I drew this drawing of the crowd with two police officers representing love and hate on the morning of the Dallas protest, before the police officers were killed and wounded. I was going to post it the next morning but felt it would be insensitive to do so. It was now an incomplete statement.
So over the next few days I drew this one as a companion piece. It shows the opposite scene. Not cops in charge, but the crowd. The crowd has the power of love and hate just as much as the cops do.
Every Day
We as people must always decide, every day, whether we are going to act and react with love or hate. When violence happens to someone, especially someone you don’t know and might be scared of, or antagonistic towards, are you looking for a reason to not care? That means your heart is moving towards hate. It is hardening. You are telling it that those people don’t care. That they deserved it.
Only one person in the past week has deserved anything close to the fate of death, and that was the killer of the 5 police officers. But even then, you don’t have to say or feel it with hate. You can say it sadness that his life went so terribly awry, you can feel it with love and compassion for the families left behind.
Part of the Problem
The other 16 people? They didn’t deserve to be wounded or die. If your political position is such that you are hating one of these people; the cops who shot Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile, or Alton and Philandro themselves, then you are slowly but surely marching into the ‘part of the problem’ column. If you feel the shooting of the 14 people in Dallas was in any way justified, you are already deep into that column and need a wake up call.
Age 80
Imagine yourself at age 80. Who are you? Your decisions now, every day, are making you into that person. Do you want that person to be hateful, bitter, angry, resentful? If you do, then practice those things and you will become them. If you don’t, if you want, at age 80, to be kind, loving, forgiving, understanding, compassionate then you must practice those things now and every day. It’s how life works: You become what you practice.
This isn’t going away and I am wanting to talk about it.
Isla Vista
To even be talking about this is disappointing. The world is filled with men who don’t believe women should use their mind to make up their own mind about things. To pursue relationships or not, to pursue careers or living arrangements or travel or money or style or design or art or a million other things.
If you have any doubt you need go no farther than the town of Isla Vista, next door to the UC Santa Barbara campus in California. I lived in Isla Vista while attending UCSB back in the 70s and the shooting there is particularly disturbing because of the familiarity with all the places they are mentioning as the shooter rampaged around the town.
A young man killed 6 people on a rampage against women. He killed two members of the Tri-Delt sorority standing nearby after failing to get into the Alpha Phi sorority he wanted to attack or the toll of women would have been much worse. He killed 4 men but he was not enraged about men, they were unfortunate to be where they were, not targeted because of their gender.
Veronika and Katie
But the two women were, not because of them as individuals but because of their gender. The women, Veronika Weiss and Katie Cooper, were targeted because the murderer felt he was unfairly rejected by women. It’s unclear if he ever attempted to actually date any women, all that is known now is he claimed to be a virgin and blamed women for his inability to have sex with them.
Rape Culture
He was involved online with a group that is virulently anti-women. They portray them all as sluts and whores who manipulate and deceive for their own advancement and pleasure. They are not to be trusted but to be manipulated themselves into having sex with these men. Why? Because the men deserve to have sex with them. Why do they deserve it? Because they are men and women are supposed to do what men want of them.
Under the Radar
This is under the radar in the US most of the time. You don’t hear about these groups and their attitudes directly. But you do hear about date rape often enough and where does that come from but the same mind set of deserving the sex.
On the Radar
It is not under the radar however in other countries. The newspaper just this morning had an article about a woman having been stoned to death in front of a courthouse in Pakistan by her father, brothers and fiance. Why? Because she married a man she loved instead of the man her family told her she must marry. In other words, she had her own mind and followed it. And the men in her family and in the society don’t want that to happen. They don’t want women with a mind of their own, just as the murderer in Isla Vista didn’t want women who would or could reject his advances if they wanted to. They, as the victim in Pakistan, were obligated to obey the man and not have the power to make their own decisions about the matter.
Avoidance
What do I think is the solution? Heck if I know the big answer. But I know one small answer. Never, EVER spend substantial time and effort on a man who does not respect your intelligence. If he doesn’t respect your mind, he doesn’t respect you. Period. And it will come out. And when it does, it won’t be pretty. Much better to stay away from the beginning.
______________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American journalist and author
I love/hate that today is #2 of my ‘Shop ‘Til You Drop’ series.
Ok, fine. This is not just about women.
Losing It
I recently lost about 25 lbs. As a result some of my clothes don’t fit. Most of my pants I have noticed it all along, except my jeans and some of heavier material, which I do not usually wear during the summer. I started wearing them this fall and in some of them I look like a baggy bag man. I also didn’t wear many long sleeves shirts over the summer and early fall. But now I have had a number of times I tried on my long sleeve shirts only to find they are similar in look to Seinfeld’s Puffy Pirate Shirt. Not the look I am going for. Combine one of those shirts with one of my baggy pants and I am baggy bag man extraordinaire.
Buttoning It
I did find a great shirt in the back of my closet this past weekend, perfect to wear out to a gallery opening and dinner with Linda. I put it on remembering it used to be too tight. I knew it would fit perfectly now and it did. Only one problem. There is a button missing right at the belly button. I remember losing it but didn’t really care because the shirt didn’t fit and I knew I would probably never wear it again. Oops.
Ironing It
So I finally found a shirt that wasn’t a puffy pirate shirt and went searching for a pair of pants. I found what seemed like the only pants I had that fit that weren’t thin summer pants, too dressy or jeans. Hadn’t worn them in a while but maybe I hadn’t worn them in so long they were from when I was thinner, way back when. Or maybe they came from that consignment shopping trip I did in the spring, I had no idea. I tried them on and I wasn’t immediately baggy bag man.
However, they were ridiculously wrinkled and had dust on the fold over the hanger and that meant I had to iron them and use one of those sticky roller things on them. But Linda was taking a nap and I didn’t want to wake her. You know what an ironing board sounds like when you pop it open? They are never silent, they are always squeeky and squeely. I tried, but it made the noise it was destined to make from the beginning of time, and woke Linda up. I think she thought it was a dog making a weird sound, not me. So I let her believe it. I ironed my pants and I looked slightly non-baggy bag man for the day.
I need to go shopping.
_____________________
Drawing and story by Marty Coleman
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American Journalist and Author
Actually, I think winter is when we hope the most. I believe hope (or its absence) is the quintessential element underlying everything within the human condition. What do you think?
I don’t actually think this is true, but it brings up a good point, namely that we often teach our sons and daughters differently about sex. Even if we are ‘liberated’ in talking about it we still unconsciously address the two sexes differently.
For example, talking to a teenage boy going out to a party you might tell him ‘make sure you keep it zipped, don’t do something stupid, don’t be so horny that you can’t control yourself’. Talking to a teenage girl you might say ‘watch out tonight, don’t leave your drink out of your site, don’t let the guy be with you alone, don’t drive off in the middle of nowhere with him.’
The assumption underlying those warnings is that the man will be the horny one wanting the sex and the girl will be the one deciding to give it or not, like a clerk at a store, disengaged. But the truth is you have to talk to your daughter with the understanding that she is a sexual creature as well. She could be the aggressor, she could be the one ‘wanting it’ and forcing the issue with the guy.
I agree it’s not quite as likely, but that doesn’t mean you don’t recognize that, no matter what her libido level, she still needs to know that she will feel things too. It isn’t just about her responding to a guy, it’s about her figuring out her own feelings and desires as well. It does no good service to a daughter or son to assume they fit into a cookie cutter sexual mold. Explain to them the range of feelings they may come across, not just some pandering platitude that isn’t based in their reality.
If you want to be effective in helping your son or daughter understand what is happening to them in the sexual world, you have to address them as real people, not cliches of sexuality. ………………………………………………………………
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American journalist and author. Writer and editor for various magazines including Vogue, Redbook, Cosmopolitan and Glamour.
