Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 38

Kavanaugh

First, I hate that it’s become kind of a requirement for women to trot out their personal pain in order to get people to give weight to their political opinions.

Suffice to say, I’m a Gen-X-er. I lived through the 80s and 90s. As it did to all of us, bad shit happened to me.

I had thought that what I wanted in the wake of that was for it to not happen to women in the future. I was fighting for that.

But it turns out I should have also been fighting for it to ever stop for women my age. Not just being assaulted but the blame for having been assaulted back then.

Here’s a thing that I have come to realize: many, many men think this is what women are for. One of the perks, then, of being powerful is that you have access to more women to use this way.

But here’s the thing I have only just realized and I hate it: a lot of folks, men and women, who consider themselves progressive believe this, too. The “progressive” stance is that women aren’t just for your amusement, we also can be doctors and lawyers and reporters and whatever. Which means a dude can seem like a feminist hero–cough cough Al Franken cough cough–and still believe that women are for him to do what he wants to to. After all, he believes we should be able to do everything we want to, as well.

It makes me so mad. It hurts my heart. So much of our pain doesn’t matter because people believe pain just comes with the territory of being a woman. This suffering is what we’re for. To suffer for men’s pleasure.

And I wish I could unknow that, truly.

Oh, Shoot

And also, I met with the reporter from WPLN and I think it’s going to be fine. She might just interview me about my project.

A Slight Tragedy

I had been suffering from what I thought was a minor cold, involving me feeling stuffed up and headachy. But I never had a runny nose nor did I have any boogers. So, it was hard to breathe, but there wasn’t anything in my airways clogging them up. My airways themselves were just mad and inflamed.

Last night, I had one last idea for the copper yarn and I threw a skein in the dye pot. At the moment the whole house filled with the smell of hot wool, I could feel my nose shutting.

I’m fucking allergic to wool. Maybe it has to be hot and wet to trigger it, but that’s what’s making me stuffed up.

And I still have all the walnut I need to dye for Julie’s afghan. So, I think while I’m waiting for the walnuts to start falling, I’m going to have to investigate if I can somehow solar dye with walnuts, and keep the wet, warm yarn outside.

Things

Sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been super busy at work and, you know, it’s been really nice. Things had been so bad for so long and so stressful that just having a bunch to do and getting the support we need to do it is a joy.

In my typical midwestern fashion, I’m loathe to say that, because it means the universe will know about my happiness and try to squash it like a bug, but I’m going to tempt fate anyway.

Jealousy

Someone asked Curious Nashville if the Looby bombing had ever been solved. They’re looking into it.

Let me be clear, up front, that I put on my big girl panties and offered to help in any way I could.

But I was so mad! My whole gut reaction was “So, you think you’re going to swoop in and answer this question I’ve been working for two whole years on?” Like this story is mine, or something.

The deeper I get into this and the more interesting the story gets, the more I’m terrified that someone’s going to come along and solve it before me.

And yet, it’s really okay if they do. The point is for the city to get an answer, not for me to win at answering it first.

And I need help shaking trees.

But man, trying not to let my ego fuck me up is hard.

Back to Work

God, I don’t know what’s become of me. I had a wonderful vacation and now I’m feeling actually excited to get back to work and to hear what they’ve been up to.

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Unfortunately, this is me, now, consumed by this baby blanket that has grown out of control.

I hope my co-workers will still treat me as they always have.

Birmingham, cont.

I’m still processing Birmingham. Part of it is just realizing how inadequate I am to the task. I keep having to remind myself that my goal is to say what happened in Nashville and why. It’s not to perfectly nail down how this terrorist network worked. Not to identify everyone in it.

But I’m also very excited about the work and I hope the National Archives gets to the Looby file sooner rather than later.

Birmingham

I stayed at the Tutwiler, because it’s right across the street from the research library, and lord, I’m not sure I’m cut out for that kind of fancy. It was fun, though. Just like, I was driving a ten year old Corolla with one hubcap. Lord. That’s not what people who stay at the Tutwiler drive.

I had some good success in the city archives, especially in the files on the bombing of Bethel Baptist and Temple Beth-El (neither bombing was successful). Nashville shared their list of suspects in the JCC bombing with Birmingham. It’s a weird list. Like, I tried to find the people they named either in newspapers or census records (which aren’t perfect, but they’re a good place to start) and one of their suspects either was or had the same name as a college football player, two of their suspects appear to be black (?), two I couldn’t find at all. One, at least, did know John Kasper, but he’s another Catholic dude.

And I’m really starting to get suspicious of the ways the Nashville police constantly jumped to “It was the racist Catholics.” Like, sure, I guess, maybe. But also, maybe, racist Catholics didn’t have any loudmouth advocates in the Church who would have hollered about their treatment, unlike local racist Protestants.

I’m really glad for the opportunity to get to go see places, too. I think it tells you a lot. But it got me thinking a lot about the contrasts between Birmingham and Nashville. In Birmingham, you can go see this stuff. These places still exist. Not in Nashville. There’s still a Hattie Cotton school, but it’s a new building. The JCC was demolished to make room for 440. Looby’s house and his neighbor’s house were torn down.

On the other hand, we don’t have any neighborhoods left in Nashville that are as blighted as the neighborhood where Bethel Baptist is. It reminded me a lot of a town after a natural disaster, where they’ve come in and knocked a lot of houses down, and there are still more houses that are falling down, and yet still people live there and try to make a go of it.

Down the Rabbit Hole

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I had a good trip to the Nashville room at the downtown library yesterday. I looked at a ton of pictures and got some names and saw both an awesome picture of Emmett Carr and an awesome picture of Looby and King that I don’t think I had ever seen before.

But a thing I realized is that what I know about these bombings is so different than what other people know that I sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist when I start talking about it.

Even that I view the JCC bombing as one of our integration bombings is completely mindblowing to people. They do not know that was part of the same campaign of terror.

On the one hand, it’s cool to think of how much stuff I’m going to be able to share with people. On the other hand, it does make me wonder if I’m reading too much into stuff.

Vacation, The First Four Days

The Butcher threw two birthday parties for the nephew, because he wanted one for the family and one his friends could drink at. My job was to take my parents someplace for the drinking party.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

I tried, but my dad had NO intention of not being present at both parties. But also, if anyone drank at the second one, I didn’t notice it.

Here’s him with both his cakes. By the second party, they had wised up and just let him eat wearing only his diaper.

And my niece and I got her wool dyed. In spite of her worries, she was fine at it.

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I wish the grape Kool-aid smear on her face was showing up better. In real life, it looked like a magical charm or war paint.

Today I have to run some errands and then go to the library! Hurray.

And now I’m kind of leaning toward Dynamite Nashville: The Plot to Stop the Civil Rights Movement. Simple, straight-forward, easy to remember.