I moved into my apartment in August. It's the first time I've ever lived alone.
There are a lot of things I relish about living alone, but one reigns queen: the knowledge that there is always a hallowed place tucked away from the world (minus the sounds of the 4 a.m. bar across the street, and all the cars) where I will not have to wear pants.
I'm not big on pants. I wear skirts almost every day. I like jeans, but only the thin skinny stretchy kind that feel like leggings. I bought a pair of slacks a few weeks ago, and basically the only thing they're good for is stretching my usual work wardrobe rotation out by an extra uncomfortable day. Suffice it to say that if I'm not in a situation where pants are mandatory, I probably won't wear them.
And definitely not at home.
Nights when I don't have to be anywhere (or anywhere til later in the evening) are my absolute favorite. I strut back from the brown line like the sidewalk is being built by the force of my steps. I blast music and pretend I'm Alison Mosshart. I jangle my keys so you know I'm coming. I check my mailbox. Like. A. Boss.
Sometimes I step inside my doorway, strip to my underwear, turn my music up louder, and dance. I spin gypsy circles in the hall on top of my clothes. I stomp and pounce and throw my arms around like a mime on mushrooms. (The neighbors love me.)
If you've never done it, do. It's so good. Like, good enough to be in a rom-com montage. Only in this movie, the romance is with yourself. Just you, dancing, Sundance-approved.
I've learned in my quarter-century of life that it's really important to love yourself, for two reasons: the obvious first one is that you never know who else is gonna be in love with you at a given time, and it could even be no one. The second one, and the one that's taken me much longer to figure out, is that loving yourself makes you a whole lot lovelier to the people you love. You can't take care of people til you care for yourself.
The fundamental human reality is to be alone. Sometimes you get to a point where you realize you could entirely drop off the face of the earth and very few people -- if any -- would notice. Knowing, and gradually accepting, this is what I think is the key to happiness. For every mysteriously ancient pet goldfish there's a half dozen that died within the first three days. For every genuine, supportive friend there's at least a half dozen who couldn't come to something or other because they wanted to watch Netflix together without you. For every love of your life there's probably a minimum of a half dozen assholes. Accept it. Love them anyway.
This all adds up to a lot of people talking. A lot of noise. Squinting through the clatter, I've noticed a few things that seem like simple truths:
1) Life means something.
2) Not everyone's will look the same.
3) Some of the people you love do not love you back.
4) Some of the people you love do love you back but are broken, like you.
5) As long as you love, even if you are alone, you are never a waste.
How does it feel to be on your own, like a stack of stones?
Perhaps our lives are signals. Signs.
Perhaps the purpose of being stuck on the ground is to be better able to see the whole sky.
So take your stupid pants off and look up.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The low, quiet hum.
"Don't depend on anyone too much in this world, because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness." - Ibn Taymiyyah
There's a lot of advice out there about what to do when your heart gets broken. Move on, but not too fast. Let yourself grieve, but don't dwell. Talk to your friends about it, but don't be a downer.
What they don't tell you about heartbreak is the forgetting. Not that you'll forget the pain -- because pain is a total asshole. Pain is the oblivious party guest who keeps you up til 6 a.m. and then has the balls to take home the leftover booze. Pain is designed exclusively, I think, to burrow deep and multiply and linger as long as possible, like bedbugs.
The forgetting begins with the little things, like how his skin feels, or how he sits at the computer, or the things he doesn't like about you. The faint smell of cigarettes always lingering in his hair. How everything he produces looks a certain way, so that whenever it sneaks into your Facebook feed you can spot it as easily as a Gustav Klimt or a Norman Rockwell. How good he looks in sweaters. How hard he works. They don't tell you that over time you will forget the urgency of these things until you come across them again. But they are always hiding in the tiniest crevices of your mind, waiting for the dark to come again so they can crawl out and bite reminders into you.
They don't tell you about the slow, alone plod, where the details fade but the feelings -- of inadequacy, of helplessness, of not-good-enough -- settle in for the long haul. That days where you are able to keep yourself from crying on public transportation or walking around your city instead of just alone in your home can become the small victories you cling to. That you'll have a whole section of your brain cordoned off as the designated "sad girl" section, yet at the same time you look at the ropes around it and laugh at yourself for being so emo. But it helps. Compartments help.
They don't tell you you'll have days when you feel totally strong and sassy and over it, then without warning, a softball of memories hits you square in the gut, and you're unceremoniously carted back to square one, like the sorriest game of Sorry ever.
They don't tell you that your friends really do get tired of hearing about it, or even if they don't, you feel so pathetic and guilty for bringing it up again that you just..can't.
Don't depend on anyone too much in this world, because then inevitably, for one reason or another, you will have to miss them.
Even your own shadow leaves you in the dark.
The low, quiet hum of loss never does.
There's a lot of advice out there about what to do when your heart gets broken. Move on, but not too fast. Let yourself grieve, but don't dwell. Talk to your friends about it, but don't be a downer.
What they don't tell you about heartbreak is the forgetting. Not that you'll forget the pain -- because pain is a total asshole. Pain is the oblivious party guest who keeps you up til 6 a.m. and then has the balls to take home the leftover booze. Pain is designed exclusively, I think, to burrow deep and multiply and linger as long as possible, like bedbugs.
The forgetting begins with the little things, like how his skin feels, or how he sits at the computer, or the things he doesn't like about you. The faint smell of cigarettes always lingering in his hair. How everything he produces looks a certain way, so that whenever it sneaks into your Facebook feed you can spot it as easily as a Gustav Klimt or a Norman Rockwell. How good he looks in sweaters. How hard he works. They don't tell you that over time you will forget the urgency of these things until you come across them again. But they are always hiding in the tiniest crevices of your mind, waiting for the dark to come again so they can crawl out and bite reminders into you.
They don't tell you about the slow, alone plod, where the details fade but the feelings -- of inadequacy, of helplessness, of not-good-enough -- settle in for the long haul. That days where you are able to keep yourself from crying on public transportation or walking around your city instead of just alone in your home can become the small victories you cling to. That you'll have a whole section of your brain cordoned off as the designated "sad girl" section, yet at the same time you look at the ropes around it and laugh at yourself for being so emo. But it helps. Compartments help.
They don't tell you you'll have days when you feel totally strong and sassy and over it, then without warning, a softball of memories hits you square in the gut, and you're unceremoniously carted back to square one, like the sorriest game of Sorry ever.
They don't tell you that your friends really do get tired of hearing about it, or even if they don't, you feel so pathetic and guilty for bringing it up again that you just..can't.
Don't depend on anyone too much in this world, because then inevitably, for one reason or another, you will have to miss them.
Even your own shadow leaves you in the dark.
The low, quiet hum of loss never does.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
My bed.
My bed is huge. It's an island, covered in a white comforter like snow. My weird cozy snowy island. And my bed is unique because, if you can lift what feels like five hundred pounds by one end, you can fold the whole thing into a closet and bolt it in for safekeeping.
Every time I lift it, though, I have to leverage it on my thighs halfway up, giving me pancake-sized bruises that are tender to the touch and linger on my legs for a week or more. I have always bruised easily. So most of the time I leave the bed down, dominating the main room of my studio apartment, crowding my piano and guitars toward the opposite wall, but at least making up for the unfortunate reality that I'm 25 and live alone and still don't own a couch. I think in the three or so months since it was built for me I've put it away about as many times.
Today when cancelled plans gave me leeway to do stuff around my apartment, rather than sit around reading my new Amy Poehler book, I decided to finally paint the groady inside of the closet my bed folds into. Since the bed is almost always down, I want this to look nice. I'm making a wall hanging with chains of this beautiful Nepalese paper that I'm going to put up over the bed, along with Christmas lights (for cheap but foolproof ambiance). A Millennial's Pinterest board come true.
But first! Paint.
I dig up rollers and trays and brushes, and the nearly empty can of paint we used on the rest of the room, and I start getting ready to work.
Most people see creation, remodeling, sprucing-up as a forward movement. When all your tools still belong to someone you loved and who left, though, it feels a little closer to going backwards. But everything reminds me of him, including my bed-island, which he built for me. So out of necessity I'm getting used to it.
I dump the paint into the tray and attach an extension and start rolling. Instantly, memories. "You don't have to push hard at all," he always would tell me. "It should just roll on." I remembered how he could paint a whole room in under an hour while I just slowly followed along, carefully doing the edging and the detailing, which were more my forte. I felt like such a dipshit sometimes because I wasn't handy and he was so good at everything. But sometimes I'd catch him pausing to watch me carefully brush paint down a thin strip of wall, and I'd giggle, and he'd softly say "you're just so pretty all the time," and in that moment as he looked at me so lovingly I would feel like a bodacious powerful Amazon woman. Special, because I was capable.
I peeled ivory flakes off of my fingers as I went along, remembering how we stood together in the Home Depot picking out paint colors. Me, completely overwhelmed yet excited, in the way I imagine a Martian child feels during her first time in an earthling candy store. Him, at-home among all the tools and knick-knacks and thingamawhatsits, not understanding my confusion, used to building me things.
He was always building and fixing things for me. Painting walls, hanging curtains, probing down into underexamined cavities of my mind and trying to scrape out the old insecurities still molding down there, or kicking in the carefully constructed walls that guard my heart, and replacing them with glass, so he would always be able to look inside.
He was the first person who ever cared enough to really, truly insist on knowing all of who I was. In a world where women are expected to be timid and modest, he was the first person who would get upset with my knee-jerk diplomacy and the way I rarely say my opinions out loud. I always admired the accuracy with which he could survey me and tell me where I should reinforce the floors and where there was just outdated window-dressing to be done away with. I have always been too comfortable with imperfection and frailty to have the same ability. I am too accepting of people as they are. Only recently have I started to see this as a bad thing.
I cannot describe in words how much I always loved watching him work. The way the muscles in his arms moved, his broad shoulders and strong forearms, the look of complete and uninterruptable focus on his face. The way his magic hands could make anything appear. The palpable sense of purpose that reminded me of how I was as a child, always coming up with new projects, exploring, making things up on the fly -- how I was before I learned to hide. His dark eyes as he constantly checked, and rechecked, and stepped back to look, and then kept working, always kept working, without rest, insatiable, until it was done.
He loved his work, and I loved to see the way he lost himself in it. I loved my layers and the way he insisted on tearing through them, because as long as I could be his project, I knew he would be lost in me.
I loved being his mystery, and his muse; he, my coach and protector. If he were the brain, with its brilliance, then I was the heart, quiet and wild. It worked great for awhile... until suddenly it didn’t anymore. Being for someone else what they should be for themselves is exhausting.
But no one can say we didn’t try. In fact, trying can be addicting. Being wronged and righted and wronged again is how I imagine heroin feels -- you know how bad it is for you, but you forget how to live without the rush. You romanticize the tempests, pretend you’re Diego and Frida. A real couple. Not one of those boring suburbanite ones. Everything is heightened -- the bad, but also the good. It’s not always easy, but it’s not settling. You have your person. Someone who so completely enchanted you from day one that even your skeptic’s mind was finally forced to admit for the first time since birth that love at first sight does exist.
In the end, you are the lucky ones. You have real passion. When you have passion, you can go months in a cycle of trying. You can pick up again so easily:
I love you.
(You sit on the floor of your new, still-empty apartment and weep together in each other’s arms.)
I’m sorry.
(Crying turns to kissing. The bare floorboards bruise your knees and hips and back.)
I want us to work. We can get through this. I love you. I’m sorry.
(Suddenly you’re running drunk through Welles Park, barefoot, holding hands.)
Let’s go to Vegas. Tonight. I have to marry you. I love you.
(Now you’re falling asleep together, holding hands. He tells you this is the first time he could fall asleep like that.)
Maybe we’ll go tomorrow. I’m sorry.
(The bruises fade. He builds you the bed, but stops reaching for your hand.)
I’m busy this weekend.
(Then silence.)
I think I’m depressed.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
(Then you wait, until...)
I think it’s you.
(Stomach and heart trade places.)
I think I can’t do this anymore.
(Again.)
I think I hate you.
(Then, after the cruel name-calling ends,
Silence.)
You cry and you rage, but you know it’ll be okay again in a few weeks, or months. You could do this over and over again. You both know this isn’t normal, but neither of you has ever really had to work at a relationship before, so you’re not sure what is. And really, this gets much easier each time.
I looked down at the nearly empty paint tray and realized I had been so lost in my thoughts that the wall was done. It hadn't even been 15 minutes. I guess I did learn a thing or two after all. If only he could see me working alone like this. He'd be proud.
I washed the paint off the roller and tray in my bathtub. My leaky old faucet ran the water faster than it could drain out of the tub, leaving me with a bath full of water like milk. It looked oddly alluring, reminiscent of the goats' milk that mythical maidens bathed in to stay youthful. I wondered for a moment if bathing in this particular mix would similarly make me stronger. If only it were so easy to be stronger. Perhaps then I could have kept him.
Some people, though, have a unique ability to bring out our weakness. Mine, for example, built me a bed I can barely lift, but I'm the one who feels weak as a result. It's a pretty apt metaphor, actually.
It's widely accepted that if you make yourself a bed, you have to lie in it. They're a little shorter on details for when one has been made for you. There have been many times in my life when I could simply forget everything and wipe the slate clean and just start over, fresh-faced, feeling strong, feeling invincible, when in hindsight really I just hadn't cared that much in the first place. This, on the other hand, is new territory for me.
Moving forward when everything reminds you of someone it killed you to lose is a lot like trying to wade through chest-deep water: every step you can manage washes you a little cleaner, but it doesn't make the process any less torturous.
When you're struggling upstream so much that even your greatest effort only keeps you in the same spot, it's hard to see that as strength, but really, it is the strongest most bodacious powerful Amazon woman thing you could ever do for yourself.
You can get used to being left. But I don’t think you ever get used to being alone.
I'm learning to find my strength in the reminders, huge and heavy as they are. Fresh coats of paint make this island more mine.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
If you want to make the desert bloom, stop burning all the olive trees
"I have no words to describe what's going on in here. It's awful. Just know that your solidarity means the world to me. And it does make a difference. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Tell the world what is happening."
These words from a friend in Gaza made me feel like absolute shit. One, that it's happening, and two, that I can't really do a thing about it.
I've had several people in the past two weeks or so ask me about what's going on in Gaza. The prevailing sentiment among most all of them is not only a desire to know more, but also a very clear frustration with all the apparent mixed messages there are out there about this conflict.
The frustration is an understandable one that I completely relate to. Especially when I first began to look into the conflict for myself, the disconnect between interpretations is disorienting.
Eventually, though, after you've ingested enough soundbytes from enough different voices, you can get a sense in the middle of a few objective facts:
1. Israel is a state that does not grant full rights to certain citizens on the basis of their ethnicity.
2. Israel is a state that prevents even basic rights to non-citizens living in territory it governs and subjects them to a constant campaign of intimidation, occupation and land-grabbing in the name of "security."
3. Israel is a state whose idea of "proportionality" and "restraint" is, to use the most recent example, >600 dead Palestinians for >30 dead Israelis.
I never want to be in a position of "keeping score" in these matters, but the numbers do show an undeniable imbalance of power and lack of restraint. Allegations of "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing" are not buzzwords meant just to get attention, or exaggerations made out of baseless insidious hatred of a religious group. They are an accurate assessment of clear policies that have been in effect for decades and have only made things worse.
Those who point toward Hamas and its rockets as the reason why Palestinian civilians are being slaughtered must not have been paying attention to the thousands of Palestinians that Israel needed little excuse to slaughter long before Hamas and its rockets even existed. The fact is that the backbone of Israel's creation in 1948 was a clear agenda of ethnic cleansing. It was the belief put into practice that one group could only be safe in the land if the other was removed, or at least sufficiently removed so as to ensure a demographic supremacy. Until this injustice is addressed, there will never be an opportunity to move forward.
There was a time in Palestine, not even that long ago, when all its inhabitants coexisted. When Jews were safe to flourish and prosper while elsewhere they were being slaughtered by the millions. Today, Israel might just be the most dangerous place for a Jewish person to live in the whole world -- the direct and tragic result of the unsustainable policies of the Zionist movement.
There was also a time when the mention of places like South Africa, Northern Ireland or Brussels conjured up the same feelings of despair and unsolvable conflict we feel now over Israel and Palestine -- and today the mention of these places barely raises an eyebrow. These places and others not only provide hope, but also a helpful model of how this conflict might once and for all be resolved in a way that actually respects the rights of all involved.
We all have our differences, but certain things I really feel are universal. Children playing on a beach. People eating together at sunset. Watching out for your neighbors. Worrying about your family when they are in harm's way.
If you want to get beyond the propaganda, talk to the people. Listen to the stories you haven't heard before. I've noticed humans are so impervious to statistics and so immune to arguments. What we understand, and what I think are most important, are stories and faces.
After all, it's the people who need to live.
These words from a friend in Gaza made me feel like absolute shit. One, that it's happening, and two, that I can't really do a thing about it.
I've had several people in the past two weeks or so ask me about what's going on in Gaza. The prevailing sentiment among most all of them is not only a desire to know more, but also a very clear frustration with all the apparent mixed messages there are out there about this conflict.
The frustration is an understandable one that I completely relate to. Especially when I first began to look into the conflict for myself, the disconnect between interpretations is disorienting.
Eventually, though, after you've ingested enough soundbytes from enough different voices, you can get a sense in the middle of a few objective facts:
1. Israel is a state that does not grant full rights to certain citizens on the basis of their ethnicity.
2. Israel is a state that prevents even basic rights to non-citizens living in territory it governs and subjects them to a constant campaign of intimidation, occupation and land-grabbing in the name of "security."
3. Israel is a state whose idea of "proportionality" and "restraint" is, to use the most recent example, >600 dead Palestinians for >30 dead Israelis.
I never want to be in a position of "keeping score" in these matters, but the numbers do show an undeniable imbalance of power and lack of restraint. Allegations of "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing" are not buzzwords meant just to get attention, or exaggerations made out of baseless insidious hatred of a religious group. They are an accurate assessment of clear policies that have been in effect for decades and have only made things worse.
Those who point toward Hamas and its rockets as the reason why Palestinian civilians are being slaughtered must not have been paying attention to the thousands of Palestinians that Israel needed little excuse to slaughter long before Hamas and its rockets even existed. The fact is that the backbone of Israel's creation in 1948 was a clear agenda of ethnic cleansing. It was the belief put into practice that one group could only be safe in the land if the other was removed, or at least sufficiently removed so as to ensure a demographic supremacy. Until this injustice is addressed, there will never be an opportunity to move forward.
There was a time in Palestine, not even that long ago, when all its inhabitants coexisted. When Jews were safe to flourish and prosper while elsewhere they were being slaughtered by the millions. Today, Israel might just be the most dangerous place for a Jewish person to live in the whole world -- the direct and tragic result of the unsustainable policies of the Zionist movement.
There was also a time when the mention of places like South Africa, Northern Ireland or Brussels conjured up the same feelings of despair and unsolvable conflict we feel now over Israel and Palestine -- and today the mention of these places barely raises an eyebrow. These places and others not only provide hope, but also a helpful model of how this conflict might once and for all be resolved in a way that actually respects the rights of all involved.
We all have our differences, but certain things I really feel are universal. Children playing on a beach. People eating together at sunset. Watching out for your neighbors. Worrying about your family when they are in harm's way.
If you want to get beyond the propaganda, talk to the people. Listen to the stories you haven't heard before. I've noticed humans are so impervious to statistics and so immune to arguments. What we understand, and what I think are most important, are stories and faces.
After all, it's the people who need to live.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Let's talk about "body image."
I grew up chubby. Not anywhere near obese. But enough that people made sure I knew. And I didn't need much help to know.
When I hit 14 I started to slim down. But I never stopped seeing myself as the chubby kid. If you were one too, you'll understand how that changes you.
And now I will admit something publicly that to this point I have only told a few close friends: I am an anorexic.
I would say "recovered anorexic," but through my own experience and reading about others, I really feel like a tendency toward disordered eating is something that sticks with you pretty much forever and can only be managed. I know at least that I never fully got rid of the compulsion. Currently I channel it into being a vegetarian. (When asked, I usually say it's because of environmental or animal welfare concerns -- and certainly that's part of it. But really it's because it's the best way I've found to keep myself eating healthily and enough while still putting parameters on myself that feel necessary to me.)
Looking back on my life, I have found that the times I was most compulsively unhealthy in my relationship with food were the times I felt the least empowered in other areas of my life. Make no mistake, this was never about food for me -- it was always about control. (This makes me a pretty textbook case, I've heard.) I am generally health-conscious in what I eat and I genuinely enjoy healthy food. But when I was in the throes of a disordered phase I did not eat healthy. I remember in high school I went for a stretch of time subsisting on pickles and popcorn. And then I might stop for awhile, and then something would happen and I'd start again. In my freshman year of college it was tomato soup and popcorn. Junior year of college it was V8 juice and carrot sticks, as well as one day a week of total fasting except for water (which I remember totally loving at the time). I can still rattle off exactly how many calories are in each of these items per serving, as easily as I remember my date of birth or SSN.
This is all stuff you've probably heard or read before. But I share this experience to add this hopefully slightly newer angle into the mix:
Not every anorexic is thin to the point that people invite them on Oprah or put them in the hospital. In fact I imagine that there are many like me -- relatively functional and not losing so much weight that it causes real alarm. I'm 5'7" and typically wear a size 6 or 8. My junior year of college, which was probably my worst bout in that I was eating virtually no carbohydrates or protein on top of exercising like a crazy woman (the whole thing initiated by a breakup with someone who had criticized my weight), I still only got down to around a size 2. I remember my classmates telling me how great I looked.
So when you're talking about eating disorders, be really careful about assuming who does and doesn't have one. It's probably a lot more of your friends than you even realize. I was a pro at talking about positive body image, even when my journal was full of entries painstakingly recording what had gone into each day's 200 allotted calories. (The most fucked-up part of this is that most of what I knew about anorexia was from TV specials about girls who had panic attacks over communion wafers, so in a twisted way, I thought what I was doing was okay in comparison.)
This is the kind of "what the hell was I thinking" experience that today gives me compassion for myself, and for anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and thought things like my life would be fine if only I were thinner, or I'm disgusting, or any variant of these horrible thoughts.
This is also the kind of experience that, when people see images of especially thin women and say things like "go eat a cheeseburger" or "real women have curves," I really just want to punch them in the fucking face. I don't understand why this pendulum needs to keep swinging. The whole point is that health, just like illness, has no one specific "look," and frankly people should just know better by now.
I also share my history to say that the secret to preventing eating disorders is not to be found in "awareness campaigns" or on the backs of Dove body wash. I was a precocious kid raised by a badass journalist mom on feminism and organic granola and "all women are princesses" and all that good stuff. I was constantly reminded that every size is beautiful, inner beauty is what counts, etc. etc. etc. And in the end it still didn't keep me from genuinely believing that I would be better/prettier/more liked/more desirable if I only made myself smaller.
I won't pretend to know what the secret is. But I do know that in my worst days dealing with this condition, the bulk of the stuff I remembered were the everyday little ways people show -- not tell -- that overweight people don't matter to them the way thin people do. I remembered quitting dance in 6th grade because my classmate made fun of how I looked in my leotard. But I also remembered being out to dinner and feeling myself nearly ignored while the waiter invested all his enthusiasm in a thinner friend. I remember seeing my naturally thin older sister in her prom dress and thinking I'd never be half that beautiful unless I was thin too.
I've heard the term "microaggression" used in the context of racism, and I think it's an apt term to use for how people sometimes treat overweight individuals as well. So if I can say anything of value here (and I'm addressing this to myself as well), it's this: look at people. Make eye contact. With everyone. I think we have a tendency to avoid looking at people who are overweight because we don't want anyone to think we're gawking.
But it's a little bit like that Louie episode where "fat girl" Vanessa explains to Louie that the worst possible thing to say to a fat girl is "you're not fat." These well-meaning lies, and their subtler sibling the "I'm looking away because of course I'm not noticing you at all because you're not fat" eye dart, carry more hurt in them than any blatant insult. It is the fastest way to confirm to a person who (trust me) already knows or even just thinks they are fat that yes, it really is a shameful thing to be.
I guess like most modern-day ills, the solution basically comes down to "don't be a dick." And that includes to yourself.
Also, my boss just brought me a giant chocolate chip cookie. I ate the whole thing.
YUM.
Here's to Wednesday.
When I hit 14 I started to slim down. But I never stopped seeing myself as the chubby kid. If you were one too, you'll understand how that changes you.
And now I will admit something publicly that to this point I have only told a few close friends: I am an anorexic.
I would say "recovered anorexic," but through my own experience and reading about others, I really feel like a tendency toward disordered eating is something that sticks with you pretty much forever and can only be managed. I know at least that I never fully got rid of the compulsion. Currently I channel it into being a vegetarian. (When asked, I usually say it's because of environmental or animal welfare concerns -- and certainly that's part of it. But really it's because it's the best way I've found to keep myself eating healthily and enough while still putting parameters on myself that feel necessary to me.)
Looking back on my life, I have found that the times I was most compulsively unhealthy in my relationship with food were the times I felt the least empowered in other areas of my life. Make no mistake, this was never about food for me -- it was always about control. (This makes me a pretty textbook case, I've heard.) I am generally health-conscious in what I eat and I genuinely enjoy healthy food. But when I was in the throes of a disordered phase I did not eat healthy. I remember in high school I went for a stretch of time subsisting on pickles and popcorn. And then I might stop for awhile, and then something would happen and I'd start again. In my freshman year of college it was tomato soup and popcorn. Junior year of college it was V8 juice and carrot sticks, as well as one day a week of total fasting except for water (which I remember totally loving at the time). I can still rattle off exactly how many calories are in each of these items per serving, as easily as I remember my date of birth or SSN.
This is all stuff you've probably heard or read before. But I share this experience to add this hopefully slightly newer angle into the mix:
Not every anorexic is thin to the point that people invite them on Oprah or put them in the hospital. In fact I imagine that there are many like me -- relatively functional and not losing so much weight that it causes real alarm. I'm 5'7" and typically wear a size 6 or 8. My junior year of college, which was probably my worst bout in that I was eating virtually no carbohydrates or protein on top of exercising like a crazy woman (the whole thing initiated by a breakup with someone who had criticized my weight), I still only got down to around a size 2. I remember my classmates telling me how great I looked.
So when you're talking about eating disorders, be really careful about assuming who does and doesn't have one. It's probably a lot more of your friends than you even realize. I was a pro at talking about positive body image, even when my journal was full of entries painstakingly recording what had gone into each day's 200 allotted calories. (The most fucked-up part of this is that most of what I knew about anorexia was from TV specials about girls who had panic attacks over communion wafers, so in a twisted way, I thought what I was doing was okay in comparison.)
This is how I looked after maybe two months of subsisting on water, V8 and daily hours-long workouts. I almost look healthy...right?
This is the kind of "what the hell was I thinking" experience that today gives me compassion for myself, and for anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and thought things like my life would be fine if only I were thinner, or I'm disgusting, or any variant of these horrible thoughts.
This is also the kind of experience that, when people see images of especially thin women and say things like "go eat a cheeseburger" or "real women have curves," I really just want to punch them in the fucking face. I don't understand why this pendulum needs to keep swinging. The whole point is that health, just like illness, has no one specific "look," and frankly people should just know better by now.
I also share my history to say that the secret to preventing eating disorders is not to be found in "awareness campaigns" or on the backs of Dove body wash. I was a precocious kid raised by a badass journalist mom on feminism and organic granola and "all women are princesses" and all that good stuff. I was constantly reminded that every size is beautiful, inner beauty is what counts, etc. etc. etc. And in the end it still didn't keep me from genuinely believing that I would be better/prettier/more liked/more desirable if I only made myself smaller.
I won't pretend to know what the secret is. But I do know that in my worst days dealing with this condition, the bulk of the stuff I remembered were the everyday little ways people show -- not tell -- that overweight people don't matter to them the way thin people do. I remembered quitting dance in 6th grade because my classmate made fun of how I looked in my leotard. But I also remembered being out to dinner and feeling myself nearly ignored while the waiter invested all his enthusiasm in a thinner friend. I remember seeing my naturally thin older sister in her prom dress and thinking I'd never be half that beautiful unless I was thin too.
I've heard the term "microaggression" used in the context of racism, and I think it's an apt term to use for how people sometimes treat overweight individuals as well. So if I can say anything of value here (and I'm addressing this to myself as well), it's this: look at people. Make eye contact. With everyone. I think we have a tendency to avoid looking at people who are overweight because we don't want anyone to think we're gawking.
But it's a little bit like that Louie episode where "fat girl" Vanessa explains to Louie that the worst possible thing to say to a fat girl is "you're not fat." These well-meaning lies, and their subtler sibling the "I'm looking away because of course I'm not noticing you at all because you're not fat" eye dart, carry more hurt in them than any blatant insult. It is the fastest way to confirm to a person who (trust me) already knows or even just thinks they are fat that yes, it really is a shameful thing to be.
I guess like most modern-day ills, the solution basically comes down to "don't be a dick." And that includes to yourself.
Also, my boss just brought me a giant chocolate chip cookie. I ate the whole thing.
YUM.
Here's to Wednesday.
Monday, June 9, 2014
The Tao of Wilde
I really feel bad for Oscar Wilde. I can't think of another literary giant who is so adored yet, in my opinion, so misunderstood.
I know a guy who is really into aesthetics. I remember one conversation we had when he was trying to convince me of the virtues of appearance vs. substance, where he dropped this gem: "People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."
The problem with using this quote in this way is that it was completely out of its satirical context. If you're not a huge Wilde dork like me, the quote is uttered by Lord Henry in chapter 2 of The Picture of Dorian Gray. And if you don't know Lord Henry, well, suffice it to say he's incredibly charming and undeniably brilliant, but ultimately doesn't end up being too great an influence on Dorian. Wilde was parodying the sort of person who ultimately would drive Dorian Gray to completely ruin his life. So I don't think it's the kind of quote you'd want to slap on a picture of a sunset and spread all around Facebook.
And this was not the only time I've heard a Wilde quote used in this way. So I feel bad for the guy. He left so many compelling words behind, and yet we seem not to know who he really is. I can't know any better really than anyone else who wasn't alive to know him (which is pretty much everyone now), but I think it's safe to wager he wasn't quite as superficial as he would have us think.
Then again, maybe he was trolling us on purpose.
I think what I find so eternally intriguing and inspiring about Wilde is that he shows evolution: a progression from unashamed materialist and unabashed lover of the superficial (even if his embrace of these things was a bit tongue-in-cheek), to a man broken enough by the world to begin to embody those truly transcendent virtues: compassion, humility, graciousness. Dazzling as his wit is, I am not a fan of Oscar because he was great with words, I'm a fan because of the largeheartedness he had and how it comes through in his writing -- alongside that generous helping of sass.
Perhaps it's because I am so inspired by his progression that it really bothers me when people get so hung up on Oscar 1.0 and parrot his earlier witticisms without a shred of irony (even though most of Wilde's truly sassy sayings were written with some irony, whenever he said them). Because really, guys, there are times when Wilde writes with such searingly beautiful heart that he might as well be Lao-tze. Example:
"...had I not a friend left in the world; were there not a single house open to me in pity; had I to accept the wallet and ragged cloak of sheer penury: as long as I am free from all resentment, hardness and scorn, I would be able to face the life with much more calm and confidence than I would were my body in purple and fine linen, and the soul within me sick with hate.
And I really shall have no difficulty. When you really want love you will find it waiting for you." (Excerpted from De Profundis.)
Right??
So next time you find yourself a nice Wilde quote, do everyone a favor and consider carefully how you use it. It's a shame to see a writer of such glasspane clarity and almost zen-like wisdom be reduced to trifley vagueness about "art" and stuff. For the more purely material content, try Jersey Shore transcripts performed in the style of Wilde -- you're welcome.
I know a guy who is really into aesthetics. I remember one conversation we had when he was trying to convince me of the virtues of appearance vs. substance, where he dropped this gem: "People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."
The problem with using this quote in this way is that it was completely out of its satirical context. If you're not a huge Wilde dork like me, the quote is uttered by Lord Henry in chapter 2 of The Picture of Dorian Gray. And if you don't know Lord Henry, well, suffice it to say he's incredibly charming and undeniably brilliant, but ultimately doesn't end up being too great an influence on Dorian. Wilde was parodying the sort of person who ultimately would drive Dorian Gray to completely ruin his life. So I don't think it's the kind of quote you'd want to slap on a picture of a sunset and spread all around Facebook.
And this was not the only time I've heard a Wilde quote used in this way. So I feel bad for the guy. He left so many compelling words behind, and yet we seem not to know who he really is. I can't know any better really than anyone else who wasn't alive to know him (which is pretty much everyone now), but I think it's safe to wager he wasn't quite as superficial as he would have us think.
Then again, maybe he was trolling us on purpose.
I think what I find so eternally intriguing and inspiring about Wilde is that he shows evolution: a progression from unashamed materialist and unabashed lover of the superficial (even if his embrace of these things was a bit tongue-in-cheek), to a man broken enough by the world to begin to embody those truly transcendent virtues: compassion, humility, graciousness. Dazzling as his wit is, I am not a fan of Oscar because he was great with words, I'm a fan because of the largeheartedness he had and how it comes through in his writing -- alongside that generous helping of sass.
Perhaps it's because I am so inspired by his progression that it really bothers me when people get so hung up on Oscar 1.0 and parrot his earlier witticisms without a shred of irony (even though most of Wilde's truly sassy sayings were written with some irony, whenever he said them). Because really, guys, there are times when Wilde writes with such searingly beautiful heart that he might as well be Lao-tze. Example:
"...had I not a friend left in the world; were there not a single house open to me in pity; had I to accept the wallet and ragged cloak of sheer penury: as long as I am free from all resentment, hardness and scorn, I would be able to face the life with much more calm and confidence than I would were my body in purple and fine linen, and the soul within me sick with hate.
And I really shall have no difficulty. When you really want love you will find it waiting for you." (Excerpted from De Profundis.)
Right??
So next time you find yourself a nice Wilde quote, do everyone a favor and consider carefully how you use it. It's a shame to see a writer of such glasspane clarity and almost zen-like wisdom be reduced to trifley vagueness about "art" and stuff. For the more purely material content, try Jersey Shore transcripts performed in the style of Wilde -- you're welcome.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
FYI (if you're the mother of teenage boys)
Dear Mrs. Hall,
I have some information that might interest you. Last night, as I sometimes do, I sat at my desk and looked through the evening's news feed. Among friends' postings about Syria, marriage equality and silly cats, I noticed your article making more than one appearance, shared by some folks very near and dear to my heart. So I read it.
I've been a teenage girl, and wow, there are a lot of teenage girl selfies of me on my Facebook. Maybe a few of them were even taken in my pajamas (because I'm a slut like that, apparently. It's cool. My bedroom was still cute).
Maybe boys noticed other things when they saw my pictures. Like, that pajamas for me -- at least during my most selfie-prone era -- usually consisted of pants and a top, which can look curiously like regular clothes, but they're for sleeping in.
I get it -- I was in my room, so I was probably heading to bed, in my pajamas, and probably not wearing a bra, since they're uncomfortable and may even cause health problems. When I look at some of my old selfies, I can't help but notice the extra-arched back, the red carpet pose, the sultry pout (I said some, not all!) because hey, that's how America teaches girls to pose. All. The. Time.
So here's the bit that I think is important for you to realize. If you are friends with me on Facebook, then I guess you are welcome to scroll through my selfies with your husband and children at the table as a family activity, on par with playing Sorry! or watching Shrek. Maybe it's a little strange, but I did put that stuff out there, so I can't complain.
Please know that I genuinely like staying connected with you this way! I hope you also enjoy seeing things through my lens (which may or may not be unique and colorful). If we're friends, I'd like to think that means you think I have some winning qualities. But I don't think any "extremely unfortunate" (in your view) self-portraits cancel that out in any way.
That selfie you don't like -- maybe it doesn't reflect the entirety of my being. I would hope not. It's a single picture. But why did you cringe and wonder, "what I was trying to do? Who I was trying to reach? What I was trying to say?"
Maybe I was trying to remind myself I'm a cute human after a long day. Maybe I was trying to reach out to my friends to show them my new haircut. Maybe I was trying to say "hey Facebook world, check out my cute room!" These are only a few of any number of potential reasons. (Truth be told, though, most of my selfies were inspired by plain-and-simple boredom. I know that's underwhelming. Sorry.)
And now -- big bummer (I can tell you're really broken about this) -- you have to block my posts. Because you are apparently unable to reconcile that this person you otherwise enjoy following is also a female entity with certain attributes that female entities tend to have, and she is not hiding in a corner, and you care about your sons, therefore she cannot exist in their cyberworld. (For the sake of this response, I'm going to go with it and pretend that this line of reasoning makes sense.)
This is not to say you don't have a right as a parent to influence what your boys can and can't see. But here's the deal. All these teenage girls (quite literally, ALL of them, according to your title) you're enlightening? They're not your daughters. You, Mrs. Hall, have three teenage sons, and it is them you should be instructing. Not us.
I know everyone is getting kind of sick of a culture that bombards all of us -- men and women -- day and night with hyper-sexualized images. These are images that get stuck in our minds, condition our behavior, and maybe even trickle all the way down into a bedroom selfie or two.
But if you're going to expect every girl to self-censor rather than teach your sons to be discerning in how they look at them, then you have an issue. The second you put the onus of dealing with this sexualized culture solely on teenage girls, while evidently doing little more than just drawing the blinds when it comes to teenage boys, then you, Mrs. Hall, with your earnest "FYI," are not lifting up young girls. In fact, you're pretty much in lockstep with the same hurtful reasoning that says rape victims wearing short skirts are "asking for it."
Again, I get it. It might just seem easier to block every young lady who doesn't pass your litmus test for modesty online. But modesty is a two-way street, Mrs. Hall, and unless you plan on following your sons around for the rest of their lives and pulling the wool over their eyes every time a woman walks by, you need to stop simply blocking and start talking to them.
Tell your sons how, yeah, sometimes girls look sexy, and sometimes we even like to do it on purpose. Tell them that if it's on purpose, it could be for any number of reasons, and these reasons do not by default include their attention.
Tell your sons they are young men with self-control who can treat girls like humans regardless of how "modestly" they appear.
Tell your sons not to believe the lie that they are entirely enslaved to their hormones. Like animals. Mrs. Hall, do you really believe your sons are animals?
When Jesus said, "If your right eye causes you to stumble," he did not follow it with "tell that slut to take down her sexy photo or you'll have to unfriend her." He said, "gouge it out and throw it away." He said it is better to literally mutilate yourself than allow yourself to treat another person as less-than because of your own lack of self-control. Because in this world, you cannot always change how people perceive you. The only thing you can reliably change is how you choose to perceive others, and that includes being able to control yourself when it comes to images you find tempting. I hope your sons are learning to do this rather than to simply block every girl you deem too "sexy" for them to process.
I share a lot of things on Facebook. I think it's a great tool to keep in touch with friends, family, classmates, coworkers and maybe even a few random folks I just think post interesting things. I enjoy sharing articles I find insightful, quotes I find inspiring, bits of music or art that I like. The occasional selfie (which may or may not be deemed "sexy") might be one in every 100 posts or so.
Unfortunately, when we live in a world where women are objects first and people later, there is little I can do to prevent people from deciding I am trying to get attention or want to look sexy simply by existing. My God-given breasts, which may someday nurture my future children, might now and then look too visible (for your taste). My God-given lips, which sometimes smile, sometimes frown, and always try to speak truth, might now and then look too pouty (for your taste). My God-given eyes, which change color depending on the light and try always to see the world with compassion and openness and understanding, might now and then look too bedroomy (for your taste).
But according to your "zero tolerance policy," Mrs. Hall, a single "unacceptable" selfie (for your taste) would automatically discount anything else I've ever had to share or say. It breaks my heart that these God-given physical attributes would potentially cancel out every other quality I have, should I dare to arch my back too much or pout my lips too much, because God forbid I should waste the precious time He has given me on earth trying to assuage the sexist expectations of people like you.
Mrs. Hall, it's not too late! If you think you've made an on-line mistake (we all do -- don't fret -- I've made some doozies), RUN to your accounts and take down the unfortunately-viral blog posts that make it too easy for me only to see you as a slut-shamer disguising her problematic views on girls as genuine concern for boys.
Will you trust me? There are girls out there waiting and hoping to be seen as women of character and not have to hide the fact that they are also sexual beings and should not be made ashamed of that. Some young women are fighting the daily uphill battle to be able to confidently be who they are, and not have to pick a side on some Madonna-whore dichotomy created in the minds of teenage boys' moms -- just like you.
We are real beauties, inside and out.
And we do not need your self-righteous "advice."
I have some information that might interest you. Last night, as I sometimes do, I sat at my desk and looked through the evening's news feed. Among friends' postings about Syria, marriage equality and silly cats, I noticed your article making more than one appearance, shared by some folks very near and dear to my heart. So I read it.
I've been a teenage girl, and wow, there are a lot of teenage girl selfies of me on my Facebook. Maybe a few of them were even taken in my pajamas (because I'm a slut like that, apparently. It's cool. My bedroom was still cute).
I get it -- I was in my room, so I was probably heading to bed, in my pajamas, and probably not wearing a bra, since they're uncomfortable and may even cause health problems. When I look at some of my old selfies, I can't help but notice the extra-arched back, the red carpet pose, the sultry pout (I said some, not all!) because hey, that's how America teaches girls to pose. All. The. Time.
So here's the bit that I think is important for you to realize. If you are friends with me on Facebook, then I guess you are welcome to scroll through my selfies with your husband and children at the table as a family activity, on par with playing Sorry! or watching Shrek. Maybe it's a little strange, but I did put that stuff out there, so I can't complain.
Please know that I genuinely like staying connected with you this way! I hope you also enjoy seeing things through my lens (which may or may not be unique and colorful). If we're friends, I'd like to think that means you think I have some winning qualities. But I don't think any "extremely unfortunate" (in your view) self-portraits cancel that out in any way.
That selfie you don't like -- maybe it doesn't reflect the entirety of my being. I would hope not. It's a single picture. But why did you cringe and wonder, "what I was trying to do? Who I was trying to reach? What I was trying to say?"
And now -- big bummer (I can tell you're really broken about this) -- you have to block my posts. Because you are apparently unable to reconcile that this person you otherwise enjoy following is also a female entity with certain attributes that female entities tend to have, and she is not hiding in a corner, and you care about your sons, therefore she cannot exist in their cyberworld. (For the sake of this response, I'm going to go with it and pretend that this line of reasoning makes sense.)
This is not to say you don't have a right as a parent to influence what your boys can and can't see. But here's the deal. All these teenage girls (quite literally, ALL of them, according to your title) you're enlightening? They're not your daughters. You, Mrs. Hall, have three teenage sons, and it is them you should be instructing. Not us.
I know everyone is getting kind of sick of a culture that bombards all of us -- men and women -- day and night with hyper-sexualized images. These are images that get stuck in our minds, condition our behavior, and maybe even trickle all the way down into a bedroom selfie or two.
But if you're going to expect every girl to self-censor rather than teach your sons to be discerning in how they look at them, then you have an issue. The second you put the onus of dealing with this sexualized culture solely on teenage girls, while evidently doing little more than just drawing the blinds when it comes to teenage boys, then you, Mrs. Hall, with your earnest "FYI," are not lifting up young girls. In fact, you're pretty much in lockstep with the same hurtful reasoning that says rape victims wearing short skirts are "asking for it."
Again, I get it. It might just seem easier to block every young lady who doesn't pass your litmus test for modesty online. But modesty is a two-way street, Mrs. Hall, and unless you plan on following your sons around for the rest of their lives and pulling the wool over their eyes every time a woman walks by, you need to stop simply blocking and start talking to them.
Tell your sons how, yeah, sometimes girls look sexy, and sometimes we even like to do it on purpose. Tell them that if it's on purpose, it could be for any number of reasons, and these reasons do not by default include their attention.
Tell your sons they are young men with self-control who can treat girls like humans regardless of how "modestly" they appear.
Tell your sons not to believe the lie that they are entirely enslaved to their hormones. Like animals. Mrs. Hall, do you really believe your sons are animals?
When Jesus said, "If your right eye causes you to stumble," he did not follow it with "tell that slut to take down her sexy photo or you'll have to unfriend her." He said, "gouge it out and throw it away." He said it is better to literally mutilate yourself than allow yourself to treat another person as less-than because of your own lack of self-control. Because in this world, you cannot always change how people perceive you. The only thing you can reliably change is how you choose to perceive others, and that includes being able to control yourself when it comes to images you find tempting. I hope your sons are learning to do this rather than to simply block every girl you deem too "sexy" for them to process.
I share a lot of things on Facebook. I think it's a great tool to keep in touch with friends, family, classmates, coworkers and maybe even a few random folks I just think post interesting things. I enjoy sharing articles I find insightful, quotes I find inspiring, bits of music or art that I like. The occasional selfie (which may or may not be deemed "sexy") might be one in every 100 posts or so.Unfortunately, when we live in a world where women are objects first and people later, there is little I can do to prevent people from deciding I am trying to get attention or want to look sexy simply by existing. My God-given breasts, which may someday nurture my future children, might now and then look too visible (for your taste). My God-given lips, which sometimes smile, sometimes frown, and always try to speak truth, might now and then look too pouty (for your taste). My God-given eyes, which change color depending on the light and try always to see the world with compassion and openness and understanding, might now and then look too bedroomy (for your taste).
But according to your "zero tolerance policy," Mrs. Hall, a single "unacceptable" selfie (for your taste) would automatically discount anything else I've ever had to share or say. It breaks my heart that these God-given physical attributes would potentially cancel out every other quality I have, should I dare to arch my back too much or pout my lips too much, because God forbid I should waste the precious time He has given me on earth trying to assuage the sexist expectations of people like you.
Mrs. Hall, it's not too late! If you think you've made an on-line mistake (we all do -- don't fret -- I've made some doozies), RUN to your accounts and take down the unfortunately-viral blog posts that make it too easy for me only to see you as a slut-shamer disguising her problematic views on girls as genuine concern for boys.
Will you trust me? There are girls out there waiting and hoping to be seen as women of character and not have to hide the fact that they are also sexual beings and should not be made ashamed of that. Some young women are fighting the daily uphill battle to be able to confidently be who they are, and not have to pick a side on some Madonna-whore dichotomy created in the minds of teenage boys' moms -- just like you.
We are real beauties, inside and out.
And we do not need your self-righteous "advice."
Monday, November 19, 2012
Operation Pillar of Cloud and the need for a fresh perspective
Anyone who's been watching the news lately knows that, once again, violence is ramping up in Israel-Palestine. Once again, innocent Palestinians and Israelis are being killed. And once again, ideologues of all stripes are burying their heels in the sand, convinced that their side is completely in the right, stubbornly insistent on "staying the course" no matter what the cost.
Especially here in the West, it's pretty common to hear that "this has been going on for centuries," that "Arabs and Jews just hate each other," that these two sides are just going to keep fighting no matter what. But I have a problem with the narrative that this is merely two "equal" sides battling each other. If that were truly the case, for example, Israel shouldn't act so surprised when Hamas fights back. Israel's stated aim in this recent attack on Gaza, as well as previous ones like Cast Lead and the ongoing siege in general, is to inhibit rocket fire from the Strip. The number of rockets fired in recent days has exploded, so either Israel is failing miserably in its stated goal, or it is trying to accomplish something else entirely.
It is true that Hamas has disgusting anti-Semitic language in their charter. But too often I see people equating all Gazans with that language in ways that are untrue and counter-productive. One of my good friends, for example, is a Palestinian Catholic from the West Bank. He has relatives in Gaza, also Catholics, who voted for Hamas. This was obviously not a vote of fundamentalist Islamist furor. Much like the Republican party here in the U.S. is often more extreme than your everyday conservative Joe, the average Gazan is not out to slaughter all Jews. These relatives of my friend, for example, voted for Hamas because they were building schools and health clinics when the moderate party was doing absolutely nothing to ease hardships for average Palestinians. It was a vote of desperation, not fundamentalism. Israel needs to understand that it cannot pen these people in and restrict their futures forever. Not only is it morally reprehensible, it has only made Israeli citizens less safe. It is not exactly difficult to predict that trapping people in an increasingly dire situation with fading hopes for improvement only breeds more violence. I hope and pray for peace, and that is why my heart breaks to see this dead-end spiral of violence continue.
It is true that there are some who have deep-seated anti-Semitic feelings that inspire them to wish violence against the Jewish people. But there are also those who believe Judaism gives them the right to persecute and kill Palestinians, burn their olive trees, build walls and steal land. This is an ongoing problem that is one of the greatest roadblocks to achieving peace, and all the talk about a two-state solution has done nothing to stop it. The result is that Gaza is basically still ruled by Israel (despite the historic "disengagement"), and the West Bank is no longer viable as a state; the largest settlement blocks now split it into pieces, with settler-only roads essentially turning the West Bank into a labyrinth of checkpoints and areas entirely off-limits to Palestinians. You cannot create a state out of a piece of land that has almost no geographic continuity and that, with the settlements taken out (as Israel consistently refuses to consider shutting down all but the smallest of these settlements -- which is why peace talks are still at a standstill) amounts to less than 20% of historic Palestine.
The inevitable end result of all this is annexation. The two-state solution is pretty much dead. All that really remains to be seen is how the government will treat the current residents of the occupied territory once this finally becomes the reality. It could be continued apartheid, or it could be equal democratic representation. Zionist lingo demonizes the latter as equivalent to the destruction of Israel, as the current demographic reality shows that there simply are not enough Jewish people in Israel to ensure a majority without significant demographic engineering. But it doesn't take a genius to recognize that "demographic engineering" eventually amounts to ethnic cleansing. This is not exactly democratic behavior. And countries that have grappled with past ethno-religious conflicts have been able to find ways to ensure each group has the ability to be represented fairly in government, have their own institutions, develop their own schools and preserve their own culture in the context of bi-nationality. It seems a pipe dream now for Israel-Palestine, but it is possible.
It's a popular talking point that "Palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map." But likewise, there are elements of Israeli society that deeply desire to wipe the rest of Palestine off the map. In fact, many such elements already claim boldly that Palestinians never existed at all. "A land without a people for a people without a land" was not a statement made by people who genuinely had no clue that hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Arabs alongside a sizable minority of Jews, were indeed living there; it was a statement made by people who genuinely just did not believe that most of these individuals counted as people. Palestinians allegedly teach their children blindly to hate Israelis (even though reputable studies of Palestinian textbooks have concluded that such allegations are not true). Yet many Israelis also teach their children that Palestinians' lives are unimportant, that they have no right to exist in Israel as equal citizens. In either case, I'm not sure what makes one more palatable than the other. Right-wing elements in Israeli society glorify militarism in ways I find equally disturbing to those of hardcore Palestinian nationalists like Hamas. I can't support either one.
Meanwhile, the majority of Palestinians are simply trying to live their daily lives in spite of having most all aspects of those lives controlled by a country whose core identity willfully excludes them. And likewise, most Israelis also simply want to be left alone and wonder why the violence continues. The current situation allows the worst elements of both sides to dictate life for the majority. Ultimately, neither side benefits. It is a dead end that desperately calls for a new approach.
No one is saying Jews don't have a right to live in the Holy Land. But I don't see how it's fair for one group to live there at the expense of the other. At the time of Israel's creation, Palestinians owned 92% of the land yet were only offered to keep less than half of it. Hindsight is 20/20, and many Palestinian leaders now admit that they wish this had been accepted. A common argument that Israel was formed through land purchase is a little disingenuous; with the blessing of the U.N., many parcels of land were indeed sold, but only because of legislation formed by the fledgling state of Israel that allowed land purchase if the current owners were deemed "absentee" -- and many of these owners were absent because they had fled the violence in a hurry only to be forcibly prohibited from returning. That's not exactly the same thing as an honest sale. Does that make it OK for anyone to hurl rockets at civilians? Absolutely not. But it does call for acknowledgment that many people still living today have a legitimate grievance against the Israeli government that should not just keep getting swept under the rug.
So if you see Palestinians expressing a desire to abandon the "peace process," do understand that it is not because they don't want peace. It is because every applauded "resolution" and "step forward" has ultimately only offered cover while facts on the ground made their situation worse. They no longer have any faith in the international community, because the international community has repeatedly violated their trust. The PA, for example, merely runs the occupation on behalf of Israel while its top politicians pad their pockets, safe in cozy Ramallah. Hamas claims to offer an alternative, and this is why they have been politically successful -- not because all Palestinians just hate Jews that much. I say this not to speak on their behalf, but simply to tell their concerns as I have heard them expressed to me: Palestinians want to be able to get to school, to move around, to get jobs, to be safe, to have access to places important to them, to travel, to escape from political no-man's land, to have a passport again, to be represented in their country and not marginalized. When these issues are addressed, extremist elements like Hamas will not have the fodder to incite people as they now do. They will not have scores of youth who are facing fewer opportunities and increasingly dire futures willing to do just about anything to resist their situation. Perhaps a belief in compromise is tantamount to "negotiating with terrorists." But I have a hard time seeing how anyone who genuinely wants innocent people on both sides of the green line to have peace can instead keep advocating for strategies that have only exacerbated the situation.
There is plenty of room in the Holy Land for all its citizens. I hope one day we can see this happen. One person, one vote. No permits, no demolitions, no Area C, no Jewish-only roads. Settlements and refugee camps can both just become towns, part of the fabric of the land, instead of hotbeds of controversy. Resources should be distributed fairly, so that no one has to have their water turned off so settlements can have swimming pools. Refugees who still hold keys and deeds to existing properties in Israel should have the ability to return, or at least to receive some kind of restitution. Jews from other Middle Eastern countries who were forced to emigrate to Israel in past decades should likewise be able to return if they desire (a few have already done so in Tunisia, actually). Palestinians whose former homes have since been destroyed should still have the option to move to Israel, buy property, and become productive members of society. They should not be excluded because they are not Jewish. And Israelis or Jews or anyone who wants to live in Nablus or Bethlehem or see the seashore in Gaza should have the option to do so fairly and without excluding or causing hardship on their neighbors. That is a true democracy.
I realize this may sound ridiculously idealistic. But I just can't accept a situation that offers no hope of any sort of equitable solution. Previous ethnic and/or religious conflicts like Ireland, S. Africa, Brussels, etc., were also once thought to be intractable, yet history teaches us that reconciliation is possible. Bombing the shit out of Gaza, on top of the continuing occupation, only makes Israel less safe -- not to mention the high civilian casualties make it simply an unacceptable policy. I view every life lost, whether Palestinian or Israeli, as a tragedy. This is why I think it's time to be honest that Israel-Palestine desperately needs a new approach.
Especially here in the West, it's pretty common to hear that "this has been going on for centuries," that "Arabs and Jews just hate each other," that these two sides are just going to keep fighting no matter what. But I have a problem with the narrative that this is merely two "equal" sides battling each other. If that were truly the case, for example, Israel shouldn't act so surprised when Hamas fights back. Israel's stated aim in this recent attack on Gaza, as well as previous ones like Cast Lead and the ongoing siege in general, is to inhibit rocket fire from the Strip. The number of rockets fired in recent days has exploded, so either Israel is failing miserably in its stated goal, or it is trying to accomplish something else entirely.
It is true that Hamas has disgusting anti-Semitic language in their charter. But too often I see people equating all Gazans with that language in ways that are untrue and counter-productive. One of my good friends, for example, is a Palestinian Catholic from the West Bank. He has relatives in Gaza, also Catholics, who voted for Hamas. This was obviously not a vote of fundamentalist Islamist furor. Much like the Republican party here in the U.S. is often more extreme than your everyday conservative Joe, the average Gazan is not out to slaughter all Jews. These relatives of my friend, for example, voted for Hamas because they were building schools and health clinics when the moderate party was doing absolutely nothing to ease hardships for average Palestinians. It was a vote of desperation, not fundamentalism. Israel needs to understand that it cannot pen these people in and restrict their futures forever. Not only is it morally reprehensible, it has only made Israeli citizens less safe. It is not exactly difficult to predict that trapping people in an increasingly dire situation with fading hopes for improvement only breeds more violence. I hope and pray for peace, and that is why my heart breaks to see this dead-end spiral of violence continue.
It is true that there are some who have deep-seated anti-Semitic feelings that inspire them to wish violence against the Jewish people. But there are also those who believe Judaism gives them the right to persecute and kill Palestinians, burn their olive trees, build walls and steal land. This is an ongoing problem that is one of the greatest roadblocks to achieving peace, and all the talk about a two-state solution has done nothing to stop it. The result is that Gaza is basically still ruled by Israel (despite the historic "disengagement"), and the West Bank is no longer viable as a state; the largest settlement blocks now split it into pieces, with settler-only roads essentially turning the West Bank into a labyrinth of checkpoints and areas entirely off-limits to Palestinians. You cannot create a state out of a piece of land that has almost no geographic continuity and that, with the settlements taken out (as Israel consistently refuses to consider shutting down all but the smallest of these settlements -- which is why peace talks are still at a standstill) amounts to less than 20% of historic Palestine.
The inevitable end result of all this is annexation. The two-state solution is pretty much dead. All that really remains to be seen is how the government will treat the current residents of the occupied territory once this finally becomes the reality. It could be continued apartheid, or it could be equal democratic representation. Zionist lingo demonizes the latter as equivalent to the destruction of Israel, as the current demographic reality shows that there simply are not enough Jewish people in Israel to ensure a majority without significant demographic engineering. But it doesn't take a genius to recognize that "demographic engineering" eventually amounts to ethnic cleansing. This is not exactly democratic behavior. And countries that have grappled with past ethno-religious conflicts have been able to find ways to ensure each group has the ability to be represented fairly in government, have their own institutions, develop their own schools and preserve their own culture in the context of bi-nationality. It seems a pipe dream now for Israel-Palestine, but it is possible.
It's a popular talking point that "Palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map." But likewise, there are elements of Israeli society that deeply desire to wipe the rest of Palestine off the map. In fact, many such elements already claim boldly that Palestinians never existed at all. "A land without a people for a people without a land" was not a statement made by people who genuinely had no clue that hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Arabs alongside a sizable minority of Jews, were indeed living there; it was a statement made by people who genuinely just did not believe that most of these individuals counted as people. Palestinians allegedly teach their children blindly to hate Israelis (even though reputable studies of Palestinian textbooks have concluded that such allegations are not true). Yet many Israelis also teach their children that Palestinians' lives are unimportant, that they have no right to exist in Israel as equal citizens. In either case, I'm not sure what makes one more palatable than the other. Right-wing elements in Israeli society glorify militarism in ways I find equally disturbing to those of hardcore Palestinian nationalists like Hamas. I can't support either one.
Meanwhile, the majority of Palestinians are simply trying to live their daily lives in spite of having most all aspects of those lives controlled by a country whose core identity willfully excludes them. And likewise, most Israelis also simply want to be left alone and wonder why the violence continues. The current situation allows the worst elements of both sides to dictate life for the majority. Ultimately, neither side benefits. It is a dead end that desperately calls for a new approach.
No one is saying Jews don't have a right to live in the Holy Land. But I don't see how it's fair for one group to live there at the expense of the other. At the time of Israel's creation, Palestinians owned 92% of the land yet were only offered to keep less than half of it. Hindsight is 20/20, and many Palestinian leaders now admit that they wish this had been accepted. A common argument that Israel was formed through land purchase is a little disingenuous; with the blessing of the U.N., many parcels of land were indeed sold, but only because of legislation formed by the fledgling state of Israel that allowed land purchase if the current owners were deemed "absentee" -- and many of these owners were absent because they had fled the violence in a hurry only to be forcibly prohibited from returning. That's not exactly the same thing as an honest sale. Does that make it OK for anyone to hurl rockets at civilians? Absolutely not. But it does call for acknowledgment that many people still living today have a legitimate grievance against the Israeli government that should not just keep getting swept under the rug.
So if you see Palestinians expressing a desire to abandon the "peace process," do understand that it is not because they don't want peace. It is because every applauded "resolution" and "step forward" has ultimately only offered cover while facts on the ground made their situation worse. They no longer have any faith in the international community, because the international community has repeatedly violated their trust. The PA, for example, merely runs the occupation on behalf of Israel while its top politicians pad their pockets, safe in cozy Ramallah. Hamas claims to offer an alternative, and this is why they have been politically successful -- not because all Palestinians just hate Jews that much. I say this not to speak on their behalf, but simply to tell their concerns as I have heard them expressed to me: Palestinians want to be able to get to school, to move around, to get jobs, to be safe, to have access to places important to them, to travel, to escape from political no-man's land, to have a passport again, to be represented in their country and not marginalized. When these issues are addressed, extremist elements like Hamas will not have the fodder to incite people as they now do. They will not have scores of youth who are facing fewer opportunities and increasingly dire futures willing to do just about anything to resist their situation. Perhaps a belief in compromise is tantamount to "negotiating with terrorists." But I have a hard time seeing how anyone who genuinely wants innocent people on both sides of the green line to have peace can instead keep advocating for strategies that have only exacerbated the situation.
There is plenty of room in the Holy Land for all its citizens. I hope one day we can see this happen. One person, one vote. No permits, no demolitions, no Area C, no Jewish-only roads. Settlements and refugee camps can both just become towns, part of the fabric of the land, instead of hotbeds of controversy. Resources should be distributed fairly, so that no one has to have their water turned off so settlements can have swimming pools. Refugees who still hold keys and deeds to existing properties in Israel should have the ability to return, or at least to receive some kind of restitution. Jews from other Middle Eastern countries who were forced to emigrate to Israel in past decades should likewise be able to return if they desire (a few have already done so in Tunisia, actually). Palestinians whose former homes have since been destroyed should still have the option to move to Israel, buy property, and become productive members of society. They should not be excluded because they are not Jewish. And Israelis or Jews or anyone who wants to live in Nablus or Bethlehem or see the seashore in Gaza should have the option to do so fairly and without excluding or causing hardship on their neighbors. That is a true democracy.
I realize this may sound ridiculously idealistic. But I just can't accept a situation that offers no hope of any sort of equitable solution. Previous ethnic and/or religious conflicts like Ireland, S. Africa, Brussels, etc., were also once thought to be intractable, yet history teaches us that reconciliation is possible. Bombing the shit out of Gaza, on top of the continuing occupation, only makes Israel less safe -- not to mention the high civilian casualties make it simply an unacceptable policy. I view every life lost, whether Palestinian or Israeli, as a tragedy. This is why I think it's time to be honest that Israel-Palestine desperately needs a new approach.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Moving forward
Originally posted on the Make Peace, Build Community blog.
At the tender age of 18, moving from suburban Illinois to the north side of Chicago did not initially seem like something that would challenge my attitudes about race. As far as I was concerned, race didn’t matter to me one bit. It was the 21st century, my parents had taught me always to be loving and progressive and adamantly anti-racist—and anyway, this was supposed to be a post-racial society, right?
Yet after beginning my studies at North Park University, which is located smack dab in the middle of the incredible racial diversity that is the Albany Park neighborhood, I found myself feeling somehow unprepared for what I experienced. I didn’t dislike it—in fact, I was captivated by it. But it surprised me just how much I noticed it in the first place. Again, I had always considered myself a non-racist person. Yet it occurred to me that I still had some preconceived notions that needed to be addressed. I hadn’t experienced enough racial diversity in my community to know just how I “fit” into it. If I had stayed in my hometown indefinitely, those attitudes may never have been challenged. But I was blessed to stay in Albany Park long enough to figure it out.
Often, people are content to insist—as 18-year-old me was—that as long as individuals aren’t actively racist, racism is no longer an issue. But while racism of past eras was a conscious and painfully explicit hatred, today it’s a little more subconscious and a little harder to quantify, and that makes it that much more insidious. Discrimination is less blatant, yet it still exists. Many people agree racism is still a problem, yet individual racists are seemingly nowhere to be found. The result is that even as people of color continue to break through glass ceilings, many of our communities remain effectively segregated. My suburban childhood neighborhood is one of many such communities.
The recent premiere of critically-acclaimed HBO show Girls, to use just one recent example, was marred by its stunning lack of racial diversity—despite being set in NYC, one of the most diverse cities in the world. In response to this criticism, the show’s writer Lena Dunham stated that she genuinely had not meant offense, but had merely written her experiences from a very deep-down, gut-level place. It’s tragic that even in our supposedly “post-racial” society, even in a world of ever-increasing connections, many in my generation have had so few meaningful relationships and interactions with people of other races that their “default” expectation, their gut-level perception of reality, is still essentially segregated. It’s not so much that we actively hate each other—although sadly, there is still some of that. But for the most part, we just haven’t done a very good job getting to know each other.
Humanity’s history of racial hatred has left us with quite a lot of baggage to sift through. It’s not the sort of thing you can just sweep under the rug and say “that’s over, we can move on now.” People have tried. But it’s obvious that, for the sake of our communities, we still have a lot more work to do.
When I was younger and living in an area where race was a fairly taboo subject to bring up, I tended to view racism as a sort of “on/off” switch. Either you were, or you weren’t. It wasn’t until later that I understood that not being racist involves so much more than that. It’s a constant process of reaching out to other people, re-affirming your belief in our common humanity, and re-evaluating your own individual prejudices and shortcomings. And whatever kind of community you live in, one of the best things we can do for one another is to each engage ourselves fully in that process.
Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, often compared humanity to the flowers of a single garden, in which individual flowers’ varying hues make the whole garden that much more beautiful. I know that we are on our way to truly recognizing that our differences, however big, small, tangible or imagined, are what beautify this world and make it worth inhabiting.
I hope this realization comes soon—and with grace, I think we can help each other make it even sooner.
At the tender age of 18, moving from suburban Illinois to the north side of Chicago did not initially seem like something that would challenge my attitudes about race. As far as I was concerned, race didn’t matter to me one bit. It was the 21st century, my parents had taught me always to be loving and progressive and adamantly anti-racist—and anyway, this was supposed to be a post-racial society, right?
Yet after beginning my studies at North Park University, which is located smack dab in the middle of the incredible racial diversity that is the Albany Park neighborhood, I found myself feeling somehow unprepared for what I experienced. I didn’t dislike it—in fact, I was captivated by it. But it surprised me just how much I noticed it in the first place. Again, I had always considered myself a non-racist person. Yet it occurred to me that I still had some preconceived notions that needed to be addressed. I hadn’t experienced enough racial diversity in my community to know just how I “fit” into it. If I had stayed in my hometown indefinitely, those attitudes may never have been challenged. But I was blessed to stay in Albany Park long enough to figure it out.
Often, people are content to insist—as 18-year-old me was—that as long as individuals aren’t actively racist, racism is no longer an issue. But while racism of past eras was a conscious and painfully explicit hatred, today it’s a little more subconscious and a little harder to quantify, and that makes it that much more insidious. Discrimination is less blatant, yet it still exists. Many people agree racism is still a problem, yet individual racists are seemingly nowhere to be found. The result is that even as people of color continue to break through glass ceilings, many of our communities remain effectively segregated. My suburban childhood neighborhood is one of many such communities.
The recent premiere of critically-acclaimed HBO show Girls, to use just one recent example, was marred by its stunning lack of racial diversity—despite being set in NYC, one of the most diverse cities in the world. In response to this criticism, the show’s writer Lena Dunham stated that she genuinely had not meant offense, but had merely written her experiences from a very deep-down, gut-level place. It’s tragic that even in our supposedly “post-racial” society, even in a world of ever-increasing connections, many in my generation have had so few meaningful relationships and interactions with people of other races that their “default” expectation, their gut-level perception of reality, is still essentially segregated. It’s not so much that we actively hate each other—although sadly, there is still some of that. But for the most part, we just haven’t done a very good job getting to know each other.
Humanity’s history of racial hatred has left us with quite a lot of baggage to sift through. It’s not the sort of thing you can just sweep under the rug and say “that’s over, we can move on now.” People have tried. But it’s obvious that, for the sake of our communities, we still have a lot more work to do.
When I was younger and living in an area where race was a fairly taboo subject to bring up, I tended to view racism as a sort of “on/off” switch. Either you were, or you weren’t. It wasn’t until later that I understood that not being racist involves so much more than that. It’s a constant process of reaching out to other people, re-affirming your belief in our common humanity, and re-evaluating your own individual prejudices and shortcomings. And whatever kind of community you live in, one of the best things we can do for one another is to each engage ourselves fully in that process.
Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, often compared humanity to the flowers of a single garden, in which individual flowers’ varying hues make the whole garden that much more beautiful. I know that we are on our way to truly recognizing that our differences, however big, small, tangible or imagined, are what beautify this world and make it worth inhabiting.
I hope this realization comes soon—and with grace, I think we can help each other make it even sooner.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Music ed and stepping stones
These days, people typically seem to associate me with the stuff I find myself talking about all the time: interfaith activism, the Middle East, global events, human rights, religious tolerance and understanding in America. They are often surprised to find out that my actual diploma suggests a very different set of interests. The conversation usually goes something like this:
"I love that piece you wrote about [insert interfaith/global events issue here]!"
"Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it."
"So what did you study in college again? Global studies? Poli sci?"
"I have a B.A. in music, with a minor in French."
"Wait, what? I had no idea you were a musician."
But if you had talked to me a few years back, I doubt that the fact that I majored in music at university would have been a surprise in the least. Indeed, it's safe to say that I didn't think about much else. I was the biggest choir nerd you'd ever seen. I walked around humming whole tone scales and analyzed Bach chorales in my sleep (at least, according to my freshman year roommate). It wasn't until a little ways into my junior year that I finally realized that, passionate as I was (and still am) about music education, it just wasn't where I ultimately wanted to end up as a career. I didn't feel I had the patience or skills set to do it full time. Admitting this to myself was difficult, but eventually it just had to happen.
Music geeks like me have often said that music is basically our significant other. I'm ashamed to say, then, that I cheated. I started seeing other classes. My music coursework was basically already finished, so I decided next to simply dive into as many electives as I could get my hands on. That turned into a French minor, a transformative semester of conflict transformation studies, and a year of Arabic that ended with me heading to Jordan for intensive language study.
It was also during this time that I discovered, fell for and officially became a member of the Baha'i faith -- one of those times when you "discover" that what you always believed already had a name and an amazing community behind it. A chance meeting with Eboo Patel at an interfaith event turned into me applying and being accepted as a community ambassador at his organization, the Interfaith Youth Core. I made new friends in many circles. I got addicted to social media and socially conscious hip-hop. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I began to really understand that loving people means getting to know them, caring for them, maybe even fighting for them, all of them, even if they don't "look" or "act" like you.
These days I spend my time writing for an editorial firm, being a writing advisor at my alma mater, and occasionally contemplating how my random and haphazard background led me to become whatever I am these days. And it's recently occurred to me that, on second thought, maybe it's not so haphazard after all.
It's often said that the first step towards the oppression of a group of people is to demean their culture. Make them appear as "other" as possible, and suddenly doing terrible things to them doesn't seem so unreasonable.
Conversely, then, I would posit that the first step towards uplifting humanity is to cultivate appreciation for its many cultures. Music is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this. Long before "moral courage" and "social justice" became terms I now find myself using in ordinary conversation, I remember listening and connecting to world music: raags from India, South African gospel choirs, Latin American grooves and the unique scales and rhythms of the Middle East. I sang songs in other languages in choir and weirded out numerous roommates with my "eclectic" musical tastes. Feeling a little more connected to a culture besides my own through their music made me that much more curious to get to know them more, to try to see things as they do, to care about the issues that affect them. I know it might sound a bit orientalist, but I was doing my best to be authentic about it. It wasn't about appropriating anything, just appreciating.
At any rate, this is to say that my musical education was an absolutely pivotal stepping stone to becoming someone who cares about people outside her obvious or immediate community. At least in my own experience, this was an essential part of learning to be a global citizen, to love the rest of the world as much as I love my own backyard. It helps put a human face, expose a human soul beyond the statistics of "other"s that bombard us daily.
So here's to music's power to make us smile, lift us up and help us remember our common humanity. And though I ultimately decided not to become a music educator myself, I know I would never have become the person I am without the support and guidance of music teachers who taught me to embrace cultures besides my own, to appreciate, to create and to care.
Now if only I could explain all this on my resume... maybe my music major would help me get some more employment! :)
"I love that piece you wrote about [insert interfaith/global events issue here]!"
"Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it."
"So what did you study in college again? Global studies? Poli sci?"
"I have a B.A. in music, with a minor in French."
"Wait, what? I had no idea you were a musician."
But if you had talked to me a few years back, I doubt that the fact that I majored in music at university would have been a surprise in the least. Indeed, it's safe to say that I didn't think about much else. I was the biggest choir nerd you'd ever seen. I walked around humming whole tone scales and analyzed Bach chorales in my sleep (at least, according to my freshman year roommate). It wasn't until a little ways into my junior year that I finally realized that, passionate as I was (and still am) about music education, it just wasn't where I ultimately wanted to end up as a career. I didn't feel I had the patience or skills set to do it full time. Admitting this to myself was difficult, but eventually it just had to happen.
Music geeks like me have often said that music is basically our significant other. I'm ashamed to say, then, that I cheated. I started seeing other classes. My music coursework was basically already finished, so I decided next to simply dive into as many electives as I could get my hands on. That turned into a French minor, a transformative semester of conflict transformation studies, and a year of Arabic that ended with me heading to Jordan for intensive language study.
It was also during this time that I discovered, fell for and officially became a member of the Baha'i faith -- one of those times when you "discover" that what you always believed already had a name and an amazing community behind it. A chance meeting with Eboo Patel at an interfaith event turned into me applying and being accepted as a community ambassador at his organization, the Interfaith Youth Core. I made new friends in many circles. I got addicted to social media and socially conscious hip-hop. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I began to really understand that loving people means getting to know them, caring for them, maybe even fighting for them, all of them, even if they don't "look" or "act" like you.
These days I spend my time writing for an editorial firm, being a writing advisor at my alma mater, and occasionally contemplating how my random and haphazard background led me to become whatever I am these days. And it's recently occurred to me that, on second thought, maybe it's not so haphazard after all.
It's often said that the first step towards the oppression of a group of people is to demean their culture. Make them appear as "other" as possible, and suddenly doing terrible things to them doesn't seem so unreasonable.
Conversely, then, I would posit that the first step towards uplifting humanity is to cultivate appreciation for its many cultures. Music is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this. Long before "moral courage" and "social justice" became terms I now find myself using in ordinary conversation, I remember listening and connecting to world music: raags from India, South African gospel choirs, Latin American grooves and the unique scales and rhythms of the Middle East. I sang songs in other languages in choir and weirded out numerous roommates with my "eclectic" musical tastes. Feeling a little more connected to a culture besides my own through their music made me that much more curious to get to know them more, to try to see things as they do, to care about the issues that affect them. I know it might sound a bit orientalist, but I was doing my best to be authentic about it. It wasn't about appropriating anything, just appreciating.
At any rate, this is to say that my musical education was an absolutely pivotal stepping stone to becoming someone who cares about people outside her obvious or immediate community. At least in my own experience, this was an essential part of learning to be a global citizen, to love the rest of the world as much as I love my own backyard. It helps put a human face, expose a human soul beyond the statistics of "other"s that bombard us daily.
So here's to music's power to make us smile, lift us up and help us remember our common humanity. And though I ultimately decided not to become a music educator myself, I know I would never have become the person I am without the support and guidance of music teachers who taught me to embrace cultures besides my own, to appreciate, to create and to care.
Now if only I could explain all this on my resume... maybe my music major would help me get some more employment! :)
Friday, June 8, 2012
Extremist who?
A complaint I hear (or read) on just about every platform for discussing Islam's role in America goes something like this:
"If the majority of American Muslims are moderate, why don't we see more of them speaking out against extremism?"
The implied meaning, of course, is that despite the earnest attempts of countless American Muslims to intone their peaceful views until they are blue in the face, despite those who continue to jump through hoops in an attempt to make an increasingly hostile wider society accept them, despite the fact that nearly half of all arrests made in terrorism cases here in the States are directly based on tips from within the Muslim American community, somehow American Muslims still "aren't doing enough."
So in the interest of objectivity, let's observe a few facts:
1. Though estimates are notoriously difficult to come by, there are somewhere between 1 and 8 million Muslims living in the United States.
2. That number is further complicated by the diversity of practice that exists within the Muslim community. Not all of those who identify as "Muslim" would consider themselves terribly religious. Moreover, those who do consider themselves religious are hardly monolithic in their practice and beliefs.
3. In 2009, 47 Muslim Americans committed or were arrested for terrorist crimes. In 2010, that number dropped to 20. Out of 1-8 million. That's about .001% of the American Muslim community, depending on what estimate you're using. Can you think about that please?
4. Roughly 150,000 Americans have been murdered in the years since 9/11. 33 of those were killed in terrorist attacks carried out by 11 Muslim Americans. That's .022% of all the murders in the past 10-ish years.
Does that excuse any of those attacks that did occur? Of course not--but it does offer some much-needed perspective. Personally, I abhor violence, no matter who does it. That's why it's important to me to know where the majority of it is coming from, and in this case, it seems I have a lot more to be afraid of from wider American society than from the American Muslim community. The majority of terrorist attacks in the U.S. are perpetrated by white, right-wing radicals. In my hometown of Chicago, I've witnessed the number of children killed in school shootings reach alarming levels; dozens of students have died in recent years. Gang-related violence claims thousands nationwide. So why is the outcry on a few dozen terrorists getting so much more airtime than the outcry against skyrocketing numbers of dead schoolchildren? Where are the Peter King-style Senate hearings on those shootings? Where are the self-made "experts" making millions on books, blogs and speaking engagements about the threat of creeping white supremacy in America? The lack of logical priorities boggles the mind.
But back to the "American Muslims aren't speaking out enough" premise. Have any of the individuals who continue to assert this ever stopped to consider that, if Muslims make up only 1-8 million of a 308 million-strong population, they're going to have a hard time being heard simply by virtue of being a minority? More importantly, have any of these "concerned" individuals considered that, just because they may not be personally acquainted with the efforts of American Muslims to combat extremism, they are still occurring? Because at least in my experience, I see and hear Muslim friends of mine, both here in the States as well as abroad, speaking out against injustice and violence on a day-to-day basis. Who'd've thought that having actual human relationships with members of a marginalized community can help you hear what they actually think?! Shocking, I know.
And moreover, not every American Muslim is going to make a full-time job of policing their community, or addressing the constant barrage of Islamophobic speech from outside--nor should they be expected to. As we know, those who continue to rail against the American Muslim community are, well, kind of overwhelmingly shrill, and at least in my experience, don't take very kindly to being challenged. It takes a pretty strong stomach and a lot of free time to effectively address that level of poisonous discourse while maintaining one's own sanity. It takes so much time and effort to make oneself heard above the clatter, in fact, that I would hardly be surprised if most people simply throw up their hands and try instead to lead by example. I think it's safe to say that a majority of the American Muslim community are, much like the rest of us, just trying to go about their daily business, do their jobs, feed their families--you know, human stuff. To blame them all for the actions of a proportionally miniscule faction of nutjobs seems silly, and to expect the entire community to singlehandedly shoulder the burden of babysitting them is just downright unfair.
Indeed, the responsibility for dealing with extremism from within any particular religious community doesn't fall only to that community. If we all have a mutual interest in preventing extremism, any kind of extremism, then we all share in that responsibility. We have the freedom to shape our own culture, not with dominance and hate speak, but with free thought and flow of ideas. That is one of democratic society's greatest traits: any lasting cultural ideology not only has to be compatible with that society's constitution, but it has to stand up to a Socratic method of evaluation. Instead of having one power source inflict its views on a captive majority, we get to be one another's checks and balances. When ideas can't stand up to scrutiny, they fizzle out from their own lack of merit. No segregation, no guns, no battles. They're not necessary.
And though the ubiquitousness of half-truths and mudslinging in today's public discourse often tempts me to give up on the notion of human intelligence and civility, I still believe that human beings can do better than stupid and hateful. When they say stupid and hateful things, it's probably because they don't know the whole story. If they did, they'd probably come to more prudent, logical and balanced conclusions. That is the beauty of being human: to be able to understand, appreciate and work for things that are bigger than we are as individuals. To be one step up from basic fear response when confronted with something "different." To think critically and rationally and cultivate an attitude of embrace. To seek understanding and reconciliation with the "other," and perhaps in the process find that they were not as "other" as you originally thought.
This is why, though I myself am not a member of the American Muslim community, I have taken a particular interest in the issues that pertain to them--particularly when I continue to see that community demonized for "not doing enough," when that assertion has been soundly and repeatedly debunked. I do it because I value my neighbors and I value my freedoms, and because I know the importance of putting things in perspective. I have seen what misinformation and dogma have done to the world, and conversely I believe in the potential of understanding and tolerance to fundamentally challenge that unfortunate reality.
We all want to be safe. We all want to feel secure in our communities. We all want to enjoy our freedoms and see our societies prosper. So can we please look at the facts beyond the prejudices and make it happen?
"If the majority of American Muslims are moderate, why don't we see more of them speaking out against extremism?"
The implied meaning, of course, is that despite the earnest attempts of countless American Muslims to intone their peaceful views until they are blue in the face, despite those who continue to jump through hoops in an attempt to make an increasingly hostile wider society accept them, despite the fact that nearly half of all arrests made in terrorism cases here in the States are directly based on tips from within the Muslim American community, somehow American Muslims still "aren't doing enough."
So in the interest of objectivity, let's observe a few facts:
1. Though estimates are notoriously difficult to come by, there are somewhere between 1 and 8 million Muslims living in the United States.
2. That number is further complicated by the diversity of practice that exists within the Muslim community. Not all of those who identify as "Muslim" would consider themselves terribly religious. Moreover, those who do consider themselves religious are hardly monolithic in their practice and beliefs.
3. In 2009, 47 Muslim Americans committed or were arrested for terrorist crimes. In 2010, that number dropped to 20. Out of 1-8 million. That's about .001% of the American Muslim community, depending on what estimate you're using. Can you think about that please?
4. Roughly 150,000 Americans have been murdered in the years since 9/11. 33 of those were killed in terrorist attacks carried out by 11 Muslim Americans. That's .022% of all the murders in the past 10-ish years.
Does that excuse any of those attacks that did occur? Of course not--but it does offer some much-needed perspective. Personally, I abhor violence, no matter who does it. That's why it's important to me to know where the majority of it is coming from, and in this case, it seems I have a lot more to be afraid of from wider American society than from the American Muslim community. The majority of terrorist attacks in the U.S. are perpetrated by white, right-wing radicals. In my hometown of Chicago, I've witnessed the number of children killed in school shootings reach alarming levels; dozens of students have died in recent years. Gang-related violence claims thousands nationwide. So why is the outcry on a few dozen terrorists getting so much more airtime than the outcry against skyrocketing numbers of dead schoolchildren? Where are the Peter King-style Senate hearings on those shootings? Where are the self-made "experts" making millions on books, blogs and speaking engagements about the threat of creeping white supremacy in America? The lack of logical priorities boggles the mind.
But back to the "American Muslims aren't speaking out enough" premise. Have any of the individuals who continue to assert this ever stopped to consider that, if Muslims make up only 1-8 million of a 308 million-strong population, they're going to have a hard time being heard simply by virtue of being a minority? More importantly, have any of these "concerned" individuals considered that, just because they may not be personally acquainted with the efforts of American Muslims to combat extremism, they are still occurring? Because at least in my experience, I see and hear Muslim friends of mine, both here in the States as well as abroad, speaking out against injustice and violence on a day-to-day basis. Who'd've thought that having actual human relationships with members of a marginalized community can help you hear what they actually think?! Shocking, I know.
And moreover, not every American Muslim is going to make a full-time job of policing their community, or addressing the constant barrage of Islamophobic speech from outside--nor should they be expected to. As we know, those who continue to rail against the American Muslim community are, well, kind of overwhelmingly shrill, and at least in my experience, don't take very kindly to being challenged. It takes a pretty strong stomach and a lot of free time to effectively address that level of poisonous discourse while maintaining one's own sanity. It takes so much time and effort to make oneself heard above the clatter, in fact, that I would hardly be surprised if most people simply throw up their hands and try instead to lead by example. I think it's safe to say that a majority of the American Muslim community are, much like the rest of us, just trying to go about their daily business, do their jobs, feed their families--you know, human stuff. To blame them all for the actions of a proportionally miniscule faction of nutjobs seems silly, and to expect the entire community to singlehandedly shoulder the burden of babysitting them is just downright unfair.
Indeed, the responsibility for dealing with extremism from within any particular religious community doesn't fall only to that community. If we all have a mutual interest in preventing extremism, any kind of extremism, then we all share in that responsibility. We have the freedom to shape our own culture, not with dominance and hate speak, but with free thought and flow of ideas. That is one of democratic society's greatest traits: any lasting cultural ideology not only has to be compatible with that society's constitution, but it has to stand up to a Socratic method of evaluation. Instead of having one power source inflict its views on a captive majority, we get to be one another's checks and balances. When ideas can't stand up to scrutiny, they fizzle out from their own lack of merit. No segregation, no guns, no battles. They're not necessary.
And though the ubiquitousness of half-truths and mudslinging in today's public discourse often tempts me to give up on the notion of human intelligence and civility, I still believe that human beings can do better than stupid and hateful. When they say stupid and hateful things, it's probably because they don't know the whole story. If they did, they'd probably come to more prudent, logical and balanced conclusions. That is the beauty of being human: to be able to understand, appreciate and work for things that are bigger than we are as individuals. To be one step up from basic fear response when confronted with something "different." To think critically and rationally and cultivate an attitude of embrace. To seek understanding and reconciliation with the "other," and perhaps in the process find that they were not as "other" as you originally thought.
This is why, though I myself am not a member of the American Muslim community, I have taken a particular interest in the issues that pertain to them--particularly when I continue to see that community demonized for "not doing enough," when that assertion has been soundly and repeatedly debunked. I do it because I value my neighbors and I value my freedoms, and because I know the importance of putting things in perspective. I have seen what misinformation and dogma have done to the world, and conversely I believe in the potential of understanding and tolerance to fundamentally challenge that unfortunate reality.
We all want to be safe. We all want to feel secure in our communities. We all want to enjoy our freedoms and see our societies prosper. So can we please look at the facts beyond the prejudices and make it happen?
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