The Return of Jim Crow

I watched ‘Selma’ the other night. I found myself cheering and clapping and crying along with the heroes of Voting Rights history. That was 1965 and racism was out in the open. As horrible a time as it was at least they were honest. Now it’s 2016 and racism is here but it is a festering underbelly. The children and grandchildren of those who fought against Equal Rights and the Voting Act see their elders actions as a different kind of “Patriotism”; just as the Confederate flag is still argued to be a symbol of historic pride. During the film they show actual footage of the Selma march. Southerners line the roads, taunting the marchers, spitting on them and giving them the finger all while waving the Confederate flag - yes that really shows the truth behind such an iconic piece of Southern history. A Southern woman, a few years younger than me, has told me with pride that her parents were activists against desegregation and equal rights. Another tells how she could be friendly with black girls at school but they were not to be brought home, this 15+ years after Jim Crow was officially over.

I’ve been told that if people went and got better-paying jobs there would be no need to make the minimum wage a living wage. There is a disconnection between a white person with higher education and poor people, who are mainly black and don’t have the same educational opportunities. The idea that anyone who is a head of household and is working two jobs because one job won’t afford full-time hours and even then that two jobs don't pay a living wage and is still be below the poverty level is foreign to many Americans.


Private and/or religious schools popped up everywhere in the South during desegregation, due to white's not wanting their children to go to school with black children. The quality of education plummeted for poor whites who could not afford the better private schools. We see that still in the South but with a slight shift. Poor and lower-middle class whites and blacks are held at arms length by upper-middle and upper-class whites that are able to extricate themselves from the public school system and put their children into private and/or religious schools. While public schools struggle to maintain federal standards of education private religious schools teach biblically centered subjects that leave a whole new generation ignorant and private preparatory schools to cater to those with the cash. School vouchers are just exacerbating the problem by keeping sub-par private religious schools afloat by injecting much-needed cash into their reserves.


Voting Rights are being restricted through uncompromising voter ID laws. A total of 36 states have passed laws requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls. 33 of these voter identification laws are in force in 2016. A photo ID can be a significant burden and such laws intrinsically discriminate against minorities, students and the elderly. North Carolina now mandates government-issued photo IDs at the polls, the bill does provide for a "free ID" to be offered at DMVs but it is difficult for those without transportation or the appropriate paperwork to get one. The state's early voting period was reduced from 17 to 10 days. "First of all, we didn't shorten early voting, we compacted the calendar," said Governor McCrory. The law also ended same-day registration and pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-old voters who will be 18 on Election Day.


What also doesn't help is when you have a Presidential candidate spewing bigotry and racism among people that are already twisted with fear and hate. He allows them to think that it is ok to release their repressed hostility because he, a "respectable" businessman and Presidential front-runner, not only speaks to their fears of the "others" but encourages their brutality as well. Mr Trump puts forth statements, conjecture, assumed to be true by his supporters and the persons that are the focus of his diatribes are demonized and sometimes physically attacked. The color-bar seen at his rallys is a darker mindset that is giving a new face to Jim Crow.


These and other issues are what America needs to address in order to deal with the vehement hatred that is permeating our country. Jim Crow is alive and well and is coming out of the closet again after 50 years to see what mayhem he can accomplish.

You

 We need to be less afraid of what others think of us and be who we are. In the end, we will all die so why not live your life to the fullest, celebrating who you are? My mother always said that unless someone is putting the air into your lungs then you shouldn't worry about their opinion of you. Odd, yes, but overall makes sense - no one controls you but you. 

You know who you are - the real you. Whether you identify as a boy or a girl, in-between or nothing at all, it is all about you. Who you love and what you identify as, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual or any of the myriad used to describe sexual attraction without gender assignment, is all about you. Wear the clothes that make you feel beautiful, be a totally fabulous drag queen, be gender neutral - keep them guessing. Long hair or short, even bald if you choose because it is about being comfortable in your own skin and you are the only one living in it.

 No one else no matter how hard they try can make the decision for you. The politicians can legislate, religious leaders and their flocks can pass judgement, family, friends and neighbors can ostracize, strangers in the street can be the assholes they tend to be but in the end, the end of the day and the long road known as life, you know who the real you is and you must be true to yourself. 

Don't give up. Remain strong in the face of adversity. Seek out like-minded people. If you need to, create a new family of people who love you for who the real you is. Take joy in being who you are, honor yourself every day and in every way and above all else - have no fear.

The People That Complain About Others

The people that complain about the "others" on welfare, unemployment, food stamps, disability, Medicaid are the ones who never had to rely on our nation's safety nets. They are the lucky ones who had family and friends to help out when times were tough or, even better, never had tough times. My family was one of the 'lucky' ones - two daughters with mental illness (I had bipolar depression and the other with anorexia/bulimia) and the doctor and hospital bills totaled in the thousands after insurance stopped paying. My father lost his job with the bank he worked for - this was before banks were too big to fail. We would have lost our house if it wasn't for two relatives that loaned my parents money for their mortgage(paid back in full). Friends and relatives gave us food baskets. Eventually my dad got a job - pumping gas at Bridgeport airport for minimum wage($5/hr then) and my mom got a job at a hospital cleaning OR's. Within two years my dad was back working at a corporation making half what he had made at the bank but he was thankful for a living wage and health insurance because he had been diagnosed with his 1st round of cancer. My family survived because we had family and friends that could help us but if they had not been there or had been unwilling we would have had to rely on our nation's safety nets, just like thousands of others. No one should be humiliated and made to jump through hoops to receive aid that more than likely they have already paid into. I do not begrudge anyone on welfare, unemployment, food stamps, disability, Medicaid or any other government aid because my family has been there and I am there now and none of us is any better than the other - just luckier.

Truth and Trust

 We raise our children with the idea that they will trust and be truthful. I don't think we instruct them, correctly, in either. Trust is to be earned not inherently given. A child does not know that some adults and other children will take advantage of them to serve their own purposes. "I want what you have - be it a toy, candy or your body." "Give me what I want and I won't hurt you or your brother, sister or your parents." How is a child to know how or who to trust if they are not taught but expected to make decisions based on little to no information about real world situations? If we gave them the tools to speak up, to know that it's your body, your mind and that no one has the right to talk to you, touch you, tell you what is right or wrong for you. No stranger, friend or family member has the right to bully, abuse, molest or harass anyone. If we can't, don't or won't teach trust then how can we expect our children to be truthful? A child will be unable to talk about behaviors of others and themselves to responsible adults and/or peers if the fear of disbelief is present. That no matter what they try to say or explain it will be shrugged off or discounted. That they just won't have the words to make their case because they don't know that the behavior towards them is inappropriate. That the victim will 'become' the offender.  Just because it is a learned behavior does not make it appropriate. Bullying, eating disorders, self-harm, abuse: sexual, physical, verbal and emotional, drugs and alcohol, neglect, depression all add up to children who become adults who cannot trust and do not know the truth.

Suicide is painless?

You are right - 100% correct - FUCK THIS POST

I think about suicide everyday - have since I was a child I'm 46 now. Call me me selfish, tell me I romanticize it but realize you don't know me and have NEVER walked in my shoes. Molested by a cousin and his friend as a child and then "man-handled" by a peer with developmental disabilities but not mentally disabled. Bullied by "family" and Bipolar - a litany of meds that don't work or only for a brief time. On disability and judged by family, friends and strangers because ... you look/act well enough to work but we conveniently forget you end up on a Psych Ward at least once a year and who could forget the SIX MONTHS you spent in the mental hopital(a chorus of "I do, I do") Where are the understanding people who are casting judgement when it's been 1 week, 2 weeks , a month since you showered because it's so hard to get out of bed. Feeling sorry for the people I leave behind that's a laugh. Unless you tried to understand, unless you were really there - dealing with the crap in your own life and making time for me and my problems. DO NOT THROW YOUR GUILT TRIP AT ME because I did not ask for this and I do not need your pity and most definitely I do not need any more baggage.

So FUCK YOU and FUCK THIS POST.

PS - This is the SHORT version.

The above was my response to the original post.

Below is my response to a friend who posted this and apologized for upsetting me.

I have a few suicides in my family and so I have seen the guts(is that the right word?) it takes as well as what people call the selfishness. I have seen that post before and today it just set me off(difficult night) I understand where you were coming from with that and after viewing the page I get(I think) where most people are at when it comes to mental illness in general. Perhaps the internet is the new mental hospital - bringing people together in their pain, trying to understand each other but there is no real human contact so I think it's more difficult to not judge.

When I was 17 I  self-committed to a mental hospital. I can tell you one thing about leaving high school that February - it was the hardest decision I ever made but it was the most right. I spent 4 months there and was surrounded by people ranging in age of 10 to 80. It was actually very nice - really good food(I put on 20#), school/classes and lots of therapy. Out of all the children/teens there most had made at least one attempt and some were constant cutters/self harmers but none romanticized it. It was just the idea that the pain would be gone(self harm is different it is about feeling but also wanting the pain to go - strange dichotomy). We were all so different but the pain being gone was our common thread. It is not just the adult who struggles with mental illness on a daily basis it is most especially the child, the teen. It is just for some of us the pain does't dissipate and society sees the adult with mental illness as a "real" issue because their parents aren't there to care for them anymore - society must pick up the slack.

I talk/write a lot but I want you(people) to understand that this is most definitely not a choice. I can't imagine anyone wanting this life - whether it be better or worse than mine. Again I thank you for your compassion, empathy and true attempts at understanding and I value your friendship - it is frustrating living in such a repressed environment - but long distance friendships on FB with like/open minded people do help.

my last piece of art

This is a box 6" x 6"
2004

Republican Values

How can anyone in good conscience say they support Republican values? 
They have destroyed education, decimated voting rights, insist that Americans are not "entitled" to social programs, safety nets and a living wage, poisoned our communities and marginalized whole groups of citizens. 

Corporations, banks and the 1% (a status that the majority of Republicans will never attain but believe they will) dominate the playing field and destroy the lives of the rest of America. They care only to increase their wealth on the backs of the common worker with no cares as to the welfare, happiness or success of their fellow man.
Compassion is not a word that most Republicans are familiar with. Fear and anger at those who are "different" do not let Red State voters see that they themselves are in need of compassion. They would rather vote against their own best interests than try to give another or themselves a leg up.The fact that they have in the past and continue now in the present to deny many of our nations citizens their inalienable rights because of skin color, religion, nationality, sexuality or gender while using their "christian values" to hide behind the 1st Amendment is contemptible.

Our children wallow in the willful ignorance of educational policies that substitute religious belief for science and cut out large swathes of our country's history to make some feel  "comfortable". It does nothing but dumb down our future generations and not allow us to compete on the global stage. We look foolish as Climate Change, age of the Earth, Evolution and basic science are denied for religious conviction. We are contradicting history so that we don't look at the genocide of Native Americans, the exclusion, removal, and detention of Japanese-Americans and the real cause behind the Civil War - slavery not state's rights. (perhaps it's the state's right to enslave?)

Americans should be appalled at the chips and outright chunks taken from the Voting Rights Act. It is 2016 and the GOP are still trying to disenfranchise voters. If you are black, poor, elderly - hell ANY minority they are doing their best to stop you from voting. Changing the voting locations, early voting shortened or gone, primary dates changed, mandatory voter id's that are difficult and expensive to get and disgusting gerrymandering. Black and white died for the RIGHT of ALL Americans to vote and the subtle and not so subtle attempts belie an underbelly of hate in this country.  

Republicans say that our veterans are important but want to reduce their benefits. They legislate against the poor and the middle class at every turn. Privatization of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, reduction of Food Stamps, defunding of Planned Parenthood, attempting to refuse the right to collect unemployment, denying a living wage with the excuse that it will destroy businesses. 

Conservatives have no problem loosening regulations that are in place to protect citizens from reckless corporations who only care about the money they make. Look no further than Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY or currently Flint, MI. Money is everything. People are nothing. The health and well-being of our nations citizens are inconsequential. There is always time for clean-up after lives have been irreparably destroyed. 

If you are not a white straight conservative southern Baptist male you will have problems as well. Your next best chance is being a white woman with those same attributes but even then you will be legislated against - sometimes with your own help. As a woman you do not deserve equal pay and if you are a minority it will be even less so. 
When we enact laws as to who someone can love and marry I feel we cut too close to the bone. Love is love when it is between consenting adults - no matter your race, your sexuality or religion. That there is no problem with our straight (religiously inclined) leaders marrying multiple times after cheating on spouses who are terminally ill is astounding.
As a woman the right to decide your own medical care, in the most personal circumstances, is not yours in many states. A woman's health concerns are between her and her doctor not her and the state or federal legislature or some ridiculous zealots who should focus on their own lives instead of intruding where they do not belong.
If you believe in no-belief or a different god you are looked upon as an undesirable. 
Religion and state should not mix - our founding fathers worked it that way for a reason.
No one has the authority to pass moral judgement on another. Their own holy book instructs them to "Judge not, that ye be not judged" and yet they cherry-pick that as well. Doing for themselves while short changing those who are not like them. 

6 months, a year even 2 years into a Trump or Cruz Presidency I hope all the supporters of these Republican contenders remember how they voted. When the promises of these silver tongued candidates have fallen by the wayside and the people are struggling and wondering how it got so bad will they see the folly of their beliefs? I expect they will be back to blaming Obama and the liberals and the "others" for their problems - as one of the main values of the Republicans is to never take responsibility for their own actions.