My daddy sounds like Aristotle. I talked on the phone with him yesterday. And I'm talking about my "birth" father who was not in the birthing room with my birth-mother when I was born. Both he and Aristotle had their own little-boy tragedies (so their stories go), which may have some to do with how they sound. They are concerned with how they sound, or at least Aristotle was.
Aristotle lost his mother before he reached puberty. Later in life, he observed "the female" and concluded that the mother was responsible during procreation for this fe-male off-spring, this mal-formed male. Aristotle's logic convinced him of such nature. My daddy lost his daddy as a very young boy, and then watched men carry his mother away to an insane asylum for a mis-diagnosed condition. He never saw her again. Later in life, he listened to Aristotle and believed that logic is as natural as, well, Nature. Never mind that Aristotle used logic to reach some incorrect conclusions about Nature -- as Alan Lightman observes when he says, "Scientists often wish powerfully for some theory to be true that is later proved wrong by the facts. Aristotle’s idea that the planets move in perfect circles was simple and elegant, but proved wrong by Brahe, Kepler, and Newton." As if "by the facts" is somehow equal to "by Brahe, Kepler, and Newton," who re-visit logic because they're people not machines. My daddy also listened to Paul, who called on logic and who appealed to Nature and behaved around women, even the mother of his own children, as if men were above in nature, in role, and in domain. Some of us felt the pain of his behavior. She did, my mother.
I'm also telling you this personal stuff because some of you have read my blogging as if I've got some personal vendetta. And I don't. Some of you are hung up on feminisms, on "feminism," and (in one case for one of you) on my "brand" of feminism like I'm on a team or am its cheerleader or something. Look. You have your own daddys to think about. Maybe you are a daddy (I am) and you have sons and / or daughters with their mother(s); and you have to think about that too. I just have two more things to say in this post.
First, more and more it's the case that my daddy used to sound like Aristotle. For that, I'm grateful. It's not that he's entirely abandoned logic these days - as if doing anything other than logic makes for fallacies or for the naturally illogical or for some necessary opposite of logic. (A funny side note here is that we both had the same logic professor in college though some decades apart obviously - and I think my daddy actually got the better grade.) It is that he treats my mommy differently now, that he's changed and is changing, and "used to" sound (as in "sounds now less and less like") how Aristotle sounds. When I came home from college the first time was the first time he ever (as I remember it) said "I am sorry" to my mommy. He is, I would say, recovering. For that, I'm grateful. His first words to me when we talked on the phone this week and when I confided in him about a problem I'm having with another person were these words: "I'm sorry, and I understand how this must hurt." Amazingly, he offered no advice and only sympathy. "My daddy used to sound like Aristotle," I'm starting to say more.
Second, I'm sorry to offend readers who take offense at feminism, who see it as some sort of hobby horse of mine. I'm rather intending to muse with others of you who find that experiences of men who shove down their painful experiences and who inflate their sense of patriarchy in the guise of unexamined "self" and unexamined logic cause many of us much often unexamined pain. Call this The Apology, if you like. Personal things get mixed together, don't they, in blogging a bit? Patriarchy can yield some, don't we see?
Showing posts with label about all you want to say about family in a blog post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label about all you want to say about family in a blog post. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Before a Ph.D., I was a feminist
Before I set foot into a Ph.D. class that first semester, I bought all the textbooks assigned for Composition Theory and read one. Truth be told, it wasn't as much that I'm an overachiever (which I am) as it was that I was intimidated by the English studies folks and their vocabularies (their perspectives and ways of seeing things far different from my own as a published and professional and degreed applied linguist for sixteen years).
The book I read was Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy. I knew of the author, Robert J. Connors, from his collaborative work with Andrea A. Lunsford on a college handbook for writing, which one of my colleagues and I had drafted ESL student annotations for and were talking with the publisher about. I chose that book to read first because it seemed to give a good overview of the history of composition and rhetoric studies in the USA.
I remember where I was on the playground of the elementary school of one of my daughters. "Damn," I thought (but of course didn't say out loud). "Really? 'Women were definitively excluded from all that rhetoric implied.... The exclusion of women from rhetoric continued long after rhetoric ceased to play any important role in the actual affairs of government.'? Really? 'The church, of course, was increasingly where all meaningful speaking was done, and this Pauline stricture, straight out of Judaic misogyny, was taken as commandment by all later Christian thinkers. The conception of woman as the fountainhead of human sinfulness, as the type of Eve, led to an ever more insistent demand by the church that her role be passive, circumscribed, and private....' Yes, but this has been a contemporary problem in the context of American college composition and rhetoric studies? And does Bob Connors characterize Andrea Lunsford, his colleague, the way he does the American women academics of the nineteenth century who he says, because of the circumscription by male thinkers to the private, flourished in composition rather than in rhetoric where men dominated?" (I didn't know of any of the problems women rhetoricians and other men and women feminists had with Conners book when I read it - nor did I hear about the issues from the professor - and had to discover these in journals of English studies in private in the library, after the course ended.)
If I can remember, I was a feminist when I was five years old. One of my siblings had been sexually abused by a single missionary, a man. The public thing that rankled my father so was that the other missionary had cut back the cuticles of this child until they nearly bled.
This sort of thing was the first incident I remember. When I was in college in the USA, after two of my buddies missionary-kids from two different families took their own lives and their fathers made pronouncements at their funerals, there was more to remember.
Other MKs all grown now have finally spoken out about a third abuser, the cause of their own contemporary sexual dysfunctions, which they remain silent about, for whom would they tell? Who can they tell?
I remember watching with my spouse the self-made documentary of Angela Shelton, on a quest to find and to film all the other Angela Sheltons in America and finding that many of them had been raped or molested by family members, by men, and Angela herself has to film the confrontation with and denial of her own father. The professor of the Ph.D. course, the Rhetoric of Women Writers, that I was in at the time agreed at my request to show the documentary in class, which for me was a way of speaking out for the first time. Speaking out for me has been listening, had been rather numb passive listening. (I credit that professor for my adult human conversion to feminisms, for en-couraging me to research and write a dissertation on sexist rhetorics).
My son home from college interrupted me at work yesterday with his phone call, asking all of the sudden if we could meet somewhere for lunch. I put him off at first, suggesting "tomorrow." We small talked. Then I sensed something, and we finally talked then and there about some private matter of his that was deeply distressing him. Oh, I could have missed him, came so close to missing the depth of his issue, a very private thing indeed.
There are many who tell there stories now in meetings I attend where confidences cannot be broken for reasons of safety. It's hard to listen. Harder not to listen. "I was raped by the father of the children I was babysitting." "I waited until my husband left the house and erected the step ladder and jumped off so as to make sure my pregnant belly would hit first because even though abortion is legal it's a sin he will not tolerate." "Two different pastors both married men have propositioned me and my own father a deacon just tells me I've misread their meanings, of course." "My mother made me serve my little brother, washing his clothes and such, because my father was the head of the home, she said." Yes, I know it's hard to listen. And a blog is no place. Or at least let the abused blog for themselves anonymously if they must. Some of you have heard me say "Why (You Can’t Ask Me Why) I Am A Feminist: Some Frank Thoughts." But there's no reason to be a feminist for feminism's sake. And we all know that. Our personal insecurities run deep. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a Ph.D. in anything to figure that out.
The book I read was Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy. I knew of the author, Robert J. Connors, from his collaborative work with Andrea A. Lunsford on a college handbook for writing, which one of my colleagues and I had drafted ESL student annotations for and were talking with the publisher about. I chose that book to read first because it seemed to give a good overview of the history of composition and rhetoric studies in the USA.
I remember where I was on the playground of the elementary school of one of my daughters. "Damn," I thought (but of course didn't say out loud). "Really? 'Women were definitively excluded from all that rhetoric implied.... The exclusion of women from rhetoric continued long after rhetoric ceased to play any important role in the actual affairs of government.'? Really? 'The church, of course, was increasingly where all meaningful speaking was done, and this Pauline stricture, straight out of Judaic misogyny, was taken as commandment by all later Christian thinkers. The conception of woman as the fountainhead of human sinfulness, as the type of Eve, led to an ever more insistent demand by the church that her role be passive, circumscribed, and private....' Yes, but this has been a contemporary problem in the context of American college composition and rhetoric studies? And does Bob Connors characterize Andrea Lunsford, his colleague, the way he does the American women academics of the nineteenth century who he says, because of the circumscription by male thinkers to the private, flourished in composition rather than in rhetoric where men dominated?" (I didn't know of any of the problems women rhetoricians and other men and women feminists had with Conners book when I read it - nor did I hear about the issues from the professor - and had to discover these in journals of English studies in private in the library, after the course ended.)
If I can remember, I was a feminist when I was five years old. One of my siblings had been sexually abused by a single missionary, a man. The public thing that rankled my father so was that the other missionary had cut back the cuticles of this child until they nearly bled.
This sort of thing was the first incident I remember. When I was in college in the USA, after two of my buddies missionary-kids from two different families took their own lives and their fathers made pronouncements at their funerals, there was more to remember.
Other MKs all grown now have finally spoken out about a third abuser, the cause of their own contemporary sexual dysfunctions, which they remain silent about, for whom would they tell? Who can they tell?
I remember watching with my spouse the self-made documentary of Angela Shelton, on a quest to find and to film all the other Angela Sheltons in America and finding that many of them had been raped or molested by family members, by men, and Angela herself has to film the confrontation with and denial of her own father. The professor of the Ph.D. course, the Rhetoric of Women Writers, that I was in at the time agreed at my request to show the documentary in class, which for me was a way of speaking out for the first time. Speaking out for me has been listening, had been rather numb passive listening. (I credit that professor for my adult human conversion to feminisms, for en-couraging me to research and write a dissertation on sexist rhetorics).
My son home from college interrupted me at work yesterday with his phone call, asking all of the sudden if we could meet somewhere for lunch. I put him off at first, suggesting "tomorrow." We small talked. Then I sensed something, and we finally talked then and there about some private matter of his that was deeply distressing him. Oh, I could have missed him, came so close to missing the depth of his issue, a very private thing indeed.
There are many who tell there stories now in meetings I attend where confidences cannot be broken for reasons of safety. It's hard to listen. Harder not to listen. "I was raped by the father of the children I was babysitting." "I waited until my husband left the house and erected the step ladder and jumped off so as to make sure my pregnant belly would hit first because even though abortion is legal it's a sin he will not tolerate." "Two different pastors both married men have propositioned me and my own father a deacon just tells me I've misread their meanings, of course." "My mother made me serve my little brother, washing his clothes and such, because my father was the head of the home, she said." Yes, I know it's hard to listen. And a blog is no place. Or at least let the abused blog for themselves anonymously if they must. Some of you have heard me say "Why (You Can’t Ask Me Why) I Am A Feminist: Some Frank Thoughts." But there's no reason to be a feminist for feminism's sake. And we all know that. Our personal insecurities run deep. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a Ph.D. in anything to figure that out.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
My Baby Boy
I'm singing John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy" this morning. My baby is celebrating his twentieth birthday today. We watched two decades worth of family videos yesterday late into the next early morning hours with friends and family. He's home from college for the summer. I'm so proud of my son.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Race Matters
Guess what we had for Monday night's party?
That's right. Bubba burgers. (Had that one for leftover lunch yesterday; short on lettuce but still good).
And guess what I wore?
Right again. I wore that t-shirt my Jewish American buddy Gary gave me. He, Maggie, and their kids joined our family for dinner, so I thought it'd be fitting. His cousin had made several hundred of the shirts to try to sell on ebay for a few hundred more bucks, a failed venture. Valerie and Germaine our African American neighbors came over too, and laughed loudest at the slogan on me. Julie had just coincidentally picked up WonderBread buns from the store shelves, when the popular local brand is Mrs Bairds. And I displayed the bag and the burger patty box, as in the pic above, for more chuckles. (What hasn't been so funny is that someone keeps stealing the Obama signs from our yards).
Right again. I wore that t-shirt my Jewish American buddy Gary gave me. He, Maggie, and their kids joined our family for dinner, so I thought it'd be fitting. His cousin had made several hundred of the shirts to try to sell on ebay for a few hundred more bucks, a failed venture. Valerie and Germaine our African American neighbors came over too, and laughed loudest at the slogan on me. Julie had just coincidentally picked up WonderBread buns from the store shelves, when the popular local brand is Mrs Bairds. And I displayed the bag and the burger patty box, as in the pic above, for more chuckles. (What hasn't been so funny is that someone keeps stealing the Obama signs from our yards).Anyway, my in-laws were with us too, one of them really named "Bubba," so it was quite a great mix of people. Lots of laughter!
We did talk and disagree some about U.S. presidential politics (as the in-laws can't believe anyone--in a red state anyway--would support such a liberal inexperienced candidate), ate banana pudding outside by the pool under the moon (to celebrate the latest draft of my dissertation), and then went in to watch the Browns trounce the Giants (and since we're mostly Cowboys fans, who cares right?).
Of course, during a commercial, I had to go and quote something out of Cornel West's Race Matters:
"In white America, cultural conservatism takes the form of a chronic racism, sexism, and homophobia. Hence, only certain kinds of black people deserve high positions, that is, those who accept the rules played by the games of white America."
Then, yesterday, as I'm getting ready to leave for work, my father-in-law, a Euro American pastor of a fundamentalist west Texas Cowboy Church gives me something. He opens his Bible and in his drawl reads:
"Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."
More laughs. He's a history - Bible double major who's been to two different seminaries for two different advanced degrees and now rides horses as much as he preaches. I get that he's telling me, "It aint the learnin' but what direction your schoolin' takes you in that matters most. Don't go hurtin' nobody with your smarts." (Which also translates to: "Conservatism in America is what we want most, and if you're one of us, then don't go rocking the boat. Why change so much").
Makes me wonder who I am, and who "we" really are. But on the drive in to work yesterday, I kept thinking about what my sponsor says from time to time:
"It's better to be a resentment than to have one."
Normally, I could live with that advice. But I've been reading too many of Aristotle's "it's better to" statements lately.
I don't want either (A) to be a resentment or (B) to have a resentment.
I don't want either (A) to read lots of certain books and offend my conservative in-laws or (B) to stay quiet about "our" "white" America.
When race matters, and class, and gender, and language, I want my family friends and neighbors to have good change in all directions, not just in one or the other.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Mamma Mia
My mom celebrates her 70th birthday this month,
one of my mothers does.
To speak of her, and of my other mothers,
I mention my fathers first.
All of them, my fathers, are white
imposing their strong European names
upon their wives and sons and daughters,
upon my mothers
and brothers
and sisters, upon us.
They asked me to address them,
it was Father's Day during Mission Meeting.
I was to give a word, an MK token.
Hi, I said, I'm JK,
I'm a recovering missionaries' kid.
They laughed but don't acknowledge feminist ambiguities,
the work one does in recovering from,
in recovery of,
when secrets come out in safety.
My African American mother
passed away before the Fair Housing
Act was passed; "Nancy" not "negro," Papa.
My Vietnamese mother
died abandoned in a reeducation
camp when peace came, remember "Sister"?
My boarding school white mothers,
Edna, Liz, Ruth, then Mildred, like me,
graciously submitted, except for widow Mildred, then me.
Margarita had taught us her children to read
because she reads, has read for sixty some years this month.
------
When i was young
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
Well they´d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible ,practical
And they showed me a world
Where i could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world´s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won´t you please, please tell me what we´ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who i am
Now watch what you say
Or they´ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Oh won´t you sign up your name
We´d like to feel you´re
Acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
At night when all the world´s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won´t you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who i am, who i am, who i am.
------
Ow
Yeah, yeah
When I was a young skinny boy
My mama said to me
The world out there is hard and dirty
Mean as it wants to be
I know there's gonna be times
when you're down and out
So listen now kid
Listen now son
I'll tell you what it's all about
You gotta try to keep your
head above the water
That's what my mama told me
You gotta try to keep a step ahead of time
And even though you do
some things you shouldn't
ought to
Shouldn't ought to
If you love your brothers love
will come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Lived my life in so many ways
To find out who I am
Time's approaching
I really can say
Truly I understand
Got more livin' to do for myself
To run along now
Play along later
Stay up by the shelf
Sing it girls
Gotta try to keep your
head above the water
Yes you do yes you do
You gotta try to keep a step ahead of time
Even though you do some things
you shouldn't ought to
If you love your sisters, love
will come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
All the world is turnin' slow
Slowly it will die
But that is something I never will see
I don't know why
Tryin' to take the world the best I can
Write a bit now
Love a bit later
Stand up like a man
hey, hey
Gotta try to keep your
head above the water
Yes you do yes you do yes you do
Gotta try to keep a step ahead of time
Even though you do some things
you shouldn't ought to
Love your brothers and sisters,
love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
-------------
one of my mothers does.
To speak of her, and of my other mothers,
I mention my fathers first.
All of them, my fathers, are white
imposing their strong European names
upon their wives and sons and daughters,
upon my mothers
and brothers
and sisters, upon us.
They asked me to address them,
it was Father's Day during Mission Meeting.
I was to give a word, an MK token.
Hi, I said, I'm JK,
I'm a recovering missionaries' kid.
They laughed but don't acknowledge feminist ambiguities,
the work one does in recovering from,
in recovery of,
when secrets come out in safety.
My African American mother
passed away before the Fair Housing
Act was passed; "Nancy" not "negro," Papa.
My Vietnamese mother
died abandoned in a reeducation
camp when peace came, remember "Sister"?
My boarding school white mothers,
Edna, Liz, Ruth, then Mildred, like me,
graciously submitted, except for widow Mildred, then me.
Margarita had taught us her children to read
because she reads, has read for sixty some years this month.
------
When i was young
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
Well they´d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible ,practical
And they showed me a world
Where i could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world´s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won´t you please, please tell me what we´ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who i am
Now watch what you say
Or they´ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Oh won´t you sign up your name
We´d like to feel you´re
Acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
At night when all the world´s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won´t you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who i am, who i am, who i am.
------
Ow
Yeah, yeah
When I was a young skinny boy
My mama said to me
The world out there is hard and dirty
Mean as it wants to be
I know there's gonna be times
when you're down and out
So listen now kid
Listen now son
I'll tell you what it's all about
You gotta try to keep your
head above the water
That's what my mama told me
You gotta try to keep a step ahead of time
And even though you do
some things you shouldn't
ought to
Shouldn't ought to
If you love your brothers love
will come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Lived my life in so many ways
To find out who I am
Time's approaching
I really can say
Truly I understand
Got more livin' to do for myself
To run along now
Play along later
Stay up by the shelf
Sing it girls
Gotta try to keep your
head above the water
Yes you do yes you do
You gotta try to keep a step ahead of time
Even though you do some things
you shouldn't ought to
If you love your sisters, love
will come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
All the world is turnin' slow
Slowly it will die
But that is something I never will see
I don't know why
Tryin' to take the world the best I can
Write a bit now
Love a bit later
Stand up like a man
hey, hey
Gotta try to keep your
head above the water
Yes you do yes you do yes you do
Gotta try to keep a step ahead of time
Even though you do some things
you shouldn't ought to
Love your brothers and sisters,
love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
Love'll come back to you
-------------
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