Are you out of your ever-loving mind?

This is another post where I tell you about something that I’m not talking about.  This telling-you-what-I’m-not-telling-you was actually a classic rhetorical move used by Chaucer to great effect.  Though at the moment, the exact story in which he used it to such great effect is escaping me.  

The other day I wrote an angry, ranty, post about an ugly bit of racism occurring on our quiet street, and more generally about racism and its stupidity and hypocrisy.  I’ve learned (ha) as I’ve grown older that it’s usually best, with an emotionally charged communication, to let things percolate for a day or two before zapping things off.  Now that the anger has come down to a simmer, I’ve decided not to post that little love note.  It was a little too personal.  That kind of anger isn’t generally a part of who I am or what I do.  

I leave in place, however, two quotes that I think work well together, as part of a somewhat measured response to racism, sexism, ablism, classism, and outright ignorant bigotry.  Implicit in my sharing of these particular quotes at this particular time is, I don’t doubt you’ll notice, an endorsement.  

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Referring to his mother’s “creed,”  Joe Biden said in his acceptance speech for the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination: “No one is better than you.  You are everyone’s equal, and everyone is equal to you.”  

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Stumping for Barack Obama with union workers, Don Gonyea said,  “And here’s a man, Barack Obama, who’s going to fight for people like us, and you won’t vote for him because of the color of his skin.  Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”