Ldyenki - Ldy Enki's Random Stuff

please don’t knock, the cat has the keys

@irenthel You are not the only one.  This might be relevant to your interests. http://animatedamerican.tumblr.com/post/176998779407/mollymauklivesfest-animatedamerican

It seems the beginning of September there will be a fanfic/fanart Molly Lives fest.  I confess I have only seen the first 2 episodes and a few fancomics that have popped up on my dash, but I can understand why people are sad.

Hey my name is Marissa and I’m in Denial.

So beautiful.

Dreaming of Dragons.

LdyEnki reads Anger is a Gift Chapters 14 and 15

The continuing adventures of LdyEnki being unprepared for Mark Oshiro’s “Anger is a Gift”.

Chapter 14:

Alternate Title: Wanda is Awesome.

First the part that made me laugh.  The line about Obama.  I love this bit.  I could absolutely see Wanda talking to Obama every night.

I keep thinking about this cartoon I saw as part of a discussion my church group had.  A person is fleeing from someone wielding a knife, but a news camera is filming it in such a way that it looks like the person being chased is attacking someone unarmed.  Already the school and media are trying to spin an adult police officer attacking a teenager who hadn’t done anything wrong into a fight that shows how dangerous the students are.  And now a serious injury caused by a cop forcing a student into a situation he had said could be dangerous for him is a minor accident due to malfunctioning equipment.

Reality is being overwritten and it’s terrifying.

On a lighter note, Moss you can stop trying to play it cool.  It isn’t working.

Chapter 15:

A needed respite for Moss and me as reader.  I really enjoyed the meeting of the 2 families.  What Wanda said about love and the example she gave of Moss’s dad snoring was wonderful.  I love how she normalizes Moss’s anxiety and panic attacks at every opportunity.

Chapters 1 and 2 are here.

Chapters 3 and 4 are here.

Chapters 5 and 6 are here.

Chapters 7 and 8 are here.

Chapters 9, 10 and 11 are here.

Chapters 12 and 13 are here.

LdyEnki reads Anger is a Gift Chapter 17

The continuing adventures of LdyEnki being unprepared for Mark Oshiro’s “Anger is a Gift”. 

Chapter 17:

I feel like Moss, excited by the show of support and the plan for a walkout.  But I also feel foreboding that something is going to go horribly wrong.  

Wanda is amazing as usual and I really feel here that she is teaching the next generation how to be leaders and activists.  Specifically she is training the next generation of black women.

Interesting questions raised about what makes a school safe and who do we need to make it safe from.  For Moss and his friends it’s the police and the measures put in place to keep the school ‘safe’ that make them feel threatened.  For some of the adults in the meeting, the students need to be protected from the other students.  

But what are the metal detectors really going to do?  How do they increase safety?  If there was a history of students sneaking in knives and stabbing each other, then yeah, they would help, but that is not what is going on here.  Even ignoring the truth of the situation, the ‘brawl’ was unarmed fighting and a projectile chair.  In my admittedly limited experience, all the school violence I have seen has been similar, fist fights between students, sometimes very serious, but still fist fights.  Metal detectors will do absolutely nothing to prevent that.

I can admit that like some of the cautious adults in the crowd, I can see the benefits of having a police officer present to respond to problems quickly.  I used to teach at a community college.  One day a young man burst into my classroom and started pounding on one of my male students.  He, of course, fought back.  There was blood.  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could do to break up the fight.  We had a officer on campus.  He heard the commotion and came in and was able to separate them.  And I can admit, I was very relieved to have him present.  Statements were taken, stern talking tos given, but no one ended up handcuffed on the floor and as far as I know no one was arrested.  The cop defused the situation and that was all.  But, both of the young men were white.  I honestly don’t know if it would have gone down differently if one of them had been black.

We want school to actually be safe for kids but cops who can’t be trusted not to escalate or create a situation are not the way to do that.  I don’t know what is.  It might help to remember that the ‘hooligans’ we want to protect kids from are the kids we’re trying to protect.  

Chapters 1 and 2 are here.

Chapters 3 and 4 are here.

Chapters 5 and 6 are here.

Chapters 7 and 8 are here.

Chapters 9, 10 and 11 are here.

Chapters 12 and 13 are here.

Chapters 14 and 15 are here.