by sheila morris
my books
I have signed new copies available of several nonfiction titles of mine that will make great holiday gifts for yourself or someone you love:
Get ’em while they’re not hot for $5. each plus shipping cost of $3.99. You can send $ through paypal.me/SHEILARMORRIS
Pardon the interruption for this shameless self promotion. As my daddy used to say, whosoever tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooteth. That was my dad.
Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.
The 2020 WNBA season consists of twelve teams living and playing together since July in the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida for a shortened 22-game schedule followed by the traditional playoff series that began on September 15th. The bizarre season is notable not only for its Covid restrictions regarding players and personnel living in the Bradenton Bubble without any fan support during their games but also is notable for the players’ dedication of their season to Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was killed in a raid on her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky March 13th. All the players have worn Say Her Name Breonna Taylor uniforms in every game, had observations of silence to honor her memory before games, been vocal as a players’ association about police brutality in the systemic racism exemplified by the treatment of black women everywhere.
Two days ago, a Louisville grand jury failed to indict any of the officers for criminal behavior resulting in the death of Ms. Taylor who was shot five times and received no medical attention for more than 20 minutes after she was struck according to reporting by the NY Times yesterday.
Prior to last night’s playoff game between the Minnesota Lynx and the Seattle Storm, Lynx player Napheesa Collier read the following statement on behalf of all the players in the league (Jasmine Thomas of the Connecticut Sun read the same statement before their game against the Las Vegas Aces):
“Our hearts are with Ms. Tamika Palmer. It has been 195 days since her daughter, Breonna Taylor, was killed. One-hundred and 95 days and still today, no one was charged for her death. We strongly support the sentiment expressed by the family of Breonna Taylor. The result is outrageous and offensive. No one needs to live in the commonwealth of Kentucky to understand this case. We won’t stop pressing for full transparency and full and complete justice. There are far too many questions left unanswered.
“Justice is on the ballot. Please register today and vote on or before Nov. 3.”
In another voice with a different platform Oprah Magazine explained the remarkable cover of Breonna Taylor for their September, 2020 issue as follows: “For the first time in 20 years, @oprah has given up her O Magazine cover to honor Breonna Taylor. She says, Breonna Taylor. She was just like you. And like everyone who dies unexpectedly, she had plans. Plans for a future filled with responsibility and work and friends and laughter. Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem. What I know for sure: We can’t be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice. And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine. I cry for justice in her name…”
Congressman John Lewis issued a moral imperative for all of us. When we see something is not right, not fair, not just – we have a moral obligation to do something about it. I salute the courage of the players in the WNBA for doing something about the death of Breonna Taylor in their 2020 season, and I thank Oprah for the empathy she has for the family of Breonna Taylor in their unspeakable loss.
Adding our voices to cry for justice in the name of Breonna Taylor – we are no longer lone voices crying in the wilderness of separation and fear. Together we stand for Breonna Taylor, her family, for justice.
Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor and plan your vote for November 3rd.
Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.
The theme of this year’s 2020 US Open grand slam tennis tournament is Be Open.
“When you keep an Open mind, great things can happen. In the game, and out in the world…Generations of tennis players have been inspired by the examples set by Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King and many more who challenged the sport to remove barriers to fairness and justice by epitomizing the values of diversity, inclusion and respect…for each other, and for the game itself.” (US Open.org)
the official poster (designed by Dan Stiles)
When I watched the first US Open televised in 1968, I was a twenty-two-year old closeted lesbian (or so I thought) living alone in Houston, Texas, looking forward to the weekend visits of a girl who didn’t share my enthusiasm for either tennis or romance. Fifty-two years later I am married to a wonder woman who has shared both those passions with me for the past twenty years. Life is good.
Today was Pride Day at the 2020 US Open, a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community I could never have imagined in 1968 or even in 2001 when Pretty and I began to watch the Grand Slam tennis tournaments together. And yet, here we are watching Serena Williams play in her 20th. US Open while her adoring husband cheers from the almost empty arena. The digital “fans” give the eerily quiet matches a surreal quality, but the excellent play almost makes me forget a pandemic that necessitated the solitude.
Thanks to the US Open for jumping through a ton of hoops to make another Grand Slam event possible in a chaotic year, for keeping the safety of everyone involved uppermost in their minds, and especially today for recognizing Love is more than a tennis score.
Happy Pride!
Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.
“There are other cases… of officers who seem to be ‘trigger happy.’ In a number of instances, Negroes have been shot, supposedly in self-defense, under circumstances indicating, at best, unsatisfactory police work…and at worst, a callous willingness to kill.”
(Excerpt from 1947 report “To Secure These Rights” produced by Harry Truman Committee on Civil Rights as quoted in opinion by Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King on June 19th, 2020)
We know about the callous willingness to kill from the names of just a few of the many African Americans who speak from their graves, American lives lost at the hands of police brutality in cities across the country. Samuel DuBose – Cincinnati, 2015. Terrence Sterling – Washington, D.C., 2016. Freddie Gray – Baltimore, 2015. Michael Brown – Ferguson, Missouri, 2014. Walter Scott – Charleston, South Carolina, 2015. Rayshard Brooks – Atlanta, 2020. Tamir Rice – Cleveland, Ohio, 2014. Trayvon Martin – Sanford, Florida, 2012. Breonna Taylor – Louisville, Kentucky, 2020. Eric Garner – New York City, 2014. George Floyd – Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2020.
This week Jacob Blake’s name was added to the 2020 infamous roll call of victims of “unsatisfactory police work” – this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin. As destructive wild fires raged in California claiming the life of a helicopter pilot attempting to douse the inferno, as a Category 4 Hurricane called Laura gathered the power to strike along the Gulf Coast shores in Louisiana bringing life threatening winds and water reminiscent of Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, as the number of American lives lost in the worst pandemic of our history reached the dubious milestone of 180,000 +, a police officer shot an unarmed African American man seven times in the back when he attempted to get in the car where his three young sons waited and watched. Jacob Blake will likely be paralyzed if he survives the bullet wounds.
Doc Rivers, head coach of the NBA franchise Los Angeles Clippers, had an emotional reaction to the police shooting in an interview on August 25th. “…we’ve been hung, we’ve been shot…it’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country doesn’t love us back…the training (for police) has to change. My dad was a cop, I believe in good cops. We’re trying to get them to protect us like they protect everyone else…as an American you need to be outraged at that video. All we ask is that you live up to the Constitution.”
Yesterday the wide world of sports came to a grinding halt as athletes from both the NBA and WNBA, major league baseball and soccer teams all joined together to promote social justice through police reforms long overdue in our nation by boycotting their respective games. Players across the board said this killing of black people through police brutality must stop. Our lives do matter, they agreed, and we want to see genuine criminal justice changes that guarantee our families equal safety and protection under the law. Tennis players rallied around the protest of Naomi Osaka by postponing the semi-finals at the Western and Southern Open scheduled for play today. No justice, no peace, no sports.
Senator Kamala Harris reminded us in a statement this afternoon that our pledge of allegiance calls for “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” We know, and we have always known that promise is unfulfilled for people of color, but now cell phones record that broken promise every time a video of these egregious acts goes viral on social media to be seen by anyone and everyone. Pretending, denying, disavowing, obfuscating no longer are viable options for people of good will who embrace the truth.
Wake up, America, it’s time to love them back. We can, and we must, do better.
Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned. By all means, VOTE in November.
Back in the days when I played more golf than I should have, I learned about mulligans. Mulligans are a variation of second chances. If you hit a shot with your driver off the tee on any one hole in a round and the little white golf ball vanishes mysteriously in deep woods closer to the fairway for another hole – you know for sure you’ll never be able to find your little white ball, but you can say mulligan before you throw your driver in the direction of the same woods. Mulligan means you will have a second shot off that tee before you set off to try to find the driver you threw in the woods. You may hit a beautiful shot for your mulligan or you may not, but the important thing is you have a new opportunity.
In our personal lives second chances are sometimes painfully obvious and at other times so subtle we may miss them. Lesson Number One: Be open, available, alert and don’t think you won’t ever need a second chance. You will. Lesson Number Two: When you get a second chance, try not to think of it as an opportunity to repeat mistakes. Mistakes are hard to take back so don’t blow the mulligan.
Lesson Number Three: Be sure to tell your friends about your second chance. It may give them hope and inspire them to offer one or accept one. Honestly, can there be too many second chances going around? Lesson Number Four: Your second chance may be your last chance. Really? Really.
Lesson Number Five: Never be afraid to take a second chance when you have one. As Franklin Roosevelt famously said when the Hounds of the Baskervilles were closing in around him, We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
I am a survivor of second chances in my 74 years – I have at various times blown them, made mistakes, wished I had been a better person. I also have taken second chances that have brought me much joy and happiness. The point is I have had more than my share of opportunities to make choices.
I have to believe in second chances not only for us as individuals but also for us as communities and as a country. We have collectively failed to fulfill our promises of equal opportunity for all through our systemic racism toward people of color in their pursuit of good health care during the current Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, in their pursuit of a good public educational system, in their need of reliable shelter through affordable housing, in their need of a living wage – in their ongoing fear of police brutality. One of our second chances to do better comes in November when we have a say in our democracy through our votes. We must do better – we must elect new leadership that gives us second chances to become a better people.
Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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