Category academic

Thoughts raised by Johanna Hedva

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment
Screenshot of the Goodreads review that is also quoted in the blog piece

I put Johanna Hedva’s How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability and Doom on my wish list probably when it was a new release.

The cover design is lovely and the bio of the author is enough to draw interest:

Johanna Hedva (they/them) is a Korean American writer, artist and musician who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches and now lives in LA and Berlin…

I guess the first step of my thoughts on the book would be to share my Goodreads review with you.

I gave the book five stars even though the most Generation X parts of my soul wanted to give it four, because despite how much I disagree with some of her points– I can’t stop thinking about them.

My Goodreads Review

“I almost read this in one day– Johanna Hedva’s essays are poetic, academic, and provocative. Johanna has a variety of physical and mental health issues that them outside the realm of standard able-bodies. Yet, sexually and identity also play a huge role in their experience.

Johanna is about a decade younger than me, and in many ways I do not agree with their statements and conclusions, (I am a GenX white woman with cerebral palsy from a low socio-economic background and family of addicts, and if I try really hard and expend a lot of energy I can pass as able-bodied– some similarities to Johanna, enough to understand them) but their philosophy is never wrong.

When talking to my congenitally blind friend, who is a Boomer, about this collection, my friend said, “sounds like I wouldn’t like her.” And I said that she probably wouldn’t, but she still might like the book.

This book has a lot to chew on.”

So what are some of their thoughts and my thoughts on their thoughts?

Random comments first.

  1. The title is a shout-out to astrology.
  2. Their book deal for this collection stemmed from the essay Sick Woman Theory which went viral. The attention it garnered made them more of a figurehead and/or activist than they ever intended to be. The essay Sick Woman Theory is not nearly as interesting as her response to that essay, Why It’s Taking So Long.
  3. As a member of GenX, I have some discomfort with how the queer community throws around labels. Johanna identifies as a queer, and not as a woman, which is fine, but I guess I remember the days when people didn’t need to define their identity as concisely as we do now. You didn’t need to label every aspect in which you are weird. It’s okay to just be different.

So let’s look closer at some of their points.

Essay One: “How to Tell When We Will Die”

Opening paragraph:

“Heroes die on the battlefield, never from chronic pain. Diarrhea never makes its way into myth. Tragedies are devoid of menstrual cramps.” Johanna has my full attention. On the second page of the essay, they talk about the representation of disability in early and twentieth century film, and how disabled people become “flattened by some insidious super-cripple myth.” Throughout this first essay, Johanna is tossing around some serious academic critical theory before suddenly turning into memoir…

They speak about not receiving a diagnosis for their ailments until in graduate school (despite later saying that the conditions were inherited from their mother and grandmother, so I think the statement should have been that they could not get a label on the diagnosis– she does state that doctors were “baffled” by her symptoms and “dismissive of their validity.”). And they mention that they stayed on for a second master’s degree to keep their student medical benefits to the tune of $250,000, that led to a career in the arts where they refused any job that did not meet their aesthetic. They chose poverty. They chose art.

I’m wondering why– even if they didn’t want a standard job with employee-sponsored health insurance– they didn’t just buy health insurance or take on medical debt instead of a quarter of a million dollars in student loans.

But then there are gems like “You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism” and “no matter how it arrives, disability will arrive for everyone, sooner or later” (which they repeat in the last essay.) And Johanna points out that the biggest ableist fantasy is that we control our bodies, and we will always be able to control our bodies.

Johanna talks a lot about her mother’s addictions, and the abuse they suffered at their mother’s hands, and of their own mental health issues. Her first suicide attempt happened at age nine, when she took a bottle of sleeping pills, and when she did not die, she carried on with her life.

We are more than 25 pages into the book when we learn that mental health plays a significant role in her disability, which we later (not in this essay) learn includes endometriosis and chronic shingles. I understand that people with disabilities do not owe any sort of explanation of their ailments to anyone, but if you are writing a book about disability, I believe that information should be front and center.

And in this essay she mentions her love of death and doom metal. You can hear some of her music here on YouTube.

Essay Two: “Sick Woman Theory“

The essay that started it all. I think it’s really important to understand that they called it “sick woman theory” because regardless of how they identify, the medical establishment and the world consider them a “sick woman” and they are seen as a “sick woman.” They frame their theory that our capitalist world is designed for the existence of “white, straight, healthy, neurotypical, upper- and middle-class, cis- and able-bodied man who makes his home in a wealthy country, has never not had health insurance, and whose importance to society is everywhere recognized and maybe explicit by their society, at the expense of everyone else.” To a certain extent, I want to call out a “Yes, bitch,” (as they toss around this phrase) but at the same token– would the experience be the same in the developping world/Global south.

Essay Three: “The Blast Radius of Disability”

I have to say that I love this concept, “The Blast Radius of Disability.” Disability doesn’t effect one person, one episode, or one place or time. Instead, it impacts everything around it, everyhing that it touches. Johanna speaks of time dvided into before and after sickmess, but I can’t help but wonder how they can divide time in such a way when mental illness entered their life so early they can’t really remember a before, can they?

It is in this essay that Johanna mentions that individuals with disabilities must operate according to “crip time” not clock time, doing things as the body deems itself capable not as the world says we have to do them. On one hand, I understand the point, but that’s not how the world works. I have to believe that there has to be a balance, of not overdoing things in order to conform to the mainstream standard and hurt oneself in the process. And there’s an inference that the entire world runs on the same precision, which isn’t true. There is “island time,” “Latin time,” and “African time.” Each culture has its own realtionship with time, so maybe they need to find a place and a rhythm that works for them.

Essay Four: “In Defense of De-Persons”

A discussion of capitalism and mental illness.

Essay Five: “Get Well Soon”

“Are these my limits, or are these the limits of the world?” Johanna reminds us that disability is part of a dichotomy– the ill being inactive while the healthy take action, the disabled remain still while the rest of the world creates revolutions.

Essay Six: “Notes on Activism (aka Notes on Failure)”

Organizing is exhausting, Johanna begins. Activism, they write, “reminds us how the world actually is, not now how we would like it to be.” Activism often comes off with hypocrisy– like buying your anti-racism books off Amazon.com. Their other question: How can you balance the need as an activism to care for others, yet also take care of yourself?

Essay Seven: “Letter to A Young Doctor”

I didn’t like this one. It seemed to repeat some of other concepts. Johanna tells this doctor all the other things they have already told us and will tell us differently in future essays. The doctor approached Johanna asking for advice.

Essay Eight: “Soft Blues”

Or “The Summer of the 12-inch cock.” The first several essays that are reflections on Johanna’s sexuality. And an in-depth exploration of her experience in a mental hospital for depression that led to her experiencing an entire summer of bipolar mania.

Essay Nine: “Can I Hit You?”

The BDSM essay. Which has the most amazing line: “Pain is the price I must pay to be awake to life.”

Essay Ten: “The Freak”

Another relationship essay. The only highlight I have in the whole essay is when Johanna discusses capability and capacity. They remind us that just because we are capable of something does not mean we have the capacity for it at this time.

Essay Eleven: “Notes on Trash Talk (aka Notes on Community)”

Interesting essay where Johanna gives a view of their obsession with fighting, boxing, wrestling and MMA, and how the way a coach talks to a losing athlete is the type of trash talk we could use more of as disabled people.

The next few essays are all Johanna’s entertainment criticism. I will skip those, even though they do circle around to disability as it all does.

Essay Fifteen: “Notes on Ambition (aka Notes on Survival)“

This is a complex one– looking at what we all need, versus what we want, and how many of our ambitions are actually motivating us toward ideals that might not be our own.

Essay Sixteen: “Hedva’s Disability Rider.”

They explore this rider more in a later essay, the one I mention that speaks back to the original “Sick Woman Theory” and presents the repercussions. But here, Hedva gives us the document they send to institutions that invite her to perform. I feel like some of the items on the rider should not be listed as conditions for employment, but instead factors of how much they should charge for their fee. If you know you need a business class airline seat on the aisle, you make sure you only say yes if the organizers give you enough money. Some of the informational items are valid: like allergies. But Johanna also uses the rider as a way to advocate for everyone with disabilities and call attention to how excluded people with disabilities are. They ask for sign language interpreters, live captioning, all-gender restrooms, wheelchair accessibility and audio description.

They say they know they won’t get all of it, but they like to have the conversation and point out how unaccessible and exclusionary the world is.

And this is why hardcore advocacy is exhausting, friends.

While we would like to invite all the people with disabilities to everything, why provide the services if the people aren’t there? I know Nan and I have attended shows at DeSales University where they have one performance with audio description and live captions. These shows are made accessible with grants. Start there.

Essay Seventeen: “Room Day”

Johanna’s partner is Johannes, a German citizen, which is why they now live in Berlin most of the year so they can get better medical care. She does not mention her partner until essay seventeen. The partner to whom the book is dedicated.

Essay Eighteen: “Soft Until It Gets Hard”

How can you not love this title? Another relationship essay.

Essay Nineteen: “Why It’s Taking So Long”

In this essay, Johanna discusses the rider and how when they send the rider to an individual, they would prefer not to see that individual in the context of the institution but as a person with whom they can have a conversation. Teaching moments? Which is exactly what they say later on the page when they discuss they are now part of a “learning experience” that they did not want to be. And here’s another great observation– if an invitation comes in for any event that involves the concept of care in any way and is being organized by solely white women, Johanna won’t do it.

The essay falters between the idea that Johanna never wanted to be an advocate but now that they have the power, they feel a requirement to advocate for everyone.

Here are some great points:

  • Capitalism is so demanding, it makes us all more disabled
  • Even when we are told we “have to,” humans can’t truly do anything alone
  • It’s a fallacy that all you need is will, and the proper manifestation of it
  • Care is often framed as debt
  • You might be winning, but maybe there’s no prize

Essay Twenty: “The Hag in Charge”

A lovely adventure through Greece that offers some recollection of Johanna’s poverty and her spiritual beliefs.

A line that reminded me of Nan, who says this often: some disabled people (Nan and I like to say it’s normally able-bodied people who become disabled) have a fantasy of healing, “and then hate themselves when it fails to arrive for them.”

Disability Lit Review, part one

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Let me offer a bit of an author’s note on this one, or perhaps a caveat, that I only got five hours of sleep last night, and my body hurts today. This is the third night this week I got six hours or less of sleep, due to some fairly intense routine change that is kicking my ass. And the pain I am experiencing today is not my standard everyday pain, but similar pain in a more twitchy and unnerving form.

And this may lead to some of my more strident tones. Or perhaps I always feel my opinions with a certain sharpness, but ordinarily I present them after the application of a filter.

I will try to keep my aggressive aggravation to myself, but no promises.

Earlier this month, I drafted a “bird piece” for the Behind Our Eyes anthology, a collection in the works to highlight the members of the Behind Our Eyes email-based writers group for writers with disabilities. I joined the group a couple years ago after participating on the fringes through Nancy Scott, who, in cheap amusement and most things disability, is my partner in crime. I normally lurk in the group, but recently heard they were actively looking for bird stories. The anthology features a variety of sections and one themed block focuses on animals.

I wrote a creative non-ficiton piece about my Goffin’s cockatoo and I navigating disability together, with a present-day, present tense story of Nala plucking her feathers due to her anxiety and me trying to figure out why. The plucking led to her not being able to fly, which gave her a temporary mobility disability. So I used this present-day situation to frame flashbacks exploring why Nala was anxious, but also looking at my mobility disability and the similarities and conditions that made us good for one another. The anthology committee wanted just a bird story, so they’ll be publishing the present-day section of my interactions with Nala.

This was the first of two pieces I wished to submit to disability-associated anthologies. I have drafted the second, but that one is specifically for disabled voices to share what we wished the outside world understood. I revisited my first draft, and tightened it somewhat, and thought the piece sounded like an introductory chapter to my upcoming medical advocacy memoir. That piece has two themes– the beginning talks about how my family had too many problems for me to realize I was “disabled” which seques into the second half, about me finding out my body and assembling an adequate medical team.

Nan has been encouraging me to write more in the disability space, her paraphrased quote being that I could have a real impact there. And in my experience, there are two main types of voices in the world of disability literature. The most mainstream voice is the voice of the writer-first– commonly a writer who experienced illness or disability not from birth, with either some sort of privilege or talent. The second is the disability activist who is not a writer, but congenitally-disabled and fighting for their right and the resources to exist. (And I guess the third would be the hobby disabled memoirist.)

I find myself crossing all these categories. I have the natural writing talent, my background as a professional journalist, my credentials as an academic and historian, and the experience of a congenital disability. Yet, I have the privilege of being a white woman, and if I can borrow the term, I can “pass” as an able-bodied person if I focus really hard and am having a good day. I have the type of cerebral palsy that you might not notice or that might make you stare at my feet and knees.

This morning on social media, I saw a post from a disabled Iraqi/Afghan War veteran stating that he needed to retire his service dog as she had had a seizure. The man said that his career involved much travel and public speaking as an influencer and motivational speaker. I searched the internet for him and found a very basic web site, some YouTube videos and an Instagram, but no information about him or the experiences that lead him to be a motivational speaker.

Now, in everyday life, people with disabilities do not owe information or an explanation to anyone regarding details about their private lives or medical conditions. But if you build a career on your experience coming back from a disability, I think some of that information is owed to prove the validity of that expertise. (And if you are an influencer, a Google search should turn up some information about you.)

What I am about to say next is going to make me sound like an ass, and I mention to not to invalidate the experience of people with disabilities who fit the categories as I am about to describe– but the lived experience of a Cis white heterosexual male in the United States of America who develops a disability after voluntary service with the military is very different from the experience of a person who has never been able to walk, has a limb difference, total blindness or any of the multitude of disabilities that occur at birth.

(Add in family resources, and there’s another layer of complexity.)

Some people have more choices. Some people have more privilege.

ALL people living with ANY TYPE of chronic illness or disability deserve the same respect, but one must understand that they all come from different places. As all humans do.

This has led me into a brief literature review of the disability space, one I have only explored via finding books written by ordinary people on their experience with disability. My list included the third anthology from Behind Our Eyes and a service dog memoir by one of its members, Peter Altschul. I have a collection of books with connections to cerebral palsy: several modern memoirs by Tylia Flores, a pre mid-20th century memoir by Dubliner Christy Brown, and Karen, a parent’s cerebral palsy memoir that takes place about 10 years after Christy Brown, and then poetry and academic work by Jennifer Bartlett. And a highly academic poetry book by blind poet Susan Glass.

A copy of A Disability History of the United States

I recognized my need to diversify… especially as I start more work on my medical advocacy memoir and consider making more deliberate strides into this space.

Here’s what I ordered:

  • A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen. I believe this was Nielsen’s Ph.D. thesis in history. In her introduction, she mentions that she is a white woman of certain privilege, and she ended up in this space by accident, with no connection to disability. Then, shortly after receiving a publishing contract for this book, her teen daughter contracted an illness that made her a wheelchair user and gave her a more personal glimpse of the issues she had talked about.

I finished this book yesterday, and it’s definitely an important work, exploring hundreds of years of attitudes and events about disabled bodies. Nielsen aligns disability rights with other civil rights, for women, for Blacks, for gays. She presents the idea that any body that is not strong, healthy, heterosexual, white and male faces the same discrimination and lack of belonging in the American social structure. And ALL of these bodies are disabled and deemed as unsatisfactory as part of the capitalistic labor machine.

It’s an important work that shows how ideas about disability evolved and how legal status/rights have changed.

Today I started:

  • How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability and Doom by Johanna Hedva. This is Johanna’s fourth book, and the bio on the back lists them as a Korean American writer, artist and musician raised in Los Angeles raised by a family of witches.
A pile of three disabilty-themed books. The top one, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability and Doom by Johanna Hedva, is pink with red stars. The next on the pile is a beige memoir, FIfty Years of Walking with Friends, by DeAnna Quietwater Noriega. The one on the bottom is vivid yellow, Loving Our Own Bones, by Julia Watts Belser.

Their introduction mirrors a lot of the same concepts about the issues disabled people create for American capitalism. Their experience though is one of disability after chronic illness. I have only reached page 28, and Johanna mentions a decade of chasing a diagnosis, but states that they inherited chronic illness from their mother and grandmother– which leads me to wonder why a diagnosis was such a mystery?

I suspect the reality is that Johanna had trouble finding a doctor to label the diagnosis officially, which is the “doctors are idiots” and the “American healthcare is broken” problem not that Johanna didn’t know what was wrong.

I hope Johanna eventually shares their disability with the reader, but as of yet it has not happened, and again– I know no one is entitled to know the private details of another person’s medical situation, but it is important when one is standing in a public space claiming authority regarding such issues.

The other two books on my new acquisitions are:

  • Fifty Years of Walking with Friends, another guide dog memoir by BOE member DeAnna Quietwater Noriega. I added this one to the list because of Noriega’s Native American heritage.
  • Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole by Julia Bessler Watts. Julia is a queer rabbi. This book was recommended and you had me at queer rabbi.

Day 3: Rhode Island to Rare Books

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

This weekend was indeed the three-day whirlwind tour. What started as an exploration of the Museum of printing ended up covering at least six states (not including our home state of Pennsylvania), a plethora of bookstores, a variety of art, rare books, a lexicographer’s grave, and a wild ride down memory lane.

And I have not even had the opportunity to sort my thoughts and keep up with my blogging because the internet was soooooo bad in our hotel last night (even though I paid for “enhanced wifi”). It kept kicking me off like it was 1999 and I was using a dial-up modem.

And now it’s Monday morning, not quite 7 a.m. and I am trying to get myself organized. But first, I get a shall talk about Sunday.

The plan was to get up, find internet, have breakfast, and go on a Waltham Massachusetts Volkssport walk at 10 a.m. when we could access the walk box. The wrinkle came when the temperature dropped to 30 degrees with no chance of the sun warming things up until late in the day. And we did not bring coats.

Gayle at least brought a sweatshirt. I brought t-shirts and my paisley sportscoat.

With the time change, we checked out of the hotel by 6:20 a.m.

We then ended up in Attleboro, Massachusetts and neighboring Pawtucket, Rhode Island at 7:20 a.m. It’s not easy to find a breakfast spot open at sunrise on a Sunday morning. So we visited the local Market Basket– and the place was mobbed, with baggers and everything. They opened at 7:20 and people were already pouring out of the place with full carts at 7:20! They had more registers open than a Wegmans the week before Thanksgiving!

In the parking lot of the grocery store, which sat in a grocery plaza looped into the commuter rail station, we plotted our next move. Honey Dew Donuts. Apparently, a Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire chain with some super nice doughnuts, solid coffee and bagels that resemble rolls but have phenomenal flavor. And Gayle had hot apple cider. Because Autumn. In New England.

After our egg sandwiches in Rhode Island we drove another two hours to the TA in Brandford, Connecticut. While there, Gayle managed to find a reference to a nearby Gutenberg Bible– because where else do you find info on a prestigious, historical Bible but in a truck stop. But the library where the Bible lived did not open until noon.

It was about 9:45. The map indicated that the area we had stopped in was close to The Thimble Islands and a google search showed a variety of picturesque parks. I picked one with some rail relics and off we went. Except Google took us to the top of one of the rail trestles or something, not the nearby walking path.

But we did see some amazing views of the water. Gayle suggested we get back on the road and forget the Bible. But how could we be that close and not see the Bible? I clicked another nearby park and somehow ended up in adorable Stony Creek, Connecticut. We walked around the very busy village, seeing families and dogs and boats and the view of the Thimble Islands.

Now, remember: We’re just a couple of nerds hanging out waiting to see a Bible.

We get back in the car at almost 11, and this is where I learn that the Bible is at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven.

And we could certainly arrive on the Yale campus a little early and poke around. We found a parking space very easily, and New Haven does not enforce parking meters on Sunday, so we got parked and realized we were near a cemetery. The cemetery had some lovely type that attracted Gayle’s eye so we went in and discovered that it was the cemetery that featured Eli Whitney’s grave. And Gayle and I both knew that we should remember who that was. Luckily the brochure reminded us that it was the inventor of the cotton gin. And if I remember correctly, the cotton gin spurred the Industrial Revolution.

Gayle and I decide to explore Grove Street Cemetery and on our way to find Eli I spot Noah Webster. I double check and sure enough he’s the Noah Webster of the dictionary.

And then we visit the Beinecke Library… Which the revolving door seals up with a cover so you can’t even see the front door when the library is closed.

Just get it out there

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Since I lost my job at Stitch Fix in September, I’ve been working hard to build my business, Parisian Phoenix Publishing. And it’s not easy. I have a lot of long days and many things– like reading and creative writing– that used to be hobbies are not work.

I’m constantly balancing what to do with my time. Should I work on personal projects? Paying clients? Unpaying clients? Authors? How much time do I spend at Barnes & Noble versus Book & Puppet (my local independent bookstore)? How many titles should the publishing company release this year? How much freelance journalism should I pursue? How many events should I attend? How many self-published and/or local authors can I support by buying and reviewing their books, especially when only about 20% return the favor?

But one choice that was easy to make was attending last week’s Podcasting 101 community education class at Northampton Community College at their Fowler Center in Southside Bethlehem. My friend and trusty photographer Joan suggested it, with her musical background, my past obsession with podcasts and my hope to start recording miniaudio books.

We invited our partner-in-crime Gayle to join us beforehand at El Jefe for tacos, though we all got burrito bowls.

Podcasting 101

Our class was led by Demetrius Mullen, host of The Single Parent Conflict, and covered a basic overview of all of the elements of creating and uploading a podcast. He’s also a bit of a voice-over actor so imagine my surprise when I heard his “professional voice” versus his everyday one. I now understand what my daughter always meant when she said, “You’re using your journalist voice.”

I love exploring new topics and ideas in classes like this one. They are usually inexpensive and offer a safe environment to dip proverbial toes in the water. I’ve taken other community education classes– like vegan cooking (have the best cobbler recipe ever from that one) and six weeks of Irish Gaelic (my first foray into impractical languages).

At the most basic level, making a podcast involves six basic steps:

  1. Have the mindset. This means not finding excuses. It doesn’t matter if you record, edit and upload your podcast 100% from your phone if you have to, challenge yourself to do it. Accept that you will learn and grow and perhaps be embarrassed by your initial attempts, but keep in mind that it takes time to build momentum, market and develop a following.
  2. Gather your hardware. To simplify this, this means having somewhere to record and edit the podcast. It could involve computers, XLR cables, and microphones, but it also could be simply you and your phone. Demetrius’ advice was to invest your energy in learning and honing the content of your podcast before spending money on equipment that might not even be necessary or before you know exactly what would suit you best.
  3. Learn your software. If you want to have a decent podcast, you’ll have to learn to edit it. There are a variety of free or inexpensive options on the market. And if you’re an Apple user, you have Garage Band.
  4. Record. Sit down and record your content.
  5. Edit, save and export. Again, there are a variety of podcasting services from Buzzsprout to Spotify for Podcasters (formerly Anchor.fm), some with free and some with paid plans. All you need is an MP3 and an ability to read and follow directions.
  6. Upload. Once you have your MP3, release your creation into the universe.

Perhaps this will renew my interest in creating a show author interview show involving a craft topic, followed by an excerpt, short story or poem from the Parisian Phoenix catalog to demonstrate the principle. My larger goal is to use this as a training ground for audio editing and speaking for audio so that we can start production on Parisian Phoenix audiobooks.

A note on my site pages and approaching updates

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

This web site started as a portfolio of my professional writing. I added some photos, some creative work and used it as a platform to blog my travels in France, Tunisia, Djibouti, Somalia, Yemen and Russia.

I added some pages for the cats we foster.

And soon I will be connecting a web page or two for the publishing house my friend Gayle and I are launching (egads! as my fellow author friend William Prystauk says) my first novel publishes in a week!

So coming soon… Parisian Phoenix Publishing and the Fashion and Fiends series. We have some other titles in the works— erotica, romance, poetry, thought-provoking identity politics/philosophy and hopefully even a book on cats.

Subsequently Gayle designed this logo before I started fostering cats and painted my bedroom this exact pink.

Click here to preorder Manipulations on Barnes & Noble.com

Rainbow Mac and Cheese and my thoughts on privilege and racism

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I am saddened that in the 21st century this nation has not made more progress into equality and basic needs for all people.

Having visited different countries in the industrialized and in the developing world, having studied the history of colonialism and prejudice in Francophone Africa, the basic reality that as humans we continue to judge each other and care for ourselves and our own whole ignoring the pain of our neighbors pains me.

I have studied France’s relationship with its colonial history and its institutionalized prejudice against Muslims as a critical theory model for what I see with American imperialism and what I see with our own world legacy of hatred.

Race always enters into these studies because the African American experience shares a lot of commonalities with the French of Muslim Descent community; neither population asked to be enslaved by an empire. Yet, both populations are now belittled and mistrusted by their historical populations.

And both populations are judged and denied opportunities based on their appearance, on something genetic.

It’s so sad.

It’s 2020, America. We have outdated social classes, corrupted government systems, unsustainable consumption, unattainable educational opportunities, a capitalistic drive that values the work over the person, and a healthcare system that threatens our financial wellbeing more than it helps.

So it’s hard.

And I am fortunate to be white. But I am a woman, and I am a woman with a disability, so I understand the lens of judgment. I live every day wondering if I will be judged inferior or incapable because I walk a little funny.

But at least I don’t have to live every day in fear that I may be perceived as dangerous, or manipulated into a situation where I am suddenly an enemy merely because of the color of my skin. I won’t be killed for being dark skinned and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or near the wrong people.

It’s so sad that some of the best, most helpful people I know have to live in this reality.

That Black men have to swallow their fear.

That Black parents have to hope their sons come home.

That people with power

  • whether the power of law (the criminal justice system which favors the white),
  • the power of occupation and authority (police officers, prison guards),
  • the power of messaging (advertising, media, even entertainment)
  • or the power of mass control (our government and the systems perpetuated by it)

can continue this nonsense of us against them is a classic battle of the “haves” and the “have nots.” It’s really time you listened to your mama and started to share.

Anyway, on a much lighter note, I made macaroni and cheese for the teenager.

I used rigatoni and made a sauce of mostly cheddar and 1% milk, with a chunk of Monterey Jack and a chunk of dill havarti.

I put the rest of my fresh spinach in there, put some smoked paprika, purple peppercorns, and smoked provolone on top and it was amazing.

I called it rainbow macaroni and cheese which got me thinking of the larger racial and prejudice issues.

And that made me sad.

But I did have a very heartening conversation with the teenager today. She’s cleaning her room because, as she told me, she needs to get her act together to be able to help me more.

Goals—and how the impulsive selection of a desktop picture breeds hope

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

My last day in the office was March 17. We were practicing social distancing— not allowed to pass each other in the hall, speaking from inside our offices, wiping down doorknobs and the copy machine.

It was George’s mother’s birthday and he couldn’t go see her in the nursing home. That made him sad.

Tomorrow will be my 13th day of working from home. The fourth day of my second year with the agency. My first full day working on my new laptop. I had to reset windows and I managed to send myself this old picture from my phone for my desktop photo:

Traveling

I took it on the road between Djibouti City and Lac Abbé four years ago. Other than my daughter, I’ve shown one person this photo and they didn’t even ask what it was.

“Some random African photo,” he said when I asked if he noticed it, “I know your fascination with Africa.”

So I explained. “Ah,” he said, “that makes sense.”

This is the original photo that I took in January 2016.

On the Road

There is beauty in that photo, and oppressive dry heat, and the implication of hardship. Where are they going? Is it far? Yet, such color and contrast. Simplicity.

The man in the front is wearing a traditional man’s skirt. They say it helps you stay cool in the heat. The women have such light but colorful layers, lovely hijab blowing in what appears to be a slight breeze.

This photo takes me away when I look at it, and for me, it offers perspective and optimism.

I do have a critical theorist’s fascination with Africa, but my passion is actually post-colonial Francophone Africa and how their colonial experience and subsequent (ahem) immigration issues and Muslim relations provide lessons for American imperialism in a post-9/11 world.

Though recent political upheaval in South Africa may provide an interesting cross-examination of the British colonial experience… and what that means for the next generation of African citizens across the continent.

But I digress… not uncommon.

I have some goals I want to set this week.

  • Have several meals with my daughter at our patio cafe.
  • Take 3 walks.
  • Do 5 push ups tomorrow, 10 on Tuesday, and as many as I can each day as long as it is at least the same as the day before.
  • Care for my nails.
  • Take a bath.
  • Cut the grass.
  • Do a blog series on Tarot cards
Happy Sunday

Ford v Ferrari and my obsession with history

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I once had a stranger walk up to me and ask if I felt out of place. She specifically asked me if I felt as if I were in the wrong time.

She continued to tell me that she saw an air of an earlier era about me, circa the 1950s, which struck me as odd because my specialty in my academic work was 20th Century colonial/post-colonial Francophone Africa.

I gravitate toward post-World War II history and have to feign interest in anything 19th Century or earlier (though I can handle specific topics like the Industrial Revolution and Early French secularism because of their direct impact on the areas I enjoy) and have equal distaste for things that happened during my lifetime.

I love movies based on real events, and the rise of cinema celebrating real people and their achievements (like First Man, for example) and even historical settings (like the Downton Abbey feature film) are likely to get me into the theater.

Ford v. Ferrari had been on my calendar since I saw the trailer months ago.

In addition to “liking” the mid-Twentieth Century and, of course, how can you not look at Ford v Ferrari and not see a nod to American Industrial Complex v European Artisan Mindset… I also really like cars.

I can recite most of the Nicolas Cage version of Gone in 60 Seconds. My initial thought when I say the Ford v Ferrari trailer was “oh, they made a biopic for Eleanor.”

So last night my teen daughter and I saw Ford v Ferrari. We laughed. She cried. She jumped from her seat at every spin the car made. And squealed with every race lap.

And it was also interesting to see Lehigh Valley native Lee Iococca represented on the big screen.

But I left the film with a sense of homesickness, or maybe heartsickness. Perhaps a piece of my soul belonged to someone perhaps my dad’s age, born in the late 40s or maybe 50s, and perhaps they died young. Maybe these yearnings I have for the past are desires to finish a life someone else didn’t have the chance to complete.

Maybe they died in a car accident… who knows?

Boogie Woogie Bugle Girl

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Since we were staying so close to Petersburg Battlefield, we thought we’d run over and experience some Civil War history before we left town.

If I remember tonight, I will upload a photo gallery. Very. Cool. Place.

The visitors center wasn’t open. We arrived too early in the morning. But the National Park is gorgeous. Sadly, we found a gazillion mosquitoes. So by 9 am I was already providing a hardy breakfast for my insect companions.

The Battlefield has been meticulously groomed to not only preserve the history, but uses tall grass to indicate where various forces stood during battles.

Video of tall grass

The teens fell in love with the cannons. And we had fun wandering around. Then we saw the ranger raise the flag so we went into the visitors center and watched the movie.

OH MY.

The American Civil War is such a sad period in American history. The aggression among own our people. The race issue. The slavery issue. Our own people tearing our nation apart, destroying ourselves and our resources.

The battles in Petersburg were pivotal to the end of the Civil War, and some of the strategy involved were amazing. During the Battle of the Crater, the Northern Forces dug a tunnel under the Southern camp and filled it with something like 8000 pounds of gunpowder.

The resulting explosion was the 19th century version of a nuclear mushroom cloud.

And the men ran into the deep fiery crater to fight. Might be worth googling. Amazing story.

And then my daughter found a bugle in the gift shop.

She’s wanted a bugle for years.

A real brass Calvary bugle.

So she used her birthday money to buy it.

Indochic— Target’s New Home Line celebrates colonization or as they call it, “French-Vietnamese fusion.”

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

My husband and I started brainstorming our weekly household needs and while he worked on meal planning and a grocery list, I opened the Target app on my phone to see if they had any amazing deals on things we needed. We all know a trip to Target is dangerous and needs to be carefully and cautiously plotted.

Otherwise, the money can disappear.

I immediately found myself drawn to this luscious teal blue chair.

I mean, I seriously see this chair as part of the renovations to our master bedroom here.

But then I read the description: “Indochic: Think French-Vietnamese fusion, full of elegant shapes and sophisticated jewel tones.”

Now, this is my version of when people cry sexism when parents put little girls in clothes that focus on cuteness or certain traits our society sees as feminine. Like the t-shirts that say “I’m too pretty to do homework” or something like that.

“Indochic” is the exploitation and the ignorant perpetuation of the stereotypes that allowed colonialism and the “civilizing mission” to destroy cultures. If you understand my outrage… Well, may the sun shine upon you. We are kindred spirits. If not, let me see if I can calm down and rationally explain the root of my indignation.

First, let me start with the term “Indochic.” It’s a play off of the term “Indochina,” a strongly European word describing the region between India and China. The term became prevalently used in the 19th century and eventually referred strictly to the French colony of what is now Vietnam.

The French called its colony in the region “Indochine” so already Target has managed to make a playful pun, and a French pun at that by combining the French term “chic” with the prefix “Indo.” It’s Indo-great! Indo-cool!

Now, let me rant about the idea of “French-Vietnamese fusion.” The mix of French and Asian style occurred when the French colonized this region. I am no expert on French colonization in Asia, so I can’t address this in depth. But let me offer a few ideas.

Any fusion between the French and the Vietnamese was not voluntary. So should we celebrate it?

Is a pun like “Indochic” okay because the reference dates to the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth century? Is it a forgotten pain? Can it be compared to referring as certain styles as “urban” as opposed to African-American? Would people feel differently about this type of style if the ad featured an Asian woman and a French man?

What I also find interesting about the concept of Indochic, French-Vietnamese fusion connects to my interest in miscegenation. The French developed strict plans for breeding between the civilized French man and the indigenous woman. In French Indochina, French men in the colony were encouraged to make local women their concubines specifically to purify and civilize by producing children with Frenchness.

But remember, the women in these unions would come from poverty by French standards and would be servants or laundresses to their colonial master before they caught his eye. Young native women and older French men, the women unable to say no because of the power exchange.

In colonialism, native cultures lose their land and their resources to the more powerful nation. Their men lose the chance to earn their own living. People who had independent lives become dependent on a foreign system. Tradesmen become servants. Women become housekeepers and sex objects. Native traditions and languages bend, twist and often break or are forced broken by the more powerful, dominant presence.

So when we advertise a sophisticated, elegant French-Vietnamese fusion and give it a cutesy name, we are perpetuating the idea that the cultures on the peninsula between India and China did not have anything to contribute to the world before the French came along and subjugated them.

It’s not Indochic. It’s not cool. It’s contemporary Orientalism.

If anything it’s Asian-influenced French design. Influenced. Because fusion implies an intentional attempt to blend two strong styles.