Action she feels as folly, I respond
by Ann Bogle
Polka dot country ... I guess it's black dots on white background or white dots on black background. Nationalities meant countries our elders' elders' elders left. Their descendants are called white people today. Immigrants today are called by the names of their first countries and are not called white people or black people, and teaching them American language is unpaid where I live, where many people live. ESL certificate-based programs place overseas only, and ESL jobs pay $600 a month. I would fault "white" people for not defending or offering aid to their friends if caught in crimes against them. These crimes are retained in stories as blind. God, I freak out sometimes ... a woman I met in California had earned a black belt in karate since her rape at a bus stop ten years before that in Austin. Her fiance flipped his noodle for about a year and doodled in a bar and drank. They did marry and were still a couple, and he drank only one glass of wine at dinner. She got tipsy. That is a longer white marriage without their cry to have a baby. Later I got flippy thinking my date-rapist was the same man who had raped her. That is too cruel on fate's part to deliver that arrowed thought. I thought it because her attack and its legal aspects were left undescribed. Earring, I call it, not degrees of separation. An earring that is a hoop whose ends come near but do not meet, an open hoop earring not latched. Neither member of the couple, architect or his wife, almost no one, describes their attackers. Neither, no one almost, describes their experiences in reporting crime or in not reporting it. Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships. ... Is this the main idea: whites are passive? Whites I know are working poor. The relations of my family were all professionals who grew up on farms. This is imagined as a given or privilege, to be born in 1929 and become a woman physicist. To hear of it reduces it to privilege, meaning undeserved rewards accrue to the gifted person. My grandfather was a railroad switch man, and my grandmother died following the birth of her third child under three. About belonging to churches, I recently viewed a political charting of denominations that I reposted: Mainline Liberal Christian Protestant is left and libertarian. The idea of Time magazine to eliminate the word feminism caused me to try sub'ing the word "sexist" everywhere the word "racist" appears. To see if it works.
"Polka dot country ..." Great start.
"The idea of Time magazine to eliminate the word feminism caused me to try sub'ing the word 'sexist' everywhere the word 'racist' appears."
Good piece, Ann. *
Language is a political minefield.*
*, Ann. I am always drawn by the complexity of your pieces, reading them several times, and enjoying what I read...each time.
I think there are laws protecting against racism and sexism, so when people hurl these as accusations, is it legal outside legal channels to do so? Crime is still illegal. It seems it would be illegal not to report crime as well. Violent crime is violent. Do people feel that a sexual power difference, no matter how soft, equals violent crime in impact? Legally, too? Have new definitions of what rape is increased our safety? Do people discuss it? Is coupling taking place? What is a reading on all of it? Is there one that is sort of accurate?
The chain of ideas here intrigues me, and the line, "That is too cruel on fate's part to deliver that arrowed thought."
O.o! *
Polka Dot Country is a stellar way to begin this.
"The idea of Time magazine to eliminate the word feminism caused me to try sub'ing the word "sexist" everywhere the word "racist" appears. To see if it works."
That right there sums up such a hard thing to convey to the average American. Well said. *
"Her fiance flipped his noodle for about a year and doodled in a bar and drank." Nice line. Interesting word substitution suggestion at the end, too.