Pride (Gravity, Ten.)

If your life is like a tornado
You've been living in black and white
All you need is a smoke and a rainbow
Honey, let me give you a light
Alright
Let me give you a light

Yes queen, go queen
Dip it like a Dairy Queen
Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul
Goodwill Gucci
Where my Chattahoochies?
Out in the country honey, y'all means all (hey)

Y'all means all

Mmm, y'all means all (hey)

Maybe there's a little scratch in your reflection
Maybe your rhinestone lost its shine
Just count on love and count your blessings
Count on me, come on let's ride
Mmm, I got a big ol' bus so jump on and ride

Yes queen, go queen
Dip it like a Dairy Queen
Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul
Goodwill Gucci
Where my Chattahoochies?
Out in the country honey, y'all means all (hey)
Y'all means all.

~Miranda Lambert, Y'all Means All.

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

It's Pride Month.

Last night was also "Truck Night" at work so I got to work with my one gay coworker last night. So, he had Pride Radio on for most of that time. He laughed about it not bothering me. When that Miranda Lambert song got stuck in my head, I had to explain to him that a girlfriend I had back in the aughts was a huge fan of the original Queer Eye show.

I've lived in one part of Northern Michigan or another for most of my life, counting the fact that Mount Pleasant, where I lived and worked for nearly 20 years...gets a few of the same regular TV channels and that's where our local PBS station is from.

It's impossible to overstate how White, Straight, and basically Conservative this area was (and in 1994 this was a Democratic House district, represented by Bart Stupak) when I was a young person, compared to how it is now...and 30 years ago, my Mom still had that gay neighbor. But ya know, if Mr. Whitman ever had a Pride flag, I never saw it. There wasn't any such thing as Pride Radio or Pride playlists or even YouTube Music for them to be on. I often wonder what those who've gone before would think of our world. Hell, I wonder what a younger me would've thought.

For fuck's sake 30 years ago when I lived at my aunt and uncle's house and I was stationed at the nearby Air Force Base, if you would have told me one of my little cousins would grow up to be a lesbian and be married to a woman, I'm not sure I'd have believed you. I wouldn't have been mad...I'm just not sure I'd have believed it. (Nor that she and her sisters would have six-figure incomes and support their parents to the degree that they do.) I mean I paid rent there in 1994 and they needed the money. My aunt was a stay-at-home Mom. Shit, my uncle had bought his first new truck in 1993...and he still drives it!

But the reason he got that truck was because they needed a reliable set of wheels to shuttle the girls around to all the stuff they were involved in. Likewise, there was a lot of stuff involved in all this. It was stuff like science fairs and shit that made one of my cousins think it'd be cool to be a pilot, for example. The lawyer thing came later.

But now it's my Aunt who has the nice new car, paid for by her kids. Ya know, in a lot of countries (or among immigrants from places like the Middle East or South and Southeast Asia in the United States) this would be considered Traditional Values.

Republicans, to a great extent, don't believe in our modern world or believe that it's even possible. And yet, it is what it is. And the only "Traditional Values" they care about are the ones they want to impose on Other People. That's right...they don't want you to live that way because you want to...they want to make you do it, but only their way. Republicans want you to, very traditionally, be their slaves.

And Republicans Believe in Donald Trump, oh yes, they do. They don't care about Donald Trump the person, though. It's the Meme of Donald Trump that they want. The Idea, not the Man. Trump's in trouble, and a bunch of them went to El Salvador. Think about that for a second! Their ideas of social conservatism and "Tradition" are just warmed-over bigotry with a side of fascism. They'll get a new one when Trump goes to jail.

Look, I'm a veteran. I've read the Constitution. My Grandpa made me read it before I enlisted. I served my country carrying a weapon in the field and got to see some real bad shit (In peacetime!) 

So, to see this fat, greasy rich motherfucker who got handed everything and even more, with a silver spoon up his ass...that he pissed away over and over again in a career of bullshit and criminality...call America "Fascist" (While he's the one pushing actual fascism and demanding a civil war with his name on it) makes my blood boil.

'Cause I know people who have it all, who really did work for it, and they are not ungrateful.

I've known people all my life, who had pride in what they did and who they were because they had earned the right to have it. They served or worked and struggled either way, and in not a few cases went out and fought for their own dignity and rights. That's what things like Pride Month even mean.

For fuck's sake it was during my own military service that it got so bisexual or gay people could serve at all, and the same with women being able to serve in many capacities. The first female fighter pilots went through training pipelines and joined their units while I was standing long, cold watches at KI Sawyer and Minot, or deployed to Bosnia or Saudi Arabia. I served with people who contributed to my country, and were proud to do it.

A couple of them weren't even citizens yet. They saw it as working their way up.

I know I'm old school, but I think that people should have the right to be what they are and do what they do without some random ignorant jackass (Republican or otherwise) thinking that, simply for being an ignorant jackass, they have some kind of right to pass judgment on people's existence, their profession, their sexuality or any other goddamn thing. 

And we're damned well past the time where somebody should have to bleed for that right...previous generations secured it, did they not?? Or, while I'm at it...for the right to get a college education, but I digress.

I served with people, Black, White and Otherwise, who joined the Air Force because it was a sure way out of a shitty neighborhood, or the only way to get a college education. So when MAGA's say shit like that they think Trump's criminal convictions will help him get the Black vote, that pisses me off!

And to say something like that is nothing but straight-up racism.

I mean, Goddamn, we live in a world where Mexico...hardly the most "Woke" of countries...just elected a woman President. So, you tell me, is America going to listen to Republicans...or catch up to where Mexico is at in terms of progress??

I think a lot of Mexicans have the right to be proud of their choices right about now. Can we really say the same thing from our collective high horse, right now??

You know, my three cousins shouldn't have to all live in Blue States to have full bodily autonomy, just sayin.'

It really seems like this shouldn't be that hard of a choice.

And I'm tired of seeing so-called "Conservatives" trade their patriotism for literal cultic devotion to Donald Trump. He's just a Man, and not even a very good one.

But if these fucking people thought they'd get away with it, they'd worship that fucker like he was a god.

I mean, what's even the damned point??

Unless you wanna go to Hell.

In terms of what the word "Pride" means, what the MAGA's are doing now is the kind of shit that Lucifer got kicked out of Heaven for. They aren't proud of their accomplishments, their group, their life choices or who they are. They're so arrogant they think they have the right to make those choices for the rest of us.

And that's not Pride, it's Foolishness.

These people would try and argue with Gravity, not even thinking that it's not Gravity that kills you. It's that sudden stop at the bottom.

America is...and was meant to be...the kind of place where you are not what you were born, but you are what you have it in yourself to be.

And I was taught this by conservatives, I cannot stress that enough.

That word just meant something different back then, I guess.

Politics is downstream of Culture, and that scares the shit out of Republicans...because they lost their grip on the culture a long time ago, mostly because they just assumed they'd always have it, so they not only stopped trying to show why their way was a good way...they started believing that they were too good for having to explain themselves.

MAGA wants to turn the United States of America into a shattered collection of fiefdoms with two groups of people, Lords and Peasants. Motherfucker, No. That's exactly the type of shit that America was founded to oppose.

America as it is now, is (for all of its faults, we can fix those, you know) still the kind of country I was taught to take pride in, such that I was prepared to fight for it as a young man.

Well, guess what?? 

I still am, if it comes to that.

The question is, why aren't you??

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen.

And yes, there's going to be a test later.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Nine

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

~ Frederick Douglass

Bonus Content

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.

Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

~Matthew 25:1-13