My Encounter with the RedHats

This Sunday, I was shopping for curtains in Home Goods, when a woman and her teenaged son breezed past me in crisp, bright red MAGA hats. My stomach contracted and I literally became nauseated. Word to my friends living in red states- I salute you. I’m a California softy living in liberal LaLa land. I’m not exposed to open carry or MAGA hats. 

She walked past me again, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. 

I stopped her.

I kept my voice calm.

I said, “Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?”

She looked surprised but she stopped and said yes.

I asked (calmly, I swear), “Why are you wearing those hats?”

She straightened, jutted her chin forward. “Because I want our country to go back to what our founding fathers intended, and I believe in the constitution.”

I nodded. “I’m curious. How did did you feel about Trump banning an entire religion from our country, since that violates what our founding fathers intended and the constitution?”

She changed the subject to a Fox News talking point. “Well, Sri Lanka just banned women wearing hijabs, but when the President tried to do that, everyone attacked him!”

I said, “Look around you in this store. Do you realize that the majority of people here have been negatively affected by Trump’s policies? Do you realize they may feel hurt by seeing you wear those hats?”

Defiantly, she said, “We’ve been wearing these hats all day and no one has said a thing!”

“They may not have said anything, but I assure you they were thinking and feeling things. I know I am. I actually felt sick when I saw your hat. Many of the people here may even feel threatened by seeing you in that hat.”

She shot back, “Well, they threaten US.”

I said, “Wow. You’ve been threatened? That’s terrible! Who threatened you?”

Her son broke in and said, “This isn’t about politics- this is about God.” He pointed to the sky.

I looked back at the mom, “Do you actually believe trump is a Christian?”

“Yes!”

“The guy who cheats on his wives with porn stars is someone you look up to?”

She said, defensively, “I wasn’t there. I don’t know that any of that actually happened. And I don’t judge anyone.”

“How about immigrants? Do you judge them?”

She cut me off, “I stand 110% with the President and appreciate all the good he has done for this country!” And with that she stormed off. 

I just stood there in shock. Angry. Shaken. Had they gotten this ideology in church? This was how she was raising her young son?

I kept pushing my cart, thinking about the fact that yes, one way or another, trump will eventually be gone, but these people will still be all around us, and we will have to go on as a country with the knowledge that we are broken and divided. 

I didn’t change anything by talking to MAGA lady. She is firmly entrenched in her position, and raising her young son to be the same. I am firmly entrenched in mine, and am raising my young son to be the same (and already raised two strong young progressives). 

So what’s the moral of the story here? I have no idea. Maybe if anything, our country has begun a long-needed conversation, and my run-in with MAGA-lady was just a tiny part of it.  Or maybe it was a complete waste of breath. I only know if I didn’t say something, I would have felt worse. 

I also thought about making blue hats that say MAKA: Make America Kind Again. 

Thoughts?

Why I Still Have Hope for America

These days, I wake in the morning weary with sadness. The world, politics, fear for my country has worn me down. But then, this morning as my kid is eating breakfast, I see Ellen Degeneres on the back of his cereal box, and I feel hope. Ten years ago, we couldn't even pass marriage equality in California - the most liberal state. Today it's the law of the land, and Ellen Degeneres, an openly gay woman, is the ambassador for goodness on the back of my kid's Honey Nut Cheerios.
I think about the fact that Barack Obama, already noted by historians as one of the best Presidents in American history, is of mixed race, and that inter-racial marriage was still illegal in many states when he was born. 

I think about the fact that Oprah Winfrey, a black woman, is one of the richest, most influential people in the world, when all her grandmother had advised for her was to "find some nice white people to work for" -- and that it's an American colloquialism to describe an extremely wealthy person as having "Oprah money." I think of her ancestors, women who were enslaved, raped, beaten, forced to work in the fields and do the work of ten men, and hope to god there is an afterlife because if there is they are surely smiling down with pride.

This American dream, to bring people from all over the world, from every culture, race, religion to live together as one democratic nation, is an experiment. It theorizes that every man and woman can achieve greatness, and that we are each only limited by the scope of our own dreams. It's a messy experiment, and we have failed terribly on so many levels. But we've also made great progress, because today I'm looking at Ellen on a cereal box and smiling, and maybe even feeling a twinge of hope in spite of the news cycle. 

I'm going to do my best today to feed the hope, and not the fear. I'm going to believe in us, in progress, in the best of America. I hope you will, too.
#KeepHopeAlive
#ThisTermShallPass

Meeting my Muslim Neighbors

Islamic Society of West Valley/ Inter-faith dinner

Last week, my eleven-year old son Evan confided in me that he’s been having some fears about ISIS, because of all that he’s seen on the news, and heard from friends at school. He told me that a few days before, a delivery man wearing a turban came to our front door to deliver a package and he was afraid that it might be ISIS with a bomb.

I realized that this was a pivotal moment for him, so I stopped what I was doing and we had a long talk. I told him that the delivery man was most likely a Sikh, first of all, and Sikhs are not affiliated with ISIS. Second, I told him that Muslims make up 21% of the world’s population, and just as the KKK do not represent Christianity, the violent people of ISIS do not represent the religion of Islam, and are only a tiny fraction of a percentage of Muslims. I also told him that in 2015, toddlers handling their parents guns killed more people in America than terrorists did, so the probability of him running into a terrorist are, again, a fraction of a percentage. (He’s a math kid, so he likes this percentage stuff.)

But I realized that what might matter for him more than percentages would be to have a positive experience with the muslim community. So I reached out to my friend Virginia Classick, the inter-faith queen of the gun violence prevention movement, and asked for her help. She suggested that I attend an inter-faith Ramadan dinner at my local mosque.
Evan was so nervous on the way there. “How long will it be?” “What If I’m dressed wrong?” “What if I’m the only white kid, and everyone thinks I’m weird?” “What if I don’t like the food? Do I have to eat it?”

When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed, and within minutes, Evan ran off with a pack of kids to the children’s classrooms upstairs, where they played together for hours. It turns out, one of the kids, Raif, is a classmate of Evan’s. Now they are friends.
The highlight of the evening for me, aside from the amazing food (which Evan happily ate), was when we were all welcomed into the mosque for evening prayers. I sat on the floor in the mosque next to Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Sikhs. And as the plaintive song of prayer filled the room, and the worshippers bowed and knelt, we could hear the rumble of our children’s footsteps upstairs, and their laughter as they chased each other down the halls.

The Imam pointed out that though the Arabic is the language of their prayers, the congregation at their mosque were people who spoke many different languages and were from very different cultures. In the front row were congregants from India, Iran, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and others. The overwhelming takeaway from the evening was community, unity, love and service.

Evan is not the only one who benefitted from this evening. I, too, made many new friends. Farha, Ashia, Namia, RevFelicia Parazaider from the Love Revolution in Berkeley, Stephanie from the Vineyard Christian Church, and I even ran into a few old friends there: my activist friend Spike Dolomite Ward, and long-time friend Cantor Mike Stein. Standing next to me in the photo (in the pretty pink jihab) is my new friend Farha. She is originally from India. We talked about mostly mom stuff: our kids schools, the best local programs, the winning academic decathlon program at the local high school that her son had participated in (he is now at UCLA), and the challenges of middle school. We also talked about the misperceptions being spread about “Sharia Law.” Farha reminded me that amongst the first of Sharia laws are prayer, charitable giving, and fasting as reminder of what we are grateful for (sound like any other religion you know?). Everyone I spoke to from the Mosque warmly embraced and welcomed us, and invited us to come back, anytime.

When I finally rounded Evan up to leave at about 10PM, he was happily lounging with his new pals playing Super Mario Brothers in one of the children’s classrooms. As we left, he said, “That was really fun. I’m so glad we came!”

So am I.
Mission accomplished.

Evan with his new pals.

Put your broken heart aside and #RESIST

Have you ever heard of the term "MORAL INJURY"?  This happens when what you believed about the world turns out not to be true. I learned this term recently at the Women Against Gun Violence Firearms Suicide Summit. A military psychiatrist explained it to us, and told us it’s the number one reason Veterans commit suicide.

Moral injury is what many of us are experiencing right now. We lived through, or saw what our parents and grandparents lived through with World War II and Vietnam and the long hard struggle for civil rights. We were grateful those times were behind us, that we could learn from them and never repeat those mistakes again. We lived through 9/11 and Matthew Sheppard and the fight for marriage equality. We worked hard to elect the first African-American President, and were about ready to see another step toward equality in America with the first woman President. We thought there was no stopping the beautiful progress America had made. We were becoming a kinder and more inclusive society. We were evolving!

We slapped our “LOVE TRUMPS HATE” bumper stickers on our cars and planned our victory parties with friends because there was NO WAY a married man who had bragged about grabbing women by the pussy could EVER be elected President. I mean, look what happened to Bill Clinton, right? We laughed at Trump's campaign as we watched it unravel after he insulted Hispanics, blacks, Muslims, veterans. We never, ever believed that anyone, no matter what side of the aisle they were on, could elect such a hateful person – especially a hateful person with absolutely no experience in government, nor any understanding of how our government works. Americans are a good people. The majority will vote the right way. After all, we’ve evolved!

But Republicans voted party over morals. Trump received less votes than Romney, but still got the lion’s share of Republican votes. He won because Democrats – a LOT of them, just didn’t bother to show up. They were sulking. They didn’t like the choices so they decided to sit this one out. I warned, over and over again on social media, that bad politicians are elected by good people who don’t vote. And it happened. President Obama reflected what we aspired to be, but Trump reflects back to us what we’ve become.

So now we are faced with the consequences. We are shocked and in mourning. We didn’t unite against hate and misogyny, and now it is being visited upon us. The President of the most powerful nation in the world is a self-deluded narcissist who knows less than nothing about foreign policy and how the government works. A white supremacist has been chosen as the President’s top advisor. A climate change denier has been chosen to head up the Environmental Protection Agency. Ben Carson, who claimed that homosexuality is a choice and evolution is an idea encouraged by the devil, is in charge of HUD. The GOP has the steering wheel for all three branches of government, and the NRA was just thrown the keys to the car. You think you’re hurting? Our children are the ones who will suffer most for our mistakes.

Yes, we are suffering our moral injury, but there’s no time for hand-wringing. Rome is burning and we’ve got shit to do. We’ve got two years until midterm elections- you know, those elections that Democrats never show up for? These are the elections when Congress is elected. You better work like you never have to make sure every person you know gets to the polls. You better work harder than you knew you could to learn the issues and the candidates, and educate those around you. What ever you do, do NOT become lulled into a sense of complacency and delude yourself that everything will turn out okay if we just “give him a chance” and “think positive.” Never before in our nation’s history has a man with NO experience in governing been given the helm of the most powerful country in the world. STAY WOKE, people. Stay woke and get to work.

START LOCAL: Contact the Democratic party in your state, find out what local and statewide elections are coming up and when. Call the campaigns and ask how you can help. http://asdc.democrats.org/state-parties/
STAY WOKE and wake the people around you.