Reflections

Oddity Ah Ditty I Did A Ha Did He Ahhh.

"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do."   - Georgia O'Keefe

I-I-I-I-I am p-p-p-p-p-picking up my s-s-s-s-screenplay ag- ag- again...there are t-t-t-two producers (with track records) a friend has a c-c-c-c-connection with, and my friend s-s-says I should have my final rewrite by T-t-t-t-Tuesday! Shi says this in a very authoritative voice which is why I am quaking.

I have not touched the thing since the Big Reading.  Now I am picking up the pile of papers people have marked on and shoving this behemoth into a very large microscope and whipping into shape, to mix the hell out of metaphors and don't you dare give me shit about that right now, yeah you, and ESPECIALLY you--I mean, don't even get me started about your spelling and creative pronoun misprisioning and yes that is a word.

Did someone mention something about breathing?

Just sayin!

Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism!

You can write the story without the names. Prominent White Male gets caught with Extramarital Female-bonus points if she's profiting from the transaction. Prominent White Male steps down in disgrace, muttering and apologizing all the while. Extramarital Female rides the wave of publicity to launch or accelerate a career in modeling (Donna Rice), broadcast journalism (Paula Zahn) or perhaps even fashion accessories. (Monica Lewinsky's handbags did look so cute with silk stockings).

Public's reaction to the "scandal": shock. Sure, in part because that's all we know. But also in part because what we know comes from the media, who reproduce shock as the only possibly reaction. And sex workers, who help keep those same newspapers afloat, silently comply.

One need only peruse the back pages of weekly tabloids to get a sense of the enormous amount of ad revenue from sex work that floats these papers. Even major papers run thinly veiled prostitute ads under "massage." The same papers that run stories reproducing the shock at this unthinkable revelation get hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising revenue from...sex workers. Who do they think those working girls' clients are? Someone isn't doing their math.

...read the rest of the story here.

"Because he's Black???"

I am referring to Geraldine Ferraro's offhand comment (which she later apologized for) about Barack Obama's success being because he is Black. How often do Black people get their successes--and their failures--chalked up to their "race*"?

When was the last time you heard someone attribute a white person's success--or failure--to their whiteness?  White people succeed all the time based on the privilege we get from our perceived whiteness.  Country club memberships, dinner invitations, confidential conversations, investment opportunities, job offers, private meetings, classified information, all come our way because people make assumptions about our trustworthiness, intelligence and loyalties when they perceive our whiteness. But instead of ever uttering the words "white privilege," we have a special word generally reserved just for white people: merit. Oh yeah, sometimes "suitability." He or she was just a "good fit."

Why is this glaring misperception hardly ever mentioned? Whiteness does not automatically equal anything positive though the whole culture conspires to act as though it does.  White people have done nothing to earn most of the privileged treatment we get, and we know it.  This is why we are so messed up, and, I would argue, why this culture is so screwed up about sex.  Witness the Spitzer phenomenon.  I was asked to write an opinion piece about that, which I'll share momentarily.

*I put the word "race" in quotes because biologically there is but one race--the human race. What we call race is a social division that has varied over time and still varies across cultures. For example places like Brazil, Cuba, Curacao do not draw lines between people in the same way we do.  In other words, "black" and "white" identities don't hold up across all geographical borders.

Miiu*

After all these years
Trying to master where I end and others begin
To discover
That we are all One
And somehow know
That these are not in contradiction

That while all the tsuris
I go through
Truly is between me and me
To watching you reveal razorslices of your pain
Among the ocean of wild beauty that marinates you

And know that you and I are the same
Sure, my soul recognizes yours, Namaste, and all
But more than that
I feel you me, bringing it round again
As the fingers of one hand
Touch those
of the other

*Shalom in Tongva/Ajachmen

Yes, this is for you