Do you recall a nickname from your childhood? Perhaps what your mother called you, how she referred to you? What does it tell you about yourself now? Where do you feel it ? Can you find the love within it? Or, was it something that calls your identity into question ? Can you find humor in it? Or at least make peace with it ?
My Mom had 2 ways she frequently described me, called for me, referred to me. She told me and others I was her “Little Why-Because”. It was frustrating for her to have a daughter who questioned the “why” behind every order, demand or simple request. A daughter who could not accept a simple answer to why night happened. Who persisted questioning every response, such as earth and sun rotation, with the question, “But, why does the earth rotate? and why around the sun?”. Her final answer was inevitably, “Because.” And, my final question was always, “But, why ‘because’?”.
The second nick-name and descriptor she used to define me to myself and to others was her “Little Agitator.” At first I was clueless at this description, for it seemed to upset her. The only agitator I knew was in the washing machine. It seemed to be a wonderful thing because it helped make our clothes clean. I was flattered until I understood she did not intend to flatter me. Yet, it still seemed a fine thing to be. It challenged the dirt of lies and unkindness.It challenged the bullies in our neighborhood. It kept my brothers in their place. It seemed boys and men constantly picked apart girls and women. Agitating them seemed a fine way to clean up that mess. I became a stronger agitator with every effort to set thinks right.
So, despite fearing being an agitator in attempting to clean up the life and lives around me, I embraced the role. Despite exasperating family, friends, school teachers, professors, priests ( I was thrown out of religion class twice) and nuns by asking “why”, I relished the discussion and discovery in challenging the status quo.
Being both a “why-because” and an “agitator” was a helpful combination. I was not a “know-it-all’; but, a “I know nothing so explain it, and you, to me.” Once I understood the place of conflict or hurt, I could agitate to make it better. Agitation alone is not enough to set things right. First we must take the time and ask enough questions to truly understand the need for change, and how to fix things without causing more pain.
American leaders in all walks of life are so focused on making money and attaining power they have not taken the time to ask questions and get to the final “because.” Why do we need a Dept. of Education? What does it do? Why do we need Social Security, SSI, Medicare and Medicaid? What do they do? Why do we need Affirmative Action, diversity and inclusion programs? What do they do? What messes have we Americans made? How do we clean them up? Why do we need courts, laws and regulations? What do they do?
You see my point. What is happening to our country now is an abomination. Elected leaders in the former Republican Party (now a dictatorship in the making) have never taken the time or made the effort to truly see the American people because they have not cared enough to do so, not cared enough to ask, “Why?” Their only concern is how can they reduce cost so we can give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans we hope emulate. We look for scape-goats to explain why the “big boys” do not share with us, while we watch the crumbs from their table blow in the wind. Cost-cutting is a ruse because the Republican Administrations have repeatedly increased the national debt, while Democratic Administrations have repeatedly reduced the national debt. The tax cuts now headed our way will only increase the debt. The firing of government employees and dismantling of the watch-dog programs will only increase corruption and the national debt, as money disappears into the pockets of private contractors planning to take over education, the military, law enforcement, the postal service, health care and social services. Privatization introduces profit motive which increases costs, and provides greater investment returns for the wealthy who are being excused from tax burdens. Our middle class has been under a destruction plan since the 1980s. It is now coming to fruition. There cannot be a democracy without a strong middle class.
We need more agitators, asking more questions.
annarino writes 
A LETTER TO US ALL
Dear Us:
Did you ever hear of the Golden Rule? “Treat others as you would be treated.” When asked which of the ten commandments Moses shared with the Israelites was the most important, Jesus advised questioners to “Love others as I have loved you.” In the 60s, even non-believers of any religion, or of even the existent of God, followed the precept “Lead with your heart.” “Flower children” believed in love, for everyone, at all times. And those were turbulent times. We watched freedom riders maimed and killed, their busses set on fire, their murdered bodies hidden and buried in shallow graves. We watched the perpetrators of violence go free; the Citizen Councils ( marketing change for KKK) often included law enforcement and local judges. This is the America currently referred to when Trump supporters urge us all to “Make America Great Again.” They no longer wear white robes nor hide their faces. They wear red ties, dark suits and sometimes red hats.They pretend to be news anchors on FOX News and elsewhere. They pretend to be president like Elon Musk. The delivery system of hate may have changed; the racism and sexism have not. We are experiencing a backlash to the progress made over the past 50 years. It took 50 years for it to grow this strong.
I was a resident student advisor (RA) at Lincoln Tower on the OSU campus in Columbus, Ohio in the late sixties and early 70s. I was also a student activist. I had to become one because I believed in the Golden Rule. I watched Black students, Jewish students and women students derided and demeaned. I was privy to racist commentary because white students assumed they could say them to my white face with my full agreement. White men also felt safe making sexist comments to me despite the fact I was a woman. As an Italian-American I was sometimes mistaken for Jewish and heard my share of anti-semitic remarks. Much of the time such hate-talk was passed off as a joke. Whenever I heard the joke I stopped the speaker and explained nothing they said was funny, nor factual. I demanded such language never be used while in my presence. Those who just joined in to feel safe in the crowd became serious and apologized. The bullies did not apologize. But they shut up. “Stand up to shut them up” became part of every day life on campus. That is activism at its core.
I had a few empty suites on my floor due to an on-going criminal investigation. A mentally ill student was on trial for arson, having set fire in a suite the year before. Once the case was resolved, those suites were re-opened and spaces filled, as were other vacancies on my floor. Who moved in to those spaces? Black women looking for a safe space. Some had repeatedly been locked out of their rooms by white roommates. Several had threatening notes nailed to their door; threats to rape or kill them because they were Black. Most were ostracized and demeaned daily by white roommates. Their complaint to Student Affairs fell on deaf ears. When the spaces opened on my floor, they found refuge there.
Our dorm was typical for OSU where Black students made up a tiny percentage of the student population. My floor was unique. I held floor meetings to discuss expectations that we would all follow the Golden Rule. When I saw or heard of a racial incident I immediately intervened. Soon, I was doing racial mediation on a regular basis. Black women entered the elevator and experienced white women moving close to the emergency call button, with hand hovering, ready to cry for help from women just like themselves returning exhausted from a day of classes ? Time for mediation! Call everyone together and talk it through. Day after day. Incident after incident. It was exhausting for the Black women, and the Black men who visited them, to face daily racial challenges and outright discrimination.
Another RA and two students worked with me to develop a racial mediation program in our dorm. Whenever the Student Judicial Council was handed a case involving a white student and a Black student in dispute, it was handed off to us to mediate the conflict. Our efforts were not always welcomed, but we persisted. Incidents of violence, write-ups to judiciary, and racial conflict decreased. Today, this program would be outlawed by the President who gleefully extorts OSU by threatening loss of education grants and federal funds for programs and research. OSU has caved to the bullies. OSU is not standing up to shut up the racism. It would cost money. And money is god in America, and on college campuses.
OSU is caving to racists and bullies again. And, not just OSU. Columbia University, indeed nearly all colleges and universities, if not all, are caving to racist bullies under the guise of following the law, accepting the lawless and illegal actions of the current administration. Following the law would require universities to protect the free speech rights of faculty and students, to abide by employment contracts and civil service laws to protect both administrative employees and faculty. Universities with law schools had readily-available experts to stand up, speak out and take action. I was an Associate Director of Law at Ohio University. There is a national organization of such attorneys. Why are they so silent? Why have university presidents and provosts not joined arms to defend their campuses against illegal searches and seizures of students? Why did Columbia University not come to the aid of Mahmoud Khalil and his family? If they did so in any way, it was neither apparent nor sufficient.
The Poster Boy President leading the racist mob of greedy Americans spoke at the DOJ recently. His racist and personal attacks on lawyers, prosecutors and judges, was accepted and even cheered. Racism and greed cross all boundaries and sexual preferences, exist within every profession, religion and community group. It is a constant and persistent threat to the principles of democracy. Those whose racism had been laid low, who crawled under rocks to hide their sins, have crawled back out, empowered by the greed for wealth and power, threatened by those they spurn who have finally found success on a more equal path, and undermined by their own sense of failure despite the promise of an American Dream. Instead of blaming the greedy power-brokers of industry, banking and finance, politics and education they blame their fellow victims. Their racism blinds them to truth, and they willingly embrace false-hoods and disinformation. They would not recognize a fact if it stared them in the face. They would prefer to attack the fact and the experts offering the truth of the fact.
As a lawyer, as an educator, as a writer, I am heart-broken over the loss of my country, my Constitution and its guarantees of personal freedom for all persons who are in this country…no matter where they came from, or how they got here. That is the promise of America. That is the American Dream. Shopping for cheap goods because your existence only matters if those power-brokers can make a buck off you cannot fill the place freedom once filled within the American heart and psyche. Woke? Woke is what is required to survive the on-slaught against a free people who simply want to find a good-paying job, buy a house, feed and educate their family. The power-brokers want us to stay asleep. Like children, we are angels in our sleep, causing them no discomfort, and quietly staying out of their way as they take over our economy, our government institutions, our military, our banking system, our educational systems and local/public schools…even our post office!
Wake up, my fellow lawyers, my fellow professors, my fellow school teachers, my fellow social workers, my fellow counselors, my fellow retail workers, my fellow waitresses and caterers, my fellow babysitters, my fellow students, my fellow Catholics and people of faith, my fellow Americans. Wake up and stay woke! We have work to do, if we can stay awake to do it loudly and persistently. This is no time to lie down and feign sleep. God knows, none of us sleep well theses days.
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