Why Can’t We Just Be?

Why can’t we just be?

When I was a teenager, I wanted to do one thing most teens do, date. Now, with dating, particularly in high school with all the cliques and such, it’s always difficult. In the 80s in a small Midwestern town, it was even more challenging.

First, there was the covert prejudice between Protestants and Catholics, or as was commonly said, “Christians and Catholics.” I went through that issue for three years, but that’s a different issue.

Next, there was the issue of race, particularly with parents as old as mine. Now, my mother used to tell me race didn’t matter. She’d add how everyone deserved to be treated with respect and dignity. She also used an old line how people were different colours because “God left some people in the oven longer than others.” (How horrible that image is on so many levels, but I honestly believe she never meant anything bad about it).

As it would have it, I really came to like a girl at school who I wanted to ask out for a date. That’s where this issue came into play because she happened to be Black. I already had a hard enough time trying to ask a girl out and I just had this feeling my parents would have a problem with it. I asked my mom about it. Unfortunately, my father heard and commented that no N- would ever be welcomed in his house, let alone have his kid date one.

I saw this girl as my friend. She was funny, smart, and pretty. Sure, she was Black, but that didn’t matter to me. I liked her and wanted to get to know her, spend time with her. Yet, I couldn’t because of my parents. I often wondered if Black kids got the same thing from their parents if they wanted to date White kids. Would her parents have reacted the same way? Obviously, I’ll never know. What I did learn was the hypocrisy of my parents and that I’d not be that way when I grew up.

Even in my adult life, I’ve had acquaintances comment negatively if I said I found a non-Caucasian person attractive. I just don’t understand it. If I find someone attractive, why should skin colour even matter? If I want to be friends with someone who is a different skin colour or religion or whatever, why should it matter?

Seriously, why can’t we just be?

Music Connections and Influence

It’s interesting, at least to me, how early in life music can have an influence on someone.

One of the first memories I have is of my mother singing. It’s was never in a choir, but as she went about her day. Doing dishes or other housework. Along with the radio in the car or even if there was a tune on a program on tv or in a movie. She rarely sang loudly, but sometimes it seemed as if she was always carrying a tune with her.

While I was laying in bed this morning, the clock radio played. The program was a repeat of the “American Top 40” that was hosted by Casey Kasem. In this case, it was the Top 40 from 1971. I was just 3 years old that year and each of the songs I heard were ones I could pretty much recall every verse from. Songs from groups like The Carpenters and even the title song from the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Yet also songs from a group called Ocean (“Put Your Hand in the Hand”) and from Jerry Reed (“Amos Moses”). It just struck me how music stays with people, or maybe it’s just me, from a young age.

I can recall riding along with the younger of my two older sisters in her VW Bug. We were driving probably over to Columbus, OH and it was summer. The sunroof was open and her new Paul McCartney and the Wings 8-track tape was playing. (Some reading this may have to look up what an 8-Track even is). I can still recall hearing “Band on the Run” for the first time on that warm day as we made our trip. Every time I hear that song, I recall that trip, at least that part of it.

I often watch movies and sing along like my mother used to do. Funny how it can be a movie from the 1940s or one from my teen years and how easily I can recall the song whether it’s “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral”, or “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)”, “Symphony for Unstrung Tongue”, or “Don’t You Forget About Me”. Sometimes I’m fairly certain it annoys my wife and children, but I simply can’t help it because the memory is just that strong.

Music is such a powerful influencer on our lives. And, this is where I’ll comment a bit politically and about our society, as music influences us so much, I find it troubling when it’s music programs that are some of the first to be cut in the schools. It makes it difficult to have future musicians and performing artists without music education.

By that I’m not saying that music will end without music education because I feel people who are drawn to sing or play an instrument will find a way to do so. Yet, their exposure to the wide range of music through history is often stymied by the lack of a solid music education foundation. I was fortunate to have a mother who sang and a number of teachers who exposed me to a wide range of music, both historically and in scope from Gregorian chants to classical to blues to jazz to swing to country to pop to rock and even to Broadway and movies. I can see the influences of the older forms upon the newer ones. Some students, even music students, today cannot. Some are left to discover that history on their own and many times after they’ve gotten out of school.

Music, like language, conveys history of humankind. An understanding of that musical history, I believe, can foster unity in our humanity. It can show the influences of the wide range of cultures in our world in a way that fosters a connection between people who might not otherwise see that connection.

And that connection can start at a very early age. Even as a 3-year old sitting on the couch listening to his/her parent singing a tune from long ago.

NYE 2020

Wearied. Worried. Worn.

Three words most of us feel as 2020 comes to a close. Here in the States, it feels like it’s been an additional 4 years of turmoil and tragedy on top of the 4 years of chaos under the current administration.

We are weary of the deceit and evil of the current administration.

All the racial issues re-ignited.

All of the lies told.

All of the double dealing and hate.

The internal destruction of our society brought upon us by an individual and a party who care only for power. That will come to an end in a couple of weeks.

We are worried about a virus that has killed over 350,000 of our friends, family members, and neighbours. A virus that is even mutating into one that may spread faster. Finally, we have a vaccine, yet will it get to enough people in time? We hope. So far, it’s been successfully given to a few. Unfortunately, there are many who refuse to be vaccinated due to ignorance and possibly arrogance. Hopefully, most people will choose the path of science and wisdom and get vaccinated as soon as they are able.

We, as a whole, are worn.

We are tired of precautions.

We are tired of wearing masks and social distancing.

We are tired of people who refuse to wear a mask or social distance.

We are tired of people who deny science, especially at the cost of other people’s lives.

We are tired of not being able to be with those we love.

We are tired of the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and hate.

We are tired of politicians who serve their donors and corporations instead of us.

We are tired of not having access to affordable quality healthcare for everyone.

We are tired of our educational system being inadequate and poorly funded.

We are tired of many other things.

Yet, we cannot give up.

We cannot lose hope.

We cannot let the powers and individuals who continue to try to divide us, degrade us, place us into boxes, or defile us ever be able to win.

We must band and bond together in ways we are capable of as humankind yet have failed to do as a whole.

We need to see colour, but only as pigmentation like the colours of a rainbow.

We need to accept religious beliefs as equal in value for we are all on our own journey through life and our beliefs or lack thereof are our guide.

We need to see women and men as equals and even gender as fluid.

We need a newfound respect for education and science.

We need to see love between two people regardless of whether they share the same birth gender.

We need to see our diversity as strength and not weakness.

We are embarking on a new year. Another 365 1/4 days around our sun. It’s time for a new Age of Enlightenment, a new Renaissance. It’s time to look outside our comfort zones, outside our communities, and outside our countries to see the value of all humankind.

A new year with new choices and a new hope.

Happy 2021

Yes, the incoming First Lady is Dr. Jill Biden

All of the idiotic brewhaha over Dr. Jill Biden using the title “Dr.” has me rather upset and retrospective feeling. I admire anyone who spent the time and money to earn a PhD. You deserve to use the title “Dr.” as you’ve earned it.

A PhD was once a goal of mine. I’d been fortunate in my young childhood to meet a college professor, Dr. Lillabelle Holt, who made a great impression on me. She was one of my sister’s college professors. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay in contact with her through my high school years. I admired her wisdom, wit, and passion for teaching. I wanted to be like her. Yet, life often has other plans.

I did manage to earn a BA and 2 MA degrees; however, I’ll likely never earn the PhD that was my goal due to putting my own daughters through their undergraduate degrees and setting them off to conquer the world. (Worth it).

Besides, I’m 53 and there’s simply not a place for a 53-year old English PhD student nor a job to pay the mountain of debt I still owe or would accrue in my getting a PhD or EdD.

If you earned a PhD or EdD, use the title “Dr.” It’s been earned by you through the sacrifices you made to accomplish it. Certainly, do not allow anyone to diminish that, especially if you are a woman because you overcame a heck of a lot more crap to earn it than a man.

I’ve tried to instil upon my daughters the love of lifelong education and the chutzpah to be strong in the face of adversity and ignorance. If either one ever earns a PhD or EdD, I’ll sure as heck tell them to use the title “Dr.” and tell anyone who tries to say they can’t to shove their opinion deep into where the sun doesn’t shine.

Thank you for reading.

Peace-Salaam-Shalom-Namaste-Blessed Be

Value vs. Cost when buying from local artisans

“Oh my, that’s expensive. Can you lower the price?”
“Goodness, you charge so much for this. Can’t you sell it for less?”

I and countless other local artisans and small businesses hear this almost every day. Our prices are not as unreasonable as some people think if they’d stop and look at the reality of it.

I recently saw a meme about if someone buys a gift for some else that costs X amount of money how it should be seen in terms of how many hours they worked to afford to buy that item. So, a $30 gift costs a person who makes $12.50 per hour roughly 2.4 hours of work. It wasn’t meant as malicious, but rather to help people understand that the cost of a gift is more than a price tag.

As a fibre artist, writer/copy editor/baker, it got me to thinking about how people always want to have artisans charge less for an item than the marked price. I recall people griping about prices for my handmade items when I worked craft fairs, including someone claiming she could go to a major discount retailer and get the same item for less. (Good luck with that).

Here’s the thing when it comes to how items are priced by local artisans or even local businesses, it usually costs you less than it should be priced. Most artisans, myself included, do not over-inflate our prices. We have to build in our cost for supplies and, most of us, then add in a cost per hour to make it. That cost per hour is far less than minimum wage. Add to this that we have to collect sales tax for some items as well as pay taxes on what we earn.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you ask for a shawl made in a pricey yarn such as Noro. If I can make it with only one skein, the skein itself costs me $50, plus tax. Here, that’s about $54. It takes me about 15 hours to make that shawl if I’m crocheting it because I hate mistakes and take care in making that shawl. My price to you is about $60.

I’m making about $6. But that’s before I deduct the 8% tax I have to pay the state. Now, that $6 profit is now $1.20. That’d be about $.08 per hour as a wage.

Would you work for $.08 per hour?

Note that I’m not charging you for my time to make it. If I did, and charged the going rate of $12.50 per hour, then I’d be charging you $241.50 for that shawl. In that case, I’d make $168.18 after paying taxes and for the materials. That also makes my hourly rate around $11.21 per hour, less than minimum wage where I live.

Would you work for $11.21 per hour?

I have a craft pricing app and have tried to use it to determine a fair price. I rarely use it because it would also raise my price. Using the same scenario, it says I should charge $243.91 retail for this same shawl. The wholesale cost would be $241.50. So, minus the tax, that’s $224.40. Subtract the $54 for materials, that’s 170.40. My $12.50 per hour is now $11.36 per hour. About the same as my outcome not using the app.

Would you work for $11.36 per hour?

But, you may say, that I’m just sitting around crocheting, so I should reduce my hourly rate. Okay, let’s say I reduce it to $5 per hour. That then lowers the wholesale cost to $129. The retail, at a 1% profit by the way, then goes to $130.29. Which makes my profit $65.87, after I pay out taxes and materials. My hourly rate has now dropped to $4.39 per hour.

Would you work for $4.39 per hour?

Another way of pricing is to take the amount of materials and multiply it by 2, then that becomes the price. In this scenario, the shawl then costs $108. The artist then makes $45.36, minus taxes and materials. The hourly wage is then $3.02 per hour.

Would you work for $3.02 per hour?

Again, I understand everyone wants to get a good deal. Yet, things cost what they do because of a number of factors, particularly the cost of materials and the time it takes to create something from those materials. Plus, is your lower priced item really a good deal? How long might it last? Are the materials of a good quality?

Local artisans and business owners are not trying to make enormous profits. They certainly don’t make profits like big corporations or big box stores make. Most of us are simply trying to pay our bills and maybe have something for a rainy day.

You don’t tell your mechanic or physician what they should charge you. You don’t try to haggle a better price from Amazon or a big box store when you purchase from them. (And even if you do, then they’d likely tell you off).

So, why are you saying something costs too much to buy from someone who takes the time and care to make something for you by hand? And, please ask yourself if what you’re spending in the big box retail or online store contributes to your local economy. Also, ask yourself if the quality of what you are buying matches what you expect. Last, using the scenario of the time the item cost you at work, is the item truly worth the time it took you to earn the money to buy it? Chances are, if it’s mass produced, it probably isn’t.

Just food for thought.

Shop local and at small business/artisans near you and online.

Why Buy From Local Artisans?

Consider this when you look for items to purchase for the people you care about.

When an artist, musician, or writer creates something, they put part of themselves into it. It’s more than just the materials they used. It’s even more than the hours they spent creating it.

Each stitch, each weave, each word, or each stroke of the brush is done with care and love. They create out of a vision.
They create out of more than even a custom order request.
They create because it is not just what they do, but who they are.
They create using talents given to them and honed by them over time.

Yes, handcrafted and handmade items can and often do cost more than the ones that are mass produced by machines.

Yet, they last longer and are far more personal than something for which there are multiple copies.

They are gifts that are unique and imbued with so much more than you think. These items become heirlooms many items. They are passed down to others out of love.

So, please consider buying from your local or known artisans of any type before making a gift purchase from a large company or store.

The gift you give will have a much deeper meaning.

This Must End

I’ve seen one of these cards personally. It was 1995 in Ohio.


It was a Sunday morning and I’d just completed the second service at one of the churches I served as a pastor.


The day prior, I’d performed a wedding ceremony between two friends, one happened to be a Black man and his fiancee, a white woman.


As parishioners were leaving church that Sunday, a man came up to me after all had left and handed me the card explaining this was a warning for what I’d done the day before. He said I should know better than to perform a marriage between people of different races, especially Black and White.

I recall the shock of it, then the fear, and then the rage that I felt. I tore the card up in front of him and told him to leave. He warned me to watch my back and that lots of accidents can occur in a rural area, especially at night. He reminded me that I sometimes worked nights at either that particular church or the even more remote one just up the road.


Seeing this card again brings up those memories. The attempt at intimidation.


I’ve seen and stared into the face of hate. Unadulterated, contemptible, and all too American grown hate.


I’ve passed places in the South where they don’t even hide it. Places like Laurens, SC where a shop across from the courthouse brazenly displays the name “White Man’s Shop” and has a mannequin wearing the robe of the Klan.


Living in the South, I’ve had my children hear racist epithets hurled at them by the parents of classmates and those who had children in the same daycare they attended. I’ve heard them thrown at me as well. Things like “Chink lover” and asking why I didn’t adopt “one of my own kind.”
If anyone questions why I never wanted to return to the States after having lived in Canada, this is a major reason. I saw the writing on the wall during the 2016 election. I saw more and more individuals then as I see now around the country who have become more brazen and public with their hate.


I’ve watched the last 4 years of an administration led by an individual who espouses and encourages hatred, prejudice, division, and racism. I heard it when he claimed there were “good people on both sides” after the white supremacists marched on Charlottesville. I heard him when he told them to “Stand by and stand down,” rather than condemn them. Sure, he offered a half-hearted comment of being against them when asked by a reporter, but his actions speak louder than his words.

It causes me fear.
It causes me sadness.
It causes me anxiety.
It causes me anger.

Fear for my children and for people who are not white or who stand up against these horrible individuals and groups.
Sadness in that there are people who feel that way now.
Anxiety as I know there is somewhat of a target on my back and the backs of those who stand against the hate.
Anger in a way that motivates me to stand against them even more.

We cannot and must not allow this to continue. It matters not whether it is the Klan or any other white supremacist group or individual, they must be stopped. Silenced. Rendered flaccid in their rhetoric and actions.

We do this by standing up against them.
We do this by not being silent.
We do this by removing elected officials who espouse racist and divisive beliefs.
We do this by never giving up nor giving in.
We do this by protesting, peacefully when at all possible, but at the same time not becoming doormats for them to trample upon nor silence.

Coming Back to America

I originally thought of this as a quick post to social media, but then rethought that as it goes deeper than a post to Facebook and certainly much longer than Twitter can handle. This post concerns observations and thoughts that I had as I faced returning to the U.S. from having lived in Canada for almost 5 years.

We moved to a city in the Province of Ontario from Florida back in 2013 because of a job opportunity with the organization for whom my wife works. When we left, I was well aware of the racism and prejudices present in this country both from having children of a different race as well as having taught at the middle school and high school levels and having to attempt to teach students not only English, but also Holocaust/Tolerance education. I also saw it as the conservative media and politicians continued to attack President Obama’s every action. Yet, seeing it from the outside gave me a much darker look at what was going on in the U.S.

One way that I saw the dark clouds of paranoia and xenophobia was when I’d have to make trips back into this country for medical or other purposes. As the election of 2016 came closer, the officials at the U.S. border became increasingly more visibly armed and their questioning more increasingly and ominously paranoid. Whenever I would enter the U.S., the guard would ask questions that seemed odd. It started with asking me my license plate number (not something I’d memorized as I doubt many folks do). Then, it morphed into requests for me to remove my cap and glasses. Then, questions regarding my political views about the incoming administration and how I viewed living in Canada, if I liked it better than living in the States. I became thankful for my ability to hide my true feelings and even flat out lie after a few times of this. My tension would not cease until I returned to the safety of Canada and their border patrol’s benign questions concerning if I had any alcohol, tobacco, or firearms and where I lived in Canada and why which I deemed valid as it was their country and I was a guest in it.

The night of the election and for weeks afterward, I couldn’t sleep. I began to also overeat and simply not care about whatever happened to me because I knew that I’d be returning to a nation very much unlike the one I’d left. I cried a great deal. I tried to step up my efforts to find a way that we could remain in Canada. My wife tried to convince me that things would not be as bad as I thought they would be. But she didn’t watch the news nor pay attention to the rantings of the incoming administration. She felt that his party would hold him in check and that it would not be as bad as it appeared.

Once the current administration came into power, the guards at the border got worse, their open carrying of M-16s more apparent as did their now body armored uniforms. They became bolder in their questioning. Now, they would focus on my having a beard as they asked and re-asked the same questions to try to somehow catch me in a lie. At one border crossing, it became apparent that it was too isolated to be safe to cross back into the U.S. due to the behavior of the guards; so, I went out of my way to cross at a more populated one so there would be more witnesses to anything that could happen. Yes, I became fearful of returning to the country of my birth and citizenship, not because of doing anything wrong, but due to my fear of being seen as a threat because I did not agree with the policies of the new administration.

The news, as we watched both news from Canada and the U.S., seemed not to match. While we heard just the facts from the Canadian networks, the U.S. seemed more slanted. Some items occurring in the U.S. not mentioned in U.S. news broadcasts were mentioned in Canadian ones. Tougher border crossings for both U.S. citizens as well as Canadian citizens arose. It was like the U.S. intentionally did not want people coming in.

Once we moved back, it seemed like a cloud was descending over the States. More and more accounts of racism and prejudice. The rise of a more virulent and violent white supremacy. And the response from the current administration was everything from silence to stating there were “good people on both sides.” Under any other U.S. administration in my lifetime, Democrat or Republican, the actions of white supremacists would have been condemned. That was no longer the case. I’d lived in Florida when Trayvon Martin was murdered by a white man simply for walking down the street. Yet now, there were Black men and boys, such as Eric Gardner and Tamir Rice, being killed by police and getting away with it. There were people trying to escape violence and poverty now having their children placed in cages at the U.S.-Mexico border. There were people who were brought to this country by their parents years ago who were being threatened with deportation to countries they knew nothing about. The U.S. border officials started showing up at bus stations where I moved to try to deport people. Migrant farmers were being picked up and whisked away in an increasing manner. All of this and the administration not only condoning it, but ordering it and for no reason aside from prejudice and hate.

As I write this, a few days ago Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden named Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate in the upcoming election. Almost immediately, the supporters of the current administration began to attack her based on the color of her skin and gender. They are putting out a conspiracy theory that she is not a U.S. citizen simply because her parents were immigrants. She was born in Oakland, California, and is a U.S. citizen regardless of whether her parents were or not. (They were, by the way). It’s the same tactic they tried to do to President Obama because his father was Black and his name was not a Western one.

There is no cause for this aside from hate and prejudice. In the coming months as we head toward the election, I know it will only get worse. It is my hope that the country can ignore the hatred and prejudice and come together in supporting the positive change that exists in the Biden/Harris ticket as well as in all the progressives that are running for office in this country. They need to be, indeed must be, elected in order for this nation to make it through this darkness and survive.

As President Lincoln once stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” This country is divided under this current administration. It will not stand if this continues. No, I am no naive enough to believe it will not take work to bring about change once the administration changes. Yet, I know that it is only with a massive change in the governing of this country that any movement forward can occur.

White privilege is not what whites think it is

White privilege doesn’t mean what some Whites think it means. They get stuck on the word privilege believing it to equate with wealth and comfort. However, that’s not it.

Privilege, as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary, has two related definitions. The first is “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favour”. The second is “to accord a higher value or superior position to”.

The social and political system of this country grants people who are white with certain privileges that are not given to people of colour which are based simply on the lack of melanin in their skin. It has nothing to do with wealth, but everything to do with living each day.

Whites can and do go about our lives not really worrying about being pulled over by law enforcement or being shadowed in stores by security/loss prevention personnel.

Whites can and do get jobs over people of colour based not on qualifications, but on skin pigmentation.

Whites do not get stereotyped as being savages or lazy anywhere near the amount people of colour do.

A white man walking along the street while wearing a hoodie doesn’t have to pull the hoodie off when people pass him out of fear of being thought of as potentially violent.

When a white person does get pulled over or stopped by law enforcement, they don’t automatically get approached by the officer having his/her hand on the butt of his/her service revolver.

The list can go on ad nauseam, but I won’t belabour it. These are facts. People of colour, particularly Black and Brown skinned people face discrimination every day practically from the moment they are born.

Black and Brown mothers and fathers train their sons on how to try to avoid suspicion from ignorant whites so that they can come home from something as simple as a trip to get candy at the corner store.

Black women see images society throws at them saying their beauty lies in straightening their hair.

Black and Brown people are constantly told to behave like whites behave if they want to achieve success and stay safe in this country.

Again, the list can go on ad nauseam.

Enough is enough though!

Blacks and other people of colour cannot fix the system that’s rigged against them by themselves. It’s up to whites to join with them, listen, and act with them to change the system from one of systemic racism to one of real equality.

Not Enough

Not Enough

Shirts are not enough.
Signs are not enough.
Painted streets are not enough.
Sentiment is not enough.
Letters and emails are not enough.
Voting is not enough.
Protests are not enough.

All of these actions, while necessary and good, are not enough to bring about meaningful and lasting change in this country. We need tangible and earnest change in the system to rid ourselves of the systemic racism that pervades our country.

While the above-mentioned list is a start, we need to elect officials at all levels of government who will listen and act in a manner that changes the system. We must move forward with the agenda for which people are shouting, protesting, dying, and being arrested. We must make the agenda into law.

No human should worry about being mistreated based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should worry about being killed based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should live in poverty based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should worry about being able to get a job based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should worry about not having healthcare based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

We must force our government to truly make this country one where equality is truly equality.

Equality across the imaginary concept of race.

Equality across all cultural differences.

Equality across all genders and sexual orientations.

Equality across all religious beliefs or non-belief.

The idea of equality for ALL PEOPLE truly should be equality for ALL PEOPLE!