Tag: strength

The Truth To Set You Free

A statue of Thomas Jefferson in front of piles of bricks. Each with the name of a person he owned. ugh.

I was buoyant to be part of the preview crowd at the soon to open Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum, as it slowly grew into it’s stacked corona on the Mall, grew on me. My companions in line said the same thing.

You can read more on the Museum here, here and here. This is not a review, though.

This is some raw thinkings delivered by a museum that riled me raw. After the party.

The party was awesome. There was a DJ and a hype man. Their day jobs are providing security at other Smithsonian properties on the mall. Tonight, they were party starters. They spun tunes-opening with Celebrate by Kool and the Gang which made me all nostalgic for my Sibling’s wedding as her new brother-in-law loosened his tie from his tux and pranced around the dance floor with a bottle of champagne in each hand–and asked the crowd (which was huge given there are just 200 employees and this was a family event, but the more the merrier when you’re celebrating) to hand dance and Wobble.

The dips and finger foods were generous, but the exhibits beckoned. That’s why we were here. I took the elevator down a few stories to a deep cavern which leads visitors through American history via the lens of African Americans. You follow an ascending ramp back up to the main floor. There is much to see and feel and think about as you walk the corridor.

There was part of one wall that told the horror story of families broken up on the auction block. In particular, the  curators related the story of a woman who was being put up for sale who refused to let them take her child. Take her child away from her. Out of her arms. This was her baby.

As she screamed and held the baby dear, she was lashed by a whip. Still, she held on to her sweet child. And, still, she was beaten by the people who were going to sell her. And sell her child. And the bastards wrenched her heart, her precious baby, from her arms. This horror was depicted in an ink drawing.

As I turned away from the canvas, I saw a man. He was a father. His skin was the same shade as the mother in the drawing. The woman who was for sale. He was holding his sweet baby in his arms. I can’t stop thinking about him and his family, and the woman and her family from hundreds of years ago. And thinking about progress and the journey that we are still on as a country and as a people.

My mind is racing and boiling and roiling and recoiling. And thinking. More thinking.

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You’re Not Boss Over Me

Bossed up. Like Diana. Wonder Woman. From an Esty.com ad

The child was prancing at the edge of the waves. I don’t know if she was teasing the ocean, or if the ocean was tricking her.

She was backing away from the water, and I could see the bottom of her swimsuit had white stars on American flag blue. Reminded me of Wonder Woman.

I readjusted my sun hat and pulled the long brim up a bit so I could see better. The suit had a cutaway and the top was red with yellow trim. Was this really a Wonder Woman suit? The girl turned toward me and I saw the definite gold “belt.” I so wanted that suit. Now. In a grown-up size.

I always forget how important Wonder Woman is to me. When Warner Brothers added Wonder Woman to it’s super hero lineup and released the trailer for her film, I watched it about fifteen times that first weekend. Thirty if you count all the times I skipped ahead to see her break a rifle in half, over her back, and deflect heavy artillery shells with her shield. But the best was when the guy said, “I can’t let you do this.” She looked at him somewhat blankly and said, “What I do is not up to you.”

“What I do is not up to you.” I love this. She makes her own calls. She doesn’t care about the guy’s chivalry. She doesn’t thank him for his concern. It’s foreign to her. It does not compute.

She doesn’t apologize for her strength. She protects other super heroes–like both Batman and Superman as they blathered on about their relationship. She is a fully formed person–albeit a badass person.

The girl was about seven. My eyes closely followed her every frolic. She kicked her leg out at the incoming wave. I looked. She waved her little plastic shovel above her head. It was duly noted. She pushed her wet locks away from her face, showering herself with sand. I saw that, too.

I watched this little girl playing next to the big bad ocean. She had no fear. She was alert, but not leery. She displayed her confidence. She didn’t need someone to protect her. She was fine. Wonder Woman in the making. I hope she always remembers that she’s a warrior princess. Oh, and where she parked that invisible plane. It’s impossible to see.

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Framing or Taming Fears

A frightening site. A post coitus demon sitting in a blown out building overlooking the East Side. For those of you who don't know, this is from Ghostbusters.

Why did she do it? Why did she step outside her frilly cravat and black robes for poli-talk. Inappropriate for a sitting Supreme Court Justice. Inappropriate.

First, I know that plenty disagree with me on that last word. But for those of you of the leftward lean, imagine if Justice Scalia had said the same about candidate Obama. There were calls for Justice Alito’s head when he publicly reacted to the President’s State of the Union by reflexively shaking his head no and mouthing, “Not true.” That’s nothing like calling a major party candidate a faker and saying he’ll bring America to ruin. Let’s be intellectually honest here and call the game fairly.

Back to the why. Why did she step so far out? She hasn’t crossed the line this directly into politics before.

Some say it’s because in her eighth decade, she will just say whatever she likes. Others wonder if she is feeling her moniker as The Notorious R.G.B. and was lost in her own importance. Was she careless? It’s hard to think that her remarks were casual, especially because she repeated them before she walked them back and apologized.

I think she was deliberate in her statements. She was in a sit down with the New York Times. It’s as if she sought an opportunity to be on the record. I think it’s because she is afraid. She as much as said so.

I imagine a scenario where she’s feeling that this cycle is very different. That established rules of behavior and decorum of the presidential election process are being flaunted. That even as personal and ugly as elections have become, that there is a new level of debasement. And it is frightening.

I have a hunch that she thinks this is the worst, and most dangerous, election in modern American history. That our democracy, that America, is seriously at risk. I imagine that she felt compelled to do something. She felt remaining silent was an abdication of her oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That, if she could, she must use her influence.

I bet she didn’t map out about the true political ramifications of her comments. She played directly into the narrative that scares her. She immediately became the lighting rod for judicial overreach, for confusing the roles in our Constitution, for the out of touch establishment and as the worst of liberals trying to protect their liberalness. By taking the unprecedented steps of directly commenting on an active election, she likely expected to have an impact. But she wasn’t going to have much impact on her own choir, and she riled up the other team.

Justice Ginsburg is a brave person both on the bench and personally. But she blew this because she played outside of her strength. It’s recklessness borne of a growing alarm.

Writing a note to self: Do not act out of fear. Act from the strength of convictions. Yours, not someone else’s.

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