Deanna Zandt's Extra Helping

When Twitter and Facebook are not enough, and my blog is too much. More: http://deannazandt.com

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Where do we do this now?

A while back I asked the Internets where we share and discuss not-fully-formed ideas and hypothesis now. Back in the day (*takes long drag of imaginary cigarette*) it was blogs, but then they became official. Then it was Twitter, but the (a) the party got too big, and (b) it’s never been really that good at nuance, has it? Someone suggested Tumblr is still this place; I haven’t spent time here in years. What do y'all diehards think? Time to emotionally reinvest in Tumblr?

I’m working on some personal projects around value, productivity, self-worth, money, self-care, capitalism and more, and feel like my work is almost always improved by early discussion and seeing what happens. I might start doing some of that here. Would y’all be into that?

[deannazandt]

Safety resources from my talk

Yello! Here are the articles, people and organizations I recommend working with for securing your digital selves:

An article I wrote about what to do if the internet mob comes after you

Crash Override Network

Speak Up and Stay Safer

HeartMob

I hired Matt Mitchell, a brilliant consultant who works with a justice framework and is a strong ally for many identities. I can’t recommend him enough!

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SAD.

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Mental flowchart that every dog owner completes regularly. Brb, can't see nor hear Izzy. 

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#mood

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New comic over at Medium: The day white reality smashed to pieces

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Hurricane shreds

Just posted this on Facebook, figured I'd share here as well. -- I've been (mostly) quiet about the hurricane-- I've been trying to communicate directly to my affected peeps and communities rather than wall-preachin' too much. Sending so much love, strength and solidarity to yous down there. Yous can also skip the rest of this, if you need, cuz I'm gonna talk about my own feelz next and that's prolly not super useful to you. Heh. Hurricane Katrina was the storm that ripped off my last bit of naïveté about the priorities and policies of this country. I had been reactivated into social change by the 2000 election, quit my last full time job in the wake of the launch of the wars in 2004, and Katrina pulled back the curtain, for me, a relatively privileged young white woman, on race and class in America in 2005. I wrote about this five years after if anyone's interested. http://deannazandt.tumblr.com/post/1033664193/katrina-and-me It began a huge shift in my justice consciousness about how I was-- and wasn't-- being useful to the people most vulnerable, most oppressed in this country. Sandy came through NYC in 2012. I was already pretty deep into what would be my worst and longest depressive episode ever. Holding onto my roof with a rope didn't really help that so much. (remember that, y'all? Hoooooo-whee. https://storify.com/deannazandt/from-4pm-10pm-monday-i-held-the-roof-onto-my-house ) The utter failure of FEMA and the Red Cross to service the most affected blew me away. Another piece of naïveté shredded. It destroyed me spiritually, and while Occupy Sandy was an intensely unfortunate success here, it was another point of no return for how I thought about my own ability to contribute to creating justice. I've been in another round of reckoning with my role in the world, and what service will look like next for my career, mental health and art. Another shift has been brewing, and here is another hurricane to shred a city to pieces and reveal the injustice in every level of... everything. I'm using this inward energy I've been sitting in the last couple months to listen and be deliberate with my actions. Which feels weird, cuz I feel like I should be out front, on all my social media, curating ways to help. I recognize that as my own need to feel something like usefulness, so I'm setting it aside for now. It feels like activism tai chi or something, where you deliberately move super slowly through a sequence so that you understand each piece. Which is super hard for those of us who are in near-constant "do" mode. (Here's yet another post about working with that impulse. http://deannazandt.tumblr.com/post/93789020442/life-is-short-and-that-thinking-is-killing-your ) Thus, here I am, processing out loud to the ether while praying for Houston's relief and meditating on the crisis and injustice of it all. (Someone told me once that praying is talking to God, and meditating is listening, which makes a lot of sense to me.) I'll be sure to share any insights gained, but for now, don't donate to the Red Cross (donate to local orgs who are actually doing the work), and settle in for the long, long haul of recovery for Houston. We're in this together.

[deannazandt]

Wait, you can do that?

“I hate erasing. I’ve hated it since I can remember.

Erasing something never really erases it. There’s always the ghost of where it was, telling the viewer that this thing they’re looking at wasn’t always this good, this perfect. If you try too hard to erase something, the paper gets damaged, which is even worse. Over-erased, rubbed-out paper, that’s the evidence of the shame you hold for your imperfection. Your mistakes.”

https://medium.com/@deanna/wait-you-can-do-that-a123b921e526

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Made with love for Sonal, and in honor of women of color everywhere. ✊🏾

[deannazandt]

Now that I have your attention with the cutest little piggy EVER -- an announcement!

Since starting therapy, making meds adjustments and generally working my way out of my last lil touch o’ the depression, I’ve realized that I’ve got to do some work on my internal resources. This is haaaaaaaard. HARD. Even typing it is hard and scary because I hear the Demons of Judgment hovering just behind my laptop.

For the next little bit, I have to dial back on a few key activities:

Pro-bono advisement.

Charitable giving.

Some socializing/event attending.

I’ll explain each of these, but for the “don’t need to know that much” crowd who want to stop reading soon: I’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into a lot of different places outside of my own work/passions, and it’s becoming clearer to me that I don’t always do those things for the healthiest of reasons. Sometimes it’s for ego (who loves to be needed? this grrl! Who’s overwhelmed by all the need? this grrl!). Sometimes it’s because I feel guilty. (No bueno.) Sometimes it is for the right reasons, but all the other helping prevents me from doing a good job, and that fails everyone.

This doesn’t mean I don’t want to be asked for help, by the way. This is more of an explainer for why I might say no.

Now for digging into the whys of each area-- and honestly, I’m mostly doing this writing for myself, to ease my conscience, to tease a bunch of this out. I also want to be transparent, because you know how I feel about being real in the variety of struggles we all face, when it’s within our capacity to do so.

Pro-bono advisement. There just isn’t enough time in the day. I’m passionate about OODLES of projects out there. I am so blessed (not even #hashtagblessed-- actually blessed) to be surrounded by creative, brilliant and ambitious people. I want to join you in some of my own adventures (for myself, and for our clients), and I need to focus on those in deeper ways than I ever have before. This feels selfish. It also feels like the only way I’m going to keep healing. I’m a mess of contradictions.

Charitable giving. I also made the decision to invest more financially in my own health (and actually, Izzy’s health), which means I can’t afford to make donations to groups the way I have in the past. I also have tax problems I’m dealing with, because I suck at money. I also haven’t been making a ton of money, which feels weird to admit, but it’s in part because of the pro-bono stuff, and in part because of the suck-at-money stuff. The hardest one for me is turning down gofundme-type requests. So many people are struggling so much harder than me, and there is still a lot of my Christian upbringing that says to give whatever I can to ease the suffering. (I’m grateful for that upbringing, btw-- that’s not a slight.)

Socializing and events. Because I live in NYC, there are always TONS of events to go to, to support the aforementioned brilliant peeps I get to call friends. On average, 4 nights of any given week for me are scheduled to do this kind of socializing. I love the peeps and the work, but as a secret introvert, it does take a lot out of me. Someone I share a calendar with told me that my life just looks exhausting, never mind living it, heh. Again, I’ve got to teach myself to refocus on my own projects.

I know in part that I do a lot of these things to avoid myself, to avoid really digging into what I want to be or do. So, I’m gonna ask for a lot of love and understanding in the coming period of time as I learn not to chase all the shiny all the time, and look at some of my own messy ‘n’ dirty and see what’s in there.

Love you.

[askdeannababoutracism]

At a 6-yr-old's Mexican-themed cooking birthday party. Kids made hand-pressed tortillas, guac, cabbage salad - rad. Awkwardness (for me) came when host passed out tiny paper sombreros & stick-on black moustaches to all the white kids and adults (only two POC were my kid and husband). There were two Latinx guys washing dishes in back. Couldn't help but wonder if party favors were insulting to them. My Indian husband thinks I'm being over sensitive. Your take?

So, I’m gonna start here by questioning the Mexican theme for a kids’ birthday party. Cooking theme? I gotchoo. But an all/mostly white group choosing an Ethnic Food™ to cook? OK… no. That’s exoticizing non-white culture from the outset. It makes that culture something that’s Other, rather than something that’s integrated and a part of our everyday lives. If the parents did this because the kid’s favorite foods are tortillas and guac, then have a tortilla and guac party. But don’t brand it as a Mexican-themed cooking party… because that can only go horribly wrong, as you experienced.

Keep reading

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Good times at a kids birthday party! Whee!

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me when daylight savings is here

[askdeannababoutracism]

Hi, my (white) partner keeps on doing fake Indian accents when describing his curry order. He claims it's not offensive because he doesn't mean it in a mocking way, but I think it is (and that he doesn't get to decide what's racist or not). I'm struggling to articulate why it is racist though: is it because it associates the Indian voice with a reductive stereotype? Please help!

Thanks to racism and Apu from the Simpsons, this one is rampant! And it’s through Apu that we’re learning why this is so messed up, because comedian Hari Kondabolu is doing a documentary about Apu and South Asian stereotypes. (Have you heard his albums? He is AWESOME.)

Hari also talks about why he doesn’t do his mom’s accent in this clip:

Accents have meaning in any culture– they signify lots of different variants: where you’re from, who you hang out with, your level of education, etc. Typically in America, any accent that isn’t rooted in whiteness is looked down upon and made fun of; we see this with East Asian accents, with Latinx accents, with African-continent accents. There isn’t just an element of “this sounds hilarious,” there’s an element of power struggle in there. When I do a British accent, there’s cultural equality in how we view Britishness, and because I’m white. If I do an Indian accent, even if I mean it in a complimentary way, there’s still a power difference between my whiteness and an Indian person’s brown-ness; then there’s the added trauma of colonization of India, appropriation of Indian culture, erasing of Indian culture, and centuries of generally teaching colonized people to hate themselves. The colonial history of Indians and white people is complex, and still has significant socioeconomic implications today.

Which brings me to the second point: Intention never tops impact. That’s privilege speaking. You can intend not to be racist, but if a white person drops the N-word to mimic Black culture, and Black folks are like, “NOPE,” then we all say “NOPE.” Oppressed people get to name their oppression, always. 

Would your partner do this accent in front of Indian people? I bet he wouldn’t, and there’s your answer right there. It’s not OK to do it only in front of other white people, either. (Again, substitute the N-word here. How does that play out at the dinner table?) 

Just like words have meaning, how we deliver those words has meaning, too.

[plannedparenthoodsavedme]

... And we’re back!

This week, Paul Ryan announced the vote to defund Planned Parenthood and dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Both of these actions are a death sentence for millions of women across the US. The GOP thinks that the 8,000 - 9,000 community health centers in the country will be able to handle women’s health needs, but that’s just not true. (And these stories often show why.) I was so upset when I heard about it, I started re-sharing stories from this blog, and then decided to start asking for new ones. Share yours if you can!

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new mini cartoon to kick off 2017

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Did you need to end your week with a gif of Izzy wagging her lil nub and cocking her head? Me too.

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Righteous Thanksgiving: unlocked