Harmony does not mean that everyone is in agreement. It means that no one is attempting to force his or her opinions on others.
Harmony does not mean that everyone is the same. It means that everyone respects and tolerates and even celebrates the differences that give so much richness to life.
Harmony is not ever achieved by brute force. Harmony is reached when every individual understands, on his or her own terms, that it is by far the most effective way to live.
Harmony does not come about through intimidation or scolding or threats of punishment. Harmony is reached through understanding.
Harmony cannot exist where people are interested only in what they can take. Harmony is built through giving. Harmony comes not by giving in or by being weak or by surrendering one's most treasured principles, or by the cowardly attempt to control others. Harmony is the domain of those who are confident enough in their own lives to allow others to peacefully flourish.
-Ralph Marston
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
First Post: Think Before You Act...
Hi All,
I am a grad student and artist. This semester I am taking a critical look at the genre of self-help and so will be finding many jewels to share. I'm also interested in others' experience with self-help, particularly from a female of color's perspective.
I received this in an email yesterday and it struck me b/c I have a tendency to be way too hasty:
Think before you do. Don't just automatically react to life or live by blind habit.Think about what you're about to do, and think about the consequences. Remember that when you choose the action, you're also choosing all the things that result from that action.
When you choose to eat half a dozen doughnuts, you're choosing to put fat on your body. When you choose to be sloppy with your work, you're choosing to sabotage your own career.
When you choose to rise early and start getting things done, you're choosing to create real and lasting value in your own life and in the world around you. When you choose to stay focused on an important task, you're choosing to enjoy the rewards that come from real accomplishment.
Live your life based on your own best intentions. Each action you take has very real consequences, and you are in a position to select the exact consequences that you wish to bring about.
It only takes a brief moment to think before you act. Do it every time, and your life will follow the precise path you choose
I am a grad student and artist. This semester I am taking a critical look at the genre of self-help and so will be finding many jewels to share. I'm also interested in others' experience with self-help, particularly from a female of color's perspective.
I received this in an email yesterday and it struck me b/c I have a tendency to be way too hasty:
Think before you do. Don't just automatically react to life or live by blind habit.Think about what you're about to do, and think about the consequences. Remember that when you choose the action, you're also choosing all the things that result from that action.
When you choose to eat half a dozen doughnuts, you're choosing to put fat on your body. When you choose to be sloppy with your work, you're choosing to sabotage your own career.
When you choose to rise early and start getting things done, you're choosing to create real and lasting value in your own life and in the world around you. When you choose to stay focused on an important task, you're choosing to enjoy the rewards that come from real accomplishment.
Live your life based on your own best intentions. Each action you take has very real consequences, and you are in a position to select the exact consequences that you wish to bring about.
It only takes a brief moment to think before you act. Do it every time, and your life will follow the precise path you choose
Monday, August 6, 2007
Plantation Mistress...
Our society seems titillated by stories of female teachers who molest their students (see below). Though race does add an even more disturbing twist to this story, I'm more taken with how sexism plays into the punishment of female sex offenders. There is almost a congratulatory tone to stories about boys who are raped (yes raped) by adult women. But the moral gods tend to wag their fingers ten times harder when young girls are involved. Sure a male teacher can use the threat of violence to force an unwilling student to submit, but more often than not they employ the same tool as female teachers, manipulation. The bottom line is that robbing a child of his or her innocence is deplorable and offenders who are found guilty should be treated with equal contempt....
Teacher-Sex Scandal Spurs Cries Of Racism
S.C. Residents Protest Handling In Case Of White Women Accused Of
Sex With Black Male Students
Teacher Accused Of Sex With Boys Released
S.C. Woman, 23, Facing Sex Charges With 5 Teens Released On Bail To
House Arrest
CLINTON, S.C., March 28, 2007
"I don't want to say it was a racial thing, but if it were a white victim and a black teacher, I think things would have been handled differently. "
Nicole Sullivan, parent of daughter who attended E.B.Morse Elementary School
(AP) The arrest of two women teachers on charges of having sex with their male students has brought cries of lingering racism in one of South Carolina's most conservative counties and evoked some of the South's oldest and deepest-seated racial taboos.
Both women are white. The boys six in all are black.
Some of the blacks who make up more than a quarter of Laurens County's 70,000 residents are upset over the handling of the two cases, particularly the release of the teachers on bail.
They say the cases reflect the way crimes by whites against blacks in the segregated South were treated less seriously than other offenses, and blacks who leveled accusations against whites were less likely to be believed.
"If this had been black teachers, they would not be out of jail right now," said Corinnie Young, a 49-year-old bookstore employee who is black.
Some blacks shudder to think what would have happened if the teachers were black men and the students were white girls.
"I can assure you if it were an African American male who committed such an offense against a white female, history shows us that the charges, the punishment and the sentencing would be totally different," said state NAACP president Lonnie Randolph. "The system ain't blind when the perpetrator is an African American male or female or when the victim is a white female."
Jerry Peace, the county prosecutor and a white man, said that the teachers are wearing electronic tracking devices and that their release on bail $125,000 for one, $110,000 for the other was based not on race, but on the danger to the community and the likelihood that the defendants might flee.
In any case, it would be unusual for someone accused of such a crime to be held without bail. Deborah Ahrens, a visiting professor of criminal law at the University of South Carolina, said of the bail amounts for the two teachers: "For the clients that I've represented in the past that were up for similar offenses, that sounds about right."
Signs of racial tension, old and new, are not hard to find in Laurens County. The school where one of the teachers worked used to be blacks-only. In the town of Laurens, where one of the teachers taught, an old movie theater has been converted into a Ku Klux Klan museum and paraphernalia store called The Redneck Shop. There,
visitors can buy Confederate flags and bumper stickers, such as one that depicts three Klansmen and reads "The Original Boys in the Hood."
Textile mills were once the chief source of jobs in the working-class area about 60 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, but the industry went into decline in the 1990s. The main employers now include a maker of plastic coolers and Presbyterian College in Clinton. As of 2003, nearly 15 percent of county residents lived below the poverty line.
And as in many communities, most neighborhoods in the county are either black or white. People of different races find themselves side by side in one of two places: work or school.
Wendie Schweikert, a 37-year-old married woman who had been teaching elementary school in Laurens for more than a decade, was arrested last year after the mother of an 11-year-old boy accused her of having sex with the boy at school at least twice. Authorities said they found evidence bearing his DNA in her classroom. She is also
accused of having sex with him in her car near a miniature golf course and arcade in Greenville, about 40 miles away.
Allenna Ward, a 24-year-old minister's daughter in her second year of teaching, was fired Feb. 28 after she was charged with having sex with at least five boys. Some of the alleged victims, 14 and 15 years old, were students at the middle school in Clinton where Ward taught. Police say Ward, who is married, had sex with the boys at
the school, at a motel, in a park and behind a restaurant.
Attempts to contact the women in person and by telephone were unsuccessful, and their lawyers did not return repeated calls.
Black and white residents alike said they are shocked by the accusations. Many echoed the sentiments of Peggy Hawkins, a 50-year-old white resident. "Boys are boys and she done wrong," Hawkins said of one of the teachers.
The Rev. David Kennedy, a local black activist, is among those who see racism at work. He said the white teachers accused of preying on black students figured "they can do what they want to do with them and they know the consequences won't be great."
He suggested that blacks in town are too afraid to speak out: "There's a long history of intimidation and it's a sin. It's unholy in Laurens County to speak out."
Parents whose children go to E.B. Morse Elementary School, where Schweikert taught, say they have trouble reconciling the accusations with the woman they knew.
"She was very involved," said Shea Mills, whose son attended the school. "I remember she would make kids pick paper up in the halls."
Bell Street Middle School Principal Maureen Tiller said Ward did well during an evaluation of her skills, and "personality- wise she seemed to be fine."
Nicole Sullivan, whose daughter went to Schweikert's school, said that when the case broke, students brought home notes saying the teacher had resigned. The notes did not explain why.
"I don't want to say it was a racial thing, but if it were a white victim and a black teacher, I think things would have been handled differently, " said Sullivan, who is black.
Teacher-Sex Scandal Spurs Cries Of Racism
S.C. Residents Protest Handling In Case Of White Women Accused Of
Sex With Black Male Students
Teacher Accused Of Sex With Boys Released
S.C. Woman, 23, Facing Sex Charges With 5 Teens Released On Bail To
House Arrest
CLINTON, S.C., March 28, 2007
"I don't want to say it was a racial thing, but if it were a white victim and a black teacher, I think things would have been handled differently. "
Nicole Sullivan, parent of daughter who attended E.B.Morse Elementary School
(AP) The arrest of two women teachers on charges of having sex with their male students has brought cries of lingering racism in one of South Carolina's most conservative counties and evoked some of the South's oldest and deepest-seated racial taboos.
Both women are white. The boys six in all are black.
Some of the blacks who make up more than a quarter of Laurens County's 70,000 residents are upset over the handling of the two cases, particularly the release of the teachers on bail.
They say the cases reflect the way crimes by whites against blacks in the segregated South were treated less seriously than other offenses, and blacks who leveled accusations against whites were less likely to be believed.
"If this had been black teachers, they would not be out of jail right now," said Corinnie Young, a 49-year-old bookstore employee who is black.
Some blacks shudder to think what would have happened if the teachers were black men and the students were white girls.
"I can assure you if it were an African American male who committed such an offense against a white female, history shows us that the charges, the punishment and the sentencing would be totally different," said state NAACP president Lonnie Randolph. "The system ain't blind when the perpetrator is an African American male or female or when the victim is a white female."
Jerry Peace, the county prosecutor and a white man, said that the teachers are wearing electronic tracking devices and that their release on bail $125,000 for one, $110,000 for the other was based not on race, but on the danger to the community and the likelihood that the defendants might flee.
In any case, it would be unusual for someone accused of such a crime to be held without bail. Deborah Ahrens, a visiting professor of criminal law at the University of South Carolina, said of the bail amounts for the two teachers: "For the clients that I've represented in the past that were up for similar offenses, that sounds about right."
Signs of racial tension, old and new, are not hard to find in Laurens County. The school where one of the teachers worked used to be blacks-only. In the town of Laurens, where one of the teachers taught, an old movie theater has been converted into a Ku Klux Klan museum and paraphernalia store called The Redneck Shop. There,
visitors can buy Confederate flags and bumper stickers, such as one that depicts three Klansmen and reads "The Original Boys in the Hood."
Textile mills were once the chief source of jobs in the working-class area about 60 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, but the industry went into decline in the 1990s. The main employers now include a maker of plastic coolers and Presbyterian College in Clinton. As of 2003, nearly 15 percent of county residents lived below the poverty line.
And as in many communities, most neighborhoods in the county are either black or white. People of different races find themselves side by side in one of two places: work or school.
Wendie Schweikert, a 37-year-old married woman who had been teaching elementary school in Laurens for more than a decade, was arrested last year after the mother of an 11-year-old boy accused her of having sex with the boy at school at least twice. Authorities said they found evidence bearing his DNA in her classroom. She is also
accused of having sex with him in her car near a miniature golf course and arcade in Greenville, about 40 miles away.
Allenna Ward, a 24-year-old minister's daughter in her second year of teaching, was fired Feb. 28 after she was charged with having sex with at least five boys. Some of the alleged victims, 14 and 15 years old, were students at the middle school in Clinton where Ward taught. Police say Ward, who is married, had sex with the boys at
the school, at a motel, in a park and behind a restaurant.
Attempts to contact the women in person and by telephone were unsuccessful, and their lawyers did not return repeated calls.
Black and white residents alike said they are shocked by the accusations. Many echoed the sentiments of Peggy Hawkins, a 50-year-old white resident. "Boys are boys and she done wrong," Hawkins said of one of the teachers.
The Rev. David Kennedy, a local black activist, is among those who see racism at work. He said the white teachers accused of preying on black students figured "they can do what they want to do with them and they know the consequences won't be great."
He suggested that blacks in town are too afraid to speak out: "There's a long history of intimidation and it's a sin. It's unholy in Laurens County to speak out."
Parents whose children go to E.B. Morse Elementary School, where Schweikert taught, say they have trouble reconciling the accusations with the woman they knew.
"She was very involved," said Shea Mills, whose son attended the school. "I remember she would make kids pick paper up in the halls."
Bell Street Middle School Principal Maureen Tiller said Ward did well during an evaluation of her skills, and "personality- wise she seemed to be fine."
Nicole Sullivan, whose daughter went to Schweikert's school, said that when the case broke, students brought home notes saying the teacher had resigned. The notes did not explain why.
"I don't want to say it was a racial thing, but if it were a white victim and a black teacher, I think things would have been handled differently, " said Sullivan, who is black.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Ask & Ye Shall Receive...
Deep Inside
There are things you can see, things you can hear, things you can touch, taste and smell. And beyond all those, there are things you can know.
There is wisdom within you that requires no outside validation. There are things your heart knows that nothing can dispute.
Don't become so caught up in material, worldly matters that you ignore the miraculous living presence always glowing inside you. Pay attention to the incomprehensible essence that is your life.
In your hands you hold things that, sooner or later, will rust and decay. In your heart you can keep things that are timeless.
Food, clothing and shelter sustain and protect your body. Be sure to sustain and nourish your spirit just as diligently.
Deep inside the person the world sees, is the real and indivisible person you are. Let your inner self play an active and positive role in all you do.
-Ralph Marston
There are things you can see, things you can hear, things you can touch, taste and smell. And beyond all those, there are things you can know.
There is wisdom within you that requires no outside validation. There are things your heart knows that nothing can dispute.
Don't become so caught up in material, worldly matters that you ignore the miraculous living presence always glowing inside you. Pay attention to the incomprehensible essence that is your life.
In your hands you hold things that, sooner or later, will rust and decay. In your heart you can keep things that are timeless.
Food, clothing and shelter sustain and protect your body. Be sure to sustain and nourish your spirit just as diligently.
Deep inside the person the world sees, is the real and indivisible person you are. Let your inner self play an active and positive role in all you do.
-Ralph Marston
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Equilibrium
Within the past year I have begun to embrace the philosophy of the law of attraction. That is (for you non-Secret folks) the idea that we are capable of shaping our existence with the power of our thoughts. When I first saw the Secret I was totally put off by the insistence that focusing one’s attention on world events–those mired in pain and suffering–manifests more of the same. As a journalist and more importantly a self-proclaimed militant, this seemed like some Christian-right propaganda. But in putting this concept–one seemingly oversimplifying centuries of socio-political mechanisms (racism, sexism, homophobia…) of oppression–into practice I’m reconsidering my judgment.
Changing my focus from being angry about oppression to concentrating more on ways to aide in its demise has brought me some much-needed balance. This simple paradigm shift has served as the catalyst for a spiritual awakening. Hate is real but love is abundant. Still, I battle with my rage almost daily. From the misogynist music blaring in my women’s gym (crazy-ass Lucille Roberts) every morning to the racist cops trying to intimidate me in my own neighborhood, it’s difficult to stay positive. How does one maintain spirituality while remaining politically awareness?
-Grenarican
Changing my focus from being angry about oppression to concentrating more on ways to aide in its demise has brought me some much-needed balance. This simple paradigm shift has served as the catalyst for a spiritual awakening. Hate is real but love is abundant. Still, I battle with my rage almost daily. From the misogynist music blaring in my women’s gym (crazy-ass Lucille Roberts) every morning to the racist cops trying to intimidate me in my own neighborhood, it’s difficult to stay positive. How does one maintain spirituality while remaining politically awareness?
-Grenarican
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