fabrisse

I am a white woman in a predominantly black city.

I am a city worker in a place where most people work for the federal government.

And I am sick of the racism I read in the comments of The Washington Post.

There was an incident this weekend on the Metro at the stop I use most often. I wasn't there, because I tend to walk or take the bus when I can in order to save money. People were injured. It's been characterized as both a brawl and a riot depending on the article and the people doing the characterizing.

The assumption -- which is probably correct based solely on the city's demographics -- is that the young people who started the incident were black. The invective which has been unleashed is sickening. "Untermensch." "Make a coon-skin cap out of you."

Few people see this as anything but young black people making trouble. No one is questioning why they might be disaffected, though you'd be amazed at how many want to know "where are the parents?" Based on my experience in the neighborhood and through my job, the parents are probably working a second job to try to afford school supplies for their kids.

Even fewer people seem to be willing to do anything like mentor, tutor, or volunteer at a school. They are in favor of "shooting hooligans in the face" and going armed into the city.

I lived here in the 1970s, though in the suburbs. I remember the struggles -- real riots over things like the KKK marching. From the descriptions, this was much smaller than the kinds of troubles I used to experience in the early 80s from the soccer fans in London.

I don't in any way condone this type of behavior. I don't like being hassled and yelled at any more than the next person, and I hate being caught in violence. It's happened to me. But I don't for a moment think that race is a proximate cause for a minor eruption of violence on a hot summer's night.

DC has an advisory out. I didn't walk this morning. I started to, but I was covered in sweat in a block, so I turned around and walked the two blocks to the Metro instead.

Our overnight low will be higher than Los Angeles predicted high.

The grass next to the new Safeway caught fire yesterday.

Welcome to DC.

Once again I volunteered for this discussion at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This doesn't mean I was on any of the panels, just for the record; only that I did things like make certain people had water, directed them places, and generally dogsbodied for anyone who needed me.

At the dinner (it was little bites by 30 different chefs stationed all over the museum) on Friday night, I ran into the son of one of the restauranteuses. H loves the ocean. He's looking forward to turning 8 soon, so that he can finally learn scuba, even if he can only do it in swimming pools until he's 16. He stated that we need to protect the oceans and the environment, even if it were at the cost of our own lives. He asked intelligent questions about the oil leak in the Gulf. When I mentioned Padre Island, H looked stricken and said, "The sea turtles!"

Look again at that number. A seven year old was one of the most intelligent people I spoke with in two days. The adults were knowledgeable about their own aspects of any given issue, and the Gulf leak was mentioned, but not pursued as it wasn't the focus of the conference.

But again, I was struck by the smugness of the people involved. In a predominantly black city, there were no black faces and few of any race other than white. One woman spoke contemptuously (to my ears at least) of the fact that most Americans made their decisions on which fish to buy on price point. The only comment I made was to her pointing out that in the current economic crisis, PRICE POINT was amazingly relevant to people. I used my own unemployment as an example.

One gentleman on the panel came up to me afterward and said he was out of the restaurant business because he was interested in making certain that the fishermen were not being exploited, the end-users got fish they could afford, and the resources were being husbanded.

I also had a dissatisfactory conversation with another volunteer who was shocked, shocked I say, that I suggested putting up fliers for Smithsonian programs in Libraries and Rec Centers in DC. Her point that these symposia need to sell tickets is fine. However, her statement that people who go to these places (i.e. the poorer, darker folks of the District) wouldn't be interested is a flat out lie.

When I came home on Friday night, two of my neighbors were discussing the Gulf leak. They noted the crime to the ecosystems, the problems of employment that may arise, and the way it will effect prices for gas, heating oil, and fish. One of them pointed out that unbalancing the ecosystems may spread diseases or allow insect invasions in other areas which could cause more and different issues. I know these men. One of them isn't a high school graduate. Both are unemployed. That doesn't make either of them stupid or uninvolved with the world and the issues around them.

If the last couple of days are an indication of what summer will bring, it's going to be a tough one. Yesterday was 89F with 68% humidity. Today is a little cooler, but with higher humidity and my apartment building won't be turning on its air-conditioning until May 15 at the earliest.

On the plus side, I live in a city where the plants and trees are often labeled. I've found a new tree that I love: Fringe Tree. That article describes them as "slightly fragrant," but in the high humidity, I can smell them a block away across a wide street.

The chestnuts have come into bloom and I'm reminded of Europe with Avenue Tervuren, Unter den Linden, and several Parisian boulevards all lined with them.

In addition, the roses are blooming early, the Iris are coming up straight and strong (seriously, some of them have been four feet tall with multiple blooms on the stem), the azaleas and peonies are rivalling each other for show, and the wisteria have lasted longer than usual.

After such a harsh Winter, Spring is showy and sassy.

The first same-sex couples are applying for their marriage licenses today. With the waiting period, the first weddings may be performed on Tuesday.

We join Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire in permitting same-sex marriage.

eta: I just saw, via the article in The New York Times, that one of my colleagues and her partner were the first in line! *G*

Part of my daily walk to work is straight up Capitol Hill on the Senate side of the Capitol grounds.

Usually I see joggers and maintenance people. Occasionally, there are school groups. One morning, there was about twenty senior officers from several branches of the military -- a very colorful group in their Class A uniforms with ribbons on their chests.

This morning, I was wished a Merry Christmas by a gentleman with a hand-lettered sign reading "Trust in Jesus." He shook his head and said, "The healthcare bill just passed." I think he was surprised when I punched the air and grinned.

Just a morning walk through my city.

The jobless rate among young, black men is 34.5%

Read the article.

I would love to make it a requirement that freshman Representatives and Senators be required to live in the District. Maybe then they could see the city.

Seriously, I'm writing up my notes about a joint lecture given by a retired BAU member and the current head of the BSU. If you are interested in the FBI or Psychopaths, please check behind the cut.

( Read more... )

Race Fail 2009 and the current "yellowface" issues surrounding the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie have opened my eyes to assumptions. Living in DC has opened my eyes to assumptions.

My future was never white. I want that clear from the beginning. The first book I read that I identified as sci-fi (A Wrinkle in Time didn't count because I didn't think of it as science fiction. They traveled to another planet by tessering, and it never occured to me I was reading science fiction.) was Podkayne of Mars. Podkayne was clearly non-white. She and her grandfather used a Maori gesture with each other to indicate people they thought were stupid. I read the book now and cringe a bit at the sexism, though I know Heinlein was actually ahead of the game by having a female protagonist, but Podkayne was never white to me.

This is where growing up in greater DC comes in to play. The DC I currently live in is nearly 60% black with a population just under 600,000. The DC I went to when I lived in the suburbs as a kid was 90% black with a population of over 900,000. It was called Chocolate City for a reason. If I went to my mother's office, chances were good that every security person or policeman that I saw would be black. More than half of my mother's co-workers were black. The higher up the government chain of command you went, the more likely it was the person was male and white, but it was already beginning to change. Any time I thought about the future, it was a mixed future. In my head, I used terms like mixed and mulatto. I can define all the shades that my southern ancestors used derogatorily. But until I went to boarding school, it never occurred to me to think in terms of race.

Class was an issue, but my mother, for all her prejudices made it clear that race wasn't. If I married the son of a black officer, it would be a little odd, but fine. If I married the son of a white enlisted man, I would be shunned. (Sadly, sometime after returning to the US in the early 1980s, Mom drifted into an easy racism that truly surprises me. My sister occasionally picks up on it. Sis, I can call on it. Mom I can't. Dad does though. Considering Dad's the one who grew up in the segregated South, it's funny that his example is the one I follow.)

At my very first mixer, I danced with a guy from the Middle East and got teased about it. At my second high school mixer, I danced with a black boy from another boarding school. During study hall the following Monday, a couple of the upper classmen threatened me with bodily harm if I ever did it again. I was enough of a coward that I stopped going to mixers. I didn't stop hanging out with my friends, though, and many of them were black. That probably sounds like the old liberal, "but some of my best friends..." racist excuse. I didn't realize that black students had only been accepted four years before I started there. I just knew that these girls accepted me for who I was without trying to put me in a compartment. That was more than I could say for the majority of girls. The first Jewish girl at the school started the same year I did. For me to be able to hang out with the students I liked was a big thing then.

But the future was going to be better than that. In the future, it wasn't that we were colorblind, it was that color didn't matter. The differences would be celebrated and acknowledged, but they wouldn't kill someone's chance at a career. Uhura's earrings made that point for me. She wore distinctive earrings, and, when we see her cabin in Elaan of Troyius, there are African art works shown. Uhura was cool. I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I just knew I wouldn't have the tan.

Tonight was the eighth grade graduation for the kids in the program I mentor with. The Secretary of Education gave a nice little speech (and is tall enough to confirm my suspicions that Obama wants to change the sport of official Washington from slo-pitch softball to basketball). One statistic he quoted that stayed with me: 66% of the eighth graders in Detroit drop out of high school. It's chilling to me.

There were no white faces among the graduates. These kids feel like they are on a path toward a brighter future. But when I give them a science fiction book, I want them to see the world, not just this one, as a place where anything can happen.

I gave my students (fifth graders) the books that revenantrose was generous enough to help me purchase. Three of them were science fiction books and one of them deals specifically with the entitlement the British felt to cultures they thought were uncivilized. (Nation by Terry Pratchett which is technically a sci-fi fantasy book even though it's more of a riff on colonialism and Robinson Crusoe types of stories.)

How dare publishers and movie producers think that a protagonist needs to be shown as white to be "universal"?

The one friend I've had since high school works four blocks from where I live. She won't walk to my apartment building because it's not a good part of town. What she means is, by crossing under 395, she goes from Washington to DC, from a place where she sees primarily light faces to an area where she sees mostly dark ones. It saddens me.

I love my city. I want the future that I see when I read science fiction. Hell, I want the past that I see when I watch I,Spy on Hulu. I sure as hell don't want Jesse McCartney playing an Asian lead.

What I want is a future where we go to Mars or Mirabile and everyone who has a skill or an education can find their way into the deeps of space. I want the kids of Detroit to read science fiction and choose to stay in school so they can go into "Space, the final frontier."

I walked home from Chinatown tonight. It was still light out when I got home too. Yes, I'm still on a cane, but I loved every minute of my walk. Well, except for the rat by the Department of Education. No, I'm not referring to the Cabinet Secretary.

Walking the city is how I learn it. Washington DC is one I know fairly well, and it's easy to landmark, so new routes and connections are always happening.

I'm still trying to figure out what city planner I need to hurt for putting The Hard Rock Cafe right next door to Ford's Theater.

In my perambulations I came across a group of people fighting with Roman short swords and shields. I asked "SCA?" and got the answer, "Among other things." I've made my first contact with Atlantia.

The Chestnut trees should be blooming by early next week and the magnolias are loaded with blossoms. When they come into full bloom with the humidity the scent is going to permeate the city. I won't be surprised by sex in the street.