I grew up in an immigrant community in a very poor area of town. Inevitably, the inhabitants who claimed this impoverished neighborhood as their own resented the Italian-Catholics so unlike them. Bullies played a large role in my childhood. They roamed the alleys and streets looking for victims. I refused to become one.
My Great-Uncle George Annarino was a champion Bantam-weight prize fighter. His cauliflower ear was a marvel to me, especially when he explained how he got it as we sat together on bar stools at my family’s restaurant. He had retired from boxing and opened a gym, complete with a boxing ring in his garage, by the time I was born. He had taught my teen-aged father to fight. Dad won his first 22 fights. He lost his 23rd. fight and retired; only to learn that his opponent went on to win a national championship. He chuckled aloud stating to me, “I think I retired too soon.”
Dad hung a boxing bag in our garage, and gave us child-sized regulation boxing gloves. He taught his children how to throw a punch. He provided weights and at the age of ten I could lift 150 pounds above my head. I sparred with my Dad and brothers. Dad thought girls should also know how to protect themselves and showed me how a well-placed jab to the nose or eye, a well-placed kick where it would hurt most could disarm an attacker. We were taught to never start a fight, to walk away if possible. And, we were taught to never take a punch without punching back.
I was a lucky girl of that time in our history, a girl whose Dad knew her worth was equal to that of his sons’ worth. This was definitely not the norm in 1950’s America. Dad included me when he taught us to play baseball, football and basketball. My brothers played sports with me. Neighborhood boys allowed me to joint the games knowing I could play as their equal. Childhood ended with menstruation when playing with the boys became forbidden by my mother. Another battle ahead as a woman in a sexist society. But, I retained the athletic ability I had honed. I retained my fighting skills. More importantly, I retained my knowledge of my inherent self-worth. I knew how to stand up to bullies.
I still shadow-box, although not on a regular schedule. I still fight, although not with my fists. I know the value of a well-aimed punch and used it when cross-examining witnesses in court as an attorney. I learned to use the law to fight. I learned to use politics to fight. I organized voting efforts, went door-to-door on behalf of political candidates I admired, using the skills I learned about fighting an oppressive bully to good effect. I worked as a poll worker.
I still try not to start a fight. I have too often been told I am responsible for a fight, simply because I refuse to back down from a bullying conversation. I shall not start the fight. But, I will finish it. I prefer gloves in a ring; but in alleys and across dining tables are sometimes the only choice I’m given, with all gloves off. It may not look pretty. It feels good.
I want our politicians, educators, religious leaders, CEOs, labor unions, and fellow citizens to fight with me. I want them to stand up to the bullies. Not all of us had Dads like mine. Not all of us were trained to defend ourselves against bullies. I understand that. But, too often through my life I had to stand alone in the fight; only later in private to have others who stood back secretly thank me. I would have preferred them to stand alongside me in the fight. So, even if you cannot fight, for whatever reason, will you please stand alongside those who are willing to take on the fight? Is that too much to ask? I hope not. We need every single one of you to stand in solidarity with those of us fighting power-hungry, disgruntled bullies who claim they’re making America great again as they destroy it and us… “We the people.”
BORN IN THE USA, PART 3
Americans’ willingness to bully has always seemed to this second generation Italian-American to be part and parcel of Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, America First, the KKK, The American Conservative Council, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, MAGA movement, and now the Trump Administration bolstered by SCOTUS, Homeland Security, DOJ and FBI. Individuals within each organization are not necessarily racist, misogynist, Christian nationalists. There are men and women who love our country and only want to serve their nation. But, they are now being swallowed up as the separation of powers, using an immune to lawful control unitary executive pushed by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, destroys their dedication to facts and the law as guiding principles. Even the military leadership is decimated by firings and forced retirements. Even retirees like Commander and Senator Mark Kelly, and Lt. Colonel and Senator Tammy Duckworth are under attack by the nation they most ably served. What will new recruits do? What pressure will they face as they are asked to obey unlawful orders, as they watch Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth execute such orders with full support of Vice-President J.D.Vance and congressional Republicans?
In the past, we overlooked weaknesses in our leaders so long as they served the common good, in recognition of their humanity and acknowledging human foibles. There were checks and balances on human ill will and human error. We joined one another, citizen and new immigrant alike, in creating a democratic republic with global vision. We envisioned a world at peace where children could learn what they needed to know to be successful; where business and commerce could thrive; where ownership of resources was put to the common good. We built railroads, a national highway system, flood control projects, an energy grid, the internet, and now artificial intelligence.
We have been far from perfect, or even rational, but we kept trying to make a “ More Perfect Union.” We faced down our demons of racism and sexism under pressure of freedom-seeking Americans like W.E.B. Dubois, Ida Wells, A. Phillip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy, Ruby Bridges, Julian Bond, Bayard Rustin, Jo Ann Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Congressman John Lewis…among thousands. Their struggle and ours continues.
It is no coincidence the four persons arrested for protesting at a white nationalist church pastored by an I.C.E. field officer in Minneapolis were African-American, including two journalists: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. U.S. Asst. A.G. who oversees the civil rights division of the DOJ reposted a tweet referring to journalist Lemon as “ today’s clansmen.” An AI meme is circulating showing Don Lemon in chains as if he were a fugitive slave reclaimed by paid by bounty hunters. I.C.E. agents today are being paid bounties. Killing two white protesters, Rene Good and Alex Pretti while continuing to brutalize people of color stood out to white America. The arrest of Black journalists restored the racist narrative that people color are a always a threat to white America. Soon, the secret police paramilitary created by the Trump Administration will attack Haitians in Springfield, Ohio whose protected status will be allowed to expire under Republican-led House and Senate Leaders Johnson and Thune. Will white America see this for what it is? Will they connect the dots to understand the effort to divide and conquer all protesters- Black and white, and destroy the momentum which could sweep the fascists from office in coming elections? Seizure of Fulton County Georgia’s ballots has no legal benefit to the DOJ and FBI. But, if unopposed creates the narrative that seizing ballots is the usual course of election security. It is the exact opposite. It is dangerously erosive to election integrity.
In law, evidence must be held within the chain of command. Break the chain and the evidence is useless. It cannot be used easily, if at all. It will face “objection” if a party tries to in introduce it at trial to support a legal claim. Why? Because it is assumed it will be compromised. Ballots seized in a broken chain of command become a disinformation tool, a grand lie as they are altered and manipulated by those who seized them. We must object, not because we are in a court of law; but because we are in a court of public opinion. Our opinion counts as we protest. It counts even more when we vote.
I grew up in a neighborhood with bullies shouting and shoving at “dirty Catholic”, “dirty Italian” little girls. I went to a school where bullies painted Nazi insignia on the walls of the gym. I walked home form early dismissal when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated to smirks and chants from public school kids across the street “We finally killed that Catholic bastard.” I cannot remember a time when I have not been called a Commie-pinko leftist for teaching Black History and creating Black History programs. Like one out of four women I have even been sexually assaulted by bullies. Bullies cannot silence truth-seekers, journalists, educators, civil rights activists, people of color, women. They cannot be allowed to steal our votes, whenever they are cast. They cannot stop us. They have militarized the effort to stop us. They have arrested, disappeared, brutalized and killed. It will never be enough to break Americans and their insistence upon the freedoms guaranteed by a beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights. We stand together, stronger and more sure of our love for our country.
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