The Sum of 'Some'

Wuddup y'all, sorry for the lengthy delay, I've been busy learning how to be responsible. I'm an RA this year at St Mike's, and I'll be looking out for 22 freshman.

We started off RA Training by watching the video of Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie describing her life and her work and how it all interacts with the way she views her life. Numerous things stood out to me, but none more striking than her description of stereotypes not as wrong but merely as "incomplete." In my experience it's never been that stereotypes are totally wrong, as most people can attest to the fact that most are in fact grounded in some nugget of truth, but they only tell one single story. 

And so I've arrived at the center of my thesis, and in an unnaturally brief amount of time, especially for me. The defeat of discrimination comes not at the hands of civil rights activists or in legal protection. The defeat of discriminatory statements lies merely in the acknowledgement of stereotypes as only allowing one particular portion to tell their story, or the root of all unfairness.


So try this on for size. The next time you find yourself judging a person, based on whatever characteristic you may so choose, take a step back for a second and bask in the awesome power of a single four-letter word. That word is 'some.' The use of 'some' denotes an ability to see past the single story of a person or group of people and to acknowledge that any particular group you may so choose can not be viewed as simply a group made up of commonalities, but instead a group made up of many and varied differences. For instance, not all Africans are destitute survivors of a genocide, merely some. Not all white people dress like preppy A&F models, merely some. Not all African-Americans enjoy fried chicken, merely some. And indeed, not all college kids are interested in getting hammered before a big dance, merely some. But not this one. Peace.

Mosque at Ground Zero @ Friction

I recently appeared as a Guest Author at FrictionOnline, a local blog about philanthropy. I've included the beginning with a link to the rest of it. Check it out! And enjoy.

It’s Mid-August two years into the four year term of a President, which means that across the country politicians are cleaning off ye olde axes and sharpening their pitchforks in anticipation of the mid-term elections, which the minority party always hopes to take away from the President, in an effort to curb some of his power.

However, right after Faisal Shazad’s 1993 Nissan Pathfinder was discovered to be smoking, and then found to be crudely rigged for an explosion, a property was to be cleared by a local community board for some renovations which would make it into a community center for the local Muslim population. This center would include a mosque. From there, Republicans have dubbed this house of worship (and it will hardly be so) as a “monument to terrorism” that is shameful, provocative, insensitive, irresponsible.

What those pundits don’t know is that not only are they simply showing off their complete and total ignorence of other cultures and arrogance to refuse to try to educate themselves about it, but they are also fighting one of the best counter-terror devices at our disposal. This says nothing of the rights of a private citizen to utilize his private property as a house of worship, not to mention renovate such a space, when their only grievances are that they ascribe to a faith some feel has tenets that aren’t kosher (pun totally intended).

Read the Rest At FrictionOnline.

Ya Gotta Love America....

In Sunday's Boston Globe, Laurie Goodstein describes how "Plans for new mosques drawing protests across the US". We're not talking about just Ground Zero, where Islamic extremists crashed two of four hijacked planes into the World Trade Centers on 9-11 and killed nearly 3,000 people. We're not talking about just the Bible-thumping South, where Christian conservatives mete out bigotry while quoting relevant scripture. No, this article cites California and Wisconsin, as well as Tennessee and NYC.


It always amazes me when American bigotry is on display. I give plenty of credit to Mrs. Goodstein for writing this article, but even the best reporters don't change the facts on the ground. Listen to this:

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., organizers with a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

 Dogs?! When's the last time you saw white people "protesting" a dark-skinned people with dogs? Oh right, here:

Foray Into Citizen Reporting

So anyone who watched the news tonight knows it was a big night for Cape Cod Aviation. Two plans went down today, one in the afternoon and the other this evening around dinner time. The first plane went down in Mashpee, specifically on South Cape Beach, and the other one went down at the West End of the Canal, near Buzzard's Bay.

Watch this video for more information.

I'm pretty close to South Cape (watch the video, you'll see them Google Map South Cape, and I'm right on Waquoit Bay), so right after dinner I snagged my camera, hopped in our 17ft Cape Craft, and snapped a few pictures. Here's my first foray into the world of citizen reporting: