on the subject of a black woman's silence

my silence is not willful apathy.
it is not the absence of rage.

it is not a lack of desire
to process,
to protest,
to educate.

it is not consent,
no inaudible whisper of
"yes" to injustice,
no hushed utterance of
"this is ok, everything is ok."

do not equate the shutting of my mouth
with the closing of my eyes and ears
to the tension so tangibly felt.

i am aware.

i know that for some,
silence is agreement
with all of the above.

not so for me.

it has become hard to believe
that the pen is mightier than anything,
that one's voice holds power.
when reality hits
and history repeats,
i feel choked and powerless.

in saying nothing,
i preserve self.
it feels like the only power i have.

parallel

the life-breath of God // the last-breath in death
rage-fueled fires tonight // Holy-Spirit Pentecost tomorrow

an agent of protest // a murder weapon
violence begets violence // sirens beget sirens
black and white thinking // protests into riots

proud to live in this skin // scared to die because of it
numbness // sadness // fear // rage

too tired to keep writing // too tired to stop

the affirmative action kid? i think not.

Unless you live under a conveniently placed rock, I'm sure you've seen the opinion article about affirmative action that was recently published in The Harvard Crimson.  If not, take a couple of minutes to read it here.  I'll wait.

You're finished?  Great.

I'm not going to address most of this article.  Because a lot of people have done that, including a friend of mine and even the site Jezebel (this one probably counts as fighting fire with an even hotter fire, but that's beside the point).  I'm going to focus on the following line very briefly, because as a black, female medical student, it strikes quite an unsettling chord:

How would you feel if you were assured before going into surgery that your surgeon was the beneficiary of affirmative action in medical school?  I do not see why higher academic institutions should lower their standards for admission.

Quite frankly, I doubt anyone's desire for self-preservation would allow her to entertain that question for even a second if she required immediate surgical attention.  It would be ludicrous of someone to decline the help of a surgeon of color because the presence of affirmative action makes questionable his or her ability to do the job.  The patient would still want that surgeon to stop his bleeding, or excise his tumor, or put in his stent to keep his arteries open.  Even if he or she did still refuse to be treated by that particular physician, it is important to remember that every physician could potentially make a mistake while performing a procedure--even if affirmative action didn't exist.  Opting out of treatment provided by a beneficiary of affirmative action does not magically erase the possibility of error, that uncomfortable reality of the medical field.

Sarah--Miss Siskind, if you like that better--I will be honest with you.  I've never met you.  I know next to nothing about who you are, where you come from, why you chose Harvard, anything of the sort.  And I'm sure you're a nice girl.  But your article made me furious.  After I read it, I probably called you some names and celebrated the bashing you were beginning to receive from all corners of the internet.  I could apologize for those actions and ill-feelings toward you, but I'm not sure how sincere an apology would be, seeing as how the words that you wrote (and that many people seem to agree with) still sting me and many of the people I care about.  All of us--my peers, my classmates, you, I--worked hard to be where we are, and we will go on to become fabulous physicians, lawyers, i-bankers, actresses...whatever we decide.

But I suppose I should thank you.  You've inspired me to lay aside the jokes about how Harvard and Vanderbilt must have picked me to meet a minority quota.  Your article gives me motivation to work hard, just to make sure I'm proving you wrong every second that I'm in medical school.  And I'm sure that others like me feel the same.

The bottom line is this: I deserve to be where I am.  And in a weird, twisted way, Miss Siskind, you've opened my eyes wide to that fact.

rock the vote

just got my absentee ballot in the mail yesterday.  this will be my very first time voting.  i'm not going to tell you guys who's got my vote for president (although if you've seen some of my tumblr reblogs it's probably obvious), but i'm excited to make my mark on this election.

Never Forget

I set this picture as my lock screen background on my iPod so I'd never see Trayvon Martin as just a trending topic.

why occupy harvard?

i was going to write an irate blog post about my reasons for thinking occupy harvard is irrelevant (not going to describe it.  just google it), but i'm just so over it.  i'm sick of talking about it, sick of reading about it, just sick of it.  can we PLEASE talk about something else?  rally about something, anything, that doesn't have occupy in the name.  depending on the topic you choose, i may even come out and hold a sign and chant until my throat's sore (just don't ask me to sleep in a tent).  just change the subject already.


UPDATE: i'm mad at myself for saying that i was over it but continuing to discuss this with people all day long.  i guess this is something that needs to be discussed and shouldn't just be ignored.  in any case, now that i've calmed down a bit from when i wrote this post and heard some arguments here and there, i think i'm most miffed at the fact that this had to be an OCCUPY protest and not just a protest.  if you want more of my opinion on occupy harvard specifically, or feel the need to educate me a bit more on the protest movement in general, please don't hesitate to contact me. :P

this really struck me

from a NY Times article about (ex-)Dr. Conrad Murray being found guilty in the death of Michael Jackson:

In one of the most dramatic moments in the trial, prosecutors played Dr. Murray’s iPhone recording of the rambling singer talking about his dream of building the world’s largest children’s hospital.

“I’m going to do that for them,” Mr. Jackson is heard saying in slurred speech. “That will be remembered more than my performances. My performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream. I love them. I love them because I didn’t have a childhood. I had no childhood, I feel their pain.”

When his voice trailed off, Dr. Murray waited several seconds before asking, “You O.K.?”

After several more seconds, Mr. Jackson answered, “I am asleep.”

on 11:08 pm, EDT

i wasn't following the case until Tuesday, but the moment i heard that Troy Davis had been executed, i felt like crying.  the feeling quickly faded and was replaced by a strange hollowness.

every fiber of my being is in mourning, as if i knew Mr. Davis personally, had talked to him face to face instead of reading about his statements and his status on the various news sites and social networks that i have pulled up on Google Chrome.

and now, about an hour after his death--some people would say homicide--i'm still on facebook and twitter, my homework completely forgotten.  i'm reading the reactions of friends and the people i follow, sometimes commenting, sometimes just staring at the words they've chosen to use in an effort to express the inexpressible.

i feel connected to these people, even as that metaphorical moral fiber that holds everything together seems to unravel with time.

~3Ni~

do we live in a post-racial society?

you be the judge.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/06/mississippi.hate.crime/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

the "end of the world" - a rant by yours truly

people said that today would be our last day on earth as we know it.  but unless something happens in the next 3 hours or so, it seems that our planet will still be spinning on its axis in the morning.

see, the Bible says in Matthew 24:36 that nobody knows when the rapture is going to take place.  nobody.

so if you're the type of person who likes to make guesses about the second coming, please stop.  because whatever so-called logic you use to predict the end of the world will crumble, you'll lose whatever money you bet on the date and time, and you'll end up making Christianity look bad instead of scaring people into coming to faith.  

while i'm at it, let's get this out there too: the Mayans never predicted the end of the world.  the Mayan calendrical system consisted of many units of time, one of the longer ones being the baktun.  the only thing the Mayans predicted about 12/24/12 was that the 13th baktun would end.  no apocalypse, no great flood, just the equivalent of flipping over another page in the calendar.  honestly, i think it's more likely for Santa Claus to make an appearance on Christmas Eve 2012 than for the world to spontaneously cease to exist.

in closing, instead of trying to figure out when the world's going to end, why don't you make sure you're ready for whenever the hour might be?  call up old friends, go to church more than once a month, take up a hobby, something.  just stop trying to play the fortune teller...for all of our sakes.

thus ends my little rant.  sorry if it's a bit rough. 

more thoughts on the breaking news

a friend's most recent Facebook status:

Ok, that's just creepy.  10 years ago, on the day before I started at Harvard, Osama bin Laden entered the everyday vocabulary of Americans.  Today, two days after my [dissertation] defense, he's dead.  His name has capped both ends of my Harvard experience.

i'm just sitting here, thinking about how many significant things i have witnessed in a mere 20 years.  buildings have crumbled, governments have undergone phenomenal changes worldwide, lives have been transformed in interesting ways.  honestly, given all that i've seen or heard in my lifetime--even since December--i sometimes feel a lot older than i am.

call me a cynic...

according to a number of sources (including Twitter and Facebook), Osama bin Laden is dead.  now that we know the announcement is legitimate, i do believe celebration is in order.  this is, after all, very exciting news.

but in the midst of it all, i have to wonder...how much of what the world is going through is really going to change because of this?  i'm not trying to be cynical, or undermine the efforts of anyone who may have been involved.  i just have this burning question.

日本 et al.

wherever you are, and whatever you're doing, just stop and say a prayer for Japan today.  and if you have the means to aid the relief effort more directly, don't be too stingy or too afraid to do so.

but also...don't forget about Haiti, and about other nations that are suffering even now.  they may not show up in the news anymore, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be in our thoughts.  <3 <3

Want to get away with infidelity?

There's an app for that.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2010/03/01/moos.tiger.text.cnn?hpt=C2

Cheaters rejoice.  Apple has you in mind.  Now "acting like you're faithful" when you're really creeping and sleeping around is a little bit easier.

I'm sure there are some practical uses for this...but let's be honest...it's highly likely that people will use this to give into temptation that much quicker.

The days of "When in doubt, don't" are taking their leave.  "What he doesn't know won't hurt him" and "She'll never find out" have shown up at the door of society, and they plan to stay awhile.

I'm no model of morality, but I have a feeling that "Anything goes" should stop here, before we leave our virtues behind.

semi-rant about the news

Michael Jackson has passed away.

as of 6:30 or so everyone but CNN had confirmed it (which is in retrospect pretty fishy in itself).

notice though, that stations were saying he died when he was only in a coma.

circumstances in my life have told me to look before i leap. the news will do anything to get a rating, even if they have to break someone's spirit, humiliate someone on camera, or kill somebody before they actually die. they'll do anything to win your eyes. so you have to make sure that what you're seeing is reputable before you put the people who want to wait for confirmation on blast.

in closing, don't cry unless you knew him, don't make a scene, and just keep moving on...that's all i have.