The Birthday Kiss

            The Bittles were the only family on the street with a built-in pool. So many of us tried our best to stay on the Bittles' kids' good side so we could swim in that pool all summer. But, since one of the boys was a bully, and the daughter was a self-centered brat, and the third child, another boy, just kind of went along with whatever his siblings suggested, it wasn't an easy, or always enjoyable task. But, it was Mr. Bittle's birthday and most of the neighborhood was invited to the party, so it didn't matter that day whether you were getting along with their kids or not: the majority of the people on the dead-end street were invited to his party. 

            Their backyard was filled with people. I'd never seen that many people in their pool at the same time. Most of the neighbors were there, except the Parkers, who were a family of mentally-challenged adults rarely invited to any neighborhood gatherings other than the annual block party thrown each year by the Carowthers. But, my parents were friends with the Bittles, so we were definitely invited. And the Bittles were friends with the cops in town, so many of the town's ‘finest’ were there in their swimsuits. Even the chief of police was there, along with his perverted son-in-law. And the booze was freely flowing.

            About an hour into the party, Mrs. Bittle called for all of the females to form a line heading toward Mr. Bittle so we could all give him a kiss for his birthday. I had recently told my parents that Mr. Bittle wanted to put his hands up my shirt to keep them warm when he took me on a motorcycle ride.  And one day when I was with his daughter in her bedroom, we had to lock the door and window to keep him out of her room. She said he did it all the time. I had even gone to a priest and talked to him about the incidents. He made my mom come in to speak with him, and I don't know if the priest helped her find the solution, but I was told that my father had offered Mr. Bittle's youngest son a cigarette in front of his father to show disrespect towards him since Mr. Bittle had shown my father disrespect in molesting his daughter. I was also told that Mr. Bittle would come to our house on occasional Saturday nights for poker, and I was to act respectfully towards him. While I was disappointed with how the situation was handled, I assumed that the adults knew best—we were always told this anyway.

            I was in line with my mother to give Mr. Bittle a kiss. As we inched closer and closer to the birthday star, I asked my mom if I had to give him a kiss. She said that I didn’t, and it was entirely up to me to decide. So, although I was the only female at the party no longer in line to kiss Mr. Bittle, I left the line and took my place outside the crowd, which was common for me these days. I don't remember

much of the rest of the party. I just remember how damned long the line was to kiss the man who had molested me at 10-years-old, his 12-year-old daughter, and a 16-year-old neighbor, who insisted she was happy since he was giving her money to sleep with him. I was glad my mother left the decision to me that night. She showed me that adults do no better.

New email

My new email address is: esembrotantiracism@gmail.com

From South Carolina to New Mexico: They Were Right--Racism is Too Entrenched in the Deep South for One Person to Fight

We moved to South Carolina in 2009, seven months after Obama took office as the first Black POTUS,and one month after Michael Jackson died. Between my excitement about Obama and my grief about Michael, I was overwhelmed emotionally, and should have listened to a friend and fellow Yoga teacher, Yogini, to stay out of South Carolina because the racism was so bad. But, having considered myself an anti-racist advocate since about the age of 7, I replied, "If that's where racism is worse in this country, then that's where I need to be!" How grandiose was my thinking.

I graduated from Rutgers University, New Brunswick in 2008 with a B.A. in American Studies. I focused on African-American history, and qualified for minors in English, philosophy, and political science. My interests were, and still are, quite broad. I met my current partner of eight years, Ruben, while handing out voter registration forms to register people for the upcoming Obama-McCain election. Although I didn't actually vote for Obama--I voted Green due to concerns about the environment that were not adequately addressed by Obama, and due to Obama's aggressive stance toward Iran--I did register people to vote, and certainly expressed my glee about America's possibility of having a Black man in the White House.

When we moved to South Carolina, I talked nearly incessantly about our Black president and our sadly missed entertainment icon, Michael Jackson. And when I placed our Obama-Biden lawn sign in the front yard, I was forewarned by some not-quite-as-racist-as-the-other-people about how people in this neighborhood felt about a Black man as president of the United States.  Yogini had warned me about the billboards reading, "Defeat Evil, Defeat Obama" before moving south. However, until about the third year of living there, I really thought I could make a difference. But, not anymore, not there, anyway.

When people ask what brought me to New Mexico, I say, "South Carolina."

PS  It is now July 13, and, due to covid, we are moving back to SC in 19 days! Watch what you say    you will NEVER do again!

Copyright@Eileen M. Sembrot 2020

The Flag Will Come Down!!

Finally, the South Carolina legislature called a special session--they don't usually meet from July through December--and voted to remove the confederate flag from the state capitol in Columbia. The symbol of hatred of the "Other" will no longer fly over the state building of the South Carolina capitol. What a shame it's taken such a horrible tragedy to knock some sense into so many of the congressional members, as well as the governor, Nikki Haley, whom, up until the Charleston shootings, continually reiterated the subject about the flag's removal was closed.

My boyfriend and I moved to South Carolina from New Jersey in 2009, and the extent of racism in the society down here is much more palpable and virulent than up North. The first night we moved here, a white man came to the house we had rented under the pretense of making sure we were the legitimate renters--he said, "We have some problems down here with the n------, so I wanted to make sure you were who you say you are." As this was said, our half-Black and half-Puerto Rican nephew sat on the couch and just looked on. I was already sleeping, so fortunately, I missed the rebel welcome. The following day, I asked my nephew how he kept quiet during the visit, and he replied that he immediately knew that if he said anything, he could end up dead and floating in the lake down the street from us and nothing would likely come of the investigation--if there even was an investigation. I wish I had taken that incident as an omen and left the state the same day we moved in!

But, we stayed. And from that time forward, we've had many more unpleasant, sometimes downright dangerous experiences. But, we're stuck here now, and I plan to do what I came here to do in the first place--fight against racism by continually broaching the topic with white people, probably through the Showing Up for Racial Justice organization and in partnership with the Black Lives Matter organization, and through my writing on this blog and other mediums. So stay tuned!

Copyright@ Eileen M. Sembrot 2020

What It Means to be a Human Being in the United States Today

The title for this post was taken from an interview I watched of Sonia Sanchez on Uprising with Sonali on May 26, 2015. Sanchez was describing one of the motivations for the BAM, the Black Arts Movement, and it captured the intention underlying the book I am now writing. I want to articulate what it means to be living in America today, as an underemployed college graduate with little to no power to effect change in a country that acts more immoral and inhumane as the days go by. With a scant review of today's headlines, there's an argument going on in Congress about whether the EPA should be able to regulate pesticide use in particular water areas. As the NYTimes reports, the bill's most vocal opponents are “property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers and a national association of golf course owners.” Are these the voices we should be listening to when they are the ones who will profit from the expanded use of pesticides, and surely lose from curtailing its use? Does anyone see a conflict of interest in this scenario? 
Such mind-numbing arguments as this one confront the concerned American citizen daily. When the first idea about this particular book came to me, I wanted to write a book that would make the wealthy and powerful aware of the effects of their profit-driven ideologies on the environment, specifically, but actually affecting every other aspect of our daily lives as well. Then I thought, they probably already know about the destruction and just don't care.Therefore, maybe the book needs to develop ways that make people care about the consequences of their actions. Today, I'm just mired in pessimism that anything can be done to fight the environmental, political, educational, social, judicial, etc., etc., etc., corruption and devastation present in America today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a brighter day!

Copyright@Eileen M. Sembrot 2020

My Love Affair with America

He was the Mayor. He told me we were the envy of the town. Other couples envied us because we had everything. He had a great job, we went on grand vacations, we had the largest house in the neighborhood, and the biggest pool in the county. We owned the most land and had the most people working for us. We threw wild dinner parties, weekend retreats, and jetted to Paris for dinner at our leisure. We went to church every Sunday and paid our tithes. We believed we were blessed because we worked so hard and because we were good Christian people. He told me he heard people talk about us all over town, how they wished they could be like him and me.

            I believed everything he said. I saw their smiling, accepting faces when we drove through town. When we went to dinner, they went out of their way to fulfill our every whim. He took care of them, he told me. They were like our family. He made sure they had good lives, and when trouble came their way, he helped them get back on their feet again.

            But all of the children looked sad. They tried to smile, but it was apparent they were forcing themselves to appear happy. Their bodies fidgeted, and their eyes darted all over when he leaned to talk to them. He gave them dollars, which made their parents very happy. They all looked so sad.

            Years later, I learned he had molested the children whose parents he had paid.

            This is my love affair with America.

                                                                                                                   The End.

This story was inspired by the Jefferson Airplane song "Somebody to Love," specifically the first line: 

When the truth is found to be lies/And all the joy within you dies.

Copyright 2012 Eileen M. Sembrot

Religion, Youth and Sexuality

      In response to the article on www.writing.com titled Religion and Politics by SoCalScribe, I recalled a church service I attended a few months ago. My partner and I sometimes go to an African Methodist church in rural South Carolina. While I practice Yoga (spiritually) and Buddhism, my partner is a born-again Christian. Neither of us, however, are against freedom of action that doesn't harm any living being. Whatever makes your world turn, we're glad you've found happiness.

    We love the pastor at the church, and his message always makes me feel as if he had followed me around all week, observed those things that caused me the most worry or pain, and then spoke about them in the service to make me feel better. However, one week, a guest lecturer was invited to speak at our church. It was a woman in the process of becoming a Methodist minister.

     She was about 50-years-old and quite sure of her place at the pulpit. While much of what she said was important for the youth in the church to hear, her sermon left me cold and angry. She told the congregation how wrong homosexuality is--how unnatural, how un-God-like, and how wrong having intimate, sexual feelings for someone of the same sex was in God's eyes.

     She reminded me of George W. Bush when he claimed that God spoke to him and told him to go to war against the poorest nation in the world in 2001.

     How did this woman have any idea of what's wrong in God's eyes? Although I certainly don't pretend or delude myself into believing that I know what God most wants in our behavior, I do know rationally that by telling kids homosexuality is bad "in God's eyes," the message is about as hateful as telling them that the God who created them, who made them "wrong," hates them for His mistake.

     Don't American people, in general, have enough self-loathing to handle what with the propaganda the government tells us about how stupid we are and that we are unable to make decisions based on our own good as the advertisers hypnotize us into believing that if we don't have that body, hair, car, relationship, education, job, income, clothing, we're useless shit?

     I don't know about you, but I think we need to uplift the self-esteem of those of us raised in a schizophrenic culture such as that of the U.S. So, rather than telling kids that their natural instinctual tendencies are sins, maybe we can put our arms around them and tell them if they are in love with someone of their own sex, how happy we are that they've found joy in an unjust and judgmental world.

     And next time, I won't let my own timidity to stand up to the powers-that-be stop me from approaching an "almost-minister" and suggesting that she start spreading a message of love and acceptance, rather than hate and rejection.

Copyright@Eileen M. Sembrot 2020