If the Republicans don't 'get' women, it's also likely Democrats don't 'get' white males

When people talk about white males having all the power, for many white males it just doesn't ring true. They don't feel powerful. Their wives frustrate them constantly and their children don't listen to them. And at work there are all sorts of people and organizations that confound their efforts to get things done.

But, if we look at the heads of the powerful organizations in this country - from the presidency of the US, governors, legislators - federal and state - and CEO's of large corporations (and small ones), they are predominantly white males. Obama is the first president who is only half-white. So from this perspective it would appear that white males have all the power. But as I said, white males don't feel like they have all the power.

Most, for starters, aren't in those powerful positions. And even some in those positions know that while they have the title, there are a lot of counter forces that make it hard to do what they want to do.

 How did it happen that white males are in so many of the powerful positions? It would seem there are two main possible explanations.

1. White males are inherently superior to everyone else.  They got into those positions because they are just better than everyone else. Before the 1960's most people - at least the white males - believed this.

 2. The road to the top has more obstacles for non-whites and females than it has for white males.

Understanding the second explanation is, I think, the key to understanding how racism, sexism, and other isms continue to impact the people in the less powerful groups. Let me give some examples.

When my daughter was about 8 years old, she announced she was going to ride her bike to Heidi's house. That meant about a 3 mile bike ride, much of it on the wooded bike trail. I immediately was aware that what I was about to say to my daughter, I wouldn't have said to my son. And that this was unfair. Ummm, no, I think you are not going to ride alone on the bike trail to Heidi's.

There are few places in Anchorage that I would be fearful of walking - any time of day or night - by myself. But that is not the case for my wife or for other women I know. At the University I had absolutely no concern for my personal safety.  I'm not reckless, there just wasn't a threat.  I could work in my office late at night and walk on campus at any time.

But a female faculty member  was raped in her office at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.

When it comes to clothing, women are expected to dress more carefully than men. And even when men have to dress up, there's a standard uniform - a suit and a tie. Traveling on business I can just stick one suit and several ties and shirts into a suitcase and I'm done. A woman doesn't have a standard uniform. She has to pick something that is 'appropriate' but doesn't call too much attention to her body.  She probably should have a different outfit for each day, maybe more.  She may have to take heels. Her hair has to be 'done.'

These are all little things, but they take time and energy. They are hurdles on the race to the top that men don't have to go over, or if they do, they are lower.   But cumulatively they add up.


Of course, there are much bigger hurdles.

When it comes to household and child-rearing responsibilities, women tend to be more burdened than men.  Woman in dual worker households continue to do more domestic work than their husbands.  And far more single mothers have the kids than the fathers.

Yesterday's post had examples of organizations during World War II that had explicit policies that Negroes could only do janitorial work if they could get a job at all. There are still stories today of hotels that have no vacancy when blacks ask for a room. Restaurant reservations that evaporate when a darker couple arrives.  And I know African-American men who wear suits and ties when they drive as an extra protection if they get stopped by the police.  For them racial profile is not an abstract concept. There was a recent report about one of India's top movie stars - Shah Rukh Khan - who was detained by the TSA for the second time and this time long enough that it forced him to postpone a speech he was to give at Yale University.  These are real obstacles.

Kahn's is the example of non-whites (I use that phrase to describe the universe of people who fit in this group recognizing that it makes white the norm, which is part of the problem I'm trying to illustrate) who may actually have power, but when they walk down the street, they go back to being second class citizens (I'm being polite here) to many people.  A good friend who was Commissioner of Labor for the State of Alaska, was standing in the Chicago airport, in a coat and tie, when someone came up to him and gave him their luggage to carry out to the car.  Just because he was black!

So much of this is invisible to passersby.  There are few signs today that say, "No Indians Allowed."  It may even be invisible to the victims themselves.  I worked with minority students who would ask, "Did I get a D because my paper is really that bad or because I'm black?"  Below is a 1991 Frontline piece that shows the different reception that a black and white male get when going into a store, looking for a job, and looking for an apartment.  It shows the obstacles that non-whites often have to overcome that simply aren't there for whites males. 





Does this mean white males have it easy?  

No way.  Our whole industrial capitalist system has offered us many products and labor saving devices that make our lives easier, richer, healthier, and just more fun.  But this all comes with a level of complication that challenges everyone, whether it's figuring out your cell phone or call waiting or your taxes.  Or getting health care.  The rules and paperwork and bills never seem to let up.

Life is both better and more stressful for everyone.  Dividing us by race or gender, whether it is some  conspiracy or genetically programmed into human beings,  pits groups against each other instead of seeking ways to make the whole system more user friendly to humans as a whole. White males don't have it easy.  But for the most part,  they've had it easier than everyone else. 

That doesn't mean that every black female's life is harder than every white male's life.  The daughter of a black physician and school teacher probably has advantages over the second son of a single white mom on welfare.  But if we look at similarly situated people - say an obese white male and an obese black male, with similar economic and educational backgrounds, the two share a lot of obstacles.  But the black man has the additional burdens of being black in America. 

If you are a suffering white male, there  are plenty of things you can point to and complain about.  I've heard it said that we tend to blame others for our problems and take credit for out successes.  Unemployed white males can point to things like Affirmative Action to show that they are discriminated against.  That could be a whole other post, but basically AA has leveled the playing field, to some extent, mostly for white women and to a lesser extent has helped other minorities.  It basically requires that "all things being equal, an underrepresented class should get the position."  While I'm sure it has been abused now and then, it still doesn't come near to making up the abuses against everyone but white males in the past.  But collective fairness is much harder to grasp than individual situations.  Plus there are lots of examples of using Affirmative Action as an excuse why a white male didn't get the job, when it wasn't the issue. 

And if you look at college classrooms, the percentage of women has been steadily increasing and in many fields - not traditional women's fields - they dominate.  And they go into the labor market more qualified.  And birth control and abortion rights and access to better jobs means they don't have to get married to make it in our society.  For many white males, things are getting scary.  Their white privilege doesn't give them as many free passes.  Things are more equal and they have to work harder to keep up.  Plus the whole economic system is less benevolent as the right has torn down private sector pensions and is working now to do the same with public sector pensions. 

And the proof for many that discrimination no longer exists, is our black President.  My sense is that his election, for many, was the last straw.  It indicated to the many who still harbor white superiority in their hearts, the end of life as they know it.  Just google White Supremacy or White Nationalism to see that skin color still is the most important characteristic for many. 

The Gender Gap and the Elections

When I hear things like, Obama is 20 points ahead of Romney in the female vote, it suggests several things to me:

1.   The Republicans represent the white male who feels under siege, but who doesn't get the points I'm trying to make in this post - that whatever their problems, their paths to success have traditionally been easier than everyone else's.  But that looking at race and gender simply distracts from the real problem - the political and economic system that distributes the benefits less widely today than it has in years and years.

2.   The various actions of Republicans that cause women to prefer Obama - the so called 'war on women' - which includes obstacles to contraception and abortion (while Viagra is covered in health insurance) reflect an attempt to reconstruct some of the obstacles to women that have been taken down.

3.  If the Republicans don't 'get' women, I suspect it's also true that Democrats don't 'get' white males.  They are hurting.  What was once the domain of white males is increasingly populated by others.  Where once only white males competed, or competed with special passes (Veterans preferences used to be mostly for white males)  there is now competition.  Individual white males never understood that part of their success was due to being white males and not their inherent ability. Their stories of black and female inferiority justified their positions on top.   Now the playing field is getting more level, it looks to many white males, that the tables have turned, that they are being discriminated against.  Usually this just means the deck is no longer as stacked in their favor.  

With the news touting the gender gap for Obama, I suspect that Obama needs to pay attention to the disaffected white male.  Not to pander, but to show some understanding that they aren't all feeling powerful.  That their lives aren't all easy.  That his policies aren't abandoning them.  Or many in the undecided middle will see the women going for Obama as a sign that they need to go right.  

Some Historical Perspective For Anchorage's Prop 5

"The president opened the meeting with small talk and then, in typical fashion, turned raconteur, entertaining his audience with political anecdote.  To Roosevelt it seemed so natural that everyone should be fond of hearing his charming stories that he was somewhat taken aback when Randolph broke in.  "Mr. President, time is running out.  You are quite busy, I know.  But what we want to talk with you about is the problem of jobs for Negroes in defense industries."
"Well, Phil, what do you want me to do?"
"Mr. President, we want you to issue an Executive Order making it mandatory that Negroes be permitted to work in these plants."
"Well, Phil, you know I can't do that  . . . In any event I couldn't do anything unless you called off this march of yours.  Questions like this can't be settled with a sledge hammer  . . What would happen if Irish and Jewish people were to march on Washington?  It would create resentment among the American people because such a march would be considered as an effort to coerce the government and make it do certain things."
"I'm sorry Mr. President, the march cannot be called off."
"How many people do you plan to bring?"
"One hundred thousand, Mr. President."
The astronomical figure staggered belief.  Perhaps Randolph was bluffing.  Turning to White, Roosevelt asked, "Walter, how many people will really march?"  White's eyes did not blink.  "One hundred thousand, Mr. President,"  he affirmed. (p. 251)

I've been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time and I can't help but notice parallels between racial discrimination in the 1940s and sexual-orientation discrimination today.  The same sort of belief today that gays are less deserving of full equality was voiced openly about the group then known, politely, as Negroes or Coloreds.  The same "things have always worked this way, so don't change it" was heard both times. I'm sure that people who voted No on Proposition 5 say that it was a different situation.  They are kidding themselves if they believe that.  Listen to what went on then.  If they can't hear the parallels today, it's because they don't want to. 

The meeting above was the culmination of a number of policies and events where American blacks were discriminated against, outrageously (though then, perfectly acceptably to most white Americans) in the military and in the government funded defense industry.  Here's the build up to that meeting - and the result at the end.

In early September [1940], she had received a disturbing letter from a Negro doctor, Henry Davis.  "At a time when everyone is excited about increasing the size of the army,"  he told her, he had been refused an active commission simply because of his dark skin.  "I am greatly disappointed and am very much depressed,"  he admitted, "gradually losing faith, ambition and confidence in myself." (p. 165)

It was not until the porters' convention, however, when she talked at great length with Randolph*, that Eleanor came to appreciate the full dimensions of the situation.  The discrimination Dr. Davis had experienced, Eleanor was told,

*A. Philip Randolph had founded the journal The Messenger  in Harlem in his twenties and created the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and was a major black spokesperson at the time. See the video below.

was widespread.  In Charlotte, North Carolina, a Negro high-school teacher holding a master's degree from Columbia had been severely beaten by white soldiers stationed at a recruiting office when he sought information for his pupils.  At the University of Minnesota, Walter Robinson had successfully completed the Civil Aeronautics Authority flight-training program, finishing thirteenth in a class of three hundred.  But when he applied for enlistment in the Army Air corps, he was told that it was useless to complete the application.  "There is no place for a Negro in the Air Corps," the lieutenant in charge said.  Dr. Winston Willoughby, a Negro dentist had received an equally peremptory response when he sought a commission in the Dental Corps.  "Hell, if you said you were colored I would have saved you a trip,"  he was told.  "There are no colored dentists in the Dental Corps."

The situation in the navy, where four thousand Negroes served, was even more hypocritical.  To the extent the navy had opened its doors to Negroes, it was strictly as mess men, assigned to make the officers' beds, serve their meals, clean their rooms, shine their shoes, and check their laundry.  Unaware of this depressing situation, many Negroes had been drawn into the navy by false promises, only to find, once they were in, that there was no room for advancement.  (pp. 165-166)

Kearns goes on to write about 15 sailors aboard the USS Philadelphia who wrote a letter to a black newspaper - the Pittsburgh Courier. [It still exists, you can read it at the link.] They warned mothers and fathers to not let their black sons enlist because they too would be treated like servants.

The navy's reaction to the published letter was swift and severe.  The signers were placed in the brig, indicted for conduct prejudicial to good order, and given dishonorable discharges for "unfitness"  . . .

Despite the punishment exacted, the courageous action of the fifteen mess men, like a small rock tumbling over the side of a mountain, initiated an avalanche of protest that would eventually change the face of the navy.  With cynicism and hope existing side by side under the charged conditions of impending war, hundreds of Negro mess men in dozens of ships began to speak up.  "Since other mess attendants . . . are putting up such a stiff fight for equality,"  three Negro sailors wrote from the USS Davis in San Diego, "we feel it only right for us . . . to do our share . . . Before now, we were afraid of the consequences if we fought naval discrimination, but now that we have outside help which has given us new hope, we are prepared and determined to do our part on the inside to the last man."   . . . (pp. 166-167)

A bill in Congress, drafted because of the pressure mounting for better treatment of Negroes in the military declared,

"In the selection and training of men under this act . . . there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or color."  The problem, Negro leaders recognized, was the next sentence in the bill, which promised that "no man shall be inducted for training and service unless he is acceptable" to the army and "until adequate provision shall have been made for shelter, sanitary facilities, water supplies, heating and lighting arrangements, medical care and hospital accommodations."  (p. 167)

Earlier, Kearns had mentioned that while Eleanor argued for what should  be done, her husband was concerned with what could be done.

"I did not choose the tools with which I must work,"  he told Walter White in the mid-thirties, explaining his refusal to endorse a federal antilynching campaign [!].  "Had I been permitted to choose them I would have selected quite different ones.  But I've got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America.  The southerners by reason of the seniority rule in Congress are chairmen or occupy strategic places on most of the Senate and House committees.  If I come out for the anti-lynching bill, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing.  I just can't take that risk." (p. 163)

Is Obama weighing Guantanamo decisions the same way?

A. Philip Randolph [see video] had been talking with Eleanor Roosevelt over the years and saw the outrage over how blacks were treated in the military as an issue that was uniting blacks like no other issue.  An initial meeting with Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy and Assistant Secretary of War produced little.  Goodwin quotes War Secretary Stimson's diary,

"I sent [Undersecretary Robert] Patterson to this meeting, because I really had so much  else to do," Stimson recorded.  "According to him it was a rather amusing affair - the President's gymnastics as to politics.  I saw the same thing happen 23 years ago when Woodrow Wilson yielded to the same sort of demand and appointed colored officers to several of the Divisions that went over to France, and the poor fellows made perfect fools of themselves . . .  Leadership is not embedded in the Negro race yet and to try to make commisioned officers to lead the men into battle is only to work disaster to both.  Colored troops do very well under white officers but every time we try to lift them a little beyond where they can go, disaster and confusion follow. . . I hope for heaven's sake they won't mix the white and colored troops together in the same units for then we shall certainly have trouble."

She goes on to say his remarks are mirrored in an Army War College Report from 1925 that included,

"In the process of evolution  . . . the American negro has not progressed as far as other sub species of the human family. . ." (p. 169)

Predictably, the policy statement that emerged was disappointing to Randolph and the other black leaders.  It promised to create Negro units within the branches of the military but not to

 "intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations.  This policy has proven satisfactory over a long period of years and to make changes would produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparation for national defense."  (pp. 170-171)

 There were demonstrations against the policy in New York and Goodwin quotes an editorial in the Crisis,

"We are inexpressibly shocked. . . that a President at a time of national peril should surrender so completely to enemies of democracy who would destroy national unity by advocating segregation."

. . .What the Negroes wanted at that moment, Hopkins was told, was the promotion of Colonel Benjamin Davis, grandson of a slave, to brigadier general, and the appointment of William Hastie, dean of Howard Law School, as a civilian aide to Secretary Stimson.  Change in the structure of the military would only come, Negroes now believed, if strong black men were placed in positions of leadership. (pp. 171-172)

 Eleanor's agenda soon included concerns about the State Department not processing visas of Jewish refugees from the Nazis.  Goodwin quotes a memo from the State Department's man in charge of refugee matters, Breckinridge Long:

"We can delay and effectively stop for a temporary period of indefinite length the number of immigrants into the Untied States.  We could do this by simply advising our consuls to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative advices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas." (p. 173)

Can you see a familiar pattern here?  People who espouse flat out falsehoods that they may believe, but, nevertheless, are totally wrong.  People who prevent change and fight to keep things the way they have 'always' been.  People, apparently, oblivious or uncaring that their efforts bring tremendous harm and hardship to others.   People who obstruct justice any way they can.

The strategies and behaviors have been on display nationally and locally on the issue of LBGT rights.  Different falsehoods, but similar obstructions. Today we can't prove what they are doing in private, but if we look to history and the access time brings to past events, we can see that eventually many of today's duplicities will be revealed. But after how much unnecessary pain?

The 1940 election is over and Roosevelt is serving his unprecedented (and never to be repeated)  3rd term.  There is a strike at the Ford Motor company - the only auto company not unionized.  And the only company treating blacks relatively well, well enough that the company is able to convince them that if they unionize, the unions won't treat them as well.  Eventually though, black leaders convince them to come out of the plant and join the white workers on strike and the Ford strike ends in major victory for the union.  But not without a public relations cost because they are depicted as holding up the war effort.

That June of 1941, a storm was gathering in the black community.  Though some progress had been made in opening doors to blacks in the armed forces, discrimination in the mushrooming defense industry continued unabated.  All over the country, the new war plants were refusing to hire blacks.  "Negroes will be considered only as janitors,"  the general manager of North American Aviation publicly asserted.  "It is the company policy not to employ them as mechanics and aircraft workers."  In Kansas City, Standard Steel told the Urban League, "We have not had a negro working in 25 years and do not plan to start now."  And from Vultee Air in California a blanket statement was issued.  "It is not the policy of this company to employ other than of the Caucasian race." [Not only is the idea bad, but the prose is terrible too.]

 The black press abounded with stories of flagrant discrimination.  In early 1941, a hundred NYA trainees were sent to Quoddy Village to work in an aircraft factory near Buffalo.  One of the hundred was black, and he was the only one not hired, even though he had the best grades of the group.  "Negroes who are experienced machinists are being refused employment,"  the Pittsburgh Courier observed, "while white men and boys who have had no training in this work are being hired and trained later."

I would note that this is the reason that employment discrimination is unacceptable.  If enough of the employers hire (or refuse to hire) a group of people based on personal characteristics and NOT on merit, that group of people is shut out of good jobs.  People's personal feelings about having blacks mix with whites was just as emotional, if not more so, than some people's feelings about gays and lesbians today.

This is getting really long.  You can read this all in detail in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book  No Ordinary Time.  Let me get you back to that meeting between the President and Randolph. Randolph began organizing a black march on Washington.

The time had come, Randolph argued, setting the strategic stage for the civil-rights movement of later decades, to mobilize the power and pressure that resided, not in the few, not in the intelligentsia, but in the masses, the organized masses.  "Only power,"  he observed, "can effect the enforcement and adoption of a given policy, however, meritorious it may be." . . .

". . .we ought to get 10,000 Negroes and march down Pennsylvania Avenue and protest against the discriminatory practices in this rapidly expanding economy"    (p. 247)

Roosevelt tried to dissuade him.  He raised concerns about sanitation, housing, and violence if 10,000 blacks marched on the capital.  Eventually Eleanor convinced her husband that he needed to talk with Randolph again.  And they meet.

"The president opened the meeting with small talk and then, in typical fashion, turned raconteur, entertaining his audience with political anecdote.  To Roosevelt it seemed so natural that everyone should be fond of hearing his charming stories that he was somewhat taken aback when Randolph broke in.  "Mr. President, time is running out.  You are quite busy, I know.  But what we want to talk with you about is the problem of jobs for Negroes in defense industries."
"Well, Phil, what do you want me to do?"
"Mr. President, we want you to issue an Executive Order making it mandatory that Negroes be permitted to work in these plants."
"Well, Phil, you know I can't do that  . . . In any event I couldn't do anything unless you called off this march of yours.  Questions like this can't be settled with a sledge hammer  . . What would happen if Irish and Jewish people were to march on Washington?  It would create resentment among the American people because such a march would be considered as an effort to coerce the government and make it do certain things."
"I'm sorry Mr. President, the march cannot be called off."
"How many people do you plan to bring?"
"One hundred thousand, Mr. President."
The astronomical figure staggered belief.  Perhaps Randolph was bluffing.  Turning to White, Roosevelt asked, "Walter, how many people will really march?"  White's eyes did not blink.  "One hundred thousand, Mr. President,"  he affirmed. (p. 251)

Years later, NAACP leader Roy Wilkins suggested that it may well have been a bluff on Randolph's part, but what an extraordinary bluff it was.  "A tall courtly black man with Shakespearean diction and the stare of an eagle had looked the patrician FDR in the eye - and made him back down." . . . Never before in the history of the nation," the Chicago Defender observed, had Negroes, from illiterate sharecroppers in Arkansas to college students in Chicago, "ever been so united in an objective, and so insistent upon an action being taken."  When the president signed the executive order, "faith in a democracy which Negroes had begun to feel had strayed from its course was renewed throughout the nation."

When I read "illiterate sharecroppers in Arkansas" I regretted that my neighbor Mildred Nash is no longer alive. She was at the time a sharecropper in Arkansas. How I'd love to share this passage with her and have her tell me what she knew of these events then.

In any case, history, if we know how to read it, can enlighten us about the present. But we must be open to things that contradict what we believe as well as things that support what we believe.

Taking the Dogs Up Perseverance Trail

Paul goes for regular runs and hikes and picks up his friends' dogs to go with him.  It's nice to be able to walk into the woods - no car - from your house in downtown Juneau.  The evening (last Thursday) was warm - mid to high 50s - and soon we'd passed all the houses and were at the wooden planking part of the road.  But the road was closed to vehicles while they were completely redoing it.  Two years ago when we spent the legislative session here, they'd replaced some of the planks, but it was nothing this extensive. Here's a March 2010 post  about the trail.  

There was a huge avalanche across the trail.  I'd been warned about avalanches in 2010, but there was a lot less snow that year. 

Paul seemed to think we were more likely to be killed by falling rocks than snow sliding down the mountain.

The sign says bikes should yield to runners and hikers.  We didn't see any bikes.


The video shows the second avalanche area and Paul and the dogs coming back from the trail to the waterfall. Apollo, the young black dog, has so much energy which you can see as a carries a stick longer than he is.











And here we are on the way back, climbing down from the first avalanche.

And here we're back in town, almost home. 

Pakistani Official Tends Sikh Shoes and Toilets To Atone Muslim Killing Of Sikh

Here's the beginning of the story, you can get the whole thing here.

Image of Golden Temple Amritsar

HASAN ABDAL: Thousands of Indian pilgrims barely registered the man in the orange bandanna and Ray-Ban sunglasses taking their shoes and storing them in wooden cubbyholes before they entered the Sikh shrine in Hasan Abdal.

The unassuming 62-year-old tending to the shoes is a top government lawyer and devout Muslim. At the shrine, he is on an unusual solo quest—taking on menial jobs to atone for the beheading of a Sikh by militants.

Over the past two years, Muhammed Khurshid Khan has traveled to Sikh shrines in Pakistan and India, volunteering to polish shoes, clean bathrooms, cook meals and do other chores. Such service is known as “seva”—selfless service—in Sikhism, and it holds a special place in the faith.

Attacks against Sikhs, Christians and Hindus have spiked in Pakistan in recent years as the Taliban and their allies gained strength. Atrocities by extremists against religious minorities now are so common that they rarely illicit more than routine condemnation by officials, much less collective contrition or shame.

In helping Sikhs, Khan is reaching out to an extremely small minority.
“I have a desire to serve the Sikh community because my community has done them serious harm, and that hurts me,” said Khan, taking a break from his work at the Gurdwara Panja Sahib.

Khan, one of two dozen deputy attorney generals in Pakistan, began his mission in 2010 after militants kidnapped three Sikhs returning from Afghanistan to their homes in Pakistan. The militants demanded some$240 thousand dollars—an amount the families could not afford. Two of the captives were freed in a commando raid, but 30-year-old Jaspal Singh had already been beheaded.

“That news pierced my heart,” said Khan. “How could Muslims do such harm to such a peaceful community?”

 The rest of the story is here.  

This comes from Dawn.com through a friend.  I can't find any other coverage of this, but Wikipedia says:

Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald, a magazine, the evening paper The Star and Spider, an information technology magazine.

Man Survives Nazis and Stasi Dressed as a Woman

Brandon Demery Curtain Call

[The Nitty Gritty:  Yes the title was meant to get your attention, but it's also accurate.  "I Am My Own Wife" is one more truly amazing performance at Out North.  A Pulitzer and Tony winning play about a most unusual character, performed so extremely well, by Juneau actor  Brandon Demery.

Two more shows Saturday (today) at 3pm and 8pm.

This is one of those true gems that we in Anchorage get to see intimately in Out North's tiny theater.  The blurbs written about the play simply do not give a sense at all of what this is really about, and it's so good you shouldn't spoil it by reading the in depth reviews in advance.   You can stop reading now and just go and see this while you can.  But if you're not convinced, read on.]



This really should have played every night for the week before the Prop. 5 election.  It's one more story about a man's body holding a woman inside.  From Peter Hinton's study guide for the play:

“In an age where politicians still routinely decry homosexuality on the evening news and “fag” remains the most stinging of all playground epithets, Charlotte’s dogged insistence on her own sexuality could prove downright curative, an antidote for a community too often besieged by public condemnation and internalized self-loathing. She was a bona fide gay hero.”**

From New York Times theater reviewer, Bruce Weber,  almost ten years ago, about this play in New York,

. . . the producers of ''I Am My Own Wife'' have done theatergoers a service by giving the play a chance to be more widely seen. And it has, in fact, broader appeal than a mere description would have you believe. It is not an esoteric work, and it isn't especially kinky.

It does, however, tell a terrific story based on a real person, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (née Lothar Berfelde), a soft-spoken but tenaciously gender-bending biological male who died in 2002 at 74. Her lifelong obsession -- Mahlsdorf preferred to be thought of as female -- was the preservation of furniture, especially pieces from the 1890's, and other household relics like Victrolas and gramophones.

The playwright is one of the main characters in the play, a resolution to the dilemma of having conflicting information about his main character - is she a hero or not? - and not knowing which version was true or how to resolve the conflicts in a person he saw as a hero.

 From the study guide about the drama:

"An exchange with a colleague at a writers’ retreat in 2000 gave Wright insight into an approach to Charlotte’s story that freed him to proceed with it: “For the first time, the play’s structure dawned on me. It wouldn’t be a straightforwsard biographical drama; it would chart my own relationship with my heroine. I would even appear as a character, a kind of detective searching for Charlotte’s true self” (Wright, p. xv.). By making his own process of discovery just as much a part of the drama as the events in the life of his enigmatic subject, Wright highlights the notion that the meaning of an individual life -- in truth as well as in fiction -- depends on who’s telling the story. No collection of stories, no matter how exhaustive it may appear, is ever enough to capture the elusive essence of individual identity; hence the provisional element in the play’s subtitle -- not “The Life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf” but Studies for a Play About the Life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf."

And while there were a number of characters - the Irish Film Magazine says 44 (some had very short parts) - there was only one actor playing them all.  There were a few words here and there that slipped out of his mouth that had to be retrieved quickly before proceeding, but that really didn't detract from the power of the performance.

Stage table with props

Need I say it again?  Go see this.  Take your neighbor who voted no last week.  




An additional note.  The student guide has a German vocabulary list for the play.  There is German spoken, but mostly it's translated in the play.  But there is one bit of German not on the list - probably because it was said in English.  Charlotte says something like, "I became the furniture"  "I became . . . "  In German, bekommen, means "to get."  I'm assuming the playwright was indulging in a bit of bi-lingual word play here, because the character both 'gets' these objects and in a way 'becomes' them as well. 

April 16 Deadline To Respond To Court On Redistricting Amended Proclamation

The Alaska Redistricting Board sent its paperwork back to Judge McConahy yesterday (Thursday) and the Judge issued a schedule today:

The Riley/Dearborn Plaintiffs and amicus curiae involved at the superior court and supreme court level in this case are given until 16 April 2012 to file objections to the Board's Notice of Compliance.  the parties and the amicus curiae shall address the following:
(1)  Whether the Board followed the Hickel process as directed by the Alaska Supreme Court?
(2) Whether deviations from the Alaska Constitution are justified by the Voting Rights Act?
(3)  Other matters that the plaintiffs and the amicus curiae feel are appropriate to address.

The board shall have until the close of business on 18 April 2012 to file its replies, if any, to the objections. 

The court will issue a scheduling order discussing the possibility of further hearings and timeliness after the briefing has been received.

You can get the whole scheduling letter here, and the complete list of court documents here.

Here's my question.  The Supreme Court said the board should start with a plan that is constitutional and then make only the least deviations necessary from that to comply with the Voting Rights Act. 

But at the trial and the appeal before the Supreme Court, the plan that paired Senators Hoffman and Stevens was used as an example of a plan that was both constitutional and complied with the VRA.  The Amended Plan has some constitutional problems with compactness, contiguity, and socio-economic integration. 

Why wouldn't the court point to the Hoffman-Stevens pairing plan and say, that meets VRA with no constitutional problems?  The Board's claim that pairing the two Senators was a fatal flaw with the VRA was questioned not only by the plaintiffs and the judges, but also by the board's VRA expert when the met to draft the new plan.  She said that pairing incumbents wasn't fatal and that it was better to pair incumbent than have low Native Voting Age Population (VAP.)   I understand that such a pairing will generate letters from Native organizations opposed to the pairing, but it was pointed out that if the district is truly an effective Native district (in the jargon of the VRA), then the Native preferred candidate would win.  Just a question I still haven't heard answered.  Maybe there's something more I don't see.





I probably should mention that the Board has been really outstanding about getting all the court related documents on their website and sending email notices to people who subscribed at their website.  It would be much harder to go find all the documentation without that assist.


And I should also mention my appreciation for the ways that the Board has made their meetings and the superior court hearing accessible by phone and internet.  These efforts on their part has made a huge difference for people who want to know what is happening. 

People who know about the Board and want to be included have great access.  It would be nice if there was a little more notice where the general public would become aware. 

Superstition

Are you being extra careful today?  Avoiding ladders?  Do you believe in ghosts?  A normally very rational relative sent me this link today from Slacktivist.  This is just a bit of it.

The stories begin right around the turn of the 20th century, with the earliest reference I can find coming from August of 1897.

Capt. B.F. Auld of the Baltimore Police Department received a strange and surprising invitation to dinner at the home of Supreme Court Justice Henry Billings Brown. The two men had never met, and Capt. Auld never fully understood the reason for the invitation, but after what he described as their “distressing” conversation, he guessed it was because he had, two years earlier, been present at the funeral of Frederick Douglass.

“You saw him, then?” the justice asked him, with what Auld described as a “fearful” look. “And you are certain, without doubt, that he is, indeed, dead? You are certain?" . . .

. . .What I’ve pieced together from all these stories sounds unbelievable, and I certainly cannot prove any of it. But there are more things in heaven and earth than I can prove.
All I can tell you is what I believe. And what I believe is this: Somewhere in America, just before midnight on every Friday the 13th, the ghost of Frederick Douglass appears at the bedside of some racist wretch.

Juneau To Anchorage - Great Wild Adventure Out The Window

People spend good money to go into Imax theaters to see huge images of the natural world. But even people sitting in window seats often ignore the spectacular sights outside their windows. Juneau to Anchorage on a clear day like today makes a regular airline passenger into a northern explorer.

Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska

My favorite Juneau cab driver called Suwanna Cafe in a mall near the airport to order two Pad Thais which were ready for pick up when we arrived a few minutes later.  And I had my lunch for the flight. (And Dennis had his.)

On the plane, my 'small screen', unlike my computer screen, got bigger as I moved my face closer.  It wasn't edited and there was no dramatic music (though I guess that would be easy to provide with an  iPod or computer) and no narrator dramatically telling me what I was looking at.  I simply had to look and observe without someone telling me what to think or what it all meant.






And it was so amazing - even after having made this trip many, many times - that you're just going to have to bear with me and these shots from my pocket camera. 

All this incredible geography was below, outside the plane and most people were reading, sleeping, playing video games.

All that white in the water is ice floating from the huge glaciers all around.  You can see it closer in the next picture.

And then we were flying into Anchorage.  Flattop is at the end of this ridge below.  Powerline Pass on its right.  Denali and Foraker showing dimly (too dimly for my camera) on the horizon.  From this view, you can't even tell you're looking down on a town of 370,000 people. 

I Get A Taste of the Alaska Folk Festival

Wednesday evening I got to slip into Centennial Hall to catch a bit of the Alaska Folk Festival in downtown Juneau. 

The Empty Oil Barrel Band played and sang politically themed satires.

The festival program remembers Buddy Tabor and Barbara Kalen.

From Tom Begich's blog  we get a more personal reflection on Tabor.  Here's a short excerpt.

February 6, 2012 - Last night, perhaps around 8 PM, Buddy Tabor quietly passed away. A singer/songwriter with a direct link to the soul.  Alternately irreverent and loving, apolitical and revolutionary, album after album cut through to your heart and your head in simple tones and a gravel voice. Weary without giving in, spiritual without putting it on. Aware. Conscious. The words of a poet, the soul of a dreamer, the hands of a housepainter. Buddy Tabor was complex in his thoughts, simple in how he executed them. His body of work pearls worth holding and remembering, just as he is.

 This festival has a lot the feel of the Anchorage Folk Festival and the man sitting in the aisle seat of my row on the flight home today had played at the festival. 

It's Already Spring In Juneau

There's no reason I should be surprised.  It's 90 minutes south via jet from Anchorage to Juneau.  Downtown Juneau is snow free and here and there flowers are blooming, while in Anchorage there's still a lot of snow - though it is evaporating in the sunshine.  So here are a few glimpses of Juneau spring. 

These are chionodoxa growing in Morgan's yard.  Paul and I were just getting back from a hike up Perseverance Trail and he knows most of the people we ran into, including Morgan. 













She also had these eerie light blue iris blooming.  Here's a picture of these same iris two years ago.








And here's Morgan, interrupted from her gardening.

And up on Perseverance trail, where we walked through snow, we saw some purple mountain saxifrage blooming in a crack in the rocks.