Monthly Archives: December 2004

White faces, brown faces, faces of grief

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Well, six days was as long as I could stay away from blogging. I am on my brother’s old Mac in his little Exeter flat. We’re having a happy family visit here in Devon; I am enjoying my little niece and nephew and filling up on Cadbury Cream Eggs. But as much as I love Britain, the weather this time of year is a bit much for this Californian! It’s just after four in the afternoon, and already getting dark. This morning, I went running just before seven — and by the time I finished my jog along the river Exe, the sun had still not yet come up, though it was almost eight.

I love visiting the UK in late Spring and early Summer. I am one who loves light — nothing makes me happier than sunrises at 5:00AM and sunsets after 10:00PM. But the price of so much wonderful daytime in summer is the dreary winters and the near-endless darkness that balance things out. It’s a bit daunting — I can bear the cold of an English winter, but not the absence of light. (Parenthetically, I note that I’ve always been a morning person, as I don’t like to be in bed when the sun is out. Somehow, it seems wrong to waste good daylight. As you can imagine, this belief wreaked havoc with my social life in my youth, and still makes me a bit of a bore at parties — I start to yawn uncontrollably around 9:00 in the evening.)

I have nothing useful to add to the coverage of the appalling tsunami tragedy. I grew up near an ocean, and my most consistent childhood nightmares were always of massive tidal waves. They were always the same — I would be standing on a beach, unable to move, as a colossal wall of water drew nearer and nearer. Thus this awful Boxing Day event has shaken me more than other natural catastrophes. I have donated online with the Red Cross, though I suppose virtually any charity might have worked as well.

I have been struck by the photos the various English papers have chosen to put on their covers. This morning, all the major dailies had the tsunami aftermath as their top story. The two left-leaning major papers, the Independent and the Guardian, chose images of non-whites. (The former paper had a single injured Sri Lankan boy; the latter had a grisly photo of dozens of dead bodies from Indonesia.) But the major right-leaning papers all chose to print photos of grief-stricken or missing Europeans: the Times of London showing an orphaned Swedish boy on Phuket island, the Telegraph offering a huge picture of of Richard Attenborough, the acclaimed director whose daughter and granddaughter were killed when the wave hit their Thai beach resort. The conservative dailies put the suffering of brown folks on their inside pages, while the more left-leaning papers put similar photos of missing Britons and suffering Swedes on their own insides.

Listed from left to right, the Independent, the Guardian, the Times and the Telegraph are Britain’s four biggest non-tabloid dailies. I cannot help but think that the images they chose to convey the immense tragedy of the tsunami in some way reflect the sympathies of their target audiences. I don’t mean to imply that the left has a monopoly on compassion. But not all humans are stirred to sympathy and compassion by the same visual images. Some of us are able to identify with the suffering of those who don’t look like ourselves; others of us seem to respond only when those whose loss and grief we see on television or in print look like ourselves. To be more moved by the plight of those whose outer appearance resembles that of our relatives is an all-too-human failure of the imagination. And standing at the newsagent today, looking at all of the papers at once, it was hard not to have the impression that some folks have deeper and richer imaginations than others.

Christmas, and some year-end blogging reflections

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Note:  I have been having spam attacks in my comments; please be understanding as it will take some time to deal with, given that I (and Typepad) have directed our attention elsewhere!

This will be my last post until Wednesday, January 5.  For the next three days, I shall be snatched up by the Christmas whirlwind; on Sunday, off to England for a happy (and chilly, no doubt) nine days with the family.   I’ll be lurking in the ‘sphere, but not posting for thirteen days.

All the gifts have been bought, and those that aren’t going abroad have been wrapped. (Like many travelers, I’ve learned the hard way about taking wrapped gifts through airport security.)  Today, I shall spend a considerable time at the market (a unionized one at that), buying all of the various necessities for Christmas dinner.  For that event, we expect ten in our little condo, eleven including Her Highness.  And this year, I have great hopes of staying awake for the 11:00PM service at All Saints.  As a hopeless morning person, I’ve missed too many Christmas Eve services over the years.  (But Easter Sunrise events are just my speed!)

In this final post of 2004, let me briefly thank all of my readers.  Though my readership is very modest by the standards of the blogosphere, Typepad tells me that I am getting anywhere from 1700-2500 hits per day, which I find rather amazing.  (When I began in January, I was getting 60-70 hits per day, and Mom and Dad were clearly responsible for half of them!)  I’m so grateful that so many people have become regular readers — it is humbling and flattering.

I am especially grateful for all the comments, even those that have been, shall I say, less than complimentary.  I have a rather obvious tactic — I post in haste, and then reassess (and occasionally repent) in leisure.  I’ll be the first to admit that a great many of my posts this year have been driven by emotion, and I am especially thankful that so many folks, in their comments, helped me to see where I might well be in error as a result of so much excited blogging.  So many of the comments, even short ones, have helped me to see things in ways I had not seen them before.  In a very real sense, the interactive nature of the blogosphere has helped me become sharper, more thoughtful, and, I hope, a better teacher and youth leader.

I started blogging as a creative outlet.  In that sense, it has exceeded my expectations!   In the years since finishing my dissertation, I hadn’t written a damn thing other than emails, reviews of my colleagues’ teaching, and student evaluations.   Blogging has reminded me that it is in the act of writing that we often discover what we truly believe.  Some folks think about what they believe, and then type it out; others of us can only discover what we really know (on a deep level) in the process of writing itself.  Blogging has helped me to do that; judging from what I see on the 30-50 blogs I visit daily, I’m not alone!

When I first started blogging, I blogged a great deal about Anabaptism and California politics.  I posted a great deal about abortion over the spring and summer — and
then, overwhelmed by the contradictions and inconsistencies in my own
position, took a temporary vow of silence on the subject which I doubt
will be lifted anytime soon.  Over the course of 2004, I moved back to the Anglicans and lost interest in the goings-on in my home state.  Instead, for better or worse, I’ve tended to focus on gender issues — especially, in recent posts, the men’s movement. 

I am haunted by the thought that because I blog so often, I don’t buckle down and do the real work of writing journal articles.  Blogging provides such instant gratification!  Writing articles for submission takes far longer, requires a far greater effort, and of course, risks rejection!  Knowing that hundreds — maybe more, if I’m lucky — will read what I write on this blog makes the thought of writing for an obscure journal somewhat less satisfying.   Still, part of me thinks that I’m "hiding out" here in the blogosphere…  I sense that I may need to make some New Year’s resolutions in this area. 

But enough introspection.  To those of my readers who are fellow Christians, I wish you and yours a Merry, spirit-filled, joyous, and awe-inducing Christmas.  For those of other faiths, or no faiths at all, I wish you a very, very happy "holiday season" — and to everyone, a very Happy New Year!

See you January 5!

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Last Thursday poem of the year: Milne’s King’s John’s Christmas

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For the final Thursday short poem of the year (the next one shall "epiph" on January 6), I’m going to stick up the Christmas classic that far too few folks know.  My mother recites it every year — it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.  The first Christmas I remember hearing it, I was five.  Yes, to those five readers who read my old Blogspot blog (long since vanished), I did stick this up last year.  I dream of the day I can recite it to my own children.

King John’s Christmas, AA Milne

King John was not a good man –
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days.
And men who came across him,
When walking in the town,
Gave him a supercilious stare,
Or passed with noses in the air –
And bad King John stood dumbly there,
Blushing beneath his crown.

King John was not a good man,
And no good friends had he.
He stayed in every afternoon…
But no one came to tea.
And, round about December,
The cards upon his shelf
Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer,
And fortune in the coming year,
Were never from his near and dear,
But only from himself.

King John was not a good man,
Yet had his hopes and fears.
They’d given him no present now
For years and years and years.
But every year at Christmas,
While minstrels stood about,
Collecting tribute from the young
For all the songs they might have sung,
He stole away upstairs and hung
A hopeful stocking out.

King John was not a good man,
He lived his live aloof;
Alone he thought a message out
While climbing up the roof.
He wrote it down and propped it
Against the chimney stack:
"TO ALL AND SUNDRY – NEAR AND FAR -
F. Christmas in particular."
And signed it not "Johannes R."
But very humbly, "Jack."

"I want some crackers,
And I want some candy;
I think a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I don’t mind oranges,
I do like nuts!
And I SHOULD like a pocket-knife
That really cuts.
And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red, india-rubber ball!"

King John was not a good man –
He wrote this message out,
And gat him to this room again,
Descending by the spout.
And all that night he lay there,
A prey to hopes and fears.
"I think that’s him a-coming now!"
(Anxiety bedewed his brow.)
"He’ll bring one present, anyhow –
The first I had for years."

"Forget about the crackers,
And forget the candy;
I’m sure a box of chocolates
Would never come in handy;
I don’t like oranges,
I don’t want nuts,
And I HAVE got a pocket-knife
That almost cuts.
But, oh! Father christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red, india-rubber ball!"

King John was not a good man,
Next morning when the sun
Rose up to tell a waiting world
That Christmas had begun,
And people seized their stockings,
And opened them with glee,
And crackers, toys and games appeared,
And lips with sticky sweets were smeared,
King John said grimly: "As I feared,
Nothing again for me!"

"I did want crackers,
And I did want candy;
I know a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I do love oranges,
I did want nuts!
And, oh! if Father Christmas, had loved me at all,
He would have brought a big, red,
india-rubber ball!"

King John stood by the window,
And frowned to see below
The happy bands of boys and girls
All playing in the snow.
A while he stood there watching,
And envying them all …
When through the window big and red
There hurtled by his royal head,
And bounced and fell upon the bed,
An india-rubber ball!

AND, OH, FATHER CHRISTMAS,
MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL
FOR BRINGING HIM
A BIG, RED,
INDIA-RUBBER
BALL!

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Wednesday links, and how men attack

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Christmas draws nearer, and as is to be expected, things get busier.  Grades were finally turned in yesterday.  A few small presents remain to be bought; I expect to have them done by tomorrow afternoon.   On Sunday, I’ll be off to England for ten days, for a family New Year’s gathering in Exeter. 

I don’t know what to do about this fellow who, using various internet addresses, posts here and elsewhere as "Hugo."  He is what is evidently to be referred to as a troll, and seems part of the movement of MEN (Misogynistic Embittered Neanderthals, and I say that with sincere affection.) I do trust that my readers are clever enough to distinguish my comments from his!  Right?

UPDATE:  It is interesting to note that men’s rights guys tend to use the same slurs in coming after pro-feminist men.  Their attacks seem to fall into one of four categories:

1.  Pro-feminist men are lapdogs; weak, frightened, and under the control of strong, feminist women.

2.  Alternatively, pro-feminist men are "wolves in sheep’s clothing", sexual predators using a facade of compassion to attract victims.  Pro-feminism is a slick tactic designed to help "score" with certain women. 

3. Pro-feminist men are gay, and thus not "real men". 

4.  Pro-feminist men are filled with self-loathing.  To be involved in the feminist movement is likened to psychological self-castration. Pro-feminist men are filled with rage at other males (perhaps rooted in bad experiences with their fathers, or being picked on after school), and thus align themselves with feminists to get revenge.

Most of the vitriol tends to place men in the movement into one or more of these four categories.  Feel free to classify the troll attacks accordingly!

Do you have any idea the cognitive dissonance I deal with?  I am timid, and passive — yet predatory. I am gay — yet controlled by the women with whom I am in relationship.  And all of my work with men and boys is really a cover for my own intense self-hatred.   I get a headache just thinking about it!

Anyhow…

Things I’ve been reading:

Ralph Luker at Cliopatria on Martin Luther King and plagiarism (new insight — from an expert — on the old story).

The growing number of "Top 5" posts at Bob Carlton’s place, from bloggers familar to me and new.    I still am happy with my own top five, though I have certainly got a few runners up of which I am proud, like this and this.

Jenell Paris has a very interesting review of the emerging church movement’s hot new book, A Generous Orthodoxy.  She gently points out some of its shortcomings, along with strengths.

Lisa at Feminist Mormon Housewives has this provocative post on anger, vindictiveness, and forgiveness.

Graham at Leaving Munster provides a useful thumbnail sketch of anabaptism.

Amanda has a fine feminist analysis of "it’s a Wonderful Life".

Lynn, in a long and superb post, touches on mercy and sexuality, among other things.

Joseph, Joseph, and biblical role models

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When I was a sophomore at Cal, I began my journey towards Jesus by attending two very different Catholic parishes which were roughly equidistant from my little co-op:  Newman Hall (where, as a junior, I was eventually given a full-immersion baptism and confirmed), and St. Joseph the Worker.  Almost everyone at Newman was a Berkeley student; almost everyone at SJW wasn’t.  It was a nice mix, and gave me two distinct but compatible visions of the Catholic life.

Four days before Christmas, I’ve got the saint for whom the latter church was named on my mind.  I’ve often thought about who the "patron saints of men’s work" ought to be.   It’s easier to think about who isn’t appropriate rather than who is!  When it comes to issues like fidelity, fatherhood, responsibility and compassion, the Old Testament offers us few role models!  (Noah, drunk in the vineyard?  David, arranging the murder of Uriah? Isaac, failing both his wife and his sons?) Somehow, when it all comes down to it, my favorite figure from Genesis and my favorite figure from the New Testament both have the same name: Joseph.

What I like about both men is that in different ways, they show extraordinary, culturally unexpected sexual self-restraint and love.  I’ve always liked the story of Joseph resisting Potiphar’s wife.  There are many ways to interpret the episode, of course.  But to me, the Hebrew Joseph is a patron saint, if you will, for those who struggle with sexual temptation.  Where so many other men fail, Joseph is strong. 

One of the great myths that men perpetuate to justify their bad behavior is the "myth of male weakness".  You know, the "I just couldn’t help it, honey!"  "She seduced me, and as a man, how could I resist?"  "Sheesh, I guess I’m just a dog."   Joseph’s ability to restrict, to hold himself accountable and, when necessary, to run from temptation makes him a heroic figure and an inspiration.  He reminds us of what all men can do in the face of sexual temptation.  Whether they do it or not is another question!

But in this Christmas season especially, my favorite Joseph is the husband of Mary.  Many of the Men’s Rights fellows who have been popping up in places like this have expressed their grave concern that men will be tricked or coerced into fatherhood.   The Men’s Rights movement worries about men being forced to raise kids who aren’t their own, as if nothing could be a graver injustice. The New Testament Joseph, on the other hand, married his pregnant teenage fiancee (knowing damn well he wasn’t the father), and raised the child as his own.  (In the Catholic tradition, of course, he and Mary will never consummate that marriage.)    It can’t have been easy , in that world, to marry a woman who wasn’t a virgin, carrying a son who is not biologically yours.  Judging from the comments of many of the Men’s Rights boys, even today the thought is positively horrifiying!

What I love most about Joseph is that he renounces everything his culture told him was his due as a man.  He had the right to put Mary away when he found out she was pregnant — but he didn’t.  He had the right to have sex with her once they were married — but he didn’t.  (Protestants tend to think he finally "got some" after Jesus was born.)  He had myriad advantages that were his as a man — and he chose not to exercise them.  In that sense, he models what I think the authentic men’s movement is all about: the recognition and renunciation of unearned masculine privilege.

Today, I’m thinking about the Josephs: they are my bible heroes and, if it were up to me, they’d be the patron saints of the men’s movement.

Closed comments

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I’ve done something I’ve never done before, and that is close the comments to the Manpower post.  There were some wonderful points made, but too many obscenities and too many digressions made it, I think, pointless to continue.  If folks are truly eager to have the comments re-opened, I’ll do so — but it didn’t seem sensible to let things go on and on.

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A Monday rambling on do-overs

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I’m by no means done with either my grading or my Christmas shopping, so I still don’t have as much time to post as I would like.   

For some reason, the term "do-overs" has been ringing in my head this weekend.  I’ve been thinking about "do-overs", sex, class, and culture (in a disconnected way) while racing off to Christmas parties and giving Matilde her dust baths.

A "do-over" refers to taking an action that allows you to undo most or all of the unwanted consequences of a prior action.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about:

In my Women’s Studies class, I assign journals.  This semester, I had an unusually high number of students write about abstinence and virginity.  Though I never ask direct questions about students’ sexual experience, in my decade of teaching gender studies I’ve never had so many "volunteer" the information that they were still virgins.  Though most who shared this were women (most of the students in these classes are female), two men did so as well.  I have to wonder — are the abstinence programs beginning to have an impact, or was this one anomalous class?

But what really struck me was that with only one exception, every one of those who announced that they were "staying virgins" was an ethnic minority.  My native-born white students, as a group, seemed much less likely to extoll the virtues of purity than my Latin, Asian, Armenian,  or African-American students.  What was more even more interesting was the reasoning behind their decision.  A few cited parental and cultural pressure; a few noted that it was primarily a matter of spiritual obedience.  But a number of them made the case that forgoing sex was a kind of investment in their future.   This is verbatim from one journal that I am quoting with the student’s permission; I’ll call her Jeanine:

It’s not that I don’t want to have sex.  But I know that having sex could make me a mother before I’m ready.  I want to get a college degree so badly.  No one in my family has ever graduated before!!  I know so many girls who have babies and drop out, and I hear so many STD stories.  Sex just is too big right now for me, I need to focus on school and my own life.

I read that with genuine mixed emotion.  So many of my kids are first-generation college students — I am humbled by their ambition, their work ethic, and their eagerness to break multi-generational cycles of early motherhood and concomitant poverty.  How can I not be proud of young women like Jeanine?  I salute her.

But I can’t help but feel as if that Jeanine and others like her are operating within the confines of a faise dichotomy:  virginity=success, early sex=failure and poverty.  I grew up in a comfortable, secular environment in the mid-1980s.  Though kids often lie about such things, and I wouldn’t want to guess at a percentage, I feel reasonably safe saying that most of the kids in my high school class were no longer virgins by the time we all got our diplomas.  We certainly never got abstinence lectures in school!  (We did get visits from the Monterey chapter of Planned Parenthood, who distributed pamphlets and gave us basic information.) 

We had plenty of nominal Christians on campus, but few who really believed.  We had a tiny group of Young Life folks, whom I’m sorry to say we either patronized or ignored.  (At that age, I was an atheist.  I was once voted "most likely to move to the Soviet Union — and like it.")  But there was certainly no spiritual revival present at Carmel High School in the early 1980s!

What we did know was that we were all  going to college, and nothing was going to stand in our way.  We were great believers, I realize now, in "do-overs."  I had several friends, dear to me, who did get pregnant in high school.  (By several, I mean eight — and those were only the ones I knew about with certainty in a graduating class of 180.)  Of course, none carried the pregnancy to term.  Abortions were arranged, and all the young people involved headed off to college without delay.  Our liberal social values and our relative affluence guaranteed that an unintended pregnancy was not a life-altering event.  (Or to be fair, not a "plan-derailing" event.  The emotional repercussions of abortion can be tremendous, and I ought to acknowledge that.  But whatever the private pain, on the outside, lives didn’t change.)

Knowing that contraception and abortion were legal and widely available meant that most young people I grew up with and went to college with made no connection between sexual activity and their own long-term success.  We could experiment freely, knowing that we could "do things over" if we made mistakes.  I suppose we were quite naive.  Most college students are.  But I also think that we were quite fortunate to grow up in an environment which encouraged us to explore our sexuality, and reminded us that we would be at least partially immunized against the consequences of that exploration.

It wasn’t until I started teaching at the community college that I realized how different things were for people of different religious backgrounds.  I realized that a faith in the availability and advisability of "do-overs" was not universal!  My classes were filled with women in their 20s, 30s, and older who had gotten pregnant young, and had not done as everyone I knew from high school had done.  They had had children, had struggled as single mothers, had endured deprivation and difficulty, and were coming back to school at long last.  I had tremendous admiration for them.  But at the same time, I bemoaned not their choice to have sex so young, but their decision not to avail themselves of the abortion franchise.  As a pro-choice activist — which I was at the time — I believed that we needed to do a far better job of making birth control and abortion available and acceptable to folks in all communities.  That, I was convinced, was the solution.   Real liberation, or so I was certain, lay in extending that right to a quick "do-over" to everyone!

In more recent years, I’ve become less certain about things.  As I’ve written before, I’ve begun to doubt that "experience is the best teacher."  I’ve become more aware of how the emotional consequences of poor decision-making in one’s youth can haunt one in one’s later years.  (Vague, I know, but I’m not going to disclose more.)   And my students, most of whom come from more conservative social backgrounds than my own, are increasingly teaching me.  I haven’t jumped on the abstinence bandwagon yet, not by any means.   When it comes to human sexuality, my faith, reason, and experience all tell me that God’s plan for human sexuality is far richer and more complex than most have previously imagined.  I don’t like cookie-cutter solutions, and "no sex till marriage" remains both overly simplistic and absurdly unrealistic to me.

But as I think about Jeanine and the world she lives in, I wonder what my goal as a pro-feminist mentor ought to be.  Do I say "You go, girl!  Stay a virgin, work hard, get that degree!"  Or do I say, gently, "You know, there are other ways to look at this. Perhaps you don’t have to choose between pleasure and success", and then nudge her towards Planned Parenthood?  If I merely support her uncritically, am I not reinforcing the misleading notion that "sex is dangerous"?   If I expose her to other options, amd I being disrespectful both towards her goals and her cultural background?

My life would be radically different if it weren’t for the "do-overs" I had when I was young.  I am where I am today because (of course) God’s grace.  But one of the reasons (besides dumb luck) that I got a tenure-track job at 26 was because I had been protected in countless ways from the consequences of immature decisions made in high school and college.  Should it not be my goal to try and extend that "do-over protection" to as many people as possible?  Or should I be advocating something else, something more, something deeper?

I am rambling.  Time for a run, and then, more grading.

The racial politics of shopping

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Soon, my beloved and I will brave the malls for some Christmas shopping.  She built up her spirit for this with a long bike ride; I did a hard 12-miler in the Angeles, followed by two Noah’s bagels (I tried to stop at one, I really did) and plenty of Peet’s coffee.  I am ready for whatever horrors await us in the Glendale Galleria!

This morning, I am thinking about another kind of shopping: the grocery store kind.  Pasadena, like a number of communities in Southern California, is heavily segregated.  Latinos and African-Americans are found overwhelmingly in the northwest part of the city; whites tend to dominate everywhere else.  My beloved and I live in a townhouse "on the border"; we are technically in the northwest, but just one block north of the freeway that is the line of cultural and economic demarcation.

This is economic rather than legal segregation.  Folks can live wherever they like, but it "just so happens" that almost all the people of color fit into one quadrant of the city.

I live walking distance from two supermarkets:  Gelson’s, upscale and expensive and very much "my speed", is to our south.  To our north is a Vons (for locals, the one located at the corner of Fair Oaks and Orange Grove).  This Vons is, as some folks put it, "in the ‘hood."  It serves a heavily non-white clientele, but has somewhat better prices.  When I shop at Gelsons, I rarely see black and Latin faces; I am usually the only white guy in the check-out line at Vons.  Both stores are less than a mile from my home, and provide a powerful reminder of how "voluntary" racial segregation endures.

In the last few years, I have been actively forcing myself out of my comfort zone by trying to direct as many of my dollars as possible into businesses in low-income areas.   Though I went to Gelson’s exclusively during last year’s protracted supermarket strike (I’ve never crossed a union picket and never will), since the strike ended I’ve been doing as much shopping as I can at the Fair Oaks Vons.

I confess that I also have a fondness for Subway sandwiches, especially after a run.  Lately, I’ve been going to Subway after my Thursday afternoon runs in the Arroyo Seco.  There are many Subway franchises to choose from in Pasadena, but I have made it a habit to visit the one located next to the Fair Oaks Vons.  I’ve never seen another white person in there (either as customers or as staff).  I have often been stared at, but never in an unpleasant or threatening way.

To be sure, there are things I find difficult about shopping in less affluent areas.  For example, at Gelsons, I never see anyone use coupons.  (I never manage to get around to clipping them, though I surely ought to.)   Nothing slows down a check-out line like lots of coupons!  At Vons, I see lots of coupons, food stamps, and fumbling with coins.  Sometimes, I find it frustrating.  But I also am convinced that it is, in some sense, good for me to endure these small inconveniences.  I need to be reminded constantly of my own good fortune.  There is a penitential aspect to this that I find oddly comforting.

The last thing I want is have this post come across as the musings of a typical patronizing, guilt-ridden, middle-class white liberal!  I realize at times I do fit that stereotype.  But I do think it as absolutely crucial that in those places where semi-voluntary segregation still exists, that those of us who can do so should "shop across racial lines." 

Most lower-income people of color can’t afford Gelsons — where they shop is less a matter of choice than of necessity.   While I am hardly wealthy, I can afford the luxuries that Gelsons offers (fresh sushi and, above all, a really good selection of cheeses).  But since most of what I need can be found just as easily at my local Vons, it strikes me that I have a moral obligation to show my face in places where folks who look like me are less often found.  And of course, not merely to show my face, but to be friendly and open.

I am grateful to my parents and my extended family, who taught me that I should be ready and willing to go anywhere.  "You should be equally at home sitting down to tea in Buckingham Palace or sleeping in a shelter", I was told.  (Neither experience ever actually happened, of course — but we were to be equally ready for an invitation from the Queen or for the sudden shock of homelessness.) The first job of a gentleman, my grandmother said, was to "make other people feel comfortable."  The second job was to never, ever do anything that might make others feel beneath you.  There’s a lot of paternalistic noblesse oblige in that, I know.  There’s also tons of white privilege too:  if I were a poorly dressed black man, I would get far many more hostile looks in Gelsons than I do as a white guy in a nearly all-black and Latino Vons.  (Though the time I came in in a skin-tight, one piece bright blue bike suit with clips on my feet, I did get some odd looks.  But that would happen anywhere, I suppose.  The fact that I was pushing "Timmy Trek" through the aisles may have exacerbated things.  Hey, sometimes you can’t wait for diet cokes and bagels.)

But those of us who have the unmerited privilege of white skin, do, I think, have to be willing to cross the all-too-visible racial lines that divide the cities of Southern California.  We need to go where our friends tell us it isn’t safe to go.  We need to shop where Our Kind of People don’t normally shop.  We need to be polite and kind and respectful as we do so, but we need to do it. 

And sometimes, in the context of history and present reality, we white folks need to be the first to walk where we fear to walk.  And while we are doing so, we may need to be the first to offer cheerful "hellos" on the street!

Friday plagiarism

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I’m sitting alone in my office, surrounded by student papers.  And once again, I’m catching plagiarizers.  Two so far today.  Both caught using Google.  Both students in classes where I made it clear what plagiarism is.  It’s quite depressing, actually. 

When plagiarism is blatant (as it was in these instances), I give automatic F grades.  Rarely do the students challenge the grade — on the occasions that they do, I simply take them to the web page from which they plagiarized.  That tends to do the trick.  On some occasions, they become sullen; on others, they start to beg for a second chance.  I tell them they are welcome to repeat the class, but the F stands.

Asian students are more likely to plagiarize than white students; males are more likely to plagiarize than females.  Plagiarism occurs less often in my gender studies classes and more often in my Western Civ courses. These are generalities, but no course or ethnic group is immune, it seems.  And while it is dispiriting, there is almost something fun about catching a blatant example of academic dishonesty! I confess that on certain occasions, writing in a well-earned F next to a student’s name gives me a certain pleasure.  It’s not akin to the joy that comes from giving a hard-working student a well-deserved A — but it’s close!

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