Man, is it just me or does these weeks seem to be just flying by?  Before you know it, we will be nearing the end to another successful semester.  Strengthened, reformed, and overwhelmed with knowledge.  I will make one remark about Walmart.  What the ....?  I never would have guessed that Walmart was a company that used its employees in such a way.  I was really surprised because personally, I liked Walmart and so spent a good amount of money there each week.  If I'm totally honest, I'm not even sure that I will stop shopping there.  I'm sure that my closest friends will find me insensitive, but I'm just saying...

Enough about Walmart.  This has been a really rough week for me. I have had a headache for the past two weeks and it is really starting to get to me.  I did, however, find time to do some reading.  The idea that domestic service reveals a contradiction in feminism because the very thing that pushed for women's involvement outside the home, was the very thing that bound some women into oppression.  Employed middle and upper-class women escaped the double day syndrome by hiring poor women of color to perform housework and child care.  Some feminists defines domestic service as progressive because traditional women's work moved into the labor market and became paid work.  This would be fine except for the fact that when women hire other women at low wages to do housework, both still are women and both are still oppressed by men.  My mother used to work for this white couple when I was growing up.  It pained me to see her catch the bus, then walk for over 5 to 6 blocks to slave in a big house for not even enough money to pay the bills.  Sometimes they would give her leftovers from a party or offer to drive her home and I remember always being embarrassed by the fact that my mother was a maid.  I went to work with her a few times so that she could get off earlier, but she didn't like it because I would have to miss school.  I could tell she was really tired at the end of each day but she always managed to come home and still provide for us kids.  Today, mostly immigrants work as domestics, but there was a time when only black women were maids.  I think the fact that most of the middle and upper-class women could afford to pay someone else to do their housework, they felt that this elevated them to a different station even though they are both women.  This idea of classism that makes one woman feel superior to another woman when in fact both are oppressed and thought less than by men is truly sad.  While the women that my mother cleaned for escaped the toils of housework, my mother was left to care for two homes.  I am grateful to my mother for all she did to provide for us.

There's a saying that you don't get into an argument about politics and religion.  I think there's some truth to that.  As a kid, my mother insisted that we go to church. We were raised Baptist and so services were held all day on Sunday, Wednesday was Prayer Meeting, Saturday was Choir Rehearsal, and the rest of the time you waited just in case something else was happening at another church. We had services where the women and men would shout, speak tongues, weep, and holler out the name of Jesus.  As a kid, I didn't understand the spirit that they were displaying so I often wondered what religion was really all about.  As an adult, I shy away from religion because I still don't understand it.  What I have been able to figure out is that spirit that I saw those people display years ago.  The spiritual part of my journey has been filled with an ecletic approach to religion and I find that I could borrow something from several religions if it helps to improve my connection to God.  Many people have different views about this, especially those who believe that what they believe in is what I should believe is as well.  So, it's a constant struggle to find my place with the religion piece.  Also, as a gay, black woman, I have struggled with family members who view same sex relationships as an abomination to God and that I'm going straight to hell.  I'm not sure about that either.  What I do believe is that if God is all-knowing, all-seeing, loving, forgiving, and bigger than any problem I can have, then I'm secure in the knowledge that He loves me.  That has to be enough for me because if not, I'm stuck in confusion and always second-guessing myself about what I believe.

Well, I guess I will end for now but as we continue with this idea of religion over the next couple of weeks, let's be mindful that everyone doesn't believe in the same thing and that's ok.

Until next week...