Well, that explains everything

A lot of times I find the search queries that lead to this blog are very specific.  They often sound like essay questions or article topics.  So I’m never really surprised to find out that my work is being used.  What I am surprised by is the amount of blatant plagiarism.

I was reading an article about immigration issues for international adoptees when some of the text leaped out at me.  Maybe because it was so well-written.  The source?  An e-mail I had sent out previously to some individuals that was forwarded to a public listserv.  The article’s “author” had directly lifted my text and pasted it inside his/her crummy writing.

Last year I wrote a post titled “Internet Racism.”  And then I found this while traveling around the net.  It’s written as a “class requirement.” 

‘At last, honors for the first black Marines’

Adam Gerik for USA Today

Whenever military service came up I couldn’t truthfully say, ‘Yeah, I’m a proud Marine.  I tried to say it and it wouldn’t quite come out.

Joseph Smith, 87-year-old ex-Marine. Story here.

Dear adoptive parent

I have come to hate the phrase  “honoring her culture.”

You often hear this expression bandied about when white parents talk about their internationally adopted children.  But what does it really mean?

How does “honoring her culture” play out in the adoption community?

Oh internets

Subtitled:  A cautionary tale of woe in which the moral of the story is you should move every five years.

So I am busy decrapifying.  This is a lot of work.  Ideally decrapifying should be done on a regular (daily) basis.  Things should come in and then things should go out.  In the meantime, everything should be moved around and cleaned underneath, etc.  Rinse and repeat.

So I have a problem. 

STUFF.

I have been pondering my relationship to STUFF lately. It is a complex and shifting relationship that I often think centers around loss and regret. So much meaning packed inside STUFF. So much worth we attribute to STUFF.

Ultimately I think my problem is that for me STUFF means love. And when people love you, they should give you STUFF. The memory of the STUFF they gave you or didn’t give you persists.

Caveat

Will Counts Collection/Indiana University Archives.

“True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past.” – Elizabeth Eckford.

Those words are on a sticker attached to a poster titled “Reconciliation,” which features a photograph of the present-day Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan. The sticker was added after Eckford and Bryan’s relationship ended. Some details here.  You can also read author David Margolick’s interview here.  Here’s what he had to say about the rift:

Derrick Bell, 1930-2011

Steve Liss/Time Life Pictures