The Third Decade

Last post

So after 6 years of blogging, this is likely my last post. I haven't been keeping up with this blog and instead have been Tweeting and Facebooking more regularly. When I started six years ago at the age of 30, the idea was to blog throughout my 30s and end this blog just before I turned 40. What I didn't account for, however, was the change in social media and my own change in online tastes. I'm not a fan of leaving behind digital clutter, so I'm bringing this form of my online presence to a close. Thanks to those who have been reading over the past several years. I'm sure I'll see some of you online or in person at a later time.

Facebook's "Mandingo President." Ugh!

There's random and then there's "random."

While posting a status update on Facebook, I was asked to prove that I'm not a spambot by completing one of those captcha text boxes. Usually they're a random combination of letters and numbers, although lately I've noticed that a combination of actual words are appearing more often. Usually the words are bland and common, but today I came across this:

What the hell is this crap?! There's no way this is random. Some techie working for Facebook or the captcha system programmed this in. People, get a grip. Barack Obama is the president for at least the next 3 years. Programming your racism into the internet will not change that.

And you, Facebook, do you have any internal codes of conduct regarding employee actions like this?

Hello, 2005.

Hello, 2005.

Yes, I realize that it's now 2010, but I was sent back 5 years in time earlier this week. While at a function at the Park Plaza Hotel, I passed by one of their computer rooms and saw this nighttime street image as the screen saver on every monitor:

 

What you see above is actually from their website. But, follow this link to see why I was transported through time.

Yup...you can imagine my shock. Years later and there it is being used without my knowledge. After a couple of days of contacting various people at the hotel, I've finally been in touch with the Marketing person. I expected to hear denial or be ready for a fight, but she's been quite lovely. She admits that they didn't know who the photographer was and she's interested in working out rights, crediting, and possibly future job ops. Woo hoo!

Wish me luck, and send advice on this kind of thing if you have it.

Happy New Year!

Roxbury, the video

Today the Roxbury Cultural Network released a video called Why I Love Roxbury. It's a short 7-minute look at the beauty, history, and love for the community that often gets missed when the neighborhood is reported in the media.

As I heard one person say, "There are so many things to love about Roxbury." I couldn't agree more.

Redesign the Massachusetts Quarter

Normally I'd want our elected officials and their employees to do something other than frivolous things like redesign currency. But, seeing as how our gov is taking a poll of state residents before submitting the redesign, I guess I can let this one slide. I like seeing something like this go to a vote rather than assembling a state commission to do it. The poll for the Massachusetts quarter redesign is here.

Ugliest Building in the World?

We can't have it all. Shortly after being voted America's favorite city in 2008 by readers of Travel and Leisure, Boston has now been chosen by VirtualTourist.com as having one of the ugliest buildings in the world (specifically, City Hall). The article I read on Yahoo didn't specify whether the list was in order of ugliness, but our City Hall is listed as number one! Granted, it ain't pretty. But, is that really one of the ugliest buildings in the world? The world is a big place with lots of bad architecture. I can't believe City Hall made it to the top 10. Any word from the mayor on this?

GASP for Barack

I received this press release via email this morning. If you're still looking for a place to watch the election results on Tuesday and you have an interest in the arts, this may be another option.

You are invited to join us on the occasion of the U.S. elections on Tuesday November 4, 2008. G.A.S.P. Gallery is holding a special event in support of Change/Cambio in the belief that Barack Obama will be the next President. For this event, G.A.S.P. is soliciting comments from around the world in solidarity with our hope for change.

We invite you to send us one brief sentence or one phrase inspired by the Change/Cambio that Barack Obama represents. Your comments will be incorporated into a large-scale public projection across the street from G.A.S.P. Gallery in Brookline Massachusetts. When you respond with your sentence or phrase, please indicate the city and country you are writing from so it can be projected alongside your comment.

To our friends and colleagues in the Boston area, please join us at G.AS.P. on this historic day at 8:30 pm and spend the evening with us watching the returns, blogging, chatting, and eating good food during the outdoor projection. To our friends worldwide, we invite you to join us at G.A.S.P. via live blog and Skype.

Please pass this request to your friends, colleagues, and relatives. We hope to include messages from every continent that will support our wish for Change/Cambio in the U.S.

Send your message as soon as possible to:

[email protected]

We look forward to renewed hope and change!

362 Boylston Street
Brookline

www.g-a-s-p.net

ArtROX!

ArtROX, the 10th annual Roxbury Open Studios is this weekend from 11am-6pm across Roxbury. The Boston Globe, Boston Metro, and Weekly Dig have all written about the event. I was even quoted by the Dig and have an image featured in the Metro to represent ROS. 

As the Dig states, "[i]n its 10th year, it's fair to say that Roxbury Open Studios is one of the most slept on events in the city." I'd agree. When I started showing there were about 100 artists on display; this year there are over 170. Clearly there's a growing arts community in Roxbury, not to mention that it's a beautiful and historic place to visit.

If you've been staying away because of your fears, be ashamed! Shake off the shackles of negative stereotypes, come on over for a visit, and prove yourself wrong. There's plenty to see and do and Discover Roxbury will be providing a guided walking tour of the artist locations on Fort Hill on Saturday afternoon for only $5. It really couldn't get much easier or be more convenient.

Hope to see some of you at the event. I'll have my photography set up on the 3rd floor of Dudley Square's Hibernian Hall.

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Was the debate yesterday or something?

Thank you, John McCain, for deciding to debate Barack Obama tonight. I just don't know how the country would have gone on without you. We've been looking forward to seeing you battle it out with that untested, green, ingenue for so long that it will be interesting to see whether this morning's online ad in the Wall Street Journal, which claims victory in tonight's debate, will prove to be accurate.

See you at 9.

White Privilege

I was forwarded the following email this morning. Imagine if the popular media discussed white privilege as much as sexism and ageism in the presidential election. I bet a lot of people couldn't understand or handle it.

By Tim Wise

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested." 

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she?s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you?re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008),
and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.