Identity 2.0

It's a humbling moment when you realize even Lawrence Lessig doesn't feel like he's accomplished much.

I've mentioned before that Lawrence Lessig is one of my all-time heroes. I hope he takes to heart the following comment left on his blog:

little progress?! perhaps the view never changes while you are rolling the boulder up the mountain, but every time it rolls back down, well, it takes some of the mountain with it… Please sir, keep on rocking, keep on rolling…

In any event, this is just a sidetour to the real reason for this post: you should all watch Dick Hardt's OSCON keynote on Identity 2.0. It is HOT. And a good lesson in "using Powerpoint wisely" as well as being really damned funny and smart. And Dick Hardt is sort of cute, and he went to UBC.

tales from LSLAP

I'm so impressed with Alan and Rosalyn's comments on my last few posts. Apparently, I'm not the only hyper-theoretical geek out there.

I should also mention here that Alan is the main reason I signed up for LSLAP in the first place. Oh - and he's well on his way to becoming a hotshot criminal defense lawyer, so if you're looking for representation, give him a ring...

Speaking of LSLAP, I had my first clinic last night. Things went well, although I'm still figuring out how to blog about my clinic experiences without breaching confidentiality while still maintaining some semblance of a narrative. In any event, I interviewed a client on my own (with a mishmash of Cantonese and English), opened a file for him and am meeting with the supervising lawyer on Friday to discuss next steps. I'll be back at the clinic on October 11.

I had a bit of an odd moment though when I realized that a client in the room had all the same mannerisms and quirkiness of my mother. It was, to say the least, weird.

Alan posted this advice from a public defender in his comment that I think y'all should read. Hooray for public interest law!

An Invisible Backpack (With Apologies to Peggy McIntosh)

When I first went to the Learning Exchange, I carried with me a backpack of invisible assumptions and stereotypes. As I got to know the patrons, and heard their stories, my backpack grew lighter and lighter. These weren't unintelligent folks - they had university degrees, lengthy careers, and more insights on world politics than I would ever have. But for one reason or another, they'd ended up in "Vancouver's ghetto" (as one patron put it).

So how did they get there?

Perhaps for some, it was through some fault of their own - and perhaps for others, it was the result of bad advice, bad choices, or bad policies.

But 8 months hasn't given me the answer to that question. 8 years might not be enough to learn the answer.

But my backpack has gotten lighter.

And I move through the world with less assumptions about people's backgrounds - and less barriers between me and other human beings.

I've seen other people's backpacks too. Some are heavier, and some are lighter (and I wonder what experiences have caused this difference in weight for them). I've seen their backpacks manifested in bold statements on "those junkies, dealers and drunkards at Main and Hastings". I've seen their backpacks keep them from ever venturing to the DTES, mentally carving out a swath of Vancouver as a barricaded no-go zone.

I haven't figured out how to cure the ills that plague the DTES.

But if I can decrease the load of at least one person's backpack...

...well, maybe that's a start.

on chickens, eggs, colour & class

A thought struck me as I sat in Perspectives today, listening to a lecture on the feminist critique of liberal assumptions of autonomy:

"Am I poor because I'm coloured, or am I coloured because I'm poor?"

Granted, this is a quasi-rhetorical question, since I'm admittedly not poor (being the daughter of capitalists will teach you that) and indeed, in some parts of the world, I'm not even coloured.

But it raises some interesting questions on the correlation between race & class (and other forms of marginalization). My usual assumption is that we're marginalized because of our status (as coloured, as female, as disabled, as poor, as queer, and so on and so on), and that it is our social characteristics that determine our standing in the world.

But what if we flipped it around? What if marginalization came first, and only as a result, produced these various social stratifications?

What came first - the identity or the marginalization?

I think I need to work on this theory a little more, but I welcome comments. Throw me some real life examples, since I think I'm being a little hyper-theoretical and not overly practical...

All Thanks to Brian Brinsmeade

For the past 8 months, Rosemary and I have been spending one afternoon a week at the Learning Exchange at 121 Main Street. We started off just spending time with the drop-in patrons, and eventually gave a workshop on cross-cultural communication. For the past few months, we've redirected our energies into developing a poverty awareness workshop to be given to UBC students, which we would co-facilitate with the patrons (most of whom live in the Downtown Eastside in various housing situations).

Brian was the first patron I had the guts to talk to - and while he may disagree, I'd like to think that he's both my greatest cheerleader and greatest critiquer at the LE.

Yesterday, in between grilling me about law school and debating the existence of natural rights, Brian asked me why I was working on the poverty awareness workshop at all, given the overwhelming spate of problems troubling the DTES.

Firstly, I've had to overcome my belief that there aren't any problems on the DTES. In my blissfully-postmodernist-relativistic state, it would be too easy to assume that folks in the DTES *want* to be there. But, drug addiction sucks. Mental illness without a proper support structure sucks. Being cold, hungry, and homeless in the winter sucks, if that's not where you want to be in the first place.

That's not to say that the DTES sucks. In fact, far from it. Despite one colleague's description of the DTES as "a warzone", I still can't see it that way. It's a community - it's a collection of homes and dreams and (extra)ordinary citizens who may not have the white picket fences, but have a heck of a lot of tenacity.

Secondly, I've come to the realization that on my own, I may never end drug addiction. I may never cure mental illness. I may never come up with enough money or resources to feed, clothe and shelter all the homeless folks in the DTES.

So where does that leave me?

Perhaps the greatest strength I bring to the Learning Exchange is my connection with UBC. That is, my connection with UBC and other university-age students. I may not be able to solve all the problems in the DTES, but I can open up the minds of my fellow students so that maybe one day, they will solve the problems.

Now I just have to figure out how to convince them.

off to carnegie!

I start volunteering with LSLAP next week. I've been assigned to the Carnegie Clinic, my first choice, which means that I'll be spending at least two days a week in the Downtown Eastside (Tuesday nights at the LSLAP clinic, Thursday afternoons at the Learning Exchange). I'm psyched, because I've become really attached to the folks in the DTES over the last 8 months, and feel like this is something tangible I can give back to the community, rather than just siphoning off their knowledge when I hang out at the Learning Exchange.

Yet, I'm perturbed by the number of people (at the law school or from elsewhere in my life) who've reacted to my clinic assignment with disdain, concern, or outright fear. Why is it that when I mention Main & Hastings, someone inevitably responds with a story of walking home from the clubs surrounded by "junkies and dealers and drunkards"?

What's sad is that the DTES always gets singled out for "miscreant behaviour" even though drug & alcohol ab/use seethes throughout the rest of the Lower Mainland. Just because you can't see it behind those white picket fences doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Sometimes when I walk down Hastings, I think that it has even more of a community feel than other Vancouver neighbourhoods - if only because there are people out and about on the street.

Sigh. In any event, I can't help but wonder why they call LSLAP a poverty law clinic. Why can't it just be a "law clinic"? Granted, it serves low-income folks (an individual client can't have more than a $20,000 gross annual income). But we assist clients with a wide range of problems (i.e. representing clients in criminal court or small claims court, depending on the matter; and doing limited solicitor's work). I suppose it's called poverty law because it's meant to serve poor people. But the problems that our clients present aren't necessarily those related to income (i.e. illegal search & seizure, drug possession, breach of contract, property problems) - though their problems may certainly be worsened by poverty.

Maybe I'm just quibbling over semantics.

In any event, I'm sure I'll have more insights after next Tuesday.

my mantra

For all you grad school geeks out there, you'll be proud to here that I've coined my new academic mantra. Yes, Jenn has a new answer to that question we all know and love/hate - "Tell us what your research interests are".

[Usually, the question gets asked at the beginning of the term, upon arrival in your seminar. It's an odd time - filled with hyperinflated egos and made-up words and thoughts of god-these-people-are-all-so-much-smarter-than-me. Even so, I sort of like it in my usual masochistic way.]

So here are my thoughts, as I ponder how I'm going to link law school with everything else I've learned in my academic career:

How do we build intersectionality into youth advocacy programs? Having worked with the Equity Ambassadors, UMCP's Asian American Student Union, the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Program, countless high school students and now Outlaws, I'm always struck by the struggle to incorporate an intersectional focus when fighting for social justice. Some programs are fabulous at it. Other programs need some work. But surely, we can develop an approach to ensuring the fundamental rights of all that recognizes & affirms the whole person - rather than just the components.

I haven't figured out how to get there yet. Maybe I never will. But at least I've set it down in print for now.

Hopefully, I'll pick up some useful hints over the next three years.

Law Library Lunacy

I can only dream that cramming in the UBC Library will be as exciting as this story.

socrates must be spinning in his grave

I volunteered a comment in my Perspectives on the Law class today. I don't think I was very articulate. In fact, I know I wasn't very articulate. I was so inarticulate to the point where even my professor was confused, and thought I was making some sweeping classist statement that business people should be able to consider their nannies as business expenses and therefore count them as tax deductions.

God, my class probably thinks I'm some raging anti-equality capitalist fascist now.

I need to stop talking in class.

I wish Symes v. Canada wasn't such a messy case. And I wish that we had free national daycare. And I wish that this article on the desires of the current Ivy League women to become stay-at-home moms had also looked at female college students who just can't afford to become stay-at-home moms.

In any event, I think this incident has inspired me to start blogging about my law school experiences on a more regular basis. Stay tuned!

peering through an alcoholic haze

I realized on Friday that I was the only woman of colour in my small group.

Maybe it was the alcoholic haze that kept me from seeing it all week. Chris says I've been reeking of alcohol the last two days.

When Gerald handed me a glass of Apple Sidra yesterday (apple pop from T&T), the first thing I said was "This would taste really good with some rum in it."

God. 4 days in, and already alcohol is the first thing on my mind.

In other news, I managed to find the Outlaws (UBC's queer law student club) on the web. Going to have to be all charming-type-A-anal-retentive-ADD femme and kick their ass (and mine) into gear. ;)

Okay, off to the library to decipher Mill & Locke and the Criminal Code of Canada.

first day madness

Well, I've survived my first day of law school.

There was a spider in my locker, but otherwise, I have emerged unscathed.

In other exciting news, I ran into one of my former MUGgles today (that's a first year student for all you non-UBC folk). She graduated last spring and has been working full-time in Student Services at Brock Hall for the past 4 weeks. The last time I saw her, she was a nervous-as-hell second year who was on the verge of dropping out of UBC. I'd like to think my sage advice and wisdom had something to do with her staying in school - but in any event, I'm so pleased that she stuck it out for the long haul. She seems happy for the moment, and that's the most important thing.

Gotta love that first-day-of-school excitement. :-)

praise for the press

I have to say that the press has done a surprisingly good job of extracting and examining the complexities of Katrina - and how she has exposed the American Dream to be one huge, fat lie.

Perhaps that's just a result of the echo chamber quality of the Internet. But whatever its cause - this is the most coverage on the race & class disparities in the American South that I've seen in the mainstream and alternative press in a long time.

Heck, even Yahoo News posted an apology for the racial bias in the photos and captions they presented on Katrina. Even more astounding are the links they posted to other internet sites that have commented on / criticized the photo caption language.

From Transit-rider to Refugee

My mom and brother spent 2 days in New Orleans a week before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. They flew back to Vancouver on Monday from Houston, just as New Orleans was sinking.

We had dinner tonight for the first time since their return. My mother - who is not the most racially tolerant person in the world - couldn't stop complaining about the "rude, black people on the buses" in New Orleans.

Yet, even my mother went silent when I mentioned off-hand that most of her fellow busriders were probably amongst those left in New Orleans post-evacuation. If my time in Los Angeles taught me anything, it's that the only the tourists and the lower classes ride public transit - and that if I were relegated to riding the bus full-time in the U.S., I sure as hell couldn't afford to leave my home with 24 hours notice.

So this article on the folks left behind in the Gulf Coast cities strikes a bit of a chord.

And so does this story, which asks why the heck reporters haven't asked each other, "Can you explain to our viewers, who by now have surely noticed, why 99 percent of the New Orleans evacuees we're seeing are African-American?"