Leading And Loving (classism in liberal organizations)

(This was first published in the Jackson Free Press on August 7, 2013 the online version is available by clicking the hyperlink)
My lower middle-class grandparents' status largely shielded me from class issues. I grew up the only child of a single mother, and it wasn't until I was on my own as a teenaged wife and mother that class restraints became real. They started to weigh heavily on me. Among other things, I learned the rules of who the "proper" people are for certain jobs in the restaurants where I worked, and I saw the class lens through which some view young mothers.

#As an activist (and a real-life poor person), I am offended when I have to deal with classism within the liberal political and social-justice organizations I work with. If organizations think they can serve populations that their board members, directors or staff can't or won't speak with or listen to, they are in the wrong business. If an organization attempts to serve oppressed populations or low-income people but doesn't have representatives of those groups within the operation, it has failed.

#I am tired of hearing conversations within liberal circles about how uneducated some people are in Mississippi, and this is why we should worry about who votes. Our educational system isn't perfect, but I want to challenge those who make such arguments. They come dangerously close to the arguments made for literacy tests and voter disenfranchisement during Jim Crow, and they aren't something one should put into the social discourse.

#If voters are uneducated on issues, it is our job to reach out, not to further alienate them. We live in a state that is trying to disenfranchise voters—we don't need political parties, through their speech and actions, actively discouraging people from participating in the process. 
If either party wishes to broaden its base, it would do well to stop demonizing poor and working-class people and, instead, try talking to us. We are nice people. We're just as good—and as bad—as middle- and upper-class people, and we, too, want to understand the issues that affect us.

#No one can afford to write off whole groups of people from the social and political discourse of this country. That's a losing strategy, especially with more and more people falling into poverty. For people on my side of the political spectrum, I strongly urge caution: You cannot be "on the side" of poor people and personally practice elitism.

#"You can't lead the people if you don't love the people," Cornel West said. "You can't save the people if you don't serve the people."

#West is right. But he means all the people, not just the ones that society long ago chose as the "right" ones.

A note on 9/11

Today is the anniversary of 9/11 media outlets will spend the day trying to milk our country's collective sorrow and pain for every bit of ratings it's worth.

I can do without TV stations replaying a moment by moment, as it happened 9/11 remembrance. We can still remember without doing that. I don't think it serves any function but to make us scared. The mass media likes scared. Capitalism likes scared. Scared people tend to buy things and stay glued to our TVs which means we watch commercials.

Well media I remember exactly how scared I was that day. So scared in fact that my children were running late for school and I decided to keep them home thinking the end of world was happening.
So scared I called one of my best friends Addison asking "what the hell is going on".

I remember making my kids huddle on my bedroom floor with me for about a half hour as I had a panic attack. Yes I was THAT scared even though I was in Indiana. Not really a big terrorist target. Yet it felt like it was the end of the world and media helped make it feel that way.

No MSNBC and others I don't need your yearly trigger. I don't need Facebook and Twitter posts to tell me to "Never Forget". I won't forget nor do I need to see graphic photos to remember.

I do know since that time I have grown. I know that one act of terror doesn't give us the right to hate or to blow up whole counties making innocent civilians and families feel the same pain as we did and still do.

I know I am not as sure as I once was that charging into countries to "teach them a lesson" is such a good idea. I am much more of a pacifist.

Today we can commemorate those lost without reliving our pain minute by minute. The lessons we need to take away from 9/11 happened leading up to that horrible day and in it's aftermath. Lessons that in the wake of what is going on in Syria what we need to be even more focused on.

Thankful for the small things

When I came home from church yesterday my mom and I were talking about how one of the reasons I was able to question the fundamentalist evangelical church I attended as a child is my aunts Julie and Cindy would openly defy the rules and give me things I wasn't allowed to have. (background my mother stayed in the church largely due to my grandparents influence and the fact we lived with them and/or by them).
On my 6th birthday my aunt Julie decided to get my ears pierced. My mother didn't object she just pretended not to know so my grandmother would yell at my aunt and not her. It was a full 2 days before my grandmother noticed and then all hell broke loose. She insisted my mother remove them and let my ears heal and my mother simply said "no she likes them and they aren't hurting anything". Thus I got to keep my earrings.
Julie also bought me my first pair of pants that year, turquoise blue sweatpants with white strips on the sides. I LOVED those pants! I couldn't wear them in public because I wasn't allowed but I hated taking them off. I wanted to wear them everyday even under my ankle length prairie dresses. In fact I wore them all the time for two years. The poor things had been patched so many times they were clearly rags and they were almost the length of walking shorts.
One may wonder why pants were so meaningful to a six year old girl but I remembered as I sat talking to my mother what I felt when I put them on. I felt free! Free to play and do things I had sat and watched other kids do but I couldn't because they weren't "ok for girls to do". Pants meant I could climb on monkey bars and flip upside down on the swing. Wearing pants meant I didn't have to constantly worry about how I was sitting. I could just be a kid, play and have fun.
My aunt Cindy understood this because at her house she often threw me in my cousin Jason's clothes and sent me out to play. Then I could get dirty, run, tumble, and just BE without worrying about that stupid bulky skirt getting in the way.
In this moment of reflection I remembered how thankful I was for such small things. How joyous those that seemingly small change felt. Often when I am doing the work I do I have to remember that "small things" matter. Many times your small things are really big things to the people who receive them.

Fat shaming-JUST STOP IT!

Today something happened to me that rarely does-something on social media triggered memories and made me cry. I had just woke up and opened my Facebook page and there it was a picture of a plus size women in a club with the caption "this bitch killed my vibe".  It was on a close friend's page so I posted several comments asking what it was this woman had done that was so offensive that she needed to be publicly shamed on the web. Eventually my friend posted that she had hit on him while he was with his girlfriend (oh the horror). I then asked did he post the pictures of skinny women who hit on him in clubs too. Not surprisingly, I didn't get a response. I decided to flip though a few more of his pics and there was a picture of a older chubby woman sitting alone eating at Raising Cane's (it's a chicken fingers place) the caption read "this is what I had to see at lunch". That picture and caption made me angry and it made me cry.

outside the state capitol -FABULOUS 

2006 Miss Phi Beta Sigma Pageant at JSU-GORGEOUS! 

I am a plus size woman. I am not ashamed or embarrassed by my size. In fact I just wrote a column about this very kind of thing. I just didn't expect to see it from a close friend. While I am confident in who I am it doesn't stop the days when people say cruel and nasty things about my weight. The attacks come from strangers, family, friends, co-workers, and health care professionals. Like the ER doctor who needed to give me a pelvic exam and told me "I think you might be too heavy for that gurney and make it tip. Can you scoot down and see". When I-naked from the waist down covered in a sheet-did scoot down and it tipped he shouted into the hall. "Yeah she's too big we need the OTHER gurney." To this day I don't understand why he couldn't just get the other one to begin with. Oh wait because I'm fat therefore less than human.

So I expect maybe people can understand why when I see people fat shame on social media often I recognize myself in those posts. Sometimes I see the people I love.

Mum and I-Dynamic Duo

See I am the child of larger woman. When I talk about fat shaming I don't only speak from a place of my own pain I speak from a place of watching strangers be unspeakably cruel to my mother for my entire life. Not only was I teased about my mother's weight but we were constantly stared at in public. There were always comments, gestures and general rudeness. There were the people who thought they meant well "you have such a pretty face it's a shame you're so fat". Then there were the people who were just cruel "who got her pregnant?". There were the racists "of course she has a black kid who else would want her". There were the people who thought my mom ate my food and that's why I was thin.  Oh and the people with no boundaries at all who would take things out of her cart at the store and say "you don't need that".

None of those people bothered to get to know my mother. They didn't find out that she was a great person who read to her daughter everyday, took her to the library every week, sewed her own clothes, is a professional level seamstress, that she has a beautiful singing voice or any of the other things that makes her a awesome person. They just saw her size and deemed her unworthy to exist in their space (I am still scratching my head on this concept). She was automatically less than they were in their eyes.

Now I'm a mother of seven children, six of them girls. I cringe every time my daughter who is a size 8 says she is getting "fat". Every time some one tells one of my girls they are "too big". When my 10 year old uttered the words "I think I need to go on a diet" it crushed my heart-she is thin as a rail. When asked why she said "because dieting is healthy". Super double facepalm mommy fail on the-healthy eating is healthy-NOT dieting.  I want them to know and understand they are all beautiful active young healthy women. Their bodies are perfect the way they are.

It all takes me back to the first time I drank Slim Fast because I felt I needed to lose weight when I was 7. The first time I counted calories when I was nine. The big one is first time I started not eating and throwing up my food to help control my weight at 12. At 12 I was a figure skater and figure skaters can't be fat.

4th place in skating competition-age 13

So  I worked really hard at not being fat. I also spent a lot of time hating my body. All that got me was mentally and physically ill. I hide my self hate and my activities. My mother doesn't even know now I use to purge that's how secretive I was. That beautiful girl in the above picture felt fat and ugly everyday. I wish I could reach back and tell her that her body was fine. That this how a society obsessed with fat shaming and thinness makes young women feel.

For my daughters and my son I fight fat shaming. I do it for them because I do not want them to live with the pain of self hate or miss the company of wonderful people due to size bias. Clearly body shaming doesn't only affect women yet it is harsher on women so for me it's a huge feminist issue. How am I a free person when I can't dress how I wish and freely go about my life without being the target of hate and contempt?

My challenge- the challenge for all of us is to ask why we feel the need to judge the appearance of others. What inside of us makes us so contemptuous of other people's bodies? We need not kid ourselves that it is about fat people's health because not all fat people are unhealthy. If it were about health people would harass others for a whole host of unhealthy behaviors-for the most part we don't. Let's stop acting like it's about what is morally/socially acceptable as far as fashion. Since if I put two pics up of women in the same revealing outfit one thin-one plus size, the thin one may be slut shamed the plus size one will absolutely be body shamed and slut shamed. The outfit will be deemed absolutely indecent for one not for the amount of flesh showing but the amount of fat flesh showing. Here in lies the problem. Who are any of us to say things like "no one wants to see that"-someone does. Lastly, I am FAT if you have a problem with that YOU deal with it- I'm fine.

Dear Gov-Stop mythologising 1950s motherhood

(This open letter is in response to comments Governor Phil Bryant made on June 4, 2013 saying that the decline in education is due to women working outside the home)
Dear Governor,

I have a request for you and others like you-please stop mythologising the 1950s housewife. I know, I know like many white middle/upper class males you may have warm fuzzy feelings of home and hearth when you think of  the "Leave it to Beaver" like existences of days past. However, many families never had those existences in fact most families that thought they did-did not.

Those cookies everyday after school and perfect laundry may have came at a cost. Not every 50s housewife was happy. Some women enjoy staying home many don't. In fact that's a big reason why second wave feminism happened Governor. I don't know maybe you skipped that part of history.

Perhaps you also skipped the part of history where some mothers never had the option to stay at home or not to work. Whether in the fields or as domestic help poor women-especially poor women of color have always worked. When it comes specifically to Mississippi history many 50s housewives you so adore Governor couldn't have had it all together without the assistance of their black housekeepers and nannies. Those woman washed their clothes, cooked their meals, and helped raised their kids so they could attend to things like improving public schools and playing bridge.

Yes once upon a time many women stayed at home-most middle class especially white women. Now those days are gone and do you know what studies show, children are fine. Children of working mothers are not worse off Governor. Children benefit from having mothers who are happy. What really hurts children though is poverty. As the Governor of the poorest state in the country I would think you would take some responsibility for that statistic rather than blaming working mothers for attempting to better their children's lives.

Lastly I must say I am confused because our state wants women to work,right? I mean poor women should always work. The state can't seem to force poor women back to work fast enough after giving birth . In fact women on TANF have 6 weeks to go back to work. So much for that needing to be with your child thing. So which is it? Do you want women to work or not? If you want to stick to the myth of the 1950s housewife then you should go back to the old rationale of aid to single women with children, which was to ensure she could care for her child's basic needs and stay home if needed.

See Governor it's not easy to stick to outdated sexist ideals is it. So I am asking you to please stop. Stop scapegoating women for the failures of the state of Mississippi. More than that stop promoting an America that never was.

Sincerely,

a black mom who doesn't wish to be in the 50s 

Dr. Tiller we honor your memory

On May 31st 2009 Dr. George Tiller was gunned down in his church by an anti choice terrorist. Rachel Maddow did a great documentary on the shooting and events leading up to called "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller". I remember that day and I carry it with always in my work as a reproductive justice activist.

There is not a week that goes by that the death of Dr. Tiller and other clinic workers/volunteers who have died due to terrorist acts don't cross my mind. I am not sure how you can be a reproductive justice activist who volunteers at a clinic and not have their memories be somewhere ever present in your mind.

When I first entertained the thought of doing clinic defense it was the sacrifice of Dr. Tiller and others that motivated me to action. We who believe that women have a right to control their own bodies can not allow terrorist acts to dictate our actions or intimidate women who need to receive health care at our clinics. 

When we as escorts walk with our doctors-we are honoring the memory of Dr. Tiller. When we stand up to clinic harassment we honor his memory. I truly feel every time I put on that yellow vest I am saying no to terrorism and honoring the memory not only of Dr. Tiller but every other person killed and harmed by clinic violence.

Dr. Tiller you have not been forgotten-your courage is not forgotten and you are missed! 

I need Medicaid Expansion

I have no shame in saying I need Medicaid expansion. I think it is time for those of us who do to tell our stories. Since my state refuses to expand Medicaid I may never be able to return to full time work unless by some miracle I find a job with full benefits I can afford (thankfully pre existing conditions for adults will be over). As it stands I am not healthy enough to work full time-yet I probably would be if I was able to go to the doctor and take my medications as prescribed. Not the half doses or cycling on and off as I do now.

I use to work full time until my doctor told me not having health care was preventing her from being able to care for me and affecting my ability to stay on the job. I actually became sicker because I was getting inadequate care, So I stopped working.

When I stopped working, I was able to get medicaid for a short while but when my monthly child support went from under $500 a month to whooping $800 a month I lost it. So now I can't see my specialists. I can barely see my family doctor. I can't afford my regular blood tests or the further testing recommended to rule out what may be wrong with me past fibromyalgia. My doctors suspect I may have a more serious auto immune disorder such as lupus or MS. I have had several TIA's (transient ischemic attacks)-also known as mini strokes-in the past.

Unfortunately my kids get to see their mother cry herself to sleep many nights due to pain. Most times I don't sleep at all. My main prescription is $200 a month that is not counting the $150-$250 for the other four sometimes seven drugs that enable me to simply get out of bed, plus additional supplements (doctor recommended) that help keep me mobile. Often getting my medication literally comes down to whether or not to pay a bill or buy the medication.

I know that I am not alone and my story is one of the least tragic. Thankfully my worst symptom is pain (many days a eight to nine on the pain scale) and I'm not experiencing-to my knowledge-anything life threatening. However, if I was I wouldn't know it and it wouldn't matter because my state would just let me stay sick until it got tragic, and then probably let me die.

This is where we are in this country and state. I sat in a medicaid appropriations meeting where the Director of Medicaid said how bad it would be if all the people currently eligible for medicaid actually signed up. Think about that-he actually thinks it's a bad thing if he does his freaking JOB because it will cost the state MONEY! The lives of poor and working class people don't matter. We are numbers.

Politicians in my state have decided giving tax breaks to companies that don't pay their employees enough so they can afford insurance is more important. That is where we are in Mississippi. We cut taxes on Walmart, Target and others so they can pay so little that their employees need Medicaid they can't get.

For thousands of Mississippi workers they will always make too much to qualify and they will probably always be too poor to afford health care. That is why Obamacare called for Medicaid Expansion. It was to catch all the people caught in between. The working poor people. The people working 2, 3 and 4 part time hourly jobs to make it. The ones who didn't go to college-not because they are stupid it just isn't their thing. The ones who are self employed but are just getting by. The families transitioning off of assistance and working their tails off.

The just getting by folks. Those people would finally have health care through Medicaid Expansion. I am not sure how anyone can argue that a healthier workforce is not better for our state. It makes no sense to me. I want to be as healthy as a can be. I want to work. I went to college so I could work, I studied a trade so I can work. I am trained, skilled and talented. Instead of working many days I'm at home in pain. That doesn't have to be my story though.