Three Americas

A middle school in Stafford, Virginia held a lockdown drill—what to do in case of an active shooter … don’t get me started on that—but one student was barred from participating.

When the drill began, a group of students took shelter in the locker room nearest them as they were in PE but one student, a trans girl, was prevented from entering either the boys or girl’s locker room and had to wait while teachers debated where she should go.

Had this been an actual active shooter situation that young girl might have been killed, but by all means let’s stop and talk about where to “put” her to make other students feel safe. After that back-and-forth, the girl was put in a locker room hallway, away from her peers.

Just because she’s transgender.

Ain’t that America …and so is this … Corey Lewis is a black man, a career youth mentor in Marietta, Georgia, and one day he was looking after the children of family friends. He and his mother took the kids to Walmart and then to a Subway for a bite to eat

According to Lewis, an unnamed white woman accosted him and demanded to speak to the oldest of the two children, because the kids were white, and he was black and what was a black man doing with white children.

After threatening to take down his license plate number and call the police, this person followed Corey Lewis, his mother, and the kids, to a local gas station; then they left, with the woman following them to Lewis’ home.

Lewis went on Facebook Live to document the stalker and when police arrived, and questioned Lewis and his mother, they ordered the children out of the car, and quizzed them on who Lewis was and why they were with him.

The kids said "Mr. Lewis" was their babysitter. The officer, however, wasn’t convinced—again, black man, white kids, sandwiches—and he contacted the children’s parents to ask why their children were with Lewis.

The officer questioned the 10-year-old and the 6-year-old before calling their parents—David Parker and Dana Mango—who were stunned:

“I said are you saying that because there’s an African American male driving my two white kids, that he was stopped and pulled over and questioned and he said I’m sorry ma’am that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Babysitting While Black. Ain’t that America …and so is this … Christopher Mirasolo, a convicted sex offender, and a white man, who raped a Michigan woman when she was only 12 years old, has been granted joint custody of his victim’s 8-year-old son.

Back in 2008, a twelve-year-old girl and her sister slipped out of the house late one night to meet a boy; that boy brought along Christopher Mirasolo, who asked them if they’d like to go for a ride.

Mirasolo held the girl’s captive for two days in a vacant house before releasing the older sister in a park—after allegedly threatening to kill both girls if they talked—and then he raped the twelve-year-old girl.

He was arrested a month later when the girl became pregnant. He was sentenced to one year in county jail but only ended up serving six-and-a-half months so he could care for his sick mother.

A rapist gets out of jail to care for his sick mother, and then, years later, is granted joint custody.

Only in America.

Oh, and don’t think I didn’t notice the differences between being transgender in America, and Black in America, and White in America.