Shirley Sherrod

This woman has gotten royally screwed, and it's a national disgrace. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you're probably not much for paying attention to the news. Understandable, I say, when the news is so full of information that makes one a little bit stabby. Regardless, Shirley Sherrod used to be the Georgia State Director of Rural Development at the USDA. She held that post until the useless piece of human excrement over at biggovernment.com decided it would be just awesome to cut video of a speech she made at the NAACP back in the 1980s to make it seem as if she was bragging about withholding assistance to white farmers (Ms. Sherrod is black), post it, and make sure Fox News got its subhuman little hands on it. From there it was a short trip to mainstream media and the government, who demanded her resignation, calling her on her BlackBerry to let her know her career was over, and telling her she needed to pull over to the side of the road so that she could email in her resignation ASAP.

Okay, deep breath. If this woman had actually been boasting about being a racist, and had followed up her statement of "I did not give (a white farmer) the full force of what I could do," with "I told that cracker to go fuck himself!", then yes, she should have lost her job. But, oh, hey, she wasn't standing in front of the NAACP regaling members with her bigoted shenanigans, she was telling a story about how she learned to overcome her own prejudices and recognize that white farmers were as deserving of help as black farmers (by the way, those prejudices may have been formed when her father was murdered by a white man who was acquitted, despite overwhelming evidence, by a white jury. It's a possibility).

And it might be easy to see why people got so upset about this and jumped the gun, except for a couple of issues. One, you would have to be a combination of crazy and stupid to think that the edited clip was the extent of the point she was making. I've seen it, and she is clearly making a bigger point than "I don't like white people"; there is quite obviously more to the story she is telling.

Two, you would have to be lazy as fuck to take the word of an anti-government Tea Party blogger, and run with the bait he so carefully laid out, rather than, oh, I don't know, practice a little journalism, a little research, and see what the entire speech said. No one should ever take the word of any blogger, including me. Look it up for yourself and get your own accurate and reliable information before you open your cakehole. Blogs are free and easy to set up, and having one only guarantees that the blogger can type and navigate the Internet. That's all. Everyone in the media, as well as the government, should be good and goddamned ashamed of themselves for being such a bunch of unquestioning, let-others-do-the-work-for-you suckers. I'm amazed they're not all broke from sending their bank account numbers to deposed Nigerian princes.

And three, the fact that so many people blindly accepted this pile of crap as true shows their own racism, in that they think that such an open statement of bigotry would be par for the course at an NAACP meeting, as if such gatherings are all about celebrating situations when they were able to stick it to Whitey. This may be the most depressing point of all. The NAACP is far from perfect, but the assumption of inherent racism in their organization, and the antagonism between the races that has been teased out of this whole fucked up story makes it abundantly clear that we are nowhere near the "post-racial society" that all of the idiots on CNN and MSNBC were crowing about on Inauguration Day.

Cobwebs? What cobwebs?

I'm pretty sure any readers I did have gave up long ago. I can't blame them, seeing as how this blog has been left all forlorn and outdated. It's like the online, self-indulgent version of a foreclosed house with nests of squirrels in the rumpus room, or possibly Eden Prairie Center, circa 1996--I hear it's been somewhat revitalized now, though.

I won't even pretend that I've been busy. I've been a freaking housewife for the last two months. Not a bad gig, really, save for the humiliating poverty and the guilt of watching Kevin commute 45 minutes each way to work a stressful job with crappy pay. But hey, he hasn't had to vacuum or wash dishes in two months, so it's been a tradeoff for him.

Somehow, in the midst of all of my floor-scrubbing and laundry--okay, and gardening, reading, developing a half-assed workout regime, and dicking around on the Internet--I found time to attend graduation ceremonies, study for and pass boards to get my RN license, and, oh yeah, GET A JOB THAT USES MY DEGREE!!!

A big part of me didn't think it would really happen, at least not this quickly. But it did, it totally did, and I'm so excited. Actually, getting this job is a big honor and I'm really lucky in a lot of ways. It's here in town, which in and of itself is huge--I was prepared to have to commute to Duluth, which would have sucked a whole lot. I will be working at the cancer center, a satellite clinic of a large Duluth-based medical center. Among other things, this means that I will get really good at starting IVs. I will also be working straight days, no weekends, no holidays; this is practically unheard of in nursing. And, best of all, I get to develop relationships with my patients and play an important role in their treatments and, hopefully, remission. I start in two weeks.

Not everything has been sunshine and butterflies. A friend died in April. I lost a friend, my wonderful friend and mentor lost the love of her life, and the community lost an incredible leader. It's been hard and we all miss him a great deal. He was one of those people who truly inspires you to be a better person, and everyone who knew him is a million times better for it. He was very involved in our doula group--not as a doula, but in the role he played for so many of us, as a spiritual and cultural adviser. Our doula group is also incredible, and we have been able to support each other through it (especially the people that particularly feel the loss), remember and honor him, and will continue to do so.

That was the big one, but there are always little things that keep everything from being perfect. Despite that, I am ridiculously happy right now. I have a kick-ass husband, really great friends, gainful employment, an awesome family, and I get to live in this gorgeous area where I can see the big lake every day. Because I'm me, a little part of me is wondering when the shoe's going to drop. But I was talking to a friend today and mentioned this, and she very wisely told me, "Yeah, I think it's inevitable to feel that way. But all you can do is enjoy it while it lasts." So I will.