Category Archives: spirituality

Ash Cake and Other Slave Dishes

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Michael Twitty has this up on some of the food the slaves use to prepare.  When I think of the poor folk now, really, it’s not that far removed.  One can only do so much with food stamps, and as I’ve posted before, if you’re on a Celiac diet or try to eat organic/non-processed food, it is pretty damn difficult to stay in budget.

From my experience, I do know that all the stuff that they tell you is bad (which is wrong, btw), such as bacon, fatty pieces of meat, and the like, sure do make the cheap meat and vegetables taste oh-so-much better. There were times when I walked through the building in FW,  the aromas coming from apartments was soo good, I thought there should be some rule that if you make something that smells that good, you should have to share it with the rest of the building.  Heh.

I have to hand it to African American folk–there were some pretty darn good cooks in my building.  They used what little they had to make tasty meals.

And I learned something today–that there wasn’t segregation with the whites on plantations.  That is heartwarming to hear.  Good for them for not lumping all whites together and rejecting those that came around. Poor folk is poor folk, no matter.  It’s too bad that after the commonality of being poor is no longer there, that folks no longer feel that community togetherness.  Why?

 

 

 

The baby

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Well, unless you’re living under a rock, you probably know that the royal baby is on the way–the Duchess is in active labor.  It brought back memories of my first baby.  He took 24 hours to come out into the world.  My mother told me that I, too, took 24 hours of labor.  Both my son and I have the German cheekbones…I can only surmise they were the hold up. :p

I don’t, however, think this baby is any more special than any other and the worldwide attention is so over the top.  Good Grief.  Poor Kate for having to deal with the pains of labor with the whole world watching!

It’s bad enough when you’re in labor in a hospital and the staff puts their hands up your crotch every hour, forces you to take an enema, and then when you’re in so much pain you think your head is going to explode, they tell you to “blow it out”…

I had one honest nurse tell me she’d like to tell the male doctor to blow something else out. Haha.

Anyway, good wishes to Kate and William, and the baby.  And to all the new Moms and Dads welcoming their babies in the world.  May you all be safe and warm and dry.  What a perfect world that would be…

 

Blackfish

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Dave Neiwert has this up on the documentary “Blackfish” that exposes the truth behind captive whales.

Back in the 70s, the TV Show “The Partridge Family” had an episode called “Whale Song”  with a recording of a whale.  I was flipping through the channels recently, and saw it again.  I don’t know why, but the whale’s song makes me cry.   It’s on youtube, (partridge family whale song) but I don’t think it’s official, so can’t post it here.  Unfortunately, it’s at a Sea World type park, and it’s not advocating letting the whales go free. Or better yet–not capturing them to begin with.

My blog here on the orangutan Fu Manchu whom left no doubt he wanted to be free…and not only himself, but his cage mates, as well.  How can anyone argue against something so blatantly obvious?

A Hard Day’s Night

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(PERSONAL BLOG)

I usually like to listen to smooth classical music on Sunday morning as a quiet and meditative state.  So…I turned on the boom box radio to pop in the Bach CD I have, and the radio was playing “A Hard Day’s Night”….

Well, now, who am I to resist rocking that?  :p

It turns out they were having a Beatles Sunday at the station, so, naturally, I was obligated to listen to a few more tunes and one of my favorites, “Let It Be” came on.  I read somewhere that Paul McCartney wrote that song after his mother, who had passed, came to him in a dream.  He was struggling with an issue, and her words were “Let it be…”  Wonderful.

 

President Obama’s speech

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Diane Ravitch has this up on the President’s “I could have been Trayvon” speech yesterday.  Lots of passion on both sides about his thoughts.  Of course, educators are up in arms that he does not address education in raising up poor black boys (and girls), and that the destruction of public schools going on will do more damage than good.

I, myself, am a jumble of feelings about it.

I understand the educator’s feelings.  I also know that just because someone is better educated, doesn’t necessarily mean they will not resort to violence to get their way.  Look at all the world leaders who are educated and still promote and advocate violence….

I also understand, as best I can as a white woman, President Obama’s passionate response.  He has been the target of racial profiling.  He knows what Trayvon Martin was experiencing in those moments of being followed by George Zimmerman.  He was innocently walking home, doing nothing wrong….and yet, here was this guy, who for all Trayvon knew, was going to rob him.

But I would argue with President Obama’s  assumption that white folks don’t know what it’s like to be profiled….as my recent experience in FW has proven.  It’s not criminal profiling, but the effect is still the same.

Racism, by either side, is wrong.  Like I said, I felt hopeless.  Despair.  I had treated folks as I wish to be treated.  I was respectful to the elders, addressing them as “Miss” or “Mr.”, as I would my white elders.  If I didn’t particularly care for someone, I wasn’t disrespectful…but I also didn’t have anything to do with them.  It had nothing to do with the color of their skin, but everything to do with their personality.

You know, someone gave me some advice once that resonates here–I had been the subject of bullying after my divorce.  The viciousness is really something someone has to experience in order to understand it.  After being a victim, you tend to take on the victim persona and see yourself in that light.  You begin to believe what others say about you.

The advice I was given was this:  There is no doubt that you were victimized.  But you need to break away from the victim mindset.

In other words:  don’t let others define who you are.  Only you get to do that.  Don’t let others’ actions define your actions–rise above it and be the person you wish to be, not the person they are trying to make you out to be.

Again,speaking as a white woman, it seems to me that black folks have adopted the victim mindset and sometimes think people are being racist when a) they’re just ignorant ; or b) they don’t like someone not because they’re black, but because they’re being a jerk.

I hope this makes some sense–like I said, I’m a jumble of emotions this morning.  Why is it so hard for us to cut each other some slack and try to see each other’s point of view and try to find some common ground?

 

The Bullying Society

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Diane Ravitch has this up.

As I said in my comment there, bullying from children is just a reflection of the adults and culture around them.  We have shows like “Survivor” that encourage groups to pick apart others and zero in on a target.  My Boomer generation didn’t have violent video games which desensitizes one to violence.

I think these all feed into the bullying mentality. Pick on those that are different or weaker. Keep at it until they disappear–either through suicide or crushing their soul until their light goes out…the effect is still the same.

It has even broader implications than “just” bullying–creativity comes from thinking differently.  Bullying will crush the ones that think differently, limiting the greater impact they might have had on the world.

I don’t think the solutions are campaigns telling kids to stop bullying.  It’s too complicated a problem.  And it’s not the kids fault as much as it is society’s.

Rewriting history

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Is what seems to be happening in the last few weeks of the “George Love In”….with the *cough* George W. Bush library that re-programs, er I mean, explains to the public  how it really was when he was president…

Abortion

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This is such a hard subject for me, because I’ve been from one extreme to the other with my feelings on it.  And feminists marginalize those women who believe in equality but have reservations about abortion.  It’s probably one of the biggest reasons that the women’s movement lost steam in the 70s.

When I was younger, before I had my children, I thought abortion was okay.  But when I had my children, I thought that it was wrong.  But I have seen the horrible picture of the woman who was so desperate that she had her boyfriend use a coat hangar on her to abort her pregnancy.  She died of an embolism.  I don’t want us to go back to that, but at the same time, I feel that there needs to be restrictions.   The heart starts beating at six weeks.

I learned something from Bill Moyers’  book published in the 80s–it stated that Europe is not as lenient about abortion as America is.  This shocked me–thinking that Europe has always been more open and “liberal’ about stuff, I presumed that they were of the mind that a woman could have an abortion at any time. Nope.  Here is a list of the countries and their abortion policy.  Most of them cut off abortion at 12 weeks, even for rape.  They only make exceptions for the physical and mental health of the mother, but even then, there are some cut-off dates.  The book stressed that the Europeans have a much more supportive structure in that they educate women and men on contraceptives.  And if a woman has the baby, she is supported the first five years of life.  Amazing, isn’t it??

In the not too distant past, women were not informed on how to prevent a pregnancy (Comstock laws) .  They  were having five and six kids and desperate not to have another when they became pregnant again.  They were too poor and uneducated to provide for the children they did have….what were they to do?

We’ve had politicians who want to deny women the means to prevent pregnancy, but then they also want to deny them abortion.  It makes absolutely no sense.  And when those children arrive, they will deny them food stamps and decent housing.

Educating women  and men is key.

Providing safe contraceptives is also key.  (Despite the popular idea that birth control pills are safe, there are many, many problems with them.  I have read that gluten intolerance is linked to them, but now can’t find the reference.  )

Spermicidal foam had been found to have mercury in it.   More here on other issues with it.  As far as I know, sponges are safe, but since they also contain N-9  there are issues.

Some women use the natural sea sponge for menstruation as well as a contraceptive.   I had heard that the ladies of days past used the sea sponges.

Here’s a report from a lady who had issues with chemically treated sponges.  On another site, a poster said she had heard that honey was a natural spermicide.  Interesting.  Here’s another site that had a brand of spermicide that is non-chemical.  It’s made in the UK, however, and I don’t know whether it’s available here.  I looked on their website, and it says there is an extra charge for shipping outside of Europe.  If one is interested, probably best to contact them and ask.

So…a complicated subject with emotions running high and no quick, easy answers.

It’s not easy for women to prevent a pregnancy in a safe way.  Why is that?

 

 

Twitty on Deen **edited

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**edited to fix spelling error: border is an imaginary line; boarder is someone who resides in another’s house.)

(This is one of those posts where I know that I am going to probably be misunderstood and catch hell for it, but I’m going to speak out anyway.)

Michael Twitty, an African American culinary writer and historian, has an open letter to Paula Deen.  (hat tip commondreams.org)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for a letter of reason and understanding and opening the dialogue.

Deen said “the” word.  She apologized for it, but that was not good enough for the media bullies who tore the apology apart, deciding whether she was “sincere” or not.  She said some ignorant and insensitive things, but in my view, not on the level of burning crosses in someone’s yard.    I don’t sense that she is a hateful person.  Indeed, an African American preacher went on TV proclaiming that he knows her and she is not a hate-filled person.

It’s tough to open the dialogue for subjects that make us uncomfortable.  There’s always the possibility of being misunderstood.

Twitty opens the dialogue with this:

Some have said you are not a racist.  Sorry, I don’t believe that…I am more of the Avenue Q type—everybody’s—you guessed it—a little bit racist.  This is nothing to be proud of no more than we are proud of our other sins and foibles.  It’s something we should work against.  It takes a lifetime to unlearn taught prejudice or socially mandated racism or even get over strings of negative experiences we’ve had with groups outside of our own.

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This is spot on.  I think we’re all a bit racist.  I experienced this recently in FW–I can say up to that point, I had never experienced racism by blacks.  I happened upon a group of African American folk in my building.  They didn’t know I was coming down a hallway, and were saying some very hurtful things–that “white folk are the devil.  It says so in the Bible.”  (and they were serious).    I had heard things before, but it was during a time of their distress and let it roll off me.  But hearing it coming from folks that I had been nice to and treated the same as white folks was very hurtful.  It made me angry to be characterized in such a way.  I got a taste of how racism felt. I left me feeling hopeless–what does it take if you’re being kind and you’re still characterized as the devil? Does that mean giving up and not trying to get beyond that? No.

And Twitty is spot on that it takes a lifetime to unlearn.    You may have old “tapes” running through your head which takes an active will to recognize them, and then ignore them and move beyond.

But by that same token, it was the other poor black folks who helped me out the most while in FW…even if I didn’t ask for help.  They were very good at helping each other–if one had a car, they gave rides to wherever someone needed to go; if someone needed a few bucks, they helped them that way (they asked me for help once, but I had nothing to give them);  if someone was out of food, they would ask others for help with a meal, and on.

There was a divide there, though….I noticed it from the beginning and didn’t understand why.  I still don’t understand it–we were all poor and struggling….why not help one another instead of holding onto stupid prejudice?

In the past, it was a black woman who held me and rocked me after I had a nasty fall from bleachers at the age of five or six.  I had given up sucking my thumb at that point in time,but she didn’t try to shame me when I popped the thumb in my mouth.  She said “you go right ahead” as she held me and gently rocked.    (And yes, I sucked my thumb, as most sensitive kids do–get over it.)

Anyway, I disagree with Twitty that it’s okay for black folk to use the “n” word.  It’s confusing.  He likens it to “bitch” and “fag”.  Well, I guess that “bitch” used to bother me, but doesn’t anymore….because I noticed that if someone is calling me a bitch, it means that I’m standing up to them or against something they want. …so, yeah, if someone calls me a bitch I take a certain pride in that I stood up for myself.  I don’t know what that means, though, in regards to the “n” word.

All I know is that Richard Pryor, another great one for helping us to realize our prejudices and make fun of them, said that after a visit to Africa, he never used the “n” word again.  This is coming from a guy who titled one of his shows “Bicentennial N*gger”.

Another excellent point by Twitty:

Problem two…I want you to understand that I am probably more angry about the cloud of smoke this fiasco has created for other issues surrounding race and Southern food.  To be real, you using the word “nigger” a few times in the past does nothing to destroy my world.  It may make me sigh for a few minutes in resentment and resignation, but I’m not shocked or wounded.  No victim here.  Systemic racism in the world of Southern food and public discourse not your past epithets are what really piss me off.  There is so much press and so much activity around Southern food and yet the diversity of people of color engaged in this art form and telling and teaching its history and giving it a future are often passed up or disregarded.

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Absolutely.  There’s a collective non-acknowledgement of the origins of food dishes.  But I don’t think it’s limited to ignoring slaves’ cooking.  At least, I feel pretty ignorant about where *any* food dish originated.  It’s just not talked about that much.

It’s no doubt, though, that the slaves’ contributions to southern cooking have not been talked about….it’s tough to acknowledge it because it would mean that white folks have to acknowledge the rest…white folks do seem to have a problem being humble and acknowledging that they (men, mostly) climbed on the backs of not only blacks, but women, as well….there’s that intertwined racism and sexism, again…

In this paragraph, Twitty touches on that, but stops short of the sexism:

We are surrounded by culinary injustice where some Southerners take credit for things that enslaved Africans and their descendants played key roles in innovating.  Barbecue, in my lifetime, may go the way of the Blues and the banjo….a relic of our culture that whisps away.  That tragedy rooted in the unwillingness to give African American barbecue masters and other cooks an equal chance at the platform is far more galling than you saying “nigger,” in childhood ignorance or emotional rage or social whimsy.

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I can only wonder at how many dishes that chefs proclaimed were their own that a woman had invented…

(When I write that, I think of Catherine Littlefield Greene, wife of Nathanial Greene, whom invented the cotton gin.  Eli Whitney was a boarder in the Greene household. Catherine  told him of her idea….and well, you know the rest….he was credited with the invention.)

Twitty goes on that their history is invisible when folks visit the old plantations and museums.  I have to disagree with him, though, with the blanket statement that folks look at those plantations and don’t think about how they were built by slaves.  I have done just that–looked at those magnificent houses (in movies) and thought about the slaves that built them.  That’s why it’s hard to look at them, or any house of that stature–I wonder at how the person was able to build it—who had to suffer so that someone could live in such opulence?  Who was paid minimum wage so that this person could build twenty room mansions? Who owns sweatshops in some distant country (or even in our own) so they can live in such luxury?    Most folks, I have to agree, wouldn’t think about that—they would admire the luxury and perhaps want it for themselves without giving a thought about those that are invisible.

Lastly, I wonder at the art of growing food itself…how growing it sustainably is never talked about on these food shows??

Finally, Twitty is so gracious with the spiritual aspect of making mistakes:

As a Jew, I extend the invitation to do teshuvah—which means to repent—but better—to return to a better state, a state of shalem–wholeness and shalom–peace.  You used food to rescue your life, your family and your destiny.  I admire that.  I know that I have not always made good choices and to be honest none of us are perfect.  This is an opportunity to grow and renew.

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I believe Jesus, the Jew, would share the same sentiments.  The problem isn’t making mistakes, but not learning from them and not growing from them.

And this made me cry:

If you aren’t busy on September 7, and I surely doubt that you are not busy—I would like to invite you to a gathering at a historic antebellum North Carolina plantation.  We are doing a fundraiser dinner for Historic Stagville, a North Carolina Historic Site.  One of the largest in fact, much larger than the one owned by your great-grandfather’s in Georgia.  30,000 acres once upon a time with 900 enslaved African Americans working the land over time. They grew tobacco, corn, wheat and cotton.  I want you to walk the grounds with me, go into the cabins, and most of all I want you to help me cook.  Everything is being prepared using locally sourced food, half of which we hope will come from North Carolina’s African American farmers who so desperately need our support.  Everything will be cooked according to 19th century methods.  So September 7, 2013, if you’re brave enough, let’s bake bread and break bread together at Historic Stagville. This isn’t publicity this is opportunity.  Leave the cameras at home.  Don’t worry, it’s cool, nobody will harm you if you’re willing to walk to the Mourner’s Bench.  Better yet, I’ll be there right with you.

G-d Bless,

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Food can heal the body… and the soul.

God Bless you, Michael Twitty.  I hope Paula Deen will take you up on your offer.