these times

My Grandma Braff used to tell her grandkids never tell someone who has just eaten a three course meal that you are hungry. Never tell someone who in the cold winter days of Pittsburgh, is wearing a sweater, thermal underwear, and a warm coat you are cold with only your spring jacket. Never tell someone who has lost a loved one how sorry you are unless someone you loved has passed. She believed that those who have conveniently forgotten what it is like not to have will never understand the need of others. She believed that people are cruelest when their stomachs are full, their house is warm, and they can conveniently walk away from anyone else’s troubles because they really don’t have to relate.

And with the arrogance of a person so enmeshed in her Ivory Tower the Chancellor of UC Davis, Linda Katehi felt little remorse for the non violent students who by just expressing their first amendment rights were protesting in support of the Occupy Movement. Thinking she was safe in her wardrobe of arrogance and ignorance she had little to say regarding the Campus police as one of their officers walked down the line of seated protestors pepper spraying them. Some of whom took it directly to their faces. Chancellor Linda Katehi in fact defended the actions of her police and did not want to discuss any side of the issue but hers and her Campus police.

If it had not been for a video of this incident going viral, the Chancellor could have easily pooh poohed it and blamed the conflict on malcontents and hooligans. She could have ignored the root cause of the protest and wined and dined with her wealthy alumni raising money for future endowments wishing those pesky protestors would just wilt away. And yet the problem would still fester and the infection would continue to spread.

The few times I remember my Grandma Braff babysitting us, I do however remember her set of rules she would establish as she took the reigns of power at being the adult in charge. She would say do not come running to me blaming someone for hitting or pushing or yelling, just tell me what happened and why it happened. It is not about claiming she did it or he did it, if what they did is bad then I will deal with it. It is the action I will deal with then look at the person who did it.

Now in the aftermath of the horrible pedophilia actions of Jerry Sandusky the talking heads are no longer spending time discussing pedophilia, but burning the fires of indulgence and discourse to the edges by deciding what if it was not boys Mr. Sandusky had been showering with or touching of the legs but instead it was girls. Now it becomes about the sexuality of he matter for both the predator and the victim. And once again all the ‘mavens’ have decided to make this case agains Sandusky more about anything but the truth that pedophilia unchallenged, not addressed can and will grow more dangerous.

When a witch hunt goes after the witch rather than the action, there is something wrong. If pedophiles are straight or gay they are aggressors looking for prey. I am tired of hearing about the sexuality of the pedophile and tired of statistics claiming gay men or straight men are more prone to be pedophiles. We miss the point of the action when we speak like that. We suddenly pontificate about the issue rather then look at the dirty facts of that issue because in this current American culture it is so much easier to talk about it, place blame then to fix it.

So, now all the homophobes will feel self righteous enough to lay claim that anything from same sex marriage, same sex parenting, even Gays in the military are sure signs that once we condone all of those freedoms more and more boys will be sexually abused. The Gay community will find itself once again defending something that is not solely owned as an issue for just that demographic and we will rant and rave about the actor and not the action.

I loved my Grandma Braff, but the older I got I considered her commentary and communication difficult to understand. I thought she was an angry lady not able to embrace her current world and perhaps still angry about her immediacy of leaving Romania and coming to America. I pontificated about her comments that I perceived as negative, but now realize what I thought was negative was in fact practical.

I was looking at the world in those preverbal rose colored glasses thinking the better of people before even considering the worse. But now the words of wisdom my Grandmother spouted seem to make a whole lot of sense.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness...(quote from “A Tale of Two Cities”, by Charles Dickens)

What has happened to us as a nation where caring, consensus and concern used to be a priority. What happened to us as a land where the common good, the common cause, helped us help ourselves and those around us? What happened to us as a country where we sought to resolve the problem instead of so resolute to lay blame?

I wonder what my Grandma Braff would have to say about America 2011?