If you were like me, or maybe not, you were somewhat glued in to the ever-increasing-drama of a government shut down.
For days on end, weeks, months, even, the news kept giving us the drama of a "will they or won't they" about the MAGA republicans attempt to shut down the government in service of their overlord, the 91-indicted, commercial fraud, sexist, racist, empty vessel tyrant wannabe dictator who is only trying to save his own skin. They were capitulating over and over and their speaker was just the 15-vote weak-willed one who couldn't hold it together.
Well, except to try to blame the Democrats and the Senate when Civics 101 means that laws are passed in the Congress first and then voted on in the Senate before they are signed by the President. Didn't anyone else grow up with "It's Just a Bill trying to make it to Capitol Hill" Where is Schoolhouse Rock when you need it.
Then, instead of being the leader and not just a MWM with a title, McCarthy let these MAGAhattypes bring an impeachment hearing tying up precious hours that could have been used ironing out a budget deal.A hearing that even their own constituents said had zero evidence about wrongdoing on the part of President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, judge after judge was acting on behalf of the people of the country by finding fraud in New York and essentially ordering the dissolution of the inflated fake enterprise that had every tinymindedwannabe thinking that because they shared Wonderbreadskin, they would one day, hopefully, maybe, be a billionaire, except, he never did anything to earn it or be it. But they could hope, and then the judge after judge, from state to state, dashed those hopes to leave the only thing they could resort to - being keyboard bullies. Talks of "retribution" were uttered over and over, he was trying to stir up the same violence that led to January 6.
In all of this, the media was reporting on it and only a few were calling the card and telling the truth.
We can't be numb to this, can't be exhausted by all of this, can't be anesthetized to the vitriol. We have to feel it, let it keep us alert. The democracy is on the line.
Just when some of us, well, I, was thinking that no one was paying attention...along came Representative Jasmine Crockett from the Great State of Texas.
This junior representative walked into those chambers with all the ancestors and the spirit of Sojourner and Ida and Mary and all the foremothers who shouted for justice. She wasn't going to demure to the chamber and the OWM in the room. Sista came in prepared.
So it was at the wasting-the-tax-payer-dime that she reminded them that there was a twice-impeached candidate who did commit actual crimes who had the nation's very secrets in the "shitter" because he had such little disregard to the rule of law, the full faith and integrity of the United States, and wanted to destroy this nation in favor of the little dictator he admires. She was fast and fiery in her speech, knew that she was there to fight for her constituency and not just capitulate to these in the power seats.
These are not normal times that we are living in.
Nothing about this is normal and we are way past the time of tip-toeing around anyone's bruised feelings for calling out the blatant racism that is behind literally everything that has been happening in the last year or so.
The book bans? Racism.
That Florida no-personality-joke? Racism.
The dude trying to stop Black women from giving their own money to other Black women? Racism.
The too-to-count-felony-charged-dude-out-on-bail? Racism.
Every safety net they wanted to end? Racism.
Their singular aim, even at the detriment of their own ethnicity is based solely on the original sin of this country and it is past time to call it what it is.
There are some brave souls who are standing up to the bullies and calling a space a space.
What they fear, after they realized they wouldn't make as much money as their fear could hold, they want to make an apartheid state of the fast browning nation. That is why they were salivating at the Texas governor's brutal chain-saws-in-the-river kind of tactics or the Florida and Texas governors bussing hundreds of migrants to New York City or Martha's Vineyard.
In all that they do, cloaked in their fear, they do with racism in mind.
On the land they stole but are sure to have a naming-ceremony, they only want the people who look like them. That is at the crux of the mean-spiritedness of the actions of that fake-mogul-reality-TV-"star" whose tiny bruised ego couldn't take it when a Black man President ribbed him at the Press Conference dinner over a decade ago. He is vengeful and found some other tiny-hearted-tiny-handed-tiny-souled other incel-bully-patriarhy-types who would rally around him as their second-coming and storm the capital in hopes of restoring their milk toast vision of the nation.
It was more than enough of enough and finally, after so many thinkers, and people like April Ryan, holding it down in the Press Rooms as the only one, were writing, telling, talking about this danger, But after all of this, some are finally listening.
The nation is about to implode if people keep thinking this is just politics-as-usual or just the other side of the aisle thinking or just liberal-vs-conservative. It is more than tat.
And it is people like Representative Jamie Crockett who is using all her tell-it-like-it-is Blackwomanhadtobetwiceasgoodandprepared self, to literally try to save this nation from itself.
So tonight, on this October 1st, this Sunday with the warmer-than-usual weather in the Northeast, I stop to sing a praise song to this young woman.
She is not the only one, there are others in the wings, in law schools, in classrooms, in newsrooms, in all walks of life, who are working hard to try to make this country live into her promise of what she can be.
I have hope.
Hope that the rest of them will not give into the bullies who are trying to silence women and put mothers in jail for caring for the reproductive choice of their daughters. Hope that the people in this country will realize that it is not just the presidential election that matters but every last civil servant that requires our vote. That to be engaged matters, even if it is tiring, exhausting, and infuriating.
Let that fuel us, in the areas of our work, let it makes us want to keep learning and writing and making it better and yes, if we have to, calling out the crap in the shitter, if that is what it will take.
Thank you, Representative Crockett, for not standing back and playing the demure-just-happy-be-here or not embarrassing the nation like others in the chamber. Thank you for fighting for the soul of the nation.
May it inspire the others to find their voice and use it.
©2023. Taye Foster Bradshaw Group LLC.
Sitting in my home, eating union-made kettle corn, hoping for a new day.
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Thoughtful dialogue is appreciated.