Interview with Naomi Klein on Salon's Broadsheet
"Believing that every life has equal value" - that this should be a radical idea in our time is sad.
I really admire Naomi Klein, I think everyone should read her books; her writing discusses injustices that I care about.
When I think about these issues, it is sometimes difficult to know how much someone of a melancholy disposition ought to engage with social activism. I cannot imagine how do people who work in this field keep from falling into despair. It's hard to see from this side of the personality divide.
There does seem to be a division between the sort of politically aware person who is motivated by information, who rises to do and who can keep fighting, who is active out in the world. And then there's the sort who turns the big picture over in his head, over and over, who can't take it, who doesn't know what to do and ends up either self destructive or paralyzed.
I suppose the difference is that this sort of person is able to see and do one thing at a time, to accomplish smaller victories in battles against the big "-isms"
What sorts of personality traits does it take to be an activist? I am impressed by people who effect social change, and sometimes struggle to make myself that sort of person. But having lain those burdens down by the riverside, it is less paralyzing to focus and be active in the lives the people around me, instead of abstract global big picture thinking, although interested in social change.
It's tricky to find a balance, not to get snowed under, that's the internal challenge. And the external challenge is practical; how to manage time, how much time to spend doing what. Spending my time writing, in creative pursuit, will not do anything for the world, but it will save my life. So what's important?
April 23, 2008
April 11, 2008
Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters
I read a book that I tore through in a weekend, it was so captivating. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating your Body by Courtney Martin explores disordered eating, its epidemic proportions, and its relationship to overachievement.
I strongly recommend this book! She interviews young women, and writes beautifully, describing this need for control as a symptom of societal shifts and spiritual emptiness. It is this last claim that strikes me as particularly interesting; I didn't read it as a "young people need religion" claim, but something more like Putnam's Bowling Alone, or Affluenza, inquiries into the ways that suburbanization and other socioeconomic forces have shaped the contemporary American personality.
There has to be something going on, that disordered eating is so pervasive.
Young women who were told "you can be anything" by our Second Wave feminist mothers interpreted that as "you have to be everything." Martin captures the paralysis, the drivenness and paralysis that plagues so many young women and drives them to end up stuck - some in eating too much, some fixated on not eating at all, overexercising.
But this isn't the central claim of the book, and it is not a condemnation of 60s and 70s feminism, that is not the point.
She makes an interesting claim about this black hole (in the intergalactic sense) that absorbs all the energy of perfect girls, the insatiable drive for perfection, for something - she claims it is spiritual, in the sense of unrootedness, disconnectedness, disembodied floating, critically self aware and socially self conscious selves.
That's the part that interests me most. She is spot on about the ways that my generation of women think, how overdriven or paralyzed we can sometimes get. I certainly can relate, to the paralysis I mean.
More than that, she is attuned to the scattered selves, the searching, the trying so hard trying to be everything. She talks about "Control and ambition....we must get As, we must make money, we must save the world...we must be perfect, we must make it look effortless"
Inside the perfect girl is a starving daughter:
I strongly recommend this book! She interviews young women, and writes beautifully, describing this need for control as a symptom of societal shifts and spiritual emptiness. It is this last claim that strikes me as particularly interesting; I didn't read it as a "young people need religion" claim, but something more like Putnam's Bowling Alone, or Affluenza, inquiries into the ways that suburbanization and other socioeconomic forces have shaped the contemporary American personality.
There has to be something going on, that disordered eating is so pervasive.
Young women who were told "you can be anything" by our Second Wave feminist mothers interpreted that as "you have to be everything." Martin captures the paralysis, the drivenness and paralysis that plagues so many young women and drives them to end up stuck - some in eating too much, some fixated on not eating at all, overexercising.
But this isn't the central claim of the book, and it is not a condemnation of 60s and 70s feminism, that is not the point.
She makes an interesting claim about this black hole (in the intergalactic sense) that absorbs all the energy of perfect girls, the insatiable drive for perfection, for something - she claims it is spiritual, in the sense of unrootedness, disconnectedness, disembodied floating, critically self aware and socially self conscious selves.
That's the part that interests me most. She is spot on about the ways that my generation of women think, how overdriven or paralyzed we can sometimes get. I certainly can relate, to the paralysis I mean.
More than that, she is attuned to the scattered selves, the searching, the trying so hard trying to be everything. She talks about "Control and ambition....we must get As, we must make money, we must save the world...we must be perfect, we must make it look effortless"
Inside the perfect girl is a starving daughter:
January 28, 2008
Dreads, Rastas, Beaches, Plantations
Returning to Rastas and White Girls, the poem I wrote a few weeks earlier, I am thinking of Jazid again, as I had a conversation with an actor who has lived in Miami for a number of years about the reggae scene in Miami. She knows the arts scene well down here, and mentioned that there is a big difference between the men with dreads who I would meet at Jazid, and Rastafarian or more rootsy hangout spots. Her point was, the sort of dread who might express some form of spirituality through locks would not really hang out at Jazid, and almost certainly would not casually date white women.
As we all know, dreadlocks doth not a Rastafarian make. But thinking of the public political meaning of dreadlocks, whether intentional or not, paired with sorority/suburban/college party sort of girl, this throws the narrative trope of the hypersexual black male alongside a virgin/whore dichotomy.
The trend in Caribbean tourist spots that enables black males to use their bodies for profit does not empower white women who benefit sexually, although they ...in terms of the tradition of whiteness, as long as they sneak down to the slave barracks for their sexual pleasure
And isn't that the white male fear, that black men are hypersexual creatures, from whom white women should be protected, much of the violence toward black men comes from that deep seated subtext. So here we are, in a damn plantation mentality. That's the impression that the blatant disproportion in the color of the men and women partying at Jazid made on me. A plantation mentality, dressed up as girls gone wild. For the white girls, they choose between virgin and whore.
Jazid that night also reminded me of how stuck in these narrative dichotomies the Caribbean still is, in many ways. Unspoken white privilege, understood on "private" beaches where people of color are questioned and asked to move, whether they are hotel guests or not, is commonplace. See Down and Out at a Westin Beach by Marlon James for a personal account. Appropriation extends from the land to people's bodies. Sure, the men who engage in sex tourism are choosing to market themselves as studs, and I do not challenge individual men and women to ascribe blame. I notice the metanarrative, of bodies for sale, that this behavior plays into.
Strong words from the most fear-filled, tremulous writer I know. What the hell, today I'm in a tell it like it is mood.
As we all know, dreadlocks doth not a Rastafarian make. But thinking of the public political meaning of dreadlocks, whether intentional or not, paired with sorority/suburban/college party sort of girl, this throws the narrative trope of the hypersexual black male alongside a virgin/whore dichotomy.
The trend in Caribbean tourist spots that enables black males to use their bodies for profit does not empower white women who benefit sexually, although they ...in terms of the tradition of whiteness, as long as they sneak down to the slave barracks for their sexual pleasure
And isn't that the white male fear, that black men are hypersexual creatures, from whom white women should be protected, much of the violence toward black men comes from that deep seated subtext. So here we are, in a damn plantation mentality. That's the impression that the blatant disproportion in the color of the men and women partying at Jazid made on me. A plantation mentality, dressed up as girls gone wild. For the white girls, they choose between virgin and whore.
Jazid that night also reminded me of how stuck in these narrative dichotomies the Caribbean still is, in many ways. Unspoken white privilege, understood on "private" beaches where people of color are questioned and asked to move, whether they are hotel guests or not, is commonplace. See Down and Out at a Westin Beach by Marlon James for a personal account. Appropriation extends from the land to people's bodies. Sure, the men who engage in sex tourism are choosing to market themselves as studs, and I do not challenge individual men and women to ascribe blame. I notice the metanarrative, of bodies for sale, that this behavior plays into.
Strong words from the most fear-filled, tremulous writer I know. What the hell, today I'm in a tell it like it is mood.
January 26, 2008
Books and Books
Have I raved about this new favorite spot yet? Books and Books is an independent bookstore in Miami (that rare, nearly extinct bird). I go to the store in Coral Gables (pictured above), but there are also branches on Miami Beach, in Bal Harbor and the Cayman Islands as well! The calendar of author events is so good I sometimes feel as though I've been spirited away into some kind of literary dreamscape. The point of my overwrought superlatives - I never cease to be amazed at the wealth of art, literature, poetry and other creative opportunities in Miami. This is partly the joy of low expectations, but I do think this is a city on an upswing. Of course, in the months since I moved here I have gravitated toward my interests. My point is, either I moved here at just the right time, or this city is not asvacuous as the view from South Beach suggests.
Recent highlights include the Miami Book Fair, South Beach Comedy Festival, philosophy lectures at the University of Miami, the Jewish Film Festival, discovering West Coconut Grove, all Books and Books, all the time...and these are events I've been able to attend, not a full calendar; I'd never get to work if I attended everything I wanted to!
I do feel frustrated that museums cost a lot, and sometimes it is difficult to get as immersed in the art scene as I would like to be. Mostly, contemporary art is daunting because I just don't understand! Still, there's so much to do here, and that's not so good for my bibliographic ADHD. My greatest strength and weakness is how much I absorb, the scope of my interests, from art to tennis and radio and piano and more. Jill of all trades and mistress of none.
I absorb a little too much I think, maybe I should put some blinkers on to write, and tune out some frequencies, interesting though they may be. But then again, who wants to be a mistress....
January 24, 2008
Gotta Throw that Monkey off My Back
Robbie Williams - yes, you heard me - singing a version of the Nat King Cole song. He's quite good, and Swing When You're Winning, the album it's on, is a good listen. If you've seen Finding Nemo, that's him singing Bobby Darin's Sailin' at the end of the movie.
If only I could get my hands on a dictionary of 40s slang. When I hazard a guess, I think it's a veiled drug reference, since quitting is throwing the monkey off your back....
A buzzard took monkey for a ride in the air
The monkey thought that everything was on the square
The buzzard tried to throw the monkey off his back
But the monkey grabbed his neck and said-- Now listen, Jack
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top.
Ain't no use in divin'
What's the use in jivin'
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top.
The buzzard told the monkey "You're chokin' me
Release your hold and I'll set you free
The monkey looked the buzzard right dead in the eye and said
Your story's so touching but it sounds just like a lie
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and stay right
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top.
(instrumental interlude)
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and stay right
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top
If only I could get my hands on a dictionary of 40s slang. When I hazard a guess, I think it's a veiled drug reference, since quitting is throwing the monkey off your back....
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