Truth of the Day

"Among the echelons of the upper middle class, there is a smug pride often taken in the edgy address, as if poor people existed to lend the better off a veneer of adventurous chic."
- Ginia Bellafante

Full article.

This is a true state of emergency.

There is a horrific famine happening right now in the horn of Africa. If you have time to read this post, you have time to do something tangible about it: write your rep and/or skip a meal out this week and make even a modest donation - every single one of us can afford it. 

mercycorps.org
unicef.org,
writerep.house.gov 

Thanks to Nicholas D. Kristof for alerting me to the severity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-glimpses-of-the-next-great-famine.htm

Ten Years Later

I'm still processing.  I don't have a lot to say right now.  I'm having a hard time getting through this article.  My Facebook status is about all the thought I can form:

Try as I did, I never could donate the skirt I wore ten years ago today. On the downtown R, to work on Broadway & Spring, in the silent procession uptown, on the L back to Brooklyn, to drink red wine with Tina at Milo's (now, The Metropolitan). I'm glad I kept it. Often, my sentiment is commemorated in the sartorial.

Kind of avoiding the TV documentaries, although I'll probably give in in a bit.

Here's my 9/11 story.

In the past few years I've hoped all the ceremony would die down after so many years, but today, I'm glad that there's something in our society that lends gravitas.  I'm so over everything frivolous right now.

Just found this in my journal from September 14, 2001:

My priorities have changed a lot... There's nothing I feel like doing with my time, except to occasionally have a glass of wine and be around a lot of people. I certainly don't want to travel. I don't want to laugh. I want to mourn. But I don't want to feel like this forever. I want to always remember this... this vulnerability, this patriotism, this need for God, this care for people I've never met, this pride in my city and elected officials. But thing can never feel normal again, can they? This is just so strange....

Jobs Part 2: Perseverance, Hope, Second Chances

Now this is the kind of story that provokes sympathy from me.  Frederick Deare was laid off from his factory job and it took months of searching to secure a new - lower-paying - job.  Deare experiences the entire jobless range of emotions from fear to hope, and though he definitely had his down days, he seems to have been extremely proactive in his search.  He eventually finds a job, but still:

There was only one downside: The work paid $10 an hour, 40 percent less than he had made at Old London. After taxes, his paycheck was even less than the unemployment benefits he had been collecting. But he tried not to dwell on this. “I don’t let it bother me that I’m getting less, because of the simple fact I have something, and a lot of people have nothing,” he said. “You have to crawl before you can walk.” Four and a half months later, he is still on the job.

Some letters in today's Times criticize him, saying that he doesn't deserve a job as an ex-con, or how dare he have a smartphone with bills so tight (I didn't gather from his phone's description that it was a smartphone, but I see the point).  As much as I like to get all hard-hearted about job searches and especially sense of entitlement (see previous post), I did not get that from this article at all.  And I really, really can't see how a reformed, now hard-working man is a problem in our society.

Jobs Part 1: Apparently Ms. Morales Missed the Memo

You know, the one about how everyone in the arts waits tables at the beginning of their career?

“We did everything we were supposed to,” said Stephanie Morales, 23, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 with hopes of working in the arts. Instead she ended up waiting tables at a Chart House restaurant in Weehawken, N.J., earning $2.17 an hour plus tips, to pay off her student loans. “What was the point of working so hard for 22 years if there was nothing out there?” said Ms. Morales, who is now a paralegal and plans on attending law school.

It's really not about Morales* specifically - (I suspect she'll be getting plenty of criticism in the comments & other blogs - keep your head up my dear!) - this whole article reeks of entitlement.  Kind of like the whole Millennial generation - I count myself on the cusp, so this is self-critical as well.

Bubble Disclaimer**, but these days, isn't having a job at 22/23 a win in itself?  Forget four years, what about those out of grad school or with work experience that don't have prospects?  And if the job applications I've reviewed this year are any indication, most four-year degrees don't even include basics on how to write a cover letter or construct a resume, so it's difficult to be enthusiastic about getting these people into the workforce.

Suck it up.  Usually, on the path to your perfect career, you take many detours.  And what you envision yourself doing at 22 is likely not what you'll be doing - or want to be doing - 10 years later.  If you have to take an unpaid internship to learn your industry's skill set and build a network, or bartend/barista to make cash while you land an entry-level job, this is not the Universe shitting on you or even a sign that you did the wrong thing.  Building a career, like all noble pursuits in life, requires patience, realism, perseverance, and a sense of humor.  And above all, awesome friends for the in-between time.

*Side note to Morales and others considering similar options: law school is not a panacea.  There is a major problem lately with a glut of talent in law, lack of jobs, etc... sound like any other industry?  Be sure you're going for the right reasons and that the price tag is worth it - and not just the financial one.

**My environment is not indicative of mainstream America - like Irene, NYC avoided a lot of the economic turmoil of the last few years, and my circle in particular has been overwhelmingly gainfully employed, and even moving up in their careers.  Luck of the draw?  Right place right time?  We shall see...

Is Howard Schultz Gearing Up for a Run?

Dear Starbucks Friend and Fellow Citizen:


I love our country. And I am a beneficiary of the promise of America. But today, I am very concerned that at times I do not recognize the America that I love.


Like so many of you, I am deeply disappointed by the pervasive failure of leadership in Washington. And also like you, I am frustrated by our political leaders' steadfast refusal to recognize that, for every day they perpetuate partisan conflict and put ideology over country, America and Americans suffer from the combined effects of paralysis and uncertainty. Americans can't find jobs. Small businesses can't get credit. And the fracturing of consumer confidence continues.


We are better than this.

Battery Stroll

Pacific Northwest Whitewash

"Trying to describe white privilege to white people is like trying to explain water to a fish."


Bonita Appleblog crafted an excellent, thoughtful response to an article in Seattle's alt-weekly, The Stranger, on racism, Seattle-style.


Fact!  I used to live in Seattle.  I went to college there, and I cannot recall interacting with a single black person outside of the Supersonics, Monday night Seahawks hangout at the jazz club, the 3 guys on our school's basketball team, and the neighborhoods where I volunteered.  OUCH.


These days, the first reason I give when asked if I would ever move back to Portland and I say no and they ask why, is that it's not diverse enough.  People like to debate this, or act like this is an unreasonable dealbreaker, but when you grow up as a mixed-race kid in a superwhite area, you're not in a big hurry to return to a place where you didn't stand a chance of blending in, being beautiful, encountering others like you.


This explanation is inevitably met with a blank stare, which brings us back to the quote at the top of this post. Rinse, repeat.


"Your life story produces a racial filter," [explains Tali Hairston.] "It might be a lens so thick that everything gets drawn into looking like it's about race, or so thin that when someone says something is racial, you go, oh hell no, it's not. As a white person, you have to own the development of your own racial lens. Because whether you're aware of it or not, you have one."

The Politics of Black Pregnancy

Hide your kids, hide your wife - Beyonce is pregnant!  OMG who cares that she's one of the most talented and accomplished pop performers in American history -- drooooollllllllbbaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbyyyyyyy!!!!  Let the tabloids rejoice!

Awesome discussion happening in the comments over at my favorite Jezebel about the ridiculousness of this being a "statement" or example for The Black Community, a lesson for black single mothers on how to do things The Right Way.*

Sigh.

Loved this comment in particular:

Honestly, me and my sister were more surprised that Jay-Z was "doing it the right way". When we read about it, the article said it would be the first child for Jay-Z at 41 years old, and we were amazed that a 41 year old rapper had yet to father children. Sure we knew before that he wasn't toting kids, but to have it laid out like that made it clear to us how unusual it seemed for a black man his age (and income bracket) not to have kids all over the place. We even expected it. Sometimes it can seem that for a black man to have multiple "baby mamas" is a status symbol in itself- it either means that he's got enough cash to support them all, or he's got enough game to get them all in the first place. If I recall correctly, Clutch even wrote an article on the whole "I wanna get you pregnant" phenomenon. So yeah, I'm more surprised that all the hoopla is about Beyonce "doing it the right way" when Jay-Z "doing it the right way" seems like a far better example to be pushing in the black community. 


*Be born to  ambitious stage parents, have ridiculous talent, achieve fame in teen years, have long career, marry billionaire, become pregnant.