Helping

So when Ashley told me she wanted to see The Help, I groaned. (I can't remember if it was inward or not.) Like, honestly, I would rather not see another movie about benevolent white people who have no sense of larger structural oppression. I don't need to see a movie about that; I'm around white people who already think that and I see it on tv when I am trying to avoid blatant misogyny.
So I was reading this article which is written for young clergywomen about the same book, and I am so glad someone finally laid a particular set of thoughts out for me that I think I've been circling for awhile but have struggled to articulate. The author writes that "the challenge of living amidst privilege can be that Jesus' teachings are incredibly indicting to our own lives, which is part of what makes stories focused on morals so much more inviting, and so much more tempting, than stories focused on ethics." Although I had never thought about it in terms of this book, I have always found all the prattle of most of my fellow Christians to be disappointingly about living to some vague moral stance more based on things like not having sex before marriage or abortions. I can't even think of a fellow Christian peer who has ever once mentioned structural problems or Jesus's work on said subject. (I had a priest who would give sermons on religious tolerance and women's unpaid and unacknowledged labor, and seriously, that guy was mostly awesome. On the other side of the religious spectrum, I can think of a few atheists who had it together when it came to these kinds of problems.)
I've been meditating frequently on how disappointed I am with other Christians, because I suspect the why is important, and I think this might be a very big answer on the why. Because, ultimately, if we aren't against the forces that cause things like poverty and discrimination, that, honestly, what are we in this religion for? Are we here on earth as Christians because we want to improve our communities or because we need something to make us feel superior? If we focus on ending injustices, we are here for the community. If we focus on morals not only are we going to fall short on what God calls us to do, but we're going to end up tending to our egos and not the flock.
As some other notes, I really like the rest of this article for pointing out some of the difficulties with race. I loved this quote that the author brings up "For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism." In this instance, it is used in the context of race, but could easily be applied to other power structures.

Interracial Marriage

Being that I am a massive romantic, I'm really interested in interracial marriage. (Don't tell anyone! I cannot have guys figuring out that the best way to win me over is to write me letters and poems!)
And so I really liked this article on interracial marriage, because even though I knew it happened, I wasn't sure how often, and it's good to have an accurate picture, especially since it makes having arguments with people easier for me.
So, the takeaways:
Asians and Latino/as intermarry at higher rates than African Americans. This rate jumps if we limit it to U.S.-born Asian Americans, Latino/as, and African Americans and not immigrants. In about 3/4 of Asian American cases and about half of Latino/as cases, their partner is white.
(This leads me to wonder how/if they count LBGT, since some places in the U.S. allow for gay marriage, some allow for partnerships similar to marriage, others don't allow anything.)