Reaction to Oslo

I noticed that there is a blog reaction in the weekly round-up to the terror attacks in Oslo. I have been thinking and thinking about how to share my reaction in a public way, and just couldn't figure out how to go about it. Well, I guess I just couldn't figure out how to make time during the frantic summer season in the life of a religious educator of trying to fill teacher teams and figure out all the curriculum needs for 40 million classes as well as finding time to run a summer program! Too much, I tell ya! Someone neeeeeds a vacation!

But this Oslo thing. It's been sitting here on my shoulder. I'm half Norwegian. We still have cousins in the Bergen area. If you look at the past prime minister, she looks just like my mom. And I guess she was actually a primary target of the terrorist. Because she's a rabble rouser, just like my mom. It felt like my cousins were attacked. And I guess they probably were.

I was, at first, really heartened by the Oslo mayor's comments about peace and democracy and fighting the hate with love. That's just what we'd say in my faith community, I think.

But there was another thing that crept in to my reaction. Racism. You gotta face the racism. It's not just going to go away with love and fierce adherence to democratic principles. It's just not.

People react in racist ways, people simply are racist. It takes work and education and for goodness sake HONESTY to work through the racism. And I think we've all learned that love isn't enough.

My husband's friends who were adopted from Korea to Norway and the Netherlands tell the story of deep and frequent racism that is completely ignored because--of course--such liberal and educated people simply could not be racist.

But, of course, they are.

We all are, and it's denial that is the biggest most dangerous problem.

Fighting it means naming it, understanding it, and working to learn how to be who we wish to be. It means understanding what it means to be white. You have to come to terms with the underlying feeling that white is normal and everything else is beeeeaaaauuuutiful. Tokenized and marginalized and just not, well, normal.

These are the same things, I believe anyway, that we face in our mostly white, mostly rich, mostly well educated Unitarian Universalist churches. It's not impossible to overcome, but if we ignore it? Then, yes, it is absolutely hopeless.

Go here:

The Mosaic Report

Building the World We Dream About

Good News

My husband is coming home. It's all good.

The God Thing

Do you hear the screeching? EEeeeeeeeEEEEErrrrrrccchhhhHHHKKKkk!

Don't worry too much, it's just different parts of my life colliding. What? Religion and adoption and how each affects the other? Hoo boy, bring it on!

Or let me tell you what I think and feel, something more like that I guess.

Today on Harlow's Monkey, there was a link to a post from the "blog carnival" I was in this weekend (by the way; no rides OR cotton candy, I was robbed). It was this amazing kind of a list from "Peach" at "Neither Here Nor There" called 'Things I wish I'd Known"

What Jae Ran at Harlow's was struck by was the statement by Peach that her God would not have proscribed all this loss and all this pain so that she could be adopted.

Now I'm not going to speak for other people (Hey! I LOVE to try to do just that!) but I hear this! I really get this! I cannot believe in a God that would have as a part of the master plan all the pain I've had in the aftershocks of my husband's adoption. And I'm a minor player in this story! No way! This is not my God!

Yes, yes yes. I'm a strong and committed Unitarian Universalist. Our current beliefs teach us to value the inherent worth and dignity of all beings. And our history teaches us about a God of Universal salvation and the divine life of each being. My mother brought me up in our secular humanist Unitarian Universalist fellowship to be a good strong atheist. Sometimes I'm sure that she's as disappointed in my belief in some higher power as a Mormon mother would be in her daughter becoming a devout Wiccan, but she goes with it. Being a UU means you accept a lot of diverse opinions and beliefs. A LOT!

But no matter which of my life's beliefs I'm embracing, or even which of the "Great Teacher's" (that's what I call Jesus) beliefs we're talking about. None of it is supported by believing that God had a plan for a person that involved as much pain as the one transracial adoption that I'm close to has held. Really? God thought this whole thing up? I'm just not buying it.

The god of my knowledge is really just a huge glowing pile of love. Love of each other and self and our earth and our universe. Love that transcends the troubles of money and class and just powerfully bonds real people together in their real lives with real love. Abiding love. Really, how is anything more powerful than that? Nothing in my 40 some years ever has been. This love is huge! Have you ever sat in a room full of people and all focused your "god selves" in one place. Yes some people call this prayer, but whatever you call it, it's so powerful! It's so amazing! And it is so real, I've felt it.

This love-God-thing would not create the pain I've seen. It just wouldn't. Case closed.

And on a non-God note, I heard from my dear husband this morning. He called me at almost 24 hours to the minute from the time we left our home to go to the airport on Sunday. Man, getting to Korea takes a really long time. He'd been dropped off in the dark at the bus stop he needed but with no visible sign of the hotel....yes, at midnight. But he got to the hotel and checked in. He called as I was walking the little dog. And yes, he said all the right things to make me feel safe. Good job Dear Husband! You rock! He really does. You have no idea. ROCKS!

That right there is a pretty big "Thank you prayer" if I've ever heard one! Sure is.

Amen. Thank you. and oh yeah! AMEN!

Korea bound...

My husband left for Korea this morning. Between all the teen boys having to go a million different directions and the fact that I work for a church and today is Sunday, we almost missed it!

OK, not really. But it wasn't the only thing happening this morning, that's for sure.

Today I let the oldest drive his brothers all over the place. It's something I'm still getting used to, but I trust him and he's a good kid, and that accident he had a year ago was really good because it made him pay attention in a whole different way. Teenagers. Driving people around. How did THAT happen!? But there were soccer games at the same time as church. No dad around. We've hopped soccer teams so much we don't even know where anyone on the team lives, much less know them well enough to make them come pick our kid up. Nope. This one had to be an inside job. All family. And the oldest is almost 18. Almost a grown man. OK, again, how did this happen?

I'm having a Geritol moment here.

It's funny. This life is so strange. I want to talk all about my husband's trip and what he's doing and what it means. But it's his story to tell. I can only tell my story. Which of course is all Kudzu vined in with his! Tricky business.

As I was dumping all over, I mean talking with a friend today we were breaking down why it's still hard for me when my husband goes to Asia, even though so far this time I only have fear about it being hard. This time so far has just been freaking busy. But I think there's a physical fear, a memory of what's happened before. And there's some funky completely irrational stuff. When he first stated going to the adult adoptee events when we lived in Minnesota, even when he went to his very first KAAN conference in 2002, I remember thinking "please don't leave me because I'm white! I can't help it".

Now, with what I know about the profound white privilege I experience every day, I know that's a gigantic gloss over. Every day my husband experiences losses because of his race. To think that I shouldn't have any repercussions from being white is a white supremacist point of view. I know that, I've learned. And yet, even now while he's still in the air I find myself thinking "don't leave me because I'm white, I can't help it" I can't help thinking it. So, if he leaves me because I'm an insane and irrational person or because I'm completely a different religion than he is or because I will never, ever get rid of that box of antiques in the garage that drives him crazy, is that OK? "Oh well, if you're leaving me because I'm crazy, well then that's fine, as long as it isn't because I'm white then, okey fine."

No!

I just don't want to lose him or our family. We have a good thing. It's not worth chucking overboard. And the white thing is just one piece of a very long string of story beads. OK, it's like a dozen of the beads, but it's sure as hell not the whole story.

Maybe there is some onsite spa that would let me stay for the next four days while we wait this thing out because OK, yeah. It's kind of scary. Just a little. You know, just a little.

What No One Told Me About Adoption

I missed a "blog carnival" at Grown In My Heart with the topic "What No One Told Me About Adoption". OK, truth is I've never even heard of this blog or a blog carnival, but today when I checked in on "American Family", the post was fantastic. So I clicked along. Interesting stuff.

Of course, my experience with adoption is really different from those in the adoption triad. I'm not an adoptee or an adoptive parent or a first mother. I'm the wife of a transracially adopted man. But there are a whole lot of things that no one told me about adoption. We're on the front end of this movement to adopt transracially in some ways, maybe no one really had thought about it yet, and back in 1987 when I got married, there was no easy way for adoptee spouses to connect. Our experiences are probably very different anyway, but it's so good when we do connect to hear that in some ways, the journey is very much the same. So what do I wish I'd known?

Things I wish I'd known about being married to a TRA.

Race does matter, it just does. It's a part of identity and soul and how we all view the world.

As the white one, I'll never really understand what it's like to be a transracial adoptee. Never.

Coming to terms with his racial identity was the hardest thing my husband ever had to do, the pain was huge, bigger than huge and there was really nothing I could do but stand by and watch.

Gatherings for adult adoptees are dangerous places for committed relationships.

There is no support equal to that of other adult adoptees.

Having children who look like him has been a profound joy for husband. And for me.

Racism is everywhere. Everywhere.

Raising mixed race kids breaks your heart a little. Especially when they tell you that they feel like "freaks of nature". Even at Korean Culture camp, they don't fit in.

Looking like Keanu Reeves is a good thing for teenaged boys. Can you say "The Matrix?"

I wish someone had told me that I will never feel safe when my husband is in Asia. And did I mention he leaves for Korea tomorrow?

Celebrating Loving Day is very cool.

There is no support like knowing other spouses of transracial adoptees. And finding them is almost impossible.

We have a good life, we've built a good family. But my God, it was not easy, and for a while there it hurt so much that sometimes I had to breathe through it like labor pains. Sometimes I didn't even want to breathe through it.

We're off to buy trinkety gifts from Seattle for the people my husband will see in Korea. And we're going to try to stop picking fights with each other, which is what we always do before he takes a trip to Asia. It makes it easier for me to think about him coming home and telling me he wants a divorce. But he's not going to do that this time. I know he's not. We're a happy old married couple with crazy busy teenage boys and a nice little dog. We're so far past that crushing part of the journey it sometimes seems like it never really happened. But of course it did, and there's a bit of a PTSD kind of thing that happens when he heads off to Asia again. Maybe I'll do better this time. And maybe someday we'll even get to a point in time that it's not hard at all, that we just breeze right through. I hope so.

I really hope so.

Sad News

Today when my husband logged on to his computer, the top story on CNN reported that the Guatemalan army had taken babies from families to be adopted internationally. They were refering specifically to abductions that happened back in the 70s and 80s.

He just shook his head. "Yep." he's an adult TRA (transracial adoptee) and while we know enough of his personal story to know this isn't what happened to him, it's hard for him to hear. It's hard for us to hear.

Every morning I read blogs for my news, I mean, after CNN reported gun shots from someone saying over a radio "bang bang bang" I think it confirms that sometimes news organizations exaggerate. One of the blogs I read every morning is Harlow's Monkey, which has stories like the one on CNN more often than you'd think. He just shakes his head at me "are you trying to make me angry every single morning?". So I don't think that CNN is blowing this story out of proportion. Unfortunately, I think we'll just begin to hear more and more about the ugly parts of the transracial and transnational adoption industry.

My question is, what do we DO once the ugly bits are really known? How do we help the families who are in place, dealing with this horrible mess. Other people can figure out how to deal with the adoption industry. I want to help with the families that are affected by adoption. Families like mine. Yes, the adoptee in our family is an adult, but we dealt with some of the same issues that I think will affect families with children who are adoptees. Surely if those children are adult children, some of the issues will be the same. What do you do when the people you love are in pain? When the stories don't match what you've always understood to be the truth? With wave after wave of new and increasingly painful feelings?

I don't have the answers, but at least, I've already asked the questions myself.

Score

Yesterday our family went to a AAAW (Adult Asian Adoptees of Washington) picnic. Our teenage boys got to hang out with the other teenagers they know from KIDS camp. My husband got to see what he always refers to as "the guys"; a group of over thirty-year-old men that hangs out at the montly gatherings at the bar and talks cars and jobs and guy stuff. The little dog got to meet some nice dog friends and some of her favorite creatures; small children. And I got to sit with another white wife of an adoptee. Wasn't it just one week ago I got to email with my first KADWW(Korean Adoptee white wife)?

Score.

We found ourselves at a picnic table overlooking the beautiful sound with a group of "first wave" adoptees. These were people in their 50s who were adopted all of them from Korea early on in the transracial adoption wave. My husband, at 42, is usually the oldest person at these adoptee gatherings. So, for me it was really great to hear their stories. I've mentioned before that it seems that the adoptee community is so hungry for time together, that often the spouses are not invited. I try to think of it like someone bringing their husband to a "Girl's Night Out"; the conversation at the table is just different when there is a guy at the table. It's the same thing, I am guessing, for the adult adoptees; they have to be a little careful, a little guarded when we're there.

So, being invited to this picnic was wonderful for me, the white one. And sitting for a couple of hours with another white wife was wonderful. This couple has had a different experience than we have, they've lived all over the world, including six year in Korea, and they don't seem to have had some of the other identity stuff impact their marriage like it impacted ours. But it was still wonderful. Her husband is hapa, so her children, while grown now, are even fairer than mine, which is saying a lot since I'm half Norwegian which aparently trumps any melanin, sorry kids. But it was still powerful for me to sit in a space with a woman who shares a connection like this. I'm so thankful.

Then, I found this blog with a post called "Emergency Code Whitey" oh my gosh. I spit coffee all over, laughing out loud. This is how I feel, write it sistah!

I'm walking around my house, pumping my fist in the air yelling "SCORE"! You just never know, ya know? You just never know.

Being the wife of a trans-racially adopted man

OK, pray with me people, Breathe in peace, breathe out love. Peace--Love. Peace--Love.

P E A C E

and

L O V E

It's been really hard having my whole immediate family in Asia. It scares me. I worry that they will all decide that having a white wife and a white mother does not support their identity as Asian and Hapa men.

Yes, this is garbage thinking. Excuse me while I slam it into the trash can.

But it's not totally unfounded. Lots of us, the spouses of trans-racially adopted (TRA) folks, get some of the blow back of the identity trauma that hits our beloved partners. We hear awful things that may even be directed at us that are really just the consequence that comes from being raised in a family that is a different race.

And at least when my beloved husband was learning about who he was as a powerful Asian man the systems in place to support the coming to self were horrible in supporting an existing family. Meetings in bars, long weekends for "mini gatherings" at far away hotels with late nights and lots and lots of drinking. I know that many marriages didn't survive that gauntlet. Mine did, but just barely and just because my husband is simply amazing. I'm deeply grateful.

But what about all those other spouses. Those people who married a person who then went through a radical transformation as they came to a new and much more real truth about who they really were? Where are they, those spouses? Who are they? Are their stories like mine? Am I crazy or are there people out there who would nod and smile a sad smile and understand because they, too, had been through this?

If you are a terribly astute "chalice spark" reader you may have noticed that there is a site revision in process, new template, new gadgets, and a few new "good read" links along the side of the current post. One of those new links is to "Harlow's Monkey" This is a blog that I stumbled across a few months ago. I was very impressed with the warm and wicked-sharp writing. I liked that she was not willing to wear any mask that anyone tried to put on her, but instead fiercly stood by her beliefs and views, even though they didn't easliy fall into pre-set "pro" or "con" and "angry" or "happy" camps.

Yesterday I realized that I know who this person is, from my brief contact with the KAD (Korean Adoptee) community in Minnesota. Yes, in six years a person can earn a degree and enroll in a PhD program. Yes, time does not stand still. That connection was an interesting thing to figure out, but more intersting was the round about way things happen and the email to email (almost face to face) contact I have had today with another person who does that nod of the head, who has experienced almost exaclty what I have. Another wife of a trans-racially adopted man. A KAD.

I am not the only one. And even though the shell shock is a half a decade old, it feels very, very fresh having those I love best in Asia right now. And someone to say "I know, it's hard, you're not alone, you're not crazy" well, it's meant the world to me.

Never doubt the power of another person, a flesh and blood human being, saying "yes, I hear you; yes, I understand; yes, it was like that for me, too" it is bigger than just about anything else that can happen to a person.

Peace and love

Amen and blessings, big blessings

Hey it's good....

...to have my kids back home. It turns out that they all had the very best week of their lives ever...

Well that was good to hear.

What a week. The combination of two adult adoptees coming to supervise the camp who are Danish and rappers and the wild mix of kids made for the most singing and dancing I've ever seen from these boys. "Mamma Mia", fully choreographed. It was hilarious.

They were like rock stars at the final camp presentation day. And like very goofy teen boys. Which of course they are. Both rock stars and goofy boys.

The identity piece is always a little tough at camp. Almost everyone who goes was adopted from Korea. There are now about five teens, including my three, who have parents that are adoptees. One mother at camp actually asked us why our kids come to camp if they're not adopted. It's not all about the adoption, some of it is of course about living with a racial identity that is marginalized in our society.

But being Hapa at Korean Identity camp is also, once again, not quite fitting in.

Good thing they have each other I guess, at least it's something. And if they all grow up to be criminals, well, at least they can dance!

Letting go so that the prayer may begin

Freedom is great, kids at camp; amazing. But stir into that mix two people who work from home and feel passionately about their work, and the days can get long!

I have been fuming a little about a couple of things that are happening in the UU blog world. Not the people saying them, just some of the "stone skipping over water" depth given to a comment or two swirling around out there. This makes me stop mid teacher-recruitment-email and say to my husband things like "what are they thinking?" I mean really....?" he types a few more words, then pulls his gaze from his screen to my face and says "What?"

"Oh never mind, just....you know. Ah!"

I am headed out for a long walk, whenever I put together our teacher teams for the upcoming year for our Sunday morning programs I do some deep prayer about who will be the best fit, both with the age group of kids and the other adults on the teacher team. I've found that a good fit can make for an amazing experience for the children and the adults. Even though we have no building and we tuck our classrooms into every dingy spare corner we can glean from the Masonic Temple we meet in, our classrooms become holy places. Our children are holy beings, our teachers, holy guides. We make it so just by coming together. The prayer helps.

But I have two comments that I just have to put down so I can let them go:

White people have a different experience of race than do people of color, at least living for the last 25 years with my husband (an Asian American) has led me to believe this. He says in this country he wears his race on his face every day, the white among us don't. He tells me it's different. We dishonor his experience to say so. And yes this comes from one tiny comment in Peace Bang's rant from yesterday: "When I visit a Methodist or Episcopal or UCC or Baptist church, am I looking around to see how many half-Jewish people of Eastern European descent there are? What is up with that?"

Maybe she's not, but the racial mix of the group does matter to my husband. He can tell you exactly how many non-white folks there are in our congregation each time he visits. No he doesn't care what the race or ethnicity of the UUAs president is, but he sure as hell cares if that Latino man is in our seats.

OK, only one comment. The other one doesn't matter as much now that I've laid that one down.

Now, off to walk the path with the clouds and drizzle. Holding the dear faces of each of the children I know from our ministry in my heart and my hands. It is good work, if you can get it.

Rockin' on Furious

My dear husband doesn't mail things very often, so he was surprised that his envelope full of bricks came back needing more postage. "No problem", I told him. "I'll run it in to the post office."

Was that a mistake. This is what I was met with at my local little post office:

I went inside with my little bundle of a bricks to mail, and I said "What's with the protesters outside?"

"Oh, they're always there, they just stand there."

This has been my post office for almost six years. I drive by this spot twice a day. I have never noticed anyone sitting outside protesting. And I've surely never seen such offensive posters, never. But the postal staff just brushed it off. No big deal.

I was furious. Burning. Infuriated. I marched myself out the door and right up to the young man staffing the table. "I am deeply offended that you are standing on this land that I pay for with such offensive posters of my president"

"It's my first amendment right, I have the right to be here."

"I support your right to protest as you will, but I believe it's wrong for me to be forced to look at this when I walk into a government establishment." I was seething, trying to be calm, knowing that this man is young and may never have lived anywhere but out little town, may just be influenced by hate-talk radio and the things he's absorbed in his few years. But my compassion meter was on about 2 and my infuriated meter was on about 55 million.

I went back to my house and got my camera, just so you could be infuriated, too. My middle son--yes the one who is a champion martial artist, insisted on coming with me just in case the guy jumped me. When I went back up and tried to take his materials, he stopped me. Some public service there, hunh?

And then I guess maybe he did start to feel ashamed or something, because he turned around and wouldn't let me take his picture any longer.

I checked in with my friend who knows about these things, and I was disappointed. He does have a right. The law is clear. The postal service is a semi private something that is administered by the government. He can be there unless there is a clear hazard to public safety.

The hazard to the public safety isn't in his table or his shiny dvds or books. It's in the culture of hate he's promoting, the culture of hate he's living. That is where the danger lies. And it is a clear and very real danger.

Loving Day

In my family we have a dadand a momand three kids

and a little dog.

And because of the supreme court's decision in Loving vs. Virginia (1967) we can legally marry in any state. We have the legal advantages of marriage, and more. Our basic human right to marry the person we love is protected.

And our children can't give us a hard time about being rebel-hippies, although sometimes they still do that.

Happy Loving Day. Cupcakes for all!

Adopted the Movie

Great movie, showing at Wing Luke Asian Museum May 9th at 1:00.

Funky Alternative Life

I went to the zoo yesterday. I had been so touched that my 12 and 14-year-old kids wanted to go to the zoo with me on a group field trip with our homeschool-school. That is until one of the 8th graders pointed out that they'd be missing classes at school! Hunh. I'm a little slow, sometimes.

But it wasn't really only about missing classes. It was about being outside, and spending a day with friends. And checking in with the animals.

I spent the day walking the longest "thank you" prayer I've ever known. Our school is a K-12 parent partnership program with about 100 kids total enrollment. We're homeschoolers. We have no idea how to walk in a line, we walk in small clumps heads bowed together to chat, or giggle wildly or push and shove, depending on our stage in life. Many of us have known each other for years and years. We trust each other, we lean on each other. The kids know that even though that little five-year-old isn't their brother, he's a friend's brother and he might need a boost to really see the hippos. The boys and girls talk and laugh together. The older kids hold doors for the younger kids and no toddler ever tires a mom's arms becuse there are a dozen middle school boys and girls who are happy to carry her, too.

Lunches are shared. Water is shared. Hand sanitizer is shared. Someone starts talking like Jack Sparrow and soon the whole crew of kids have cheezy english accents.

Yesterday was the last day school groups could buy the group tickets for the zoo. There were dozens and dozens of busses lined up outside the zoo. And for me it was a stark contrast. I watched our kids and I watched those groups. Our adults had the same orange "Chaperone" stickers and our kids had the same drive to see everything. We had a bigger age range of course, from our newest little brother who is probably about six-weeks-old to a group of eigth graders who will be 15 in the fall. But the difference in the groups was stark. Yes, our moms and dads were frustrated with the kids who climbed up on the rocks again after being told to please get down, it wasn't safe. And yes our kids sometimes ordered each other around. But the redirection was gentle, our patience supported by the group of parents we happened to be walking with just then. We were there with our community.

I've always felt lucky to have been able to homeschool. But frankly, it's been a commitment that I take seriously enough to make it work. I want my kids to have just this. And if it meant I had to work full time swing shift, well then I did. If it means working 20 hours a week and taking no vacations and driving 12-year-old cars, that's fine. It's so worth it to have days like our day at the zoo.

The icing on the cake happened in the primate area. I was hanging back, watching six kids watch the animals and I noticed--no white kids. All our kids were mixed race. I was with two good women friends who are both white, but our kids were white and Asian and black and native because we're all in mixed marriages. I smiled.

I am happy to live this funky alternative life with it's funky alternative church and our funky alternative school and our funky alternative days. I'm still smiling.

Miley Cyrus blames God

In some ways I hope that no one follows pop culture enough to know about this story. I mean, Miley Cyrus? Please. But in another way, I cannot believe that if Miley Cyrus had folded her lips into "Black People Lips" and been photographed that it would NOT have made CNN and created a huge nation wide outrage.

Instead she did what the Asian and Hapa men in my house call "Doing Chink-eyes". And the only coverage I can find is on TMZ and Angry Asian Man. Not a huge blanket of coverage, at least from what I can find.

And then she apologized, first in a really lame way.

Then, I think she may have blamed God.

"I want to thank all of my fans for their support not only this week, but always! I really wanted to stress how sorry I am if the photo of me with my friends offended anyone. I have learned a valuable lesson from this and know that sometimes my actions can be unintentionally hurtful. I know everything is a part of GOD's ultimate plan, and mistakes happen so that eventually I will become the woman he aspires me to be. Peace and love, Miles"

"If" the photo offended anyone? What, is she really that clueless. Yes, it offended lots of someones.

And what on earth has God got to do with it? The God in my heart would advise that you used your own free will to do something really stupid, and the very Christian thing to do would be to drop to your knees beg forgiveness and try to learn from the way that you screwed up. I'm glad her God isn't mine. I'd hate to be so mind controlled.

Boycott Disney. Speak the truth. And tell your Hannah Montana loving sweet daughters that this is not OK.

Looks like Home

Here's the thing.

This time when our president stood at the platform and gave a great speech with a call to action for all of the citizens of the U.S. I noticed something I've never seen before.



This time the folks on that platform behind him looked like us. They looked like my family. It looked like us. There were white folks, and black folks and Asian folks and hapa folks. We can relate to Konrad Ng, the Canadian Chinese brother-in-law of the president. We can relate to Maya, our president's sister. We can relate to our president and his mixed race heritage. We can relate.

Even though I am the white one in my family, the people I hold dearest and closest and who live daily in this house with me are represented here on this platform.

It is something I can't even put words to. But is one of the most profound moments for us. Ever.

A Million Joys and One Snark

Just a little tiny complaint. I am overjoyed in this new beginning for our country. I love that Barack Obama is our president elect. I cried during his acceptance speech, and I feel personally ready to take on what we need to take on to redirect this country, as I imagine my grandmothers felt as we went into World War II. Really, I am transformed.

But just one little tiny thing:

Will there come a day when one barrier will fall first to a woman? Maybe I'm just swimming around here in my own funk about this, but could there be a woman who breaks a barrier before a person of color, who is a man? And no, Sarah Palin does not count. She was a "hail mary" pass, not a well planned and vetted leader.

This unsettled feeling is not playing well in my house. I live with one very old dog, one husband who was adopted from Korea as a baby and three Hapa young men. They don't want to listen to my feelings of being marginalized, of once again being led by men.

I can't blame them. It's not like Sen. Daniel Iouye is our president elect, they've yet to see an Asian man in a postion of such power in our country. But my sons have seen a mixed race man ascend through the minefield of torn alleginces and infighting that can plauge mixed race folks. Still, gender seems to be a game breaker.

Take, for instance, our own UUA Presidency. I don't get a vote because I am a Religious Educator, and not a minister, but if I had one, would I use it to elect a woman to lead us? Well, frankly, no. I would choose based on which candidate I felt could lead us, not as a token pass.

I do wonder. I don't have daughters, but I wonder how little girls are feeling in this post election frenzy? I'm overjoyed that young black and mixed race boys see by looking at their TV screens that they really can be the president of the USA.

What do little girls think?

Past Ware Lecturer, Rashid Khalidi in the News

No, it wasn't that Barack Obama shared his peanut butter sandwich with Rashid Khalidi in Kindergarten, but now the country's best designer suit-wearing lipstick-covered Governor, Sarah Palin is trying to cast Obama as a dangerous radical by pairing him with Rashid Khalidi. History Professor Rashid Khalidi. 2007 Ware Lecturer Rashid Khalidi.


When I heard this I looked at my family, what? Rashid Khalidi, a P.L.O. spokesperson? I don't think so. My son and I saw him speak at the 2007 General Assembly in Portland, OR with a whole crew of other UUs and yes, he was tough on Bush policy in the Middle East, in Iran, toward Israel and the Palestinians, but he was clearly on the side of peace and on the side of the US. Just not Bush's US. Our US. The one filled with devout Christians and Jews and Muslims and religious folks of all kinds. The US filled with people who love and value peace and care for people who are oppressed by powerful nations.

Like our powerful nation.

We desperately need good men like Khalidi who will speak the truth and hold up the mirror so that we can see what our country is doing. Not just from behind our eyes, but from the view of the people who own the backyards our troops are in.

I hope Barack Obama brings Professor Khalidi into the cabinet as Secretary of State. I hope he's all over CNN. I hope his leadership is just the very kind that we are lucky enough to have in an Obama administration.

Maybe, just maybe, we in this privileged, mostly white, mostly Christian country can learn to leave behind prejudice that this Governor is preying on. We can learn that wonderful Americans can have the name Rashid Khalidi or Barack Obama and be ten fold the American of Joe Six-pack who seems, from all evidence, to care only for himself.

This Kind of "Minnesota Nice"

My family moved from the Midwest five years ago. One of the biggest reasons we left aside from the insanely long winters and the steamy mosquito infested summers is the racism just like the racism exhibited at Lakeville High School by a good old nice Minnesotan last Friday.



See, folks in Minnesota pride themselves on being nice. And lots of them are. Like news anchor Belinda Jensen, come on, she really is nice.


Of course there are folks like former pro wrestler and actor Gov. Jesse Ventura who never pretended to be nice. Believe me, I had his "people" on the phone once when I worked for an airline. Not nice, but hey! He isn't pretending to be.

But even as people in Minnesota are staring at us; and me and my husband, the freak mixed race couple with our freak children, they still believe that they really are "nice".

When they're asking my husband "No where are you REALLY from?" and "gosh you hardly have an accent at all?" They just say "oh well, ya know, we just weren't raised with people like him." People who aren't like them. People who aren't white.

Apparently, being of middle eastern descent is just about the worst thing someone can be according to this woman speaking in the auditorium of the high school in the next town over from where we lived. In her mind it certainly is grounds for fear.

Understand this; Lakeville, Minnesota is not a small town. It's a suburb with bix box stores and housing developments and house farms up and down the rolling hills. I know there must be folks who go to my old congregation who are from Lakeville. They must be shaking their heads. Maybe they're shaking their fists in frustration. God, I hope so.

What has to happen for those of us who stand on the side of love? What do we do with hate and fear like this? What we have to do first is to decide as a country that there is a difference between being nice and being good. We need to see that sometimes to be good we have to be anything but nice. Say it, say the truth. Racism. That woman is motivated by racism. She is racist. And so are a lot of other "nice" folks in Minnesota. They still stare at us in the aisles at Cub foods just down the street from Lakeville High school.

Stop them from whipping up the fear. Stop them from whipping up the racism. Speak to the truth. The truth of race.

We in our halls need to call our ministers of color, we need to hire what we believe. We need to stand in the white privilege some of us benefit from and name it. But more than just in our halls. In our streets, in our communities, in our High School auditoriums stand.

I hope this woman is being confronted by her fellow church goers, the Christians, the ones who are supposed to be like the traveler from Samatria who help those that others say are unworthy. I hope she's being asked hard questions by her neighbors and her grandchildren. And I hope that in the divine intervention of all, that her favorite granddaughter falls madly in love with a man with an Arabic name. Or better yet, a woman with an Arabic name and that she converts to the kind and peaceful Islamic faith. And lives a good life.

Not a nice life. A good one.

Really? Vice President

When my 16-year-old son heard about McCain's VP pick this morning, he said "Well, then for sure the Democrats will win, race always comes before gender".

Ouch, that's cynicism. But I know where he got it. We were hanging out with our youth group last winter right about the time Obama came to Seattle. The youth group leader, a lovely young woman about 30-years-old said that of course Obama would be the nominee because race always comes before gender in breaking down barriers. Damn, if she isn't right. Not always, always of course. But still, nearly always.

I tend to be such an optimist, it's painful to even think, but of course it's true.

Still, I think it's a dirty, ugly move that panders to the lowest motives in politics to nominate this woman for VP.

Cynicism aside, I hope he's right.