Hooray for New Yarn!

[crysthewolf]

So for the first time in evar and evar, I ACTUALLY have a bit of extra cash. I decided I want to spend a teeeeeeensy bit of it, on this site: http://www.knitpicks.com . The self-striping sock yarn makes me go oooo and aaaaaaaah. I’m so excited. I haven’t decided what I want to get yet tho. Here’s the self-striping sock-yarn section… any suggestions?

For the time being I’ve been working on the ever-elusive afghan project (no, it’s not a suicide bomber.  Elana already beat you to that joke, sorry.)  I picked a color, picked a pattern from “Beginner’s Guide - Knit Stitches and Easy Projects“, and this is what I’ve got so far:

From knitting

It makes me happy. I like the horshoe stitch in particular…

From knitting

it just feels very, flow-ey. Is that a word? And if so, am I butchering it? =)

Been mostly working it while Chris and I get caught up on Battlestar Galactica (DO NOT spoil me. I’m only just starting season 3. If you aren’t sure what you’ve seen in which season, JUST DON’T TALK ABOUT IT. I am SERIOUSLY sick of being spoiled on this show, and I WILL eat you.) I’m hoping to be caught up by the finale… and I’m equally hopeful that someone will throw a finale party.

It’s nice to be making an afghan but it’s definitely an exercise in patience. The therapist suggests DO NOT PULL OUT THE PROJECT AND START OVER.

So NOW the question becomes… do I stick with a solid color, or do I vary??? Hmmmm, decisions decisions…

Love,
Crystal

Originally published at Crystal Knits. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

I think there's a difference between having absolutely no stigma attached to the word, and having it be just about the worst thing possible to call oneself or somebody else (other than "fat," of course, which is absurd in and of itself). We don't need to create a dichotomy that throws the baby out with the bathwater.

I disagree with the notion that something is only racist if it stems from the belief that a race is "lesser" across the board. For example, I'm a raging feminist as you know, but I still constantly find myself reacting to other women in sexist ways. Sometimes I'm able to catch myself before my reaction translates into a behavior, and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I realize what I did long after the fact.

Another example: I'd say it's pretty racist for someone to say that black people are dumb, but are way better than whites at athletics and rhythm. And yet, at the same time, a lot of people are so terrified of being called racists that they can't acknowledge the obvious fact that African-American children, on average, do much worse than white children on IQ tests. And *that's* also a big problem, because if we don't acknowledge it, we can't do anything about it. And we also can't deny that there are obviously a whole lot more elite basketball players who are black than white.

I'd also say it's pretty antisemitic when someone says that Jews are "good with money" - and that's obviously a pretty complicated issue, as well.

As far as what you said about the Israel issue ... here are some issues that I, personally, find to be pretty challenging.

1) When I was in Egypt, I had the experience of doing a fair number of business dealings with Arabs. I learned fairly quickly that, well, their standards for honesty are different from Western ones. It's just how they do business. If I didn't approach them with that in mind, I'd have been repeatedly screwed. At the same time, assuming that an Arab is likely to be dishonest is pretty racist, isn't it?

And, of course, there's the whole can of worms of how women are treated in Moslem countries. I interviewed a Muslim man from Niger for a class several years ago. he was a product of a macho, polygamous culture that routinely debases women. And this kid hated it. He thought it was awful. It was one of the reasons he was so eager to come to America. How are we even supposed to begin to be able to sort out our feelings about this issue, and figure out what to do, if we're terrified of being labeled "racist"? It cuts off all discussion.

2) When I went to several Indian reservations when I was working for Climb, I was shocked to see how awful things were there. Drug addiction, malnutrition, broken families, violence, and unemployment were pretty much the rule, rather than the exception. The younger kids were eager and excited, but once they hit about 12 or so they became withdrawn, silent, and passive. When I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up, most of them said "nothing." And they weren't being flippant - they meant it. One of the teachers told me that a couple of companies had come in from outside to try and create some jobs, but it didn't work out because the Indians didn't really have an understanding of the work ethic that was expected of them (i.e. not showing up, showing up late, etc. etc. etc.)

Clearly, there are a lot of problems there. For a variety of reasons that are pretty much our fault, the culture is deeply wounded on a broad scale. But lots of people would be afraid to say anything about Indians other than to talk about how noble and connected to the Earth they are. That doesn't solve the problem. AND - at the same time, if you're not careful, concern for the American Indian population can very easily devolve into into condescension. Or, in the case of a lot of the teachers on the reservation who had gotten burned out, anger, frustration, and contempt. But that doesn't change the fact that in order for outsiders to make a difference, some pretty broad changes need to occur within the culture - which, ideally, we could help with. And, yes, it's racist and condescending to say that. And it also needs to be said.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

"I'd also say it's pretty antisemitic when someone says that Jews are "good with money" - and that's obviously a pretty complicated issue, as well."

Again, is it "anti-semetic" or is it stereotyping? Something about the "anti" in that makes me think that that's a much stronger term than what we're dealing with here.

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

It's anti-semitic because of all the baggage that comes along with it. Most of time time when people say that, they mean it as a backhanded compliment. "Good with money" is code for "rich" and "disproportionately powerful." And from "disproportionally powerful" it's only a tiny quarter-step to "suspiciously powerful." "Rich" is often code for "to be resented because of their money."

It's also a stereotype that's been the basis of antisemitic purges for a millenium. Leni Riefenstahl used it as the inspiration for her visual metaphors of thousands of rats overrunning civilized cities, frenziedly burrowing and wriggling into all the nooks and crannies they could find and gobbling away at every crumb of food the poor, honest working people had to eat. A few years ago, a man sitting next to me on a plane, who had only met one Jew before, asked me - not meanly, he was very polite and genuinely curious - if it's true that Jews run the world. A month after I moved to North Carolina, a girl in my seventh grade class, upon overhearing the word "Jewish," from someone or other, piped up "Jews are rich!" Nobody disputed her. While it wasn't an antisemitic thing for her to say by any means - she was only twelve and didn't know any better - you can imagine how her feelings might change around that assumption if she retained it into adulthood. Particularly if she was experiencing some economic hard times ... and if she started hearing names like "Madoff." (This is why so many of us are so incredibly ashamed and frightened in the wake of the Madoff scandal. It can be a disarmingly short path from "Jews are good with money," to "Jews are rich," to "Jews are rich and we're not, something's fishy," to "It's the Jews' fault we don't have any money." The thoughts are so close together that they can easily wind up flowing into each other.

And that's where stereotyping and racism can meet.

But at the same time, it's undeniable that Jews are, well, disproportionately well-off in this country. Yet if people don't allow themselves to bring those thoughts and feelings into the light of their conscious minds for exploration, they'll just fester in the dark outside of a person's awareness. And, most likely, wind up doing a lot more damage.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

On the one hand... if you feel offended by it, then I would say it's anti-semitic. However, in just a very basic way, I would say that the term itself, without any of the follow up, isn't, necessarily... or, that is to say, if someone says that, in their experience, Jews are good with money, and they perhaps don't KNOW it carries that kind of baggage (I realize it's difficult to imagine that but some people live in a bubble. A hypothetical one, but a bubble nonetheless. ;) ), then is it anti-semitic for them to say it, or is it a stereotype?

Granted, it by far is not a HARMLESS stereotype (few are, really), but I wonder if it doesn't have to go into the baggage, or maybe even if the person saying it doesn't have to feel ill will toward Jews (for, presumably, "not deserving" to be well off) before it becomes true anti-semitism.

Again I say this because I think that anti-semitism is horribly grievous, and I don't want to diminish some of the deep horrific suffering that people have gone through by comparing what they've gone through with an ignorant comment.

...at the same time, that ignorant comment can definitely bring up memories of what people have gone through and what people's families have gone through. But does that make it anti-semitic? ...I'm not sure. Perhaps it does. But I'm cautious to say so, I suppose.

And I just realized I've spent a few entries spelling semitic wrong. Because I'm kindof a moron like that. ;)

...gmail doesn't seem to recognize semitic as a word. That's a little unnerving. ...oh, wait, no... it just wants me to capitalize it. I was about to be concerned. Then again, gmail doesn't recognize gmail as a word, either. Does it want me to capitalize that too? Gmail. Hmm, nope, still has a read line. How odd is that?

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

Actually, I only recently learned how to spell semitic correctly. I'd been misspelling it my whole life.

I think another, similar comparison might be when someone calls Barack Obama "uppity." Automatically, it means something totally different than if someone used the same word to describe, say, John McCain.

If it's truly said in a bubble, then it's not racist. But those bubbles are pretty rare. Even people who claim they weren't aware of the connotation of what they were saying, had most likely gotten the idea to connect those two ideas - Obama and uppity - from somewhere. And it's a lot less likely that he'd connect the word to John McCain.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

Very true.

I'm kindof a compartmentalist. ;) I know, it fails when the rest of the world doesn't, lol.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

"think there's a difference between having absolutely no stigma attached to the word, and having it be just about the worst thing possible to call oneself or somebody else (other than "fat," of course, which is absurd in and of itself). We don't need to create a dichotomy that throws the baby out with the bathwater."

Mm. I'm not really aiming for a black-and-white (uh, no pun intended?) way of dealing with the issue. I don't think that "racist" IS the absolute worst thing we can say about something or someone... but at the same time I think that "racist" is a serious term and needs to continue to be treated as such.

I'm thinking more about introspection than I am about accusation, if that makes sense. If I'm saying something or doing something that is literally racist, then I need to examine myself and, in the end, quit fucking doing that thing. If I'm stereotyping? Maybe I need to quit and maybe I don't.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

When you boil it down it's really a matter of semantics, and, truth be told, I don't think the world is going to end if the word "racism" is downplayed or if it isn't. You have a particular view of semantics in the issue and I have a different one. I think we've both got some pretty good points, and BECAUSE we've got such good points, I don't know that I see either of us really changing our minds on the issue completely, but hopefully we've both given one another some things to chew on.

That's a really long way of saying "let's agree to disagree", but I get tired of people saying that because it usually means someone's angry or gotten their feelings hurt and I don't think either of us have. I just think we're both saying the same things over and over again and we both get each other's point, we just don't see it the same way. :)

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

Just FYI, I don't seem to be getting all of the notifications of when you're posting comments, so if you post something and I don't answer, it's not because I'm ignoring you. Feel free to shoot me a "HEY! Get off your ass an ANSWER ME!" email. ;)

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

Stereotyping isn't racist in and of itself. It's the deceptive ease with which it can - and very often does - quietly slip into racism that's the issue. We've all got some stereotypes rattling around in our brains that have started to edge into grayish territory. And that can exert a very dramatic effect on the world. That's why it's so utterly crucial to be aware of our our prejudices and blind spots. And we've all got 'em :-).

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

Yeees.... I would agree with that.

I try to be very conscious of my prejudices just because... I don't believe I have a right to judge anyone. Not because I'm this or that, but because I don't know them, I don't know their situation, and I don't have a right to judge what they do as "right" or "wrong". the only thing I can judge, is the damage that it causes. And if that damage needs to stop, then someone has to find a way to stop it.

I know that when I'm sitting on the bus, the guy in the nice suit is really just as likely to pick my pocket as the guy with the holes in his pants. It'd be easier for me to think this person is more likely to hurt me than that one... but I know better. I suppose I don't consider anyone particularly "safe" until I know them. Maybe that's it's own kind of prejudice, I don't know, but I figure it's at least fair.

But I don't do it to be self-righteous, I do it to NOT be ignorant... kindof out of a sense of practicality. I don't think it makes me a better person than someone who thinks it's smarter to sit further from the guy with holes in his pants... just means we have different ways of viewing the world.

I'm weird. ;)