{"id":758,"date":"2016-07-19T17:15:55","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T21:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallybsedgwick.com\/conversation\/?p=758"},"modified":"2016-07-23T21:21:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T01:21:01","slug":"random-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/random-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"StormyFor years I\u2019ve avoided reading newspapers or watching the news, but I still manage to learn about major events. Sometimes when I hear a bit of news, I even go looking for more information. And certainly the Internet, odd notes on Yahoo, and posts on Facebook, keep me pretty well informed. Whatever that means.<\/span><\/p>\n

In June 2015, when nine people were shot during a church service in Charleston, SC, all I could think about was confronting my white brothers and sisters, or maybe confronting us all, about privilege, humanity, and self-worth. The result was my post My Turn<\/i><\/a>. If you haven\u2019t read it, I\u2019m told it\u2019s worth reading. If you already have, it might be worth rereading. <\/span><\/p>\n

I reread it recently because for the past two weeks, the world seems to have again been overwhelmed with violence. And I realize I don\u2019t really have any more in-depth, challenging words to add to what I wrote a year ago. But I feel compelled to share something. Killing each other, yelling at each other, and feeling helpless and disempowered are not ways to make the world work! So, we\u2019re back to the little things we can do. I can write. Here are a few random notes. Things to remember. Things to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Flower\"1) Baton Rouge, LA; St. Paul, MN; Dallas, TX; Nice, France; Bagdad, Iraqi, plus multiple other places. My friend K. Jeanne Person remembers those shot in Orlando, FL, with beautiful, in-depth word sketches about one person per day. At this point I just want to list names of the United States’ most immediate tragedies\u2014or the tragedies when this began. Baton Rouge has been hit again.
\nMeanwhile I find myself wondering how surprised Alton would be to find himself listed with white police\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Names:
\n<\/span>Alton Sterling
\n<\/span>Philando Castile
\n<\/span>Lorne Ahrens
\n<\/span>Michael Krol
\n<\/span>Michael Smith
\n<\/span>Brent Thompson
\n<\/span>Patrick Zamarripa<\/span><\/p>\n

2) People who should know say we\u2019re all one race, or al least that is what anti-racism teacher Jane Elliot<\/a> is saying. The human race. Time to change the forms? I wanted to mark \u201cother\u201d when given the usual choices yesterday. However I guess I\u2019m not quite confrontational enough. And yes, one can argue. Words are just words, so we are the ones who decide what race means. The dictionary includes most definitions we\u2019ve heard.<\/p>\n

But if one is playing with vocabulary I find myself with the word \u201cspecies.\u201d We are clearly one species. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"French\"Newfoundland
\nThen I think about the species \u201cdogs.\u201d We know a dog when we see one, but I can\u2019t think of a species that has so many different looking breeds. Yet most dogs recognize any other dog as, well, a dog.<\/span><\/p>\n

In My Turn<\/i><\/a> I use the words \u201crace\u201d and \u201cpeople.\u201d I\u2019m not sure I would now. Do we really want to claim separation among ourselves? Brown eyes. Curly, red hair. Maybe. But separating us much more doesn\u2019t work. Human. Yes, that classification simplifies things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Black3) Regarding \u201cBlack Lives Matter.\u201d Yes, indeed, we do all matter. But the recent steps to explain why \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d doesn\u2019t threaten us all mattering, got me thinking. <\/span><\/p>\n


\nMy take is that there are good analogies for us all being one body. Even if you don\u2019t agree with that play along for a minute. I brush my teeth<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(flossing is one of the major things you can do for your health). I stretch because otherwise my legs and shoulders hurt. But when I fell last winter and had a minor concussion it was all about brain health (and monitoring a lovely black eye). I \"blackassume I still brushed and flossed, but what I focused on, what I remember doing, was monitoring coordination, memory, and pain. During that period, the priority was #painmatters.<\/span><\/p>\n

In our one body analogy, or the one race one (see #2 above), our black brothers (mainly brothers) are being killed. Racism is still an insidious problem. It is hurting our safety, our economy, and our sense of self worth. It is hurting all of us. #BlackLivesMatter is a call for our collective health. So we can, if you will, get back to flossing.<\/span><\/p>\n

4) Pokemon Go. (What, you say? Remember the title of this post is \u201cRandom<\/i> Notes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my god. People, kids(!), are walking down the streets on their phones.\u201d \u201cI am above [implied] downloading this app.\u201d \u201cHow dare people look at my outdoor space.\u201d Etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, you have been complaining for years that kids are looking only at their computers and not going outside. Now they\u2019re playing, actually [gasp] walking, and you find this to be a problem? <\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, they want to step two feet into your yard? Let\u2019s post a social media complaint and threaten them. Heaven forbid that you interact with people playing a game. Would you call the police if a ball landed in the yard too?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"PokemonThe world is suspicious and impersonal and now random people are stopping you in the street (or at least this happened to me) and saying, \u201cSee, isn\u2019t he cute?\u201d, as they show you their screens.<\/span><\/p>\n

Economically people (or so I\u2019m told) are hosting events. Businesses are including PokeStops in their ads. It is a safe conversation with strangers especially given #1 and #3 above. (I spent a lot of time in a parking lot waiting for someone while engaged in this conversation.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Younger people and adults are interacting. We want people to engage and so make the world friendlier. Get over it. Do you see how this might change the world? I guess I need to go download that app.<\/span><\/p>\n

5) Just a reminder that there are already some \u201csmall things\u201d you can do to change the world listed in Spirit Moxie conversations. These are critical right now:<\/span><\/p>\n

Vote
\n<\/a><\/span>Love your body<\/a>
\n<\/span>Be willing to be wrong\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Thoughts on the above? What would you add? Together we can change the world. Really.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

Photos by Spirit Moxie – from the top:
\nClouds and sun
\nFlower
\nSip (French Bulldog) and Gabe (Newfoundland)
\nT-shirt in bar
\nBlack eye selfie
\nFirst Pokemon attempt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years I\u2019ve avoided reading newspapers or watching the news, but I still manage to learn about major events. Sometimes when I hear a bit of news, I even go looking for more information. And certainly the Internet, odd notes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,11],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asides","tag-blacklivesmatter","tag-pokemongo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DJHl-ce","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}