M. Suzanne Terry

I’m finding it hard to think about anything else but the goings on in Ferguson, Missouri.

A friend posted on Facebook yesterday that his observation was that his conservative friends seem to be siding with the police, and his liberal friends seem to be siding with the victim and his family. That seems an accurate assessment of my Facebook and Twitter feeds as well.

I have little patience with the oversimplification of any issue to the point that it divides on party lines. I don’t blame anyone in particular (except maybe the general state of our country only having two major parties so maybe we should change that). I do uphold that justice should not be a liberal or conservative thing.  It should be an everyone thing.

When even the most conservative reports are indicating that the officer in question shot an unarmed man, I’m not sure how one spins that to make it debatable.  I’m not sure how a person says, “He shot him, even though he wasn’t armed, but…” There’s no “but” there.  I want to shake everyone who is trying to do so and yell, “What if that unarmed man were your son? What if it happened in your neighborhood?”

This may be cheesy, but I keep seeing Matthew McConaughey at the end of A Time To Kill as he described the brutalization of the defendant’s daughter, asking the jury to picture what happened to her. He ended his argument with, “Now imagine she’s white.”

Imagine Mike Brown was white.

But that’s just another problem.

Should we have to imagine that shooting an unarmed man – regardless of who he is or what he has done – is within a different demographic to be appalled by the event? Should his skin have to look more like mine, or his voice sound like my voice, or his address be next door to mine, in order for me to demand that his death be investigated and the officer be brought to trial?

The answer is no – hell, no – just in case you were confused by my phrasing it as a question.

I’m not suggesting that we convict without all the facts. I’m not suggesting that we blindly believe everything we hear (although I am personally inclined to believe people who are in Ferguson, taking pictures with their camera phones, posting firsthand accounts without having to run it through the filter of it being their job, which automatically spins it one way or another).  I’m not suggesting that we deprive the officer of due process (even though I understand the temptation to do so, as that’s exactly what he did to Mike Brown, according to even the most conservative reports of the event).

I am suggesting that we pay attention – that we never stop paying attention.

I suggest that we read things like this, even if they make us uncomfortable.

I am suggesting that we support people who have cause to press charges and people who have injustices to fight.

I am suggesting that we support them publicly by saying that we support them.

I am suggesting that we then put our money where our mouths are and support them financially so that justice can be for everyone, not just the people rich enough to buy it. Don’t know where to donate? Let me help you – The Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, and the NAACP.

I am suggesting that injustice is an everyone problem and that we should act like it is.

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It might be quiet here for a few days. I am watching what’s happening in Ferguson (yes, I’m even following hashtags on Facebook and Twitter – it seems I don’t hate hashtags this week). I don’t know what is going on, but I do know that unless all of us are equal, none of us are free.

Lord, have mercy.

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Okay, two things regarding the SCOTUS decision, then I’ll get back to talking about food, coffee, and the ridiculous amount of possessions I have shoved into my tiny, tiny apartment.

First, since I still don’t have nice words, I am going to direct you to someone else. This article sums up my disappointment nicely. The only time I ever took medicine traditionally used for contraceptive purposes, it was not for contraceptive purposes.  I had abnormally large cysts on my ovaries that exploded every month.  They were not cancerous, but every month they just kept getting bigger. And exploding.  The last month it happened, I landed in the emergency room because we thought something vital had ruptured. The impact so distressed the inner workings of my abdomen that I was on a mostly liquid diet (on good days, I could keep down vegetable soup) for six months. My doctor prescribed a hormone therapy drug because it regulated the hormone imbalance that was causing the abnormal growth. It probably saved my life.  This decision denies that life-saving opportunity to others. I take this personally because it is personal to me.

(I could also make the argument that birth control used as birth control is also life-affirming and life-saving, but I won’t. Oops.  Guess I just did.  But you can pretend you didn’t see this, if it makes you feel better.)

Second, this is a minor annoyance, but still…I’m annoyed that we keep referring to the money the company pays to insurance as the company’s money.  Frankly, I’m shocked that my highly conservative Facebook feed is doing so, given their usual proclivity to jump on the get-out-of-my-pocketbook train. This is a not a case of a company using its resources to engage in unethical practices (like sweatshop labor, for example. But if it were such a case…*cue pointed glance*…but I digress).  This is not a case of a company using its resources to encourage certain behavior. This is not a case of a company using its resources for anything. Dear Hobby Lobby, when someone works for you, the money you pay in insurance?  THE EMPLOYEE’S MONEY.  Not yours.  THEIRS.  Payment – in the form of benefits, sure, but part of the compensation package all the same – that they EARNED by working for you.  You know how you can tell it’s theirs?  If you would stop providing it when they stop working for you, it falls in the category of payment for services rendered.  It’s theirs. No corporation – regardless of their tax status – should have any more right to tell employees what to do with their benefits than they do to tell employees what to do with their paycheck.

Okay.  We now return to our regular programming.

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I have three posts to write – a Getting It Together plan, a GIT recipe, and What I’m Into – but I don’t think I can say anything nice about anything today.

Hobby Lobby, we have been having issues for a while now.  But as of today, we’re done.

SCOTUS, you’re on my list, too.

Get ’em, Ginsberg (scroll to page 60 for the dissent).

If you need me, I’ll be avoiding my conservative Facebook feed and pinning comfort food recipes and pictures of cute animals on Pinterest.

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I’ve been avoiding social media this week because of the Duck Dynasty fiasco.  It’s not because I harbor any ill will against Phil Robertson.  I generally find him amusing (or at least I did, before reading his unsettling remarks about how he could tell the slaves were happy because they were singing…that gives me considerable pause), and I have watched and enjoyed the show.  I mean, I have absolutely zero need for duck calls or any hunting-related paraphernalia in my life, but the show is entertaining, for what it is.

I’m not even shocked by his statements.  For a white man his age who grew up and has lived his whole life in the South, those are unfortunately not unusual opinions.  Horrible and wrong, sure.  But not unusual.  In order to despise him, I would have to despise most of the elderly people I know, and I’m not prepared to do that.

What, then, irks me beyond my tolerance threshold when situations like this arise?  Seeing statements such as this – “I guess A&E doesn’t believe in freedom of speech.”- in my Facebook feed.

*sigh*

Once again, the Internet has been faithful to reveal the piss-poor state of our educational system by throwing out hot button phrases such as “freedom of speech” and “violation of rights” in order to rile people up without going to the bothersome trouble of learning what those freedoms actually entail and what those rights actually are.

So let’s discuss what the First Amendment says about your freedom of speech.

The First Amendment, truncated for our purposes (but you can read the whole thing here if you want) states, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”

That is the entirety of what the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees you as a citizen regarding freedom of speech.  With very few exceptions, you can say what you want to say, and it is not against the law.

It protects you from being arrested for simply speaking your mind.  That would be a violation of your rights.

It protects you from being imprisoned for what you say.  That would be a violation of your rights.

It protects you from the law – that is, the government – not from private entities such as individual citizens or, say, a television network.

It protects you from legal ramifications.  I suppose, of course, that a person or company could sue you, but, provided that what you said cannot be proven to be libel or slander (examples of those exceptions I mentioned), they would not win unless you have a stunningly crapulous attorney and an idiot judge, because for them to win such a case would be a violation of your rights.

Now let’s discuss some things from which it does not protect you.

It does not protect you from people disagreeing with you and saying so.  That’s just other people exercising their freedom of speech.

It does not protect you from criticism.  Again, that’s just other people having the same rights as you do.

It does not protect you from a professor throwing you out of class when you say something disrespectful or otherwise inappropriate, and the professor gets to decide what is appropriate and what is not, because the professor is the one who is held responsible for what happens in his or her classroom.

And finally, it does not protect you from being reprimanded, suspended, or even fired when you say something that opposes the values of your employer, especially if you, knowing that your values differ, are dumb enough to say it at work, in a highly public forum (for example, an interview to which you were invited specifically because of your job), or while being recorded and/or reported.  That is not a violation of your rights.  That is your employer being true to the values to which they have committed, regardless of what it might cost them in terms of viewers or money.That is your employer exhibiting integrity, and their response to your behavior is called consequence, not persecution.

It could be argued that speaking one’s religious convictions is worth whatever consequences it might bring.  That is a generous way to look at this situation.  This cynic has questions, though.  If one’s convictions on an issue are really so strong, would one work for an organization that not only blatantly disagrees with those convictions but also actively asserts its opposition to them?  If one is truly concerned with taking a stand, can one still in good conscience take a paycheck from said organization?  If the answer to either of these questions is yes, in word or deed, I have a hard time believing the conviction is real.  I find it more likely that the so-called conviction is really more of a publicity stunt or an offhand, thoughtless comment.  It makes it look more like he was just trying to use his privilege (because being famous and being paid to say things on TV and to reporters are indeed privileges, not rights) to promote his platform, and it backfired.

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So, a lot of people have used “literally” wrong.  They will say “literally” when they actually mean “figuratively.”  So many people have done this that dictionary.com includes this caveat in their definition of literally [my commentary in brackets, because I just can’t help myself]:

“Usage note: Since the early 20th century, literally has been widely used as an intensifier meaning “in effect; virtually,” a sense that contradicts the earlier meaning ‘actually, without exaggeration’: The senator was literally buried alive in the Iowa primaries.  The parties were literally trading horses in an effort to reach a compromise.  The use is often criticized [*ahem*]; nevertheless, it appears in all but the most carefully edited [read: literate] writing.”

This is annoying to me.

But it’s not nearly as annoying as the disturbing trend, seen mostly on Twitter, of saying, “What the actual fuck…”

Do they mean that?  Do they REALLY?  Because what I imagine when they say/tweet this is an unfortunate scenario where they were just walking along, minding their own business, when BAM – people suddenly copulating right there on the ground in front of them.

Because that’s what “actual” means, kids.  That whatever follows is literally (the traditional usage) what happened.

I mean, if it is what actually happened, then by all means, report that shit (figurative).  If something like spontaneous public sex happens right in front of you, all of Twitter needs to hear about it, because that is indeed remarkable and the exact sort of thing for which Twitter was created.

But let’s stop saying “actual” and “literally” when we mean the opposite. Let’s talk/tweet like we actually know the language.

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