Aug

15

I’m Back…Sorta Kinda!

Filed Under Baby Blogging, Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Family Issues | 9 Comments

Over the past 2 months I’ve been inundated with baby care. My life has revolved mainly around feeding and diapering 2 little ones, so needless to say I haven’t had much time to blog, but I promise I haven’t given up blogging. I haven’t checked my email or my site, so if you wrote me, I’m just now getting it.

A few weeks after the little guys were born I pledged that I would get back to blogging when they started sleeping through the night–that hasn’t happened yet. But I figure I can put up a couple posts a week until they actually sleep more than 3 hours at a time.

In the meanwhile, here are a few pictures from their first week. The first picture is of Eli in the hospital. We spiked his hair. I think it helps to get a perspective of how big/small they where when you look at them next to their Daddy’s hands. Like most babies, they lost weight in the first few days of life, but what’s more amazing is how much they have grown since then. In this picture, Eli weighed around 7 lbs, and in the picture at the bottom Mark weighs a little less than 6lbs. They were really big for twins, and I admittedly was really happy when I looked at them in the nursery and they didn’t look any different from the singleton babies. That was a great relief for me, because, being a mom of twins, I was at a greater risk for pregnancy related complications, which lingered in the back of my mind throughout the whole pregnancy. I was very fortunate to give birth at 38 weeks and have two big boys. I’ll add more recent pictures over the next few weeks.

And finally, Daddy, Babies, and Mommy want to thank everyone for their well wishes.s-first-week-012.jpg

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Jun

18

They Are Here!!

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Family Issues | 58 Comments

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We welcomed our twins into the world last Friday via C-section. Eli arrived weighing 7lbs. 3oz., at 8:16 AM. He was 19 inches long. His Nigerian name is Emeka. Mark arrived weighing 6lbs. 5oz., at 8:18 AM. He was 18 inches long. His Nigerian name is Akholisa.

We made a video of their arrival. They may have broken the recorded for the loudest birth. The doctors and nurses were all laughing as were Dad and I. They screamed like this for the entire time it took to repair my my incision.

May

21

Babies Update

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Family Issues, Pregnancy and Childbirth | 5 Comments

Yes, my posting has been limited lately. I’m slowly getting prepared for the babies, and then we had some computer trouble last week, so needless to say I’ve been preoccupied with other things.

I’ve been really lucky because I haven’t had any major problems. I’ve also had a total of zero contractions, no high blood pressure, no diabetes, and no other common pregnancy problems. My doctor did suggest taking time off from work at 34 weeks. I think that is fairly standard with twins since twin pregnancies are generally more taxing on the body than singleton pregnancies. Fortunately, my semester ended right at that time, so I didn’t have to worry about going to my job. It was just the right time to stop because I really can’t be on my feet for more than 10-15 minutes without having back, hip, and buttock pain.

The babies are doing well. Since “discordance,” which is basically large differences in size or growth of multiples, is a potential problem I have to get them measured every 3 weeks. I get an ultrasound, and the neonatalogist and ultrasound tech measure their size, heart rate, amniotic fluid, and several other measures of health and growth. At 33 weeks and a half weeks, they weighed 5lbs. 1oz. each. I was happy to see that their sizes are the same because baby A was getting ahead of baby B, but B finally caught up. At this rate, I may have two 7lb. babies. That’s not big for a single baby, but it’s pretty big for twins–I just keeping thinking, “My body will likely be carrying 14lbs. of baby.” The seem to be dropping, and right now they have their heads down, so I may be able to push both of them out without a C-section.

Unless they want to come sooner, I’ll probably be delivering them at 38 weeks.

Apr

15

While the Rachel’s Away The Feminist…

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology | 3 Comments

blogosphere will blow up, as usual.

Apparently, brownfemipower has taken down her site.? I have read a few takes on the situation, but I don’t really have the energy to catch up on all of the posts.? It appears to have started with an Amanda Marcotte post, which seems to reiterate several of BFP’s ideas, but doesn’t reference her actual work.

Personally, I’d hate to see BFP go.? And since I know she actually reads this site ;) , I’d like to give her a shout out: I really respect your work and the tremendous leadership you have shown in bringing very diverse groups of people together.? I hope the time out is really short.? Besides that I’m selfish–I need something good to read after these babies are born.? Do you think I can tandem breastfeed two babies, while simultaneously blog reading?

Apr

2

I’m coming back…I promise

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology | 9 Comments

I’m going to get back to regular posting soon. I’ve been really tired and busy over the past couple weeks, so I’ve neglected posting. Between nesting, midterm grading, sleeping, and trying to catch my breath, I’ve been a little preoccupied. I definitely want to respond to the Obama race speech…just to tease everyone a little I think there were many problems with the speech, and I want to address some of them in a post.

In the mean time, let me know what I’ve missed in the blog world.

Feb

3

New Email

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology | 2 Comments

I’ve changed the email for Rachel’s Tavern, so if you need to contact me the new email is rachel1 at (you know where).com.? I’d put Rachel’s Tavern, but unfortunately, the spammers completely took over my inbox and I’m writing my email in code.? I was getting over 150 junk mails a day in my inbox–mostly crap about enlarging my penis (which of course I didn’t know I had : ) ), buying prescription drugs, and a bunch of gobbledygook written in what I think is a foreign language.

Unfortunately, I’ve also been missing a few legitimate emails in between all of the nonsense.? If you’ve emailed me within the past 4-5 months there’s a pretty good chance I missed the message.? It had gotten so bad I was dreading checking my inbox and spending 10 minutes sorting email.? Hopefully, this will help me reclaim my inbox for at least a year.

Dec

31

The Dangerous Necessity of Racial Self-Critique

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Race and Racism | 9 Comments

I was listening to V103 driving to work this morning, a popular music station here in Atlanta. There was a heated discussion going on. I’m not a fan of the DJ and local celebrity host Frank Ski, but in comparison with the guest, Frank Ski was a towering fountain of wisdom. His guest was dismissing Don Imus as irrelevant because “Imus was just repeating things heard at barber shops” and the Rutgers basketball team “weren’t the finest sisters around anyway”. The ignorance was astounding. I flipped the station just as he started talking about how going to protest in Jena was pointless. This is why I’d make a terrible professional commenter… I have limited time in my life to listen to garbage like that in order to criticize it.

In response, Frank Ski was making some good points about institutionalized racism, internalized racism and “slave mentality”. But I have to wonder… what was gained by granting his misogynist self-hating guest such a massive forum? Why do these interminable, repetitive conversations continue to fascinate so many people?

Recently, every time I hear similar criticism I think about the corresponding lack of reflexive self-criticism among white people, and wonder about its effect.

Minorities in America engage in massive amounts of self-criticism. Sometimes it’s valuable and useful, in fact vital, because it helps people move forward as individuals and in communities. Other times it’s damaging and wasteful. There’s a whole economy built up around self-criticism, particularly by African-Americans. Bill Cosby’s sold-out “what’s wrong with black people” tours come to mind. Among Asian-Americans, criticism often takes place between genders and also between generations. “FOB vs. Twinkie” comes to mind. Blame your parents, blame the men, blame the women, blame your children, blame yourself. Blaming white people is pretty far down the list for many people of color. Another example: I was reading a desi magazine called “Little India” which had an editorial called “Damn Cricket“. The next issue had a counterpoint called “Damn Those Who Damn Cricket“. Both articles seemed to accept the premise there was something fundamentally wrong with Indians that needed to be fixed. Even when self-critique is done at a very sophisticated level, it frequently ends up on a pessimistic note.

When someone tips over from self-criticism to self-hate, a responder feels the need to jump in. “We’re not that bad. We’re people with pride and strength and dignity…” Other responders are so wounded by the expression of self-hate that they overcompensate in defense, refuse to see ANY flaws and won’t be drawn into the most moderate, sensible self-critique. Back and forth should ideally be a dialectic moving us all forward. So often, it just turns into an endless seesaw. Hate of self-hate is still hate.

Some white people (e.g. Bill O’Reilly) tend to live in a bizarre mirror world where minorities “won’t take responsibility” and it’s white Christian males who are “under attack” in the “culture war”. But how many white men give sold-out lecture tours on the topic of What’s Wrong with White America? I wonder how much money Tim Wise makes in a year from his tours and books? I think sociological/anthropological critique on the academic level is often counted as “attack on the white man,” when in fact it’s undertaken from the viewpoint of an artificially ahistorical, decontextualized observer, and has nothing in common with the kind of self-critique I’m referring to.

Lack of reflexivity frees up a lot of mental space to focus on other things. There’s less anxiety. On the other hand, it may make the social thinking of white people simpler, less three-dimensional. I wonder if greater harmony in race relations will come when we are all LESS self-critical, or when we are all more self-critical, but in a balanced fashion? What do you think?

For the New Year, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to balance compassion and truthfulness. I won’t say anything worse than I already did about Frank Ski’s guest. The truth is that he hates women and he hates his own people… but I hope he eventually gains a better perspective on life.

Happy New Year!

Dec

16

Nice Guys, Feminism and Asian “Women”

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Race and Racism, Sexuality and Heterosexism | 75 Comments

I was reading up on the latest “Nice Guy” coverage over at Pandagon. It’s a short post but a good long discussion. For those of you who have never heard of the term, “Nice Guys” (not be confused with just plain no-caps nice guys) are men who complain that those crazy irrational women won’t have sex with them no matter how nicely they behave. This is because women with average-to-better sanity and intelligence levels would rather have sex with the rude sleazy guys who are honest about what they want instead of the conniving, hypocritical self-described “Nice Guy” who only pretends to be a friend.

The same Nice Guy craigslist rant got picked up by a woman who appears to be sympathetic to the argument. Then Sadly, No! picked it up and highlighted a really offensive comment following the post.

Women: Take note! Asian men treat Asian women like furniture, and Asian women look at American men like were gifts from summit of Mt. Fuji.

Hope you enjoy dating that two-timing, lying piece of human waste you call a boyfirend, because when the nice guys figure out how much Asian women LOVE US, you will be a long-forgotten memory.

I guess you women readers better start treating your man like the gift from summit of Mt. Fuji that he is .

All I really want to do with this post is angle the mirror to focus on another aspect of the invisible standard of whiteness… even though it’s an aspect most readers here are very well aware of already.

Backing up a little bit, I’ll have to say I usually don’t write about my own feminism or get involved in debates over feminism. I do consider myself a feminist, I just don’t have a burning passion to explore or discuss my position. I was raised by an old-school feminist, I’ve briefly studied French feminism and women of color feminism and I would have described myself as “sex-positive” until I actually worked a job at the margins of the sex industry. And that’s pretty much it. My feminism very much informs how I think and act, but I rarely consider it reflexively. I do enjoy reading the views of people who are more passionate about it in that way.

On the level of lived experience, it’s hard to think of a time when I thought of myself as “just a girl” or “just a woman”. I was racialized. I was always an “Asian girl” or an “Asian woman”.

And getting back to the comment, that very first whiny word — “Women:”– shows how that racialization works. “Women” are not Asian. “Asian women” are not women. “Women” are white. And “Asian men” are not “US”. In this context, that’s sort of a good thing.

It seems easy to dismiss Mr. Mt. Fuji. Aside from being a Reformed Nice Guy he’s also a capital L Loser and a capital M Moron. But his attitude is just the concentrated version of one shared by a frightening number of people.

Dec

14

SPLC Intelligence Report Winter Highlights

Filed Under Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Race and Racism, Racism Round-Up, Xenophobia and Immigration | 1 Comment

For great investigative journalism into organized racist groups, it’s hard to beat the SPLC Intelligence Report.

Here are my highlights of this quarter’s issue:

1) The Teflon Nativists: FAIR Marked by Ties to White Supremacy. Finally, someone put together all the evidence showing the racist scum at “FAIR” for what they truly are. FAIR are now officially listed as a hate group. Their good buddy Lou Dobbs is fuming, of course.

I have a lot of faith in the impartiality of the SPLC publications. While the vast majority of their coverage is dedicated to white supremacists, they cover other groups in quite generous proportion to their numbers and influence. Some examples are Nation of Yahweh, JDL, La Voz de Aztlan.

Groups like FAIR serve as the normalizing conduit between explicit and implicit white supremacist ideology. Dragging them out of their shadowy gray zone forces people to examine their hatred and take a stand one way or the other.

2) Bad Blood: Attack Illuminates Skinhead Underworld. A custody battle turns ugly and a woman has her throat cut. There’s not a lot of social or legal implication here, just a gripping true crime story.

3) Execution Video Surfaces in Russia. Whoah. A different and very nasty flavor of racist anti-immigration extremism.

4) Behind the Noose. A short editorial about the rising tide of white resentment. The ending left me a bit cold, though. How do we move forward? Ignoring the issue and playing nice are obviously wrong tactics, but what are some of the right ones?

5) Odin Shows Up at Nebraska Beer Bash. On a lighter note.

If you donate to the SPLC, you should receive a paper copy of this publication every quarter.

Dec

13

Rachel’s Tavern is Number One…

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Duke Rape, Gender and Sexism, Interracial Relationships, Race and Racism, Sexuality and Heterosexism | 12 Comments

if you search AOL for “white women who crave the mandingo men.”

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