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What if Everyone Had Enough?

/ momshieb / 6 Comments

Photo by Jacob Morch on Unsplash

I’m sitting here looking out my window. It’s cold and gray, and the woods look depressingly empty of life. The news is on, but I’m not paying full attention. I’m sad. I’m scared for the next few days in my country. I’m sad about the past four years. And actually the four before that. And going back even further.

I’m remembering the days of Occupy Wall Street, when thousands of people felt so cheated by the economic and governmental systems of the US that they took to the streets to protest. There were huge crowds of angry people blocking banks and businesses, demanding a fair chance. Demanding a share of the profits that Wall Street and its investors were reaping.

They were called leftists. Radicals. Socialists. Anarchists. What motivated them to protest was their belief that no matter how hard they worked, they’d never be able to get to an economically secure place in life.

The past several years we’ve seen more and more anger from people who are called “right wing” and “reactionary”. They’re labeled as racist, white supremacist, fascist, radical. This past week we were all horrified to see that rage erupting into a violent assault on the government and our elected leaders.

What are they so furious about? They feel like they aren’t being treated fairly by the economic and government systems. They feel like their lives are insecure. Like what they are entitled to have is being kept from them. They think they’re being cheated. They feel like no matter how hard they work, they’ll never be able to get to an economically secure place in life.

And it has all got me thinking.

What if everyone had a reliable income? I mean, like what if the minimum wage was actually enough for people to live on and to take care of a family? What if a person could work 40 hours a week and earn enough for food and rent?

And what if everyone could go through life knowing that if they get sick they can go to the doctor? What if parents knew that they would definitely be able to pay for a trip to the emergency room if their son broke his arm? If Americans, like people in nearly every other country on earth, got health insurance guaranteed, I wonder how that would impact the fear of losing a job?

I’m sitting here thinking. What if every single kid was able to dream of college? What if even poor kids in small rural towns knew that as long as they got good grades, they’d be able to afford college? What if that motivating dream was actually out there in front of every child, instead of just the wealthy one?

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a radical. A damn socialist. A leftist.

Whatever.

I just wonder if some of the rage that is tearing us apart would dwindle down in a country with less inequality. I wonder if we’d be less likely to attack each other if we weren’t afraid for ourselves and our families.

Given everything that has just happened here, maybe we should at least try it.

I Vote for Them

/ momshieb / 1 Comment

I voted for these two. And for their baby brother. I voted for the kids my sons haven’t had yet. I voted for the children my nieces and nephews haven’t yet conceived.

I voted for the kids whose parents were desperate enough to bring them across the border in search of safety.

I voted for the children of my children’s children. And for the children of people I haven’t met. And the children who will one day be the friends of my children’s children.

I voted for the future.

I cast my vote this year for the earth. I voted in the hope that we can still find a way to stop California from burning. I voted because I believe that humans are creative enough to utilize the power of the sun and the wind to heat our homes and power our factories.

I voted. I voted in tears, and filled with fear. I voted with my heart full of love for my sweet grandchildren and the future that I hope awaits them.

I voted.

And now I wait.

I wait to see if my countrymen will accept the outcome of this pivotal election. I wait to find out if my country will turn itself around and move back toward a marginally democratic government. I wait, in fear, to find out if it will continue to move toward autocracy. I sit with my head in my hands, wondering if my fellow citizens have fallen for the lure of easy answers, the promise of magic bullets, the lies that promise no more sacrifice and no more worry.

I voted.

I voted for the people I love most on this little blue planet. I voted for them.

I’m afraid that I have voted in vain.

I’m afraid that more than voting will be required of me in the future.

My Overwhelming Dread About Election Day

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

It is November the first, year of our Lord 2020.

The night is dark. An icy rain patters against the roof. 

I shiver as I scroll through the headlines.

Covid deaths are rising around the globe. Caravans of crazed Trump supporters are blocking highways and bridges. They nearly drive a Biden bus off the road. The polls sway back and forth, yanking me from hope to despair and back again. Gun sales are soaring. Grocery store shelves are frighteningly devoid of toilet paper and yeast.

November first.

A gust of wind scatters crumpled leaves across the driveway.

The candle in my Jack-o-lantern flickers.

I shift in my chair, trying to get comfortable. The kitchen clock ticks loudly in the silent house. 

I. Feel. Every. Freaking. Second. Ticking. Off.

How will I get through the next forty-eight hours?

Should I make a huge pot of espresso and just plan to stay up until it’s all over? Or should I grab some weed butter and a cup of Sleepy Time tea and pray for oblivion?

I am torn.

What if Trump wins? 

The mere thought of it has my stomach heaving.

What if he loses, but pretends that he wins?

A pounding headache joins the nausea.

What if he loses, everyone knows he loses, but he refuses to accept the final results? What if it goes to the Supreme Court? The Court Trump so recently stacked in his favor for just such an occasion? What then?

How can I maintain my sanity between now and the moment the polls close? 

Is there enough chocolate left over from Halloween to see me through?

More importantly, is there enough vodka under this roof?

I am filled with real dread. Actual, honest to God, shaking in my boots dread. It’s the kind of feeling you get the night before a long, complex, dangerous surgery. 

I am sixty-four years old. I have never lived through a time like this one. The surreal has become common. The unthinkable is suddenly on everyone’s mind. 

Few Americans doubt that the next days and weeks will be chaotic and confused. Most of us believe that there will be at least some level of violence and civil unrest.

But how far it will go is something we cannot predict. There are moments when I fear that the US military will become involved in suppressing public reaction to the election. But that would mean civil war, wouldn’t it? How is it possible that we are even thinking that thought?

I take a deep breath. My heart is racing and I can’t find a way to stop my thoughts.

I dread tomorrow. I dread tomorrow night. 

Most of all, I dread the thought that this sense of impending doom will continue on past the closing of the polls, stretching out into an unpredictable and bleak future.

November first, twenty twenty.

How the hell are we going to get through it?

Helplessly Hoping

/ momshieb / 11 Comments

Enduring the anxiety that is 2020.

The global pandemic of Covid-19 continues to rage around the world. The entire west coast of the US is in flames. Protests continue in cities across America, and the violence is slowly increasing.

But that’s not why I am so afraid.

I’m terrified, my friends. I’m really scared right now, more than I have been at any other point in my life. What has me so frightened?

I’m afraid of my fellow citizens. I am afraid of a second civil war.

You gotta give it to Donald Trump. The man has managed to create his own reality out of thin air. He has grasped control of the facts and twisted them around to support his own narrative on every subject.

And he has made it impossible to argue effectively against him.

He’s done all of this with two simple, powerful words.

“Fake News”

No matter what facts are presented to Trump’s followers, they are able to easily wave them away. “Nah, that’s just the corrupt media making stuff up!”

“Fake News”

I see this over and over again on social media, and on news reports. I have had my own relatives and friends say it to me. When it’s pointed out that the raging wildfires are tied to global warming, Trump’s people respond with claims that “antifa” is setting the fires to create chaos. People believe it, because when you try to tell them the truth, they answer that the media is creating “fake news.”

There is no possible way to refute this kind of thinking. For instance, out there in Oregon, the FBI (THE FREAKIN’ FBI) has publicly stated that there is no truth at all to the antifa arson stories. NONE. And they should know. They have investigated it at LOT. They found nothing!

Pretty official. Pretty convincing to the vast majority of thoughtful and intelligent folks, right?

But look at a few of the responses that this one tweet got:

See what I mean?

If these people believe that the FBI is in the hands of the radical left, then what hope is there of convincing them of the truth? Reality has lost all meaning. Facts have no power.

So I am truly afraid of what is going to happen on Nov.4th and beyond. I’m afraid.

Fox News and other right wing outlets are claiming that Democrats, the left, and antifa are all threatening violence if Biden loses the election. They claim that they need to grab their guns so they can defend the country from the raging angry leftists.

And left wing media outlets, like Forward.com, predict that if Trump loses, the far right and it’s militias will engage in violence to protest what they will see as a “rigged election.”

And so left leaning militias are promising to take up arms to stop the right.

You see why I’m scared?

I’m scared because the one thing that Donald Trump truly excels in is controlling the national conversation.

He is a master liar. Perhaps because of his deep seated psychological disorders, Trump is able to lie without a hint of remorse. He can repeat the same lie over and over again with no qualms. He tells us that the election will be rigged. He repeats over and over that the election results will not be legitimate. He warns of violence. He talks about rioters and looters as antifa. He successfully whips up his followers and he does it by calmly stating over and over and over and over and over that any statement with which he does not agree is a lie.

Do you see how terrifying this is?

He can tell people literally anything, and they will believe it. As you read these words, there are people in the inferno of the American Northwest who are refusing to evacuate their blazing neighborhoods. They feel compelled to stay at home to protect their property from the “antifa hordes” who have set fires in order to loot property.

Even as I write this morning, people are walking around in stores without face coverings because they believe that “There is no Covid. It’s all a hoax to take down the United States.” Or they believe that it was created by the Deep State to control citizens.

This is, of course, beyond delusional. It’s outright crazy. But they believe it. Because Trump has gotten his followers to disbelieve the press. He has convinced them that his own FBI, CIA, Homeland Security are not to be trusted. He has told them over and over that our own CDC is lying to us.

And if facts are presented, all he has to whisper is his favorite motto.

“Fake News.”

Is This Offensive?

/ momshieb / 4 Comments

Does it even matter what I think?

It seems more than a little bit odd to me to hear people out there arguing about what is offensive and what isn’t.

It’s especially strange to hear white people, who make up pretty much my entire social circle, arguing about what makes something offensive to black Americans.

Is Aunt Jemima’s image on the syrup bottle “offensive” or is it just a meaningless picture? How about Uncle Ben? Is a statue of General Lee offensive? Or is it a monument to a cultural history?

As is so often true, when I think about the big questions that trouble adults, I turn to my experience as a classroom teacher to guide me.

I’m remember one particular year of teaching fifth grade. My students were a sweet combination of innocent and sassy. As ten year olds, they were still gentle and tender. They liked me, I liked all of them, and we had a good rapport. But as almost-adolescents, they’d begun to test some of my limits. A few kids had tried out “bad words” in the classroom, and we were discussing why some words were offensive.

One of the best parts about teaching kids this age is watching when one or two of them get that glint of mischief in their eyes and try to push the envelope a bit. In this case, a few of the kids wanted to experience the thrill of saying the forbidden words, so they started to ask me, in whispers, which words to avoid.

“Is ‘shit’ a swear?” (Giggle). “Can I say ‘dammit’?” (Giggle)

I realized pretty quickly that it was time for us to regroup and talk. I gathered the kids on the rug in our “meeting area”.

“OK,” I began. “I am not going to give you a list of acceptable and unacceptable words. There are millions of words in the English language and we aren’t going to check each one.”

I looked around the circle at all the eager faces and bright eyes.

NOTE: If you ever want to capture the attention of 25 ten year olds, tell them you’re going to talk about swears.

“A swear is a word that hurts someone. It’s a word that makes someone feel bad, or makes them uncomfortable. Even if it’s a word or a phrase that you don’t mind at all, if it hurst someone else, you don’t say it.”

They were thoughtful for a minute. A hand was raised.

“So is ‘stupid’ a swear?”

I let the kids talk about it. They realized that they knew the answer. If I say, “This stupid shoe won’t stay tied,” then it isn’t offensive. If I call my classmate “stupid”, then it is.”

I’m sure they were a little disappointed that we weren’t going to try out various spellings of the f- word, but my point had been made.

Next I asked the kids to do me a favor. I told them that sometimes we say or do things that offend others and we don’t know it. I told them that I would appreciate it if they’d tell me any time I said or did something that hurt them or offended them.

One sweet, kind little girl raised her hand. I was surprised, because I couldn’t imagine what I might have done to offend her. I asked her to tell me what was wrong.

“Could you please not say “God”? My family goes to church, and my mom says it’s wrong to say “Oh, my God”, but sometimes you say it.”

She was right. I said that phrase a LOT.

But I looked into the deep brown eyes of my trusting student, and I promised her that I would do my absolute best never to say it in front of her again.

“God” was an offensive word to this religious little girl, when I said it in that phrase.

The kids understood the lesson and we never had to revisit the question of what words were offensive.

If your action, your logo, your statue, your language, your clothing hurts someone else, you can’t keep using it.

Thanks, children. As usual, you show us the way.

Tonight I Feel Safe

/ momshieb / 5 Comments

This is a silly comment, really. I live in a rural community. I am at home, in my nice house with my dear husband of 42 years. There’s barely any crime here. The COVID rate is very low.

But still.

I live in this world. I live in this crazy, out of control world. I am aware that going grocery shopping or getting a haircut can put me and those I love at risk. I try to stay safe. I order online and I wear my mask when the FedEx comes to the door with my case of wine.

We wash our hands. We disinfect. We are secure.

But I’m still afraid.

And I watch the news. I see the outbreaks of racial violence and the riots in the streets. Even though I live pretty much in the wilderness, I am worried about the wide world around me.

But a funny thing happened today. Something that has really caught me off guard and gotten me to thinking.

Here in North Central Massachusetts, the weather has been very dry, and pretty warm. Today, though, the warm jumped itself right up to hotter-than-hell.

I played outside with my two grandkids this morning, running through the sprinkler, jumping into the tiny blow-up pool, watering the herbs and flowers. We came in and had lunch, and the little guy went down for a well deserved nap.

As I sat in my living room with my granddaughter, the temperature really started to rise. The heat got worse, the humidity rose, the sweat popped up on both of our heads.

It was…..gross. We didn’t like it. Little Ellie and I were NOT HAPPY. So we did what happens pretty rarely in this part of the world.

We turned on the window AC unit in the living room.

We closed the living room and dining room windows, shut the skylight and let the machine do it’s magic.

Within an hour, the house was cool, we had stopped sweating, and Nonni’s three months of ignored hair growth had dried out a bit.

By dinner time, the kids had gone home with Mom and Dad and Papa and I made our dinner. In an unusual homage to the heat, I made the whole dinner indoors, instead of out on the grill. I saluted our AC unit as I did it.

We had dinner. We watched the news. We chatted about our day and did the dishes and got settled down to read our respective books.

All the while, that AC unit kept chugging. And we did not sweat or curse the heat.

Which brings me to this moment, tonight, as the sun sets on a gloriously beautiful summer day in New England.

I do not want to shut off my AC unit, even though the air outside has cooled. I do not want to open my windows, in spite of the sweet smells of wild rose and honeysuckle and peony that I know would come wafting in.

I do not want to touch the world outside of these four walls tonight. Instead, I want to stay safely wrapped in my faux safe air flow, pretending that the world of deadly viruses and deadly hatred cannot reach me while I sleep.

I know that I am only pretending.

Even so, I will go to bed tonight with the window units running.

My Personal Journey of Evolving

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

The events that are unfolding across this country, and across the world, have me humbled and sad.

As I have cheered on the activists and protestors who march for Black Lives Matter, I have started to question my own history. I’ve been trying to think about all of the ways that I have failed to be anti-racist. I have spent my life in a white bubble, with virtually no black friends or colleagues, I am struggling to find my way, even as I commit myself to making a difference.

I don’t know what to say, or what to do. But I do have an analogy that is helpful to me, and that might clarify things for my white friends.

This story goes back to my very first days as a public school student. I was a nice girl. I was kind, and friendly and a good student. I followed the teacher’s directions.

When I was in first grade, I was friendly with a boy in my class. He was a boy who went to my church, and who was one of the members of my “advanced reading” group. I don’t remember really thinking much about him. We were smart. We liked to read. He had a constant grin on his face, and I thought that he was “nice.”

We were in the same class again in second grade. We were both good at math, although even at that tender age, I understood that he had a sense for the problems that I didn’t possess. We once again spent time together in the “advanced reading group.” We got to read the really good books.

By the time third grade came around, and I found myself once again in class with this boy, I had begun to notice that he was a little bit “different” from the rest of us. He still came to school every day with that wide grin, but I started to notice that his clothes were slightly out of style. I knew that his parents were a little bit different from the rest of the middle class suburban families who attended our church. His Mom wore clothes and make up that looked to have come from the 1940s. Unlike my own beautiful and stylish Mother, she always seemed, even to me, just a little bit desperate for friends in town.

I remember this boy for his continuing academic excellence, but my mind is even clearer when I remember his enduring cheerfulness and his pleasure at being in school.

He was tall. Taller than the rest of the third graders. He was heavy. He was physically ungainly and awkward.

This made him a target, as did his constant success and his never ending grin.

One of my clearest memories from my elementary school years is the time when our third grade class was asked to complete a “forward roll” in gym class. I remember the echoing sounds of the gym, and the benches that lined the room. I remember the smell of the gym mats and the recessed lights set into the ceiling.

Mostly I remember us taking our turns and doing our “forward rolls.” One after another, our nine year old bodies morphed into pillbugs and we rolled ourselves over.

All of us except one.

The awkward, roundly formed smart boy in my class. My one time friend. He was unable to complete the move. He tried. He tried again. He was alone on the mat in the center of the gym, the increasingly frustrated teacher at his side.

His classmates, including me, sat on the bench along the wall. I remember the snickers. I remember the giggles. I remember the boy on the mat, his cheeks growing ever more flushed, his grin becoming a grimace of desperation.

He never did complete that move.

We went back to our classroom.

And the snickers and giggles and jokes continued.

I remember that day, although it was well over a half century ago. I remember it because I didn’t do one single thing to make the situation better for this boy that had been my friend.

Nobody had ever told me, back in 1964, that bystanders are a part of the problem of bullying. Nobody had ever looked me in the eye and said, “When you see someone being mistreated, you need to stand up and call it out. You need to protect and defend the person being victimized.”

But you know what?

I knew it anyway.

I knew that what I was seeing was wrong. I knew that it was cruel. I watched the open hearted smile on the face of my friend turn into a desperate attempt to find himself a place in our small group.

I knew it, but I never said a single thing to make it any better.

So. I could plausibly tell myself that what happened in my third grade classroom was not my fault. I could tell myself that I was not a bully. I never said a single mean thing. I don’t remember joining in the laughter.

Who, me?

No, I am not a bully. I’m nice.

And for me that is the metaphor that I find relevant today, as I watch the Black Lives Matter protests that are unfolding everywhere.

The easy thing would be to reassure myself that I am most definitely not racist. I have never used that ugly N- word. I have never said anything cruel to a black person, or kept that person out of a job.

But if I’m honest, I’d have to admit that I have been a passive, complacent bystander for all of the six decades of my life.

I haven’t stood up for my non-white neighbors and fellow citizens.

I have believed that it was enough not to be mean.

I think back on my first grade pal, the boy who should have grown up to discover some advanced scientific ideas I couldn’t even pronounce. I think about my failure to pull him aside and tell him that a stupid forward roll was pointless and that he was worth a lot more than an “A” in gym.

I took no action. I was a passive observer.

This time around, as my fellow citizens are crying out in desperation, I need to find a way to take some real action. I need to do better. I need to be a better person.

I’ll do it. I’ll do it in the memory of my friend, the boy who was failed by this friend.

Trump’s Leadership Style.

/ momshieb / 7 Comments

Wait. Is there a leadership style??

You know, I used to be a teacher. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the different learning styles that people exhibit as they go through life. There is all sorts of research into the whole right brain/left brain approach. There’s the math/language description and the sequential vs. gestalt learner approach.

I’m fascinated by all of this. And the neurology that underlies these learning differences.

I used all of these different perspectives as I assessed and taught kids over the years.

I’m also very interested in the different “leadership styles” that are exhibited by those who take positions of authority. I have done a lot of reading, research and rumination on this particular topic. I became fascinated by the idea of leadership styles when I experienced a wonderful leader, a very good leader and an absolutely appalling leader within a five year period.

What I have learned through my personal experiences and my study is that we can often break leadership style down to two distinct patterns.

PATTERN #1: The micromanager. This is the supervisor/leader who double checks the number of paper clips that each department is using. It’s the school principal who wants to see which color sticky notes the teacher is using on her teaching charts.

PATTERN #2: The laissez faire leader. This administrator may very well set the tone for what the staff should do, but they will let everybody take responsibility for their own decisions. When things go really well, this leader points to the staff member who created the success. When things go wrong, this leader justifiably denies any responsibility. “I let them fly, if they crash, it’s not my fault.”

So what am I to make of the “leadership style” of our current president?

All I can say is……I dunno. I got nuthin’.

Every time I try to listen to Donald Trump, I find myself confused. Not only does he continuously torture the English language, he also constantly shifts from foot to foot in terms of his leadership.

Sometimes the President insists that he is the micromanager. “No one can handle this the way I can.” “No one knows more about XXXX than I do.” “I alone can fix it.”

But in his very next breath, he insists “I had no idea” about what was going on. “I take no responsibility.”

My head swims.

Today is a perfect example of Trump’s bipolar approach to leadership. First he seemed to state that he was the man-in-charge, the decider, the capo-di-tutti-capi. But almost immediately after that, he took the position of “I didn’t do it! I know nothing! Don’t blame me!”

It made me picture all of my elementary school students, who were so quick to place a forefinger on their nose when I asked, “Who dumped the paint into the toilet?”

Let me point out the actual quotes from the leader/notleader.

Last Friday evening, the District of Columbia was roiled by loud, sometimes violent protests. People were marching in the streets, heading for the White House. The DC police responded to the anger of the crowd. Tear gas was thrown, rubber bullets were fired, bottles and bricks were hurled. Fires were set not far from the White House.

In the midst of this scary outburst of rage, the Secret Service apparently did their jobs, and brought the President down to the safe room (or “bunker”) in the White House.

Of COURSE they did. For good or ill, he is the actual POTUS and his life has to be protected. So down to the bunker he went.

Naturally, his critics laughed and made fun of him. #Bunkerboy and #Bunkerbaby were trending on social media. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Then on Monday evening, Trump and his staff cleared out all of the peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park outside of the White House so he could stand in front of a historic Episcopal church and hold up a bible. The whole thing was horrific at worst and incredibly awkward at best.

So here is what the nominal “leader” of our country had to say.

In terms of having been taken to the bunker, to insure the safety of the President, Trump claimed that he only went down to the bunker “during the day, when there was no problem!” He claimed that he was there for only a “tiny bit of time”. Best of all, he is trying convince us that he went to the bunker just to “inspect” it.

As in, “I am a micromanager as a leader. My hand is in everything. I would never allow a room in the White House to just sit there unless I personally inspect it to make sure that it is up to my very high standards.”

M’kay.

But here’s where I get confused.

Today Trump was also asked about the way that his staff (our Attorney General, our Secretary of Defense) used tear gas, metal shields and flash-bang grenades to clear a park of protesters. Those peaceful protestors included several members of the local clergy. It was a full half hour before the curfew was set to begin.

Even so, police marched into Lafayette Park and forced out every single protestor/pastor/civilian. They did this so that Trump could march across the street from the White House, hold up a bible, and claim the moral high ground as our “law and order” president.

Naturally, since peaceful protestors and religious leaders dislike being shot at and pepper sprayed, there was an outcry against what had happened.

How did our “I’m the leader” president respond?

He said that he had no idea there were protesters out there in the park! He insisted that nobody tells him these things! How could he know?

Um,

Yes, this is the exact opposite leadership style from what Trump showed us when he claimed he was inspecting the bunker.

I mean, really.

Let’s think.

Is it actually possible that one man, one leader, could simultaneously be inspecting the room where he might someday be sent for safety, and yet not know that right outside of his window hundreds of protesters were gathered?

I don’t buy it.

Nuh, uh.

What I think is this:

This man has no leadership style. None.

What he has is a self-preservation style. He finds it perfectly plausible to claim that the nation is under so much threat that he needs to call out the military to restore order, while at the same time claiming that he is totally unaware of the huge crowd chanting and singing right outside his window.

What I think is that Donald Trump has no concept of truth or fact. He pulls and shapes reality to fit his personal needs and denies the existence of any event that he dislikes.

That is no kind of leadership.

Peace Without Justice?

/ momshieb / 16 Comments

The picture above is not a picture of me. I’m a chubby, grey haired white grandma. The picture above is not one of my sweet grandchildren. They are three little white kids, with white skin.

But these two are the people on my mind today. Everyone who shares the same tone of skin has been on my mind. Every fellow citizen of mine who shares the same curly hair has been on my mind. Every American who wakes up in the morning as part of what I’ve grown up thinking of as “the minority community”, that’s who is on my mind.

Last night I watched the news. I saw people marching, shouting, protesting in the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I saw fire and tear gas and glass breaking.

“Oh, no,” was my first thought. “Oh, no.”

I’ve seen this scene before. I’ve seen an unarmed black American dying at the hands of an American police officer or at the hands of a self-appointed patriotic vigilante. I know what happens. It’s a repeating playbook. At first white America reacts with outrage at the death. We shake our heads and tell ourselves with great sincerity that “something must change.”

Then the friends, neighbors and family of the dead black American take to the street. They are joined by other angry, horrified, sad, terrified black Americans. They are loud. They are profane. Someone throws a rock, and tear gas flies. A fire is set, a building it breached, people take things, damage is done.

And the reaction, every damn time, is “I understand that rage, but rioting is not the way to make change.”

I agree!

I’m a nice, middle class retired teacher lady living in a small, rural town. I don’t think burning buildings is a good idea. I don’t think that violence is a healthy choice.

But as I lay awake in my bed last night, I tossed and I turned and I pictured beautiful young Americans like the two pictured above. And I asked myself,

“If violence isn’t the right path, then what is?”

Should our black fellow citizens stage sit-ins in public places? Just some quiet, passive actions to show that people are unhappy?

I realized that those actions have already been taken. Some half a century ago, brown skinned Americans sat down on busses and at restaurants and in public offices to show that they wanted to be treated equally. That held sit-ins. They were entirely peaceful, even when they were dragged to jail.

Black Americans are still being murdered in public by the police and those who wish they were police. So that technique doesn’t work.

Maybe, I thought, we should find some highly educated, highly successful, brilliant brown skinned fellow citizens to speak up and express the unfairness of our racial situation.

Ah, but that, too has been done. Over and over and over again. Martin King, Malcolm X, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, Angela Davis, Medgar Evers, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and on and on and on. Great artists, great leaders, great orators, true American treasures.

But dark skin can still get an unarmed American shot to death for jogging.

So what could our African American brothers and sisters do to express their pain? We don’t want violence, but….what?

Remember when this young athlete decided to peacefully and silently protest the deaths of so many black Americans?


I do. I remember the reaction when he knelt during the National Anthem. The President of these United States of America went public in his attacks. He said that the football player should have been suspended for quietly protesting the deaths of his fellow Americans. The Vice President walked out of a football game when Colin and some of his teammates knelt in gentle protest.

So.

Peaceful protest has achieved…..nothing.

There were “Black Lives Matter” marches and signs and protests. The answer was a rush of “Oh, yeah? Well, Blue lives matter!” and “All lives matter!” Both of which completely missed the point, and neither of which did anything to stop the flow of blood on our streets.

George Floyd was still murdered right there in broad daylight on an American street, surrounded by American citizens who watched in horror as his life was snuffed out by an American white guy in an official uniform.

I tossed last night, and I turned. I found no answers.

I don’t know what it will finally take for this country to break out of its racist history and begin to move forward toward a just and loving place where every single American life is treasured and valued and protected.

I pulled the sheet up over my shoulders last night, looking for some comfort on that steamy night.

Suddenly I saw the face of Tamir Rice in front of me. I saw his smiling, little boy face. I thought about my white sons playing guns one sunny day at Universal Studios, with none of us giving it a thought.

I saw the face of Treyvon Martin, walking on a rainy night with a pocket full of skittles. I thought about the days when my teenaged boys and their white friends would walk the streets of our little town at all hours of the night, and how once in a while the police would pull up beside them and urge to go on home to bed.

I thought about how I’d feel if they had been killed. I thought about how I might feel if I’d spent my lifetime asking, begging, praying and working for justice for people who look like my children.

And I realized that if I had done all that, and yet my sons, my nephews, my friends, my neighbors were still being recklessly killed while jogging, shopping, sleeping, sitting in a car or committing a misdemeanor?

Well. You can be sure that even with my creaky joints and fading eyes, my grayhair and my wrinkles, I would absolutely, positively march my old white ass out there and set the world on fire.

No justice? No peace.

Image: “Beautiful man” by rigogarcia1575 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I Just Can’t Do This Anymore

/ momshieb / 11 Comments

For almost five years I have tried to write about the insanity that is the American political system. As a student of history, a news junkie and something of an activist, I’ve always found the machinations of government to be fascinating.

From my high schools days on the “Model UN” to my college degree in Soviet Studies, I’ve been excited to discuss politics with friends, relatives and strangers. I loved the debates, even when they got heated. Exchanging ideas, presenting facts to each other, back and forth and back again. I used to learn something with each discussion. I worked hard, if not always successfully, to keep an open mind.

Back in 2015, I was writing for an online publication called “Liberal America.” Rather obviously, we had a lot to say about the prospects of a Trump Presidency. I thoroughly enjoyed writing these pieces, because they expressed my political views and even let me earn some money by writing.

After the election, I kept on writing and was submitting to a variety of sites. Once again, I wrote to point out what to me was so glaringly obvious: that Donald Trump is totally unfit to serve in any public office, much less the Presidency.

Now, at last, we find ourselves in the final few months of Trump’s term. Our long, chaotic decline as a nation has been well documented by real journalists in thousands of ways. Facts about Trump’s inept handling of international relations, his attempts to bully Congress, the hundreds of instances of corruption and graft….it’s all there in black and white.

So why doesn’t it seem to matter that the whole world can see exactly how dangerous and ugly this administration is?

Trump still has the support of more than a third of American voters. The Republican Party is still protecting him and backing him up, even though at one time most of them were horrified at the idea of him winning.

How is this possible?

Because Trump has performed a miracle. He has undone the truth. Facts no longer have any relevance. As Trump apologist Kellyanne Conway famously stated, they have their own “alternative facts.”

This administration started out by lying about the most obvious of facts (the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration) and has gone downhill from there. They lie freely, openly and with complete seriousness and they do it every. damn. day.

How do you fight that?

How do you continue to respond when facts have no meaning anymore?

I can’t do it. I can’t keep it up. I am worn down, worn out and exhausted. So, it seems, is the Democratic Party, whose entire campaign seems to be “at least we’re not Trump.”

If you’ve ever engaged in a conversation with an angry toddler, you will recognize the overwhelming fatigue that comes with trying to convince someone of something that they refuse to see.

“I didn’t eat the cake that was on the table!”

“But you have chocolate frosting on your face.”

‘NO I don’t!”

‘I’m looking at it. I see the frosting. And there are cake crumbs on your shirt.”

“No, there aren’t! I didn’t do it!”

After a few rounds, you end up grabbing the kid, washing their face and sternly saying, “Don’t eat dessert unless you ask me first!” You recognize that you are engaged in an argument that cannot be won.

That is exactly how American politics feel to me now. We point out that Trump was completely nuts when he suggested injecting disinfectant into humans to kill Covid19. The response? “Oh, he just said we should study it. No big deal.”

What the absolute hell! No, it should NOT be studied!

We write about the flagrant inappropriateness of Ivanka and Jared having their fingers in every aspect of government, when neither has been elected, appointed, Senate approved or vetted. The Trump apologists simply turn the facts around on us. “Look at Hunter Biden!” they cry. Or, “What about Hillary’s emails?”

And the worst, the most egregious warping of reality happens every single time Trump and his enablers hear something that they don’t like.

“FAKE NEWS!!!!” they scream in unison. Fake, false, a hoax, all made up!!

But we can see the damn frosting on his face. We can smell the chocolate on his breath and count the crumbs on his shirt. There are photos, there are tapes, there are Tweets to prove that what we say is a FACT.

They never respond with facts. They respond with insults, lies, and Trumpian pseudo-reality.

I can’t do it anymore. I can’t argue with these angry toddlers anymore. I’m out.

I’m going back to writing about things I understand and can process. Like global pandemics, the inner life of children, and the magic of the natural world.

Image:“File:Goran Gatarić, Woman At the Dock ll, 40×50.5, Oil on canvas.jpg” by Tomicmilos90 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0