Unhook your bras and settle in for another battle in the Mommy Wars 2012, kicked into gear ever since Hilary Rosen thoughtlessly insisted that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.”  And maybe you heard about that Elisabeth Badinter book?

Why, even the New York Times devoted an opinion page to a debate it called “Motherhood vs. Feminism”   (this happened, like, a whole week and a half before the infamous Time magazine boob cover, so you can be forgiven for not recalling it).

Yes: motherhood VERSUS feminism, as if the two are mutually exclusive.  Please direct your attention to the left of your screen, to the “About Me” widget, for my thoughtful perspective.*

One of the NYT essays is titled “Let’s Not Pass Judgement.”  It’s not as good as the piece by Annie Urban, which you really MUST read, but I agree with its sentiment.  Women shouldn’t be fighting each other for our “choices”–we should be wagging our shame fingers at the systems that conspire against us, consumer culture and patriarchal capitalism in particular.  Repeat after me: class wars, not Mommy Wars.

I’ve been thinking about this not-passing-of-judgment thing.  A few weeks ago, a feminist site I enjoy posted a photo on Facebook of the now-infamous Tanorexic Mom, wondering if all the harsh criticism of this woman’s “choice” to fry her pale skin wasn’t antithetical to the feminist ideal of to each her own?

Hmm.

HMMMMMMMM.

Once again, we must return to the tricky notion of “choice.”  This woman chose to change her appearance rather drastically.  But did she, really?  Let’s ask our frenemy, good old consumer culture.  Pale women are told to buy creams and tanning beds to look acceptable.  Dark women are told to buy fading creams and treatments (like Photoshop) to look acceptable.  It doesn’t take long for these messages to tip vulnerable people into obsession, if not outright mental illness.

Is Patricia Krentcil mom enough?  A lot of people don’t think so.  For one thing, she is awfully ugly…unlike the lovely Jamie Lynne Grumet, she of the boob seen ’round the world:

Breastfeeding is, of course, a very good thing.  Unlike tanning, it has clear health benefits and does not cause cancer.  The fact that Grumet nurses her 4-year-old threatens me not a whit.  Her defiant stance, however, coupled with the hysterical cover copy, adds more fuel to the already tired notion of breastfeeding as a lifestyle “choice,”  and that’s when I get pissed.

I hate to break it to y’all, but nursing a baby is a biological function.  Our bodies are designed to do it–but please do not confuse this fact with a moral judgment upon you for not doing it!  PLEASE!  If you feel threatened by what you perceive to be my judgment, you are going to waste your time battling little old ME, not demanding change from the systems that conspire against a truly family-friendly society.

Suck on this: the United States is one of only four countries in the world that does not offer some kind of paid maternity leave.  The other three are Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Lesotho.  The latter country has an annual per capita income of $1600, so I can see why they can’t afford it.  The USA, not so much.

Would you “choose” to nurse your child if you had the “choice” to take paid maternity leave?  I bet you would.  And no matter your skin color, your body size or shape, you’d look damned good doing it.

According to patriarchal capitalism, you are NOT mom enough, and you never will be.  You have to hate yourself to buy what they’re selling….tanning packages, magazines, economic systems that trickle down slower than a dried-up teat (and that’s s-l-o-w).

So tuck those boobs back in and start shopping!

*short version: it’s bullshit

It’s cheerleaders.

No, really!  Sit down, pour yourself another cup of coffee, and prepare to have your mind blown!

Mr. Ross begins:

Men have ruled every civilization since the beginning of time and always will. That is not the question. The question is, will a civilization be ruled by good men or evil men?

“Always will” is your clue that you have left the 21st century and are descending into Schlaflyland,™ a pale pink universe that, in a twist of delicious irony, would require its leader, the venerable Mrs. John Schlafly Jr, to stop her traitorous habit of speaking in public, let alone allow anyone to refer to her as “Phyllis.”

Schlaflyland™ is a familiar enough place to my readers, but Mr. Ross isn’t content to linger there–after all, such a place is run by a woman, and that’s a Bad Thing.  Read on:

Historically, evil men have ruled. Evil men rule today. When good men rule, it’s ordinary men exercising leadership in their homes, local churches, local civil government, local business and commerce.

So if I understand correctly, in the thousands of years of modern civilization, only evil men have ruled–but for the brief spell in which Eisenhower was president.  Gotcha.

When evil men rule, it is a handful of political, corporate, and monetary elitists that control nearly all the wealth in the economy. They rule from corporate boardrooms, Washington and Wall Street. It is their strategy to attack ordinary men as the heads of their families and other traditional institutions. They do this by pushing women out of their homes and into the workforce by creating an economy that requires both parents to work.

What?  You mean this FEMINISM thing can’t be blamed on WOMEN?  It’s all a conspiracy by a cabal of evil men?   Gloria Steinem must be so relieved.

Also, by pushing them into jobs traditionally reserved for men: soldier, police officer, firefighter, physician, truck driver, etc. And by pushing schoolgirls into highly competitive varsity athletics traditionally reserved for boys, just to name a few. 

Only “highly competitive” sports, sir?  Does that mean ladies are welcome at gentle games?  Like badminton or varsity cupcake baking?

Any wife who is contentious with her husband’s leadership, any woman who takes a man’s pulpit, or seeks employment that has been traditionally reserved for men, has played into the elitists’ hands.

DID YOU HEAR THAT, MRS. MARCUS BACHMANN?? Get out of the federal House and back into your house!   When Marcus does his own laundry, the elitists win!!

Traditional male leadership is no guarantee of a decent and just society, but it is a prerequisite. A truly free and just society will be one that promotes women as homemakers and mothers, nurses, teachers, secretaries and cheerleaders.

That’s the darling Mrs. Bachmann (née Michele Amble) on the right.  What a cutie.  All this Wall Street corruption is so obviously her fault.

Not being content with a good chuckle at Mr. Ross’s expense, I took the additional step of Googling his name and location.  Why not?  He might be the author of more amusing editorials that would appeal to my blog readers.  I have a duty to keep all two of you amused and entertained, especially on days when writing satire myself would be too exhausting (I am a married lady, after all).

To  my surprise, I found something even more bizarre–this headline:

HAWLEY TEEN SENTENCED IN TURTLE BURNING

It seems that several years ago, an 18-year-old named Joel Charles Ross filmed himself and two friends lighting a snapping turtle on fire.  The idiots then uploaded their torture of the poor reptile, which was forwarded to local authorities.  The young Mr. Ross was sentenced to community service, a $500 fine, and five days in the clink for pleading guilty to misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Here is a photo I found of Mr. Ross the elder, and his lovely wife Vicky.  It appeared in another Fargo Forum article, this time in celebration of the couple’s 25th wedding anniversary:

How could such an adorable couple spawn a child capable of such a stupid and senseless act?  Setting a turtle on fire for kicks is something only an evil man would do.

It’s the cheerleaders’ fault.

*It is easy for outsiders to mock Fargo, yes, but I come by my scorn honestly–a good half of the relatives I have spent my adulthood avoiding are North Dakotans.  This my one perk.

On April 28, 2012, I was invited by local ladies of my acquaintance to attend an event relating to this War on Women that everyone’s talking about. I usually don’t express myself in public in this manner (preferring to let my husband speak for me, of course), but I felt that a War on Women was something that the ladies and I could get behind. Here we are:

Photo credit: a young man who was thrilled to be of service

Mrs. Ballentine looks depressed because she accidentally left her pearls at home, the poor dear.  I would chide her for this oversight if I weren’t guilty of a crime against decency myself–the wearing of white shoes before Memorial Day.  I share this unretouched photo in hopes that my gentle readers will learn from my mistake:

Photo credit: Mrs. Robert Rolle

It will take a little more than a wardrobe faux pas to keep me from speaking my mind about this War on Women.  As I said in my remarks, just about everything wrong with America can be traced back to the day in 1920 when non-male adults were given permission to vote.  On this issue I agree with Miss Ann Coulter, though I don’t make it a habit to pay attention to women who don’t have the sense to get married at least once.  Even vulgar trollops like Misses Madonna Ciccone and Britney Spears have been married twice each (just not to each other, for heaven’s sake).

Photo credit: Mrs. Robert Rolle

Confidential to strapping bachelors and wealthy widowers: Miss Emily Johnston, the young lady holding my umbrella, is single and looking for a breadwinner who will allow her occasional use of his Kohl’s card!  Interested gentlemen may send resumes, sperm counts, and credit reports to MrsMatthewBlack@LadiesAgainstWomen.org.

The crowd really seemed to enjoy my story about how I reacted when people assumed I supported Michele Bachmann for president.  The very idea of a WOMAN president gives me horrible gas.  It twists me up so that I can’t help making faces like this:

Photo credit: some feminist in cahoots with Sen. Sandy Pappas, a speaker at the rally

Here’s something that keeps me popping Tums late into the night: I assumed a member of the Minnesota legislature who goes by “Sandy” must have the first name Alexander on his birth certificate.  Was I ever wrong!  This Sandy creature and Michele Bachmann are two of a kind–women who forgot that they are supposed to be working in the kind of house that has a white picket fence around it.  Leave the state and federal Houses to the menfolk, please!

It’s my great hope that this day of rallies in support of the War on Women will alert ladies and the gentlemen who support them to the danger posed by women legislators, contraceptives, and the unmarried.  I invite ladies across the country to join me in not voting on November 6.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Matthew Black

So Hilary Rosen Ann Romney blah blah blah.  You didn’t get comment from me on the matter because  last week was the buildup to the 2012 Minnesota NOW conference, which involved a great deal of work…..for which I was not paid.

At the conference I was approached by a political campaign that was interested talking with me about my writing.  ”Is this a volunteer opportunity or a job?” I asked.

You can guess the answer.

A friend of mine works more than 40 hours weekly where our daughters attend school.  She monitors the cafeteria, goes on field trips, assists with special events, and fundraises like a maniac.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that school would crumble without her.  What’s her job title, you ask?

Co-Chair of the PTA.  Yearly salary: nothing.

On Facebook, a friend posted one of the bajillion links to the Rosen/Romney feud and one of HER friends claimed that her stay-at-home-mommy work is “priceless” and she would be “offended” if the government paid her.

I said:

And I wasn’t kidding.

Jill at Feministe wrote a few thousand words on the subject before getting to the real heart of the matter, which is:

Free female labor props up our economy and saves us all tax money.  …women with children, whether they work outside the home or not, aren’t just doing the inside the home care-taking work; they’re volunteering at schools, in community centers, on sports teams. They’re filling the gaps that state and federal funding leaves, so in the short term kids get necessary classroom assistance when lawmakers cut programs. Women are much more likely to be a (again unpaid) care-taker for an aging or ill relative. As a nation, we can afford to not pay for necessary things because there are so many women who are doing those things for free.

Again, in bold and all-caps: “FREE FEMALE LABOR PROPS UP OUR ECONOMY.”

Capitalism depends on our unpaid work.  We are conditioned to do it at every turn.  My job is  so idealized by our culture that my colleagues in the business (women like the Facebook poster) feel ashamed to ask for what is their due.  Ashamed! Can you believe it?

Second Wave feminism declared that women should have opportunities outside the home, but forgot to add that men need to shoulder the burdens inside the home.  The revolution should have demanded as many stay-at-home dads as female CEOs.  But it didn’t.  The goals of the movement became allied with making money, which is one reason why feminism gets accused of being anti-family.  Family is so precious is cannot be allied with something DIRTY like MAKING MONEY!  It’s the madonna/whore binary all over again.

No matter what women do, we’re made to be either/or.  To rob us of nuance is to rob us of autonomy, and that’s just how patriarchal capitalism likes it!

If you think that all of your decisions in life are your own, that you “choose your choice,” then you fail to question the systems in place that perpetuate oppression.  Systems like capitalism, patriarchy, racism, classism, you name it.

Here’s an example.

Minneapolis Public Schools is in trouble.  Every year, the budget cuts get deeper and deeper and the achievement gap between poor and not-poor students is astonishing. Yet somehow, my daughter’s school seems to persevere, and will continue to do so as the ax drops in the future.  Why?  Because of people like that PTA co-chair I know.  One day I asked her: “Would you consider going on strike to highlight how much free work the district gets out of you?”  She looked at me like I was nuts, and I knew why–a PTA strike in our school would only hurt the children, and women are conditioned to think of the children and not themselves.  Minneapolis Public Schools counts on the free labor of middle- to upper-class women to prop up schools when their budgets are cut.  Schools without the free labor force are left to fend for themselves, and their test scores show it.  Class systems stay rigidly enforced.

If women went on strike and refused to volunteer, our school district would have to put much more, and I do mean MUCH MORE, pressure on government officials to fund them adequately.  If the women who prop up our school system went on strike, Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak would be forced to put $150 million of city tax money towards hiring school staff, not towards a Vikings stadium–whose profits will be funneled straight into the pockets of the 1%.

Here’s a picture of our poor, old, inadequate football stadium.  I think it just needs an army of unpaid women to puff it back up again, don’t you?  Maybe we gals could install some of those fancy new corporate suites that the menfolk say they need to conduct the networking business whatchamacallit.

The Official Mommy War Narrative™ would have this PTA co-chair incredibly offended by me suggesting  such radical ideas.  We live under consumer capitalism, a system that encourages competition and discontent–if I’m right, you’re wrong.  Either/or.   If I pick a philosophical fight with Hilary Rosen, Ann Romney, the PTA moms, Linda Hirshman, Jessica Valenti, Phyllis Schlafly, The Feminist Breeder, Amanda Marcotte, the editors at Jezebel, and/or Hillary Clinton, I’ll be distracted.  In my absence, Minneapolis will build a billion dollar football stadium, and its achievement gap will remain one of the worst in the nation.

The (white, male) rich will get richer, the poor will get…..

THE RADICAL HOUSEWIFE: We discussed a bit about intergenerational tension, and now I’m wondering if you have any insight about how to bridge conflict within the waves themselves.  Intersectionality, as you pointed out, does look a bit like chaos–witness SlutWalk and the current online Mommy Wars being waged among prominent Third Wave bloggers.  How can we unite something that, on the surface, feels fractured beyond repair?

ZOE NICHOLSON: My answer may surprise you but here it goes – I don’t think that work on “repair” is work well spent.  I think the answer is to be the answer.  Your life demonstrating the politics, your writing expressing the diversity is the only thing that actually works as it lives beyond “repairing.”

Let me give you a famous example: Gloria Steinem always insists on diversity on any panel.  You may also know that she traveled with Women of Color as her speaking partners.  The officiate at her wedding was Wilma Mankiller, Chief of the Cherokee Nation.  There is no veracity in accusing Ms. Steinem of racism as she has consistently demonstrated otherwise in her life.

From left: Angela Davis, Wilma Mankiller, Gloria Steinem

Another fine example is Harvey Milk who traveled with his speaking partner, Sally Miller Gearhart.  Harvey was a champion of the Daughters of Bilitis and Labor Unions.  These people could have written a paper reaching out, stood strongly on the issue of diversity but nothing is as pure and powerful as being the change you seek.

Another irresistible component is to insist on standing behind the least in the crowd.  Gandhi renamed the untouchables, the harijan, Children of God. He shared his ashram, food, even latrines with harijan.  Applying that to the Women’s movement, when we talk about wage inequity, we say women make 77 cents on a man’s dollar ~ well not really.  Black women make 69 cents, Latinas make 59 cents.  Gandhi would have instantly said – women make 59 cents – not even going for the average – but rather identifying with the least favored. 

I had a truly remarkable thing happen to me a couple of years ago.  While defending ENDA-I, inclusive ENDA, I was asked if I was a Transgendered woman.  In that moment, I was able to identify how I really feel about transgendered people and discrimination in regards to transgendered people.  Following it down the road of my mind, I saw what each answer would transmit.  I did the only thing I could think of that would demonstrate my true feelings – I declined to answer. My intention was/is to demonstrate that I embrace all women and do not want to claim any ground of being higher than another.  I did not want to step away from anyone, diminish the question, lift my petticoats and tiptoe away.  Now if asked, I say that I am queer and that is all the information I will give.  WbW or trans are both women.

I recommend to the Second Wave to collect their information, their inspiration and find an heir.  To the Third wave, to share their skills, their ideas and, most importantly, identity their issues for the Second Wave.

A long time ago I went to an event at the Wilshire Ebell Theater where all of the women who were over 40, professional, renown, established were on the main floor seating.  In the balcony you would have found all the interns, clinic escorts, hotline volunteers ~ the young women in the movement who do all the heavy lifting for so little money, recognition or gratitude.  My ideal is, not reverse it, but to integrate the entire event.  Imagine if a profoundly active women in her 80’s was sitting next to a clinic escort; the older one having demonstrated in 1972 for Roe and the younger one now facing the anti-choice people in a clinic parking lot. That would be a conversation!

Don’t dismiss me.  Don’t leave me home thinking Facebook is for kids.  Invite me.  Push my wheelchair.  Tell me your issues.  Ask me to be involved with you.  To my older sisters, keep the chair next to you open and invite your heir to sit with you, not behind you.  No, you can’t have my torch – make your own – but please light yours from mine.  This is a dynasty with lineage.

If you are integrated and you live that way – when the criticisms fly – they just fly by.  Your life shows otherwise.  (by the way, I sat in the balcony)

Read part one here.

THE RADICAL HOUSEWIFE: Reading your writing is really a balm for me.  You are a Second Wave vet who harkens back to the First, with arms and heart wide open for the Third, Fourth, and others yet to come.  I wish this weren’t such an elusive quality, but it is.  We become activists because we are compassionate and sensitive, yet those qualities often lead to frustration and burnout.  Some who claim a desire to dismantle power structures cling to the power they do have and refuse to let go!  How do you cultivate your own openness?  What advice do you give others?

ZOE NICHOLSON: I am so very fond of being open.  It is the ultimate coming out.  And shared power is the only way to insulate from self-importance.  I like the new non-hierarchical movement.  I think one advantage is I went to professional computer school in 1985 and got my first PC in 1982.  I love technology.  Of course, I also love to write so there is no loneliness in using a keyboard to communicate.

(Zoe is pictured at left.  Read more about her strike for the ERA in her book The Hungry Heart. )

There is a calling to sit together.  I want someone to push my wheelchair and I want to be in on the latest joke or gossip or political coup.  Recently I went to an event for the Second Wave  at a college.  All the Second ladies had an elegant luncheon in a private college dining room with a shut door.  I refused and ate in the cafeteria with my old friends, my new friends and we had a blast.  Weeks later, a student wrote about that.  She honored Grace Welch and me for sitting with the students.  I hope they will remember it for a life time and use it.

On the other direction – I can tell you that I went to a Second Wave party and the President, Jacqui [Ceballos of the Veteran Feminists of America], who is my mentor, started walking across the room to me while holding Kate Millett’s hand.  ”Zoe, there is someone here who wants to meet you.”  I stopped her in her tracks and put out my hand, burst into tears and said, “Yes, I know who this is, and thank you, Kate, for changing my life.”  After that exchange, I got my coat and left.  It was all toooooooooooooo  much.  Just too much.  I am as in love with the women of the Second Wave as anyone could be.

Finally, let me say that the older ladies just don’t know what to do except what they perceived worked for them.  They thrived on meetings, rules, printed material, phone calls and Sisterhood.  They were lonely to have like-minded sisters.  Non-hierarchical movements, intersectionality, it all sounds and feels like chaos.  There is only one other who genuinely gets all this and that is Gloria Steinem.  And the Second Wavers are consciously looking for a successor.  I hope that does not happen.  We are all leaders and followers and the ones we have been looking for.

Author of “The Hungry Heart,” a diary of the 37 days she fasted for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, Zoe is also a board member of the Veteran Feminists of America, founder of  The Bridge Project, a featured subject in the LGBT equality documentary “March On!” (which has its Midwest premiere April 13, 2012), and a popular speaker at schools and events nationwide.

As a matter of fact, she’ll be delivering the keynote address at the combined Minnesota NOW and Prairie States Regional NOW conference, held April 14, 2012, with a presentation she calls “The Life of an Activist.”  She kindly agreed to share some of her thoughts with me for my blog readers.

What follows is just the beginning of our conversation…

THE RADICAL HOUSEWIFE: I want to start with your thoughts about intergenerational feminism.  I admit that one of the first thoughts I had when I finished “The Hungry Heart” was how damned exciting the Second Wave must have been!  How do we resist the urge to think of the feminist movement as something that had its best years in its past?  

ZOE NICHOLSON: There are many answers but at the root is a call to embrace and participate in change.  Society is breathing and changing just like each of us.  The U.S. Women’s Movement (shall we call its birth 1848?) is a living breathing entity who is unfolding, advancing, evolving.

In 1967, women marching on Wall Street for credit, marching on 5^th Avenue for jobs, meeting in homes to share stories was really about the oppressed collecting their energy and focus to advance social change.  Today the tools, the ground of experience, the venues may be different but the movement is the same.  Women, and the men who love them, are collecting around issues making social constructs quake.

There is an illusion that nothing is happening now to rival 35/40 years ago.  If you judge on stars, single charismatic people; Millett, Steinem, Abzug, Friedan, yes that form of igniting action is over.  But that is just a longing for nostalgia, like Mad Man or Marilyn or easy bake ovens.  We are in a great shift of how information is collated, distributed, interpreted and inspires.

Today we are driven by conflict, issues, ideas, crisis, oppressions.  Just to name a few, look at Slutwalk, Occupy, Dreamers, Keystone.  We may clamor for a leader but, ultimately, that is not what is creating the motion ~ it is the oppression itself.  Let’s be sophisticated enough to say, without apology, that the GOP War on Women is the galvanizing force for 4/28.  We are not celebrating that a Toronto woman was told to not dress like a slut but it was our call to action.  It was not a single person standing in front of a microphone, or in the paper, or on a talk show that got us to say, “enough is enough.”  Ideas are our new stars.  Equality is our now both our end and our means.

I want to be clear that I am NOT saying we are reactionary only.  That would be only returning in kind.  I am saying that we are now free from mimeo machines, bulk mailing, home gatherings.  We are enabled with the whole world of electronic communication and just ask the Congressional switchboard how that’s working when a tweet goes out recommending we all call on a certain vote. [Susan B.] Anthony taking the train, waiting for a letter from Elizabeth [Cady Stanton], traveling the West to tell women about the vote – oh how she would have been enabled to reach across the country from a keyboard.  And in the doing, we might have not noticed who said what, we are content driven now.

You ask about our best years.  They are straight ahead.  Everything that has happened since 1848 is on a trajectory.  Women standing in front of Wilson’s White House, Ms. Paul force fed in prison, lesbians held at the gate of Houston 1977 finally invited in, 89 years of work to explicitly include women in the Constitution,  oh, too many to list; are all on the move to change the human paradigm to full equality.  If you are not excited and inspired, you are looking in the wrong direction.

For more from Zoe, watch this space, or check out these links: 

Online With Zoe (her wonderful blog)

MARCH ON! The Movie (a truly great film by Laura McFerrin about the National Equality March of 2009)

Zoe’s Amazon author page, including the brand-new edition of The Hungry Heart for Kindle (a document of the Second Wave that I probably can’t recommend enough)

If The Radical Housewife: The Blog has been quiet lately, it’s only because the radical housewife, the person ( i.e. me) has been so very, very busy.  In a few days Minnesota NOW is hosting its combined state & regional conference, and I’ve been typing my wrists off in an attempt to publicize it.  But if my six years at the helm of this organization have taught me anything, it’s that the local media doesn’t care much about feminist actions that lack the word “slut” in the title.

(note to self: change conference name to “SLUTFEST 2012,” take phone off hook)

But no amount of press releases could get in the way of last Friday’s annual solidarity event at the St. Paul Planned Parenthood.  We travel across the river every Good Friday to show our support for the clinic’s staff and patients, who must endure the presence of literally busloads of antis that day.

Two years ago,  Minnesota Public Radio News printed my essay on why I bring my family every year.  An excerpt:

Those who oppose abortion demand to know why I would bring my children to a place they consider incompatible with their “family values.”  In reply, I point out that my family reinforces my commitment to reproductive freedom.

As a stay-at-home mom, I experience frustration, exhaustion and anxiety at every turn, and I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m as lucky as Bristol Palin was lucky to have financial and emotional support in place for her to consider parenthood at 17. I’m as lucky as Pam Tebow was to have given birth to a healthy baby boy.

Bristol, Pam, and I are fortunate, indeed……[but] our experiences are ours alone, and cannot be expected to set the standard for every other woman across the globe.  Like other structures and systems, families function best when they develop deliberately.

Speaking of families, here’s an absolutely adorable one, featuring some Minnesota NOW friends.  My preggo tummy wasn’t nearly this cute when I waddled on Good Friday 2005:

I suspect the little girl is grimacing because she knows Elliott and Miriam were the ones who hoovered up the cookies at the volunteer table.  Sorry, kiddo.

This year I allowed Elliott to film a portion of our visit.  Serendipitously, my sister and her daughter arrived to meet us as Elliott filmed.  Now that’s what I call FAMILY VALUES!

Until next year, kids.

If you’re in the Twin Cities area this weekend, don’t forget to stop by SLUTFEST and say hello!

Perhaps that explains why I am so far behind in the 2012 Circle of Moms Top Political Mom Blogs contest.  As of this writing, I am #23 in the rankings.  Though I don’t mind losing to The Mamafesto, Blue Milk, PunditMom and current leader Monologues of Dissent, I MIND VERY MUCH that I’m 12 places behind Pamela Geller, a racist so virulent she’s being watched by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Sigh.

I hereby vow to be more proactive about sharing all that is awesome with my readers.  I’ll start with an heartfelt appreciation of my representative in Congress, Keith Ellison, shown here at the 2011 Minnesota State Fair with two adorable constituents and their dorky mom*:

Rep. Ellison issued the following statement yesterday, after previously confidential reports showed that the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is using a race-based strategy to pursue its decidedly non-awesome agenda:

The exposed documents reveal that NOM’s ‘strategic goal’ is to ‘drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key Democratic constituencies.’

Our nation was founded on the principle of liberty and justice for all people—regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. NOM is clearly opposed to these basic ideals that so many Americans hold dear.

I call on people from all backgrounds to speak out against NOM’s agenda and vote NO on the anti-marriage amendment this November.

Isn’t that awesome?  I bet you’re jealous that Rep. Ellison doesn’t represent you.  

But there’s more!  Check out this video from the House floor, taken only hours ago:

Damn!  I wish Rep. Ellison had done that, and I’m so glad Rep. Rush did.  But since no one can vote for either of them until November, please make sure you vote for me, NOW!

AWESOME!

*Confidential to Ms. Geller: yes, I did let a practicing Muslim near my children.  Shortly after this photo was taken, my children and I were killed in a terrorist attack.**

**Just kidding!  Pamela Geller is a racist idiot!  Please don’t let her win!  Vote for ME!  

As you can see, there is no danger of my being racially profiled.  None whatsoever.

But today, on the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I wear my hoodie in solidarity with those who are.

On February 26, the anniversary of the day I became a mother, another mom lost her boy forever–a 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin.

I’m a white, Midwestern mom, and my heart aches for Sybrina Fulton.  It aches for all mothers who lose their children to stupid, senseless, preventable violence.

I wear hoodies pretty frequently, but I don’t always challenge myself to think outside my own narrowly defined box.  In a show about the case that aired on NPR, I heard a caller say that the Martin killing is every African-American parent’s deepest, most terrifying anxiety about their child.

Me?  I wouldn’t think twice about allowing my 17-year-old son go out for a bag of Skittles and iced tea.  Before he left, though, I might encourage him to buy diet Coke and a granola bar instead.  Or I’d ask him to bring home a carton of milk.  I would never, ever imagine that some gun-toting FBI wannabe would have a paranoid freakout and shoot him.

And that, my friends, is what we mean when we talk about white privilege.  Freedom of movement is a privilege.  It ought to be a right, but in a racist, armed-to-the-teeth America, it’s not.

Mull on that while you put your own hoodie up.

To join the Million Hoodie March in NYC, visit InterOccupy.org.