The Sacred Entitlements

Wouldn't this look nice with some clay pigeons, beer cans, and off-road vehicle
tracks,with some jet skis and speedboats on the water, with gunshot sounds?

The past 3 1/2 years have been the pinnacle of misery in my lifetime. The US leads the world in stressing out its citizens and residents, including those who thought they could come here for a better life and instead were greeted with the horrors of family separation, imprisonment, and abuse.

We make the lives of not only our own citizens, but people around the world, and animals and plants and other living beings on this earth, so much more stressful, and cause so many to endure such suffering and pain, than is ever necessary. 

None of it is new to me, none of it is a surprise, and this is nothing I haven't noticed before or thought deeply about. I've endured various flavors of discrimination myself but I've always had one thing going for me- the color of my skin. I never had to worry that if I was pulled over, I might end up being beaten, wrongly imprisoned, or dead. 

I can think of dozens of incidents and events in my lifetime where our country's public responses and actions resulted in much more harm than good. This country imparts upon so many of its formerly demographic majority citizens a sense of entitlement. And I'm really fucking sick of it. 

And this entitlement, they eat it up, internalize it, and it becomes ingrained forever and ever, and if anyone ever dares to question it or suggest change, they react with anger, defensiveness, and gaslighting. They act as if they got everything they have on their own, they built it and created the wealth for themselves, not by using slave labor or abusive tactics. They defend it by turning it around on those who are just asking to be treated fairly and equally- they use the word "entitlement" to mean a handout, implying they should feel guilty about asking for help or even needing help. 

We are seeing the ugliness of these slithering creatures who have been mostly hidden from view, until now, that the savior of hate has liberated them, their entitlement has been exposed for all to see. All it takes is for the stars to line up with a pandemic and a viral video exposure of the intersection of racism and violence. Add an idiot sociopath in the White House, 300+ million people who are exhausted and drained physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and spiritually by the state of the world created by his extorted and/or equally sociopathic followers. 

And they whine about being asked or required to wear masks or being mask-shamed, and about not being able to go eat their crappy obesogenic Chik-Fil-A among other equally deranged specimens of health, not being able to get their tattoos or nails and hair done, or not being able to go out, swill beer and leer. 

What the fuck makes them so special? 

It's their sense of entitlement. 

Entitled to:

1. their hate 
2. their beliefs of superiority
3. not change behaviors or attitudes 
4. not learn new information
5. ignore facts
6. never admit mistakes
7. endanger other people's safety and lives (e.g. carrying guns, spreading infectious disease)
8. not have to think critically
9. live in their own little bubble as if nothing they do affects anyone else around them
10. not contribute anything to the public good by paying taxes based on a fair system
11. special treatment or service when and how they want it
12. buy and consume goods and services without consideration of who might be harmed by their production 
13. take more than they need, and accumulate wealth in a way that takes away from others' ability to survive
14. pollute, litter, and harm the environment
15. property rights as if they were a license to destroy and harm the planet and other living beings
16. drive violently
17. disregard the suffering, pain, lives and well-being of their fellow citizens
18. leave an indelible mark on the earth as a testament to their existence

What pushed me over the edge last week- and I've been over the edge so much lately I could be a cliff jumper by now- was a series of stupid, ignorant, life-in-a-bubble comments by one of my white male 60-something neighbors. Both times I was not there to hear it, but someone else told me about it after the fact. First time, he was complaining about the riots. Second time, he made a totally boneheaded, insensitive, microaggressive comment to a younger black man, who calmly brushed it off. 

I wondered where the hell has my neighbor been living for the past month? The fact that my neighbor can say shit like that and it doesn't even faze him- doesn't think twice about it- he obviously has not been watching the news (other than Fox) and has no self-awareness or empathy whatsoever. But mostly, entitled: to live in a bubble, ignore facts, ignore current events and the impact of your own behavior and attitudes on other people, avoid learning or keeping up with the times...

I know that just writing this could be construed as moral superiority, elitism, and all those other names that people like to call "the libs". But I'm not going to apologize for calling out the bullshit behavior that I, as a 56 year old barely off-white, cisgender female, queer, Jewish-born human being have witnessed and endured my entire life, that has harmed and traumatized me in innumerable ways, and that has done immensely and exponentially greater harm to generations of other human beings, my fellow citizens and inhabitants of this planet, who happened to be born with dark skin. 

And I'm just, plain, fucking sick to death of all of it. 

Time and Trauma = TNT

Caution: This post contains some four letter words. Don't read it if you don't like it. 

This morning I went running on Coyote Ridge with a group of women I run with regularly. It was spitting a light mist and everything was socked in- visibility was minimal. It wasn't very cold but I left the house without much extra clothing, a jacket or a hat, planning on not running more than 10 miles.





The trail was wet but not muddy, and I couldn't see the foothills around me, just shadows in the fog. It has a way of closing you in and protecting you.

It was precisely what I needed.

This past week was the week of the now and forever infamous Senate Judiciary committee hearings on the allegations of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court.

It's been a week filled with talking heads, 24 hour news coverage, contention, hostility, anger, and ugliness.

I wanted to reach through the screen into that Senate hearing room, beyond the "female assistant" (WTF- she's a professional prosecutor, not your damn water boy), and throttle Chuck Grassley and the other senile fuck faces on the GOP side. I wanted to yell to Kavanaugh's wife, Run!!

We just saw the ugliness of power, of rich white male entitlement, on both sides of the hearing- on the Republican Senators side, and on Brett Kavanaugh's side.

I hadn't planned on watching any of it, I had work to do. I turned the laptop on before 8 am and saw a link to the live hearing, and clicked on it. And at 11 am, I was still in my bathrobe, with a cold cup of coffee sitting next to me, glued to the screen. I had to get out for an appointment so it was time to get dressed and peel myself away from the chair.

A little later I came back and managed to catch the part of the hearing where the prosecutor from Arizona asked Kavanaugh some questions, before they sent her packing.

I have some other blogposts I want to write, like about my 12 hour run last weekend, and my current challenge with having decided to go off statins, but this whole political nightmare has pretty much consumed my focus since the middle of last week. I'll get to those other topics later, but for now...

So much I want to say, but in a way, I don't have the emotional resources to say it now. I am wiped out. This week was so intense, watching the hearings, reliving past events, memories of things coming back that I haven't thought of in forever, many of which stir up anger and resentment even decades later. Some are minor and trivial, others were major and traumatic.

I am where I am. I have chosen to be where I am now. But when I am reminded of the events leading to the ways the course of my life has been altered by male privilege and entitlement and sexism, I go between feeling sick to my stomach and angry and disgusted. Things have not changed that much since the 1980s when I was in college as well. And white male entitlement has not changed much...though it is dying, it won't go out without a fight, as we saw on clear display this past Thursday in front of the entire country.

When I think of the things I experienced and witnessed throughout my life around male entitlement, both the traumatic experiences and the less traumatic but absolutely frustrating and enraging crap, having to endure the attitudes of entitlement, guessing at the rules because they never told you the rules, and constantly resisting and unlearning everything they tried to stuff into our heads about how girls and boys should be...

It's all been said so many times in so many places this week, I don't need to repeat it here. Privileged rich white boy finally runs into accountability- his good ole boy buddies in the Senate try to save him by paying lip service to "hearing" the accusations, but won't change a thing, digging their heels in, until drama ensues...and now we have to wait to see the results of the drama and see if the FBI investigation doesn't get micromanaged in ways that will continue to "protect" the public from the truth, and leading to the lifetime appointment of yet another alumnus of the school of beer-and-dick for brains.

What I am thankful for today are the many men in my life who are not Brett Kavanaughs or Orrin Hatches or Chuck Grassleys or Lindsey Grahams or Joe Kennedys or the other bloviating arrogant aging frat boys who think Kavanaugh deserves this promotion because of what he has between his legs regardless of what he did with it.

And I am thankful that I don't have children of my own who might become the prey of such horrible examples of humanity.

What does make me angry are the women who support this piggish display of male good ole frat boy culture. Makes me think those women are bitter and hurt. That they have never been kind to themselves. That they too have experienced this crap but buried it and did the pull yourself up by your bootstraps number...so they have unhealed wounds and attack other women. I don't know if that's true, but I just don't understand women who think sexual assault is something to take lightly. It makes me think these are the women who raise their boys and girls to be assholes and bullies.

As for Kavanaugh, what an arrogant little shit he was in high school and college, and still is. Not expressing compassion for his accuser in any way. Completely unconcerned with the fact that she is traumatized for life. His wife looks like an abused woman. He looks like an alcoholic, and acts like one in his denial. His juvenile answers to the committee, his lack of self-control in front of the committee and the entire country, who in the hell acts like that except for a spoiled preschooler?

And then there are the trivialities, random memories that came back this week, things that were said and done to me along the way that ranged on the spectrum from disrespectful to earthshattering. And there is a lot more, and worse, that I won't share here. And I won't even begin to talk about the crap I've endured while running. Yeah, #metoo.

• Fuck you you little asshole in the school yard in third grade who attacked me with a tree branch while calling me JewGirl, but I got in trouble for kicking you in the balls. 
• Fuck you little snot-nosed turd in my sixth grade class who told me I was fat, on his way to college at Swarthmore and becoming an attorney.
• Fuck you, asshole hockey player who tried to push his way into my dorm room freshman year.
• Fuck you, forestry professor who asked me if I was there for my MRS degree.
• Fuck you, football and wrestling coaches who wanted me to let their athletes get away with "independent study" to maintain their eligibility for sports instead of doing the real work like the other students. (Funny how the female coaches and female athletes never asked for these entitlements)
• Fuck you, administrators in higher ed and healthcare who wanted me to keep my mouth shut, not ask questions, and put up with your bullshit uneven playing field for women.
• Fuck you, you former frat boys who never matured past your beer-soaked pats on the back unspoken agreements to help each other up the ladder to success while you used our shoulders and our ideas as stepping stones.
• Fuck you, professor Fuck Faces in the 80s and 90s hiring no women professors to act as mentors or examples for us to look up to, so we were stuck with the arrogant pricks who told us things like "Your ideas have no place in our discipline".

Yeah, FUCK YOU.

The fog was therapeutic this morning as I could finally let go of some of the emotions- no one could see my tears or my clenched fists or vocalized rage. But it also made me think, this is how those POWDERs (pasty old white dudes explaining righteously) want us to be- in the fog, unable to see clearly. Keeping the truth from us. Well boys, the fog is burning off. Time's up.