Over the weekend I watched the 2017 release Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri. It’s a very good film and Frances McDormand does great work in it. The only other movie I’ve seen Frances McDormand in is Fargo. The two films have a lot in common.
Both films are centered around a mysterious crime in a small town which is McDormand’s sweet spot from what I can tell. In Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri. Frances McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, a single mother of two teenagers. Her daughter Angela becomes a victim of a rape and murder during a night out. The local police force doesn’t make any progress in finding the girl’s rapist and murderer. Months go by with no leads and no contact from the police department.
Mildred decides to buy billboard space on the edge of town. The three billboards have a bold and confrontational message. The ask the town police chief played by Woody Harrelson in bold block letters why no arrests have been made in her daughter’s case.
The billboards quickly become controversial because they challenge the town’s sense of righteousness. The Ebbing police department had been accused of race based police brutality but the billboards which spotlight lackadaisical police work in the murder of a local White girl angered the townsfolk. I’m sure they like to think of themselves as God fearing, salt of the Earth kind of people.
Mildred becomes the town pariah but I don’t think it mattered much to her. She doesn’t seem to socialize much and she doesn’t scare easily. Through a peculiar chain of events the police department is inspired to put more energy into solving the mystery of Angela’s death.
Frances McDormand plays a resilient and stoic woman that pushes back when she is pushed, or ignored. I was moved to tears watching this imperfect mother fight for her daughter’s honor. Angela was a bad girl which may be the reason that the town didn’t rally around her mother. Mildred is a bad girl too and she couldn’t rest while the world went moved on without anyone being brought to justice for killing her daughter.
This is definitely a good movie and worth your time. It is dark without being too vulgar and there are several interesting plot twists. The movie pulled at my heart strings. If you haven’t seen Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri add it to your to see list.
It’s all over now and for that I am grateful. The nearly two year presidential campaign has finally come to an end and America elected the flesh and blood version of a cartoon villain as our new president. I honestly didn’t think that was going to happen and I still don’t understand why it happened. But I’ve accepted the results and I’m content to sit back and watch the downward spiral. I honestly hope that Trump won’t be as horrible as what he promised to be during his campaign. I think the best we can hope for now is that Trump will be completely incompetent and does nothing. At least that way he can’t make anything worse.
I am very upset with many of my fellow Americans for allowing this to happen. I have had to put in some emotional work in order to accept that my beautiful country has decided to destroy itself. In the days leading up to and following the election I spent quite a bit of time reading people’s comments on social media about the election. I’ve since deactivated my Facebook account. I don’t have the emotional fortitude to take all of that in all this talk about Donald Trump. I felt myself changing and the changes were not positive. I don’t want to be an untrusting, angry person but that’s where I was headed.
Writing has always been cathartic for me. After I finish writing this I am done talking about Donald Trump and this election. Onward and upward. But please indulge me and read this list of people that I have a problem with because of Election 2016.
The Blacks
Black Americans, or “the Blacks” as Trump likes to call us, overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton. I’m proud of that. The ones that I have a problem with are the ones that can vote and chose not to because they thought the two candidates were too similar. I feel like Donald Trump made this a pretty easy choice for Black Americans. He was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan for goodness sakes. If Black people were still confused about who to vote for after learning that I don’t know what to tell them. If you’re a Black American and in doubt about a candidate vote against the person that is endorsed by the Klan. DUUUHHHH!
I also suspect that there are a lot of Black men that were not comfortable supporting a woman in a role that does not involve cooking, nurturing or being a bimbo.
Women (Particularly White)
I don’t ever want to hear another word from American feminists (White women do most of the feminist griping in this country). I don’t want to hear about how women make less than what men make for the same work. I don’t want to hear about how the U.S. needs government sponsored maternity leave or how American companies need to be more family friendly. These morons had the opportunity to elect a smart, dignified woman to the presidency but instead they decided to elect a man that has a history of abusing women. Pardon my language but **** these h@#$. They don’t deserve anything better than what they already have.
The Upper Midwest
Donald Trump is no champion for American labor or manufacturing. Donald Trump has hired illegal immigrants to work in his casinos. His products that are sold at Macy’s are all made overseas. The steel that is used in his construction projects comes from China not Pennsylvania. He became a household name in the early 2000s for firing people on his reality show. But that didn’t stop the rust belt from voting for him on Tuesday.
Just as the American auto industry is trying to recover the idiots of the Rust Belt those idiots vote for the party that is vehemently anti union and collective bargaining. I have always tried to support American workers by buy American cars. But if the autoworkers don’t give a damn neither do I. My next car might be a BMW. I hope they enjoy working for minimum wage.
The State of Missouri
Missouri has been my home since 1998. It took some getting use to but I have grown to like the place. My problem with Missouri has more to do with the Senate race than the presidential one. We have a Senator named Roy Blunt that ran for re election. He’s been a senator for about a generation.
Some of you may remember a few years ago that an unpleasant incident occurred between two young men, one an officer and one a civilian in a town called Ferguson. The officer shot and killed the civilian which ignited a race riot in the town. I live in Missouri and I never saw Roy Blunt make a statement on the news about the initial incident or the subsequent riots. I checked his website and social media pages and he made no comment.
How in the hell are you a Senator with a race riot going on near on of the major cities in your state and the country and you have nothing to say? Did he realize what was going on? I hear Blunt doesn’t even live in Missouri. Did he not care about the situation? It seems that way to me. Or maybe Roy Blunt is just that lazy. Regardless, the people of Missouri heartily voted to let Roy Blunt maintain his position as senator. I saw him on the news thanking the voters for their support.
Sanders Supporters
These people need to let go. It’s like they have a fatal attraction to Bernie Sanders or something. They would like to think that Sanders would have beaten Trump. I don’t think he would have come as close to winning as Clinton did. Bernie Sander is not as great as his supporters think he is. To me Bernie Sanders has a lot in common with Trump. They both made big promises without giving details as to how they were going to them a reality. Free college is as realistic as Donald Trump’s wall that will be built on the southern border and funded by Mexico. IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!
It seems that the Bernie supporters voted for Trump or supported the third of fourth party. Well that worked out great didn’t it. I bet most of the protesters that are storming the streets of major cities are frustrated Sanders supporters. I have no sympathy for them. They should have been smarter with their vote.
Christians
Christians got under my skin more than anyone. One would think that Christians would have been outspoken against Trump’s angry message. You would think Christians would have a problem with Trump’s supporters forcibly pushing protesters out of convention halls and beating those with those with opposing views. I expected Christian men to stand for women after learning about the “Grab them by the pu$$!” remark. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Christians seemed to be comfortable with all of that.
Donald Trump said that he has never asked for forgiveness because he has never done anything wrong. While he tried to quote a Bible verse he said Two Corinthians instead of Second Corinthians. This should have made it clear that Donald Trump was not one of their own but so many of them continued to support him and his unchristian ways anyway.
I followed several Christian pages on Facebook and I was blown away by their hypocrisy. By 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning they had messages saying that we need to unite as a country. We need to unite as Christians. We need to put everything behind us and look forward. Bull****! Unity is not what America voted for on Tuesday. These pages never said anything about unity during the election and I don’t believe they would have said it had Hillary won.
Another popular sentiment was “God is in control”. This was popular among Black preachers, gospel singers and the like. Well if you go out side and lay down on the double yellow line on the busiest street in your town God is in control but something bad is going to happen because of your stupidity. Use the brains God gave you people.
Well that’s it. I could go on but I’m tired of this whole thing and the word Trump drives me nuts. I hope the first act of legislation that Congress passes after Trump is inaugurated is to change our national anthem to “Living on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. God bless you all. God bless America.
#churchflow is a popular hashtag on Instagram that features users in their Sunday best. This is a post about fashion not about faith.
left to right:
This is a selfie in my basement. I’m wearing a J. Crew black sheath dress with Calvin Klein platform high heeled sandals and a Roberto Cavalli scarf. I bought the dress and scarf last year. I believe I bought the shoes in 2014. The dress was around $50. Shoes were around $60. I’m unsure of how much I paid for the scarf but I think it may have been about $40. I was working at the store where I purchased it so I got an employee discount on top of a sale price. It was a killer deal.
The center is a close up of the items I wore in the selfie on the left.
The right is a dress I bought in Spring of 2016 from New York and Company. It is a part of the Eva Mendes collection.
I have had several customer service jobs in my life. My career has mostly consisted of working in retail and I have had restaurant jobs as well. I have learned a lot about the human race while working as a public servant. Some of it is good. Some is just matter of fact. Much of what I’ve learned is disappointing.
I am a Black woman and I’ve noticed that some customers treat me differently than my non Black counterparts. I have had retail sales jobs where I greeted a customer and asked them if I can help them find anything. They would coldly tell me that they were just looking and barely make eye contact. A non Black store employee would approach them a minute later and the customer’s entire demeanor would change and they gladly let the non Black store associate assist them. I have witnessed this scenario time and time again.
The world has a coldness and condescending attitude towards Blacks. I have often felt that a lot of non Black people have a hard time interacting with Black people without trying to correct or dominate them in some way. A lot of non Black people feel like it is their right to dominate any interaction with a Black person. Sometimes they try to dominate through subtle hints which express disdain for the Black party and sometimes they are more aggressive.
I currently work as a server at a chain restaurant that is popular across the U.S. I had a string of customers over the weekend that were very course and rude over the weekend. Now I’m sure you’re saying all servers have dealt with rude customers and you would be right. But I’ve been Black a long enough to know when I’m dealing with the passive aggressive “You ain’t shit nigger” type of rudeness which is pervasive throughout America.
These particular customers had harshness in their eyes and were very coarse with their words. If I said something to clarify their order they would snap back in a snotty way in order to imply that I was stupid. Some of them avoided eye contact all together when speaking and talked down into their plates. They were very cold, distant, dismissive and rude. This type of behavior is common in Missouri. I’ve never thought that people here are very nice.
People love to find and excuse for racist behavior so I want to say that these particular customers had nasty attitudes as soon as I approached their table so I know it was nothing I did. It was the way I looked that made them so hateful. Some may tell me to just suck it up sister. Believe me I have. Sucking it up and toughing it out gets tiring. So I’m writing about my experiences as a creative outlet and to let my voice be heard among the handful of people that read this blog. (Thank you)
I want to encourage any other Black public servants out there to keep your head up and be professional. It’s not your problem my friend it’s theirs. Keep working hard. Don’t let the prejudice and hatred on someone else’s heart affect you in anyway. Like Beyoncé said “Always be gracious your best revenge is your paper”.
