Julie Pippert: Using My Words

In 1984 I was a teen, but not old enough to vote yet. That didn't keep me and my peers from being interested in the election that year. For those of you who don't recall (or weren't born yet) in 1984 Democrats Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro challenged Republican incumbents President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush. It was unprecedented: a ticket with a woman. The nation was sort of flummoxed, and everyone was talking about it, a lot. That was the year then Colorado Senator Gary Hart, former Vice President Walter Mondale and Illinois minister Jesse Jackson all ran for Democratic nominee. Hart lost after Mondale mockery of his new ideas, and Jackson lost because...well, we can all speculate why. History will probably attribute it to his bigoted remarks, largely about Jewish people. History is rarely completely wrong, but it also doesn't always tell the whole story. Once Mondale secured the nomination, he selected Ferraro as his running mate, and the Wom...

Prejudice : ageism, animosity, antipathy, apartheid, aversion, bigotry, chauvinism, contemptuousness, discrimination, disgust, dislike, enmity, illiberality*, injustice, jaundiced eye, mind-set, misjudgment, narrow-mindedness, one-sidedness, partiality, preconceived notion, racism, repugnance, revulsion, sexism, umbrage, unfairness, xenophobia * I'd say call Webster's here, but errr...this is from the dictionary . What's your gut reaction to the above words? My gut roils, and not pleasantly. Each word carries a fairly bad---perhaps even nasty---connotation. Those words are the rationale we use to harm others. I'm not picturing a billy club to a head per se (although there is historical precedent). I'm picturing less obvious harm as well, such as dimming someone's soul. The thesaurus asks us to consider: a person's bias is based on facts, but prejudice occurs without a person knowing or examining the facts. The facts. We've studied facts in school, cla...

Edited to say: In my busy-ness I have been thoughtless. I owed Liv a big THANK YOU for sending my post 'Is The Internet The Rainbow Connection?' to Jen for the Just Posts. I'm so appreciative, Liv, and I want to say it publicly too. I had so many different ideas mashing about in my mind for how to introduce the July 2007 Just Posts. Then I read Jen's introduction , and I forgot the rest of my ideas. My mind congealed into one hot question: can people simply be evil? Or do they lack ability to know how to productively manage their emotions? How do their circumstances matter within assessing this? In my life, I've known a large number of cruel people, thoughtless people, people who perpetuated some of the worst kind of harm there is...people who hurt children and created the opportunity for harm to perpetuate through another generation. It may be compassionate, it may be crazy, but I don't necessarily run from people who are doing or who have done what we might c...

The discussion about race and culture on the Internet has grown and expanded. I can't express how awesome and amazing I think this is. A big thank you to everyone who is participating! Here's the exciting news: BlogRhet is hosting the first ever theme-week (an online, no fees, no name-tags, no pressure conference-slash-consciousness -raising-event); AKA: Let's Talk About Race, Baby. I promise no "speed-dating" style ice breakers, either. ;) I also promise some awesome things. Motherhood Uncensored 's Kristen, Rice Daddies , Kimchi Mamas , and more will all be cooperatively participating in BlogRhet's week long initiative to explore race, culture and the Internet...next week! Kristen will host a radio-podcast on the topic, including interviews with Stefania Pomponi Butler and others; she'll also be guest posting on the topic at BlogRhet. Joy of GingaJoy and Tere of A Mom, A Blog and the Life In-Between will text interview some of the fabulous Kimchi ...

A lot of people have said in comments and emails that what they have to say on this topic, " Is the Internet the Rainbow Connection? " exceeds a comment and want to write their own posts. Therefore...by popular request, the Hump Day Hmm topic for this week will be race, society and the Internet---any angle you would like to take. If you've already written a post recently or at any time in the past, e-mail it to me at j pippert at gmail dot com. When you write a post, do the same. If you feel stymied, but have commented, take your comment and post it. :) A favor of other bloggers who are or already have discussed this topic...would you could you mention this Hump Day Hmmm or my email? I know the discussion is broad and wide. I'd love to collect in one spot links to all the posts so people can easily find them for reading. Muchas gracias! copyright 2007 Julie Pippert

If you think I am going to talk about race in this post, you are right. I am. I'm not going to try to rock any worlds and make anyone a different person. I'm just going to say a few things that have been on my mind since Tere broached this topic on BlogRhet . The subsequent discussion felt like a lot of different things to different people, and I'm going to say that's because we are all different races and cultures. So I am going to say that race matters, but not in the way people usually think it does. I'll tell you how and why it matters to me, and then I'll tell you how and why I think it matters, anyway, on the Internet. First, let's get this out of the way. You've seen my photo and my kids. You look at me and think, "Caucasian. That girl is one long loaf of white bread." And you'd be right. Mostly. But not completely. When I was going through the diagnosis for my Dread Disease , the specialist did the usual extremely in-depth H&P ...