- "Whites Only" –
Recently, when I asked my students an exam question about World War II and pre- and during war mobilization, I began with the statement, “During the first half of the 1940s, Americans found themselves confronted with the paradox of fighting racism abroad while sustaining a racially/ethnically stratified system at home.” Of course, that is a broad statement—you could argue, for example, that given the fact that the military was segregated, the U.S. sustained racism abroad during the war, as well.And now, the BBC has found another way in which the U.S. “sustained racism abroad” during the war…
(tags: none) - More Good News on the Same-Sex Marriage Front –
The Washington, D.C. City Council has voted unanimously to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. What that means, in practical terms, is that a same-sex couple married in Boston, for example, can move to D.C. and still have their marriage legally recognized just like the marriage of any straight couple legally married anywhere else in the country would be, which is exactly the thing that DOMA was passed to allow states to avoid doing.This is another Very Big Deal.
(tags: none) - Water –
Because of my heat- then chemically-straightened hair, I was taught that water was my nemesis. I could not lie back and pretend to float in the tub. My sister and I could not run under the water hose or the sprinklers on sweltering Louisiana summer days. I could not play in the rain. On Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, when our family went to the park, the girls could only go so far into the water.And I could not swim. Never even learned.
I wanted to so badly, because somewhere along the way, I realized I loved water in my hair, on my scalp. I think it was when I first had to wash my hair on my own—I’d always believed I didn’t have the expertise necessary to deal with that “difficult” part of me, but college-induced poverty changed my mind.
That water on my scalp–the first warm rush, the later, slow trickles–made me think longingly of swimming. What it would be like to immerse my whole body, to have water move in its gentle lap-lap-lap as it caressed my skin?
(tags: none)
The Links for April 12th from 20:32 by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.