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.