When Help Is a Four-letter Word

What does the latest iteration of Michelle Obama's "Me! In Target!" story have to do with the producers of the film The Butler? Both show complete disdain for the idea of service, apparently rooted in snobbery and self-importance. 

In case you missed it, Mrs. Obama actually went into a Target store back in 2011. She has talked about it before. Imagine this being such an unusual event that you're asked about it on talk shows. You'd think she'd spent a month in a coal mine. Oh, wait. They're all closed, aren't they? Anyway, while she had reported the adventure before with some element of humor, the terrible trauma emerged in People magazine: 

"Even as the first lady," she told the magazine, "during the wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf." She said the incidents are "the regular course of life" for African-Americans and a "challenge" for the country to overcome. Yahoo story

There's an element of "Don't you know who I am?" in the story, the suggestion that someone of her quality should never be asked to pull a bottle of detergent off a shelf, but the notion that this was some sort of racial insult is the recently-injected and truly bizarre bit. It takes a heap of prickly sensitivity to find a request for help demeaning. She has taken the sort of interaction that most people think nothing of and turned it into a burden. Here's a clue, Michelle, and all other race maniacs out there: perfectly normal, kindhearted people ask others for help every day. And perfectly normal, kindhearted people are happy to give that help. It's a good thing. It's the way human beings ought to live. It makes the world a more pleasant place for all. Complaining that someone took you for a perfectly normal, kindhearted person makes you look like, well, something else. 

Speaking of racial bogeys injected into race-irrelevant stories, we turn to The Butler, based on the life of Eugene Allen, called Cecil Gaines in the film. Allen served for decades as a butler in the White House. He was valued, even loved, by the people he served. But to some, "served" is a dirty word. I think the filmmakers had to find a way to deal with their horror of service. "How could a black man possibly be willing to carry trays to white people as a career?!?" Apparently, the only way they could justify it was by inventing a dehumanizing trauma for young Cecil. 

In the film, he and his parents are scarcely more than slaves on a Georgia farm in the 1920s. A skanky overseer drags Cecil's mother out of the fields and into a shed for a little miscegenation. While she cries and screams, Cecil watches his father, powerless, emasculated, do nothing about it. Afterward, he does show anger, and the overseer shoots him on the spot. And, so, Cecil becomes a pet of the lady of the house in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, thus beginning a life of-- shudder-- service. 

Only no such thing happened. He didn't even live in Georgia; it was Virginia. I guess Georgia sounds meaner. But in an interview with The Telegraph, Allen reports that his childhood was happy. He just didn't want to live on a farm, so he went looking for another kind of work, something salaried. The Telegraph interviewer asked about racial tensions in Allen's boyhood environs. "I tell you I didn't know anything about all of this," says Allen. "The people who lived nearby were nice people. There weren't a lot of people who tried to take advantage of us."

What, then, could possibly have allowed him to serve others with skill and grace all his life? And, for that matter, kept him from breaking any bakery windows and kept his wife from cheating on him? (Both were in the movie. Neither happened in real life.) I think I know. They were Christians. A biography on a Scottsville Museum website (Allen's real life) tells us that he joined Greater First Baptist Church in Washington, DC, in 1949 and remained an active member all his life. More serving: he was on their usher board and board of trustees and in something called the July Birthday Guild. 

I'm guessing that instead of Jeremiah Wright's "Amerikkka stinks so hate Whitey" brand of preaching, the butler was hearing something like this: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them... Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." Jesus said that. (Matthew 20: 25-28) In Matthew 25, we read that any good deed, such as feeding, clothing, offering hospitality to ordinary people is the same as offering it to Jesus. Those who can't be bothered "will go away to eternal punishment." 

Hmm. I think I'll go make tea. Want some? I'll bring you a cup. 

Hold That Bag

I finished up my "everything" bagel while reading in the paper (yes, the "paper") about a study of children's lunches performed in Houston by "researchers." The story failed to mention who these "researchers" were or who paid for their ever-so-thorough examination of 337 children's lunches. Any guesses? 

Paragraph after paragraph reported how many cups and ounces of fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, dessert, soda and a partridge in a pear tree-- nope, wrong holiday-- appeared in lunches the children brought from home versus lunches sold in the school cafeteria. They found that miscreant parents gave their kids lots more sodium and fewer Brussels sprouts than the lunch ladies did. Imagine parents failing to meet federal guidelines! The nerve! And kids throw some of their lunches away, so they don't get all the calories the parents pack. And how much of those goose-stepping, guidelined institutional lunches is thrown away? Huh. It wasn't mentioned. 

But the last paragraph made me spew my half-caff, fresh-ground coffee. "Now that schools have improved the quality of lunches they serve, it's time for policymakers to turn their attention to parents and others who pack lunches at home, the researchers concluded." Excuse me? We've already heard of at least one child having her home lunch confiscated at school. What's next? Inspection of home kitchens? Government-approved shopping lists? Brown bags treated as contraband? I wonder how the reporter wrote that last bit with a straight face. I think I might have have made it the lead, something about government tentacles and their never-ending reach. Time to chop them off with a freshly-sharpened chef's knife.  

"Don't You Know Who I Am?"

     Eric Holder is helping out in Ferguson, MO, by complaining that he has been stopped for speeding on the the New Jersey Turnpike. Twice. And once, when he and a cousin were running to a movie in Georgetown, a cop stopped and asked what they were doing. Yeah, that's harsh, Mr. Holder. Couldn't possibly be that the cops were simply doing their job. Gotta be racism. 
     On Facebook, a person of our acquaintance told the sad tale of a young black man who was stopped while driving with a companion. Bright lights in the face, cops with guns drawn. The cops checked their ID and let them go. Gotta be racism, right? But the cops had been given a description of suspects-- two black men in that kind of car, in that vicinity. Sorry, guys, but you did fit the description.
     Remember when Susan Smith drowned her children and told police that she'd been carjacked by a black man? The police began to stop and question black men. When it came out that she had rolled her own car into the water, cries of racism were heard in the land. "Why were they only stopping black men?" Well, because they were told that a black man had committed the crime. That it was a lie is beside the point. When the only information they had was that the suspect was a black man, whom should they have looked for, Asian women?
     Guess what. Sometimes white people are "hassled" by police. I even experienced the bright lights in the face when I was taking kids home from martial arts class. I pulled out of the back entrance to the strip mall in my white Dodge van and was suddenly blinded by the fierce light. I slowed and pulled over, wondering why. Finally I realized I had forgotten to turn on my headlights. To the cops across the street, my van was clandestinely leaving a string of shops where there had been burglaries. Their spotlight revealed a startled blonde housewife with little kids. If I'd been a burly guy (of any color) in a watch cap, no doubt they would have come over and had a conversation with me. Other than the van, though, I didn't fit the description, and I went on my merry way, resolving always to turn on the headlights before leaving a parking lot. 
     Friends of any color, can we please brush all the chips off our shoulders and realize that any one of us may sometimes look suspicious-- or be stopped for an actual offense-- regardless of melanin? In a loose jacket and carrying a huge purse, I might well be seen as a potential shoplifter. Security would be wise to keep an eye on me. In short shorts and high heels down on the Trail, I might be taken for a prostitute. Or completely insane, given my age and veins. Anyway, young person, dark person, any person, if you're stopped by the cops for fitting a profile, the one to cuss is the criminal who created the profile, not the cop who's trying to find him. And if you're stopped for breaking the law, the only one to cuss is yourself. 
 

Loving Law

Breaking God’s law in one particular breaks the whole thing, says the Bible. I believe that’s because it isn’t just a set of rules; the law is God’s character. We are made in His image, and we ought to be like Him, but we are so screwed up since the fall of Adam, He’s had to spell out the rules like parents telling squabbling children, “You sit here, and you sit there, and don’t even look at each other.” (Or Bill Cosby saying “I don’t want anybody in this house to touch anyone else in this house ever again!”)

“Worship Me, not false gods.”

“Don’t murder each other.”

All ten of the Commandments are really pretty basic, but misbehaving children need them. Perhaps to help us grow up and become more self-controlled, Jesus distilled the law as “Love God and love one another.” We ought to function always as God’s creatures, who appreciate being created and loved and who love Him back. We ought always to show love for other human beings, because they are also His creatures, and He loves them. These are the simple criteria.

Faced, then, with, say, the prospect of a human infant coming along at what we deem an inconvenient time, how should we decide what to do? We can go God’s way, love in its essence, or we can do “other.” That is the only division, the only one that counts. And “other” covers a lot of territory. Once you’ve stepped out of the circle of God’s loving character, you have no more boundaries. Thus abortion in the first trimester in the direst of circumstances soon becomes second and third trimester killing, just because you’re unhappy or inconvenienced. And then babies who have been born can be starved to death, or, more efficiently, have their spines snipped with scissors by someone like Kermit Gosnell, and their feet chopped off as trophies.

There is little merit in trying to say which sin is worse, even though some are more spectacular than others. Is murder worse than adultery? Is homosexual practice worse than gossip? Is it worse to covet, or to bear false witness? No sinner need feel superior to others, because the law is one piece. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every one of us is outside the circle, and the only way back is through Jesus, Who made Himself the gate, the way, the truth and the life. The law points us in His direction.

And... Cut!

I suppose it’s a sign that an injury is not too grave if your first thought is “Save the sandals.” When I dropped a large, heavy, sharp, shiny chef’s knife on my left ankle, and the blood began to flow, I grabbed at the buckle of my spiffy Merrell sandals with the pale aqua suede straps. I raced the rivulets. The rivulets won. Blood dripped onto the floor and left traces on my toes when I yanked the sandal off. A half-width of paper towel (I remain frugal even under duress) was the first absorbent thing I grabbed and pressed against the cut. Next, I tied a kitchen towel on top of the paper towel and began to hobble toward the bedroom that held the first-aid box.

Youngest son was plugged into his computer in the adjacent dining room and didn’t move. Husband emerged from the hallway with his phone pressed to his ear. “I dropped a knife on my ankle,” I said. He turned back into the hallway. By then, I was pretty well convinced that I could have bled to death in the kitchen, and nobody would have noticed until dinner time. “Hey, what’s for dinner?” Darling son would then post on Facebook and Twitter, “Mom’s dead. That sucks” and go back to GoreCavern 2: the Sickening.

The hubs turned up as I was scrabbling through the plastic bin in search of butterfly bandages. “I tell you I’ve dropped a knife on myself, and you do nothing?” said I.

“I couldn’t hear you.”

“Didn’t the towel around the ankle give you a clue?”

“I just thought you might have sprained it or something.”

Oh, well, of course, a mere sprained ankle on your wife is nothing to HANG UP THE DANG PHONE for.

But he did help find the right bandages and, with a great air of self-importance, applied the butterfly strip over the cut, and a regular bandage crosswise over that. When I sat on the bed, he squashed a pillow under my foot to elevate it. The shock wearing off, the cut stung, and my eyes teared up. I asked for a tissue. He brought it and insisted on drying my tears—by bouncing the wadded tissue on the center of my eyeball. Very Ray Romano.

Naturally, Facebook is the place to analyze such ordeals, and I posted a brief report, with a notice to an EMT friend who once posted a photo of someone’s feet shredded to pulp right down to the tendons and wrote “Boys and girls, this is why we don’t wear flipflops on motorcycles.” Probably because she has answered calls for things like “Go to the drugstore and pick up my prescription,” she rejoiced that we actually took care of the cut ourselves. So I guess that’s all right. And... cut.

Before, After, Never

          So I ordered this exercise program, mainly because my darling daughter has signed on as a coach/rep, and she gets credit. The thing actually sounds reasonable, an amalgam of yoga and Pilates, both of which I’ve at least sampled in the past without total humiliation, and I might be able to follow it and the diet advice. Except for the unlimited raw kale. Shudder. In the kit is a flyer for a free t-shirt. Free, that is, in exchange for before-and-after photos. In “form-fitting clothing.” Front view, rear view, side view and a sort of flexed-leg modelish pose. Did I mention the form-fitting clothing? In return for a t-shirt. Ha, say I, not for a thousand t-shirts. Not for the entire world’s supply of t-shirts. My rolls and wrinkles shall remain under wraps, my flab unphotographed. T-shirt, my… well, you know. Offer me a $10,000 New York shopping trip, why don’t you. I might start to consider it. But don’t hold your breath. Now pardon me while I go kick some kale.