#and they’re trying to get out ahead of it so when discourse inevitably does happen from whatever they do

[mabaris]

ok can i say something. i’ve noticed, in the last few years, the writers trying to walk back the idea that elves are an analogue for indigenous folks, saying they were “inspired by” but not “meant to represent” them. and my big fear is that this is because they’re going to pull some garbage in da4 and they need to have laid the groundwork that it’s actually not problematic to imply a racial minority is responsible for their own oppression/otherwise did some insanely heinous shit because they’ve already told us not to graph real-world racial dynamics onto it :))

[where-all-the-time-went]

gah, screw it

[ID: A tumblr post from me, reading, “now is probably the time to write my 500-word essay on the politics of revolution of the daleks that gets 30 notes and is never seen again, which i return to in a month to find a lot of typos, otherwise no one will see it, isn’t it,,, “but i haven’t seen jack robertson’s first episode,,,”. End ID.] answer: yes, it is. but im gonna take a while to write this and look up a summary of arachnids in the uk (which i dont wanna watch because i heard its Not Good and you dont have to watch every episode of doctor who to be a fan, ok?) i sometimes talk about politics on tumblr, but rarely do i make political posts--mainly because, as my sidebar bio says, i’m a teenager. i don’t really have a degree in politics, and as much as i have been trying to read up on political stuff, its kinda hard when i dont have access to a college professor to guide me along. still, some things about this episode stood out to me, especially because it’s stuff i’ve noticed in a lot of media. i’m not even sure where i stand politically, but i absolutely love media commentary, and i have so many thoughts i feel like i never get to put out there when im watching movies and tv. obviously, spoilers under the cut (and it probably won’t actually be 500 words. probably.) i’m also gonna assume you’ve seen this episode, because i don’t wanna recap it. if you haven’t, go watch it! tbh, it’s well worth it (my favorite chibs era episode, just ahead of the haunting of villa diodati and demons of the punjab)

Now, um, obviously this episode is political. It’s the in-your-face without down-your-throat type of political we know and love. Still, media can be a direct allegory that wouldn’t bother the average viewer while still having politics that are good, bad, or somewhere in the middle (I mean this extremely subjectively). First, I’d like to address the elephant in the room:

While a Doctor Who festive special would normally film in the summer, this time the episode was filmed well ahead in winter 2019, over a year before it was due to be broadcast in a bid to include it within filming for series 12 (which aired from January to March) and give cast a longer break.

- The Radio Times

I’ve noticed some people pointing out that the episode references the protests that happened this summer. Honestly, I’d love it if that was the intention behind the episode, because then maybe Chris Chibnall’s team really does have a TARDIS, and we can all just time travel out of this mess.

[ID: An image from “Revolution of the Daleks.” A very sleek Dalek stands in front of police who have riot shields. The air is foggy, possibly gaseous. End ID.] However, the protests from this summer and the episode itself do not exist inside a bubble. Police brutality did not come into existence this summer, and it did not end with the autumn equinox. The episode, while featuring a small-scale protest that was eerily reminiscent of the large BLM protests this year, chooses to focus instead on one of the roots of the issue: somehow, capitalism.

I can’t say how purposeful the anti-capitalist messaging in the episode was. Obviously, Jack Robertson is meant to be an American capitalist caricature. Not to mention, Doctor Who is a family-friendly show: you can’t get too overt with what can be considered “radical” coding. Nonetheless, the episode tackles the connection between policing and money, and thus inherently comments on capitalism. 

The Dalek itself only exists to support the police force because Prime Minister Patterson knows that the idea of security will appeal to her constituency. Simultaneously, it could not exist if Robertson didn’t know just how profitable it would be. As they preach security, they create chaos. More importantly, the security they preach is one that bases itself on profit--similar to the weapons of the policeforce, and the prison industrial complex. As a result, the “security” inevitably fails.

[ID: Prime Minister Patterson, in a red coat, listens to Jack Robertson and Leo, in dark neutral-toned clothes both. They stand in front of a brick wall as they discuss the new Dalek plans. End ID.] Unfortunately, while the show presents a clear stance against money in policing, there is never any direct call to action. The political allegory may be straightforward and obvious, but the solution at the end is just to end the Daleks, and watch as Robertson announces his run for President (which, by the way, is very reminiscent of Trump, who does exist in-universe, so that’s weird). Regardless of all that, why am I even talking about this? Well, on the one hand, I love talking about these sorts of things. On the other hand, this post has started to sound like nothing but a rant with some pictures. Earlier, I said that this was something I noticed in a lot of media. For instance, I think of “The Boys,” with its obvious anti-capitalist and anti-military industrial complex messaging. At the same time, the show offers no solutions. Both are afraid of the obvious solution to capitalism: replacing it. To be clear, I say this as a person who is unsure about capitalism. I don’t know where I stand. Like I said, I’m a teenager. However, these shows can’t seem to make a decision either, when they're made by big companies with big budgets and professional adults. Politics in popular media tends to fit perfectly with the popular politics of the time, given that media must do so in order to make profit. Hence, similar to the media we consume, so many individuals seem to recognize that there’s something off with the hand money has in politics, and war, and security, yet no one seems to look for solutions.  Personally, I love talking about politics in the media, and analyzing media in general, because it’s the best way for me to communicate my internal thoughts. Meanwhile, I don’t even know my own internal thoughts. This post’s very existence is ironic. I had said in a very awful post that I wanted to write this when the tag was still trending, because I, in part, want someone else to do the thinking for me. I want people to see this and go, “well, okay, here’s where you’re wrong,” or, “here’s what we do about it.” Do I then have a responsibility to know what I’m talking about? Is the discourse all that matters? Does the media as a whole have to propel revolutionary ideas to get them into the social conscience, or can it just open up discussion?  There is, of course, irony in shows that could only exist in a capitalist world degrading aspects of that system. But no one, not even me, is exempt from the fact that these ideas do not exist in a bubble. The show’s protests look eerily familiar because, as this summer has proven, those protests are profitable (see literally every ad from companies that own sweatshops talking about how much they care about races they don’t represent in their board of directors). At the same time, I exist in that capitalist world, and my opinions have been formed via the capitalist media I was raised with. tl;dr: i know literally nothing. im sure of literally nothing. help, someone tell me about the politics of doctor who. wow, this was a really sad tl;dr, i normally make a shitty joke here. um, uh, EXTERMINATE

[ashtray-girl]

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept and its role in Morrissey’s lyricism

PLOT This is a short prose poetry novel in which author Elizabeth Smart recounts her love affair with married poet George Barker (even though she began writing it years before they met). Said affair lasted 18 years and she bore 4 of his 15 children, whom he had from several different women.

The novel is divided in 10 parts, so I’ll proceed by summing up each one of them while also highlighting the parts which I think are relevant to the Morrissey discourse.

DISCLAIMER: even though there isn’t much of a plot to spoil (the focus is placed almost entirely on the narrator’s feelings and in the way they’re expressed), I am gonna quote extensively from every chapter so keep that in mind if you intend to read the book for yourself.

PART I The protagonist is waiting at the bust station for the man she loves to collect her (she never names him btw) but when he finally comes he’s with his wife and it’s her that the protagonist sees first.

“But then it is her eyes that come forward out of the vulgar disembarkers to reassure me that the bus has not disgorged disaster: her madonna eyes, soft as the newly-born, trusting as the untempted. And, for a moment, at that gaze, I am happy to forego my future, and postpone indefinitely the miracle hanging fire. […] Behind her he for whom I have waited for so long, who has stalked so unbearably through my nightly dreams.”

It’s interesting to note the way she talks about her. Even though she’s wildly in love with this man, she never badmouths her. On the contrary, throughout the story she seems to have a good opinion of her.

“I see she can walk across the leering world and suffer injury only from the ones she loves. But I love her and her silence is propaganda for sainthood.”

You know what all of this reminds me of? The time Angie collected Morrissey at the station to take him to Johnny’s house, a few days after Johnny had knocked on Morrissey’s door and they’d talked about forming a band. Did he expect it would be Johnny who’d come and pick him up? Did he know he had a girlfriend?

“So we drive along the Californian coast singing together, and I entirely renounce him for only her peace of mind.”

I don’t know if the narrator shares Morrissey’s fascination with cars (I don’t even think the two things are necessarily related), but it’s worth pointing out how some of the most important and dramatic scenes of the book happen in a car.

“Why do I not jump off this cliff where I lie sickened by the moon? I know these days are offering me only murder for my future. It is not just the creeping fingers of the cold that dissuade me from action, and allow me to accept the hypocritical hope that there may be some solution. Like Macbeth, I keep remembering that I am their host. So it’s tomorrow’s breakfast rather than the future’s blood that dictates fatal forbearance. Nature, perpetual whore, distracts with the immediate.”

Look at this entire paragraph and tell me it isn’t the most Morrissey thing you’ve ever read. Also, does any part of it sound familiar? Well, let’s look at the lyrics for Shakespeare’s Sister:

Young bones groan, and the rocks below say “Throw your skinny body down, son"

But I'm going to meet the one I love So please don't stand in my way Because I'm going to meet the one I love No, mama, let me go

Young bones groan and the rocks below say "Throw your white body down"

But I'm going to meet the one I love At last, at last, at last! I'm going to meet the one I love

Then the protagonist gets to the couple’s house and her sudden proximity to the man she loves brings the feelings she’s been trying to repress right back to the surface:

“The Beginning lurks uncomfortably on the outskirts of the circle, like an unpopular person whom ignoring can keep away. The very silence, the very avoiding of any intimacy between us, when he, when he was only a word, was able to cause me sleepless nights and shivers of intimation, is the more dangerous. Our seeming detachment gathers strength. I sit back impersonally and say, I see human vanity, or feel myself full of gladness because there is a gentleness between him and her, or even feel irritation because he lets her do too much of the work, sits lolling whilst she chops wood for the stove.”

There’s an unmistakable feeling of impeding doom, as if she knows that even though nothing physical has happened between them yet, she’s sealed her own deal just by being there with him and it’s only a matter of time before the inevitable strikes.

“While we drive along the road in the evening, talking as impersonally as a radio discussion, he tells me: ‘A boy with green eyes and long lashes, whom I had never seen before, took me into the back of a printshop and made love to me, and for two weeks I went around remembering the numbers on bus conductors’ hats.’ ‘One should love beings whatever their sex’, I reply, but withdraw into the dark with my obstreperous shape of shame, offended with my own flesh which cannot metamorphose into a printshop boy with armpits like chalices.”

So there you have it: Meaningful Car Scene n°1. He confesses he had a homosexual experience (and he enjoyed it, or so it seems) and she’s jealous but not outraged or disgusted, which is quite a big deal if you think this book was first published in 1945. (It’s also worth noting that, in her later years, Elizabeth Smart had affairs with both men and women). Another thing I noticed as I was writing this is that sentence, “remembering the numbers on bus conductors’ hats”, which reminded me of that line in Phoney:

Who can make Hitler Seem like a bus conductor? You do, oh Phoney you do

It’s probably just a coincidence, but I found it funny nonetheless.

“He kissed my forehead driving along the coast in the evening, and now, wherever I go, like the sword of Damocles, that greater never-to-be-given kiss hangs above my doomed head. He took my hand between the two shabby front seats of the Ford, and it was dark, and I was looking the other way, but now that hand casts everywhere an octopus shadow from which I can never escape. The tremendous gentleness of that moment smothers me under; […] I stand on the edge of the cliff, but the future is already done.”

Meaningful Car Scene n°2. There’s a first attempt at physical contact and by now he seems to have realised she has feelings for him, so he’s trying to see how far he can push himself with her.

Now, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: I feel like something very similar to this may have happened between Johnny and Morrissey. The reason why I decided to write this analysis is because, once I read the book, I fully realised the pervasiveness of its influence in many of the lyrics Morrissey wrote while he was in The Smiths (especially during the Meat Is Murder era) and in the first years of his solo career but, as much as people talked about it, I feel like they never went deep enough. The way I see it, Morrissey had every reason to relate to the protagonist, even though she’s a woman. Someone who falls deeply in love with a married man (with bisexual tendencies, it seems) and is quite concerned with the ethics of what she’s doing but at the same time is very certain of her feelings for him. The man, on the other hand, seems to have a much more ambiguous attitude, accepting her love but also wanting to keep a respectable façade by staying with his wife. If we assume that Morrissey did harbour romantic feelings for Johnny, it’s easy to see why he would choose this book as a way to sublimate them, especially if we consider how the queer factor would’ve made them even less acceptable in the eyes of society.

But going back to the book… what about the man’s wife?

“By day she obeys the voice of love as the stricken obey their god, and she walks with the light step of hope which only the naive and the saints know. […] He also is bent towards her in an attitude of solicitude. Can he hear his own heart while he listens for the tenderness of her sensibilities? Is there a way at all to avoid offending the lamb of god?”

As I said before, she doesn’t seem to be especially jealous of his wife, but that may be because at the moment she’s high on the secret attentions her husband is giving her, so it’s easy for her to feel sorry for this other woman who’s being cheated on right under her own roof.

I can’t help but think about how Morrissey and Angie had their own relationship and seemed to be quite close. I mean, that must have been a bit of a weird dynamic (for Moz at least), and I wonder how they worked it out.

“I never was in love with death before, nor felt grateful because the rocks below could promise certain death. But now the idea of dying violently becomes an act wrapped in attractive melancholy, and displayed with every blandishment. For there is no beauty in denying love, except perhaps by death, and towards love what way is there? To deny love, and deceive it meanly by pretending that what is unconsummated remains eternal, or that love sublimated reaches highest to heavenly love, is repulsive, as the hypocrite’s face is repulsive when placed too near the truth. […] I might be better fooled, but can I see the light of a match while burning in the arms of the sun?”

There’s another reference to dying by throwing herself off a cliff, but the really interesting part is what comes after. The narrator rejects the idea that spiritual love is the highest form of love, which is achieved by embracing its physical side instead. It’s not enough for her to have a platonic bond with the man she loves because she wants him in mind, body and soul.

While reading this, I couldn’t help but draw some parallels:

- “Dying violently becomes an act wrapped in attractive melancholy.” → “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.” - “Can I see the light of a match while burning in the arms of the sun?” → “There is a light and it never goes out.”

And then, opening the penultimate paragraph of this first chapter:

“I have learned to smoke because I need something to hold on to. I dare not be without a cigarette in my hand.”

This is one of the most obvious one. If we look at the lyrics for What She Said (which is based almost entirely on this book), it’s pretty self-explanatory:

What she said: ‘I smoke ‘cause I’m hoping for a nearly death And I need to cling to something.’

PART II This part is mainly about the remorse the protagonist is feeling towards the man’s wife, who has now realised something happened between the two of them.

“Her eyes pierced all the veils that protected my imagination against ruinous knowledge. […] Is there no other channel of my deliverance except by her martyrdom?”

It’s quite interesting to note how the chapter opens with:

“God, come down […] and tell me who will drown in so much blood.”

And then, on the next page:

“I am blind, but blood, not love, blinded my eye. Love lifted the weapon but guided my crime.”

Both of these lines reminded me of the lyrics for Yes, I Am Blind:

Yes, I am blind No, I can't see The good things Just the bad things, oh...

Yes, I am blind No, I can't see There must be something Horribly wrong with me?

God, come down If you're really there Well, you're the one who claims to care

It then goes on:

“… she whom I have injured, and whose agony it is my penalty to watch, lies gasping, but still living, on the land.”

- “Gasping, but still living.” → “Gasping, but somehow still alive.” (Well I Wonder)

PART III The narrator spends most of this chapter gushing about how in love she is with this man, who in the meantime has followed her back home to spend some time with her (though it’s not clear whether he has left his wife for her or not.)

“Even the precise geometry of his hand, when I gaze at it, dissolves me into water and I flow away in a flood of love.”

(I have nothing to say about this line except that I like it and that I can’t help but imagine Morrissey staring at Johnny’s hands as he picks the chords of his guitar, thinking these exact same thoughts.)

“When the Ford rattles up to the door, five minutes (five years) late, and he walks across the lawn under the pepper-trees, I stand behind the gauze curtains, unable to move to meet him, or to speak, as I turn to liquid to invade his every orifice when he opens the door.”

Yet another reference to his car. Also yeah, you’re wet for him, we get it.

“And there is so much for me, I am suddenly so rich, and I have done nothing to deserve it, to be so overloaded. All after such a desert. All after I had learnt to say, I am nothing, and I deserve nothing. […] It has happened, the miracle has arrived, everything begins today, […] all the paraphernalia of existence, all my sad companions of these last twenty years, […] all the world solicits me with joy, leaps at me electrically, claiming its birth at last.”

I can’t help but think about how similarly Morrissey must have felt after Johnny knocked on his door, after having spent his last twenty years in much the same way the narrator had, feeling lonely and isolated.

I mean, he even said so himself:

“He appeared at a time when I was deeper than the depths, if you like. And he provided me with this massive energy boost. I could feel Johnny’s energy just seething inside of me.”

“I was there, dying, and he rescued me.”

The chapter ends with this sentence:

“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death.”

Which kinda reminds me of that part in Rusholme Ruffians:

So scratch my name on your arm with a fountain pen (This means you really love me)

PART IV This is, in my opinion, the book’s most interesting chapter. What happens is, they get stopped as they’re crossing the Arizona border and once the cops realise they’re together but not married to each other, the take them to the police station, interrogate them for several hours about the nature of their relationship and then make them leave separately.

Once again, one of the most dramatic scenes takes place in a car.

I fully believe that Morrissey wrote both The Boy With The Thorn In His Side and later Late Night, Maudlin Street with this entire part in mind.

“They are taking me away in a police car […] They are prosecuting me for silence and for love […] They drove me away in a police car. […] For too much love, only for too much love. […] Are you not convinced, inspector? Do you not believe in love?”→ “They took you away in a police car / Inspector – don’t you know? Don’t you care? Don’t you know – about love?” (Late Night, Maudlin Street)

“They intercepted our love because of what was in our eyes. […] Did they see such flagrant proof and still not believe?” → “How can they see the love in our eyes and still they don’t believe us?” (The Boy With The Thorn In His Side)

I wonder who “they” were, though. I mean, we know that in the book, when she says: “They are prosecuting me for silence and for love” she clearly means the authorities, but what did Morrissey mean? Were “they” those same “people who are weaker/uglier than you and I” and those “evil people (who) prosper over the likes of you and me always”? And did he have some specific names in mind, or did he just mean society in general? As in: “They (the general public / the media / the music industry) can’t (don’t want to?) see we love each other because they’re not ready to accept that idea yet, but they’re more than happy to profit from us and our art, which is only made possible BECAUSE of that love.”

The penultimate paragraph before the end of the chapter feels especially relevant:

“All our wishes were private, we desired no more scope than ourselves. Could we corrupt the young by gazing into each other’s eyes? Would they leave their offices? Would big business suffer?”

PART V The protagonist comes back home feeling sorry for herself. Her family doesn’t approve of her relationship with a married man, but she refuses to apologise and spends most of her time contemplating nature and reminiscing about what happened.

Another quote which Morrissey probably used as inspiration for Late Night…

“Every yellow or scarlet leaf hangs like a flag waving me on.” → “Every hag waves me on / Secretly wishing me gone.”

PART VI The protagonist has an argument with her father, who’s worried about her state. Her mother doesn’t want to have anything to do with her anymore and even her brother is sceptical about the whole situation. She then reminisces about leaving Ottawa with him (she’s Canadian) and she talks at length about how they’re meant to be together no matter what. She also finds out she’s pregnant.

At the start, she mentions neighbours who warn her to stay away from him:

“The well-meaning matrons who, from their insulated living say, ‘My dear, I think you would would regret it afterwards if you broke up a marriage,’ ‘When you felt it about to happen the right thing would have been to have gone away at once.”

I wonder how many people around The Smiths were aware of Morrissey being in love with Johnny (because at this point, no one can convince me he wasn’t) and, if they were, how much did they know? Did they ever talked to him about it? Did they warn him about being cautious, about not revealing too much of his own feelings in his songs? And did they mention how bad it would look for him if he broke up a couple?

“The policeman grows fatter each day and rivals the new tanks. He blots out the doorway of the little café. A couple seeing him spills the milk at the counter, remembering what they did under the bridge last night. But the policeman is blind. He strikes only when he hears a loud noise. There are others, though, who have eyes like shifty hawks, and they prowl the streets searching for a face whereon an illegal kiss might be forming. No, there is no defence for love, and tears will only increase the crime.”

Here she’s talking about how, while in the midst of a war (the book is set in the 40s), the police (and society in general) seem to be concerned with futile things like arresting people who are doing nothing but love each other and it reminds me of a quote from Morrissey’s Autobiography:

“Men were draped with medals for killing other men yet imprisoned for loving one another.”

Later on, she makes a point of proclaiming herself ready to take their relationship as it is, without expecting much of a future.

“Though this is all there is […] I accept it without tomorrows and without any lilies of promise. It is enough, the now, and though it comes without anything, it gives me everything. […] But as long as the accessories are such now as to make me over-armed with weapons to combat the antagonistic world, even if a thousand programs go wrong, I won’t lament that past I was when I could see no future.”

She then tries to dissipate any doubts he might have about their relationship (because it looks as if he’s already starting to second-guess himself) by repeatedly reassuring him that she’s the one for him and that, as much as he tries, he can’t escape that fact.

“Remember I am not temptation to you, but everything is which inclines you away. Nor are you to me, but my entire goal. Sometimes you see this as clearly as I do now, for you say, ‘Do you think if I didn’t I could have…?’”.

I wonder… if Johnny hadn’t already been with Angie when he knocked on Morrissey’s door, would things have panned out differently for them? Would they have dared to take their relationship to the next level in spite of society’s backlash?

“Do you see me then as the too-successful one, like a colossus whose smug thighs rise obliviously out of sorrow? Or as the detestable all-female, who grabs and devours, invulnerable with greed? Alas, these are your sins, your garments of shame, and not the blond-sapling boys with blue eye-shadow leaning amorously towards you in the printshop.”

Leaving aside the fact that this man is garbage, she’s obviously anxious to reassure him that it’s not his bisexuality that saddens her, but the fact that he sees her as a threat.

Also that line, “grabs and devours”, will then be used by Morrissey in The Headmaster Ritual:

He grabs and devours He kicks me in the showers Kicks me in the showers And he grabs and devours

By the end of the chapter though, her words of comfort are starting to sound ominous:

“Only remember: I am not the ease, but the end. I am not to blind you but to find you. What you think is the sirens singing to lure you to your doom is only the voice of the inevitable, welcoming you after so long a wait. I was made only for you.”

PART VII The man has a breakdown and he’s interned in a psych facility. She tries to go and see him, but his wife is already there. He’d previously written her a letter, asking her to take him back. The protagonist leaves and when she comes back a few days later they leave together, but when she tries to confront him about the letter he refuses to listen to her. They have a fight and she ends up capitulating because he’s still ill and she wants to believe him when he tells her she’s the only one.

“My love, why did you leave me on Lexington Avenue in the Ford that had no breaks?” This line reminds me a bit of Break Up The Family, when Morrissey says:

Hailstones, driven home In a car – no breaks? I don’t mind

Which coincidentally is what’s happening in this chapter: the honeymoon phase is clearly over, he’s having troubles with his guilty conscience and he deals with them by distancing himself from her, even though she’s expecting his child.

PART VIII He and his wife move to London where the war is raging and, after a while, the protagonist follows them. She stays in a dingy hotel and he occasionally visits her to have sex with her, but by now it’s clear that he has no intention of leaving his wife for her, so they often fight and every day she’s getting more and more desperate and isolated.

The chapter opens with the line:

“His brother and his mother and his grandmother lie abandoned in death on the stones of the London Underground.”

This vaguely reminds me once again of Late Night…

You gran died And you mother died On Maudlin Street In pain and ashamed With never time to say Those special things

“Bombs are bigger, but the human brains they burst remain the same. It is the faces we once kissed that are being smashed in the English coastal towns, the hand we shook that are swept up with the debris […] and love still uproots the heart better than an imagined landmine.”

This paragraph makes me think of Ask:

Because if it’s not love Then it’s the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb The bomb, the bomb That will bring us together

In the meantime, their relationship is going sour and the protagonist feels they’re reaching a breaking point.

“When the ship cracks in the typhoon, we cover our heads and tell ourselves that all will resolve back to normal. But we are unbelieving. This time may not be like the other times that with time grew into cheerful anecdotes. […] O where does he stalk like a horse in pastures very far afield? I cannot hear him, and silence writes more terrible things than he can ever deny. Is there a suspicion the battle is lost? Certainly he killed me fourteen nights in succession.”

I can’t help but think about how Morrissey must have felt when Johnny told him he wanted to leave The Smiths. People around him (Stephen Street, Grant Showbiz) thought he was going to kill himself and the fact that Johnny then went on holiday and never made contact with him must have alarmed him even more. He’d first thought the situation could be repaired, but by then he must’ve realised the end was upon them.

“He did the one sin which Love will not allow. […] He did sin against Love, and though he says it was in Pity’s name, and that Pity was only fighting a losing battle with Love, he was useless to Pity, and in wavering, injured Love, which was, after all, what he staked all for, all he had, ungamblable.”

From what I gather, he went back to his wife because he felt sorry for her and the protagonist can’t accept that because in her eyes their love was everything that mattered and everything they had.

Now: as I said before, I think Morrissey was inspired by this book because he saw himself in it. I think he must’ve found many similarities between the protagonist’s situation and his own, both of them in love with a married man who doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. Johnny and Angie split for a brief period in 1983, when The Smiths went on their first USA tour, and I’ve seen a few people speculate that if something physical happened between Morrissey and Johnny, it may very well have happened then. Morrissey may have taken advantage of the fact that Johnny was free and overcame his fears by making the first move. Or maybe, Johnny was the one who, once aware of Morrissey’s feelings for him, decided to take the bull by its horns. I don’t know. Nobody does. What I wonder is… once Johnny went back to Angie, how did Morrissey feel? Because I don’t think he was all that thrilled. Did he think he did it out of pity, like the protagonist of the book did? If something had happened between them on that tour, did he feel used? Did he feel mildly outraged? Did he resign himself to consider it a one-night stand and nothing more, even though his feelings for Johnny clearly went deeper than that? It’s also worth noticing how the references to this book start to spring up in his lyrics from Meat Is Murder onwards, that is, after that tour in 1983.

“How can I put love up to my hopes so suicidal and wild-eyed when the matter is too simple and too plain: it is her tears he feels trickling over his breast each night; it is for her he feels the concern; and the pity, after all, not the love, fills his twenty-four hours. Perhaps I am his hope. But then she is his present. And if then she is his present, I am not his present. Therefore, I am not, and I wonder why no one has noticed I am dead and taken the trouble to bury me. […] For even if he loves me, he is in her arms. O the fact, the unalterable fact: it is she he is with: he is with her: he is not with me because he is sleeping with her.”

For me, this might be the most heartbreaking part of the book. The protagonist knows that no matter what she tells herself, when he’s done with her he comes home to his wife while she’s stuck in a hotel room in a country which is not her own.

That line, “I wonder why no one has noticed I am dead and taken the trouble to bury me”, also crops up right at the beginning of What She Said:

What she said: “How come someone hasn’t noticed that I’m dead And decided to bury me? God knows, I’m ready!”

Which makes me think Morrissey must have somehow related to this part. “He loves me, but he’s still with her.” “He has martyred me, but for no cause, nor has he any idea of the size and consequence of my wounds. Perhaps he will never know, for to say, You killed me daily and O most especially nightly, would imply blame. I do not blame, nor even say, You might have done this or this rather than that. I even say, You must do that, you have to do it, there is no alternative, urging my own murder. […] If ever again he lets those nights happen, or dallies with remorse for past sins to others while sinning most dangerously against me, I shall be unrevivable. I shall, whether I want to or not, be struck dead with the fact. And he may clothe it in all humanity’s most melting colours, and pity, and sympathy, and call on love to be kind, and I too shall pray, Let me be kind, but it will be no good.”

This entire thing reinforces my first thought, which is: Morrissey and Johnny at one point had a one-night stand (“It was a good lay, good lay...”), except for Morrissey there were much stronger feelings attached to it.

As hurt as she is, the protagonist doesn’t blame the man for going back to his wife and she even encourages him, because she recognises that, at the end of the day, it’s the best course of action for everyone involved. What she wishes wouldn’t happen again are those nights, coupled with him badmouthing her to others out of remorse for his own actions.

If we once again consider the queer factor in the relationship between Morrissey and Johnny, it wouldn’t surprise me if Morrissey followed the same reasoning when Johnny went back to Angie because, as much as Morrissey loved him, he wouldn’t be able to give him the stability of a straight relationship. (That isn’t to say Johnny didn’t love Angie, btw. I’m sure he loved her deeply and he still does, but I also think at the time some internal conflict was present because, on some level, he reciprocated Morrissey’s feelings.)

That last line, “… and call on love to be kind, and I too shall pray, Let me be kind” reminds me of I Know It’s Over:

It takes strength to be gentle and kind

This can be applied to many situations, but I feel like it becomes especially relevant in the context of the love of your life leaving you for someone else, who you also care about.

PART IX The protagonist goes back home to Canada and has to face the invasive questioning of neighbours who see her with a big belly but no wedding ring. After a while though, she realises she must see the man she loves and so she leaves to meet him once again.

“I am lonely. I cannot be a female saint. I want the one I want. He is the one I picked out from the world. I picked him out in cold deliberation. But the passion was not cold. It kindled me. It kindled the world. Love, love, give my heart ease, put your arms round me, give my heart ease. Feel the little bastard.”

- “I want the one I want.” → “I want the one I can’t have.” - “Put your arms round me.” → “All I ask of you is one thing that you never do / Would you put your arms around me? (I won’t tell anyone).” (Tomorrow)

PART X The final chapter opens with the line that gave the book its title: “By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept.” He didn’t come to collect her, so she has a breakdown right in the middle of the station. The ending is kind of confusing. It looks as if she resigns herself to go back to him just to have sex with him, and she tries to convince herself everything is fine, but it clearly isn’t.

Elizabeth Smart went back to George Barker time and time again, even though their relationship was dysfunctional to say the least and they were both very damaged, egotistical individuals. He cheated on her repeatedly but she loved him nonetheless, so I guess it would make sense for the book to end like this as well.

“They obey the glint in the middle of my glazed eye, for it is the fierce last stand of all I have.” → “Gasping - but somehow still alive / This is the fierce last stand of all I am.” (Well I Wonder)

“I wanted only one thing. I gave you the full instructions. The name, I spelt it out in letters as long as a continent, even the address, the address that makes waterfalls of my blood because it is also her address. I said quite plainly and loudly: This is what I want. I want this, and I don’t want any bonus. Just give me this and I’ll pay any price you ask. I made no reservations. You took advantage of this. I never grudged. But, Sir, so what I plead is just – what are you stalling for? There is no more to give.”

This entire paragraph reminds me of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.

“He hangs, damp with his impotent tears, nailed by one hand to Love and by the other one to Pity.”

This man is split between love and duty and can’t seem to be able to make a decision, with everyone suffering as a consequence, including him. That’s what the protagonist sees. What I see is a man who likes to have his ego stroked and doesn’t mind a bit of drama. It’s not that he’s unable to make a decision, he just doesn’t want to.

“Is it possible he cannot hear me when he lies so close, so lightly asleep? […] My dear, my darling, do you hear me when you sleep?”

These parts were clearly used by Morrissey as inspiration for the lyrics of Well I Wonder (which, like What She Said, was based almost entirely on this book – I even think they were written back to back.)

Well I wonder Do you hear me when you sleep?

“This is the very room he chose instead of Love. Let it be quiet and full of healing. […] It is the cursed comfort he preferred to my breast. The one who shares it weeps silently in corners, is tender unnoticed, and makes his necessary tea. ‘Have you seen my notebook, dear?’ ‘It is under the desk, my sweet.’ Give it to him, O my gentle usurper, whom I also have usurped, my enemy whom I have both killed and been killed by. […] He also is drowning in the blood of too much sacrifice. Lay aside the weapons, love, for all battles are lost.”

At last he’s made his choice and if we’ve learned something from history it’s that a man’s comfort will always be more important than a woman’s safety and peace of mind.

FINAL COMMENTS As I said before, one of the reasons I think Morrissey was inspired by this book is that he found its story to be relatable, but it’s not just that. The language, as you may have noticed by reading some of its quotes, is quite poetic, abstract and melodramatic, with a major focus on introspection and an underlying sense of pervasive melancholy. This is an artistic quality that both Morrissey and Johnny had in common, even though they expressed it differently: one through his lyrics, the other through his sound. Ultimately, I think Morrissey found By Grand Central Station… very useful creatively and personally. Creatively because it gave him the inspiration to write some of his best songs (also, here’s a reminder that both Moz and Johnny declared Well I Wonder as one of their favourite Smiths’ songs at some point), and personally because it provided him with an outlet to confront his feelings for Johnny, which I think must have been quite tumultuous. With a shortage of LGBT media which was even more prevalent in the 80s, queer people often had to read between the lines of straight stories to find something to relate to, and I feel like that’s what Morrissey did. Personally, after reading it I found myself surprised by the superficiality with which most people (biographers, reviewers etc.) talked about its role in Morrissey’s lyrics, because clearly there’s so much more to it than stealing a line here and there. It’s also about him feeling invested in a story because it spoke to him and it represented him, at least partially, in an era when anyone who didn’t fit in with society’s standards of what it meant to be a man or a woman might as well not have existed at all.

[void-official]

“Micro-identities/’Mogai/ya’ll literally just be making shit up now” OK. i’m sorry im stuck on this and this is the last i’ll talk about it today bc fuck it. I’m gonna be Real for a second. And it’s going to be awkward, and it’s going to be long, and I’m gonna Lose Follower bc defending micro-labels is Cringe. Whatever. I get it. go ahead and unfollow. The rest of you who actually care. and in the spirit of Pride Month, as someone who feels like they’re almost never allowed to express Pride in who I am? Here we go.

I’m bi. Most of you can probably tell, im not exactly subtle about it.

I’m bi. But

my actual interest in dating or having sex with Anyone has been pretty much negligible for my entire life. I just don’t Care. I never have. Dating and sex seem like a hassle to me and I don’t feel like i’m particularly missing out by not taking part in them. It doesn’t negate my enjoyment of peoples bodies necessarily, nor does it mean I never get crushes on people it just means at the end of the day, my desire to go out there and find people to have sex with and/or date has always been like. really really low. Even if the opportunity was there. And i’ve come to terms with this. I accept this about myself.

There is actually a great deal of overlap between bi and ace identity. all those ‘weird little terms’ like ‘demisexual’ you guys hate so much were originally created for people like me, who feel like they are fundamentally not allowed to call themselves something straightforward like ‘bi’ (or straight/gay/lesbian) without people inevitably screaming at them for Doing It Wrong. So they can describe how they feel in a brief word, instead of having to go through the pains of explaining the complex relationship they have with sexual attraction to every fucking person who asks what their sexuality is.

saying ‘well you should just be able to say bi and leave it at that’ doesn’t actually account for the experiences i have when i Just Say i’m Bi. Even me Just Saying ‘im bi’ i’ve always gotta deal with harassment from people whoget weirdly agressive about -why- i’m not out there fucking or dating the people i claim im attracted to. Am I a prude? a Tease? Just an ‘Acey’ lying for brownie points? Am I Actually Just Traumatized? (They ask in a really aggressive condescending way, like thats actually how you should talk to someone you think is potentially traumatized) But by the standards of this discourse, i’m not allowed to call myself ace either, because then people are going to yell at me that if I experience the tiniest smidgen of sexual attraction or romantic inclination sometimes, or post pictures of sexy video game characters, clearly i cant be that either  I literally can’t win. there is not a thing I can call myself that won’t earn me the ire of LGBT people on tumblr who think they know me and what i should call myself better than I do. And believe me i hate talking about this More than you do. I’d rather just shut up and let people Assume i’m whatever they want me to be sometimes but then mutuals i thought i trusted will inevitably openly make fun of the people who outwardly call themselves demisexual or whatever microlabel is trendy to shit on currently, and usually i bite my tongue cause at the end of the day its Just Words, right? I don’t even use that word, right? Its just words and some words can be interchangeable and not everyone knows what they mean which can feel alienating and unnecessary to people who don’t understand them. I -get- why people ‘cringe’ when they see like 10 terms they don’t understand in someones bio. why do you think i don’t even list anything about my sexuality in mine other than my pronouns?

but I always remember like. just bc that label isnt For Me, it doesn’t mean there might be someone in a similar position to me who doesnt feel comfortable just calling themeslves bi, and prefers the label ‘demisexual biromantic’ who feels like that phrase puts them in a place of peace and contentment, and I wouldn’t argue with them about it. Bc thats their fucking choice. Them being happy with who they are takes priority over my personal opinions of the language they use. same with gender nonconforming people who dont want call themselves trans or nonbinary. Thats fucking Fine. I’m not telling you to have to use the same words as me if you don’t feel like they’re necessary or accurate. I literally don’t give a rats ass what words you use to identify yourself so long as they’re not being used to hurt other people. I just want to be able to have Words, for myself, that describe how I feel, that don’t result in people treating my entire identity like some shitty discourse Meme. And right now I have none. No matter what I call myself, people choose tell me it’s not accurate, or its too complicated.

As for all these shitty fucking posts about people ‘forcing’ young people to take up labels. This. This doesn’t actually happen? (OK I won’t say it doesn’t happen ever on an individual level? but that its not something enforced or encouraged by any group as a practice, and that distinction is necessary, bc saying it happens on a large scale literally implies predatory intentions from a massive group of people instead of members of the group behaving poorly as individuals)

Demisexual people as a whole have literally never told me i had to call myself demi just bc my sense of how i experience attraction might be similar to theirs. Ace people as a whole don’t usually tell people whose lack of sexual attraction is caused by trauma or who havent developed enough to experience sexual attraction that they -have- to call themselves ace. Most Bi or Pan people are fine with the fact that their labels have a lot of overlap and that the line between these things can be murky, they arent actually constantly ready to tear each others throats out over whose terminology is correct. All of this shit is made up by hateful people, or people taking a few examples of poor behavior out of context as an excuse to shit on everyone else, and well meaning people keep falling for it bc it -seems- helpful to be. reactive. I guess? to people you’re constantly told are hurtful to the causes of marginalized people. but im telling you. its not true. literally nobody forces you to call yourself any of these words, they just Exist out there in case you want them, and if you think thats somehow a threat to other peoples identities or to Minors just like, conceptually, for existing, for being Too Specific, im sorry but what other word is there for your reaction than phobic? If an individual derails a conversation about Y to be like “You didn’t include _X_” or tries to force their views on a minor who hasn’t developed a stable sense of identity yet, that is an Individual behaving in an inappropriate manner, not an invitation for you to throw the whole group under the bus. I hate to tell you but if you’re using examples of individuals on tumblr who say stupid shit, everyone on tumblr says stupid shit and butts in conversationally where they’re not welcome. Universally. It’s how tumblr is formatted. Trust me, I have like 4 viral posts going right now.

i’m just tired of it at this point. im not cool with people who stretch to make fun of micro-labels all the time and think they’re being woke allies or w/e to the ‘real LGBTs’.  Even if a lot of the time I personally don’t care for all the labels and wouldn’t choose them for myself, I still feel like If you can’t treat people like individuals and assess their character on a case by case basis, i don’t trust you. I don’t like people who stereotype and LGBT people are not immune to this behavior. Like i don’t say it often but it fucking hurts, and it hurts other people I’m close to who I know have similar complicated identities and struggle coming up w/words to describe themselves that the whole of tumblr LGBT+ will approve of and agree with (clearly an impossibility because there are still people who don’t want bi and trans to even be in there). I might tolerate the constant jokes and not block on principle of knowing not everyone has ingested and thought about this discourse in the same way I have, and im a big tough adult, ultimately i can take it. but inside i know no matter what i call myself, if i were earnest with some of you about how i feel I’d probably be just another ‘special snowflake Delusional mogai creep’ to you, and i can’t deny that fucking hurts to think about. I try not to talk about it openly bc it embarrasses me, bc i dont think my sexuality should have to be battle ground for discourse for people who are supposed to be on my side. But there it is. I think most of this discourse is Trash, and clearly not for the reason most people on here say its trash, not bc theres ‘too many specific words, y’all just be Making Shit Up’ but because so many of you are more caught up in the words than the substance of the arguments or the needs of people whose experiences might have a lot of overlap with yours regardless of what word they’re using to describe it.

Anyway. happy pride to LGBTQA+ people who still dont really feel pride in themselves or their identity. I’d say you’re valid, but you don’t need my validation or anyone elses to understand that you’re a person deserving of respect and compassion. You exist as who you are, and you have to come to terms with who that is, regardless of whether or not you feel like you’re accepted for it. if not pride then, settle for confidence in who you are.

[crimethinc]

Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom–How “Nobody Is above the Law” Abets the Rise of Tyranny

We saw you last night among thousands of other anti-Trump demonstrators around the US. Their signs proclaimed, “No one is above the law.” You were the one with the sign reading “I love laws.” We need to talk.

Really, this is what gets you into the streets? Trump’s goons have been kidnapping your neighbors, preparing to block your access to abortion, openly promoting “nationalism,” calling the targets for lone wolf assassins who send mail bombs and shoot up synagogues—and your chief concern is whether what they’re doing is legal?

And if Trump and his cronies were to change the laws—what then?

If you’re trying to establish the foundation for a powerful social movement against Trump’s government, “no one is above the law” is a self-defeating narrative. What happens when a legislature chosen by gerrymander passes new laws? What happens when the courts stacked with the judges Trump appointed rule in his favor? What will you do when the FBI cracks down on protests?

If everything that put Trump in a position to implement his agenda were legal, would you be at peace with it, then? When some nice centrist politician takes office after him, but the police keep enforcing the policies he introduced and the judges he appointed keep judging, will you withdraw from the streets? Come to think of it, where were you under Obama when people were being imprisoned and deported by the million? Perhaps you have no problem with millions of people being imprisoned and deported as long as no one colludes with Russia or talks over a journalist?

We saw other protesters with signs entreating us to “Save Democracy.” Didn’t democracy inflict Trump on us in the first place? Isn’t it democracy that just brought Bolsonaro to power in Brazil—a racist, sexist, and homophobic advocate of the Brazilian military dictatorship and extrajudicial killings? If democracy enables outright fascists to legitimize their authority rather than having to seize power by force, what’s so great about it, exactly?

If “no one is above the law,” that means the law is above all of us. It means that the law—any law, whatever law happens to be on the books—is more valuable than our dearest desires, more righteous than our most honorable aspirations, more important than our most deep-seated sense of right and wrong. This way of thinking prizes group conformity over personal responsibility. It is the kiss of death for any movement that aims to bring about change.

Social change has always involved illegal activity—from the American Revolution to John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, from the sit-in movement to the uprising in Ferguson. If not for the courageous deeds of people who were willing to break the law, we’d still be living under the king of England. Many of us would still be enslaved.

That is what makes your cheerleading for the FBI so chilling. You’re familiar with COINTELPRO, presumably, and many of the other ways that the FBI has set out to crush movements for social change? Imagine that your best-case scenario plays out and the FBI helps to orchestrate Donald Trump’s removal from power. What do you think that the FBI would do with all the legitimacy that would give them in the eyes of liberals and centrists? It would have carte blanche to intensify its attacks on poor people, people of color, and protesters, destroying the next wave of social movements before they can get off the ground. Nothing could be more naïve than to imagine that the FBI will focus on policing the ruling class.

The greatest peril we face is that Trump’s government will be replaced by a centrist government that will continue most of the current administration’s policies without violating any rules or norms. The more Trump’s regime is described as exceptional, the easier it will be for the next administration to get away with the same activities. In the long run, the system is at its most dangerous when it does not outrage people.

Mobilizing to support an FBI Director in response to the firing of one of the most racist Attorney Generals in living memory—this is the same “lesser of two evils” argument some have made for voting taken to its logical extreme; this approach guarantees that we will be reduced to advocating for the second worst of all possible evils. Firing Jeff Sessions helps Trump evade Mueller’s investigation, yes, but let’s be clear—men like Sessions, Trump, and Mueller do the most harm in the course of carrying out their official duties in strict observation of the law.

What Gives the Law Legitimacy in the First Place?

In the feudal era, when kingly authority was thought to be bequeathed by God and laws were decreed by kings, it was at least internally consistent to hold that everyone had a sacred duty to obey them. Today, this assumption lingers as a sort of holdover—yet without any rational basis. Certainly, the law decrees that no one is above it, but that’s just circular reasoning. What obliges us to regard laws as more valid then our own personal ethics?

Partisans of democracy like to imagine that laws arise because of their general utility to the population as a whole. On the contrary, for most of the history of the state, laws were decreed by monarchs and dictatorships—and only existed on account of their utility to rulers. Sovereignty itself is a fundamentally monarchist metaphor. If we no longer believe in the divine right of kings, that undermines any inherent claim that laws could have on our obedience. Rather than blindly complying, we have a responsibility to decide for ourselves how we should act. To cite Hannah Arendt, “No one has the right to obey.”

The law masquerades as a sort of social contract existing for everyone’s benefit. But if it’s really in everyone’s best interest, why is it so hard to get people to abide by it? The truth is, neither the powerful nor the oppressed have ever had good cause to obey laws—the former because the same privileges that enable them to write the laws release them from the necessity of observing them, the latter because the laws were not established for their benefit in the first place. It shouldn’t be surprising that a billionaire like Trump does not obey the laws. What’s surprising is that you still think that the rest of us ought to.

What’s the difference between the illegal activity of a Donald Trump and the illegal activity of a person who engages in civil disobedience? If “no one is above the law,” then they’re both equally in the wrong. No, the real distinction between them is that one is acting for selfish gain while the other is attempting to create a more egalitarian society. This is the important question—whether our actions serve to reproduce hierarchies or undermine them. We should focus on this question, not on whether any given action is legal.

What we are seeing today is the fracturing of our society. The peace treaties that stabilized capitalism through the second half of the 20th century are collapsing, and members of the ruling class are adopting rival strategies to weather the crises ahead. On one side, nationalists like Trump are betting on chauvinism and brute force, preparing to make the best of it as society splinters into warring groups. On the other side, centrist technocrats want to present themselves as the only imaginable alternative, using the specter of Trump and his kind to justify their own quest for authority. When they get back into office, you can bet that they won’t turn down any additional power that Trump has vested in the state. Your advocacy for “the rule of law” is music to their ears. And, of course, whatever additional power and legitimacy they concentrate in the state will be passed on to the next Trump, the next Bolsonaro.

Each side aims to instrumentalize the discourse of law and order in order to outflank the other in the battle for power. This isn’t new; it’s as old as the state itself. Immediately after the confirmation of Kavanaugh, you’re a sucker to imagine that the law represents some sort of social consensus rather than the edicts of whoever happens to control the institutions. To fetishize obedience to the law is to accept that might makes right.

To march under the banner “no one is above the law” is to spit in the faces of all those for whom the daily functioning of the law is an experience of oppression and injustice. It is to reject solidarity with the sectors of society that could give a social movement against Trump leverage in the streets. It is to assert the political center as a discrete entity that holds itself apart—that views both Trump and the social movements that oppose him as rivals to its own power. Finally, it is to legitimize the very instrument of oppression—the law—that Trump will eventually use to suppress your movement. Remember “Lock her up”?

You have to ask yourself some important questions now. Do you love laws—or justice? Do you love rights—or freedom?

If it’s laws you believe in, you’re on the right track. Just don’t have any illusions about what it means to value the law above everything else. If it’s justice you want, on the other hand, you need to be prepared to break the law. In that case, you need a totally different narrative to explain what you’re doing.

If it’s rights you’re after, you’ll need a government to grant them, protect them, and—inevitably—take them away when it sees fit. Whenever you use the discourse of rights, you set the stage for this to occur. There are no rights without a sovereign to bestow them. On the other hand, if you love freedom, rather than vesting legitimacy in the government, you’d better make common cause with everyone else who has a stake in collectively defending themselves against invasive efforts to impose authority, whether from Trump or his Democratic rivals.

From the anarchist perspective, all of us are above the law. Our lives are more precious than any legal document, any court decision, any duty decreed by the state. No social contract drawn up in the halls of power could provide a basis for mutually fulfilling egalitarian relations; we can only establish those on our own terms, working together outside any framework of imposed responsibilities. The law is not our salvation; it is the first and greatest crime.

Further Reading

The Centrists

From Democracy to Freedom

Don’t celebrate the exception; abolish the rule.

[eichy815]

All Hellraisers’ Eve

As young kiddies go masquerading around their neighborhoods this evening – adorned in a variety of colors, fabrics, and cosmetics – the ambience is supposed to be one of levity and pleasure.

In our politically-correct world, unfortunately, many parents have found themselves questioning how permissive they should be when helping their children pick out a costume.  Is it racist?  Is it sexist?  Is it insensitive?  Is it just in bad taste?

This debate was accentuated by a recent Halloween PSA known as “My Heroes” – depicting a young brother and sister who go trick-or-treating amid the anxiety of their father.  As it turns out, the boy has chosen to dress as Wonder Woman while the girl has chosen to dress as Batman.  By the end of the PSA, both parents have lovingly accepted their children’s eschewing of traditional gender roles.

But, as many observers will point out, gender discrimination manifests itself differently from how racial discrimination does...even when we acknowledge that both types of injustices are wrong.  That has been a hot topic amongst parents and activists over the course of the past several weeks leading up to this current season of spooky merriment:  can Halloween costumes be racist?

In a Cosmo piece from this past week, the Redbook editorial staff set off a huge wage of Internet ire after writing a preachy editorial about the role of cultural appropriation in Halloween costuming.  Its initial point was reasonable enough:  parents have a responsibility to try to be culturally-sensitive when approving a child’s costume choice.

Shortly into the op-ed, however, it went off the rails:  making the case – since Moana is a role model for little Polynesian girls in the same way Tiana is a role model for little black girls – that little white girls shouldn’t take that celebration away from members of disenfranchised groups by emulating their costumes.  The staff writes:

If your Caucasian son or daughter doesn’t get to be exactly what they wanted for Halloween, encourage them to take a step back and realize that they’re awash in privileges that the real Moanas and Tianas of the world will likely never see, because the world is full of racist assholes...to pretend to be a racial, ethnic, or religious minority when you’re not [a member of such a group] makes light of their history – and reinforces a deeply problematic power dynamic, wherein white people use, then discard, pieces of cultures they’ve subjugated for centuries just because they can.

The Rabble-Rousing Redbookers go on to cite factors such as Donald Trump’s ascendance to the presidency along with xenophobia, systemic racism, and anti-Semitism to back up their stance.  They tell white people to go ahead and sing the songs from Moana – just don’t dress like her if you’re not Polynesian.

Now, let’s take a step back, here.  My position is that the existence of white privilege needs to be confronted (much more effectively than it has) within the context of educational curriculums.  Yet, the way in which some educators and parents choose to frame it can often end up being quite dubious...thereby alienating white students, even when that wasn’t necessarily the intent.  Peppering a classroom lecture with platitudes of white guilt or so-called “positive stereotyping” has been a flawed strategy on the part of teachers for decades, now.

What that should tell us is that there must be new approaches when it comes to how we can interweave the realities of systemic racism (or other systemic forms of discrimination) into school curriculums.  After all, journalist Paul Waldman cites a recent poll where 55% of white Americans believe that white people suffer from racial discrimination in America today.  He seems baffled by the results of this survey when we look at the realities of how people of color still face continued discrimination in employment, housing, and criminal justice.

For his part, Waldman chalks it up to rather simplistic factors on the part of white people: resentment toward affirmative action, influence by Bill O’Reilly along with other right-wing commentators, and, one of the most popular fallacies amongst the Left these days – “hurt feelings” (or, Robin DiAngelo’s infamous doctrine of so-called “white fragility”).

What Waldman and his like-minded “armchair sociologists” are missing is how while, yes, right-wing propaganda has indeed fueled much of the racism from White America, there is another overlooked variable to it.  One of our most glaring failures during the racial discourse is how we so often fail to make the distinction between systemic racism and cultural or social forms of racism.  The latter are often written off by leftists (or “progressives”) as merely “prejudice” – or, the fallback mantra of “hurt feelings.”  So, when a lot of white people are confronted with the type of survey question that Waldman cites, many of them aren’t limiting their understanding of “racism” to exclusively the institutional forms of it.

I write more extensively about this in my March 2017 op-ed, “What No One Wants to Say About Racism.”  If members of this warped “neo-Left” (or, we could call them “neo-progressives” or “illiberals”) worldview would start to delineate racism into the three subcategories of institutional, cultural, and social (rather than just minimizing the latter two as mere “prejudice”), then we could finally begin to have some serious conversations in this country about how to end systemic racism.  Then, working on the interpersonal bigotry of people’s social racism and cultural racism could follow that, more organically.

My apologies for the rhetorical detour, there.  Let’s refocus on the “racist Halloween costumes.”

The original article (referenced in the Cosmo op-ed), written by parenthood blogger Sachi Feris, was a firsthand narrative of how Feris worked through her moral struggles when her daughter was trying to decide between dressing as either Elsa (from Frozen) or Moana for Halloween.  Feris was concerned that the Elsa costume might instill additional undertones of white privilege in her daughter...where the Moana costume would be an offensive example of cultural appropriation.

Feris considered how Elsa is a completely made-up character...whereas Moana was based on a real person.  Therefore, her Caucasian daughter dressing as Elsa might be slightly more acceptable than dressing as Moana.  But this socially-aware mom was also hesitant because her daughter is brunette...and she feared that wearing a blonde Elsa-wig might encourage an Anglo-Saxon ideal of whiteness.

After a back-and-forth with her daughter for several days, Feris reports that her daughter ultimately decided to go dressed as Mickey Mouse for Halloween.  Problem solved, right?

British radio host/activist Maajid Nawaz proceeded to tear apart the hand-wringing from Feris.  If a white girl dressing as Moana for Halloween is “culturally-appropriating” the character, he asks, then should any writers and animators of Moana who happen to be white also be accused of “cultural appropriation?”  Where exactly would the slippery slope end?

The greater point Nawaz makes is that, in his view, splitting hairs over cultural appropriation – when such hair-splitting goes overboard – is creating a segregated world where the intermixing of ethnicities is discouraged based on stereotyping.  Ironically, he adds, this is the exact principle of stereotyping that the self-proclaimed “anti-racism activists” complain about.  If that slippery slope accelerates, it will inevitably lead to subjective value judgments when assessing who within any of these groups is actually dressing or behaving authentically.

Furthermore, Nawaz asks:  shouldn’t we be encouraging more role models who are from racial or ethnic groups other than Caucasian/European ones?   He believes the distinction should be, as a rule-of-thumb, whether a costume is based on admiration versus mockery.  The latter reeks of cultural appropriation.  The former should be a case where we all acknowledge the origins of a cultural element...and then celebrate it.  These kids, Nawaz maintains, generally aren’t mocking Moana due to a racially-specific trait of hers – they’re revering her for the positive attributes she represents.

I’m in agreement with Maajid Nawaz on this point.  Obviously, a costume utilizing “blackface” (or “brownface”) is clearly a form of mockery.  Children should be taught that this is wrong.

But let’s take a character such as Zorro.  He’s a Mexican swordsman who serves as an enforcer of justice.  So if a white boy dresses up as Zorro (with no accompanying facial makeup), then that, in and of itself, wouldn’t be cultural appropriation.

On the other hand, if that same white boy wears a Zorro costume with the phrase “Bad Hombre” embroidered across the front of it – *that’s* different, because it’s embracing a specific racist message that was publicly conveyed by Donald Trump.

In some cultures, actual ceremonial wardrobe isn’t intended to be worn outside of a sacred ceremony.  So if a white person were to dress in an authentic tribal headdress as part of a “Halloween costume”...that would be inappropriate, because they are dishonoring a specific cultural tradition.  Even someone who has indigenous heritage wouldn’t be wearing a true vestige of spiritual garb during a fantasy-based holiday that celebrates make-believe.  In this vein, some could have accused Felipe Rose of The Village People – who was part Lakota Sioux – of misappropriating his own culture.

However, if someone wears a tribal headdress that is made out of synthetic materials – that, in and of itself, isn’t “cultural appropriation.”  But if they carry a plastic tomahawk or verbally whoop out a mock war cry, *THAT* is clearly racist – since it is misappropriating indigenous cultures in a negative, predatory context.

Let’s go even further:  if the wearer of a costume is going to be individually scrutinized based on their race or ethnicity per se...does that mean a young girl of Mexican descent shouldn’t dress up as Princess Jasmine from Aladdin?  After all, people with Latin American heritage and people with Middle Eastern heritage might appear similar, in terms of their individual skin pigmentation.  Does that mean we should be asking for DNA testing before a child selects their Halloween costume?

Now, what happens if we flip the sex of the child, as well?  As seen in the introductory example, some girls might want to dress as male characters while some boys might want to dress as female characters.

If a little girl decided to dress as Lucretia Mott (yes, I realize it’s an unconventional example – let’s suppose she’s really into history), should she be prevented from doing so if she doesn’t share Ms. Mott’s religious status as a Quaker or her British heritage?  Or should a boy be prevented from dressing as Mott due to their difference in genitalia?

By contrast, if a girl or a boy dresses as Lucretia Mott with a fake “ball-and-chain” attached to the costume itself – *that’s* clearly designed to make a sexist statement, and would be cultural misappropriation.

If a person of size dresses as Fred Flinstone for Halloween, that doesn’t mean they’re making an outright negative statement about overweight people.  And would it be “misappropriation” for a thin person to dress up in close-fitting “Yabba_Dabba_Doo!” garb of their own?  Although if your Fred Flinstone costume comes with a sign pinned to your back that reads “WIDE LOAD COMING THROUGH” – then, yeah, *that’s* a pretty clear example of sizeism.

So, if a heterosexual person dresses up as Elton John, that would tend to be a celebration of him as an iconic vocal artist and entertainer – which is why there wasn’t any major outcry from the gay community when Valerie Bertinelli impersonated him during a 1975 episode of One Day at a Time.  Yet, if someone wears an Elton John costume with fake feces spread across the suit’s fabric – *that’s* a pretty obvious dig at (misperceptions about) the sex lives of (some!) gay men.

As a polytheist, I wouldn’t be offended if another person dressed up as a Pagan high priestess for Halloween.  However, if their Pagan high priestess costume includes a “straightjacket” – yes, *that’s* religiously offensive since it would be meant to berate certain religious beliefs.

Even if a child dresses up as the Statue of Liberty...green or silver body makeup isn’t referencing any specific racial group.  It’s an inanimate object – and the wearer of that costume is probably expressing his/her patriotism.  But if they were to accessorize such a costume with a dog collar – even *that* could be construed as anti-American.

When I was in middle school, our Family & Consumer Education classes had competitions in food sales.  My class decided to sell frybread (since the mother of one of our classmates, who belonged to the Ho-Chunk Nation, offered to make up the batches of dough for us each morning during the sale days).  

To help us “advertise” our food sale, I went around from one classroom to another dressed as a monk (since the name of our “company” was Frybread Friars), ringing a cowbell and extolling the virtues of our product, town crier-style.

Was our class “culturally-appropriating” Ho-Chunk food by virtue of selling frybread, when our classmates were predominantly white with only a handful of students who were actually Ho-Chunk themselves?  

As a “closeted polytheist” who had been raised Catholic up until that point, was I “culturally-appropriating” my own former religion at the time? (well, I *was* wearing an actual rosary...but I would argue that, since it was my own rosary and I was a non-believer, that was well within my discretion – especially since my intent wasn’t to denigrate Catholicism per se; it was to cobble together a medieval-style “retro” costume with the limited resources available to me)

One Halloween, in fact, I wanted to dress up as a matador.  Now, some “illiberals” (or, as I often call them, “bitchsplainers”) would say that, as a white kid, I had no right to “misappropriate” something that was part of Mexican and Spanish culture.  My “costume” ended up being a colorfully-patterned sweater and a cowboy hat with homemade stringed beads hanging from it (yes, I scotch-taped them).  I simply didn’t have the proper clothing or headwear to emulate a matador.  So I would argue that my crappy little costume *wasn’t* an example of “cultural appropriation” because:

A.) I wasn’t wearing an actual authentic montera (just a crummy facsimile of one)

B.)  I wasn’t wearing an actual authentic matador suit (cape, jacket, and vest) that would be literally worn during a bullfighting event

C.)  I hadn’t applied “brownface” to my skin via any facial/arm makeup – it was just pasty-faced little me, wearing a stupid hat!

D.)  I wasn’t wearing this “costume” in an attempt to mock Latin American people.  I choose it because I honestly thought matadors were “cool” and exhibited bravery.

Of course, some members of PETA might accuse me of promoting “animal abuse.”  But even that’s a stretch.  It’s not like I dressed up a pet dog with bull horns and led it around while dangling a cattle prod in front of it.

The point is:  determining whether or not a costume is offensive can often be a gray area.  The scandal over the October 2015 university staff Halloween party at the University of Louisville was a classic example of this.  In that case, the university’s president even got caught participating in the questionable festivities.

Okay, I’ve said my piece.  Those of you who are taking these “cultural appropriation” accusations to the extreme, in terms of Halloween, are only making yourselves foolish.

Yes, try to employ common sense...and don’t pick a costume with the intent to be insensitive toward any group or individual.  But Halloween is supposed to be a celebratory time for fun and creativity.

Let children and adults have fun on All Hallow’s Eve, as long as they can uphold the basic tenets of respect and decency.  I shall reiterate my Halloween-themed installment of “Eichy Says” from three years ago...

“You Cannot Defeat The Trick-or-Treat”!!!