Shame On You

This woman was forever changed as of 11/9/16

I read a great Op-ed today by Michelle Goldberg about why Franken is stepping down while Trump stays in office.

It had a lot of powerful lines, among them:

1) "A great many liberal women were forever changed when they saw the grotesque beauty pageant impresario defeat the first female major-party candidate for president."

2) "As Susan Fowler, a former engineer at Uber who exposed a pervasive culture of sexual harassment at that company, told Time: “When Trump won the election, I felt a crushing sense of powerlessness. And then I realized that I had to do something.”

3) "But ultimately, the cultural currency of the #MeToo movement is not a substitute for political power. The incendiary rage unleashed by Trump’s election needs to be directed back at him. Otherwise, only those who already advocate women’s equality will be forced to grant it."

Yup, yup and yup, and on that last one: even when they do, like Al Franken, they'll do it by not admitting that what they did was wrong. So. Disappointing.

My own biggest revelation about the #metoo movement is that only certain stories make it onto Facebook. They are the catcalled, the groped, the date raped. These stories are valid and important, but they are not all inclusive of the ways in which sexual harassment and assault affect people's lives. There are still some stories that remain largely hidden, and the cost of that is quite high: children growing up with their sense of selves, their sense of love, their sense of intimacy, their sense of sexuality compromised.

This song came to me head while contemplating all of this. It's one that I heard before I knew I was carrying around a mountain of shame myself:

My friends they wash the windows and they shine in the sun
They tell me wake up early in the morning sometime
See what a beautiful job we done I say let's put on some tunes sing along dolittle all day
Go down to the riverside take off our shoes wash these sins away
The river said la la la shame on you I go down to Chicano city park cause it makes me feel so fine
When the weeds go down you can see up close in the dead of winter time
But when the summer comes everything's in bloom and you wouldn't know it's there
The white folks like to pretend it's not but their music's in the air
You can hear them singing la la la shame on you You can feel them dancing la la la shame on you
My friend Tanner she says you know me and Jesus we're of the same heart
The only thing that keeps us distant is that I keep fuckin up I said come on down to Chicano city park
wash your blues away the beautiful ladies walk on by You know I never know what to say
They'll be singing oo la la shame on you
Let's go road block trippin in the middle of the night up in Gainesville town
There'll be blue lights flashin down the long dirt road when they ask me to step out
They say we be looking for illegal immigrants can we check your car

I say you know it's funny I think we were on the same boat back in 1694 I said oo la la shame on you

I don't really wish shame on anyone.  As Brene Brown teaches, guilt is "I did something wrong; shame is "I am wrong."

Guilt can be useful as a cue for taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Shame keeps us small.

As I said a few posts back, I've worked really hard to hand back the shame I was carrying around -- turns out, it wasn't mine...