woman protester

I love this and had to share with you all.

Kayleigh Nicholson,

I looked in the back of the room and saw your reaction of shock and horror to the Oakland police brutality. It's so ironic that one of the tear gas canisters hit a protesting Iraq Vet. and it's given the Occupy movement a face and momentum in the media.

I've watched Rachel's show 2 times since we saw that footage in class. Read the article I posted 10/23 on Poverty Rate, it gives a good summery of how we got here.

The birth of a feminist

This week reading the Essays and poem by Maya Angelou, I was inspired to write an essay of my own:

In my teens and early 20s, I thought feminism simply meant having choice and power in my own life. At that point this was translated and expressed through my sexuality. I had control over my fertility, and felt that my sexuality gave me power over men. However looking back on it, I found that I was duped.

I had been playing right into the societal view of beauty, which was created for men by men, and perpetuated by mass media. I had flawless, luminance, blemish and line free skin, long blonde hair, blue eyes, a curvy yet strong and athletic body. Which afforded me a lot of attention from men of all ages. I foolishly thought that gave me power and dominance over them.

By my mid-20s, I began to wake up a little bit, and realize that I had been brainwashed not only by society, but by my own mother-- to believe that my external beauty is what would ultimately save me. This realization flooded over me while setting in a doctor’s office flipping through a fashion magazine. I'd recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and no longer felt power or control over my own physicality. Although, I still got plenty of positive attention from men when I was sitting, but when I stood barely able to walk-- they turned away.

Through the krinkely sound of the glossy pages turning in my hands, I could hear the sound of my mother's voice telling me as a small child, that I was “pretty enough to find a rich man to take care of me”. I had flashbacks of waking up two hours before school started, just to have time to try on several outfits, curl my hair, and put on a pound of makeup. This behavior was mother approved, and for that I was angry. She's the one who taught me to play nice, always look pretty, and even how to flirt. I like to think that she had my best interests at heart, and that was her way of helping me-- but it made me feel angry and somewhat sorry for her.

I was still the same person who had spent hours primping every day, and still looked the same, but the message from my mother had changed. Now, she (and many of my friends) had cautioned, that any man who would want to be with me-- a woman with a disability-- must have something wrong with them. I'm not sure what I saw in that magazine that day, but whatever it was, caused all these memories collide once and for that I'm grateful.

That was the day that I began to notice, that beauty is defined by our patriarchal society and that the standards are fleeting and unrealistic. I saw that many of my insecurities were caused by trying to live up to a standard that was impermanent and unattainable, that was the day that the feminist in me was born. I began to question, changing my thinking about where power lies—and taking mine back.

Killing us softly - Advertising image of women part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSXDCMSlv_I&feature=related

I don't think men are immune to body issues or struggles with gender roles, thanks to the influence of mass media, and the counterweight of feminism-- hyper masculinity.

Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI

Poverty Rate Second-Highest in 45 Years

Interesting article:

• • · Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

    Poverty Rate Second-Highest in 45 Years; Record Numbers Lacked Health Insurance, Lived in Deep Poverty

    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3580

    Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
  Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
enter on Budget and Policy Priorities

Harkin back to a great society

Monday morning I missed class, for an opportunity to hear from one of my heroes Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. Harkin was first elected to Congress in 1974, and became a senator in 1984. Without him and the work that he has done throughout his career, my life, and the lives of all Americans would be very different.

Sen. Harkin has helped to pass legislation to make our food supply healthier, by requiring inspections and safety regulations relating to our food supply. He helped create government funding for college students through Pell Grants. He also initiated head start programs, and is currently working on early education legislation. All of the work he has done has touched my life and the lives of my loved ones. But, it is his work in crafting legislation that would later become the American with Disabilities Act that truly makes him a hero in my book-- and why it was important for me to see him.

To me Sen. Harkin is the perfect politician, because he puts people first. He says that the climate in Washington has changed over the past 30 years, and told a story about what it used to be like in the early days in Washington. There was a cafeteria in the basement of the House of Representatives, where all the representatives would break bread together. He said it was a great way to build relationships and get to know one another off the record, which made working together and reaching compromise a much easier task than it is today. Unfortunately, the lunches stopped in the 80s, when the laws surrounding campaign finance began to change. Then the representatives spent their lunch time campaigning and “chasing the money”, as he calls it.

It was quite inspiring for me to set in the top floor of the LBJ Library and listen to a man who still embodies those ideals. He worked with and had a personal relationship with LBJ, and spent a good deal of time talking about the Great Society, and where we've gone wrong. He says that there is a big problem in the party system itself, because there used to be conservatives, moderates, and liberals in both parties. However, for some reason the Republican Party has become more and more rigid and conservative. It is because of their rigidity, productive debate has become a thing of the past and true compromise a rarity. In that climate, it is ideology the rules-- not the people.

Much of Harkins time Monday morning, was spent having a Q&A with the audience, where he encouraged open debate, because he feels that through conflict and productive debate powerful change is possible. He embodies a quality few people I know have, which is something I would describe as respectful curiosity. I wasn't able to muster up the courage to ask my question, but I had to shake his hand and thank him personally for how much the ADA has impacted my life. I was lucky enough to get a chance to talk with the senator, and it was during our talk together that one of his aides came over to remind him he needed to catch a plane. He invited me to walk and talk with him, so I rode the elevator with Sen. Harkin, the dean of the LBJ School and several of their big donors, and the Senators staff. We had a lovely conversation where he recommended a few books for me to read, offered for me to be in e-mail contact with him, and encouraged me to be in contact with one of his assistants who lives here in Austin. All in all it was a pretty amazing morning-- it's not every day that you get to meet one of your heroes.

Senator Harkin's Web Site: http://harkin.senate.gov/

Audio files from a recording I made of the talk:

Sen Harkin 10-17-11 at LBJ Part 1 (1).m4a

Sen Harkin 10-17-11 at LBJ Part 1 (2).m4a

Info about LBJ and The Great Society: http://www.ushistory.org/us/56e.asp

It's all connected

Many of us ended up here in the United States because our ancestors were seeking religious, political, financial, and racial freedom. We're over 200 years into the democratic experiment, yet all of those struggles exist here on American soil. Even as a small child, I was confused by this inconsistency. I was taught a philosophy that said: send us your tired, your poor huddled masses. Yet I saw the reality, that people were expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

As a small-town Texas girl, I grew up going to a Southern Baptist Church and was deeply confused by religion. I knew there was a world full of other religions out there, and not everyone worshiped the same as my family. Who taught me that our God was a compassionate God, and I wondered if that were true; how other good people in the world could be sent to hell for the ways in which they worshiped, if they were different from mine-- even though I could see that they were very similar.

I remember being quite young, maybe third in grade, talking about money in my math class. I asked my teacher whose God do we trust? I could see on her face that she feared for my soul, and she asked if I believed in Jesus. Yes, I said. I wasn't able to articulate at the time, but I also believed in the goodness of human nature, and I felt that many good people were being excluded from heaven.

I am no longer Christian identified, although I am a believer in God, and God has many names. I do not feel that I fit in one single religious category. However after this week's reading, I realize that because I am white, I experience not only racial but religious privilege. My faith or religion is never questioned, because with my skin color the assumption is that I'm part of the Christian majority.

I was especially struck by Melanie Kaey/Kantrowitz’s essay, and the tangled thread of race and religion that she experienced growing up. She says that since Jews are historically known to be good with money, that their darkness is often ignored. But as the economy becomes more unstable, people with dark skin are seen as un-American and take the blame for lost jobs and a shrinking economy.

This for me again highlights our cultural inconsistency, and it reminds me of the Slate article that I posted a link to last week. There is a bullet pointed list that I'm going to share with you that highlights where things went wrong, and points out that in a democracy each citizen has to take their own share of the blame-- not only in the economic crisis, but I take that to mean in social injustices as well. Our political leaders who are voted in by less than 25% of the voting population, make decisions not only about about religious observation but wealth distribution. If you want things to change-- speak with your vote.

From SLATE Magizine: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_great_divergence/2010/09/the_united_states_of_inequality.html

We have now reviewed all possible causes of the Great Divergence—all, at least, that have thus far attracted most experts’ attention. What are their relative contributions? Here is a back-of-the envelope calculation, an admittedly crude composite of my discussions with and reading of the various economists and political scientists cited thus far :

-- Race and gender is responsible for none of it, and single parenthood is responsible for virtually

none of it.

-- Immigration is responsible for 5 percent.

-- The imagined uniqueness of computers as a transformative technology is responsible for none

of it.

-- Tax policy is responsible for 5 percent.

-- The decline of labor is responsible for 20 percent.

-- Trade is responsible for 10 percent.

-- Wall Street and corporate boards’ pampering of the Stinking Rich is responsible for 30

percent.

--Various failures in our education system are responsible for 30 percent. Most of these factors reflect at least in part things the federal government either did or failed to do. Immigration is regulated, at least in theory, by the federal government. Tax policy is determined by the federal government. The decline of labor is in large part the doing of the federal government. Trade levels are regulated by the federal government. Government rules concerning finance and executive compensation help determine the quantity of cash that the Stinking Rich take home. Education is affected by government at the local, state, and (increasingly) federal levels. In a broad sense, then, we all created the Great Divergence, because in a democracy, the government is us.

It seems obvious to me that a decades-long trend toward income inequality is destructive to any nation, and particularly to one founded on democratic ideals.

Occupy Wall Street Op-Ed

This related to what I wrote about on the 7th, so thought I'd include it too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/protesters-against-wall-street.html?ref=todayspaper

Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

You guys may like playing this game, it is from a few years ago but still has merit.

I took a radical approach and was able to balance the budget. My boyfriend on the other-hand, was a more conservative player, and not able to balance the budget ;) How bout you?

Minding the Gap

Economic disparity, income inequality, classism and privilege are almost constant conversations in my classes that spillover at the dinner table. In this week's reading, I really loved Deep Thoughts About Class and Privilege. I love the drawing of a girl and all of her positive attributes, then turning the page over you can see how most of them were gifts of her privilege and social status. It was also fun to use the questions as talking points with my partner. It was a great exercise is understanding where our upbringing and philosophies differ, and a great way to learn about and explore ourselves.

Then the Distributing Income exercise merged well with an article by Prof. from my communities and organizations class sent. The article is lengthy, but worth the time and very interesting merging so many of the concepts we're talking about and I would highly recommend you reading it : http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_great_divergence/features/2010/the_united_states_of_inequality/introducing_the_great_divergence.html

Everyone loves a rag to riches story, and historically there's been a belief that through hard work and perseverance anyone could attain the American dream. But unfortunately do to the widening gap between the rich and poor, and the shrinking middle class-- the the days of the American dream are becoming a faded memory. I think finally due to the recent economic collapse and high unemployment rate, topped with a looming energy crisis; many Americans are losing hope in the American dream. But I firmly believe that with a clear vision, and organized efforts to change the current power structure --we can create a more just economic system.

I have asked for a couple years now when will the revolution begin, and now I keep asking myself why it has taken so long for the revolution to begin, and I hope that's what the “Occupy” movement becomes. I think for the most part, the American population as a whole, is a group of optimists and we hoped that the economy would just work itself out. I guess that's why, it took three years since the bank collapse and subsequent bailout for people to wake up and realize how wide the gap has gotten in income inequality. We were told that the banks were too big to fail; we were convinced that a bailout was the best option to save our economy and maintain the status quo. Instead, the rescued banks are reporting record profits, their CEOs are receiving huge bonuses, all while many Americans are tightening their belts.

“To put these numbers in perspective (see Figure 1), the difference between the rate at which the middle fifth of the income distribution grew in after-tax income and the rate at which the top fifth of the income distribution grew during this period was 70 percent. The difference between the middle fifth growth rate and the top 1 percent growth rate was 256 percent” (Noah, 2011).

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3220

Income Gaps Between Very Rich and Everyone Else More Than Tripled In Last Three Decades, New Data Show

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2010/12/obamas_war_on_inequality.html

Obama's War on Inequality

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_great_divergence/features/2010/the_united_states_of_inequality/introducing_the_great_divergence.html

The United States of Inequality