Dance With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight

If you recognize the title from that line in the original Batman movie (Tim Burton and Michael Keaton), which came out in 1989, then that is the metaphor I plan to use to describe my sentiments in the wake of Rush Limbaugh's recent death. If you listened to his show on a regular basis, chances are you don't read my writing and wouldn't stumble across my blog except as a secret sexual fetish...

I have lots of thoughts about Limbaugh, but I don't plan to list any of his myriad sins or call him names or relish the irony that he died smack dab in the middle of Black History Month just over two weeks after his final sign off. I don't care that he was charitable. I don't care that he was generous showy with his wealth. I don't care if he had some last minute come-to-Jesus/Rosebud moment on his deathbed either.

I don't really believe in Karma, and his death doesn't change that for me. On the same day, I learned that a woman who had been living under a bridge near my parents died. She kept all of her worldly possessions in garbage bags and in an abandoned shopping cart. I think she sometimes slept in a donated tent or atop a pile. I know that my Dad would sometimes offer her money for food, which she declined. I know that others offered to assist her and that several times when she was taken to an indoor shelter, it was short-lived because she usually returned to the bridge.

Who else died in the past year since Limbaugh was paraded out in front of the world to receive that Presidential Medal of Freedom? I wonder if any of these folks who have been falling all over themselves to laud Limbaugh have any sympathy for them.

So if you are reading this, I'm pretty sure that you get the point of the title--Rush Limbaugh was the pale moonlight. And his fans who have pulled out their sackcloth and ashes (while chiding the rest of us for our apathy and impassiveness) have been dancing with evil all of these years. My advice is to let them mourn this lunar eclipse...in return, let us not dance euphorically on his grave, lest we become what he represented.

Which was a man who earned infamy and a lot of money for the vile things he said about people of color, women, Muslims, Democrats, and anyone else whom he could ridicule and belittle with impunity. I refuse to trade places with him and his followers by dredging up his hypocrisy to justify any ill will I might feel about the 30+ years he polluted the airways. He's gone, the end.

Last month, I took my daughter with me to church to participate in an outdoor community service project. It was one of those charitable gestures that we applaud ourselves for engaging in because it makes us feel good (and we get to post pictures of our goodness on social media as proof). What folks like Limbaugh would call virtue signalling; whereas folks like my Dad would call it living our faith. I brought her with me to teach her a few lessons about life.

The first lesson: life ain't fair. I cannot explain why there are unhoused people living on the street within blocks of the Capitol or in the doorways of churches or under bridges in discontinued tents donated from the expensive outdoor living store. I cannot explain why some people felt so disenfranchised and forgotten that they booked flights and chartered private planes to fly here to storm the Capitol building six weeks ago. Nor can I explain why their feelings of entitlement somehow supersede real deprivation, desperation, and hunger.

The second lesson: do no harm. Be mindful of the words that you speak. Be intentional in your actions. Be what you want to see in the world, because both your words and actions will often reflect the world you strive to create around you.

Third lesson: our journey on this plane of existence is finite. We don't know why life isn't fair, but since we know that it isn't, then what really matters is what we do between the dates that get written in eternity. You will be remembered for everything, maybe not by everybody, but a significant portion of your life will be recalled for its impact on others. And that could mean your good work gets overshadowed by controversy, scandal, and notoriety. Or, your worst moments may get obscured by your generosity of spirit. How do you want to be remembered?

If there are a lot of people left behind who can't say anything good about you, as well as a chorus of others who recount your life in terms of how offensive you were and how it articulated all of the deplorable sentiments they also hold...then there really isn't much I need to add. I was never that good at writing fiction.

Instead, I am choosing to remember the woman from under the bridge. I don't know if anyone ever got the details of her story beyond her name. I hope someone will write about her tenacity in insisting to live on her own terms, even if we never knew exactly what those terms were. Since we may not be able to recall the specific details of her life, perhaps we can look inside ourselves to determine what more we could have done for her or for others in her predicament. Should there be a social safety net that provides services for people or do we let them fend for themselves? Do we drive past or walk over the undesirable aspects of life that we can't understand, or do we stop to help? Do we collect the trash, power wash the spot, and forget? Or do we remember that on the same day, a man who built an empire of mean-spiritedness also died, and because I knew exactly who he was, the last lesson I want my daughter to glean is:

Never dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Bombshell

I watched the film Bombshell (2019) last night and I was left almost speechless. So I tried to sleep it off, but could not, because it was just that disturbing. I wrote most of this while half awake and STILL very agitated (I'm editing now after a midday nap).

As usual, I missed this movie when it was released. I don't recall being terribly interested in the story of the sexual harassment claims brought by the likes of Gretchen Carlson and Megyn 'Jesus -is-white-and-Santa-too' Kelly against Roger Ailes. I guess I assumed it was a given that a network that treated women on camera like spokesmodels selling sports cars would itself be the hot tub of sexism. I knew that was a timely exposé given the wave of #MeToo claims by women in other industries, particularly Hollywood. I just thought it was ironic that of all the stories to dramatize, the one chosen to illustrate the toxicity of sexism in our society would feature a bunch of self-interested white women capitalizing on a hashtag that had been co-opted from a Black woman activist.

Yet, I chose to watch the movie because I have been on a binge of sorts, and as I opt for anything other than 24 hour cable news, I thought it would be entertaining, rather poetic, and almost a too delicious pot of irony calling the kettle sexist. In hindsight, I probably should have watched more MSNBC (instead I was up all night watching Sex and the City reruns)...

I won't spoil the movie in case you haven't seen it or plan to watch, but WOW. I feel like I have been saying this repeatedly over the course of the last four year or more, but sexism is the ism that we tolerate and it will be the ism that destroys us. That statement doesn't absolve racism or nationalism of their lethality, but I just need everyone to know that fealty to the patriarchy is just as dangerous and destructive.

But don't take my word for it. At our collective peril, continue to regard sexism as a less insidious form of bias. Sexism is what fuels the hatred and disrespect for Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Sexism is what was unveiled by the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Wilmer of Michigan. Sexism is why the acting Capitol Police Chief, Yogananda Pittman got a vote of no-confidence and is being held to account for the lapses in preparedness against the insurrectionists on January 6 (because her predecessor quit). Sexism is why thirty-three state legislatures have proposed new voter restrictions in response to the 2020 election because the face of increased ballot access is a Black woman. Sexism is how a certain boot-licking Senator from South Carolina can go on television and suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris could get impeached as a form of revenge for supporting a bail fund for Black Lives Matter protestors.

Sexism is what elevated a con man fake billionaire reality TV show game show host with no governing experience to the most important job on the planet. We could have lived through four more years of Hillary and Bill Clinton given that we brought back everything else from the 90s. But no... y'all wanted the 80s. So that brought us the ultimate Abominable Snowflake: a man who threatened a state official in Georgia to find or toss more votes; who summoned angry mobs to the Nation's Capital; who cheered on said mobs while they ransacked the Capitol; who then refused to call off said mob as they hunted for his Vice President to capture and possibly kill; and who denied access to the National Guard from a neighboring state. The man y'all just acquitted (again) for all of these actual high crimes and misdemeanors. 

I said I wouldn't spoil the movie, but the plot of Bombshell centers around Roger Ailes and his 20 years of sexist shenanigans at FOX News. By the end, it felt very much like I had watched a dramatization of the last four years. Only the outcome was the classic stuff of Hollywood hubris--Ailes was taken down by mutiny. Gretchen Carlson's objective was not to bring down the emperor for his crimes against all of the women at her network, it was to bring him down for having demoted and humiliated her. She knew there were other women who had endured his harassment, but only got the courage to stand when her fortunes shifted. As for Megyn Kelly, coming forward was clearly part of her contract negotiations and her cheap shot of revenge against Ailes for making her play nice with Trump after he insulted her. 

Don't worry--you will not feel any sympathy for these people. While you get the sense that the women who have remained at FOX are trapped, only a few of them appear to mind. The best depiction of Stockholm syndrome is when Kelly coldly informs one of Ailes' victims that no one at the network had a duty to protect her. That in order to become the next Judge Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, or the next ex-Mrs. Trump (because there is always an opening), the law of the jungle is to kill or be killed.

If there is such a thing as karma, then it has already dealt with Ailes, who died within a year of leaving his lair at FOX. Kelly's soft landing at NBC News was short-lived and Carlson is now doing documentaries for Lifetime after a controversial tenure with the Miss America Organization. But are those real consequences in the grand scheme of things when compared to the collateral damage done by their evil deeds or selective blindness to evil? Ailes was old and in declining health anyway. Sure, Carlson and Kelly no longer enjoy the perks of being the darlings of conservative media, but they ain't hurting financially. And the Frankenstein monster they created and unleashed, he who has metaphorically killed at least half a million people on 5th Avenue over the course of his four years in office and been acquitted of abusing his power twice? He lost his Twitter account...

I tossed and turned all night, agitated by the collateral damage left in the wake of these bombs bursting in and on air. In all of the years that FOX News has been selling alternative facts and narratives, the truth has always been manipulated or mishandled to serve the needs of weak men to maintain their vice grip on power. That much was confirmed in the first five minutes when the film concedes that Trump's ascension was useful to Ailes and the Murdochs. The real bombshell has very little to do with the individual details of what happened at FOX, or at Miramax, or on the Access Hollywood tape, or with whomever Justin Timberlake has screwed with his fuck boi tendencies.

The real bombshell is that a lot of what we see is subterfuge. Makeup. Lighting. Short skirts. Clear desks. Blond ambition. And even when women prevail or succeed in dismantling some hallowed bastion of patriarchy, we still get paid less.

Black History Month for Dummies

I already know that provocative title will antagonize the very folks I need to read this piece, but I am willing to risk it for the point of stating the obvious:

BLACK HISTORY MONTH IS NOT JUST FOR BLACK PEOPLE!

I can sing it, if you like, but I know that will turn everyone else off...so just trust me on this. I know that there is a historical narrative that suggests its singular importance is to ensure that Black children (and adults who missed a lot depending on when and where they went to school) would learn about the contributions and achievements of the African people who were brought to or emigrated to this country. And that would be correct. But the point was also to educate other non-Black folks about those same contributions and achievements in case there were any doubts about such things.

So here we are, in 2021, debating the right of parents in Utah (of all places) to participate in Black History Month. Like, I need to know, are they suggesting that the month of February is optional and those 28 days can be made up at a later time and date? Of course not, but I guess that's why I'm questioning how/why/who/what/when/where do they do that?

I sat down to opine on the matter on my Facebook page, but it triggered a memory that I had not exactly suppressed, but one that I now realize was pretty significant. It was from my high school days, which some of you know were...not my favorite. The only worse period of my life was middle school and because therapy is expensive, methodical, and takes too long, y'all can feel free to send more wine and chips to help me process the pain after you read this.

But before I delve into the past, I need to update that the school in question, Maria Montessori Academy (and yes, we're going to touch on that aspect too), has rescinded that policy and will not allow parents to opt out. I may decide to check in later this month to see how that worked out for them, but if you read the story in the Post, it will shed some light on the history of the request and how the situation on the ground changed from last week. 

Now let's go back in time to when your favorite Busy Black Woman was a girl starting school in the late 1970s in DC Public Schools when Black History Week was expanded to Black History Month. What I remember, which is why it merits this mention, was that we learned the basics: slavery, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, bus boycott, Rosa Parks, MLK, and Jesse Jackson. And Jackson was bonus material because at the time, he was the most prominent Black person in the universe. I must note that I was in Pre-Kindergarten at the time, so that was the extent of what one would have expected a four year old to understand. 

Because DC was a Chocolate City on the cusp of electing an activist Black mayor and nearly everybody in DCPS at the time was a Black educator (including my Mom and two Aunts), we got a LOT of Black History all year round. The same could not be said for my Catholic middle school, but it was located in an all-Black middle class neighborhood, so they had no choice but to be down. Even the white hippie priest who taught us religion went out of his way to incorporate Black culture into the Mass (like for real because he came in one Monday after watching Lilies of the Field and all I can say is Amen).

So where things changed for me was in high school, where for the first time, I was in an integrated environment. In 1988 during the second half of my sophomore year, our principal suggested making our in-school Black History Month program after-school optional. And while her reasons were practical and generically race-neutral, that was not the spirit in which it was received.

A few random, but relevant details: My high school was located in Maryland, just over the DC line, in an adjoining county. My high school was integrated, like most Catholic schools had been, but there had been more white students than others prior to the mid to late 80s during my matriculation. Unbelievable to anyone who lives there now, but back then, Prince George's County was more rural than suburban, so that meant school cancellations due to inclement weather were common. That year, there was a lot of snow in January which resulted in about six to eight snow days, or nearly two full weeks of missed school. Thus the dilemma for the principal and the school community was how to make up those lost instruction days without canceling Spring Break or adding on a week of school in May. The decision was made to alter our daily schedule and to move a few of the special school assemblies that would have taken place during the school day to after school. On its face, very straight-forward, right?

But then there were the devilish details beginning with the fact that one of the days that was counted as lost was MLK Day. And it was mentioned that the loss of that day, in addition to President's Day, needed to be included in the make up days. In DC MLK Day was a mandatory day off on January 15 until it became an established federal holiday; now that I was in a different state and county, MLK had to be added to the school calendar. That happened for the first time in 1987 and now it had become problematic because of the snow.

There was also the fact that our school had begun to undergo rather dramatic demographic shifts with each incoming class, so there were a lot of adjustments...some of which I alluded to here. I also must mention that there was only one Black teacher at the school the entire time and how strongly I suspected that most of the Black girls were intentionally tracked. Not that those facts imply that it was a hostile racist environment (because that was not the case), but as we know, prejudice and unconscious bias aren't necessarily overt acts.

Therefore, when it was suggested that the Black History Program could take place after school so that it would not interfere with the new schedule, my militant little ears heard that Black History Month was an extraneous activity. It was optional, but the in-school science fair assembly, weekly Mass, and the honors assembly were non-negotiable aspects of school life. Nor was our annual May Day celebration, our in-school club activities, or Big Sister/Little Sister Day rescheduled.

I was by no means a student leader, so even though I definitely floated the idea of some kind of in-school protest, I was not the only person who suggested it. Nor was I the only student whose parents vocally expressed their disappointment with the decision, and knowing my Mother...

The decision was reversed and the program was held. I don't remember what concession we had to accept in exchange, but as I have mentioned in the past, it was one of several accommodations that probably led to the nuns throwing up holy hands and closing the whole school down a few years later.

Most of you know that in another past life, I taught History on the University level, and to say that more than 75% of my students were amazed to learn so much in my classes is not a humble brag, but a truism that many students got no more than the same basic stuff I was taught in elementary school. Most of them could name most of the Very Important Black People (VIBP) that had been written into the curriculum since the 90s, yet almost none of them could explain why some of those people were significant. My favorite example of that is always George Washington Carver--they all knew about how he found hundreds of uses for the peanut, but none of them knew why that mattered.

For what it is worth, if you don't know, it isn't because you didn't have an in-school Black History program. It is because all you had was that in-school Black History Program. Or because you only got to see documentaries about VIBP on Sundays in February. Or because Black parents don't want their children chosen to dramatize segregation and racism for poorly designed school demonstration projects. And these days, everybody is afraid to read any literature in which the N-word is used. 

Not even if you grew up in a Blackity Black household where there was a stack of EBONY and JET magazines, which you religiously read (but also used for your annual Black History Month collages) or had a Black encyclopedia set you loved to read for pleasure. So when I tell you that I was a repository of random Black History facts with the trophies to prove it, color me shocked when I realized that even my understanding of George Washington Carver and his work with peanuts was lacking. And you can't get that much depth in 28 days or in a 90 minute school assembly.

That brings me to the wasted hour I spent reading the 1776 Commission Report this past MLK weekend. Mind you, I already knew it was trash based on who commissioned it and the fact that it was literally the most significant thing Trump did other than foment insurrection during his last days in office. Quite possibly the capstone of alternative facts, this report illuminates the spectrum of opinions that reveal why my high school principal and those parents in Utah felt justified in sidelining Black History as optional. On the one hand, imagine being the well-meaning nun who didn't think her modest proposal was problematic, just practical. On the other hand, imagine being Montessori parents--fully invested in the philosophy and lifestyle of empowering children to make choices and expecting to receive those same rights as parents. According to the 1776 Commission, we've been demanding too much diversity and change over the past thirty or so years. It has been our insistence on truth-telling that has led to these destructive counter-narratives of America as country still struggling with racism...

Yeah, it is our fault that if you were an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson's words and accomplishments, the truth that he was a hypocrite who enslaved his own children might be an irreconcilable character flaw. Or that we see poetic justice in these alleged new discoveries at Monticello where the truth has been buried all of these years. Because while this mildly irreverent depiction of Jefferson is entertaining, it doesn't quite compare to this almost 220 year old satirical cartoon.

Imagine having the option to hear the truth. Imagine the luxury of a worldview that can choose whether the Black experience is relevant for 28 days (and imagine having that power to determine the same for other marginalized groups). And the reason for exercising the option not to engage really doesn't have to be articulated because I already know that it unearths inconvenient and less heroic details about your ancestors. Obviously, there are no good reasons to deal with race in Utah--the only state in that western region of the country to allow slavery.

The passage of 30+ years has given me perspective and compassion for my high school principal, but that doesn't mean that she didn't deserve to be called to account for her decision. Hindsight has allowed me to see the situation from her point of view, and until now, I never gave her much credit for accommodating us. I am not giving her credit now for her reversal, because it should not have come to that point (by the way, I don't think we celebrated Women's History Month and this was an all-girls' school). Instead, I appreciate that she had made an error in judgment and took corrective steps. She removed her rose colored glasses, squinted past her privilege, and I'm hoping that she and my peers saw something from whatever performances, skits, factoids, etc. we presented on that program. I hope that it made some kind of lasting impression beyond entertainment.

One loose end to tie up: George Washington Carver's studies of the peanut, sweet potato, and soybeans were to encourage use of those crops to aid in soil enrichment. Cotton, which was the primary cash crop of the time would deplete the land of nutrients, so field rotation allowed for restoration of the soil. Carver's studies found alternative commercial and industrial uses for those crops in addition to food.

Sure, those are details to his story that are not dependent on having a dedicated month to Black achievement. Ideally, Carver's work should be as noteworthy as Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, or be taught with units about the Depression and its impact on rural America. And we can still highlight his significance during the month of February, along with other Black scientists and inventors such as Lewis Latimer, Garrett Morgan, Ernest Everett Just, Granville T. Woods...

And now perhaps it makes sense why we start with a dedicated month.

Get On With It

The spirit that people are urging the country and the Congress to just heal and move on is the same spirit that tells Black people that slavery was 150+ years ago, so just move on. It is the same spirit that denies the Holocaust. It is the same energy that fuels conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook children and their families were paid actors. It is exactly the same as the disbelief and conspiracies surrounding 9/11. It is the same bullshit argument that the coronavirus isn't really that bad. It is evil.

There are a lot of things I would identify as evil because I have lived long enough to see it face to face. As someone who lived through 9/11 in DC, who eventually lost her job because of the repercussions, and whose life had to adjust to all manner of shifts and changes in its aftermath, I assure you that what happened that day was real. And as a nation, we didn't just get on with it, as if no one watched those towers fall or cared that it happened in a blue state. We demanded accountability, and to this day, we are still at war in the countries where the hijackers were radicalized. Still.

So don't tell us to get over January 6, 2021. Don't tell us to suck it up or to live and let live as if the only harm done was a little property damage. That is akin to suggesting that the millions who perished in the Holocaust were just collateral damage in a worldwide war. No, we can't be that cavalier or dismissive of what happened that day, nor can we simply allow the person who incited that mob to retire to Florida to play out the rest of his days on the golf course, with the only consequence of his crimes being the loss of his Twitter account...

Like most people who have been observers of tragedy, I emerged emotionally unscathed only because it touched me on the margins. I never met anyone who was a slave. I wasn't born until years after the Holocaust. I didn't know anyone who died in those plane crashes on 9/11. When a sniper was terrorizing the DC area in 2002, I didn't know anyone who had been in their crosshairs, even though everybody was a potential target. I haven't been personally affected by any school or workplace or church or nightclub or other shooting rampage at a public venue where people are not supposed to worry about possibly getting shot. Yet, my lack of personal experience with these atrocities does not diminish my capacity to empathize with the victims or survivors.

So as I watched the Capitol siege on television in real time (because I am the kind of politics junkie who tunes into C-Span in the middle of the day), I am grateful that I missed being in the vicinity of the melee. My daughter's teacher wisely chose to postpone their in-person socially-distanced weekly gathering at the playground three blocks from the Senate Office Buildings due to the possibility of chaos. Weeks later, I can go about my normal life and look past the military installation that has been built around the Capitol. I can take notice of, then drive around the unscalable fencing topped with barbed wire or the tanks with armed sentries posted at every entrance. I have plenty of other distractions to help me carry on as if a bunch of disgruntled lunatics hadn't felt so emboldened as to set fire to the house in order to swat at a spider.

Except I was closer to the Capitol rampage than just mere miles. My first cousin is a Capitol police officer, has been since I worked there in 1999. I haven't had a chance to ask him any specific questions about what he witnessed or experienced but I know that several of his colleagues suffered physical injuries and there is untold PTSD throughout the ranks. If it is true that there were collaborators on the inside (and I have every reason to believe that there were, particularly those who opened the doors and let the rioters in), then imagine having to work with people you cannot trust? With folks who were complicit in an uprising that could have gotten you killed?

Obviously from the public safety perspective, those who stormed the Capitol put my cousin, his colleagues, every Senator and Member of Congress, their staffs, the building facilitators, as well as those who work at the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, Union Station, the various churches, restaurants, and every other small business in that vicinity--in danger. ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE left their houses for work that morning, already facing the uncertain risk of being too essential to work from home, unaware that they might not live to see the end of the day. All because a mob of hysterics sought to avenge an election that was lost by millions of votes. On a deeper level, one that is not hyperbolic, our democracy was at risk. Take a look at what just happened in Myanmar and that is literally what could have happened here on January 6.

So miss me with talk about healing and moving on unless that dude in the horns and facepaint gets the death penalty. Then I might object to excessive or disproportionate sentences...although this band of insurgents came to my city, erected a hanging gallows, and were hunting lawmakers to impose mob justice. So eff that, if y'all decide to force-feed him inorganic produce until it kills him, I won't shed any tears.

I will save my emotions for young men like Kalief Browder, who languished in jail for failure to make bail for a crime he didn't commit. Or for the Exonerated Five, whom your Trump demanded be executed for crimes they didn't commit. Having been thwarted in that endeavor, King Donald the Chicken-Hearted quenched his blood lust by executing five federal prisoners before the Inauguration. My tears are reserved for Atatiana Jefferson, Bothem Jean, and Breonna Taylor who died in their homes...the women killed in direct contradiction of the castle laws that shielded and made heroes of the McCloskeys. No, we can't just move on and heal.

We can't move on when the aforementioned McCloskeys got prime-time business promotion during the Republican National Convention and pardons because they imagined that they were being threatened by folks marching past their house in the middle of the street. Nobody vandalized their cars, no one was caught peeing in their pool, no one's dog shit on their lawn, but a group of Black protestors entered their gated community and that was sufficient to brandish their guns. A Black child cannot even play with a toy gun in a public park, nor can a Black man with a legally concealed gun in his car just drive off with a ticket, but we're supposed to believe that the McCloskeys fears were rational. We're supposed to sympathize with whiners who got upset that 74 million voters didn't prevail over 81 million because now we're doubting math and science?

No, we won't move on while the co-conspirators freely walk the halls of Congress. When the co-agitators can obstruct the functioning of government as a bargaining chip. When it is all but assured that the former President will be acquitted again, in spite of preponderant, clear, convincing, beyond any reasonable doubt that he sanctioned the attempted assassination of his Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and other members of a co-equal branch of government. We Will Not Just Move On. 

Yeah, we're tired, but injustice is a relentless foe. We know how to anticipate your moves, so we're staying organized and galvanized and prayed up and vigilant. Our cameras will always be on. We are going to call out your hypocrisy at every turn. (I bought a megaphone last month, and I know how to use it.)

So get on with it--do what you will to push back against progress. Remain indignant that we are encroaching on territory that you once claimed as yours...don't worry about making space at the table because we've brought our own chairs. Stay mad that the first woman to become Vice President of the United States is the Black Indian-American daughter of immigrants instead of one of your "real" American spokesmodels. Explain why the waitress-turned Congresswoman who live-tweeted the whereabouts of the Speaker (third in the line of Presidential succession) during the insurrection hasn't been sanctioned for her participation. The justify why it is more dangerous to de-platform Congressional Qaren than it was to ever let her to get elected in the first place. Allow former President Quack, the man who systematically destroys everything in his wake with his lies, evil policies, and butt hurt ego to just ride away from the wreckage on one of his little golf carts. Get on with the lie that we're all equal and white privilege isn't real when we've got to fight just to maintain the few rights we've attained.

Better yet, get on with your delusions that racism, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, ageism, ableism, homophobia, xenophobia, nationalism, exceptionalism, and crony capitalism were the secret sauce of American greatness. Your coup to take America back in time to some idyllic utopia failed, so you get on with it.

In Gratitude: Cicely Tyson

There is never enough time to process or comprehend what it means to lose an icon in those initial moments of notification. So I'm not sure that I will be able to string together the perfect combination of words to express what it feels to learn that Cicely Tyson passed away. So I think I will use just one word: Grateful.

I received a text from Ol' Hobbs and because I was driving (and reading it at the red light), my immediate reaction was to recall that Tyson was supposed to participate in a virtual book chat with a local indie bookstore that evening about her recently released memoir, Just As I Am. And then to curse the fact that I had forgotten to register for the event, and then to curse the errands that had caused me forget, but then to wonder if the participants were told on Zoom that she wouldn't be able to make it (I learned later that the event was pre-recorded). Or at least that is as much as my mind could process in the interval between reading his text and the light changing. At the next light I responded with a rather irreverent nod to the fact that she lived long enough to see a certain orange stain removed from our lives...

And then it dawned on me that perhaps it wasn't a mere coincidence that Hank Aaron, Cloris Leachman, and Cicely Tyson would all transition within days of each other--all from natural causes in a phenomenal last curtain call kind of way amid our superstitions that celebrity deaths occur in threes...(but then there was also Larry King, so not exactly in threes), but still, definitely in a pattern of sorts. In the circle of life, elders become ancestors to make way for future generations.

So we are grateful that we were blessed with her presence for more years that we realized (because I had no idea how old Tyson really was until it was revealed that she was 90 a few years ago). And like every women of a certain age, we all looked in the mirror and sent up a silent prayer to look that good at whatever age the good Lord blesses us with, because Mother!

And yes, we began to call her Mother once we knew better than to settle on something as pedestrian as Ms. As much as folks like to throw around Queen, that didn't feel quite right either, although not because she didn't earn it. I called her Mother because the body of her work had never been about people who were of royal birth. Whenever Tyson was on screen or on stage, she represented all of our Mothers, Grannies, and Aunties--women who worked hard, loved hard, and in her words, did their best. 

Her best was to master her craft. Her best was to articulate our humanity at a time when Black stories were finally being told. Mother Tyson was our fearless Harriet Tubman, our courageous Coretta Scott King, our humble and dignified Rebecca Morgan in Sounder, our straight woman Ms. Perry in Bustin' Loose, our defiant Jane Pittman, and finally, our determined Carrie Watts in Trip to Bountiful. Even when she was not the star, she transformed the insubstantial into unforgettable. The first role I remember seeing her in was as Binta, Kunta Kinte's mother in Roots. That was 44 years ago, and she must have been on screen for all of ten minutes. In her later years, she appeared in several Tyler Perry movies, and again, even if for a brief flash of brilliance in a mediocre melodrama, Mother Tyson was always outstanding.

Grateful. That she kept working because there were stories to tell. She had a tireless work ethic. She upheld a standard. She was a survivor. She was humble. And those were the qualities that became the accolades that she received belatedly because Hollywood rarely acknowledges the contributions of its working class until the end. In the 45 years between her nomination for Best Actress and finally receiving the Lifetime Achievement Oscar as a consolation prize, Mother Tyson never chided the Academy for the snub. Instead, she thanked them for correcting that oversight...

Grateful that while tributes and remembrances are finally forthcoming from the mainstream press, she knew to tell her own story in her own words. Grateful that she had plans and didn't even see Death waiting in the wings for her, so absorbed she was in the work. Grateful.

Grateful that one of her most memorable performances wasn't even a scripted role, it was the dramatic recitation she gave at the homegoing for Aretha Franklin a few years ago. We were all so absorbed in that hat...

Do yourself a favor and pay close attention to Mother Tyson, small in stature and slight in voice, and witness how she commands that space behind the lectern. Watch and listen to her transformation from elegant mother-of-the-church to the back-row gossip, all without a costume change or props to set the scene. Then close your eyes to see it more clearly.

Although we joke about wrapping our elders in bubble wrap, it is because we recognize both the fragile and time-limited nature of life. This pandemic has numbed us to death, but not to the sense of loss. So many lives have been lost, yet I don't know if I would characterize Cicely Tyson's final bow with any regrets for not having packed her away to be protected from what was surely thunderous applause in Heaven.

Bravo, Mother. Rest well.

Playlist Project: Mary J. Blige

When it dawned on me that 2021 would be another big year of music milestones, I had plans...but as you probably know by now, I am easily distracted. And my good intentions to pull together several significant playlists for the Facebook page went the way of that well-worn road to hell because there was an insurrection in my city (and I needed to do something in response). But then the big day of transition came, and now that my blood pressure is starting to go back to normal and there is indeed light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel, I can turn my attention to the really important work of reviving my #PlaylistProject.

And the first artist to receive the comprehensive playlist treatment this year is none other than Mary Jane Blige (born January 11, 1971), the Queen of Hip Hop Soul or of Hip Hop/R&B or maybe both depending on who is issuing the decree. But more important than what specific title she holds, it is necessary and proper to highlight and pay homage because this is Queen Mary's Golden Year!

As is the case for several of the artists whose work I can induct to that that Soundtrack of My Life category, these next couple of years mark that crucial milestone for those of us born in the early 70s, God willing. We survived turning 40 without too many visible bruises, but 50 becomes the point of no return--it is that more than halfway point where we stop and marvel at how long we've been lucky to live and pray that we'll get at least half as much time to keep on living. We look in the mirror and see our younger selves, but through eyes that are framed by wrinkles and magnifying lenses. We see those disrespectful gray hairs that differ in texture from the rest, so they stand out in defiance of whatever hair products we're trying out this week. We take medicines and try new regimens to control conditions that we used to roll our eyes about, because now we must manage them or confront mortality.

Approaching 50 means we become the age now that our parents were when we first heard Mary and declared her our Queen. Ironically, that is the same age that some of your kids are now (I was 19). Blige's debut album, What's the 411?, was released the summer of 1992 between my sophomore and junior year of college. If memory serves, EVERYBODY on campus had that album in some form. My friend JAW, who was the trendsetter in our little clique had it on CD, which was the new way of playing music back then. Compact discs meant uninterrupted continuous play with the ability to skip and choose songs without having to rewind or fast forward or turn over a cassette tape. And because JAW was that friend who would play the same set of CDs everyday, What's the 411? grew on me, in spite of my initial lukewarm reaction to it. (Silly me, I preferred CeCe Penniston because hers was a club music/dance album, but the trend had begun to shift away from up-tempo, feel good party music to the slowed down, bass heavier tracks that were Mary's signature.)

Looking back, it makes sense that Mary ascended to that exalted place in the pantheon of artists whose music gets that unique Soundtrack of My Life designation. Unlike the other prominent artists from that era (all late-born Boomers), Mary is a Generation Xer whose life closely tracks the peaks and valleys of our journey from young adulthood into middle age. All of Mary's songs are autobiographical, whether she is singing about searching for a Real Love or swearing that she's Not Gon' Cry over some trifling dude she should have never hooked up with. Perhaps with each new love she falls 25/8 into him, because like so many of us Mary loves hard, so if she's singing Be Without You we turn it up and listen without judgment.

Because she is also that cool ass friend who brings the party with her, so it is always a Family Affair.  She is the fashionista of the group--we watch her videos and Reminisce about our 90s French roll hairstyles, the Mac makeup, and the combat boots. We hear You Remind Me and think back to watching the Arsenio Hall Show, Showtime at the Apollo, In Living Color, and special guest performances on New York Undercover.

There had been hip hop collaborations before Mary and Method Man teamed up on You're All I Need in 1995, but theirs is the one that stands out. All That I Can Say sounds every bit like the kind of great music Lauren Hill was writing and producing in her 1999 prime (inspired by Stevie Wonder), which is why that song works as an unforgettable duet in this live performance. We know that One was a major hit for U2 in 1991, but when they teamed up with Mary and re-released it in 2005, it became something altogether different. Sam Smith's song Stay With Me was good as a solo effort, but we first took notice of it as a duet because of Mary.

She entices us with innovative samples on such tracks as You Bring Me Joy built around Barry White's It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me. I'm not sure anyone else could have pulled off a song based on Cotton's Dream (Nadia's Theme), better known as the theme song from the soap opera The Young and The Restless and then name it No More Drama...but somehow Mary did. She didn't just remake You Are Everything by the Stylistics, she rebuilds a more modern classic with her version of Everything. But then to keep things interesting, she does a straight remake of Rose Royce's classic slow jam from the Car Wash soundtrack, I'm Going Down, and makes it her own.

Like her predecessor, the late incomparable Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige was crowned a monarch early in her career, and it has proven to be a sage pronouncement. Queens have to work, and Mary has been putting in the work in the studio, on stage, and on the screen. She has earned every award, every honorific, and every laurel that we have bestowed upon her, with more to come. Simultaneously regal and real, Mary is a survivor, a genuine sister-girl who hasn't held anything back: not her insecurities and vulnerabilities in Take Me As I Am; not her yearning for love as heard on I Can Love You; not her ride or die devotion on Don't Mind; and not even her public heartbreak on U+Me. 

So in this Golden Year of life as she embarks on new business ventures, more acting, and hopefully releases some new music, we salute our Queen Mary. She's doing Just Fine.

PS: You can access the Spotify Playlist here.

Till Victory Is Won

BLACK LIVES MATTER is the unequivocal declaration that I will continue to make until my dying day. That isn't a slogan or the name of a bunch of young idealists who go around marauding after another Black man/woman/child is killed or maimed by a vigilante/rogue police officer. Black Lives Matter is a fact that some people either choose to ignore or intentionally denigrate...until we started affirming it louder and unapologetically with self-assured defiance.

Black Lives Mattered when you brought those 19 African indentured servants to help settle Jamestown. Black Lives Mattered when it became profitable to kidnap more Africans, pack them into the cargo holds of ships, and sail across the Atlantic Ocean to a New World where you sold their bodies for profit. Black Lives Mattered when your lust drove you to commit rape and incest, and greed compelled you to enslave your own mulatto and quadroon offspring. Black Lives Mattered when men who had escaped bondage donned blue uniforms and fought to preserve this Union and defend its ideals, even though the rights and privileges of citizenship were denied them. Black Lives Mattered because rich Southern planters needed under-compensated labor to turn profits, Northern industrialists needed workers to cross Unionized picket lines, and everyone in between needed racism to feel superior.

Black Lives have always mattered, even though it makes you squirm with discomfort when we say it aloud. You recoil and respond with All Lives Matter because you claim that we are elevating our lives above your own. No, we're just emphatic that our children, our parents, and our communities deserve better than the scraps and crumbs left on the table. Our whole lives have the same value as yours, and we are more than just bodies to exploit for our labor and loins at your pleasure. So if that offends you, that we see the beauty in our hair, our skin, our sorrow, our hearts of compassion, and especially our intellect, then that is your problem.

In the past whenever Black people came to realize the fullness of our power and beauty, it triggered the same retaliatory violence that occurred this past week. It came in various forms and was effective in burying our spirit. But only for a time, because our ancestors sowed prolific perennial seeds of self-awareness and strength. You may have killed David Walker and Nat Turner, but we grew back stronger to help save this Union multiple times. You may have disenfranchised Black men through Redemption and Jim Crow, but we grew back strong in enough numbers to send Rev. Raphael Warnock to the Senate. You may have exhorted the Black women who marched in the 1913 Suffrage Parade to go back to their kitchens, but now you must refer to one of us as Madam Vice President.

If you were horrified by what you saw this week, you should be. It was disgraceful, as was the Trail of Tears (1830-1850); Red Summer (1919); race riots in Tulsa OK (1921) and Rosewood FL (1923); the Zoot Suit Riots in California (1943); the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (1963); the Oklahoma City bombing (1995); the shooting rampage at Mother Emanuel (2015); the clash at Charlottesville (2017); and the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue (2018). All of those incidents are examples of the anger and rage that come in response to our self-determination. You will kill anyone to maintain your supremacy, including innocent children. You claim to be believers in God, but have desecrated houses of worship. You demand respect for the flag, but also revere the banner of insurrection. This time, your tantrums led you to march on Statehouses, to burglarize and ransack the U.S. Capitol. 

That you would destroy your own house...all because our votes matter just as much as our lives. Just as much as yours.

This is your moment of reckoning. This is who you are. This is the America where you reside. These people are your racist Uncles that you tolerate because you say they're harmless. These are the cousins that you used to play with until they moved too far away to the exurbs when that one Black family moved in next door. These are the guys that were once the local town heroes, the ones who thought they deserved a career in the NFL but didn't make it because they had to compete with the Black guys who did. If you insist that you don't know those people, then here is a mirror:

Don't look away, especially not now. And don't argue that our protests for racial justice this summer were the same as your sour grapes over an election loss. One set of protests was against systematic injustice--the kind that deems our young people guilty without any due process. We took to the streets in desperation after decades of suppressing our anger over disparate treatment. Until we started to steal microwaves and flat screens from Walmart, no one cared to comfort the families whose loved ones had their necks crushed in the streets. In spite of the lie that all are equal in the eyes of the law, which is supposed to be blind, Lady Justice is an expert sharpshooter when Black people are in her crosshairs. 

What excuses will you offer to explain the mayhem inside the U.S. Capitol? How do you account for the behavior of the guy who thought he was within his rights to prop his dirty boots up on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk? Or the fool who walked off with her podium (a listing for which was posted on eBay) or the other electronic equipment that was stolen from other offices? What about the excrement that was smeared on the walls? All of this is justifiable anger because 81 million of us decided that our country couldn't survive another four years of Donald Trump???

I allowed myself to get drawn into a Twitter exchange with one of his supporters, and the delusion that Trump had made America greater during his tenure is real. I guess the Muslim ban, the children in cages, the piss poor response to the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico, the disrespect to Sen. John McCain and Gold Star families, and the 360,000+ people who were killed by COVID shouldn't have influenced my vote. He even suggested that I could learn the truth if I listened to Rush Limbaugh...

He also made a point to highlight the various ills that would come from Democratic Party rule: rising health care costs, abortion on demand, infringement of 2nd Amendment rights, disrespect for law enforcement, jobs going overseas, higher taxes, and more racism. And for a moment, I could see how with the right lighting, a little orange makeup, and the right pitch on that dog whistle, it could seem as if his points were valid. Perhaps voting for the reality TV show grifter has put us on the road to Oz.

But yeah, the Great and Powerful Wizard was a fake. There are five people whose names have been added to his death toll and he's run out of fingers to point.

What provoked that melee wasn't frustration over any of the issues claimed--it was the same shit that always riles up good ole American lynch mobs. It was the ascendance of Black people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized people to places that were built by them, but not for them. The rioters were deliberate in disrespecting Pelosi's office because they are offended by her presence in that position of power. They got riled up over the idea of a stolen election because it will install a Black woman within a heartbeat of the Presidency. When that rioter was seen patrolling the abandoned hallways with a Confederate flag like a sentinel on watch, it should have become crystal clear that this was a symbolic siege in the name of Redemption, the Lost Cause resurrected for the 21st Century. The MAGA slogan is the rebel yell, those red caps are throwbacks to the Redshirts, and Trump thinks he is the avenging General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Instead, he is the inept General Gideon Pillow.

Y'all are mad that Black votes matter enough to push the needle of progress a few inches forward. Y'all are mad because mediocrity doesn't measure up to excellence. Y'all are mad because getting out-strategized and out-organized by Black women who had time and resources to change the state of play is humiliating as fuck when the system was engineered to guarantee a different outcome. Y'all are mad because change won't stop with Georgia or the White House...

Black Lives Matter. We've said it for years, we've known it in our souls, but now you know it too. We won't win every battle, but we won't back down. We know how to survive as underdogs and how to persevere, so we can live with the setbacks and the pendulum swings that are inevitable. We will endure, and in so doing we will continue to perfect this wholly imperfect Union. Let us march on till victory is won!