A GOOD FIT

  This is a round-about way of getting into the subject but then I do that. I have a new Sleep Number bed. My old Sleep Number bed lasted nearly twenty years and I am glad for that but both the bubble and the pump had lost their shine and my sleep was suffering. I don’t know why but I was surprised to learn about new features, like the pump is contained inside the bed itself and is accessible from the top. Then I got a new, expensive pillow at 50% off from the clearance rack and I sleep very well now thank you. But my dream world has changed also and I remember those involuntary dreamland experiences. I never did that before. In the first hour or so after getting up I will have residual feelings and emotional aftermath that emerged from the dream with me. 

This morning I kept hitting the snooze button. Mid October with an open window, the warm cocoon felt really good so I kept putting off the getting up. I usually need to turn on a light but daylight was streaming in and there comes a point when my body takes over without any voluntary motor commands. When it goes on autopilot like that I get up with it, as if I had a choice. In that moment of transition I thought about the semiconscious noodling that I was coming out of and the feeling was that of resentment bordering on pissed off. The uninvited observer from my dream had suggested that I was “uppity”. Demonstrating unmerited feelings of self importance is generally thought of as a character flaw. I wasn’t offended so much but the word (uppity) has racist roots. That plus the fact that many whites don’t know that, it compounds the insult and elevates the racism to a seemingly justifiable, cultural norm and that is what gets me going. I knew without being told and I am naïve as can be, always the last to know but when I can taste the blood I stop doubting.
After a few clicks on the mouse I came across reference to an insulting indiscretion on talk radio back in the middle of the Obama years. Host Rush Limbaugh commented on Michelle Obama’s condescending “uppityness”. When taken to task he and other radio bigots defended the comment as a colorless remark. But the writer had already done her homework and noted research that in the last half century that (uppity) usage in print was associated with racist text and context significantly more than as a generic term. It didn’t change anything in the bigot community. They were well schooled in the strategy, (never admit anything, deny, deny, keep selling the lie.) It was only news for a day or so but none the less; my first thought was to tell him to go to Hell but I suspect that is where he ended up. I never wished him dead but now that he is, along with his Presidential Medal of Freedom from the king  of (deny, deny, keep selling the lie;) I think it a good fit. 
I don’t think Michelle Obama or Stacy Abrams or Kamala Harris are loosing  sleep over his insults. But I do think the cat is out of the bag. Like toothpaste out of the tube, there is no going back. Polite, well intended White culture (people) have been jarred out of their complacent ignorance. Black Lives Matter is not just a catchy hook line. Nobody gets shot in their car for driving while White. Nationalists, white supremacists and whites who realize that opening the door of privilege to people of color would feel like punishment; they are lock jawed onto the past and won’t give up without a fight. But change is in the air and who knows how that will unfold. It is scary, it scares me. If you think four years of Trumpublican rule was bad, don’t think it is all behind us. I am afraid that what we thought was the worst can get even worse. But all I can do is throw words at the page and hold my breath. In a worst case scenario I can straddle the border with passport privilege. It won't be a divorce, nobody wants me but separation doesn't require alimony and I play well with Canadians.