may you now find peace, Frances

Sorry it's been awhile since my last post. being a full-time student and a part-time employee is a hellavua lotta work! I don't remember it being this hard the first time. but then again, when I was first in college I didn't really sleep. I was talking with another friend, in her mid-thirties, who is also back in school. she agreed that it seems like more work the second time around, but she thought that maybe we just take it more seriously now.

I certainly feel that I have a greater responsibility to refute assumptions from professors or fellow students that seem to be rooted in classism or mysogyny. for the most part, my fellow students are very open to hearing the old hippie grrl's ideas. there is a guy in one of my classes who is really working on himself -- it's beautiful to watch him struggle with the words that express his own ideas but that don't promote old stereotypes. I gave him props in class the other day -- I certainly don't recall any 20-year old guy at harvard in 1990 challenging his own assumptions like that. way to go rob! :~)

I'm still struggling with my leadership class. the title is "leading in the global community: leadership, culture, & ethics" but the professor is *sooooo* dominant paradigm (mid-forties, white, attractive, upper-middle class, married homeowner with no kids, former successful business owner)! there is no global perspective in this class at all. tim seems to think that, because American companies became multi-national corporations and expanded into "developing" nations, a global perspective is simply one that includes the understanding that capitalism and American "democracy" are expanding throughout the world. the term "cultural relativism" is not in his vocabulary. he's actually said that globalism is a great thing, that countries like Haiti (which he visited for 2 weeks so he feels qualified to use it as an example) have been "greatly improved" through globalism. he's also said that "capitalism is not the enemy" (obviously he hasn't read anything outside of the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Grover Norquist in the past 20 years). I struggle with my own reaction to this instructor. my gut reaction is to dismiss him as an idiot. but that's not fair, because it's not his fault that he was born into priviledge, has always lived on the "right" side of the tracks, and has either been in school (he's now working on his PhD) or been a business owner for his entire adult life. the system works for him. he's never been exposed to the pain of being poor, black, female, non-Christian, queer, or whathaveyou in the United States. it's not his fault he's ignorant. it is, however, irresponsible of him to be teaching a class in an area that he has zero ability to understand. (although I think it's more irresponsible of the university to approve of his teaching it.) I have my first paper in this class due thursday. it's been a struggle to write a measured response to the classist bullshit of our main text (the one I quoted in an earlier post, about elitism; trust me, the book DOES NOT get better). but thanks to Byron, my peace & justice professor, I've found a way to be both authentic and to critique the author's assumptions.

I have three professors who are wonderful, thoughtful, beautiful people, and just the one who is a poor teacher. not bad, really. and, it's not like the world is free of "tims", so it's a good education that challenges me to express myself in a coherent and persuasive way to someone with such limited knowledge of the world. besides, I am highly motivated to earn an "A" in this class, or at least to craft my papers in such a way so that for him to say that it's not A-level work would create suspicion that he graded down due to my political views and not because of my writing skills. which are pretty frickin' good, if I do say so myself. ;~P

my struggles with tim are similar to my struggles with death penalty advocates. I'd like to think that most of you have heard of Frances Elaine Newton, but chances are many of you haven't. please read her story (this posting's title is a hotlink). it's important to know what injustices are happening. if we don't educate ourselves, how can we be effective agents of change? Frances was exectued in texas a few days ago, ostensibly for murdering her husband and children. even though evidence suggests otherwise. she was not awarded a new trail, even though her lawyer said, on the record, that he assumed she was guilty so he didn't do anything on her case except show up in court (btw, he has LOST every single death row case he's represented. all 16.) the entire case rested upon the fact that she had taken out a life insurance policy a few months prior to the killings. an insurance policy that she got at the same time she got auto insurance. to replace the life insurance policy she used to have, but had to drop because she couldn't afford it. my dear friend Wise Crow lives in texas, but even so I gotta say I'd really like to force the state of texas out of my country. aside from a handful of people (Ann Richards, my women's studies teacher, and paige & kendall among them), has anything positive ever come from texas? putting mentally retarded people on death row? gerrymandering congressional districts? inflicting G.W. on the entire world? c'mon texas -- to the rest of us, you're the scary uncle we never want to visit. their motto shouldn't be "don't mess with texas", but rather "have a mess from texas". know also that there are many people on death row, both in texas and other states. do a www.dogpile.com search for a state's department of corrections to find out who. some of them ARE NOT guilty. I don't know which ones (okay, I know Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent), but it's just the law of averages that some didn't do the crime. you can write a letter on behalf of anyone. and if you live in the state, you can put pressure on your governor, your state officials. you can even get involved with visiting prisoners on death row. just think of what an amazing gift that is. some inmates don't see a visitor for YEARS. can you even imagine that. of course not. we humans are social creatures. we need social contact. the thought of what these folks deal with makes me sick. here in the denver area, the new foundations nonviolence center has a prisoner visitation program, but I know there are similar programs across the country. if that doesn't work for you, there are also book programs that get reading material into the hands and minds of those behind bars. check it out. http://www.prisonbookprogram.org/ they even have a (slightly out-of-date) blog here: http://prisonbookprogram.blogspot.com/

I am sorry to leave y'all on a serious & depressing note, esp. after my last post (hey tigger grrl, didn't you say that you love to laugh?) but I really gotta do some schoolwork. 'cuz I'm gettin' the highest grade in the class on my paper, dammit! :~)

peace,
tigger grrl