Rise and shine: it’s Monday mid-morning! Time for a second cup of coffee and a little reading to get those brain cells firing a little more consistently. Here is what has crossed my browser.
NY Times: Poll Shows New Yorkers Are Deeply Conflicted Over Bloomberg’s Legacy. If “deeply disappointed in his catering to Wall Street and ready for him to go, especially since he fixed the process in order to overstay his welcome” is what that means, then yes, we are deeply conflicted.
NY Times: A Mayor Who Puts Wall Street First. Of course Bloomberg cares about New Yorkers…provided they are rich and white. And with more and more middle class and poor people being driven out of New York City due to stagnant wages and the rising cost of living, that would mean more of New York is rich and white. Who says Bloomberg doesn’t care about his constituency?
Speaking of the “enriching” of New York City, check out this article in the NY Post about a developer who wants to have separate building entrances for the people in the luxury apartments and the people in the affordable apartments: Upper West Side condo has separate entrances for rich and poor. Not only that, but the developer wants to get tax breaks from the city, because they are being kind enough to provide affordable housing in their building. Such generosity! It reminds me of Ol’ Massa allowing his slaves to approach the Big House via the back door to get scraps from the kitchen, rather than banning them from the building altogether.
Thank goodness some people, like the white mother who wrote For Whites (Like Me): On White Kids, are aware of certain aspects of their privilege and are willing to school others who may not be as aware. She writes about how white society blithely tells white kids all people are equal in this country, then confuses those kids by showing them, in no uncertain terms, how that is not the least bit true. She suggests they stop tossing around those phrases and start having realistic conversations with their kids about racism in this country. I couldn’t agree more.
If you have the privilege of having an LGBT child in your care, make sure to read Back to School 2013: A Guide for Parents of LGBT Kids. Our precious youth are headed back to school (or have already gone back, in some parts of the country). This Huffington Post article gives you some practical advice about reaching out to your child’s school to assess who is supportive of your child (or not), building a support network for you and your child, and even helping your child prepare for the bullying they may encounter through the school year. The most important tip, though, is the first one: start with yourself and make sure you are fully supportive of your child. After all, if you are not supportive, you are sending them out into the world bleeding in shark-infested waters.
