For those of you who have never heard it before, the expression,
"What does that have to do with the price of beans?!?" is usually spoken in combination with the shaking of one's head in bewilderment
when a person inserts something in a conversation that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand,
the subject, here, being of course, our beloved Kiva.
The quick answer to the question posed by this thread's title is:
maybe hardly anything at all and........
probably almost everything.
(This is where most of you are going to want to "jump ship" and
go find something worthwhile to do with your time if you haven't escaped from this thread, already.
Otherwise,
you won't be able to say that
I Didn't Warn You in Advance, because, I'm telling you now
(I think that that was a "Freddie and the Dreamers" song):
This is Going to be a Long Cruise Down One Kiva Friend's Stream of (Un-) Consciousness.
WAY long....
It all actually started with our KF Fred's revelation that one of his life's great claims to fame
was that
he had once been a member of Howdy Doody's Peanut Gallery.
Sorry, but if you haven't been there, recently, this where you have to temporarily leap frog off to:
See, Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow --
http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,668.0.html ,
especially Replies # 12, 15-17.
Are you back? OK,
Because his
admission took me back to the innocence of my own youth, I received it with sheer delight. But.....
I'm really sorry, but it's time for another
but the final jump back to that Same Thread,
this time to my Reply #21, same thread,
http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,668.0.html I know this is obnoxious. I swear I didn't intend it to be.
OK. Back again? I
really am sorry that this particular yellow brick road is so circuitous.
You're getting a quick object lesson on what it feels like to be inside my mind.
In any event, what very soon,
I promise, is to follow is
part of the article on
White Privilege my professors required we read in Teacher School,
for which I will long long long be grateful.
What it might have to do with the price of Kiva beans is anybody's guess --
and anybody's personal connection to make or not make.
One possible starting point might be something like:
Well..... a terrific number of us have already realized and reflected on
What an Incredible Privilege It Is For Us To Not Only
Be Able To Be A Part Of This Exquisitely Rich Kiva Community But Also and, For Many of Us, Very Fortuitously
To
Be In A Position Where We Were Graced Enough To Be Among The People Able
To Make The Loans As Opposed To Being Among Those Needing To Apply For Them. And those Privileges, our great thanks to Kiva, are available to So Many,
and wonderfully irrespective of color, creed, physical, sexual or nearly any other "orientation"
that some people might, in different venues, try to use to separate us.
But
there are other Privileges, so many of which too many of us take way too much for granted,
which Privileges, sadly, often are available
only to those of us whose skin color is more "pallid-appearing" than not. And NOT TO OTHERS.
The article which NOW/FINALLY
is to follow articulates a number of those other Privileges,
and I just thought it all was something worth thinking about. It was and is for me.
Here it is. This is just an excerpt.
http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh".......As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage,
but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects,
white privilege, which puts me at an advantage......
Daily effects of white privilegeAs far as I can tell, my African American c[/i]oworkers, friends, and acquaintances
with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work
cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
and I could look at the kids in the Peanut Gallery on Howdy Doody and see a bunch of 'em that looked a lot like me......
I REALLY REALLY REALLY WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN.
YOU HAVE MY WORD, HERE, IN RED! I have a feeling that someone is still going to want to put a contract out on me for this...
