Tarred With The Same Brush

My mother warred with the school, usually for justifiable reasons,  But there were times... like when my sister didn't want to take a required class or the English teacher who punished my brother for saying "ain't".  A few of my siblings were trouble-makers and the ones who weren't, Mother made up for.

I was the seventh Schmidt to go through that school.  Very few of the faculty saw me as the quiet, scholarly thing I was.  I was a trouble maker from the moment they saw my name on the roll.  One teacher even confronted me the first day of class to tell me as much.  That would have been bad enough, but the class in question was something I was looking forward to.  Eagerly.  Like Christmas. 

Creative Writing.  A subject already near and dear to my heart.  On one assignment, my character was meant to be brutally honest but came across - in the words of a classmate - like "an asshole."  I asked for advice on how to write the character better and the boy responded with something along the lines of "stop being stupid".  She ignored the vulgarity and the verbal abuse.  She had a student, near tears, in her class room and did nothing. 

The "Asshole" incident was only the most egregious example - in that class and in others.  Because I was a Schmidt, I deserved it.  It's on a much smaller scale, I admit, than racism or homophobia or religious prejudice. But the principle is the same. 

I've also been on and off Welfare all my life and been on the receiving end of "Get a job" (usually when I was already employed).  I've had people make snide comments to me because there's no way that lady using Food Stamps is not the mother of those kids that are with her. (I'm The Aunt.) 

I don't get offended at jokes about stereotypes.  I see them as a useful tool against ignorance. I will, however, give you the sharp side of my tongue if you believe those stereotypes.  Most of any given group are good people.  If I defend whites against being tarred by the same brush as the KKK, it is not because I'm white.  I'm just as likely to defend Muslims against the ISIS brush. 

Because no matter who you hit with it, no matter how small it is, that brush bruises souls.

Keyboard Vigilantes

This isn't about Keyboard Warriors - that would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  A good Keyboard Warrior is civil, respectful, and logical.  This is about individuals who think they have the right to censor what other individuals say or do.  Not by reporting the offensive thing to the service provider, but by attacking the speaker and anyone who agrees.

Two pictures have sparked outrage and even gotten me unfriended:  Section Eight Barbie and Welfare Barbie.  Section Eight Barbie was the standard blonde - but pregnant, with two or three toddlers around her, and leaning on the wall of stereotype Project Housing.  The children were not the same race as their implied mother.  Welfare Barbie is also the pregnant blonde, but she's pushing a shopping cart full of beer, cigarettes, and toddlers.  None of these toddlers is the same race as their implied siblings.

While no one said in so many words that I wasn't allowed to share or laugh at them, the implication was there.  We who shared the joke and anyone who didn't respond with moral outrage was a racist snob - never mind the fact that many of us have "dated outside our race" and/or are, ourselves, drawing government benefits. Never mind an established pattern of behavior that showed how non-racist and non-snob we are.

In the case of Section Eight Barbie,  the "racist snob" didn't even notice that the children were of a different race.  She saw someone making fun of the official version of Barbie and shared it with me, her favorite Barbie Girl.

I often share Welfare Barbie myself, usually in response to jackasses who believe the Welfare Stereotype. I see the white mom with three kids - one Asian and one black - as nothing more than visual shorthand for promiscuity.

I'm in a Facebook group about The Walking Dead.  You know, that TV show with zombies being the nicest of the bad guys?  Someone there posted a pun about if Judith (a baby) had been caught by the cannibal bad guys she'd be Baby Back Ribs.  You can probably guess the rest.

So...  here is a list of the things I find offensive.  Polarized politics, Willful Ignorance, Thinking men should be able to read women's minds instead of taking them at their word, Looks taking priority over Heart and Brain, Religious fanaticism.  I do not attack people for these things, particularly if they are obviously mocking them.  But I'm the crazy person.

That Neighbor

We all have one.  That neighbor who we want to kick every time we see them.  The one who constantly complains.  "Someone reported me for a minor issue."  My father was one.  My former roomie was one.  When I got my apartment, I vowed not to be That Neighbor.

I can shrug off the kinds of things they raged over.  The neighbors don't pick up after the dogs?  I just watch my step.  Downstairs beats on the ceiling to shush me but plays their TV awfully loud at three in the morning?  I roll my eyes and move on with my life.  I did yell at kids once for playing in the dumpster area.  Once.  For safety reasons.

The apartment down the hall from me belongs to a heavy smoker.  The smell - not actual smoke - permeates, so I just go the other way.  Use the stairs instead of the elevator.  No big deal.  I think the former occupant of my unit smoked, but lots of home remedies took care of the worst of that smell.

In the spring, butts started appearing in the hallways and  the stairwell is often full of smoke. Someone has even taken down the legally required signs.  Over a week after reporting the situation to management, I replaced the signs (printed a photo of the sign by the elevator) even though it's technically against the rules for me to post signs in the public areas.  My signs also vanished.  

Smoking has always been a major bone of contention for me. Smoking is unhealthy, expensive, and just plain stinks.  I went hungry as a child, but my mother always had her cigarettes.  She died a slow, lingering death.  Cancer - started in the lungs.  I don't allow it inside my home and constantly encourage my smoking friends to quit.

Disrespect is also a bone of contention.  I will defend your right to fly a flag others find offensive, for example.  Accidental disrespect happens all the time.  Blatant disrespect - like flying said flag for the sole intent of offending others - is an entirely different thing.

I'll defend your right to have the unhealthy, expensive, and stinky habit.  Smoking while walking down a hallway is accidental disrespect.  (Some smokers light up and don't even realize it.)  Tearing down a No Smoking sign, however, is blatant disrespect.  Smoking in an enclosed area long enough to fill it with smoke is blatant disrespect.  If the same person does both, which seems logical in this context, I don't even have an adjective handy.

I've called the number on the No Smoking signs. I'm still worried about becoming That Neighbor.  I would much rather pack up and move again than do so, but just thinking about doing that makes me want to cry.  Except for this issue, I'm happy here.  

Someday

Head's up, y'all...  this one's gonna ramble.  Something happened this week that touched a couple of nerves.  Not physical nerves, or literally a couple (you know who you are), but a few figurative ones.  

I blogged in the past about empty buildings and the homeless.  Just a few days before the event in question, I was discussing the same with a nephew.  I mentioned The Bodmer, a historic hotel here in my adopted hometown.  It was built in the 1930s as a hotel.  Beautiful architecture, massive building.  And it's been sitting unused for 30 years.  It's a local landmark.  Well, it was.  Turns out I was wrong when I told the nephew it was structurally sound.  One wall collapsed and took out another empty building next to it, which may have broken a third building (which is in use).  Both empty buildings were uninsured and neglected.  Why own them if you aren't going to take care of them?!  Likely response - "I was gonna fix it up someday."

My mother had a car.  It spent most of my childhood in the back yard, weeds grown up around it.  She did get it barely running from time to time.  But most of my memories of that car involve weeds and wheel-well wasps.  She had intentions of "fixing it up someday".  She eventually lost the house and the car went with it.  I have a few things I want to fix up someday, but I find a use for them and take care of them to the best of my ability in the meantime.  I don't park them in the backyard and let wasps live in them.  I don't let them collapse into Second Street and maybe bust another person's head or property.

I have a little table, for example.  The legs are wrought-iron or look like it.  I've painted them with Rustoleum just in case.  At some point, the glass top broke and my grandmother covered it with shelf liner so she could continue to use it.  Right now the top is a shelf from a broken TV stand - ironic, since I still think of it as Mamma's TV table.  My printer sits on it.

We had a lot of antique furniture when I was a kid, and some of the pieces are still around (I have seven siblings, after all) but far too many of them rotted away as they waited for Someday.  The legs broke off one of them - a huge, heavy buffet table - and I improvised legs for it and still used it. Looked awful, but damage was being minimized and it was still in use.  Eventually, it got "put away" for the proper repairs it would get Someday.  It's gone now.

I always said I'd hike the Appalachian  Trail... Someday.  I didn't stay in shape, I didn't save my pennies for gear, and now I know it's never going to happen.  Even if I come into millions, my poor ole body couldn't take it.  The owners of those buildings and my mother never got their Someday, either, at least in part because of their own lack of forethought.

If you want to do it, and you can't right now, take steps to make it possible if Someday ever comes. Don't let your Bodmer rot away because you can't fix it perfectly right now.  Upkeep, to the best of your ability, will make Someday much easier if it ever comes.

You can't write that!

Over the years, I've gotten grief for writing about characters that are different from me.  The main one has been racial - I have no right to use Cherokee characters because I am not Cherokee.  Never mind my deep respect for all native cultures, the things all humans have in common, and mere fact that I love these fictional people.

Using the same logic...  Stephen King shouldn't write about all manner of supernatural creatures, rabid dogs, or gunslingers.  The Hillerman Navajo Tribal Police books should not exist.  JK Rowling should have never written the Harry Potter series.  Entire genres of fiction should not be - in fact, fiction itself should not be.

A wise man once said a writer should take "write what you know" with the widest possible interpretation.  He also said that every character you create is partly you.  I don't remember if it was from the same wise man, but another good rule is "write what you are passionate about".

My Cherokee character started out in a tertiary role.  I made him Cherokee simply to add some diversity to the setting.  Once he grew on me, I learned as much as I could.  And that was when the grief-givers appeared.  I'm willing to bet those are the same people who complain about all white folks thinking the Cherokee live in teepees.

I've gotten praise from lesbians for my portrayal of a lesbian relationship - and I all I do is write them like any couple. Olivia is surprised when they get invited to Ann's ex-husbands wedding.  Ann thinks Olivia is too frugal.  They don't bicker over the teenager's curfew, but only because it never comes up.  My characters "of color" have never drawn criticism for being inaccurate.  Granted, I'm writing in a modern setting, but still...

I write what I know, what I'm passionate about.  Olivia, despite having a Korean mother and a wife, is probably the most like me.  A large part of Megan is based on my brother-in-law.  I will not apologize for having characters that are not small-town straight white girls.  I will ignore you if my attempts to accurately portray a world in which I never lived are met by contempt.  I will embrace you (maybe even literally) if you help me do it!

Confederate Statues

There's an old saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".  This is one of the reasons I oppose removing statues of Confederate heroes.  How are people supposed to learn from history if  everyone is pretending it never happened?  We should emulate Germany - they start teaching kids young about the Nazis.  It's virtually impossible for that to happen again.

The men being memorialized in these statues do have redeeming qualities, too.  Some of them were military geniuses.  Many of them lost everything for The Cause, misguided as that cause may have been, and some of them were even against slavery.  The old chestnut about the Civil War being about State's Rights does have a basis in reality.  Robert E. Lee was a slaveholder, yes, but he fought on that side because Virginia left the Union.

White Supremacists look up to them for all the wrong reasons, and I understand that this is a problem.  How is tearing down these statues and banning a flag going to stop them?  It isn't.  It's like forbidding your teenager to date someone you disapprove of - it will just make them more determined to do it.  A far better course, in both cases, is patience and respectful communication.  The days when the scientific community believed one race was better than another are gone.  The days when people shrugged off hatred are gone.  Today, a business that refuses service to someone (except troublemakers) is vilified.  White Supremacy is on the way out.

We can learn from history.  We can look up to Lee for reasons that have nothing to do with race relations, or even take into consideration the times in which he lived.  But not if we pretend he never existed.  Not if we insist upon focusing on his faults.

By today's standards, Lincoln was a racist.  Grant owned slaves.  Most of our founding fathers owned slaves, as far as that goes.  Several past presidents, including some scarily recent ones, allowed cultural and physical genocide of indigenous peoples.  Shall we tear down all those monuments?  Ban all their flags?

Leave the statues where they are.  Erasing the past is incredibly dangerous.  Stop ignoring the strengths and contributions of these people.  Don't ignore the faults but look at all sides of the proverbial coin.  And let them rest in peace.  Even the worst of them deserves that.

Owning My Weakness

That meme is going around again.  The one that says people suffering from Depression are not weak. What's so wrong with being weak, anyway?  The thin crust of ice that forms on a puddle is weak, but it is beautiful.  Everyone has a weakness.  We can all learn to work with our weakness, to compensate for our weakness.  It's rather like an architect putting arches in to strengthen a cathedral ceiling.  Which is - what's the word - oh, yeah, beautiful.

We don't see memes that say "people with diabetes are not weak".  Why is Depression any different?  I think it's because of ignorance.  The old chestnut about every one gets depressed - OK, next time you catch a cold, just put on more clothes.  Everyone gets cold.  Mental illness cannot be willed away any more than physical illness can.  Who would claim that a chronic physical illness is something we fake for attention?

My specific diagnosis is Dysthymia - a Depressive disorder.  One of the problems caused by this weakness is poor memory.  I've learned to write things down and to use mnemonics.   I'm too weak emotionally to have a healthy romantic relationship, so I don't date.  I accept my weakness, I built around it, and focus on my strengths.

Most mental illness is caused by a combination of brain chemistry and past events.  I'm not going to get into the details of my own case.  It is sufficient to say it runs in my family and it doesn't just manifest as Depression.  A lot of mental illnesses share symptoms with, or are diagnosed right alongside, Depression.  Sometimes Depression is a symptom.

You cannot understand a person's illness unless you have suffered from it yourself - and even then, there is a limit to how much you can understand.  I've known lots of addicts and cancer patients. I've known other Dysthymics. But I can only identify with them for part of the struggle because it's different for everyone.

Speaking as a person with Depression...  Yes, I am weak.  But I own it.