Gossip

Posted on August 30, 2012 by ofurhe

How bad is it to gossip? I’ve always felt that it was pretty bad. It’s not technically against the commandments, nor is it a cardinal sin, but it is decried in most religious texts and seems morally suspect. It also seems anti-feminist, not because we’re gossiping about women necessarily, but because gossiping is such a cliche thing for a girl to do. And I generally try to be better than that. I’ve been on the wrong side of bad gossip so I know how much it can hurt.

But after all this I must admit that I love to gossip. I love knowing secrets, and having the power to tell someone. I love taking the knowledge and putting it in my own words. I love the camaraderie it brings, when you both are in the inside.

I saw someone today who I hadn’t seen in a while, and I wanted so hard to gossip about her, but there’s something just as great about keeping good gossip to yourself. Even when the facts are correct, and it’s something I would feel comfortable saying to the gossippee’s face, you can tell when it’s news, and when it’s gossip, and there doesn’t seem to be a right way to do it. I don’t consider myself a gossip, but in the company of certain people (high school friends especially) I can get carried away. I’ll try to keep resisting this urge, even if the action gives me pleasure, since it does seem particularly vile and hurtful.

I memorized this sonnet in high school (I didn’t want one about love), seems applicable;

‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem’d
Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing:
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.

– Sonnet 121 William Shakespeare

On Criticism

Posted on August 24, 2012 by ofurhe

I wish that I could tell you that it’s all alright
–Glass of the Microscope – Yeasayer

I like to think that I’m all about tough love and hard truths. When it comes to self awareness, everyone has their blind spots, and I tend to think that it’s the job of a good friend to help you see them. I think if someone asked you whether you wanted to know the thing that was holding you back, almost everyone would say yes, they want to know what their thing is. But not everyone wants to know, even if they say they do. Harsh criticism is hard to take, especially from a friend (a good friend of mine sent me a critical email 3 months ago that I’m still processing it).

When it comes to harsh criticism, what are the exceptions, is it okay to criticize the dead? is it ever okay to tell someone you don’t like their art? In a way, since you’re not criticizing their person, but something they did, it should be easier. But in our culture, art is such an extension of someone’s personhood that it’s never really appropriate.

There has been a spate of articles about book criticism lately, on one side is Slate’s case for more critical critics and Dwight Garner for the New York Times Magazine, while Laura Miller at Salon and Heidi Julavits at the Believer make the case against harsh criticism and snark in their field. Miller argues that there should be an exception for fledgling writers, people don’t read that many books anymore and it does more harm than good to squash these new authors before they get their bearrings. While Julavits argues that no one should review a book until they write one (To hear a great wrap-up of the debate check out the Slate Culture Gabfest). With art especially, there is a particularly vile type of criticism that says ‘this isn’t even art‘. There are certain contexts where it’s considered a matter of taste, and others where it isn’t. I think I tend to be on the side of hard truths but I think it’s not a coincidence that the call to be harsher is coming from men, and the call to be nicer is coming from women. This isn’t because women are thin-skinned and can’t take criticism, I think it’s because they know what it’s like to be on the outside in an industry that still privileges men’s opinion.

Let’s look at criticism in a field I know a little more about. I’ve never wanted to be a writer or a literary critic, but I love music and particularly music analysis. It’s no secret that my favorite band of the past 10 years is Yeasayer. I’ve been anxiously anticipating their new album which dropped this week. The album was panned by Spin and Pitchfork, two of the most respected music magazines. Reviews matter (someone once told me something about the Beach Boys that has tainted almost every listen since), you internalize other peoples’ tastes and they become your own. But what are these magazines really saying? Maybe pitchfork’s reviewers are as racist and sexist as their readers. Yeasayer’s may be too gay for them. I had a friend who wrote reviews and someone criticized him for referring to many albums as ‘the best I’ve heard all year.’ He stood by his statements, arguing that music doesn’t hurt, if you listen to an album once and don’t like it, it’s not the end of the world, you didn’t waste any time, no harm no foul. I agree with Julia Turner on the Gabfest, you don’t have to listen to every album, (or read every book), be discerning in what you review, then you can be as harsh as you want.

It struck me on a second listening to the Gabfest that this can also be framed as an East Coast vs. West Coast Debate. Although born in Boston, Dave Eggars has become a distinctively West Coast literary figure, as has his magazine McSweeny’s is one of the few major magazines published in California and NOT New York. It’s a classic debate between the straight talking New York art critic and the laid back California surfer/stoner/hippie. Coming from Oakland, I feel it’s the best of both worlds, it’s sunny California for sure, but maintains its urban grit and certainly a diversity of opinion. I like to think this represents my views, I can take the harsh truths but only in the warmth of the supportive sun.

p.s. Apologies to the Russian’s Mom, no wedding pictures, just decided to go meta.

Discrete Math Concepts

Posted on August 16, 2012 by ofurhe

I’m taking a test tomorrow, so I’m going to use this post to help me study. So this post isn’t so much what I have been thinking about all week (I’ve been out of town for a wedding), it’s what I should have been thinking about this week. It’s also an experiment in talking about math and technology using words (If you find math boring, feel free to read someone else’s blog). I’m taking a class called Discrete Math, most people don’t know what this is (I didn’t either, before I took the class). Discrete Math is a requirement for most Computer Science students, it’s a jumble of math concepts that apply to computers including Logic, Algorithms, Set-Theory, Graph Theory, Combinatorics and Number Theory (here’s a video intro if you’re curious). It’s not discreet meaning hidden or restrained, it’s discrete; meaning distinct and separate. Discrete math deals with numbers that you can count, as opposed to Calculus which deals with infinity and continuity. It’s my understanding that computer’s can’t deal with infinity, they will just count and count until they run out of memory or power. They can count pretty high, but they’ll never get to infinity.

I’m almost done with the course so I can share some of the things I’ve learned and how (I think) they apply to Comp Sci. First we went over some basic logic, we thought about how to convert English sentences and arguments into logical symbols, how to test the validity of an argument and also how to use truth tables. How to convert spoken language into symbols is helpful, but to me the clearest application of logic to computer science is the use of truth tables. Truth tables are manipulations of true (T) and false (F) values, if you substitute 1 and 0 for T and F, you have classic binary values that computers can read. A bit is a boolean string of length 1, it just tells you whether something is true or false, on or off, black or white.

Next we studied basic sets, and equivalence relations. Sets are essentially primitive databases, in fact, a csv file, that you can open in excel, is just a set of numbers or strings (csv stands for comma separated values). Proofs and relations help us to define exactly what is in a set and how sets relate to each other. These laws determine how to manipulate data; a lot of it has to do with what things we consider to be equivalent. It’s really important for computers to know whether something is the same or not. Things that are the same can be grouped with other equivalent things, they related to themselves (reflexive) and others in a certain way (symmetric and transitive). Equivalences set the parameters for a computer’s sense of discretion, it helps computers to discern and judge like things from unlike things. To me, this is what makes computers ‘smart’, the fact that they can distinguish one kind from another (maybe someday they’ll be able to tell good from bad, right from wrong).

In the second unit we looked at sequences, sums, induction, algorithms, and number theory. Here we took a basic look at the different ways to tell computers what to do, and how effective they are. For a set you can input each entry separately, or you can populate an entire dataset by defining a function, and saying everything in that sequence is in the set. There are two main ways of defining sequences, you can define the first term and have a rule from there (recursive), or you can define it abstractly (closed set). Mathematical induction is a type of proof that uses the same idea as a recursive set; it says if you can prove the first idea and then say that the second idea is implied by the first idea everything else falls into place. I understand this in theory, but I had a lot of trouble with this in practice, it tends to use a lot of algebra I haven’t used in a while.

Next we looked at algorithms. My teacher says ‘Algorithms are a recipe to solve a problem,’ an algorithm is a series of steps which when followed will solve a certain type of problem. For example we looked at the Euclidean Algorithm to solve Greatest Common Factor problems. To apply the concept of algorithms to my programming class an algorithm is like pseudocode. One way to write a program is to start with pseudocode, it’s like a very detailed outline. You write out a line of code saying, for example, “if a < b, switch b and a". The code in JAVA would look something like if (a < b) { a=b; b=a;} In another programming language it would look different, but the algorithm or pseudocode could be the same. In number theory we looked at how integers interact with each other, the Rules of Arithmetic (addition and multiplication are closed, commutative, associative, have identity, inverse and multiplication distributes; there is an ordering relation and a divides relation). Using these rules we are able to find primes and come up with a division algorithm. These types of rules would be very helpful if you were trying to build a calculator, and what is a computer but a giant calculator?. My test is on the second unit so I'll have to go over some induction examples, and also memorize the formulas for recursive sequences and the rules of arithmetic. p.s. As if it didn't take me long enough to learn how to spell rhythm, now I have to learn algorithm?

Zula Forthrast

Posted on August 11, 2012 by ofurhe

If you’ve been reading my blog you know that I’m starting a masters in computer science and I’m trepidatious about it. I’ve been trying to read up on the subject, but other than textbooks, I’m finding that most computer science reading lists include a bunch of sci-fi, which (along with computer games) really doesn’t interest me in the least. Which is why I was surprised when someone recommended a Sci-Fi novel to me because there was a character who he thought was a lot like me. I don’t see a lot of people like myself in books, especially not sci-fi. The book is Reamde, and the character is Zula Forthrast. An Eritrean orphan, adopted by a family in Idaho, with a degree in computer science and geology. She wears heavey-rimmed glasses and rocks a “hyperspace-librarian girl-geek” style. The book is really long, and seemed to be mostly about a MMORPGame so I opted to listen to the audio-book, trying to follow this interesting character and learn about the culture and science of computers along the way.

The author, Neal Stephenson, has written a lot about computer science, including an amazing essay on operating systems called ‘In the Beginning there was the Command Line.’ Like his essay, this books is jam-packed full of ideas about computers and where technology is headed. The plot got way too convoluted way too fast for me, but it was well-written enough that I was compelled to finish it.

After the brief introduction I was excited about this badass Zula, (and flattered that someone thought she was like me). But I ultimately felt like she was just another fetishized sci-fi girl, sprung from the brain of a man (there was particular episode involving a tampon that made me question whether any woman had even read the galley). I didn’t really get a chance to see her in action as a computer-geek before a convoluted plot whisked her off to China and then Canada on strange pretenses (I don’t think it’s giving anything away to say that the reader had his work cutout for him with accents including, Irish, Welsh, Russian, Hungarian, British, Arabic and Chinese). All in all I’m glad that she exists as a character, but left the book ultimately disappointed by the execution of her character.

That’s not to say there wasn’t anything interesting about the book, like I said before, the book is chock full of knowledge. Zula was still an extremely interesting character, and there are some really interesting things about computers and gaming culture. Zula’s uncle Richard helped create a computer game called T’Rain. The game is unique for two reasons, one economic and one geographic. The economic one is that the game takes two distinct gaming cultures into account, the Western cultural paradigm, where consumers spend money to be entertained (real money becomes virtual money) and the Asian one, where people game for a living (virtual money becomes real money). The other thing that makes the game stand out is its geophysical accuracy, one of the other founders created the game mostly because he was tired of how inaccurate the landscapes were. This is where Zula comes in, working with the geophysics experts and game designers to make striking and realistic landscapes. These two characteristics make the game extremely profitable.

I glimpsed a slice of the gaming culture through this book. Most of which I found repulsive and uninteresting, but some parts I found intriguing. Throughout the book T’rain is undergoing a ‘War of Realignment,’ which the game’s fake historians are chronicling as they go. The origin myth was a fairly basic Good vs. Evil story, but overtime this shifted into a new-school (Forces of Brightness) vs. old-school (Earthtone Coalition) battle. It’s essentially aesthetic, someone posted a way to hack into the settings so you could give yourself a blue mowhawk, and many people decided change their characters to brighter colors, while originalists chose to keep the more old-school, traditional gaming look. In this way you can track people by their color palette, the gaming company hires a colorist to keep track of palette shift, who is wearing what, and what this means to the world. So fashion plays a surprisingly important role in this book.

I’d say the most prevalent narrator of the book is Richard Forthrast (Zula’s uncle), we spend more time in his head than anyone else’s. Like many older American men he has a few ex-wives. These women live on in his brain as a sort of conscience which he refers to as ‘the furious muses.’ They tell him to exercise (he does all his computer work on the elliptical machine), eat well, and do the right thing. Towards the end of the book he reaches a point where he needs to do something traditionally crazy, but the furious muses encourage him. I really related to the idea of your conscience telling you that you need to put your conscience aside for a minute.

Anyway, I don’t know if I can really recommend the book, some parts are great, some parts were awful, and it’s exceedingly long. But if you like this kind of thing, then you like this kind of thing (and you’ve probably already read it).

Romantic Movies

Posted on August 2, 2012 by ofurhe

As kind of a response to my most recent anti-love rant, I wanted to write about about two of my favorite movies that happen to be romances; Polish Wedding and Heaven.

I’m a foul cynic, and I’ve always had a hard time resolving this with the fact that I am also a senseless romantic. Both of these movies are love parables, and there is a sense that love catches up with these women, a sense of inevitability. Though I really love these movies from an aesthetic point of view, I must admit that I also love the romance them. These are both stories of strong women who stand up for themselves, and aren’t defined solely by their surroundings (or their men).

Hala (Claire Danes) in Polish Wedding is a wild-child daughter of a Polish family in 60s Detroit. Her mother is the strong, sexy matriarch Jadzia (Lena Olin). The plot centers around Hala and Jadzia, not particularly the father Bolek (Gabriel Byrne) or the 4 brothers, who all sort of blend together. It’s a story of Hala’s sexual awakening, Jadzia’s unquenchable sensuality and how they both meet with traditional Polish values. The movie culminates in the Procession of a Virgin towards the end of the movie. I don’t think it gives anything away to say that someone’s virginity is called into question.

Heaven is a Krystof Kryzlowski film (Decalogue, Red, White and Blue), directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Princess and the Warrior). It’s the story of Philippa (Cate Blanchet) and Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi). Philippa, frustrated by the inactivity and corruption of the Italian police (carabinieri in this case), commits an unspeakable act in the first scene. Filippo is a police officer and also her translator who falls in love with her. (slight spoiler) The story is about how they have to work together to evade the law. Like Polish Wedding, it’s a story of a woman surrounded by men, officers, guards, Filippo and his father and brother.

These aren’t strictly traditional love stories because neither Hala, Jadzia or Philippa is really in love with their husband (or lover), but all three heroines need a man’s help for different reasons. Hala and Jadzia need financial help while Philippa needs a guide and confidante. All 3 men react differently to being put in this utilitarian position, Russell (Hala’s lover) resents the truncation of his youth, Bolek (Jadzia’s husband), hates waiting ‘like a dog’ for his wife to return from her Polish Ladies’ Club meetings, but Filippo seems honored to be in this strong, exotic woman’s presence. In a way, they are all love stories without love, though all the women learn to love overtime.

One interesting thing I noticed, watching these movies in tandem, is how aesthetically similar they are. They both deal in a similar palette, with blonde heroines, rolling around in pastures, walking along traintracks, confessing in vaulted churches and wearing uniforms. In both of these movies it’s really only children, and the heroines who don’t wear uniforms. It creates a very stark contrast where Philipa and Hala can really stand out as unique in a sea of men who all sort of look the same (Jadzia uses her cleaning lady shirtdress and Polish Ladies club uniform to stand out in her own way).

Both of these movies have really kick ass soundtracks. Polish wedding’s Luis Bacalov sountrack features a fairly whimsical melody played alternately on accordion, clarinet and finally sung by a children’s choir, keeping the film light and humorous. Heaven features a powerfully minimal soundtrack by Arvo Pärt which makes every backdrop feel like a cathedral. As Arvo Pärt says in this masterclass, ‘The soul yearns to sing it endlessly.’ I think that can be said of both soundtracks, and also both movies. With melodies that seem familiar and settings that feel dateless, Polish Wedding and Heaven are both timeless fables, I’m sure I will continue to watch them anon. If you don’t like them, that’s cool, we don’t really have to be friends anymore.

Problems. As a black woman it’s a little dissappointing that there are no colored characters in either of these movies, but it would seem forced if there were. The movies both deal with nationalism and ethnicity in a way, it’s just that Polish people and Italian people don’t have dark colored skin. As a feminist, I’m not even sure Polish Wedding passes the Bechdel test since Jadzia is always talking about the men in her life and Hala is always talking to the men in her life, but there might be a conversation between Jadzia and her daughter in law that doesn’t mention either of their sons or husbands.

love as destructive force

Posted on July 29, 2012 by ofurhe

It’s takes no strength to be a cynic, and I don’t harbor illusions that it’s courageous or noble. But right now this is how I feel, and these are my thoughts and I promised myself I would write these down once a week. Indeed this week I seek to record these thoughts because I fear they might change, and I need to record how I’m feeling now so I can mark my progress in the future, when I might finally grow out of my adolescent views on love.

Love is one of the most destructive and dangerous forces we know. Yet people celebrate it rather than fear it. I’m not talking about what happens after love, heartbreak, divorce and death being its common aftermath. And this isn’t a bros before hos rant about the friends left behind when you pursue your own happiness and spend all your time with a significant other. I’m talking about how love itself is force, producing just as much evil as good.

As a teenager I was discouraged from using the word hate, they said it was too strong, and added unnecessary negativity to the world; but I observed that people are encouraged to use the word love, even overusing it. Most people agree that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, but when we chose to focus only on the one side we forget the other (I feel it is just as important to know how it feels to be hated for no reason as it does to be loved, unconditionally*). I believe that all love can be re-read as hate, its equal and opposite reaction. It seems that much as your are attracted to the things that you love, as much as you want to protect them, this is how much you are disgusted by things you don’t love, and want them to disappear. Every attraction has a reaction.

For many, the ultimate culmination of love is sex, whose ultimate end is a child. People say they love children because they are full of potential, but it’s this potential that scares me. As much potential as a child has to do good, so have they to do evil. Children are the ultimate agents of chaos. Bringing extreme joy and extreme sadness with them, and leaving love and frustration in their wake.

When a person loves another person, this is celebrated, but many will agree that a love of objects can be destructive. People say this love is ‘unhealthy’ and ‘unnatural’. But there’s a reason why we use the same word, love; the feeling is the same. I posit that it’s not the object of love that’s the problem, its’ the act of loving which corrupts relationships. I don’t believe that love is a universal salve, bringing Goodness to everything is is applied to. I’m not arguing that love is not transformative, love changes things, it changes the subject and the object. But change isn’t always good. I think my point here is just that love is dangerous and that people should use discretion around it, not blindly follow it wherever it takes them.

*When I was younger I felt it was my responsibility to hate those I who I thought had never been hated. It’s embarassingly presumptuous to pretend to know what someone else has, or has not felt before. But when you’re a teenager, you think you know what’s best for everyone.

Talking about Math and Science

Posted on July 6, 2012 by ofurhe

Like I’ve mentioned before, I have been taking some online math and programming courses as pre-requisites (or rather, requisites) for my Masters program. In my blog, I like to write about what is going on in my brain during the week, the thoughts I can’t seem to stop thinking about. Lately I’ve been thinking about math and science, but not writing about it. Why am I so loathe to write about math? I think it’s because I assume, like so many others, that no one wants to hear about math and no one wants to talk about math. If this is true, I want to try to change it.

I talked to a woman the other day who is a very successful lawyer. She said that in high school she loved physics, and going into college (UC Berkeley if I remember correctly), she wanted to be a physicist. She said it wasn’t poor teaching or intimidating classes that steered her away, she said she wanted to study something that she could talk about. It’s easier to talk about ideas you’ve read because they are in the same form as the way we speak (words), but how do we talk about math? I think it’s important for people, women especially, to learn how to talk about math and science in our everyday conversations. Why is it that we think these ideas are boring? Probably because we don’t talk about them.

In the spirit of talking about math/science and computers I’ll talk a little about my experience taking these courses the past couple weeks. As a student of the humanities (Near Eastern Studies and Geography), I have written many papers. I am really familiar with the process of writing a paper; formulating an argument, writing an outline, doing research, writing and editing drafts. I have done problem sets before, but I am re-learning the process. First off, I am relearning how to type. This is frustrating since I am a very quick typist in English, however, in html and LaTeX markup languages I use keys I’m unaccustomed to (like \ / |^$), I make mistakes and I have to type slower. It reminds me of learning to type in another language like Persian (well I guess it is another language). Typing isn’t the only part of the process that’s slower in computer science, since I haven’t done as many math problem sets or written many programs I don’t have a good idea of how long they are going to take. I’ve found that problem sets and programming code require more time at the end, whereas papers require more time at the beginning. Thinking about a paper and making an outline take the most time (for me at least), but with a math problem set, the first few problems are generally easier, it’s usually the last few that are hardest and take some time. With programs, well I don’t totally know how they work since I’ve only written a few, but I heard someone say that programming consists of writing bugs and fixing them, you have to allow yourself time to write all the bugs and fix all the bugs, and right now it’s really difficult for me to estimate how long it might take to do this. I have faith that given time and practice, this process will become as familiar to me as writing papers.

In the business world (especially in magazines and publications) there seems to be a schism between ‘creative types’ and ‘business types,’ a line I’ve always sought to straddle. People who write and work with art and ideas are considered ‘creative’ and people who work with computers, numbers and spreadsheets are considered ‘business/engineering types.’ I don’t think I should have to pick a side. As a woman of color, though, I do feel some pressure to go where I feel more underrepresented. I’ve never felt the pull of writing that others talk about, but I think I could express myself in the language of computers if I learned it.

International Women’s Day – Day 8

Posted on June 14, 2012 by ofurhe

The theme of my trip to Afghanistan, 3 months ago now, was the celebration of International Women’s day but we almost didn’t get to go. For days we had been hearing about the fair-like atmosphere of the celebration, women selling goods, speeches (Karzai made a surprise visit the year before), and every day we went to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs for our official invitations. 2 days before the celebration we waited in the car while our tour guide went into the ministry, he came out saying ‘I have good news and bad news: the good news is I finally have your official invitations, the bad news is that the festivities have been postponed until the day after you leave because of the Kabul city-wide furlough days.’ I was speechless, I had spent so much time around men, in their space, I wanted to finally be in the women’s sphere. I had been so looking forward to this day, this was what the whole trip was about. I was beyond disappointed

We came up with an alternative plan. We had been discussing taking day trips to other provinces and cities and one of the ideas was to go to the Panjshir Valley to see Massoud’s tomb and the countryside. On the way we would go through Parwan province and see if they had an any Women’s Day celebrations since they weren’t subject to the Kabul city furlough. We found out that they had a celebration in a hotel in Charikar, the capital of Parwan province. After being thoroughly patted down we made our way upstairs and were seated in the front row of the celebration, next to the Governor and other dignitaries. We stood out, as always, this time because we had men with us in the womens’ section. The format was to be similar to Kabul’s celebration, speeches, skits and songs, formal gift-giving, followed by a women’s bazaar.

I took some terrible footage, here is a clip from the invocation:

After that we heard from the Governor, who told us many stories, including ones from the Qur’an about the role of women in society. Then a speech from the Minister of Women’s affairs, a children’s choir, a women judge spoke with passion, a skit about domestic abuse, and women of the police force were awarded plaques and gifts. They asked us to buy things at the women’s bazaar before we left, so we bought some cakes which we gave to a poor child on our way out That afternoon we went to the Panjshir Valley.

Street harassment

Posted on April 27, 2012 by ofurhe

I have been wanting to write this post for years, but street harassment is difficult to talk about and I didn’t know quite how to do it right. Part of what makes it so hard to talk about is that the type of harassment I’m talking about is couched in a compliment. In fact the behavior is so ingrained in our culture as a positive message (what I’m talking about is essentially this Michael Jackson Video) that it was difficult to figure out why it bothered me so much. Why did this make me feel so scared and alone when it had no effect (or the opposite effect) on others? If this is harassment, what rights were these people violating? I’ve recently been able to identify it, these people were violating my Right to be Left Alone. As a black woman, walking alone, I do not have to give up my Right to be Left Alone and no one can take it from me. This attention is unwarranted, unwanted and inappropriate, and I’ve been getting it for my entire life (not a #humblebrag).

When I was 9 years old I stopped wearing shorts. Every Saturday, from 1st grade through 5th grade I took piano lessons. My piano teacher lived about 5 miles from my house and my mother worked weekends so every Saturday I would walk 3 or 4 blocks to the bus-stop and take the bus to K’s house. (Just now I actually had to look up how many blocks it was to the bus stop because that walk was so terrifying to me sometimes that I thought it must have been at least 8 or 10 blocks.) The whole trip only took 30 minutes or so but I left myself an hour, sometimes more, and often would show up at my teacher’s house unexpectedly early. It must have started out fine, but at some point it became fraught with peril. One summer day, I wore a pair of roll-up jean shorts and a striped t-shirt to my lesson, on the way I ran into a group of boys. They were just teenagers, talking to me, one of them said they liked my shorts, that I looked cute, etc., I said thanks or and in response two of the boys blocked my way with their arms and feet. ‘Talk to me for a minute,’ they said, ‘Give me your number,’ I tried to decline as politely as I could and explained that I would be late to my lesson. They eventually let me through, but it felt like I held my breath until I was on the bus, I never looked back at them. After that I vowed never to wear shorts. As a child I was convinced it was my fault, but if I could just wear the right thing that no one would bother me. I began to feel like little red riding hood in my maroon hoodie all summer dodging dangerous wolves on my innocent mission to my piano lesson.

While I know that this is a problem for women across the board, a part of pretty much any woman’s coming of age story, I can’t help but think of the parallel to this list of rules for black men that came out recently related to Trayvon Martin. Black girls develop quicker than other girls, (though everyone is developing earlier these days) and I think I am more likely to be assaulted in a black community) so I think it does make sense to talk about it as a racial issue, though I respect the fact that it is also a feminist issue. The list of things black boys shouldn’t do included running in public, if I had made one when I was little, the list of things black girls shouldn’t do might include;
-not wearing shorts (unless you’re looking for a certain kind of attention)
-not buying into the Christina Aguilera induced backless shirt trend of the 90s
-leaving as early as possible in order to avoid groups of teenagers (who sleep in on weekends)
-avoiding groups of men
-wearing headphones and a hood
-walking with others if possible

What’s confusing as an 8 year old, and still confusing to me now, is what the appropriate response is to such a situation. ‘Ignore them’ is probably the most common response to such assaults, but this conflicts with the idea of being polite to strangers. Don’t make eye contact, but if I don’t look them in the face, how do I even know it’s a stranger and not someone I already know? When you learn social mores you learn how to behave in different situations, but this one blurs so many lines. Though they may not have known it, these boys were older than me, so do I treat them like an elder? But they were strangers, do I treat them like the homeless derelict? They were friendly, should I treat them like friends?

If I chose to treat them like a sexual predator I risk offending them, and thus prolonging the interaction some responses include:
‘I’m just giving you a compliment,’
‘Kids these days have no manners’
‘You know you’re allowed to smile, no shame in a smile’
‘Oo, I like em frisky’
You can read experience them yourself in this viral documentary

If, however, I chose to engage with the person and say thank you, or smile, this can be misinterpreted as a tacit approval of the assault, allowing it to continue. What is a 9 year old to do?
As a child I was faced with this quintessential feminist dilemma: What percent of my life is making people happy by being pretty or pleasant?

I’ve always been jealous of people in the summer who could wear less clothes, for years I stuck to my uniform of baggy jeans (or overalls) and oversized t-shirts and sweatshirts. That way no one could say I brought it on myself. Over the years I’ve found that it really doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. I’ve also found that other people are purposefully seeking the attention I dread. I have no solutions, I’m just stating a problem, as clearly as I know how.

For further reading please check out this racialicious article.

Updated 5.24.12 Please read another woman’s story and learn more about International Anti Street Harassment Week

Updated 7.6.12: Noticed this great article on clutch magazine via Black Snob

Updated 7.9.12: Another recent racialicious article on the same subject.

*Given my recent travels you may be wondering what street harassment was like in Kabul. In fact, when I went to Kabul I had a post like this in mind. But it’s difficult to compare the two situations because in Afghanistan I was never walking alone. Because of this I never knew whether peoples’ reactions were because I was black, because I was western, because I was traveling in a group, because I was so tall, or whether their attention was meant for my beautiful blonde companion. That said, I think unlike in the states, the way I would be treated in Afghanistan would really depend on what I was wearing. If I was walking alone and wearing a burqa I think people would likely have left me alone. Though a woman walking alone with a burqa on in Afghanistan is generally thought to be a widow, so they may try to give me their loose change. I can’t really speculate as to what would happen if I was walking alone wearing just a hijab or less, I think this would vary a lot depending on where I was in Afghanistan and what I was doing.

Day 7

Posted on April 26, 2012 by ofurhe

Day 7 was kind of a Great day. I think it was Day 4 that we visited all the places I wanted to go, which was fun, but Day 7 was inspiration day. In my brain I differentiate between good and Good, good is just an adjective eg, lunch was good; Good is a moral claim, it implies character, virtue; the Olympics are Good, Sylvia was Good. These were all Good organizations. On March 7 we had visits with 3 Good humanitarian agencies, in fact if I was going to chose 3 organizations to publicize it would be these three. They all do great work, have mass-appeal and really need our help. If you’ve got a couple extra bucks that you got back from your taxes you might want to send them this way.

The first was Aschiana, meaning bird’s nest. It is a school for street children.

The organization recently published some statistics finding that Kabul has 60,000 street children and the number is increasing. Due to budget restrains Aschiana can only help the neediest, so in order to qualify you must either have a disability or a single parent. This is a picture of the founder, Mohammad Yousef, with a disabled child.

Below you can see some of the art that the children have done. I think their version of the famous ‘Remnants of an Army‘ painting is even better than the original.

The kids were taught in shifts; conventional subjects and also trades including woodworking and calligraphy. Until recently they were also taught theatre and music but these programs were cut because they couldn’t afford to pay the staff.

At lunch we met with Wahid Omar from Afghans for Tomorrow. Afghans for Tomorrow is a pretty great organization, organizing educational, agricultural and health programs across the country. What was most important to us though, is that they let us stay in their guest house and provided our wonderful tour guide. Without A4T I’d never have gone to Afghanistan, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog!

Finally, we went to see Jamila Afghani of Noor. All of us were so impressed by this lady; a handicapped Afghan woman from a conservative family with a Masters in International Relations and a PhD in Islamic Studies. She has been a women’s rights activist for many years. She recently started a program which trains imams in women’s rights from an Islamic perspective. Through their sermons she hopes to inspire and educate the public.

Ofurhe Igbinedion

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