MalonE-Mail: Raging Against the Machine
So I skipped a week! I hope you'll forgive me, if only because at this point you're probably subscribed to a few hundred TinyLetters, most of which are offering you concrete ways you can make a difference in these terrifying times. At least, I have. I guess it's helping? Maybe it's by design, but over the past few weeks, I have yet to come across a person who doesn't now answer the bland question, "How are you?" with a half-hearted, slightly haggard, "Ehhh, you know."
Since I last wrote you—it seems like it's been a year since the inauguration, LOL TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE—I spent a week in D.C., for the protests of Darth Baby Hands' coronation and the Women's March the day after. Together with members of my district, I met with one of Senator Dianne Feinstein's senior staff here in L.A. to discuss her hesitation to reject cabinet nominations and to urge her to be more transparent with her constituents. Though I couldn't make it myself, y'all made my heart sing jamming up LAX (and the rest of the nation's airports) with protest chants and fiery, righteous rage. And things are shifting. Perhaps not majorly, perhaps not permanently, but clearly, we're at least infuriating the villains and inspiring our leaders. All we have to do is keep going.
What I wrote:
As mentioned above, I went to the Women's March in Washington, D.C., and wrote about some of the uncomfortable conversations it's now forcing us to have for GOOD. Relieved to hear, at least anecdotally, that many white women are continuing to engage in those conversations and examine their own role in the dark days ahead.
Also: I started a blog! Well, technically, I started posting blogs on my website, which already exists. At any rate, over there, I wrote a bit about why I felt compelled to do so, then some more about my uncomfortable, evolving relationship with (dis)obedience.
What I read:
"...authoritarians have no trouble finding the people they need to carry out their acts of cruelty. They do not need special monsters; they can issue orders to otherwise unexceptional people who will carry them out dutifully...The question we need to ask ourselves is: What will we do? This is not a hypothetical question."
—Ordinary Americans carried out inhumane acts for Trump (Baltimore Sun)
"[Law enforcement interviewees] reported that in places where local police had been involved in immigration enforcement, immigrants were far more reluctant to contact the police if they were victims of, or witnesses to, a crime. A majority also said that involving local law enforcement in immigration enforcement significantly erodes this critical trust."
—Giving sanctuary to undocumented immigrants doesn’t threaten public safety—it increases it (L.A. Times)
"Because democracy isn’t the only value we hold. We don’t accept the 51% enslaving the 49% by popular vote. We believe in human rights. We believe in the Bill of Rights. Because we balance the will of the people with the sanctity of each individual life. And no, your right to not sell flowers doesn’t outweigh someone else’s right to get married. Because not all rights are equal."
—Intolerant Liberals (Tucker FitzGerald, former Evangelical Christian)
"I say all this because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. I say it because hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed."
—Hope in the Dark (Rebecca Solnit) ...Seriously, pick up a copy of this and underline the bejesus out of it, it'll do your spirit good.
What I heard:
Personally, I've been listening to a lot of semi-electronic alt singer-songwriters and emotional film scores lately, but I did make some time to make you a new playlist! Behold, ENDURE (like last time, just click the image or here to be led to the Spotify playlist, which won't embed in an email newsletter — for those without Spotify, the tracklist is pasted below):
Sabotage - Beastie Boys
Cold War - Janelle Monáe
King Kunta - Kendrick Lamar
It's a Hit - Rilo Kiley
Declare Independence - Björk
Road of Resistance - Babymetal
None of Your Business - Salt-n-Pepa
Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder
Konichiwa Bitches - Robyn
Fight the Power - Public Enemy
Hold On, I'm Comin' - Sam & Dave
Proud Mary - Tina Turner
You Don't Own Me (Cover) - Poliça
I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance
Everything is Embarrassing - Sky Ferreira
O-o-h Child - The Five Stairsteps
What I watched:
Go see I Am Not Your Negro. As soon as possible. Raoul Peck's documentary—which brings to life James Baldwin's unfinished memoir Remember This House via astonishingly well-assembled film clips, chilling photo evidence, and verbatim narration from Samuel L. Jackson—is possibly the most succinctly powerful and direct interrogation of whiteness and what lies at the heart of every "I'm not racist" argument. One of the final scenes, in particular, a clip in which Baldwin lets loose on a white Ivy League philosophy professor who dares suggest that race is an insignificant topic of conversation, is infuriating if only because it shows, simultaneously, just how long the all lives matter retort has been trotted out by white people, and just how abstract, ludicrous, and flat-out dangerous it is to continue doing so, when racial inequality is so deeply felt in the lives of Black Americans. There's so much of this film that I'm still thinking about, because it articulated so perfectly my own sheltered white existence and what has gone wrong, where, and what must be done to change that.
P.S. (Parting Shot):
Presented without comment:
See you in the streets, friends.