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Identity

A message to my fellow Christians: I hope you're having a super uncomfortable Pride month

I know from painful, hard-earned experience what discomfort can do to change minds.

Two people smiling together wearing Pride gear

Nobody should live in fear.

This post was originally published on Substack. You can find it here.

I was a small town, conservative girl when my husband and I relocated to Orlando, Florida. I spent my time going from work to the barn, work to the barn, crying as I brushed my horse's mane.

"I'll never make friends in this town,” I sobbed over the phone with my mom one night.

The next day at work, I met Matt.

He had a brilliant smile and a southern drawl and he sounded like home. He loved horses, too, having spent years doing rodeo. Our friendship was instant and easy.

He visited the barn and taught me how to lasso. I picked up his favorite latte on the way to work. And on our lunch breaks, he would gush all about the love of his life, Jesse. I assumed Jesse was a girl, but that assumption turned out to be wrong. When we all met for lunch one day, I couldn't conceal my shock.

"Oh my GOSH, Matt! You're gay?"


"Um, DUH." He laughed. “Did the cowboy hat throw you off?”

I then remembered he had recently pointed out a bar a few blocks from my house. He mentioned that it was a fun place to go, and I replied that one day we should….but I hadn’t noticed the rainbow details.

"MK, your gay-dar isn't malfunctioning. It's completely nonexistent."

Matt and Jesse told me funny stories about drag contests and bouncers who wore shorty shorts. They insisted I would love Thursday night karaokes, but I assured them it wasn't my scene.

I blushed and giggled a little at the idea. It sounded fun, if not a bit scandalous.

Two people smiling together wearing Pride gear

Pride is not just some party.

Mary Katherine Backstrom

A week or so after that hilarious lunch date, I was driving home from a friend’s house, when I witnessed a young lady get struck by a car. I swerved to the side of the road and jumped out of my vehicle, screaming.

In an instant, people poured out of the bar to assist in the emergency. I barely registered that they were dressed flamboyantly. Their make up didn't strike me as strange. In that moment, we were all scared human beings. Their hearts were racing just like mine.

A drag queen cradled the woman’s head in his hands as I called the police.

“Don’t move, baby girl,” he comforted the woman. “Don’t mess up these pretty braids.”

It was a fraction of a moment that felt like forever. I can still hear her crying for Momma. Thankfully, the club was a block from the hospital. The ambulance arrived in an instant.

When the lights and sirens finally faded, my adrenaline couldn’t handle silence. It was like every one of us had been shaken like soft drinks, and in that moment, we had all cracked open. There were hugs and prayers exchanged between strangers. I remember someone humming a hymn.

Then slowly, one by one, the crowd dispersed. We had to go back to our lives. But not before exchanging a couple of phone numbers, promising to disperse any updates.

I called my friends, Matt and Jesse. I knew the gay community was a close one and I wondered if they had heard any news.

Matt asked around, but didn’t hear much.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We will know more tomorrow.”

I decided to stay up until then.

The next morning, we all went to breakfast with the drag queens who had started a text thread for updates. We bonded over hash browns and our collective trauma—and after coffee, just some regular life stories.

The woman, we learned, was in critical condition. Two broken legs and a fractured spine. James, who had cradled her head so gently, had probably saved her life. Turns out, he had done so with great intention because not only was he a drag queen, but once a month he returned to his rural hometown to serve as a medic for the volunteer fire department.

A hero. An absolute gem of a human.

Two years later, those same gentle heroes were working their jobs at Pulse when a hate-crazed terrorist made his way through the doors with a semi-automatic rifle. When he first started shooting, some patrons kept dancing.

They thought it was part of the music.

That detail never fails wreck my heart.

They kept dancing.

They just wanted to dance.

I’ll never forget the pit in my stomach as I stared at my phone through the night. Praying each name in that years-long text thread was sleeping at home in their beds. After four sleepless nights, we received confirmation—two of the group had been working. Both had escaped and survived the massacre.

But it wasn’t a happy ending.

An act of hate forever changed their lives, and they were deeply, irreversibly altered. One turned to drugs and the other disappeared. I pray he is still alive, somewhere.

But, yes. They survived. Thank God, I should say.

In an act of terror that killed 49 and hurt scores more, they were the lucky ones.

But when I think of that word...”lucky”.

God, it honestly pisses me off.

That’s how low the bar is, y’all. That’s where we are as a society.

Our gay friends are sometimes just lucky to survive.

How can this be who we are?

If you talk to the LGBTQ community, and I mean really get to know them, you will hear a whole lot of heart breaking versions of what they consider to be “lucky.”

Their parents didn’t disown them. They are lucky.

They haven’t been physically assaulted. Lucky.

They survived a terrorist attack.

Lucky.

I am so deeply over this shit.

Nobody, nobody should live in fear. Nobody should feel lucky that they’ve avoided physical abuse, or emotional abuse, or my Lord, mass murder.

Six short years after the Pulse shooting, what is it going to take?

Look how broken America is. Look what this hate has cost us.

And look at the religious mouthpieces for hate who are becoming more and more emboldened.

Just last week, I posted a meme celebrating the beginning of Pride. It said:

Wishing all the homophobes a SUPER uncomfortable month!

I post it every year and I usually laugh my butt off. It’s too easy to predict all the comments. It’s the same old crap, different mouths, every year.

“Well, that’s not very Christlike.”

“I don't hate anyone! I hate the sin, but I don’t hate the sinner.”

“Ohhhhhh, well who is intolerant now?”

This year, I am truly done laughing. I used to abide this shit, but to be honest, I really can’t do it, anymore. I’ve read and I’ve lived through enough horrible history to understand this terrible truth: Polite hate is the most dangerous kind of hate. It loads the gun, then just backs away quietly.

Christians, please, open your eyes. It’s two thousand and freaking twenty four. I know that you know exactly how this works. You don’t get a pass for good manners.

I won’t let you hide behind pat platitudes when your beliefs give motive to terrorists.

You don’t get to say “it’s the sin that I hate” when that mantra makes bullets for terrorists.

And yah, I guess you could call me intolerant. Smack that sticker on my forehead, I don’t care. For years, I have tolerated far too much from the bigoted backrow Baptists. But the paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant…in the end, intolerance will win the day.

And that’s exactly how people die dancing.

So yah, not only do I wish the homophobes reading an incredibly uncomfortable month—I hope this discomfort convicts your soul, and makes you question EVERYTHING. I hope the itch in your spirit spreads to places you can’t bend over to scratch.

I hope enough people walk away from your screeching that you are left alone with your hate. And I hope that hate makes you sick to your stomach when you realize the harm it has caused.

Being gay is not a sin. And Pride is not some party.

It’s a courageous protest that weak minded fearful bigots just can’t comprehend.

It’s authenticity in the face of oppression. Vulnerability in the face of violence.

Pride is the spirit of millions of people who have chosen to dance in the crosshairs.

Growing up in the church, I was frequently told that there are evil forces at work. That these forces were fighting against God’s will, and causing harm to His people. Now, I can see that the threat was true, but it was coming from inside the house.

There are evil, hateful forces at work right now…against the LGBTQ community. Some of those forces look like Saints when they’re hiding behind stained glass.

It’s gonna take a force, equal and opposite in power and passion, to turn the church around. So, if you’re a Christian who has been fence-sitting this issue, it’s time to get off the damn fence.

This June, I beg you to look past the prejudice and the preaching you’ve had crammed down your throat your whole life. Look past your anger, and your pastor’s fear. Look at these beautiful humans. Trying with all their hearts to claim the dignity and love and safety that they, as humans, deserve.

This?

THIS is what you are scared of?

These are the forces of evil?

If that’s what you think then, my friend, you’ve been brainwashed.

I get it. I was brainwashed, too.

But all along, I deep down in my heart, I knew there was something amiss. I couldn’t quite rationalize what I knew of God’s love with the hate I saw coming from church.

For twenty years, I was too afraid to challenge my faith. I thought that it might fall apart.

But that is EXACTLY why I wish all the homophobes a SUPER uncomfortable month. Because I know from painful, hard-earned experience what discomfort can do to change minds.

So, instead of doubling down on your hateful theology…I ask you, non-affirming Christians, in the name of our faith. In the name of God’s love.

Will you please put your weapons down?

Will you consider the lesson that I learned on the street in front of Pulse so many years ago?

Will you feel the heartbeats of your fellow humans, and for once SEE YOURSELF IN THEM?

I beg you to try.

I beg you to grow.

It’s already been far too late.

You can follow Mary Katherine Backstrom on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

A guy having a collaborative conversation.

The quickest way to stop having a constructive dialog with someone is when they become defensive. This usually results in them digging in their heels and making you defensive. This can result in a vicious cycle of back-and-forth defensive behavior that can feel impossible to break. Once that happens, the walls go up, the gloves come off and resolving the situation becomes tough.

Amanda Ripley, author of “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out,” says in her book that you can prevent someone you disagree with from becoming defensive by being curious about their opinion.

Ripley is a bestselling author and the co-founder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict.


How to have a constructive conversation

Let’s say you believe the room should be painted red and your spouse says it should be blue. Instead of saying, “I think blue is ugly,” you can say, “It’s interesting that you say that…” and ask them to explain why they chose blue.

The key phrase is: “It’s interesting that you say that…”


conversation, arguments, communication tipsPeople coming to an agreement. via Canva/Photos

When you show the other person that you genuinely care about their thoughts and appreciate their reasoning, they let down their guard. This makes them feel heard and encourages them to hear your side as well. This approach also encourages the person you disagree with to consider coming up with a collaborative solution instead of arguing to defend their position.

It’s important to assume the other person has the best intentions while listening to them make their case. “To be genuinely curious, we need to refrain from judgment and making negative assumptions about others. Assume the other person didn’t intend to annoy you. Assume they are doing the best they can. Assume the very best about them. You’ll appreciate it when others do it for you,” Kaitlyn Skelly at The Ripple Effect Education writes.

Phrases you can use to avoid an argument

The curiosity approach can also involve affirming the other person’s perspective while adding your own, using a phrase like, “On the one hand, I see what you’re saying. On the other hand…”

Here are some other phrases you can use:

“I wonder if…”

“It’s interesting that you say that because I see it differently…”

“I might be wrong, but…”

“How funny! I had a different reaction…”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that! For me, though, it seems…”

“I think I understand your point, though I look at it a little differently…”


conversation, arguments, communication tipsTwo men high-fiving one another.via Canva/Photos

What's the best way to disagree with people?

A 2016 study from Yale University supports Ripley’s ideas. The study found that when people argue to “win,” they take a hard line and only see one correct answer in the conflict. Whereas those who want to “learn” are more likely to see that there is more than one solution to the problem. At that point, competition magically turns into collaboration.

“Being willing to hear out other perspectives and engage in dialogue that isn’t simply meant to convince the other person you’re right can lead to all sorts of unexpected insights,” psychologist and marketing Professor at Southern Methodist University tells CNBC.

In a world of strong opinions and differing perspectives, curiosity can be a superpower that helps you have more constructive conversations with those with whom you disagree. All it takes is a little humility and an open mind, and you can turn conflict into collaboration, building bridges instead of walls.

The mesmerizing lost art of darning knit fabric.

For most of human history, people had to make their own clothing by hand, and sewing skills were subsequently passed down from generation to generation. Because clothing was so time-consuming and labor-intensive to make, people also had to know how to repair clothing items that got torn or damaged in some way.

The invention of sewing and knitting machines changed the way we acquire clothing, and the skills people used to possess have largely gone by the wayside. If we get a hole in a sock nowadays, we toss it and replace it. Most of us have no idea how to darn a sock or fix a hole in any knit fabric. It's far easier for us to replace than to repair.

But there are still some among us who do have the skills to repair clothing in a way that makes it look like the rip, tear or hole never happened, and to watch them do it is mesmerizing.


A video of someone stitching a hole in a knit sweater has gone viral on Facebook, with more than 17 million views on the original TikTok in August and more than 21 million views and 95,000 shares on a Facebook post of the video shared two weeks ago. Why? Well, you just have to see it.

The video begins by showing a hole in a light pink knit sweater. Using a needle, yarn and a tiny latch hook device, the person demonstrates how to fill the hole to make it look as if it never existed in the first place. Putting a patch over a hole is one thing, but this is something akin to magic.

Watch:

@berdievgabinii

#craft #diy #handmade

What we're witnessing here is a combo of knowledge and experience in the fiber arts, of course, but what it looks like is sheer sorcery or some kind of really complicated calculus problem. Who figured out how to do this? And why is it so satisfying to watch?

"I watched this whole video and I still don’t know how you did that," shared one commenter. (Right?!)

"Hey that was pretty neat," wrote another. "Can you do the ozone layer next?" (Ha.)

"I could watch it a hundred times and still not be able to do this," wrote another. (Uh, same.)

"My toxic trait is thinking I can do this 😂😂😂," shared another. (Maybe after watching it two hundred times.)

Kudos to those who are keeping these kinds of skills alive and sharing them with the world. We may not be passing this kind of knowledge down in most families anymore, but at least we have TikTok to help if we really want to learn it.


This article originally appeared on 9.24.22

Modern Families

Do you have a "living room family" or a "bedroom family"?

This 'debate' is all the rage on TikTok. But one is not better than the other.

alexxx1915/TikTok

TikTok user alexxx1915 recently posted a short video with the caption: "I just learned the term 'living room family' and I never understood why my kids never played in their rooms when I always did as a kid."

She briefly shows her kids hanging out in the living room with their pet dog and some toys scattered around the floor, before panning to her own face and giving a sort of sentimental look. The simple, ten-second clip struck a huge nerve with parents, racking up over 25 million views and thousands of heartfelt comments.






@alexxx1915

#livingroomfamily #fypシ

What are "living room families" and "bedroom families"?

This idea has been going around for a while on social media.

Simply put, a living room family is a family that congregates in the living room, or any common space in the household. Kids play in the same space where the adults relax — and things are often messy, as a result. Everyone interacts with each other and spends lots of time together. Bedrooms are reserved mostly for sleeping and dressing.

A bedroom family, on the other hand, is where the kids spend more time in their rooms. They play there, watch TV, and maybe even eat meals. Typically, the main rooms of the house are kept neat and tidy — you won't find a lot of toys scattered about — and family time spent together is more structured and planned ahead rather than casual.

"Living room families" has become the latest aspirational term on TikTok. Everyone wants to be a living room family!

The implication of being a bedroom family, or having 'room kids', is that perhaps they don't feel safe or comfortable or even allowed to take up room in the rest of the house, or to be around the adults.

"I remember my brother coming round once and he just sat in silence while watching my kids play in livingroom. After a while he looked at me and said 'It's so nice that your kids want to be around you'" one commenter said on alexxx1915's video.

"I thought my kids hated their rooms 🥺 turns out they like me more" said another.

"You broke a generational curse. Good job mama!" said yet another.

There's so much that's great about having a family that lives out in the open — especially if you were raised feeling like you had to hide in your room.

In my own household, we're definitely a living room family. We're around each other constantly, and the house is often a mess because of it. Learning about this term makes me feel a little better that my kids want to be around us and feel comfortable enough to get their 'play mess' all over the living room.

The mess is a sign of the love and comfort we all share together.

But the big twist is that it's also perfectly fine if your kids — and you! — like a little more solitary time.

boy playing with toys on the floorGavyn Alejandro/Unsplash

Being a 'bedroom family' is actually perfectly OK.

There's a similar discourse that took place last year about living room parents vs bedroom parents. The general consensus seemed to be that it was better to be a living room parent, who relaxed out in the open versus taking alone time behind closed doors.

But it really doesn't have to be one or the other, and neither is necessarily better.

Making your kids feel relegated to their room is, obviously, not great. It's not a good thing if they feel like they're not allowed to exist in and play in the rest of the house.

But if they just like hanging out in their room? Nothing wrong with that at all! And same goes for parents.

Alone time is important for parents and kids alike, and everyone needs different amounts of it to thrive.

Kids with certain special needs, like being on the autism spectrum, may be absolutely thrilled to spend lots of time in their rooms, for example.

So are you a living room family or a bedroom family? Turns out, it doesn't really matter, as long as your family loves each other and allows everyone to be exactly who they are.

Photo by Jeff Burak on Unsplash

Most Americans associate Lady Liberty with welcoming immigrants, but that's not what she was meant to represent.

If Americans were asked to describe the Statue of Liberty without looking at it, most of us could probably describe her long robe, the crown on her head, a lighted torch in her right hand and a tablet cradled in her left. Some might remember it's inscribed with the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

But there's a significant detail most of us would miss. It's a feature that points to why Lady Liberty was created and gifted to us in the first place. At her feet, where her robe drapes the ground, lay a broken shackle and chains—a symbol of the abolishment of slavery.


Most people see the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of our welcoming immigrants and mistakenly assume that's what she was meant to represent. Indeed, the opening words of Emma Lazarus's poem engraved on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty—"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"—have long evoked images of immigrants arriving on our shores, seeking a better life in The American Dream.

But that plaque wasn't added to the statue until 1903, nearly two decades after the statue was unveiled. The original inspiration for the monument was emancipation, not immigration.

“The Statue of Liberty we now associate with immigration was a gift from France to commemorate the emancipation of American slaves. Before you lift your eyes to her torch of enlightenment, first pass them over the broken shackle and chains at her feet.”

According to a Washington Post interview with historian Edward Berenson, the concept of Lady Liberty originated when French anti-slavery activist—and huge fan of the United States' Constitution—Édouard de Laboulaye organized a meeting of other French abolitionists in Versailles in June 1865, just a few months after the American Civil War ended. "They talked about the idea of creating some kind of commemorative gift that would recognize the importance of the liberation of the slaves," Berenson said.

Laboulaye enlisted a sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, to come up with ideas. One of the first models, circa 1870, had Lady Liberty holding the broken shackles and chains in her left hand. In the final iteration, her left hand wrapped around a tablet instead and the anti-slavery symbolism of the shackle and chain was moved to her feet.

Writer Robin Wright pondered in The New Yorker what Laboulaye would think of our country today. The America that is embroiled in yet another civil rights movement because we still can't seem to get the whole "liberty and justice for all" thing down pat. The America that spent the century after slavery enacting laws and policies specifically designed to keep Black Americans down, followed by decades of continued social, economic and political oppression. The America that sometimes does the right thing, but only after tireless activism manages to break through a ton of resistance to changing the racism-infused status quo.

The U.S. has juggled dichotomies and hypocrisies in our national identity from the very beginning. The same founding father who declared "that all men are created equal" enslaved more than 600 human beings in his lifetime. The same people who celebrated religious freedom forced their Christian faith on Native peoples. Our most celebrated history of "liberty" and "freedom" is inseparable from our country's violent subjugation of entire races and ethnicities, and yet we compartmentalize rather than acknowledge that two things can be equally true at the same time.

Every nation on earth has problematic history, but what makes the U.S. different is that our problematic history is also our proudest history. Our nation was founded during the heyday of the transatlantic slave trade on land that was already occupied. The profound and world-changing document on which our government was built is the same document that was used to legally protect and excuse the enslavement of Black people. The house in which the President of the United States sits today was built partially by enslaved people. The deadliest war we've ever fought was over the "right" to enslave Black people.

The truth is that blatant, violent racism was institutionalized from the very beginning of this country. For most of us, that truth has always been treated as a footnote rather than a feature in our history educations. Until we really reckon with the full truth of our history—which it seems like we are finally starting to do—we won't ever get to see the full measure of what our country could be.

In some ways, the evolution of the design of the Statue of Liberty—the moving of the broken shackle and chain from her hands to being half hidden beneath her robe, as well as the movement of our perception of her symbolism from abolition to immigration—is representative of how we've chosen to portray ourselves as a nation. We want people to think: Hey, look at our Declaration of Independence! See how we welcome immigrants! We're so great! (Oh, by the way, hereditary, race-based chattel slavery was a thing for longer than emancipation has been on our soil. And then there was the 100 years of Jim Crow. Not to mention how we've broken every promise made to Native Americans. And honestly, we haven't even been that nice to immigrants either). But look, independence and a nod to immigration! We're so great!

The thing is that we can be so great. The foundation of true liberty and justice for all, even with all its cracks, is still there. The vision in our founding documents was truly revolutionary. We just have to decide to actually build the country we claim to have built—one that truly lives up to the values and ideals it professes for all people.


This article first appeared on 07.07.20.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the Mount Rushmore National Memorial and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 to 1941. The sculptor also chose the four presidents who are carved into granite on the mountain’s face. He selected the four presidents to represent the nation's birth (George Washington), growth (Thomas Jefferson), development (Theodore Roosevelt) and preservation (Abraham Lincoln).

Since the faces on Mount Rushmore were first chiseled into granite there have been debates over which presidents also deserve to be on the monument. Two years ago, then-President Donald Trump floated the idea that he deserved to have his face carved in granite.

A Reddit user posed an interesting question to the online forum about the famous monument and it sparked a great conversation. “You get to add another American to Mt. Rushmore but it can’t be a president. Who do you choose?”


That’s a tough question to answer but a fun one to ponder. What criteria does one use to choose the greatest American that ever lived who wasn’t a president? More than 545 million people have lived in the country over the past 244 years. How do we choose one?

Do you select someone from the world of sports, science, the arts, literature, civil rights, religion, military or healthcare? What about someone who performed a heroic deed?

To rank the responses on the Reddit post, I looked at the number of upvotes each suggestion received and then ranked them. It’s not the most scientific way of doing things but it gives us a pretty good idea about who people think should make it to the monument.

Here are the top 20 most popular responses to the burning question: “Which non-president should be added to Mount Rushmore?”

1. 

"Dr. Jonas Salk. Saved us all from polio." — Barefoot_Alvin

2.

"There is already a non-president on Mt. Rushmore. John Cena." — zoqforpik

The Reddit user is clearly referencing the wrestler's catchphrase.

3.

"Dolly Parton." — Airos42

4.

"Mr. Rogers." — PitchforkJoe

5.

"Mark Twain. The quintessential American writer. We always put up statues of military and politicians across this country. It would be nice to see more of our creative side get honored. Put up Poe on the mountain. Attract goths to the site." — inksmudgedhands

6.


"Martin Luther King Jr." — bahamuto

7.

"How is Nicolas Cage not here yet?" — deus_vult

8.

"John Wilkes Booth but he's further back behind Lincoln." — Jakovosol0

9.

"Benjamin Franklin." — FinnbarMcBride

10.

"Sacagawea." — bivalve_connisseur

11.

"Homer Simpson." — EonClaw

12.

"Bob Ross." — j-oats

13.

"Weird Al." — OntarioLakeside

14.

"Frederick Douglass." — kade22

15.

"Betty White." — Diatrial

16.

The person who started the thread chimed in with their nominee.

"Neil Armstrong would be my number one." — taint_licking_clown

17.

"Harriet Tubman." — 44cksSake

18.

"Ronnie James Dio!" — kevinthegeek21

19.

"Maria Darlene Pearson or Hai-Mecha Eunka (lit. 'Running Moccasins') (July 12, 1932 – May 23, 2003) was an activist who successfully challenged the legal treatment of Native American human remains. A member of the Turtle Clan of the Yankton Sioux which is a federally recognized tribe of Yankton Dakota, she was one of the primary catalysts for the creation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Her actions led to her being called 'the Founding Mother of the modern Indian repatriation movement' and 'the Rosa Parks of NAGPRA." — CTeam19

20.

"Danny DeVito." — distantshadow

This article originally appeared on 4.13.22