FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
The fight by the rich and powerful against the middle class and working poor continues.  Their strategy is to blame complex economic problems on one of three scapegoats: teachers, immigrants, or government employees.  And unfortunately, it offers politicians an easy way out.  At a time when our country is in grave distress, they can pick out a select group and blame all of our problems on them. From a distance, the tactics being pursued in different states look diverse and varied.  But their three-pronged attack suggests a national strategy.

First, under the guise of targeting “lazy” and “overpaid” teachers, the rich and powerful with the help of the politicians, are working to dismantle public education.

Second, as they talk about balancing state budgets, these same folks are trying to undermine the public sector’s role in providing critically important public services.  A bill in Michigan would privatize support services to public schools.  Again, the goal is to strengthen corporations and disempower organized workers in the political realm.

Third, this same wealth/power group attempts to block the voice of immigrants in our country’s politics.  Various attempts are being made to create barriers to voting and to discourage people not yet registered from exercising their legal rights.

Now it’s up to us.  Those of us who are concerned, disgusted, and outraged that our democracy is being taken over by multi-national, big, big corporate money  need to step up.

We should not allow the wealthy, powerful, and yes, greedy to ride roughshod over the needy of our land.  In Psalm 72 we see God’s picture of a good governmental leader:  “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”  May those types of leaders soon be raised up to save our democracy!!

I had planned to ask about leasing, and when a woman from the Toyota dealership told me that she could get me into a lease at a price that was (at least “sort of”) manageable for me, I decided I would go and take a look. The problem is that a car dealership is like crack . . . the cars are all new, and shiny, and they put you behind the wheel of a car whose odometer reads 38 miles . . . from that point on, it’s so, so hard to walk away. The woman I worked with was sincere enough that I was able to brush off my nagging feelings of needing to take a shower from being around all of the sleaziness that is inherent in such a place. Had she been any less sincere, I’m quite sure I would have walked away, and this leaves me feeling even more duped.

I am also starting a five-day-a-week temp job on Monday – yes, in addition to my day job. So without a car, the plan was to get on a 6:20am bus to get to my day job by 7:15am, then to get on a bus across town to get to job #2, then to try to catch the last bus so that I could transfer to the other last bus and get myself home by 11:45 before starting it all over again the next morning.

This plan, in and of itself, had me thinking that I was going to give in very soon and buy something. I just didn’t know I would succumb so soon.

my first, and (prior to this) only car

It’s no big surprise that I tend to be impulsive, nor is it any secret that I am a chronically poor money manager. But that is not the thing that is causing me to hyperventilate as I write this. I am broke no matter how many or how few bills I have, and no matter how little or how much I am making. The payments are affordable on paper, so having this car primarily means that I will need to end my habit of eating out more days than not. I will not be on the bus, but I will be on the ramen noodle diet. This seems to me like a good exercise in restraint. I will probably end up putting my student loans into forebearance yet again, also, but that’s also nothing new.

All of these things are realities I will just have to deal with . . . but my real problem is two-fold. First, I consider my inability to delay gratification by saving for a cheaper car to be a clear sign of my lack of character. Second, (secondly? help me out, grammar police!) I feel that having a nice car is not something I should aspire to, if I believe what I say I believe.

too late to give it back?

The reality is that I have had a myriad of opportunities to save money over the past several years. I knew that Anastasia was on her last legs, and I could have been preparing for that, but I did not. I am still living very much paycheck-to-paycheck, and could not even put a down-payment on the car (unless I had waited two weeks). Had I been able to save money, I would have been in a better position to purchase a $2000 or $3000 or $5000 car, and would not have fallen prey to the temptation to go after as much car as I could afford, and then some.

Similarly, my month on the bus while working 13-hour days was supposed to be a test of my character. It was supposed to prove (to me and to whomever else might care) that I have the ability to work hard to get what I want, that I am not one who seeks the easy way out. It was supposed to put weight behind the lip-service I give to “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using the bus as a form of transportation”. Two days before I first was to get on that 6am bus, and I have already failed that test of my character. In fact, I have not merely failed the test, but have shown the true nature of my soul by spending much more money than I needed to.

This brings me to my next concern, and one that I fear has more profound eternal consequences. I made a choice today–a choice to spend almost $300 a month on myself, entirely for my own enjoyment and convenience. I don’t have a better point of reference, but I know that $300 could send four students in Liberia to school for one year. Multiply that by 12, and maybe you will see my dilemma. I am choosing to avoid the minor inconvenience of having to take the bus on a daily basis over the opportunity to change the lives of nearly fifty children. And I fear that even my choice of that example is me making things too easy for myself . . . how many children’s lives could be saved with that money? Am I really going to get to the end of my life and look back on this moment with pride and not horror? And yet, I made that choice today.

So I came home from this ill-advised purchase, and in an attempt to ask for a sign, I opened my one-year Bible and began to read.I don’t know what I expected to see . . . but I think that I was looking for some confirmation that it was somehow okay for me to be all about myself. But Jesus doesn’t roll that way, and I should’ve known better than to try to find justification for my actions in those pages. What I found instead was this:

“Then He said, ‘Anyone who wants to follow me must put aside his own desires and conveniences and carry his cross with him every day and keep close to Me! Whoever loses his life for My sake will save it, but whoever insists on keeping his life will lose it; and what profit is there in gaining the whole world when it means forfeiting one’s self?’ ” (Luke 9:23 – 25, TLB; other versions translate “self” as “soul”.)

I know I’m rambling; I’m not even going to edit this at this point. And please know that I am not looking for any of you to tell me that I really am a good person deep down inside or any other such nonsense . . . I’m not looking for affirmation here. I just wanted to explain exactly why I am experiencing this remorse, and why I am wishing that buying a car was like buying Tupperware, where they allow you to change your mind within 72 hours.

And I know that Jesus still loves me anyway, but I still do not relish an eternity spent living with the knowledge that I chose my own comfort over self-sacrifice. Of course, that I made this choice is nothing new, but it’s all the more difficult to face when it’s done on such a large scale.

Maybe this is the real reason why car dealerships are closed on Sundays. They know that people will go to church and feel convicted about their choices. If I had waited for Sunday, maybe I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

There’s no easy way to wrap this up, so I am just going to stop. Maybe I’ll do some editing later. But I wanted to get my thoughts out as best as I am able to . . . for better or for worse, I won’t be on the bus come Monday, and I guess I just have to live with that.

I was in the food court at the mall, and because I was still recovering from my ankle surgery last year, I was maneuvering with the help of Speed Racer. Sara had Elijah and was getting herself settled with him, and I was trying to get Chinese food and make my way back to the table. Yes, on one leg and while trying to maneuver a tray of food.

An African-American woman at the next counter over saw me struggling and had compassion on me. She told her son (who was about 9 or 10) to come over and offer to help me, which he did.

I was not paying attention to my surroundings, as usual, and so did not notice this sweet young man coming up to me until he was right next to me. When I realized he was trying to speak to me, I jumped . . . as I was trying to get his words to translate from my ears to my brain (something I tend to have trouble with under any circumstances), I looked at him with a panicked, forced smile and shook my head while sputtering something like, “no, thank you, I’ve got it, but I appreciate the offer”. I think I then said something about how I was shaking my head “yes” while saying “no” with my mouth–something like, “I know that I’m shaking my head the opposite of what I am saying”–but I don’t know. maybe I’m not remembering that part correctly.

I know I am remembering the forced, automatic and fake smile, though. My facial muscles still ache with self-condemnation every time I think about it.

I have so many excuses for why I jumped out of my skin when he approached me. Primary among those is the fact that having both ADHD and PTSD means that I both zone out easily and startle easily. One of my coworkers, after having seem me react that way one time too many, has taken to using very deliberate footsteps when she approaches me. I hate when I am jumpy like that, because it is never in any way the fault of the person who has (unintentionally) startled me, but people quite often take it personally.

But I have no excuse. This sweet, polite young man had absolutely no  reason to interpret the look of terror in my eyes, combined with the fake, plastered smile and meaningless words, as anything other than what I fear it really was.For this young man, and for his mother, my personal history was not even a factor. I am certain that they could only assume I was reacting in that over-exaggerated way because of a fear or a distrust of black men. How could it be interpreted any other way?

I still wish to this day that I had gone back to them and said something. I sometimes fantasize that I’ll somehow run into them again and will be able to make my apology, even though I barely remember what they looked like anymore. And I don’t want to give a complicated justification for my actions–”It’s unconscious–it’s a learned response”, blah blah blah, shut up, Lorraine . . . I just want to tell him how very, very sorry I am.

All I know is that in that moment, I wounded the heart of that little boy, and somehow sent the message that, no matter how many kind things he might do in his life, that there are always going to be white women reacting in unfounded fear at the very sight of him. And as I sat down for dinner with my own precious brown-skinned godson Elijah sitting next to me, my heart broke at the thought that he too will grow up in a world where people will instinctively and automatically jump in fear when they see him coming . . . even if he is the sweetest little boy in the world, and even if he comes with the most altruistic of motives . . . because at the end of the day, the inheritance we’ve all carried down through the years is one of mistrust, of irrational fear, and of unconscious, yet immediate judgments based on appearance.

I do not want Elijah to have to face the reality that I subjected this boy to . . . this young man who only wanted to be helpful, but who got only disdain and disrespect in return.

I can’t go back to that day and change my actions . . . all I can do is to continue to fight this monster of racism that rears its ugly head so often. I owe it to that young man to do so. I owe it to Elijah. And I owe it to myself, because this below-the-surface racism is a poison that needs to be eliminated from my body, mind and soul.

I’m so sorry, young man, wherever you may be. I’m sorry that you have to face a world filled with people like me. But I have to thank you as well, because your kind gesture taught me so much more than you will ever know.

It’s just a beautiful picture of what our world could be . . . 

or maybe I’m just cheesy. 

PS–I didn’t win. Now I want to go back next weekend, and so on, until I actually DO win. who SAYS I’m not a hopeless optimist?!

“They say your style of life’s a drag
And that you must go other places
But just don’t you feel too bad
When you get fooled by smiling faces”

–Stevie Wonder
 

Every time I go back to New York, I am hit with a profound and echoing sense of longing. I don’t know if it’s my need for variety and visual stimulation, for movement and excitement, but breathing in the very air around me (not breathing it in too closely, in some cases!) fills a need in me that I can barely express. And the sounds! And the accents! And the people! As I say very often, “I love my city!” And when I go back “home” to Michigan, I always feel like I’m leaving a part of me behind.
 
When I was in college, I came close to going “home” several times. I graduated six months early in large part because I just had to be back to New York. When I moved back to Michigan at the end of 1999, it began as a life-or-death situation, but ended up being a better decision than I knew I was making at the time. I often describe it by saying, “life is easier in Michigan.” If I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself, I will tell people that I tried to live in NYC and that the city “chewed me up and spit me out”, which is sometimes how I feel about it, even now.
 
I tried to come home just over a year ago. God said “not yet”, and then He said “no”.   And every time I’m back, I return (home?!) to my boring midwestern life and wonder if I’ll ever get “home” to NY again.
 
Last weekend , a friend asked me why I wanted to be back in NYC so badly. I was hard-pressed to find the words to express what I was feeling . . . I could only say that I didn’t want to have to say that I am “from” Michigan . . . that I didn’t want to lose my “New York-ness”. Here in the Northern Bible Belt, where it doesn’t matter if my clothes are in style, it’s just so easy to become apathetic . . . and mostly, I fear losing my identity; I fear no longer being a “real” New Yorker.
 
I think it’s a self-esteem thing, too. Can I feel good about myself if I’m constantly reminded that I couldn’t handle living in NY? Maybe it doesn’t matter to anybody else, but to me it does. I feel like I’ve lost a part of my identity, and I don’t have the confidence that I’ll ever get that back. I certainly don’t want to go back to Staten Island; I had that choice at the end of 1999, and saw Grand Rapids as the lesser of two evils. But do I need to learn to “settle” for Grand Rapids, to accept that this is my life now? I don’t know. I can accept that this is where I am *now*; I’m just not sure that I can see it as “forever”. I literally dread the time when I will have to say that I have lived in Michigan longer than I have lived in NY. I’m more than a dozen years away from that point, but as the song goes, “I’m only afraid that my dreams will betray me, and I’ll never get home again.”
 
What is not an option, to the extent that I can help it, would be for me to move elsewhere. When I first came to Grand Rapids, I immediately saw that the problem was that pieces of my heart were in two places. I can barely fathom the idea of tearing my heart into even smaller pieces, and leaving pieces of myself in yet another place. The first spring break I spent back in NY, I dreamed that Grand Rapids was located where New Jersey was. Ever since then, I have wished that I could take the map and fold it up like the back cover of Mad Magazine, and bring those pieces of my heart close enough to each other that it wouldn’t hurt so much. So although I cannot say what God might do, it is hard for me to think beyond these two options.
 
I suppose that, for now, I just have to be where I am, and try not to tie my self-esteem up with the choice of living in this “uncool” place living an unexciting life. Unexciting as it may be, it’s enough to exhaust me, and it’s where I am right now. and if this world is truly not my home, then perhaps this sense of homesickness will be my companion until the day I reach that final home. I’m told that in that place, my angst will cease. It’s hard to imagine, but intriguing nonetheless.

No, I’m overwhelmed to think that this dream could really come to be a reality . . . so I wait with baited breath, along with the rest of the country, daring to hope against hope that at last, we all will be “invited to the party”.

However, one thing that really struck me last night, as I researched the local races, was that my renewed excitement over the political process (which has everything to do with the way that Obama made politics real to me again) was obviously having an effect on my attitude towards my own local elections . . .

Although I’m loathe to admit this, I’m a bit of a sloppy voter. (okay, aren’t we all?!) But seriously . . . my attitude towards local races has typically been to vote along my party lines, and in the case of allegedly “non-partisan” races (for judges and the like), to more often choose a female candidate over a male candidate. (My theory being that no matter what her political leanings, a woman will more often be likely to act in ways that are beneficial to women and children. Yeah, I said it’s a theory, and I said I’m sloppy about it!)

But this time, I really stopped and looked at the candidates, and compared their views, and (oh, please don’t shoot me, folks!) I actually voted for a few republicans in local races. (I also voted for one Green Party candidate . . . “oooooohh, she’s a Socialist! We knew it! Somebody put her on some list somewhere!”)

But my point is . . . I was probably more deliberate and intentional, more INFORMED, in my voting than I ever have been in my life. Why? Because Obama, by the way he conducted this campaign, caused me to believe that my vote really DOES matter, that there is some room for hope in this world.

And for the first time in my life, I am really, really proud of my country.

So I saw a snippet about this case of mistaken identity on the news, and knew immediately that I was going to use it as this week’s topic . . .

but then I made the mistake of starting to read the forum comments about the piece. I got through about forty or fifty of them before I had to close the page . . .

it wasn’t the “well, duh, don’t run from the police” written by people who clearly  have no sense of what it is to not be able to trust that the police are on your side . . . or the “they’re used to it in THAT neighborhood” . . .

no, it was the endless barrage of pure, vitriolic old-school racist hatred that was evident in post after post after post. There was even a person commenting who had (thinking himself quite witty, I’m sure) given himself the screen name “Mark Fuhrman”. And phrases such as “porch monkeys” and “hood rats” (and much, much worse) used to describe the people in the southeast Grand Rapids neighborhood where the incident had occurred.

I suppose I should try to tell myself that it’s just a case of cowardly people taking shelter in the relative anonymity of the internet, but to be honest, it really frightens me that there is still this level of hatred simmering in the hearts of people in and around this city. It makes me wonder if there really is any hope for us . . .

If you’d asked me before yesterday, I would have launched into a lovely schpiel about how bingo is the great equalizer, how people of all ages and all walks of life co-exist peacefully (except when the caller is too slow, or too fast, or when a newbie like myself inadvertently breaks one of the 621 unspoken laws of the bingo hall . . . ) But since I’ve started visiting a new-to-me bingo hall, I’ve seen a few cracks in the formerly shiny verneer of my “we’re all the same at the bingo hall” fantasy. 

I had seen a few moments of tension at this particular bingo hall in the past, but what I witnessed yesterday was more intense than previous ones, and harder to attribute to something other than racism.  

I don’t know how it started, but all of a sudden, this crotchety old white woman who was one of the workers  (or whatever they’re called) that day was yelling at an African-American woman, “And if you keep it up, I’ll call the police!” Of course, at this point she had everybody’s attention. What had the woman done? Had she lit up a joint at the table? (not that you’d be able to tell with all the smoke in there, anyway!) Had she stolen someone else’s dauber? Had she tampered with the bingo calling equipment?

No. She had answered a cell phone call. (This particular bingo hall had recently banned the use of cell phones during games.)

Lest you think I’m prematurely racializing this, please bear with me. 

There was a great deal of murmering going on among the women sitting in my general area. I was upset too. “call the police”? because she took a call? I’m sure the woman knew the rules . . . she was by herself, so she would have had nobody to watch her cards while she left the room to take a call . . . and she must have had some legitimate need to take the call. (she was an older woman–probably in her 40′s or 50′s–I say that because she wasn’t some young kid with the phone glued to her ear.)

The woman was visibly upset by the interaction, and quickly took her call out to the hallway . . . but for me, the mood had been broken, and my “fun” afternoon of bingo had gone downhill rather quickly. The next few times the woman’s phone rang, I saw her walking very quickly towards the exit, and she certainly looked stressed, if not downright afraid.

It didn’t help that at one point, I looked over at where she was sitting, and saw her dabbing at her eyes . . . yes, I think she was crying. What I had interpreted in her face as anger a moment before was now transformed in my mind to something much more heart-wrenching. And although it’s possible that her tears (if they were indeed more than just a reaction to the smoke in the air, as I suspect that they were) were tears of anger, they still broke my heart. I could feel the humiliation she felt at having been spoken to like she was a child, or worse. And i felt myself in this strange no-man’s-land once again, as someone with the external appearance of the oppressor, but having (at least to some extent) the mind of the oppressed.

My anti-racism radar (not to mention my pathological codependency) fully engaged, I started to hone in on rumblings and to notice some things:

• All of the bingo workers were white, and come to think of it, I didn’t remember ever having seen an African-American working at a bingo game in Grand Rapids. This got me thinking about the whole ”gatekeepers” concept and the question of who has access to the power.
• Probably 40 to 50% of the players were African-American (I didn’t count). If “they” would get together and boycott this bingo hall, there would be a serious loss of revenue at this particular game. (I’ll leave it to someone else to talk about the exploitative nature of bingo and other forms of gambling . . . I’m still in denial on that one.) In fact, since I am such a <tongue in cheek>Cool White Person</tongue in cheek>, I actually said as much to a woman at the next table. (I hope I said “we” and not “you”, but I can’t be sure. But seriously, and this is NOT something I’m saying to make myself sound like the CWP that I am, but I was upset enough that I DON’T want to go back to that particular bingo hall now.)
• Some of the women at the next table over were saying, “I stopped coming here for a while after that LAST incident.”, so clearly this was not the first time there had been this type of conflict.
• At one point, there was some flap over someone who had won one of the games (an African-American woman sitting two tables over from me), and I heard a snippet of a conversation between some of the workers–”look out for ________” (I didn’t catch exactly what the offense was, but from the context, I got the sense that it was an accusation of cheating or some kind of deception). Then I heard the worker say words that made me shudder . . . “they do that . . . they come in late and they _______” (fill in the blank with some bingo terminology that  probably would not have made sense to me even if I HAD heard it.) Oh no. She said “they“. I heard it (remember, at this point my antennae were already tuned) and my heart sunk. I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t heard what I thought I had heard. Surely this white woman with the bad haircut had only meant “they” in the generic “bingo players” sense. Surely she hadn’t meant, “those people who come into OUR bingo hall”. But try as I might, I just could not convince myself that I had interpreted it wrong.

The thing is, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the crotchety old white woman with disdain and anger, keeping an eye on her lest she try some other antics . . . but then I stopped, and reminded myself that, rather than praying, “I thank You, God, that I am not like that sinner”, that I ought to keep in mind my own racism, buried though it may be under a flurry of well-intentioned words and attempts at “I’m-not-like-THOSE-white-people” coolness. And the problem, after all, is not that one crotchety old woman, but rather the deeper racism that hangs over all of our heads like the stale smoke of the bingo hall . . .

But it still broke my heart to realize that even here, in this seemingly benign setting, the racial divide was once again rearing its ugly head, showing up so clearly for those with eyes to see it. And I wanted to shut my eyes to it . . . I wanted to not see, to pretend that what I had seen didn’t mean what I knew in my heart of hearts that it meant. 

I just  wanted to play bingo. I just wanted to have some fun on a Saturday afternoon. And yet, I walked into a landmine . . . because this isn’t just a “Lorraine” thing–”there she goes again!”–no. if you open your eyes, it’s everywhere . . .

and I’m just not ready to shut up about it.  

And maybe Field is right . . .  maybe it’s true that this country isn’t ready for a black president . . . but I am not giving up just yet . . .  even if 68% of people polled on our local right-wing talk radio station didn’t think that this t-shirt was offensive . . . even if I saw with my own eyes the Secret Service swarming all over downtown Grand Rapids when Obama was in town . . .

Sadly, however, neither was there a “next year” with anybody else. When it came close to being wintertime again this year, I was completely out of credit cards with which to perform my usual ”smoke and mirrors” maneuvers. A neighbor had approached my tenant a few times, and said that he would be willing to shovel our driveway all winter for less than what I had paid the (ultimately delinquent) plow guy.  We took him up on it . . . only to find that he, too, soon flaked out. In one sense, it was okay . . . he had done a really good job a few times, so I tried to tell myself that I’d gotten my money’s worth . . . but at the same time, I was frustrated. Did he assume that he could screw me over because he’d seen someone else do it?

Anyway . . . tonight I shoveled. The city plows had blocked in my driveway in such a way that it was impossible for me to even pull the car in . . . so I did my usual sidewalk path, and then attempted to tackle the driveway. I got about a third of the way through before giving up . . . but it only took me five minutes to pull out my phone and say to myself, “I need to take pictures so that I can blog about this.”

I was so inspired that I almost went inside to get my regular camera. but I didn’t. I didn’t do much of anything. now I am sore, and I still have a buttload of snow in my driveway . . .

um. I don’t think any of this actually has to do with Sisyphus . . . except you’re supposed to get the visual . . . as much as I am trying to push away the mounds of snow, they just keep returning . . .

it’s madness. but now I need to go to sleep and hope & pray that I can get out of bed in the morning . . . because of course now I’m sure that I’m going to die of a heart attack, or at least a backache . . .