What?!

There is so much I don't know, that I wish I already did. Reading the article we were emailed from our instructor:

Black History’s Missing Chapters

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/arts/television/the-african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross-on-pbs.html?_r=0

...made me just that much more of a WISHer. I vaguely remember Roots, I would have been five-years old when it aired. This was a series that rivets me in sadness today. In this clip, you can get an idea of how powerful in emotion the series was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NABoP49gI





Roots had a superb cast, and direction that current TV fails to deliver. Sorry, but too many of us have gotten too out of touch with reality TV the mainstay for "entertainment." I'm excited that someone is finally doing something now, years later, that will showcase African American History in a series on PBS. I only wish it were on TV channels like 6/8 or 13. Showcasing our history in a light that actually tells some truth, but the American past, isn't everyone's past. Yes, we are all humans with a past that's interconnected. I feel like if I say American past then it's like I'm diminishing something . We are only taught American History already, but in reality it's a very skewed White Male American History. Wiki gives a paragraph to "slavery" and "Indian removal." There needs to be a more rounded education with African and Indian etc. depicted and highlighted equally. I mean I may very well have had slave owner(s) in my family history just as much as I may have had family member(s) who assisted with the underground railroad or neither, I will probably never know. In today's world and the climate of multiculturalism in our communities, a series or multiples of series, showcasing many cultures would be helpful and would be the right thing to do. Maybe it's time for a revised Roots, updated and even more intensely telling. I would love to see Roots the play produced. Drawing from the first paragraph in this article I see "Even a tiny slice of recent history — the civil rights movement — is not required teaching in most states." WHAT?! I mean, I have no words. I'm pissed, that my only offerings were from a very biased white place, maybe if more kids were taught about the bigotry and violence that has been forced upon these communities, there would be a little less tendency toward discrimination maybe even a lot less. A little less is way better than none in my book. When Kunta Kinte has been replaced by Amber and Catelynn (Teen Mom) this vision seems far fetched.

Wikipedia on American History:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States#Slavery
NY Times Article from above:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/arts/television/the-african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross-on-pbs.html?_r=0
Roots clip from above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NABoP49gI
Underground Railroad:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/myths.htm

Our Changing World

     Chapter 23 grabbed my attention when I was reading on pg 503 about the various roadblocks people encounter. I was thinking about the recent debate over panhandling and whether or not to see it as a crime. While personally I wish I never encountered it, it can be weird sitting in traffic chewing on a candy bar with a panhandler standing 2 feet away, I can't see the end result of considering it criminal as a positive. I have no idea how much of that way of collecting money is exploited, are they in fact out of work or destitute at all as they claim? Seems to me that jailing someone like that will only contribute further to the problem(s) of over-run jails and poverty. I know I'm very "give peace a chance" about a lot of things but it makes more sense to have a cop get that person off the street and into a social worker's office instead.
     I have been in the car of someone who used a handicapped placard to park closer. This person was not someone you would want to argue with but in hindsight I wish I had said something. It was an older woman with back issues but there are people who have much bigger issues who should have the spot. I never thought of the implicaitons of parking in a handicapped spot, when being handicapped sometimes becomes a discriminatory means of not hiring someone for a job. If someone sees them parking there, and they appear non-handicapped, they might reach the conclusion that the person is parking illegally and ask themselves if they want to hire a person who does illegal things or they might go the route of quesitoning what else that person may be hiding if they didn't mention it in an interview and don't appear handicapped etc. etc.
     Ok ok ok, I'm getting the impression that I need to embrace the modern tech world more than ever in this line of work. I struggle, it's so unnatural that my soul get's tech overload and it wants to shut it out so it shuts me down. I think for me I just need breaks from it, I need to do something that feeds my soul for a bit then go back to tech. It totally makes sense that to reach EVERYONE possible I would have to invest time in the tech world too. Sigh~
A blog on begging:
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/09/dont-give-money-to-beggars/

A response to someone judging a handicapped parker:
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/#r/segment/mom-responds-to-judgemental-note/521cf9a5fe344411c90000ec

It's All Me

Well this weeks, Ch. 19 has Karre Kern written all over it. I'm not really sure why cultural competence is so important to me it just is, but I can play with why...maybe it's because I don't know very much about my own family culture(s). With both parents and all grandparents gone, it's hard to nail down the info but I've started to. The part of me I'm most drawn to is the Native American side. After reading this I wonder if the lack of information on my ancestry has to do with internalized oppression. Maybe my white family members didn't embrace that side so important details about who when and where got lost along the way. Maybe there is some shame there, I mean being white and having native blood that came from native women might be from force, not choice. For a long time I admired my roots from afar, being white and blonde I questioned my own intentions because I listened to those who said it was foolish to consider that my culture because I'm "so white" in appearance. Well the older I got the more I understood myself and what would make me happy mattered more than those outsiders judging me. I think that you can be a male anatomically and identify more as a female, it's your human experience. Now I'm less worried about what other people think about what my cultural identity is. Honestly I don't look at skin color so much as I look at humans being human and sharing a human experience together.
Reading the experience with discrimination I empathized with her. I've been in positions like that myself and I know how very hard it can be to even get yourself to walk in the door let alone speak about why you are there. If you are hungry for humble pie I suggest you show up at a food pantry and pretend you are someone who needs help. Go through the whole process, maybe you can tell them at the very end you are a student in social work and you felt you needed to immerse yourself in those shoes as best you could to be a more competent social worker later on. You know the saying "until you've walked a mile in their shoes" well that's some of our service learning and field work but we are there helping not really being in that position. Whatever the area of social work that interests you the most I think the more ways to be competent the better, become that person for a little while and feel that discrimination. If it's a safety issue, then read about it. Find books on people who were or are homeless, immigrants, battered women, child abuse, whatever your passion is from the angle of clinician as well as the one wearing the shoes.
In Ch. 20 I love how technology is showing promise in helping the cause. I'm one who stumbles with it, it seems so unnatural to me so things like the story sharing that happens feeds my happy. So does the use of theater or art. I remember seeing a production on Matthew Shepard and it really made a difference being there in a room with the emotions flowing. The following film also brought many tears to my own eyes~
Native Film: Dakota 38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pX6FBSUyQI

School Savagery

I can't get around the topic of food, it's just the way it is. The video on education was brilliant. The discussions about ADHD and ADD and our school's brought me back to my own experiences with food and how I feel the two are related. It's kind of a curse and kind of a blessing having been diagnosed with a food related disease, Celiac. I used to eat with pride all that is so bad to eat. Big Mac's were my favorite but fast food in general from KFC to Taco Bell, dollar menu my life, I should write a book! I really don't know much more about food than most people, at least I don't think I do. We all know we really should never eat these things but we figure if we do it in moderation it will be ok. Trouble is, who really does anything in moderation? We are an over indulgent society, more more more and fast fast faster are the only way to get by, get things done and get bills paid. We eat more than we need to and it costs us more than it needs to both in our health and our pockets. Food related illnesses have become big business money makers for food manufacturers and the pharmaceutical companies. I hate to sound like I'm paranoid, but it's interesting to me how one in three kids today will be diabetic and corn syrup's including high fructose are in most everything you can buy pre-packaged that isn't organic. Oh and the corn it comes from is most likely GMO, talk about a monopoly! Bring our schools into the mix and kids today seem more inclined to say they don't like to read than they are to say they don't like veggies. reading is a mellow task, high voltage diets require the action be in real time. At meal time they get fed this "cornucopia" of chemical sugar slop and are expected to sit and stay like a good dog??!! Speaking of, there are dogs that are eating better and getting better mental stimulation than children are getting?! Will a diet change make a hyperactive kid less hyperactive isn't it worth a shot? Why is it our preference is to try a pill and not consider trying a diet? Well that word alone sends shivers up and down my own spine...d i e t. RUN! Proper fuel in an engine makes it run more efficiently, kids need proper fuel too and so do I. I live for the day when an illness is diagnosed and the first thing a person tries is a different fuel, not a medication. My best food guru advice is to start reading labels and start learning what that stuff is in there. I've gotten to the point that if there is a long list I won't even weed out the ones I have problems with my illness, I put it down. Am I perfect? I'm perfectly flawed and it's hard hard hard to pass by all that so bad for you stuff when it tastes so dang good. There are times when I cave, but it's never something related to my disease, I entirely respect that certain foods will hurt my body and could kill me. In my perfect world, there would only be organic food available for kids at school and there would be different classrooms for different learning styles and plenty of exercise. In my perfect world that would translate to higher education and the barrage of food choices we drive by daily. For now I feed myself and my own son gluten-free foods and do the best we can with the brains we have and the learning style(s) we are offered~
:)

On Celiac:
http://celiacdisease.about.com/b/2009/09/17/mortality-risks-with-celiac-disease-and-latent-celiac-disease.htm
On food labels:
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-top-5-food-ingredients-to-beware-of
On sugars and health problems:
http://digitaljournal.com/article/351810
On sugars and ADD/ADHD:
http://healthyliving.msn.com/diseases/adhd/5-foods-to-feed-your-child-with-adhd%E2%80%94and-5-to-avoid-1