elusive peace

Well, I was hoping for a peaceful start to 2009, but with the Israeli assault on Gaza and the riots in Oakland over a shooting of an unarmed man, I guess that I'm not going to get that wish.

gaza
I wonder why America seemingly supports Israel with hardly any conditions. I confess that I don't know everything that is going on with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I know the big picture, but not when Gaza was given back to the Palestinians, under what conditions, who was opposed to it, who supported it, etc. Nor do I know the ins and outs of Israeli laws. I have heard that Palestinians are disenfranchised and marginalized under Israeli law. And bombing UN schools, as well as killing a driver delivering humanitarian aid isn't typically going to win you friends.

I affirm Israel's right to exist and defend itself. They are surrounded by enemies, by nations who have nuclear weapons pointed at them, as well as suicide bombers crossing into their borders (and within their own country). I can understand their paranoia. Can you imagine how different our country would be if Canada and Mexico were hostile to us and were armed with nuclear weapons?

However, I have a hard time understanding why American Christians in particular give Israel a complete blank check. Is it because it's a seemingly Jewish/Muslim conflict and we root for the Jews in that case? I would posit that it's not that simple, that there are Palestinian Christians who are caught up in this as well. I remember reading an article in Christianity Today a long time ago by a Palestinian Christian asking us not to forget them.

This conflict will not be solved until Jesus returns, I'm afraid.

oakland
I hate hearing about these sorts of things. Black man killed by white man. Cop kills unarmed civilian. While I don't condone the violence taking place, I do understand it. You can only handle so much injustice before you finally cave and say "enough!"

I could never be a police officer. It's a high-stress job and it's very difficult not to become hardened and prejudiced. I understand that. But, I have heard of numerous examples in my neighborhood of cops acting out their prejudices through words and actions. Racial profiling is real. Unfortunately, the abuse of power is real too.

I am inclined to think that if the men involved in the altercation on public transit in Oakland were white, there wouldn't be rioting right now because someone probably wouldn't have been shot and killed. It most likely would have been handled differently. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I hope I am, but I fear that I'm not.

Our First African-American President?

So, with the election looming and all polls pointing to the probability that we'll have our first African-American president, I have been wondering...

1. How do you think a black president will affect the state of race relations in our country? For better, worse or of no effect?
2. Will it help the poor, urban black community (especially at-risk young black men) to think bigger/aspire higher than they may have before?
3. Does it make a difference that his father was a Kenyan migrant vs. having roots as a 17-19th century slave?

Although I'm of a more conservative persuasion, I am really excited to (potentially) be living through a historic time...

Pet Peeve

I'm not normally someone who gets rankled or annoyed easily. Generally, especially if you're a stranger, it will take quite a bit to irritate me (it's my eager-to-please personality trait). However, if you do this, you will really annoy me:

Me: I'd like to check out these books.
Circulation Worker: Okay. *checks out books* Here, I put the China book right on top for you. (yes, this is yet another book on China. I'm on a China book kick) Shay-Shay (or something like that, I don't speak Chinese).
Me: *looks askance at him*
CW: You're not Chinese?
Me: No.
CW: What? Korean?
Me: Yes.
CW: Kamsamnida (not sure how to spell the transliteration of that).
Me: *smiles awkwardly and walks away*

Now, I know that this guy is just trying to be friendly. I saw him playfully teasing a little girl about Caroline's age. He's an older guy and just wants to have fun with the patrons. I'm okay with that. I really resent when assumptions are made about me that aren't true. I particularly dislike when people start speaking a different language to me, assuming that I understand what they're saying. This has plagued me my entire life. I know a very little Korean (thanks John Lee!), so I know what they say most of the time, it just makes me uncomfortable.

I can't even count the number of times this has happened to me, by all races of people. It's normally older people who do this, although I have had a few Koreans just a little older than me come up to me and start speaking Korean, having never met me before. I've been told I just look very Korean and so they assume that I speak the language. It's even worse when I see the pitying look after I tell them I was adopted and don't speak Korean.

Partially, it adds to feeling like I don't really belong anywhere. Strangers look at me and think that I should be someone I'm not, and, as an adopted child, there sometimes is that sense that you're living a life that you aren't really supposed to have. Now, I know and am confident that that is not true, that God has purpose and plans for my life, which included being adopted by the parents that I had, meeting Chris and living in Chicago, etc. But, when people say those kinds of things, it rears all of those uncertain and insecure feelings that I felt as a child like when people would yell out "Hey Chinese girl!", which did happen a few times when I was in middle school/high school. That's confusing and hurtful when you're young and trying to get through puberty and identity issues.

Strangely enough, there has only been 1 incident since moving on the west side where people have called me Chinese. In my previous experiences, it was always the black kids who called me "Chinese girl" -- and I braced myself for more of that when we moved. But I can only recall one time that that happened to me down here and it was fairly recently as I was moving my car (it was a street cleaning day) and a guy was walking down the street with a shopping cart -- and he said "Hey Chinese!" I looked at him and then went inside my house. I think he was trying to flirt with me or something, which obviously I was not going to do! And it was a terrible pickup line in any case...