My Michael Jackson thoughts

I've been reading and passing on MJ eulogies all morning.

But I think Trend captured below what it was like to be a child of the 80s and to grow up with Michael Jackson. My Twitter comment this morning was "I remember a world without the Internet. I don't remember a world without Michael Jackson."

And yet I'm shocked by how gobsmacked I am by this. I expect to be horrifically sad when Madonna dies--I have grown up in the shadow and image of Madonna in a much more obvious way than Michael Jackson. I have grown up a girl who flaunts all her contradictions, who despises sexual hypocrisy and who still, after all these years, loves to dance.

Last night I had coffee and then dinner with a new friend who grew up in England, and I was trying to explain to him what it was like, being American, being born in 1980 and suddenly, unexpectedly hearing that Michael Jackson is gone. I can't.

I can't explain why I didn't own any Michael Jackson music but this morning I hit iTunes for the songs that I love ("Wanna Be Startin' Something" in my headphones as I type) and am genuinely saddened.

John Nichols wrote a lovely post about Jackson's activism and cultural relevance, and Natalia Antonova wrote like Trend about the impact of Jackson's music. But this piece by Richard Kim goes to a darker place--and made me think.

I've already noted the things that I can say I've drawn from Madonna--it's a clearer image for me. Michael Jackson? Before today I would've said nothing. Yet it's obvious now, as these words spill out of me, that there has been an impact on me, on all of us. It's a complicated one. The face we are left with of Jackson is not a pretty one. It's an intensely problematic one--all the worst aspects of our society reflected back in the face of a celebrity whipping boy.

I write a lot about monsters. Michael Jackson was, in one sense, a monster. He blurred boundaries between black and white, child and adult, masculine and feminine (as Patricia Williams wrote back in 2005), and yesterday, life and death, as the reports from tabloids hit first and many of us didn't want to believe, held out hope that it was just a salacious rumor, until the LA Times confirmed it for us.

People either disavow Michael loudly as a "freak" or choose to remember the music--which is, of course, what I'm doing now, cherrypicking my favorite tunes to play back. But if we really want to remember Michael Jackson, we will look into the dark places that he went, and look at the side of ourselves that wanted to have him as our freak. That didn't want to admit that he was still a lot like us.

And yet. A little while back we did a series of music posts, proclaiming the best rock albums, best country albums, etc. We never did get around to a best pop albums list, largely because I couldn't step away from Madonna and Michael to think of anyone else. This morning, listening to these songs with a new poignancy to every high crack of that voice, I still have to salute the best pop songs any of us have ever heard. The music will live on whether we self-examine or not. And that's perhaps as it should be.

More on Angie Zapata and violence against trans women.

1. "It."

As Cassuto noted, when people objectify others, they find it much easier both to possess and to kill them. What he meant by objectification was not sexual, but literally treating a person as an object. Cassuto also pointed out that humans are never fully able to conceive of another person as a thing, and so they enter that space in between thing and human--they become monsters.

In most of these cases (Angie Zapata's and others), the transgender woman is doubly objectified--first as a woman that the person feels entitled to, sexually (the usual feminist definition of objectification) and then when they find out that she isn't exactly what they were expecting, she becomes a thing, and thus something that can be killed--"it."

It's that very monstrosity-through-objectification that is threatening, though, because if she were simply a thing, she would no longer be frightening and need to be killed. It's the fact that she's still at once the woman he was attracted to and yet not what he's 'supposed' to be attracted to that makes her monstrous, that requires her death, that creates this 'panic' that to some people actually justifies killing another person.

2. The media.

In the news, the trans woman is both acceptable victim because she is a woman, and deserving victim because she does not fit the box that we've put 'women' into. She's another step removed from the Natalee Holloways and Laci Petersons of this world--particularly from Peterson, who was so defined by her biology, her pregnancy, her fetus, always so obsessively named in the media.

It is appropriate for a woman to be a victim of violence, and even more appropriate for a woman of color to be a victim of violence--it's expected. News coverage of violence against women goes in a hierarchy, but trans women are at the very bottom of it, (well, trans women of color sex workers would be the very bottom) and that's just wrong. It's "not a typical hate crime"? Then what else is it?

Back to the monster theory for a second--do you think that people who commit hate crimes against those of a different race than them don't have a similar process in their brains that tells them people of this other race are less human than they are, different, Other, monsters, and thus killable? Is the so-called "irrational" reaction that made this man kill a woman less a product of his hate and fear than a Klansman's hatred for black people or a Nazi's hatred for Jews?

3. Sexual assault.

As I mentioned above, Angie Zapata was doubly objectified--first as a woman. The man who killed her stated for the record(!) that he found out she had a penis by grabbing her genital area. As if it's some male right to check for himself, right? To test out the goods?

Wrong.

So this guy not only killed a woman, he sexually assaulted her first, and then stole her car, and we're supposed to believe that somehow he's the victim in this case? I mean, if I grab some guy's cock, find out he's not circumcised, am I allowed to bash his head in and then drive off with his car because it offends me as a Jewish woman?

I doubt it.

Lisa has more.

Violence against trans women.

Because I should write about it but I just can't today. I have too much to do. So please read these. And think about what happens when we make a person "it."

At La Chola.

At TransGriot.

At Questioning Transphobia.

At Shakesville.

At Feministe.

(Violence against women and its portrayal in the media is one of my major topics of study, and I'll be all over this soon, I promise. Because violence against trans women is both violence against women and boundary policing, both abusing a victim that is easy to pick on, that society won't blame you for, and the media portrays it consistently like the trans person in question was asking for it. And fuck them.)

Racism, sexism, etc.

So I'm cross-posting this from my blog. There's a bit of backstory to it, but all the links are there if you need them.

So the stuff I was writing about here has mainly been excused by the fans of that vile cartoon by the idea that it wasn't intentionally racist! Just like that New Yorker cartoon was excused because it was SATIRE, man! Satire!

This is the thing: most of us are not intentionally racist. Most of us are not intentionally sexist. Yet these things still exist. (Yes, some people are gleefully, openly racist and sexist, but we're not talking about them here. Don't derail me.)

M. LeBlanc at Bitch, Ph.D. wrote an excellent post about racism and sexism a while back that I think you should read. Really.

Racism isn't only about burning a cross on your lawn or about saying that you wouldn't vote for Obama because he wants to enslave white people. It can be as simple as locking your car door when you drive through a black neighborhood, or assuming in your head that the black woman you see walking down the street with her kid must be unmarried. Or saying that the men in that cartoon don't have the right hair texture to be black.

Sexism isn't only about telling your wife to quit her job and get back in the kitchen, or jerking off to really offensive porn (whatever your idea of that is). It's assuming that a woman who looks a certain way is stupid. It's perpetuating a false dichotomy between "male" and "female" characteristics and according only the male ones value. (Why do you really think you value not wearing makeup and not shaving? Is it because doing those things makes you less a tool of the patriarchy, or because not doing them makes you less feminine?)

We all do a million little racist and sexist things every day. I do. You do. Barack Obama does and Hillary Clinton does and Noam Chomsky does and Beth Ditto does.

I love to harp on the fact that people are not either good or evil. There is not a line between the good guys and the bad guys that we can see. This isn't a Batman movie (and hell, even that recent Batman movie played with those lines in a way that made me quite happy).

I'm not saying that there aren't people who cross lines that make me unwilling to forgive them. Dick Cheney? No matter how much he renounced, I don't think I'd ever be cool with Dick. Jesse Helms? Jerry Falwell? I did not cry or pronounce one word of regret when they died.

But having it pointed out that you unwittingly participated in something racist or sexist should not be a call for a huge defensive freakout designed to point out that you're one of the good ones and therefore what you did couldn't possibly be wrong or bad, because you didn't intend for it to be!

In literary criticism, we don't worry too much about the intent of the author. We look at the signs and signifiers, and interpret the message based on those.

This is a long-winded way of saying if someone calls you out on racism or sexism, the best thing to do maybe is give it a couple of seconds of thought, at least, and decide if they're right. Then, the proper response is, if the questioner appears to be even remotely in good faith, "I'm sorry I offended you. I didn't mean to be racist/sexist/ableist/whatever."

Then you learn from it and get over it. It doesn't make you the devil, or discount the good things you've done in the past, or even make most people hate you. It makes you human.

Immigration

I linked here the other day, and today in my email I had a link from Media Matters to read their report on the portrayal of immigrants in the media. So check it out.

Most (white) Americans need a reminder that we're all immigrants. I saw a fabulous bumper sticker a couple of weeks ago that said "Welcome to America, now speak Cherokee." How many people see that and don't even get the joke?

I know plenty of “illegal” immigrants. I know college students who’ve overstayed their visas. I know people who’ve snuck across the border in the middle of the night. I know people who work whatever job they can get, and I know people who are the highest paid employees at their workplace.

They are not all or even most of them from Mexico. They are from Argentina, Lithuania, Germany, Venezuela, Peru. They speak English.

(And how, anyway has "Mexican" somehow become the dominant picture of "illegal" immigration and a dirty word instead of a neighboring country and a beautiful culture? How many people at the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum also ate cheesesteaks at Geno's under the "Speak English" sign?)

I know schoolteachers busing tables in restaurants because it pays them better than teaching did back at home—but I know American schoolteachers who wait tables to make ends meet.

Immigrants didn’t come here to do the jobs “no Americans wanted.” They don’t deserve to be treated as though they’re some untouchable caste here for the work no one wants, cleaning toilets and looking after children and cooking fast food.

And they certainly don’t deserve what happens so often, that they get screwed out of money they have worked for because they have no recourse, no one to go to to ensure they are fairly treated.

My family is French by way of Canada and Jewish by way of Russia and Poland. We certainly aren't native. My French Canadian family grew up bilingual in their community in New Hampshire. My Jewish family had their own community in Boston where they spent time mostly with other Jewish families. Did their lack of "assimilation" hurt America? Did any of the waves of immigration destroy "American" culture--whatever the hell that is, anyway?

No human being is illegal. And no one deserves being dehumanized the way they are night after night on the network news, let alone in their homes, at their jobs, on the streets.

"By revealing that difference is arbitrary and potentially free-floating, mutable rather than essential, the monster threatens to destroy not just individual members of society, but the very cultural apparatus through which individuality is constituted and allowed." -Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, "Monster Theory"

After all, when we create monsters out of immigrants, we may have to face the fact that they show us how arbitrary our borders really are, how not-different we are from them, after all.

(cross-posted)

On Monsters

Once upon a time--well, back in 2002--I took a course on Literary Monsters.

We read lots of lovely stuff that I don't have lying around to reference right now (but if you want a deeper post on the subject, you can buy me this book, thanks). But the main gist of our study of texts like Beowulf, Interview With the Vampire, and Shakespeare's The Tempest was seven monster theses that my professor outlined for us at the beginning of class.

I've watched this primary campaign go from a spirited competition into a mess where each candidate's supporters firmly believe the other candidate is a monster. We've looked at the actual reasons for that, and I believe that especially with Hillary Clinton, but with Obama as well, the press portrayal of the candidates can be looked at through these theses. And yes, there's probably a much longer paper in this, but what the hell.

1. The monstrous body is a cultural body.

Both candidates reflect our culture. The older woman, past being seen as sexual...the old queen and the wicked witch, simultaneously, as I said in an earlier post. And the outsider, the younger black man. Both of them arise from categories we know well, but are breaking those rules just by running.

2. The monster always escapes.

Over and over again we've thought this horrendous campaign was over, only for one candidate to stage a comeback. We've thought Clinton was done after Iowa, then Obama after New Hampshire and Nevada, then Clinton again after Obama's post-Super Tuesday wins, then Obama again after Clinton won Ohio and the Texas primary and then Pennsylvania, and now...

3. The monster is the harbinger of category crisis.

Of course, they're bringing on category crisis just by being a white woman and a black man running for President, and certainly by having defeated more typical white male candidates. Hillary Clinton has always been disconcerting--at first she was too masculine a woman, then she was too feminine, standing by her man. Now she's both uber-masculine--"obliterate," "if she gave Obama one of her balls..."--and feminine, when her angry supporters accuse Obama and his camp of sexism.

Obama, of course, is both American and not-American, black and white, masculine and feminine (at least according to Carville), rich and poor, elitist and community activist, and if you'd believe the crazies, Christian and Muslim.

4. The monster dwells at the gates of difference.

You see the fear of difference much more with Obama, especially with the reports of overt racism and the repeated cries that he's Muslim despite Rev. Wright's best attempts to remain part of the media cycle. Hillary Clinton's problem is more that she is not different enough. Obama supporters hate her as part of the culture that they despise and reject--not alien, but all too familiar. But Hillary Clinton is still a woman, and still different.

5. The monster polices the borders of the possible.

Is it really possible for America to elect a (white) woman? A black man? And does some of the intense anger at the other side stem from the fact that it feels like not just a rejection of Hillary Clinton or of Barack Obama, but of all (older) women or all black Americans? How much change can America handle? And what ugly truths about ourselves do we have to confront in the process?

6. Fear of the monster is really a kind of desire.

Obama is too well-spoken, too charismatic, too seductive. We can't have that. It must be bad because we can't quite quantify it. And Clinton is too determined, she wants it too badly, how dare she?! But secretly, the need to over and over again reiterate what's wrong with the Other candidate (yes, I capitalized that for a reason) is to remind ourselves that we don't want it, we don't want it, we don't want it...

7. The monster stands at the threshold of becoming...

President?

Joking aside, one of the first ways that people learn to commit atrocities is by Othering the opponent, making them not just the enemy but something monstrous and not-human. Soldiers in Abu Ghraib, or in Nazi concentration camps, rapists, police who shoot an unarmed man or drag people from their cars and beat them, the people who killed Matthew Shepard or Brandon Teena or Sanesha Stewart. It always seems easier to do that when the hated person is already different in some visible way--female, black, Arab, gay, transgender.

So we have a presidential primary campaign, supposedly in the party of tolerance, the party that supports people who are women, black, Arab, gay, transgender, Latino, Jewish--at least more than that other party does. And we get this polarized mess, and I can't help but wonder if this would be quite so angry if it were between, say, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards (it would be for me, because I'd be in the position of trying to care which one of them won when they both rub me the wrong way), or even Barack Obama and John Edwards, to say nothing of Joe Biden and Chris Dodd or some other grey-haired white men. To what degree does all that category crisis, those border issues, that Difference affect our view of the candidate we don't support?

(Cross-posted to Season of the Bitch)