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ard wifi hotspot in there i d like to heal these things because it s good for you to do that but i d also like to heal them so i could have a plain old shower once in a while i m working on this post tonight and i get a friend request on facebook i don t recognize the name immediately and we don t have mutual friends but glancing at her page i see that she looks like a cool person so i confirm it a minute later i get a note in my inbox this is an old friend from 4th grade with whom i used to play dress up in my yard i remember her yes we were only in school for one year together so we didn t hang for very long but her mom had just found a certificate from me in her childhood stuff a certificate in which i d honored her as the world s greatest friend whoa when we move away from new york shortly before my ninth birthday i go visit allison one last time i m wearing a dark red and white pinafore and dark red sandals and she wraps a lei around my neck and prepares to take a picture of me so i do the hula both arms to one side making a wave i m smiling in the photograph but it s a sad hula i don t want to leave her aloha posted by tina rowley 7 comments wednesday november 26 2014 on black lives mattering none of these words i m about to write are the best words if i wait until i can write those i m going to be waiting too long there are better things to say and people saying those better things better than i m going to be saying anything today but there s no time to waste there s too much wrong it s time to move i have two white sons ages 8 and 5 that i love with everything i ve got like a normal mother i worry about my children and some days that worry ramps up to straight fear my kids have both been hospitalized for severe asthma my littlest was nearly admitted to the icu a couple of months ago and watching them struggle for breath makes my heart do things i don t like it to do those are my worst days as a parent the days when my children are in jeopardy i don t have those days very often most days the standard issue mother worry shows up as a sort of light vigilance i know where they are i have an ear out for them i have a readiness to leap when necessary but i can go about my business when my kids are sick too they re up against a neutral force they re up against their own malfunctioning bodies and there are benevolent forces in place to protect my kids they have doctors they have hospitals they have medicine when they re struggling kind faces greet them every step of the way and we as worried parents are also met with kindness there are other things in the world i worry about of course there are threats to my children that threaten all children and all humans gun violence climate change etc but those things are not targeting my children especially the level of fear i have on my worst day as a parent of white children that s the daily dose for the parent of a black child if you have a black son you know he s going to be considered a threat just by being alive if you have a black daughter you know she s going to face the double dangers of racism and sexism like so many other people in the country the world i ve been glued to the television and the internet since word came down that darren wilson wouldn t be indicted for his killing of michael brown i ve been on twitter listening to the anguish and outrage of the brilliant black women and men i follow there i ve been reading all the articles posted by my friends of all races you know how you wake up some mornings with a pit in your stomach because you have something on your to do list that s overwhelming you have some task that feels a little or a lot past your comfort zone a little or a lot beyond your capabilities and you can t pass it off to someone else you can t delegate it it has your name on it you can t sleep through it either or hit the snooze alarm it s on deck right now i have that pit in my stomach writ large i ve had it there for a while and i ve been putting off getting up and facing it properly but what s dragging me the hell out of my bed now what i can t wipe away and i won t wipe away is the image of all the mothers the mothers who have to tell their black children the truth the truth that they re not safe in this world not how it is now and worst of all of course but it can t go without saying is the image of the mothers who lost their babies to this kind of brutality that s the abyss i read keesha s post this afternoon addressing white moms like me this is what i need dear friend i need to know that you are not merely worried about this most tragic of worst case scenarios befalling my son i need to know that you are out there changing the ethos that puts it in place that you see this as something that unites us as mothers friends and human beings i don t know keesha but i hear her and i care about her and every woman out there like her she s in pain she s in the pain and she needs more than talk more than our tears and our head shaking and handwringing i don t want to paraphrase her words i want you to read them yourself go read click the link but she needs us to read up and to speak up and to take action so it s up now it s on us if you re white like i am then no matter what your other challenges are you are the lucky inadvertent recipient of white privilege if you bristle at the term privilege then i want you to read karla mclaren s piece how to be a privilege traitor which helps suck the shame out of the word and leaves it like it is a plain fact and furthermore something to work with we have to use our privilege to dismantle this fucked up unjust system and we have to dismantle the racism that lives in us don t get excited and think you don t have any lurking in you either i know i have some lurking in me and it s not because i m a shitty person it s because i m a product of a racist society and so are you so we better get our eyes working properly and find that racism in us and admit it and root it out i haven t been speaking up on this like i should for one i ve been afraid of conflict i don t dig it i m not a natural at it but i m going to have to get natural at it and get good at taking deep breaths and summoning patience and getting in there and mixing it up the other thing that stopped me from speaking up was the false idea that i needed to have something really good to say something original something newly helpful but who is that for that s for me that s for my own ego who needs to play the freshest instrument in the orchestra we need to help that sound get loud and that s all i can beat a plain drum plainly if that s all i have so if you re holding back from speaking out on the subject of race and racism because you think you don t have something great to say good news we can say simple things with feeling and we can amplify the voices of the people who ve been on the front lines since forever and then we can read and learn and listen and get out there and up our game i don t know how to do this i don t have a great game plan and i don t have great words but other people have done a lot of thinking about this and advice is out there like so from janee woods becoming a white ally to black people in the aftermath of the michael brown murder time to fly that plane even if we re not that confident in our flying abilities we re out of time somebody else is going to get killed more later in the meanwhile blacklivesmatter it needs saying until it sinks in p s if you re white and you have criticism about how black people are responding to the latest news i say this keep your eyes on your own work that s not your business you have more than enough of your own work to keep you busy and if you re having trouble comprehending black rage the case for reparations by ta nehisi coates is required reading oh screw it it s required reading for everyone if you re not feeling it after that i don t know what to say except you re going to be a lot of work for the rest of us posted by tina rowley 5 comments wednesday november 19 2014 sunday school the first time i took communion i was six years old i was not a catholic or any other type of communion taking christian it s important to note this was my first time in a church i was just a plus one visiting the lord s house for breakfast i didn t grow up going to church my parents and grandparents were theosophists and theosophy isn t exactly a religion some wednesday evenings my mom and dad would go to lodge which was a theosophical discussion group that batted around different topics week after week but there was nothing on the books for kids my spiritual education was whatever i picked up around the dining room table my best friend allison pykett had invited me over for a sleepover at her house the night before and we d planned that i d tag along to church in the morning to keep the party going the pyketts were catholic and their church was gorgeous and cavernous with dark wood pews and elaborate stonework the mass itself was confusing and i was amazed by how smoothly allison and her family knelt and rose and sang and sat and thumbed to this and that page in the hymnal trying to keep up with them felt like following along with some elaborate aerobic dance video while doing silent karaoke to a song i d never heard before and then it was time for communion allison had warned me that this was big shit and we d agreed that when the time came i d stay in my seat i wasn t a catholic so i wasn t supposed to have any but when everybody got up and scooted over to get in line allison switched plans on me and told me to get up and follow her i was seized by dread what about the thing we d talked about before i was busting a taboo i wasn t supposed to be up there what would happen when you did something wrong like that in a church i hadn t been apprised of the consequences so i was picturing every kind of bad thing but allison pulled me into line and no adult stopped me so i was swept trembling into the waiting for communion river we inched closer i prepared for the priest to yell or smack me in the face or toss me out a window and then we were up allison went first the priest smiled down at her she opened her mouth and he put a wafer on her tongue then it was my turn the priest smiled down at me with the same smile he smiled at allison the same smile he smiled at everybody in front of us he didn t ask me to show my papers or identify myself i scanned his eyes trying to read his mind i determined that he must know that i was a visitor how could he not know he knew and he knew some loopholes in the rules that allison didn t know about that made it so this wasn t a big deal that had to be the situation he was ready with the wafer nobody was calling the cops so i opened my mouth and tried to speak to him with my eyes i hope you know what you re doing and then his big clean fingers were in my mouth it was weird to have a man s fingers in my mouth and have that man not be my dentist and the disc was on my tongue it had happened i hoped this didn t mean i d converted to catholicism i knew that was a discussion my parents would have wanted to get in on then we shuffled over to the right and someone gave me a little pleated paper cup since i was already possibly up shit creek having swallowed the wafer as a pagan i figured that a blood of christ chaser couldn t do that much additional damage so i drank the dark sweet liquid and put the implicit lie behind me and if i didn t tell anybody i was probably catholic now then i wouldn t have to go to confession to tell anybody about it so that was also a good deal after popping my strange holy temple cherry with allison the post sleepover church visit always gave me a voyeuristic thrill no matter whose house i d slept at and whose religion i would be invading in the morning i crashed all kinds of churches catholic mormon lutheran christian scientist most of my friends were churchgoers and their parents either didn t mind dragging me along with them or they were flat out worried for the state of my churchless soul either way i was jazzed to be along for the ride i felt like jacques cousteau gliding into brand new spiritual tropical waters observing all the brightly dressed fish going about their religious customs i don t know what i was imagining would happen in church what exactly i was so excited about i guess i wanted some god if god was such a huge deal that everybody interrupted their sundays at home to dress up and get in the car and drive to some special building not on a weekday then there must have been some supersweet action going on in there and i wanted to feel it the friend i d be accompanying was invariably blasé being subjected to this ritual weekly but my heart would beat a little faster as the parents drove up and parked and we filed into the church a little fear in the foyer will they stare and then i d be safely in the pew with my temporary adopted family and a man would start to talk i was always rooting for the priest or pastor or reverend or minister to say something exciting bring it sir make the lights flash around my head there are lights right holy lights let s get em going and i waited for the moment where the man would spill the good stuff welcome child prepare to have your mind blown this is why i have this job i m doug henning i m david copperfield times one million i have god up my sleeve right here and i m going to let him out now boom flash choir wings music of the spheres my expectations were possibly jacked up a touch past the point of fairness but if god wasn t going to crash through the ceiling and embrace us all i was at least hoping for something like a spreading warmth some kind of deep christmas y good cheer to bloom in my heart as god s representative held forth i held out hope every time and was disappointed every time if powerpoint presentations had existed back then and i d known about them i d have said that church services pretty much felt like that but hold on sunday school was next we could still squeeze something rewarding out of the venture i loved sunday school like i said there was no place and time in theosophy for children to talk about the divine but i was still interested too bad for me though theosophy was for grownups unless you were my older brother who could participate in theosophical discussion as fully informed and articulate as any adult and often more so but the discussions i listened in on at home were all a little over my head and nobody was bringing anything down to where my head was so i was benched by default sunday school on the other hand was 100 kid sized and i was champing at the bit for some discourse the teacher would slip us a brightly colored book or comic and we d read the day s selection and talk about what we read the regulars mostly slumped in their seats and didn t bother raising their hands as i m sure i would have done if i had to participate week after week but this happened for me maybe four or fi...