Melba Tolliver, Accidental Anchorwoman: May 2012

Saturday, May 12, 2012

You Have No Idea

You Have No Idea, is a book just out by Vanessa Williams and her mother, Helen Williams. It sent me to my archives for this piece I wrote for Right On/CLASS magazine about Vanessa's first official appearance as Miss America, 1984. Vanessa, just twenty years old at the time, told me that determination was what she most admired about herself. No doubt that's what drove her to keep going when an early nude photo of her surfaced and she lost her crown in the ensuing scandal. The character trait she drew on when dealing with other personal and professional ups and downs over the years.

Much has changed in the culture since Vanessa Williams' win in 1984. But determination may be something we need now more than ever. What do you think?

Making Waves and Riding the Currents
When was the last time you heard a public official talk out loud about trying to make a living while also trying to feel that their work had meaning?

In his foreword to "Making Waves and Riding The Currents," Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration addresses this struggle. The foreword is reason enough to check out this book. Just as it should, Reich's foreword proves to be a perfect set up for author Charles Halpern's story.

A Yale trained lawyer, Halpern strayed from the prestigious law firm path and, with a small band of like-minded colleagues, stepped onto the uncommon road of social entrepreneur. Together, they created the nation's first public interest law firm (Center for Law and Social Policy) and one of the firt public interest law schools (City University of New York Law School).

We often take for granted some things that didn't exist until someone saw a need and invented them. A branch of law practice devoted to public service and social policy is such a thing. It's practitioners take on defense of the environment, challenges to irresponsible corporate behavior and mis-treatment of the mentally ill, among other issues.

I was moved by Halpern's commitment ---not just to this kind of law practice, but also by his thoughtful reflections on wisdom as a practice. It helps that he carefully distinguishes between being smart---that is well educated---and being wise. Wisdom, he writes, entails being grounded, reflective, insightful and compassionate.

Cultivating these qualities as a way of being, he says, is possible for all of us and will make us wiser.

Vibration Cooking
As I recall, Verta Mae's "Vibration Cooking or the travel notes of a geechee girl" was a sensation when it was published in 1970.

Sad to say, I neglected reading it then. But recently I spotted a copy in the most unlikely spot: on a featured reading display in the public library of Easton, PA. Not exactly the kind of place I would have thought amenable to featuring the writings of a Geechee girl! So much for my stereotyped thinking.

"Vibration Cooking"could just as easily have been titled, "The Audacity of a Self-Confident, Adventurous, Rule-Breaking Black Female When Writing a Predictable Recipe Book is Not Enuf."The book cover gives a clue.

Part travelogue, part cookbook, part memoir, "Vibration Cooking" is outrageous in its total disregard of the proper etiquette for cookbook writing. So, don't look for many precise measurements, orderly listings of ingredients, cooking temperatures or other familiar directions. With Verta Mae, you are mostly on your own if you have a taste for bar-b-qued gator tails or lamb loaf, though most dishes do have just enough how-to instructions.

Recipes aside, this book is fun reading. And it's liberating, if you're game and willing to trust your own vibe. After all, according to Verta Mae, who obviously set out to demolish the mystique surrounding the culinary arts, "Food is food. Everybody eats."

Outliers
"Outliers: The Story of Success" is the third fascinating book by Malcolm Gladwell. "Tipping Point" and "Blink" were his earlier ones.

"Outliers" opens with the story of Italian immigrants who come to the United States from Roseto Valfortore in 1882, eventually settle in eastern Pennsylvania and name their new place Roseto after their hometown in the old country.

I happened to have canvassed in Roseto last year for then-candidate Barack Obama in the run up to the general election. And believe me, Obama was a hard-sell in this close-knit community of Italian Catholics. More so, I thought, because when Rosetans answered my knock at their door, I would be there, me, a black woman trying to persuade them to vote for "the black guy", as Obama was often described to me.

Anyhow, in the opening of "Öutliers", Gladwell tells how Rosetans astonished medical researchers when a study found them to have an unusually low incidence of heart disease among their elderly. This in the 1950's when heart attacks were a leading cause of death among older Americans, men especially.

How could this be? Researchers had no answers. It wasn''t diet, or exercise, or genes, or anything they could put their fingers on. Roseto was an outlier, a place that lay outside the usual experience.

Rosetans were extraordinarily healthy, it was finally determined, because of their connections to each other--in short because of their bonds of culture and community. Not because of anything that could be traced to the individual.

In"Öutliers," Gladwell reveals other instances where success, under close examination, can be attributed to factors often overlooked when we simply rely on conventional wisdom. One example is the birth years shared by certain groups of successful people.

There were times, while reading this book, that I had to put it down. I was so filled with food for thought, that I needed time to savor and digest it. It's that kind of book. It will make you think about how we think about success...and more.

Melba Tolliver, Accidental Anchorwoman

Saturday, May 12, 2012

You Have No Idea

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