Whence MAGA?

Fascism has many components, one of which is the promise of a return to some imagined past before a fall, before the metaphorical eviction from Eden. Inevitably, the loss of this past is blamed on some ethnic or religious bogeyman, some Other. For the Nazis this past was an Aryan nation that never really existed but was somehow "lost" in the post-World War I economic crash and the enemy was  firstly The Jew, but of course also included others such as homosexuals and communists. The Jew, though, was the key enemy, the mythical monster lurking under the bed and behind the curtains of every government agency in the delusional mind of the Nazi.  

This backward-looking fantasy is one of the parts of fascism that is mostly clearly reflected in the Trump regime and is represented in the slogan, "Make America Great Again." And so those who voted for him should not be surprised by his actions and should not be wondering when he will get around to "making America great again." In his efforts to return to a mythical past that is idealized in his mind (and in the minds of many of his more rabid supporters), he is doing as he promised you he would do, even if you didn't realize it. 

To be clear, of course America was never great. That's the point: the past to which the fascist wishes to return is an imagined one and is a time that never really existed and yet is longed for after its loss in some supposed catastrophe. For the Nazis, this was their capitulation after WWI leading to economic collapse. For Trumpists, I would argue that there are three potential moments at which this loss can be identified. Chronologically, they are: (1) September 11th when, for those ignorant of global politics and American imperialism, [white] America lost its innocence. (More accurately, 9/11 is when corporate neo-imperialism and colonialism came home to roost, shocking those who knew too little of American policy or Middle Eastern realities to understand what had just happened.) (2) The global economic recession of 2008 when American economic policy and corruption brought the global market to its knees. At this point many people, including working class white American conservatives, lost a great deal. Yes, they really did. They too lost their jobs, homes, pensions, savings, and more. Rightly, they were angry about this.  (3) Shortly thereafter, the election of Barrack Obama as a representation of not their economic loss but their cultural loss of place in the American hegemonic order. As America's first black President, those white folks who had just lost something in the recession and felt threatened by the relative lack of feelings of safety in a post-9/11 America finally had someone to blame: the Other represented by The Black Man in The White House. 

Of course the point is not that they wish to return to a point prior to these particular moments in time (say, the 1990s before 9/11 when the economy was strong and The Republicans had overtaken the house and senate during the second half of the Clinton years). The point is that the time they wish to return to never existed; it is a mythology of America that exists in the conservative imagination; a fantasy that never has been and yet is imaginatively blocked by the existence of the Other (for Trumpists, this Other may be Muslims primarily, but is also Mexicans, feminists, LGBTQIA+, and so on). 

So when people wonder, "When will Trump get around to making America great again?" they are asking precisely the wrong question. The America of their fantasies cannot be made again because it never was. The question to ask instead is, "What America does Trump claim to be creating and what America does he imagine?" The answer to that is quite clearly a white America, a patriarchal America, a misogynistic America, a straight and cisgender America, an America that benefits the rich to the detriment of 99% of the population, a homogenous America, and so on. It is an America of dystopian nightmares. To this end, he is absolutely keeping his promise to "make America great again" in that he is implementing policies that will bring about the fantasized and mythological America of the backward-facing fascist mind. Understood correctly, he is doing exactly what he said he would and is keeping his word; too many just weren't listening well enough to hear it  over the sound of their white rage. 

Thus, for the Trump supporter, if the America Trump is creating is not the America that the voter hoped for on election day, then one must ask oneself, "What America do I want?" because a key struggle right now is over differing definitions of America and Americans and the most important question may be, "Whose side are you on?"

Fuck Bill Cosby

Trigger/Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Bill Cosby's Trial

As most of America knows, Bill Cosby is currently on trial for sexual assault.  Though literally dozens of women have accused Cosby of nearly identical assaults, using pills to drug them before raping them, only one of these is coming to trial (though a second woman testified during this trial).  The other instances are beyond the statute of limitations (I will save the discussion of whether there should be statutes of limitations for sexual assault for another time).

Cosby has chosen not to testify at his trial.  However, he has made statements to the police in the past about these accusations, which were read at the trial.  The following is from CNN.

'In statements to police and in his civil deposition, the comedian known as "America's Dad" admitted that he gave Constand pills and then engaged in sexual contact with her. He also said that he had previously obtained Quaaludes, a powerful sedative, with the intention of giving them to women with whom he wanted to have sex.

Cosby's defense attorneys argue that his sexual contact with Constand was part of a consensual relationship between the two. They said that Constand's initial statements to police were full of inconsistencies that undermine the truthfulness of her story."

The part of this I really want to focus on is the following: "Cosby's defense attorneys argue that his sexual contact with Constand was part of a consensual relationship between the two."  This is the epitome of rape culture in action.  Let me say this as bluntly as possible: one can be in a consensual relationship with that person and still be assaulted by the person they are in that relationship with!  That I even have to explain this, that such a shit argument would come up in court and be taking fucking seriously, is rape culture in action. That this is followed up by an attack on the survivor, questioning her honesty, only makes it fucking worse.

Up until 1979 it remained legal--LEGAL--for a man to rape his wife in America (or, which is to say the same thing, up until 1979 it was legally impossible for a wife to accuse her husband of rape; marriage counted as consent in the courts).  Donald Trump and his defenders, including a fucking lawyer, seem to still be unaware that such assaults are possible.  Of course, Cosby was not married to the very many women he raped and his wife seems to be standing by him.  The point, though, is that one can be in a relationship with a person and can still commit acts of sexual assault against that same person!!  Assault is not about a relationship type, assault is about whether or not someone has consented to the activity being engaged in!  I cannot believe that I have to explain this, but if someone has been drugged then they cannot consent to an activity; if they cannot consent to an activity, then they are being raped.  That's the point!  Anyone who says otherwise can fucking go to hell.

Do Not Look At The Man Behind The Curtain!

Recently. one of the world's most famous Snake Oil Salesmen, Dr. Oz, visited the part of North Philadelphia in which I work.  This is the same man who is so untrustworthy that even Congress had to ask him, "WTF?!"  In response to the heroin epidemic and the violence that exists in this community, he penned an article titled "I Just Walked Into Hell."  (I am choosing not to link to the article because I don't want to give it any more credibility or traffic than it deserves.  You can Google it if you want.)  While here, he engaged in various unethical practices, not the least of which was actually photographing and videoing a man who was shooting up, which is a shameless act of poverty tourism and voyeurism.

I would trust each of these characters from Wicked more than Dr. Oz

Dr. Oz can go fuck himself.  He did not "walk into hell," he walked into a vibrant community, into the home of real humans who live here everyday.  He walked into here and shit on the community and on the people here by calling it "hell" for his own profit.  However, he is hardly the only person who should be criticized for the approach that is taken toward North Philadelphia and other similar neighborhoods around America.  Dr. Oz's pathetic attempt at profiting off of the suffering of America's disenfranchised is nothing but a more sensational and dramatic variant on the American past time of degrading poor and POC-majority neighborhoods.  Most often this is done through the homogenizing dichotomization of America into "good" (read: white, middle class, often suburban) neighborhoods and "bad" (read: POC, impoverished, almost always urban) neighborhoods.  (It is worth noting that the impoverished and drug addled rural neighborhoods that are predominantly white are rarely called "bad.")

Let me get the obvious out of the way first: some communities, like the one in which I work in North Philadelphia, are plagued by violence and a disease commonly referred to as addiction.  This is not the point I wish to debate, as it is simply the sad truth of the situation.  However, it is less clear that this allows us to delineate communities into "good" and "bad."  Here in North Philadelphia, I regularly see community members assisting one another.  This is especially important as social services collapse under neo-liberal late-capitalism.  I also bike past one of the largest urban gardens in the city in North Philly on my way to work each morning.  I recently rode past a young man working to train a horse in an open field.  I hear roosters crow, I see beautiful artwork and children playing; I see the construction of what will become one of the city's largest Mosques; a few weeks ago I saw a kitten chasing flowers in the street that had fallen off of a blossoming tree.  And, yes, I also see needles in the streets, I am often offered drugs, and I recently saw a body being bagged.  Both of these realities exist here, but the language of "good" and "bad" neighborhoods ignores that all neighborhoods include both.

Many images like both of these, those beautiful and those not, can be found in North Philadelphia on a daily basis.

Yes, the community in which I work is riddled with addiction, as Philadelphia, and especially North Philadelphia, offers some of the purist heroin in the country at the lowest costs, which produces what Dr. Oz came here to exploit; and yes, violence does come along with this.  However, the "good" neighborhood that I grew up in also includes violence and rampant drug addiction.  In that suburban community though, these things take place behind closed doors.  Furthermore, these communities are involved in a parasitic relationship to one another that blurs the very boundaries of communities, as the white suburbanites come into the cities to buy their heroin before escaping to their protected enclaves.  I could make the case that these suburbanites, with the secret violence and addictions, their alienation from their fellow citizens, their boredom and depression, all of which run rampant, also reside in "bad" neighborhoods that are engaged in a financial exchange with the "good" urban neighborhoods where people know one another's names and share resources.  I don't want to make that claim though; instead, I want to dismantle this language all together, instead recognizing the good in all communities while working to alleviate the social ills that disturb the community and its members.

A large urban garden with a beautiful painted wall and train car, located in North Philadelphia

One of the first steps toward this alleviation is the change in the language itself.  When using the tired trope of "good" and "bad" neighborhoods we also lead ourselves to believe that there is nothing to be done to change the problems of "bad" neighborhoods and that there are no problems to solve in "good" neighborhoods.  If the neighborhood (and, by association, its residents) is simply "bad," then we needn't look at the social structures of business, prisons, schools, and so on that produce these social problems; and, in the good neighborhood, we needn't admit that there are any problems, the community is simply always already "good."  By changing our language we begin to recognize what our language hid: the supposed "good" and "bad" coexisting side by side all the time.

So give up the racist, classist language of "good" and "bad" that is all too often an insult thrown by those outside of the community who rarely, if ever, have any first hand knowledge of these communities.  Those of us who live, work, or love here don't need your fucking paternalistic insults.  And while you're at it, look at your own community, question what is wrong there, what makes your children come into these "bad" communities for heroin, and fix the metaphorical fence in your own front yard.

What It Is

Trigger Warning: Rape and Assault

In rape culture, misogynistic men and their defenders will commonly debate what rape and sexual assault "are."  We see this appear in the public sphere through the idiotic ramblings of mostly Republican politicians, such as their make believe debates about "legitimate rape."  Of course, all of this is more about protecting men and restricting a woman's right to an abortion than it really is about assault or about women.  That much is clear.

We have to call the media and other similar institutions to account for their role in this too though.  We have to recognize that the way in which sexual assaults are portrayed in fictionalized narratives on television and in movies, and as such as they are often also imagined by too many people, is only one variant on assault.  The media would have us believe that assault always looks like either a drug being slipped into a drink and then a woman being shuffled to a car or a man lurking in the shadows pouncing on an unsuspecting woman.  While such incidents do happen, and far too often, this is not the only way in which assault might take place.

Firstly, a majority of assaults are committed  by someone who the victim/survivor knows.  In these cases, the image of the lurking stranger is largely eliminated as a possibility.  However, there is more.  While our imaginations may have us believe that rape involves a woman fighting, screaming "no!", and so on, this will not always be the case.  Sexual assault takes place in any instance during which someone's ability to consent to the activity is compromised.  While the typical portrayal may be the most ostentatious variant on this, it is far from the only.  For example, an assaulter may engage in the practice of  what I'll call creeping advancement in which, from an initial activity that is consented to, the abuser slowly and methodically pushes the boundaries of what the other has agreed or consented to, gradually escalating the sexual encounter to a level that was not agreed to.  In such a situation, the victim/survivor may find that they never felt that they had the choice to consent or dissent and will often feel violated afterward.  And yet it likely did not "look like" an assault to the casual observer; it was though, without a doubt.  As another example, we can imagine someone in an abusive relationship in which one fears that dissent may result in other forms of violence.  This person may appear to consent, but that appearance is irrelevant because her ability to consent is compromised by the abuser's threats and violence.  The person being abused cannot really dissent, and thus cannot legitimately offer consent either.

There are certainly countless other examples too, but I don't want to get caught up in these descriptions, both because I don't want to fetishize rape by recounting it in too much detail and because the appearance isn't the point.  In fact, focusing on what we think assaults look like is the problem because, while focusing on appearances we fail to focus on what really matters, which is consent.  The only question that really matters is something to the effect of, "Does the survivor feel that she or he had the ability to deny or withdraw consent without retribution or retaliation?"  If the survivor tells us that she or he was not able to do so, then consent was not really or entirely viable.

Furthermore, while we debate what it "looked like," we are further objectifying the body of the survivor.  The survivor is telling you what happened, but by debating the appearance one is saying, "I don't really believe you.  I must observe your body, your trauma, casually and with disinterest because you cannot be trusted.  You are a thing, an object, to which something was done: the question is, what was done?  You, as the thing, cannot be trusted to answer that question for yourself because the important part is what it looked like, 'objectively,' not what you say happened."  This is deeply objectifying and forces the survivor to relive their trauma in detail.  Furthermore, it has the side effect of making survivors less likely to come forward.  If they are not believed, if they will be further objectified, and forced to relive their trauma then the survivor is less likely to feel safe to come forward.  How fucking convenient for rapists, misogynists, and those who would defend them...


All of this is especially important because our imaginings of assault are a part what allow us to question claims of assault in the first place.  Once we recognize that rape and assault can have a lot of different looks to it, it becomes far  harder to deny that a rape or assault took place or to question the "legitimacy" of a claim of assault.

And if y'all would just fucking believe survivors, then I wouldn't even have to write a post like this...

To Make Her

Too often men, when discussing sexuality, talk about what they can "make" a woman's body do.

"I made her cum."
"I can make women orgasm like you wouldn't believe."
"I can make a girl squirt."
"I made her scream last night."

And so on and so forth...

I do not like this way of speaking.  The agency is these sentences, and seemingly in the minds of the men speaking them, is entirely dedicated to the male speaker.  The woman is simply an object, a thing that is "made" to do something by the omnipotent power of the male.  It is not that the woman orgasms, it is that she is made to orgasm.  Her agency, her desire, her consent is lacking entirely from the statements.

This kind of advertisement, common on porn sites, is exactly what I'm talking about

It would much be my preference that we eliminate this kind of object-oriented, coercive, forceful language and replace it with something more cooperative.  Perhaps something such as, "I like to help my partner(s) orgasm" and "I love when my partner really screams during an orgasm."  The language here is much more rooted in the cooperation of a sex act, in the playfulness of sexuality; in sexuality as play, a kind of interconnected, cooperative engagement between people (however many there may be).

The exception to this may be certain Dom/sub relationships in which the sub begs to be allowed to cum, to be made to cum by the Dom, to be forced to cum at the Dom's will.  This, though, is necessarily pre-negotiated in any healthy D/s relationship.  In fact, the language of force and begging in this case is rooted in the desire to be assisted in achieving one's sexualized goals; it is rooted in consent, previously stated and with the possibility of withdrawal.  Even when engaged in what may appear to the uninitiated outsider as an act of force or violence, the D/s relationship is rooted in consent.  In effect, if not literally, prior to the D/s scene, the sub has said something like, "i desire for You to join me, to take control, to be in control.  i desire and consent to this.  Please, i wish to beg, i wish to plead and, when You ask, i wish to cum for You, for Us."  Here, the sub is not an object in the literal sense, but is being objected as a consequence of the sub's own desire, previously stated.  Contrary to being an object, the "sub" is being placed as a "subject" alongside the Dominant; putting the "sub" in "subject."

You want to know what she wants?  This is what she wants.

But too often this is not what men mean in statements like those above.  The woman is a kind of currency being exchanged in the conversations of men, with the product being male prestige and power; submission to patriarchy, first and foremost.  The woman in the conversation is hardly a subject, but simply the object of the male's supposed sexual powers, then an object of his exchange with other men through storytelling, and via that, an object of other men as well.  She here is never the subject of her pleasure, never the subject of her sexuality, never becoming through her pleasure, her orgasm; always only that which is made, made through male power, and thus unequal, thus inferior, thus below, thus owned by him; owned by men in general; an object for exchange on the market of male sexuality, which is to say, patriarchy.

She cums, and she may allow you to participate in this, just as a man may allow her to do so with him.  The language of "making" though just reeks of coercion, force, and denies the woman's agency.  So give it up, and I expect you'll find that it's not hard to change and that, in fact, with the shift toward cooperative language there will come a paradigm shift in your thinking that will also produce a better sex life on the whole, as the language above is also quite clearly egocentric and implies that the speaker is only concerned with himself.  I guarantee that sex in which everyone is concerned with everyone else will be far greater.

Bigotry is Bigotry. Or is it?

Recently, a friend raised the question on Facebook of whether or not hating someone for being straight, white, cis, male, etc. is equivalent to their opposites: hating people for being gay, POC, trans, female, etc.  This is a really important question because it speaks to an important misunderstanding in our society.  Especially among those at the top of this culture's hierarchies, it is often said that "hate is hate" (which is sort of true) and that "reverse racism" is a thing (which is not true).

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that there aren't some POC who might outright hate white people; nor that there might not be some queers who hate straight and cis people.  However, when someone says something like, "Hey, hate is hate, and some black folks hate white folks too" they are making a mistake.  Firstly, usually this is being used to justify their own bigotries, as in, "Hey, I may

have said something fucked up, but everyone is 'racist,' so it's OK."  It is not OK.  Using someone else's shitty behavior to justify your own shitty behavior is just a way of avoiding responsibility for your own bullshit.  Don't fucking do it.

There's a more important point though, which has to do with power structures, hierarchies, and the ability to enforce one's opinions.  It is the case that anyone can be bigoted or prejudiced, but things like racism/white supremacy, sexism/misogyny/patriarchy, transphobia and homophobia/straight- and cis-supremacy, etc. are actually power structures, NOT just personal opinions.  A white person who hates a black person is an asshole, but without the power structures and hierarchies of white supremacy and patriarchy, his hate is largely irrelevant. Because POC, women, non-binary folk, LGBT+ folks, etc. do not have access to these same systems, any hatred they may harbor doesn't have the same effects as does that of the people at the top of these respective hierarchies.  Does that make any bigotries they may harbor "good"?  Probably not, but quibbling over it just reeks of white, straight, male, cis people trying to fucking make themselves feel better about being racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic assholes.

An example: In 2008, it was revealed that Barrack Obama's former pastor had made comments during a sermon that some white Americans found unpleasant.  Obama was made to apologize after being dragged through the mud by Fox News and the like.  Fast forward eight years and Donald Trump can literally appoint white nationalists to his cabinet; can make blatantly racist and misogynist statements; can spout hate repeatedly and be elected President of The United States.  Barack Obama is made to apologize for someone else's comments, when those comments were actually relatively fair, while Donald Trump is elected president.

The relevancy here is that POC and other oppressed people's may or may not harbor hate, bigotry, and so forth.  But regardless of that, white people can spout hate and have that hate enforced as policy from the highest office in the land while POC cannot even form a not-too-controversial opinion about history and anyone remotely connected to them has to apologize.  This, of course, is one of the benefits of whiteness (and maleness; straightness; cis-identity; etc.): white Americans are individuals and are treated as such; white Americans are never "representatives" of their race, held accountable for the actions of other whites, either historical or present.  POC, on the other hand, never stop being representatives of their race in the eyes of white Americans and must constantly show white America that they are one of the "good ones."  Those in more powerful positions (white, male, cis, able-bodied, etc.; or those who exist at the intersections of any or all of these) will regularly have their opinions, their bigotries, buttressed by society while those who are not at the top of these hierarchies will have their opinions about those who are at the top not only challenged, but they will be attacked for holding those opinions.  This will both delegitimize those at the bottom while legitimizing the prejudices of the powerful.

So.... we live in a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, patriarchal society in which socio-economic inequality is the norm... and you want to claim that all of that doesn't make a fucking difference in bigotry and hatred?  Give me a fucking break.

White Men: Do Something

It's happened.  Donald Trump is President, and in his first few days in office he has already begun to show us what his Presidency will look like.  Not surprisingly, perhaps, Trump is proving to be a politician who actually keeps some of his promises.  Unfortunately, those promises are nightmarish in nature.  From the border wall, to banning Muslims, to abortion restrictions and attacks on women, attacks on the First Amendment, an apparent threat to invade Chicago, and more, Trump is showing himself to be the fascist we knew he was.

Thankfully, the resistance has also begun.  Women's Marches across the USA and the world took place on the 21st, the day after his inauguration, which also drew large protests.  Today there will be protests in Philadelphia, where Donald Trump will be attending a Republican Retreat being held at the Lowes hotel.  Rumor has it that Neo Nazi Richard Spencer is in Philadelphia at the moment too, and there has been a flurry of Facebook posts encouraging Philadelphians to attack him with more well-deserved physical violence.

FUCK OFF!

As this necessary resistance persists, I want to encourage two seemingly contradictory things (though I do not believe they are actually in contradiction at all).  The first is that those in the most privileged of positions--white, heterosexual, middle- to upper-class, cisgender, able-bodied, men--must take our leadership from people of color, women, queers, the disabled, non-binary and trans people, the poor, and so on.  Too often, both historically and contemporarily, the privileges of those in powerful positions have translated into ideological and political leadership in movements.  This inevitably results in the alienation of those who suffer most from oppression in societies and produces less radical results, as those at the top of those hierarchies, even with the best of intentions, often reproduce the structures' devastating impacts, whether intentionally or not.  So, we must take our leadership from others and be willing to both shut up (seriously, white dudes, take up less space) and put up.

The second part of that sentence, "put up," is what seems contradictory at first.  We must take our leadership from others, but we must show the fuck up and be willing to use our privileges to fight back.  We are less likely to be arrested, less likely to have trumped up (pun intended?) charges levied against us, less likely to be killed by murderous pigs, less likely to be assaulted, and on and on and on.  Here's the thing, it is totally reasonable for people who are most under attack by this system to choose to keep their distance if they don't feel safe.  To continue to merely exist in a world trying to systematically exterminate you is a political act, an act of resistance.  For those most under attack, existence is resistance.  But for those of us at the top of the hierarchy, the same cannot be said.  Our allyship, our resistance must be shown in the streets; by fighting our racist, sexist, Trump supporting relatives; by doing anything and everything we can to resist and to use our privileges to the benefit of those without the same advantages.

So, if you're able, go to a protest, organize a meeting (but do so with the advice and consult of LGBTQIA+ and POC peoples).  Do something.  Especially if you're a white man, take your leadership from others,  but be doing something to fight back.

For example, collect 100 scalps.

One final note: I recognize that for many reasons, some who appear to be the most privileged might not be.  White men may have trauma in their past, may be suffering from mental health problems making it difficult to participate in certain activities, etc.  If you're one such person, know that this does not necessarily apply to you and that your need to take care of yourself really is super important and respected.