I wrote the first part of this post from a table in a Starbucks. I finished up my onsite client work at about 3:00, and wasn't ready to stop for the day. Usually, I'd go home and work for awhile, then go pick up Pumpkin at summer camp, but the construction at my house is often quite noisy, so I decided to try to work at a Starbucks. There's one near my client site, but I figured it would be better to get closer to the summer camp, and skip the evening rush traffic.
Sadly, this was the wrong decision. It was a crowded Starbucks. I had a longish wait to get a drink, and I scored the last table. If I'd been a little later, I'd have had to ask one of the people who had strategically placed their things so as to take up three spots at the long communal table to make some space for me. By the time I got settled in, I only had about 30 minutes left to work.
And it was a noisy coffee shop- which is fine! People should talk in coffee shops. Still, I could hear three conversations from my table. In one, a guy was expounding on how easy it is to make money as an ebook author (HA HA HA HA HA). In another, two guys were discussing flipping condos, and in the third, a guy seemed to be interviewing someone to be some sort of sales associate.
I felt a bit old school just sitting there writing a blog post. There was no way I was going to be able to concentrate on the more strictly work-like writing I had planned to do, so I didn't even try.
I clearly need a better answer for how to work during the construction project, which is scheduled to run until early October. I'm considering a formal co-working space, but it is a bit expensive. At half the price, I'd be in for sure. At the actual price, I am on the fence, still trying to piece something together with libraries, coffee shops, and the occasional use of my sister's condo.
-----------------------------
Speaking of pricing... I am finding setting the price for things to be one of the hardest parts of my new business. I have come to the conclusion that I should have priced Navigating the Path to Industry a little higher. At the current price, I don't have the room to run sales without losing the good royalty rate on the retailer sites. Also, I've come to the conclusion that most people won't pay for job search advice at all, and for those who will pay, the difference between $2.99 and $3.99 would not affect the decision to buy.
Oh well- that was a learner project, so I'll take that lesson and see whether I can learn the right thing from it. Some books won't be long enough to support a higher price, but some will. I think.
Speaking of other books, the "teaser" page for the next book I'm publishing is up now. Check it out!
----------------------------
One of the ideas I'm trying to decide whether to pursue, and how to price if I do pursue it, is the idea of offering short (~1 hr) seminars on specific management topics. This is spurred by the success of the Get More Done class, and by the fact that I really enjoyed preparing and giving that class. That tells me that perhaps I should try to find more ways to do that sort of thing.
I was going to let this idea percolate a bit longer, but then I forgot to cancel the premium level meeting hosting after my class finished, so I have already paid for another month of the level that allows me to host and record the type of meeting I'd need. So now I'm thinking that maybe I should just go for it.
I'm leaning towards doing it, because I don't think there is anyway to find out whether or not this idea is any good without just trying it. However, right now I can't pick a topic that will require a lot of research- particularly if I want to do it before the "extra" month of meeting support ends. I think I could pull together a good seminar about running effective meetings without doing much research, so that's what I'm leaning towards doing.
But I'm debating how much to charge... and as my experience with the coworking place shows, sometimes that really matters.
Like I said, pricing is hard.
----------------------------
I've got new things to figure out on the home front, too- after years of resisting, I've finally joined Facebook. The final straw was learning in the last week of school that there had been an after school music program running this semester. I hadn't heard about it because most of the discussion happened on Facebook.
I realized that I need to go where the rest of the people are if I want to stay in the loop. I don't want to be that Mom who insists that the group should cater to me and my preferences.
Besides, we recently granted Pumpkin's request for her own email address. Requests to be on Facebook probably aren't too far off in our future. One of us had better start figuring out the privacy settings and other finer details, and it certainly wasn't going to be Mr. Snarky. He's perfectly willing to be that Dad and insist on staying off Facebook, and this isn't something I feel like arguing with him over.
So, now I'm on Facebook, trying to figure out how I want to use it.
In short: there's a lot of figuring things out on the fly going on here right now. I'm trying not to let it stress me out!
Monday, June 29, 2015
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Trip Story: Bordeaux
If I don't start writing the stories about my recent trip to France, I'm going to (1) forget a lot of details, and (2) feel pretty silly writing about a trip that happened months ago.
So, while my memories are still somewhat fresh and the trip is only one month in the past, I'm going to get started. I'll skip over LAX, the flight to Madrid, the transfer in Madrid, and the short flight to Bordeaux.
We stumbled out of the Bordeaux baggage claim area feeling rather tired and hoping for some useful information about how to get to the center of town. It was Sunday, so our hopes were dashed. The information desk was unstaffed, and there was no helpful information to be found. Therefore, Mr. Snarky had no choice but to go with my original plan, which was to go get a taxi to take us to our hotel.
My really quite bad French was good enough to communicate where we wanted to go, so we climbed in and headed to our hotel. The taxi driver and I tried to communicate a bit more, but we didn't manage to establish anything more meaningful than that we should have three days of nice weather in Bordeaux (he was right) and that we'd both been to Chicago and it is a very nice city.
Our driver left us at the corner of the street, and after just a little bit of time wandering around Bordeaux, we completely understood why- and were also very, very glad that we had decided not to get a rental car at the airport, but to wait and pick one up at the train station on the day we were leaving town. The center of Bordeaux is a veritable maze of one way streets.
But that first day, we didn't really understand. We didn't much mind, either- the driver carefully pointed to the hotel and we set off pulling our bags behind us.
I enjoyed many things in Bordeaux, but our hotel may have been my favorite thing. We stayed at La Maison du Lierre. I found it by picking the area I thought we should stay in, and having Google Maps show all the hotels. It was a great find- comfortable, quiet, friendly, with a delicious breakfast and stylish but not overbearing decor. The owners were delightful, even when we were confused about how the ordering of breakfast needed to be done, and then overslept by several hours on our last day and missed the breakfast- and the check out time.
By the time we got settled into our room and showered, it was dinner time. We walked to a pizza place near our hotel, had a decent meal with some fairly good wine (recommended by our waiter), and then strolled back to the hotel and fell asleep.
We got up reasonably early the next day. It was Sunday, so we knew we wouldn't be able to do a lot of serious touristing, but we were able to see some cool things and enjoy the day.
We started by walking down to the river.
We were headed to the Quai des Chartrons, which our guidebook said had been done up with shops and restaurants, and which my research had also told me housed a Sunday market.
Strolling through the market was a wonderful way to start the day, even if I didn't have the confidence in my French to try to buy any of the food on display.
The Quai itself had indeed been renovated and provided a nice place for a stroll (or, if you are a local, a jog- we saw so many runners that Mr. Snarky started joking that Sunday=runday in Bordeaux, undeterred by my observation that his pun would not work in French). There were several restaurants with large sunny patios, and a smattering of stores, which we were surprised to find open on Sunday. We mostly just strolled, though. At the end of the quay, we turned around and headed back a ways, before cutting in away from the river to wander the streets of Les Chartrons. This district would almost certainly have been more interesting on a weekday when the shops were open, but it was still a pleasant walk.
We found ourselves at the Jardin Publique, so we strolled through it, too. I convinced Mr. Snarky that we should return with sandwiches for a nice, low key lunch- so after a short rest at the hotel, we headed out and found a Carrefour market that was open, bought some sandwiches, yogurt, soda, and cookies, and then walked back the the garden to enjoy it.
After lunch, we walked back to a ruin we had seen, and discovered that it was the remains of a Roman amphitheater.
What is now called the Palais Gallien (according to the plaque, it got that name in the 1300s) was already abandoned by the end of the 3rd century. It could seat 15,000 people when it was intact, but large parts of it were destroyed to make way for houses after the French Revolution.
We decided to walk around more of the town, too, and were also delighted to find the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Bordeaux- a modern judicial building designed by Richard Rogers (who also designed the Centre Pompidou in Paris) that abuts the remains of the fort du Ha, a fortress built in the 1400s that was later used as a prison.
We also saw the main cathedral, but it was not open to the public, and I was getting tired, so we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a bottle of wine and some cheese and charcuterie in the back garden/patio of our hotel.
The days are quite long in Bordeaux in May, so even after a decent rest, we still had some sunlight left. Once I'd gotten some energy back, we walked back to the central part of the city, and saw more sights. We even walked over to see the Porte de la Grosse-Cloche- a 15th century gate into the old walled town.
By this time, it was dinner time- or at least it was dinner time for us tourists. Locals ate later, but I was hungry, so we found a restaurant with a nice looking terrace and had dinner. Then we walked over to La Bourse (the stock exchange) and waited for the sun to go down enough for us to enjoy the lights on La Bourse reflected in the shallow pool across the street.
By this time, we were getting quite tired, so we headed back to our hotel and went to sleep.
We spent a large part of the next day (Monday) shopping. It seemed our best bet to buy some gifts for our kids and other people, and one of Mr. Snarky's shoes fell apart on our first night in France, so he needed new shoes. Besides, I enjoy shopping when I travel, even if I'm not aiming to buy anything in particular. It is fun to see the different stores, and the slight differences in how even familiar stores operate. For instance, we were amused by this sign outside of Lush:
Our lunch that day was perhaps my most successful conversation in French. We had lunch at a small creperie not far from the Rue St.-Catherine, where we did most of our shopping. The woman who was working there had the art of speaking French to English speakers with so-so French skills down: she spoke slowly and enunciated clearly, and stuck to basic vocabulary. I managed to order our lunch and dessert (which was a crepe with delicious chocolate sauce) and even chat a bit with her.
Once we finished our shopping, we took our bags back to our hotel and had a short rest before heading back out, this time to the art museum. The Musee des Beaux-Arts is small, but well curated and we enjoyed our visit. After leaving the museum, we found that the Cathedrale St-Andre was now open, so we went in. One thing I learned on this trip: Mr. Snarky is fond of old churches. I am sympathetic- I spent a huge amount of time visiting old churches on my first international trip, which was to Sweden. I don't mind visiting churches now, but I am not quite so enamored with them anymore. Still, since Mr. Snarky wanted to see them, we visited a lot of old churches on this trip.
My reward for patiently waiting for Mr. Snarky to finish in the cathedral was a couple of glasses of wine on a tree-shaded terrace at a bar/bistro. Then we found yet another terrace on which to eat dinner. My dinner was probably a tad too heavy for me, and my asthma was a bit aggravated by the smokers on the first terrace. These two things combined to make it difficult for me to sleep that night, and that plus the effects of jet lag combined to make me sleep until quite late the next morning. Mr Snarky overslept, too, and we thereby ruined our plans to visit St. Emilion on our but I didn't know that at the time, and the wines and dinner were certainly quite enjoyable!
In fact, the entire stay in Bordeaux was quite enjoyable. It is a beautiful city, quite accessible for English-speaking tourists, and quite walkable for people (like me) who love to see a city on foot. It was a great way to start our trip.
So, while my memories are still somewhat fresh and the trip is only one month in the past, I'm going to get started. I'll skip over LAX, the flight to Madrid, the transfer in Madrid, and the short flight to Bordeaux.
We stumbled out of the Bordeaux baggage claim area feeling rather tired and hoping for some useful information about how to get to the center of town. It was Sunday, so our hopes were dashed. The information desk was unstaffed, and there was no helpful information to be found. Therefore, Mr. Snarky had no choice but to go with my original plan, which was to go get a taxi to take us to our hotel.
My really quite bad French was good enough to communicate where we wanted to go, so we climbed in and headed to our hotel. The taxi driver and I tried to communicate a bit more, but we didn't manage to establish anything more meaningful than that we should have three days of nice weather in Bordeaux (he was right) and that we'd both been to Chicago and it is a very nice city.
Our driver left us at the corner of the street, and after just a little bit of time wandering around Bordeaux, we completely understood why- and were also very, very glad that we had decided not to get a rental car at the airport, but to wait and pick one up at the train station on the day we were leaving town. The center of Bordeaux is a veritable maze of one way streets.
But that first day, we didn't really understand. We didn't much mind, either- the driver carefully pointed to the hotel and we set off pulling our bags behind us.
I enjoyed many things in Bordeaux, but our hotel may have been my favorite thing. We stayed at La Maison du Lierre. I found it by picking the area I thought we should stay in, and having Google Maps show all the hotels. It was a great find- comfortable, quiet, friendly, with a delicious breakfast and stylish but not overbearing decor. The owners were delightful, even when we were confused about how the ordering of breakfast needed to be done, and then overslept by several hours on our last day and missed the breakfast- and the check out time.
By the time we got settled into our room and showered, it was dinner time. We walked to a pizza place near our hotel, had a decent meal with some fairly good wine (recommended by our waiter), and then strolled back to the hotel and fell asleep.
We got up reasonably early the next day. It was Sunday, so we knew we wouldn't be able to do a lot of serious touristing, but we were able to see some cool things and enjoy the day.
We started by walking down to the river.
 |
| The River Garonne, from the beginning of the Quai des Chartrons, looking back toward the center of town |
We were headed to the Quai des Chartrons, which our guidebook said had been done up with shops and restaurants, and which my research had also told me housed a Sunday market.
Strolling through the market was a wonderful way to start the day, even if I didn't have the confidence in my French to try to buy any of the food on display.
 |
| Bread at the Sunday market |
We found ourselves at the Jardin Publique, so we strolled through it, too. I convinced Mr. Snarky that we should return with sandwiches for a nice, low key lunch- so after a short rest at the hotel, we headed out and found a Carrefour market that was open, bought some sandwiches, yogurt, soda, and cookies, and then walked back the the garden to enjoy it.
After lunch, we walked back to a ruin we had seen, and discovered that it was the remains of a Roman amphitheater.
 |
| Beautiful ruins |
We decided to walk around more of the town, too, and were also delighted to find the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Bordeaux- a modern judicial building designed by Richard Rogers (who also designed the Centre Pompidou in Paris) that abuts the remains of the fort du Ha, a fortress built in the 1400s that was later used as a prison.
 |
| Old and new |
 |
| Respite |
The days are quite long in Bordeaux in May, so even after a decent rest, we still had some sunlight left. Once I'd gotten some energy back, we walked back to the central part of the city, and saw more sights. We even walked over to see the Porte de la Grosse-Cloche- a 15th century gate into the old walled town.
 |
| Old clock |
 |
| La Bourse in the evening |
We spent a large part of the next day (Monday) shopping. It seemed our best bet to buy some gifts for our kids and other people, and one of Mr. Snarky's shoes fell apart on our first night in France, so he needed new shoes. Besides, I enjoy shopping when I travel, even if I'm not aiming to buy anything in particular. It is fun to see the different stores, and the slight differences in how even familiar stores operate. For instance, we were amused by this sign outside of Lush:
 |
| Teste sur les Anglais |
Once we finished our shopping, we took our bags back to our hotel and had a short rest before heading back out, this time to the art museum. The Musee des Beaux-Arts is small, but well curated and we enjoyed our visit. After leaving the museum, we found that the Cathedrale St-Andre was now open, so we went in. One thing I learned on this trip: Mr. Snarky is fond of old churches. I am sympathetic- I spent a huge amount of time visiting old churches on my first international trip, which was to Sweden. I don't mind visiting churches now, but I am not quite so enamored with them anymore. Still, since Mr. Snarky wanted to see them, we visited a lot of old churches on this trip.
My reward for patiently waiting for Mr. Snarky to finish in the cathedral was a couple of glasses of wine on a tree-shaded terrace at a bar/bistro. Then we found yet another terrace on which to eat dinner. My dinner was probably a tad too heavy for me, and my asthma was a bit aggravated by the smokers on the first terrace. These two things combined to make it difficult for me to sleep that night, and that plus the effects of jet lag combined to make me sleep until quite late the next morning. Mr Snarky overslept, too, and we thereby ruined our plans to visit St. Emilion on our but I didn't know that at the time, and the wines and dinner were certainly quite enjoyable!
In fact, the entire stay in Bordeaux was quite enjoyable. It is a beautiful city, quite accessible for English-speaking tourists, and quite walkable for people (like me) who love to see a city on foot. It was a great way to start our trip.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Weekend Reading: The Change Takes Work Edition
This has been quite the week, hasn't it? It was not a week in which I managed to write any of the blog posts I have queued up, but the blame for that falls on our remodeling project and not the historic events outside our little family bubble.
I will probably blog about the remodeling project eventually, but today seems a day to talk about the historic events.
I think we all get a bit cynical sometimes about the possibility of change. Weeks like this remind us both how possible it is and how hard we have to fight for it.
We saw Confederate flags start to come down across the South.
If you're wanting to understand more about the history of that flag and the tragic missed opportunity for true racial reconciliation that followed the Civil War, Tony Horowitz' article at Talking Points Memo is a good place to start. I don't know as much about this period of my history as I probably should. Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion are doing a podcast about this history, available to Slate+ subscribers. I may sign up and listen to the podcast. The Twitter conversations about history between Bouie and Ta-Nehisi Coates are pretty great, so I suspect the podcast will be good, too. I don't mind paying for good content (and, in fact, had been planning a "find a way to pay for what I'm enjoying on the internet" campaign soon), so the only thing stopping me is the knowledge that I'll have to figure out how to get these podcasts added to my podcast listening app.
It is easy to dismiss that flag as "just a symbol" and the fact that it is coming down as "not the real issue," but I believe the Black people I've heard talk about this and seen write about it, and they are uniformly of the opinion that this is a big, important thing.
After all, symbols matter. Symbols, by definition, represent other things, and no amount of "heritage, not hate" rhetoric can mask what the Confederate flag represented. May it come down everywhere, and may we eventually learn to consign the ugliness it represents to a museum, too.
But we are not there yet- and I have a couple of links about the Charleston shootings that I think you should read.
Roxane Gay writes eloquently and powerfully about why she will not forgive the Charleston murderer.
Kiese Laymon talks to his Grandma in the aftermath of the Charleston shooting.
Paul Krugman's essay on the long economic and policy shadow of slavery is pretty sobering.
And the funeral of Clementa Pinkney, the pastor and state senator killed in Charleston, was today.
If I ever need to be reminded of why we cannot stop fighting the hatred embodied in the Charleston attack, I will just look back at this tweet:
If you haven't watched President Obama lead the congregation in Amazing Grace, here's your chance to do so
I haven't had a chance to listen to his entire speech yet, but I plan to listen this weekend, or maybe read the transcript.
I have never been among the people who disparage Obama as a President. To me, it seems that he has had the priorities he promised to have, and has gotten quite a bit done despite obstructionist opposition. Even if he had accomplished nothing else, the Affordable Care Act alone would be a pretty good legacy- and as Dylan Matthews argues at Vox he's done more than that, too.
And of course, the Supreme Court has been issuing rulings. There was the ruling on the ACA, which was a huge deal but soon overshadowed by the ruling on same sex marriage, which made today such a mix of joy (at the ruling) and sadness (for Pinckney and the others killed in Charleston).
I have a few more links, less directly related to this week's big events.
Chris Hayes (of MSNBC fame) wrote a devastating and depressing essay about global warming and the effort that will be required to fight it. If you read nothing else in this post, read this one. It will really make you think.
Timothy Lee wrote an article about not demonizing people who disagree with you.
I think there is a lesson in the synthesis of those last two links, but I haven't really been able to articulate it yet. Maybe that we need to find a way to help the climate change deniers de-escalate instead of escalate their commitment to their beliefs and the rhetoric they use to espouse them- and that demonizing them is almost certainly not that way?
And we need to keep working to address climate change, we really do.
On leaving the tech industry.
On not being able to get a job in Silicon Valley in the first place.
Glass Ceiling, a poem by T.R. Hummer
Because we need something fun to end on:
I will probably blog about the remodeling project eventually, but today seems a day to talk about the historic events.
I think we all get a bit cynical sometimes about the possibility of change. Weeks like this remind us both how possible it is and how hard we have to fight for it.
We saw Confederate flags start to come down across the South.
If you're wanting to understand more about the history of that flag and the tragic missed opportunity for true racial reconciliation that followed the Civil War, Tony Horowitz' article at Talking Points Memo is a good place to start. I don't know as much about this period of my history as I probably should. Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion are doing a podcast about this history, available to Slate+ subscribers. I may sign up and listen to the podcast. The Twitter conversations about history between Bouie and Ta-Nehisi Coates are pretty great, so I suspect the podcast will be good, too. I don't mind paying for good content (and, in fact, had been planning a "find a way to pay for what I'm enjoying on the internet" campaign soon), so the only thing stopping me is the knowledge that I'll have to figure out how to get these podcasts added to my podcast listening app.
It is easy to dismiss that flag as "just a symbol" and the fact that it is coming down as "not the real issue," but I believe the Black people I've heard talk about this and seen write about it, and they are uniformly of the opinion that this is a big, important thing.
After all, symbols matter. Symbols, by definition, represent other things, and no amount of "heritage, not hate" rhetoric can mask what the Confederate flag represented. May it come down everywhere, and may we eventually learn to consign the ugliness it represents to a museum, too.
But we are not there yet- and I have a couple of links about the Charleston shootings that I think you should read.
Roxane Gay writes eloquently and powerfully about why she will not forgive the Charleston murderer.
Kiese Laymon talks to his Grandma in the aftermath of the Charleston shooting.
Paul Krugman's essay on the long economic and policy shadow of slavery is pretty sobering.
And the funeral of Clementa Pinkney, the pastor and state senator killed in Charleston, was today.
If I ever need to be reminded of why we cannot stop fighting the hatred embodied in the Charleston attack, I will just look back at this tweet:
Dear Daddy: Messages from Clementa Pinckney's daughters to their father in the program for his funeral service. pic.twitter.com/N1ujwQZ52L
— Andy Shain (@AndyShain) June 26, 2015
If you haven't watched President Obama lead the congregation in Amazing Grace, here's your chance to do so
Wow, just watching the joy on these church leaders' faces as they realize what's happening. https://t.co/20PECJPRbh
— Sara Libby (@SaraLibby) June 26, 2015
I haven't had a chance to listen to his entire speech yet, but I plan to listen this weekend, or maybe read the transcript.
I have never been among the people who disparage Obama as a President. To me, it seems that he has had the priorities he promised to have, and has gotten quite a bit done despite obstructionist opposition. Even if he had accomplished nothing else, the Affordable Care Act alone would be a pretty good legacy- and as Dylan Matthews argues at Vox he's done more than that, too.
And of course, the Supreme Court has been issuing rulings. There was the ruling on the ACA, which was a huge deal but soon overshadowed by the ruling on same sex marriage, which made today such a mix of joy (at the ruling) and sadness (for Pinckney and the others killed in Charleston).
I have a few more links, less directly related to this week's big events.
Chris Hayes (of MSNBC fame) wrote a devastating and depressing essay about global warming and the effort that will be required to fight it. If you read nothing else in this post, read this one. It will really make you think.
Timothy Lee wrote an article about not demonizing people who disagree with you.
I think there is a lesson in the synthesis of those last two links, but I haven't really been able to articulate it yet. Maybe that we need to find a way to help the climate change deniers de-escalate instead of escalate their commitment to their beliefs and the rhetoric they use to espouse them- and that demonizing them is almost certainly not that way?
And we need to keep working to address climate change, we really do.
On leaving the tech industry.
On not being able to get a job in Silicon Valley in the first place.
Glass Ceiling, a poem by T.R. Hummer
Because we need something fun to end on:
— Aisha Saeed (@aishacs) June 26, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
Weekend Reading: The I Won't Give Up Edition
This week's post is going to go out early, because today is Petunia's preschool graduation. I know that many people view these events with disdain, but she has been at that school since she was 5 months old, and her older sister was at that school from when she was 5 months old... so I'm going to go and unabashedly love it. Also, I will cry. Pumpkin is coming, too, to see the teachers who have literally known her since she was a baby. We'll all miss that place.
I had planned on just posting a bunch of lighthearted things this week, but sadly, that is not how the week went.
As I tweeted on my Tungsten Hippo account, I am heartbroken and angry about the racist shooting in Charleston. I am also heartbroken and angry that so many of my fellow white people are having a hard time saying that it was a racist attack, despite the fact that the accused killer has said that he hates black people and wanted to kill them and start a new civil war.
People, if you can't acknowledge this attack as racist, then you are living in an alternate reality. You certainly shouldn't get to be the President of the United States, where the rest of us live in the actual reality and work to make it better. I'm looking at you, Jeb Bush and a whole slew of other Republican candidates.
Also, if you're tempted to blame it on "mental illness," read Arthur Chu's piece on that topic first.
I have seen a lot of despair in response to this event, namely despair that nothing will make us actually fix the problems that led to it: easily available guns and unbridled racism.
Jon Stewart expressed this really well, and if you haven't watched his opening monologue to Thursday's show, here it is.
I certainly understand that sentiment. I have moments- long moments- when I share it. There were so many beautiful, powerful, important things written by Black writers in response to this attack.
Carvell Wallace's letter to his mother.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' plea to take down the Confederate flag.
Jamelle Bouie's history lessons on the importance Emmanuel AME church and the use of the the fear of rape to justify deadly racism.
And there are no doubt many more, but I am having a hard time reading them, not because the things being written aren't eloquent, but because they are unbelievably eloquent.
Time and again, these talented writers have to try to craft their words in a way that will convince white people that they are just as human as we are, that the suffering in their communities matters as much as suffering in ours. This should not be necessary. That it is still necessary is a profound failure on our part.
We shouldn't need to be persuaded to call an obviously racist attack racist. We shouldn't need to be persuaded to take down a flag that symbolizes slavery and segregation and treason.
And then I saw people arguing that it was "cultural appropriation" for the rest of us to say what that flag represents. THE FOUNDERS OF THE CONFEDERACY SAID WHAT THAT FLAG MEANT. If that isn't enough for us, the fact that it started flying at the South Carolina capital in response to the Civil Rights movement in the 60s gives us another pretty solid clue.
Find another symbol of Southern heritage, OK? Face the actual racism in your past and move on so that we can work on a less racist future.
And those of us who aren't Southerners don't necessarily get a pass here. There is plenty of what Jon Stewart called "racial wallpaper" all over the country. We could, for instance, stop clinging to insulting, racist names for our sports teams.
So anyway. I get why so many people think we can never change this. Having had my heartbroken by the shooting at Sandy Hook and then stomped on by my politicians' inability to even pass the most watered down gun control legislation in the aftermath, having then gone and tried to engage with gun enthusiasts to find some middle ground and having had to walk away before I lost all faith in humanity, I can also see why the issue of guns seems unfixable.
But I don't want to give up.
Nothing ever changes until some people are determined enough to make it change. So far, I'm still determined.
How do we change things? I don't know. Here are some things I'm trying:
I introduced Pumpkin to the Juneteenth holiday last night. It was a glimmer of hope for both of us to hold onto after I told her why I was so sad. Here's the post I wrote about this, and the book we read to start the conversation.
I think trying to raise my children to understand and reject racism is the bare minimum of what I can do. It may sometimes be the hardest part of my response, but it is the least optional.
I'm going to look at our budget and see if we can spare some money for the Southern Poverty Law Center. They do good work.
I made a promise to myself that I would speak up more about implicit bias, and about intersectionality when I am talking about gender issues, and I've been holding myself to that promise.
I support Americans for Responsible Solutions and Moms Demand Action as two groups that I think have a chance of overcoming the power of the NRA. I support them with my money. I need to support them more with my voice, both online and off.
I write to my elected officials whenever gun legislation is up for a vote, to balance out the gun enthusiasts who will also be writing. (Granted, this would matter more if I lived somewhere less liberal, but my congressional district is not a safe Democratic district, so I like to think my voice matters.)
I vote. Always, without fail.
I can certainly do more. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.
I had planned on just posting a bunch of lighthearted things this week, but sadly, that is not how the week went.
As I tweeted on my Tungsten Hippo account, I am heartbroken and angry about the racist shooting in Charleston. I am also heartbroken and angry that so many of my fellow white people are having a hard time saying that it was a racist attack, despite the fact that the accused killer has said that he hates black people and wanted to kill them and start a new civil war.
People, if you can't acknowledge this attack as racist, then you are living in an alternate reality. You certainly shouldn't get to be the President of the United States, where the rest of us live in the actual reality and work to make it better. I'm looking at you, Jeb Bush and a whole slew of other Republican candidates.
Also, if you're tempted to blame it on "mental illness," read Arthur Chu's piece on that topic first.
I have seen a lot of despair in response to this event, namely despair that nothing will make us actually fix the problems that led to it: easily available guns and unbridled racism.
Jon Stewart expressed this really well, and if you haven't watched his opening monologue to Thursday's show, here it is.
I certainly understand that sentiment. I have moments- long moments- when I share it. There were so many beautiful, powerful, important things written by Black writers in response to this attack.
Carvell Wallace's letter to his mother.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' plea to take down the Confederate flag.
Jamelle Bouie's history lessons on the importance Emmanuel AME church and the use of the the fear of rape to justify deadly racism.
And there are no doubt many more, but I am having a hard time reading them, not because the things being written aren't eloquent, but because they are unbelievably eloquent.
Time and again, these talented writers have to try to craft their words in a way that will convince white people that they are just as human as we are, that the suffering in their communities matters as much as suffering in ours. This should not be necessary. That it is still necessary is a profound failure on our part.
We shouldn't need to be persuaded to call an obviously racist attack racist. We shouldn't need to be persuaded to take down a flag that symbolizes slavery and segregation and treason.
And then I saw people arguing that it was "cultural appropriation" for the rest of us to say what that flag represents. THE FOUNDERS OF THE CONFEDERACY SAID WHAT THAT FLAG MEANT. If that isn't enough for us, the fact that it started flying at the South Carolina capital in response to the Civil Rights movement in the 60s gives us another pretty solid clue.
Find another symbol of Southern heritage, OK? Face the actual racism in your past and move on so that we can work on a less racist future.
And those of us who aren't Southerners don't necessarily get a pass here. There is plenty of what Jon Stewart called "racial wallpaper" all over the country. We could, for instance, stop clinging to insulting, racist names for our sports teams.
So anyway. I get why so many people think we can never change this. Having had my heartbroken by the shooting at Sandy Hook and then stomped on by my politicians' inability to even pass the most watered down gun control legislation in the aftermath, having then gone and tried to engage with gun enthusiasts to find some middle ground and having had to walk away before I lost all faith in humanity, I can also see why the issue of guns seems unfixable.
But I don't want to give up.
Nothing ever changes until some people are determined enough to make it change. So far, I'm still determined.
How do we change things? I don't know. Here are some things I'm trying:
I introduced Pumpkin to the Juneteenth holiday last night. It was a glimmer of hope for both of us to hold onto after I told her why I was so sad. Here's the post I wrote about this, and the book we read to start the conversation.
I think trying to raise my children to understand and reject racism is the bare minimum of what I can do. It may sometimes be the hardest part of my response, but it is the least optional.
I'm going to look at our budget and see if we can spare some money for the Southern Poverty Law Center. They do good work.
I made a promise to myself that I would speak up more about implicit bias, and about intersectionality when I am talking about gender issues, and I've been holding myself to that promise.
I support Americans for Responsible Solutions and Moms Demand Action as two groups that I think have a chance of overcoming the power of the NRA. I support them with my money. I need to support them more with my voice, both online and off.
I write to my elected officials whenever gun legislation is up for a vote, to balance out the gun enthusiasts who will also be writing. (Granted, this would matter more if I lived somewhere less liberal, but my congressional district is not a safe Democratic district, so I like to think my voice matters.)
I vote. Always, without fail.
I can certainly do more. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
On Saying Stupid Things and Internet Outrage
My original plan was to largely ignore Tim Hunt and the comments he made at the conference in South Korea. (If you need a rundown of what he said and what has happened since, here is a good place to start.)
But then came the somewhat predictable outcry that he had been the victim of a "witch hunt."
Leaving aside the fact that victims of actual witch hunts usually ended up dead, not embarrassed and out of a couple of honorary, unpaid positions, I think there is something I want to work through there, which means there is something I want to blog about. Bear with me: this post is essentially me thinking out loud.
Do I think people should lose jobs- even honorary ones- for saying stupid things? Not really. But is that really what usually happens? It seems to me that what actually happens is something more like this:
1. Person with some amount of privilege says thing that is offensive and/or insulting to a group with less privilege.
2. Outcry ensues.
3. Person with privilege issues a "sorry I was misunderstood" sort of apology and/or doubles down on offensive thing they said.
4. More outcry ensues.
5. Person is fired or resigns. (Or person retains position and nothing really bad happens to them at all- but for this post, let's assume they're fired.)
6. Other people with privilege are understandably a bit alarmed by this outcome, particularly if they don't fully understand why the initial thing that was said was so harmful. They start arguing that the response was unfair, often with inflammatory and/or wildly inappropriate terms like "witch hunt" or "lynch mob." (Note to fellow white people: do not call anything a lynch mob except an actual lynch mob. Just don't.)
So why was the person fired? Was it for the first offensive thing said? Or was it for the refusal to listen and show signs of learning and addressing the underlying beliefs and/or implicit biases that made them think that offensive thing was an A-OK thing to say? I don't know. I actually suspect that even the people doing the firing don't know in some cases.
Is the firing a problem? I am not 100% sure what I think, but I lean towards thinking that if you have any role in reviewing other people and/or their work, then it is actually quite appropriate to lose your job if you demonstrate that you are unwilling to address your biases.
Racial biases, gender biases. homophobia... these all hurt people. They always have. We've just become used to the way they hurt people. We've become used to women having to walk a ridiculous tightrope in order to garner respect and advance into leadership roles. We've become used to Black people having to keep their reactions under tight control so as not to be labeled "angry" and therefore unpromotable (or unhireable). We've become used to having the upper echelons of our professions be completely unrepresentative of even the composition of the entry level, let alone society at large. These things seem normal to us, just the way the world is. And yet these things have real, harmful consequences on actual people. The impact of implicit biases is well documented. They change the lives those people lead. They hold people back and keep them from reaching their full potential. They cause people to abandon well-paying careers, sometimes without really knowing why they've burned out and need to quit. They create stress and worry that spills over into the rest of people's lives. These are not "victimless crimes."
So now, social media has come along and changed the power balance a bit. Sometimes- not always, but sometimes- the person with the biases actually experiences some harm from them. This is shocking to many people, because it is so unexpected and new. It feels like the rules have changed, and indeed, they have. The potential harm to yourself of harboring unexamined biases is much larger now.
Again, note that these unexamined biases always had the potential to cause harm- that harm was just usually to other people, not the person who harbored them. Also, I'm not unsympathetic to the people who say the stupid, insulting things. I have a fair amount of privilege myself. It is probably only a matter of time until I say something stupid. I hope that if I do, and I get called on it, I can muster a proper apology.
Are the new rules perfect? No, but then, neither were the old rules. Could we come up with something better? Absolutely. But going back to the old rules is not better, and I am not on board with any suggestion that we do that. I am, however, on board with suggestions to find our way to a better set of new rules. To do that, though, all parties have to be willing to try, and frankly, whenever I see one of these events play out on social media, I don't see a lot of willingness to try from the people in the old privileged positions. If you want society to find a better way to respond when someone says something incredibly offensive or insulting, you have to be willing to acknowledge that the initial problem was the offensive or insulting speech, not the outcry against it.
For the record, here's how I'd like to see this sort of thing play out:
1. Person with some amount of privilege says thing that is offensive and/or insulting to a group with less privilege.
2. Outcry ensues.
3. Person with privilege issues an actual apology, indicating that they have understood the problem with what they said. Ideally, they also spell out steps they will take to address the harm caused and/or take meaningful steps to be more aware of the bias that prompted the insulting speech and combat its effects.
4. Everyone goes on with their lives, and the world gets a little better.
If we get to that point, will the "angry Twitter mobs" be willing to accept the apology? I don't know.* But wouldn't it be nice to find out?
-------------------------
*Actually, I can think of one example in which the events went pretty much as outlined above: Daniel Handler's racist joke about Jacqueline Woodson at the National Book Awards. Granted, not everyone who says something stupid and insulting has access to the money required to make the particular restorative gesture he chose, but I suspect most people could come up with something meaningful that was also within their financial means... if they really thought about the mistake they made and how to make amends.
But then came the somewhat predictable outcry that he had been the victim of a "witch hunt."
Leaving aside the fact that victims of actual witch hunts usually ended up dead, not embarrassed and out of a couple of honorary, unpaid positions, I think there is something I want to work through there, which means there is something I want to blog about. Bear with me: this post is essentially me thinking out loud.
Do I think people should lose jobs- even honorary ones- for saying stupid things? Not really. But is that really what usually happens? It seems to me that what actually happens is something more like this:
1. Person with some amount of privilege says thing that is offensive and/or insulting to a group with less privilege.
2. Outcry ensues.
3. Person with privilege issues a "sorry I was misunderstood" sort of apology and/or doubles down on offensive thing they said.
4. More outcry ensues.
5. Person is fired or resigns. (Or person retains position and nothing really bad happens to them at all- but for this post, let's assume they're fired.)
6. Other people with privilege are understandably a bit alarmed by this outcome, particularly if they don't fully understand why the initial thing that was said was so harmful. They start arguing that the response was unfair, often with inflammatory and/or wildly inappropriate terms like "witch hunt" or "lynch mob." (Note to fellow white people: do not call anything a lynch mob except an actual lynch mob. Just don't.)
So why was the person fired? Was it for the first offensive thing said? Or was it for the refusal to listen and show signs of learning and addressing the underlying beliefs and/or implicit biases that made them think that offensive thing was an A-OK thing to say? I don't know. I actually suspect that even the people doing the firing don't know in some cases.
Is the firing a problem? I am not 100% sure what I think, but I lean towards thinking that if you have any role in reviewing other people and/or their work, then it is actually quite appropriate to lose your job if you demonstrate that you are unwilling to address your biases.
Racial biases, gender biases. homophobia... these all hurt people. They always have. We've just become used to the way they hurt people. We've become used to women having to walk a ridiculous tightrope in order to garner respect and advance into leadership roles. We've become used to Black people having to keep their reactions under tight control so as not to be labeled "angry" and therefore unpromotable (or unhireable). We've become used to having the upper echelons of our professions be completely unrepresentative of even the composition of the entry level, let alone society at large. These things seem normal to us, just the way the world is. And yet these things have real, harmful consequences on actual people. The impact of implicit biases is well documented. They change the lives those people lead. They hold people back and keep them from reaching their full potential. They cause people to abandon well-paying careers, sometimes without really knowing why they've burned out and need to quit. They create stress and worry that spills over into the rest of people's lives. These are not "victimless crimes."
So now, social media has come along and changed the power balance a bit. Sometimes- not always, but sometimes- the person with the biases actually experiences some harm from them. This is shocking to many people, because it is so unexpected and new. It feels like the rules have changed, and indeed, they have. The potential harm to yourself of harboring unexamined biases is much larger now.
Again, note that these unexamined biases always had the potential to cause harm- that harm was just usually to other people, not the person who harbored them. Also, I'm not unsympathetic to the people who say the stupid, insulting things. I have a fair amount of privilege myself. It is probably only a matter of time until I say something stupid. I hope that if I do, and I get called on it, I can muster a proper apology.
Are the new rules perfect? No, but then, neither were the old rules. Could we come up with something better? Absolutely. But going back to the old rules is not better, and I am not on board with any suggestion that we do that. I am, however, on board with suggestions to find our way to a better set of new rules. To do that, though, all parties have to be willing to try, and frankly, whenever I see one of these events play out on social media, I don't see a lot of willingness to try from the people in the old privileged positions. If you want society to find a better way to respond when someone says something incredibly offensive or insulting, you have to be willing to acknowledge that the initial problem was the offensive or insulting speech, not the outcry against it.
For the record, here's how I'd like to see this sort of thing play out:
1. Person with some amount of privilege says thing that is offensive and/or insulting to a group with less privilege.
2. Outcry ensues.
3. Person with privilege issues an actual apology, indicating that they have understood the problem with what they said. Ideally, they also spell out steps they will take to address the harm caused and/or take meaningful steps to be more aware of the bias that prompted the insulting speech and combat its effects.
4. Everyone goes on with their lives, and the world gets a little better.
If we get to that point, will the "angry Twitter mobs" be willing to accept the apology? I don't know.* But wouldn't it be nice to find out?
-------------------------
*Actually, I can think of one example in which the events went pretty much as outlined above: Daniel Handler's racist joke about Jacqueline Woodson at the National Book Awards. Granted, not everyone who says something stupid and insulting has access to the money required to make the particular restorative gesture he chose, but I suspect most people could come up with something meaningful that was also within their financial means... if they really thought about the mistake they made and how to make amends.
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