#FreeBree

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

On her website, Bree Newsome describes herself with a collection of hyphens: “Writer – Director – Producer – Singer – Songwriter – Activist – Consultant – Speaker.” Today she alphabetized that list and moved “Activist” to the front.

Earlier this morning, she hopped the fenced-in area protecting the flagpole from which the Confederate battle flag has flown since 2000 in front of the South Carolina statehouse, climbed the pole, and cut down that odious bolt of cloth that American history somehow simultaneously celebrates and reviles.
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The Bad I Do, Part 2

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Doctor’s office, circa a few years ago.

I was sober for over a year at the time, but my life was still far from the “unicorns spitting Skittles where’er we walk on the golden highways to love” that I thought some people were trying to convince me that their (new, sober) life is like. I had asked to see a therapist, and bureaucracy provided me with a pretty good one.
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Protest Is Not Polite

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Oh, the media is ridiculing Jennicet Gutiérrez, an activist and protester that President Obama shushed during an event last night. That is, if and when they bother to use her name or discuss things like issues.

Few are reporting what Ms. Gutiérrez was speaking about. That must change. I will try to do my part with this column. The issues she spoke about at the event deserve attention and, more important, action now. There is a community that is suffering terrible harm right now as I type this simply because its members are different and are seeking a new life in a new country that they hoped would be safer for them.

The President handled the protest that she launched into—alone, with no support from anyone—during a dinner last night at the White House in an almost tolerant/amusingly annoyed way, which is fine, I suppose, but not many are reporting what the event was: the White House was publicly hosting a Pride Month event, which is a sentence that I never thought that I would ever be able to type. This makes me happy.
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