Trayvon Martin

Been thinking and now that this is over (the verdict read yesterday), can say that John Guy left room for reasonable doubt.  First of all, he only spoke for 45 minutes.  He had an hour I believe.  Second of all, he did not better address the idea that the medical examiners were incompetent and either wiped the hands of Trayvon Martin or not properly scrape his nails.  LAPD tried to frame OJ while walking around with a vile of his blood of which some came up missing.  In this case SPD also worked diligently to frame Trayvon Martin, of which the opposite effect resulted.  Whether blood made it to Martin's hands, some kind of skin had to lodge underneath his nails in order for him to grip a slippery wet bald head or some scraping of his knuckles in order for it to cradle the head.  Wiping his hands would not have gotten rid of that.

Guy also failed to eviscerate the crazed psychopathic black male child image.  He actually fueled it by asking the jury to imagine Trayvon Martin stalking Z.  What he needed to do (probably from the beginning) was implant the image of a white boy trying to get home and drive home that Trayvon Martin wanted to watch the basketball game and give skittles to his future step-brother.  His killer wanted to hunt fugitives.

And finally, Guy needed to address fear of black males as not reasonable.  A tall order, but one that needed to be attempted as it goes to the heart of this psychological projection.  Truth of the matter is Z did fear for his life.  He thought he was Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator (1987) when in fact he was the alien hunting Trayvon Martin.  He feared on some basic level that is at the heart of racism, not the black law professor or whatever black associate Z made, but the strange unknown young black male in the dark that is a projection of his own delusion.  That irrational fear is what killed the child and is not codified in law as rational.  That's the difference between a female being stalked at night and a young black male.  A female can scare away an attacker by standing up to him.  (Men who attack women are not looking for aggressive women.  So no one thinks a female will go attack a strange man in the dark.  But Trayvon Martin didn't have the benefit of that assumption.)  And there was nothing Trayvon Martin could have done to defend himself against someone with a gun who wouldn't let him get away.  So the question should have been drilled home over and over and over: What was this kid supposed to do?  And how was he supposed to know to do it?  What was this kid supposed to do?  And how was he supposed to know to do it?  Does he fight?  Does he bring a strange man home?  Does he speak to a stranger pursuing him?  What is he supposed to do?  I figured out long ago that someone looking to rationalize killing an unarmed black male will have an answer that usually amounts to reading minds or not existing.

That said, I have learned a lot through all of this.  And not just that racism has no reason and therefore needs no reasonable doubt.  But from the beginning, I was under the mistaken impression that President Barack Obama was saying in his statement in March of last year that if he had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin, that he empathized with the Fulton/Martin family rather than his killer's family, translating to the country that Obama empathized with black people, but not others, particularly his half white self.  That was a problem.  But in actuality he was saying Trayvon Martin could have been him.  But that potential was lost.  And were the world actively trying to make another Barack Obama, it might be noble to say.

It is clear, however, kids are in trouble.  And while the discussion is spotlighting black teenage children, there is something really sinister the way society is treating children in general, criminalizing or blowing them off entirely.  There's a sort of collective child abuse taking place.  So that the third degree felony murder child abuse that the prosecutors attempted to lesser include, kind of got to the heart of it all.  Z in a way is a scapegoat, singled out because he's not a cop.  But the message being sent is child abuse is acceptable so long as some sort of licensed authority inflicts it.  This abuse starting out as neglect in the seventies when parents were allowed to discipline children began to really emerge as institutionalized when children were collectively drugged by the authority of psychiatric doctors and now has evolved to children made to be thugs and terrorists through social media.  Somehow a kid can post a wrong picture or wrong comment and be carted off to jail...their life over.  And one has to ask, what is childhood anymore?

I've really grown weary of this.  The pundits, the politics, I've had enough.  The rest has already been said.

Good Manifestations III: Obama's the Hologram, the Real Meaning Behind the Coded Rhetoric

Now that we have won—in this time laden with post-mortem depression—now it is the time to think...big, time to visualize the country we are to become and world we will soon see. It is clear that an Obama presidency will be a catalyst for a long list of past overdue changes that now have the political will to be viewed as possible. But I do not necessarily believe that Obama will directly implement all or any of this change himself, or even that he is the creator of the political will. On the contrary, Obama is a hologram, self-awaredly-so, who merely reflects the deep seated hopes and desires of this country and the world. Those hopes and desires are echoed by his presence and released like a flood-gate of well-pent positive energy. That's the parallel-dimensional meaning of "We are the one's we've been waiting for." That's the truth masked as self-doubt and the secret no one is spilling.

You have already seen it; you have noticed that people seem a little happier, a little nicer. It's as if a mask has been lowered, a switch has been turned on, triggered by a floating current tie of emotion that is a mix of pride and appreciation. It's the thought "We did this" wink or nod, that "yeah, we really are powerful" feeling of elation. And even with the temptation to look back and figure out how we got here, to rationalize the win with self-denial, to dissect the up until it looks like a down, there must be something good coming of this, other than an chance (or challenge) for the spin industry to convince all that it's an illusion. That is why, as a tribute, I put together this mixed list of short and long-sided predictions, inspired by the image of a 97-year-old retired Statesman Obama, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, wife by his side, as the nation commemorates his legacy to our country and the world.

1. A new trend in children named Brarack, Obama or other Swahili names and not just by African Americans.
   
2. A deliberate rise in interracial marriages and biracial births.
3. Little black boys being seen as national assets and efforts to educate and provide healthcare for them and their mothers viewed as investments.
4. A rise in "stock" for African American women, soon to be called the Michelle Obama effect as a new image of the trophy wife is created.
5. A rise in low or interest-free investments in the infrastructure of African countries. (Oprah has a head start on that one.)
6. A rise in students traveling to African and Muslim countries, creating a generation of other-world educated people disaffected by B.O. prejudices.
7. Negotiations between waring or feuding nations (or tribes) including Israel and Palestine.
8. A consciousness shift among the masses in repressive regimes such as North Korea and Cuba either directly following or preceding removal of U.S. sanctions.
9. Surprising ironies, including Iraq becoming a thriving secular democracy and Bush becoming a national treasure.
10. A wave of young, diverse, previously apathetic people pursuing careers in local and eventually higher forms of government.
11. A divestment in the prison industrial complex, part of a chain reaction of publicly mandated investments in education, locally-targeted urban-renewal projects and the decriminalization of drugs.
12. A surge in socially as well as legally acceptable alternative healthcare methods, following a prevention-based medical referendum that will shift medicine from a dogmatic science to an applied artform—the art of healthcare—ushering in a fleet of medical artists to "discover" creative ways to allow the "placebo effect".
13. A rise in individuals awarded grants for work in new technologies that will ultimately benefit the nation and raise the standard of living.
14. A completely "wired" country where ALL public places have free wireless high-speed access and all public school students have laptop computers.
15. A shortening or elimination of high school for youth fourteen-years of age who will either enter college directly or participate in secondary internship programs which will be facilitated by a partnership between government and local business and corporations.
    
16. A division of B.O. and A.O. policies and ideologies, that is before and after Obama, used in political discourse and for historical demarcation.
17. A cross continental high-speed rail system.
18. A Los Angeles with clean air.
19. A Mexico with a thriving economy.
20. A rise in inspirational TV programs and film, including a series about the Obama campaign.
21. A new artistic renaissance inspired both by politics and infused by an expansion of arts programs in schools producing more child prodigies as well as geniuses in both art and science.
22. A resurgence of the gentlemen expressed in pop culture and an intellectually confident and emotionally diverse masculinity found commonplace in American society.
23. The emergence of a changing historical narrative which idealizes the relationship the racial and ethnic plurality has had with one another.
24. People suddenly openly claiming their black or white relatives and their mixed, however distant, heritage.
25. A redefining of American pride and service to an ever expanding umbrella along with a culture of appreciation for postal workers.

If you think I left anything out, by all means, let me know. Don't take my word for it just because the rest has already been said.

If Bush is a Chimp, Hillary's Human, but Obama is "Brilliant" (A "Don't Turn Back" Followup)

I still have so much respect for Hillary. And for my own peace of mind, I have to give her the benefit of the doubt. Like wives of powerful men everywhere I figure it to be so much torture to be that close to power, yet see it just out of reach. And Hillary supporters must see her like a big mama, there to rescue everyone in the sandbox from Baby Bush and the Obama bullies. I can't help but see a generation gap in all this.

Obama supporters like Obama for a number of reasons, no reason outstripping the validity of the other. But where generational thinking is concerned I see self-assured, self-reliant Latchkey-kid-mentality with Obama. He talks to everyone as if they are the adults. He's not calling for mama or papa to come. He'll talk all the kids into believing in their own ability to redeem themselves. It's the difference between appealing to our greatest potential and preying on our worst fears. And the latter we've had long enough.

In another time Hillary would have been the perfect president. Say what you will; even Michael Moore at one point had to give credit in SiCKO when he reminded us that Hillary did try like no other to bring about universal healthcare. She is an extraordinary figure in our collective history. And I cannot imagine what it is like to be in the position she is in, to be caught between doing the right thing and having all her decisions held to some feminine gender standard. Being soft on war, bowing out of the race, even owning up to mistakes—these are all things good girls do and not an exalted CIC. And to constantly try to balance that with being likable and gracious is a schizophrenic thing to do. It all presents her as a largely insecure person, not sure of who she is. And as human as it all is, it also means she's not ready to be president.

Yes, at another time Hillary would have been the perfect leader, when the size of your schoolyard weight was how well you could diss and bag on the other—The "Ooo she told you" juice she had on the boys' turf was awe inspiring. Or if this were not the era of youtube, Hillary would have been our girl. (Even four years ago, the ability to send a video clip around the globe catching you in a "misspeak" or advertising your less known, more charismatic opponent did not exist.) But our expectations are greater now. Our sense of what's possible expanded.

It has to be if we are to look in the face of the doom-and-gloom we have been promised is coming and imagine a future beyond it. Because if we cannot imagine that future, we all might as well just drink the kool-aid. Ludicrous that it sounds, it is no more so than the "realists" are beginning to sound to me. Your-housing-economic-environmental-medical-terror-nightmare-is-coming-and-you-can't-do-a-thing-about-it-so-vote-for-me logic is over...

No, with each passing day I am becoming more and more convinced that everything that has happened has been for the good of this moment, that every lie and betrayal a growing pain so-to-speak, to rattle us out of a life of complacent mediocracy.

Would an Obama be without a Bush?

Would an Obama be without a Clinton?

There comes a time when hitting rock bottom is seen as a turning point. So that it's possible to say I needed that floor to fly. I thank Bush for being that floor. I thank Hillary for just walking on it.

Don't Turn Back

Hope, the question I asked, and the answer I received when LOA teacher Abraham-Hicks talked about King and sparked a connection. Suggestion: Read the Blog entry before watching the video. Then take on the Challenge.

I don't normally do this but here I go...I don't like all this attention to the Rev Wright's statements. And what's worse, I don't find Obama's "Race Speech" to be all that uplifting either. I find all this to be powerfully depressing, not because it's something new to me but because I was just starting to get used to the idea, you know that tickle in your gut when your brain fixates on the idea of an Obama presidency for a pure 3 seconds, that smile that suddenly starts to form out of the corner of your mouth despite yourself, that welling of tears when you realize that powerful desire you've had so long is shared -- to be free from fear. But with all the speculation taking place in the last few days, do we really have to wait another generation for it to be real? Does fear grip us so tightly that we're bound by our parents generation's overwhelming sense of inadequacy? All I have been seeing and hearing the past two weeks is fear. And the irony is that for all intents and purposes Obama has already won the delegate race. So what's the deal?

Who cares the reason why one person supported Obama over another. We are not all the same cloned people. We don't all have to have the same exact reason for voting for someone. There is no magic correct formula for liking a candidate. You have to like their policy, but don't like their racial-ethnic (or gender for that matter) background. They must inspire, but not too much. They must have healthy support, but not from "those" people. People are always qualifying themselves trying not to offend someone's sensibilities. And all this demeaning of support for Obama is fear-mongering and dividing. And it's making me sick.

I don't know how else to put it.

…because it's demeaning everyone. Case in point: I liked Bilary before and always had respect for Hilary Rodham. But as the growing negativity has arrested my attention, suddenly her sense of entitlement is unbelievable. The get-in-linistic idea that she somehow earned the right to become president (as opposed to the younger more idealistic Obama) is nauseating. The smugness of her second place sense of superiority dumbfounds me. And this obsessive desire to stomp with the big boys no matter who gets hurt in the process makes me question the emotional state of the little girl underneath.

Don't get me wrong. She's not to blame for my weakening morale. She's just a convenient scapegoat. No, at this time, as far as we have all gone, pushing expectations closer to the reach of our desires, the collective we are forever changed.--The path ahead to the place we've always dreamed of being is more visible now than it has ever been. I guess I'm just trying to figure out why we, why I in this case, in the last few days keep turning around and looking back.

And the answer --*click* (sound of the tv turning off)-- don't.



Challenge: Why do you like *blank* as president? Whether you like Obama or H R Clinton write me reasons why? What's that picture in your head of the hours, days, months and years of what your country and world is like with your guy or girl in the "House". How do you feel in the morning when you wake up? What do you see when you look around you? No reason is too trivial, no answer too emotional. Just make it honest and your own. Email me. Inspire my next blog. I'm satisfied for now...

Nose Snobs and Smelly Stories: The Identity Politics of Feminine Fragrance

(Lifts her arms) Yes, I still smell like fabric softener. I'm online now trying to locate my favorite deodorant. It's disappeared from the shelves. And Whole Foods says the company has discontinued making deodorant altogether. So here I am combing the web for sites still carrying the remaining few, might I clean them out until I develop a preference for a new signature scent. Because how often does one find a scent like "wild yam" whose name and fragrance so perfectly embodies my personality both symbolically as well as olfactorily. It's natural. It's organic. It's mysterious, distinctive wild yam!

Most smells today are a barrage of man-made chemicals so widespread they've become more "natural" than natural smells themselves. Who could tell me what organic substance produces the ever so marketed scent of "spring breeze"? A potion of chemicals made popular by Proctor & Gamble in products like Downy and Secret—"strong enough for a man, but Ph balanced for a woman." Yes, balanced enough to burn a whole right through my arm. It was just at the time of puberty when odor camouflage suddenly became a necessity and clever commercial ads had me convinced my delicate preteen arms required the odor-corrective surgery only their product could provide. I've never worn such an aggressive neutralizer as propylene glycol and aluminum chlorohydrate-rich Secret. And I never will again.

But if I don't want to smell like obvious man-made chemicals I could smell like baby powder, that I did at one phase in my life, and smelled like—you guessed it—a baby. There were a plethora of deodorants and perfumes smelling like baby-bum batter which I wore up until my late teens, giving the pedophilic passerbys even more food for fodder. But as Anika Noni Rose said so fervently in Dreamgirls, "I'm a woman na!"

(Sigh) Without wild yam, it seems as though a woman wanting to smell like something safe for bodily consumption has to choose something saccharine-sweet-boring like honey or acid disinfectant like lemon, which evokes images of dishwashing liquid. Or vanilla, which evokes images of cookie-baking. Neither domestic image appeal to me. I'm wild, not domesticated.

Which leaves me to the four-star cliché of feminine fragrances—flowers. Apparently the most popular is that odiously pungent one known as lavender. There's a grown-up smell for you. (Sneeze) I guess the bigger you are, the louder you smell. A wise blogger once said, "Those who wear suspiciously loud perfumes are really insecure about the projectable range of their own personalities." Just a little "naked truth". Socially timid? Let the obnoxious fumes speak for yourself. But in all sincerity, my perfume-challenged sisters (and brothers) out there, a fine smell is like quality underwear; it should be worn for you, not others.

Yet again I digress. I ask myself, "If the selection is really so scarce why not be like the rest of the world and go o'natural?" Well, for a person rather obsessed with fragrance it's not so easy to settle for unscented. For nose nerds like me, this is life or death.

I've been there before, one year ago to be exact, when my favorite soap suddenly vanished from the shelves. This French boutique specializing in soaps and lotions based in the butter produced from the African tree Shea had a natural soothing scent. It was called Fig. Then suddenly they were gone. The high-nosed sales clerks telling me, "L'Occitane is making room for its new fragrances." New fragrances! (Coming unglued) Fragrances like obnoxious Verbena (smells like old lemon) or been-there-done-that Lavender!? But fig was so fresh, so different. So—(sniff-sniff) I smell, as the adage goes, a rat.

What is this fascist fragranicracy we are all in where we smell the same, walking lock step in line with three or four natural scents and a bunch of chemical concoctions? One company has already found a way to keep me returning to their stores for nose-related reasons and they aren't even selling perfume—Free People clothing boutique. They (along with their sister label Anthropologie) have a wonderful exotic fragrance permeating their stores. Finally, I get up the nerve to ask Free People staff what it is called, might I go out and buy, and thereby satisfying the olfactory hunger at will. "It's a potpourri that Free People has patented," the kind sales clerk informs. Not fully computing the meaning of what she has said I repeat, "So what's it called?" "It doesn't have a name," she replies, "Free People own it."

Now that's an irony if ever I heard one. Free People own this potpourri so that none of us olfactorily deprived minions can smell it anywhere but in their stores and on the clothes they sell, that is until we wash them in "spring breeze". In a word: Genius. The rest has already been said.

A Holiday Poole

Because Christmas means something different to everyone...

Pink Please

Apparently, a group of neuroscientists at Newcastle University have completed a study confirming that boys like blue and girls like pink. And this is because during human evolution, pink represented the color of ripe fruit that as gatherers women generally did while the men were away hunting. I thought about writing a rebuttal. I thought about writing how flawed a study is for attempting to prove the existence of a biological basis for color preferences between sexes when only adults between the age of 20 and 26 were used. I thought about pointing out how these evolutionary psychology studies get away with such circular logic that says, “Our behavior today is innate because it was our behavior before; and it was our behavior before because we say it is today.” I considered writing about the 3 year old boy I knew who loved pink to the dismay of his father and thus had to (re)learn how to love blue. I considered all these things, but thought that it would be a waste of time. Instead, I think I'll post an excerpt to a book I have been working on for nearly 7 years...now that I proudly call myself a pink.marigold:

...When I was a girl my favorite color was pink. I don’t know why or how, but everything I owned had to be covered with the stuff. My bedspread was pink, my clothes, my school supplies. My pink markers, frayed at the tip, always ran out first. Oh, I was proud of that color. I was proud of being a girl. All the other girls in my class liked blue or purple. But not me. I stood by pink. Pink was girly, the most wonderful thing to be.

Then one year suddenly I hated it, detested it with every inch of my being. If I saw the color I made gagging noises. All pastels, relatives to the pink monster, became abhorrent taboos as well. I even hid my pink bedspread and replaced it with navy blue, wondered what on earth possessed me to buy pink bed covering in the first place. Pink was girly. Pink was for losers.

I carried this with me all the way through college.

Then I came to Japan for my junior year abroad. And everything was in pastels. I went about gagging at everything I saw. Everything looked like my bedroom at age ten. Everything was pink. Japanese folk don’t have this American aversion to cuteness. So it wasn’t unusual to find young men wearing pink clothing. Buildings were pink. Bulldozers were pastels. Men and women lugged pink suitcases while talking on pink cell phones and passing by stores selling pink comic books. I can’t describe the emotions I went through as I cursed my surroundings. I can’t explain the anxiety that fell over me when I entered department stores filled with pastel electronics, an oxymoron for certain. I left Japan still not fully understanding it, thinking Japanese people were somehow lacking in maturity. They were too girly to be adults.

Well the second time I came to Japan, the instant the plane landed and I felt myself transformed into that childhood bedroom, the sense of peace I felt as a girlchild came back. Not like before when the onset of those ungrasped girlhood feelings became anxiety provoking. This time I understood them. I understood how my man-member monolatry buried the girl in me.

I could even bring myself to buy pastels and to look at them with a sense of calm, that is, all accept pink. For months I would sit and stare at pink in fear, trying to remember what it was like to adore the shade. But I could not remember. I saw a pink chair and I looked desperately for a blue one before I reluctantly sat down. It was as if by sitting on the chair, all of the attributes associated with pink, weakness, vulnerability, naivety, would attach itself to me and be naked for all others to see. I would buy cleaning supplies and notice myself using the box’s color, not the price as the discerning factor. A weak-colored bottle of detergent couldn’t possibly be strong enough to get the stains out. No pink supplies enter my shopping basket. From hangers to notebooks, while all around me, pink seemed to elude me.

How could a color I once loved so dearly, wore so pridefully impress upon me as an adult something to detest and fear? The question is not one of those mysteries in life that we commonly shrug off as inexplicable. The answer is in the phrases, “You da man!” and its complimentary “You go! Girl,” whose nuances bespeak the valued condition by just being in one and the command that one catch up imbedded in the other. The answer is while I could embrace the pastels and soft hues that embodied the safe world of formative years, years of phallocentric inculcation personified in the single aversion to the color pink was harder to overcome than with just one’s sheer will to resist...

Anecdotes aside, I understand that these studies like the one done at Newcastle are more about getting continued funding for further research than anything else. But if nothing else, haven't we evolved enough yet to know that not everything is black or white or in this case pink or blue?