There’s something about this spill that seems more personal than previous ones.  Bigger.  More prophetic, or something. Maybe it’s because I live in Florida now, or maybe it’s because it’s still spilling, after all this time.  Or maybe it’s because, the today’s climate of environmental responsibility, it’s too hard to ignore my part in it.

I keep reading amazing stories and tributes to the Gulf.  People want to do something, anything to help.  We’re angry and scared and overwhelmed and, I think, all feeling a little helpless.

And I think we can all agree that we’re pretty pissed off at BP, the company that owns the oil that’s currently flowing into the Gulf unchecked.

But maybe we need to be a little angry at ourselves, too.

I’ve heard people say, “all BP cares about is money,” and my first though is – of course that’s what they care about. They are a company with shareholders and employees and executives to answer to.  The only reason BP exists is to generate income.  Their job, as a profit-generating entity, is to figure out how to meet consumer need in a way that makes as much money as possible.  Their entire purpose, ironically, is to plug a hole that the markets create.

Our job, as consumers, is to decide what that need is.

We make the hole.

But we already know this, don’t we?  On some level, as we watch the shoreline for signs of destruction and wonder how bad it is in places where we can’t watch, we have a nagging in the back of our minds that says, we did this.

We did this with our SUVs and V-8 engines.  We did this with our sprawling suburbs and commuter lifestyles.  We did this by failing to encourage the spending tax dollars for public transit systems, refusing to use public transit systems that exist, purchasing goods that need to be transported from miles away when local alternatives exist, valuing comfort and luxury over efficient use of our resources, and generally just neglecting to ask if we should have it just because we can.

As one writer put it:

“the fact that the US is drilling over a mile below the surface in one of its most important marine ecosystems is directly related to US consumption of oil: the highest in the world.”

It is embarassing how much more petroleum we consume than other countries.  According to the US Department of Energy, the United States used more than 19 million barrels per day in 2008, compared to only 7.9 million barrels per day used by China, the second largest consumer of oil.

So we can yell and protest and rage against BP all we want.  We can even be pissed off at our government for failing to do more to ensure “safer” drilling or continuing to divert our tax dollars to keeping oil companies strong.  But in the end, we did this.

Now the question is – what are we going to do about it?

Will we bemoan this tragedy and use it as the latest reason for us to play human, before moving on to the next cause?  Because there will inevitably be a next cause.  The world is constantly supplying us with reasons to cry and help and love harder and rethink.  But unlike earthquakes or hurricanes or other causes that we can only hope to survive and clean up – this tragedy was made by our own hands.  This tragedy could have been prevented, and we can prevent it from happening again.

But how?

I don’t know.  I’ve been turning this over and over in my head, and it’s overwhelming.  It’s hard not to feel like nothing I do could matter, really.  We may be able to get rid of the SUV we have now, or use it much less frequently.  Maybe we can find a more efficient way to do our shopping locally and look for products that aren’t grown or made closer to home.  Long term, I’d like to live in a place where I can walk or use public transit for most of my daily transportation needs.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know my family needs to go on a petroleum diet.

Maybe it’s because I live in Florida now, but I really do love the Gulf, and I’m so, so sorry for my part in harming it.

That’s what we tell ourselves.  We say that what matters is what we do, and maybe what we teach our children to do.  We talk about taking responsibility for what we put out into the world, reminding ourselves that our efforts to do good matter as much as the efforts of those who would do harm.

But I think we are only half right – and that half right, sometimes, is simply not enough.

My sophomore year in high school, I had a big problem with bullies.  There was a “We Hate Britt” club formed, made up of people I had once considered friends and people whom I had never even talked to.  Groups of angry teenage girls would show up at my house and bang on my door, insisting that I come outside so that they could circle around me and hurl insults at me.  It was, as anyone who has ever been bullied can attest to, absolutely awful.

My first instinct was to make myself as invisible as possible.  I tried desperately to avoid doing anything that would catch their attention for fear of inciting another attack.  “Just ignore it and it will go away,” people told me.

I tried to ignore it, and it didn’t go away.

When disappearing didn’t work, I tried to fight back.  I “stood up for myself” the best I knew how as a sharp-tongued kid.  I responded to their verbal insults with verbal daggers of my own.  I fought to prove I wasn’t a victim.

I stood up for myself, and it didn’t go away.

My feeble attempts to fight back were as futile as the flopping of a hooked fish that lies at the feet of mighty fisherman.  The harder I fought, the more obvious it became that I was powerless to face them on my own.  They laughed at my ridiculous attempts to match them, my obvious insignificance only fueling their sense of superiority and entitlement.

Throughout all of this, people stood beside me.  Quietly.  They pulled me aside in the hall and slipped me carefully folded notes that explained how “stupid” they thought their friends were behaving.  They apologized for what I was going through and expressed their deep hope that it would all go away sooner rather than later.  They smiled at me when no one was looking, and quietly resolved not to get involved.

They resolved to be the change they wanted to see, and still, it didn’t go away.

And then a group of older, more popular, well respected girls decided to stand beside me.  They didn’t have to hurl verbal insults or resort to “stooping” to anyone else’s level.  They were better than that.  Stronger than that.  Stronger than I could have ever been on my own.

They simply stood beside me, calmly, and said “Enough.  No more.”

And finally, change happened.

I read a blog post recently about the racism that still exists in the world today and I was reminded of how many times I have stood by, quietly, while someone else stood up for themselves.  Kelly, a self-described light-skinned, black woman, talked about the horrendous comments she’s been privy to because she could “pass” as a white woman.  She quoted some of the words and phrases that I, as a white woman, have heard hundreds of times in my own life when I was in the company of other white people, people who assumed that I was in on the Secret Code Of The Fortunate Majority.

Things that I have heard… and often ignored.

Because I am not a racist.  Because I would never say such hateful things or pass on racism to my children.  Because I am leading by example and being the change I want to see in the world… and surely, that is enough.  Except, as Kelly reminded me, it’s not.  It’s not enough because when I sit at family functions or with friends I’ve known since childhood, and I hear people who are otherwise very good people make ignorant, racist remarks, my silence is interpreted as acceptance.  Validation.  A quiet seal of approval that this is just the way things are.

And just like that, I have become part of the problem – regardless of the otherwise “good example” I set in my own life.

And the sad truth is, I have more power to stop racism than Kelly does, simply because I will never find myself a victim of it.  When she speaks out, her voice is tainted to those who need to hear her most.  She touches me, surely.  But it is not my heart that needs to be softened or my mind that needs to be changed.  The truth is that in order for some people to hear Kelly’s voice, they need to hear mine as well.

It is not enough for me to simply walk the high road in silence, while Kelly continues to struggle to have her story be heard.

By all means, let’s be the change in our own lives first.  But then… but then…

Slavery did not end because owned men and women stood up for themselves.  Slavery ended because free people stood beside owned people and said, “Enough.  No more.”

The Civil Rights Movement did not succeed simply because African-Americans finally stood up for themselves.  It gained traction and power when nine powerful, affluent, un-oppressed white men used their power and privilege and position to say, “Enough.  No more.”

It is not enough to quietly be the change in our own lives and hope that our dignified silence will drown out the deafening noise of racists and bullies and bigots and extremists.

It’s not enough to be quietly supportive of your homosexual friends, while saying nothing when your straight friends make homophobic jokes.

It’s not enough to quietly cast a vote representing your carefully thought out conservative ideals, while saying nothing when extremists in your party incite violence in your name.

It’s not enough to treat your own wife and daughters and sisters with dignity and respect, while saying nothing about the violent fights you overhear from your neighbor’s house.

It’s not enough, sometimes, for people to stand up for themselves.  Sometimes, people who stand up for themselves need good, strong, decent people to voluntarily choose to stand up beside them.

Change happens when voices who already possess power and respect dare to speak out.  Change happens when people who are safe and untouchable lend their credibility and protection to those who are not.

Change happens when we become the change we want to see in the world, and then say to the rest of the world “Enough.  No more.”

Kelly, I am so sorry for all the times I have had the opportunity to stand up for you and chose to let you fight alone, instead.  I promise to lend you my voice, even when you’re not around to hear it be used, whenever you may need it.  I promise to spread the word.  “Enough.  No more.  This door not open.“

We like to stand around and shake our heads and cluck our tongues and admonish the world around us.

We are aghast at how bad the world is these days.  We are shocked by cruelty and deception and what we perceive to be evil.  We are quick to judge and slow to understand things like stupidity and selfishness and foolishness.

We stand outside society and ask “how can people do that?”

“The world is a crazy place,” we say, as if the world exists an arm’s length away.

And we never seem to notice that we are the people we talk about.  We are “the world these days”.  We are, each one of us, more than outside observers of what human nature has become.

We have, each one of us, the exact same potential for impact.

The world is not some massive thing that spins just beyond our reach, but a collaboration of millions and millions of tiny people who are leaving their own mark.  And those tiny marks, like pricks from a ballpoint pen, make up the great collage that is the world these days.

We are so desperate to change the picture, so eager to critique its dark and light spots, all the while forgetting that we hold the artist’s pen in our own two hands.

We are the world.

Every time we open our mouths, we put something – for better or worse – onto the canvas.  Every time we get online and share “what’s on our mind” on Facebook or “what’s happening” on Twitter, we contribute to today’s definition of society – not because of our witty observations on life, but because we are the subject of those observations.

Whether we like it or not, we – each and every one of us – bear the responsibility of people these days.

We, both you and I, are the world.  We are leaving our mark with our words, our silence, our actions and our interactions.

I have to remember this when I see cruelty and pain and suffering.  I have to remember that I am neither an observer nor a product nor a victim of this world.  I am a contributor.  And my contributions carry the exact same weight and credibility as those of every other contributor on this monster project.

I have to remember that I, too, hold a pen.

And with that pen comes amazing power to help shape the overall picture.  I can draw light spots or dark spots.  I can add love or the lack of love.  I can be cruel or I can be kind, but the impact is mine to make.  The picture is mine as much as it is those people’s.

And the picture is yours, too.

Take it away, Kevin…

*

Our pediatrician admitted it early on.

The rash on our 2-year-old daughter’s cheeks, joints and legs was something he’d never seen before.

The next doctor wouldn’t admit to not knowing.

He rattled off the names of several skins conditions — none of them seemingly worth his time or bedside manner — then quickly prescribed antibiotics and showed us the door.

The third doctor admitted she didn’t know much.

The biopsy of the chunk of skin she had removed from our daughter’s knee showed signs of an “allergic reaction” even though we had ruled out every allergy source — obvious and otherwise — that we could.

The fourth doctor had barely closed the door behind her when, looking at the limp blonde cherub in my lap, she admitted she had seen this before. At least one too many times before.

She brought in a gaggle of med students. She pointed out each of the physical symptoms in our daughter:

The rash across her face and temples resembling the silhouette of a butterfly.

The purple-brown spots and smears, called heliotrope, on her eyelids.

The reddish alligator-like skin, known as Gottron papules, covering the knuckles of her hands.

The onset of crippling muscle weakness in her legs and upper body.

She then had an assistant bring in a handful of pages photocopied from an old medical textbook. She handed them to my wife, whose birthday it happened to be that day.

This was her gift — a diagnosis for her little girl.

That was seven years ago — Oct. 2, 2002 — the day our daughter was found to have juvenile dermatomyositis, one of a family of rare autoimmune diseases that can have debilitating and even fatal consequences when not treated quickly and effectively.

Our daughter’s first year with the disease consisted of surgical procedures, intravenous infusions, staph infections, pulmonary treatments and worry. Her muscles were too weak for her to walk or swallow solid food for several months. When not in the hospital, she sat on our living room couch, propped up by pillows so she wouldn’t tip over, as medicine or nourishment dripped from a bag into her body.

Our daughter, Thing 1, Megan, now age 9, remembers little of that today when she dances or sings or plays soccer. All that remain with her are scars, six to be exact, and the array of pills she takes twice a day to help keep the disease at bay.

What would have happened if it took us more than two months and four doctors before we lucked into someone who could piece all the symptoms together? I don’t know.

I do know that the fourth doctor, the one who brought in others to see our daughter’s condition so they could easily recognize it if they ever had the misfortune to be presented with it again, was a step toward making sure other parents also never have to find out.

That, too, is my purpose today.

It is also my birthday gift to my wife, My Love, Rhonda, for all you have done these past seven years to make others aware of juvenile myositis diseases and help find a cure for them once and for all.

To read more about children and families affected by juvenile myositis diseases, visit Cure JM Foundation at www.curejm.org.

To make a tax-deductible donation toward JM research, go to www.firstgiving.com/rhondaandkevinmckeever or www.curejm.com/team/donations.htm.

They met in England while she was on vacation.  Six months after meeting him, Janet moved to England to be with him.

After he died, Janet talked about how he brought her flowers on ordinary days that had nothing to do with Valentines or anniversaries.

He was 54 when he died.  He was living in New Jersey and was a Vice President with the Aon insurance corporation.

He died on September 11, 2001 when Tower 2 of the World Trade Center collapsed.

And now, each year, on the 11th of September, people who didn’t know him in life will try to remember him – to grieve for him – because of when and how he died.

It’s an interesting thing to try to piece together pieces of a stranger’s life 8 years after they’ve died, using nothing more than the internet and Google.

It’s impossible to walk away feeling like you knew this stranger.  But here you are, pulling out bullet points of their lives in an attempt to prove to the world that they existed.

• He was, from what I can tell, a British national merely living in the United States.
• He loved to golf, and was – according to his friends – very good at it.
• He had a son named Chris.

And that’s it.  That’s all I found.  I could tell you that his love of golf was somehow familiar to me, or that his commitment to bringing his wife flowers was proof of chivalry or devotion.  Except that I don’t know that, at all, and to pretend to would be an insult to those who do.

I signed up for Project 2996 because it seemed like the right way for me to remember September 11th this year.  But what I realized in participating had absolutely nothing to do with patriotism or terrorism or heroism.

I was reminded, instead, that we are all so much more than bullet points.  We are more than our age or birthplace.  We are more than a list of those who survived or proceeded us.  We are more than the name at the top of our paychecks, or the dates on our tombstones.

And we are, infinitely, more than where or how we die.

We are, I think, how we live.

And when we’re gone, no one else in the world except those closest to us will know the intimate details of how we lived.  Neither the strangers we worry about judging us or the neighbors we worry about impressing will have their lives altered by how we live.  Or die.

So, I won’t pretend to tell you about the life of Richard A. Dunstan.  Only Richard A. Dunstan could tell you the truths of his life.

But I’ll stop for a minute today and think of a stranger, and hope that his truths served him well in life.

Because everyone deserves that.

Or, at the very least, the point I’ve been trying to make in an ongoing argument with Avitable recently.*

The entire article is a long list of new rules of behavior for “highly evolved humans” – aka, people living in the age of Twitter and Facebook and Electricity.  It contains words of wisdom like “Don’t Lie With Your Facebook Photo” and “Meet Online Friends in the Real World“.  You know, real cutting edge, life changing stuff.

But I’m not here to regurgitate the list to you.  That’s what hyperlinking is for.

No, I am here to tell you how to not be an asshole at life.

Namely:

“Never Unfollow Someone Just Because They Unfollowed You”

(That, by the way, is a twitter reference.)

Adam and I have been discussing lately why we befriend people, why we read blogs, etc. etc. etc. My answers are varied and mature and include things like “because I learn a lot from them” or “they are inspiring” or “they are funny” or “I love their writing” or “I love their heart”. Things like that.

His answer is, basically, “they like me/read me/stroke my ego in some form.”**

**I may be paraphrasing this a little.  It might be that he suggested this was one of the reasons he makes friends, but not the only reason.  Or that he didn’t use the term ‘stroke my ego’ specifically.  But I contend that his insistence that ‘investing time in people who don’t like you is stupid’ gives me creative license to quote him however I want.

My next response is generally something about him being an asshole and lacking a soul and me being clearly more evolved than he is.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that Adam’s attitude about measuring someone’s worth based on how they affect his worth is actually indicative of fairly common thinking.  The first time I remember encountering it was when I was 18 years old and talking to my then-ex-boyfriend-and-soon-to-be-baby-daddy’s current girlfriend.

They were fighting and I, in true martyr fashion, was trying to help him smooth things over and win her back.  Because I wanted him to be happy, and he was just sure in that moment that having her would make him happy.  (Please include this story on any future recommendation letters for my sainthood.)

“Why do you love him?” I asked.

“Umm… well… I know he really likes me,” she answered.

“Obviously.  And?”

“Well, he loves me.  I like that.”

Final answer.

My head nearly exploded and it took everything I had in my 18 year old body not to throttle the both of them right then and there.  Instead, I sucked it up and reminded her of all the other things about him that were awesome and had nothing to do with her that she surely knew and was just having trouble remembering at time.  Right?!?!

That conversation I had on a dingy covered porch of an old farm house in the middle of nowhere immediately rooted itself into my memories and my own moral code.  People are worth more than what they can do for you. They are more than how they make you feel.  And they are much, much more than how they feel about you.

It’s the same thing with blogs.

I read blogs based on the content, or something I see in the blogger – not based on whether or not they read and comment on my blog.  Adam?  Doesn’t read blogs by people who never comment on his site.

Because he is an egotistical prick, mainly.

(Who I love, still, somehow.  Because I probably need my head examined.)

I don’t understand this way of thinking.  At all.

If I like you, it’s because of who you are. That is not automatically connected with how you feel about me.

Granted, if you are an asshole to me, I might decide that who you are is not so awesome.  But that has more to do with your behavior and how you treat people than the fact that “well, fine!  If you don’t like me, then I don’t like you!”

Are we really all that self centered?  Does everything have to begin and end with ourselves?  Are we really that incapable of appreciating the value of another human being without immediately having to wrap it up in something having to do with us?

God, I hope not.

Because if so, you’re missing out on a lot.  There are a lot of really amazing people out there who have no clue that I exist.  There are a lot of amazing people out there who totally know that I exist and just – for whatever reason – don’t “get me”.  Or like me.  Or whatever.  But that doesn’t mean that I can’t still appreciate them all on their own, even if they never know about it.

The ironic thing is, what you’re missing out on is what those people can offer you. Whether it’s perspective or inspiration or simple entertainment, there are so many gifts that people who might not know or like you can bring to your life.

And on a less happy go-lucky note – choosing your friends based on how well they kiss your ass isn’t exactly the best recipe for surrounding yourself with interesting people. Sure, you might build yourself an impressive entourage.  So the fuck what?  Really?  What the hell are you going to get from an entourage besides a lot of head nodding from people with blank expressions?  You might as well just buy yourself a goddamn Bobble Head doll instead!

And now I have ranted myself out of a point.

Or a conclusion.

Shit.

*But since both Wired and probably Jesus would agree with me, I think I can officially declare this argument WON.

She wore a t-shirt and cut off denim shorts and a closely cropped haircut that was devoid of any styling product.  She smiled as she opened her home to me and quietly invited me in.  She seemed a little meek and unsure of how to greet me.

Shit, this is going to be awkward.

I hauled my oversized pink duffel bag out of my trunk and dragged it into her house.

“Thanks again for inviting me to stay here,” I said.  “It’s really great to meet you.”

“No problem.  It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Is there, um, some place I can go to change my shoes and freshen up a bit?”

She pointed me to a guest suite that doubled as her husband’s office and assured me that I could make myself at home.

“I’ve still got to get ready, but don’t worry.  It doesn’t take me long,” she insisted.

Great, we’re going to have nothing in common.

I took off the black high heeled sandals I’d worn to a baby shower earlier that day and replaced them with a higher heeled pair of strappy black dress shoes.  I removed the pin I’d been wearing to disguise a plunging neckline.  I exchanged a chunky bracelet and dangly black earrings for a silver necklace and hoops.  I reapplied my powder and added dark lipstick over the top of my clear lip balm.

From shower to slutty in less than 30 seconds.

I heard her let the babysitter in.  Moments later she knocked on the door to my guest room and I told her I was decent.

“I just found out the other day that we’re the same age,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, we were both born in 1980.  I always think that’s interesting when someone is exactly the same age as me.”

Yeah.  Interesting.

I noticed that she still wasn’t wearing any makeup and hadn’t changed clothes.  I suddenly wondered if my dress and heels were going to look absurd next to her shorts and t-shirt all night.  I wondered how late she had arranged for her babysitter to stay.  I wondered what in the hell me and this woman who was exactly the same age as me would have to talk about all night.

She was giving the sitter instructions when I came out into the living room.  I noticed the handwritten note she’d left on the counter with snacktimes and bedtimes.  I remembered the notes I used to leave my parents whenever I left my son with them.  On the counter beside the note was a small plastic tub filled with grapes and something crunchy.  I had the feeling that someone in the house knew exactly how many grapes were in the plastic tub.

I never counted grapes.

“I just have to pump and then I’ll get ready and we can go,” she said.

She picked up her electric breast pump and disappeared down the hall into what I assumed was her bedroom.  I glanced at my watch and realized we were going to be late.  I chatted with the babysitter and wondered again what the hell I’d been thinking by accepting an invitation from a woman I barely knew.  A woman who was obviously nothing like me.

Her bedroom door opened and I turned around to inspect what “getting ready” meant to her.

She was stunning.  She darted back and forth between bathroom and bedroom doors and I marveled at her tall and willowy frame.  She wore a silver tank top and slimfitting jeans and a black cuff on her wrist.  Her dark hair was shiny and perfectly tousled.

“Uh, I don’t wanna gross you out, but I’m going to shave my armpits,” she warned as I stood in the doorway of her bathroom and gawked at her.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked as she quickly dry shaved under both of her arms.

She shook her head and laughed, “I’ve been doing this since I was 13.”

I watched as she gave final instructions to the sitter and kissed her kids goodnight and found myself suddenly intimidated by her easy coolness.  She grabbed her purse and I followed her out the door and into her car.

She pulled out of the driveway and started talking immediately.  She told me about her job and her husband and where they’d gone to school.  She started telling me about someone she used to work for.

“He was just a dick, ya know?”

Did she just call someone a dick?

I don’t remember saying much as we drove to the bar where we were meeting the rest of our party.  I probably looked like an idiot sitting in the passenger seat and just watching her talk.  She reminded me of a character in some independent coming of age movie.  She spoke quickly, but quietly, with that cool confidence that I could never muster.  I bet she remembered the names of the authors she liked or the people who produced her favorite movies.

I felt ridiculous in my silver hoops and cheesy red lipstick.  I felt like an asshole for having judged this woman so quickly.

And I suddenly wanted very much for her to like me.

Do not make an ass of yourself tonight.

Of course, I did make an ass of myself.  Because if you put me at a table with people who tell stories on the Internet and let me order margaritas, I will inevitably get loud and stupid and act in a way that makes me wonder why in the hell I keep going out in public.  But Maria sat beside me all night and I didn’t catch her rolling her eyes at me even once.  She even pre-ordered drunk food for later in the night.

The next morning, after sitting up and talking to her so long that I literally fell asleep upright in her living room chair, I came out of the bedroom to find her in boxer shorts and black rimmed glasses.  She made me a cup of coffee and I sat and talked with her while she nursed her baby and played with her toddler.

We talked about the tattoos we wanted to get and the expense of trying to go green.  We talked about engorged breasts and doctors who were too tight fisted with anxiety medication.  We used the words fuck and organic in the same conversation.  I sat at her kitchen table until she finally picked up the phone and called to apologize to her friends for being late to their playdate.

I apologized for overstaying my welcome and quickly packed up my pink duffel bag.  I thanked her again for inviting me to stay and opening her house to me.  I quietly hoped that she’d agree to hang out with me again in the future.

I tell you all this to illustrate that I am an asshole.

But also because, as I drove home that morning, I kept thinking about how Maria perfectly embodied exactly what motherhood is.  I kept thinking about the complexity of who she was and how my initial assessment of her hadn’t been wrong so much as it had been limited and narrow and far too small to fit an entire person into.

I thought about how we are, all of us, too big for our labels.

We are not green moms or mothers of children with cancer.  We are not the Pakistani-American mother or the special needs mom.  We are not moms who scrapbook or moms who blog or moms who cook or moms who buy cookies from the store for the school bake sale.

And we are not good mothers or bad mothers.

By definition, we are simply women who are raising children.  We talk at length about how we raise those children and the millions of ways that there are to do that.  The differences in how we parent can be so vast and varied and my god with the talking about it that we mistakenly assume that it is the “raising children” that defines us.

But we are, first and foremost, women.

This whole motherhood thing, while big and important and sometimes all-encompassing and absolutely life changing, is simply another life experience heaped onto a whole mountain of other life experiences that make us who we are.  It is ridiculous to think that any of us could be so easily identified by only one or two of our experiences or by small fractions of our personalities.

And yet, we keep trying to do just that.

We sign up for playgroups and think they’re moms, surely we’ll have tons in common.  And then we beat ourselves up for not fitting in.

We show up for blogging conferences and tweet ups and think these people use the internet, surely we’ll have tons in common.  And then we wonder why we feel awkward and out of place in a place where we’re supposed to belong.

Or, worse, we see a woman who dares to answer her door without makeup and appears to be quieter and more soft spoken than us – and we assume we’ll have nothing in common.

“Women Bloggers: Have you seen this yet? I thought you’d find it particularly delicious. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30709961″

Hey, I’m a woman blogger!  So I checked out the link.

Apparently, yet another marketing company is trying to figure out how to market to women.  The computer company, Dell, has recently launched a new site it’s calling “Della” that is supposed to be targeted towards women.

Women in the 1950s, perhaps.

From the MSN article:

“Computer sales have slowed down, but has it really come to this? Dell, the world’s second largest manufacturer of PCs, last week launched a cutesy site for women called “Della.” What’s next, “Dello” for guys? Maybe No. 1 PC maker H-P wants to do something similar like “Hewlett-Packarda” for females, and “Hewlett-Packardo,” as in Ricky Ricardo, for men?

Sounds silly, just as silly as Della is. Netbooks and laptops are presented as fashion statements, and the site’s “tech tips” includes a feature, “Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life,” which starts out by saying, “Once you get beyond how cute they are, you’ll find that netbooks can do a lot more than check your e-mail.”

Among those uses: Finding recipes online (Wow! I didn’t know you could do that!), making “your mini … your meditation buddy as you take mini-breaks throughout your day (schedule them, with reminders, on your calendar),” and using a netbook “to track calories, carbs and protein with ease, watch online fitness videos, map your running routes and more.”"

I had to quote it from the article because it seems that “Della” has already gotten to updating their article and included words like “home office” and “translate your blogs into other languages” into the mix.

Gee, thanks.

Yet again, another marketing company fails miserably to connect with women.  And do you know why?  Because they can’t seem to figure out that women have brains and don’t need to be talked down to in order to be courted.  Apparently we make major purchasing decisions based on how ‘cute’ something is and whether or not it will help us ‘track carbs’.

Seriously?

Here’s a tip: if you want my money, don’t talk to me like I’m a moron.

That money you’re asking for?  I made it.  In fact, more and more women – I’d venture to say most

women – are responsible for earning at least a portion of their disposable income.  We’re no longer living in a world where women are sitting at home trying to decide how to spend the weekly allowance their working husbands gave them.

Try to imagine you’re talking to someone who is capable of holding down a job.

The thing is, you know the people who work at these companies were raised by and are married to women.  Hell, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that these companies actually have female employees.  They might even let women make real life actual decisions.  So why, when it comes to trying to sell their products to women, do they stop thinking about the women they know and immediately start talking to some washed up stereotype of what a woman was supposed to be?

Do you know what I buy based on whether or not it’s cute?

Clothes.  And shoes.  And fashion accessories.

And here’s a newsflash – the fashion industry understands that cute isn’t enough.  Women pay more for quality construction and fabric in our clothing.  Yes, even when it comes to fashion, we are able to comprehend concepts like value.

Do you know what else we understand?

Technology.

Math.

Computers.

Science.

Are there really people out there who see all of the hugely successful, powerful women in the world and assume that she must have some male assistant somewhere handling all of her technical issues and checking her email for her?  Really?

Why is this so hard for marketing and PR firms to figure out?  Women are taken seriously in politics and board rooms and households across the world, but brand managers remain completely clueless about how to talk to us.  I am absolutely baffled as to what is causing such confusion.  I’d also like to know what women these companies are consulting when they are putting together these campaigns.

I mean, surely it’s occurred to them to talk to women, right?

By the way, Dell?  Here’s another tip for you.  When you’re deciding what to name your new site?  Maybe pick a name with an available domain, instead of one that is already owned and being used by another company.

And thus concludes your marketing lesson for the day.

You’re welcome.

I was reading my wonderful friend Shari’s post about her experience at Blissdom. (No, this is not a post about Blissdom.) In this post, she mentioned a post that talked about the merits of a blogging conference that seemed to cater to an all white audience. (Actually, that post started talking about the possibility of a conference being faith based and somehow ended up talking about a conference being racially exclusive.)

Fast forward to a lot of comments from attendees and speakers indicating that they were neither racist nor white bread, so to speak. (My term, not theirs.)

One comment in particular from Megan at Velveteen Mind stood out to me:

“I’m a speaker at BlissDom and had no idea that there were no women of color on the speakers panel. I have no idea if any women of color are attending, either. Or lesbians. Or New Jersey Jews.

Which made me wonder if I even have any bloggers of color, etc., as editors or writers for my own magazine…

See, I’ve never checked. I have no idea of the color, sexual orientation, religious background, or affinity for gardening of any of my readers, twitter followers, etc. unless they talk about it. Most of us don’t post photos of ourselves. I’m not sure that other than having a white face that I’ve ever stated that I am white.”

I nodded my head in agreement with Megan and quickly decided that true acceptance comes from not even thinking about diversity. Right?

Then Kelly from MochaMomma knocked me on my intellectual ass, which she does on a regular basis, with her response:

“This is many many things. Political, personal, racial. And for the umpteenth time I’m going to put it out there for the very fact that it’s the lazy response of “Well, I don’t SEE color.” (emphasis mine) that gets my blood to boiling. When it cools I allow myself to feel the hurt that was really there in the first place.

Claiming that you didn’t know you were leaving people out? I call bullsh*t on that one.

The whole issue of exclusionary practice is news to most white, conservative people. (Note: I did NOT say “women”) When faced with a query like this the first reaction is defensiveness. It’s textbook. In fact, I’d be surprised if any other response came. (Though I’d be happy to hear, “Well, we reached out to WOC and didn’t get a good response.”) Then, the person who asks the question is made to EXPLAIN themselves.

This is a totally backwards way of working but the prevailing exclusionary view is that they didn’t even know they were being exclusive. (emphasis mine)”

I’m a white liberal, so you know when a black woman speaks up about race and exclusion that I have to stop and listen carefully. It’s in my DNA or something.

And that’s how I came to find myself taking stock of the people around me and how they’d gotten there. And wondering what that said about me and my core beliefs and the lessons I’d be passing on to my children.

I told you. White liberal. It’s what we do.

Anyway.

I don’t actively seek out diversity. If you asked me I’d tell you it’s because I don’t see color. I seek out friends and peers based on similar interests and intriguing personalities. But does that, as Kelly suggests, mean that I wind up being exclusionary by default?

No way, I told myself as I pondered my social consciousness. I have gay friends! In fact, I know a gay man AND a gay woman! And better still, my husband’s best friend is Mexican! And one of my good friends is Pakistani! And she’s married to an Indian!

And I’m two seconds away from telling you some of my best friends are black.

Jesus. When I start to look at my circle of friends that way, I feel like I’m gathering up token races and ethnicities to complete a set. All I need now is a Native American and I’ve got Yahtzee!

And now I’m utterly confused.

The last thing I want is to insulate myself or my kids from the diversity that this country – and the world as a whole – has to offer. There is real danger that grows from that kind of ignorance. And yet, I don’t want to begin befriending people because of the color of their skin and the cultural learning experience that they can provide to my family.

“Hello, yes, you there. You look ethnic. What are you doing for Sunday dinner? Me and my socially tolerant and diverse family would like to invite you over.”

Somehow I doubt that is what Kelly was suggesting.

But what’s the answer?

No. Seriously. This is the shit I think about. If we run the risk of not seeing color simply because there isn’t any color in our lives to see, is the solution to seek out opportunities to “diversify”? And if we do, doesn’t that type of ulterior motive sully both the seeker and the sought?

At the risk of opening a shitcan of worms, Oh Great Blogosphere, discuss.