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

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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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Living in America: An Average Citizen Vents

by on ·Law and Order, Opinion, Politics

The following post was written by a Guest Author, Anonymous

Bear with me while I vent. Several hours ago, while listening to Keith Olbermann’s latest podcast (Countdown with Keith Olbermann), I fully realized the appalling potential danger the 45th president created for this country when he took classified documents from the White House.

If you are like me, you’ll feel stunned and outraged after listening to Olbermann’s take on how one depraved and treacherous moron may have set America on a path to subjugation or eventual destruction.

Consider how enemies of the U.S. have worked long and hard to infiltrate and access this country’s most profound, crucial secrets by hook or crook. And then think about the authoritarian wannabe treating the secrets as nothing less than copyrighted recipes that he could use for profit or to gain influence. Of course, his blatant disregard for democracy and this country is nothing new.

Numerous people who could have done something to prevent this national tragedy but did nothing must shoulder the blame. The list of the guilty is lengthy. If Merrick Garland had been forthcoming, he could have exposed the dilemma early on. Mueller, too was deferential. Even Obama could have brought 45 to court for defaming him with false wiretapping allegations. Anyone of them might have prevented what has become a national tragedy. Being submissive to people you know to operate on an entirely malignant, evil, self-serving path is morally costly and reckless. Perhaps it would have created bedlam if any of those who might have taken steps to prevent the tragic results had stepped up, but it also would have shown 45 that America and Americans of good conscious won’t tolerate his nonsense. So, the perpetrator pursued his mission, and it has come to this.

How many people do you suppose have been hired at Mar-a-Lago since 45 was in office and following his defeat? How many housekeepers? How many gardeners, cooks, cleaners, pool boys, janitors? You don’t think Russia, North Korea, or Saudi Arabia is smart enough to assign someone to infiltrate that place? It doesn’t seem unreasonable when you consider some of the sinister, underhanded stuff some of these countries have done in the past. Does it?

This country may never know the extent of the damage done until it’s too late to do anything about it. That’s what’s so creepy and so unforgivable about this situation. What a betrayal. And what an unforced error for those who may have prevented it.

America’s obeisance and submission to the wealthy, privileged whites, and powerful, especially when they espouse an ideology of supremacy and hierarchy, may become this country’s downfall. If the U.S. survives this trial by fire, the government must redouble efforts to make this country dedicated to equality, truth, and justice for all and stop allowing the wealthy and well-connected to play on a different stage.

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451 Degrees Fahrenheit

by on ·Book Lovers, Opinion

Now and then, I do what I call a book dump. I’m exaggerating; I don’t throw away books; my conscience won’t let me do that. Instead, when I feel like I’m about to be buried beneath my books, I donate them to a charitable organization or give them to someone I know who enjoys reading as much as I do. A few years ago, I packed up three cardboard boxes of old books I had finished reading and gave them to a close friend. It was a painful but necessary act of generosity. I felt like I was bidding farewell to loved ones, but I had no choice but to downsize. My overfull bookcases, some closet shelves, and even one drawer on the nightstand were demanding space.

Now that I think of it, there was one time when I did dump books. It happened decades ago and was sort of a grand finale to my marriage breakup.

When my spouse and I called it quits, my kids and I remained in the beautiful, high-rise apartment we had moved into a year earlier. I loved our apartment. We decorated it meticulously. When my spouse left, in addition to his clothing, he took the only other inanimate objects he valued most:  his tall conga drum and an assortment of Last Poets and Nancy Wilson albums, but he left his books. Even before we married, he, like I, had been an avid reader, so together, we brought around 200 hardcover and paperback books into the marriage. Some of mine were first editions.

A few months after we split, I knew I couldn’t stay there. When I threatened to leave all of the furniture behind if he didn’t come and get it, he relented to my request, arrived with a U-Haul van, and took the plush sectional sofa, the large fish aquarian, the floor model stereo, and the few pieces of African Art hanging on the walls, but he left his books.

Judgment and speculations abounded among friends and relatives about why the breakup occurred. “You two seemed so happy,” a couple of close friends told me. I won’t engage in fault-finding. The fact is, we were both – as the saying goes – young and dumb when we married. I suspect that had we been more mature; we might have handled things differently. But that’s irrelevant.

On the last day, as I was preparing to leave the apartment, I dragged the three green trash bags I had filled with books into the living room and dumped the lot of them, one on top of the other, on the floor in the center of the room. I stared at the mound for a few minutes contemplating whether I should go through them and bring some favorites, but I couldn’t. My emotions were still raw over the whole hot mess. So, I hoisted my baby girl into my arms, took my two-year-old son’s hand, rode the elevator to the ground floor, dropped the keys off in the building manager’s office, and walked into the next chapter of my life.

Although it has been decades since then, I regret leaving that treasure trove of books behind. The Valley of the Dolls, Native Son, In Cold Blood, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Feminine Mystique, Black Like Me, The Learning Tree, Jubilee, Manchild in the Promised Land, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (a signed copy, gifted to me by my Aunt Sarah), and my spouse’s books including his collection by Iceberg Slim. I have since replaced some of my books because I want them in my library.

I am not exaggerating nor bragging when I say that I’ve given away hundreds of dollars of books after reading them in recent years. I’m a voracious reader (or a borderline book hoarder). Usually, I’ll read two or three books simultaneously. Nowadays, in addition to paper publications, I have digital and audible books consuming space on my Kindle and iPod.

The more I hear reports about book banning, the more I feel called to action. I imagine myself lacing up my sneakers, pulling one of my quasi-activist caps on my head, constructing a crude sign reading, “Stop Banning Books, Fools,” and then joining other advocates in a public protest. Perhaps it will be held at one of the most utilized rallying sites in the city, Lafayette Square, in front of the White House.

I know book banning isn’t new. It’s been around for centuries, and the uninformed contemporary book banners will likely continue their efforts to have certain books removed from schools and libraries until they grow tired of the fight or educate themselves. In the meantime, they can bet their MAGA caps and bloomers that if their child of a certain age wants to read a particular book, that child will find a way. Rebellion and resourcefulness are second nature for young people.

What are the proponents of the book banning afraid of? I suspect the fact that knowledge is power frightens them. So they try to boost their position based on moral, religious, and political grounds. Books about the LGBTQ community, books containing references to sex and sexuality, rape, abortion, racism, the black experience, and especially slavery, fuel their fire of forbiddance.

Speaking of fire, I think it’s ironic that 451 Fahrenheit is included on some banned books lists. And I suspect contemporary book censurers have an agenda similar to the cast of characters in 451 Fahrenheit:  Suppress minds, hide the truth, and erase history. How sad.

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Reflecting on the Dark Side

by on ·Black Lives, BLM, Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion

 Co-written with David White

My cousin, David, is a deep thinker, much more so than I am. I often marvel at his insight and what I see as his skill at analyzing situations. He is also very modest, so I’m sure he will admonish me for gushing over him in this post. But I call it as I see it. In addition to many things my cousin and I have in common, our intense dislike for small talk and delight in engaging in stimulating conversations often lead us into deep discussions, usually about politics and social issues. And since at least one (moi – and perhaps both) of us dislikes marathon phone conversations, we primarily correspond via email.

Yesterday, inadvertently, on the eve of Black History month, our topic was the Tyre Nichols tragedy. I did not watch and have no plans to watch the infamous video. Whenever a newscast predictively includes a portion of the videos, I change the channel or mute the TV and look away. I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT. The whole situation has become a repeat of an ongoing practice that keeps many of us (black people) in a perpetual state of sorrow for the victims and their families. The needless killings keep repeating like reruns of old TV shows.

Copicide, as I call it, is a modern-day Shakespearean-type tragedy not made for TV. Here’s how I described the plot of the ongoing series on my FB page: “Unwarranted murder by cop. Heartbreak and outrage expressed by the family. Calls for justice by Crump and Sharpton. Protests by activists. Expressions of regret and condolences to the family by city officials. Calls for reform by those same officials and politicians. Hashtag, here we go again. Second verse same as the first.”

As he often does, my cousin impressed me when he laid out his perspective.

I could write a dissertation on my feelings regarding the Tyre Nichols situation. It is so painful. But humans who feel they are licensed to hierarchize human life on a scale of “more or less worthy of humane treatment ” leads to this – one of the reasons (among many) I’m against the death penalty. Once you deem someone else’s life worthy of less respect than you would give your own, it logically proceeds that things like this happen. It gives [carte-blanche, my two cents] the authority and power to act on those prejudices.

I didn’t watch all of the videos but [saw] enough to know what it was about … Everyone intuitively knows that if that young man had been white and every other circumstance were the same, there would have been a totally different outcome, if any incident at all. 

I worked at a prison, and I know how easy it is for people to be depersonalized and dehumanized. And, to get into the racial part … Eddie Glaude on MSNBC alluded to a Baldwin citation, which I can only attempt to paraphrase. [He said] that racism becomes a systemic way to view others, and blacks can easily assimilate that same racist attitude given the right conditions. It makes it much more painful because many black people are oblivious to how we have adapted and internalized the attitudes we ostensibly rebuke.

I will never forget how hurt and ashamed I felt while walking the historic campus grounds at the predominantly white University of North Carolina. I passed a large group of black students in front of the main library and heard one female approach another person (a male, I believe) and, with a smile, greet him with “Hey nigger.”

Keep in mind that scores of students (mostly white) were making their way to and from classes at that time. I wanted to find Star Trek’s Scottie and have him beam me to my dorm and erase the memory. I’m sure they [the black students] thought they were being hip, cool, and defiant by uttering such an offensive word, and in their mind, making it powerless or some mark of distinction. But I know what they were really saying is “You may be at a white school, you might be academically gifted, but I see you the same way a lot of these white folks see you.”

That’s the sentiment that comes to mind when I hear about [the Nichols tragedy].  

 I know I’m going to sound like an old fogey, but whenever I hear the N-word, it jangles me. I will never be comfortable with that word, and it pains me when I see young people blasting their music, and every other word in the song is N-word this and N-word that, and white and black [people in proximity] hear this. I feel [that those who use the N-word] have an [warped] idea about what racism is and what it is not. For example, some think that a particular effect, attitude, and worldview make you “black.” And if you don’t conform to [that way of thinking], then you’re not really black.

When I was in college, many students dropped a class if they didn’t see any other black students taking the course because they had assimilated the idea that there are certain places where they don’t “belong;” not because anyone overtly told them that but because they had been acculturated to believe it. That’s why [some people] can treat a black stranger entirely differently from a white stranger and not see how that is a form of racism.  

Not to throw fuel on an eternal flame, I’m piggybacking on David’s thoughts about the intricacy of racism and the angst it causes by adding one more thing. I did watch the video showing an intruder’s break-in at the home of now-former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When the door opened, the police saw a hefty-looking white guy grasping the arm of Peloski’s elderly husband with one hand while welding a hammer in his other hand, and the intruder still lives to talk about it. I’ll leave that right there.

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