Politics

I was skimming over my categories here on the blog and noticed I had one called politics. Ha.

I went through some of my past posts, which were 12+ years old. Prop 8, Obama, Women’s Rights.

Nostalgia. I’m glad I posted about that stuff. I never did it enough though. Although what’s to say is “enough”? Okay, I won’t go in that direction.

I certainly don’t feel right, strong, or sure of my opinions to be able to put them in a public forum but here, where no one is watching right now, it’s a little reminder to me. To know that it’s okay to state my thoughts and opinions even if it’s not perfect.

It’s okay to write them down and explore. Someday I can do more. Maybe.

Wednesday was the day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated and I found out when I got off of a THREE hour call and was in my kitchen grabbing some food because I was starving.

Husband looked incredibly serious and said something like, “Did you hear about the Charlie Kirk shooting?”

And I had to wrack my brain because… I had no idea who Charlie Kirk was. So I said that. And then my memory was jogged.

We talked about the incident briefly but I wasn’t super interested because I had a few things to follow-up with at work. My son was home sick that day. I had a long day the day before – 5 hours in the car and work meetings – and I was not quite feeling it. I didn’t even bother going into the office that day.

But we had talked about this guy with the family a few months ago! Griffin had brought him up because both he and J had listened/watched him debate people.

I checked my computer and got caught up. Wow. Of course the killer wasn’t found until 36 hours later but that evening was interesting.

Sam was also home that night. It was back to school night – G’s LAST ONE – and I was so sad to miss it but my baby was home and I didn’t want to miss spending time with her. So I skipped it and we all stayed home for dinner.

Reflecting on that later made me roll my eyes a bit because G was listening to a psychology thing on video to write a paper since he was sick and missed school that day, and Sam was being a BEAR and ignoring us so I was wondering why I stayed home at this family dinner anyway.

BUT it was a good dinner. Well, I’ll still complain a little.

Even though the kids were doing their “kid” thing, we did have a little conversation about the issue. There was also a little tiff which I had to jump on J for jumping on G.

I was impressed with both G and Sam that they had very strong feelings about it. I’m paraphrasing because G said it in a much better way but G said things about Kirk being hateful and divisive. Sam had some very emphatic things to say about it. We had a nice little debate.

We are all sensitive to him (and the right in general) being against trans rights. So that was also a discussion.

I’ve read a lot of things over the last week on it. The horrific things he said. I was happy that no one on my social feed was celebrating his death because that would be not nice.

And I cringed to see the people who I expected be extremely overwrought and upset at his death. One or two people who I didn’t really know were Republicans were speaking up but it wasn’t too surprising.

One of the things I read was Stacey Patton’s Sunday morning sermon. One of my friends shared it and I skimmed it. I did not read the whole thing. It was incredibly long. (At this point I’ve skimmed it multiples times to try and figure out why it triggered me so much – so I think I can say I’ve read it now!)

I also wasn’t clear what exactly she was quoting the white Governor of Utah to be saying exactly… I went and did some research because everything I had read said Gov Cox was being very fair and reasonable and encouraging people to come together.

Although, as we talked tonight at the dinner table, he was quoted as saying “we don’t want to jump to conclusions” yet he referenced the killer being in a relationship with a trans person, and also having a leftist ideology. Like, why would he say that and THEN say he doesn’t want to jump to conclusions? Those are pretty obvious conclusions!

BUT.. back to the sermon, she was saying Cox was praying and saying “Not one of us”.

So what he said, I think… after looking it up and reading more… was:

“For the last 33 hours, I had been praying that this person (who murdered Charlie Kirk) was from another country. That he was not one of us (from Utah) because we are not like that. But it was one of us. (A person from Utah).”

The parenthesis are from the news outlet, or person who was transcribing. So Patton’s sermon makes a lot more sense. Cox wasn’t praying. He was trying to find a scapegoat.

“He wanted the devil to come stamped with brown skin, a hijab, a Spanish accent, a rainbow flag, anything that screamed “not us.” But the scripture says in Luke 12:2: “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” And what got revealed in Utah is that the face of violence in America looks just like the governor.”

Anyway, she goes on

“And that tells you something about whiteness. Whiteness is not just about skin. It’s about absolution. It’s about making sure the mirror never points back at itself. It’s about taking centuries of blood, whether it is Indigenous genocide, slave patrols, lynch mobs, police shootings, January 6, and still saying with a straight face, “We are not like that.”“

I don’t know the antidote. I don’t know how to fix it. But I do like how she says “we name it”. We name what we see. We tell the truth. We hold people accountable.

That same week I saw pictures of my cousins out in the track shooting with their kids. Glorifying guns. But then I argue with myself, I’ve gone to the shooting range before. I’ve held and shot a gun. I don’t own a gun though. I don’t want my kids to own a gun.

That brought up the memory of my brother threatening me with our Dad’s gun and me holding my bedroom door closed to keep him from getting in. My memory is hazy. I’m fairly certain the ammunition was not in the gun. I don’t even know if he was holding it in his hands through the house. I asked my sister and she had no memory of that at all.

Anyway.

Suffice to say, we are a week later since I started writing this, I forgot where I was going with it, and now it’s just something else.

We cancelled our Disney+ account in protest of Jimmy Kimmel being kicked off his show for not even SAYING anything about Kirk but in making fun of Trump. Disgusting.

I threw a fit about it. I had to argue with J the first night that we should be canceling. It was annoying because he was saying that wasn’t going to help and I said – what then? What would help? Well, voting.

Well we already do that! We already do text base outreach, protesting, donating to our local politicians. Go do more then!

He wasn’t against it but it was annoying I had to argue for it. I texted the family chat and got Sam to agree. I understand that she watches all the Disney shows for her anxiety but she’s down to protest and watch Netflix for awhile.

We have to make a stand somewhere. If not now, then when?

And I want it showing up on Disney’s earning reports that their subscribers went down!

I heard they removed the comment section when you cancel, haha. Although I think ESPN is their big cash cow and unfortunately we aren’t a sports family so we couldn’t cancel that.

I totally understand that companies have to tow the line sometimes. They have thousands of people to be responsible for in their companies and if they need to get along with the government in small ways, fine. I get it.

But some things just can’t be tolerated.