Snapshot Chronicles

Susan Getgood's personal blog

The December 2013 Bigot Olympics

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Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder, we have the December 2013 Bigot Olympics.

Granted, there were other notable examples of racism, sexism and homophobia in the news over the year, not the least of which was the verdict in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

But December was truly the lightning round, with three stupendous examples of bigotry for our consideration:

  • “Reporters” at Faux News debate Santa’s race, positing that, despite evidence to the contrary, Santa must be a white dude;
  • A minor celebrity from an odd (and oddly successful) reality show about a family business, in which many of the adult males resemble ZZ Top (but without the humor, and quite possibly, talent), goes on the record with his racism and homophobia;
  • A PR professional tweets a racist comment just prior to boarding a long flight to South Africa, setting off a Twitter-storm of reaction, immediate response from her employer and ultimately, termination of her employment.

Hard to pick a “winner” here. At first glance, it would seem the PR person and her clueless use of Twitter is the hands-down choice. Racist, check. Cultural ignorance, check. Professional suicide, check. Now perhaps the effects on her career are short term, as Peter Shankman argues on Facebook but still…

But I have to give Justine Sacco the Bronze Medal. Yes, from all the evidence, she is racist, but the thing thing about racism or any prejudice? Bigots don’t know they *are* racist or homophobic or sexist or xenophobic. If they understood it, they wouldn’t say and do the stupid, awful, damaging things they do. Apart from sociopaths, most folks, if we know it is wrong, we don’t do it.

That’s what makes the whole damn thing so sad and dangerous, and how people can say with a straight face, “But some of my best friends are _______,” and not understand how pathetic and wrong they are.

Sad that we (collectively) have to point it out to her, but I am holding out hope for Justine now that her own racism has been outed in such a BIG way. Third Place.

Next up, Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty. Racist and homophobic though he may be, and irritated as I am that he has a platform to spread his views, I also have to admit to not being terribly surprised that he has these opinions. Perhaps that is my prejudice showing, but so be it. Phil edges Justine in my rankings  because I just don’t see him apologizing or retracting. Ever. In fact, he seems to be wearing his bigotry with pride.

It was funny when it was Archie Bunker, a fictional character whose purpose was to shine the light on prejudice. Not so much 30 years later. The good news is that sooner or later Phil and his family, and their influence, will fade like the echo of a duck call, so the long term damage of his hateful speech is minimal. He just won’t be relevant. For many of us, he is already irrelevant, and his only purpose is a good excuse to engage in the conversation about equality. [Side Note: For those that disagree with my assessment of Phil, please understand that I am simply exercising my right to free speech. Consequences included.]

That’s why the “top” place has to go to Fox News and its coverage of the holiday season — the “War on Christmas“(since 2004!) and NEW! this year,  the debate on Santa’s race. As a (sadly) leading “news” network, it has a long-term influence that it continues to abuse with faux stories like these. Here are two clips from The Daily Show,  the original Daily Show piece on Megyn Kelly’s “Santa is White” piece and the following week’s “explanation” by Kelly:

 

Pretty funny. Except not.

While there are many of us who disagree, Fox News is considered a legitimate news organization. Its militant bible thumping and rampant racism legitimize a cultural norm that accepts racism and elitism, and contribute to an environment in which people think it’s okay to gay bash and jurors can acquit a white dude for murdering a black teen without provocation.

So, forget about December 2013. Fox News probably belongs in the Bigot’s Hall of Shame.

What can you do? Well for immediate relief, watch Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Rachel Maddow.

Live equality. Show the people around you, and especially your kids, that equality isn’t just a belief,  it’s a fundamental part of your soul.  

Speak up. Keep talking about prejudice. It’s not  an easy conversation, whether you are talking with a friend or loved one, or simply doing some soul searching. If you don’t face your own biases, you can’t overcome them. Remember the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller: 

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Peace and love to everyone.

And to all a good night.

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Monster headphones deliver Monster sound (and cut out commuting noise!)

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Three days a week I commute 90 minutes each way into Manhattan. Most mornings, the train is fairly quiet; there is an unwritten weekday commuter rule (suspended on weekends!) that noise and conversation should be kept to a minimum. So most mornings I work or read or sleep. From time to time though I end up in a car with a couple of folks that just have to have a conversation. All the way. Nonstop.

Those are the days I resort to my iPhone and Pandora for enough peace to concentrate. I used to use the earbuds that came with my phone even they don’t really cut out the noise very well. I just didn’t want to cart around a set of bulky headphones on top of all the stuff I carry back and forth every night – iPad, laptop, shoes and so on, and smaller headphones generally didn’t seem much better than the earbuds.

So I was delighted when BlogHer and Monster asked if I would like to try the N-Tune noise isolating headphones.

photo

Things I love:

  • Great sound quality for my music and they keep out most of the annoying conversations I am trying to block.
  • Very comfortable, avoids the “itchy ear” syndrome that sometimes comes from using earbuds for an extended period of time.
  • Small form factor, plus they come with a little carry bag to protect them in my bag.
  • Tangle free cord.

I also asked my 13 year old son and my brother, both of whom also use headsets regularly, what they thought. My son, who primarily uses a headset for gaming and Skype calls with other gamers reported that the sound quality was good, but he prefers a wireless headset that completely surrounds the ears. Better to totally block me out when I speak to him I suppose. My brother also liked the sound quality for listening to music but wasn’t crazy about the microphone for making phone calls.  I received a call on the train the other morning while listening to my tunes, and I thought the quality was fine.

Net — if listening to music or watching videos is your primary use for a headset, the Monster N-Tune is good choice. I probably won’t replace my earbuds for phone calls, especially when walking down the street in Manhattan 🙂 but these candy apple red beauties will definitely get a spot in my commuting bag. And if candy apple red isn’t your color, there are 4 other choices – green, purple, blue and orange. The N-Tune would also make a great holiday gift for the music-lover in your life.

Want to try them out for yourself?  For a chance to win your very own pair of N-Tune headphones (valued at $150), read all about them here and let me know in the comments which color you prefer. The comments on this post will be aggregated with the comments on the posts from the other bloggers participating in this review, and 25 pairs will be given away.

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

  1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
  2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
  3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
  4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. BlogHer will pool entries from participating blogs and select a sweepstakes winner at random and will contact the winner with details about fulfilling the prize. The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 10/2/13 – 11/1/13.

Learn to Ride – More lessons than I expected

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I was a guest of Harley-Davidson at an immersion event in Milwaukee last summer in conjunction with my job at BlogHer. As part of that experience the company offered the participants a certificate for a free Rider’s Edge class at a Harley dealer.

This weekend I took the range portion of the Harley-Davidson Rider’s Edge Learn to Ride program.

I washed out. Early on the first day. And learned a little more about myself in the process.

Feeling like a failure sucks. Especially if you are (as I am) somewhat of a perfectionist. Although age and parenting have cured me of the worst of those tendencies, I really like to get it right. But note that I said feeling like a failure. Even for the little while during which I FELT bad, I knew that I had done the right thing. It wasn’t the day I was going to learn to ride. I pulled out before the instructor had to tap me out and kept myself and the other students safe. That’s success of a different kind.

So, I am going to finish out the written part of the class, so that if I do decide to try again, I only have to take the range portion of the class. I’m also going to take the instructor’s advice on prepping myself for the class.

My biggest hurdle was speed and control. Just like when I learned to ski 20 years ago. I’m tentative, and that leads to a tendency to look down not forward. As well as overthinking and getting caught up in the number of things to do, as opposed to just doing them. I have to overcome a lifetime of muscle memories and create some new ones. I learned to ski, and I CAN do this if I want to. But I have to prepare better before I try to take the range course again.

Because, and no fault of the instructor, the dealership or Harley-Davidson, the Learn to Ride course (at least in Connecticut) isn’t simply about learning to ride. It’s really about learning the skills necessary to pass the range test for the motorcycle endorsement. In Connecticut you have to take a class; you can’t just go to the DMV with your bike to do the riding test. As a result, some of the students are already experienced riders simply there to do the time, perhaps improve their skills and pass the range test.

Now I am not daft and do realize that passing the range test should be the goal for all the students. I also get that the rapid fire pace of the course has a purpose, in that in order to pass the range test you have to be able to do the skills smoothly, quickly and almost automatically. There’s not a lot of time for pondering when faced with a road hazard or traffic situation. So the instructor HAS to weed out the folks who aren’t ready.

But mixing raw beginners with experienced riders creates a different head space for the newbies. It also contributed to the performance anxiety that a perfectionist like me often has in such situations. I think that was affecting me from the very beginning of the day, and just compounded every time I had  a little difficulty with something. Let’s be clear: It is MY problem, not the other riders, not the instructor, not the course designers. What goes on between my ears is for me to work on.

But as performance anxiety goes, every little failure compounds until you can’t do even the simplest things that you were able to do at the start of the day. You can’t build skill because you just. can’t. do. anything.

When I realized I was at that point, I stopped.

I also wasn’t having fun. It wasn’t the exhilarating feeling I remembered from the short intro lesson we had during the 3 day immersion event last summer at Harley headquarters in Milwaukee.

I thought a little last night about what made that experience so much fun. Of course, there isn’t really a comparison between a short intro lesson that is part of a larger experience and a full-on class, but the camaraderie of the group of women that had been together for 2 days was part of it. The student: teacher ratio was 4:2, which definitely made a difference, and we weren’t necessarily working to goal. The instructor’s job was to give us a taste, not teach us a life skill.

That sort of camaraderie isn’t going to happen at a weekend class with people of disparate backgrounds who are going home at night, not hanging out at group dinners and baseball games. Even before we arrived in Milwaukee, the group had the commonality of all being bloggers, and some of us already knew each other through our participation with BlogHer.

Harley Women at Baseball
Photo courtesy @sugarjones

 

Reality: that generous student teacher ratio isn’t realistic. And, hullo, if you are taking a class, there is a goal.

However, I do think I might do better in a women-only class. Ideally if it were women 30+ (even 40+) who have a similar lifetime of memories (muscle and otherwise) that we have to get out of the way.

But that’s not all I need to do if I want to succeed at learning to ride.Because the course isn’t going to change. It is still going to be about developing the skills necessary to pass the range test.

So, really, I need to learn to ride before I go next time. Not a motorcycle, but I have to get past my mental speed bump and feel more comfortable on a motorized bicycle. If I can’t do that, I will be wasting everyone’s time.

Chatting with both the instructor and my brother (who used to ride until a hand injury made it difficult), I’ve got a strategy. First, I need to get out on my bicycle and do some fast riding. The practice balancing and operating multiple controls simultaneously will also help get my head around what I need to do on the bike. Once I have that nailed, we are going to rent some mopeds and do a little practice on those, getting even further up to speed. I gotta get out of first gear.

Then I just might be ready to ride.

It’s also a distinct possibility that I will be just as happy tooling around town on a scooter, and experiencing the pleasures of long-distances while riding from the comfort of my VW Beetle convertible.

Whatever I decide, however I end up in this journey, it will be the right decision for me.

That’s what success looks like.

PS: My new boots (which I LOVE and will get a ton of use from, riding or not): http://instagram.com/p/dFztHRAHH-/