The Education of Little Tree

The Education of Little Tree was recommended to me by one of the English teachers at the middle school. It is a memoir-style novel that may or may not be true. Asa Earl Carter published under the pseudonym of Forrest Carter, and after his death his brother said that the family had no Native American heritage despite the story line. There's a lot of controversy surrounding this novel, not only because Carter's story being a fictional work posing as a memoir. Carter was involved with the KKK and The Education of Little Tree is reputed to be his deathbed repentance.

Whether or not The Education of Little Tree is true or false (I vote false), it has a good moral and teaches a good lesson. Little Tree's parents, one white and one Cherokee, die and his Cherokee grandparents take him in and raise him.  They teach him their ways of simple living, tradition, love of nature, and to "spread the good." They make efforts to educate themselves and place emphasis on Little Tree learning by experience and making his own choices. 


Personally, I think the history of the author does not negate the message of this novel. I wouldn't say it's my favorite book, nor would I have picked it up on my own, but I found it to be a good read enjoyed it. Read on!

The Help

I may be the absolutely last person in the universe to have read The Help, but if, by some chance, I'm wrong and you haven't read it yet, you really should. 


It was amazing and touching. 


What gets me most is that it's the sixties. The sixties. And in the south, they still have their colored help. This is Bewitched. And it's civil rights. It's like my momma could be Mae Mobley, and "the help" has to use a seperate bathroom! They're good enough to raise kids, but not much else. They know how to keep house, but they're "too stupid" to take care of themselves? I'm confused. Which, I suppose, is part of the point of the book. I also liked how it tied in feminism. Everything, all these changes, were just starting. People thought things were fixed. They thought things were fine. Women could vote. Blacks could vote. Everyone got to go to school. Separate but equal. Activists knew better. And because of these people, life is different today. 


Last thought? I don't know why, but I had to check if stockett was white or black. She's white. However, she had a history quite like Miss Skeeter, so that's the connection :) 

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

This novel tells the story of two children, one Chinese and one Japanese but both American, during WWII. They become friends and puppy love takes over. But racial differences during the war make it hard for them to even see one another. And then they start placing the Japanese-Americans into Internment Camps. 

Ford's novel bounces back and forth from the 1980s - "Present" - and the war years as the Panama Hotel is re-opened and belongings from Interned Japanese are found. Memories are sparked. And then the ending is exactly what you would suspect. 

The story had a few good moments and a very sweet succinct ending. Yet at times I was bored by the story and found it rather predictable.  Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. Not sure I would recommend it, but I won't berate you if you love it.

Eugenics Today

As we know, I am a huge nerd. This means that at work I listen to a rather educational sort of podcast. Yesterday it was one from 'How Stuff Works' about eugenics and it really got me thinking. The concept is nothing new to me, and I have problems with the hiding of it in American History, but the apparent current relevance of it is new knowledge for me. There is a program called Project Prevention where this woman will pay addicts for being sterilized or getting a long term IUD. The purpose of this is to prevent pregnancy of addicts.  The numbers of unwanted pregnancies are huge, resulting in miscarriages, still births, and sickly children.  The babies are often premature, addicted, and have problems throughout their lives.  Many end up in foster care, which can be just as harmful and deserves a post all of its own, and later become addicts. Their addicted parents are unable to take care of them and the burden is shifted to the state. 

Financially, for the government (and perhaps even the parents) the $300 one can garnish from sterilization is much better than pregnancy and child related costs.  The children are generally unwanted by the parents in the first place, and are merely a financial burden for the state. For the children, it is much better to not be born in that sort of situation. It seems to be a win-win. 

And then enters the problems of eugenics, improving the genetics of the population for the benefit of further generations. Eugenics has a negative connotation, especially for its use by Nazi Germany, to promote a supreme race. Project Prevention also appears to be targeting minorities, but one must remember that the minorities over-represent themselves socio-economically in poverty, drug addiction, etc, but Project Prevention is determinedly not racist. Another problem is that they are apparently bribing these women, buying their reproductive rights, who are not even in their right mind to make that sort of decision. Some feel that the money could be better spent providing care and help for the addicts, to help them to make their reproductive decisions on their own and aid them to be better mothers to the children they already have, and eventually regain custody of their children in foster care. 

Initially, this seemed like a good idea to me. These people have ruined their lives and are bringing children -- who have no choice in the matter - to this earth with no means to provide for them. I am all about taking care of children and making the world a better place for them. I like to pretend I am analytical and logical and that I can look at things without feelings. Financially this is great. But then I start to think about it. And it's totally legal, and the women are choosing to take the money and get sterilized.  But what is to stop shelters or recovery centers from making sterilization a requirement? Or even the government? Who gets to make these decisions?

Cultural Safari

This semester I am in a mandatory class of which I am not super fond. (I know it's awkward. But I just couldn't end my sentence with a preposition). This class is meant to "explore various traditional and indigenous cultures from around the world."  I think this is great.  I'm all about learning about other cultures. Until it starts to feel like you only have culture if you're brown. . . like white is regular and good and normal, brown is the other, bad, lesser, study-able. (Note: This is not the teacher's intention. I hope.) They say ethnic like it's a bad thing. It's not.  Everyone is ethnic.  Ethnic is defined as: pertaining to or characteristic of a people, especially a group (ethnic group)  sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.

Ergo, everyone is ethnic.  And interesting article along these same lines, which we read in class, is "An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance" by Joann Kealiinohomoku. I found it to be a rather interesting article.  And from her logic, all dance is ethnic dance, same as all people are ethnic people. ie Ballet isn't better because it originated in rich, white Europe. It rose out of the people and reflects the time in which it originated. And honestly, contemporary ballet is still fairly reflective of our culture. 

And yet, as we discussed this article in class, people were still having a problem with it. As far as I understood, they couldn't exactly say  what they had a problem with, either because they couldn't acknowledge it within themselves or couldn't bring themselves to admit it.  But I just felt like some of the girls legitimately thought -- and probably still think -- that Ballet is High Art and other dance, African, Polynesian, Folk, all the other forms we have studied in this class, are low art.  I thought we were over that. 

But that wasn't supposed to be the point of this post. The point was supposed to be about our Final Project: the Cultural Safari. In the syllabus the assignment is stated: "Students will venture into the local, regional, national, or international community to experience a cultural event which includes dance and music."  Great.  Okay. Except, yet again, this community or cultural event should be something different from us. Read: Brown. And we were assigned groups. It really was a good assignment in theory.  The Professor's intentions really were great. But I am seriously worried about presentations next week. This class has not shown itself to be very open minded. Some of the girls are great; they make the class bearable. And others are so ignorant that they don't even know that they're racist.