Polar Vortex

Shut the door. Not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the cozyness.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

~ Mark Twain

This reader’s letter appeared in my hometown newspaper on January 28, 2014:

Reading the constant barrage of letters from those who vilify the current governor, state legislature and conservatives and Republicans in general makes me wonder if there is any hope left for this country.

After 100 years of Democratic-controlled government in North Carolina, with all its catering to special interests, crooked politicians, hiring of donors and spending the state into massive debt, these idiots rail against bringing back fiscal responsibility and trying to slow down the growth of government as something terrible. They continue to defend Barack Obama, the dictator-in-chief, who is the most incompetent, radical, dishonest, unlawful and dangerous America-hating person ever to occupy the White House. He has done more in five years to destroy our coveted American way of life, as well as America's standing in the world, to increase the national debt and to ignore the Constitution than all his predecessors.

Those outside of this country, many of whom risk their lives to try to come here, must wonder what kind of mental illness is overcoming America, and surely the Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. Obama and his merry band of radicals in the White House and in Congress threaten the very existence of the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world.

I pray that enough Americans are as concerned as I am and will vote accordingly this November. Take back the Senate and send Sen. Harry Reid back to the desert!

~ WILLIAM C. SIDES JR., Clemmons

This is a bad time of year for me. My brain is always on fast-forward during the coldest, darkest months of the year, and this year exceeded cold expectations. The problem is the day-to-day time doesn’t accelerate to catch up. It leaves me hanging out there, twirling in the polar vortex. 

I’m having strange dreams again, too.  I’m moving and hired the worst moving crew. They stomp mud into the house as they carry their straps, tarps, and boxes in. Then, without moving a single item, they sit at the table and take a break. They order pizza that looks like cake and point out tiles that are buckling away from the wall, the grout between them gooey and oozing. I double-pay the pizza delivery guy who drives away on a scooter before I can correct my error. I decide it doesn't matter, so I sit down and share pizza with the movers.

In another dream people from my past confront me. We offended one another and now they want to correct the record. But I don’t want to change anything because the story cannot and should not be edited. Accept what was and don’t alter the truth, I beseech them. They are in my face, one after the other, demanding an altered story and a happy ending.

I used to be forgiving. I believe I still am, but I feel the tug of indecision and the arrival of forgiveness taking longer and longer. I wonder how that has diminished or changed who I am.

One day, after an exhausting foray into local and national news and the burn of several interactions with people who claim allegiance to their Southern heritage that includes segregation, violence, suspicion, and hatred, I gave myself permission to not like someone if he appears unreasonable and if he directly affects the quality of my life. I used to drag them all along with me, unwilling to leave them behind, but now I don’t. I leave them where they are. I say, let them wallow in the misery of their heritage. No progress for them. They want to protect their "coveted American way of life." They choose to take America back, but I refuse to go backwards.

Sounds harsh. They are harsh, too, when they fling their insults and hatred in my direction because I am interracially married. Even worse is when they reach for their guns and point them at those people they believe are trying to take their freedoms away, or rather, if they were honest, their privileges away.

I don’t see good intent, honesty, and love in their actions.

Yet I haven’t condemned them “back to the desert.” Can’t we live in harmonious proximity instead of arming up or shrieking lies and rhetoric? But they won’t stop.

I see their fear. Fear makes people do terrible things. Why are they so afraid?

So many of them claim God is in control yet that belief does not allay their fear. Let go let God I’ve often heard. But they don’t trust God either. Else why are they intervening on His behalf and in His name? I pity them.

This letter also appeared on the readers’ page of my local paper on Thursday, January 30, 2014:

I think that dropping all charges against those law-breakers of the Moral Mondays group was a dumb thing to do (“Charges dropped against 50 protesters,” Jan. 23).

They should be made to pay the state back all of the extra money that it cost to pay the police for all the extra time and money that it cost the taxpayers for protests that are in my opinion useless, because they are too sorry to get out and work for a living, instead of always wanting something for nothing!

HAROLD DYSON, Clemmons

I wish I could figure out what planet these people live on: where hatred, fear, segregation, and violence are the answers to their questions; where there are hordes of lazy people living off the good and righteous "white" people; where guns are the answer to a question that never needed to be asked in the first place.

I don’t want to live there. I don’t care if they live by their worldview as long as they accept that I live by a different worldview. That’s how I changed, when I realized they would not change. Facts don’t matter. Content of character doesn’t matter. Accomplishment doesn’t matter. Humanity doesn’t matter. Fear of the loss of privilege matters. They can only see and hear and experience what they want to believe. 

We didn’t invade their world. Their world is our world. We’ve always been here. They didn’t see us; they didn’t hear us; they didn’t acknowledge us. Now we refuse to be invisible or silent or acquiescent. We are women and men and children, of diverse sexual orientations, people of color (neither "black" nor "white"), interracial, interethnic,  religiously free and tolerant, poor and middle class, liberal and centrist, abled and disabled, progressive and hopeful, stewards of the earth and of each other.

We don’t want something for nothing. We don’t want a free ride. We don’t want great wealth. We want jobs that pay a living wage, equality in the workplace and in our neighborhoods and institutions, access to affordable healthcare and education, environmental safety and protection, and a path to improve the quality of our lives if that is what we choose. That’s the world I want to live in, but the polar vortex is descended upon us, and I am twirling in the whiteout.

President Obama delivering the SOTUS. Far from the dictator-in-chief that some view him as, I see him as a sign of hope and change.

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. 

Campaign Fatigue

The guys at the golf range pass around emails or Internet pages that they’ve printed off. It’s gotten worse than usual since the election is close. The owner handed the last one to Ronald and asked him to read it. This one stated that both President Obama and First Lady Michelle lost their law licenses under questionable circumstances. It goes on to say that they were forced to “voluntarily retire” their licenses, and that phrase supposedly indicates that there was some type of unethical behavior on their part. It mentions that President Obama probably gave up his license in 2008 “to escape charges that he ‘fibbed’ on his bar application.”

“What do you think?” Mr. White Golf Range Owner asked.

“I don’t believe it,” Ronald responded. He told me about it when he got home, and I looked it up on Snopes.com. It originally started circulating in 2010, and, of course, it is false.

“Don’t they think for a moment that if it were true, this story would have been all over the news?” I asked him. I read the paper and watch the news every day.

Ronald printed off the Snopes page and brought it to the range the next day.

“You don’t expect me to read this,” Mr. White Golf Range Owner said.

“It won’t take long,” Ronald said.

A conservative friend on Facebook responded to one of my comments on someone else’s page. The other person had posted a CNN.com post about a thirteen–year-old black boy who was picked up by police because he fit the description of a burglary suspect. The description was “black male wearing cargo shorts.” Read the post, Helpless as my son, 13 was profiled, cuffed, written by his mother.

Another Facebook member wrote, “Give Obama 4 years & maybe he can help.”

I thought she was naïve. Racism has just been more overt since President Obama took office. I responded, “Four years won't make a difference. Don't get me wrong. We need President Obama for four more years, but four years won't change this.”

My friend, and he knows who he is if he reads this, posted, “we don't need Obama at all..... 4 more years will only do more damage.”

I was incensed. How did he manage to turn this into a political argument when a mother was hurting, her son was possibly traumatized, and this event plays itself out in every town in America?

I didn’t respond to my friend’s comment until the next morning. I needed to sleep on it. I posted, “That was insensitive. I see you drank the ARMA juice already. Romney ought to strap you to the roof of his car and take you home before you really get into trouble.” (He was traveling to the annual conference of my professional association ARMA)

My friend responded, “it's politics... and I hold a much, much different point of view on the current President and on who should be the President for the next four years....”

Politics. They are wearing me out, yet I am just as guilty. Here’s a sampling of some of my posts on Facebook:

Some truths are meant to stay secret and Mitt blabbed because he thought he was in a safe zone. He didn't even care that there were wait staff circulating the room -- in his world, they don't count, and he figured if one of them told what he'd heard, no one would believe him anyway. But one of them had a smart phone, Mitt.

I'll never forget the moment when Senator Obama shook my hand in Charlotte in 2008. 47 more days to re-elect President Obama for 4 more years! High five!

Mitt needs a campaign reboot, like Herman Munster needed to be hooked up to some lightening every once in a while. But can you really bring the dead back to life? Let's hope not. Let's put this campaign to rest and get on with the business of running this country by the people, for the people, not by MItt just for 1% of the people. (With a link to The Daily Show)

Hatred stopped this man from accomplishing all he set out to do. But we won't let that happen in the next four years. Our votes will be our voices.

So even though my friend angered me for trivializing and politicizing a situation that is dangerous to young black men and Ronald is bombarded by printouts at the golf range that he finds offensive, I realize politics are on everyone’s radar right now. Emotions are running high.

I feel tired, though. I’m queasy. Like I ate a bag of candy and I reached the stars on a sugar high only to topple to a subterranean sugar low. I don’t want to look at another piece of candy.

But things are really going to heat up now. Forty-three days until the election and the debates are just around the corner. I know I will be parked in front of the television when they come on. I know I will watch the analysis afterwards. I’ll read about them in the newspaper and on the Internet. I’ll search and search and read some more, then make comments on Facebook and write about it in a blog post, perhaps. I’ll just open another bag of candy and start eating them, one by one or by the handful.

I know that campaign fatigue is the last thing I need to feel right now. Too much is at stake. The divisions between parties and people are too great, at least from my perspective. It feels like the difference between everyone being a part of America versus only the elite being a part of America while the rest of us, including the 47%, take on the burden of making the rich richer while having our civil rights denied and legislated.

I’ve voted in every presidential election since I was old enough to vote with the exception of one.

My first presidential election was 1976, and I voted for Jimmy Carter by absentee ballot. The one I missed was due to happenstance.  I was out of town, in Rochester at an ARMA meeting (we’d gone as a group on a chartered bus), on Election Day 1992. Bill Clinton was a dark horse, and I didn’t think I liked him at first. I supported Jerry Brown in the Democratic primary. But as the election drew near, I knew Bill Clinton was the right choice.

The bus pulled back into town around 5:30 PM, and my friend Dia met me to pick me up because Ronald was working that evening. He had voted earlier in the day.

Dia had Cara and Mackenzie with her, along with her two boys, because she had kept them after school. She suggested we go eat dinner and then she would bring me to the poll afterwards. She had already voted, too.

We ate, she drove me to the poll, I stood in line, and when I got to the registration table, I was told I was at the wrong poll. I had voted there many times before, but they had changed the polling place a few times over the years. They directed me to another one. I jumped back in the car and told Dia where to go. At the next poll, they told me I was at the wrong place and gave me yet another location.

Usually I call the League of Women Voters each Election Day to ensure I know the right polling location on the rare chance that the postcard announcing my poll location had somehow been lost in the mail, but I did not own a cell phone back then and hadn’t thought to call in the days before the election. It was ten minutes till 9:00, and Dia drove over the speed limit, but the door of the poll was just being locked as I reached for the handle.

After Dia dropped us off at home, I sat in my rocking chair, the television on so I could track the election results. I began to cry.

“I’ve never missed an election,” I explained to Cara and Mackenzie. They were just six years old. I talked to them about how women and blacks had to fight for the right to vote and how some of them were hurt and even killed. I told them that if women and blacks hadn’t believed so strongly in their right to vote and hadn’t given their lives to the cause that Cara and Mackenzie wouldn’t have been able to vote as biracial women. I told them it was very important to exercise our right to vote. I said we should never give that right away through apathy. They had come with me to vote in the past. They had stood in the booth as I pulled the big lever across that closed the curtain and pushed down small levers under names. I wanted them to feel comfortable voting when they came of age.

Cara and Mackenzie headed down the hall to get ready for bed. I sighed and tried to stop crying so I could read them a bedtime story when they were done changing and brushing their teeth. Cara came out a few minutes later and handed me a sheet of lined paper.

“Here, Mom,” she said. “Now you can vote.”

She had drawn a ballot with boxes to check. I took the pencil from her and checked the box next to Bill Clinton. Late that evening, after all polls had closed and reported results, Bill Clinton was declared the winner. He garnered 43% of the popular vote and 370 electoral votes. My vote didn’t contribute to the outcome, but I was still upset that I missed casting it.

This election I am worried that people will be turned away from the polls. I worry that the shenanigans of the 2004 election will be repeated, only in more insidious ways. That’s how strong I think the hatred is. That’s how strong I think the division is.

One vote equals one voice. Please pass the candy. I can’t afford to be tired. None of us can.