Things that Bug Me: Brainstorming for Social Change

Kids’ Stuff:

• Toy tea sets are too flowery and girly. Make tea sets for boys!
• Make party favors gender-neutral, for pete's sake.
• Get toy makers to stop painting children’s toys—use colored plastic instead so I can stop worrying about my children eating lead paint
• Manufacture affordable kids’ clothes in the USA, so I have that option
• Provide choices for children’s clothing that avoid gender stereotypes—not all boys’ shirts need to be blue and decorated with monster trucks

Darien:

• Stop holding parent (mother) meetings during the work day
• Put sidewalks and streetlights in Darien—some of us walk
• Make swimming lessons affordable to everyone
• Stop and Shop: bring back the plantains and empanada shells--getting rid of it is just racist.
• Cut the crap—add affordable housing in compliance with state laws

CGS:

• Make honors World Lit classes more rigorous
• Add additional CGS history courses, beyond 9^th grade
• Actually recycle 
• Go digital (you, too, Ms. Parham)
• Minimize plastic utensils. Stop using Styrofoam bowls and plates.

ABC Darien:

Increase fundraising so program can pay for school events, field trips, and school clothing.

Regional:

• Don’t redistrict CT by lumping together Bridgeport and Hartford. That gives Bridgeport no voice.
• Increase the number of magnet and charter schools to give Fairfield County students more options

National:

• Make Juneteenth a national holiday
• Provide subsidies for stay-at-home moms and dads
• Switch to instant run-off voting to give third parties a fighting chance and weaken bipartisan campaign corruption
• Stop subsidizing corn--I'm tired of high fructose corn syrup
• Stop subsidizing big agriculture and the food industry--the vegetables grown next door to me should be cheaper than the ones imported from Argentina

Media:

• Outlaw marketing to children under the age of 10—particularly food
• Limit airbrushing of models; use real-sized models
• Promote bilingual TV shows
• Show language-learning shows
• Stop having sitcoms that promote average-looking men in relationships with attractive women
• Stop promoting white guys as idiots 

Online:

• Pass a law requiring websites to unsubscribe users within forty-eight hours
• Allow free access on-line to all network shows

Map of Antigua, including Parham

Link to Parham Park in Sussex, England

http://www.parhaminsussex.co.uk/

Parham Primary School in Parham Town, Antigua

http://www.oas.org/CDMP/document/schools/vulnasst/vulnphot/anbphoto.htm

Colonization, but in Silly Hats: A Brief History of My Name

I confess freely that I have a fondness for silly hats and blame it on my first name, Julie, which means “youthful.”  In junior high, a friend called me "Ju," which was of course pronounced "Jew." "Do you mind?" she asked me. Why would I mind? In rural Kansas, we had never met anyone who was Jewish, and it never occurred to me that anyone would find the nickname in questionable taste. Strike one for the young Ms. Parham.

Better still, my mother used to label everything with my initials--J.A.P.  I was fine with that. (And as a kid, it was definitely better than my sister's initials--P.C.P.) But it took me weeks to figure out why, in college, a new dorm-mate asked me if I really was a Jewish American Princess, and it was well into college before I noticed that when my grandfather, a World War II Navy veteran, talked about "Japs," it wasn't in a friendly fashion.  Strike two.

“Parham” means “village of the pears.” How pastoral!  Parham Park in Sussex, England includes a mansion and beautiful, expansive gardens. Lovely, except all of that house and all of that land means, once upon a time, slaves. (My ancestor John Parham, the one who sailed from the village of the pears in England to an equally pastoral plantation in Virginia in the late 1600s, who had five recognized white sons and perhaps dabbled in forced miscegenation, was definitely a slave owner. One of his grandsons dissolved the plantation, and the former slaves carried with them, among other things, the Parham name. Which is why if you travel to the South, to Virginia, Tennessee, even southern Missouri, the Ms. Parhams there--and yes, even the Ms. Julie Parhams, for they are there, you can see them on Google images--will all be black.)

What I did not know until last fall was that another Parham, perhaps a living relative of Johnny P., hopped a boat and sailed to Antigua.

I have no record of this, but I am confident it's true. The "oldest" colonial town in Antigua is called...you guessed it. Parham. It used to be the capital of Antigua. And you can't miss it. It's right on Parham Harbour.

Let's recap those three strikes. "Ju" and "JAP" and "Parham" : anti-Semitic, anti-Japanese, and white colonialist. Precisely how I try not to identify myself.

But those names were given to me.  Let's talk about the name I chose: Ms. Parham. To use "Ms." is politicized, of course, but I like it. I've been told it makes me a crazy feminist. But the labels "Miss" and "Mrs." feel like an invasion of privacy. Must I announce my marital status in my name, so everyone knows, without even meeting me, if I'm "single" or "taken"? If I'm a wife or an "old maid?" If you're curious about my marital status, ask. Or see if I wear a ring. Or, better yet, just mind your business.

Whether or not those names reflect my identity is the stuff of philosophy. Can I claim as part of my identity the stuff I didn't choose: racist ancestors, sheltered childhood, naive parents? Much of that I'd like to reject.  But I did not change my last name when I married--it's my name after all--so something about those choices-that-weren't-my-choices still belong to me. I do claim them, as problematic as they are.

 But I won't be traveling to Antigua any time soon.