The Lockout

I have a bag of Crystal Sugar powdered sugar in my cabinet as we speak. I need it for icing a king cake more than anything else. Who knows, my granulated sugar may also be Crystal Sugar, but I don't have the original bag it was in. Anyway, to be honest, when I buy my sugar, I usually just buy the cheapest one.

In some ways, you'd think I would care a lot about sugar. After all, a ton of it is produced and refined in Thibodaux, and the American Sugar Cane League is based in Thibodaux. I grew up with the smell of bagasse as one of the primary smells I associate with home along with magnolias, burning sugar cane, and some blooming flower (the name of which I actually still don't know, but I associate it with caterpillars).... Oftentimes I just don't see Domino sugar or Dixie Crystals in the store, and I don't end up supporting my home state because I'm not going out to support it by finding it elsewhere.

So, I'm thinking about sugar today because of the news on the current lockout at American Crystal Sugar in North Dakota, which has been earning record profits and yet, claims it can't pay its employees more. Ridiculous. And the government allows them to hire replacement workers as long as the lockout isn't for "unfair labor practices," which seems like arbitrary terminology to me since whether you can prove it or not, a lockout usually has something to do with labor unions and the company refusing to bargain with the union despite the rhetoric the company uses saying that they are indeed trying to bargain.

In the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign ramping up and the amazing disconnect between words and actions that town hall meetings and debates display rampantly combined with the lack of any real connection between these candidates' supposed values and real decisions, it is interesting to me that the more comfortable we are as a nation residing in a constant state of false meaning, the more we see it deployed in the service of the greedy and the privileged. And sadly, the more we see those people getting away with it.

"compared to New York, this isn't even a city"

I enjoyed this :

I totally forgot about mumbo sauce!  I used to get it at Cluck U Chicken, but I haven't been there in forever...and in fact, all of the locations of Cluck U that I knew are no longer in those places.  What happened?

And that reminds me, as much as people think DC is southern, one thing that indicates it most definitely is not is the lack of decent fried chicken in this town.  Seriously, the one place that had awesome fried chicken was Reeves Restaurant and Bakery where you could get the best fried chicken, mac and cheese, green beans, and strawberry shortcake.  Where can you get that anywhere in this town now?  The Hitching Post?  Maybe, but it's nothing like Reeves.  That makes me so sad.

The New Jim Crow?

I'm a little late to the party here, but I recently heard a repeated episode of a show that originally aired last year with Michelle Alexander talking about her then-new book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  Michelle Alexander's ideas engage me and make me think about things either more deeply or differently, so I am very interested in this book.  She has appeared on CNN and MSNBC and other news shows frequently addressing issues in a way that I think challenges the status quo while offering reasonable ways of addressing systemic injustice.  I'm also interested because I am inclined to believe that institutional racism is ubiquitous, and I do see that mass incarceration is one way in which white privilege operates in our society, so I'd like to learn more about how that works in detail.

Even as I write these statements, I realize that for many people, using language like "institutional racism" and "white privilege" is taboo and/or seems extreme.  I am always thinking of how powerful rhetoric is in school, but I often also wonder how this affects our most intimate conversations and how it threatens our ability to talk candidly about important issues, like mass incarceration and contemporary racism, precisely because we don't have adequate words to share our views without them being enveloped in the politics that is ingrained in language. 

The book is ranked #275 in the Amazon bestsellers list, which certainly indicates it is being read by loads of people.  However, it does make me wonder how many people come to this book to explore a new way of understanding the social dynamics of American society and how many come to be confirmed in the ideas that they bring in favor of or against this study.  Before reading it, this book already has me thinking a lot from the title alone!  I look forward to adding this to my post-graduation May 2012 reading list.

I'm Back!

I haven't been blogging because I've been on vacation, and now I'm back.  Ready for 2012 and happy that 2011 is finito.  Good riddens!  I was so tightly wound by the end of last semester that I thought I might spontaneously combust on the long flight overseas.  Luckily, that didn't happen, and I came back relaxed, rejuvenated, and ready for real life again.

Today is MLK Jr. Day, and it seems like an appropriate day to rekindle my connection with people through the written word.  I wasn't able to participate in a service opportunity today, but I'm pleased that I have been able to make time for a short (um, VERY short) jog, yoga, and reconnecting with several friends that I haven't seen in over a month...if not longer.  Self-care and community were important values to Dr. King, and I've been keeping his words with me in all I'm doing today.   In a sermon from 1967, Dr. King talked about the "Three Dimensions of a Complete Life":  

And there are three dimensions of any complete life to which we can fitly give the words of this text: length, breadth, and height.  Now the length of life as we shall use it here is the inward concern for one's own welfare.  In other words, it is that inward concern that causes one to push forward, to achieve his own goals and ambitions.  The breadth of life as we shall use it here is the outward concern for the welfare of others.  And the height of life is the upward reach for God.  Now you got to have all three of these to have a complete life.

Completeness is increasingly hard in our schizophrenic world that values multi-tasking more than disciplined concentration and singular focus.  That's certainly not news.  But one thing I think sets Dr. King apart from a singular agenda of nonviolent social change is his consistent attention to pro-people ethics that drive his radical call for change.  I continue to think about what it means to truly be pro-people when it is all too easy--and encouraged and rewarded--to be more goal-oriented than people-oriented, as just one example.

The spring semester starts tomorrow, and I'll be thinking about this as I delve into the depths of abstract critical theory and struggle to come out of it sometimes.