Thayer Writing

I have just been watching the video showing the treatment of Ronald Greene while in the custody of Louisiana officers. Now, the definition of “custody” is “the protective care or guardianship of someone or something.” What I saw on that video was not custody. It was cruelty. It was disregard for another human being. It was intentional. It was mean.

I am more and more dismayed by what I see in these “United States.” While many of us have chosen to live obliviously, the more despicable side of our nation has continued, developed, and has begun to spill over into our oblivion. It isn’t new. It is a part of our culture, our history, our DNA as a nation.

From a Constitution that put non-whites in a 3/5’s category…not quite fully human…to one that did not recognize women as full citizens either, we didn’t start out as grandly as we have been taught in schools. And, lest our right-wing Christian Nationalists live in their la-la land too long, our founding fathers were not Evangelical Christians either. One can read their diaries, their correspondence, see their philandering lifestyles, bedding others’ wives and their own slaves, etc., and see that none of them lived the way some Christians would have us believe. Brilliant men? For sure! Ingenious men? Of course! Bible-thumping, self-righteous types who are known more for what they won’t do than what they do? Not so much.

And two plus centuries later, our leadership isn’t any purer…isn’t any more godly. The system that has flourished for so long while keeping dirty secrets in the public closet is not doing so well right now. Those dirty little secrets are starting to burst forth from locked closets and from underneath the rugs of secrecy and denial.

The public deaths of Ronald Greene, George Floyd, Breona Taylor, and many more are opening our eyes to a despicable system built and maintained by white people (mostly the white men in power, but also those women who choose to kowtow to those men in power) who have no regard for the “Other.” “Other” includes anyone of different color, different faith, different circumstance. Our Native American brothers and sisters have been slaughtered, imprisoned, detained on reservations in the most inhospitable parts of the USA, restricted and held back. Our African-American brothers and sisters has been bought, enslaved, slaughtered, beaten, restricted, betrayed, and castigated for centuries, too. Our Asian brothers and sisters have also been downtrodden, enslaved, misused, beaten, interred, punished and discriminated against, too. And immigrants? In a country built on the backs of immigrants, the frightened white people have turned their hearts and minds against them, too, forgetting the call of Holy Scripture to welcome and care for and give sanctuary to the stranger, the refugee, and the wanderer. Homosexuals throughout our history have also faced the horrors of those who were empowered to judge them. And lest we forget the plight of women throughout the centuries…treated as property to be passed from father to husband without rights or voice, raped, injured, beaten, held back, discriminated against…by the men in their lives who should have loved and cared for and encouraged them.

One might ask, “What have we become as a nation?” I think the better question is “What have we always been?” Deep in this white power closet of secrets lie many more instances of lynchings, beatings, deaths, injuries, rapes, and punishments that we will never see. All those decades and centuries without cameras could tell us much if we could only see what happened. It isn’t pretty.

What have we become? What we have always been. We are a flawed and despicable nation masquerading as a democracy where anyone can flourish, grow and become whatever they want to and have the energy to work toward. The guarantees of our Constitution include “Life, Liberty an the PURSUIT of happiness.” But is really isn’t that way at all.

One must first have Life in order to do anything in this world. Liberty is the freedom to be who we are in this world, without the fear of having Life and Liberty taken from us. And the PURSUIT of happiness cannot be achieved without Life and Liberty.

Our country, while espousing these inalienable rights, has systematically and intentionally robbed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from many individuals. It is time for us to recognize our horrid past and current predicament. We desperately need to admit our short-comings because without admission there can be no correction. We cannot continue to pretend to be a democracy while continuing the despicable practice of robbing human beings of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. And yet, we cannot change without honesty…brutal honesty.

It is time for heart-wrenching and disturbing honesty. It is time for those white folks who are running so afraid of “Other” to admit that they are afraid. (Leaders know that they can control those they keep in fear.) It is time for a long look in the mirror. It is time for change…systemic change…change of heart and a change of direction (the definition of repentance)…

Is anyone else observing almost anxiety-disorder-like-symptoms in our country? If a system can exhibit symptoms, I think WE are…not just individuals, but our system. I see it all over in posts and in the news, in public “reactivity” to all sorts of things, individuals “unhinged” and lashing out over things as simple as “no shirt, no shoes, no mask, no service.” Executive Orders (unpublicized, of course) are frightening to say the least. Coherent public policy is non-existent. The detrimental and grandiose use of conspiracy theories, out and out WRONG information, and politicizing of everything during this pandemic is irresponsible, intentional and disturbing. And in the midst of all of that, people are being jerked back and forth between what they desperately want to believe and the facts that our scientists are providing for us daily. It is VERY concerning because anxiety left untended can turn into very severe responses and long-term challenges. And there are certain individuals and certain organisms that are feeding the anxiety. it is beyond unhealthy. It is diabolical and there appears to be No One in the administration or in government who is addressing this part of where we are.

This is worse than the collective anxiety we felt after 9/11. That brought us together. This anxiety is tearing us apart. And there are those who know you control through fear, through disinformation, through chaotic non-leadership. It is diabolical…and for the first time in my lifetime, I don’t see a way out in the near future.

A leadership change is needed for sure, but the leadership necessary right now is beyond political…we need medical experts, psychiatric experts, systems specialists (who understand how systems function and how to correct viral dysfunction). I find myself losing the ability to think positively, to believe correction is possible. I find myself wondering if the American Experiment is slowly failing and slipping into demise. A divided house cannot stand.

I am always curious about human behavior. I am never sure how anyone can feel justified to mistreat another human being, to verbally assault another person, to consciously and publicly insult, demean, and embarrass another…by clear and unmitigated choice. There is, of course, never a justification for any type of assault–violent and physical or non-physical, yet violent. We are privy to such assaults every day…and they come from the mouth of the one who we as a collective citizenry elected as our president. Our “leader” has done nothing to ratchet down the vitriol, the rancor, or the state of our ugly, partisan, selfish, nasty politics. He has, however, done everything to encourage the ugliness, partisan bias, selfish, nasty behavior that has slowly come to embody our politics. He likes it. He relishes it. (He talks about this sort of thing in his books…)

Apparently, there is nothing any of us can do to change this horrid man. He apparently likes this sort of leadership. We are stuck with it for the next two years. The only thing those of us who cannot support or give nod to this sort of leadership can do is to become politically active, and to make sure we get out and vote in two years. We need to begin letter-writing campaigns, flooding our congresspersons offices, telling them what we think about the ugliness, their lack of leadership to lead a counterbalance to this political travesty, and what our hopes and dreams are for our country apart from this Bizarro-Trump-World we find ourselves stuck in. We need to boldly encourage one another to vote against Trump in 2020…but we need to find a suitable replacement.

The kind of person we’ll need to right our ship will need to be the antithesis of Trump. We will need a person of personal integrity and political integrity. We will need a person capable of empathy and compassion…one who can listen…who reads and knows history…who has a political acumen as well as some experience in the world beyond a high tower in New York city…We need a person who is mentally sharp and mentally healthy, without a diagnose-able mental illness. We need someone who understands how to treat others, especially those who disagree, with respect…with care and concern. We need someone who will staunchly protect our children and the world’s children. We need someone who respects women for their intellect and their wisdom without having to comment on their looks (especially not inappropriately commenting on their own children!)… We need someone who can respect everyone, no matter their sexual orientation, their race, their gender, their party, or their differences in abilities.

In short, we need a human being who can redefine what leadership means and still be a compassionate, empathy-exercising, wise, and savvy president.

Heart wrenches as I read the news.                                                                Words matter. Our leader knows it not.                                                        Words sear into our brains.                                                                                Words change ignorant hearts and fill with hate.                                       Words give permission for unbridled souls to act.                                     Words matter. Words have power.                                                                  Power to bless. Power to curse.                                                                        Power to encourage. Power to shove into the abyss filled with the basest human refuse.                                                                                                      Power to lift up. Power to tear down.                                                              Power to change. Power to hurt.                                                                    Words, dear leader, matter.                                                                               Heart wrenches as I read the news.                                                           Nigerian leaders, spraying protesters with live rounds, killing, hurting, maiming.                                                                                                                      To BBC, “This is what he was talking about.”                                                Words, one occupying an historic, oval space once used for good…        Words have power…for good…                                                                              and also, for grave ill.                                                                                           Stop.                                                                                                                           The.                                                                                                                           Ugly.                                                                                                                      Words.

Having asked the question “How do we stop the madness?” that our world is experiencing right now, I have been challenged to show how to do what I assert in that post. So, here is a lesson plan for reaching across the aisles, your streets in your neighborhood, reaching into the mosque down the street or the synagogue in your community, or the church that is very different from yours. It is a way for those of you from differing political groups to reach out and discover the neighbors beyond your political “side.” It is a way for one neighborhood to get to know those neighbors they didn’t realize they had…because they’ve been afraid of the differences. Have some fun with this…even though you may be nervous at first. How do we engage the people who are “Other” to us?

FIRST STEP: Get together with some people you do know…close friends, Sunday School Class members, yoga classmates, jogging partners, whoever you count as trusted in your life. Read the post “How do we stop the madness?”

SECOND STEP: Talk among yourselves about what strikes you first about the post. Do you agree? Do you find it offensive? Does it make your mind race with ideas or make you realize that you have yet identified fears? Have a GENTLE conversation…

THIRD STEP: Now comes the real challenge. Is there a group of “Other” that you do not really know? That you have never really sat down with and talked with? Is it your new neighbor with a skin color or a culture different from you? Is there a woman in your neighborhood who wears head-covering that you have never spoken to because she is “Other”? Is there a man who wears a yarmulke or some other traditional head-covering that you avoid because he is different? Is there a faith-community different from yours down the street or across the subdivision that you think of differently because they are “Other”? Identify these “Others” in your proximity.

FOURTH STEP: What could you do to reach out your hands to them? To invite them into a conversation, to a shared meal, or perhaps even a traditional afternoon “tea.” There are less dietary restrictions of the sweet things in life than there are on the meat, etc. If you are inviting a different culture group, do some homework to find out what is “kosher” in their world. (You know…coffee, tea, homemade cookies, cupcakes, something cheery.) Of if your group is of a culture not typically “American”, what is a way you could invite your more typically American neighbors in to meet them, talk with them, and break the ice? (I think of Turkish berek with coffee, or the crisp little cookies I remember from Turkish bakeries–the melt-in-your-mouth buttery ones…Every culture has sweets for special occasions.) Pick an event (the who, what, where, how, and when)…make it special…write the invitations. (Yes. Write the invitations…make them beautiful like this is the most important thing you have ever done.) Make sure you give the contact information for an RSVP. (That’s French for respond, if you please. Yes, we can come. No, we cannot but we’d love reschedule…You get the idea.)

FIFTH STEP:  Set up your space for the event. Create an atmosphere of real welcome. Keep it simple, but make it look intentional, filled with care and concern, and love. (Remember, love is not necessarily an emotion. It is first an action. The warm, fuzzy feelings often come AFTER the action.) If there will be children, prepare some traditional games for them to play.

SIXTH STEP: Keep this first meeting light and friendly. Have name tags for everyone to wear. Nothing is more intimidating that trying to remember everyone’s name. Keep the questions filled with care and gentleness. (For instance, do not start off saying something that divides the room. “So, why are you so different from us?” Good heavens! That’s an event ender.) Here are some sample ways to open up a get-to-know-you conversation. 1) We want to make an opportunity to get to know you…and for you to get to know us. We’ve prepared some special treats for you and hope you like them. 2) This particular cookie was a favorite of _________________. She will tell you about them. (My grandmother used to make these when I was a child. I always loved them. I hope you do, too. –keep it simple) Do you have a childhood food that you remember that made you feel happy? 2) Show them around the space. Share what makes you happy in this space. Ask them if they have a favorite place that makes them feel safe and secure. If there are children present, make sure they are welcomed and that they have activities to do together. Games are good ice-breakers, but so are art projects…Hint: Adults like art projects, too. It is way to work side-by-side and talk, too. It is non-threatening.

SEVENTH STEP: Do it. Enjoy it. Take it slow and watch what happens. The goal is to make new friends, learn about folks who are different, and discover how much alike we really are. At subsequent meetings, float the idea of doing something together…a project. There are many ideas for this: 1) a relay for life event. (All are, unfortunately, touched by cancer, illness.) 2) collecting something to help someone else…a local food bank, a local clothing bank, a children’s hospital in your locality, a PTA organization where the children present are all touched…you get the idea.

EIGHTH STEP: At some point, after the groups in question have gotten to know each other and “broken the ice,” perhaps you could work together to have an event where you learn about each other through presentations. The presentations aren’t about convincing, converting, or winning. They are strictly “This is who we are” presentations. If is fun to discover there traditions and faith come from. Sometimes, we discover common or shared roots…but most often, whatever happens, we end up understanding each other better.

NINTH STEP: Keep it going. Make your gatherings a new “tradition.” Look for ways of inviting new “Others” in. Make it your mission to know those around you. .. to connect with them in simple ways… and to discover all those “friends” you have not met yet.

TENTH STEP: When you have established this new friendship, reach out to your local mayor, city council, local congressperson (state or federal) etc. Invite them to come and discover something beautiful…a group of people who are very different who have discovered that they have more in common than they ever thought possible. Our politicians need us to remind them of that, instead of telling us how to hate each other because we are different!

And remember! This takes time. It takes effort. It takes VISION. And we can do this together.

My friends know that I am fascinated and informed by Systems Psychology. It is a very useful “school” in the study of our pysche (individual and collective). A system is defined as any two or more people involved together in some fashion…as in a marriage/family, a church, a classroom, any organization, and government, etc. When a system, whatever it is, becomes controlled or consumed by some anxiety, it becomes dysfunctional. It cannot function “rationally” because the angst has dulled rational thought, normal behavior, and normal discourse.

We see this in our country right now. After “9/11”, I remember telling my husband that if our leaders didn’t do something very quickly to quell the consequential anxiety after that day, we would eat ourselves alive from the inside out. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen bears witness to this phenomenon. It begins unnoticed. The anxiety roots itself deep in the heart of the system. As it grows, individuals within the system will unconsciously look for places to release their anxiety. These “targets” are necessary to quell anxiety. Countries will find “enemies” both without and within (for instance, “immigrants” and/or “bad trade partners” and/or “that country”). Political parties will more and more often place blame for conditions on the “other party” (for instance, Democrats are the reason our country is in such a mess…Republicans are the reason…). Politicians and/or presidents might choose either individuals or other systems on which to assign blame for the underlying anxiety (for instance, “Fake News”, or the previous president, or the “fixed system” or the “deep state”…) And for the public, those individuals or systems on which blame is placed become the things we hate, or malign, or wish ill on. You get the idea.

What we see happening today in our country is classic systems dysfunction. And unfortunately, our current leaders have become a huge part of an ongoing problem–both consciously and unconsciously. Our leaders (who are really supposed to be representatives for us) know that the general public is anxious. And for some of them, it plays into their future plans. All those in positions of power know that to control the numbers and those voting, you use fear and blame. You give some kind of voice to the anxiety of the group you wish to control. (And it doesn’t matter if it is a good voice, a helpful voice, a voice that lifts us to our best, instead of encouraging our basest instincts for survival at all costs.) Our politicians have been doing a masterful job of it. If you want a group to follow you, blame the other groups and divide the public. If you espouse “right-winged” ideas, blame the left. If you espouse “left-winged” ideas, blame the right. You get the idea! If you want to really enlarge your tent for more people, pit the average “Joe” against every group you can think of…immigrants (who are taking YOUR jobs), the “Fake News” who has been LYING to you all along–and you can only trust me, this alliance over here that has been “stealing from us” all along (they really aren’t our friends), or even claiming history has been “unfair” and we have been hurt by it. (Make the public feel like they are victims of something or some one…) Over time then, you grow your own power through slowly dividing and conquering, dividing and weakening, dividing and giving permission to hate the “Other.”

At this moment, a reader might wish to consider all the “targets” created in politics over the last seventeen years. Of course, it is nothing new. But, the artfulness of the practice has increased exponentially…and the general public responds predictably. It is rather frightening.

A malignant narcissist, such at the current president, whether consciously or unconsciously, knows how to manipulate the public. He explains over and over again how to do it in his books. He is a master at using his own negative behavior to so knock off balance his opponents in business and in life, that he can predict their responses. He is diabolically good at it. We see it every day. If one wishes a certain response from the general public, one publishes in the media some vile vitriol…a personal attack on someone viewed as stupid, horsefaced, incompetent… Or perhaps a person isn’t on the daily agenda. Perhaps it is a group– the political opposition party (the Democrats), a federal office that isn’t kowtowing quite enough (the Judiciary and the attorney general)…and that list goes on forever. If one doesn’t like those who protest against you, invite others to do them bodily harm and then offer to help them out with legal fees…or compliment one who body-slams a reporter and encourage others to do the same. If one doesn’t like what a woman says or one who stands up against you, just lump them all together and collectively grab their genitalia and show the world how useless women are unless they serve you quietly. (Our current “leader”, and I use that term loosely, doesn’t like strong women. They get in his way and don’t appear to like him much either. He needs those who adore him…who kowtow…either unknowing sycophants, or power-hungry bandwagon-riders. He doesn’t seem to care, as long as they nod in agreement, praise his every action, and lick his boots when they get a bit dirty.)

A public that has succumbed to anxiety, that pervasive, crippling angst I spoke of above, ceases to be able to recognize a manipulator. They have ceased to be able to ask questions that move them through a mess to the other side. They have ceased to recognize dysfunction. They have ceased to understand that in order to change the current situation, we must speak out against the manipulations, vitriol and nastiness, vote, act against those would do harm to fellow human beings, and elect those who can work FOR US collectively–to block the nonsense. (Someone like Kasich comes to mind. When he speaks, we need to listen. At this moment, he is a lone voice among many sycophants…)

(See this article about a time years ago when something terribly similar was happening and the public missed their collective chance to come against it and stop it. https://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2017-02/adolf-hitler-chancellor-appointment-anniversary/komplettansicht)

My concerns are many. Our media isn’t very schooled at out-manuevering a master manipulator like Trump. I’ve gotten so when he tweets over here, I tend to look over there. He is not only very good at manipulating, he and his minions are masters at distraction. Listen to their interviews. It is rare that his minions give straight, on-point answers. Kelley Anne Conway is very good at this. Very disturbing. The “real” news media must be tearing out their hair. The fast and loose use of “facts” is tremendously perplexing, but seems to be working. It is classic. The anxious public cannot and does not recognize truth anymore. The general public seems confused, even weary of it all. And those in our “free press” seem to be losing ground in spreading truth, versus the “alternate facts” so loved by our current “leader.”

When our current master is tweeting over here, or criticizing over there, what is really going on behind all the nonsense? I keep wondering about this. What is Congress up to? Are they getting anything done that helps the public without overtly benefiting the party in power right now? Is all the hype about what the Republicans want to do to our Social Security true, or is it the left’s attempt to make us afraid? What is really going on with the poor families torn asunder by a heartless government more concerned with a wall than human suffering? (And when did America become this heartless bottom-feeder so unconcerned with the plight of those less fortunate than we are? When did that happen?) What are WE doing about eroding voters’ rights for the African-Americans, Hispanics and others in lower-income areas living in Georgia? What is being done for the voting rights of our Original American citizens (the Native Americans) as they are forced to get proof of their addresses from tribal leaders before going to vote because, on reservations, their address system is not like the rest of America!? (It is an extra step that is NOT required of everyone else because our ID’s have our addresses on them. Not so on tribal lands.) How can our free press keep up with all the “stuff” that is going on right now? How can you and I?

You may wonder why I ask all these questions. One of the classic techniques of helping an individual return to rational thinking is through questions. It actually helps pull the mind back into what it is created to do…ask questions and solve problems. It is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom (although problem-solving is not unique to humans–look at primates, some birds, etc.) The ability to solve complex problems is the very gift humans have that is so necessary at this moment. WE CAN FIND A SOLUTION to the problem(s) at hand. All we have to do is start asking questions, invite others into the thought-process, and slowly but surely work our way out of this mess TOGETHER.

It seems so simple, and it is such a huge task. It is our collective challenge right now. We must snap out of the world-wide epidemic of angst. It will drive us into a World War Three, just like the angst festering before World War One and Two drove humans to self-destructive behavior. I pray we don’t need carnage to snap us out of the angst that is growing all over the world…The United States, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, to name just a few countries. And the way to do this is to keep asking questions…pushing the search for answers…and for those of us who see what is happening to never allow anyone to silence us.

We cannot be silenced. We cannot because there are others waiting in the wings…to pounce at the right moment. The United States has acted as a sort of “protector” in times past. Whether or not we are really good at it or even have earned the right to “protect” with our own sordid history remains to be seen. It is certainly the subject of another essay. But right now, we are so dysfunctional that we are losing sight of those who need us around the world. We are so busy licking our own touted wounds, or kowtowing to those who are convincing us we are world’s victim, that we are losing sight of those who are truly suffering here and abroad.

It is hard for me to concentrate on how damaged big business is by world trade practices when I look at the number of children who go to bed hungry every night, or the number of homeless people worldwide. “Big business” is called “big business” because they are big, and successful, and have sustained themselves long enough to be called “big”. It is hard for me to feel sorry for Trump’s family business woes when I think of those who are unemployed and underemployed…and number of those who have worked for his companies/projects who never got paid because of legal wrangling. If Trump is everything he says he is, then he’s never been a victim of anything…although perhaps he has left in his wake many victims.

We cannot be silenced. Those true victims are more numerous every day. In the wake of the last few days, the shootings, bomb-sendings, attacks on the Other…we must speak out against power that give permission to the basest of evil human traits. We can end the madness, but it won’t be easy. We must reach across aisles and streets and neighbors…and grab hands and hearts. 

I have many questions. My mind has not been silenced. My voice is perhaps quite faint…but my spirit mighty. We’re not finished yet…although we are in danger of becoming the “failed American experiment” that shone brightly for a spell and is in danger of flickering out. Why would we allow that to happen? What can we do to work together to turn around the ship? Can we find a way to look across aisles and streets and neighborhoods and see God in each other’s eyes, to feel compassion instead of fear for those who are different, and to quell the angst and to cease the madness?

I think so…I hope so…

I need to stop reading about what is going on in our world. I keep thinking enough folks who can see what it happening will begin to speak out and say, “Oh, yeah. We need to turn this ship around!” But that isn’t happening. I keep waking up sure that I’ve arrived in some strange twilight zone where truth is now fiction, light is now darkness, and sensibility is really foolishness. Civility is gone. Intellectual debate has been transformed into insults, rude vitriole, and vomit-like spittle. What used to make sense is now insanity focused on light hair, a bad tan, and legs. The anxiety in our society has reached such a fever-pitch that we are grasping at nonsense for solutions, following as outlier like a savior, and accepting the unacceptable.The twilight zone is here. The outer limits has become our reality. And I’ve got to quit reading the news, hoping to see something change. We have a turned a corner and are heading straight for disaster.

I am dismayed. I am heartbroken. I am distressed. The latest shenanigans in Washington lay bare the chasm that exists between the male-driven political system in Washington and the collective female-experience in America. True: Women have come a long way in our country. We can vote (only after suffragettes had to claw and scrape our way to the polls). We can get a credit card now without father’s or husband’s approval/support and signatures. We can own a home, a car, etc., without a man signing for it. We no longer have to marry to live acceptably in society. And, we can openly live in any sort of relationship we wish, be it hetero, homo, or a –sexual. But, language that describes our often negative walk in life is still passive and still deflects the negative impact men can have in our lives.

And, if you happen to have kept a sexual assault a secret for many years, it is now acknowledged publicly that perhaps it never happened After all, if a woman is assaulted, what are some of the first questions? Why were you there? Why were you with “him”? Why didn’t you run home and tell your parents? Why didn’t you go to a police station and tell the men? What were you thinking?

I was taught by my mother that “I hold the key.” If someone gets to me (my p#$$&, a la Trump), it must be because I opened myself willingly. If someone hurts me, it is because my dress was too short, or my top too low, or because I went willingly to some place I should not have gone. So, therefore, if anything happens to me, it is my fault. After all, boys will be boys, men are just men, and we can’t really blame them for doing what God made them to do. Ouch! Really?…

And so, for the last couple of weeks, we’ve watched and listened to our senate judiciary committee be American “boys.” The “Boys Club” was there for all to see. The suggestion that a man serve on the Supreme Court must be an assumption and nothing in his life should call into question his character or deter him from the “right” to serve on the court. No investigation needed. This woman is mistaken. If she was there, whatever happened was her own damn fault. And why in God’s name did she not run to the police and report the incident? Thirty-six years ago, male police did such a good job dealing with these things. Rapists and men who assaulted girls were always prosecuted, right? No one ever made the victim the focus and put them through hell…right? Harrumph!

This woman who came forward with concerns was just a stunt…or perhaps, forgive me, just another c%^& (again, a la Trump) who would upturn a man’s life! No need to search for the truth because the assumption among the men is always that it is somehow the woman’s fault…right? Apparently so.

So I am distressed and dismayed. I am appalled that those MEN who are our elected representatives do not represent us. They represent their party, their tribe, the predominantly male-focused party who believes in the status quo, that victory belongs to the guys, and that any woman who stands in the way can and should be done away with. After all, what is it that their president said…and they apparently agree with? Just grab em all by the p^$$#…they like it…men can get away with it.

Today, I am wondering about more than the typical Advent thoughts and reflections. I am wondering about the whole sexual harrassment/abuse kerfuffle. There is nothing new to any of this. It has been possible for all time. And the fact that it is still going on, is still possible, says something unfortunate about the human condition and the condition of the American society.

Centuries ago, in tribal cultures all over the world, and in feudal societies, and in recent American history, women have been viewed as less than men, lesser citizens, or even lower, as property, chattel, possessions. Women were long ago deemed more vulnerable, the “weaker” sex, objects of satisfaction and the producers of offspring and the continuance of the species, or the community. Women were put in a certain place, not of honor, but a place in which they could be/can be controlled and subjugated by men.

Today, there are still places in this world where this control and subjugation continues in overt ways. Little girls are still genitally mutilated to prevent them from ever experiencing sexual pleasure, with the ridiculous justification that doing this to them will control their desire to be promiscuous. Young women are still bartered with through arranged marriages. passed from father to husband in a cultural exchange of property. Women are not allowed to have drivers’ licenses or make decisions without the “consent” of the male-in-charge-of-them in their families. Women are required to wear coverings in the presence of non-familial men, in public, etc., purportedly for modesty, but in reality because they are still viewed as property…to be kept pure, to be controlled, to be treated as lesser entities. Women in these cultures are still forced and brain-washed to accept the control and power of men over them.

But lest the West feel good about the strides that have been allowed women, there are still vestiges of this societal control in our world, too. We cannot point our fingers at the Muslim hijab and say, “Oh, those poor women.” We still have those veils in our Western culture, too, albeit invisible ones. In the Christian Church, we still give away our daughters at the altar during wedding ceremonies. It is a vestige of days gone by when the great property exchange between fathers and husbands took place. Today, our girls think it is a wonderful tradition because THEY HAVE NOT BEEN TAUGHT from where the custom originates. Women still struggle in the sphere of employment, making less than men, unable to rise on the company ladder due to very subtle control measures placed there as time has passed. Women are still ogled, objectified, kept down, and treated as second-class citizens in our world, too. We have made great strides, but the fact that we have to “STRIVE” to move forward shows the world that the power structure still favors men.

And now, we have the very public and distasteful sexual harrassment/abuse debacle unfolding before us. Men in power exercising that power over their “underlings” with impunity…still abound in our Western culture. It is equal in nature to what happens to women in other cultures when they are raped. The women are put on trial, punished and sometimes killed because the women have somehow shamed their families by allowing themselves to be victimized. That same thing is happening in public opinion today. Trump, the less than-illustrious human occupying our Presidency became president even though 14 or more women came forward accusing him of sexual harrassment/abuse. Now, Roy Moore is running for the senate of Alabama despite being accused of pedophilia (sexual assault of a 14-year-old). Of course, both these men have skirted the issue by simply denying the accusations…and because they are men, and on top of the food chain in our culture, they can walk away from the accusations with impunity. Other congressmen, Franken and Conyers, can just wait on ethics committees run by men to decide if they should step down from their honored positions…No rush. No foul. They are men in power. They have the edge. They have the genitalia that allow them to sail through life without remorse, without fear of punishment for how they treat the lowly women they encounter. After all, those young girls, those women in the office, are there for their delight and pleasure, for their locker room talk, for their coarse and crass behavior. No consequences necessary. They are, after all, men.

So women, who have made such strides and have been swimming against the currents for years, are not much further along than our sisters in other parts of the world. The behavior of men is rarely challenged, rarely changes, and is rarely subject to any natural law of consequence.

And, there is a sub-set of women in our culture who still believe that women are responsible for the behavior of the men in our lives. If a woman is raped, “What did she have on?” “Why was she on that street?” “Why did she go to that club?” In other words, “It must be her fault.” If a woman is sexually harrassed, “Well, what signals was she sending?” “How short was her skirt?” “Why did she allow it to happen?” In other words, it must be her fault. My own mother has uttered words to that effect, without realizing how low she has pushed those women in these moments of suffering and subjugation. We still have women in our culture who claim that a woman’s place is in the home, tending the children, serving the man of the house. We still have churches teaching very archain views of a woman’s place, based on scriptural teachings written in historical ages in which women were property, chattel and persons without personal power, personal ownership, or any hint of citizenship or equality. We still use “Father” language for God…’Father’ language that developed in cultures in which the Father had ownership over the home, ownership of all the children and certainly all the women. We still frame marriage in the language of the Greco-Roman home, where the “Father” was the one in control, who owned everyone. We aren’t as far along as we’d like to think.

I think our American culture needs to begin an ongoing conversation about the “place” of women in our culture. Are we really going to move toward complete equality, or continue to give it weak lip-service, without any power or change at all. Are we going to continue to pretend that women are equal, or just mosey along willy-nilly and allow a culture where sexual harrassment/abuse is not only possible but tolerated?

The truth is obvious, but the path is not so defined. Where will we go with all of this? Will we move toward a better society, or limp along like we have been? And worse yet, will we allow ourselves to slip back into a culture where women are still second class citizens who can expect no justice and must put up with the men in the world who still view us as receptacles for their urges and toys with which to delight themselves?