No matter how great home is, new places totally rock my world and make me want to move. In Sweden it was excellent, affordable childcare; in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico it was the incredible light and loads of artists roaming the streets. Last week I was in San Francisco and despite the increased gang activity and SWAT team outside my window, I found myself fantasizing about the wonderful life my family could have in one of the most eco-conscious and disability-sensitive cities in the world.
Today in London I'm especially digging the diversity--Africans, South Asians, Arabs, intense-looking white folks. There's anonymity, lots of theater (Yasmina Reza's new play is up, as is Vanessa Redgrave in Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking). Stonehenge is a Tube ride away, and the journalists reviewing my book all seem to have read and genuinely connected with the work. Of course there's loads of problems, but as a tourist and working artist, it's all good.
But I still have a few questions:
Why is it Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich are doing PSAs about the necessity of coming together across party lines to save the environment, but George Bush can't bring himself to do a PSA with Al Sharpton about joining forces to end racism and sexism?
And why is it everywhere I go people love Obama and see his Presidency as one of the best things possible for the reconstitution of global integrity, but he's still being ground to bits? The people I talked to in San Francisco are furious with Hillary for going negative and want Obama to fight back--hard.
Even the relatively conservative folks here in London feel Hillary is part of the political system responsible for the mess we're in. They feel Hillary's gender holds no guarantee of a progressive agenda (Margaret Thatcher, anyone?). They've read Obama's first book and think he's a profound human being and artist a la Vaclav Havel who can bring soul back to politics. They want Obama to eat. They want him to sleep. They want to get on with it already.
And another thing: Why is the appropriation of the ideas and art of people of color still okay? Let's consider the contributions of women of color to Feminism, for example. We've been calling for inclusion for decades and now, now, at this moment, Marie Wilson calls for "the gender speech" and for everyone, including men and women of color to write it?
Am I wrong or is the ascent of a man of color being undermined by Feminists beating the drum of the resurgence of sexism and misogyny? Regardless of whether or not people are asking Hillary to iron their shirts, is now really the time to focus on that? Now? Years after welfare reform, NAFTA, and dozens of other policies impoverishing women of all colors? Tragically, I can't help but think of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton's statement that we'd better consider whether we want Sambo walking into the Kingdom of civil rights before white women.
The thing is, and I learned this the hard way, women are not the benevolent, essentially good creatures they're made out to be and men are not the Neanderthals they are made out to be, either. Women can be undermining, power hungry, psychologically and physically abusive, viciously competitive, corrupt, and a whole host of other unsavories. All human beings have these tendencies. Every human being has to wage a personal war to ensure the good wins out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the message of most great art?
To borrow an Obama-ism, today I'm feeling a bit, well, bitter. The world as it's configured is unsustainable, period. Adapt or die. Change or implode. Give credit where credit is due, and pass over the resulting resources. Stop hoarding. Stop silencing. Stop rejecting. Stop it. Just stop it.
Today I'm going to meditate on being peaceful. I know anger isn't the way to solve these problems. I send love to everyone, even the folks I'm upset with. I know we're all doing the best we can, but we have to do better.
The time is now. Keep hope alive.
For the children.
