I Voted Against My Best Interest: Post-Election Ramblings

I voted for Hillary Clinton. Truth be told, I would have voted for just about anyone other than Trump. I didn't think that a man who spent years disrespecting the current president should win, but I wasn't surprised when he did. After all, this is America. 

There are those of us who look beyond ourselves and those of us who don't. I don't say that in a judgmental way, because I believe that everyone is entitled to live their life however they choose, as long as it's legal. I say that as an acknowledgement that not everyone thinks the way I do. That doesn't make them wrong or me right. It just makes us different. 

The truth is that I will likely benefit from Trump's proposed tax cuts. My pockets will probably thank him for years to come; however, I didn't vote for the person who was better for my pockets. I voted for the person who shared my vision of America. 

All of Trump's supporters are not racist. That is a statement of fact. I know some of his supporters and besides their choice of candidate, we really don't have any issues. The unfortunate part is that there is a faction of his supporters that are extremely racist and that faction views his victory as carte blanche to spit their vitriol in public. This faction is one of the many reasons why I voted against Trump. I didn't want the racists and/or anti-Semitic groups to think that they were winning in America.

I don't know if Trump is racist (and before you say it, having black friends or hiring black people or once having dated a black woman does not mean that you can't be racist. There are some black people who are racist against other black people). Truthfully, I don't care if he is or he isn't. I care about what his words have done to people. Whether he actually builds the wall, bans Muslims, sends illegal immigrants back, ends DACA, installs judges who vote against Roe v. Wade and marriage equality is a moot discussion. The danger of his presidency is that these "policies" won over enough people for him to win the electoral vote. It doesn't matter that he lost the popular vote. In years to come, Clinton's popular vote win will be nothing more than a footnote in history. Just ask Gore. 

How will Trump's presidency effect me? Well, not much. I have healthcare through my job. I'm not planning to get married. I won't be having an abortion. I'm not here illegally and neither are my parents. I'm not Muslim. I live in a mostly democratic area, so I likely will not be called the n-word to my face (because they do that in private), and if Trump defaults on our debt and the value of the dollar plunges, I still have at least 20 to 25 years to recover before I retire. I know that I will likely not suffer any of the potentially negative consequences of a Trump presidency, and yet, I voted against him.

Now let's get to Hillary. I've followed her ever since she emerged on the national scene and the media and America bullied her to change her name from Hillary Rodham to Hillary Rodham Clinton, because, well, Heaven forbid a married woman keep her maiden name. Hillary has been harassed on the national scene ever since. She was demonized for standing by her husband and attacking the women who accused her husband of wrongdoing. She was blamed for Benghazi, even though it was a group clusterf**k. Congress didn't approve funding for better protection and Hillary and the state department reacted too late to the situation. It's sad that Americans lost their lives, but the blame doesn't belong to one person. Her next scandal, the now infamous emails, shouldn't have been a scandal at all. Anyone who has looked in to emails during that time and before, will find that Hillary's email use was not an anomaly. They didn't have the rules back then, that they have now. I firmly believe that Hillary wasn't prosecuted because so many members of congress and other top level officials (the president included) sent and received emails from Hillary's personal email address. You shouldn't take her down without taking all of them, too. Although, I don't say any of this to make excuses for Hillary. She lost the electoral college. Period. Hillary didn't lose because of the Republicans smear campaigns, Wikileaks, the Russians, the FBI or bitter Berners. Hillary lost because she didn't convince enough people that she was the right candidate. I know that some ardent Hillary supporters will argue that she was the best qualified candidate and I can't argue against them, but I can remind them that in America, women and minorities should all know quite well that being the best qualified doesn't make you the automatic winner.

I know a few black people who voted for Trump because they wanted "change." The irony is that change is indeed what they will receive. Obama was a president who at least pretended to care about all Americans, Trump will not bother to pretend. 

Going forward, I am interested to see if the Republicans approve Trump's infrastructure plan. Obama and the Democrats have been begging for an infrastructure plan and Republicans have denied them each time. To approve one now would mean that Republicans were fine with sacrificing American jobs as long as it made the Democrats and Obama look bad. I look forward to seeing what the Republicans actually do now that they have complete control of Congress and can no longer use the Democrats or Obama as scapegoats. 

I hope that the Democrats will not become the party of "no" simply because it worked for the Republicans. I hope that the Democrats will work with Trump when they can and fight against him when they must. I don't want Trump to be treated the same way as Obama, where even his good ideas are shot down simply because they came from him.

I'm not sure what the next 4 years will bring, but I'm not worried about it either. I did my part. Now I'm going to sit back and find a way to enjoy the ride.  

My Initial Reaction to the Orlando Shooting

I usually try to wait and calm down before I write about major news stories. I try to gather the facts and carefully construct my argument, but now is not the time to be careful. 

Yesterday, I awoke to the new American norm: 20 people had been killed in a mass shooting. I thought it was sad but I didn't cry because 20 people dying in a mass shooting is no longer a shocking event. Later in the morning, I watched a press conference and it was announced that at least 50 people had died and 53 people were injured. I cried as I listened to the rest of the press conference. I was angry and confused. What type of person kills 50 people? Why was 20 just another news story, but 50 was a punch in the gut?

I found myself praying to a God that I only sometimes believe in and I also found myself waiting to see how far the different sides would go to blame each other. This act of terror was not the fault of the democrats or the fault of the republicans or the fault of religion, or worse, the fault of every Muslim person in the world. This act of terror was the fault of a single gunman who was filled with hate. A gunman, who despite being an American citizen, was willing to terrorize his own people on behalf of ISIS. Make no mistakes, we are his people and whether we like it or not, he was our brother. The worst mass shooting in modern America was not carried out by some foreign born terrorist, but rather, by one of us, and yet, we spent most of Sunday pointing fingers and arguing over semantics. We can blame radical Islam and call him a Muslim terrorist, an anchor baby, the son of Afghan parents, a Jihadist, an ISIS inspired terrorist and whatever other name we can think of to make him different from us, but the fact remains that until 2:00am on Sunday morning, this hate filled man was one of us. Do not mistake this for me blaming society because we are not to blame. He is to blame. We can't teach our children personal responsibility then blame everyone but them when they do something wrong. 

What I'm trying to say is that we were too busy focusing on things that didn't matter. 50 people were killed. That's what mattered. 50 people will never go home again, 53 will always have the scars, hundreds will suffer with knowing that they survived and the rest of us are left to try to imagine the unimaginable. That's what matters. Yesterday, I didn't care that he was registered as a democrat or that everyone wasn't saying "radical Islam" or that we needed to ban semi-automatic assault weapons or that Trump said something stupid or that Hillary's comments were more "presidential." I didn't care about any of that garbage. I cared about the families and the victims. How can anyone view 50 dead people as an opportunity to take jabs at the other side in order to earn more votes? How have we, as a society, reached this point?

Yes, in the big picture, the reactions of our presidential nominees matter, but I wish that we could have been united yesterday and that politics could have taken a 24 hour break. For just one day, I wished that the talking points focused more on those who were hurting and less on the commentary of people hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of miles away. I wished that we could all stand up and denounce the gunman and ISIS while keeping our fingers in our pockets unless we were extending our arms to offer hugs or a helping hand. I wished that we could all cry as a nation for our loss. I wished that we could all care about the victims and their families. I wished that we didn't minimize their suffering by immediately making it about our personal politics. 

Some of us spent Sunday in mourning. Some of us rushed to donate blood and money and to send flowers and organize vigils and other tributes. But far too many of us spent the day fighting among ourselves and taking figurative shots at the "other side" as if 50 people had not just been killed. To be honest, I'm not surprised because that's what many of us do as Americans. Many of us make every tragedy about us and our movement and our agenda. Many of us don't care that people are hurting or that families spent the entire day in that awful gray area of fearing the worst but praying for the best. Our news coverage of this tragedy is a sad testament to the state of our country.

In the age of sensationalism and sound bites, I fear that we are slowly, but surely, losing our humanity.

Free Fall Movie Review

I haven't written a movie review in a while, but I have watched several movies. One of those movies was a German gem titled Freier Fall (Free Fall for all of you English speakers) a few months ago. Free Fall is good. It had a storyline that I typically don't like, but it did it in a way that made me sympathetic instead of judgmental.

The main character, Marc, is in a relationship with a woman. The woman is pregnant and they are well on their way to being a family. Unfortunately, Marc meets a guy, Kay. Marc and Kay go running together and become more than friends. The attraction between them is hard to deny. I knew after the first "kiss" that Marc would be back for more. How could he not? The kiss leads Marc down a slippery slope that is riveting to watch. It's impossible for him to go back to the life he knew before, but it's also difficult for him to step forward and claim the life that he wants. The audience watches as Marc's life slowly spirals out of his control.

And don't get me started on the sex scenes. Wow! I just...I can't. Maybe it's the desperateness of their first time or the animalistic way that they kiss each other. Whatever it is, the two actors combine to make scenes that emanate heat and lust and will probably leave you feeling some type of way. I've included a clip below, but make sure that you are 18 or older because children should definitely not see what Marc and Kay do to each other. 

I give the movie a B+, mostly because I'm a romantic at heart so I was rooting for a happy ending. However, there is still hope because there is a rumor that there will be a Free Fall 2. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing this journey with Marc and hopefully Kay.  

I know that Free Fall is available on Netflix and through Amazon. I highly recommend that you rent the movie. You won't regret it. 

Thoughts on Spring Valley High

By now, you have either heard about or actually watched the video of a teen being pulled out of her chair and literally thrown to the front of the room and arrested for refusing to give up her cell phone and leave the classroom. 

As a former teacher, I would assign the bulk of the blame for this incident to the "adults" involved in the situation. For starters, this girl was not causing a disruption. I'm not basing that on what I saw in the video, but rather from the accounts of the students in the room. The students on the opposite side of the room didn't even know what the girl had done until they were later informed by their peers. I've had disruptive students. In order for me to deem a student as disruptive, that student needs to actually disrupt class. Having a disagreement with the teacher that is so quiet that only the students near you are aware, does not rise to the level of disrupting the class. I'll tell you who did disrupt the class though: the teacher, the vice-principal and the resource officer. The adults completely disrupted that class for no good reason. 

Before you argue that the girl was being disobedient and needed consequences, let me explain to you what a teacher with even a minimal amount of classroom management skills should have done. Once the teacher asked for the phone and the girl refused, the teacher should have told her that he was writing her up. He should have taken a referral out of his desk and filled it out while he continued to teach the class. If other students inquired who the referral was for, he should have told them that the person knows who they are. As long as the student remained quiet and did not cause a scene, the teacher should have continued with class and dealt with the student later. The teacher could have even told the girl to remain after class so that he could discuss her behavior with her. Classroom management 101 is that you do not argue with students and you do not engage in a public power struggle. According to a woman from the school board, the teachers have been given training on how to resolve similar situations with a student who is being disobedient but is not truly causing a disruption. The woman said, what I as a former teacher already know, the teacher was wrong to escalate the situation. The girl should have had consequences, but there was no need to stop class to deal with her.

I have seen accounts from students that the girl refused to give up her phone, but she did put the phone away and she apologized to the teacher and eventually the vice-principal.  The teacher should have accepted the apology and informed her that he still had to write her up then continued with class. This was not a battle that the adults should have pursued. The phone was away. Hell, I would have been okay if the vice-principal pulled up a seat next to the girl and sat next to her for the rest of the period to make sure that her phone never made a second appearance. After class, the vice-principal could have escorted the girl to the office to be suspended or directly to in-school suspension or given her a detention or anything short of expelling her. 

Now here is where I posit a truly radical idea. Maybe, just maybe, the quiet girl who rarely spoke to her classmates refused to leave class because she...actually wanted to be in class and learn something (gasp). As shocking as it may sound, some kids don't want to be kicked out of class. I've seen people online accuse the girl of clearly not wanting to learn because she didn't have anything on her desk. Obviously these people have not seen the longer version of the video where the resource office shuts the laptop on the girl's desk and moves it away from her, because heaven forbid the laptop get damaged while he is forcibly removing her from the desk. The officer showed far more regard for the laptop than he did for the girl. I've also seen the hint from law enforcement that there is a third video that shows the girl hitting the officer. I'm assuming they are referring to that moment, after the officer has grabbed the girl and lifted her off her feet, where the girl punches at his arm to get free. How dare she give in to her instinct to protect herself. How dare she not sit still and wait to hit the ground.

Every person directly involved in this situation was wrong, from the girl to the teacher to the vice-principal to the resource officer. However, adults are supposed to model behavior for young adults. If I was a young adult in that classroom, what lesson have I been taught? Well, I have been taught that the appropriate reaction to a non-violent girl who is quietly being defiant is to rip her out of her seat and toss her across the room. There are those who have and will argue that the dynamics are different because the girl disobeyed authority figures, but again, I remind those people that her great act of disobedience was not wanting to be kicked out of class. She had already put up the phone and apologized. She was sitting quietly in her seat, as a student should do. Why was it necessary to escalate the situation? Write her up, make sure that everyone in the room understands that she will be punished for her actions and move on with the lesson. 

A Pool Party in McKinney, Texas

I always try to wait a few days before I comment on a hot button issue. I think enough time has passed for me to write about the now infamous pool party in McKinney, Texas. 

I am bothered by the false narrative that this is yet another attack on police. This is not an attack on police. There were 12 officers who reported to the scene, yet only 1 is being criticized. I have yet to hear people complain about the other 11 officers. In the few glimpses that we did have, the other officers appeared to be employing techniques that were drastically different than Casebolt's. We have to ask ourselves, with at least 3 officers clearly at the scene when the most controversial part of the video was filmed, why did the boy focus his camera only on Casebolt? What was it about Casebolt that drew the young man's attention and held his attention for 7 minutes? At no time in the video does the boy filming turn his camera to one of the other officers there. In fact the few glimpses that we did get of the other officers were in stark contrast with Casebolt. In the beginning, when the boy returns the flashlight to Casebolt, we see one officer speaking calmly to the teenagers then Casebolt comes over and starts yelling at the kids and tells them to sit down. The next glimpse that we get is when Casebolt unholstered his gun and two officers ran over to him as if to say, "Hey, put that away." 

I've seen so much vitriol coming from both sides that I'm a little nauseous. I don't think this was necessarily about race on the police officer's behalf. I think that the adults made it seem like the black kids were the problem and that's why the police targeted the minorities. That said, I do think that Casebolt's actions were over the top and that his behavior towards a mouthy 14 year old child was unnecessary. I see people defending his actions because the girl did not leave right away. What these same people willfully ignore is that when he grabbed the young girl, she was....wait for it....walking away. He didn't rough her up while she was lingering. He literally snatched her back as she was finally following his instructions to leave. The worst part is that even the officer (speaking through his attorney) has admitted that his behavior was unacceptable and yet people are still defending him and excusing his actions.

Casebolt had an emotionally draining day. I'm glad that his attorney explained the two suicide calls that Casebolt had received before arriving at the pool party. The first was an actual suicide and the second was a young girl threatening suicide. Either call would have been a major stressor on its own, but together, that had to be an emotionally exhausting day. Casebolt came to the scene in a compromised emotional state. Like the teacher with outside stressors who "snaps" on a kid, the situation was the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm not excusing Casebolt's actions, but I don't think they were as malicious as some would lead people to believe. However, if Casebolt had not responded to the scene, we wouldn't be talking about the pool party. This would just be another teen party that got out of hand and was broken up by the police. 

The other issue that I have is the portrayal of the kids as out of control. Let's review what we know: too many teens were invited to the pool. The security guard (rightfully so) started refusing entry for the teens, even though many had legitimate guest passes and were invited. Some of the teens jumped the fence because they were invited and felt like the security guard was in the wrong to not let them in to the party. Most teens know little to nothing about HOAs. All these teens knew was that they had guest passes that gave them permission to be there. The appropriate response from adults should not have been to belittle the teens or argue with them. The offended adults should have called the police immediately. Instead, the offended adults, waited until after a fight between an irate woman and a black girl who lived in the community and was hosting the party.

When the police showed up to break up an out of control teen party, the teens started running. Does that surprise anyone who has seen the cops breaking up a wild party? Teens and adults alike scatter with the quickness. Some get away, some don't. The police are left to deal with those who didn't get away or who, for whatever reason (like not thinking they have done anything wrong) did not attempt to flee. Casebolt yelled at the boys to sit down and they did. They tried to explain that they had just arrived and one of them even used the ever offensive "sir" when addressing the officer (yes, that was sarcasm). When watching the video, I saw Casebolt charge at two other young boys and those young boys literally sat on the street because they were following his directions. He had to tell them to move to the grass and all they did was get up and move to the grass. Wow! Those kids sure put up a fight!

When Casebolt ran over to the group of teen girls who were standing away from the scene, he was the aggressor. The girls were the first teens on film who did not jump and follow Casebolt's commands. That set him off and that's why he kept coming back to them and picking with them. I'm not going to sit here and say that the girls were right to keep standing there or point out that there were other people walking in and out of the scene with not so much as a peep from Casebolt. The girls should have been like the boys and immediately followed the order, but like most teens, they saw that they were being singled out and they thought that somehow gave them permission to take their time. They did eventually decide to walk away, but it was too late. Casebolt zeroed in on the girl in the bright bikini and pulled her back in to the fracas. He threw her to the ground and as Jon Stewart so nicely pointed out, Casebolt, yelled at the girl to get her ass on the ground when her ass was quite literally on the ground. If that doesn't scream out of control to the layman viewer, then I don't know what will.

The other thing that has astounded me is the hypocrisy on both sides. Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that 11 of the 12 officers (as far as we can tell) behaved appropriately and many on the right refuse to acknowledge that 1 out of the 12 did not behave appropriately. Many on the left refuse to accept that HOAs are allowed to have rules for their pool. The residents who called the police were well within their rights and I would have done the same thing and probably much sooner. Many on the right justify the manhandling of a 14 year old girl because she had the nerve to talk back, yet openly ignore that she was complying with the police orders when she was grabbed.

Both sides keep cherry picking the dialogue that they want to have and that's unfair to the situation. This was not a group of black thugs terrorizing a suburban pool. This was a mixed group of teens having an end of the school year pool party. This was not a police versus black kids incident. This was one emotionally drained police officer responding in an inappropriate fashion to what should have been a routine break up of a teen party. This was not a bunch of confrontational teenagers threatening the police. This was a bunch of teenagers reluctant to leave a party. This was not a teenage girl resisting arrest. This was a teenage girl being mouthy then flailing to the ground as a grown man yanked her by her arm and hair. (Notice how her first instincts after being forced to the ground was not to curse out the police or fight back, but rather to cry for someone to call her mother.) The two guys who approached the officer were not trying to jump him. They were two guys who were concerned with the teen girl who had just been thrown to the ground like a rag doll and inadvertently got too close to the officer.

I could probably keep going, but I think you get the picture. This wasn't some horrible racist officer attacking black kids, but it also wasn't some mob of unruly black kids. Both sides are far more complicated.