The Case for Hope

If a soothsayer last year told me that 2020 would consist of a mutating and elusive virus, resulting in the necessity of the world to self-quarantine, along with being the year of the greatest civil unrest ever experience in my lifetime, due to another brutal police murder of an unarmed black man, well, I’m pretty positive I would’ve had a panic attack. However, we have arrived, and surprisingly I only really had one panic attack this year, the catalyst being the final democratic debate between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in mid-March. That debate was so surreal… It was so satisfying for Bernie to speak undeniable truth to power in the face of a bewildered Biden, and to speak so passionately, but to a silent, empty audience. It was cinematically bizarre, cathartic, and so very disturbing. But alas, I digress. 

I’ve been thinking about all this unrest that has been 2020 so far (as we all have been): all the anger I believe we are all collectively feeling, the role of mass communication and fast information, and the necessity of compromising one’s psychological safety in order to achieve a degree of clarity concerning the state of America. I also have been reflecting on how I used to write so much, and how privileged I was to go to graduate school for social(ist) work 2015-2017, and what changed for me personally- why I have hardly written anything in the past two years. The answer to my lack is that I’ve been overwhelmed and then recovering from all of these political and cultural shocks to my system, my psyche. 

Shock therapy for the US has been full throttle for the American public over the past five years, the most visible origin being Trump’s campaign announcement. I believe that this is when our current new chapter of America’s book began, and I find it as perturbing as other stories in our dark past.  Shock therapy has been used for as long as there’s been power and corruption, and I highly recommend everyone who hasn’t read the primer on this, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein, to pick up as soon as possible. This is the text that really woke me up personally in 2015, and wiped away any rose hue left on my glasses. Shock therapy centers on the idea that neoliberal free trade markets exploit national crises (disasters, upheavals, global pandemics, etc.) to establish controversial and questionable policies, where citizens are excessively distracted that they cannot engage and develop an adequate response, resist effectively, or even process the information at hand. When you recover from a shock, you have to take time to rest, recover, and try to make sense of the new reality. After a shock, we naturally find a new homeostasis, which more times than not, requires normalizing our environment, regardless of how abnormal it is. 

I haven’t written seriously in a while because I’ve been recovering from all of these shocks, all these horrific acts of violence we’ve experienced as a nation over the past four years, all the things I’ve previously written about from 2015-2018. I’ve been tired, atrophied, and apathetic. I’ve allowed myself to stay quiet, because really trying to process and learn about our current environment is so taxing and can feel so hopeless. I’m doing my best to break out of that now, but it is hard and I am still weary. However, I am grateful that I feel this spark of motivation growing brighter inside of me, and I’m trying to fan this flame. For myself, the best way to grow and harness this energy comes from illuminating hope and consciously choosing love over fear. 

Me at Trump’s Inauguration in DC when my brain was focused on this truth rather than fear

I subscribe to the theory that there are only two emotions- love and fear- and all other emotions stem from these two primary emotions. It wasn’t until I had a recent conversation with a close friend that I recognized just how much I have been fearful in the past two weeks since George Floyd’s murder. I have been so angry, so overwhelmed, so stressed, so nervous, and dare I say even hateful, that I almost lost sight of love. I had not been feeling much compassion, only horror and outrage. 

 I was not super productive during this quarantine, and although I’ve enjoyed having more downtime, my personal mental health hasn’t been great. I’ve been worried, lonely, and sad. I regressed into old routines, like not having a routine, and even stopped meditating daily, which I’m terribly ashamed to admit. I share this personal accountability in order to give insight into where my head and heart had been lately; they’ve been pretty fear-based and loveless.

Quarantine did allow me to finally read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, an account of a Viennan psychiatrist who survived three Nazi concentration camps. He was survived by no one, his entire family was murdered in the camps, including his young wife. After liberation, he went on to create the theoretical basis for logotherapy, a therapeutic modality that is based on the premise that humans are driven to find meaning and purpose in their life. I’d been familiar with logotherapy, but never read this seminal work until a month ago. One of the most important points I took from “Man’s Search from Meaning” was Frankl’s observation that the first people to perish in the concentration camps were those who lost hope. Hope is necessary for survival, it is a requirement for resilience. 

When I reflect on this myself, it becomes crystal clear how fearful and hopeless I’ve been the past months, especially these recent two and a half weeks since George Floyd’s murder. I’ve been consumed by the constant shocks to my system and instead of trying to hold on to hope, I’ve been drowning in dread. Now that I am aware of this, that I’ve gained this clarity, I have the power to change it. I must don an old perspective I have not worn much this year, where hope acts as my lens. 

I’ve always been an advocate for dreaming big and consider myself a radical idealist. People across the US are finally being confronted with the truth that is police brutality and the militarization of the police. There’s no hiding these horrific displays of unmitigated violence and cruelty by the police during the major protests. It’s shocking (yet extremely gratifying) in itself that finally, the mainstream media cannot avoid showing this systematic reality because of the digital age!!! And with this greater realization, that police brutality is a systematic injustice ingrained into the foundation of the police FORCE, there is meaning to be made, there is hope. I am hopeful that those who believed it was “only one bad apple” now begin to recognize the truth about police brutality and learn that the institution of policing was created on the foundation of oppression. The more people are confronted with this truth, the more we can imagine a new way of policing (or dare I say abolishing). The more people learn the truth, the greater the chances for real, true change. 

I’m hopeful that all of this civic unrest spurred by racism will bring light to the structural forces embedded within the heart of America that continue to perpetuate unjust treatment of black, indigenous, and other persons of color. I hope that this conversation of racism grows into a conversation about class. I hope poor white folks are able to see how they are so much more similar to poor black folks than they are to Donald Trump. I hope more middle-class white folks see how they are much more similar to poor black folks than they are to Donald Trump. I am hopeful about this awakening. 

I am hopeful about the positive evolution of culture, spurred by greater access to education via the internet. I am hopeful that as a culture we begin to question polarized thinking and instead start to see how everything is gray. At risk of sounding like a kumbaya drum circle leader, I am hopeful about evolving morally. I am hopeful that we evolve together spiritually. I am hopeful for peace.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying hope replaces outrage. That would be impossible, and outrage has an incredibly important motivating purpose. However, I know for myself, being in a constant state of outrage is exhausting, and that all of these continuous shocks inevitably wears you down to an indolent state of apathy if you’re not careful. What I am saying is that we harness hope in order to recover quicker, and less scathed, from these shocks. The world is not rainbow and unicorns, I am aware of this, and the current state of America is dire. But let us not be fearful. I am advocating that our outrage begets hope, not fear, and that hope catalysts a meaningful change, and welcomes a new reality that us dreamers have been tirelessly waiting for. 

 

It is an Act of Love to Stay Inside Right Now.

stay in, like the cute little mountain you are

I am not very fearful of getting COVID19. Chances are, even though I do have breathing issues and am UNINSURED (that’s the only thing that makes me unnerved about my own health), I have a pretty great chance of surviving it.

What I am TERRIFIED OF is contracting COVID19 and causing someone else’s death via my transmission. It is growing towards exponential spread, if it isn’t there already, so the chances of me giving it to someone, who will then give it to someone who doesn’t survive, is very plausible. It takes 2-14 days for symptoms to show up. 2-14 days!!! Two weeks is a long time to be non-symptomatically infected. This is a large part of the problem, COVID19 is being transmitted by people who didn’t know they are infected. You can feel fine in this moment, and be spreading it. This is why I believe it’s really important right now for us to limit as much human contact as possible.

I am saddened and scared thinking about the deep suffering that the world is currently experiencing. I am saddened and scared thinking about the deep suffering we in America are about to endure. Now is the time to care for one another. 

So please, stay in, even if you feel fine. Do what you can to limit human contact. At least until there is more information and direction on how we should act to keep our country safe and healthy. Stay in, if not for your own health, for someone else’s sweet grandparent/parent/sister/son/brother/daughter/friend. By staying in, you are serving the greater good, you are serving something greater than yourself. That, my friend, is truly an act of love and a repulsion of fear. 

May you be well.

Millennials: Talk to Your Parents About the Dangers of the Internet

I say this jokingly, but I think anyone who was over the age of 30 when Myspace came out should have to take an internet competency test before being allowed to use social media. As a Millennial, I am grateful to be part of the last generation that remembers life pre-internet- my childhood was Snapchat, texting, and dickpic free. Today’s adolescents can’t comprehend what life would be without the internet, and Generation Y and Boomers can’t comprehend having a childhood that has the internet. We Millennials are in a unique position in that we came to age during the epoch of the Digital Age- we were teenagers during Myspace, and learned how to navigate this whole new way of communicating and expressing ourselves digitally and IRL, side by side. So, for the most part, we know the rules and we formed the culture. 

honestly, this should be illegal

A new study  published this week found that older people spread more fake news than younger people during the 2016 election. (Duhhhhh.) But this is a real problem and it’s easy for me to get frustrated by it. It’s evidenced not just within the digital-political, but within the digital-personal, as well. Old people don’t understand the internet the same way that millennials do. I’m sure we all have a family member who has been hurt because we didn’t like their status or didn’t accept their friend request. A few years ago my dad (and hold up real quick, shout out to my dad, who is legit the smartest/wisest human I’ve ever met) asked me, in a very kind and concerned way, if I was ashamed to be a Collins (my last name) because my Facebook profile name is my first and middle name. Whatt?? I felt so awful- legit that thought never even crossed my mind. Never had I the thought of being ashamed of being a Collins in my entire life.

And it comes down to this gap: I wasn’t aware that my internet action caused him pain, and he wasn’t aware that Firstname Middlename nomenclature thing was a thing. I explained to him that I chose this naming because I didn’t necessarily want to be easily searchable on the internet, and he got it. The Culture of Internet Communication (is there a word or phrase that exists for this yet? lmk plz if so) is still in its forming infancy. We’re all just figuring it out, but I can tell you this, the generation gap here is wide. We are not communicating online effectively between generations, and that’s where fake/non-important news has a good opportunity to take prey.

So what do we do about it? Well, combating it head on, which means kindly calling out fake news when you see it, even if it seems like not that big of a deal. When your mom’s friend is sharing news that isn’t true, message them and let them know. When you see someone getting outraged over news that isn’t news, let them know what’s up, with kindness and compassion. These rules go for everyone too, not just old people. Because outrage is contagious, and it is best to save our energy for things that matter, not a fake story about an Atheist orthodontist giving mandatory abortions to all of her pregnant patients. 

The Digital Era has birthed this new age of Post Truth and learning how to effectively utilize the internet is paramount as we gear up for 2020. Luckily, we have an advantage: we know the culture of the internet. We grew up in it. Some of us navigate it easier than others (the study found that people who spend more time on the internet spread less news… once again, duh). We can utilize this to educate people who don’t understand the internet and save that outrage as fuel for more important fires.

 

 

Healthcare is Confusing Part IV: Undocumented & Uninsured

The majority of the 11 million undocumented people living in the United States live in poverty. They often work minimum wage jobs (or are paid less than the minimum wage, if working under the table) that do not offer employer sponsored health insurance. Since they lack citizenship status, they aren’t eligible for any government benefits, like Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP (food stamps), or Cash Assistance. Preventative healthcare isn’t an option, unless a free clinic or a pay-what-you-can clinic will accept them as patients, and a lot of time these types of clinics require a social security number, meaning that undocumented people are shut out. Ohhh, and undocumented people are barred from even trying to find their own private plans through Healthcare.gov (aka the ACA, aka Obamacare).

A Kaiser-Permanente study recently looked at the number of undocumented and uninsured people currently living in the US and found the number to be around 6 million, which I was very surprised to learn (I think this is a pretty conservative estimate).  Regardless, that’s a ton of people to have basically no option for health coverage. The only way an undocumented person can get health insurance is either through employer sponsored plans or “off-exchange” plans. Both of these options are often unaffordable for undocumented people who are already living in poverty and they often choose to opt out of these coverages because they can’t afford the monthly premium that is deducted from their paychecks. These plans are also frequently classified as being “under-insurance” meaning that they don’t cover necessary medical treatments or have such a high deductible/monthly premium that they are basically useless. Of the entire US population who is uninsured, undocumented people make up 20% (out of the total US population, undocumented people only make up 3%).

So, what happens when someone who is undocumented and uninsured gets sick? The short answer is that they suffer. Securing any kind of healthcare while undocumented is virtually impossible. As stated above, the only place undocumented and uninsured people can get healthcare is 1.) either by going to a free or charitable clinics that doesn’t deny eligibility due to citizen status or 2.) going to the ER. Our country hasn’t yet barred undocumented people from getting emergency care in an ER, which is a blessing, but also contributed to the huge cost burdens that ER visits produce. When someone goes to the ER and are uninsured, they often are left with an astronomical bill (last year, my ER visit in May cost $7,000 and I was only there for a few hours- luckily I was able to get my insurance to cover it, a privilege of being born in the US and a privilege of having health insurance). If I couldn’t pay the $7,000, the burden of the cost would fall on those who are insured via the form of higher insurance premiums. Keeping people out of the ER is a huge initiative around the country since patients who can’t pay are more likely to utilize an ER, and the best way to do so is by having preventative care- a luxury often not available to those who are uninsured.

So what about when an undocumented person gets sick sick, like cancer sick? Well, they are pretty much in a pickle. The only solution to this, at least in Pennsylvania, is applying for Emergency Medical Assistance (EMA). EMA is tricky and difficult to obtain. First, the person has to prove that they have a life or death medical situation going on. They have to have a physician write a letter explaining what is wrong with the person, their diagnosis, and all medical records pertaining to the health need. This letter and information is then reviewed by a eligibility determining judge who decides whether or not the person has a drastic enough impairment or illness that they will not be able to survive without medical assistance. There are no clear eligibility requirements available to the public as to what consists of a emergency medical issue. For example, one person I know needs gallbladder surgery. She is often in pain, however she manages to go to work and get through her day. She received EMA and saw a specialist, who scheduled surgery in a the fall (6 months out). EMA is time limited, so she only had two months in the first place to secure all her medical needs. Since the EMA expired, she has to reapply and hope that it is granted it again in order to cover the necessary surgery.

Another example: a person I know has some type of neurological disorder in which his fingers became immobile and basically froze together. The disorder then progressed to his hands and arms to the point that he can’t bend his wrists, move his fingers, or stretch out his arms. He applied for EMA and was denied. He appealed the decision a month ago, and still hasn’t heard back. I think his chances are slim to none, and he’ll just have to learn to live with his body slowly shutting down on him.

And finally, what about the kids? Well, if you are a child and are undocumented and poor, guess what? You also are entitled to nothing. Undocumented kids aren’t eligible for CHIP, which means that they aren’t getting routine check-ups, they aren’t being monitored for developmental delays, and they aren’t getting vaccinated. Guys. This is an issue.

So what’s the solution? Other than changing our entire healthcare infrastructure, we can hope that Medicaid might be expanded to, at minimum, allowing CHIP to cover undocumented kids. We can also hope that Medicaid might be expanded to open up eligible disorders that would qualify someone for EMA. And we can also just hope that Medicaid is expanded in general, so that it covers everyone, regardless of citizen status. The sad news, is that Medicaid most likely isn’t going to be expanded, and massive cuts to both Medicaid and Medicare have been proposed in the last week. It’s looking bleak out there for people who are uninsured, and especially worse if you are undocumented.

How can you help, knowing that there is little health care options available for undocumented uninsured people? Look up your local free and charitable clinics and see if they will help undocumented people. If they do, consider donating your money, time, or talents to these organizations. Another way you can help is by spreading the truth- telling the people who complain about undocumented people using government benefits that they are incorrect in this assumption. Undocumented people aren’t entitled to ANY government benefits (even though they contribute to these benefits by paying billions in taxes each year, and never reap any of the benefits), which is a sad reflection of America’s current values, not just on immigration, but on social justice and human rights.   

Getting an Abortion is the Same Thing as Getting a Tattoo (not really, but kind of)

I actively avoid talking about abortion (for the most part) because there’s too much of a risk that I’m going to have to explain why I believe we need to reframe this conversation as a human rights argument rather than a feminist issue. It’s a boring conversation.  See, I believe that a person should have the right to decide whether or not she wants an abortion/ terminate a pregnancy/ kill her unborn child/ get pregnant just for the fun of getting an abortion. I believe this because I believe that people should just be able to do whatever they want to the only thing they have total ownership of- their physical body. It shouldn’t be a women’s right to choose, it should be a human’s right to choose.

The only thing we have complete autonomy over is our body (For the purpose of this post, “body” includes the concept of the two-track, that is, that the body and mind/consciousness are integrated). You can’t deny that we are born into everything that we are- you had no choice in what you were born into. This is a pretty heddy concept, and its application is personal, spiritual, and political.

Ok, so try to follow me here: the only thing we are born with that we have 100% control over is our physical bodies. As infants we learn and choose to move our bodies, associate and experience love and happiness through the action of eye contact and coddling from others, cry and experience all the sensations that comes with that cry, etc. This is the human condition- the subjectivity of ourselves. Everything else we are born into and have no control over. We don’t have control over where we are physically born into (ie: Upper Middle Class America vs. Village in Nicaragua). We don’t have control over the family and living situation we’re born into: whether there are other kids in the house, or whether there’s a dog, or whether we having loving parents, or whether we have no loving parents. The ONLY thing we have control over is whether or not to wiggle our toes, to run around, to continuing being.

From “obvious child” which is a good movie about abortion, i guess. i am in love with jenny slate for real tho.

So, if all that we have complete control over is what we can or can’t do in our subjective physical and cognitive experience, then shouldn’t everyone have a right to do whatever they want in those domains? Can’t we agree on the idea that we all deserve to live in a society where we can maximize our autonomy to the highest degree? To live in a society where we can cut our hair if we want, tattoo our bodies if we want, get a liver transplant if we want? Get a vasectomy if we want? And if you were born into this thing called life as a woman who is able to do this bodily function called reproducing, then shouldn’t the same principle apply and shouldn’t you be able to choose whether or not you want your body to reproduce?  

Right?

I’m not trying to minimize pregnancy to the same thing as getting a tattoo… but in theory… it kind is. Shouldn’t you decide whether or not you want to be pregnant?

Oprah being intersectional and humancentric ❤

This is where I think 4th/intersectional feminism needs to step up and recognize that the women who have worked hard before us, those that made abortion a feminist issue because it was an issue that needed to be elevated in order to help push for women’s rights, did us good. Now though, the political and cultural environment has changed greatly and intersectionality means promotion of expanded inclusivity. Which means we need to use our similarities (Ie: being a freaking human) as strengths. Before, the act of choosing to have an abortion has been a women’s issue, because it affects women’s bodies, but this line between gender needs to eventually be broken in order to have an equitable way of understanding our political and cultural landscape. Now that women have more rights than ever, the way to making a better world is by changing our thoughts about the world, which I think means respecting everyone’s subjective experience. And it also means moving away towards the language which has kept us separate (Woman’s Right to Choose) to an inclusive way of understanding the issue on a broader scale (Human’s Right to Choose).

So yeah. I guess I just wrote this because it’s important that we get to do what we want to our bodies and I kind of just want to be able to get all the abortions I want for the heck of it.  

Gender Equity and The Green Party

I consider myself a 4th wave feminist, which means that I believe that all social injustices are interconnected. I’m also a social worker who believes in systems theory, meaning that no problem can be fixed independently. Classism, racism, and sexism cannot be demolished by only working in one domain. Our understanding of political issues can’t be reduced to just working on racism without taking into account the classism and sexism that is undoubtedly attached to racism. So we can’t work on fixing sexism without taking time to look at how we can fix class and racism in order to establish an egalitarian society.

The Green Party’s ideology is organized into Four Pillars which are then broken down into 10 key values. Feminism and Gender Equity are part of the key values, and it was this value which caused me to switch parties from blue to green. See, Greens don’t just want Gender Equality, they want Gender Equity, and that’s an important distinction.

The Four Pillars of the Green Party

What is Gender Equity?  It’s the idea of allocating resources and positions of power to those who are underrepresented. Part of the Green Party’s bylaws is that there has to be equal gender representation whenever possible. This is true for the Lackawanna County Greens, where I’ve been secretary for the past two years- of the executive committee there are two men and two women. This happened organically, but the value of gender equity is important because it at least recognizes that historically it has been very difficult for women to be elected to any position of power. Gender Equity widens the gap and welcomes and values women.

The Green Party on Feminism and Gender Equity:

“We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control, with more cooperative ways of interacting which respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the -sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.”

The Green Party cares about the process (one reason why we don’t take corporate money). We care about integrity. We care about having a moral standing in face of deception and sensationalism. We care about intersectionality and are established on these values which makes the Green Party the the best party for 4th wavers to introduce their objectives, especially on the local level, to help create a more peaceful planet.

2018 Feminism: Understanding Intergenerational Patriarchy

Disclaimer: This article refers to women in the western sense. The arguments presented do not refer to the millions of women living in greater patriarchal and underdeveloped societies.

2017 marked the year that the US began acknowledging intergenerational patriarchy on a mass scale.  The #MeToo movement and public exposure of Hollywood sexual perpetrators empowered millions of women to speak out about their own abuse, which is a huge deal. It’s not just meaningful on the personal plane (ie: the women who have been directly empowered), but is arguably more meaningful in the macro sense, or overall cultural shift, of women’s empowerment.  However, this mass empowerment is not without criticism or confusion in how to interpret it’s meaning: 2017 seemed to have left a lot of questions unanswered about what it means to be a woman in 2018.

               And it is a confusing time to be a woman. We have more freedoms than ever and I believe that the pace is only accelerating towards a more egalitarian society. It’s really exciting and is the best time in history to be a woman. However, these new liberations and cultural acknowledgements of the female experience has also lead us into uncharted territories. Again: What exactly does it mean to be a woman in 2018? What is on the other side of these liberations? What comes after #MeToo?

It’s the cultural experiences, such as the #MeToo movement, that help push our society towards the egalitarian sweet spot. You know, I think a lot of people probably believe that women have total equality in the US, however I have to argue that we’re not there yet, and we won’t be arriving for probably a few decades. Intergenerational patriarchy is still in our bloodline.

very scientific infographic i made.

The US has always been a patriarchal society, and if we look back in time, we don’t have to go far to see areas where we have only just experienced liberation. Guys, we haven’t even been voting for 100 years yet (the 19^th Amendment was added to the constitution in 1919). And even though the cultural events which moves us further away from the patriarchy should be celebrated, there is still quite a bit of sexist gunk planted in our psyche from past generations.

If we think about society as made up of symbiotic systems, we can examine how patriarchy has been passed down through generations. For example, let’s use the Hollywood sexual predator exposures to help us better understand intergenerational patriarchy. The inception of the cinema happened around the turn of the 20^th century (Think about this: Motion pictures are older than women’s right to vote). When the first motion picture was being screened in theaters, US culture and society were totally patriarchal, and thinkers who deviated from this were considered morally inept. We’re talking women couldn’t leave their homes without a chaperone type patriarchy. So, actresses were in a position where they had to submit to the male authority in order to be granted roles. I believe the greater the inequality in the relationship, the greater the chance and degree of exploitation. It became the ingroup (Hollywood) cultural norm for females to submit to sexual advances in order to keep and increase their status in the group. Intergenerational patriarchy are the remnants of sexist practices and sexist ways of thinking continuing today. It has taken over 100 years for our society to begin exposing these practices in the mainstream. That is also a big deal.

The Hollywood system is a closed system, outsiders are not allowed access. Therefore, these types of sexual abuses are more easily accepted. It is the same thing as religious groups hiding their abusive practices. Since Hollywood started during a period of overwhelming and almost complete patriarchy, it is going to take more time for these unwritten rules to be rewritten. An argument I heard from a lot of older people about women coming forward was, “Why did they wait so long? Why does it matter now?”. The answer is simple: time.  It’s only through time that women felt safe enough to call out these accepted practices.  It’s only through time that women in this closed system can expose the patriarchy that has ruled the system. It’s only through time that a closed system (Hollywood) can evolve in the same direction of the greater society (US/Western society).

There needs to be a safe societal environment for women to speak up against what has been accepted in the past. The good news is that the shift has begun, and we are getting closer and closer towards the societal egalitarian sweet spot. This acceleration will only continue if we support each other to question and expose abuses in closed systems. If we continue to blindly take what has been given to us, the intergenerational patriarchy, then we are at danger of slowing down the shift (and in a dystopian Atwood mindset- the potential to go backwards). It is my belief that we have an obligation as 4^th wave feminists to support and empower each other so that we will be passing down intergenerational equality, not patriarchy, to the future.

Reflections on Growing as a Motherless Daughter

Today is the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death. I had just turned 5 three weeks before she died in the hospital from cancer. My memories of her are scarce and sad, and I can count on one hand the actual number of times I remember her presence in my life. All of my memories are of her sick. I remember more of what happened the days after her death. Like on the day she died (or maybe it was one of the following days?), when I heard church bells ring and my half-sister (I am the only offspring of my father and mother) telling me that my mom now had her wings in heaven. Or the day that I went back to daycare after my mom’s death, and the teacher had told my classmates about what happened, and all the other little kids not knowing what to say to me. This type of response, not knowing how to react to me when people found out that my mom died when I was young, is typical of my life.

As a teenager, I would harness this uncomfortability from others for my own humor, as my own way to try to normalize the inevitable awkwardness that comes with the answer to questions about my mother that she was dead. I would automatically reply to the  “I’m so sorry”s with “it’s okay, you didn’t kill her”.  Or I’d make jokes, like that my mom is lazy and lays around all day… I guess these are coping mechanisms, even if they are a bit dark. I still think I was a funny kid. Anyways, I learned early, and had it exemplified throughout my life, that I was different, and my difference made other people feel uncomfortable, awkward, and sad. So I internalized this, and this unfortunately became part of my identity.

For years I didn’t think much about my mother, and that word, “mother”, still doesn’t have much of an emotional connection to me. As I’m growing older, and my friends have started to lose their own mothers, I realize my connection to my own mother is based on her absence in my life, and that’s okay. I have learned about my own strengths through my motherless experience, and there are anecdotal characteristics which undoubtedly connect me to her life. For instance, how I take pills- I put them way far back on my tongue. My dad is always astonished at this, as this is how my mom apparently took pills. So in ways like this, I am connected to her. I’m reminded how much I look like her every once in a while from people who knew her, which used to bother me, because I wasn’t her. But now, I realize that my resemblance to this dead woman that they loved might be comforting and a reminder of her life.

It has taken me YEARS, wait, scratch that, it has taken me DECADES to figure out my identity, to figure out my purpose, to figure out what it meant to be a girl, a young lady, and now a woman, without a mother. I tell my clients who have experienced any childhood trauma this: when you are a kid, and something crazy happens to you, like you lose your mom, your experience for the rest of your life is different than the other kid sitting next to you who didn’t lose their mom (or who wasn’t molested, or who didn’t witness family abuse, or who didn’t have an addict parent, etc. etc. etc.). So your experience of life is going to be based on an understanding of the world that is totally foreign than the norm. However, through examining your life, and working towards a goal of self-actualization, this experience can eventually be transformed into a “superpower”. Your perspective of life is different, perhaps a little wider, than others. Cultivating this power to see things differently, and to understand that your experience is different, is a long process, but the end result will serve you greater than the damage the loss caused.

I had a conversation with my father last year, and I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but something along the lines of him wishing that I had a mom to help me plan my wedding, and he felt sad about it. My response was that I had accepted my experience of not having a mother in my life years ago. I don’t know what it is to feel maternal love, and that’s okay! I’ve always known that I wouldn’t have a mom to help me pick out prom dresses or give me advice about boys or help me with whatever other things moms typically do. I think this still made him feel sad, but at least he could understand that my motherless experience is my experience- it is who I am.

I don’t really know why I felt the need to write (and share) this. I guess 25 years is a long time. I feel really sad for my friends who have lost their moms in the past few years. I also have always felt a strange and strong connection to other people who have lost their parents, or who were abandoned by their parents, especially if they were young when the loss happened. Growing up, I knew no other motherless daughters, so my identity was always mine for creating, exploring, and forming. As a kid, I would wish I had someone who could understand my motherless experience. I now can realize what an opportunity this is for me- to experience life in my own unique way, to understand that I have an understanding of the impermanence of life deeply rooted in my soul, as a bedrock of who I am, because it is my first memories.  I’m still growing as a motherless woman and forging an identity without a mother, and that’s okay. I know now that maybe my experience can help others, and even if not, I’m lucky to have a superpower of seeing life in a way that many others can’t fathom. And that’s a good thing.

Why Jeff Session Hates Stoners (or actually loves them)

So Attorney General Jeff Sessions (AKA the most powerful prosecutor in the US) sent a memo Thursday to all federal prosecutors telling them to ignore the Cole Memo. The Cole Memo was created under Obama’s administration and is what has protected states that are marijuana-legal from federal prosecution, since possession, distribution, growing, and usage is still illegal under federal law. Marijuana is categorized as a Schedule I drug. The criteria to be a Schedule 1 drug is that it has no medical benefits and basically only causes harm. Heroin, LSD, and ecstasy are all schedule 1 drugs. Jeff Sessions’ memo will allow federal prosecutors in states that ALREADY legalized marijuana to now prosecute marijuana users/ sellers/ growers/ and possibly prescribers as they would prosecute a heroin dealer or user. Currently, 8 states and Washington DC legalized recreational marijuana and 28 states have legalized medical marijuana.

someone in the room asked who’s in favor of repealing the civil rights act

So what is this little evil elf’s deal? Sessions has been anti-marijuana for his entire career and has voted to increase the penalties for drug offenses.  He is of the school of thought that harsher punishments reduces crime. We know that this is not the case, and anyone who can look at the war on drugs from a macro, socieo-economic perspective knows this. Session also believes that marijuana is a gateway drug. When Sessions was appointed, I was sick to my stomach knowing that in his worm-chewed, dementia-slop-brain, he “believes” in this anachronistic, anti-research, god-fearing “logic”. OR… maybe he just chooses to believe it because it lines up nicely with his campaign contributors.

So the thing that is scarier to me than the actual Sessions Memo, is that his highest campaign contributors are the Koch Brothers and military defense contractors. What on earth does that have to do with reinstating antiquated marijuana laws, you ask? Well, Sessions is a supporter of private prisons and expanding the militarization of police officers. In case you forgot, last February Sessions’ overturned the DOJ’s position under Obama of no longer contracting with private prisons. This is some real shit, y’all. Oh, and you know the type of inmate private prisons house? FEDERAL INMATES. PRIVATE PRISONS WILL DIRECTLY PROFIT FROM THE SESSIONS MEMO. (watch out, y’all, because privatization of county prisons is becoming more and more common). Jesus Christ. Also, can I just say that the fact that this is this so transparent and yet there’s no public outrage may be the bigger issue than this article, but man oh man, are we looking at a potentially really dark, really scary Hellworld future (And this is coming from someone who has tried to stay positive about our current state of affairs).

Listen, I’m feeling a little lazy and I don’t feel like spending a few hours totaling all the contributions I can find that Koch Industries have given to Sessions, but in 2016 alone they gave him $40,000. How are the Koch brothers tied into enforcing anti-marijuana federal law? Not only do the Koch’s give money to politicians, but they also fund ALEC and sit on the board.  ALEC is a group of corporations that get together, write bills that will directly profit them, and hands them over to their minions in congress to do their bidding. The Koch brothers have written and approved bills for congress (and passed by congress) to privatize prisons, to put more people in prison. Because private prisons can only profit if they’re full of inmates.

It’s not surprising that Trump also went back on his word about the Cole Memo. When Trump campaigned, he said he wouldn’t enforce the federal law, however he apparently changed his mind- Press Secretary Huckabee said today that Trump is completely for enforcing the federal law.

LUCKILY, many senators already have spoken up against Session’s memo, and they have a strong case. Plus, public opinion is pro-marijuana, currently 64% (!!) of American’s approve recreational marijuana. There are undoubtedly more pros than cons when it comes to legalized marijuana. The point of this article isn’t to list the benefits of legalized marijuana, but just real quick- my favorite point of legalization- it keeps people out of jail. Yes, yes, yes, we need to figure out how to combat the institutionalized racism that keeps people in jail for marijuana offenses, but that’s a different article.

How can we fight back? Stay woke. Look up who your federal attorney is. Write to their office, call their office, tell your friends and neighbors that this issue is bigger than just some stoners being paranoid that they feds are outside when they’re smoking a j.

A Quick Explanation of Brazile’s DNC Bombshell and it’s Apathetic Implications for the Future of Truth

Last week, Bernie supporters, DemExiters, and the remaining disillusioned Dems have had our beliefs proven by Donna Brazile’s recent book that finally reveals that the DNC rigged the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton. Most of my compatriots who fall into the aforementioned categories have known that the DNC was not on our side since 2015, so Brazile’s claims aren’t necessarily news to us. However, it is a bit satisfying that our truth has been recognized as such, and that we aren’t the un-American, conspiracy theorists, election-sabotagers that the Democratic Party has made us out to be. I personally have not rejoiced over Brazile’s admittance, although I am grateful for it, because I think the Democratic PR Machine is working right now to dissolve this mess and replace it with their rallying cry of “We did nothing wrong!”. This post is to hopefully help people understand what happened, so that the truth is a bit harder to sweep under the rug.

Key Players

Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC): 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary loser to Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic Presidential Candidate loser to Republican challenger, Donald Trump. Since her loss, she has been spending her time promoting her book, “What Happened”, which details the 16 reasons why she lost the election (none of the reasons have to do with her or her campaign, fyi).

Democratic National Committee (DNC): is the organization  that runs the Democrat Party. They help figure out who to run, craft the party’s platform, and create campaigns to get Democrats to win unilaterally across local, state, and national races. It’s main purpose is to raise money and then use this to best strategize ways to get their candidates to win. When people want to donate money to the Democratic party, the DNC is the beneficiary.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS): She was one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides for her 2008 campaign. She became the chair of the DNC in 2011, where she took Tim Kane’s position, who would later be HRC’s 2016 running mate. She resigned from the DNC in 2016 after emails were published that showed her preference towards HRC during the campaign, among other allegations. She was a close friend to HRC, and didn’t resign herself from the DNC during HRC’s 2016 run, which is pretty unethical considering the chair is supposed to be unbiased. I mean, how can you be unbiased when one of your BFFs, and someone who would give you a top job in her administration, is running for president? For further reading, see this post from 2015 where I was first critical about DWS’ bias for HRC and the lack of Primary Democratic Debates between HRC and Sanders.

Donna Brazile: Took over as interim chair of the DNC in 2016, when DWS resigned, until Feb 2017 when Tom Perez was voted in as chair. Her book, “Hacks“, which this article is based on, comes out November 7th.

Hillary for America (HFA): Hillary Clinton’s official presidential organized campaign.  Under FEC rules, the maximum individual contribution allowed to any candidate is $2,700.

Hillary Victory Fund (HVF): Hillary’s Super PAC- if an individual exhausted the maximum contribution to HFA, they could give an additional $353,400 to this PAC in support of HRC.  In 2016 they raised $529,943,912.

Brazile’s book talks about a conversation she had with Gary Gensler, Hillary’s Chief Financial Officer, when she took over the DNC in the summer of 2016.  He explained to her that in 2015, the DNC, under DWS’s rule, contracted an agreement known as “The Joint Fundraising Agreement between the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America”. Apparently, the DNC was in debt in 2015 due to Obama’s campaign, and DWS was a shitty fundraiser and manager.  Under this agreement, HRC would pay off the DNC’s 2 million dollar debt (which is kind of measly, right?) in exchange for having control over the Democratic Party’s finances, strategy, and all of the money raised. Anything that happened within the DNC and the decisions about everything from operations to messaging of the Democratic Party had to go through Hillary. HRC had control of the entire party, ultimately halting any potential support from the party to go towards Sanders. Brazile writes, “The campaign had the DNC on life support, allocating money each month to meet its basic expenses, while using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse”. 

Brazlie’s book is the proof that all of us who dared to question HRC and the DNC had waited for: that Bernie Sanders’s chance at winning the 2016 primary was doomed from the start due to the pro-HRC biased messaging and spending disseminated throughout the US by the Democratic Machine (DNC), which had HRC at the helm. The question is, now that our beliefs have been confirmed, will anyone who refused to believe that HRC or the party did anything wrong acknowledge and accept this new reality? Sadly, I have my doubts. I believe that the DNC and HRC manipulated messaging and took advantage of creating and promoting identity politics which lead to the formation of the current militant group of anti-Trumpers/HRC lovers, who shun and shame any thought that is outside of the Democratic box. The HRC “Feminist” Facebook Moms, who identify and exploit the message that they were wronged due to no fault of their own, most likely aren’t willing to open their ears to Brazile’s truth, let alone accept it. And that’s the problem. Even though the truth is out there, even though it’s been clear that the deck was stacked since 2015, too many people aren’t willing to accept that their golden calf was actually a serpent  who cares nothing of truth, virtue, dignity, fairness, or the democratic process from inception.

Again, I sadly don’t expect much to happen from this news. I hope it helps persuade people to question the Almighty Democratic Doctrine, but my faith in this is pretty low. I guess all we can do is continue to strive for truth and hope others eventually recognize that the truth is more important than being right.

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I used Brazile’s book excerpt and the actual Joint-Fundraising Agreement as the main sources for this article.