I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: nekki shutt

  • When Insults Had Class

    When Insults Had Class


    When Insults Had Class

    “Some cause happiness wherever they go: others, whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde

    “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West

    “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend…if you have one.” – George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

    “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second…if there is one.” – Winston Churchill, in response

    Now that’s funny…

    In March, 2007, I was working on a collection of stories that became my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing. One of the few friends I asked for beta reader feedback when I was writing that book was Nekki Shutt, who I met when she moved to South Carolina from Florida to be near her grandparents and attend law school at the University of South Carolina in the early 1990s. She was young, ambitious, a hard worker and became a driving force in the queer community at an early age. We became friends, sister activists, and have continued to laugh with each other for more than thirty years.

    On March 09, 2007, I received an email from Nekki with the subject line “When Insults Had Class!” Good inspiration for your writing, she added.

    The quotes featured above from Oscar Wilde, Mae West, George Bernard Shaw, and Winston Churchill were included in that email I saved for eighteen years because I collect words that entertain me. I hope they entertain you, too.

    One final quote from that email was from Groucho Marx, of the famous comic Marx Brothers. “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”

    I can say without hesitation any evening with Nekki Shutt is a wonderful one; guaranteed to be full of fun, loads of irresistible laughter, and conversation that will spark the imagination.

    On the other hand, beware Nekki Shutt in a courtroom. Congratulations to a courageous woman who celebrated her eighth anniversary this week as a founding partner in the firm Burnette Shutt & McDaniel, PA. She also was sworn in on May 15th. as the president-elect of the SC Bar Association.

    What I admire most about Nekki, however, is her love and loyalty to friends and family because that’s a core value we share in addition to our commitment to equality and justice for all.

    Nekki, Pretty, Francie and me at T’s belated birthday bash

    I remember when insults had class – but barely – I think I’ll keep this email a while longer.

  • wonder women – southern style (part II)


    A politician/philanthropist from Faith, North Carolina who settled in Charleston; an attorney who moved to Columbia from Key West, Florida; a midlands YWCA executive director from Detroit, Michigan — three women whose different, yet similar, stories were chronicled in Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home. I celebrate these women today during Women’s History Month because they all  overcame a youthful sense of isolation and fear of discovery to become leaders of the LGBTQ movement in South Carolina. Regardless of their diverse backgrounds that brought them to our state or the different motivations that inspired them, these women stood on the battleground of equality and refused to surrender.

    Linda Ketner was the first openly gay candidate for federal office in South Carolina. As the 2008 Democratic nominee for the US Congress, District 1, she won more than 48% of the vote, narrowly losing to a four-term incumbent in a district held by Republicans since 1980.  Linda’s fearless leadership in forming organizations such as the Alliance for Full Acceptance and South Carolina Equality plus her generous financial support of individuals and other organizations within the LGBTQ community have cemented her place in our history.

    In Southern Perspectives Linda wrote about her own spiritual journey: “It was at this time [having found a religious community in an all-black church] that it became essential to both my mental health and my soul to ‘take all of me with me everywhere I went’ – to come all the way out to everyone I knew. The decision to do that for me was like jumping off a cliff where you didn’t know if the ground was eight inches below or eight thousand feet. It was an act of faith. What I hadn’t expected was that rather than falling, I soared. My heart soared with a freedom, integrity, and peace I had never known. I was living my life with integrity and congruence. I was living authentically. Secrets kill. Secrets produce a life of shame and a shameful life. And I have never known an LGBTQ person who regretted coming out, no matter what the consequences.”

    Linda Ketner at a Pride Parade in 2013

    Nekki Shutt was born in Honolulu, Hawaii into a military family that traveled in eight states before she graduated from Key West High School in Florida. She moved to South Carolina in 1986 to finish her undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina where she also finished law school in 1995. Nekki served on the national board of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and co-chaired the board from 1998 – 2000. She helped to found South Carolina Equality, served as its first board chair and was involved in leadership roles in a number of other community organizations. She was, and continues to be, a warrior woman.

    Nekki was one of the lead attorneys in the Condon v. Haley case that resulted in South Carolina’s becoming the thirty-fifth state to recognize marriage equality in November of 2014. She wrote in Southern Perspectives: “That case was the highlight of my legal career, because it brought my passions for both practicing law and civil rights together in one place at one time…This was not an accident, and it is not a result of Will and Grace or Ellen. It is the result of people coming out to their friends and families and neighbors and coworkers because they felt it was a safe environment. The people and organizations of the LGBTQ community have created that environment by their actions during the past thirty years. I am proud of our state and proud to have been a part of this movement. To whom great things are given, great responsibility comes. I had incredible role models in my family as a child and in the larger world as an adult. What I do as an activist is my way to give back and follow in very big footsteps. We have more battles ahead in the war for equal rights, but I predict we will win…”

    Nekki Shutt (l.) at 2015 Pride Parade with her law partner Malissa Burnette

    Carole Stoneking (1937 – 2016) was born and raised in Michigan with an undergraduate degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. She worked for twenty-seven years for the YWCA and came to Columbia as its executive director. Following her career in the YWCA, Carole took a new path as the owner of the Stress Management Institute of Therapeutic Massage in Columbia for the next twenty-three years before her retirement. Carole was a social justice activist throughout her life; she was president of the Columbia chapter of the National Organization for Women, board member of the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Business Guild, a past delegate for South Carolina Equality, a board member for the South Carolina Council on Aging, a board member for Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, and a member of that organization’s national steering committee.

    In Southern Perspectives Carole says: “I came out of the closet in 1956. That was thirteen years before Stonewall. I came out in a tumultuous time when it was taboo…there were no organizations helping gays or lesbians. No agencies were trying to help people from feeling shame. Only the bartenders were there to help people keep from starving or to provide space for people to sleep for the night. There were no colleges or universities offering places for lesbians to study about the effects of shame or suicide. I faced a great deal of hardship and criticism from everyone, including my own mother who told me ‘I would rather have seen you be a prostitute.’ At that moment I felt all the shame of a lifetime…However, I am glad that I did not hold it in; being out and fighting for an equal right is a virtuous thing.”

    Carole Stoneking and OLOC banner in Pride Parade in Columbia

    I met Carole shortly after she moved to South Carolina and watched her grow older but continue to show up for meetings and parades for the next thirty years. I always admired her for that. She never quit believing that the fight for an equal right was a virtuous thing. In July, 2008 (at age 71) she gave a speech at a regional Older Lesbians Organizing for Change meeting. That speech has much more meaning for me now  – luckily the talking points are preserved in Southern Perspectives. This is talking point #8:

    “Is this ageism I am feeling? Is this the time in my life when I need to be focusing on the reason I am here on earth? Or maybe a new reason I am here? B.B. Copper says’Unless old lesbians are remembered as sexual, attractive, useful, integral parts of the women-loving world, then current lesbian identity is a temporary mirage, not a new social statement of female empowerment.’”

    Pride – 2015 – our history belongs to you now

    Candace Chellew-Hodge, Harriet Hancock, Deborah Hawkins, Linda Ketner, Nekki Shutt, Carole Stoneking — these are a few of my wonder women, southern style who began a fight for themselves and for those who will come after them and sought to honor those who came before them. The fight took place in a conservative, sometimes hostile, environment but these women persevered in their own battlefields to win some of the fights, lose others, but know that the fight was a virtuous thing. We do, indeed, have more battles ahead, but I also predict we will win. Onward.

    Happy Women’s History Month!

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • moving on down the road…to Charleston!


    l. to r. Harriet Hancock, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson, Nekki Shutt

    photo courtesy Darlene Williams

    Not pictured here are panelists Alvin McEwen, Dr. Ed Madden and moderator/organizer Dr. David Snyder who did a super job of asking questions that addressed the major themes of Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home which stimulated a lively discussion among the six panelists.

    The personal stories in the book were collected individually and independent of each other so that the opportunity to share perspectives as a group of six contributors was awesome. I wish everyone in cyberspace could have been there with me and Pretty who cheered us on from the front row of the audience…and fellow contributor Dick Hubbard who sat a few rows behind Pretty. Pretty’s sister Darlene and her friend Dawne, out-of-towners, gave additional support from the front row seats.

    I was thrilled to meet Dr. Robert Brinkmeyer, Jr., the director of the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, in person. Bob’s endorsement is one of three on the back cover of our book and his department was one of the co-sponsors of our event.

    My thanks to Dave for setting up the USC event and to the University of South Carolina Bookstore at the Russell House for selling books not only at this event but also at the Guild meeting earlier this month.  And of course, a HUGE thank you to the contributors who continue to tell their stories to extend their reach from words on pages to live audiences who ask questions that make us believe we have made a difference in our state.

    Next week we will have a panel discussion in Charleston that will feature Harlan Greene who wrote the foreword for Southern Perspectives alongside contributors Linda Ketner, Jim Redman-Gress, and Warren Redman-Gress. I look forward to being an out-of-towner myself in the lowcountry.

    More on that event later in the week, but please save the date for Wednesday, the 7th. at 6:00 p.m. if you will be in the Charleston area – I would love to see you there.

    Stay tuned.

  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly


    The Good:

    This past Thursday evening a small group of LGBT activists met at a local restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina to celebrate with Jim Obergefell, one of the plaintiffs in the  recent historical SCOTUS decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all fifty states in the USA. We were a jubilant group – full of laughter, chatting happily, enjoying the fruits of many years of hard labors, toasting with champagne given to us by the delightful wait staff who wanted to recognize our group for our “contributions to the state of South Carolina.” An amazing evening. Unimaginable in 1984 when our organization of the movement began in earnest in the state.

    The Bad:

    On that same Thursday last week on a different continent a world away six people were stabbed as they marched in the Jerusalem annual gay pride parade – stabbed by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who had just been released from serving ten years in prison for stabbing a gay man in another march  those years before. Two of the people were taken to the hospital, and yesterday Shira Banki, a sixteen-year-old activist, died. An amazing event – unfortunately,  still not unimaginable in any country today – but a tragic loss for the entire LGBT community which shares the sorrow of her family and friends in Israel.

    More Good:

    Jim Obergefell and local activist Nekki Shutt served as co-Grand Marshalls of the Charleston Pride Parade two days later on a rainy Saturday in the low-country capitol of the state- but the rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the  hundreds of marchers who had waited for the opportunity to step out for equality with pride. The music was loud, the floats were festive – and the entire atmosphere was electric with the possibilities ahead for the LGBT movement toward full equality.

    More Bad:

    That same weekend a Russian Military Holiday was observed in St. Petersburg, Russia. Several gay activists staged individual protests  during the festivities because of recent government anti-gay measures and were taunted by the Russian Airborne Services who tore up the protesters’ posters. Russian police intervened in the confrontation and took the activists away, although the law permits one-person protests. One of the paratroopers had this to say: “We’re in Russia and not in America. Let them do what they want in America, but not in Russia.”

    The Ugly:

    And finally, a report released  today by an independent project called Airwars alleges that U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in the past year targeting the Islamic State group may have killed more than 450 civilians. The U.S. denies these numbers but said there are four ongoing military investigations into allegations regarding the deaths of civilians during airstrikes.

    I understand why…no, I don’t. Not really. Life is so much better for me when I don’t read or listen to the news. Just let me drink my champagne in peace, but no…

    How can one man love another man so much that he will try to change the attitudes of an entire country so that their love will have the same status  in that country as  those who love members of the opposite sex? And then how can one man hate this same love so much that he will stab a teenage girl to death simply because she chose to get out of her bed one Thursday morning and look in the mirror and say, Today I will be myself. I will be who I really am, and I want the world to see me as I am.

    Life isn’t always filled with days that are good and bad or even ugly. Most of our days are just opportunities to go one way or the other – to choose to make a difference right where we are in this moment – or to let that chance slip away with a shrug of indifference. Jim  Obergefell chose a path that led him on a long journey to the highest court in the United States. Shira Banki’s choice led to a much shorter journey – but one that was no less important.   As for the civilians allegedly lost in Iraq and Syria, well, they had no choice.

    My investigation is ongoing, but the preliminary findings indicate good and bad are always in a tight race for our best selves and some of us win or lose depending on the day of the race. Blessed are those that win more days than they lose, for they shall drag the rest of us to the finish line and we will be grateful.