Three Americas

A middle school in Stafford, Virginia held a lockdown drill—what to do in case of an active shooter … don’t get me started on that—but one student was barred from participating.

When the drill began, a group of students took shelter in the locker room nearest them as they were in PE but one student, a trans girl, was prevented from entering either the boys or girl’s locker room and had to wait while teachers debated where she should go.

Had this been an actual active shooter situation that young girl might have been killed, but by all means let’s stop and talk about where to “put” her to make other students feel safe. After that back-and-forth, the girl was put in a locker room hallway, away from her peers.

Just because she’s transgender.

Ain’t that America …and so is this … Corey Lewis is a black man, a career youth mentor in Marietta, Georgia, and one day he was looking after the children of family friends. He and his mother took the kids to Walmart and then to a Subway for a bite to eat

According to Lewis, an unnamed white woman accosted him and demanded to speak to the oldest of the two children, because the kids were white, and he was black and what was a black man doing with white children.

After threatening to take down his license plate number and call the police, this person followed Corey Lewis, his mother, and the kids, to a local gas station; then they left, with the woman following them to Lewis’ home.

Lewis went on Facebook Live to document the stalker and when police arrived, and questioned Lewis and his mother, they ordered the children out of the car, and quizzed them on who Lewis was and why they were with him.

The kids said "Mr. Lewis" was their babysitter. The officer, however, wasn’t convinced—again, black man, white kids, sandwiches—and he contacted the children’s parents to ask why their children were with Lewis.

The officer questioned the 10-year-old and the 6-year-old before calling their parents—David Parker and Dana Mango—who were stunned:

“I said are you saying that because there’s an African American male driving my two white kids, that he was stopped and pulled over and questioned and he said I’m sorry ma’am that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Babysitting While Black. Ain’t that America …and so is this … Christopher Mirasolo, a convicted sex offender, and a white man, who raped a Michigan woman when she was only 12 years old, has been granted joint custody of his victim’s 8-year-old son.

Back in 2008, a twelve-year-old girl and her sister slipped out of the house late one night to meet a boy; that boy brought along Christopher Mirasolo, who asked them if they’d like to go for a ride.

Mirasolo held the girl’s captive for two days in a vacant house before releasing the older sister in a park—after allegedly threatening to kill both girls if they talked—and then he raped the twelve-year-old girl.

He was arrested a month later when the girl became pregnant. He was sentenced to one year in county jail but only ended up serving six-and-a-half months so he could care for his sick mother.

A rapist gets out of jail to care for his sick mother, and then, years later, is granted joint custody.

Only in America.

Oh, and don’t think I didn’t notice the differences between being transgender in America, and Black in America, and White in America.

ISBL Asshat of the Week: Phyllis Schlafly

It’s rare that we have a female Asshat of the Week here at ISBL — though we’ve made exceptions for the delightfully delusional Michele Bachmann — because it’s generally the male gender who acts in the most asshatted manner. But today we induct a new female into those hallowed halls: one Phyllis Schlafly, who is visiting our world from the 1920s.

While we have all heard the GOP whispers about rebranding their party, to make them more LGBT-friendly, more Latino-friendly, more female-friendly, we haven’t really seen much action on that, at least at the national level. In fact, just this week, the Republicans — even female Republicans — voted down the Paycheck Fairness Act — meaning women might earn the same as men and not the 23% less than men they earn now.

Sidenote: a junior Asshat of the Week is the Republican Congresswoman  from Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn [right], who actually suggested that Republicans have long “led the fight for women’s equality.”

Now, to be fair, a hard thing to do with Republicans, they say they have a good reason for voting against equal pay .... Obamacare. Yes, it’s the Blame Obamacare excuse from the GOP once again, because they are suggesting that Democrats were using the issue to distract from the alleged problems with Obamacare.

But I digress …

Let’s talk asshat; let’s talk Phyllis Schlafly, a prominent, vocal, and oh-so-out-of-touch member of the Republican movement who suggests that the current pay gap between genders is not wide enough. In an op-ed piece for the Christian Post, Schlafly — the founder of the Eagle Forum PAC — says that woman should never be paid the same as men, and wants the pay gap widened so that woman will be able to find themselves a suitable husband. She says:

“ … women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don’t have the same preference for a higher-earning mate.

While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.

Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.”

See, in Phyllis Schlafly’s world — not in present-day America, I’m guessing — all women really want is a man to take care of them and if you start treating women equally, meaning equal pay, they will simply lose interest in finding a mate.

It’s no great surprise that Schlafly thinks this way; she has long been the voice of the most conservative parts of the GOP and has used her  Eagle Forum PAC to give money to the likes of fellow ISBL Asshat of the Week winners like Eric Cantor, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, and Ted Cruz.

But her stance, especially given that the GOP is trying to make itself more appealing after losing the White House [again] in 2012, will only undermine the efforts of the party to rebrand itself. This, though, is actually a good thing, so maybe Schlafly should get a different award from ISBL?

No, asshat will do nicely.

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