Pledge to the Earth

I was pleasantly surprised early Friday morning when I heard my elementary school students reciting "The Pledge to the Earth" instead of "The Pledge of Allegiance." I thought perhaps my ears were deceiving me, but then I noticed a huge poster propped up on the whiteboard with words to this Earth pledge. It was exciting! When I substitute teach, at the start of each school day, when the pledge is broadcast over the PA system, I  do not repeat it. I have been refusing to repeat this patriotic pledge decades before NFL football star, Colin Kaepernick and his '49ers teammate Eric Reid, starting taking a knee during the National Anthem played at NFL games. 

The Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United State of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (Francis Bellamy, 1892, socialist minister) 

The words, 'under God' were added by the direction of President Eisenhower, to counter what he believed was the communist threat. Rev. Bellamy's daughter objected, but to no avail.

Not saying the Pledge of Allegiance and not standing for the National Anthem is essentially the same issue. I no longer believe that the U.S. government is upholding human values, much as Kaepernick wished to call attention to the racism and police brutality practiced in the U.S., which is inconsistent with values stated in the National 
Anthem.

Kaepernick and Reid Protesting Racism

 Kaepernick has pretty much been blackballed by the NFL, not being picked up to play in 2017 and subsequent years. His protest has been misconstrued as unpatriotic by the President, some NFL coaches and others. He wasn't protesting the flag and national anthem. He was using his social platform to protest police brutality and the lack of accountability of the justice system toward African Americans.  Healthy protest should be encouraged, not punished. 

I feel a bit apprehensive every time my students watch me as I am silent when I am supposed to be leading them in the "Pledge of Allegiance." I hope I don't get reported to any school administration for my lack of acquiescence to this practice. So far, so good. I am waiting for a student to ask me why I don't recite the pledge. That could be a tricky question to answer.

Here is the "Pledge to the Earth" written by teachers at a school here in Asheville, North Carolina. I added the "and genders" part.

Pledge to the Earth

I pledge allegiance to the Earth

And to all life it nourishes:

All growing things, all species of animals, 

All races and genders of people.

I promise to protect all life on our planet.

To live in harmony with nature.

And to share our resources justly.

So that all people can live with dignity.

In good health and in peace.

Ricardo Resende Unsplash

I love this new pledge. I can get behind it. It is based on neohumanism, a theory which includes all people, plants, animals, and the environment in one interconnected whole, the circle of life. It's a pledge every person in the world could take. I hope we all do. Yay, Mother Earth!

Pull on Those Covers! School Has Started.

For the first time this summer, I woke up at night because I was chilled and had to pull on more covers. Brr! Technically, we still have summer for another month, until September 23rd, the autumn equinox. Yet the weather already feels a little fall-like, Personally, I associate the beginning of the new school term with fall, and since schools have already started up, for me, it is fall.

Photo by Oliver Hale, Unsplash

Why did schools start beginning their fall terms in August, rather than September?

"Some have called long summer breaks a holdover from our agricultural past. That is not true. In fact, in the South, for much of the 20th century, schools took shorter summer breaks so that school could be dismissed in the fall, allowing children to help their parents pick cotton." (https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/opinion/20101126/editorial-longer-summer-breaks-good-for-students-parents)

 When I attended public school in the 50s and 60s, school started after Labor Day. So why did the fall back-to-school time get pushed up to August? Daphne Sasson, an Atlanta native, discusses the issue in an article on CNN. She says that in Atlanta schools first started beginning in August in 1996.She gives some reasons for a start date earlier than the traditional Labor Day date. 1.)There is more instructional time before spring assessments. 2.) Students can finish first semester before the December holiday break, so teachers won't need to review when school starts in January. (https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/living/school-start-dates-august-parents-feat/index.html)

Well, yes, I do get it, but we get less and less summer every year. I know the tourist trade would love for schools to get back to a September start date. Not that I am a fan of the tourist industry, yet in this case, I agree. Students need a longer summer vacation.  Families need time to go on vacations. Children need time to play with their friends.

Photo by Jon Tyson, Unsplash

Maybe it is nostalgia, but I yearn for the days when cooler weather meant that it was the end of summer and kids would start getting ready to go back to school. It seems like we are  rushing kids so much these days. They have to learn facts to regurgitate on assessments. Teachers have to teach to these tests, rather than instilling the love of learning and giving students tools with which to learn. These standardized assessments have changed the way teachers have to teach, or get fired for low scores of their students on the tests. They have changed the way students learn. Instead of learning to solve problems and become critical thinkers, they have to devote much of their time and energy to memorizing and learning the facts that may appear on these tests. So much for progressive education...

I know about this because as a classroom teacher, I was forced to teach to these tests. Some teachers were threatened that if their students didn't measure up, they would lose their jobs. Hard to do in an inner-city school in which my 10th grade students were reading on a 6th grade level when they arrived in my English classes. Some students did better, but a great number needed remedial reading instruction.

My students were not dumb. But school had become so much more than a place to learn. It was a place that if they wore the wrong color, a rival gang member might beat them up. School was a place to either score drugs or try to avoid running into pushers and druggies. School was a place they could get beaten up if they wore expensive athletic shoes that someone else wanted to steal for themselves. School was a place you had to avoid avoid bullies. In other words, the culture of school often overshadowed the instruction that was taking place in the classroom. And so many of my students were homeless or in homes in which parents were drug users and not supporting their child's school life.

My point, I guess, is that the defective educational curriculum with its standardized test requirements drives more than the earlier start dates of schools. Schools must work to collaborate with parents and teachers to create curricula that work for each locality. We must realize that social issues crop into our schools, and hinder learning. We must work to address these non-instructional needs of students--safety, hunger, homelessness, poverty, abuse, teen pregnancy, drug use, gang violence, school shootings, and so much more.

Photo by Jonathan Borba, Unsplash

Today's public school students have so many more challenges they face in school than I did  decades ago. With funding for public schools being cut, and charter schools and expensive private schools getting more and more of the resources, I don't see the problems with public schooling getting better any time soon. We need a transformation in educational pedagogy, which can only happen with an administration that believes in education as a right for all, regardless of race, gender, and social class. We must advocate for such a change. Children are our future.

Bears Then and Now

About a week ago, I ran over a bear on the highway. What was a mamma bear and two cubs doing crossing a major highway? Well, it was a total shock when my car came upon them. I slowed down and swerved, but though I missed the mamma bear, my car struck one of the cubs.

Such a pity! Later when I surveyed the damage to my car, I was not happy to see the driver side front fender hugely dented and the headlight skewed out of place. Thankfully, it still works. Worse is the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think of the baby black bear I killed. In a few seconds, a life was extinguished!

I am reminded of the big brown bear that I saw in a cage at Brown County State Park in Indiana when I was four or five. My Aunt Mickie had a souvenir stand at the park. She took me with her to peddle her wares a few times. What I recall most about those visits to the park was watching the big brown bear in the cage. It was horribly abused by tourists and children who would throw things at it and torment the poor animal. This had to have been one of the few remaining bears in the state as all the bears in Indiana had pretty much been exterminated by hunters around the turn of the 20th century, about the time Charles Major, a resident of my hometown, Shelbyville, wrote his book, Bears of Blue River.

I recently saw the newly refurbished statue of Balsar and his bear cubs on Shelbyville's town circle. He had killed their mother and so made the cubs his pets. At least I had not meant to kill a bear. In Balsar's time, late 1880s to early 1900s, bears were hunted for their fur and to eat. Hard to take that in.

I believe in totems, though I don't think that my totem is a bear. I do
have a sentimental attachment for bears, and have spent many hours on the banks of both the Little Blue and the Big Blue River in Shelbyville, though there were better rivers to fish, as the Big Blue had been polluted by a factory's dumping waste in it for decades. I did love to sit by the rivers and ponder my life. Once I went on a boating excursion to pick up trash off the river. It was pretty disgusting to see how much trash was in my rowboat and in my brother's rowboat when we finished that river trip. Below is a photo I took of the Big Blue a couple of years ago. Pretty muddy!

I am reminded of many trips my best friend since we were six, Bonnie, and I took to that river, picnicking, or just sitting on the banks talking about our lives and our dreams. Beautiful, relaxing times with someone I knew and loved best in the world. Bonnie was struck and killed by a truck two years ago, when she was crossing a highway at night. That was a big loss. She was right by my side when I snapped this photo. Bonnie, who had a tender heart, would have cried with me about the death of that baby bear.

I need to reread Bears of Blue River.There is something mystical about the bears that flow through my life. I will think on that. As in the movie, The Lion King, there is a circle of life. Someone dies, someone is born. I know there will be a new baby bear born somewhere. These thoughts I find soothing. The words of a song I sang in Girl Scouts as a child, come to me. "Peace I ask of thee, o river. Peace. Peace. Peace."

Why Do Some Women Marginalize Other Women?

Recently I had an upsetting experience in which an organization I had been in a leadership role for nearly a decade, abruptly ousted me from that role for a period of time. When that time period was over, we had a meeting which I thought would be about how I would resume my former duties. Instead, I was asked to help rescue a project which the current group could not pull in on time.

I was dumbfounded. When I later asked re: my reinstatement to the board, I was told that there would have to be elections, and I would need to apply. Since I had restarted this organization about ten years ago and had been the key organizer for most of this time, I felt disrespected and cast out for no good reason, except for a conflict with another member, which she has consistently refused to work out.

It caused me to think of how my chorus, Womansong, has chosen to deal with conflicts which come up from time to time. We hired a couple of fantastic diversity trainers who gave us workshops and also some reading materials to support our transition to a more inclusive organization. One of those works is White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun. We identified two of the descriptions of this culture for the chorus to work on together: right to comfort and fear of open conflict.

In these two interlocking issues, leaders of a group  look at those who bring up issues as bringing discomfort, which supersedes any willingness to look at the issues the person is bringing to light. It is typical in white culture that we may feel that our own personal needs and egos need to be protected. We may fear the message of the person who brings up the issue. We may want to keep the status quo.

Some antidotes to these damaging attitudes given by Tema Okun are:
 •role play ways to handle conflict before conflict happens; distinguish between being polite and raising hard issues; don’t require those who raise hard issues to raise them in ‘acceptable’ ways, especially if you are using the ways in which issues are raised as an excuse not to address those issues; once a conflict is resolved, take the opportunity to revisit it and see how it might have been handled differently

•understand that discomfort is at the root of all growth and learning; welcome it as much as you can; deepen your political analysis of *racism and oppression so you have a strong understanding of how your personal experience and feelings fit into a larger picture; don’t take everything personally (changework.net)

*I would add sexism, ageism, and classism as I have experienced all these -isms in this and other organizations, unfortunately. 

   It is by looking deeply at the conflicts we encounter in our work with others that we, ourselves, grow, and then, as a result of our own personal growth through the conflicts, allow our groups to come out the other side bigger, better, and more inclusive.

   Racism, sexism, ageism, and classism are regressive and hold us back. Let's begin anew to throw off the inertia and stereotypes of the past and embrace the new, ever more beautiful, and accepting attitudes of the future. Diversity is our strength.

Women's History Month Marches On

Time is running out on Women's History Month. It seems as though it just began and now it is nearly over. Where does the time go?

Women's History Month was created as a national celebration in 1981, when Congress declared the week beginning Mar. 7, 1982, as Women's History Week. In 1987, it became Women's History Month. It's a good time to  celebrate how amazing all women are, and to quote some women who have been role models for me. 

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." — Maya Angelou, author and poet

"Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture."

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim, or to someone else's ignorance." — bell hooks, author and feminist scholar

There are many more women who have inspired me and inspire me still; however, Maya Angelou, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, and bell hooks have been on my mind and there words in my heart this March Women's History Month. May their words inspire you, too. Goodbye, Women's History Month of 2019.

Big Brother vs. Pseudo-Culture

Proutcast Blog with Dada Veda and Mirra Price

I’m sending an excerpt on pseudo-culture from this longer podcast on social justice and gender issues. I feel it is relevant in the political climate we are experiencing in this country today. Proutcasts are with Dada Veda who interviews students of the Progressive Utilization Theory (Prout) on current socio-political topics. Please check out the entire podcast:

http://www.proutusa.org/index.php/2018/10/10/social-justice-gender-issues-and-prout/

 

Note: In some ways ‘pseudo-culture’ is similar to George Orwell’s Big Brother in his dystopian novel, 1984. As yet, the government doesn’t control advertising and media programming. However, Sinclair Broadcast Group, a right-leaning, Pro-Trump media giant, is getting closer every day with its insistence on anchors on all its affiliate stations spouting identical pro-Trump statements about “fake news.” Sinclair Anchors Parrot Fake News Copy Big Brother, the omnipresent propaganda vehicle, told the population in the book that freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and war is peace. By constant brainwashing, the people accepted these contradictions, and became submissive, giving over their power to the totalitarian government in the book. How different is the concept of ‘alternative facts’ that our government is pushing on us? Shall we add to this list: lies are alternative facts?

Pseudo-Culture  Segment of the Interview

“Mirra Price: Pseudo-culture is false culture. “Pseudo” means false. It’s like a superficial culture. If we talk about it worldwide, for example, there are many products that are sold all over the world that are manufactured here in this country. Coca-Cola is the number one seller in the world of any product. They’re selling this product that is sugary, has phosphoric acid in it; it doesn’t really have any nutritional value, but nationally it is advertised with pseudo-culture is by creating this wonderful, happy feeling with advertising where you see these young, beautiful models drinking coke.

I went to a movie the other day and had to sit through three Coke commercials. It is just everywhere you go, you are being bombarded with these images. The words in the ad are one thing, but pseudo-culture uses the subconscious. These images go deeply into our subconscious minds. For example, when children are with their parents at the grocery store, they will be running down the cereal aisle and saying all these jingles from popular cereals. These jingles and these images are embedded in our subconscious of all this beauty and happiness that we’ll have if we drink this Coke or we eat this cereal.

That is what pseudo-culture is all about—creating this false culture that sells products by playing on our baser instincts and by creating artificial needs so we go out and buy things we don’t need. We’ll see an ad for a new car, and we just bought a car last year, but it seems so much better, and we’ll have so much prestige if we buy it. I remember when I was in college they called it ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ If someone buys a new car, then you have to buy a newer model to prove that you are better, that you are richer. The more material possessions you have, the better person you are. Somehow the two got equated. 

 Our President portrays himself as being a self-made millionaire; however, the New York Times just ran a story that he inherited millions of dollars from his father and probably didn’t pay proper estate taxes on it. That is how he became rich. Anyway, this façade that he is creating that he is rich, he thinks makes him a better person, at least in this false version of culture that is prevalent. That is the kind of message that pseudo-culture tries to drive home, and it is a powerful tool of capitalism.

Dada Veda: In fact, he made his image on a TV show, “The Apprentice.” Most people in New York know that he was a failure as a businessman. He really wasn’t a good businessman, but he remade his image on “The Apprentice,” on television.

Mirra: It’s a good example of pseudo-culture. It’s a façade. It’s false. But people buy into that because of the way it’s promoted by the media.” [Our government, sadly,  is a television (un)reality show.]

Conclusion: Pseudo-culture shapes our reality and our world. We get our self-images from unreal media projection; adolescents get gender role socialization from the ideal portrayals of femininity and masculinity they are exposed to. Girls learn they are mostly judged by their beauty and many develop anorexia and bulimia while striving to be like razor-thin models; boys learn toxic masculinity—being tough, dominant, and powerful. This is how gender inequality begins and is constantly reinforced.

While big companies control advertising, in our capitalist system, they also exert a great deal of control over those who run our country. We need to get control of the media and create programming that is educational and uplifting without the dehumanizing ads used to create artificial needs to sell products. The next time you see a television ad that prompts you to go out and buy a product, stop and think for a minute if it is your idea or  Big Brother’s.

Workplace Equality!


On the heels of the Me#Too! and Time's Up! Movements, is the beginning of a transformation in the power structure between men and women. I wholeheartedly support the myriad women who have stood up and called out sexual misconduct, some for recent  sex crimes and some for sexist violent actions that occurred many decades ago. 

Women are starting to feel safe to tell our stories of male sexist violence since we feel safety in numbers. A few journalists such as Ronan Farrow who exposed Harvey Weinstein, which ushered in the Me#Too Movement, have courageously reported women's stories in order to catch and prosecute male predators.

The actresses who started the #Time's Up Movement have made it possible for poor women service workers to afford the legal representation they need in fighting workplace harassment lawsuits. I applaud all those who are actively working to make these movements successful.

I want to assert, however, that we aren't done yet. Just as the women's liberation movement, as significant as it was, did not address and win all the important fights for equality, #MeToo and #Time's Up, though important, are not addressing all the necessary inequalities women face today. 

In the 1980s I filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against an employer and was fired the next day. The EEOC was too backlogged with such complaints to investigate. The attorney for Women's Studies at Indiana University who assisted with my case against a greeting card company, could not get me reinstated. I turned down a settlement, which I regret, since it would have provided some financial relief. 

Nowadays, the EEOC is even more backlogged with severe funding and personnel cuts. It is my hope that the #Times Up Movement can help fill the gap in this lack of government legal assistance for workplace discrimination. The issues for women in the workplace are huge: equal pay for equal work, paid maternity leave, a government funded daycare system, and guarantees against sexual harassment, discrimination and sexual violence. 

Unfortunately, perhaps, in order to insure a safe, fair, equal workplace for women,, women need to create our own organizations to assist women workers and to create women-run workplaces. I am heading in that direction. Believe me.