Death to the Kid ...

Today, I learned that a sweet & memorable part of my childhood was murdered by union thugs... As a child, I used to eat the healthy breakfast my mother made for me at home, and then I would race to my best friend's home, where his mother went to work, but to compensate for being an absentee mom, she used to stack the freezer with boxes & boxes of Twinkies. Up to the last time I saw my best friend's mother many years ago, prior to her passing away after her battle with cancer, we laughed for decades about how she couldn't figure out WHY she constantly had to restock those Twinkies -- it was me. Yes, I had an obsessive love affair with our beloved junk food cream filled cake, the Twinkie. 

'Tis a sad sad day that yet another slice of American pie is going by the wayside... A sad day, indeed.

Deaf culture

A few Weekends ago I was invited to go to an event hosted at San Diego State University by The Office of Intercultural Relations Collegiate Dialogue on Diversity. The event had various workshops-

I attended many of the workshops during my visit but the last workshop I got to attend stood out. It was “Deaf Culture: Communicating With Your Peers” which was out of my comfort zone because I don’t interact with people who are deaf.

Not by choice, I just don’t find myself in situations where I’m around people who are deaf.
Once the workshop got going there was this gentlemen standing in front of us. He looked to be of African decent, well dressed and was using sign to communicate. Isidore Niyongabo was the presenters name. There was an interpreter there as well. It was kind of magical how she could that put his elegant gestures into spoken words. It was quite a marvel to see as he made each sign with such precision. I knew from prior experience that it is good  etiquette to look at the speaker as he signs and not to focus on the interpreter.

He told us that he was not born here in the US but somewhere on the African continent.  He really opened my eyes to the major challenges that faces American Sign Language. I had no idea of the turbulent history behind a language that has struggled to survive for so long.

He explained things that I would never would have had the courage to ask a deaf person. He told us about the social dynamics within the deaf community. He shared a phrased that is used within his community that I never have heard before. It was the term “Not Deaf Enough” which was the source of a very sensitive topic. Not being deaf enough is associated with a type of discrimination that people who are deaf might use against somebody who might just be hard of hearing or just reads lips and does not sign.

I never gave it any thought before that workshop about how people within the deaf community could take issue with those who want or just merely can heal or fix their particular affliction. It seems absurd to think that a group of people are using their disability to discriminate against people who share the same disability just not as severe or they found a way to cope with the audible society. Bizarre.

After the presenter was finished we got to learn a few signs which happen to be more fun than I had anticipated. I’m really glad I took the chance and exposed myself to something out of my usual comfort zone.

Game Of Life

For the second concurrent session at SDSU's Collegiate Dialogue on Diversity I participated in the “Game Of Life”.

It was a game of social perceptions and how social interactions produced sometimes very unbalanced and biased disseminations  of opportunities and wealth in society.  I witnessed so many injustices within the game that made some students irritable.

When we first walked in we were assigned name tags that held our classification. The workshop leaders kept the meaning of our special little name tags a secrete. As each one of us got our random designations we were sent off with a “In there Ma’am” or “Through there Sir”. Some were encouraged to cut some folks and others were told to just go in and don’t get in the way of the others. Needless to say, from the start I was very intrigued.

When I got my tag and walked in and I was greeted at the table designated as the bank, “Hello Ma’am, how can I help you?“ I replied that I needed a job and didn’t know were to go. She told me I could jump to the front of the line and get a job at the employment and housing department across the way. I did what the young lady asked and saw one of my classmates in line. It was Kariah, she showed me a piece of paper and said “ I’m trying to get a job but I don’t know what to do with this paper they won’t help me.“ I looked at the piece of paper she was holding and saw “asdfl;khj - a;diojadf;“.

I was like” damn girl sucks to be you” and I proceeded to skip her in line and just as I did, Kariah protested. Right at that moment the guy who was the policeman came and said to me, “ Is she harassing you?” I said “she was” and just like that he took her away with no hesitation. As he took her away he stated that he can't understand her and that she was going where she belonged. It was at that moment that I realized her I.D. was that of an immigrant.

I myself faced hardship too. I was able to witness in some measure what it was like to have the same job as a male but not the same compensations as a female who is just as qualified. While my male equivalents were living it up, I was stuck trying to save twice as long just to afford half the stuff they acquired with their prestigious titles.

 After a while I started to help out the down trotted who were just trying to acquired a basic education.

The whole activity was an eye opener of how important taking advantage of education can help diffuse some of the pitfalls that people of color face. Additionally they made us critically think about our own prejudgments and some of the injustices that society inflicts that at first glance seem intolerable but we ignore it on a daily basis. Good workshop.

Think Like A Man And Act Like A Man

I had the honor of being invited to "The Office of Intercultural Relations Collegiate Dialogue on Diversity" at the San Diego State University. There were a few keynote Speakers at the event, Dr. James Kitchen and Washington Navarrete, who were very interesting to hear out. The event had various workshops-

-The first workshop I had the pleasure to attend was “Think Like A Man And Act Like A Man”  which was very insightful. We took a good look into the of what a man really is and what society thinks a man should be.

One of the questions asked was “ What is a man? Or better yet what qualities make up a man?“. And it was pretty steady around the table that a man should be; Strong, dependable, honorable and have the gumption to be accountable for his actions whether he’s being judged on his merits or his failures.

 Almost on cue, two ladies trickle in and sit down next to me. Naturally once they were brought up to speed the two ladies had their perspective to contribute. One lady agreed with the gentlemen and adds that a man should be respectful towards ladies as well. We all uniformly agreed to her notion and then it happened. Her friend or colleague started to interject a litany list of stereotypes, “a man should have a job, and be able to take you somewhere in his car...” When she stops and realized that we were all not laughing with her but to the contrary she got a little embarrassed. At that moment  Eddy chimes in that she was right to say those things because society or American culture says she’s right.

He also made a good point about that fact that we don’t value a mans ability for compassion. Nor is it encouraged to talk about- feelings among men. We went on to explore other facets that make a man a good person rather than just a man or the projection of what a man should some up to. The whole experience was very intellectually stimulating and put perspective on some of the values within myself.

The N-Word. You Know Which One.

“People are using it out of context. People are also denigrating themselves by using the word and disrespecting their history, disrespecting the history of a people and a country and also putting themselves in a negative light that we need to correct.” - Newsday.com, Councilman Leroy Comrie, sponsor of a bill to enact a moratorium of the use of the word “nigger“ in New York.

Councilman Leroy Comrie

The City Council unanimously declared a moratorium that carries no penalty but aims to stop youth from casually using the word, considered by most Americans to be the most offensive in the English language.

  Now, my only problem with this is that we have already been objectified as a people with this word. This argument would be more plausible if we can suggest that the word had recently evolved in daily language and discourse, and therefore was no longer growing in power.

 However, this is not the case. The fact of the matter is that the word has held power for over four hundred years and still holds power as demonstrated in the mere fact that Chris Rock, a very notable comedian, still associates the word with its original calumnious meaning.

In one of his stand up shows, Rock says that “there are black people and there’s niggers.” If you listen to one of Chris Rock’s shows entitled “Black People vs. Niggers,” he associates the word nigger with certain types of black people with everything negative. For instance he states “I love black people but I hate niggers. I wish they would let me join the Ku Klux Klan.” and “The worst thing about niggers, niggers love to not know, niggers love to keep it real, real dumb...niggers don’t read”. Here Rock, a black male associates nigger with everything negative like dishonesty, distrust, laziness, and ignorance. Interestingly enough, Chris Rock makes the clear distinction that it’s not all blacks, it’s just the niggers!

To suggest that we could take its power away by using it now, does not make sense simply because slavery has already occurred, black people are still underprivileged in America and the past cannot be erased. Therefore, when African Americans try to rid the word of its power by using it negatively, they are only proving that the word still has power. I'm just stuck.

How Men Really Feel...

No man wants to be separated from his children.

Every night, the Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade goes home to his two sons. He was awarded sole "care, custody and control" on March 11th after a year-long court battle with his ex-wife Siohvaughn Wade.

Following their recent divorce, Dwyane claimed that Siohvaughn wasn't allowing him to see their two sons, ages eight and three, and the court agreed with him. Her actions in this case alienating the sons from their father were so heinous that a court had to recognize it and do something about it. This ruling was rare.

Siohvaughn "has embarked on an unstoppable and relentless pattern of conduct for over two years to alienate the children from their father, and lacks either the ability or the willingness to facilitate, let alone encourage, a close and continuing relationship between them," said the court's papers.

The problem is, Siohvaughn is far from the only woman to pull the stunt called Parental Alienation. PA is a very common tactic used by women like Siohvaughn who have no problems manipulating, distorting or trying to dissolve a father's bond with his child.

In typical cases of PA, visitation after visitation is denied repeatedly and both parents are consistently in and out of court. In the most extreme cases, one day the father wakes up to learn his child has been relocated to another state or country without approval or notification. This is a form of kidnapping. But the crime rarely goes punished.

Several years can go by before the child is found and at that point, the child will have grown up not knowing or being able to bond with the father. For some reason people don't think this hurts men. 

But no man in their right mind wants to be separated from his children.

I know this first-hand. For two and a half years, I was separated from my two daughters and son, then ages five, three and two. During that time, there were no two hours within a given day when I didn't feel the pangs of loneliness in my heart caused from not being able to take part in my children’s daily lives. I had anxiety attacks. I cried thinking about how my daughters were doing, how they were growing and what they were experiencing. But more importantly, what I was missing in their little lives.