Tag: Friday Philosophy

Earlier today, teacherken posted an essay entitled, American, land of opportunity – Not!.  It was mostly about the the limits of upward mobility caused by race and class.  In fact, the paper he cited discussed downward mobility caused by those factors.

Downward mobility is not strange to people in the trans community.  In the news yesterday was this report from the 2010 Creating Change conference, courtesy of Renee Baker for dallasvoice.com.

Numbers.  They were preliminary numbers, but numbers nonetheless.  And I’m a numbers person in the eyes of most part, so I thought I would share and comment on them.

They are not exactly new.  The numbers come from a preliminary report dated in November.  NGLTF released an even rougher sketch of the data earlier in last year.

But the question comes up from time to time.  Do transfolk really need to be covered by an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act?  

We all grow up with a vision of what is right and just in this world.  Many, if not most, of us grow up with the idea of pursuing “the American Dream”.  For some that has meant the pursuit, as when it was first enunciated in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, of achieving a “better, richer, and happier life”.  In his book, The Epic of America, Adams stated it this way:

that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.  It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it.  It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

Oddly, in view of today’s circumstances, Mr. Adams was a banker.

I’ve been watching the Prop 8 trial…except not really, since SCOTUS disallowed us folks who couldn’t be in the courtroom to watch what may be the most important court case ever for GLBT people.  So I watched the transcripts instead, as they were posted by the people at the Courage Campaign Institute and FiredogLake.  

One of the assertions made time and again by the defense was that Proposition 8 was not based in animus.

What?  No strong dislike of GLBT people?  No enmity?  Are we seriously expected to believe that there was no hostile attitude?

I’d like to think that one could discount those assertions as being false on there face.  But this was a court of law.  I am no lawyer, but as a writer and a mathematician, I know words and logic.

Having followed the trial closely, I have to ask the following.

When you deliberately choose not to learn about people who you wish to discriminate against, what is that if not animus?

Mr. Tam admits he, at the very least, helped author the fourteen words central to Proposition 8.

Brian Leubitz wrote a piece at Prop 8 Trial Tracker, entitled William Tam: He’s like that Cute Ignorant Uncle that everybody cringes at.

No.  I disagree.  There is nothing cute about Hak-Shing “William” Tam.

I expected at any moment for him to just stand up and say “just kidding! Got you big-time, you don’t think I actually believe that garbage, do you? Ha-ha!”

Methinks that let’s Mr. Tam off the hook too easily.

I’ve been “watching”  the trial in the 9th Circuit.  You know, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, though Perry is only one of the plaintiffs and Ahnold is not, apparently, one of the defendants.  More precisely, it might be labeled Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals v. Homophobes.

A keen observer might notice that I omitted Transgender there.  Such an observer might ask why.  The reason is that transgender people have been made invisible in this trial and the reporting thereof.

It was not unexpected.

Once upon a time, way back at Forest Hills Elementary School in Lake Oswego, Oregon, we were taught about the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest.  Included in that was the Whitman Massacre by members of the Cayuse and Umatilla tribes, who blamed the Whitmans for bringing measles to them along with their religion.  I remember going to the library and reading, among other things, about the Nez Perce and how they were treated by our government.  They now have a reservation in Idaho and who usually call themselves the Nimiipuu.

Out of such things are activists born.

I became, at that moment a firm believer that people should have equal rights in the eyes of the government, that nobody should be treated as second-class citizens, or worse.

Halloween tomorrow.

Ick.

As a child I loved Halloween.  We’d go to Mrs. Silver’s house across the street and she would invite us inside and make us fresh caramel apples or popcorn balls.  Lord knows, one can’t do that anymore.

And we would go door to door around the neighborhood and get a real haul of treats.  And somewhere, later, older kids would toilet paper someone’s house or yard, which we would discover on the way to school in the morning.  I never liked the “trick” part.

Razor blades and pins and poison and just plain bad people put a stop to most of the good stuff I remember.  

As I got older, the tricks became worse and the treats were few and far between.

We had an interesting speaker on Tuesday.

Professor Gita Sen flew in from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India and talked about sustainability and community development.  Writing about what she spoke about and an organization she is a main player with, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) seemed like a worthwhile thing to do.

Of course there was always the possibility that a new diary topic could come to the fore.  Or that one which has been brewing for a couple of weeks could demand to be written finally.  The piece I had been ruminating about had actually earned a title:   Yes, I want a pony.  In fact, I want your pony.

That last deserves to stand by itself until it is ripe.  If you want to fight over it, please wait until I post the essay that goes with it.  Maybe if you continue reading, you might get a glimpse as to how it connects with the rest.

But of course, all hell had broken loose at the beginning of the week at Docudharma.

And that got me thinking about Professor Sen’s discussion of sustainable development…and whether or not there will ever be any application of it…or even possibility of it…in online communities.

Disclaimer:  I am not a member of the Sierra Club.  I’m just a teacher at a small college and as part of the Women’s Studies Coordinating Committee attended a talk about a week and a half ago by Sally Malanga from that group.  After hearing her speak, I asked her to send me some information so that I could try to help her and her small group of committed volunteers fight City Hall.

People need help to save the ecology.  I figured this is what I could do best.  I’m hoping a few people out there are reading who can also lend a hand…in whatever way they can.

I spent the morning and afternoon trapped in my apartment as workers painted the stairwell which leads to the only exit from the building.  The paint fumes were probably consuming my brain cells.  I  sacrificed brain cells in better ways when I was younger.

I had hoped to write about an attempt to save what has come to be called McClellan Forest in West Orange, NJ on the site of land once belonging to Major General George Brinton McClellan, organizer of the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War…and former Governor of New Jersey.

Whether anyone has a positive or negative opinion of McClellan is irrelevant.  What is relevant are the 250 year old trees…and the resolve the Archdiocese of Newark has to replace the forest with athletic fields to honor the current headmaster of Seton Hall Prep.

But the files I wanted have not as yet arrived from the woman from the Sierra Club who spoke about the efforts on Tuesday.

So I had to come up with something else for tonight.  Maybe the 8 by 10 glossies and maps will arrive before next Friday.

Then I realized it was October 9…one day after another anniversary of THAT day.  And I realized that Sunday is National Coming Out Day.  Maybe it is time for another progress report.

On a better day, I probably wouldn’t write this, but workers have spent the last three weeks showing up at 7am to renovate the downstairs apartment and I am sleep deprived.  And there is no appearance that more than one person as showed up at Muse in the Morning for the past two days, so screw it.

I mentioned the title to some people earlier today.  buhdydharma commented,

Tough thesis to prove!

I responded,

Probably should say “shouldn’t”…

…but the “we” needs to be expanded upon.

Reading on may offer an explanation.

September 30, 1992:

• Mariel Hemingway appears nude on the TV show Civil Wars.
• George Brett gets 4 hits to raise his total to 3000.
• Hurricane Bonnie dissipated (a private irony).
• University mathematics professor begins transition in rural Arkansas.

It was a very difficult decision.  And at the same time, it was a very easy one.