Why I Resist
It's in my DNA -- literally.
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One night when my grandmother was a little girl growing up in a small Brown County, Indiana town, the Ku Klux Klan paid her family a visit. Right on her front lawn, the Klan members erected and ignited a large wooden cross. She, her sister and her brother watched from their living room window terrified.
My great grandfather wasn’t terrified though. As my grandmother cried, he ran outside.
“You sons of bitches! Get the hell outta here!” he shouted at the hooded, cowardly and birdbrained (with apologies to birds) domestic terrorists. “And I know who each one of you assholes are!”
Despite their white robes and hoods, my great grandfather recognized their postures and body movements. My dad said my great grandfather most likely drank with them at the local small-town bar before that night. Once my great grandfather confronted the Klan clods, they no longer burned crosses on his front lawn. Instead they burned their crosses nearby. I guess they thought they were doing him a solid.
Why did the Klan terrorize my great grandparents and their children who were white? One word: anti-Catholicism. In the early 20th century, the Ku Klux Klan had resurged, and for this iteration, The Klan included Catholics on its hate list. These white supremacist wingnuts were a notable force in Indiana. Please watch the brief video above to learn more. As William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
My father revealed this bit of our family history to me when I was four or five, explaining to me in an age-appropriate manner who the Klan is and all its grotesqueness. I didn’t understand yet why the Ku Klux Klan hated Black Americans most of all. One show my parents watched was Sanford and Son, and I adored the actors Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson.
My father’s words shook me that night. Decades later they still do. How many white little girls learn about the Klan just as they enter kindergarten and that The KKK targeted her own family? I suspect I may be in the minority. When I first watched Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video on MTV in 1989, my stomach tightened. The power of her art challenging racial injustice and stressing the importance of being a white accomplice hit especially hard because the burning crosses she danced before also targeted her — a Roman Catholic. Her dance was one of defiance, a defiance I suspect many viewers missed but one that still gives me chills .
I never experienced anti-Catholicism to the extent my great grandparents, grandmother, great aunt and great uncle did. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean I have not received snide comments about my Catholic faith or been ostracized by people because of it. A few of my former classmates, evangelical and fundamentalist, at the only high school reunion I attended backed away from me with either wide eyes or pursed lips when I said I was getting married at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral that spring.
Growing up, more than one of my Protestant classmates made it clear that according to their Christian denominations, Catholics were not Christians. During my teenage years, young adulthood and even now, I have been told Catholics worship the Virgin Mary and the saints instead of Jesus.
In my early twenties, the mother of an ex-boyfriend made clear to me on several occasions how much she detested the Catholic Church even though she knew I was Catholic. At dinner one evening, her daughter brought up about attending a Mass with a Catholic friend. My ex-boyfriend’s mother scrunched her nose as I sat beside her and exasperated, “Ugh. A Catholic Church.”
As mild as these remarks and actions were, they still irritated and angered me. I have never apologized for my Church for the immense harm it has done to the world, women and children. I have never proselytized. Like everyone, I just want to exist, practice my spiritual beliefs and be left alone. When those comments were said to me and people backed away from me, for a moment I became an “other.”
That sense of otherness increased after my multiple sclerosis emerged and was finally diagnosed years after that dinner. Every day after my diagnosis, I began to learn the deep hatred and disgust some in society hold toward the disabled and chronically ill. My study of disability theory along with feminist disability studies as I pursue my Master of Arts in women’s and gender studies has increased my awareness of systemic injustices. In turn, though my energy is limited, all that life experience and education have galvanized my drive toward social justice.
No surprise that because of my life experience and feminist studies, resistance and righteous anger are ingrained in my personality. I never met my great grandfather, but I think I would have liked him. Clearly I inherited my need to confront bullies and injustice from him. As the dark clouds of fascism and Christian theocracy hover over the United States, I refuse to close my eyes, stay silent and be inactive.
As those clouds’ thunderclaps grow louder and increase in frequency, I can't help but take a stand and speak out. I recognize my part and influence are small. Despite that, I hope my little voice can help stop the tornado forming by the humid and cold airs of crypto-Nazi rhetoric and Christian nationalism. I do not want that tornado to obliterate the American experiment on Tuesday November 5. There is no basement any American can head to for protection.
My mission for starting this newsletter two years ago was not to write about politics. I wanted to focus on literature, creative writing and sociocultural issues. Yet as John Lennon wrote in “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”
Like I am sure how many of my fellow bluestockings feel, the past nine years have exhausted, angered, demoralized and frustrated me. Human beings are not designed for unending trauma and stress.
To be honest, I wish I could give my writing, literary art and fine art photography the same focus and energy I now pour into resisting and being civically engaged. I've lost so much time already on my literary art because of MS, chronic migraines, clinical depression and frequent hospitalizations. I’ve spent more of my life sick and disabled than healthy and abled-bodied. Because of all I live with, I take those moments I feel somewhat okay to focus on my art and craft.
Yet I must do this. I have to do this. There is no choice. No question. No hesitation. Resistance and dissent drive me as much as my writing and art. My daughter and I are vulnerable and targeted by Inmate Number P01135809, MAGA and Project 2025.
Even though I belong to the same faith as Project 2025's Kevin Roberts and J.D. Vance, my family and I are not the right kind of Catholics according to them. As non-MAGA Catholics, we don't fit into their Christian Nationalist template. According to Andra Watkins, we too would be targeted by Project 2025, since our Christianity isn't the “correct” one.
Resisting authoritarianism requires sacrifice. Sacrifice is a word that make some contemporary Americans cringe. Despite our ancestors’ sacrifice to save the U.S. when we fought in World War II, a portion of Americans today would rather masticate the latest deep-fried fast food creation while watching the newest season of The Real Housewives of Orange County than civically engage or stay aware of the news.
But President Biden made clear in his Oval Office address this past Wednesday night that we can no longer be apathetic. It is now up to American voters to keep our republic. We are the United States’ final guardrails.
Regardless of the immense energy generated by Kamala Harris’s presumptive Democratic nomination, this does not mean I can now relax. Harris’s presumptive nomination means organizing, working in coalitions and offering her inexhaustible support. Already the misogynoir being hurled at her by people like Megyn Kelly and Alec Lace. Disability theorist and activist Eli Clare says coalitions offer a strength and power single-issue groups working alone do not. Only with the support of the American electorate can Harris’s sunlight break apart the dark clouds of authoritarianism and Trumpism’s evil.
In its “Black Feminist Statement,” The Combahee River Collective wrote, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” The remarkable political author and radio host Thom Hartmann ends his shows with this order: “Democracy is not a spectator sport. Tag. You're it.” We're all tornado chasers now.
Your kind words about my writing and me mean a lot and are so appreciated.
I was never a huge Celine Dion fan (I'm more goth, punk and rock), but I always thought her voice was incredible. Her stiff person syndrome diagnosis made my stomach drop. I watched Prime's documentary on her and broke intl tears when she was in medical crisis. I not only emphasized with her? buy have been in medical crisis tik. First her to have that stellar performance at the Patis Olympics demonstrates to never count out the disabled.
Like most everything in life, the Catholic Church is complex and holds a lot of nuance. The institution itself needs massive reform and still needs to hold itself accountable for a lot of harm. I am always critical of it. But like historian and author Gary Wills, I am Catholic because of the Apostles Creed. That's what it boils down to.
A truly powerful statement, Laura, all the more potent for me because I had not been aware of your MS before reading it.
Before my 21st birthday, I was introduced to a man suffering MS. A former architect who still commanded a business despite his lost ability to sit at an easel, he was a remarkable person and, despite the disease’s ravaging of his body, he never lost his critical thinking, his open-hearted personality and, most impressively for me, his sense of humour.
Knowing John taught me to appreciate the value in ALL virtuous people, no matter their circumstances, and, having already admired your writing, I am now in awe of your ability to write with such confidence, such precision and, above all, such persuasive power.
Please keep your Roman Catholicism sacred to you - I have many quibbles with religion per se but papal principles have generally molded my life and for that I am eternally grateful.
Party politics also troubles me but I pray with all my heart that General Fascista and his Orange Shirts are wiped out in this year’s US general election. Your nation IS great, if only you can keep it.