Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Roseanne Barred

From when it was first announced, I had plans to sit down and watch MSNBC's townhall on racism.  As a woman who sails through life, shopping, traffic stops, interactions with nary a hiccup, I am very aware that my FastPass is connected to my skin color.  I know this to my core because I see how people of color - friends, strangers, celebrities - absolutely do not enjoy my freedom, my peace of mind, my ability to simply exist as I am in any situation.

Traffic stop?  The officer backed 10 mph (and $100) off my speeding ticket because I joked with him about Bon Jovi songs.

Quick run into Target?  Not a single employee blinks, I am never followed.

Airport security?  Yes, my hair has had its share of molesting, but aside from that?  I get whisked to the Shit-The-Line-Is-Long-You-Look-Harmless line A LOT.

Restaurants?  Smiles, fast seating, good seating.

Moving?  No one in my neighborhoods have ever called the police on me.  And I have wandered my backyards many times at night, on my phone, and no neighbor has called the police.

I am white.  It is a provable cloaking device, letter of acceptance, secret password in this world of ours.

I did not ask for it.  It is an accident of birth.  I am simply the product of two other white people who swapped fluids.

What is not an accident of birth is how I am able to see this, acknowledge its existence, understand that I have done nothing to earn it, deserve it.  I have had the privilege of moving a lot, meeting new people, having new experiences, working with all people from all places.  My awareness comes from exposure, interaction, and a deep sense of humanity.  No, I am not one of those people who says, "Well, I don't see color."  

Utter bullshit.

We all see color, of course we do.  It's what happens next that makes the difference.  I see color and keep going.  Personality, attitudes, behavior towards others.  Are you an asshole?  No?  Well, let's keep this interaction/friendship moving forward!

Unfortunately, many people see color, stop, set up camp, and roast their bigotry over an open cross fire. 

I will never understand how that accident of birth makes these people believe they are better, above, ordained in some way.  That their skin grants them rights, immunities, permissions to aggressively seek to hurt those they disdain.

So last night's townhall was important to me.  Because no matter how big of an advocate you consider yourself to be, there is always room to keep learning, to keep trying to understand better, more.  To LISTEN.  To DIGEST what you are being told.  To at the very least, TRY to think about what it must feel like.

That Roseanne Barr chose yesterday to unleash more of her vile racism and ignorance on Twitter?  Well, that made last night even more timely.

She chose to target former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett, Chelsea Clinton, and George Soros.  Now, her prideful stupidity is pretty legend - she has always been a garbage sack with eyes - but since the advent of Trump, she has truly let her Confederate freak flag fly.  Spreading conspiracies, lies, and hate like confetti, ABC had held its nose, choosing ratings and ad revenue while she scattershit like a rhino with the runs.

ABC provided her a megaphone and silently counted their money no matter what she spewed.  Until yesterday.

Apparently, even a cash hungry, ratings driven network has its limits - it is owned by Disney after all.  And her using the age old racist slur of "ape" against Jarrett was too much.  They finally took the white trash out, kicked it to the curb.  You can say whatever you want, but there is no guarantee you get a TV show, too.

They canceled the show, and her talent agency dropped her ass.  Both issuing firm statements as they cut all connections with her. 

Her agency, ICM: "What she wrote is antithetical to our core values, both as individuals and as an agency," the agency said in a statement. "Consequently, we have notified her that we will not represent her. Effective immediately, Roseanne Barr is no longer a client."  

ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey: "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show." 

Disney CEO Bob Iger tweeted: "there was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing."

Cue the MAGAts and first amendment "scholars" screeching about her free speech being taken away.  Jesus, this gets exhausting.

Roseanne's free speech is perfectly intact, alive, and unwell.  The government did not scoop her up and drop her on a waterboard in Guantanamo.  She is still free to spread her verbal feces far and wide (and is).  But her right to tweet her racism does not mean she is free from consequence in her job or the public square.  ABC fired her ass because they are allowed to make that decision - the decision that is in the best interests of their company.  And MY free speech means I (and so many others) are allowed to clap back at her wretched self.

Funny how free speech only matters to these dullards when someone calls them out or they get fired.

Funnier still, these same Roseanne defenders are the very ones who have been calling for Kaepernick's head on a pike for over a year.  Cheering that he has been blackballed.  Clapping like deranged seals when Trump calls him and others who kneel "sons of bitches".  Because he kneels to bring attention to police brutality, inequity, blatant racism in this country.  A pose suggested to him by a former NFLer AND GREEN BERET, Nate Boyer.

At no point do these red cap wearing wetbrains defend HIS first amendment rights.  But have Roseanne call someone an ape and they go apeshit defending her.

As the dust settled all around her yesterday, she seemed to finally get that she had screwed the pooch - HARD.  So she adopted the Boo Hoo People Can Actually Call Me Out For My Racism posture and posted this...

Insert sad face.  :(

But an attention whore cannot be without her form of crack, so she was back on Twitter less than 12 hours later.   

Blaming Ambien.

I am not making that up.

I see.  Ambien caused the virulent, overtly racist tweet at Jarrett?  Um, Roseanne, were you taking Ambien back in 2013?

 Remember?  Susan Rice, another black Obama official?

What about these guys?

Was it Ambien when you posed for these magazine photos?

What happened next should surprise no one.  After all, we live in a time where a complete grifter, criminal, shitbag, reality star, conman is our President, and Kim Kardashian is visiting the White House today as a prison reform expert.  (Sorry, I do not care how noble is her impetus - 62 year old first time drug offender, Alice Johnson, currently serving a life sentence - Kim Kardashian is the queen of fame for nothing) 

So in a world where a Kardashian has White House access, and Trump still soils the Oval in his crusty Depends, a pharmaceutical company took to its Twitter account to defend itself against Roseanne's bullshittery.

I'm sure Sanofi makes something for that burn, Roseanne.

Look, you're a racist.  You've been tweeting shit like this, doing aggressive, offensive acts like this for years.  Anthem-crotch grab-spitting ring a bell?  This is who you are.  A SPECIOUS TWAT AND RACIST HAG.  Be proud of who you are, Rosie.  Don't try to hide behind prescription drugs and national holidays.

Just know that your past time comes with a price tag.  No matter how emboldened you feel to have a like minded bully, racist, and coward in the White House does not mean you are safe.  The majority of this national society is not on your side.  We are not horrific, conspiracy spewing, ignorance hoarders like you and the rest of the MAGAts.

The rest of us watched the townhall last night.  A townhall that the very people who needed to watch it, did not.  We see the inequality, the blatant police brutality and trigger happy deaths, the racist white people calling the police when they see a black person bbqing in a park, sleeping in a college common room, sitting in a Starbucks, moving into their new apartment, standing in their grandmother's backyard.  WE SEE THESE THINGS HAPPENING.  We know they must be stopped.  The blood has to stop flowing for the simple "crime" of being a black person in this country.

A quote from last night stuck with me - "black lives matter less than white comfort."  That is why white people continue to put black people in deadly situations.  Instead of connecting, asking a question, starting a dialogue - they reach for their cell phones and call the police.  An act that has shown far too often to result in an instant death sentence to an innocent black person.

White people must be called to account.  Those who make these calls reporting a "crime" and "guns" and "drugs" when there clearly are none except in the fantasy they are creating while on 911 must be held accountable.

Electing Barack Obama did not mean racism was dead.  I have never understood people who try that line.  All it did was prove it was seething and alive and ready to slither out of its sewers.  Trump came along and unleashed them all.  Used dog whistles, some blatant language, repeated threats against minorities.  And the racists LOVED IT.  Just as they are loving Roseanne, following the MAGAtry for Dummies playbook - now making her a hero and martyr.

You can have her, bigots.  Like ABC, we don't want her.  You, her, and your empty racist souls are Barred from decent society.

#YOULostTheChildren

In my 52 years, I have had many jobs in this world.  As a teen I had the requisite retail experience - working at County Seat, Foxmoor, and then JC Penney.  As the years moved on, I added "stuffer" to my resume - that was a graveyard job in college in which myself and about 15 other students stuffed ads into the local paper to help cover our expenses.  I have been Group Coordinator for an airline, a front desk agent, an Assistant Manager, and a Front Office Manager in my previous life in hospitality.  I have had a booming cake business - creating everything from Sesame Street in icing to far-too-lifelike penises for bridal showers, to ornate wedding cakes for 500 people.  I spent years coordinating the activities of two competitive soccer teams, including shepherding them across the ocean to Europe.  And I have sat at this keyboard (the one my children mock because I have worn the N, M, H, and I off through the years) writing for magazines around the globe, websites, papers, and this blog.

I am proud of all of those jobs, and endeavored to do my best at each.  But none of them compare to the position of which I am most proud; the job into which I have poured my heart, soul, days, nights, laughter, tears, worry, and joy:  PARENT.

Those of you who have followed this blog throughout the 13 years it has been a presence, have come to know my children.  You have "watched" them grow up, cheered their accomplishments, felt their disappointments, and embraced them no matter what.  You know about them because they are the subject that is easiest to write about - each entry born of a love that flows as easily as the blood in my veins.

They are my life.  The air I breathe.  The breath I hold.  Their well being means my well being.  Their heartaches tear mine apart.  Their joy transports my soul to places I did not know existed.  

In short, they are my everything.

Through the years, you have also read entry after entry as I railed against horrific stories of child abuse, abandonment, kidnap, rape.  Stories of people who procreated with no intent of parenting, loving.  My feelings about the children of this world are no more secret than my feelings about my own.  They are precious.  They are innocent.  And they deserve to know nothing but security, love, hope.

So to say the recent revelation of the children snatched away from their parents at the border angered me is a serious understatement.

Watching the story covered by Chris Hayes, reading the ICE excerpts containing statements from those parents who watched as their small children were taken from them sickened me.  Literally.  That so many have been lost?  The fury I felt, combined with the fear I have lived with every single day since Culley came into this world - that of someday not knowing where my child is - violently forced itself from my body.  Manifested into the vomiting of what little I had eaten Friday, the strength of emotion had to find release.

We all know that this administration hates people of any color other than white.  We know their disdain of immigrants is legend, encouraged to be let out and proudly shown by the most reprehensible sack of sewage to occupy the Oval.  We know our current governance is peopled with like minded bigots, racists, and completely out-of-touch rich kids who only care about their own enrichment and survival.

But to now know that this cadre of evil has not only sanctioned the ripping away from their parents children as young as ONE YEAR, but that they have lost almost 1,500 of them?  As a parent, it is my nightmare come to life.  To say I cannot imagine the horror of these parents is wrong.  I can imagine it.  I have imagined it repeatedly through the years - that of having my child kidnapped by some faceless stranger.  But these parents see the faces of their child's kidnappers.  They see the faces of their confused, scared children as they are dragged away screaming for their parents to save them.  And they end up here, or worse.

Sit with that a minute.  Look at your own children.  Especially you, the MAGAt who helped bring this about. 

YOU OWN THIS. 

YOU cheered this at Trump's hate rallies.  YOU emboldened him to take steps that not only echo the Hitler tactics of child separation, but replicate them.  YOU, who bought wholesale the bullshit story of a pizza parlor with an imaginary basement where child sex trafficking was coordinated by Hillary Clinton.  YOU, who always blame every black person whose life ends at the hands of corrupt and racist police officers. YOU, who claim to love the Constiitution, yet support Trump's aggression against football players who dare use their rights to peacefully protest.  YOU, who stood shoulder to shoulder in this raw sewage of the worst of human behavior.  Hear me now:

YOU LOST THE CHILDREN.

Just as you do not get to act innocent in the face of tax cuts for the rich, the ripping away of healthcare, the targeting of DACA recipients, the endangering of LGBTQIA human beings, the continued suffering in Puerto Rico, and on and on - you do not get to act surprised, angry, or innocent as this news of the missing children fills the airwaves.

YOU. DID. THIS.

Every single churchgoing MAGAt who cheers Trump's pretend crusade against abortion? YOU LOST THE CHILDREN.

And do not even come at me with the "well, you don't care about children being ripped from a uterus" garbage.  There is a massive difference between a ball of cells, and actual human beings shoved into cells.

Look at those pictures.  Now, imagine your child being taken from you FOR NO GOOD GODDAMNED REASON, and treated like a dog in a shelter.

And make no mistake, there is NO GOOD GODDAMNED REASON to separate the children from their parents at the border.  NONE.  It is being done to terrorize, dehumanize, intimidate, and deter anyone else who mistakenly thinks this "shining city on the hill" is a safe haven.

It is sanctioned by an administration supported by YOU, MAGAt.  An administration that casually speaks of what happens to these children with "whatever".

And because we also know you believe anyone brown trying to come here is a rapist or drug kingpin, allow me to introduce some FACTS to Bullshit Mountain.

The majority are coming here to escape the violence, uncertainty, and crushing poverty of their countries.  Coming here, through extreme and dangerous conditions because they fear for the lives of their children.  Children they love with every fiber of their being, just as you love your children.  

Take, for example, Mirian, a 29-year-old mother from Honduras.  She came to the USA desperate to escape the violence in her own country.  She did not try to sneak in.  She presented herself to immigration authorities, seeking asylum.  Their response?  They ripped her 18 month old child from her arms, placed her in the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas, and put her toddler in a facility in San Antonio, roughly 120 miles away.

Another mother, a Congolese woman, endured four months in which she and her seven-year-old child were ripped apart and placed in facilities 2,000 miles away from one another.

It was only after her story came to light, and the ACLU brought suit that they were reunited.  And they are lucky, because ICE actually knew where her child was.

IMAGINE IT, you soulless, bigoted, hate filled swamp creature.  Look at your offspring and imagine a government agency sweeping in and taking them from you.  Yes, yes. yes, I know, you believe your whiteness is some supernatural cloaking device that renders you immune to such atrocities.

Think again.

You have already started to cry victim about your jobs not coming back, your workplaces closing, and your benefits being threatened by the man for whom you slobbered.  You think you cannot be targeted further?

TRUMP GIVES NOT FUCK ONE ABOUT YOU.

You are an easily led, easily lied to source of ego fellatio (fellatEGO, if you will) to Trump.  He cares about you only as clapping seals who buy his hats and come to his masturbatory rallies.  

He will take your child's healthcare and then golf while he or she has cancer rot away their organs.  

More FACTS for you - in fiscal year 2017, some 40,000 children have been taken from their parents by ICE.  Using percentages, the lost children make up about 20% of only 7,600.  7,600 is the number of children ICE has actually tried checking up on.  Extrapolate that, MAGAt (sorry, big word).  That means based on percentages, 20% of 40,000 is 8,000.  Upwards of 8,000 innocent children could be missing at the hands of our government.

YOU LOST THESE CHILDREN.

Seriously, how the fuck do you sleep at night?

You are to blame for this government who places these children - "whatever" - then declares they are no longer "legally responsible" for them.  Yes, that is a quote.  I realize Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs won't share things like this with you, but that does not make them unhappen or fake news.

THIS is actual reporting:

Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, told a subcommittee in April that officials were unable to determine what happened to 1,475 children who were placed in sponsors' homes between October to December 2017.

Another 28 kids, Wagner told lawmakers, also ran away from the home.

The agency had been attempting to contact 7,635 minors and their sponsors, he said, as part of a routine checkup to look into their safety. More than 19% of them, however, were unaccounted for.

Mostly from Central American countries, unaccompanied child immigrants that are detained trying to cross the border are transferred from one agency to another, from US Customs and Border Protection to Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The child is then placed at the home of a sponsor, a parent, relative, or close family friend who can show ties to the child. But US officials say they are not legally responsible for children after they are placed in homes.

"I understand that it has been (Heath and Human Services') long-standing interpretation of the law that (the Office of Refugee Resettlement) is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care," Wagner told the committee.

That's YOUR MAGAt filled corpse of a government stealing children from their parents and then feigning innocence.

Warms the heart, huh?  Here's some more Hallmark movie stuff for you:

HHS has recently adopted multiple changes, including interviewing sponsors, conducting background checks, and refining the type of documents sponsors can use to reduce the possibility of fraud, to address problems, such as placing several Guatemalan minors in the hands of human traffickers.

According to a Senate investigation, HHS turned the minors over to human traffickers, who then forced many of them to work in an egg farm in Ohio for six or seven days a week. Their paychecks were withheld by the traffickers to pay off smuggling debts, according to the report.

The smugglers also threatened the children and their families so they would continue to work, investigators said. For example, one child was told his father would be shot in the head if he did not continue working, and another was placed in a trailer with no heat, bed, hot water, or toilet for complaining.

HUMAN TRAFFICKERS.

Imagine. Your. Child. Stop licking your AR-15, or masturbating to your autographed Trump teddy bear, and imagine this scenario, but with YOUR CHILD playing the starring role.

These children do not matter less just because they are brown.  Just as your children did not ask to be born to parents who are proud of their ignorance, arrogance, and heartlessness, these children did not ask to be born into poverty, danger, and hopelessness.  

The love of any decent parent, of any color, religion, country, is no different than yours.  They know the same fears, emotions, have the same hopes and dreams for their child.  And their children know the same emotions yours know.  They form the same attachments to their parents, look to them for the same security.  

But what these parents and children know that you don't, is the horror of having it all ripped away from them.  The gutwrenching anguish of watching as their children are led away crying, screaming, begging for their parents.  These people do not have safety, security, money.  All they have is each other, and we are taking that from them.  And these children will forever know and suffer the trauma inflicted at the hands of an indifferent, detached, ghoulish government supported by indifferent, detached, ghoulish citizens whose motto is:

This is a humanitarian crisis.  These are atrocities being gleefully inflicted by Trump and his minions.  The ACLU has stepped in, not only because of the missing children, but because they have uncovered thousands of pages of evidence of Customs and Border officials physically, sexually, and verbally abusing children. 

We need condemnation by the United Nations.  We need held accountable.  This travesty of an administration needs its feet held to the fire.  Hell, roast every goddamned one of them.  And for the fire, start with the wooden hearts of the MAGAts who put them in power, who cheer this on, for whom hypocrisy and hate are the air they breathe.

The current hashtag on Twitter is #WhereAreTheChildren.  We may not know where they are, but we know who is responsible:  #YOULOSTTHECHILDREN

Excuse me now, I need to vomit again.

The Shame Is Ours

Yesterday 1,400 students plus teachers and administrators entered Santa Fe High School in Texas.  By mid morning, there were only 1,392 students who would exit.  And two teachers who would never again teach a young mind, encourage a young dream, spur a young imagination. 

And the shame is ours.

Ten people lay dead, their blood seeping out and congealing around them in yet another school shooting.

And the shame is ours.

Ten families spent hours hearing only the recorded voices of those they sought as their frantic calls went to voicemail.   As with past school shootings in the age of technology, police would hear the gut wrenching ringing and pings of incoming texts that would never be answered.

And the shame is ours.

And as the details poured forth, so, too, did the hypocritical politicians of Texas, as they ran to the scene to vomit  their empty platitudes, their bullshit "thoughts and prayers" into the microphones outside the school.  Those not close enough for face time, took to Twitter to Tweet their pretend concern.  NRA whores, every single one of them.

And the shame is ours.

It matters not how much you hate guns, disdain those who cling more to the 2nd amendment than to the lives of our nation's children; it does not matter if you lived down the street from SFHS or across the country; it has no bearing if you own guns and are responsible or if you refuse to understand that no one is "cummin' fer them".

The shame belongs to every single adult in this country who has allowed this bloody certainty to continue unabated.

The blood that ran yesterday, ending not only lives, but promise, hope, excitement, contributions that may have been made?  That blood belonged to the children of Republicans and Democrats.  And those bullets did not care if the recipients prayed daily or not at all.  Death comes for each of us eventually, but mass murder is not how we are supposed to be called home, to the light, the void, whatever you believe is your final destination.

Yes, we know who perpetrated this atrocity.  Yes, we know how he got his weapons - thanks, Dad.  Yes, we are now learning the names, ages, personalities and dreams of those who perished.  And in the end, none of it will matter because we will watch, we will mourn, our hearts will do the "go out to them" thing, impotent thoughts and prayers will be offered, and then we will go back to our normal lives and forget the names of the dead, the name of the school, hell, the name of the state in which it happened.

Because our politicians are bought and paid for by the NRA, and they will not cross their violent overlords who worship at the altar of blood money.  Our politicians do not fear our wrath, our anger, our grief.  They fear not receiving the millions of dollars the NRA pumps into their coffers with each election cycle.  They fear not being elected more than they fear the electorate.

And none of what I am typing is new.  We know all these things.  We feel all these things.  We fear all these things.  

Yet we still send our children off to their schools each day.

And that is what I want to focus on today.  Because that is our biggest shame.  We know they are afraid.  We know the odds are not ever in their favor.

I am not lecturing you, I am lecturing us all.  I have three children who entered their schools each day not knowing if they would exit upright.  I have three children who lived their four years of high school with fear in their minds daily.  I have one who lost a friend to suicide by gun in the school.  A gun that was in a backpack mere feet from my child.  

Yet I still dropped them off each day.

No child should have to fear for their lives every morning as they walk into their school.  Should they know fear in school?  Sure.  Fear of their Calculus test, fear of not being asked to Prom, fear of not getting that part in the school play, fear of fumbling the football during practice, even fear of a bully making their hallway passage uncertain.

But they should not fear being murdered.

As adults, we often joke about "surviving high school."  It is a jab at the stressful incubator of cliques, hormones, highs and lows that serve as a universal right of passage.  My children, your children, also speak of surviving high school.  Literally.  They are not joking.  They are aware they are pawns in a life lottery each day.  

They are traumatized, frightened.  Their attention always only partially directed at their teachers, their studies, their  lunch conversations.  A portion always directed towards "off" classmates, exits, alarms.  They should not be living this reality, but live it they do, daily.  And sadly, die it they do, too.

We are literally raising generations in fear.  

And the shame is ours.

After Columbine, I remember teaching Culley to play dead.  To fight every impulse her young body would have and keep it still, let no sound come out, should she find herself on the floor of a classroom.  It is a lesson I repeated to her siblings as they grew, a lesson I repeated through the years.

I know the fears my children swallowed each day, the bravery it took to walk through the doors of their schools.  It became part of them, stained into them at a cellular level.  Even we adults understand a portion - how many of you go to see a movie and have to swallow fear with your popcorn and Junior Mints?  How many of you enter a public space, a concert, a ballroom and immediately scout the exits, the faces around you?

We created this.  By allowing massacre after massacre to go unchallenged in our legislation.  By standing by as our politicians have been turned into willing whores of the NRA.  As they repeatedly offer up their bullshit thoughts and prayers - empty code for "well, shit, more kids bled out.  That's inconvenient, but hey, the public will move on in a week and I still have an A rating from my overlord$. To those gun lusting, 2nd amendment clinging people - we don't want your guns.  We want your hearts.  We want your ability to have a rational conversation.  We want your humanity.  Most of all, we want our children, and yours, too, to be alive at the end of each school day.

The founding fathers made no mention of automobiles in their writings.  They had no way of knowing where technology would go, what things we would create.  Yet create them we did, and as such, we also created laws, rules, guidelines for their use, ownership, responsibility.

Those same founding fathers had no way of knowing where technology would go in terms of weaponry.  Yet create bigger, stronger, deadlier weapons we did.  I ask you why we cannot also create better rules, guidelines, and laws to govern the ownership and immense responsibility of being in possession of them?  That is not TAKING AWAY, that is applying common sense to a personal choice to procure a weapon that can devastate.  

Parkland High School students started a revolution.  Come November their efforts to register their peers, influence the adults in their world should bear fruit in the form of many of these impotent legislators being shown the door.

But how many more of their peers, our children, their teachers will perish as we stand idly by watching those politicians pretend there is nothing they can do?  Because make no mistake - there will be another shooting.  There will be more rivers of blood flowing in classrooms, down hallways.  There will be more shock, more tears, more grief, more funerals.  The only questions are  Where? Whose child will it be?

And that shame is ours.

 

 

 

 

Nothing But Light

Two years ago tonight, my family stood on a precipice.  

Hands linked, souls linked - we were committed, ready to jump.

The plan was in place, the safety confirmed, the time had come.

Two years ago tonight, I slept little - as did Toby.

Two years ago tonight, we lay head to pillow knowing that with the dawn, we were stepping into a light we hoped would envelop us, comfort us, free us.

Two years ago tonight, we knew that May 7th would be the day Toby came out as transgender, and we came out with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a writer, I have laid my life pretty bare.  One of my earliest published pieces was for McCall's magazine, in which I wrote candidly, complete with pictures, about having my breasts fixed.  Favorite mammory?  My child's godmother sitting at the dentist's office reading McCall's, turning the page and screaming internally, "I KNOW HER!"

For almost two decades, I have written the way I speak.  I write with passion about that which makes me laugh, infuriates me, makes me ponder.  I have also, in this space, written freely about my family.  Since 2005, a global audience has slowly amassed and watched my children grow up.  They have watched me live my marriage across the miles.  Celebrated milestones, achievements, sorrows, challenges.  You have cheered on soccer games and recruiting.  You have given my fears harbor when our oldest was stricken with something that still has no name.  

Writing about my family has been as natural as breathing.  The hope has been rooted in writing in an attempt to connect, make others realize they are not alone, and yes, make me feel not so alone.

In doing so, the readers of DGMS have known our youngest since he was 8 years old.  Since he was Carson.  Since he was she.  Or so we thought.

For a full year+ after Toby sat me down and bared his soul to me, the DGMS pages went largely blank.  Yes, I wrote here and there, but what we were facing, absorbing, living, was all consuming - and very ,very private.  There was no shame, there was only a circling of a very few wagons as we endeavored to create a plan, build a life raft, chart a course.

For a year+, I slept little.  For a  year, I saw my child do more than I thought humanly possible.  I saw him bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things - for one simple reason:  because it is true - LOVE LASTS.

For a year+, LOVE was our life preserver as he battled through panic attacks, a darkness that would permanently envelop so many of his fellow travelers.  There were depressive clouds that would float in without invitation, floating out with no goodbye.

For a year+ we clung to a woman named Tycee, his therapist - she was then, and continues to be, our emotional sherpa as we have climbed this Kilimanjaro of uncertainty. 

For a year+ we worked towards this night, two years ago.  The night I would bring our son home from college, where he had withdrawn from school, from the collegiate soccer career for which he had worked so long and hard.  This night, two years ago, heralded a new beginning.

With the dawn, there would be no more hiding.  There would be no more fear, tap dancing, pretending.  There would only be the truth.  Every single bit of it.  And let the chips fall where they may.

Our son had created his coming out - a video drawn and worded from the hart - no, not misspelled - it was a combination of his heart and his art - a coming out told only the way he could.  With music, laughter, and the truth.

I had penned my coming out here at DGMS.  It was, by turns, both the hardest and the easiest piece I had ever written.  I have always likened my writing to vomiting on the keyboard - that it just has to come out.  But this time, as much as it needed an exodus, I knew, as did our son, that the rest was in the hands of the audience.  

That piece?  Well, we had made real PEACE with our next step.  Our line in the sand was firm.  We were unashamed, and you would either be in or have to be out.  There was no middle, no gray area.  Not even for close family.  You either have a heart built for humanity, or you don't.

Two years ago tonight, I knew our lives would be changed forever.  But in truth, they had already changed, we had already moved miles down the road, we were already making strides that would lead to the eve of revelation.  Our hearts had never wavered along the way - this was our child, our sibling, our grandchild - love is all the Sharp family knows, has ever known.

Two years ago tomorrow, we all stepped out with Toby.  Ready to lose everyone, and finding in the leap, that we lost no one.  Perhaps it was because of how freely we had shared our lives for so long, that preconceived notions disintegrated like so many super heroes in Infinity War.  With the snap our our gauntleted hand, we dealt cognitive dissonance the way Thanos dealt "salvation".  Like it or not, people suddenly had what they thought they knew, felt, believed come crashing up against the knowledge that they had known, embraced, loved a transgender person for years. 

That day was wondrous for us.  With each email, comment, text, call - we felt the love, the solidarity, the unwavering devotion to our child as a human being.

An amazing, talented, funny, caring, charismatic, athletic, compassionate, intelligent, dedicated, loyal human being.

In the two years that have passed, we have continued to share our journey with you.  Advocacy and openness was never up for discussion.  It was simply, like cotton, the fabric of our lives.  Continuing to share, to let people in, to encourage people to see the transition, the normalcy, the humor, the heart.  To see that everything that makes our son who he is has always been there.  He is who he has always been.  

For three years we have been learning, as we had started to understand with Culley's illness and subsequent altered path, that life is not so much about what you planned, as it is about what happens.  Letting go.  And fearlessly walking where the journey takes you.

It has been three years+ since Toby shared his inner truth with me.  In those years we have grown stronger, closer - we have been forged.  Three years in which panic has been replaced with plans.  Three years in which depression has been reduced to a whisper, not a roar.  Three years in which Toby has done so much of the heavy lifting in this process.  Three years in which Tycee has walked this path beside him, beside us all, culminating in her telling Toby last month that she views herself on an "as needed" basis for him moving forward.  Three years+ of consistent therapy has been reduced to "as needed."  That is how far he has come.

Three years ago we had no plan, just love.  A tunnel with no discernible light.  Two years ago tonight, we had a plan and love and could see a tiny beam in the distance. 

Tonight, we have a son filled with excitement, engaged in his plans for his future, self assured, self aware, self confident, bathed in love.  And that tunnel?  Gone.  Behind us.

The Sharps have nothing but light. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you all for being with us through the dark.

 

Oh, Sweet Yeezus...

For about a week now, Kanye West has been everywhere.  Not in a good way.

Stumping for Trump, wearing a MAGA hat, and now waxing crapsodic - because that's what stable geniuses apparently do - that slavery was a CHOICE.

I can look past his Trump worship - Kanye Gump is naht a smaht man, Jenny - because he can support who he likes.  And if he likes to support a man who has lived his life bathed in racism and grift and criminality?  Well, he is just another piece of shit supporting the outhouse.  

His doubling down on the backlash he received over his Tweets by wearing the MAGA hat?  Well, he fits right in at the magachurch where acting petty and refusing to accept facts is the Gospel According to Puke.

But his interview with TMZ in which he stated, “When you hear about slavery for 400 years, for 400 years, that sounds like choice” is just beyond the pale, even for a proven idiot minus the savant like Kanye.

I watched his shameful ramblings just after reading an excerpt from a long buried interview with the last slave ship survivor, Cudjo Lewis, real name Kossula.  Cudjo was interviewed by Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) back in 1931 over the course of three months.  The interview languished unpublished in archives for decades.

I shared it yesterday and asked people to invest the time in reading it.  And it does take time.  Hurston transcribed it as it was spoken.  In dialect, not cleaned up to make it easier reading.  For me that made it even more heartwrenching, that much more immersive.  

I am not a stupid person.  I know our history, I have read myriad books, anecdotal accounts, tried my best to educate myself beyond the sanitized, Reader's Digest Condensed version taught in our schools.  The mere word 'slavery' fills me with shame, revulsion, incredulity.  That human beings stole other human beings and treated them like livestock - worse actually - is horrific.  No, of course I never owned slaves, but the shame of being part of the trickle down that viewed these people as lesser than is real. 

That there are still those who view black people this way?  They are the lesser thans.

Politicians who casually abuse the word lynching to describe the public outcry over something they have done?  Ignorant in the extreme.  One of the most famous instances came from none other than Clarence Thomas, the second black Supreme Court Justice in our history.  When he was nominated, he was also accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill.  The level of his how-dare-you towards her, another black person, was heinous.  

At the height of the fallout he used these words: " As far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves."

Um, no, Clarence.  It was then, and is now, the result of your own bad behavior.  And invoking lynching to describe your public comeuppance during the hearings?  THIS is lynching.

THIS is the only thing I can recall being draped around your neck.

Doesn't seem too tight.

Kanye, equally unenlightened as to why the lynching comparison is NOT EQUAL, went full victim after the fallout of his words began.

"They cut out our tongues so we couldn’t communicate to each other. I will not allow my tongue to be cut. They hung the most powerful in order to force fear into the others"

Kanye, no one cut your tongue out.  You spew your garbage as much as you want.  And as for the "most powerful"?  They weren't and you aren't.  Hear this now:  CLAPBACK IS NOT LYNCHING.  Clapback is what happens when someone with an amplified voice uses it to spread ignorance and arrogance.

Look, as a white woman, I admit I will never fully be able to comprehend the privilege I have, as it is simply something that has always been there, but I also do not deign to think I can ever fully internalize how offensive comments such as Kanye’s are.  No, black people in this country today have not been bought, sold, indentured like so many of their ancestors, but they live with the legacy of that.  ALL OF IT.  The hand-me-down racism, the stereotypes, the societal roadblocks and prejudices.  The stories of those who are gone missing from family memories not because of illness or natural causes, but because of lynchings at the hands of hordes of cheering white people.  The fears of raising children in a country where being black while walking, driving, eating, shopping, breathing can result in their death.   The closest I can even come are my fears for my transgender child.  But even he is cloaked in the visual privilege of male whiteness.

Kanye may be black but he also exists within a world of privilege - fame and financial - that he does not fully grasp, obviously.  Fame and wealth are great insulators.  They buy nice things, high fences, security systems.  They also distance you from the realities of the world around you. 

 

That Kanye‘s biggest struggles in this portion of his adult life revolve around people not wanting to spend $400 on one of his “fashion“ T-shirts and being called out for his prideful ignorance speaks to a level of privilege that has simply become the rarefied air he breathes in his private jet.

 

Yes, a decade+ ago he was lauded as some kind of musical genius. But all that did was set up in his psyche that he is deserving of reverence, attention, largess.  That if he creates, it is automatically embraced, heralded.  That if he speaks, every nugget that drops from his gold digger tongue, should carry more weight and importance and be accepted as fact.

 

In response to his ramblings, TMZ employee Van Lathan quickly attempted to educate West and pointed out the privileged performer's life he gets to live as opposed to “the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats in our lives. We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was our choice.”

 

He finished his extemporaneous and heartfelt response to Kanye with "Frankly, I'm disappointed.  I'm appalled, and brother, I am unbelievably hurt that you have morphed into something that, to me, is not real."

 

BOOM.

 

The confrontation was caught on camera and has gone viral.  Watch it.  For Van Lathan's impassioned words, yes, but also to catch the look on Kanye's stupid face.  It is the look worn by every spoiled brat who finally gets called out by someone who refuses to play their bullshit, pandering, asskissing game.

 

His behavior for years and years has been that of a petulant toddler. So donning the MAGA hat was merely another show of his immaturity. That his mother was a professor? I would certainly hope that woman is rolling in her grave at her son's ignorant, callous, and shameful behavior.  Slavery as CHOICE?  Oh, Donda...

 

And please don’t come at me with his conjectured mental state. While I firmly believe there is no stigma in having a mental illness, neither do I believe that it absolves you from having to own your words, and actions. 

 

How I wish a man like Kossula could sit down across from this privileged, tantrum throwing manchild and relive his experiences for him. Explain to him in graphic detail what suffering truly is.  How slavery was NOT a choice.

 

Kanye will never know what it is like to be ripped from his family. Kanye will never know what it is like to be marched through the jungle while watching your captors carry the severed heads of your loved ones. Kanye will never know what it is like to survive an ocean crossing in the bottom of a ship, given only small amounts of water laced with vinegar and minimal portions of food. And Kanye will never know what it is like to be put on the auction block and sold to the highest biddor. He will never know what is like to be lashed for imagined infractions, to the point that your back looks like a topographical map. Kanye will never know what it is like to toil in the fields from sunup to sundown having no will, living in abject fear. Kanye will never know what it is like to suddenly be told you are free and then be told to figure it out.

 

All Kanye knows is his life of ease, money, and adoration. Ok, fine, he must suffer the Kardashian life, but THAT is a choice.

 

The hashtag #IfSlaveryWereAChoice began trending last night. I counter that with #IfKanyeWereAChoice

 

Good news. HE IS. And at this point, he does not deserve to see our fucking hands at his concert. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I encourage you to read the article The Last Slave

Invest in Cudjo's memory.  HE is a man worth your time.