Politics

FAKE

A headline from @FoxNews, #FixedNews, #FalseNews, #FarceNews and thoughts

Gingrich: Obama in ‘desperate frenzy’ to leave legacy

I have long since said that I wish to be reincarnated as a rich, old white man. I would love not to be bound by fact, science, data, morality, decency, the need for self-preservation or trends.

Isn’t it rich, white, male, landowners in a desperate frenzy to defy:

  • Time
  • Birth rates
  • Death rates
  • Truth
  • Justice
  • The will of the people
  • The teachings of any and all Abrahamic religions
  • Progress
  • The future
  • Inevitability
  • Love
  • Equity
  • Equality
  • Everybody and everything that ain’t them!

Imagine if you could pretend that

  • Attitude was journalism
  • Truth was lies
  • Treason was patriotism
  • You weren’t African even though the oldest human fossils were found in Ethiopia
  • Missing Sphinx noses weren’t the first attempt at a Jedi-mind trick
  • You could disprove science with a turn of phrase discarding global warming for climate change
  • Deny one holocaust, let alone the genocide of Native American and Black peoples, even as it continues today and is broadcast over and over
  • Simply by saying that you know something, or insisting that others believe you that no further work has to be done
  • Being born rich meant you were self-made
  • Those you hoodwinked, run amok, bamboozled and led astray will not turn on you with a vengeance
  • Are running out of options given that 40 acres and a mule, segregation, integration and assimilation have failed to sway you peaceably

POLL

I love how 44 can barely stop himself from laughing at the Democratic National Convention as he talks about how Dumb Donald (not the esteemed cartoon character from the beloved children’s cartoon, Fat Albert, but the other one) views himself. Dumb Donald thinks of himself as a “Himself,” when he’s really more like an “itself.” But I’m not here for that – now. I have a thought -an idea to connect our communities.

On Nov. 8 might police help the citizens they serve by helping them get to the polls? I understand they have an important job to do, but working with community leaders perhaps they could help coordinate shared rides or something.

In neighborhoods plagued by the trouble that comes with too little opportunity, parents and other caring adults in the community take back their streets daily, in the morning and the afternoon, by emptying out of their homes and lining their blocks to provide a human shield for their most precious treasures – their children.

A revolutionary act of kindness – to take ownership for all children, blood relation, neighbor or stranger. All of our children are the responsibility of all of us.

On Nov. 8, might some officers be available to be a peaceful presence en route to polling places, especially as it gets dark and/or in under-resourced areas?

It would be a good way for the people and the police to introduce one another to each other.

Remember in the Chris Rock movie, Head of State, his character, Gilliam Mays, a candidate for President, keeps his promise on election day to get his original constituents to the polls. Mays does this but driving his campaign bus throughout his community.
I love movies, plays, musicals. I love it when the lights go out and a more ideal version of us is illuminated.
Police Poll Patrol

YOUR

For those of you who have supported 44, I don’t know why you can’t support his choice for Secretary of State and keep on making history like we have for the last 8 years.

I understand that the election of a Black president and his remarkable success as the leader of a country that denies the plight and contributions of his ancestors and fellow Americans, has the status quo shook and that has reverberated into what can only be described as The Nightly Show, has so eloquently put it – Blacklash. But we shall not be moved.

Have you seen the Wiz? The movie, not the play. As the Wiz dictates which colors are in and out, the lyric goes: “I wouldn’t be caught dead in red.” Don’t get caught out there people. This is not a multiple choice test. There is only one answer.

I will have to pray because I know that there are those on the other side who feel just as strongly as I do. But I’m afraid. I’ve done everything to be successful and safe and I don’t feel like either. One of my biggest fears is that George Carlin, Marc Maron, Seth Macfarlane, Anthony Jeselnik and a bunch of other comedians I admire are right and that I’m deluding myself with this God thing. But at a time like this, all I can think of to not go mad is God help us!

SAFE

Privilege is feeling safe and protected when you see a flag or a house of worship, and for many brown, LGBTQ or any ‘others’ this isn’t the case.

These seemingly welcoming signs can be oppressive.

Especially when the American flag appears alongside a confederate one and churches have become just another target.

While we need to unite blue, we have a militarized police problem that for many Black (Latino and Native American) people seems parallel to a time not so long ago.

Instead of coming at night, on horseback, covered in white; the wrong and rogue come arrive in in broad daylight and on camera, in squad cars and in uniform.

And, most discouragingly, use bullets instead of rope.

Not all – just too many.

Privilege is being able to get out of the all or nothing trap.

Ain’t nobody anti-cop. I don’t want no job where people shoot at you.God bless them and all of us!

If the wrong and rogue get the White House, built by enslaved Black people, what becomes of the “free” Black people today, who don’t feel free as the flag waves or when a squad car appears in the rear view mirror. What does “free” look like if Hillary isn’t president?

PS: Double negatives used above deliberately for effect. I’m bilingual – fluent in English and real life!

FOUR

Three Dog Night might be mistaken. The loneliest number may not be one, it might be four. With no disrespect to the Green or Libertarian parties this is not a 4 candidate race. I don’t care what you see, what you hear, or who’s on your ballot.

Hillary, a woman with decades of experience as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State who went to Wellesley and Yale is running against a reality TV star with a staccato 5th grade vocabulary who mocks the disabled and can’t stay away from a period joke when he’s mic’ed up. He also makes up nicknames to belittle those who oppose him the way a schoolyard bully does.

And it’s just the two of them. Don’t split the vote. We already know the end of that story.

She’s an insider. Insider only becomes an issue as more of us (anybody not a rich, white, male land-owner) get “in.”

She’s experienced and he is not even a novice, not even an amateur.

He’s an experiment.

One that will blow up in all of our faces.

I implore you to vote for Hillary Clinton.

You have one choice.

We have one choice.

Some of us will go back to being 3/5 of a person, being greeted by barking dogs and showered by fire hoses.

Some of us will be beaten back into closets.

New families will be broken.

For all of us still seeking a more perfect freedom, “fight like Hill” for someone who actually knows something about working toward a more perfect union.

 

VOTE

Today, I begin with a simple question? What the fuck?

Really, democrats, do you need a Black mama to threaten to smack the blue offa you, if you don’t act right?

Ask yourself two questions and get back to me.

  1. What has Secretary Clinton done to you?
  2. What has Donald Trump done for you?

The burn you will feel if Hillary is not president will come from global warming.

I really don’t know why people don’t like Hillary Clinton. She has spent her life in public service.

I also don’t care why people don’t like Hillary Clinton. Don’t like her. Hate her. But you gon’ have to vote her.

This is the part in the action movie where the warring factions come together to take down a bigger enemy. ‘Come with me if you wanna live.’ That’s Hillary talking to you.

It’s the moment in Assault of Precinct 13 with Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke agree to put ‘their shit on pause.’

If Hill and Bern have put their shit on pause, all you uncredited, faceless extras need to get over it.

Getting over something is actually linked to privilege. Some of us have to get over it while others of us can take our own sweet time or never get over it.

Let’s take Bernie. I never saw how the old, white guy, was the progressive candidate.

And wouldn’t you know, when a woman secured the nomination and made history, that old, white man, sure did seem like a regular old white guy, overlooking HERstory. He never had to get over it, because he didn’t accept it until months later. What brown or LGBTQ person could keep running a race er’body knows they lost? That’s privilege, regular, old non-progressive privilege.

For many of us, for generations, elections have been about choosing the lesser of two evils. I was excited when I voted for my first president, Bill Clinton, and I thought I would break when he came on TV to apologize.

Of course, that’s part of the reason, some of you don’t like her. However, where was the outrage when we turned into England (the place we ran from) for a minute with the Bush monarchy of King/Father and Prince/Son.

Look, I get why you mad at Bill (though not why you are still holding on to that anger), but I’d rather have a Rhodes Scholar former president as a first gentleman than half-nude model, wifey #3. Despite Bill’s personal flaws, the Clintons have done a lot for many. Bill is a Rhodes Scholar, right? If Fox ain’t gotta fact check, I don’t have to either!

I will admit, I’ve been a little slow to understand the bern-ing love, but on Wednesday well past my bedtime, I suddenly stop singing Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and began waling “I can’t live if living is without you,” over and over again.

So I get it now, Cooley High and Boys II Men got it right, “it’s so (friggin’) hard to say goodbye to yesterday.” I do think Bernie has been great moving to nominate our girl and not falling for the email bait. I feel it now. I feel the Bern. Let’s use that fire lighted underneath us to move our girl back down south!

Perfectly acceptable 4-letter words

I have always wanted to write and all my life, my head has been full of characters, their voices and their lives. I have always been too afraid to share them with anyone and especially afraid to share my thoughts on a wide array of interests including the arts, TV, movies, theater, law, education, and, when necessary, politics. Ever since 44 told us that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for, I’ve felt like I wasn’t doing enough. There is a line in the song, “Revolution,” by Arrested Development (featured on the soundtrack for the movie “Malcolm X”) that asks:

“I say, “Are you doing as much as you can for the struggle?” (no)
“Am I doing as much as I can for the struggle? (no)

Then why do I cry when
My people are in trouble (yo)
My ancestors slapped me
In the face and said (go).'”

So this is me – going, after spending decades stuck in place. I have always wanted to be an artist. But I have lived somewhat safely, choosing degrees from top schools, fancy titles and six figures instead of being bravely me. I did all that stretching outside my comfort zone until I was so stretched out that I lost me. Uncomfortable in every role, in every pay range, in all familiar and unfamiliar settings. Life’s too short. My parents worked too hard to make sure I had this educated, informed voice, so it’s disrespectful not to use it.

This voice is laced with profanity as it is my only vice. No drinking, no smoking, but there will be swearing. You’ve been warned. No need to worry. I’m very proficient at it and like to think that this lyric from the song, “Joy in Repetition” by the late Prince (on the “Graffiti Bridge” soundtrack) sums up my cussing talent just so: “four letter words are seldom heard with such dignity and light.”

I like to put a little extra emphasis on a few points I’m passionate about and I like code-switching in mid-sentence, plus it drives people crazy, so it’s how I repay the world for giving me so many reasons to cuss.

I want this blog to be about perfectly acceptable four-letter words that can be much more of a shock to the system than “bad” words. For me, these words include: LOSS, WORK, LIFE, BOSS, VOTE, etc. What’s your favorite “good” 4-letter word?