I keep meaning to introduce you to Albért, my turtle. I got Albért last summer at some point, and named him after Alber Elbaz of Lanvin. Don’t you think they look alike?:
From thegloss.com
Anyway, we’re moving this weekend. He’s lived in this bathtub for a year, among the Dr. Bronners.
What a house; my, she was yar. But it’s onward and upward from here.
I got into a really dumb internet comment argument this morning and it made me think of freedom of speech and the rights of man. America was founded on the idea of the ‘pursuit of happiness,’ but what about the situations where your happiness can affect someone else’s? To what extend are we allowed to pursue our own happiness to someone else’s detriment?
I was talking about this to a friend of mine who is a philosopher, he said this conundrum can be solved easily, just insert the caveat that ‘as long as it’s not hurting anyone else.’ In our overpopulated world, though, I don’t think it’s quite so simple. As someone for whom sleep is very important, I always think of loud music as an example, at what point is it a nuisance? Loud music makes the listener happy, a good nights’ sleep makes the sleeper happy. Who gets to pursue happiness? The original listener or the one trying to sleep?
What if you’re an artist and your art is painful to other peoples’ ears? Can you say words that are mean? How mean can they be? Can you say racist things if they are true? What if you’re a racist and you don’t know it? What if your happiness comes from a sexual fetish that involves consent? or children? What if your traditional food is prepared in a very smelly way (looking at you, KimChee)? What if what one person thinks is a compliment, you take as an insult?
These are things that you can do to be happy, what about things you’re not even conscious of doing? What if you smell bad? What if your body is so deformed (or attractive) it makes people uncomfortable or distressed? What if your speaking voice is so loud it hurts (sensitive) people? Where is the line between discomfort and pain?
In a way, this is minutia, but I also think it’s extremely important. These issues come up all the time, and they will come up more and more as the world’s population increases. I’m sure the founding fathers didn’t really have to deal with their neighbors loud music, they could just pitch their tent in the empty space a mile away. We don’t have that much empty space anymore. In fact, I can’t really think of a situation where you can pursue happiness without affecting other people in the process.
I realize it’s a privilege that I get to write about these things and I want to take a moment to appreciate that I have these freedoms and I have the right to talk about them, and question them. Not everyone has these rights, as intimated in the recent Ai WeiWei documentary (haven’t seen it, just heard them talk about it on the gabfest)
Feel free to comment if you have any answers, these are just questions.
My mother is a nurse at San Quentin State Prison. She’s worked there for 4 years but for security reasons I’ve never had the opportunity to visit her there. This weekend a group of San Quentin inmates and staff partnered with Avon for a walk to end Breast Cancer in the San Quentin Yard. This is one of very few opportunities for inmates to interact with civilians. We didn’t really know what to expect going in.
First there were some ground rules: we weren’t allowed to take anything in except our IDs and car-keys. We weren’t to take anything out with us either. When interacting with the ‘men in blue’ the only physical interaction allowed was a handshake. We were also reminded never to run on grounds as the gunmen in the towers were instructed to shoot anyone running. When we walked in and the bars clanged behind us there was no doubt that we were in prison.
In the yard (which my mother can see from her office), men were lifting weights, playing tennis and basketball and generally enjoying what turned out to be a very nice day. It didn’t feel all that different from a very ghetto park, except with more barbed wire, and everyone had on blue (except the other walkers in pink shirts and the guards). As we sat in a back room we were told that there was a delay with the opening ceremony as we were waiting for prisoners to be let out of lockdown.
After meeting the inmates involved in SQ CARES, we took one silent lap around to remember those we’d lost to the cancer. We were told that 5 laps around the baseball field was 1 mile. While we wouldn’t be able to complete the 39 miles because we were only allowed on grounds for a few hours, the inmates would do just that over the 2-day weekend.
As we walked, men began to recognize my mother, their nurse. The first man who walked some laps with us had seen my mother for some back problems he’d been having. My mother told him we had waited for some guys to get let out of their cells, ‘Who was on lockdown?’ she asked. ‘Whites’ he answered. As he said this, I noticed how racialized the yard was. There were maybe a couple hundred men around, the vast majority of whom were African-American. There were a few whites, latinos and Asians but mostly black men socializing with other black men.
After a bit, a man about my age (mid-twenties) asked if he could walk with me. He told me about his favorite music (Tupac) and I tried to keep up with the conversation as he talked about Rap and Hip-Hop artists he liked. I noticed that some of the men in the yard had discmen with headphones in. He said they could borrow cds from the library and he had some friends who had lent him different albums. I noticed that most of the songs he mentioned were popular in the mid-ninties, making me wonder how long he had been incarcerated. But after a few laps I think he realized I was mostly a pretty boring nerd and wandered off to walk with someone else.
Most of the rest of the time I walked with a man named ‘Luke’ who initially asked me for a quote, he was on staff at the San Quentin Newspaper. He walked around with a handheld wordprocessor which he typed with one hand. I learned that had also played Hamlet in a recent play (recorded by KQED). I talked to him for for some time, he was very well versed on current events and had interesting things to say about Barack Obama, Governor Jerry Brown and the state of the American economy. When I told him I was in Computer Science he told be about a project he had been working on. Like any newspaper there were always some articles that were submitted but unpublished. He said he wanted to start a website to put up the articles that couldn’t get published in the newspaper, so that the people could feel like their words weren’t going to waste. I told him a little about HTML and that I would do what I could to help him, though this might not be very much, since I couldn’t exactly come in and get a flash drive from him.
The walk ended with a closing ceremony on a small stage in the middle of the field. There were announcements as we’d reached the $10,000 goal and some prisoners performed a rap they had written about walking to fight breast cancer. The experience was truly unique. I certainly had many moments of anxiety, but unlike my experience in the Afghan refugee camp, I was with my mother. She knew all the guards (who joked with her about her chronic tardiness, CPTime), all the inmates who knew her were happy to see her, and we kept the mood light, in intense environment.
When I got home to my computer, I realized that San Quentin News was already online at SanQuentinNews.com but Luke didn’t know because they didn’t have internet access on grounds. While I was online researching San Quentin News I started to look up what these people had done to end up in San Quentin, but I stopped myself. Remembering that the worst thing you do is not the truest thing about you, and that these moments we shared were as true as any others.
This week I did 3 black things; I read Baratunde Thurston’s How to Be Black, I saw the Questionbridge Installation at the Oakland Museum and I went to a talk by Remi Omodele about her new book Weighing the Cost of Pin Making. Although there are many aspects to my identity, this week I engaged in the black part of it, and it felt good.
In his book, Thurston talks about how no one is the perfect amount of black, some people are accused of not being black enough, others of being too black, no one is ‘just right’. For him, he grew up in the inner city without a father (his “hood had everything The Wire had except critical acclaim and the undying love of white people”), but he has a degree from Harvard and also likes computers, camping and classical music. My ‘Negro credentials’ are that I grew up with a single mother in Oakland, and my father is Nigerian (actually from Nigeria), but I too have a fancy degree and a love for computers, camping and classical music. I had a great time reading this book, laughing out loud and thinking about when I first learned the term oreo, the differences between being a black friend and being a black employee and what it means to be black in America.
I went to see the Questionbridge Installation because my friend’s brother was involved in it. The installation is as simple as it is effective, it’s just black men asking and answering questions. Questions like ‘How do you feel about White Women? Why do you University educated brothers think they’re better than ones in jail? What would you do if white people didn’t exist? among others.” It was a very diverse group of men, many viewpoints represented. Being a black man is obviously different from being a black woman, but the issues raised about black identity were relevant and important. It brought up some questions I wanted to ask, can something be both true and racist? How does biracial identity change demographic and political trends?
Last night I went to see Remi Omodele, a family friend, talk about her new book. The book is about the life of Ulli Beier a teacher who had a huge influence on the Nigerian educational system. The title of the book comes from a saying that the British had about the ‘Natives’, that they were so uncivilized that they couldn’t even make a pin. This colonialist attitude was internalized by the Nigerians and they had begun to discount their own traditions. Beier helped them to document and embrace their own traditions. I went to the talk with my father who is from Benin City. Although Beier was in Yorubaland there are many linguistic and cultural similarities between the Yoruba and the Edo people. The message seemed to be that in order to combat the divisiveness and strife of modern times we need to look back to our traditions.
What does all this mean to me? I’ve spent most of my life in school; I’m quite good at being a student, in fact I’m starting again in the fall. I have never really been in a class that had more than 1 other black girl. I’m used to being the token Woman of Color. There are many different aspects of my identity that make me unique, I don’t think that being black is the most important part of my identity, but I do think it is very important, if not for myself, than for the way that other people see me. Black people make less money, have shorter life spans, higher health risks and lower economic prospects in this country. When people see me, they see this history and these statistics as well. I think if America survives this present crisis that there will come a time when race is less important to the way that people see me in this country, but this time hasn’t come yet. Most people see me as a Black Woman, and I’m happy with that.
This morning I woke up from a terrifying nightmare where someone kept trying to read my journals, it was awful. It didn’t take much for me to realize it has something to do with some blogposts I had been planning for today, one more political and one more personal than usual. The personal one I have amended and posted below, and the more political one about the Afghan war I will post soon.
I can’t stop thinking about the visceral feeling of disgust and disdain. They way scorn feels in your body, to be embarrassed or ashamed to even be near something. Lately I have been shown some disgusting parts of my own self. The idea that I have incited this same feeling of revulsion in someone else is truly sad and terrifying. But mostly it’s the emptiest feeling in the world to know that your secrets are out, everyone knew them the whole time, and that some of the ideas you’ve been fighting against were right all along.
But here’s the thing, I have the smartest, most talented and awesome friends in the world. Today I want to celebrate some of the creative achievements of my friends:
A Chapter from Lily’s Book
I’mRevolting’s Revolutionary Collection of Feminist Things
A Travel Video from Jiffles
James’ Geologist Cover Band
My favorite song from Cindy’s new EP
Nat’s Muckraking Journalism (Maybe he can tell me why it was taken down from the New York Daily News?)
If you want me to I’ll take your link down that’s cool, but keep in mind that you guys are the only ones who read this so…
P.s. A bunch of buddies involved in C.A.M.P.
I’ve been postponing writing about my experience at the refugee camp because it was really difficult and scary for me, but I think it’s important to write about my experience and share it with others. When we checked in with Global Exchange a couple months before the trip we talked about our itinerary and I was a little worried that our itinerary wasn’t more firm. I’m a planner, and I like to learn about the organizations we are going to visit beforehand. The people at GX said that the reason why our itinerary was not more firm is because of security, that we may be visiting places like an underground school and a refugee camp and that for security reasons they had to keep our plans flexible. After our first day in Kabul I realized just how flexible our itinerary was, after getting of the plane, we visited 3 places that were slated for different days. Our tour guide asked if we wanted to go see a refugee camp; I had no interest in doing so, however my fellow travelers convinced me that this would be a singular experience and I had vowed to be more adventuresome on this trip. Our tour guide said if we go to the refugee camp that we should go on a Friday, the weekend, because on this day there would be more people to interview; the men work during the week. So we decided to go to the refugee camp that day.
In the morning we went to see Kargha Lake nearby, in the car, our tour guide Najib talked to us about his country. He explained that most Afghans don’t hate Americans they hate the Pakistani Military and the American policy. Although they felt there were improvements under Obama, they felt that there could only be progress in Afghanistan when American stops giving money to the Pakistani government which is funding the Talilban. Although he said there was not very much anti-American sentiment in Kabul, he said that we might find some in this refugee camp. He told us that the people in this camp were from Helmand province where they had been displaced due to US and Taliban bombing. Najib explained that the reason why we were able to get into this camp is because he knew one of the camp leaders whose name was Ismail. Najib had been a surgeon during the war had taken Ismail’s son to the hospital, this is how they knew each other. Najib also explained that we may have heard about this camp because the New York Times had recently written a story about it because they had a particularly difficult winter and some children had died of exposure.
This was our second day in Afghanistan. I didn’t know the tour guide well, I didn’t know my compatriots well and, although I had read about it for years, I hadn’t really experienced Afghan culture. I would later come to understand that all these people had my best interests at heart, but walking into the refugee camp was shocking and terrifying to me. It was early spring and everywhere we went the ground was partially frozen. The sidewalk in Kabul isn’t always paved and in this part of town it was not only muddy but smelled of raw sewage. When we walked into the tent city we were greeted by Ismail (Najib had called him on his cell phone), and other elders, as well as children who were curious about these strangers in their midst. As we walked in, sat down and waited for the journalist to set up her equipment, I decided to do what I normally do in situations that confuse and intimidate me, I observed carefully, took copious notes and sought to understand what was going on around me.
“We fill pre-existing forms and when we fill them we changed them and are changed.”
-Frank Bidart in The Pale King
Cheers to me for 3 more months of blogging! I’ve been caught up in an intimidating mess of bureaucratic red tape lately and so I think it’s important to look at the bigger picture to see what I’ve accomplished, feel grateful for what I have and also to write down facts for the record, so in the past couple months (in chronological order):
-I went to Afghanistan
-I got into Mills for Computer Science
-My house was burgled again
-I saw a psychic astrologer
-I finished my online Java course
-I cooked my first roast chicken
-I began a new treatment for a chronic illness
-celebrated one full year in our wonderful house
-I changed and was changed
In the next 3 months I hope to take some more pre-requisites, do some more cooking, catch up with some old friends, and once again successfully plunge myself into the future.
Here’s to 3 more months.
Day 7 was kind of a Great day. I think it was Day 4 that we visited all the places I wanted to go, which was fun, but Day 7 was inspiration day. In my brain I differentiate between good and Good, good is just an adjective eg, lunch was good; Good is a moral claim, it implies character, virtue; the Olympics are Good, Sylvia was Good. These were all Good organizations. On March 7 we had visits with 3 Good humanitarian agencies, in fact if I was going to chose 3 organizations to publicize it would be these three. They all do great work, have mass-appeal and really need our help. If you’ve got a couple extra bucks that you got back from your taxes you might want to send them this way.
The first was Aschiana, meaning bird’s nest. It is a school for street children.
The organization recently published some statistics finding that Kabul has 60,000 street children and the number is increasing. Due to budget restrains Aschiana can only help the neediest, so in order to qualify you must either have a disability or a single parent. This is a picture of the founder, Mohammad Yousef, with a disabled child.
Below you can see some of the art that the children have done. I think their version of the famous ‘Remnants of an Army‘ painting is even better than the original.
The kids were taught in shifts; conventional subjects and also trades including woodworking and calligraphy. Until recently they were also taught theatre and music but these programs were cut because they couldn’t afford to pay the staff.
At lunch we met with Wahid Omar from Afghans for Tomorrow. Afghans for Tomorrow is a pretty great organization, organizing educational, agricultural and health programs across the country. What was most important to us though, is that they let us stay in their guest house and provided our wonderful tour guide. Without A4T I’d never have gone to Afghanistan, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog!
Finally, we went to see Jamila Afghani of Noor. All of us were so impressed by this lady; a handicapped Afghan woman from a conservative family with a Masters in International Relations and a PhD in Islamic Studies. She has been a women’s rights activist for many years. She recently started a program which trains imams in women’s rights from an Islamic perspective. Through their sermons she hopes to inspire and educate the public. 
After hearing that my camera had been stolen, my fellow traveler Tim Kutzmark kindly sent me some of his pictures. He’s awesome. I’ll try to post a few of his pictures from each day.
This is a picture of the blue Ali mosque that we went to on the first day.
After a long day of traveling we walked through a nearby cemetery and took pictures of the houses on the hill.
Later we went to see Fatima Akbary, and her company, Golestan-e-Sabak, (I talked a little bit about her in a previous post). She was a widow who had founded an NGO to help women and underprivileged in her community, she ran a girls school, vocational training courses as well as women’s business training.
Below you can see her showing us what had happened over the winter. The tent she had built as a temporary workshop had caved in under the snow and her tools were ruined; she would be unable to fulfill a furniture order that spring.
These are some girls in her class, the one in the pink hijab was reading aloud to us.
Fatima also teaches calligraphy and woodcutting to disabled people, a type of vocational training. This is some of the calligraphy they had done.
Thanks again to Tim for the pictures!
If you read the FAQs post you know that my camera got stolen with most of my pictures on it. I did have some other pictures on a separate memory card though and my friend just lent me his cardreader so here they are.
These pictures are all from one of the last days of my trip when we drove outside of Kabul to the Panshir Valley.
This is the Panjshir River. The Panjshir valley translates to 5 Lions, and refers to a family from there than had 5 brothers.
We stopped to eat kebabs at a restaurant by the river. I stuck my hand in the water, it was…not warm. In early March the snow was just starting to melt.
This valley is famous for being the birthplace of Ahmad Shah Massoud – an Afghan hero in these parts. This village had his picture on their bridge.
We were relieved when our tour guide told us that it was duck season and the men we kept seeing with rifles were just duckhunters.
From Massoud’s tomb you can see the Panshir valley. The crops were just starting to come in, I’m sure now it’s very green.
These are some pictures of the monument and the tomb where Massoud is buried.
You can see they were doing some construction to build a museum and a new parking lot.
These are some views from the top of the hill.
