Good morning.
Today is December 30, 2009. As I have returned from my Christmas holiday travels, I felt led to write a long list of things that I have done, experienced, accomplished and learned throughout 2009. It has been most rewarding. What a wild year! I highly recommend it.
So much has happened this year. So much will happen in the next. I hope that we take the best and worst of this year towards making 2010 one of the best ever. It really will be a fresh start for me because I will be looking for a new job. (I have a sneaking suspicion I am not the only one.) Who knows what life will bring?! It is so exciting. I know that it will be better than the last. I know that whatever needs to be added to me will be added and what needs to be taken away will be taken. (I'm talking about God.)
Plus, tomorrow I am headed on plane to see some of the most wonderful people on the planet: my closest college friends. We all graduated and moved all over the country. It is exciting that we have this chance to celebrate the New Year together.
God bless you in the New Year!! Happy 2010, my friend, to you and yours!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Nazis are not dead
I just watched the film "Inglorious Basterds" and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you know me at all you know that it is not a "Julie-movie" as so many call it. It is gore and violence and hatred. Blegh. If you have not seen it, go. Rent. Enjoy. Discuss it after. Think on it often.
It really touched me. (Isn't that what film is supposed to do?) A friend thought this was interesting because Quentin Tarantino did not care to maintain historical integrity. He wanted The Jew Hunter himself impaled with dozens of bullets by Jewish-Americans and burned up by a Jewish woman. (Who doesn't?) In that way I suppose it was satisfying to the human psyche. We all want justice. Boy, if they could serve up justice in a drive-thru, we'd all be obese, not just 75% of us!
The opening scene of the film is amazing. It is tense, uncomfortable, nail-biting even. A family that has a dairy farm has a Nazi sergeant in their home, drinking their milk and questioning them on their knowledge of the whereabouts of a neighboring Jewish family. I will not divulge what happens, breathe easy. I will say that this scene was so well shot that it took hold of me and has not let me go yet!
This really happened folks! This Holocaust. This massacre of a race. This intense hatred that I can never fully understand. There are children that are elders now that have survived this and are forever pained for the things they have seen and the family they have lost. This amazes me. How does one get up in the morning, much less heal or ever feel whole again?
This has opened my eyes to all kinds of pain and suffering. People everywhere have suffered things I cannot imagine. And I wonder, while driving in traffic through this city why people are so pissed, laying on their horns and cutting me off. We all have wounds we hide so well under our Ed Hardy tee and GAP jeans.
Thus, I am taking on a study of Holocaust survivors and their stories. I am sure my research will be added to this blog. So, more to come on that.
But, for now, more on how the Nazis are not dead. I just completed my job at a high school for at-risk youth. It was an all girls school and in the GHETTO. I put that in caps to make that clear to you. The GHETTO of Los Angeles. I saw so much racism and hatred among such young people that have experienced and known so little about the world. It is incredible. Anytime there was a fight at school you can guarantee it was between Hispanic and Black. The office manager at this school was Hispanic and even showed racial prejudice. Let's just say that if a black girl cut up she was gone a lot faster (as in, kicked out of school) than a Hispanic was.
My point: the Nazis believed that what they were doing was totally logical and completely justified. It made sense that if you want to make the world a better place then you need to weed out the weak race. Utterly gross to us to think of, but logically... they felt they were right on. However, pride and plain hatred fueled that way of ... life. (Although, I think you'd agree that was not life.) This still exists today. Those girls trapped in the 'hood of L.A. are raised to believe that someone of a different race than them is inferior. They are inheriting their parents experiences, way of thinking and wounds that involve race.
I will never forget this precious Black girl asked me, "Do you see the world different because your eyes are blue?" She was as sincere as possible. I may have been the only white person she has gotten close enough to notice/ ask/ encountered at all. I would not be surprised.
L.A. offers such a diverse experience that I am not surprised I have encountered such racism in my six months of living here.
I am convinced that in order to battle racism we must never become comfortable. Do not sit in your little bubble of life and assume that your life is not for helping change the bad into good. Learn. Pick up a frickin' book on Swahili art or something wild. Interact. Talk to some dude at the grocery store that kind of freaks you out with all of his piercings. Say "Hi". Smile. Never get too comfortable with what you have accepted of the world and how you view it. Growth and appreciation of the different is the only way. Being uncomfortable leads to growth and character development. I am convinced. Being the only white person in a building full of pregnant, gang-member, loud, tattooed teenagers has done wonders on my pride, selfishness and awareness of the people around me.
So get moving.
It really touched me. (Isn't that what film is supposed to do?) A friend thought this was interesting because Quentin Tarantino did not care to maintain historical integrity. He wanted The Jew Hunter himself impaled with dozens of bullets by Jewish-Americans and burned up by a Jewish woman. (Who doesn't?) In that way I suppose it was satisfying to the human psyche. We all want justice. Boy, if they could serve up justice in a drive-thru, we'd all be obese, not just 75% of us!
The opening scene of the film is amazing. It is tense, uncomfortable, nail-biting even. A family that has a dairy farm has a Nazi sergeant in their home, drinking their milk and questioning them on their knowledge of the whereabouts of a neighboring Jewish family. I will not divulge what happens, breathe easy. I will say that this scene was so well shot that it took hold of me and has not let me go yet!
This really happened folks! This Holocaust. This massacre of a race. This intense hatred that I can never fully understand. There are children that are elders now that have survived this and are forever pained for the things they have seen and the family they have lost. This amazes me. How does one get up in the morning, much less heal or ever feel whole again?
This has opened my eyes to all kinds of pain and suffering. People everywhere have suffered things I cannot imagine. And I wonder, while driving in traffic through this city why people are so pissed, laying on their horns and cutting me off. We all have wounds we hide so well under our Ed Hardy tee and GAP jeans.
Thus, I am taking on a study of Holocaust survivors and their stories. I am sure my research will be added to this blog. So, more to come on that.
But, for now, more on how the Nazis are not dead. I just completed my job at a high school for at-risk youth. It was an all girls school and in the GHETTO. I put that in caps to make that clear to you. The GHETTO of Los Angeles. I saw so much racism and hatred among such young people that have experienced and known so little about the world. It is incredible. Anytime there was a fight at school you can guarantee it was between Hispanic and Black. The office manager at this school was Hispanic and even showed racial prejudice. Let's just say that if a black girl cut up she was gone a lot faster (as in, kicked out of school) than a Hispanic was.
My point: the Nazis believed that what they were doing was totally logical and completely justified. It made sense that if you want to make the world a better place then you need to weed out the weak race. Utterly gross to us to think of, but logically... they felt they were right on. However, pride and plain hatred fueled that way of ... life. (Although, I think you'd agree that was not life.) This still exists today. Those girls trapped in the 'hood of L.A. are raised to believe that someone of a different race than them is inferior. They are inheriting their parents experiences, way of thinking and wounds that involve race.
I will never forget this precious Black girl asked me, "Do you see the world different because your eyes are blue?" She was as sincere as possible. I may have been the only white person she has gotten close enough to notice/ ask/ encountered at all. I would not be surprised.
L.A. offers such a diverse experience that I am not surprised I have encountered such racism in my six months of living here.
I am convinced that in order to battle racism we must never become comfortable. Do not sit in your little bubble of life and assume that your life is not for helping change the bad into good. Learn. Pick up a frickin' book on Swahili art or something wild. Interact. Talk to some dude at the grocery store that kind of freaks you out with all of his piercings. Say "Hi". Smile. Never get too comfortable with what you have accepted of the world and how you view it. Growth and appreciation of the different is the only way. Being uncomfortable leads to growth and character development. I am convinced. Being the only white person in a building full of pregnant, gang-member, loud, tattooed teenagers has done wonders on my pride, selfishness and awareness of the people around me.
So get moving.
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