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Yesterday, feeling VERY BAD, THANK YOU, I decided to take two hours off work, leave the house, and go buy some flooring because we ripped out our kitchen at the world’s worst possible time.
I put on my Kamala tank top, because I am a white woman living in Detroit, and I needed my fellow citizens to know I am not the enemy. But who was? The white man at Lowe’s who was not my good husband? Enemy. The white women? I peered at them carefully for clues: None had a puffy, stony, angry face. Perhaps my enemy. The Latino men? Possibly 60 percent my enemy. The Black men? PROBABLY not my enemy, but 10 percent might be my enemy. The Black women?
MY. FRIENDS.
I needed, needed to get the girls from school yesterday, which I usually do only on Mondays, my day off. I needed to hold and love them and for them to see my face there waiting for them the second they came through the doors.
An older grandma Black woman waited, and a younger woman. A handful of Black men. We all stood 10 or 20 feet apart. Nobody chatted. Silence all around. Until finally the grandma said out loud, SHARP, to no one but the air around her, “IT WAS THE MEN. THEY DON’T CARE. THEY DIDN’T BOTHER.” And the men stayed silent. They knew what they did.
“I AM SCARED AND ANGRY!” I yelled to my fellow parents, and then the younger mom moved toward me and let loose about a fellow parent on her daughter’s softball team who told her she had voted for Trump. The younger mom, Diamond, went through each of the woman’s reasons, and exactly what was wrong with each one of them — from “I’m against abortion” to “WELL NOW WOMEN WHO ARE HAVING MEDICAL EMERGENCIES ARE GOING TO DIE!” She told me that the woman had complained, in the stream of Diamond telling her off BUT GOOD, “Well, a Black woman told me that!” “Maybe you should have talked to an EDUCATED Black woman!” Diamond yelled at me that she told her. I yelled with her. We spit and hollered about Diamond’s fellow union members who had voted for Trump — 45 percent according to the exits I saw — and just where those jobs will go. We said how happy we will be when bad things happen to everyone who caused this. And we meant it. Enjoy your cheap eggs from the unemployment line.
When I got home, my husband handed me a joint. It helped a lot. I became very calm and easy. My friend and her daughter came over, and she brought a couple of Marie Callender’s pies. We ate pizza and drank the champagne I had chilled earlier in the week. After 2016, I waited something like three years to drink the Hillary champagne; I think it was when he finally got impeached, lol shruggy emoticon. This time I decided there was no reason not to, it’s the end of days! (Erma Bombeck — or Dear Abby? — said to use the fancy soap and light the fancy candles. What are you saving them for?)
It’s not the end of days. We should mostly be fine. But we all need hobbies — once this kitchen’s put in, I’m doing more baking! — and to spend less time working and more time doing Not That. We need to take care of each other, and we will — those who deserve it.
For my friends everything, for my enemies … well, nothing really, but I’m going to make ugly faces at you and I won’t be polite.
Are YOU My Enemy?
Yesterday, feeling VERY BAD, THANK YOU, I decided to take two hours off work, leave the house, and go buy some flooring because we ripped out our kitchen at the world’s worst possible time.
I put on my Kamala tank top, because I am a white woman living in Detroit, and I needed my fellow citizens to know I am not the enemy. But who was? The white man at Lowe’s who was not my good husband? Enemy. The white women? I peered at them carefully for clues: None had a puffy, stony, angry face. Perhaps my enemy. The Latino men? Possibly 60 percent my enemy. The Black men? PROBABLY not my enemy, but 10 percent might be my enemy. The Black women?
MY. FRIENDS.
I needed, needed to get the girls from school yesterday, which I usually do only on Mondays, my day off. I needed to hold and love them and for them to see my face there waiting for them the second they came through the doors.
An older grandma Black woman waited, and a younger woman. A handful of Black men. We all stood 10 or 20 feet apart. Nobody chatted. Silence all around. Until finally the grandma said out loud, SHARP, to no one but the air around her, “IT WAS THE MEN. THEY DON’T CARE. THEY DIDN’T BOTHER.” And the men stayed silent. They knew what they did.
“I AM SCARED AND ANGRY!” I yelled to my fellow parents, and then the younger mom moved toward me and let loose about a fellow parent on her daughter’s softball team who told her she had voted for Trump. The younger mom, Diamond, went through each of the woman’s reasons, and exactly what was wrong with each one of them — from “I’m against abortion” to “WELL NOW WOMEN WHO ARE HAVING MEDICAL EMERGENCIES ARE GOING TO DIE!” She told me that the woman had complained, in the stream of Diamond telling her off BUT GOOD, “Well, a Black woman told me that!” “Maybe you should have talked to an EDUCATED Black woman!” Diamond yelled at me that she told her. I yelled with her. We spit and hollered about Diamond’s fellow union members who had voted for Trump — 45 percent according to the exits I saw — and just where those jobs will go. We said how happy we will be when bad things happen to everyone who caused this. And we meant it. Enjoy your cheap eggs from the unemployment line.
When I got home, my husband handed me a joint. It helped a lot. I became very calm and easy. My friend and her daughter came over, and she brought a couple of Marie Callender’s pies. We ate pizza and drank the champagne I had chilled earlier in the week. After 2016, I waited something like three years to drink the Hillary champagne; I think it was when he finally got impeached, lol shruggy emoticon. This time I decided there was no reason not to, it’s the end of days! (Erma Bombeck — or Dear Abby? — said to use the fancy soap and light the fancy candles. What are you saving them for?)
It’s not the end of days. We should mostly be fine. But we all need hobbies — once this kitchen’s put in, I’m doing more baking! — and to spend less time working and more time doing Not That. We need to take care of each other, and we will — those who deserve it.
For my friends everything, for my enemies … well, nothing really, but I’m going to make ugly faces at you and I won’t be polite.
