Am I Allowed?

We live in a perpetually offended society. And an always angry one. I've talked about how hard it's been to find that not mad space for myself. And I'm a happy person at my base. It's who I am at my core. Hell I was telling jokes at my dad's funeral because laughing is more natural to me than anything. Even laughing while crying. It's who I am.

And it's who I've worked hard to be. I made sure that the angry side of me didn't win out when there was a chance it would. I've said it a million times, Brent deserves a medal for our first few years of marriage. I was not very nice at times. He will tell you that I was always nice to him and that I was smoking hot so there was no problem. But I was angry. I was angry at life. And then I realized that life didn't give a shit about if I was angry or not, it was just going to keep going and the only thing I could do was go along angry or go along happy. I chose happy.

I choose happy.

But man...there are times...

And then you have to wonder, is this something I get to be mad about?

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes people get offended about things that have NOTHING to do with them. They are just looking for a fight. Or they are just looking to signal to their group that they are on the same page. I try my best not to get offended at things in general. I can get pissed. I can find things to be idiotic. But to truly offend me you need to do something personal.

Usually.

But the past few days I've found myself offended. Like I see things posted and my face does it's my face thing and I am offended. It's offensive. I've walked away. I've shut Facebook down. I've done extra sit-ups, I've gone for a walk. I've read a book. I've done whatever I can to stop from writing, FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT FUCKING FUCKER as a response. So far it's worked.

But let me be really clear, FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT FUCKING FUCKER is what is going through my head when I type the words, "No. Bill Cosby is not the victim of a lynching. Bill Cosby is the recipient of overdue justice."

I'm offended on behalf of the women he raped. I'm offended that he who preached at the black community to put down the pound cake and take responsibility thinks it was fine for him to pick up the quaaludes and rape women. I'm offended that his legal team and his wife and political cartoonists have tried to tie his trial and conviction to lynchings. And his wife today to Emmett Till specifically. And this is where I wonder if I have that right.

The on behalf of offense. I try to stay away from it. But sometimes something is so genuinely wrong that it's offensive even if it's not yours to own.

I wrote about going to the National Museum of African American History and Culture while we were on Sabbatical. It's a heavy day. The history is hard to take in and let it soak in to you and live with it.  Even for someone who felt like they knew a lot of it. I didn't know all of it. I didn't feel it as much as I did going through it all from the beginning.There is a lot there. But one of the areas that is the hardest is the Emmett Till room. It's the one area where you aren't allowed to take pictures. You just take it in. What happened to him. You feel it. As a parent I think I felt it very personally. It's hard. It's painful. It's still painful.

Bill Cosby is not Emmett Till. Bill Cosby drugged and raped multiple women. Emmett Till did not whistle at or flirt with that one white woman. (And please note the difference in the "crime") Bill Cosby will spend his time either under house arrest, where he is now, or in jail. Emmett Till was abducted from his house and beaten to death. Bill Cosby received a trial. The men who killed Till were acquitted in theirs. The woman who accused Till in the first place admitted she lied. Till was killed by her husband, who was acquitted by an all white jury but admitted to the killing soon after. Because of double jeopardy it didn't matter and he was safe. Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open casket funeral so people would have to see what they did to her child. Bill Cosby was sent home with an ankle monitor.

Just this last week a museum was opened in Montgomery, Alabama. It's a memorial to the 4000 victims of lynching from 1877 to 1950. When a black man accused of a crime could be ripped from his home, or from a jail cell and beaten, burned, hung, killed, by a mob. For the crime of being black. Let's be clear here,even if there was an actual crime that could have gone to trial he was killed for being black. It's part of our history in this country. We should be facing it, dealing with it. I absolutely agree that it is still more difficult in our justice system for a black man to get fair treatment. We see it in the outcomes of cases. The percentages of convictions. Of arrests. Of shootings by officers. There are deep inequalities that started with those 4000 and the system that was built around that thought.

But...

To use that?

Like Clarence Thomas did when Anita Hill was brave enough to come forward.

Like R. Kelly is right now.

Like Bill Cosby.

It's offensive.

And if it's offensive to a middle aged white woman I cannot fathom how offensive it should be to the black community. So yeah, I probably don't have the right to be offended, but I am. Deeply.

I'm offended by the comparison. I'm offended by the yeah but (insert white guy here). I'm offended that once again the women are being treated as an afterthought. Women who are victimized often don't come forward because they get victimized again.

Lynching. Instead of the evidence shows that he was guilty and for once the statute of limitations wasn't run out while he preached about personal responsibility.

It's offensive.

And if you cannot be offended on behalf of the women he raped, or the 4000 men who were actually lynched, or the list of black men who have been killed in our recent history for doing such heinous things as selling loose cigarettes or driving with a legal concealed carry then...

FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT FUCKING FUCKER!