Oh, who made the hairbrush?

Apparently, asking the question, "Who invented the hairbrush?" is now considered racist.

I recently posted a meme listing the names of black inventors, what they invented, and the date they invented it.  One of the names on that list is a Lydia O. Newman, who allegedly invented the hairbrush in 1898.

The first comment that followed came from Person A, who said, "The hairbrush as we know it was 'invented' (or modernized) in 1777, in England."

I thought, Hmm, I wonder if she invented a particular type of hairbrush.

Another item on the list was the door stop, allegedly invented by Osbourn Dorsey in 1878.

Person A commented, "Door stops also go back to the 1770's, so what is the door stop on this list?"

The next comment came from Person B:  "Wow, do you have any reason to be so dismissive of the achievements of African-American inventors other than racism?"

I was floored.  I happen to be acquainted with Person A.  Person A is white.  He is also Jewish.  If he's racist, he's hidden it well from me.  Person B is a white female I'm only acquainted with through FB, and who does not know Person A. 

I said, "Um, this person is a friend of mine.  I'd be careful before you accuse him of being racist."

Person B:  "His comment was racist."

Person B went on to say, "He can find by Googling that patents were issued for the items on the list.  Attempting to dismiss them as not being inventions in racist."

I told Person B that Person A was a friend of mine; she didn't know him, I did.

And then I told her, "STOP. NOW.   I don't appreciate your name calling."

Person C, an African-American male who I'm also acquainted with, and who Person A is also acquainted with, then joined the conversation with:  "The comment did come off dismissive.  I can't speak to intent although I can't see [Person A] intentionally meaning it that way."

In response to Person A's question of "how did it come off as dismissive?", Person C explained:  "When the first comment that follows a post about African American achievements is a statement about how they didn't do what was posted, it leaves the impression that the achievement didn't really happen and that it's giving credit for something that African Americans didn't actually do.  I don't think you [meaning Person A] meant it in that way, but that is the taste left in the mouth.  It follows the history in this country of demeaning and dismissing achievements by anyone who has dark skin . .. to say we've not contributed anything to the success of this country."

Person D, a white woman who isn't acquainted with Person A, B, or C, added,  "Take a deep breath and maybe get a glass of wine . . . step away from deep thinking . . . NOT everything is racist or meant to be racist."

Person D added a few comments later:  "Then carry on with the baragge [sic] of keeping racism alive and well and to the forefront . . . MLK will be turning over in his grave because we have stepped waaay back since the civil rights movement . . . meanwhile no one seems to have a problem with murdering babies . . . But since it's black history month . . . lets [sic] drum up racism instead of celebrating the amazing things that people actually contributed . . ."

Person C responded with:  "You are deflecting.  Murdered babies aren't apart [sic] of this discussion.  You need to focus."

I responded to Person D with:  "I happen to know [Person C].  He's African-American, a friend of mine I know from college, and I happen to think he's raised a good point that we need to think about."

Later, I told Person D, "STOP.  These are friends of mine who have differing perspectives and I think they need to be heard."'

All of this over the question of "who invented the hairbrush?"! 

(At this point, I'm stifling the urge to break into, "Oh, Where Is My Hairbrush?" from VeggieTales!)

I can appreciate Person A's comments about "who invented what".  It's important, when we pass around stuff, to know whether or not we're passing around accurate information.  I will need to check if there's inaccurate stuff on that original list I posted.

I can also appreciate Person C's comments.  I don't know what it's like to constantly have my achievements dismissed and denigrated.  I don't know what it's like to have achievements of my race, my culture, my group of people constantly dismissed or mocked or made fun of.  I can't speak from that perspective.  Person C can.

I also have "history" (borrowing a quote from Person C) with Person A and Person C.  That helped in the conversation.  I could listen a lot better to Person C because I have a "history" with him.  Person C also didn't come in automatically assuming and accusing someone of "racism".

I can handle a discussion.  What I resent are the automatic accusations of racism AND the automatic accusation of "you think everything is racist".

Person B has unfriended me on Facebook.  There's a sense in which I'm sorry, because I genuinely like her. On the other hand, that was her choice, and I'm not sorry for standing up for my friends.

And oh, to answer the question of "who invented the hairbrush?"

I did a quick Wikipedia search and found this article about Lyda D. Newman.  While she didn't invent the hairbrush, as in, she was the first person to create it; she did invent a hairbrush that could be taken apart and easily cleaned.  She was awarded US Patent No. 614,335 on November 15, 1898.

So I was right.  It was a specific type of hairbrush that she invented.

Now that I've settled that, I may go to work on the doorstop.

In the meantime, if you want to have a conversation about African-American history, achievements, etc. go right ahead.

But if you call me or any of my friends racist, you had better be prepared to back that accusation up with some serious proof.  Otherwise, I will call you out on it.

Because "who made the hairbrush?" shouldn't necessarily devolve into an accusation of "you're racist."

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Blackface apology

Back in 1982, I went to a church Halloween party.  I had just turned 19, I was in college at FSU, and the guy I went with was also an FSU student about the same age.  He and I both went to the same church.  When we got together to talk about our costumes, he suggested that we go as Raggedy Ann and Andy.  I have red hair, so it was a good idea for a costume.

When other people would ask what we were going as, I would tell them, "Oh, Raggedy Ann and Andy," and they'd say something like, "How cute!"

The night came, and we showed up as Raggedy Ann and Andy.

A black Raggedy Ann and Andy.

My date had the idea that it would funny to tell everyone that we were going as Raggedy Ann and Andy and show up as a black Raggedy Ann and Andy, and I went along with it.  I think a couple of other people knew what we were going to do also.  We had shoe polish and we put it all over our skin, including our faces.  In fact, when we arrived, my date came down the hill from the parking lot with a boom box on his shoulder.   I even remember that the song playing on the boom box was Toto's "Africa".

Everyone laughed, and we had a good time.

Back then, I had never heard of the term "blackface".  And although I may have been slightly familiar with the term "minstrel show", I had no idea that it was considered controversial; that it, according to Wikipedia,  "lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky."

It was years before I realized that what we had done was Raggedy Ann and Andy in blackface.  And unfortunately, it took longer before I realized exactly how offensive that could be. (Incidentally, the church I attended was racially mixed.  Our campus minister at the time was African-American, and he never said anything to me about my costume.  No one else did, either.)

I've thought about this in light of a photo that's recently come to light in Virginia governor Ralph Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook (two years after the party I attended), of two people, one dressed in blackface and the other in the robes and hood of the Ku Klux Klan.  Northam first apologized and said that he was in the photograph, "in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive", then said he wasn't sure if he was either person, and now says that he's not either person, even though he did once darken his face for a Michael Jackson dance contest.

Because of that photograph, people are now calling for his resignation as governor.  The photo inflamed feelings that were already riled up about his comments concerning late-term abortion.  (I'm not discussing that particular issue in this blog entry because, frankly, I'm worn out from the recent abortion wars and I don't want to get into it here.)

I don't know what these people were thinking, but even in 1984 Virginia, you had to know that dressing up as a member of the Klan was not cool!!

(Side note:  Governor Northam said that he only put a little bit of shoe polish on his face because "you can't get that stuff off."  Gee, I seemed to have no trouble with getting shoe polish off of my face. <sarcasm font.>)

I don't know what Ralph Northam may or may not have been thinking.

But here's what I have to say about my very brief experience with blackface:

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I dressed in a way that has been used to mock and make fun of African-Americans.

And although I can honestly say that my intention was not racist, that my intention was not to make fun of African-Americans, I can absolutely see that that costume would be offensive.  This is not something I would do today.  Nor would I encourage anyone else to do it.

If you were at that party in 1982, I'm sorry for my costume.

If you were an African-American at that party in 1982 and you saw me in that costume, I'm sorry I wore it.  I'm sorry if you were hurt, and I'm sorry that I was the one who was the agent of that hurt.

I'm especially sorry if you saw me in that costume, and you were offended and hurt, and didn't feel like you could say anything to me.  To be honest, if you had at that time, I probably would not have understood why my costume was so offensive to you.  Just because no one ever said anything to me doesn't mean that you shouldn't have been hurt or offended.

At 19, I was young and stupid, and I hope I've learned better about what can be -- and often is -- offensive to others.   I don't want to be a racist.  I don't want to be deliberately offensive to people.  I don't want to be unkind and uncaring.

Should the governor of Virginia resign his office over a photograph?  I really don't know.

But an apology over my blackface costume in October of 1982?

That, I can do.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Life sucks, but . . .

Let's face it, guys:  Life sucks.

I had an appointment with my counselor yesterday, and at the end, I said that right now, certain parts of my life just plain sucked.

Government shutdown?  Sucks.
Kid with autism?  Sucks.  (The kid doesn't suck, but dealing with autism day in and day out?  Sucks.)
Financial concerns?  Sucks.
Current events?  Sucks.

On the way to my car, I thought, Jesus' life sucked, too.

I mean, think about it.

No home of his own, sleeping on the ground, persecuted, criticized, betrayed by a friend and abandoned by the rest of them, convicted and executed for things he never did.

Sucks.

And that was when the following verse dropped into my mind:

"In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world."  (John 16:33, NIV)

I thought, That's it.  That is how you deal with the fact that life sucks.

"In this world you will have trouble."

Translation:  Life sucks.

Jesus never said that life would not suck.  Life is going to suck.  Period.  If it sucked for Jesus, the holy Son of God, it is going to suck for us.  Period.

"But take heart!"

You can translate that as "be brave, take courage, be courageous, etc."

Why?  If life sucks, and it sucked even for Jesus, why be brave?  Why can we have courage, take courage?

"I have overcome the world."

I have overcome.

Not, "I will," but "I have."

Jesus said all of this before the garden of Gethsemane, before he heard the muttering of the soldiers coming for him, before the torches lit up the trees, before Peter swung his sword and cut off Malchus' ear.

"I have overcome the world."

I wonder how many times he thought this while he was being marched towards Pilate, standing on trial, listening to everyone accusing him, lying about him, while the whip cut into his back and sprayed blood and bits of skin and bone on the ground.

My Merriam-Webster dictionary app defines "overcome" as a transitive verb meaning "to get the better of".  When I read that definition, I don't see a shiny Jesus holding up his hand and saying in this holy-sounding voice, "Take heard, I have overcome the world."

No, it's a Jesus that says, "Ha!  Gotcha!  I have overcome!  Yeah, things suck and they're going to suck, but guess what?  I'm the Son of God and I have gotten the better of things.  I win!"  Not an, "na-na-na-na-na-pfffth", but, "I win!  No one has gotten the better of me; I have gotten the better of the world.  Ha!"

John 16:33 isn't going to solve our financial problems.  It won't miraculously reopen the government or make autism easier to deal with.  But maybe, just maybe, it will put a new spin on the outlook that I have.

"I have overcome."

He has overcome.

He got the better of the world, and so will we.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Last night's speech, and other topics

I did not watch last night's speech by President Trump about the wall. 

I honestly don't know what to think about the wall, or about anything, because I am afraid of losing friends on either side of the aisle. 

I am afraid of being shamed for what I think, and unfortunately, there are people powerful enough to shame and silence others. 

I run conservative in my politics, and I feel like I am committing a sin by doing so.  I'm not "woke", and I'm not a social justice warrior, and I feel like those opinions are the only ones that count.  Anything that leans even a little bit to the right, politically, is to be silenced. 

I am afraid of losing my friends on either side of the aisle for what I believe.  I am afraid of being thought of as racist or bigoted, even by other Christians.  If I say "a", everyone else will say "b, c, d, e . . ." and I'm left with just saying, "Uh-uh-uh-uh . . ."

My little "squeak" gets drowned out by the screams of those around me.

I've said to my son that the only people who should have sex with each other are a man and a woman who are married to each other.  Am I wrong?  Because people use the Bible to teach that yes, only a man and woman who are married to each other should have sex with each other . . .and people also use the Bible to teach that a loving, same-sex relationship is okay. 

People use the Bible to teach that a woman shouldn't preach . . . and people use the Bible to teach that it's okay for a woman to preach.

People use the Bible to teach that you must be baptized in order to be saved . . . and people use the Bible to teach that you just have to "accept Jesus as your personal savior."

And then there are all the back and forths about the original Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic, the original audience, the context of the verses, the culture of the times . . . and I'm left feeling that I can't understand the Bible without a degree in theology and fluency in Biblical languages.

Then I'm told, "just love everyone and let God sort it out".  But sometimes, "love" is defined as "overlook my sin" or "don't tell me that what I am doing is wrong".  When you tell someone that they are doing something wrong, that's "judging", and we are not to judge (Matthew 7:1, yet another example of people using the Bible to "prove" that they are correct). 

I am supposed to "welcome the alien" because of the verses in the Old Testament that talk about "welcome the alien among you because you were aliens in Egypt" (my paraphrase.)  When we talk about deporting people here illegally, those verses are used to "prove" that the people who want to deport people here illegally are "hateful".  (I'm not going to tackle the topic here of children brought here by parents who came here illegally.  Because right now, I don't have an answer.) 

I am supposed to ALWAYS, without question, believe people who claim they have been assaulted.  If I say anything like, "I'd like to withhold my judgment until more facts come out," I will be accused of not believing victims.

The only women who are real women are those who are in the STEM professions or who are CEO's or high-powered lawyers or politicians.  Real women break glass ceilings and smash the patriarchy.  Real women don't get married or have kids because that's depending on a man for your worth and value, and by all means, you don't need a man for your worth and value!  If you want to have kids, okay, we'll let you have kids, but you'd better be back at that desk within six weeks.  Real women don't work in "traditionally female" occupations, like teacher, librarian, court reporter, secretary, waitress, because that's buying into the "traditional stereotype" of a female, and by all means, you do not want to do that, do you?  </sarcasm font>

In fact, if you as a woman have to get married, it's your husband that should stay home and take care of the kids while you go out and earn the living.

And above all, real women are STRONG.

I don't fit.  I don't fit any of this.  I'm not "woke", I'm not a social justice warrior, I haven't smashed a glass ceiling in my life and I'm not actively campaigning against the patriarchy.  But my voice squeaks in comparison to the gatekeepers of society and social media, and they have decided that people like me are to be shamed into silence. 

And frankly, I do not know what to do about it.  The fight just seems hopeless.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation

Say that again, Siri?

I like Siri.  I like the convenience of just saying, "Where is . . ?" "Can you . . ." I've asked her "what day of the week was  . . .?" mainly because when I proof, I need to make sure that the date is correct.  I've actually run across a couple of occasions where the day of the week did not match the date of the year.

But the disadvantage of Siri is that she's voice-recognition . . . and that leads to a few, shall we say, interesting situations.

Last year, during a cold snap, I was trying to figure out what the wind chill was.  I kept saying "wind chill" to Siri, and Siri kept translating it to words I was not saying.

One of the translations, I will not repeat here, because it garnered the following response from Siri:  "I hope you don't kiss your mother with that mouth." 

I got a reminder of Siri's translation abilities, or lack thereof, today when I spoke a reminder to her about a friend of mine.

Laura is a woman in my Bible study group who just discovered that she has an aggressive form of breast cancer.  She is fighting back just as aggressively.  (On her way home from her PET scan, she posted a video of herself singing along with the song "Radioactive", commenting that she was a bit radioactive after the scan!)  Today I saw a picture of her holding a martini glass filled with juiced vegetables.  Juicing is one of the weapons she's using in her war against cancer. 

Laura had her port put in today and had given people the time of her appointment.  So I asked Siri to "remind me about Laura's port".

The reminder that came up? 

"Laura sport." 

So I shared her response with Laura and she sent me back a laughing emoji. 

I wish I could tell Siri, "Make Laura's cancer go away," and have her say, "Your wish is my command."

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

What's the word?

In the last few years, I've seen that it's customary for people to adopt a "word" for the next year.  This word is one that they use to be their emphasis or their guide for that year.

Brian Hardin, from the Daily Audio Bible (www.dailyaudiobible.com) has adopted a word for the last few years.  Last year it was "hope", this year it was "maintain".

So, do I have a word for this year?

Well, yes . . . and no.

I have two words and a phrase for this year.  It's stuff I've been thinking about for some time, and it's about time I put the words into practice.

They are:  Foundation, fundamentals, and back to basics.

I've worried about several issues within Christianity over the last few years, such as, "Are we allowed to have instruments in worship?"  "What is the role of women?" and on and on and on.  Lately, it's occurred to me that answers to those questions aren't worth it if I don't have the proper foundation . . . which, according to I Corinthians 3:11 is Jesus Christ.

I can squabble about "women's roles", "instrumental music" and everything else, but what good is it if I am not building on Jesus? 

So here I am, picking up my shovel, and clearing away the rubble, leveling the ground for the foundation of Jesus, and praying that I will build on it with the proper materials. 

Happy New Year, all.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Shutdown

Unless Mighty Mouse swoops in and saves the day, we are 15 and a half hours away from a government shutdown.  Since my husband is a government employee, he will be placed on furlough and he will not get a paycheck until the government reopens.

We have already bought Christmas presents and Christmas dinner, and we have savings, assets, and a full pantry.  I can still proof, and my husband will qualify for unemployment.  And if the situation gets dire, we have good friends.  My husband and I will be fine. 

The whole issue boils down to Donald Trump saying, "I want money to build my wall, and if I don't get it, I'll hold my breath until I turn blue!"

Congress:  "Inhale, Mr. President.  Our favorite shades of blue are azure, turquoise, cobalt, and navy."

There is a reason why I refer to the children -- er, Congress, and why our President should probably be referred to as the toddler-in-chief. 

My disgust for American politics has reached a new high.  Or low, depending on your perception.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.