Funny Vibe

No, I'm not gonna rob you
No, I'm not gonna beat you
No, I'm not gonna rape you
So why you want to give me that
Funny Vibe!

No, I'm not gonna hurt you
No, I'm not gonna harm you
And I try not to hate you
So why you want to give me that
Funny Vibe!

~ Funny Vibe, Living Colour, 1988

Sometimes I wish I could remember what it was like before I was race conscious. Blissfully ignorant, I believed racism had been outlawed with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I can’t claim ignorance anymore. The more I witness and experience, the more I realize that in our current collective frame of mind, racism is insurmountable and true change and true equality are a cruel fantasy.

I am not cynical, just weary.  I see the same weariness in my husband Ronald (for new readers, I am white and Ronald is black. We’ve been together for nearly 40 years.).

Ronald says, “Why do you write about this? It won’t change anything. It will only upset you.”

I’m already upset by it, though. Writing helps me to process it. As weary as I am over the whole thing, as hopeless as it feels, I want to make it better. I’d rather try to make change than tacitly perpetuate racism through inaction.

When Ronald is at his saddest he says, “I’ve seen too much.”

He is referring to when he was growing up in the projects on the Westside of Syracuse and then, later, when he served the community as a firefighter for 25 years and assisted people in crisis. The images are burned into his soul, and they live alongside me. I can’t turn them out. They are valid and real. They have a right to be here.

Watching media stories about the very white institution known as the PGA attacking Tiger Woods for “the drop” and Vijay Singh for “deer antler spray use,” Ronald recalled how certain officers on the fire department wanted to ruin his reputation and bring him shame just because they didn’t want him there. Their hatred, judgments, and actions against him had nothing to do with Ronald’s performance or abilities, but everything to do with the color of his skin. As a witness I felt immense sadness, helplessness, and anger. The same story is played out over and over, and it doesn’t matter if one is rich or famous or the best in the world at something or even the President of the United States. Skin color makes it so.
Everyone will remember that Tiger Woods took “the drop” at the 2013 Masters in Augusta, but they won’t remember that it was found to be a legal drop and that he did not have an unfair advantage.  They won’t remember that it was the PGA committee who determined the drop was legal and failed to let him know prior to signing his scorecard that a television spectator had called in a report of unfair play precipitating an investigation. They won’t remember how uncanny it was for the PGA committee to reverse its decision the next morning. They won’t remember that Tiger Woods is the number one golfer in the world because of his work ethic, drive, focus, and ability. They’ll only remember the commentators, Nick Faldo and Brandel Chamblee, calling for him to disqualify himself in a manner that suggested to me they might as well have worn white hoods and carried torches.  They’ll remember that deep down inside, they don’t think Tiger Woods deserves the title of the number one golfer in the world. Skin color makes it so.

I cringe when I hear about the kinds of attacks waged against President Obama. For a certain percentage of Americans, there is nothing he can do that is right. Hear them tell it, he doesn’t represent them. He is a tyrannical monster who orchestrated the Boston Marathon bombing and who plans to take America away from the very people who most deserve it – white people. Skin color makes it so.

It’s the mundane things, too. Like when we went out to eat the other night and the very nice, young, white waitress did not look or speak directly to Ronald the whole evening. She asked if we wanted separate checks and separate plates for our shared dessert, not just once, but several times, as if she wondered about my sanity, as if she could not imagine why we were seated at the same table, let alone sharing the same food and knocking spoons.

Her final attempt at figuring out the situation resulted in her handing Ronald’s credit card back to me instead of him. The scenario did not compute in her world. It ruined our evening. Skin color makes it so.

Then there are the events that change one’s life and one’s sense of self. They are specters that haunt continually and cast gray shadows that snuff out one’s spark.

I saw such a specter this past week as it hovered over my father-in-law. He has dementia, which is sad enough as we struggle with the loss of knowing him and of him knowing us.

“Who are you?” he asked me several times over the week.

Each time I patiently answered, “I’m Dianne, your number one daughter-in-law.” Sometimes he was fine and knew exactly who I was and minutes later, he didn’t.

One evening we piled into the car, with Ronald driving, to go to the carpet store to order new carpet for my in-laws’ bedroom. When we got inside the store, the salesman who approached us must have reminded my father-in-law of one of his supervisors from over 60 years ago.

“I’ve got something I need to say to him,” he said after I had led him to a chair so he could sit and his legs wouldn’t hurt so much. “I didn’t steal that loaf of bread.”

“He knows that now,” I said. “It’s been straightened out.”

“I want to tell him myself,” he said.

I know he didn’t steal that bread 60 years ago when he was a young father who moved his family up North so they could have a better life. One of his first jobs was at the Millbrook Bread Company. Like my father, he would not pick up a dime off the street if it didn’t belong to him. The truth doesn’t matter because that supervisor believed my father-in-law must have been the one that took that bread, and 60 years later the humiliation and anger are clear while other more dear memories are lost. Skin color makes it so.

When people are judged by the color of their skin, the scars go deeper than memory and time and space. They don’t fade. They embody pain, humiliation, depression, and anger. Skin color makes it so.

I’m sensitive to this, but that’s because racism is a chameleon, manifesting itself in different guises. My blissful ignorance is long gone, and I cannot recall how it felt. I am frequently offended, especially living down in the South where the attitudes seem infinitesimally different from the attitudes of the Jim Crow era. I am offended when people tell me not to take it seriously or to consider the source or that not everyone thinks that way or that I should just get over it. I can’t. I won’t. I’ve seen too much.

Instead I get that funny vibe like at the restaurant the other night or when white people stop and stare at us like we are engaged in something so unbelievable and abhorrent that they are going to post it on Facebook later and talk about it for the next year. Skin color makes it so.

The scars on this escaped slave’s back are painfully visible. This photo of Gordon was taken in 1862.

This is just one of the many subliminally racist images flooding the Internet. This is a target that bleeds when shot.  It eerily resembles President Obama. Looking at it gives me that funny vibe.

Reaching for Reacher

I haven’t posted in a while. I am overwhelmed. Reality battered my sensibilities, I’m afraid, so I have been hiding inside a book or two or three. You’d think I would turn to romance or fantasy novels or literary fiction or poetry that titillates my love of words. But I don’t. I read detective, mystery, and police novels. After seeing Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise, I started plowing my way through Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. I’m on number 12 and about ready to begin 13. I believe there are 17 total, and, hopefully, some more on the way.

It’s what I did as a child in a household in which my parents played out tragic lives. They faced poverty and alcoholism and anger and depression and cultural and ethnic differences that drove them apart in spite of the love I knew they had for one another. I suffered abandonment issues as a result, but that paled in comparison, I suppose, or at least was brushed aside in lieu of the adult problems, and, anyway, books had a way of finding me, sitting with me, comforting me, and loving me. 

I developed my taste for reading with the books I found in the bathroom hamper, Ma’s secret reading stash.  By the time I was twelve or thirteen I had read Gone with the Wind, The Carpetbaggers, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Knock on Any Door, The Valley of the Dolls, Grapes of Wrath, The Godfather, East of Eden, and a host of other adult novels. I like novels with grit and human suffering and realism and death and mayhem and mystery and resolution and justice. I still head for those books today: if not Lee Child and Jack Reacher, then Leonard Elmore and Raylan Givens, or Craig Johnson and Walt Longmire, or Walter Moseley and Easy Rawlins and Leonid McGill, or Jonathan Kellerman and Alex Delaware, or James Patterson and Alex Cross.

It’s not that I don’t read other books. I love Toni Morrison and Amy Tan and Alice Walker and William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway and Eugene O’Neill and so many others. I’ve read lots of memoir because there is something about the chance to live and walk in someone else’s shoes, if only for a few hundred pages, that speaks deeply to my empathy. I read lots of non-fiction, too, about history and politics and culture and race and gender. I worry my short time on earth, even if it is 90 or 100 years, will not be long enough to read all the books I hope to read.

But when life seems too much – when the news turns my stomach with stories of violence, heartbreak, hatred, and ignorance; when humankind displays its ugliest behaviors and emotions; and when family life transitions are difficult to experience, like the transitions my elderly in-laws are going through, because there is sorrow and loss and pain and unknowing – I run to the gritty, hardcore novels. The novels where the heroes struggle with their own brokenness and sorrow but who have strong ethical codes and who fight for justice.

I hadn’t read a Jack Reacher novel before seeing Tom Cruise as the star of the same-named movie. Movies are another escape for me, and I watch a lot of them. I liked Cruise as Reacher, although I had read in the reviews that he didn’t resemble the fictional character. That’s true. The Jack Reacher of Lee Child’s novels is a giant: 6’5”, 250 pounds, and muscular with arms as big as most people’s thighs. He is blonde and blue-eyed, ex-military police, nomadic, not a good looking guy, I’d call him “muggly,” and he travels with just a folding toothbrush and the clothes on his back, which he replaces as needed at cheap discount stores. I still picture him with Tom Cruise’s face when I read the books, but I told Ronald that I think Dwayne Johnson should play him in the next movie. He’s the right size, and he’s often played military and cop types.  Too handsome like Cruise, and certainly not blond and blue-eyed, but I think he’d be perfect.

In some ways, I married a hero taken straight out of a novel, someone who spent his working years fighting fires and caring for people in crisis, fighting for his own sense of justice, and taking care of his family: me and our twin daughters and his parents. Yet I want to be the person protecting, too, because that’s what life partners do.  They look out for one another and play the role of hero when the occasion calls for it.

I wish I could be one of the fictional heroes I read about in novel after novel. I dreamed of being a hero when I was a child, fixing every problem my parents faced and righting every wrong I stumbled upon. As an adult child of an alcoholic, I am still driven to fix problems and help people and make the world right. It isn’t easy though when life gets overwhelming, so I bury myself in a novel until I can find the resolve to get back up and keep on fixing. Ah, back to Jack Reacher novel #12, page 254.

Below: Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher and 

my choice for the nomadic, ex-military policeman, Dwayne Johnson.

Separate and Unequal

I'm very pleased to introduce Jonnie Martin to you. I invited some other writers to share their race and culture experiences, and Jonnie is the first. If we cannot view our experiences through the lens of honesty and forthrightness, we cannot begin to heal our shameful history of racism and look forward to a new unified America.

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They say that fish do not know that they live in water – it surrounds them, cradles them, feeds them -- it is all that they know.  Growing up in the south in the 40’s and 50’s was not so different.  We white southerners lived in a segregated world that cradled and fed us and it was all we knew.  It was all I knew until I was 16 and a brave man challenged me into awareness.

The year was 1955 in Arlington, Texas; I was a sophomore studying history and current affairs under one of the most popular teachers, a freckle-faced sandy-haired man we all lovingly called “Coach” because he also taught P.E. and managed the B-team in football.  He never berated or punished – only his encouragement led the boys to resounding victories on the gridiron. 

The year prior, the Supreme Court had issued its Brown v. Board of Education ruling calling for the desegregation of schools, but there was resistance throughout the south and a raging debate to maintain the “separate but equal” worlds of black and white.  On this particular day, Coach opened civics class with a counter to this popular notion:  “There is no such thing as separate but equal,” he softly drawled.

Most of my fellow sophomores reacted silently with a shrug – whatever – and continued passing notes or exchanging playful jabs.  A few were concerned with the threat of busing, but most of the heat of this issue was generated by parents.  Most of us did not even know a Negro, the common term for African-Americans in that era.

My reaction was different, however.  I had been known for my strong opinions and my sometimes-unpopular editorials as a teenage journalist and I was a force on debate teams.  Like any good debater, I could unemotionally take either side of an argument, but on that particular day I found myself taking the side of the “separatists” and with a vengeance that surprised and confounded me.

From my front row vantage point, I began to pepper Coach with separatist views.  Perhaps as a child of the south, these were the only views I knew, or at least the ones that echoed most loudly in my ear.  They were the words I had heard many a time, from friends, neighbors, family – even preachers.  They felt right and righteous as they spilled out with energy.

Coach responded to each salvo in a slow, tranquil manner, each answer well-reasoned.  I immediately punctured each peaceful response, mutilating the air with a barrage of sharp-edged retorts and piercing accusations.  “Negroes will be happier with their own kind, their friends, and we with ours.  Isn’t social development a part of our education?” I heard myself say in a snarky tone.  “Wouldn’t your children want that?” I added.

The class fell into a rapt attention as the debate heated up.  No one stirred; ears tuned to the strange war; eyes frozen on Coach, sitting immobile at his desk.  His voice continued in gentle registers but his pale and freckled complexion began to reflect inner pressure.  Red seeped from shirt collar to receding hairline.

“Equality means treating people the same,” he said.  “Negroes are the same as us.  We cannot pretend that separate schools, separate neighborhoods and restaurants and water fountains compare to any form of equality,” he intoned.  Calm.  Still.  No outward show of animosity.  Softness in his gray eyes.

Even though I had a scrappy personality, I normally respected my elders so I am not certain what caused me to ratchet up the debate with such vehemence.  My encyclopedic mind sifted through all that I had been taught in my 16 years of southern living and with the debater’s keen sense of the kill, I unleashed the mortar:  “If you believe Negroes are your equal, would you marry one?”

Coach began to slowly nod his head and through pursed lips expelled some of the growing pressure.  “Yes,” he said.  “If I loved her, I would marry her.”

A gasp escaped the room.  In an instance they all knew, my fellow teenagers – whose parents ran the community and the Baptist Church.  The PTA and the School Board. Whose parents decided the fate of Coach.  They all knew that this most gentle of men had taken a dangerous stand for what he believed in.

And I knew.  Other things as well – more than I could sort through quickly.  Somehow we went on with class that day but my mind absorbed none of it.  I do not even remember leaving the room or getting through the rest of my schedule.  I do recall that my life was upside down and it would be a long time before I sifted through the teachings of that day in 1955 and righted myself.

I do remember deep feelings of sorrow that I had placed Coach in such a precarious position and that I had the greatest of admiration – adoration-- for a man of such deep and unswerving goodness.  I felt a deep and abiding shame.  But the overwhelming emotion was one of confusion for I was certain that I did not believe a single word I had said in the debate.  I was fairly certain I was not prejudiced but unforgivably ignorant.

Certainly I had been programmed to bigotry in those first 16 years and by some of the people I loved most dear.  I recalled an incident just two years prior.  I was 14 and in that era it meant I could not car-date, and one of my joys of life was to accompany my grandfather and his fiancé to “family” dances – held in simple halls with broad-planked floors and fiddlers music—where other families knew ours and I was treated as a princess.  It was my weekly joy.

That same year I had a crush on a 9^th grade boy named Mike Lopez and asked him to go to a church hayride with me.  He accepted – but when my grandfather learned about this he forbade me to go.  “No granddaughter of mine is going to date a Mexican” he declared and threatened to withdraw my dancing privileges.  I went to the hayride with Mike – maybe it was because I was stubborn; maybe I knew it was the right thing to do.  And I gladly suffered the consequences.

What difference did it make that Mike was Mexican, I thought at the time, and that incident flooded back to me in 1955.   Then I realized I did not care what color a person was, or what religion, or what country of origin.  All I cared about was the goodness in their heart, and was that not the lesson I had learned in church?

The fact that I had argued the wrong side of a moral issue came quickly into my understanding, but it took much longer to forgive myself for not seeing the truth sooner.  Yes I was only 16, and an imprint of the south, but how did I pass by those black-or-white-only water fountains hundreds of times in the department stores and not wonder aloud or ask questions?  How could I have sung in church that Jesus loves the little children. . . yellow, red, black and white . . . and not questioned the status quo, the culture, the laws that were very different than the song.

Eventually I had to stop berating myself and move on to a new challenge – bravely revealing my opposition to racism, my tolerance and liberalness, to those people who had not gone through the same epiphany.  The challenge of living with and loving people whose views were so different than mine.  And the challenge of trying to do my small part in eliminating bigotry.

Fifty-eight years later I am still surprised and disappointed that as a people we have not erased racial prejudiced.  I am shocked when someone speaks out at a 2013 CPAC meeting and defends the benefits of slavery, and the room does not explode with objections. 

And though I abhor bigotry in its every form, by my very background I understand the challenge of pulling ourselves away from the biases of our culture.  It is hard for us to be a rogue fish, to see what is going on, to say “hey, I am surrounded by water – fetid water – and I’m going to change this.” 

It does seem that progress has been made in the years since my school experience, although not nearly fast enough for those who are the targets of prejudice.  Of that I am sure. But it seems to me more fish are doing this now, more than in my day, and for that I am thankful.

Jonnie Martin is a former journalist, now a novelist and blogger at www.jonniemartin.com.  She holds a BA in Literature and Creative Writing from Marylhurst and an MFA in Creative Writing/Fiction from Queens of Charlotte. 

Not a Feather, but a Dot

This week I am pleased to introduce Teju Prasad, an independent documentary filmmaker.  In this guest post he discusses why he decided to make the film Not a Feather, but a Dot. Please welcome him.

First, thanks to Dianne Hagan and the About Race blog for the opportunity to share my thoughts on my independent documentary film Not a Feather, but a Dot, that delves into the history, perception, and evolution of the Indian community in the US.

I'll start the post off by recounting an exchange at a post-screening Q & A:

Viewer: “Thank you for making the film, it’s great to see a positive side of Hindus when all we see is violence in the media.”

Me: (confused look): “Oh? Such as?”

Viewer: “Oh, like the Taliban.”

Me: (awkward pause, then awkward smile)*

*Note: The Taliban is an ultra-fundamentalist Muslim group, and has no connection with Hindus or Hinduism (other than their vitriolic hatred of them).

I repeat this exchange from time to time, usually when I get asked the question, "Why did you make the film?" Especially when the question is asked with the subtext, "Is a film like this necessary?"

I believe it quickly demonstrates the level of missing knowledge out there in the world, but as I've learned through the course of making the film and subsequent screenings at libraries, universities, and other venues, knowledge and information is only as good as people's motivation to learn. In some cases, that means having their previous conclusions challenged. In a way, that's the goal of any film: to reach audiences that would otherwise not have paid attention to the topic.

"Why did I make the film?" is the most common question I'm asked after a screening, so I think it'll make a good subject for a blog post.  First, I wanted a resource that was thorough, succinct, and accessible. Like many other Americans of foreign "ethnic" origin, the void of knowledge we're met with can be quite staggering. With the growth of documentary films over the past decade, it was a great vehicle to reach people. A film that could be used in schools, libraries, or just be part of someone’s DVD or digital film collection. There are many great documentaries out there that deal with immigration and religion in depth, but none that I felt really synthesized all of this into something accessible. I wanted to provide a starting point for further exploration. I wanted people to learn something, but not necessarily feel as if it were a boring, purely academic exercise.

The second reason was a bit more nebulous and open-ended. I wanted to ask the question, “What’s it mean to be Indian-American?” but really, at a basic level, ask the question, “What’s it mean to be [insert ethnic background here]-American?”

I recall a discussion in high school with a friend that occurred on an annual event called "Diversity Day." We formed groups and discussed our various origins, and the goal, I presume, was to appreciate and celebrate diversity. My friend pulled no punches in his criticism of the event, saying that such things were "reserved for the home" and that we should all focus on "being American." I asked him then with my logical, computer science, engineering mind, "Aren't you then defining ‘Americannness’ as a negative, as if being American is the lack of being anything else?" I had him stumped for a second. I felt very proud.

The discussion stuck with me because I found myself buying into this kind of dichotomy, well, pretty much my entire life. In the film I try to deal with the question “Will this dichotomy ever change, or will it always exist?” I wanted to ask, “What's it mean to be Indian-American?" from the perspective of, “Will the meaning change?” and “Is the end goal to have it not mean anything at all?” 

To do that, I set out to recount how the perceptions and state of the Indian-American community has changed over the past 100 years. Then I moved to a discussion of the immigrant experience and the psychological nature of stereotyping. What I found out was, as more versions of an immigrant group become known, the stereotypes were harder to sustain. Seems pretty obvious. 

But that begged a very “chicken and egg” inquiry: Was it incumbent on us as an immigrant group to create these alternate “versions” of ourselves to alter the stereotypes? Or were the stereotypes and prejudices (whether external or internal) what needed to change in order for us to create an alternate reality? And if they changed, what was the "critical-mass" point when society, en masse, would internally and collectively say, "Alright, this stereotypical association is no longer valid?"

I believe the film asks these questions. It shows the ways change has occurred. For example, when I was growing up, I remember seeing Indians on television in stereotypical roles. Now I see Indian characters with deeper back-stories that demonstrate obstacles and behaviors. There you have it, change. But the film also compares the political aspirations and obstacles of people like Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian-American congressmen, and present-day Indian-Americans in politics, dealing with similar struggles. Is there change there? Well, maybe not as much.

It’s a question I personally go back and forth with, and I hope that watching films like Not a Feather, but a Dot will help answer.

Not a Feather, but a Dot is scheduled to screen on March 28th, in Durham, NC at the Southpoint Cinemas 17. All tickets MUST be reserved online to confirm the screening.

Preview the trailer and book tickets online here by March 21st.

Are You Banicking?

It occurred to me that we don’t belong in North Carolina, a state where many people still harbor distrust of Yankees and the government. In truth I am a Yankee, I suppose, though just a first generation Yankee on my mother’s side and second generation on my father’s side. My husband Ronald is a first generation Yankee, but, unlike my recently immigrated family, his family had been Southerners for generations before his parents moved up north for better job prospects than could be had in a Jim Crow South.

It’s not that we don’t want to belong here – I love the weather and the beautiful landscape – but oftentimes we don’t feel welcome here.

I know we don’t belong when, like the other night, we were walking in a parking lot and a white guy and his family were walking across our path up ahead, and the white guy kept staring, then shaking his head, then staring and glaring at us, and shaking his head.

As soon as they passed in front of us and got out of hearing range, I said, “Really?”

“He’s got his own wife,” Ronald said. “Why’s he so worried about mine?”

“It’s not like you were dragging me against my will,” I said. For new readers, I am white and my husband is black. We’ve been together for nearly forty years, have two successful, adult daughters who are professional contemporary dancers, and we beat divorce statistics by decades.

Ronald may not have been dragging me along, but I feel dragged into a cultural war, and I am living in the heart of it.

Gun storeowners are describing what they call a “banic” – people worried about Obama passing a ban on assault weapons. So many guns were sold in November and December that there are few guns on the shelves today.

I can attest that the ammunition shelves are empty, too. Ronald shoots on a bull’s eye league, and we have been to just about every store in the area looking for ammunition, and we can’t find it. Ronald says if he has to stop shooting on the league for a while, then he'll find another hobby. It's no big deal to him. 

But it is to a lot of other people.We see store patrons staring forlornly at the empty shelves, grumbling about the Obama conspiracy to prevent people from getting ammunition. One guy we passed was saying something to his buddy about, “for when the war comes.” They kept staring at the empty shelves, perhaps wishing to find a stray box that hadn’t been scooped up earlier.

The guy at Wal-Mart said he got eight boxes on the delivery truck the day we stopped in there on an ammo search, and they were gone within the hour.

I hate going into sporting goods stores down here. Last week a trip to Gander Mountain elicited the same old thing: people stopping in their tracks and staring at us, like the family guy in the parking lot, when we entered the store. They display what we’ve coined as “the Southern stare,” meant to show shock and disapproval. Their expressions tell us what they are thinking: My country is going to hell in a hand basket; where did the America go that I remember, the one where people who aren’t white know their place?

I went out on the Internet thinking maybe he could order ammo online, but all the big gun equipment seller sites listed ammunition as “sold out, no backorder.”

This happened in 2008, too, and it took almost two years to right itself. People hoarded ammunition as if that will save them. Save them from what, I keep asking. But I know the answer: they want to be saved from people like us, or the Mexican family living up the street, or the gay couple around the corner, or the government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people” because they don’t think we should be included.

All those arms, all those assault rifles, and all that ammunition, are to protect a certain way of life – a life where white, heterosexual men reigned and enjoyed the privilege of whiteness while everyone else lived oppressed lives.

Why else would a Georgia man shoot a young man who mistakenly pulled into his driveway because his GPS directed him to the wrong house? The 69 year-old white pastor and Vietnam vet fired his gun into the air and ordered the man to leave, but as the young Hispanic man was backing out of the driveway, he lowered his window to apologize, and the man shot him in the head. He died at the scene. The pastor thought his home was being invaded, but why didn’t he just call the police instead of taking the vigilante route and killing an innocent person who hadn’t even gotten out of his car let alone kicked a door in to gain access to the house?

It’s dangerous to be a person of color, an interracial couple, or a gay couple. We are the people they want to shoot, or deport, or send to concentration camps, or erase. We have rights that include the 2^nd Amendment, but more than that, we share the right for equal protection under the law, and the right to be safe from people who think we don’t belong to their America. Because it isn’t just their America, it’s our America, too.

Ronald found ammunition at a small gun store located in New England. He’s ordered equipment from them before. While placing a phone order, the owner told him, “We don’t have that problem up here. We’ve got anything you want in stock.”

So much for the Obama conspiracy that says the government is preventing ammunition sales. The truth is people are scared, and they are hoarding ammunition. They hurt themselves, because prices will go up to follow demand. And it will have nothing to do with President Obama, Senator Feinstein’s bill, or the government. It’s just plain old capitalism, and the gun companies love it.

Their fear translates into hasty, bad decisions that could hurt or kill someone, including family members or friends or neighbors, but the banic continues.

I’m not banicking, but I admit panic is creeping into my psyche. I am in the heart of the culture war, in a right-to-work state, with a 10% unemployment rate, that declined to extend unemployment because it causes a “welfare dependency.” I am in a state that doesn’t support early childhood development because it is an “entitlement” unless you can afford to pay for it yourself, which means only wealthy people can afford it – this in spite of study after study that says early childhood programs increase school readiness and school success for all students.

I am in a state where “sovereign citizens” are so common the country’s leading sovereign citizen expert is a member of the Greensboro, NC police force. Sovereign citizens are people who refuse to follow laws imposed by the government – they register and license their cars under their self-named sovereign nations, refuse to pay taxes, and file exorbitant claims and suits against the government, costing taxpayers money.

I am in a state that has many sheriffs saying they will refuse to enforce any Federal weapons ban or gun control laws. It’s the same state that passed a marriage amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and the same state that refuses to pay restitution to the victims of involuntary, state mandated sterilization. It’s the state in which I learned about the Southern stare, and the state in which I wonder if we'll ever truly belong.

I understand we do not all share the same perspectives and beliefs, and we don’t have to. I acknowledge our differences while still believing we have more in common than uncommon and that we can live side by side, peacefully and respectfully. But my panic is growing because the outcome of this culture war doesn’t look good from this inside view.

You Just Might Be a Criminal

It’s time to come clean. There are a lot of people espousing what good Americans they are and how law-abiding and responsible they are in comparison to the rest of us. I’m not buying it. I thought I would create a short guide to help people figure out whether or not they are stepping into the darkness of criminal activity and belief. 

1.     If you believe God gave you the right to carry guns…you just might be a criminal.

2.     If you believe it’s none of the Goddamn government’s business what guns you own…you just might be a criminal.

3.     If you believe the Federal government is trying to take away your 2^nd Amendment Rights…you just might be a criminal.

4.     If you hoard ammunition and do things like burying it in your backyard to hide it…you just might be a criminal.

5.     If you own a large arsenal of guns that you claim is for the sole purpose of personal protection and you think the larger the magazine the safer you will be…you just might be a criminal.

6.     If you dream of one day taking down the Federal government through any means necessary…you just might be a criminal.

7.     If you dream of expanding your arsenal to include rocket launchers, military vehicles, body armor, and other equipment manufactured for use in war…you just might be a criminal.

8.     If you own a bunker filled with survival supplies and weaponry…you just might be a criminal.

9.     If you think Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, is a hero…you just might be a criminal.

10. If you dream of secession from the United States of America…you just might be a criminal.

11. If you believe all criminals are people of color and/or poor…you just might be a criminal.

12. If you wish like hell that someone would threaten your right to stand your ground just so you can use your weapon…you just might be a criminal.

13. If you believe your reelection or your right to own firearms without restriction is more important than saving lives through stricter gun control…you just might be a criminal.

14. If you don’t believe that every child is worthy of being safe from violence and gunfire…you just might be a criminal.

15. If you believe your only equals are people who share your gender, skin color, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, love of guns, and political views, and everyone else just wants to live off your hard earned money…you just might be a criminal.

It is not too late to renounce the criminal life and support gun control in America. Gabby Giffords, a most courageous American, said it best at the Senate Gun Control Hearing when she said, “…the time is now. You must act.”

Inaugural Revelation

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."

~ President Barack Hussein Obama, January 21, 2013

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was so discouraged by the news prior to this great day in our country, a day that celebrates the 2^nd inauguration of our first mixed race president and a day that honors the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I couldn’t write for weeks: my brain hardened to stone, my emotions dove deep inside, and my creativity passed out cold. But yesterday the dam broke as I anticipated this day and what it means to all of us. I started writing again, and I had a seven-page rant about the ills I witnessed in the news. I won’t burden you with it. I realized, as I watched President Obama’s inauguration speech today, it only adds to the cacophony. Instead I share this with you.

America is a great country. The majority of Americans denounced inequality and support equality. Even though there are those who want to keep the status quo where white Americans have an advantage over people of color and men have an advantage over women and heterosexuals have an advantage over LGBT people, most Americans see how that hurts all of us. They understand that inclusion is better, that we are all created equal, and we are all in this together. They want change, just as they did four years ago, only now, stronger than ever, we will press forward in a progressive direction while honoring the original ideas that formed this country.

We are not a country of makers and takers; we are not a country of only white people or only rich people. We are a country that is made up of diverse people and ideas, and we must look to the strengths each of us can contribute toward a better life for all of us, not just the elite or the few.

Though there are people who still seek to protect the old way of life where oppression, prejudice, and power imbalance ruled, they are the minority, a loud minority, certainly, but definitely a minority. The rest of us have spoken in unison and maybe, for the first time since the Civil Rights movement, just as loudly. President Obama has spoken, as our highest leader, most eloquently, about our country, where we have been, and where we are headed, because he listened to us.

There is still a lot of bad out there: people who violently disagree with equality, people who want to benefit at the expense of others, and natural and manmade catastrophes and disasters. There is a lot of work yet to be done, hard work, but we must keep moving forward. I was discouraged, but not now. I was cynical, but now I have hope and belief that we can do it.

I believe that when everyone feels a part of our country, where not one person feels disenfranchised by an uncaring system, and when we can all have a seat at the table of progress, some of the hatred and violence will go away. The playing field will be level, and all people will have the opportunity to find the best position to play in their lives. People will have safety nets that ensure, if life knocks them down, they have the resources to stand back up and get back in the game, and if they can't get back in the game, they will not be left behind. Finally, fifty years after Dr. King spoke of his dream, we are close to being judged by the content of our characters rather than our gender, race, or who we choose to share our lives with.

Thank you, President Obama, and all those who came before you, people like President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who saw a clear way forward and sacrificed their lives to point us in the right direction.

I admit that I get discouraged. I feel sad when I see injustice, inequality, and elitism. But then I remember that things can be different.

Change is not easy, but, together, we can get there. Let’s hope that some of the 47% of America who chose not to reelect President Obama, who feel their concerns are not being heard, will be willing to sit with us, engage in civil discourse, and find a way. Together we can do it.

(ABC News)