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Courtesy of friends JE & AC, who moved out of town over the weekend, we now have a new-to-us ginormous TV in our place. The two best things about this TV, other than the mammoth screen:
1. The Fella will no longer need to complain about “the blacks,” i.e., the fuzzy, indistinct gray-to-black range that hampered dark scenes showing on our previous flatscreen TV;
2. I will stop cringing for a split second every so often because my partner has muttered the unexpected phrase “Wow, the blacks are terrible.”
Gordon Brown has issued a formal apology for the British government’s prosecution and persecution of the late Alan Turing, and by extension, offered an apology to all homosexual men* who suffered under the heterosexist laws of the time. Unlike so many official apologies, this one uses uncompromising language to acknowledge the enormity of the wrong committed. A paragraph from the speech serves as an example (emphasis mine in all cases):
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
The speech also draws attention to the cause-effect relationship between Turing’s (putatively rehabilitative) punishment and his suicide.
Of course, it is only words, not acts. What has been done cannot be undone. But surely this is a reflection of a welcome shift in our mores, an erosion of long-held bigotry, that the P.M.’s public contrition extends beyond the public figure of Turing and embraces all those other gay men* wronged by the same laws.
*Note that Brown specifies “men” in this statement.
I was upset yesterday when the doctor’s office called and told me Wednesday was the only day I could get an appointment. I had planned to spend the morning here in Australia watching the chaos/joy unfold overseas and now I would be deprived due to the drive up to Perth.
In the waiting room I saw the news that Obama won and JM and I did ‘the wave’ in our chairs. Being the only ones there it wasn’t too obnoxious, except perhaps to the receptionist, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
Now we’re back home watching all the speeches, reading the stories, and raising our glasses in celebration, a stark contrast to four years ago. I was told today that eventually I’ll have to have my parathyroids taken out, but I knew that already. I “look good” the doctor said to his colleague over the phone. No immediate worries. I feel good too. Happy day.
Yes.
We can.
updated: Because we don’t get tv reception at home, at 10 p.m. Tuesday night, The Fella and I headed out to meet some friends at a neighborhood bar, have a few drinks, hoot in delight and relief, and watch history as it happened.
For almost a decade, I’ve felt an increasing sense of alienation from my fellow Americans. As our national narrative became ever more mired in fear and a willful disregard for reason, as education became a thing to sneer at, as the blindness of religious zealots became a point of pride in the highest reaches of our government — our government! — it became clear to me that I simply didn’t know these people. They lived in a different world than mine, they feared and valued different things than I do.
And I never thought they’d do this. I didn’t trust them; I didn’t trust us. I didn’t believe I would live to see a primary contested between a black man and a woman. I certainly didn’t think I’d live to see a black person elected President.
I know it’s early days yet, and there are challenges ahead. I know we’re still a jingoistic, frightened power. I know we overconsume and under-educate. I know. I know. I know.
But it’s something. It’s something huge. We, as a nation, did something sane, something wise, something historic. For the first time in years, I feel some sense of belonging here. This nation may be my home after all.
You know, the way she “tolerates” gays. Yes, I’ve included it for sale at Cafe Press.
One of her more eye-opening/rapid-blinking statements of the evening:
“Also I’m thankful that the constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the Vice President, also if that Vice President so chose to exert it in working with the Senate. And making sure that we are supportive of the President’s policies…”
Um, no, not really, not at all.
A friend pointed me toward this Salon article comparing Sarah Palin’s simpering simulacrum of feminism with the powerful (and for some unpalatable) personal and professional presence of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
We began this history-making election with one kind of woman and have ended up being asked to accept her polar opposite. Clinton’s brand of femininity is the kind that remains slightly unpalatable in America. It is based on competence, political confidence and an assumption of authority that upends comfortable roles for men and women. It’s a kind of power that has nothing to do with the flirtatious or the girly, nothing to do with the traditionally feminine. It is authority that is threatening because it so closely and calmly resembles the kind of power that the rest of the guys on a presidential stage never question their right to wield.
I don’t think this article even begins to uncover the gender politics that have been lurking, half-submerged, in the rhetoric of this political season, but it’s a starting point.
I’ve officially sent in my form for absentee voting. I even bought a cheap printer so I could print it out and send it in. The things I do for Obama…
Elli
Elsa
