My 7 year old son, L, was telling me a story this week about the slip-n-slide at summer camp, and how much fun it was.   He said the first time he went so fast he slid off the end and got so covered with mud he “looked like a black man.”
It was just the two […]

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 I’ve been pondering this issue of “Cultural Tourism,” and realize that the better term for what I am talking about, experiencing and appreciating other cultures in a way to diminish prejudice, is more accurately named Urban Anthropology.  A tourist, by definition, is “someone who is traveling for pleasure.”  It is a passive view from the […]

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 While I risk being called a traitor as a St. Louisan defending a possible purchase of Anheuser-Busch by a non-American Company, as the wife of a Brazilian I must defend the fact that there are, indeed, ‘real businesses’ in Brazil. 
This stems from a conversation I was having yesterday.  I can’t remember the genesis of the […]

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I know, I know, many an ‘anti-racist’ will say that simply enjoying the foods and traditions of another culture as a ‘tourist’ does nothing to combat racism.  But, honestly, I disagree.  I’m raising a 7 year old, and for now I’m not going to go into in-depth history to explain why there is racism and […]

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 My husband and I were talking about the economy over breakfast this morning and he shared that he read in O Globo, Brazil’s major daily paper, that Americans saw a $1.7 trillion first quarter loss in net worth.  His commentary on that was that “the U.S. is losing its place as the unchallenged leader of the […]

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You know it’s difficult to talk about intercultural and interracial issues when you avoid talking even to yourself, in private, for fear of being offensive.
Certainly I jest, but only sort of.  There’s a couple of things I’ve noticed over the past nearly two weeks, and I have a couple of solutions to start.
1.  There’s something […]

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