Time’s Up For METOO: Ending The Hypocrisy And Absurdity

As happened on my birthday, I will ignore the obvious topic—being “isolated” from my mother on Mother’s Day—to address for what seems like the one hundredth time Americans’ obsession with sex. Everything that happened during the two weeks since my last blog makes it clear that we need to stop worrying and talking about sexual misconduct. We learned about the modern-day lynching in February of still another unarmed black man in Georgia while, more recently, armed white men stood unmasked within inches of masked Michigan police officers’ faces and weren’t even arrested. The two white men who murdered the dark-skinned, unarmed jogger were finally arrested only after a video of the murder surfaced. As for the armed white men in Michigan, some of whom waved confederate flags, I’m sure their arriving with guns for a protest to force the state government to open businesses so that more black people could die of a deadly virus had nothing to do with the fact that the Lieutenant Governor, who was presiding over the legislature that they were allowed by the police to enter and try to disrupt, is a dark-skinned black man. I’ve pointed out multiple times, most recently in the March 29 post, that the focus on men’s sexual misconduct is a distraction from the real story of Trump’s election and reign—racism. In fact, as early as March 24, 2013 (“Race Versus Sex: What Is America’s Favorite Topic”), when the idea of a Trump presidency was just a bad joke, I discussed how much white Americans hate talking about race and how they will change the topic to sex. I pointed out that shortly before there was a national discussion of a stained blue dress and the sexual antics of the man called the first black President by my favorite writer Toni Morrison that white President said we needed to discuss race. We never did.

While white men and the virus were killing blacks, Russia was still a thing in Trump’s America. The hoax President and his favorite b-boy, the man who is supposed to be our attorney general, were working to free former national security advisor Mike Flynn before he goes to jail, probably as a reward for not telling everything he knows about what was going on in 2016. Putin’s Puppet has been on the telephone taking orders from his master, and according to one national security expert speculating on Nicolle Wallace’s show, they are probably preparing to overturn the indictments of the Russian nationals. Why not? Who’s going to stop them? Certainly not the Republicans in Congress. Trump and Barr’s attempt to prove that the Mueller investigation was a partisan hoax recalls what happened just before Election Day in 2016. Apparently, it was briefly and quietly reported that Russia was interfering in our election, but I don’t remember that report (and may not have heard or read it) because I was focused on the much louder news of Trump’s bragging about sexual assault on an “Access Hollywood” tape and the content of Clinton campaign e-mails leaked by (wait for it) the Russians. Last week, while we were watching the taped killing of a young black man and Trump was working with Barr and Putin to destroy our democracy, the news media was still talking about the lies of the latest fake sexual assault victim Tara Reade, who once wrote an article about how much she, a liberal Democrat (wait for it), admired Putin. I keep hoping to wake up and learn that I’ve spent the last four years living in a really long, bad SNL skit.

From the beginning, the METOO movement has been absurd. Early during the movement, I mean-tweeted Chelsea Handler after hearing her say seriously on Bill Maher’s show that we have to believe women now because we didn’t believe them in the past. I told the hard-drinking, not well-educated comedian that I knew this thinking thing was new to her, but she needed to up her game. The women weren’t heard or believed claim is what KellyAnne Conway would call “an alternative fact.” I’ve mentioned Emmett Till, the Scottsboro Boys, the Duke University athletes accused by a black stripper, and the Rolling Stone/University of Virginia mess that cost that magazine a great deal of money so frequently that I wish I could just stamp my response. Lately, I’ve recalled Reverend Sharpton’s friend Tawana Brawley, who accused four white men of raping her and writing on her body. She was believed until her story fell apart, and there are probably people who still believe her. Even if we didn’t believe some women in the past, it certainly doesn’t mean we should believe every woman now or that we should take every accusation seriously. If the woman who used to
break into David Letterman’s house had accused him of rape, should we have believed her? Women are just as crazy and/or evil as men. Crazy, evil men rape; crazy, evil women are more likely to lie about being raped.

I don’t know how crazy or evil Tara Reade is, but she’s clearly a liar, and she’s lying for political reasons just as the women accusing 2020 Democratic frontrunner Al Franken in 2017 lied for political reasons and just as the METOO movement was used to remove 88-year-old, somewhat senile Civil Rights icon John Conyers for political expediency; the younger and more mentally agile Jerry Nadler could then chair the House Judiciary Committee if and when the Democrats won in 2018. It was not only a racist (accusing black men of rape or sexual misconduct is as old or older than this nation), cynical, and cruel act, but also an absurd one. Once 47% of white women and 80% of white evangelicals voting picked the self-confessed sexual assaulter instead of the white woman, sexual misconduct should never again have been used as a political weapon. That it has been used more frequently by both political parties since 2016 is beyond absurd.

As I watched the “scandalous” Mika B, who wasn’t married to Joe S when they started working together, grill Joe B and watched the female Democrats (Harris, Gillibrand) who signed the Al Franken petition and voted against Kavanaugh have to explain why they believed Joe B while a METOO- promoting LA columnist whom I have mean-tweeted several times, including when she suggested that the now late Kobe Bryant shouldn’t receive an Oscar because he was accused by one white woman (where were all of the other accusers?) of rape, wrote an awkward explanation of why she is still planning to vote for Joe B, I saw another problem with this movement—hypocrisy. As I mean-tweeted Mika, sex scandals spread like this deadly virus. I reminded her of what happened with the Republicans after they impeached Clinton over sexual misbehavior. Speaker Gingrich was also cheating on his wife as was the next potential Republican Speaker, and the man who became Speaker after those two “scandalous” Republicans left is now in jail for sexual misconduct before he entered politics. As that example shows, there is also the problem in politics of bipartisan scandals. Trump claimed that Reade’s changing, ridiculous, incredible story was more credible than the one told by Dr. Ford. Well, at least Reade wasn’t talking about something that happened when Biden was in high school. Neither story should have been told or heard, and while we’re back in the nineties, which is when the alleged Biden sexual assault occurred, this false accusation against him could be karma for his allowing that absurd “high-tech lynching” to happen in 1991. Dr. Anita Hill, Biden, and everyone involved in that circus owe my least favorite Supreme Court Justice, the man I call Uncle Thomas, an apology. Sexual misconduct should not be used as a political weapon against any political candidate, no matter his/her race, gender, or sexual orientation. But it is especially despicable to use it against a black man, even when the accuser is a black woman.

As I said on Facebook, the Biden/Reade fiasco shows that it’s time for METOO to join Jim Crow, prohibition, the war on weed, the criminalization of homosexuality, and the decriminalization of spousal abuse in the dustbin of history. The men who have lost their jobs and their reputations because of this vile movement can’t have their dignity or maybe their careers restored, but perhaps they can sue NBC, New Yorker, Time and the other media outlets that launched the “nasty men” movement. Epstein is dead, and Kelly, who preyed on young black girls and is clearly crazy, needs to stay in jail or be placed in a mental institution. But Cosby and Weinstein need to be released at least until Trump goes to jail. I’ve tweeted to Harris, Warren, Gillibrand, and Sanders that they need to sign a new petition apologizing to Al Franken and condemning the use of sexual misconduct as a political weapon. I’ve tweeted (for the second time) to the Congressional Black Caucus and Nancy Pelosi that they need to name a room or a bill after the now deceased John Conyers and restore his good name. I pointed out that his birthday is this month.

I may have some media help in ending this absurd and extremely damaging movement. As I switched between Don Lemon’s show and Bill Maher’s on Friday, I found myself clapping for both of their monologues. Lemon preached about how tired blacks are of being killed and pointed out that we black folks have joined other people’s movements. Perhaps because he’s gay, he mentioned the LGBTQ movement, but he used the tag (to my delight) USTOO. GO, DON! Maher used his New Rules monologue to take down the Democrats for allowing themselves to be played by conservatives and the media, using sexual misconduct. He angrily mentioned how the Democrats threw Al Franken under the bus. GO, BILL! But ultimately lying con artists like Tara Reade and Jacob Wohl, who has tried to smear Mueller and Pete B with fake charges of sexual misconduct, will help destroy METOO. Eventually, even the most foolish, cultish Americans, the ones most likely to join a high-tech lynch mob, will have to stop believing and start thinking.

Finally, on this Mother’s Day, as my mother resides safely in a memory care facility, I’m remembering February 2, 1990, when I arrived at her friend Doris’ home, still hoping that she had lied about being raped the night before because she was scared to live alone and wanted me to sell my home and buy one with her, only to see the damage that the just released from prison freak who lived next door to her with his mother had done to her face. I remember a white man about to give me grief when I was pushing ahead of him at the police station because my mother and I were late for an appointment to take pictures of her bruises, seeing her face and saying, “I’m sorry. Go right ahead.” And I remember my mother telling me with surprise how “nice” the police, doctors, and nurses were to her. See, a black woman born in Kentucky in 1928 doesn’t expect to be treated with compassion and kindness, no matter what has happened to her, no matter how brutally she has been beaten and raped. Finally, I remember how angry she was at Anita Hill during that ridiculous 1991 educated-black-folks-talking-about-sex hearing. I was surprised because her rapist was black, and she was still angry at all black men not related to her or to her close friends. The only time she laughed at Will Smith, aka Fresh Prince, was when he and Cousin Carlton were jailed. But she believed that a black woman publicly complaining to white men about a black man telling dirty jokes was, as she said at the time, “terrible and not raised right.”

On this Mother’s Day, for my mother and all of the mothers and future mothers who have been raped, I say, “Time’s Up for METOO. Let’s get #NOTMETOO trending.”