OOJ: Packing Snacks

when it comes to life's simple pleasures (cotton sheets, cloud formations, clean underwear), packing snacks for a trip has been one of my favorites since i was little. whether it's a 45 min. drive to santa fe or an 11 hour plane ride to taiwan, i'm a little happier knowing i have treats in my bag. here's what i'm taking on my trip to taiwan (believe it or not, i really have been trying to cut down on refined sugar):

• trader joe's dried berry blend (golden raisins, cherries, cranberries, blueberries)
• theo 70% dark chocolate w/coconut
• nature valley granola bars
• lindt extra dark chocolate truffle balls
• assorted werther's caramel (hard + soft)
• 3 starbursts
• ziploc baggie of skittles
• reese's peanut butter cup from halloween

Pocket-sized Puberty

everything you need for a female puberty lesson on a 4x6 card, artistically rendered with a rainbow pencil. note the awkwardly drawn, anatomically misplaced uterus featuring an egg dropping down; the crazily arching fallopian tubes; the sperm swimming on this poor woman's thigh (you, too, kids, can prevent sperm on your thigh by using a condom!). let's not forget all the exciting body changes, which can be mostly summarized by stinky body hair (see the stink waves coming out of the armpits?). when you see it like this, who wouldn't want to start puberty??

SOD: Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek"

boulder, CO (april 2014)

"oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
the sweeping insensitivity of this still life"

i first listened to today's SOD (song of the day), "hide and seek", about 4 years ago when a snippet of it was co-opted into a radio r+b hit by meh singer jason derulo ("whatcha say"). back in 2010, it didn't make much of an impression, but recently i revisited the original version and haven't been able to stop listening to it since. somehow, hearing it at this point in my life, its lyrics and melody envelop and embed themselves in the fibers in my heart muscle in a way that makes me glad to be alive to experience this music. if someone can create something this beautiful out of hurt, surely there must be more beauty ahead for all of us. 

OOJ: Thin Mint Spa Day

i don't like dip: guacamole, ranch dressing, liquid orange cheese. i do, however, love dipping stuff in things: roast beef au jus, giant sourdough pretzels in crunchy peanut butter, bite-sized chunks of filet mignon in mashed potatoes. behold, my newest dipping masterpiece: Girl Scouts thin mint cookies in a tub of chocolate pudding. you're welcome.

Don't Be Surprised That People Still Say Racist Things

Donald Sterling (left) and V. Stiviano (right), forbes.com

lots of publicity this week for racist people. Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, was banned for life from the N.B.A., by the N.B.A., after a tape recording surfaced of a conversation in which Sterling made some impressively racist comments ("N.B.A. Bans Donald Sterling"). 

"BANNED FOR LIFE"- i love that phrase! it has an absolute, unyielding gravitas, like a royal decree issued forth from a throne in booming, echoing tones. am i surprised an 81-year-old white billionaire makes racist comments? child, please. "Don't be surprised that people still say racist things." am i surprised he was publicly punished for it by a group of other (mostly) white billionaires? yes!!!! (note to President Obama and Ed. Secretary Arne Duncan: can we raise funds for public education by fining someone every time they say something racist? the money would not stop flowing in for decades.) 

i realize that the N.B.A.'s decision was mostly financially motivated. Sterling hadn't exactly tried to hide his feelings towards people of color in the past; he already had a history of lawsuits against him alleging housing discrimination towards black and Latino tenants. the difference this time was the potential for monetary loss at stake- sponsors were fleeing the Clippers; other N.B.A. teams were threatening to boycott future games; and all this during playoff season. Sterling was fined $2.5 million- a slap on the pinky. the guy is worth $2 billion; now that he has to sell the team to someone else, he stands to make at least $575 million (as valued by Forbes). he's not exactly hurting for cash. 

but wait, it gets weirder. Sterling's personal assistant, V. Stiviano (a 31-year-old woman who identifies herself as mixed-race, black and Mexican), agreed to be interviewed by none other than Barbara Walters. she was the one who Sterling had been talking to in his damning recorded statements; he had told her to stop "taking pictures with minorities" and posting them on Instagram. in the interview, Stiviano defends Sterling and insists he is not racist. (she also denies being his mistress, and instead calls herself his "silly rabbit"; i'm not even going to touch that one.)

“I think Mr. Sterling is from a different generation than from the one I am. I think he was brought up to believe those things … segregation, whites and blacks,” said Stiviano.

(by the way, her statement checks two out of three boxes from my list of top 3 most annoying excuses for racist comments.)

in social work school, i learned a phrase called "cognitive dissonance". it describes the discomfort a person might experience when that person holds two conflicting beliefs at the same time. i stretch the meaning to include people who quite comfortably hold two conflicting beliefs simultaneously, whether they are aware of it or not.

both Sterling and Stiviano are fascinatingly depressing examples of cognitive dissonance when it comes to racism and oppression. both individuals chose to change their last names: Donald Sterling used to be Donald Tokowitz, son of a Jewish family. Stiviano's original family name was Perez. now i can't say for sure why each changed his/her family names, but i do know that, for hundreds of years, people living in the U.S. have changed their family names in order to blend in more smoothly with white dominant culture. in other words, if you change your last name to something that sounds less- god forbid- foreign, you just might have a better chance of succeeding with white people (who control most of the money, power, etc. in this country). 

i can only wonder at the self-hate that both Sterling and Stiviano have internalized, which is now so publicly manifesting itself as hate towards people of color. both of them insist they are not racist. "I love black people," says Sterling at one point in the recorded conversation. yet they both go on to present a perfect capsule of race relations in this country, as they discuss Stiviano's skin color. "Do you know that I'm mixed?" she asks him. later, Sterling tells her, "You're supposed to be... a delicate Latina girl (italics mine, from outrage)." NYT columnist Charles Blow has already parsed the "antebellum-level coloristic thinking" of their dialogue, so i won't press the issue. my point is this: cognitive dissonance, y'all: racism has fucked us marginalized people over so badly that we can simultaneously carry hate for ourselves (which we've absorbed as a result of white oppression), and also continue to perpetuate this oppression by passively accepting/making excuses for it (Stiviano) or committing racist acts (Sterling) on others around us.