I know that I should be regaling you with my views on race and surrogacy. I spent yesterday compiling my thoughts and planned to send them through my fingers and out into the blogosphere today; however, considering the MUST DO NOW items on my To Do list, I haven't the the mental power or energy to delve into such a topic and not slight it. If I were to attempt to write that post now, I would probably write something like:
"If I, a Black woman, is your gestational surrogate, you needn't worry - your baby won't come out with a Buckwheat 'fro or a mocha-choco-latte skin tone. I won't make you eat chitlins or listen to gangsta rap, because chitlins are slimy and smell like shit and gangsta rap might make me wanna pop a cap in your ass for being so close-minded. So. Free your mind and your ass will follow. But first you must free your mind from your ass. The End."
So see, I might say something like that and actually be okay with it if I wrote the post right now, but that's not the angle I'd like for it to take. I want to free my mind and be open to hearing why someone of one race is uncomfortable with someone of another race carrying their child via gestational surrogacy. One thing I have learned is that moments of intolerance are an opportunity to bridge understanding, and if I as the offended cannot set offense to the side long enough listen and engage, I will have missed an opportunity to grow develop positive from the negative. So, I need a moment to assure that my words are non-accusatory. For all I know, they may not know any better.
While I work on drafting that post, let's talk about something else, shall we? Today we were in Wally World, the whole gaggle of us clamoring in the aisles among the other back-to-school tax-free weekend shoppers. I ran into many of my old students, some who I have not seen for a few years. One is starting her last year of college and will finish with a BS in nursing. Another just graduated high school and was shopping for dorm life necessities. "I'm majoring in Music Education!" she exclaimed as she hugged me. "I want to teach chorus...you always said I'd be a good chorus teacher!" Maybe four years from now she'll be my colleague, just as I am now the colleague of several of my former teachers.
Somewhere between the bookbags and the and the 2009 desk calendar, it occurred to me that Frank is fifteen years removed from high school and I, thirteen. I thought of the age-old query asked by guidance counselors (or probation officers, if juvenile delinquency was your thing) - "Where do you see yourself in ten years?"
How close or far away are you from where you thought you would be ten or fifteen years ago? Career? Family (you can skip that one if you want to)? Personal growth and development? If any of those goals have yet to be fulfilled, are you still working on them?
At what point do the starry-eyed "going to" goals for the future turn into misty "coulda, shoulda, woulda" dreams of the past?
Dream Deferred
by
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
I know that I should be regaling you with my views on race and surrogacy. I spent yesterday compiling my thoughts and planned to send them through my fingers and out into the blogosphere today; however, considering the MUST DO NOW items on my To Do list, I haven't the the mental power or energy to delve into such a topic and not slight it. If I were to attempt to write that post now, I would probably write something like:
So see, I might say something like that and actually be okay with it if I wrote the post right now, but that's not the angle I'd like for it to take. I want to free my mind and be open to hearing why someone of one race is uncomfortable with someone of another race carrying their child via gestational surrogacy. One thing I have learned is that moments of intolerance are an opportunity to bridge understanding, and if I as the offended cannot set offense to the side long enough listen and engage, I will have missed an opportunity to grow develop positive from the negative. So, I need a moment to assure that my words are non-accusatory. For all I know, they may not know any better.
While I work on drafting that post, let's talk about something else, shall we? Today we were in Wally World, the whole gaggle of us clamoring in the aisles among the other back-to-school tax-free weekend shoppers. I ran into many of my old students, some who I have not seen for a few years. One is starting her last year of college and will finish with a BS in nursing. Another just graduated high school and was shopping for dorm life necessities. "I'm majoring in Music Education!" she exclaimed as she hugged me. "I want to teach chorus...you always said I'd be a good chorus teacher!" Maybe four years from now she'll be my colleague, just as I am now the colleague of several of my former teachers.
Somewhere between the bookbags and the and the 2009 desk calendar, it occurred to me that Frank is fifteen years removed from high school and I, thirteen. I thought of the age-old query asked by guidance counselors (or probation officers, if juvenile delinquency was your thing) - "Where do you see yourself in ten years?"
How close or far away are you from where you thought you would be ten or fifteen years ago? Career? Family (you can skip that one if you want to)? Personal growth and development? If any of those goals have yet to be fulfilled, are you still working on them?
At what point do the starry-eyed "going to" goals for the future turn into misty "coulda, shoulda, woulda" dreams of the past?
Dream Deferred
by
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?