What the Fuckers in Congress Want You to Forget: You Already Pay For the Healthcare of Others

Image by Thomas Breher

 

I can’t stop thinking about my friend.

We met last year. Actually, our kids met and hit it off. But it wasn’t long before we did, too. She has a very calming presence about her that I like being around. We make each other laugh.

We were friends for a few weeks before I realized she was pregnant. I suspected it, but one does not ask a woman if she’s pregnant without first independently verifying she’s actually pregnant.

Unless you don’t really care to be friends.

The thing is, she’s so petite that it was hard to tell she was pregnant unless she wore a certain outfit.

Plus, she was so active.

Keeping up with her three daughters. Playing basketball with my two younger sons. Chasing my youngest and her youngest as she pretended to be a monster.

We talked about arranging their marriage so we could be family. Both of us agreeing nobody wants to deal with unpleasant in-laws.

I started teaching her to crochet. She found plans for a shawl she wanted to make and use as a nursing cover. I started making it for her baby shower.

We talked about names for her son.

Until just before Christmas, only 3 weeks shy of her due date, when she went into labor. She arrived at the hospital and they sent her across the street to her doctor. There they performed an ultrasound and informed her that her baby passed away.

She delivered her silent son later that day.

The new year began. After the holidays, spent explaining to her daughters what happened, and after the funeral, she did what any mother does in that situation.

She got up. She played with her girls, though there were less giggles. We didn’t laugh as much together. She seemed tired a lot of the time, but who could blame her? I couldn’t imagine the Herculean effort it took her, every single day, to just . . . rise.

But, as weeks turned into months, the low energy and sadness became pain.

Physical pain.

And I imagine in the beginning maybe she believed it just another symptom of grief. A tangible manifestation of the ache her heart felt for her son.

Until we all noticed.

I can’t stop thinking about my friend.

Of how she went from chasing down preschoolers to shuffling along like a grandmother. In hospice.

She became hunched. She had trouble sitting down and standing back up. Days went by where she couldn’t get out of bed.

She held her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her hands curled in front of her shoulders.

She couldn’t use them anymore.

I can’t stop thinking about my friend.

Especially the day she turned to me, stoic and quiet, and said, “I feel like I might die any day now. Because I’ve never felt so sick and I don’t know what’s wrong.”

We jumped to help her with the kids, even as we all, her friends, whispered behind her back.

What could we do?

Who could we call?

There had to be someone who could help.

She went to the hospital and they sent her home. She went to a doctor but they couldn’t track down the name of the doctor she’d seen in the hospital. She called another doctor and, after speaking with a nurse of her concerns, was told, “We don’t prescribe narcotics here.”

I can’t stop thinking about my friend.

The way she cried because she didn’t want narcotics.

She wanted to know what was wrong with her.

But that’s what happens in America when your husband is unemployed and you’re uninsured and you’re black and you’re female and you’re sick . . . take your pick.

She’s all of that.

She’s also my friend and a mother and daughter and she went from being an energetic 29 year old to being an invalid in a matter of weeks. She started swelling. Her ankles and fingers and face. We made her sit and put her feet up and placed bags of frozen peas on her ankles.

All the while feeling as if our hands were also curled in on themselves. As if we were powerless.

A national spectacle unfolds before our eyes. Government representatives who don’t seem human. Not for the choices they make, but for the way they repeatedly set themselves apart from the very humans they swore to represent.

They don’t know us.

They don’t even see us.

As we fret and care for our loved ones, they don’t even know we’re there.

I once saw posts from a page on Facebook devoted to crochet about one of the page founders having a serious medical event that required him to be hospitalized in critical condition. Fans of the page clamored to ask if a fund had been set up yet to help out.

The man’s partner finally responded, informing everyone that they live in Canada.

Crowd funding not needed. At all.

But that’s how we do it here. We hear of medical catastrophe and everyone starts sending money. Whatever we can to those who need it most. To those we most love.

“You don’t have the right to spend my money on other people’s health care!” I hear people yelling. They forget, I guess, that they do it all the time. That they donate to friends and loved ones who suddenly fall ill.

Today, the House voted to pass a shit storm along to the American people.

People they don’t see. People they don’t care about in any sense of the word, no matter what steaming pile of bullshit falls from their mouths.

And I can’t stop thinking about my friend.

Discharged yesterday, after a week in the hospital. Because her husband finally took her there when things got bad. Because someone there finally took the time to see her and said, “You’re not leaving until we get some answers.”

Once again, she came home with empty arms and a broken heart.

Along with a lifelong, debilitating disease that will require extensive physical therapy, medications, and specialists.

Those in power don’t see her.

But I do.

I’m sure we’ll crowd fund at some point. It doesn’t matter what fucked up political party you pledge your misguided allegiance to, you still pay for the healthcare of others.

Some of us do it gladly.

Because she’s my friend.

And I can’t stop thinking about her.

You’ll do the same for yours.

Why We Still Need Feminists

Typing pool, circa 1950’s. (Photo: Wikipedia.com)

I graduated high school in 1995, having never taken one elective class I’d really wanted to take. Every year I asked my mom, and every year she told me she would refuse to sign off on any schedule in which I tried to register for the class.

 

Keyboarding.

This was just before the advent of the internet, when everyone was on a computer, mobile or otherwise, at all times. Keyboarding, at that time, was a legitimate endeavor. Mainly, you were taught how to type without looking at all at your hands, with your fingers in set positions on a QWERTY keyboard. You were taught to type with decreasing typos and increasing speed.

She flat out refused to let me take it.

For me, the class was a chance to hang out with a different set of kids. I was always in Honors classes, which meant I generally moved through my day surrounded by the same group of classmates. Electives were my chance to maybe sit next to a new guy or see my best friend who didn’t take any Honors classes.

My mom wasn’t having it.

Sure, there were other electives. But orchestra, which I took every year, tended to have mostly those same Honors students in it. Art was a good mix of kids, until I ran out of art classes to take and took an AP Studio Art class that allowed me to take photography as an independent study.

There were five kids in that class.

I’d ask her why and she always answered that there were so many electives available to me. Pick another one.

Within a year of my graduation, the internet exploded with dial up and AOL and chat rooms.

I was working part time for my mom and her friend the summer after graduation. They’d started their own benefits consulting firm. My dad had left the previous year and my mom needed to earn more money in order to support us alone, so her and her friend figured that was their best shot at higher salaries. Paying themselves.

She’d give me a document or letter to type up and I’d tease her.

I could be typing this way quicker if you’d have let me take keyboarding.

She’d give me a smartass reply and move on.

That fall I started college at a private, four-year university nearby to which I earned a partial scholarship. Two weeks later, without discussing it with my mother, I went down to the registrar and signed myself out.

She’d had to declare bankruptcy and sell our home after my dad left. We were living in an apartment, her and my brother and I, and she was trying to make her new business work so she could better support us. It felt like, at the time, the best thing I could do was not strap her with more debt. Not be another source of worry for her. I felt it was best if I got out and got myself a full time job and supported myself. So I found one and quit school before we were responsible for any tuition.

That night we sat at our kitchen table discussing what I’d done.

She looked tired.

You always said you wanted to be a lawyer.

I shrugged. Yeah, well I’m not really feeling that anyway. I’d be racking up all this debt when I don’t really know what I even want to do.

My mom wasn’t having it. She begged and cried and I was stubborn and cried. Then she finally told me.

I never let you take that stupid keyboarding class because I wanted you to have all the opportunities I never had. When I went to school, all the girls were told to take keyboarding. Because if you weren’t going to be a teacher or a nurse, you were going to be a secretary somewhere until you found a guy to marry you. Which is exactly what I did. I never let you take that class because I wanted you to be in a position where you could hire your own fucking secretary if you needed something typed.

 

___________________________________________

Men, and often women, comment on my writing about feminism.

You want equal rights? You got ’em. Shut up already.

What are you even marching for?

I have never felt inferior to men. I earn the same as them. I don’t know what you people are talking about.

It doesn’t seem to matter to these people what our national statistics say. Or that the statistics are even worse for some minorities.

I am a feminist because we are not treated as equals.

 

Our pay is not equal. Our representation in government is not equal. The men in government are making decisions that affect my health and body, and that is not equal.

I am a feminist because minority men and women are not treated as equals.

 

Their pay is not equal. Their representation in government is not equal. The men in government are making decisions that affect their health and bodies, and that is not equal.

I am a feminist because none of us are free if one of us is chained.

Putting aside all of that, I am a feminist because our hold on these freedoms you claim we have feels tenuous, at best.

We’re not talking about generations of freedom. One generation ago my mother had to take a keyboarding class in order to graduate high school because that, typing out letters, was considered her best option for employment until she got married.

One generation ago, my mother was married and a mother before she was legally allowed to have a credit card in her name. And that was only because a female congresswoman, unbeknownst to her colleagues, added the language banning discrimination based on sex and marriage. The law was going to be passed without it.

One generation ago, my mother was married and a mother and could legally be fired from her job for getting pregnant.

One generation ago, my mother was married and a mother before she could even report sexual harassment. Actually, make that less than a generation ago. Because sexual harassment wasn’t legally defined until I was three years old. 

Less than a generation ago? In MY lifetime, my mother still could be excluded from being on a jury because she was a woman. Still could legally be discriminated against in regards to housing and credit because she was a woman. Still had her husband considered “head and master” by many states in regards to jointly owned property. Still could be legally passed up for promotion in a law firm for being a woman. Until I was 16 years old, it was still legal in some states to rape your spouse. Until I was 16, a woman had to prove she’d been physically or psychologically harmed in order to claim she’d been sexually harassed. (Click here for a quick reference to all the claims made in this paragraph.)

Just because you personally are not experiencing something, doesn’t mean others, elsewhere, aren’t experiencing it. Women across the country are earning less than their male counterparts. We are severely underrepresented in government. That includes local and state representation, not just federal. We are not looking in our rear view mirror at rights that have made us equal for generations.

So I’m a feminist. You don’t have to agree with me, but it would be nice if you stopped trying to tell me to give it up.

Either way, I’ll still be a feminist. For all of us.

Women, A Strike is Not the Time to Be Polite

By Brocken Inaglory (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Today the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington officially announced March 8 as a national women’s strike.

Their action calls for “a day of striking, marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares, abstaining from domestic, care and sex work, boycotting, calling out misogynistic politicians and companies, striking in educational institutions.”

Already online I’m seeing the following responses:

We should get a permit.

We shouldn’t block traffic.

Let’s not disrupt local businesses.

We can make it like a parade!

No.

In fact . . .

Fuck. NO.

This country elected a man to office who openly degrades women, brags about grabbing women without consent, talks about his own daughter like she’s an object to be used for sex, and less than a week after taking office signed an executive order that issued a global gag rule on abortion.

States across the country are defunding Planned Parenthood.

Oklahoma lawmakers consider women “hosts” and are trying to pass a law requiring signed approval from a man in order to obtain an abortion.

And these are just the issues grabbing national headlines now.

In an op-ed for The Guardian, organizers pointed out the following:

While Trump’s blatant misogyny was the immediate trigger for the huge response on 21 January, the attack on women (and all working people) long predates his administration. Women’s conditions of life, especially those of women of color and of working, unemployed and migrant women, have steadily deteriorated over the last 30 years, thanks to financialization and corporate globalization.

Lean-in feminism and other variants of corporate feminism have failed the overwhelming majority of us, who do not have access to individual self-promotion and advancement and whose conditions of life can be improved only through policies that defend social reproduction, secure reproductive justice and guarantee labor rights. As we see it, the new wave of women’s mobilization must address all these concerns in a frontal way. It must be a feminism for the 99%.

If you are truly committed to getting the nation’s attention, to getting the attention of our nation’s policymakers, then the time for being nice and demure is over.

It’s been over for a long time now.

A house cat trying to get its paw into a man’s soup will merely be swatted off the table.

A lion upending the table and dousing a man with hot soup is going to get his full, unequivocal attention.

We all put on our pussy hats a few weeks ago.

Did you put it on to be a house cat with a soft meow? Or to be a lion with a deafening roar?

I don’t need a permit to tell me I have a right to be heard. I have a right to make noise.

It’s time to be loud. To own our space.

It’s time to take up space.

If that means blocking traffic and disrupting businesses for a few hours? I’m all in.

Whatever you do, when you show up on March 8, 2017, do not do it their way. Don’t be polite and quiet. This isn’t a quaint get-together.

This is a strike. A protest. A national movement to defend and improve our rights.

Roar like you mean it, women.

I’m Your Negative Poll, Mr. Trump. And I’m Very Real.

By Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA (2017.01.21 Women’s March Washington, DC USA 00095) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Trump tweeted this morning that “Any negative polls are fake news.”

Oh, but I’m real.

I currently have my period.

Is that real enough for you?

I’ve given birth to children. Two of them came straight out of my vagina. I needed an episiotomy. Let my husband tell you all about that. He almost fainted.

Is that real enough for you?

You can meet my children. They had to have come from *somewhere.* That’s the most miraculous thing about bringing a child into the world. They were never here and then suddenly they are. I brought a human being into the world, so new and original. No other human being will ever be the ones I created.

Is that real enough for you?

I write and read and garden and crochet. I can show you stories and essays and poems that are only there to show you because I created them. I can take you out to my garden and you can eat things I’ve grown. You can come into my house to read one of the books I enjoy. I’ll even wrap a blanket around you that I made.

Is that real enough for you?

I have friends, too. I know they’re real because I’ve been to their homes and met their families, and they’ve been to mine. We go to concerts and movies and parties together. We’ve consumed food together. I’ve listened to them cry and held their hands when needed. They’re so real I’d give a kidney to any one of them if needed.

Is that real enough for you?

If you think that negative polls are “fake news,” does that mean you think I don’t exist? That we don’t exist?

I did not vote for you. I do not approve of you. I do not approve of anything you have done so far in office.

My friends and I have organized. We’ve made phone calls and written letters and marched and demonstrated and scheduled speakers to come teach us and guide us and help us be better people, even stronger people, in the wake of the harmful things you seem so bent on doing to our country.

Calling me “fake news” will not make me go away.

Calling my friends “fake news” will not make us disappear.

We’re going to get louder and your polls are going to get even more negative.

We will not be dismissed as “fake news” or anything else you come up with to try to make us less real to you.

We are all, each one of us, very, very real.

We are your negative polls.

And no matter what petulant tweets you send out about us . . . we’re not going anywhere.

 

Shoveling Shit Against the Tide: How the Politics of Bruce Springsteen Make Me Confront My Shortcomings. And Yours.

By Craig ONeal (The Boss~Live!), via Wikimedia Commons

Recently someone wrote to me letting me know he is also a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. He went on to say that Springsteen is a great lyricist and I agreed.

He wrote back again.

Not a bad guitarist or showman either. Actually the only thing I don’t like is his politics.

I responded, I’m very much a fan of all that. Including his politics.

The response I received was that this person opposed Springsteen’s decision to cancel a concert in North Carolina after they passed the HB2 Act ordering people to use the restroom that corresponds with the person’s gender at birth. The law also eliminates anti-discrimination protection for the LGBTQ population.

My inbox correspondent stated that the only people Springsteen “hurt” were his fans. Also, liberals call people names when they lose arguments.

My response is copied below, and I indicate where I’ve edited it:

I would probably be considered liberal, though I prefer not to label myself. I’m sorry if you’ve experienced liberals calling people names. I’ve experienced the exact opposite. Conservatives calling me “libtard,” telling me to “suck it up,” and “quit being a whiny bitch.”

I applaud his stance on cancelling concerts in North Carolina and I hope he continues to do so since that state’s government seems bent on eroding people’s rights. He didn’t just hurt his fans, a risk he took that alienated some fans of his. He also took business away from that state. Which will hopefully encourage business oweners there to take a stand and encourage their legislators to get rid of that law.

It may be easy for you to say, “If you have a penis, use that bathroom.” But I encourage you to remember that you (I assume) don’t have to wonder what it will look like if you use a bathroom that someone else decides you have no right being in. You have never experienced that fear. Neither have I. And so I read and speak to and listen to those who have so that I can try to understand exactly what is the big deal.

HERE I REFERENCED A PHOTO OF A WOMAN WITH WHAT WOULD BE CONSIDERED A TRADITIONALLY FEMININE BODY, WHO ALSO HAD A PENIS. I AM NOT LINKING IT HERE BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO DRAG THAT PERSON INTO THIS DISCUSSION.

What bathroom should she use?

If she walks into a men’s room looking like that she runs the risk, just as I would, of being groped, harassed, or worse. If she uses the women’s room in NC, she runs the risk of being called a pervert and being arrested. That’s if she’s lucky. If she’s not, she’ll end up harassed, beaten, or worse.

I’m a woman. Listen to what I, and other women, have to say about “perverts.” They’re everywhere. I’ve been harassed, groped, called disgusting names. Other women I know have been assaulted, raped, beaten.

It doesn’t happen in the women’s bathroom. It happens everywhere. On the street. In stores. At work.

If you’re worried about your daughters, I encourage you to focus on educating men about how they speak to and treat women.

I am not going to quote the person. I just don’t feel like asking permission to share his words here. Plus, I’m not in the mood to edit for spelling and grammar.

His argument back was protect the children. They are all in danger from bathroom pedophiles and while he feels bad that this might negatively impact transgender people, he’s going to protect the little girls of the world. And that doesn’t make him a bad person.

No matter what I said, that’s what he kept coming back to. Sorry, but kids are more important in his book. Besides, he sometimes gets the shit end of the stick. Like when he gets searched a lot by the TSA because of his Irish name. (Something about the IRA.)

I said things like:

But your life isn’t in danger at the hands of the TSA. That example doesn’t really align with her experience.

And

They aren’t pervs. They are transgender.

And

Pedophiles don’t generally dress as women to get into the ladies room to attack children.

Which, I think, can give you an idea of the things he was saying. Oh, except at the end when he asked if we could discuss something less depressing. Like, how about something kinky?!?!

Uh, no. Actually, fuck no.

Finally I asked for his bathroom attack statistics and he said I could google them. He admitted it’s a low number, but it’s on the rise, according to him, because of these bathroom laws. Then he wished me well.

What can I say to that?

I hear what you’re saying and I know nothing of what it is like to be transgender and not feel safe using a restroom in public. I hear that it is humiliating and dangerous. I hear you when you say women are more in danger out of a public restroom than in it because of how men treat them. I hear all of that. But I am going to stick to my original position of saying I don’t give a rat’s pink ass because I’m protecting the tiny child wimmenz.

That’s a strong refusal to experience any type of empathy for a human being.

And I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t know how to deal with someone who dismisses me during a calm, respectful conversation the minute I ask him to back up his claims with facts.

⇜ ⇝ ⇜ ⇝ ⇜ ⇝ ⇜ ⇝ ⇜ ⇝ ⇜ ⇝ ⇜ ⇝ ⇜

I take my kids to an indoor pool fairly regularly. A few weeks ago while there, the lifeguard, an older man with a long ponytail both in his hair and in his beard, popped in a CD.

The first song was an uncommonly heard Bruce Springsteen song that I adore. It has very personal significance to my life, so of course my ears perked up. When the song ended, other songs by other artists came on, making it clear the CD was a mix and leading me to believe he probably made it. He probably chose that song himself.

The CD played on repeat while we were there. When the song came on for the third time, he had gotten up from his lifeguard chair and was standing near me, so I bit.

Are you a Springsteen fan?

I used to be.

Now, I know I’m biased, but used to be? What is that shit?

So I reply, Oh. I just assumed because of the song. That’s not a song of his you typically hear from a casual fan.

He smiled. Yeah, I love his work. I’ve seen him live. Incredible show. I just can’t stand his politics anymore.

At this point, I’m already done. One, because I do like his politics and I’m not looking to debate this guy. I’m here to swim and play with my kids. Two, because I’m typically able to disconnect the artist from the person. I realize not everyone else can, and that’s their choice, and also not something I’m looking to debate.

But he continues.

I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but years ago there was an incident with the police in New York City . . .

Let’s come to a full stop here for a moment.

Because my head, at this very moment, sounds like the inside of a church bell with all its ringing. I know exactly where he’s going with this, not just because I’m a Springsteen fan, but because I grew up right outside NYC.

I want to make sure you know where he’s going.

Super long story short:

On February 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo, a black man and undocumented immigrant working as a street vendor, stood outside his Bronx apartment building shortly after midnight.

Four plainclothes NYPD officers in an unmarked police car drove by, decided he was either a possible serial rapist suspect or maybe just standing there as a lookout (he was neither), and jumped out of their car.

He started running up stairs and pulled his wallet out of his jacket. The officers decided the wallet was a gun and the four of them fired their weapons 41 times, hitting him with 19 bullets. Diallo was unarmed.

He died. None of the officers were convicted. For one of them, Kenneth Boss, this was the second time he shot and killed an unarmed man. He still retained his job with the NYPD, given desk duty for a few years until his gun was returned in 2012. In 2015 he was promoted to sergeant.

Bruce Springsteen wrote a song in response to the incident titled “American Skin (41 Shots).” It premiered at a concert he performed in Atlanta on June 4, 2000. From there, he and the E Street Band headed to NYC for a ten show run at Madison Square Garden.

As word of the new song spread, PBA President Patrick J. Lynch wrote a letter to the association’s members. “The title seems to suggests that the shooting of Amadou Diallo was a case of racial profiling — which keeps repeating the phrase, ‘Forty-one shots,’ it read. “I consider it an outrage that he would be trying to fatten his wallet by reopening the wounds of this tragic case at a time when police officers and community members are in a healing period.” He also “strongly urge[d]” that officers neither attend the concert nor moonlight as security at any of his shows.

Lynch wasn’t the only one upset. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir also condemned Springsteen, while Bob Lucente, the president of the New York chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, took things a step further by referring to the singer as a “dirtbag” and a “floating f–.”

(Read More: How Bruce Springsteen Angered the New York Police Department)

I’m going to go a step further and clarify for you exactly what Bob Lucente, head of the New York chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, stated.

“He’s turned into some type of fucking dirtbag. He has all these good songs and everything, American flag songs and all that stuff, and now he’s a floating fag. You can quote me on that.“

Sounds totally like a guy I want leading a police organization.

Let’s forget about the fact that the song actually takes a nuanced look at the incident, singing with empathy for both sides of the coin. The NYPD did not want him playing the song in New York. Because police officers were trying to heal.

Springsteen played it anyway.

Let’s cut back to me and the lifeguard.

He said, I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but years ago there was an incident with the police in New York City . . .

I looked him in the eye and said, Amadou Diallo.

Huh?

I continued.

I grew up in New York. The man’s name was Amadou Diallo. I assume that’s what you’re referring to.

Oh yeah, he said with a snap of his fingers. Yeah, I didn’t like that. The cops asked him not to play that song and he just wouldn’t listen. Just made more trouble for them at a time when they didn’t need it.

I walked away. I’d already crossed my arms as he was speaking, and then a second prior to him even finishing that sentence, I walked away.

What can I say to that? I gave up before I even began, and I’m ashamed of that.

An unarmed man was fired upon 41 times and shot 19 times and died on the steps of his apartment building but don’t sing that song because you might hurt somebody’s feewings.

That’s a strong refusal to experience any type of empathy for a human being.

And I don’t know how to deal with that.

I slipped back into the water and half heartedly played with my kids a bit longer, then left.

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While these two examples are very similar, they actually illustrate two different things that frustrate me.

In the first instance, I was writing. I didn’t feel the need to back down. I was calm and the conversation never got nasty. But as soon as I mentioned statistics, he shut the conversation down.

It happens to me all the time.

In the second instance, I was quiet and walked away because I hate confrontation and I feel as if I don’t articulate as well when I speak as I do when I write.

I hate that I do that.

Both things frustrate me to no end. I feel damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

I get frustrated when I back down, and even more frustrated when others shut down once they realize I’m intelligent and am going to want to discuss actual facts.

Ultimately, I’m trying to figure out how to get through a willful, stubborn refusal to see anything but a person’s own experience. That’s all I seek.

The wisdom and strength to know how to navigate these conversations. I don’t know how to get people to listen. I don’t know how to refuse to be dismissed.

It feels, in the end, like I don’t know how to be taken seriously.

Or how to be brave.

 

Seriously Though . . . Now What?

By Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I just came back from a political action summit that was thrown together last night by a local politician. I’m a bit shaky and have a screaming migraine. Probably from lack of oxygen. Attending was so far outside my comfort zone and then I ended up speaking. Into a microphone. In front of a room full of people.

So yeah. Shaking.

But I am determined to spit out all of these thoughts I have right now because I don’t think I’m the only one who is thinking, “OK so that happened. We marched the next day. Now what?”

It’s going to be a long four years. One woman in attendance made a really great point. When Barack Obama won two terms in office, people on the right went batcrap crazy. But more importantly, behind the scenes, they mobilized. In ways I don’t think a lot of people really imagined possible. They’ve been winning local, state, and national elections and judgeships and if we are truly committed to preserving Democracy (which appears to be perilously close to becoming a failed experiment) we need to be ready and committed to fighting for the next four years.

Starting now.

Here are some ideas I came away with from the summit:

Get a Now What? Summit started in your area

• Contact a local politician and tell him/her that you would like an event hosted that encourages and helps steer people who are looking to get involved more in community and/or political action but aren’t sure where to turn or how to get started.

Reach out to immigrants and/or refugees

• If you live near a sanctuary city and can get involved, DO IT NOW. The new White House website states that Trump is dedicated to “ending sanctuary cities.” on their page supporting Law Enforcement Communities. If you don’t live near a sanctuary city, contact local refugee resources in nearby cities. Refugees and immigrants are already marginalized groups that now are being targeted directly.

Meet them where they are

• By them I mean all of the people currently marginalized and under an ever-increasing threat. People of color, LGBTQIA, Hispanic/Latino, immigrants/refugees, etc. Whomever it is that you would like to support in some way, do not expect them to show up in your neighborhood or attend your events. I looked around the room today and saw zero people of color. So I pulled up my polka dot knickers (in my mind anyway) and when it came time to propose topics for action groups to discuss, I proposed, “How do we meet POC and other minorities where they are and provide support to their events and groups?” Step out of your bubble. Contact local churches or community organizations. Find groups on Facebook. Subscribe to newsletters and event calendars. THEN SHOW UP in whatever way you can. Send donations. Attend protests/marches. Link arms, figuratively and literally, in actionable ways so that you are demonstrating your real support of these groups/people.

Get local and vocal

• Someone there had an amazing idea and this is what I’m running with. Local and Vocal. Essentially, a group that meets twice per month (or more) in a fixed location to write letters to politicians and other leaders encouraging or discouraging them from taking certain actions. I envision it as a starting off point for political action, as well as a place for people to connect. Especially when frustrated by the political process. I also want it to, at least once per month, visit with minorities and underrepresented groups in THEIR location. Churches, community centers, etc. The person who mentioned it has already started one in the city in which the summit was held. I’ll be starting one up in mine. Search for one near you!

You don’t have to do any of this

• But if you can, you have to do something. If none of these ideas appeal to you, pursue what does.

Overall, the message I came away with today is this . . . the time for crying and lamenting and wishing and bashing are over. Shaking our fists at the TV or computer screen will do absolutely nothing to change what is coming or preserve what we hold dear.

If you hold something dear, do what you can.

I’m still physically shaky from attending. I legit have a migraine. I know that attendance at something like this is not possible for everyone.

Just do what you can.

If that means making one phone call a day, do it. If that means writing an email or letter a day, do it. If you can march or attend protests, do it. If you can donate money, do it. If you can in any way support a cause that matters to you or support people less privileged than you, do it.

I’m writing to you from day two of the next four years.

This isn’t a battle to be won. It’s a promise to be kept.

Now what?

Dig in. That’s what.

The Fate of the Flag

Image created by Allison Bedford

I spent Inauguration Day 2017 with a large group of homeschooled kids. They were all busy going on about their day, but we’d set up a computer to C-Span’s livestream of the inauguration in a common area for anyone to watch if they wanted.

I couldn’t. It seemed so dismal. I appreciate the peaceful transfer of power and what a privilege it is to live in a nation that does that.

But I kept myself busy elsewhere.

At snack time, we all met in the common area.

I noticed, not for the first time that day, that every time the kids started to gather round and watch, it got very quiet.

One girl, about eight years old, turned to her mother and asked, “Why is he the President? I thought more people voted for Hillary?”

Her mother hemmed and hawed a bit, trying to figure out how to explain the electoral college. She finally answered, “That’s true, but not enough people whose votes counted less voted for her. There were too many people whose votes count more who voted for him.”

Her daughter was quiet a moment, nibbling on cheese and crackers.

She finally looked up at her mom and said, “But that doesn’t mean he’s a good person.”

“No,” her mom responded. “But he is the president.”

“Will he be a good person when he’s president?”

Her mother was quiet.

“I’m not sure,” she finally said with a shrug. “I haven’t seen many indications that he will be. Not just during the election, but in the years before. But honey, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good person in there. It doesn’t mean he won’t be a good person now. We just have to watch and see.”

My heart broke.

I stood to retreat into a different room because my throat felt thick and my eyes started to burn. It is always emotional for me to watch a mother answer difficult questions for her child. I know what that’s like and how it often churns your soul up, wanting to be honest but not wanting to frighten. Wanting to protect while also wanting to be realistic.

I gathered my son’s things and turned to walk away when a quiet 12 year old who’d been watching the ceremony piped up. He asked such a random question, so surprisingly apropos, and with such an air of genuine curiosity, that I almost fell over laughing.

“So does this mean the American flag is going to get a spray tan?”

Don’t Silence Us: I Was Triggered Over and Over

Photo credit Katie Tegtmeyer, cropped by me

The second story in my Don’t Silence Us series is from a woman who only wants to be identified as she described below. She wrote the piece below in its entirety, and I have not edited or changed a word. If you choose to share this story, and help amplify her voice, please use the hashtags #WereStillHere and #FixThisGOP

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I’m 42 years old.

I have 3 daughters and 2 granddaughters.

I fear for them all.

I am a bisexual Native American and white woman. I was married to an abuser who voted for Trump. I was not suprised at all. Even though we are states apart, I swear I could see him sitting in a chair, nodding right along as Trump made comment after comment after derogatory comment about women. 

Watching that man on t.v. felt like watching my ex. The mood swings, the arrogence, the homophobia, the Islamaphobia, his hate for other cultures and colors was just…like…my ex.

I survived 4 horrific years being abused. I shouldn’t have to do that again. I did NOT consent to that from the ex or Trump. My ex raped me repeatedly.  He accepted money from men to allow them to rape me. He also beat the hell out of me. I feel that Trump will do the same things.

If we survive the next 4 years, maybe we can fix it, the broken system that allowed this election to happen.

I was triggered over and over by this male. I realize I’m nobody important but my vote should count!

#NotMyPresident

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In light of the results of Election 2016, not just who was elected President but the hateful platform adopted by his party who now hold control of both Congress and the Senate, I’ll be featuring stories told by those who feel marginalized and/or voiceless in our country. You can email your story to authorallisonbedford@gmail.com. All stories are shared in complete anonymity, unless otherwise requested by the owner of the story. I encourage all who feel voiceless, or who work with those who need/want their voices amplified, to participate.

I’ll Be Brave On the Page

Photo credit Chris Wightman

I am the quintessential Trump supporter.

I am a white, middle-aged, cisgender, straight woman.

My husband is a white, middle-aged, cisgender, straight male.

We live in a rural area. I attended college but do not hold a degree. My husband completed high school.

We are both descended from blue collar workers for as long as back as we can trace, with the exception of my paternal grandfather who had a college degree and was employed as a social worker.

The two of us are worse off than our parents were at our ages. They were worse off than their parents were before them.

My husband faced a serious injury that threatened his livelihood, required several surgeries, and left him unemployed and relying on workers compensation for years. He took advantage of a training program offered to him through workers comp to get certified in a new field since it would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to work in his former field.

It pays thousands of dollars less than his potential to earn had been prior to the injury.

I have been unable to find a job since we moved to a more affordable state three years ago. I also have untreated mental illness.

We earn too much to qualify for any assistance aside from a Medicaid sponsored, state administered, health insurance plan for our children, yet too little to be able to get by without fear. The two of us have gone without health insurance for over three years. We cannot afford the insurance offered through his employer. In fact, were we to sign up for it, he would end up owing his employer money each pay period.

Over a year ago my husband’s employer gave him another $.75 per hour. That raise, which barely registered as a blip in his paycheck, but for which we are thankful nonetheless, made our children no longer eligible for free lunch at school. So that extra $6 per day, less taxes of course, was immediately spent already to feed the kids.

We play a monthly utility game, juggling electric, water, and gas. We don’t have cable, only internet, which we need because I can sometimes earn money helping people with their websites or writing. Unfortunately, that work is sporadic since most area businesses are small and don’t really see the value in paying someone to help with social media and other new-fangled crap their parents never had to deal with.

Sometimes, our gambling with the bills pays off. Other times, nothing seems to align, and something gets shut off.

This week, it was our water.

If our car breaks down, we face homelessness.

If our landlord gets sick of us always paying our rent late, we face homelessness.

If something happens to my husband and he can’t work, we face homelessness.

If one of us gets ill or injured and requires medical care, we face homelessness.

None of those statements are exaggerations. We have no savings. No cushion.

We operate, perpetually, in the red.

I go to a food pantry once per month to feed my children. I find I can’t look them in the eye when one or more of them says, “I’m hungry,” . . . and my hands are empty.

I once bragged to my mother, with genuine pride, that I managed to go food shopping and purchase everything I needed to feed our family of five for two whole weeks after meticulous meal planning, and spent just $88.

Next to a definition of Trump Supporter in the dictionary, should be my image.

However, my husband and I are NOT Trump supporters. In fact, his 100 day plan, the only concrete policy plan I’ve seen from him (but feel free to correct me if I’ve missed some other comprehensive plan), stands to directly impact my family in negative ways which I won’t enumerate here.

I already feel shaky revealing all of this.  At this point, I think I’d rather delete all of this and post a picture of my vagina.

But I will say this . . .

The biggest reason I am not a Trump supporter . . .

I do not feel that bettering myself and my family should come at the expense of so many others. Nor do I feel that it is necessary.

If he wants to create energy jobs, do it through improving renewable energy sources rather than destroying the earth through coal (seriously wtf are we in the 1800’s again?), fracking, and other dangerous practices.

I don’t feel the jobs I’m vying for are being taken by immigrants, legal or otherwise.

I don’t agree that things like prohibiting women from getting abortions, or forcing children to pray in school. or forcing people to salute a symbolic piece of cloth will do anything to better me or my family.

These are the things I hear from a lot of his supporters though. That there’s a breakdown in society that is somehow causing them to not be able to find work that allows them to support their families. That somehow, if two dudes are banging their penises together in their bedroom somewhere, or a person born a woman identifies instead as a man, this means that an invisible, omnipotent force shall smite thee and thee shall ne’er find work again.

I read plenty of articles about his supporters that feel marginalized and I agree with helping these people to feel heard and supported. I do hear them and support them in terms of sympathizing with the disappearing middle class. America doesn’t manufacture anymore. We, collectively, decided that things like fair wages, safe work conditions, and our children getting educations rather than toiling the day away in factories, mattered to all of us. So companies take advantage of less expensive manufacturing in countries that don’t care about those same things.

I understand how frustrating it is to feel always at the mercy of luck. To feel always as if some hammer is about to drop and everything you’ve been juggling will crash down on you.

But I draw the line once I hear those people, people like me in so very many ways, start blaming others. Especially since the others all tend to be people from other countries, with different skin colors, with a different sexuality, with differing genders, with a different (or no) religion, etc.

That is why I don’t identify with many of his supporters. Because I draw a hard fucking line. It’s not in the sand. It’s un-erasable. In fucking Sharpie marker.

There is a way to make things better without oppressing others.

You won’t ever get me to bend on that.

I’ll even go a step further.

As upset as I am by the election results, (I’ve been crying for two days now and really need to get a grip) I still recognize that as shitty as my position is . . . it’s better than others.

Because I’m still a white, middle-aged, cisgender, straight woman married to a white, middle-aged, cisgender, straight male.

I absolutely recognize the privilege all of that allows us.

I have my children who love me in ways I cannot put into words. The love I feel from them, unconditional and pure and beautiful, keeps me aloft no matter how low I sink.

So I’ve cried for two days and I’m genuinely concerned about what this presidency means for me and my precious family who I feel I disappoint and fail almost every day but for whom I keep struggling because it has to get better some day.

But I’m even more concerned about what it means for YOU.

I had a stranger reach out to me yesterday and tell me a heartbreaking, uplifting story of such peril it absolutely floored me. It involved another country, a child-bride, a child-mother, escape from peril, and ultimately a love story forged here in America.

This stranger now lives with a deep, genuine fear of the way she’s being treated despite living here for over twenty years, having raised children who are successful and contribute to our country in deeply meaningful ways, and having mostly, in the past, felt the respect of those in her community.

I wept as I read what she shared with me:

Rabindranath Tagore was the first man who won Noble Literature prize outside of Europe in 1905. After Jallianwala Bagh massacre he returned his British knighthood. Tagore dedicated a poem to Gandhi. I am passing it to you.

If they answer not to thy call walk alone,

If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,

O thou of evil luck,

open thy mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,

O thou of evil luck,

trample the thorns under thy tread,

and along the blood-lined track travel alone.

If they do not hold up the light

when the night is troubled with storm,

O thou of evil luck,

with the thunder flame of pain ignite thine own heart

and let it burn alone.

I don’t consider myself a brave person. Except here.

And by here I don’t mean WordPress, or even the internet.

I feel brave on the page. I feel confident here on the page. I do this writing thing fairly well, and I enjoy doing it.

I don’t know if I can make a difference. But I can certainly fucking write.

So that’s what I’ll do.

I’ll write your story. I have my voice, but maybe you don’t.

You can message me at authorallisonbedford@gmail.com. You can keep yourself anonymous or reveal yourself. That’s your choice and I will always respect it.

If you feel afraid, or marginalized, or want to share your story, or work for a non-profit that needs highlighting. If you want to fight against oppression. If you want someone to listen.

If you just want for something you can’t put into words.

Feel free to message me and we’ll discuss making your voice heard. 

I’m holding space for you at my blog.

And in my heart.

Give Me My Moment With All the Female Pronouns

Anyone else sick of politics? Yeah, me too. But if you would please indulge me for a moment . . . 

Because I’m having a moment.

It hit me just a little while ago.

She is an official nominee for President of the United States of America. 

She wasn’t my first choice. She wasn’t in my top ten of potential choices. I do sort of feel as if I’m voting for her because she is the lesser of two evils. Way lesser. In fact, not even in the same realm of evil. Despite not being my first choice, I still think she has fuck tons of experience that will serve her well.

All that aside . . . 

SHE is an official nominee for President of the United States of America. 

I grew up thinking that would not ever happen. Not from one of the two major parties.

I grew up assuming, never questioning, that the President of the United States is a man. Always had been and always would be.

Kids today will not grow up with that assumption.

If you think this isn’t a big deal, consider recent articles from NPR and The Wall Street Journal that discuss the implications of a “First Dude” and his role. 

I mean, he certainly won’t give up his post-Presidential career, right? A First Lady sets aside her career, but not a First Dude, right? <insert manly shudders of horror>

My favorite debate is the one about picking place settings and decor. 

“With respect to my own husband, I am probably still going to pick the flowers and the china for state dinners and stuff like that, but I will certainly turn to him, as prior presidents have, for special missions for advice,” Hillary Clinton said in the ABC News Democratic debate in December.

That right there is why this is a big deal.

So give me my moment of relishing she and her. Let me enjoy my moment chock full of all the female pronouns and the realization that, finally, being she and her is the same as being limitless.