In Search of Lost Time

The Evergreen State College

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Journal Entry #6

April 29, 2015 /

Journal Entry #6

April 29, 2015

Last night, while cooling off after a late evening Muay Thai class, thoroughly exhausted both physically and mentally yet with too much adrenaline left in my system to sleep, I found myself perusing through videos of the Baltimore riots. Although I had read newspaper articles on the subject earlier that morning, seeing the raw chaos and violence unfold from the perspective of the people who witnessed it took on a quality altogether different than reading intellectualized accounts.

The first video I found was filmed from the perspective of a group of white people taking shelter inside a bar. At first a few of them were standing outside, possibly because they didn’t anticipate what was to come or they wanted to catch the event on video. The rioters began hurling open bins full of garbage at them, and two of which hit women in the group near the person filming. The assailants may have targeted the women intentionally, either anticipating that they would react more slowly to the projectiles or to deliberately antagonize the men they were with. One of the larger thugs came over to the group near the person filming and punched a bystander in the face several times before running back to the group of rioters. Those that chose to fight back got caught up in a huge brawl and from the video it is unclear what happened to them.

After a draining bout of kickboxing, my first reaction in as I took this all in wasn’t anger. I found myself imagining what it would be like to be thrust into a situation like that. I started to envision what the best strategies would be to remain safe, and which self-defense measures would be most effective. Reacting to the violence with more violence would most likely not have a good outcome, but it would be hard to stand idly by and watch as others were hurt without stepping in to defend them. The violence simply rolled through the streets like a surging wave, welling up suddenly like a flash flood that threatened to overtake anyone in its path. To reverse the course of the riot or assert control over it seemed like more than any one person could have accomplished. Another video showed a huge black man with his arms outstretched, forming a barrier between the police and protesters to discourage violence. This struck me as incredibly brave. Finally, I watched as a news reporter interviewed one rioter as others slashed a fire hose to disrupt firefighter’s efforts to control a fire inside a CVS that was set by arsonists after looting it.

I went to sleep disturbed by what I had seen, so over breakfast I sent Sweeney, my girlfriend, a link to a NY Times article reporting on the the effects and aftermath of the event in order to discuss it with her and hear her opinion. It was my favorite of the articles I had read on the issue. The article includes an interview with an African American social reformer in Baltimore, who watched dumbfounded as a multimillion dollar housing project for senior citizens he had worked on for years was burned to the ground. The article also describes the difficulties that government officials have had in getting any corporations to invest in the troubled neighborhoods prior to the riots, with specific reference to the CVS that was destroyed.

Sweeney responded that the article doesn’t explore the perspective of the rioters, so I sent her the video of the fire hose slashing which includes a man hiding his face as he rants to the reporter; quite possibly to distract the news camera as the other rioters converged on the hose.

As disturbed as I was by the videos, that feeling was compounded by the film The Sorrow and the Pity, which we finished in class today. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the story was not enriched in any way by including the interviews of men who had been high up in the Nazi military during WWII. Neither of them were apologetic about their role in the war, and I have trouble buying into any rationalization they may employ as for what motivated their involvement or their knowledge of the full scope of the evil of the Nazi party. I was also put off by the way they chose to end the film., It went into a detailed portrayal of the injustices committed after the war and the innocent people that were condemned by the French after they were liberated from Nazi control. Although the scale and scope of the injustice that went on after the war differed drastically from what went on during the occupation, the film spends a good deal of time delving into it and ends on that note, as if to insinuate that everyone was guilty of some form of inhumanity not just the Nazis. The documentary went so far as to include at the end a former Nazi recounting his woeful tale of being spit on after the war ended.

The ending of The Sorrow and The Pity reminds me in a way of the Mel Gibson movie Apocalypto. The whole movie is about the persecution of one small tribe by the Mayan Empire. The movie ends with the tribes spotting Spanish ships on the horizon for the first time, and is suggestive enough that the viewer may question “Well, if that’s how the tribes treated each other before the Spanish arrived, and then was the process of colonization really that bad? Maybe that’s just the way their history is.” This is along the same lines of people saying “the Africans were enslaving each other before Europeans even got there.” To me, the documentary is making a deliberate statement by focusing so much on the way that political prisoners were treated post liberation at the hands of their own people instead of the Nazis. It is as if to say “it’s not just the Nazis who were criminals. Atrocities were committed on all sides and no one is completely innocent. You can’t judge the Nazis for what they did”

Both the documentary we watched in class and the news reports from the riots in Baltimore made me question, what exactly is the value of a narrative? When telling a story, are some narratives and perspectives more valuable than others? When crimes and atrocities are committed that have implications greater than the individual perpetrators, is the best way to get a balanced view of both sides really to include their narrative? Although rioters in Baltimore may have committed petty crimes, or in some cases felonies and more serious crimes, to me this doesn’t put them on the same level as the atrocities, genocide, and crimes against humanity of the Nazis, however parallels do exist in the way that their story is told and the sense that the individuals committing the crimes stand for something larger than themselves.

There are many arguments that can explain the side of the rioters and make their cause relatable. The social reformer who was quoted in the NY Times makes the case that the acts were a senseless reaction resulting from underserved and underprivileged youth who, filled with anger, didn’t realize the repercussions of their actions. Statistics can also reveal that the areas affected the most are home to a populace that is generally not well educated. Hearing the explanations in that article, it isn’t hard to relate to the justifiable anger of the youth there. As a teenager I could imagine myself protesting or rioting with no thought of consequences, and I didn’t have half the problems that the youth in those communities are faced with. When the argument is correctly framed, the action of those rioters is compelling in a sense. It has actually caused me to put more thought into the specific ways in which members of those communities are disenfranchised, and issues of racial inequality, than I otherwise would have. The problem is that by interviewing the rioters themselves, you get none of those kinds of answers. Just a spout of reactionary hatefulness from the mouths of those who are too ignorant to realize that their actions are hurting themselves and their community just as they are damaging the livelihood of the targets of their random aggression. We know what their motivations are. We don’t need to hear it directly from the perpetrators of the crimes. Their opinion is not likely to build a productive dialogue or have any real value. It is better to understand their perspective in other ways. Similarly, I think it is more productive to learn the intricacies of what really made the Nazi’s tick by taking a sociological or psychological approach. For example studying the impact on the Nazis of the propaganda they were exposed to, or to gain an understanding of the underlying social or historical forces that were at work. I fail to see what can be gained by focusing on the smug reminiscing and contrived excuses or people who took part in atrocities under the banner of a genocidal regime. The narrative of a crime’s perpetrator isn’t necessarily the best way to put their actions into context.

Grandma

April 28, 2015 /

Transcription of Vivian Louise Officer (Broughton) 1928

Grandpa and Grandma Broughton (My great great grand parents)

John Broughton-1st Generation was born in England

John was married to a lady in England, they had 3 sons, He and his 3 sons (almost grown),  Traveled by ship over to the states, The father was separated from his sons when they arrived and for some reason they never found one another and they all went their own ways.

Charlotte Broughton- John married Charlotte after coming to the states

FATHER -Percy Vere Broughton- Born June 1890, (Middle Child) Clarence (Oldest) Naomi (Youngest)

MOTHER-Emilie Watts Broughton (Heaton), Married Dec 18, 1912

Moved from Kansas to Washington in the Kelso/Longview area,

After moving to Washington, her father’s friend who had also moved from Kansas to the Kelso/Longview area worked for a lumber mill and was able to get her father a job, Her father was working there for quite sometime when he was asked to take a new and dangerous assignment, which another worker had recently been killed doing. Having five children and a wife depending on him, he turned down the job and quit the mill. My grandmother remembers very vividly that he had told her  ” No I don’t believe a man with 5 children has any business doing that job.”  This is before she was born.Vivian was born in 1928 a year before the Great Depression had started, in a large one room shack in the Kelso/ Longview area on a small farm outside of town, After a new larger house was built, the one room shack became the chicken coup. She does not remember the shack but she does remember the new home being built. She explains with a small chuckle that the new house seemed quite large at that time, even though large back then was nothing compared to the houses now a days. She describes the house as having two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs, a wood “heating” stove to keep the home warm that was located in the dining room and a wood cooking stove that was located in the kitchen. The house did not have running water so in order to supply water, their family would pull water by the bucket from a well and carry it into the house. The well was located outside the house quite a ways, she laughs when explaining how tricky it was to get a full bucket of water. She makes a flicking motion with her wrist when describing how it took a certain flick of the wrist to acquire a full bucket of water. The house also did not have electricity. Until later, after her dad dug the post holes for the electric poles. Dad was a farmer in Kansas on a very large farm, then after moving to Washington her father bought and settled on 15 acres. Her father did not have a job due to the Depression so they grew lots of strawberries and Vivian remembers planting and selling these to the Washington Co-Op Cannery when she was a young girl.  After she was born she remembers her mother and father planting lots of strawberries, filbert trees, she said their was 2 types she remembered one type which was shaped more like an almond but it was a filbert and she explained how you need both for cross pollination. She had a Jersey Cow and a yellow “sweetheart” kitten named Patsy when she was 6. One Christmas her sister’s had bought her a doll buggy and a Shirley Temple doll. Instead of playing with her doll she remember’s taking her kitten Patsy, putting her in the doll buggy and riding her into the pasture and down and all around. She also remembers throwing darts with the neighbor boy who was biracial part white and part Philippine. When asked about grade school she laughed and said “honey it was a two room country school 4 grades in each room!” one mile from the house, she walked everyday to and from it. When asked about the discipline in her home, she said their was very little, it was just understood and expected to behave. She remember there was absolutely no alcohol or smoking aloud around or on the premises. When asked about the relationship with her siblings she laughed and said she was spoiled, she was the baby the next sibling up was 8 years older. When Vivian was in grade school she became friends with Gloria, Wanita, Shirly, Bobby, Preston all started the 1st grade together, in the 3rd grade they met Wanda, when she graduated the 8th grade their was 5 boys and 5 girls she had all become good friends with, After each person was grown and married they started meeting for annual picnics in which all students from Baker Grade School were invited. All of the girls in this group are in their upper 80’s and still alive and are still close friends, meeting annually for the picnic or reunions. Before 8th grade she had been working hard in the different strawberry, young-berry and raspberry fields picking fruit for Bushman’s Farm, She saved every cent in order to buy her dream bike. When she had enough saved her mother and father took her all over to find the perfect one. Looked at Montgomery Ward, then went to Portland to Sears, ending up returning to Montgomery Ward and getting one there. She was 2 dollars short when she went to pay the 29.00 for the bike. so her father covered the remaining balance. She described the bike as “top of the line bicycle” it had a basket, it had a place over the back wheel to tie luggage. When she entered high school   Everyone was white that attended her grade school, it wasn’t until after WWII started and she started going to Ridgemont and Vancouver High School her Junior and Senior year that she was introduced to multicultural people other then the one neighbor boy. She remember’s one black girl who was very nice named Valerie when she was in high school.The popular and appropriate type of clothing she wore growing up were dresses, skirts, sweaters and anklets (socks) and every once in a while she would wear a neck-less. She remember’s riding a Gray Hound bus which she took to high school each day and seeing a lady named Yvonne Percy a little older than her and how she had a nice pair of earrings. She also remembers Shirley’s mom’s ears looping downwards because she wore heavy earrings. When she describes her saddle-backs and how they didn’t have Nike shoes back then with a small giggle. She said they were oxfords then her face lit up and she exclaimed how beautiful they were. You could get a pair of nice brown or black ones. During the war things were rationed, shoes were rationed and you could only use ration stamps to buy them. The oxfords which were made mostly of leather became rationed because leather was used in the military and they needed to reserve it. You were only able to buy 1 or 2 pairs of shoes a year because of the rationing so instead of buying the saddle-back shoes, her family would buy her wooden shoes which were made in Holland, She had a pair of these wooden shoes when she was a senior but when she started working for the telephone company they did not allow wooden shoes and they were a safety hazard. On December 7, 1941 my grandmother was sitting on her back porch with her sister Ruby looking out across the pasture, when a man who came from Portland to purchase chicken eggs told them that Pearl Harbor had been hit that morning. Ruby’s husband Clive, his brother’s Cal, Bob and his cousin Tom all enlisted together on the stipulation they would all be kept together, they were Army Engineers and they were all stationed oversees on a Mediterranean island when his brother Cal came down with Typhoid fever. Around the same time the ship with five brother’s went down and the Army made new regulations denying family to be stationed together.

Her triggers for memories are rooted in family, family specifics like ages, birthdays, anniversaries all seem to be rooted in her memory the deepest.

Grandma Officer had 6 siblings- Glenn Albert Broughton (oldest)-DOB: Oct 13 1913, Merrial Evon Broughton-DOB: March 19, 1915, Grace Broughton-DOB: NOV 17, 1916, Mary Elizabeth Broughton DOB: July 13, 1918, Ruby Eleanor Broughter-DOB Feb 12, 1920.

 

Book Review- Writing a Woman’s Life- Carolyn G. Heilbrun

April 28, 2015 /

The book “Writing a Women’s Life”: Author: Carolyn G. Heilbrun is a classic feminist text. First published in 1988 it discusses what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated society, and the way this impacts the biographies that have been written, along with how women write as authors.
Carolyn G. Heilbrun was a prolific feminist author of both academic studies and popular mystery novels using the pen name Amanda Cross. Heilbrun taught English at Columbia University from 1960 to 1992, becoming the first woman to receive tenure in the English Department. She specialized in British modern literature. Heilbrun was also the co-founder and editor of the Columbia University Press series; Gender and Culture. She committed suicide, October, 2003 after deciding that she had contributed enough to the world and that there was no longer any reason to live.

 
Writing a Women’s Life begins by “There are four ways to write a woman’s life: The women herself may tell it, in what she chooses to call an autobiography; she may tell it in what she chooses to call fiction; a biographer, woman or man, may write the woman’s life in what is called a biography; or the woman may write her own live in advance of living it, unconsciously and without recognizing or naming the process.” Heilbrun examines each of these types of telling the story of a woman’s life except the format of fiction. Although, her main focus seems to be on convincing women how they have been oppressed and unable to write their own truthful stories. “Biographies of women, if they have been written at all, have been written under the constraints of acceptable discussion, of agreement about what can be left out”

 
One way of writing a woman’s life is with an autobiography. Using the true story of George Sand, she describes a “woman who was a great man.” All accounts of her life describe her as both a man and a woman. She was a woman who sometimes dressed as a man, and often acted like one; in that she was forthright and direct, “with a masculine nature. ” As a writer George Sand had a tremendous effect on the writers of her time. Dostoyevsky, Whitman, Hawthorne, and George Eliot were all authors who were influenced by her work. Yet, the author claims that because she was a woman, her stories have disappeared from the canons of French and American Literature courses with “scarcely a trace” This disappearance results in her not becoming an available narrative for women to use within their own lives and writing.She says “It is precisely such a safety net that is absent from women’s lives, let alone their writings,. How are they to imagine forms and language they have never heard? How are they to live to write, and to write that other woman may live?… For women, that response has almost always been to the poetry of men, to a point of view not theirs.” The claim is that without female examples, women can only write from the viewpoint of man. The only acceptable tone is one of the white; middle-class , and so when they write, “they do not represent themselves as women”

 
What are the consequences for a woman who is determined to tell a story without the constraints of the assigned script? Traumatic consequences are described: death and suicide, a more confined marriage and the story of “Cousin Lewis’, where a woman who donned male clothing to tell her children stories of adventure is declared unfit to raise her children ” The author encourages women to begin to tell the truth of their lives even with the threat of these consequences, to groups, to one another, to promote modern feminism.

 
Throughout this text the theme of female oppression prevails, cumulating in a chapter of women in old age where she describes “ It is perhaps only in old age, certainly past fifty, that women can stop being female impersonators, can grasp the opportunity to reverse their most cherished principles of ‘femininity’…perhaps can profoundly change their lives” This final chapter talks about the freedom of being an old woman; that after the loss of her beauty and feminine usefulness, perhaps she can become powerful.” When they are old enough to have done with the business of being women, and can let loose their strength, they become the most powerful creatures in the world. The old woman must be glimpsed through all her disguises which seem to preclude her right to be called woman. She may well for the first time be woman herself.”

 
While this text is dated, the fundamental message remain somewhat relevant despite the fact that today’s women have far more socially legitimate options than those who provide Heilbrun’s examples. Today many women still hide themselves to conform to ideals that don’t ultimately benefit them.

 

Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Writing a Woman’s Life. 1st Ballantine Books ed. Ballantine Reader’s
Circle. New York: Ballantine Books, 1988..

Journal Entry #5: Deep Memory

April 27, 2015 /

On the surface, it would appear that Isabella and I are as different from one another as can be. Although some people may convince themselves that they won’t have anything in common with those that are “too different” from themselves, both Isabella and I embrace these differences, which, it turns out, is one of the many things we have in common. Apart from just the generational gap, we are also from totally different races, backgrounds, and cultures. She is African American, of Caribbean descent, and identifies strongly with her roots in Trinidad. So how do two people from completely different walks of life develop such a strong bond? Most simply it’s that none of those things matter, which is glaringly obvious to nonconformists like us who habitually defy societies’ expectations. Our friendship was formed on the basis of complimentary communication styles, shared values and beliefs, and mutual interests just like any other, even though we might appear to be an unlikely pair. All of these commonalities form a solid foundation for a friendship, but in order to comprehend why I find Isabella’s story so intriguing and what draws me to her is a journey of introspection into the deepest of my own recollections.

When we first met, we were united by the shared experience of focusing on Isabella’s recovery from a devastating car accident. Dedicating myself to assisting her however possible helped me to take pride in my work, and after nearly a year of working together two to three hours a day for three days a week I began to affectionately think of her as an older sister. In order to fully understand what motivated me to want to dedicate myself so wholeheartedly to her recovery, and what mysterious forces of the inner workings of my mind contributed; I have had to take an unflinching look at some of my deepest memories and realized some associations that are not easily acknowledged.

At its essence, Isabella’s story is one of determined resilience. As a middle class white male, some might assume my life to be the epitome of privilege and luxury. Unfortunately, as comfortable as my life may be I am no stranger to loss and suffering. As a child, I suffered from Tourette’s syndrome, which affected my schoolwork and strained my social life. I was one of the lucky few that grow out of it with age, and I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if it wasn’t for that. At age nine my parent’s got a divorce; a process that involved constant fighting, the filing of restraining orders, selling the house I grew up in, and moving into a small apartment in a new neighborhood. A few years before the move, my family had adopted a kitten off the street that I had taken a special interest in. I used to talk to him sometimes just to vent, especially when I was grounded and he was keeping me company. Suddenly, shortly after my parent’s told me about the divorce, my cat died prematurely.

For what seemed like a long time my mother and I had to move in with my grandparents until she could find a new place. By Middle School I was on my own in a new town trying to make new friends. Summer camp was a haven for me, and I used the healing that it afforded me to bounce back as much as possible. I took a chance and ran for class president in 7th grade, and gave an unconventional speech that took me from completely unknown to student body president. Then, in 8th grade, came September 11th. The whole nation was in mourning. Later that same year my father passed away. 2 years later my maternal grandmother also passed away. I did my best to cope with these tragedies, and focused a lot of energy on my schoolwork. I maintained High Honor Roll throughout all of Middle School and continuing into High School. I can recall vividly the influence of my 9th grade Health Class teacher. Maybe it was because I was one of the few students who applied myself to the class and took the subject seriously, or she might have sensed my penchant for public speaking, whatever the reason, she singled me out and asked if I would be part of her HIV/AIDS Awareness club. I didn’t feel any particular connection to that issue, and so she recommended a book to me on the subject. It was the true biographical story of a boy the same age as I was at the time that was a hemophiliac and contracted HIV due to a contaminated blood transfusion. It was a long book of around 500 pages that detailed many events of the boy’s short life, his struggle with illness, the activism/awareness he initiated to change the public perception of the disease, and his private thoughts and feelings about being terminally ill.

The book deeply affected me, and I invested myself fully in the cause of the club. Although it was unusual to head a club before senior year, I became president of the club both junior and senior year. By the time I graduated I had acquired enough experience in teaching the peer education program that I could also oversee the training of new club members. Despite all of the setbacks I did well on the SATs, kept my grades up, and was accepted to my first choice of colleges. I decided to defer enrollment and took a gap year after high school. During that time I spent 5 months in Africa, 3 of which were spent doing volunteer work. I was able to use my experience from the Aids Awareness club to start similar peer education initiatives in several locations hard hit by the AIDS epidemic. Simply having the education to realize that there is no danger in associating with those affected, and by appearing with them in public, sent a positive message and hopefully made a difference. It was as if the positive change was amplified from my initial decision to take up the cause into a broader and broader scope. Focusing on a worthy cause also put my own struggles into perspective for me, and gave me a sense of purpose. It all started with that one teacher, Mrs. Dowler, and the book that she lent me. I learned the value of using biography as inspiration and the value of doing work to benefit others. I can relate to Isabella’s experience because even though we have very different backgrounds and struggles I know what it means to be a survivor and to have to persevere through sheer toughness and resiliency. I want to record her story, as a testament to the determination of the human spirit.

 

Mistress Time

April 18, 2015 /

Time, a phenomena almost cruelly indifferent to us, yet we govern our every waking moment by it. She is the only universal deity, a goddess who allows us to begin, and the enforcer of our one inescapable fate, that some day we will end. The moments we spend awaiting a pleasure yet to arrive seem to expand within the space of our experience, but like a flighty lover a pleasure, no matter how tightly we embrace it, will slip away like the night while we sleep. When we awaken from our dreamlike state, time has passed us by, as does the notion that we are in her favor.

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