pit-bulls and minorities

No, it's not about dog fighting.

If you want to know what those seemingly shady-looking black and Latino men you see in your closest city are really like, I have the answer: go the Humane Society and drop some money on a pit-bull. When my boyfriend and I got a four-month-old pit-bull puppy named Horatio a few months ago, I had no idea he would lead me to more real, honest, legit encounters with non-whites that I had ever had in my life (until I started working in the Milwaukee Public School district, but that's a story for another day).

Really – suddenly I am talking to what seems like all the black and Mexican males Madison has to offer, and you know what? They're really nice. It all happens if you can just make the smallest amount of eye contact. When you see a stranger checking out your dog, meeting his or her eye for just a second tells that person "yes, I am willing to talk to you." Then, they often say something like "beautiful dog," which, if you're willing to stop for a minute (which let's be real, as a decent human being you should be, plus you made eye contact so to ignore him now would just be rude), leads to a conversation. These men usually tell me about their own pits, or other dogs they had growing up, and we often end up discussing the bad rap the breed has been given recently. "It's all about how you raise them," more than one man has told me. "And you gotta raise them to be nice." I agree, and the conversation usually ends with something like "but I can see you're raising him really well. Beautiful dog," and then: "you take care now."

The more this has happened, the more I walk away with mixed feelings of happiness over being complimented on my puppy-rearing skills and guilt over the fact that a few months ago, I had your average less-than-friendly thoughts towards these friendly strangers. Not that they were solid thoughts, of course – there was no "ohmygod, black man up ahead, better cross the street" sort of stuff – just the general feeling of unease and distrust towards non-whites who dress like non-whites that has been normalized in our culture.

But last night, I took Horatio for an evening stroll to the dock near our apartment building, and happened upon a group of black and Mexican men who, to my eyes that are still entrenched in this ingrained bias, looked like they were up to no good. Within one minute all of them had complimented my puppy, and one of them was kneeling down to pet him, rubbing his ears and receiving copious amounts of dog kisses to the face while saying "oh yes, I love you too. I love you too!" in what can only be described as a baby voice.

And I can't say that the whole encounter was in any way unusual. Puppies, I'm telling you: they are one small step towards ending institutionalized racism. My call for action today is to make that brief moment of eye contact. I'm sure there are other instances of this that don't involve dogs, and I am open to your suggestions, but for now, that's what it is. Recognize that person as a human worth your sight and time. Invite that person to share what is on his or her mind about your dog, and then do your best to have an actual connection with a complete stranger, if only for a minute.

Back in Black

It's time to restart and revamp this written adventure into our world of institutionalized injustices. A year of service does not lend itself to outside adventures, but as I become more used to the routine, I become more committed to once again writing down my observations and reflections in the form of this blog.

This is mostly due to a plethora of newfound observations. Over the summer (when I started this blog) I saw institutionalized sexism every day, but my encounters with race were almost non-existent. This is mostly because at the summer program I taught at, the tuition for three weeks is a whopping $5,000, and, not surprisingly, almost exclusively white, minus handful of rich foreign kids. Needless to say, not once did I come to face to face with my white privilege. But now, serving in a school in the infamous MPS (Milwaukee Public Schools) for 12 hours a day, things look a little different. A little darker. And not just because of the low, low amount of white students. Every day, I see the realities of life for the underprivileged side to my privileged side of the coin. And here is where I bring my thoughts to the table to write, reflect, and struggle to find a tangible solution.

That is still what this blog is all about. Studying the issues of race and gender in our society is great, but nothing pisses me off more than a well-written article on CNN.com debunking the latest hidden piece of sexism or racism in our society, making you aware, then angry, and then offering no solution. No, for the record, just knowing about these issues doesn't do much of anything to solve them. It's a start, but to truly fight against these evils in our society, we must actively fight them. I aim to deliver an actual action step of some type after my vent, uncovering, explanation, reflection, etc. And as I admit to being nowhere near close to really understanding these issues, I need all the help I can get. So please, please, if you want to collaborate, suggest a topic, or just agree or tell me I'm full of it, email me at schmeeves@gmail.com. I will appreciate it.

This weekend, I plan on putting on a black dress and going to a nice restaurant that will, in all likelihood, be inaccessible to my black students. This fact troubles me, so here I am, trying to figure out what to do about it. Thank you for reading.

Transformers 3 Part I: The Departure of Megan Fox

The words:

In case you don't follow the happenings of celebrities' lives as if they were your own grandchildren, I'll fill you in on all the scintillating drama of Megan Fox's departure from the Transformers series, a story laden with as many sexist overtones as the movie itself. Some sources say she was fired over a comment comparing the style of director Michael Bay to that of Adolf Hitler. (Still too soon, am I right, Glenn Beck?) However, according to an article from the Denver Post, the actress quit after an argument with Bay concerning her weight. He reportedly thought she looked “unhealthy” and wanted her to put on weight before the first film. A source on the movie commented: “The crew doesn't think she looks well, let alone the wholesome, curvy star they cast in the first film. She's going for this gaunt, pale image and it just looks unhealthy.”

First, let's analyze this crew member's assessment of Ms. Fox as “unhealthy.” All women, and people, who are underweight, are technically “unhealthy,” yet this doesn't stop modeling agencies from hiring rail-thin women, or make-up and clothing industries from using them in their ads, or top designers from designing their clothes for them. There is little concern with the health of women in the media who are clearly underweight. In actuality, there is an obsession with how the common woman can look just like them, with the majority of women's catalogs hawking this star's body-perfect workout and that star's gut-busting diet. Skinny is hot, and it has to become extreme before the average person recognizes skinny as unhealthy.

Such is America's glorification for underweight women that actress Rosario Dawson recently went to the press with her misgivings against these unattainable and unhealthy standards for women's bodies. After losing weight to play Mimi, a character in the 2005 film “Rent,” who is a drug addict dying of HIV/AIDS, she was shocked to receive compliments about her figure. “I remember everyone asking 'what did you do to get so thin? You looked great.'” Dawson says of herself at the time: “I looked emaciated.”

So, to sum up: the behavior of dangerously underweight women is reinforced and seen as positive through the acts of both media in the public space and of compliments in the private space. It's no wonder thousands of women pay for liposuction each month and fat-removal and plastic surgery has become a market worth billions. Women are encouraged, both positively and negatively, by strangers and friends, to be underweight. All you have to do to constantly get nice compliments is look like a drug addict dying of AIDS.

And yet, when Megan Fox conforms to these expectations, she is fired or driven to quit, depending on who you ask.

Back to the crew member's comment, here's a still of her from the second Transformers movie, looking beautiful, thin, and healthy.



But “curvy”? If Megan Fox is “curvy” (a word usually used as a euphemism for “overweight” when the woman in question still pulls off a pleasing shape and embraces her size), then actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Liv Tyler must be fat.

Let's ignore the comment about her paleness, as I have yet to find a reliable source to back up the rumor that Fox refused to tan in order to avoid skin cancer, and focus instead on the new and twisted double standard presented by the opinions of the crew. In a world where 78% of girls report being unhappy with their bodies by the age of seventeen, and 40% of 10-year-olds have tried to lose weight, there is undeniably an intense pressure to be thin. (check out this report on Teen Health and Media from the University of Washington.) Media portrayals of women create powerful demands on girls and women to conform to what is usually an unnatural and unhealthy body type. While men do have social pressure for a certain body type (muscular and tall), these images are nowhere near as pervasive or influential as the appropriate body type for women. Look at Robert Pattinson in Twilight, Adam Brody the The OC, Toby Macguire in Spiderman, SNL's Andy Sandberg, or even Shia LaBeouf himself, whose new Transformers girlfriend seems to love putting her head down on his shoulder Tom-and-Katie-style in a effort to hide their height difference. Within a culture obsessed with the thinness of women, 90% of people who have eating disorders in the US are female. No, the pressure on men to conform to a standard of appearance is nowhere near as great as the pressure put on women, though it does exist.

With that fact established, let's return to the comments attributed to the crew about Megan Fox's “gaunt” and “unhealthy” appearance. (We can save the recent obsession, glorification and sexualization of gaunt, unhealthily thin people portrayed in vampire shows and movies for another time). Here we see the pressure on women to be thin reach new, even more unmaintainable heights, creating a beautiful little catch-22: You must look skinny but not seem skinny. You must be unnaturally thin but not unhealthily thin. You must be unhealthily thin but not have the physical characteristics typically associated with being unhealthily thin. If your conformity to society's standards makes society uncomfortable, it becomes a problem. Be very thin but don't look very thin, and if you're in doubt of where the line between the two is, I'm sure the crew of Transformers 3 will be happy to make the distinction.


The action:

Aside from boycotting a movie like Transformers, which may not prove effective and anyone who doesn't hate themselves would not want to see it anyway, we can stop complimenting women for being skinny. We can focus our praise on women who are at a healthy weight, neither too fat nor too thin. True and sincere compliments about weight should be saved for overweight or obese women who have shed pounds and are working towards a healthy body weight, and even then, we can focus on the health aspects rather than the appearance: “you look so healthy” instead of “you look so skinny” and “congratulations on losing weight, you're glowing and look even more beautiful” instead of “look at how flat your stomach is getting” or “keep it up and soon you'll be a size 0!!”

Once girls hit a certain age, they tend to give an extraordinary amount of compliments based on appearance. The previously-cited study from the University of Washington also found that in movies, 58% of female characters had comments made on their appearance, compared to 24% of men. This is, from my own experience, undoubtedly a reflection of real life. “You look cute/good/pretty” often becomes part of the greeting process between female friends, and women notoriously compliment each other in a self-deprecating way: “I wish I could fit into pants like that” or “how do you stay so skinny?” On the surface, this is nice - compliments are great to give and receive - but not when they systematically reinforce society's unreachable expectations about how women's bodies should look. Rosario Dawson's comments reflect the benefit of consistent praise given to those who are skinny. Let's stop giving those compliments and instead reinforce other attributes of the people in our lives, such as their good health habits, intelligence, sense of humor, and kindness. We all know that the compliment “you look awesome today” or “I love your shirt” or “you have such a nice little waist” creates a temporary glow that quickly fades. But to give someone a sincere and personalized compliment; to tell her, in all sincerity, that she has a killer sense of humor and such a knack for finding funny things in a boring situation that it's fun even to go to the Walgreens photo center with her, and the glow will last.