Day 12 - BA2.12.1 is the current variant

Finished this book today…

5/23/22. Monday

7:30-8:30-I’m awake so I move to my reading chair and get started on How to be an Anti-Racist in preparation for tonight’s Book Club meeting.

8:30-8:45-After an hour, I go downstairs to greet the animal. She’s awake and we go outside together so she can go potty. Return inside and coffee for me, cheese for her. I go to work, which means I enter my home office and do class prep.

8:45-9:30-I start creating a Week 6-Home Page for my online students because I still need to post content and haven’t yet. I use the Syllabus as a guide to creating the Home Page.

-I check email. There was a terrible snafu. One of the video quizzes was set for 11:59 AM instead of PM and at least 10 students emailed me that they were locked out. I need to rectify this issue immediately before I continue creating the Home Page.

-I reset the test and give everyone an extra week to complete it. Then, I email the students who were blocked from taking the quiz and reassure them everyone will still be allowed to take the quiz. Crisis averted - I eat a square of my Mom’s banana bread.

9:30-9:45-The neighbors knock on my door and tell me a large branch from one of my trees snapped, fell over the wall, and is lying in my front yard! I go outside to look, still in my pajamas. The branch is too huge to move - it’s NOT a regular tree branch as you might expect.

9:45-9:50-I call B. to see if he has a vendor referral for someone who can remove the tree. B. says he’ll come by personally to check it out.

9:50-10:30 - Upstairs and I take a fast shower. Lotion. Light make-up. I wear a sleeveless tan shirt with tiny bedazzled gold squares on the shoulders, and jeans.

10:45-12:00-B. arrives and is able to remove some of the dead branches. The actual tree branch will have to be removed by “Renaldo”, B.’s gardener.

-While all of this is happening, G., my next door neighbor and the woman who knocked on my door this morning about the branch, comes out to the sidewalk to follow up with her offer of succulent cuttings. In the midst of this chaos, B. and I find some boxes lying around in L.’s art studio and take them to her house. G. gives me tons of cuttings and it’s a lively conversation between B., G., and I. G. is very nice and we exchange phone numbers. Spoiler Alert: I never talk to G. again, other than to tell her, over the wall [the wall that separates our yards] that I transplanted all of her succulents.

12:00-12:15-B. leaves, promising to contact Renaldo to remove the branch.

12:15-1:00-I finally finish the Week 6-Home Page and post the class content. Then, I email the online students who got Ds and Fs on their Video Quizzes. I take a short break and watch a Mina Rome Vegan Cooking video on You Tube for a short reprieve.

1:00-2:30-I have a pre-made salad and finish How to be an Antiracist for my bookclub tonight. I didn’t like this book.

In 2013, Ibram Henry Rogers, changed his name to Ibram Xolani Kendi because Xolani means “peace” in Zulu. As a result, he identifies himself as Ibram X Kendi on his book jackets, similar to Malcom X, in my opinion. This fun fact wasn’t revealed until near the end of the book, AFTER we learn early on that ”Rogers” was born in Queens, NY. What is NEVER discussed in the book is his last name.

In the spirit of “wokeness”, but probably in an attempt to appear multi-cultural and sell more books, Rogers marries and takes his wife’s, Sadiqa Kendi, surname as his own because, I believe, the name “Kendi” sounds more multicultural and diverse than “Rogers.” It should be noted that Dr. Kendi is a well-regarded pediatrician and the Division Chief of the Pediatric Emergency Medical Division at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, who did her undergrad at Yale so what the hell is she doing with Rogers? He married her because she’s Jamaican [I’m being cynical here…uh…not really], but it is unclear why she married him. His background, you ask? He’s an author and a visiting professor at Brown University.

Rogers/Kendi begins the book discussing his rise as an average student to a gifted orator, winning speech contests, and ultimately getting accepted at Florida A&M University. He discusses one speech contest in particular that appears to have put him on the map: the Prince William County Martin Luther King Jr. oratorical contest.

Rogers won this contest, but that’s not why he discusses it in his book. He mentions it because he has to debunk the actual speech he made, in the event that quotes from the speech contest are used as a foil and published alongside his current book. In Bill Cosbyesque fashion, like the speeches Cosby used to deliver to young black men in the community [“pull your pants up”] before he was convicted as a serial rapist, Rogers delivers a speech on how black people keep themselves down. Here are some quotes addressing a few racist ideas he espouses about his own people:

“They think it’s okay to climb the high tree of pregnancy!” Applause (from the audience).

“They think it’s okay to confine their dreams to sports and music!” Applause.

“They think it’s okay to be those who are most feared in our society!” Applause

Essentially, Rogers sells his people out so he can win the speech contest and profit off the backs of the black community, in order to get into a 4-year college. But, I think, as he gets older, Rogers realizes that he will have to debunk the previous statements he made in his famous speech as they are in direct opposition to the books he writes now.

Additionally, I find his narrow definition of “anti-racist” confusing. Rogers [and lets be clear - I know his last name is Kendi] says you can’t just say “I’m NOT a racist” because this label signifies that you are NOT “aggressively against racism.” You must use the term…anti-racist. Only then can you endorse racial equality.  Simply saying “I’m not a racist” doesn’t count.

One of the points he makes is “when racist ideas resound, denials that those ideas are racist typically follow”, which is exactly the action he takes at the beginning of the book wen he directs us to the speech he gave as a young man.

All of this is very confusing to me…I feel like Rogers is doubling down on this new term to get traction for the definition he’s created [anti-racist], but his argument, in my opinion, is a weak one. Thousands of people utter the phrase, “I’m not a racist” every day and actually mean it. To discover that the only one true way to proclaim equality for everyone is to subvert the proclamation “I’m not a racist” with the new proclamation, “I’m an anti-racist” is absurd.

Finally, at the end of Chapter 1, Rogers adds, “The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next.” This might be the most confusing statement of the book and it is introduced in Chapter 1… just 17 more chapters to go.

Do not recommend.

2:30-4:00-I’m exhausted after reading this book and take a nap.

4:00-5:15-up and I take notes on How to be an Antiracist for Book Club tonight.

5:15-5:30-I freshen my make-up, change back into my a sleeveless tan shirt and jeans.

5:30-6:00-I drive to Book Club at the library. I listen to Unravel True Crime: Juanita.

6:00-7:00-Book Club and this is when I officially learn that our book club has been canceled! Next month will be our last meeting, but it is unclear why. Something about a new librarian coming in and deciding whether or not she wants to continue it and if she does continue our book club, it wouldn’t re-start until September. I think the real reasons for the cancellation is 1) too few members - there are only 6 of us; and 2) the new librarian can’t be bothered to use her personal time to keep a book club going, especially when she can get loaded at the Books and Brews book club, every 4th Wednesday. That Book Club meets at various bars.

I’m disappointed. Self-help books was the genre for this Book Club and we read a new self-help book every month…now that’s over.

We discuss How to be an Antiracist. None of us mask except John.

7:00-7:30-Driving. Return home.

7:30-8:00-I check my personal email and read several political emails I received from B. L. surfaces so we talk for awhile and decide to go to the Whole Foods buffet at 8:30 PM.

8:00-8:30-Continue checking personal email…

8:30-9:30-L. and I go to Whole Foods and fill up at the hot buffet. I get chicken wings, saffron rice and peas and a curry, potato sauce to put over the rice, with Samosas, which happen to be amazing. Spoiler Alert - too many carbs at the end of the day and I weigh 97 the next day.

9:30-12:00-L. and I try to watch another episode of The Way Down but it keeps buffering because the “Fire Stick” is too old so we switch to Our Father instead and see it through, talking throughout the documentary. L. calls her Dad and he orders another Fire Stick for us. It will arrive on Tuesday.

12:00-1:30-I lie down for the briefest of minutes and fall asleep

1:30-2:30-Kitchen duty and I pack my lunch bag and ready my coffee for tomorrow. I listen to a new episode from Spooked.

2:30-3:15-Nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 5:00.