fromthemouthofmoi

The last four days have been truly exciting for me. I came across a blog, How To Be Black, through another blog -both linked below- titled: Racism 101. The first blog is a bit tongue in cheek and the second is serious business. The second blog is an advice column of sorts, readers pose questions about all things race related, and the blogger replies. Having read about 100 questions and the replies I would describe the blogger as precise, snarky, and well informed. I was impressed. How To Be Black, in part, asks for its readers to answer a few questions (irregardless of race), and it stresses that the format of video would be best received. After having watched a few videos, I became struck by how the format of video, unlike written text, can have a far different effect upon the reader/watcher. As a viewer we can take in things like body-language, and facial expression, that the written text, by default, leaves out. Over time, when I have tried to express myself about my personal experi...

I had been unhappy about the quality of people I have met here in Merida. I found them to be either raging alcoholics incapable of a decent conversation, uninteresting, not in their own right, but in terms of matching my interests, or from some place on the planet that infers that New Yorkers are obnoxious and to be avoided. There is truth in a language spoken and shared; being sometimes a relationship of immediate understanding. When I was introduced to C, a fellow New Yorker, I was made happy by her snide comments and fast clipped talking and constant interruptions. It made me feel 'at home'. And I knew that my reciprocation of equally snide remarks and interruptions were well received too. Try doing that with any other state member and you will see people flinch and look annoyed. As they wander away, you can hear them mutter things about your rudeness all with an air that is supposed to convince me they went to elocution school and graduated from Bryn Mawr. At anytime I ca...

I want to go and travel. I'm on a budget. I can't go willy nilly despite having a passport that says I can leave when I want. It's sort of like that comic saying: What do you mean I am overdrawn? I still have checks. I want to go visit Bob in Panama; he was my first employer in Oregon and now he lives close-by. I want to tell him that when I was employed by him, I often took a straw into the walk-in refrigerator and opened beers and drank. I hope he will laugh at this point in time. I want to re-visit the UK because when I went before I was as sick as a dog and I feel gipped. I want to go to Africa. Anywhere in Africa because I am of African American descent and I feel a need to see where my ancestors might have come from. I want to go too, because I love Black people. I like they way they look and I think I will feel comfortable in the presence of those that never left my Motherland. I want to visit Tbilisi, Georgia because I have a Pen Pal there. I want to see Petra...

The Canadian literary theorist, Northrop Frye, in his small but important book, The Educated Imagination writes: "...Literature keeps presenting the most vicious things to us as entertainment, but what it appeals to is not any pleasure in these things, but the exhilaration of standing apart from them and being able to see them for what they are because they aren't really happening. The more exposed we are to this, the less likely we are to find an unthinking pleasure in cruel or evil things". I would add that when we read cross culturally we become exposed to the thoughts and experiences of people that we might normally never come in contact with in our daily lives beyond a superficial contact. Reading allows us to form opinions, pose questions, and see another point of view that adds to, or changes our previous perceptions. When I reached graduate school I was quite surprised by how many fellow students had not read cross culturally beyond what might be touted on a b...