The article is entitled “The Future of Shopping” and it’s a bit much even for diehards who shop for a deal like I do. It’s too bad it’s not on-line as it’s way to hard for me to rewrite it here, let me post some excerpts…

Need some comfort in you time of sorrow? According to the article:

Shopping has become a legitimate social activity, supplying the comfort that church and community once provided.

Okay I knew we were a shallow people, but I had no idea we’d reached such a low such that shopping would take the place of actually hanging out with friends!!

What, you say your local shops are too limited to help you? According to the article:

Outside Montreal, a 1,900,000-square-foot, $350-million megamall is now being developed by Ralph Stahl…When Lac Mirabel
opens in 2007 it will encompass Canada’s largest indoor aquarium, an artificial lake, a marina, a roller coaster, a food emporium, a recreational park, and, oh yes, many stores.

HOLY COW!!! I wonder if they’ll introduce wildlife too, to make the whole artificial experience that much closer to reality?

Are you, um, really, really attached to your shopping?

On Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, surrounded by beauty products in Sephora, she [Jessica Johnson] sat down by the fragrance counter and wept. “It seemed like anarchy to me” says Johnson…Johnson returned to Toronto determined to make sense of
her emotional outburst. Shopping she concluded in “The Good Shopper” (Penguin), to be published next month, is a means of finding ourselves.

I just thought it was a way for me to find a good deal, or a hot dress. I’ll tell you, I’ve been to Sephora and the only thing that made me weep about it was how it impacted my credit card at the end of the month

I was pretty surprised to read this actually.  I knew there was bias in media, but I guess I hadn’t thought about how much of it there really was until this article and the linked one here at USA TODAY opened my eyes.   As  I mentioned in my post regarding D (please click here to scoot back to that post) it’s really not so important that D was transgendered or that Ms. Figueroa was Hispanic.  What matters is that these are people.  They are valuable, they are not throw away.  They all deserve to get as much respect, attention and justice as we can give them seeing that their perpetrators preferred to treat them as objects of contempt.

And the media bias is really troubling.  Why is it that this kind of bias exists.  Perhaps the quote by Michael Bass, as I have copied in here from the USA TODAY article holds the key:

Michael Bass, senior executive producer at The Early Show
on CBS, echoed on Thursday comments made previously by television
producers when asked about whether they favor stories about white
women.
“It’s the story that drives our decision (on
coverage) rather than the gender or race,” he said. Bass said his staff
heard about the case from the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia, “though we
look at the web, too. … It’s possible someone in our group saw it
there first.”

So in some sense the coverage (and perhaps any attention from the authorities?) was a function of consumption – that is – consumer consumption of news.   And if that’s the source driver for news choice, then, what does that say about our society?  Maybe it says we still have a long way to go to accept all our citizens as people.   Maybe it says that you have to be “pretty” to get justice.  I don’t really like those conclusions; they scare me.  They bring to light that our society, (as blessed as it is here in the U.S.A. and as grateful as I am to live and work here), has a ways to go to accept, support and love one another.   I think Marin Luther’s dream (which you can hear by clicking  here) still has some room before it’s reality – for all of us: white, Hispanic, transgendered, gay, Asian or any other denomination you’d like.

CNN ran a spot on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight featuring Alison Fahey, Editor of Ad Week, and, Bishop TD Jakes. The topic was on a current trend of corporations sponsoring of Christian events. Alison’s had two points, but the one that stuck out for me was that the advertiser may be sponsoring a Christian event one day, then an event with completely divergent values & views the next. Bishop TD Jakes’s view was that this trend was okay, that they didn’t want to “discriminate” against advertisers and that the money of Christians appears to be worth advertising too.

The real question, at least in this woman’s mind, is, what impact does this have on the message of the event? Does the sponsorship compromise the message? Is the sponsorship even necessary at all? If the costs are covered, is it necessary at all? Surely, marketers can slice the demographic up any way they wish and target market via whatever vehicle that is most effective. But the sponsoring of a specific Christian event smacks of more than an group of smart marketers choosing a demographic then going after it. It smells like the Christians working in league with the marketers. It smells like the money changers being let into the temple. While that may be a stretch (the money changes after all were selling sacrifices – a far cry from what Coke is doing. See John 2:12-22 & this article, The Cleansing of the Temple) it just doesn’t feel right, sort of like saying “Coke” is the soda of all Christians or “Delta” is the airline for the Born Again set. Why would any energy be spent even considering this kind of activity? Perhaps instead of sponsoring a Christian Music festival, those same sponsors could step up their support of feeding the poor, showing mercy to the downcast, and building homes for the homeless (Micah 6:8) – those are true directives from God worth sponsoring.

I love people because they are what make up the world. It’s not so
much the html code that is the backbone of this blog nor the 0100101
that my typing is converted to and then moves along an Ethernet cable
to some servers that are then served up yummily to your browser when
you click on this link – no. It’s really all about people. Connecting
and interacting. Knowing and being known.

Groups of people can either be a gang, a rabble or…a community. A
community is (in the words of the Wikipedia): “an amalgamation of
living things that share an environment…What characterizes a
community is sharing and interaction in any number of ways.” There
have been some very cool things recently that mark our community, I’m
proud to say that these came from trans-women helping other
trans-women. I hate to “classify” us really. But given that we are
trying to change the view of society of trans-folk (for both the men
and the women) from societal
pariah to really just people, I thought these bore out some highlighting:

* Just recently a sister of ours is heading to get FFS (Facial Feminization Surgery). The word went out into our community that she needs support, encouragement and love as she goes through this very difficult operation. Many sisters responded to cheer her on!!! Image how it makes her feel

* A friend who transitioned is a Physician. She needed help in order to be able to continue on with being a Physician during a tough time. The word went out. Lots of sisters pitched in to make that a reality for her!

* I read on a Yahoo Group that a sister recommended a bunch of us getting together for lunch on a regular basis – why? Because (as she wrote) “There is more to relationship building than merely
clubbin’ it.”

* I’ve heard of so many other stories this past year of sisters in trouble who were aided by other sisters – not to mention just plain listening to each other and being a shoulder for each other. I’d love to hear stories of brothers too – I’m sure they are out there.

The point to all these is that they are proof we are not powerless, we
*can* help each other – in both large and small ways…(psst, even if
we are still in the closet to some degree ).

Some links on community worth a read:

• Community Development Society
• Organizing: People Power from the Grassroots
• What is Community? Mother Jones Magazine
• A General Theory of Community
• Random Acts of Love