I ask the question and offer the lame lyrics partly because President Obama’s nomination of a Supreme Court Justice had me wondering about the justices’  academic background.  With regard to law schools, here’s the breakdown:

Happy Go Lucky Thomas: Yale; Ginsburg: Started at Harvard, finished at Columbia [in NYC, not South America, oh very funny]; Swingin’ Sam Alito: Yale;  Anthony “Not That Kind Of” Kennedy: Harvard; Mr. Subtlety Scalia: Harvard; Ice Cream Breyer: Harvard; Smiling Sotomayor: Yale; Kagan: Harvard.  Justice Stevens attended Northwestern School of Law–on the GI Bill.

Are Harvard and Yale just that good?  Are they good about also part of a self-fulfilling, ever-inwardly-spiraling  system of ranking.  “Well, you know, all the best people graduate from Yale and Harvard,” said the powerful man who graduated from Yale and attended Harvard Law.

If they are that good, in what way(s) are they “that good”?  Are graduates of law schools in California, Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, and Virginia (for examples) measurably deficient in comparison?  What’s the system of measurement? How much are  the current law-school affiliations on the Supreme Court owing to “quality” (and by what standards?) and how much to an Old Boy System that now includes Old Girls?

Asking myself these questions, I then moved on to wondering about the narrowness of background in the rest of our government, towards and at the top.   How many presidents sprang either from the Ivy League or from patrician backgrounds?  How may Representatives and Senators are lawyers?  (Something 30% of the H. of R. consists of lawyers, whereas over at the Senate, about 60% of the body politic consists of lawyers.)  How much of the Senate is white, male, and wealthy–with strong previous ties to powerful financial or corporate entities and/or with relatively new ties to same via lobbying and campaign financing?

All of which led to me to ask, “Are we an oligarchy?”  After which, I heard the question, “What do you mean ‘we,” Buster?  Do you have some political power in your back pocket I don’t know about?”

In other words, I don’t sense that I’m part of the power that runs the country, and I guess my answer to the question is, “Yes, the U.S. government is an oligarchy.”  But it’s just a guess.  Yes, yes, I know “we” are allegedly a republic that operates according to people granting representatives power, but that seems more fairy tale than fact. . . .

. . . . Two wee moments from the media world that bear on this issue:

In Barry Levinson’s documentary about the most recent presidential campaign, Levinson interviews Tucker Carlson, who for once came off as not smug.  Carlson’s major claim is that the political issues are just too complicated for most citizens and voters to understand, so that a de facto ruling elite is pretty much necessary.  But then Carlson turns to Levinson himself and says, “You probably know 60 per cent of the people who run the country.”  Levinson looks a bit sheepish but says nothing.

Arguably, Levinson is part of a Hollywood elite that, of course, has connections with people in high governmental places: that was Carlson’s point, which seemed ever so slightly to sting Levinson, who may view himself as some kind of populist.  I don’t think either Levinson or Michael Moore can qualify as populists anymore.  They’re made men.

Moment two: Chris Hayes from the Nation is talking with one of the MSNBC hosts (Olbermann, I think), and when asked about the financial reform legislation, Hayes more or less concedes that whatever legislation is passed, the “powerful financial oligarchy” will still do what it wants.  True, the Nation is a venerable, self-identified liberal magazine, so one of its writers may be more likely to see things this way.  At the same time, look how few major financial entities remain standing, and recall the recent interchange between senators and financiers.  The financiers looked a little put out, but that’s all.  It’s not like they’re afraid of the Senate, which is one rung down on the oligarchic ladder from them, says me.

“Oh, say can you see . . .?”   Apparently on the issue of an oligarchy, liberal Hayes and conservative Carlson see eye to eye.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s advisers plan to remove terms such as “Islamic radicalism” from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.

The change would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”

The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document is still being written and is unlikely to be released for weeks, and the White House would not discuss it.

I’m just an English professor and a writer of such things as poetry,  so I don’t know much about foreign policy or about whether such documents as are being revised matter.

From the vantage point of teaching rhetoric, I’m interested in the alleged removal of “Islamic radicalism” from the documents’ main stage, as it were.  The move makes sense syllogistically, insofar as not all “Islamic radicals” are terrorists.  Of course, before we get to that logic, however, we need to acknowledge the difficulty of defining “Islamic radicalism.”  In all religions, one person’s “radicalism” may, legitimately, be another’s “mainstream.”

The sentence reflecting the alleged Bush doctrine, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century,” is too broad from a rhetorical standpoint and probably also from  historical and political standpoints.  There’s a strong whiff of propaganda here.  Also, there are probably lots of other ideological conflicts that qualify as crucial, and I imagine Muslims and those who study Islam would agree that Islam is so multifaceted in so many different categories (culture, nation, type of belief [Sunni, e.g.], and so on) that “militant Islamic radicalism” represents too broad a brush.

But, as noted, I’m no foreign-policy expert, and whether rewriting such documents matters is another thing I don’t know.

From stats.com, here is a crisp discussion of the difference between cause and correlation:

One of the most common errors we find in the press is the confusion between correlation and causation in scientific and health-related studies. In theory, these are easy to distinguish — an action or occurrence can cause another (such as smoking causes lung cancer), or it can correlate with another (such as smoking is correlated with alcoholism). If one action causes another, then they are most certainly correlated. But just because two things occur together does not mean that one caused the other, even if it seems to make sense.

Unfortunately, our intuition can lead us astray when it comes to distinguishing between causality and correlation. For example, eating breakfast has long been correlated with success in school for elementary school children. It would be easy to conclude that eating breakfast causes students to be better learners. It turns out, however, that those who don’t eat breakfast are also more likely to be absent or tardy — and it is absenteeism that is playing a significant role in their poor performance. When researchers retested the breakfast theory, they found that, independent of other factors, breakfast only helps undernourished children perform better.

*So what caused the oil leak in the Gulf?  It’s probably safe to say broken-and-or-failed equipment caused the leak, but it’s also probably prudent to keep in mind many possible correlatives, such as off-shore drilling itself, off-shore drilling in particular areas, the practices of a particular drilling company and its crew,  and so on.

*Even in the case of smoking and lung cancer, there are correlatives involved, yes? –Such as genetic factors.  But no doubt stats.com and others have plenty of evidence on their side to claim that, indeed,  habitually smoking tobacco can and may cause lung cancer.

See: The Logic of Causal Order

A good example was and is Barack Obama’s major speech on race, a speech he was more or less forced to give during the campaign because of his opposition’s having seized on the alleged controversial remarks of the Reverend Wright,  pastor of a church the Obamas attended.  (I should point out that the remarks and rhetoric of Reverend Wright, captured on video, probably did not seem controversial to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with African American church traditions–as Obama subtly alluded to in his speech.)

No doubt Obama, his campaign directors, and anyone else with a hand in composing the speech ever uttered the words “kairos” and “prosopopoeia,” but both concepts figure significantly in his speech.

A definition of kairos, from the site Silva Rhetorica: “The opportune occasion for speech. The term kairos has a rich and varied history, but generally refers to the way a given context for communication both calls for and constrains one’s speech. Thus, sensitive to kairos, a speaker or writer takes into account the contingencies of a given place and time, and considers the opportunities within this specific context for words to be effective and appropriate to that moment.”

“Prosopopoeia” is a synonym for “personification,” but more specifically it refers to when a writer or speaker shifts into another’s voice or point of view briefly.

How did Obama deploy kairos?  First, I’d argue, by turning a defensive position (forced to say something about Wright) into an assertive position (giving an extended, formal speech on race, in which might be embedded remarks on Wright).  He made the speech “major” before he gave it. Second, I’d argue, by deciding to go to Philadelphia and Independence Hall to give the speech.  Philadelphia, city of brotherly love and site of the writing of the Constitution, which in effect and in print defined African American slaves as 3/5 human. Symbolism, anyone?

Then Obama opened his speech this way:

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.”

So, having deployed kairos, he then began the speech conventionally and patriotically, by quoting famous words. Later in this section, he compares slavery to original sin.  As I watched/heard the speech live and heard “original sin,” I knew he’d moved from the conventional to the serious.  One may quibble with the Christian context of the analogy, and/or one may think it is too melodramatic.  I thought it was apt in the sense that the colonies and then the Republic stumbled over slavery and that the U.S. has never fully recovered, partly because it has never fully confronted the implications and consequences of slavery. Note that the Governor of Virginia recently and “mistakenly” left slavery out of a proclamation concerning Confederate history.  Way to prove Obama’s point, governor.

To conclude the speech, Obama deployed prosopopoeia–personification. For a moment, he allows “Ashley” (and an elderly Black man) to speak for him, or at least to articulate a point for him:

. . . She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

A sentimental anecdote? You bet. An obvious parable? You bet.  The elder black man shows up to support Obama’s candidacy, not because the man and Obama are black (so the parable reads) but because of a selfless young white woman–in the South.  And a white person and a black person are working together, for Obama, in the South. A subtext may be this: Obama may have been indirectly saying to his opponents, who extruded as much emotion and visceral reaction out of Reverend Wright’s rhetoric as possible, “So now the campaign is about emotion, playing on people’s heart-strings? Okay!”

Classical moves in a contemporary speech, with a lot at stake: instructive.

As far as I can tell, the phrase is another one of those empty signifiers, waiting to be filled by whomever happens to be next in line. I’m sure one can find as many people who think Roe v. Wade or Bush v. Gore represented judicial activism as those who think they represented prudent application of the Constitution.

In any event, Kermit Roosevelt III seems to have written a book on the subject that’s worth a look:

The Myth of Judicial Activism

Carl Sandburg’s plain-spoken, earthy poetry places his work in a line from Walt Whitman’s to that of William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, and Robinson Jeffers–and on into some of the poetry produced by the Beats. What about his politics?

At the University of Illinois’ Modern American Poetry site, the introduction to a discussion of Sandburg includes this sentence, “That between 1905 and 1920 Carl Sandburg was active in radical politics is beyond dispute.”

Then the piece goes on to quote from Penelope Niven’s biography of Sandburg (p. 136), and I’ve bolded a few items:

“Sandburg’s socialism encompassed both the welfare of society as a whole and the value of the individual life. He found lyrical affirmations of the ‘broadest average of humanity’ in the writings of Whitman, Emerson, William James. He understood the propaganda of the self-help movement in oratory, and tried like his friend Elbert Hubbard to leaven the realities of daily existence in the new industrialized society by encouraging individual initiative. In the platform of the Wisconsin Social-Democratic Party, he found a design for the kind of society he envisioned: reformed government; the elimination of corrupted power; the prohibition of child labor; protection of rights of women in the labor force; the right of literate women to vote; tax reform, including a graduated income and property tax; urban renewal; free medical care and school work for the unemployed; state farm insurance; pensions; workingmen’s compensation; municipal ownership of utilities; higher wages and shorter hours for working people; better living and working conditions for everyone. With the Wisconsin socialists, Sandburg had found a new forum from which to ‘agitate and educate.’ . . .”

Probably few of these specific items qualify as radical today, although you never know. Perhaps free health-care for unemployed person is still considered radical by some. No doubt some people would like utilities to be privately owned, but the public ownership seems more pragmatic and less risky than casting utilities out on the stormy sea of capitalism: witness Enron. And utilities may still purchase “product” from privately held companies, so the capitalist part is still alive and well. At any rate, Sandburg seems to me to have been engaged in centrist politics–by today’s standards.

To take a contrary view, however, one might note that what qualifies as “liberal” or “Leftist” seems to have shifted to the right. If we were to put Obama’s policies over Eisenhower’s on one of those old-fashioned overhead projectors, the policies would probably line up almost exactly. And yet President Obama is routinely labeled “socialist” by some.

“Radical,” “conservative,” “liberal,” “centrist,” “socialist”: the floating signifiers of politics.

Nivens’ book was published in 1993 by the University of Illinois Press.

If you are looking for a clear, spare definition of sociology, look no further than the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim, who wrote . . .

“Sociology can then be defined as the science of institutions, of their genesis and their functioning.” (from The Rules of Sociological Method)

Strunk, White, and Orwell might have objected to the use of the passive voice here, but I think Durkheim’s use of it here is appropriate and, at worst, a nit to pick.

I have borrowed the definition from the excellent site, http://www.emile-durkheim.com/ .

So, for example, making snickerdoodle cookies with my mother is a Christmas ritual that helps me feel connected to my mother, to my childhood, to my family and their traditions. It also gives my mother and me time to talk, to catch up and connect as women – something that we have less of now that I’m out on my own and living in another state. Likewise, coloring a mandala for healing is a ritual in which I get to connect with my inner child (who loves coloring! Especially with crayons!) and work with her to create an image-prayer of what I’m asking Deity for.

All this is to say that ritual is not only something we do with other people, on big holy-days, with great ceremony and planning. Ritual can also be intensely personal, found in the small, ordinary experiences of life. One person may see a task that I find tedious and boring – like doing dishes – as a ritual of cleansing and take that opportunity to reflect on the day, on hir commitment to a clean, usable space, or what sie needs to “clean” in hir own life. Likewise, a ritual I value immensely like going to the ballet and losing myself in music, movement, and story, may be boring and tedious for someone else.

Eventually, I want to talk more about what ritual can do for us, why group ritual can be very, very good for some purposes, and even more about why I love ritual, both group and personal…but this is the core of why I love it: ritual helps me take care of myself in a thousand small, precious, luxurious ways by helping me stop, reflect, and connect.

“The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon : It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido : All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.”

Good is a word I want back in culture so badly. Instead of ‘awesome,’ and ‘exellent,’ and ‘fantastic.’ And all these things we use to describe everything from Jesus to a popsicle. We’re using superlatives addictively and there is no language left to talk about God who is superlative, who is transcendent, who according not just to those who have popularized the word ‘awesome,’ but according to the Scriptures is awesome. A pooped-out word now. It’s totally pooped out. It has nothing left within it. So we talk about God and call him awesome when in just a few minutes ago we talked about how awesome my new Toyota is. Or how awesomely low the score was in last night’s or last week’s baseball game was and so on and so forth. How I long for someone to say: ‘He or she is a good person.’ ‘This is good music.’ ‘This is merely good.’ The way C.S. Lewis talks about ‘Mere Christianity.’ The mere goodness of something.
–Harold Best, “Continuous Worship: Is ‘Worship’ the Only Word for ‘Worship’” (11:00). From the Continuous Worship Conference .

The other day I came across the audio files from Southern Seminary’s Institute for Christian Worship. Go to the site for all the lectures, but below are a number of ones that looked interesting to me. If the speaker has a related book, I’ve included some info after the links to his lecture.

David Peterson:

• What Really Is Worship?
• The Worship That Pleases God
• Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs: Does the Bible Direct Us in the Choice of Musical Styles?
• Meeting God in the Gathering of His People
• Worship That Jesus Makes Possible

D.A. Carson thinks that Peterson’s book, Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (1992), is one of the very best treatments available.

John Frame:

• Worshiping God’s Way (Part 1)
• Worshiping God’s Way (Part 2)
• Christian Worship Music: Is It Postmodern?

Frame’s two books on worship are Worship in Spirit and Truth: A Refreshing Study of the Principles and Practice of Biblical Worship (1996) and Contemporary Worship: A Biblical Defense (1997). These books make some in the Reformed camp uncomfortable, but I found both of them to be very helpful.

Harold Best:

• Music for, by, and Toward the Church
• The Glory of God in Contemporary Worship: A Shared Burden
• Text and Music: Content and Context for Music in Ministry

• The Arts in Worship: Can’t Art Just Be Art?
• Authentic Multiculturalism and High Culture
• Authentic Multiculturalism and High Culture: What of Quality?

Best’s two books on worship are Music Through the Eyes of Faith (1993) and Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts (2003). Music Through the Eyes of Faith has had a significant impact on John Piper, and he highly recommends the book.

Michael Card:

• The Lost Language of Lament
• Worshiping the God Who Takes Everything Away

For Card on lament, see A Sacred Sorrow Experience Guide: Reaching out to God in the Lost Language of Lament (2005) and The Hidden Face of God: Finding the Missing Door to the Father Through Lament (2007).

Keith and Kristyn Getty:

• World Music for the Universal Church
• Irish Hymns: A Singing Faith for the Worshipping Church
• A Musical and Poetic Vernacular for Worship: Finding a Heart Language for the Modern Church

• The New Hymns
• The Making of Worship Songs for the Modern Church
• The Songs That Jesus Said: Singing the Bible for Young Worshipers

Stuart Townend, Keith Getty, and Kristyn Getty:

• Hymns, Worship, and Christian Thought (Part 1)
• Hymns, Worship, and Christian Thought (Part 2)
• Modern Hymns: Christian Congregational Song for the 21st Century

Bob Kauflin:

• What Is Word-Centered Worship?
• Visuals in Worship: How Do We See God?
• Worship and the Presence of God
• Worship Leadership: Gift and Craft

• Piano Stylings for Effective Leadership in Contemporary Worship
• Arranging the Rhythm Section for Contemporary Worship
• Vocal Arranging for Effective Leadership in Contemporary Worship

• Healthy Tensions in Corporate Worship
• Congregational Worship as Pastoral Care

• Why the Cross Is Crucial in Corporate Worship
• Worship Music or Music Worship: The Meaning of Music in Congregational Worship
• Making the Most of the Modern Worship Movement

• Music in Worship: Divine or Divisive?
• Creativity in Worship: Novelty or Necessity?

• Worship: What Really Matters
• Biblical Worship in a Postmodern Age

Kauflin’s book is Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God (2008). See also his blog, Worship Matters. If you lead others in worship, this is probably the first book to get your hands on.

Kevin Twit:

• Exploring the ‘Why’ behind the Modern Hymn Movement (Part 1)
• Exploring the ‘Why’ behind the Modern Hymn Movement (Part 2)
• Engaging the Emerging Church with Hymns

• My Grandmother Saved it, My Mother Threw It Away, and Now I’m Buying It Back: Why We Still Need Hymns in a Postmodern World
• Hymns as Passion, Story, and Community: Exploring Connections with a Postmodern World
• New Music in the Christian Community: An Apologetic for Popular Musical Styles

Jason Harms:

• Lessons in Jazz from the Book of Daniel (Part 1)
• Lessons in Jazz from the Book of Daniel (Part 2)
• Jazz as a Means of Growing in the Knowledge of God

See Jason’s writings and music at JasonHarms.com.

John Piper:

Though it’s not part of the lecture series above, I’d be remiss not to mention John Piper’s five-hour seminar, which I would highly recommend. With the links below you can either watch the videos, read the notes, or listen to the audio for free:

• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 1
• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 2
• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 3
• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 4
• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 5
• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 6

A memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event.

Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as statues or fountains (and even entire parks).

The most common type of memorial is the gravestone.

Also common are war memorials commemorating those who have died in wars. Memorials in the form of a cross are called intending crosses.

Internet Memorials and Tributes are becoming increasingly popular. Online tributes and memorials create a way for family and friends from various countries to interact and share memories and photographs. This is becoming more and more popular as it provides a private space that can be easily reflected upon at any time.

When somebody has died, the family may request that a memorial gift (usually money) be given to a designated charity or church (rather than flowers).

Sometimes, when a high school student has died, the memorials are placed in the form of a scholarship, to be awarded to high-achieving students in future years.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t perpetuate some of these oppresive tendencies within some of our behaviors, comments, thoughts or even ideologies. So, Brown Black and Queer has created a slice of webspace in which we can openly discuss/argue some points where we may disagree and hopefully extinguish issues that potentially could impede upon our united forward movement.

In the Backyard BBQ tab (at the top of the webpage), we invite you to question things you may notice in rallies, conferences, marches, speeches or just in life that may seem problematic within our black brown & queer community.. just like you would at a family backyard barbeque.

We’s family, let’s talk..!

The first topic we’ll be discussing is cigarette smoking and its role in revolution..

WordPress.com so nicely shows me the top blogs they host even when I didn’t ask them to. Guess what’s been at the top? Stuff White People Like Now I must admit that I didn’t quite know what to think at first. This blog is straight-forward. The blogger, Clander, writes posts about common interests of white people, like New Balance Shoes, Having Gay Friends, Bottles of Water, Standing at Concerts, Vegan/Vegetarianism and Non-Profit Organizations, among many others (right now there are 96 on the list). I think that many people are talking about this blog because it seems that these ring so true for so many people. Fans seems to be white people who agree and identify with these things, but also people of color who attribute these things, maybe critically, to white people.

Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if you like SWPL or not; it is a very interesting way of analyzing whiteness. I had a class last semester with Lisa Duggan at NYU (Intersections: Race, Gender and Sexuality in U.S. History) where were talked about Brandon Teena (aka Teena Brandon by those who don’t accept his gender self-expression). We had talked about the murders of Brandon, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine, and how sexuality, sex and gender played a role in all this. Professor Duggan asked the class, “Where do you see race here?” Everyone pointed out that one of the people that were killed in the incident was a black man (DeVine) who was visiting the house where Brandon had been living. “Where else?” The class was essentially speechless. We couldn’t find any other instance of race being played out or made an issue or even existing as a mere description of a person. Finally, she explained to us that race was all over, that race was more than “blackness,” but “whiteness” just as much. We had neglected to mark the unmarked, and so whiteness was invisible, normalized to us. Think: you never have to come out as straight, only gay/queer/bi/trans/Other.

Anna Barsan posted Pondersome on this blog about the list made by the Christian Examiners on controversial classes. One that makes the list: “Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism” is Mount Holyoke College’s attempt to analyze race. The class seeks to spark thought on: “What is whiteness?” “How is it related to racism?” “What are the legal frameworks of whiteness?” “How is whiteness enacted in everyday practice?” And how does whiteness impact the “lives of whites and people of color?” This class actually causes huss and fuss, because it’s focusing on this other “side” that usually goes under the radar.

To go back to Stuff White People Like, if the site were Stuff Black People Like there would be a whole different buzz about it.. actually there probably wouldn’t be a buzz, because it’d be seen as separate from the “mainstream” blogosphere (sound like BET?) and definitely not equal, or it would be completely produced by white people as a commodification and appropriation of “blackness,” whatever that means.

——

Now, somebody’s going to get angry about this, but I need to say it. Recently, there has been a whole lot of drama in the blogosphere about Seal Press, women of color bloggers, safety, white Feminism and racism. (Links are at the bottom if you want to know more. It’s really interesting and there are many people blogging about it.) I want to make just one point. A new blogger came out recently and started a site called “Dear White Feminists, Quit Goddamn Fucking Up.” She, herself, is a self-proclaimed white feminist, and as this she had written an open letter to white feminists who are racist. I actually really appreciate the post, and it needed to happen. What I did notice is that I must have been one of the very first people to come across her blog. I believe it was even the first day she put the site up. I commented on it first, thanking her for the letter, but I hesitated in saying what I really wanted to say. Why is it that her blog came up as the top listing under a WordPress search for feminism?  Many people had been blogging about feminism and used feminism in their tags, but also addressed issues of race (among others) and their sites get less hits, or only hits within the same group of bloggers. What I’m trying to point out is that white feminism IS Feminism, and women of color are written out time and again, even if the way that people click on links. Why read a blog about sexism AND racism, when you’re only trying to solve problems for women. Racism is that whole OTHER issue (You know that capital-”O” Othering we always talk about in these circles? Well race is the Other when we’re talking about sex/gender, the “them” to our “us” and instead of of analyzing the intersectionality of it all, we choose and divide them.)

Just the fact that feminism automatically means white feminism, and if feminism is to mention race, it’s suddenly black feminism, or women of color feminism, or third world feminism, meaning it’s a whole new game of feminism that’s not quite Feminism, because it’s outside the scope of mainstream feminism. But this is a problem. Aren’t we capable women (and people)? Can’t we expand naturally our limited ideas? We should never settle for “beyond the scope.” It’s difficult to keep asking for more and more, but it’s difficult to live oppressed too.

So no, it’s not straight up racist to choose one blog that’s at the top of the Google list, but it is important to be conscious of how these systems are not unbiased and do favor those sites that match people’s own internalized, normalized ideas of relevancy and authoritativeness. Whiteness is not clear or transparent. It, too, is based in certain ideologies that exclude and we must analyze how it functions.

Other points of interest, maybe for future posts: democratization (or not) of the internet, digital divide, and internet accessibility.

Links: Dear White Feminists, Angry Black Woman, brownfemipower.com (there’s nothing there) 

Shirley Chisolm

“Black women are not one great vat of homogenized chocolate milk”

Sovereignty

Ableism

Sexual power

Structural Adjustment Policies

U.S. Immigration Policy

Report to Deport

Double Taxation

Neoliberalism

Globalization

Globalism

Capitalism

Colonialism

Imperialism

Predatory lending

Slavery

Bootstraps

Crony

Hedge fund

Handicap

Disability

Accessibility

Resiliency

1st Nations

501(c)(3)

Prison economy

Deindustrialization

Criminal Injustice System

Welfare

Community Gardens

Pathologizing wealth

Internalized Capitalism

Internalized Oppression

Sheryl Swoops

Mandy Carter

Regina Sheavers

Ruth Ellis

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Southerners on New Ground

Sweet Honey in the Rock

Staceyann Chin

Afro-punk

Spiritual incest

Pedophilia

Polyamory

Academic Industrial Complex

Andy Smith, Conquest

Colonialism of Academia

“Indigenous” and Firstness

Reservation system

Aboriginal Healing Fund

Hawaiian nationalism

Tourism, Prostitution of culture

Culture-industrial complex

Logic of elimination

Era of Apologies

Tenure

Industrial complex

Noam Chomsky

Postmodernism

False borders

Intellectualism

Angela Davis

Franz Fanon

Heresy

Umberto Eco

Ida B. Wells

Jackie Alexander

Intersectionality

Institutional isolation

Laura Bush, Afghanistan

Nawal El Saadawi, Egypt

Amina Mama, South Africa

Incite

Destructive divas

Divide and Rule

Subaltern

Ideological violence

June Jordan

Dissidence

Higher education

Indentured servitude and graduate students

Militarization of the University

Ruby Ordeñana

Jim Crow

1898

Death row and the academy

Abolitionism

Decorative Beast

Anti-intellectualism

Desegregate vs. Integrate

Master’s tools

Tokenization

Postcolonial princess

Professionalism

Cultural production

Minority and the global majority

Black Marxism

If you’ve studied gender and sexuality, you probably learned that these are both things you do, not things you are. They describe actions or thoughts, not essence. (Remember ser vs. estar?) Gracias a Judith Butler for giving us that.

This is why I have a problem with the word lesbian. Mind you, I love women who love women. That’s not the issue. It’s just that men who love/sleep with men are called gay men. Women are called lesbians. Why do men get to have the adjective and women get the noun? Women lose their identity as women to become sexually-defined beings. Men are men with a little gay on the side. I know this probably seems nitpicky. And in the end do we really need/want labels? But I think it’s important to point, especially the inequalities embedded in terms that seem to be so widely accepted outside of and within these communities.

At the workshop called Creating the Brown and Black LGBT Agenda, at the Creating Change conference this Saturday, a very important issue was brought to the table– halfway through our time there. What exactly do we mean by Black and Brown? What people fall under these categories? It seemed that the 40 people in the room unanimously agreed that people of African descent living in the United States and Latinos were amongst the black and the brown. One guy raised his hand and threw out a question that put the previous conversation to a standstill. What about people of Asian descent? He explained that in the API Caucus there was a dynamic and heated discussion of whether or not people of Asian descent in the U.S. were considered people of color.

So who is a person of color? Red, yellow, black and brown? Non-white? People of African descent, Latinos, people of Asian descent, American Indians? The answer must comes from an exercise in the decolonization of the mind, in terms of history. In the land of the United States, many people of all colors have occupied this space. Whites (whatever that means) have sustained oppressive power. All those who are not white have been bound to systematic discrimination. 

I think that it is imperative to understand that all peoples of color in various but similarly detrimental ways have been excluded from dominant, normalized narratives of U.S. (and world) history. We would be operating under the same *fucked up* mindset to think that people of Asian decent should be excluded from people of color struggles. The truth is that no, we don’t usually think Asian Americans are historically and systematically oppressed people. I picture all the people of Asian descent, Chinese, Japanese and Indians in particular at NYU’s Stern School of Business. They’re the model minority. But that is because we are excluding all those that have not been represented. I recently heard many statistics on the povrety of Whites, Blacks and Latinos in the U.S. But what about the people of Asian descent? We don’t even try to calculate these numbers.

Even more so, we do not recognize the indigenous people living within borders of the United States nation. These American Indians are, too, people of color, which I use as a term to describe people oppressed by systematic racism (and classism, sexism, etc.) Their lands, their sovereignty has been completely neglected (except as sites of legal gambling).

They are the invisible of the invisible. In the grand scheme of things, the larger picture, I don’t think it’s worth calculating and comparing the oppressions of different social groups. If we are working to fight for human rights, it is not necessary to divide. That is how we have always been conquered. (There is, though, something to say for prioritizing social activism to empower especially invisible populations.)

In the United States, in the past, present and most certainly the future, people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities have been intermixing.

I encourage people to define themselves the way they want. If you identify as brown/black/people of color, then great, this site is for you. 

    Here’s what good ol’ Wikipedia has to offer: The word queer has traditionally meant “strange” or “unusual,” but its use in reference to LGBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex,asexual, etc.) communities as well as those perceived to be members of those communities has replaced the traditional definition and application. Its usage is considered controversial and underwent substantial changes over the course of the 20th Century with some LGBT re-claiming the term as a means of self-empowerment. The term is still considered by some to be offensive and derisive, and by others as a re-appropriated term used to describe a sexual orientation and/or gender identity or gender expression that does not conform to heteronormative society.

    The most important part of this is that queer generally defines people who do not conform to heteronormative society. This heteronormativity is in terms of sexuality (sexual acts, orientation), gender, race, ethnicity, creed, ability, class, etc. Queer is an inclusive term that includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, gender-non-conforming people. Queer is also a political term. It has been reclaimed with such power to define an ideology and it used to push forward the movement.

    To be queer is different than to push for a queer agenda. Conscious allies may agree with queer politics, but one must understand that they may never fully comprehend what it means to be queer if one isn’t themselves queer. (The same goes for race, or gender, class, ability, etc.) I would argue that even people who practice/perform heterosexuality consistently may be apart of the queer movement if they are open to the idea of queerness. Thus queer signals a kind of openness that heteronormativity inherently devalues.

Person 1: With the rise of a third sector, defined as the non-profit sector, how will this affect both the private and public sectors? And, what are the relationships between the three and what will that mean for the future?

Person 2: Well, what is non-profit? Non-profit means merely a tax break. You have two kinds of non profits. Those that are genuinely good and advocate for their cause efficiently and effectively, but then you have those that don’t. So, when you say non-profit, you’re merely talking about a tax break.

Needless to say, this conversation got me wondering, and I’m still pondering. What is a non-profit? And, say the word ‘non-profit’ is a brand….how do current consumers perceive this brand?

I feel these questions are important because whether you are a political organization, grassroots, religions, a charity, professional organization, foundation, community oriented, advocacy organization, special interest group, etc… how the broad term non-profit is ‘branded’ and perceived could have large implications for your success.

Graduate student from Case Western Reserve University, Kate Luckert, provides a great outline on the definition of non-profits and various examples, including why they may/are important.

About. com‘s definition tends to support Person 2′s definition of a nonprofit:

A nonprofit organization is one that has committed legally not to distribute any net earnings (profits) to individuals with control over it such as members, officers, directors, or trustees. It may pay them for services rendered and goods provided.

The European research Network states that there is no universally accepted definition to the term: non-profit sector. There is also no universally accepted social marketing definition. My view though is…. if the term non-profit lacks in credibility and reputation, the term social marketing should be used more often to describe certain effots.

Many organizations practice social marketing, but they don’t know it or realize it. Some people say that the term social marketing is too limiting, however, I see it more as an umbrella term backed with credible research.

Thoughts?

• nonprofit.
• social marketing.
• private sector.
• public sector.

How do they relate?

In early church history the term Christian was a derrogatory term for those who followed the Christ. Patriocentrist is a term coined by vicious people on the internet to misconstrue the Biblical Patriarch’s call to examine our modern lives in light of God’s eternal standards.

So I’ve decided to own the term. I’ll be that big bad patriocentrist that I keep hearing about. I my mind it’s better than a matriocentrist or a individuocentrist, or even a slanderocentrist.

This blog is an issue driven blog, it has a narrow focus that is examining the claims of the busy bodies, gossips, and other malicious nagging tounges to see if there is any truth. I contend that everyone of the leaders of this little band of wagging tounges has an agenda or has bought into the lies of someone who does.

I will occasionally serve up for your enjoyment patriarchs from past and present in their own words so you can see for yourself.

It all began with Marty Duren breaking his Blog Fast this last Saturday morning, with a post entitled The Great Divide. In this lengthy post (with an even greater volume of comments), Marty divides those in the SBC into two categories, which he calls reformers and tories.
This general division is formulated on the heels of the statement that
“it seems that everyone in the convention at the moment falls under one of two philosophical umbrellas”. I read this post to my wife as she drove us to church Sunday morning, which is something I often do, since we have about a 20-minute drive from home to church. The post was interesting, well written, and, I believe, by creating and defining terms, helped to shed light on the current problem facing the SBC. The basic thrust of the post was nothing new, however. Those on the dissenting side still want a large tent, and those on the Conservative Resurgence side want a small tent.

This post prompted a couple of posts in response, one by Ben Cole on January 2nd where he gives a peaceable biography of Dr. Malcolm Yarnell (who plays a large part in the comments section of The Great Divide) entitled Malcolm in the Middle…. The other post, by Nathan Finn was entitled Is the SBC a Two-Party System? in which he argues that Duren’s terms don’t fit everyone in the SBC, and shows a bias against the one group and favors the other group. No real comment on this, just to let you know some of the related posts that I found. I am sure there were more. The next day, on January 3rd, Marty posted a follow-up entitled The Great Divide Exemplified, which draws from comments from his first Great-Divide post.

What I found interesting in all of this was the comments in these two posts by Druen, especially the comments by Dr. Malcolm Yarnell, and those comments that his comments prompted. Dr Yarnell is the Associate Dean for Theological Studies, Director of the Center for
Theological Research, and Director for the Oxford Study Program,
Associate Professor of Systematic Theology” at Southwestern seminary. Originally I had not read the comments of Marty’s first post, we had arrived at church before I got to that, and my browser wasn’t tabbed up with the comments anyway, and then later it had just slipped my mind. It wasn’t until yesterday (the 4th) that, reading a post by Art Rogers entitled Oligarchy that I realized that I was missing the “big show”. In the comments of Marty’s two posts all of the big-name dissenters were there: Alan Cross, Art Rogers, Wade Burleson, Ben Cole, both Littletons, and many more besides. Dr. Yarnell was in the middle of it all, seemingly not ruffled at all. All of this is really not why I started this post. That was all just intro to what I really wanted to say.

In his defense of a small-tent, narrow-parameters for cooperation, Dr. Yarnell used the term orthodoxy in comment #71 of The Great Divide, and it appeared from the context, and the ensuing discussion, that he applied the term incorrectly. I believe it would have been helpful in revealing the true nature of the tory position as just plain wrong if someone would have challenged him as to his usage and application of the word soon after he used it. Ben Cole did challenge him on the use of the term the next day in comments (#84) in the second Duren post, but I believe too much water had flowed under the bridge by that time to do much good. Cole hit it right on the head, though. Here is his comment: You and I both know that the “orthodox faith” is a fence, not a fence post. Orthodoxy allows for a variety of interpretations of sacred scripture within a well defined perimeter outside of which the gospel is not preserved.

Orthodoxy Defined
My electronic version of The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition, defines orthodoxy as: “authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine, or practice.” and the word’s origin comes from the Greek: orthos ‘straight or right’ + doxa ‘opinion.’ It is this broad, general definition that I believe that Dr. Yarnell was using, so that orthodoxy, as he was using it, meant right thinking on all of theology, concerning all matters of all degrees of importance. Historically in the Church, orthodoxy has not been used in this broad manner. Orthodoxy historically came out of the great theological controversies of the first few centuries. The great councils of Chalcedon, Nicea, and others were conviened as a result of these controversies, and the great historical creeds were the products of these councils. The purpose of these creeds, as Ben Cole put it, were intended to put up a fence to mark the boundaries between the Christian faith, and that which was sub-christian, non-christian. Those historic creeds contain the items that make up orthodoxy. To be sure there are critical doctrines missing from those creeds, doctrines that were not threatened by aberrant views and teaching. The nature of the atonement, or the doctrine of hell, for example don’t find their way into those creeds, but the principle still applies. The creeds are almost synonymous with orthodoxy. You don’t find secondary or tertiary items in those creeds. The creeds were intended to define what true Christianity was.

I believe Dr. Yarnell’s broader use of the word orthodoxy is not accidental, but intentional. This is very telling of the two camps, the reformers and tories. The latter group views that fence as the Great Wall of China, keeping any and all out, even those with the slightest of differences. They view all who are even slightly different as invaders, wanting to take over. The former sees that fence as a garden fence, intended to keep the dogs out, but not family, friends, and neighbors. It is just here where the trouble lies in this great SBC strife. We would do well to realize that these two groups often do not work with the same definitions of terms.