Calvinism (bulleted list)
Mar 5, 2008 Friends, Judaism, Race, Spirituality, The Story of My Life
- Last night at writers group, my friend Sarah told me that she was thinking on this post (the one where I out myself as a former slut) and she was wondering why the thinking felt familiar to her then she realized, I’m a Calvinist! Except for the being Jewish part. Now I don’t know much about Calvinism or any other brand of Christianity (my friend Sarah is a savvy Christian and is patient about explaining denominational differences to me) but the way she explained it is that Calvinists preach that no one is better than anyone else and so there’s no “holier than thou” teaching there. Now don’t start arguing with me about Calvinism because I don’t know a darn thing anyway but we all thought it was funny, me being a Calvinistic Jew.
- Then after writers group we strolled out of the restaurant and stood on the sidewalk chatting last minute when several police cars whizzed down the road. We were in downtown Worthington (we met at Le Chatelaine). If you don’t live here I’ll explain that downtown Worthington is like Main Street, America. Kitschy little shops, a few adorable-type restaurants and a village green that has Sunday night concerts. But the main drag cuts through all of Columbus, which is what keeps Worthington from being quite a sleepy little suburb. Anyway, the police cars go by with lights and sirens and then the street was totally silent. Suddenly another car comes shooting down and slams into a streetlight, shedding it’s bumper and several other important-looking parts; bounces off the streetlight; fishtails down the block (knocking into at least one other car, maybe two); skids into the Graeter’s parking lot; whips around and roars down New England Avenue. We stood there stunned and then a million point one police cars suddenly careen into view from both directions, arriving at the intersection where the car left and then scatter leaving two of them to literally pick up the pieces. I have no idea where the guy was coming from, why he was running and whether or not they caught him. It was crazy and I was shaking hard for quite awhile after the street was clear again.
- Madison is going to the doctor today because yesterday she still seemed to be carrying herself differently from her non-fall on the couch. Today she seems fine (it’s always that way — like the day you’re supposed to get your hair cut it looks good for the first time in days). We’re going anyway. Noah is going rollerskating so he can wrench his neck.
- I can’t believe the primaries are dragging on. My heart can’t take it and it’s not even anywhere near November yet. You know, I always felt like Hillary was paving the way for a woman president by her stint in the White House as first lady; I never thought that first president would be her. I’m wondering if she took Ohio because Republicans could also vote in the Democratic primary. (You can vote in whichever you want — you just tell the folks at the table which primary you want to have a say in.) I think Obama is a better match for McCain and maybe they do, too. But I tell you — I love Michelle Obama.
- Speaking of Obama, the other day Madison pointed to some talking head on television and asked if that was Obama. I said, no, Obama had brown skin and then showed her a picture. She said, “Oh like ME!” And yeah, that made me want to vote for him a little bit more. I don’t want to get into a pissing contest about race versus gender but if I was only voting on the “who should go first?” ticket (and I’m not), it’d be race. I’m having a hard time articulating why this is but it’s not where I would have been pre-Madison. That’s something I need to meditate on for awhile.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Can I tell you a secret, here on your blog where the world can read it?
I’m a coward.
I think about the things that will be said about Hillary Clinton if she is nominated. Sexist things, awful things. And I remind myself that one of the things I love most about this woman is that she has taken so much and just keeps on keeping on. You know? I know she can handle it. But I think, I can’t. I don’t want to. I don’t want to listen to that. I will feel personally hurt and insulted. I will feel frustrated to TEARS trying to explain to people that what some pundit has said is sexist and have to listen to them tell me that it isn’t sexist, it is just true. If she wins the nomination she will be attacked and I will feel attacked. If she looses to McCain I will feel that women have lost. And I am a coward and I don’t want to go through that.
But I think that it won’t be so bad if it is Obama. People, at least people I know, seem to be more careful about not being seen as racist rather than not being sexist. If Clinton looses to Obama I won’t feel like women lost, because I really do like both of them and they both deserve to win. And if Obama looses to McCain I will be angry and disappointed, REALLY angry and disappointed, but I won’t feel so personally beaten. I may believe that the racism is part of it, and I will be angry — but I won’t … what? take it personally? After all, it is not ME they hate.
And then I reflect on this and consider the very real possibility that it is not that the world is more sexist than it is racist, but rather *I* am more racist than sexist. My feelings of anxiety are an indication of how protected I am in my white privilege, of how much work I still need to do in over-coming my own internalized racism.
And then I don’t just feel like a coward. I feel ashamed.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:00 am
several other important-looking parts;
This made me choke on my coffee. Too funny.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Yondalla, I’ve been thinking on this, too, and I think it’s … not easier but more clear to unpack racism because sexism is all tied up in biology.
Women have babies and have periods and have PMS and so, goes the thinking, they are like this or that or this. I mean, I think it’s easier for people to recognize that race is a social construct and much harder for them to understand that gender is, too.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:30 am
My mother always loved the part of “The Farmer and the Cowboy” in Oklahoma! when Aunt Eller says, “I don’t say I’m no better than anybody else/but I’ll be danged if I ain’t just as good!” because it was precisely the philosophy her grandmother taught her. And I come from a long line of Presbyterians, that is to say, Calvinists.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:01 am
“I’m wondering if she took Ohio because Republicans could also vote in the Democratic primary. (You can vote in whichever you want — you just tell the folks at the table which primary you want to have a say in.) I think Obama is a better match for McCain and maybe they do, too.”
I think so. Most conservatives I know like Hillary better than Obama, so they were willing to vote for her. And I think (and hope) that the democrat will win against McCain. I don’t think McCain would make a good president. While I don’t like the politics of Hillary or Obama, I think they would both be a better choice than McCain.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I’m sure I have some internalized sexism. But I don’t think that is my problem with Clinton. I don’t think she can win. Honestly. If she loses I will feel awful as a Democrat, but I don’t think as a woman. Her gender doesn’t inspire me. Geraldine Ferrarro’s did. I can remember crying when she got the VP nomination, I was so thrilled.
Hillary doesn’t (at least that I can tell) affect me either way by gender. Neither did Libby Dole. If I did go for Hillary it will be because of her ideology, not because she is a woman.
The racism with Obama hurts my heart far more than the sexism with Clinton. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to sexism so it isn’t as shocking as when I see blatant racism (which I never will experience first hand).
March 5th, 2008 at 10:07 am
My problem with Clinton is the nasty way she was handling the end of her campaign in Ohio. It made me feel that she didnt’ give a damn about the unity of the party or the nation. She just wants to win and doesn’t care who she hurts (Obama, the party, etc) in the process.
I will wait eagerly for next week’s police blotter in the paper to see what the high speed chase was about. That may even be more interesting than the big drug bust at the high school last week.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I agree with much of what Yondalla says above. It makes me ill to see the crap that Hillary has taken / takes / will continue to take, simply because she is an assertive, confident woman. I can’t prove it, of course, and arguing it convincingly is very difficult - I’ve been going round and round with a male colleague of mine about how Hillary has no winning strategy… if she’s even the least bit emotional, she’s too soft, too warm and fuzzy. But when she’s all facts and strategy, she’s a cold hearted bitch. Even when she is a bit emotional, people chalk it up to the fact that she’s a calculating bitch.
And it makes me feel like a coward to have voted for Obama because I think he’s more electable - I feel like I ought to have stood up to that kind of sexism and given it the big middle finger.
Oh, and BTW, I can’t believe bulletpoint # 2. I’m glad no one was hurt, at least that you know of.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:23 am
“I’ve been going round and round with a male colleague of mine about how Hillary has no winning strategy”
You know I think that if Hillary wins the nomination she Can, and SHOULD win. Every single conservative (not republican) I know is not voting for McCain. Some of them will be voting third party, but most of them will be voting for Hillary. Personally out of the three front runners, I want to see Hillary win more than any of the others, and to quote a friend I make Ann Coulter look like a super liberal Hippie
The thing about Hillary is that while I don’t agree with her politics, I trust that she is a patriot and loves the country and wants to serve in the best interest of the country. I think McCain wants to serve in the best interest of McCain, and has no interest in what is best for the country.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
My gut is with you on #5. Now, I was born brown, so it wasn’t through some other process that I got to share both the burden (and joy) of being from both the less powerful gender and race. That isn’t mydividing line between Obama & Clinton — I have many other reasons why I prefer Obama to Clinton. But, let’s imagine a scenario, a fantasy scenario, where we have two identical candidates and one is a woman and one is brown? which influences my vote more? And, hands down, it’s race. I’ve tried to articulate both to myself, and to others, why race matters more to me, and, I think it boils down to access to power. Though women lack power in the divide, they are loved by people who have it (husbands, sons, fathers). And, let’s not underestimate the strength and power of that love. The same need not be true of someone of the less powerful race. Inter-racial families (like yours, and mine, and Obama’s) cross this divide, but they are certainly far less common than inter-gender families (which are the norm).
And, why does the rest of the world care more about race than gender? for much of the same reason. Women leading a nation are not rare (Thatcher, Bhutto, Ghandi, Tymoshenko). But, if we could elect a person of the “wrong” race to lead America? we prove that anything must be possible in America. Other countries also have disenfranchised minorities (though not always based on race).
Mind you, I think (unlike Steinem) that the burdens faced through gender and race cannot be ranked. They are different, and I first contributed to Obama when Steinem ranked them in her Op Ed piece.
Obama is my essential vision of American patriotism: “That I owe everything I am to my country.” Like him, who I am, what I have, my hopes and dreams for my children are possible no where else in the world. And, since I am an immigrant it’s a gift, not a birthright, which leaves me forever grateful , but also committed to idea (and not lapel pins).
“O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.”
March 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
All that stuff Dawn said about the car chase? It’s true! It was like the movies! It was like The French Connection! In Worthington! And if the driver had veered a bit differently, the three of us could have been killed! I’m still exhausted and today I’m all shook up over it. I feel like I have 1/10th of 1% of a clue of what it must be like to live in a war zone, with the sound of skidding, crashing, thumping, blasting, and sirens pretty much all the time.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I’m so tired of this primary season. Never thought I’d say that. But it’s like the longer it goes on, the testier everyone gets, and dammit I don’t WANT to hate EITHER candidate. Can’t I like them both?
That said, Obama has my vote. For numerous reasons that are too long to go into here, but yes, part of the deciding factor for me is race. There is all kinds of sexism in this society, but I honestly think the racism is worse. As a previous commenter said… POWER. Who has more power? Maybe it’s partially because of where I live, but it seems clear to me that women have more power in our society than black people do. That’s certainly the case in south-central PA, anyhow.
As for Calvinism–you said not to debate you on it but I can’t help it, a little. Oh yes, Calvinists belive everyone is equal, it’s true… they believe everyone is equally wretched and depraved! ROFL.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Yay! I’m wretched and depraved too!!!
Hey, where’s the Madison neck update please? I can add nothing of value to the political conversation. I voted for one, still have feelings for the other–at this point I feel the urge to be a runaway bride–I can’t seem to choose, and our wedding date is coming soon!
So when we lived in the East Bay, we heard all about the danger that is Oakland. While living in Oakland, nothing of note occurred, but one night, as we were leaving dinner in uber-delightful, progressive, calm Berkeley, a car (chased by at least a dozen police cars) flew down Telegraph Ave, cut across 5 lanes of traffic and crashed into a pole directly in front of us. When the guy jumped out to flee, I noticed the shiny-shiny in his hand and began to freak out. I was so scared we’d learn the true meaning of innocent bystander while my tots were in the car. Yep, glad to be back in the quiet mid-west! Your story does not put me at ease…
March 6th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
But, Nicole — have you already gotten to vote? Someone on another blog pointed out that she’s excited that she’ll get a chance to vote. So, if only folks who’ve voted already are tired of the whole shebang, we should survive OK.