Racism is Real
Racism is Real: Trump Helps Show It [nytimes.com]:
Tomás Jiménez, an associate professor of sociology and comparative studies in race and ethnicity at Stanford University, uses what he calls the “ghost metaphor” to describe the quandary of people who personally experience or aim to draw attention to racism. “It haunts every aspect of your life, but nobody else sees it and they don’t believe you” he said. “Sometimes it makes a very pronounced appearance, and that’s why people seize on it.”
My autobiography. The times in my life when I looked normal enough and could pass as non disabled were the times I got treated leagues better and got jobs. Of course I have multiple disabilities so often times one or the other would sink my chances, usually my visual impairment but sometimes my aspergers. I always got treated the worst in church and job interviews. And a vast majority of the prejudice flied under the radar, so much so that my family thinks I’ve just been unlucky in life. Because it defends the oppressive social order thinking about it in those terms. It’s more comfortable.
2008
Article on employing people on the spectrum:
This can be of great value. After all, the majority may get it wrong, as was the case with the mortgage crisis in 2008. Many experts were blindsided by the sudden collapse of the subprime market. However, hedge fund manager Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale in the film “The Big Short,” correctly forecast a collapse as early as 2007.
Burry has autism spectrum disorder. He has said it explains, at least in part, how he was able to persist in betting against the subprime market, even when major investors wanted to pull their money from his fund. Burry and his fund profited accordingly.
Letter to Mother Nature by Wayne Bowerman
where do i begin? never felt like we were friends
and then religion taught me to hate you:
“look at those pagans beneath the constellations
demonic stations, only jesus saves you
she’s just a bitch with an ironclad grip, fleshy fists
she’ll grab your soul and cage you”
awkward kid with backwards lid, a fat wordsmith
so of course i longed to escape you
with ammunition from a tradition or superstition
docetic, domestic jesus call it gospel
reading those who wrote in paul or moses’ name
dimly through lens of plato and aristotle
with half truths abounding it was easy to believe
we were fairly representing the apostle
pitting flesh and spirit we understood that we’ve
got to escape, and can’t escape being docile
so we took to militancy with surprising resiliency
suing teachers dismissing finds of fossils
extremist took drastic measures against doctors
while children died from swollen tonsils
were they afraid you’d woo us with your beauty
when they started questioning your years?
maybe if we believe you’re younger than you look
we’ll stay gridlocked in all these fears
question your wisdom and integrity and our ability
to read the signs that you give us
feeling filthy, i’m just as guilty of such propagation
now i’m praying dear god forgive us
trying my best to resist the ever present temptation
to pit one mother against another
the church is still my station despite all this vexation
and so i hope she knows i still love her
i just want to pay the respect that’s long overdue you
’cause in both your waters i find life
the modus operandi is god’s hand working through you
despite suspicion of you that runs rife
confess but maybe don’t believe the word became flesh
and in flesh and blood there is life
sometimes i wonder why he didn’t just stop the 5th day
say it’s good and make you his wife
persona
I see people over and over again underestimating people and overestimating brands. Everyone said Apple was going to remain innovative and unstoppable even after the passing of Steve Jobs. People kept thinking Trump was a flash-in-the-pan candidates. It’s just part of our evolution that we gravitate toward individuals and see our world through relationships with people instead of brands or principles (that’s why a lot of brands have spokes people). Christianity is no stranger to this claiming their religion is a “personal relationship with God”.
unsure
I’ve come to the conclusion that when you’re young and you are certain about things your sense of logic can keep you in the faith, but as you get older you become more unsure and then your emotions have to pick up the slack. If they’re AWOL you won’t make it in the faith.
Trump Winning
Why Donald Trump will be our next president:
Trump is not simply leading “Republican voters”—that was not his strength, to begin with. You will hear or read many commentators saying that what Trump could achieve in a Republican primary contest is not the same thing as what he can do in a general election. Maybe—if this were just another of the preceding elections where the status quo was safe. The fact is that Trump won by bringing in voters who were neither identifying as Republican (many if not most of them being Independents), nor prepared to vote Republican, nor were some even considering voting (ever) until Trump. The fact therefore is that Trump has already been campaigning in a general election. The Republican contests have been the sites of the greatest voter turnouts thus far, and in some critical electoral states more have already turned out to vote for Trump than for Clinton. All of the excitement this time is on the Republican side, the side on which Trump needed to win in order to win the general election.
poetry (I’m late, April was National Poetry Month)
there’s often a story behind old cloths
the people who reject you for the old cloths
wouldn’t be interested in the story
people who were coddled
and people who were spanked and thrown around
will just talk past each other most of the time
I will make a poor showing in the hereafter
the parts of me I connected to God through
were destroyed by my mental illness
I go to a church
God’s rays penetrate
I go home more deranged than I came
when you wash your hands of those destroyed by suffering
they’re clean enough to do God’s work
the world is like a paper shredder
it tears you up
and puts your words out of existence
God
Man seeks restraining order against God – Haifa resident asks court to keep the Almighty away, claiming He is being mean to him
I feel the exact same way as this guy. God does not have a good track record with me telling me to kill myself, drink piss, and go after women way out of my league.
Three Weak Words
I have always felt like “I feel like” as a phrase was disingenuous:
Writing in The New York Times, Molly Worthen, an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, calls out the three words you should stop using:
“I feel like … ”
They’re weak words, weasel words, conflict-avoiding words. Words that we use when we don’t have the courage of our convictions, and we’d rather hedge our bets and say something in a calculated way that sacrifices certainty for safety.
And yet, they’re common–and only becoming more so. I’m sure you see it in your work and in your life. People who are afraid simply to say what they mean, and feel instead that they have to couch their convictions with language about how they feel.
Healthcare Reform
I always thought states refusing to expand Medicaid was racially motivated. This NYTimes Piece gives me more evidence:
Gains for blacks were muted because they disproportionately live in states that chose not to expand Medicaid. About 60 percent of poor blacks live in states that did not expand Medicaid. While the share of poor blacks covered by Medicaid did rise by two percentage points in those states, the rate rose by six points in states that expanded the program.