The Undercover Introvert

America, We Are Not Okay

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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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Despair is the Enemy: a Manifesto for 2020

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2020 is racing towards us with deliberate speed. This time next year, we’ll know if a Democrat won the presidential election, or if we’re in for 4 more years of falling further down the rabbit hole towards an unspeakable, irreversible nightmare.

I admit, I don’t feel ready. As I moved through 2019, the time raced through my fingers and the pit of my stomach perpetually boiled with a mix of excitement and terror. Doesn’t it feel like we all just woke up the morning after Election Day 2016 and began the heavy task of acquainting ourselves with the dread that would be our constant companion over the next 48 months? Where did the time go? Have we prepared enough? Are we ready? Can we really make this happen next year? What happens if we don’t? Will I be safe in this country if Trump wins a second term? Is my passport current? Who do I know overseas that might be willing to take me in?

If the inside of your head looks anything like the feverish firestorm of questions listed above, this post is for you. If I’m being honest, it’s also for me, because I swing from despair to hope faster than it takes Donald Trump to attack teenage activists on Twitter.

2020 has been the goal on the horizon since the end of 2016. It has gleamed in the distance — the light at the end of a deep, dark, desolate tunnel — as we’ve toiled over the last few years, laying the necessary groundwork and readying ourselves for battle. We’ve looked forward to its promise as we’ve slogged gamely through midterms and off year elections on our grim march towards the finish line. Now that 2020 is nearly here, I feel equal parts determined elation and crippling fear. I recently had major dental surgery, and the feeling was similar, though on a much smaller scale: you know this is going to cost you — mentally and physically, as well as financially — and it’s going to hurt, but because you know it has to be done, you hunch your shoulders into the wind and soldier through, hoping for the best while simultaneously expecting the worst.

Okay, maybe it’s not like dental surgery at all. Dental surgery is actually much better by comparison. You know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, and the fate of the free world isn’t hanging in the balance when the dentist picks up her pointy silver tools and leans into your open mouth.

So what do we do about all of this pent up anxiety and despair? How do we turn that buzzing energy into fuel for the fight we’ll have to undertake from January 1st through November 3rd? Is there a way to protect the flickering candle flame of hope from the lashing winds of despair? That may be too maudlin a description for your tastes, but it feels to me like everything is on the line. Like everyone involved will need to be on their A game at all times.

It also feels like there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to do all the work necessary to ensure success. This persistent dread has its origins in the upset of the 2016 elections, but it has grown into its own thing now. It follows me everywhere — this dark specter of ominous things to come — and it makes me question every strategy and action, every program and candidate, every instinct and better judgment. The anxiety underscores my every waking moment. It has become a constant in these last few tumultuous years, so much so that its frenetic energy has almost morphed into a kind of comfort — knowing it’s there means knowing I’m alive. I worry, therefore I am. But this oddly familiar feeling is also the enemy.

Everything is riding on the next eleven months. The soul of this imperfect nation. The ever evolving freedom of black and brown people. LGBTQ equality. A Woman’s right to bodily autonomy and access to reproductive services. Education. The environment. Social security. Healthcare access. Everything. All of it. Think of something you care about, and it too is at risk.

We can’t allow the sticky blackness of despair to cause us to falter, to doubt ourselves, to question our commitment to this fight, to divide us. We’ve spent the last few years stockpiling strength, slaying the midterms, and building the endurance that will get us through the prolonged sprint of the presidential election year. The point of despair is to derail that progress, to make it seem as though our goals are unattainable, and to sink us so deeply into fear that the only option left is to give up. In that uncertain darkness, it can be easy to forget those that will stand and fight with us.

At the center of despair lies loneliness. But the antidote to loneliness is solidarity, and the enemy of despair is hope.

Over the next eleven months, cling to that enduring hope as you’re toiling to right the longstanding wrongs in this country. When despair rises, threatening to consume all available light at the end of the dark tunnel in which we find ourselves, guard that flickering spark. It may seem fragile, but its resilience is the same as what you’ll find in the mirror when you face yourself each morning before leaving the house for another long day of hustling for change.

This work can feel thankless, worthless, endless, hopeless. We can forget those that are fighting with us as the darkness rises, doing its best to seal us into our own solitary nightmares. But no one stands alone in this work. We stand on the shoulders of the ones who came before us, arm in arm, so those who come after us can rise up onto our shoulders and stand even taller.

Brace yourselves, friends, because the year ahead will be difficult. Sleep will be elusive and free time nonexistent, but caffeine will be plentiful. I know we can do this, because we must do it. Lean in, and I’ll lean with you.

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The Clapback Conundrum

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We’re living through interesting times. Everything seems up for heated discussion, and facts are treated as dismissively as opinions in public and private discourse. That’s problematic enough all by itself, but it gets much worse, y’all.

Have you noticed that the number of folks who seem to relish watching the world burn appears to be radically increasing with each passing day? I’m not talking about the people you probably think I’m talking about. It’s definitely 100% accurate that we’re living in uber polarized times, making crossing the aisle one of the least popular things you can do at the moment. But when I talk about people stoking fires and keeping everyone from having nice things, I’m not talking about the folks on the other side of the sharp divide that cuts across every single issue percolating at the national and local levels. I’m talking about the people supposedly on our own side, if such a thing exists. Because, sometimes, it seems like these motherfuckers are actually on their own side, and their objective is to perpetually cut you down to size before you even finish a sentence.

I’m talking about what I’ve named the Clapback Conundrum, a knee jerk response that’s become all too prevalent nowadays. It mostly takes place on social media, where all good things go to turn putrid and mind numbingly tedious, but it’s happening with more regularity during day to day in person conversations as well. We’ve all seen the eye roll-inducing digital headlines:

X TORCHED Y!

Z Was DRAGGED On Twitter!

X’s EPIC CLAPBACK!

TWITTER FLAME WAR BETWEEN X AND Y!!!!!

It’s exhausting. But, sadly, it’s not just for celebrities and politicians with heightened name ID. It’s happening every day, in every facet of life.

Now, to be fair, not everyone is living a life fully engrossed in policy, politicians, campaigns, and issues based advocacy, but still.

Can we just agree to stop this utter nonsense? Can we stop trying to start flame wars and instead focus on defeating the very real threat looming over our heads in November 2020? The clock’s ticking, y’all, and we’re burning daylight. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re fighting for the soul of the country over here, not gathered in a circle on the recess playground while 2 kids play the dozens.

Listen, I get it. You think you’re right. And not just right, but Right, objectively, with an uppercase R. But, let me ask you this: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to make things better? Do you want to save this country from slipping into the depths of a darkness so pitch black that not even the glittering flame of you brutally torching some ‘lesser progressive’ would help you find your way out again? Because we’re fighting to improve the American way of life for hundreds of millions of people right now, and I’m going to need you to get a handle on your shit and cut out the friendly fire.

Here’s the long and short of the Clapback Conundrum: we’re so worried about calling each other out that we don’t pay attention to the nuance of arguments and policy, just who flames who. It’s lazy and it’s part of the problem. While you’re busy calling me a centrist shill because I favor a Medicare For All Who Want It plan and you think anything less than Medicare For All makes me a detestable sellout, we have the party in control of the Executive Branch and one chamber of the Legislature actively trying to rip healthcare away from millions of people. Shouldn’t we be focusing on that? Or do you want to keep trying to light me up because I disagree with the method of getting to the exact same goal, which is healthcare for everyone? Spirited debate is great, and I’m here for it every day all day, but don’t fight me to the death on particulars when we agree on the end result.

And, FYI, arguing on social media doesn’t equate to doing any actual work. You aren’t changing hearts and minds by lighting up your allies on distinctions that make very little difference. And, honestly, you don’t need to change the hearts and minds of the people who already agree with you. We’re standing on the same side, friend, for chrissake. Stand down so we can stand united on our shared values and create the change you claim you want to see in the world.

The next year and a half is going to be hard enough without needing to cover my six as well as the absolute disaster forever unfolding in front of me. We can agree to disagree on the method without attempting to destroy each other, resorting to dismissive name calling, or taking our ball and going home where we’re absolutely no use to anyone. This country needs fighters, champions, grownups. Can we do that? Because, if not, buckle in for another four years of this unmitigated shitshow and know that you own it.

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One ‘Year of the Woman’ is Not Enough

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2018 was called the Year of the Woman. The first election cycle to take place fully ensconced within the #MeToo era came to a close with a historic number of women running for office and winning. Many of these newly minted legislators were women of color, and the doors they flung open simply by their mere presence at the table reverberated through the nation’s marginalized communities. As a black woman, I felt the power of it. Representation matters, and I saw more faces that looked like mine in a crowd of lawmakers than I’d ever seen in my life.

More of us are at the table. That means we made it, right?

Well, not quite.

We still have a long way to go before we reach the fabled promised land of racial and gender equality. Last year was yet another baby step in a seemingly endless line of baby steps. Slow and steady wins the race. We step forward twice, get pushed back once, maybe even twice, ad infinitum. Meanwhile, the road ahead of us goes on past the horizon, the goal completely out of sight. No one quite knows the distance between where we stand and where we want to be, but moving forward is the only option, because we know exactly what dangerous territory lies behind us.

Thanks to the many hundreds of thousands of women who came before me, being a woman in 2019 is better, but it’s still not easy.

I may no longer pass from the dominion of my father to that of my spouse, but I’m not paid the same as a white man for identical work.

Birth control and access to safe, legal abortion may give me the kind of control over my reproductive system that women living decades ago could only dream of, but the war on women waged by old white men rages on and, if successful, would leave me with few options that didn’t include being either celibate or perpetually barefoot and pregnant.

I may be able to go wherever I want, whenever I want, without asking any man’s permission, but I’m not safe walking alone after dark, being too friendly to a male stranger, being too dismissive of a male stranger, or leaving my drink unattended at a party for fear of what might happen.

I may be able to set my sights on any job that strikes my fancy, but I can’t be taken seriously in most professional spaces, and I often have to push back extremely hard on men who believe, simply by the grace of their gender, that they are more learned than I am, no matter the subject or situation. When confronted on their mansplaining, most men seem taken aback, because they don’t even notice themselves doing it. Yet it happens ALL. THE. TIME.

And those are just a small sampling of the many complications of being a woman in this country.

When you add being black on top of that, all of the aforementioned difficulties magnify, and the discrimination becomes labyrinthine in its complexity.

After an incident, I often find myself wondering: was this because I’m black? Or because I’m a woman? Or both?

But there are no clear answers, only the dark, ugly feeling of being targeted, humiliated, overlooked, or attacked.

Discrimination exists as a claustrophobic maze for those of us that call more than one marginalized group home, and the uncertainty inherent in its twists and turns often makes it impossible to find our footing. You flounder, you double back, you forge ahead, hoping for something better around the next corner. An exit, though you don’t ever expect to find one.

I live in a country that once owned people who looked like me, and also a country in which people of my gender we never expected to contribute to society in any meaningful way. Women were to bear children and look pretty. Black women were to bear children and toil until they died. And though we’re no longer seen as property or lesser than men in the eyes of the law, we’re still nurtured by a society that views us as fundamentally weaker than men, both mentally and physically. Our bodies are still the subject of a dogged legislative agenda that won’t stop until it completely strips away control over our own reproductive destiny. Our bodies are still seen as existing almost exclusively for male enjoyment.

It would never occur to me to tell a man minding his own business in a public space that he should smile, that he’s good looking, or that I’d be interested in dating and/or sleeping with him. These are all things I’ve heard from complete strangers, and not just once. Not even just a dozen times.

It would also never occur to me to interrupt a man who was a subject matter expert because I assumed I knew more than he did, though I was not a subject matter expert, nor was I invited to speak on the topic. Yet this is also something that happens to women with annoying regularity. Even when we are speaking about our unique experiences as women in the world, men will often dive headfirst into the fray to talk over us, muscling their way into a conversation that shouldn’t even feature them.

Again, these are just small things, but if you add enough of them together, they become weights heavy enough to hamper our upward mobility and obliterate our spirits.

So, yes, let’s celebrate 2018 as the Year of the Woman. But let’s not forget that there have been thousands of years celebrating men, their achievements, and their exclusive centuries’ old dominion over the world and all the women in it.

We women can’t be content with a single year that only sees our total representation in Congress reach 25% while we make up more than 50% of the population. We have to keep pushing until the many layers of glass ceilings shatter, and we can breathe the fresh air and feel the full strength of the sun on our faces.

The thought of a world in which the full range of possibility and promise isn’t limited on the basis of sex, race, disability, who you love, or how you self identify is what keeps me going every day, despite the constant backsliding, the defeats, the frustrations, and the heartache.

As always, women of color, disabled women, women identifying as LGBTQ have a harder path, one we’ve often had to walk alone as our more privileged sisters moved quickly along the path ahead of us, leaving us behind. But none of us will truly be free until we all are, meaning we’ll have to wait for that last woman to make her way across the finish line before we can consider the battle won.

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Grab ‘Em By the Childcare

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When we talk about the concept of women’s liberation, the conversation often centers around burning bras, shattering glass ceilings, providing the full range of reproductive freedoms, and women no longer allowing men to dictate the conditions of their existence. But there are other ideas that are even more revolutionary than these, and they aren’t what you might think.

Recently, Elizabeth Warren, a candidate running for president in 2020, floated the idea of universal childcare, and it shook the ground beneath my feet in a way that very few policy proposals have done. This is mostly because I understood how much of a game changer a program like this could be for the everyday American female.

Reproductive freedom and the refusal to allow men to continue to control how much women are able to achieve in their personal and professional lives are all extremely important to a woman’s overall autonomy. However, they don’t address a large part of the problem women face when attempting to fully actualize their potential. Since women are the ones biologically responsible for birthing children as well as the ones society still pegs as the primary caregivers, childcare remains a persistent obstacle that so many — especially single mothers, women of color, and women of all races living just above or in poverty — cannot overcome. The cost of childcare is outrageous, oftentimes more than what a woman would earn actually working a 40 hour per week job. The exorbitant cost also keeps women from pursuing higher education or technical programs that could lead to jobs that pay more competitive wages.

When we normally talk about strategies to lift folks out of poverty and into higher wage careers, we always hit on incentives and programs to increase access to education and job training. If the conversation focuses on women, we might also mention access to comprehensive healthcare, inclusive of contraception, in order to provide her with more control over when and if she has children. But once the woman has already had children, family planning, education, and job training are often a day late and several dollars short. What good is access to a wide range of programs if a mother can’t find anyone to take care of her child while she’s earning a degree or learning a skill that will drastically increase her earning potential? Removing that obstacle, that worry, would change everything for so many single mothers and working class families struggling to make ends meet.

Universal childcare is a big, bold idea. And, as with most big, bold ideas, we’re going to hear a lot of grumbling about how we pay for it. These concerns are valid, but it’s important to think of the drain on our economy created by so many individuals who are unable to rise to their full potential because they are drowning in poverty with no sturdy life raft in sight.

A program that offers universal childcare could be that life raft.

The country would reap the benefit of a more educated, more highly skilled, more productive population. We would see the wage and opportunity gap between men and women begin to narrow and finally, after centuries of systemic inequity, to close. Something as simple as providing childcare so women can pursue the same educational and professional opportunities already available to men could be revolutionary, and the return on investment would be beyond our wildest dreams.

**Original article published in Florida Today

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