Who you callin' B***h?!

We try not to get caught up in the "he said, she said", spectacular allegations, blatant publicity stunts and counter claims of celebrity trials. Quotes from testimony, taken out of context, can be completely misleading—heck taken in context they can still be confusing and nearly indecipherable. But something came up in the Isaiah Thomas—Anucha Browne Sanders sexual harassment suit and got stuck in our craw.

In case you're not following the trial (and there are lots of other things to be paying attention to—like what are the presidential candidates really saying? What is your child really learning in school? What is your house really worth . . .?) former NY Knick's V.P. Anucha Browne Sanders accuses coach and general manager Isaiah Thomas of sexual harassment, and Madison Square Garden of wrongfully firing her after she made that accusation. During pre-trial video taped depositions, Thomas stated, for the record, that he would find it, "highly offensive if he heard a white man call a black woman bitch (Yes we wrote it. We've all heard it, said it, or been called it, before.), but that if a black man called a black woman bitch he would be less offended. HUH?!?!?

Is there some rule we missed that says it's OK to call women of your own race, ethnicity or country of national origin outside of their names, but not to use those terms across racial lines? That's right up there was, "I can hit my woman, but you can't." And we're not buying the notion that bitch can be a term of endearment. Last time we checked, "You're my sweetheart," and "You're my bitch," still have two completely different and totally opposite meanings.

Yeah, we all grew up reciting "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." A mantra whose main purpose was to keep us out of schoolyard and neighborhood fights. But we know words have power. They can heal or they can cause pain. And words like 'bitch,' 'nigger,' 'faggot,' were meant to hurt. They even sound angry when you say them. Their presence lingers in the air long after they've left the sayers lips and bounced back off the hearers eardrums. They used to be fighting words. The person who uses them wants to dehumanize you, make you feel small, unworthy of even enough respect to be called by your own name. And while we realize language is fluid, a living thing that changes, we're not buying the idea that if you use epithets enough, they lose their meaning—or their power. It just means you're so used to getting beat down you don't even notice the sting any more.

So for the record, it is not hip, cool or manly to call women bitches. We like to joke, kid, and have a good time as much as the next woman, but we don't accept being call that, or some of the other names out there (we all know what they are) to prove we're one of the guys. Each of us has to make our own decisions in our personal lives, but that kind of undermining language is certainly not acceptable in the workplace. And what color you are doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Didn't we just go through this with the Rutgers' women's basketball team?

9/11 BEFORE AND AFTER

Six years ago---we all remember exactly where we were-THAT DAY.

Just as previous generations remember where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor (Probably on the radio. We weren’t born yet). Or where they were when JFK (Virginia—in the library of Fillmore Junior H.S. in Buffalo checking out books for the weekend. Donna--in Sister Helen's second grade class. The nuns were crying so we knew something was wrong.), Dr.King ( Virginia—on the campus of Fisk University in Nashville, listening to sirens and shots that were far too close. Donna had just come home from junior high and was alone, in front of the TV.), and Bobby Kennedy (Virginia—at home in Buffalo, NY, in my living room with my family watching as it unfolded on television. Donna--the same, but in Brooklyn, NY) were assassinated. The minutest details of what transpired in our lives on those ordinary days—the moment before and the moment after we heard the news—are branded in our memory because those events changed us—both singularly and as a culture—forever. We can mark time as before and after.

About ten years ago there was a movie called Before and After. Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson played the parents of a teen accused of murdering his girlfriend. Their reactions to the crisis are completely opposite. Though the subject matter and the inciting incident are not at all the same as the events of 9/11, the film pointed out how irrevocably, and differently lives can be altered by a single shattering event. And especially how the incident divides time into “pre” and “post.”


Six years ago we all became those parents. Our memories of THAT DAY are unique, specific, indelible and for better and worse, life altering.
A simple example—

Before—We were in our separate homes that morning, full of excitement and anticipation, and yakking on the phone about what we were going to wear, as we prepared for lunch in the City with our editor and publicist. We were going to talk about PR and marketing plans for the paperback release of Far From the Tree. We loved those lunches (at swank restaurants with hard to get reservations. You can order whatever your heart desires, with no concern for the bill.) Those afternoons, can feel giddy—like we’ve stepped into the power-lunch scene from a movie, which is very different from our day-to-day writerly existence. But there was no lunch THAT DAY. What clothes we put on didn’t matter because we never left our homes. We each tried to account for those we thought could have been in lower Manhattan, and got calls from friends and family who were concerned for our safety. And we tried to make space in our reality for this incomprehensible event.

After—We were both blessed that none of our immediate loved ones were killed or injured on 9-11, although there were some eerily close calls. But there hasn’t been another of those lunches since, where the memory of THAT DAY hasn’t crossed, however transiently, one or both of our minds. We both try not to schedule meetings or travel on the 11th of September. It still doesn’t feel right. Will that ever go away? Probably. Our worlds don’t stop moving any more on November 22, April 4 or June 5 so eventually the specific date may lose it’s power, but life will still never be the same.

Today, like it was on that 9-11, we are not together—Virginia is at home in New Jersey, Donna in Brooklyn, but we each woke slowly—fully aware of what day it was. We had an ear to the radio (Donna) and an eye on the TV (Virginia) as commentators, reporters, family members, first responders, poised to commemorate, spoke about THAT DAY. But we remember. How can we not? We can all see those towers collapse—and rise only to collapse again and again and again—thanks to the media. Will that ever go away? Will the phantoms of terror—WMD, Osama, Saddam, Iraq ever go away? Or is fear and Homeland Insecurity here to stay? We remember what it was like before Richard Reid totally f__ked up travel for pretty much every human being on the planet. But will taking off your shoes and carrying your toiletries in a baggie become as natural for the next generation as having a telephone in your pocket?

Yes, things change—or look like they have (history is proof that little is different). Time and distance affect perspective. But should we remember for the sake of remembering? Or remember so we do better the next time, instead of the same or worse.

Maybe that’s the question we should ask someone who’s been there—a parent, grandparent, a neighbor or someone who survived Hiroshima, Darfur, Kristallnacht or Trail of Tears...Did we ever get it right—after?

YOU CAN BANK ON IT

All of a sudden there are banks opening on every corner, mall, even in the supermarket—Bank of America, NorthFork, PNC, Wachovia, Chase, WAMU, Citi, HSBC. . . (We assume this is happening in your town too.) They’re as bad as Starbucks. First the big banks ate the little banks. We were both at different banks and each of them changed names three times in five years and voila! we’re now at the same bank. Do you know how many checks that is to shred?

So what’s the deal? Is there all of a sudden more money floating around so we need more places to put it? Who actually uses money anyway. There are electronic transfers, ATM transactions, debit cards, direct deposits—bank 24 hours a day, in your PJ’s. So what do we need the buildings for? Are they handing out samples, ‘cause if they are, nobody told us. We’d be happy to take a few crispy tens and twenties on a test run, even the new sepia-toned funny money (can you tell the bills apart without careful examination? We can’t.)

Or is the opposite true—there’s no more money, but we’re supposed to think there is? Does it make us feel comfy-cozy about the economic state of the country when we see banks blooming like dandelions? No recession here! Unemployment is down—no mention of the disappearing middle class or the fact that millions of those with jobs are “working poor” who can’t live or support their families on what they earn. To quote Business Week, as of 2004 twenty eight million people earned less than $18,800 a year, below the federal poverty line for a family of four—but who’s counting (Click here: BW Online May 31, 2004 Working...And Poor And for those who need their cash immediately, there’s always your handy dandy 24 hour check cashing and payday loan emporium—convenience with 300% interest rates.)So it’s all OK! More than OK—it’s swell! Just look at all the banks! Brick and mortar testament to the stability of our economy. AND you can get free checking. Oh, and do you want to take some equity out of your house? You got it—the larger the bill, the harder it is to pay, the easier it is to foreclose, my dear.

And let’s not forget that while we’re breaking out in a rash of banks, we’re also breaking out in a rash of bank robberies. According to a report on NBC Nightly News, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19996325/) the increase has now reached the equivalent of a bank heist every hour and fifteen minutes. That’s a lot of sticking up. Now way, way back in the 1940’s bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. His reply, ’Cause that’s where the money is.”

Are more people more desperate—amateurs with names like the Grandma Bandit, the BandAid Bandit, The Wig Bandit, The Cell Phone Bandit, The Hat Bandit—trying to get through tough times? Are they just your run of the mill crooks? Or are they crazed junkies trying to support a habit—which is what some officials are telling us?

What’s the bottom line then?

Asked why they think there are so many bank robberies, police say one factor may be the increased number of branch banks around the country. According to Maj. Harold Winsett, head of the Criminal Investigations Division of the Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff’s Office, "Banks are on every corner to be a convenience for the people that deposit their money there. Well, it makes it just as convenient for the bank robber."

Duh.