the Supremes and the flag of distraction

The Supreme Court handed down several good decisions for a change including marriage equality and the Right Wing has gone nuts. They seem to think that because they don't agree, they don't have to abide by the law. They still seem to think that they invented marriage and that their religious restrictions should apply to everybody whether those other people agree with it or not. And so of course they are claiming the eternal war on Christians, claiming that now homosexuality will be taught to kindergarteners, claiming a secret memo from the Justice Department that shows the intent to legalize 12 other heinous behaviors among some of the more absurd accusations. Oh, and that their god will rain down terrible punishment on this country because of this even though their god has not rained down terrible punishment on other countries that recognize same sex marriage. I have to wonder why people worship a god that allows genocide, slavery, child porn and predation, hunger, oppression but gets pissed off when two consenting adults of the same sex mingle their genitals.

The Supreme Court also ruled the Affordable Care Act constitutional (again) but I sincerely doubt that the Republican controlled congress will now stop trying to repeal it and leave millions of people without recourse for healthcare again. They also upheld the independent redistricting commission that put the kibosh on gerrymandering by politicians in Arizona and hopefully it will spread to all the states so it hasn't been a great week for Republicans.

Many Republican politicians did come out against the Confederate Battle Flag after the newest terrorist attack and murder of 9 black people while they were praying in their church by a white supremacist instead of having the conversation we need to have about the uncontrolled access to guns in this country and the racists are up in arms about it. It's not racist, they say, it's our heritage, they say. Meanwhile black churches are being torched all across the South and the KKK is holding rallies. As an American whose forebears have been here since the mid-1600s and who lived in Virginia, then Kentucky, then Texas and some of whom owned slaves and who fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, if the Civil War was about states' rights then it was about states' rights to OWN slaves. The 'heritage' that that flag represents is of white supremacy and subjugation of blacks either through actual slavery or through segregation and oppression. On second thought, we need to have this conversation about the rampant racism in this country as well.

I could have written a whole post on each of these topics but happily for me, and probably lucky for you, I have been busy with grandkid visit 3.

fear and rage in America

People don't seem to understand the difference between being poor and being oppressed. You can be poor without being oppressed. I have been poor at times in my life but I have never been oppressed and it was easy for me as a white person to find employment (although not as easy as if I were a man) in order to better my circumstances.

Poor means you don't have enough money to pay all your bills and buy food. Poor means the quality of food that you can afford to buy is poor. Poor means you may not own a car and definitely don't own a house. Poor means you work for a pittance and have to have two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Poor means you wear hand me down clothes that you get at the thrift store. Poor means you can't go to the doctor when you get sick and just forget about the dentist. Poor means that you go to schools with no resources. Poor means having to drop out of school so you can get a job to help support your family.

Oppressed means that once you reach middle school, police are stopping you on your way to school to search your backpack. Oppressed means that if you drive through certain neighborhoods, you get pulled over by police. Oppressed means that when the police stop you for no good reason whatsoever, they start being physically abusive so that when you try to protect yourself, they arrest you for resisting arrest and once in police custody they beat the shit out of you. Oppressed means that when you stand up for your rights, the police arrest you. Oppressed means that the police bust into your house on a raid, throw a flash bang into your son's crib burning him severely, terrorize the occupants before finally figuring out that they are at the wrong house and they get away scott-free from all the damage, pain, and medical expenses they caused. Oppressed is being homeless and being shot dead in the back by police. Oppressed is the police arresting you over and over for blown out of proportion offenses or no offense at all in order to create a rap sheet that prevents you from gainful employment. Oppressed is the police not responding to your calls for help or if they do, someone gets killed. Oppressed is having your 14 year old daughter walk to the mailbox to fetch the mail and have police stop and throw her to the ground and arrest her for prostitution. Oppressed is waiting at the bus stop on your way to work and being arrested for prostitution. Oppressed is all the opportunities never even offered to you not because you are not qualified but because your skin is the wrong color or your name sounds black. Oppressed is being called a thug for burning cars and breaking shop windows if you are black but just a college boy letting off steam if you are white. Oppressed is being sent to jail for the same crime that a white person gets away with. Oppressed is being singled out by the police for abuse. Oppressed is the city abandoning any repairs or improvements in your neighborhood. Oppressed is having a peaceful demonstration and the police show up in riot gear with tear gas and batons and start abusing and arresting people. Oppressed is six cops beating you in the head and kicking you as you lay helpless on the ground. Oppressed is having no hope and no future and nothing to lose. Oppressed is being demonized by the press which never shows the good you do. Oppressed is being unarmed and murdered by the police and having them go free to do it again. Oppressed is people being in fear of you or thinking you are a 'taker' just because of the color of your skin.  Oppressed is being judged without anyone taking the trouble to find out what your story is.

These people in Baltimore and Ferguson and LA way before that and in many other communities in this country, they aren't just poor. They are poor and oppressed. That's been their past and is their future. You don't have to condone violence to understand it. But you do have to understand it to fix it.  

And you have to understand that these people are not in this situation from lack of will or effort or because they are lazy or ignorant or because they want to be criminals. These people are in this situation because they were born into it and have been systematically prevented from rising above it.

You can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps if you don't have any boots and sometimes the rage and frustration at the injustice erupts.

And still, the oppressed will do this.

the viewing

So Frank's viewing was last night and his funeral is today. I walked right up and gave him a look see, told him I was glad to have known him though I suspect whatever might be left of Frank was already with Dorothy. We went to Dorothy's funeral and it was the first catholic funeral we had ever been to. I had expected to see her body at the viewing, which I did, but was not expecting to walk into the small lobby of the church and see her there where everyone was crowded in. And I thought the whole communion thing around the casket was weird but I guess most ritual is weird.

This looking at a dead body thing is new to me. For all my life I had avoided looking at a dead person. The funerals I went to with open caskets, I would avert my gaze. I'm not really sure where this aversion came from. Probably my dad. He was a pathologist albeit a reluctant one. He wanted to be a surgeon but then he got TB during the war. Afterwards when he was well, he let others convince him it would be too strenuous for a survivor of TB and so he became a pathologist. Someone who dealt with the dead and with the diseases that killed them.

My father hated death, hated funerals, didn't want to have a funeral, hated black. We were not allowed to wear black in my house. He had a few black suits, of course, but he also had and wore a peacock blue suit, a canary yellow suit, an emerald green suit, a burnt orange suit. I loved his colorful suits. He wore red socks with his tuxedo.

Anyway, he didn't want us, his family, to see his body after he had died. His father had died when he was 13 and he claimed that that final image of his dead father was the only image he could conjure up and he didn't want his children to remember him that way. So when he died of a massive stroke in the middle of the night and when I got to the hospital which was an hour's drive away and the nurse asked me if I wanted to see him and spend a few moments with him, I told her no. Judging by the look on her face, she didn't think much of that but that was his wish. And so I continued to decline to view the bodies of family and friends.

Then my brother-in-law was dying* and in hospice care at home and I was helping my sister and being there and figured it was time for me to experience death, dying, and dead bodies. It was imminent, my sister's girls who he had mostly raised had arrived and I went home for a brief spell and hadn't been home 10 minutes when they called, it was time, it was happening. He passed before I got back so I missed the actual dying. But I got a good long look at his dead body. And you know what? There wasn't anything icky or scary or terrible about it. And it's not the only way I remember my brother-in-law.

So back to Frank. Talking with his son Allen, we learned that Frank did not, as I had thought, die in his sleep. He actually had a pretty good day, even was outside in a wheelchair for part of the day. Allen had been over to visit, Frank ate a good meal, went back to bed. Zaide went in to check on him and Frank was awake, he reached out and took her hands and breathed his last.

I think that's how I want to go. Quietly, easy, in old age, but awake.

* I wrote about it extensively here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.