Taking a step back to see the steps forward

   This recent column of mine was published in the Claremont Courier days before Claremont McKenna College’s Dean of Students, Mary Spellman, resigned after students protested – complete with a hunger strike (albeit barely for 24 hours) - over the college not doing enough to make minority students, including gay and transgender students, feel welcome and at home.  The tipping point came when Ms. Spellman said, in response to a essay in the student newspaper, that she would work to serve those who “don’t fit the CMC mold.” Read this, and you’ll see that change does happen but slowly and often with stops or steps back. 

 

           WOMEN BRINGING CHANGE TO THE WORLD, CLAREMONT

   Sonia Sotomayor wanted to get up close and personal.

   “I wish we could be closer to the audience,” the U.S Supreme Court Justice told Amanda Hollis-Brusky, assistant professor of politics at Pomona College, as they began their conversation in Bridges Auditorium a couple weeks ago.  “It feels so far away up here.”

   They did look quite isolated and small as they sat in their chairs on a small area rug with a Pomona College banner as a backdrop among the potted plants on the huge, otherwise empty stage.  It didn’t help that the orchestra pit separated them, like a mote, from the huge audience that had gathered there. 

   Justice Sotomayor got her wish.  After Professor Hollis-Brusky engaged with her on several questions, the Associate Justice, one of the most important, most influential people in the nation, was “released to the people.” She excitedly explained from the stage that she was doing something that her security people doubtlessly didn’t like, and then there she was, walking among the audience, not unlike Phil Donahue.  Except that she was answering questions. 

   The students and the questions they asked were pre-selected, so, yes, it was all a bit scripted and without surprise (no ranting and embarrassing, on-the-spot questions here). Nevertheless, there was something remarkable about this most powerful official who makes decisions that impact all of our lives, walking among us, shaking hands and touching shoulders, having her picture taken with those asking questions, like a dear, kind aunt, as she answered questions with patience and ease.  She could have called a student “mija,” and this would have been no surprise as Professor Hollis-Brusky looked on in wonder. 

   Which was exactly the point.  As she writes about in her memoir, My Beloved World, she comes from a very average background, which included everyday problems like poverty and diabetes.  She also writes about how her life has been far from average – one could say it has been extraordinary – with her being a Hispanic woman from a poor neighborhood ending up on the highest court of the land. It is important to her, no doubt, that she be seen as a person like any of us.  And that any of us can accomplish great things. 

   Sometimes, more often than not, accomplishing great things means simply doing one’s best, making the best of oneself, despite some or many ugly odds.  And this is even more evident in a more intimate setting than the imposing Big Bridges, where it’s a bit easier to get up close and personal. 

   Like the Athenaeum at Claremont McKenna College, which this Fall has continued to feature women who get a lot done, making life better for themselves and others, even though being told they can’t or shouldn’t.  That they’re sharing their stories and being cheered at what was once a men’s school, remembered if not still known as the more conservative, jock college in Claremont, is all the more remarkable. 

   I’m not just talking about women like Nina Tandon and Kris Perry and Sandy Stier. Ms.  Tandon is one of those rare women in a important, top role in science, as the CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bone for skeletal reconstruction.  The other two, Ms.  Perry and Ms.  Stier, were plaintiffs, along with a gay couple, in the Proposition 8 case that wound up before the Supreme Court (a circle nicely coming to a close here in Claremont with Judge Sotomayor’s visit just over a week later). It could be argued that these women and their causes or paths are prestigious and not so surprising features at the Athenaeum. 

   I’m talking about women who are doing surprising, radical, perhaps uncomfortable work.  These women are the last to be expected to speak out at a formerly jock school and are doing everything they can to work against such institutions and thinking.   

   One was Toshia Shaw, who not only runs W.I.N.G.S (Women Inspiring Noble Girls Successfully) but grew up abused, a victim of human trafficking and sexual slavery, like the women and girls the organization assists.   She told her story, in very intimate and harrowing graphic terms – quite up close and personal, indeed - of being demeaned and harmed and repeatedly told that she was powerless and would come to nothing.  She talked about fighting her way out of this nightmare and getting the inspiration and courage to help others who find themselves in the same situation. 

   Speaking out and making a lot of noise, a lot of uncomfortable, challenging noise, is what Olivia Gatwood and Megan Falley are all about.  Performing as Speak Like a Girl, they unloaded an hour of sharp-edged, R-rated (some may say X-rated) poetry and rapping.  It definitely wasn’t the usual, after-dinner Athenaeum fare. 

   Ms.  Gatwood and Ms.  Falley didn’t hold back at all in reciting their poems, alternating with one another and also doing so in tandem.  Their in-your-face style mirrored their urgent, passionate lines about being judged on looks, about wanting and forever trying to be perfect or more perfect, about living in a culture in which rape is accepted as normal, even okay.  There was at least as much humor, along with plenty of f-bombs, as there was outrage and desperation. 

   Like I said, it wasn’t the standard after-dinner, Athenaeum fare, and some might not see it, still, as the standard C.M.C fare.  But sometimes it takes someone not being standard – a Supreme Court judge answering questions while walking among the audience, women telling stories and slamming about being raped and abused - to open our eyes and maybe make things better. 

The more things change...

   “It’s appalling that in a city like Houston, right in the middle of the Bible belt, we have a homosexual mayor.”

   When I was in school, it was often noted in history and social science classes that, although there was still bigotry, it was not overt as it had been in past years.  It was more subtle; there was no longer slavery, lynching and colored drinking fountains. Things are even better now, it is no doubt noted, what with there being a black president – elected twice, to boot. 

   The same is true for the GLBT community. After all, same-sex marriage is now a right across the land. But, at least sometimes, it’s hard to see anti-gay bigotry, at least, as that much less overt and blatant than in the past. 

   Not when there are quotes like the one above. And not when it’s from the father of a leading presidential candidate and U.S Senator – the father being Rafael Cruz and the son being Texas Senator Ted Cruz. 

   Mr.  Cruz was speaking as one of the many people opposing Proposition 1, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, on the November 3 ballot.  The measure would have consolidated existing bans on discrimination based on race, sex, religion and other categories in employment, housing and public accommodations, extending protections to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.  It was championed by Mayor Annise Parker, who is a lesbian and the first such mayor of a major U.S city.  As she put it, “It is my life being discussed… The debate is about me.”

   Never mind that she has been a very popular mayor, elected to two terms.  Never mind that she was praised for taking on some of the city’s most basic municipal problems: the water system, street repairs, homelessness. People did and said everything to try to defeat the proposition, although it would no doubt mean the end of Ms.  Parker’s political career.     

   Out came all the all-too-familiar fear mongering and hate spewing, of which Mr.  Cruz’s rhetoric barely counts as an example.  One Baptist minister urged his huge congregation to vote against the proposition, proclaiming, “It will carry our city…further down the road of being totally, in my opinion, secular and godless.”

   In an extra ugly twist, opponents labeled the measure the “bathroom ordinance,” because it would allow transgender women to use women’s restrooms and transgender men to use men’s restrooms.  “Do you know what lurks behind this door?” asked one flier.  “If Houston Mayor Annise Parker has her way and her Proposition 1 passes, it could be a man dressed as a woman or worse.” Former Houston Astro star Lance Berkman appeared in a television commercial, saying he didn’t want his wife and four daughters to have to share restrooms with “troubled men.”

   Yes, this is nothing new.  Things like this have been said for a long time and are still being said.  Which is my point.  That and the fact that they can work, still. While same-sex marriage is the law of the land and although the Houston City Council is now mulling another go at the ordinance, perhaps in a more piecemeal fashion, Proposition 1 loss resoundingly, 61% to 39%.

Uneasy death

   Once when I was in college, I went to a talk by a disabled guy.  He was in a wheelchair and, if I remember correctly, had a slight speech problem – not too much unlike me.  He was arguing against abortion, saying that if abortion is allowed, it’s likely that fewer people like him – like me – would be born. 

   I thought it was a bit of a stretch.  I thought that it was a cheap, cheesy, emotional argument.  I certainly heard him and got where he was coming from, but I also thought he was using his disability to grab attention and pull heart strings to make his pro-life argument. 

   I am kind of having a similar feeling when it comes to the end-of-life act recently signed by Governor Jerry Brown here it California.  I think it is compassionate and sensible for people who are terminally ill, with no more than six months to live and with unrelenting pain and no ability to enjoy life, to be allowed to get a prescription from their doctor that will hasten their death if they so choose.  At least I want to think this.  It fits in nicely with my liberal and progressive viewpoint, and all of my friends are happy, relieved, that Brown signed the bill into law.  

   I also hear the disability groups, though, who say that the law is bad, that it’s a slippery slope, that it will be used to deny care and services and perhaps kill off burdensome disabled people.  Yes, there are lots of requirements in the new law to stop this from happening, but I still hear the disability groups’ arguments, as knee-jerk and emotional as they are, and I get them.  I want to believe that, of course, the law won’t be used to deny care and services and worse, but sometimes, when I have to make a lot of noise and fight and fight for what I need (like new footrests on my wheelchair, as has currently been the case), I can’t help but wonder if they are right. 

   Another thing that makes me uncomfortable about the new law is that it says that the legal drug has to be self-administered.  Now, I can, with some difficulty, take a pill myself – if the bottle is open, that is.  But what about those who can’t use their hands or arms and can’t take a pill themselves.  Again, this is a case where the disabled are unheard, where their needs aren’t considered.  Or is it that, in this case, they’re heard too much? 

No news is gun news

   Did you know there were shootings at two colleges last Friday?  I didn’t – at least not until I read about them the next day on the inside pages of the Los Angeles Times. These shootings, in which two people were killed and a total of four were injured and which happened on the same day that President Obama visited Roseburg, Oregon, where nine people were killed and nine were injured in a shooting at Umpqua Community College a week earlier, weren’t front-page news. (They also weren’t mentioned on Friday’s PBS NewsHour.)

   So, this is where we’re at.  The shootings at Northern Arizona University, in which one person was killed and two were injured, and at Texas Southern University, which had the same outcome, were business as usual, barely worth noting in the news.  Yes, many fewer people were killed and injured than in the October 1 shooting in Oregon, but they were nevertheless instances of horrific gun violence, resulting in death and injuries, on supposedly safe-zone campuses.  In fact, another fatal college campus shooting, also on Friday, was briefly mentioned at the end of the Times article. 

   Also business as usual, apparently, was the crowd protesting Obama’s visit, with signs reading, “United we stand…Obama we fall,” “Can you hear me now? Go home!” and “Don’t mess with my guns.” They were angry that the president, as one protester said, “wants to come to our community and stand on the corpses of our loved ones to make some kind of political point.” Another protester said, “It viscerally offended me that he uses something like this to purse his own ulterior motives – destroying this country, undermining America.”

   Yep, like I said, business as usual.   

Rained in

   I hate rain.  There, I said it.  Actually, I like rain at night, when I’m in bed.  But that’s all. 

   In my last post, I wrote about how the weather seems to have shifted north, with Claremont and Southern California getting more tropical, humid weather and rain during the summer in recent years. 

I said that, in contrast to the dry, hot weather that I grew up with here, this hot, moist weather in the summer is particularly unpleasant. I should have gone further and explain how horrible it is for me when it’s hot and raining. 

   These are two things that I hate.  Hate is a strong word, I know, but, at least when it comes to rain, it is much more than a case of being uncomfortable.  Rain – and I don’t mean torrential downpours and flooding but any precipitation – makes my life harder, literally. 

   Most of the times when I go out, I do so on my own in my wheelchair. One of the things I love about living in Claremont is that I can get to so many things, from shops and movies and the gym where I work out to the dozens of lectures and performances at the colleges.  But I can’t do this when it rains. 

   I’m literally trapped when it rains, when there is anything more than the lightest of drizzle.  I literally feel locked inside my house, not allowed to leave as I please. 

   Fifteen years ago, I thought nothing of putting a big poncho on and going out in the rain.  I remember going through streams, splashing up water, as I made my way, with my glasses splattered.  But not anymore.  Part of it is age and not being so tough.  I’m also more concerned about not being so rough on or damaging my chair, all the more so with the new, more sophisticated one with the tilt function.  (In fact, a few times when I splashed through those gutter streams, water got in the motor, stopping me for a few minutes – I was lucky it was just a few minutes!) And then there is the speech device – basically a computer – that is now (usually) attached to my chair when I go out; I don’t dare get it wet. 

   So, yes, I feel trapped when it rain, and I hate it.  I hate it when I see rain in the forecast and think about what I might miss.  What I hate even more is when it might rain, and I stay home, I cancel an appointment, and it ends up not raining.  I wish it would just rain, get it over with. 

   I’m getting better at asking for rides when my attendants are or can be available.  But I don’t like having to assess whether the outing is important enough to ask for a ride, and I don’t like having to be at a certain place at a certain time and when I’m not sure when an event is over. In short, I don’t like not having my independence, my freedom.  And then I feel really frustrated and stupid when I have an attendant pick me up somewhere and it’s not raining. Yes, better safe than sorry, I know, but it doesn’t make it easier. 

   What I really need is a live-in driver like on Downton Abbey – preferably a strapping young man – ready at my beck and call.  At least I can get one of those driverless cars. 

   It is supposedly going to rain here a lot this Fall and Winter, with a “Godzilla” of an El Nino on the way. Everyone is really happy, with it coming after four years of drought (even if we are told it won’t bring complete relief and probably not the critical snowpack in Northern California.  But not me.  I’m dreading it. (If only I had that hot driver!)