I wasn’t expecting to plough through a book this morning before sitting down to work, but that’s precisely what I did.
What an incredibly important, thought-provoking, emotional, heart-breaking and yet hope-filled gem of a novel.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be a young, black man in today’s world. But, this book certainly does much to help me to understand the unreal expectations and choices, the absurd stereotypes they must respond to and attempt to dispel, and the unending pain and confusion and frustration and anger as well as joys tempered by bullshit that they face every minute of every single day.
Damn…. What a profoundly important and beautiful book. I need to sit with this for a while.
Far too many Americans have forgotten what it means to seek refuge in a land far from home, with nothing but hope and whatever they were fortunate enough to travel with and carry. Far too many have demonised those who simply want a better life for themselves and their children.
Why?
Whilst thankfully I’ve not (yet) had to flee violence nor war nor a government persecuting me or my people, as a migrant I did find myself in the position of needing refuge in a land not my own. And, for nearly a year, my husband and I were what you could consider undocumented — we were neither illegally staying in Finland nor did we hold valid residents permits or travel documents. We could neither travel, nor really feel as if we were safe from deportation. It was the most unsettling and precarious time of my life. And, one I’d not wish on anyone.
After much paperwork, worry and many meetings, things eventually worked out fine for us — and we’ve been granted permanent residence and a place to call home in Finland. At one point during that year, we were asked and offered the possibility of seeking asylum given the circumstances of our specific case. Neither one of us considered ourselves refugees or asylum seekers. Our life was relatively stable and we understood our position of privilege compared to the millions of refugees seeking shelter across the globe.
As an American from the land of plenty, that moment and possibility was a very odd and surreal moment and a rather gut-wrenching realisation for me. It also allowed me to understand that a refugee can be literally anyone and they can be anywhere — there is no one type of individual who seeks refuge. Lives can and do change in the oddest and most tragic of ways and for a variety of reasons.
Refugees embark on journeys that are heartbreaking and unique, varied and often dangerous; and their entry into any country is not without a mountain of paperwork and enduring patience. They need not be demonised nor feared; they should be welcomed and heard and seen.
In the land of plenty, there is room for those who are tired, poor and yearning to breathe free. Most of us who were fortunate enough to born there more than likely have refugees of one sort or another amongst our ancestors.
At the very least, we can extend a hand of friendship and offer kindness. We can offer a seat at our table, the chance to break bread and share a plate with others less fortunate than us, and a warm blanket and safe haven from which to escape the horrors other have faced on their journeys to safety.
When we faced our own immigration woes, the kindness of friends and strangers alike helped us as we navigated incredibly uncertain waters. On some days, those kindnesses were the only things which made us feel human and worthy.
In the past few years, I’ve been rereading much of the writings from the civil rights era in the US. Familiar names like Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis along with the works of James Baldwin, Angela Davis and Malcom X and histories detailing the lives of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers have featured amongst my reading lists.
It’s crazy how relevant those works are today despite being 50 or more years old. Many of these writings could have just as easily been written today. We still need to make further progress vis-à-vis racial equality, basic rights and justice, particularly in making right generations and centuries of oppression and injustice along with a fair amount of racial violence.
Granting further for others does not intimidate me nor leave me fearful that my own rights will be somehow diminished or limited. More rights for you means I will not enjoy a benefit or privilege based simply on my race or class or standing granted by birth within a particular category. Understanding my own privileges helps me understand what systemic changes are necessary in order to achieve equity and in order to right historical wrongs, whether perpetrated by myself or my ancestors. Generational pain is real and persistent. Understanding that helps me do better and helps my communities become more inclusive and more just.
I’m thankful for a new generation of writers like Ta-nehisi Coates and Ibram X Kendi and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I’m enormously grateful to the many writers and activists who share their histories and their guidance on how we can be better allies and antiracists.
But, I’d be even happier if such works highlighting our need to continually work towards a more just society were unnecessary.
There’s a brilliant little book by the same name by one of my favourite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She’s far more eloquent than I, and I agree with her every word. We should all be feminists.
Indeed. There’s nothing more that I really need to say about this, is there?
If I do, here’s what I have to say: More rights for you does not mean fewer for me. It means we all benefit and enjoy equal rights and protections for and of those rights. And, it might just mean that women will not receive less pay for equal amounts of work, not needing to pull double duty by caring for all things related to the home and childcare whilst also excelling in our careers. And, it might just mean that we are finally be seen as belonging in positions of leadership. That we are capable.
Because, we are more than capable. And, we do it wearing heals and whilst also taking on the primary household management responsibilities.
I’m not sure why ‘feminism’ as a word conjures up man-hating women with no tolerance for men. But, it does. And, that fundamentally speaks to the primary reason why we need feminism.
I clearly need to read more from Ursula K Le Guin.
I picked this book up based on the review a friend and colleague posted about it several months ago. As an instructor for PhD students and postdocs who seek to improve their writing skills, this seemed like an interesting read and possible source for new ideas and tips to share.
I’m delighted to say this book proved more than useful and highly insightful, and already appears to have influenced my own teaching as well as revising for various clients. (I’m not kidding: I caught myself yesterday hearing Ursula’s guidance as I proofread a manuscript for a client, finding several highly ambiguous and awkwardly phrased sentences that desperately required reshuffling.)
Filled with insight, tips, and useful examples from masters of prose, as well as exercises for both writing and critiquing, this is a highly useful book, both for those writing fiction or memoirs as well as for those like my own students attempting to tell the story of their research. As time (and energy levels) permits, I plan to work through the exercises. At the very least, I’ll be incorporating them into my own courses and gladly share them with colleagues.
This is a gem of a resources for those who seek to write as well as for those working with writers regardless of genre, style, length or topic. It’s also a bloody good read.
I’m a bit behind — work and rest both kept me from posting a daily protest postcard here. [In my defence, I’ve done so elsewhere!]
In our house, we live by each of these phrases, particularly the phrase in the middle.
We are not threatened by equality; we embrace and work towards it. And, those individuals who strive towards equality are truly quality folks we’d like in our circle.
We seek to ensure that all human rights are honoured, particularly amongst and for women and girls.
Black lives matter. Full fucking stop.
Love is love, and it is a thing to behold and celebrate. The day marriage equality became a reality for all in the US was an incredibly happy day for us.
And humans can never be illegal. Their reasons for being undocumented are varied and complex, and largely depend on bureaucracies just as difficult to navigate as their journeys and attempts to escape unnamed or unknown horrors.
Standing up for any one of these principles doesn’t negate us or any of our own struggles nor does it diminish our own worth. In fact, standing up for the rights of others strengthens rights for all and helps to enshrine these principles into our society and community. And, that renders each of us more valuable and our communities more just and inclusive.
It is not something that instills fear or anxiety in me. In fact, monotony does that.
When everyone looks the same, acts the same, believes in the same things, I am filled with a sense of uneasiness. Group think has never really been my thing.
I live now in a place where most people look very much alike. And I miss and long for the diversity that I found comfort in from my communities in the US. In many ways, I feel like I took that diversity for granted when I lived in the US. Whenever we leave Finland now, it’s always shocking to realise just how homogeneous becomes normal. But, in the US, those communities and all those in them were beautiful to me. From the people, to the accents, to the landscapes, to the foods, I’ve found beauty in those differences.
As a nation comprised of immigrants and their descendants, the country’s canvas is a vast tapestry of stories and histories rich and varied. Those histories are not always happy nor pleasant, particularly when we add in the horrific histories of indigenous people and slaves those of us who claim European ancestry abused, exploited or decimated. I’d like to think we can learn from our past mistakes and try to atone for and correct them. But, that’s a longer post, and beyond the scope of today’s protest postcard.
To me, the people of the US in all of our diversity are what make us who we are and provide us with a uniquely rich collection of beliefs, traditions and ideas.
That’s worth celebrating and protecting. It’d be bloody boring if we all looked and acted the same, no?
Does the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality really need further explanation?
Spend five minutes on social media and it’s clear that it does.
Perhaps it’s the anthropologist in me, or just a matter of my personality. I’ve long been interested in the interconnection between things, particularly the social constructs we humans use to inform our realities and world views. Specifically, how we decide who represents us versus who we view as them fascinates — and, at times, horrifies — me. But, those intersections and interconnections between categories, which place each us in various positions of privilege or groups to which discrimination and stigma are directed, are also used to divide us by the powers that be.
If we’re fighting one another, we cannot fight them. Hell, we might just miss what exactly they are doing to begin with.
My feminism is one which examines those intersections and attempts to empower those with the least power. It gives voice to the voiceless. Makes visible the invisible. Accepts the unacceptable.
I cannot divorce my ethnicity from my class from my gender from my sexuality. In my world, no one should need to. But, I can and try as much as possible to recognise where I fall along the intersectionality continuum. And, I attempt to work towards minimising the distance between categories along that scale for those less advantaged whilst aiming for the creation of an equitable, just and empowering society for all.
Today’s postcard is perhaps one of the issues that I feel most strongly about since for me it’s connected to just about every other aspect of my life and belief system.
One of the first national-level protests I took part in was the Women’s Rights March in Washington, DC in ’91 or ’92. The reason I took part was because I felt then and still believe today that no one has a right to decide what happens in my uterus or to my body besides me. My physician is naturally involved when medically necessary. And, my husband, of course, is apart of those conversations and discussions. But, the ultimate decisions and consequences are mine and mine alone to make and to bare.
Simply put: this is my body and this is my choice.
And, yet, here we are in 2020 continuing to wage war over women’s rights to do with their bodies what they want.
Women seeking refuge in the US from violence and war in their homelands have had their uteruses literally ripped out of them, forcibly and unknowingly and without their consent. Why? Because they are poor, vulnerable and other. Because they are considered unworthy.
That’s not pro-life — that’s limiting their reproductive freedom, and its tantamount to genocide. Persecuting Muslims because of the actions of some, murdering black and LGBTQI individuals because of racist and sexist and cisgender stereotypes are also not pro-life attitudes.
I am not pro-abortion; I’m pro-choice, because it allows girls and women the ability to make choices which have lasting impacts on their lives. I support allowing women to decide when and how they reproduce as well as how they prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies from occurring in the first place. And to me that’s always been a pro-life perspective,since it keeps abortion safe and ultimately protects women and their children from unnecessary harm. But it also allows for the means to prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies, thereby diminishing the need for abortion. Isn’t that the point? Minimising the need?
Against abortion? No one is forcing you to have one. Similarly, no one should force me or any woman to have a child she does not want nor feel she can care for. No one should be forced to continue a pregnancy and carry it to term if they do not want to. Women are not (yet) handmaids. I’ll fight like hell to make sure they never become them.
If you consider yourself pro-life, then do you also support and work to protect Muslim women and babies? Immigrants whether documented or not? Refugees? Black lives? And LGBTQI lives?
If the answer to any of those questions was anything other than an unqualified ‘yes’, then you are not pro-life. You are pro-foetus. But, what of that foetus once it is out of the womb? Do you still fight to protect it? Is that life still sacred?
It makes me incredibly angry that we still need to fight for this specific freedom. But I’ll continue fighting, not just for women in the US. But, for women everywhere.
Abortion should be legal. It must remain safe. And, it should be rare. But, that requires freedom for women to make decisions regarding their own reproductive lives.
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.‘
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
Free speech and the freedom to assemble are so incredibly precious. And a free press allows us to remain informed as voters as well as citizens and residents. But, they are also crucial to the functioning and survival of the ideals of democracy, if not democracy itself.
To me, free speech is a fundamental component of a healthy exchange of ideas. It means being able to voice your beliefs and notions of what society should look like along with the shape of its institutions. It also means listening to the ideas and beliefs of others without them fearing retribution or retaliation. Not deciding that one group is the only voice that matters. Not declaring one belief system superior to all others. Not demonising individuals or groups who think differently. But, forging a path towards understanding and allowing room for discussions and consensus to flourish.
I may disagree with someone; but I will defend their right to speak up and be heard so long as they do so peaceably and respectfully. I only ask that they do the same for me.
This right — freedom of speech — is delicate. And in too many places in the world, it is not guaranteed. The line between critic and dissenter is so blurred that any voice of concern becomes threatened. In some places, voices of opposition are beaten by authorities, jailed and tortured. In others, those expressing their opposition are disappeared.
I genuinely fear that soon enough that first and most precious right — endowed to us all in the United States through the First Amendment because it is so crucial to every other right — will be shattered. That voices of dissent will be silenced and opposition ostracised if not persecuted. It looks as though it’s already happening given the events of 2020.
To me, protests are truly American. Indeed, our country began as a protest against a king. And these posts are my way of showing solidarity with all those who continue to let their voices be heard, especially when it is difficult and the outcome uncertain.
A Tropical Fish Out of Water 