What’s the Difference?

I’ve been derelict in my blogging over the last several months.  There are probably dozens of reasons that I could site for this, but none of them really matter to anyone but me.  The reason I am writing at a quarter after midnight less than a week before Christmas after months of silence is because of a discussion I had with my aunt this evening—or yesterday rather.  One of my young cousins just got a facebook page and my aunt wanted to see her page—she likes to know what we’re all doing at any given moment, but she doesn’t want to have her own facebook page.  She didn’t have any major problems with the page…until she got a look at my cousin’s pictures.  Now, I know what you’re thinking—she must have one of those scandalous bathroom pictures and a ton of make-up, but that isn’t the case.  What bothered my aunt was the type of friends that she had, none of whom were white like her.  (Unlike my own response, which was one of both surprise—the little brat’s got a really diverse group of friends—and one of pride.)

 

My aunt, it seems, has gotten rather racist over the last four decades because my mom swears that she had Hispanic and Black friends when they were teenagers.  She was absolutely sure that these kids, who looked rather wholesome to me, would get my sweet, impressionable, twelve-year old cousin in trouble.  Let me tell you, you couldn’t have picked my jaw up off of the ground with a forklift.  What exactly would Hispanic and/or Black kids do that could get a little white girl in trouble?  Most of the kids I knew at my cousin’s age were all white.  Each and every one of them was trouble.  The year I turned 12, a bunch of the kids in my class (all of whom were whiter than white) were caught drinking at the school sponsored Fashion Show (one of these kids actually stole the alcohol from the restaurant and got so drunk that he was unable to come to class the next day).  At the same function, most of the girls in the grade above me were caught smoking in the bathroom.  A few years prior to this, one of the girls a year older than me got in trouble because she managed to get onto the internet and do some really inappropriate things while on there (the rumor at the time was that she was having cyber sex—I don’t know how true that was; she was only in 5^th grade, however, if there was a girl that would have had cyber sex at the tender age of 10, this was the girl).

 

In high school, my social circle grew to include Black, Hispanic, and Indian kids—all of who were in my honors and advanced placement classes.  The reason these kids became my friends was that they were the ones in my classes.  These were the kids that I had the most in common with—we had the same teachers, classwork, and homework.  We all had the same gripes.  A few of my friends were white, but the majority was not.  Why was this?  The white kids were all in the remedial classes.  Most of them couldn’t read See Spot Run let alone Moby Dick.  They were also the ones that would set the local park on fire at least once a week.  Several of them got pregnant and dropped out before we managed to make it to Senior Year.  If these were the kids I was supposed to hang out with, I wonder what would have happened to me?  Would I have graduated from high school, gone on the college, and eventually obtained my Masters Degree?  Probably not.  I would probably be a stoner with a gaggle of brats—all with different fathers–, who was fired from the local McDonalds because I couldn’t maintain focus long enough to flip a burger.  It is safe to say that I am really glad that I didn’t hang out with the white kids in high school.

 

I have nothing against white people.  Most of my current friends are white for the same reason most of my friends in high school were Black and Hispanic—they were the people I went to grad school with and so they are the people I have the most in common with.  It just makes me so mad when someone who seems like a good person suddenly says or does something so completely insane.  The thing is that this is not the first time my aunt has said something so stupid based on race—when I was looking for roommates in Boston, she told me to stay away from the Black girls because they bring their Black guy friends over.  She claimed that was bad because they would get me in trouble.  I’m not quite sure what kind of trouble they would have gotten me into, but apparently it was scary enough that she warned me away from them.  My brother, my cousin, and I have also been told never to bring a Black boy or girl home with us and that we are not allowed to marry a Black person because we would have mulatto kids and that would be unthinkable.  What???  Why?  President Obama is bi-racial; is there anything wrong with him?  (That is a whole other can of conservative worms that I don’t have the inclination to open right now.)

I just don’t get people.  What is the difference between a white person and a black person?  I don’t see it.  How do others?

In A Heartbeat…

I sometimes forget that there are people who don’t understand what it was like to be a New Yorker on 9/11.  This isn’t meant to diminish what these people felt or what that day means to those people, but being a New Yorker, I am easily insulted when people aren’t somber enough in the days prior to the anniversary.  I understand that you may have other things going on and that day may have meant something to you prior to that terrible day, but you can’t expect everyone else to be chipper just because that date was/is special to you.  Maybe this is a fault in me, but no matter what happens on future September 11th’s, that date is a dark day.  What saddens me is that despite the fact that we claim we’ll “never forget” future generations will not place the same significance on the anniversary as those of us that lived through it.  In 1941, December 7th was a “date that will live in infamy,” and even though every American knows what that day was, we don’t really observe it.  We don’t go to school or work with little American flag pins on or wear black arm bands because most of us weren’t there for it, so it is removed from us, so maybe that is why some people don’t get what 9/11 is to a New Yorker (or to someone from the DC Metro Area–or even Boston where the planes originated).  They weren’t really here for it.  They didn’t know someone that they worried they would never see again because they worked in or near the Towers or at the Pentagon.  Their friends or loved ones were not NYPD or FDNY, so they didn’t have to fight the fear that their hero wouldn’t come home.  In a way, their lives didn’t change as irrevocably as someone who lived in New York’s life did.  They didn’t have to look at the shell of a skyline every time they road the A Train or looked out of the art room’s windows.  They didn’t have to pass the huge whole in the middle of Manhattan.  They didn’t have to go back to work blocks away from Ground Zero in the days and weeks after the attack.  They didn’t flinch every time a plane flew overhead, especially when it was the Concord, which was so loud that it sounded like a bomb going off.  They didn’t fear that every plane crash was an act of terrorism.  They didn’t suddenly have shelter drills in case a nuclear bomb was dropped on Manhattan.

Yes, the entire world changed after 9/11, but for New Yorkers it was personal.  We all knew someone or knew someone who knew someone.  I remember talking to some random girl in the hallway a few days after 9/11.  She and her friends were at the Towers a couple of days before the attack.  I remember my uncle coming home from Ground Zero, where he was helping with the clean up, tell us about finding a shoe with the foot still inside.  I remember my aunt walking around in a fog for weeks after the attack because she was in the city when the Towers fell and witnessed the walking wounded.  I remember my cousin telling me about how she had heard a loud rumbling while she was on the A train that she thought was a really big truck and that when she got off at her station, she found out that the rumbling was one of the Towers collapsing.  I remember my mom signing me out from school, not knowing what to write on the paper.  I remember hearing my name called and thinking that my aunt wasn’t coming home.  I remember watching dozens of students run into the hallways when their names were called because their family members worked in the city.  I remember the silence in the cafeteria at lunch and seeing people crying in the halls.  I remember watching the white smoke looming over what had become of the New York skyline.  I remember going to church and lighting candles.  I remember the memorial that was held at my church, and watching my brother’s classmates stand up (of their own volition) while singing God Bless the USA.  I remember going back to school, and avoiding every window that looked out over Jamaica Bay into the city so I wouldn’t have to see the spot where only days before the Towers stood.  I remember closing my eyes as the train crossed the bridge into Broad Channel, so I wouldn’t think about seeing the Towers there that morning.

I also remember everyone rallying around New York in the weeks after.  I remember the first time the Mets played at Shea Stadium after the attacks, and how it didn’t matter to any of the Braves fans that they had lost.  I remember watching the Concert for New York, and seeing all of the British performers come out to support us.  I remember looking at the sea of cops and fireman and their families.  I remember watching them jam to The Who and cry to James Taylor.  I remember watching all the television shows and seeing American flags everywhere.  I remember watching the news each time they found someone alive under the rubble.

I remember … I remember … I remember.

I remember that in a heartbeat nothing was ever the same again.

Kids and Rules

Everyone who knows me knows that I have no patience for children and even less patience for parents (or guardians) who let their children run wild.  I really think that if parents were stricter (but not too strict–I have an aunt who is absolutely nuts with rules) with their children the world would be a MUCH calmer place.  For example, imagine going to a nice restaurant without getting a headache from the sheer number of brats running around the place while their parents just ignore them.  You don’t know how many times I have had to squash the urge to slap some parents when I go out!  I remember a few years ago, my family went to my favorite Italian restaurant, and this entire family comes in–2 kids in total, although it felt like about a 100).  The parents sit down and start chowing down on the pizza bread.  The kids, however, decided to run screaming “duck, duck, goose!” at the top of their lungs.  The worst part was that these kids were old enough to know better–they had to be at least 8.  I was seriously ready to kill someone by the time their food arrived.  I don’t get why parents don’t coral their kids or if they can’t why they don’t just stay home.

Last week, I saw a piece on the local news about a restaurant in Pennsylvania that refuses to serve children under 6.  I absolutely love this idea.  Why should those of that don’t want to be around kids have to be around them?  I mean if I wanted to hang out with a bunch of whiney brats I would either go to McDonalds or just stay at home and listen to my mom and aunt argue.  There is no reason I should be subjected to someone else’s kids.

Anyway, the reason I started writing this is because I have a 6-year old cousin for whom there are no rules.  He’s allowed to stay up to all hours (as I write this, it is 11:38 pm, and he is still awake and planning his birthday party), he dictates what he eats and when he wants to eat it, he is allowed to yell at adults who dare to challenge him, and he is allowed to make all kinds of noise at any hour as long as it keeps him busy.  Why is this?  He’s Autistic and has, apparently, been dealt a stacked deck.  Let me tell you, his life is so easy, it isn’t even funny.  When I was 6, I was already responsible for my younger brother–if he did something wrong, i was the one that did it because he was only 3 so it couldn’t possibly be him.  Once, he went tumbling down the steps, and somehow that ended up being my fault.

The problem with this is that he is generally a good kid.  He’s sweet and really smart (the kid reads at a 3rd grade level), but at the same time he is a terror.  If he doesn’t get his way, he pouts or he yells until someone gives in–and they always do because he’s “special”.  I think its so funny that they criticize people who let their kids run around when that is exactly what they do with my cousin.  Today, we got into an argument at dinner because he didn’t want to eat the steak that the rest of us were eating.  Instead he wanted a hot dog.  This kid eats 2 foods–hot dogs and pizza.  He is 22 lbs underweight; he needs to eat more that hot dogs and pizza, but whenever anyone (usually my aunt or me) want to make him eat with the rest of the family, everyone else says–oh, he’s eating something, so that’s good enough.  That is not good enough!  Every time someone lets him eat what he wants, he knows that he can do whatever he wants without any repercussions.  That is not a lesson you want to teach a child, but that is the lesson he is learning from everybody.  It needs to stop.  There needs to be rules.  Just because he is slightly Autistic doesn’t mean that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it.

The End of an Era

I started reading the Harry Potter novels when I was 11 years old.  At the time, I wasn’t a very big reader, so my mom didn’t expect me to actually read the book–she bought it for my 8 year old brother, who loved to read, especially the Matt Christopher and Wishbone books.  However, he hated the first book (he read the first chapter and claimed it was boring–not a ringing endorsement, I know). For some reason, I picked up the book, which had been left on the coffee table, and to my surprise, I loved it. I remember wanting to read the second book right away, but it hadn’t come out yet, so I had to wait. I’m not quite sure what happened, but I didn’t pick up the 2nd book in the series until September 2001, several years after it had been released. (As a matter of fact, I was reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on 9/11.) At 14, I was more enchanted with the world of Harry Potter than I was at 11, and from that point on I devoured the books, however, I put off seeing the first movie. I didn’t think that it would do justice to the book. It wasn’t until 2 weeks before Chamber of Secrets was released that I caught Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on ABC Family.  Again, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed something Harry Potter related.  Since my dad was coming in from California for my 16th birthday the week the 2nd movie was being released, I asked him to take me to see it as a birthday present.  So, the weekend before my birthday, we made the trek to  the now defunct Crossbay movie theater.  From that point on, I only missed seeing 2 other Harry Potter movies (HP 4 and HP7.1) in the theater.  (I always loved the fact that the movies tended to be released on or around my birthday–at least until that Twilight dreck began competing for viewers, forcing the Potter movies to come out in July.)

When the last book came out in 2007, I held tight to the notion that there were still several more movies coming out, so it wasn’t really the end–I just got a big jump on all the spoiler sites.  However, as each movie came out, I knew we were getting closer and closer to the end of the series, and now that it is finally here, I’m finding it hard to let go.  This is a big part of my adolescence that is ending; it’s almost like a neon sign telling me that I now have to grow up.  Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Hogwarts gang did, so now its my turn, despite the fact that I am at least 7 years older than the characters at the end of the Battle of Hogwarts.  I still have the DVD’s and (most) of the books, so I can revisit them whenever I want, but it’s not the same as reading/seeing it for the first time, although there are advantages to knowing what is going to happen. (SPOILER ALERT) Each time I saw Nagini during the battle, I was waiting for Neville to come up and kill him.

That said, I want to give my impressions of this final movie.

1. It was amazingly true to the book.  Sure there were a few things left out–we never get to meet Teddy Lupin or find out that Neville ended up being a professor at Hogwarts.  There was also a lot of the Dumbledore storyline left out–there was nothing about his relationship with a dark wizard back in his school days or about his father’s imprisonment for killing a bunch of muggles, his sister’s death (and his part in it), or much of anything about his brother, Aberforth.  There were also a few changes to the movie.  In the book, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned to Hogwarts, they snuck through the castle, looking for Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem BEFORE any staff members knew what was going on, and the first professor to see Harry was Professor McGonagal, who was in her dressing gown when Harry came upon her.

2. Alan Rickman is a great actor (not that I missed that in the first 7 movies or Die Hard for that matter).  Snape ends up being a very complex character.  (SPOILERS GALORE)  He starts out a misunderstood little boy (not that much is shown in the movie–this scene was much better in the book, imho), then a bullied teen, an angry young man, however, underneath that all there was love for Lily.  Everything he did was about Lily.  True, he swore allegiance to Voldemort, but once he knew that Lily was in danger, he was ready to do anything to protect her (and her son).  I think the most telling part of this sequence was when he angrily argued with Dumbledore over the fact that Harry needed to die at the hands of Voldemort in order for Voldemort to be killed.  You can see that he has truly learned to care for Harry, despite the fact that he reminded him of James.  Rickman did a wonderful job of making Snape human for the first time in the series.

3. Neville Longbottom is the most underrated character in the series.  Sure, he was there when Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna broke into the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, but he never seemed all that important.  The last book, and moreso this last movie, showed us that he was just as important as any of the main characters.  In a way, Neville is Harry.  Like Harry he lost his parents when he was a year old just as Harry did.  Yes, he was raised by his grandmother, who loved him, but nothing could replace the parents that he could have had, should have had, if not for Voldemort and his Death Eaters.  In the end, Neville is very much his parents’ son.  He’s every much the hero of this story as Harry is.  (Actually, I can see a romance novel featuring Neville as the hero =).)

4. The epilogue felt just as unnecessary in the movie as it was in the book.  Of course, it gave the movie a happy ending, but it was kind of jarring coming out of the battle.  One minute, Harry’s killing Voldemort and the next he’s 19 years older and bringing his kids to the Hogwarts Express.

5. The movie should have been released May 2nd–the date of the Battle of Hogwarts–or July 31st–Harry’s (and J.K. Rowling’s) birthday.

What did you guys think of the movie?

Midnight Train Going Anywhere…

I’ve been back home for almost 2 months now, and it is killing me. All I do is sit at home watching Doctor Who and Torchwood online (I’m a little late to the game, so I’m catching up) or studying (I just took my comps for the 3rd time). I can’t go out because there is nothing to do here. There is one bar in the entire town (both sides–you would think in a neighborhood 50% Irish there would be more bars, but there’s no such luck), not that it would make much of a difference. I don’t have many friends here. Most of the people that actually like to hang out with me live 4 hours away in Boston. I haven’t found a job and I’m not in school, so I haven’t made any new friends. When I want to go out, my family complains. None of them actually see me as an adult; I’m just some kid–unless they want me to find a job. I’m 24 years old, but I’m not allowed to leave Queens–at least not at night. Apparently, there are vampires or werewolves of some kind hanging around the city after dark. It isn’t as if I want to stay out all night or go to sketchy areas, unless you consider the NY Public Library on 5th Avenue or a karaoke bar a few blocks from Madison Square Garden a sketchy area. Next week, I’m trying out for Millionaire, so I’ll have to be in the city after dark, I wonder what they’ll do then. They seem to forget that I have been living on my own for a year and a half. Did they think I just sat at home, cowering in the corner because it was too dangerous to go outside?

I’m at the point where I just don’t care anymore. Unless it is pouring out tomorrow, I will be going to the lecture at the library (members of the Mystery Writers of America are going to be talking about the ways in which they choose to kill off their characters). I’m even kind of hoping that my cousin wants to meet up in Long Island instead of the city this weekend–the further away from home the better. I don’t even care about shelling out $22 for a round trip ticket on the LIRR. It only takes 45 minutes to get to the city–it will take much longer to get to and from the Island; the more time I am away from the house the better.

I honestly cannot wait until I get a job and have enough money to move out again. I hate having to answer to anyone about what I’m doing and when I am doing it. I always have, but it is worse now, because I know what it is like to be able to come and go as I please. I feel like I’m being fenced in–I live less than an hour from one of the greatest cities in the world, but I can’t leave my own back yard long enough to actually go there. It is just so frustrating! I’ve never had Cabin Fever, but I guess that is what this is. It is absolutely ridiculous that I can’t go anywhere without having a chaperone. There are places that I want to go, but I can’t because there is nobody that wants to go with me. There is a double standard in this house. No one cares if my baby brother goes to the city for the night–to see a Knicks or a Rangers game–hell, he even went to Jersey to see the Rangers play the devils at the Prudential Center (in Newark!!!). No one even blinked when he wanted to do that (and he was only 19), but if I want to go to a decent section of Manhattan (at 24), they look at me like I have 2 heads. My mom argues that my aunts never hung out in the city, but the thing is that when they were young it was actually dangerous in the city–Giuliani hadn’t cleaned it up yet. Today, it is safer to walk around the city than it is to hang out in my hometown, which is only safe as long as you have bleach blonde hair, orange skin, and dress like a guido (and those things won’t save you if you bring someone of a different race with you). (Things may be changing. There were actual black people in Crossbay Diner this weekend! Maybe we’ll actually get some diversity soon.)

Proud to Be an American?

In the week since Osama bin Ladin’s death, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the sudden surge of patriotism that he death has brought out across the country. People are waving flags and declaring America’s superiority. I get it–the man who has literally been the face of evil for the last decade is gone– but what I don’t get is why everyone is proud to be American? While America isn’t the worst country in the world, it is far from the best country in the world. We have so much potential–it is all right in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

However, we always stop just shy of actually living up to these ideals. We’re told that we’re all free to be who we want to be and do what we want to do, but are we really? Are we any freer than people in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran? We like to think that we’re different, but the funny thing is that anyone who is different is denigrated. They’re made to feel like they’re the lowest of the low because they don’t look like or act like the way the moral police believes that they should. If you don’t look like the girl or boy next door and acting like someone out of a 1950′s television show, you’re not really allowed to exist. You’re not allowed to have a voice. You’re supposed to deny who you are and conform because it makes other people more comfortable with themselves. That’s total bullshit, but that is what we do in this so-called greatest country in the world. We hide ourselves behind a mask of acceptability, going so far as to put down others who aren’t afraid to be different just because we’re afraid of what that represents–what it means for us. We take the Booker T. Washington route–we stick our heads in the sand and try to not make waves. We pretend that we’re happy with what we’ve got because we don’t want to risk that to try to get that bigger piece of the pie that we’ve been denied since the dawn of time. The morality police (also known as the Bible Belt) want everyone to be like them. They want everyone to be exactly the same, thinking the same thoughts, and deleting everything that isn’t uniform, and we appease them by pretending to be just like them. It needs to stop. We need to accept people that are different for who they are and not who we want them to be. It will be hard, but I have faith that it can be done, and when it is, that is when I will be proud to be an American.

Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 35

Later this year (much later, but still), I will be turning 25, and there are a lot of things that I have always talked about wanting to do, but I have never done. So, now I am giving myself a somewhat firm deadline of November 22, 2021. Here goes:

1. Visit Europe. Since I was 12, I have had a list of places I want to visit, and I have yet to actually go to any of them. Specifically, I want to go to Italy, Ireland, London, Paris, and Amsterdam. There is so much history in Europe and it is a shame that so many people do not get to experience it. I don’t want another 10 years of my life to go by before I get to do so.

2. Get published–and not in some stuffy academic journal. I’ve wanted to write for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I liked to write scary stories that took place in high schools. I tried my hand at poetry in high school, but fortunately I was never emo enough to write good poems. Currently, I am actively writing 2 stories, and I have even gotten some really good feedback from the editors over at textnovel.com. I even have a pseudonym picked out in case I ever do get published (imho, my real name is not a writer’s name).

3. Get married. Like many girls, I have pictured my wedding since I was a child. At first, I was decked out in all white (I was thin, too!) and walking down the aisle at Nativity. Then, it was in the rose garden by my dad’s old apartment in California. One thing that has always been the same is that I want fall colors (royal blue, russet, gold). I also want “All I Ask of You” from Phantom to be played. Love that song.

4. Foster/Adopt a child. I’ve never really wanted to be pregnant–that just is not something that appeals to me, but I do think I have a lot to offer a child (and I mean “a” child–no more than 1). I don’t care what he/she looks like and I don’t care how old the child is (actually, I would rather an older child than a younger one–around the age of 5 or 6).

5. Go to Hawaii. ‘Nuff said.

6. Have a wild affair with a ridiculously handsome and completely inappropriate man…I may have read one too many romance novels.

7. Sing with a choir again. I sang with my parish choir for 7 years (1994-2001) and with my high school’s gospel choir during my senior year (imo, it nearly ruined my voice), and I have really missed it. I always felt special when I sang with a choir (getting up at graduation to sing with the gospel choir made me feel kind of like a movie star), and for the longest time my voice was the only thing that I valued about myself (I have since found other things that I value).

8. Go on vacation all by myself. I’ve never been away alone, and I think that it would be fun not to worry about what other people want to do while on vacation. Even if I just went to Atlantic City by myself, I would be happy to be left to my own devices.

9. Learn to drive. Growing up in NYC, I have never really felt the need to drive, but I think it would be a good skill to have.

10. Live in “the city”. I love Boston, but it is completely inconvenient to pretty much my entire family. I don’t want to live at home again, and going from a city like Boston to a borough other than Manhattan is a downgrade, and it’s almost as bad as moving to Jersey.

11. Learn to play the guitar.

Old People Really Like to Bitch About How Easy We Young People Have It, Don’t They?

Yesterday, I got one of those stupid chain e-mails from my older cousin about how hard things were when she was young. Here’s some of the … i’m not sure if there is a word for it … from the letter:

You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

That’s right, we have it so easy in the world of 2011. They seem to forget that the same inventions that make life easy for us youngins are used by old people too…how else would I have gotten the chain letter of craptasticness if someone hadn’t taught my cousin how to use this here interweb (that’s what you young people call it, isn’t it?). I don’t see her walking around with a bunch of quarters to use pay phones or sending letters snail mail. And hey, stamps were 10 cents back in the days of yore…guess what? They’re 44 cents now (or are they more–postal service needs to make up for all the stamps that they don’t sell anymore).

I think this is my favorite part of the whole thing:

Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

Cause that was just great for the self-esteem! Just look at how many serial killers were roaming the streets back in the 70′s because their parents loved them so much that they beat the crap out of them! Good job, guys! You’ll be the poster people for beating kids again!

I guess we should go let Nix-Marie Brown’s mother and step-father out of jail because they had every right to beat the crap out of her and leave her to die! Wow, thanks for opening my eyes! I see things so much clearer now–maybe because my parents were humane enough not to beat the crap out of me (or hit me at all). I guess when I have kids it will be okay for me to lock them up in the dark and tie them to a potty until they’re discovered at the age of 13 without the ability to speak…poor little Jenny had it so well. she didn’t have to get up to go to the bathroom! Who cares that she was almost feral when she was found and that she will never be able to speak like “normal” people?

Here’s another one for you:

There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

First of all, if you’re going to bitch about shit at least know what the fuck you’re talking about. When you buy music off of Napster of Itunes, you aren’t stealing anything! Napster may have started out as a free p2p service, but it now charges for music just like Itunes. If you didn’t want to sound like a total ludite, you could have included services like Limewire, which was at least shut down within the last couple of months instead of a website that became a pay service sometime just after the new millennium began!

For the hypocrites out there:

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?!?!

When you get rid of your DVR, we’ll talk.

Last one (I promise):

And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw your ass in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!

Cause that was safe! But then again, it was better than being beaten to death!

Happy Birthday, MLK Jr.

I grew up with the idea that everyone is equal and that one skin color is not better than another. When I went to school, I was told to “love my neighbor.” When I was at home, my parents taught me to judge a person by their character not by what they look like on the outside. My neighborhood was a mix of colors and cultures. I played with children that looked so different from me, but we all wanted the same thing–to escape our homework for at least a little while. None of us pulled back if one of the others came around unless we didn’t like them for some reason (There was one girl that we tried to stay away from because she just rubbed us the wrong way).

When I was 13, this all changed. My family was forced to move from our heterogenous neighborhood to one in which everyone looked like me and if they didn’t they got the stink eye from all the little old ladies that stared out their windows like hawks, ready to pounce if someone “suspicious” aka black or Latino showed up on their lawn. It wouldn’t have surprised me if I found out that some of the people had the makings for burning crosses somewhere in their house. The one thing that this neighborhood is known for is the fact that there were 2 Hate Crimes within the span of 20 years (the first in 1986 when 3 black men were chased from New Park Pizza to the Belt Parkway, where they were murdered. the second in 2006, when some guido with a bat decided to beat the skull in of a black man that was on his block.) For me, the worst thing that happened when I moved there was that I was suddenly faced with relatives (who generally are not bad people) that truly believed that there was a difference between the skin colors. They weren’t afraid to use the N-word when talking about a black person or call Chinese people Chinks (news to me since my bff at the time was a Chinese-American) or Spanish people Spicks. The first time I heard them talk this way I was shocked because other than the n-word I had never even heard of the other words. I was also shocked because I had never heard them talk this way before. Since then I have listened to my grandmother lecture my brother, my cousin, and me on how cultures should not mix, and that if you’re an Italian you should marry another Italian (interesting coming from a Polish woman who married an Italian man). When I asked her who I should marry since I am a true American mutt (I’m Italian, Polish, German, Irish, and a smidgeon French), she had no answer for me. Not to be left out, one of my aunts told us that we were not to date/marry a black person. It got to the point that I would nod my head to avoid an argument.

After 9/11, walking around my neighborhood was a nightmare. Signs telling Arabs to go home were everywhere. About a month after the attack, my family went into Brooklyn to celebrate my brother’s 12th birthday. At one point, we stopped at a grocery store to get some toilet paper, and while my mom and I were in the store, my aunt taught my brother a joke about how in the future kids wouldn’t know what an Arab was because there was apparently a worldwide genocide between the present and the future. My brother then repeated the joke to my mom and me. My mom was silent, but I was pissed. I told my aunt that if she wanted to tell racist jokes she should refrain from telling them to my brother and me. She didn’t understand why I was so upset. These people had murdered over 3000 Americans a month before. I couldn’t understand how someone so much older than me could have trouble separating Muslim extremists from Arabs in general. She wasn’t the only one with that problem, but she was the only one that I respected who did. I saw this reaction in school all the time. A few weeks prior to the incident with my aunt, a Muslim girl in my art class was being taunted by most of the other kids in my class. Hearing what was going on, the people in my group (the classroom was set up in groups of tables), looked to see what our teacher was going to do, and when he did nothing, we stopped the torment, bringing the girl to our group. From that day forward, no one in that class bothered her again. Unfortunately, that was the day I lost all respect for my teacher–not that I had much for him to begin with (there were other things that he did in the span of a few weeks as our teacher that made me think that he was not someone worthy of the respect that teachers should be given).

People think that things have gotten better racism-wise, but I’m not sure how true that really is. In one of my undergrad psych classes, we learned about implicit attitudes and the idea that merely knowing stereotypes affects the way we think of people even if we aren’t consciously aware of these thoughts. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) shows us our unconscious attitudes about a variety of things, such as race, religion, and age. One of the questions brought up by tests like the IAT is why it appears that racism is diminishing when it really isn’t. The answer to this may lie in the idea that appearance is everything. People have figured out that racism is not accepted in society anymore, and so they keep their real feelings on race to themselves. Unfortunately, it looks like the tide may be changing again. One of my facebook friends posted this link on her page a couple of days ago. Newly elected Tea Partiers in Tennessee want to change the way children are taught about American history. They want the focus to shift away from the minority experience, and Tennessee is not the only state where this type of totalitarian shift is going on. Last May, Texas passed a new curriculum similar to the one sparking controversy in Tennessee.

On this 25th anniversary of MLK Day, this step backwards is a travesty. I only hope that people will begin to see through the machinations of hate-mongers within the Tea Party.

I’ve Entered a Writing Contest

For those that do not know, i like to write. A lot. I’ve been doing it off and on my entire life. In 2009, I found out about a website, textnovel.com, where unpublished writers can post there stuff and enter contests in which they can win a potential writing contract. Last month, I decided to enter the 2011 contest after my story The Winds of Time was chosen as an Editor’s Pick 2010. In order to move up in the ranks, I need people to vote for and become fans of my story. Please check out my story, and if you like it become a fan and vote.

I have heard from some people that voting is confusing. First, you have to sign up for a free account and create a profile name (you can create a reader only account, which is what my mom did). Then, you must validate the account through your e-mail. Finally, you can vote. Go to http://www.textnovel.com/story_detail.php?story_id=5440 or search for The Winds of Time. When you’re on the page, there are 4 icons: a thumbs up, a cell phone, the letter R (the rating), and the RSS feed button. To vote click on the thumbs up button, and to subscribe click on the cell phone.

I hope you enjoy it!