This is another one that really chaps my ass. I could go on forever or be really brief. I haven't got the time to waste. My best friend, when I lived in California was had been in a lesbian marriage (of varying legality) for twenty-five years. All through high school and college I had boy "friends" who were trapped in the closet. I served, on many occasions as a "beard."
In the small town where I went to graduate school the entire gay population shopped in the store I had in the mall, because they felt safe and embraced because we were "gay friendly'" They were all still in the closet at that time, poor babies, including a state senator.
We have way more important thing to worry about. Gay, straight, pink, blue, polka-dotted. Who give a hairy rats ass.
When I was young, I worked for the Federal Poverty Program in a number of different jobs, cities, and towns, including a mill town in Appalachia, that had not only a Monsanto plant, but a St, Regis paper mill as well. It was so nasty that black chunks actually fell out of the air, the local streams bubbled and turned very strange colors, and people actually got "black lung," like coal miners.
I found, not just there, but everywhere else I worked for the FPP, that there was absolutely no difference between the African American and Caucasians (about 50/50 population-wise) who lived there. Except for the very strange difference that the black people had better table manners.
I became, quite literally "color-blind," in that, if I had any reason to, I actually had to stop and think whether someone, a fellow worker, a client, a student, or whatever the case might have been, was black or white. I had to picture their face in my mind, and figure it out.
I had some pretty fierce conversations about the perceived differences with my upper middle class white friends. I broke up with my boyfriend (a surgeon) after an angry and tearful argument, over his assertion that Caucasians are naturally smarter than African or African-American people. He actually said something along the lines of their brains being smaller or something (surgeon, remember--had to have had some anatomy lessons.) Sound a little like the Aryan philosophy? It did to me. I walked home from his house in the middle of the night that night--or would have if a local policeman had not stopped and given me a ride. (Things were way different back then.) Last I saw of him except for the occasional accidental meeting in the OR.
I discovered that poverty, lack of education, and poor diet are Equal Opportunity Providers: of low IQ, demoralization, debilitation and debasement. There was absolutely no discernible difference except the one I mentioned above.
I reasoned with my friends that I had seen, in museums in Europe, carefully illustrated travel journals' from as far back as the Middle Ages, that depicted African cities with carefully laid out street plans, four or more story buildings, and the like. I saw poetry, art work to rival any I've ever seen in beauty, and writings on mathematics and astronomy. It didn't matter. I might as well have been talking to brick walls.
Unlike some of the New World ancient cultures, the African cities were primarily built out of wood, and returned very quickly to jungles. And sorry everybody who didn't already know it; the African narions were doing a brisk trade in slavery while my ancestors (I don't know what yours were up to) were still running around naked and painting themselves blue with woad.
It's time to get over it everybody. If you're an American and reading this, you're almost certainly better off than you would have been if your ancestors had stayed wherever they came here from, by whatever means.If you're of African descent, and someone offered you a free plane ticket, would you move to "back" to Africa? If you're of Serbian descent and offered the sane deal would you take it?
I cannot believe that Google just ate an entire post that I wrote. And quite a long one. I guess that will teach me, yet again--I just can't seem to learn--not to trust Google for any degree of reliability in their ever more frenzied attempt to dominate the internet, now that they actually have the drop on Microsoft, who (which--amazing how we tend to anthropomorphize these monstrous corporate entities) totally overlooked what was happening on the net in their pursuit of other unsavory things.
A word of caution, they are about to release their catch-up Windows Live Platform. I donloaded the Beta the minute it became awailable and it immediately took over my computer, offered to upload my whole life to their little database in the sky via my calendar and contacts program, and within minutes I received a message from facebook that Microsoft had hacked my account. (Exact terminology.)
Be Ware, my children, be very, very ware.
I suspect that Windows Users (fair to say the bulk of the world's computer users?) will simply have this shoved or snuck down their throats as some kind of "upgrade." So, protect yourself against it, because even though I, of course immediately changed the necessary passwords, etc. and removed every last vestige that I could find, from my computer, every time I turn on my Calendar/contacts program I have to answer "no" to a dialogue box (that I can't get rid of) I don't want my entire life and all my daily activities not only posted on the Internet but scrutinized by Microsoft--not that I don't imagine they're doing that anyway.
I have always been interested in handmade houses, "boat" houses--I really wanted to live on a boat house, because I lived in a city that was largely rivers. I am a passionate gardener and wanted to have my garden on a separate barge tethered to my house. I think maybe I might talk to this guy about building me one...
