Bigotry of the AFA

On By SarahIn Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

I subscribe to the American Family Association email alerts because I want to know what they’re up to. Mostly they send out emails about what companies you should boycott because they offer domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples, and its a great way for me to know that I should write to thank Wal-Mart or the Home Depot for supporting their gay and lesbian employees.

Lately, the email alerts have been particularly disturbing because they are so blatantly trying to encourage hatred and intolerance for Muslims in the US. In the midst of everything that has been happening in the last seven years, this is very dangerous.

In November, I received an email telling me I should write to my representatives asking them to support legislation that would require that all elected officials take the oath of office on the Bible. This was in response to the announcement that Keith Ellison, the first elected Muslim in the US (go Minnesota!) planned to take his oath of office on the Quran.

I was livid. This is craziness. There are so many things wrong with this. First, what about the separation of church and state? Second, what about freedom of religion? Third, what about freedom of speech? I could go on about the fact that any oath that a Muslim would take on the Bible would be meaningless to that person, or how we should take a note from the Quakers don’t take oaths because they believe that they should be truthful all of the time. But this is like trying to have a rational argument with an irrational person.

This past week, I received a survey from the AFA on Islam. I’m sure they ramped up again because of all of the folks taking office in Washington this week, including Keith Ellison. Again, they got on their bandwagon of intolerance and peppered their constituents with questions about their opinion of Islam in America. The questions reveal an agenda to spread misinformation and hatred of Muslims, taking advantage of an already tense and fearful climate.

All of this scares, angers, and saddens me. It is so wrong, and I wish that it weren’t out there in the public sphere because of the hateful attitudes is espouses. On the other hand, I think its ultimately good that the AFA is revealing its blatant hate-mongering agenda. Let the people see it for what it is.

I identify as a Christian, a mantle I have reclaimed in recent years because I was tired of a small and hateful minority plucking my religious tradition out of my spiritual life. In the spirit of ecumenism, I do not begrudge the AFA from claiming its Christian identity. However, they are hijacking a peaceful tradition that is about unconditional love and radical social justice.

The AFA promotes bigotry thinly veiled behind a mask of Christianity that they claim gives them a moral high-ground. I am pleased that they are showing themselves more and more as the bigots they really are, making it clear that they alone are responsible for shaping the hateful attitudes they hold about those who are different from them.

Yesterday, Keith Ellison was sworn in as the first Muslim member of Congress using a Quran that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson. I am proud that my home state of Minnesota elected him.

Quilts of Gee’s Bend

On By SarahIn Art & Culture, CommunityLeave a comment

Gillian and I went with some friends today to see the Quilt’s of Gee’s Bend exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. The exhibit is leaving San Francisco soon, and we have been meaning to get there to see it for so long. I regret that we will not likely get back to see it again before it leaves. I am so glad to see these works of art receiving the acclaim and attention that they so deserve. It is interesting to see this “vernacular” folk art talked about in terms of art criticism.

On the audio tour, select pieces are introduced by a knowledgeable art critic who compares the works to more famous painters. This is followed by clips of the artists, women, all descendants of former slaves living in a remote and poor part of Alabama, talk about how they make their quilts. These narratives juxtaposed against each other is fascinating to me. These women humbly and yet proudly designed these quilts. They are all incredibly beautiful, all made with old clothes, rags, and scraps of odd materials, everything from flour sacks, worn work pants, to double knit leisure suits. Each quilt is clearly designed with heart and soul, some are indeed like abstract paintings. And yet when each woman spoke about her design she was very matter-of-fact about the simpleness of how it comes together: tearing the strips apart, sewing them together, taking them apart when it is not what she wants, and sewing it back up.

What I love about them is that as the generations go on and the tradition on quilting is passed down, each design pays homage to the designs that came before. You can see the references to the patterns of the earlier quilts, and yet each quilt is a unique expression of its designer, its own interpretation of a theme.

I also love that it is an art that was born out of poverty, necessity, frugality, and the legacy of slavery in America. These families were poor and needed these quilts to keep them warm through the winter. These families had nothing, so the women sewed together scraps and they made something useful and beautiful. Beauty and warmth in spite of hardship.

It is just funny to me to hear the language of art criticism being applied to this medium that came out of a completely unrelated context. Its an odd intersection of class, race, and art. And you can see in the newer quilts the self consciousness of the criticism, the response to the fact that the medium has been noticed by a class that wants to commodify these objects.

I’m glad these women are getting acknowledged as artists, and that these quilts are hanging in museums. They merit this kind of attention, and the artists should be compensated for the value of the work, however that is defined by the culture that wants to pay for it.

The fact is, however, that the consumption of these quilts as art objects has changed the medium and the tradition. It continues to pay homage to the quilters that came before, but the new patterns indeed reflect new influences.

A Close Call

On By SarahIn Food & Cooking, Friends & Family, Fun & EntertainmentLeave a comment


Gillian and I ran some errands this weekend, and had a perilously close brush with holiday stress, the kind of stress I have vowed to avoid while at the same time participating in enough activity so that I can enjoy the season. Its a delicate balance, easy to topple, we found.

We needed supplies for truffle-making, so we went out and about in the world, braving the holiday shopping chaos. It was really quite fun. There is an aspect of holiday shopping that I actually enjoy, if you can ignore the consumer greed. There is a palpable excitement in the air, coming from the energy of people bustling about getting very important things done. This past weekend was so cold in the Bay Area that it really felt like winter “back east,” as we like to say in California. The cold made me feel cozy and Christmasey. We werre bundled up, getting done our list of important things, bustling around, running into old friends, and enjoying the scene.

After much debate, we decided to get a tree. Already feeling we had put in a full day of bustling, we persisted in getting our tree on Saturday. Young men with chainsaws were taking orders from a much older man who looked like he had seen some hard times. We showed the man which tree we wanted, and he said that he would have it ready to go after we paid for it. We went in the store and paid for the tree, got hot dogs on the way out, fetched the car, and drove up to the curb to claim our tree.

The young man helping us was none too happy about it. It was clear that he wanted to be doing anything but help us strap a Christmas tree to the top of our car. The poor kid was clearly not happy in his work. What should have taken 10 minutes took 45. Gillian and I didn’t know what to do to prod this kid along. We’re not professional Christmas tree fasteners. We didn’t want to tell this guy who so obviously hates his job that he was doing it too slowly. And we were pretty certain that he didn’t care that we had to get home to decorate the tree and make chocolate truffles for our friends. But we really wanted to get home! We were risking getting cranky and tired.

We finally got the tree home, and it took a lot longer to set it up than we thought. Putting a six-foot tree in a tiny apartment is not easy (although I do believe that no matter what, there is always room for a Christmas tree). We had to re-arrange some large furtniture and our entire entertainment system, but we were determined and we got that thing to fit! Then the decorating: We had to string the lights twice because we realized that it works better to string from the bottom up with the lights plugged in too late. I think I have to re-learn that every year. then the process of hanging the decorations, going through the Christmas box, gushing over the angel cow ornament and the baby ice skates that I used to wear as a kid (my mom turned them into holiday deorations after I grew out of them. They are pretty cute.).

We had planned on making truffles that day, but by the time we got home and got the tree decorated, it was about 8:00. We were tired and couldn’t possibly get started that late. We’d be up all night! We agreed to skip church (gasp!) and stay home and get started in the morning. We also had to go to a co-worker’s Hanukah party the next day (which I really wanted to attend), which would no longer be convenient since we’d be in the process of making truffles. Undaunted, we were determined to do it all.

Mind you, this is how I get into trouble around the holidays. I get overly ambitious. Really, its the story of my life. I guess when I grow up I’ll have the goal of not having eyes bigger than my stomach. Right. Like that’s gonna happen.

Gillian and I started to disagree about process. To start, our disagreements were friendly debates, and for quite a while, we were able to work things out amicably. Gillian finished the ganaches (I assisted and washed dishes), and by noon they were all setting. We went to the party, had a nice time socializing with friends from the office, played with cute babies, ate yummy potato latkas with home-made apple sauce, caught up with a few old friends, and finally made our excuses, which people were willing to accept because they knew they would benefit from our planned afternoon activities.

We came back home and immediately started making truffles. Without the truffle-making, we had already had a full day, I think most would agree. But we were determined, and we perservered.

The process took far too long, and half way through, we realized that we didn’t have enough paper cups for all of the truffles. Gillian was going to have to drive accross town to get more. I really didn’t want her to go. I wanted to have a stress-free day of holiday activity and not have either of us go anywhere. I immediately became cranky, and we argued. Was it better to just make due with the paper cups that we had, or should one of us just bite the bullet and go get what we needed? I felt we should stay home, but Gillian is more of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to food. She wasn’t going to be relaxed unless we had everything we needed. I gave in and let her go, but I wasn’t happy about it.

We were both tired, and we both new that we were going to be up too late. I had to go to work at 6:30 the next morning, and I wanted to go to bed. It was 10:30 and we still needed to box the truffles after the were shaped and rolled in cocoa. We were in the middle of a long process, and we didn’t have enough time to relax, and for a moment it didn’t feel like we were having fun. It felt too close for comfort to holiday stress.

We bickered and whined at each other. My feet hurt, and I wanted nothing more than to be horizontal by 11:00. We had a hard moment discussing whether or not I should go to bed or stay up and see the process through. We never settled the argument, but I stayed up and helped assemble the boxes, and the process went by pretty quickly. Once we got past the crankiness, we were punchy and silly, laughing at ourselves because we were so tired that we couldn’t accurately count truffles any more.

In spite of ourselves, we had a fun time, managing to fill our weekend with holiday activities, creating an unrealistic agenda, accomplishing most everything and then some, and avoiding a close call with holiday stress.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

Resistance is Futile

On By SarahIn Art & Culture, Opinion2 Comments

the lament of a latent activist

(Sarah’s 1997 holiday rant)

My name is on the mailing lists of several mail-order catalog companies. I probably got on the list for Pottery Barn because of my subscription to the New York Times, or Tweeds because someone sent me a mail-order gift from them for my birthday one time. I’m not sure why, but I get their catalogs, along with Eddie Bauer, Levenger, Victoria’s Secret, and many other clothing and home furnishing mail order companies. Especially now that its the holiday season I get a new one almost every day. I come home and my mail box is crammed with glossy pictures of unusually gaunt models wearing cardigans in colors like ox blood, moss, and citrus ($45.99 each), or of other people’s homes featuring furnishings such as the 6-foot “cathedral” wind chime with symphonic sound (“Kenny G’s percussionist plays one”, only $139.95).

I’m aware of the marketing research that goes into these specifically targeted mailings. Within my demographic, zip code, age range, and gender category, these companies know my probable salary range and even what my tastes will likely be. What these mail-order companies don’t know is that I am more inclined to throw the catalogs right in the recycling bin, if they are indeed made of recyclable material. I know better than to think “well, hmm, I may actually want something in here, and who knows, it may not be so outrageously priced, and it can’t really hurt to look anyway.” I have made that mistake many times before, and I learned my lesson. The only thing that leafing through those catalogs does is inform me that my home is not complete without an heirloom-quality hand-carved cedar trunk ($395), and that my wardrobe absolutely must include that basil-colored denim jacket ($150).

I know better than to even bother looking at the catalogs because I understand that capitalism makes you feel empty. You spend the best hours of your day at a job you don’t care that much about, so you come home at the end of the day, energy spent, uninspired to do anything interesting to fulfill any creative need in yourself. So, to numb yourself you turn on the TV, or read the newspaper, or look at catalogs with glossy pictures, passively letting Sears convince you that you need a new refrigerator in order to feel fulfilled. We are bombarded with commercials and billboards and newspaper ads for sales at Macy’s. When I pay attention to them, the ads make me forget that I am outraged when I see homeless people everyday when I go to lunch, or that my vegetables are grown with chemicals and pesticides. Advertisers want me to focus on my need for a $175 Italian calfskin wastebasket rather than on the fact that the United States still spends billions a year on weapons development. Most of the time I can sustain my awareness of how the system works, knowing intellectually that I do not need a $50 leather mousepad to feel like a whole person.

But its the holiday season, and I begin to see those glossy catalogs in my peripheral vision. Even with my personal ritual of throwing them in the recycling pile, affirming my choice of a simple life-style, I feel a tug. My justification is that I need gift ideas, so with that in mind, I give in to temptation and fish them out of the recycling bin. They probably can’t be recycled anyway.

What I am ashamed to admit, even to myself, is that my darkest secret desire is to get ideas of gifts for me. I need to find the perfect tie tack for Dad ($20.00) to go with the Dilbert Christmas tie I want to get for him, but don’t I need a mahogany remote-control organizer ($65.00)? My middle-class existence has afforded me the belief that I have the right to own these fabulous objects, and not only that, but that I must be truly miserable and deprived without them. These thoughts don’t exactly go through my head in that way as I thumb through the catalogs, but I certainly feel an emotion, a dearth, an emptiness in my heart because I lack “barrister” glass-front sectional bookcases at $189 a section (plus $89 for the legs and $119 for the “crown”). Besides, focusing on that lack makes me forget that I am outraged that Pete Wilson wants the University of California to deny health and housing benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of its employees. Why get upset about the fact that I am one ineffective person, alone, small against the huge backdrop of this issue, when I can contemplate what to get for my nieces for Christmas and fantasize about a $65 dental floss dispenser for me.

I am dismayed at my own emotional reaction to this feeling of deprivation in my life. To be completely honest, when it is not Christmas I still have difficulty resisting that consumer impulse. It effects me profoundly even when I go shopping for underwear. This is how it goes: I am going to Target and I am only going in to buy Fruit of the Looms, and maybe some socks; I come out of the store with a shopping cart containing a couple of T-shirts, a new hair conditioner, a rolling pin, some new kitchen towels, a box of 300 Q-tips, and a CD tower made of plywood that I have to assemble myself when I get home. This is what happens when I am using restraint.

Part of me believes that resistance is futile, but I also feel revulsion at my own reaction of want and need when faced with these objects of desire/disgust. I say to myself “do the advertisers for this stuff really think we’re morons and will pay money for that?” And I will pay money myself, get that momentary consumer high, and go back to my unfulfilled life and feel sorry for myself, or maybe go watch TV, indulging myself in passively allowing the Fox Network to distance me from my own feelings and thoughts. I despair because somewhere deep down inside myself, I have given up hope and I participate in this world as if I have no idea how garbage production is affecting the environment, as if I am oblivious to the reality of domestic abuse, as if I truly believe that anything I might do to show my outrage at these things wouldn’t matter anyway. I am disheartened because I start to believe that I don’t have any responsibility to solve the effects of greenhouse gasses.

During the holiday season it is especially hard to resist the consumer temptation, and I feel myself getting sucked into the cyclone of commercialism and family obligation, what I have convinced myself is the desire to show love to those near and dear to me with gifts, gestures of my undying affection. I know that I am not the only person in the world to feel isolation at Christmas, to feel the urge to fill up the void with mulled cider and ginger bread cookies, to suddenly feel an urgent need for a pine tree in my living room strewn with tinsel and shiny ornaments. Even as I dread the onset of the commercial hype, my heart warms at the thought of baking short bread in the shape of reindeer and sleighs, or inviting friends over to enjoy cocktails in front of the Yule Log video.

I swear to myself every year that I am not going to let it suck me in, but I recall a cartoon I saw once depicting fat lady outside of a candy store, caught in a wind tunnel, as if the door to the store is a big vacuum cleaner. She is desperately holding to a parking meter while her hair, dress, and purse, her whole body is horizontal with the ground as the force of desire pulls her in against her will. For me this illustrates quite fittingly the contradiction of the pull of consumer culture against the better judgment of the human conscience. That fat lady is me at Christmas, resisting with all my strength the pull of the holiday vortex where my personality would be lost in the deluge of manufactured desire.