I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • the good name of John Lewis, American patriot


    I no longer have to imagine a world without John Lewis as I did when I originally published this piece in July, 2020 – because I have now lived in that world in real time for almost three years. I miss him.

    ********************

    I cannot imagine a world without John Lewis. I knew him first as a Civil Rights activist in the 1960s when I was in college, but I’ve known him longest as a congressman from our neighboring state of Georgia who for the past 33 years fought for social justice issues in the US House of Representatives. When John Lewis spoke, I listened. On July 17, 2020 his voice spoke for a final time as he drew his last breath, but his words will live on for me and countless others across the planet he loved.

    Two of my favorite quotes from Congressman Lewis:

    “We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.”

    “If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it.”

    Then, this quote from a 2003 Op Ed by Congressman Lewis in the Boston Globe was particularly meaningful for me: “I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriages for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and bigotry.” 

    From being beaten by police on Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965 to observing the creation of a Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D. C.  near the White House in June of this year, John Lewis was a presence and driving force for good for more than 50 years. I truly cannot imagine a world without him.

    “You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more. We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now that need is greater than ever before.” (quote provided by Jonathan Capehart in The Washington Post on June 10, 2020)

    One of my father’s favorite biblical sayings was “a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.” (Proverbs 22:1)  The name of Congressman John Robert Lewis who died yesterday at the age of 80 will be written in our American history as a good name, perhaps even an “exceptional” one according to remarks by former President Barack Obama as he remembered Lewis today.

    I cannot imagine a world without the compassionate leadership of John Lewis, an American patriot. Your journey is over, John – your job was well done. Rest in peace.

    ************************

    John’s job was, indeed, well done. What about ours? Will we leave this little planet we call Earth a little bit better than we found it? That is the challenge we face daily.   Onward.

     

     

     

     

     

  • who has a secret?


    I have a secret to tell you about the power of the vote, 

    but all you care about is pulling my hair. Oh, well. Maybe later.

    Pretty and I were talking about our nine months old granddaughter Ella James yesterday afternoon not just because she was playing in her playpen on our screened porch but also because Pretty said she had been thinking we needed to start making videos of our time with Ella for later on when we might not be here to talk to her in person.

    I said I agreed with her – that neither of us was getting any younger and what a great idea it was to make the videos. Actually, I said, I’d also been thinking about the same inspiration, but Pretty has always been the ideas part of our marriage so I happily gave her credit.

    However, Pretty and I are much better at thinking about good plans than we are at plan execution so let’s not any of us hold our breaths for those videos.

    But Pretty is fabulous with her digital phone camera and takes a ton of pictures like the one above she took yesterday afternoon. I loved the picture. Maybe one day Ella James will see this picture and try to remember what she loved about grabbing my glasses, throwing them on the floor, then pulling my hair. I’m fairly confident she won’t remember my lesson on the importance of voting.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

  • the horse you draw is the one you’ll ride


    I originally published this post on December 28, 2013. While I had this conversation with one of my first cousins in Texas after Christmas six years ago, I found his words strangely spoke to me today as a spike in South Carolina coronavirus cases brought the pandemic closer and closer to Pretty and me.

    ****************************

    A year can fly past in a hurry and yet the passage of time, regardless of our perception of its speed, never leaves us unchanged. I was talking to a cousin who called me on Christmas Day to wish me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I appreciated the call and the visit we had. The thousand miles that separated us couldn’t break the ties that bind us through our DNA.

    We were talking about the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to call them, and Gaylen who has spent over forty years hanging out with cowboys at rodeos in and around the Houston area told me one of their favorite quotes:  “The horse you draw is the one you’ll ride.”

    I like it.  No apologies.  No excuses.  No whining about why did I get this horse.  No wondering about whether this rodeo was one I should’ve signed up for.  No mulling over how I ever got to be a cowboy in the first place.  It’s now or it’s never – so you ride.

    ****************************

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

  • our community lost a fighter who was also a good friend


    Profile photo of Nigel Mahaffey

    Nigel M Mahaffey, Jr.

    (August 07, 1959 – June 25, 2020)

    (photo from Linked In)

    The obituary for this friend began “Nigel loved life and was one of the most joyful people to grace this earth.” I couldn’t agree more. He always greeted me with a smile that wasn’t forced, a hug to match the smile. Joyful – that’s a compliment these days when not many people are full of joy. Nigel was a true believer in sharing joy regardless of the circumstances.

    Tige and Nigel. Nigel and Tige. I never really thought about them separately because Pretty and I rarely saw one without the other for the past twenty-seven years they were together. Tige and Nigel worked together in their political consulting business, lived in the same neighborhood for most of their married life, and more importantly to us they both loved to play trivial pursuit on regular game nights at their house or someone else’s. If Nigel were here writing this, he would add that Tige, Pretty and another friend named Curtis were always favorite picks for any trivial pursuit team while Nigel joined the race for the last ones chosen that featured me and Curtis’s husband, Dick. Such fun times.

    Nigel and Tige made many contributions to the lgbtq community over the past 30 years, not the least of which was their magazine In  Unison which was a professionally produced news magazine intended for the lgbtq community in the southeast. During the early days of organizing our  queer movement in the southern states, In Unison was a powerful voice for a community struggling to discover that voice. The articles in the magazine, the advertising supporters, the distributors – everyone wanted to encourage the co-founders  to continue their positive messaging on behalf of the queer community in South Carolina and the surrounding area.

    Pretty and I ran into Nigel and Tige earlier this year at The Kingsman restaurant. Truth be told there were so many gay customers in the restaurant that night I thought I must have missed the invite to a family party. But Tige and Nigel got up from their dinners, gave us both a big hug and we all promised each other we would definitely get together for a game night in 2020.

    Opportunity lost forever – Nigel, you would have been my first pick if I were ever made team captain.

    I know many of your friends who will join me in grieving your loss, my friend. Rest in peace, Nigel M Mahaffey, Jr.

    Stay safe, stay sane, and stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • i heard dave chappelle say shut up, white women. was he talking to me?


    In Dave Chappelle’s concert “8:46” he opens by thanking young protesters in the streets today –  carry on, young ones, he says.  You’re good drivers, I’m comfortable riding in the back seat.

    I so got that comment. When I watch the protesters in the streets of our major (and minor) cities and towns, I feel exactly the same way. Go on, young people, keep marching. I am comfortable in the back seat with your driving the wheels of change toward a time when equality and justice for all are reality – not just words on handmade signs. Keep at it, young ones, until you reach deep into the heart of every person full of hate, pluck the racism from the blood that flows through it and close the wound in a river of true righteousness.

    By the way, make sure you vote in November. We need you to march all the way to the voting booths.

    White women, I support you, but shut the f— up. Whoa – what’s that you say, Dave? Ouch. Now that was a little too close for comfort. I was all about you until we got to that comment. Thank goodness for Dr. Laura – since she was one of the prominent white women Dave was talking to and about, right? At first, I was startled by the comment. Then I remembered no one was safe from Dave Chappelle’s surgical cuts. I went from a sharp intake of white privilege breath to a moment of quiet realization that he meant me, too. Thank you for the support, Dave – truly. I know you are sincere.

    I also know for sure I do not know the pain of those marching in the streets to claim their identities. I do not know the pain of black women who have lost their sons to police violence, black women who fear for the lives of their children every time one of them  leaves the house. I do not know the pain of siblings who have lost siblings at the hands of those sworn to serve and protect them. I do not pretend to know this kind of pain.

    But white privilege? Me? Yes girl, you, said Pretty who tries her best to make me a better person. But remember, Pretty, I’m a white l-e-s-b-i-a-n. Don’t I get a little extra credit for having that double dip scoop on the ice cream of discrimination? Doesn’t count in this cone, Pretty says with finality. Of course she’s right. Sigh.

    For more than seven decades I never owned the term white privilege because I came from a poor family growing up in the back piney woods of southeast Texas.  I saved my college money from running six cows with my daddy and grandfather when I was a child. My allowance from my daddy in college was $25 a month. Sometimes he was apologetically late. My first jobs after college were in a rich man’s world of systemic oppression of women financially and every day in the workplace. I didn’t think being white gave me good fortune.

    And yet, it did. The older I get, the more I am aware of the racial divide I started out with in my little segregated red brick schoolhouse in 1952 that happened to be on one side of a single street in a dusty southeast Texas town of 500 people where the other side of that main street held a white wooden schoolhouse full of children whose grandparents and great-grandparents were slaves.

    Time for me to shut up.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.