Letters to the Editor
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My favorite poem::
Incident
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Balimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
Countée Cullen
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More Marines To Afghanistan
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is considering a plan to send about 3,000 marines to Afghanistan to bolster coalition forces in anticipation of a spring offensive by the Taliban, according to CBS/AP.
If approved, the new shipment of American troops, described as a one-time seven month deployment, will bring total U.S. forces in that country to 30,000.
Gates, according to CBS/AP, is preparing to send the additional marines to Afghanistan because, according to the Pentagon, requests that other coalition countries send additional troops there this spring have been turned down.
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Anonymust
Just as it was also necessary for whites to protest for civil rights (and probably still is), it will also be necessary for men to protest for women's rights, in order for things to change (at least on the surface). I am less sanguine about the second than the first. Apparently, Gloria Steinem is, too.
Yes. Speaking as a male, there is a substantial amount of pressure to be "in on the joke" or the bitterness toward women. It's a call to camaraderie that seems much more ingrained somehow than any appeal to racial similarity. Having been raised almost solely by a very strong-willed woman, I've always protested (or at least cringed at) sexist words and actions. It's an odd feeling sometimes, I must admit -- almost "unmanly," for lack of a better word.
I just think that gender is a stronger force than race, on the whole. Sure, there are exceptions and instances where this is not the case, but gender strikes me as much more "biological," again for lack of a better word. When you think of racial differences, beyond mere appearance you are really talking about cultural differences. Cultural differences are malleable, and easily subject to commonality, when sought. On the other hand, just think of when you go out with a group of friends that involves both women and men. My guess would be that most have experienced, during that time, a gradual sifting and self-segregating along gender lines. Rarely is that the case on racial lines, when multiple races hang out, in my experience.
I also wonder how much may have to do with the simple fact that women and men must live with (or at least temporarily tolerate) each other, whereas the races can usually find opportunities to isolate themselves. Almost ironically, the general necessity of intimate contact seems to periodically force detentes between individuals of different sexes. I wonder if the outrage straight women feel toward male chauvinism is periodically tempered and quelled by this inevitable intimacy? If so, this pressure release could effectively sap much of the energy needed to push back more aggressively.
I digress... just waiting for the day's caffeine to wear off so I can get some needed sleep...
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Thrasher...
Thanks for posting that poem by Countee Cullen. Did you know that Louise Clifton is also African-American? It makes her poem even more poignant to me, given Jim Crow laws, etc., even though I'm not sure she lived in the south. It's still there in the poem, perhaps because of her age. She's older than I am.
I found a short blog post with another of her poems that you might like:
http://poethound.blogspot.com/2007/08/lucille-clifton-poet-extraordinaire.html
Would you also be surprised to learn that one of my favorite books is Frederick Douglass's narrative of his life as a slave? And that I think it should be required reading, not just excerpts, but the whole thing...
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Might help in the future
The pollsters should add coefficients that account for voter fraud.
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Anon; I am happy for you ..You should read more Black Poems
I think it will improved your thinking..I really do..
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@Thrasher
It’s so sad and understandable why an eight year old would have to remember that racist attack as the most memorable event in an eight month period.
I hope you keep conversing with us instead of trying to startle us to get our attention. Hopefully you’ve realized that most of us regulars do understand the horrors of racism even though we will never be able to understand how it feels to someone like you who has had to live it not talk about or study it.
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@William Timberman
You wrote:The war over what things mean now differs as much from the ideological arguments of the past as nuclear weapons differ from siege engines and ships-of-the-line.
Does such a quantitative development equal a qualitative one? A real question for me I wonder about. Since nuclear weapons could mean the end of life on earth I suppose any distinctions are rendered moot with that example. But the industrialization of ideology: is it that it can progress so far that free choice itself is ruled out (if you believe in such?). Is there a qualitative dimension to the human being or not: that I suppose is the million dollar question. The best stuff I have ever read along these lines and that informs my questioning is the work of Jacques Ellul, particularly in the Technological Society, among others. It is a crucial question: is our age qualitatively different? Has all the quantitative development (in the industrialization of modifying human behavior) reached some kind of critical mass to make a qualitative difference? Or does quality, the non-quantitative, not exist at all, and so my question simply represents a category mistake? I still gamble on the reality of the qualitative, as I have not seen it decisively disproven.
I am finally a funny kind of Platonist. I do not think even our age has cast its nets fine enough to catch what it means to exist as a flower, let alone a human being looking at one.
But sometimes I have my doubts.
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Anonymust
LOL! Hot flashes are too mundane....a little bloating complicated by mood swings isn't too much to ask, is it?
Thanks also for the poem. I had never read it before. I plan on sharing it widely.