The move was unexpected, swift and decisive. And as I watched the events unfold on my screen, a certain rage rose within me, not only for the injustice at hand —that an old Southern man would not allow a woman to re-read words already entered into the public record by the late First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement, relevant words concerning Jeff Sessions’ demonstrated character— but for all the times women have been shut down when the truths uttered from their lips have been sharp and inconvenient.

Many years ago —almost as many years ago as when Rule 19 was established— the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage distributed flyers filled with rhetoric like, “Housewives! You do not need a ballot to clean your sink spout. A handful of potash and some boiling water is quicker and cheaper.”  And “Vote NO on Woman Suffrage because it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur.”

The evil which may occur. That phrase glistens for me, like an oil slick on water.

I have a memory —one that I cannot confirm because I no longer speak to the man involved, and even if I did, he would most likely deny any recollection of such an event— but when I was very young, maybe four or five years old, I was shopping in a grocery store with my father and doing something mischievous enough to arrest his attention. I don’t recall whether I had reached for an unauthorized item on a shelf, maybe some candy or sugared cereal, or perhaps I even grabbed a glass jar of something that slipped from from my grip and crashed to the floor, splattering sticky fluid all over our feet. None of those details rise to the surface, but what does is my father’s sudden delivery of half-dozen wallops to my backside.

Not that spanking itself was unusual or uncommon in those days, nor that this particular instance was especially harsh, but the public nature of it was jarring — if for no other reason than the presence of a woman, an older woman, who stood and watched my punishment in the aisle of the neighborhood Pick-N-Pay.

What I remember most clearly was not the sting of my father’s open palm, nor the precipitating event itself, but this: a woman stared at a man spanking his child in the aisle of the Pick-N-Pay and opened her mouth in protest.

To which my father grumbled something like, “Mind your own business, Lady.”

The Senator will take her seat.

These kinds of moments collect in the mind of a girl, gathered like acorns and leaves with serrated edges, stowed in pockets for later use in the constructs of her real and imaginary worlds. Their dried fragments remain long after she has outgrown her coat, the detritus clinging stubbornly to the pilled fabric of her pocket lining.

I was not a child who questioned authority. And though it would take me years to fully understand, something in that old woman’s watery eyes told me that what was happening in that aisle was less about me or her or whatever I had done, and more about the preservation of authority itself.

Rule 19 was established in 1902 because a fist-fight broke out between two South Carolina Senators on the Senate floor, over an accusation that one had been the victim of the other’s malicious lie. But I think it’s relevant to note that the violent outburst —the one that precipitated the establishment of Rule 19 in the first place— was initiated by the senior senator involved, Senator Benjamin Tillman, an unapologetic racist who believed in lynching to keep black people in their place.

It is not lost on me that the very provision used to silence Elizabeth Warren’s recital of Coretta Scott King’s letter about Jeff Sessions —a man whose fitness for the position of Attorney General is tainted by his previous racist remarks and actions— is also steeped in deeply racist history. It is not lost on me that the provision used to silence Elizabeth Warren comes from an era of anti-woman suffrage.

I feel this truth with as much certainty as I feel the inner lining of my empty pockets, which is to say that the silencing of Elizabeth Warren this week was an abuse of authority for no other purpose than the preservation of authority itself.  Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jeff Merkley of Oregon both read passages from King’s letter without incident. But for boldly speaking without omission the parallel opinion of a female Civil Rights icon, Elizabeth Warren was forced to shut her mouth and abstain from her participation in the official debate.  Make no mistake: the echoes of our racist and misogynist past vibrate through the halls of Congress almost as loud and clear as they did more than a century ago.

The post On Authority and Punishment appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

Last night, America chose a racist, misogynist, xenophobic, over-privileged businessman with absolutely no public service record instead of an over-qualified, life-long public servant woman to be our next President of the United States. Last night, as I tucked my two daughters into bed, the America I thought I knew, the America I trusted to honor and protect us voted to put a bully into the Oval Office. A man who uses a numeric scale to place a value on the opposite sex. A man who chronically lies and makes fun of the disabled. A man who incites violence to exclude and prosecute the minorities and dissenters among us. A man who brags about his self-proclaimed entitlement to grope women without consent.

As an American woman, I feel betrayed by my country today, betrayed by the promise of honor and respect, by the American ideal of equality and justice for all. I can only imagine what it must have felt like to wake up black or brown, Mexican or Jewish or Muslim or LGBTQ in this country today. These citizens have been handed an eviction, a message heard loud and clear: YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE. You are a stain. And to women: You will be tolerated only if you are pretty and quiet, the way that God intended.

Two and a half years ago, I was evicted from my role as a daughter. I had made the grave mistake of sharing stories of my youth, of revealing that my childhood was not entirely happy, that our home was not normal. I had revealed that the power between my parents was unbalanced, and that my father was, at times, a tyrant in his control over us. I had broken a code, disobeyed the expectation of silence and obedience. I had broken the promise of never questioning a system that is unfairly favorable to the white man in the room.

So I was punished, harshly. No apology, no discussion. You are not wanted here. My love for you was conditional upon your obedience with the unwritten rules, conditional upon your silence.

On the day of my eviction, my father sent me a package that contained all of my childhood artifacts: drawings, stories, newspaper clippings. For me, it was one of the few times he’d ever revealed that he was even paying attention. For him, I imagine it was a message: See how much I cared? Now you are dead.

I can say from experience that dead is how you feel when you have been evicted like this. You curl up into your covers and weep for the love that you thought you had, for the love you thought you deserved.

Of course you deserve that love.

It’s okay to draw the shades and grieve, dear ones. It’s okay to gather your strength. But please don’t despair. In the days ahead, you will come to realize that you are loved, even if not by the body of people to which you thought that you belonged. This country is a crazy patchwork quilt of communities and families stitched together from the most mismatched, unlikely pieces of cloth. There is always a place for love.

Here’s the thing about shunning: for it to work well, it must be total and complete. And the last time I checked, more than half the country disagrees with what we’ve been told America wants.  And if you look at the voting results of our youth, you will see that the forces of evolution are still at work.

Those of us who have faced eviction from our lives can tell you that there’s a sort of freedom in dismissal. I am no longer bound by the “rules.” The worst has already happened; there’s no point to my silence now. This is my promise to you, and I hope a promise that many of us are willing to make.  Over the next four years and beyond, I will not look away. I will see what needs to be seen. Then speak. Speak up. SPEAK OUT.

Photo credit: New York Times

The post Eviction appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.