Are college campuses becoming increasingly intolerant?

IMAGE: VICTOR WANG

On this week's episode of Pantsuit Politics, Beth and I ask if the recent uproar over an email regarding Halloween costumes at Yale is evidence of increasing intolerance among college students.

(Spoiler: Not really...)

Check it out.

Why I'm voting for Hillary not Bernie

I love Bernie. I’ve always loved Bernie. I loved Bernie before loving Bernie was cool.

He was always my favorite Senator to hear speak during my time in the Senate. After I moved home, every time he’d come on The Diane Rehm show I’d crank up the volume and agree loudly with everything he said.  As he’d passionately defend the working poor and rail against the growing economic inequities, I’d testify like I was in church. “Amen!” “Let ‘em know, Bernie!”

But …

I’ve been here before.

I liked Barack Obama, too. I STILL like Barack Obama. I think he has been a great president, and if I could vote for him again I would. Bernie would also make a great president although one who would face very similar challenges to Barack Obama – an increasingly erratic and extremist House of Representatives and growing complexities abroad.

However, I don’t just want a great president. I don’t just want a progressive president.

I WANT A WOMAN PRESIDENT.

When I tell people (men) this, they balk. They tell me it’s outrageous to support a candidate just because she’s a woman. They mansplain all the “problems” with Hillary - as if I’ve never heard of Benghazi, as if I’m unfamiliar with the inner workings of email, as if I DIDN’T WORK FOR HER AND AM THEREFORE MORE QUALIFIED TO EDUCATE THEM ABOUT HER.

Diversity of leadership is very important to me as a voter and voting based on that value is no more or less acceptable than voting based on abortion or Wall Street reform or gay marriage.

It matters to me that Hillary Clinton is a woman and – the truth is – it matters to every single one of you as well. No one – male or female, Democrat or Republican – is immune to the effects of gender. If you believe your opinion of Hillary Clinton isn’t affected by the fact that she is a woman, you are FOOLING YOURSELF.

Can you disagree with policy positions? Absolutely. Can you think there are more important issues than the election of the first female president? Absolutely. BUT if you are using derogatory language to talk about Hillary Clinton, check yourself. If you are disparaging her looks or her wardrobe or the way she speaks, check yourself. If you are talking down to a Hillary supporter, CHECK YOURSELF.

And, for the record, I disagree with Hillary on several policy positions. I don’t believe you can – or that anyone really does – pick a candidate based solely on their policy positions. People smarter than me spend their careers researching why we vote how we vote. It’s not math. It’s psychology and it’s complex. So, let's all acknowledge that and stop pretending like we're the rational ones who are really just assessing the facts. 

All I can say is that I’ve stood in a room with this woman. I’ve seen her work up close. I’ve seen how she treats her staff. This is a brilliant human being who has dedicated her entire life to this country. There are few people in public service that have taken it on the chin as many times as Hillary Clinton and returned to the ring to fight again. She is tough. She is smart. She will fight for each and every one of us.

I would vote for her, even if she was a man.

But, I love her and support her and fight for her because she’s a woman.

And it’s time for a woman in the Oval Office. 

Your right to own a gun is not absolute

Photo Credit: SveenysArmory via Compfight cc

People are talking about gun control. Over Facebook, over dinner, around town, I’ve found myself in multiple conversations about gun legislation and mental health and Constitutional rights. The tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, - and President Obama’s impassioned speech afterwards - seemed to have sparked honest reflection on what we as a nation are doing wrong when it comes to guns.

I’ve noticed a reoccurring argument in many of the conversations I’ve had over the past few days. It’s an argument as old as guns themselves. 

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

This theme is followed closely by a call for enforcing the gun control laws we already have and increased outreach care for the mentally ill.

No one - especially me - is going to argue against enforcement or attention to mental health. However, particularly with regards to mental heath - as my friend Kristin passionately argues here - there is no simple answer. 

In a way, the argument that guns don’t kill people is correct.

Guns are simple objects. A gun is nothing but a chunk of metal until a human being picks it up and makes it work. 

Unfortunately, the human being is very, very complex and legislating human behavior is damn near impossible. What we’ve found over and over again is that when there is a complex and harmful relationship between human beings and an object then we restrict access to the object.

Cigarettes. Cars. Drugs. Alcohol. 

Sitting around and waiting for human beings to act the way we think they should doesn’t really work. 

There is always room for education (which is apparently working with soda) and intervention and community support. However, that doesn’t mean that’s enough. 

So, I believe we have to restrict access to guns.

I do not believe the Constitution guarantees an absolute right to anything. Speech. Press. Religion. Even one’s own liberty can be restricted under the right circumstances. 

A person - even a law abiding sportsman - does not have the right to ANY gun they want. A person - even a law abiding sportsman - does not have the right to AS MANY guns as they want. 

Your right to own a gun is not absolute and I am willing to restrict that right if it means saving lives. 

I am.

Why is that such a crazy thing for a political to say? It’s not because they are all cowards. It’s because there is a $31 BILLION dollar industry who will lobby for those rights. Those lobbyists have gun owners and gun laws and gun sales to point to to make their case.

However, we will never know the lives saves. Politicians can’t hold a press conference celebrating the fact that your child or my child lived a long happy life because a mad men couldn’t get his hands on a gun. No lobbyist can point to the mother who raises her children because her ex-husband couldn’t get his hands on a gun. No candidate can plaster the faces of suicidal teenagers on a billboard - teenagers who survived because all they could get their hands on was a bottle of pills instead of a loaded gun.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. 

It will be hard. We will get things wrong. We have a huge problem when it comes to violence in this country and it won’t be solved by one law or twenty. 

But we have to TRY. We can keep talking, but that can't be all we do. 

Take action. 

Get involved.

Now. 

Us v. Them

Credit BGN News

I don’t spend a lot of time bemoaning the state of the world. As overwhelming as the news can be, I believe that the world is a good place worth bringing children into. 

That is not to say I am immune to fear.

I worry about climate change and the growing power of ISIS. Like the rest of the world, I saw those babies’ lifeless bodies on the shores of Turkey and thought, “How could things have gotten this bad? What kind of world are we leaving to our children?”

Yet, there is an undercurrent of fear I’ve noticed when people discuss the problems plaguing our planet and its people. I’ve noticed it when people talk about the refugee crisis in Europe. I’ve noticed it when people talk about Kim Davis. I’ve noticed it when people talk about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Then, as I listened to an episode of This American Life, it hit home.

Entitled “The Problem We All Live With”, the episode examines failing inner city schools and the one solution that has worked.

Integration.

Credit Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative reporter The New York Times, has spent her career reporting on failing schools and has seen integrating schools work. She shared the story of the Normandy school district outside St. Louis, MO. The school district Michael Brown graduated from before he was killed in Ferguson.

That same year the district lost its accreditation. Students could chose to travel 30 miles to the predominantly white middles class school district of Francis Howell. This American Life shared the audio recordings of the Francis Howell school board meeting, where parents shared their “concerns” over the integration. It made me sick to my stomach. 

Here’s the transcript:

“Woman 1
My question is when a child who is coming from an under-performing school with low test scores comes into a math class at Francis Howell, how will they ever possibly cope?

Woman 2
Once Normandy comes in here, will that lower our accreditation?
[CROWD APPLAUDS]

Nikole Hannah
The woman says she was an education professor and warned Frances Howell officials not to be naive about the type of students they’d be receiving.

Woman 2
So I’m hoping that their discipline records come with them, like their health records come with them.
[CROWD APPLAUDS]
...
Woman 3
Years ago, when the MetroLink was being very popular, Saint Charles County put to a vote whether or not we wanted the MetroLink to come across into our community. And we said no. And the reason we said no is because we don’t want the different areas— I’m going to be very kind— coming across on our side of the bridge, bringing with it everything that we’re fighting today against.

Nikole Hannah
A mother named Beth Cirami approaches the microphone

Beth Cirami
This is what I want to know from you. In one month, I send my three small children to you. And I want to know, is there any metal detectors?
[CROWD APPLAUDS]
I want to be clear. I’m no expert. I’m not you guys. I don’t have an accreditation. But I’ve read. I’ve read, and I’ve read, and I’ve read.

So we’re not talking about the Normandy School District losing their accreditation because of their buildings, or their structures, or their teachers. We are talking about violent behavior that is coming in with my first grader, my third grader, and my middle schooler that I’m very worried about. And I want to know— you have no choice, like me— I want to know where the metal detectors are going to be. And I want to know where your drug-sniffing dogs are going to be.

This is what I want. I want the same security that Normandy gets when they walk though their school doors. And I want it here. And I want that security before my children walk into Francis Howell, because I shopped for a school district. I deserve to not have to worry about my children getting stabbed, or taking a drug, or getting robbed because that’s the issue. I don’t care—

Nikole Hannah
To be clear, Normandy did not lose its accreditation because of violence. It’s easy to judge these parents. But I think part of what makes it seem so startling is that we rarely fight these battles anymore.

The reaction to large numbers of black children moving into white schools would probably sound no different in New York or Chicago or Boston. It’s just that in most of the country, no one is even trying. These parents don’t want to try, either. So one of them offered a helpful solution.

Man 1
You’re absolutely right. We have to do this. We have to follow the laws. We don’t have to like it, and we don’t have to make it easy. Has anyone considered changing our school start times, moving start times up 20 minutes, maybe 40 minutes, making it a little less appealing?”

It’s there. It’s in every statement.

Us v. Them. The poor kids. The black kids. The immigrant kids. The refugee kids. The kids of gay parents or gay kids themselves.

THEY ARE NOT MY PROBLEM. All that matters is that my child has the best. All that matters is that my kid’s life is safe and clean and perfect.

We all want what is best for our children BUT…

I don’t want my children to just have a better life. I want my children to live in a better WORLD.

Because my children - your children - live in the WORLD. No man is an island, even if that man is a little man with a very, very protective mom with plenty of resources. 

If the neighborhood across town is filled with black and brown children suffering under the burden of poverty and racism, that matters to your kids. If families thousands of miles away are risking everything to escape civil war, that matters to your kids. If the children of gay parents see their family derided and condemned, that matters to your kids.

The first thing to remember is it’s not you NOW. 

As Glennon of Momastery masterfully put it, "Let us all quit acting like we have anything to do with the fact that we were lucky enough to have been born on third base, while millions are starving outside the stadium."

You’re safe in the stadium NOW, but that might not always be the case. Most of us live within a small margin of error. An illness or job loss or natural disaster could change everything we know to be true very, very quickly and then it will matter how others respond to your suffering.

Suffering is not a character flaw. I understand that it makes all of us deeply uncomfortable. To see other’s suffering is to tap a deep vein of vulnerability. We don’t really want to wonder “What if that was us?”

However, it could be us and - even if it NEVER is - it still matters. 

Because the problems of poverty and racism and war will affect our children one way or another because they affect EVERYTHING. They affect the economy and the crime rate and our education system and they will touch in small ways and large every aspect of our children's existence. 

Also, I have faith in our children. I have faith that these little people we are raising are up to the challenge. That - if we let them - they can learn how to deal with difference and change and even suffering.

That, by exposing them to the real problems facing all of us, they might even be the solutions.

But, we have to teach them there is no us... no them... only WE.

#Nuance

Welcome, Beth, who wrote the post I've been meaning to write for WEEKS. 

This summer, the internet appears to have caught a case of False Dichotomy-tosis.  With every opinion on a major news story comes a flurry of memes, charts, and comments announcing that that’s YOUR WRONG OPINION and this is MY RIGHT ASSERTION OF REALITY and our positions on this topic are mutually exclusive.  It seems we need a way to acknowledge that the limited characters in our social media discourse don’t always afford space for a complete expression of thought.  

I hate to diagnose a problem without offering a cure, so here’s my proposal: if you’re posting about current events or other controversial topics (or topics that you can’t believe are controversial but trust-me-they-will-be-when-you-expose-them-to-the-scrutiny-of-your-Facebook-friends), just end the post with #Nuance as sort of a modern footnote telling the reader, “I have more to say but I’m out of time, and you’re out of interest.  Please don’t make a bunch of weird assumptions based on this post, cool?”  I understand that the world really doesn’t need another hashtag, but it seems from scrolling my feeds that we need a short way to introduce some fine print on our tweets and status updates.  

For example: 

Post: Caitlyn Jenner is brave.  #Nuance

#Nuance meaning: My definition of “brave” is expansive, and I see bravery as a broad spectrum of risk-taking worthy of admiration.  By calling Ms. Jenner “brave,” I don’t mean to rule out the possibility that there are other brave people in the world or other people who are markedly more brave than she is.  I don’t qualify all of my statements on bravery because that seems rude.  For example, I wouldn’t say to a friend who just launched a start-up, “hey, that’s brave of you! I mean, obviously not like the bravery of our men and women in uniform or people battling cancer…but I still admire your entrepreneurial spirit.”  Or “My Dad is really my hero…he’s not like, Superman or an astronaut or a Navy Seal.  But, I still hold him in high esteem.”  

Post: Black lives matter. #Nuance

#Nuance meaning: By recognizing the tragedy and existence of institutionalized racism, I don’t mean to discount other lives.  Of course, all lives matter—it’s just that we have some serious systemic problems.  Also, I think almost all police officers are dedicated public servants and heroes.  But a few aren’t, and that hurts everyone, including the excellent police officers.  

Post: I’m totally torn up about Cecil the Lion. #Nuance

#Nuance meaning: By expressing my sadness about the senseless death of one of Earth’s most magnificent creatures, I don’t intend to display callousness about anything else, including (but not limited to) other endangered species, abused animals, children, the unborn, individuals living in poverty, dentists who don’t slaughter wild animals, etc.  I also don’t intend to express any opinion about (1) the type of hunting that, say, your uncle does, (2) eating meat, or (3) global climate change. 

Post: I think Mike Huckabee’s comments on the Iran deal disqualify him from serving as Commander in Chief. #Nuance

#Nuance meaning: I don’t know much about the Iran deal because I haven’t read it, and I bet you haven’t either.  I also don’t pretend to understand all of the social, economic, cultural, historic, and religious forces that influence Middle Eastern dynamics.  That said, I think the Iran deal is scary, too.  What I’ve heard worries me.  But I think references to World War II should only be used to talk about what actually happened during World War II.  I think speaking only in hyperbole jeopardizes our ability to rationally debate ideas.  And I think the leader of the free world ought to be more sensitive and careful than that

Post: Donald Trump shouldn’t be Commander in Chief. #Nuance

#Nuance meaning: I, too, am fed up with the gridlock in Washington and politics as usual.  I don’t trust most politicians, and I worry about the state of our government.  I think we need leaders who have demonstrated success outside of government to have any chance at reforming government.  However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want a POTUS with some knowledge of foreign affairs (aside from incendiary talking points) and some level of humility. 

Post: Hillary Clinton should never have used her private email at work. #Nuance

#Nuance meaning: Yes, I’m a woman.  And I would very much like a woman to be president.  But, more than that, I value transparent and open government.  I would also like our POTUS to be more cognizant of cybersecurity issues and to be willing to be inconvenienced by 50 devices if that’s what it takes to keep our information safe. What’s that? Oh…yes, I would feel the same way if Ms. Clinton were male. 

Here’s the thing: we don’t have to stake out these extremes, and doing so is reductive and unworthy of our democracy.  Our social media discourse matters, so we should elevate it by asking questions, fleshing out ideas, and, respectfully engaging with each other.  If we can’t or won’t do those things, we can at least stop assuming that someone is against everything we believe in based on a single tweet.  You can believe in gun control and care about the Second Amendment.  You can acknowledge the existence of man-made climate change and God (for that matter, you can even acknowledge global warming on a snowy day).  You can be against drug use and pro-legalization.  You can pray every night and believe prayer in school is problematic.  We can and should examine our positions and allow for depth in both our own perspectives and the perspectives of others.  Go forth and tweet, facebook, and blog—just make space for the entirety of the conversation.    

Beth is a mom, wife, sister, friend, and HR executive. She's also on a journey to become a yoga teacher. She likes watermelon, reality television, and politics.

This post sparked a discussion between Beth and I ... that turned into an idea... that turned into a podcast - Pantsuit Politics!

Why I still stand with Planned Parenthood

My first job out of college was at Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina. I ran the Emergency Contraception Hotline. EC was still by prescription only so all day long I would take calls and fax out prescriptions. I liked to tell people I prevented more abortions in that year than most people do in their entire life.

I learned a lot that year about Planned Parenthood the organization, about their mission, about the women they serve. I also learned a lot about abortion services and the women and men who provide them through Planned Parenthood.

These were the most dedicated, most compassionate, most authentic people with which I have ever worked.

Recently, The Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group, released “sting” videos in which they falsely portray themselves as representing a company that procures fetal tissue for medical research and engage with employees from Planned Parenthood about these sales.

The highly edited videos are used to argue that Planned Parenthood is profiting from these sales. The full footage shows the employees repeatedly stating they do not make money off these exchanges and they only cover their costs.

The argument that Planned Parenthood profits off abortion is as old as Planned Parenthood itself and it is completely and totally false. Human beings are complex and human beings run Planned Parenthood. I have no doubt that there have been mistakes and that decisions have been made that neither I nor 100% of Americans agree with – just like any other organization on the face of the planet.

However, the idea that Planned Parenthood is a vast money-hungry conspiracy to increase abortions is totally and completely ludicrous. Eighty percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides are preventative, which means 8 out of 10 women served by Planned Parenthood are being helped to PREVENT a pregnancy and by extension an abortion.

If you believe that somehow Planned Parenthood is lying about these numbers – in DIRECT violation of federal law and without their well-funded and incredibly passionate opponents noticing, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Now, if you have a problem with Planned Parenthood providing abortion services AT ALL, then that is another discussion.

The other thing I learned during my time at Planned Parenthood is that women are not going to carry a pregnancy they do not want. Period.

My boss used to say, “If I had a nickel for every woman who came in here with a cross around her neck and said, ‘I don’t believe in this but I can’t have this baby.’ I’d be RICH.” (Side note: she was NOT rich. See previous argument.)

There are two discussions to be had about abortion. Pragmatic and philosophical.

First, the pragmatic reality of abortion.

Abortion has existed since the beginning of time. It will continue exist until the end of time.

Period.

If you are uncomfortable with that, I’m sorry but it is the reality. You cannot legislate an end to abortion. We have tried. Other countries have tried. And, as far as I know, there are no abortion-free countries.

We can do our best to serve hurting populations and work to end poverty and prevent rape and incest and all the other terrible things that exist, but abortion will continue.

All you do by making abortion illegal is make it difficult and, therefore, dangerous.

So, we must deal with the reality of abortions – hopefully, by making them in the famous words of Bill Clinton “safe, legal, and rare.”

Planned Parenthood does that, which is why I will continue to support this organization.

Second, the philosophical debate surrounding abortion.

My friend recently shared a Rachel Held Evans post on the religious difficulties surrounding the abortion debate.

“For a lot of pro-lifers, it seemed, abortion was all about the baby.

The woman, and the factors that might contribute to her decision to terminate her pregnancy, didn’t seem to matter much....

For a lot of pro-choicers, it seems, abortion is all about the woman.

The unborn child, and all the complicated, terrifying, and beautiful things its life represents, don’t seem to matter much. ”

— Rachel Held Evans

I have long argued that the pro-choice moment does itself no favors by ignoring the moral complexity of this issue. Any woman who has ever been pregnant or carried a baby to term would never argue that the fetus inside her is merely a clump of tissue – no different than a liver or kidney.

I certainly wouldn’t.

However, I also wouldn’t argue that that fetus is the same as a six-month-old baby or a teenager or a fully grown adult. I can’t draw a hard line in the sand as to why I feel like that. I don’t have a definitive moral or philosophical answer as to when life begins and I’m comfortable with admitting that.

Because I don’t believe the point of philosophy or ethics or religion is to give us a math equation to solve difficult issues like abortion. I believe we are entrusted with these tools as empathetic, sentient beings to do the best we can to grow and learn and cast a little bit of light on the dark parts of life itself.

And the pro-life moment does itself no favors by ignoring the complexity of my position and arguing I don’t value life.

Because, let me be very clear, I support Planned Parenthood and I support a woman’s right to have an abortion, but I have also stood on the banks of the Ohio River and scattered the ashes of my 16-week-old fetus and I will NOT be lectured to about the value of life.

I will NOT.

These issues are complicated and I think the one way in which the pro-choice movement gets it right is that there is one simple fact that cannot be debated. The fetus or zygote or baby or clump of cells or whatever you want to call it exists within the body of another life – the life of the woman carrying it.

By elevating HER choice and HER decision above all else, we acknowledge that no one is better equipped to deal with the complex moral and philosophical issues surrounding abortion than the woman choosing to have one.

Are there issues of age and consent and information that we have to deal with? Absolutely.

However, the idea that you know better than her is problematic to say the least.

The idea that a male legislator could decide the reproductive future of women he has never met is as upsetting to pro-choice advocates as the deaths of aborted fetuses is to pro-life advocates.

By acknowledging that both sides HAVE A POINT, perhaps we could change the debate. 

Why I’m saying goodbye to Gone with the Wind

In 2nd grade, I developed an obsession with Gone with the Wind. I don’t remember the first time I saw the movie, but I do remember watching it compulsively. I could recite every dress Scarlett wore in the order she wore them. I knew all the details of her life and started collecting Gone with the Wind memorabilia.

I dressed up as Scarlett for Halloween. I named the little gerbil I received for Christmas Prissy, an incredibly embarrassing personal factoid I have only told a handful of people up until this post.

In high school, I finally read the book. I remember loving the novel even more than the movie and reading the 1000+ pages in a couple of days.

What I don’t remember at any point during my love affair with Gone with the Wind was racism.

I am a white female and the only perspective that mattered was that of the white female heroine, followed closely by her white male love interest. It never occurred to me that slavery was more than a historical backdrop. I never wondered how Mammy or Pork or Prissy felt. I never questioned the revision of Confederate motives.

To my young white Southern mind, the antebellum South was exactly as the opening text describes it “a pretty world” that was to be glamorized and remembered as something beautiful that was gone forever.

Only in college did I begin to see Gone with the Wind with more critical eyes. My college has a complicated relationship with the Civil War and its history, but it was there I first learned about The Wind Done Gone and began to fully understand for the first time that Margaret Mitchell’s depiction of the antebellum South was neither accurate nor instructive in any real way.

I learned that Gone with the Wind was racist. I learned that writing about beautiful dresses and a passionate love affair can’t hide the whitewashing of slavery and the devastation slavery itself caused.

And yet, I am ashamed to say – even after realizing all of this – I kept Gone with the Wind. I kept my dolls and my coffee mugs. I kept a small model of Tara on my bookshelf.

In truth, Gone with the Wind had become more than the text and film to me. It represented a piece of my childhood. It held as a bond between me and the female members of my family. In particular, a beloved family friend had given me pieces of her own collection. I love this woman and I would never do anything to hurt her. How can I look at her and tell her something that brings her joy – something that used to bring me joy – only brings me shame?

However, after the deaths in Charleston and the surrounding discussion of Confederate symbols, I’ve decided saying goodbye to Gone with the Wind is a very small – but important – thing I can do.

I have heard the arguments for maintaining Confederate symbols. I know people see it as a part of history and no one is arguing that history is unimportant. However, the careful study and understanding of history is very different than the glamorization of our painful past. We don’t need Gone with the Wind or the Confederate flag to remember that the Civil War happened. Enough ink has been spilled on that period in our history to fill the Mississippi and anyone truly arguing that we’re at risk of forgetting hasn’t ever googled “The Civil War” and gotten 214,000,000 search results.

Conversely, the other argument I hear is that removing Confederate symbols is so small it won’t matter. Is taking down the Confederate flag or getting rid of Gone with the Wind memorabilia really going to make a difference to race relations in this country?

To that I say, it’s worth a shot.

Gone with the Wind was special to me at one time. However, it’s just not WORTH it. It’s not worth holding on to something – no matter how much pride or happiness or fondness it might still evoke – if it hurts other people.

For too long, we have ignored the gaping wound that slavery left in this country. We turned the other way as gangrene set in and the infection spread. The fact that it took the slaying of nine innocent black people in a church for us to finally decide to take down a flag that has symbolized nothing but pain and oppression to FORTY FOUR MILLION Americans for 150 years is depressing.

However, the state of race relations in this country is so bad that any movement at all is cause for hope.

We have to start somewhere. We have to start saying we’re sorry for the pain our ancestors caused. We have to acknowledge that our own privilege was built on the backs of other’s oppression.

As an eighth generation Kentuckian, my history is important to me. However, I have found that acknowledging the truth of that history – including the fact that my ancestors were slave owners and Confederates and deeply flawed human beings alive during a dark period in our past – is more empowering than any trite speech falling out Scarlett O’Hara’s mouth.

We have to let go of the past in order to step forward into the future.

As a mother, the future is now my focus. I’m not merely raising Kentuckians or Southerners. My three sons are Americans and I want them to grow up in a thriving forward-looking country that makes room at the table for everyone. That can’t happen if the table is buckling under the weight of old symbols and prejudices.

It’s time. It’s PAST time to say goodbye to these symbols. There is nothing disrespectful about burying something long dead so that something better can grow in its place.

So, I’m saying goodbye to Scarlett and all she symbolizes. I will not show my children the movie. The book and memorabilia are gone from my home. I’m saying sorry to those who were hurt by that story and the praise it has received. I’m apologizing for my own ignorance and pledging to do better and teach my children to do better.

It’s not enough but it’s a start.  

How to talk about religion and politics on Facebook

At least once a week, I get the same message on Facebook. It is some variation on “I don’t know how you do it!” Usually, these messages come from my more progressive friends who express astonishment at my ability to share my thoughts on very controversial topics without losing my cool. 

My response is almost always the same. I share my honest belief that if we cannot even TALK about important subjects such as religion and politics with respect then that there is no hope for taking any sort of meaningful action towards change. 

I believe that. I do.

However, the reason I can talk about religion and politics and stay calm is a little more complicated than that. 

 Read the rest of the post in Irreverin on Patheos.