Two Good Men

 

These are two honorable men in the news right now.

Former President Jimmy Carter is 98 and has had some health issues. The Jimmy Carter Foundation announced yesterday that he is entering hospice care and prefers to live out his days at home with family. There won’t be any more hospitalizations. I love Jimmy Carter and so I’m sad, even though he’s had a full life.

Jimmy Carter is the embodiment of what it means to be a Christian. He is a kind, loving man who helped broker peace during his presidency and afterward. He and his wife Rosalyn both volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. The organization builds homes alongside low-income people who want to buy a house but can’t afford it. He and Rosalyn both were actively involved in home building into their nineties. One of my favorite pictures of Carter was after he’d taken a fall (in his nineties) and still showed up to work, black eye, and all.

Even though he had some successes as President, he’s mainly seen as ineffective. I believe it’s because he wouldn’t play Washington politics. Members of Congress didn’t like that and so it was difficult for him to get his agenda passed.  I think he wasn’t effective because he was too much a Christian and unwilling to get into the dirt with political players.  The hostage crisis in Iran was the straw that broke the camel’s back, in my opinion. He made an attempt to rescue the hostages, but the plan blew up with helicopters that crashed. He was really bashed for that.

I remember the fallout when he admitted to a reporter that yes, even though a devout Christian and happily married, he’d still “lusted in his heart.” How the critics went bonkers over that. I remember thinking, what’s the big deal? We are all human. I’m sure we all have “lusted” in our hearts over someone or something. So what? You’d have thought he’d said something catastrophic.

Compare that to the behavior of today’s “christian” nationalists. They lie, cheat, threaten, bully, and promote violence. I don’t know who they think they’re following but it sure isn’t New Testament Jesus. NT Jesus was all about feeding & caring for the poor, sick, and homeless. He was all about protecting children. He was all about inclusion, welcoming and sheltering immigrants. These “christian” nationalists seem to be all about neglect, oppression, suppression, discrimination, and corruption. They cater to the 1% of the population who are very rich and powerful.

Jimmy Carter is one of my heroes.  I am sorry to lose him because there are so few heroes left these days.  I am very proud that my first vote in a presidential race went to Jimmy Carter. I am glad I was at the inauguration and saw Jimmy Carter, hand in hand with Rosalyn, walking down the street to the Capitol instead of riding in a limousine. I never met Jimmy Carter, but I am grateful he’s been a part of my life. God bless Jimmy Carter.

Speaking of how few heroes there are out there, I also wanted to acknowledge Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. I don’t know much about him other than the fact he had such a fun, colorful campaign last year despite suffering a stroke. Recently, he checked himself into Walter Reed Hospital on the advice of his physician. He is suffering from severe depression. He is a hero because of his courage in acknowledging his depression and need for treatment.

Depression is still stigmatizing. I have had low lying depression since my teen years. It used to be called dysthymia but now is called MDD. When I began to seek treatment back in the 1970s, I kept it all secret. There was (still is) a lot of misunderstanding about depression. In those days it seemed to mean “crazy”. I don’t know if anyone remembers Sen. Thomas Eagleton or former Gov. Mike Dukakis but both suffered depressive episodes. And when that became public, their political careers tanked.

When I was working as a unit secretary in the mid-1970s, I’d become friends with my bosses. One of them noticed my upper eyelids drooped. It was a side effect of the anti-depressant I was taking. I took her into my confidence and explained. I’ll never forget the look of horror she gave me. It was like she thought I was contagious. She said, “I don’t want to know about it!”

I didn’t confide in anyone else, not for years. It wasn’t until a psychiatrist explained that it was a biological problem, not a problem of character or behavior. My brain wasn’t producing enough serotonin, dopamine, or epinephrine and so even on my “good days” my mood wouldn’t match those of others whose brains did make enough of those feel-good hormones. I didn’t have to feel ashamed and hide my dark secret.

I am also not alone. There are so many of us with depression. Some are open about it and others are not. There’s still misunderstanding, and a stigma attached to depression.

John Fetterman is a hero because he chose to do what was best for his health and not be secretive about it. By being open about his depression, we can be educated further about what it is, the different types, symptoms, and treatments. People who have depression but are suffering in silence might feel encouraged to seek help.

I can say what untreated depression feels like: imagine being down a deep, dark well with slippery sides. You can get a purchase to try and climb out of the well, but you can look up and see the sun shining. But the sunshine doesn’t bring any light into that dark well. There’s no way out. It’s all hopeless. Self-harm thoughts are intrusive.

I have a cocktail of medications I take to boost all those hormones lacking in my brain. I haven’t been down that well in years. I will have to take these meds forever in order to stay out of the well.

If that ends up being the case for Senator Fetterman, so what? It doesn’t make him weak-willed or lacking in character.  He’s one of the good guys. We should all support him and wish him well. I think he can serve our country well. Good on you, Senator Fetterman!

Jesus Ads and Fusion Politics

Last night, I read an article about Jesus coming to the Super Bowl in commercials saying or showing “He gets us.”  I have very mixed feelings about it.  I’ve seen photos that go with the “He gets us” ads and they do seem to represent New Testament Jesus. That Jesus supported poor and disenfranchised people. People claiming to be christian nationalists and right-wing evangelicals don’t seem to follow NT Jesus’ teachings.

These commercials show a loving Jesus, all-inclusive. He is for feeding and caring for those in need, sheltering the homeless, and protecting the children. That’s my Jesus. So why am I uncomfortable with this?

The ads are placed by a group called The Signatry. However, David Green, a co-founder of Hobby Lobby, came forward and said he was helping pay for the commercials and billboard ads. It set a red flag in my mind. Hobby Lobby petitioned the SupremeCourt because they didn’t want to pay for contraception for women. It violated their christian beliefs that contraception was a form of abortion. They won, and so their female employees can’t get coverage for any usual method of birth control.

Hm, thought I, is that kind of control something Jesus would have endorsed? I don’t think so.

And so, I’m not sure I trust these ads. The Signatry is going big with these ads, and there are more to come. I wonder if it’s on the up-and-up and not some ploy to sucker people into a more sinister christian position that won’t show up until later.

I’ll wait and see.

I’ve been more interested in Rev. William J. Barber II and “fusion” politics. I hadn’t heard of him before and his words intrigued me. I began reading about him. Fusion politics isn’t about red vs. blue, conservatism vs. liberalism. The idea is to bring together the poor, the lower-working white middle class, immigrants, people of color, people of different religions, and the LGBTQ community. Why? Because with all these groups working together, there’s a better chance of putting enough pressure on politicians to get the right things done to serve everyone.

He says christian nationalism promotes a kind of heresy. That’s because of all the cruel and untrue stances those people take. I agree with him on that. Christian nationalists don’t follow New Testament Jesus. Everything they say and do is anti-Christian.

I remember that in Matthew, Jesus confronted the disciples one day about how they’d rejected him. They were all upset at that and asked when? How? And his answer was that he’d come to the door, homeless, and they didn’t take him in. He needed clothes to wear, and they ignored him. He was sick and in prison, and no one came to visit him. Again the disciples were upset and asked when did we do that to you?

Jesus’ answer was any time you did this to anyone else, you did it to me.

That’s what the christian nationals are forgetting. So, when they cut benefits to the needy, make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote, and take away fundamental rights from people, they are doing those things to the Jesus they claim they love.

I like Rev. Barber’s message. I’ve been listening to him via YouTube and reading up more about fusion politics. I am hoping to locate a way to connect with the programs he supports. The next thing I'm doing is reading his book, We Are Called To Be A Movement. I get a hopeful feeling thinking about his message and desire to form a coalition of under-represented people who are suffering from oppression, suppression, or flat-out neglect.

 

It doesn't feel like Black History Month

 

It’s day three of Black History Month but, to be honest, it feels more like Black Suppression Month to me.

Yet another Black man, Tyre Nichols, was on his way home and in his neighborhood when he was pulled over by Memphis policemen. Now why it was necessary to have 5 or 6 cops at a traffic stop is beyond me. Five of the cops were themselves Black and part of a special force called Scorpions, a rather deadly name for those who are supposed to be the “good guys.” And just like so many times before, Nichols ended up dead.

I was surprised that the killer cops were Black. I’m used to killer cops being white. Well, after I read a bit about systemic racism in our society and in the police force, I came to understand that Blacks can be racist against other Blacks too. That comes from a lifelong experience of being made to feel inferior, less human, than whites. Disgusting and sad, but I do understand.

Not more than a day later, Los Angeles police went after a double amputee in a wheelchair. A stabbing victim had accused the man, Anthony Lowe, of assaulting him. When Lowe saw the group of cops coming for him, he got down off his wheelchair and ran as quickly as he could on his two stumps. He was tased repeatedly and then shot in his upper body ten times. The police claim they feared for their lives because they thought he still had his knife. Riiiight, feared for their lives my ass!

Today I was ready about a Black state legislator, Rep. Travis Nelson, in Oregon who was stoppedby white policemen twice in the last couple of days. He says he’s been stopped by police over 40 times since he began driving. He thinks the Oregon police may be biased. I think he’s right.

Just as when George Floyd was murdered in 2020, there have been protests and calls for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to be passed. That act passed the House twice and died in the Senate twice. The reason why it’s not passing is because the Act it would allow families of the victims to sue the killer cops. God forbid, say the Rethuglicans. And so, cops continue to kill Black men at traffic stops or Black women sound asleep in their homes (Like Breonna Taylor) invaded by cops going to the wrong place.

White supremacy reigns supreme and the Rethuglicans in Congress are working overtime to see that it stays that way.

The way to heal this country is for white people to face some ugly truths. First, there was slavery. There was the cruel theft of land and decimation of the Native American population. There was the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans. These are horrendous things and white people don’t want to have to look at or learn about it. Americans refused to help Jewish refugees and many of them perished because we turned them away.

White people seem to think they’re the chosen ones; they’re the ones who must take charge of the inferior “others”. What they don’t recognize is that the Jesus of their faiths was Middle Eastern and not white. They don’t give credit where credit is due to the advanced civilizations of African and Asian countries.  An investigation just uncovered a couple’s agenda to spread Nazi teachings to white children, and they’ve attracted thousands of parents.

If only these small, close-minded people were willing to learn about “others” and accept them as equals.  We are never going to be united at this rate.  Here is what will happen: open-minded people are appalled and tweet and complain and post for a few days. Then they move on to the “next thing” and forget about social/racial injustices until another Black man is killed at a traffic stop. Rinse and repeat.

There was an effort to introduce Advanced Placement African American Studies in Florida high schools. The A/P classes give high school students college credits while they learn from a rigorous program they take when they’re juniors or seniors. What a great idea, I thought. This A/P course was going to cover true history, not the white-washed watered down non-version you get in high school history or social studies.

But wait! “Woke” comes to Florida and dies there. Gov. Death Santis loves to brag about his “Anti-Woke” legislation. Therefore, the A/P course was rejected because it would cover topics that might hurt the feelings of white students. In Florida, we mustn’t have that.  To appease Death Santis and the other Rethuglican legislators, the College Board watered down the A/P class, eliminating topics and the mention of people deemed offensive and too “woke”.

Crickets from the Floridians.

Are they OK with this then? Are they all racist, or are they too scared to speak up? And so, Fascism marches on. One article I read compares Death Santis to the Fascist Benito Mussolini from the WWII era.

Do people read? Do they think? Or is complacency the easy, comfortable way out of confronting the truths of our bad behavior toward “others”? In Germany, people were complacent and forgiving of Hitler’s awful policies because they felt comfortable—they had more money, more food, and more fun things to do. So, what if the Gestapo pushed a few Jews around and broke windows?

Here we go again, this time in the red states of America.

Red states have begun passing legislation to restrict voting rights of minorities. They haven’t come right out and claimed to be reviving Jim Crow laws. They hide behind redistricting and making it harder for people of color to vote.

The tRump leaning Supreme Court can totally turn our voting rights upside down. The Voting Acts Right that President Johnson signed into law almost 60 years ago has already been stripped down. SCOTUS tRumpers have shown that precedent doesn’t matter to them. If they can make it hard for people to vote and impossible for women to decide what to do with their bodies, why wouldn’t they go about dismantling other fundamental rights under the 14^th Amendment?

Justice and the police clamp down hard on “regular” people, including whites and people of color. If any of us had done what tRump and legislators like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, and others had done, we would all be languishing in jail. Not them. They not only continue to walk free, but they’re also still in office. Clearly, law and order doesn’t apply to them.

So, it doesn’t feel much like Black History Month this year. Books are banned. True history is forbidden to be taught. Black men and women are erased from history when their stories need to be told. It’s sickening.

But where is everyone?  I know there are others who feel this way. Where are they? I’d like to find them. I don’t like to feel this way, that I’m in the dark, just talking to myself.

There was a voice and it said something moving and meaninful. It was Dan Rather's Race Matters.