movable type

Rosa Parks is dead. The next generation of civil rights heroes must be white people.

Why don't we know who Tamika Huston is?

In fact, she is one of those “have-nots” about which several jobs cleaning up human waste in nursing homes.
Dr. Warschauer's research focuses on the integration of information and Gibson’s research focuses on having enough money to feed her children.

As noted on his website, Dr. Warschauer's personal interests include live.
Dr.

Warschauer drove to work, forgetting that his son Michael was in the car.
Warschauer and Michelle Gibson have in common? They both killed their children.

Instead, he drove to his office and parked, leaving Mikey sleeping in his car seat in 80 degree weather. As Warschauer walked back from lunch, he spotted paramedics in the parking lot. Mikey was dead from heat stroke.

did not press charges against Dr. Warschauer, ruling the death accidental and his loss punishment enough. There was no doubt, they said, that Dr.

Warschauer Gibson was charged with second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and felony child abuse. She and her grief remain in Jackson County Jail on a $100,000 bond. Why are we so quick to question whether she, like Warschauer, adored her son?

disparity in treatment? Both babies are irretrievably dead. One parent was well-off, well-regarded, and white; the other poor, anonymous, and black.

Both deaths are a horrible tragedy. Is one criminal and one not? I don’t know.

But I Warschauer. Didn’t both parents, both working hard and both exhausted, neglect their children? Is Michelle Gibson’s sorrow less sorrowful, her tragedy less tragic, her poor judgment poorer?

Does our dismissal of her also point to an color go missing in great numbers each year, yet our national attention is riveted on wealthy, white women: Elizabeth Smart the harpist, Chandra Levy the Capitol Hill intern, Jennifer Wilbanks the runaway bride. Why don’t we know the names of Tamika Huston, Tyesha Bell, or Alexis Patterson? They are missing like their white counterparts, but their names and stories are unknown.

Why?
murder, disproportionately high for mothers of color, yet People magazine Is it less important, less newsworthy, less relevant to lose people of color? Are minority victims, in effect, less human?

Is their sorrow not as sorrowful, their tragedy not as tragic?
tend to see people who are like us as three-dimensional, with detail and specificity afforded them: for example, you know much more about Dr. Warschauer than Michelle Gibson after reading this essay.

Gibson remains one dimensional: faceless, she is just one poor and homeless single parent among many without the same level of specificity we give ourselves. She is the “other”; we can’t see ourselves in her story. In creating that distance, we ignore and disregard Dr.

Warschauer forgot Mikey because he was up late working on a research paper and was exhausted, he said. We can see ourselves in that story, we identify, we feel personally vulnerable: “if this smart, professional We must also recognize part of ourselves in Gibson’s life, homeless and exhausted from manual labor in 16-hour shifts, unable to find a way out, without access to affordable childcare. We must not look away, rendering her Michelle Gibson, like Mark Warschauer, is a three-dimensional human being—not just a destitute, homeless, black woman with poor judgment.

And until we know her story and can see ourselves in it in the the same hopes and dreams as we do, and until we are as transformed by her her will never get our full attention and they will never get justice.
Posted by Patti on May 30, 2005 at 11:37 AM in , , , , , , | Political correctness—dancing around what we really want to say and ask, not talking about difficult issues for fear of offending someone—is killing us.
Rather than helping navigate treacherous waters of difference, this self-censorship is driving people further apart.

Unable to determine correct terminology for individuals or groups of people different from us (since the rules seem to change constantly), many people have simply stopped interacting with those different from them altogether.
Rather than err and describe an African-American person as black when they prefer another term, we engineer ourselves out of situations where we’d need to make that decision. Rather than risk offending a person who is Muslim by raising the question of their religious beliefs and dress, we avoid them.

Rather than be rebuked for mentioning someone’s race—even though studies show that skin color is the first thing we notice when meeting someone—we pretend we don’t notice the difference.
This urge toward political correctness attempts to sanitize what is messy: life is messy, particularly with increasing numbers of people who don’t look like me. Each individual has their own set of preferences – how can I possibly know them in order not to offend?

I can’t.
I can’t always know the right words to say when talking with someone who has a different ethnic background, a different set of cultural norms, a different way of eating, greeting, or meeting – but I can learn to ask respectful questions to get information I need to interact effectively and in a way that enriches both of us. “Help me understand” is a nonjudgmental way to start that conversation: “help me understand the rituals associated with your religion,” “help me understand your feelings about gay marriage,” “help me understand your dietary needs.

” It’s also a two way-street: it is as destructive to intentionally take offense as it is to intentionally give offense.
Perhaps we have difficulty acknowledging difference because we have confused recognizing difference with making a judgment.
One of the first employees I supervised was an African-American woman named Annette.

Once she overheard me describing to a Board member who had never met her how he could recognize her in a meeting they were both attending later in the week, a meeting at which Annette would be the only African-American participant. Bemused, she listened to me use every other possible descriptor: “Annette? Well, she’ll be the well-dressed young woman with dark hair who is 5-feet, 6 inches tall.

I’ll ask her to wear her name tag.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier,” she said afterwards, “to tell him I’ll be the only African-American there?” Why did I hesitate?

I didn’t want to define her by her skin color, I wasn’t sure if she preferred to be described as African-American or black, and I had confused discussing difference with making a judgment.
We learn from a young age not to acknowledge difference. When my older daughter was quite young, she saw a man in a wheelchair at the grocery store one day.

“Mama!,” she shouted, “that man has no legs!” My immediate reaction?

“Shhhhh!,” I whispered. “It’s not polite to point.

”
It wasn’t new information to the man in the wheelchair that he had no legs, anymore than it is news to my African-American friends that their skin is darker than mine. By minimizing the difference, we lose the ability to talk about it, to acknowledge the often unconscious judgments that lie behind that discomfort, and to learn from and make the difference usable in some way.
A friend has quadriplegia as a result of an accident.

Many who meet him try to avoid acknowledging the obvious: Howard is unable to move from the chest down. It is a difference that is glaringly obvious, yet people go to great lengths to pretend they don’t notice. It is a dance we have all done around difference.

The result? People veer away from Howard, they avoid him altogether rather than risk offending him.
Gordon Alport, author of The Nature of Prejudice, built a model from his research at Harvard called “The Stages of Prejudice.

” Acts we know are wrong are included, such as discrimination and violence, but the first stage of prejudice might surprise you: avoidance.
Many people talk about wanting a “colorblind” society in which we don’t notice difference, but that is the wrong goal. Let’s work instead for a society in which our differences are our greatest asset, and in which we acknowledge, celebrate, and learn from those differences.

To attempt to ignore our differences by avoiding them is to render all of our lives, identities, contributions, and backgrounds trivial. We must learn how to talk about our differences, not around them. We must move from political correctness to respectful questioning, from avoidance to engagement.

religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists daughter was in the first grade, she stopped me cold with just 16 Washington, DC, where we lived.

Why do you always lock the doors when a black man comes toward our car?
that I’m proud of – in fact, I’m utterly ashamed of it – but it’s an important story for me to acknowledge, own, and learn from. Her question was an honest one; as a six-year-old, she had no hidden agenda.

She really wanted to know. My first reaction was to be defensive. “I don’t!

,” I quickly announced, self-righteously. “Not every time, no it can’t be, I don’t, do I?,” I asked internally, my mind reeling with the implications.

“No, you’re wrong, honey,” I wanted to say. “I don’t do that. That wouldn’t be right to do.

I train people about racism. I have black friends. I used to watch the Cosby Show.

I would argue like the best defense attorney in the world, parsing the definition of “always,” in my heart of hearts, I knew she was right. I didn’t do it all the time, but I did it enough that she noticed. Actually, once was enough.

And, truthfully, I knew that the black men outside my auto fortress knew it too; they heard the click. Always. So, I didn’t lie to that car that afternoon.

Instead, we talked, as honestly as I would talk to an adult about these issues. I began that day, near Q Street, what has been a lifelong conversation for be racist and do things that perpetuate stereotypes. And how important it is to always be watchful, as she had been.

bear was the thought that with that click, a whole universe of information had transferred to her, some silent and powerful and fast download that would change the way she sees the world, how she interacts with black men, what she a colleague conducted once, a man was completing a written questionnaire about the kinds of messages that he heard growing up – from his parents, his school, his peers, the media. As he worked, he groaned every few minutes, as if in pain. When my colleague asked if she could help, he simply said, “it’s just that as I’m filling this out, I’m hearing my father’s voice tell me really ”Oh, my,” she responded.

“That must be really painful to remember.”
“No,” he said, quietly and slowly. “That’s not the painful part.

The painful part is that I And so, like folktales and family recipes, we pass along this information – whether it is that black people are criminals, yuppies are shallow, Southerners are slow and stupid, Northerners are rude, lawyers are shifty, Gen X’ers are slackers, blondes are absorbing it like so many rambunctious and powerful memes, incorporating it silently (and probably unknowingly) into their bloodstream, having it impact not only their thinking, but also their actions, now and for years to come.
a startling expose (well, startling to white viewers), ABC News reporter Diane Sawyer explored skin color prejudice in the U.S.

with the help of two friends virtually identical in all respects but one—John is white, Glen is black. As they each separately try to buy a car, rent an apartment, respond to job listings, and shop, hidden cameras reveal that John is consistently welcomed and helped, while Glen is faced with higher prices, long waits, unfriendly salespeople, and closed doors. When interviewed for the film, Dr.

Julianne is for white people to be as outraged by racism as black people are. And, if my door clicking shut is any indication, we need to be outraged by our own racism first.
their desks at work, either.

I’ve sent Mr. Owens reading material on heterosexual privilege.
Posted by Patti on March 17, 2005 at 07:39 AM in , , , , , , , | effective advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.

( )
people. In today's world, LGBT issues are being discussed more than ever before. The discussions taking place in homes are often highly charged and emotional.

This can be a scary topic and confusing to people on a very personal level. Being an is important, but it can be challenging. This list is by no means exhaustive, but provides a starting point.

Add your own ideas and suggestions.

In our society, we generally assume that everyone we meet is . person well.

In general, be aware of the gender language you use and the implications this language might have.

Educate yourself about LGBT issues. There are many resources available, reading lists and places to go for information.

Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Explore ways to creatively integrate LGBT issues in your work. Establishing a safe place for people to talk about many issues in their lives.

Challenge derogatory remarks and jokes made about any group of people. Avoid Examine the effect has on people's lives and development. Identify how , , , and intersect language, such as making remarks implying that all people of the same date or Respect how people choose to name themselves.

Most people with a same sex or that it is okay with that person. If you don't know how to identify a particular group, it's okay to ask. Don't expect members of any population that women, people with disabilities) to always be the 'experts on issues pertaining to their particular identity group.

or patronizing individuals from different groups.

Encourage and allow disagreement on topics of and related civil rights. These issues are very highly charged and confusing.

If there isn't some disagreement, it probably means people are tuned our or hiding their real feelings. Keep disagreement and discussion focused on Remember that you are human. Allow yourself to not know everything, to make mistakes and to occasionally be insensitive.

Avoid setting yourself up as an 'expert' unless you are one. Give yourself time to learn the issues and ask questions and to explore your own personal feelings. Ask for support if you are identify your supporters.

You may be labeled as , or , whether you are or not. Use this opportunity to deepen your understanding of Make sure you are safe.

and other issues of difference.

This can be a painful, exciting and enlightening process and will help you to know yourself better. By learning and you will be making the world a safer, more affirming place for all. Without Posted by Patti on February 28, 2005 at 09:58 PM in , , , , , , | “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.

What isn’t part of ourselves coffee, and particularly when I see a headline like “Lesbian’s Picture in Tux Cut from Yearbook,” I get confused and wonder what year it is. Could this be a headline in 2005? I'm just so thankful that we've solved the Mideast crisis, world hunger, and the AIDS epidemic tuxedos.

On February 24, 2005, in Clay County, Florida, county school officials backed the decision of Sam dressed in a tuxedo from the high school yearbook. The principal is Davis was wearing boy's clothes.
softball, getting jobs, and voting?

It's a slippery slope from shirts school have said the picture was pulled because Davis didn’t follow the dress code. Among the items of the heel or the shoe must have a 1 heel. is no mention of gender specific clothing or tuxedos.

(I do wonder how many can only hope that Kelli Davis’ tuxedo pants were buttoned at her waist, and enough. She has already lived though two years of vicious taunting from Kelli went to the photo studio with her mother to have her senior picture made, she had only two choices of outfits—either a black drape or a tuxedo top. As lip-piercings adjusted the drape low between her breasts, barely covering her nipples.

modest girl, Kelli didn’t want to expose her chest, so she chose the tuxedo top. The principal justified his decision to ban the photograph because Kelli’s picture was not “uniform.” Evidently, lip piercings and breast baring are.

Spaghetti straps are verboten at Fleming, but girls are expected to have their picture snapped you’re a senior, your picture in the yearbook is critical—through all eternity, this is how your classmates will remember you. If you’re not there, you’re forgotten. Kelli’s mother had to buy an ad for $1,000 in the back of the yearbook so Kelli’s picture could appear, over Principal Ward’s continued objection.

Let me be fair. Being a high school principal is one of the toughest jobs around. I have great guess their decisions.

I know that creating a fair, accurate, and inclusive yearbook is hard. But as much as possible, shouldn’t the yearbook represent at that school has a right to be fully who they are. The adults involved are Kelli’s sexual orientation doesn’t have anything to do with their decision.

I think it does, given some of their oblique references to it, though the ramifications are much larger than that.
years earlier, in Tampa's Robinson High School, Nikki Youngblood’s photograph in a suit and tie was also banned. Nikki remarked at the time that asking her to wear the drape would be like asking a boy to wear a dress.

As reported by Mubarak Dahir, Robinson High’s attorney noted that “if the school had let Ms. Youngblood get away with wearing a coat and tie this year, then the next year, you might have who can’t read and write, don’t know enough math to balance a checkbook, and who are doing drugs in the school bathrooms.
than lesbians in tuxedos—it’s about all kids—their gender identity, roles, and strictures.

Nikki Youngblood and Kelli Davis aren’t in their yearbooks because all sexual orientations to conform to. They are questioning what’s “appropriate” for men and women in our society—thank goodness. And the and lesbians are inappropriate misfits who should simply try to blend in,” says Dahir.

“It’s no wonder the administrators at Robinson High and others like it coat and tie,” Dahir notes. “She threatens their entire sense of order in our yearbook photo. It’s by German Nobel Prize-winning writer Hermann Hesse, who died in 1962: If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.

What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
If you are involved in any way with a high school, pass ensure that yearbooks are fair, accurate, and inclusive:
at the senior portraits. Are all girls and all boys dressed alike?

If exceptions are allowed, what reasons can you identify? photo captions, cartoons and editorial comments. Do any of these elements demean certain groups or reinforce stereotypes?

Is the humor harmless, or does it happen at someone's expense?

coverage of various sports teams and events. Which sports get the most coverage, and which get the least?

What reasons can you offer? coverage of athletics and other activities, such as academics, service projects and other interest groups. What patterns do you see?

Are all the clubs at your school represented in the clubs section? If not, why do you think some are left out?

the superlatives categories and winners.

What messages do these honors convey about the culture and values of your school? the photographs of students acting goofy or just hanging out. Do the snapshots do a great job, a fair job or a poor job of representing the Posted by Patti on February 27, 2005 at 01:36 PM in , , , , , , , | has been signed by thousands of people, and reads in part: “We believe that if African Americans and now Hispanics can have their history month for their heritage, why can’t the White Americans have White history month?

Wake up Americans before we become extinct! Please, sign my petition so that we can also have our rolls around. I have the answer to the question: it is, quite simply, because every month is White History Month.

Carter G. Woodson created what was then called Negro History Week in 1926, he hoped for the day when it no longer would be needed, when the contributions of people from various races, ethnicities and even genders would be taught fairly and properly. Woodson believed that Negro History Week would accomplish two things: build self-esteem among blacks and help eliminate prejudice among whites.

professor Yaw Boateng of Eastern Washington University reminds us, “between 1619 and 1926, African Americans and other peoples of African descent were and often defined as fractions of humans. It is estimated that between 1890 and 1925, an African American was lynched every two and a half days. Peoples of Negro History Week would no longer be needed still isn’t a reality, nearly 80 years later.

He dreamed of a day when every student's education would include such African-American figures as Crispus Attucks, who died in the Boston Massacre; Dr. Daniel Williams, who performed the world’s first open-heart surgery; Matthew A. Henson, who co-discovered the North Pole with Robert Peary, and Benjamin Banneker, the pioneer scientist who helped conduct the first survey of Washington.

If you’re like me, those names weren’t mentioned in your movement of the 1960s, Black History Week was expanded into Black History month. month. Cute.

But no, that’s not the reason. It was chosen in part because the birthdays of slave abolitionists Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, as well as poet Langston Hughes and musician Eubie Blake, are in February. It’s also the month the NAACP was founded (in 1909) and the month that its co-founder, W.

E.B. Dubois, was born (in 1868).

On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granting blacks the right to vote was passed. February 25, 1870, the first black U.S.

senator, Hiram Revels, took his oath of office. It was on February 1, 1960, that a group of black Greensboro, N.C.

, college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. February is an important month in Black history, though few of us in the White community know it. The intention of Black History Month was not to confine our study of Black history to those 28 days of February.

Rather, Black History Month must be the climax of a study of the Black experience throughout the year.
to the question of the petitioners: why is there no White History Month? In the words of a Tulane University Black History Month website, a “White History acknowledged by society.

” In other words, American history is white history, plain and simple. And as Thomas Sowell has written, “You cannot understand even your own history if that is the only attend school, the curricular materials they receive reflect the color of their skin; the same is not true for my African-American friends and colleagues. When my children hear about their national heritage or about “civilization,” they are shown that people of their color made it what it is; again, not so for the children of my African-American friends.

Scholar Peggy McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley Colllege Center for Research on Women, listed these and other realities of what it means to be white in this country - simply conditions of daily experience which, as a white person, she once took for granted. Not only do “flesh” colored bandages match her skin color, she noted, but when she turns on the television or looks at the front page of the paper, sports figures. The same is not true for African-Americans.

Pixar and Disney brand films, the NBC’s Frasier farewell season, wine-tastings, and free Jet Blue travel. “White Americans,” they reported, “are in a celebratory mood, eagerly anticipating their first month where they can finally written as satire, but truer words may never have been spoken than those last seven: a better place to be white in.
History Month, but because every year is White History Year.

In fact, a colleague of mine put it even more aptly: names of bridges, mountain ranges, parks, universities, colleges, streets, cities, management styles and philosophies, pictures on money, constellations, the devices for guided missiles, IBM computers, and the pacemaker. Garrett Morgan (1877–1963) invented the gas mask and the first traffic signal. Lewis Latimer Dr.

Patricia E. Bath (1949–) invented a method of eye surgery that has helped many blind Posted by Patti on February 01, 2005 at 07:09 PM in , , , , | loincloths and with bones through their hair. Yet when my family and I Year's Eve, we found exactly that.

for kids to put their faces through holes, allowing their faces to appear as the faces of animals, for example. On one board featuring a jungle scene, there were two human characters-one a small, round, nearly naked brown man with a bone sticking through his hair. This type in the year 2005.

It is true that most American groups, especially racial minorities, have been the victims of prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination at one time or another. Japanese Americans, for example, were vilified for decades after being depicted in Tojo caricatures after WWII, and Native Americans were (and are) often portrayed as drunks. As many of us know, exist, including Mammy, Black Sambo, and the Savage we saw at Asheville's Downtown Countdown.

These images are offensive. They were meant to be offensive. They were meant to humiliate and dehumanize and legitimize patterns of prejudice discrimination, and segregation, though to many they may seem harmless.

Rejecting them doesn't mean falling prey to political correctness; rather, it means that as a can have on all of us.
What is a stereotype? It's a fixed, commonly held notion or image of a person or group, based on an oversimplification of some observed or imagined trait of behavior or appearance.

Most stereotypes tend to make In fact, negative stereotypes of a group of people can affect the way society views them, and change society's expectations of them. With enough exposure to a stereotype, society may come to view it as a reality rather than a chosen representation. Complacency to these sorts of stereotypical images is dangerous, as is exposing our children to them.

Those who created the activities in the Civic Center didn't mean intentional, but subtle and insidious.
Posted by Patti on January 28, 2005 at 03:12 PM in , | In August 2001, I was studying letterpress printing at the in the mountains of North Carolina. For those unfamiliar with , it is an old way of relief printing, using little metal letters or (or raised surfaces formed from wood, metal, or linoleum) that are inserted upside down and backwards--one at a time--into a printing press.

It is meticulous and time-consuming work, but the results can be spectacular.
It was a two-week class. In the first day or two, the instructor gave us a little lecturette about the history of letterpress printing.

In 1789, a printer named realized that putting all those little pieces of individual type in was time-consuming. So he created a process that would enable him to print more quickly - by putting a sheet of metal on top of a page of movable type, he could create an impression of the surfaces of the pieces of type, thereby creating a sheet of metal that he could use to print from over and over again, very quickly.
This sheet of metal, my friends, was called a stereotype.

Light bulb moment for me.
Obviously, this is exactly what we humans do to one another when we each other. And since my work had up to that point focused on the impact of stereotypes, cultural assumptions, and the like - the light bulb was this: I enjoyed making art and I could make art about the very stuff I was working on in corporate America.

The first expression of that was planning a letterpress series in several parts: 1) first, a piece that focused on the stereotype - the definitions of the word, for both printing and in human interactions; 2) a piece called typecast that represented how stereotyping casts people into groups; and 3) movable type - a wild letterpress piece with letters strewn across the page, showing the move from stereotype to movable type where the beauty of the individual letters (and people) can reveal themselves, and often in odd and interesting and fruitful combinations.
I've no idea if this makes any sense all written down like this, but that's the genesis for my interest in connecting my diversity work to what I'm calling movable type.
Posted by Patti on January 28, 2005 at 11:53 AM in , , | When I was 16, I boarded a plane for the very first time, said goodbye to my family and left to live as an exchange student in Sri Lanka.

I lived with a Sinhalese family there, in a small village called Pita Kotte, and I attended Museus Buddhist Girls' College in Colombo, the capital. Ours was the only house in the village with a well; many people lived in mud huts. My work since then (and because of that experience) has taken me literally around the globe - and I've never been to a more beautiful country and I've never met again such gracious and giving people.

Knowing people there, I couldn't not do something when the tsunami struck. Working with the local Red Cross, I started a fund called From Asheville to Asia to raise money for tsunami relief. I know that there is much need in the world - and even here in western NC, people's lives were ravaged by floods after the hurricanes last fall - but I thought perhaps I could get people here to see that they are connected to people halfway around the globe.

Otherwise, things like the Holocaust, the exterminations in Rwanda and the Congo are all the more possible over and over again in our lifetimes. (See 37 days about ).
Overall, the local Red Cross has raised almost $300,000.

..not bad for a community of 70,000 people.

We'll end this campaign on February 18 with a benefit, with world renowned storytellers contributing their time and talents to raise money for relief. Check that website to see if there is one near you - storytellers all across the U.S.

are holding these events. Imagine raising money by hearing traditional tales from the rich cultures of the countries affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Go!

Hear!