I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: racism

  • it’s a simple matter of justice – remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


    1993 March on Washington for LGBT Equality

    Twenty-seven years ago this April I marched with the South Carolina delegation in the 1993 March on Washington. It was a life-changing experience not only for me but for hundreds of thousands of LGBT folks and their straight allies.

    I loved that the commemorative poster for the event featured a quote from one of the Civil Rights movement leaders I most admired: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The framed poster has been hanging in every office of mine since then.

    “Our freedom was not won a century ago, it is not won today,

    but some small part of it is in our hands,

    and we are no longer marching by ones and twos

    but in legions of thousands,

    convinced now it cannot be denied  by human force.”

    On this special holiday I say RIP, Dr. King, but keep the living stirred up for equal justice for as long we walk the earth.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • hear ye, hear ye – calling ALL patriots: Mayday, Mayday!


    Tears rolled down my cheeks today as I watched and heard House Manager Adam Schiff read the two Articles of Impeachment referred to the Senate by the House of Representatives for trial and removal of the president. Listening to the charges of high crimes and misdemeanors in the Senate chamber against the American president Donald John Trump, even a president I never supported, was an unexpectedly joyless experience.

    I think I finally understood what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had been reminding the nation in every press conference she’s held concerning this process. Somber, solemn, even sad, the burden of discovery of the facts that forced her to stand up for her belief in the constiution of the United States regardless of political consequences. Her belief, and the conviction of her party’s caucus in the House,  that no person is above the law in this country gave her no choice in pursuing the removal of someone who continued to threaten our national securtiy and ultimately our democracy.

    Today I felt her pain and sadness and wept with her for a country caught up in crisis.

    Pretty tells me that only people like me who have the luxury to watch either MSNBC faithfully or FOX news religiously during the past few months actually cared about the Senate trial or its outcome. Until yesterday I assured her she was wrong.

    But I had a conversation yesterday with a young woman who teaches sixth grade at a middle school here in South Carolina.  Obviously a person with a good education and a teacher for all the right reasons in this her eighth year of classrom experience. We talked about politics – the Democratic debate the night before. I asked her if she watched the debate, and she said no. She was waiting for the later ones. And then she added out of the blue, really politics are a joke in this country since Donald Trump became president. I felt she spoke for many in her generation; I had a sense of loss and frustation that perhaps our brightest younger citizens were turned off by the  divisions, heated hateful rhetoric, the images of a country at war with itself.

    Then last night Pretty was once again proven to be right about the state of political awareness in our nation when three Jeopardy contestants, three clearly smart women who wouldn’t be on Jeopardy if they weren’t, had a question with a picture of a man they were asked to identify. None of the three buzzed in to answer. The man was Adam Schiff, the person who was the face of the House impeachment process during the past three months  because he is the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee which began the investigation into the president’s misconduct as a result of a whistleblower complaint. I have to admit I was stunned at their lack of recognition of this key House spokesperson.

    Clearly I have too much time invested in the parade of outrageous acts that have defined this country in the past three years. Yes, I hope for a change in leadership, but I also hope for a change in our country’s attitudes toward ourselves in our home towns, attitudes that celebrate our differences, attitudes of finding common ground with our neighbors who share the same dreams for their families that we have for ours, attidudes that rise upward toward the men and women who represent us in Congress and elsewhere around the world.

    The outcome of the Senate trial of this president supposedly has already been determined along party lines. I just watched 99 Senators sign a book attesting to their oath for a fair trial. I would like to believe they will be true to that oath. Regardless of the outcome, this is a moment in time for us to decide who we are as a nation. I encourage every American to care enough about our country to tune in to the Senate trial as our history and future unfolds.

    Hear ye, hear ye – calling all patriots – mayday, mayday!

  • boys and girls together


    Finn, Oscar, Dwight, George – these are the names of the most important men in my life for the last nine years. I know for sure the number of years because Finn turned nine years old in November, Dwight will be nine this month, and I’ve known them both since they were new arrivals to the Snyder family in South Carolina and the Huss family in Texas respectively. Oscar, Dwight’s older brother, at eleven years old is the eldest of the Fabulous Huss Brothers of Worsham Street in Texas; George, the youngest Huss brother, is now seven.

    Oscar, Dwight and George in April, 2014

    (photo courtesy of their mother, Councilwoman Becky Huss)

    Pretty holding Finn in April, 2011

    Since my experience with infants becoming babies becoming children has been exclusively with boys, I admit to a certain trepidation when we found out our first grandchild was going to be a girl – a baby girl who is now three months old, a baby girl Pretty and I babysit two days a week while both her parents go to work.

    granddaughter Ella today (01-11-2020)

    (photo courtesy her mother Caroline)

    I adore the men in my life – I always will – but boys, watch out.

    Girls rock.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • if these are the last days, we better have cash according to Pretty


    Last night Pretty and I were watching who’s the greatest of all time on Jeopardy, bemoaning the fact that neither of us will ever make a million dollars answering questions which we might be able to think of the answers to in due time but certainly not so quickly as the three guys who pushed the buttons in lightning speed for the correct responses on the TV. Pretty said speaking of money, we need to get cash out of our bank account.

    Like most people (I assume most people although I have no concrete proof) we make our purchases with our bank debit cards these days. Rarely is there any actual cash in either of our possession at home or when we’re out among the masses, but apparently Pretty had been alerted by her Twitter folks that these may be the  “last days” as the result of America’s killing an Iranian general in Baghdad over the weekend.

    If these are the last days, she continued, we need to make preparations that include taking money out of the banks which might close as the result of a cyber attack, converting to currency, and hanging on to it for dear life.

    Yes, I said jumping on board with any suggestions Pretty recommended for the last days, and let’s make sure we have gasoline in both vehicles at all times in case we need to make a run for it, I added.

    What about food? Pretty asked. Hm, I thought. That’s a real problem since neither Pretty nor I ever used any appliance in the kitchen except a microwave to heat the takeout and the refrigerator for storing leftovers from the takeouts.

    Evidently Pretty was also worried about the food situation. Never mind, she said, we’ll just buy fast food with our cash.

    After Ken Jennings polished off Round 1 of the Jeopardy tournament, I switched to Rachel Maddow but could barely listen to her detailed explanation of the events of the past few days and our country’s precarious position in the Middle East because I was still mulling over our family plans for the last days.

    For example, how much cash would we need. Pretty had suggested $500. Was that enough? Too much? Who knew? As for making a run for it with two tanks of gasoline, where in the world was I planning on going? Charleston? Charlotte? Landrum?

    Thankfully today tensions appeared to cool after Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes in Iraq yesterday. I will check in tonight with Rachel Maddow after Round 2 of the Jeopardy tournament to try to learn more about the world we live in (for now anyway) and Pretty can revisit with her Twitter peeps to see if they have further suggestions for the last days.

    In the mean time, I have a few unrelated pictures of several of the 24 dogs I’ve had in my lifetime – if these are the last days, I want to think of happy ones – and these are some of the happiest.

    Stay tuned.

    The Red Man and the Old Woman Slow

    (in the early days – spring, 2001)

    Tennis Ball Obsessed Chelsea, Smokey Lonesome Ollie, and The Red Man

    (at Casa de Canterbury, sometime in 2012)

    Spike, he who appeared on Worsham Street and never left us

    (spring of 2012)

     

  • pretty in fine form for new year’s day


    ‘Twas the week after Christmas, and all through the house two creatures are stirring, and neither’s a mouse. Only Spike and I are up so far, and in all fairness we’re probably not even stirring – more staring than stirring. Me at my computer – Spike at the front yard from his panoramic view in the living room.

    Spike, our rescued shepherd mix, is the early riser in our family, but his main goal of being the first one up is to serve as an alarm clock for Pretty, Charly, and me. Pretty has perfected the pretense of ignoring him, I  get up when I hear Spike’s nails clicking on the hardwood floors in our bedroom and Charly makes a great show of jumping out of bed with me as the three of us walk together to open the doggie door in the sun room for the day.

    I usually walk outside with Spike to greet the colors of the sunrise and to see the squirrels he will bark at while he chases them around for a few minutes until they scamper up the huge oak tree to safety. Charly, on the other hand, may or may not come with us, her decision resting on whether she determines breakfast will be served early or later. At the signs of no early breakfast, she turns and runs to go back to get in bed with Pretty whose philosophy is she’s never met a sunrise she liked.

    Today is the first day of a new year, a new decade, I said to Spike this morning when we walked outside. He stood still for a second while I talked to him but then spotted two squirrels that were taunting him with their bushy tails in the yard near the old oak tree. He was off and running, but they weren’t frightened by either his loud barking or thundering toward them. I swear I saw one of them wink at the other one as they chased each other up the tree. Spike’s best efforts were thwarted once again. He turned away and walked back to me. His work was done until the pesky little varmints ventured into the yard again.

    ***********

    Happy New Year, I said to Pretty an hour later when I heard her in the kitchen popping the top on her first can of Diet Coke for the day.

    Happy New Year, Pretty responded and then continued, the first day of 2020 and the first day of a new decade.

    I know, I said. When I was a teenager in Texas in the 1960s, I never thought I would live to be thirty years old. When I had my 30th birthday in 1976, I said well, I will never live to see the turn of the century and now here I still am on the verge of a third decade in the 21st century. What do you think about that, Pretty?

    Pretty looked directly at me and said, I think you must be a drama queen.

    *********

    “We trust that time is linear. That it proceeds eternally, uniformly. Into infinity. But the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected.” (Dark, Season 1)

    Lordy, Lordy. Whenever I do pass, I hope I somehow stay connected to Pretty.

    Happy New Year!

    Stay tuned.