A Career Without Jade

I had a conversation recently with a woman who, potentially, is responsible for my success both in college and in my criminal justice career. During this short conversation between classes, she asked if I was feeling all right - I'd been quiet during class, and I usually have input. My response was that 18 hours of school this semester, plus a 40 hour/week job is getting to me, and...then there's the other thing.

I'm starting to wonder what in the hell I'm going to do after I graduate in May with a Criminal Justice degree. Law has always been an idea, and nobody that knows me denies that I'd be a formidable litigator. But, is that who I want to be? Certainly this juvenile detention gig is only going to take me so far. I mean, I've only been there for 4 months, and already there's an oscillating fan spinning defecation everywhere. Probation would become too comfortable, and while I'd be able to help kids in a different capacity, perhaps even more effectively, it's just a cushy enough job that I fear I'd become complacent.

Then there's the issues that keep coming up as a problem in nearly every industry that I attempt here in fabulous East Texas. My sexuality and opposing religious views tend to not stay in their cave for long. Eventually, each one finds some avenue in which to cause drama and screw up whatever small comforts I've found.

So, I'm becoming jaded with the world of Juvenile Services. I'm finding that my academic and practical sides are at odds, increasingly, with one another. I see the stereotypes walk in wearing those little handcuffs daily. Hourly, on the worst days. They're constantly living up to what the textbooks say they truly aren't. They're constantly proving what the media and the little voices in the back of everyone's head says about them. The same little voices that tell you not to walk down dark alleys and who to keep your children away from. My academic side tells me about their internal pushes and external pulls. Their families that helped them, both biologically and psychologically, to become the people I see. I see case after case of the chronic 6-8% that will never, no matter how hard we work - and we work so very hard - become a productive member of society. Someone that we'll be supporting behind bars with our tax dollars for the rest of their life.

I hate that. I hate that I think that way.

Funny thing, my professor said she always saw me as a teacher. Funnier still, isn't there an adage that goes something about those that can't do.... I'd love to be a teacher. I think I'd be quite good, but I also feel like I should be out there being the one to make a difference. Perhaps, though, that is not my fate. Perhaps for those of us on the fringes of society. Those of us that are in this minority or that 10%, we are not to be the movers or the shakers. 

In times like these, I think of the words of William Henley in "Invictus"

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

Well, I suppose that one half of me thinks of those words. The other half thinks of words that I've written in my poem "Bred."

Bred

These children, they’re products
knowing only that they aren’t cared for
for the ones before them made sin
into song lyrics and subculture and

statistics.

Each one a number until their
number is up, and they just know
their products.
What they sell or buy or sacrifice
to get behind.

Their eyes tell too many stories
of homes that could be broken
or just glued back together or
as perfect as the 1950s thought
it was – all of them not enough.

And it is not enough that they are
ignorant and blind, not enough
that they have too few brain cells
because some homeboy said
You put it to your lips like this…

It is not enough to know this
problem and far from enough to fix the problem.
This information is bread.

Bred into each one and then
consumed from each to each.
his own momma throwing him
to the dogs in hopes of halting
the howling
fully realizing that the dogs
are the neighbors and rap
songs and the fostered idea
of police brutality

it’s the lack of positivity or a chance
and none of it is enough unless
we learn to count each number
singularly, chewing on the edges
of both ‘hood and statistic

and human realization.

Defending Amy

There's apparently a debate raging between the talking heads on C-list news programs about Britney Spears' latest single If You Seek Amy. Their argument is that if you say the words quickly it sounds marvelously close to the phrase *PARENTAL ADVISORY! EXPLICIT CONTENT* Fuck Me. More specifically, the song goes, "All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek amy."

So, what's wrong with this? Well, parents' groups are outraged, because they're claiming that this is the song that will be playing over the airways on their way to take their children to school, or on the drive home. They're touting that the single's overt sexual tone is highly inappropriate, and should be banned except for the hours of 10pm-6am, when profane language can be used freely on the radio.

Profane language is one thing, but the only truly free radio medium is XM/satellite radio. This song will not get relegated to being bounced around space dishes. I promise. It also won't get banned from radio. If these groups honestly think that radio stations are going to play the song during times they've got a decent idea children are listening, they're daft and deserve to be slapped upside the head with a garden hose. (I've got one you may borrow, if you'd like.)

While I don't dane to preach about the artistic merits of Ms. Spears - for which I honestly think she has very little, but she's got some infectious tunes - I also don't think there's anything wrong with the song. It reflects our culture today. The average age to have consensual sex is 9. Consensual sex. Not rape, not incest, and not molestation. Wanted and desired sexual intercourse. Also, while this may not be the most pleasant of ideas, it's certainly better than many other topics. 

Britney Spears sells sex. If you hear the song on the radio, and you're a parent with young children in the car, either turn the station or use it as a wonderful opportunity to have the birds and the bees talk. Point of the story: When you make subjects like sex taboo, this is the kind of culture you get. We're OBSESSED with it! Want to take away the obsession and addiction? Teach respect and tolerance for it. Then, maybe in a few years, we'll have a turn back to the days of the Beach Boys.

*shudder*

For your listening pleasure, this is the song in question:

Of course, I am now the ass.

This didn't take long.

So I'm going to Advanced Writing - which isn't pretentious enough - and there's this guy that sits behind me who sees my Juvenile Services shirt. He asks if I'm a Criminal Justice major, to which I respond affirmatively. Well, that set him off. 

He'd apparently not had enough of the Criminal Justice Kool-Aid, because he began tearing apart the CJ department as a whole. As it turns out, he had failed to turn in his first paper for Dr. Pang's class on Law and Society on time...by 12 hours. She, thusly, failed him with a grade of 0. He felt this was profoundly unfair, and let me know it. (He had the mistaken idea that I care.) He made the claim that a 59 is a failing grade, and that it was a lot better than a 0. Good point, but still, it fails to claim responsibility for his own shortcoming.

After 5-7 minutes of his diatribe, I turned around and said, "Look. It's called responsibility. If you couldn't get your paper done on time, then you deserved the grade you got. You had the prerogative to draft, edit, and finish your assignment for class, and you failed to do so. She has the prerogative to fail you for not doing the work. You even admitted to doing the work after class ended. Next time, try getting your homework done, and learn your lesson!"

Well, as in any good dramedy, the professor walked in at that moment to announce that he was ready to pass back our papers that we'd turned in on Tuesday. But, before he would return them, he wanted us all to know that there was a gem in the bunch. This gem exhibited perfect examples of allusion, anecdote, and was profuse with impeccable grammar. Who wrote the epitome of expository papers? Don Martin! 

That's right. Now, not only was I the jerk who tells of the guy for not doing his homework, I'm the guy who made the highest grade in class and gets called out in front of the whole class for it. He then proceeded to blow up all 4 pages of my paper on screen and read every word, being sure to point out particularly shining examples of this writing term or that.

Normally, I would soak this up, but today I really felt like an ass. 

Somebody give me an apple...I need to start polishing!

Sigh...

Love and Light,

Fire Lyte

Ghosting Crackbook

Hello to the nobodies that aren't reading this blog! When and if you ever get here, just know that I'm fading away from the addiction that is Crackbook. Hopefully, within a month or so, all of my inner circle will have jumped away from the evil that is a social networking site. 

Truthfully, I was just using it to post funny poems or stories, and I'm so tired of being poked. And asked to be a cyber bartender. Or, asked to join a mob, web-based feudal system, vampire war, etc. I'm not interested in meeting new people, but keeping up with the people I already know. Thus, the severe lack of need for a social networking profile. Who am I trying to network with? (My apologies to prepositions everywhere.)

Monday, I passed a girl that I'd taken Research Methods with a few years back. Her name is Jamie. I only know her name is Jamie, because she'd added me as a Crackbook friend those years ago. However, I've never spoken to her outside of that classroom, and most certainly never cared to chat her up on Crackbook. Though, she'd attempted to add me to innumerable groups, causes, and applications. Applications which, of course, need access to all of your personal information before they'll let you, say, begin killing off the Justice League or flirting with the 2 anonymous people that have clicked yes to you. (And who in the hell put up a Click Yes to Don button, anyways? I know I didn't.) So, she passes me on the stairway Monday, and we don't even look at one another. I just happened to notice that it was her, then, later, I noticed pictures she'd taken on her Christmas/New Year's vacation were on my Crackbook's homepage. 

Now, I realize that an arbitrary friend or two is one thing, but it's a different experience with all the applications and such.

All that to say this: I'm slowly leaving Facebook. Hopefully, within a month or so, I can close the account down - perhaps with the exception of keeping track of close friends that live states and thousands of miles away. 

So, Goodbye Crackbook, and hello Blogosphere!