My Friend, My Protector

One night when I was about 19 or so, I was hanging out at this bar/restaurant in town. The drinking age was 21, but because my father was the chef there, I was allowed to hang out. Plus, I didn’t really try to sneak a drink and the owners were cool.

An older black man that I didn’t know said something to me that was off the wall and I just looked at him like he was crazy. He took my lack of comment as approval and kept talking to me. I was quite uncomfortable with his sexual innuendoes and not really sure how to get him to shut up without being totally disrespectful.

A big blonde biker looking man was sitting at the table nearby and correctly assessed the situation and leaned over and told the guy to back off. I had seen that guy before; he came to the place often and nodded at me with a grin as he passed by.

The man got totally offended that a white guy would tell him to leave me alone and went into this whole tirade about how he was going to kick his butt. I was wondering if he had really gotten a good look at this guy because he was no pushover.

He was big and broad and looked strong as all get out not to mention he was wearing black leather and a no-nonsense look on his face.

They went back and forth and finally the black man said let’s take this outside. The biker gladly got up and so did I and we went to see what was going to happen.

It was over before it started. It was one of those two-hit fights you hear so much about – the white guy hit him and he hit the ground. And he lay there a while.

We went back downstairs laughing and my Dad asked what had happened and we told him. He told the biker, Jerry, my Dad called him, thanks and bought him a beer.

And so I met Jerry Whitman – known to many as “Animal.”

So Jerry and I became friends. I think we knew instantly there was no sexual chemistry or any of that. Hell, he was married and I was still innocent and kind of childish. That didn’t last long!

One night I let him convince me to go to a party in Wataga with him. I didn’t go out there much – it was just a lot of white farmers and they weren’t always cool to black folks but he insisted I would be all right. So I got in the sidecar of his bike and went with him.

Apparently Jerry told his friends to spike my Pepsi and anything else I was drinking. I was staggering about and being silly and he and his friends were laughing like mad. I don’t remember hardly anything except when he was taking me home and I said I wanted some tacos from the Hideout.

Somehow we made it there and I got my tacos and when we got to my house, it took me a while to get out of the sidecar. I was drunk beyond belief.

My parents heard the bike and my Dad came to the door, turning on the front porch light. By then I had fallen out of the sidecar and was lying face down in the grass, still clutching my bag of tacos and my purse. Jerry figured my Dad wouldn’t like that much and he took off and left me like that.

Yeah, I had some choice words for him the next time I saw him! And my Dad was winding up to rip him one when another patron of the bar had decided he needed to take my virginity and was squeezing my butt and thighs, not realizing that my father was not far away.

Jerry being the good citizen he was, told the dude that I was indeed a virgin but that he should tread light if trying to hit on me. The man then detailed to Jerry exactly what his plans were which Jerry helpfully repeated to my father.

Dad came out of the kitchen with a large knife and snatched up the poor guy and threatened to cut him up in dozens of tiny pieces. The guy was scared out of his mind and took off.

I looked back and saw Jerry sitting in a booth with the beers my Dad had bought him just grinning like a Cheshire cat.

I knew then what my friend was really like. And I loved it.

Jerry took me to biker parties and I took him to the black bars, called “The Clubs.” People were always doing double takes when they saw us.

Who expected to see a big muscle bound blonde biker with a little black chick dressed in spandex and heels together?

I got to know some of Jerry’s family. His sister was married to a guy I had known since high school and her laughter was like magic to me.

To this day, I love to see Marilyn laugh. She radiates an inner beauty that most people only dream of. She and I became fast friends. I love her madly.

He had another brother that I knew from the bars but he and I were never close like Jerry and I were. And of all people, his father was one of my biggest fans.

My father liked Jerry but he had known him before I did. They had been drinking buddies and Jerry had been asking him for recipes and such. I don’t think Dad thought about us being friends but as long as that is all we were, he was ok with it.

Mama was a bit nervous about it but Jerry had dinner with us one night and declared her food to be sent from Heaven and he gave her one of his famous bear hugs and kissed her cheek and that was that. She would often ask me where my friend Jerry was and when he was coming over again.

Now we grew up in a town that liked to say it was tolerant about race but it was just a story for them. While we all lived close together and went to school together, there was still a generous dose of classism/racism going on.

Galesburg had been a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1800’s and there were stories about how they had helped slaves escape to freedom but those days were long gone.

Our swimming areas were still segregated and there were some restaurants and bars where people of color were not welcome. (That never stopped Jerry. He took me to several of them daring anyone to say a word.)

It was obvious that many people there thought they were superior to black people and, I might add, a biker from Wataga too.

I was at a bar one night with a couple of friends when a truck driver came in and was giving us looks. He was a white guy, big and country and he didn’t like to see so much “race mixing” going on.

Jerry had come in too and he was standing not far from the guy who was at the bar.

Finally, the man leaned over to the bartender and said something like there are too many niggers in here. Why do you let them hang out in here?

The bartender was flustered and asked him what drink he wanted and he said he didn’t want a drink, he wanted all the niggers gone. Jerry turned to him and said, “Maybe you need to leave.”

“Why should I leave? I’m a white man. I can go where I want to.”

“People here get along. We don’t need trouble from assholes like you. I think you need to leave.”

The redneck bristled up and stood up, glaring at Jerry, “What are you fucking one of nigger girls? You can’t tell me what to do…..”

And then Jerry stood up and said, “I’m going to tell you one more time to get out of here and then I’m going to kick your ass. You can’t come in here insulting my friends.”

The two glared at each other a long moment when the trucker realized that Jerry had about 4 other bikers with him and they were all standing at attention ready to spring into action if Jerry said the word.

Not only that, but all the black men around were also glaring at him and he realized that he was about to get the ass whipping of his life. The bartender repeated that he had to go or he was going to call the cops.

He paid for his drink and left and the party went on.

Later one of the black guys said to Jerry, “Just one time will you let us kick the redneck’s butt? You always get at them first!”

Jerry laughed, “Next time we take them together, ok?” And they agreed and laughed.

We both had our friends and we went separate ways, but we always managed to hang out together. I will not ruin both our reputations by telling you all the things we did together. Suffice it to say we had lots of fun.

We were always laughing. We used to just give each other the side eye and we would both would fall out.

We would drink shots together and he would egg me on to drink more knowing I had no tolerance and that I would get drunk. And then he would laugh and tell me what I had done the next time he saw me.

One night we were at a bar and an older woman had decided that she wanted to take Jerry home. He was not into it but she wasn’t giving up..She kept brushing up close to him and grinning up at him and he was really embarrassed but kept trying to let her down nicely. She tried to drag him to the dance floor and she was simply relentless. I was laughing and he was threatening to throw me out the window but it was too funny.

Finally, he said he had to go to the bathroom and he managed to escape. I teased him about that one for years.

But out of all the people I knew, Jerry was one who would not tolerate any kind of slight be it racist, sexist or what. He insisted that we all be treated with respect and while I knew his friends all thought I was his side chick, they were always friendly and nice to me.

I found out later that the way he kept them all from trying to hit on me was by telling them that I was indeed his mistress and they dared not approach me. I had to laugh when I realized that.

There were other times that some drunk guys said something off color to me or referred to me as a coon or something like that. He didn’t try to reason with them or tell me to ignore them. He got right up in their faces and insisted that they shut up and/or apologize or get handled. Nobody wanted him to handle them and usually left right away. I especially liked it when he made them apologize to me.

I always felt safe around him even though I knew that Devil was not beyond pulling some prank on me. We agreed early in our friendship not to do that as I have never been good with practical jokes but he managed to get me a few times and we laughed as we always did.

But we were the Odd Couple who remained just good friends. I left for a while and went to college but when I came home, I usually ran into him and we took up where we left off.

He told me that it had been fun watching me grow up and that I had become one hell of a woman. He said he was proud of me for going to school later in life.

We talked about lots of things and he would warn me about some of the guys I was talking to.

I remember once I was talking to a guy and he seemed to be more nervous than anything. I didn’t think trying to take me home was that big a deal but  the guy was flushed and red faced and stammering and finally took off like the Hounds of Hell were after him.

It was only after I turned around that I realized they kind of were. I saw Jerry standing there, trying to look innocent that I realized what was going on. He didn’t like the guy and wasn’t going to allow him to hit on me.

I didn’t think about how special our relationship was until after he was gone. I remember the day someone told me in passing that they thought my friend the biker had died. I called his sister who confirmed the story. He was gone.

I was crushed. She and I cried together but then she called and said I should attend the funeral with the family and then his friends wanted us to come have join them. It was at a place out in the country with his friends.

I had never been any place like that without Jerry and I was nervous but Mr. Whitman said I shouldn’t worry. So I went.

We all walked in together and Mr. Whitman put his arm around me as if to say, “she’s a part of us,” and it seemed everyone stood down and it was cool.

Jerry’s wife and I had always gotten along and as we were talking, one guy muttered, “How lucky was Animal to have his wife and his woman get along like that?”

She and I just laughed.

But the funny part was one guy said “Well, now Animal is dead so one of us should get to have you.”

Mr. Whitman bristled up and said, “Jerry left her to me!”

I tried hard to keep a straight face but to no avail. We all burst out laughing, knowing it was just what Jerry would have wanted.

I miss my friend. I miss the man who never allowed anyone to denigrate or insult me. I miss the man whose sense of fairness was almost as big as his heart.

I miss his laughter and his devilish ways. I miss seeing that cap with the flaps hanging as he walked away, waving and smiling.

“Stay out of trouble,” he used to say.

“You too,” I would tell him.

He would laugh and say, “Why? That’s no fun.”

I was lucky to have the friendship and trust of that man. I just never thought about what a gift it was till later. But I will never forget him.

Not My President, Not My America

The first couple of days, I was stunned. I was hurt and I was disgusted. I totally underestimated the true amount of racism and misogyny present in the hearts of Americans and I had thought that somehow this candidate would not be elected.

I saw the amount of hate and vitriol aimed at the liberal candidate and I could not envision that that many people had been swayed and actually believed all the lies that had been perpetrated against her. I thought people were smarter than that but one by one, they showed me that they weren’t.

Now I’m just angry. If I read one more post saying they won’t unfriend someone on Facebook because of how they voted; one more saying we should now all accept the results quietly and get along; one more saying how disappointed they are that people are protesting I just might scream.

What kind of sanctimonious hypocritical mealy-mouthed unrealistic foolishness is this?? Do you really understand why people like me are so angry and hurt?

Let’s analyze this.

This candidate ran on a platform of racism, misogyny, xenophobia – oh, yes the big words. Let’s say it like he would – this campaign was based on hate and anger and fear.

He saw that most white people are racist at the root despite what they may say and think and he played on that. Did you ever look at any of those recordings of his rallies where his supporters were openly calling people nigger, were assaulting people of color and advocating for a race war? Were you disappointed then? Did you speak up?

I didn’t think so.

You want a wall, don’t you? You want Muslim people deported and banned. You want immigrants to leave our shores.  Let’s clarify – just the immigrants who aren’t white. The rest can stay, right? Uh huh.

You hate Mexicans and want them to leave – even if it means splitting up their families.

You don’t care that black people are being killed in record numbers by nervous cops who should never have been given a gun in the first place. It didn’t matter when the CIA said that there were lots of white supremacists joining police departments all over the country and warned that it would be a problem. It didn’t matter to you that they wanted the right to beat and shoot us on sight, for no good reason except that they could. You didn't understand that Officer Bob was your friend and not ours. He was afraid of us and killed us in his fear. But you sympathized with him, gave him a paid vacation and vilified us as habitual lawbreakers and criminals. Thugs, you called us. You ignored our fear and our protests. 

No, you wanted us to obey at all times and not run from them even though we were terrified.  

All the years we tried to tell you that we were suffering from racism, you responded with amazement.

“Now? In 2016? How is this still happening?”

You tried to tell us it was our imagination, that we were being too sensitive, that we overreacted….basically that it was all our fault. You tried to explain that he was basically a good guy and that racist joke he told was all in fun.

You didn’t believe us.

You were all up in your feelings about abortion and morality and couldn’t support her. While you are damning a woman’s right to choose, did you do anything to help a woman in distress about pregnancy? Did you help a poor family struggling? Did you adopt any of the thousands of unwanted children in foster care? Did you even donate a dime to help foster children?

No. You supported laws that denied families in distress funding from the government. You didn’t want them to get assistance or food stamps or WIC to support that baby your beliefs demanded she have even when she knew she couldn’t support that child.

You knew she couldn’t afford childcare but you didn’t care. You didn’t think she deserved a dime. You didn’t want to help her. You didn’t even want her to have a living wage after she got the job you insisted she get.

Did you care about the millions of families living in poverty? No.

You’re ok, right?

Hypocrites.

You believed all the lies about the one candidate who wanted to help women and poor families. She fought for 30 years to help all the while facing the most onerous hatred anyone has ever had to deal with. She didn’t quit. She stood tall and took it. You hated her while turning a blind eye to the truths about him.

You thought your whiteness should have given you the keys to the kingdom and when the economy tanked you blamed us. Did you stop and think that the guy who owned the company where you worked was the one to blame?

He decided that you weren’t worth the salary he was paying you and realized he could cut corners if he moved to another country where he could pay his employees a fraction of what he paid you.

Were you mad at him?

What about the one who saw a chance to make even more money if he created a company helping American companies move to other countries, cutting their costs and helping them to make more money for the CEO’s.

No, you weren’t mad at him. You elected him governor of Illinois.

You blamed brown people for your loss of jobs. You blamed affirmative action. You didn’t understand that we all deserve a piece of that pie. You didn’t care. You saw every advance by a person of color as taking something from you and your hate simmered. We all wanted the same thing – a decent living for us and our families but you demonized us to make you feel better for your bitter feelings towards us.

Now you want us to give him the respect you denied the past administration. Leaders of the Republican party stood together the night President Obama was elected and conspired to ensure he only had one term and that they were going to obstruct everything he tried to do. They shut the government down. Where was your outrage then?

If you had so much respect for the country and how it works, you should have been enraged. You should have wanted those folks gone.

No. You voted them in office again so they could keep obstructing.

Were you outraged at the disrespect he got in office? Did you cringe when he was called a liar during the State of the Union address or did you silently applaud the classless moron who did it? You know you wished you were that brave, didn’t you? Admit it.

And when all this birther nonsense came up, were you incensed that someone would do this to the President? You know you weren’t. You started to wonder yourself, didn’t you?

You know you passed some of those memes and insults against him and his family in your email and probably posted a few on Facebook. You laughed. You thought it was funny and when there was pushback, you cried out, it was just a joke!

We were being too sensitive. Again.

Now that you have elected a racist, misogynist, proven liar with no experience and with barely a 5^th grade vocabulary to office, you want us to treat him with respect and dignity. The same respect and dignity you denied President Obama for 8 years.

You see, it isn’t that we hate him so much though most of us do. It’s that you elected him knowing how he was and you shared his feelings. He speaks his mind, you said. He said what you didn’t have the nerve to say is what you meant.

There were several incidents of white people emboldened by his hateful rhetoric who thought they could walk right up to us and insult and attack us. They said that if he was elected they could get rid of us. They threatened us if he didn’t win. They walked around with guns trying to intimidate us. Did you care? You probably didn’t even see the videos.

“I don’t like stuff like that! It’s probably staged!” you said as you hurriedly passed by it.

You wished the black people you knew were not so focused on race and that we could all just laugh together at the videos of what your cats were doing. This other stuff just bothered you and you didn’t want to deal with it.

You didn’t have to.

We do. It’s part of our reality.

You thought our protests against police brutality were wrong and that we should be grateful we were allowed to live and work here in this country that hated us so much that they passed laws to make sure we couldn’t live where we wanted, work where we wanted, love who we wanted and do what we wanted.

Oh, you fussed, that was a long time ago! It’s not like that anymore. Things have changed.

Yes, there has been some movement but not enough and this is true for women as well as people of color. We remain woefully backwards in those areas.

We are angry. We are hurt. We are disappointed. You elected a man who stands for everything we don’t.

What about the peaceful Muslims who live here? My brother is a Muslim and he lives in the South. I fear for him every day.

What about the gay people who only want to live in peace together as a family?

What about the poor families who struggle to survive on a minimum wage job?

What about the senior citizens who have to live on the pittance of Social Security each month?

What about the hungry families?

What about people who are homeless because there is practically no affordable housing? How is a family living on $7 a hour supposed to pay the skyrocketing rents these days?

The gentrification that is driving poor people from their homes so that rich white people can build luxury apartments with their Starbucks and Trader Joe’s next door?

What about the gutting of the Civil Rights Act that allowed gerrymandering and closing of driver license offices so that people of color would have a harder time getting the identification so that they could vote? Or the polling places closed so that it would be harder for them to even get to vote?

All these things are what we are concerned about and this new president doesn’t give a damn about. And what hurts is that all you that voted for him apparently don’t care either. Your vote for him was an affirmation of his policies and let us all know where you stand with us.

Some of you want to act shocked that we feel this way. You don’t want to hear this. You want us to be submissive and not speak of our pain and hurt.

Our grandparents had to do that. They feared lynching and loss of their livelihood and more if they spoke up. We don’t fear that. We are tired of being gracious and forgiving. We are going to give this man the same respect you gave President Obama. You just have to deal with it.

You don’t want to lose friends? You have. And unless you understood the things your black and brown and gay friends feared, you weren’t really their friends anyway.

You want us to give him a chance? When he already let us know what he thinks of us and what he wants to do?

They are already salivating at finally being able to dismantle a law that granted insurance to millions of people. Without it, people will die. I’ll say that again:

PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Do you care? No. You just didn’t want a penny of your money helping someone less fortunate.

And you wonder why we are angry.

We will not lie down and take it anymore. This is the America you voted for. You wanted a change – now you have it.

Enjoy it!

Not My President, Not My America

The first couple of days, I was stunned. I was hurt and I was disgusted. I totally underestimated the true amount of racism and misogyny present in the hearts of Americans and I had thought that somehow this candidate would not be elected.

I saw the amount of hate and vitriol aimed at the liberal candidate and I could not envision that that many people had been swayed and actually believed all the lies that had been perpetrated against her. I thought people were smarter than that but one by one, they showed me that they weren’t.

Now I’m just angry. If I read one more post saying they won’t unfriend someone on Facebook because of how they voted; one more saying we should now all accept the results quietly and get along; one more saying how disappointed they are that people are protesting I just might scream.

What kind of sanctimonious hypocritical mealy-mouthed unrealistic foolishness is this?? Do you really understand why people like me are so angry and hurt?

Let’s analyze this.

This candidate ran on a platform of racism, misogyny, xenophobia – oh, yes the big words. Let’s say it like he would – this campaign was based on hate and anger and fear.

He saw that most white people are racist at the root despite what they may say and think and he played on that. Did you ever look at any of those recordings of his rallies where his supporters were openly calling people nigger, were assaulting people of color and advocating for a race war? Were you disappointed then? Did you speak up?

I didn’t think so.

You want a wall, don’t you? You want Muslim people deported and banned. You want immigrants to leave our shores.  Let’s clarify – just the immigrants who aren’t white. The rest can stay, right? Uh huh.

You hate Mexicans and want them to leave – even if it means splitting up their families.

You don’t care that black people are being killed in record numbers by nervous cops who should never have been given a gun in the first place. It didn’t matter when the CIA said that there were lots of white supremacists joining police departments all over the country and warned that it would be a problem. It didn’t matter to you that they wanted the right to beat and shoot us on sight, for no good reason except that they could. You didn't understand that Officer Bob was your friend and not ours. He was afraid of us and killed us in his fear. But you sympathized with him, gave him a paid vacation and vilified us as habitual lawbreakers and criminals. Thugs, you called us. You ignored our fear and our protests. 

No, you wanted us to obey at all times and not run from them even though we were terrified.  

All the years we tried to tell you that we were suffering from racism, you responded with amazement.

“Now? In 2016? How is this still happening?”

You tried to tell us it was our imagination, that we were being too sensitive, that we overreacted….basically that it was all our fault. You tried to explain that he was basically a good guy and that racist joke he told was all in fun.

You didn’t believe us.

You were all up in your feelings about abortion and morality and couldn’t support her. While you are damning a woman’s right to choose, did you do anything to help a woman in distress about pregnancy? Did you help a poor family struggling? Did you adopt any of the thousands of unwanted children in foster care? Did you even donate a dime to help foster children?

No. You supported laws that denied families in distress funding from the government. You didn’t want them to get assistance or food stamps or WIC to support that baby your beliefs demanded she have even when she knew she couldn’t support that child.

You knew she couldn’t afford childcare but you didn’t care. You didn’t think she deserved a dime. You didn’t want to help her. You didn’t even want her to have a living wage after she got the job you insisted she get.

Did you care about the millions of families living in poverty? No.

You’re ok, right?

Hypocrites.

You believed all the lies about the one candidate who wanted to help women and poor families. She fought for 30 years to help all the while facing the most onerous hatred anyone has ever had to deal with. She didn’t quit. She stood tall and took it. You hated her while turning a blind eye to the truths about him.

You thought your whiteness should have given you the keys to the kingdom and when the economy tanked you blamed us. Did you stop and think that the guy who owned the company where you worked was the one to blame?

He decided that you weren’t worth the salary he was paying you and realized he could cut corners if he moved to another country where he could pay his employees a fraction of what he paid you.

Were you mad at him?

What about the one who saw a chance to make even more money if he created a company helping American companies move to other countries, cutting their costs and helping them to make more money for the CEO’s.

No, you weren’t mad at him. You elected him governor of Illinois.

You blamed brown people for your loss of jobs. You blamed affirmative action. You didn’t understand that we all deserve a piece of that pie. You didn’t care. You saw every advance by a person of color as taking something from you and your hate simmered. We all wanted the same thing – a decent living for us and our families but you demonized us to make you feel better for your bitter feelings towards us.

Now you want us to give him the respect you denied the past administration. Leaders of the Republican party stood together the night President Obama was elected and conspired to ensure he only had one term and that they were going to obstruct everything he tried to do. They shut the government down. Where was your outrage then?

If you had so much respect for the country and how it works, you should have been enraged. You should have wanted those folks gone.

No. You voted them in office again so they could keep obstructing.

Were you outraged at the disrespect he got in office? Did you cringe when he was called a liar during the State of the Union address or did you silently applaud the classless moron who did it? You know you wished you were that brave, didn’t you? Admit it.

And when all this birther nonsense came up, were you incensed that someone would do this to the President? You know you weren’t. You started to wonder yourself, didn’t you?

You know you passed some of those memes and insults against him and his family in your email and probably posted a few on Facebook. You laughed. You thought it was funny and when there was pushback, you cried out, it was just a joke!

We were being too sensitive. Again.

Now that you have elected a racist, misogynist, proven liar with no experience and with barely a 5^th grade vocabulary to office, you want us to treat him with respect and dignity. The same respect and dignity you denied President Obama for 8 years.

You see, it isn’t that we hate him so much though most of us do. It’s that you elected him knowing how he was and you shared his feelings. He speaks his mind, you said. He said what you didn’t have the nerve to say is what you meant.

There were several incidents of white people emboldened by his hateful rhetoric who thought they could walk right up to us and insult and attack us. They said that if he was elected they could get rid of us. They threatened us if he didn’t win. They walked around with guns trying to intimidate us. Did you care? You probably didn’t even see the videos.

“I don’t like stuff like that! It’s probably staged!” you said as you hurriedly passed by it.

You wished the black people you knew were not so focused on race and that we could all just laugh together at the videos of what your cats were doing. This other stuff just bothered you and you didn’t want to deal with it.

You didn’t have to.

We do. It’s part of our reality.

You thought our protests against police brutality were wrong and that we should be grateful we were allowed to live and work here in this country that hated us so much that they passed laws to make sure we couldn’t live where we wanted, work where we wanted, love who we wanted and do what we wanted.

Oh, you fussed, that was a long time ago! It’s not like that anymore. Things have changed.

Yes, there has been some movement but not enough and this is true for women as well as people of color. We remain woefully backwards in those areas.

We are angry. We are hurt. We are disappointed. You elected a man who stands for everything we don’t.

What about the peaceful Muslims who live here? My brother is a Muslim and he lives in the South. I fear for him every day.

What about the gay people who only want to live in peace together as a family?

What about the poor families who struggle to survive on a minimum wage job?

What about the senior citizens who have to live on the pittance of Social Security each month?

What about the hungry families?

What about people who are homeless because there is practically no affordable housing? How is a family living on $7 a hour supposed to pay the skyrocketing rents these days?

The gentrification that is driving poor people from their homes so that rich white people can build luxury apartments with their Starbucks and Trader Joe’s next door?

What about the gutting of the Civil Rights Act that allowed gerrymandering and closing of driver license offices so that people of color would have a harder time getting the identification so that they could vote? Or the polling places closed so that it would be harder for them to even get to vote?

All these things are what we are concerned about and this new president doesn’t give a damn about. And what hurts is that all you that voted for him apparently don’t care either. Your vote for him was an affirmation of his policies and let us all know where you stand with us.

Some of you want to act shocked that we feel this way. You don’t want to hear this. You want us to be submissive and not speak of our pain and hurt.

Our grandparents had to do that. They feared lynching and loss of their livelihood and more if they spoke up. We don’t fear that. We are tired of being gracious and forgiving. We are going to give this man the same respect you gave President Obama. You just have to deal with it.

You don’t want to lose friends? You have. And unless you understood the things your black and brown and gay friends feared, you weren’t really their friends anyway.

You want us to give him a chance? When he already let us know what he thinks of us and what he wants to do?

They are already salivating at finally being able to dismantle a law that granted insurance to millions of people. Without it, people will die. I’ll say that again:

PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Do you care? No. You just didn’t want a penny of your money helping someone less fortunate.

And you wonder why we are angry.

We will not lie down and take it anymore. This is the America you voted for. You wanted a change – now you have it.

Enjoy it!

When I Grow Up

When I was a little girl, I used to lie in bed at night and wonder about a lot of things. I was one of those kids who daydreamed a lot. I thought a lot. I was trying to figure a lot of things out and one of those things was about race. So much didn’t make sense to me. 

I was a child during the Civil Rights struggles. I remember seeing those “White Only” and “Colored” signs. My grandparents lived in the South so I often had to travel down there to visit family. I loved it. The South, that is. I loved the weather and it was so beautiful down there. My family lived in Florida so I got the best of it, I thought.

I’ve lived in the South for a lot of my adult life and I still love it.

We took the bus sometimes, which was a lot of fun for a child.  It was a great trip from Illinois to Florida. There were a couple of times that weren’t fun though.

Once a racist bus driver made my Mom get off a bus in Ohio because she only had a bus ticket for herself, me and one of my brothers.

My other brother was only about 3 and he sat in our laps or in a seat if one was empty. They had told her in Chicago that she didn’t need one for him so she hadn’t bought one. He not only put us off the bus but he told the other driver for the bus we were going to transfer to that he shouldn’t let us on the bus.  She was trying to cheat Greyhound and it was up to him to make it right.

Actually, it was something meaner and nastier, but you get the drift.

So my poor Mom had to call someone back home and get them to wire her money for a ticket and we had to sit in Ohio for hours waiting for it to happen.

And then there was the time in Daytona Beach that my Mom and Aunt Bootsie got off the bus to get us some food.  They had to go to the “Colored” window to order it and could not sit in the restaurant like the white folks. They didn’t want us kids to have to deal with it so they left us on the bus and subjected themselves to the hatefulness they had left the South trying to avoid.

While they were getting the food, a white couple came and sat in our seats. When they asked them to move, they declared they didn’t have to. They were white and they could sit where they wanted. 

Wrong answer.

Mom and Bootsie were not the ones.

And, in fact, neither were the other white riders on the bus who all went after the two old rednecks.  When the bus driver came back, there was all kinds of yelling and cursing going on and when he realized what was what, he told the couple they had to get off the bus.  My family had been in those seats since Chicago and they couldn’t just sit where they wanted.

They called him a nigger lover among other things and wouldn’t get off the bus even though they had moved, so he called the police who came and told the couple they had to go. I recall that they didn’t threaten to arrest them, just told them to get off the bus, which they did.

I later wondered if it had been a black couple sitting where a white couple had been, if they would have been so nice about it. 

Other trips were on the train and in the car. I loved the car trips. I vaguely remember the ones when we couldn’t use the restrooms in the gas stations in the South where we bought gas.  Or we couldn’t eat in the restaurant we had seen billboards for because they didn’t serve black folks. On those trips, Mom cooked lots of food and we had coolers with stuff to drink and that big potty in the trunk so we could squat on the side of the road if we had to. Yeah. Fun, right?

But most trips we were able to go to restaurants and use bathrooms even if we got dirty looks.

But I remember seeing people getting hosed and beaten by cops and seeing them sic dogs on kids like me. I remember hearing that Dr. King had been assaulted in Chicago for protesting. I saw all this on television as I watched with my parents. I can’t even imagine how they must have felt.

I still think about the hate I saw on the faces of the people in Little Rock and Boston who didn’t want their children to go to school with children like me.

And I remember Selma and the March on Washington.

I cried a lot when I saw things like that. I didn’t understand.

Why did people hate people like me because of our skin? Why was that such a lightning rod? Why was it so bad?

It didn’t make any sense to me. It wasn’t like we were given a choice. We just grew up and one day somebody called us a nigger and we didn’t really know what that meant so we asked our parents.

They got that look, that crestfallen, pained look that meant they were going to have to explain all this to us so that we would be prepared to deal with it the rest of our lives.

They had to tell us that we couldn’t expect to do a lot of things or go to a lot of places and that many people just hated us. That word was something bad that they used for us and we would hear it all of our lives.

So we had to grow up knowing we could never trust everyone.  Some people just wanted to hurt us and we had to learn to avoid them. And I have to say that the police were some of those that we could not trust. I know that’s tough for white folks to understand but it’s true.

Ask any black man about his interactions with the police even if he is a fine upstanding citizen. He’s still suffered at the hands of an overzealous and often racist cop. They are NOT always the good guys.

My parents didn’t want us to grow up in a segregated area like they did.  They didn’t want us to be humiliated and despised like they had been so they moved up North so we wouldn’t have to face it. They thought we would have a better life living up North.

When it happened up North you could see how hurt they were. They didn’t want us to grow up in that kind of hate. They had wanted us to live in a better world.

They didn’t know that place only existed in Star Trek. I didn’t either till later on.

But when I lay in bed pondering all these things, I consoled myself by thinking things would get better with the passage of time. People would see that we weren’t bad or deserving of the hate and that we would all kind of get together and fight the hate and have a good life.

I had white friends and black friends and I thought we would all just have fun together. But some of my white friends said they had friends who didn’t like black people. Not many, but a few. And I had black friends who asked me why I had white friends. How could I hang out with crackers. Didn’t I know they hated us?

Wow.

I knew some of my white friends’ parents didn’t like them being friends with black kids. You know when you can’t go to their house but they came to yours. Or when their parents look at you like you grew a third eye when they saw you.

There were lots of little things and I still wondered about them as I grew up. It still didn’t make any sense to me. I knew we were all more like than a lot of people even thought about. I knew I wanted the same things they did. Why did they dislike me for that?

It just seemed so crazy to me. I wanted people to get along and learn to love each other. I knew that if we spent time together we learned that we were pretty much the same and that things could just be cool. I tried hard most of my life to get people to see that. But I had faith in the future and I really believed it would be better.

Now that I am older and wiser, I still lie in bed and wonder the same damn things. Instead of getting better, t seems to have gotten worse. Every day I go online to read numerous stories about people who confront people and call them names because they are different from them. They don’t want to live with them, go to school with them, go to church with them, party with them, date or marry them.

They hate people for being black.

For being Hispanic.

For being Asian.

For being gay.

For being bisexual.

For being transsexual.

For being a Muslim.

For not being Christian.

For being open minded.

For not being open minded.

For being Jewish.

You get the drift.

WHY???   WHY???  Why people???

Why are we still nursing all these hate?

Maybe we haven’t grown up yet. Maybe we never will. I don’t know.  I just know we only have 200 or so more years till Star Trek so we have work to do if we are going to have that brave and beautiful future like Gene Roddenberry saw for us all. We’ve fallen behind.

Way behind.

I don’t have the answers. I wish I did.

I just know I almost get sick these days reading all those articles about so much hate. I read what people post online and I want to weep. I don’t do it much anymore because it is just too painful for me.

I still want to hope. It’s getting harder but I want to believe that things will get better.

Somehow.

Somewhere.

Someday.

The World Without Prince

I didn’t think this day would come. He’s younger than me and he has always lived clean and healthy and full of his faith. I figured he’d be around singing those songs with a devilish smile and still making us feel kinda raunchy no matter how old we all were. He was like that.

I guess I took it for granted that he would be there. I thought I’d be 70 years old still going to Prince concerts even if they were small affairs in clubs. You know, the unhooked kind. I was all right with that. I was all right with almost everything Prince did.

You know, I feel sorry for people who just don’t seem to love or feel music the way I do. I am aghast at these folks who ask why we mourn these musicians so deeply. We didn’t know them, after all, they say. They are just musicians. I just shake my head.

Creative people make the world we live in just that much more tolerable. 

We need to look at the architecture to see where we have come from. I mean we lived in huts and caves in the beginning and now look what we have? Look at the bridges and buildings and be amazed at what we have been able to do to make our planet that much more livable.

Art has brought us more magic than we ever dreamed. We have beautiful soul stirring paintings and sculptures and drawings that we cherish and love through the years. Just go to museums and art galleries and see what we breathe life into that captures our minds and souls.

I think writing and music roll hand in hand a lot. I mean we have lyrics that we will never forget set to music that takes us to another realm of reality. But as a writer, I understand what that really means. It’s not easy to put those words together and make them mean something that everyone can feel as much as you do.

My hat is off to people who can create the music and then find the words to pair with it and make it another entity altogether. That can only be described as magical. When

we have people who can do that, of course we look at them as special. They seem to find just the right words and music to touch our hearts and evoke all sorts of emotions in each of us. That is not an easy thing to do.

When that one musicians finds that place inside you – when they tap those feelings and bring them rippling to the surface – it’s wonderful. It can be painful, it can be joyous, it can be almost orgasmic or it can make you laugh. And the really great thing is hearing that music brings it back to you every time. You can hear a song you loved 30 years ago and still feel the same way when you heard it the first time. It becomes a part of your life, doesn’t it?

Prince was a magician. He was so many things rolled into one that it seemed unreal. I mean he could be funky as all get out, then he could be romantic, he made us get up and dance, he played it like the blues and then turned around and rocked the damn house.

He sang and he danced and he spun around on stage and there were only two other humans that had that same gift. We were lucky enough to have all three of them among us at the same time – the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, the man who moved like no other – James Brown. 

I think of the T.A.M.I. Show when he hit that stage and folks had never seen anything like him. They didn’t know what to think. Mick Jagger mourned that he had to go on after James Brown. Nobody could dance like James Brown. My man surely had “the good foot.” And he did it to death.

Then we had Michael. You know who I mean. Michael Jackson of the shy smile and the movements that set peoples’ souls afire. Remember the first time you saw him do the Moon Walk? I do. I still watch that video in amazement. Or that lean in “Smooth Criminal.” Lord, yes, he was special.

And there was Prince. Unlike either of the others, he could pick up that guitar and make it talk to you. When he hit the stage in those high heels, he turned you inside out. Wherever he went, we went there too and we loved it and we loved him. We knew him just like he knew us.

These musicians reach down inside themselves and pull up their emotions and their thoughts and feelings and bravely share it with all of us. We know their joy, their pain, their angst, their fears, their hunger and their wonder. We know it cause we feel it too and we wonder how they knew how we were feeling too. They share themselves in a very intimate way and we love them for it. We feel close to them because we know they must feel close to us to touch our souls the way they do. We go to their concerts and we scream and laugh and cry and hold our hearts because we feel that connection more than ever when we see them and we know they feel us too. It is a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?

Prince shared his heart, his soul, his mind and his magic with us and we adored him. We didn’t mind when he got down to that part of us that was kind of nasty and hot and erotic. He was just putting words to how we felt too. So ok, some folks got upset and offended. Most of us knew just what he meant and it was all right with us. I mean, who among us hasn’t looked at someone who set our blood boiling and thought or said, “….you sexy motherfucker.”

You know you did. Don’t lie.

So we took him for granted. We just assumed he would be here with us. I remember he said he had enough music saved to keep us going for years and years and I was satisfied that he would be a part of my life as long as I lived.

Yesterday all that came crashing down. We didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t. I screamed when I read it, but at the same time, I knew it was true. I had been worried since I had heard he had been sick and they had taken him to a hospital in Moline, Illinois. I knew he would never not perform unless something was really wrong and I figured something was. I hoped he would still be there.

This year has been exceptionally unkind. We lost Natalie Cole and David Bowie and Glen Frey and Maurice White really close together. We have been staggering and sad for most of the year. We are losing our musical icons far too quickly this year and we are afraid and angry.

So no, I was not ready to lose Prince. I pulled out the program from the last time I saw him and looked at the pictures. I thought of the one time I was in his presence. I was backstage at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. 

It must have been 2003 or 2004, I’m not sure which year. Anyway, I was walking along with friends and we stopped to talk to someone and I felt the presence of someone looking at me from behind. I turned and there he was, in all his Badness, wearing skin tight black pants and a tank top with a shirt over it.

I am used to being in the presence of musicians – I have in one way or another all my life, so I quickly gathered myself and smiled and said, “Hello Prince, how are you?”

He gave me that not quite naughty smile and said, “Hello baby, I’m fine, how are you?”

I said, “I’m fine, thank you.”

His eyes took the slow tour up and down my body and that smile got even more naughty and he said, “Yes, you are. I can see that, baby.”

You know I walked around with the big head for a long time. How often do you get someone like Prince to not only give you The Eye, but tell you that you are fine? Yes Lord. My life was complete.

But yes, I loved Prince. I loved a man who dressed whatever way he wanted, purple jackets, white lace shirts, skin tight pants with buttons down the legs and high heels. I loved a man who wore his hair like his crown. He wore his mascara and he walked like he owned the whole world.

What did it matter that he was short? Who cared? He might have been small in stature but he was huge in our lives and in this world.

He did just what he wanted to do and we might have joked and laughed but we loved him. I knew no other man that could pull off wearing pants with cut outs showing his natural ass.

And did he show them who he was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps?” He rocked it like a boss and then threw that guitar and walked away leaving us all in awe.

There was so much to Prince and we loved it all.

And now he is gone.

We will live and we will go on but we will sit down and hear “Little Red Corvette” or “When Doves Cry” and we will smile and sing along and we will think of the man with those beautiful eyes and that shy smile and that devilish demeanor and we will still love him.

He is, after all, our Prince. And so he shall remain. Go in Peace, Prince. Rest in Paradise. You will always be a part of us.