Last night I looked around at my personal library, and I decided that for Black History Month, I will post pictures of the books I own, starting with children’s books I love.
In pulling these wonderful books out to reread (and I’ve never understood why great books have to be categorized into “children’s books”) and suggest for you, I also happened on my 50th anniversary copy of Free to Be You and Me.
Back in 1972, Free to Be You and Me, both a record album and book, became national bestsellers. I know I’ve written about this before: the album, played in elementary and middle school classrooms all over, the book on library shelves, featured “Marlo Thomas and Friends,” and her friends included Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Lucille Clifton, Judy Blume, Carl Reiner, Shel Silverstein, and many other wonderful talents. In 2002, however, about the 50th anniversary of this remarkable celebration of diversity in community, the publisher was silent. Why? Because the MAGA millions would have demanded the banning of the book, would have stormed the publisher’s offices, maybe, so ignorant, angry, and fanatical in their hatred of anyone not white and male, had this group become.
I don’t know about you, but today, February 2, 2025, I feel like I’m living through the classic American movie Groundhog Day. This lunatic country can’t seem to move the hell on, grow up, be joyful, and get a goddamned grip on itself. In 1972, coming out of the peace and love movements that emerged out of civil rights and voting rights struggles, antiwar protests, extreme violence by our police and military on peaceful American citizens, Free to Be You and Me was this joyful, light, funny, and also serious clarion call for all of us to see the wisdom, really, of children, of artists. Love people. Learn about them. Celebrate the good. Sing, read, play, dance it out. Do you work. Have fun doing it. Look at us now.
When Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency in 1980 (ironically, his catch phrase was “There you go again”), all the promise of progress embodied by President Jimmy Carter not only came to a screeching halt, but we went back 80 years. Groundhog Day, all over again. The journey of Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is our American story.
When President Barack Obama was elected by a solid majority in 2008, and his inauguration was attended by the largest crowd ever seen, then and to this day, I ugly cried with relief. Finally, I hoped, we were moving on, like that time Bill Murray’s Phil finally has a great date with Andie MacDowell.
But it doesn’t take, that great date, and Phil just fucks it all up again, day after Groundhog Day, because he can’t seem to learn anything about how to be a better man.
We elected Trump. Twice. See what I mean?
All of President Joe Biden’s progress is being undone. Trump’s administration and all federal offices will no longer celebrate Black History Month or Juneteenth; the CDC has taken down all information about LGBTQ+ acceptance or health; these fuckers think they can simply erase all the progress, all the humanity, all the education of two generations.
Phil’s fucked up Groundhog Day yet again. “I got you, babe.”
But you know what? Remember in that movie how Phil has to go to rock bottom, to day after day after repeated day including numerous violent attempts at suicide, before it finally occurs to him that aside from feeling like a hopeless immortal god, he might, you know, use this gift of eternal life to learn piano, say, to save lives, to make friends, to bring his coworkers coffee, to invest in the community?
I think it’s vital to our survival to remember the message of that perfect movie, that for each of us, life is Groundhog Day. You wake up, you begin, and you can live it the same way you did yesterday and the day before that, or you can begin anew, grow, find joy, and have a good time in your personal hell. I’m not saying it’s easy.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of the finest writers and minds this country ever produced, lived through the horrors of WWII and produced Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death in 1969, five years after I was born and three years before Free to Be You and Me, for which he wrote the afterword:
Into the second day of this Black History Month, on this Groundhog Day, I hope we realize we don’t have to continue this way if we don’t like it.
Sending love,
Miss O’
P.S. The Ed Sullivan Show, on the air from 1948 until 1971, when I was 7, was this marvelous compendium and showcase of all the wacky and beautiful and radiant stuff what was our common culture. For Black History Month, I’d like to close with “Pata Pata” by Miriam Makeba, should you need to celebrate living.
The Miss O' Show (Teacher's Edition) 