Just some random things that have been lingering in my brain since I've come across them recently.

From a reply to some post I read the other day:

JULY 26, 2007 - 10:00PM — CARAMELTEDDY
why not?

The Racist View- Those people of the other race are inferior. It's biological. They are not as intelligent. They have strange customs that we don't understand. They are inferior.

The Homophobe View- Those gays are unnatural. They have urges that we don't understand and it's against God's will.

It's all b.s. There is no such thing as race. We are all humans seperated by different cultural practices. There is no such thing as sexuality. We are all so restricted by taboos and suppression when it comes to sex. Some of us actually think that we have to choose a label to slap onto ourselves in regard to who we will have sex with, or who we come from. As if we have some need to explain. As if what makes us defines who we are. That's why we try to so hard to justify our desires by claiming be part of a specific group (whether its black, white, mulatto, gay, straight, bi).

....Stop being insecure assholes...Can we effin evolve already?

A quote from an article I was reading that interestingly points out something pretty powerfull in regards to history. In a lot of my classes we've talked about how history is written by "the victors". In my Sociology classes and Women's classes, the victors are men. In History classes, the victors are generally "us", as whites, as colonists taking over the land of the natives, as Americans in world history...or as Spaniards if your talking about ancient Mayan/Aztec history, haha.

http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/People/

As an amateur photographer--a "brilliant" one according to The Anniversary Party writer, director and co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh, who had Beals take all the photos that were featured in that film--Beals is very concerned with imagery and representation. With her role on The L Word, she hopes to give the gay community the images of themselves that have been so sorely lacking.

"They talk about the fact that history is written by the victors," she told The Windy City Times last summer, "but if you can make yourself victorious by writing your own history and supplying your own images, then you've done yourself and the world a great service."

I just love that. I remember last week seeing some big story on the news about a library that was opening in some city, causing a bunch of controversy, because it was strictly a library full of either literature written by or about gay culture, including fiction, non-fiction, articles, autobiographies, and of course history since the beginning of time, concerning homosexuality. I think that's brilliant for the reason stated above. If you want your stories told or heard...or even just available for those who might want to hear them, then why not have a place with the sole purpose being to do so. White America sure isn't going to tell them for you.

It's the same BS that people start spewing about "Why do the blacks need their own month to celebrate their history...we don't have a white history month" or "Fine, they can celebrate it, but why do the rest of us have to be made aware of it". Or you know, whatever else you might have heard. These are just some I recall coming from my own family.

I'm not even gonna get into the "invisibility" of dominant cultures, or "what it means to be white" because we're never going to know what that experience is like until we're no longer the ones in control of how 'others' are defined, viewed, and treated in regards to our "normal" standards. Which, lets face it, isn't even the truth of what 'normal' is in America. We still paint that ideal image of the wholesome American family, when today 'normal' by statistics would be divorced two-parent homes, where both parents work out of necessity, not because the mother isn't feeling completely fufilled by her main duties at home. And soon (though dominant culture won't reflect if for much longer I'm sure) 'normal' in America, won't be white families. I think statistics give it 20 years or so from now before whites will be the minority by population.

Not to get too sidetracked, but I'm really going to miss discussing/debating that kind of thing in the classes I was mentioning before. I love questioning why I believe the things I do, or how I've come to form those beliefs, and challenging myself to look at things with different perspectives, even if only momentarily.

If education were free, I would be a scholar throughout the rest of my life. I still intend on trying to do the above on my own as often as possible, but it'll be won't be as easy when the people to discuss with will most likely be fairly similar, with shared cultures, either by work/economics/geography, etc. Webster is so incredibly diverse, and I'll really miss being surrounded by that. It's definitely part of why I fell so hard for London (I could probably count the English people I met there in a period of four months on two hands).


and then un-related to the above, but still in my brain, once again the lyrics of one Mr. Ray LaMontagne, in his song "Burn" which I've fallen in love with all over again via Brandi Carlisle's cover:

Oh so don't pay no mind
To my watering eyes
Must be something in the air
That I'm breathing
Yes and try to ignore
All this blood on the floor
It's just this heart on my sleeve that's bleeding

Oh so kiss him again
Just to prove to me that you can
I will stand here
And burn in my skin

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