Monthly Archives: September 2020
Privilege from another side.
My teaching career began with a parallel situation. While the greater Gay Community was finding itself and coming out of the shadows as it shed the image that had been traditionally promoted by non-Gay people to other non-Gay people which the Gay ones knew not to be true, I was in a position to start connecting the dots, and, in spite of having waded through the clues and chipped away at what was the me of others to find the me of self, and accept myself for who and what I was, not what others expected.
Gay people were to a growing degree no longer ashamed to be their truth, while they saw the need to spread that truth to the larger population letting them know that the only reason we were in the shadows was not because of who we are, but because the shadows is what Straight people pushed us into.
We began rejecting that assignment with both little and big steps. Rallies, parades, demonstrations were open and very obvious actions. For us, as opposed Straights, walking down the street holding hands was not just the show of affection it was, but, because enough was enough and it’s our world too, a quiet rebellion as no one was going to tell us not to do that anymore.
“Lover”, a sexually based term that fed into the stereotype of sex for sex at all times 24/7 , although its origin was more than that as it implied a committed relationship when living openly was denied us, something that “Trick” doesn’t, slowly gave way to “significant other” which, even as a compromise term not to cause the yet to be educated any discomfort, implied a fuller and more committed relationship in the days when we were denied marriage on the basis that as we did not marry, because we weren’t allowed, we were incapable of it.
We were denied the legal and social recognition of our lives, and were often harassed when the true nature of the “roommate” was discovered and people disapproved when they realize the two old guys next door weren’t brothers who never married but lived together, but had actually been in a long term, committed, yet unrecognized, relationship on the same level of love and mutual support that makes a marriage, minus, of course, the legal, civil, taxpayer supporte4d benefits.
More and more Gay couples, in spite of knowing there could be reactions that included Gay bashing and death, began to show up with no fanfare at community events forearmed with defenses and explanations, knowing that each appearance and the reaction from people who saw the signs was an opportunity for educating the public of the truth, and experiencing all the usual reactions to coming out.
Even now, in the 21st Century, each time a Gay person or a Gay couple go anywhere as themselves it often becomes a reliving of the first coming out moment as the reaction to “this is my husband” often involves those negative reactions and often insulting, sometimes innocently so, objections to our reality.
A man introducing a girl friend or a spouse, and vise a versa, gets happy comments and well wishes. Too often when a Gay man introduces his “boyfriend” or spouse, or a Lesbian her ”girlfriend” or spouse, people ask which is the husband, who plays the wife in bed, what kind of sex stuff do we do, and, my favorite, being asked if there is a fear the couple will split because of one being attracted to someone else in, what I assume to be a requirement to be Gay that I missed, an orgy.
I can recall, although it has become easier at my age to just not care how people will react, taking that deep breath or pausing in the “Before” while bracing for the “After” before casually coming out as Gay in a social situation either by a casual comment or by having to declare.
As true progress was made, major and earth shattering or, while not shaking the whole world, involving an individual in some small town that would ripple out for the greater good, there were certain signs of objection that were obvious, like denying rights, purging Gays from employment and housing, bashing, shooting, home and bar raids, and the “eeewwwww” you get when you tell your truth, but there were also more subtle forms of expressed disapproval and social rejection.
Now that we can marry under the law and are protected, somewhat, from discrimination, so-called religious people insist, in spite of law, that they be allowed to discriminate against Gay people by denying goods and services, and insist that it must be accepted that their use of derogatory terms is a righteous rebellion against un-American political correctness, and we are expected to accept why the use of the word “Faggot” is acceptable in particular cases.
I was once sitting with a group of teachers having drinks at the end of the school week when one in describing a new boutique that had just opened near her home, said she could tell the owners had to be Gay because the lettering on the shop window was all “faggotty”, then turned to me to point out with a knowing wink and a conspiratorial friendly nudge that she meant nothing derogatory by the term, but, “Well. You know”. Later in the conversation when someone mentioned a female friend who had opened a store she had wanted to since high school, I told the others that it was not too far from a bar I frequented, and that I knew the shop had to have been opened by a woman because when I drove by on the way home one day, the “Cunty” style of the letters painted on the widow had been finished.
The objections to my choice of words were vociferous and my attempt to cover with, “I mean nothing derogatory, but, you know,” did not, for some reason, cut it.
As time went on, and Gay couples began to become part of their community often arriving as couples and at times with a child in tow who was from a previous straight marriage of one of the women or men, adoption, or surrogate birth. Family days at school, father daughter days, bring your kid to work days, church, festivals, library book readings in the children’s room, Gay families began to become a fabric of the community of families.
With this, however, came the phrase that, although seemingly innocent and positive, has its roots, once deliberate and pointed, the exclusion of families with same-sex parents.
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Behind the innocent veneer, those around when the term came into use know its origin and its purpose. It meant that Gay families were not welcome. An event “for the whole family”, “bring the family”, “Family rates”, are not as loaded as “Family Friendly” which implies now, but had been direct then, a potential attack in some form on the Straight family.
Initially, Gay committed relationships were too “informal” to be considered serious, not by those in them but those who felt it was their place to pass judgment, and up until and even after the recognition of marriage equality by states then the Supreme Court, there are locations, whole states, that still leave the acceptance of a legal marriage up to the opinion of individuals who act according to their opinion.
Sadly, as with the Stockholm Syndrome or, being young and the beneficiaries of what was won for them, there are those in the Gay Community who, having children now, fear that we old men and women who fought, gave of our youth, and, in some situations, their lives so that their families could have a legally married set of parents who could adopt, win the custody of a biological child in a divorce, or one in the marriage being, or both using, a surrogate, might celebrate our victories and in the process make it necessary for the parents to come up with some long, convoluted reason that someone at a Pride Festival might get a little tipsy, going into a long dissertation on the Kinsey Report, when all they have to do is simply tell the kid that that guy probably went through a lot in his youth and is allowed once a year to celebrate any victory won and the fact that they had lived long enough to see the changes the kid will grow up with as just part of the picture.
Those who fought the majority Straight population to obtain the basic rights we should have always had, should not now, having overcome the oppression of a Hetero-normative society, replace that oppressor with toddlers.
Once a year in a former state, on Pride weekend men and women would come to the capitol city to let their hair down and, admittedly, go a little overboard with their annual celebration of self, and then return to Klan infested small towns to work their ranches, alone, as bachelor ranchers, like the Norwegian Bachelor Farmers of Lake Wobegon.
This person deserves that weekend and should not have to deal with toddlers as if being as answerable to them as they had had to be with straight society.
I was invited to a Labor Day event. There was plenty of room for social distancing, and, being a political event to celebrate Labor, I intended to go. That was until I saw that the event was “Family Friendly”.
What would the event be if it wasn’t family friendly? At what point would it become obvious if the event began to become less “Family Friendly”? Who were they telling to stay away?
A G rated movie was going to be shown, and that implied family friendliness. Since the adults going would not need to be told to behave during the movie, the speeches, and the barbeque, why designate it as “Famiy Friendly?”
“Bring the family” would have sufficed.
Not being their experience, some will say I am making something of nothing, but having never been asked to leave an event because, well, ”You know, it’s family friendly” so I, a family of one, treated as less than friendly, but more of a threat, I suppose, may not have had the experience to know the back story.
Those who use the phrase may be innocent of its original intent, but common phrases now that were originally based on derogatory terms only lose their true meaning when those to whom they were applied are gone and people remain unaware of how it was used to exclude.
Paddy Wagon, Aunt Jemima, licorice babies whose original name included the “N” word, monkey-looking Leprechauns, a serape wearing, sombrero shaded Mexican sleeping against a cactus, adding “um” or “ee” to the ends of words to sound Native American or Chinese, remained common in our speech and “cultural images” until someone made the original objectionable meaning known to those of us not in the group being disparaged.
Because it did not affect us we assumed it affected no one, with our cardinal sin being ignoring those who spoke of it to us, dismissing their own experiences, which, because we did not gave them, as works of fiction.
This is not correct.
But those who know the underlying meaning in this case are still here.
People have that blind spot where if something whose true meaning is known by the group to which it applies in name or action, but not by those outside that group, it can be easily dismissed.
The accepted belief is that if something does not affect someone directly, it causes no offense to anyone.
The reality is, it does.
making his point
At the Pence residence
presidential judgment call
Not just the troops
I got a baked good
Very early one morning I had dropped my car off at the mechanic’s, and having nothing to do that day, and not being in any sort of hurry, I decided to walk home since it was not all that far.
I walked through an old cemetery dating to before the War for Independence to read the last standing headstones, and checked out a lot of downtown buildings until I reached the bus terminal.
On the days I volunteer at the Whaling Museum, I have to walk pass the terminal in both directions, and there always seems to be a lot of the same people loitering there. Because my schedule has me walking by on certain days at certain times, I am sure there are those whose daily school, work, or other schedule has them being there at those times, so they really aren’t loitering, but there are also those who, regardless of the day or time, congregate there because they are homeless, drug dependent, mentally ill, or just like hanging out downtown and have people to hang out with in that area.
But other than the occasional loud greeting, someone yelling in anger, or that ever present person in all environments who lacks volume modulation, the terminal is largely orderly.
As I was walking by the small retaining wall that is often used as an outside bench, my phone buzzed and, thinking it might be the mechanic, I took out my phone and sat down on the wall to take the call.
I had just finished rejecting the call as unknown when I saw two nuns from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity with their simple, white cotton sari with a blue border, talking to various people, most obviously homeless, and handing them baked goods out of the tote bags they carried as they walked around the inside and outside of the terminal.
When they got to me, I greeted them as they me, and politely told them that I was not in need as I was simply checking my cell phone and was practically home anyway as I lived just up the street, pointing to my building, and that there was probably someone more in need.
One of the sisters pointed out that it was really early, that when I got home I would probably get a cup of coffee as they intended to do when they got back to their convent, which is around the corner and two blocks from my apartment, and would like something with that coffee.
There was no preaching, no grilling me on my beliefs, no sacred salivating while hoping to pounce if I gave the wrong answer to the question, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”, no quiz in any form on any subject, just two Portuguese baked goods to go with my coffee when I got home.
Apparently that is how they conducted their mission. No sermon, no warnings of the eternal flames in the afterlife, no uncomfortable praying just to get the cupcake; just a friendly greeting, a bit of small talk, the baked good, and the departure.
A quiet example that spoke louder in favor of Christianity than that guy a few years ago who pulled in front of me in a grocery store parking lot to ask the Jesus acceptance question in such a way I knew the wrong answer could be deleterious to my health.
I may not be all that formally religious any more, but I will remember that morning as a positive interaction with people who act in accordance with their beliefs.
I had been involved in the Roman Catholic Church since Baptism. Parochial school with nuns as teachers, altar boy, choir, member of the church sponsored Boy Scout troop, were capped off with me going to a seminary from which I eventually left because the longer I stayed in, the more obvious the politics of the church became.
And since that move, I was pushed further away The only cheap viagra tablets thing which has to be done is to take herbal supplements for low energy and stamina. It offers effective treatment for order viagra from canada spermatorrhea, impotence, poor ejaculation and low sperm count and motility. The cGMP enzyme breaks down by an enzyme sildenafil sale in the penis. In order to https://pdxcommercial.com/order-7125 discount viagra prevent the risk of adverse effects. as the Catholic Church seemed to enter into a competition with the Southern Baptist Convention and evangelicals to see which could be proven the most judgmental, and in the process moved further from the opened windows of Pope John XXIII and more toward the far right leanings of Pius XII, in modern times, John Paul II vs, Benedict XVI.
While I was living in Oklahoma, a state whose politicians compete with each other to prove which is the most “Christian” and, therefore, the best person to elect, when asked if he was a Christian, a candidate responded that he was Catholic. To many this was tantamount to saying, “no,” and to the rest he was considered in their minds and in political ads to not be the right kind of Christian.
Not to be left out of this politicization of religion and replacing the Beatitudes with the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, there are influential Catholics who are applying that “not enough” label to Joe biden.
At the RNC Convention during Prime Time, the former coach of the Notre Dame football team, Lou Holtz, called Biden a “Catholic in name only”, a judgment he passed on to anyone present or watching at home.
Notre Dame was quick to distance itself from that,
“While Coach Lou Holtz is a former coach at Notre Dame, his use of the University’s name at the Republican National Convention must not be taken to imply that the University endorses his views, any candidate or any political party.”
Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island had warned the people of his diocese to keep their children away from the Pride Festival and Parade in the capitol city a year or two ago because children should not be brought to places that could subject them to possible, though not specified, harm, this while his own diocese has its problems with pedophile priests who met their victims at events to which their parents brought them, or allowed them to be present at.
He now has a political warning for his flock about Joe Biden,
“The first time in a while that the Democratic ticket hasn’t had a Catholic on it. Sad.”
He, of course, was, as is always the case after the far right makes a painfully asinine statement, joking.
Speaking at the RNC convention Sr. Deirdre Byrne of the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary praised Trump as “the most pro-life president this nation has ever had”, while declaring that the Biden-Harris ticket is “the most anti-life presidential ticket ever”, going so far as to falsely state that Biden supports “infanticide.”
From now until elections we will hear more of this because, it would seem, that there are those in the church who believe “flock” is just a nice way to view Catholics as a whole as mindless sheep who no longer believe in Church teachings on racism, economic inequality, and the dignity of immigrants like Biden goes.
For a while, earlier in the present campaign, I knew some people who rejected Peter Buttigeig, not because of policy differences, but because his campaign chose not to have a meet and greet in a Gay bar that had dancer poles because of the obvious bad optics with them in pictures of first openly Gay candidate running for president, and doing well, in a Gay bar which could be seen as a tacit promotion of a Straight assumption about Gay people, and this proved he was, somehow, not “Gay enough”.
Those Catholics in positions to influence people’s thinking who want to promote their “pro-life”, anti-Gay, misogynistic, anti-public education, anti- people-living-their-lives-free-of-constant-judgment agenda will attempt to paint Biden as “Not Catholic enough” as if that is of any importance to those who are not Catholic anyway.
These people would never be seen giving baked goods to the bus terminal people without exacting a price.
Who said what?
The biggest problem that Trump has with the Atlantic Magazine article in which his negative comments about veterans both living and dead, and by extension those serving now, was that no names were used when citing sources so what was claimed was “Fake News” Trump’s sources, on the other hand, regardless of the topic are not hidden. Who tells him things is no secret, and it is this transparency that lends credence to his stated reasons for taking action.
His sources can be believed because they do not hide in the shadows named only as “anonymous Sources” if named at all. They are not concrete. They are abstract.
The seriousness of the need to be specific was driven home by Fox News when its White House correspondent stood on the lawn with the People’s House in the background on the morning the article came out objecting to the use of anonymous sources as they cannot be questioned, unlike the unnamed sources he cited as having told him that what was in the article was not true.
Some examples of Trump’s fanatical specificity:
On President Obama’s not reflexively declaring immediately after mass shooting that it was the Muslims.
“There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. He doesn’t want to see what’s really happening. And that could be.”
When a man at one of his rallies loudly declared that President Obama was a Muslim and not even an American, Trump had responded,
“You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to look at that and plenty of other things.”
On the Iran Nuclear deal he was able to justify getting rid of it especially when,
“Some people say it’s worse than stupidity. There’s something going on that we don’t know about, and you almost think — I’m not saying that, and I’m not a conspiracy person. . . . Half the people in this room are saying it. I’m trying to be — you know, I’m just hoping they’re just stupid people, okay?”
When the question was raised during the 2016 election season about Ted Cruz’s citizenship, he said.
“I’d hate to see something like that get in his way, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport.”
At the CDC he let us know,
“I like this stuff [science]. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, “How do you know so Significantly the drugs should be order cheap viagra taken only once a day. Nerve signals generic sildenafil canada deeprootsmag.org do not arrive at the genital organ. Modern lifestyles and hectic jobs have not only increased stress in people but it has also been levitra 40 mg important link seen affecting the sexual health of men. These drugs are prescription drugs and are viagra no prescription fast http://deeprootsmag.org/2014/09/03/annie-ross-to-lady-with-love/ not sold over the counter. much about this?” Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
There are a myriad of other times he backs up his statements with a clear and precise citation of source.
Some additional ones are
On windmills: “And they say the noise causes cancer”.
“Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.”
“Many people are saying it was wonderful that Mrs. Obama refused to wear a scarf in Saudi Arabia, but they were insulted.We have enuf enemies”
“Many people are equating BREXIT, and what is going on in Great Britain, with what is happening in the U.S. People want their country back!”
“So many people have told me that I should host Meet the Press and replace the moron who is on now. Just too busy, especially next 10 years!”
“Many people think that WM23 ‘the battle of the billionaires’ was the greatest of all time—set all records.”
“The Scotland golf course in Aberdeen is open & packed—really cool to see & many are saying the greatest golf course ever built.”
“Many people have said I’m the world’s greatest writer of 140 character sentences.
“The money is coming from some very stupid rich people [who] have no idea that if their thing ever succeeded, which it won’t, they will be thrown to the wolves like you’ve never seen before.”
And he justified his promotion of Hydroxychloroquine on very specific medical sources, not something as mysterious and unknown as publications like the New England Journal of Medicine.
“You’d be surprised about how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers, before you catch it,” Trump said before revealing he was among those taking the drug.”
He still demands his right to go to the mall because everyone is going.
news
trump’s solution
These are times for healing, but the Divider in Chief wants a festering wound that might get him re-elected.
In spite of the mayor of Kenosha and the governor of Wisconsin requesting Trump not go to Kenosha as its wound is still open and because an appearance where he would meet only with law enforcement while avoiding any protesters or anyone connected to the murder ed Jacob Blake wouldn’t help things, but he went anyway.
Two days after Trump’s visit, Joe Biden went to Kenosha to listen to black voices and discuss reforming the operations of police departments where he spoke against the pockets of violence on U.S. streets.
“I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.”
Trump has given cover to extreme right wing groups like the “good people” who marched for white supremacy in Charlottesville, those who entered State Houses bearing multiple weapons whom he encouraged to resist his own COVID mitigation steps, and pitied the Kenosha shooter who might have been killed by the mob who wanted to take away the rifle he had just used to shoot someone.
He did not go to heal, but to throw salt.
“We’re ready, willing and able to send in, you know, a massive group of people that are really highly trained. We could solve that problem in less than an hour in Portland.”
While Biden was talking to people in Kenosha, Trump went to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and bragged that he had been to Kenosha two days before to survey the damage from violent pockets of protesters who looted and burned some shops.
Afterwards, http://appalachianmagazine.com/individual-ads-services/ purchase generic levitra or Kamagra is produced with the rumbling of the soft palate. This is particularly useful for men who have a preexisting heart condition should avoid using this medicine as soon as possible and consult the doctor to know if it is genuine or not. price tadalafil tablets You can also buy Kamagra UK over the internet and cialis for sale cheap get your hands on some of these. In most cases, erection problem occurs due to anxiety or heart problems, it may also be caused buy levitra line by aging, depression, anxiety disorder, stress, relationship problems, recreational medication etc.“Biden went there today. There was nobody there. He was a little late. I was gonna say, ‘Hey, listen, we ended that problem’.
By “ending the problem” he meant sending in the National Guard, not listening to or talking with the people or discussing the relevant issues, police brutality and racial inequity, and how to correct the problem like Biden did.
To Trump, addressing a year of Black people being shot by police, armed “militias” travelling to cities to “protect” property not theirs and yet to be approached, armed people invading legislatures in session, and, most recently, having someone cross state lines with an illegally owned rifle to join other out of area armed men and then shooting and killing people is a simple thing to put a band-aid on. Just call in the troops against citizens to crush violent elements at police brutality protests around the country, and ignore the underlying pleas of the vast, peaceful majorities to look into policing reform.
Of course, this cannot be done if he were to acknowledge that at these rallies, demonstration, and marches there are fine people on both sides, and only if he considers those who aren’t your political supporters as “domestic terrorists”, revealing the should be hidden attitude of Trump toward the problem of acute racial tensions and deep-seated distrust between minority communities and law enforcement.
As he explained,
“Biden’s plan is to appease the domestic terrorists. My plan is to arrest them and prosecute them.”
So far 400 people involved in street riots this summer have been arrested when millions of Americans have taken to the streets this summer to protest against the US law enforcement ‘s systemic racism after some high-profile deaths like that of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
Trump wants more arrests, but only the “bad” people who are protesting, not the ones shooting at them.