V.P. Harris and the Double Standard

 

For 30 years, I almost never heard ANYTHING about any VP. I couldn't point to one specific function of VP, except maybe show up if the president can't make it. Very little about Gore or Cheney (except when he was accidentally shooting someone) and Mike Pence was MIA for four years. But now on Fox News, all of a sudden, you are hearing A LOT about Kamala Harris. I wonder what the difference is? Just kidding, we all know what the difference is.

And this is not unusual on the right and frankly the left isn't much better. For example, if you look back over Hillary's career, her positivity ratings were initially high -- until she was given a position to craft a healthcare plan, then her ratings tanked. After they rose again until... she ran for and won a NY Senate seat. This can not be a coincidence. Thirty years of being torn down, regardless of accomplishment. People (mostly the right) are doing this same thing to many women in politics: AOC was academically gifted, ran a part of Bernie's campaign and won a competitive seat at age 28. What was the response to this (mostly from the right)? "She was a bartender. She's not really a person of color." People, and especially the right, do not want or like women in positions of power. Look around -- CEO's?  Mostly men. High paying fields like Business and Engineering? Mostly men. Look at the composition of the GOP in DC. They're still well above 80% men, and mostly white. It's probably closer to 90%, but I haven't checked that after the last two elections. They have one Black senator, out of 49 (out of 50 if you count Joe Manchin).

And back to Harris. She was raised by first generation immigrants and she graduated from Howard University and University of California  Hastings Law. She became the San Francisco District Attorney and was elected Attorney General for the state of California. She was elected Senator and if you watch her during senate hearings was extremely effective. And finally she ran for president and then was chosen as Biden's VP. What's the reply (mostly from the right)?  "Ha, she said something that sounded dumb and she laughs too much." This, from the party of bleach injections and locker room talk. F. F. S.

Dumpster Fire Election 2016

During a personal IM I came to a realization about why I had and have such a visceral response to the new president.  And it also offers an explanation for why it seems so effortless for me to feel empathy and offer support to people of color, people in the LGBTQ community, women, and pretty much any group that isn’t white and straight.  It is not immediately obvious why; I do not belong to any of these groups and in fact I am white and I am straight.  This (edited) IM below probably simplifies the reason too much, and I am more likely the sum total of almost 50 years of just being in the world, but I suspect that this is at the root of what made me. 

In 1976 my older sister once rescued me from the repeated beatings of an older kid named Blane Miller in grammar school.  He tormented me on a regular basis and one day my sister appeared out of nowhere and sent him sliding across the loose gravel on the playground.  But, other ‘Blane Millers’ continued the onslaught when she wasn't around for about five years following, pummeling my head and arms and torso with closed fists in rapid fire, followed by kicking my stuff down the hall and a rash of verbal assaults -- "fag!  loser! nice holes in your clothes!!"  We were poor and I was small and skinny and I smiled a lot, I guess that made me a target.  Where the hell were the adults in the room?  Honestly, some of them were not much better.  Kids still endure this every day, and I and they recognize our abusers all too well in this dumpster fire of a president-elect.  On November 8^th, my country, including some people close to me, elected the embodiment of ‘Blane Millers’ everywhere to be the leader and moral compass of our country.  I do not know what to do with that.  Time I guess.

This is the best explanation I can think of for why I usually err on the side of empathy and on the side of groups who have suffered the most at the hands of the more powerful.  If you had asked me a week or two ago if I thought that my time in school had an effect on me, I would have told you that is ridiculous.  It is ancient history.  But I would have been wrong.  It is forever part of me. In hind sight it gave me the ability to feel the pain of other people almost as deeply as if it were my own, especially for people of color, women, LGBTQ, and most immigrant groups at one time or another.  And their pain has been so much worse than anything I endured.  These groups also see their abusers in DT (I can’t bring myself to use that name).  And America, you just acquitted, encouraged, and emboldened their abusers.  My hope was that you would send him sliding across the gravel on the playground, but instead you just threw in a few more punches of your own.