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Some good things, and some reality
- A postcard from Europe! Thanks to Bitty, I now have a picture of a large statue of a rabbit with disturbing eyes.
- The happiness of an orker when I gave her a pint of gingered watermelon pickles.
- Finding a 10-cent Euro coin (Is this the correct phrase?) just outside my house. I wonder how it got there.
- The windows at Shreve, Crump, and Low jewelers are always interesting. I had to laugh this morning when I saw the new ones, little wooden men packing rings into boxes, dragging necklaces along, little moving trucks, showing the way to the new location (first floor of the building I work in; I hope the neat windows will still be along my morning walk).
- Hugs.
- Indulging my tomato lust.
- Early closing Friday (aka knowing I have time to cook and clean for Shabbat).
- Trying maple yogurt by Brown Cow. Not as thick as Liberte (which is truly more dessert), but yummy, and only three ingredients other than live cultures. Plus they only use milk from non-growth-hormone cows, etc. (Plus I get to type "How now, brown cow?", which in my family transmogrified to "How now, brown frau?")
- Lunches with friends.
And then I read more about Katrina. About how the federal government cut spending for the levees and such to pay for Iraq, for homeland defense, despite the increased hurricane activity. About how the evacuation plans basically left poor (read: black, or African American, or whatever the correct term is these days) people to sink or swim, since they don't have their own transportation, nor enough money to pay others for transportation. About how the air smells of gas, and the water already will make you sick. About the oil refineries there, along with other industries, and how much it will hurt the nation as a whole (All those who think gas costs too much already, get ready for more sticker shock.). About what our esteemed (*cough*) president has done for this disaster, so much larger in physical impact than September 11.
And all I feel I can do to help is pull out the checkbook (even if it's online), tiny sponge that it might be ("a drop in the bucket" really not being the right metaphor). Which is just about nothing. But not quite nothing.
no subject
FWIW, all of the Jamaicans I have met tend to distinguish themselves among ethical lines, such as West Indian. Or sometimes I hear the term Afro-Caribbean. Only people who don't know them would call a Jamaican an African-American.
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Not all blacks are African. Not all Africans are black.
Only people who don't know them would call a Jamaican an African-American.
I agree -- but many people say that "African-American" is the correct term for blacks, and that "black" is somehow inappropriate. I can't bring myself to call a Jamaican an African-American, because he's not an African. (Ok, individuals might be -- but I mean as a group.)
I do have a (white) friend from South Africa who always checks "African-American" on forms, and argues if challenged that he is an American from Africa and if they meant something else, they should have used different words. I'll bet he's messed up more than a few affirmative-action databases, but it's their own darn fault.
no subject
The country says it wants to be color-blind, yet there's all this constant identifying and classifying, which doesn't lead to everyone being just people.
(Side note of tangential relevance: in some textbooks I've worked on, there's supposed to be a balance of ethnicities, with a certain percentage [black/African-American/whatever], a certain percentage Hispanic, and Asian, and so on. Which meant that I was supposed to choose names that were 'obviously' ethnic, since calling someone John in a word problem would get you any ethnicity points. Unless I used a real person of whatever desireable ethnicity, then s/he could be named whatever and it would count. It frustrated me to no end.]