Even Animals Don't Do That (or do they?)
Peacebang pointed out that, at the Constitutional Convention at the State House in Boston, where marriage equality was protected by a legislative vote, there were signs held by the opposition that said things like "Even animals don’t do that!!".
People who believe that should read this NationalGeographic.com article on homosexual activity among animals. Or check out a book called Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.
The Class-Consciousness Raiser
I'm one of those people who believes that classism is more of a problem in our society than racism. That's why I found
this story in the New York Times so interesting. It begins ...
By the time Ruby Payne sat down for lunch, she had been at it for three hours straight, standing alone behind a lectern on a wide stage in a cavernous convention hall, parked between two American flags, instructing an audience of 1,400 Georgians in the hidden rules of class. No notes, no warm-up act, just Ruby, with her Midwestern-by-way-of-East-Texas drawl and her crisp white shirt, her pinstriped business suit and bright red lipstick and blow-dried blond hair, a wireless microphone hooked around her right ear. She had already explained why rich people don’t eat casseroles, why poor people hang their pictures high up on the wall, why middle-class people pretend to like people they can’t stand. She had gone through the difference between generational poverty and situational poverty and the difference between new money and old money, and she had done a riff on how middle-class people are so self-satisfied that they think everyone wants to be middle class.
Apparently most people who attend her seminars think they're valuable. A number of academics dismiss them because they're not academic enough.
Although I've not attended a seminar, my gut tells me that her ideas could be really worthwhile.
Brown bag racism II
RevSean replies to my previous posting about a discussion of "brown bag" lunches and the potential racial meaning of the word by saying that the phrase wasn't really banned.
Perhaps it wasn't - to me, that's not the biggest point. It amazes me that well meaning people think that there could or should be a serious discussion on the topic of whether "brown bag" is racist.
Could you imagine if The Daily Show with Jon Stewart got ahold of this discussion? We'd be the laughing stock of everyone under 40 and lots of people over that age.
Brown bag racism
If you're looking for another word or phrase currently thought to be racist in some circles, like no further than
this sermon to discover that the phrase
brown bag lunch has been banned from use at
Starr King School for the Ministry.
Extensive discussions on Peacebang's blog as well as other UU blogs. Especially good is commentary at The Socinian.
Please. There are obviously people out there with way too much time on their hands. Does racism exist? Of course it does. No question. But not in brown bag lunches.
