calimary
calimary's JournalAnswer - probably more of the same absolute total allegedly "red-white-&-blue all-American" shit.
I can hear it now. Already. I've realized especially over the past six years that I am learning to expect the least, and the worst, out of far too many of my fellow Americans. Every time I think we've begun to outgrow some of this stupid, disgraceful shit, I turn out to be wrong. Sometimes I guess we just have to force change on our country. To the racists out there, closeted or not, I would say I don't give a rat's ass about whether you don't like it that there's a black guy in the Oval Office and he isn't the janitor. Don't care that you don't like it. GET OVER IT. It's gonna happen sooner or later - and it HAS. You don't like it? TOO DAMN BAD. Things CHANGE. And if you don't like it that a woman sits behind the Resolute Desk next round, tough shit. You don't like it? TOO DAMN BAD. Things CHANGE. And THIS is gonna happen, TOO. Sooner or later. Whether you like it or not.
Heck, I don't like getting older. And that's tough shit for me. It's gonna happen ANYWAY, whether I like it or not. And I don't think I should have to accept it, either, but regardless how hard I fight it, how many facelifts I might think I need, how much Botox or tummy tucks or whatever, Things CHANGE. And I'm gonna get older ANYWAY. It's gonna happen. Sooner or later.
These folks who dig in their heels have to get it through their heads sooner or later. Things CHANGE. Things EVOLVE. Nothing stays the same. That's just how life is. The Earth TURNS. It does not stay static. It moves. That movement causes change. That movement IS change. Change is a universal. And a non-negotiable. You're FAR better off accepting it, moving with it, flowing with it. EVOLVING with it. And for those who don't want to, who insist on stopping the clock, rolling back time, going backwards toward some way they THINK things used to be or should have been, TOO DAMN BAD. That's what IS. Whether you like it or not.
America is evolving as a country. That's what IS. Whether you like it or not.
America is no longer gonna be a majority Anglo country. That's just what IS. Whether you like it or not, or anybody else likes it or not.
And if you don't like it, I'm afraid that's just tough. And I don't care that you don't like it. Whether you like it or not is IRRELEVANT.
The best, actually the ONLY thing, that you can effectively do about it is GET OVER IT.
Damn - sorry you have to deal with that BS!
It's enough effort just to have, perform, and keep a job PERIOD these days, without that extra issue breathing down your neck. My sympathies. I've been in hostile work environments before but not in an EEOC situation. Funny - back when I was first working, I got hired BECAUSE of EEOC. My first several jobs originated simply because they needed to hire a woman. Because they had to be able to check off that box. I went through several newsrooms carrying the title "first girl". How many times I was dubbed with the cutesy little slogan "girl-reporter"! A regular Lois Lane LOL. As if I was one big professional vagina on two legs. Always sorta shrugged it off although I did find it rather patronizing.
And lo these many years later, Ferguson MO happens, and I find a photo in the coverage that just smacks me in the face like a cream pie:
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God, I frickin' LOVE this photo!!!! Whoever that woman is, she speaks for ME!!!!
To me as well. Eighteen? Yes. Still a child! Mine are 22 and 24 - and yes I see each of them as my
child. The baby of the family will ALWAYS be my baby, even when I'm 80-something and he's 40-something.
More than anything else I would assert, as a woman, and on behalf of all women, while savoring and relishing all the good things we are, there's one thing we definitely and absolutely are NOT:
WE ARE NOT PROPERTY.
Hey sweetie -
Nobody is going to ridicule you while I'M around. Besides, there's FAR more to ridicule about me than there ever could be about you.
(Um... have you seen my stretch marks and my crepey neck? I better go hide, come Thanksgiving!!!)
Well, evidently, that poster had military experience.
I thanked you for your service since your writing and explaining contained enough clues for me that you might be or might have been in the military. You responded that you weren't. So I think I'll take as credible the descriptions of someone in the armed forces (a former Marine - I guess that might qualify) describing the inappropriate and over-kill display of war toys and other accoutrements that a local municipal police officer was allowed to put on, sit on, sit behind, and grip in his hands. I would think a former Marine would recognize war toys when he (or she) saw them. Meanwhile, you still have yet to identify what expertise you bring to the table, and what therefore allows and enables you to make pronouncements about what constitutes war-toy displays and what doesn't constitute war-toy displays - except only to let me know that you did not serve (in response to my thanking you for your service).
A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in Ferguson
There is a growing chorus of military veterans who have chimed in on the absurdity of photographs like this one. Let me join the parade. What we’re seeing here is a gaggle of cops wearing more elite killing gear than your average squad leader leading a foot patrol through the most hostile sands or hills of Afghanistan. They are equipped with Kevlar helmets, assault-friendly gas masks, combat gloves and knee pads (all four of them), woodland Marine Pattern utility trousers, tactical body armor vests, about 120 to 180 rounds for each shooter, semiautomatic pistols attached to their thighs, disposable handcuff restraints hanging from their vests, close-quarter-battle receivers for their M4 carbine rifles and Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights. In other words, they’re itching for a fight. A big one. It’s a well-known horror that the US military greets foreign peoples in this fashion as our politicians preach freedom, democracy and peace. It’s an abomination that the police greet black communities in the States with the same trigger-happy posture. Especially on the occasion of an unarmed teen’s death by cop
Welcome to DU, BaggersRDumb!
Glad you're here! Amazing. Just amazing, isn't it? People like this fellow should NOT be put in a position of forcible authority over anyone. With those attitudes, he has no business entrusted with community law enforcement.
Welcome to DU, Quayblue.
Good to have you with us. True enough. No need to hate oneself to recognize others' hardships. I will say this, though, as a white woman in her early 60s - I think women in general have a built-in sense of this and a deeper appreciation of this as well. WE TOO have been shoved into second-class-citizen status. WE TOO have been considered property. WE TOO have been considered subservient. Not equal. That's a fight we women are still fighting. STILL can't get the Equal Rights Amendment pushed all the way through. There are STILL people in this day and age, shockingly enough some of them women, who believe strongly that women should not have the right to vote. I've heard them and seen them. I think women of ANY color automatically "get" this.
Granted, I have never had to have "that" talk with my kids as they stepped through the front door from the safety of our home into the broad daylight or the night. They'll never know that strange reality that develops when one walks past some police officers - and one is African American, and how the complexion of the whole situation can change, pivoting ONLY on THAT. But by God they know that this condition IS real, and DOES affect others, including friends of theirs.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
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