As a teenager, my world revolved around friends, music, and sports. From a music standpoint, my family raised me on folk music. My older brothers constantly played albums by Peter, Paul & Mary, and similar artists. I partly attribute (blame?) my interest in social justice to their music. And so, as I got older, it was a natural progression for me to become a fan of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and later Young), and similar artists.

One day, a friend picked me up to play basketball. He was playing a cassette tape from a group I hadn’t heard before. “Who’s this?” I asked, pointing to the tape deck. “It’s my favorite new group,” my friend said. “Sly and the Family Stone.” As I listened, I realized I loved both the beat and the lyrics, as Sly Stone sang, “There is the yellow one that won’t accept the black one, that won’t accept the red one, that won’t accept the white one. Different strokes for different folks.” Suddenly, my love of music expanded to Black American artists. And attending a concert by the Fifth Dimension remains one of my favorites to this day.    

In high school, Woodstock became the rage. I was far too young (and chicken) to attend, but Joni Mitchell sang about it, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash played at it. I didn’t realize another concert occurred the same summer as Woodstock: The Harlem Cultural Festival. If you aren’t African American, you probably were not aware of it either. Like Woodstock, the festival was recorded, but the recordings remained hidden for 50 years until Hulu released The Summer of Soul.[i] Here is a clip from the film that describes what the festival was all about:

I like what Nikole Hannah-Jones said about music developed by Black American artists in her six-part documentary, The 1619 Project[ii]:

“Black Americans make up 13 percent of the population, yet account for an immeasurable amount of what moves us and how we move. Despite the centuries-long efforts of white Americans to warp, appropriate, and steal our music, and despite this country’s obsession with racial categorization that has tried to box our creativity in, Black Americans have continued to create, reshape, and transform American music…. American music is Black music.”

And she’s right. All music that we can consider to be American music stemmed from Black Americans. Black music has constantly evolved from spirituals, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, Motown, funk, disco, hip hop, and rap. And as each new genre emerged, so did white artists singing it.

One of the artists featured in Summer of Soul is Nina Simone. And after hearing her sing, I found a documentary about her life entitled What Happened, Miss Simone?[iii] Here is a trailer for that film:

Simone was an activist for civil rights, and her music reflected it. In one interview, she said:

“I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself. That, to me, is my duty, and at this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so disparate, when everything is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved.”

Simone wrote what became an anthem for young African Americans entitled “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” which inspired hope in young Black Americans with lyrics like these:

In the whole world you know

There are billions of boys and girls

Who are young, gifted, and black,

And that’s a fact!

Young, gifted, and black

We must begin to tell our young

There’s a world waiting for you

This is a quest that’s just begun.

Nina Simone earned 15 Grammy nominations and received the Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2000. In 2003 (two days before her death), she was awarded an honorary diploma from Curtis Institute, a music school that refused to admit her at age 19 because she was black. 

Here’s another quote from Nina Simone:

“To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, black people. So my job is to make them more curious about where they came from and their own identity and pride in that identity. That is why my songs—I try to make them as powerful as possible, mostly just to make them curious about themselves. We don’t know anything about ourselves. We don’t even have the pride and dignity of African people, but we can’t even talk about where we came from. We don’t know. It’s like a lost race.”

But as many white people began listening to Black American artists, the country continued discriminating against them. According to a survey done by the NAACP in 1947, only six percent of better hotels in America welcomed Blacks. I have discussed the film, The Green Book,[iv] in a previous blog post that illustrates that prejudice. But it wasn’t only in the Deep South. The movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,[v] shows how a Las Vegas hotel drained its swimming pool after Ms. Dandridge stepped in it. She could sing for the hotel’s patrons but couldn’t use the hotel’s facilities.

Growing up, when it came to sports, I lived and breathed basketball. I loved to play it, and I loved to watch it. The Boston Celtics was the dominant team of that era, and Bill Russell was their dominant player, leading them to eleven championships. And so, I became immediately interested when Netflix aired Bill Russell: Legend.[vi]  Here is the trailer for that documentary:

Russell said this about his childhood:

“I’d go to the library and read. And I’d read this history book. And this one passage said, ‘The slaves in America were better off than they were as free people where they came from.’ And I found that astounding. I was ten years old, and I said, ‘That cannot be because every person on this planet wants to be free.’”

In the early days of the NBA, it was an almost all-white league. The unwritten rule was that a team could have two blacks on the team to room together, but no more. But the coach of the Celtics, Red Auerbach, didn’t care about that; he cared about winning championships, so he started his five best players, regardless of their race—and took a lot of heat for starting five Black Americans, violating the unwritten quota rule.

Russell lived in the Boston suburb of Reading. After Russell led the Boston Celtics to five championships in six years, the city celebrated Russell. But a month later, he and his wife, Rose, decided to move to a larger house on the west side of town.

“A rumor got out that I wanted to buy a house in another part of this town. And the neighbors objected like hell. As an athlete, a celebrity even, you’re a great guy to have in town as long as you don’t stay close to me.

“My wife, Rose, came home in tears as she watched residents sign a petition against the sale. ‘We better forget that house,’ Rose said to me. ‘They don’t want us here.’

“I bought that house, and I’m the one making the mortgage payments. I don’t care what anyone else thinks,’ I said.

“’What about our children? Who will play with them,’ Rose said.

“I am thinking about our kids. I couldn’t look them in the face if I put up with that kind of behavior. I wouldn’t let anyone tell me where I’m going to live.’”

President Obama said this about Russell: “More than any athlete of his era, Bill Russell came to define the word, ‘winner.’ Bill Russell, the man, is someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.” In 1963, Russell led a civil rights march in Boston and participated in the March on Washington. In 1964, he conducted basketball clinics in Jackson, Mississippi, despite threats made on his life.

We often criticize athletes and entertainers who use their fame as a platform for civil rights. We tell them to “Shut up and play” or “Just sing.” But I am not one of them. I respect those that have a voice for using it. I honor John Carlos and Tommie Smith, who defiantly raised their black-gloved fists in protest against racial injustice in the 1968 Olympics. I will fight for Colin Kaepernick’s and others’ right to kneel during the National Anthem. I agreed with the Milwaukee Bucks for refusing to play a game immediately following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as a protest against the systemic racism experienced by Black Americans in this country. And I admire players who wear messages on their helmets or warm-up jerseys that preach love over hate.

In his book, A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance, [vii] Alvin Hall interviews Frank Figures of Jackson, Mississippi, who said, “I’m going to do what I can, with what I have, where I am, in order to make a better life and a fair deal for people.”

Shouldn’t each of us do the same?

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[i] Summer of Soul:

• Production Companies: Mass Distraction Media, RadicalMedia, and Vulcan Productions
• Director: Questlove
• Starring: Dorinda Drake, Barbara Bland-Acosta, and Darryl Lewis
• Release Date: July 2, 2021
• Currently streaming on Hulu

[ii] The 1619 Project:

• Production Companies: Harpo Films, Lionsgate Television, and One Story Up Productions
• Starring: Nikole Hannah-Jones
• Release Date: January 16, 2023
• Currently streaming on Hulu

[iii] What Happened, Miss Simone?:

• Production Companies: Moxie Firecracker Films, Netflix, RadicalMedia
• Director: Liz Garbus
• Starring: Nina Simone, Lisa Simone Kelly, and Roger Nupie
• Release Date: June 24, 2015
• Currently streaming on Netflix

[iv] The Green Book:

• Production Companies: Participant,  Dreamworks Pictures, and Inisfree Pictures
• Director: Peter Farrelly
• Screenwriters: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, and Peter Farrelly
• Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, and Linda Cardellini
• Release Date: November 16, 2018
• Currently streaming on Hulu

[v] Introducing Dorothy Dandridge:

• Production Companies: HBO Films, Esparza/Katz Productions, and Vincent Cirrincione Associates
• Director: Martha Coolidge
• Screenwriters: Shonda Rhimes and Scott Abbott (based on the book, Dorothy Dandridge by Earl Mills)
• Starring: Halle Berry, Brent Spiner, and Kaus Maria Brandauer
• Release Date: August 21, 1999
• Currently streaming on HBO Max

[vi] Bill Russell: Legend:

• Production Company: High Five Productions
• Starring: Larry Bird, Satch Sanders, and Jeannine Russell
• Release Date: February 8, 2023
• Currently streaming on Netflix

[vii] Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall with Karl Weber, Harper One, Copyrighted 2023.

Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana once said, “History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.” Despite that definition, I love history. I even once considered dropping my legal career to become a history teacher. But I couldn’t force myself to take the vow of poverty that would require.

Sadly, some people think studying history is a thing of the past. Or, as Bismarck once said, “History is simply a piece of paper covered with print; the main thing is still to make history, not write it.”

But I feel differently.

In his book 1984, George Orwell taught that whoever controls the past controls the future. And who controls the present controls the past. So, who is trying to control the present? Perhaps many persons and groups, but one obvious choice is our politicians, especially the extreme elements of both parties. So, if Orwell is correct, how we teach history becomes critical to our future.

Last September, when Texas passed a law prohibiting the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” in public schools, I became interested. Critical Race Theory is the concept that the founding of the United States is so intertwined with slavery that it led to inherent inequality and institutionalized racism that impact people of color today. The theory grew out of The 1619 Project, The New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning project that examines slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the center of U.S. history. Or, as The 1619 Project creator, Nikole Hannah Jones, describes it:

“As a woman in my 40s, I am part of the first generation of Black Americans in the history of the United States to be born in a society in which Black people had full rights of citizenship. Yet, in that brief span of time, despite continuing to face rampant discrimination, and despite there never having been a genuine effort to redress the wrongs of slavery and the century of legal discrimination that followed, Black Americans have made astounding progress, not only for ourselves but also for all Americans. Our struggles and strivings have made America more fair and more just. And as much democracy as we have, it has been born of Black resistance. In other words, the very people who were never supposed to be a part of our democracy have played the most pivotal role in creating it. So what if America, finally, after 400 years, realizes that Black people have never been the problem, but the solution.”

Texas is not alone in frowning upon Critical Race Theory. As of last year, at least 16 states had banned or restricted teaching it in public schools; 19 other states have pending legislation.

So, what does Texas law prohibit? Interestingly, the law does not use the term “Critical Race Theory.” But it does state that a teacher or school administrator may not “require an understanding of the 1619 Project.” But how can we understand our history without understanding Black Americans’ roles in establishing and developing the United States?

Does this mean a Texas history teacher cannot teach that slavery began in America before the United States existed? On the contrary, the first enslaved people landed in Jamestown in 1619, even before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

Can we teach that, in 1636, we built our first slave ship, the Desire? We made that ship in Massachusetts, not Virginia or a state in the deep South. The next three slave ships built in America were the Fortune, Hope, and Prosperity. And so, from the beginning, can we teach that Americans associated slavery with economic advancement?

Can we teach that the third verse of the National Anthem celebrates the capture and murder of enslaved people with the words, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave?” Perhaps that is not surprising when we consider that its author, Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and owner of enslaved persons, once prosecuted a man for possessing abolitionist literature. Scott, a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., sought the death penalty in United States v. Reuben Crandall. In Key’s closing argument to the jury, he said: “Are you willing, gentlemen, to abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the Negro?” 

Can we teach that Twelve U.S. Presidents owned enslaved persons?  

Can we teach that, by 1835, cotton from the labor of enslaved persons equaled 55 percent of all U.S. exports? By 1860, the yearly cotton production was 2.3 billion pounds, 60 percent of U.S. exports. Four million enslaved persons performed that labor. Their value? $3.5 billion, equating to $100 billion in today’s money.

Can we teach that, during the Civil War, the mayor of New York City advocated exiting the Union? However, he did not want New York to join the Confederacy but to maintain neutrality because of the financial wealth brought to the city due to the cotton trade and insurance underwritten to finance and protect slaveholders. The city received $200 million from cotton alone in that time’s currency.

Can we teach that, in the 1860s, Texas tried to pass legislation requiring school teachers to teach that slavery was a side issue of the Civil War? But its secession statement said Texas left the Union because “the servitude of the African Race, as existing in these states, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free.”

Can we teach our students about “Whipped Peter,” whose life is portrayed in the recent movie, Emancipation[i]? Here is my favorite scene from the film:

This photo of Whipped Peter became a symbol of the cruelty, more often than not, inflicted upon enslaved persons:

Could we at least acknowledge Black Africans’ contributions to the Union army? By the war’s end, some 180,000 Black Africans had joined the Union army or about ten percent of the total. But unfortunately, about 40,000 of them died in the war.

Can we teach that, in 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the country’s first Civil Rights Act that outlawed racial discrimination in housing, schools, public transportation, and jury service? Unfortunately, that decision led to a series of laws and policy decisions by federal, state, and local governments that promoted racial discrimination in housing and banking, as illustrated in this clip from the film, The Banker[ii]:

Can we teach that, between 1877 and 1950, there were 4,400 verified racially motivated lynchings and killings in America? Yet, it was not until last year that lynchings became outlawed by federal law. One of these killings was of Elmore Bolling, who, a Chicago newspaper reported, was killed because “he was a marked man since he was rated by whites as too successful to be a Negro.”

Can we tell students about the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Edmund Pettus was a Grand Dragon of the KKK and a symbol of white supremacy in the South. The movie, Selma,[iii] portrays what happened on that bridge in March 1965:

And the list goes on and on. There were many more things about our racial history that no one taught me in school. To learn about some of these, I urge you to watch the documentary, Who We Are.[iv]

The Texas law also prohibits any teaching that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex” or that “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.” But what if a student feels this way when they learn history? Do we then terminate that history teacher?

I like what Jeffrey Robinson, the Deputy Legal Director of the National ACLU, said in his documentary, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America:

 “Slavery is not our fault. We didn’t do it. We did not cause it. It’s not our responsibility. But it is our shared history. And when we try to turn it into something that it’s not, when we try to make more light of it than it was, then we are denying who we really are, and we are impeding our ability to truly move forward as a community or as a nation.”

About a year ago, I took three Implicit Association Tests. I didn’t like the results. The tests did not accurately reflect me, or so I thought. So, this past week I retook it. Sadly, the results were the same. And so, according to these tests administered by Harvard University, I have implicit biases against African Americans, Muslims, and fat people.

What is implicit bias? It’s a tendency to favor one group of people over another without a valid reason behind it. But wait! I consciously try to avoid racial and other stereotypes. But perhaps that’s the point of the tests. If an implicit association test reveals that we might have implicit biases, that might encourage us to think before we speak, act and even think about others. 

Take the challenge; I dare you. The results might surprise you. Here is a link to the test:

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Is the test accurate? According to Practical Psychology, the Implicit Association Test “is not considered the perfect measurement of implicit bias or prejudice throughout the country, but it may offer some insight into how we associate groups of people with different traits, behaviors, and feelings.” 

As I think about my upbringing, I can see how implicit biases might have crept into my subconsciousness. For example, I never saw an African American in person until I was in the eighth grade. I still don’t know if I have met a practicing Muslim, and I saw at an early age that beautiful people with perfect bodies, as reflected in the media, had enormous advantages over those that didn’t fit the mold.

But the more I learn about history—our history—and the more I know about myself, the more I am inclined to stop and think before I say, do, or champion something that others might see as unfair or discriminatory. That is something I believe all of us must do more of if we expect this nation to survive. Or, as historian John Toland said, “It is human nature that repeats itself, not history.”

I hope that one day, human nature can change for the better.

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[i] Emancipation:

• Production Companies: Apple TV+, CAA Media Finance, and Escape Artists
• Director: Antoine Fuqua
• Screenwriter: Bill Collage
• Starring: Will Smith, Ben Foster, and Charmaine Bingwa
• Release Date: December 9, 2022
• Streaming on Apple TV+

[ii] The Banker:

• Production Companies: Romulus Entertainment, Hyphenate Films, and Iam21 Entertainment
• Director: George Nolfi
• Screenwriters: Niceole R. Levy, George Nolfi, and David Lewis Smith
• Starring: Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, and Nicholas Hoult
• Release Date: March 20, 2020
• Streaming on Apple TV+

[iii] Selma:

• Production Companies: Pathé, Harpo Films, Plan B Entertainment
• Director: Ava DuVernay
• Screenwriter: Paul Webb 
• Starring: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, and Oprah Winfrey
• Release Date: January 9, 2015
• Streaming on Showtime

[iv] Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America:

• Production Company: Off Center Media
• Directors: Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler
• Screenwriter: Jeffery Robinson 
• Starring: Josephine Bolling McCall, Gwen Carr, and Tiffany Crutcher
• Release Date: March 17, 2021
• Streaming on Netflix

Many years ago, I served as a lay leader in our church. Our congregation’s young women’s group asked me to speak at one of their activities called New Beginnings because it was at the start of a new school year. The young women would listen to me and then engage in an activity to learn how to quilt. So, as visual aids to my little speech, I brought two of my favorite quilts. My mother-in-law had made one of them, a patchwork of material scraps she had probably collected through the years. When we moved from Houston back to Dallas, a group of close friends gave our family the other quilt. These dear friends had covered it with 16 handprints and footprints of each of our friends and all their children. I told the young women that I loved to snuggle into these quilts on a cold night, not because of their fine quality, but because every time I did, I thought of family and close friends. And those thoughts alone would be enough to keep me warm.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.“ I agree with FDR that human relationships are crucial to our happiness and even the survival of humankind. I have thought about the importance of relationships lately through writing my personal history. As I have thought about the events that made up my life, I have realized once again that it was not the events that were important to me, but rather those with whom I shared them. And those included my spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends, bosses and co-workers, doctors, and even God. And I learned that we can handle even the darkest experiences if we have a loved one or a friend to beside us.

Why are relationships sometimes so hard to create or manage if they are so meaningful? Books about relationships could fill dozens of libraries, but two recent movies have reminded me of a few lessons to keep in mind when dealing with others.

Lesson No. 1: You can find something to like in almost anyone. I like what Tom Hanks said about getting to know others: “Truth is, I’ll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are, by nature, too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can either approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism, and a great deal of candor.”

In Here Today,[i] Charlie Burnz (played by Billy Crystal) is a well-known comedy writer who agrees to have lunch with the highest bidder at a charity auction. But Emma Payge (played by Tiffany Haddish), who shows up for that lunch, has almost nothing in common with Burnz, as depicted in this scene:

But as Burnz and Payge get to know each other, they become good friends. And when Burnz learns that he has a rare form of dementia, this happens:

And isn’t that what friends are for? Someone said that 80 percent of successful relationships is just showing up. No one wants to feel as if they are alone.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Burnz and Payge became good friends. As they got to know each other, they found they had more in common than they first realized. But could it work with our rivals as well?

In Honor Society,[ii] Honor Rose (played by Angourie Rice) can’t wait to graduate high school. And her life-long goal is to attend Harvard, but as this trailer for the film tells us, Honor has three rivals standing in her way:

Honor believes she can get the upper hand on her rivals if she can distract them enough that they tank their midterms while she maintains her outstanding grade point average. But as she sets her traps in motion, she learns to like these rivals, even falling in love with one of them.

Lesson No. 2: Relationships can hurt. Bob Marley once said, “Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” As Honor develops her new friendships, she gets hurt along the way. But in the end, she is all right with that because at least some of her new friends are worth it—even if it means giving up a spot at Harvard for one of them.

Lesson No. 3: The best relationships are based on mutual respect and caring. Thomas Merton said, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” The characters in Here Today and Honor Society let their new friends be themselves and vice versa. If we seek relationships built only on what the other person can do for us, those relationships are doomed to fail.  

I love new beginnings, whether starting a new year, having another birthday, changing jobs, or moving to a new area. With each new change, we can reevaluate our lives and determine where we want to go next. But as we do these reevaluations, let’s focus on what is most critical in our lives—the relationships we have with others, for that is where life’s joys and satisfaction come from.

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[i] Here Today:

• Production Companies: Astute Films, Big Head Productions, and Big Indie Pictures
• Director: Billy Crystal
• Screenwriters: Alan Zweibel and Billy Crystal
• Starring: Billy Crystal, Tiffany Haddish, and Deirdre Friel
• Release Date: May 7, 2021
• Currently streaming on Starz

[ii] Honor Society:

• Production Companies: Awesomeness Films and Guardian Pictures
• Director: Oran Zegman
• Screenwriter: David A. Goodman
• Starring: Angourie Rice, Gaten Matarazzo, and Christopher Mintze-Plasse
• Release Date: July 29, 2022
• Currently streaming on Paramount

My drama teacher in high school required us to read An Enemy of the People, a play by Henrik Ibsen. My teacher kept harping on the play’s theme: the majority is not always correct. I never fully understood what she meant by that until years later as an adult.

As humans, we like to form groups, which leads to in-crowds and out-crowds. If you are part of the group, you are part of the in-crowd; if you are not in the group, you are part of the out-crowd. And those in-crowds we are part of can sometimes make us irrational. If we are football fans, for example, we put wild make-up on our faces and hair and dress in ways we wouldn’t anywhere other than at a football game. And we don’t just love our team; we hate the opposing team and every person supporting that team. That love-hate relationship is carried out not only on the field but sometimes in the stands. I smile at those photos showing a single person wearing a red jersey in a sea of blue jerseys and think of the Southwest Airlines ad line: “Want to get away?”

But it’s not just in sports. My parents raised me in a religion that taught it was the only true and living church on earth, and according to its founder, all others were an abomination in the sight of God. Little wonder I grew up with a bias against anyone who was not a member of my church. But fortunately, as a teenager, I started to see things differently. There are good people in all religions, and mine had no monopoly on the truth. And everyone, even those who disagree with us, is entitled to respect and understanding.

But what do you do if you are not a member of the predominant in-crowd? At the very least, you hope those in the in-crowd will treat you justly, despite being in the out-crowd. Alexander Hamilton once said, “I think the first duty of society is justice.” I believe all the Founding Fathers of this country saw it that same way and tried to set up a government that protected everyone, even those in the out-crowd.

In law school, I often thought about the symbol of legal justice—a woman holding a balancing scale with a blindfold over her eyes. In other words, justice should be blind to whether the person on trial is part of the in-crowd or the out-crowd. Said another way, we should decide all legal matters solely on their merits.

Sadly, reality does not always follow that ideal. Or, as Monica Piper once quipped, “Juries scare me. I don’t want to put my fate in the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.”

One of my favorite movies at the recent Austin Film Festival was American: An Odyssey to 1947. In part, it told the story of Isaac Woodard. An African-American veteran of World War II, Woodard was a victim of racial violence that left him completely blind. After being discharged from the army and still in uniform, Woodard boarded a Greyhound bus from Augusta, Georgia, to his home in North Carolina. But at a bus stop in South Carolina, for no reason other than he was an African-American, local police forcibly removed Woodard from the bus and repeatedly beat him with nightsticks. The officers then arrested Woodard for disorderly conduct. During his night in jail, the local sheriff walloped Woodard and repeatedly stabbed his eyes with his billy club, leaving him permanently blind. The following day, police sent Woodard before the local judge, who found him guilty and fined him fifty dollars.

Slowly, Woodard’s story spread, primarily due to the efforts of the NAACP. When Orson Welles heard of the beating, he made it the focus of his national weekly radio broadcast for five straight weeks. Those broadcasts prompted the Justice Department to investigate and bring charges against those involved. But after thirty minutes of deliberation, the all-white jury acquitted all the defendants, including the sheriff.

From all appearances, Isaac Woodard received no justice. But maybe he did in another way. Shortly after the verdict, President Harry S. Truman established the Civil Rights Commission, and in a speech on civil rights made a short time later, President Truman said, in part:

“It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country’s efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans—I mean all Americans.”

The following year, President Truman sent the first comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress and later banned segregation in the armed forces. And thus, thanks to Isaac Woodard’s experience, the civil rights movement began earnestly in America.

But it would be a long road that still has not reached its destination.

The recent film, Till,[i] tells the true story of Emmitt Till’s mother, who, after the brutal lynching of her son in 1955, vows to expose the racism behind it and find justice for her son. Here is the trailer for the movie:   

While Isaac Woodard became the catalyst behind America’s civil rights movement, Emmitt Till became its icon. Although the details are unclear, Till, a 14-year-old African-American visiting his cousins in Mississippi from Chicago, allegedly talked to, flirted with, or whistled at a 21-year-old white woman in a grocery store. A few nights after the incident, the woman’s husband and others abducted Till, then beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River.

A month later, an all-white jury found Till’s murderers not guilty. Protected now by the Constitution’s protection against double jeopardy (not being tried for the same crime twice), the attackers later confessed to the murder. Like Isaac Woodard, there appeared to be no justice for Emmitt Till.

But Emmitt’s mother, Mamie, received justice in another way. As Benjamin Disraeli once said, “Justice is truth in action.” And Mamie took action. She insisted on a public funeral with an open casket so the world could see what those white Southerners did to her son. And see it, the world did. Tens of thousands attended the funeral or viewed his open casket. Black-oriented newspapers and magazines published the image of his bloated, mutilated body, again heightening awareness of the lack of civil rights in the South. Three months after the trial, the Montgomery bus boycott began, resulting in the Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. Finally, on March 29, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Emmitt Till Antilynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime. And in 2018, the government finally vacated Isaac Woodard’s disorderly conduct charge.

Race minorities are not the only out-crowds fighting for justice. LGBTQ+ have been openly battling discrimination for decades, even though society has made significant progress with the legalization of same-sex marriages and anti-discrimination laws in housing and lending. But the world remains far from perfect if you are LGBTQ+. All you need to do is point to the recent mass shooting at a gay-friendly bar in Colorado Springs. But such discrimination is more systemic. A current Center for American Progress study found 36 percent of all LGBTQ+ Americans said they experienced discrimination over the past year, and 69 percent of non-binary people reported discrimination during that period. The rate of discrimination against transgender Americans was 60 percent. And for young adults, it was even worse—two-thirds of LGBTQ+ youths reported discrimination during the past year.

Another of my favorite movies shown at the Austin Film Festival was The Inspection,[ii] a film inspired by the life of its director, Elegance Bratton. In the movie, a young, gay African-American, rejected by his mom, joins the Marines. But in that world of “manly men,” the young man battles deep-seated prejudice. But through it all, he finds camaraderie and support despite his sexual preferences and a new sense of belonging—which brings hope to all of us that the world will improve. Here is the trailer:

Fifty years ago, if someone told me the Supreme Court would legalize same-sex marriages, I would have told them they were living in a fantasy world. But dreams sometimes come true. The Supreme Court did just that in 2015. And Congress recently passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repeals the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. The Act also requires states to recognize legal same-sex marriages performed in other states. President Biden, who we expect will sign the bill, said, ”The United States is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth: love is love, and Americans should have the right o marry the person they love.”

The Senate, however, added provisions bolstering religious liberty protections. As amended, the Act now states that religious organizations (including churches and religious schools) will not be required to provide services, facilities, or goods for same-sex marriages. It also ensures the IRS cannot use the Act to deny or alter benefits or the tax-exempt status of such organizations.

Opponents of these amendments claim they allow discrimination against LGBTQ+ under the guise of religious belief. And so, the battle for complete justice for these members of many people’s out-crowd continues.

Even women often find themselves as part of the out-crowd. For example, a 2018 survey found that 77 percent of women have experienced verbal sexual harassment, and 51 percent had been sexually touched without their permission. The recently released film, She Said[iii] is the true story of how New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor broke the story of the constant sexual harassment of women by Harvey Weinstein. Here is the trailer for the movie:

These women received some justice when the courts sentenced Weinstein to 23 years in prison. After the initial three women came forward, a total of 82 victims made claims against Weinstein. But more importantly, the actions of these women sparked the #MeToo movement that toppled many prominent sexual harassers, both in Hollywood and elsewhere. And recently, New York City, for the first time in its history, has women heading its fire department and police department. Perhaps women are finally getting their due. As someone once said, “All things come to him [her] who waits—even justice.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” Therefore, when we see injustice, we must speak out until those wrongs are righted. By taking a stand, we can make the world a happier and more just place.

Let’s do our part to ensure justice for all is a reality, for as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere.”

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[i] Till:

• Production Companies: Eon Productions, Frederick Zollo Productions, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Director: Chinonye Chukwu
• Screenwriters: Michael Reily, Keith Beauchamp, and Chinonye Chukwu
• Starring: Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hall, and Frankie Faison
• Release date: October 28, 2022

[ii] The Inspection:

• Production Companies: Freedom Principle and Gamechanger Films
• Director: Elegance Bratton
• Screenwriter: Elegence Bratton
• Starring: Jeremy Pope, Gabrrielle Union, and Bokeem Woodbine
• Release date: October 14, 2022

[iii] She Said:

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Annapurna Pictures,. And Plan B Entertainment
• Director: Maria Schrader
• Screenwriter: Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Jodi Kantor, and Megan Twohey
• Starring: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, and Patricia Clarkson
• Release date: November 18, 2022

If you are one of the few folks following my blog religiously, you might wonder why I didn’t post on the first of the month, as usual. That’s because my wife and I just returned from the Austin Film Festival, where we watched 21 movies in eight days. Sadly, there were several others we wanted to see but couldn’t due to scheduling conflicts. I admit it; I’m a film junkie.

There is nothing like watching a film with movie people. They cry unashamedly, laugh boisterously, and cheer loudly when someone rights a wrong. They applaud at the end of every movie and stay to watch the credits.

Perhaps the best part of the Festival was listening to insiders from a film. At the end of most movies, someone (often several people) connected to the film, such as the writer, director, producer, or star, held a question-and-answer session about the film. In these sessions, you learned what inspired the people to make the film, insights about the characters and plot, and even some of the technical aspects of making the movie.

Films at the Festival fall into several categories. First, there are the shorts, usually made by young, aspiring filmmakers who use shorts to demonstrate their yet unrecognized talent. Then there are the independent films hoping to convince distributors to pay for the rights to the movie. And then there are those films with distributors who use the Festival to generate buzz before they release the film. And in each category, there are narrative films and documentaries. I usually prefer narrative films to documentaries, but the documentaries outshined the narratives at this year’s Festival.

Overall, I didn’t think this year’s Festival was as good as it has been in the past. Still, there were several films that I recommend as being well worth your time. Here’s a recap of the four movies I recommend you see:

Good Night Oppy[i] tells the inspirational story of Mars rovers, Opportunity, and Spirit. NASA sent the rovers to the red planet on a 90-day mission. But Opportunity roved Mars’ surface for 15 years sending back data confirming that, at one time. Mars had enough water to sustain life. But the documentary’s best part is the relationship between Oppy and its handlers. Who knew you could get teary-eyed over a machine? Here is the trailer:

You can watch Good Night Oppy in theaters now or wait and watch it on Amazon Prime starting November 23.

Who Invited Charlie?[ii] follows a New York family holed up in the Hamptons during the pandemic whose bubble is popped by oddball Charlie, who is much wiser than he appears. The film again proves the tired cliché that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Here is the trailer:

The best thing about The Lost King[iii] is that it is a true story. It tells how an amateur historian takes on all the experts to find the missing remains of King Richard III of England. Here is the trailer:

Sam & Kate[iv] had its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival. Dustin Hoffman plays Sam’s father, and Sissy Spacek plays Kate’s mother. The best thing about the film is that Jake Hoffman plays Sam, who happens to be Dustin Hoffman’s real-life son, and Schuyler Fisk plays Kate, Sissy Spacek’s real-life daughter. If you like romantic comedies, you will love Sam & Kate. Here’s the trailer:

Sam & Kate hits theaters on November 11.

Here are two other movies of note:

The Whale stars Brendan Fraser. His performance garnered him a six-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. I found the characters in The Whale hard to like, but watching Fraser’s performance in an unusual role for him might be worth the price of admission. The film opens in theaters on December 11.

My favorite movie of the Festival was American: An Odyssey to 1947. It is a documentary that tracks three interconnecting stories: the rise and fall in America of actor and director Orson Welles, a Japanese American who survived the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, and Isaac Woodward, an African American soldier beaten by police in South Carolina. The beating galvanized the civil rights movement. The film, independently made, is looking for a distributor. I hope it finds one, as everyone should see it.

There was no official theme at this year’s Festival, but as one attendee pointed out, most of the films dealt with the importance of relationships. Our relationships bring us our greatest happiness and sometimes our biggest frustrations. In closing, please remember these words of the late Paul Walker: “You know, all that really matters is that the people you love are happy and healthy. Everything else is just sprinkles on the sundae.”

See you at the movies!

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[i] Good Night Oppy:

• Production Companies: Amazon Studios, Amblin Entertainment, and Amblin Television
• Director: Ryan White
• Screenwriters: Ryan White and Helen Kearns
• Starring: Angela Bassett (narrator)
• Release Date: November 23, 2022

[ii] Who Invited Charlie?:

• Production Companies: Perry Street Films and Blind Bulldog Films
• Director: Xavier Manrique
• Screenwriter: Nicholas Schutt
• Starring: Jordana Brewster, Adam Pally, Rhys Coiro
• Release Date: October 8, 2022

[iii] The Lost King:

• Production Companies: BBC Films, Baby Cow Films, and Ingenious Media
• Director: Stephen Frears
• Screenwriters: Steve Coogan and Bill Pope
• Starring: Sally Hawkins, Shonagh Price, and Helen Katamba
• Release Date: October 7, 2022 (United Kingdom)

[iv] Sam & Kate:

• Production Companies: Story in the Sky, Volition Media Partners, and Thomasville Pictures
• Director: Darren Le Gallo
• Screenwriter: Darren Le Gallo
• Starring: Henry Thomas, Dustin Hoffman, and Sissy Spacek
• Release Date:  October 28, 2022

It was Grandparents’ week at school a couple of weeks ago. That meant Janene and I could go to school and have lunch with our grandkids—or, more accurately, bring them lunch from their favorite fast-food restaurant.

We sat at a table at one of those lunches, waiting for our grandchild’s lunch period to begin. So, looking around during the previous lunch period, I saw something that hurt my heart. Two kids, a boy and a girl, were eating alone. Sure, other kids surrounded them, but they ate alone without any friends to talk to.

My first thought was at least they were not being actively bullied by the other kids. But my second thought was, which is worse? Being bullied or being totally ignored? Or, as Helen Keller once said, “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.” Unfortunately, too many of us are walking alone in the light.

Recently, I listened to a podcast featuring John Larsen. Here is his definition of bullying: “Bullies punch down. What that means is they attack populations or people or races, ethnicities, religions that have less social status, less power, less money, less influence than they do.” I like that. The next time you feel like saying something critical or cutting about someone who is transgender, gay, of a different race, less educated, or poorer than you, ask yourself first, what has this person or group taken away from me? How have they diminished my privilege? If you are honest with yourself, you will probably answer they have not affected my life in any meaningful way. Under those circumstances, does it make sense to say anything at all? 

In the film Mean Girls, the clique known as the plastics had prestige and influence in high school and let those around them know they were at the top of the social hierarchy. In short, they punched down. But Cady (played by Lindsay Lohan), who once had worked her way into the clique, said it best: “Calling someone fat doesn’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. All you can do in life is try and solve the problem in front of you.”

Of course, the opposite of punching down is punching up—pushing back against the powers that be. That’s what Cady did to the Mean Girls. So we must punch up repeatedly to ensure that marginalized groups and individuals are protected.

In Where the Crawdads Sing,[i] the townsfolk bullied a “marsh girl” because of her poverty and resulting lifestyle. Here is the trailer for the film:

The marsh girl learned from the marsh, “Every creature does what it must to survive.” So if someone is punching down upon us, let’s figure out what we must do to survive. Maya Angelou said, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” Or, as I like to tell myself, “Go ahead, bully me, but in 30 years, the only thing people will remember is that I am your boss.”

One of my favorite films about bullying is Wonder.[ii] Auggie suffers from a disease that has left his face and head deformed. Accordingly, the school could be rough on him. One bad day, when someone Auggie thought was his friend betrayed him, Auggie has this conversation with his sister:

Sometimes, as a victim of someone punching down on us, we feel like Auggie did—that there are no nice people in the world. But his friend, Jack Will, redeems himself in this scene:

Jack Will learned this valuable lesson: Strong people stick up for themselves, but the strongest stick up for others. Or said a different way, if you turn and face the other way when someone is being bullied, you might as well be the bully.

At the recent Wyoming versus BYU college football game, BYU honored a group of black athletes known as the Wyoming Black 14. Although I grew up in Utah and am not a BYU fan, I remember the circumstances well. In 1969, 14 black members of the University of Wyoming football team wanted to wear black armbands to protest the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the “Church”) ban on African Americans holding the priesthood. (The Church removed that ban in 1978.) These athletes went to their coach, Lloyd Eaton, to ask permission to wear the armbands. If the coach said no, they would accept that decision. But Coach Eaton, without discussion, dismissed all 14 from the school’s football team. Then for two hours, the coach punched down on these young men, berating them with such statements as:

“Most of you don’t even know who your fathers are.”

“You’re going to be on subsistence programs for the rest of your lives.”

“I got you off the streets … picking up cigarette butts.”

“There’s no other university that will invite you to play football for them.”

 The University of Wyoming kept the story buried for forty years. But these young men were tough on and off the football field. They ended up living successful lives. Or, as one of them, John Griffin, said, “Never be defined by an incident.”

To the University’s credit, it recognized they had bullied the Black 14. So, in 2016, the University reunited the Black 14, presented them with the letter jackets they would have received in 1969, and, more importantly, issued a letter of apology, which said, in part: “As an institution, we believe we have learned and grown from what you had to endure.”

But as John Griffin described it, the Black 14 decided to turn “a tragedy into philanthropy.” They developed a partnership with the Church to distribute food to those in need. Over the past three years, the Black 14 and the Church delivered 800,000 pounds of food to the hungry near the homes of the Black 14.

If we have punched down on someone, I hope we can realize our mistake and apologize. And genuine apologies include restitution for the wrong. And if we see someone punch down upon another, let’s stand up for those victims. And let us be brave and punch up when necessary, speaking truth to power to help make this a better world for all of us.  

In closing, here are the lyrics to my favorite anti-bullying song, Don’t Laugh at Me.[iii] The daughter of the songwriter inspired the song when she confided in her dad that her classmates teased her because of her freckles. Mark Wills first recorded the song in 1968, but Peter, Paul, and Mary have also recorded it. The song helped inspire Peter Yarrow to found the non-profit organization Operation Respect, promoting tolerance and civility programs in education. The version below is the one recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary:

I’m a little boy with glasses, the one they call the geek

A little girl who never smiles ’cause I’ve got braces on my teeth

And I know how it feels to cry myself to sleep

I’m the kid on every playground Who’s always chosen last

A single teenage mother tryin’ to overcome my past

You don’t have to be my friend but is it too much to ask

Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names

Don’t get your pleasure from my pain

In God’s eyes we’re all the same

Someday we’ll all have perfect wings

Don’t laugh at me

I’m the beggar on the corner, you’ve passed me on the street

And I wouldn’t be out here beggin’ if I had enough to eat

And don’t think I don’t notice that our eyes never meet

Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names

Don’t get your pleasure from my pain

In God’s eyes we’re all the same

Someday we’ll all have perfect wings

Don’t laugh at me

I’m fat, I’m thin, I’m short, I’m tall

I’m deaf, I’m blind, hey aren’t we all

I’m black, I’m white, and I am brown

I’m Christian, I’m Jewish, and I am Muslim

I’m gay, I’m lesbian, I’m American Indian

I’m very, very young, I’m quite aged

I’m quite wealthy, I’m very, very poor

Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names

Don’t get your pleasure from my pain

In God’s eyes we’re all the same

Someday we’ll all have perfect wings

Don’t laugh at me

My country ’tis of thee

Oh, sweet land of liberty

It is of thee I sing.

I hope we can challenge those with more power than us, when appropriate, and defend those with less power every chance we get.

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[i] Where the Crawdads Sing:

• Production Companies: 3000 Pictures and Hello Sunshine
• Director: Olivia Newman
• Screenwriter: Delia Owens (based on the book by Lucy Alibar)
• Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, and Harris Dickenson
• Release date: July 15, 2022

[ii] Wonder:

• Production Companies: Lionsgate, Participant, Walden Media
• Director: Stephen Chbosky
• Screenwriters: Stephen Chbosky, Steve Conrad, and Jack Thorne
• Starring: Jacob Tremblay, Owen Wilson, and Izabela Vidovic
• Release date: November 17, 2017

[iii] Words and music by Allen Shamblin and Steve Seskin

   Copyright by Sony/ATV Tunes LLC/David Aaron Music/Built on Rock Music

   All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Tunes LLC/David Aaron Music administered by Sony/ATV Music           Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203

Someone once said, “It’s the good luck of other people that makes us dissatisfied with our own.”  I have never considered myself to be lucky. I have always thought, “A little more drive, a little more pluck, a little more work—that’s luck.” But that kind of luck will never help me win the lottery.

The other day, I went to our local convenience store and noticed it sold 35 different lottery tickets. And that didn’t even count the Texas Lotto, the mega million, or power ball lotteries. As I looked at the various tickets I could buy, I realized I had never purchased a lottery ticket. The closest I came was, for a while, my work group decided to form a consortium of lottery participants to increase the odds of winning the Texas Lotto. And then we would share the wealth when we won. So, with all 20 of us contributing a dollar, our odds would decrease from one in 25,827,165 to 20 in 25,827,165. I contributed to the pot for a couple of weeks, but with those long odds, I decided I would rather spend my dollar on a Diet Mountain Dew. But my assistant worried I would be stuck working alone after the group won the grand prize, and she and the other 18 quit their day jobs. So, for several months, without my knowledge, she threw an extra dollar in the pot for me. Shocking, I know, but the work group never won a thing.

I have often heard the phrase about the lottery: “You can’t win if you don’t play.” Well, even though I don’t play, I still fantasize about what I would do if I did win the Texas Lotto or the mega million jackpot. I even wrote a short story about it once. Because of those fantasies, I have enjoyed several movies about the lottery and have learned a few lessons from them.

Here are three movies about winning the lottery, all based on actual events, and the lessons I learned from them (what follows has spoilers, so consider watching the films first!):

Lesson One: The maxim, “I’d rather be lucky than good,” is not always true. 29th Street[i](now streaming on YouTube) tells the true story of Frank Pesce, who was born lucky and remained so. He was lucky when his mother went into labor with Frank and went to the wrong hospital; the one she was supposed to go to burned down that night. He avoided the draft because of luck. And Frank had great success playing craps. Even bad luck turned to good when he was stabbed in his chest by his girlfriend’s overprotective brother, and the doctor sewing him up found he had a cancerous tumor that was curable because they had found it so soon. And so, no one who knew Frank was surprised when he was one of 50 finalists for the first New York state lottery.

But Frank worried his dad, who saw him getting involved with the mob as dangerous. He wanted Frank to enjoy an everyday life:

But Frank’s dad’s life was not as simple as a small patch of Kentucky bluegrass. His dad got in trouble with the mob and owed them $10,000. When Frank heard about the debt, he agreed with the mob leader to exchange his lottery ticket to cancel the debt.

And like the rest of his life, Frank’s luck continued, as his ticket won $6.2 million. But a fun twist at the end of the film resulted in canceling the debt and Frank being able to keep the winnings. So maybe being lucky is not so bad!

Lesson Two: It’s better to give (and more fun) than to receive. In It Could Happen to You[ii] (now streaming on HBO Max), Charlie Lang, a New York police officer, buys a single lottery ticket at his wife’s insistence. Later, he buys a cup of coffee at a local diner. Charlie had enough money to pay for the coffee but no money for a tip. So, he promises the waitress, Yvonne, half of any winnings from his lottery ticket. And if he doesn’t win, he will still return the following day with a tip.

Incredibly, Charlie’s ticket garners him and his wife $4 million. But, much to Charlie’s wife’s chagrin, Charlie still intends to give Yvonne half—two million dollars. He always wants to do the right thing, he reasons, and “a promise is a promise.”

While Muriel, Charlie’s wife, begins acquiring more things, Charlie and Yvonne give away much of what they won and have fun doing it. But unfortunately, the lottery eventually breaks up Charlie’s and Muriel’s marriage. And as part of the divorce proceedings, Muriel sues Charlie and Yvonne for the entire $4 million. Ultimately, the jury agrees with Muriel, leaving Charlie and Yvonne with nothing. But during all this, Charlie and Yvonne fall in love. In this scene, Charlie and Yvonne realize that money means nothing now that they have each other:

But like good karma, what goes around often comes around. When Charlie and Yvonne are at their lowest, a reporter masquerades as a homeless person, and they feed him dinner and give him some money to help him on his way, wishing they could give him more. Because of their caring, the reporter asks the paper’s readers to give Charlie and Yvonne a tip of even a dollar or two. Ultimately, the good people of New York reward Charlie and Yvonne with donations of over $600,000. Charlie and Yvonne learned what Winston Churchill once said: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

Oh, and what happened to Muriel? Karma caught up with her, too. She married a man who drained her bank account and fled the country. Muriel spent the rest of her days living with her mother and working in a nail salon.

 Lesson Three: Money doesn’t guarantee happiness; relationships do. In Jerry and Marge Go Large[iii] (now streaming on Paramount+), Jerry lives in a small, dying town and has always been good at numbers. One day, he looks at the odds on an ad for the “WinFall” lottery and discovers a flaw that assures him of winning. He starts small to test his formula ($2000) but loses $327. But he realizes he needs to increase his sample size to take luck out of the equation. So, he buys 8,000 lottery tickets the next time and wins $15,700.

Here is the trailer for the movie:

Jerry tries to keep his lottery activity from Marge, but she soon notices something is up. I love this conversation between Jerry and Marge, as they realize playing the lottery, for them, is more than just making money:

Jerry: We barely have enough money to retire on as it is, and this is no time to risk it.

Marge: Yes, it is.

Jerry: What?

Marge: It’s time to risk it because right now, we’re losing something that matters even more. I’ve waited 40 years for it to be just us, and so far, we kind of suck at it.

Jerry: We have Jeopardy.

Marge: Oh, that’s not a thing. Jerry! I wanna have fun. I wanna have fun. Let’s be a little stupid. Huh? We got married when we were 17, so we know how to do it.

Jerry: Well, that’s true.

Marge: We need something for us.

Soon Jerry and Marge are making tens of thousands each time they play. But instead of keeping the winnings for themselves, Jerry forms an investment company and lets all the townspeople participate. And the townspeople take their winnings, and instead of just buying things, they use them to improve the town and help those down on their luck.

Soon, though, an intelligent Harvard student figures out the lottery flaw and discovers Jerry and Marge. So the student tries to force Jerry out of playing the lottery, leading to this conversation:

Jerry: I realized that I wasn’t angry at you. I’m disappointed.

Student: Ah, you’re disappointed in me?

Jerry: No, not you. You’re insignificant. No, I was disappointed that I let a selfish kid like you get to me. I was always good at math, but it took a long time for me to figure people out.   

Student: So, tell us, Jerry, what did you figure out?

Jerry: That the solution isn’t numbers. You told me that I was playing the lottery because I had nothing else. But the reason you won’t share the pot is because you have nothing else. You think being the smartest guy in the room is all that matters. But it turns out it’s this room that matters. All these bright, young people helping you get rich. How are you helping them? Guess you haven’t run the math on that.

When the lottery flaw becomes public, the state lottery commission is forced to discontinue the WinFall game, but not before Jerry, Marge, and their neighbors pulled in a cool $27 million.

Marge sums up the theme of Jerry and Marge Go Large: “It’s more than just a game to him. He finally got to use his gift to connect with people.”

All of us are fortunate to have talents and gifts. But their best use would be, like Jerry, to connect with others.

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[i] 29th Street:

• Production Companies: JVC Entertainment Networks, Largo Entertainment, and Permut Presentations
• Director: George Gallo
• Screenwriter: George Gallo (based on the story by Frank Pesce and James Franciscus
• Starring: Anthony LaPaglia, Danny Aiello, and Lainie Kazan
• Release Date: November 1, 1991

[ii] It Could Happen to You:

• Production Company: TriStar Pictures
• Director: Andrew Bergman
• Screenwriter: Jane Anderson 
• Starring: Nicolas Cage, Bridget Fonda, and Rosie Perez
• Release Date: July 29, 1994

[iii] Jerry and Marge Go Large:

• Production Companies: Landline Pictures, Levantine Films, and Media Rights Capital (MRC)
• Director: David Frankel
• Screenwriter:  Brad Copeland (based on the article by Jason Fagone)
• Starring: Bryan Cranston, Annette Benning, and Rainn Wilson
• Release Date: June 17, 2022

Somerset Maugham once wrote, “Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.” If only we could.

Over the past few years, I have thought a lot about death, even though I have tried not to. It began with the death of my sister-in-law and, later, my brother-in-law. Then, last Christmas, I published a sappy little novel called Angels Are Waiting,[i] dealing with death during the COVID pandemic, which has claimed more than a million American lives. After that, I witnessed a person close to me repeatedly attempt death by suicide (fortunately, he was unsuccessful). And then, earlier this month, a close friend died from cancer. And that’s not even considering the constant stories of deaths we hear in the news each day, from Russia bombing civilians in Ukraine to sick people killing school children and others with assault weapons in a country that is supposed to be at peace.

My first experience with death was when my grandpa died. I was only five years old and didn’t understand it. I only remember sitting by my cousin, watching my grandma, and wondering why she kept crying.

When I was twelve, death hit me much harder. My sister died of a heart condition when she was 17. She was Exhibit A of the saying, “Only the good die young.” She was intelligent, talented, loved life, and died too soon. A friend who lived across the street from me died a few years later in a car accident. His death, along with my sister’s, taught me that the saddest deaths are those who die suddenly and whose lives end much sooner than they should.

Fred Rogers, the star of the children’s show, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, was not one to shy away from challenging issues. In this scene from the movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,[ii] Mr. Rogers (played by Tom Hanks) teaches us that death is a part of being human:

Although we try to put death out of our minds, many have at least some fear of it. Will the act of dying be painful? Will my family and friends remember me after I’m gone? Is there life after death, and if so, what will it be like? Both of my parents died the right way. My dad died in his sleep at the age of 97. My mom made it to 100 and died peacefully in the arms of her favorite caregiver. They both had long and mostly happy lives and outlived almost all of their friends. And although those of us left behind miss them still, we knew they were ready to move on. I keep hoping one of them will tell me what life after death might be like, but I continue to wait.

My parents’ deaths taught me that it doesn’t have to be painful. People who have had near-death experiences—flatlined but later resuscitated—generally describe the experience as peaceful. And in some cases, death might be a good thing. In this scene from the film, The Life of David Gale,[iii] a death-row inmate (played by Kevin Spacey) tells a reporter (played by Kate Winslet) that death—including his own—is sometimes a gift:

What happens to us after death is difficult for me to answer. I will be the first to admit that I don’t know. Does God exist, and will we live after death? I hope so, but I do not know. Regardless of our beliefs, though, we should be focused on life before death, and whether we believe in God or life after death should not matter to how we live our lives. So, the Christian and the atheist should want the same thing—to make each day special. For believers, to ensure their status in the next life. For non-believers, because this day might be their last. We should not want to be one of those people Benjamin Franklin spoke of when he said, “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.”

So, how do we manage death? More specifically, how do we handle the deaths of loved ones around us? Fred Rogers gives us an excellent example in the clip from A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Here is another example from the movie Lars and Real Girl:[iv]

When dealing with those who have lost a loved one, I suggest the four H’s:

Hug it up – you don’t need to say anything, just a simple gesture of love, like a hug will do. And remember, real men hug.

Hang out – This is what the women in Lars and the Real Girl did. They just hung out. Or, as they explained to Lars: “We came over to sit. That’s what people do when tragedy strikes.” People in mourning or crisis need to be around others, but they don’t always need or want to interact with them.

Hush up – Offering hollow platitudes doesn’t help. For example, a person who suddenly dies, leaving behind a stay-at-home mom with three children, one of them battling cancer and a stroke, does not care to hear that “God must have needed him more on the other side.” Whether statements like that are factual or not (as if we know anyway) are not particularly comforting to the person wondering how God could have taken her husband at a time when she needed him most.

Help out– When you see something that needs doing, step in and do it. Don’t ask if there is anything you can do to help; just do it. So often, a person in crisis or tragedy is paralyzed. They know many things need to be done, but they can’t remember most of them or even how to do them, if they remember them at all. For example, I have seen persons in times of crisis who can’t remember even how to use the phone. So make the calls for them. Arrange for food. Cut the lawn. Do something.

A final thought. When my sister suddenly died at 17, my mother was devastated. For about three weeks, extended family, friends, neighbors, and church members rallied around us. Then their own lives took precedence again, and they essentially disappeared. We were left alone. We don’t blame them, for life does go on. But that was the most challenging part for Mom—the time after the initial shock of the tragedy wore off. So go over and sit with friends in need. Just remember, people need us throughout the entire grieving process., which, in some ways, never ends.

I wish no one had to face death—either their own or that of a loved one. But my wishes are seldom granted, and I know this one will not be. As to our own deaths, let’s remember the words of Mark Twain: “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” As a comfort when a loved one dies, let’s remember these words of George Eliot: “Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.” So, let’s tell their stories and pass them down through the generations, so we never forget.

In the final analysis, I like this philosophy of David Gerrold: “Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.”

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[i] Angels Are Waiting (and all my other books) can be purchased on Amazon.com. Just search “Warren J. Ludlow.”

[ii] A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood:

• Production Companies: Big Beach Films, Tencent Pictures, and TriStar Pictures
• Director: Marielle Heller
• Screenwriters: Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster, and Tom Junod
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, and Chris Cooper
• Release Date: November 22, 2019

[iii] The Life of David Gale:

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Intermedia Films, and Dirty Hands Productions
• Director: Alan Parker
• Screenwriter: Charles Randolph
• Starring: Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, and Laura Linney
• Release Date: February 21, 2003

[iv] Lars and Real Girl:

• Production Companies: MGM, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, and Lars Productions
• Director: Craig Gillespie
• Screenwriter: Nancy Oliver
• Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider and Patricia Clarkson
• Release Date: November 2, 2007

I watched the 75th annual Tony Awards a few weeks back (yes, I am a musical theater geek).  Part of the acceptance speech of Matt Doyle, this year’s winner for best actor in a featured role in a musical, impressed me when he said, “Thank you to my family … who believed in me pursuing my passion and … believed that the only way I’d be happy is to live my life authentically.”

What does it mean to live your life authentically? If you are LGBTQIA, it means, at least in part, acknowledging your sexual preference, and having the courage to tell others about it. To have that kind of courage, you must have enough pride in who you are to not care what others think when you tell them you are different from what much of society considers to be the norm. But we have come a long way during my lifetime. Thanks to so many brave and vulnerable individuals, “coming out” is now almost commonplace. But that is not to say it is now easy.  So, in honor of June being Pride Month, I am revisiting and updating two previous blog posts dealing with LGBTQIA.

The first time I thought seriously about LGBTQIA (or homosexuals, as we referred to them back then) was in the early 1980s. I sat in a church leadership meeting listening to a therapist who explained that homosexuality is a perversion, and a young man becomes homosexual due to the lack of a strong father. Even back then I wondered how true that was. Did that mean every son of a single mother was destined to be gay? If that were true, why did one son turn out gay while another son in the same family did not? But worse, I wondered how that teaching made fathers feel if one of their sons turned out to be gay.

Back then, I didn’t know anyone who was LGBTQIA – at least that I knew of. My first face-to-face experience with a gay person occurred when we moved to Houston in 1986. Two men lived next door to us. They were young professionals, sharp in their appearance, and two of the nicest neighbors we have ever had. They were gay men in a committed relationship. After learning of their sexual preferences, thankfully, my opinion of them did not diminish in the least. The film, Love, Simon,[i] emphasizes this point where Simon comes out to his parents, but tells them “I’m still me”:

Since those days in the early 80s, I have discovered that one of my best friends is gay, one of my best friends in high school is gay (although I didn’t know it at the time), three daughters of other good friends are lesbian, two sons of high school friends are gay, my nephew is gay, one of the top executives of my former employer is gay, and my son’s in-laws have two lesbian daughters, both of which have married their lesbian sweethearts.

And I love each and every one of them.

As the world has more readily accepted those who have come out of the closet, I discovered that Shakespeare was only partly right. It isn’t just absence that makes the heart grow fonder, so does familiarity.

When my good friend came out to us, he struggled to find the courage to do so. How sad is that? Isn’t that what best friends are for – having someone to confide in who won’t judge us? And like Simon, he can breathe a little easier now, with his secret out. After that experience, I now laugh at this next clip from Love, Simon which reverses the roles: 

I watched Love, Simon in a packed movie house, and I am glad I did. The audience laughed and cried along with Simon and his friends and family. I shed more than my share of tears, not just because of what was happening on screen, but I felt the love and acceptance of this audience of all ages, different genders, and ethnicities toward Simon, and indirectly toward all LGBTQIA, and I realized how far we have come since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, many continue to campaign against same-sex marriage and teach that being LGBTQIA is a choice because God would never make a mistake. In discussing this with my good friend, he remarked, “Why would I ever choose to be gay?” He then explained that the way society has treated gays throughout the years, he would have to be a masochist to choose such a lifestyle. And he would know, as he went through destructive conversion therapy, and listened to the counsel of church leaders who told him if he married a woman and played the part of a heterosexual, God would remove the feelings of same-sex attraction from him. Instead, like many other gays, he tried it and found it just doesn’t work that way.

Pastor and writer, John Pavlovitz, said it this way: “Yes, LGBT people are absolutely making a choice. They are choosing to be the most honest, authentic versions of themselves. They are choosing to be led by the unfiltered direction of their hearts, just as you and I are. They are choosing to relent to the things that in all of our lives, never can be chosen. The only relevant choices for straight Christians are whether or not we will treat the LGBT community as fully complex, intelligent, emotionally intricate human beings; and whether or not we will be willing to examine both our personal opinions and our theology accordingly. The choice is ours.”

The burden of being authentic is not just on LGBTQIA; it is vital that those of us who are straight do our part. How do we react when someone comes out to us? Notice how Simon’s dad reacted in the clip above. Do we act like it’s a joke or look at them questioningly and ask, “Are you sure? It might just be a phase.” From my limited experience, a person has thought long and hard about it before coming out; it’s not a spur of the moment decision.

In this scene from Rocketman,[ii] Elton John has finally summoned enough courage to admit to his mum he is gay:

I realize that sometimes we are caught off guard when someone shares with us their sexual preference. But most of the time, we have at least an inkling. So, when someone becomes vulnerable enough to share with us this intimate part of themselves, I hope we can listen unquestioningly and return only love and understanding.

But it is not just LGBTQIA who need to live authentic lives to be happy. Each of us have phobias, quirks, or destructive thoughts that we often don’t share with others. Or maybe we have a mental illness that we keep secret because we worry about being labeled by our illness. But we are not our diseases, mental illnesses, or our phobias, although admittedly they influence us. While I don’t necessarily believe we should air all our vulnerabilities on Facebook or Instagram, we should consider sharing our authentic selves with those we love.

While in my early 20s, my girlfriend at the time tried to break up with me. But I wouldn’t let her. She told me all the reasons why we were not good for each other, but I wouldn’t listen. I told her I would be better. Frustrated with me, she finally agreed to go out with me again. During that next date I was the perfect gentleman. I did everything I thought she would want me to do, and said all the things I thought she would want me to say. And at the end of the date, she complimented me on being so nice—and that maybe we had a future after all.

But at some point during that date I realized I could act like the person she wanted me to be but I also knew that person wasn’t me, and ultimately, I would never be happy being with her. And so, I responded, no, we didn’t have a future together. Neither her way nor my way was right; we were just different. And neither of us could live authentic lives with each other.

C.S. Lewis said, “Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know who could love the person you hide.” I believe those who show their authentic selves—who don’t let others define them—are the smartest, most successful and happiest among us. Ashton Kutcher, playing Steve Jobs in the movie Jobs, says it better than I can: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

I’ll end with my favorite quote from Audrey Hepburn. She calls it her greatest beauty tip: “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those that matter don’t mind.”

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[i] Love, Simon:

• Production Companies: Fox 2000 Pictures, New Leaf Literary & Media, and Temple Hill Entertainment
• Director: Greg Berlanti
• Screenwriters: Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker (based on the novel by Becky Albertalli)
• Starring: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel
• Release date: March 16, 2018

[ii] Rocketman:

• Production Companies: Paramount Pictures, New Republic Pictures, and Marv Films
• Director: Dexter Fletcher
• Screenwriter: Lee Hall
• Starring: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, and Bryce Dallas Howard
• Release date: May 31, 2019

Yesterday marked the end of Mental Health Awareness Month. Did anyone notice? With two mass shootings in America during May which killed at least 31 people (most of them children), mental health has been in the news lately. Some blame those killings on mental illness, although neither shooter had been diagnosed with one. Persons diagnosed with a mental illness cause only four percent of violent crimes in America. It is more common for those with a mental illness to be the victim of a violent crime than the perpetrator of it. But I will leave gun control for another blog post.

I believe we are all crazy in our own way, as most of us have some form of mental illness. But most of us live everyday, productive lives despite our craziness. Somehow, we can manage it. For example, I am claustrophobic. Put me in a stuck, crowded elevator, and I will start to panic immediately. A plane trip becomes almost unbearable if I don‘t get an aisle seat. When I read a news report several years ago of a man killed on a plane by fellow passengers when he went crazy and rushed the cockpit, I thought that could have been me—and might be someday. As I have often said, claustrophobia is irrational, but the fear is real. I also have tinnitus—a constant ringing in my ear. When I first came down with it, I couldn’t sleep and could barely function. The only thing I could focus on was that constant ringing. It took over a month to “make friends with the ringing,” where I could focus on something other than the noise in my head. And it didn’t help to know that there is no cure, meaning the ringing would stay with me forever. But some are not so lucky. I recently read that the CEO of Texas Roadhouse restaurants died by suicide because he could no longer handle his tinnitus.

But living with tinnitus and claustrophobia is easy compared to what some people have to live with. So, in honor of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to make us more aware of three forms of mental illness that some of my family and friends suffer with. And to help that awareness become more accurate, I will use only documentary films to discuss them.

Bipolar Disorder:

Also known as manic depression, a person with bipolar disorder will have extreme shifts in mood—cycles over time, ranging from deep depression to extremely elevated mania. While people with bipolar disorder may have difficulty managing everyday life or maintaining relationships, many afflicted individuals live outstandingly successful lives, particularly between their episodes of depression and mania.

More than 10 million Americans have bipolar disorder. It affects men and women equally and all races, ethnic groups, and socioeconomic classes. Although bipolar disorder more commonly develops in older teenagers and young adults, it can appear in children as young as six. You might recognize many of these people with bipolar disorder: Mariah Carey, Carrie Fisher, Mel Gibson, Brian Wilson, Ernest Hemingway, Ted Turner, Frank Sinatra, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Patty Duke, Winston Churchill, Kanye West, Selma Gomez, Sting, Florence Nightingale, Buzz Aldrin, and Virginia Woolf.

The episodes of both depression and mania are dangerous. During the depression, death by suicide is a constant worry, as the person sees their lives as hopeless. But the mania can be even worse. The person has inflated self-esteem or grandiosity. They rarely sleep more than a few hours at night—if at all. They talk a mile a minute with racing thoughts and are easily distracted, often by unimportant details. In addition, the person usually has an increase in goal-directed activity as they attempt to make millions of dollars, save the poor, and resolve all social injustices. Some persons turn hyper-religious and might have “visions” of God, Christ, or departed loved ones. But with such thoughts and goals comes excessive involvement in activities that have a high potential for painful consequences, such as engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments. You could read all the books written about bipolar disorder, but you will not fully understand it until you see it yourself.

Sadly, under current laws (at least in Texas), mental help for a person with bipolar is limited. The person can be involuntarily placed in a behavioral facility only if they are a danger to themselves or others. And being stupid (e.g., unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments) does not qualify. On the depression side, all the patient needs to say is they do not have suicidal thoughts to stay out of the treatment center. On the manic side, all the patient needs to do is “act normal.” Typically, a person in a manic episode involuntarily placed in a behavioral facility will be heavily dosed with antipsychotic drugs for a few days. Then, the patient acts normal and says all the right things and is returned to the streets but still manic, often returning to the facility a short time later to do it all over again.

Fortunately, medication helps—if you can keep the person taking them. For who doesn’t love the feeling mania brings? Why would you want to take anything that takes away that high? From my experience, stress exacerbates mood swings, so a person with bipolar needs to take their medication, learn their stress triggers and change their lifestyle to lessen or avoid those triggers.

The documentary Of Two Minds[i] follows the lives of a handful of persons with bipolar disorder. Here is the trailer:

You can watch Of Two Minds on YouTube or rent it on Amazon Prime Video for two dollars. I love what one person in the documentary says: “We are your mother, we’re your sister, we’re your brother, we’re friends, we’re your neighbors, and we’re out there, and we want to be respected for who we are, and we don’t want to be in the closet.”

Eating Disorders:

A person with an eating disorder has a severely destructive relationship with food. Out-of-control eating (or not eating) rituals and obsessive food or body-related thoughts dominate that person’s life. Anorexia and bulimia are the most well-known eating disorders. 

An estimated 4.39 million women and 1.09 men have an eating disorder. Every 62 minutes, a person dies due to an eating disorder. About one in five persons with an eating disorder attempt death by suicide. A traumatic experience brings about an eating disorder in about 30 percent of those who have one. But sadly, 75 percent of people with eating disorders do not seek professional help.

You might recognize many of these people with an eating disorder: Princess Diana, Russell Brand, Paula Abdul, Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Jane Fonda, Taylor Swift, Angelina Jolie, Karen Carpenter, and Jessica Alba.

The documentary Thin[ii] follows several patients at a Florida treatment center specializing in eating disorders. One of them, Brittany, had an eating disorder since age eight when she binged everything in sight. Now a teenager, she dropped from 185 pounds to 97 pounds in a single year. Here is a discussion between Brittany and her counselor:

Counselor: “Why are you so concerned about what other people think of you?”

Brittany: “Because that’s what I’ve always cared about my whole life. That’s the reason I lost weight in the first place. This is what I want. I want to be thin. And if it takes dying to get there? So be it.”  

Here is my favorite scene from the film:

You can watch Thin on HBO Max or rent it on Amazon Prime for three dollars.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD):

OCD is a pattern of overwhelming thoughts and fears (the obsession) that lead to repetitive behaviors (the compulsion), which interfere with daily activities and overall health. The obsessions vary from person to person, but common ones include order and symmetry, worries about turning off the gas or locking the door, counting or following a particular order of actions, and germ phobia.

In the U.S., three million Americans struggle with OCD. According to the World Health Organization, anxiety disorders like OCD are more prevalent in developed countries than developing countries. OCD affects men and women equally. Researchers have also noticed a link between childhood trauma and OCD.

You might recognize many of these people with OCD: Daniel Radcliffe, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Megan Fox, Justin Timberlake, David Beckham, Katy Perry, Howard Hughes, Howie Mandel, Billy Bob Thornton, Charlize Theron, and Nicolas Cage.

The documentary OCD: The War Inside[iii] tracts the lives of several individuals with OCD. Tricia is my favorite. Here is a scene from the film:

You can watch the documentary on YouTube for free.

In another part of the film, Tricia says this:

“I was showering ten to twelve times a day. I started off with just, like, you know, soap on my body, shampoo, conditioner. Then it became soap, shampoo, shampoo, conditioner, soap, shampoo, conditioner on my whole body. Then, then it became dish soap, shampoo, conditioner, soap. Then it became dish soap, shampoo, conditioner, soap. Then it became laundry detergent, shampoo, conditioner, dish soap. Then it became Comet [cleanser], laundry detergent—yeah, I knew I had a problem when I was like using Comet to clean my body and laundry detergent. When your whole day is OCD, if you can get like 14 seconds, one minute, two minutes, anything, it’s worth it. It’s worth scrubbing the skin off of your body just to get two minutes of peace and quiet. Like when it’s all day, every day when you go to bed thinking about it, you wake up thinking about it, you have nightmares about it, that two minutes is worth more than anything in the world.”

Notice how Tricia’s thoughts and actions continually spiral downward into a “parade of horribles” until she can barely function. It is a hard way to live. Fortunately, medication and therapy can help those with OCD, like most mental illnesses.

In his book, Turtles All the Way Down (about a teenager suffering from OCD), author John Green sums up how I feel about mental illness: “There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.”

But people with mental illness need the help of others. We need to drop the stigma associated with mental illness and stop thinking about those with mental illness as somehow less of a person or less than ourselves. As Glenn Close said, “What mental health needs are more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” For the help of all of us, let’s have that candor and conversation.

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[i] Of Two Minds:

• Production Company: MadPix
• Directors: Douglas Blush and Lisa J. Klein
• Starring: Terri Cheney, Carlton Davis, and Cheri Keating
• Release date: April 2012

[ii] Thin:

• Producers: R. J. Cutler, Lauren Greenfield, Amanda Micheli, and Ted Skillman
• Director: Lauren Greenfield
• Starring: Shelly Guillory, Brittany Robinson, and Alisa Williams
• Release date: October 21, 2006

[iii] OCD: The War Inside:

• Production Company: National Film Board of Canada
• Directors: David Hoffort and Mark Pancer
• Starring: Marvin Freedman, Tricia Huggins, and Chris Krija
• Release date: October 3, 2002