La felicidad ja ja ja ja: On Walking While White

You cannot tell from this blog, but I am culturally undernourished and I lack exercise. This is a Wandering Post because this weekend, I have been strolling. As it is the weekend, I am also singing. I sing that T. and I are about to go eat rico menudo in the real barrio, and that I have found a new ceramics studio. In honor of that most notable discovery, I offer a really cheesy song by Tommy Rey:

Antes nunca estuve, así enamorado,
ni sentí jamás esa sensación
la gente en las calles parece más buena,
todo es diferente gracias al amor.

La felicidad ja, ja, ja, ja,
me la dio tu amor jo, jo, jo, jo,
hoy hace cantar ah, ah, ah, ah,
a mi corazón oh, oh, oh, oh,

La felicidad ja, ja, ja, ja,
me la dio tu amor oh, oh, oh, oh
hoy se cantar ah, ah, ah, ah,
gracias al amor,
y todo gracias al amor.

This is Tommy Rey himself, a Saturday night entertainer. The video is funny:

Watching Tommy Rey is far more lively than hiring, an activity wherein we are trying to find a candidate whose PhD is from an institution like ours, so that they will not be too shocked upon arrival. My insight is that it is not your PhD granting institution that indicates which tenure track job you will be happiest in, or at least understand. It is your undergraduate institution.

Meanwhile my friend the former German professor, who long ago took a job in business, reminds me he is opposed to tenure. The dead wood take up the tenured jobs, so the good new PhDs can only get adjunct positions. If there were no tenure, only good people would have jobs and it would also be easier to move around.

From this conversation I realized yet another reason why this plan would not work in practice: people would not really move that much. Their universities would get used to them, and they would get used to their universities, so they would stay, as the instructors do, albeit without tenure. Alternatively, everyone would always be on the job market and the tenure track.

Also while wandering through museums and galleries last night in clearheaded weekend fashion I realized what my mental fog is, that lack of focus and shutdown that I had decided to associate with PTSD. It is more specifically the confusion that means you have been assaulted somehow. I always had it around the edges of my mind, and if it came closer in I would say to it, get back! Later it took over much more, sometimes completely. I think it is a symptom of being in an abusive relationship. I think that what many people learn on the tenure track is how to enter into an abusive relationship with themselves.

My students, who also appeared at the museum, said that certain books I am teaching, classics on the supposedly universal theme of identity, are in fact about the midlife crises of straight, white middle class men in metropolitan countries. It is very funny and it explains why I did not really understand these books when I read them at their age, but understand them now.

Then I strolled home. One of the ways to walk to my house from downtown is through a poor neighborhood where most white people only go to buy drugs. It has wonderful architecture, though, and I would move there if anyone would sell a house to a gentrifier, which they will fiercely not. I like to go home that way because it reminds me of New Orleans, but police cruisers sometimes follow me - not because they think I am buying drugs, but because they imagine I am hooking. More than once I have had to show my university ID and they have called in to make sure I have not stolen or faked it. They have told me that white women do not walk for exercise while wearing regular clothes: I should signal that I am a mere exerciser by wearing exercise clothes, rather than the ladylike skirt and blouse I teach in. This means I have been an object of police inquiry for walking while white.

So do you think harassment of women by men is increasing? It has seemed so to me for about ten years, and it may only be a function of where I am. Or am I merely becoming more conscious of it? But if it is actually on the rise, is it a phenomenon on its own, or is it part of a general increase in harassment?

Far more interesting than all of that is Cuban salsa:

And Oscar de León on Suavecito, con mucho swing:

Eso sí que tiene asé, so watch that video if you watch any of these.

Axé.

Meme: Passion Quilt

¡Es posible!

My youngest brother - on the left, in the striped shirt and the glasses - and some friends from here went to San Francisco! Here they are in the airport.

I always try to teach my students that it is possible to do things. I was tagged for this teaching meme by Lumpenprofessoriat and these are the rules:

+Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate for students to learn about.
+Give your picture a short title.
+Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt.”
+Link back to this blog entry.

I am honored to have been tagged, and I am supposed to tag five more people, but with me all memes are self-tagging - although I’d be curious to hear from Amorphous Funk. I think I’ll tag Momo, too, and AROOO even though she does not yet teach.

Axé.

Louisiana HB 199

I had been meaning to post about HB 199. Then this e-mail was forwarded to me, so am posting a version of it. A colleague comments that student opposition to this bill is very strong, and that this point may help convince legislators to oppose the measure.

House Bill 199 of the current legislative session would allow persons holding a permit to carry a concealed handgun to carry that handgun on college campuses. It revokes the authority of college presidents to impose other rules regarding this matter. In spite of opposing testimony by the college presidents, the Commissioner of Higher Education, and the university police departments, the bill was passed by the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice by a 11-3 vote. It has been reported to the full House and there may be a vote as early as Monday, May 12.

This bill imagines the Gary Cooper figure rising and protecting us from the deranged student attacking our class room. The odds of a tragic incident involving permitted guns far outweighs those of one involving a crazed attacker. Please oppose this bill and contact members of the House and express your opinion. A phone call is best. If you write or send an e-mail be sure to use your own stationery or personal e-mail address. Please do this before Monday.

Axé.

On Collegiality and Service

THEN:

Person: You are the tenured person and the one with the grownup house, so you should host the department party.

PZ: How novel and interesting to be in this position. Out of exoticism I will definitely host this party. Besides, it is now my duty to do so.

NOW:

Person: You are the tenured person and the one with the grownup house, so you should host the department party.

PZ: That is work. Women’s work. I think a man should do it.

Axé.

Anger I Sing

I am busy today so I am posting one of my old drafts. It does not correspond to today’s events factually, but it does so metaphorically very well. Even the comments I am now writing fictionalize the situation, although they do convey its gestalt.

My feelings today are not primarily anger but frustration, nervousness, and exhaustion. This is because I have been trying to get answers to two routine questions - and they are very routine - from one of my chairs for two months. I cannot get a response and I do not know how to proceed on a certain project without the information I need from this chair. Even a response such as “I do not know, but I will find out, or decide, by X date” would suffice.

As it is, I do not know what to tell my granting agency. The yearly report is due soon and it will not be good for future funding if I cannot at least put a projected completion date on certain aspects of the project. This chair, however, says that my request for answers I can give the granting agency is symptomatic of my inappropriate desire for “special status.” (WTF?!)

So, in this very awkward situation, I have called HRM to ask them to set up a meeting so that I can ask my questions. It is ridiculous and the whole thing is so irrational - and yet I am the one who is being called irrational (perhaps because I have this grant, I do not know).

Because having done this I now tremble in fear that both my chairs and our dean will take retribution because I have gone to HRM, and that I will only get myself labeled “problematic,” I have also made an appointment with my old psychologist, the one who helped me deconstruct Reeducation and then to manage my terror when I was being cyber-stalked by my X and he was being enabled in that by our dean. I am again terrified, so perhaps he can help me with that - although the only thing that would really help is if more people could behave in an adult manner at work.

I cannot really sit still, but then I also cannot really do anything. I cannot really hold a thought because my brain is pounding in terror, and if I sound lucid now it is only because I am talking about practicalities. I can do routine things in this state, but all of my emotional and intellectual energy, the energy which would normally be directed to third and fourth order thinking, is drained to thinking about how to conceptualize, package, and manage this situation - even though I am very tired of it, am tired of even thinking about it, and have far more interesting and more positive things to do. In any case, following is the original post, which coincidentally or perhaps not, strikes an interesting harmony with the words I have just written.

I spend most of every weekend I have lived in Louisiana recovering from abuse suffered during the week. When I lived in New Orleans, the city itself was so healing that recovery took no analysis or thought. I could just walk through the neighborhoods and let the axé wash over me, for New Orleans is strongly protected by ancient gods. Here in the country it is harder to find relief and abuse pursues one in recreation as well, as Death did Eurydice.

A very old friend has published a book on Homeric anger, a topic I first heard him discuss more than twenty years ago. Were he here now I would ask, do you have a personal interest in this topic which you have been considering as long as I have known you? I would ask because I have nearly fifty years’ worth of quietly contained rage seeping out of my pores. This friend has rarely seen it because it was so well contained in those days. Now it is bubbling out and wants the sun to burn it off. Yet it occurs to me that one of my prisoner friends, a psychic steeped in New Orleans mythologies, told me that in the spiritual planes I was Achilles. I need to find out more about this. The Iliad is about the anger of Achilles; anger I sing.

It is as though I were expelling anger through my skin, as though I had almost boiled myself clear, but the devilish passion still sat on my shoulders and stuck in his claws. I identify with the boys next door, smashing tennis balls again and again, as hard as they can against the wall. I should join them, or imitate them. It is as though I had awoken a sleeping parasite and it turned into a demon, twisting. I want to grab it by the collarbone and pull it out of me. My old friend is very articulate and insightful and I would be curious to hear whatever he might want to say about how he got so interested in anger.

*

The way I lost touch with this friend is recounted here. The friend I am angry with is this person. Despite being an excellent neighbor and fishing companion, and although he has excellent insights and much solidarity on questions such as how to manage family situations in general and help aging parents in particular, he drives me insane because (a) he thinks that the sort of negatively oriented commentary one hears on belligerent Christian talk radio shows and Faux news commentary is polite dinner conversation and (b) he thinks that although I refuse to have sex with him we should “trade massages” and, although I always say no, he keeps asking.

What is odd is this: given the degree to which this person disapproves of my being - and given the fact that he has said straight out and to my face, listen, I am not interested in you for “dating” but I would be for casual sex, are you up for it? - and I informed him that he was lucky I was merely speaking to him through my teeth and not hitting him in the mouth - why is he so solicitous?

He is constantly passing by to fix things on the house, bring me food, and whatnot, and he says it is just because he is a Cajun from the countryside, they do that for everyone, but the amount and degree of carpentry, for instance, that he is willing to do is very great (”don’t spend your money, I can knock that out any rainy Saturday”). I am constantly in a quandary as to whether I should be less suspicious of him than I am, or moreso. And because of the Republicanism and the requests for sex/massage, each of which may or may not come out in any interaction, I never know, if we get together to do anything, whether we will have fun or have tension.

I am always on watch trying to make sure there is more fun than tension, but that sometimes means just internalizing the tension, not addressing my discomfort. Recently I was so uncomfortable with his political discourse that I argued back at him, in a restaurant, at a dinner he was paying for and I could not have afforded. I felt terribly rude doing this. I do not know where I learned that you had to at least in appearance agree with the statements of the person who was paying for dinner - my mother never gave me instructions like that for dates - but wait, she did say it, not about dates but about my father. It truly is amazing how many of the things I learned as a child, about how to manage each parent, I universalized at the time and still do.

*

I am from coastal California, so my general attitude toward life is blissed out, and the mindset of war is not my general mode. Nonetheless I see now why some people I have known were ‘addicted’ to anger: the adrenalin rush feels energizing and empowering, and the endorphins are deeply soothing. Yet I do not like the unevenness of all of these energies at all, at all. And I know many people, especially women in this culture, who complain of not being heard when they are polite, and only being able to get anything done when they become angry, and this is not good news but at least I know I am not alone.

Axé.

Amores criollos

CINCO DE MAYO

Today all members of Greater Mexico celebrate the Battle of Puebla. I am celebrating with a son huasteco. You should really follow that link - it goes to a really classic performance which cannot be embedded elsewhere. Here is a good live performance of the petenera, with the audience dancing.

And there is much more huasteca music available. Here is a great huapango with a glimpse of formal dancers in native costume.

And here, finally, is a controversia huapanguera, recorded at the Cathedral of the Huapango in Amatlán. (The best videos in this post are the ones which would not embed.)

People do not realize it but the battle of Puebla was only the first major battle Mexico won against the French invader. It took another five years to defeat them utterly. When he saw the bullet ridden cadaver of the executed French emperor my national hero Benito Juárez, a Zapotec, declared drily, “Ya no es tan bonito.” (As we know, I really love Mexico.)

ON SEGREGATION

Being Black and poor is like being incarcerated in the ways one might imagine - not feeling safe in white neighborhoods and taking circuitous routes so as to avoid these, never having been able to afford car fare to go downtown - but also in some which do not meet the eye.

I learned this in theory in the first grade. I observed it in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Chicago. The details of it came home to me in Brazil - and later on, in places like Washington and Cuba. Here I still continue to realize the depth of the phenomenon. I understood that one day last year, hanging out with a recently released prisoner who turned out to be uncomfortable in neighborhoods I would have thought would be familiar. My other friends might say this is the typical prisoner’s problem, they are unused to being free and so they self-limit, but it appears to have to do with accent.

Each neighborhood has an accent and a stance, and one is recognized. In the old days in particular to be out of one’s neighborhood was to be converted into a target. And so between the white neighborhoods, the neighborhoods one could not reach since car fare was prohibitively expensive, and the neighborhoods in which one was not welcome, most neighborhoods were out of bounds, and that was how people lived, and it was very limited and limiting.

And so in New Orleans I go everywhere and I can find anything and I am happy and free, but that is because I am I, meaning that I have coins in my pocket for one thing, and for another, that most people are happy to see me. I get to be my expansive self while many are confined to far more limiting identities. And yet so much culture is created from and within these.

Axé.

Why Job Candidates Should Wear Jackets

This is a post I know the Paper Chaser will appreciate. Job candidates, wear your jackets, and ties if applicable, no matter what anyone says!

Last year one of ours did not and it was because the instructors and graduate students had told him at the arrival from airport party that it was not necessary. They said this in an effort to be welcoming and because it really is hot here, even inside our building.

I noticed he gave his demonstration class and his talk in shirtsleeves and thought briefly, “What a confident candidate.” Then I forgot about it. Later, however, it turned out that some of the faculty thought it meant he was not serious about this job and was just using this interview as a rehearsal - and not even a dress rehearsal - for others.

Candidates! Citizens! Take up arms! Wear your jackets and ties!

Axé.

The Color Quiz

I

This, believe it or not, is the best and most accurate of all online psychological tests. And our featured post for today is Jeremiah Wright for President, by Heart.

Wright is in terrible trouble, as we know, because he is not in denial about what this country is doing. He has been asked to apologize for seeing reality clearly and naming it, for having empathy with those who suffer, and for calling upon people to take action.

These, as we know, are wicked statements. Wright must be silenced, it is said. His perceptions are delusional, it is said, and his recommendations are highly inappropriate. 

II

On a related note, I wish to announce that I have decided most people are depressed. I am not, but most people are depressed.

I have developed this hypothesis because it is the only reasonable explanation I can find for the fact that I have always had so much trouble getting support for making changes in my life. 

III

The typical conversation is:

Z: I do not like this town / university / department / job, I am considering moving.

Person: Oh, what a terrible thing depression is. I know, I suffer from it all the time.

Z: I would say that what I have is dissatisfaction. I do not like this, that, and the other thing here, and I like this, that, and the other thing there, so I am trying to figure out how to get from here to there.

Person: Do you not realize that one takes one’s problems with one?

Z: Yes, one takes one’s own problems, but one takes only those problems. That is my point.

Person: Do you not understand that it will never be better, anywhere? That life is just hard? That all one can do is have a drink in the evening, or get onto drugs?

Z: I do not dispute that life is or can be hard. I am, however, convinced that some problems are merely practical ones, with practical solutions. Resignation and mind-altering substances are not the only answers.

Person: Do you not understand that the world is fundamentally good? That if you are not content with how things are, the problem is you, and you must work on yourself? That dissatisfaction is only a chemical imbalance in the brain, which is the one thing you should work on changing?

Z: I believe the world is neutral and that there is much in it which is good, and much else which can be. I do realize that some problems are one’s own. I disagree, however, that all problems one may have are of one’s own making, and I disagree that all solutions are chemical.

Person: Well, maybe you just need to relax. Do you not understand that shopping is a nice way to take care of yourself? You deserve a new dress. Why not take a day off and shop without worrying about the bill? That will surely make you happy.

Z: That would not address the issue at all.

Person [triumphant]: You see? You do not want to get better after all! You do not want to take drugs or go shopping for luxuries with one of your credit cards. Clearly, you just want to continue to suffer! 

IV

I declare that the depressed point of view is that of Person, not of Z.

Axé.

Oigan mi nuevo corrido

“Para empezar a cantar / pido permiso primero.”
–Corrido de Benjamín Argumedo

It is the weekend, and I am singing the Internationale but more importantly, a set of corridos to increase my levels of machismo and mexicanidad. Now that we are to be armed at the university, I may just have to put on my carabina 30-30, otherwise known as a Winchester, and ride there on my horse.

Here is the Antonio Aguilar singing the corrido of the Toma de Zacatecas, a town I really like.

Here, meanwhile, is a beautiful 1935 recording of the Corrido de Benjamín Argumedo.

Argumedo was not an entirely admirable character, but according to some parts of his legend he challenged his opposing general to single combat and sang:

“Oiga General Mungía,
también soy hombre valiente,
quiero que aquí me afusile
al público de la gente.”

I am about to say to certain whitemen, Señores: ustedes no saben quién soy yo, pero ahora se van a enterar. Ustedes no tienen la menor idea de lo que es ser hombre y yo sí. De hoy en adelante ya no voy a aguantar sus pequeñeces. Ténganse por advertidos. No sé si todavía leen esta bitácora pero sigue aquí, y más les vale estudiarla.

WHEREAS the position for which we are hiring has been a revolving door for many years;
WHEREAS enrollments are low in the kinds of courses he and I most want to teach, and coordination is needed so that these courses actually make;
WHEREAS the secretary, who is now in charge of scheduling, is not a professor in our discipline and does not always make the most practical decisions about which intermediate and upper level courses should be offered and when;
WHEREAS one of the few things it is in our power to do to make the faculty happy, and retain them, is by giving them course schedules which work for them and the students, so that they are not frustrated but are, rather, able to engage in some creative, interesting teaching in at least one of their courses;
WHEREAS our sub-unit has been in disarray for four years due to your nefarious activities and also your collusion in my harassment by an assistant professor and an associate one;
WHEREAS the new hire does not really speak English, has not been a professor before and will need orientation if he is to function here;
WHEREAS if we do not have sub-unit meetings to coordinate our work on course offerings, enhancement grant proposals, speakers, study abroad, honor societies, club guidance, film society, and similar activities related primarily to us, this person will not be integrated into the unit in a functional way;
WHEREAS if he is not he will ask me questions, as I am the in field senior person who speaks his language, so that I will have to guide him on my own, which is not really functional;

I HAVE SPOKEN with every member of my sub-unit and they all agree.
WE WILL MEET monthly as a sub-unit starting in August, whether you like it or not, and YOU WILL approve our activities. We will have a constitution and follow Roberts’ Rules of Order. Meetings will be open. However no manipulation, no strong-arming, and no shouting by you, your lackeys, or your running dogs will be allowed.
I DECLARE that this is the only way to function rationally and to continue to meet rising accreditation standards. It is also, as I have suggested, the only way to make it possible for the new person not to feel disoriented and marginalized, so that they can develop their work and be retained.

I REITERATE that it is not I but you who are oppressive. If you do not like my announcement, I invite you to grieve my flashing eyes, my floating hair, my shining teeth, and the curl in the middle of my forehead. I am stronger than you are and this has already been made materially clear to you.

Axé.

Excelente II

Next year we may all come to school heavily armed. We will all be safer if we carry guns, it is said. I am more inclined to wear my hakama, a dagger, a sword, a bow, and an arrow.

This blog has been rated Excellent before, but now it has been again, by Tom, who also has an excellent blog. The last time this blog was rated Excellent, the associated task was to list other Excellent academic blogs. This time no genre is required, so I will list twelve new ones. Twelve, because I like the number twelve better than the number ten. I am listing only English language blogs, because this blog is primarily in English. I am purposely excluding Louisiana blogs because excellent Louisiana blogs are too numerous to count.

13 STOPLOSS
(Almost) Without Footnotes
Changeseeker
Chasing the Red Balloon
Field Negro
Morphological Confetti
San Francisco Civic Center
The Unapologetic Mexican
Unsane and Safe
WoC PhD
Xicano Power
Zuky

Axé.