White woman fainting

White feminism can’t save us (and neither can removing Trump)

Amy Siskind’s heinous White Feminism was on full display this week when she responded to some very valid criticism about her oblivious White privilege and about her Republican-friendly past by attacking very intelligent and well-respected Black women like Imani Gandy instead of owning up to her mistakes.

Siskind said and did some patently horrible stuff in the past, including supporting Sarah Palin and collaborating with Alex Jones. Seems like she should take responsibility for herself and acknowledge where she was wrong. If she’s changed, she could just say so. If she hasn’t, people should know where she stands.

My friend Max raised another important issue about Siskind’s very problematic All we have to do is get rid of the Orange Menace, and we can go back to having brunch” attitude.

I’ve seen a lot of this from Democrats and “never Trump” Republicans, and it makes me a little queasy when they talk about impeachment. It’s not like Trump is the only problem. He’s just a festering symptom of the greedy, nihilist Republican cancer. Of course Trump is a criminal and deserves to be impeached, but Congress will never do that (not even if corporate Dems make midterm gains) and more importantly, it won’t solve the problem of being ruled by a party that lies and cheats to enrich and empower themselves with no care for democracy or the future.

Red paint is poured on the statue called #silentsam at #uncchapelhill; a statue that celebrates a racist history in a public space unavoidable to students and community members who are threatened by it and the white supremacy it represents.

Confederate context

I stand with UNC PhD student Maya Little who was arrested today for pouring blood and paint on Silent Sam. Here is her statement:

Maya Little was arrested today after pouring red paint on the statue called #silentsam at #uncchapelhill; a statue that celebrates a racist history in a public space unavoidable to students and community members who are threatened by it and the white supremacy it represents. https://www.instagram.com/p/BiNQ5jbA4Ql/I have been an organizer for the Silent Sam Sit-In since September 2017, when campus police confiscated the belongings of the 24 hour occupiers. Every weekday we provide context around the statue. This is an opportunity to teach. It is also our duty to continue the struggle against white supremacy that countless others have led since black students have been on this campus. The statue, a symbol of UNC’s commitment to white supremacy, has been defaced and protested since 1968. Yet the statue remains on campus 50 years later. These last 5 years Carol Folt has been chancellor and she has not taken a single step towards removing Silent Sam. The armed, Confederate soldier dedicated and built by racists during Jim Crow has remained. However, the dedication and courage of each successive group of students fighting for racial equality at UNC has made our message louder and clearer. The threat of Neonazis and white supremacists marching on our communities has made it more urgent.

Chancellor Folt and the administrators are more dedicated to silencing us. In her first two years, there was no state law against removing the statue. She has heard countless activists tell her the statue’s presence dehumanizes and threatens people of color. The governor has written an open letter asking her to remove the statue. White supremacists have marched around Silent Sam and threatened violence. How has Folt responded? She has called us outside agitators. She has refused to call a statue dedicated for and by proud racists, white supremacist. She has never met with members of the Sit In. She has allowed white supremacist groups to invade this campus. She, Derek Kemp, and Jeff McCracken appointed a campus police officer to go undercover, lie about his identity, and gather information on us. According to McCracken, they continue to spend $1,700 dollars per day to protect the statue.

What do you see when you look at this statue, Chancellor? We see the mutilation of black bodies, the degradation of black people, the celebration of an army that fought for our ancestors’ enslavement. I see Julian Carr whipping a black woman. I see your willingness to traumatize, dehumanize, and endanger every black person on this campus. We see our blood and now you will too.

Today I have thrown my blood and red ink on this statue as a part of the continued mission to provide the context that the Chancellor refuses to. Chancellor Folt, if you refuse to remove the statue, then we will continue to contextualize it. Silent Sam is violence; Silent Sam is the genocide of black people; Silent Sam is antithetical to our right to exist. You should see him the way that we do, at the forefront of our campus covered in our blood.

But UNC does not want this context. Chancellor Folt will order Silent Sam to be cleaned immediately. But she should clean my blood and the ink off Silent Sam, not campus workers. The Chancellor and all who have used their power to keep Silent Sam here must embrace the truth about UNC. UNC is Silent Sam. Chapel Hill is Silent Sam. The statue stands smirking and defiant representing a community that has failed many times to work for justice and racial quality. Chancellor, the blood is on your hands.

Folt cares more about plastering our black faces over the Campaign for Carolina than about our safety, our dignity, our right to exist on this campus. Black community members are harassed by campus police. Black athletes are exploited by this university for the Tar Heel brand. Black faculty are not retained. Black students are forced to live and study in buildings named after people who made their fortunes through the sale of black children.

But we are not silent. The statue will be contextualized to show UNC’s racist past and present. You, Chancellor Folt—and your donors, the students you recruit, the alumni you cater to—will be forced to see it until every facet of white supremacy on this campus has been removed.

 

Photos by https://www.instagram.com/dhosterman/

I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of myself

I haven’t posted a poem in a while, and this one keeps coming back to me, most recently via Mona Eltahawy’s wonderful essay about the restoring the righteous rage of women and girls.

Poem about My Rights

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life
– https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48762/poem-about-my-rights

Less faith, more action

I will say it again: please stop thinking everything will work out in the end. The only way that happens is if massive numbers of Americans rise up and do not allow business as usual to continue. It’s on US. The institutions that got us to this moment are not going to suddenly fix it.

No one is going to save us, not Mueller, not the Democratic Party, and certainly not Congressional Republicans. Nothing will make them voluntarily let go of power.

Silent Sam, 1913

Silent Sam must go

I graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1993. Even then we questioned why any soldier, not to mention one abstracted from a war that divided the country in an effort to preserve the horrible institution of slavery, should be in such a position of honor for all to see.

The purpose of Confederate remembrance is to embrace those principles of white supremacy. This is true of Silent Sam and of other monuments that were erected in an attempt to revise history. Keeping them up does not help us remember our past, but instead creates a false memory in which racism didn’t shape our country.

This fake history prevents us from being able to understand our present, in which racism is clearly alive and well. Putting the statues up was an effort to erase history. Taking them down moves us one step closer to better understanding our past and hopefully making a better future.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said it much better than I ever could. Here are some excerpts of his speech about removing Confederate monuments in New Orleans:

“These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.”

“To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.”

– http://pulsegulfcoast.com/2017/05/transcript-of-new-orleans-mayor-landrieus-address-on-confederate-monuments

 

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silent_Sam_1913.jpg

An African American woman with her fist in the air looks a white man giving a Nazi salute

What happened in Durham

Like many people, a week ago I was feeling pretty down about the state of racial justice and just basic humanity in the United States. But then something happened.

Sunday

In response to the hate and violence displayed in Charlottesville, hundreds of Durhamites came together for a huge vigil on Sunday night. Many friends of mine posted pictures and powerful testimonials to the collective love they felt gathered together.

But I also noticed that some activists had less satisfied responses, including frustration that the mostly-white event marginalized voices of color and those with more radical tactics. Much of that frustration fed into a Monday demonstration, which had already been planned to take place in front of Durham’s old courthouse, where there was a confederate monument with an inscription to “the boys who wore gray.”

Many times I have passed that statue and wondered what on earth it was doing there. Until last year, I really didn’t realize how pervasive these were and what drove their creation. Last year the Southern Poverty Law Center (which tracks hate groups) published a report Whose Heritage? (PDF) that shows that most of the Confederate memorials were erected either during the Jim Crow era or during the Civil Rights movement, as a way to reinforce white supremacy. The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments explores this history and notes the increase in legislation such as North Carolina’s 2015 law that prevents any local authority from legally removing them.

As New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in May:

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Or as my friend Tony put so well: “Taking DOWN Confederate monuments is not about erasing history. Putting them UP was.

Monday

I knew that protesters planned to rally at Durham’s monument on Monday. I might have joined them but for it being league night, and I also had an obligation to feed a recovering friend. I did not expect just a few frames into the evening to learn that the protesters had actually pulled the statue down! Many of my fellow bowlers were sharing videos of it and talking about how this felt like a cultural turning point. We hoped this would be the first of many dominoes to fall.

Of course in the days following, we learned that the people who did this were being arrested and charged with crimes related to toppling the statues. First was Takiyah Thompson, a young, queer, financially-struggling HBCU student and woman of color (I say all this to show how much she put at risk) who bravely scaled the statue and looped the rope over the top of the confederate soldier. Then the others who helped pull it down were also arrested one-by-one. They looked like a youngish cross-section of Durham – various generations, races, gender identities, and income and education levels.

Many of us were upset to hear that in addition to misdemeanor property destruction charges, the Sheriff was levying felony rioting charges against them. Law enforcement officers were present when the statue was pulled down. It seems to me that if there had been any serious chaos or public danger, they would have stepped in rather than quietly observing and recording the event.

Thursday

On Thursday I attended a protest at the Durham County Jail where about 60 people declared that they also wanted to be arrested for supporting the toppling of the statue. Here you can see them lined up in black, with another 100 or more observers cheering them on.

Panoramic photo in from of Durham County Jail by Ruby Sinreich

Not surprisingly, County officials declined to arrest them so we moved into the courthouse for the planned observation of the the first court date of some of the arrested activists. I have observed trials before, and I find it to be a helpful way to both learn about the criminal justice system and to remind decision-makers that the community is paying attention to their actions. I dressed up for court, and brought my laptop so I’d be able to stay and work from the courtroom as long as needed.

I was one of the first to arrive at the courtroom, and the deputy at the door informed me that the Sheriff had pre-emptively decided that no-one would be allowed into courtroom 4D unless their name appeared on the docket that day. (Later I heard rumors that he was concerned about overcrowding or that people with cases wouldn’t be able to get into the room. Both of these problems seem to have obvious solutions that wouldn’t require violating NC’s open courts law, but there’s no reasoning with a Sheriff’s Deputy.) This left about 200 of us calmly standing around in the hallway wondering what to do.

Eventually we filed out, and gathered in front of the courthouse. After their trial was continued, the defendants of the day came out and made media statements. I came home and went back to work. Later I was interviewed for this Huffington Post article, and helped Now This who made this brief video. Rodrigo’s 20-minute live Facebook video (below) is a much better document of the event. I left feeling great about the message we sent from Durham to the world about supporting the leaders who took this action to rid our community of a symbol of violence and white supremacy. One of my tweets about the demonstration got over 1,000 likes, so I knew people were watching and appreciating us in Durham.

Friday

[screenshot of screenshotted text message]On Friday around 10:30 I was trying to get my head together to write a blog post about all of this, when I got a text (at right) from a friend. I went to Facebook and saw similar messages. People were trying to spread the word, but to keep the rendezvous point secret to avoid attracting negative attention. (It’s a wonderful queer-friendly venue that welcomes activism and has already been targeted by haters.)

The forecast was for a high in the 90s, I was behind at work, and I’m a Buddhist that abhors violence. I knew I had to go.

When I arrived, the meeting point was already overflowing. Outside I caught a brief glimpse of my friend who is an active member of a group called Redneck Revolt. He was carrying a rifle slung over his shoulder and trying to help people get organized. (The gun is an interesting issue. I will have to to address it in a future post.) I worked my way in to find a friend I planned to meet. The speakers (primarily Manju Rajendran and Serena Sebring, two amazing women of color with long records of service to social justice work near and far) were using the human mic to share important tactical and logistical information.

Panoramic photo in front of old Durham Courthouse by Ruby Sinreich

We learned that the police could arrest any group blocking the street without a permit, and that included us! They told us to find a small “family” of friends and always stay within arms length of them during the demonstration. It really hit me then how serious the stakes were. But I also felt the powerful love of everyone holding each other up. Many of us were scared. Some people were crying. But we were ready to put our bodies on the line to keep the Klan out of our city.

 

The time came and we marched down the street toward the old courthouse. When we got there we met an even bigger march that had come from the other direction. They held a huge sign in front that read “We will not be intimidated” with what many probably didn’t know (or care) was an “antifa” logo. The only Nazis we found were a couple of losers lurking around the statue. As soon as one raised his arm in a Nazi salute next to a woman with her fist in the air, they were pretty quickly hustled out of the area by two intrepid volunteer marshals (one of whom happened to be a Durham City Council member).

An African American woman with her fist in the air looks a white man giving a Nazi salute

Rachel Alexis Storer being harassed by a Nazi. Photo by Michael Galinsky

Michael Galinsky, who took the wonderful photo above, also made this excellent 10 minute video, but I have to add a caveat to it. The video overemphasizes the high-energy moments of excitement and tension – of which there were plenty – but it is almost entirely missing the other dynamic that was just as present, which was hours of alternately mundane and joyful moments of solidarity, warmth, and connection. People were greeting old friends and making new ones. Everyone was glowing with pride at the tremendous power we had to collectively fight hate.

After it was clear that we had secured the entire block from any potential noon KKK march and were not in immediate physical danger, we learned that there was a chance they might come back at 4pm. People immediately resolved to continue holding the space, and so we did. Brazilian drummers came and sparked an impromptu dance party. We eventually grew to over a thousand people, all mobilized with just a few hours notice.

After a lunch break I returned and stayed until I had to go pick up my son from his last day of summer camp. At this point, police were attempting to re-open the street, but many activists were not having it. Eventually, what was left of the group joined the weekly demonstration against poor conditions and treatment at the County Jail a few blocks away. (I wasn’t there of course, but have attended in the past.)

The extra momentum carried the protesters from the jail and up the street toward the Durham Police Department, where the community finally saw the hostility that some of us had frankly been anticipating all day. There was a lot of confusion when photos like this hit social media and many people took them to mean that the Klan had finally showed up. What else would explain cops in riot gear and aggressive formation?

Fortunately only one protester was arrested all day long, and it was for failure to disperse at the police department. I have had many anarchist friends and comrades over the years, and I know that there are some who thrive on conflict and simply were not going to feel like they had their say until something like that happened.

This amazing day was capped off by hearing the surprisingly thoughtful statement from the Durham District Attorney, making it clear that any charges against the statue topplers would take into account the political context in which they acted.

Whew

The past few days have been intense. (Plus Steve Bannon resigned. Holy what!) But each time people ask me how I’m doing, I tell them about this strong sense of community love that has emerged. Under a dehumanizing autocratic regime like the current Republican administration, it’s easy to feel powerless. Lacking epic leadership and organization, it seems there’s not much we can do in this moment. But building solidarity is the best way to keep us human and connected in an era where those in power want us to be alienated, weak, and angry.

A few pundits have argued that taking statues down doesn’t help to fight this fucked up government that is literally trying to kill us, but I don’t agree. These events, these victories, and this organizing is very much building the movement that will also demand voting rights and that will mobilize voters in 2018 and 2020. It’s all part of one effort.

This week was a great start. Let’s keep the love flowing.

Oh and, Silent Sam, you’re next. You stand for racist brutality and you always have. It’s time to stand down.

The first day of Silent Sam's last semester, 8/22 7pm

 

Cassandra at the peak of her madness.

It’s time for SOLIDARITY, not SURPRISE

It’s been two months since I posted, although I have new things to rant about every single day. While current events might seem unpredictable, and the bizarre machinations of the Bannon/Trump administration may surprise us, there is really nothing that we couldn’t have generally expected with basic knowledge of how authoritarian kleptocrats work, and by listening to what Trump and Bannon have said themselves.

I’m not saying I’m the smartest smarty pants, but I listen to a lot of very intelligent people. And I have already posted here about…

the many different ways that Republicans suppressed free and fair voting, and will fight democracy even more in the future;

that the Trumps are in deep with Putin, and have been for many years;

how crucial it is not to normalize this aberrant presidency, and stop letting a childish tyrant control the conversation with manipulative, illiterate Tweets;

that the systems of government that got us to this point are not going to save us now;

how Trump voters are selfish racist hypocrites, and that they are not the majority;

that Trump’s immigration policies are immoral and racist;

how quickly Trump-Bannon have moved to flood the swamp with sycophants, donors, and lying ideologues;

how it’s no accident that this is one of the most authoritarian governments we have ever seen in this country’s history;

how important it is to protest with direct action, build solidarity, maintain mindfulness, hold fast to our moral compasses, and think of the future right now;

that we need to be a lot more paranoid online because people actually are out to get us;

that gun control is a racial justice issue;

how Republicans are cheaters who can’t win fair elections, that want to muzzle peaceful dissent, and how they built a decades-long strategy to worship free enterprise at the expense of justice and criminalize their political opponents;

how proud I am to see my city stand up against hate;

how inept Democrats are, have been, and will continue to be at protecting us from Republicans’ nihilist destruction;

and most of all about how we need to be ready to put our bodies on the line to resist, and that we need to stop being surprised at the depths of Republican corruption.

When it happens again and again, I am left with not much else to say except SEE! I told you so. I told you so again. That’s boring and demoralizing.

Cassandra at the peak of her insanity.

‘Cassandra’ by Evelyn De Morgan (1898, London); Cassandra in front of the burning city of Troy at the peak of her insanity.

I keep coming back to Cassandra who was cursed to know the future and never be believed. Of course she went insane, who wouldn’t? I am trying not to follow that path by doing what I can: take care of my physical and mental health, take care of my child, teach him about the real world but also help him grow up to be a happy, healthy, and responsible person, stock up on emergency supplies, and build solidarity with friends and family that we are going to need when The Crisis hits.

We can’t know exactly what The Crisis will be, but I’m positive there will be a major national or international emergency precipitated/used by the Trumps to try to grab even more power. It could be a third world war, a Russian attack on our power grid, a weather disaster that is exacerbated by lack of federal infrastructure, disorganized mass protests and rioting, defunding of local government or other critical agencies that we rely upon, another rash of widespread hate crimes, or (maybe, possibly, hopefully) the people finally rising up together to take our government back when we realize that The Constitution is only as strong as we make it.

No matter what, we are living in some of the ugliest times of this nation and it’s almost certain to get much much worse before it gets better. I implore anyone who cares to take care of yourselves, but don’t turn away from the difficulty and suffering. Stay connected to each other, don’t allow authoritarians to isolate us at home, at work, in our community, or in politics. We need each other more than ever.

We-Commit-To-Resist

Beautiful posters for resisting racism and bigotry

Thanks to the American Friends Service Committee for publishing these two wonderful posters for resisting racism and bigotry. AFSC is a great organization. I collaborated with them when I worked at the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

We-All-Belong-Here

 

Driven by a desire to provide tools for schools and the larger community to create space for discussion and declare solidarity, artists Micah Bazant and Kate DeCiccio partnered with AFSC, Forward Together, Jewish Voice for Peace, Center for New Community, and Showing Up for Racial Justice to produce these beautiful images.

– https://www.afsc.org/resource/posters-resisting-racism-and-bigotry

“what can I call us but lighthouse”

Revenge” by Elisa Chavez, in The Seattle Review of Books

Since you mention it, I think I will start that race war.

I couldve swung either way? But now Im definitely spending
the next 4 years converting your daughters to lesbianism;
Im gonna eat all your guns. Swallow them lock stock and barrel
and spit bullet casings onto the dinner table;

Ill give birth to an army of mixed-race babies.
With fathers from every continent and genders to outnumber the stars,
my legion of multiracial babies will be intersectional as fuck
and your swastikas will not be enough to save you,

because real talk, you didnt stop the future from coming.
You just delayed our coronation.
We have the same deviant haircuts we had yesterday;
we are still getting gay-married like nobodys business
because its still nobodys business;
theres a Muslim kid in Kansas who has already written the schematic
for the robot that will steal your job in manufacturing,
and that robot? Will also be gay, so get used to it:

we didnt manifest the mountain by speaking its name,
the buildings here are not on your side just because
you make them spray-painted accomplices.
These walls do not have genders and they all think you suck.
Even the earth found common cause with us
the way you trample us both,

oh yeah: there will be signs, and rainbow-colored drum circles,
and folks arguing ideology until even I want to punch them
but I wont, because theyre my family,
in that blood-of-the-covenant sense.
If youve never loved someone like that
you cannot outwaltz us, we have all the good dancers anyway.

Ill confess I dont know if Im alive right now;
I havent heard my heart beat in days,
I keep holding my breath for the moment the plane goes down
and I have to save enough oxygen to get my friends through.

But I finally found the argument against suicide and its us.
Were the effigies that haunt Americas nights harder
the longer they spend burning us,
we are scaring the shit out of people by spreading,
by refusing to die: what are we but a fire?
We know everything we do is so the kids after us
will be able to follow something towards safety;
what can I call us but lighthouse,

of course Im terrified. Of course Im a shroud.
And of course its not fair but rest assured,
anxious America, you brought your fists to a glitter fight.
This is a taco truck rally and all you have is cole slaw.
You cannot deport our minds; we wont
hold funerals for our potential. We have always been
what makes America great.

Marvel on social justice in comics in 1969: “We can say we tried.”

Jill Pantozzi reminds us that “Marvel Has Been Ignoring Fans Telling Them to Stop Being So Progressive Since Forever.” Fan letters are a big part of comics culture since they get printed in the next issue, and in 1969 Stan Lee got a letter (from a Burlington, NC reader) that sounds like it could have been written yesterday. “… I’m not a racist, just a concerned Marvelite who doesn’t want his favorite comic company to be ruined by something that really doesn’t concern you as comic publishers.” (Not just racist, but classic concern troll!)

Marvel’s response is lovely:

But, such matters as racism and equality do concern us, Tim – not just as comic-mag artists and writers and publishers, but as human beings.

Certainly it’s never our intention to portray all, or even most, white Americans as hard-core bigots or screaming racists. Maybe it’s just that we think that many people in this land of the free have too long turned their backs or averted their eyes to the more unpleasant things that are going on every day. Maybe we felt we could do something – even within the relatively humble format of what used to be called a “comic-book” – to change things just a bit for the better.

If we fail, let’s just say that we’d at least like to have it said of us that – we tried.

Learn more of the story and get more context about politics in comics at Jill’s blog: Marvel Has Been Ignoring Fans Telling Them to Stop Being So Progressive Since Forever [The Nerdy Bird].