Harvest Day is Coming

God bless the broken hearted,
The weary fighters,
The grieving mothers,
The silenced children,
The helpless protectors,
The faceless masses,
A voiceless people.

Long have your hands toiled the land without a harvest,
Long have your tears dried up against a violent wind,
Your voices echo forlornly in the shadows,
Your faces haunt the visions of the blind.

Harvest day is coming.
Put your plow to the earth
And whisper another prayer
For rain.

The War on Grammar

   Though most of you know me as a poet, I live a daily life following my passion for words in another way--teaching. I teach high school English. While it is not something I normally discuss on my blog, I feel that something important needs to be addressed today, and I am hoping you will help me spread the word.

   GRAMMAR. A word that plagues the lives of English teachers across America. This word alone has been used to demean our skills, justify our low pay, and shrug off our importance in your children's classrooms. The average person often isn't sure exactly what grammar is, though they often assume it has something to do with the squiggly lines underneath their writing in Microsoft Word.

Ok, so that isn't the true definition. The actual definition is this:

gram·mar

ˈgramər/

noun

1. 1.

   the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics.

(Thanks Google!)

   While grammar used to be a skill respected and demanded by society, expectations have decreased quite a bit due to one new little invention: social technology. Cell phones, emails, Facebook, Twitter...the list grows everyday with a new app or website dedicated to compacting as much information as possible into the least amount of characters. As it turns out, when worth is determined by how few characters you use, people build a habit out of cutting out--in all areas of their lives.

   So, my students begin their days on Facebook, upload their breakfast pics (see? they're not even called pictures anymore) onto Instagram, tweet their friends for a ride to school, shoot a quick text of "I <3 U" to their parents, and land on the doorsteps of our public school steps with phones in hand and minds left back in bed. It shouldn't be a surprise that, when they begin their English assignment for the day, I am often greeted with the following choice complaints: 

"Why do we have to do this?"

"What do you mean, this isn't a sentence?"

"How come you don't just grade for completion?"

...and the reason why I write this today...

"But nobody else cares about grammar!"

   It hits me like a grenade to the soul. You see, the results of the "War on Grammar" may be on my students' lips as they work, but it is fought and funded daily by you and me. The truth is, Facebook has over 1.3 billion active users, Twitter has over 675 million users, and over 425 billion texts are sent out each month (http://www.statisticbrain.com/). Most of us encounter the world of techspeak multiple times a day through our various uses social technology, and every day we make a choice to fight for or against proper grammar. 

   In case you're wondering how this affects our students today, here is an awesome graphic to educate you. But this isn't just affecting our teens. This is affecting our adults as well. Parents respond to texts in techspeak, post Facebook statuses without capitalization, shorten words by omitting letters or replacing them with numbers on Twitter...and eventually this ignorance or laziness spills onto the floor of our workplace. A study done by the Society for Human Resource Management and AARP says that 45% of employers surveyed said they have begun increasing employee-training programs to improve grammar in the workplace. Almost half of employers surveyed! 

   Sadly, I have personally seen evidence of this truth in my own workplace as well. Professional Developments with mistake-ridden PowerPoints, emails sprinkled with IDKs and emoticons, and everyday speech with a serious lack of proper subject-verb agreement invade my grammar-loving heart throughout the semester. When students come to my class complaining that "no other teacher cares about this!", I am no longer surprised. 

   So, why write this? To show off my own more-grammatical-than-thou skills? Not at all. In fact, any person who knows decent grammar could tear apart this article for its sentences starting in conjunctions or ending in prepositions, fragments without subjects, and punctuation errors for days. This article isn't being written to suggest we need perfection--it is being written to promote a more conscious attitude about grammar. But I can't do it alone. It takes a village to raise a child. So, here are a few things you can do to help our youth learn the importance of grammar:

1) Set an example for the grammatical expectations of situations. If you are hanging out at home, feel free to use slang and techspeak. If you are addressing a stranger in front of your kids (at the grocery store or bank for example), use more formal English. This will help them learn that proper grammar often serves as a first impression to strangers and that it also serves as a sign of respect for the person you are speaking to (or "to whom you are speaking" for those of you keeping track of my errors).

2) Correct your own grammar. This is a small action that makes a big difference. When you say "There's a few people I'd like you to meet", simply take a moment to rephrase with "Oops! I meant 'there are'". If you use Facebook to vent about "my too horrible coworkers", use the Edit tool (or leave a comment) to address the error and replace "too" with "two". (And yes, I'm sure you can come up with a sentence in which "my too horrible coworkers" would have been correct.) We humans learn by example, so let's teach each other that it's ok to make mistakes, but it's also important to correct them.

3) Look up what you don't know. If you ever question the correct spelling of a word or proper usage of a comma, look it up! Nowadays, you can Google anything, and most topics have websites, Wikipedia articles, blogs, and even Facebook Pages dedicated to them! (I personally love the Grammar Girl. Feel free to post a comment with your favorite site below!)

   For the record, I'm not judging anyone's Facebook statuses or tweets (at least not out loud). I'm simply asking for a little help in educating our youth. The truth is, I am the English teacher, but I am not the only one teaching English to my kids each day. We are all teachers of the English language, and it's up to us to help each other look our best in person and in print.

Do you like FOOTBALL?!

Thanks to my sisters at NFL Female, I have now begun contributing as a writer to a website dedicated to the women who love football! While many of you know me for my poetry, I do enjoy writing prose as well, and I hope you will take a moment to check out my article and leave a comment in response at:

http://www.nflfemale.com/featured/shae-obrien-fan-contributor/

 Should I write more prose? Would you like to read more? Let me know what you think!

Will a Dry Day Come?

I see you there

Standing in the rain

Dripping with regret

Searching between the drops

Breathless, choking

Desperate for an answer

As the storm rages on

Within you, around you

Washing all your hope away…

A Wake-Up Call to White Privilege

I was brought up with an air of entitlement. My mother taught me my rights. She encouraged me to question authority. From a young age I held a belief hat I deserved something--an answer, a polite response, a respectful tone.

If I didn't receive these things, I was brought up to fight for them. If someone stepped on me, it was because I chose to lay down. If someone treated me with disrespect, it was because I hadn't been clear about what was acceptable treatment to me. I could easily fix these mistakes made by others by fighting back--not physically, but through my words and example. Because I deserved better, and it was my responsibility to let them know that.

Now, my mother taught me how to treat others with respect, how to show them the same character I expected in return. However, after some thought and consideration now, I realize that my treatment of others did not dictate or correlate to the treatment I expected to receive--the treatment I believed I deserved. I did so because I was a good kid, but it did not change what I had a right to receive.

I used to believe everyone was brought up this way. If they were not, I assumed it was by some fault of their parents. After all, everyone should demand respect, answers, and acceptable treatment. The only thing stopping you from receiving it is YOU.

I was wrong.

The death of Trayvon Martin was a wake-up call to me, as a white person. Without going into specifics about the case itself, I found myself shocked beyond belief when George Zimmerman was found not guilty. In my mind, Zimmerman had followed Trayvon after being told to stop by dispatchers. He overstepped his bounds without any authority. Trayvon had every right to walk in his own neighborhood without explanation and to confront the person who dared to suggest otherwise. If it had been me, I would have expected an easy conviction, expected recognition of my right to self-defense, and demand that he face consequences for his actions. In my death, I would have expected my loved ones and society to expect and fight for the same.

However, my eyes were opened by the many responses I read, heard, and saw regarding Trayvon. I found many people in the black community talking about how he should have known better, been raised smarter, had more common sense. Statements were made that he should have known better than to be black, walking, in the dark. That he should have run home or simply laid on the ground, arms out, shouting "I am not armed!"

I have seen many responses from other races, though mostly people of the white community, saying he brought it upon himself by not running. That he assaulted Zimmerman. That Zimmerman had every right to follow Trayvon. That Trayvon was the one who acted illegally and Zimmerman was the one acting in "self-defense". They even made statements about how he should have been smarter and called 911, that this just should be more evidence that he was suspicious and deserved to be followed,  and that his confrontation with Zimmerman proved he was planning on doing something wrong.

While I can understand considering better possible choices Trayvon could have made, I was appalled that so many people placed blame on Trayvon, even to the point of assigning  him with a crime! This especially came as a shock to me since I know some of these people well enough to know that if it had been me they would have been outraged on my behalf. 

So, what's the difference?

The difference is that my race has been the "master" since the foundation of this country. The air of entitlement began with the belief that our slaves were less than us, that we owned them, that we had rights to them and over them. We wrote it in our laws, professed it in our churches, and showed it through our everyday actions. My mother taught me that I deserved the best because no one has ever dared to tell us that we don't.

The black community has a very different history. A history where their rights were taken from them, their names, their homes, their identity and worth. A history where they were disrespected, degraded, abused, and even killed, all while being told they earned their consequences. They were taught by our words, our hands, and our authority that the only way to survive was to put their head down, their hands up, and speak a soft "Yes sir."

And has it really changed so much today?

I think society's response to Trayvon's death answers that pretty clearly.

You see, my entitlement is a privilege. I don't have to worry when I walk down the street that someone will look at me funny or suspect me of a crime. I can wear a hoodie without concern that someone is going to associate me with a "thug life". I can question and even argue with authority without fear that they will abuse their power--or if they do, I will fight back with the expectation that my rights will be defended.

I wish I knew an answer. I wish I could take back the hatred and the history and give back the lives and respect. I do not blame the black mother for teaching her son how not to die. I blame the white mother who teaches her son how to hate as she locks her car doors when a black person walks by. I blame the white society that continues to put black people in their place with questions like: They got their half-black president, what right do they have to call "racism" now?

Did we not ask them the same when offering them their 40 acres and an ass? Why should they be satisfied with so little when we white people are taught to demand so much?

The truth of where we are now hurts me and angers me. We have so much more to do, so much further to grow, but until we (the white community) can admit that racism still exists and thrives, we cannot begin the conversation of how to fix it. The truth that most white people don't want to admit is this:

My badge is the color of my skin.

Your sentence is the color of yours.

It's time to change. It's been time for far too long.