THE "I" AND THE "ME"
(1:20:00)Hieu: What make you different with other American?....that you don’t see the “I” very big.
Brinton: ……(Pause)……
Hieu: I am sorry…..I am just so fascinated…..about…..
Brinton: NO…NO…….I think ….that…. you know…..some of it is……um…….(pause)………some of it….is…….the family. …….Some of it was the way I was raised. And in some ways is I …think….because…I was a girl in the mid of that. I didn’t have the same kind of pressure to ….(pause)…..and because I was from a privileges family where I didn’t have to work as a child. …..I …was able to …..(pause)….to be ..a part of that wee-ness….., and also to be… in school where I could individually from that because I identified that there’re something positive ……The second thing is that I ….um…..(pause)…..I …there was thing ….um….that religious tradition which I was raised, a sense of …..humanity…of a large of…..humanity…and ..I think that I …..Am…..absolutely convinced that ……we have the possibility of constructing …um….of making changes. …And you know….some of it is also temperament, my sister who was only a year…eighteen months younger than me, once we’ve been talking to each other, and we have a lot in common, and we have….within our family….we have…..we …more progressive in politics …..we both interested academically …and intellectually….She actually is a psychologist now also….she went to Hollins and majored in philosophy…..and religious…
Hieu: YOUR sister?
Brinton: Yeah. But she….not an activist anyway……but …..may be she is an activist in her own way…..but she’s not politically engage or involved….but one of the thing about her and me quite different is ….she and I have acknowledge that I SEE THE GLASS OF HALF FULL…AND SHE TENDS TO SEE THE GLASS OF EMPTY. And so I have always seen the half glass full. And I have always thought ....that…(pause)…when things are as bad as they can be, .. …they …the possibility of them being better ….You see that quote there on that…..
(1:23:50)Hieu: it ….
Brinton: Someone gave me that line…at Divinity school. And I really do believe that is a false in reality …that we need to be about changing those things that are …not…promoting of human possibilities and of human collection transforming nation, and I think we can do that …..and I think the generation that I was experience, growing up, and as a young adult….was a generation of believing that we can make a difference in the world. And for whatever reason I still believe that. I am NOT a person who quit believing that. And I have been incredibly fortunate to have work with people who have enormous capacities to get up in the morning and they work all possible circumstances. And put one put in front of the other and feet their children and they survive …in some of the most terrific experiences I have ever witnessed to …um…and if….they can do it……
(1:23:40) Hieu: …Why not us…
Brinton: Yeah…you know. Um….secondly, I’m absolutely convinced that my life…..had I stayed in New Orleans and lived in an upper middle class white ….enclave that my life would be …profound…..a minute. Every person that I have gotten to know in my life who’s different from me, hasn’t reached my life and make my life…..enable experience humanity in very different ways. (p) um….and secondly I…um…..I think…it’s……it ‘s extraordinary burdens in some ways to be privilege. Because I….LI…VED every day knowing and asking majority of the world doesn’t…have choices? Doesn’t have the opportunities that I have, doesn’t have the capacity to go home at night and have a roof over the heads. To have food on the table and I ..think that …for me when we live in the world that have resources, so that….people could have those things. It…..not like we don’t have the capacity….It’s that we don’t have the WILL to make it happen. SO for me, the world is about try to distribute the resources that we have and for those of us, who have more to stop wasting so much that we have so that ….NOT…THAT I have to live on the dust floor without…. roof over my head……I don’t want to live that way. But I don’t want anybody lives that way. And IF I have to live that way, in order to understand that most of the world doesn’t live the way I live, and I DO have to live that way. I have to keep going back ….to sleeping on the dust floor in Guatemala, or else I will forget that (p)….. thousands of kids die every day from reventerval?? illnesses. Because it ‘s easy…for me to forget bout it…..I’m surrounded by BIG office where FINE …flag American ……..a family can live in this office. And It‘s my office because of the position I have in this University. Um…..and it‘s easy to forget these things. It‘s easy to forget …..and …what’s around you everyday.
Hieu: Talking about social construction again….I see problem, too,…in this country…….so let say all the movements …..that you have been doing, …and…the projects that’re involved with Humans Right and Women activities ……absolutely I understand that the work you did out side the country are big…big for them because ….it’ a lot of benefits….But….let narrow down in this country, do you think that all your activities and movements really change or impact in this society?
(1:26:40)Brinton: Hum….. (p)……hum…..that…that was a very good question!
…..um……(long exhale..)….(P)……I suddenly think that …um…the opportunities to have been involved and the anti-war movement …that have been involved in women movement, that have been involved in…Saudi –dArity (unclear…) activities with central America..um….to have been involved…to continue involved in variety of Human rights efforts. Um…..(P)…….H…A…S…created…(p) the possibility ….F….O…R ….things (p)…to be …more judge in this country. I think we are living at in exceptionally difficult historical moment, where the ….the sort of ……the penchalum..(unclear) has plunged ?? very much to the right to …We are living in a very conservative historical moment Politically …um…...We are living in the back last …weakened of the women movement….where young women don’t want to identify as feminist because …they think it’s kind of ……I don’t know what…but you know…. they think of it men hate them. And which for me it has nothing to do with hating men. Because everything to do with gender …being ….constructural…it’s critical to understand …a lot…....so we can organize. Um…..and although I suddenly have cocultivated… certain amount of …anger toward …a giving an individual man from time to time I don’t see men as a problem, I see men and women as either having opportunities create opportunities and a gyratory….system constructer or. ..preventing them….but …it is a very …you know…it’s difficult historical moment ..um we have entered into ..you know….for the US… to be able to launch a war against another country when there are absolutely …no threat to the United State…itself ….to have a congress that can support something like that….is a very frightening historical moment. And to be…living in the moment where the US has such extraordinary political power ….and economic power … internationally…on the hand it also a moment where there’s a huge part of the world where people hate United State.
Hieu: Uh….Yes! A lot……
Brinton: …..and hate people who are United State Citizens. And that is a very …um….(P)….it’s shameful moment in history. As far that I am concerned. I am shamed of the United State. I am ashamed to be a citizen of this country. And I am shamed for every way in which I don’t spend as much time as I can …..organizing again the policy and politic of the US government. …(P)…um….I don’t ever think that one individual is going to be able to redress social in justice. I know that any impact I have been able to have ….has been a part of a larger social process and part of a larger social movement. And I think those changes have been …minimal and I don’t…..I think it ‘s just through in the U.S. It‘s true in Guatemala. The work I have done in Guatemala has been a part of a group of women who had created new possibility for themselves and their children and their small village. BUT…..the violent in Guatemala can continue …the inequality in Guatemala is worse to day than it was before the war… that lasted for thirty six years. And that is a horrible…horrible reality …..to say…to have ….been a part ….for along time and a lot of energy and a lot of movement ….of trying to make something better, and to recognize that something are better ……of a large of contradiction …but larger oppression. IT’s still very much emplaced there.
Hieu: Look like we have a lot to do.
Brinton: ….WE..HAVE… A LOT… TO DO…..( she knocks her head…)