When my son was little, there were several shows he wanted to watch that I wouldn’t allow: Clarissa Explains It All, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Everybody Loves Raymond, to name three.

Clarissa was banned because she was a smart-assed (pardon me) tweenager who knew everything about everything while her parents were clueless morons. Um, I’m pretty sure that a natural part of the maturing process from toddler through teen into adult is believing that your parents don’t know anything. From where I was sitting, my son was going to come to this conclusion and might possibly develop the attitude that often accompanies this belief on his own with no help from Clarissa, the Disney Channel or anybody else. My days as the Slayer-of-Monsters-Keeper-of-Fruit-Rollups-Knowledge Goddess were numbered from the time his cord was cut. I was not about to let some sitcom writer with a stunted sense of humor cut those days even further. Forget it! Clarissa got the boot!

Courage and Raymond were punted for a different reason; but, it was the same reason for both shows. Those people were MEAN! Eustace was a horrible human being and, clearly, NOBODY loved Raymond. I have always believed that your home ought to be a safe place – a place where you can feel free to be who you are without fear of judgement, denigration or, as seen in these shows, outright bullying. I don’t know about you; but, I don’t hang out with mean people if I don’t have to and I don’t care who they are. Mean neighbors? Across the fence, thanks. Mean co-workers? See you at the water cooler….in passing. Mean relatives? Across the room at a family reunion is close enough. I figure I have like 20 energy points to use every day. Mean people suck up my energy points and what do I get out of it? Nothing.

Which brings me back to TV, movies and other forms of entertainment. Those mean people suck up my energy, too. Life is too full of REAL issues, REAL negativity and REAL challenges for me to spend all my energy points dealing with pretend ones. I noticed this weekend that I was spending far too many of my energy points on Facebook.

The amount of bigotry and ignorance that I see spreading there unabated gives me a rash. Seriously. People forward the dumbest things without bothering to check validity – like the one I saw this week purporting that Christian children were being forced to practice Muslim prayer. Those children were practicing a tornado drill! Um Fact Checker, Party of None? sigh.

Once upon a time, the greatest fear of nearly every kid I knew was “looking stupid.” Now is seems that the greatest fear is bad lighting – everyone wants the cameras rolling whether they look like an idiot or not. Fact checking is for sissies and fortune favors the BOLD, even if the bold are addlepated.

Social media used to be a form of entertainment for me. Now, too often it reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s remarks in the January 21, 1980, Newsweek article “A Cult of Ignorance” –

The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

It’s not.

This current culture of rampant, willful ignorance! Holocaust Centers? Land mass between New Orleans and Mobile? Slave ship immigrants? I just can’t handle it anymore! It puts my energy points in the negative every day (plus that nasty rash); so, to all these forms of “entertainment,” I quote the immortal Ice Cube:

“Bye, Felicia.”

A waterhole, an oasis is someplace I go to get relief from daily stresses and from reality, in general. Social media outlets used to be that place for me. I could see photos of friends’ vacations, their children, their pets and their dinner. I could read encouraging stories, find funny memes and see cat videos – you know I love cat video compilations. Social media was a place where I could go to take a break from the world.

It’s not now. That waterhole has been poisoned.

Now it’s a place full of self-righteousness, vitriol and ignorance. I find myself unfollowing more and more people I know – many of whom I even agree with – because I cannot stand the constant negativity. I am angry at the fake news stories being shared without thought or consequence. Those fake stories negatively impact the real stories in the same way that false rape claims reduce the believably of real ones.

Here’s the thing: I haven’t had a first choice candidate win a presidential election since the first time I voted in 1985. I think I’m bad juju (and available for hire to jinx your opponents, for any future candidates out there). Here’s the other thing: I’m an adult. I don’t whine about my candidate losing, not even when I think that the system has been perverted, which has been claimed this year in both the democratic primary and in the general election. I don’t gloat about my secondary candidate winning. And, frankly, I’m tired of hearing about it.

I am a woman and, unlike some of my friends, I have lost jobs and I have been paid less than less qualified male counterparts. I have been sexually assaulted and not reported it because I knew that I wouldn’t be believed anyway. I know that sexual discrimination is alive and well. Still, I didn’t put on a vagina costume (which is, in my opinion, both in poor taste and counterproductive) and take part in a march that accomplished exactly nothing. Planned Parenthood will still be defunded based on lies. Rapists will still walk because their victims weren’t saints. Women will still make, on average, no more than 94 cents for every dollar a man makes. I know all of these things; but, I cannot spend every waking second of every day dwelling on it. I will cease to be able to function, if I do.

And that’s what I see happening around me. As a country, we have drawn lines in the concrete, not in the sand, and we can’t communicate anymore. I remember once having a conversation with my son’s father. He wanted to have a balanced conversation about my religious beliefs, but I distinctly remember morphing into Little Miss Dogma. The entire conversation cratered into a disagreement when it didn’t have to. No real information was exchanged and neither of us was enriched by it. Rather, we were further alienated.

Again, that’s what I see happening around me. So many on both sides are plugging their own ears while shouting their beliefs and demanding to be heard that no one is being edified. Instead, there’s a great deal of really terrible noise. Noise that is dividing us and we’re letting it. Only we can take our fingers out of our ears, stop shouting and choose to listen with an open mind. Only we can chose not to be divided and that is a choice we must make. That is our imperative for, in the words of a much wiser person than I, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 

We still have a union; but, we cannot continue to stand this way. We have to stop being Republicans and Democrats, and get back to being Americans.

I want to talk about something a little different today – I’m going to go a little fangirl on you. Yesterday I finished watching Band of Brothers. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg were the executive producers of this miniseries. These two men were also executive producers of The Pacific. They worked together in Saving Private Ryan and clearly believed that The Greatest Generation had more stories to tell; so, they told a few more of them. Some time ago I shared with you something of my own experience at Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery there in Walking Boys Home. That experience was so utterly profound that I feel an obligation to watch all military films based on real people and real events.

I hate it. But that’s beside the point.

People lament that we don’t have any “great” movie stars anymore. We have a surfeit of these idiot, reality show personalities but a dearth of real talent with real character. We have Real Housewives (who, incidentally, probably don’t know how to clean a toilet) and a host of others famous for being famous. People who make money being scandalous, tasteless and exhibitionist – the click-bait millionaires. We don’t have any Jimmy Stewarts, John Waynes, or Gary Coopers. I can think of some exceptions to that, though – Gary Sinise, Angelina Jolie, and Tom Hanks specifically.

In 2016 year, President Obama awarded Hanks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This actor whom I first remember seeing as a cross-dressing guy living in a women’s apartment building drooling over Donna Dixon won the Medal of Freedom. His early career was spent playing silly and sometimes buffoonish parts; but, that all changed when he went to Philadelphia. He played AIDS-stricken, homosexual Andrew Beckett at a time when taking the role of a gay man was a dangerous career move in any film; but, to take that role in a drama discussing a serious subject like discrimination based on sexual orientation was potentially career suicide. It turned out to be his first Oscar-winning role. It was followed by other serious roles that were heroic in some way: Forrest Gump, Jim Lovell, Captain Miller, Paul Edgecomb, Chuck Noland, Captain Richard Phillips and Captain Chesley Sullenberger. Well, and Woody. Behind the camera, he helped tell heroic stories by producing From Earth to the Moon, West Point, Band of Brothers, We Stand Alone Together, John Adams, The Pacific, and so many more. He was instrumental in raising money to build the World War II memorial. In fact, without his efforts, there might not be a memorial.

And there should be.

The US was officially involved in WWII for four years and lost over 400,000 soldiers and citizens. They should be remembered and I’m thankful that someone like Hanks who has the voice and the platform to promote their memory, is willing to do it.

I am a straight, white woman. I was born that way. With the possible exception of a period of time when I was a toddler and told everyone my name was George (I have no idea), I’ve always been that way and I assume that I always will be. That’s good because at this stage of the game, I just don’t know if I could handle being a gay, black man. (Although Ru Paul does have a stunning wardrobe and I could use the make-up tips.)

The news this week has been filled with people that I’m not – Bruce Jenner, rioters, gay couples petitioning the US Supreme Court for the right to marry, a fan whose team is in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Since I don’t have television, I don’t know what the news has been saying about all of these things, but I know what a lot of the print media has had to say. More than that, I know what the people on my Facebook feed have had to say and it’s been, let’s say, illuminating. The commentary has reminded me a great deal of an incident with my friends Diane and Sandy. We’ll come back to that.

I am a woman born in a woman’s body. I have no clue what it feels like to be anything else. As a result, I really don’t understand it. I’m neither Chaz Bono nor Bruce Jenner. I do, however, know several people in various stages of transition from one gender to another. Some of them will already pass as the other gender and are going to have an easier time of it than the others. Bruce Jenner has such fine bone structure that his transition will be much easier than, say, Fred Gwynne’s would have been. Still, even the ones who have an “easier” time of it won’t have an easy time by any stretch of the imagination. Rejection by friends and family, social scorn, painful treatments – why would anyone choose to undergo such trials if their bodies were not already prisons that were far worse? I can’t imagine why they would. With the difficulties transgenders face, I’m glad I’m just a straight, white woman.

I’m also glad I’m just a straight, white woman on those rare occasions when I get pulled over. I’m not seen as a threat. I doubt very seriously that any officer looks in my Mary Poppins window and thinks I’m about to pull a gun on him, which is good for both of us really. However, I have a son. When he started to drive, I told him that when he got pulled over, he was to sit with his hands on the steering wheel until the officer got to him. If he could turn on his interior light, great. But, if not, just sit where the officer could see his hands and know that there was no weapon. I worried about my child being perceived as a threat….and he makes Casper look tan! My friends Carlos (one a Hispanic man and the other a dark complected black man) are both immediately perceived as higher threats than either me or my son, simply because of their skin color. Both are well-educated, law-abiding men; however, both are seen as threats and, as a result, officers of the law are a greater threat for them than they are for either me or my son. While I can acknowledge this from the outside, I can’t really understand it. I thought I could for many years, then I had lunch with Diane and Sandy.

We all worked together at the airport in Jackson, MS. Diane and I worked at American Eagle, Sandy worked in food service. Diane and I are both about as white bread as you can get. Sandy was, as she said, ghetto fabulous. She liked elaborate hairstyles, tight clothes, big jewelry and her one gold tooth. She was funny, smart, as good as gold and thought my baby was gorgeous (of course, I loved that!). Anyway, one beautiful spring day, we all went to lunch at a local Greek restaurant where we had terrible service. I mean terrible. We got our own napkins and refills. It was really bad. Diane and I didn’t think anything about it, really, other than that the service was terrible. Sandy saw it differently.

She saw tables of white patrons being waited on. She saw a table of black men being waited on. But, she saw no tables like ours. And we weren’t being waited on. She thought it was her fault because she looked different from other diners in the place.

When she apologized, I was horrified. It would never have even entered my mind that I would get subpar service based on my skin color. But it entered hers and I hurt for her. I would never have suggested that restaurant had I thought for a second that it would result in the humiliation I saw in my friend. I am assured by many that our experience was really just a case of bad service without any racial or socio-economic genesis. That may be. But, it’s been 20 years since that lunch. I haven’t been back to the restaurant and I don’t have any plans to change that.

Reading the news and my newsfeed, I know more than ever that I am a straight, white woman. It’s all I know how to be; but, it’s not all I can be or even have to be. I have to be a compassionate, straight, white woman.