Perhaps the most recent advertising controversy was low-budget fashion giant H&M releasing an image of young black boy modeling a sweatshirt bearing the slogan "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle." The Internet, as it often is, was outraged. Celebrities chimed in, breaking contracts with the company (Diddy purportedly offered the boy a contract with his own line). But of course, the hot-button topic quickly unraveled, seeing backlash from those who didn't see the problem and from those who did. Rachel Dolezal, most famous for wearing blackface and presenting herself as a black woman when, in fact, she's white, released a hoodie that reads "Coolest Prince in the Hood," positioning it as the "woke" alternative to the offensive article in question. Of course, the Venn diagram of "people offended by the H&M hoodie" and "people who are offended by Rachel Dolezal" is approximately a single circle, so a negative response ensued. Then, to top it all off, the young model's mother stated that she is fine with the hoodie, and thinks the surrounding controversy has been blown way out of proportion.
Because the social media news cycle functions at such a breakneck pace, this has already been more or less forgotten. But it will be replaced by another problematic advertising campaign (the Dove campaign in which certain shots make it look like their soap is designed to turn you from a black woman to a white one? The Pop chips campaign where Ashton Kutcher dons brown face?) and we'll have the same debates. It boils down to this: the side in defense of the contentious images will claim that "it's not what it looks like."
And I'm here to say, once and for all: visual content is what it looks like. Literally.
Advertising, television, and film are all visual mediums. They have internal context--the narrative of the images and sounds they're presenting--and external context--the sociopolitical narrative of the environment in which they air. Similarly to how words and symbols (the n-word, the Confederate flag, the swastika) can't exist in a vacuum, divorced of their perverse and traumatic meanings, so too must ads, TV shows, and movies function with the weight of their ideological predecessors. In essence: everything is happening all at once. We'd like to think that what we say and do is only happening in the year we're in (2018, in this case, which still sounds like a fake year from The Future), but in fact it's also happening in 1918, and 1818, and all the years that came before this one. Human beings assign meaning to things, and just because we assign new meanings doesn't mean the old ones immediately go away. I think a lot of the people on the side of "it's not what it looks like" think that slavery and the Holocaust and the suffrage movement and Stonewall all happened, like, a thousand years ago. In reality, it's only been the last 150 years that all of those things ended. In the history of humankind, that barely registers as a blink of an eye.
Speaking of eyes (ugh), as I was saying before, this controversial content is defined by how it looks. While "Coolest Monkey In The Jungle" is a fun, whimsical hoodie design on its own, you can't have a young black boy model it in a year where hate crimes are on the rise for the second year in a row. Ashton Kutcher darkening up his complexion and attempting a deeply offensive accent to play a Bollywood director (also--to sell chips? Who the %^@# came up with that one?) may not have been intended to hurt people, but it came in an era where brown people were (and are) still not represented, underrepresented, and misrepresented in the media. That Dove ad, when put into its larger context, clearly didn't have racist intentions. But if you can pull a couple of sequential screenshots from an ad campaign and make it look like a #woke soap company is trying to sell black people skin whitener, then you need to fire your marketing guy.
Just as there are SO many non-racist Halloween costumes for you to choose from, there are SO many non-racist ad campaigns you could come up with. When ESPN anchors debated whether their network's real-life fantasy draft mimicked a slave auction (black athletes standing on a stage and being more or less auctioned off to a mostly white audience), the conservative commentator offered the same plea that every other conservative offers in these arguments: "It's not what it looks like."
But that's the thing about a picture. It's got a lot of jobs. But its first job is to be is what it looks like.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
On "Cat Person," As A Real-Life 20-Year-Old Girl
Disclaimer: this post will discuss heterosexual romantic relationships between young cis women and older cis men, because a) that's the relationship described in the story, and b) those are the only relationships I have personal experience with. If you are trans or identify outside the binary, or your sexual orientation is not heterosexual, and you have thoughts about how other genders and sexualities interact on age differences, please reach out to me and tell me your stories. I'm always trying to learn more!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person
^ Please go read it if you haven't.
The Internet was taken by storm this past weekend by "Cat Person," a short story by Kristen Roupenian that was published in The New Yorker. Because I am liberal scum, I am a paid subscriber to the publication, but I didn't know about the story until Sunday evening, when Kumail Nanjiani tweeted about it and I had to have a look for myself.
I was absolutely mesmerized. I am a reader, but I'm much more partial to physical books than digital ones. I can sit for hours with a paper book and be totally immersed (provided, you know, that the writing is good). But even a brilliant piece read from a screen can lose my attention, regardless of length, purely because of how easily distracted I am by my glowing box of diversions--other articles or stories, YouTube videos, Spotify, or the four to five Word documents I've got open at any given time, full of my own fledging novels or poems. With "Cat Person," I started reading and didn't stop until I was finished. I will admit that I took brief pauses after certain moments, moments that articulated thoughts I've had so vividly I had to take a break just to let them sink in. It was dizzying.
Despite the visceral discomfort we all feel when reading this story, nothing criminal happens. That's what's so crazy about it. It's just...gross. It's a little bit off. It's the uncanny valley of a sexual encounter. She's 20, he's 34--legal but creepy. She consents because she doesn't want to summon what she believes is the requisite amount of politeness and tact to say no--legal but upsetting. Their sex is at once almost an empowering one-night stand but also almost a case of sexual assault. It walks the line so finely and so articulately, most female readers can immediately drum up an occasion of their own that eerily reflects this one, whether they want to or not.
Being 20 is by far the most confusing age I've experienced yet. Really, I'd say from 18-25 or so, being a woman is complex in a way that being a girl never was. When you're under 18, you are a minor, protected by the law (ostensibly) and only engaging in romantic and sexual relationships with people who are also minors (except under awful circumstances). While the question of assault still looms large, and far too many young girls are plagued by predatory behavior that permanently traumatizes them, society has purportedly made strict rules about who young people are meant to date--each other. Over the age of 25 (this is just me projecting, as I haven't gotten there yet), many women have started living on their own, supporting themselves financially in some capacity, and thinking about marriage and kids as a possibility, even if it's not an immediate one.
It's that hazy area in between, where, in the words of professional adult adolescent Britney Spears, "I'm not a girl, / Not yet a woman." If we're still in school, we're college or grad students; otherwise, we've just recently entered the workforce. Many of us have never been in real relationships (cue Adele singing Hello, it's me). For those of us under 21, we can't even go into bars. And yet! There are men in their 30s, 40s, 50s (need I go on?) who are pursuing us romantically. I made the rookie mistake of setting up an OkCupid profile during my freshman year of college, mainly just to see if it was any better than the tragic hookup wasteland of Tinder, and I was propositioned by multiple men over the age of 30. One 58-year-old man messaged me asking me out, making him older than both of my parents. I shut down the profile pretty quickly after that.
Most girls are told from a young age that we mature faster than boys. Science backs it up (I think, but you can Google it). Therefore, at 20, when we are, by the legal definition, ready to date fully grown men, there's some appeal. Theoretically, the maturity gap is rendered moot by the age difference. These guys--these men--have money, jobs, stability. They don't share a house with seven roommates. They don't wear flip flops to dinner. They don't hook up with your friends, because they don't know your friends, because they're 30. I've never been on a date with a 30-year-old (and I hope I won't for at least a few more years), but this is the kind of bare minimum paradise I imagine awaits me on the other side of 25.
Despite all these clear perks, there are drawbacks. A 30-year-old man is gonna know exactly what he wants from a relationship, physically and emotionally, whereas a 20-year-old girl has no idea. Sex and love mean very different things to those two people. And the power is going to lie with the man, 99% of the time. His gender and his age position him above that woman, no matter how smart or sexually experienced or physically strong she may be. Of COURSE there are exceptions. But the danger comes when we as young women assume we are the exception, when of course, categorically speaking, we almost certainly are not.
I have friends who have gone out with older men. In most cases, they were not scarred for life, physically or psychologically. They just didn't work out, because one or both parties realized that they were just too far apart in experience to have a lasting relationship. I have wound up in conversations with men at social events where neither of us realized the age gap. Twice I found myself flirting/chatting with men in their late 20s as an 18 and 19-year-old, respectively, and both times when they found out my age, they politely ducked out of the conversation. I was hurt--I'm legal (sort of), what's the problem--but in hindsight, these were just good dudes. They weren't trying to tangle themselves up in the type of gray-area sexual encounter described in "Cat Person," and they definitely weren't looking for a relationship with a girl who still had the word "teen" in her age. My total lack of life experience was prohibitive. I am so glad that these men found my age disqualifying instead of titillating.
There's one other fascinating aspect of "Cat Person" that has been touched on decidedly less than I'd like in the thinkpieces I've read so far. I'm talking about Margot's perception of herself. While she and Robert have sex, she becomes most aroused when thinking of herself through his eyes, as a young, thin, beautiful girl that he was grateful to have in his bed. It's the kind of thinking that has attacked my psyche in the past. In practice, I am horrified every time an older man makes a pass at me in public or yells something lewd at me from a car. I feel violated and scared. But in theory, when I think about what I represent to them, this beautiful object that they will never have...I feel...powerful? As insane as that sounds? While I've established that older men will always have greater agency in sexual encounters with younger women, there is a weird sort of synthetic power that comes with being a young woman in a society that teaches women their greatest assets are their beauty and their youth. I have struggled with self-esteem about my looks my entire life, but even at my lowest moments, I am still a 20-year-old girl, and that alone makes me appealing to a disturbing subset of older men. Some dark corner of my mind derives pleasure from that. It's a thing that I've never admitted and that I've never heard any of my female friends admit. But seeing it in "Cat Person" has me wondering if anyone else in my demographic experiences the same thing. If so, what does it mean? What do we do with it? Do we try to rewire our thinking to avoid these infrequent but very real thought patterns? Or do we accept that we are not saints, that our more insidious feelings are just a part of being human?
I don't have answers to these questions, and I don't have a surefire way to avoid unsatisfying or unsettling sexual experiences in the future (if you do, WTF and also who are you?!). What I do know is that "Cat Person" represents the type of fiction I'm always dying to read. It exposes us, it challenges us, it forces us to confront what we think we know about people, forces us to admit that we might be wrong, not just about others, but about ourselves.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person
^ Please go read it if you haven't.
The Internet was taken by storm this past weekend by "Cat Person," a short story by Kristen Roupenian that was published in The New Yorker. Because I am liberal scum, I am a paid subscriber to the publication, but I didn't know about the story until Sunday evening, when Kumail Nanjiani tweeted about it and I had to have a look for myself.
I was absolutely mesmerized. I am a reader, but I'm much more partial to physical books than digital ones. I can sit for hours with a paper book and be totally immersed (provided, you know, that the writing is good). But even a brilliant piece read from a screen can lose my attention, regardless of length, purely because of how easily distracted I am by my glowing box of diversions--other articles or stories, YouTube videos, Spotify, or the four to five Word documents I've got open at any given time, full of my own fledging novels or poems. With "Cat Person," I started reading and didn't stop until I was finished. I will admit that I took brief pauses after certain moments, moments that articulated thoughts I've had so vividly I had to take a break just to let them sink in. It was dizzying.
Despite the visceral discomfort we all feel when reading this story, nothing criminal happens. That's what's so crazy about it. It's just...gross. It's a little bit off. It's the uncanny valley of a sexual encounter. She's 20, he's 34--legal but creepy. She consents because she doesn't want to summon what she believes is the requisite amount of politeness and tact to say no--legal but upsetting. Their sex is at once almost an empowering one-night stand but also almost a case of sexual assault. It walks the line so finely and so articulately, most female readers can immediately drum up an occasion of their own that eerily reflects this one, whether they want to or not.
Being 20 is by far the most confusing age I've experienced yet. Really, I'd say from 18-25 or so, being a woman is complex in a way that being a girl never was. When you're under 18, you are a minor, protected by the law (ostensibly) and only engaging in romantic and sexual relationships with people who are also minors (except under awful circumstances). While the question of assault still looms large, and far too many young girls are plagued by predatory behavior that permanently traumatizes them, society has purportedly made strict rules about who young people are meant to date--each other. Over the age of 25 (this is just me projecting, as I haven't gotten there yet), many women have started living on their own, supporting themselves financially in some capacity, and thinking about marriage and kids as a possibility, even if it's not an immediate one.
It's that hazy area in between, where, in the words of professional adult adolescent Britney Spears, "I'm not a girl, / Not yet a woman." If we're still in school, we're college or grad students; otherwise, we've just recently entered the workforce. Many of us have never been in real relationships (cue Adele singing Hello, it's me). For those of us under 21, we can't even go into bars. And yet! There are men in their 30s, 40s, 50s (need I go on?) who are pursuing us romantically. I made the rookie mistake of setting up an OkCupid profile during my freshman year of college, mainly just to see if it was any better than the tragic hookup wasteland of Tinder, and I was propositioned by multiple men over the age of 30. One 58-year-old man messaged me asking me out, making him older than both of my parents. I shut down the profile pretty quickly after that.
Most girls are told from a young age that we mature faster than boys. Science backs it up (I think, but you can Google it). Therefore, at 20, when we are, by the legal definition, ready to date fully grown men, there's some appeal. Theoretically, the maturity gap is rendered moot by the age difference. These guys--these men--have money, jobs, stability. They don't share a house with seven roommates. They don't wear flip flops to dinner. They don't hook up with your friends, because they don't know your friends, because they're 30. I've never been on a date with a 30-year-old (and I hope I won't for at least a few more years), but this is the kind of bare minimum paradise I imagine awaits me on the other side of 25.
Despite all these clear perks, there are drawbacks. A 30-year-old man is gonna know exactly what he wants from a relationship, physically and emotionally, whereas a 20-year-old girl has no idea. Sex and love mean very different things to those two people. And the power is going to lie with the man, 99% of the time. His gender and his age position him above that woman, no matter how smart or sexually experienced or physically strong she may be. Of COURSE there are exceptions. But the danger comes when we as young women assume we are the exception, when of course, categorically speaking, we almost certainly are not.
I have friends who have gone out with older men. In most cases, they were not scarred for life, physically or psychologically. They just didn't work out, because one or both parties realized that they were just too far apart in experience to have a lasting relationship. I have wound up in conversations with men at social events where neither of us realized the age gap. Twice I found myself flirting/chatting with men in their late 20s as an 18 and 19-year-old, respectively, and both times when they found out my age, they politely ducked out of the conversation. I was hurt--I'm legal (sort of), what's the problem--but in hindsight, these were just good dudes. They weren't trying to tangle themselves up in the type of gray-area sexual encounter described in "Cat Person," and they definitely weren't looking for a relationship with a girl who still had the word "teen" in her age. My total lack of life experience was prohibitive. I am so glad that these men found my age disqualifying instead of titillating.
There's one other fascinating aspect of "Cat Person" that has been touched on decidedly less than I'd like in the thinkpieces I've read so far. I'm talking about Margot's perception of herself. While she and Robert have sex, she becomes most aroused when thinking of herself through his eyes, as a young, thin, beautiful girl that he was grateful to have in his bed. It's the kind of thinking that has attacked my psyche in the past. In practice, I am horrified every time an older man makes a pass at me in public or yells something lewd at me from a car. I feel violated and scared. But in theory, when I think about what I represent to them, this beautiful object that they will never have...I feel...powerful? As insane as that sounds? While I've established that older men will always have greater agency in sexual encounters with younger women, there is a weird sort of synthetic power that comes with being a young woman in a society that teaches women their greatest assets are their beauty and their youth. I have struggled with self-esteem about my looks my entire life, but even at my lowest moments, I am still a 20-year-old girl, and that alone makes me appealing to a disturbing subset of older men. Some dark corner of my mind derives pleasure from that. It's a thing that I've never admitted and that I've never heard any of my female friends admit. But seeing it in "Cat Person" has me wondering if anyone else in my demographic experiences the same thing. If so, what does it mean? What do we do with it? Do we try to rewire our thinking to avoid these infrequent but very real thought patterns? Or do we accept that we are not saints, that our more insidious feelings are just a part of being human?
I don't have answers to these questions, and I don't have a surefire way to avoid unsatisfying or unsettling sexual experiences in the future (if you do, WTF and also who are you?!). What I do know is that "Cat Person" represents the type of fiction I'm always dying to read. It exposes us, it challenges us, it forces us to confront what we think we know about people, forces us to admit that we might be wrong, not just about others, but about ourselves.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
I Am Scared And Nauseous: An Incomplete List
1. literally everything about the president, everything he says and does and stands for. but he's gonna reappear on this list many times more specifically
2. the fires currently eating my hometown/current place of residence
3. maybe we're on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea?!
4. hurricane-damaged areas of the US still reeling
5. Nazis are back?!
6. pretty stoked about all the powerful predatory men being taken down by brave survivors but also I'm genuinely terrified about the possibility of backlash because as far as I can tell when men are publicly humiliated they tend not to take it well
7. we've had about eighty gazillion mass shootings this year and no one will do anything about gun control
8a. the tax bill that just passed raises taxes on literally everyone except for people with private jets. like even regular rich people are paying more taxes you have to literally be a sultan who drives a car made of gold to benefit from this tax bill
8b. they snuck in a bunch of CRAZY CRAP like anti-abortion stuff and other seriously problematic cuts to healthcare
9. A KNOWN PEDOPHILE/SEXUAL ASSAILANT MAY BECOME AN ACTUAL SENATOR IN AN ACTUAL US STATE
10. I have a lot of finals tomorrow
11. boys????? still sending me mixed signals???? in this economy???
12. oH RIGHT NET NEUTRALITY. WE MIGHT LOSE THAT
13. there's a real chance that the president and/or his closest associates colluded with a hostile foreign power to sway the 2016 election, taking it from a competent/experienced politician who literally would have sawed off her limbs for the job and giving it to a bigoted hot-tempered manchild who among other things has: mocked a disabled reporter, not known what clean coal is, said all mexicans are murderers and rapists, said the central park 5 were guilty even though they were exonerated by DNA evidence
14. I have submitted about eight hundred million poems to lit mags and most of them are taking forever to answer but of the ones who have responded I have gotten one acceptance and six rejections
15. sometimes the frat/srat people in my buildings have very loud parties a) on week nights thus disrupting my sleep/study schedule b) and then they don't even invite me ok thanks for the flashbacks to high school
16. I only have like a year and a half until I graduate college with a degree in popular music (what was I thinking) and like I'm probably gonna go to graduate school but the program I'm looking at is only a year and a half and then what???? I am not a pop star yet!!! I am not even pop star adjacent!!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO
17. MUSLIM BAN??? yeah that got passed. bet you didn't even notice. but they added north korea (duh) and venezuela (?!?!?) to the list so now the supreme court is like "oh I guess it's not racist/xenophobic/Islamophobic anymore so it's fine!!!!!!"
18. THE LIFE EXPECTANCY OF A BLACK TRANS WOMAN IS 35 YEARS OLD HOW INSANE IS THAT. how are people literally murdered just for existing. black trans women have spearheaded so many of the most important milestones in LGBTQ+ history. and no one is doing anything about this
if you have anything else you'd like to vent about please leave a comment I'm gonna go KEEP STUDYING FOR FINALS WHILE LYING IN THE FETAL POSITION ON THE FLOOR
2. the fires currently eating my hometown/current place of residence
3. maybe we're on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea?!
4. hurricane-damaged areas of the US still reeling
5. Nazis are back?!
6. pretty stoked about all the powerful predatory men being taken down by brave survivors but also I'm genuinely terrified about the possibility of backlash because as far as I can tell when men are publicly humiliated they tend not to take it well
7. we've had about eighty gazillion mass shootings this year and no one will do anything about gun control
8a. the tax bill that just passed raises taxes on literally everyone except for people with private jets. like even regular rich people are paying more taxes you have to literally be a sultan who drives a car made of gold to benefit from this tax bill
8b. they snuck in a bunch of CRAZY CRAP like anti-abortion stuff and other seriously problematic cuts to healthcare
9. A KNOWN PEDOPHILE/SEXUAL ASSAILANT MAY BECOME AN ACTUAL SENATOR IN AN ACTUAL US STATE
10. I have a lot of finals tomorrow
11. boys????? still sending me mixed signals???? in this economy???
12. oH RIGHT NET NEUTRALITY. WE MIGHT LOSE THAT
13. there's a real chance that the president and/or his closest associates colluded with a hostile foreign power to sway the 2016 election, taking it from a competent/experienced politician who literally would have sawed off her limbs for the job and giving it to a bigoted hot-tempered manchild who among other things has: mocked a disabled reporter, not known what clean coal is, said all mexicans are murderers and rapists, said the central park 5 were guilty even though they were exonerated by DNA evidence
14. I have submitted about eight hundred million poems to lit mags and most of them are taking forever to answer but of the ones who have responded I have gotten one acceptance and six rejections
15. sometimes the frat/srat people in my buildings have very loud parties a) on week nights thus disrupting my sleep/study schedule b) and then they don't even invite me ok thanks for the flashbacks to high school
16. I only have like a year and a half until I graduate college with a degree in popular music (what was I thinking) and like I'm probably gonna go to graduate school but the program I'm looking at is only a year and a half and then what???? I am not a pop star yet!!! I am not even pop star adjacent!!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO
17. MUSLIM BAN??? yeah that got passed. bet you didn't even notice. but they added north korea (duh) and venezuela (?!?!?) to the list so now the supreme court is like "oh I guess it's not racist/xenophobic/Islamophobic anymore so it's fine!!!!!!"
18. THE LIFE EXPECTANCY OF A BLACK TRANS WOMAN IS 35 YEARS OLD HOW INSANE IS THAT. how are people literally murdered just for existing. black trans women have spearheaded so many of the most important milestones in LGBTQ+ history. and no one is doing anything about this
if you have anything else you'd like to vent about please leave a comment I'm gonna go KEEP STUDYING FOR FINALS WHILE LYING IN THE FETAL POSITION ON THE FLOOR
Sunday, October 15, 2017
I Am Not Special & Neither Are They
The first time I ever got catcalled I was 15. It was outside a concert, by a man at least twice my age. I don't remember what he said, just the ice cold fear that swam over my body when I realized how he was looking at me. When I was in eighth grade, I read Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants. In it, she dedicates a chapter to how when women are asked when they first felt like grown women, they hearken back to their first incident of public sexual harassment. That night in February 2013, despite the fear that overcame me, for the first time in my life, I felt like a woman. Not like an adult with any autonomy or agency, but like a woman, with a woman's body, a woman's body that men would claim and comment on from that day forward.
These days, I get catcalled at least once or twice a week. Sometimes, it's benign ("hey, beautiful, give me a smile"), sometimes, it's invasive ("nice ass"), sometimes it's direct ("give me a blowjob" - once that was actually screamed at me from a car), sometimes it's just bizarre ("Girl, I wanna take you to South Florida" - yeah, that one actually happened too).
When the harassment started, I was two weeks shy of eighteen, and no boy had ever even looked at me. I was so anxious around them, so inexperienced, so insecure. I was a kid. A prime target.
He lived on my floor. I thought he was the cutest boy in the hall, but I was surrounded by cute boys in the music school, so I rarely thought of him. I heard he hooked up with another girl on our floor. He didn't seem like an option.
The first weekend of the year, two weeks after we moved in, he got stoned out of his mind at a party a bunch of us went to. On the encouragement of a fellow partygoer, he began to aggressively hit on me. We were standing in a circle of all our floor-mates, plus a few strangers, and all I could do was giggle nervously as he leaned into me, as he made comments about my body, the body I still didn't feel like I owned. I had never felt so...physical. So defined by the body that carried the code-red thoughts I was having. After a few minutes of discomfort, I literally ran away. I recognized the symptoms of the panic attacks I started having the previous year--my throat closing, the sound of my heartbeat in my ears like a kick drum, the cold sweats. After hiding on the other side of the backyard for a while, I ran into some of my other friends and slowly reintegrated into the landscape of the party.
The next night, the boy came into my dorm room with a bunch of other people (we were kind of the social room, much to my chagrin). He stayed after everybody else left so he could apologize to me.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable," he said.
"I was just really, really high," he said.
"But I do think you're beautiful," he said.
I choked out giggly replies, anything to get him to leave. I remember thanking him. I remember smiling because finally, at long last, a cute boy thought I was beautiful.
It wasn't over. For the next three weeks, he came into my dorm room almost every day with a flimsy excuse. He sat next to me in dining halls. He liked all my Instagram posts, including the hundreds of photos I'd posted before we'd ever met. I remember watching in amazement as my notifications updated, surprised at his boldness. He would untie and retie my shoes, tug at my clothes, play with my hair. I never asked him to stop, just froze and waited for the touch to be over. Sometimes, I think (I hope), I ducked from his hands, only for them to find their way back to me. More than once, he would make me eat or drink whatever he was eating or drinking. I would say no, and he would beg, and beg, and beg, to the point of making the other people at the table uncomfortable, and I would just giggle like an idiot and submit, eating or drinking whatever it was. During one of his many visits to my dorm, he put food directly into my mouth while I was still asking him to stop.
The symbolism was not lost on me. Every weekend, he asked me to go to parties at his frat house, and I would decline. If he didn't listen when I turned down his offer of potato chips, what would happen when something else was on the line?
So how did it ultimately stop? I tried everything. He was the king of doublespeak. He would tell me and my roommates that he "really liked me" and "just wanted to get to know me better." But he would tell his roommates and the other guys on our floor that he was just after me because I was "playing hard to get." A couple times, his roommates told him to back off, and he would reply, "no, trust me, she wants it." I cringe as I write those words.
The only thing that got him to let it go was when he stumbled on some of my tweets. I had written a thread about him, without naming him publicly:
I don't know what came over me, this digital boldness that I so clearly lacked in real life. But while we were eating in the dining hall one evening, he located the tweets and read them out loud. I tried to laugh them off as a "general feminist rant," but I could see his face fall. He knew they were about him.
And all at once, the advances stopped.
My roommates were relieved, partly for my benefit, mostly because they were probably just tired of hearing me talk about it all the time. The girls on my floor gave me daps for my #feminism. The guys on my floor told me to apologize. (??!?!) Yes, they said that our friendly antagonist was upset because "I'd hurt his feelings" and that I should say I was sorry. I recognized even then that apologizing would be absolutely insane, so I didn't. And I don't think we ever spoke again.
Last year I invited a boy up to my apartment. We'd talked all night at a party, a Halloween party where I'd spent most of the night with my shirt half-unbuttoned. I thought maybe he just wanted to keep talking. He didn't.
"Is this gonna happen, or...?" he asked.
"Um," was all I could say.
"I mean...it's 3 a.m.," he said. "And you're wearing...that."
I blamed myself. You did a shot, he could see your bra, you touched his arm like a video vixen, you invited him up to your apartment, what did you think was gonna happen? The panic rose again, the cold sweat, the heartbeat rhythm section, the tightening spiral of my throat.
"We could go to the bed," he said (ew). "Or...I could leave."
"You should leave," I said.
And he did.
He told me he'd text me.
He didn't.
I tell these long-winded stories to express solidarity with all the women harassed and assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and other serial predators like him. But maybe even more importantly, I want to reach out to girls harassed and assaulted by trusted authority figures, by friends, by family. The guys in these story are not special or unique. They are devastatingly average college guys who did a devastatingly average thing. People, but men especially, are so quick to say that rapists and other sexual predators are shocking or rare. But they're just not. I am lucky that nothing serious happened to me. These guys thought I was too much work and gave up. Had they been more determined, our stories might have had different endings.
If you have ever been harassed or assaulted, you are not alone. We believe you. No matter where your story falls on the spectrum, it's not your fault, and it's not okay. I didn't owe that guy an apology. If you spoke out or fought back, you don't owe them an apology either.
If we allow harassment--if we condone the behavior of people who don't listen when we say no--we allow assault. Rape culture is built on the backs of the stories that don't merit expulsion from the Academy, the slippery slope of "it was just a joke" and "why are you being so sensitive" and "it could have been worse." That's why I'm writing this. Because I didn't get assaulted. Because I have stared the monster in the face. Because I felt its breath on my face. Because I didn't know what it looked like, walked by it on the street, said thank you when it flashed its teeth, let it get close, struggled to get away even when I didn't.
You are not alone. It's not okay. It's not your fault. We believe you.
#MeToo
These days, I get catcalled at least once or twice a week. Sometimes, it's benign ("hey, beautiful, give me a smile"), sometimes, it's invasive ("nice ass"), sometimes it's direct ("give me a blowjob" - once that was actually screamed at me from a car), sometimes it's just bizarre ("Girl, I wanna take you to South Florida" - yeah, that one actually happened too).
When the harassment started, I was two weeks shy of eighteen, and no boy had ever even looked at me. I was so anxious around them, so inexperienced, so insecure. I was a kid. A prime target.
He lived on my floor. I thought he was the cutest boy in the hall, but I was surrounded by cute boys in the music school, so I rarely thought of him. I heard he hooked up with another girl on our floor. He didn't seem like an option.
The first weekend of the year, two weeks after we moved in, he got stoned out of his mind at a party a bunch of us went to. On the encouragement of a fellow partygoer, he began to aggressively hit on me. We were standing in a circle of all our floor-mates, plus a few strangers, and all I could do was giggle nervously as he leaned into me, as he made comments about my body, the body I still didn't feel like I owned. I had never felt so...physical. So defined by the body that carried the code-red thoughts I was having. After a few minutes of discomfort, I literally ran away. I recognized the symptoms of the panic attacks I started having the previous year--my throat closing, the sound of my heartbeat in my ears like a kick drum, the cold sweats. After hiding on the other side of the backyard for a while, I ran into some of my other friends and slowly reintegrated into the landscape of the party.
The next night, the boy came into my dorm room with a bunch of other people (we were kind of the social room, much to my chagrin). He stayed after everybody else left so he could apologize to me.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable," he said.
"I was just really, really high," he said.
"But I do think you're beautiful," he said.
I choked out giggly replies, anything to get him to leave. I remember thanking him. I remember smiling because finally, at long last, a cute boy thought I was beautiful.
It wasn't over. For the next three weeks, he came into my dorm room almost every day with a flimsy excuse. He sat next to me in dining halls. He liked all my Instagram posts, including the hundreds of photos I'd posted before we'd ever met. I remember watching in amazement as my notifications updated, surprised at his boldness. He would untie and retie my shoes, tug at my clothes, play with my hair. I never asked him to stop, just froze and waited for the touch to be over. Sometimes, I think (I hope), I ducked from his hands, only for them to find their way back to me. More than once, he would make me eat or drink whatever he was eating or drinking. I would say no, and he would beg, and beg, and beg, to the point of making the other people at the table uncomfortable, and I would just giggle like an idiot and submit, eating or drinking whatever it was. During one of his many visits to my dorm, he put food directly into my mouth while I was still asking him to stop.
The symbolism was not lost on me. Every weekend, he asked me to go to parties at his frat house, and I would decline. If he didn't listen when I turned down his offer of potato chips, what would happen when something else was on the line?
So how did it ultimately stop? I tried everything. He was the king of doublespeak. He would tell me and my roommates that he "really liked me" and "just wanted to get to know me better." But he would tell his roommates and the other guys on our floor that he was just after me because I was "playing hard to get." A couple times, his roommates told him to back off, and he would reply, "no, trust me, she wants it." I cringe as I write those words.
The only thing that got him to let it go was when he stumbled on some of my tweets. I had written a thread about him, without naming him publicly:
And all at once, the advances stopped.
My roommates were relieved, partly for my benefit, mostly because they were probably just tired of hearing me talk about it all the time. The girls on my floor gave me daps for my #feminism. The guys on my floor told me to apologize. (??!?!) Yes, they said that our friendly antagonist was upset because "I'd hurt his feelings" and that I should say I was sorry. I recognized even then that apologizing would be absolutely insane, so I didn't. And I don't think we ever spoke again.
Last year I invited a boy up to my apartment. We'd talked all night at a party, a Halloween party where I'd spent most of the night with my shirt half-unbuttoned. I thought maybe he just wanted to keep talking. He didn't.
"Is this gonna happen, or...?" he asked.
"Um," was all I could say.
"I mean...it's 3 a.m.," he said. "And you're wearing...that."
I blamed myself. You did a shot, he could see your bra, you touched his arm like a video vixen, you invited him up to your apartment, what did you think was gonna happen? The panic rose again, the cold sweat, the heartbeat rhythm section, the tightening spiral of my throat.
"We could go to the bed," he said (ew). "Or...I could leave."
"You should leave," I said.
And he did.
He told me he'd text me.
He didn't.
I tell these long-winded stories to express solidarity with all the women harassed and assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and other serial predators like him. But maybe even more importantly, I want to reach out to girls harassed and assaulted by trusted authority figures, by friends, by family. The guys in these story are not special or unique. They are devastatingly average college guys who did a devastatingly average thing. People, but men especially, are so quick to say that rapists and other sexual predators are shocking or rare. But they're just not. I am lucky that nothing serious happened to me. These guys thought I was too much work and gave up. Had they been more determined, our stories might have had different endings.
If you have ever been harassed or assaulted, you are not alone. We believe you. No matter where your story falls on the spectrum, it's not your fault, and it's not okay. I didn't owe that guy an apology. If you spoke out or fought back, you don't owe them an apology either.
If we allow harassment--if we condone the behavior of people who don't listen when we say no--we allow assault. Rape culture is built on the backs of the stories that don't merit expulsion from the Academy, the slippery slope of "it was just a joke" and "why are you being so sensitive" and "it could have been worse." That's why I'm writing this. Because I didn't get assaulted. Because I have stared the monster in the face. Because I felt its breath on my face. Because I didn't know what it looked like, walked by it on the street, said thank you when it flashed its teeth, let it get close, struggled to get away even when I didn't.
You are not alone. It's not okay. It's not your fault. We believe you.
#MeToo
Monday, October 2, 2017
False Alarm Symphony of Classical Conditioning
It's around 12:30pm on the first Monday in October and I'm sitting front-row in the psych lab I seriously considered skipping, and after a weekend of staying out too late both nights, I am taking a sorely needed day of vocal rest--not even the 9-hour sleep I got last night is going to save me--and I'm checking my email, I've got one from The New Yorker, because I am liberal swine, and they've hand-delivered me a series of articles on the Las Vegas shooting from last night, plus a handful of others on gun violence and terrorism the Trumpian response thereto, and I'm half-reading those while I half-pay attention to a lecture on classical conditioning that began with a Simpsonian preamble in which Lisa pits Bart against a hamster in an Olympic relay of conditioned tasks, and I scribble down phrases like unconditioned stimulus and conditioned response, and my TA puts us into groups and I frantically sign-language that I am without speech for the day, which my partner doesn't mind, she'll talk for both of us, and eventually the class has settled into that din of group work and I can turn my attention back to the thinkpiece on Jason Aldean and his grief-stricken fans when someone behind me says active shooter, and I think to myself well yes, of course they're still talking about it, I'm still reading about it, it hasn't even been a day, until one of them says but my roommate is there, at which point I realize my TA has left the room, and other people are also murmuring active shooter and when my TA reenters it's to say that I'm sure you guys have heard by now, but there's an active shooter on campus, we need to lockdown, let's move the desks, does anyone have a belt, stay away from the glass pane in the door, and soon the lights are off and we're all crammed into one side of the room, phones buzzing like tuning instruments, like the first movement of the symphony, the frantic messages from loved ones trying to squeeze out through the speakers before we can even pick up the phone.
In my lifetime, I have seen more mass shootings than many countries have in their entire history. Columbine happened when I was a baby, Virginia Tech when I was in elementary school, a whole slew of others in my adolescence and college years--Sandy Hook, Aurora, Charleston, San Bernardino, the Pulse nightclub, so many others I'm forgetting, and last night in Las Vegas, the nth time a terrorist massacre has been labeled "the deadliest mass shooting in US history" like a horrifying Guinness record where the evil keeps outdoing itself, over and over and over again.
I live in Los Angeles, and I was born and raised here. Our emergency training, outside of fire drills, always included earthquake preparedness, you know, growing up on the San Andreas fault and all. I don't fear them because I know what to do when they start. Feel the quake, get under the desk or the table, move away from glass or anything that could fall. I don't remember when lockdown drills started. I guess they were always there. In middle school, one of the security guards would enter a classroom in the guise of a shooter and we were meant to practice our teachings--belt the door, if we could, before he entered, and if he managed to get in, distract him, throw desks, throw chairs, jump on his back if need be, do not be a sitting duck, do not be a target, do not go quietly into that good night. A shooter never came for me, so the fear remained. I have a feeling that if (or, more grimly, when) he does, it will remain then, too.
And I do mean he. White men have carried out more mass shootings than any other demographic in the United States. The argument has been bandied about by my liberal peers for years, but it bears repeating, that brown skin and Islam do not a terrorist make, that if we want to start calling it what it is, we need to stop assuming its name will always be Osama or Omar, we need to name it Adam and Dylann and Eric and James.
I love that we knew what to do in that room while we waited for the all clear--and it did come, for the record: this story ends with a false alarm so serene it was less siren and more soft ska--but I hated that we knew what to do. I hated that we moved into position and belted the door shut like choreography, I hated that my family kept calling to check on me, I hated that less than 24 hours from a tragedy we were staring down the barrel of another one, even when my gut told me that it was a false alarm, I hated that I had to wait until I knew for sure, I hate this conditioning and I want to wash it out, I want to wash the blood off the flag, I want to wash the gun lobby down the drain, I want to Australia these shootings out of the future because I know there's no way to erase the past.
When LAPD tweets that there is no danger, that we can all go home, my TA tells us to forget about the lab, that we'll figure something out. On the walk out of the building, every conversation I overhear is a phone call to a grandmother or nervous chatter about what could have been. This, too, is part of the conditioning: the aftermath of the real or imagined violence. Imagined: sighs of relief. Email blast/Facebook post/tweet that it's all alright. Real: the rote message from politicians I could probably recite from memory about thoughts and prayers. Funerals for the deceased and healthcare bills for the injured bankrupting the "lucky."
I have not been the victim of gun violence. No one close to me has been, either. That statistic should not be an outlier. The voice behind these marks and dashes is a coastal elite who reads The New Yorker for fun. Colorado and Nevada went blue in 2016. But South Carolina went red. So did Florida. With a single Google search, I found a website literally called massshootingtracker.org. Is this the new normal? Just another in a long line of conditioned responses?
Break the habit. Make Pavlov roll over in his grave.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
In my lifetime, I have seen more mass shootings than many countries have in their entire history. Columbine happened when I was a baby, Virginia Tech when I was in elementary school, a whole slew of others in my adolescence and college years--Sandy Hook, Aurora, Charleston, San Bernardino, the Pulse nightclub, so many others I'm forgetting, and last night in Las Vegas, the nth time a terrorist massacre has been labeled "the deadliest mass shooting in US history" like a horrifying Guinness record where the evil keeps outdoing itself, over and over and over again.
I live in Los Angeles, and I was born and raised here. Our emergency training, outside of fire drills, always included earthquake preparedness, you know, growing up on the San Andreas fault and all. I don't fear them because I know what to do when they start. Feel the quake, get under the desk or the table, move away from glass or anything that could fall. I don't remember when lockdown drills started. I guess they were always there. In middle school, one of the security guards would enter a classroom in the guise of a shooter and we were meant to practice our teachings--belt the door, if we could, before he entered, and if he managed to get in, distract him, throw desks, throw chairs, jump on his back if need be, do not be a sitting duck, do not be a target, do not go quietly into that good night. A shooter never came for me, so the fear remained. I have a feeling that if (or, more grimly, when) he does, it will remain then, too.
And I do mean he. White men have carried out more mass shootings than any other demographic in the United States. The argument has been bandied about by my liberal peers for years, but it bears repeating, that brown skin and Islam do not a terrorist make, that if we want to start calling it what it is, we need to stop assuming its name will always be Osama or Omar, we need to name it Adam and Dylann and Eric and James.
I love that we knew what to do in that room while we waited for the all clear--and it did come, for the record: this story ends with a false alarm so serene it was less siren and more soft ska--but I hated that we knew what to do. I hated that we moved into position and belted the door shut like choreography, I hated that my family kept calling to check on me, I hated that less than 24 hours from a tragedy we were staring down the barrel of another one, even when my gut told me that it was a false alarm, I hated that I had to wait until I knew for sure, I hate this conditioning and I want to wash it out, I want to wash the blood off the flag, I want to wash the gun lobby down the drain, I want to Australia these shootings out of the future because I know there's no way to erase the past.
When LAPD tweets that there is no danger, that we can all go home, my TA tells us to forget about the lab, that we'll figure something out. On the walk out of the building, every conversation I overhear is a phone call to a grandmother or nervous chatter about what could have been. This, too, is part of the conditioning: the aftermath of the real or imagined violence. Imagined: sighs of relief. Email blast/Facebook post/tweet that it's all alright. Real: the rote message from politicians I could probably recite from memory about thoughts and prayers. Funerals for the deceased and healthcare bills for the injured bankrupting the "lucky."
I have not been the victim of gun violence. No one close to me has been, either. That statistic should not be an outlier. The voice behind these marks and dashes is a coastal elite who reads The New Yorker for fun. Colorado and Nevada went blue in 2016. But South Carolina went red. So did Florida. With a single Google search, I found a website literally called massshootingtracker.org. Is this the new normal? Just another in a long line of conditioned responses?
Break the habit. Make Pavlov roll over in his grave.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Friday, May 12, 2017
Why "Malibu" Is The Whitest Thing Miley Has Ever Done
So Miley is back on the scene, and she's whiter than ever.
I'm talking less about the visual and sonic content of the video and accompanying track, and more about the 180-degree transformation she just completed, the one that critics of cultural appropriation have been sounding alarms about since 2013.
In case you forgot, here's a brief history: we met Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana, who then dropped the Disney show and the fictional double life to Become An Adult. Slowly but surely, she progressed through the "Party in the USA" / "Can't Be Tamed" era, in which conservative parents began to vocally protest her newfound sexual liberation, and dove headfirst into "We Can't Stop," a party rock anthem replete with outright sexual imagery and drug use. I would've been 100% in favor of this progression--live your truth, Miley--if not for the disconcerting fetishization and commoditization of black bodies in her video, as well as the starkness of the cultural appropriation in her 2013 VMA performance and subsequent public appearances. In addition to flouting her affinity for weed--a drug that disproportionately lands black users behind bars while white users walk away with less than a slap on the wrist--Miley co-opted black dance, hair, and fashion in a way that seemed less like homage and more like theft. Like so many white artists, she put on black culture like a costume, a gag, a point of shock value, without acknowledging the very real struggles that black individuals face for doing and wearing the same things.
And now, with "Malibu," she's casting it all aside.
Defenders of Miley's image, the one that emerged circa 2012-2013, claimed that she was just finding herself, that it wasn't a race thing, that in the creative marketplace we are all entitled to craft aesthetics from existing institutions. That's a great idea, but it's a common, naive (and white) fallacy. She wasn't "finding herself"--she was profiting off cultural paradigms that subjugate the black people who create them but are seen as innovative when projected onto white bodies. And to say that something "isn't a race thing" ignores the larger cultural context that when black and brown people so ANYTHING, it is seen as racial. As political. It is a distinctly white luxury to say that something isn't about race. When I so much as straighten my hair, it is seen as a political statement, an indictment of my view of myself and my heritage. If I don't get to escape the politicization of personal aesthetics, then neither does Miley. Furthermore, the difference between black and brown artists "borrowing" from white culture--whatever that's deemed to be, as most cultural anthropologists find that term to be nebulous at best--and the inverse is that the oppression of black and brown communities inhibits them from profiting off that exchange in the same way that white communities do. No cultural exchanges take place in a vacuum. You must consider the power dynamics at play. Miley is a wealthy white woman. While being a white woman in America is still to be part of a disdvantaged community, the disadvantages are distinctly different from those of black and brown men, woman, and trans and gender non-confirming individuals. Miley will never fully understand those experiences, no matter how many times she twerks on TV.
So what's the issue at hand, really? Namely, that with the release of "Malibu," Miley has confirmed what black and brown women have been saying for years--that her "radical" posturing as a fraudulent member of the PoC communities was nothing more than elaborate costuming. She gets to shed her corn rows and put on a white dress and dance on a beach and sing about Malibu. Meanwhile, no matter how many delicate dresses or white sand beaches I frolic on, I never get to stop being black. I never get to stop hearing the condescending comments about how I "talk white" or the questions about whether or not my hair is real. I never get to stop being afraid of police, both for myself and for my brothers and father. I never get to stop worrying about how not only my gender will affect my future salaries, but my race, too (black and brown women make even less to a white man's dollar than a white woman or black man does).
With a single music video, Miley is back to being a delicate flower. Sure, white womanhood is a cage of objectification, but at least as a white woman, you're on object that society wants to protect.
Black and brown women don't have that luxury.
I don't hate Miley Cyrus. She's not a bad person. She's just white. And to be white in this country without checking your privilege is a dangerous thing.
I'm talking less about the visual and sonic content of the video and accompanying track, and more about the 180-degree transformation she just completed, the one that critics of cultural appropriation have been sounding alarms about since 2013.
In case you forgot, here's a brief history: we met Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana, who then dropped the Disney show and the fictional double life to Become An Adult. Slowly but surely, she progressed through the "Party in the USA" / "Can't Be Tamed" era, in which conservative parents began to vocally protest her newfound sexual liberation, and dove headfirst into "We Can't Stop," a party rock anthem replete with outright sexual imagery and drug use. I would've been 100% in favor of this progression--live your truth, Miley--if not for the disconcerting fetishization and commoditization of black bodies in her video, as well as the starkness of the cultural appropriation in her 2013 VMA performance and subsequent public appearances. In addition to flouting her affinity for weed--a drug that disproportionately lands black users behind bars while white users walk away with less than a slap on the wrist--Miley co-opted black dance, hair, and fashion in a way that seemed less like homage and more like theft. Like so many white artists, she put on black culture like a costume, a gag, a point of shock value, without acknowledging the very real struggles that black individuals face for doing and wearing the same things.
And now, with "Malibu," she's casting it all aside.
Defenders of Miley's image, the one that emerged circa 2012-2013, claimed that she was just finding herself, that it wasn't a race thing, that in the creative marketplace we are all entitled to craft aesthetics from existing institutions. That's a great idea, but it's a common, naive (and white) fallacy. She wasn't "finding herself"--she was profiting off cultural paradigms that subjugate the black people who create them but are seen as innovative when projected onto white bodies. And to say that something "isn't a race thing" ignores the larger cultural context that when black and brown people so ANYTHING, it is seen as racial. As political. It is a distinctly white luxury to say that something isn't about race. When I so much as straighten my hair, it is seen as a political statement, an indictment of my view of myself and my heritage. If I don't get to escape the politicization of personal aesthetics, then neither does Miley. Furthermore, the difference between black and brown artists "borrowing" from white culture--whatever that's deemed to be, as most cultural anthropologists find that term to be nebulous at best--and the inverse is that the oppression of black and brown communities inhibits them from profiting off that exchange in the same way that white communities do. No cultural exchanges take place in a vacuum. You must consider the power dynamics at play. Miley is a wealthy white woman. While being a white woman in America is still to be part of a disdvantaged community, the disadvantages are distinctly different from those of black and brown men, woman, and trans and gender non-confirming individuals. Miley will never fully understand those experiences, no matter how many times she twerks on TV.
So what's the issue at hand, really? Namely, that with the release of "Malibu," Miley has confirmed what black and brown women have been saying for years--that her "radical" posturing as a fraudulent member of the PoC communities was nothing more than elaborate costuming. She gets to shed her corn rows and put on a white dress and dance on a beach and sing about Malibu. Meanwhile, no matter how many delicate dresses or white sand beaches I frolic on, I never get to stop being black. I never get to stop hearing the condescending comments about how I "talk white" or the questions about whether or not my hair is real. I never get to stop being afraid of police, both for myself and for my brothers and father. I never get to stop worrying about how not only my gender will affect my future salaries, but my race, too (black and brown women make even less to a white man's dollar than a white woman or black man does).
With a single music video, Miley is back to being a delicate flower. Sure, white womanhood is a cage of objectification, but at least as a white woman, you're on object that society wants to protect.
Black and brown women don't have that luxury.
I don't hate Miley Cyrus. She's not a bad person. She's just white. And to be white in this country without checking your privilege is a dangerous thing.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
This Whole Swastika Thing Is Getting Out of Control
If you don't go to USC, or you do, but you spend very little time on the Internet, you might not know that there was a firestorm today about a vendor on campus who was selling shirts that had swastikas on them.
I've seen pictures of the shirt. I don't know the vendor personally, but based on the images, it seems like the vendor was attempting to shed some light on the history of the symbol, and to condemn those who have used it to spread hate. Which is, like, nice, I guess? But ultimately irrelevant.
A USC student who posted about an emotional response to the shirt was immediately assaulted with an onslaught of comments from people calling her an oversensitive snowflake, mocking her for being triggered, and making a lot of anti-Semitic remarks in general. There were even more people who jumped in to play devil's advocate, to explain that the symbol is *supposed* to be peaceful, to denounce Nazism but to defend free speech and the right of the individual to sell the shirt.
Here's my thing.
I'm a black Jew who has never felt particularly welcomed by the Jewish community. So it goes--I'm not really religious anyway, so it was always more of an inconvenience to have my heritage questioned than a real point of offense. Nonetheless, I have ancestors that were persecuted in the Holocaust, and my white, Jewish mother is just as integral to my identity as my black, non-Jewish father. So seeing swastikas for me is always kind of painful. Even if other Jews don't usually recognize me as one of their own, some part of me still feels tied to that community. The experience is sort of like (though not identical to) when I hear people say the n-word. Even though it's not (usually) directed at me, and even though its usage does not directly subjugate me, I can feel the weight of its historical significance. I know that I'm only a couple generations removed from people whose lives were made absolutely unlivable by that word, and that symbol. (Also, black people were murdered during the Holocaust. As were gays, and the disabled, and a whole bunch of other marginalized groups. I digress).
But even if you AREN'T descended from people who were historically persecuted, you should have a problem with the swastika. It's not what it used to be. I know the "swastikas have seen better days" argument sounds silly when I phrase it that way, but they have. The only reason that any words or symbols have meaning is because we have assigned meaning to them. And when a meaning--particularly a violent one--becomes widely accepted and installed into the historical canon, it is imperative that we keep that in mind as time passes. I don't know if humanity will ever be able to "reclaim" the swastika, or the Confederate flag, or any other symbol that has once stood for hate, without facing repercussions.
Also--why are people (specifically straight/cisgender/white/Christian/male people) so obsessed with playing devil's advocate? Do you hear yourself? The devil doesn't need any more advocates! (And yes, I did order a shirt from Customink that has that very saying emblazoned across the chest). I get that you have been brought up to look at controversial issues from all sides, and to look at the facts. But I read a great quote somewhere about politics that essentially says: don't bring facts to a feelings party, and don't bring feelings to a facts party. When it comes to the swastika, you're in feelings territory. Climate change? Facts party. It exists. Economics? Facts party. Unemployment is a quantifiable statistic. Hate speech? Big ol' feelings party. It doesn't REALLY matter, in my opinion, that the swastika has peaceful origins, because those origins were perverted by the Nazi party. And that symbol has brought a lot of people a lot of pain. Your facts will crumble in the face of the trauma that millions of people experienced during the Holocaust, and that even more people experienced in the subsequent decades as a result of the genocide.
My final point, I suppose, is that you have to really think about what you're getting worked up about. If your Big Cause that you're fighting for is some person's right to sell shirts with swastikas on them, maybe you should reprioritize a bit. Free speech is a great thing to fight for. Hate speech? Notsomuch. No matter what that vendor thought they were accomplishing, they were acting with ignorance and privilege. And when those shortcomings were called out, they chose to continue doing what they were doing. And that's a big problem.
If you are part of any privileged group, and someone from a marginalized group says that they have been hurt by your words or actions, you don't just get to ~decide~ that you didn't do anything wrong. You need to take a step back and learn why what you did might be problematic. And if it doesn't affect your way of life, you should stop. Use a different word. Call someone by the correct pronouns.
Sell almost any other *#!&$@*! shirt.
I've seen pictures of the shirt. I don't know the vendor personally, but based on the images, it seems like the vendor was attempting to shed some light on the history of the symbol, and to condemn those who have used it to spread hate. Which is, like, nice, I guess? But ultimately irrelevant.
A USC student who posted about an emotional response to the shirt was immediately assaulted with an onslaught of comments from people calling her an oversensitive snowflake, mocking her for being triggered, and making a lot of anti-Semitic remarks in general. There were even more people who jumped in to play devil's advocate, to explain that the symbol is *supposed* to be peaceful, to denounce Nazism but to defend free speech and the right of the individual to sell the shirt.
Here's my thing.
I'm a black Jew who has never felt particularly welcomed by the Jewish community. So it goes--I'm not really religious anyway, so it was always more of an inconvenience to have my heritage questioned than a real point of offense. Nonetheless, I have ancestors that were persecuted in the Holocaust, and my white, Jewish mother is just as integral to my identity as my black, non-Jewish father. So seeing swastikas for me is always kind of painful. Even if other Jews don't usually recognize me as one of their own, some part of me still feels tied to that community. The experience is sort of like (though not identical to) when I hear people say the n-word. Even though it's not (usually) directed at me, and even though its usage does not directly subjugate me, I can feel the weight of its historical significance. I know that I'm only a couple generations removed from people whose lives were made absolutely unlivable by that word, and that symbol. (Also, black people were murdered during the Holocaust. As were gays, and the disabled, and a whole bunch of other marginalized groups. I digress).
But even if you AREN'T descended from people who were historically persecuted, you should have a problem with the swastika. It's not what it used to be. I know the "swastikas have seen better days" argument sounds silly when I phrase it that way, but they have. The only reason that any words or symbols have meaning is because we have assigned meaning to them. And when a meaning--particularly a violent one--becomes widely accepted and installed into the historical canon, it is imperative that we keep that in mind as time passes. I don't know if humanity will ever be able to "reclaim" the swastika, or the Confederate flag, or any other symbol that has once stood for hate, without facing repercussions.
Also--why are people (specifically straight/cisgender/white/Christian/male people) so obsessed with playing devil's advocate? Do you hear yourself? The devil doesn't need any more advocates! (And yes, I did order a shirt from Customink that has that very saying emblazoned across the chest). I get that you have been brought up to look at controversial issues from all sides, and to look at the facts. But I read a great quote somewhere about politics that essentially says: don't bring facts to a feelings party, and don't bring feelings to a facts party. When it comes to the swastika, you're in feelings territory. Climate change? Facts party. It exists. Economics? Facts party. Unemployment is a quantifiable statistic. Hate speech? Big ol' feelings party. It doesn't REALLY matter, in my opinion, that the swastika has peaceful origins, because those origins were perverted by the Nazi party. And that symbol has brought a lot of people a lot of pain. Your facts will crumble in the face of the trauma that millions of people experienced during the Holocaust, and that even more people experienced in the subsequent decades as a result of the genocide.
My final point, I suppose, is that you have to really think about what you're getting worked up about. If your Big Cause that you're fighting for is some person's right to sell shirts with swastikas on them, maybe you should reprioritize a bit. Free speech is a great thing to fight for. Hate speech? Notsomuch. No matter what that vendor thought they were accomplishing, they were acting with ignorance and privilege. And when those shortcomings were called out, they chose to continue doing what they were doing. And that's a big problem.
If you are part of any privileged group, and someone from a marginalized group says that they have been hurt by your words or actions, you don't just get to ~decide~ that you didn't do anything wrong. You need to take a step back and learn why what you did might be problematic. And if it doesn't affect your way of life, you should stop. Use a different word. Call someone by the correct pronouns.
Sell almost any other *#!&$@*! shirt.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Thank You, Barack Obama.
Thank you for being the first black president.
Thank you for serving two consecutive terms, from when I was 11 to now, when I'm 19 -- arguably the most formative years of my life.
Thank you for a presidency free of personal scandal, an almost unheard-of notion in America's political climate, both past and present.
Thank you for showing me what it means to be a good husband and father, reminding me so much of my own father.
Thank you for being funny when we needed it, for being serious when we needed it, for always, always, ALWAYS being articulate and compassionate.
Thank you for proving to the world that wisdom does not preclude sincerity, that kindness does not preclude pragmatism, that blackness does not preclude greatness.
Thank you for teaching us that it is often more important to be good than to be right.
Thank you for Obamacare.
Thank you for all you have done to slow climate change.
Thank you for all you have done to close the wage gap.
Thank you for openly identifying as a feminist.
Thank you for all you did to make gay marriage a right at the federal level.
Thank you for going on so many late-night talk shows and reminding us that you are a real, flesh-and-blood human being and not some collective hallucination of the Democratic Party.
Thank you for loving your family.
Thank you for letting us glimpse your friendship with Joe Biden, the greatest executive bromance in all of human history.
Thank you for weeping through mass shootings, through police brutality, through hate -- for showing us that it is okay to cry.
Thank you for taking the vitriol that our current President-elect spewed at you for so many years in stride.
Thank you for campaigning so tirelessly for Hillary.
Thank you for peacefully handing off power despite the knowledge that your successor is unfit to rule.
Thank you for having an imperfect presidency and proving imperfection does not preclude progress.
Thank you for making it seem like we had finally made it to the right side of history.
Thank you for standing by us when we realized we had not.
Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for being the role model to every black child in this nation, and quite possibly in the world.
Thank you for being everyone's president.
Thank you for being my president.
Thank you for serving two consecutive terms, from when I was 11 to now, when I'm 19 -- arguably the most formative years of my life.
Thank you for a presidency free of personal scandal, an almost unheard-of notion in America's political climate, both past and present.
Thank you for showing me what it means to be a good husband and father, reminding me so much of my own father.
Thank you for being funny when we needed it, for being serious when we needed it, for always, always, ALWAYS being articulate and compassionate.
Thank you for proving to the world that wisdom does not preclude sincerity, that kindness does not preclude pragmatism, that blackness does not preclude greatness.
Thank you for teaching us that it is often more important to be good than to be right.
Thank you for Obamacare.
Thank you for all you have done to slow climate change.
Thank you for all you have done to close the wage gap.
Thank you for openly identifying as a feminist.
Thank you for all you did to make gay marriage a right at the federal level.
Thank you for going on so many late-night talk shows and reminding us that you are a real, flesh-and-blood human being and not some collective hallucination of the Democratic Party.
Thank you for loving your family.
Thank you for letting us glimpse your friendship with Joe Biden, the greatest executive bromance in all of human history.
Thank you for weeping through mass shootings, through police brutality, through hate -- for showing us that it is okay to cry.
Thank you for taking the vitriol that our current President-elect spewed at you for so many years in stride.
Thank you for campaigning so tirelessly for Hillary.
Thank you for peacefully handing off power despite the knowledge that your successor is unfit to rule.
Thank you for having an imperfect presidency and proving imperfection does not preclude progress.
Thank you for making it seem like we had finally made it to the right side of history.
Thank you for standing by us when we realized we had not.
Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for being the role model to every black child in this nation, and quite possibly in the world.
Thank you for being everyone's president.
Thank you for being my president.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Last Night, I Wept. Today, I Apply War Paint.
I've always fancied myself a revolutionary.
In history class, when we talked about the civil rights movement or women's suffrage, I envisioned myself as the type of person who would have been on the right side of history. Maybe I wouldn't have been staging sit-ins, but certainly I would have given speeches at my university. Written pieces of incendiary journalism. Bigoted white men would roll their eyes when I came up in conversation. It would've been great.
But I was born in 1997, to a two-parent household of economic affluence in a liberal city in a liberal state. Yes, I am a mixed-race, Jewish black woman. But I'm also economically privileged, have attended private academic institutions my whole life, and have had the unconditional emotional support of two wonderful parents. So yes, people have made offensive comments to me and tried to undermine my achievements. But I have been shielded from much of the oppression that might have impeded my development had I come up in the mid-twentieth century, or in a conservative part of the country, or both. To top it all off, the bulk of my childhood was spent under the first black president of the United States. I coasted into last night, thinking that the bulk of my young adulthood would be spent under the first female president. Honestly, the thought of Hillary's victory was bittersweet to me. Where was my glass ceiling to break? Sure, police brutality is still an issue, the wage gap won't go away for another 100+ years even by optimistic estimates, and in many parts of the country, the LGBTQIA+ community is actively discriminated against, but before last night, it felt very much like we were on our way. Like I would simply be buoyed by the progress that was already taking place. Like all I had to do was exist as a socially conscious millennial, and the world would unfold before me as it always had. But then a funny thing happened.
A bigoted, incompetent, sexual predator won the presidency.
And I cried. Hard.
Last night, I lost my innocence. I watched as the America I'd built up in my mind, the America that still had a lot of work to do but was at least on the path to excellence, disintegrated before my very eyes. I read the New York Times article declaring that a reality TV-show host who will be going to trial for fraud and sexual assault will take the oath of our nation's highest office on January 20. My Uber driver asked me why I was crying. I said many things in response to that, but the crux of it is this sound bite: Trump did not invent hatred. Obama's presidency simply concealed it. Trump's campaign exposed it. The bigotry was already there. It was just less socially acceptable to show it with Obama at the helm. Now, as his time in office dwindles all too quickly to a close, the so-called "silent majority" is silent no more. Their champion has won. They have been vindicated. And last night, that felt like rock bottom. Hopeless.
But I wake up today far from hopeless. Because here's the thing, my fellow women and PoC. My LGBTQIA+, Latinx, Muslim, and disabled siblings:
NOW, more than ever, is our time.
For all the times you've wondered who you might have been during slavery, during World War II, during the Civil Rights Movement - this is when you find out. Sure, laws and amendments have been passed that are meant to protect our civil liberties, and social conditions aren't as bleak as they were 50, 100, 200 years ago. But I assure you that this is a turning point in history. I assure you that our children will be asking us about last night, and the last year, and the coming ones. I assure you that we will be confronted by hatred, and, even more frequently, indifference to our rights under a Republican president, a Republican senate, and a Republican house.
I refuse to be hopeless. I refuse to be complacent. I refuse to spend anymore time weeping. I also refuse to pretend that we are not a nation divided. I wish I could love our president-elect and his constituency unconditionally, because I truly believe that love can triumph over hate. But now is not the time for love. Not yet. In order to love, I first require mutual respect.
I don't have all the answers. I don't have any of the answers. I don't know what this movement will look like, what shape it will take. I don't know what I personally need to do, or what we need to do as a collective. So I'll do what I know to do: I will write.
And tomorrow morning, and all the mornings after that, I'll do what I did this morning.
Apply war paint.
In history class, when we talked about the civil rights movement or women's suffrage, I envisioned myself as the type of person who would have been on the right side of history. Maybe I wouldn't have been staging sit-ins, but certainly I would have given speeches at my university. Written pieces of incendiary journalism. Bigoted white men would roll their eyes when I came up in conversation. It would've been great.
But I was born in 1997, to a two-parent household of economic affluence in a liberal city in a liberal state. Yes, I am a mixed-race, Jewish black woman. But I'm also economically privileged, have attended private academic institutions my whole life, and have had the unconditional emotional support of two wonderful parents. So yes, people have made offensive comments to me and tried to undermine my achievements. But I have been shielded from much of the oppression that might have impeded my development had I come up in the mid-twentieth century, or in a conservative part of the country, or both. To top it all off, the bulk of my childhood was spent under the first black president of the United States. I coasted into last night, thinking that the bulk of my young adulthood would be spent under the first female president. Honestly, the thought of Hillary's victory was bittersweet to me. Where was my glass ceiling to break? Sure, police brutality is still an issue, the wage gap won't go away for another 100+ years even by optimistic estimates, and in many parts of the country, the LGBTQIA+ community is actively discriminated against, but before last night, it felt very much like we were on our way. Like I would simply be buoyed by the progress that was already taking place. Like all I had to do was exist as a socially conscious millennial, and the world would unfold before me as it always had. But then a funny thing happened.
A bigoted, incompetent, sexual predator won the presidency.
And I cried. Hard.
Last night, I lost my innocence. I watched as the America I'd built up in my mind, the America that still had a lot of work to do but was at least on the path to excellence, disintegrated before my very eyes. I read the New York Times article declaring that a reality TV-show host who will be going to trial for fraud and sexual assault will take the oath of our nation's highest office on January 20. My Uber driver asked me why I was crying. I said many things in response to that, but the crux of it is this sound bite: Trump did not invent hatred. Obama's presidency simply concealed it. Trump's campaign exposed it. The bigotry was already there. It was just less socially acceptable to show it with Obama at the helm. Now, as his time in office dwindles all too quickly to a close, the so-called "silent majority" is silent no more. Their champion has won. They have been vindicated. And last night, that felt like rock bottom. Hopeless.
But I wake up today far from hopeless. Because here's the thing, my fellow women and PoC. My LGBTQIA+, Latinx, Muslim, and disabled siblings:
NOW, more than ever, is our time.
For all the times you've wondered who you might have been during slavery, during World War II, during the Civil Rights Movement - this is when you find out. Sure, laws and amendments have been passed that are meant to protect our civil liberties, and social conditions aren't as bleak as they were 50, 100, 200 years ago. But I assure you that this is a turning point in history. I assure you that our children will be asking us about last night, and the last year, and the coming ones. I assure you that we will be confronted by hatred, and, even more frequently, indifference to our rights under a Republican president, a Republican senate, and a Republican house.
I refuse to be hopeless. I refuse to be complacent. I refuse to spend anymore time weeping. I also refuse to pretend that we are not a nation divided. I wish I could love our president-elect and his constituency unconditionally, because I truly believe that love can triumph over hate. But now is not the time for love. Not yet. In order to love, I first require mutual respect.
I don't have all the answers. I don't have any of the answers. I don't know what this movement will look like, what shape it will take. I don't know what I personally need to do, or what we need to do as a collective. So I'll do what I know to do: I will write.
And tomorrow morning, and all the mornings after that, I'll do what I did this morning.
Apply war paint.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Another Word on Police Brutality
Disclaimer: I support the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
Disclaimer: I am pro-cop. Well, I'm pro-good cop.
Disclaimer: I am as anti-gun as they come.
I've seen a lot of emotional calls to action, logical breakdowns of fact, and mixes of the two. I have seen liberals and conservatives duke it out on social media for supremacy of opinion. And I am exhausted by it.
I don't want to write that long of a post here, I just want to say what I really think about the problem of police brutality in this country.
Being in a police officer is dangerous. But it's not the most dangerous job in the world by any stretch of the imagination. It's also a choice. If you do not want to put your life on the line every day, perhaps you are better suited to a job that is not often dangerous or life-threatening. No matter how noble your intentions are, every time you put on your badge and walk the streets, you are not just enforcing the law and protecting the innocent. You have pinned a shiny gold target to your chest. And no matter how race relations change in this country, that will always be an immutable fact.
I read a lengthy post from a police officer about how black-on-black crime is a much larger problem than cop-on-black crime. (I'm not even going to get into how the only reason that's a problem is because of systemic discrimination and abuse, because it would take too long). I've read articles stating that more white people have been killed by police than black people and about how Latinos are killed in almost the same numbers as blacks.
That information doesn't matter to me, and here's why.
Police should NEVER shoot to kill.
The problem of police brutality is racial. We need to stop dancing around that. There's way, way more statistical information to back up the fact that blacks are more frequently harassed, verbally abused, physically attacked, tasered, and yes, shot and killed by police than whites, even while unarmed. But statistics can be biased. Statistics can be misleading. What we can calculate is how often police have killed people, regardless of race.
And no matter what number you get, if it's larger than zero, we've got a problem.
Police will argue that if their lives are in jeopardy, they have no choice but to shoot. And I would agree that if your life is threatened you should be able to defend yourself. But there are so, so many jobs with equal or greater danger posed by other human beings where killing is not an option. Think of a social worker. Think of an orderly in a mental hospital with violent patients. These are people who walk into equally or more dangerous situations as police officers every day, but with no guns. They have to subdue violent people or escape violent circumstances without killing people all the time. So why do the police kill so often? When a social worker enters a dysfunctional home to remove children from the care of an unfit and abusive parent, they know that there's a chance the situation will escalate to the violence. But do they walk in with a gun in their belt, hand already gripped around the trigger? No. They don't.
I am of the controversial opinion that our police force should not be armed at all and that no civilians should be allowed possession of guns. I hate guns. I really, really hate them. I think the second amendment is just as outdated as the Three-Fifths compromise, and that if the greatest threat to your civil rights is having your gun taken away, then your life is pretty good. I think that in other countries, where the police forces are far less heavily armed and there are next to zero fatalities caused by police, they've got it right.
But I know that the United States is way too gun-happy--and that many members of the government are too far in the pocket of the NRA--to get rid of guns in the way I'd like.
So I just want to say this: bad cops need to figure out a way to stop killing people. Black and white and everyone in between. This is a heavily racialized issue, and I wish people would stop trying to deny that, but it's also just a purely human issue. Our police forces are practically military in their armaments, and they seem way too quick to pull triggers and end lives. If police officers are going to be armed, the gun needs to be the last resort, and it should never be used to kill. There are ways to disarm dangerous criminals without shooting them.
The police have to do their jobs without committing murder. There are so many good cops out there, and just a few bad ones who slaughter innocents and criminals alike. The God complex has to stop. The bloodshed has to stop.
Disclaimer: I am pro-cop. Well, I'm pro-good cop.
Disclaimer: I am as anti-gun as they come.
I've seen a lot of emotional calls to action, logical breakdowns of fact, and mixes of the two. I have seen liberals and conservatives duke it out on social media for supremacy of opinion. And I am exhausted by it.
I don't want to write that long of a post here, I just want to say what I really think about the problem of police brutality in this country.
Being in a police officer is dangerous. But it's not the most dangerous job in the world by any stretch of the imagination. It's also a choice. If you do not want to put your life on the line every day, perhaps you are better suited to a job that is not often dangerous or life-threatening. No matter how noble your intentions are, every time you put on your badge and walk the streets, you are not just enforcing the law and protecting the innocent. You have pinned a shiny gold target to your chest. And no matter how race relations change in this country, that will always be an immutable fact.
I read a lengthy post from a police officer about how black-on-black crime is a much larger problem than cop-on-black crime. (I'm not even going to get into how the only reason that's a problem is because of systemic discrimination and abuse, because it would take too long). I've read articles stating that more white people have been killed by police than black people and about how Latinos are killed in almost the same numbers as blacks.
That information doesn't matter to me, and here's why.
Police should NEVER shoot to kill.
The problem of police brutality is racial. We need to stop dancing around that. There's way, way more statistical information to back up the fact that blacks are more frequently harassed, verbally abused, physically attacked, tasered, and yes, shot and killed by police than whites, even while unarmed. But statistics can be biased. Statistics can be misleading. What we can calculate is how often police have killed people, regardless of race.
And no matter what number you get, if it's larger than zero, we've got a problem.
Police will argue that if their lives are in jeopardy, they have no choice but to shoot. And I would agree that if your life is threatened you should be able to defend yourself. But there are so, so many jobs with equal or greater danger posed by other human beings where killing is not an option. Think of a social worker. Think of an orderly in a mental hospital with violent patients. These are people who walk into equally or more dangerous situations as police officers every day, but with no guns. They have to subdue violent people or escape violent circumstances without killing people all the time. So why do the police kill so often? When a social worker enters a dysfunctional home to remove children from the care of an unfit and abusive parent, they know that there's a chance the situation will escalate to the violence. But do they walk in with a gun in their belt, hand already gripped around the trigger? No. They don't.
I am of the controversial opinion that our police force should not be armed at all and that no civilians should be allowed possession of guns. I hate guns. I really, really hate them. I think the second amendment is just as outdated as the Three-Fifths compromise, and that if the greatest threat to your civil rights is having your gun taken away, then your life is pretty good. I think that in other countries, where the police forces are far less heavily armed and there are next to zero fatalities caused by police, they've got it right.
But I know that the United States is way too gun-happy--and that many members of the government are too far in the pocket of the NRA--to get rid of guns in the way I'd like.
So I just want to say this: bad cops need to figure out a way to stop killing people. Black and white and everyone in between. This is a heavily racialized issue, and I wish people would stop trying to deny that, but it's also just a purely human issue. Our police forces are practically military in their armaments, and they seem way too quick to pull triggers and end lives. If police officers are going to be armed, the gun needs to be the last resort, and it should never be used to kill. There are ways to disarm dangerous criminals without shooting them.
The police have to do their jobs without committing murder. There are so many good cops out there, and just a few bad ones who slaughter innocents and criminals alike. The God complex has to stop. The bloodshed has to stop.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Tomi Lahren, Let's Talk
Sorry to hit y'all with two political posts in a row, monthly playlist coming later today.
I don't usually like to call people out on the Internet. I like to choose my battles. Generally, I don't talk about celebrity missteps because I feel like it's not worth it. Cultural appropriation, for example, deserves to be dragged for FILTH, but the topic is too nuanced to be accurately debated over any social media platform. Rape culture exists similarly; people who are anti-feminist love to spout statistics about how the wage gap isn't real, or about how rape is not a big a problem as people think, or about how cat-calling is a compliment. Or something.
But today, I am calling someone out. Tomi Lahren, let's talk.
She is a television and online video host who, right now, is under fire for her controversial comments about Jesse Williams' BET Humanitarian Award acceptance speech. Just for fun, I'm gonna link the two videos side by side so you can watch them and form your own opinions before you read mine.
Jesse Williams (& accompanying report from Slate): http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/06/27/actor_and_activist_jesse_williams_gave_a_fiery_speech_at_the_bet_awards.html
Tomi Lahren (not sure if this specific link will work, but you shouldn't have a problem finding it on her Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/TomiLahren/videos/1017506241675896/
I'll wait.
Okay, welcome back.
Now, there's a lot of nuance involved in Jesse Williams' speech. There's the argument that it's easy for people like the ones at the BET awards to comment on the plight of African-Americans, because their own lives are somewhat removed from things like police brutality or profiling or the pay gap (it's been proven that there IS a Hollywood pay gap, but it matters way more on principle than in practice, considering that all big-name Hollywood actors are making absolutely ludicrous amounts of money). There's the idea that perhaps Williams was showboating, that his speech was a bit theatrical and long-running and almost self-serving given the severity of the issues he spoke about. There's the argument--and this is the only one I really find compelling--that being a biracial, light-skinned man talking about black issues is almost as Kiplingesque as a white man talking about the same issues (see: White Man's Burden). As a biracial person myself (albeit one not quite as racially ambiguous as Williams), I often question my place in racial discussions. Should our opinions come with an asterisk?
But colorism and socioeconomic status can be touched on another day. I'm looking at an issue that's just a little bit more black and white (excuse the pun).
Jesse Williams made a lot of phenomenal points. He talked about police brutality in a tender way that highlighted the lives of the victims rather than the death caused at the hands of their blue-clad executioners. He thanked black women, the unsung heroes of political movements and households, and promised to do better by them. He talked about cultural appropriation, the desire of black entertainers to be given modern "brands," as it were, and seamlessly integrated a quote from "Strange Fruit," a poem that remains worth reading in 2016. He was composed, he was articulate, and he never strayed from his intent. He maintained that our work is not done, and that simply being a successful African-American is not enough to stave off the oppression of our less successful brothers and sisters.
I cried when I watched that speech.
Now Tomi. I honestly pity you. Because the hate that you summoned in your response to this speech--a speech that was carefully curated and delivered to convey love, and NOT hate--could only have been learned behavior. Who taught you to hate? Who taught you to willfully dismiss struggles that you cannot understand? You're not a bad person. You've just been benefitting from a system that privileges pretty white women your entire life. What I don't understand is that white women have their own struggles. Being a beautiful woman, it must have been hard to be taken seriously in the fields of entertainment and journalism. You're probably not getting paid as much as your male colleagues for doing similar work. You probably get cat-called on your daily commute. You probably had to work really, really hard just to get where you are, and you're probably discriminated against all the time.
So why can't you see that black people are going through? Why can't you at least acknowledge that there have been miscarriages of justice, even if you don't exactly understand how?
I'm gonna dissect your response now.
You begin by saying that the BET awards were "very black." This is a fair observation, because BET stands for Black Entertainment Television. The need for such an initialism, such a channel, developed in the 20th century when black people were few and far between on major network shows, and if they were featured, they were caricatures and stereotypes, active players in their own degradation--they essentially played themselves in minstrel shows. With BET, black actors and executives took control of their destinies and put forth the programming that they wanted to see. BET has been rightfully criticized for some of its negative portrayals of its own people, through perpetuations of stereotypes in TV shows and music videos. However, while I'm not a huge fan of everything BET puts on the air, I respect what it symbolizes--a place for black entertainers to get their (well-deserved) chance on the small screen. I especially love the BET Awards, where black performers who are snubbed at major (read: white) awards shows can be recognized for their talents.
You then criticize Williams for "police bashing." While Williams brings up Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot dead by police for playing with a toy gun in a public park--among others--you talk about how the phrase "unarmed black man" is only technically accurate. You say that if someone reaches for an officer's gun or uses another object as a means of defense, they don't deserve a "free pass." I'm not up to date on recent cop-on-black attacks, but as far as I know, many of the deaths that have made headlines--and caused outrage in the black community--are not about violent perps savagely beating cops. I, for one, am not a proponent of mindless violence. They're about unarmed--literally and figuratively--black men who are arrested or detained on minor charges, who cooperate with officers, and who are still, for some reason, shot to death. Even in cases where the victims became violent, it was in self-defense.
I'm not going to talk about black people who have only hatred of the police due to a history of abuse. That's not a life I've lived, and I don't think I can speak on that. What I will say is that I don't hate police, and I don't think Jessie Williams hates police. I think he hates police brutality. And while not all cops brutalize their suspects, all police brutality is caused by cops.
You then play a couple of my favorite quotes from Williams' speech. I'll paraphrase: "If you have a critique for our resistance, you better have a record of critiquing our oppression. If you don't believe in equal rights for black people, then do not offer suggestions for those who do. Sit down."
You ask what rights black people don't have. Well, just to name a few: many predominantly black neighborhoods have been systematically disenfranchised, meaning that despite voting rights for all having been put on the books ~50 years ago, the government is still finding ways to stop black people from doing so; the wage gap between white men and black women, Asian woman, and Latina women is far greater than the wage gap between white men and white women; studies have been done proving that people with "ethnic sounding" names are more likely to be rejected by employers even if they have the same qualifications as applicants with "white sounding" names; and people of color are dramatically underrepresented (and badly represented) in mainstream media (Asians and Latinos actually struggle with this far more than black people, but blacks are still not being represented accurately). Oh, right. And black men are seven times more likely to be shot and killed by police while unarmed than white men are.
So, yeah. We'd just like the vote (regardless of where we live), equal pay, fair opportunities at employment, adequate representation in the media, and also not to die because some (NOT ALL JUST SOME) police officers are scared of black people. You seem to be fine with how things are now. That's really saying something about what you think of people of color.
You also say that white people have a track record of critiquing our oppression by citing that a lot of white people fought for the North in the Civil War. Well, Tomi, if we're gonna get historical, allow me to point out that the only reason there was slavery in America in the first place was because white people went to Africa and stole black people from their homes to make them work for no money. And then they physically and verbally abused them for centuries and implemented a political system that would continue to disadvantage them to the present day.
Williams wasn't TALKING about the Civil War in that moment. He was talking about modern individuals who are so quick to silence black voices in the discussion of equality for being illogical or overemotional or combative, when they never once criticize our oppressors for the ills they cause.
Your point about white Southern Democrats fighting FOR slavery is also just bizarre. An American history teacher can tell you that after the Civil War, the parties realigned their beliefs, and so what we now consider to be Democrats would actually have been Republicans in the 1800s, and vice versa. Sooooooo.
You then tell Jesse Williams to check his privilege and accuses people like him of dividing America, not white people. This statement absolutely blows my mind. I can't even really put into words how ignorant it is to suggest that black people are the source of racial hatred in the United States.
You also say that you pity him if he thinks he's a victim. Well, if you pay attention to other parts of his speech, you'll notice that he's not talking about himself, and he even calls out his own financial success, as well as the success of others in the room. They know that they, personally, are not victims. But they speak for a community of oppressed people. To be wealthy and famous and black brings you a powerful platform for the poor and the disconnected. Williams is reminding his fortunate counterparts that their job is to do the work that others can't, to represent their race as strong and intelligent and creative and beautiful, to speak for the voiceless.
Another troubling point you bring up is that Williams seems to be asking for special treatment instead of equal rights. Here is a comic that might explain what he's actually talking about:
I wrote this in a fit of inspiration after watching your video, Tomi, but I now know that this isn't addressed to you. If you even read this, you won't be changed by it. You'll say that I'm just like Jesse Williams, that I'm trying to racially divide our peoples, that I'm playing the victim, that I want a "gold star just for being born." Even though none of those things are true, you're going to keep believing it, because it makes you feel better. You don't want to acknowledge the awful things that some of your white ancestors did. You don't want to acknowledge the awful things that white people today, your counterparts, are still doing. You'd rather have black people comfort you and tell you that racism is over because it makes you feel good than to do something about the injustices that are playing out on stages all over the country to this day.
So yeah, this isn't really addressed to you. It's addressed to anyone who had a serious problem with Jesse Williams' speech. It's addressed to anyone who doesn't want to talk about race anymore. This is a letter for anyone who somehow believes that 2016 is just another year in post-racial America.
Best,
Jensen
I don't usually like to call people out on the Internet. I like to choose my battles. Generally, I don't talk about celebrity missteps because I feel like it's not worth it. Cultural appropriation, for example, deserves to be dragged for FILTH, but the topic is too nuanced to be accurately debated over any social media platform. Rape culture exists similarly; people who are anti-feminist love to spout statistics about how the wage gap isn't real, or about how rape is not a big a problem as people think, or about how cat-calling is a compliment. Or something.
But today, I am calling someone out. Tomi Lahren, let's talk.
She is a television and online video host who, right now, is under fire for her controversial comments about Jesse Williams' BET Humanitarian Award acceptance speech. Just for fun, I'm gonna link the two videos side by side so you can watch them and form your own opinions before you read mine.
Jesse Williams (& accompanying report from Slate): http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/06/27/actor_and_activist_jesse_williams_gave_a_fiery_speech_at_the_bet_awards.html
Tomi Lahren (not sure if this specific link will work, but you shouldn't have a problem finding it on her Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/TomiLahren/videos/1017506241675896/
I'll wait.
Okay, welcome back.
Now, there's a lot of nuance involved in Jesse Williams' speech. There's the argument that it's easy for people like the ones at the BET awards to comment on the plight of African-Americans, because their own lives are somewhat removed from things like police brutality or profiling or the pay gap (it's been proven that there IS a Hollywood pay gap, but it matters way more on principle than in practice, considering that all big-name Hollywood actors are making absolutely ludicrous amounts of money). There's the idea that perhaps Williams was showboating, that his speech was a bit theatrical and long-running and almost self-serving given the severity of the issues he spoke about. There's the argument--and this is the only one I really find compelling--that being a biracial, light-skinned man talking about black issues is almost as Kiplingesque as a white man talking about the same issues (see: White Man's Burden). As a biracial person myself (albeit one not quite as racially ambiguous as Williams), I often question my place in racial discussions. Should our opinions come with an asterisk?
But colorism and socioeconomic status can be touched on another day. I'm looking at an issue that's just a little bit more black and white (excuse the pun).
Jesse Williams made a lot of phenomenal points. He talked about police brutality in a tender way that highlighted the lives of the victims rather than the death caused at the hands of their blue-clad executioners. He thanked black women, the unsung heroes of political movements and households, and promised to do better by them. He talked about cultural appropriation, the desire of black entertainers to be given modern "brands," as it were, and seamlessly integrated a quote from "Strange Fruit," a poem that remains worth reading in 2016. He was composed, he was articulate, and he never strayed from his intent. He maintained that our work is not done, and that simply being a successful African-American is not enough to stave off the oppression of our less successful brothers and sisters.
I cried when I watched that speech.
Now Tomi. I honestly pity you. Because the hate that you summoned in your response to this speech--a speech that was carefully curated and delivered to convey love, and NOT hate--could only have been learned behavior. Who taught you to hate? Who taught you to willfully dismiss struggles that you cannot understand? You're not a bad person. You've just been benefitting from a system that privileges pretty white women your entire life. What I don't understand is that white women have their own struggles. Being a beautiful woman, it must have been hard to be taken seriously in the fields of entertainment and journalism. You're probably not getting paid as much as your male colleagues for doing similar work. You probably get cat-called on your daily commute. You probably had to work really, really hard just to get where you are, and you're probably discriminated against all the time.
So why can't you see that black people are going through? Why can't you at least acknowledge that there have been miscarriages of justice, even if you don't exactly understand how?
I'm gonna dissect your response now.
You begin by saying that the BET awards were "very black." This is a fair observation, because BET stands for Black Entertainment Television. The need for such an initialism, such a channel, developed in the 20th century when black people were few and far between on major network shows, and if they were featured, they were caricatures and stereotypes, active players in their own degradation--they essentially played themselves in minstrel shows. With BET, black actors and executives took control of their destinies and put forth the programming that they wanted to see. BET has been rightfully criticized for some of its negative portrayals of its own people, through perpetuations of stereotypes in TV shows and music videos. However, while I'm not a huge fan of everything BET puts on the air, I respect what it symbolizes--a place for black entertainers to get their (well-deserved) chance on the small screen. I especially love the BET Awards, where black performers who are snubbed at major (read: white) awards shows can be recognized for their talents.
You then criticize Williams for "police bashing." While Williams brings up Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot dead by police for playing with a toy gun in a public park--among others--you talk about how the phrase "unarmed black man" is only technically accurate. You say that if someone reaches for an officer's gun or uses another object as a means of defense, they don't deserve a "free pass." I'm not up to date on recent cop-on-black attacks, but as far as I know, many of the deaths that have made headlines--and caused outrage in the black community--are not about violent perps savagely beating cops. I, for one, am not a proponent of mindless violence. They're about unarmed--literally and figuratively--black men who are arrested or detained on minor charges, who cooperate with officers, and who are still, for some reason, shot to death. Even in cases where the victims became violent, it was in self-defense.
I'm not going to talk about black people who have only hatred of the police due to a history of abuse. That's not a life I've lived, and I don't think I can speak on that. What I will say is that I don't hate police, and I don't think Jessie Williams hates police. I think he hates police brutality. And while not all cops brutalize their suspects, all police brutality is caused by cops.
You then play a couple of my favorite quotes from Williams' speech. I'll paraphrase: "If you have a critique for our resistance, you better have a record of critiquing our oppression. If you don't believe in equal rights for black people, then do not offer suggestions for those who do. Sit down."
You ask what rights black people don't have. Well, just to name a few: many predominantly black neighborhoods have been systematically disenfranchised, meaning that despite voting rights for all having been put on the books ~50 years ago, the government is still finding ways to stop black people from doing so; the wage gap between white men and black women, Asian woman, and Latina women is far greater than the wage gap between white men and white women; studies have been done proving that people with "ethnic sounding" names are more likely to be rejected by employers even if they have the same qualifications as applicants with "white sounding" names; and people of color are dramatically underrepresented (and badly represented) in mainstream media (Asians and Latinos actually struggle with this far more than black people, but blacks are still not being represented accurately). Oh, right. And black men are seven times more likely to be shot and killed by police while unarmed than white men are.
So, yeah. We'd just like the vote (regardless of where we live), equal pay, fair opportunities at employment, adequate representation in the media, and also not to die because some (NOT ALL JUST SOME) police officers are scared of black people. You seem to be fine with how things are now. That's really saying something about what you think of people of color.
You also say that white people have a track record of critiquing our oppression by citing that a lot of white people fought for the North in the Civil War. Well, Tomi, if we're gonna get historical, allow me to point out that the only reason there was slavery in America in the first place was because white people went to Africa and stole black people from their homes to make them work for no money. And then they physically and verbally abused them for centuries and implemented a political system that would continue to disadvantage them to the present day.
Williams wasn't TALKING about the Civil War in that moment. He was talking about modern individuals who are so quick to silence black voices in the discussion of equality for being illogical or overemotional or combative, when they never once criticize our oppressors for the ills they cause.
Your point about white Southern Democrats fighting FOR slavery is also just bizarre. An American history teacher can tell you that after the Civil War, the parties realigned their beliefs, and so what we now consider to be Democrats would actually have been Republicans in the 1800s, and vice versa. Sooooooo.
You then tell Jesse Williams to check his privilege and accuses people like him of dividing America, not white people. This statement absolutely blows my mind. I can't even really put into words how ignorant it is to suggest that black people are the source of racial hatred in the United States.
You also say that you pity him if he thinks he's a victim. Well, if you pay attention to other parts of his speech, you'll notice that he's not talking about himself, and he even calls out his own financial success, as well as the success of others in the room. They know that they, personally, are not victims. But they speak for a community of oppressed people. To be wealthy and famous and black brings you a powerful platform for the poor and the disconnected. Williams is reminding his fortunate counterparts that their job is to do the work that others can't, to represent their race as strong and intelligent and creative and beautiful, to speak for the voiceless.
Another troubling point you bring up is that Williams seems to be asking for special treatment instead of equal rights. Here is a comic that might explain what he's actually talking about:
Great. Now we've got that covered.
You end by telling Jesse Williams that HE is the one who needs to "sit down." In a way, it's fitting that you conclude with this statement. It's condescending and uneducated and coming from a place of fear--a fear of black strength, beauty, and intelligence that has flowed through white people since the 1600s, when we were brought over here on slave ships, and fear of your own falling empire. White people in positions of power will do everything they can to prevent minorities from rising up. It's hard to see from this angle, given all the progress that we've made. But those old systems are still in place--creaky and precarious, but still there. And people like you, Tomi Lahren, seem to want to keep it that way.
I wrote this in a fit of inspiration after watching your video, Tomi, but I now know that this isn't addressed to you. If you even read this, you won't be changed by it. You'll say that I'm just like Jesse Williams, that I'm trying to racially divide our peoples, that I'm playing the victim, that I want a "gold star just for being born." Even though none of those things are true, you're going to keep believing it, because it makes you feel better. You don't want to acknowledge the awful things that some of your white ancestors did. You don't want to acknowledge the awful things that white people today, your counterparts, are still doing. You'd rather have black people comfort you and tell you that racism is over because it makes you feel good than to do something about the injustices that are playing out on stages all over the country to this day.
So yeah, this isn't really addressed to you. It's addressed to anyone who had a serious problem with Jesse Williams' speech. It's addressed to anyone who doesn't want to talk about race anymore. This is a letter for anyone who somehow believes that 2016 is just another year in post-racial America.
Best,
Jensen
Saturday, June 25, 2016
In Defense of Affirmative Action - Unpacking #StayMadAbby and the Secrets of College Admission
I am not going to be citing statistics or studies or Supreme Court cases in this post because this blog is not a news source. This is my opinion, though I do believe that it is a compelling one. If you'd like to see hard facts supporting my opinion, the Internet is full of valuable resources.
I was accepted into two prestigious universities during my senior year of high school, one of which I ended up attending (the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California). The other institution was ranked higher on lists comparing national universities, and when the news broke of my acceptance - I'd like to add that I didn't intend for the news to spread so broadly and so quickly - I experienced a wide variety of reactions. There was support from friends and acquaintances who were just proud and excited for me. There was indifference from people who didn't know me or didn't care about such goings on. And there was vitriol. The vitriol was fueled by jealousy - people who weren't accepted to the same or similar universities (one friend said, "Oh, I guess they're just letting everyone in now") - as well as other tensions. As much as people would hate to admit it, that tension was sometimes racially driven. At an academically rigorous and competitive high school, many people were vying for the precious few spots at these top universities, and in their eyes, I had taken a spot that belonged to them (which, it should be noted, is not how college admission works). In their (rightful) disappointment, hurt, and anger at being rejected, they lashed out at me. Countless friends told me about classmates who'd said that I didn't deserve to get in and that, because the school was not my first choice, I was taking a spot from someone who really wanted it (again, not how college admission works - after I denied the offer of admission, it was invariably offered to someone else, perhaps even one of my own classmates who'd been deferred). When discussing a rejection with one of my close friends, they said: "well, we can't all be black, Jewish women." The statement was problematic on a number of levels. One, it assumes that being Jewish or being a woman is helpful in college admission, when in fact both of those attributes are somewhat detrimental in the process (more Jews and more women are applying to college every year; women are even starting to outnumber men in that pool, as far as I know). Two, it assumes that if you're lacking those attributes, it's a given that you will be rejected from your top choice school. And three - and most insidious, in my opinion - this statement assumes that the only reason I was accepted into that selective school was because of my race.
I tried to laugh it off and counter this person's moment of hurtful commentary, but they remained steadfast. They laughed, too, but did not say that they were kidding or retract the statement. They simply said something else to affirm it and moved on.
I was not accepted into my top choice colleges because I am black.
It is frowned upon, for some reason, to talk about one's own qualifications and achievements, but I'm going to do it. I had a good GPA in high school. I tested above the median at my school on the SAT (and the median score at my school is no joke). I participated in a lot of extracurricular activities and achieved leadership positions in many of them. I took foreign language for all four years and, in doing so, finished the entire Spanish curriculum. I got good recommendations and wrote good essays.
I wasn't the perfect candidate. I didn't play sports or write for the newspaper or work on the yearbook or take an AP science. But what made me a great candidate for these schools - aside from the academic proof that I could do all the work - was how different I was from the other applicants. My extracurricular activities were unusual--improv, slam poetry, peer counseling, admission work, and a random stint as a student council rep my senior year. My essays were funny and conversational and emotional - they sounded more like memoirs than a paper you'd turn in for an English class. I submitted a video supplement of my original songs to the other school I applied to, a school that didn't offer very many music classes, let alone a degree in popular music performance. And yes, also, I am black.
But again, I was not accepted because I am black. I was accepted because I'm different.
Racial diversity is a huge part of college admission. Colleges seek to slightly increase their percentages of minority students every year, and many universities are reaching out to minority communities in newer and better ways in order to do that. It is a beautiful thing, because while I am a racial minority in a position of economic privilege, there are many people with my skin color who are not in the same boat socioeconomically. Colleges at every level of selectivity offer a way up and out of bad situations. On still another positive note, the more people of color graduate from four-year universities, the more role models that young people of color will have. It will be a cycle of productivity, mobility, success--you get the picture.
But while racial diversity is a huge part of college admission, by far the biggest part of the process is experiential diversity. Colleges want people from all walks of life. What sets you apart? It might be your race. But it might be your socioeconomic status. It might be a death or a divorce in your youth that made you stronger when you overcame it. It might be that you published a novel or wrote a hit song or invented a machine that makes people's lives easier. More than likely, it will be a combination of all these things. Experiential diversity in all communities, especially academic communities, enriches the life experience of all involved. No matter how numerically qualified you are to attend a university, if there are a thousand versions of you out there vying for the same spots, there's a chance you won't get admitted. That's yet another thing you have to consider in this process. I was admitted because I was qualified, and because I was different, but also because I got lucky. This whole thing is a numbers game, people! At the end of the day, they only have a few seats to fill. You might have done great things, but it might be that there's just not enough space for you. In cases like that, I PROMISE that you will wind up at an equally great school. Seriously. I know this for a fact.
If you are academically qualified and experientially diverse, you will get in somewhere great. So chill on that front. If you got rejected, I promise it's not because you're white. It's because they didn't think you'd fit, or because they already had people like you in the class. Think about it this way: at the place you do end up going to school, you'll be one-of-a-kind! (Or at least just a few of a kind!)
Affirmative action is an evolving policy. It's clear that when under-qualified applicants are accepted and ultimately attend rigorous universities, they do poorly and/or drop out. But more than likely, when a student with grades or test scores below a university's median that winds up going there, there's a pretty good reason. They have proven that they are capable of overcoming obstacles. They have a kind of intelligence that isn't accurately measured with regular modes of testing. They have a hidden talent. They have untapped potential. And someone in that admission office saw it. Affirmative action forces a university to consider things outside of test scores and grades which, let's be honest, are a pretty antiquated way of determining how a student will fare in the "real world." I fully acknowledge that there is a need to standardize the way they evaluate academic ability, but I am thrilled that they are seeking more holistic and unconventional ways to do so, too.
I'm writing this because I'm still seeing articles about people going to court over being rejected from their dream school. I'm writing this because this year, when the Class of 2016 gets their college decisions, frustrated white students are going to lash out at students of color for their success. I'm writing this because I want you to know, whoever you are, that if you work hard and be your best self, things will work out for you. And I'm writing this because I'm proud of my achievements and I don't want there to be any confusion about why I do what I do. I do well. I stand out. And sometimes, I get lucky. I bet you will, too.
I was accepted into two prestigious universities during my senior year of high school, one of which I ended up attending (the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California). The other institution was ranked higher on lists comparing national universities, and when the news broke of my acceptance - I'd like to add that I didn't intend for the news to spread so broadly and so quickly - I experienced a wide variety of reactions. There was support from friends and acquaintances who were just proud and excited for me. There was indifference from people who didn't know me or didn't care about such goings on. And there was vitriol. The vitriol was fueled by jealousy - people who weren't accepted to the same or similar universities (one friend said, "Oh, I guess they're just letting everyone in now") - as well as other tensions. As much as people would hate to admit it, that tension was sometimes racially driven. At an academically rigorous and competitive high school, many people were vying for the precious few spots at these top universities, and in their eyes, I had taken a spot that belonged to them (which, it should be noted, is not how college admission works). In their (rightful) disappointment, hurt, and anger at being rejected, they lashed out at me. Countless friends told me about classmates who'd said that I didn't deserve to get in and that, because the school was not my first choice, I was taking a spot from someone who really wanted it (again, not how college admission works - after I denied the offer of admission, it was invariably offered to someone else, perhaps even one of my own classmates who'd been deferred). When discussing a rejection with one of my close friends, they said: "well, we can't all be black, Jewish women." The statement was problematic on a number of levels. One, it assumes that being Jewish or being a woman is helpful in college admission, when in fact both of those attributes are somewhat detrimental in the process (more Jews and more women are applying to college every year; women are even starting to outnumber men in that pool, as far as I know). Two, it assumes that if you're lacking those attributes, it's a given that you will be rejected from your top choice school. And three - and most insidious, in my opinion - this statement assumes that the only reason I was accepted into that selective school was because of my race.
I tried to laugh it off and counter this person's moment of hurtful commentary, but they remained steadfast. They laughed, too, but did not say that they were kidding or retract the statement. They simply said something else to affirm it and moved on.
I was not accepted into my top choice colleges because I am black.
It is frowned upon, for some reason, to talk about one's own qualifications and achievements, but I'm going to do it. I had a good GPA in high school. I tested above the median at my school on the SAT (and the median score at my school is no joke). I participated in a lot of extracurricular activities and achieved leadership positions in many of them. I took foreign language for all four years and, in doing so, finished the entire Spanish curriculum. I got good recommendations and wrote good essays.
I wasn't the perfect candidate. I didn't play sports or write for the newspaper or work on the yearbook or take an AP science. But what made me a great candidate for these schools - aside from the academic proof that I could do all the work - was how different I was from the other applicants. My extracurricular activities were unusual--improv, slam poetry, peer counseling, admission work, and a random stint as a student council rep my senior year. My essays were funny and conversational and emotional - they sounded more like memoirs than a paper you'd turn in for an English class. I submitted a video supplement of my original songs to the other school I applied to, a school that didn't offer very many music classes, let alone a degree in popular music performance. And yes, also, I am black.
But again, I was not accepted because I am black. I was accepted because I'm different.
Racial diversity is a huge part of college admission. Colleges seek to slightly increase their percentages of minority students every year, and many universities are reaching out to minority communities in newer and better ways in order to do that. It is a beautiful thing, because while I am a racial minority in a position of economic privilege, there are many people with my skin color who are not in the same boat socioeconomically. Colleges at every level of selectivity offer a way up and out of bad situations. On still another positive note, the more people of color graduate from four-year universities, the more role models that young people of color will have. It will be a cycle of productivity, mobility, success--you get the picture.
But while racial diversity is a huge part of college admission, by far the biggest part of the process is experiential diversity. Colleges want people from all walks of life. What sets you apart? It might be your race. But it might be your socioeconomic status. It might be a death or a divorce in your youth that made you stronger when you overcame it. It might be that you published a novel or wrote a hit song or invented a machine that makes people's lives easier. More than likely, it will be a combination of all these things. Experiential diversity in all communities, especially academic communities, enriches the life experience of all involved. No matter how numerically qualified you are to attend a university, if there are a thousand versions of you out there vying for the same spots, there's a chance you won't get admitted. That's yet another thing you have to consider in this process. I was admitted because I was qualified, and because I was different, but also because I got lucky. This whole thing is a numbers game, people! At the end of the day, they only have a few seats to fill. You might have done great things, but it might be that there's just not enough space for you. In cases like that, I PROMISE that you will wind up at an equally great school. Seriously. I know this for a fact.
If you are academically qualified and experientially diverse, you will get in somewhere great. So chill on that front. If you got rejected, I promise it's not because you're white. It's because they didn't think you'd fit, or because they already had people like you in the class. Think about it this way: at the place you do end up going to school, you'll be one-of-a-kind! (Or at least just a few of a kind!)
Affirmative action is an evolving policy. It's clear that when under-qualified applicants are accepted and ultimately attend rigorous universities, they do poorly and/or drop out. But more than likely, when a student with grades or test scores below a university's median that winds up going there, there's a pretty good reason. They have proven that they are capable of overcoming obstacles. They have a kind of intelligence that isn't accurately measured with regular modes of testing. They have a hidden talent. They have untapped potential. And someone in that admission office saw it. Affirmative action forces a university to consider things outside of test scores and grades which, let's be honest, are a pretty antiquated way of determining how a student will fare in the "real world." I fully acknowledge that there is a need to standardize the way they evaluate academic ability, but I am thrilled that they are seeking more holistic and unconventional ways to do so, too.
I'm writing this because I'm still seeing articles about people going to court over being rejected from their dream school. I'm writing this because this year, when the Class of 2016 gets their college decisions, frustrated white students are going to lash out at students of color for their success. I'm writing this because I want you to know, whoever you are, that if you work hard and be your best self, things will work out for you. And I'm writing this because I'm proud of my achievements and I don't want there to be any confusion about why I do what I do. I do well. I stand out. And sometimes, I get lucky. I bet you will, too.
Monday, November 9, 2015
White Privilege Reader's Theater
INT. - LIVING ROOM - DAY
A, the homeowner, stands in the middle of a room, ankle deep in water. B, the handyman, stands on a raised platform with wheels, carrying a toolbox.
A: Thank you for coming on such short notice.
B: No problem. Ivory Roofers is here to help. Now what seems to be the problem?
A: Well, as you can see, my house is flooded due to a leak in the ceiling. Not surprising, considering how bad the weather has been these days.
B: Whoa, whoa, slow down there.
A: Sorry?
B: I just don't want you to jump to any conclusions.
A: I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.
B: Well, we don't know if there's really a leak in the ceiling.
A: How can you say that?
B: Don't antagonize me, I'm just playing devil's advocate. All I'm saying is that from where we're standing, it's impossible to tell if there's really a leak in the ceiling.
A: My house is flooded. That's a pretty good indicator that the ceiling has been leaking.
B: Flooding is kind of a strong word. There's not really that much, is there?
A: Do you not see the water on the floor?!
B: Try not to get too emotional, it's only water.
A: Surely you wouldn't want to live in a house where you're constantly ankle deep in water. It's damaging everything I own and generally ruining my quality of life.
B: At least you have a home.
A: Excuse me?
B: A lot of people don't even have homes to flood.
A: I mean, sure, but that's hardly the point right now. The point is that my home is flooded, and I called you to fix it.
B: Why do I have to fix it?
A: Well, for one thing, you're a roofer. That's literally your job. And second of all, because your company put the roof up in the first place, so you're really in the best position to fix it.
B: It's not my house. It's your house. Shouldn't you fix it?
A: I'm not a roofer! You are a roofer! Why won't you just fix the leak?
B: Couldn't you just learn to live with it?
A: I've been living with it for some time now, but I'm tired of just "living with it." That's why I called you. The weather has been bad, and--
B: Whoa, whoa, don't blame the weather for your problems.
A: How can I not blame the weather? The only reason there's water flooding my home is because of all the rain.
B: No, there's water in your home because you let it in your home.
A: That literally makes no sense. There is a hole in my roof--
B: Conjecture.
A: --And it's been raining, so there's now an excess of water all over my home. Please just fix it so I can move on with my life.
B: Look, it really doesn't seem that bad. Why don't you just stand on your platform?
A: Sorry, what?
B: As you can see, I've got a platform that I always stand on when things get too wet. Why don't you stand on your platform?
A: I don't have a platform.
B: I guess you could stand on mine.
A: There are no stairs. Could you help me up?
B: Wow, I offer you a spot on my platform, out of the water, and now I have to help you up, too?
A: There's really no other way for me to get up there.
B: That's not my problem.
A: Look. YOU put in the faulty roof. YOU refuse to fix the problems with it. I'M the one that's suffering because of it.
B: Technically, I didn't put that roof in. My grandfather did. When HE built this house, by the way. You really ought to be thanking me.
A: Why on earth should I thank you?!
B: Like I said. MY grandfather built this roof and put a roof over YOUR head.
A: The roof is leaking! And you refuse to fix it!
B: You can't blame me for something my grandfather did.
A: You're being ridiculous.
B: I'm not being ridiculous. You're the one complaining about everything and ignoring all your good fortune. If my grandfather hadn't built this house, you would have nowhere to live.
A: No, I'd just be living somewhere else.
B: But this house is so big and beautiful! It's got plenty of space for you to move around. And it's soundproof. You can say whatever you want as loud as you want!
A: All that would be great if it weren't flooded and all my things weren't water damaged. Why did you even come here if you weren't going to fix my roof?
B: I was trying to help you look on the bright side.
A: You're a roofer! That isn't what I hired you to do!
B: You haven't even paid me yet.
A: Because you haven't done your job!
B: I'm done being yelled at. I'm leaving.
A: Wait! You haven't fixed my roof! What am I supposed to do?
B: Solve your own problems!
B pulls out an oar from the toolbox and unfolds it to its full size.
A: Can I at least have that oar? Jesus, where the hell did you get that thing?
B: My father gave it to me so it's mine.
A: Is your house flooded?
B: No. But all the houses in this neighborhood have water in them. So I'm gonna need this to get around.
A: Are you going to fix the other houses, then?
B: Probably not. Hopefully they'll be more receptive to my help than you've been.
B uses the oar and the rolling platform to leave the house. A sighs and removes a blanket from a nearby couch, beginning - however futilely - to mop up all the water.
A, the homeowner, stands in the middle of a room, ankle deep in water. B, the handyman, stands on a raised platform with wheels, carrying a toolbox.
A: Thank you for coming on such short notice.
B: No problem. Ivory Roofers is here to help. Now what seems to be the problem?
A: Well, as you can see, my house is flooded due to a leak in the ceiling. Not surprising, considering how bad the weather has been these days.
B: Whoa, whoa, slow down there.
A: Sorry?
B: I just don't want you to jump to any conclusions.
A: I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.
B: Well, we don't know if there's really a leak in the ceiling.
A: How can you say that?
B: Don't antagonize me, I'm just playing devil's advocate. All I'm saying is that from where we're standing, it's impossible to tell if there's really a leak in the ceiling.
A: My house is flooded. That's a pretty good indicator that the ceiling has been leaking.
B: Flooding is kind of a strong word. There's not really that much, is there?
A: Do you not see the water on the floor?!
B: Try not to get too emotional, it's only water.
A: Surely you wouldn't want to live in a house where you're constantly ankle deep in water. It's damaging everything I own and generally ruining my quality of life.
B: At least you have a home.
A: Excuse me?
B: A lot of people don't even have homes to flood.
A: I mean, sure, but that's hardly the point right now. The point is that my home is flooded, and I called you to fix it.
B: Why do I have to fix it?
A: Well, for one thing, you're a roofer. That's literally your job. And second of all, because your company put the roof up in the first place, so you're really in the best position to fix it.
B: It's not my house. It's your house. Shouldn't you fix it?
A: I'm not a roofer! You are a roofer! Why won't you just fix the leak?
B: Couldn't you just learn to live with it?
A: I've been living with it for some time now, but I'm tired of just "living with it." That's why I called you. The weather has been bad, and--
B: Whoa, whoa, don't blame the weather for your problems.
A: How can I not blame the weather? The only reason there's water flooding my home is because of all the rain.
B: No, there's water in your home because you let it in your home.
A: That literally makes no sense. There is a hole in my roof--
B: Conjecture.
A: --And it's been raining, so there's now an excess of water all over my home. Please just fix it so I can move on with my life.
B: Look, it really doesn't seem that bad. Why don't you just stand on your platform?
A: Sorry, what?
B: As you can see, I've got a platform that I always stand on when things get too wet. Why don't you stand on your platform?
A: I don't have a platform.
B: I guess you could stand on mine.
A: There are no stairs. Could you help me up?
B: Wow, I offer you a spot on my platform, out of the water, and now I have to help you up, too?
A: There's really no other way for me to get up there.
B: That's not my problem.
A: Look. YOU put in the faulty roof. YOU refuse to fix the problems with it. I'M the one that's suffering because of it.
B: Technically, I didn't put that roof in. My grandfather did. When HE built this house, by the way. You really ought to be thanking me.
A: Why on earth should I thank you?!
B: Like I said. MY grandfather built this roof and put a roof over YOUR head.
A: The roof is leaking! And you refuse to fix it!
B: You can't blame me for something my grandfather did.
A: You're being ridiculous.
B: I'm not being ridiculous. You're the one complaining about everything and ignoring all your good fortune. If my grandfather hadn't built this house, you would have nowhere to live.
A: No, I'd just be living somewhere else.
B: But this house is so big and beautiful! It's got plenty of space for you to move around. And it's soundproof. You can say whatever you want as loud as you want!
A: All that would be great if it weren't flooded and all my things weren't water damaged. Why did you even come here if you weren't going to fix my roof?
B: I was trying to help you look on the bright side.
A: You're a roofer! That isn't what I hired you to do!
B: You haven't even paid me yet.
A: Because you haven't done your job!
B: I'm done being yelled at. I'm leaving.
A: Wait! You haven't fixed my roof! What am I supposed to do?
B: Solve your own problems!
B pulls out an oar from the toolbox and unfolds it to its full size.
A: Can I at least have that oar? Jesus, where the hell did you get that thing?
B: My father gave it to me so it's mine.
A: Is your house flooded?
B: No. But all the houses in this neighborhood have water in them. So I'm gonna need this to get around.
A: Are you going to fix the other houses, then?
B: Probably not. Hopefully they'll be more receptive to my help than you've been.
B uses the oar and the rolling platform to leave the house. A sighs and removes a blanket from a nearby couch, beginning - however futilely - to mop up all the water.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Effective Feminism, Justified Rage, & Why It's Okay When Things Suck
This post is going to contain a lot of dirty words and phrases. "Anger." "Insensitivity." "Race issues." "Feminism." Chances are, especially if you are a cisgender straight white male, you do not want to talk about these things. You do not want to read what I have to write on these issues, because you have the words "not all men" tattooed on your forehead and, because you have never in your life experienced discrimination based on your race, gender, or sexual orientation, you cannot comprehend that those things have ever presented an issue for anyone else.
(Read: if you just whined--aloud or in your head--that you are totally sensitive to minority issues and gender inequality, you completely missed the point.)
Feminism has become demonized and distorted by those who don't understand it. Men who feel it attacks their rights in some way refer to feminists as "feminazis" - a term so troubling I couldn't possibly delve into its significance in this post. Even some women have begun to campaign on a "why I don't need feminism" ticket, demonstrating a basic of ignorance of what feminism is.
Allow me to explain it for you. The definition, verbatim, is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." If you are a man and you feel threatened by feminism, you are a misogynist, and you need to figure out what screwed you up so bad that you don't think women deserve basic human rights. If you are a women and you think you don't need feminism, then I suppose you're satisfied with lacking equality with--not superiority to, we're not trying to get a matriarchy on our hands--men.
However, feminism, while its definition is bright and shiny, is deeply flawed as a movement. Over the course of its storied development--which, again, too much to get into on this post--there have been major issues with its exclusion of ethnic minorities, trans women, and lesbian women. But I'm not here to talk about misandry (the opposite of misogyny, i.e. the dislike of and prejudice against the male sex) or any other perversion of the doctrine that gives us all a bad name. I'm here to advocate for intersectional feminism, or as I like to call it, effective feminism.
Intersectional feminism essentially calls for equal rights across the board--women of color, trans women, lesbians, and, yes, cisgender straight white women too. Feminism is SUCH a great idea, as equality always is. But in order for it to work, it requires everyone, regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation, to be equal. It's sort of in the term. Equality. For everybody. Okay, moving on.
A lot of people like to throw around the word "angry" as a means of belittling or attacking feminists. They claim that they are blinded by irrational rage and are blowing "small" things out of proportion. To anybody who says that, let me learn you a couple things:
(Read: if you just whined--aloud or in your head--that you are totally sensitive to minority issues and gender inequality, you completely missed the point.)
Feminism has become demonized and distorted by those who don't understand it. Men who feel it attacks their rights in some way refer to feminists as "feminazis" - a term so troubling I couldn't possibly delve into its significance in this post. Even some women have begun to campaign on a "why I don't need feminism" ticket, demonstrating a basic of ignorance of what feminism is.
Allow me to explain it for you. The definition, verbatim, is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." If you are a man and you feel threatened by feminism, you are a misogynist, and you need to figure out what screwed you up so bad that you don't think women deserve basic human rights. If you are a women and you think you don't need feminism, then I suppose you're satisfied with lacking equality with--not superiority to, we're not trying to get a matriarchy on our hands--men.
However, feminism, while its definition is bright and shiny, is deeply flawed as a movement. Over the course of its storied development--which, again, too much to get into on this post--there have been major issues with its exclusion of ethnic minorities, trans women, and lesbian women. But I'm not here to talk about misandry (the opposite of misogyny, i.e. the dislike of and prejudice against the male sex) or any other perversion of the doctrine that gives us all a bad name. I'm here to advocate for intersectional feminism, or as I like to call it, effective feminism.
Intersectional feminism essentially calls for equal rights across the board--women of color, trans women, lesbians, and, yes, cisgender straight white women too. Feminism is SUCH a great idea, as equality always is. But in order for it to work, it requires everyone, regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation, to be equal. It's sort of in the term. Equality. For everybody. Okay, moving on.
A lot of people like to throw around the word "angry" as a means of belittling or attacking feminists. They claim that they are blinded by irrational rage and are blowing "small" things out of proportion. To anybody who says that, let me learn you a couple things:
- What you call rage, others might call passion. Learn the difference. And more importantly…
- Sometimes, we have a right to be angry.
Not to get too political, but when the government tries to legislate what women can and cannot do with our bodies (ESPECIALLY when that government is predominately male), or when women still make less money than men do for the same job (pretty please don't show me laws, because spoiler alert, people do illegal things all the time, including discriminating against women financially and socially in the workplace), or when women are ever considered less than solely based on sex, it's okay to get angry. This is directed at everyone. Men, don't you dare criticize a woman for being angry about something that is rage-inducing. And women, don't be afraid to express your outrage over injustice when it is seriously affecting your quality of life. It's all part of the patriarchal tradition of suppressing women's emotions; when they laugh at you, or they call you a feminazi, or make jokes about burning your bra, or tell you to stop overreacting--don't listen. Keep your head high. Be logical and be rational, but if you're angry, then be angry. You don't have to be "nice." You don't have to be "polite." Not when your rights are being compromised.
And now for my last point. Everything I've said so far is about when gender, sexual orientation, and race interfere with one's quality of life. But when I say that, I do really and truly mean quality of life. If a guy cracks a joke about women making sandwiches, he's an idiot, not a criminal. Just laugh it off.
Don't laugh off the big things. When it's clear that a culture of discrimination is surrounding you, you should feel comfortable taking a stand and trying to change things. If you feel that what you do or who you are is not being taken seriously, you can speak up. But pick your battles. If you scream at everyone who screws up with you, you'll lose your voice.
I am a black woman. Being a black woman, people say insensitive things to me literally every day. When someone tells me I'm "too white" or "too black," it used to really piss me off. Now, it gets an eye roll. Whenever I hear the phrase "not all men" in response to a comment I've made about male privilege, I feel the urge to berate the guy for his insensitivity (and sometimes, I succumb and I do). But we all need to learn to be less sensitive to things like this.
Sometimes people are mean. But remember what they taught us in preschool about sticks and stones?
Most of the time, words cannot hurt you. We all get so caught up in "skinny shaming" and "reverse racism" and even fat-shaming and "regular" racism that we forget about bigger issues. Someone telling me I don't act black is annoying. Michael Brown getting shot to death is a heartbreaking, unjust crime. Someone making a joke about women in the kitchen is dumb. Dozens of women getting shot to death because of a sexually-repressed misogynist is also a heartbreaking, unjust crime.
Discrimination due to things beyond our control happens every day and to varying severity. So if nothing else, here are your takeaways:
- Feminism, and all equality movements, only work if they are intersectional. Promote effective feminism. Promote effective social justice.
- If someone is doing you wrong and preventing you from living a fulfilling, happy life based on your gender, race, or sexual orientation, you are totally allowed to get angry.
- Choose your battles and choose them well. You must fight. But make sure you know what you're fighting for, and why.
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