Islamiphobia, miss-directed anger and the borders that need closing.

The following is a collection of more or less collected thoughts

I am deeply disturbed that the Tories perceive that an islamaphobic attack on Sadiq Khan is a winning strategy in London. In the London I know it will back fire. But there are many Londons.

The strategy seems to have even unified Boris and Cameron.

It is a politics of fear and we deserve a politics of hope.

Whizzing round my twitter feed is the question #whereisthetaxzac?

Creeping into my Facebook page from a number of unexpected corners is 'close the borders'!

Lets pause for a moment of reflection on the monarchs 90th Birthday.

Which group of people by their actions restrict your access to resources, increase and guard their own, drive up the house prices where you live so you are forced to move, contribute little and take much? hand that wealth down to their children who they keep separate and away from everyone else, who do not integrate, don't ride the bus or use local schools? you get where I am going right?

It's cliche but when you point the finger there are four pointing right back at you. Not only have many Tory MP's including Zac Goldsmith shared a platform with the Imam Khan is meant to be ashamed to associate with but a succession of British politicians and our dear monarchy have some very worrying relationships with the powers in Saudi Arabia. 

The problem is not where the fingers point but where they eyes look. Upper class white man points we dutifully follow the finger. Anyone who is not a ruling white man pointing at a ruling white man and our eyes follow the 4 fingers pointing backwards.

Vote Sadiq Khan because London deserves a politics of Hope. We are losing our homes, our schools are being taken away from our local control, our communities are being torn apart and our city will end up desolate and absolutely NOT because of the 'them' we our so afraid of but because of the them who have lived among us for millenia.

I was out canvasing once and we knocked on a woman's door she lived in a house at the edge of a council estate opposite her were some very posh islington houses at a guess 5 - 7 big bedrooms. She assured us she was a life long labour supporter. She was very angry that her daughter could not get a house in islington. the direction of her anger - the woman living next door recently arrived in the country with her children all sleeping 9 to a room. Lift your eyes over the road- there is your reason islington residents can't get islington houses, there are the people who have fundamentally changed the nature of islington and there are the people with spare rooms.

Yes the people over the road may use language in a way that is similar to you, and cook food that you can name and recognize but you sit down at the table with each of these neighbours and you will find you have more common concern with the one next door than the one over the road. That is why the media spend so much time telling you to hate your neighbor, because by the way the media is owned by the people over the road as well. Though they don't want you in there house, they are just trying to make sure you don't notice that they took it from the common good for their personal gain.

My grandparents met in a chaple where they went to worship in their native language, my children are now 4th generation Londoners. That language and culture have in the past been silenced and attacked by the policies and legislation of English governments. (The language is welsh). But London being London provided a community and home. The chaple where they met is now an Ethiopian Chaple. That is my London, that's the london I want to live in.

The Queen who I understand to be very popular is the head of state for 16 different countries (and thats not counting the gaelic nations separately). So before we shout shut our borders can we just consider our historic respect, or lack thereof, of borders?

There are however some borders I would suggest we shut down. Shut down the borders to Non-Dom's if they don't live here they don't live here. Shut the borders to offshore accounts. Shut down Islamophobia, Misogyny, racism. Shut down Capitalism (okay now I've lost half of you!)

Salaam Shalom Peace Heddwch

Weeping Clouds

Only weeping clouds create rainbows and they share them with us all.

The first half of this revelation came to me a month or so ago. As I pondered those I loved who experienced depression. You cannot open yourself up to loving this world deeply without opening yourself up to great sorrow and yet we pathologise, blame and marginalise those who's emotions are in align with the reality of the pain of life.

The last few days I've been thinking about those weeping clouds sharing those rainbows. 

For the majority of my life I have deeply cared about people who were blue. I have learnt and benefited so much from them. What you gain from living closely to people who live in colder emotional climates is hard to pin down. But recently I have started to realize how deep my debt is to them. Like any diversity issue we all stand to gain by a more inclusive culture.

I am humbled by their courage to get up each day and face the world. It teaches me about the strength of human character resolve and will. I have never done anything close to approaching that much overcoming. I give up at the first hurdle and take one of the many other options available to the privileged emotionally typical.

I am grounded by their different energies. The slowness of movement, thought and communication forces me to slow down to consider more deeply what I'm saying to reach out further and therefore to reach deeper into myself, my motives, it causes me to pause, to reflect.

The turmoil of anxiety sharpens me stops me running away from things I've thrown aside as unimportant, skiped over neglected.

The fear of social engagement checks the frivolous interactions I have with people without the care and thought due in the sacred moment of engaging with another human being.

So from a constantly energetic, self-assured, extrovert to those who have been told their emotions are invalid.

Thank you. 

I have no desire for your suffering but don't for a moment think you don't contribute huge amounts to those around you. You do.

My tuppence on intersectionality

Don't bother reading this blog read this and definitely this oh and this oh and this is about why Christianity needs to be intersectional.

I just have two things to say about intersectionality, which I can't spell and to a certain degree don't understand.

1.) I am so grateful for the concept of intersectionality because as a privately educated, white, middle class oxbridge educated woman, who has never experienced violence at the hands of a man I have to honestly say that a lot of times the sort oppression I read about in feminist literature I have no experience of. I am still passionate about feminism. Intersectionality gives me the ability to say - yes I experience oppression as a woman - but I also experience huge levels of privilege, unfair privilege. I don't want to spread my privalege I want to understand how to give it up. How do I change the way I live so that the accident of my birth is no longer oppressive to others. I cannot look to people like me to give me answers.

I'm currently reading 'In Search of Our Mothers Gardens' by Alice Walker. I picked it up at a second hand bookshop cause it looked interesting not because I felt the need to read it (my privilege). What I didn't expect was to find it so emotional a read or so revolutionary. I expected it to be well written and interesting. I didn't expect it to explain to me what it means to be white. The truth is I don't think a white woman could write a book about what it means to be white. Privilege is blind (or often chooses to be). We must not reject criticism of those with less privilege we desperately need to seek it out if we our to find true humanity.

2.) It is nonsense to say that only 'academic' people can understand intersectionality. We all come acros new words all the time. First time I read it I hadn't heard it so I looked it up witch does not take an MA in gender studies. 

I ran a participative workshop recently with some of the most marginalised women in the country. I wanted to explore intersectionality with them as I wanted their perspective - they got it 100% and taught me loads and loads. The workshop wasn't really about explaining intersectionality of oppressions - they understood that in a way no MA or doctorate could ever teach. What it did do was give the problem a name and last time I checked that was a big part of what feminism was about - naming things. 

We mustn't shy away from new words, we should be the ones creating them. 

The Dyslexic Parent

I always used to pause when filling in job applications at that bit that asks if you have any disabilitys that affect daily life.

Do I? I'd wander - some days, but others not. Is it really suvear enough, what if I'm just making it up. Will they look at my cv see I went to uni and think I'm therefore exaggerating or making it up. Will they think it just means I can't spell?

I'm never going to hesitate again. Not since becoming a parent.

I didn't read many parenting books but of the bits I did read none of them mentioned any particular difficulties you might experience as a dyslexic parent and there's not a lot of stuff out there on dyslexia websites either, though when I posted a question in a forum it seems I am far from alone in my particular struggles.

Through life I have managed to develop coping mechanisms, these are utterly inadequate for organising 2 lives. I forget stuff and people say 'don't worry its just baby brain' I think 'you have no idea'. Before my daughter was born getting out the house having remembered my phone, keys, wallet, diary and bus pass without leaving windows open and the door unlocked was a major achievement as was getting through a week without forgetting something in the oven. 

Organising 2 lives is nigh impossible. I'm not sure I've once left the house without forgetting something. I'm finding it incredibly stressful. But we get through somehow and are very good at learning to improvise when we forget clean nappies, spare clothes, a drink etc. She hardly notices now (though I try to hide it from other parents cause I feel so incompetent) but I'm getting nervous about getting to school in a few years time without something significant.

Then people say have you thought about schools? And I think in my head - yes I have little panic attacks about it every time anyone mentions it. Then I have to remind myself that she's not me, she might love primary school, she might be able to spell. Then I feel a bit sad cause secretly I kind of hope she is because on good day's I'm chuffed to bits I'm dyslexic. Then I think actually I really don't want her to go through what I did. Then I worry cause she's 21 months and still can't walk and only just to crawl. 

So at the moment I am deffinately dyslexic and it deffinately affects my day to day life - and my daughters. Which lead me to do a bit of reading up and I have become absolutely appalled at reading that girls are just as likely to be dyslexic but 3 times less likely to receive support. 

I experientially know why this is. My mum was constantly told not to worry cause I was behaving well. The way we gender our children is clearly going to mean girls who are struggling at school won't have the same assertiveness and are likely to be overlooked because they are being 'well behaved' while boys who've had 'naughty' and 'trouble' written across them since they where born and who have been trained to have no weaknesses are going to kick up and 'behave badly' and are more likely to get help. 

I imagine also that girls will have extra incentive to keep quiet and head down because they will get extra told off about messy writing and not being tidy. 

 I cannot explain how angry I am about this.  

   

Ladies (yuk, cringe)

I can't believe I forgot this one on my post about words I don't like maybe because I get told I'm ridiculous every time I gently question its usage. I got an email today informing me that an event I was enquiring about was for ladies only. I cringed. 


So I'm really sorry if this offends anyone (actually I know it will so I want you to know that I do this because I believe it brings greater liberation to women - and transformation is painful) but I have to spell some things out because I am offended by the word Ladies and so are many other's and if the church wants to be an inclusive and welcoming place it needs to drop this language. 


I have no empirical data for this but I feel that there is sometimes an extra over-usage of this word in Christian literature/ events that are about women's equal ability to lead in church. I wonder if its one of the manifestations of our insecurities? We have to continually refer to ourselves as ladies just to make sure everyone's clear that we're still all floral and feminine as we step up into the full humanity Christ offers us. 


I'm assuming this use of the word Ladies is in ignorance of it's history and the passionate advocacy of that great Christian Feminists like Josephine Butler who fought to expose double standards in morality. 


So a brief summary of why we shouldn't use it:


1.) It's used to police women's behaviours
If your a woman can you remember being told to be ladylike when you where little? Or told not to do something because it wasn't ladylike? I think I've proved my point.


2.) It's used to remind women they are the property of men. 


3.) It is something other people assign to you and can strip from you. It is not about your own sense of personhood. This point was most powerfully driven home to me when I was at a women's group and heard a woman respond with much pain at being called a lady. She had clearly been told by others that she had not met the mark and was not a lady.


4.) I guess linked to the above but it's classist. 


5.) It is and has been used to divide women against each other


6.) Much like princess, ladies don't do anything.


7.) It holds us to a demanding moral code not the freedom of grace


8.) God never calls us lady


Someone sent me the link it's fab (http://www.vfa.us/Feminist%20Language.htm) but my two favourite quotes:


"Girls do what their mothers tell them. Ladies do what society tells them. Women make up their own minds" (Karen Kijewski, 1989).


And most importantly for the church:


"There is a difference between women and ladies. The modern parasites made ladies, but God Almighty made women" (Mother Jones, 1912)


Please do not refer to me as a lady.

Fattism

Is anybody else fed up of comedians cracking jokes about Eric Pickles weight? Was watching the TV and yet again they where cracking jokes about Eric Pickles size - its just not funny any more, its unkind and not very clever. Am I starting to sound like a school teacher?

It is terrible the way our society bullies and villainises larger people - the fat fascist are everywhere.

In consequence I know nothing about Eric Pickles political views and actions and lots about what comedians think about his weight. He could be implementing all sorts of dodgy policies and I wouldn't know cause we never get beyond what he may have had for lunch.

Admittedly it would help if I didn't depend entirely on satirical TV and radio programs for my knowledge of current affairs- but come on satirists stop talking about his weight and start exposing his politics.