Bah, Humbug!

I bought my Christmas cards weeks ago, and I usually do them the weekend after Thanksgiving when half of America is battling for sale priced merchandise at the malls. Not this year. I haven’t felt the Christmas spirit yet. I’m trying to give myself permission to not do them if I don’t feel like it. That’s the constant struggle of a people pleaser – always worrying about what other people will think or feel if I don’t do what is expected. I even worried about taking a week off from this blog.  But I see that it is still being accessed daily and my short break created no dire circumstance.

I hope I get my Christmas spirit back, but my whole affect caved after the election. I’ve lost confidence in many of my fellow human beings. Even though President Obama won the election, and the majority of Americans have expressed confidence in his leadership, the unbridled hatred and nastiness unleashed this election cycle has left me wanting for consensus and true American fellowship, the kind grown from having a common cause of caring for the common good. I feel sorry that I’ve let such nastiness crimp my usual perseverance, and I hope I find my Christmas spirit before the day is upon us.

I have a Christmas wish list, though, and it might not be what anyone expects, so maybe I’m learning that I don’t have to please others. Here is it:

1.     We will address the race issue in America in as honest and painful a way as it takes to get over the deep wound our history has caused us. We will not stop until we understand that skin color is just a physical attribute and that the social construct of race was created to keep a group of people powerless and enslaved. The legacy of that still impacts people’s lives daily, and will continue to, until we decide together that it won’t.

2.     The media will stop covering Sarah Palin. Her stupidity, hypocrisy, and lies are exhausting. Communism? Is that really where we are headed with President Obama’s reelection? We are headed toward untold depths of stupidity if we ingest another single word mouthed by Palin, the Tea Party puppet.

3.     The people who are crying for secession will move to Texas and they will secede, leaving the rest of us to enjoy our lives free of racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious zealotry. No, you may not use the name America, especially as associated with the words “United States of”. Nor can you abscond the Constitution. It’s already taken “by the people”, and we are the patriotic ones, not you, who are traitors.

4.     John McCain will retire at the end of his term. He is going dotty. Apparently he doesn’t remember that Condi helped precipitate a war with her message to the media that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He also is under the impression that the other Rice, Susan Rice, is part of a cover up. His vicious personal attack, in conjunction with attacks from several conservative pundits who claimed Rice’s intelligence and trustworthiness are questionable, caused her to withdraw from consideration for Secretary of State. John, get over yourself. In case you forgot, you definitely lost the presidential election in 2008.

5.     Florida Board of Elections will be investigated for continued voting issues including but not limited to excessively long lines in areas of dense minority populations.  No one should have to wait six hours in line to vote. Voting is an inalienable right, not a Wal-Mart Black Friday sale.

6.     Congress will reenact the Assault Weapons Ban, and the states that currently have Stand Your Ground laws will rescind them, making every one of us safer from gun violence. Gun control and background checks will become more stringent, and safety training prior to receiving a permit will be required.

7.     Grover Norquist will opt to relocate to seceded Texas with all the other harebrained conservatives and the greedy rich people who believe their wealth boosts self-importance. They won’t have to pay any taxes at all. Just make sure you don’t come crying to the United States of America when your roads fall apart, there is no one to protect life and property, and climate change causes another storm of the century – oh, wait, just privatize everything. Who needs taxes?

8.     Republican members of Congress will lose federal government health care coverage and pensions. They will live by the very laws they hope to enforce on others while we enjoy the true distribution of wealth where everyone who is able to work will make a living wage while those who can’t will receive assistance that ensures they will live above the poverty level.

9.     Every person serving in an elected office will spend two weeks a year, one week in a rural trailer park and one week in an urban housing project, living amongst and serving our underserved communities. Maybe then they’ll summon their humanity and remember that they are obligated to serve all their constituents.

10. Religious conservatives will stop boasting that they are the only ones practicing the one true religion that will deliver them salvation while the rest of us go to hell in a hand basket.  There may be one true religion, and if there were, and we were perfect, non-sinners, we’d all be practicing it. The world religions have more in common than differences. In lieu of not knowing or understanding the one true religion, let people worship or not in the way they choose, not the one way you want to force on them. And stop using your religion to hate others. No religion supports that.

11. Women will feel empowered and celebrate their roles and contributions to society. We will learn to love our whole beings and demand equality in every aspect of our lives. Not only are there men out there who are trying to control our bodies, they are making many young women think the sex industry is the only way to earn a living and feel self-worth. Our worth is much more than being a plaything. We are not dolls; we are people. We deserve respect and respectful men who treat us as partners and equals, not as sex objects.

12. Donald Trump will step out of the limelight and stop making delusional accusations about President Obama. We don’t care about his wealth, nor are we envious. His money doesn’t make him wise or important, and his opinion does not hold any more weight than any other delusional rich guy who thinks that money can buy anything and his shit doesn’t stink.

13. Rush Limbaugh will lose his radio and television shows. He is a toxic liar who feeds on people’s fears and prejudices to promote his extravagant lifestyle. A country of children? Rush, you underestimate us and inflate your own importance.

14. We will oppose right-to-work legislation that allows employers to decrease wages and benefits while preventing workers from organizing and negotiating for better pay and work conditions. Right-to-work legislation is designed to put more money into the pockets of the wealthy, not to create jobs.

15.  The Christmas /Hanukkah/Holiday season will not begin one minute before 12:01 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving. There will be no early retail enticements, making us too numb to choose how we wish to celebrate the holidays (as holy days, secular family holidays, a combination of the two, or days we choose not to participate in celebrating) There will be no dangerous and irresponsible encouragement on the part of retailers for people to wait in long lines out in the cold for hours, only to trample other shoppers in order to get an item, of which there are only a few and certainly not enough to appease the horde, being offered at a major discount. Once every able person has a job that pays a living wage (see number 8), we’ll all have expendable income to buy presents at fair prices for all parties involved, IF that’s what we choose to do.

16.  My final wish is that every single person will experience a moment, no matter how fleeting, of joy and wonder in the last days of 2012 (no I don’t believe the world will end on 12/21/12). Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy New Year! Happy Holidays! Happy Being!

Me at age four in front of the Christmas tree. Joy and wonder abound.

Schadenfreude

One of my good friends copied me this week on an email that she forwarded to a group of friends. The anonymous email said President Obama changed the décor of the Oval Office. It went on to claim the “Office is now stripped of the traditional red, white, and blue, and replaced with [Middle Eastern] wallpaper, drapes, and décor.”

The author also asks, “What is missing from Barack Hussein Obama’s press conference?” A photo is displayed showing the President at the podium, no American flag in sight.

“And I don’t believe it was just an accident! It is intentional,” the author goes on to write. “So I ask, why is it intentional? He told you he would change America, didn’t he?”

I emailed her back and told her the email was a lie, as verified on the Snopes website. I told her people who lie like that incite anger and violence and they should be prosecuted for endangering the President. I figured she might not like my response.

We are political opposites. I’m the “bleeding heart liberal,” and she is the “southern conservative.” We’ve managed, quite successfully, to look beyond one another’s worldview and political affiliation. We’ve discovered other common ground for our friendship. We’ve even learned to listen to one another on volatile topics, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by her response.

She copied everyone she’d sent it to and apologized.

That’s what friends do. But more than that, that’s what responsible people do when they’ve discovered a wrong and their possible complicity in it.

She might have agreed with the sentiment. She might have believed the story to be true, even against all rational explanations. But when she discovered the ruse, she corrected her action.

It reminds me of a situation at John McCain’s town meeting a few weeks before the election in 2008. A woman claimed, despite all evidence, that Obama was an Arab. John McCain did something that day that still earns my highest regard. He took the microphone from the woman and said, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."

Of course, I might have added, “and even if he were an Arab, he is an American and has the right to run for our highest office.” But I might have done the same thing in such a situation, taken aback by the blatant ignorance and hatred of a seemingly benign middle-aged white woman, wondering how things could have sunk to such a low point and how I might have been complicit in allowing this talk to go on for much of the campaign and how dangerous such lies had become. 

I remember McCain’s face and his body language, deflated with recognition. His response contributed to his losing the election, but he retained his ethical stance and his humanity.

I wish the politicians who are trying to keep the birther conspiracy alive felt that way, too. I don’t care if they disagree with Obama’s policies, but I care that they want to dismantle him piece by piece, the way the soldiers destroyed the Sadam Hussein statue in Iraq. I care that they believe his inadequacies stem from his being black, even if they don’t say so. I care that they’ve made Obama into a straw dog – representing how certain Americans will lose their country and heritage if certain people are made leaders and given power, even as they’ve selected their own straw dog – Herman Cain – to serve as their token black man. Just as Sarah Palin served as their token woman. She was the antithesis of Hillary Clinton. Cain is the antithesis of Obama – not educated, not measured in his communications, not in control, a loose cannon who will initiate his own demise, a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Somehow all this fighting among Americans is manifesting itself in a kind of Schadenfreude. A collective voice expresses moral superiority and gleeful hatred of minorities, the poor, non-Christians, gays, the unemployed and those without health coverage. They did it to themselves, why should we help them?  the collective seems to say, if only to believe it can’t happen to the rest of us, that the mighty will never be victims. The liberals are a part of it, too, hoping for personal hardship for the religious and conservative right, at their own doing. But the problem with that is that it can happen to all of us, every single one of us, and it already has. We are victims of our prejudices, our fears, our wants, and our needs. No one is exempt, and that is why the rich hide behind their wealth and lots of others hide behind rhetoric, guns and God. You can’t say God doesn’t approve of this sin or that sin and think yourself sinless. You can’t yell murder and kill in the name of all that’s good and right. You can’t claim lies but lie yourself. We’ve created our own little hell in America and across the world. It’s is time for change. Now it’s up to us to stop, to take responsibility, and to apologize for being complicit in allowing the wrong to grow deep and strong.

(Excerpt from essay What’s Race Got to Do with It?)

My upbringing made me aware that every person deserves to be considered as an individual and not lumped into a pile of faceless people based on physical attributes. In a way, growing up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional, and interethnic environment assured my belief that I was no better than anyone else. I hoped that people would treat me with the same suspended judgment as I treated them. But what I experienced with my parents is something that Chita Childs refers to as “a progressive trend in white racial attitudes to advocate for integration and equality and against discrimination on a broad theoretical level while maintaining opposition to implementing practices that require day-to-day interaction or close proximity in their social circle to African-Americans.” My parents valued the concepts of integration and had a diverse group of friends, but they could not move beyond their own interethnic failure and racial barriers when it came to my relationship with Ronald.

I saw how often other people pre-judged us, too, based on what they thought about interracial relationships and race. But I knew some people would react negatively – my shyness caused me to be cautionary around all strangers.

When our twin daughters were babies, I worked a few hours a week at a department store. One of my colleagues was a college student. She frequently asked to see photographs of Cara and Mackenzie and remarked how cute she thought they were. One evening, she asked if she could have a ride to her car because she had had to park in the outer lot and was afraid to walk alone all that way in the dark. I said yes and told her she would get to meet Ronald and the babies. Ronald pulled up to the door of the store, and I slid into the back seat between the two infant carriers holding Cara and Mackenzie. I introduced my associate to Ronald as she sat in the front passenger seat and told her which baby was which. She smiled and chatted on the way over to her car.

The next morning I was bathing Cara and Mackenzie when the phone rang. I quickly picked it up and tucked it between my ear and shoulder. “Hello,” I said breathlessly.

 “How dare you not tell me that your husband is black,” the voice on the other end of the line said with anger and disgust. It was my colleague.

“What?” I said clutching the towel I had wrapped around Mackenzie.

“You never told me your husband was black,” she said, her voice accusatory.

“You’ve seen pictures of the girls,” I said defensively.  “Besides, I never asked you what color your fiancé is. Why does it matter?”

“It matters,” she said.

So when should I bring it up? Like a disease or an affliction that must be revealed before one gets too involved in a relationship, I have often been left wondering if the other person will be able to handle my interracial relationship and if I can handle their inability to do so.

Do I shake someone’s hand and say, “I’m Dianne, and I’m interracially married.”

Or do I wait until the other person says something that I find offensive?

“I can’t stand waiting on black people,” another white sales colleague said one day. I felt my scalp prickle and my face warm. She continued by saying, “They smell bad and they never spend a lot of money.”

I wanted to slap her face. I wanted to call her ignorant. I wanted to quit my part-time job that suddenly felt like a danger to my family.

“Really?” I said, staring at her. “That’s not my experience.”

“It’s what I think,” she said.

“My husband isn’t like that.”

“What? Your husband is black?”

“Yes.”

“You should have told me,” she said.

“Why, so you could watch what you say around me?”

“You tricked me,” she said.

I am a spy among white people. I am the fly on the wall. I am sensitized to the racial polarization of our country, and I’ve learned to listen for it.