I was having a fabulous day. I was on cloud nine, I had done a dorktastic chair dance over a problem I’d solved, I was working from home on a cloudy rainy day, and it was Friday; I couldn’t have been more gleeful. Seriously, when is the last time you felt glee? I had skipped lunch and decided at four to go run a couple of errands. I got in the car full of happy thoughts of buying things I needed for my new home, for Halloween, and sweet blessed food for the weekend. And then I cranked up the engine and heard the following on NPR’s “All Things Considered”:
Leah Moreland had a much different answer. Moreland sat a few feet away from Hake; the two women are related through marriage. Moreland is supporting McCain.
"I don't want to sound racist, and I'm not racist," Moreland says. "But I feel if we put Obama in the White House, there will be chaos. I feel a lot of black people are going to feel it's payback time.” And I made the statement, I said, 'You know, at one time, the black man had to step off the sidewalk when a white person came down the sidewalk.' And I feel it's going to be somewhat reversed. I really feel it's going to get somewhat nasty."
I was half way down the street before I heard that first line, when I snorted and said “Well, then, you’re a racist”. Because, come on! It’s the same as prefacing a statement with “No Offense”, when you say that, all you are planning on doing is offending someone, but you want an out. And we elitist, snob liberal PC types have given it to you as long as you say ahead of the statement that you’re a jerk.
And then I had made the turn and was waiting at the light when I heard the rest. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, scream, curse or drive straight into on-coming traffic.
Moreland says she doesn't think all black people will "want payback." "I'm not talking about you(to the black people in the room, this is part of an NPR panel series), and I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the people that are out on the street looking for trouble. Putting a black man in the White House — and if he gets there, he gets there; I'm going to live under his presidency and everything. And I'm still going to be friends with anybody black that wants to be my friend and everything. But I really feel there's going to be a time of adjustment. I really feel it. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong." (bold and italics mine)
Yeah, because there are no white angry people that wouldn’t do just what she’s implying should Obama win. No, they are all good, God fearing, Christian people. Good God fearing Christians that want to tell everyone else how to live their lives and think that the American Government; that was founded on the SEPARATION of church and state, should be dictating our lives but not regulating our economy aside from bailing out Wall Street. The ‘live under his presidency’ really got to me too.
I sincerely believe there will be a time of adjustment if Obama wins, but I don’t think it’s going to be nasty black people at all. There could be instances of that. We’ve already heard about acts of violence against McCain supporters by Obama supporters, but I think that street runs both ways. Oh yeah, I was trying to think of one… what about those kids at a school in the Pacific Northwest that hung an Obama cut out in effigy. No, not an attack on an actual person, but I don’t discount that it hasn’t happened. Suddenly I find myself humming Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”.
So with that said, I would like to write a letter to Ms. Moreland:
I like to think I’m pretty news and political savvy. I read a lot of news of all ilks. If I remember my fundamental public school
education correctly, the Republicans have always run on a platform of less
government regulation. They were always
the keep your chocolate out of my peanut butter party right? So riddle me this Moreland… where the hell do they get off saying “I’m
going to put my chocolate (oops bad analogy, I guess they are the peanut
butter) I’m going to put my peanut butter in your uterus, your marriage, and
all your other civil rights… but keep your chocolate out of my AK-47!”
And honestly I just got sidetracked by rage, because the real feeling I had at the end of that interview was: bereftness. Gah, that’s not even a word, bereft-ness, but I felt bereft. I felt hurt, and violated and crushed. And as demonstrated above, I did what people do when they feel that way, I became enraged. Ms. Moreland? That is what makes people do the things you imply. If you are afraid that a black woman or man is going to shove you off the sidewalk or to the back of the bus? Then maybe that’s because you feel like the world is moving forward and it is not taking your racist ass with it. Maybe you long for the days when you could do that to them with impunity, and I’m sure never did, but you can’t admit it anymore. Maybe you’re afraid that payback is going to be a bitch. And if that is the case? Then you haven’t been paying attention to anyone but your own small self, because this has nothing to do with payback. It might, to small groups of people; just like it will be payback to small groups of people if McCain wins. I don’t mind you thinking about how this will affect you. I mind that you can’t get out of your own small prejudiced mind to realize what a major cusp of history we are on the precipice of.
And yes you are a racist. Just because you have a few black friends, or maybe you had a nice black cleaning woman growing up, who you feel warmly towards? When you apply a reaction, a feeling, a mindset to a group of people but exclude the ones you know? You my dear are a racist. Oh! In fact, I am a racist, because all this time what I’ve been afraid of? Are the ‘real Americans’ Sarah Palin touts that are going to go looking for revenge big and small style if Obama wins. To be quite honest Ms. Moreland, I am disappointed in both of us.
I don’t know you well enough to feel my disappointment in you very deeply. I feel my disappointment in me on several levels. I’ve had a great few weeks. I did amazing things at work, I did and witnessed amazing things for charity, I spent time bonding with friends and family. So why am I so disappointed in myself? And the country? Because I slipped back into hopeful naïveté.
Yes, the campaign is ugly, but I’ve read “Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics” by Gail Collins; and at least no one this year has implied that anyone else’s wife was a street walker, murdered their own troops in the civil war, or had fornicated with animals . McCain has been allowed to disavow himself from implicit racism since that’s been being handled by sub groups sending out emails implying that Obama is a terrorist or GASP a MUSLIM! This probably would have been the same as implying Teddy Roosevelt might have Catholic sympathies back in the day.
I have the luxury to work in a place where people are very charity minded, in a completely overwhelming sense. Lately I have been exerting myself for the raising of funds and goods for many of these charities, and the outpouring has swelled my heart and brought me to tears. Ms. Moreland, I would bet any amount of money that you probably contribute to your own charities, and that your heart and eyes well up too. I am in no way implying you are not a good person. From your interview all I know for certain is that you are a racist. From your interview, I’m going to take liberties and extrapolate that you also are the kind of person that wants to have a say about my civil liberties and what I can or cannot do as a US citizen. I feel fairly confident in assuming the only civil right of mine that you don’t want someone else to fuck with on your behalf, is my right to carry an assault rifle.
Ms. Moreland, why don’t you and I compromise? You keep your politics out of mine and everyone else’s: belief system, uterus, racial status, sexual status and personal life. I’ll keep my politics out of your and your like minded brethren’s: gun toting, religion… oh that’s all I can think of, because I don’t support a party that wants to take away any of your rights. I support a party that wants to uphold all of your rights and everyone else’s. Yes, we want to regulate whether or not you should own an assault rifle, I’d be happy to sit down and discuss that one. But I still think the second amendment had more to do with keeping England at bay than strafing endangered species from planes in Alaska. But let’s have a cup of tea and you can tell me why you think I’m wrong.
Ms. Moreland, I apologize for some of my language in my letter to you. I am as passionate about what you said as you are mealy mouthed saying it. We’re both women, we can both vote, we both get our say. So stand up straight, and say what you mean, this isn’t a Faulkner play. You’re a Republican, not one of us wishy washy PC liberals, say what you mean. Or if you can’t, maybe you have a really good reason to be embarrassed. I know I am on your behalf. You got to speak on the radio, I know NPR will allow a good deal of people to comment on your statements. All I have to arm myself against ‘oh not you” but you know, those people, are my words and my vote. And it’s people like you and your people, that makes me hope ‘that guy’, wins.
Sorta kind regards, a different kind of racist,
Danielle
What Are You So Scared Of?
A good friend asked me a question last weekend in a vulnerable moment. I didn’t really know how to answer, aside from saying “Of letting people down. Of letting me down.” It was a horribly vulnerably, honest moment; it’s no less true when I’m sitting here feeling stronger than ever, incredibly sure of myself.
Have you ever been in one of those group activities, where they make you take the Briggs/Myers test that puts you in a quadrant? I made a lot of you do it recently, I love those, they’re great. You usually end up exactly where your outdoor voice should be. I love to go home later and pick at where my indoor voice lives. I’m always two sides of that coin, I always have been. I bet most of you are too. I wonder often about people who aren’t.
I always come up introvert/extrovert. At work and at play I’m the head of many committees. I put myself out there. I’ve refined the ability to be Rah Rah Cheerleader and cynical snob. There are days I resent everyone, like I assume most people do. But then I look around at all those people I assume about and realize I’m being a jerk. They’re jus trying to get through their lives, they want to move on to better things like, just like me.
Well some of them are still jerks, let’s face it. That guy/gal texting behind you at a traffic light? Total jerk. Obviously. Moron texting, while wearing earbuds and crossing the road without looking? Total jerk.
I like to think I’m a cynic. I like to think I’m jaded and world weary. I like to think I’m tired of the coops and interns that think they don’t have to pay dues.
I’m a big fat liar.
I’m a giant optimist. Yeah, I still think the jerks walking into traffic texting and re-programming their IPods should pay the price.
Here’s the thing:
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
It’s hip (and hip is hip again) to be cynical, snarky, mean. I get that! But I only get that if it’s because someone famous is doing something stupid, or wearing something outrageous. It’s a harmless way for the unheard to be heard. What other explanation for Perez Hilton.
But think about what I wrote up there. Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
In my twenties I was so sure I knew everything. I was sarcastic and dismissive. Sometimes, I still am. Those days I may think I’m clever, the day after I usually think I’m an asshole.
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
Think about that. It’s been played with in movies and commercials (there was recently one, about paying nice things forward and how good that was).
The movie “Pay It Forward” had a terrible twist. But the message was still clear.
We’re in dire straits people. If we don’t help each other, no one is coming to help us.
We’ve bought these McMansions, on huge lots. But do we know our neighbors? Would they help us? Do they care?
They do. Everyday, I read amazing stories about people that didn’t know each other but reached out. A 66 year old man was jailed because of his brown lawn. Once his neighbors (not his horrific neighborhood association that sued him) found out; and people that were not his neighbors: they pulled together in a day to re-do his lawn and free him.
We have become a place where false governments (HOAs) influence our actual government. We have become a place where keeping your home is less a priority than keeping up your lawn. We have become a bunch of idiots that can’t see the forest for the trees. If a community organization has a man imprisoned for his lawn being brown, at the sake of his home being his? We have seriously decided to drink the sand that we believe to be water in the mirage before us.
Let us all step back. Let us all rethink.
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
In these new hard times there are so many options before us. Go through your possessions and donate. Really? Really? Look hard at what you own. Think about The Spring, where abused families just need basics like clothes and shampoo. Think about the homeless tent cities that were destroyed. Do you really need a new lemon zester? Or are you buying it because you can? Because you haven’t been hit? Or because you are afraid you will be? And in two months, you won’t be able to sell it on Ebay.
No one is asking you for money. Although everyone is.
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
It’s easy to be cold, sharp, abrupt.
It’s just as easy to smile.
Not even give, just smile.
Yes, people are annoying, and in your way and horrid and smell. But how hard is it, to smile? And once you try it? You might find you actually mean it. And others will mean it too.
Desi has always been an embodiment of the best of who I really am inside. When Des and I first met, I was beginning my path on a career in IT while still living with my former ballroom dance partner. I was probably 22 or 23. I find it amazing I don’t remember exactly. Desi was a lone 4 week old kitten, nourishing himself out of puddles in the back lot of the dance studio where Thom still worked and I still subbed in sometimes. Thom caught him one night with an elicit can of tuna from the gas station in front of the strip mall that housed the studio.
Thom called me around 8:30 and told me to come quick and bring the cat carrier. Back in those days, Scarlett was just around a year old and the only carrier I had was the cardboard one I was given by the Humane Society. I arrived to find Thom and some others standing on the sidewalk out front. Thom, all six foot two inches of him was holding a wee tiny yowling bit of stripey fluff. I leapt from the car, reached out my hands and cried “Oh you darling…. Stinkbomb!!!!”
I was now holding a hissing, spitting, enraged, oil and dirt covered tan and brown striped mass that had a softball for a head, very little body, a stick of a tail and very large feet. I initially deposited him in my tiny bathroom, where he took cover behind the toilet and hissed at me constantly without making a sound. I was charmed. All that rage, and fury and fear and angst from something so young and tiny. He had to be bathed several times over to rid him of the woods and parking lot grime. He got a good check up from the vet and some worm medicine and was sent back to our tiny bungalow.
The vet guessed he was about four and a half weeks old; but when your brain is the size of walnut, and your mother and all your litter mates die, and then you’re scooped up and shoved in a box, the world sucks and can scar you pretty bad in a pretty short time.
When we opened up the condo to him, beyond the bathroom, he made tracks straight to under my bed. Only having had Scarlett for a year at this point, I was new to the idiosyncratic nature of cats for the most part. I was used to troubled animals, abandoned animals, but none had ever been cats. I quickly learned that even cats that had spent their whole 4 weeks of life outdoors would use a litter box if you gave them the option: if you didn’t? They’d use your laundry.
Almost everyday, I’d come home from work, lie on the floor, on my stomach, next to my bed, and read. At first he would just hiss, now with sound! Then maybe a month later he’d come to the edge of the bed skirt and watch me. Then maybe around the end of the third month he’d sniff at me. By the fifth month, he was laying in the small of my back, but I could feel him taught as a coil. By the sixth month, he’d lay there and doze purring. By the beginning of the seventh month, he was exploring the condo and was using the regular litter box, adept at avoiding my roommates none too bright dog, and following Scarlett’s lead.
It’s been at least ten years, I can’t recall, so much has changed. Desi and Scarlett moved from that condo to my first apartment alone. Then they moved from that apartment to my next place in a new city two and a half hours away, then they moved to another apartment two minutes away. In August we all moved in to our first house… home.
Again the cats were hidden in the bathroom while the movers did their thing. Again, Scarlett came out almost immediately and explored every nook and cranny of her new surroundings. Desi made haste to find the bed and hid under it. But for the first time we were in a place large enough, that this was not a tenable option for day to day living. He was 10 or so, not 4 weeks; I wasn’t going to put a litter box in my new bedroom. The only litterbox was on the opposite side of the house. He would steal under darkness of night.
He and Scarlett had some displaced anger/territorial issues. She didn’t care after the first week. He still did.
Like I said, Desi represents the best and worst of me. Desi is the part of me that is quick to make unfounded snap judgements and stick to them for no good reason. He’s also the one that desperately wants comfort, quiet, acceptance and love. He denies himself amazing opportunities because of that.
The new house has a completely screened in patio with a cat-tastic level shelf running a foot above the ground at the base of the windows that Scarlett had been enjoying since day one. Desi missed out on the birds, lizards, squirrels, frogs and view for a month and a half because he was convinced that Scarlett wouldn’t let him out there. To be honest, for a while she kind of didn’t, but he didn’t really even try until recently. But back to the theme. Once he realizes he was wrong, he’s so happy to tell you you were right.
Desi and Scarlett are the two halves to my whole. Yin and Yang to use them as kitty clichés. She’s the confident, curious, flirty, outgoing, demanding part that most people know. He’s the shy, scared, skittish, defensive, grumpy, cranky, solitary inside that so many people don’t see and would never understand.
Lately, Desi has been making an effort. He’s been hanging out in more rooms in the house. And he’s been trying to hang out on the patio. He would poke his nose out and then go lay on the other side of the sliding glass doors looking out.
In the last week, especially when my Mom was visiting he took his fledgling steps out, always watching for his sister/keeper. Depending on her approach and demeanor he would scurry back inside.
Tonight he came out, over and over. The first two times he watched her and when she approached, he fled. Finally, I think she got it, and she just laid down and let him come forth.
He hid, he watched her, he realized she wasn’t watching him. He began to stalk the ledge strongly. She approached, he didn’t back down. She showed him the best places to watch for lizards and moths. Like she has taught him to hunt in the past. He overloaded and ran back inside. He came back out. He jumped in my lap. He purred and rolled around. Then he hopped down and hopped back up to the ledge.
My heart broke a little when I saw him out on that ledge, because he was me, out on that ledge. Still a little afraid, but ready to start again, even if he had to come back every once in a while for that reassuring head scratch.
