Celebrate Yourself!

For years and I mean YEARS, I hated Mother's Day (a well-documented point that you can read about here and here and here). I felt that my mother placed unreasonable expectations on me, her only daughter, to spearhead the effort to celebrate her. So it made me very resentful because I felt that with two sons and a husband, the weight of being appreciative should not fall so heavily on my shoulders.

And I felt that way for years until she got sick, then a different kind of resentment set in. I was angry that I had to essentially get over whatever issues I had about our relationship. I was angry that as the only daughter, I was again expected to make the effort (and the sacrifices) to demonstrate how much she meant to us.

And I felt that way until I became a mother, with its own specific and accompanying resentments. I  could have allowed them to take hold of me, but I have decided to rebuke all of that and declare that I will NOT wallow in any kind of self-pity or envy of others. I will celebrate myself!

Last year I skipped the extended family gathering for my mother because of anger and frustration with my siblings. I let my husband make plans, and while the day was spent doing what he enjoyed followed by dinner, I have decided to accept that his efforts will be sufficient. This year my Dad announced what he wanted us to do, and again, while the specific restaurant would not have been my first choice, it is adequate and it serves its purpose. The point is to spend time with my mother.

And that is what I plan to do for as long as she is here. I plan to take her to church, which will be a bit of an effort, but I will do it because I can. I will enjoy the restaurant with my parents because I can. I will send this last batch of cards to my friends and family because I can. I will be happy just to see another day (God willing) because I can.

Later, I will find a nice dress and/or a pair of shoes and/or maybe even some nice jewelry for myself. Maybe I will find a nice spa package and/or take another solo trip somewhere. I might go to the movies, see a play, or visit a museum. I might connect with old classmates, line sisters, and other mommies I've met recently to celebrate the fact that we are still here. Maybe none of those things will happen this weekend, but I won't place such high expectations on this particular date on the calendar to validate my worth.

To be clear, I am not telling anyone else how to feel this weekend. And I am not suggesting that we are not entitled to our expectations. Instead, I am suggesting that I will not give someone else the job of making me feel happy when I'm much better at it. Like every other mother, I want appreciation, but I have come to understand that love is not a universal expression. Now I won't lie and say that I don't get into my feelings when I believe that there has been little effort or thought made towards me. But I learned from my mother that I can do for myself, and if they don't, I will.

So if you are reading this and feel some kind of way about Sunday just know that I appreciate you. I honor you. I see you. I celebrate you!

Stop in the Name of Love

I am combing topics, which is something I have done in the past when my emotions are boiling over and I just can't limit or focus...

When I first began writing about the new museum and memorial in Alabama dedicated to victims of lynching the other day, it was my intention to address the discomfort expressed by some that this effort is divisive because it exhumes the unpleasant memories of an era that many would rather leave unmarked, buried, and forgotten.

I had drafted my list of reasons why this most recent incarnation of what I call 'convenient historical amnesia' is utter bullshit, especially as this country debates the public utility of Confederate memorials that stand in places of honor throughout parts of this country. I got distracted and had other work to complete (still do), so I set this aside. That was until I saw the words "public lynching" used to describe how R&B singer R. Kelly felt in response to the efforts of the #MeToo and #TimesUp Movements to convince companies and artists to disavow him in light of accusations against him for sexual violence and abuse against young women of color.

This is the statement by #TimesUp that was posted on Instagram and also published in The Root. This article addresses how his legal team referred to this effort as a public lynching. This is the video statement Kelly released to his fans via social media. This is the statement I posted to the Busy Black Woman Facebook page after I processed my feelings of his careless invocation of lynching to describe his actions as detailed in this article published on Vox. I also need to acknowledge how Tarana Burke addressed his use of that term in an NPR interview.

So, yeah...

I won't waste too much energy on Robert Kelly except to tweet and retweet #TimesUp and #MuteRKelly whenever I hear his music on the radio. I've already written about my position and suspect that it won't be any more persuasive to his ardent fans than what has already been written by many, many other women (and also men, like this Very Smart Brotha).

So I will pivot back to my initial topic, which was the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It is both a memorial and a museum, located in Montgomery, AL and founded by the Equal Justice Initiative. The museum and memorial opened on April 26. I actually first learned about this project when I saw a clip that featured Oprah taking a tour of the memorial for a segment on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago.

There is way too much to unpack with respect to this project. My initial reaction upon seeing the 60 Minutes footage was to post it on Facebook and declare my continued confusion over support for the Confederacy. I don't have any immediate plans to be in Alabama any time soon, but if I am ever there, I will make it my business to visit.

I am sure that it will make me uncomfortable. It will make me sad. Angry. Frustrated. Overwhelmed. It will likely cause an emotional reaction that I cannot yet fully describe or anticipate. Or it might just make me numb. Lately, in this current era of hyperactive breaking news, I have found that even the most shocking and devastating occurrences leave limited emotional imprints on me. But my expectation is that someone will walk away from this experience ready to fundamentally reconsider how Americans reconcile our ideals to our past.

So I hope this memorial makes every visitor uncomfortable. I hope it makes you itchy in places that cannot be scratched or soothed with lotion. I hope it makes you cry. I hope it makes you vomit. I hope it gives you nightmares. I hope it haunts your children. I hope it makes you want to burn your Confederate flags. I hope it makes you reconsider your pride steeped in a heritage based on heroes of a Lost Cause. I hope it makes you seek forgiveness. I hope it causes you to lose your religion. I hope it makes you oppose the Mexican wall and the Muslim travel ban. I hope it causes you to question every belief you ever had in basic human decency.

I hope it resurrects the spirits of every man, woman, or child whose body ever swung from a Southern tree. Or a Western one (because they lynched folks on the frontier too). I hope it makes you examine your views on immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and Jews. I hope it causes you to question everything you have ever been taught about people being too lazy, too dependent, or too eager to redistribute the ill-gotten wealth some people "earned" by exploiting the fears of others.

And then, I want you to ask yourself why the fuck Robert Kelly would EVER call this campaign of negative publicity a public lynching (and you can substitute his name for whomever else might have invoked similar imagery). How dare he compare having a few shows cancelled to having your 14 year old son kidnapped, shot, and killed for whistling at a white woman? Or your husband strung up in a tree for registering to vote? Or your pregnant wife burned alive during a racial riot?

The fact that he can even defend himself against 24 years of accumulated allegations with well-paid top-notch lawyers belies the very notion of a public lynching where the angry assembled mob acted as accuser, judge, jury, and executioner. There was no due process. Newspaper articles reported the grisly details without inquiry or investigation of the victims' guilt. Remains were photographed and the images were printed on postcards. Entire communities lived in fear of inciting the ire of the local Klan; or families joined the Great Migration.

So yeah, I am beyond offended that R. Kelly has the audacity to compare the inconvenience of bad press to the atrocities documented at the National Museum for Peace and Justice. His social media followers have defiantly argued that he not be judged for his behavior, no matter how outrageous or cruel. His fans continue to attend his concerts and buy his music. His collaborators have remained silent even when confronted with these rumors and stories of impressionable young women forced to live as his sex slaves. As far as I know, Robert Kelly is still alive and breathing and planning to perform at a sold out show this weekend in Chicago. No unruly mob of angry fathers, brothers, or uncles, has managed to shoot him, string him up, castrate him, or burn him alive.

But it is time for the self-described Pied Piper of R&B to face the music that his #TimesUp #MuteRKelly #saveourgirls

Fake News and Eyelashes

On the Monday after the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner (which I have never been in the habit of watching) I find myself procrastinating by checking out old YouTube videos of past roasts. This is because I took the time yesterday to watch the entirety of comedian Michelle Wolf's roast, and have been watching/reading a bunch of post-event lamentations and refutations and denunciations and what-not. And my suspicion is that all of this ultra-sensitivity, especially on the part of those in the so-called Liberal Media Establishment is just a little too...

I don't know what word to use yet. Is it whiny? Is it self-aggrandizing? Is it ironic? Is it hypocritical? Is it sexist? Is it just more proof that there is a very flimsy sisterhood among white women?

But let's start with my initial take: Michelle Wolf was funny at times, flat at others. She lost the audience about midway through her set but like a trooper, she kept going. And then she zinged them at the very end, knowing that she had nothing to lose at that point. So perhaps, her best joke was the very prominent middle finger she offered to the stodgy Washington press corps for their complicity in helping to enable the train wreck that is the current Administration. 

So why has a good deal of the criticism been focused on three jokes that were aimed at Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Three jokes that offered the following critiques: (1) that she lies; (2) that her eye makeup is always perfect; and (3) that she looks like a character from The Handmaid's Tale. She did say some other stuff, but that was pretty much the gist and from that, we got calls for Wolf to apologize and a statement from Margaret Talev, the dinner chair disavowing her performance, accompanied by a chorus of complaints from the likes of Andrea Mitchell, Mika Brzezinski, and Maggie Haberman...

 

Fascinating (in my best Spock impression). And yes, my ironic choice of this Leonard Nimoy picture is meant to highlight how all of this outrage is over eye makeup.

Anyway once I started writing this, I stopped listening to the past WHCD roasts, so just to give you an idea of the standard Michelle Wolf is alleged to have sullied, judge for yourself: Stephen Colbert in 2006; Wanda Sykes in 2009; Seth Meyers in 2011; Jimmy Kimmel in 2012; Cecily Strong and Larry Wilmore in 2016; and Hassan Minhaj in 2017. I'm not even suggesting that you blow off half a day to listen to all of these, as this is just a sampling of what is available in YouTube. I am simply suggesting that there might be some really offensive jokes embedded in one or all of those videos, and one thing I do not recall is a call for an apology or any mea culpas being released. 

The point of inviting a comedian to the DC Journalist Prom is to get a few laughs, which is the same reason why comedians get hired to host the Oscars and the Emmys. Anyone who preferred to be covering serious news should have been in Michigan with the President. 

Exactly. While Michelle Wolf managed to poke fun of Rachel Maddow, Kellyanne Conway, Reince Preibus, Hillary Clinton, CNN, This is Us, and the Democrats, she avoided making a Bill Cosby rape joke, which probably would have generated much less offense. Meanwhile, the President was hosting a rally in MICHIGAN, never mentioned the ongoing crisis with Flint's water, but y'all mad because Michelle Wolf dissed Sarah Huckabee Sanders' flawless makeup techniques.

But Michelle Wolf did mention Flint, Michigan. She also mentioned the arrests at Starbucks and how they plan to solve racism in an afternoon. And maybe half of whatever else she said wasn't all that funny, but that really wasn't the point of the outrage, was it? Aunt Sarah's makeup is always going to be on point.

Cosby Show Revisited (Again)

Prior to the announcement of the verdict yesterday, I had been engaged in an existential conflict about whether to own up to watching snippets of old Cosby Show episodes in spite of my past declaration that I would not. I had not yet resolved that dilemma because I was not expecting such a quick conviction...but life comes at you fast. And while it doesn't matter to a single person other than my own judgmental conscience, I have made my decision. I will reveal it after you read parts of the earlier version of this piece:

Every now and then the Hub sneaks up on me when I'm channel surfing. And what tends to happen is that I land on the Cosby Show and linger there while I surf, or sometimes, I sit there and watch a few minutes before he ridicules my weak resolve not to watch.

I loved that show. I still love that show. And I want to watch when my favorite episodes air, but I know that I resolved not to watch just last year when I said that I was not ready for reruns. So here we are again, ready to sit through another trial that will reveal more sordid details of Mr. Cosby's sexual proclivities. And I'm still not ready.

I am not ready to see him found guilty, which makes me feel the same uneasiness I felt years ago when I made the same declaration with respect to Michael Jackson. I resolved that MJ dilemma for myself in what I would call a convenient manner...I chose not to believe any of the more serious allegations. I still don't, yet I accept that one of my favorite pop idols was a troubled and complicated man. And I admit that my choice was made a lot easier by MJ's tragic and sad death a few years after his last trial.

What I am ready to admit is that I expect a similar personal resolution of this Cosby matter. Not that I will choose to believe in his innocence (because I don't). Not that I will eventually allow my sympathies for his family and their suffering to soften my heart (although I have nothing but sadness for the trauma this family has endured, in the past and most recently). Not because I expect for him to die a broken man with a very complicated legacy (which will likely happen). Not because I think Tom Mesereau is some special kind of jury whisperer (even if this track record suggests that might be so).

I will resolve this by focusing on my affection for the show. I will try to pretend that I am not disgusted by the thought that somewhere behind the scenes, there was an unsuspecting aspiring actress who was promised a cameo under some elaborate pretense. I will remember how much I related to Denise, Theo, and Vanessa as peers and will try not to think about what their Dad might have been doing all those years in that basement gynecologist office. I will focus on the fact that my model of Busy Black Womanhood was Claire Huxtable, who was based on Camille Olivia Hanks...

I did indulge in one entire episode a few months ago, and I even tweeted/posted about it because of its utility to my #HBCUJustGive campaign. I know that reads exactly like an excuse instead of an admission that I just wanted to watch that entire episode (even if it was one of my least favorites in the past). However, the Hub has not 'caught' me again as I have managed to 'remember' that the show airs on a certain channel every morning right around the same time the Hub is about to jump into the shower. 

And that was the last thing I wrote before I put this piece aside. I made only slight edits to the draft, which included posting a link to the episode I referenced and adding the gif. I suspect that I will eventually resolve the dilemma of separating the actor from the character he created. The verdict hasn't changed my opinion of the show, which I still love and acknowledge for its historic and cultural significance.

However, there are other artists who can create meaningful work that deserve our support. We can always look back with fondness on the Cosby Show for what it meant, just as we can look back on other old TV shows that were products of their time (even if they are politically incorrect and culturally problematic now). I have often heard it suggested that if we were to judge every artist for their human frailties we would have no one left to admire. 

Well, I reject that. I don't demand that our artists be perfect, I just expect for them to show some modicum of human decency towards others. Sexual violence towards women is not the same as being a serial philanderer. So I am under no obligation to honor Bill Cosby by continuing to support his work or defend his legacy. If I choose to watch the show, I will acknowledge that is a controversial and problematic choice given what I know about his predatory behavior towards 60 or more women. And if I'm honest, the fact that I was ever ashamed to be caught says more about my conflicted feelings and why it is much easier not to watch.

Black, Drip Coffee

I didn't intend to write an entire post about the latest public racial micro-aggression, otherwise known as being black at Starbucks, but here I am because once again, here we are as a society, confronted with our "unconscious racial biases"...

I feel compelled to explain why I won't be participating in a boycott of Starbucks. For the record, I used to go hardcore on their burnt coffee, and every now and then when I need a jolt, I will make a visit. But the rotation of my life that once found me in Starbucks on the regular has changed, so I can take them or leave them alone. And I believe the last time I intentionally went to a Starbucks was to take this picture:

Which was part of an effort by Spelman alumnae to honor the appointment of Rosiland Brewer as Chief Operating Officer last fall (so any *news* that suggests that they found a black woman to promote in order to fix this for them is misleading). And I stand by this photo and the reason why we were so excited to take them to acknowledge her as one of the reasons why a boycott seems extreme.

So let me start there by addressing the fact that of all the places where an incident like this would occur, Starbucks is both the most obvious and yet ironic venue for a major racial micro-aggression. Starbucks is the canary in the coal mine of gentrification. Once a Starbucks opens in certain neighborhoods, that is typically a sign that demographic changes are about to happen. Yet, they hire locally, so at the same time that Aunt May is being persuaded to sell her home for more money than she's ever earned in her life, her adolescent grandchildren can get good paying jobs working at the same Starbucks that attracted the potential buyers to her neighborhood.

It is a melting pot where people go to loiter while drinking over-priced burnt coffee. I have never understood why they even bother to give the names of the varieties of coffees they serve because in the end, it all tastes the same. And because Starbucks serves both a functional walk-through as well as a de facto community gathering spot, there is always an eclectic mix of folks in there at any given time. Starbucks is Cheers, McDonald's, and the public library for every one who wants to avoid going to any of those other aforementioned places.

Without knowing much more about what prompted their arrest other than a request for the bathroom key, I think we can all agree that was no reason to call the police; however, what happened next is the reason why we might need to rethink whether a boycott of the entire company is the most appropriate response. Because the video was taken by a white patron, and on that video, the person who confronts the officers while they are making the arrest is another white patron. And while we might be all caught up in the mechanics about the biases of the employee, the manager, and the police, we need to stop to acknowledge that we know about this because of the woke white allies who intervened.

That would not have happened at Wal-Mart or Chick-fil-A, companies that black folks love but that don't demonstrate the same level of corporate support for their workers. At an Ohio Wal-Mart in 2014, a black man was shot to death after a white customer saw him walking around the store with a toy gun and called the police. This is a retailer that sells firearms. Chick-fil-A's CEO admitted to supporting organizations that oppose marriage equality. You may not care about LGBTQ rights, but companies that oppose the civil rights of one group probably were not on the front lines with our parents and grandparents (IMHO) seeking racial justice.

But a company that has at least tried to talk and walk the language of inclusion, diversity, tolerance, social justice, racial harmony, gender equality, living wages, universal healthcare, and that attracts the types of patrons who would stand up to the police in the face of what they felt was an obvious injustice might deserve benefit of the doubt. That company might deserve the opportunity to make things right, even after their CEO issued a less than satisfactory first response. Even if the employee wasn't fired or if it took them 48 hours to reassign the store manager.

Because the COO is a black woman with a grown son who could just as easily been in the same shoes as the two men who were arrested. Because it was just last month that Starbucks achieved pay equity. We can agree to disagree, but I cannot equate this incident with the protests at the Woolworth lunch counters from 50 years ago (like one of my classmates says I should). I cannot look upon Starbucks with the same wariness that I look upon the NFL, where black bodies are bruised and broken for entertainment value, but are not allowed the right to protest against police actions that result in bruised and broken black bodies under the guise of protecting and serving the public.

But I am happy to continue my boycott of Koch Industries and their products as the Koch brothers have funded efforts to support stand your ground legislation, stringent voter identification laws, and other conservative causes via ALEC (and trust that I am displeased by their alliance with UNCF). I don't need any craft supplies from Hobby Lobby, nor do I need any home improvement items from Home Depot. Each one of these companies has had issues that I find a lot more troubling. Now, I won't be going out of my way to get coffee from Starbucks, and I reserve the right to change my opinion of them if I am not satisfied with how they resolve this issue.

Besides, I can burn my own coffee at home.

Fried Chicken Wednesday: The Roseanne Reboot

Technically, this is a late night snack of leftover chicken since I began writing this piece on Wednesday night...but I fell asleep and now it is Thursday, so maybe we should just call it chicken salad. However, I think you'll see why the metaphor still applies.

I didn't watch the premier episode on Tuesday night when it aired because, as you probably know, I have a two year old and I have no idea when anything airs on television in real time. Which is ironic given my recent annoyance with the idea of a TV streaming service like ROKU, but I digress. I watched the episodes tonight on demand while the Hub put the Toddlersaurus to bed.

The first five minutes were hilarious. Every issue that could be attributed to present-day life for the so-called typical working-class American family found a way to be present and accounted for: from seniors paying for their medication, to the middle aged daughter/caregiver, to the interracial active-duty military family, to the ideological divisiveness of the last election, to the gender-fluid grandchild. All of that was introduced before the first commercial break.

I actually expected the show to go downhill from there, but it found a way to remain funny and clever. The original Becky is scheming to become a surrogate mother for the replacement Becky. Son DJ is a veteran with a black child and a black wife who is deployed somewhere. Aunt Jackie has become the sitcom version of Cindy Sheehan, which is its own ironic twist given Roseanne's apparent road to Damascus/hell conversion from socialist to Trump supporter (in both real life and in her alter ego). Perhaps that actually makes sense in bizarro world, but let's revisit that blurred line later...

The storyline's meat and potatoes center on daughters Darlene and Becky. Darlene is back at home, presumably to care for her aging parents, but that facade quickly unravels, so we can assume that much of the drama will center on her struggles as a single mother with two very interesting children. Becky is attempting to get a fresh restart on life by passing herself off as a viable candidate for surrogacy for an affluent yuppie couple. Of course that is both funny and sad given the real-life tragic death of Glenn Quinn, the actor who portrayed her husband Mark on the original show, which will be addressed later in the series run.

Assuming that everyone forgot about the last "dream" season of Roseanne, life still sucks for the Connor family. And if there was a sitcom family that could be realistically be revived after a twenty year absence then it makes perfect sense to turn to the Connors. Edith and Archie Bunker are dead, and no one would ever believe that Michael Stivic could be anything other than a typical aging hippie. If there was an interest in revisiting the Evans family (and I am shocked to learn that apparently there is), I'm not quite sure how that would work but I guess somebody with more creativity and vision can work on that one.

For a minute I totally lost my train of thought...a Good Times reboot???!!!???

Anyway, the point is that if the goal of this revival was to depict or reflect the concerns of what some people believe is forgotten America, then the most obvious family to do that convincingly is the same sitcom family that assumed that role in the 80s. While there are plenty of other family sitcoms from the same era, none of those shows actually assigned themselves the task of being a reflection of an American ideal, with the most notable exception of The Cosby Show (but we can't talk about that right now).

As for the blurred lines between Roseanne and Roseanne Connor, I can't even begin to wrap my head around that ideological evolution, but now that I have seen the premier and know that it was enough of a hit that the Trumpet called her to offer congratulations...I'm good. I can put this show in the same category as most things on TV, which is I can take it or leave it. I was never was a big fan of the original show anyway. I am not a snob or an elitist, and I consider myself to be open-minded enough, but this won't be must-see for me especially when I know that I am better off making more of an effort to see Blackish or Atlanta.

And here is my final piece of cold chicken--for the record, this show makes the same erroneous assumptions about people's lives that have become so divisive and intractable in real life. We call each other names when we're angry, but when it is time to stop shouting, then we realize our common humanity and capacity for tolerance and empathy. Of course the Connors have both a black and a gender-fluid grandchild because this is America. Of course Jackie can be a retired cop and a life coach and have supported Hillary Clinton because this is America. Of course people are struggling financially, physically, and emotionally (even the yuppie couple that is willing to resort to surrogacy) because this is America. Not just working class, or inner city, or rural, or coastal, or evangelical, or agnostic--we are all American.

Marching For The Children

We marched for the children in New York City on Saturday (because the Hub had an event), so here is a brief retelling of our umm, misadventures in long-distance activism:

Our day started slow because I had some writing to finish and we were distracted by all manner of stuff: the coffee maker that only displayed its instructions in French; this weird ROKU thing on the television; and just being parents to a kid who was really excited about being in a different place (and who insisted on taking two dolls with her, just because). At 11am, right when the Rally was set to start, we were finally about ready to leave, but it was well after noon by the time we even got close to the rallying point. We hailed an Uber/Lyft, hit traffic, got diverted, and had to walk several blocks to West 72nd where we were then directed to walk back uptown to West 86th. This was the essence of our "march" since by the time we got there, the Hub suggested that we needed to pause to get a sense of the crowd. Which lasted exactly ten minutes before the Toddlersaurus began to meltdown due to hunger, so we decided to take a quick lunch break around the corner. Alas, we picked the absolute wrong place--it took nearly 90 minutes for them to serve us a handful of chips and a tablespoon of guacamole as a mea culpa for having us wait another 30 minutes for our order of tacos, wings, and noodles. By the time we made it back to Central Park, this was what we found:

And that idyllic scene is what inspired this mini-piece on the Facebook page that you can read here--a quasi-contemporaneous perspective on the day's events.

Now that I've had a chance to digest some of the news coverage I gleaned from a random ROKU stream and Twitter, I wanted to add my voice to counter the asinine responses of folks who still think this is all part of some vast left-wing conspiracy. Because we already know that some of you love your guns as much as you love your comfort animals (more than actual people)--but blanket snarky assumptions are exactly why this issue is so divisive, so I am going to start by stressing my belief that reasonable people on both sides of this issue can disagree.

And the fact that we disagree does not mean that you don't care about the life of my child or that I don't have respect for your constitutional rights. It means that we have a difference of opinion. So I find it appalling that grown ass adults have taken to social media to ridicule, chide, and attack young people for expressing their views. It is especially offensive that these attacks have followed a typical strain of mean-spirited trolling that is more personal and petty than substantive.

Some of you hate Planned Parenthood with the same vehemence that some of us hate the National Rifle Association. Depending on your political leanings, one of those organizations has nefarious intentions that threaten the sanctity of life. So tell me the difference between the busloads of teenagers that descend on DC every January to March for Life and the gathering last weekend...

How did we get to this place as a country where sympathy is reserved for only certain victims (wait, why am I even asking that question in a #BlackLivesMatter/#MeToo world)? So allow me to rephrase: why are we still thinking and praying about possible solutions when people are vulnerable everywhere--at their church, at an outdoor concert, a gay nightclub, meeting with a Congresswoman, at the movies, at an early morning softball practice, on a military base, at McDonald's, at the playground, walking back from a convenience store, hanging out with friends, after volunteering at a civil rights protest, leaving a speaking engagement, playing the organ at church, standing in the doorway of an apartment building, working late in the studio, standing on a hotel balcony, or in their classrooms hovering in the coat closet. HOW MANY MORE EXAMPLES DO YOU NEED?

I was a congressional staffer when the shooting occurred at Columbine High School. We were in the midst of negotiating a juvenile justice bill, with strong opinions on both sides of how to deal with issues such as sentencing and prevention programs. Then-President Bill Clinton asked Congress to consider gun control legislation as a part of the package of reforms and I learned first-hand about the lobbying power of organizations like the National Rifle Association. I won't demonize them because it was their job to advocate on behalf of their constituency, but I will say that they are a Goliath with bipartisan appeal.

I could be cynical and end this piece with a sigh of despair by reflecting on how my own youthful idealism was dashed 19 years ago when I witnessed those congressional gun control debates after Columbine. I took this picture of my daughter on Saturday, right before we left the scene of the March (and apparently missed seeing Paul McCartney). She is why I will always be willing to zigzag the streets of New York or the halls of Congress or wherever I need to be in order to advocate against gun violence. This country has mourned the loss of too many children to senseless violence that we can prevent by confronting the notion that we dare not control access to the tools of their demise. So I end this with an adorable photo of my Toddlersaurus to remind the world that nothing is more precious than the lives of our children. We march for their lives.