Lady Gaga decided to wear an inflatable dress in Paris on Monday, and let’s just say it blew up in her face, literally. We can’t tell if her serious expression is her (pa-pa-pa) poker face, or her why-did-I-leave-the-house-in-an-inflatable-dress face. Either way, it makes that meat dress look perfectly comfortable. Observe:
H/T Buzzfeed
“How do you know the way?” the Ethiopian tour guide cheerily asked us. He had poked his head into the open window, as our hired van backed away from the ticket booth for the Blue Nile Falls sightseeing area.
My friend and I exchanged glances and all I could do was shrug my shoulders. What we were attempting to do was to find the Blue Nile Falls, tucked in the mountains of a rural area of Ethiopia, without the help of a local tour guide.
“We will find the way,” my friend replied to the tour guide. “We’re Americans!”
We both immediately erupted in laughter. We really thought we could find the Blue Nile Falls on our own, even if it required five kilometers of trekking roundtrip.
However, once we arrived at the entry point to the muddy trail towards the waterfall, we realized we would get completely lost without the help of a guide. Fortunately, another tour guide was waiting for us at our dropoff point. He immediately seized the opportunity to help us.
“The trail is this way. Come and follow me,” Eyayu softly said. With his timely offer for help, we eagerly obliged and followed him towards our destination.
Along the way, he helped us get to the river crossing to board the boat to get to the other side. From there, we walked with him up the mountain trail and asked him an array of questions regarding the local village, the history and background of the waterfall, and Ethiopian culture. He responded to our numerous questions with patience and kindness. With Eyayu as our guide, we felt a sense of peace and calmness about traveling in Ethiopia that we had not felt since we had arrived in the country.
What he led us to was one of the highlights of our trip through Ethiopia; The Blue Nile Falls was an amazing natural spectacle of the river pouring over the side of a wide 42 meter chasm.
But we would have not found it and enjoyed the journey without the help of all the people involved to help us get there not only including our walking guide, but also our driver, and our hotel’s salesperson who helped us organize the tour.
And situations similar to this one occurred throughout the rest of our trip in Ethiopia. Someone was always willing and able to happily help us find the way when we could not.
Sometimes we think we have all the answers and can do everything on our own. Traveling teaches us to trust in others, let go, and follow. We start listening, asking questions, and empathizing when we let ourselves graciously follow the direction of others. When we are abroad, we are not only tourists, but we are guests of the locals. And as guests, we should be grateful and appreciative of our hosts. With that mindset, we realize that we are all connected to help each other as we walk along the paths we choose to travel.
Do you know where you’re going in life?
I’m confident you’ll find your way, but just be open to some timely help when it comes. In the end, it makes all the difference.
Originally appeared on LiveFamilyTravel.com. Images courtesy of the author.
Cliff Hsia is a father who is determined to live a better than normal life by traveling the world, slowly and purposefully, with his wife and two young daughters. He writes about travel, family, love, happiness, faith, and everything else that life throws at him.
Read Cliff’s articles at Live Family Travel and connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.
A recent Princeton study by Martin Gillens and Benjamin I. Page concludes that the U.S. no longer has a democracy.
Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.
See here. Citizens, they say, have little independent influence.
If Alexander Hamilton were here, he would tell us that this is the way it should be. The Constitution is designed to prevent the people from having their way. It is a fundamentally undemocratic document designed to prevent change. Alexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist Papers, No. 73 that making change difficult restrained the “excess of lawmaking” and “kept things in the same state in which they happen to be at any given period.” He argued that “the injury which possibly may be done by defeating a few good laws will be amply compensated by preventing a number of bad ones.” Underlying this sentiment is a fear of popular democratic movements which, if not, checked could sweep in a number of “bad laws.” Thus, as every school child knows (or should know), a measure in most cases cannot become law without passing the House and the Senate and not being vetoed by the President (in the absence of an override), or struck down by the courts. The House was initially designed to be the voice of the people, but gerrymandering has made it possible (as was the case in 2013) for a majority of the representatives to be elected by a minority of the electorate.
This anti-populist feature is compounded by what has come to be called the “winner take all” system combined with the districting system. So, if a party candidate wins a congressional district by 51 percent to 49 percent, the candidate wins the seat. If the same party carried every seat by the same margin, the party would have 100 percent of the representation with only 51 percent of the vote. Of course, that does not happen. But even without gerrymandering, representation in the House can fail to reflect the interests of voters.
Even more obviously, the Senate is deliberately structured not to reflect the voice of popular movements. States with small populations like Mississippi and Alabama each get two representatives in the Senate; so do heavily populated New York and California. To get an idea of the impact of this structure on popular representation, consider that according to the 2000 Census, Senators from the 26 smallest states, who represented only 17.8 percent of the nation’s population, nonetheless constituted a majority of the Senate. This one state — two votes — feature of the Constitution cannot even be amended. In addition, only one third of the body is up for election at any time making it difficult for a popular majority to transform the body in a single election. Moreover, the blocking feature of the Senate is compounded by the existence of the filibuster in which a small minority of a body that already represents a minority of the population can in many circumstances prevent a measure from becoming law.
All this even before the Supreme Court determined that the unlimited expenditures of billionaires in election campaigns do not trigger a realistic fear of corruption. Call it what you will — a plutocracy, an oligarchy or a corpocracy. The Princeton scholars have it right. We do not live in a democracy. The next time we celebrate our Constitution, we should recognize that there is too much bitter accompanying the sweet.
I woke up this morning with the worst kind of hangover: anger, confusion, wondering what happened. Without a drop of alcohol to explain how I felt. So here are some of the questions I have about Michael Brown, Darren Wilson and Ferguson.
Why was the announcement made as it was?
The grand jury made its decision no later than early afternoon on Monday. Why was the announcement held until 9 p.m. EST? That put the announcement at the end of hours of tension allowed to build, after dark, and suspiciously smack in TV prime time. There was nothing more to “get ready” on the streets except to allow crowds to gather and frustration to ramp up. Why not make the announcement as soon as a decision was rendered? Why not hold it until say 7 a.m. Tuesday morning when people were asleep and not yet gathered? In daytime? Wouldn’t those actions have reduced somewhat the potential for violence?
Why was the prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, seemingly smirking?
Why was the prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, whose very title implies his task before a grand jury, seemingly so pleased with the result? Throughout his press conference, he went out of his way to chastise the media and mock discrepancies among the witnesses to Brown’s shooting. This was unprofessional at the very minimum, and did nothing to calm tensions or create the impression of a fair process.
Every attorney knows that in any situation witnesses will disagree with one another. The shooting occurred within seconds, and each witness saw it from a different location, so of course statements will vary. And indeed it is possible in any criminal situation that some witnesses may lie. McCulloch essentially treated this as some sort of unique facet of the Brown case. He kept referring to the significant gaps between the physical evidence and witness statements, yet the key thing, what initially happened between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson at the window of the police car, was by its nature not able to be supported or refuted by any physical evidence (What was said? Who acted first? At what point did Wilson shoot?)
Why was the physical evidence of Wilson’s injury not seen as more significant?
A key element of showing Darren Wilson was justified in his use of deadly force was the claim that Michael Brown punched/attacked him in his police cruiser, causing Wilson to fear for his life and fire his weapon. The law governing this states “An officer may use lethal force only when the officer reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life, including the officer’s own life.” To a casual observer, the injuries Wilson sustained, which appear to be minor bruises, do not support the criteria necessary to have fired the first shots or Wilson’s statements that his life was in danger. It was the action at the door of the police car that precipitated everything that followed.
Wilson’s injuries were testified to on page 25 of the transcript. The questions appear only to describe for the record what was evident in the hospital photos, nothing more.
Given McCulloch’s personal history, which creates the appearance of bias, why did he handle the case?
Everyone knew the Brown killing was among the most controversial and sensitive cases Missouri had seen for a long time. Given the racial tensions and violence that both happened and were worried to happen, avoiding even the appearance of bias seemed a key element in helping tamp down concerns that the issue was treated unjustly. So why was McCulloch allowed to shepherd the case?
McCulloch has a tragic, close, familial connection to violence. In 1964 his father, a police officer, was shot and killed by an African-American man in a public housing complex. In 2000 McCulloch controversially declined to bring charges against two detectives accused of excessive force in the killing of two unarmed black men, who died after 20 shots were fired into their car by police.
McCulloch made questionable statements in August as protests unfolded in Ferguson. He criticized Missouri Governor Nixon for replacing St. Louis County police control of the Ferguson protests with officers and leadership from the Missouri State Highway Patrol. “It’s shameful what he did today, he had no legal authority to do that,” McCulloch said at the time. “To denigrate the men and women of the county police department is shameful.” He also praised police: “The abuse that they took on that line was incredible,” he said, in reference to the SWAT and riot teams on call in Ferguson in the early days of the protests. “The use of force, while they were doing it under the circumstances, I don’t think was excessive,” he said.
A formal accusation of bias towards the police on the part of McCulloch is impossible to demonstrate. The appearance of bias is impossible to ignore. Given the controversy and sensitivity of the Brown killing, was there not anyone else in the state of Missouri who could have prosecuted the case? Why didn’t the governor appoint a special prosecutor as he was able to do?
Why did the grand jury take it upon themselves to sort out the witness conclusively?
The point of a grand jury is only to determine if probable cause of a crime, a very low legal hurdle, exists. If it does, they return an indictment and the case goes to trial for resolution. There, in open court with all sides publicly testifying, a jury selected for the specific case goes through all the evidence, and decides which witnesses to believe and which to discard. Cross-examination occurs, particularly of critical witnesses such as Darren Wilson.
The most significant elements of the case could only be accounted for by Wilson, or Brown. One is dead, and one is fighting for his life. The latter point is often a critical one in a criminal trial and a defendant’s statements exonerating themselves are often looked at very closely. One of the key points of even having a trial is for the trial jury to sort out conflicting evidence; absent a confession, every criminal case has some sort of conflicting evidence.
It appears that the grand jury took it upon itself not just to decide if probable cause existed, but to try Darren Wilson in secret, without the checks and balances of an open trial.
What was said by prosecutors in front of the grand jury?
Did prosecutors actually ask for the grand jury to indict? If they did not believe the evidence supported an indictment, why did they take the case to the grand jury instead of dismissing the charges themselves as is normal procedure? It is clear that prosecutors went to great efforts to challenge the credibility of outside witnesses, going as far as labeling some as making up their stories to match publicly-available details.
Were the same standards applied to the ultimate witness, Darren Wilson? Were his conclusive statements, which some could consider to be self-serving, aggressively challenged? If they were, exposing that would help to calm tensions.
Wilson’s grand jury testimony is here; it does not appear to contain challenging questioning, but have a look yourself.
The key element in determining whether Wilson was justified in shooting was the the question of whether Wilson thought his own life was in mortal danger. Wilson made the following statements to the grand jury; were they seen by the jury as unbiased or self-serving, or simply truthful?
According the Wilson, Brown had the “crazy” look of a “demon… It looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him,” Wilson told the grand jury
Wilson described Brown as “very aggressive” and was convinced the teen was “gonna kill me.” “It was just like intense,” the officer said. “I’ve never seen anybody look that, for lack of a better word, crazy.”
Wilson also stated: “He turned, looked at me, made like a grunting noise and had the most intense aggressive face I’ve ever seen on a person.”
Wilson was a veteran cop. Did anyone challenge his assertion, after years on the streets, that 18-year-old Michael Brown did indeed display the “most intense aggressive face I’ve ever seen on a person?”
By the way, Brown, according to Wilson on page 225 of the transcript, only made that aggressive face after Wilson shot him the first time.
So is this over?
This one we pretty much know the answer to. With the grand jury’s decision, Darren Wilson will not be criminally charged for killing Michael Brown by the state of Missouri.
The Federal Department of Justice can charge Wilson with violating Brown’s civil rights, under the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, for “depriving him of his life.” Civil rights investigations can drag on for years. The Justice Department’s civil rights investigation into George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, is still active after two years with no results expected, well, for a long time.
More to come
I am not a lawyer, and in the short time since the grand jury’s announcement have obviously not yet waded through all 70 hours of testimony and thousands of pages of written documentation, so it is possible that answers to some of these questions may already exist. I hope so, but I worry they don’t.
What happened in Ferguson matters to us all as Americans. Are we doomed to remain a nation hopelessly, violently adrift in a swamp of racism? Do we have a justice system that is indeed just? Can everyone expect to receive fair treatment in our system, from the moment police confront an alleged criminal to the moment some sort of final decision is reached? Do our police forces exist to “protect and serve,” or does that only apply to some groups of Americans, while for others the police are deadly enemies?
Without any disrespect, Michael Browns come and go. There have been young black men killed under dubious circumstances by the police before Brown, and God help us, there will be more killed under dubious circumstances by the police after Brown.
Until the real questions of Ferguson are answered, we will do this over and over and over again.
Leave it to a French bulldog to make a complete fail look so cute.
Mid-frolic on the beach, this little pup trips over his paws and topples forward into the sand. The slow-motion footage is oddly regal and wholly fantastic.
Should police officer Darren Wilson be held accountable for the shooting death of unarmed citizen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014?
Tasked with determining whether Wilson should stand trial for Brown’s shooting, the grand jury ruled that the police officer will not face charges for the fatal shooting.
That the police officer was white and his victim black should make no difference. In a perfect world, it would not matter. In an imperfect world such as ours, however, racism is an effective propaganda tool used by the government and the media to distract us from the real issues.
As a result, the national dialogue about the dangers of militarized, weaponized police officers being trained to act like soldiers on the battlefield, shooting first and asking questions later, has shifted into a largely unspoken debate over race wars, class perceptions and longstanding, deep-seated notions of who deserves our unquestioning loyalty and who does not.
And the greater question — whether anything will really change to rein in militarized police, police shootings, lack of accountability and oversight, and a military industrial complex with a vested interest in turning America into a war zone — remains unanswered.
Ferguson matters because it provides us with a foretaste of what is to come. It is the shot across the bow, so to speak, a warning that this is how we will all be treated if we do not tread cautiously in challenging the police state, and it won’t matter whether we’re black or white, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat. In the eyes of the corporate state, we are all the enemy.
This is the lesson of Ferguson, that “we the people” are the enemy. As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, since those first towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.
There was a moment of hope after Ferguson that perhaps things might change. Perhaps the balance would be restored between the citizenry and their supposed guardians, the police. Perhaps our elected officials would take our side for a change and oppose the militarization of the police. Perhaps warfare would take a backseat to more pressing national concerns.
That hope was short-lived.
It wasn’t long before the media moved on to other, more titillating stories.
It wasn’t long before the American public, easily acclimated to news of government wrongdoing, ceased to be shocked, outraged or alarmed by reports of police shootings.
And with nary a hiccup, the police state marched steadily forth. In fact, it has been business as usual in terms of police shootings, the amassing of military weapons, and the government’s sanctioning of police misconduct.
Rubbing salt in our wounds, in the wake of Ferguson, police agencies not only continued to ramp up their military arsenals but have used them whenever possible.
Opposed to any attempt to demilitarize America’s police forces, the Dept. of Homeland Security has been chanting its safety mantra in testimony before Congress: Remember 9/11. Remember Boston. Remember how unsafe the world was before police were equipped with automatic weapons, heavily armored trucks, night-vision goggles, and aircraft donated by the DHS.
Contrary to DHS rhetoric, however, militarized police — twitchy over perceived dangers, hyped up on their authority, and protected by their agencies, the legislatures and the courts — have actually made communities less safe at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low and police officers have a lower risk of on-the-job fatalities than lumberjacks, fishermen, and airline pilots.
Moreover, as Senator Tom Coburn points out, the militarization of America’s police forces has actually “created some problems that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.” Among those problems: a rise in the use of SWAT team raids for routine law enforcement activities (averaging 80,000 a year), a rise in the use and abuse of asset forfeiture laws by police agencies, a profit-driven incentive to criminalize lawful activities and treat Americans as suspects, and a transformation of the nation’s citizenry into suspects.
Ferguson provided us with an opportunity to engage in a much-needed national dialogue over how police are trained, what authority they are given, what weaponry they are provided, and how they treat those whom they are entrusted with protecting.
Caught up in our personal politics, prejudices and class warfare, we have failed to answer that call. In so doing, we have played right into the hands of all those corporations who profit from turning America into a battlefield by selling the government mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and drones.
As long as we remain steeped in ignorance, there will be no reform.
As long as we remain divided by our irrational fear of each other, there will be no overhaul in the nation’s law enforcement system or institution of an oversight process whereby communities can ensure that local police departments are acting in accordance with their wishes and values.
And as long as we remain distracted by misguided loyalties to military operatives who are paid to play the part of the government’s henchmen, there will be no saving us when the events of Ferguson unfold in our own backyards.
When all is said and done, it doesn’t matter whose “side” you’re on as far as what transpired in Ferguson, whether you believe that Michael Brown was a victim or that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting first and asking questions later.
What matters is that we not allow politics and deep-rooted prejudices of any sort to divert our efforts to restore some level of safety, sanity and constitutional balance to the role that police officers play in our communities. If we fail to do so, we will have done a disservice to ourselves and every man, woman and child in this country who have become casualties of the American police state.
When British mom Karen Cole and her daughter Maggie were shopping at chain store Tesco on Saturday, they came across an upsetting sign in the toy aisle. Seven-year-old Maggie loves superheroes, so she was none-too-pleased to see the advertisement for Marvel alarm clocks as a “fun gift for boys.”
Mom Karen captured her daughter’s displeasure in this spot-on photo tweet:
My superhero loving 7yo daughter not impressed when she spotted this sign in @Tesco today @LetToysBeToys pic.twitter.com/8F3bsRv6PK
— Karen Cole (@karlou) November 22, 2014
Clearly, Maggie is not the only person to feel this way about needlessly gendered kids toys. Within days, Karen’s photo had gone viral, with over 10,000 retweets and 11,000 favorites.
In a blog post about the sign, Karen writes that she and Maggie had discussed gendered toys before:
Last year she started coming home from school saying some of her friends were suggesting some toys were for girls and some for boys. I explained that they were wrong, if the toy looks fun to play with then anybody should be able to play with it. She could play with knights and dragons (her thing at the time) and boys could play with dolls and kitchens if they wanted to. We agreed that “everybody can like what they want to like.”
Karen told The Huffington Post in an email that she sees real harm in classifying children’s toys as either “girls'” or “boys'” products. “I wish toys weren’t gendered,” she said. “I realize most children will choose the toys aimed at them but I firmly believe all children should have the freedom to choose what they’d like and to be free from ridicule or bullying if they don’t conform to the gender norms.”
In her blog post she adds that children “believe what they’re told and if they’re constantly seeing signs telling them something is ‘for boys’ or ‘for girls’ they may start to believe it, particularly when their peers are also seeing these labels and parroting them at school.”
While the mom-of-three daughters didn’t expect her photo to go viral, she “wanted to show Maggie that it’s worth standing up for what you believe in,” she writes, adding, “I do want her to grow up believing people are equal, regardless of their sex, skin colour, race or sexuality, and I want her to feel empowered to stand up for her beliefs.”
In this case, standing up for her beliefs paid off. Karen told The Huffington Post that Tesco replied to her tweet, saying they had plans to remove the sign from all of their stores — a promise later confirmed in an official statement to BuzzFeed.
In the future, if there’s any confusion about which toys are for boys and which are for girls, we suggest that toy brands and stores refer to this helpful infographic, designed by Kristen Myers:
<img alt="boys girls toys" src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1491849/thumbs/o-BOYS-GIRLS-TOYS-570.jpg?6"
H/T Jezebel
This weekend, policy and thought leaders gathered in Norway for the Oslo Symposium on Advancing Women’s Rights and Empowerment in Afghanistan, which was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Afghanistan and the U.S. Department of State, along with the Afghan Women’s Network, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. The symposium brought together government leaders, civil society representatives, Afghan and international experts, and an impressive Afghan delegation led by First Lady Rula Ghani to discuss ways Afghans and the international community can continue to work together to sustain and advance gains made by women and girls in Afghanistan.
There is growing momentum in Afghanistan today. Millions of Afghans voted in the presidential elections, and the new unity government is enjoying strong support. On December 4, at the London Conference on Afghanistan, the Afghan government is expected to set out its vision for reform, and the international community is expected to demonstrate its continuing support for Afghanistan.
Earlier in the week, the Asia Foundation released its annual Survey of the Afghan People for 2014, giving us up-to-date insight on what Afghans believe to be the biggest areas of progress and the serious challenges that still remain in their country. This year’s survey included interviews of more than 9,000 citizens from all 34 of the country’s provinces. This is a critical time to reflect on the significant progress that has been made by and for the Afghan people, and to listen to the priorities of women in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has changed significantly since the fall of the Taliban, and the ways in which Afghans view themselves and their country continue to evolve. As we see in the Asia Foundation survey, Afghans are more optimistic and hopeful about the future. Afghans are showing greater support for the Afghan Army, as well as support for the international role in providing technical and advisory assistance to the army and police. Afghans claim being Afghan as a defining feature of their identity.
Although change in some of these areas remains challenging, the progress is well documented. According to the survey, Afghans perceive some of the biggest problems facing their country to be insecurity – some 65% are concerned about security – unemployment and corruption. These are challenges that both men and women in Afghanistan confront, but women face an additional set of challenges – and successes – that are specific to them. Women want greater opportunities for education and employment, as well as protection from violence. Domestic violence continues to be pervasive.
An interesting change that has come about in recent years is that women are seeking employment in steadily increasing numbers, and are demanding greater opportunities for education, as well. This indicates that women are no longer seeing their place in society as solely within the home; many Afghan women see themselves as needed breadwinners who have the right to work. This shift in mindset is a marked contrast from a decade ago. Women are also reporting instances of domestic violence at higher rates, which suggests that women are now recognizing domestic violence as a crime that they feel able to report. The fact that Afghan women are prioritizing these issues is an indicator of the societal shifts that are taking place in large measure because of women’s leadership and engagement.
Many women fear that any future negotiations with the Taliban could lead to a reversal in the gains they have made. Numerous human rights violations continue to be committed against women and girls in Afghanistan on a regular basis. Women’s full participation in the decisions of their government, including in any future negotiations to end the conflict, is essential if Afghanistan is going to solidify the gains that have been made and build a better future.
When women progress, all of society makes progress. That is true in Afghanistan and around the world. The message out of Oslo this weekend was that we must continue to enable and empower the women of Afghanistan, who, as Mrs. Ghani noted, have a significant role to play in “returning peace and prosperity to Afghanistan.”
I was singing my heart out in church, holding back tears. This seems to be what I do lately in church, as I am wrestling so much with myself, with trusting and my faith journey. Smack in the middle of the song, I had one of my first true writer moments. I grabbed my bulletin and pen and wrote the title of this post and a line from the song down.
The song? “Let Our Faith Be Not Alone” by Robbie Seay.
The lyric? “May our hearts be not of stone, give us souls that never close.”
As a therapist, I hear terrible things every day from my clients. And, it is not unusual for the thought to cross my mind that someone has every right to stay sick, to stay angry, to have hearts of stone and closed souls after what they have been through.
After infertility and the lifelong losses of three babies, I have also felt as if I have three very good enough reasons to allow my heart to become stone and my soul to close.
But I am learning that this is not meant to be the end of my story. Nor do I want it to be the end of my story; just as I help my clients every single day to make sure that their losses, traumas and tragedies are not their endings, either. Because I also get to hear amazing stories of hope and recovery every single day.
But this recovery requires the choice to choose hope and to do the work.
I will always have the soul scars of infertility and losing my babies. And if I am not careful, these scars could very easily harden my heart and close my soul to the amazingness that is this life. As they are forever scars much like the four-inch back surgery scar I have. Except, my soul scars are invisible to the outside world, and many times are completely misunderstood, invalidated, minimized and sometimes even ignored.
Either scar, back or soul, if ignored by me only worsens; the scar tissue building up, increasing the pain and decreasing my quality of life. For my back it is only through my physical therapy, exercise and self-care that this old injury and scar tissue can be as healed as possible. Nothing I do will ever make that scar go away, but I sure as hell can make sure I do what is in my power to make it as better as possible. And, almost 20 years later, I wouldn’t want that scar to go away anyways, as it is a constant reminder of how much strength I truly hold.
As for my soul scars, I must do much of the same work. If I do not do the work of recovery from the trauma of infertility, the lifelong losses and costs of IVF and the ongoing work of accepting a child-free life, I will only allow the scar tissue to grow. And if I am not careful, my heart and soul will scar over leaving room for only bitterness, anger and sadness.
Our trauma, tragedies and losses (infertility related or not) make us who we are. I have learned that I am a better everything because I wanted and loved those babies so much. I am also a better everything because I lost them. Sure, the losses left my heart and soul shattered at first, but now with daily work in recovery, I have a scarred but healing heart and soul.
Scarred but better and complete, and most definitely open.
This openness is not possible without the daily practice of recovery, authentic living and courage. My choices in recovery, in daily practice and my faith are what is required for me to not allow the scar tissue to close everything. And I did not survive infertility and lose my three dreams to only be left scarred, closed and hardened like stone.
I am still wholeheartedly figuring this whole thing out, awkwardly stumbling through this life in recovery. And, sometimes I am not a very pretty picture while doing it. What I think I am finally coming to terms with and learning is that I can trust that the end of my story isn’t supposed to be a heart of stone or a scarred, closed soul. That I can trust my faith, doubts and all, because within this journey I will always have Him*. And it is with His acceptance, love and help that I will continue to fight for, find and redefine my ever upward.
*For me, my faith is in God and Jesus as my savior. This is something I am newly figuring out, with a lot of doubt and struggle and questions. But it is something that is helping me, especially in my recovery. My only hope is that we can all find something to have faith in.
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To read more of Justine’s story, purchase your copy of Ever Upward today!
NEW YORK — As a huge crowd of protesters gathered in Union Square Monday night to await the grand jury decision about the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, Constance Malcolm held up a sign showing the faces of black men who have been killed by New York City police officers.
Eric Garner. Amadou Diallo. Sean Bell. Akai Gurley.
“Can I take a picture of that?” a protester asked her.
“Yes,” she said. After the picture was taken, she pointed to one of the faces on the sign. “That one’s my son,” Malcolm said.
“I gotta be here,” she told The Huffington Post. Over two and a half years ago, a Bronx grand jury voted to indict Officer Richard Haste for fatally shooting Malcolm’s unarmed 18-year-old son, Ramarley Graham, after Haste broke into Malcolm’s house in 2012 without a warrant.
That indictment, however, was thrown out because of a technicality. A second grand jury decided not to indict Haste, and ever since, Malcolm says she’s been trying to get justice for her son. She didn’t have high hopes for the grand jury’s decision on whether to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson for killing Brown. “It’ll probably be some bullshit,” she said.
And about 15 minutes before the decision was scheduled to be announced Monday night, Malcolm walked into the center of the raucous crowd in Union Square and grabbed the megaphone.
“If it was us, we’d get indicted right away — before we even get to the precinct,” she said. “If a cop can kick your door down and murder you, what kind of country are we living in? … I got an indictment in Ramarley’s case and I’m right back to square one.”
“We can’t keep burying our kids, it’s just too much for a mother,” she added.
Finally, about 10 minutes before the Ferguson grand jury decision was expected, Malcolm told the crowd, “We’re going to make NYC look like Ferguson!”
When it was announced that Wilson would not be indicted, the crowd fell into a hushed silence, just as Brown’s family had requested.
Then the chanting began — “No Justice! No Peace!” — as the crowd of over 1,000 started to leave the confines of Union Square Park, knocking down a police fence as they went.
They marched down Fifth Avenue and across Eighth Street. Onlookers peered out of the windows from their brownstones, and the staffs of upscale restaurants poured out onto the sidewalk to watch.
There was a large police presence. When asked how far the police would let the protesters march, a high-ranking officer smiled and simply said, “As long as it’s peaceful.”
And for the most part, it was. There were some minor skirmishes. When a police officer on a motorbike nudged a demonstrator who wouldn’t get out of his way, a mob of protesters descended on the officer, hitting him with signs. His fellow officers pushed the protesters away, and then everyone carried on.
Up 6th Avenue and across 23rd Street. “Black Lives Matter!” went one chant. “Indict. Convict. Send this guilty cop to jail! The whole system’s guilty as hell!” went another.
On Seventh Avenue, the protesters brought traffic to a standstill, weaving their way through cars, cabs and buses. When one taxi driver honked his horn in support, the crowd cheered.
“Turn up! Don’t turn it down! We doin’ this for Mike Brown!” they chanted. “We young! We strong! We’re marching all night long.” Past Port Authority and Madison Square Garden, perplexed tourists on the sidewalk took out their camera phones.
Malcolm was still marching. New York State Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron marched with her. On Saturday, Barron had led a protest in East New York, Brooklyn, where 28-year-old Akai Gurley — another unarmed black man — was shot and killed last week by a police officer inside a housing project. “It was a crime,” Barron had said of Gurley’s death. “He should be indicted and brought before a court and I believe convicted and thrown under the jail for taking the life of an innocent young man.”
But for now, Barron marched quietly, his hand resting on Malcolm’s shoulder the entire time. At times, Malcolm couldn’t help but smile.
“We black, and they don’t think our lives matter, but we’re showing them that they do matter,” she told HuffPost as the crowd entered the bright lights of Times Square. “It’s a lot of black youth out here and it makes a big difference showing that we matters. We are somebody.”
“It’s a sad day because they didn’t get the indictment,” she continued. “But we showed that we’ll stand strong, be united as one and never be defeated.”
This February will mark three years since Ramarley Graham was shot and killed. Police officers had followed him home because they thought he had a gun. After Graham went into his apartment, it took 4 to 5 minutes for the officers to gain entry through a back door — without a warrant — climb the stairs, and break down the front door.
Once inside, Haste went into the bathroom and shot Graham once in the chest, in front of Graham’s grandmother and six-year-old brother.
No gun was found on Graham, or anywhere in the apartment. He was unarmed. Authorities said he’d been flushing a bag of marijuana down the toilet just before he was killed.
Although a grand jury voted to indict Haste in June 2012, a judge tossed out the indictment a year later, and a second grand jury later dismissed the case. In September of this year, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara met with Malcolm and Ramarley’s father, Frank Graham. He told them the Justice Department had launched a formal investigation into Ramarley’s death to determine whether to press civil rights charges against Haste.
“That’s what I’m waiting for,” Malcolm said. “If the [Brown family] go that route, hopefully they’ll get a conviction in their case,” Malcolm said.
“It’s gonna be hard,” Malcolm said, when asked what she would tell the Brown family Monday night. “It’s gonna be hard.”
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