True Socialism

 Milos Forman pretty accurately sums up my feelings whenever I hear politicians and people call President Obama a socialist or a communist: They have no clue what socialism or communism looks like.

Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.

Marx believed that we could wipe out social inequities and Lenin tested those ideas on the Soviet Union. It was his dream to create a classless society. But reality set in, as it always does. And the results were devastating. Blood flowed through Russia’s streets. The Soviet elite usurped all privileges; sycophants were allowed some and the plebes none. The entire Eastern bloc, including Czechoslovakia, followed miserably.

[Via the New York Times]


As a second-generation immigrant, and one who studied her world history, I'm well-aware that the wealthy kids wearing shirts of Che Guevara's face had little idea of the destruction he later came to be a part of. A friend's mother had to coerce her way out of the Stasi (Romanian underground police) and could only claim asylum once on U.S. soil. The current tax code has nothing on the Stasi or the regime changes of Latin America.

The entire article is available here.

A Follow-up to Driving While Hispanic

There's an absolutely fascinating book called, How the Irish Became White. Some people thank the civil rights movement, and the need for white supremacist groups to try and unite anyone who was not African-American. The roots of it go back much further, and contend with how the Irish began to systematically get work within the city structures - unions, police, firemen, etc... Once you can get into the system, you can begin to change it for your benefit.

In Slate's The Myth of Majority-Minority America, the author points out that many racial census categories have changed drastically since the inception of the census. His own grandfather is a pioneer of Hispanic Literature, but outside of census categories, he's essentially white.

If the government insists on rigidly applying the current scheme, complete with its odd one-drop-of-blood conception of Latino identity, then America will, indeed, become majority minority. But long-term stability has never been a hallmark of official government thinking on this subject. Everyone knows that a large share of the black population is in fact partially white, while a smaller—but not entirely trivial—share of the white population is partially black. The future of American whiteness will likely evolve to include a larger share of ancestry from Asia and Latin America, just as in the past it’s expanded to include people from eastern and southern Europe. The idea that every single person with a single non-white ancestor counts as non-white will look as ridiculous as Elizabeth Warren’s past claim of Cherokee identity.

 [Via Slate]

This reminds me of an episode of PBS' Finding Your Roots, where Branford Marsalis confessed that as a teenager, he and his brothers used to track down white Marsalis families, claim to be distantly related, and watch them freak out. My only sadness is that they never captured this on film.

As someone who was white until she got to college, and with a full sister who considers herself white, its understandable that while Dad grew up on another hemisphere, its all a social construct. Heritage is important to me, as is knowing when my ancestors left Spain and Switzerland and what that means to my story. But what it taught me, to grow up in between categories, was to be cautious of how much I bought into the societal norms of happiness, success, beauty, etc... After that, you write your own story.

Dancing: Games and the Appearance of Effortlessness

I think one of the interesting principles of dance is that: You don't have it down until it looks effortless.

Kyra Gaunt talks about this a bit in her introduction to The Games Black Girls Play, which is an interesting look at the history of African-American women's contributions to music and dance. So, the poly-rhythms that we start learning as children in game settings - how fast can you rhythmically hand clap? - become useful later on in relating music history and social interaction.

Until doing the sequences of double dutch (a particular skill I never mastered) or drumming and dancing simultaneously, appear as though it were effortless, you can't consider the skill mastered. Because studying these rhythms were part of 'play,' outside people consider them to be innate. I spent hours on the playground with Miss Mary Mack, and Down Down Baby, and can play them still with women in previous generations. It belies all of the time and energy I expended into learning and practicing these rhythmic configurations during recess.


In an effort to separate themselves from other dances that have strict competitions and standings, I think that the Lindy Hop community has over-emphasized the idea that anyone can just 'pick this up'. It's not true, for one, and the skills that we use as adults were practiced as children. I can learn how to dance salsa or tango much easier because of my childhood training in ballet and lyrical. And while dance is inherently social, whether you dance solo, in a group or with a partner, it is also one of the earliest forms of storytelling and communication.When I dance, I tell a story with my movements and my body.

The appearance of effortlessness is deceiving, because it does not account for all of the study, training and practice. I have a friend who won the novice ballroom championship this year. People attribute his win to innate talent, which does not account for the weeks that he spent more time analyzing, practicing and training in dance than at his full time job. I can appreciate that. I think it is a false narrative that artistic talent is innate only. It's both innate and the result of skills honed.

When I perform or hit the social floor, you only see the result of study and training, not the time and energy I invested into it. Which is as it should be. I don't want others to watch me learn, I want to work out what I learned. But the learning takes time. I took a private lesson from Dexter back in March, and took notes on the different things that we worked on and ways to improve. Only now in June am I starting to really hone into what he was telling me. It's not that he didn't tell me these things or that I'm an especially slow student; it just took time to translate what he was telling me to how I was moving, and then practice the skill in the correct way.

So, this weekend, I'm excited to test out all these skills on dancers from all over the world. Huzzah!

In other news

[Via Apartment Therapy]


I wrote this for The Interactive:
Digital history: How to find free classic books and music online


I'm still someone who frequents the local library, who finds the rare jazz and blues albums, and enjoys the physical feel of a beloved book. My transient housing situation has made me select books based on their friendship, and glean the unnecessary. When I buy a place, every room will have bookshelves, and some bookshelves will lead to other rooms.

Driving while hispanic:or how I found out I was a minority

When visiting Los Angeles en route to Mexico, my friend Manuel joked that I was another "undercover Mexican."
Which is true - I've never been extra-specially screened at airport security or stopped on the highway for being Latina. My fair skin and Midwestern accent often belie my surname, to the confusion of cashiers and DMV's alike. I only truly experienced being a minority, when I arrived at college, and was expected at meetings of minorities, on a Dutch-American campus.

But many of the recent GOP candidates seem to believe that to be a party member, requires you to be Caucasian, male, and nothing else. This limited perception of who is accepted into what is supposed to make up one half of the political system in the U.S. seems to be acting like a fringe group.

The media's reaction is always that Latinos' number one issue is immigration. And it's not immigration. It's the tone in which people talk about immigration. All of the sudden, you can be a third or fourth-generation Mexican American from Colorado and not really realize you're Mexican until someone pulls you over and asks you for your papers. That's a catalyst for political awakening. I use that as an example because in the 2010 election [in Nevada], Sharron Angle, who was running against Senator Reid, basically said that her path to victory was to vilify Latinos. A hundred percent of the media she posted was racially tinged. And that mobilized nine out of ten Latinos to vote against her. But they still voted for a Republican candidate for governor. Yes, they paid attention because of [Angle's] tone, but when it came to other candidates they voted on the issues.  

[Via The Atlantic]

Due to the oppressive nature and political turmoil of many Central and South American countries, Latinos do seem primed to agree with more Conservative political leanings. My own father grew up in a tumultuous time in Chile, witnessing book burnings of 'dangerous texts' that were found in people's personal libraries. So, it's understandable that protection of civil liberties, and less influence by a corruptible government would be higher priorities on his political wishlist.

They still have that immigrant experience where they came from countries or their parents came from countries that were so horrible that they still see the vast amount of opportunity and America's potential here. If I'm a candidate, how did I package that message of, 'These are my policies on education so that your child can achieve and overcome the hardships you're facing today'?

[Via The Atlantic]

If the GOP could get past their fear of the 'other', remember that their ancestors were once immigrants themselves (Irish and Italians took a long time to be considered 'white'), and actually address the issues at hand (education, unemployment, poverty, etc...), they might stand a decent chance in the upcoming elections. As it is, all of the barely concealed racial and sexist overtones to their policies serve to ostracize the people who would otherwise support them, and polarize the party.

Porch Society vs. Backyard Society

As a typical Midwesterner, I'm a firm believer that if we have not had a long enough or hard enough winter, we will pay for it. But there is something about 80 degree weather in March that just brightens everything and makes me want to be outdoors as much as possible for as long as possible.

It also makes me miss having a porch. Sitting on the porch, watching the people amble by, dogs and babies in tow, in inextricably linked to my idea of a relaxing summer evening. One of the best things about living in an old brownstone is having a porch, and trading that for the modern backyard seems a poor bargain, especially in urban areas where green spaces are already limited.

Also, the main thing that I've noticed about porches instead of backyards, is that porches and people using the porches tend to promote a safer walking space for pedestrians. Research seems to back that up, but in a different way

"Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars."

Via The Atlantic, Broken Windows]

Urban areas are always faced with the challenges of maintaining a sense of security in a dense, populated region. One of the worst side effects of the warm weather, is that for the first few days, crime skyrockets. Yet, this article makes a lot of sense. When you see other people on the street, you are more likely to be out on the street yourself, and knowing that a policeman regularly walks the beat and knows the neighborhood, makes the neighborhood feel safer. If you called for help, someone would see and respond. This is something that I appreciate as a pedestrian - walking in an area where I am not the only person on the street.


Others claim that removing lead from the gasoline and housing is what caused the safety of urban neighborhoods:

Nevin acknowledges that crime rates are rising in some parts of the United States after years of decline, but he points out that crime is falling in other places and is still low overall by historical measures. Also, the biggest reductions in lead poisoning took place by the mid-1980s, which may explain why reductions in crime might have tapered off by 2005. Lastly, he argues that older, recidivist offenders -- who were exposed to lead as toddlers three or four decades ago -- are increasingly accounting for much of the violent crime.

Nevin's finding may even account for phenomena he did not set out to address. His theory addresses why rates of violent crime among black adolescents from inner-city neighborhoods have declined faster than the overall crime rate -- lead amelioration programs had the biggest impact on the urban poor. Children in inner-city neighborhoods were the ones most likely to be poisoned by lead, because they were more likely to live in substandard housing that had lead paint and because public housing projects were often situated near highways.

Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes, for example, were built over the Dan Ryan Expressway, with 150,000 cars going by each day. Eighteen years after the project opened in 1962, one study found that its residents were 22 times more likely to be murderers than people living elsewhere in Chicago.

Nevin's finding implies a double tragedy for America's inner cities: Thousands of children in these neighborhoods were poisoned by lead in the first three quarters of the last century. Large numbers of them then became the targets, in the last quarter, of Giuliani-style law enforcement policies.

[Via The Washington Post]

Whether its less lead or more cops walking the beat, I can support a safer urban environment.

"Don't be defeatist, dear, it's very middle class."

via the Dowager Countess, Downton Abbey

While I might resemble my mother in my love for the BBC series, Downton Abbey is a unique period piece on an era no-longer accessible to us. The last WWI veterans have only recently passed, being barely legal to serve at the end of the war.

[images originally posted on Arrested Downton]


It would be easy to just make it a nostalgic tribute, but the BBC goes much further, into investigating some of the changes this war brought about.

[Spoiler alert for those who haven't reached the end of Season 2 yet]

 An interesting character case is the now-fallen from grace Ethel, who was caught in an affair with an army officer, dismissed, pregnant, and currently struggling to make her child's grandparents recognize their now-deceased son's child. Before the days of paternity testing, before the days of birth control, pregnancy and no husband (dead or alive) means that Ethel is unable to work, living on handouts, and very frightened of the future.

While we're not sure where season 3 will take Ethel, now that she has refused her baby daddy's parents' offer to take the child off her hands, the situation does shed curious light on the forgetful nature of the contraception debate now taking place, which has dominated the American news cycle.

Birth control has been equated to abortion, called a religious freedom issue that does not concern women, and considered just cause to sue the government.

Ok, first things first.

1. Women have babies, not men. In societies where women have their children later, and have a say in their reproductive health, they live longer, and healthier, and produce healthier children. It's a sign of the well-being of an entire country.

2. Prior to the birth control we have today, most women were seen as having to suffer for having sex whatsoever, i.e. Ethel. It was common for women to be cast out of society, impoverished and marginalized for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Darling founding father Jefferson had several illegitimate children with his slaves, for example. Motherhood was not as saintly until women had the options to delay or prevent motherhood. That Ethel is blamed for her sins, while the officer is not forced to lift a finger to acknowledge his child, was a very real reality for many poorer women.

3. The legislation is for employers, and employers are held to certain standards. That this is a 'war on religious freedom' is a false claim. This is merely closing the gap on a few regulations that had already existed for decades. Choosing what religion to follow is not tantamount to having an employer decide what benefits you are eligible for. In an era of great religious diversity, its important that we have a common denominator for a standard of health. Currently, employers are the main way for Americans to receive health care. But, if a Christian Scientist employer decided to not offer health care to their employees, because of their religious beliefs, we wouldn't bat an eye at requiring them to comply. Because this issue has to deal with what happens in people's bedrooms and during an election year, it's become a hot-button issue.

4. Most Catholics don't see birth control as affecting their religious beliefs. The Bishops haven't changed their position, yet, the size of families has shrunk in the past few generations.
"Most Catholics — meaning, to be more precise, people who were raised Catholic or converted as adults and continue to take church teachings and practices seriously — now reserve the right to reject doctrines insisted on by their bishops and to interpret in their own way the doctrines that they do accept.  This is above all true in matters of sexual morality, especially birth control, where the majority of Catholics have concluded that the teachings of the bishops do not apply to them.  Such “reservations” are an essential constraint on the authority of the bishops."
-Source: NYT, "Birth Control, Bishops and Religious Authority"

This issue is primarily a women's health issue, that directly affects women's quality of life. One has only to look at the Duggar family (19 children! OMG!) and remember that it wasn't so long ago that women had ridiculous amounts of children, most of whom didn't survive, some of whom cost the mother her life. Those who survived, and couldn't be afforded were sent to orphanages, with horrible conditions. Illegitimate children were more likely to be sent to baby farms, the infanticide of said children was a hanging offense. Though dark, it was part of a long history of drastic and grisly measures (like ancient Roman mothers, when children were selected by gender) that people have taken when having no other options.

But that all changed when women are allowed to limit their fertility.  It is very old history, even if parts were forgotten, but still makes the news. In an era where we're facing shortages of natural resources, it makes sense to not follow the command to Noah: "Be fruitful and multiply." 7 billion people on the planet. Check, and check. Now, about that whole taking care of creation bit...

I've very little tolerance for pro-life advocates who act as though life begins at conception and ends at birth. There are much bigger issues at stake. Yet, poverty, starvation and the death penalty do not receive the same kind of press as a minor requirement to provide contraception to employees.

It's a very central tenet of the Jude-Christian faiths that you will be judged for your actions, but the pundits (primarily male) want to decide how women should manage their health and reproduction. Motherhood is a wonderful thing, when the mother is able to care for her child. A woman knows when she is not ready for children or marriage. This is her human right, not a culture war.

Religion is a personal decision. Reproduction should be a personal decision.