Erasure
Lately, I keep recalling the televised investigation of the 2019 Trump-Ukraine scandal. Who am I kidding? I think about that televised investigation a lot. Specifically, the testimony of former US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. At one point during the questioning, he remarked that (and I’m paraphrasing) there was no need to lie about anything that had transpired because “everyone is in on it”. I was so struck by what he said that I have kept this press photo of him.
Everyone’s in on it - in on the collusion, actively working to obstruct justice. Everyone is in on the destabilization of an entire country to aid what was once an enemy of our nation, Russia. To try to help out your boy who is an enemy of the world, at the expense of lives and blowing the covers of agents in intelligence communities around the world is crazy work. As the kids say today: it’s diabolical. The lies would supersede any positive international relations established over years of work from previous world leaders. It would disrupt any solid global friendships and today lead to the erosion/erasure of our allyship with our North American neighbors and European countries, especially. Erasure…
Closer to home, executive orders are erasing/whitewashing our collective history to elevate one demographic above all others. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I can’t just hate whole groups of people. It’s just not in me; I’m not built for it mentally, physically, or spiritually. My respect and admiration of others begins with me. I like me, and I could easily be friends with myself.
Me and Myself chatting
“You hungry?” “I could eat.”
“You want a cheeseburger?” “Absolutely. I love a good cheeseburger!”
“You want a shot?” “BITCH… What we sippin’ on??!!”
Yeah, man. I love and LIKE me some me! I love my people! I love women - and don’t sleep, I’ve tried not liking women. Why? Because some tricks got wild with me on more than one occasion, of course. Men have, too, but I really tried not liking women. The bottom line was that I love my mother and her mother and her mother before her. I love my aunts and cousins and girlfriends, and I couldn’t hate myself and I refuse to hate the women my daughters will become. It is this self-love that has shaped how I interact with others and respect their cultures and histories. I don’t understand and cannot fathom hating people and their contributions to the world. I find people fascinating and I love learning about them: their food, fashion, music, art. Everything.
The Trump administration has announced that they are going to target the Smithsonian Institution, effectively stopping funds to the various museums that have programming that amplifies our country’s many cultures. Whitewashing our nation’s history is a horrific act. I get that the cruelty is the point; that is quite clear. It’s just that removing other people and cultures to satisfy one is literally devolving. Evolution involves a natural removal of things that no longer serve us. There’s nothing natural about what is happening here, and anyone who knows even a little history knows that removing a whole people from their collective culture is not sustainable. This erasure is unsettling at best and, I fear, irreversible at worst. Although I have said previously that hope is a helluva drug, I am a realist, and I am certain that the world I grew up in is tragically different than that of my daughters’. Clearly, the fight for full visibility of all people continues. Looks like some good trouble is on deck. Speaking of decks, Happy Baseball Season!
Want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem? Please consider putting our elected officials to work. Here’s the link to an app called 5 Calls. You enter your location, and the issues will pop up along with your local and state representatives and their phone numbers. Our job from there is to simply call them. If you get tongue-tied, the app provides scripts to follow. Easy-peasy!