Years ago, I was shocked into muteness to find out that incarcerated women sometime suffer the practice of giving birth in shackles? Really? In the United States? In the post-antebellum United States (as in the Civil War, not Lady Antebellum)?

I first found out about it nearly a decade ago, when I met Kemba Smith at a criminal justice conference and heard her recount the story of her own shackled childbirth. The whole idea of such a thing seems incredibly cruel, not to mention absurd. What is the fear — that an incarcerated woman in labor is bound to go all “Kill Bill” on someone any second… mercilessly taking out the hospital room staff and karate chopping her way to freedom? It makes about as much sense as passing the newborn through a metal detector before entering the nursery.

Tonya Williams of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now has spent two years researching the treatment of pregnant incarcerated women in the state of Georgia. Not so shockingly, it ain’t a pleasant story. Dignity, anyone? She wrote an article about this issue a few months ago. And now, after decisions in Washington state and Arkansas found that the practice violates civil rights and a major class action suit pending in Illinois, NPR has also picked up story.

The devastation in Haiti has many of us feeling that we must do something, be useful, however we can. People from the Haitian diaspora have been profoundly moved to action because their own families are in crisis. The rest of us are shaken by empathy and an inherent concern for human rights.

The question is what to do? Donate to relief, of course. But some of us would love to give so much more than our financial constraints allow. We know that we have skills and we would love if they could be put to use in a crisis. Perhaps we hope that doing so would give our professions and experience greater purpose.

Good intentions, good people… sign them up. What’s the problem?

Understandably, relief agencies are overwhelmed and not in any position to train hoards of disaster “newbies.” I’ve worked at enough resource-strapped non-profits myself to know that sometimes well-intentioned volunteers can make your busy day even harder, if they need lots of hand-holding.

I helped start a website for people like myself itching to be put to use, in the hopes that this could help streamline the process of matching people with appropriate skills to the organizations that can make the most constructive use of their time. Perhaps this could mitigate the flow of requests and organize them into something more structured when the time is right for the organizations.

I thought most people who joined this community might be like me, not at all contemplating an actual trip to Haiti but comfortable with the virtual world and willing to “get in where we fit in” from wherever we are. What we got was some of these types but also many, many people who were hoping to sign up for the next available flight.

Understandably, many relief experts caution against this. An under-prepared “vigilante” volunteer might do more harm than good and end up needing to be rescued themselves. However, a number of these potential volunteers are highly skilled and are realistic about the appropriate timeline for volunteering on the ground (i.e. longer term stints in the months/years following the immediate rescue crisis).

I am concerned about the commentary dismissing volunteers or characterizing them all as naive, misguided, humanitarian Rambos out to assuage their 1st world guilt. These are not fair generalizations and what is the constructive purpose of judging people who are inspired to lend themselves however they can without expecting financial gain? It also ignores the fact that a portion of these people are from the Haitian diaspora.

It would be far more useful for those who know the reality of development and disaster recovery to use their time, wisdom and experience to figure out ways to channel these would-be volunteers into something helpful (based on what they have to offer), rather than poo-pooing them from a pedestal.

Visionary: somebody of unusually acute foresight and imagination

Tool: One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used.

I graduated from an MBA program this year. It was an unconventional route for the likes of me: someone with a ten year track record of being a human rights proponent. MBA and human rights don’t normally break bread together. When business crosses paths with human rights advocates, it’s often at the wrong end of an angry press release. I went looking for a new bag of tricks for innovative thinking. I wanted to get outside of my box but are MBA programs poised to break new ground or are they just a different kind of box?

I’ve been reading “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession” by Harvard Business School’s Rakesh Khurana. I would seriously recommend this book for every MBA, especially those who fall into the “unconventional” bucket like myself.

Beach reading, it ain’t. It’s way more academic and dense than the typical MBA article/case but it’s brilliant and thorough. Presumably most MBAs will never bother to wade through it and many have zero curiosity about the social transformations and controversies that created the modern MBA curriculum. But that might just prove the author’s thesis: MBA programs have deviated from their original purpose of producing thoughtful intellectual leaders with broad business acumen, and instead have become vocational factories for corporate managers.

He has some good points. I’ll share as many as possible on future blog posts because, like I said, not everyone likes to read 500+ pages on this kind of thing. One of them relates to me as a liberal arts college graduate. We’re a bit against the grain in business school. We like controversies, critical thinking and chasing interesting experiences (even when we don’t get paid for it).

Turns out MBAs were originally conceived as liberal arts poster children. Instead of learning formulaic thought, they were supposed to ask probing questions and think different. Is this true for MBA programs today? If not, what does the change from “higher aims” to “hired hands” indicate about contemporary business leadership?

Greetings Sharda,

I am disappointed to learn that you were offended in one of our yoga classes on Sunday.  As a regular student I hope you know that our daily goal at *** is to create a safe and welcoming environment for all of our students. In fact this is the first time in 6 1/2 years that I have received feedback like this about a class.  Please know that X’s intent for the class was to honor exploration as a concept, not Columbus as a person or hero, and the fact that the use of Columbus to illustrate the concept of exploration might offend someone did not occur to her.  X often brings themes into her classes, and unfortunately your perception and her intention were incompatible.

I sincerely apologize to you and hope that you will continue to share your yoga practice with us in the future.

Namaste,

After I had a few days to simmer down and get constructive criticism from my friends (some who thought angry asanas and blog posts were passive aggressive), I wrote a letter to my yoga studio about the teacher with the Columbus affection.

I am a customer in this relationship and, at the end of the day, should be offering honest feedback. This is probably more useful than festering with resentment. I’m still glad that I didn’t say anything in the moment.  I was way too upset. Let me know what you think of how I handled the situation. Here tis…

I am a regular student at your studio but never took a class with X until this past Sunday. Please pass the message to her that Christopher Columbus is a sensitive topic for many people. He helped lead the violent conquest of indigenous people and enslaved Africans. Although new nations in the Americas were born from this process, Columbus’ legacy is difficult for those who are also mourning and remembering his brutality.

Ms. X should be more careful about the themes and analogies that she uses in class, so as not to alienate her students or make them uncomfortable. I was extremely disturbed that she chose to decide for us that we would honor Christopher Columbus with our practice. Imagine, for example, asking descendants of slaves to honor the slave traders who brought their ancestors to this continent.

She didn’t just use Columbus once but referenced him throughout class. Even though I tried my best to focus on my practice, it was weird, disturbing, unnecessary and ruined my experience.

Please ask her to be more mindful of her students and remember to be sensitive to the fact that her hero might inspire very different emotions in others. I would not ever choose to welcome Christopher Columbus into my yoga practice in this manner.

At one point, Ms. X congratulated me on pushing myself in class and honoring Christopher Columbus. I can’t tell you how angry this made me. She then asked why people don’t honor him more these days?

Please read below from Columbus’ log and ask yourself how appropriate it is to relentlessly laud this man in a yoga class:

“They brought us barrels of cotton thread and parrots and other little things which it would be tedious to list, and exchanged everything for whatever we offered them…I kept my eyes open and tried to find out if there was any gold, and I saw that some of them had a little piece hanging from a hole in their nose. I gathered from their signs that if one goes south, or around the south side of the island, there is a king with great jars full of it, enormous amounts. I tried to persuade them to go there, but I saw that the idea was not to their liking…They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Just because it’s a legal holiday, doesn’t mean that I have to celebrate it.

Today I took a yoga class with a teacher I’d never learned from before. She told us that the theme of our class would be “exploration,” in honor of Christopher Columbus. That was a weird moment for me, in the middle of a room where I seemed to be one of few… actually, I might have been the only “non-white” person.

I thought about leaving right then and there. I figured that I’d already been offended, was pretty sure that I would have a tough time concentrating on yoga, and the heated room was not going to help me cool down.

For years, I was self-taught in yoga. I was serious but avoided classes because I thought it might have too many awkward moments. I may be only quasi-Indian (half black American and raised with little or no Indian culture) but it’s still weird to be in a room full of white people chanting in Sanskrit… or having a Western yoga teacher know more than me.

I got over it, and started taking classes – for the most part, really enjoying them and improving my practice. I would have even enjoyed today’s class for the poses themselves, but not for the commentary on Christopher Columbus. The class was well beyond  awkward; it was infuriating to the point of rage. I was practicing enraged yoga, which was paradoxical but motivating. My poses were deeper than usual. I imagined each of them as a big middle finger to the teacher.

You see, Christopher Columbus, was an explorer widely credited with helping Europe find and conquer the Americas. How you feel about him has everything to do with whether you identify more with the aggressors or the people who resisted the invasion. Some look at him and give thanks for the victory and other’s… well, not so much.

In the path of his conquest, many indigenous and African people were killed. A good number of us in the United States count those massacred among our ancestors or we empathize with their plight. True, we are also descended from Europeans and have a new national identity as part of the U.S. But we’re still connected to the memory of the atrocities.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, a scholar and author of several books related to Columbus, including “1492: The Year the World Began,” said in the Associated Press recently, “Every hero is somebody else’s villain.” Part of me knows that my life is the legacy of Columbus. But that part is overwhelmed by sadness over the bloodshed caused by his “discovery” of the new world.

Even if my yoga teacher meant no harm–and it was just a coincidence that she happened to look right at me when she referred to Columbus being “open” to the “natives” — it still felt painful and humiliating to be in that situation. I was not getting any kind of bliss.

I imagined myself marching out in disgust, maybe slamming the door on my way out. But this was a yoga class. That would look extra crazy, as would cursing, spitting or any of the other things I felt like doing. Maybe this was just some sort of cosmic test for my ability to concentrate and continue with my practice.

After all, she wouldn’t bring up Christopher Columbus again would she? Yup, she did. Again and again. Among the most difficult moments, she said:

- to squat and reach our hands in an offering, like the native people to Columbus
- explore our poses like we were exploring the new land
- lift our knee up high like we were posing at Plymouth Rock
- do three versions of camel and the boat pose in honor of the Nina, the Pinta and Santa Maria
- when I did the full camel pose, “Good for you. Really pushing and honoring Christopher Columbus. People don’t celebrate him much these days. I wonder why…” (I eff you not)

Anyway, you get the picture. It went on and on… for the entire class. I would have been annoyed at seeing any analogy pimped this gratuitously but Columbus? The Indian killer, apologist for slavery, and ruthless opportunist? Really? In a yoga class? At the same studio with this quote in the women’s bathroom: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. – Jimi Hendrix”? Yoga class isn’t supposed to make one leave in serious need of a stiff drink.

I’m all for free speech. I like to exercise it regularly. The thing is that all this “death panel,” “communist,” and “birther” conspiracy stuff is reminiscent of other progress-fearing protests in U.S. history. We’re a young country with a diverse population but have long had a significant faction that doggedly resists change (particular as relates to equity and human rights), even when the time has clearly come and it makes logical sense.

If we could put the birthers and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and the random screaming people at the town halls in a time machine and plop them out in the sixties, it’s not hard to imagine them holding one of the these placards. I’m just saying that he/she who screams the loudest and the angriest is not always on the side that is most just. While these voices deserve to be heard, their volume should not be mistaken as a representation of the greater public.

la Chita

I’m looking through the roll call for the US Medal of Freedom honorees this year, and I must say that I like what I see. They’re like the dinner party invite list from heaven.

Special shout-outs to Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu for being huge role models for human rights advocates coming up in the world. I also have to give a thunderous whoot to Chita Rivera. I crossed paths once with Ms. Rivera. It was my senior year of high school.  She’s just won a Tony for “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” My best friend, a Broadway fanatic, and I were walking through Times Square.

The shows were letting out and a huge crowd formed in front of “Kiss.” We figured it was for Chita. We sasheyed to the front of the crowd, boldly pretended we were in the audience, congratulated Chita on her Tony, asked her to autograph something (we didn’t have programs, obviously), and shamelessly fawned over her.

I’d recently dyed my hair (myself). It was supposed to be blond but looked like fire. It was red, brown and blond. It somewhat ressembled a floral print. Chita said, “I love your hair, darling.” I said, “Actually, it was a mistake.” Chita purred, “Darling, there are no mistakes.” Shazam! That was deep. My friend used it as her yearbook quote. What a lady. Que viva, Chita!

You probably heard about last week’s controversy over NYC’s practice of sending homeless families off with one-way tickets to avoid the $36,000 a year cost of housing them in the city’s shelters.  Essentially, passing the buck on poverty. Is building more affordable housing units really that unreasonable? Seems like a much more stable and longer term solution that could also be more cost effective in the long run.

My favorite comment on the subject was the Huffington Post reader who quoted the Emma Lazurus poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”