Free Normal Gets You Nowhere by Kelly Cutrone Page A

Ben Franklin. Seriously, she needs to be on our money!
    After her husband died, Eleanor began her work with the United Nations, which is where one of her greatest accomplishments took place—she coauthored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed by the General Assembly of the United Nations at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris in 1948. As the declaration’s articles flashed on the screen that day, I knew I’d never read anything so fucking simple and beautiful and natural and true. It even said that requiring passports was a violation of our rights as humans—that we were all first and foremost citizens of the world. By this time, I knew Eleanor and I definitely would have been friends. Though I didn’t know much about the document itself, I do believe I was born with an inherent understanding of human rights in my DNA. I mean, passports have always struck me as a huge “Fuck You”; why should I need a document to travel freely on this earth I was born on? I’m a citizen of the world, thank you very much. *
     
    Dear President Obama,
    I’m writing you this letter because I think it’s absolutely deplorable that Eleanor Roosevelt is not on our money. In fact, why aren’t there any women on our money? I mean, with the exception of Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea—and nobody even uses silver dollars anyway. This seems like a mercy-fuck offering to the women’s movement at best. I suggest we bump off one of those troublemaker presidents like Thomas Jefferson, who impregnated his slaves, and get Eleanor on instead. Alternatively, we could transfer Jefferson to the silver dollar and give Eleanor the nickel and the two-dollar bill, both of which he currently occupies. Or here’s a better idea. Since every founding father came from a pioneering birthing mother, let’s issue a feminine counterpart to every coin or bill, with pictures of people like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Betsy Ross, Margaret Sanger, Jane Addams, and Florence Nightingale. If women make over 70 percent of the buying choices in the average home, why aren’t we on the money, even from a purely capitalistic standpoint? I mean, Grover Cleveland is on the thousand-dollar bill! Who the fuck is he?
     
    Sincerely,
     
    Kelly Cutrone
     
    PS: While we’re at it, I suggest we add two new people to Mount Rushmore: Eleanor Roosevelt and, with her, an indigenous person who made a difference in the history of our country, like Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull.
    It all seemed so obvious. Of course we are all born into this world from a mother, and of course we all have a right to every particle on this planet. We should all be free and demand equal treatment under the law! Even gender and race are limiting.
    I’ve always been in favor of the race of:
    EVERYONE.
    Would you like to join me?
    (Let’s get our birth certificates changed immediately. If and when you have a baby and they ask you to name its race, make sure you say, “Everyone.”)
    I was struck by how amazing it is that human beings still haven’t mastered these basic concepts, despite the fact that the Divine has been sending people like Eleanor Roosevelt to us for millennia, from Krishna, Jesus, and Buddha to Gandhi, Rumi, Amma, and The Mother. Think about it. We have been on this earth for tens of thousands of years, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was just written 62 years ago! What is going on here? The progress of humanity is too fucking slow, and that is an understatement. As humans, we are inclined to repetition, not progression. It’s easy to forget that 50 years ago, dark-skinned people still had to use separate bathrooms in some states in this country, and it was against the law for women to fly commercial planes.
    I firmly believe that the United Nations needs a new PR team.
    When the declaration was signed, the United Nations stated countries should “cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational