Tag Archives: New York City

When Covid and Cries for Social Justice Raged

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Assessing the past two years occupies much airspace at the moment.

What if I were to tell it as a story? A story of what I gained, versus what I lost. A reimagined narrative might begin with the words

Once upon a time, a woman who was betwixt and between, was told to stay home for safety’s sake. The doors of the schools, church, salon, dentist’s office, and gym were slammed shut. The church doors were actually closed gently, and windows of the church flung wide open to all.

The gym was bolted shut. So her family room became her exercise station. She found exercise and television mutually compatible. Her first phase of watching (really hearing) the Supreme Court with RBG as a sitting justice, was most intellectually stimulating, simply riveting business.

We cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal, and nobody came to partake in our holiday repast. We were a little hurt, but enjoyed our meal nevertheless.

Wearing a mask 😷 to choir rehearsal was not enjoyable, but it was necessary to protect people with fragile immune systems. It was much better than being intubated! Only vaccinated choristers were permitted to sing. We provided proof of vaccination. Medical history and status, normally private matters, were openly appraised. We live in an area where everyone we knew was vaccinated against Covid as soon as possible.

One of our sons worked in a large New York City Hospital. He was moved to the Covid wards before any vaccinations were made available. Patients died during most shifts. There weren’t enough KN95 masks. He rotated his five masks. He walked home in his scrubs against the tide of Black Lives Matter protesters. He empathized with their cause, but with 14 hour or longer shifts, only had the energy to walk home, remove his scrubs, and shower. These were bleak times.

We are all glad they are over. I’m not sure what we could have done differently.

I participated in a social justice book group, and we attended a Black Lives Matter protest in a mid-sized city nearby.

I sewed masks for family members, double layers of cotton. They might have been a step above the scarves and gaiters we wore loosely tied around our mouths and noses before science had made us more aware of what would actually provide protection. No one misses those thin, scratchy pale blue masks.

What did you do during the Covid pandemic to make it more tolerable? Or was it not at all tolerable for you?

SO makes the best turkey!

A friend and I attended the opera at the Met in October 2021!

This post was drafted well over a year ago, in early 2022, and added to today. There is so much more to say.

Circe

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service

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And at last no arrest either! Women as well as men have the civil right to bare their breasts in public in New York. Why is this important? So what?

Be advised: those seeking titillation will be sorely disappointed in the content of this post about desexualizing women’s breasts.

The Memorandum, or prepublication synopsis of law defining this right is from 1992, so this should not be news, but it is (http://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/I92_0160.html.) The 1992 law grants women in New York the right to be show their breasts anywhere that men may show theirs. The language of the memorandum makes clear why this is important despite being contrary to public sentiment. Whenever an issue has to do with race, gender or other category protected by civil rights, the law may diverge from public sentiment and common social practice.

Even many of my most liberal friends think I am wrong-headed on this point. But though Ms. Van Voast is not directly doing the work of an organization like Amnesty International, her annual ritual of breast-baring and arrest is not unlike acts of protest against Jim Crow laws. She is advocating for women to have equal the same rights and privileges that men have.

As many of us read in a May 15, 2013 New York Times article by J. David Goodman, Ms. Van Voast will not be arrested this year. NYPD officers have now been trained not to arrest women merely because they are topless from the waist up.

Typically wrapped up like a mummy, this will only have an indirect effect on me. A friend at a recent gathering laughed at my son’s XL hooded Carhart coat and my Ugh boots donned on top of several other layers. I looked, she said, like the character from the movie Nanook of the North. However swathed and swaddled I may be, I applaud this step toward equal rights.

This weekend’s hate killing of a gay man in New York, and crimes committed worldwide against oppressed groups, are true tragedies. One important safeguard against tragic oppression–when upheld–are laws guaranteeing equality. Such laws are steps toward ensuring a greater measure of safety for all.

An earlier generation of women abandoned its bras. That era has passed, and we are more conventional now. However, in a limited area and arena, we have the freedom to peel off our t-shirts wherever men may legally do the same. This practice will probably remain rare, but its significance lies in its extrapolation to far more serious injustices.

Acknowledging the anatomical similarities of all human breasts must be liberating to men who have breast cancer as well as to those whose hormonal or genetic conditions cause them to grow larger-than-average male breasts. It should also serve as yet another liberating force in the LGBT community and for intersex persons.

Thank you, Ms. van Voast. My kids are grateful to you, too, as I have made idle threats of taking on such a campaign. Though suburban New Jersey does not seem ready for topless women at parks, pools, and playgrounds, hopefully fewer nursing mothers will be subjected to harassment. Then again, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not believe in waiting for the right time to fight for civil liberties.