kalmn

i'm adopting a kid.

i'm adopting a kid from ethiopia. probably a boy, although i won't know for a while yet.

you know where we keep ethiopia? right next to somalia.

you know where somalis have been moving to, a fair number of them, even though it gets a tad bit colder here than it does there? minnesota, where i live.

there are vast differences between somalis and ethiopians, and not even at that level-- there are various tribes, and various peoples, and where the peoples are is not where the national borders are.

while i'm sure amhara people look different from oromo people look different than somali (the tribe, not the nation) people look different than tigray people look different from the other 80 ethnic groups in ethiopia, i'm also sure that there are at least oromo and somali people in somalia, and likely a lot of the other ethiopian ethnic groups as well.

and i am exceptionally sure that to an average non-african-immigrant minnesotan, the differences are not going to be visible. please note, i am not saying that to your average non-african-immigrant minnesotan all black people look alike (although some people do have that problem); i am saying that while guessing where someone came from by looking at them is likely possible given enough information, most people around here do not have that information.

which means that godot, my soon to be kid, is going to have a lot of people, especially ones he doesn't know, think he's somali (the nation not the people).

you know what the thing people know about somalis here in minnesota? they're the visible muslims here.

i've been worried at some level about islamophobia for a while. i just realized that it's a level of privilege that i don't get to have any more to be worried about it on a theoretical level, or a some of my friends shouldn't come visit me in the states level or a very abstract level at all.

i'm not saying it's the same as being muslim and having all that hate directed at you. because it's not.

but it's still pretty terrifying realizing yet another reason why someone might try to fuck with my kid.

http://tinyurl.com/koq3fr

Gay ministers will be allowed to lead parishes, representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted today in Minneapolis.

for those of you not familiar with the lutheran church in its many weirdo varieties, the elca is the "mainstream" lutheran church. (there are also the missouri synod and the wisconsin synod, aka six miles to right of attila the hun and six miles farther right than that. as well as many smaller sects.)

i've been waiting for them to do this for twenty years, so i'm not in line to give them a cookie. but i am happy they've done this.