Imagining Healing: Suspension of Disbelief

Skepticism about the myriad paths to health and to recovery from illness is one of the most daunting obstacles to wellness. As a newly minted health professional (having just received my holistic nutritionist certification), I am shocked at how people become wedded to their disease and I am saddened by the ways in which they undermine their ability to heal by discounting health modalities that are alien to them. Effective treatments come in all varieties, often in surprising packages, some of them seeming unlikely. But let’s keep an open mind. Just saying.

Recently, a friend of mine posted a link to an article about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) on Facebook accompanied by a brief statement on the importance of recognizing this as a real physically disabling condition and not a psychological disorder, as most traditional doctors believe. I studied nutritional interventions for CFS while in college so I commented that this most certainly is a real physical illness (not just in someone’s head) and that someone suffering from CFS could benefit tremendously from working with a holistic nutritionist, and in many instances could be healed through nutrition therapy. A woman with CFS responded to my comment by saying that such statements as mine were not based in fact and were deeply hurtful to people with CFS. She basically told me that her disease is incurable and that when I said she could possibly be cured through a nutritional approach she felt it belittled the depth of her suffering. I was not prepared to go into details about holistic nutrition and CFS treatment on a Facebook thread, so I simply apologized to her and took down my comment. But I could not stop thinking about the fact that this woman was so wedded to her misery and her identity as a CFS-sufferer that she slammed the door on the possibility of a pathway to healing that she had not considered. She was invested in disbelieving. She had made up her mind to be sick.

Once a person has accepted that they have a debilitating medical condition and has invested effort in developing coping mechanisms and treatment regimens that allow that person to get on with his/her life at an acceptable level, then perhaps it’s too painful for that person to open that shining door of hope again and again, chasing that glimmer of possibility for significantly improved health. Perhaps that person must protect against disappointment. I remember a friend who had several miscarriages in a row, all occurring before the fetus reached eight weeks. She went to a specialist who claimed to have figured out the cause of her miscarriages. He told her that he could help her carry a baby to term. So she got pregnant again and followed his strict orders, which included bedrest for the first trimester. She held onto the baby for the whole trimester. The doctor told her she could then get out of bed and engage in mild activity. She followed all his instructions and was doing well until about eighteen weeks, when she miscarried. She and her husband were devastated and they decided not to ever try again. They refused to consider adoption (I don’t know why, such a shame). So they never had any children. I have always believed that her doctor really did figure out the problem and that he knew how to correct it and, that by some diabolically bad luck, the first baby she carried under this doctor’s care was one of those imperfect babies that the body rejects. I had two miscarriages in between having my three children and one of them occurred just shy of twenty weeks. I am convinced to this day that had that woman tried one more time she would have had an excellent chance of having a baby. But she had reached her limit. She could not muster another glimmer of hope. Thinking back to the CFS-lady, I imagine that for some people hope itself is too painful to tolerate. They have to shut that door and walk forward; and that is the best healing they can make for themselves.

Yesterday I attended an informational meeting at a new health center that will open soon. The health center is innovative in that it will integrate care provided by conventional medical practitioners with care offered by providers of what are referred to as “alternative therapies” or “unconventional treatment modalities.” These include more familiar alternative health treatments like acupuncture, massage, Chinese herbal medicine, and holistic nutrition. Plus, hang onto your hats folks, they also include aromatherapy, music therapy, body/mind therapies, somatic therapy, hypnotherapy, oxidative therapy, ozone therapy, and ultraviolet blood irradiation therapy. (Interesting sidebar:  the doctor practicing oxidative therapy has cured four patients of Ebola overnight, with research evidence; and he is screaming for recognition in the established medical community.) I admit that a lot of these treatment modalities sound like “voo-doo” even to someone like myself who has long been an advocate for alternative health treatments. This is where the ability to step out of one’s comfort zone and suspend disbelief could be transformational, could save lives.

Let’s take the hypnotherapist, for example. From the brief information he shared when he stood up and spoke, I understood that he works mainly with cancer patients. He uses hypnosis to help them control pain and tolerate chemotherapy. He also uses hypnosis in some cases to identify the source of the cancer and to help the cancer patient resolve the deep-seated issue that caused the cancer. He then helps the patient remove the blockage in the body/mind/spirit that is preventing the person’s energy from successfully defeating the cancer. This man, who has practiced for forty years, has no formal research study to corroborate his anecdotal evidence of his success with hypnosis. If I had cancer, would I seek treatment from him? For one thing, no health insurance would cover treatment from this man. For another, would I trust this odd fellow to hypnotize me? To have access to my subconscious and to have the power to change the way I think and feel? Could I suspend my disbelief and consider the possibility that this hypnotherapist has the ability to empower people to defeat cancer? Given what we know about how unprocessed trauma manifests in the body and can cause disease (such as cancer), his treatment modality makes perfect sense, actually. I have no logical basis for being skeptical. What do I know about his specialty? 

Skepticism could cost me my life. Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith, to imagine new dimensions to health care in our future. Too bad the CFS-lady has closed her mind to the possibility that there is a treatment modality she has not considered that could cure her, or at least help her feel much better and have much more control over the effects of her disease. We need to give ourselves permission to be more hopeful. This is not about magic, this is about new sciences and new directions in healing. Let’s not be too quick to judge what is a legitimate treatment. Let’s imagine the mind-blowing future of the healing arts.

State of Denial

A couple of weeks ago I was out in front of my house covering an invasive spiky grass with newspapers and plastic to kill it off when some of my neighbors walked by with their dog. The neighbors asked me what I was doing. I explained about the grass. I told them that I successfully killed all the other weeds in my yard by spraying them with straight white vinegar, but this one persistent grass did not seem to be affected by the vinegar. So I was taking sterner measures. My neighbor (the guy), trying to be helpful, suggested, “Try Round-up. That’s what I use and it works great.”

The poor man had pushed one of my buttons and I went off on a tirade about Round-up. The main ingredient in Roundup is a chemical called glyphosate. Many recent scientific studies provide insights into the effects of glyphosate on the human body. A peer-reviewed scientific study released in April 2013 confirms that glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and that they directly contribute to gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. (Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome, Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, 2013.) There is a great deal of research (diligently suppressed by Monsanto, which manufactures Round-up and makes a fortune from its sale) showing the catastrophic ill-effects of Round-up on people, other living things, and the environment. I told my neighbors that you couldn’t pay me to put Round-up in my yard and that it was especially dangerous for children, the elderly, people with compromised health, and pets – like dogs!

The woman-neighbor leaned over and patted her dog on the head and said, “We’ve been using Round-up for years and our dog seems to be just fine.” They then high-tailed it away from the crazy lady putting newspapers on her weeds and ranting and raving about Round-up. One week later I took the newspaper out of the box and read the headline, which was something like “New Research Proves Deadly Toxicity of Round-up.” The article was about an international panel of researchers that issued a report in April 2015 about the extreme toxic nature of glyphosate. They call for an immediate international ban on the use of Round-up. Many countries are acting swiftly to do this; but not the U.S., of course, since Monsanto owns the politicians here. Sheesh, it’s tough being right all the time. I wonder if my neighbors saw the article and if it made any impression on them.

Do I think this new study about glyphosate will inspire thousands of people to change their habits? To stop using Round-up? To eat foods that are clean and not sprayed with Round-up? Absolutely not. Because we live in a state of denial. We are so bombarded by frightening information predicting doom that we become immune to it. We keep doing what we were doing and seem to think somehow we are impervious.

In 1989, I took a job as the executive assistant to a woman who conducted evaluation on research projects that benefitted the disabled. It was the perfect job in many ways. I believed in the projects the company was evaluating. I met terrific disability rights activists. The office was only eight blocks from my house so I could walk to work; and it was in a beautiful new building. On the front door of the building there was a statement that said something to the effect that the materials that had been used to construct the building were new and were still off-gassing toxins at a low level and that the law required that those working in the building be warned that these toxins present inside the building could possibly cause allergies, health issues, and miscarriage. So what did I do after two months at the company? I got pregnant. This was after we already had two children. We wanted a third. I passed that notice on the front of the building every single day, and yet I intentionally got pregnant. I miscarried that baby at ten weeks. Why did I think that I was impervious to the toxins in that building that could cause miscarriage? Perhaps that was not the reason I miscarried at all. There is no way to know. But I keep thinking about the fact that I knowingly entered that building every day and seemed to think that warning didn’t apply to me. Fortunately, the following year, after I left that job and went to another one in a chemically benign building, I became pregnant with my third child and carried him to term.

We humans are endowed with the ability to select what information we wish to assimilate into our psyches, our lives, our modus operandi. Otherwise, we could not survive. We receive too much input. We really must choose what to act upon and what to release from our consciousness. I find it fascinating to reflect on how people make those selections. People smoke cigarettes despite the fact that their risk of death by cancer as a result of this is astronomically high. Plus they suffer so many other health issues that are so uncomfortable and challenging along the way. I wonder how they can live like that, knowing that they would feel so much better if they quit smoking. But then I remember that I walked into that building with the warning printed on the door. Denial. People with inflammatory diseases like arthritis and fibromyalgia continue to eat sugar and refined, processed flours despite the pain, discomfort, and lack of mobility that they suffer. I wonder why they don’t change their eating habits so they can feel better. But I have to remember that I walked into that building. People are well aware of the health recommendations and their poor choices. We know and we deny.

I’m not talking about the people who are simply ignorant, who need to learn the facts. I hope I will have the opportunity to transform the lives of people by teaching them my Eating for Health classes, by providing them with a toolkit of information that will help them make better choices. But right now, I’m not talking about the people who don’t know. I’m talking about the people who have the facts in front of them and ignore them. We all do it. Conservatives en masse ignore climate change because, as Gore says so eloquently, it’s an inconvenient truth. People keep watering their lawns here in Cali when we are in a state of emergency with drought. How much denial do we need for protection, as a buffer, to allow us to function and to remain positive and to continue to enter our days with delight, to go forth with that sense of wonder I have often spoken about; and how much denial is deeply dangerous and could ultimately result in human extinction? I think of that famous exchange from the movie “A Few Good Men” when the character says “I want the truth” and the other character replies “You can’t handle the truth.”

How much truth do I want? How much can I put to use? How much must I deny to survive? I’m thinking.

This much I know is true. If you wish to protect yourself against the ill-effects of Round-up (containing glyphosate) then buy all organic foods and nothing that could possibly have GMOs. Of particular concern, which you should absolutely buy organic, are corn, soy, wheat, sugar, and canola. Animals raised commercially in the U.S. are fed corn laced with glyphosate, so to avoid ingestion of this toxin you should buy organic meats and dairy products from pastured animals. Farm-raised fish are fed corn laced with glyphosate so buy only wild-caught. Your choice. Just saying.

Putting My Taxes in the Red Box

It’s a glorious day and I should be out spreading bat poo in my gardens in preparation for spring planting. But I’m not. I can’t afford even a thimbleful of bat poo right now. If I was truly resourceful then I could rustle up some bats and collect their poo, which is actually called guano. I wondered where the organic manure companies find guano (I have never seen a bat in a diaper) so I googled it and learned that guano is found on the walls of caves. I want to take a moment to express my appreciation for the men and women who crawl around in caves scraping guano off the walls and bagging it up so I can put it in my garden. (I hope you guys wear gloves.) Or not, actually, since I can’t afford to buy guano this year because I have to pay so much in taxes. I can’t afford food, let alone guano. This year is the first time in 30 years that my husband and I have no children to declare as dependents on our taxes. Ouch. I need to borrow a baby.

My accountant tells me that earning more money is a good thing. I’m not convinced. I think I saw a place on the tax return where you put how much you earned the previous year on line 142 and how much you earned this year on line 141 and then you subtract, and the result comes out on a line labeled “pay this much more to the government this year, sucka.” I’m going to ask the IRS to apply my taxes this year toward a down payment on the purchase of Airforce One. I could own Airforce One free and clear in just a few years, I think. Then I could lease it to the president.

I have no clue how to do my own taxes. My jaw drops every time I hear someone say, “I’m going to do my taxes this weekend.” Really? And I’m going to build a space shuttle this weekend. I sometimes wonder if people who say they do their own taxes are lying to impress me. However, I know for a fact that my brother really does his own taxes; but he also knows how to build a space shuttle. I could sooner assemble a Sears swingset with instructions in Chinese than do my taxes. (I have actually done that, even with the wrong bolts provided in the package; so maybe I could build a space shuttle if I was supplied with instructions in Chinese.) I believe that my taxes are unusually complicated. My taxes have more schedules than the NJ Transit System. Do other people’s taxes have so many schedules? I couldn’t possibly figure out all the schedules if I didn’t have a really really really good accountant to guide me through the maze of numbered lines, itemizations, credits, depreciations, exemptions, deductibles, inflatables, dirigibles, alternatives, initiatives, value of seaweed purchased for my nutrition biz, porcupines, life rafts, and Ping-Pong balls. (In hindsight, I imagine it is not advisable to put porcupines and life rafts in the same sentence as it could blow up in my face.)  

I confess that I have a complicated and emotional relationship to my finances. My mother had a talent for managing money and she was my financial adviser until she passed over in 2005. When I lost her, I lost my fiscal anchor. Since that time, I have engaged in many extraordinarily creative financial contortions to afford the cost of putting three children through college. I have bought food on my credit cards (not recommended). I have transferred credit card balances from one card to another offering a special 0% rate for one year on balance transfers, and then transferred the money back when the other card made a 0% offer a year later (very much not recommended). I have called credit card companies and convinced them to lower my interest rates. I have called utilities and health care providers and haggled to lower my bills. This actually works more often than you would imagine. I convinced my propane gas supplier to give me the same per-gallon promotional rate that the company offers to brand new customers to entice them to sign up. It’s the lowest rate available. I have been a customer for 23 years, so shouldn’t they give me a rate as good as they give a new customer? (I’m pretty convincing, huh?) You would be amazed how arbitrary medical costs are. I once called the hospital to haggle over payment for an outpatient procedure and when the account clerk heard my story she erased the whole fee. She said that fee was for health insurance providers and since we were required to pay out-of-pocket by our insurer, she would waive the fee. Go figure.

My accountant assures me that I make good financial decisions. I call him my financial therapist. He knows that taxes are an emotional rollercoaster for me, and that I miss my mother terribly whenever I have to deal with my money situation. Once, when I had a meltdown during a conversation about my financial situation at tax-time, my accountant said to me, “remain calm.” I wrote those words on a post-it and put it up above my desk. “Remain calm” has helped me bumble along for many years. Money is a constant worry for me and I have to work hard at letting go of that worry so that it doesn’t cause stress. As a nutritionist, I know that stress has a huge detrimental impact on our health. I refuse to let stress make me sick. I invented a mental exercise to help me refrain from obsessing about money. I close my eyes and visualize a red box. I take the lid off the box and I put all my worries about money into the box. I put the lid back on. I slide the box onto the top shelf of my closet and tell myself that I will open it another time and sort everything out. In truth, there are much more important things in life than money, and I have been graced with all of them. Leave the taxes on the shelf and pass the gratitude, right?

Every year I have to remind my children that when they get tax refund money, it’s because they overpaid, not because the government is sending them a bonus. Tax refund money is your money, you earned it, and the government had no business with it in the first place. The best case scenario is to come out owing or receiving less than 20 bucks. Breaking even. Perfect calculation. Or, really, the best case scenario would be if the government would spend the money I pay in taxes on things of which I approve instead of largely spending it on things for which I don’t wish to foot the bill. I wish that just once I could designate 100% of my taxes to go to Head Start. I pretend that’s what I’m paying for when I write the check; otherwise I couldn’t do it.

I’m attaching a picture of purple delphiniums instead of a photo of my taxes because I fear the identity thieves lurking on the internet who would love to get their hands on my taxes. I have a spectacular purple delphinium blooming on my deck and it takes me out of my head so I don’t think about the boatload of my hard-earned money going straight to the federal government. The delphinium demonstrates that I can grow excellent things in my yard without buying that coveted bat guano. This year I just might put a purple box on the shelf in my closet instead of a red one. It’s tax season and I’m remaining calm.

Sense of Wonder

Right now, today, two young people are on a wedding journey around the world that has captivated my imagination. I am not alone. Many imaginations have been captivated by Cheetah Platt and Rhiann Woodyard’s enchanting worldwide trek as they marry over and over again in different locations.

They left on Feb. 8 to get married in 11 countries, 38 times, over the course of 83 days. They have been posting photographs on Facebook of their various weddings in places like the Colombian Rainforest, by the great pyramids of Egypt, at the Boleykarrigeen Stones in Ireland, in the Ajanta Caves in India, at a Maasai Mara Village in Kenya, and at the Giraffe Center in Nairobi, to name a few. Cheetah and Rhiann were both ordained in the Church of Spiritual Humanism before they left the U.S. so they could “self-marry.” The couple met through their profession as aerial, pole, and acrobat artists. They have been showcasing their acrobatic talent in the photographs of themselves at their wedding locations. They have also been teaching acrobatics to others along their wedding route. Their story has gone viral, appearing in many online media outlets, and today they are doing an interview for CNN.

Full disclosure:  I have known Cheetah since he was seven years old. He and his siblings grew up with my children. Summer camp. School performances and events. Gymnastics classes. Our families remain friendly. Like my children, the Platt children enjoyed a childhood in the wilds of the Mendocino countryside with limited access to TV and abundant access to the great outdoors. It’s a recipe for a wide imagination and an abiding ability to delight in the gifts life brings.

There are many things to love about Cheetah and Rhiann’s wedding adventure. The media focuses on the romance of it, linking to photos (taken with a timer by the couple) of the weddings in picturesque places. Of course it’s romantic, but the thing I love the most about these two young people and their journey is their tremendous sense of wonder at the limitless magnificence of creation. They visit sacred sites and take advantage of their wedding celebration to discover people, landscapes, animals, and the natural world. One of my favorite photographs they have posted is the two of them showing a group of Maasai in Kenya how high they can jump. The Maasai told them that in their culture they value the ability to jump high, and as acrobats Cheetah and Rhiann obviously could not pass up the opportunity to demonstrate their jumping. For me, the jumping is more meaningful than the weddings. Look at how excited they are to jump! Their delight at kissing a giraffe, viewing waterfalls in Colombia, shaking hands with an elephant, watching a lightning storm at night from their hotel window, and teaching acrobatics to children in Mumbai goes beyond the weddings.

Photo by Cheetah Platt taken at the Maasai Mara Village in Kenya.

We live in a time when wonder has been draining out of the world. Our outlook for survival on Earth as a species does not appear to be so great and the inhumanity of governments and powermongers around the globe is made manifest in media images without respite. If I did not limit my exposure to the news, I fear I would spend my entire day weeping for the many traumatized, marginalized, murdered, and suffering souls; and for the poisoning of the planet. By contrast, the incredible journey of Cheetah and Rhiann is magic. It reminds me and others who are following their world-tour to stay positive and to appreciate the beauty and the joy that continues to surround us, and that will surround us even unto the very last breath of the very last human on the planet. There remains much to celebrate in the world. The splendor of a purple flower in the field lifts from me the mantle of grief and loss that threatens to weigh me down to the bottom of the ocean. May I always remember to look for that flower.

The wedding trek of this young couple reminds me that there are still young people setting out in life with love in their heart, joy in their smile, and happy curiosity. Cheetah and Rhiann’s rolling celebration of love and discovery rekindles my hope that we, all of us, of all ages, in many circumstances, can remain positive. May the delight and breathtaking beauty of the world in which we live continue to amaze us and move us to tears. May we always, always retain our sense of wonder.

Online stories about their journey are popping up all over the place, including People Magazine online, ABC News, and Yahoo Travel. Click here to read an article in the HuffingtonPost.

Click here to followCheetah’s photos of the Platt-Woodyard Wedding Journey on Facebook.

Busting Out of the Race Box

As a matter of principle, I refuse to identify my race on forms. I have come to view racial definitions as the cornerstone of an artificial social construct that creates barriers and divisions between people and ultimately validates racism. That is not to say that our cultural background and context is insignificant, or that we are all basically the same because we are all human, both of which I view as false assumptions. First, our cultural context is extremely important and impacts us and the people we touch in our lives in a myriad of extraordinary and vital ways. I would never want anyone to perceive me as anything other than Jewish. My culture is a key part of me; and to see me, you must see that part. Second, I do not believe all people are fundamentally the same, with the same basic human attributes. I believe people are fundamentally different and that we can learn so very much from each other if we are open to discovering different perspectives in the world and accepting diverse truths. By thinking people are fundamentally the same, we risk imposing our personal or cultural perspective on others and making assumptions that are condescending and insulting.

I want to share a couple amusing family stories about exploding the race boxes.

In the 1980s, my father presented at a math conference in Moscow. Dad has his Ph.D. in math and has worked as a mathematician his whole life. He has published a couple of important books that form the foundation for a particular branch of mathematics. On the airplane on the way back from the Moscow conference, Dad sat next to a man who introduced himself as a physics professor who taught at Clark Atlanta University. The professor recognized Dad from the conference. He told Dad that he had attended the conference mainly to get help solving a math problem in order for him to move forward with his work and he was disappointed because no one at the conference could solve the problem. During the flight back to the U.S., Dad solved the man’s problem for him. Dad says this was not as dramatic as it sounds. He explained to me that the problem was one that any number of mathematicians at the conference could have solved, but the professor had sought assistance from physicists and, according to Dad, it was not the kind of problem that a physicist could easily solve. Being a mathematician, Dad was better able to solve it. When he returned home, he told Mom this story. Mom asked, “You say the professor was from Clark Atlanta? That’s a historically black university. Was the professor black?” Dad thought for a moment and replied, “I don’t remember. He was a physicist. I can’t remember what color he was.”

When I tell this story to black friends, they laugh uproariously and declare that they love my dad. Good for him. Several years later, the professor invited Dad to visit Clark Atlanta as a guest lecturer. Dad discovered that the professor was, indeed, black. He was light-skinned. Dad remarked to me that if the man had been dark-skinned, he would certainly have remembered, but since he was light-skinned, he couldn’t remember for sure. I guess the distinctively African element of the man’s features did not stand out to my father, who spent his time with the man engrossed in a math problem. Bravo Dad for seeing the content of the man’s work and not the color of his skin.

Here’s another fun family story about busting the race boxes. My brother Dan once rented the 2007 remake of the movie Hairspray to watch with his children. His youngest, Ben, was five at the time. You may remember that at the end of the film, Tracy Turnblad successfully integrates the The Corny Collins Show, a dance show that is white-only except for once a month on “Negro Day.” After the movie ended, Ben asked Dan what Tracy did that was so special at the end of the movie when all the kids were dancing together. Dan explained that at the beginning of the movie the black kids and the white kids weren’t allowed to dance together, and that was the way it was in this country for a long time in history. Then he pointed out to Ben that at the end of the movie, Tracy had made it change, and all the kids got to dance together. After the explanation, Ben said to Dan, “So the black kids and the white kids couldn’t dance together at first but then at the end Tracy made it so the black kids and the white kids got to dance together.” “That’s right,” Dan confirmed. “I get it,” Ben said, “and which ones are we?” When your uncle is black and your only first cousins are black (actually multiculti), it can be confusing as to whether your family is black or white.

Thank you, Ben. Racial lines blur and racial divisions lose their meaning. What a relief. It’s time that we busted out of the prison of those racial identity boxes that attempt to rigidly and falsely classify the huge diversity of us humans.

Traditionally, the three races are itemized as Caucasoid (white), Negroid (black), and Mongoloid (Asian). Beginning around 1885, and going for about 100 years, these were the only three races recognized. More recently, indigenous peoples have been classified as their own race, often listed on forms under categories such as “Native American” or “Pacific Islander;” because, really, where do they fit in the three-race system? Anthropologists are careful to state that “Hispanic” or “Latino” is not a race per se, but terms that refer to people of any race who have a linguistic connection to the Spanish language. Yet “Hispanic” is now a box on the race/ethnicity form. How confusing is that? Truthfully, Hispanic is, in most instances, multiculti; i.e., part Latino (originally of Spanish origin) and part Native (indigenous), and often something else as well. I have often wondered which race box should be checked by people from India or Pakistan, or by Arabic people who come from countries like Iran (i.e., Persians). What race is Persian supposed to be? Is it considered Caucasian? Seriously? Is Pakistani considered Asian? Moreover, most American blacks are multiculti (unless they have recently emigrated from Africa), with a common combination being black, white, and Native. When Ron did a DNA test, the results showed that he has more Northern European DNA than any other single type of DNA in his make-up. So theoretically he should check the Caucasian box. This invites a whole other discussion about which box inter-racial people should check.

I prefer the concept of ethnicity to race as a way to explain who we are. Ethnicity is more about the culture from which we come and is more elastic than the three races. It gives me the opportunity to define myself as a Jew. When I am pressed to check a “white” or “Caucasian” box, it makes me feel as though everything that my people have suffered as a marginalized and minority culture is invisible. Suddenly I am the privileged white majority. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ethnicity tells more about who I am, but it’s still not the most informative way to classify people. I could go for describing myself based on cultural context. But the way I envision this sort of definition, it’s not a definition so much as a story. What I would like on the race form is a box I can check that is labeled “personal narrative.” I suppose that’s the same as “opt-out,” but it implies I have a story about my background and home culture that’s worth telling and that makes me who I am. Everyone does. Those narratives do not fit into the boxes.

Some people would argue that the statistics gathered using racial delineations are helpful in telling us something useful that can be applied to help improve people’s lives. As a grant writer, who makes arguments for need based on these kinds of statistics every day, I can see how that works to gain funding for helpful programs. And yet, I wonder how much of the disparities told by the numbers were created in the first place by those boxes. The thought of busting open those boxes on the race form makes me feel free and empowered. Don’t stuff us into those boxes. Let us be the sum total of our life stories, in which race or ethnicity or culture plays a part, but is not necessarily the defining characteristic. Imagine a whole world in which everyone pauses briefly in confusion and asks, like little Ben, “Which ones are we?” 

Here is a scene from the 2007 Hairspray -- getting ready for integrated dancing.