Dear Mr. President,
Today I brought in one of my Senior portraits to show one of my coworkers who'd asked to see what I looked like with dreadlocks. A trip down memory lane always is good for a laugh, (especially when recalling my 18-year-old self's somewhat eccentric fashion sense.) This week, reflecting as I have been on the very different paths so many of my friends from those days have taken, I can't help but wonder if the girl with the purple dreads and the pink satin thrift-store dress over bell-bottom jeans would be happy with the way she's turned out. My wardrobe is certainly more subdued, my hair less exciting, but would she be ok knowing what I've become? What I've failed to become? I may not miss much about being 18, but she had a faith in herself and in her own ability to achieve that's been lost in the years since this picture was taken, and today I miss that faith tremendously.
I've been struggling lately to remind myself that lives and accomplishments can't (and shouldn't) be held up for comparison. The decisions that have led me to my current state may haunt me in the evident joy of those who chose the alternate path, but I cannot evaluate my life against those of my peers. Our circumstances and struggles and goals are very different. It is ultimately the ways I've disappointed my own hopes, and not the ways the my life and accomplishments fail to measure up to those of my friends, that really bother me.
Do you feel like you've lived up to the goals you set for your Presidency? While it may be just as unfair to compare your own achievements to those of previous Presidents, this context is used by media pundits and fellow politicians alike to lend context to your achievements and shortcomings. This may be even more unfair than judging my own life against other 24-year-olds, as
we've come of age in the same era while your predecessors had very different social, congressional and economic situations. I reject the comparisons to Presidents Clinton, Carter and Bush (I & II) but I do wonder about the ways you've disappointed your own hopes and expectations. Today's tax compromise cannot feel like you'd imagined running the country would feel when you were campaigning.
I'm probably just projecting my own soul-searching onto you, but I think that such an ugly political defeat would have to make you reflect on the things you said you'd do once you got to the White House. I wish I had something cheerful or comforting to say, but I can only hope that both of us find the strength to face our reflections tomorrow morning. Our accomplishments, past and to come, mean nothing without it. And, be it because of the judgement of old photographs or the way we suffer in comparison to others, I think that there is some good, some hope, so long as we maintain the honesty necessary to feel our disappointment in ourselves.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Day 298- Guilty and not guilty
Dear Mr. President,
Omar Khadr pled guilty today. I understand that this plea bargain is his best hope for getting out of Guantanamo Bay and going back home to Canada, but it is still heartbreaking to think about the punishment he will face. You know Khadr's story. I do not need to tell you that he was 15, just three years older than Malia, when he threw a grenade that killed a US soldier. I do not need to tell you that he acted as instructed by his father and the other adults in his life. I do not need to tell you that he was seriously wounded, detained, tortured, and threatened with rape to compel his confession. I don't think I would need to see so many parallels between my own life and Khadr's to be horrified at the way my country has treated him, but while reading about his case I could not help but notice something about the day he was captured.
On July 27th as the 15-year old Khadr was shot, blinded in one eye, and taken in to US custody, I was in a cemetery. Right around noon, before it was late enough to really be called hot, a pickup truck came to a stop on the path near the grave I sat beside. A man I had never seen before got out, and walked over to where I sat. In one hand he had a small handful of vegetables from his garden, I think that they were radishes. He laid them at the gravestone and mumbled something to me about how they had been his nephew's favorite. His nephew, dead more than six months, would have been seventeen that day. I remember there was no accusation in his voice, only sadness. Looking back, I am sure he felt as responsible as I did that Josh would not be celebrating that day, that those of us in his life who were supposed to care for him had failed. I could not, in my own grief, conceive of what was then happening in Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan.
Omar and I are both 24 now. While the last eight years of his life have been the stuff of nightmares, mine has been fairly average. Perhaps it is our age that makes me wonder so intensely at the very different courses our lives have taken, or the lingering idea that we are both, to varying degrees, responsible for the loss of a life. But I cannot imagine the darkness of his existence, the suffering, the confusion, the fear. I can't begin to put myself in his place. I am no stranger to the harsh reality that there are many my age who are suffering, who have led difficult lives and who will face obstacles and tragedies that I am exempt from because I was born in a place of relative privilege. Is it childlike, then, to wish that Omar had gotten to graduate high school, go to college, to have all of the opportunities I have? To fear that, if he is to spend the rest of his life suffering in payment for his worst mistakes as a fifteen year old child, then I must, as well?
If it is my empathy that disinclines me to believe the charges against Khadr are valid even after he confesses to them, I can accept that. Even if I am entirely wrong, even if Khadr is guilty of every single crime for which he has been accused, I still do not believe that he has been treated fairly or in a manner worthy of the American justice system. While I have no shortage of sympathy and compassion for the soldiers injured by Khadr or the family of the soldier killed, I do not believe that their suffering is eased, or that others like them are made safer, by the harsh treatment suffered by the child responsible. I think we are all just a little guiltier today as we stand by and allow atrocities like this one to continue in our name.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Omar Khadr pled guilty today. I understand that this plea bargain is his best hope for getting out of Guantanamo Bay and going back home to Canada, but it is still heartbreaking to think about the punishment he will face. You know Khadr's story. I do not need to tell you that he was 15, just three years older than Malia, when he threw a grenade that killed a US soldier. I do not need to tell you that he acted as instructed by his father and the other adults in his life. I do not need to tell you that he was seriously wounded, detained, tortured, and threatened with rape to compel his confession. I don't think I would need to see so many parallels between my own life and Khadr's to be horrified at the way my country has treated him, but while reading about his case I could not help but notice something about the day he was captured.
On July 27th as the 15-year old Khadr was shot, blinded in one eye, and taken in to US custody, I was in a cemetery. Right around noon, before it was late enough to really be called hot, a pickup truck came to a stop on the path near the grave I sat beside. A man I had never seen before got out, and walked over to where I sat. In one hand he had a small handful of vegetables from his garden, I think that they were radishes. He laid them at the gravestone and mumbled something to me about how they had been his nephew's favorite. His nephew, dead more than six months, would have been seventeen that day. I remember there was no accusation in his voice, only sadness. Looking back, I am sure he felt as responsible as I did that Josh would not be celebrating that day, that those of us in his life who were supposed to care for him had failed. I could not, in my own grief, conceive of what was then happening in Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan.
Omar and I are both 24 now. While the last eight years of his life have been the stuff of nightmares, mine has been fairly average. Perhaps it is our age that makes me wonder so intensely at the very different courses our lives have taken, or the lingering idea that we are both, to varying degrees, responsible for the loss of a life. But I cannot imagine the darkness of his existence, the suffering, the confusion, the fear. I can't begin to put myself in his place. I am no stranger to the harsh reality that there are many my age who are suffering, who have led difficult lives and who will face obstacles and tragedies that I am exempt from because I was born in a place of relative privilege. Is it childlike, then, to wish that Omar had gotten to graduate high school, go to college, to have all of the opportunities I have? To fear that, if he is to spend the rest of his life suffering in payment for his worst mistakes as a fifteen year old child, then I must, as well?
If it is my empathy that disinclines me to believe the charges against Khadr are valid even after he confesses to them, I can accept that. Even if I am entirely wrong, even if Khadr is guilty of every single crime for which he has been accused, I still do not believe that he has been treated fairly or in a manner worthy of the American justice system. While I have no shortage of sympathy and compassion for the soldiers injured by Khadr or the family of the soldier killed, I do not believe that their suffering is eased, or that others like them are made safer, by the harsh treatment suffered by the child responsible. I think we are all just a little guiltier today as we stand by and allow atrocities like this one to continue in our name.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Friday, October 22, 2010
Day 295- It gets better
Dear Mr President,
After I wrote you yesterday I saw the video you posted for the It Gets Better project. I thought it was sincere and very moving. The IGB project is close to my heart because it was founded by Dan Savage, who lives in my neighborhood and, despite his national celebrity, reamins active in and committed to the Seattle community. I've seen IGB videos from close friends and coworkers, beloved celebrities, complete strangers, and now the President of the United States. In a world where I often feel helpless and even hopeless about so many things, succumbing to the belief that there is nothing I or any one else could do to ever make it better, the IGB project feels refreshingly practical. It is a tangible way that any one who has struggled and overcome can reach out and speak to young people struggling now. I can't change the cruelty that children will face from bullies, or from our society, and maybe none of us can, as individuals. But that so many people took the time to put themselves out there, to reach out to people they may never know is truly inspiring.
I am sure there are kids out there who will see these videos and will find strength in the support of those who made them. As a teen who struggled with depression, and as a person who knows what it is to lose some one to suicide, I am so grateful to you for putting the weight of the Presidency behind this important project. Thank you so much. There will always be problems that are too complicated to fix, issues that are too complex to have an absolute right. This is not one of them.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
After I wrote you yesterday I saw the video you posted for the It Gets Better project. I thought it was sincere and very moving. The IGB project is close to my heart because it was founded by Dan Savage, who lives in my neighborhood and, despite his national celebrity, reamins active in and committed to the Seattle community. I've seen IGB videos from close friends and coworkers, beloved celebrities, complete strangers, and now the President of the United States. In a world where I often feel helpless and even hopeless about so many things, succumbing to the belief that there is nothing I or any one else could do to ever make it better, the IGB project feels refreshingly practical. It is a tangible way that any one who has struggled and overcome can reach out and speak to young people struggling now. I can't change the cruelty that children will face from bullies, or from our society, and maybe none of us can, as individuals. But that so many people took the time to put themselves out there, to reach out to people they may never know is truly inspiring.
I am sure there are kids out there who will see these videos and will find strength in the support of those who made them. As a teen who struggled with depression, and as a person who knows what it is to lose some one to suicide, I am so grateful to you for putting the weight of the Presidency behind this important project. Thank you so much. There will always be problems that are too complicated to fix, issues that are too complex to have an absolute right. This is not one of them.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Monday, October 11, 2010
Day 284-Politics and our obligations to others
Dear Mr. President,
As tragic stories of youth suicide continue to dominate headlines and conversations, I am hearing more and more questions about the extent of our responsibility for another person's actions. Can an individual be bullied to death, and, if so, can the bullies be held responsible? I don't think that suicide is an act that generally occurs as a response to an isolated event or individual. The smaller problems that pile up and eventually overwhelm a person may never be cited as a reason for suicide but can play an equally significant role. So while Carl Paladino's very public and very bigoted remarks may not, on their own, drive any gay youths to take their own lives, he, and others like him, play a role in creating the hostile environment that feeds bullies and overwhelms struggling teens. (That he made his remarks in the wake of a series of brutal hate crimes against gay men in New York City makes his ignorance even more appalling.)
Back in January of this year I wrote to you about a friend who had taken his own life as a high schooler. It's been more than 8 years and I still find myself questioning the way I treated him, the way I spoke to him, and how much responsibility I bear for his death. It's the kind of haunting doubts that no amount of reassurance will ever relieve. This recent national conversation about teen suicide and bullying has brought all of these old feelings to the surface once again. I feel like my life since I turned 16 has been an ongoing struggle to use my guilt toward better, more compassionate and more useful ends. My inclination toward wallowing helps no one, unless I apply that grief toward improving the way I treat others.
Similarly, our national reaction to these recent suicides is equally meaningless if we don't allow these feelings to lead to anything more helpful than shock, grief and outrage. It is easy to lay blame for these deaths on those who failed in their obligations to these young people as individuals. We do have a responsibility for the way we treat the people, which is obvious enough with those we encounter directly. But we seem to neglect that obligation when it comes to those we don't. For me, this is where the political becomes personal. Our values, our policies, our acceptance of or indifference to discrimination and bigotry all contribute to the very personal tragedies of those dead children. Paladino can spew his hateful remarks at a concept ("homosexuality" or "the homosexual lifestyle") and, because he isn't speaking about individuals, it becomes socially acceptable. (He has since even laughably tried to insist he isn't homophobic, and assertion he'll be allowed to make because people believe he attacked a concept and not a person or people.) But no matter how any one spins it, what Paladino said is just as hateful, just as damaging, and just as unfit for American political discourse as the words of the bullies who pick on an individual child for being gay. The words have the same source and the same consequence, the only difference being that one is taken, at worst, as a political misstep, while the other is potential grounds for legal action. This disconnect is not reserved for gay rights issues; children are bullied for looking, talking, or acting different, for being poor, for being immigrants or the children of immigrants. In a country where being an ethnic or religious minority, an immigrant, or dependent upon social services for survival are constantly vilified or shamed in political discourse, I don't think it's a stretch to say that our children are learning their bullying behaviors from accepted national prejudices.
I've been lucky, for the most part, in that my life has been helped along by a number of caring and compassionate strangers. People who have treated me with kindness and compassion far outnumber the ones who have been hurtful or sexist or willfully cruel. I think that while bullying and cruelty may be inevitable facts of human nature, we generally want to be responsible in the way we treat one another. We want to be kind to their neighbors and the people they encounter in daily life. Which is why, for example, opponents of gay rights often cite their own gay friends/relatives/employees/acquaintances as evidence that they don't hate gay people, they're just talking politics. We have a much easier time discriminating against concepts or groups than individuals. But I don't think this relieves us from the obligations we have to other people, even if we never meet them, even if we never know their names. While I'm not saying that any one opposing gay marriage should be held accountable for the deaths of gay teens, I do feel that they shouldn't be allowed to avoid an appreciation for the real implications of their positions. They aren't just taking a side in a political debate; they are advocating a legal and social bias against people, against the very same friends and relatives they ostensibly treat with compassion and kindness.
So while we continue to grapple with the question of how much responsibility a bully bears for the actions of the bullied, I think we all ought to examine our own words and actions and the role they play in the long-standing and ongoing struggle faced by children and young people who are different. We have to keep our political positions in perspective, to reflect on the way the abstract translates to the tangible, individual, personal consequences. Because I believe that we can all do a better job of tending to one another, of making the already difficult undertaking of growing up just a little bit easier on every one.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
As tragic stories of youth suicide continue to dominate headlines and conversations, I am hearing more and more questions about the extent of our responsibility for another person's actions. Can an individual be bullied to death, and, if so, can the bullies be held responsible? I don't think that suicide is an act that generally occurs as a response to an isolated event or individual. The smaller problems that pile up and eventually overwhelm a person may never be cited as a reason for suicide but can play an equally significant role. So while Carl Paladino's very public and very bigoted remarks may not, on their own, drive any gay youths to take their own lives, he, and others like him, play a role in creating the hostile environment that feeds bullies and overwhelms struggling teens. (That he made his remarks in the wake of a series of brutal hate crimes against gay men in New York City makes his ignorance even more appalling.)
Back in January of this year I wrote to you about a friend who had taken his own life as a high schooler. It's been more than 8 years and I still find myself questioning the way I treated him, the way I spoke to him, and how much responsibility I bear for his death. It's the kind of haunting doubts that no amount of reassurance will ever relieve. This recent national conversation about teen suicide and bullying has brought all of these old feelings to the surface once again. I feel like my life since I turned 16 has been an ongoing struggle to use my guilt toward better, more compassionate and more useful ends. My inclination toward wallowing helps no one, unless I apply that grief toward improving the way I treat others.
Similarly, our national reaction to these recent suicides is equally meaningless if we don't allow these feelings to lead to anything more helpful than shock, grief and outrage. It is easy to lay blame for these deaths on those who failed in their obligations to these young people as individuals. We do have a responsibility for the way we treat the people, which is obvious enough with those we encounter directly. But we seem to neglect that obligation when it comes to those we don't. For me, this is where the political becomes personal. Our values, our policies, our acceptance of or indifference to discrimination and bigotry all contribute to the very personal tragedies of those dead children. Paladino can spew his hateful remarks at a concept ("homosexuality" or "the homosexual lifestyle") and, because he isn't speaking about individuals, it becomes socially acceptable. (He has since even laughably tried to insist he isn't homophobic, and assertion he'll be allowed to make because people believe he attacked a concept and not a person or people.) But no matter how any one spins it, what Paladino said is just as hateful, just as damaging, and just as unfit for American political discourse as the words of the bullies who pick on an individual child for being gay. The words have the same source and the same consequence, the only difference being that one is taken, at worst, as a political misstep, while the other is potential grounds for legal action. This disconnect is not reserved for gay rights issues; children are bullied for looking, talking, or acting different, for being poor, for being immigrants or the children of immigrants. In a country where being an ethnic or religious minority, an immigrant, or dependent upon social services for survival are constantly vilified or shamed in political discourse, I don't think it's a stretch to say that our children are learning their bullying behaviors from accepted national prejudices.
I've been lucky, for the most part, in that my life has been helped along by a number of caring and compassionate strangers. People who have treated me with kindness and compassion far outnumber the ones who have been hurtful or sexist or willfully cruel. I think that while bullying and cruelty may be inevitable facts of human nature, we generally want to be responsible in the way we treat one another. We want to be kind to their neighbors and the people they encounter in daily life. Which is why, for example, opponents of gay rights often cite their own gay friends/relatives/employees/acquaintances as evidence that they don't hate gay people, they're just talking politics. We have a much easier time discriminating against concepts or groups than individuals. But I don't think this relieves us from the obligations we have to other people, even if we never meet them, even if we never know their names. While I'm not saying that any one opposing gay marriage should be held accountable for the deaths of gay teens, I do feel that they shouldn't be allowed to avoid an appreciation for the real implications of their positions. They aren't just taking a side in a political debate; they are advocating a legal and social bias against people, against the very same friends and relatives they ostensibly treat with compassion and kindness.
So while we continue to grapple with the question of how much responsibility a bully bears for the actions of the bullied, I think we all ought to examine our own words and actions and the role they play in the long-standing and ongoing struggle faced by children and young people who are different. We have to keep our political positions in perspective, to reflect on the way the abstract translates to the tangible, individual, personal consequences. Because I believe that we can all do a better job of tending to one another, of making the already difficult undertaking of growing up just a little bit easier on every one.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Day 280- liberty, and justice for all.
Dear Mr. President,
As a child I had an annoying habit of refusing to do anything that could not be justified as useful or necessary. Teachers, parents and other adults were often exasperated by my need to question their requests and refusal to follow orders I didn't see the purpose of. Though I believed in God as a child, I refused to say the pledge of allegiance. For one thing, I found the odd addition of "under God" to be a reminder of the worst aspects of American history. Additionally, reciting a pledge I'd heard so many times the words had lost their meaning seemed like a poor substitute for actual love of my country. Like compulsory displays of faith, these forced demonstrations of patriotism always rung falsely to my young ears. I wondered, don't the actions we choose mean more than the things we are compelled to?
I'd forgotten about this entirely as an adult. At 24 I'm not often required to say the pledge. I suppose as a student of public school it was only the daily reminder that stoked my objections, because I quite honestly have thought very little at all about the pledge of allegiance since graduation, at least until today. Today I saw a news story out of Mississippi, where a lawyer was held in contempt for his refusal to recite the pledge of allegiance when ordered by a judge.
When I saw this story I remembered my own days sitting or standing silently while the other students in the class said the Pledge. One devote Mormon used to say the words "under God" with more emphasis than the rest of the pledge, looking around defiantly as though waiting to challenge any of us to contradict her. I suppose I have no real objection to the idea of America being "under God", though, obviously, this is unfairly exclusive of atheist Americans; at least, I think it is important for Americans to see ourselves as under something, anything, so that we don't imagine our dominion as a superpower to be absolute. "One nation, under a regard for the rights and dignity of every human" doesn't exactly have the same ring to it, but is maybe closer to what I mean. The whole process felt close to idolatry or religious devotion; a kool-aid drinking I just didn't see as having any practical purpose. If an adult had ever explained to me why we say the pledge in a way that had made sense, I probably would have done it. Now that I'm all grown up and worried about more important things, I suppose I've reached the conclusion that the pledge is ultimately symbolic. And symbolism may have it's place, I suppose, but not when it comes at the direct expense of the rights and freedoms that make our country worth my allegiance in the first place.
Anyway, I hope that the charges against the Mississippi lawyer are dropped. His right, and my own, to refuse to say the pledge is what makes me proud of this country. I think that means ever so much more than the words themselves, which are, after all, subject to change at the whims of American foreign policy. I may not give the pledge much thought, now that I'm not asked to say it every morning, but I often think about and am grateful for the freedom of speech given to me and exercised by this lawyer. A pledge cannot have meaning when it is coerced and this man's stand against it is far more patriotic than the judge's attempt to force him to say words that ultimately mean nothing without the right to refuse to say them.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
As a child I had an annoying habit of refusing to do anything that could not be justified as useful or necessary. Teachers, parents and other adults were often exasperated by my need to question their requests and refusal to follow orders I didn't see the purpose of. Though I believed in God as a child, I refused to say the pledge of allegiance. For one thing, I found the odd addition of "under God" to be a reminder of the worst aspects of American history. Additionally, reciting a pledge I'd heard so many times the words had lost their meaning seemed like a poor substitute for actual love of my country. Like compulsory displays of faith, these forced demonstrations of patriotism always rung falsely to my young ears. I wondered, don't the actions we choose mean more than the things we are compelled to?
I'd forgotten about this entirely as an adult. At 24 I'm not often required to say the pledge. I suppose as a student of public school it was only the daily reminder that stoked my objections, because I quite honestly have thought very little at all about the pledge of allegiance since graduation, at least until today. Today I saw a news story out of Mississippi, where a lawyer was held in contempt for his refusal to recite the pledge of allegiance when ordered by a judge.
When I saw this story I remembered my own days sitting or standing silently while the other students in the class said the Pledge. One devote Mormon used to say the words "under God" with more emphasis than the rest of the pledge, looking around defiantly as though waiting to challenge any of us to contradict her. I suppose I have no real objection to the idea of America being "under God", though, obviously, this is unfairly exclusive of atheist Americans; at least, I think it is important for Americans to see ourselves as under something, anything, so that we don't imagine our dominion as a superpower to be absolute. "One nation, under a regard for the rights and dignity of every human" doesn't exactly have the same ring to it, but is maybe closer to what I mean. The whole process felt close to idolatry or religious devotion; a kool-aid drinking I just didn't see as having any practical purpose. If an adult had ever explained to me why we say the pledge in a way that had made sense, I probably would have done it. Now that I'm all grown up and worried about more important things, I suppose I've reached the conclusion that the pledge is ultimately symbolic. And symbolism may have it's place, I suppose, but not when it comes at the direct expense of the rights and freedoms that make our country worth my allegiance in the first place.
Anyway, I hope that the charges against the Mississippi lawyer are dropped. His right, and my own, to refuse to say the pledge is what makes me proud of this country. I think that means ever so much more than the words themselves, which are, after all, subject to change at the whims of American foreign policy. I may not give the pledge much thought, now that I'm not asked to say it every morning, but I often think about and am grateful for the freedom of speech given to me and exercised by this lawyer. A pledge cannot have meaning when it is coerced and this man's stand against it is far more patriotic than the judge's attempt to force him to say words that ultimately mean nothing without the right to refuse to say them.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Friday, October 1, 2010
Day 274- A tough week
Dear Mr. President,
Before I start in on tonight's letter, I just want to say that I watched your speech to the Gen44 summit last night and thought it was excellent. It was exactly the kind of old-school campaign speech I was writing you about yesterday, and so I should apologize for not having watched it before writing my last letter. I actually laughed out lout several times and would have cheered at the end, had I not been watching it at work in our bookstore's cafe with my headphones on and already disturbing the people around me. We need more of that, Mr. President, and not just because of the upcoming elections. There are even more important things at stake.
Tonight, a friend of mine from high school wrote a poignant blog post on the ongoing difficulties faced by gay Americans, A tough week in the struggle. In it, he discusses the tragic and high-profile suicides of several young GLBTQ Americans as well as several acts by celebrities and government officials showing homophobia is alive and well in our culture.
Repealing DOMA and DADT cannot wait. Changing our laws might not have saved the young lives lost this week, but it might go a long way toward changing the stigmas against gays and lesbians. The cruel bullying that led to the suicides this week comes from a culture that accepts and even normalizes homophobia. You can't change that, but you can change the laws that say our government agrees with that irrational fear. These archaic relics of our hateful past have no place in our modern discourse or in our modern legal system.
I've been following a number of these sad stories this week, but I've also seen another story posted and reposted by friends around the world. It's about a campaign aimed at gay youth called "it gets better." I went to a high school where being GLBTQ was not generally accepted. A number of my friends struggled with their identity as such at the time, and also with depression, fear, and bullying as a result. Some came out. Some stayed in the closet. All of them went to high school knowing that the taunts of their classmates reflected an accepted viewpoint of their society, endorsed by their own government. DOMA and DADT might be articulated in language that is more sophisticated than the crude taunts of high school bullies, but it comes from the same mean-spirited fear that ought to be a thing of America's past and not our present.
It has been a tough week for gay rights in this country, and a tragic week for the families who are suffering the loss of a loved one because of it. You're in a position to offer more than just your condolences, Mr. President, and I certainly hope you do.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Before I start in on tonight's letter, I just want to say that I watched your speech to the Gen44 summit last night and thought it was excellent. It was exactly the kind of old-school campaign speech I was writing you about yesterday, and so I should apologize for not having watched it before writing my last letter. I actually laughed out lout several times and would have cheered at the end, had I not been watching it at work in our bookstore's cafe with my headphones on and already disturbing the people around me. We need more of that, Mr. President, and not just because of the upcoming elections. There are even more important things at stake.
Tonight, a friend of mine from high school wrote a poignant blog post on the ongoing difficulties faced by gay Americans, A tough week in the struggle. In it, he discusses the tragic and high-profile suicides of several young GLBTQ Americans as well as several acts by celebrities and government officials showing homophobia is alive and well in our culture.
Repealing DOMA and DADT cannot wait. Changing our laws might not have saved the young lives lost this week, but it might go a long way toward changing the stigmas against gays and lesbians. The cruel bullying that led to the suicides this week comes from a culture that accepts and even normalizes homophobia. You can't change that, but you can change the laws that say our government agrees with that irrational fear. These archaic relics of our hateful past have no place in our modern discourse or in our modern legal system.
I've been following a number of these sad stories this week, but I've also seen another story posted and reposted by friends around the world. It's about a campaign aimed at gay youth called "it gets better." I went to a high school where being GLBTQ was not generally accepted. A number of my friends struggled with their identity as such at the time, and also with depression, fear, and bullying as a result. Some came out. Some stayed in the closet. All of them went to high school knowing that the taunts of their classmates reflected an accepted viewpoint of their society, endorsed by their own government. DOMA and DADT might be articulated in language that is more sophisticated than the crude taunts of high school bullies, but it comes from the same mean-spirited fear that ought to be a thing of America's past and not our present.
It has been a tough week for gay rights in this country, and a tragic week for the families who are suffering the loss of a loved one because of it. You're in a position to offer more than just your condolences, Mr. President, and I certainly hope you do.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Day 254- What we choose to remember
Dear Mr. President,
Nine years ago I was a sophomore in high school. I woke up before my alarm clock. I remember I was having a dream about drowning. On any other day I probably would have forgotten the last wisps of this dream as the rest of my morning routine replaced it. I went downstairs and ate a bowl of cereal, squinting at the TV because I hadn't bothered to put in my contact lenses. My stepmother told me a plane had hit the twin towers. The rest of the morning was a series of stories, some true, some false, some never to be properly accounted for later. I was safely on the other side of the country from what was happening, but all morning long I could see my own turbulent emotional reactions in the faces of my classmates. We all felt the magnitude of what was going on; even if we didn't yet understand it, even if we didn't experience it the same way that people in New York and DC did. I remember I heard boys just 16 years old calling for blood, wanting to enlist that day and kill whoever had planned the attack.
Nine years later I still remember the images we all saw on TV. I still remember the haunted way my coworkers at the Washington DC bookstore sounded when they told their own tales of that day. I still think about the havoc we rained down upon millions of innocent people in response. I remember the lives we have ruined and displaced, the hundreds of thousands we have murdered. I can't talk about 9/11 without also talking about these shattered lives. There was no number of Afghan or Iraqi civillians we might have killed to bring back those lost on American soil 9 years ago today. Every time I hear 9/11 used to justify these wars we wage as acts of vengeance, I feel tired in a way that I don't think I'm old enough to feel. It all seems so pointless, so tragically, miserably heart breaking and pointless.
You have asked us today to remember the tragic events of 9 years ago. We might choose to remember this day in isolation, to recall nothing of what came before or since, and I understand why many choose this. This day was so shocking, so traumatizing and devastating to so many that I can't ask any one to do more than what they feel they can. But I think we should not choose to remember this day in a vacuum. I think that, no matter how painful its memory is, we should not feel entitled to the belief that we were alone in suffering it, or numb ourselves to the pain so many others were forced to feel as a result. Today I remember the dead, I honor the dead, but I do not imagine that the death toll of September the 11th ended on our shores. I choose to remember all who have died since and all those who continue to suffer for it. Nine years of suffering has not made this day any less tragic. We are nine years older, our hands are nine years bloodier and the death toll just keeps rising.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Nine years ago I was a sophomore in high school. I woke up before my alarm clock. I remember I was having a dream about drowning. On any other day I probably would have forgotten the last wisps of this dream as the rest of my morning routine replaced it. I went downstairs and ate a bowl of cereal, squinting at the TV because I hadn't bothered to put in my contact lenses. My stepmother told me a plane had hit the twin towers. The rest of the morning was a series of stories, some true, some false, some never to be properly accounted for later. I was safely on the other side of the country from what was happening, but all morning long I could see my own turbulent emotional reactions in the faces of my classmates. We all felt the magnitude of what was going on; even if we didn't yet understand it, even if we didn't experience it the same way that people in New York and DC did. I remember I heard boys just 16 years old calling for blood, wanting to enlist that day and kill whoever had planned the attack.
Nine years later I still remember the images we all saw on TV. I still remember the haunted way my coworkers at the Washington DC bookstore sounded when they told their own tales of that day. I still think about the havoc we rained down upon millions of innocent people in response. I remember the lives we have ruined and displaced, the hundreds of thousands we have murdered. I can't talk about 9/11 without also talking about these shattered lives. There was no number of Afghan or Iraqi civillians we might have killed to bring back those lost on American soil 9 years ago today. Every time I hear 9/11 used to justify these wars we wage as acts of vengeance, I feel tired in a way that I don't think I'm old enough to feel. It all seems so pointless, so tragically, miserably heart breaking and pointless.
You have asked us today to remember the tragic events of 9 years ago. We might choose to remember this day in isolation, to recall nothing of what came before or since, and I understand why many choose this. This day was so shocking, so traumatizing and devastating to so many that I can't ask any one to do more than what they feel they can. But I think we should not choose to remember this day in a vacuum. I think that, no matter how painful its memory is, we should not feel entitled to the belief that we were alone in suffering it, or numb ourselves to the pain so many others were forced to feel as a result. Today I remember the dead, I honor the dead, but I do not imagine that the death toll of September the 11th ended on our shores. I choose to remember all who have died since and all those who continue to suffer for it. Nine years of suffering has not made this day any less tragic. We are nine years older, our hands are nine years bloodier and the death toll just keeps rising.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Day 230-Cars and ditches, or how I beat a metaphor to death
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Dear Mr. President,
As the last of the combat troops were pulled out of Iraq today I thought about the night the war began. I was driving home from coffee with a friend when I heard the news, still a junior in high school. A friend and I had been drinking chai tea at Starbucks, an activity that felt vaguely subversive in itself as the chain had opened only recently in our small town, and my father still didn't approve of us spending so much time there. I was too young to vote, but still, I felt responsible for what was happening. For not doing more to stop it. My best friend had gone to anti-war marches in Seattle- what if I had gone, too? Would it have made a difference? I'd had this belief my entire life that my opinion mattered, by virtue of being an American. A naive faith in the power of Democracy to ensure that my country would always act with good intentions. So much of that youthful hope was dead by the time I arrived home. Suddenly, instead of being an empowering, inclusive force for goodness and wisdom and justice, our government seemed hostile, unyielding and frightening. I don't know if my government changed that night or if I did. Lately I've heard you refer to the country as a car the Republicans drove into a ditch; for me, that was the night we lost control.
What I felt today seeing Operation Iraqi Freedom end was not happiness. It's what you feel when you've gotten the car out of the ditch and surveyed the damage. Grief. Anger. Self-reproach. Relief. I'm grieving for the lives ruined by this war- the lives lost, the families broken, the maimed and traumatized and homeless and broken on all sides. I'm angry that this was done in my name, under my flag, associating me with it forever. Still, I wonder, could I have helped? Could I have stopped it or made it less awful even for one person if I had been more involved? This is not a moment of joy, this is not a victory for the left. A mistake of this magnitude cannot be corrected, it can only be prevented from getting any worse.
When you mention this car and ditch metaphor what you are asking is for Americans to understand that the reason your legislative victories and accomplishments don't feel like progress is because they aren't. We haven't made any progress because you've been trying to repair the damage. Real progress, you contend, will only begin once the repairs are complete and we can drive again. The first 3 or 4 times I heard you use this analogy I admit, I rolled my eyes and brushed it aside as more talking-point nonsense. But today that all changed. In my personal life, I've been waiting for a long time for progress. I've been doing the hard work that has to be done and feeling like I'm in the same place I left off. Today I realized this is because I've been trying to make repairs. I've just gotten the car running again. I haven't gone anywhere, but it's ok, because at least it's fixed. I'm in the same place, but I'm not the same person. And all I've got ahead of me for miles and miles is road.
This war might be over, but you've still got a difficult job ahead. I think I was losing faith in you, for a while. I didn't like that feeling and, even if it turns out to be misguided, I'm glad to feel hopeful again. I'm sorry I had to feel it on a small, personal scale to understand and appreciate what you were saying. It hasn't been easy, and it isn't going to be for a long time. I think that you've got an important message, Mr. President, but your greatest challenge is returning a sense of control (and the responsibility that goes along with it) to people disillusioned by so many years feeling like we can't make a difference. Like we don't have the wheel. Finding a way to involve and empower the people of this country (to do more than just show up on election day) is the only way forward if your Presidency is ever going to be about more than just cleaning up your predecessor's crash sites.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Friday, August 6, 2010
Day 218- Spain, Haiti and China
From College Humor:
Dear Mr. President,
Apparently the First Lady's trip to Spain is upsetting some people, and it is no surprise that Rush Limbaugh is one of them. He is, predictably, spewing his usual racist nonsense about something as silly as a First Lady going on vacation. This from the man who paid a million dollars to have Elton John sing at his latest wedding. I'm glad that Limbaugh chimed in, because his contributions to public discourse usually remind thinking people just how ridiculous some of the accusations by the right actually are.
What do you think about Wyclef Jean running for President of Haiti? I suppose I don't know enough about Haitian politics to have an informed opinion, but my initial reaction is that a nation so devastated by natural disaster and economic calamity should probably have a more experienced leader. On the topic of Haiti, tonight I heard some news of a woman I attended high school with, Katie Zook. She was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building after the earthquake hit. She's recovered now, and going back to Haiti soon, to continue working as a teacher. Seeing the courage it must require of her to return to a place still so damaged after survivng such a tragedy has got to give a person hope for the future.
I've also heard two rather disturbing stories out of China. The first is about China's policy of locking the poor up in their own neighborhoods during the night. The second is about the 600,000 Chinese workers who die from overwork in manufacturing every year.
Both stories illustrate, to me, the dangers of a society where wealthy corporate interests are placed above the value of a person (even, or especially, a poor person.) What is most disturbing is how much the purchasing habits of the American people contribute to this system. Our demand for cheap goods has created this tragedy, and we continue to support it almost unconsciously. Recently, you offered three words to frame our best hope for economic recovery; made in America. Don't Americans have a moral imperative, as well as an economic interest, in making sure the good they buy are, whenever possible, produced by fairly paid workers in safe conditions? I don't think that most Americans want to support a system that contributes to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, or the extreme poverty of many workers. There has to be a way to wake people up to the human cost of our cheap imported goods.
Anyway, Mr. President, I wanted to make a cleaner connection between all of this, but I don't know that I can. It's something about our priorities, about celebrity worship and service to others and putting our own immediate gratification away for the greater good. Maybe these stories aren't connected anywhere outside of my own mind, but I hope that people wake up and realize that obsessing over how many Secret Service agents are working to keep the First Lady safe is not fair or productive to complain about. There are so many terrible things happening in this world, and we ought to stop worrying about appearances and ephemera. I hope that the Rush Limbaughs of the world don't frustrate you into forgetting about the Katie Zooks. I think, at heart, most Americans are good people like Katie who are concerned about preventing or easing the suffering of others. We don't always go about it the right way, and we don't always make the important connections between our own decisions and their consequences, but I think that slowly we will change for the better.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Dear Mr. President,
Apparently the First Lady's trip to Spain is upsetting some people, and it is no surprise that Rush Limbaugh is one of them. He is, predictably, spewing his usual racist nonsense about something as silly as a First Lady going on vacation. This from the man who paid a million dollars to have Elton John sing at his latest wedding. I'm glad that Limbaugh chimed in, because his contributions to public discourse usually remind thinking people just how ridiculous some of the accusations by the right actually are.
What do you think about Wyclef Jean running for President of Haiti? I suppose I don't know enough about Haitian politics to have an informed opinion, but my initial reaction is that a nation so devastated by natural disaster and economic calamity should probably have a more experienced leader. On the topic of Haiti, tonight I heard some news of a woman I attended high school with, Katie Zook. She was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building after the earthquake hit. She's recovered now, and going back to Haiti soon, to continue working as a teacher. Seeing the courage it must require of her to return to a place still so damaged after survivng such a tragedy has got to give a person hope for the future.
I've also heard two rather disturbing stories out of China. The first is about China's policy of locking the poor up in their own neighborhoods during the night. The second is about the 600,000 Chinese workers who die from overwork in manufacturing every year.
Both stories illustrate, to me, the dangers of a society where wealthy corporate interests are placed above the value of a person (even, or especially, a poor person.) What is most disturbing is how much the purchasing habits of the American people contribute to this system. Our demand for cheap goods has created this tragedy, and we continue to support it almost unconsciously. Recently, you offered three words to frame our best hope for economic recovery; made in America. Don't Americans have a moral imperative, as well as an economic interest, in making sure the good they buy are, whenever possible, produced by fairly paid workers in safe conditions? I don't think that most Americans want to support a system that contributes to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, or the extreme poverty of many workers. There has to be a way to wake people up to the human cost of our cheap imported goods.
Anyway, Mr. President, I wanted to make a cleaner connection between all of this, but I don't know that I can. It's something about our priorities, about celebrity worship and service to others and putting our own immediate gratification away for the greater good. Maybe these stories aren't connected anywhere outside of my own mind, but I hope that people wake up and realize that obsessing over how many Secret Service agents are working to keep the First Lady safe is not fair or productive to complain about. There are so many terrible things happening in this world, and we ought to stop worrying about appearances and ephemera. I hope that the Rush Limbaughs of the world don't frustrate you into forgetting about the Katie Zooks. I think, at heart, most Americans are good people like Katie who are concerned about preventing or easing the suffering of others. We don't always go about it the right way, and we don't always make the important connections between our own decisions and their consequences, but I think that slowly we will change for the better.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Day 208- Home is other people
Dear Mr. President,
I was riding the bus back to Seattle from my hometown today, the air conditioning turned up so high that I had goosebumps, and I realized I'd been holding my breath. Arlington is a complicated place, or, I suppose, Arlington and I have a complicated relationship. I went to high school there, and the family that I knew there, the people who became my brothers and sisters, we all wanted to get out. We went away for college. We moved, and traveled and generally scattered. Arlington may not be my home, but this group of friends always will be. They still make me feel young, even as the remind me how responsible we've become. They inspire me with the choices they make, the lives they choose, the things they accomplish. They are not the type to overlook a person's flaws, and yet, they forgive me for being me. They are my feeling of home, wherever they might be.
The face of the town has changed a lot since I lived there. I still see the faded logos of local businesses that have been around since I was a kid, but now they're ducking behind towering Best Buys and Costcos and the roads are new and wide and dark. I feel so foreign in this town, these days. I can imagine what my life would be like still living there, needing a car, having wilderness and wildlife nearby, running in to old faces from high school at the grocery store. I just don't know when my life changed so drastically to make me so out of place here.
By the time I forced myself to take one deep, trembling inhalation I was well on my way back to the city. And the rest of the trip, I-5 rolled by, anonymous, while I relived days at my first job, school dances, fights with my parents, poker games played late into the night around a kitchen table. I thought of the boys who are still my brothers, how they are men now, how they will one day be husbands and fathers and professors and writers and engineers. How I will one day be, whatever it is I'm going to be. Are we becoming what we are because we left or because of where we came from? I had begun to doubt that I would ever feel as strongly about a place as I used to feel about Arlington, when my bus finally stopped in Seattle. I remembered why I love it, why the strangers that live here feel like home to me, almost in the same way my childhood friends do. I believe they will, for the most part, forgive me, too.
For now I am going to make dinner for every one and enjoy the feeling of having so many people I love so close. It won't be like that forever. A big part of home is over in Africa, and I'm going to have to go find her, before long. I wonder, does the White House feel like home? Or is it more like living in a museum? Is Chicago still home, or Hawaii? I suppose the list of places must inevitably grow longer with the transience of certain lives, but I wonder if these are places you could imagine returning to, or if, like me, you'll never know you belonged there until you wake up one morning and don't any longer.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
I was riding the bus back to Seattle from my hometown today, the air conditioning turned up so high that I had goosebumps, and I realized I'd been holding my breath. Arlington is a complicated place, or, I suppose, Arlington and I have a complicated relationship. I went to high school there, and the family that I knew there, the people who became my brothers and sisters, we all wanted to get out. We went away for college. We moved, and traveled and generally scattered. Arlington may not be my home, but this group of friends always will be. They still make me feel young, even as the remind me how responsible we've become. They inspire me with the choices they make, the lives they choose, the things they accomplish. They are not the type to overlook a person's flaws, and yet, they forgive me for being me. They are my feeling of home, wherever they might be.
The face of the town has changed a lot since I lived there. I still see the faded logos of local businesses that have been around since I was a kid, but now they're ducking behind towering Best Buys and Costcos and the roads are new and wide and dark. I feel so foreign in this town, these days. I can imagine what my life would be like still living there, needing a car, having wilderness and wildlife nearby, running in to old faces from high school at the grocery store. I just don't know when my life changed so drastically to make me so out of place here.
By the time I forced myself to take one deep, trembling inhalation I was well on my way back to the city. And the rest of the trip, I-5 rolled by, anonymous, while I relived days at my first job, school dances, fights with my parents, poker games played late into the night around a kitchen table. I thought of the boys who are still my brothers, how they are men now, how they will one day be husbands and fathers and professors and writers and engineers. How I will one day be, whatever it is I'm going to be. Are we becoming what we are because we left or because of where we came from? I had begun to doubt that I would ever feel as strongly about a place as I used to feel about Arlington, when my bus finally stopped in Seattle. I remembered why I love it, why the strangers that live here feel like home to me, almost in the same way my childhood friends do. I believe they will, for the most part, forgive me, too.
For now I am going to make dinner for every one and enjoy the feeling of having so many people I love so close. It won't be like that forever. A big part of home is over in Africa, and I'm going to have to go find her, before long. I wonder, does the White House feel like home? Or is it more like living in a museum? Is Chicago still home, or Hawaii? I suppose the list of places must inevitably grow longer with the transience of certain lives, but I wonder if these are places you could imagine returning to, or if, like me, you'll never know you belonged there until you wake up one morning and don't any longer.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Day 121- "Are people being nice?"
“When I took office, I decided that each night I would read 10 letters out of the tens of thousands that are sent to us by ordinary Americans every day –- this is my modest effort to remind myself of why I ran in the first place.
Some of these letters tell stories of heartache and struggle. Some express gratitude, some express anger. I'd say a good solid third call me an idiot, which is how I know that I’m getting a good, representative sample. Some of the letters make you think -- like the one that I received last month from a kindergarten class in Virginia.
Now, the teacher of this class instructed the students to ask me any question they wanted. So one asked, “How do you do your job?” Another asked, “Do you work a lot?” Somebody wanted to know if I wear a black jacket or if I have a beard so clearly they were getting me mixed up with the other tall guy from Illinois. And one of my favorites was from a kid who wanted to know if I lived next to a volcano. I'm still trying to piece the thought process on this one. Loved this letter.
But it was the last question from the last student in the letter that gave me pause. The student asked, “Are people being nice?”
-President Barack Obama, University of Michigan commencement, 5/1/2010
Dear Mr. President,
Today you asked us to be nice. You asked all of us to reach out to information and opinions that we wouldn't normally be open to hearing. You asked us to listen, for a moment, before we start shouting. This made me think of a project I did in high school, a first-person research project they called I-search (before the days of iPod or it would likely have been iSearch.) For mine, I went for a week without talking, in an attempt to take a closer look at communication and the way it affected my relationships with other people. My major takeaway from this project was that listening required a great deal of actual silence, that I usually spent most of my conversations bantering, barely hearing the other person while I planned and constructed my response, often delivered at an even higher volume. Learning to be silent, to listen and to learn from what other people say, has been an ongoing process ever since.
So I took your advice, and today, in that spirit, I read the drudge report and watched some coverage from Fox news. (I also watched a youtube video that "proves" you're a masonic, zionist, Lucifer-worshiping distant relative of the former Presidents Bush. But that was kind of an accident.) Drudge linked to a National Enquirer story about rumors of your infidelity, FOX was comparing your reaction to the oil rig explosion to President Bush's response to Katrina, and suggesting that, in your video address to OFA volunteers encouraging us to help the first-time voters of 2008 stay engaged and participate in 2010, you were playing the race card by excluding white males. (Never mind that white males are the only demographic who have had voting rights as long as they've existed, your words, taken in context, were clearly not excluding any one.) I think that this is pretty low on the credibility scale, even for Drudge, and completely unsurprising from FOX. Needless to say, I was not persuaded. But, you're right, it does me good to listen.
Perhaps the people who need to take your advice the most are the 535 Senators and members of the House of Representatives who seem to talk, constantly, without listening to each other, to you, or to the American people. I suppose it may sound trite, to some, to consider civility when so many, seemingly more important issues are at stake, but we will make more progress working slowly, together, than by refusing to participate or include others. When I was in Palestine, I found myself getting angry all the time, at the injustice, at the entrenchment, at the unfairness of it all. I expressed my anger, once, at the sight of the Israeli flag over a settlement in the West Bank, and one of the guides leading our group cautioned me; "Be careful," he said, "the first thing they take from you is your compassion." I'm still angry, Mr. President, but I decided in that moment that no one gets to take away my compassion. I don't believe that FOX or Drudge or Glenn Beck or Mitch McConnell have much to say that is worth listening to, and I'm sure they feel the same way about you, MSNBC, Harry Reid and bloggers like me, but it won't do any of us any harm to try to set aside our anger and outrage and righteous indignation; to try being silent, listening to one another, and just being nice.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Some of these letters tell stories of heartache and struggle. Some express gratitude, some express anger. I'd say a good solid third call me an idiot, which is how I know that I’m getting a good, representative sample. Some of the letters make you think -- like the one that I received last month from a kindergarten class in Virginia.
Now, the teacher of this class instructed the students to ask me any question they wanted. So one asked, “How do you do your job?” Another asked, “Do you work a lot?” Somebody wanted to know if I wear a black jacket or if I have a beard so clearly they were getting me mixed up with the other tall guy from Illinois. And one of my favorites was from a kid who wanted to know if I lived next to a volcano. I'm still trying to piece the thought process on this one. Loved this letter.
But it was the last question from the last student in the letter that gave me pause. The student asked, “Are people being nice?”
-President Barack Obama, University of Michigan commencement, 5/1/2010
Dear Mr. President,
Today you asked us to be nice. You asked all of us to reach out to information and opinions that we wouldn't normally be open to hearing. You asked us to listen, for a moment, before we start shouting. This made me think of a project I did in high school, a first-person research project they called I-search (before the days of iPod or it would likely have been iSearch.) For mine, I went for a week without talking, in an attempt to take a closer look at communication and the way it affected my relationships with other people. My major takeaway from this project was that listening required a great deal of actual silence, that I usually spent most of my conversations bantering, barely hearing the other person while I planned and constructed my response, often delivered at an even higher volume. Learning to be silent, to listen and to learn from what other people say, has been an ongoing process ever since.
So I took your advice, and today, in that spirit, I read the drudge report and watched some coverage from Fox news. (I also watched a youtube video that "proves" you're a masonic, zionist, Lucifer-worshiping distant relative of the former Presidents Bush. But that was kind of an accident.) Drudge linked to a National Enquirer story about rumors of your infidelity, FOX was comparing your reaction to the oil rig explosion to President Bush's response to Katrina, and suggesting that, in your video address to OFA volunteers encouraging us to help the first-time voters of 2008 stay engaged and participate in 2010, you were playing the race card by excluding white males. (Never mind that white males are the only demographic who have had voting rights as long as they've existed, your words, taken in context, were clearly not excluding any one.) I think that this is pretty low on the credibility scale, even for Drudge, and completely unsurprising from FOX. Needless to say, I was not persuaded. But, you're right, it does me good to listen.
Perhaps the people who need to take your advice the most are the 535 Senators and members of the House of Representatives who seem to talk, constantly, without listening to each other, to you, or to the American people. I suppose it may sound trite, to some, to consider civility when so many, seemingly more important issues are at stake, but we will make more progress working slowly, together, than by refusing to participate or include others. When I was in Palestine, I found myself getting angry all the time, at the injustice, at the entrenchment, at the unfairness of it all. I expressed my anger, once, at the sight of the Israeli flag over a settlement in the West Bank, and one of the guides leading our group cautioned me; "Be careful," he said, "the first thing they take from you is your compassion." I'm still angry, Mr. President, but I decided in that moment that no one gets to take away my compassion. I don't believe that FOX or Drudge or Glenn Beck or Mitch McConnell have much to say that is worth listening to, and I'm sure they feel the same way about you, MSNBC, Harry Reid and bloggers like me, but it won't do any of us any harm to try to set aside our anger and outrage and righteous indignation; to try being silent, listening to one another, and just being nice.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Day 108-Fwd:
"I wanted to give you all some disturbing information on our wonderful president. I work with the Catch-A-Dream Foundation which provides hunting and fishing trips to children with life-threatening illnesses. This past weekend we had our annual banquet / fundraiser event in Starkville. "As a part of our program we had scheduled Sgt. 1st Class Greg Stube a highly decorated U.S. Army Green Beret and inspirational speaker who was severely injured while deployed overseas and was thought that he didn't have much of a chance for survival to come. Greg is stationed at Ft. Bragg and received permission from his commanding officer to come speak at our function. Everything was on go until Obama made a policy that NO U.S. SERVICEMAN CAN SPEAK AT ANY FAITH-BASED PUBLIC EVENTS ANYMORE. Needless to say Greg had to cancel his speaking event with us. Didn't know if anyone else was aware of this new policy. Wonder what kind of news we all will receive next. You're just starting to see the Obamanation. Your religion is on the list next."
-A chain e-mail sent to my mother.
So today's letter is a bit silly. It's been a dark, depressing news week(/month/year) and nothing cheers me up like a good e-mail from the crazy part of Michigan. Does any one out there know of any equivalent crazy talk emails from the left? Do we do that? If so, how do I get them?
Dear Mr. President,
My mother has a friend from her high school days who regularly forwards her e-mails full of right-wing nonsense. She has resisted, many times, the urge to respond to these e-mails with logic or facts that would contradict them. At my request, she often sends me the most absurd, because we enjoy a good laugh. Mother-daughter bonding, you might call it. Today's e-mail is about your apparent intervention to prevent members of the armed forces from speaking at faith-based events, an assertion repudiated by even the most cursory fact-checking. Though laughable, this e-mail is mild in comparison to many that circulated during the campaign. One memorable message from the same woman, with the subject "Can Muslims be good Americans?", insisted that you worshiped "Allah, the moon god of Arabia." More than a few suggested you might be the Antichrist, a claim I found particularly unsettling, as it involved convincing self-proclaimed Christians that the book of Revelation described the coming of a Muslim man in his 40's. I looked into this further, not so curious as to how people could believe this, (after all, once you're willing to believe in the Antichrist, it probably isn't wholly out of the realm of possibility for it to be any one,) but as to how they could be misled about the text that is central to their religion, an item so ubiquitous that it can be found and read in more places than any book besides Harry Potter. Didn't any one think, before they forwarded the message on, to open their copy of the Bible and see if that was really what it said?
I don't like to think that people act without logic or rationale. I may disagree with them, but I want to believe that people are fundamentally motivated by the same basic needs and desires. The internet constantly provides ample material to make me seriously doubt this conviction. Clearly, these rumors aren't something you can really fight, no one who believes you're a faith-hating/Socialist/Muslim/ The Antichrist, is going to be persuaded by a public denial. How would one prove or disprove any of it? (Maybe you could read Revelation at a press conference? They might think you changed it. Also, they probably don't watch presidential press conferences.) Dignifying it with a response, at all, is clearly not the right course. I suppose this is all the other side of the Presidential coin; you may be reviled by crazy people on the internet, but you still get to have JK Rowling at the Easter Egg roll.
The problem, of course, is that the people who send and believe these e-mails aren't abstractions. They're our high school friends or our grandparents; they're voters or taxpayers or citizens. They can't be reasoned with or persuaded. They pass it on, by clicking forward, or by telling their children, or by changing the text books for an entire state. How are willful lies about your birth certificate or religion any different than the misinformation Michele Bachmann spread about the Census? Or Mitch McConnell, about your financial reform proposals?
Some days, these e-mails stop being funny and just become disturbing and very, very sad. I'd like to have more respect for my fellow Americans, but it seems that many are willing and even eager to believe the worst and most absurd things they are told.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Day 98
Dear Mr. President,
This month in Virginia is, apparently, Confederate History Month. I've spent my entire life in a state that didn't exist during the civil war, but, being about as far North as you can get in the lower 48, I grew up naively assuming that Washington and Washingtonians would generally have supported the Union, if only for geographic reasons. This is why I was surprised when, as a sophomore, I discovered that enough students had been wearing the Confederate flag, on jackets and T-shirts and hats, that my high school had to ban it. I often saw it still on cars in the parking lot, and wondered, frequently, where this fascination with the old Confederacy came from. The controversy over the South Carolina statehouse in 2000 seemed equally troubling, but at least I understood the historical relevance of the Old South to that state. That it continues in Virginia indicates that, even today, many Americans still cling to the era and its culture.
Maybe it is insensitive of me, but simply I do not understand this continued hold that the Confederacy seems to have over the hearts of many Americans. Can't we put that chapter of our history to rest? The war may not have been entirely about slavery, but it is impossible to credibly separate the legacy of the Confederacy from the bloody and brutal enslavement of Africans; the single greatest shame of our Nation's history aside from the annihilation of Native Americans. Why the fondness, reverence, even, for this history and those crimes? The Virginia Governor's decision to devote an entire month to Confederate history must be truly an affront to much of his state's citizens, and especially to the African American community. It also speaks toward an unsettling resurgence of pro-secessionist rhetoric, which seems to be increasingly acceptable in modern political discourse.
I think that the history and culture of the old south can be preserved and respected without celebrating the secession, slavery and war that tore apart our country and wasted or ruined hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. A rejection of the racism, divisiveness and destruction that defined the Civil War should be something that all Americans can agree on.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
This month in Virginia is, apparently, Confederate History Month. I've spent my entire life in a state that didn't exist during the civil war, but, being about as far North as you can get in the lower 48, I grew up naively assuming that Washington and Washingtonians would generally have supported the Union, if only for geographic reasons. This is why I was surprised when, as a sophomore, I discovered that enough students had been wearing the Confederate flag, on jackets and T-shirts and hats, that my high school had to ban it. I often saw it still on cars in the parking lot, and wondered, frequently, where this fascination with the old Confederacy came from. The controversy over the South Carolina statehouse in 2000 seemed equally troubling, but at least I understood the historical relevance of the Old South to that state. That it continues in Virginia indicates that, even today, many Americans still cling to the era and its culture.
Maybe it is insensitive of me, but simply I do not understand this continued hold that the Confederacy seems to have over the hearts of many Americans. Can't we put that chapter of our history to rest? The war may not have been entirely about slavery, but it is impossible to credibly separate the legacy of the Confederacy from the bloody and brutal enslavement of Africans; the single greatest shame of our Nation's history aside from the annihilation of Native Americans. Why the fondness, reverence, even, for this history and those crimes? The Virginia Governor's decision to devote an entire month to Confederate history must be truly an affront to much of his state's citizens, and especially to the African American community. It also speaks toward an unsettling resurgence of pro-secessionist rhetoric, which seems to be increasingly acceptable in modern political discourse.
I think that the history and culture of the old south can be preserved and respected without celebrating the secession, slavery and war that tore apart our country and wasted or ruined hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. A rejection of the racism, divisiveness and destruction that defined the Civil War should be something that all Americans can agree on.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Monday, April 5, 2010
Day 95- Prom
Sometimes our President is a total baller. Sometimes he's even cooler.
Dear Mr. President,
High school proms are an absurd cliche, but, so help me, I loved mine. My best friends and I got dressed up, had a fancy dinner, played like we were really grown-up while we posed for photos with dates who'd be distant memories in a few years, but who were The Loves Of Our Lives at the time. Prom was not without its political drama, either. One of my friends was dating a student from another school, a transgendered boy who caused quite a stir by being the first female elected Prom King at his own school. I remember, at the time, thinking that this would seem so bigoted and backwards by the time we grew up and told our own kids; like the stories of segregation our own parents had from their time in school.
Apparently, our nation isn't quite there yet. Constance McMillen, a Mississippi high school student, was told by her school that she could not bring her girlfriend to prom. The resulting uproar, which included a legal battle and a (social and mainstream) media frenzy, ended with two proms; one for Constance and a dozen other students; one privately organized and funded by the parents of the rest of the school. In this case, while the courts acted as I feel they should have, the legal decision was not what ultimately mattered. The damage to Constance's high school experience was already done. Her school's administration had labeled her an outsider, demonstrating clearly to her peers that she has no place among them.
Plenty of people have a difficult time fitting in. High school is often unpleasant, and high school students are often unkind. The system should not actively work to make it harder to be different. This kind of bigotry has no place in our society, and certainly not in our public schools. There is no saving Constance the humiliation and alienation that will result from the small-mindedness of the adults granted responsibility over her education. Her prom has become a rite of passage that no high school student should ever have to endure. Maybe, years from now, she'll look back on it with a grim satisfaction, appreciating that, in the face of it all, she at least kept her integrity. Even if it will serve her, long term, to have discovered so early in life all the obstacles she will have to overcome and the strength required to do so, I will wish that she might have avoided such character-building. I may not be a parent, or, for that matter, much older than Constance, but I still wish that American children were shielded, a little longer, from suffering the consequences of the appalling ignorance that still exists in this country.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Dear Mr. President,
High school proms are an absurd cliche, but, so help me, I loved mine. My best friends and I got dressed up, had a fancy dinner, played like we were really grown-up while we posed for photos with dates who'd be distant memories in a few years, but who were The Loves Of Our Lives at the time. Prom was not without its political drama, either. One of my friends was dating a student from another school, a transgendered boy who caused quite a stir by being the first female elected Prom King at his own school. I remember, at the time, thinking that this would seem so bigoted and backwards by the time we grew up and told our own kids; like the stories of segregation our own parents had from their time in school.
Apparently, our nation isn't quite there yet. Constance McMillen, a Mississippi high school student, was told by her school that she could not bring her girlfriend to prom. The resulting uproar, which included a legal battle and a (social and mainstream) media frenzy, ended with two proms; one for Constance and a dozen other students; one privately organized and funded by the parents of the rest of the school. In this case, while the courts acted as I feel they should have, the legal decision was not what ultimately mattered. The damage to Constance's high school experience was already done. Her school's administration had labeled her an outsider, demonstrating clearly to her peers that she has no place among them.
Plenty of people have a difficult time fitting in. High school is often unpleasant, and high school students are often unkind. The system should not actively work to make it harder to be different. This kind of bigotry has no place in our society, and certainly not in our public schools. There is no saving Constance the humiliation and alienation that will result from the small-mindedness of the adults granted responsibility over her education. Her prom has become a rite of passage that no high school student should ever have to endure. Maybe, years from now, she'll look back on it with a grim satisfaction, appreciating that, in the face of it all, she at least kept her integrity. Even if it will serve her, long term, to have discovered so early in life all the obstacles she will have to overcome and the strength required to do so, I will wish that she might have avoided such character-building. I may not be a parent, or, for that matter, much older than Constance, but I still wish that American children were shielded, a little longer, from suffering the consequences of the appalling ignorance that still exists in this country.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Friday, April 2, 2010
Day 92- Breaking up with JP Morgan Chase
Dear Mr. President,
I joined a Credit Union today. As soon as my account is set up, I'm closing my old account with Chase. This decision was based on a number of factors, but the business practices of the Credit Union, which by nature is not for profit, has no shareholders, and does not wreak havoc on the financial system through unscrupulous lending and manipulative financial practices. I say this as a complete layman; economic issues are not my strong point, at all. I'm terrible with money, terrified of investing or even saying the word "stocks" and I generally only check my bank account balance after an immense inner struggle about how much I really want to know about my finances. I was finally able to extricate myself from credit card debt, and now that I have some degree of confidence in my financial stability, I want to put my money where my mouth (not to mention personal belief) is. I don't make anywhere close to $30,000 a year, and the money I do make can go to much better things than the profit margins of Chase Bank.
Perhaps it is my ignorance about most financial matters, but I find the kind of gimmicks Chase (and other banks like it) use to attract customers truly off-putting. Keep using your debit card, because you never know when we're going to give you a free purchase! The misleading way that their "overdraft protection service" has been advertised in the last few months is a perfect example of this. With this "service", customers are allowed to spend more than they have- at $31/transaction. A card without this "protection" will merely be declined if more money than is present in the account is charged. This makes sense. This alerts people to when their account balance isn't what they think it should be- always an indication that something, either their calculations or their charges, is wrong. Chase decided to wage an ad campaign to encourage people to keep being charged not to know their account was overdrawn- likely because overdraft fees made up a significant portion of the company's profits. It seems as though Chase is directly targeting vulnerable consumers who don't realize they're being taken advantage of by advertising this fee as some kind of protection.
Anyway, I feel that the Credit Union I joined today is much more honest in its practices and works to serve its members and its community, not its bottom line. That's important to me as a consumer, but not nearly as important as the work that went into making this decision. I've made a conscious effort to learn more about the financial system, the way banks and credit unions work, and the way I budget, spend, and save my own money. The absolute best way to avoid being taken advantage of by the powerful is through education and awareness, and I feel that today was a step in that direction. I will not be hoodwinked by slogans and PR; I will not be sucked in by gimmicks and games; my financial health is too important for me to trust it to others. It is my future, my freedom, and my security, as an independent individual, and I will not allow it to be threatened by my own ignorance.
I feel that this kind of financial information would be a valuable addition to basic high school education. We should prepare students for the realities of the financial decisions they'll be making; decisions about student loan debt and credit cards and responsible use of bank accounts. Preparing students, giving them all the information they need to make informed decisions and to protect themselves against manipulation is an important aspect of education, and this latest financial crisis clearly demonstrates how urgently this awareness is needed.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
I joined a Credit Union today. As soon as my account is set up, I'm closing my old account with Chase. This decision was based on a number of factors, but the business practices of the Credit Union, which by nature is not for profit, has no shareholders, and does not wreak havoc on the financial system through unscrupulous lending and manipulative financial practices. I say this as a complete layman; economic issues are not my strong point, at all. I'm terrible with money, terrified of investing or even saying the word "stocks" and I generally only check my bank account balance after an immense inner struggle about how much I really want to know about my finances. I was finally able to extricate myself from credit card debt, and now that I have some degree of confidence in my financial stability, I want to put my money where my mouth (not to mention personal belief) is. I don't make anywhere close to $30,000 a year, and the money I do make can go to much better things than the profit margins of Chase Bank.
Perhaps it is my ignorance about most financial matters, but I find the kind of gimmicks Chase (and other banks like it) use to attract customers truly off-putting. Keep using your debit card, because you never know when we're going to give you a free purchase! The misleading way that their "overdraft protection service" has been advertised in the last few months is a perfect example of this. With this "service", customers are allowed to spend more than they have- at $31/transaction. A card without this "protection" will merely be declined if more money than is present in the account is charged. This makes sense. This alerts people to when their account balance isn't what they think it should be- always an indication that something, either their calculations or their charges, is wrong. Chase decided to wage an ad campaign to encourage people to keep being charged not to know their account was overdrawn- likely because overdraft fees made up a significant portion of the company's profits. It seems as though Chase is directly targeting vulnerable consumers who don't realize they're being taken advantage of by advertising this fee as some kind of protection.
Anyway, I feel that the Credit Union I joined today is much more honest in its practices and works to serve its members and its community, not its bottom line. That's important to me as a consumer, but not nearly as important as the work that went into making this decision. I've made a conscious effort to learn more about the financial system, the way banks and credit unions work, and the way I budget, spend, and save my own money. The absolute best way to avoid being taken advantage of by the powerful is through education and awareness, and I feel that today was a step in that direction. I will not be hoodwinked by slogans and PR; I will not be sucked in by gimmicks and games; my financial health is too important for me to trust it to others. It is my future, my freedom, and my security, as an independent individual, and I will not allow it to be threatened by my own ignorance.
I feel that this kind of financial information would be a valuable addition to basic high school education. We should prepare students for the realities of the financial decisions they'll be making; decisions about student loan debt and credit cards and responsible use of bank accounts. Preparing students, giving them all the information they need to make informed decisions and to protect themselves against manipulation is an important aspect of education, and this latest financial crisis clearly demonstrates how urgently this awareness is needed.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Day 72
Dear Mr President,
Revising the requirements laid in in No Child Left Behind, is an essential step to making students college and career ready. I think our system places too great an emphasis on standardized testing, but I recognize that, absent hard data, it is difficult to point to successes and areas needing improvement in our schools. As a student, I took the WASL, the ITED, the levels tests, the Hi-cap test, the PSAT, the SAT, 3 AP tests and the ACT. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I rock at standardized tests. Unfortunately, this skill isn't exactly something I can put on my resume. I also had amazing teachers; one took students interested in education and had us intern for a week in the classroom. Another created a scavenger hunt that took us all over town using GPS and practical cryptography. One had us pick books without cliff notes available and write our own. These were all experiences that helped me develop important skills, and used practical experience to give us a better understanding of the concepts we were required to learn. None of them appeared on a standardized tests.
I suppose my point is that we can require testing in reading and math skills every year, but my guess is we're going to do more to improve our test-taking skills than anything else. And, don't get me wrong, having test-taking skills is not a bad lot in life. But I think, rather than being tested every year, my educational experience would have been most improved by a longer school year, teacher who were more adequately compensated (and, in some cases, better prepared to teach their subjects,) and a community that recognized the value of higher education. I don't think that all of those are things the Federal government can necessarily provide, but certainly steps should be taken in this direction. The preliminary suggestions from your administration for improving education look promising, and I hope that they are better received by the public than health care reform has been.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Revising the requirements laid in in No Child Left Behind, is an essential step to making students college and career ready. I think our system places too great an emphasis on standardized testing, but I recognize that, absent hard data, it is difficult to point to successes and areas needing improvement in our schools. As a student, I took the WASL, the ITED, the levels tests, the Hi-cap test, the PSAT, the SAT, 3 AP tests and the ACT. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I rock at standardized tests. Unfortunately, this skill isn't exactly something I can put on my resume. I also had amazing teachers; one took students interested in education and had us intern for a week in the classroom. Another created a scavenger hunt that took us all over town using GPS and practical cryptography. One had us pick books without cliff notes available and write our own. These were all experiences that helped me develop important skills, and used practical experience to give us a better understanding of the concepts we were required to learn. None of them appeared on a standardized tests.
I suppose my point is that we can require testing in reading and math skills every year, but my guess is we're going to do more to improve our test-taking skills than anything else. And, don't get me wrong, having test-taking skills is not a bad lot in life. But I think, rather than being tested every year, my educational experience would have been most improved by a longer school year, teacher who were more adequately compensated (and, in some cases, better prepared to teach their subjects,) and a community that recognized the value of higher education. I don't think that all of those are things the Federal government can necessarily provide, but certainly steps should be taken in this direction. The preliminary suggestions from your administration for improving education look promising, and I hope that they are better received by the public than health care reform has been.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Day 61- 21st Century Education
Today's letter is in response to the question posed by the White House to the public, What does 21st century education mean to you?
Dear Mr. President,
As the 21st century was beginning, I was only starting High School. Sadly, I feel my own education was more a product of the previous century, and I think this has impacted not only my ability to compete for jobs, but also to feel comfortable moving in circles with those who have been properly prepared for the current educational demands. Education in the 21st century must, of course, include competency and even fluency with modern technology; it must expose students to cultures, languages, and lifestyles other than their own; the educational experience ought to include strong emphasis on science and math, without sacrificing any of the liberal arts foundation.
Computers are such an integral part of our daily lives that no student educated in this country ought to leave school without being familiar, comfortable, and confident using computers, the internet, word processing and document presentation, and even basic programming. Ideally, this would occur well before college and high school. I don't feel that my own educational experience failed to prepare me for a world that requires computer literacy, but I owe that almost entirely to the Gates foundation, as my school benefited from the generosity of Mr. Gates's commitment to his home state. I'm not sure that this is true for all of my generation, especially those who come from families unable to afford computers in their own home, or who lived in school districts unable to afford new computers or the instructors to properly utilize them.
One area where I was not so fortunate was exposure to foreign languages. Most students have the option of taking Spanish, French or German in High School. If they are very lucky, Japanese or Russian are also options. Mr. President, we may be lucky enough to live in a time where the entirety of the rest of the world clamors to learn English, but this does us more harm than good if we allow it to make us complacent about educating our children in other languages. Spanish ought to be taught from a much earlier age, along side English in elementary and middle schools. In high school, students should have a wider variety of languages to choose from, and an incentive should be offered to encourage schools to offer languages more relevant to the modern economy. (While it is impossible, even incorrect, to argue the merits of one language over another, it is difficult to deny that the modern student would have a wider variety of career options with a working knowledge of Arabic, Hindi, or Chinese, rather than German.) Multilingual students will not only be better able to communicate with and understand non- Americans, they will posses the skills to more easily learn new languages in the future, making them more adaptable.
Education in the 21st Century must be about more than just learning about other cultures and lifestyles, it must include practical exposure. I feel a greater emphasis should be put on travel and exchange programs, as well as service learning. Students should be required to do service work in their communities as a part of their education. Volunteer work is a great way to gain experience for later careers, but it also fosters a sense of responsibility for one's community. Tying volunteer work closely to education can illuminate areas of study in ways that classroom learning alone cannot.
Math and science are another area in which early exposure- well before high school- will help our schools produce more competent graduates. Liberal Arts educations provide essential critical thinking skills and ought not to be devalued, but practicality demands that we increase our emphasis on math and science if Americans are to remain competitive in the Modern economy.
In my view, education in the 21st century must be about connectivity. Our world is getting smaller and we must eager and enthusiastic about the things that allow us to connect to others- common languages like math, science and technology, as well as empathy and understanding, a willingness to learn new languages, to experience and adapt to the cultures of those who are not like us, wherever they may be found.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Dear Mr. President,
As the 21st century was beginning, I was only starting High School. Sadly, I feel my own education was more a product of the previous century, and I think this has impacted not only my ability to compete for jobs, but also to feel comfortable moving in circles with those who have been properly prepared for the current educational demands. Education in the 21st century must, of course, include competency and even fluency with modern technology; it must expose students to cultures, languages, and lifestyles other than their own; the educational experience ought to include strong emphasis on science and math, without sacrificing any of the liberal arts foundation.
Computers are such an integral part of our daily lives that no student educated in this country ought to leave school without being familiar, comfortable, and confident using computers, the internet, word processing and document presentation, and even basic programming. Ideally, this would occur well before college and high school. I don't feel that my own educational experience failed to prepare me for a world that requires computer literacy, but I owe that almost entirely to the Gates foundation, as my school benefited from the generosity of Mr. Gates's commitment to his home state. I'm not sure that this is true for all of my generation, especially those who come from families unable to afford computers in their own home, or who lived in school districts unable to afford new computers or the instructors to properly utilize them.
One area where I was not so fortunate was exposure to foreign languages. Most students have the option of taking Spanish, French or German in High School. If they are very lucky, Japanese or Russian are also options. Mr. President, we may be lucky enough to live in a time where the entirety of the rest of the world clamors to learn English, but this does us more harm than good if we allow it to make us complacent about educating our children in other languages. Spanish ought to be taught from a much earlier age, along side English in elementary and middle schools. In high school, students should have a wider variety of languages to choose from, and an incentive should be offered to encourage schools to offer languages more relevant to the modern economy. (While it is impossible, even incorrect, to argue the merits of one language over another, it is difficult to deny that the modern student would have a wider variety of career options with a working knowledge of Arabic, Hindi, or Chinese, rather than German.) Multilingual students will not only be better able to communicate with and understand non- Americans, they will posses the skills to more easily learn new languages in the future, making them more adaptable.
Education in the 21st Century must be about more than just learning about other cultures and lifestyles, it must include practical exposure. I feel a greater emphasis should be put on travel and exchange programs, as well as service learning. Students should be required to do service work in their communities as a part of their education. Volunteer work is a great way to gain experience for later careers, but it also fosters a sense of responsibility for one's community. Tying volunteer work closely to education can illuminate areas of study in ways that classroom learning alone cannot.
Math and science are another area in which early exposure- well before high school- will help our schools produce more competent graduates. Liberal Arts educations provide essential critical thinking skills and ought not to be devalued, but practicality demands that we increase our emphasis on math and science if Americans are to remain competitive in the Modern economy.
In my view, education in the 21st century must be about connectivity. Our world is getting smaller and we must eager and enthusiastic about the things that allow us to connect to others- common languages like math, science and technology, as well as empathy and understanding, a willingness to learn new languages, to experience and adapt to the cultures of those who are not like us, wherever they may be found.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Day 45
Dear Mr. President,
When I was a senior in high school, my AP English teacher assigned an essay on the nature of marriage. It was a challenging assignment for many of us with divorced families. Growing up, it often seemed that marriages would either end up bitterly broken, as my parents' had, or long slow, decays into mutual unhappiness or secret infidelity, as with most of the married couples I'd encountered. Marriage seemed like a prescription for disappointed hopes and heartbreak. As I've matured, I've witnessed maybe three truly happy marriages, and each one makes me hold my breath, terrified of the crash and burn I see as inevitable.
Back in high school I knew that looking for evidence that I was wrong about love would consume me in a way I'd never be comfortable with. It feels almost shameful, devoting so much of my energy to seeking out the validation from another person. I should be more self-reliant. I should have greater, grander plans. But I had to know, if only by constant trial, if it were possible that I was wrong. I've had my share of heartache in the process. I've seen my friends and family, men and women who I admire, brought down, broken by this feeling. We always bounce back. We always move on. People are practical, if not particularly romantic.
When I lived in DC I worked with a man who became my mentor, and his devotion to his wife, their loving union that seemed so natural and easy, challenged my preconceptions about marriage. What was most amazing to me was the nonchalance with which they viewed their happiness, as though married people who like each other were the most normal things in the world. Since then, I've seen a few more stereotype-defying couples. A monk in Jerusalem who left his whole life behind for the woman he loved. Childhood sweethearts who still glow at the sight of one another after 50 years. Even, or maybe, in light of your career, I should say especially, you and the First Lady. You two seem to be genuinely happy and in love, in a way that seems too real to conceivably be for the public's benefit. None of this, of course, is as simple and perfect as fictional romantic love, but still, it gives me hope. In a simple, silly way, I think I just need to be shown that love does last for those willing to work for it. I might never believe it, all the way. I might never feel secure in love. But I like the anomalies that keep the certainty of absolute cynicism at bay.
It's Valentine's Day, and I suppose I don't have anything better to say than thank you for being a role model in more ways than just your professional success. It means a lot, even to those of us who should be old enough, and experienced enough, to know better.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
When I was a senior in high school, my AP English teacher assigned an essay on the nature of marriage. It was a challenging assignment for many of us with divorced families. Growing up, it often seemed that marriages would either end up bitterly broken, as my parents' had, or long slow, decays into mutual unhappiness or secret infidelity, as with most of the married couples I'd encountered. Marriage seemed like a prescription for disappointed hopes and heartbreak. As I've matured, I've witnessed maybe three truly happy marriages, and each one makes me hold my breath, terrified of the crash and burn I see as inevitable.
Back in high school I knew that looking for evidence that I was wrong about love would consume me in a way I'd never be comfortable with. It feels almost shameful, devoting so much of my energy to seeking out the validation from another person. I should be more self-reliant. I should have greater, grander plans. But I had to know, if only by constant trial, if it were possible that I was wrong. I've had my share of heartache in the process. I've seen my friends and family, men and women who I admire, brought down, broken by this feeling. We always bounce back. We always move on. People are practical, if not particularly romantic.
When I lived in DC I worked with a man who became my mentor, and his devotion to his wife, their loving union that seemed so natural and easy, challenged my preconceptions about marriage. What was most amazing to me was the nonchalance with which they viewed their happiness, as though married people who like each other were the most normal things in the world. Since then, I've seen a few more stereotype-defying couples. A monk in Jerusalem who left his whole life behind for the woman he loved. Childhood sweethearts who still glow at the sight of one another after 50 years. Even, or maybe, in light of your career, I should say especially, you and the First Lady. You two seem to be genuinely happy and in love, in a way that seems too real to conceivably be for the public's benefit. None of this, of course, is as simple and perfect as fictional romantic love, but still, it gives me hope. In a simple, silly way, I think I just need to be shown that love does last for those willing to work for it. I might never believe it, all the way. I might never feel secure in love. But I like the anomalies that keep the certainty of absolute cynicism at bay.
It's Valentine's Day, and I suppose I don't have anything better to say than thank you for being a role model in more ways than just your professional success. It means a lot, even to those of us who should be old enough, and experienced enough, to know better.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Day 16- right, wrong, and illegal
I will admit, I am more apprehensive about this than other letters, as it is the most personal. I suppose these will always, necessarily, be more about me than anything else. Still I prefer to have a more specific, concrete topic than such an abstract idea. I'm definitely not going to make a habit out of this, but I suppose I am allowed one or two letters that read more like diary entries.
Dear Mr. President,
I am considering breaking the law tomorrow night. Being the daughter of two police officers, I have always considered myself to be, by and large, a law-abiding citizen. However, I learned from an early age that not all laws were right and not all wrongs were crimes. My father took a somewhat different view. For him, legal and illegal were the only definitions of right and wrong. (To an extent. Even my father would have to admit the line was somewhat blurrier when it came to speed limits.) I struggled with thisas a teen. My anti-Iraq War bumper sticker was protected by the first amendment, until March 20, 2003, when, according to him, it became an act of sedition and had to be removed. I suppose this is why I have resisted so fiercely the impulse to follow in my parents' footsteps. A career enforcing the law is simplified by a belief in the absolute morality of the law; the idea that right and wrong can be codefied into a fixed, clearly defined, all-purpose system. I could never reconcile this simplicity with the inherent complexity of the human experience. Conversely, the belief that legality, alone, can indicate morality leads also to men like John Yoo, and the twisting of the letters of law to excuse immoral acts.
I understand the need for laws. I respect them and sometimes even, in the course of my job preventing shoplifters, enforce them. But the things in life I feel the most guilty for were perfectly legal acts, and some of the proudest moments of my life involved defying laws that I view to be unjust. Legality is not, necessarily, about morality. However, the law I am considering breaking tomorrow night is not an unjust law. I do think it is there for a good and just purpose and I would not, under any other circumstances, advise, condone or even consider its violation.
Eight years ago, I failed some one. If I had broken a law, been arrested, been punished, maybe by now I would feel better about it. Maybe I would feel as though my debt had, somehow, been paid. Seven years and 363 days ago, I turned 16. I skipped to school in a new purple dress, carrying balloons and flowers. My close friend was being discovered, by his younger brother, with a shotgun wound to the head. I failed him. I knew he was sick. I knew he was depressed. I knew that I was being insensitive. It was such a small cruelty, at the time.
Ever since that day, when people ask me what I want for my birthday I lie. I lie because all I want is for Josh to be alive and 24, not dead and endlessly 16. I want to take back 8 years of his family's suffering. I want something to take away the 8 years of guilt. And, if I can't have those things, I want to sit, alone, in the darkness with him and tell him how sorry I am that I failed him. I've never managed to make it to his graveside on my birthday, since. Either because I was out of the state, or I didn't have a car, or any number of things. But this year, fate conspired to put it all within reach. I'll be off of work too late to make it before the cemetery closes, but that's actually fine by me. I don't want to have to face him in the light of day. I don't want to risk the shame of having his family see my grief in the face of their own. I don't want to have to answer to the living for my crimes.
I wish right and wrong were as simple as the laws of our society. If I do break the law & jump the fence tomorrow night, it will not weigh heavily on my conscience. In your book, you refer to "sacred stories", the tragedies, hard truths and costly lessons that bind us together as people, in our common struggle to live our lives of quiet desperation. I don't know if there is anything sacred about what I'm considering doing. I don't know if I am more afraid of breaking the law or living another year with this weight on my conscience. I hope that I can be forgiven for breaking the law, even if I can't forgive myself for my more egregious trespasses.
Surely a President understands the constant struggle between the comfort in the certain, simple, legal ideas of right and wrong, and the less defined, intangible morality of nature that govern us all. I hope the distinction is easier for you, than it is for me.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Dear Mr. President,
I am considering breaking the law tomorrow night. Being the daughter of two police officers, I have always considered myself to be, by and large, a law-abiding citizen. However, I learned from an early age that not all laws were right and not all wrongs were crimes. My father took a somewhat different view. For him, legal and illegal were the only definitions of right and wrong. (To an extent. Even my father would have to admit the line was somewhat blurrier when it came to speed limits.) I struggled with thisas a teen. My anti-Iraq War bumper sticker was protected by the first amendment, until March 20, 2003, when, according to him, it became an act of sedition and had to be removed. I suppose this is why I have resisted so fiercely the impulse to follow in my parents' footsteps. A career enforcing the law is simplified by a belief in the absolute morality of the law; the idea that right and wrong can be codefied into a fixed, clearly defined, all-purpose system. I could never reconcile this simplicity with the inherent complexity of the human experience. Conversely, the belief that legality, alone, can indicate morality leads also to men like John Yoo, and the twisting of the letters of law to excuse immoral acts.
I understand the need for laws. I respect them and sometimes even, in the course of my job preventing shoplifters, enforce them. But the things in life I feel the most guilty for were perfectly legal acts, and some of the proudest moments of my life involved defying laws that I view to be unjust. Legality is not, necessarily, about morality. However, the law I am considering breaking tomorrow night is not an unjust law. I do think it is there for a good and just purpose and I would not, under any other circumstances, advise, condone or even consider its violation.
Eight years ago, I failed some one. If I had broken a law, been arrested, been punished, maybe by now I would feel better about it. Maybe I would feel as though my debt had, somehow, been paid. Seven years and 363 days ago, I turned 16. I skipped to school in a new purple dress, carrying balloons and flowers. My close friend was being discovered, by his younger brother, with a shotgun wound to the head. I failed him. I knew he was sick. I knew he was depressed. I knew that I was being insensitive. It was such a small cruelty, at the time.
Ever since that day, when people ask me what I want for my birthday I lie. I lie because all I want is for Josh to be alive and 24, not dead and endlessly 16. I want to take back 8 years of his family's suffering. I want something to take away the 8 years of guilt. And, if I can't have those things, I want to sit, alone, in the darkness with him and tell him how sorry I am that I failed him. I've never managed to make it to his graveside on my birthday, since. Either because I was out of the state, or I didn't have a car, or any number of things. But this year, fate conspired to put it all within reach. I'll be off of work too late to make it before the cemetery closes, but that's actually fine by me. I don't want to have to face him in the light of day. I don't want to risk the shame of having his family see my grief in the face of their own. I don't want to have to answer to the living for my crimes.
I wish right and wrong were as simple as the laws of our society. If I do break the law & jump the fence tomorrow night, it will not weigh heavily on my conscience. In your book, you refer to "sacred stories", the tragedies, hard truths and costly lessons that bind us together as people, in our common struggle to live our lives of quiet desperation. I don't know if there is anything sacred about what I'm considering doing. I don't know if I am more afraid of breaking the law or living another year with this weight on my conscience. I hope that I can be forgiven for breaking the law, even if I can't forgive myself for my more egregious trespasses.
Surely a President understands the constant struggle between the comfort in the certain, simple, legal ideas of right and wrong, and the less defined, intangible morality of nature that govern us all. I hope the distinction is easier for you, than it is for me.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Day 10
Dear Mr. President,
Tonight my best friend and I are having an African-themed dinner. She's preparing herself for a 2-year trip to Burkina Faso for the Peace Corps. Don't get me wrong, the idea of eating goat is pretty appalling to both of us vegetarians, but we recognize that she's probably going to have to adjust to it, somehow.
When we were seniors together in high school, our AP English teacher had us write letters to our future selves, which she promised to mail 5 years after graduation. At the time, I had my life planned out well enough to tell myself exactly where I should be. One year into my peace corps service, graduated from college, best friends with my best friend, and, preferably, still dating my boyfriend. As you can imagine, 5 years later, my future self has disappointed her high school past on all but one count.
My best friend and I have gone to school on opposite side of the country, spent a semester on different continents while she was in South Africa, and have stayed close through it all. Will two years apart change that? Since high school I've at least learned enough not to say for sure. But I wouldn't have her stay. I'm so proud of her willingness to give two years of her life to helping others, and inspired by the way she embraces the unknown. It is comforting to think that, even if I haven't lived up to my own expectations, she has.
I think most of my generation graduated High School and planned on changing the world. It seems daily I read or hear something about our generation being apathetic, uninformed, disengaged. Where did we go wrong? What happened between high school and real life that kept so many of us from living up to our own expectations?
For me, it was money. It's not that I feel like every one should just be given a college education. It should be a challenge. It should be something I invest enough of myself in to make it worthwhile. When I get my degree (and, mark my words, I will) it will have been hard won, and it will mean something to me, more than it will ever mean to the people reading about it on my resume. But, between trying to save to go back, and pay off the loans I already have, trying to choose between the benefits of a full-time job and the demands of a full load of classes, I wish going to college in America was just a little bit easier. Would a degree make me happy? Yes. Would it make me the person I thought I'd be by now? Probably not.
I'm still enjoying your book. At my age, you were more successful and more ambitious, but you were, in many ways, just a lost as I feel now. This gives me hope. Not so much that I could be elected president, but that I, too, could wind up a successful, well-adjusted adult with some idea of what my purpose ought to be. I'm looking forward to discovering how you pulled it off.
For now, I'm going to enjoy African food and the last few months with my friend. She's got a two-year plan, at least, and it will be interesting to see where we are whenever we meet again. I hope that in two years' time, I'm more like her, and more like the person I'd hoped to be in high school. For what it is worth, it is comforting to both of us to think that you'll still be in the White House, and that our country will, in all likelihood, be two years better off because of it.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Tonight my best friend and I are having an African-themed dinner. She's preparing herself for a 2-year trip to Burkina Faso for the Peace Corps. Don't get me wrong, the idea of eating goat is pretty appalling to both of us vegetarians, but we recognize that she's probably going to have to adjust to it, somehow.
When we were seniors together in high school, our AP English teacher had us write letters to our future selves, which she promised to mail 5 years after graduation. At the time, I had my life planned out well enough to tell myself exactly where I should be. One year into my peace corps service, graduated from college, best friends with my best friend, and, preferably, still dating my boyfriend. As you can imagine, 5 years later, my future self has disappointed her high school past on all but one count.
My best friend and I have gone to school on opposite side of the country, spent a semester on different continents while she was in South Africa, and have stayed close through it all. Will two years apart change that? Since high school I've at least learned enough not to say for sure. But I wouldn't have her stay. I'm so proud of her willingness to give two years of her life to helping others, and inspired by the way she embraces the unknown. It is comforting to think that, even if I haven't lived up to my own expectations, she has.
I think most of my generation graduated High School and planned on changing the world. It seems daily I read or hear something about our generation being apathetic, uninformed, disengaged. Where did we go wrong? What happened between high school and real life that kept so many of us from living up to our own expectations?
For me, it was money. It's not that I feel like every one should just be given a college education. It should be a challenge. It should be something I invest enough of myself in to make it worthwhile. When I get my degree (and, mark my words, I will) it will have been hard won, and it will mean something to me, more than it will ever mean to the people reading about it on my resume. But, between trying to save to go back, and pay off the loans I already have, trying to choose between the benefits of a full-time job and the demands of a full load of classes, I wish going to college in America was just a little bit easier. Would a degree make me happy? Yes. Would it make me the person I thought I'd be by now? Probably not.
I'm still enjoying your book. At my age, you were more successful and more ambitious, but you were, in many ways, just a lost as I feel now. This gives me hope. Not so much that I could be elected president, but that I, too, could wind up a successful, well-adjusted adult with some idea of what my purpose ought to be. I'm looking forward to discovering how you pulled it off.
For now, I'm going to enjoy African food and the last few months with my friend. She's got a two-year plan, at least, and it will be interesting to see where we are whenever we meet again. I hope that in two years' time, I'm more like her, and more like the person I'd hoped to be in high school. For what it is worth, it is comforting to both of us to think that you'll still be in the White House, and that our country will, in all likelihood, be two years better off because of it.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
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