Gavin backs up my girl Nicole—Nicci, as I like to call her—James Dobson is in hell, and for some reason, "Not All Men" is all afire—again. Sigh!
Pull up a chair!
*pat, pat, pat*
Nicole Collier: Bathroom Felonies & Backbone
Let’s start with Texas Rep. Nicole Collier (NY Post). This woman is a grown-ass elected official who straight up refused to sign the GOP’s permission slip that would’ve forced her to walk around with a cop escort like she was some toddler on a field trip. Imagine being an adult — a lawmaker! — and your job tries to assign you Officer Barbrady just to make sure you don’t take too many bathroom breaks. It’s giving handmaid cosplay with budget cosplay wigs.
What does sis do?
She slides into the Capitol bathroom with her phone to jump on a call with the big names — Gov. Gavin Newsom (The Hill), Sen. Cory Booker, and DNC Chair Ken Martin. She’s in there testifying about how Texas’ redistricting bill would gut the Voting Rights Act, cracking and packing Black and Brown voters until they can’t choose candidates that look like or care about them.
Go Queen go!
And then — picture it — some hall monitor energy GOP staffer busts in on her in the damn bathroom and tells her she’s committing a felony. A felony. For being on Zoom. In the bathroom. Baby, I have lived through some foolishness in my life, but this is clownery on parade.
Sis had to hang up, but not before Newsom and Booker went full caps lock on her behalf. Booker’s voice was pure Jersey indignation, and Newsom declared: “Yes, we’ll fight fire with fire. Yes, we will push back. It’s not about whether we play hardball anymore — it’s about how we play hardball.” The Hill
Newsom and California Democrats released a proposed set of new congressional lines last week that look to offset expected gains Texas Republicans aim to make with their new House map once passed.
Democrats are seeking to put their House map on the ballot before voters this November, pressing voters to allow lawmakers to redraw the map in the middle of the decade and bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission.
That’s what I’m talking about. Dems, stop bringing tote bags to a gunfight. Bring the whole damn flamethrower.
James Dobson: Not “Dr.” — Just Dead
Now, let’s move to something that had me shouting “good riddance” before I could even take a sip of my coffee. James Dobson (Yahoo News), founder of Focus on the Family, has died at 89.
James Dobson is dead—good!
And let me be clear — I am not calling him “Dr.” as I have seen some do on his behalf—he doesn’t deserve the honorific.
That man built an empire of hate dressed up as family values, fueling the GOP’s war on LGBTQ folks for decades. Ask anyone who has worked a suicide hotline — they’ll tell you the names, the voices, the broken parents, and the broken kids who were crushed under Dobson’s toxic theology.
That’s his legacy: grief, shame, and body counts don’t let MAGA snow you otherwise.
To paraphrase Bette Davis on Joan Crawford: “Only good thing to say about the dead? He’s dead. Good.”
If there’s a hell, he’s looking up from it right now, smug and still proud of his bullshit. And I’ll say it plain: the world is lighter without him.
“Not All Men” = “All Lives Matter” in a Different Wig
Like the slavery discussion (and trust, that’s gonna be a whole notha Substack), the rape conversation has been reignited. I don’t even know what lit the match this time, but I’ll say this: I have always equated “Not All Men” with “All Lives Matter.”
We reserve the right to be selective
Why?
Because both miss the damn point on purpose. Nobody said all lives don’t matter, and nobody said all men are predators. But when Black folks say “Black Lives Matter,” it’s because we’re the ones disproportionately catching hell from police. And when women say “we don’t feel safe,” it’s because 1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted.
I found a few statements on this that I wanted to share because I felt they underscored my sentiments on the matter exactly:
Stop saying “Not all men”—We know it’s not all men. We know there’s good men.But when 1 in 3 women are SA’ed and 98% of rapists are male, we have no choice but to practice precaution— not because we hate men; but because can’t afford not to be cautious.Women rather be safe than sorry. —oni.xxkayxx
I thought this was a good response from a brother in threads I have been following as well:
This explanation may help other guys understand. If you grew up around guns, you were likely taught to "treat every gun as if it's loaded." That's not because guns are always loaded or because you're guaranteed to get shot if you don't treat them that way. It's because you cannot KNOW the gun is unloaded until you check it yourself. The only way to guarantee you DON'T get shot is to ... treat every gun as if it's loaded. Women are just treating us as "loaded guns," until they confirm we're not. - heytojj
In fact, we are looking for a good, nice man; sometimes we may get it wrong, but that doesn't mean we deserve to be mistreated because we're not psychics or that we want assholes.
You may know your intentions — we don’t.
And here’s what makes me furious — some of the very men mocking women for caution would never let their daughters go home with a strange man after dinner. In fact, any man with a female they admire or loves who came to ask them if they should go home with some dude she met in a bar, or if she should trade food for sex, would say, “Dafuck is wrong with you?”
They’d lock her in the bathroom before they let that happen. But somehow, when it’s another woman making that same call for herself, suddenly it’s “hysteria.”
That’s a double standard so big you could park a Walmart in it.
Comedy’s Cheap Shots
While we’re here, let’s drag the comedy bros, too, because too many of them have turned women’s survival into a punchline.
Ricky Gervais, an atheist comedian whom I actually still admire, got on stage and clowned women for “overreacting.” Some other comic bragged about inviting a woman over after a bar meet-up, expecting sex as payment for dinner. When she refused and cited rape stats, he mocked her on stage.
Meanwhile, George Carlin (rest his genius soul) got it—Eddie Murphy?
Not so much.
See, Carlin punched up, not down. He understood that women’s caution was about the system, not some individual man’s ego. Carlin would’ve roasted the power structures that make women afraid, not the women who dare to carry keys between their knuckles walking home at night.
Loved Carlin—although he didn’t seem to understand what a playdate is.
So, to modern male comics making jokes about pepper spray and Uber rides: you’re not edgy. You’re lazy. The laugh you’re chasing comes at the expense of women who are tired of being the punchline to their own trauma.
Wrap-Up
From Nicole Collier literally being bathroom-policed while Booker and Newsom had her back, to James Dobson finally exiting stage left, to women still defending basic caution while comedians cash in on mocking it — all of it proves one thing: hypocrisy is America’s side hustle.
But here’s the flip side — women?
We’ve got endurance. We’ll keep naming it out loud. In heels, in sneakers, in voting booths, and in stacks like this one.
Because the truth will out. And baby, when it does, it don’t just sting — it burns.
Thanks for all your guys support, and if you feel so inclined, check out my Substack here:
