No, Guns Do Kill People

I watch and I enjoy The View, it. The women remind me of my weekly writers critique group where we evaluate world events before we read our new chapters. I don’t always agree with Rosie O Donnell, but I don’t always agree with myself. There’s plenty of things I’ve said and written about in the past and I’ve since changed my mind. I reserve that right, God isn’t finished with me.

Today on the View I felt Rosie’s pain as she said we will never get gun control in this country, the gun lobbies are just too powerful. Rosie loves children, I can tell–it takes one to know one. She openly speaks about the depression she fell into after Columbine. I understand, the same thing happened to me. It wasn’t the first time either. I was very young during Kent State, but I believe I suffered my first depression then. I’m not using depression to mean a little sadness. Clinical depression runs in my family and I know what depression means.

I’m hoping Rosie is wrong on this one. Like Joy Behar pointed out, this week we have two amendments that need to be reviewed and revised.

Let’s review. The first amendment prohibits the federal legislature from making laws that establish religion (the "Establishment Clause") or prohibit free exercise of religion (the "Free Exercise Clause"), laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to assemble peaceably, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Some say the Don Imus incident is a first amendment issue.

The second amendment declares the necessity for "a well regulated militia", and prohibits infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

As I write this, it’s the day after the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead.

As the mother of three children, each of whom left the state to attend college, this tragedy hits close. I feel deeply for those parents who thought the worst thing they had to worry about was the occasional bad grade, the freshmen fifteen (pounds) and constantly warning them to stay out of cars with drunk drivers.

I know what’s coming and I’m going to work this time to avoid the depression that’s lurking in the periphery. The Constitution can be amended, it has been amended 17 times since final ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. There is no way the founding fathers envisioned a world of automatic weapons that could mow down so many people in so little time. There were real threats in 1791 that haven’t existed in our world for a long time. If we ever needed them, we don’t need the guns anymore, folks. Study the rest of the world, they don’t have the guns and they don’t have massacres like what we saw yesterday.

Recent courts have already interpreted the second amendment to say that it (the second Amendment) guarantees a collective right of political organizations to form militias, not an individual
right to a firearm. We can and should make that fact clearer with revision.

We must let our representatives know we don’t want the guns in our country anymore. Let’s start today.

Let's Share That Contract

I’ve had a lot of jobs. I guess most people my age and older can say that, but the only job I was trained to do is teach. I’ve taught every grade level from preschool to a freshman psychology class at the University of Michigan. When my children were very young, I was the director of a preschool. In my twenties, I found myself with a little extra time so I used it to teach an adult education class two nights a week.

I started studying writing when I was still an elementary school student. I got my first subscription to Writers Digest when I was twelve. I even worked in the school library where my children went to elementary school before feeling qualified to attempt my first juvenile novel. I guess you could say my vocation is teaching and my passion is writing (and reading).

I say all this to qualify what I’m about to say. I write books for and about children. I read children’s book, I have children, I was trained to teach children and I’ve studied how to write for children. I have picture books that I’ve written so long ago they’ve never made it to my hard drive. No problem, I’ve got more than enough on my hard drive to pay off all the college loans my three children incurred while I was trying to get a contract.

This week while we were all talking, debating, and arguing about Imus, an article in my local paper almost slipped by me without notice; Ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is writing a series of children's books for release next year. After my initial ex-what? Geri-who? I read the article and learned that yet another celebrity, and I used the term celebrity loosely, has “earned” my dream. “Geri Halliwell has landed a six-book publishing deal with Macmillan to chronicle the animated adventures of Ugenia Lavender, a bold and assertive 9-year-old girl who balances everyday school life with solving mysteries and working her way out of fantastic situations.”

A six book deal? Yes, a six book deal.

It’s hard enough for any author to get a book contract without sacrificing the children’s book category to celebrities. I understand why these celebrities keep getting these deals. Some of them must sell well. Why do they sell? Because they are well-written and useful additions to a young person’s life? Probably not, although I will admit that I have read a few that weren’t terrible and one or two that were well done. They sell because the celebrities can get interviews that other writers can’t. Interviews translate to sales.

I propose a solution. I am volunteering myself as a cowriter for celebrities interested in breaking into the apparently lucrative children’s market. You, dear celebrity are free to appear on any or all talk show interviews, schedule book signings at your own discretion and I will stay home and write or “cowrite.” I will split the advance and royalaties with you fifty-fifty. If it was never about the money and you don’t want a split, suit yourself. Also, you’re free to donate your portion to charity.

Let’s start the sign up sheet with me.

Borat Wasn't the Problem

I watched Borat on DVD this weekend. My husband and I have date night every Saturday and we usually use that time to go see a movie. I’m telling you this to let you know we had an opportunity of see it at a theater near us. We saw the trailers week after week. I don’t really remember, but I’m sure we did discuss it the week it came out. I’m also sure neither of us ever considered it seriously. I don’t like slapstick or jokes that don’t include all the players. My husband has other issues that would preclude him from watching such a movie, but I won’t go into it because this is my blog.

I didn’t laugh one time and I don’t remember smiling. The bits were much funnier in telling someone about them than in watching them. What really struck me more than anything else was the incredible patience Americans had with this “Kazakhstanian” visitor, in spite of his stupidity and crudeness, as they carefully explained the anti-Semitic racist American way.

At least a third of the time when I go out into the world to ask strangers anything, the best I can hope for is silent disdain. I have a degree from one of the top ten colleges in the country, I’m neat and clean in public, and I don’t speak loud or rudely. I can’t think of one of his bits that wouldn’t have gotten me arrested at the very least. For my husband and two sons, also well kept college graduates, they would have been shot anywhere in this country doing at least two of Borat’s stunts. How do I know this? Because Black men have been shot by the police doing much less.

I’m not saying the movie was anti-Semitism or racist, I don’t believe it was. It was satire or parody. Sacha Baron Cohen has a firm grasp of American’s underbelly. In one scene, a dinner party of genteel Southern attendees, Borat says and does things that should have gotten him booted long before dessert. The party included Newt Gingrich and his wife. What finally upsets the host and Gingrich so much that he jumps up and takes his immediate leave? Borat’s “date” for the evening arrives, an overweight Black woman that Borat identifies as a prostitute. They saw her and immediately announced that diner was over and Borat had to leave. The prostitute was friendly and mild mannered. She wasn’t banishing a weapon or using loud and or crude language; she just appeared at the door.

Don’t get me wrong, I would not have wanted this women to show up at my door under the same circumstances; but had she been acting the way she did in the movie, even dressed as inappropriately, I could not have been so rude. And that goes for her white or Asian counterpart. That women showing up, in my mind, was the most benign thing Borat did at the party–unless black folks at your dinner party is a deal-breaking problem.

I hope there’s a black film maker out there working on his own version of Borat. I’m not sure how it can be done without putting the main actor in harms way, but I hope somebody figures it out. I do hope the film company will check in with the police first in each city they visit. They’ll have a hard enough time dodging the bullets of the good everyday citizens and shopkeepers.

Heads in Trees

Years ago a friend said, when he was a little boy, he used to hang out with the old guys. He figured one day one of them would slip and say something that would reveal to him, once and for all, what black folks had done to whites to make them hate us so much. I remember thinking he’d been wasting his time. First of all, there was no one thing beyond our continued presence here after the job was done. The cotton had been picked, the buildings built, the houses cleaned and the babies raised–now go home! Secondly he was hanging out with the wrong group. If he really wanted to know the real deal about anything, he should have been hanging out with the old women. I love old black women. Is there any other group on the planet who can cut through the crap with greater precision?

I’ve had a hero for years in an old sister girl who’d been accosted in her home. I saw her on the evening news. She shot and killed the intruder. An interviewer asked her was she sorry she killed him. The camera zoomed in as the stately grandmother thought about it.
“Well, I woke up and he was standing over me in my bedroom. I didn’t invite him and I didn’t know him. What we got to talk about?”*

What indeed.

I’ve got a new hero, maybe not to replace Stately Grandmother but to add to the pack. My daughter and I were channel surfing on Friday, the day before St. Patrick’s day. We stopped on a news item, I assume, that showed a group of mostly black folks standing around a big tree. The interviewer gave the microphone to a young person who claimed a leprechaun had been spotted in the tree. As I’m sure you can imagine, that got my attention. The interviewer went to several people all claiming to have seen said leprechaun. The interviewer wasn’t convinced. Finally he stuck the mike into the car window of an older black woman. I don’t know if she was coming or going, but she certainly wasn’t standing around joining in the festive atmosphere.

What did she think?

“It was probably some crackhead that got hold of some bad stuff and climbed a tree.”

So there you have it. If you really want to know ask an old sister girl.




*(not my endorsement of guns. She could've used a knife)

I've been invited to blog by "Mother" on her site Chittlin's and Chopsticks. The invitation couldn't have come at a better time because I woke up this morning thinking about motherhood. Okay, I wake up most mornings thinking about my kids so that wasn't a big stretch. This morning I was thinking about washing my hair and the fact that I'm having problems with my right arm.

I asked my husband to wash it for me and he immediately made excuses. He's usually pretty good about helping me with things, but I understood his refusal. You see, in years past, that whole "help me wash my hair," was--how can I put this delicately--a coded foreplay invitation. His refusal was based on the fact that he was sorting clothes to wash. The only thing on his mind was his work wardrobe. I could have explained that I really needed help but the thought sounded like too much effort when I ran it past my brain.

By the way, I have a unique relationship with the sentient being I call my brain. It a fun place that goes off in myriad directions and paths without any input from me. I know I've sounded crazy or arrogant trying to explain to people that I like the way my brain thinks. It's not that at all because I have no control over it. Like a toddler it's forever doing and saying things that I didn't expect, couldn't have anticipated, and often find embarrassingly "cute."

Anyway, the brain said don't explain to husband just go find somebody else to help you. I said, "yes, master," and off I went. I have two kids at home right now, our 25 year old son, Geoffrey and our 27 year old daughter, Regina. Geoff is a twin, his brother lives in Austin, Texas. If any mother has more helpful, wonderful, sons I haven't met them.

Geoff's bedroom door was open and he was putting on a shirt over his tee shirt. I asked him. He said he was on his way to a Kings basketball game, but he would do it when he comes home. He kissed me and took his leave.

I hadn't seen my daughter yet this morning. It was time to confer with the brain. Regina is a wonderful child too. Anybody that likes her will tell you she has a very giving heart. But people never explain a person's heart unless it's something the casual observer can't see. Brain told me to wait and see what kind of mood she was in first. She just appeared to let her puppy outside. I asked, she said yes. She never once looked at my hair like she was wondering how to wash the snakes.

Aren't kids great? I love motherhood.

TO REG WITH LOVE

My husband woke me this morning with a Valentine greeting and a box of chocolates on my pillow. It was a great way to start the day. In years past he bought me big hearts with multiple layers of the chocolates that he knows I crave. It’s probably safe to call me a chocolaholic, I certainly love the stuff. This year I’m on Weight Watchers, I’m sure that caused him a moment of consternation, but he choose well. The box is big enough, but there are only ten chocolates (yes, I counted them). That’s enough to not feel deprived and more than I would (or should) eat in one sitting.

It’s funny how this couple thing works. I’m sure there were people taking bets on the day we got married, our parents and siblings leading the pack. We are opposites in many ways, but we are not polar opposites–I prefer to think of us as complimentary opposites. He forces me to look at the world in a different wonderful way.

My thoughts tend to be as far out there as a thought can go, Reggie is the straight and not so wide. He’s rarely narrow in his beliefs just typical and normal. I guess my friends are like me because I didn’t know I was strange until I met him. It makes sense, why would I choose friends to which I couldn’t relate.

The love of my life and I are so different. Here’s an example; A few years back we went to a concert for two musical groups that were popular when we were in our twenties. By the way, you haven’t partied until you’ve jammed with a bunch of fifty and sixty year olds trying to recaptured their youth. Things got hot and a bunch of old girls started jumping (as much as somebody’s grandma can jump) on stage. We were sitting in the second row from the stage and we saw a tall slim man dressed in all black stop at the foot of it. From a standing still position he jumped straight up on the stage.

“Wow,” we both said in unison. “That guy must really be. . .”
“Strong,” Reggie said.
“A vampire,” I said.

We both looked at each other. I can imagine what he was thinking, but I was fairly certain I’d just seen a real blood sucking vampire joining the Isley Brothers onstage. Who else could fly straight up five feet off the ground?

Reggie just smiled, shook his head at me and went back to grooving. I kept my eye on that vampire until he disappeared in a crowd of women that were being ushered off the stage. And I do mean disappeared.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweetheart.

THE BIG CHILL

I was never much of a head, not even in college when I ran with a group known for their illegal consumption. It had nothing to do with my father and brother being in law enforcement, the seeds of which led me to the department of corrections and a first professional job as a Probation Officer. No, I just happen to have DNA that didn’t mix well with drugs and not at all with alcohol. As my Weight Watchers leader is fond of saying, “sugar is my drug of choice.” But there is one time each year, even now, when I think about putting a match to it–as we used to say. It’s during the showing of THE BIG CHILL.

I absolutely love that movie and I always have. Maybe it’s because the people, the friends, in that movie would have been at the University of Michigan while I was there; or maybe it’s the sound track and the wonderful writing has to have a lot to do with it. The writing is so special that, years ago, I wrote Lawrence Kasdan to tell him how much I related to his characters. I’ve always believe in giving flowers to somebody when they can smell them. I thought it would be meaningful to him to know that me, a black woman, with very little in common with his characters, could relate. I’m pleased to report that he wrote me back and, over the years, he has been willing to read several of my screenplays. I still list him as my favorite screenwriter whenever such a confession is required.

The movie is on now. The opening montage with I Heard It Through The Grapevine playing as the friends learn of Alex’s death and Kevin Coster is cut out of the greatest movie he ever would’ve been in and I’m thinking, ‘I wonder what would it feel like now, at my age, to put a match to one?’

I bet you thought this blog was going to be about the winter storms. Ha!