windy, baby
I am surly and opinionated. I like photography and mudpies. I like to write notes. I'm an external processor.
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Reality Check
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/on_july_29_2010_lisa.html —“Why Native American Women Are Fighting For Plan B”
Isn’t it weird that I, in Iowa City, is sure a pharmacy or a clinic nearby, to find something so accessible as Plan B? Having lived through the college scene, I’ve probably heard “I’m going to Walgreens to pick up Plan B” hundreds of times. You don’t think twice about whether it’s available. Let’s play a game: how many factors can you come up with that contributes to the unequal access between me and another woman living on a reservation? Ready. Set. Go.
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Nitpicky Turned Rant
Not to be nitpicky and bring this up again, but does anyone notice Rush Limbaugh’s incredible ignorance on how contraception was used? I couldn’t help laughing while Mike pointed this out last week.
“Can you imagine if you’re her parents how proud of Sandra Fluke you would be?” he said. “Your daughter…testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the pope.”
Fluke testified that without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman as much as $3,000 during law school.
“Three thousand dollars for birth control in three years? That’s a thousand dollars a year of sex — and, she wants us to pay for it,” Limbaugh said, adding that high school boys applying to college should consider Georgetown. “They’re admitting before congressional committee that they’re having so much sex they can’t afford the birth control pills!”
“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”
Birth control use does not increase as sexual activity increases. It’s 28 active pills a month whether it’s 28 sexual encounters or just 1. Rush Limbaugh is not simply a vulgar bigot— he’s an ignorant, vulgar bigot. How did he ever avoid impregnating all four of his (ex)wives, who knows.
By the way, if Rush Limbaugh wants to provide all women with aspirin to put between their legs, I hope he’s willing to pay for all the wire hangers too. That’s what you’re reducing reproductive healthcare to.
If you want to get cold-hearted about this… Stingy tax-payers! If you, through your representatives, deny women contraceptive coverage, be prepared to take on the wards of state. I hope you will adopt every single one of them. Because that’s accountability isn’t it. Since you denied other people the ability to make responsible choices; you should take responsibility the consequences of your actions.
Ugh, I can’t even point out a humorous point without getting angry at what the core of this stupid argument is. I’m so fucking furious.
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Jordan Year
23 is my favorite number. I am already confident that 23 is going to be a big moment in my life. But more than the bleeps on the timeline that I anticipate, I am already having big revelations about the timeline itself.
Being young and unsettled is freedom. By mistake, I recently started on a journey with clay. Sometimes, I want to peddle backwards because I see no future for it. On the other hand, the legal future I intended on pursuing is on the back burner, slow-cooking away its window of opportunity. Then it hits me, as long as I am able, I am young. As long as I am unsettled, I am free. This timeline I have for myself is completely artificial.
When I was young and 23 was lightyears away, 23 looked a lot more stable with a house, a job, and a partner. Now, 23 is just my favorite number and 365 more days to fill with wisdom and love. I’m going to stop wondering how much I should have accomplished by this point and how much further I have to do. It’s exactly the opposite from the lesson I’ve learned from clay— just respond to the form you have before you. Because if I start obsessing about what I have to do. I lose focus of what I’m doing. And before I know it, I’ll prematurely age in my heart and never understand why all the years past me have been so empty.
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Lesson in Race and Racism.
We’ve seen the ESPN headline. ”Chink in the Armor”. We’ve also made the connection between “chink” and Jeremy Lin’s ethnicity. Haha,chink in the amor; Haha, Jeremy Lin; Haha chink. Yes, it sounded awfully like a pun. It definitely looked like many people got the pun, because their outrage was apparent to ESPN’s powers-that-be. A couple days ago, Anthony Federico (the editor who wrote the headline) was fired from ESPN for his action. My heart is a tiny bit sore for anyone who loses a job in this market. But my head tells me, with his status and connections, he will have an easier time than the average person. I’m not crying any rivers anytime soon about that.
Beside the obvious lesson of not saying racially offensive material, I am going to fry bigger fish. I am going to rebuke all the “token-ism”. Just because one has a few friends of color, loves Sriracha and curry, or is simply a hell of a good person, does not make one an ally. It does not excuse the slurs or the ignorance to the racism that still remains in our institutions and communities. It is not enough to be “cool with ‘em”. Reading Anthony Federico’s apology, it seems that people haven’t gotten it yet. He lists off all the nice things he’s done. He even brings God into it. I respect that. I respect his work. But it has nothing to do with what he would intentionally or unintentionally say. Federico’s apology was unnecessarily long— nice to know you’re nice, but it’s off topic. I’ve met nice racists too.
For all my white and privileged friends, please don’t stay “cool with” us. Federico was probably cool with a lot of people. But he still failed to recognize a racially offensive subject line and published it in the media— a realm that forms and reinforces opinion. Reflect on yourselves and how you reinforce privilege and prejudice. Goes for all my friends of color too. We all have shit that has created schisms between our communities (LA Riots ring a bell?). Let’s reflect on how we perpetuate discrimination, marginalization, and eventually hate. At first, it’ll feel weird and silent— like the awkward pause in a conversation. Then things will slowly come to the surface. Because, in the end, it’s not okay to be oblivious either. The times call for spoken allies, not silent enemies.
For Joelle, it means no more G-talk and using her Asian-ness (regardless of it’s cute factor) as an agent of humor/entertainment.
