The State of the Union

When I was 5 or 6 I had a white rabbit fur hat and matching capelet. The hat had been my grandmother’s and when she gave it to me, my mother found the matching capelet. They were my favorite things. I used to wear them all the time, alternating with the little red riding hood cape my aunt had knitted for me, and I would spend hours petting the soft fur, so much softer than anything I’d ever felt.

One day, a friend of mine let me hold her pet rabbit. He was sweet with big, inquisitive eyes and he would put him ears back and snuggle into your arm as you petted him. I had never felt anything so soft. A couple of days later I put on my favorite hat and capelet, and as I petted my hat, I realized they felt just like my friend’s little bunny. I started to cry and I ran to my mother. I asked her how they got the fur off the rabbits, hoping it was like the sheep, but she told me, no, they have to kill the rabbits for the fur. I stopped wearing my favorite hat and capelet. 

Now I am no saint. I still eat fish, and chicken, lamb and occasionally other meat. I still tell myself convenient lies so that I can function in the world. But sometimes, you simply can’t make the lie work.

For so many of us, we were brought up on a comforting lie, one which made us able to function in the world. I was the first one to raise my hand and say “states’ rights” as the true reason for the Civil War. Slavery was just a byproduct. A byproduct? We can’t make that lie work anymore. Even were this untruth factual, slavery was never a small part of anything. It was the literal life and death of millions of Americans, the defining of an entire race of people as human or subhuman. 

States’ Rights cannot preempt human rights. In a modern context, before 2015 a marriage between two men or two women could be recognized in one state but not in another, before 1967 an interracial marriage could be recognized in one state but not in another. Transgender military are suddenly finding their status as humans called into question. For those horrified by the new Texas “Rape Insurance” law, imagine if the war had gone the other way and people of color in free states now had to buy “Freedom Insurance” to cover the cost of purchasing their freedom should they cross or be tricked into a slave state and be taken back into slavery. 

So what’s my point? My point is, I get it. I know how hard this is to accept. Because to accept that the civil war was not simply about States’ Rights is to accept that we were all complicit in propagating the lie. It is a hard truth to accept. It has kept me up nights, wracked with far more guilt than that rabbit fur hat because I have always thought I was if not an advocate for equality at bare minimum an ally. Losing our innocence is hard and painful; it requires a mourning period, and many white Americans are stuck in anger and denial. It’s hard because our friends of color don’t understand the pain of this lost innocence, they aren’t there saying, “I understand how hard this must be for you to realize the role you played in my oppression and the oppression of my friends and family, my ancestors.” Because guiding us through this painful process isn’t their job. And if you truly are an ally, you will not try to make it their job. We were wrong. It sucks. We have lost our naivete and we have a right to mourn. But what we don’t have a right to do is ask them to keep waiting while we work through our own angst. Haven’t they waited long enough? 

I know it will be hard, as challenging as accepting that a barrier breaking sports icon might have been a murderer or a barrier breaking comedy icon, a rapist, or your favorite uncle is a child molester. Yes, these men did great things but sometimes that one bad decision defines you and attempting to break the union of our country to perpetuate torture, rape and genocide, no matter how well-intentioned, it looks pretty bad on paper. So just as we had to give up our beloved games of cowboys and Indians, it might be time to give up the fantasy of the noble southern rebels and accept that we have all been a little complicit in perpetuating a beautiful fairy tale. We still have cops and robbers. After all, robbers are always bad…aren’t they?

Be Like Water

With the inundation of media, much of it quite frightening and disheartening, it can be a challenge to want to soldier on, to keep fighting. There is a desire to simply give up, give in, like someone freezing in the cold, preferring to just give up where your brain convinces you that you are warm and then you simply go to sleep. The idea of continuing to suffer, to keep your heart open and compassionate, suffering the effects of empathy, it can feel impossible.

I am a visualizer, and I use metaphor like a drug to keep me going. So I want to give you a metaphor to give you reassurance, to help strengthen your resolve for the many battles we have to face. Bruce Lee famously spoke of being like water. “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless like water if you put water in the cup it becomes the cup and water can flow or it can crash.” Water is constant and with constant commitment over millennia can change the landscape. 

But we don’t have millennia to be like a quiet water drop breaking through rock, slowly, relentlessly. So I am going to encourage you to be another form of water, a tsunami.

A tsunami mobilizes quickly, moves rapidly towards the shore, comes from a great distance and builds strength before it makes landfall. It can change the landscape in moments and once it makes landfall it just keeps coming. It flows over, under, around and through any obstacle, it can pull institutions from their foundations, and it is indiscriminate.  

Our resistance movement needs to be not a not ripples in a pond, not a tidal wave but a national tsunami. We have barely made landfall and we are coming to shake the GOP from their foundation, to change the landscape. But we must all work together and we must be as committed to the rebuild effort so we do not simply leave devastation in our wake. #resist #bethetsunami

The Great Lie

The term "Silent Majority" was coined by Richard Nixon in a speech, Nov 3, 1969, to justify the break of his campaign promise to end the Vietnam War, as he called on his silent majority to support his decision to continue the war. 500,00 protesters gathered at the Washington Memorial Nov 15. Nixon, confident in his support, informed the press he was watching a football game. It was a myth then just as it is now. The President Elect never had a silent majority, he had an immensely vocal minority. We are the silent majority, the silenced majority, made silent Nov 8, 2016, made more silent and invisible daily. We must be silent no longer.

Originally published on singlemarriedgirl.com 1/10/17

Time to Face Reality

In 2011, our entire country experienced a national tragedy unlike anything before. But a lesser known and yet still very real tragedy occurred in my DC metro community. For 30 days in October of 2012, just a year past the 9/11 anniversary, our entire community was held captive by fear of an unknown gunman who was randomly killing people in the tristate area, even as the paint was drying on the Pentagon repairs. For 30 days, we rallied together, we zig zagged at gas stations, we ducked down in our vehicles when we saw a vehicle fitting the description of the assailant, we called the police, we called each other, we met at gas stations, malls, vigils and when at last the crisis was over, many of us cried for one straight week as the stress and terror at last took hold.

This is a tough love post and I’m so sorry to do this to you so soon. I know so many of you are just starting to process the very real attack on our democracy, you are wracked with fear or outrage or sense of hopelessness in the midst of your grieving process; perhaps you didn’t even begin to grieve until the inauguration, and you are in the midst of denial, I know many have spent the last two weeks locked in anger, many are already into bargaining, some of you may be sliding into depression. And you have a right to your grief. But not today, not now. I’m afraid that you are going to have to accelerate your grief straight into acceptance, effective immediately! It is essential because for the next two to four years, we need your laser focus and you can’t be distracted by your outraged grief.

Now I want to make something immensely clear. Acceptance of reality is not acceptance that it is normal or acceptable, it is acceptance that it is happening and more importantly, that it is intentional. Because without this acceptance, you will react to every distraction, exhaust yourself with outrage and eventually give in to despair.

Acceptance of a death is not accepting it as acceptable, and it is not moving on as if it doesn’t matter. It is giving yourself an opportunity to figure out how your life will be going forward without this person in your life.  It affords you the opportunity to disseminate information critically, not emotionally and deal with the reality of the new landscape absent your friend.

I realize it’s incredibly unfair to ask this of you. However, we don’t have time to wait. And our emotions in this moment make us weak and messy, they cloud our judgement and make us question our own conclusions. The sooner you can get to acceptance so that you can pay close attention, not to what is being said, that’s just propaganda, but to what is being done, the sooner you can be an effective member of the resistance. You need to rise above the noise. When at last we are through this crisis, which with each passing day grows ever more dire, we can take a collective sigh and a have a good long cry.

But I want to leave you not with a sense of dread but with a renewed hope. Because with acceptance, you can see the whole picture which allows you not only to see things for what they are, but to evaluate the progress which is being made. The monster we conjure in the dark is far more frightening than the monster we face in the light of day. And when you turn and face the monster head on, you will see clearly that you do not face it alone.