In a June 4, 1939 interview in the Sunday Worker, Eugene Gordon wrote of the warm reception Paul Robeson received in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory when he “adapted Russian words to a Negro folk lullaby.”1 Robeson received great acclaim as journalists lauded him as “more truly representative of the United States than any American artist.” The African- American folk tradition that he brought to the stage had extended beyond the exceptionalism of his people’s history, bringing voice to a global working- class culture. Paul Robeson’s affirmation of African- American folk culture and his constant reiteration of the working- class as the seat of power no doubt resonated across the globe. The Negro could learn the White man’s technique and retain his own culture.
Paul Robeson was not the first to bring the African- American folk song to the international stage. The Fisk Jubilee Singers and the later the Hampton Singers battled rampant racial discrimination to bring their harmonies across the United States, England and Europe in the early 1870s.2 Performing in Ireland, Wales, Scotland before a constituency accustomed to minstrelsy and blackface, the Fish Jubilee Singers were lauded in newspapers as “real Negroes” and their performance was weighed relative to contemporary minstrel performances.3 The Fisk Jubilee singers met criticism when they “smoothed” their voices, altered the grammar and employed a ‘proper tune’ in their arrangement of the spirituals. Professor Lawrence W. Levine contended that “in the process of transmission from the praise house to the concert hall the songs were denatured into a form more compatible with Euro- American musical tastes.”4 An ex- slave commented that “dose are de same old tunes, but some way they do’n sound right.” Another expressed dissatisfaction at the accompaniment: “I do not like the way they messed up our songs with classical music.” This quote highlighted the collectivity of African- American folk culture (“our songs”); the spiritual and the work songs were products of collective creativity. Moreover, translating that collective creativity before an audience foreign to the culture while retaining authenticity was a challenge. Paul Gilroy posited that “Black people singing slave songs as mass entertainment set new public standards of authenticity for black cultural expression;” authenticity was not measured only by adherence to tradition, rather it was legitimized by the distance from “the racial codes of minstrelsy.”5 There is little doubt that African- American musical traditions found a wider audience; John Wesley Work commented in 1915 that “one would be as likely to hear Negro Folk songs at St. Peter’s at Rome as in Fisk University.”
Paul Robeson retained the grammatical structure of the Negro folk song, while arranging the songs with classical music, or not at all. In his rich tenor voice, he conveyed the soulfulness of the ___ his people. _______________ He was more distanced from the specter of minstrelsy...
On June 15, 1934, Paul Robeson published an article in The Spectator (a London- based arts and culture publication) titled “The Culture of the Negro.” He begins with the words of critics who reproached him for refusing to pursue a career as an opera singer and rebuts them with his obligation to bring his culture to the fore. He recalled being laughed at for suggesting the performance of Negro spirituals in a concert setting before an English audience: “How could these utterly simple, indeed, almost savage songs interest the most sophisticated audience in the world?”6 In reply, Robeson made an analogy between Negro spirituals and Negro culture parallel to the canonical works of English poets in relation to English culture. Hearkening to his studies at the London School of Oriental Languages where he began his study of isiSwahili and the Bantu language group. In these studies he found a “kinship of rhythm and intonation” between the languages of East and West Africa and the vernacular English of African- Americans in the South.7 Concluding the article, Robeson affirmed the value of African- American culture. He broached the same subject in greater detail three years later on his third visit to the U.S.S.R. in a Sunday Worker article titled “When I Sing.” This particular visit to the Soviet Union “under the auspices of the Moscow State Philharmonic” afforded Robeson greater opportunities to immerse himself in Soviet culture. He contended that “the Russian folk songs and those of the Soviet National Republics… bear a close relationship to folk songs of the Negro people.”8 Linking the plight of people of color globally, he illustrates his point. Peoples of color “who are poor, landless and disenfranchised” share a common experience of subjugation and oppression and their folk music is an expression of their personhood and consciousness.
This understanding matured over time. Robeson expanded his repertoire from Negro spirituals to African, Welsh, Scotch Hebridian, Russian, Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs. He termed these “songs for my people.”9 In a 1951 article titled “The People of America are the Power,” he asserts that power rests in the working- class. Paul Robeson again states that he “saw the likenesses between songs of different peoples” and began to learn their folk songs. He had sung with Welsh miners, Scotch workers, African and West Indian seamen in the course of a decade, establishing kinship ties with those engaged in a struggle for full citizenship- workers, colonial subjects, and others. This meshed well with his declaration that the artist must take sides- either the artist must fight for freedom or he is complicit in the enslavement of peoples around the world.10 Silence is complicity, dissent is patriotism.
The music itself bears much importance. The African- American folk songs Robeson performed were either spirituals, which were very much entrenched in the spiritual world, or they were working songs which conformed to the cadence of the laborers. Between 1946 and 1951, he would sing no other songs- none but the songs of his people.11 In the July 1949 edition of Sovietskaia Muzyka, Robeson published a piece on Negro folk culture, citing the necessity of understanding kindred cultures. This article was preceded by a performance in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where he “felt the full force of this passionate interest in and love of our folk songs.”12 Although his Soviet audience felt a sense of sympathy with his own culture, he felt it necessary that his audience understood the roots and significance of African- American folk songs as “Soviet audiences are insufficiently acquainted with the history of Negro music and do not, perhaps, have a completely clear idea of the origins, sources and the real content of Negro lyrics.”13
He continued on to refute the argument made by American musicologists that contended that African- American musical tradition was heavily influenced by English church music. Countering this assertion, Robeson pointed out that English liturgical tradition in the South was never comparable to the “artistic merit… [of] Negro music.” He acknowledges a level of reciprocal influence between African- Americans and the Christian liturgical tradition. Furthermore, he sought to dismantle the false idea that the African- American is savage and therefore incapable of possessing a culture by demonstrating the artistic traditions of the African peoples. Their language was full of complex intonational structures even before the advance of European colonization. Tracing the roots of the basal rhythm and harmony of African- American music to the African continent, Robeson establishes continuity in the folk musical tradition of African- Americans, suggesting that the richness of the music did not simply arise from circumstances at one point in time.
Robeson also divided Negro folk music between spirituals, work sings, songs of protest and later blues; the latter three being collective creations, and the former being the expression of the individual. He makes this distinction to avoid the essentialization of African- Americans as entirely spiritual. Additionally, he observes the secularization of African- American culture, noting that the content of many spirituals was “far removed from religious concepts.”14 Using the spiritual “Heab’n” as an example, he notes the significance of “up North” to African- American slaves in the mid- nineteenth century. Frederick Douglass testified that ‘heab’n’ in this song referred not to the Christian heaven, but North where the Black man could taste freedom.
I got a robe, you got a robe,
All of God’s children got a robe.
When I get to heab’n goin’ to put on my robe.
Goin’ to shout all over God’s heab’n.
Ev’rybody talkin’ about heab’n ain’t goin’ there,
Goin’ to shout all over God’s heab’n
The work song was characterized by the rhythmic choral refrain alternating between “a free recitative solo. One example of a work song is the “Cott’n Pickin’ Song” created by Black cotton pickers in Florida: to the cadence of their work, the cotton- pickers sing in unison:
This cott’n want a pickin’
So bad!
This cott’n want a pickin’
So bad!
Goin’ clean all over this farm
The Leader then adds his grievance:
When the boss sold that cott’n,
I asked for my half.
He told me I chopped out
My half with the grass
Perhaps what motivated Robeson to publish ‘Songs of my People’ was the same defensiveness that Lawrence W. Levine discussed in Black Culture and Black Consciousness. In his discussion of the presentation of the Negro spiritual to a world audience, he alludes to the defensiveness of Black intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This defensiveness arose from an acute awareness of a particular perception of Black music filtered through the lens of racism. The Negro folk song was perceived as inferior and laughable. At the centennial celebration of Columbus, Mississippi, Black field hands performed their “wild and original” songs before a primarily white audience who found their performance humorous and blundering. James Weldon Johnson, composer of the Black National Anthem, argued that “the maker of the [Negro] song was struggling as best as he could under his limitations in language.”15 His argument demonstrated the discomfort at bringing the Negro folk song before an audience that was generally ignorant of the intricacies of Black culture. On the hand, scholars treated Negro spirituals as exceptional, elevating them “to a point where their essence became distorted.”16 In this case, Robeson elevated the Negro spiritual to the status of an international mode of expression.
Note: May or may not keep the following paragraph:
However, Robeson’s American- ness was called into question when he proclaimed the Soviet Union as his home, where he saw “no signs of racial discrimination.”17 The federal campaign against Black militancy predated the Cold War and no exception was made for Paul Robeson. He testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Tenney Committee several times in the 1940s and 1950s.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
TRIALS Application Personal Statement (Draft)
The most distinctive physical characteristics I possess- the ones that captures the eye of the astute observer- are my ears. I was born with bilateral hearing loss; moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears. Aside from perfectly formed outer- ears, I have loss of nerve sensation. As a result, I did not speak until I was 3, and even then, I relied on reading lips to ascertain the words I heard filtering through my hearing aids. The most profound realization was that my ability to hear was predicated on the functionality of a 2 millimeter. battery. Furthermore, my ability to function and thrive in educationally and socially all came from my parents’ unrelenting support and their advocacy. When I was to enter the public system, the school district, unequipped to accommodate my hearing impairment, attempted to place me special education. My parents’ advocacy ensured that I would receive an education that would enable me to perform academically on par with my age group. As a result, I have always been acutely aware of the need for advocacy in children’s education.
When I entered the University of California, Berkeley as a freshman, I immediately immersed myself in volunteering, as I had in high school. I found a niche in the Berkeley/ Oakland YWCA’s Youth Mentor Program. While the goal was to mentor, we were also to stress the importance, and more expediently, the possibility of a college education. Essentially, while building up a young student’s self- esteem and mentoring them, we were to impress upon them that college was not an impossible dream. My first mentor went to a middle school in Oakland, and I would meet her weekly at her school. The school itself was less than a mile from the University, and it struck me- as an African- American female youth, that distance was likely much more than a mile. As I learned more about her background, I was struck by her determination to get her degree and pursue a career in medicine. Her hopes were divorced from and antithetical to the expectations laid upon her by a society that simplifies the black female to a series of truncated images and a handful of prescribed character types.
This possibility was made clearer to me when I signed up to be a mentor for TechGYRLS. TechGYRLS is a program aimed toward both mentoring and introducing third, fourth and fifth grade girls in elementary schools to the fields of science, technology and mathematics in a manner that makes the fields relatable and applicable in everyday life. This program generally targets areas in the vicinity of the YWCA headquarters that are disadvantaged socio- economically- in this case, Oakland. Acorn Woodland School is located in West Oakland, less than half a mile from the Coliseum Stadium, amid smoke stacks, factories and the railroad tracks. The school is is composed of about 50% Hispanic students, 45% African- American, and a much smaller percentage of white and other non- white minorities. College insignia decorates the halls of this school, as each home- room is named the graduating class of 2021 (or whatever year the students would finish college) from a different university. The classroom where the other mentors and I teach is Colgate University, class of 2021- fifth graders. Every Friday, from 1 to 4, we teach the girls principles of rocket propulsion, astronomy among other pertinent topics with practical, hands- on experiments in the classroom. The experience has been most positive, as I’ve learned just how important it is to build up the children in our community and reinforce the significance of a college education. The bright smiling faces and the diverse personalities in that classroom of twenty girls are the epitome of the importance of a quality education.
Mentoring with TechGYRLS is a confirmation of my desire to advocate for minority youth in education. As the state of California cuts 11 billion dollars from its public school system budget, this is becoming even more important. On the district level, the standardization of curriculum and the allocation of resources impacts the quality of the education that children in the public school receive. These two factors also constrain teachers’ effectiveness in educating their students- educational standards divorced from practical application and lack of materials play a role in a teacher’s job performance. I remember well when my elementary school teachers admonished me and my peers not to treat books and markers roughly, because they had been bought out of pocket by the teachers themselves.
A jurisprudence degree and a careful study of the law and the legal system would better position me to effect reform in the educational system, internally and externally. Coupled with a teaching credential, a law degree would only fortify my case for reform. My parents advocated for my placement in my grade in elementary school, and I rose to meet their expectations- performing academically on par with my classmates. Just as my parents advocated for me, I want to do the same for children in the public school system. As a hearing impaired African- American woman, there were two strikes against my success. And my success up to this point has been the result of a combination of hard work and unrelenting support and advocacy.
When I entered the University of California, Berkeley as a freshman, I immediately immersed myself in volunteering, as I had in high school. I found a niche in the Berkeley/ Oakland YWCA’s Youth Mentor Program. While the goal was to mentor, we were also to stress the importance, and more expediently, the possibility of a college education. Essentially, while building up a young student’s self- esteem and mentoring them, we were to impress upon them that college was not an impossible dream. My first mentor went to a middle school in Oakland, and I would meet her weekly at her school. The school itself was less than a mile from the University, and it struck me- as an African- American female youth, that distance was likely much more than a mile. As I learned more about her background, I was struck by her determination to get her degree and pursue a career in medicine. Her hopes were divorced from and antithetical to the expectations laid upon her by a society that simplifies the black female to a series of truncated images and a handful of prescribed character types.
This possibility was made clearer to me when I signed up to be a mentor for TechGYRLS. TechGYRLS is a program aimed toward both mentoring and introducing third, fourth and fifth grade girls in elementary schools to the fields of science, technology and mathematics in a manner that makes the fields relatable and applicable in everyday life. This program generally targets areas in the vicinity of the YWCA headquarters that are disadvantaged socio- economically- in this case, Oakland. Acorn Woodland School is located in West Oakland, less than half a mile from the Coliseum Stadium, amid smoke stacks, factories and the railroad tracks. The school is is composed of about 50% Hispanic students, 45% African- American, and a much smaller percentage of white and other non- white minorities. College insignia decorates the halls of this school, as each home- room is named the graduating class of 2021 (or whatever year the students would finish college) from a different university. The classroom where the other mentors and I teach is Colgate University, class of 2021- fifth graders. Every Friday, from 1 to 4, we teach the girls principles of rocket propulsion, astronomy among other pertinent topics with practical, hands- on experiments in the classroom. The experience has been most positive, as I’ve learned just how important it is to build up the children in our community and reinforce the significance of a college education. The bright smiling faces and the diverse personalities in that classroom of twenty girls are the epitome of the importance of a quality education.
Mentoring with TechGYRLS is a confirmation of my desire to advocate for minority youth in education. As the state of California cuts 11 billion dollars from its public school system budget, this is becoming even more important. On the district level, the standardization of curriculum and the allocation of resources impacts the quality of the education that children in the public school receive. These two factors also constrain teachers’ effectiveness in educating their students- educational standards divorced from practical application and lack of materials play a role in a teacher’s job performance. I remember well when my elementary school teachers admonished me and my peers not to treat books and markers roughly, because they had been bought out of pocket by the teachers themselves.
A jurisprudence degree and a careful study of the law and the legal system would better position me to effect reform in the educational system, internally and externally. Coupled with a teaching credential, a law degree would only fortify my case for reform. My parents advocated for my placement in my grade in elementary school, and I rose to meet their expectations- performing academically on par with my classmates. Just as my parents advocated for me, I want to do the same for children in the public school system. As a hearing impaired African- American woman, there were two strikes against my success. And my success up to this point has been the result of a combination of hard work and unrelenting support and advocacy.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
History 125B Essay Draft: The Negro Spiritual as an Expressive Mode
ABSTRACT/ STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:
My essay will examine Paul Robeson not as a classical performer, but as an artist. In a 1937 speech, he stated that “the artist must take sides.” He differentiated the performer and the artist, identifying as an artist. As a result of affiliation with labor unions and his alleged Russo- philic tendencies at the height of the Cold War hysteria, Robeson was labeled as a ‘communist.’ This cost him his career when the federal government, carrying out its offensive against Black militancy. revoked his passport and banned him from performing in concert halls in the United States. His career as a performer did not end there, as labor unions still supported him, providing venues and selling tickets for his performances. Of particular interest to me is Robeson’s adaptation of Russian folk songs to African- American spiritual tunes on the early 1930’s. I want to look at the cultural significance of this moment- how the African- American spiritual as an expressive mode traversed national boundaries and furthered the notion of a universal struggle belonging to people of color.
ESSAY:
In a June 4, 1939 interview in the Sunday Worker, Eugene Gordon wrote of the warm reception Paul Robeson received in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory when he “adapted Russian words to a Negro folk lullaby.”1 Robeson received great acclaim as journalists lauded him as “more truly representative of the United States than any American artist.” The African- American folk tradition that he brought to the stage had extended beyond the exceptionalism of his people’s history, bringing voice to a global working- class culture. Paul Robeson’s affirmation of African- American folk culture and his constant reiteration of the working- class as the seat of power no doubt resonated across the globe. The Negro could learn the White man’s technique and retain his own culture.
On June 15, 1934, Paul Robeson published an article in The Spectator (a London- based arts and culture publication) titled “The Culture of the Negro.” He begins with the words of critics who reproached him for refusing to pursue a career as an opera singer and rebuts them with his obligation to bring his culture to the fore. He recalled being laughed at for suggesting the performance of Negro spirituals in a concert setting before an English audience: “How could these utterly simple, indeed, almost savage songs interest the most sophisticated audience in the world?”2 In reply, Robeson made an analogy between Negro spirituals and Negro culture parallel to the canonical works of English poets in relation to English culture. Hearkening to his studies at the London School of Oriental Languages where he began his study of isiSwahili and the Bantu language group. In these studies he found a “kinship of rhythm and intonation” between the languages of East and West Africa and the vernacular English of African- Americans in the South.3 Concluding the article, Robeson affirmed the value of African- American culture. He broached the same subject in greater detail three years later on his third visit to the U.S.S.R. in a Sunday Worker article titled “When I Sing.” This particular visit to the Soviet Union “under the auspices of the Moscow State Philharmonic” afforded Robeson greater opportunities to immerse himself in Soviet culture. He contended that “the Russian folk songs and those of the Soviet National Republics… bear a close relationship to folk songs of the Negro people.”4 Linking the plight of people of color globally, he illustrates his point. Peoples of color “who are poor, landless and disenfranchised” share a common experience of subjugation and oppression and their folk music is an expression of their personhood.
This understanding matured over time. Robeson expanded his repertoire from Negro spirituals to African, Welsh, Scotch Hebridian, Russian, Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs. He termed these “songs for my people.”5 In a 1951 article titled “The People of America are the Power,” he asserts that power rests in the working- class. Paul Robeson again states that he “saw the likenesses between songs of different peoples” and began to learn their folk songs. He had sung with Welsh miners, Scotch workers, African and West Indian seamen in the course of a decade, establishing kinship ties with those engaged in a struggle for full citizenship- workers, colonial subjects, and others. This meshed well with his declaration that the artist must take sides- either the artist must fight for freedom or he is complicit in the enslavement of peoples around the world.6 Silence is complicity, dissent is patriotism.
The music itself bears much importance. The African- American folk songs Robeson performed were either spirituals, which were very much entrenched in the spiritual world, or they were working songs which conformed to the cadence of the laborers. Between 1946 and 1951, he would sing no other songs- none but the songs of his people.7 In the July 1949 edition of Sovietskaia Muzyka, Robeson published a piece on Negro folk culture, citing the necessity of understanding kindred cultures. This article was preceded by a performance in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where he “felt the full force of this passionate interest in and love of our folk songs.”8 Although his Soviet audience felt a sense of sympathy with his own culture, he felt it necessary that his audience understood the roots and significance of African- American folk songs as “Soviet audiences are insufficiently acquainted with the history of Negro music and do not, perhaps, have a completely clear idea of the origins, sources and the real content of Negro lyrics.”9
He continued on to refute the argument made by American musicologists that contended that African- American musical tradition was heavily influenced by English church music. Countering this assertion, Robeson pointed out that English liturgical tradition in the South was never comparable to the “artistic merit… [of] Negro music.” He acknowledges a level of reciprocal influence between African- Americans and the Christian liturgical tradition. Furthermore, he sought to dismantle the false idea that the African- American is savage and therefore incapable of possessing a culture by demonstrating the artistic traditions of the African peoples. Their language was full of complex intonational structures even before the advance of European colonization. Tracing the roots of the basal rhythm and harmony of African- American music to the African continent, Robeson establishes continuity in the folk musical tradition of African- Americans, suggesting that the richness of the music did not simply arise from circumstances at one point in time.
Robeson also divided Negro folk music between spirituals, work sings, songs of protest and later blues; the latter three being collective creations, and the former being the expression of the individual. He makes this distinction to avoid the essentialization of African- Americans as entirely spiritual. Additionally, he makes a note that the content of many spirituals was “far removed from religious concepts.”10 Using the spiritual “Heab’n” as an example, he notes the significance of “up North” to African- American slaves in the mid- nineteenth century. Frederick Douglass testified that ‘heab’n’ in this song referred not to the Christian heaven, but North where the Black man could taste freedom.
I got a robe, you got a robe,
All of God’s children got a robe.
When I get tp heab’n goin’ to put on my robe.
Goin’ to shout all over God’s heab’n.
Ev’rybody talkin’ about heab’n ain’t goin’ there,
Goin’ to shout all over God’s heab’n
The work song was characterized by the rhythmic choral refrain alternating between “a free recitative solo. One example of a work song is the “Cott’m Pickin’ Song” created by Black cotton pickers in Florida: the chorus goes
This cott’n want a pickin’
So bad!
This cott’n want a pickin’
So bad!
Goin’ clean all over this farm
The Leader then adds his grievance:
When the boss sold that cott’n,
I asked for my half.
He told me I chopped out
My half with the grass
............
more analysis, and perhaps a discussion of the concert performance of Negro spirituals
...............
However, Robeson’s American- ness was called into question when he proclaimed the Soviet Union as his home, where he saw “no signs of racial discrimination.”11 The federal campaign against Black militancy predated the Cold War and no exception was made for Paul Robeson. He testified before the House Uni-American Activities Committee and the Tenney Committee several times in the 1940s and 1950s.
The End.
Any thoughts?
My essay will examine Paul Robeson not as a classical performer, but as an artist. In a 1937 speech, he stated that “the artist must take sides.” He differentiated the performer and the artist, identifying as an artist. As a result of affiliation with labor unions and his alleged Russo- philic tendencies at the height of the Cold War hysteria, Robeson was labeled as a ‘communist.’ This cost him his career when the federal government, carrying out its offensive against Black militancy. revoked his passport and banned him from performing in concert halls in the United States. His career as a performer did not end there, as labor unions still supported him, providing venues and selling tickets for his performances. Of particular interest to me is Robeson’s adaptation of Russian folk songs to African- American spiritual tunes on the early 1930’s. I want to look at the cultural significance of this moment- how the African- American spiritual as an expressive mode traversed national boundaries and furthered the notion of a universal struggle belonging to people of color.
ESSAY:
In a June 4, 1939 interview in the Sunday Worker, Eugene Gordon wrote of the warm reception Paul Robeson received in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory when he “adapted Russian words to a Negro folk lullaby.”1 Robeson received great acclaim as journalists lauded him as “more truly representative of the United States than any American artist.” The African- American folk tradition that he brought to the stage had extended beyond the exceptionalism of his people’s history, bringing voice to a global working- class culture. Paul Robeson’s affirmation of African- American folk culture and his constant reiteration of the working- class as the seat of power no doubt resonated across the globe. The Negro could learn the White man’s technique and retain his own culture.
On June 15, 1934, Paul Robeson published an article in The Spectator (a London- based arts and culture publication) titled “The Culture of the Negro.” He begins with the words of critics who reproached him for refusing to pursue a career as an opera singer and rebuts them with his obligation to bring his culture to the fore. He recalled being laughed at for suggesting the performance of Negro spirituals in a concert setting before an English audience: “How could these utterly simple, indeed, almost savage songs interest the most sophisticated audience in the world?”2 In reply, Robeson made an analogy between Negro spirituals and Negro culture parallel to the canonical works of English poets in relation to English culture. Hearkening to his studies at the London School of Oriental Languages where he began his study of isiSwahili and the Bantu language group. In these studies he found a “kinship of rhythm and intonation” between the languages of East and West Africa and the vernacular English of African- Americans in the South.3 Concluding the article, Robeson affirmed the value of African- American culture. He broached the same subject in greater detail three years later on his third visit to the U.S.S.R. in a Sunday Worker article titled “When I Sing.” This particular visit to the Soviet Union “under the auspices of the Moscow State Philharmonic” afforded Robeson greater opportunities to immerse himself in Soviet culture. He contended that “the Russian folk songs and those of the Soviet National Republics… bear a close relationship to folk songs of the Negro people.”4 Linking the plight of people of color globally, he illustrates his point. Peoples of color “who are poor, landless and disenfranchised” share a common experience of subjugation and oppression and their folk music is an expression of their personhood.
This understanding matured over time. Robeson expanded his repertoire from Negro spirituals to African, Welsh, Scotch Hebridian, Russian, Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs. He termed these “songs for my people.”5 In a 1951 article titled “The People of America are the Power,” he asserts that power rests in the working- class. Paul Robeson again states that he “saw the likenesses between songs of different peoples” and began to learn their folk songs. He had sung with Welsh miners, Scotch workers, African and West Indian seamen in the course of a decade, establishing kinship ties with those engaged in a struggle for full citizenship- workers, colonial subjects, and others. This meshed well with his declaration that the artist must take sides- either the artist must fight for freedom or he is complicit in the enslavement of peoples around the world.6 Silence is complicity, dissent is patriotism.
The music itself bears much importance. The African- American folk songs Robeson performed were either spirituals, which were very much entrenched in the spiritual world, or they were working songs which conformed to the cadence of the laborers. Between 1946 and 1951, he would sing no other songs- none but the songs of his people.7 In the July 1949 edition of Sovietskaia Muzyka, Robeson published a piece on Negro folk culture, citing the necessity of understanding kindred cultures. This article was preceded by a performance in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where he “felt the full force of this passionate interest in and love of our folk songs.”8 Although his Soviet audience felt a sense of sympathy with his own culture, he felt it necessary that his audience understood the roots and significance of African- American folk songs as “Soviet audiences are insufficiently acquainted with the history of Negro music and do not, perhaps, have a completely clear idea of the origins, sources and the real content of Negro lyrics.”9
He continued on to refute the argument made by American musicologists that contended that African- American musical tradition was heavily influenced by English church music. Countering this assertion, Robeson pointed out that English liturgical tradition in the South was never comparable to the “artistic merit… [of] Negro music.” He acknowledges a level of reciprocal influence between African- Americans and the Christian liturgical tradition. Furthermore, he sought to dismantle the false idea that the African- American is savage and therefore incapable of possessing a culture by demonstrating the artistic traditions of the African peoples. Their language was full of complex intonational structures even before the advance of European colonization. Tracing the roots of the basal rhythm and harmony of African- American music to the African continent, Robeson establishes continuity in the folk musical tradition of African- Americans, suggesting that the richness of the music did not simply arise from circumstances at one point in time.
Robeson also divided Negro folk music between spirituals, work sings, songs of protest and later blues; the latter three being collective creations, and the former being the expression of the individual. He makes this distinction to avoid the essentialization of African- Americans as entirely spiritual. Additionally, he makes a note that the content of many spirituals was “far removed from religious concepts.”10 Using the spiritual “Heab’n” as an example, he notes the significance of “up North” to African- American slaves in the mid- nineteenth century. Frederick Douglass testified that ‘heab’n’ in this song referred not to the Christian heaven, but North where the Black man could taste freedom.
I got a robe, you got a robe,
All of God’s children got a robe.
When I get tp heab’n goin’ to put on my robe.
Goin’ to shout all over God’s heab’n.
Ev’rybody talkin’ about heab’n ain’t goin’ there,
Goin’ to shout all over God’s heab’n
The work song was characterized by the rhythmic choral refrain alternating between “a free recitative solo. One example of a work song is the “Cott’m Pickin’ Song” created by Black cotton pickers in Florida: the chorus goes
This cott’n want a pickin’
So bad!
This cott’n want a pickin’
So bad!
Goin’ clean all over this farm
The Leader then adds his grievance:
When the boss sold that cott’n,
I asked for my half.
He told me I chopped out
My half with the grass
............
more analysis, and perhaps a discussion of the concert performance of Negro spirituals
...............
However, Robeson’s American- ness was called into question when he proclaimed the Soviet Union as his home, where he saw “no signs of racial discrimination.”11 The federal campaign against Black militancy predated the Cold War and no exception was made for Paul Robeson. He testified before the House Uni-American Activities Committee and the Tenney Committee several times in the 1940s and 1950s.
The End.
Any thoughts?
Saturday, March 21, 2009
21-03-2009: Hope Springs Anew
Hello All!
I guess I've been missing in action lately. My emails to my mom got shorter and shorter, and she was feeling left out, so it wasn't just you all.
I guess I've been forced to take a long hard look at myself. I had to look back at the Arri who closed herself off from those who loved her the most, who spoke truth without regard for the consequences, the Arri who refused to be vulnerable. It cripple(s) me relationally- I build up walls that I can't even climb out of.
To cope with that, I pretty much shut down emotionally. I deactivated my Facebook and Twitter. I also stayed in my room trying to block introspection. I stopped talking with God.
I'm getting better though! I had a pint of Haagen Dazs Raspberry Sorbet, and some bacon. YUM. I even went shoe shopping and got a pair of green mary jane heels. I'm excited. :)
Here;s a pic of the shoes: http://tinyurl.com/greenshoes
I am pleased. Now I need to do my taxes.
-Arri
For a while I really liked this song. I love it now. All about young ambition. :)
I guess I've been missing in action lately. My emails to my mom got shorter and shorter, and she was feeling left out, so it wasn't just you all.
I guess I've been forced to take a long hard look at myself. I had to look back at the Arri who closed herself off from those who loved her the most, who spoke truth without regard for the consequences, the Arri who refused to be vulnerable. It cripple(s) me relationally- I build up walls that I can't even climb out of.
To cope with that, I pretty much shut down emotionally. I deactivated my Facebook and Twitter. I also stayed in my room trying to block introspection. I stopped talking with God.
I'm getting better though! I had a pint of Haagen Dazs Raspberry Sorbet, and some bacon. YUM. I even went shoe shopping and got a pair of green mary jane heels. I'm excited. :)
Here;s a pic of the shoes: http://tinyurl.com/greenshoes
I am pleased. Now I need to do my taxes.
-Arri
For a while I really liked this song. I love it now. All about young ambition. :)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Life is a freaking waiting room =/
I am feeling a great deal of frustration at the pace of my life. I'm going to spend a year in limbo deciding between law school and graduate school. I'm going to be 20 years old, a college graduate with an uncertain future and no prospects.
Yes, I'm only 20.
Don't tell me how I am in the best part of my life- because if that's the case, life's not that much fun. I don't even want fun. I want fulfillment.
I have great potential, and here I am... waiting. Life is a freaking waiting room.
Great.
Yes, I'm only 20.
Don't tell me how I am in the best part of my life- because if that's the case, life's not that much fun. I don't even want fun. I want fulfillment.
I have great potential, and here I am... waiting. Life is a freaking waiting room.
Great.
Monday, March 16, 2009
16-03-2009
I supposedly give off this aura of definiteness. People- even those close to me- assume that I know what I am doing, and what I want.
I have no idea what the heck I want; rather, I am finding out in a piecemeal fashion, all the while presenting myself very carefully.
Today I reached the conclusion that I want to be a professor of African Diasporic History. Writing my thesis, I've come to conceive history within a Trans- Atlantic paradigm.
Up to this point, I was so geared toward Law School. Now I need to figure out how to do my letters of recommendation.
=/
In other news- I'm on page 20 of my thesis! I'm particularly proud because my paper is coming together nicely! I need to read Marx and Foucault, and all will be well. :)
Here's some Mahalia Jackson ("How I Got Over")
I have no idea what the heck I want; rather, I am finding out in a piecemeal fashion, all the while presenting myself very carefully.
Today I reached the conclusion that I want to be a professor of African Diasporic History. Writing my thesis, I've come to conceive history within a Trans- Atlantic paradigm.
Up to this point, I was so geared toward Law School. Now I need to figure out how to do my letters of recommendation.
=/
In other news- I'm on page 20 of my thesis! I'm particularly proud because my paper is coming together nicely! I need to read Marx and Foucault, and all will be well. :)
Here's some Mahalia Jackson ("How I Got Over")
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Sunday Sundries
Today was the first time in 5 weeks that I went to my home church. I guess I had been cutting off the people in my life and enclosing myself in a protective cocoon of loneliness. It was nice to come back. One of the guys gave me a big bear hug saying "You've been MIA, Arri." I couldn't help but agree. Another guy- he encouraged me to come back- gave me a hug and asked how I was. It was nice.
It is becoming a pattern, though. I get hurt and retreat- to the detriment of my emotional and spiritual health. After descending, I pull myself out of it, and join the ranks once more.
Today's sermon was about Romans 8: hope and patience. Hope for the future, patience that we may not give up or rush. My pastor asked, "what have you given up hope for? What have you attempted to control or speed up?" I know exactly what that is. That was exactly why I was MIA- I was attempting to kill desire so that I would no longer need hope. But God gave me desire, who am I to try to destroy what He has ingrained in me?
With that in mind, I'm going to see about getting back on track. :) Here's a song of the day:
It is becoming a pattern, though. I get hurt and retreat- to the detriment of my emotional and spiritual health. After descending, I pull myself out of it, and join the ranks once more.
Today's sermon was about Romans 8: hope and patience. Hope for the future, patience that we may not give up or rush. My pastor asked, "what have you given up hope for? What have you attempted to control or speed up?" I know exactly what that is. That was exactly why I was MIA- I was attempting to kill desire so that I would no longer need hope. But God gave me desire, who am I to try to destroy what He has ingrained in me?
With that in mind, I'm going to see about getting back on track. :) Here's a song of the day:
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Claude McKay: If We Must Die (1919)
In the context of the post- WWI upheaval- race riots, lynchings (primarily of Black veterans), McKay wrote this poem. For this poem, he was persecuted by the U.S. government and labeled as a "Red" "Bolshevist" "Commie" and "un- American." I truly believe that this poem is American to the core. I appeal to African- American exceptionalism when I say that.
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Globalization, the Developing Welfare State and Children's Health
Globalization and the Undermining of the Developing Welfare State and Children’s Health
Childhood is both a universal experience, and a culturally specific one.2 As globalization and the neo- liberal agenda is spread through the global South, childhood is becoming increasingly endangered by the processes of globalization. This is most pertinent in terms of health. As Liisa Malkki and Emily Martin term it, ‘environmental racism’ cuts the lifespan of these children while reducing their quality of life through pollution.3 In America, this is evident in the relationship housing patterns and the exposure to pollution, environmental, human health hazards- this variable is stratified on the basis of race, and as a rule, minorities, most particularly African- Americans suffer the most.4 On a global scale, this is more clearly evident. In a 1995 report by Lawrence Summers, then chief economist at the World Bank (now President of Harvard University), he indicated that:
Essentially, in economic terms, pollution is a good thing for the neo- liberal agenda in the global South. Summers rejected criticisms based upon moral and social concerns, as they undermined the Bank’s goal of liberalizing national economies. This relates to children not for the messianic sentiments this can elicit, but for the impact that toxins and pollutants have on developing bodies. The World Health Organization (WHO) referred to children as “canaries in the mine,” a sort of litmus test for the environment.6 It has been estimated that 6 million children under the age of 5 have died (globally) every year in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since 1982, when Thatcher and Reagan’s neo- liberal ideology first gained prominence. This corporate triage of the global South’s children is nothing new, but there are measure that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank can take to stall the negative effects of structural adjustment programs on developing welfare states’ health- care expenditures.
First, let us take a look at the state of health under globalization. In her article “Globalization and the Decline of the Welfare State in Less- Developed Nations,” Nita Rudra attributes the divergent well- beings of nations in the global North and the global South to the undermining of government mechanisms through economic liberalization. Using a graph, Rudra demonstrates that government spending by developed states in the North and less- developed states in the South have consistently bifurcated since 1975.7 Among those nations categorized as “less- developed” were Argentina, Botswana, Costa Rica, Greece and Kuwait. Conversely, nations considered developed states were the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Sweden. Globalization hinders the development of welfare states as it does not regard generous welfare benefits as “good market disciplining devices on labor.” Also, “globalization discourages governments from raising revenue” via taxation- most notably, taxation of foreign direct investors.8 The pressure for these “less developed” nations to conform to the neo- liberal agenda is as strong as the nation’s desire to compete with in the global market. As the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank continue to give out conditional loans, there is no doubt that developing nations will continue to accept these loans and the structural adjustment plans that come along with them.
This ties into healthcare as the amount of money poured into welfare agencies is correlates to the monies expended on healthcare. Healthcare, access to vaccines and pharmaceuticals has been left up to the market mechanisms of demand- adjusted pricing. This is problematic as it lends the production of medicine to the frequency (or infrequency) of epidemics- especially with regard to drugs for malaria, cholera, and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, companies want growth, but this is hindered when most world economies do not have effective demand- in this sense, global health depends on the ability to “make it economically feasible for the best of American science, technology and industry to address major global health problems and enable US industry to profit…”9 The underlying logic is one that furthers the ideas favored by the Cold- War era Bretton Woods organizations; simply put, it is the idea that economic modernization would naturally lead to better overall quality of life in a developing nation.10 In its 1993 “World Development Report,” the World Bank turned this logic on its head, viewing poor health as a factor in absenteeism in the workplace and a hindrance to economic development, suggesting an influx of vaccinations and medicines to counteract common ailments and increase workplace production.11 In 1996, the World Bank’s loans for health were double the comprehensive budget of the World Health Organization. Western investment in the global South was henceforth justified by the impetus toward furthering “economic development and modernization.”12 This fits seamlessly into the liberalization of markets, as the market for pharmaceuticals would integrate developing nations further into the world markets. But this contradicts with Lawrence Summers made with regards to pollution and profit.
Now what about the children? U.C. Berkeley Professor Paula S. Fass discusses globalization as a spread of ideas that mold and distort cultural conceptions of childhood and adolescence. She expresses surprise at the absence of children from the discourse of globalism, as they are in that period of their lives when they are socialized and molded into the adults they will become. Just as social conditions and ideas socialize children, health conditions play a large factor in forming the next generation of workers and citizens. In America’s Vital Interest, illness was linked to “absenteeism, trade disruption, reduced GNP, and the redirection of resources from spending on education, infrastructure and other social programmes, leading eventually to political and economic instability.”13 What about supranational organizations and their influence and effect on children’s health in developing countries?
The World Bank’s roundabout manner in dealing with matters of children’s health in developing nation has thus far consisted of education, childhood development programs and programs targeting child labor. In 1996, the World Bank’s investments in health totaled $665- despite, or in spite of, the Bank’s stated goal of advancing human rights in its report “Development and Human Rights: The Role of the World Bank.” As a result of globalization and the imposition of economic liberalization, health outcomes are compromised to achieve economic outcomes. On the walls of the World Bank, the stated mission is to eradicate poverty, but this is not evident in the measures pursued and enforced by the Bank in developing nations. The result has been a widening divide between developing nations in the global South and the developed nations in the global North. As it is, the Bank does not address children’s health concerns unilaterally, rather it attaches them to broader imperatives aimed at productivity. By 2000, the Bank had become the largest financier of health care in developing nations. However, this was only through earmarked projects with broad aims- not specific projects targeting children’s health.14 Critics of the Bank charge that the “bank does not enhance social development, including health by encouraging countries to adopt SAPs (Structural Adjustment Plans).” In his article, Doebbler suggests a human- rights oriented policy that emphasizes the decreasing of infant mortality over adherence to a repayment schedule. He defines a human rights approach as “a strategy requiring that actors view the entitlements of individuals as rights rather than as discretionary concessions.”15
“Other elements of welfare provision, however, offer such productivity benefits and my thus be less favorably received in the face of openness. Among social policies, there are likely to include retirement, family and health- care benefits, and perhaps most obviously, passive unemployment insurance and other labor- market programs, all of which do less to encourage economic adjustment while introducing more labor- market rigidities. … productivity advantages depends on the programs and employer practices in a given country at a given time. Over longer periods of time and across countries the potential productivity benefits of programs do little to encourage sectoral adjustments that globalization necessitates.”16
Burgoon suggests similarly that welfare provision, though it may not accomplish the economic development that globalization demands, these programs are more socially beneficial than structural adjustment programs are.
The cost of illness in poor countries has been underestimated thus far. HIV rates average between 10- 15% in underdeveloped nations, which translates into a decrease in the growth rate of the gross domestic capital per capita of up to 1% a year. Tuberculosis takes away approximately $12 billion from the incomes of poor communities. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of WHO, posed the question, “What would Africa's GDP be now if malaria had been tackled 30 years ago, when effective control measures first became available?” To which he replied, “Probably about $100 billion greater than it is now, according to a report on the economic consequences of malaria presented to African leaders in Abuja earlier this year.” It is safe to say that the spread of globalization has led to a resurgence of diseases such as cholera, yellow fever and malaria in sub- Saharan Africa and malaria and dengue in South America. As as the latter quote attests, developing countries’ gross domestic production would be much higher than they are now.
Burgoon further suggests that because of the imposition of SAPs which emphasize the repayment of loans, surpluses have been directed toward the repayment of loans rather than the bolstering of the healthcare infrastructure. It seems SAP measures have not yielded the growth touted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as per capita incomes fell in over 80 countries.17 IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes require cutting government spending, which includes health care and education, while opening up the economy to multinational companies. In Tanzania, debt repayment expenditures outstrip spending on health- care. Between 1975 and 1985, in Peru, per capita food consumption fell by a quarter. In this same period, health expenditures fell 78% in Somalia as it suffered a famine caused by IMF dictated policies. It has been estimated that 6 million children under the age of 5 have died every year in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since 1982, when Thatcher and Reagan’s neo- liberal agenda first gained prominence.18
In 1991, the Manmohan Singh budget effectively cut India’s budgetary contributions to health- care. This plan disproportionately favored urban residents and urban residents were effected more than their urban counterparts. In GDP terms, India’s health expenditure, already quite low relative to the rest of the world, dropped from 1.3% to 0.9% in 1990.19 Today, India has one of the most privatized health- care infrastructures in the world, as access to health care is concentrated in the upper- middle and wealthy class. Additionally, Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) protecting and privileging the production of pharmaceuticals further narrowed the scope of drugs provided to those profitable to the pharmaceutical companies. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations leading to the signing of the TRIPS enabled India to develop state of the art pharmaceutical processes, but did nothing to increase the production of drugs treating diseases that occur in poverty stricken areas. These “orphan drugs” are not profitable simply because those who need the drugs do not have the effective demand to drive the production of the drugs- simply put, they cannot afford the drugs. This is not exclusive to India; only about 4% of drug research monies are allocated to the development of new medicines targeting diseases whose incidences are concentrated in developing countries. On the other end, only 10% of the $56 billion spend annually on medical research are aimed at ills affecting 90% of the world’s population. And to think drugs for the privileged, such as Viagra receive so much funding! Additionally, drugs created in the 1950s and the 1960s to treat tropical diseases are beginning to disappear from the market because of disuse in the developed world.20
In Cuba, there is a different sort of situation; one that was termed by Jerry M. Spiegel and Annalee Yassi a “Cuban health paradox.”21 In their 2004 article, they note that Cuba’s health- care system is much more advanced than comparable countries. Thus, Cuba presents a challenge to the conventional understanding of wealth is a precursor to an effective health- sector.22 Cuba’s under 5 mortality for males is 11 and for females it is 8. This is a rate approximate to those of highly developed nations in the global North. Cuba also has the highest female life expectancy relative to GDP in the Americas according to WHO 2001 data. And since 1989, trends in the health- care sector have only been positive: in ten years, hospitals have increased from 263 to 284, physicians’ offices have increased from 6000 to 15,824, and maternal homes have increased from 148 to 227, according to MINSAP (Cuban Ministry of Public Health) data.23 Additionally, Cuba’s patterns of disease are similar to those of developing nations. Cuba has the highest physician- to- population ratio, even sending doctors and health workers overseas to Africa and Asia. Other factors played a role in improving health, like literacy: before the 1959 revolution, 25% of adults were illiterate, and in 1996, the literacy rate was 97.6% among adults and 100% among primary school children. Most importantly, “the Cuban health system is almost exclusively financed by the state.” The state provides free preventative medical care, diagnostic tests and medications for hospitalized patients- despite these being on short supply. All other costs incurred by patients are subsidized heavily by the state.24 In additional to the quantity of polyclinics, accessibility is greatly enabled by their locations in neighborhoods. Spiegel and Yassi contend that “The presumption that "There Is No Alternative (TINA)" to the neo- liberal path to development and achieving good health outcomes is seriously called into question by Cuba's experience.” In the 1970’s, as Latin American health- care systems declined under the burdens of SAPs and economic downturn, Cuba saw a steady increase in the quality of its health- care bureaucracy.25 Though isolated from the United States and having rejected the IMF and the World Bank’s conditional loans, Cuba embarked on a different path, disproving Thatcher’s assertion that there was no alternative to the neo- liberal agenda, and defying conventional wisdom that globalization and economic liberalization as beneficial to developing nations. Cuba is an important case study when looking at health care under globalization.
The IMF and the World Bank are supranational organizations capable of pursuing measures that can help reverse the current trends in health care- the hindering of the development of burgeoning welfare states in the global South, and decreased expenditures in the healthcare sector. Doebbler suggests emphasizing a decrease in child mortality rather than adherence to a strict payment schedule, the World Bank and the IMF can counteract the damage wrought by structural adjustment plans. Doebbler also argues that “a human rights approach” as “a strategy requiring that actors view the entitlements of individuals as rights rather than as discretionary concessions,” would shift the emphasis from mere profit to a greater consideration of the human capital of a developing nation. This is fundamentally at odds with the SAPs enforced by the IMF now, and this, if embraced, would present a serious challenge to globalization. That is what is necessary to bring health care to the lofty ideals of human rights as set forth by the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The difference is that, rather than a sweeping term “human,” nations would use “men, women, children” to account for myriad needs and considerations.
Goapele "If We Knew"
“We live in a world scarred by inequality. Something is
wrong when the richest 20 percent of the global popula-
tion receives more than 80 percent of the global income.
Something is wrong when 10 percent of a population
receives half of the national income-as happens in far
too many countries today. Something is wrong when the
average income for the richest 20 countries is 37 times
the average for the poorest 20-a gap that has more than
doubled in the past 40 years. Something is wrong when
1.2 billion people still live under less than a dollar a day
and 2.8 billion still live on less than two dollars a day.”1
James Wolfensohn, World Bank, President
wrong when the richest 20 percent of the global popula-
tion receives more than 80 percent of the global income.
Something is wrong when 10 percent of a population
receives half of the national income-as happens in far
too many countries today. Something is wrong when the
average income for the richest 20 countries is 37 times
the average for the poorest 20-a gap that has more than
doubled in the past 40 years. Something is wrong when
1.2 billion people still live under less than a dollar a day
and 2.8 billion still live on less than two dollars a day.”1
James Wolfensohn, World Bank, President
Childhood is both a universal experience, and a culturally specific one.2 As globalization and the neo- liberal agenda is spread through the global South, childhood is becoming increasingly endangered by the processes of globalization. This is most pertinent in terms of health. As Liisa Malkki and Emily Martin term it, ‘environmental racism’ cuts the lifespan of these children while reducing their quality of life through pollution.3 In America, this is evident in the relationship housing patterns and the exposure to pollution, environmental, human health hazards- this variable is stratified on the basis of race, and as a rule, minorities, most particularly African- Americans suffer the most.4 On a global scale, this is more clearly evident. In a 1995 report by Lawrence Summers, then chief economist at the World Bank (now President of Harvard University), he indicated that:
“The export of pollution and toxic waste to the Third World constitutes an economically sound, ‘world- welfare enhancing trade’ that should be actively encouraged by the Bank… [Since] the measurement of the costs of health- impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality… a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with lowest cost, which will the country with lowest wages.”5
Essentially, in economic terms, pollution is a good thing for the neo- liberal agenda in the global South. Summers rejected criticisms based upon moral and social concerns, as they undermined the Bank’s goal of liberalizing national economies. This relates to children not for the messianic sentiments this can elicit, but for the impact that toxins and pollutants have on developing bodies. The World Health Organization (WHO) referred to children as “canaries in the mine,” a sort of litmus test for the environment.6 It has been estimated that 6 million children under the age of 5 have died (globally) every year in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since 1982, when Thatcher and Reagan’s neo- liberal ideology first gained prominence. This corporate triage of the global South’s children is nothing new, but there are measure that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank can take to stall the negative effects of structural adjustment programs on developing welfare states’ health- care expenditures.
First, let us take a look at the state of health under globalization. In her article “Globalization and the Decline of the Welfare State in Less- Developed Nations,” Nita Rudra attributes the divergent well- beings of nations in the global North and the global South to the undermining of government mechanisms through economic liberalization. Using a graph, Rudra demonstrates that government spending by developed states in the North and less- developed states in the South have consistently bifurcated since 1975.7 Among those nations categorized as “less- developed” were Argentina, Botswana, Costa Rica, Greece and Kuwait. Conversely, nations considered developed states were the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Sweden. Globalization hinders the development of welfare states as it does not regard generous welfare benefits as “good market disciplining devices on labor.” Also, “globalization discourages governments from raising revenue” via taxation- most notably, taxation of foreign direct investors.8 The pressure for these “less developed” nations to conform to the neo- liberal agenda is as strong as the nation’s desire to compete with in the global market. As the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank continue to give out conditional loans, there is no doubt that developing nations will continue to accept these loans and the structural adjustment plans that come along with them.
This ties into healthcare as the amount of money poured into welfare agencies is correlates to the monies expended on healthcare. Healthcare, access to vaccines and pharmaceuticals has been left up to the market mechanisms of demand- adjusted pricing. This is problematic as it lends the production of medicine to the frequency (or infrequency) of epidemics- especially with regard to drugs for malaria, cholera, and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, companies want growth, but this is hindered when most world economies do not have effective demand- in this sense, global health depends on the ability to “make it economically feasible for the best of American science, technology and industry to address major global health problems and enable US industry to profit…”9 The underlying logic is one that furthers the ideas favored by the Cold- War era Bretton Woods organizations; simply put, it is the idea that economic modernization would naturally lead to better overall quality of life in a developing nation.10 In its 1993 “World Development Report,” the World Bank turned this logic on its head, viewing poor health as a factor in absenteeism in the workplace and a hindrance to economic development, suggesting an influx of vaccinations and medicines to counteract common ailments and increase workplace production.11 In 1996, the World Bank’s loans for health were double the comprehensive budget of the World Health Organization. Western investment in the global South was henceforth justified by the impetus toward furthering “economic development and modernization.”12 This fits seamlessly into the liberalization of markets, as the market for pharmaceuticals would integrate developing nations further into the world markets. But this contradicts with Lawrence Summers made with regards to pollution and profit.
Now what about the children? U.C. Berkeley Professor Paula S. Fass discusses globalization as a spread of ideas that mold and distort cultural conceptions of childhood and adolescence. She expresses surprise at the absence of children from the discourse of globalism, as they are in that period of their lives when they are socialized and molded into the adults they will become. Just as social conditions and ideas socialize children, health conditions play a large factor in forming the next generation of workers and citizens. In America’s Vital Interest, illness was linked to “absenteeism, trade disruption, reduced GNP, and the redirection of resources from spending on education, infrastructure and other social programmes, leading eventually to political and economic instability.”13 What about supranational organizations and their influence and effect on children’s health in developing countries?
The World Bank’s roundabout manner in dealing with matters of children’s health in developing nation has thus far consisted of education, childhood development programs and programs targeting child labor. In 1996, the World Bank’s investments in health totaled $665- despite, or in spite of, the Bank’s stated goal of advancing human rights in its report “Development and Human Rights: The Role of the World Bank.” As a result of globalization and the imposition of economic liberalization, health outcomes are compromised to achieve economic outcomes. On the walls of the World Bank, the stated mission is to eradicate poverty, but this is not evident in the measures pursued and enforced by the Bank in developing nations. The result has been a widening divide between developing nations in the global South and the developed nations in the global North. As it is, the Bank does not address children’s health concerns unilaterally, rather it attaches them to broader imperatives aimed at productivity. By 2000, the Bank had become the largest financier of health care in developing nations. However, this was only through earmarked projects with broad aims- not specific projects targeting children’s health.14 Critics of the Bank charge that the “bank does not enhance social development, including health by encouraging countries to adopt SAPs (Structural Adjustment Plans).” In his article, Doebbler suggests a human- rights oriented policy that emphasizes the decreasing of infant mortality over adherence to a repayment schedule. He defines a human rights approach as “a strategy requiring that actors view the entitlements of individuals as rights rather than as discretionary concessions.”15
“Other elements of welfare provision, however, offer such productivity benefits and my thus be less favorably received in the face of openness. Among social policies, there are likely to include retirement, family and health- care benefits, and perhaps most obviously, passive unemployment insurance and other labor- market programs, all of which do less to encourage economic adjustment while introducing more labor- market rigidities. … productivity advantages depends on the programs and employer practices in a given country at a given time. Over longer periods of time and across countries the potential productivity benefits of programs do little to encourage sectoral adjustments that globalization necessitates.”16
Burgoon suggests similarly that welfare provision, though it may not accomplish the economic development that globalization demands, these programs are more socially beneficial than structural adjustment programs are.
The cost of illness in poor countries has been underestimated thus far. HIV rates average between 10- 15% in underdeveloped nations, which translates into a decrease in the growth rate of the gross domestic capital per capita of up to 1% a year. Tuberculosis takes away approximately $12 billion from the incomes of poor communities. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of WHO, posed the question, “What would Africa's GDP be now if malaria had been tackled 30 years ago, when effective control measures first became available?” To which he replied, “Probably about $100 billion greater than it is now, according to a report on the economic consequences of malaria presented to African leaders in Abuja earlier this year.” It is safe to say that the spread of globalization has led to a resurgence of diseases such as cholera, yellow fever and malaria in sub- Saharan Africa and malaria and dengue in South America. As as the latter quote attests, developing countries’ gross domestic production would be much higher than they are now.
Burgoon further suggests that because of the imposition of SAPs which emphasize the repayment of loans, surpluses have been directed toward the repayment of loans rather than the bolstering of the healthcare infrastructure. It seems SAP measures have not yielded the growth touted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as per capita incomes fell in over 80 countries.17 IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes require cutting government spending, which includes health care and education, while opening up the economy to multinational companies. In Tanzania, debt repayment expenditures outstrip spending on health- care. Between 1975 and 1985, in Peru, per capita food consumption fell by a quarter. In this same period, health expenditures fell 78% in Somalia as it suffered a famine caused by IMF dictated policies. It has been estimated that 6 million children under the age of 5 have died every year in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since 1982, when Thatcher and Reagan’s neo- liberal agenda first gained prominence.18
In 1991, the Manmohan Singh budget effectively cut India’s budgetary contributions to health- care. This plan disproportionately favored urban residents and urban residents were effected more than their urban counterparts. In GDP terms, India’s health expenditure, already quite low relative to the rest of the world, dropped from 1.3% to 0.9% in 1990.19 Today, India has one of the most privatized health- care infrastructures in the world, as access to health care is concentrated in the upper- middle and wealthy class. Additionally, Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) protecting and privileging the production of pharmaceuticals further narrowed the scope of drugs provided to those profitable to the pharmaceutical companies. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations leading to the signing of the TRIPS enabled India to develop state of the art pharmaceutical processes, but did nothing to increase the production of drugs treating diseases that occur in poverty stricken areas. These “orphan drugs” are not profitable simply because those who need the drugs do not have the effective demand to drive the production of the drugs- simply put, they cannot afford the drugs. This is not exclusive to India; only about 4% of drug research monies are allocated to the development of new medicines targeting diseases whose incidences are concentrated in developing countries. On the other end, only 10% of the $56 billion spend annually on medical research are aimed at ills affecting 90% of the world’s population. And to think drugs for the privileged, such as Viagra receive so much funding! Additionally, drugs created in the 1950s and the 1960s to treat tropical diseases are beginning to disappear from the market because of disuse in the developed world.20
In Cuba, there is a different sort of situation; one that was termed by Jerry M. Spiegel and Annalee Yassi a “Cuban health paradox.”21 In their 2004 article, they note that Cuba’s health- care system is much more advanced than comparable countries. Thus, Cuba presents a challenge to the conventional understanding of wealth is a precursor to an effective health- sector.22 Cuba’s under 5 mortality for males is 11 and for females it is 8. This is a rate approximate to those of highly developed nations in the global North. Cuba also has the highest female life expectancy relative to GDP in the Americas according to WHO 2001 data. And since 1989, trends in the health- care sector have only been positive: in ten years, hospitals have increased from 263 to 284, physicians’ offices have increased from 6000 to 15,824, and maternal homes have increased from 148 to 227, according to MINSAP (Cuban Ministry of Public Health) data.23 Additionally, Cuba’s patterns of disease are similar to those of developing nations. Cuba has the highest physician- to- population ratio, even sending doctors and health workers overseas to Africa and Asia. Other factors played a role in improving health, like literacy: before the 1959 revolution, 25% of adults were illiterate, and in 1996, the literacy rate was 97.6% among adults and 100% among primary school children. Most importantly, “the Cuban health system is almost exclusively financed by the state.” The state provides free preventative medical care, diagnostic tests and medications for hospitalized patients- despite these being on short supply. All other costs incurred by patients are subsidized heavily by the state.24 In additional to the quantity of polyclinics, accessibility is greatly enabled by their locations in neighborhoods. Spiegel and Yassi contend that “The presumption that "There Is No Alternative (TINA)" to the neo- liberal path to development and achieving good health outcomes is seriously called into question by Cuba's experience.” In the 1970’s, as Latin American health- care systems declined under the burdens of SAPs and economic downturn, Cuba saw a steady increase in the quality of its health- care bureaucracy.25 Though isolated from the United States and having rejected the IMF and the World Bank’s conditional loans, Cuba embarked on a different path, disproving Thatcher’s assertion that there was no alternative to the neo- liberal agenda, and defying conventional wisdom that globalization and economic liberalization as beneficial to developing nations. Cuba is an important case study when looking at health care under globalization.
The IMF and the World Bank are supranational organizations capable of pursuing measures that can help reverse the current trends in health care- the hindering of the development of burgeoning welfare states in the global South, and decreased expenditures in the healthcare sector. Doebbler suggests emphasizing a decrease in child mortality rather than adherence to a strict payment schedule, the World Bank and the IMF can counteract the damage wrought by structural adjustment plans. Doebbler also argues that “a human rights approach” as “a strategy requiring that actors view the entitlements of individuals as rights rather than as discretionary concessions,” would shift the emphasis from mere profit to a greater consideration of the human capital of a developing nation. This is fundamentally at odds with the SAPs enforced by the IMF now, and this, if embraced, would present a serious challenge to globalization. That is what is necessary to bring health care to the lofty ideals of human rights as set forth by the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The difference is that, rather than a sweeping term “human,” nations would use “men, women, children” to account for myriad needs and considerations.
Goapele "If We Knew"
Another Thing:
This is the theme song of the night:
Floetry: "I'll Die"
We are who we choose to be.
I'm responsible for me.
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
Coulda been another one of those,
Coulda made it,
Woulda made it,
Shoulda made it,
Had I gave it,
Just a little bit more of my time.
Just a little focus,
Coulda broke this,
Woulda woke this,
Shoulda choked this,
Had I chose bliss I'dve left this infatuation,
Far behind,
I'll exchange my mind,
No more wasting time,
This process is mine,
In Your eyes,
My reflection is blind,
In your arms I decide,
This is our last night,
Goodbye.
(Goodbye)
I have to leave you.
(Goodbye)
I have to be true.
(So long for you and I.)
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
Been a addicted,
To the burden of the gifted,
To the sermon of the shifted,
Always praying to be lifted.
Always settling,
Never bettering.
How'm I gonna win,
If I'm not listening.
Always asking for
Never noticing,
Every move I make,
This game's reacting in,
Perfect symmetry,
I'm my destiny,
Must invest in me,
Or I'm just gonna be,
Victim of circumstance,
All is left to chance,
How can I enhance?
I'm afraid to dance.
I must break this trance,
'Cause it's deafening,
So I'm breathing in.
I'm breathing in.
Breath to get control of me.
I have to breath.
I have to be.
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
What's the use of living here,
If I don't feel alive?
Denied mistakes,
So much I've done.
So much to cry.
I cry
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
Floetry: "I'll Die"
We are who we choose to be.
I'm responsible for me.
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
Coulda been another one of those,
Coulda made it,
Woulda made it,
Shoulda made it,
Had I gave it,
Just a little bit more of my time.
Just a little focus,
Coulda broke this,
Woulda woke this,
Shoulda choked this,
Had I chose bliss I'dve left this infatuation,
Far behind,
I'll exchange my mind,
No more wasting time,
This process is mine,
In Your eyes,
My reflection is blind,
In your arms I decide,
This is our last night,
Goodbye.
(Goodbye)
I have to leave you.
(Goodbye)
I have to be true.
(So long for you and I.)
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
Been a addicted,
To the burden of the gifted,
To the sermon of the shifted,
Always praying to be lifted.
Always settling,
Never bettering.
How'm I gonna win,
If I'm not listening.
Always asking for
Never noticing,
Every move I make,
This game's reacting in,
Perfect symmetry,
I'm my destiny,
Must invest in me,
Or I'm just gonna be,
Victim of circumstance,
All is left to chance,
How can I enhance?
I'm afraid to dance.
I must break this trance,
'Cause it's deafening,
So I'm breathing in.
I'm breathing in.
Breath to get control of me.
I have to breath.
I have to be.
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
What's the use of living here,
If I don't feel alive?
Denied mistakes,
So much I've done.
So much to cry.
I cry
If I stay right here,
I'll die inside.
Ran out of tears,
I can barely get by.
It's fair to say,
That we tried.
You know I wanna stay,
If I do, I'll die.
March/ Women's History Month Pt. II
I am a woman;
A soul with a body.
And this body of mine
has been ontologically colonized,
framed within the expectations of others.
My image has been truncated and defiled;
Used for the sake of entertainment
serving the purpose of some unnamed entity.
I am depicted in part, and made supine-
malleable and breakable.
I am a soul;
Housed in this body
And this soul is fearfully and wonderfully made
and loved to no end by an omniscient God.
My image has been restored and redeemed;
To be used for the sake of His will
serving the divine purpose for which I was made.
I am wholly consecrated and made whole-
His beloved creation.
-Arri
Below you'll find embedded a clip of Kiri Davis' documentary "A Girl Like Me:"
A soul with a body.
And this body of mine
has been ontologically colonized,
framed within the expectations of others.
My image has been truncated and defiled;
Used for the sake of entertainment
serving the purpose of some unnamed entity.
I am depicted in part, and made supine-
malleable and breakable.
I am a soul;
Housed in this body
And this soul is fearfully and wonderfully made
and loved to no end by an omniscient God.
My image has been restored and redeemed;
To be used for the sake of His will
serving the divine purpose for which I was made.
I am wholly consecrated and made whole-
His beloved creation.
-Arri
Below you'll find embedded a clip of Kiri Davis' documentary "A Girl Like Me:"
Women's History Month: Ontologically Colonizing the Black Woman
Ontologically Colonized Bodies: African- American Women as the Discursive "Other"
I have begun to view history as a succession of discourses that inform human beings in how they perceive their world and themselves. With those perceptions, there are the actions that we codify as history. This is a loose interpretation of Michel Foucault’s “Two Lectures.”
As an African- American woman, I am keenly aware of how Black women’s bodies have been ontologically colonized across time and space. This phenomenon is not simply a modern phenomenon nor is it confined to the United States. It is a shared experience belonging to African- American women.
The experience I refer to is particular to slaves who were brought to the United States in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century- the experience of those enslaved in that “peculiar institution.” Black female slaves were valued for their child- bearing capabilities. In contemporaneous literary canons, the Black woman was either a “tragic mulatto,” an “amoral jezebel” or the non- threatening and asexual “Mammy.” The tragic mulatto lived on the boundary between whiteness and blackness, whereby she was never authentic enough to be accepted by either race. She often bore children out of wedlock only to see them ripped away from her on the auction block. The “amoral Jezebel” a woman of loose morals, whose very physical appearance was indicative of her character. Her ample bosom, wide hips and swaying gait suggested a raw sexuality that was not ascribed to her White counterparts- and on a more sinister note, the former connoted ‘permission’ to rape her. The asexual Mammy was typically a woman past her child- bearing years, characterized by a no- nonsense attitude and an unwavering loyalty to her Master and Mistress.
All three constructs of Black womanhood in the context of slavery fail (even in synthesis) to capture the breadth of the collective and individual experiences. Additionally, all three of these constructs relate identity and the body through a discourse- that of their masters who operated within the social institution of slavery. The necessity of separating Master from Slave required a process of “otherizing” the African: the difference was often that of values. Masters subscribed to Christian values, using biblical justifications to legitimize and fortify their positions as slaveholders. By contrast, the African slave was perceived as idolatrous, given to superstition, and thus impervious to the benefits of a Christian upbringing. Moreover, the Black woman was positioned in a binary opposition with. and in contrast to, her White counterparts, in the same process by which she was ontologically colonized. The White woman was perceived as a paragon of virtue and restraint, whereas the Black women embodied all that was alluring, seductive, hedonistic and immoral. The European- American woman was an object to be protected and shielded, and the African slave woman was an object to be used and cast aside. The great freeman orator, Frederick Douglass, testified that the "slave woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master." While she was valued as a “breeder”, her fecundity was perceived as evidence of her sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility rather than her subordinate state to the slaveholder and overseer.
This continues nearly 150 years after emancipation, as the stereotype of the “welfare queen” is typically an irresponsible Black mother, despite the fact that most welfare recipients are White. Furthermore, the images on the television present the truncated images of the her posterior and her chest- reducing her to the a body. Her face is rarely shown- except in a fit of ecstasy or pain in a supine position. The projected image of the Black woman is never a complete one that values her as a human being, wholly constructed.
Where does God stand in all of this? God is not in the church doctrines that justified the institution of slavery. The mighty Creator made us in His image and we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”4 Regardless of historical wrongs, we are valued and beloved in His sight. We are souls inhabiting these earthly bodies- and nothing can take away our status as beloved creations- nothing. While our bodies may be ontologically colonized, our souls can be made free. God loved us so much that He gave His Son to die on our behalf, that we may live in eternity with Him- if we believe.
03-14-2009 Saturday: Pi Day!
Happy Pi Day!
Some thoughts:
THE FUTURE:
I volunteered as a greeter at the 13th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference on campus, and it made me think about the future. I could either go to Law School (already have LSAC account, taken LSAT twice) or go to Graduate School (haven't taken the GRE yet) and pursue a Masters in Education or History. The Conference was cool- I met lots of graduate students and department heads. I talked briefly with the head of the German Department about the textbook- which he pretty much wrote.
But, I digress. I think I am going to go to Law School first, and after that, maybe I'll look into a PhD or a Masters' in something else. I do want to practice law, and work with educational reform for the state of California.
I occasionally feel pulled towards international law- which is why I've begun to show more interest in proficiently speaking German, French and Spanish.
THESIS- ING:
I can't complain- I just wish I could type in my sleep.
Some thoughts:
THE FUTURE:
I volunteered as a greeter at the 13th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference on campus, and it made me think about the future. I could either go to Law School (already have LSAC account, taken LSAT twice) or go to Graduate School (haven't taken the GRE yet) and pursue a Masters in Education or History. The Conference was cool- I met lots of graduate students and department heads. I talked briefly with the head of the German Department about the textbook- which he pretty much wrote.
But, I digress. I think I am going to go to Law School first, and after that, maybe I'll look into a PhD or a Masters' in something else. I do want to practice law, and work with educational reform for the state of California.
I occasionally feel pulled towards international law- which is why I've begun to show more interest in proficiently speaking German, French and Spanish.
THESIS- ING:
I can't complain- I just wish I could type in my sleep.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Lessons II
I don't know what the world sees when I set foot outside of my room- well, I think I do. My image is carefully crafted; cute hair scarves, headbands, cardigan sweaters, sneakers and pearl earrings all add to that "cute" persona. I would like to be cute, but really, I am about as hard and closed as the concrete walls of a dam.
I am 20 years, and I've got a great deal of unexpressed hurt and anger. I have never raised my voice at those who hurt me. I've never expressed that anger. No, it is bottled up- gases expanding in accordance with Charles' Gas Law: temperature is directly proportionate to volume. No one has ever seen me cry- except my Mom, my roommate, my best friend and my big sister.
I can feel it now- the walls I've built to keep others out are trapping me. I can't even maintain relationships anymore, because I refuse to be vulnerable. I share by not sharing, and others have to make assumptions and inferences about me to 'know' me. The irony is that I always get angry when people make assumptions about me.
See, I think- I know- I was in love. But those walls- pride, fear- got in the way. Now I'm back to square 1- wondering how the heck this happened to me AGAIN, and trying to move on as if no loss was suffered.
And where is God in all of this? Well, in my taciturn days, I am more familiar with His silence than His presence. I still believe in Him, but I do not speak of Him. Surely I can bring my burdens to Him.
Maybe I'll start journal- ing again.
-Arri
I am 20 years, and I've got a great deal of unexpressed hurt and anger. I have never raised my voice at those who hurt me. I've never expressed that anger. No, it is bottled up- gases expanding in accordance with Charles' Gas Law: temperature is directly proportionate to volume. No one has ever seen me cry- except my Mom, my roommate, my best friend and my big sister.
I can feel it now- the walls I've built to keep others out are trapping me. I can't even maintain relationships anymore, because I refuse to be vulnerable. I share by not sharing, and others have to make assumptions and inferences about me to 'know' me. The irony is that I always get angry when people make assumptions about me.
See, I think- I know- I was in love. But those walls- pride, fear- got in the way. Now I'm back to square 1- wondering how the heck this happened to me AGAIN, and trying to move on as if no loss was suffered.
And where is God in all of this? Well, in my taciturn days, I am more familiar with His silence than His presence. I still believe in Him, but I do not speak of Him. Surely I can bring my burdens to Him.
Maybe I'll start journal- ing again.
-Arri
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Lessons.
Ah. I am learning another lesson. My refusal to be vulnerable to others is only detrimental and hurtful. I knew that rationally, but my heart didn't know.
I hurt my friend by not sharing with him. He hurt me back. I hurt him back by pushing him away. I relied on the familiar refrain: "You don't know me." Once again, I cut all ties.
My refusal to be vulnerable could be construed as distrust.
As a result, I've lost another friendship.
Yes.
I hurt my friend by not sharing with him. He hurt me back. I hurt him back by pushing him away. I relied on the familiar refrain: "You don't know me." Once again, I cut all ties.
My refusal to be vulnerable could be construed as distrust.
As a result, I've lost another friendship.
Yes.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Hmmm.
Oatmeal makes my tummy go *gurgle.* I wonder why. Hurts like heck, though.
Other than that, life is good. Cannot complain.
Not much to write here.
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