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Winner of a Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is the story of Rachel, a biracial adolescent being raised by her African American grandmother, in the wake of a horrific tragedy that left Rachel critically injured and her Danish mother and two siblings dead.
Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver, who awarded Durrow the Bellwether, calls this “a breathless telling of a tale we’ve never heard before. Haunting and lovely… this book could not be more timely.”
After finishing the novel, I took issue with this idea that Durrow’s story is one “we’ve never heard before.” But I’ll get back to that in a minute.
It’s difficult to categorize the book: it’s part bildungsroman and part mystery. It succeeds at the former and fails, at least for me, at the latter. The “mystery” of the novel is alluded to in the title. Rachel does, quite literally, fall from the sky (or rather, through the sky: from a rooftop, to the ground). So do her mother, brother, and sister. The question Durrow wants us to ponder, as we read each short chapter, written from a revolving door of characters’ perspectives, is: did they fall or were they pushed?
More after the jump.
In last night’s Ben-centric episode, we got a chance to see the character at his lowest, as he literally dug his own grave at gunpoint, and at his best, in ParalleLA, where he passed on an opportunity to follow through on a “Machiavellian plan” in order to secure a bright and winning future for Alex Rousseau, of all people.
Here’s how it went: early in the episode, Ben, having been separated from Ilana & company, in a failed attempt to “save” Sayid, meets back up with them in the jungle. Ilana wastes no time in asking Ben whether or not Fake Locke killed Jacob. Ben says of course, but Ilana is skeptical. So she shoves the ashen remains of Jacob into Miles’ hands and demands that he confirm Ben’s account. Miles, being the top-notch communicator with the dead that he is, immediately discerns Ben’s lie.
This is when Ilana decides to march Ben into the brush, shackle his ankle and force him to dig a grave which, once complete, she fully intends to fill with his cold dead body.
More after the jump.
quadmoniker on March 10th, 2010
 Henrietta Lacks, photo via WikiCommons. I just finished listening to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on audiobook (though I really wish I’d read it) and I can’t overstate how fabulous it was. Ta-Nehisi Coates has already noted that the author, Rebecca Skloot,* seemed to equivocate on the question of race, but her reporting doesn’t. In 1951, Lacks’s cervical cancer cells were taken by doctors without her permission. She would later die of the disease, but her uncommonly hardy cells became the first ever to grow in a Petri dish. The HeLa cells (named after their progenitor) led to so many scientific advances it’s hard to recount quickly, and the family never knew about the cell sample until 25 years later, when researchers came to ask for their blood.
The book shows clearly how racism, sexism and poverty played a role in patients’ access to medicine and in how doctors regarded patients. And Skloot makes clear that it’s not just a tale of the past: Lacks’s children have their own medical problems, and many of them don’t have health insurance. But the book is really about the life of Deborah Lacks-Pullum. Lacks’s daughter was born just a year before her mother died, and sees in the story of the HeLa cells a chance to connect with the mother she never knew.
One thing about the book unsettled me, and it was problem that was probably amplified on audio. Skloot doesn’t correct for grammar, and both Henrietta Lacks and her family members speak in a heavy Southern dialect. It’s not just them. An Asian doctor and an Austrian researcher are presented with imperfect English. And the readers for the book do voice impressions.
As the Fake AP Stylebook said on Twitter recently, “When considering whether to write in dialect, please don’t.” For newspapers, that’s generally true. It’s seen both as condescending — since people in general rarely use proper grammar when speaking but improper grammar is different from rendering dialect — and confusing for the reader. It’s also kind of a cheap way to convey a tone. But in this instance, it’s not so clear that it’s bad. One of the problems the Lacks’s had with the fact that their mothers cells had be taken was that she, and them, had been so left out of the story. Few people knew Lacks had contributed the HeLa cells at all. And even fewer knew about the woman behind them. Skloot’s mission was to correct that historical omission, and doing it in a way that lets the Lackses tell their own story in their own way seems like a good way to do it. In fact, Deborah’s voice in the book is really unique, and the language she used conveys a real sense of her personality.
But dialect: is it ok to use it? Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?
*Side note, Skloot came to one of my grad school classes, and I’ve been waiting to read the book since she talked about it then.
 via The Consumerist; used under Creative Commons. There are a few things in personal finance as aggravating as overdraft fees: you make a $55-dollar purchase with your debit card, and you only have $53 in your account. Your bank honors your charge anyway — for a $35 fee. In theory, customers willingly sign up for the service in order to avoid embarrassment at the register. In practice, though, many banks enroll their customers in the programs without telling them and assess charges to customers’ accounts out of sequence in order to force them into overdrafting their account. Banks have been leaning more on fees to shore up their bottom lines after the banking crisis forced them to find new revenue streams. So it’s hard not to be happy about Bank of America’s announcement that it would eliminate overdraft fees, which might force other big banks to do the same.
But one of the less-discussed consequences of bank fees is how they help promote instability for people on the lower-end of the socioeconomic scale. Many of the traditional barriers to banking access have eroded over the last decade, with branches sprouting up everywhere and putting people in traditionally underserved communites in position to open accounts. But the proliferation of banks in poor neighborhoods has done little to keep the unbanked from opting for “fringe banking services” — check cashing services, payday lenders, and the like. Those institutions charge onerous fees of their own, but unlike the big banks, their fees are explicitly outlined. Customers may cough up $12 for the privilege of cashing a $300 check, but it makes more economic sense than being stuck with miscellaneous surcharges over the course of several weeks for not maintaining a minimum balance, withdrawing money from an ATM, writing a check, or overdrafting your account — penalties that can accrue much more easily and be much more disastrous when your life is inherently unstable.
If banks moved away from the dizzying constellation of fees they currently dish out — unlikely, to be sure — it would result in more money remaining in the hands of the people who need it most. As it is, this is another example of the many added costs that come with being poor.
Brokey McPoverty on March 9th, 2010
blackink12 on March 8th, 2010
It’s Kathryn Bigelow’s world. The rest of us are paying rent:
I also refuse to believe that woman is 58-years-old. That can not be possible.
Onward with the roundup after the jump:
More after the jump.
Brokey McPoverty on March 8th, 2010
I was reminded of the ridiculous extraness of Steve Harvey’s suits today while workin on today’s post at SplackCent, which required me to google the phrase “Steve Harvey suit.” It’s quite a varied collection, with myriad colors and sizes to choose from.
PLAID PRINCE
Available Colors:
•Oh Lawd Lavendar
•Rench-Around Red
•Have Mercy Mauve
Available Sizes:
•I Remember When Ike Hit Tina
•I Remember When Teddy P Hit That Tree
•I Remember When Marion Barry Hit That Pipe
Special Offer: Half off a pair of Gators in Righteous Robin’s Egg Blue.
More after the jump.
Grape Drink mafiosi Latoya Peterson and Alyssa Rosenberg discuss the politics of the Oscars.
blackink12 on March 5th, 2010
For those of you who care about that sort of thing, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will host a little event we like to call the Oscars on Sunday.
But there’s plenty of time to debate the relative merits and criticisms of “Up in The Air” or “Precious,” which not-so-coincidentally are the only two best-picture nominees that I saw in ‘09. This post is about music.
So while we’re feting the best actors and films of the previous year this weekend, let us take the time to remember that no one is awesome at everything.
President Obama can’t go to his right (and hoops in long sweat pants. C’mon, man). Michael Jordan is a mediocre NBA executive and was a worse baseball player. The Man Your Man Could Smell Like was a college football scrub (weren’t we all?). Taylor Swift really didn’t have a better video than Beyonce. And Elizabeth Warren is … well, she actually might be awesome at everything.
But really, when I’m in the shower, I swear I sound just like Tevin Campbell:
More after the jump.
 [via]
From the Washington Post:
President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.
The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.
If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo. …
Privately, administration officials are bracing for the ire of disappointed liberals and even some government lawyers should the administration back away from promises to use civilian courts to adjudicate the cases of some of the 188 detainees who remain at Guantanamo.
Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, acting chief defense counsel at the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions, said it would be a “sad day for the rule of law” if Obama decides not to proceed with a federal trial. “I thought the decision where to put people on trial — whether federal court or military commissions — was based on what was right, not what is politically advantageous,” Colwell said.
Adam Serwer:
It isn’t all the president’s fault. The Democrats have assumed their usual fetal position on national security at a time when the president polls high on the issue, Pakistan is hemming up high-level members of the Taliban and the front pages are filled with news of high level terrorist leaders being vaporized by drone strikes. The last administration presided over the worst terror attack on American soil, led the country into an unnecessary war, and disgraced the country with torture. Still the Democrats cower in fear. If they won’t stand up for the rule of law now, when the facts are on their side, imagine how they’d react if, G-d forbid, there were to be another terrorist attack. If the GOP wanted to dust off the Sedition Act, Democrats would politely ask whether they were in the mood for the 1798 version or the 1918 version.
Obama said that the choice between our security and our ideals is a false choice. He was right. The real choice was always between our ideals and our politics, and if the above story is true, then Obama will have made the obvious, if profoundly disappointing, choice.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy…for women?
That was my immediate reaction when I happened to see the ad for this while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race 2 ( I don’t care if you judge me, that show is GREAT). TRANSform Me is a makeover show with a twist – transgendered women acting as style consultants to women. From the synopsis on VH1:
TRANSform Me is a makeover show in which a team of three transgender women, led by the inimitable Laverne Cox (I Want To Work For Diddy), rescues women from personal style purgatory. Laverne and her ultra-glam partners in crime have undergone the ultimate transformation, so they’re the perfect women for the job.
They’ll travel the country in their tricked out fashion ambulance, siren blaring, and swoop into scenes of fashion disaster. They’ll not only make women look better but feel a whole lot better about themselves. It’s about discovering one’s inner personal style.
Laverne and the girls will cruise from boutiques to beauty salons in search of just the right look. And they won’t pull any punches with their subjects–or each other!
Each episode of TRANSform Me will cover the makeover of one woman who’s written to the show asking for help. The subject expects to be made over for a reality show–but she doesn’t know it’s going to be by three transgender women.
According to Cox, being a transgendered women uniquely qualifies the cast to assist women who are struggling with their personal image and style:
“‘Transform Me’ is a show about everyone who’s ever felt that the person they are on the inside isn’t quite reflected in who is seen on the outside. Transgender folks are in many ways the ultimate example of this. We’ve taken extraordinary steps to bring who we are on the inside…out, and we’re committed to helping other women do the same thing. If we can do it, anyone can!”
I find all of this notion fascinating because it ties in with something I had noticed watching Drag Race.
I want to issue a disclaimer here: I know there is a world of difference between a drag queen and a transgendered woman and I am not trying to equate the two at all. Also I am not an expert on all things LGBTQ so I may make missteps trying to articulate myself. If I offend someone please tell me and I’ll try to fix it.
There’s a a lot of pronoun mixing on Drag Race, and most of the contestants seem happy to be referred to as either “he” or “she”. Even out of drag it’s not unusual to hear contestants refer to each other by their persona names. However, there is a marked shift to the third person when a contestant describes his female persona. “Oh she’s a diva. She’s bourgie. She’s a southern belle.” At first I just wrote it off as part of the caricature, an expected bit of narcissism given the over-the-top personalities involved. But after reading the blurb for TRANSform me I started to give it a bit more thought and realized that due to my privileged position as cis-gendered and heterosexual I’d given very little consideration to what is takes to construct a female identity. How do they – drag queens and transgendered women alike – decide what kind of woman they’re going to be? In the case of drag-queens how much of their female persona has analogues to their male persona? For those who are transgendered, how does the portion of their lives lived and being interacted with as men inform the identity of women they become? For both, how does female gender as it is performed in society impact what they think they should look, sound and act like as women?
Which isn’t to say cis-gendered women don’t do this too. At one point I was adamant that I would not be piercing my ears because I thought it would mean that I was a vain girly-girl. There was a certain type of woman I didn’t want to be. Particularly because this post related to a makeover show I’m fascinated by this idea of how we navigate and choose the signifiers of what kind of women we want to be via our clothes and style. Watching cis-gendered women be assisted in this performance by transgendered women ought to be interesting provided it doesn’t descend into gimmicky nonsense (they travel in a fashion ambulance?). Will the source of the advice make a difference? I’ll be watching on March 15th to find out.
In an effort to eradicate the myth of the “seductive/sexually-empowered slave mistress” (most recently perpetuated by Touré on Twitter, apparently), new novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez has penned a work of historical fiction set in a real location: Tawawa House, a summer resort that catered to white slaveholders and their enslaved “lovers,” in the free state of Ohio.
Wench chronicles the lives of four slave women: Mawu, Sweet, Reenie, and Lizzie (the central protagonist) whose masters annually “whisk them away” from the hardship of their plantation lives and put them up in cottages for a few weeks in summer.
For the women, few things have changed, other than their location: they’re still monitored, chained on a whim, and systematically raped. Only now, they’re also given once-lovely ball gowns—years-old cast-offs left behind by the resort’s previous white patrons—and encouraged to doll themselves up for a semi-public dinner and dance.
They’re also allowed the occasional “free day,” an irony, of course, on two fronts: they still must cook and clean, while their masters are away from the resort fishing, and also, as they spend hours of spare time trekking through the woods, where they meet abolitionists and happen upon an adjacent resort for free Blacks, they are constantly reminded of the vicious slave-catchers who lie in wait, at the first sign of any escape attempts.
More after the jump.
At a Teach for America event on black boys and education here in NYC, a panel of academics, education professionals, and a bizarre, pointless collection of celebrities (Eric Snow, Common, and John Legend) discuss education reform.
When singer John Legend agreed to talk on a Teach for America panel about his views on education, he probably thought he’d get a warm reception. After all, he supports charter schools, a longer school day, and vigorous standardized testing, all policies championed by the education reform movement Teach for America helped fuel.
But things didn’t go his way last night.
One of six panelists at the event, “Men of Color and Education: A Discussion on the Pursuit of Excellence,” Legend met with more criticism and more boos than he’d bargained for. At first, the audience of mostly black and Latino teachers — most of them TFA members — praised Legend’s support for putting good teachers in front of high-need students, but the cheers soon turned to boos when he advocated for testing.
“If our kids are failing them, it’s not because we shouldn’t be testing them, it’s because they’re not ready,” Legend said. “Frankly if you’re going to be an exceptional student and if you’re going be a leader in the world, you should be able to easily pass these tests. I believe that.”
Marc Lamont Hill, as associate professor at Columbia’s Teachers College, said the solution lay in assessing students’ abilities rather than giving them tests. They’re the same thing, Legend replied.
Executive Director of New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, Pedro Noguera, jumped into the fray at the very end to counter Legend’s claim that charter schools admit the same students as district schools.
” The same public schools that are easy to attack are the only ones that accept all children,” Noguera said, adding that charter schools have succeeded only because they don’t admit as many high needs students.
Quick, someone ask Musiq Soulchild what he thinks about the Obama administration’s plans to restore the marginal tax rate to Clinton-era levels!!!!
And for God’s sake, WHERE IS JA?!?!?!!
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