Corner of Bourbon & Division

 Nothing terrible, mind you. One of my coworkers called in sick and we couldn't get anyone in to replace her, so I ended up not getting a lunch break, which sucked. Luckily my day wasn't terribly busy, so I wasn't run off my feet, but the tip line went bonkers today, mostly with mentally ill callers and racists, and sometimes mentally ill racists. It's a little draining to have to explain to multiple people that, actually, their muslim neighbours are totally allowed to have lives, to own their own cell phone and computer, and EVEN are allowed to watch videos in Arabic on them! Shocking, I know.

I was also quite bored by the end of the day, which made for a bad combination. I made it out without incident, though, and treated myself to pizza for dinner, and am continuing my re-watch of Orphan Black before bed.

I promise to post at least one entry with lengthier content this week (I can't guarantee it will be more interesting, though). I just need my brain to not be mush at least one day out of the seven. ;)

Oooh, before I forget, I should note that today was a pretty big day in feminist/political circles, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided it would be a good idea to try to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren when she tried to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King (the widow of Martin Luther King Jr.) criticizing Senator Jeff Sessions' terrible track record with black voting rights. Rather than allowing the quote, McConnell invoked what I've understood to be a fairly obscure rule (Rule 19) forbidding any Senator from "[impugning] the motives or integrity of any senator" lest they be be called to order. Warren was called to order, and prevented from speaking at all for the remainder of the session. The extra galling thing is that two other male Democratic senators were subsequently allowed to read the same letter without being rebuked.

McConnell later doubled down on this, with words that were soon to come and bite him in the ass: "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nonetheless, she persisted."

The media and the internet latched onto those words like the seagulls in Finding Nemo. It was beautiful and inspiring and at times hilarious to watch. People began posting images of all the women pioneers (real and fictitious and all of them inspirational) captioned with the words, and it sounds like more than a few people are taking it up as a personal mantra. #shepersisted and #letliztalk was all anyone could talk about today, and with good reason.


Anyway, that part of today kept me going. It was a bright spark in a day otherwise filled with racist phone calls.

So one of my supervisors sent me a "joke" email. Y'know, one of those forwards that's meant to be cute or funny or both.

Except that this one wasn't. In fact, I was pretty offended, and I am not all that easily offended.

( Cut for the joke, which is pretty damned racist. Be warned. )

...

So, yeah. Offended kind of doesn't begin to cover it. The fact that it's a "joke" doesn't mean that I am supposed to be amused by the deliberate murder of dozens if not hundreds of civilians based on their religion or ethnicity or both.

So I sent the supervisor an email expressing my sentiments, politely, and CC'd our boss.

The supervisor's defense? He's former military, and he's lost friends to the war in Afghanistan, to the enemy and to suicide. Therefore, to him, the death of any person of Arab origin or who practices Islam, is fair game for a joke.

Dude, I GET that part, but you're talking about murdering non-combattants, here. Women and children take planes too. Students, the elderly. Someone's mother. Someone's cousin. Someone's best friend.

I have friends who are in the military too. Does that mean I will gleefully look on while one person deliberately aims two airplanes at each other? No.

Anyway, he's annoyed that I CC'd the boss. *shrug* I debated about that for a while, but in the end, I think I did the right thing. Our boss needs to know if one of the supervisors is a racist asshole. At least he's removed me from his mailing list.