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Angry Poodle

Poodle Advises Readers: Breathe In, Breathe Out

Hate’s a luxury we can’t afford now. Focus on what we could do better.

Poodle Advises Readers: Breathe In, Breathe Out
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

CURB YOUR HUMAN: When I was a kid, my mother had a “Shirley Chisholm for President” bumper sticker plastered to her car. That was 1972. Chisholm, then a congressmember from New York, was the first Black woman to run for president. She was a genuine badass. My mother was a genuine badass. All the way around, it was a good fit.

Chisholm wound up with 300,000 votes in the primary. I think she got on the ballot in maybe 14 states. Back then, my mother posted signs reading, “I support the right to arm bears” over our kitchen sink. She was also a big believer in “ZPG,” shorthand back then for Zero Population Growth. By then, my mother had given birth to nine children.

It was that kind of house.