From thoughts into words

It must have been two and a half weeks ago that I read this very interesting article by Britney Wilson about how members of minority groups are sometimes guilty of practicing racial profiling when dealing with members of the same ethnicity. Wilson was writing specifically about the negative stereotypes that some black people have about young, black men. Her conclusion was a powerful one: People are people. We cannot stigmatize and judge them on one hand, while campaigning against it on the other. As we work to get society to stop stereotyping, judging, and fearing our sons, we cannot continue to perpetuate these attitudes ourselves. I thought it was a wonderful piece of writing. You see, I believe that, in order to make a genuine difference in society, we have to admit to our own culpability as individuals and as communities. It is easy to talk about the racial or ethnic biases of others, but much more challenging to talk about our own biases towards others and towards our own...

Imagine a situation where two groups of construction workers are ostensibly working together to build one house, but insist on following entirely different blueprints. They spend the whole day working on the site, with their interactions frequently exploding into arguments over which plan is better. And, whenever they can, they sabotage each other’s previous efforts. It would be laughable to imagine that, together, these two groups would actually be able to put up a stable structure. And yet that is what polarized partisan politics is all about. RED VS. BLUE In case you're wondering what brought these thoughts to my mind, I am following Darrell Issa’s latest crusade , which seems to be geared at humiliating Eric Holder into resigning. For the record, I think the "Fast and Furious" probe is absolutely necessary. The operation was deeply flawed, and the onus is on any responsible government to find out what went wrong and why. In my opinion, however, the direction ...

http://nutritionafrica.blogspot.com/2012/06/beauty-is-scam.html Thanks to " Victoria's Secret Models, Runway Walking and Booty Paint ," an article by Erika Nicole Kendall, I got the opportunity to discover a December 2009 article by Leah Chernikoff that touches on some of the behind-the-scenes goings-on in the fashion industry. Apparently, "countless hours" go "into making the most beautiful women in the world look so ethereally sexy." Pay close attention to the words of Selita Ebanks in "Victoria's Secret Angels strut runway in $3 million bras, 100 pounds of glitter," the second article. Ebanks, one of the models in the Victoria Secret Angels show, shared an open fashion secret: "People don't realize that there are about 20 layers of makeup on my butt alone." The article goes on to describe the labor-intensive processes that go into making that perfect shot: In addition to body makeup, which Ebanks estim...

http://nutritionafrica.blogspot.com/2012/06/on-schrodingers-rapist-and-construction.html An online search for the term "Schrodinger's rapist" led me to some very interesting articles, including the two listed below: 1. Schrodinger's rapist: or a guy's guide to approaching women without being maced 2. Schrodinger's rapist and Schrodinger's racist THE SITUATION I strongly recommend that you read these articles, because they bring into focus the all-important issue of setting boundaries and respecting them. Both articles address, to some extent, interactions between a man and a woman who are relative strangers to each other. They point out the degree to which the average woman has to be extra cautious when interacting with a man, because she has no way of knowing whether or not he poses a threat to her. He might turn out to be a rapist; he might turn out not to be one. But because rapists don't wear neon signs on their foreheads declaring that th...