WOMEN OF COLOR SPEAK OUT

Color of Violence: the Incite! Anthology

Edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence

Color of Violence introduces the reader to an array of topics of particular concern for women of color. The public policies described have an especially damaging impact on African American families and other women of color. But when large segments of our population are marginalized and disadvantaged, all of us are negatively affected, regardless of the color of our skin. Each chapter offers a different author’s perspective on the lives of women of different nationalities, genders, identities, economic levels and situations. For readers who are white, heterosexual, English speaking and able bodied, the book offers windows into the lives of women of color that rarely are accessible elsewhere, including, for instance, those who are Arab-American, poor, queer, sex workers, immigrants or unjustly entangled in the justice system.

Very recently, the mass incarceration of black men held for decades in isolation cells has caught the attention of mainstream media, largely as a result of the prisoners’ hunger strikes in protest of their appalling conditions. In contrast, little attention has been paid to the dramatic rise in imprisonment of women of color during several recent decades and the mistreatment they endure has remained very much in the shadows. Color of Violence provides a long overdue platform for women of color to speak out about sexual assault and other crimes committed against them by local police, INS officers, U.S. prison guards and Mexican-border control guards.

Another form of violence described in the book is sometimes labeled as “the cradle to prison pipeline.” It begins when judges, court social workers and psychiatrists unjustly separate women from their children. A chapter on adoption informs readers that black children comprise less than 20 percent of the nation’s children, but more than 35 percent of the foster care population. In Chicago, for example, almost all of the children in foster care are black and in New York black children in 2004 were “ten times as likely as white children to be in state protective custody.” In some situations even the staff at shelters for abused women contribute to those decisions. Color of Violence urges all feminists to acknowledge that “the racial disparities in adoption are powerful reasons to radically transform the child welfare system, so that it generously and noncoercively supports families.”

Though for several decades I have tracked racism and have worked on behalf of women abused by intimate partners, I learned much from reading this book. In thirty chapters a wide range of authors do more than expose the numerous injustices endured by women of color. They call for changes in government policy. White readers such as myself may feel uncomfortable in learning about the many ways cruelty and abuse of women of color are institutionalized by government policies. But new knowledge about large numbers of our population can inspire us to work toward creating humane policies that makes all of us safer. Reading this book has certainly had that effect on me.

THERE'S MORE CHANGE AFOOT THAN THIS WORLD DREAMS OF

It's so easy to slip into despair. Easy to lament and bemoan the seeming fact that nothing changes. What we often mean is that it never changes for those of us who are most vulnerable. It's true that history records similar issues being addressed over and over. But there are often changes taking place right under our noses - for good and for ill. In a New Yorker review of Christian Caryl’s book Strange Rebels, 1979: John Lanchester provided this perspective: At the start of 1978, the biggest country in the world, the Soviet Union, and the most populous country in the world, China, both seemed immovable monoliths of Communist ideology. Iran was run by the Shah, and the aging leader of the clerical opposition, Ayatollah Khomeini, was in exile in Iraq. Afghanistan was under the control of Mohammad Daoud, a French-educated secularist, keen on modernizationa and women’s rights, and the main threat to his autocratic rule came from a different flavor of secularist, those of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, who were Communists. The Iron Curtain seemed a permanent division between the free and the unfree, and the cold War was the dominant fact of global politics. By the end of 1979, all these pillars of a seemingly permanent world order had crumbled or were crumbling. An obscure Polish cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, was now Pope John Paul II, and the galvanizing effect of his papacy on the people of Poland was starting to destabilize the entire Soviet bloc. The Shah had fled into exile, and Ayatollah Khomeini was at the head of Iran’s new revolutionary Islamic government President Daoud had been deposed and murdered, and Islamist Guerrillas had begun the war of resistance to his successors that was to turn into the global jihad that is still with us. Deng Xiaoping had steered China sharply toward its new identity as a capitalist economy. Caryl sees 1979 as a moment of counter-revolution, a swing of the historical pendulum against the trends of the preceding decades. He makes a strong, sweeping case that the year ushered in, as his subtitle puts it, the birth of the twenty-first century. Today the Soviet Union is gone, China is capitalist, Iran is a theocracy, and jihad is the new normal; and all these things began to happen in 1979, which nobody at the time saw coming." From The Critics, a Critic at large “1979 and all that: Margaret Thatcher’s revolution." By John Lanchester. “Caryl’s book 'Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century' asks the question: What if the really important year in recent history was 1979?'" New Yorker, August 5, 2013.

It's so easy to slip into despair. Easy to lament and bemoan the seeming fact that nothing changes. What we often mean is that it never changes for those of us who are most vulnerable. It's true that history records similar issues being addressed over and over. But there are often changes taking place right under our noses - for good and for ill. In a New Yorker review of Christian Caryl’s book Strange Rebels, 1979: John Lanchester provided this perspective: At the start of 1978, the biggest country in the world, the Soviet Union, and the most populous country in the world, China, both seemed immovable monoliths of Communist ideology. Iran was run by the Shah, and the aging leader of the clerical opposition, Ayatollah Khomeini, was in exile in Iraq. Afghanistan was under the control of Mohammad Daoud, a French-educated secularist, keen on modernizationa and women’s rights, and the main threat to his autocratic rule came from a different flavor of secularist, those of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, who were Communists. The Iron Curtain seemed a permanent division between the free and the unfree, and the cold War was the dominant fact of global politics. By the end of 1979, all these pillars of a seemingly permanent world order had crumbled or were crumbling. An obscure Polish cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, was now Pope John Paul II, and the galvanizing effect of his papacy on the people of Poland was starting to destabilize the entire Soviet bloc. The Shah had fled into exile, and Ayatollah Khomeini was at the head of Iran’s new revolutionary Islamic government President Daoud had been deposed and murdered, and Islamist Guerrillas had begun the war of resistance to his successors that was to turn into the global jihad that is still with us. Deng Xiaoping had steered China sharply toward its new identity as a capitalist economy. Caryl sees 1979 as a moment of counter-revolution, a swing of the historical pendulum against the trends of the preceding decades. He makes a strong, sweeping case that the year ushered in, as his subtitle puts it, the birth of the twenty-first century. Today the Soviet Union is gone, China is capitalist, Iran is a theocracy, and jihad is the new normal; and all these things began to happen in 1979, which nobody at the time saw coming." From The Critics, a Critic at large “1979 and all that: Margaret Thatcher’s revolution." By John Lanchester. “Caryl’s book 'Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century' asks the question: What if the really important year in recent history was 1979?'" New Yorker, August 5, 2013.

SEEING FOR MYSELF: IS ALL TRAVEL POLITICAL?

My Travels were not all about politics, though sometimes I only saw the political implications after the fact. I was born a feminist, though it took several decades to know its name. In Seeing for Myself, I relate my longing to see the continent of Africa,my resentment over not being allowed to help the priest serve mass, as my brother did. But my desire to travel was probably fifty parts adventure and fifty percent the romace asociated with babtizing African babies to save them from an eternity in Limbo. When the opportunity arose to travel to Nairobi and to meet feminist activists from all over the world, it seemed my childhood dream had come alive in spades. Before the conference even began our tour guide, Dorothy announced that we could visit a Maasai village, and I was excited.

LEFT OR RIGHT: WHO ARE THE RADICALS?

When I heard that University of Washington students were poised to conduct a “disorientation” for entering students that featured the institution’s radical history I thought that was an oxymoron. Radical and U.W. in the same sentence? Surely, the administration had not engaged in “radical” acts. But then I realized I’d fallen into an Orwellian trap of accepting “radical” as a trait of leftists. More often it is used to smear liberal or moderate leftists. But in the forties and fifties many universities, including the UW, took radical rightwing action or supported it. McCarthyism reigned.
Flash!  It’s 1954. I’m a U.W. student. I’m sitting next to Stull Holt, the chair of the history department, as we listen to members of the “Velde Committee” hearings hurl damaging accusations at university professors among others. Barbara Hartle, an admitted former member of the American Communist Party, has offered up to the committee more than three hundred names of people she alleges are or were Party members.
For weeks I’ve been ranting to Professor Holt about violations of civil liberties, but he just responds with a sigh of resignation, pointing out that throughout U.S. history Alien and Sedition laws had come and gone. These hearings, too, shall pass. I’m not confident of that, given the fact that UW President Raymond Allen has already fired three professors for “suspected association with Communists.”
That kind of radical action threatens the very roots of our freedoms. It pervades the university as well as the rest of America. In 1949 one hundred and three professors signed a letter to the U.W. Board of Regents objecting to the firings. But six hundred of the faculty remained silent. (For more on this topic go to http://historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=1482
Flash! It’s 1966. In a Political Science class discussion, I refer to an article I’ve read in the New Republic. Another student, agitated, shouts at me across the room that I’m obviously a “Commie.” Clouds of anti-civil libertarian notions are omnipresent on and off the campus.

Academic radicalism takes the form of what is not taught.

Flash!  It’s 1968. I’m a U.W. summer school student preparing to teach Washington State History to middle school students in the fall. All teachers of the course must take a university course in that subject. I know that teaching in the Central District will mean I have mostly black students. I want the course to be relevant to them but I’m required to use a particular text book and there’s not a word about African Americans in it. I ask my professor of Washington State history to refer me to some other texts that include the history of blacks in our state. “There weren’t any here,” he says, blithely. Though I have no evidence yet, I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about that. My skepticism is reinforced when I wind up spending most of that summer in the university’s Suzzallo Library pouring over scrap books kept by Negro church ladies’ organizations. I learn how wrong the professor is.
The textbook also excludes information about actions by the Industrial Workers of the World, the radical acts of creating Japanese “relocation” camps, corporations luring blacks from Indiana to Roslyn, Washington to break mine strikes. Nor does the book include more than a sentence about the Chinese exclusion acts or…  well, it simply ignores any part of Washington history that is exciting or that casts a dark shadow over Washington’s political history. All this is supported by the disinformation spread by some of my professors in the history department.
While I try to engage my ninth grade students in our state’s past actions, history is being made nearby when the Central Contractors Association organizes for fail employment opportunities. The group protests the U.W. administration’s failure to abide by federal laws that prohibited racial discrimination in hiring. For more about this, see http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aaw/central-contractors-association
The students who are organizing the current “disorientation” event have their hands full in recovering even a few of the University’s radical actions. And the beat goes on, as current student organizations pressure the Board of Regents to divest the university’s investment portfolio of “all stocks in Big Oil, Big Coal, and all companies comprising the backbone of the fossil-few economy.” For more info, click here:  http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/06/13/students-to-regents-uw-should-rid-itself-of-oil-coal-stocks/
After taking this little stroll down memory lane, I’m curious about which of the many radical actions the University tour will relate. The “disorientation” for new students is a fitting way to begin their university education. For more information about historic and current UW students’ political actions see 
http://crosscut.com/2013/06/17/environment/114962/martha-baskin-campus-fossil-fuel-divestment/

HOW THEY LOOKED THEN: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

I wonder whether this lovely building is now rubble

                                        AFGHANISTAN

This poster against abuse of women might have been in the Seattle YWCA in the 1970s or '80s

I interviewed this impressive woman, a candidate for Parliament. She lost the election

This cosmetition lost the lease for her business after NGO personnel contributed to inflationary prices of real estate

Since she no longer had a shop to work in she brought her "shop" to her friend Mitra's house

This is a model for cosmetics

Mitra was an enthusiastic talker, especially about her micro loan, which allowed her to buy a second sewing machine and hire another worker.

The worker is happy too.

These men of "military age" are the staff gathered in our living room

This is what I could see from the burqa I tried on

Looking out my guest house window

Our group with two of our guides

More men of that dangerous age, the kitchen staff

The streets of Kabul were jammed but just a few minutes out of the center of town this was the traffic

Our guest house host, who was also a professor of French literature

School boys. Assuming they have survived the war so far, they are now be of miliatary age

Many girls wore hijab and many didn't

IRAQ
I was not supposed to take photographs without permission of a minder. But one day everyone, including our minder, went to an Internet cafe, while I planned to nap in hopes of curing my bronchial cough. But when I suddenly realized I was alone, I dashed out to the street, and forgot about the rule against photographs. I had a lovely time joking around with these guys, but when I look at them now I find myself worrying about how this "group of men of military age possibly planning to plant an i.e.d. Our war in Iraq is supposedly over yet last month (May, '13) over a thousand people were killed. I keep wondering how many of them are still alive.

SEEING FOR MYSELF BOOK EXCERPTS

SEEING FOR MYSELF: A POLITICAL TRAVELER’S MEMOIR

           

Below, you will find excerpts from my book, with more coming in future blogs.

A WORLD OF WOMEN IN NAIROBI

At the 1985 U.N. conference on women I was exhilarated by the amazing mix of women from all over the world. I was also dismayed by how many U.S. policies women from many countries found oppressive. I felt the same outrage at President Reagan’s support of South Africa, but the number of other dictatorships my government had supported was astonishing. I learned not only about women worldwide, but also the suffering of all people in East Timor, Sri Lanka, Guatemala and other areas where dictators were supported by U.S. policies. Yet women from numerous countries greeted us Americans with warmth. Workshops were crowded but a South African presenter assured us, “there is always room for one more.”

As I tried to keep track of the bold actions women were taking all over the globe, voices in my head vied for attention. Brief exchanges with women I would never meet again segued to comments made in workshops, or to isolated sentences from pamphlets or articles in the Forum ’85 daily newspaper. I tried to absorb it all, but a mental kaleidoscope kept flipping my focus from one issue to another: 

   Flip: “Women must have their own banks,” says a representative of a

U.N. development organization.

Flip. “The West is to blame for most of our problems.” From various sources.

  

Flip: “The National Coalition of Black Gays is not presenting workshops because of fear of oppression. In the U.S. we are members of an undeveloped nation.” 

             Flip: “In Spain homosexuality was made legal in 1979.”

I was able to focus for a while on one remarkable story. In India as early as 1974, the NGO, SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), had started a women’s bank, which made small loans (now known throughout the world as micro-loans) to women in the “informal economy.” The SEWA workers discovered that women could be relied on to pay back their loans and would use the money well. Men, by comparison, were not so reliable and tended to spend money on themselves. The story of SEWA’s beginning was an inspiration. When organizers had tried to get loans, the exchange with bankers went something like this:

Banker: “Give money to poor women? Who aren’t even literate? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Organizer: “Well, let’s see. How about if we give each borrower a picture i.d. card?”

         Banker: “She would still have to sign her name on each loan, and some of these women can’t even do that!”

To learn more or to buy the book, click here:  http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-For-Myself-Political-Travelers/dp/1609440676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377550659&sr=8-1&keywords=Seeing+for+Mysel

 On the last day of Forum ‘85 my heartbeat was still accelerated by questions and ideas bombarding my consciousness. I stood with women on the lawnthe same lawn where seemingly long ago I had first seen that audacious sign, “International Lesbian Information Service.” Twenty women dressed in the modes of various countries leaned into a tight circle, discussing how to end men’s violence against women. I wondered whether I would be able to sustain my own awareness of the global feminist momentum without the continual stimulus of ideas pouring into my head. I need not have worried.

Undaunted by the enormity of the work ahead of us in turning the gendered world upside down, we were energized by all that we had learned and felt. How could we keep our connections going? And how would we explain it all to those who weren’t there? We quickly came up with the idea of a newsletter. I was excited about that, and suggested that each of us send news to the others. Then someone could collate and forward it all to the rest of us.

That “someone” was the catch. When no one volunteered, I offered to collect and distribute whatever was sent each quarter for one year, if others would take turns after that. We agreed to call our product the International Newsletter Against Violence Against Women.

   

 “IT AIN’T WHAT YOU SAY; IT’S THE WAY THAT YOU SAY IT”

           After driving for six days from Seattle to Guanajuato, Mexico, I was glad to relax and enjoy the bustling streets. I learned that the old tune about “the way you say it” is absolutely right.

Strolling along the narrow sidewalk lined with shops, I was astonished at how many people crowded elbow to elbow on the sidewalks. It seemed that everyone in the city was carrying out the weekly ritual of Saturday night shopping for clothing, food, and all manner of trinkets. They didn’t even jostle each other. Or so I was thinking, just as someone bumped into me. I wondered what sort of person would not even say perdon. I caught a glimpse of skinny man quickly looking over his shoulder at me as he darted past, but I gave only a moment’s thought to him.

Across the street a mime was surrounded by a mesmerized audience, and I moved toward the circle of spectators. I watched a tall, slim man in white face, red gloves, and a black suit as he told stories with graceful, expressive hands. The children’s expressions of awe, puzzlement, and sheer delight testified to the mime's talent. I was enchanted with the performance and paid scant attention to a man next to me. I was only vaguely aware that he muttered something incomprehensible in Spanish, I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to himself. When he raised his voice, I didn’t need to understand his words. I knew from his tone that he spelled trouble. Then he shouted at me in an angry tone, so I moved to the opposite side of the circle.

The man followed. He stood too close to me for comfort. I glared at him, and was met with a glassy stare from a pair of eyes that pierced.

To find out happened next, go to the book at

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-For-Myself-Political-Travelers/dp/1609440676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377550659&sr=8-1&keywords=Seeing+for+Myself

THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE

          My Todos Santos, Guatemala “home” with a family of eight  consisted of a one-room house with an indoor fire pit that provided heat and fuel for cooking. The floor was of hard packed dirt and there was no electricity or plumbing, yet the family welcomed me so warmly I didn’t miss any of those amenities.

Despite her labors of weaving, and cooking, and caring for the children, Juanita found time to be with me. We were each limited by our inability to speak much Spanish, which together with her shyness and my time-consuming classes, meant we did not talk much. But sometimes we were alone together for a couple of hours, and I learned how to simply be with her; how to let feelings of closeness develop without the need for conversation. That was new for me. Years earlier a man I was involved with had tried to persuade me that talk wasn’t the only way to communicate. I had scoffed at that idea. But I had laid the notion aside, and now I was finally ready to give up some of my reliance on words.

When the time came for me to leave Todos Santos, Juanita and I both felt sad….My bus out of town was over an hour late, and the two of us stood in silence waiting for it. Every now and then I would look at Juanita and her eyes would fill and she would say, "Ahhhh, Ginny..." in a tone of longing. I would smile weakly and touch her arm.

That limbo of waiting and longing was too melancholy for me, and the language of silence this time was too difficult to sustain. So, when a truck pulled up and the driver invited all of us waiting for the bus to ride with him to Huehue, I was relieved to climb into the truck bed. In a few moments I was waving goodbye. Juanita looked very small standing by the road waving back.

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO

I spent seven winters in San Miguel, which was a stark contrast to Todos Santos. My San Miguel quarters weren’t luxurious. But plumbing and electricity were taken for granted, at least for gringos and middle class Mexicans. And I had plenty of space all to myself.

I soon found a one-room house, complete with the luxury of my own phone. My nearly private garden…included my own jacaranda tree, and the rent was only one hundred and thirty dollars a month. Within weeks in San Miguel, I had acquired a community of friendly relationships. My days fell into a pattern that seemed perfect. I rose at nine or ten, wrote until mid-afternoon, and then attended a Spanish or writing class, or a critique group. In late afternoon I might meander….

To find out more about life in San Miguel ask your library to order it or buy it here

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-For-Myself-Political-Travelers/dp/1609440676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377550659&sr=8-1&keywords=Seeing+for+Myself 

A TASTE OF IRAQI POLITICS AND ACADEMIA

By the summer of 2002 President Bush had me worried about the imminent war against Iraqis. I kept asking, “Who are those people,” and I wanted to see them for myself. Friends kept telling me that would be far too dangerous to visit Iraq but in early fall of that year I signed up for a two week trip with a politically oriented group. In Iraq we met doctors who worried about children dying from lack of medicine because of U.S. sanctions. I saw for myself the results of the U.S. war, sanctions and interventions. I met school children shouting “Down with Bush” and university students who said U.S women had “too much freedom.” I had met Rahim at a party in Baghdad and was overjoyed when he invited me to visit his university class. I began the session by asking the students about their current reading:

Rahim’s class was studying Waiting for Godot.  The women were shy and the first students to raise their hands were the two men in the class. But with encouragement, a few brave women spoke up. All the women students were dressed more or less like western office workers, except for their omnipresent scarves, either white or patterned in numerous colors. When I asked whether they saw a connection between Godot and their situation, the class burst out in unanimous laughter.

“We are waiting, waiting, waiting,” someone said.

I assumed that meant waiting for the American axe to fall. I was wary of inviting comments on that threat too soon, but the students soon warmed up and, all fluent in English, they were eager to praise Hussein and criticize the United States:

“I want to express my love of my country and my president. He is an example for the world. We are a great country because of our president.” 

“We have lost a lot and have nothing more to lose. But the U.S. has no right to make us feel so afraid just because someone wants to drive a big car.”

“The sound of bombs makes me feel afraid. It’s now every day, and they make our fear worse.”

“They should leave us alone. We want to live in peace.”

I was surprised by the vehement tones and sharp criticism because our group had met graciousness from everyone we encountered. But they were all able to separate the American government from us American people. The next topic I invited was the only time I heard critiques of American culture:

I asked, “What do you think about the freedom of women in the U.S.?”  Students took turns answering my questions.

           Student: “You have too much freedom.”

     Ginny: “What kind of freedom are you thinking of?” 

     Student: “Freedom should have some limitation.”

     Ginny: “What kinds of limits are useful?” 

     Student: “You need protection.”

     Ginny: “From?” 

   

To learn what happened next, ask for the book at our library or order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-For-Myself-Political-Travelers/dp/1609440676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377550659&sr=8-1&keywords=Seeing+for+Mysel

Stay tuned for more excerpts in future blogs.

When I visited Afghanistan in 2005 I was filled with hope that the country would survive the damage done by the horrifying, seemingly endless, warring factions. As I've posted on this blog I often plan to write updates of what is happening there. But, all too often, the news is mostly about murder and mayhem. So I resist writing about it. Now comes an inspiring young woman artist who dares to create street art that inspires me. I'm thrilled to post her work here, to share the inspiration she brings, lighting the streets of Kabul with hope for the future. You can see it here.
http://artradarjournal.com/2013/07/19/art-is-stronger-than-war-afghanistans-first-female-street-artist-speaks-out/http://artradarjournal.com/2013/07/19/art-is-stronger-than-war-afghanistans-first-female-street-artist-speaks-out/

THE POLITICS OF DYING

            My 91 year old beloved friend, Ruth Goodman, died yesterday. Over the last fifty years, Ruth and I had grown even closer and more important to each other than we were in the early days of protesting the Vietnam War together. So my loss is great, but it is mitigated by remembering Ruth’s dedicated activism in several political movements, including the Death with Dignity movement.

            I was privileged to spend the last five days of her life with Ruth, and when I wrote her obituary shortly before her death, she insisted I include the important anticipated fact that, right to the end, she was in control of her death. Below, I have posted her obituary and the letter to newspaper editors that she wrote to be sent after her death. That letter is just one of the ways that Ruth’s dedication to justice lives on.

           When Ruth made her decision about the time and manner of her death, she was following a life-long commitment to acting on principle. It is one thing to say you will take your own life when the time is right. It's quite another to do it. For Ruth the right to die with dignity was as important as other civil and human rights for which she had campaigned. It was my privilege to witness Ruth's steadfast determination to be in control of when and how she died, right to the very end. Here is the letter she wrote to newspaper editors the day before she died:

 "I am a ninety-one-year-old woman who has decided to end my life in the very near future. I do not have a terminal illness; I am simply old, tired and becoming dependent, after a wonderful life of independence. People are allowed to choose the right time to terminate their animals' lives and can be with them and provide assistance and comfort right to the end. Surely, the least we can do is allow people the same rights to choose how and when to end their lives. By the time people read this, I will have died. I am writing this letter to advocate for a change in the law so that all will be able to make this choice."

RUTH GOODMAN OBITUARY

Ruth Goodman has led a life of resistance to war and a commitment to the environment and social justice. Her family fled Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century to escape war and anti-Semitism, and she grew up in a union household. In 1940 Ruth married Henry Goodman, and found a job in the shipyards. As a clerical worker, Ruth was paid $20 dollars a week, and when she discovered that welders made $1.25 an hour she joined the wave of women's participation in wartime industrial production.

After the war, Ruth and Henry moved to Washington State, where Ruth gave birth to two sons, Michael and Dean. Soon she joined the American Friends Service Committee in organizing annual peace marches, and picketing the Boeing Company in protest of their manufacturing aircraft used in the Vietnam War. 

In 1966, worried about their two sons being eligible for the draft in a few years, Ruth and Henry left the United States to settle in Vancouver. But Ruth's activism didn't stop. She and Henry offered U.S. draft resisters a safe haven in their home and Ruth volunteered at the War Resisters' support office.

Ruth's participation in political campaigns was not confined to international issues. Through her personal experience of two illegal abortions in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ruth developed a heightened awareness of the importance of a woman's right to reproductive choice, including abortion. Her strong belief in the right to legal, safe access to abortion led her to be among the first volunteers for the Everywoman's Health Centre, an abortion clinic.

Ruth's commitment to justice remained strong to the end of her life. She has been a staunch advocate of the Death with Dignity social justice movement. True to her principles, with the support of her children and a host of devoted friends, at the age of ninety-one, Ruth chose to end her life on Februrary 2nd, 2013. She is survived by Michael Goodman and his partner Sharon Sjerven, Dean Goodman and his wife, Janna Levitt, as well as grandsons, Henry, Eric and Gabriel Gooman.

To carry on his parent's commitments to justice, Michael Goodman has established the Ruth and Henry Goodman Fund for Social and Economic Justice. Instead of flowers, donations may be made to that organization. http://ruthandhenrygoodmanfund.com/.

THE WAY IT USED TO BE - BUT IS NO MORE

These rules aren't relics of the eighteenth century. It was a big advance for girls to be permitted to play baseball at all. I know it wasn't centuries ago because i was in high school when these draconian rules came into play.

Women obviously have a long way to go before the patriarchs and their supporters move over to make room for equal rights, but to evaluate the tasks ahead we ought to take a look back at how far we've come, just since I was a girl, for instance. Click on the link, and you'll see what I mean."http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/a-l..."

IRAQIS I SAW FOR MYSELF

Fatah was a graduate student at the University and her professor invited me to interview her so it was a rare opportunity to spend an hour alone with a very articulate Iraqi woman. She worked hard to be polite to me, but her fury kept rising to the surface."Iraqis," she said, "are very proud of their country. ..We have a right to have our country. To be safe. To live in peace.... We had to rebuild everything and now they want to destroy it all again...."   

This girl's photo was posted along with many other memorials to adults and children who had rushed to a Baghdad shelter, where U.S. missiles killed 400 noncombatants. It is now a kind of museum of horror.

Here I am with children outside their school

On our one trip to the market, I often fell behind the others so I could take pictures, and this charming girl took it upon herself to see that I caught up with the rest of the group. She is probably about nineteen years old, and I often think of her, wondering whether she's still alive.

The hotel lobby manager, Abida, and I struck up a friendly relationship. One day the elevators didn't work and she locked the door to the stairs because the children played in the stairwell inappropriately. I worried about a U.S. bomb hitting the hotel and no one being able to get out. We laughed when we saw the irony of that.  

We saw an number of children in the hospital, who nearly all looked as bewildered or frightened as this girl. We were told that they were likely casualties of depleted uranium and the problems were exacerbated by the twelve years of sanctions that often applied to crucial medicines.

This is one of the lucky mothers whose baby was born normal, not deformed as were many of the others

We are told not to worry. There will be “no boots on the ground.” We are told there is no contradiction between that promise and the assertion that “all options are on the table.” Yet the drums of war beat louder and louder and I hold my breath. 
Wondering who will be next, I think about the Iraqis I met in 2002, six months before American boots landed on their ground. “What are the chances,” I wonder, “that the locals who treated me with generosity and warmth are still alive. Were they wiped out by an i.e.d., while buying mangos at a market? Maybe a suspicious “pattern” of gathering with friends got them targeted and assassinated by a U.S. missile or drone? With the war on Iraqis and Afghanistan not over yet, haven’t we seen enough carnage?

As I write this, the news tells me my government is supplying weapons to Syrian rebels. (Apparently, that means more weapons, because the administration has already been sending some weapons there.) I long to see the people of Syria for myself. I worry especially about the men “of military age.” I imagine they look a lot like the guys I talked and laughed with at the Afghan guest house and on the streets of Baghdad.

            Here are photos of some of the men, and women and children I met on those trips and wrote about in Seeing for Myself.

IRAQ 

"Military age" men playing board game on the street

The rest of my group had gone to an Internet Cafe, and I took the rare opportunity to go out on the streets alone. "A couple of boys noticed my video camera...and started mugging for it. They giggled excitedly. Older boys joined us, then a few grown men. Soon we were all laughing at our inability to speak each other's language.
SfM page 204 

School boys chanting "Down With Bush!"

Our group was surprised when we visited a school and found the entire student body greeting us with signs and chants of "Down With Bush; Down With Bush! These children must now be of a "military age" - if they are still alive.

SPEAKING OF AGE

“You’re not old,” I was told, not for the first time, by a friend in his 50s. I had just begun to explain how a situation looked from my perspective as an old person, when he protested my use of the dirty word “old.” From the near-panicked look on his face, you’d have thought I’d begun to describe a sexually transmitted disease at a sedate dinner party. To many 50-year-olds the very word “old” may, indeed, seem as unnerving as “gonorrhea.” But avoiding the word will not enable us to deny our way out of the last stages of life. Even a tummy tuck, hair graft or a dose of Viagra won’t enable us to jog through our 60s and 70s without becoming old on the way. 

            Once you hit 60, some people, including age mates, may refer to you as an “elder,” a term of respect that assumes you’ve been acquiring wisdom, rather than, year after year, stubbornly practicing mistakes, as some of us do. “Older” inexplicably implies you are not really old yet, and is meant to blur the naked truth of the stage of life you have reached. But a glance at a basic grammar book will tell you the suffix “-er,” a comparative adjective, means “more so,” not less so.  So why do “tall-er,” “fat-ter,” “young-er” and “smart-er” designate more than the root word without its suffix, while “old-er” is meant to imply you are less old? If the question confuses you, that probably means your head is on straight. 

If, at 62, instead of using the euphemism “senior,” you bluntly ask for an old person’s discount at a movie theater, the clerk may greet the request with a puzzled frown or nervous giggle. A recent professional publication referred to it’s theme as the “autumn of life,” meaning of course, the life of the old.  Okay, along with the autumn leaves, our arches and jowls fall, and some of us are more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of aging bodies and minds.  But, like stalwart oaks, many remain both resilient and sturdy, even in the “winter of life.”

When will we begin to view old age as a stage of life that needn’t be an embarrassment, that is neither wholly good nor bad, but a mix of delights, losses and complex challenges?   When will we recognize that to lose our clear sight, short-term memory and even the capacity to walk unaided is not a matter for shame or secrecy?  That it is not somethinglike death in this cultureto be whispered or referred to only in euphemistic language?  Sure, anxieties, aches, pains and new losses make their appearances.  But we might cheerfully bid farewell to stresses on the way up the career ladder or worry over what the neighbors will think.  Those losses can clear the decks, so we can do as we please for a few years. 

In recent decades many oppressed groups have burst out of socially imposed closets.  We can join those who have re-claimed descriptors such as “queer,” “Black,” or “African American.”  It’s time to stop fooling around with words meant to deny the existence of the last phases of life.  It’s time to boldly re-claim the solid, reality-based status implied in that venerable word: “old.”

A slightly modified version of this article was published in Prime Time.

SEEING AFGHANS

Wondering who will be next, I think about the Iraqis I met in 2002, six months before American boots landed on their ground. A stream of memories courses through my mind as I picture the Afghans I spent time with in 2005. The boys who survived the past eleven years of rampant violence are now young men "of military age," at risk of being targeted by U.S. drones or other weaponry. The women are subjected to the rule of warlords, oppressive regimes and the traditions of their country, regardless of what government is in charge.
I wanted to see beyond the burqas Western media loved to portray. I wanted to see for myself whether the women were completely cowed by their fathers, husbands, government, Imams, elders and warlords. So in 2005 I signed on to a women-focused trip to Afghanistan with Global Exchange. Some women did wear burqas, though few women covered their faces in Kabul, where most of our time was spent.

This photo was taken from my guest house window.
Another day "a woman walked toward the building with the short front panel of her burqa tossed back off her face...(usually when a woman wore a burqa only their hands were visible) I impulsively grabbed my camera and from behind the curtain pointed it toward the woman. I felt certain she couldn't see me. But she hurriedly pulled her burqa over her face again and I immediately felt ashamed at my intusion. As soon as she passed my window she flipped her burqa off her face again, then looked back over her shoulder with a big, devilish grin. As if to say "Gotcha!" She clearly wore the burqa exactly as she chose. Page 237. SfM

 On a very rare trip outside of Kabul we visited an area that had hundreds of land mines. We were fitted with protective garb and watched the workers, with slow, tedious labor, get rid of land mines one by one to make the area inhabitable.

These posters were hanging on the walls of some NGO offices. They reminded me of posters that were on the walls of the University YWCA in the '70s and '80s in Seattle, where Seattle Rape Relief started. Or in the Women's Institute where I started the Abused Women's Network.

This woman is a dynamic doctor whose clinic we were scheduled to visit. But it turned out to be too dangerous, so she came to us. She was raising funds to pay for a doctor's housing and office near the clinic because no one would work there unless living  expenses for their families were paid for.

Hossai Andar was a Parliamentary candidate I interviewed after the rest of the group left. I asked if she had a message for Americans. "I came one week ago from a training at Chico State University in California," she said. "It was very good for me because before I went there I thought the U.S government and the people's policies were the same. But after I met people in the U.S.A. I saw that they are different....When I came back I knew that Americans want a good life for all people and peace in Afghanistan."

 

This woman was distressed because she owned a beauty shop, and since NGOs had been overrunning Kabul, the rents had gone up. Her shop rent increased 400 percent, so she had to give it up.The beauty style is rather like Bollywood. She came to the home of Mitra for my interview.

Mitra had recently received a micro loan which enabled her to buy a second sewing machine and hire a second employee.
Many of the dresses they made were for special occasions such as weddings, where black is the appropriate color.

She hopes to buy a third machine and to hire another worker.

She loved showing of her work and

said her husband was happy that
she earned more money than he did.

Soroya works for an NGO that arranges micro loans. Our group interviewed her, but I wanted to talk to the women who actually received the loans, women like Mitra. I stayed two days after the group left.

Mitra is full of life and optimism.

She talks fast and with great emotion.

This is Mitra's new worker

 This is one of our guides. She is standing in front of the jail, which we had hoped to visit. Girls like the waifs above are often picked up by police for running away to escape a forced marriage. In jail many of them are never charged with any crime. Their families may not want them back, so they are incarcerated for long periods with no hope of relief.

The children are the hope of the future.

This was at the school owned by our guest house

hosts. We were told it was okay to photographs,
but obviously some young girls were shy when they
saw the camera. Usually children were happy to
be photographed. Many of the girls in other class rooms
did not wear scarfs.

Soroya Ebaddi is an administrator in the school
where the girls learn sewing, among other lessons.
She was a candidate for Parliament, but she lost. I asked her what she would like to see changed.
 "No wars, no discrimination, no problems for
anyone. Everyone will respect each other. Human
rights. No problems of guns and wars."
Page 242. SfM.