I Come From Alabama…
Most of my life, I’ve felt some degree of embarrassment or shame when I’ve said those words. That shame is framed by a series of horrible images from my long life living in Alabama or reading or watching about it once I left: Governor “Big Jim” Folsom plastered on the cover of Time magazine, passed out drunk on the capitol steps in Montgomery; groups of black men dressed in gray and black striped uniforms and attached to each other by strong ropes or chains as they worked along highways picking up debris; white guards on very large horses and holding very large rifles ready to fire at any of those chained black men; Governor George Wallace standing defiantly (legs spread, arms akimbo) in front of a building on the University of Alabama campus declaring that no “colored people” would attend; the main street of that campus lined two or three deep with angry white laborers from the Tuscaloosa paper mill and rubber plant holding bricks/bats/boards as Arthurene Lucy was driven to class by our new white Dean of Women who was a “Yankee” from Michigan; black parents and children trying to escape many police dogs who had been told to “sic ’em” by their white handlers in uniform; black people being fire-hosed into streets or against brick walls or onto park grass by police led by Chief Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor; streets of Birmingham deserted and department stores closed because a “Negro” had been elected mayor and all white people who could have fled to suburbs some of which were being created to house such people.
So when the child molester running for the U.S. Senate to replace Jeff Sessions was accused of sexual abuse of very young girls and women, I once again felt embarrassed and ashamed. Knowing absolutely nothing about Doug Jones, I knew well enough that his opponent would win because too many Alabamians connect Democrats with all manner of dangerous and even supernaturally evil beings. My college roommate who has returned to Huntsville to be closer to her family told me she might have to move is the abusive man won–something we both predicted. But we were, thankfully, wrong. Doug Jones won because a lot of people worked long and hard talking about his positive qualities and his opponent’s unspeakable qualities. And Tuesday, December 12th, in his cogent and heartening acceptance speech, Mr. Jones told the significant truth that he could not have won without the huge turn-out by black voters in the state. He also said in a later interview that his successful prosecution of the two men who boasted to friends of helping bomb a church and kill four precious little girls was “the best work I’ve done.”
It turns out that Doug Jones isn’t just a fellow Alabamian, but he grew up in Fairfield, a near suburb of Birmingham and home to TCI (Tennessee Coal and Iron Company), the southern steel mill run by U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh. I grew up in that same Fairfield, a generation before him, so we share all sorts of local souvenirs. What his election has done for me that is a gift of the greatest magnitude is this: Watching him speak in a municipal building in Birmingham, with a young black woman and an old black man right behind him, both laughing and crying in equal measure has given me a new image to set beside all the frozen ones I began this blog by listing. This moment of transformation can’t erase or even replace all the sickening memories, but it can sit beside them, nudging them ever so slightly to the periphery of my vision.
Acting With Impunity
When we accuse someone of “acting with impunity,” we mean that person is exempt from any punishment or harm that might follow from his or her action. Our daily news is rifled with examples of individuals who have long thought they qualified for this label, beginning with the president. I’ve been thinking hard about how some of the men now being accused of behaving in sexually inappropriate ways toward women have wound up believing they warrant this impunity. Lots of words are being written about the power imbalances that often exist in work environments, making it easy for abusers to impel their victims to stay silent since professional careers are often in the picture. Almost every day, some social medium lets us hear another woman tell us her silence stems from not wanting to lose her job or a chance to progress in her chosen field.
Surely this inequity is part of the dilemma facing many women and I don’t want to minimize how destructive it has been and can be. But my focus has turned to the men who say and do the things that necessitate some woman’s keeping silent and being haunted. I ask myself “how can he do this sort of thing?” when often the “he” is someone who has contributed positively in other arenas outside daily contact with the women in his world. I’m thinking now, not of the president or Roy Moore, but of people like Charlie Rose or Al Franken or John Conyers. The word that keeps coming to me is EMPATHY.
My trusty unabridged Webster’s dictionary tells me empathy means “the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him [sic] better.” My own version of this is “taking time to think what X might feel like to someone other than me.” Again, our current world is full of glaring examples of people lacking empathy, again beginning with the president. And I flash to the incredibly tone-deaf Dove soap ad or to men who accuse women of not having a sense of humor when we object to being demeaned by word or deed or how a black mother feels when her son is shot by some flustered policeman. If I do not imagine how you might feel about a given situation, then I feel no compulsion to alter that situation. Think back to the debate in the South Carolina legislature over whether to remove the confederate flag from the capitol grounds. White legislators who insisted it was part of their “history” obviously were not thinking for a second of how passing by that flag might feel to one of their black colleagues. Then think back to what U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham said on national television when asked his position on the matter. Paraphrasing, he said “George–the name of a black legislator at the time–tells me–Graham and ‘George’ are friends of many years, it seems–that it is very hard for him to go to work every morning because he has to walk under the flag that reminds him of slavery days when people like him were in chains. He says it hurts his heart. Well, if it hurts George’s heart, it hurts my heart so I am changing my position on the matter. We need to take the flag down and put it in a museum where it becomes part of history.” That statement tells me Lindsay Graham was experiencing powerful empathy, so he could no longer “act with impunity.”
So my challenge these days is to take a breath before labeling someone’s views beyond the pale. Rather, I want to listen to people whose views on a wide panoply of topics differ from mine. Ideally, they will return the favor so that they no longer ascribe terrible categories and labels to me and my values. The goal of this listening is not to agree with each other but merely to acknowledge that we inhabit different skin and cannot know the full story of what has brought us to our present positions.
“I Don’t Remember That Photo”
So said Senator Al Franken in response to the second brave woman who stepped up to accuse him of touching her inappropriately several years ago. His not remembering is at the heart of the problem behind most of the rash of accusations coming from women who do remember. The photograph in question couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. More significantly, it in no way invaded Senator Franken’s psyche or surprised him in a bad way or in any way changed his compass for negotiating life. And, by his own powerful admission, it has not hung around to haunt him or cause him to feel undervalued or unclean. Freud once wrote that jokes are funny or not funny depending on whether a person is on the inside or outside of the joke. Al Franken was way outside what happened in that selfie. Lindsay Menz was way inside those seconds that can be replicated by almost every adult woman alive today–and many men who, as boys, were subjected to unwanted behaviors from men like Kevin Spacey.
We surely know by now that all such moments/actions come from a given man’s assuming without any conscious thought at all that he is “entitled” to touch, speak to, or act around girls and women in any way he chooses, simply because of his skewed position of power attached to his sex. And if that man has recognized power because of fame and/or wealth and position, not only does he assume he can act as he chooses but that he will get away with doing so. Because we inhabit a patriarchy, that assumption has been true for the other side of a power system based on something as arbitrary as what sex a person is. Little girls who are abused are told to keep silent either because the horrible behavior is “our special secret” or because “if you tell anybody, I’ll do something bad to you.” Adult women, if we work outside the home, know that speaking to someone in our organization will brand us in negative ways at the very least. And that speaking may well cost us a job we simply cannot afford to lose. So a cloak of deep and destructive silence has kept women from healing or moving beyond the photo or touch or verbal assault.
Talking heads on TV keep asking “why now?” as if there is some logic behind all the women’s voices declaring what is our reality. I have no easy answer to what may well be a useless question. It may be as simple as “enough is enough” as said by some of the women making accusations. But, just maybe, it is related to all women’s having spent two years listening to an aging, unattractive billionaire brag about his free reign to grope any woman anywhere anytime. So as we watch the world of Hollywood and television and sport act quickly to fire or disavow all contact with abusive men in their midst, we surely are entitled to ask if it might not be time to “fire” the president? After all, he relished saying “YOU’RE FIRED” on his reality TV show for several years. Meanwhile, let us now praise all the women who are telling the truth about moments we do remember whether we want to or not.
Coming to Believe
In Twelve Step programs, the second step reads “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” As I watch images from the recent weekend’s NFL footballs games, this step keeps going through my mind. All those talented players, mostly black, are shown kneeling quietly and seriously as the American national anthem is played or sung. Or they stand with linked arms–highly developed muscularly, of course–and thoughtful expressions on their faces. I understand this “play” of theirs quite well, though when I try to watch an actual game on the field, I often can’t tell who has the ball or where it is. Sometimes, I’ve even mused that the whole sport of professional football is an activity designed to make it all right for grown men to hug each other.
But these respectful protests against a president who is showing more and more clearly just how racist his core beliefs and preferences are move me. Who knows why their overwhelmingly white owners are increasingly joining them in these respectful protests. We do know why more and more of the black players and their white allies are doing so. They are “coming to believe” that their fame as superb athletes on the field for a couple of hours a week does not change the fundamental fact that resides in their being black in an America no longer hesitant about voicing openly the most hateful ideas and feelings about black people of any kind. What television pundits and late night comics are saying/doing around this issue helps me pull back from utter despair over where the country is headed. We are being shown contrasting comments from the president about his view of NFL players (majority black) and NASCAR drivers (majority white) and this helps viewers understand what is going on. When we laugh with Jimmy Kimmel or Trevor Noah or Conan O’Brien, we move further away from accepting serious proposals coming from the White House about who can travel to the US or who can vote or who can continue to receive health care.
So I stand in admiration of the football players who take off their helmets to honor the national anthem but kneel or stand in protest. As several black spokespeople I’ve seen lately on CNN say: “They are not disrespecting the flag or our country; rather they are acting in accordance with the Constitution of that country as they try to help its citizens work to make it a better place.” They are coming to believe in a Power greater than their passing arms or running legs or deftly designed strategies for how to get to the goal posts. That Power in this instance is standing up to someone invested with tremendous “power” whom they see using that investiture to shred the very fabric of the country they love.