Open Letter to Shenendehowa Schools

Dr. Oliver Robinson, Superintendent of Shen
Mr. Donald Flynt, Principal of Shen High School
Mr. Jonathan Burns, Principal of Acadia Middle School
Mr. Greg Pace, Principal of Tesago Elementary School

In the wake of the election of a US President whose campaign was an outpouring of racism, sexism, bigotry, and xenophobia and a VP who believes that LGBTQ people are in need of "curing," I feel it is urgently important that I write to you about incidents at Acadia Middle School and High School West.

On Thursday, November 10, a number of children were chanting, "Build a wall! Kill 'em all! All hail Trump!"

Of course Shen students have a right and even a responsibility to start exploring political ideologies, learning about our elections, and choosing candidates to support, but in a free, democratic society, "kill 'em all" is never acceptable. It is hate speech, pure and simple. It is an affront to civil discourse, it violates Shen district rules, and it is illegal.

Less drastic, but more personal, at High School West, my son Antonio, whose father was born in Mexico, has been told by fellow students that he is going to be deported. Antonio was born in California, holds an American passport, has never lived outside the US, and is only now learning to speak Spanish through Shen's LOTE requirement, but he was made to feel that he does not belong here because, though he is a natural-born citizen with fair skin and blue eyes, he has a Hispanic name.

What's more, his algebra teacher expressed shock during Open House that she had two students named Antonio in a class, while two students with "normal" names like Jennifer or Madison was to be expected. Your history teachers could use this as a teachable moment to point out that her distinctly Polish last name would have been cause for discrimination 120 years ago when Poles were the most recent immigrants, facing prejudice and gross, hateful stereotypes from the xenophobic citizens who were lucky enough to have been born here.

The election outcome has emboldened people with latent or explicitly prejudiced sensibilities, and it is incumbent upon everyone else to stand up to the acts of intimidation, discrimination, and even small-minded ignorance, to make them understand that we will not tolerate hatred and we will always defend those who are singled out.

I expect that you will treat all incidents with the seriousness they deserve, disciplining students appropriately, making parents aware of the outrage among students and parents, and most importantly, reiterating to the entire student body and staff that Shen should be a safe and welcoming place for ALL students, as mandated in the Dignity for All Students Act. From the Shen website:

Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) protects students from harassment, discrimination and bullying by other students or school employees. It provides that no student shall be subjected to discrimination based on his or her actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, weight, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or sex. DASA explicitly states that the harassment is the creation of a hostile environment through bullying, taunting and intimidation.

Acadia is holding Respect Week this week, starting off with a day to celebrate cultural diversity and unity. I hope the message sinks in with ALL of the students and staff this time. If it does not, you will be hearing from me again.

Thank you,
Jessica Córdova

Blue Apron Review

I hoping this comes across as a public service announcement and not a commercial.

For several years now, I have...not enjoyed cooking (for these picky ungrateful wretches I live with). Uh-hem.

So in the midst of my uninspired kitchen doldrums, after getting a coupon in the mail, I tried Blue Apron, the uncooked meal delivery service, and it was actually quite good!

• Maggie ate collard greens without complaint and actually asked if we could have fish more often. WTF?
• The portions are well-sized, and it comes with nutritional information—always nice when someone else figures that out the carbs for me.
• The full price (without the coupon) is a smidge more than the cost of the four of us going to Panera or Chipotle, but judging by the meals we've gotten, it's healthier. Again, collard greens!?!
• It's a great way to teach your tween or teen to cook...assuming that I'm not the only one whose kids aren't already totally prepared to make a freaking soufflé on Chopped Junior. I'm even thinking of picking a Saturday evening, handing them a box and a recipe card and seeing how it goes.
• I do feel bad about the packaging—it came with a bunch of ice packs, but it says they're reusable and recyclable, so that lessens the guilt a little.

Anyway, if anyone is thinking of trying it, let me know because they are saying I can send free meals to friends who haven't tried the service. Just let me know.

Full disclosure: I receive no payments, kick-backs, free stuff, or sexual favors from Blue Apron. I just think it's pretty cool, and I thought I'd share.

Civics 101

For those who don't remember high school history class, the US Constitution wasn't our first rulebook. During the war to break from England, our lauded Founding Fathers drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777. After the war was won, they discovered that the loose rules, leaving too much up to individual states and not authorizing enough power to the central government...didn't quite work.

So they went back to the drawing board in 1789 and created the US Constitution, the amazing document that, much like the Bible, is constantly referred to but seldom read and even less understood.

I would like to remind everyone that IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REPLACED! We do not need a revolution, Bernie. We do not need to blow up the system, Reince.

The Constitutional Convention members designed a government in such a way as to dilute the power of any one person or group and to prevent rapid changes in power. It is an excellent idea that keeps the government centrist and stable. No demagogue can come along and seize power. No party can sweep in and radically shift the direction of the country in a single election. The decidedly cautious revolutionaries created an awesome framework for preventing a fickle electorate from swinging wildly from one ideological position to another. Yes, it means that change is slow. That's the point! (Now THAT is intelligent design I can get behind.)

If there is a flaw in their excellent planning it is that I doubt they expected the modern Republican party to act like toddlers who will ensure that if they can't win, nobody can. The "broken" government that everyone keeps talking about is the result of a refusal to compromise, which has resulted in literal government shutdown. But that is NOT the fault of the system, which, for all its brilliance, cannot force politicians or the electorate to act like fucking adults and work together to solve the nation's problems.

Happy Mother's Day?

Normally Mother's Day is that one day we take in spring to lie about how much we value mothers and motherhood, but this year we have a new selfish spin on devaluing motherhood.

To whit:

• a tweet from a woman claiming (I'm paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact quote) to tweet on behalf of all the mothers who find being a parent a happy thing that happened in their lives, "but not their reason for being."
• And the movie "Bad Moms."

First, if you have kids but being a parent isn't the most important thing in your life, you should have gotten a shelter dog, not a created a human being. 

OK, my children aren't pets.

If you brought another human being into the world, either planned or (shudder) by accident, that person is more important than you...at least to you. He or she is not a pet or a hobby, and if you think so, you should have left the baby at a fire station or emergency room at birth.

There are nearly infinite ways to be a good parent, but ALL of them start with prioritizing your kid first, before your job, your pedicure appointment, tee time, or tea time. If you're not willing to do that, why do you deserve a day of recognition for one of your many hobbies? What's next? A day to recognize the invaluable contribution to society of scrapbookers or mountain bikers?

Having said that, I move on to the problem of the "Bad Moms" movie trailer I saw last night. The premise is that a (totally HOT, upper-middle-class "working") mom is overwhelmed by the outrageous expectations she feels she must live up to in order to be the perfect mom, so she and her friends reject them and decide to be "bad moms."

Boy do I understand the pressure to be the "perfect" parent...because if you're not perfect, you must not love your kids, or so the spurious logic goes. I actually feel it more than "working moms" because I don't have the excuse of a job that gets in the way of ideal motherhood. ("Yes, I make mistakes, but I can't help it. I have to work.") But as much as I might enjoy watching a group of moms reject the straightjacketed, stick-up-your-ass, sugar- and gluten-free "perfect motherhood," and forge their own path to really good, responsible, joyful motherhood (which can include cutting loose, making mistakes, the occasional really poor choice, and even sometimes (briefly) regretting ever having had children), I suspect that the movie will piss me off more than make me feel in good company because I am not actually the target demographic. I'm not a "working mom," so I couldn't possibly understand the pressure these women are under, never mind that the schools are actually adapting to their lives, to my detriment.

• Really? I can't bake something for the class because they now require all shared foods be store-bought? (Mila, those grocery store donut holes would have been A-OK in my district.)
• Really? The elementary school performances all end at 8:15, after my kid's reasonable bedtime needed for the 6:30 reveille, because you all can't get off work early twice a school year? 

But more importantly, the movie trailer also contains shockingly few shots of either men or children, as if mothers exist entirely independent of fathers and kids, bringing us back around to my first point, that the capitalist feminist view of motherhood is little more than an optional unpaid side quest on the path to self-actualization.

So this year on Mother's Day, in addition to (most) men's insulting lip service claiming to deeply value the self-sacrifices born of love and made by women, some women seem to be arguing that the sacrifices simply aren't necessary. Rather than stepping up and calling for a more equitable sharing of sacrifice and work, or alternately demanding sincere, lasting respect for the most fundamental of "women's work," women themselves are devaluing motherhood as just something that they do part time when it's fun.

So happy mother's day?

Incidentally, my husband does truly value my work as primary parent to our children. My kids don't really appreciate me yet because to them, I'm air—ubiquitous, absolutely vital, and totally taken for granted—but they'll get there one day.

#HeyGirl

Feminist Ryan Gosling respects your sexual agency.

I've been stuck for two weeks or so between trying to understand what people intend by what they say and knowing that word choice matters. OK, OK, one word, in particular: girl.

I loved my Pilates/yoga teacher's rough translation of "namaste" as "you go, girl!" I had to smile when a toll booth worker passed me through the pay lane with a wave and a cheerful, "you're good, girl." I love the cute pink and pastel LEGO Friends sets. (Although I absolutely hate the stretched out skinny mini-fig replacements.) But despite drinking my coffee out of a pink mug in my pink office as I browse for a pink iPhone and pink MacBook, I still struggle with self-contempt in the moments when I'm emotion and (shudder) "girlie."

There should be nothing wrong with being a girl or being like a girl. It should denote immature femaleness, which should be, at worst, value-neutral as we work toward gender equality. I could put on my Humorless Feminist hat and mention that, in the real world, it is something of a double-edged sword because traditionally it undermines grown women by lumping us together with children—"career girls," anyone?—while its re-appropriation only serves to concede and reinforce that our value declines as we age. ("Really, even if I'm 40, I'm still cute and therefore worth something! Girl Power!")

But I don't want to freak out every time somebody uses the word girl to mean "female person of any age."

Except then there is this:

It's bad enough that porn stars, hookers, and strippers are regularly called "girls," but when a group of feminist women on NPR are talking about the (mostly) consensual sexual experiences of 15-21 year old females, they should not be persistently, insistently using the word "girls." A girl is a female child and a child cannot consent to sex, so if you're talking about a girl and sex, you're talking about child rape. Child rape is about as far from empowered sexual agency as you can get.

So I'll go ahead and assume you don't mean to insult me by calling me a girl even though I'm in my 40s, but pretty please, the moment you start talking about fucking, it's always WOMAN.

Too Old for This Shit

 So I did this last week:

#pinkhairdontcare

Never mind that I asked for this, minus the vacant expression, of course.

While was sitting in the salon chair having my hair turned magenta, the stylists and another customer were discussing Victoria's Secret Pink clothes, and their opinion was that if you have a 12-year-old daughter, SHE should be wearing Pink, not you, because you're too old.

Clearly, I didn't have much to add to the discussion because, well, I was having my hair turned pink, as if I were in middle school. 

But as I've said before, the lovely thing about being too old to have pink hair is that I'm also too old to have anyone tell me how I'm allowed to wear my hair.