R.A. White's Blog, page 18
January 17, 2015
Ever Wonder if Fear is Holding You Back?
I highly recommend this excellent, free course 'Conquering Fear' by Tim Grahl. I'm getting so much out of it and it's broken down into manageable steps, one video a day. Check it out, do the homework, and tell me what you thought about it. If you want to discuss as you go, stop by my facebook page and leave a comment on my comments, if you want. I promise, whoever you are, you'll get something out of this. It's easy to do, just click here and it's all laid out simply on the site.
For other interesting links, book news, family news, and random thoughts, click here.
For other interesting links, book news, family news, and random thoughts, click here.
For Those Interested in Trooper's Syndrome
This is an interview with the people who made an Oscar nominated short film about their experience with their child, who has the same syndrome as Trooper (congenital central hypoventilation syndrome). If you spread the word, maybe it will get the recognition it needs to make a difference for kids like Trooper. Click here to read the interview.
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January 14, 2015
Review of "The Candle Star"
I picked up this Young Adult novel (set back before slavery was abolished in the USA) for free when I was checking out some of the author's other books, even though I don't read historical fiction, and I'm so glad I did! I was wonderfully surprised to read such a professionally written and edited story from an indie author. It can be done, people!
The story progresses at a leisurely pace, about right for a southern belle, but the writing and characters kept me intrigued and I never once tired of it. The main character is pretty much a complete snob and white supremacist, but of course we get to see her grow as the story unfolds. It's a serious story, not surprising considering the subject matter, but there are enough lighthearted moments that it didn't cross over into 'too dark' for me. Still, I'll read a few fantasy types before I read the next in the series since I tend to get sucked down into bad moods when I read too much about slavery and other kinds of oppression and abuse.
There's mention of religion several times and I wondered where the author was coming from since it's often not shown in a positive light, not that God is put down, but that people who claim to follow him are. The slave owners of course use the bible to justify themselves, and feel good about themselves because they teach their slaves the scriptures. But then later we that the abolitionists also go to church and the free black people go to their own church, which meets in a very nice building that they built for themselves.
While I was reading I wondered about the historical accuracy of the people and events that happened, and was happy to find a note about fact and fiction at the end. Something that isn't mentioned in the notes, and something that hung me up several times was that for some reason I didn't think that black people referred to themselves as black back then (I thought the proper word back then was Negro?) but I didn't look it up so I may be wrong about that anyway. Other than that I really can't think of anything 'bad' to say about the book. If what you've read about it in the review so far sounds good I'm sure you'll love it, and if not, you probably won't.
Language: Clean.
Sexual Content: None whatsoever.
Violence: It's about slavery and racism so of course things are referred to, but no intensely violent acts are depicted with any detail. Mostly people talk about things that have happened.
Over-all plot/message: Great message about the equal worth of all God's children, and a nice plot with good character development. Suitable for young teens and up.
Find it on Amazon here.
Subscribe to read more of my thoughts and stories about my interracial family.
The story progresses at a leisurely pace, about right for a southern belle, but the writing and characters kept me intrigued and I never once tired of it. The main character is pretty much a complete snob and white supremacist, but of course we get to see her grow as the story unfolds. It's a serious story, not surprising considering the subject matter, but there are enough lighthearted moments that it didn't cross over into 'too dark' for me. Still, I'll read a few fantasy types before I read the next in the series since I tend to get sucked down into bad moods when I read too much about slavery and other kinds of oppression and abuse.
There's mention of religion several times and I wondered where the author was coming from since it's often not shown in a positive light, not that God is put down, but that people who claim to follow him are. The slave owners of course use the bible to justify themselves, and feel good about themselves because they teach their slaves the scriptures. But then later we that the abolitionists also go to church and the free black people go to their own church, which meets in a very nice building that they built for themselves.
While I was reading I wondered about the historical accuracy of the people and events that happened, and was happy to find a note about fact and fiction at the end. Something that isn't mentioned in the notes, and something that hung me up several times was that for some reason I didn't think that black people referred to themselves as black back then (I thought the proper word back then was Negro?) but I didn't look it up so I may be wrong about that anyway. Other than that I really can't think of anything 'bad' to say about the book. If what you've read about it in the review so far sounds good I'm sure you'll love it, and if not, you probably won't.
Language: Clean.
Sexual Content: None whatsoever.
Violence: It's about slavery and racism so of course things are referred to, but no intensely violent acts are depicted with any detail. Mostly people talk about things that have happened.
Over-all plot/message: Great message about the equal worth of all God's children, and a nice plot with good character development. Suitable for young teens and up.
Find it on Amazon here.
Subscribe to read more of my thoughts and stories about my interracial family.
January 12, 2015
Interview with Author Thelonious Legend
Today we have Thelonious Legend here to give us some insight into his writing. Thelonious is the author of 'Sins of the Father', a mid-grade sci-fi novel.RA: So, I hear you're an IT professional by day. What inspired your leap into the creative world of writing?
THELONIOUS: I've always been a voracious reader and thought that I might make a decent writer because of my over active imagination but for one reason or another I never put pen to pad. Then a few years back I saw a small indie film that I loved titled 'I Will Follow' which was written and directed by Ava DuVernay who is now doing the movie Selma. So anyway I googled Ava and discovered that her back ground was in PR/Advertising and she decided one day to do movies. After discovering that I no longer had a valid reason to not at least try. But the next step was what to write about and again another movie came into play... 'Love And Basketball' has a locker room scene where the young ladies are talking about their lack of future prospects in the States for playing ball. And for some reason that resonated with me. Women talking about their hopes and dreams and it had nothing to do with men. That sealed it for me. I have athletic funny daughters who are strong academically but they didn't see themselves between the pages of books they read. The rest is history.
RA: Did your daughters inspire any specific aspects of your book?
THELONIOUS: Aw yes! I've been lucky enough to have daughters who are strong academically and athletically. They are also at times hyper-competitive about things that make absolutely no sense. I mean they get into it over the silliest things and then the next second they are back to being best friends again. So yes, it's safe to say that I had a lot of material to draw on for the Parker sister dynamic.
RA: What do you hope your readers will come away with from reading your book?
THELONIOUS: Good question... First and foremost I hope it's entertaining. After that I would like readers to take away a couple of things. First that anyone can wear the cape not just straight white males. Second there are different levels of privilege and most of it is derived from the hard work of previous generations. Not to take away from anyone's successes but it's important to acknowledge our history. It provides perspective.
RA: That's a good point. Thank you for sharing, and I wish you success with your book!
Readers, here are some links if you're interested in learning more:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7899848.Thelonious_Legend
https://www.facebook.com/TheloniousLegend?ref=bookmarks
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/TheLegend
https://twitter.com/TheLegendBooks
http://www.amazon.com/Thelonious-Legend/e/B00II6GJZS/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1421080603&sr=1-2-ent
http://theloniouslegend.blogspot.com/
Django Unchained
I started this movie thinking, Great, I can write about it! But then I finished it and I'm not sure what to say. The over-all story was awesome in an A-Team kind of way--violent and over the top but adventurous and at times hilarious. It also had a realistic dark side to it that gave it serious weight, a message that made it an important movie. For those reasons I would recommend it. But then there's the other side of things…
First, frequent profanity (and words that I'm pretty certain didn't even exist back then), the accents that didn't line up with the characters. And then there was the blood.
Now let me tell you about the blood. There were FOUNTAINS of blood, like Quentin Tarantino is the lost Adams Family cousin. It was a seriously ridiculous amount of blood, so much that I found myself laughing when people were getting shot and slashed because it was just crazy. And that made me feel a little bit bad about myself. Jonathans says, "But they were all bad people." I also ended up closing my eyes pretty often because I just don't see a need for watching people beat the crap out of each other or slice on each other for more than a split second, and it went on and on in this movie. I think the point was to make people uncomfortable with the violence, and it worked with me, but it could go the other way and make people MORE comfortable with it, like watching the gladiators fight to the death until it's just something you do while you eat dinner.
There was also a brief moment of female nudity, which always bothers me. I mean, it's not like I'm lobbying for more MALE nudity, but it seems messed up that they can show women off all the time but men get to stay covered. It hits a feminist nerve in me somewhere, especially since it happens a lot.
Despite the things I didn't like about it, I believe it did what it was intended to do and I think I would even watch it again if I was in the right mood.
For more thoughts like this, stories about our family, and book news, subscribe.
First, frequent profanity (and words that I'm pretty certain didn't even exist back then), the accents that didn't line up with the characters. And then there was the blood.
Now let me tell you about the blood. There were FOUNTAINS of blood, like Quentin Tarantino is the lost Adams Family cousin. It was a seriously ridiculous amount of blood, so much that I found myself laughing when people were getting shot and slashed because it was just crazy. And that made me feel a little bit bad about myself. Jonathans says, "But they were all bad people." I also ended up closing my eyes pretty often because I just don't see a need for watching people beat the crap out of each other or slice on each other for more than a split second, and it went on and on in this movie. I think the point was to make people uncomfortable with the violence, and it worked with me, but it could go the other way and make people MORE comfortable with it, like watching the gladiators fight to the death until it's just something you do while you eat dinner.
There was also a brief moment of female nudity, which always bothers me. I mean, it's not like I'm lobbying for more MALE nudity, but it seems messed up that they can show women off all the time but men get to stay covered. It hits a feminist nerve in me somewhere, especially since it happens a lot.
Despite the things I didn't like about it, I believe it did what it was intended to do and I think I would even watch it again if I was in the right mood.
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January 9, 2015
Trooper Stories (Rants and Musings)
You'll think this is funny. It gets funnier as it goes. Read it.
My boy had the flu this week (not officially diagnosed since we were able to keep him home, hurrah!) and I spent more time suctioning secretions (snot, for the non-medical people out there) and temperature testing and force-feeding Gatorade than I did doing anything else. But he's well now and past the point of contagion, so I'm feeling happy even though it's too cold to go outside, anyway.
Here's my story: Yesterday I left the house to do some visiting since my husband was available to sit with Trooper, and Trooper was feeling well enough that I felt comfortable leaving him for more than twenty minutes in a row. Before I left, I set Trooper up with some play-dough and assorted play-dough toys to keep him busy since he still wasn't well enough to play without his ventilator. When I got back, Jonathan told me this tale, complete with his preferred present tense mixed with past tense,
"So I'm sitting at the other end of the table and Trooper is playing with his play-dough, and all of the sudden he starts whining, saying 'It hurts!'. I ask him what's wrong and he says his nose hurts, and pretty soon it escalates to full blown crying. I got up to comfort him, so I was hugging him and trying to find out what was wrong and he blows a great big wad of play-dough and snot out of his nose. A bunch of it went on the table and I caught part of it in my hand."
My first thought--I'm glad I wasn't there because it would have made me gag. He always throws up on me, and that's really gross, but for some reason snot is MORE gross.
My second thought--I wish I had been there because I wouldn't have let him shove play-dough up his nose in the first place.
My third thought--Why do boys always do this kind of stuff? I never hear about girls sticking things up their noses and in their ears. I remember one of my brothers sticking a penny up his nose. A WHOLE PENNY! Into his nose! And of course my parents weren't home and his nostril was stretched so tight and the penny was so far in there that we couldn't get our fingers in to pull it out. We ended up getting it out with tweezers, which, looking back, wasn't a great idea since we could have lobotomized him or something, but anyway, he was a BOY. And my other brother, also a BOY, stuck a bean in his ear and said he wanted to see what it was like to have a hearing aid. Also required tweezers. I'm still glad I have a boy, it's better than worrying about all the girly things, but sometimes…
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My boy had the flu this week (not officially diagnosed since we were able to keep him home, hurrah!) and I spent more time suctioning secretions (snot, for the non-medical people out there) and temperature testing and force-feeding Gatorade than I did doing anything else. But he's well now and past the point of contagion, so I'm feeling happy even though it's too cold to go outside, anyway.
Here's my story: Yesterday I left the house to do some visiting since my husband was available to sit with Trooper, and Trooper was feeling well enough that I felt comfortable leaving him for more than twenty minutes in a row. Before I left, I set Trooper up with some play-dough and assorted play-dough toys to keep him busy since he still wasn't well enough to play without his ventilator. When I got back, Jonathan told me this tale, complete with his preferred present tense mixed with past tense,
"So I'm sitting at the other end of the table and Trooper is playing with his play-dough, and all of the sudden he starts whining, saying 'It hurts!'. I ask him what's wrong and he says his nose hurts, and pretty soon it escalates to full blown crying. I got up to comfort him, so I was hugging him and trying to find out what was wrong and he blows a great big wad of play-dough and snot out of his nose. A bunch of it went on the table and I caught part of it in my hand."
My first thought--I'm glad I wasn't there because it would have made me gag. He always throws up on me, and that's really gross, but for some reason snot is MORE gross.
My second thought--I wish I had been there because I wouldn't have let him shove play-dough up his nose in the first place.
My third thought--Why do boys always do this kind of stuff? I never hear about girls sticking things up their noses and in their ears. I remember one of my brothers sticking a penny up his nose. A WHOLE PENNY! Into his nose! And of course my parents weren't home and his nostril was stretched so tight and the penny was so far in there that we couldn't get our fingers in to pull it out. We ended up getting it out with tweezers, which, looking back, wasn't a great idea since we could have lobotomized him or something, but anyway, he was a BOY. And my other brother, also a BOY, stuck a bean in his ear and said he wanted to see what it was like to have a hearing aid. Also required tweezers. I'm still glad I have a boy, it's better than worrying about all the girly things, but sometimes…
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January 1, 2015
'Annie' and 'Big Hero 6'
I went into 'Annie' with low expectations because I read so many poor reviews, and I came out feeling like the reviewers had been working some sort of nefarious plot to discredit a perfectly nice kids' movie with a GREAT message. Yes, the villains are over-played. Dramatically. But name me a kids' movie where they aren't. It annoys me in Annie and in every other kids' movie I've seen, but I don't think it's fair to criticize this one when Home Alone was all kinds of popular. Yes, there is auto tuning in the songs, but I absolutely believe it was done to present a particular style of music, not because anyone needed help staying on key. Yes, materialism is rampant, but it's not portrayed as positive, and in the end, the song says it all, "I don't need anything but you." I loved the remakes of the songs, so much that I think I'll buy the soundtrack. I'm not a fan of how the movie portrayed foster homes (though I'm sure a lot of them really are that bad), but that's really my biggest complaint (aside from the previously mentioned over-acting). There were also times in songs where the kids lips weren't moving in time with the words, which I know they could have done much better, but the positives outweighed that for me. I love the encouraged awareness that older children need to be adopted. I love the message that we can all look for the sun despite the bad things that happen to us. I love the diversity that made sense in a modern retelling. Everything's not for everybody, so you may feel differently, but I enjoy the modern version at least as much as the original. Check out this video they made to go with the modern version of 'You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile'.
I also saw 'Big Hero 6', making 2014 a record year for me seeing movies in a theater, but I made sure to avert my eyes during the action scenes and made it home without a headache or nausea, so it was all good. I went in to BH6 with no expectations except that I'd heard it was good. I didn't know it was a diverse movie and I didn't know it was a superhero origin story, but I enjoyed all aspects of it. It took me through a range of emotions and was an all around great movie for kids or adults. It has all kinds of fantastic reviews, so it doesn't need me to defend it. Now, to write some long overdue book reviews…
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I also saw 'Big Hero 6', making 2014 a record year for me seeing movies in a theater, but I made sure to avert my eyes during the action scenes and made it home without a headache or nausea, so it was all good. I went in to BH6 with no expectations except that I'd heard it was good. I didn't know it was a diverse movie and I didn't know it was a superhero origin story, but I enjoyed all aspects of it. It took me through a range of emotions and was an all around great movie for kids or adults. It has all kinds of fantastic reviews, so it doesn't need me to defend it. Now, to write some long overdue book reviews…
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December 30, 2014
Short and Fun
My new year gift to you--this short video my husband took at the Dallas airport while we were waiting for our VERY delayed departure. We were supposed to be home before 6pm and ended up walking in the door after midnight. But in the meantime, we had fun. Click here. I have some things I'm dying to write about, mainly movies and books, but there just hasn't been any time. I'm hoping to catch up on all of that this week.
December 23, 2014
Article by Yours Truly
If you haven't already, check out this guest post on Madhuri Blaylock's blog. It's called 'Evolution of a Diverse Books Writer or How I Went From, ‘Why Not Have a Dark-Skinned Character?’ to ‘Everything I Write for the Rest of My Life Will Include Diversity for the Sake of My Son and the Rest of the Non-White and Disabled People on Earth’, by R.A. White.
Click here to read.
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Click here to read.
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The Black Santa
With all the talk about poor casting going around, most recently spurred by the casting of Europeans in 'Moses', I thought I should share a story that happened to us a week or two ago. Hopefully it doesn't offend anyone, but if it does, well...
So Trooper and I were walking in a craft store when I realized that he had fallen behind. I turned to find him staring intently at a shelf of Santa statues. "What are you looking at?" I asked.
"He's black," he said. "Why he's black?"
Cue awkward music as I decide how to answer the question. How can Santa be both black and white, and on the same shelf? I wouldn't be in this predicament if Dad didn't insist on treating Santa as a real person. I chose to answer without addressing the question I knew he was really asking. "Well, maybe some people want a black Santa. It's OK."
Loud look from the four-year-old, whose skin is darker than any ceramic Santa I've ever seen. That look said, "I saw Santa yesterday and he's white. You don't know what you're talking about, mom."
"It's OK, Trooper. Some people want a Santa that's the same color as them. Really, it's OK."
He turned back to the Santas.
I said, "If white people can turn Jesus white, it's OK for black people to turn Santa black." I didn't expect him to understand what I meant by this, but either he did understand or he just thought it sounded logical because he decided to go with it. He left the Santas and followed me back to the paints.
Funny how some people can get all caught up in keeping the tradition of FICTIONAL characters, but not mind at all when real, historical individuals and nations are completely changed. Sometimes we can definitely get our world views mixed up.
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So Trooper and I were walking in a craft store when I realized that he had fallen behind. I turned to find him staring intently at a shelf of Santa statues. "What are you looking at?" I asked.
"He's black," he said. "Why he's black?"
Cue awkward music as I decide how to answer the question. How can Santa be both black and white, and on the same shelf? I wouldn't be in this predicament if Dad didn't insist on treating Santa as a real person. I chose to answer without addressing the question I knew he was really asking. "Well, maybe some people want a black Santa. It's OK."
Loud look from the four-year-old, whose skin is darker than any ceramic Santa I've ever seen. That look said, "I saw Santa yesterday and he's white. You don't know what you're talking about, mom."
"It's OK, Trooper. Some people want a Santa that's the same color as them. Really, it's OK."
He turned back to the Santas.
I said, "If white people can turn Jesus white, it's OK for black people to turn Santa black." I didn't expect him to understand what I meant by this, but either he did understand or he just thought it sounded logical because he decided to go with it. He left the Santas and followed me back to the paints.
Funny how some people can get all caught up in keeping the tradition of FICTIONAL characters, but not mind at all when real, historical individuals and nations are completely changed. Sometimes we can definitely get our world views mixed up.
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