Kaepernick: Miss me with that

PSA

I see folk complaining about Colin Kaepernick's actions. Let me be real clear: polite protest ain't win nothing for the Negro (or any person of color) in this country yet. Look at how the Native Americans are still fighting to have the land respected. Today. Right this minute. Cuz 500 years of begging ain't quite enough. And look at how many of us sit quietly by, drinking the clean water that their actions are seeking to protect WHILE DOING NOT A DAMB THING IN SUPPORT OF THEM. We are, as usual, quite content to drink the clean water; celebrate the Civil Rights Act and the Marriage Equality laws but to actually get up off our duffs and DO? To put anything, never mind everything, on the line to secure those rights? Hell naw! But we want to tell Kaepernick that he's disrespectful? Yeah, miss me with that.

Until people of all colors start offending sensibilities, ain't nothing gonna change. White supremacy is quite content to steal your land, your labor, your woman, your man, your children, your life and expect you to clean up the blood and guts they leave behind. It has ever been thus. Y'all can miss me with the "That's so disrespectful" BS. Miss me with that entirely.

Nothing changes until enough enraged people stand up and say "No more!". Kaepernick sat down to stand up for what he believed in. Martin, Bayard Rustin et al, did the same. Rosa sat to stand up for what she believed. Men and women walked miles during the Montgomery Bus Boycott for what they believed. Folk sat at lunch counters to stand up for what they believed. Thousands marched on Washington for what they believed. And now you wanna tell me about respect? Look! Miss me with the whole respect thing. 

When Black men wore suits and Black women wore gloves and stockings, the dogs were still set upon them. Respect? It is well past time for this 'respect' business to become a two way street. We have been respecting and respecting and "Yessir"-ing and "No ma'am"-ing forever. The way I see it, as soon as I see some of that respect traffic rolling in my general direction, we can return to a system based on mutual respect but the whole, "I respect you and you piss on me and tell me it's rain"? Nuh uh! When y'all ready to bring the respect train, I'm ready. Until then, I'm sitting so I can stand. 

As you were.

The path to empathy

'Privilege' is much on my mind these days and is much in the ether as well, but I wonder if we've really looked at it closely enough?

When we talk about privilege, we typically do so as if privilege is all-encompassing of a certain group but the reality is far more complicated.

Privilege, it seems to me, is not a big warm blanket that covers uniformly and protects completely. This may explain why so many people challenge the notion of privilege and doubt its very existence. Ask a poor White person in rural America what White privilege they experience and you're likely to get a blank look. Privilege is contextually defined. Some days and in some spaces, you have it, and other days in other spaces, you simply don't.

When I, with my mix of privileges and dis-privileges, venture out into the real world, what leads the way? What holds me back? What does the world see in me and how does the world judge me? What do I experience as a consequence of the world's judgments? What happens inside of me as I process and experience what's happening outside my locus of control? What do I do with what I receive? If I come away from an interaction successful and better off, do I join the judgmental crowd, relieved that I have been 'saved' from the fate of the dis-privileged?

Here's a case in point.

After the birth of her second child, my friend - a White woman - found herself out of a failed marriage with two children under five and no home to call her own. That time with no fixed place of abode gave her an opportunity to see what the world metes out to those who fall on hard times. Even clean and sober, with no mental health challenges and more than enough intelligence and education to get by, she still found herself struggling briefly with homelessness. For her, it was a moment; a moment when she could develop empathy or cynical self-interest. She chose empathy. Opportunity was everything. Opportunity was a path to empathy.

As a White woman, she had the luxury (!) of not being judged as morally inferior for her single state (with minor children in tow). As a person without the additional challenges of drug or alcohol dependency, she was able to access support services without the palpable taint of judgement or the threat of losing her children. As an employed person, she was able to more quickly get herself back on the straight and narrow. Still, the experience taught her that the path to security is very narrow and that along the way there's limited tolerance for error, miscalculation or plain old bad luck. The path is quite unforgiving. As Simone Biles' experience in Rio showed us, one slip is all it takes to lose your tenuous grasp on the gold. It matters not how many hours of hard work you've put in, one slip and you go from gold to bronze, or from competitor to patient, from housed to homeless, from privileged to oppressed. So it is in this society. 

Perhaps it is the fragile order that we each create in our chaotic universes that makes us so unwilling to be empathetic towards others. Maybe it's the fundamental attribution error that accounts for our reluctance to understand or appreciate others' challenges. Perhaps, all our empathy is used up on ourselves. Any of those may be true, but yet there are those like my friend, who come through fires of their own with both recognition of how their markers of status in society eased their path (if only marginally so), and with greater respect for others whose lack of privilege makes the journey back from the precipice that much harder to accomplish.

I don't know whether we often consider the intersection of privilege and its polar opposite or how that intersection works itself out in our society. Neither do we seem to consider how that intersection might actually present us with an opportunity to grow either as individuals or as a society. My friend was/is privileged as a White person, though not so much as a female. As a homeless person she was absolutely not privileged. As a married female, she had some privilege, but as a divorcée with young children, not so much. In her situation, she was able to recognize that being White eased her navigation of the world of homelessness. She stood outside herself long enough to recognize that truth and now is a warrior for change for those around her. 

It's worth it for each of us to consider the ways in which we are privileged and the ways in which we are oppressed. It's also worth it for us to be mindful of the ways the few privileges we have make our lives easier, and to use that knowledge as a critical opportunity for personal growth. That little bit of personal reflection could make all the difference to the way we move about in the world and what kind of society we might leave behind.

There's a very small group of people for whom privilege is that warm blanket providing total coverage and comfort: educated, White, wealthy, cis-gendered, attractive, straight men who stand between 5'10" and 6' 3" or so. (Short men do not receive nearly the same comfort as the tall ones do. Unattractive men likewise must work a bit harder.) That's a really narrow swath of humanity don't you think? The very limits of the group should chafe the rest of us and work us up to such lather that that privileged club would have no place to meet in peace. Instead, we're all too eager to join. Having not taken the opportunities our challenges give us to learn empathy, we instead simply seek our turn at the trough. We are so terrified that the world really is zero-sum, that we dare not join others with less privilege in battling the beast, lest it mean less for us. 

What's sad about all this is that the intersection of privileged and not, is where the true source of our humanity lies. Too bad we run from its light and seek the continued darkness of privilege instead. 

White Privilege: a five point primer

Is it really that difficult to understand White Privilege? Is it really dreadfully complicated or is it that folk don't want to believe that such a thing exists? Truth to tell, I don't understand what it is that people have so much trouble comprehending. Maybe the reality is that folk do get it, but find it hard to see anything that looks like 'privilege' in light of the challenges of their own economic lives? But what if someone finally said that privilege doesn't mean wealth or even solidly middle class status, would that help them to understand?

In an effort to do my part in assisting with the edification of the population, let me throw my dos centavos in and offer five quick thoughts.

1.
'Yppul' (to use Love Live of an Asian Guy's acronym) often say huffily that they have to work for everything they get; that they don't get 'handouts' like some people do, so let me start with the question of coins. White privilege doesn't give you free coins. Apparently this has to be said, so let me repeat: Whiteness grants no free coin, certainly not in these United States, the capitol of planetary capitalism.

White privilege doesn't mean that you get a pocketful of money without labor. It also doesn't mean that you get a free lunch from Subway just for showing up. What privilege does mean that you have a fair shot at landing a job, keeping a job and advancing in that job; three fairly critical legs on the stool of economic stability. White privilege grants more ready and easy access to the foundations for economic stability. The real limits of that 'more ready access' have to do with town and country living. Poor Whites from rural America have about as hard a time climbing into the middle class as poor Blacks but I assure you, poor Whites who get a shot at making that move fare better than poor Blacks granted exactly the same shot. As the data will attest, rates of upward social mobility for people of color - Black and brown - are lower and the gains are more fragile. At the end of the day, membership (of the White club) has its benefits.

2.

“I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a human being. Therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people don’t know that. Every time I tried to go into a public place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, “He’s a human being; don’t stop him." That bill was for the white man, not for me. I knew I could vote all the time and that it wasn’t a privilege but my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill to tell white people, “When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill was for white people. I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want. You need a civil rights bill, not me.”~ Stokely Carmichael

White privilege means that no law has had to be written to safeguard your rights once granted and ensure the recognition of your humanity such as has had to be done for people of color. No law was needed to allow White men to vote and no laws have been required to safeguard White women's access to the vote once that right was granted (by the 19th Amendment in 1920). At the same time though, people of color - specifically African Americans - have only lately been granted free access to the ballot box (1965 though they were technically free to vote in 1870 under the 15th Amendment. It took fully ninety-five years to make that right stick.) and when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act (2014), I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened next.

If we bear in mind the fact that no law has ever had to be written to protect the White person, we come to realize that no law can be willfully broken to challenge the humanity or deny the human rights of that group. Their rights are natural, ours are a matter of law. People of color are well aware that the laws that supposedly protect our rights can and do get broken all the time and sometimes old Jim Crow-y laws come back with a new face or flavor. (Check out the Court's words on the North Carolina Jim Crow-y Voter ID law, struck down this summer.)

3.
White privilege means that yppul are free travel about the country as it suits and pleases them to do. Such a reality is not mine.

I recently went on a trip to Canada. We drove north through Pennsylvania, up US route 219. With all due respect to the lovely people living in the towns and hamlets along US 219, can I just say never again? Never, ever, ever again. Never.

White privilege is being free to enter a town, ask for directions, buy gas and a sandwich, pee and feel nothing special. Black dis-privilege is being in the same town, not asking for directions, trying to buy gas and having someone come up to you to ask you what you need (I'm standing at the gas pump with my debit card in my hand and my gas tank open, what do you think I need?) and leaving said township without even considering a pee or a food break.

White privilege is being able to enjoy the rusticity of a 100 mile stretch of road, seeing Trump/Pence signs and confederate flags and thinking nothing of them. Black dis-privilege is experiencing the same stimuli with a knot in your throat and a hot ball of fear in your gut.

White privilege is being able to drive any country road in backwoods America late at night and not fear for your safety. This is not a privilege to which I have guaranteed access.

4.
White privilege allows you to pull your car to the side of the street to check your GPS, confident that no one is going to call the police on you (and then follow you for blocks) cuz they felt you were 'acting suspicious'. 

5.
White privilege means that you can go anywhere, do anything, be whomever you decide to be without question. Your humanity is never up for discussion or debate and no matter how old you are, your shenangans never leave you dead at the side of the street. cf the cases of Dylan Roof, Ryan Lochte and/or Brock Turner who all got a pass for being a public ass or a menace to society, and for whom people have made a thousand excuses. Better still, how you behave reflects on no one but you....and sometimes not even on you. You're just a kid after all.

Black dis-privilege on the other hand, means that you are the representative face of your entire race and the worst of you attests to the general character deficiencies of those from whom you come. If you die, it's your fault and if you live and are poor, that's your fault too. There is no circumstance in which you get the benefit of the doubt for there is no doubt. When you are a Mike Brown, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile or Trayvon Martin, your own actions cause your death. Case closed. Can we move on now?

All privilege is not economic as a matter of fact, most privilege isn't. Most privilege - and please hear me well here - has to do with being allowed to be fully human. That's the privilege that Whiteness gives yppul and White supremacy denies Black and brown ones frequently. 

Class is now dismissed. Go forth into the world and spread the word.

Let me count the ways

The Donald wants the Black vote. You have to give The Don points for cojones. He has the courage of his convictions. He is asking for the vote. It's a little early for a closing argument, but hey, The Don's doin' this campaigning thing his own way.

The Donald makes a compelling case - well, as compelling as he's capable of - to the Black community. His claim is that the Democratic Party regularly takes advantage of Black loyalty and proceeds, once the last vote is counted, to give people of color precisely nothing. I have no shame in saying that he ain't exactly wrong. Unfortunately for him, his prescription would give us much the same but according to him, what with our high youth unemployment, adult unemployment, poor schools and dangerous communities, "What the hell do [we] have to lose?!?" Oh Donald, how do I advise thee? Let me count the ways. Here are five.

1.

Donald, some of us are awake to the fact of Democratic Party duplicity. Shocking that I would start with this, but hey, since it's just you and me talking no harm done right? Two recent examples have ensured that we are aware of the realities: Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the CBC PAC. 

Schultz's lining up with the payday lending industry did not go unnoticed. Her flip-flop on the issue - going from supporting a delay of new stricter rules to supporting more immediate implementation - may net her some votes, but we're on to her now. I for one will be watching her closely. I'm hoping she'll lose her primary but you never know with these things.

The Congressional Black Caucus PAC is our other red flag. The CBC PAC offered up a quick endorsement of Hillary Clinton though it could certainly be argued that it was Bernie Sanders who had the platform that more clearly and aggressively sought to meet the needs of the poor and middle classes among which the Black community numbers significantly. The endorsement garnered the attention of the more woke among us. The CBC PAC, unlike the CBC itself, is run by a Board consisting of 11 lobbyists and only two elected officials, a fact that earned the PAC and the endorsement the side-eye it so richly deserved. Lobbyists rarely serve the needs of the little people. Knowing this, a PAC even one named CBC, was unlikely to be seen as being in our corner. 

We are well aware that politics requires large sums of money to keep the wheels turning and we don't have it. We know that he/she who pays the piper calls the tune. Since we don't have the pennies to pay the piper, the music to which we dance is unlikely to be of our choosing. Perhaps there are still quite a few people of color who haven't yet cottoned on to these facts, but some of us have and we are not shy about sharing that information around. The CBC PAC doesn't work for us. Neither, quite frequently, does the DNC. We get it. 

2.

Those being the realities, our expectations of our politicians are both low and high. We expect something and at the same time, we expect nothing. We have grown dangerously comfortable with that level of dissonance. That aside, we do still expect that our representatives won't call us dumb n*ggers to our faces (which is pretty much what you did today) and then expect our full-throated support. At least the Democrats have the sense enough to be slick about it. We really appreciate that! You don't even have the sense God gave a dumb goat. Seriously, your foolishness wearies me. Try nuh! Butter me up a little bit nuh? Oh gosh man! 

In your presentation today, you used Detroit as a case in point of the failures of the Democratic approach. You are right (saying that nearly choked me!), the Democrats have indeed run Detroit for-almost-ever. They have held the mayoralty of Detroit since 1962, but White supremacy has kept poor Black folk on a shaky economic footing from well before 1962. And that is probably the more important factor in Detroit's failures but that's not a reality you want to touch. That's the third rail for you ain't it? You could say that Black folk have been in economic quicksand since the first slave ship landed, but you def don't want to go there.......

The reality is that a city is built on its tax base. Black folk have never had much to tax, so a majority Black city is in trouble from the get go. Any economic tremor that primarily affects people of color, and the city will come up short. And as we all know - whether we admit it or not - economic tremblors in America, rock Black communities' foundations first, hardest, longest and most frequently. Stability is unknown to many of us. If hiring in the city shuts me and mine out, what does it matter the party affiliation of the mayor? I'm out, I can pay no taxes and the city's coffers are short. See how that works? Maths. Try it some time, Don.

3.

Having said some of the things you have about other minority groups, are you seriously expecting us to throw our lot in with you? I mean fuh real? Are you not the one who suggested that immigrants were criminals? You are aware of course, that many people of color are one or two short generations away from immigrants themselves right? 

We are an imperfect lot, we Black folk, but as an oft 'othered' group, we're a little more woke than most on the matter of protecting the rights of both the poor and other minorities. It may have escaped your notice, but invariably when a person dies by police violence, it is BLM - more of whom later, I assure you - that typically is first to raise the flag of awareness. Your attitudes to the need of Black people to feel safe and your refusal to hear our truth, makes it unlikely that today's pleas will fall on fertile soil. 

4,

And speaking of BLM....

While not all of us are vocally pro-BLM, we are Black and therefore hyper-aware of the consequences of Blackness in this society. We know that we can't Curriculum Vitae away our negritude (trust us on this, many have tried but all have failed. PhDs get pulled over with about as much regularity as GEDs). Your efforts therefore to paint BLM as something other than what it is: a group that (i) seeks to raise awareness about the disparate impacts of policing and (ii) demand a change in the frequency of the deployment of deadly force against the unarmed, has not gone unnoticed. Further, your *promise* to increase police presence in urban communities has been heard loud and clear. We know what you mean to do: to move the carceral state to our very front door. You have clearly articulated your lack of interest in holding the police accountable for their current behaviors - Blue Lives Matter and all that - so we know what your *promise* will look like in implementation. We hear you. Believe me, we hear you.

5.

And finally, the Central Park Five. 

1989. You, in your typical, "Trust me I know (never mind I don't have any real evidence)" way, took out a full page ad demanding a return of the Death Penalty for these five young men who had been terrorized into confessing a crime they hadn't committed. Lucky for them, and the rest of us, you were roundly ignored - would that that were the case this year as well!

It is perhaps the story of the Central Park Five that most cements my feelings about you dear Don. You were boneheaded and wrong when it came to them. You rushed to judgement. You had no qualms about calling for their deaths when there were questions about their guilt....much the way you now seek to exclude all Muslims absent evidence of their wrong-doing. Worse still, when they were exonerated and restitution was being discussed just two years ago, you came out loud (and wrong again, surprise surprise!) against that as well.

I suppose I should be grateful for your consistency. It helps me to know who you are. I have no questions about who you are. I don't have to wonder who you would be as a president, you'd be you: loud, boneheaded, wrong. 

At the end of the day Don, no I will not be voting for you. Nice try, but no. Too much toxic Flintian water has flowed under my bridge, through my faucets and into my home. No, no and no again. Thank you, but no.

Donald, I appreciate your attempt at outreach. My advice from down here in the cheap seats though is that you should save your energy. Forget reaching out, reach in, your people need you. Me? I'm good. I'm pretty sure 'my people' are good too. 

Selfies, savagery & our national psyche

Apparently, there's a precise way that you must place your fingers on a cell phone so that  you can, one-handed, take a selfie. I did not know this. My niece showed me the other day. As one not of the selfie-generation, I had no reason to know this. My niece however is thirteen so she's an expert. 

Watching the ease with which Smallie handled the phone made me wonder: how else is the selfie changing us? I have a working hypothesis, and there's some research beginning to bear this out (take a look at this and this) that selfies are related to growing rates of narcissism. And so my question is this: if we've been selfie-ing for just a few years, and it's already having a perceptible impact on our psychology, what impact do we think our 400+ year history or slavery & savagery might have had on who we became as a nation? 

I'm moved to ask this question in light of Steve King's odious (and terrifyingly uninformed) thoughts at the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago. When Cong. King asked on national TV, "Where are these contributions that are made (to history) by these other categories of people?" in an interview with Chris Hayes, the only reasonable response could be stunned silence. That public bit of Lord-have-mercy-did-he-really-say-that was followed only a few days later by the Republican candidate's inability to stand down in the face of criticism from a Gold Star family, exposing his rather shocking lack of empathy. 

These two events made me wonder at the level of willful public delusion that is our current understanding of American and world history. If a sitting Congressman can reach his 67th birthday and still believe fervently that people with more melanin have contributed little of worth to the development of the world we are doing something very wrong. 

I won't devote a great deal of space to listing the things that people of color - Native American, African, East or South Asian - have given to the world but the information is out there. If Steve doesn't know one or two things from these lists by now, it can only be because he's not thought to look to find out. He has presumed that there's nothing for which to look. 'Those people', he has concluded, 'are capable of creating nothing'. 

The issue really isn't so much what Congressman King doesn't know, it is the confidence of his ignorance and happy vapidity of the White supremacist belief system; the utter contentment and comfort with the notion that no one who didn't look like him could possibly have contributed to the development of society. That is hubris, with a capital 'h'. Clearly, nothing in his sixty-seven plus years of existence has challenged that system of thought. Why would it? The fact that the belief has remained unchallenged tells me more about his life (and our mis-education system) than the 'thoughts' King periodically offers up for our edification.  

But to return to the selfie story, it would appear that "researchers [were finding] that posting more photos was correlated with both narcissism and psychopathy. Editing photos, however, was only associated with narcissism, and not psychopathy. Narcissism measures inflated self-image (often motivated by underlying insecurity) (emphasis mine), while psychopathy involves a lack of empathy and impulsive behavior." (Find the study here). 

And so I ask again: if we've been selfie-ing for just a few years, and it's already having a perceptible impact on our psychology, what impact do we think our 400+ year history of White supremacy and its attendant violence might have had on our national psyche? Do we really think that the murder; the domestic terrorism; the Jim Crow; the separate but never ever equal; the "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"; the poll taxes; the dogs; the water hoses; the crime without punishment (the police, the lynch mobs); the crime and excessive punishment; the punishment without crimes; the indignities small and large, have had no effect? Four hundred years and there's no effect? Really? Nine years of Twitter has had an effect. Twenty-five years of the internet has had an effect. Forty years of cell phones have had an effect on society but we can somehow cling to the notion that 400 years of brutality haven't? Um, k.  

From my vantage point, if Steve King is anything to go by; if Donald Trump is anything to go by; if Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are anything to go by; if the loud voices of the All Lives Matter chorus are anything to go by, there's your evidence of the 400 years. 

This ain't rocket science y'all. Maybe it's time to look at these things and figure out, as the Don says, "What the hell is going on."?

Poster children

Say what you will about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, but to my mind the two of them might just be the undoing of Donald J. Trump. In fact, I'm willing to put money on it. 

For those who may have missed the last two week's fireworks, here's the back story. Khizr & Ghazala Khan are the immigrant parents (Trump Strike One) of a young Muslim (Trump Strike Two) soldier, who died most honorably protecting his men. On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Khan stood at the podium next to his stoic, obviously still-grieving wife, and slapped a glove in the Republican candidate's face in his heavily-accented English (Trump Strike Three). The Republican candidate didn't have the good sense to ignore the challenge and has since pretty much had his a$$ handed to him on a baily dasis. As glorious as it has been watching Trump get thumped, being privy to the Khans pain, dignity and unfailing decency has been humbling. 

The war of words has been an epic David and Goliath battle. Goliath has all the bluster of a giant used to winning, while David and his missus have but several small, smooth stones but ah we have found that their aim is ever true! Their words are heart-wrenching. They are poised. Their grief is profound and every verbal stone finds its target with a resounding thunk. The Khans demand and gain attention without ever shouting...well, that's not entirely true. I did hear Mr. Khan shout one time when he was aggressively defending his wife. It was entirely appropriate I thought. He even caught himself and apologized on air for shouting. 

The Khan Saga has proved to be an opportunity for America to take a long, hard look at two versions of itself: one, in the shape of The Donald and another, in the form of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, and compare and contrast. We get to look on and decide what it is we want to honor. Bellicosity or quiet grace? Which is it America? The choice is yours.

The heartfelt words of Khizr Khan, the obvious ongoing pain of Ghazala Khan at the mere mention of their late son, should and do, stand in stark contrast to the Don's crassness and utter lack of empathetic connection to anyone other than himself.

The Khans, their late son and the rest of their family (who have remained conspicuously out of sight I might add) are the quintessence of what it means to be American. They were willing to pay the price of the freedom they so dearly cherish. They didn't want to. Mrs. Khan is clear. She told her son Capt. Humayun Khan to come home her son, not a hero. He chose heroism. He leaned in instead of out. He stepped forward instead of back. That's who they raised. Isn't that who Americans typically revere?

The Khans are America's poster children or they should be. They represent the very values that the Republican party (and its nominee) would under other circumstances, be racing to embrace but oh, the challenge of the Khans' faith; a faith that the nominee has spent months deriding.

In a wonderful article posted in the NY Times August 5, 2016, a timeline of both the Khans loss and how they have worked to cope with it paints a clear picture of a family built for service, guided by service and serving to the end. It is the story of a family leaning in, always in.

Unlike some others we could name (also named Trump, first initial M), there is no story here that doesn't add up. When folk have poked into the Khans' background there have been no 'gaps' in their history. There are no missing years, no unverifiable facts, no twisty-turny 1 + 1 = 45 equations. There's no funny business, nothing sketchy. The Khans are the real deal and it shows. Not everyone is built for time in the public square but this is where Khizr and Ghazala Khan find themselves and they are without peer. 

The glare of the spotlight can cause significant stuttering and Lord knows, there's nothing like bright lights to bring the truth of one's intent to the fore. Others with far more experience than the Khans, politicians, stars and sports personalities with careers on the line, have balked and stumbled badly under the same circumstances, but not the Khans. My guess is that they are driven by one thing and one thing only: an aim to serve as America's moral compass. Clothed in that truth, they have been fearless. It has been magnificent and yes, humbling, to watch.

Juxtaposed with the Don's vitriol, which he has sprayed at everyone with the temerity to challenge him, everything about the Khan family is a breath of fresh air and a reminder what true grace and true patriotism look like, heavily-accented English and all. They are our true north. We would do well to follow.

So, about that ho tho

On August 1, 2016, The NY Post had emblazoned on its front cover, a picture of Melania Trump's nude form. I'm in no position to discuss whether these were artsy pictures or not but the inference and intent is clear: Melania is a slut, a ho, a woman who should never be First Lady.  

My guess about these pictures is that this spread was more about Donald Trump than it ever was about Melania. Melania was but a means to an end. Every other thing that has been tried to shame Donald Trump into behaving like a decent human being has failed so this is the latest attempt in that quest. But there's a significant problem with that: Donald isn't a decent human being (cf his attacks on the Khan family if you're unconvinced), so a newspaper - run by a man no doubt - using a woman to shame her husband is not only beyond the pale, archaic, misogynist and just wrong with this particular candidate, it's also a waste of time. This hits on every arcane 'woman as property' line of thinking known to patriarchal society. 

Look, I get it. The right wing has had innumerable melt downs over the mere mention of Michelle Obama's naked arms and yet, even with this in Melania's background, there's been not a murmur of disapproval, not even from the evangelicals who so love The Donald. The objections to Michelle Obama have been largely that she is a woman of Black in the house of White not that anyone has had the integrity and honesty to actually say so. We understand that. People of color in this nation have long learned how to read between the lines, but does that give anyone the right to do this? And more importantly, who exactly among us has the moral authority to participate in this ugliness? Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone.

Let me also point out two other things, that I've noticed over the last two days:

First, the Don has failed to take the bait. Indeed, it may well have been he who threw the bait himself in an effort to deflect attention from his ongoing attacks on the Gold Star Khan family. The Don has no difficulty casting his wife, his helpmeet to use the biblical term, to the wolves for his own glory or salvation. Process that a moment.

Whatever the real goal of the spread, the Don was well aware that the general population would not greet these pictures kindly. He may be a miserable politician or candidate for public office and an altogether odious human being, but he's smart enough to know that. He may well have thrown us this red herring to get us off the Khan story. That he would sacrifice his wife's peace of mind and public reputation in this way defies appropriate descriptors. With all my $10 words, I can't come up with one to describe how I feel about that. 

My second insight out of this mess is this: a lot of us are having great difficulty separating our feelings about the candidate from our feelings about his family. While I'm absolutely no Trump fan, I have to say that there's plenty to ding Trump about without descending to these depths. We can find fault with the man or even with the woman, on the merits of positions they have taken, but I suppose, this has been a boundary-breaking election in every way, so why not in this way as well?

We're all still very prudish about matters sexual. That prudishness has created a society wherein folk are still trying to figure out how to tolerate (rather than accept) other people's lives. We're still struggling with homosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality. We're still trying to comprehend what it means to be transgender and are terrifyingly tolerant of all manner of non-scientific behavioral adjustment therapy to 'fix' people who we think need to be fixed. We're still kvetching over polyamory and sexual liberation. And we have an absurd fixation on what's underneath people's clothes. And don't even get me started on abortion.....like any of that is any of our business. There is nothing inherently wrong with Melania Trump (or anyone else for that matter) taking nude pictures. Hell, even making pornography isn't illegal if the actors are consenting adults and yet, we get our nickers in a knot over a grown a$$ woman's twenty year old photos and call her a ho?

Melania's naked pictures aren't any of my business. Michelle's shorts or short sleeves aren't any of my business. Malia's partying ain't any of my business! None of it is any of our business. They're all grown!

We spend an inordinate amount of time policing others' behavior and choices on the one hand, and screaming about freedom and rights on the other. Folks, it can't be both. It's one or the other folks, it cannot be both. The two are mutually exclusive. We gotta pick one.

If the intent here was to get us off the Khan story, that doesn't seem to have worked partly because the Don himself is still talking about the Khans and partly because a decent husband - as Mr. Khan has demonstrated himself to be - would stand up for his wife vociferously and decry the ugliness.

If the intent here was to shame Donald, that hasn't worked either. Worse still, it has exposed us as hypocritical in the way we're treating Melania, in the way we've treated Michelle and in the claims that we make as a nation, when we talk about equality. 

Get it together America! This level of disconnectedness between theory-in-use and espoused theory can't be good for your health.