Kelly Poe Wilson

It’s been a while since I wrote in this space. That’s because the last time I wrote here I wrote about violence against women, and the response to that was so underwhelming it sort of took the wind out of my sails.

Since then I have come to understand that that response was probably more about algorithms than actual interest, but even if it wasn’t, and there was no actual interest in the subject, here I am writing about it again anyway. Because I realized that if there really is a lack of interest then that just means that writing about now it is more vital than ever.

Of course, at the moment there is plenty of interest, thanks to the case of Gabby Petito. I’m going to leave aside for the moment the issue of why there is so much interest in this one case, when literally thousands of cases of MMIW (missing and murdered indigenous women) go uninvestigated every year. There are entire books that have been written about why we care more about people who look like us (or, in the case someone as beautiful as Gabby, look like someone we want to look like)—a few dozen lines here will not in any way add to that body of work. Instead, I’m going to be grateful that for whatever reason, for this brief moment in time, we are having a national conversation about violence against women at all—even if it is only about violence against pretty white girls.

Because despite the fact that the national news media only seems to discover this issue every three years or so, the truth is that it is endemic. And it is actually a problem that affects everyone—even minority groups, like men (it’s true: women hold a slight population lead over men in the United States—100 women for every 97 men, according to the 2010 census). The truth is, that although violence against an individual is one of the most personal—the most intimate—of acts, it is also a matter of public health. Because the effects of the violence never end with that one person. Consider a recent incident in Florida:

Although it has already passed from the headlines, a few weeks ago two young Florida boys were arrested for planning an attack on their middle school—a serious, long-considered plan. In the aftermath of their arrest it was revealed that in the years prior to this the police had been called out to intervene at their respective homes an astonishing eighty times.

Eighty times. And though the reasons for those calls weren’t listed, no one can look at those numbers and not realize that a majority of those calls were most likely about violence within the home—probably violence against their mothers. (Yes, it is possible that their mothers were the sole perpetrators—possible, but statistically highly unlikely.)

If the plan they concocted hadn’t been stopped, then the violence those two boys had experienced in their lives would have spilled over onto every child at their school. And from there it would have been carried to every child’s home like a virus, rippling out into the community and the world. And for a few more days, there would have been some interest.

But likely not action.

Because action requires paying attention for more than just a few news cycles every few months. It requires realizing that women are not a niche, and that violence against women is not a niche issue. At the very least, it involves simple things like urging our representatives to renew the Violence Against Women Act.

The VAWA is currently stalled in the senate, where, considering that it only passed the house because of the Democratic majority (a depressing 172 Republicans voted against it) it faces an uphill battle getting approved. Which means it’s time once again to call our senators. Or rather, in the case of those of us here in Arizona, to call Kyrsten Sinema, (who has not really done enough to be worthy of the title of Senator). If you’re like me, you have probably called her office so often in the last year that you have her number saved. But just in case, her number is (202) 224-4521. Let her know that you care about violence against women every day, not just every few years. And that you want her to do her duty and work to get the VAWA renewed by whatever means necessary (up to and including filibuster reform).

Because we all deserve to live in a world without violence. No matter what algorithm you use.

When was the last time a partner choked you during sex? When was the last time you choked someone else?

If you are over 40, like me, then this is probably a strange question. If you are under 40, it is, unfortunately, not. This is because upwards of 40% of women age 18-29 report being choked during sex; among teenagers who are sexually active, 13% of girls 14-17 report already having experienced choking.

Note that I say “women and girls,” and not “people.” This is because choking is not only on the rise, it as also highly gendered: in a review of 300 forensic records involving strangulation in San Diego, 298 of the cases involved women being choked by their male partners.

I can hear the eyes rolling now. “Don’t be such a prude. Just because your generation is completely vanilla doesn’t mean our generation doesn’t enjoy a bit of kink. Lighten up.” Except that kink involves explicit consent, and many women report being “surprised” by their partner initiating choking in the middle of sex. Besides, consent is only the bare minimum when it comes to kink: the full definition includes not only negotiation beforehand, but also verbal and non-verbal signals to stop during the act, and finally, complete aftercare once the scene has ended, including open discussions about what worked and what didn’t. Anything less than that is not kink: it is abuse.

And yet, even with all those steps in place, choking is still a murky issue. How can a partner truly consent when the organ responsible for consent (the brain) is being compromised? If we don’t accept that women who are drunk or drugged can consent (newsflash: we don’t), then why do we accept that they can consent when their brain is being deprived of oxygen? Especially when some of the side effects of oxygen deprivation involve amnesia, agnosia (loss of initiative), and submission? In the Red Wing study of 1943, which studied the effects of strangulation on prisoners and servicemen (oh, the 40s—such a simpler, ethicsless time), consciousness (and therefore the ability to consent) was lost in as quickly as 4 seconds. Not only that, but when the lead researcher attempted to strangle himself, using a machine with an “escape button” (again, wtf), he reported “forgetting that the button was there” after only a few seconds of being strangled.

We can only assume that some long-suffering assistant got the aforementioned researcher out, since he lived to tell his tale. Others are not so lucky: in the UK last year alone approximately one woman a week was strangled to death by her partner. And this number only includes the women who died immediately: because injured brain cells can take up to two weeks to die, strangulation is thought to be the second leading cause of stroke for women under 40.

So why is this happening? Mostly because we have stopped talking about sex. Even though we are still having just as much of it. Comprehensive sex education has been stricken from most school curriculims by state legislatures who have convinced themselves that if we ignore teen’s questions about sex then the questions will just go away. But questions will always search for answers—and in this case, the answer they have found is porn.

Don’t get me wrong. Pornography, in and of itself, is not the problem here. The problem is in using porn as a substitute for sex education. Because in the same way that watching Gordon Ramsay on television doesn’t give you a real inkling of what working inside a commercial kitchen is like, but is instead a “gag reel” of greatest disasters, watching sex in a porno doesn’t tell you what actual sex is really like—it is also a “gag reel” of sexual extremes, but this time with actual gagging. The big difference is that acting like Gordon Ramsay will probably just get you fired—acting like the (trained and supervised) lead in a porno can get you charged with murder.

So what’s the solution? Well, let’s start with the presumption that the people we are having sex with don’t want to hurt us, and don’t want to be hurt in return. (I’m not discounting the very real fact that strangulation is a huge red flag for future risk of being murdered by your partner. I’m just setting it aside for the purposes of this discussion.) If we truly don’t want to hurt our partners, we will talk to them. And if we truly don’t want our children to hurt or be hurt by their partners, then we will talk to them as well. And talk to our schools and legislatures about having the conversation too—not because it is the school’s job to teach our children about sex, but because the more places they hear the truth the more likely it is to sink in.

So pour yourself a stiff shot of whatever courage you prefer, and ask your sons if they have ever choked their partner. Ask your daughters if they have ever been choked. Chances are they won’t walk to talk about it with you—at all. Don’t let the conversation end there—keep pushing. And if all else fails, use the word they seem to fear the most when it comes to sex. Tell them that not wanting to talk about consent—informed consent, which you are only trying to provide the information part of—well, that is the most vanilla thing of all.

Last month, self-avowed “conservative” Arizona Representative Walter Blackman (AZLD6) introduced House Bill 2650, a bill that would require both women and their doctors to be charged with homicide for receiving or providing the health care service commonly known as abortion. They would be charged with this crime regardless of any state, local or even national laws that expressly made this procedure legal.

Needless to say, I have questions. The first one being this: when are Barry Goldwater and John McCain going to come back from the dead long enough to kick this guy’s ass? Because here’s the thing: I’ve lived in Arizona long enough to remember when being a conservative actually meant having conservative values, instead of just being a convenient way to keep all of your voter deplorables in the same basket.

Being an Arizona conservative in the late 20^th century meant making government as small as possible, in every way. The government didn’t ask you how many guns you had in your gun cabinet, but it also didn’t ask how many of your friends and neighbors you had in your bedroom. (This, unfortunately, also meant it didn’t ask how much food you had in your pantry.)

On the surface, Walt Blackman is exactly that type of conservative. On the issue of short-term vacation rentals, and the potential havoc they can cause in residential neighborhoods, he has said, “I am against state government being involved in matters such as these.” On the issue of water rights, an issue that has been vitally important to all Arizonans since before statehood, he has said “I am against private wells being metered.” On the issue of abortion, however, he has essentially said, “Hang ’em all.” Apparently, deciding who gets to stay in your house is government overreach, but deciding who gets to stay in your body is just fine.

I’d like to think that this is all an act: that deep down, underneath all of his malignant posturing, there is a man who recognizes how extreme his ideas are, and that while he may never by any stretch of the imagination ever be considered “pro choice,” is only putting forth laws such as these to rake in donations from people who spend the rest of their disposable income on things like buffalo horn headdresses and body paint.

That’s what I like to think, because, apparently, there is still one small spark of naivete left in my body.

The truth, unfortunately, is probably that even if this was once an act, it is now all too real. Blackman and all of his ilk have fallen for their own con: they have worn the tinfoil hat for so long they have started to believe it actually works. And in their defense, as far as donor magnets go, so far that seems to be true. And it will continue to be true until we stop allowing it.

Walt Blackman is my Representative, even though he in no way represents me and my beliefs. And I frequently call and email him to remind him of this, as do many of liberal friends. Arizona, however, is still a purple state,and what we need right now is for our conservative friends to do the same. We need to go back to a time when the difference between liberals and conservatives, between Democrats and Republicans, meant a difference in policy, not a difference in reality. To do that we are going to need to unite, at least temporarily, as the Sanity Party. (Yes, 75 million people voted for Donald Trump. No, 75 million people do not believe in Jewish Space Lasers.)

It’s time for the sane people of Arizona to come together. So round up your conservative friends and neighbors: call them up, or stand at the end of their driveway and talk to them on their porch, and remind them that this lunacy hurts their party just as much as it hurts ours. And then ask them to join you in once again making those calls and sending those emails. At least until the tinfoil hats come off again.

Contact Representative Blackman at his office, (602)-296-3043, or via email at wblackman@azleg.gov.

 

Of all the surprising things that 2020 has brought to us so far, number one has to be watching Mitch McConnell pushing to defund the police. I don’t know about you, but that was definitely not a square on my “2020 Apocalypse Bingo Card.”

I sense skepticism: are you skeptical about Mitch manning the barricades alongside BLM? Hear me out. But first, let’s talk about money.

State and city budgets are remarkably like the budgets you and I have to live with: when either one of us runs out of money, we have to stop spending it. (Unlike the Federal government, which can run at a deficit—and often does.) Also, just like with our own budgets, states and cities have two immediate actions they can take when they are confronted with an unbalanced budget: they can spend less, or they can earn more. When you or I are faced with the need to earn more we do things like pick up extra shifts or start driving Uber. When states and cities need to earn more, they raise taxes.

If for some reason we can’t (or won’t) take those steps (such as lack of time or taxpayer anger), we spend less. We stop going out to eat, we cancel HBO, we put off the next oil change. States and cities, however, don’t really have the same number of options. Things that many people might consider “luxuries” such as arts funding and highway beautification projects are typically funded through voter approved programs, meaning they can’t be halted until they are “unvoted.” Other expenses have been allocated through budgets that have needed to pass through multiple layers of public oversight, debate, and votes for approval, meaning those expenses would also require the same level of attention and time to undo.

That leaves discretionary spending. And one of the areas that are most dependent on discretionary spending? State and city services, like the highway patrol and the local police.

What this means is that as revenues (taxes) fall (and when people are staying home for nine months, revenues are most certainly falling), spending needs to fall as well. A recent survey of police chiefs around the nation shows that a majority of them have seen revenue shortfalls necessitating budget cuts of around 10-15 percent, with the promise of more on the way. Remember all of those scary attack ads featuring an unanswered 911 call in “Joe Biden’s America”? Well, they might have to be rewritten with the tagline of “Mitch McConnell’s America” instead.

This is because in all of the many different pandemic relief bills that have been put forward since the first one passed in March the one thing that has stayed constant is Mitch McConnell’s refusal to support states and cities. Enhanced unemployment is on the table for Mitch. So is a second round of checks, small business grants and loans, and school funding. Heck, he’s even said he’s willing to remove the liability shields protecting his corporate overlords. But he refuses to budge on helping out states and cities. In other words, he refuses to fund the police—a move that has made people on both sides of the defund the police debate equally unhappy, since the type of defunding McConnell is advocating is hectic and unplanned, and will most likely lead to the cutting of the services and hires who are most likely to help marginalized communities. Which, come to think about it, might be McConnell’s plan all along.

The bottom line is that if you support defunding the police, you should be actively working to strip McConnell of his senate majority. And if you don’t support defunding the police, then you should be doing the same. In fact, let’s make “Ditch Mitch” the center square on everyone’s “2021 No More Apocalypse Bingo Card.” Who knows? Maybe it will be the year we all experience winning again.

(Want to help dethrone Mitch McConnell? Go to one of the many organizations that are actively working to win the senate runoff in Georgia—such as fairfight.com—to donate and volunteer, and hopefully we will all be shouting Bingo! come January 5^th.)

 

This holiday season, in kitchens and Zoom rooms all around the country, there is one topic that will almost certainly be brought up over and over again: Forgiveness.

This would be true even without the looming threat of Coronavirus Christmas hanging over our heads; the last four years of acrimony and accusations have been exhausting, and many, if not all of us are eager for a chance to just have everything “go back to normal.” And for most people, “normal” means not being so damned angry all of the time. Or if not angry, then fearful and sad. Hence the national call to forgive. To move on. To start fresh. To let it go, even if there never is an actual “sorry.”

It sounds noble, doesn’t it? Taking the high road. The problem is, it’s never going to work if we are the only people up on the high road, and the people we are trying to forgive are still down in the ditch.

When you forgive people without them doing anything that makes them worthy of forgiveness you are not holding them accountable. You are keeping them comfortable, and as everyone knows, no one ever changes when they are comfortable.

I am thinking of what happened with the Wayne County Board of Canvassers. For those not familiar with the story, two of the board members initially refused to certify the election results. (In case you were wondering, this process is almost always a routine formality.) Unfortunately for them, the next meeting was public (on Zoom), and the resulting hours worth of public acrimony and disgust encouraged the two recalcitrant members to take the less incendiary route, and approve. As soon as the cameras were off, however, they attempted to rescind their votes.

While they were being held accountable for their actions (which included such egregiousness as actually suggesting that they only certify the results from the white areas of the county), they seemed to show the potential for change. As soon as the pressure was off, however, they relapsed.

Less immediately, and more terrifying, I am also thinking of what’s happening in Rwanda. Thanks to the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” even Americans are familiar with the massive genocide that occurred there in the 1990s, as well as the national Reconciliation Boards that followed. It was, everyone thought, a model for how to forgive. One that I am sure will be cited around holiday tables all over the country (it certainly was four years ago). But four years ago we didn’t know that even after Paul Rusesabagina (the man profiled in the movie) publicly forgave the president of Rwanda, he would one day be taken back to Rwanda against his will and arrested. (This happened three months ago—he is in jail still.)

Forgiveness is important. I get it—I recently celebrated my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and as someone once said, the secret of a long marriage is a union between two good forgivers. But even more important than forgiveness is communication—it is vital that both the forgiver understand what they are forgiving, and the recipient understand what they are being forgiven for, not to mention the fact that these two items need to be the same.

In a perfect world both parties come to realize the exact nature of the transgression, and agree wholeheartedly on the best way to make amends. In a more realistic world, both parties simply agree that “mistakes were made” and move on. In the “Groundhog Day” world we are currently living in, however, we ignore the underlying problems over and over again and repeat our mistakes every day (or every four years) until we hopefully one day learn our lessons and move on. In this instance, the lesson that needs to be learned is to not forgive people who haven’t made any effort to earn that forgiveness. No matter how uncomfortable that makes our family dinners.

I’m hoping that this year will be the year we finally learn that lesson. For all of our sakes.

 

It’s Friday night. If you’re like me, you probably got your mail-in ballot sometime in the last two days, and tonight is the first time you’ve really had a chance to sit down and look at it. Maybe you’ve dug through your stack of election mailers and are trying to decide how you are going to vote. Maybe you’re googling the propositions. Maybe you’re trying to figure out just exactly what a corporation commissioner does, anyway.

Or maybe you’re not. Maybe you just filled out the first two or three races—President, Senator, Representative—and called it good. Maybe you think the other races just don’t matter that much, or you’ve decided you’re going to vote your party all down the ticket, no matter what, and so when you get to the non-partisan races you haven’t a clue who to vote for, and it’s late, and you just want to finish this up so you can get your ballot in the mail, (or more realistically, the drop box), because this is a really important election, and it is really important that you get your vote in to be counted, like, now. And all of that is true. But I’m going to ask you to hold up for just a few minutes longer, because I need to talk to you about another election that is also really important.

I’m going to talk to you about the school board. Because, as important as the Presidential election is this year—and don’t get me wrong, it’s really, really important—I would argue that local elections—like school board—are just as important. Because it is our local elections that will determine what our neighborhoods look and feel like, and how our friends and neighbors are treated.

That’s why I am urging you to vote for Dorothy Denetsosie Gishie and Makaius Marks for school board this year.

The first, and arguably most important reason, is equity. Flagstaff Unified School District’s population is 27% Native American, and yet the school board is currently 0% Native. By electing Gishie and Marks we have an opportunity to have a school board that not only better represents the community they are serving, but one that is uniquely prepared to understand the challenges faced by all of our students and their families.

Beyond that very valid reason, however, is the fact that both candidates are highly qualified for the position. Gishie brings with her over thirty years of experience working as a counselor and administrator for local not for profit NACA (Native Americans for Community Action), and is a parent of both former and current students attending FUSD schools.

Marks, a recent graduate of Flagstaff High School, will bring to the board a much-needed student perspective: the four stakeholders in our public schools are the teachers and other staff, the parents, the community, and the students. We need to have all four of them represented, and Marks has shown his abilities as an outstanding leader both while attending Flagstaff High School and as a member of the Student Advisory Council to the school board while he was still a student.

When we cast our ballots on election day (or, more realistically this time around, in election month) we are not only choosing a particular person, we are choosing the community we want to live in. In no election is this so apparent as school board, where we are choosing the people who will be making decisions that affect the children who will be running our communities for the next fifty or so years. You think the Supreme Court is important because it’s a lifetime commitment? Try setting the standards for kindergarten—some of those decisions will impact generations.

We are incredibly lucky that this election we have the opportunity to vote for not one, but two individuals who are not only qualified to fill these seats on the school board, but can also help to bring in the balance that we have needed for many years. Vote for Gishie and Marks for school board. And then go get your ballot in that drop box—because this election is really important.

 

Midnight Sun, the latest book in the Twilight saga, is sitting on my nightstand at this very moment. It is in the top position on my “being read” pile, which is not to be confused with my “to be read” pile, which is much larger, and on the floor. To those of you who are waiting for the part where I add “I have a confession to make,” or “guilty pleasure,” I think I should tell you that you will be waiting a long time, because this isn’t a confession, and I don’t feel guilty: I was a huge Twilight fan.

I’ve always been a fangirl of some sort. When I was in middle school it was The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, and then in high school I was on to Dune. (Yes, I still know the Bene Gesserit’s Litany Against Fear by heart.) Later I could be found at midnight release parties for the latest Harry Potter, and most recently front and center whenever the newest movie in the MCU comes out. (The most terrible personal cost of the pandemic for me to date has been the delay in the release of the new Black Widow movie.)

So yeah. Huge nerd. Again, not a confession, just a fact. The thing is, though, that no one would ever expect me to “confess” to being a Harry Potter fan. They might chuckle indulgently, and tell me about their infatuation with The Lord of the Rings, but they wouldn’t seriously shame me for it. Same goes with my other obsessions: when I arrange my schedule so that I can be one of the first in (digital) line to buy Green Day or Die Antwoord tickets, that’s okay. A little over the top, but okay. When I do the same for Taylor Swift people roll their eyes.

So what’s the difference? Both Edward Cullen and Paul Muad’dib had that tortured teenage antihero thing on lock. Both TayTay and Billie Joe have been accused of throwing over their original fans for pop. And I have absolutely zero interest in debating—even in my own head—who is a “real” artist and who is not. Instead, I’d like to point out that above examples are just a few of the many ways in which our world constantly tries to devalue the things that girls love. Because that’s the real difference, isn’t it? Boys can like—and obsess over—things that are light on substance and depth (*cough, video games, sports, video games about sports, *cough) and we shrug our shoulders. Girls do the same and suddenly they are vapid and pathetic.

“Those who flock ’round…who scream themselves into hysteria, whose vacant faces flicker over the TV screen, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures.” (Paul Johnson, “New Statesman”)

This was written about the Beatles over fifty years ago, but it could have been written about One Direction fans last year.

So what, you may say. We’ve been making fun of teenage girls for generations. Big deal. And yet, it is a big deal. Studies of teenage boys and girls show that up until about age 12 there is no difference in the self-confidence of boys and girls—at age 12, however, girls’ self-confidence drops by 30%. And the percentage of girls who feel as if they are not allowed to fail? Up by 150%.

With the current state of things in the world, can we really afford to kneecap over half of our population before they even get out of the starting gate? How many brilliant minds have been stifled by being told they were “too silly” to be taken seriously? If we want teenage girls to become strong, capable, confident women (spoiler alert: we do), then we need to stop denigrating the things they love, simply because they love them.

An adolescent who is passionate about something—anything, really—has a much better chance at becoming a capable motivated adult than one who has had their passion shamed out of them. So maybe let’s give everyone—even teenage girls—the space to figure out what they are passionate about, without shame, without judgement. And then let’s get out of their way while they go out and fix the world that we have broken.

 

Carl Linnaeus is one of the most revered scientists of the past three hundred years not because of what he discovered, but because of what he did: he named things. In hindsight it seems obvious: how can we talk about something if we aren’t sure we’re all talking about the same thing? In the world of the physical sciences—botany and zoology, for example—this means giving specific enough names to specimens so that scientists don’t have to waste their time trying to figure out if they are all talking about the same plant or snail. In the world of the social sciences, this means giving behaviors a name so that social scientists can begin to understand which behaviors are usual, and which are deviant.

For a layperson such as myself, knowing that certain deviant behaviors are well known enough to be named has been both comforting and dismaying. Take “stealthing,” for example. When I first found out that the practice of surreptitiously removing a condom during intercourse had its own name there was a certain amount of relief that came with the knowledge that this practice was common enough to be studied. Not relief that is was happening, but relief that I wasn’t the only one who found this behavior to be deviant (and abhorrent).

Which brings me to the point of this column: dick-nosing. Dick-nosing is the practice of wearing one’s mask loosely slung underneath one’s nose, in the same way that someone might wear their underwear loosely slung underneath their dick. It is a practice that renders both items of apparel useless, foolish, and provocative (although, in the case of underwear, the wearer is—hopefully— trying to provoke a different reaction from their viewers than those who are doing it with their mask.)

I’d like to believe that I’m not the first person to come up with this name; that on the contrary people all over the world are looking at people with their very visible breathing apparatus hanging outside of a piece of material that has no other purpose than to cover up breathing apparatuses and thinking to themselves “ what a dick-noser.” In fact, I hope they’re shouting it at them from across the room, “Hey, dick-nose: put it away. We’ve all got one; no one’s impressed.”

Better yet, I hope that the fact that there is now a name for this phenomenon—this childishly stupid flouting of the rules, this “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you” nonsense—means that we are also that much closer to putting an end to it. Or at least to stigmatizing and legislating it away.

Before stealthing had a name it was much easier to pretend that the times it happened were accidents: “user errors” made by inexperienced partners. Once it was recognized as purposefully deviant behavior, however, it became impossible to call it anything but what it actually is: assault. (Sex without consent is assault, and if a person consents to sex only with the stipulation that a condom is used then it can easily be inferred that they are not consenting to sex without one.)

In much the same way it is my hope that by having a name for the practice of putting on a mask and then slipping out of it at the first opportunity we can stop pretending that the people who are doing it are just confused, or inept. (“Whoops! Oh darn, my mandatory mask slipped.”) We can, just like with the people who slip off a condom during sex, call them what they are. Selfish. Dangerous. Deviant. Criminal.

In other words: real dick-nosers.

(Edit—a quick search of the Urban Dictionary right before publishing this piece shows me as of last week “dick-nose” has been added. Carl Linnaeus would be so proud.)

 

Once upon a time I would wake up each morning and reach for my phone to check the day’s weather. (Heaven forbid I actually just looked out the window.) Sometime this year, however, that reflexive action changed, and instead of checking the weather I would wake up and check out the latest incident of police misconduct.

Without a doubt I liked the days I checked the weather much better, because while the weather can sometimes be disappointing, it is almost never appalling—in fact, no matter how disappointing the weather might be it has never once made me cry. Nor has it ever caused me to lay back down in defeat and ask the Universe/ether/empty room “why does this keep happening?” But then the other morning something changed, and as I read the latest report (one where police in Phoenix shot a mentally distraught person who was sitting in an immobilized car), something in the Universe/ether/empty room finally gave me an answer: it’s because they just can’t help themselves. And just like that Parent Mode was active again.

When you become a parent you see everything from the eyes of a parent. That baby that won’t stop screaming on the plane? Pre-parenthood my reaction was “somebody shut that kid up.” Post-parenthood my thoughts are more along the lines of “what’s wrong, and how can I help?” It’s a switch that just gets flipped. I’m not sure what it was about our current situation that suddenly switched my perspective from that of appalled citizen to compassionate parent—maybe just the sheer volume of incidents—but somehow during the last week or so I went from “somebody make them stop” to “how can we help them be better?” The ironic thing is that both attitudes still require the same solution: defund the police.

Frank Clarke once said that a child, like your stomach, does not require all we can afford to give it, and I would argue that the same is true when it comes to the police. There is enough, and then there is too much (or in the case of the police, too many). Too many surplus war toys, (the possession of which then needs to be justified by actions), too many officers responding en masse to situations that clearly only need to be contained until a qualified mental health professional can arrive on scene, and too many times when departments confuse “more” policing with “better.” The whole thing reminds me of an overstimulated child having a breakdown on Christmas morning, when the last thing that child needs in the middle of their tantrum is to be handed yet another toy. What they need instead is not more, but less, and while they will of course see that as a punishment it is nevertheless our jobs, as the caring parent, to endure their accusations of betrayal and stupidity and unfairness and calmly do the right thing. Because in that moment they cannot help themselves. So we must do it for them.

And look, I know that police officers are not children, they are grown ass men and women who make sometimes terrifying adult decisions with consequences that go well beyond pulling down the Christmas tree. And yet, as the people who hire and train them (and as taxpayers that’s exactly who we are), we are ultimately all responsible for the things they do. The problem of police brutality isn’t really a police problem at all: it’s a citizen problem, and asking the police to solve their own problems is like asking a child to fix their own behavior. We created this problem, through benign neglect and overt design, and we are the only ones who can fix it. And we fix it by defunding.

Again, this is not a punishment, although in the moment they will see it that way. It is, rather, a way for us to set them up for success, a way for us to help them become the best they can be. It is a way to allow professional first responders to do what they do best, and only that. Mental health first responders to deal with the mentally ill, medical first responders to deal with the injured, social service first responders to help people access social services, accident first responders to investigate the scene of fender benders, and yes, armed first responders for those (very few) incidents that require them. But if only 4% of police calls require a violent response, and 30% of calls require a mental health advocate (and statistics consistently show that those numbers are accurate), then we already have a clear blueprint for both how and why we should defund.

We just need the adults in the room (and make no mistake—that would be us) to do it.

 

Dear “All Lives Matter” folks:

Do you remember when you were a child and used to go on car trips with your family? You would be in the back seat with one or more of your siblings, and at some point, inevitably, they (or maybe you—let’s be honest here) would hold their hand millimeters in front of your face, and when you complained to your parent about it your sibling would then smirk and say, “What? I’m not touching you.”

The torment would usually end when one of two things happened. One, you would snap and push them—at which point they would howl with all of the indignation of an NBA player trying to elicit a foul—and your parent would threaten to pull the car over, or two, your parent would actually pull the car over before the situation escalated. In either scenario one thing was abundantly clear: somebody was about to lose their Gameboy.

When it comes to the BLM movement, let me also be very abundantly clear: if you are saying “All Lives Matter,” whether it is shouted out the side of your truck as you drive by protesters or typed in all caps as you fume on facebook, YOU are the kid with your hand hovering over your sibling’s face. YOU are the problem in society’s collective backseat.

“But all lives DO matter,” you protest. (“But I WASN’T touching him!”) Yes, it’s true. All lives DO matter. But when you are saying that particular phrase, in these particular times, we all know what you really mean. And no, we don’t believe that you have just emerged from some kind of years-long Big Brother House, and therefore are naïve to the changed meaning of those words. And we also don’t believe that you are a staunch defender of linguistic purity, the sort who also fights against the “gerunding” of words in your spare time. You have no real problem with the many other various ways language changes over time. You know exactly what is meant when someone asks if they can “text” you. You don’t point out that to be “gay and miserable” is, actually, an oxymoron.

And no, you can’t claim that “All Lives Matter” is more nuanced than those examples. That you don’t understand just how hurtful those words have become over the last six years. And if you really, truly, don’t understand, then I strongly suggest you try and catch up on current events before inserting yourself into a conversation. Ignorance of the Holocaust would not excuse you from the blowback you would rightfully receive if you told an overworked Jewish colleague, “Well, work sets you free, you know.” (Because I am actually concerned that someone who says “All Lives Matter” also doesn’t know about the Holocaust, I’m going to help you out here. Auschwitz. Google it.)

Look, in a small way (very small) I do feel for you. I realize that Society is currently driving this car much faster than you are comfortable with, and I also realize that because this car was built way back in the day the seat belts in the back seat are either inadequate or non-existent. I get that. But whether you like where this car is going—or whether you like how quickly it’s getting there—is irrelevant: it’s going there, and you’re coming along for the ride whether you like it or not. And believe me when I say that if you keep this kind of behavior up, when Society does finally pull this car over you are probably going to like what happens next even less.

Sincerely,

The Rest of Us