We have no Indian princess stories. They'd be hard to sell on my mother's side, which consists of Very Pale People. We do have a French princess who ran away with a coachman story. Since there's pretty good evidence that the only French part of the equation was Huguenot, it seems highly unlikely.

This post from Go Fug Yourself (a Well Played post) reminds me to comment on how much I love it that Queen Latifah got a Jenny Craig contract to lose 10 lbs. I actually think it was a brilliant move on the company's part: "See, you can come here even if you don't want to transform yourself into a stick figure!" [link]

Question: I have an eyelash stuck inside my eye. Somehow, trying to get it out, I pushed it so I can't get it out now.

Can I just leave it there? It's not bothering me that much, but the idea of hurt my eye while accidentally hit it too hard with my fingernails is.

Edit - thank you, Scarppy!

It will eventually work its way out, Shir. You might want to put in some eyedrops, if that's convenient?

It will eventually work its way out.

Good, then I'll let it be. Thanks!

Cat~ma to Sue.

Can you borrow any saline solution for contacts, Shir? Sometimes you can wash them out. I don't know that an eyelash will do any harm, except for driving you mad.

Latifah always looks great. She has a good stylist.

Shir, I would try and rinse it out. Do you have eyedrops?

I'm so sorry, Sue.

The family believed my dad had native roots because of the inability for the family to trace out of northern NY and Canada no matter how far back they searched. That and his physical appearance. Hard to say. No one to ask.

Shir, pull your top eyelid down so it overlaps the bottom one and blink several times. That should dislodge the eyelash.

Actually, there's also a factual basis for this. Mixed-race Indian men had very strong incentives to marry "down" the racial hierarchy -- that is, to marry a darker-complected mixed-race woman, or a black or Indian woman. Whereas mixed-race women could be "saved" or "civilized" by marriage up the hierarchy.

And then there's the practical consideration that in areas that were from a European perspective "frontier," you were going to have more white men than white women, so it's not surprising that a lot of those surplus white men married or at least slept with Indian women.

where a person gets to claim all the privileges of whiteness, while also claiming the drama, excitingness, and "authenticity" of an oppressed minority.

This is something I actually wrestle with a bit, since DH and Annabel are legally Cherokee but are mostly white. DH checks both white and Native American on census forms and such, and when we buy a house next year (if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise) we're going to go through a program for first-time N.A. home buyers. But I only feel right about taking advantage of their legal and technical Indian status as long as it's not taking anything away from anyone else--e.g. if that loan program were only available to a set number of people per year instead of to anyone who qualifies, I wouldn't want to use it.