Christmas Wishes and Good Books
Merry Christmas all!! I hope your holiday was fabulous and full of love! I often realize how lucky I am to have the things that I have...but once again my mom was an angel and got me so many beautiful gifts. I loved all of them..I got lots of clothes, lots of books (yay!), some movies, an AIDS bracelet, two beautiful spiritiual journals each awesome in their own way and some random stuff including an electric razor for women...you have no idea how excited I am about that!! lol. I feel so unbelievably blessed...but sometimes I also feel extremely guilty..so many people have very little or nothing at all on Christmas or any other day for that matter. I often feel like I don't desrve the things I recieve...I appreciate my gifts because I know my parents love me..but why do I have so much when others have so little..the thing is that I would be just as happy without these things and I think its really important to keep a good perspective..it doesn't make me a better or happier person to have pretty clothes or fancy things...and I have to remember that.
One book I recieved was the first book we are going to read for my Honors class next semester..I asked my mom to get if for Christmas because it seemed really interesting and its hard to read the books in just two weeks..besides that I miss college!
Anyways the book is called "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?" Its written by a psychologist and I'm only a few chapters in but it seems so interesting. I have issues with my dad many times because he is so racist..he isn't rude to people of other races but he's the type to crack jokes and hold stereotypes. I am very antiracism and for that reason he thinks I'm some left-wing nut...lol. But since I am already finding this book so interesting I thought I'd share two little peices of it with you all:
"I sometimes visualize the ongoing cycle of racism as a moving walkway at the airport. Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyor belt. They have identified with the ideology of White supremacy andmoving with it. Passive racist behavior is equvalent to standing still on the walkway. No overt effort is being made, but the conveyor belt moves the bystanders along to the same destination as those who are avticely walking. Some bystanders may feel the motion of the conveyor belt, see the active racists ahead of them, and choose to turn around, unwilling to go in the same direction as the White Supremacists. But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt-unless they are actively ANTIRACIST-they will find themselves carried along with the other."
and from another chapter:
A professor asks her students to answer the statement I am_______ with as many descriptions as they can think of in 60 seconds. She noticed that "students of color usually mentioned their racial or ethnic group such as I am Black, Puerto Rican, Korean American." White students occasionally mention maybe being Irish or Italian but very few mentioned the fact that they were white. She noticed a similar pattern in terms of gender, religion, and sexuality. Women usually mentioned being female while men rarely mentioned being male. Jewish students often identified themselves as Jewish while most Christians did not identify their religious affiliation. And those who were comfortable admitting their sexuality identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or transgender. The professor knew most of her students were heterosexual and yet none identified themselves this way. She found that it appeared that elements of their identities that were shared by the dominant group were so taken for granted by them that it went without comment.
Sorry I know this is long...but hey I'm a crazy girl what are you gonna do?
Katie
PS. I love my family so much!!! They are so awesome and I love each of them in their own way...next time I will elaborate..so as not to force you to read anymore at the moment!