Someone asked on a message board, “Do you research how much water certain produce requires to grow?” I responded: Yes. At the beginning, when I felt obligated to act and it felt a burden, I avoided learning new things, feeling if I kept learning, there’d be nothing left and I’d feel guilty eating anything. As I practiced more, met the farmers behind my CSAs and farmers markets, and learned how[…] Keep reading →

My mom suggested a post from a woman, Jodi Ettenberg, who posts as Legalnomad, I’M IN THE VULNERABLE CLASS FOR COVID-19. A PLEA TO TAKE THIS VIRUS SERIOUSLY. First, if it doesn’t go without saying, I recommend you follow the guidelines of the most knowledgeable people and organizations on the virus. I am not one of them so seek them out. I’m sure you already know that advice, but making[…] Keep reading →

Why am I writing so much about white males? Partly because I am one but live in a society that denigrates and silences the group. When I read about people in other groups exploring their accidents of birth—their skin color, sex, sexual preference, geographic origin—society seems to celebrate them. My city hosts parades for many groups. Does anyone wonder how much it would accept a white male parade? I expect[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday’s post Update on automatic thoughts people connect with straight white men culminated with a couple questions I found intriguing: Imagine if your entire life, every time you said you suffered, people said, “actually that’s an example of you causing others to suffer.” How would that affect your life? and: Imagine every time you said you worked hard at something, people said, “actually that’s an example of how easy your[…] Keep reading →

Last month I asked “What automatic thoughts come to you when you think of straight white men?“. I also explored the topic with Psychology Today‘s Editor-at-Large, Hara Estroff Marano, in an audio recording for a piece there, White Men and Preconceived Notions. Some updates. . . First, context. However obvious, I’ll still say that the following is a personal account with all the biases of someone just talking to the[…] Keep reading →

Psychology Today’s Editor at Large, Hara Estroff Marano, and I continue our conversations on challenging topics. Today we continue with white men and preconceived notions of us. We were talking about topics before hitting record, I started to describe the pattern that comes up a few minutes into this recording, she lit up in the way someone who has thought about something and has something to say about it does,[…] Keep reading →

Comedians joke about stereotypes. People laugh when the jokes resonate with something in their heads. Everyone is unique, but as far as I can tell, many of thoughts of groups’ stereotypes come to mind automatically. I’m not sure if we can choose any thoughts. Here is an example of Larry David joking about Jewish stereotypes: Here is an example of David Chappelle joking about black and white stereotypes: I searched[…] Keep reading →