I need to talk.

[Karenina]

Is anyone home???

Friday, I went to rehearsal and R. showed me the hand-out he'd produced.
I told him I thought it was great, then asked if he'd gotten my e-mail. The subject line was my last name correctly spelled in CAPS.

"Yeah, but I thought you'd made a typo."

"You thought I misspelled my own name?" Then I just laughed and said no biggie...

Been doing lots of "self help" routines lately. So has my dear baby sister, who is battling cancer. I asked her if she thought the shit was written for white folks. She said, surprised by the question, "Well, yeah!" We both busted out LAUGHING!!!

[HamdenRice]

1. I'm not home but I'm logged on!

Hi Karenina -- hope you're still out there. It's so hard to tell when someone wrote something with the weird time stamps.

So someone thought you couldn't spell your own name? Was this a white person?

Are you writing a play?

So sorry to hear about your sister. Please tell more! I'll keep DU on in the background while I'm at work today!

[Karenina]

2. He's a white Deutsch blues guy...

such a sweet and introspective soul. He'd printed out the FUNNIEST MUSICIAN JOKE EVER, sent him by Charlie Musslewhite, for me. It was good to have this "meme" come at me from him as there is NO WAY I could ever attribute any malice to it. What I'm struggling with is the "default" setting/projection of "I know better." And "helping myself" while dealing with this dynamic.

[HamdenRice]

3. Are you guys working on a show of some sort?

You are in Germany, right? From your first post, it sounded like he was making a flier for a show? What's the show about? Did you write it or are you performing?

I think my experience with some Europeans is that they really are naive, but don't have the animus that comes from American racial culture.

I remember living in South Africa in the 1980s, and in our little community of students, researchers and activists, there were a number of Germans from Lutheran church groups doing human rights work there. So obviously their hearts were in the right place. But some of the things they would say! My God! They tended to think of Africans through this primitivist tribal lens -- this is in Johannesburg where black people are about as urban and modern as they are in Harlem.

The self-help -- I hope you don't have health issues like your sister.

[Karenina]

5. It's his CD presentation.

I'm a sideliner on this project. Didn't play on the recording, but he and his S.O. (a dancer, bi-racial British) decided I needed to join them in the presentation. They are both talented, wonderful souls. What this incident allowed me to do was examine my own buttons. There is NO WAY that I could muster even the slightest annpyance at R. What came THROUGH HIM was a default template. Where I ran into a brick wall was finding ANYONE who could understand my reaction to the TEMPLATE. (No, I'm not being "too sensitive," No, I'm not at all annoyed at R. as it's not about him OR me). Hence my post here.

I've often been asked about racism in Germany. There's no "translation" as we're dealing with apples and oranges. Germans who seek to "get it" do so rather quickly in my experience. MUCH MORE QUICKLY than Amurikkkans. Indeed, the worst racist garbage I've experienced here has come from other American expats.

[HamdenRice]

7. Are you a musician?

What instrument do you play? What kind of music does R produce and do you play?

I don't think you are necessarily just reacting from a template. It IS quite patronizing for someone to assume that he is more likely to know how to spell your name correctly than you are.

On the other hand, it may not be patronizing for racist reasons. I get the impression that Germans are (don't mean to stereotype, but ...) kind of patronizing toward each other. Or to put it another way, each is very confident in the correctness of his or her own opinion. It's the whole precision thing.

Here's a hilarious website about an English guy trying to get along with his German girlfriend. Does it ring true to you?

http://www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com/

example:

"I eat two-fingered Kit-Kats like I'd eat any other chocolate bars of that size, i.e., without feeling the need to snap them into two individual fingers first. Margret accused me of doing this, 'deliberately to annoy her'."

[Karenina]

8. I'm a musician's musician.

;-)

[HamdenRice]

9. What's that??? Is that like a dramaturg or a studio musician? nt

[Karenina]

12. Both!

Thank you for the link, that's HYSTERICAL! I needed a good laugh!!!

One quality I noticed early on about the Germans was their "Equal Opportunity Give Everyone A Hard Time" way of dealing. He's wearing a blue shirt, she made a grammatical error, he's an Ausländer, it's all the same. Any excuse will do to set someone else straight on Ordnung. I find it a source of constant entertainment.

What I really wanted to discuss is this self-help construct of "radical personal responsibility" in the context of race-and-gender isms. This "something inside you attracts experiences..." works for me up to a point. I must admit to becoming irritable when whites assure me that they "spiritually understand" racism. I also got a bit irritated with Dr. Cosby...

[Brewman_Jax]

4. I hope your sister recovers quickly

[Karenina]

6. So do I!

Stage 4 colon cancer... When she told me I was NOT suprised after all the POISON she's ingested working for the V.A. :cry:

[Chovexani]

10. That's horrible!

I will send some positive energy her way. :hug:

[Karenina]

16. I do appreciate that, Chovexani!

Thank you.

[HamdenRice]

13. I'm so sorry -- stay strong ...

I don't know what I anyone can say, except stay strong for your sister, spend every moment you can with her. This is not just for pessimistic reasons, but because her staying close to family and loved ones actually boosts her immune system and mood and can help give her a fighting chance.

I didn't quite understand your OP and the reference to self-help and responsibility, but I think I am beginning to. Are your reading the kind of self help that says basically we are responsible for what happens to us?

If so I agree with you and your sister that it is written for white people -- or more precisely successful and lucky people, and to make people who suffer tragedy, health crisis or other misfortune feel even worse.

One of the first great attacks on this kind of stuff -- actually in the context of cancer -- was Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor." It might help you out. She actually wrote it while battling cancer and felt "accused" and isolated by the use people made of cancer as some kind of disease that people get because of their own emotions -- like an outgrowth of their own repression. She is basically saying, physical disease is disease, not some kind of judgment on your soul; you are not responsible for your cancer, she was saying.

At its worst this kind of thinking is Dr Phil or Dr Laura telling people with serious life problems, financial and health problems, just get over it, or the incredibly fortunate Oprah telling people that the only reason each member of her poor slob audience isn't as rich as her is because they are not thinking positively enough.

[Karenina]

14. NOW you're getting my drift!

Hang in with me here HR!!! It may take a few days of thinking things through for me to explain myself coherently but there's something trying to find expression that I NEED someone to understand and validate.

And am I allowed to say how absolutely exhausted I am trying to "stay strong" and at the same time being excoriated for doing so? "You're too much for people to handle. You're too hard." :argh:

BTW, I play oboe and English Horn.

[Karenina]

15. Thank you Lurking_Argyle!

I will pass on your regards to her. She HATES computers but I've managed to engage her in an ongoing Scrabble tournament online. It was one of our frequent amusements as children.

[jmm]

11. My father has bad problems with his name.

His full name is only seven letters and very easy to spell but some people like to makes things difficult for themselves. I've had problems with my name but they've never been as bad as his. A couple of years ago when I was trying to visit him in the hospital I even had a woman argue with me claiming that I was spelling his name wrong. She turned red from embarrassment when she realized her mistake. Or maybe she was red because of what I had to say to make her spell it correctly }( ?

I hope she sister gets well soon.