us born into privilege are willing to peer out from behind the walls and see life as it is lived for the other 95% of the world. I've got a heck of a long way to walk on this path, but I want to try and follow the trail as best as I can.
Thus, Jen and I have been lovingly batting our eyelids at that incredibly attractive persona: Sleep.
However, sleep has eluded us. We are both coming more and more to accept this as a somewhat stable truth: in the due course of parenting, Sleep is never a guarantee.
But I've had another reason to miss even more sleep than I should have this past week. A friend let me borrow Steig Larsson's Milennium trilogy, and I have been utterly and completely absorbed in the life of Lisbeth Sanders.
In the third book now, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (after having skipped the first of the three books because we had watched the Swedish film adaptation before leaving the States in September), it's hard to stop reading.
Lisbeth's journey is harrowing and tragic and sad and the part of me that won't stop turning pages keeps saying, She has to get justice! Someone has to do something...it's going to be okay for Lisbeth, right? Right?!
And so, the pages turn and I keep hoping.
It strikes me now that Lisbeth's journey is far too familiar to many women the world over: at the mericless hands of players far more powerful than they, be they police officers, government officials, or men who happen to be on the same trains or streets where they walk, late at night.
What makes Lisbeth's story so fascinating, and yes, stand-up-and-cheer-for-her-ish, is that she sees the corruption within the system--she sees how despicably so many men behave, and they way so many wield power to abuse. Patriarchy, too often, is synonymous with misogyny. And so Lisbeth acts.
What stands out, of course, if the reticence and passivity of so many of us men. A recent book published by Lisa Shannon entitled A Thousand Sisters details the author's account of her transition from comfortable life to getting involved in the fight for justice for Congolese women. Shannon leaves a comfortable life in Portland, Oregon to travel to the Congo to work with women there, and she realizes what is at stake, and what atrocities are being committed against women every day, every hour, every minute, yes, every second.
Shannon's work is remarkable, powerful, and a model.
But what the fictional character of Lisbeth Sanders and the real-life journey of Lisa Shannon ask us is simple: Where are all the men?
Where are we, men, when women are abused? Where are we, men, when power structures that oppress women are held rigidly in place? Where are we?
The answer is, sadly, all too clear: we are often absent from the picture. As bystanders, we might like to claim, Hey, I'm not the one doing any injustice! But this line is woefully incompetent. Did such a claim work for those German citizens who sealed their lips during the genocide committed by the Nazi regime?
Before Jen and I and Tyler left for York, my brother Chris and I went to Washington DC. During our trip, we visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and I was struck--as most are--by the gruesome atrocities committed during the Holocaust.
However, in one area, I found myself standing facing a wall with a quote written on it in massive letters, taken from Elie Weisel's harrowing memoir Night. The line said, "God is dead."
As a Christian-male-feminist-teacher-writer--husband-father-Democrat, I stood looking at the quote for a long time.
A long time.
I asked God, How am I supposed to read this, Lord? How could I ever say to someone who has experience such horror that such a claim is false?
I stood there and asked God as tears came down my cheeks and my heart burned inside of me.
And then, God spoke.
I heard this small voice bubbling up, and the words that became etched in my mind and soul were: "I am not dead, but my people have remained silent."
The words shocked me at once in their simplicity and their truth.
And in every great tragedy--even and especially those tragedies committed in the name of God but really nothing more than mass murder at the hands of men pretending to claim God as an excuse--the above line has been true.
In the Rwandan genocide, where were we?
In the current genocide in Darfur, where are we?
In the destruction and violence against women in the Congo, where are we?
In the systematic oppression of women in every country on the globe, where are we?
It has become painfully obvious that men--even good men--would often prefer to remain passive on the issue. And it has also become painfully obvious that those who profess to follow a faith don't see any of Christ's numerous class to action on behalf of the oppressed as reason enough to look outside the walls of their own church, and try to find something meaningful to fight for.
Sadly, for many in the Church, protesting gay rights seems to be the only rallying cry to which they respond.
But Christ, if we read what he's said and done, does something far different. He fights for those who are oppressed. He stands with the persecuted, the defeated, the weak, the poor, and the needy.
Christ never says, blessed are the rich and he never says blessed are those who judge others.
No.
It's time for men and for Christians to redefine--no, reinvent--the roles we have enacted for far too long. If we need a model, look at Jesus himself, who is startlingly different than most Christians I see today.
Jesus didn't dress in three-pieces suits, hang with the wealthy, and oppress women.
So, all of that to say that missing sleep is sometimes necessary when a voice of justice begins to creep into one's heart.
Perhaps we'll see a book like Lisa Shannon's come out which accounts for the way men will begin to stand up for equality and justice and oppose the oppression of women the world over.
Call me an idealist, but yeah, I'm holding my breath for this. It happens when those of us born into privilege are willing to peer out from behind the walls and see life as it is lived for the other 95% of the world. I've got a heck of a long way to walk on this path, but I want to try and follow the trail as best as I can.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Hard to Say It Any Better
My wife, Jennifer, recently wrote a remarkable blog about the need for all of us to fight more than the daily frustrations of our lives--and instead to fight the oppression that exists in the world. She focuses on human trafficking, but provides a powerful call to do what we can in any avenue. Check it out here: it'll knock (and rock) your socks off.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Silence, Complicity, & Resistance
As a teacher, I saw the phenomenon all too often: bullies were emboldened by the silence of the mass of students who knew what was happening, but did nothing.
And I experienced the same sense of silence when I was in middle and high school myself: seeing someone else hurt--whether physically or emotionally--at the hands of a bully (almost always a male student), I remained quiet and lived to regret my choice to not act or speak.
Where does bystanderism get its pulse? How has it become so normalized for most of us to think to ourselves, Well, I'm not doing it, so it's not my problem...
I used to show a powerful documentary in my classes called Tough Guise. Jackson Katz, an anti-violence educator and author of the book The Macho Paradox, explores the message of media towards men. His thesis is that men are socialized into thinking that violence and toughness is how men become men.
Katz connected media images of men with guns, who embody toughness, and real-life domestic abuse, other violence, and homophobic and misogynist perceptions and beliefs.
And Katz is spot-on. Indeed, when I think about one of my all-time favorite men, Atticus Finch from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and compare him with images of men shown in today's media, I fear for boys everywhere.
Consider what Atticus tells his children: "I wanted you to see what real courage was all about, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway, and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
Atticus explains courage as, essentially, perseverance in striving towards what is just and kind and good within society. Indeed, Atticus defends a black man on trial in the deep south, at a time when everyone else in town would prefer to unlawfully kill this man, or at the very least, choose silence over justice.
But compare the words of Atticus to those that served as the byline for Hollywood's newest Rambo film release. The words are etched in my mind, even though I saw them three years ago underneath the movie title. In italic font, Rambo's slogan read: Heroes don't die; they just reload.
Even rewriting the words, my stomach turns and I feel physically ill.
This is the message boys receive is from fake masculine figures like Rambo--men who would prefer violence and aggression to the real courage of which Atticus Finch speaks.
It is time for men to resist and protest this message of gendered violence and masochism. Men are not inherently more aggressive, violent, or prone to gun-use than anyone else. However, our culture has normalized masculine violence to such an extent that we no longer see slogans like the one for the newest Rambo film and think, something is seriously wrong.
Instead, we might say to ourselves, boys will be boys.
The time for boys being boys is over.
Instead, it is high time for boys and men to start being human beings--to act with the kind of courage which Atticus Finch demonstrates for his children.
After all, anyone can fire a gun. Such an act takes no real courage, no real strength of spirit. Anyone can reload.
It takes something much more noble to practice the hard art of peace, to do the gritty work of social change, to persevere along the path of justice and love and transformation.
We can begin to change our culture--and the expectations of masculinity eschewed by it so frequently--by questioning and protesting what the media so often delivers, and what boys and men soak up and recapitulate in their schools and societies. Instead, we can all start to practice the art of not remaining silent, not agreeing to complicity.
And I experienced the same sense of silence when I was in middle and high school myself: seeing someone else hurt--whether physically or emotionally--at the hands of a bully (almost always a male student), I remained quiet and lived to regret my choice to not act or speak.
Where does bystanderism get its pulse? How has it become so normalized for most of us to think to ourselves, Well, I'm not doing it, so it's not my problem...
I used to show a powerful documentary in my classes called Tough Guise. Jackson Katz, an anti-violence educator and author of the book The Macho Paradox, explores the message of media towards men. His thesis is that men are socialized into thinking that violence and toughness is how men become men.
Katz connected media images of men with guns, who embody toughness, and real-life domestic abuse, other violence, and homophobic and misogynist perceptions and beliefs.
And Katz is spot-on. Indeed, when I think about one of my all-time favorite men, Atticus Finch from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and compare him with images of men shown in today's media, I fear for boys everywhere.
Consider what Atticus tells his children: "I wanted you to see what real courage was all about, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway, and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
Atticus explains courage as, essentially, perseverance in striving towards what is just and kind and good within society. Indeed, Atticus defends a black man on trial in the deep south, at a time when everyone else in town would prefer to unlawfully kill this man, or at the very least, choose silence over justice.
But compare the words of Atticus to those that served as the byline for Hollywood's newest Rambo film release. The words are etched in my mind, even though I saw them three years ago underneath the movie title. In italic font, Rambo's slogan read: Heroes don't die; they just reload.
Even rewriting the words, my stomach turns and I feel physically ill.
This is the message boys receive is from fake masculine figures like Rambo--men who would prefer violence and aggression to the real courage of which Atticus Finch speaks.
It is time for men to resist and protest this message of gendered violence and masochism. Men are not inherently more aggressive, violent, or prone to gun-use than anyone else. However, our culture has normalized masculine violence to such an extent that we no longer see slogans like the one for the newest Rambo film and think, something is seriously wrong.
Instead, we might say to ourselves, boys will be boys.
The time for boys being boys is over.
Instead, it is high time for boys and men to start being human beings--to act with the kind of courage which Atticus Finch demonstrates for his children.
After all, anyone can fire a gun. Such an act takes no real courage, no real strength of spirit. Anyone can reload.
It takes something much more noble to practice the hard art of peace, to do the gritty work of social change, to persevere along the path of justice and love and transformation.
We can begin to change our culture--and the expectations of masculinity eschewed by it so frequently--by questioning and protesting what the media so often delivers, and what boys and men soak up and recapitulate in their schools and societies. Instead, we can all start to practice the art of not remaining silent, not agreeing to complicity.
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