"Those with the Greatest Awareness Have the Greatest Nightmares" -Ghandi

What do you do when all your dreams are bound up in solving real nightmares?

I've been literally wrangling with this idea lately, in sleep and in wakefulness. I'm not a peaceful sleeper these days. I toss and turn and sweat and talk and sometimes even walk and eat in my sleep. I'll wake up brushing my teeth in the middle of the night, and sometimes have entire telephone conversations while sleeping.

I think this all comes down to the fact that I'm not really all that peaceful in wakefulness either. I had lunch with my aunt last week, and she told me that she can't wait until my masters is done, and I won't be so intense anymore. I've always been intense. But now it's come to a new level.

It's my work. I know it is. But I cannot stop doing it. It's important stuff, at least to me, and for some reason I've been chosen to take part in this particular dream. I came to the project almost a year ago, looking for an internship. I found humanity instead. And at that point I'd almost forgotten that I had dreams for humanity.

I was so bound up in my own life, and drowning, really, in terms of my academics. And then I met this woman who reminded me that the work that I choose to do matters, and can matter in real time, for people who are told daily that they do not matter at all. I began to forget about my self and remember my dreams. And those dreams have always been attached to the horror I feel about what we do to each other as human beings.

What he does to her, for example, and then what she does in response, turns my stomach. I am uncomfortable with and discomforted by, all the people like me who have an incredibly charmed life and still manage to support and celebrate the despicable status quo. I know a man who owns two companies, votes democrat, buys cards for his closest friends for no reason at all, and still thinks it is a viable rite of passage for a teenage boy in America to visit a 'hooker' in Atlantic City. It makes me sick to know that such a good man in every other area can live so much on the surface to accept and perpetrate a reality such as that.

Here's what I want to say as I shake some sense into you: She is someone's daughter. Did you just tell me that you want a daughter one day? Do you think as a child she was playing with her Barbies and decided "I'd like to sell sex for a living?" Maybe she wanted to be a lawyer, just like you, but it wasn't in the cards for her. Did you ever think of that?

Like I said, my dreams are bound up in the possibility that these nightmares don't have to exist. The very fact that my job exists at all is a testament to our vast and massive failure as a nation and as a human race, to stand against the ugliness of oppression, instead of volleying when the ball of social mobility finally bounces over the net and into our court (God knows we've all waited for it). We are so good at pointing the finger when the tractor beam of blame falls upon us that we forget, as the saying goes, about the three fingers pointing back in our direction. Even if it means giving up a bit of power, swallowing our pride and sharing our wealth, wouldn't that be better than holding each other down? Instead of supporting progress towards a level playing field, we cite the American dream to discount claims such as mine, that not everyone has access to hope. The American dream exists only for the exceptionally idealistic and the wealthy.

Fact: for a great number of people in this nation, dreams are an unaffordable luxury.

I'm not depressed and I'm not getting derailed.

I wake up each day invigorated by what it may bring, despite the nightmares I have in REM. But the truth is, my nightmares are the daylight realities of many, and that's the thing that rattles me. This is the truth that I cannot escape, even in the moment when I wake up relieved that the fear I feel in sleep is not 'real'. My relief is a sign of my privilege. My dismay in the following instant, is newer. It is the remembrance that not all women (or men) are like me, not all have been given a real shot (and many of them have much greater talents than I ever will possess).

I cannot in good conscience walk away from this. When an informant tells me about being raped by her brother in the kitchen of her childhood home, when she expresses the cyclical pattern of abuse she's experienced at the hands of all the men she's ever encountered (father, brother, boyfriend, pimp and finally dope dealer...in that order), my resolve is renewed. But my nightmares continue.

There's this quote that is posted on my bulletin board at work: "If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you are here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

I've been told that I have to find a way to detach, but how can I do that, when this work is so intensely personal? The connection is what heals us, it is precisely what bridges the gap between power and oppression; I believe that it is what will yield a better way. That connection is my only hope for this life.

My sons will grow up to respect women precisely because of that connection (isA) and because their father, like me, will refuse to detach (isA), so I guess it's my job to pray and cope and not let this eat me alive.

Over the last two nights, though, I've woken up from horrendous night dreams, thankful only that they do not belong to my reality, but my fingernails still dig into my hands.

My only reconciliation is that justice does exist somewhere, when all is said and done.

For those of you who have read this to the end and are not put off by my radicalism or my proselytizing, I want you to know that at the very core of what I believe is a heartfelt sentiment that there is a better way, and that it is absolutely achievable in this lifetime, if we can endure our nightmares and still seek something better and something greater, for ourselves and for our children. And I hope then I'll be able to lay my head softly on a pillow and remember what it feels like to dream sweetly.

Child Prostitution

Child Sex Tourism In Flight Video

I Got No Love for the Five-Oh

Cops are the ultimate d-bags. And not in the "oh he's so cute, he looks like Screech but thinks he has game" sort of way. The police here are an interesting sort in Falcon Heights, MN. Maybe my opinions have recently been colored by certain events or experiences, but when Officer Moore pulled me over tonight (for going 34 in a 30 zone), I was a little bit more than just nervous. I was irate.

Apparently two police cars, two officers and two running crown victorias (greater than or equal to approximately 100 tax dollars, hard at work) were needed to pull me over on the most desolate, dark and residential of streets, tonight in St. Paul.

Why am I angry?

Because: As my well-policed, sleepy, middle class neighborhood watched Grey's Anatomy and I got pulled over, elsewhere in the United States, approximately 19.5 rapes occured that will never be policed or prosecuted. In North Minneapolis even, it is certain that at least one woman got pimped to a john while I was waiting for my fine. Moreover, it is statistically probable that a gun was fired and a child was beaten by a parent during the minutes those two officers spent making sure the city was safe from my four miles over the limit. And it's also quite probable that another police officer somewhere was speeding for no reason himself.

Don't be fooled by my sweet yet angry expression, Officer Moore. Everything about our interaction tonight speaks to the power differential that exists between civilian and enforcement. You shined your tractor beam into my car. The other officer flooded my face with the other light so I couldn't see. People peered out of their windows. I could see their silohettes when you finally allowed me to go - there they were, dark and nosy, standing in front of the blue lights ..."Is this a crack bust?" "No, she was going three over." I mean I shouldn't really complain...But there is something about being pulled over on a dark street, by myself, by a man I don't know...And watching him inspect my 'documents' that makes me feel strangely vulnerable and unsafe. Hm.

Comparatively, I can't complain. All I have to do is pay $118 or appear at the courts and appeal it. It could be way worse for me, honestly. If I wasn't white and privileged, I guarantee it would be different. But maybe I'm making this up...

I mean, dude, it's not like in the United States we recruit 18-year-olds and give them machine guns (coughintifadacough) or elevated status without reason...Oh wait...yes we do! We just dress them in green, promise them minimal benefits, fill their heads with lies, and ship them to other countries...Or Guantanamo. The ones who don't pass the fitness test stay here, wear blue and beat up brown people.

(disclaimer: I'm generalizing, of course. some cops are great. some even have six packs.)

I'm gonna get in trouble for this one, for sure...

The take home message: police work hard to fill their "quotas" of moving violations in order to make money for the county, while real and heinous atrocities are occurring everywhere. And they do it with such arrogance and self-importance, too. Meanwhile, this same hunger for power translates into abuses thereof - brutality, profiling and corruption.

Seriously, what's the difference? I'll pay the fine, I guess. But I wish there was some guarantee that the money I'll shell out will be spent trying to prevent an aggravated assault or a case of child neglect, instead of paying the salary of that lazy idiot who is drinking his coffee and waiting to pull me over...again.

Dirty Little Secret- All American Rejects

Yasin's Words of Wisdom, Part 3

I do not understand those people who wave behind emotion, those who skate on the surface without digging for the roots.

The Suspense is Terrible; I Hope it Lasts.

I've been told that I have an expectations problem, but the problem is, everything exceeds my expectations. Always. Yes, I just dropped a hyperbole. And I don't take it back.

Alissa, hand me a lighter. It's time to sing kum-ba-ya.

I try to imagine my life and where it's going. I really do. I stare at the ceiling sleeplessly, envisioning it all...I know it's got to be more complicated than husband, kids, house. Don't get me wrong, I want those things. I want it all. I'll tell you a secret: I hope for those things above all else. But nothing ever moves in a straight line, no matter how strictly and stringently we plot, plan and deliberate. I stay up at night thinking about this, about all the wondrous, tragic, transformative, wretched, whimsical and straight up miraculous things that could (and will) happen to me tomorrow. And even as I try to predict and procure the most impossible scenario, my imagination never lives up to my reality. Ever.

In high school I played the leading role of Emily in Wilder's Our Town. If you haven't read it, do. Aside from having to freeze a very disgusting fake kiss with my friend's boyfriend, this particular character struck a chord with me.

I am not a Carrie, a Samantha, a Miranda or a Charlotte. In the realm of all things fiction, I am an Emily.

But really, Emily says: "That's all human beings are. Just blind people." And I can't help but open my eyes these days.

And yes, I take people, things, seemingly random acts of destiny, and simple miraculous moments for granted sometimes. I trip over myself, I doze in class, I get caught up in the mundane, but still, I find myself amazed and excited by what the new day brings. Today: a new flavor of juice, a conflict resolved, a new friend, a burst of energy, a few tears, a different route home, a lost credit card, keeping the confidence of someone I admire and the first long bath I've taken in two years. Nothing momentous, but miraculous nonetheless.

My life is pretty great, but it's no better than yours.

I use Google calendar obsessively. Tomorrow I have an array of colored blocks delineating what I've got ahead of me. But really, I have no clue at all.

I've got a meeting with my thesis advisor at 7:30, class at 9:00 (complete with in-class presentation being given by yours truly), work at 12:00 and a TV date with Natalie at 9:00pm. Those are just the low-lights. The beauty is, aside from knowing where I have to be when, I haven't got a clue what I'll learn, where I'll go or what I'll see. I have no idea who will change my life in the next 24, but I guarantee, somebody will.

All I have to do is keep my eyes open. I'm never bored.

That's what I want. Everything. "Life in every word, to the extent that it's absurd."

And that's what it's like operating on my level. Want to come? It's pretty breezy up here, the water's nice, and it smells like patchouli.