Survival of the Fittest: the Trump Years

When next you hear someone claiming that "We will survive" or "I will survive" the Trump years because others have survived worse in the past consider this: 'we' certainly will survive but 'we' won't all make it to the other side. 

Here's how I know......

1. Thirty years ago, there was the piss poor HIV/AIDS response, and still we survived
HIV positive people survived Ronald Reagan's cavalier attitude to the early appearance of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Reagan himself is said to have laughed off the growing crisis and Mrs. Reagan turned her back on longtime friend Rock Hudson when he was diagnosed.

St. Ronnie and his administration laughed off the crisis, kinda like the President-elect laughs off climate change. The world was slow to recognize the gravity of the situation (then as now) or to begin working on treatment and prevention protocols. The greater 'we' certainly survived, but we haven't all made to the other side have we? The AIDS quilt is proof of that fact.

2. Thirty years later, there's Flint & Standing Rock, and we will yet survive
In Flint, as in Standing Rock, calls for a potable water supply have been shrugged off. In Flint, early alarms raised by pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Atisha were shrugged off as "data" (which apparently is a bad thing). It was more than twelve months before anything like an admission was forthcoming from the powers that be. That probably explains why there are now public officers facing felony charges.

Ultimately, the greater 'we' will survive the Flint crisis, but the children of Flint will not survive unharmed. Lead poisoning has lifetime consequences and we can be assured that they won't get the financial, emotional and/or educational support they will need. 

Thirty years from now, Flint's children will be struggling to find their way, Governor Snyder will be long gone, and we will all have conveniently forgotten what malfeasance and classist + racist Republican politics visited upon them.

So yes....
The greater 'we' will survive, but some of us won't make it to the other side: lives will be shortened, prospects will be dimmed or lost, families will be destroyed. 

We are entering an era of conservatism. Remember where the last one left us? 'Compassionate conservatism' my ass. There's an ox and a moron (oxymoron) if ever I heard one!

Did Black folk survive Jim Crow and slavery? Yes they did, but ask the good people at EJI (Equal Justice Initiative) how many people were murdered by mobs. How many lynching sites are they now trying to recognize? How many victims are they trying to remember and recognize? How many Neil deGrasse Tysons did we lose? How many Hadiyah-Nicole Greens?

Did Jews survive the Holocaust? Yes, they did, but ask any Jewish friend how many of their relatives didn't make it. How many Elie Wiesels did we lose? How many Anne Franks?

Did Native Americans survive the Trail of Tears? Yes indeed, but talk to an elder about the stories of loss. How many Joe Medicine Crows did we lose? How many Elouise Cobbells?

When we say "We will survive" we're also saying that a survival of the fittest approach is acceptable. It isn't; we're saying that entirely preventable human losses are acceptable. They aren't. 

Preventable losses are a criminal waste of human potential. We're in a compassionately conservative time. Brace yourself. This version of 'compassion' will leave some of us dead. We will not all make it. Sorry to be the harbinger of those sad tidings. 

Living Life Off the Wall .....There ain’t no rules, it’s up to you

I think I’m rather unremarkable, unspectacular. I have gifts, we all do, and I try to use them to the best of my ability, we don’t all do that but we probably should. That simple pair of facts though – acknowledgment of my gifts and the decision to use them – may have caused me some distress. There are people you see, who don’t see that as you making the best of the gifts you were granted by your Creator, but see it as you being in their face…..showing off and showing them up.

I am unremarkable and yet I remember a teacher in High School when I was no more than 12, humiliating me for some hairstyle. According to her, my hair was piled up on my head. “Like,” she said nastily, “some kind of crown”. One might be inclined to ask whether there was something intrinsically wrong about me dressing my hair in a regal manner. Clearly there was some issue there for her. That was a 50+ year old teacher to a 12 year old girl for no apparent, or good, reason. And that was well before I learned to sass people, so that wasn't the cause of her annoyance. If, as unremarkable as I am I got that, I can only imagine then what Michael Jackson’s life must have been like. The haters are everywhere.

I certainly don’t mean to put myself in the same category as MJ but I think there’s something to said for the idea that people try to hurt you just because you are 'doing you' to the best of your ability. Even if you’re not as gifted as Michael Joe Jackson.

Along with the gifts come failings (quelle surprise!). Each of us pays a price for those as well. I’m inclined today to wonder whether certain people pay a higher price for their failings because they have something that others don’t: gifts and the will to try to use them? Perhaps it’s just part of that all too human need to bring others down a peg, the need to diminish others so that we can feel bigger.

Without a doubt the gloved one was talented beyond anything most of us can likely claim. Here’s a guy with singing, composition, dancing and entertainment genes, every one of which he pushed to the limit. Add to that, he was clearly disciplined and hardworking. ‘Normal’ folk usually fall down on these two traits, but it is these that determine the heights to which we will ascend. He was obviously not afraid to ascend as so many of us are. He seemed driven to it, attracted to it like the proverbial moth to the flame. This is one of many lessons we can take from Michael’s tortured life: discipline has its benefits if only we would commit ourselves to it. His discipline made him remarkable….and I'm thinking, a target for the haters.

I am unremarkable and yet I feel I have paid a price for using my gifts. So most certainly did MJ. He got off the wall and he paid a price for it. I choose not to focus on his challenges because the real truth is between him and his God, not him and me. Likewise, for each of us, our sins, foibles and peccadilloes are ultimately between us and our God. So we should all get down off the wall and get out and do the best we can, forgetting the haters. They are as ubiquitous as flies and about just as loved.

And to those who hate to see another succeed, to see another thrive, to see another ‘live their life off the wall’ I say this: don’t hate, emulate.