politics, media, culture and life from a queer boricua in brooklyn
It’s been a while. Life happened, in all sorts of big ways, as it tends to, drawing me away from the blogging. So much so that I didn’t even get to post a get-out-of-blogging free card. Sorry to go MIA with no notice!
But I’m returning, slowly. Starting to do some catch-up reading of my regular blogs. Hopefully I’ll get to write a catch-up post tomorrow, then get back on track.
I forgot to blog on Blog Against Sexism Day. Well, no, let me not front. I didn’t forget, I just didn’t. In part because yesterday was kind of a bad, distracting day for me overall, and I still don’t have internet access at my house (pinche Time Warner…) But also, because I’m never good about actually participating in most of these blog about this or that days, especially with topics that I feel I am or should be blogging about on the regular, anyhow. Of course, now I feel a bit slackerly and left out, reading all the good stuff that my daily reading blogs wrote yesterday (check them out over there in my blogroll for some good reads).
Ah, well. Hopefully no one will deem me a bad feminist and take away my card or something. Though I feel like I’ve been getting some points against me in some people’s books lately anyhow, what with my BDSM-lovin’ not-entirely-writing-off-porn-or-burlesque ways. There’s been a post brewing there for a little while, let’s see if it makes it out at some point.
Since getting cable TV at home, the cable internet (which we’d had for quite some time already) has been on the fritz. So I have an appointment for a cable fixer person to come fix it today, which means I’m working from home. Except that, since I don’t have internet at home, it means I’m spending the morning working at a coffee shop with free wireless near my house.
When I walked in, I saw babies everywhere. Seems there’s a sing-along/story time/puppet show for kids today. I took one of the few available seats in the place, which is not really within the story circle so I thought it would be relatively baby free. But I am now surrounded by babies. Little babies, too! Who are all flailing and gurgling and interacting with each other in their tiny baby way and being generally adorable. This is not so conducive to working. Luckily I have my iPod so I am not distracted by the sounds as well as the sights.
Another thing I’m observing is that almost all of the babies are white, while almost all of the adults they’re with are women of color. Which is very typical of NYC, and always makes me feel a little bit weird. More than a little, in fact.
In other news, days like this make me miss being self-employed. Going to coffee shops to work, having the option to just put off work for a while and go for a walk or go play piano at the Brooklyn Conservatory or something, setting my own schedule completely… so tempting, even though freelancing is a hard way to pay the bills. I still freelance, but only after hours as a supplement to my full time job; I’m not much of a fan of that sort of freelancing, though, as I hate having to come home and do more work. But right now, I’m technically at my full time job, which means I need to get to working. Speaking of which…
I’m an ex-Catholic. Catholicism was a big part of my life for a long time. I went to Catholic schools for 12 years. As a kid, I used to love to read the Bible – not for the rules and regs, but for the stories, the imagery. I was obsessed with the Vatican. For a while when I was in elementary school, I went on a kick of lecturing my heathen cousins (who all went to public school and – gasp – didn’t even go to CCD!) about how wonderful Jesus was. God, was I obnoxious.
Anyhow, my zealous Catholicism all started crumbling down during high school, when I started realizing that I was not only a leftist, but a big ol’ queer. I think the real turning point was when I went the big anti-abortion march in DC during my Junior year. Ironically, the primary reasons for going to the march were to a) get out of school for a day and b) more importantly, spend a lot of time with the uber-Catholic girl who I had an incredibly huge crush on. I got there and was totally horrified by most everything I saw, from the huge placards with the gross and utterly misleading images of fetuses, to the gay anti-choice activists protesting from the sidelines because they weren’t allowed to march, to the creepy fervent droning chanting of the Rosary that was going on around me. Luckily, I was able to convince my crush to escape with me and go hang out in some random government building for much of the afternoon.
Since parting ways with Catholicism, I’ve had many opportunities to cringe, sigh, and scream over the activities of my former church. The large majority of what gets the Catholic church into the news is very cringe-worthy stuff, from the rampant child abuse by priests and subsequent cover-ups, to the Church’s continuing persecution of queer folks, to the total disregard for women’s rights perpetuated by the anti-choice movement.
But, every once in a while, there’s a news story that shows that, sometimes, the Catholic establishment can do something right. My friend Dex sent me one such article today: an op-ed piece from the New York Times lauding Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for taking a stand against the appalling anti-immigration legislation that’s being pushed through Congress right now.
I didn’t actually know much about this legislation, H.R. 4437, until a few weeks ago, and I was both horrified at its contents and at the fact that I didn’t even know about it. I try to stay relatively abreast of stuff like this, and was shocked that I hadn’t heard more uproar about it. The uproar is there, I’m sure, but I just wasn’t hearing it for some reason.
Anyhow – in case you’re in the same boat, here’s a good summary from the Immigration Legal Resource Center of this awful piece of legislation. There’s some really horrendous stuff in there, including the creation of a whole new federal crime of “unlawful presence,” the transformation of minor offenses into aggravated felonies when involving undocumented immigrants, and the expansion of “alien smuggling” to include merely assisting undocumented immigrants, making such assistance a federal crime. That’s right – individuals and social service organizations who merely help undocumented immigrants survive could be charged with fucking crime. And it’s already passed the House, and is currently in the Senate.
It’s absolutely disgusting, frightening and enraging. And Cardinal Mahony thinks so, too. From the NY Times article:
If current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.
… Cardinal Mahony’s defiance adds a moral dimension to what has largely been a debate about politics and economics. “As his disciples, we are called to attend to the last, littlest, lowest and least in society and in the church,” he said.
It’s refreshing to see the Catholic Church, or at least one member of the Church establishment, rallying people and using their political clout around the good parts of Catholic doctrine – that people should care for and help one another, that charity and justice are important, and that Catholics have a duty to help those who are most abused and neglected by our society. It’s a nice change from the usual stories about Catholic political pressure, like when the bishops decided to start denying communion to Catholic politicians who were not anti-choice.
One can only hope that those Catholics who are all too willing to use church doctrine as an excuse for their rabid homophobia, sexism and anti-choice attitudes are equally willing to heed this call to defend the human rights of immigrants. Of course, Catholics tend to let me down with their hypocrisy all the time, especially those who are virulently anti-choice but are either silent about or supportive of the death penalty. So I guess my hope is kind of slim. I’m prepared to sigh, cringe and scream as usual.
I’ve never liked or bought the rhetoric of “supporting the troops.” I support people in the military insofar as I support the well-being of all people as a general rule. I also acknowledge that many of the troops are only in the military because it was one of the few feasible career choices that they are ever presented with, poor people and people of color especially. I also feel for those soldiers who are against the war but have no way out. However, I feel absolutely no obligation to support the troops in their professional capacity of killing people and further extending american dominance and destruction. That’s why the “support the troops: bring them home!” slogan doesn’t really speak to me; because, no, I don’t really support the troops. I am concerned about them as individuals, especially the ones who recognize that this war is wrong in every way, and I hope that they get home safe and alive and don’t continue to be fodder for the american government’s illegal wars. But that’s as far as my support goes.
Still, I can definitely go for “support the troops: bring them home” more than I can go for “support the troops, they’re working hard out there, so you’d better not talk bad about the war!” But here’s a better slogan: support the troops: listen to them. Because, according to a recent poll, the large majority of them think that they should get the hell out of Iraq, and soon.
Raising questions about Bush’s vow to keep troops in Iraq as long as they are needed, a Le Moyne College/Zogby poll showed 72 percent of U.S troops serving there think the United States should exit within the next year.
Nearly one in four said the troops should leave immediately.
One might hope that this would put and end to the whole Bush Co. line of “if you are against the war, then you must hate the soldiers!” I’m sure they won’t end that rhetoric, but hopefully now that stance will seem all the more ludicrious and hypocritical.
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