Tess

America, We Are Not Okay

February 10, 2020 by Tess Leave a Comment

I recently went to lunch with my mom and one of her friends. We were looking forward to a nice, normal meal at a place my mom and I had never been. The food didn’t disappoint, but the conversation stuck with me long after we left the restaurant and went our separate ways. It underscored why I do this work and validated not just the need of it, but the obligation of doing it if you find yourself in a position that allows you to dedicate your life to it. But sometimes a situation sucker punches you in the jaw, and you have to hunch into the surprise of that sudden, shocking discomfort before you can move on. That’s what happened to me as that otherwise pleasant lunch unfolded, and I had to take a moment to collect my thoughts, to gather the raw feelings of anger and helplessness and turn them into fuel that might succeed at powering something worthwhile.

We’ll call my mom’s friend Susan for the sake of simplicity and anonymity, but feel quite free to think of Susan as your friend, your neighbor, your sister, your mother, or your cousin. Susan could be anyone and, in point of fact, she is far too many of us in this country.

We ordered our food and sat down in a shady spot outdoors. The weather was perfect, not sticky hot as Florida is wont to be, and not too cool either. The food was delicious and I was digging the company and the carefree time spent untethered from my computer. The conversation stayed light, with laughter interspersed throughout, but the words were heavy. At the end of the afternoon, the weight was nearly insupportable. And I wasn’t even living this life. I was only hearing about it.

Susan has a government job and has worked there for decades. She’s eligible for retirement, but can’t afford to quit working for several more years. Her kids are grown. She’s a single woman. She has health issues that her insurance doesn’t cover, leaving her in the lurch for thousands of dollars after seeking care, without which she might not have been able to continue getting to and from work. Speaking of work, that government job she’s had for more than two dozen years? Yeah, it doesn’t pay enough to cover her basic living expenses, so she works a second job on weekends and late into the evenings after working a full day at what should be a good job.

Despite all of this, Susan is upbeat and seems to enjoy life. But she deserves more. She’s worked hard her entire life. Isn’t that the key to success in this country? You work hard, you find a job that offers health benefits, and you work your way up the ladder of success. But what happens when the ladder stops abruptly only a few rungs above the ground? What happens when that much-coveted health insurance doesn’t pay for jack shit and, no matter how hard you toil, you never receive a single cost of living increase to your wages? What then?

Y’all, our system is broken when working hard for more than 25 years leaves you facing the decision to either live in poverty or take a second job in the service industry. After that much time in the workforce, you should be able to live comfortably and retire with dignity. I know that some of y’all are members of the choir to which I’m preaching, but there are so many others that don’t see this problem for what it is. They blame folks like Susan for not being good enough, hardworking enough, smart enough, etc. But what else was she supposed to do? She secured what has traditionally been considered a good job — a position in the government, complete with health insurance — and worked hard for decades. Wasn’t that supposed to be the price of the golden ticket that allows you access to the fabled American Dream? If not, what is?

People sometimes respond to my entreaties that jobs should pay a living wage and folks should have access to quality healthcare that doesn’t bankrupt them when they try to use it with: people should just get a better job if they don’t like the one they have.

Great. Yep. Awesome advice that I’m sure no one ever thought of before. And sick people should just get better, amirite? If I start rolling my eyes now, I might never stop…

We raise our kids to believe the American Dream is a real thing they can achieve one day if they stick to the path through the wilderness of adulthood. Step off the path and you might never find your way back, but if you finish high school and go to college, you can get one of those good jobs. And that’s the goal, right? A good job that pays your bills, lets you (lightly) spoil your kids and take a family vacation every summer, all the while allowing you to put away a shiny nest egg you don’t break open until the golden years of your retirement. Perfect.

But it’s also unattainable af.

I grew up thinking a college degree was some kind of skeleton key that would open a whole host of doors. Not any door, but enough of them that the sky would be the fucking limit. So, I got a college degree…in philosophy. As you can imagine, my key didn’t unlock many doors. And when I was looking to go back to work outside the home after writing and raising a child for several years, it didn’t open any doors at all. I had to go back to school for two semesters to earn a paralegal certificate that allowed me to work in a law office wrangling attorneys. But that cost money and time a lot of folks don’t have, making it a privilege, a non-option, a locked door. And, anyway, it’s bullshit. I had a college degree, and it wasn’t enough. I know folks with graduate degrees that aren’t enough.

The system is broken.

After lunch, I told my mother that this was why I did this work. Susan’s experience. My own. Millions of other people that I will never meet. Hard work should be enough to succeed in this country. No one should work for 30 years and still find themselves one paycheck away from calamity. I’m a firm believer in personal responsibility, but the system is stacked against too many of us at birth, and it hardly matters what path we take through the wilderness. Even if you do everything right, you might still find yourself unable to earn a golden ticket. No matter how many locks you try, your key only opens a small number of doors, and none of them leads to the American Dream. You’ll stay in that darkened hallway for the rest of your life, searching for light, believing that you are to blame.

That’s not okay. None of this is. I have to believe that more is possible. That we can do better in this country. That we can unlock these doors to opportunity. That we can let in the light.

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Racism 101: White Privilege

February 2, 2020 by Tess Leave a Comment

I post a lot about race, and not just because I’m a glutton for punishment, although I’m sure that plays a significant role. I’m a black woman in a country that was built with the unpaid blood, sweat, and tears of people that looked like me. Those same people were ‘liberated’ after the Civil War, only to be crushed beneath the bootheel of Jim Crow for the next hundred years, a campaign of abject oppression and terror, the echoes of which we can still feel reverberating to the present day.

When you’re black in America, you can’t forget it. It’s transcendental — the condition upon which all other experiences are made possible. Your color informs your every waking movement. The moment you draw your first breath, it sets boundaries you might never overcome. It creates an alternate set of expectations and limitations, all unwritten but strictly enforced, and you disregard them at your peril. Thinking, talking, and posting about race isn’t so much an option for me as it is a requirement.

Like clockwork, in response to one of my many posts about race, a white individual will respond with a lightly admonishing comment that goes a little something like this: Why all of this divisiveness? We need to focus on one race, the HUMAN RACE.

Quaint, right?

What I feel upon reading dismissive, somewhat Pollyanna responses like this to my lived experience as a black individual in this country isn’t so much annoyance (or shock, because this is a pretty standard response, if I’m being honest), as it is bone weariness. The kind of weariness you feel after working a long day only to find your car won’t start and your phone is dead, meaning you’ll need to walk a few miles home in pouring rain and lashing wind. This mental and emotional exhaustion can be all consuming, because it feels like no matter how many times you explain slavery’s enduring legacy, how systems of oppression work (and how this is distinct from individual racists), why it’s damaging to say you don’t see color, there will always be responses like this aimed at making you feel ashamed for always dwelling on race.

White folks, let me tell you, living your life without needing to take race into constant consideration is the very definition of privilege. It’s a magical realm of existence that’s completely closed off to black folks, to Hispanic folks, to Asian folks, to indigenous folks. We have to think about race all the time. Our lives depend on it. Our freedom, our livelihoods, our very opportunity for happiness. We exist in this country at all times as nonwhite. There have been whole systems of oppression constructed to penalize us for being nonwhite. These systems have worked so well for so long, white folks no longer even see them. What they see is that nonwhite people struggle because they don’t work hard enough. They don’t value education. They are just more likely to commit crimes. They don’t speak English well. They are lazy. They waste the limitless opportunities doled out equally to every American at birth. It’s sad, really, how those nonwhites are.

White privilege is the ability to exist as a person while the rest of us exist as nonwhite people, together with all the negative stereotypes that, thanks to our deeply racist institutions, too often become self-fulfilling prophecies.

I can already hear the grumbled complaints from aggrieved white people:

That’s not fair! I’ve faced real struggles in my life!

I had to work hard for everything I have! I wasn’t given anything on a silver platter!

I grew up poor too! How can I have privilege?

Let me tell you what white privilege doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean you haven’t struggled in your lives, white folks. It doesn’t mean you haven’t known poverty. It doesn’t mean you haven’t worked hard or faced difficult situations or gone to bed hungry or survived without healthcare, a place to live, or a job that pays a decent wage. It doesn’t mean you haven’t watched, heartbroken, as your kids go without. White people can struggle. They can live difficult lives and never get ahead. But the reason for that difficulty is never their race. There aren’t centuries’ old systems in place to make sure that they fail based solely on the color of their skin. There’s a real issue of economic inequality in this country that desperately needs to be addressed, but imagine that layered on top of racial inequality, which is systemic. It is purposeful. It was put in place by white folks that did their best to make sure black and brown folks never got ahead in this country. Can you see how that’s different?

So, no, we can’t pretend we live in some post racial utopia where we all receive the same opportunities as Americans. We can’t pretend we are all just one race, the human race. That’s how the world looks through the rose-colored glasses of privilege. Not considering race in every facet of your life, with every breath that you take, is a privilege. Not fearing for your child’s safety simply because of the color of his or her skin is a privilege. Have you ever sat your child down and discussed exactly how to interact with the police because you’re afraid there could be a shoot first, ask questions later scenario, all because your child happens to be black, and sometimes that’s enough of a reason for an officer to open fire? No? That’s privilege.

No one’s asking you to apologize for slavery. But the founders of this country that built prosperity on the backs of the enslaved looked like you. The architects of Jim Crow looked like you. The folks that carefully crafted the New Deal in a way that wouldn’t benefit black Americans looked like you. The folks that waged the War on Drugs and lay the groundwork for every iteration of getting tougher and tougher on (black) crime looked like you. These white folks made damned sure to put systems in place that barred people that looked like me from ever being able to achieve the fabled life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that they enshrined for themselves. We were meant to toil, to obey, to die when we were no longer useful. The very foundation of this nation was constructed upon that baseline inequality, and it has flourished in the centuries since those founding documents were created.

You didn’t ask for your privilege, but you have it. So, now what?

Step one: accept that this privilege is a real thing.

Step two: use the fuck out of it to challenge racism in all its forms.

Lean into your privilege like the shield of legitimacy it is and tear down the systemic inequality that still festers, relatively unhindered, in this country and all its institutions. No matter where you find yourself on the ladder of social status, you have power that black and brown folks don’t possess. Instead of pretending that power doesn’t exist, use it. Challenge other white folks. Be rabidly anti-racist. Don’t just share delusional platitudes about little black children playing with little white children and folks being judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin. We aren’t there yet. We’ve never been there. We aren’t even close.

Just by virtue of your skin color, you are endowed with the unique power to tear down systems that benefit you as white and oppress me as black. If black, brown, Asian, and indigenous folks could destroy these systems ourselves, trust and believe it would already be done. We need you to step in and step up. Your privilege is a battering ram that opens doors. Use it to knock down the status quo instead of buttressing it.

No one is asking you to apologize for being born white. But, goddamn it, open your eyes and see this country for what and how it is. Stop berating marginalized people for pointing out inequality because it makes you uncomfortable. Step into this fight in a meaningful way, because the fabled Promised Land isn’t guaranteed. Racism isn’t something that just fades away if we ignore it. It’s the kind of thing that metastasizes in dark spaces. It stretches out. It grows. Think of your privilege as a spotlight. Point at racism and shine the fuck away, white folks.

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Everything We Love is Trash

January 16, 2020 by Tess Leave a Comment

When you’re willing to keep learning new things every day, it sure does make it harder to burrow into your ignorance, no matter how warm, snuggly, and persistent it seems. Evolution of thought, though a necessary prerequisite of growing as a person, can also be uncomfortable and stress inducing. The things you once accepted without reflection are now problematic. Popular attitudes have shifted beneath your feet, and, suddenly, you are faced with a radically altered landscape. You can either get with the program or risk becoming one of those individuals constantly talking about how things were better in your day. What you usually mean is that they were better for you, and screw everyone else. But occasionally something happens that shines a harsh spotlight on your past ignorance and complacency, making it impossible to ignore.

Such a thing recently happened to me, in fact.

I was on Twitter the other day — mostly because I’m a glutton for punishment, but also because I adore pettiness in all its online forms — and I happened upon a tweet that went something like this:

You’re trying to tell me that Willy Wonka sent Golden Tickets around the ENTIRE world and five white children got them ALL???

I have to tell you, I was shook. I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a child and loved it. I watched Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka more times than I can count, rapt with glee as I imagined myself wandering through the chocolate factory, avoiding all the booby traps and ending up in the glass elevator, an everlasting gobstopper clutched in hand, victorious. But how exactly did I see myself in that story when there wasn’t a single person that looked like me represented in the book or the film? And, seriously?! No kids from Asia, South America, Africa? Not even one? And why didn’t I notice that glaring absence before that devastatingly simple tweet?

I’m not joking when I tell you that single sentence shook me to my core. It made me reevaluate everything I consumed as a child — books, movies, television shows, EVERYTHING — and take a full assessment of the appalling lack of diversity.

I had another such moment of sudden clarity when watching the Last Jedi in the theater a few years ago. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since childhood. Some of my fondest memories involve watching the original three movies on television with my dad and brother. Sitting in the theater, watching the final battle between the resistance fighters and the First Order, there were the obligatory close ups of the rebel pilots in their cockpits, dialing up the drama as you wait for one of them to suddenly burst into flames and explode after getting hit. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a closeup of a black female fighter pilot filled up the screen. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to sit me back in my seat. I clearly recall saying: WHOA! And I was flooded with real elation…until I realized my excitement was born of the nearly complete lack of black people in the original movies. We had Lando, but he betrayed Han Solo, and he was never a central character. All the central characters were white.

And if something I loved as a child isn’t completely devoid of diverse characters, it’s chock full of sexism or stereotypes of what various POCs are supposed to be like. So much of what many of us adored decades ago has not aged well, leaving us struggling to come to terms with the trash we once believed was treasure. When we know better, we do better, but that’s complicated when large portions of our childhoods are bound up in the soft, sentimental feelings all these books and films stirred up in us back in the day.

I wanted a Golden Ticket with every fiber of my being when I was a kid, years before anyone knew about letters to Hogwarts. I wanted to be a jedi, even though there were no black jedis (and don’t start with me that Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu was a black jedi in the prequels, which technically predated the original trilogy, because that storyline didn’t even exist when I was a kid, so sit down), no female jedis, and definitely no black female jedis. My imagination filled in the gaps in what I saw in the world. And, eventually, the world began to catch up with me. But what does it say that I didn’t even identify this as a problem? That I just considered it normal to never see faces that looked like mine represented in the media I consumed and loved?

I say it all the time and, despite the repetition, it’s never any less true:

Representation matters.

I have no idea what eight year old me might have thought at the sight of a little black girl or boy walking into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Who knows how I might have reacted at the appearance of a black jedi as the central character in one of the original three Star Wars movies or, hell, just a black female fighter jet pilot rallying with the rest of the resistance fighters. And if there were fewer movies and cartoons where the long and short of the female lead’s life revolved around pleasing a man or finding a husband, by any means necessary, what then?

Seeing myself reflected in more of what I watched and read as a child might have changed the way I thought of the world and my place in it. It might have expanded my idea of what was possible. I’ll never know, because I didn’t have that wealth of representation as a girl, but it’s encouraging to see more of it for the kids coming up today. When we know better, we do better.

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2020 Burn Book: Men, I’m Lighting You Up

January 9, 2020 by Tess Leave a Comment

I already compiled my resolutions for the new year, but in light of recent events, I’m adding one more and moving it to the top of the list:

Men, if you commit sexual harassment, assault, or just general unwanted creepiness, I am calling you the fuck out.

I’m done. Time to burn this motherfucker all the way down. And y’all are on notice. Don’t act surprised when I tell folks how you really are.

First, let’s set some parameters. There’s definitely a spectrum when it comes to creepiness. On one side is unwanted messages from men we don’t follow on social media asking for dates, pictures, to know more about us, etc. Gross, but that’s what the block function is for. On the other side is full on life-shattering sexual assault. In the gray area between these two poles lie microaggressions, gaslighting, unwanted sexual advances, pressure for sexual favors, victim blaming, retaliation, and the list goes on. And on. And on.

Men, if you do any of this shit going forward, get ready to be exposed for the disgusting POS you are. I plan to go out of my damned way to make sure people know.

Why the sudden need to put all of this out there, you ask?

I just got off the phone with a close friend who called me first thing in the morning to tell me about some creep that sexually harassed her at a business meeting. At one point, he followed her into the bathroom, locked the door, and attempted to go even further. Thankfully, she was able to escape. Though shaken emotionally, she said nothing and tried to continue doing her job, which was why she was there in the first place. But this dude wouldn’t stop. He kept making advances and being handsy. When it was finally clear that she wasn’t interested, he ended by calling her a bitch in front of another man involved in the meeting. She left the situation as quickly as possible.

When we spoke, she was angry, frightened, and at a complete loss as to how to move forward. This meeting was about future consulting work. Should she tell others involved in the project? Should she pull out of this business opportunity so she wouldn’t have to see and work with this attacker moving forward? Should she make a big deal out of this? Or just get on with her life?

This helplessness, this terrible, roiling fury that too often ends up turning inward to eat away at us, is such a fucking textbook response to the kind of situation that can happen to women anywhere and at any time. We are always in danger of harassment and assault. We learn to live with it, because what other choice do we have? We teach our daughters how to live with it. We shore up the crumbling defenses of our friends when they take a hit, no matter how severe, and then we do what women have always done: we pull up our big girl panties and we get back to our lives.

It’s unconscionable that we live like this as a culture, that half the population just has to suck it up, buttercup, while the other half gallivants through life, setting fire to the women around them at will.

I’m calling bullshit. I’m not playing the game anymore. I’m done.

While I was talking to my friend, she repeatedly mentioned that she hadn’t been wearing anything that could have led this asshole on (see: appropriate business attire). She mentioned a few times that this was a business meeting that took place in the middle of the day (socially acceptable time for women to assume personal safety). She mentioned that she hadn’t done anything at all to make this POS think it was okay to follow her into the bathroom and then continue to harass her throughout the rest of the meeting (society teaches us that our behavior is directly responsible for how men decide to act). Even as she corrected herself, sometimes mid-sentence, to acknowledge that she understood it didn’t matter what she was wearing or what time it was, it was important to her that I knew she was dressed appropriately and that this occurred in broad daylight.

This call isn’t the first conversation I’ve had with a female friend about a situation like this, and it won’t be the last. Some situations haven’t been as severe, and some have been much, much worse. But the emotional aftermath looks the same in every case: the woman is left feeling helpless, angry, ashamed, and unsure of what to do next. Should she report it? What would happen? Would anyone even believe her? If people did believe her, would they care? What about retaliation? Should she quit her job? Or should she just take a personal day, cobble herself back together again, and then pretend nothing happened?

We should not have to live like this.

This is my solemn oath that if some man says or does something shitty and I find out about it, I will talk about it loudly and openly. I will out you, and I’ll keep telling people until someone fucking cares. If it sets your personal or professional career ablaze, that’s on you. Because women have been paying the high price for men’s decisions for centuries. And silence only helps the aggressor. It allows for the creation of additional situations in which other women are victimized by repeat predators. Even worse, this silence causes our insides to corrode over time. It poisons who we are. It makes us question ourselves and other women. It isolates us.

This bullshit has to stop.

Women shouldn’t be forced to continue removing themselves from professional and social situations to avoid men who have attacked or harassed them. Why do men get to continue on in their lives and careers unhindered by their own behavior? Why are women routinely left to bear the consequences?

I know women who have left jobs, who don’t volunteer with certain organizations, who don’t leave the house at night alone, who refuse to date, because of things men have done to them. I know women who are horrified to learn that I go running alone before the sun comes up, because of what a man could do. But I prefer to run in the dark. Running when the sun is out invites honks, shouts from open car windows, and men pulling their vehicles over for an unwanted chat. I also altered where I run to avoid main roads, which, together with running in complete darkness, has really cut down on the harassment.

That’s the long and short of what women have to do to get by: alter our lives to cut down on the harassment. Choose another route home from work. Quit your job. Start shopping at a different grocery store. Stop taking public transportation. Walk around with headphones jammed into your ears, even when you aren’t listening to music. Move to another town. Don’t make eye contact with male strangers. Only go out at night in a large group. Dress in less form fitting clothing.

But it’s never enough. No matter how disciplined we are in policing our own behavior, we can’t control what men will do to us. Because the problem isn’t us. It’s them.

Men, you are the problem. Your behavior. Your sense of entitlement. Your belief that women are here for your enjoyment. In 2020, I intend to make it my duty to disabuse as many of you as possible of the notion that we are simply receptacles for your unwanted attention, abuse, and harassment. We aren’t in the workplace, gym, store, classroom, social gathering, or wherever waiting for you to notice us. And we aren’t the ones that need to leave a situation after you do something wrong. You are. And, please, let the door hit you on the way out.

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An Ode to All Good Dogs

January 4, 2020 by Tess Leave a Comment

I want to tell you about a very good girl. The best girl. Our English Mastiff, Zoey. She was ten going on eleven, and we had to put her down right before the New Year. That’s considered a long life for a big dog, but it wasn’t nearly long enough for us. Even twenty years wouldn’t have been enough.

I can clearly recall the moment I met Zoey. We already had a puppy and I didn’t want another one, especially not one that would get so damned big, but I agreed to go see her. She was around nine weeks old and still nestled in a squirming, yipping collection of her other seven littermates. My ex plopped her into my lap, and she stayed there, staring up at me with her big, soulful eyes, like she knew I was the one deciding her fate, like she knew it was meant to be.

And she had me from that moment to this.

Zoey was perfect. Easy to train. Even tempered. Loving. Gentle with our other dog, a rat terrier named Amelie that never got any bigger than ten pounds. Zoey, on the other hand, got gigantic — one hundred thirty pounds at her heaviest — and her head was the size of an adult man’s. That meant her eyes were human sized too, and there was a depth of feeling in those enormous eyes, a knowing, such that you could read her emotions.

For the first half of her life, it was just her and me at home all day while I wrote. The dog was one hell of a listener, and she sat patiently by while I edited paragraphs aloud or tested out dialogue. She was almost always in the way, but in her defense, how can a dog the size of an adult woman not be in the way? I cleaned the house around her. I cooked in the kitchen around her. I tripped over her constantly but couldn’t be mad because she already looked ready to burst into tears. She was perfect.

But dogs aren’t good dogs because they’re perfect. They’re good dogs because they’re our dogs.

I don’t understand why we’re able to become so close to them — why we love them so much and that love seems to be returned to us tenfold in their snuggles and wet kisses, in the way they look up at us with bold, naked trust — only to lose them way sooner than seems fair, necessary, or right. What I do know is that we don’t even come close to deserving their devotion. Zoey made me the center of her universe. She was always happy to see me and was there to lean her big old self against my legs even before I knew I needed her moral support. As is true with all dogs, she gave freely without taking much in return.

I knew from the beginning that bigger dogs don’t live long lives, but that knowledge hasn’t helped much. Over this last year, her health declined. It got harder for her to get up, and she sometimes fell when she was walking. I could feel the end nearing like an impending storm cloud, though I turned consciously away from thinking about it, preferring to focus on something more positive: how healthy her appetite was or how mentally acute she still seemed. Those dark thoughts would creep in at odd moments, though, seizing me with dread. Because I knew the end was coming, and I wasn’t ready.

Are any of us ever ready? If I think of the dogs that have enriched my life over the last few decades, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to any of them. Not a single one. The sunny feeling of having them close to us is counterbalanced by the cosmic unfairness of losing them much too soon. A cluster of consolation can exist if the dog lived a long life or is now out of pain. But, still, only time will dull the sharpest ends of grief after such a loss, no matter how much we expected it.

My big blonde girl with her soft, floppy ears and ginormous head that she would plop down onto your knee was one in a million. But nothing I’m experiencing now is unique. The heartbreaking loss, the anger at the stolen time I’ll never get with her, the consolation of the long, happy years Zoey lived as part of our family, the relief at knowing she’s no longer hurting. It’s all pretty standard for the humans left behind.

Dogs shoot across our lives like comets, brilliant and sparkling, before disappearing forever.

This is for all the good dogs we’ve loved for such a painfully short time before they left us to miss them forever. Mine — Skippy, Brandy, Gecko, Sassy, Amelie, Zoey — and yours. Long may they flash and sparkle in our memories.