1 post tagged “moreland”

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