My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Posts Written By L Parker Brown

Pledging Allegiance

by on ·Opinion, Religion

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes, and he is turned out for what he knows.  – Mark Twain

I was in grade school in the 1950s when many public schools in the U.S. began requiring students to place their hands over their hearts and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Within days after the routine started, my mother began helping me memorize the Pledge, although she expressed her disapproval of the school’s policy. She said that we owe allegiance to God, not a flag. My siblings and I heard our mother repeat that statement numerous times during our early school days.

I don’t think mother was unpatriotic. But being black in America and having grown up under racist Jim Crow laws in a small North Carolina town didn’t inspire patriotism. I wonder if her strict religious upbringing also discouraged saluting the flag. Sometimes, during our chats on the subject, mother would emphasize the point by referencing Bible scriptures like those in Exodus. “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them.”

From her perspective, the flag represented a graven image, a god of sorts, and her children reciting what was frequently referred to as the flag salute was disrespecting God.

In the 1970s, when mother began studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses (I also refer to them as JWs or the group), she must have had a hallelujah moment and done a happy dance after learning that their long-dead leader, Joseph Rutherford, had declared that the flag salute and numerous other social activities and customs violate Biblical commands. (Rutherford, the second president of the incorporated Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, renamed the sect Jehovah’s Witnesses following the death of the founder Charles Taze Russell).

I was a young woman when my mother – one of nine children of a pastor and his wife – rejected her Southern Baptist background and converted, so I escaped being born into a family that worshiped with the group. My dad never became a JW, nor did I.

Maybe I’ve been looking in all the wrong places, but I have yet to find anywhere in the Bible that says a Pledge of Allegiance to a flag or singing a National Anthem is sacrilegious. I didn’t say it wasn’t in there; I said I haven’t found it.

Because of my strong desire to understand what led my mother to convert from her Christian upbringing to join the JWs, I’ve done much research on the group, scouring books, articles, and websites over the years. I learned that Rutherford was disgruntled with the government following what he considered his unjust imprisonment in 1918 after he began promoting Russell’s anti-government book The Finished Mystery.

Following his release, Rutherford proceeded to reorganize the group and issued a blistering condemnation of things of “the world,” including the celebration of holidays and birthdays. He also disapproved of other religions, claiming that theirs is the one true religion.

Decades ago, years before my mother joined the group, I studied with Blanche, a JW whom I had met and befriended when we lived in the same high-rise building. After knowing her briefly, she invited me to “Bible study” with her. That’s when I learned she was a JW, and I suspected I had been targeted to become a baptized JW.

I may not be the brightest bulb on the string, but I have high wattage. It didn’t take long for me to understand that if I were to join the JWs, I’d have to give up my self-autonomy and conform to the group’s doctrine. I had been baptized as a Baptist when I was a young teen. One baptism was enough, thank you.

Soon after I stopped studying with Blanche, I learned that Witnesses are discouraged from mingling with “pagans,” eventually, our friendship dissolved.

JWs are forbidden from questioning “the Word” and must adhere to the group’s rules. They are discouraged from having close relationships with “worldly” people because they (we pagans) are seen as bad influences. In addition to not saluting the flag, JWs avoid military service, singing national anthems, jury duty, and voting. They do not celebrate holidays or birthdays, and they don’t accept blood transfusions because they believe the procedure creates a risk of losing eternal salvation.

In 2018, Derek Miller and a CTV investigative team published some facts about the JW religion that many people might not know.

People can and will worship however and whomever they choose, and for various reasons, I choose to avoid all organized religions.

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It Is What It Is or Is It?

by on ·Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion, The Way I See It

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein

Writing about a sensitive subject is challenging. People are touchy, especially when they are in denial. We all tend to see what we want to see and choose to ignore things that make us uncomfortable.

I decided to disclose an event that a friend recently shared with me. As I often do to protect people’s anonymity, I use aliases instead of the names of the persons involved.

Minnie is a neighbor of mine. She and I have a mutual acquaintance, Addie, who also lives in the neighborhood. We have known Addie since her two sons and daughter were young children. A few years ago, her then twenty-something-year-old daughter, Leslie, left home and eventually returned as Lester. Addie would later confide in us what we had already realized, “My daughter is now my son.”

We don’t know if Leslie had GRS (gender reassignment surgery), but we accepted the transition when she returned home sporting a buzz haircut, wearing men’s clothing, and purporting to be a male.

One day, Minnie went out to run an errand. While she was gone, Lester knocked on her door. Getting no answer, Lester left a note that Minnie found stuck in the door jam upon her return. He asked Minnie to phone him concerning an old sofa that Minnie had made known that she was selling.

Minnie was no more familiar with Lester’s telephone voice than I was. She said when she dialed the number and asked to speak to Lester, she was expecting to hear a masculine voice; instead, an androgynous voice answered and said, “This is she.”

Minnie said she was momentarily confused by the response and asked again to speak to Lester. Again, the voice replied, “This is she.” At that point, Minnie said their conversation proceeded.

Minnie asked me what I thought about that episode. “Let me be clear,” I said to her. “When Lester answered the phone, did he say, ‘This is he’ or ‘This is she?” Minnie said, “He distinctly said, ‘This is she.’ There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.”

That led us into a head-scratching discussion. Was “This is she” a Freudian slip, a memory lapse, or something else? What? It seems strange that someone who takes pains to ensure that people like us who knew him when he was her and folks who have only known him since the transition would make such a flub. Yet, he used the inappropriate pronoun twice when referring to himself as she. If trans people are confused about who they are, is it any wonder that some heterosexuals are also confused by them?

Not to be judgmental, I don’t care if someone chooses to change their birth gender. That’s an issue between them and God. Maybe one day in the hereafter, they’ll have to face the consequences of their decision – or perhaps they won’t. But I like to think that if I assume a different persona, I’d remember who I believe I am.

To try and understand transgender people and others like Lester, I recently read a book entitled Trans Life Survivors by Walt Heyer. I am satisfied that it has answered many of my questions.

Before anyone sarcastically asks, “What does he know?” let me give Heyer his props. He is not just someone speculating about transgender people. He is a man who transitioned to a woman. After living for several years as a female, he decided his sexuality was not the root of his unhappiness and detransitioned back to male. He has written numerous books on the subject and his personal experiences. He also has a website.

An article on cnn.com states that The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery posts cost estimates for different procedures, including estimates of $140,450 to transition from male to female and $124,400 to transition from female to male. The message that Heyer conveys in his book is that cross-sex hormones and surgery will not cure underlying mental conditions. He further details how trans lobbyists and “surgical predators” (money-hungry doctors) take advantage of vulnerable people. Some transpeople become so confused and unhappy after transitioning that they consider or commit suicide. Unfortunately, among the suicides are two well-known personalities, 44-year-old transgender comedian Daphne Dorman, featured in a Netflix special, and transgender activist Kyle Scanlon, who killed himself at age 41.

I suspect some of my relatives, friends, and acquaintances won’t dare read Heyer’s book for whatever reason. Some of us have trans relatives and don’t want to risk offending them. (Since when did educating oneself become offensive?) Educating ourselves about anything does not mean that we are being judgmental. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that we are compliant with groupthink either.

Some data I gleaned from Heyer’s book and already suspected:  No amount of surgery or hormone treatments changes the fact that we are created male and female, and adopting an opposite-sex identity is a futile pursuit. DNA and genetic information are indeligible markers dictating that it is categorically impossible to achieve a sex change biologically, scientifically, or surgically.

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Move Your Boat!!!

by on ·Opinion, Race Matters, The Way I See It

Beware when a black woman removes her earrings, but when a brother snatches off his cap, you’d better back your a** up because the brother ain’t backing down.

I made that jovial remark about the riverfront dock brawl that occurred on Saturday, August 5, in Montgomery, Alabama. I posted it in jest as a comment on a few Facebook pages, including my own. Although many folks recognized the humor in my remark and responded with a smiling emoji, at least one of my socially conscious friends didn’t. Instead, he asked me, “Why do you people make everything about race? Why couldn’t it just be two men fighting over a disagreement?

I said, “Did we see the same thing, two men merely disagreeing, or was one man attacking and the other defending himself?”

“Something like that,” he said.

Then, I asked, ” When are you going to wake up and smell the coffee, and what will it take?”

This friend  (I’ll call him Urkel, though Mr. Different Strokes might be more suitable) sometimes agitates me. And although our occasional conversations are usually congenial, discussions about racial issues are a hot potato that we often toss back and forth, disagreeing and sometimes being disagreeable until we abruptly drop the subject.

I’ve known Urkel for a while, and he told me he usually doesn’t discuss racial issues with black people even when asked his opinion because it often leads to a nasty argument. He considers that topic, along with religion and politics, off limits. Frankly, I wonder if he was born with (or sometime during his life developed) a black gene deficiency because, contrary to what some people reading this might think, he is a black man. His deep walnut complexion and vernacular would not allow him to pass for white if he wanted to. Based on our conversations, and though he has never admitted it, I think he wishes he could pass. His self-loathing is apparent, but not to him.

He has a distorted tendency to fault the black man for most of his problems. For instance, we’ve had heated debates over race-related events, including the murders of George Floyd, Philando Castile, and the “alledged” suicide of Sanda Bland. Aside from his warped view of reality, Urkel is kind and level-headed. 

(Sorry about that, Urkel. I couldn’t stifle the laugh.)

Although honest communication is critical to understanding another person’s perspective, sometimes one can’t help but wonder if the person they are conversing with is not only uninformed and misinformed but blind, deaf, and dumb. Or perhaps they live in an alternate universe.

Regarding Urkel’s question about why I read race into everything, I told him it’s not true. However, the past is always present; I call it as I see it. In the riverfront dock incident, this armchair quarter-back saw a white man charging and assaulting a black man because his pride would not let him be seen as subservient by adhering to the directive of a black man.

And at the risk of sounding condescending, I’ll add that I have an amicable relationship with non-racist white friends throughout the country whom I’ve known and cared about for years.

I don’t condone violence, but black people are sick and tired of being disrespected. We are not our ancestors. I think activist groups like Black Lives Matter have clarified that. The men who came to the rescue of the dock captain, including the guy who jumped off the boat and swam to the dock, embody the words of Maya Angelo, “I am the hope and the dream of the slave.”

Despite how often the media, TV programs, and movies portray black people, many of us are not violent. Many friends and acquaintances have told me their parents raised them as I was raised:  you don’t start a fight, but you don’t run away from one. When I was a child, if I ran inside my home after getting into a fist-swinging scuffle with one of the kids in the hood (usually girls, but sometimes boys), my mother would send me right back out there. Her attitude was the only way to stop a bully was to stand up to her (or him), and mother was right. Unfortunately, too many bullies today are cowards. They eschew a fistfight. Instead, they’ll go home, get a gun, and come back and shoot you.

If the dock captain (identified in a CNN article as Damien Pickett) had been white, would the aggressor (Richard Roberts) have reacted the same way toward him? I doubt it. Roberts may have been a new “kid” on the dock, but he refused several times when Pickett asked him to move his pontoon boat. In his rage, Roberts didn’t see red; he saw black and went after Pickett. And then backup came by land and sea to aid Pickett. One man swung a chair. Rapper Gmac Cash even wrote a song about the incident.

To the amusement of Wakanda fans, MSNBC host Joy Reed humorously wrote, “I’m gonna tell my grandkids this was Black Panther and the Avengers.”

I’ll tell mine that when Roberts started the brawl, if he didn’t know then, he knows now that homies don’t play that.

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To Have and To Hold—or Not

by on ·Friends and Lovers, General, Humor

I have an issue with words that seem inappropriate for a situation or a person. Take the word boyfriend. I don’t think a man older than thirty should be called a “boyfriend.”

Fellows, admit it, if you’re having a mid-life crisis in your fifties, if you’re in your sixties and your gait has gone from a swagger to a shuffle, or if you’re baby-stepping at three-quarter years from a hundred, you are too old, let me restate that – too mature, to be called a boyfriend. As I see it, the word boyfriend isn’t a good fit for a grown a** man.

My male companion and I have been together for over two decades, and I refuse to refer to him as my boyfriend. It also bothers me when I hear other women refer to a grown man as a boyfriend. As I understand it, the word has been used to describe a male suitor since the 19th century, and some folks will think I’m being silly, but something about the “boy” part of that word bothers me. Maybe it is because I am always mindful of history, and the prefix in “boyfriend” was once a derogatory insult. That’s just one of my quirks.

Nevertheless, I use more appropriate words for my main squeeze. I refer to him by any number of other affectionate terms: my SO (significant other), my Boo, or my long-time companion, except when I’m angry with him, then he is a PITA. I’ll leave it to readers to decipher the acronym. Choose any four words you like, but here are clues if decoding is too stressful for you: Clue 1 – PITA isn’t any more gender-specific than SO or Boo. It could apply to a male or female. Clue 2 – I’m not talking about bread. Final clue – think, the rear-end of a donkey. If you guessed what PITA stands for, then you must have used the term. LOL

While using the word boyfriend is awkward, I have no problem referring to my female buddies as girlfriends. We frequently refer to each other as girl or girlfriend. We’ll say, “Girl, guess what I bought today” or “Girlfriend, you’ve got to see the new Ibris Elba movie. That man is finer than gourmet wine.”

Back to discussing SOs, sometimes, when asked if I plan to remarry, I firmly reply No. No. And No. (Although hardly anyone who knows me asks anymore.). Once was enough. My Boo and I will merely ride this union until the wheels fall off or until death do us part (Um, that’s kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it?).

Just as I know more people who are dead than alive, I know more previously married people than couples still living together in wedded bliss. I’m not counting pairs who are unhappily married but remain together for convenience or to adhere to biblical laws, nor am I including those doing it the second time. For some married couples, the second time around is the charm. That’s all well and good—more power to you. But a second marriage is not on my wish list, my things to do before I kick the bucket list, or in my head.

Since I’ve long passed the age of young girls with a heart-shaped-eyes fantasy of marriage, I can now clearly see that union without rose-colored glasses and have a learned insight about marriage.

Looking back, I feel that traditional marriages were ill-fated from the start. (Let me be clear before anyone gets wind in their jaws.) I’m talking about back in the day. I’m not talking about the Millennials, Zs, and subsequent generations, who may never marry for whatever reasons, or they’ll choose to have an anything-goes, let it all hang out, boogie down the aisle half-naked, write your vows, or dispense with vows altogether, and do your own thing contemporary wedding.

As I was saying, sometimes I think marriages back in the day were predestined not to last. Why? You ask. I’ll tell you what I remember. (I know that right now, someone reading this probably wants to smear a piece of wedding cake in my face, but hear me out.)

The separation begins even before the bride walks down the aisle. The ushers greet guests at the church door as they arrive, ask if they are friends of the bride or groom, and then seats them on the appropriate side. That prepares friends and relatives to choose sides before the ink is dry on the license.

And how often is it that when the priest asks, “If anyone objects to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace,” does one of the bride’s exes (or one of the groom’s) bite their tongue to keep from shouting, “Hell yeah! I do.” That unanticipated outburst preceding the “I do” from the bride and groom renders everything null and void. (Side note: Although I invited him, my ex refused to come to my wedding because he told me he’d do just that if he did. And although he was as mild-mannered as Clark Kent, I believed him. Years later, after we reunited and discussed what might have been, he reminded me that he would have stopped the ceremony. Unfortunately, he died before I met my current Boo.)

Something occured on my wedding day that some would say was a bad omen.

It was June 8, 1968. My future husband was almost late for our wedding. He had caught an early train that morning and was traveling to D.C. from his hometown in New York on the day of our nuptials. I was at my parents’ house getting dressed. Other folks there, especially my Uncle Henry, were all hustling and bustling around, getting things ready for the small reception to follow the ceremony. It was very close to the time for us to be at the church, and no one had seen or heard from my betrothed. Everyone was wondering (some out loud) if he would make it to the church on time or if he decided to be a runaway groom.

His delayed arrival coincided with a brief episode in history. My fiancé just happened to be on the same train that was arriving from New York’s Penn Station to bring the body of Senator Bobby Kennedy to D.C.’s Union Station. Sadly, the senator had been slain at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, three days earlier, and his body was being brought to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. [To read about that funeral train, click here.]

Unfortunately, (Did I say, unfortunately?) I meant to say, fortunately (LOL) for my groom and me, the train and the groom arrived on time, and the wedding went on as scheduled. We divorced two babies, and a few years later.

I’ve learned many things during my journey through life. Two are essential:  the road is easier to travel if one keeps a sense of humor, and stuff happens for better or worse, depending on how you receive it.

Epilogue:  When I married, a license cost $2.00. Today it cost $45. And a divorce still costs a small fortune.

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Reflecting on Juneteenth the Day After

by on ·Juneteenth, Lifestyle and Culture

Yesterday was Juneteenth, and my cousin, Velda, phoned me to share her memorable “Juneteenth” experience.

Many cities, including the District of Columbia, have celebrated Juneteenth for several years. Still, yesterday was the second Juneteenth federal holiday since President Biden signed a bill declaring it so two years ago.

I will stretch my optimism here by saying that many black people know what Juneteenth commemorates. Informed white folks do, too. But for my readers who don’t know the history of Juneteenth, here is a mini-lesson:  After slavery was abolished in January of 1863, many enslaved people in the South – Texas particularly – didn’t learn that they were free until June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Thus, numerous black Americans celebrate Juneteenth, the oldest nationally renowned commemoration of slavery in the United States, as our Independence Day.

So, Velda said that she was in a store yesterday, walking along an aisle, minding her own business, and proudly wearing her commemorative Juneteenth tee shirt. (Not the shirt pictured above.) At one point, she passed a young white girl, who my cousin guessed was in her early twenties. The 20-something girl looked at my cousin, noticed the colorful Juneteenth tee shirt she was wearing, and said (wait for it) – enthusiastically, “Happy Juneteenth.”

Velda, pleasantly surprised, said, “Thank you.” And they both smiled and went their way. Because we often think alike, my cousin was eager to share her experience with me, and we both agreed it was an interesting, unexpected, and yet promising event. I think it also made a difference because her interaction was with an open-minded young person, not some set-in-their-way MAGA cult member, young or old.

Some unbiased (and naïve) people reading this will think, So what. It’s no big deal. Ordinarily, my cousin and I  might not think so, except that the interaction occurred in the traditionally red state of North Carolina, where she lives. And we know that the unscrupulous 45th president has raised the heat beneath the pot of racial tension from simmering to boiling over, north to south (mainly south). Therefore, as black people, we are wary when encountering an unfamiliar white person because we can only guess whether our chance interaction will produce a warm, pleasant greeting or a tense, icy stare-down.

According to Yahoo! News, James E. Causey wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “While Juneteenth is a celebration, it is also a day of paying homage to the ancestors who lost their lives while shackled, chained, and stacked on top of one another in slave ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean.”

In addition, Mr. Causey’s column addressed a recent controversy in Greenville, South Carolina, concerning a Juneteenth ad featuring a white couple on an advertising banner promoting the holiday. According to his article, many black people feel the white couple should never have been the face of an African American event. As with most controversial topics, that’s debatable.

Nevertheless, people of all races should celebrate Juneteenth. Then maybe cousins or anyone else won’t feel surprised when a person of a different race wishes them, “Happy Juneteenth!”

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