Monday, August 31, 2015

PRAIRIE VIEW TEXAS RENAMES ROAD "SANDRA BLAND PARKWAY"



SAY
HER
NAME



BLACK
LIVES
MATTER





PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas — City council members here said they hope renaming a road that leads to Sandra Bland's alma mater in memory of her will serve as a constant reminder of the injustices they say she suffered in Waller County.

They also hope it's a reminder for law enforcement to always follow best practices when making stops on University Drive, which will become Sandra Bland Parkway for three to five years before the council votes on the matter again.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/08/26/sandra-bland-boulevard-texas/32409847/

Saturday, August 29, 2015

LONG TIME NO SEE: THE FICTIONAL WHITE WOMAN

I love books.

I love movies.

I like a TV series with who-dun-its.

I simply love a good story therefore I hate reality T.V.

For most of the years I was coming up, I didn't have much of a choice but to read, watch, and watch white people in books, movies, and television.  I sprinted to the books, movies, and television when black people were showcased, as many black people did prior to the turn of the century. But mostly what I was reading, watching, and watching was white people.

I don't know when I stopped watching stuff with all white people. The one exception is period pieces. For some reason my mind accepts that black and brown people don't exist if the show is about rich white people who are not in this country.

Other than Kinsey Millhone, somehow at some point I must have gone cold turkey on the white woman novels years and years and years ago and just didn't mark the occasion.  I must have.  Because I just read this novel by a white woman about a central white woman character and there were a few things that seemed shockingly familiar.





I ran out of beach reading material while on a vacation so I went to a used bookstore.  Tons of books, not much selection for a black woman like myself. So I chose the book based on the fact that the author has sold 60 million books.

I should have known it was a semi-romance novel with a murder or two. I should judged the book by it's back cover as it had a picture of the older white woman author. Usually, older white woman author + 60 million books sold = formula romance novel.

White female character A --let's call her Jane-- is frail just having awakened from a coma and in need of rescue from a bad guy who put her in that coma. Jane the frail white woman doesn't want to impose on the big, handsome white guy who already has a girlfriend, female B (lets call her Becky) who is white-beautiful TOO but BIGGER and athletic, who is missing.

The first thing handsome white man notices about Jane is that she is "frail" and that she looks to be about 12 pounds underweight (not 10 pounds, not 20 pounds, "12 pounds") like he put mental calipers on every inch of her body. No wonder teenage (white?) girls are worried about thigh-gap?

Jane (woman A) feels overprotected by competing strong men and stomps off in one scene.  Eventually she does something stupid and gets kidnapped as "smart" as she's supposedly been throughout 3/4s of the novel. More than one of the men in the story acts like he may be in love with Jane but is really a brother/father figure  --so nobody gets hurt by the end of the novel when she falls in love with the main white guy who rescued her.

Her white physical features not being like mine at all and her tendency to think anxiously about the conversations grown ups(men) are having in front of her instead of saying anything out loud until she is gently coaxed over and over aside, the thing there were a few things that bothered me about this Kay Hooper book written in 2000 not 1960:

A) RACE -  I've read this story 1000 times if I've read it once no matter which author wrote it over the last few decades which means I've been told that my looks are no good 100 different ways 1000 times.

B) RACE and GENDER -  The frail, must be rescued woman thing seems as exclusive to white women as baby-talking your way through an adult argument which means I've read that my femininity is wrong 1000 times as well. (Of course all white women don't do this but it appears that all the women who get away with this are white -- if books, TV, and movies are to be believed. Black women can't even get away with this in fiction.  That black female frog princess of Disney's didn't get to be frail and wilting and fainting for one minute, and she was a cartoon)

C) GENDER - When Becky's body is found, white guy's law enforcement buddies tell him his girlfriend Becky was: 

1) beat up badly
2) tortured, fingers broken, face a mess
3) she had barbed wire around her wrists that maybe made her bleed to death
4) but if she didn't bleed to death she was in a room under a construction site, she smothered to death as she was basically buried alive.


The law enforcement buddies tell white boyfriend all of this while they stand outside the room where her body lay, and the stuttering question the white guy has about his dead girlfriend Becky is, 


"Was she....Was she...(gulp) Was she...um...raped?"


The law enforcement buddies say, "No" she wasn't but give one another the look that says she was indeed raped. 


Got it? No?  Let us review:

- face disfigured from torture, days worth of beatings for information
- fingers broken

- bleeding enough to have bled to death 
- buried alive
- burns on her too, I think
- raped

Out of this list of things, the thing too horrible for the boyfriend to even contemplate happening to the woman he was planning to marry is the rape?

Really? What is that about?  More importantly, how many times have I read something that communicated the same thing and NOT noticed it.


Is this reflective of virginity worship in patriarchal society?

The dead girlfriend wasn't a virgin or virginal when she was alive. But in patriarchy world, if a man has sex with a woman for four months does she grow a new virtual virginity?

Does he imagine the kitty is his, has always been his, and will always be his?

Is it a kitty ownership thing?  White guy is going to sleep better knowing she was beaten, broken, and bleeding for days on end before she was put in a place with no air, so long as he doesn't find out that other men touched his kitty before she went into the great beyond?

Is this about his honor rather than ownership? Is his manhood damaged because somebody else touched his kitty and he didn't defend her?  Dead is okay. Raped before dead is not okay and impugns manhood?

How many times have I read something like this and not noticed what it's saying to me?

How many girls, and especially black girls, are being brain damaged by this?
 



Friday, August 28, 2015

The Social Construction Of Race In The United States


This video describes the social construction of race. It starts at the linking of black skin to slavery in the United States and moves through to incarceration.



Moving through the first pages of Howard Zinn's "People's History Of The United States" to Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" to current events this micro-documentary covers slavery; indentured servants; Jim Crow; police brutality; the true level of poverty in the U.S. at fifty percent; current events (Sandra Bland, Samuel DuBose) and how most of this feeds the Prison Industrial Complex which already has too many of us in its teeth.

There isn't a lot that's new in the first 5 minutes, but it's concise and well presented. And the three tiered structure used as a framework, though hardly all inclusive racially speaking, makes the divide and conquer being used by the rich, from 1600s to now, very clear.



As for the last five minutes:

Half the country being low-income or below the poverty line will have me doing a  little research. I had no idea.

I knew that 50% of Black Americans graduate high school. But I didn't know that only 75% of white Americans graduate high school.

For me, this is yet another reminder that it always pays to seek out the white statistic when you keep hearing a negative black statistic over and over again. The first time I learned this was when I found out Black on Black Crime and White on White Crime which both stay at or above 85% every single year.  You wouldn't know that by how often "Black on Black" crime is mentioned by Black Americans much less the main stream news media. But this fact is easily found by looking at FBI UCR Data available online.
  



Give this video 2 to 3 minutes before you decide whether or not you want to hear the whole thing.  It covers a lot of ground in a very short time.











Thursday, August 27, 2015

COUNT THIS AS A BLACK LIVES MATTERS SUCCESS: CLEAN SLATES IN FERGUSON


After a year of sustained protests,
after the resulting Department of Justice Investigation,
 changes are happening in Ferguson.





The municipal court judge in Ferguson, Missouri, in [August 2015] announced sweeping changes to the city's court system, including an order to withdraw all arrest warrants issued in that city before December 31, 2014.

Municipal Court Judge Donald McCullin, who was appointed in June, also changed the conditions for pretrial release. According to a press release put out by Ferguson, all defendants will be given new court dates with alternative penalties like payment plans or community service.

Read & Hear More http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/24/us/ferguson-missouri-court-changes/

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

THEY COME THROUGH YOU




They come through you
but not from you.
And though they are with you
yet they belong not to you.
Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters
of Life's longing for itself.


You may give them your love
but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies
but not their souls,
For their souls dwell
in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward
nor tarries with yesterday.


You are the bows
from which your children
as living arrows
are sent forth.
The archer sees them
make upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows
may go swift and far.


Let your bending
in the archer's hand
be for gladness.
For even as He loves
the arrow that flies,
so He also loves
the bow that is stable.”

 --- Kahlil Gibran

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

IDA B WELLS, A SWORD AMONG LIONS PART 2

Link to Part 1 Within Ida B Wells' pamphlets on lynching, "Southern Horrors" and "The Red Record" she revealed that black men were only ever accused of rape in 1/3 of lynching cases. Instead, she concluded that most lynchings of black men and women, just like the lynching of friends connected to "The People's Grocery," were done for white financial gain.
Ida B Wells
HISTORY IDA B WELLS PART 1 http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2015/08/history-ida-b-wells-sword-among-lions.html

"Ida B" concluded that the rape accusations were a concoction by white newspapers and white town fathers and these fabrications were used to provide a cover for theft of property etc. in front of potential investors from the North and from Europe. Regarding the 1/3 of black men lynched that actually had been accused of rape, she found that all relationships between white women and black men, voluntary or not, were being called "rape" by white men.
Madam C J Walker
In 1896, Ida B Wells-Barnett founded the National Association of Colored Women and became increasingly devoted to the rights of women and children. Madam C J Walker a self-made millionaire and employer of self-sufficient women, would be a friend and supporter. Two years after founding the NACW, Wells-Barnett met with President William McKinley at the White House. As a result of their meeting, he made a speech denouncing lynching. However, no anti-lynching legislation was ever passed by Congress.
1909 Ida B Wells-Barnett became a founding member of the NAACP, which came together not long after the Spingfield, Illinois race riot.
* * * * * Ida B Wells-Barnett, though always on the front lines of the anti-lynching fight, also fought and succeeded in helping to get women voting rights--even though some black women weren't originally as interested in or comprehending of their own power. Chicago was one of the first places women got local voting rights. Eventually Wells-Barnett was able to sway more than one local election by increasing the overall numbers of black voters by simply adding black women voters. Black Women's Clubs were seen as powerful in the early 19th century. And Ida B Wells created a few of them.
Getting women the vote, nationally, would be a fight she would be engaged in most of her adult life.
During the suffrage parade of 1913 organized by Alice Paul’s [predominantly white] Congressional Union, black women were asked to march in a segregated unit. Ida B. Wells refused to do so and slipped into her state’s delegation after the start of the parade [instead.]"


In 1913, Ida B Wells created the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago which was devoted exclusively to getting voting rights for women.

Wells-Barnett also worked hard to overcome class divisions between black people. At times aligned with Monroe Trotter, that put her firmly against Booker T Washington who, reading between lines, appeared firmly in favor of class division and in favor of superiority so long that superiority was intra-racial rather than interracial.
During one effort to dissolve class divisions, Wells Barnett went so far as to support having a charity ball --for one of the many organizations she belonged to-- at a place called "The New Pekin" which put this "low gambling dive" and black owned business on the map. Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton would end up including "The New Pekin" on their tours. Ida B had been quite the respectability politician herself when she was younger. In the 30 or so years before the white south really got back on its feet, she truly believed that black people could behave their way into acceptability.

But like Malcom X, she had the ability to change her mind when presented with new information. The lynching of her friends and her sociological tracking of the increasing violence by whites against blacks changed her perspective on many things.


Unlike W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP (of which she was a founding member) Ida B did not turn away from those who were not "immaculate" She became very pragmatic as she aged, and more empathetic as well --likely based on errors she made herself when she was younger.

In 1917 when the NAACP found out that black soldiers of the 24th Infantry (a buffalo soldier unit) who had defended black people during a Houston race riot were "guilty of " drinking, partying, and promiscuous behavior, the NAACP decided the soldiers were not immaculate enough to be defended vigorously. (The NAACP always had an eye to white patrons and their own overly(?) white leadership)

As the soldiers had technically broken the law and were guilty of mutiny, "DuBois pronounced, "We ask "no mitigation of their punishment."
A black soldier came to the aid of a black woman being handled roughly by police was himself beaten and arrested. His leader, an officer Baltimore, would go to see about the beaten soldier and would be beaten and shot at himself. Upon hearing about this, Baltimore's men, tired of the race baiting and beatings by white police, decided to free their fellow soldiers. A riot followed.  Military tribunals found 110 of the soldiers guilty. A total of 19 soldiers were hanged and 63 received life sentences in federal prison. No white civilians were brought to trial. Some soldiers served as many as 20 years before their release.

Du Bois and others within the NAACP would be shocked to find out just what "no mitigation" would mean.
Thirteen of original 63 soldiers were hung before the final verdict was announced and without right of appeal to the President. An additional men would be put to death while others were given life sentences. http://www.tbhpp.org/riots.html
Ida would visit the remaining soldiers in jail, write articles about them, the martyrs, and their leader Vida Henry in hopes of getting those who remained alive a new trial.
Because of her protests on their behalf and her anti-lynching books/booklets and her husband Ferdinand's "Arm Yourself" speech, Ida B Wells-Barnett wound having government intelligence file written on her.


Ferdinand Barnett
As the NAACP would continue to refuse to help certain kinds of black folk, Ida B. relied on her husband, a lawyer, to represent some of the imperfect, nearly down and out She became a probation officer and wound up having at least one man live in the Wells-Barnett home while he got on his feet T
his led to the word "radical" being thrown around quite a bit whenever the Wells-Barnetts were in a room.  In short, Ida B. Wells was bolder and more unfettered in her protests against white racism, bolder than Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, both. Her scholarship and research in regards to anti-lynching, getting women the vote, and uniting black voters in general was most clearly by her adversaries.

"It is reported to this office that Ida B. Wells-Barnett is considered a far more dangerous agitator than Marcus Garvey. "
 
--Military Intelligence Division
(Sword Among Lions. Paula J Giddings)



  1. Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.


In 1925 Ida B Wells-Barnett via the Ida B Wells Club association with the Illinois Federation of Colored Women's Clubs helped secure an invitation for A Phillip Randolph to speak to the Women's Federation on behalf of Pullman Porters. When the new Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was being attacked and ignored by black political and civics groups, Ida B Wells-Barnett kept A Phillip Randolf and Milton Webster making the rounds through black women's groups until this union was fully recognized by the black community. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union would wind up breaking many glass ceilings for black employees within the Pullman company. "
Service not Servitude


"In 1930, [Ida B Wells-Barnett] lost an election to become Illinois State Senator, but became a pioneer for women candidates in the future."
Ida B Wells-Barnett died in 1931.

Monday, August 24, 2015

IDA B WELLS, A SWORD AMONG LIONS PART 1

At 19 Ida B Wells staged her first impromptu protest. A conductor on a Memphis and Charleston train ordered Wells to give up her first class seat in the ladies car and move to the smoker car. Like Rosa Parks would 71 years later, she refused to give up her seat. She even bit one of the conductors as she was physically removed. She sued and won. However, her case was overturned later by the Tennessee Supreme Court. But this barely slowed her down. As her parents had died, she had been raising 3 younger siblings before that first protest. At times she earned her living through teaching. She also wrote columns for newspapers, sometimes under the pseudonym "Iola" By the time she was 30 or so she was a journalist and came to be part owner of a newspaper called the "Free Speech And Headlight."
In 1892 three black men, friends of Ida's, were lynched because the white competitor running a grocery store down the road wanted his competition gone. Ida B was out of town when the lynching of friends took place. But upon her return Ida B turned investigative journalist and wrote several articles exposing what had happened to her friends. Eventually, unable to get justice from a white justice system, encouraged blacks to pack up and move from Memphis,Tennessee to Oklahoma, a location she'd physically went to research prior to making the recommendation to her readers. As white business dried up in town due to the black exodus and Ida B led black boycotts, the calls for Ida herself to be lynched increased. Ida B, was out of town on another investigation when she found herself unable to return home--thanks to warning from friends. Her activist-journalism career guiding her, Ida B Wells went to Chicago, Illinois.

During her anti-lynching campaign(s) Ida B Wells began developing sociological methods --systematic ways of counting and tracking lynching and the circumstances that surrounded lynching-- that would not be recognized as such for years. It's likely that she published results from these methods before a number of European males famous for "having created sociology." She published the results of the lynching investigations she conducted all over the south in small books or pamphlets such as "Southern Horrors" and "Georgia Lynch Law" The NAACP, of which she was a founding member, would continue the work she began more than 20 years before.
By the time the NAACP came to exist Ida B had traveled all over the northern United States and a few locals within the United Kingdom. Her purpose while visiting the U.K. was to cut off investment funds for southern states that engaged in lynching. She got many people in Britain and the Northern United States to sign anti-lynching resolutions.

Wells was sometimes abandoned or undermined by other black people who thought she was "too radical" Men would do things like support her cause (anti-lynching) while attempting to avoid supporting her personally. She rarely stood for this whether the men were white or black. At one church when the pastor was "too busy" to introduce her before giving a speech, she started packing up her stuff to go. The pastor became suddenly became un-busy when he realized Ida was about to leave without speaking. She sometimes called men out on this. According to her diaries, Frederick Douglass, who was guilty of supporting the cause but not her more than once as well, appears to have been confronted quietly in person rather than in public.

Wells was also attacked more directly by white feminists like Frances Willard, who were trying to get the right to vote. White suffragists unacknowledged racism aside, felt they needed southern white women on their side increase their numbers. Therefore, Willard, despite her anti-slavery past, avoided open support of anti-lynching resolutions. Willard would go out of her way to undermine Ida B, sometimes appealing to Frederick Douglass to try and get this undermining done.
Ida B Wells-Barnett Family. Four Children, Spouses, Grandchildren.
Woman, Wife, Mother, and Activist Against Racism and Sexism Until She Died
Ran for political office in 1930, Died 1931


In 1895, Ida B Wells became Ida B Wells-Barnett. And though Ida had 4 children with Ferdinand Barnett, her anti-lynching campaigning barely missed a beat. The only time she was absent from activism/political work was when she was in the late stages of pregnancy or giving birth. Her husband Ferdinand, her activist partner as much as husband, actually asked Ida to leave their home to go investigate lynchings as only she knew how at least once. LINK TO PART 2: http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2015/08/ida-b-wells-sword-among-lions-part-2.html

Sunday, August 23, 2015

CECILE EMEKE'S "STROLLING" SERIES, FRANCE - FLANER EPISODE 4

I find myself amazed at how much better I have it as a Black American due to our political power. And in other ways, I am amazed at the opposite, at how very, very similar our experiences are as far as white racism goes

"Strolling" / "Flaner"

Connecting The Scattered 
And Untold Stories 
of the 
Black/African Diaspora 



FRANCE


Housing Segregation near Paris



Compared to Black Americans, 
black solidarity in France is lacking



Male and Female Relationships


Being Black In Beauty School 


Saturday, August 22, 2015

BIAS IN FAVOR OF SELF


Hour four in the car on a road trip left me so tired, I had to change the radio station to talk radio rather than music.  
i can dream

I wound up listening to this pastor talk about the difference between males and females and how they interact. Inside two minutes he illustrated the difference in arguing styles based on what he observed between his four children.  
Pastor Joe said that his two sons, when they get to a certain point of disagreement, they stonewall one another and walk away. Pastor Joe proudly related that his sons have learned that they shall not cross a certain line of respect. They know if they go past that line of respect that a fist fight may follow. So they go their separate ways then resume their friendship after they've cooled off.

Pastor Joe said that his daughters, on the other hand, will say absolutely any hateful thing that comes to mind, going well past the point of respect. He said it’s unbelievable what they’ll say to one another. But, he said, they will eventually get over it and hug one another later the same day and go on as if nothing has happened.

Then Pastor Joe went on to say that men get married and are shocked by what a woman will say to them. He said that men newly married think, "If a guy said that to me, I'd punch him in the nose."


Now, I could look at his two sons and two daughters and see the very same interactions and come to a totally different conclusion about what this means. 

Having worked in a 90% male environment for 15 years, I can say that men, and not just boys, will refuse to have a full discussion on what they disagree on because they are indeed afraid they will get into a fist fight if the disagreement is but so big.  

The field I worked in? All the people were especially "assertive" So I still tend to hope that the Pastor is wrong about most men being like this. But I DO notice that what he says is true about men backing away from each other long before there is a real disagreement.

But thing we disagree on is that this shows that "males are taught to respect" each other while 'females are not taught to respect each other' I also disagree that this walking away as the first step in a serious disagreement "good."

This disagreement I have with Pastor Joe is based on my thinking that *fear of getting into a fist fight* and "refusing to cross the line of respect" are no where near synonymous.


And if a man, not a boy, thinks he should be able to hit his wife when his wife says something about him that he doesn't like, but restrains himself then wants a cookie for that, well that explains a lot about the high levels of domestic abuse, now doesn't it?
Furthermore, I believe that it is wisdom and self-control that stops a woman from saying too much during a disagreement as she moves from girlhood to womanhood --not fear of a fist fight. Girls can have fist fights but it's true that girls tend to use words to fight a lot more often than they do fists. That's why they can go further and deeper into an argument, respectfully, without fear of that the other will try to knock her teeth down her throat.

And in my mind, this is a good thing.

Yes, it
 could be I'm just as biased in favor of self as the pastor.  Female ways of doing things seem better to me, at least half of the time.. But this tendency of men to "not talk past the point of respect" to not question and disagree with one another openly is the core factor in a number of negative events, not the least of which is causing what's been called the worst airplane crash in history. 

The Tenerife C
rash of 1977 caused a small cities worth of people to die.

You won't read that "refusing to cross the line of respect"  caused  two fully loaded 747s to run into each other on the runway. Each and every article I've read on this famous crash over the last 38 years was written from within a strongly patriarchal society. But male pilots "not talking past the point of respect" and the refusal of one grown man (Air Traffic Controller in 1970s) to correct another grown man (Pilot) is fairly obvious in this article linked below:

  
http://www.businessinsider.com/deadliest-plane-crash-in-history-2014-3

Though it's not in the article, the "not talking past the point of respect" is even more obviously problematic in the cockpit recorder transcripts.

Years ago, as part of a training, I read that the male co-pilot, 
Klaas Meurs,  stopped the big shot pilot, Jacob Van Zanten, from taking off when he wasn't supposed to the first time he tried to take off without Air Traffic Clearance.
There are still a couple dominos yet to fall, but now the final act is in motion—literally. Because the route clearance comes where and when it does, it is mistaken for a takeoff clearance as well.

First officer Meurs, sitting to Van Zanten’s right, acknowledges the altitudes, headings, and fixes, then finishes off with an unusual, somewhat hesitant phrase, backdropped by the sound of accelerating engines. “We are now, uh, at takeoff.”

Van Zanten ...is heard saying on the cockpit voice recorder. “Let’s go.” And with that, his mammoth machine begins barreling down the fog--shrouded runway, completely without permission...

“At takeoff” is not standard phraseology among pilots. But it’s explicit enough to grab the attention of the Pan Am crew and the control tower. It’s hard for either party to believe KLM is actually moving, but both reach for their microphones to make sure.


And when the air traffic controllers make it clear that the pilot does not have permission to take off, Van Zanten stops the plane from moving but does not answer the air traffic controller.  And the air traffic controller doesn't force Van Zanten to answer audibly despite the fog rolling in. 

Again, on the cockpit recorder transcript Meurs clearly hints or tells the pilot he's not cleared for take off and gets the pilot to stop before or just as Air Traffic calls out to the plane. And if I'm not mistaken, Meurs stops that arrogant pilot from taking off without ATC clearance twice.  But Meurs was clearly afraid to question Van Zanten's judgment a third time, possibly assuming (hoping) that the runway was safe despite not being cleared for take-off by Air Traffic Control.

You'd be shocked at how many times NTSB and 1970 to 2000  cockpit transcripts show that one man or both men in the cockpit knew something was wrong long before they crashed but refused to ask a question as soon as they thought of it.  More than once I noticed that the meeker one deferred to the arrogant one so as "not to cross the line of respect" then died in a fireball for the trouble.

I know it seems perfectly logical that anybody would question another person if they think their life is at stake. But that's the point, isn't it?  People, especially male people, do not want to question one another male person until there is no other choice. And men don't want to appear panicked. These men simply didn't think their life was at stake YET.  


In most cases, male pilots did not wait too long to question one another.  But some of these long dead pilots thought they could wait a little longer to challenge the other man in the cockpit. They thought they could wait until the other man saw the error for himself. And sometimes they simply waited too long.  

Women, once the niceness barrier has been broken, do not feel as challenged if they want to question another woman. Women are socialized to ask for help and direction more easily. Disagreement isn't as frightening. For a woman, generally speaking, the thought that she might be wrong doesn't undermine her femininity. In fact, many women are raised to believe that taking correction IS feminine as it shows "humility" -- especially in the church.

(Church teachings indicate that men are supposed to show "humility" too but somehow that doesn't translate into sitting down, shutting up, and taking instruction from others, especially if that other is female.)

 
After the Tenefire crash, pilots had to be retrained away from this male tendency to "not disagree to past a certain point" in order to make commercial flight safe. Nowadays, no matter who is in pilot chair and who is the co-pilot chair, both pilots now know they can and should question one another if they think something is wrong.

And I'm thinking Christian Pastors need to be retrained away from the same thing and a whole host of other things. I couldn't believe how much male superiority Pastor Joe managed to communicate in 15 to 20 minutes. And the piece I've just discussed? That only covered 5 minutes tops.

A church sermon shouldn't 30 minutes covering 7 to 10 lessons on how sexism and misogyny is good and normal.

The best thing I ever heard a visiting pastor say is this: The worst thing about feminism is that it was absolutely necessary. I wish I had kept track of his name. I'd sent Pastor Joe and a bunch of others to him for deprogramming.

Once half had been deprogrammed, I'd replace the untrainable men with women. Half the clergy needs to be women. There are things passed from man to man to man within the Christianity that only seems to makesense because there aren't any female voices EQUAL IN POWER, to say, "This is half-baked" or "bias in favor of self" or just plain "superiority."

Women ought to be holding up half the sky in the Christian World and every other world. Incestuous thought among people too alike always breeds contempt for others, no matter how well meaning and angelic they see themselves.