Honey, you belong in the kitchen with a baby on your hip....

I will not allow double standards, stereotypes, or backward thinking exist in my world any longer. I am sick and tired of being seen as an incapable female. To any man or woman out there who believes women should be mothers and daughters and allow the Patriarchy to rule the world...THE TIME WHEN THAT EXISTED IS OVER...GET OVER IT! I am a woman and I am just as capable as any man. I am sorry for who this might offend, but I can't stand the thought that women are only equal to men part of the time. My Mother and Sister just finished explaining to me how a woman could not be president due to the fact that they are "emotionally unstable" What are they saying? How can they say that? So I am less than a man and can not ever be president, a CEO, a international leader...I will always be subordinate and ruled over by men because women were made different and think with their hearts? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I will not be defined by the fact that I am able to bear children...that fact doesn't change my intelligence, level of stability, logical or critical thinking ability or incapacitate me as a human being. It drives me insane that in the world of today...under my roof...there are intelligent women who are okay with saying they deserve less pay...deserve less respect. HOW?.....I can't go on....I better stop now...PLEASE....Look around and Listen to reason, Women are Equal and not just on paper, I am not less stable than a man, I have the ability to lead, live and think at the same level as any man! Understand, I am not man bashing...I am simply stating that there are several successful woman that lead countries such as The president of Finland, Bhutto from Pakistan, Madeline Albright, Janet Reno, Margaret Thatcher....and many more...they served their countries as well as any man. Women and Men share the same abilities one is not the stronger sex. Men and Women are different nature vs. nurture...but the differences are not so big that it should serve to force a label of "emotionally unstable."

Inspiration in Waite

One day you wake up and realize this might be your last....that in the blink of an eye you could cease to exist...or that 5, 10, 15 years of your life can be taken away from you, all for the good of a cause...an ideology. Ideology is a righteous thing...when founded in natural virtue, human rights, life and liberty, but it is a bloody wicked force when in the hands of extremists. For Terry Waite his life became a symbol for a body of people ruled by ideology, religio-political extremist ideology. Mr. Waite's inspiration was not in his words truly, because words can be practiced, theaterized and subterfuged. His inspiration was in his person. He stood before us as a man surviving 5 years of death for many years of affirming life. In some ways Mr. Waite is the Responsible self that Niebuhr speaks of....He is a Relativiser and affirmer of life. I hope someday, I have the pleasure to say, I've lived up to my responsibility as a human being. That I have turned a philosophy of death into a philosophy of life.

Stereotypes

My blood boils when I hear stereotypes. One of the most stereotyped groups in American history is the Native Americans. First of all not all Native Americans wear feathers, hunt bison, or collect scalps. They don't all live on dusty plains or ride horses. Please this is the year 2007, lets try living in the modern world. Certain groups such as the Iroquois a league of 7 different tribes had a complex system of government and social structure with laws, a written language of wampum belts and elevated matriarchs. Some Native American groups were and are lead almost entirely by women such as the Navajo. The first mistake people most often make is that we they refer to Native Americans as if they are one universal group, tribes of Native Americans are as distinct and different as The US is from Papua New Guinea. In California alone their were several hundred tribes with that many different languages.

The "Bad Indian" image of scalps, war bonnets, and kidnapping white women and children is as equally dehumanizing as the "Good Indian" image of a child of nature which is just a romanticized story much like the idea of an Uncle Tom . Simply put, Native Americans are people the same as any other group of ethnicity or race, they are not entirely blameless or savage. To stereotype a people is to deny their humanity. Each time a people or person is denied humanity, we deny and kill their culture, unique, faults, successes and purpose of life. America speaks of Native Americans like a people of the past, a picturesque quantifiable historic record. There are more Native American remains in storage in the Smithsonian than their are living Native American people. How can we explain this away? We name sports teams the Redskins, the Braves, the Indians. We act as though its all in fun and games...yet calling a Native American a Redman or Redskin is the same as throwing out a racial slur. How dare Americans continue injustices of the past by labeling and stereotyping living people. We remember the Japanese internment, we remember the Holocaust, but we choose to forget the Trail of tears.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Find out what it means to me....Respect means looking into the eyes of another person and seeing more than the clothes they are wearing, their net worth, skin color, weight, but looking deep for qualities that are inherently good. It means realizing that every living thing deserves respect, because it lives. It means recognizing that we are only human due to the humanness of others, ubuntu. In a world filled with rudeness, intolerance, hatred and disgust there are three people that I respect because they recognize humanity. My Mother, My Father and My Grandfather. They aren't rich, they don't have their names written in the newspaper or own expensive properties they work their hands to the bone. My Grandfather is the backbone of the family body, My Father the arms and My Mother the heart.