The Great Outdoors

Last attempt at camping: disaster. Tomas sat shivering after having an allergic reaction to these tiny little bugs we'd never seen before. And that was the last straw.

Following the advice of an expert, we drove three hours and took a trail off of a trail off of a trail. The campsites were trashed. Piles of ashes everywhere. Fire pits full of beer cans and plastic water bottles. Toilet paper and plastic silverware strewn about. And these are the sites that supposedly no one wants to camp on because there are no facilities.

Then there was the noise pollution. Group after group of people drove by on their ATVs and dirt bikes. (One set of people even had their full race gear on. That shows you how seriously they take their sport.) Each time, you could hear them coming for at least fifteen minutes, and after they'd passed, a fine mist of dirt would settle over the campsite. Oh, and did I mention the gunshots? Apparently we were near enough to a firing range that we heard series of gunshots repeatedly.

But there were quiet times, too. That's when I remembered why on earth we would drive three hours to be at one with nature. Utter silence, and trees and blue sky as far as the eye could see.



Saddened and disgusted, we packed up and left days early.

Deconstructing the Movie "Up"

The Pixar movie "Up" was the first kid movie I've seen in the theater in a long, long time. I took Consuelo, my mentee, to see it because it got excellent reviews and it was not about violence. (You try picking an appropriate movie to take a 13-year-old girl to see; it's tough. Holy bursting bombs, Batman.)

On the face of it, it's not your typical superhero movie. An old white guy with a big schnoz and a little round Asian-American kid were the heroes. The evil crazy guy was white. The little girl likes to pretend she's a pilot. The dopey dog is the one who finds the treasure. In the end, the old white guy ends up subbing as the Asian-American kid's dad, so it's obviously pro-nontraditional family.

But this is how privilege works. On the surface, it's fighting a lot of the stereotypes. So hooray for them, right? But then I started thinking about it, and I found a dozen reinforcements of the messages of privilege. Hmm, let's see:

-The bad, evil dog is black. How obvious can you get?
-The black dog gets his comeuppance and is put in his place in the end.
-The little kid is fat and is portrayed as weak because of it.
-The kid doesn't have a mom and a dad, because how could a person of color have a happy family?
-Not being able to have children causes the white couple much sadness, because it's not normal for couples not to have children.
-The little girl who wanted to be a pilot and an adventurer ends up being a housewife.
-Only boys are adventurers.
-The fat kid can't control himself when it comes to eating. (Well, duh, because that's why all fat people are fat, right? They eat too much chocolate.)
-The old guys either get fat and ugly or mean and crazy.
-The bird, who is different from everyone else, is hunted her whole life.
-Marriage is between a man and a woman.
-Heroes are able-bodied and able-minded.

I'm sure there are many more that I didn't catch because I'm too immersed in the social messaging associated with my privilege. But scrutinizing what seems OK at first and realizing that it's maybe not so OK after all helps me to not perpetuate and support the status quo. I do wonder, though, what messages Consuelo took from it. We'll have to discuss.

Out with the Old

I was doing some research for an article, and I ran across this blog called "stuff white people do" (written by a white guy, by the way). One post was about the casual way American's toss around the word "Nazi," as in "the soup Nazi" from Seinfeld, the "parking Nazis" who give you tickets, etc. Perhaps you have used this word in passing or in conversation. I have. And in so doing, I have cheapened it and made what the Nazis did much less horrible by comparing it to my own inconsequential problems.

How many other words do we use every day that trivialize people's pain and suffering and cover up our own bleak history of privilege? Here are a few I can think of that really have no place in our lexicon:

rape, as in "The banks are raping us with those high interest rates."

butt hurt (I have not used this one--it's new on the scene of twenty-somethings and makes my stomach flip every time I hear it), as in "She was butt hurt because he didn't call her back right away."

slave, as in "That intern will be your slave for the summer" or "I slaved over a hot stove all day."

retarded, as in "Those song lyrics are so retarded."

And don't even get me started on swear words. We live in a Christian-dominated society, yet "Jesus Christ" has become an accepted curse, even when used by Christians. Being a non-Christian, I started thinking about how my use of these words would be offensive to some of my more faithful friends and have begun retraining my brain.

Does your language reflect your respect for other people, their beliefs, and their lifestyles? Mine doesn't always, but I'm thinking about it, and trying hard to match my mouth to my mind.