16 posts tagged “who i am”

How did you pick your Vox name? Does it mean something? 
Submitted by LeendaDLL.  

I feel like someone's asked this question on here.  But my name comes from a poem I wrote over the summer about an interaction between a baby and a kitten, called "Collector's Items":

Lorraine was a girl who played with trifles,
Her eyes always caressed the simplest trinkets,
She fondled and fumbled with diary locks,
She knitted and purled with the blandest strings,
She always nibbled colored plastic over dribbled crystal,
She crossed prismatic sand with pricked diamonds, and
Lorraine loved all things glisteningly mundane.

Her cat Sylvia preened her finest furs,
Lorraine cultivated her litter near the kitten’s pride,
Lorraine and Sylvia disagreed on collecting,
Sylvia adored diamonds and the finest yarns,
Lorraine preferred the most vibrant colors,
Lorraine coddled the most sensual textures, so
Lorraine and Sylvia always snipped at each other.

One day, Sylvia spread nonsense about Lorraine –
In a fit of pique, Sylvia took Lorraine’s breath away,
She put it in her den and covered it with scents,
Sylvia circled the scene of the crime and mewed,
She pranced about the tiny girl with royal airs, and
She pawed the swaddled playground with nose in clouds.
Lorraine rested amongst her celestial trifles in peace.

I generally like cats more than baby people.  But I adopted the screenname Sylvia's Revenge because what's wrong with a little decadence?  What's wrong with preferring space?  And why can't spaces be shared?  Sylvia may have been too rash, but c'est la vie.  My screenname reflects the protection of kitten individualism.  :-p

I've written a few politically-oriented blogs in my blogspot account, and I scored a C on my Criminal Law midterm (yessss).  I have a legal memorandum due Monday that I don't want to start.  I've reached that plateau in the school year where I just don't give a--

I turn 21 on November 6th.  I'm going to a casino midnight of that day, and then I'll celebrate with alcohol some later time.  I'm not planning to get trashed because I don't want to go that far, honestly.  Not while I'm staying home.  Is it sad that I don't want to have sex because it freaks me out and ugly people do it?  If porn needs to be banned for any reason, it should relate tangentially to its newfound equal opportunity.  Everyone with a wee-wee or a hoohah (or both) should not be in front of the camera.  Seriously.  *shudder*

And maybe I'm being immature but...*convulsion*  I am not joining the ranks of people who do that.  The fluids and the noises...!  How do people...I mean...I can hardly masturbate without laughing at myself.  I feel great and then I feel so dumb.  Even when I fool around with my boyfriend (no offense, boyfriend), I'm into it in that moment, but afterwards I just...wonder what the hell I did, why I did it, and why I have to do it. 

I feel like a 12-year-old, so I'll stop here with the sex reflection.  But I do want to reproduce my most recent class experience.

Shifting Objectifications Solve Nothing -or- How to Oppress a [White] Woman

While the title of this post does connect indirectly to the discussion over at nubian's blog, it also relates to an experience I had in my Contracts class today.

Two key points:

1. Objectification isn't cool, regardless of who uses it.
2. Objectification isn't cool, regardless of whom is objectified.

Point 1 is exemplified in that comment thread about Jessica Valenti's new book, Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters. (The comment thread on Feministing's pretty interesting as well.) Using another form of objectifying women to promote something good is still objectifying and commodifying women's bodies. You're using the body part of a woman to market your product. Period. It doesn't matter if you're marketing jewelry, alcohol, guns, feminism, world peace, or Jesus. If you use the body part of a person or the image of a person to sell or to market something, you're using that person as a means to accomplish your own ends. As Kant would say, "That's pretty fucked up." Doesn't matter how much you have in common with the person, either. So, how do you singlehandedly oppress a woman and make her cry? You explain to her that using the tools of the patriarchy to dismantle the patriarchy make you no better than the patriarchy. In other words: you wrong and you ain't special. Besides, shouldn't we question why subversion is powerful and what exactly makes it powerful? What powers are we using, people? And if they're identical to the powers used against us, do our intentions/motivations really matter in the end?

Point 2 happened today in Contracts class. I swear, when our professor gets laid, his personality improves. Today he exchanged cake for giving correct answers in class. (Okay, his new weirdness could link to drugs, but HE HAD CAKE!) Today's class introduced the subject of damages for breaching a contract. We went over the fundamentals of two ways to compensate damages for breach: expectancy and reliance. My notes describe the difference thusly:

Reliance damages measure the difference between post-K (where you are now) and pre-K (where you were before) situations. Expectancy damages weigh the difference between expected results (where you would have been had no breach occurred) and actual results (where you are presently).

Our first case illustrating the weight of these two theories for calculating damages dealt with plastic surgery. (I believe the name of the case is Sullivan v. O'Connor.) The judges deliberating on Sullivan's appeal toed the line between reliance and expectancy calculations. Our main take-away point for the day emphasized that expectancy calculations would result in higher costs than reliance calculations. However, our teacher chose a very...interesting way to illustrate this example.

First, he proclaimed that he wanted to avoid anything that would anger feminists. Since Sullivan involves a "professional entertainer" suing for a botched nose job, our professor switched the facts. He transformed the plaintiff into a male seeking ab construction surgery. Then he "regrettably" drew a scale on the board from 1-10, corresponding of course with any infamous beauty/sexiness ranking scale.

Mr. Sullivan's abs before surgery rated as a 5. However, his "5" abs weren't raking in the sexist chauvinist female pig ladies (and I'm quoting), so he decided to go under the knife to obtain Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise abdominals (ranked 11 on his scale o' sex). After surgery, poor Mr. Sullivan's abs failed the cut and have sank to a rating of 1. Ouch.

So on this scale, he illustrated the difference between expectancy and reliance. Using the expectancy scale, Mr. Sullivan would collect a hefty penny because the difference between an 11 rating and a 1 rating is a whole fucking lot. To illustrate the reliance rating, our professor then waded deeper into the pool of stupid: he equated Mr. Sullivan's ability to woo women with their level of intoxication at the first meeting. Yes, he went there. He argued that before the operation, Mr. Sullivan only needed three beers to distort the woman's judgment enough in his favor. However, after the botch job, Sullivan will require many more beers for women to ignore his newly created potbelly, so to speak. So his reliance calculations would determine the difference between his post-op situation (1 rating) and his pre-op situation (5 rating).

So after a day of cake sharing, objectification of males, objectification/denigration of females, and a strange streak of quality teaching, our professor calls it a day. We all pack to leave, and my friends realize that my [white] female friend is fuming at this lesson, to the point that she is physically trembling with anger, and she leaves the room immediately after the conclusion of class. I was pissed off as well, but after the last time I became angry about something that affected me deeply, I now try my hardest to focus on the lesson and to let the stupid fade to the background. (This is the same friend that I referenced as an anti-racist sympathizer in my post.)

A few of my friends (of course) did not understand what the big deal was. I mean, he did it with guys! Come on! He left women alone! What's the problem?! Specifically, what is HER problem?! I explained as plaintively and as calmly as I could that it does not matter who is the target of objectification -- objectification is wrong. It is also condescending to think that feminists speak out against patriarchy because they want to establish an equally wrong matriarchy in its stead. Of course, they all just scoffed and rolled their eyes at the whole situation. We Kwazy Lib'wals Wif Owr Kwazy Ideaz.

I referred to this instance in my title as oppression of white women because I found it strange that I did not have as visceral of a response as my friend did. If it were a racist matter, I would have been upset. If it were a racist and sexual matter, I would've cut somebody. But just sexist? Especially a sexist stereotype that's lumped more heavily on the heads of young white women and glosses over other women? Not so much. I wondered why that was.

I think I became jaded after a Philosophical Issues in Feminism undergraduate course where perspectives of women of color emerged nowhere in the curriculum or the discussion unless one of the five women of color made a tangential comment about it. The end-of-term discussion really fucking pissed me off after hearing all these white women around me talk about how ending sexist treatment "trumps" ending racist treatment. Good thing a section of me is saved; I guess the rest of me can go to shit in other ways.

I raised my hand and made the point that eliminating sexism will not be successful until we eliminate racism, homophobia, ablism, transphobia -- we have to tackle all the oppression-laced -isms and cooperate. My white female classmates then informed me that I would unfortunately have to wait until their problems were solved. One of them explicitly turned to me and said, "Yeah, but that stuff can come after we're done with sexism, you know?" As a way to placate me. I don't know how I resisted punching her in the face, especially since I was running on a half-hour's worth of rest for the second day in a row. I remember how livid I was, and I wrote very sloppily on the course evaluation that more course readings written by women of color need incorporation into the course.

So I guess as long as people felt comfortable spitting on different aspects of my identity, I tried to write off my disconnect as an ability to develop affinities and responses to individual violations of them as I please. Today, however, I realized that insulting one part insults the whole being. I can't accept that or tolerate it. The difficulty starts here.

What's the most memorable building you've lived in?
Submitted by Shelly.

A homeless shelter.  There was a cool playground outside of it, but we only stayed for one night.  Two days.  It was the second time I've ever slept in a bunk bed.  To be as poor as I was/am, I was snotty and I thought it looked disgusting.  The food was...not yummy.  I didn't eat it all, and I kinda wished people would clean the food off the floor.  I remember there being a small devotional room or prayer room.  I thought that was the prettiest part of the shelter.  It wasn't very big, and for some reason it didn't feel crowded to me. 

Maybe this question answers the most memorable place I've stayed in rather than the most memorable building I've lived in. 

The answer to that would be my aunt's house, hands down.  She bought it one or two years after I was born, and I practically grew up there as much as any place my mother and I lived on our own.  I still love that house.  My aunt loved decorating and redecorating, and her house looks exquisitely coordinated, expensively outfitted, and ridiculously comfortable.  The upstairs has always been hot, and the basement has always been storage/living space.  If they took out all the stored items down there, they could open up a little flat with a shared kitchen space.   I don't see that happening any time soon.  My grandmother has the greenest thumb ever ever.  ^_^

Also, I hate dial-up and breakdowns. I'm trudging through law school, and I'm learning to avoid awkwardness in social environments.  Sometimes I just can't help it.

What's up?

I'm threatening my boyfriend with telling the internets he's horny.  :-p 

Aside from that, I'm doing nothing of importance.  My mother's whining because she lost the lottery.  I'm rockin' out to those striped whites.  (Sounds like ruined laundry, but they're cool.)

It's very depressing when 90% of your most recent updates are questions of the freakin' day.  And then you discover you missed a few days of questions.  I am the negliblogger.

So now, I'm going to cheat.  I'm going to post an excerpt from a rather long entry in my LiveJournal on how my life's been going.  I'm not cheating terribly much because it encompasses how things have felt in my heart for the past couple of weeks. 

While waiting for the 11 line to come down the street, I started thinking my usual embarrassed thoughts about standing on the bus stop across from the law school alone. My law books filled my bookbag today, and I felt the shakes because I had to leave my laptop at home. (Civil Procedure I is BRUTAL without some sort of distraction.) I felt listless and bored. My shoulder ached so horribly. I put my bag down, and I seriously just wanted to sit on the curb and cry. I feel like every car, every student, every federal hidden surveillance camera, every extraterrestrial lifeform was staring at me and smirking about the big poor black chick with the two bags on the bus stop alone. I knew it was not true (though people do stare at me from their cars; I have an old pedestrian habit of staring back). But I started thinking of ways to cheer myself up through this law school experience and these moods. The moods are growing more frequent than I care to admit.

I was listening to a live performance of "On and On" by Erykah Badu the night before, and I thought about how serene I felt then. Then my mind traveled to more Baduisms, and I thought about my heavy bag. Before I knew it, I was singing snippets of the song and piecing it all together.

Bag lady you gone hurt your back
Dragging all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you

One day all them bags gone get in your way
One day all them bags gone get in your way
I said one day all them bags gone get in your way
One Day all them bags gone get in your way

So pack light
Pack light
Pack light
Ooh ooh

Bag lady you gone miss your bus
You can't hurry up
Cause you got too much stuff
When they see you comin
Niggas take off runnin
>From you it's true oh yes they do

One day he gone say you crowdin my space
One day he gone say you crowdin my space
I said one day he gone say you crowdin my space
One day he gone say you crowdin my space

So pack light
Pack light
Pack light
Ooh ooh

Girl I know sometimes it's hard
And we can't let go
Oh when someone hurts you oh so bad inside
You can't deny it you can't stop crying
So oh, oh, oh
If you start breathin
Then you won't believe it
You'll feel so much better
(So much better baby)

And the more I sang the song, the more amused I felt at lugging all the books I carried. I didn't need half of them that day, though it's "mandatory" to take them. Being on the bus stop alone didn't bother me quite as horribly. I realized I wasn't up there to worry about putting on a show for all those eyes. I just have to start breathing and keep it up. And pack light.

I missed a social opportunity -- you know, an opportunity not lunch-oriented or library-oriented for once -- because my mom tricked me home for some fade cream for my blemishes, a few costume necklace/earring pieces, and some medicated pads for acne. I needed them, but she made it sound like I'd won another scholarship or something on the phone, and it was pertinent I returned home. Needless to say I was slightly peeved, but I liked the fact my mom bought it for me. She didn't have to do it, and I would have yelled at her if she asked me before she did it. I thanked her and calmed down somewhat.

The constant happy hours are bothering the hell out of me because I'd feel so removed from it all even if I could go. I'm not psyching up for my 21st birthday so I can get soused; I'm more egging it on so I can go out with my classmates and not feel like dead weight. I won't magically contribute to the best drink conversations or transform into a fairy princess, but I'll just feel less distanced from my classmates.

I'm also worried about participating in class and online. Whenever someone posts an inquiry on the class TWEN site (equivalent to Blackboard on the Westlaw network), everyone gets a notification. My Contracts professor has field days posting inquiries and probing willing students for answers. Everyone gets pissed. I heard them talking about a different kid who kept posting who'd earned their ire. I'd posted quite frequently answering and discussing cases, too. Plus I tend to ask clarification questions so I understand what's going on in the class. I've volunteered a few times and answered the wrong question; I've also piped up and brought things on track. But I still feel like I'm standing out too much, and I want to fade back into the scenery.

I've also embarked on this horrible, horrible trend of making law jokes. My social group laughs it off, but I feel like a dork after I do it. For example, my friend and I joked about suing my Contracts professor because of his haircut, claiming it was intentional infliction of emotional distress. Punitive damages are in order, we joked. When another friend and I made a wisecrack about giving my Criminal Law professor a high chair so he could play poker with us on Friday (if I go), a friend laughed and said she didn't hear it. I then told her she couldn't plead deliberate ignorance after laughing, because it has the same weight as actual knowledge. (It has a lot to do with proving the mental state of a criminal when committing an act or considering the commission of an act.)

Someone shoot me.

Lately, I've been on a Shakira appreciation kick.  Her song "En Tus Pupilas" is beautiful. 

I don't know what the lyrics mean; "en tus pupilas" obviously means "in your eyes" (or "in your students," whatevers).  But I think that any American critic who bashes her singing because of her accent has obviously never heard how awesome her voice is in Spanish. 

What time period would you have lived in, if you could have lived at any time?

The part of the future where thinking controls our existence.  I'd be a rebel bad ass motherfucker if left to my imagination.  "For there is nothing good or bad/But thinking makes it so," said Mr. Hamlet.

Also, another cool poem that brings a smile to my face: "The Wit" by Elizabeth Bishop

"Wait. Let me think a minute," you said.
And in the minute we saw:
Eve and Newton with an apple apiece,
and Moses with the Law,
Socrates, who scratched his curly head,
and many more from Greece,
all coming hurrying up to now,
bid by your crinkled brow.

But then you made a brilliant pun.
We gave a thunderclap of laughter.
Flustered, your helpers vanished one by one;
and through the conversational spaces, after,
we caught, - back, back, far, far, -
the glinting birthday of a fractious star.

...I do believe in feminism. I think society is fucked up and has fucked up too many people. I don't think the goal of feminism is to be like men; our patriarchal society has pulled enough of that shit already. Women do not exist to be like men or for men. Women exist to be women -- leading full, healthy, positive and fulfilling lives. But as long as there's this urge to compete and this sense that domination is the only key to peace (which time and time again is proven untrue for everyone and by everyone), I think feminism holds the key to exploring better alternatives and creating healthier and happier people. Because women are capable of doing that and tons more.

This article originally read that the movie World Trade Center cast its heroes as white although the actual heroes by whom those characters were inspired are black.  The article has been edited to note that Nicholas Cage's character is not, in fact, inspired by black former Marine Jason Thomas. Seeing as that's the only edit, I am inferring that another character portrayed as white in the movie is actually inspired by a black person who performed heroic acts during 9/11.

I'm avoiding the QotD because it's only asking a bunch of people to start wailing about Snakes on a Plane, including myself. 

Now.  These:

A lot of people by now have seen this advertisement campaign and this parody.

The campaign did in fact have good intentions, but their intentions were executed poorly. 

The parody reflects the internet's snarking principle and calls one of the figureheads of the campaign to scorn.  It's utterly laughable but strikes some harsh chords of its own. 

Attempts to defend the advertisement campaign, which also features celebrities like David Bowie and Kimora Lee Simmons, spotlight the fact that remotely, all of us are African descendants. Comparisons have been made to the advertising campaign made after 9/11, where people of different nationalities proclaimed to be American (presumably -- for all we know they could have all been American; I don't carry around my nationality detector), and advertising campaigns with assorted people claiming to be New Yorkers. 

A common theme in all these awareness campaigns is the need to co-opt a certain situation as his/her/its own to feel properly sympathetic towards it and to inspire its viewers to action.  Sort of a message sounding like, "you'd help yourself, wouldn't you?" or "you help if it were me, wouldn't you?" or "I've suffered; therefore we all suffer."

I am, and will always be, the first person to argue that the human condition shares a common thread.  We all have more in common than we care to admit.  However, I object to these advertisement campaigns.  I think they're superficial and inspire people's narcissism rather than their activism. 

If Gwyneth Paltrow was replaced by Average Schmoe #4847294, would I feel less prompted to act?  Am I supposed to reach out to help the continent of Africa, specifically those within its countries who are suffering from AIDS, because Paltrow is topless and has donned a beaded necklace?  What is she saying about Africans?  What am I supposed to understand about her now being African?  Where am I to find this righteous indignation for the suffering of Paltrow and her appropriated ilk? 

The same questions arise when I think about 9/11 and the advertisements there.  What metaphysical transformation have I undergone to share the plight of these people?  9/11 characterized a time when I felt terrible for the losses of New Yorkers affected directly by the attacks, but I did not want to be a New Yorker.  I didn't even want to be American at that point.  All the cards in our house of superiority fell fast, and I wanted to get the hell out of here. 

I contributed to charities that supported the families hurt by 9/11, but I didn't do it because I transposed myself into the bodies of those people dying and those people whose tears wet the pavement as they look at a scarred cityscape.  I contributed because it seemed like the human thing to do.  I didn't need to see my ethnicity's face painted on the eyesore of 9/11.  I don't need to see a continental identity painted on a white Hollywood celebrity, or anyone else for that matter.  What happened to the days when atrocities and pandemics were horrific enough to create desires to help? 

Whenever I see advertisements or enactments that transpose identities, it annoys me.  I wonder who will tell the protesters who dress up like trees and animals that no one wants to be a tree or an animal.  I wonder who will tell Oprah that contrary to popular opinion, a straight man cannot "be gay" for a period of time and know what it's actually like to experience those things from day to day.   A white Hollywood starlet can't be one of the many inhabitants of Africa who suffer from AIDS, nor can she be one of the many inhabitants of North America who suffer from AIDS.  If the thrust of these ad campaigns are true -- that we have forgotten Africa, that we haven't been attentive to AIDS, that there are constant sufferers and atrocities around the globe that need attention and funding -- borrowing someone's cultural, geographic, and/or ethnic identity is not the way to bring about that change.  If anything, it merely calls attention to how shallow and superficial some cultures have become -- thinking that changing clothes or applying paint or claiming new locations alters who we are or how we're perceived. 

What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?

English has been an all-time favorite for me. 

The very first thing I learned how to do in my life was read.  I was trying to read before I could even talk.  My mother says that I probably started so early because when I was a child, I used to stare at my grandmother a lot.  She enjoyed reading, and she'd always have a book or newspaper.  So little me would stare at the little squigglies on paper too, and I'd make gurgling or mumbling noises as if I knew exactly what the Baltimore Sun was talking about that day.  Those damned whippersnappers in City Hall, I'd say.  Where do they get off.

Well, my first words actually turned into "Hold It!" because my family members were avid "arguers" (where "arguing" is "screaming and cursing hatefully until the other person gives up and leaves") and I wanted it to stop.  No "mahmah" or "dahdah," but "hold it."  The baby version of shut the hell up.  Sometimes it seems like they never listened...

Anyway, the first things I tried to read were car names.  So my grandmother or mother would point to a car name and ask me what it was.  I could identify "Mitsybishees," "HaunDAHH," and "Toy-oh-TAH," as well as a few other brands.  The fascination spread from car names to food and restaurants ("Mickdonohds," "Rohsy Rahjoes").  I then started a practice of running up to my mom, telling her I knew how to spell a new word, and spelling it.  She would smile and kiss me when I spelled it right, and she'd write the word down and put it on the refrigerator.  I spelled a little over one hundred words, and I was around 2.  I also tried to write in cursive (I loved learning things backwards), and it looked like...well...block letters with little lines drawn in between connecting them.  That's when my mom took me to an early admissions program for school, and I've loved reading and writing ever since.  (Well, there was a slow period in middle school where I didn't really love anything about learning, but my affection for English returned later in high school and undergrad.)

When was the last time you had to speak in front of a group?  How did you feel?

The last time I had to speak in front of a group (do law classes count?) was in early May.  I had to deliver a presentation on Sociology of Law concerning black feminism.  My main thrust was the fact that oppression essentially has the same components, but each component is tailored to the exclusion of different groups of people, producing different effects and experiences.  While the overall goal of all minority/excluded groups is to eliminate oppression, all groups must work together and share collectively the experiences they've had with oppression to combat it effectively.  We need to stop trying to outrank each other in how discrimination and atrocities have affected our growth and perceptions. 

Well, I explained black feminism, but that was the overall point I made in explaining why studying black feminism was particularly important.  I was very nervous and I kept repeating talking points...but I think I did well.  I'm used to doing things in front of groups because I did a lot of theatre, but I have a lot of trouble talking to people in small groups and networking one-on-one with others.  I can't just go up to someone and say "Hi" to them.  It creeps me out and I can't explain why it does.