Sometimes I look around myself, noticing the way the light falls in my house, and I pause to understand my privilege. My husband and I are both educated and employed, and we have managed to also educate our son and daughter. Both our children and their spouses are doing well in their respective occupations, for which I am thankful. I worry, though, that there are many in our country who resent that anyone who looks like me and mine should enjoy the fruits of our labors, no matter how hard we have worked to be here. By virtue of our skin color, now egregiously coded as DEI, the story currently being sold is that we deserve nothing that we have attained because we are simply not qualified. Our achievements are a chimera, a zero sum handout, denying others who are more deserving, who are not DEI. Here’s the thing though: They are using DEI as a synonym for Black. In fact, DEI—which everyone knows stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion—is meant to ensure that everyone has access to the rights and privileges of our society, including women, LGBTQ+ people, all races and creeds, disabled people, older people, everyone. But those who now bandy about terms like meritocracy and superior intelligence, seem to feel that only cis White men are deserving, and to be clear, only the ones with money, the tech bros who bent the knee and the ones in the Project 2025 club. These men are proposing and plotting to gather up all the goodies for themselves, women get back in the kitchen please, and Black and Brown people be damned.
You know, I didn’t really mean to go here when I opened this page to write today. But Trump blaming the plane and helicopter crash over the Potomac on DEI was just so ludicrous and hateful and untrue that it set me off. In a moment when true leadership would have meant consoling the grieving families, the man spewed bile instead. He can’t help it, I suppose, but it didn’t even make sense. I guess I’m just venting here. I know I work hard to be where I am but I also know that life has given me gifts, like the grace of being born into my particular family, and the privilege of being able to do work I love. My husband and I, from the time we met, admitted to each other that we both secretly felt we were born lucky. It’s a mindset, I guess. If you believe a thing, you’re alert to whatever happens that confirms it to be so. And this is why I need to vent sometimes. So I don’t get all twisted up with bitterness. So that righteous and necessary anger will activate rather than stymie me. So I won’t miss the evidence of my good lucky life and so I can get back to the good mindset, right here in these rooms where light spills in and love still lives, no matter what’s happening out there.
This is pissing me off so much. Guess whose administration started the FAA DEI program? Trump, in 2019. This whole thing about only white guys are competent, everyone else to the back of the bus. It is infuriating. Your apartment is so pretty, you've done such a good job with it. Especially that yummy floor.
ReplyDeleteAllison, the incessant parroting of DEI hires being incompetent, and the intentional coding of what DEI means, is a form of brainwashing meant to further indoctrinate the cult. It pisses me off, too. Thanks for your righteous anger, friend. And thank you too for the nice words about my space. You know what it was before, with the cabinet doors falling off. I do enjoy how the light enters the refreshed space.
DeleteI have no words for that despicable creature. Well, maybe a few, that press conference he gave after the AAL/US Army crash in DC was one of the worst things I have ever seen. He does not care one iota for the 67 souls that perished, not one. And you are correct, DEI is code for black people and women.
ReplyDeleteJim, I watched that press conference with my jaw on the floor, as much because I was amazed that I would still have that reaction to the man, as I was by what he was saying. He certainly manages to reach new lows.
DeleteYes. What love has given to us, no one can take away. Grateful for your presence here all these years.
ReplyDeleteam, I am grateful for you as well, your gentle spirit, your soul of art.
DeleteActivated, not stymied. So well said. I'm adding that to my journal.
ReplyDeleteMonthly, I do a virtual meeting with my mentors. They all work in education fields: I hold my teachers in the highest esteem. Last meeting, I quoted from Susan Cain's book (for introverts, creatives, sensitives, etc) Bittersweet, "Greatness...often comes from developing a superpower that adapts to the blow that almost killed you." Wisdom consoles. Hence, my question for them was this: "how do I adapt [to the madness]?" Both had the same answer for me: "don't." Remind yourself of your values, who you are, what you believe, what you can do for others. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear activated, not stymied. Thank you.
db, oh my, how I needed these words from you. How do I adapt to this madness? Don't. Yes! So the way we adapt to this blow that is trying to kill us, is to NOT adapt, to not forget who we are, what we believe, who we can be for others. And thereby we develop a new superpower. If you needed my words, I definitely needed yours. Thank you for being here, friend.
DeleteThere are simply not enough expletives...and I don't desire to adapt either. At least you have likeminded in your family. I do not except for a couple and they do not talk much.
ReplyDeletee, family is not always blood. sometimes, it is our chosen family who saves us, even in silence, just by their presence in our lives. sending love.
DeleteEver since Jan 20, I feel like I am living in an occupied country--occupied by far too many idiots. It seems as if the halls of the putrid orange government across this nation---meaning most of the Republicans in Congress, the Senate, state legislatures and local governments across this nation--are behaving the same as the quislings in Vichy France in WWII. Increasingly they are becoming collaborators in lies and retribution, rolling over to do the bidding of yet another narcissistic king wanna-be. Too many white men (and their Stepford sidekicks) trying to create a nation which will somehow return them to their imagined 1950s when 'men were men' and everyone else merely pawns to do their bidding. Hard to contain my disgust. Activate we must.
ReplyDeleteMary, quislings, such a great word for the cowardice and capitulation we're seeing everywhere. Let the non quislings hold hands and step through the minefield together. Thank you for finding this place.
DeleteI can't say it better than you have, Rosemarie. Hateful man.
ReplyDeleteEllen D., I'm glad you're here. We give each other strength, now.
DeleteLet us not discount the fact that when any part of trump's new order fails (and the failures will be legion) he must have someone to blame other than himself and the incompetent and unsuited people he has placed in power and who better to blame than those who have the least power? Those whom society has been holding down forever? "I told you THESE PEOPLE would ruin our country!" he bellows out of his piggy mouth. That is my take on it. He has no facts, no knowledge, no ability to even care about those things in the least. So much easier to point and accuse.
ReplyDeleteI love DB's story and the absolutely true statement that we do not adapt to the madness. We must not. And I think that sometimes we must even laugh at the complete absurdity of it.
And I love your kitchen. A place where light and love come together to create beauty. Very much like you and your family.
Mary, we definitely have our work cut out for us, but yes, I resonate with DB's words, too, and also with yours, that we must even laugh at the complete absurdity of it all. I will remember to do that! Lovelovelove
DeleteHe/they are doing to DEI what they did to Woke because they can't admit that people of color or women or the other gendered are as good as and better than they are, that empathy and compassion is what makes a man a good man. They are hateful cruel people convinced of their superiority simply because of the color of their skin. Trump is so incompetent that he must surround himself with the same to bolster his ego. He will gleefully destroy what he cannot create, it's the only power he has. When he falls, it will be up to us to rebuild this country...again. So we cannot lose heart.
ReplyDeleteellen, it's stunning to watch such incompetence take the wheel, and it's as bad and worse than we imagined. But you're right, we dare not lose heart, because then they will have won. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we will persevere.
DeleteI literally could not believe what was coming out of Trump's mouth after that plane crash. At a time when any normal president would be offering condolences and promising a thorough investigation, that man was giving voice to hatred and suspicion, insulting the pilots and air traffic controllers, blaming every minority in the country and using a disaster to curry favor with his (racist) followers. It was appalling even for Trump. I am constantly amazed at how low that guy can go.
ReplyDeleteSteve, it shocks me that I can still be shocked by things he does and says. Obviously a failure of imagination on my part, because he can always go lower.
DeleteI also could not believe what I was hearing, but unfortunately it’s only going to get worse. I’ve tripled my monthly donation to the aclu, we need them more than ever now. I’m so happy I can post comments. I had to switch to the safari browser, but it’s working!
ReplyDeleteXoxo
Barbara
Barbara, so lovely to see you here, glad the magic worked! I do think it’s more important than ever to build community now. I’m glad we’re part of each others.
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