Comes from some other beginning's end.

Pictures from the beginning of the end of my first year of ministry.

Saturday04.05.2009

Friends come home.




No country for old men.


Friends come home.


"Send Help" SB dunk mids (a/k/a the Skate or Die's)


I was with Ray when he bought these shoes. Right after he got back
from a year abroad.



Sunday04.26.2009




The Incredible Hulk Joe.




The young ladies of UCW Sunday School.




The young men & women of UCW Frosh Praise.


G-Fid got the best angle on the proceedings.








Rapt attention.




New leadership team.


Old men; and older men.


Security team.




GT-R!! FOR ULTIMATE DOWNHILL!!


Sometimes a corner of this campus will remind me how gorgeous
it can be.


Breath taking.


View from my old roof.


Decay of a town.


Ants.

Thursday04.30.2009

UCW town hall meeting.



Charting a course today for the future tomorrow!


Yes, the course looks like this.

Saturday05.02.2009


Waiting for a meeting, came upon this picture in a Yale
student publication. Hi Janice.

Thursday05.07.2009


A light wind, and slight drizzle couldn't stop me from availing myself
(and dragging Josh and Stephen along) of the super-60-degree
climate that revealed itself in the latter days of our semester.






Chacey was roped in for a few minutes. Emily joined in
as well, but photographic evidence is not forthcoming.

Monday05.11.2009

Reading week dawning, another semester drawing
rapidly to a close, and I was on a plane again out to a
conference in Colorado.


Nate. Perpetual travel buddy for this past year.


Welcome to CO. It's Flat Out Here.


Roger welcomes us.


Andy.


Joel; Nate fiddling with his phone. Again.

Wednesday05.13.2009

For a rest day, we headed up the highway to Denver,
a scant hour's drive from the Springs.


Niketown. Got to see the local flavor.


Denver has some of the cleanest lines (and air) that I
have ever seen.


I'll take your word for it, Denver!


Textures.


It's like Disneyland, but in a city (Denver, you can use that as your new
motto. I don't mind.)


Synonyms: Stark. Clean. Spare. Minimalist.

Thursday05.13.2009

My main man G-Fid dropped by Glen Eyrie for an
afternoon of hiking, catching up, and then a spectacular
home-cooked dinner at his folks' place down the road.
















Epic man; epic view.




1980s horror movie set.


1980s horror movie antagonist. (anti-hero?)


I hope so too, Kenn.




Bighorn sheep.


Bighorn sheep terminator.


Bighorn sheep rider.


Wildlife abounded in the (not-just-foot)hills.

While darting after a lizard much like this one, Garrett came within
inches of a baby rattler.

After that, we steered clearer of such crevices.






There is a deer there. Where's Waldo?

Friday05.15.2009


Horrifically (mis)guided by me, a group of us headed out into the night
for what was supposed to be a light time doing some karaoke at a local
bar.

After an hour or two at an egregiously seedy dive bar with a healthily
buzzing hookup scene (Landon, my smirking friend to the right, was
approached by heralds of a bachelorette party within 15 minutes of our
arrival), we bounced.

Sorry, guys. My bad.

Saturday05.16.2009

Bonding time, during which we discover the titular Springs of
Colorado... Springs.


But first, Wizards.


Sign reads:
NO SOLICITING
or any
other
religious
nuts.
(Sitting, L-R: Jason and Nate, religious nuts.)





Afterwards: departure, return to New Haven, and the commencement (and completion) of Finals Week.

More to come.

Racial mutterings

"And what does it say about President Obama's claiming to be post-racial when his first Supreme Court nominee is Sotomayor, his attorney general, Eric Holder is a huge reverse discrimination supporter and his education undersecretary for civil rights, Russlyn Ali, so often calls people racist when they dare disagree with her reverse-discrimination advocacy." - Marty Nemko, May 31, 2009.

What does it say? That he's willing to consider people who hold certain views for certain positions. What do you think it means, Mr. Nemko? Oh, never mind - I've deciphered your ever-so-sly intimation: President Obama is a racist. That wasn't so hard to say, was it?

Being post-racial does not mean being post-race. Nemko is making the same disturbing mistake that I've seen several other commentators making when discussing race: he assumes that "being post-racial" somehow equates to the idea that "race is no longer an issue". This is the same fallacy that equates "diversity" and "being color-blind": Diversity is not the absence of color, but the affirmation of color. And, in the same way, moving past racism does not and must not equate to "no longer caring about or discussing race"; it must mean "affirming race and issuing correctives so that the roots of racism continue to lose their grasp on America."

The Commander-in-Chief is not some political Gordian Knot that, once sundered, signifies freedom and equality throughout the land. It is a sign - as there have been many, as there will be many - that the American people are beginning to progress as a community. It's wonderful that the country voted a Black man is president; it's wonderful that some minority citizens aren't cowering under the lash. But until every minority citizen can live out a life in this country with a reasonable expectation of freedom from the dictum that Your Race Isn't Welcome Here - whether suppressive, as in the case of the Asian "Model Minority" myth; or oppressive, overt racism - "post-racial" America is still an unfulfilled process.

So, what does it mean that Obama's Supreme Court nominee is a Hispanic woman? What does it mean that he supports certain policies on race?

Might it simply be that President Obama thinks that these choices will continue the push towards racial equality?

No?

Oh, OK.

Similarly, from right-wing blog View from the Right:

"[What does post-racial America mean?] It means a post-white America, an America transformed by the symbolic removal of whiteness as the country's explicit or implicit historic and majority identity. ..."

Guess what: America is post-white. In the last national census, 26% of responding Americans self-identified as something other than White Alone. Of course, the majority of citizens are White; English, a language with European roots, is the de facto primary language of the land. But what does it even mean for a country to have a "majority identity"? And what does it have to do with me? Sure, Whiteness is an explicitly and implicitly dominant part of this country's culture; but, and pardon my boldness in this, I assumed that the majority identity of this country was American culture.

You know: Muckrakers and Superman (created by 2 Jews), French fries (created by a Native chef), Jazz (no comment necessary), Rock (comment unnecessary again), transcontinental migration and bicoastal communication (a network built on the backs of Irish and Chinese immigrants). A melange of racial influence and scrappy do-it-yourself intuitive inventiveness. Yes, White influences served as the initial foundation for this country; and its further development was definitely fueled by waves of immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France, and other countries in Western and Eastern Europe.

But, at some point, my dinner ceases to be a couple of carrots, two chunks of meat, a packet of spices, and a pot of water, to being a stew. A stew, a broth with distinct elements hinted-at but inextricable from the lot. Why can't "my" country be the same?

I fear - though I sincerely hope to one day be proven wrong - that the intimated answer of many commentators on ethnicity in America is simply thus: This Is Not Your Country.

This is what some say: "the anti-white policies and attitudes, from affirmative action to open borders for Hispanics to the multicultural rewriting of history [oh heavens no; History is anything but!] to endless compaigns against "white racial privilege," [a thorough myth] will remain in place. What will change is that whites will not protest these anti-white policies any more, will not mutter under their breath about them any more, will not even think about muttering under their breath about them any more. Instead, they will unreservedly embrace them, in the joy of racial unity and harmony."

And this is what I hear:

This is not your country; you're living in rented space.

This is not your country; you're living in the perpetual guest room, furnished similarly to - as comfortable as - the master bedroom, save for its lesser metaphysical status.

This is not your country; as long as you behave yourself and act like us, we'll grant you squatters' rights. But don't get too comfortable; and for (a Western Protestant) God's Sake don't put up your own decorations! Our paintings - our decorative coffeetable books - our carefully-selected DVD library are good enough for us. And they ought to suffice for you.

Well, I don't ask to remodel; I'm quite happy with the kitchenette the way it is, and the laundry machine works quite well (though the couple who used to own the house have mentioned that you've were a little underhanded in repurposing it from them). But if, as you say, this room is mine for the letting - indeed, not merely for subletting but actually leasing-to-own - can I please at least add a film or two to your library? What about removing some of the more dull or outdated magazines from the nightstand?

Can I, perhaps, cook the food in "our" kitchen - food that my wages bought - the way my mother taught me to cook?

Might I, at the least, hang up the pictures of my father from his youth?

No?

Oh, OK.

(Update: I was prompted on facebook to further defend the connection i draw between "affirming Whiteness" and "xenophobia". I did so by drawing upon the concept of white privilege; more information is in the comments.)

Kicks

It's been way too long since I posted some shoes on this blog.

The next thing you know, I'll stop using a cameraphone and buy a digital camera.


Jordan Spiz'ike Citron (2008).
a/k/a the Bill Bixby's.

Gorgeous. Patent leather black caviar. The weekend whips.


Air Max 90 Premium "Major Taylor" (Umber/Volt Birch)

Autumn soles.


Jordan V Retro + 3/4 High (2000)
White/Met Silver-Blk

Daily J's.

Korean journeys

List for self: Places/neighborhoods to which I've been in South Korea.

Ilsan:
-Daehwa
-Juyeop
-Jeongbalsan
-Madu

Seoul:
-Sinimun
-Samseong/COEX Mall
-Hongik University (Hongdae)
-Sinchon
-Myeongdong
-Gangnam
-Chungmuro
-Yeoksam
-Gwacheon
-Insadong (Jongno)
-Suwon

Question

Why do we call ourselves "Asian-Americans" or "African-Americans", but I've never heard a single person described as a "European-American"?

"Irish-American," "British-American," and "German-American" all sound far more stilted than "Chinese-American" or "Korean-American," not even touching on the Black/"African-American" vs. African (Ghanaian/Ethiopian/Somalian/Nigerian/etc.) divide. (Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, and Italian-Americans get something of a pass on this one; largely because, for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, they were also generally part of an oppressed, immigrant, working lower class)

This is largely a rhetorical question: I do understand the historical context for this distinction in usage (Caucasian Western Europeans showed up first! [well, no, they didn't]); but I would at least suggest, in the modern milieu of cultures and ethnicities that Today's America supposedly has become, that we begin to more finely distinguish between cultural heritages, and thereby both begin to assault the fallacy of a monolithic American Culture, as well as beginning to affirm the actual myriad of influences behind the widely divergent American Cultures that do exist.

This is your Fourth of July/American Independence Day blog, brought to you (a) late and (b) not from America. Feel free to leave comment or critique, but note that I've had Maino's Hi Hater on blast all day.

White Privilege

This Week in Blackness's Elon James White defines and discusses the reality of white/majority privilege in America.