Spouse Beater

Last Thursday, an hour after my last post, my brother called me at work after getting two emails about his wife beater shirt and he said, “Amy, what did you do?” How quickly he assumes it’s me! I innocently said, “Greg, what’s the matter? What are you talking about?” while trying to stifle my laughter. I told him to look at my blog. He thought the whole thing was funny and his partner fell off his chair laughing when he heard what I did and then said that Greg and I were cut from the same cloth. See, a few months ago there was this email that went around from this lady who was appalled that the US Postal Service would print a stamp depicting an Islamic holiday; since all Muslims are terrorists and all (very heavy sarcasm here). So, my brother decided to email everyone he knew and have them send her a postcard with the stamp and a nice note or smiley face (who knows why her mailing address was on the email). Of course, I thought this was great and sent off several. So, see we think a bit alike. Although, in the case of our views about how language affects people we see things differently.

By the end of the day on Thursday Greg wasn’t laughing as much anymore since he had been inundated with emails (nice job everyone!). For some reason he felt compelled to answer them all and he signed them “give my love to Amy” which I, and my office mates, found hilarious. Being a stubborn soul he emailed me and said he was definitely not changing the name of his shirt now. Although on his website it is now called “spouse beater” instead of “wife beater” so we can have equal opportunity abuse. Wouldn’t want to favor the wives now would we?

Fortunately, my bro and I have a good enough relationship that we can tease and even be mad at each other and it’s all still good. I feel very fortunate about that. However, this has really made me think about how even though we grew up in the same house we had very different experiences that have probably shaped how we view things. For one, we went to very different colleges (Me – medium-sized, diverse public school in NC, Greg – small, private, yuppie college in FL). I’ve also lived all over the country and probably grown more aware of racism, sexism, and other oppressions than he has and I’ve tried to educate myself and read about it and talk about it with people. I’ve even facilitated groups on social justice issues. There is just a lot of crap out there and I feel like the people in the best position to make a difference are those in the majority (i.e. white, male, heterosexual). I don’t want to get on a soap box because there is so much more I could do to make this world better.

Another thing about Greg and I is that even though we are only four years apart we are in different generations. He is in The Millennials and I am a Gen Xer, which means that different events shaped our lives when we were growing up. I won’t bore you with all the details of our lives growing up, but I think that our experiences have shaped our perceptions of life and that’s partly why he doesn’t get the “wife beater” complaint. Hopefully one of his buyers will complain about it and that will carry a lot more weight than me, his lowly sister. Until then - there are worse problems to worry about.

That’s all for now. Adios!