The People's Dance

So last weekend i had the wonderful experience of going to The People's Dance Party. It took place at a community rec center and had been put together by a group of people who like to dance but don't like clubs. We were a small group but represented many ages, skin colors, and abilities. No one, except for maybe a seven year old boy, was a very good dancer. Everyone had fun. Afterwards I commented to the friends I had gone there with that you have to unlearn a certain inhibition, a certain need to be "cool" in order to dance like that and enjoy it. All three of us in our late twenties had to admit we hadn't unlearned whatever that was - but we were working on it. Personally I tried to ignore my feelings of self-consciousness and enjoy the music and watching others enjoy what they were doing. In many ways or little dance party was an act of defiance against all the expectations and demands our society/culture make. We were going to dance and enjoy it, no matter what others may think. and in the process of getting comfortable with ourselves dancing, we got comfortable with everyone else dancing - a brief euphoric four hours perhaps, but i am still going to chalk this one up as a victory against "the man"

Chairs

Do you remember those long days in highschool of squirming and shifting in the hard plastic, metal or fiberglass chair while looking longingly at the teacher's cushy plush chairs? This "chair hierarchy" can be found in most schools including colleges and universities where students will unquestioningly spend hours in discomfort while the teacher or professor lounges in luxury. This is one of the many ways institutions of education teach us to accept authority and hierarchy without question or critique. It also sends a clear message about how students are valued.

For me, things like the chair differential and the authoritarian style of teaching did wonders in getting me to accept, even crave hierarchy and authority. I must admit that when participating in a graduate school program that was supposed to be more student centered and involved lots of sitting in circles and having discussions, i loved my economics class that was almost strictly lecture style. In my post graduate wanderings from job to volunteer program and from city to city I have often longed for a job at a place like McDonalds where they just told me what to do, and i could do it. It frightens me to realize now how much a seek this authority and hierarchy. I feel it when i am in a bookstore looking for the book that is just going to tell me how to save the world, a list of instructions that require no independent or creative thought. Which leads me to the flip side of this. How much have i lost in terms of my own ability to "think outside the box" of instruction and authority? I find myself now having to "unlearn authority" in order to question it and stand against it. This unlearning is proving to be quite the challenge.

As a teacher now I am constantly aware of the way that myself and the school I work at enforce authority. At times it feels like we put more energy into authority than into learning and it frightens me. I am always on the lookout for ways to make space in the curriculum for questioning what goes on at school and in the city outside the school walls. However, this requires the unlearning of my own need for authority. When I am not willing to question or criticize authority, how can i possibly expect the same from my students?

Makeup Confessions

So I did it. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on makeup. My first "real" batch of makeup at age 27 almost 28. Why is this a confession? Because ever since high school I have held very firm principles against makeup. It was at that time that I started to understand makeup to be yet another part of the consumer machine that drives this country. Actually, I think i just wanted to be beautiful naturally, with whatever God had given me. But I was also resisting an entire industry that thrives on telling women that they are not good enough as they are, that they have to spend exorbitant amounts of money covering up their true selves to be made acceptable and pleasing to society.

This whole industry of course starts with the beauty myth which says that women are defined and valued almost solely on face values (beauty or sex value), and that the only path to true happiness and fulfillment comes in being beautiful enough to be chosen by prince charming and taken to the place of happily ever after. As a child and even a teenager, I awaited my "Cinderella" moment, when the unnoticed girl, me, would suddenly transform into a real beauty who outshone everyone around. Part of my not wearing makeup was in anticipation of that transformation. Another part was a burgeoning awareness of the forces that try to control women and keep them so worried about their faces that they have little time, energy, or money to put into more important things.

Anyway, this is all to say that in spite of my strongly held principles against buying into the consumerist ideology that spending money on masking myself can make me happy, i still grew up in a conventional white middle class home and world that i have not been able to break free from, and in moments of weakness, the desire for beauty and acceptance can be overwhelming. My brain can tell me one thing, i can rant and rave about the evils of the makeup industry, and yet there is still a part of me that wants to take part. One of the many struggles of living in a world that is so screwed up. You want to change it, and at the same time, you have to live in it. Small defeats like this one could lend someone to throw in the towel and stop resisting the status quo, for now i am going to chalk this one up to contradiction, continue to think about it and challenge it, and also have a little grace and forgiveness with myself.

The Humans...and the not humans

I recently accompanied my school director to the hospital deliver homework to a student who had gone into labor pre-maturely (the student had requested the work! totally blowing all stereotypes of either teen moms or inner city youth who are not motivated to do school work) Prepared with a special number to identify the student we walked in and asked the lady at the front desk where the birthing floor was. She directed us to a set of elevators which we easily found. An elevator soon arrived and a doctor or intern or someone got off. We got on, noticing a small cart like thing in the middle but choosing to ignore it. We requested the floor we needed, but the doors didn't close. I looked down to inspect the little cart more closely and saw a sticker on it that said "I prefer to ride alone" I pointed this out to my director. We weren't really big fans of letting a little cart tell us what to do, but then it started to move! This was most strange! We got off the elevator and the little cart followed! It even followed me around the corner where I was going to find another elevator. A little spooked I got out of its way and went back to my director, laughing about the crazy little robot cart.
When we arrived at the birthing floor, a woman briskly pointed us to a phone next to a door. We picked up the phone, dialed the appropriate number and gave the student's patient number. Since we were not on her list of visitors we could not see her ourselves so someone else came to the door to collect the work and we sent with it wishes of wellbeing and left, taking another set of elevators in hopes of preventing another robot encounter.
A good friend of mine is currently about 8 months pregnant and we have talked a lot about her process of finding a place to give birth. She was given the option of the same hospital our student was at, another hospital, or a birthing center designed to serve everyone in the community, including low income families. After calling different places and trying to get tours and things she decided on the birthing center - and she loves it. She goes in for her regular checkups as a part of a group of women all due at about the same time. While waiting for their checkup they participate in classes on breast feeding, pre-natal yoga and other health related issues. My friend told me that nearly all the staff know her by name after she has visited only three times. It is clear that they value every mother who walks through the door and do their best to serve her.
I shared the robot story with some friends the other night and one of them researched and found this article about them - One of the most telling lines i think in this article that describes all the things the six robots at this hospital can do is " The Tug [robot] doesn’t take breaks and doesn’t call in sick and doesn’t eat lunch,” Todd [director of material management] says. “I don’t have to worry about people getting married or flirting with each other.” I get the feeling that the $2.85 per hour cost of the robot is valued over any sort of human touch, or other interaction, and it is clear that this director finds robots to be less bothersome than humans. meanwhile, the birthing center is at risk of closing in january due to lack of funds. We joked the other night about robots delivering babies and performing surgery, hopefully a far fetched thought, but also a scary one.

Boundaries and Borders

I just finished reading my friend Kate's blog entry about separation and walls. She is experiencing a lot in her first few months in Haiti and writes about it all beautifully. Her latest post has got me thinking about what those around us encourage and justify and what feels right, or maybe is right based on our principles. I am constantly confronted with this in my journey (or maybe it is somethign else) into resisting the dominant paradigm, the ideology that justifies the current order that is riddled with injustice. In several of my jobs working with youth i have been advised over and over to maintain boundaries, not to give too much, or anyhing at all, not to become too attached, or think too much about my students when i am away from work. These are all justified in the need for protecting oneself, of staying "healthy". Yet all of this self-protection is leaving me feeling burnt out. I wonder what it would look like to be in a context where giving and sharing could happen freely, where "being taken advantage of" was not such a shameful thing. Of course at the root of all this is the vast inequalities that put me in a material position of having something to give and my students wanting to receive materially. We exist to in a culture so saturated with materialism that it can become the center of our giving and receiving, or our boundaries and walls.

But what I really wanted to write about was the tension between our well meaning friends and relatives, who constantly give us advice and ideas from a dominant paradigm, and the need to resist even those closest to us at times. Being new in this whole resistance thing I find it all too easy to be lulled by the comfort of familiar words and justifications. I need to keep reading things like Kate's blog, or Angela Davis's autobiography (currently my bedtime reading) to keep the walls and boundaries from being built. For over twenty years I learned the ways of building walls, and I became so good at it, that one of my biggest fears now is of living inside layers and layers of boundaries and walls all alone with myself. The healthy, full life alternative is to protect against boundaries for all who might want to stop by. It is also to move myself outside of my own boundaries to meet others.