I was in New York this weekend for my best friend's baby shower and while it was, of course, a very happy occasion, it seemed slightly more complicated than its pink ribbons and bows let on.
We'd decided against any sort of "theme" (and likewise nixed the horrible party games that often are part of these events), but, if there had to be a theme, I think it would have been something like, "Ambivalence: Bring a gift that reflects your deeply conflicted feelings about modern motherhood."
Sadly, they don't make pre-printed invitations for that one.
So most people went with the more standard-issue gifts, like tiny little articles of clothing that come with tiny little matching accessories, like tiny little hats and tiny little socks.
Still, there was something in the air that went, appropriately, unsaid. This was, after all, a gathering of women -- most of us in our early 30's (or, what passes, in our demographic, for peak childbearing years) and a handful of older, presumably wiser, elders. And it would have been cool if we could have had some sort of conversation about how, exactly, anyone is supposed to do this whole motherhood thing.
My friend, whom we were showering, has been married for seven years and has been pretty resolute in maintaining that no, thanks for asking, she was not aware of the ticking of any sort of biological clock. She's the kind of brilliant and obsessive thinker, who, were she not married to one of the most nurturing men on the face of the planet, you could easily see living a busy, career-focused "life of the mind" that does not include raising children.
And, throughout her pregnancy, she's refused to get into all the elevation-of-motherhood-above-all-other-endeavors stuff that seems to characterize modern yuppie parenthood. She is (as yet, anyway) unconflicted about continuing her career and having her daughter taken care of in a day care center. This has cast her, in her words, as "the bad mother" in her birthing classes.
Because the cultural trend of the moment seems to hold that she should be "glowing" and "basking" and all of that. And, if she isn't, well, she must be doing something wrong.
There is only one right way to be pregnant these days, it seems. It has to be the most blissed out, wonderful thing that's ever happened in your life.
And even my friend, who is beloved for her honesty and directness, realized that you're not allowed to say otherwise at your baby shower.
Her shower was hosted by three childless women: a single friend who lives in Manhattan and is contemplating moving in with her boyfriend, her lesbian sister who plans to move in with her girlfriend later this year and me, the newlywed. It's possible we were sort of underqualified for the endeavor.
The single friend, who lives alone in a really great apartment, is nervous about the idea of sharing personal space with someone, even someone she loves. It's tough to imagine have a kid while living in separate apartments.
The lesbian sister is pretty sure she doesn't ever want to give birth to a child, but might consider raising one with a partner.
And I'm refusing to entertain questions on the subject until I've been married for a year.
Still, though we've all discussed these feelings privately, when it came to putting a public face on for the party, we all found ourselves oohing and ahhing over the unbearable cuteness of pink footie pajamas. To do otherwise is simply unthinkable.
It was all great fun. But it seemed, somehow, too, a little like a lost opportunity.
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I received tons of e-mail regarding Friday's column and thought I'd post some samples here. I guess this is pretty naive of me, but I was totally taken aback by the people (and there were about a half-dozen) who took this an opportunity to sound off against the racism they experience as white people. Anyway, these e-mails provide as good a measure as any I've seen lately on how Chicagoans feel about racism in this city.
I really love this one and will bring a copy of it over to the Sambolas tonight:
While I agree that it is difficult to understand the level of hate that it must take for people to do the things that they do, the fact remains that evil exists in this world and we all have an obligation to respond to it in a loving fashion. Please let the family know that I am so sorry about what occurred and that I am very happy that they have come to live here in the Chicago area. My family and I would love to welcome them into our home for an evening of food and conversation as a way of welcoming them to our city. Please pass this note of apology to them and let them know that there are thousands of people who are thrilled that they have moved here.
And this one was quite heartening, as well.
I love it when you get outraged. Too few people feel strongly about the evil in this world. But I wish you could help out those of us who want to help. For instance you could have given us a bank # and address so we could send a few $ to the Sambola family in apology for their hate-filled neighbors.
Please don’t mention a great wrong without directing your readers to a way of righting that wrong, an organization that really helps or a source of aid for a specific problem.
The Sambolas receive some assistance from the Refugee Resettlement Project at Catholic Charities. You can get information on how to donate to that program here. I'm also going to set up an account for an education fund for the girls and I'll post information on that as soon as I have it.
Here, though, is one of the first responses I got. And it really kind of ticked me off.
Black on white racism is very common and not at all quiet but why do we never hear about it? Because white people have been taught to feel bad for acts that SOME of our ancestors commited against black people. The media constantly portrays the evil white man, the black commedian constantly rips the white man while a crowd full of white people pay to listen to it and laugh. But more so its the media and 75% is white people like yourself adding to this false sense of "the way things are". Now dont get me wrong I'm not some lunatic claiming that your anti white. I understand that you used this case as an example, but if your going to show this anti black racism maybe you should also show a view from the other side of the spectrum. How about the hardcore anti white and hispanic sentiment that is widespread in every black community in this city. How often do you hear about a white person being beaten or mugged for being in a black neighborhood? Never yet it happens frequently. White people cannot walk down the street in black neighborhoods and are taking a huge risk even driving through them. Blacks have no problem strolling through our neighborhoods and for the most part living in our neighborhoods but still when the term racism is used its automatically deemed to be white on black racism. "Nigger" is a word that will turn heads and possibly get you shot and it is not a word you will hear often used by whites, especially in front of blacks, but they have no problem loudly using the term honkey and whitey still to this day. So if you choose not to show racism from every angle i say to you This is not pre civil rights movement America anymore and articles like the 1 you wrote say to people "Nothing has changed. blame the white man". While you take a step backward I will continue forward as a proud white man striving for true equality like the great Dr. King strived for
And this one had a similar theme. (And gave the opportunity to learn that my husband had never heard the term "cracker." He didn't even realize how oppressed he was as a white dude, I guess.)
We can claim progress only when people become as outraged over the epithet "cracker" as we are the "N"-word.
"I know the menu backwards and forwards," says Bruce DuMont as he settles in to table No. 1 at Harry Caray's. And there's something about the way he says it -- like a new mother talking about sleep, or a desert island castaway talking about fresh water -- that makes me really believe it. This is a man who knows his lunch menus.
But these days, he says, "diabetes has gotten my attention."
So the filet mignon that would have been his choice is off limits. And he orders instead the Dutchie's Salad -- a not-quite-dietetic concoction featuring bleu cheese crumbles and candied walnuts -- and washes it down with three Diet Cokes, while warily eyeing the bread basket and pretending not to mind its presence.
DuMont, the Chicago journalist who is the founder, president and CEO of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, is not one for small appetites or subtle emotions.
Brought up idea in '82
His mood this afternoon is anxious: The Jan. 31 "drop-dead" date for the next round of construction financing for the museum's new River North home is fast approaching, and DuMont says he has been expecting to receive $8million in funds pledged by the Blagojevich administration for months now.
"If the state keeps its promise, we'll be open this year," he says, for the first time of many. The phrase has become a mantra for DuMont, who, since retiring from his post as WTTW's senior political analyst, has devoted himself full-time to the museum.
The idea for the museum came to him when, back in the late '70s and early '80s, he was the producer of Lee Phillip's "Noonbreak" show on Channel 2.
"I'd go back in the archives when I was researching something," he says, "and there was this treasure trove of material to sort through, but it wasn't being preserved in any particular way."
He brought up the idea of a broadcast museum at a 1982 meeting of the Board of Governors for the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "They gave me $250 to cover cab fare and lunches," he says, recalling his days as a one-man exploratory committee.
Three years later, the museum opened in its first home in the River City development.
DuMont -- whose uncle Allen was an early television innovator and ran the DuMont television network, an early fourth network that launched the careers of Jackie Gleason and Mike Wallace and was best known for its low-budget space adventure show for kids, "Captain Video," and for the inspirational broadcasts of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen -- has an obvious personal stake in the history of broadcast media.
But he says he's eager to have the museum do more than just preserve the artifacts of early television.
Oprah pitches in
"When people think of what we are," he says, an unfolded napkin spread over his ample belly, "it's, 'oh, that's where Bozo is' or 'they have Howdy Doody,' but our mission is much larger than that."
A grant from Oprah Winfrey is helping the museum digitize its collection of television reports from the civil rights era, DuMont says, and that archival material will be an invaluable resource for historians and researchers.
Beyond that, DuMont hopes the museum will serve as an incubator for new media projects, especially those produced by schoolkids.
"I know what can happen when you walk into a TV studio at 10 years old," he says, misting up just a bit.
'Good old days' resonates
He remembers taking a trip east to attend his father's 30th reunion at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., and stopping in New York City for the "boss' nephew tour" of the DuMont television studios. He met his hero, Captain Video, that day. "I fell in love with TV, and I never wanted to do anything else," he says.
DuMont is tucking into his salad, making sure to get all the walnuts, as Frank Sinatra's "Chicago" begins to drown out the chatter of the late-lunch crowd.
Still the host of a weekly talk radio show -- "Beyond the Beltway" is heard at 6 p.m. Sundays on WLS -- DuMont traces his interest in politics back to childhood, as well.
"It began in the front seat of a '48 Plymouth," he says, recalling the discussions he and his father would have after listening to Paul Harvey on the radio while driving to school.
He's clearly trying hard not to wax too nostalgic -- and DuMont manages to rack up an impressive four mentions of the iPod and its implications for media during our conversation -- but he's also someone for whom the phrase "good old days" really resonates.
There was a time, of course, when television watching was a family affair and when broadcast icons, like Howdy Doody, were cultural touchpoints that virtually everyone shared. DuMont knows it isn't like that anymore, and he isn't quite sure what to make of the new broadcast landscape.
"I keep saying we have to hurry up and open this place," he says, not entirely joking, "before it becomes obsolete."
Another Annenberg needed
This sends him back to worrying about that $8 million he's counting on.
The museum, which was housed in the Cultural Center before construction began on its new home, has faced fiscal crises before, he says, like the time in 1988 when they were contemplating budget cuts and staff reductions, only to be saved by a windfall donation from philanthropist Walter Annenberg.
For now, the museum exists primarily online -- its site, www .museum.tv, got 4 million hits last year -- while DuMont works to secure the rest of the funding for its new home at State and Kinzie.
"We're going to have another Annenberg moment soon," he says with a hungry tone in his voice. "I know we are. We have to."
Note: On Friday afternoon, three days after lunch, DuMont received word that the state funding will come through. The museum is now set to open later this year.
Today's column: The silent treatment isn't working
It was a stupid thing -- the kind of thing that happens all the time -- that set me off. It was just some words, spray-painted on a building. A racist scream, captured in black spray paint.
I don't know why it got to me the way it did. There is a certain point, after all, when it becomes just tremendously uncool to get upset about these things.
You probably remember the girl in high school who, on any given day, was seriously worked up about Apartheid, the whales, nuclear proliferation and/or toxic waste.
No one liked that girl.
No call for rudeness
Preachiness doesn't work. And, anyway, it's a bore. There's a basic social expectation that even if you do happen to have an inner-hippie-chick (or, for guys, an inner Bono), you will keep your moral indignation in check and save the rants about social justice for the Internet echo-chamber.
Because there is something about caring too much that is just, well, pathetic. A constant state of outrage does not suit the well-adjusted adult. And it can get really awkward at dinner parties.
I know all of this well enough to be embarrassed by my own occasional violations of this etiquette. The socially correct approach to discussing AIDS in Africa is to make a wry and cynical comment about the pharmaceutical companies, maybe toss in a reference to "The Constant Gardener.'' It's important, if you want to be sophisticated and worldly, to act as if you are unsurprised by the incredible cruelty of our inadequate response to the pandemic. There's no analysis, no subtlety, in pounding the table and crying about it.
The same holds true for any other social ill. You can make knowing, sarcastic remarks about the world's indifference, but you can't let on that you're taking it all too seriously.
(And how seriously are you taking anything, really, if you're still heading to work each day and living your same chai tea latte-flavored life?)
The bottom line is that it is not polite to point.
Three words
Why, then, do I find myself angry and heartbroken once again?
I should know better. I should have a thicker skin, a better understanding of The Way Things Are.
Instead, I am utterly unfit for small talk, sputtering inadequately with frustration and disappointment, after running, headlong, into the ugly face of racism.
I showed up, Monday evening, for a visit with the Sambola family, who arrived in Chicago this summer from a refugee camp in Sierra Leone. Daniel Sambola, and especially his young daughters, Mariama and Jariatu, have become my friends in these months and I've been watching them make their way into a new life here.
My breath caught in my throat when I saw the police cars and news trucks outside their Albany Park home. And I let it out in some sort of weird, choking gasp of a sob when I caught sight of the reason they were there: the graffiti painted on the interior wall of their u-shaped building.
"Niggers not wanted," it said.
Nothing to say
I searched for something to say as I climbed the stairs to their apartment. What explanation could I offer? What apology?
What do you say to a man who has left behind everything familiar to come to a foreign country and work at a menial job just so his beautiful girls will have a chance for a better life?
And what do you say to that man when, seeking only safety from chaos and civil war, he comes to this frigid place, full of strangers, and is welcomed with the ugly scrawl of someone else's hatred?
He was waiting for me at the door.
He knew what the words meant, of course, but asked me just the same, hoping, I think, that he had somehow misunderstood.
"What does this mean -- 'niggers?' " he said. "Do they mean us, the blacks?"
"I don't know," I lied.
He continued to pace by the door, as he'd been doing all afternoon since the police had come up to ask if he'd seen anything. He glanced nervously out the window, poised to protect his family should someone follow up the hateful words with physical violence.
He was helpless and empty-handed, but outraged just the same.
The girls, though, were unsurprised. They're in school all day and have quickly come to understand that there are people around who just hate them. The only thing that surprised them was that it bothered their father so much.
That's what we expect of people, isn't it? That they'll just get used to it and overcome and not complain.
By the time I left, the graffiti had already been painted over, but I could still feel it there, hot and loud like the echo of a bomb blast.
It felt wrong to go home to my perfect, comfortable life.
I'm working on tomorrow's column and having a minor crisis of confidence. I decided to write about what happened Monday at the Sambolas' -- the racist grafitti that vandals sprayed on their building.
The trouble is, I haven't gotten past the inchoate rage I felt when it first happened. I don't have any thoughtful analysis to offer up. I haven't come to any wise conclusions about society. I don't even have a decent laugh line.
The column is my bully pulpit; my shot at reaching thousands of people, maybe one of whom might actually be moved to do something, or to make some sort of difference based on what I write. So, on the one hand, I feel sort of lame about telling such a personal story. I'm worried that it will come off like, "Hey, this racism thing has really gotten out of hand now that it's impacting people I actually care about."
But, on the other hand, what's more important than this?
It's a little strange to be a white woman writing about race, like, somehow, this is not supposed to be "my" issue. My editors, I'm sure, would prefer that I stay in the North Side yuppie role for which I was cast and let Mary Mitchell, who actually knows something about racism in Chicago, cover the topic.
Well, it's a couple hours before deadline and I don't have anything else, so I'm going with it.
you'll have to stay up late tonight and catch the re-broadcast. Or, you can just check out the summaries. USA Today has a short one here and gawker has a blow-by-blow here while the New York Times has a summary of the whole flap here.
The bottom line is that Oprah says she was duped and that she's really angry and embarassed about it. Bravo to her for admitting that she was wrong in her endorsement of Frey, but I think it's still worth asking how on earth she (or, more correctly, her staff) found the book credible in the first place. Would someone please ask him what airline allows bloody, vomit-covered, unconscious passengers to be placed on board their planes?
Totally self-obsessed side note: I couldn't help wondering if, when Oprah said, "To everyone who has challenged me on the issue of truth, you are absolutely right," she had my column (among others) in mind.
Yes, I know this is pathetic, but there was a time -- I swear -- when she actually read the first few lines of one of my columns (about the show "Extreme Makeover") on the air, but didn't say my name. Come to think of it, that might have been the start of all my Oprah issues. I mean, seriously, would it have killed her to give me a little credit?
"So, James, I hear there's been some controversy . . ."
Tomorrow's Oprah show will feature memoirist/liar James Frey and his publisher because, as it turns out, there's been some sort of controversy about his book.
would the Mayor decide to fight corruption at City Hall by allowing more convicts a chance to get jobs there. This story, in today's paper, details the new program. Bascially, they're leveling the playing field so that regular criminals have the same shot at getting city jobs as criminals-with-clout.
Want to freak yourself out while on the L? Read this book
"The developed world will begin to suffer long before the oil and gas actually run out. The American way of life -- which is now virtually synonymous with suburbia -- can run only on reliable supplies of dependably cheap oil and gas. Even mild to moderate deviations in either price or supply will crush our economy and make the logistics of daily life impossible. Fossil fuel reserves are not scattered equitably around the world. They tend to be concentrated in places where the native peoples don't like the West in general or America in particular, places physically very remote, places where we realistically can exercise little control (even if we wish to). For reasons I will spell out, we can be certain that the price and supplies of fossil fuels will suffer oscillations and disruptions in the period ahead that I am calling the Long Emergency."
- from The Long Emergency by James Howard Kuntsler
After receiving the information from Debra Jay, a Michigan addiction counselor who herself has been a frequent guest on Ms. Winfrey's program, a senior producer for the "The Oprah Winfrey Show" conducted an extensive interview with Ms. Jay. It is not known if Ms. Winfrey was apprised of the concerns, but she made no mention of the potential discrepancies in her many on-the-air comments about "A Million Little Pieces," including when she called the book "all completely true" on her program and told Mr. Frey, "I don't doubt you."
So, will Jay (the exceedingly rational woman with horn-rimmed glasses who frequently weighs in on addiction issues) ever be invited back on the show?
One slightly humorous note in all this: some neighbors seem to think that the vandalism was sparked by a rumor that survivors of Hurricane Katrina were living, rent-free, in the building. I don't know everyone who lives there, but I'm relatively sure there's no truth to that rumor.
But it reminded me of Jesse Jackson's campaign not to refer to the Katrina evacuees as "refugees."
And, if some racist idiot managed to get the West African refugees confused with New Orleanians, well, I guess that does prove Jackson's case. Sort of.
