Archive for June, 2006
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
I would put this into one of those Cool boxes Jay uses if i knew how. Heard it on the radio and laughed for a long time. Just a reminder not to take myself too seriously.I've grown tired of following my dreams. I think I'll find out which way t hey are headed and hook up with them later.
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Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
OKay, so it's 5 days PAST Jay's exit time and I sitll haven't posted. Yikes. Being in the moment in so hard when so many moments decide to attack you all at once. At least it seems that way.It's been a week of deadlines for me. Two big ones and several smaller ones. I've made the first big one and blown off one small one. I figure...will it matter in 30 years? if the answer is yes, get your asci in gear and get it done. if the answer is no, then see if there is something else with a yes that needs to happen first.Astraea is a Lesbian Foundation based on Social Justice, which is based on action. There is no justice without action. They sponser a writing contest every year and this friday is the deadline to have your manuscripts on their desk in New York City. Guess what? In this age of amazing mass transit and "youcanbuyanythingifyou'llpayenough" I found out i could mail a manuscript at 8 :30 this morning (wednesday) and have it there by noon tomorrow. simply amazing. somewhat frightening. and frankly unnecessary in this case, since i should have gotten my work done earlier. but still amazing.Next deadline...bad choice of words. next moment in time i am anxious about and waiting for: 2 pm central time friday the 30th. my mother is having a masectomy in kansas. i am not leaving denver and going, i may go back later if the radiation really knocks her down and out. she has made it through the chemo fairly well. (i know that's not the usual order, but it was what the doctors recommended with this particular form of breast cancer.) So i may go home later if she needs help. Her preference is to do it herself. and, it's her life, her cancer, so i've got to respect her choice. don't have to feel comfortable with it, but i have to respect it.(Boy will Jay be sorry he said I could blogg about anything, wont' he? I should at least mention Brittany Spears or something to increase the number of hits. HA!)I'll take my rambling mind away now, to think more about deadlines: those completed and those to come. I'll pat myself on the back for getting through one and ask the universe for a little grace waiting for the other's outcome. If you happen to think of it friday afternoon, put out a little good energy for my mom, would you? She's fighting hard. thanks
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Friday, June 23rd, 2006
I'm off for vacation until July 8, 2006. If I can I will try to post as we travel through southern Ireland. In the meantime, two friends, vegankid [1] and Ona Marae, will be posting periodically in my absence.
[1] http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/
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Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
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Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
Excellent posts this month. Comedy, music, centrist Canadian political thought, a thing or three you should know, Darwinism, coded language and soccer!Humorist Chris Quimby [1] writes [2] about finding his white power/white revolution twin through a google search. Dismayed, he wants nothing to do with WR Chris Quimby:I’m sure this next statement will technically sound racist, but I cannot deny the truth. White people stink. I mean that figuratively, or course, although it could be said literally of many. Forgive me, White Revolution Chris Quimby, but my opinion of white people has become all too jaded by the many hardships they have brought my way. ALL of the tribulations I have faced throughout my life have been at the hands of this light-colored people group. Ona Marae, another jaywalker [3] like me, writes [4] about the sinking feeling we all feel when a song we used to love now is horrible - indeed sucks - because of the song's racist content. This time it's Peter, Paul and Mary singing that great Civil Rights protest song, "This Land is Your Land."I was sitting back listening to the music, singing along with the songs I have taught at Girl Scout Camp for years, until suddenly I was struck by one of those awarenesses. One of those songs everyone knows and can sing along with suddenly made me very sad. I had noticed, for the first time in my life that "This land is your land" was an extension of the American belief in a Manifest Destiny...that "this land was made for you and me." When, indeed it wasn't.I recently was listening to a Womanist Theologian talk and she was speaking of the movement of the ancient Isrealites into their "promised land." This was a "promise" made to Abraham and Sarah that their heirs would come to posses a particular land of "milk and honey." Problem was, somebody else was possesing it when they came to get it. This theolgian simply said "The Caananites didn't do anything." in regards to being militarily attacked and pushed out of their own land.Suddenly, that statement rang into my ears about the Native Americans who held this land and "didn't do anything" to deserve being attacked and pushed off. This land was not our land, this land was their land. Suddenly that song I had taught for so many years without even thinking about the lyrics made me a little sick.[Update: After much deliberation and discussion, I want to offer a disclaimer for the next post by Centrerion Canadian Politics. I had initially taken the post at face value. Though I thought it simplistic, I didn't really think too much more about it. Alas, would that anti-racist work be that easy! Thanks to Scott [5], JustMe [6] and vegankid [7], I offer the following quote from vegankid [7] about why I think CCP's post ultimately does not tie in with the theme of eracism racism. the issues i take are 1) that attacks on European and North American countries are simplified as a clash of religions (plenty of evidence to disprove that one), 2) the imperial rule of Muslim nations is dismissed as just "a terrible thing" only because the imperialists are non-Muslim not because they are imperialists, and 3) i don't really see how this post is attempting to confront racism so much as an attempt to explain violence by exhonerating White people. i would agree that power-grabbing folks like Ossama bin Laden and others are exploiting religion to meet their needs (tho i wouldn't argue that of Hamas), but i don't really feel like that's the point CCP is making. and to bring that around to an anti-racist discussion would take quite a bit of work considering the anti-muslim/anti-arab/anti-semitic sentiment that is so rampant. I have learned that I must be vigilant in this very important work of fighting racism. I was tired when I wrote up the carnival, after spending several days working on my book. From this fact I've learned I shouldn't be writing carnivals when I'm tired. I also need to read posts over a few times and elicit feedback where I'm not sure. I've decided to keep the link to CCP's post. I haven't been in White liberal recovery long-enough to feel comfortable delinking at this point ;-)]Centrerion Canadian Politics [9] writes [10] that the reason that Islamic terrorists attack Canada (and elsewhere) has little to do with the provocations from the U.S.or Canada or the U.K against Iraq or Afghanistan. Rather, what provokes Islamic terrorists is that the West is not following the Koran literally.That Muslims are ruled by non-Muslim governments is a terrible thing, in terrorists' eyes, because they literally interpret passages of the Koran advocating the contrary. That freedom of religion (or lack thereof) exists in the West is another awful instance of Western non-alignment with literalist interpretation. If it were up to the al-Qaeda, Hamas and company, Islam would be imposed upon all non-monotheists, including Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Animists etc. When Osama and his ilk rant about Western decadence and the 'nakedness' of women in bathing suits, you're actually catching a rare glimpse into what really bothers these people. That is, Westerners not following a literal reading of Sharia.Irrational Point [11] talks about Three Things You Should Know [12].Privilege is being able to pass judgement on things you don't understand.Privilege is structural.Privilege is not an opt-out-of-able system.So it doesn't matter if your best friend is black, because people with privilege are by default condoning and enforcing our social structures unless we actively do something about them (although even then, we cannot presume to be "outside" the system). Only those who have privilege can afford not to care.Hell's Handmaiden [13] writes [14] about what is wrong with the Hilter-Darwin connection used by creationists in order to discount evolutionary theory, particularly how they find one origin of Nazism - in the form of its anti-semitism - in Darwinism.So, generally speaking, you can only hold someone accountable for what they actually propose and for what can be reasonably derived from what they propose. Manson’s “kill Sharon” just can’t be reasonably derived from what the Beatles recorded[on the White Album]. The Darwin/Hitler case is similar but much less extreme. That is, Hitler’s biology– or his Darwinism, if you will– was so awful that it really ceased to be biology at all. His ideas of superiority, for example, come from German national mythology, not from any real concept of fitness. His concept of race had and has no biological basis. Hitler found a peg upon which to hang his own ideas, much as the Catholic Church found a peg– Aristotle– upon which to hang their religion. Never mind that the two don’t really fit well together.Vegankid at Ally Work [15] reminds [16] us that it is good to talk about racism through intentionally decoding the racist language used by white people when we talk about racism. Quoting from Paul Kivel's Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice:We actually talk about race all the time, but we do it in code. Much of our discussions about economics, military issues, neighborhood affairs, public safety and welfare, education, sports and movies is about race. Some of the code words we use are “underclass,” “welfare mothers,” “inner city,” “illegal aliens,” “terrorist,” “politically correct” and “invasion.”These color-coded words allow white people to speak about race or about people of color, whether in the United States or abroad, without having to admit to doing so. We don’t have to risk being accused of racism; we don’t have to worry about being accountable for what we say. We can count on a mutual (white) understanding of the implications of the words without having to specify that this comment is about race. In order to be allies of people of color, we need to break the code of silence and subterfuge between white people in our talk about racism. Dealing with racism, then, is not just talking about it, but talking about it openly, intentionally, with the goal of ending it. It calls for us to demystify and analyze our coded interactions.I'll end with Changeseeker's [17] discussion [18] of the rampant racism within and around soccer/football. For those who don't know, some fans spit on footballers of color or hang swastikas in full view of everyone and the television cameras. Now, you'd think everyone associated with football would denounce these behaviors. She takes to task British journalist Simon Kuper who claims this behavior was seen as all in good fun.Being spit on is good fun? Hitler is good fun? Gee, and all this time, I liked reading. Just look what I've been missing!My point is that the Hitler youth and the spitters may represent a relatively small group, comparatively speaking. But they're not the ones calling it fun. They're not doing it for fun. They're doing it to spread an agenda of racist hatred. I understand them. They're sick and, if they're allowed to, they will bring us to mayhem, at least, and destruction, if they can. But the ones that scare me are the "ordinary" people who call it "fun." Would they laugh at being spit on or called an animal? Would they find these situations "fun" if they were happening to their children? Of course not. So what is their agenda?
[1] http://www.chrisquimby.com/
[2] http://www.chrisquimby.com/html/the_other_white_me.html
[3] http://jaysennett.com/cgi-bin/mt/www.jaysennett.com/blog
[4] http://www.jaysennett.com/blog/2006/06/reevaluating_beloved_folk_musi.htm
[5] http://scottneigh.blogspot.com/
[6] http://www.jaysennett.com/cgi-bin/mt/www.seekingacademia.blogspot.com
[7] http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/
[8] http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/
[9] http://centrerion.blogspot.com/
[10] http://centrerion.blogspot.com/2006/06/canadas-provocation-of-islamist.html
[11] http://irrationalpoint.blogspot.com/
[12] http://irrationalpoint.blogspot.com/2006/05/three-things-you-should-know.html
[13] http://www.hells-handmaiden.com/
[14] http://www.hells-handmaiden.com/?p=311
[15] http://allywork.solidaritydesign.net/
[16] http://allywork.solidaritydesign.net/2006/uprooting-racism-part-1-its-good-to-talk-about-racism/
[17] http://whyaminotsurprised.blogspot.com/
[18] http://whyaminotsurprised.blogspot.com/2006/06/world-cupof-hate.html
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
It is, therefore, very deeply a kind of spiritual path, or again it isn’t about for me to keep my body in synch with my mind (hey, my body is me) but even more about connecting me by a more expansive manner with the "real", with others, with my environment. From the smallest elementary particle to the most complex entities, in the most open manner possible in order to feel myself justly in synch essentially with that which surrounds me and in fine with myself.So writes Lalla Kowska, a MtT (Male to Trans) living in Paris, and sometimes commenter here at jaywalking. After reading this piece, I must that Lalla is, like me, a dedicated jaywalker, more than willing to cross against traffic, far from the corner, to get where she needs to go.Without a doubt I could not have published Lalla's piece without the able translation efforts of Mr. Ron Hudson aka the blogger at 2sides2Ron [1]. In the process of translating this piece we had some wonderful email exchanges about when it is appropriate to translate trans as trannie. Ron has done an outstanding job. I offer my sincere thank you as he efforts allows those of us who don't speak French to meet another traveller.I've copied and pasted the entire piece as an extended entry. Please read it when you get a chance. If any of you wish to contact Lalla email me. Also, please stop by Ron's blog and say thanks for helping the trans communities connect.
[1] http://www.ronhudson.blogspot.com/
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Monday, June 19th, 2006
will be here tomorrow, June 20.
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Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
Our art matters, right?
I think it does. Which is why I started Homofactus Press. I just got sick of not seeing books I wanted to read, so I decided to create the books instead. Easier than bitching that Random House [1], or Alyson [2] doesn't do it for me, right?
Homofactus Press [3] relies on great writers and great readers for its success. In return, I give my writers great royalties (gross not net), so I can actually create - in some small way - the circumstances that allow trans and queer artists to make a living from their art. Fucking shocking, I know. Particularly for the Arts Hating America.
For my readers, I have wanted to create circumstances where you are involved deeply in our cultural creations. How many times have you read a book that moved you (you loved it, hated it, found a typo, a historical error) and wanted to say something to the author or publisher, but couldn't?
Welcome to Homofactus Press [3], where you can say something. As often as you like, too.
In order to give you, dear readers, a better idea about what I'm doing with Homofactus Press, I'm giving out free samples of Self-Organizing Men [5].
(Free Book Cover Shot Here! [6])
Anybody want a chance to read/review an article or two or three that will appear in the anthology? Then you can find out what the whole "our art matters" schtick means first hand.
Three things are needed. The fourth is voluntary.
1. You have to be a blogger at least 18 years of age with a regularly updated blog at least 3 months old.
2. You send me an email (jay at jaysennett dot com) with the words "Participatory Art Experience 6669" in the title (the "6669" number makes it easier to keep track of the e-mails and makes them harder to get lost etc.). Please include your full name, a statement attesting to your age, date of birth and your blog URL.
3. Please read the article(s). If you find any typos, etc., let me know by email or blog post.
4. Then, if you want - and only if you want to - blog about what you've read, what you think, like, don't like. Just say it on your blog. Then send a link/trackback here [7].
You're under no obligation to blog about what you read of course. I just think making it "Bloggers Only" destroys mainstream publishers' ideas about how books sell.
If we know what we want and need in the arts why turn over critical review to somebody with an axe to grind? To somebody who thinks we're born in the wrong bodies, that we're exotic, unusual, or superhuman? To somebody who answers to an editor who answers to advertisers?
I would love it if this "blogvertising" works. But of course, I can't do it alone; I need the complicity of other bloggers. What if, say, not one or two of you end up blogging about it, but a couple of dozen? What will be the rippling effect?
Arts started out being made by the people, for the people. After all, there were'nt any art critics, or galleries or publishers in Lascaux, France.
HfP books will sell because of you lovely readers and bloggers. Share your honesty. And if we're lucky enough, maybe you'll share your love, too.
It'll be interesting to hear what the blogosphere has to say. I hope to hear from you. Thanks again.
[1] http://www.jaysennett.com/cgi-bin/mt/www.randomhouse.com
[2] http://www.jaysennett.com/cgi-bin/mt/www.alyson.com
[3] http://www.homofactuspress.com/
[4] http://www.homofactuspress.com/
[5] http://www.homofactuspress.com/2006/06/self_organizing_men_contributo.htm
[6] http://www.adventuresinboyhood.com/whensitting.html
[7] http://www.homofactuspress.com/2006/06/participatory_art_experience_6.htm
Posted in Features, Political Art | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, June 13th, 2006
I am a great folk music and protest music fan. I find it inspiring and connecting me to a larger movement, not always one of this era, but of a struggle for justice that has been going on for years upon years.But even the things we hold dearest must be evaluated and reevaluated through the lenses of racism, sexism, heterosexism and the like. Our lenses change with time, as our awarenesses change.I recently purchased a "Best of Peter, Paul and Mary" CD. Their participation in many civil rights movements has always been an encouragement to me. If you have never heard their song "Have you been to jail for justice?" you really need to find a copy and give it a listen.I was sitting back listening to the music, singing along with the songs I have taught at Girl Scout Camp for years, until suddenly I was struck by one of those awarenesses. One of those songs everyone knows and can sing along with suddenly made me very sad. I had noticed, for the first time in my life that "This land is your land" was an extension of the American belief in a Manifest Destiny...that "this land was made for you and me." When, indeed it wasn't.I recently was listening to a Womanist Theologian talk and she was speaking of the movement of the ancient Isrealites into their "promised land." This was a "promise" made to Abraham and Sarah that their heirs would come to posses a particular land of "milk and honey." Problem was, somebody else was possesing it when they came to get it. This theolgian simply said "The Caananites didn't do anything." in regards to being militarily attacked and pushed out of their own land.Suddenly, that statement rang into my ears about the Native Americans who held this land and "didn't do anything" to deserve being attacked and pushed off. This land was not our land, this land was their land. Suddenly that song I had taught for so many years without even thinking about the lyrics made me a little sick.I find myself struggling now with the lense time and social education has given me. If I hear the "our land" as a social "we" (as compared to the royal "we" or the singular "we"), If I hear it as "This land is our land" meaning a rainbow of people coming together to form a diverse community seeking to be fair to all involved, I can almost stomach it. But it is difficult. How do we deal with the racism that allowed all our generations to mow down entire nations of peoples to take what they wanted? We can't pack up all the non-Native Americans and ship them back to where their ancestors came from (even if they did know from whence they came!) There is no simple answer.Perhaps my sudden awareness of the racism implicit in this song is old news to the reader. It was new news to me and I will never hear that song again without being aware of it. Perhaps that is part of the answer -- constant awareness of racism's old wounds and new wounds, and a constant attempt to find answers to solve both. Whatever the rhyme or reason, my lenses will never see or hear that song in the same way again.
Posted in Racism | 8 Comments »
Thursday, June 8th, 2006
I'm hosting the Second Erase Racism Carnival. You have until June 18, 2006 to submit posts. I'll have the carnival up here June 20, 2006. Submit your posts here [1] on any topic you wish. Now, I know if you are reading this post you probably have something important to say about erasing racism. So say it!
[1] http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_303.html
Posted in Queer, Racism | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006
Trans Performance Artist Scott Turner Schofield's Work is Censored. [1]
[1] http://www.homofactuspress.com/2006/06/scott_turner_schofield_censore.htm
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
In case you missed the memo, involuntary servitude, a euphemism for slavery [1], is alive and well in ‘murka.Factors combine to create, in South Florida, what a Justice Department official calls "ground zero for modern slavery." The area has seen six cases of involuntary servitude successfully prosecuted in the past six years. Describing local migrant-contractor power dynamics, Michael Baron, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol who knows Florida well, told me, "Most of the time, these workers are housed miles from civilization, with no telephones or cars. They're controllable. There's no escape. If you do escape, what are you gonna do? Run seventeen miles to the nearest town, when you don't even know where it is? And, if you have a brother or a cousin in the group, are you gonna leave them behind? You gonna escape with seventeen people? You'll make tracks like a herd of elephants. Whoever's got you, they'll find you. And heaven help you when they do."Employers agree to pay smuggler’s fee with the understanding that the workers will pay them back.Easy, you say. These workers pick tomatoes and watermelons and oranges. Americans love orange and watercress salad! What’s a barbecue without watermelon?! What’s summer without a fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato salad?! Given our consumption these guys should knock down that debt in record time.[T]omato pickers are paid as little as forty cents per bucket. A filled bucket weighs thirty-two pounds. To earn fifty dollars in a day, an Immokalee [Florida] picker must harvest two tons of tomatoes, or a hundred and twentyfive buckets.Orange- and grapefruit-picking pay slightly better, but the hours are longer. To get to the fruit, pickers must climb twelve-to-eighteen-foot-high ladders, propped on soggy soil, then reach deep into thorny branches, thrusting both hands among pesticide-coated leaves before twisting the fruit from its stem and rapidly stuffing it into a shoulder-slung moral, or pick sack. (Grove owners post guards in their fields to make sure that the workers do not harm the trees.) A full sack weighs about a hundred pounds; it takes ten sacks-about two thousand oranges-to fill a bano, a bin the size of a large wading pool. Each bin earns the worker a ficha, or token, redeemable for about seven dollars. An average worker in a decent field can fill six, seven, maybe eight bins a day. After a rain, though, or in an aging field with overgrown trees, the same picker might work an entire day and fill only three bins.But employers are really very kind. To meet certain needs of the workers, they’ve taken to smuggling women over the border and forcing them to become prostitutes. Instead of repaying smuggler’s fees in buckets, they repay their debt through female labor, the sex act. Federal officials said the brothels' clients were usually agricultural workers, who were charged twenty dollars by the brothel operators, or ticketeros . The women were required to perform between fifteen and twenty-five sexual acts per day, and received three dollars for each one. The women were told that they would be free to go once they paid off their debts, but those debts never seemed to decrease. "At the end of the night, I turned in the condom wrappers," one woman testified in a Senate hearing. "Each wrapper represented a supposed deduction from my smuggling fee. We tried to keep our own records, but the bosses destroyed them. We were never sure what we owed."Beatings and threats of reprisals against their families in Mexico were used to keep the women in line. Several who attempted to escape were hunted down and returned to the brothels, and were punished with rape and further confinement. Victims who became pregnant were forced to have abortions and to return to work within weeks; the cost of the abortion was added to their debt. Although six of Cadena's accomplices pleaded guilty in the case, nine others managed to run away and slip back across the border. The victims were worried about the risks of testifying until Julia Gabriel, a witness in the Flores case who later became a coalition member, met with them and urged them to stand up for themselves.And this is not an isolated incident.According to Leon Rodriguez, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department 's Civil Rights Division, the number of women in sexual-slavery rings around the country is not in the hundreds but in the thousands. "You can't just look at these as isolated labor violations or sex crimes," he said. "What you get with agriculture is a pattern of exploitation that can be understood only as a system of human-rights abuses."So it makes sense that liberals aren’t interested in ending sexual slavery in farm camps nor amending the 1938 Federal Minimum Wage Act that exempted – and continues to exempt – farm workers from federally mandated minimum wage requirements.They don’t want to pay ten dollars for a tomato. Would you?And as you fire up the barbecue this summer remember that people are slaving away and dying to bring you the bounty of summer to your table. Literally.
[1] http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~tjzander/slavery.pdf
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
or someone with ready access to an email translator - French to English.Contact me offline. Thanks!
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 5th, 2006
is up [1] at 2sides2ron [2].Excellent!
[1] http://ronhudson.blogspot.com/2006/06/seventh-edition-of-carnival-of-bent.html
[2] http://ronhudson.blogspot.com/
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Monday, June 5th, 2006
I'm busy getting ready to travel to Ireland and London at the end of June for two weeks.Since I've lost luggage during previous international trips I'm determined to take everything in a carry on. No problem in the U.S. Big, Big problem on British Airways. Their cabin baggage maximum weight allowance is 13 pounds [1].Thank the Goddess for Doug Dyment [2] and the three pound Red Oxx Air Boss [3]. That leaves me 10 pounds of stuff I get to take.The whole experience reminds me both of George Carlin's A Place for My Stuff [4] and Geri Larkin's [5] One Box exercise where she asked us to imagine taking everything we owned and distilling it down to one copy paper sized box. If Larkin's exercise is Zen, then British Airways is like killer zen or something.I have been wondering if I could continue to live indefinitely on the ten pounds of clothes I take with me upon my return, and if not, why not. And why do I have so much stuff?!
[1] http://www.britishairways.com/travel/bagcabin/public/en_gb
[2] http://www.onebag.com/
[3] http://www.redoxx.com/catalog/carry-on/p_91018-air-boss.html
[4] http://www.writers-free-reference.com/funny/story085.htm
[5] http://www.harpercollins.com/global_scripts/product_catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=24792
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
