tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41542260023748102442024-03-13T07:47:45.501-07:00lavenderjoan...somewhere under the rainbow...Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-27740750351535670392023-10-01T11:37:00.001-07:002023-10-01T11:37:45.201-07:00Good Book, Unfortunate Cover<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBd_NcMa-ZdxbPTUhfrn2ZvnjSupfrdmtDif-LzKEF2RX_HhdfUEbz4On7wb62HuYf9UoW7BWkSABwTr9wDY0lOMqkSPkOuG-RKUZ2PW-YrMLqYWFzUuiLquKu5UTGWV6-kGDd4_6hAo8jO1Pn_bKEe27ZU6SeJ6jYhv8bLv51gRE6L61-YSIGORdTEefj/s350/wild%20crone%20wisdom%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="233" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBd_NcMa-ZdxbPTUhfrn2ZvnjSupfrdmtDif-LzKEF2RX_HhdfUEbz4On7wb62HuYf9UoW7BWkSABwTr9wDY0lOMqkSPkOuG-RKUZ2PW-YrMLqYWFzUuiLquKu5UTGWV6-kGDd4_6hAo8jO1Pn_bKEe27ZU6SeJ6jYhv8bLv51gRE6L61-YSIGORdTEefj/s320/wild%20crone%20wisdom%20cover.jpg" width="213" /></a>I was delighted to have 2 poems published in this book “Wild Crone
Wisdom," but the cover drawing disappointed me. As a lifelong, gender non-conforming dyke, I would have like to have seen greater representation of different types of crones: crones of color, crones of differing abilities and, of course, crones who wouldn't be caught dead wearing floor length formal red gowns. There could have been a group of crones or even distant silhouettes of women, a landscape, flowers or simply a beautiful design. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Invisibility is a particularly insidious form of discrimination. Yes, I know this new press needs to sell books, but at whose expense? At least she's not wearing high-heeled shoes! Part of being a crone involves dealing with loss, and yes, preparing to relinquish our lives and coming to terms with our mortality is the ultimate loss. True wild crone wisdom involves the acceptance of impermanence. So take it from this crone who is a proud gender outlaw. The crones I seek to learn from are quite a bit wilder than the one pictured here. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Here are the two poems I have in this book: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">__________________________________________________</div>Passing Through--Joan Annsfire<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">I tap through this cyberworld, <br />where trails of keystrokes represent immortality.<br />This is who I am, who I have been:<br />much older now and writing<br />my obituary online. <br /><br />I have no family left.<br />Parents long dead, one childless,<br />aging lesbian warrior;<br />pressing down cyber-grass<br />much like moving<br />through fields of tradition, <br /><br />I leave indentations<br />like crop circles<br />marking distance traveled. <br /><br />I cruise the information highway<br />looking for my legacy.<br />This road of imagination<br />where dreams are memorialized<br />alongside offhand comments,<br />spoken simply as soundbites,<br />throwaway lines. <br /><br />Posts note only minutes spent,<br />ideas considered; vistas seen.<br />Links connect me to a human network,<br />a community displaying<br />accomplishment and artifice side by side;<br />brutal honesty woven with lies<br />and infused with great mystery. <br /><br />Digital footprints declare<br />although I moved through this world unnoticed,<br />for just one brief click of time,<br />I passed this way.<br />I was here.</span></p>____________________________________________________<br />Musical Memory--Joan Annsfire<br /><br />Music transports me.<br />to that peak of memory just above necessity,<br />ushering me back to a time<br />when family was a given<br />and all questions were new. <br /><br />Childhood, for me, was not<br />a gentle place of care<br />but a steep wall I learned to scale<br />with expert precision. <br /><br />My mother, self-taught on piano,<br />would play chords of show tunes<br />as my sister, father and I sang along,<br />If notes were fudged or missed altogether,<br />we just sang louder. <br /><br /> Her notes provided a crescendo of power and magic,<br />spilling out beyond sorrow,<br />a long-guarded promise;<br />a dance moving me to the far edge<br />of possibility. <br /><br />With this soundtrack<br />My life felt more like a movie.<br />A fierce cacophony of splendor,<br />destined for a cataclysmic ending. <br /><br />Those were days of<br />precarious hope and artful balance.<br />My struggle, a mountain I would attempt to summit,<br />while avoiding fissures of malformed parenting<br />threatening each step. <br /><br />Music transports me.<br />Especially when I’m most in the grip<br />of this merciless, difficult world. <br /><br />Harmonious sound reverberates deeply<br />through the vortex of time.<br />For one moment, it evokes the past<br />then trades it for a song.<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-60358471499726999162020-04-02T13:10:00.000-07:002020-05-02T11:15:58.332-07:00Life in the Time of Coronavirus...<div>
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The head of the CDC (Center for Disease Control), Dr. Robert Redfield, estimates that one out of four Americans has Covid 19. But, because we have inadequate testing, there is no way to verify this estimate. It includes asymptomatic carriers as well as people who are only mildly symptomatic, like me. I have a mild case of the virus which has included a cough and shortness of breath, some aches and tiredness, but no fever at all.</div>
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I called my doctor who informed me that no tests were available for those who don't require hospitalization. At this juncture, I would like to take the antibody test which, rumor has it, will be coming out soon. The importance of testing for antibodies produced by the immune system is twofold. First, it will help us understand the scope of infection and how close we are to the concept medical people call "herd immunity." That is the point when the virus runs out of new bodies to infect, the same way a wildfire eventually runs out of the fuel that keeps it burning. The second reason is that, in the past, the plasma of those whose antibodies have defeated the virus, has been used in vaccines that could potentially save lives.<br />
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As with all of us, this dystopian scenario has been the most dramatic public emergency I've ever lived through. Yet there are those who claim that this is just a dry run for the really big pandemics to come. Just as we were told the earthquake of 1989 was only a dress rehearsal for the really big one, this could be the beginning of a new era of mass disease. Considering our global climate crisis, I believe them, I just don't want to think about it. </div>
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The drama, however, is interspersed with boredom and stir-craziness. Like so many others, I am watching movies, walking alone, going to zoom meetings and meditations, reading and writing. And I'm sure I watch way too much news for my mental health. I just keep on keepin' on, putting one foot in front of the other into the uncertain future. </div>
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The Buddhists claim our biggest challenges are our greatest teachers. If so, my experiences of the past year and a half would make me a bodhisattva. I have learned to restart my life after the demise of a twenty-year relationship, to survive major surgery and cancer and now how to navigate this strange landscape of disease and fear.</div>
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But today the sun is shining, melting much of my anxiety away. Ironically. I feel more connected to fellow citizens than I did before. We are all in this together. I am sheltering inside my body, my home, my community, my planet. I am so fortunate to have a place to live, food, friends and my computer, everything I need to get through this trying time. The sorrow will come later. In this moment I am safe, I am alive. I am at peace. </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-6947329056967570802019-10-10T10:28:00.002-07:002019-10-10T10:28:42.386-07:00An Unexpected Reprieve<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CLw0rm_-wlo/XZ5VWvISR9I/AAAAAAAASsM/FD9TSz8Qxekctv4uN0jEvRxetmGarlt7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/20191009_144222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CLw0rm_-wlo/XZ5VWvISR9I/AAAAAAAASsM/FD9TSz8Qxekctv4uN0jEvRxetmGarlt7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/20191009_144222.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My taped wound is healing. </td></tr>
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They said it was the size of a grapefruit or a small cantaloupe. Why must tumors always invoke fruit? I can sit at a computer now without much pain. I have a vertical scar down my abdomen at the scene of the attempted cellular coup. I spent five days recovering at the new California Pacific Hospital on Van Ness in San Francisco where my skilled surgeon, Dr. Lejla Delic works her magic. It is a great state-of the art new hospital where all rooms are singles and many have amazing views of the city.<br />
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My primary care doctor discovered this growth during a routine physical. After an ultrasound, PET scan and blood tests the results were terrifyingly routine. The mass was large and seemed solid. It was surrounded by fluid and giving me symptoms that I thought were related to irritable bowel. It wasn't a fibroid and my CA 125 levels (an antigen used as a cancer marker) were through the roof. Is this a metastasis of the melanoma I had twenty-eight years ago? My doctors agreed and my own research came to the same conclusion. I had ovarian cancer, like my mother and so many Ashkenazi Jewish relatives who proceeded me. I found Dr. Delic, a gynecological oncologist, and pushed for the soonest surgery date she could give me.<br />
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A friend dropped me off and another friend met me at the hospital that morning. We were wheeled into a curtained room in the surgery waiting area. She had brought with her a special prayer to the Virgen de Guadeloupe that she said always works. She held my hand. I had so many people praying for me and sending me healing energy, I'm embarrassed by the riches. Before I was wheeled into the operating room my doctor stopped by. She said, "It's ovarian cancer, we just need to take it out and stage it." They installed a fusion port in my neck in case I needed an early start on chemotherapy.<br />
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When I was wheeled into the intensive care recovery room, three friends were there waiting. My doctors told me that, unbelievably, it was not cancer. The tumor was fibrous inside and most certainly benign. I was heavily drugged still but still aware enough to be overwhelmed by the news. They had said the chances of malignancy were 95 to 98%. I have never won anything. How I slipped into a statistical category of 2-5%, I'll never know.<br />
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All things considered, it's been quite an ordeal. I'm still not back emotionally, but physically I'm feeling okay. I felt I was in a game of musical chairs without a seat at the moment the music stopped. I was totally prepared to begin fighting for my life.Not that cancer is an automatic death sentence, but it's always a challenging reminder of impermanence as an opportunity for spiritual growth as well as simple all-out panic. Now that I have returned temporarily to the land of the living, I'm trying to keep my focus on the myriad of possibilities before me. I hope to make good use of the extra time I've been given. I don't know what form this rebirth will take. Opportunity beckons and I am at its center. Like spokes of a wheel, its paths stretch outward in all directions.<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-52568701627344736082019-07-15T08:47:00.002-07:002019-07-15T08:47:23.258-07:00Rebuilding a Single Self<br />
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It has been almost nine months since I broke off communication
with my partner of twenty years and began building a life of my own. I've been doing a lot of rewarding and difficult work. I have joined a gym and a book group, started a writing critique group and have signed on for volunteer work around preserving lesbian history. I've attended all kinds of hiking meet-ups and social groups. There is so much more conscious effort involved in being single than being married. It revolves around scheduling and balancing appointments, emailing, texting and researching activities. Meeting new people requires a great deal of conversation as well. Fortunately, I enjoy this. Having done this before after a fifteen year relationship, I know things will change and change again. I can't help wondering who, among the new folks I am adding to my life,
will be there a year from now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If I had one question to ask my ex it would be are you
happy now? But then I wonder, was I happy then? I was content to live with some level of discord in
return for dinners together, sleepovers and watching Netflix. I'm the kind
of person who never thinks of herself as truly happy, I'm too much of a realist for that. But I’d accepted my life with all its
limitations. Now, I have the potential to create a more productive, enjoyable
life with folks who genuinely appreciate and look forward to spending time with me. It's taking shape, but it is
still a work in progress. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My ex wants to be my friend. I'm not opposed to that eventuality but I believe it's too soon. Do I want to hear about her new partner? To be fitted into a time slot in her new life? If she were also single I could probably do it. But when I think about going to a gathering with her and the one she gave up our relationship for, I can't see it happening. I guess only time will tell. </div>
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I am meeting new women to hang out with to go to music
and events. They are invariably single, although not necessarily
potential lovers or partners. I am trying to form something more vital, a support system. I have
lost friends to the break-up and I grieve for them too. Some chose my partner over me because she was
the one they met first. Some try to walk a line between us both, not talking about
one with the other. Some were couple friends who have no idea how to fit me in now. Am I
a threat or just a hassle? Mostly, I assume that time is limited, and
relationships take a lot of work. Genuine emotional intimacy between two couples or three people is nearly impossible. It's hard enough between two.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, I can choose to do things with people, or I can stay
home alone and write again. For a while it was just too depressing to sit quietly in the space in front of a keyboard. Now, once again, I look forward to it. The time I feel the most lonely now is Sunday morning. I miss company over coffee and the New York Times.<br />
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I am starting to feel my age. Time is short
and I have no idea where this journey will take me or when it will end. I'm glad for the opportunity to restructure something that wasn't working and to be singularly engaged in the world once more. I have a few pressing things to pull together in my life before that unknown moment when the umpire calls time. So I better hurry. I am finally experiencing the phrase, <i>I'm on deadline</i>, in its most literal sense.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-28434648916781799872019-04-03T22:23:00.001-07:002019-04-04T08:35:39.113-07:00Joyce Schon: My First Long-term Partner<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s4Ksi19irz8/XKT9NjPqBQI/AAAAAAAAPl4/_p9EAV0FYak18Fh5R0DGztVPvaNEvyYogCLcBGAs/s1600/Joyce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s4Ksi19irz8/XKT9NjPqBQI/AAAAAAAAPl4/_p9EAV0FYak18Fh5R0DGztVPvaNEvyYogCLcBGAs/s200/Joyce.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joyce Schon (1952-2016)</td></tr>
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I seem to be standing at a crossroads where past, present and future intersect. Being on the receiving end of a nasty ending of a twenty year relationship has left me feeling sad and nostalgic so I looked up an old ex partner online. Our relationship was one that lasted fifteen years from 1980 to 1995. I’d heard more recently she’d moved to her home city, Detroit and became a civil rights and
immigration attorney. Last I heard she was still a member of Revolutionary Workers League,
the Marxist-Leninist group to which she had always belonged.<br />
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I was dismayed to discover that Joyce Schon died of
metastatic breast cancer in 2016 at 64 years of age. We had totally lost
touch by that time, but I did wonder why she changed her email suddenly and was no longer active. She was still a Facebook friend so I knew I could
message her there. We are all immortal online. I located only a perfunctory obituary that was geared toward straight, conventional family only. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The fact she was a lesbian was missing from the obit. All her years of union activism and leftist organizing had been erased. It was appalling to see Joyce reduced to a traditional woman without spouses, children or interests.<br />
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What can I say about our
time together? I remember the early days when I was 29 and she was 28. It was a
wild, passionate time. We went to political meetings constantly. We also had sex everywhere. In parks, on beaches in every
room of our apartments. She lived
in Berkeley and I in San Francisco and we were each too poor to own cars but
fortunately, there was BART.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Politically we were quite different. Joyce was a member of
RWL, a group I referred to as Really Weird Leftists. They were a vanguard Trotskyist party. I, on the other hand, was involved in groups like Lesbians
Against Police Violence and Revolting Lesbians. That made us a mixed marriage of sorts.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Joyce worked as a Ward Clerk at SF General in those days and
was one of the first to work on the newly created Aids Ward. She was also a
shop steward and union activist extraordinaire. Thirty for forty was her slogan
for workers there: thirty hours of work a week for forty hours pay. She spoke
Spanish with such an authentic accent that whenever she used it her
conversation partner would deluge her in the language so rapidly that she
couldn’t understand a word. </div>
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She was committed to getting the message of socialism out into the world. I remember when the SF Chronicle was on strike. At the time, I was a research librarian there, a member of the Newspaper Guild. Joyce spoke at a strikers meeting in the Warehouse district of San Francisco. There were about 7,000 people in attendance, members of the Newspaper Guild, the Printers Union and the Teamsters. She addressed the huge crowd without wavering. She spoke with passion and determination. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Joyce had a beautiful voice and played guitar. She sang both
union songs and “women’s music.” “The Woman in Your Life,” was a particular
favorite of mine.</div>
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In 1991 when I was diagnosed with melanoma and scheduled to
have an intensive skin graft on my leg, she took my tumor, floating in its vial, to the
head of the melanoma clinic at Mt. Zion for a second opinion. That experienced
doctor said that the major disfiguring surgery I was scheduled for in two days, was unnecessary for a forty-year
old. He recommended a much less destructive re-excision procedure instead. I have
the full use of my leg now because of that decision. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Joyce always wanted to return to her home city of Detroit.
In 1995, by mutual decision, we broke off our relationship. Our paths had diverged. My cancer experience had
changed me. I became a Buddhist and a more spiritual person. She was still
devoutly political and wanted more freedom. We parted ways like two adults who cared for each other. It was an ethical, mutually agreed
upon decision that didn’t involve one party sleeping with someone else. Joyce was always an ethical person with a high degree of integrity. I look back on that
breakup fondly now, aware of how bitter and ugly things can get. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">After we split I'd given her a check for a thousand dollars as a promise to make good on buying out her share of our home. A couple weeks later, without speaking to me first, she went to the title company and legally took her name off the title, literally giving me the house. She did this because of her Marxist convictions. She knew that my family members were all dead or remarried and that I would probably never be able to buy a house again. She, on the other hand, was from an upper middle class family and her parents were still alive. </span>The magnitude of this gift still makes me cry. Because of Joyce I believe in genuine kindness and compassion that transcends romantic love. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>I am old enough to feel death gaining ground. My life is beginning its final chapter. I must seek out the person I used to be. She is still alive inside me and has grown older,
wiser, stronger, less afraid. I speak through her voice now. When I open my mouth the only words I'm able to utter are the unadulterated, unmitigated,
unapologetic truth. Joyce Schon you taught me well. I miss you. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-82743553704723344992019-03-27T13:11:00.001-07:002019-03-27T13:11:27.616-07:00"Weary of Life," Dignitas Helped Her Die<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Skl9WlLxJ0I/XJvV3LWgaAI/AAAAAAAAPU0/NofQ8RQ1fuUBTvDSCFoIquK5Sdd-y5lEQCLcBGAs/s1600/1198127_260x190_7a982a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="143" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Skl9WlLxJ0I/XJvV3LWgaAI/AAAAAAAAPU0/NofQ8RQ1fuUBTvDSCFoIquK5Sdd-y5lEQCLcBGAs/s1600/1198127_260x190_7a982a.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spring Friedlander</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We were not friends. She was an acquaintance of mine. We were in a group together OLOC ( Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). I also remember Spring Friedlander when she was a plumber and active in Tradeswomen. A couple months ago at an OLOC gathering, Spring announced that her plans were set and she would exit this world soon. I took the news with a grain of salt. Spring was 75 and moved, looked and acted as though she was in good physical health. Mental health was another issue. She was clearly not okay and had been suffering quite a while. She often dominated meetings with rambling diatribes about her life as well as her plan to die.<br />
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Like any quasi-political group, especially one of old women, we were not equipped to address her needs. There was not a lot more to do than tell her when she used too much time that her turn was over. We failed her but we were not alone. Alienation and suicide are at record numbers in this country right now. Getting old is not fun, especially when you are alone.<br />
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I believe in assisted suicide. In 1973, at twenty-two, my father, myself and a dentist friend helped my mother die. She had terminal ovarian cancer. She was in pain and was being used to try out experimental drugs and procedures. She had no hope of survival. Euthanasia is mercy. It is now legal in many states including California. But what about legal suicide for depression? There are drugs. There is therapy. There is always tomorrow.<br />
<br />
That's why I was so upset to find out that Spring had gone to Switzerland and, with the help of an organization called <a href="http://dignitas.ch/index.php?lang=en" target="_blank">Dignitas</a>, had made her final exit of this world. Her reason was short and simple: She was "weary of life."<br />
<br />
Her <a href="https://www.forevermissed.com/spring-friedlander/#lifestory" target="_blank">memorial page</a> is extensive. She expounds on her life, her motivation for ending it, her accomplishments etc. Spring was obviously a prolific writer. She could have at least had the goal of publishing this work as a memoir.<br />
<br />
I don't know how I feel about this kind of suicide. It seems a shame, feels like a waste. Anyone at anytime may feel weary of life. But then it passes. There is always one more pizza. One more movie. One more beautiful spring day. I cannot provide any pat answers. I pass on this information simply as food for thought. Life is long, hard and convoluted. Death is an experience we are all assured of having. Morals and ethics are for pontificators and philosophers not for me. Rest in peace Spring Friedlander. I'm so sorry we failed you.<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-5095568224897729622019-03-10T14:53:00.002-07:002019-03-10T14:53:32.600-07:00Commemorating International Women's Day Collage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_pzBhvLR7wY/XIWHI8wGNvI/AAAAAAAAPJk/DuuxH3cEgyERJBZ1rm_bhBSQHP16K_ksgCLcBGAs/s1600/womanstruggle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_pzBhvLR7wY/XIWHI8wGNvI/AAAAAAAAPJk/DuuxH3cEgyERJBZ1rm_bhBSQHP16K_ksgCLcBGAs/s640/womanstruggle.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-2539217147342961742018-11-20T08:44:00.000-08:002018-11-20T08:44:57.562-08:00After Twenty Years...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MidRizCs2-8/W_Ntc6UQi-I/AAAAAAAANDY/-fPZwuS36cA1MJJc2ny-asyoHK_igtSewCEwYBhgL/s1600/depressed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1265" height="170" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MidRizCs2-8/W_Ntc6UQi-I/AAAAAAAANDY/-fPZwuS36cA1MJJc2ny-asyoHK_igtSewCEwYBhgL/s200/depressed.png" width="200" /></a></div>
I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Things between us had
been bad for a while, a long while. But sometimes I can be like the deer in the
headlights, stunned into paralysis, mesmerized by the oncoming car, yet unable
to get out of its way. Perhaps my expectations of this life have always been
too low. Being from a family of alcoholics who had no real use for the dynamics
of child-rearing, my sister and I learned, by trial and error, to parent
ourselves. We did okay. Financially, each of us has made her own way through
this world, held on to civil service jobs, bought our own houses without help,
basically held her own. The things we were unable to incorporate have to do
with self-esteem and relationships, things we were never shown. Like how to
have faith in our own worth, how to give and receive love.<o:p></o:p>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Time matters. Especially at sixty-seven years old. I sense
denouement in the wings as my entire generation nears the end of our earthly
sojourn. It makes sense to be kinder to each other in this chapter, but often, it
doesn’t work that way. My parents had an open relationship and I stretched my
limits to be flexible with a partner, who described her onset of sexual changes
as just one component of a late-in-life crisis. She had my blessing to do
tantric workshops, orgasmic meditation, anything within a structured sexual
environment was not threatening to me. She said that she’s trying to get in
touch with her “inner gay man,” but gay men have a host of opportunities for
casual sex that are not open to lesbians. A quick b-j in a parking lot or
bathroom stall and a visit to a sex club with private rooms and “glory holes”
are not options in the lesbian community. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My parents’ first rule of non-monogamy was that each of them
could do whatever they wanted provided they didn’t talk about it. The
polyamorous community is the opposite. The bylaws are fundamental honesty
combined with mutual consent. My partner started by attempting to follow those
rules, but the problem was when I felt I couldn’t handle her having a
sexual/romantic relationship with no guidelines whatsoever, there was nowhere to
go from there.We
all have limits to what we can withstand. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can’t help feeling betrayed. Although the responsibility for
this split is my partner’s, it is upsetting that her new paramour knows me and was
peripherally part of our friendship circle. I don’t understand why anyone would
make this decision. Aren’t there enough lesbian strangers out there? Now I must
worry about running into a person harboring negative, or worse indifferent,
feelings regarding my well-being in this tumultuous world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, in this toxic soup of ash and particulate waste
around me, I feel discarded, alone. When your world is burning, you are without
choice, you must save yourself. Letting go of this relationship is not the path I would have chosen,
but, like so many things beyond my control, it has chosen me. It remains to be
seen where it will lead.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-34984593005812841132018-10-14T10:46:00.002-07:002018-10-14T10:46:42.322-07:00The More Things Change...(Collage)Your vote is more important now than ever!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XrjYqwOGt6w/W8OA45BY0zI/AAAAAAAAMlc/aqYnUW_66nYoJgYEsxYwBf141vNBrlK7ACLcBGAs/s1600/womanstruggle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XrjYqwOGt6w/W8OA45BY0zI/AAAAAAAAMlc/aqYnUW_66nYoJgYEsxYwBf141vNBrlK7ACLcBGAs/s640/womanstruggle.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-19670377005624057602018-09-27T15:53:00.002-07:002018-09-27T15:53:31.661-07:00Me Too<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WkZUUtgZm2E/W61JaOP7SnI/AAAAAAAAMTY/g5Uftr-Urgc623sPyZxdVA7SFn1tZ2A-QCLcBGAs/s1600/metoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="289" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WkZUUtgZm2E/W61JaOP7SnI/AAAAAAAAMTY/g5Uftr-Urgc623sPyZxdVA7SFn1tZ2A-QCLcBGAs/s1600/metoo.jpg" /></a></div>
I’ve been obsessively mesmerized by this whole ramming through charade known as the Kavanaugh "confirmation" hearings. I even got up early this morning to watch the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Of course, I
believe Ford as well as Kavanaugh's other accusers, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick. This whole morass has been compelling for me. It obviously strikes
a deeper chord, resonating with something I haven’t wanted to think about or speak to
for over fifty years.<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
Dr. Herbie Duber was our family doctor. In the fifties my family lived in tract housing on the East side of Cleveland. He was a neighbor who live with his wife and children just two doors away. I believe he purchased life insurance from my father but he was also a well-known physician in the Jewish Community. Looking through old photographs of parties, photos of him and his wife appear, almost always with drinks in their hands. Lots of booze, what was called then, "wife swapping" and plenty of general bawdiness were all part and parcel of my parents social life. Although Herbie was not a pediatrician, he became the default general practitioner for both me and my sister.<br />
<br />
As a child, my mother came with me during these physical exams which happened only once a year at the most. When I grew older, my mom would sometimes not come into the room but stay outside chatting with the receptionist. I think I was about thirteen when I went for an exam now that I was a "woman." Because I started menstruating at nine years old, by thirteen I was a child in a woman's body. Nonetheless, I wasn't sure of the parameters of what a "physical" for a woman would be. So when he began pushing at my tiny breasts, I thought well breast cancer is a problem. By the time he was sticking his fingers inside me, breathing hard and asking if I had any boyfriends, I was fairly sure that most physicals didn't proceed this way. After hastily dressing and meeting up with my mom, I left his office feeling humiliated and confused.<br />
<br />
I never told anyone until very recently. Not my mother, not my friends. I did say that I didn't like Herbie Duber and wanted a different doctor which, by then, was not a problem since he had come up in the world and was no longer lived in our neighborhood. It took a while for me to realize how far out of bounds this examination was. When the charges came out against Larry Nasser, doctor on the Olympic Committe who sexually assaulted patients, I began pondering my experience. And now, with the "Me Too" movement I have been considering the role of this incident in my young life. Dr. Duber has been dead for many years. But don't relax or get the idea that anyone is safe. Worldwide, there are millions of men like him being born every minute.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-32441237280661279712018-08-26T20:13:00.000-07:002018-08-26T20:13:41.134-07:00Beyond the Gender Binary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OtLjUkuwqAA/W4Nk60X4IyI/AAAAAAAAMBk/ZMXf9v3XbMYHdgfHNpt-hIt9RT289efOgCLcBGAs/s1600/world%2Bwithout%2Broles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="800" height="74" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OtLjUkuwqAA/W4Nk60X4IyI/AAAAAAAAMBk/ZMXf9v3XbMYHdgfHNpt-hIt9RT289efOgCLcBGAs/s320/world%2Bwithout%2Broles.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In the fifties era of butch-femme relationships, those
who played the role of butch or femme, switching at will, were known as
“ki-ki”. In later Second Wave Feminism of the sixties and seventies, butch-femme role playing fell out of
favor in middle-class circles. The word for lesbians with gender-neutral
identity was “androgynous.” The androgynous lesbian was a preferable alternative to the dehumanizing sex-role stereotyping that had been the norm in the fifties and earlier. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In today’s world this option is known as “non-binary.” Ideally, this would mean that everyone would be free to select ideas and behaviors from a smorgasbord of choices. People of many genders and orientations can fit under this umbrella because we are all so much more than the bodies that we happened to have been born into. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The thing about both transgender identity that confuses me the most is the way that sex role stereotypes are idealized, romanticized, even fetishized. When I hear about a little boy who loves pink and playing dress up, or the little girl who wants to play sports or be a cowboy I don't automatically think that these are children occupying the wrong bodies. I first wonder if they're just having a hard time coming out as lesbian or gay. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Yes, some people are genuinely transgender. But other people are truly in pain and confused about their identity. Some are looking for a simple solution to a complex problem. In Iran the government will pay for transgender surgery when it means that the person will no longer have same-sex attraction. If a man who loves men becomes a woman, he will present as straight. Surgery can be used as a means to insure heterosexual normativity at any cost. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
After my uterus was
removed for medically necessary reasons, the doctor told me
about groups organized around grieving this loss. As a sixty year old lesbian who has remained childless by choice, I found this ridiculous. The
body parts I have emotional attachment towards are ones that either can be
seen, make my body systems function well, or propel me physically through the
world. I never developed an attachment to my uterus and have always viewed the
prospect of childbearing as far too similar to “Invasion of the Body
Snatchers.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When I was working as a reference librarian in San Francisco a regular
patron, male the day before, came in and announced s/he was now female. I knew
this person’s gender-neutral name and don’t have the greatest memory, so it was
inevitable that a few days later I referred to that patron as “he. Very upset, this apprentice transitioner said, “I’m a woman,
just like you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Okay then, if you’re a woman just like me, you don’t give
a damn if people mistake you for another gender, unless you’re planning to
sleep with them, in which case, hopefully, they would already know. A “woman
like me” has zero attachment to behaving “like a woman” or presenting as such.
You would want only to be accepted for what you do and how your mind works, not
how you look because you would not see yourself as decorative, but as functional. A woman just like me would believes that the concept of acquiring “femininity” is both ridiculous and a
huge waste of time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t comprehend the need, in this culture and many
others, to place gender markers on everyone and everything. Everywhere I go now
people call me “Mam.” I hate it. Not just because of the age reference but
because of the explicit gender. I wouldn't like "Sir" either. Why is it necessary to continually point out each
persons gender? Can’t you just ask a question
without tagging it as female or male directed. What’s wrong with, “Can I help
you?” period. Or if you have to add something why not “friend” or another gender neutral word. Even worse are words like poetess or aviatrix, the height of
condescension for people with female bodies.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
We are all unique individuals. I find sex-role assignment dehumanizing. I aspire to neither of those limited definitions.
We all deserve the freedom to do what we want with our bodies and that includes
modifying them for any reason. At some point in the future, we might have a society
where every person is accepted and accepts their body no matter what shape, size, color, age,
orientation or ability it presents. Unfortunately, that Utopian vision
is far removed from the reality of the world we do our best to stumble through today.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-33013099616398789122018-08-03T10:18:00.001-07:002018-08-03T10:18:17.804-07:00Lessons From Foremothers and Former Selves<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hwZZACvms-U/W2H4rZ2_LlI/AAAAAAAALyM/37sFoZvgYNYfSWG3XVl9DZsRBrGhsvhsgCLcBGAs/s1600/oldwivestales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="1180" height="227" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hwZZACvms-U/W2H4rZ2_LlI/AAAAAAAALyM/37sFoZvgYNYfSWG3XVl9DZsRBrGhsvhsgCLcBGAs/s320/oldwivestales.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carol Seajay, Pell, Tiana Arruda, Kit Quan, 1982 </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
We were either closeted or forcibly ghettoized in the those decades. The late sixties, seventies and early eighties brought so much change to the lives of women and lesbians. A lot of us
looked different and distinctly lesbian but none of us aspired to the female sex-role stereotypes. Obsequious,
flirtatious, decked-out, made-up heterosexual women were the norm then and seem to have made a comeback since. But we really had to be circumspect in dealing with the outside world. There were no job
or housing protections and, we were vulnerable to discrimination. Organizing was imperative. There was so much work to be done.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I defined myself as a radical lesbian feminist in
those early days. I went to San Francisco State and took groundbreaking women's studies classes from pioneers like Sally Gearhart. I hung out at bars like Scotts, Maude's, Kelley's, Pegs Place and A Little More. It wasn't just the Michigan Women's Music Festival that was happening. Old Wives Tales Women's Bookstore opened, followed by Artemis Society. Plexus newspaper emerged. Osento Hot Tub flourished in a Victorian on Valencia Street. The Women's Press Project began printing pamphlets and books by lesbians. The laws were against us, lesbians were hated and under attack by fellow citizens and police, but it was a heady time in our community, full of hope and promise.<br />
<br />
I think my first break with the radical feminist philosophy was when the
realization dawned that I didn’t necessarily believe that women were special and could save the
world. I was attracted to women. I loved and respected many of them. But I
could look back at history and find women falling on the morally incorrect side. Some early suffragists supported
racism. In every struggle against fascism there were lots of women taking a
stand with murderous dictators. Fighting for more than just lesbians rights seemed necessary. As a Jew and a working-class affiliated woman, often a strictly radical lesbian feminist analysis didn’t speak to every aspect of me. Because I found many lesbians ignorant of these other components of struggle, the romance between me and this simplistic take on the world, faded.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
The political work I did with lesbian groups like Lesbian Schoolworkers, Lesbians Against Police Violence and Revolting Lesbians were organized around lesbian liberation but also tackling other issues of oppression like...racism, poverty, and class struggle.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
During the day I was a working stiff. To survive in that arena required me to make
alliances with all different kinds of people. The line between gender and demographic groups. I’m an odd individual. The folks I liked, and who liked me, varied tremendously. I made
friends where I could, usually with people who minimally identified with the workaday world and had other, more interesting and creative pursuits. They helped ease my way through the forest of b-s and artifice. I never stopped going to concerts or conferences or music
festivals for dykes, I just stopped seeing that road as the only possible path
through life’s jungle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As organizational work toward lesbian protections found
some success, I felt less confined to one small community. My friends became
more eclectic, square pegs but not necessarily lesbian ones. Maybe coalition
was possible. Perhaps we can explore our place in a broader society. I left
the so-called safety of lesbian community for the prospect of a
larger life, much the same way I’d left the Jewish community in which I was raised, to
take my chances with the larger, multi-racial, diverse world. My family warned
me often that, because of hostility, I would regret that decision, but that was not the case. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So where does all this leave me today? Older, but still much the same. I incorporate new information and curse the times we are living in. I still despise sex roles for humans but respect each person's right to call themselves whatever they want. And I do the same. As a writer and an individual, I have no desire
to generalize or tar everyone with the same broad brush. But I am not willing
to toss aside the fore-mothers of lesbian-feminism either. When I see young women throwing out the
baby with the bathwater, it saddens me. I want to tell them to read, to
study, to learn about what we were up against, the obstacles we encountered and faced down making life a bit easier now for everyone. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is foolish to place leaders of another time in current
society to decide how you feel about them. In order to see the Second Wave generation of feminism clearly, you must first rise to a height where the entire picture comes into view.
Many young people are incapable or unwilling to do so. But not all. There
are folks, like myself, who will value those who came before them, the lessons that ancestors teach. Violence
and hatred have moved large groups of people throughout history, but have left
behind nothing which inspires goodwill or pride.<br />
<br />
Those who dismiss their elders
will get their comeuppance with time. Life is impermanent, yours as well as
ours. If you believe you know everything and will live forever, time will prove otherwise. The past is not your enemy. Those who cleared the path before
you are not your foes. If you willfully choose to ignore history, it will rear up and bite you at the most inopportune moments. Who knows? Years from
today, you may find yourself writing a piece, like this one, engaged in the
very same argument. And then, perhaps, you will choose to reflect back on your former self with wisdom and compassion. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-13090615771190925612018-07-24T11:06:00.000-07:002018-07-24T11:06:10.930-07:00Consider Class Identity<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lvM0bvxver0/W1dnKHQVAhI/AAAAAAAALrQ/mCsh9WVF0CA8Hz1JP--qpOubNgvZjlMkACLcBGAs/s1600/call%2Bcenter%2Bpara%2Btapa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="970" height="121" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lvM0bvxver0/W1dnKHQVAhI/AAAAAAAALrQ/mCsh9WVF0CA8Hz1JP--qpOubNgvZjlMkACLcBGAs/s200/call%2Bcenter%2Bpara%2Btapa.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meaningful Work?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The hardest and most-fraught struggle of my life has been
an economic one. It is often difficult to explain what this means this to
people, for whom this was not the case. Unlike contemporary kids who go back to
their parental home when they are having trouble being self-supporting, many of
us don’t or didn’t have that option. By age twenty-two, because of deaths and
remarriage, I no longer had a family to return to if I had nowhere else to go. My family of origin was never wealthy to begin
with. My parents, an insurance salesman who worked on commission and a secretary
were not regarded as accomplished in this culture. And following our mother’s untimely
death, my seventeen-year old sister and I took off for California in her car,
to try to make a life for ourselves.<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Yes, it was easier to make a living in those years, even
in the Bay Area. Working part-time, paying rent and eating was possible then.
But there were things I had to learn. To act obsequious and smile were two
feats I found particularly difficult. I learned to swallow my pride when
gays, lesbians or Jews were insulted, and this happened more often than I’d
expected. Even though I was a chronic insomniac, I managed to get up early and
go each day to a place where I was neither welcomed nor respected. You could
call it prostitution. It was certainly soul-draining, humiliating and
degrading. I did it for money, because it was necessary. I did it
because I had no other options.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In lesbian activist groups in which I was a participant, friends
would tell me how odd it was that I did such politically incorrect work. They
said they could only perform a job if it was meaningful and fulfilling. I
listened politely not bothering to explain that I didn’t have that luxury. Some
of them didn’t procure work until their early thirties. Many never did get
paying work and lived on trust funds while pursing art or politics. They put
their energy into activities that had the potential of changing the world and
looked down on folks like myself. I envied them. They were often very nice
people who knew the right behavior for every situation. This knowledge of propriety
was a totally new concept to me. I had trouble holding on to jobs, partly
because I was too honest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
On three different jobs, all of which I was hoping to
hold for a relatively long time, I was fired. It usually happened after I came
out as lesbian. On one, after being outed in the SF Chronicle in a Sunday Gay
Pride Parade, I was fired Monday, the very next day. Were these firings
homophobic? Of course. But they were also class-related because of my poor
social skills. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When I visited Cuba, two years ago, I met lots of very
poor people. They had tons of issues due to poverty but fear of having no food
and no place to live because of lack of money was not among them. Their rent
and some basic food staples were given them by the government, but most make
less than the equivalent of twenty dollars a month. Insufficient as it was,
they had a safety net, unlike the potential free fall in a deep well that we
have here in the USA.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t need to worry and struggle anymore. In later life I learned my lesson. I went back to school, Because I
could keep only union jobs, I looked for that protection and my work life as an older worker was easier. But my entire journey is part of my identity. When a political person who
never experienced the anxiety and pressure of needing to earn their living,
speaks to me as though our allotment of “privilege” is the same, I get
extremely angry. If I bring up class issues in response, it is often
dismissed as a sour grapes thing. “She can’t help her background,” might be
said. Of course, she can’t change her
circumstances, we are all born with some assets and liabilities. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But now, more than ever, white folks are acknowledging
the way race has helped them move through the world. This is a change for the
better. It is the same with class advantage. No-one is saying they hate you but
our identities are not the same. Never make assumptions that your story is true
for anyone else. Open your eyes to the many different routes we all must take
to arrive at the same place. And like all members of a wide variety of groups, try
to see people in all their identities, all their colors. Life is not just where
you wind up. It is also an equation involving the distance traveled.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-54786878275862335602018-07-20T10:26:00.002-07:002018-07-20T10:26:47.804-07:00Reality Show (Rising Phoenix Review)<header class="entry-header" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #888888; font-family: "Fanwood Text", serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><h3 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666; font-family: Quattrocento, serif; font-size: 2.8rem; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Reality Show By Joan Annsfire</h3>
<div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
<span class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Posted on <time class="entry-date published" datetime="2018-07-18T21:00:26+00:00" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #e8554e; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s;"><a href="https://therisingphoenixreview.com/2018/07/18/reality-show-by-joan-annsfire/" target="_blank">July 18, 2018</a></time></span><span class="byline" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline;"><a href="https://therisingphoenixreview.com/2018/07/18/reality-show-by-joan-annsfire/" target="_blank"> by <span class="author vcard" style="border: none; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #e8554e;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; transition: 0.2s;">The Rising Phoenix Review</span></span></span></a></span></div>
</header><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #888888; font-family: "Fanwood Text", serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 1.5em 0px 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Reality Show</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
I was weaned on fear,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />marinated in bitterness;<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />My grandparents fed me stories<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />of fleeing the Czar,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />the Cossacks, the pogroms.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Growing up in Ohio,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />the fifties were difficult years<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />my Jewish family, outsiders, determined<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />that the events in Russia, in Germany,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />would not happen again,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />could not happen here.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
With this election the universe shifted.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Words, like bullets, ripped through<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />a veil of pretense leaving us<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />stranded on an ice floe<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />of worse case scenarios.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Distortion, dystopia;<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Daily news coverage<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />has become a reality show<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />in which I am powerless<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />to change the channel.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
A ship of state,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />tilting menacingly off balance,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />leaning precariously<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />over a roiling sea.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Unlike the frogs in the pot,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />I am aware of the heat rising.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />I move in sometimes in anger,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />other times in hypnotic denial.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Witnessing the frontlines of a culture war<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />that has enveloped us<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />without warning.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
In nightmare visions<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />I dodge cars, teargas, bullets,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />escape down totalitarian streets,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />covered in the toxic white dust of nationalism;<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />a caustic mixture<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />of hatred and despair.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Perhaps I will get used to it, become inured,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />the same way that online comments<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />about lampshades, ovens and gas chambers,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />one day lost much of their capacity<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />to shock or wound.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Now casualties mount<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />and desperation rules.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />I re-examine history, mobilize inner strength<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />and measure resistance<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />against the weight<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />of authoritarian forces.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
History’s clock is unrelenting.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />It ticks off minutes, hours;<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />we watch, mesmerized,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />as the needle of racial memory<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />moves closer to zero.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
The longest night has just begun.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Shapeless as shadows,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />my ancestors surround me;<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />gather like exiles,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />hover like phantoms,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />whisper in foreign tongues.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
Awake, alive, afraid,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />I understand every word.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">By Joan Annsfire</span></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-51400883827027083062018-07-02T19:06:00.001-07:002018-07-03T17:45:06.787-07:00Young Women Attack Dykes their Grandma's Age<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nMag4FLRkn0/WzqytCTzv4I/AAAAAAAALXA/8vZOejk6ACYwromRR4GXXIYnrsoRkvTXACLcBGAs/s1600/thescream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="327" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nMag4FLRkn0/WzqytCTzv4I/AAAAAAAALXA/8vZOejk6ACYwromRR4GXXIYnrsoRkvTXACLcBGAs/s200/thescream.jpg" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh my god, they really are old!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It was a nightmare scenario. Imagine the Lavender Menace meets Lord of the Flies. Twenty-something participants in the Dyke March swooped down on our small contingent of old lesbians like crazed predators thirsty for blood.<br />
<br />
There were eight of us marching together at that point. Many were old friends from the seventies. Each one of us has different political views that include leftist activism, mainstream liberal Democratic politics and radical feminism to name a few. Three of us were holding signs. The rest were not. I was wearing a t-shirt from the 2004 Dyke March that read, "Uprooting Racism," with a creative graphic of a brown, tree-root woman holding the earth in her branches. I am 67 years old. Another seventy-something woman wore a Dyke March T-shirt from the year 2000. A younger woman was carrying a cane and wearing a t-shirt that read, "My favorite season is the fall of the patriarchy."<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Suddenly the youngsters were surrounding us. One was yelling through a bullhorn which made answering back nearly impossible. She was calling us TERFs, an acronym that stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists. The background story would take three more blogs, but just be aware that "Kill TERFs is a favorite slogan of this population. And, if you're old, you are automatically under suspicion as a target. When she belligerently yelled, "Don't touch me!" when my shoulder accidentally brushed hers, I knew she wasn't kidding around and moved away.<br />
<br />
Two of our group carried signs they didn't like. Ironically, one sign said, "You Cannot Silence Us with Violence," and underneath that, "Stop Lesbian Erasure." I knew that was currently in the news and certainly didn't consider that sign "fighting words." That sign was torn up by the end of the march. Another sign about puberty blockers I knew was controversial in the medical community but I (wrongly) assumed that lesbians, like other members of society, have a right to differences of opinion, just as doctors and nurses do.<br />
<br />
But these baby-faced gals couldn't figure out that we were all individuals, let alone old friends, or that free speech is still the law in this country. They descended screaming "TERFs go home!" and "Down With Trans-phobia," although no-one had spoken a word against transgender folks and most of us are progressive activists in various communities. It was strange coming from these females who certainly looked like cisgender girls barely pushing twenty-one. They all wore the smooth, impenetrable faces of pampered youth, strangers to adversity who, most often, live with their parents.<br />
<br />
I tried to reason with them, explaining that falling for Trump's agenda of rabid hate is playing right into their hands. But their eyes were on fire, their bullhorn loud, their white faces contorted in a distinctly unattractive way. I was surrounded by flying hands and hula-skirt hair, you know, the kind that dances around heads in strands and is produced only by round follicles found on the heads of the master race. As they screamed their hatred at me, I politely informed them that I was Jewish, just in case they ran out of insults.<br />
<br />
But for the likes of us activists, our crime was not trans-phobia. Our offense was obvious. You could see it in the sag of our lined faces, the soft outlines of our not-so-svelte bodies. We could not deny it. Every one of us was guilty, guilty, guilty of being old. Yes, that terrifying state that, if all goes well for these young tormentors, they would reach one day.<br />
<br />
At that moment, my partner and I absconded to take a break in the shade. By the time we caught up with our contingent, mob mentality had set in. Two signs had been torn up and their bearers repeatedly knocked down. The whole group had procured a police escort to help them leave the march in safety.<br />
<br />
We certainly have fallen a long way since the early, heady days of the lesbian movement. Elders' horror stories of being beaten, spit on, fired from jobs and refused all kinds of services simply for being lesbian or gay are clearly not of interest to many of this generation. Learning from history has become a concept discarded and forgotten. I suppose it's much easier to hate the people around you, folks to whom you have access, than to direct righteous anger toward the real enemy, the corrupt, fascist administration we live under, in other words, the powers that be.<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-25742822078564805282018-06-28T19:52:00.001-07:002018-06-28T19:52:33.066-07:00Dissent--Collage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NWLIsfLcMho/WzWewkKbBxI/AAAAAAAALSE/TPav_Ci7vH0l2LIGE4eEViALwKmI4xvNgCLcBGAs/s1600/dissentcollage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NWLIsfLcMho/WzWewkKbBxI/AAAAAAAALSE/TPav_Ci7vH0l2LIGE4eEViALwKmI4xvNgCLcBGAs/s640/dissentcollage.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-46445258328275385312018-06-05T19:18:00.002-07:002018-06-05T19:18:29.522-07:00Starbucks Opens its Bathrooms <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3siaRx0sTDA/Wxc_751QyWI/AAAAAAAAKyA/EBYadgsTy3kNLmUiYurOFH2HE8VKML0LwCLcBGAs/s1600/Starbucks%2Bbathroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="112" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3siaRx0sTDA/Wxc_751QyWI/AAAAAAAAKyA/EBYadgsTy3kNLmUiYurOFH2HE8VKML0LwCLcBGAs/s200/Starbucks%2Bbathroom.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The policy has officially changed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So there might be a silver lining to that racist scene involving two Black men in a Philadelphia franchise who tried to use the bathroom while waiting for a business colleague and wound up in police custody. Starbucks has now announced that, unlike other capitalist enterprises, it will officially make their bathrooms available to anyone who enters their premises, whether or not they purchase anything at all. <br />
<br />
It's about time as far as I'm concerned. Why should libraries and hospitals be the only institutions that cater to the public biological needs? Those of us in the tiny bladder brigade salute them.<br />
<br />
Restroom philosophy varies depending on the country and culture. Public markets and spaces in Mexico usually have bathrooms available for a small fee. They are run as a business enterprise, kept clean and waiting for customers. It can be a drag to always have change available but it's well worth it for the easy access.<br />
<br />
However, sometimes paying to pee is a slap in the whatever. In Peru, at Machu Picchu you have to pay an arm and a leg for admission and then pay extra to use the pisser. This is an unfair tax on women and old people. If you spend, say six hours, there (and it's a big place where it's easy to spend the day) you might, if you're like me, have to go three times. In that case you should be able to purchase an express pass or something. But if you're like my partner Deborah, who is a woman with a super-sized bladder, you may only have to go once. It's simply unfair.<br />
<br />
Then, there's Paris. Well, it's different everywhere but in Paris most cafe/restaurant owners were not thrilled if I snuck in to find a toilette. I had to be single focused and pretend I didn't understand them when they used that francophone logic in a futile attempt to deter me. It's not that I'm cheap, well maybe a little, but ordering another drink of something because you have to pee too often is counterproductive, to say the least.<br />
<br />
Ah, but Madrid, my beloved city. Any haven for drinkers of wine and beer will inevitably be heaven for perpetual seekers of the aseos, their name for the old servicios where you aseo belongs. Spanish bathrooms are plentiful and easy to find. They have a lot of small rooms with full walls for privacy. In fact, most espanoles find the type of public restrooms in the US, that consist of a row of stalls, disgusting and invasive, a kind of TMI of bodily functions. In Spain, even in hotel lobbies, people will kindly point you to your destination, even if you are not a guest.<br />
<br />
So Starbucks is making its mark on US restroom history finally providing all Americans that proverbial pot to piss in. We have lost so much of late, it's the least they can do.<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-50463269855151978512017-12-22T13:12:00.001-08:002017-12-22T15:02:56.275-08:00Remembering Uncle Norman<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--hpSSB4PfkI/Wj1yHWlCWjI/AAAAAAAAC9U/AlMdTJ-I_VwBvct7OvxCwR6CtCeShT2VQCLcBGAs/s1600/Normanandjoan.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="542" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--hpSSB4PfkI/Wj1yHWlCWjI/AAAAAAAAC9U/AlMdTJ-I_VwBvct7OvxCwR6CtCeShT2VQCLcBGAs/s320/Normanandjoan.png" width="273" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uncle Norman and 16 year-old me, arguing on Xmas.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Many people have an Uncle Norman. He's the guy at the family gathering who shouts and sputters about right-wing politics. My Uncle Norman stuttered. He was alt-right half a century before the term was invented. He made family gatherings interesting, if verbal warfare is something you enjoy. He was my mother's brother. My father called him "Stormin' Norman."<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He lived in Akron Ohio which was only about 30 miles away. Even so, we only got together once a year on December 25th. My family was small and everyone was there. My father's mother Josie and Norman's parents, Ruth and Al. We celebrated in a secular, Jewish fashion which involves and lot of drinking, eating, yelling and animated talking.<br />
<br />
Norman and I argued about politics: the Vietnam War, protests, feminism, the police and their powers, self-expression, women's fashion, you name it, we fought about it. At that time the big issue was the war in Vietnam which he considered a fight for freedom. He loved the police and would dwell on how powerless I would be as a young woman to defend myself against rape without them. In the Roy Cohn tradition, he loved capitalism and hated commies. I honed my debate skills in these sessions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I wasn't totally out to myself as lesbian in those years, but I knew I was desperately different than my friends. When Norman would tell me that I would change after I got married, I responded that marriage wasn't in the cards for me. He said that I'd change my mind. When I replied that he never married and that I was like him, he turned red, stuttered and changed the subject. Same gender marriage was so far off the map in the sixties, no-one even speculated about that.</div>
<div>
<br />
I have reason to believe that Norman never had an intimate sexual relationship. Of course, I don't know this for sure but I know that he never talked of female friends or acquaintances. He was socially unskilled. He worked as an engineer. I think he was part of a bowling league. When my father and mother first met, my father paid a prostitute to try to seduce him. She was unsuccessful. I'm almost positive he was gay and I'm also sure that it was something he never acted upon. Although he didn't believe in religion, he scorned gay people. It was not a group in which he desired to participate.<br />
<br />
He was fully Jewish in a racial sense, and deeply ashamed of it as well. He was the only Jew I've ever heard state, seriously, that Hitler had a point. It astonished me the way he took self-hatred to new levels.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Stormin' Norman died September 22, 2017. I only know that because I got a legal, registered letter in the mail that I had to sign for. It said that if Norman had died without a will (intestate) my sister and I would be the ones to inherit his estate, but since that's not the case they legally had to let me know that we are not in his will in case we want to pursue legal action. The will becomes a public document in a few weeks. The lawyer says it will be online. It will be interesting to see if he died with money and what people or groups he left it to. It wouldn't surprise me if it has gone to organizations like the NRA or groups fighting to turn back same-sex marriage.<br />
<br />
Oddly enough, now that he is no longer in this world, I miss him. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-12074373542488328232017-11-26T18:22:00.000-08:002017-11-26T18:22:01.929-08:00When Cultures Collide<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LG6-ZIRtAYE/Wht0XMby4sI/AAAAAAAACno/Xgj3H4aBwwUD_4APNtYpz5OeJj2lQXQJQCLcBGAs/s1600/quote-like-all-people-we-perceive-the-version-of-reality-that-our-culture-communicates-like-gloria-e-anzaldua-47-21-55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="850" height="187" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LG6-ZIRtAYE/Wht0XMby4sI/AAAAAAAACno/Xgj3H4aBwwUD_4APNtYpz5OeJj2lQXQJQCLcBGAs/s400/quote-like-all-people-we-perceive-the-version-of-reality-that-our-culture-communicates-like-gloria-e-anzaldua-47-21-55.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I ran into an ex best-friend today at N. Waterfront Park in
Berkeley. It was an unavoidable meeting, both of us walking different
directions on the same, rather obscure, path. I know it was unavoidable
because, in the past ten years that we haven’t spoken, if I saw her from a
distance, I would find another route to
avoid her. This time she came upon me fast. Worse yet, my partner, who is still
Facebook friends with her, said hello. So we all said hello and briefly compared notes on retirement and moved on. No
big deal. But it was painful nonetheless because of the cloud under which we
parted ways, the one that ended our friendship of thirty-three years.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">We first met in a CR group at the Women’s Center on Brady
Street in around 1976. I was an emotional wreck just surviving after the
untimely death of my mother in 1973 and the suicide of my grandmother that
followed the same year. I was alone caring for my sister in a strange city.
Cathy wanted to be friends and I needed friends desperately. Although her class
background was similar to mine (lower middle class) she was very different. Her ethnic background was WASP and very self-contained. Especially so because her mother had
acute mental illness. She didn’t want to talk much about deep stuff and neither
did I so we were a perfect match. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
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<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">We talked feminist politics which evolved into leftist
politics. I was careful with her as though I was walking on eggs. Instinctively
knew that my unleashed, assertive, blatantly Jewish-style of interacting would
scare her. So I kept it at bay. This took the form of censoring and toning down
my feelings and impressions. I don’t have to be tacky and uncouth just because
my family was, I told myself. Cathy was smart and loving when she decided to be
but her rules were strict and inflexible. She would counsel me on dating
situations telling me when to call a potential date, how many times to try,
when to send a card and what consists of an appropriate gift. These rules of
etiquette were helpful for me because they were so completely absent in my
coming of age experience.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Time may not heal all wounds but it does diminish them.
That’s what happened to me as the years passed. Partly it was because I was
meeting other lesbians of my own ethnicity who I related really well with. They
were proud of their backgrounds and didn’t hold themselves back. As I grew
freer, more secure in myself, I began naturally reverting to the style of
interaction in which I was raised. It’s more of an organically grown
conversation where one thing reminds you of another so you move on to the
similar thing and the other person responds with more information about their
experience and it builds organically from there. It involves both speaking and
listening. Just trying it out made me feel better immediately. For Cathy that
was not the case. She felt unheard, not listened to. Cathy believed that every
addition I made to the subject was a subtraction from her perspective. She
insisted that heavy exploration of a personal subject must consist of one
person holding forth while the other is absolutely silent. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Of course I hoped that, after all those years, we could
work it out, that she’d realize it was just a difference in cultural styles not
in emotional worthiness.</span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Later, I would post articles on my Facebook page about
Jewish conversational styles and how the dynamics of social interaction are culturally
determined. But later was too late for Cathy and I. We made many attempts at
compromise and a number of aborted attempts at connecting. It would work for a
while and then I would slip back to my natural state. She blamed it all on me
and I took on that mantle too. After all, wasn’t I the one who changed? The
blunt truth was that she liked the person I’d pretended to be quite a bit more
than the one I actually was. And I could not settle for anything less than my
genuine self. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The last time we spoke was at her place, the very same
house I had convinced her to buy with a lawsuit settlement so many years
earlier. Before leaving I said, “Well, this is it. I guess that unless one of
us is dying of cancer or something, we won’t see each other again.” She said
nothing. We haven’t seen or spoken a word until today when I was filled with
that same old feeling of loss and sadness; a coming to terms with the fact that not all conflicts are reconcilable.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-75801697085266954602017-11-08T07:49:00.004-08:002017-11-08T07:49:56.627-08:00Day of the Dead Collage--2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7I93swHKQ_0/WgMnbLyjh3I/AAAAAAAACnI/6eeebxQwSg441U1Ig3M1jchsWqWLwUevQCLcBGAs/s1600/trump%2Bdayofthe%2Bdead.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7I93swHKQ_0/WgMnbLyjh3I/AAAAAAAACnI/6eeebxQwSg441U1Ig3M1jchsWqWLwUevQCLcBGAs/s640/trump%2Bdayofthe%2Bdead.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-13444445539351249732017-09-01T14:25:00.000-07:002017-09-01T14:32:28.654-07:00Fascism: A Cancer That Can Metastasize<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5E8-sgbdt5c/WanPmxCZ7nI/AAAAAAAACcU/wXX7iVx1wHI2JCwjyVzISNOaNQIvC66xACLcBGAs/s1600/Donald-Trump-fascist.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="1000" height="161" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5E8-sgbdt5c/WanPmxCZ7nI/AAAAAAAACcU/wXX7iVx1wHI2JCwjyVzISNOaNQIvC66xACLcBGAs/s320/Donald-Trump-fascist.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The far right wing, emboldened by our incompetent, narcissistic, morally impaired president, is now crawling out of the cyber-shadows
and appearing on our streets. It’s an appalling, but not totally unexpected
sight. Their handiwork of hate crimes has been increasingly visible everywhere for some time now. And yes, like a cancer, they have always been among us, in remission, so
to speak. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the radio today, Marxist economist Richard Wolff explained how
after every economic downturn, fascism with its bigotry, scapegoating and
authoritarianism rears its ugly head. The examples he cited were after the
stock market crash and depression Spain fell to Franco, Italy to Mussolini and
Germany to Hitler. The United States was in peril as well. Ku Klux Klan
activity, race riots and lynchings proliferated in the late 1920s when
Klan membership exceeded four million. American Neo-nazi groups extolled by
prominent people such as Norman Rockwell, Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh openly marched in the streets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 1933 when Roosevelt was elected, poverty was rampant and the rich were making money
hand over fist. But in the thirties labor unions and communist and socialist
organizations were a force to be reckoned with. His three terms, 1933-1945
encompassed the turbulent war years. He instituted a plethora of anti-poverty
programs such as the New Deal, Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. He
did this not because of altruism and concern, but under intense pressure from labor unions and leftist parties who were not only threatening revolution, but had the numbers, motivation and organizational
capabilities to lead one. He taxed the rich to pay for his programs
and, in the United States, the working and middle classes prospered in spite of
the lingering effects of economic collapse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sound familiar? Except that now, no-one in the administration is looking
out for the 99 percent. So as housing prices skyrocket and the stock market
rises astronomically, the American worker’s salary flat lines. Everyone goes
looking for someone to blame. Identity politics run wild without a class
analysis in sight. And, the cancer of fascism embodied in the Neo-Nazis the Ku
Klux Klan and other “Traditional Family” groups is unchecked and growing
exponentially. Can it metastasize here? If we don’t excise it immediately, it can. That why when folks say we should ignore the combative right
wing, they are mistaken. Ignoring cancer doesn’t make it go away. I was glad
that so many people in Berkeley agreed with me on this and showed up to protest.
Don’t let fear immobilize you. This is not Germany in 1933. We can win this
fight. We have to. </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-58934254083950271492017-07-14T12:42:00.000-07:002017-07-14T12:50:30.060-07:00The Ethnicity that Dare Not Speak Its Name<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sCI7ChYzPx0/WWkXXiOL3sI/AAAAAAAACN0/gzzZg-HaBUApBuGI4RfWkJM55WV0oeDZACLcBGAs/s1600/DEq4WCEU0AAoC-U.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="523" height="151" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sCI7ChYzPx0/WWkXXiOL3sI/AAAAAAAACN0/gzzZg-HaBUApBuGI4RfWkJM55WV0oeDZACLcBGAs/s320/DEq4WCEU0AAoC-U.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The speed with which anti-Semitic
attacks memes, tropes and philosophies have become common place occurrences is
truly astonishing. As a proud, secular, leftist, lesbian Jew, I have been
around long enough to know and expect anti-Semitism from the right. Growing up
in Ohio of the nineteen fifties, outside of my community, I heard the word
“Jew” most often used as a verb. But even though, I was perpetually warned by
my family that, one day, this prejudice would resurface with a vengeance. I
never truly believed it, until now. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0in;">
The Chicago Dyke March
organizers, after turning away three marchers holding rainbow flags with
six-pointed stars on them, have repeatedly stated that now that “Anti-Zionist”
Jews are welcome at their events while “Zionist” Jews are not. July 13, 2017 the Chicago Dyke March Committee re-tweeted David Duke, former grand earthworm of the KKK. They stated, <a href="http://forward.com/fast-forward/377025/chicago-dyke-march-tweets-zio-tears-an-anti-semitic-dog-whistle/" target="_blank">"Zio tears replenish my electrolytes."</a> I can't believe that the dyke community, my community could stoop to this level of name calling using Neo-Nazi slurs! On July 9th in
Berkeley at a meeting:“United Against Hate – A forum on
how to combat the increase in racist violence,” I and about 250 others listened
as speakers addressed various issues as well as the need to fight the rise in
white supremacist violence. Most speakers were inclusive, trying to
build a diverse, left-wing coalition. One speaker was confusing however, using
the words, Zionist and White Supremacist together and somewhat interchangeably,
without really defining either.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In other instances regarding racial, ethnic,
religious and national groups, individuals are separated from their current, former
or ancestral governments in a way which American Jews are not. It would be
considered prejudiced and misinformed to blame Chinese-Americans for imperialism
in Tibet or Turkish-Americans for Erdogan’s encroaching authoritarianism. What
makes it okay to conflate Jewish Americans with Israel? Why should Jews have to
face extra political scrutiny that NO OTHER group faces?</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0in;">
Jews are in a uniquely vulnerable
position, targeted by foes on both the right and left. Like individuals of any
group, there is no universal agreement on politics or strategy. What does it
mean, concretely, to divide Jews into good ones and bad ones in a time of
increasing anti-Semitism? Say, for example, if a Jewish home is targeted with
some form of anti-Semitic harassment or violence, must we must first ask
whether anyone in the home is “Zionist” before defending them? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0in;">
Stereotypically Jews are seen as
enemies from both sides. Depicted as the ultimate capitalists, bankers,
Hollywood moguls, intellectual elites and privileged rich. And conversely Jews are seen as the
embodiment of Bolsheviks, race-mixers, trade unionists and the muck-rakers? In
a scary time, full of hatred, Jews walk a line between mine fields. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0in;">
The best way to undermine “Zionist”
cries for a Jewish state, is to fight like hell to make the USA a safe haven
for Jews as well as other minorities. Just as we are trying to defeat all the
other isms that are coming to prominence in the time of upheaval. As we battle
racism in all its insidious forms, can’t we as leftists just say we are opposed
to antisemitism too without qualifying it? If some Jews get thrown under the
bus, that bus is going to mow down a lot of other folks too. History has taught
us that what Ben Franklin said is true: “We must, indeed, all hang together or,
most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-62306599424761118152017-06-23T12:21:00.000-07:002017-06-23T12:21:22.669-07:00Collage of Spain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1hp23Urkkc/WU1p49-WisI/AAAAAAAACMU/eLeYwOzfLuUL2N9FSRXjrmlT-GnE6Z28wCLcBGAs/s1600/collageofspain.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1hp23Urkkc/WU1p49-WisI/AAAAAAAACMU/eLeYwOzfLuUL2N9FSRXjrmlT-GnE6Z28wCLcBGAs/s640/collageofspain.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-47462502134325688862017-04-22T12:49:00.000-07:002017-04-22T12:49:19.722-07:00Beyond the Battles of Berkeley<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YJwGrjzVdmE/WPpXt7KcamI/AAAAAAAABcc/6W3qYU8D3LofBAE6E2SxmaRFTcNqA80xACLcB/s1600/berkeley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YJwGrjzVdmE/WPpXt7KcamI/AAAAAAAABcc/6W3qYU8D3LofBAE6E2SxmaRFTcNqA80xACLcB/s200/berkeley.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the midst of melee, meaning gets lost...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Brawling with the so-called "alt-right" has become fashionable in Berkeley. My city has become a magnet destination for white nationalist Trumpers itching to fight and anti-fascist demonstrators rising to the bait to take them on. We all wind up with a testosterone-infused mess that has nothing to do with actual issues. The powers that be even cancelled the Saturday farmers market to indulge this rumble. With Ann Coulter supposed to arrive for her cancelled speech this week, this pattern shows no sign of letting up any time soon.<br />
<br />
Yes, the "alt-right," white nationalists are disgusting. As a woman, a queer and a Jew I haven't the slightest doubt as to which side I'm on. I have every intention of showing up for meaningful protest, just not a remake of the Sharks meet the Jets, (remember West Side Story?).<br />
<br />
As a young dyke I was involved in groups such as Lesbian Schoolworkers, (who fought against the Brigg's initiative) and Lesbians Against Police Violence among others. We studied racism, sexism, homophobia and all the other isms. We also talked about socio-economic class and read Lenin and Marx, learned about dialectical materialism, which I never got quite right. Our anti-capitalist veiwpoint was based in a class analysis alongside identity discrimination. Perhaps if the leftist groups today had taken socio-economic class seriously in the first place, we wouldn't be stuck with this regime we have now.<br />
<br />
The perspective of class has been lost completely, except perhaps in the dogmatic, highly regulated, left. In single issue groups, oppression is attributed to one factor whether it is race, gender presentation, ethnicity or immigration status. Perhaps, if we had organizations united around the genuine and multiple sins of capitalism. We could reach a place of unity. Instead, groups focusing on separate issues are formed and led by the most bourgeois, entitled members of each identity.<br />
<br />
The separation of urban and rural people is one of the main reasons for our situation today. Rural folks would have to accept the fact that we live in a heterogeneous, pluralistic society. The straight, white, Christian male is no longer the prototype American and hasn't been for quite a while. The nineteen fifties hold no magic for anyone outside of this limited narrative. And, as for our side, the side of history, punching a Nazi may be good for morale in the moment but it does not a movement make. Fighting is just another toxic ideology. It will take a purposeful, reasoned movement with a multi-issue program to initiate real change.<br />
<br />
Lets create a more comprehensive analysis of what has gone wrong in our country, so we can figure out how to change it. We can start by integrating class analysis with identity politics and promote an understanding of a wide array peoples' situations in the under class that includes, but it not limited to, our understanding of all the isms that are dividing people today and placing Berkeley in the cross-hairs of civil war.<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4154226002374810244.post-52677212897975335702017-03-26T14:27:00.001-07:002017-03-26T14:27:12.241-07:00Jewish Anti-Semitism?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w1jfucFarvM/WNguAT2myKI/AAAAAAAABb0/LcIco4wSqk4lrzVP-Xq_YmTNgbtFWY7gQCEw/s1600/israeli-american-teen-arrested.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w1jfucFarvM/WNguAT2myKI/AAAAAAAABb0/LcIco4wSqk4lrzVP-Xq_YmTNgbtFWY7gQCEw/s200/israeli-american-teen-arrested.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
So the kid who made the bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers is himself Jewish. That is a surprise but not a completely unprecedented one. American history is full of anecdotes about Jews who started Neo-Nazi groups. One of the most famous is the saga of Dan Burros who was a prominent member of the American Nazi Party. He committed suicide in 1965 after someone discovered and leaked the truth about his heritage.<br />
<br />
Here is an article from Southern Poverty Law Center, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2002/exploring-what-behind-rare-phenomenon-jewish-anti-semites" target="_blank">"Exploring What is Behind the Rare Phenomenon of Jewish Anti-Semites."</a> that tackles this occurrence. Ralphael Ezekial author of "The racist mind: Portraits of American Neo-Nazis and Klansmen puts it this way: "If you live next door to a cement factory, then inevitably cement dust gets into your body," says Ezekiel, who in recent years has worked as a senior research scientist and visiting scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health. "And the same goes for anti-Semitism and other prejudices. Everyone who grows up in a culture gets impacted by those beliefs that are deeply held, including the members of endangered groups."<br />
<br />
This seems like a no-brainer. We all were raised on this planet. The myriad of prejudices and assumptions we learn growing up become part of our zeitgeist, our milieu, our environment. And just because you happen to possess one of the <span style="color: #333333;">derogatorily-framed identities, does not imply that you are free of prejudicial notions concerning your own people. It does mean that you must do the work to unlearn </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">what you have been taught, in much the same way you do for other groups. </span><br />
<br />
A story that became family lore in my Ohio, Jewish household during the fifties went as follows. My father was crossing a street in Cleveland when the driver of the waiting car yelled, "Move it, you dirty Jew," or something to that effect. My father who was a track star and an ice hockey player with anger management issues proceeded to pull the man out of his car and pound the shit out of him. The guy, screaming and putting his hand over his face yelled, "Stop, stop, I'm Jewish too!" Which, actually turned out to be true.<br />
<br />
What advice did I take away from this poignant, unusual tale? I guess mostly that life is complicated and things are not always what they seem!<div class="blogger-post-footer">lavenderjoan</div>Joan Annsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889614384645390591noreply@blogger.com