The insidious danger of teaching people that they can wear, burn, meditate or pray away what is harming them is the onus on personal responsibility.
Tag: failures
Regrettable sex and other privileges
Regrettable sex is something that should be celebrated because it teaches us what kinds of sex we do really like and what kinds of sex leave us feeling nothing much.
Remedial Decency for white people
Okay white people here is our remedial course on being a decent person: We do not call the police because a Black person asks us to leash our dog. We do not call the police because a Black person is wearing a hoodie. We do not call the police because a Black person walks too…
Darwin and fairness
People in positions of privilege and especially white people love to harp on the concept of fairness. It is one of many code words that reveals how little they care about the legacy of racism. This is going to be a sloppy attempt to decipher some of this code. Evolution and thus I am the…
you are your circumstances and other ineloquent, obvious points
Know-Thy-Self. Seems that enlightenment is defined by a person’s ability to simplify their sense of self and meditate upon it. Or that pop culture offers quizzes, personality tests, astrology, self-diagnosis to then self-help. All has contributed to a reinforced obsession with the self – a hunk of marble for us to chisel and polish. Our…
Gentrification and anxiety
Gentrification and anxiety. The effects of gentrification are an interesting lens through which to view mental health. And before I get too far into the esoteric or perhaps abstract; I think a critical piece is that gentrification is not a general term. It is not used for when a lively immigrant community moves in, paints…
not the mums
I live in a fast gentrifying neighborhood in Philadelphia. This form of gentrification is occurring as the small slice of white, middle class blocks keep expanding Northward. So it is not necessarily just young hipsters and it is not a first sighting of white folks. The attitude I most attribute to gentrification is the suburban…
to hell in a handbasket
What does success look like as we flail towards hell in a handbasket? I interpret that phrase to mean a lack of accountability, a lull into complacency, passivity – a space between being trapped and self-imposed constraints. In looking up the phrase a painting from 1515 is referenced, “Hieronymous Bosch painting “The Haywain” (c. 1515) (in the Prado,…
perhaps the only story I need to tell
Tectonic Plates Rattle In the instance of a #metoo moment or when a sexual dynamic is introduced to an academic, professional or intellectual context, the lens focuses tightly on the two primary people. The focus of that lens follows the tradition that sex occurs behind closed doors. Once we remove that constraint, the damage can…
Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster and Institutional Racism
As a historian, a classroom teacher, and aware person I cannot tabulate the amount of time I have spent trying to convince white people that racism exists. I am a white enough person that I had to be educated – but luckily that intervention happened at a young enough stage of development that it became…
inoculation to the prescient future
As a child my grandparents gave me $25 for Hanukkah and $50 for my birthday, every year from the age of six to sixteen. Only once did I spend any of that money, $15 for a Barbie car, but every other check was deposited directly into my own savings account at the Bank. I still…
eulogy for “losing your virginity”
Colloquial sayings have a role in cultures and communities, often acting as a short-hand for a common experience. It is one area where the meaning of words evolves faster than any academic or lexicographer can measure. People often complain at first at the hassle of changing a commonly used term but eventually through the powers…
collective failure 