On The Significance of Race

When I was growing up my family were not racist. My friends were not racist. We were all perfectly innocent of such disgrace. Racism was an American thing whereby black people weren't allowed to do certain things white people could till after the 1960s but that was all sorted now so the West wasn't racist at all any more except for really horrible people, of which there surely couldn't be many.

At least, that's what I thought. And if you're a white, working-class person of less than a certain age (and I don't want to start being ageist as well so I'm not being more specific than that), I'll bet you wouldn't admit it readily out loud but you thought that too, at least until you were in high school. Racism was when someone was beaten up because of their ethnic origin, or using the N-word to a black person or the P-word to an Asian person. You sang 'hold my hand if you're yellow, black or white' at the end of a primary school play. And be honest, you thought that song was a great weapon against racism. 

It was a slow, very gradual progression towards the dawn as I realised that I'd been living in an odd little microcosm of whiteness and weird attitudes, and as this writer explains (albeit from a far more extreme original stance), it's often somewhat of a perhaps self-created minefield once you try to do things right.

The real wake-up call for me has been in falling in love and getting married. My husband is not only black, but he wasn't born in the UK, though he has been here since he was a child. Suddenly I had someone 'different' as a huge part of my life, which had previously been largely made up of people who looked pretty much the same as I did.  Race was brought home to me in a way that I don't think it could have been under other circumstances.

At first it was witnessing other people's reactions to my partner-then-spouse. Mostly people were well-meant; occasionally they were asking for a smack. The worst thing for me, however, was knowing that there was once a point in my own history when the well-meant remarks wouldn't have even registered as deeply offensive.

As I said, speaking as a person from the main perpetrating race, I think some racism is actually accidental and down to ignorance more than hatred, though we all know that is also out there. But (God-willing), one day I could be the mother of mixed-race child. Publicly, on TV and in the press we may be very PC and inclusive but on the ground level we are only making snail-paced progress. That we have come a long way since the 1919 riots against mixed marriages is not a sign that we can let up on our self-re-education. If it's wrong to use certain phrases in the press, it should be wrong in the pub because if it isn't wrong in the pub, it won't be wrong among the little ones in the schoolyard.

FILM REVIEW: Instructions Not Included

Hopefully this will be third time lucky. It's hard to know how to begin a review for this film because in order to convey its power I would have to give away a pretty hefty plot twist, and I couldn't do that because I really want you all to watch this for yourselves.

Just ask hubby: I pride myself on working out the plot twists of Hollywood films on a regular basis (not blowing my own trumpet - much). But I completely and utterly failed to foresee the ending of Instructions Not Included.

Valentin (superbly played by Eugenio Derbez, who also directs here) is a cowardly love-rat from Acapulco, Mexico, who still resents his father's 'Feel the Fear' attitude to child-rearing and who sleeps with any pretty tourist passing through his town.

However, one weekend an old flame he barely remembers (Julie from America, played by Jessica Lindsey) turns up with a baby in tow, introduces Valentin to his daughter Maggie and then promptly leaves to pay the cab driver...which Valentin realises far too late is code for 'fleeing to catch a plane without the baby.'

To cut a long story short, he sneaks into America illegally, hoping to find Julie at a hotel in L.A. he knows she once worked at and when he can't find her, ends up bringing the baby up himself in Los Angeles, supporting them both by becoming Hollywood's best stuntman. A particular delight is the excellent Johnny Depp impersonator playing a pastiche of the real Johnny Depp, one of Valentin's best friends after they've worked together on several Pirates of the Caribbean-like movies.

I am amazed that my raucous laughter did not wake the neighbourhood (I was watching this well past bedtime). This movie, though it didn't grab me in the first ten minutes as exactly hilarious, turned out to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. And then some.

Even when a now seven-year-old Maggie is reunited with her mother and Julie even manages to win full custody of the child Valentin has raised for six years, the laughs are played in full. There are sad moments but they are always quickly followed by much hilarity because this film is a comedy, right?

Wrong.

VERY wrong, because this is possibly the cleverest part of Instructions Not Included. The whole time you think you are watching a great Spanish-language film and laughing your socks off, you are really only watching Maggie's perception of the movie. Again, as I said before, I can't spoil it for you, but when you get to the part where the true story of Instructions Not Included comes out, you will look back on everything that went before and see every little joke in a newly sorrowful light. All the time Julie is arguing that Valentin - with his crazy job and his apartment that makes Toys 'R' Us look boring - is still too immature to be a father, only Valentin and his boss Jack know just how amazing a parent and how different a man he has become.

To put this into perspective, if I worried that my laughter would wake the neighbourhood, I did not expect to suddenly be crying so inconsolably that I did wake my husband who dashed downstairs thinking there had been some message of calamity via text.

I really can't say any more, except go and watch it for yourself. It is on Netflix. If you don't have Netflix, I'm sure one of these other streaming services has it, and failing that, there's still always a DVD.

The Celebrity Saint

My post today is called the celebrity saint because once this man was the top ratings winner on American TV. He made guest appearances on quiz shows for the missions just as celebrities today appear on Family Fortunes to raise money for secular charities. He was even the inspiration behind then unknown Catholic actor Ramon Estevez's name change to Martin Sheen.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen is today not widely known, though he deserves to be.

He was born Peter John Sheen in El Paso, Illinois on 8th May 1895 to Newton and Delia Sheen, and was the eldest of four boys. He later changed his first name to Fulton, his mother's maiden name, in her honour, following her death.

When the family moved to Peoria (also Illinois) young Peter got his first experience of serving at Mass when he became an altar boy at St Mary's Cathedral.

He was an exceptional student at both school and university, and excelled in debates, showing an early aptitude for public speaking. After attending St Paul Seminary in Minnesota he was ordained to the priesthood in 1919 at the age of 26.

Fr Sheen studied further at a variety of universities in America and Europe, including for a PhD at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. During his time there he was the first American to win the Cardinal Mercier award for the best philosophical treatise.

One of many true but funny stories he told during his later televised sermons tells how he felt moved to go to Lourdes during the holidays whilst a student at Leuven. Having no money, though, he borrowed his rail fare from his brother who was also a student of the university. He decided that as Our Lady had probably inspired his desire to see Lourdes, she would help him find the money to stay there. He also told - rather embarrassed, years later - how he had thought at the time that if the Blessed Mother could miraculously find the money for a hotel, she could just as well find him a lot of money as a little, and so he booked himself into the best hotel in town.

A week of praying at the grotto for the funds to pay his hotel bill passed, and no miracle came. The day he had to leave the hotel also came and he decided to make one last desperate trip to the grotto to apologise for his extravagance and ask Our Lady to help him. On his way back to the hotel, wondering what on earth to do, he was approached by a wealthy American man who asked "Are you an American priest?" Young Fr Sheen answered yes."And do you speak French?" was the next questions. Yes, he did, fluently. To paraphrase Bishop Sheen's own description, the gentleman then asked the most interesting question the young priest had ever heard: "Have you paid your hotel bill yet?"

The man turned out to be not only rich but also a devout Catholic who needed a French-speaking tour guide for the next two weeks, and he and Sheen became life-long friends.

Fr Sheen studied further at the Pontifical University of Rome before he finally became a parish priest. Twelve months were spent in London at St Patrick's in Soho whilst also lecturing at St Edmund's college. In 1926 he took over another St Patrick's, this one back home in Peoria. Less than a year later he was to return to teaching in Catholic universities, where he remained until 1950.

On 11th June he was consecrated a bishop and served as Auxiliary Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York until 1965.

Fulton Sheen wrote a total of 73 books during his life. In 1930 he began a weekly Sunday night radio show called The Catholic Hour. Within twenty years he had a dedicated audience of four million people. Time magazine referred to him as 'the golden-voiced Monseigneur Fulton J. Sheen, U.S. Catholicism's famed proselytizer,' and reported that the radio show received up to 6000 letters a week from listeners. During this time Bishop Sheen became the first priest in the world to conduct a televised Mass, which inspired him to graduate to regular television work. His programme Life is Worth Living began in 1951 and is regularly repeated even today on the American Catholic TV Channel EWTN, which is where I discovered him. It was filmed at New York's Adelphi theatre in front of a live audience and Bishop Sheen took no fee for this work. Any money that was made went to the overseas missions. He was noted for never needing to use cue cards or notes and stated that this was because he had once heard a lady in church say of the priest who was reading his sermon at the lectern, "If he can't remember it, how does he expect us to?"

Life is Worth Living was so popular entertainers Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra struggled in the ratings on other channels. Fan mail jumped to 8500 letters a week and in 1952 the show won an Emmy award. In his acceptance speech the bishop said "I feel it is time I pay tribute to my writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

He spoke on matters of the Catholic faith obviously, but also on politics (particularly against communism), psychiatry, philosophy, comparative religion, history and literature. He always began his speeches with funny anecdotes or jokes, dropping more throughout until he reached the climax where he would passionately make his final argument. The show ran till 1957 and at its height drew in 30 million viewers.

Following this he was director of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from 1958 till 1966 when he was made Bishop of Rochester, New York. He also ran a second TV series called The Fulton Sheen Programme from 1961 to 1968.

His speeches have been available to buy since 1974, first on reel-to-reel tape, then cassette, CD, DVD and now on the app store. Profits have gone toward rebuilding poor parishes, charitable contributions abroad, the Pope's missionary charity and now also to help fund the cause for his canonisation.

By then an Archbishop, Fulton Sheen died of heart disease on 9th December 1979. He is interred in the crypt of St Patrick's Cathedral, New York. The cause for his canonisation was opened in 2002 and on 28th June 2012 he was made Venerable.

On 6th March last year it was announced that Vatican medical experts could not determine a natural cause for a miracle attributed to Archbishop Sheen. Parents Bonnie and Travis Engstrom from Peoria prayed for his intercession when their baby son was stillborn. Doctors tried and failed to save the child but 61 minutes after his birth his heart started beating and his little lungs breathing all by themselves. The child is now in school and has none of the brain damage doctors expected from the length of time his brain had been starved of oxygen. He is a healthy, happy little boy and his parents named him James Fulton.

Archbishop Fulton John Sheen brought hope to his viewers and faith to the faithless. He converted many souls, including Henry Ford II. He raised money for the poor all over the world and inspired a generation. He needs two more miracles before he can be made a saint and I fervently hope these will come.

I'd like to end my post the same way Bishop Sheen ended each of his talks: "Bye now, and God love you."

On My Life As A Physical Comedienne. Sort of.

I had no idea I was such a prophetess.

According to @BrainInjuryNJ, March is Brain Injury Awareness month. At least it seems to be in New Jersey. And March has definitely been a brain-injured month for me. 

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@sirclancelot) may have seen my Valentine's tweet.

It actually began on 12th February when the hatch on my sister's car boot fell on my head as I was retrieving my shopping. I was a little dazed but being dyspraxic, I'm used to frequent minor injury so I thought nothing of it. However, such was the force of the whack, it apparently caused temporary amnesia and when I was puzzling about the cause of dizzy spells and nausea for the next few days, I had to assume I was coming down with a bug. That was until the earthquake hit Friday night when I was at work. 

Except it wasn't a real earthquake. Upon frantically looking around at my colleagues, all getting on with their work as if nothing had happened, I realised that the earth hadn't quaked and my head and simulated it. I sensibly went on the NHS symptom checker when I got home and was somewhat shocked to learn I'd had a mini-stroke. 

Except, having completely blanked out the memory of Thursday's whack on the head, I hadn't completed the symptom checker correctly and what I really had was concussion. Thankfully I did remember and having had concussion goodness knows how many times before, I wasn't worried. Valentine's Day came and the tweet basically says it all. Such bad concussion this time (like I've never had before) that I had to leave work early and go to hospital because I wasn't sure what year it was.

It's quite possible I didn't rest enough so I was still quite concussed a couple of weeks later when I was on the top deck of the bus with my friend Andi when we went over a rather large bump in the road and I inadvertently punched myself in the temple. I laughed just as much as you probably are doing now when I was telling that little anecdote to shocked but wildly amused family and friends.  

More dizziness ensued. I resigned myself to having a probable second concussion, and then on Mothering Sunday my younger niece thwacked me over the head with my Mum's crutch. Cue more hilarity and comments about it coming in threes. In Enfys's defence, it was completely accidental. Not sure why she was swinging Mum's crutch about but her coordination is about as good as mine so it was a foregone conclusion, really. 

I have been concussed more times than I've had the 'flu'. In fact, when my eldest nephew is careless with his own head (it's a family trait, unfortunately) the standard family advice is "Don't do that! If you hurt your head too many times your cleverness falls out of your ears! Just look at Aunty Liz!" Which brings me to the serious side of this blog post.

Nobody has laughed more heartily at my penchant for hitting the old cranium off things than I. It's like something out of one of my favourite sitcoms or films. I have gleefully retold how the latest injury this month occurred, leaving the actual detail of how it happened till last for perfect comedic effect, enjoying the hilarity as much as if I was telling how I saw Delboy fall through the bar in that iconic episode of Only Fools And Horses. 

But my most recent visit to hospital necessitated a brain scan to make sure I hadn't caused internal bleeding. Apparently the severe symptoms I presented with can be a sign of that. Thankfully, everything was fine in that respect. However, repeated concussion can have long-term ramifications. 

For a start, it makes dyspraxia much worse if you already have it, and can even cause it if you don't: the term 'punch-drunk' is actually a colloquialism for acquired or adult-onset dyspraxia, which is caused by severe or repeated head injury. You can lost IQ points, so in a sense our warning to Leo about losing his cleverness is true. Frighteningly, another thing repeated concussion can do is increase the likelihood of having dementia in later life. 

Even on a short-term basis my ability to cook anything edible appears to have disappeared when normally I pride myself on being a rather good cook, if not quite to Nigella standards. I've fallen behind with my share of the housework and when I'm not at work, I'm usually asleep on the sofa because I'm drowsy a lot more than usual. I'm having to drink a hell of a lot more coffee than usual just to have the energy to get dressed each day, and being a coffee fiend normally that really is saying something. 

This may sound like a poor-me blog. But as someone who has been repeatedly concussed it's surprising to realise that only this month have I really started to understand concussion and that it is a form of brain injury. Unfortunately, my lack of awareness is not isolated and outside the medical profession it only really seems to be professional athletes involved in contact sports whose knowledge comes close to adequate. 

So, with just a little more than a week left of Brain Injury Awareness Month, I thought it was time to stop entertaining people with my clumsy antics and raise some awareness. I've always loved to play the clown and certainly generated a lot of my own material. But perhaps some physical comedy shouldn't be funny. And maybe the sad clown was once painted happy till he did irreparable damage. 

JE NE SUIS PAS CHARLIE

Am I alone in finding the #JeSuisCharlie campaign somewhat misguided?

Let's be honest: whilst nobody in their right mind believes the Paris attacks were justified let's not kid ourselves that this is about free speech. It's simply not. There are certain views in the western world that are deemed acceptable and others that aren't.

The Huffington Post’s Mehdi Hassan said it well in his article of 13th January: ‘When you say "Je suis Charlie", is that an endorsement of Charlie Hebdo's depiction of the French justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who is black, drawn as a monkey?...Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic.’ He also hits the nail on the head when he refers to what has been dubbed ‘free speech’ as really being ‘the right to offend’. Mr Hassan does miss the point somewhat with the remark ‘Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren.’ Presumably he failed to notice the plethora of equally grotesque and sexual cartoons directed at Jews and Christians.

I preferred another Twitter hashtag #JeSuisAhmed named for the French Muslim policeman shot by the terrorists on 7^th January who it can be argued died protecting the right of Charlie Hebdo to ridicule his beliefs.

José Antonio Gutiérrez argues that ‘…that to condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo is not the same as celebrating a magazine that is, fundamentally, a monument to intolerance, racism and colonial arrogance’ in his article ‘Je ne suis pas Charlie (I am not Charlie)’ for anarkismo.net.

People of faith, particularly the big three, have to qualify any profession of belief. “I’m a Christian but I don’t support homophobic abuse.” “I’m a Muslim but I don’t believe that women are inferior.” “I’m a Jew but I don’t support Israel’s atrocities.” Our ‘tolerance’ should be ‘embracing’ while we are merely tolerated.

And now I had also best reiterate “I might detest what Charlie Hebdo stands for but I don’t support terrorism.”