Enough

I'd like to take a moment to address Senator Chris McDaniel and his recent FaceBook post. After much thought, I've decided to do it with the same condescension that Senator McDaniel employed since I feel it must be the tone and attitude he understands best.




Well done, Senator McDaniel. You must be so proud of the fact that you've conveniently missed the point of a march that you couldn't be bothered to understand in the first place. It's such a good feeling when we hit one of our goals and can swipe another task off our list and you've done just that.

Go on, pat yourself on the back.

And now, tell me some more about how I desperately and violently want to end the lives of the unborn and just be able to put the abortion on my SNAP card! Cause that's totally my motivation and the motivation of all the women at the march. Hell, if I could eat the young afterwards that'd be even better. Nutrition, and all.

Please, tell me more about how all I want are free abortions and free birth control and free cell phones.

Show me more evidence about how once those embryos become human beings you couldn't give a fuck about them. Please, continue to go on and show me more proof that once a baby is born you not only won't do anything to ensure that baby has equal right and an equal voice but that when that human being is speaking, you won't even have the decency and respect to listen to what it's saying.

And please, point out to me that some of those babies would be little girls. Please assume that I care more about girls than I do boys. Please assume that your little sarcastic comment means more about me than it does about you. Because buddy, the fact that you think women standing up for themselves is fucking selfish is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard.

Why is our standing up for ourselves somehow offensive to you? Is it because our standing up for ourselves is getting in the way of you walking all over us, Senator McDaniel?

Let me ask you a question...would you be more comfortable with abortion if we could prove the gender beforehand? Cause you don't seem to give a fuck about women anyway. How about black or brown babies? Maybe we just don't abort the little white boy babies, would that work for you?

Because those are the only fucking people you seem to have a desire to build a country around.

Do you give even the littlest shit about all the rape or incest victims who you don't want to be able to have an abortion? Tell me, would it be okay for them to have the procedure as long as they rehashed every detail about their attack so that you could have the most vivid picture you can get and they can spiral into self-destruction? Would it be okay then? How about if they get their mom (cause they're 15) to drive them out of state to the closest place that would provide them the procedure? Would it be okay, then? How about if they had to pay for it themselves. I mean, the kid was already raped. And now, she has to relive every detail for your benefit...to prove that what she says is true. And to top it all off, even though a crime was committed against her, even though her body was physically violated, even though she is a little girl on the verge of losing her entire self-worth and esteem, NOW her family has to somehow find a way to pay for the procedure outright because you don't believe that their insurer should cover anything...because her RAPE is now entirely her responsibility.

You must sleep so soundly at night knowing that you've stopped these godless heathens from committing the ultimate crime.

BECAUSE THE ONLY CRIME YOU SEEM TO SEE IN THAT SCENARIO IS THE KILLING OF AN UNBORN BABY.

And now seems like a good time to talk about this whole "killing the lives of the unborn" issue. In this country, science is supposed to matter more than religion, in terms of our government. Know how I know that? It's called freedom of religion and separation of church and state.

Now...

If your reasoning for calling an embryo "the unborn" has anything to do with your faith, religion or spirituality it DOES NOT belong in our governing body.

You can wish it did all you want. But it doesn't. That's against the law.

You canNOT force me or anyone else to take on your belief system and live our lives according to what you dictate. That violates separation of church and state and is therefore unconstitutional.

So now that I've given you, a senator, a quick yet desperately needed lesson in American civics and government, let me also give you the other lesson you so badly need.

A lesson in compassion.

You, sir, talked to me as if you knew me. You assumed the worst because that was most helpful and convenient to you and then you mocked me. I don't want anything other than what you, a man, have. I want to be treated equally. I want to know if someone rapes me and they're convicted in a court of law, that the judge won't give him a light sentence so as not to ruin his life...meanwhile he's already ruined mine. I want to know that my medical issues are just as important as yours. If I need a procedure to save my life, I'd like to know that I can have it. I'd like to know that my insurance would cover my life-saving procedure that involves my lady parts the same way they would cover a life-saving procedure involving any other organs. I want to be paid the same as a man with equal education doing the same job as I am. I want to not be mocked and laughed at when I stand up for myself.

I want the same level of compassion that you give so willingly to "the unborn". You know, if that's not too much trouble, Senator.

P.S. I hope you're enjoying your free, taxpayer-provided, all-inclusive, super awesome health insurance that no one else in the country gets. You're welcome.

Grabbed by the Pussy, Again

As a woman, I have been grabbed in the pussy by an astonishing number of men and as every woman out there knows, it happens way too early to most of us. The first time I was literally (and I am using the word literally, literally) grabbed in the pussy by a "man" was when I was in the 7th grade. It was a fellow classmate and it was in the middle of the school day at my locker.

I hardly knew this guy. We had homeroom together and that was pretty much the extent of our relationship. We didn't get along. He would pick on me -- maybe not daily but definitely weekly and our homeroom teacher, although not a fan of his, didn't do anything to ever stop him. Generally speaking, I didn't sit quietly and just take his abuse. If he picked on me, in my 7th grade language, I let him know that his presence in my life was unnecessary and unwanted and that above all else, he was a dick.

One day, standing at my locker, I was bending over to put books and whatnot away while he was walking down the hall. As he came by, he reached his grubby hand between my legs and grabbed a hold of my 14 year old pussy.

To this day, I remember that moment clearly. I remember how disgusting it felt to have someone, uninvited, touch me there. I remember feeling used and dirty as soon as it happened, looking around to see if anyone at all had seen. My fucking 14 year old emotions couldn't process what had happened. Part of me wanted there to be someone else who witnessed it, to be enraged with me. But honestly, the bigger part of me felt ashamed and embarrassed. I wanted to crawl into a hole and curl up. I wanted to sink into the ground and disappear.

The sick and sad thing is, that wasn't the first time a guy touched me inappropriately and without consent. And I know, as a woman, I'm not alone there at all. And the reason why this piece of shit kid felt like it was okay for him to do something like that is because of attitudes like our current President Elect's.

Men have, since the beginning of time, used a woman's body to berate her, shame her, stifle her, belittle her and own her. Not all men. This isn't a men-bashing piece but it is honest and these are just facts. Countries have excused it. People have ignored it. Women have accepted it. And religions have condoned and enforced it.

Now that this election is behind us, we stand a nation divided. Those who didn't vote for Trump are being urged to make nice but we've crossed a line that you can't uncross.

Almost exactly half of our voting nation chose the candidate that represents hate. Almost half of our country chose a candidate who bragged about sexual assault, who was openly and fiercely racist and who has proposed several courses of action straight out of World War II.

We have people who talked about Obama's birth certificate and denounced him as President for eight years calling us crybabies for being upset that we demanded an America that doesn't include police harassment of people of color and college rapists who serve little to no time and were denied by our family, friends and neighbors. We had people that we worship with cast a vote that chose their political agenda over American civil rights.

How is it we're supposed to move on from this?

How is it we're supposed to look at you the same way?

How is it we're supposed to trust you?

President Elect Trump is the least of our problems. Sure, putting the words "Commander in Chief" next to his name is tantamount to inciting war and alienating allies but the healing our country needs to do is between its citizens.

Half of us are either in the middle of reeling from just finding out that our rights as human beings literally mean less than nothing to the other half of the country or our belief that we've been discriminated against our entire lives has just been confirmed once again. And the other half is a fucked up combination of people who truly think that minorities of all kinds are in fact less worthy and people who don't seem to realize that there is no more important issue than civil rights and by choosing anything else, they've stabbed their fellow human in the back.

This is the world we live in now and to deny it is the equivalent of burying your head in the sand. You not only expect us to immediately move on but you demand it of us and deny your part in it. You do so in hypocritical tweets, revisionist history Facebook posts and memes and gifs that should embarrass you in the core of your soul rather than make you laugh.

You are sick. And not in the way you probably think I mean. Yes, your words and actions are putrid and vulgar but what I'm talking about is the way your mind works. You are deniers of fact. You refuse see to what is plainly in front of you. You look truth in the face and you call it a lie.

You call us liars.

And how can any good be done, how can any healing ever occur, how can any civilization grow when this basic, fundamental battle exists?

It can't.

It won't.

People are not stopping for a reason.

Protests are about a people refusing to be silenced. It's about people who have been shackled for too long, whose voices have been gagged their entire lives, and whose pussies have been grabbed too many times taking what's rightfully theirs.

Trust me, I'm truly sorry you have a problem with this. What I can't understand is why.

Our Chance

The message of this blog is specifically written to any person who was at one time a kid like me. 

A kid who sat in social studies, learning about World War II and was shocked, dumbfounded, and horrified at the things she discovered that day. A kid who never thought that history could ever slap her in the face so hard. Mind you, like a lot of American text books, mine went into greater detail about The Holocaust than it did slavery or the slaughter of the Native Americans, so the face slapping didn't cease when the bombs were dropped. 

For any people out there that were like me in this way, I certainly hope that you're planning on voting for Hillary Clinton this November. 

Because in all honesty, to vote for anyone else -- whether it's Trump or someone who's vote would be tantamount to gifting Trump your vote (Stein, Johnson, writing in Bernie -- I'm looking at you here, Susan Sarandon) -- you would be answering "me" to the question that each one of us had when we learned about Hitler and World War II. 

Who could possibly let this happen?

You'd be answering "yes" to the question that baffled us all:

Can good people really allow a horror show like this take place?

You'd be answering "this is how" to the question that warped all our little minds:

How could people who aren't evil ever even consider following someone who so clearly is consumed with hate and violence?

Please, take me seriously when I say -- it is our time now. You can pretend that I'm exaggerating or being overly dramatic but do us all a favor and reconsider. We are Germany in the 30s. We are those people. We are the people saying "how bad could it really get". We are the ones that decide what happens to our neighbors. Hitler did not decide. Trump does not decide. We decide. We are the ones that throw that rock through a storefront. We are the ones that throw a bomb in a masque or a Southern Church. We are the ones. We are the ones that decide if ours is a country where "land of the free and home of the brave" really means something or if they're just words to a song with some really sketchy stanzas. 

Will we allow all people to be free? 

Will we be brave enough to make the right decisions? 

Will we?

Will we allow ourselves to be duped by some two-bit hate monger and fear peddled? 

This is our time. 

This is our fight.

This is our future. 

You are not better than someone else just because of the color of your skin. You're not better than someone else because of your gender or identity. You're not better than someone else because of the name you give to the god you pray to. And you're not better than someone else because of the person that you love. You're just not. 

Those are very simple sentences and very simple ideas. They're not complicated and they're pretty damn straightforward. These are the base fundamental elements that are supposed to unite our country and honestly, decent people everywhere. You shouldn't be considered arrogant to expect these things for yourself; you shouldn't be considered brave for demanding these things for all people; and you shouldn't be considered virtuous for taking exception to any of them.

And whatever beef you have with Hillary Clinton -- be it real or imagined -- is NOTHING compared to what you would be voting for if you chad up anyone else's name on your ballot in November. You may think that you'd be taking a stand for whatever ideal it is you've latched onto but just understand that your ideal is NOT more important than people's civil rights and understand that civil rights is exactly what we're talking about here. 

This is our time.

This is our fight.

This is our future.

This is our chance.

Don't disappoint the kid you once were. This will be so much bigger than not becoming an astronaut or a rock star. There's no coming back from this. In more ways than one.