Every year at this time I loose my voice. It started two weeks ago. It normally only lasts two weeks but not this year.

But the reason they had that class was because they wanted those teens to see how it happened. That they could sit in a room and everyone could be ashamed of their history.

Had not supported Hitler’s regime in some way.

One girl talked about how when she thinks about it, she would feel a weight on her chest.

My fellow high schoolers talked about how they sometimes couldn’t sleep at night after learning (usually somewhere in their mid teens) their grandparents had been Nazis.

Not a single person in that classroom, including the professor, could state that their grandparents (or in his case, parents) -

When I was on scholarship in Germany (which was one of the early steps in my move to the left), I was allowed to sit in on a class where my classmates spoke about learning their grandparents were Nazis.

My doctor literally just let me cry and handed me tissue after tissue once he was done. I knew him when he was a resident.

I don’t know if they are embarrassed. I don’t know if they still support him.

But they did. Repeatedly. Everyone I spoke to in my family told me that there was no way a gestapo like force would be sent into the US to target people of color.

There was no way we could lose abortion rights.

There was no way they could cut SS and Medicare and Food Stamps.

That day, I made an appointment with my doctor to be evaluated, and I removed my sister as my emergency contact.

Because surely my family wouldn’t just say that, right?

But they did.

My doctor evaluated me as I asked.

He told me I wasn’t alone.

Oh my goodness I never realized you had come over here.

How good do you smell?

My mom always got a second turkey and then she’d make a ton of stew after each meal. After my first stepfather left, we were on stamps for a while and that was what we got.

And then my mother in law would literally boil everything so I always tried to work or cook all of the holidays I could.

Oh then it was someone else.

Oh also the Indigo Girls and their song “Language or the Kiss” helped me realize the cost I would pay for coming out. Amazing what one band can do for one 14 year old learning they were gay in the South.

Wait… wasn’t it you who pointed out what great skin I have and how I got it?

I am leaving my home during the day so I can get my meds. I don’t know what’s up. I’m innocent. Always.

I seriously doubt Amy Ray or Emily Saliers are in the Epstein Files. The Indigo Girls have consistently been role models that helped me learn about history and anti racist living. They let me know about being a leftist from the South. But if they were ever going to that island, they’d lose my money.

She loved it.